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Episode One

The Checkmate Scenario

Chapter Two

Knight Third Class

When one thinks of nowhere of particular interest, their mind might roam to a little-known town in England known as Pablishire and probably without even meaning to. Further out from nowhere in particular rested the peaceful residence of Dr. P. Harris and furthermore a nowhen time would be the year 1974. However, this particular nowhere and nowhen is precisely where our title character was told to go by his superiors.

Within the residence of Dr. Harris was a young, intelligent looking, book smart woman who sat in a tweed armchair writing in a composition notebook. The house itself was very humble, well lived in, and a few decades out of style. She was dressed in a red and brown schrader shirt dress, flats and narrow glasses. She ran a pencil through her blond bob cut hair while thinking.

Something came to her suddenly, a revelation that caused her to erase several lines from her notebook before completely rewriting the equation she had been working on. Her concentration was broken midway though as a kettle she'd forgotten whistled. She carefully set aside her notebook on a nearby coffee table and made her way to the kitchen to pluck the teapot from the stove.

Amidst the tea making she noticed a flash from outside the kitchen window. She squinted, adjusting her glasses, only to find that whatever it was had seemingly vanished. Her intelligent mind easily put it aside as just the light catching on her glasses frames while she poured herself a cuppa.

Behind the house though the flash, as it turns out, was not a trick of the light but rather a brief moment where a window in time opened to deposit a Chrono Constable in the woods behind the Harris house. A young man wearing a frock coat over a matching vest and a very out of place flight suit under the ensemble. He wore goggles around his neck, a fedora, an ascot, spats and several other mishmashed pieces of time across his outfit. He took off his hat to run his hand nervously through his short cut black hair before taking a deep breath and hooking his umbrella onto his shirt collar.

The Constable took a folded black and white computer print out from his jacket pocket and read through the manifest. It had a picture of a mustached, tweedy, old man with the name 'Cambridge Professor: Dr. Philip Harris' as well as the address '619 Gillete Lane, Pablishire, England' listed.

The Constable pulled the goggles from his neck and donned them as he said, "Computer. Location."

A disembodied voice replied in a soothing tone, "Pablishire England 1974."

"No. No. Um..." The man hesitated to think of the right terminology, "Computer. Address."

The disembodied voice replied again, "619 Gillete Lane."

He checked the printout once again and then stuffed it back into his jacket pocket. He rushed through the garden out the back of the house and up to the door. He flung open the screen door only to find the heavy wooden door behind it locked.

Within the house, the young woman heard her back door knob jostle before the distinct sound of a screen door slamming shut. She made her way to the back of the house yet saw no one, but that was when a panicked knock came from the front door.

The knocking was persistent and relentless, forcing her to move faster to answer. She opened the door just a crack and peered outside only to see the strange looking Constable who peered back with a goofy grin adorning his face.

He poked his head in, "Hello, is Doctor P. Harris in?"

"Who may I ask is inquiring?" she replied in turn, but the goofy time traveler barely waited for her reply before using his umbrella to knock open the front door. He barreled in and knocked the young woman to the ground in the process.

"Doctor Harris! This is an emergency!" exclaimed the young time traveler, "Doctor Harris?"

She found her self shocked to be on the ground suddenly. Shock that immediately turned to anger as she watched the boisterous idiot recklessly run about her house as if she wasn't there. He was frantically looking for someone but she didn't care who as she stood and chased him down.

She feistily came at him from behind and knocked him what for to the side of the head with a blow that landed him sitting on a chair at the kitchen table.

"What the bloody hell do you think you're doing?" she demanded.

"I'm trying to find a Doctor Harris, so if you would please move out of the way," he began to get up, only to be knocked back into the chair by the feisty woman.

She stared him down, "Explain."

The man didn't know what else to do, "I need to see Doctor Harris as soon as humanly possible."

"I'm Doctor Harris, you idiot," she explained, crossing her arms.

"You're a what?" he asked.

"I'm doctor Penelope Harris. People call me Penny and I am who you are looking for, you barmpot."

The man had a look of horror on his face as he touched his watch. He seemed to skip in place, switching sitting positions and dispositions very quickly, "So you would be the daughter of Phillip Harris?"

"Correct."

"And your father is dead?"

"Also correct."

The strange man looked puzzled and touched his watch again, changing positions just as before, but now looking a bit more worried.

"Was your father murdered?" he asked.

She shook her head, still taking in his ridiculous look, "No. It was a heart attack ten years ago. Why are you asking me..."

He interrupted her by pressing a button on his watch, clearly marked, 'Pause'. After doing so, the young woman and everything around him froze in place. He held up his watch and a small blue, shimmering, holographic head projected in front of him. The man's head wore a pair of welder's goggles and appeared a bit worse for wear.

"What's going on here Nicodemus," asked the Constable, "I'm with the man's daughter and she says he was not murdered."

Nicodemus spoke to him from the watch, "Yeah, you missed the assassination by like a decade... maybe two or five. Someone went back and took him out young. There must have been some kind of deflection on the time window broadcast when you went back, Alistair..."

Alistair went wide eyed, "I arrived before the temporal shift! This is bad... very very bad."

The holographic head nodded, "He died about twelve years before she was born now so... you'd better get out of there..."

"That's terrible," said Alistair as he looked at Penny, "She's going to... has anyone else come back yet?"

"About that," began Nicodemus, "I didn't want to stress you out in the field so I was going to wait to tell you after you got back but... no. We've sent every Constable into the field to stop one of these assassination points and not one of them have come back."

Alistair sighed, suddenly feeling a great deal more weight on his head, "So this was some kind of draw to lure the Chrono Constables into traps?"

Nicodemus shrugged, or as much as a holographic head can shrug, "Phillip Harris never really changed the world with any of his works. The only reason to kill him in the past is because you know a Chrono Constable will investigate."

"About him?" Penny finished.

Alistair didn't seem to notice as time restored itself around him and prattled on very worried, "Okay, well this time line is going to shift soon, so I need you to get me a window out of here."

Penny looked at the man who, from her perspective seemed to have jumped and was now talking to a small, disembodied, floating blue head, "What the hell is that? Who are you talking to?"

Alistair froze and looked to the woman. The head on his watch spun around to look at her as well. He looked to his all purpose umbrella which seemed to have fallen on the floor. The pair of them stared for a while before he looked to Nicodemus, "Right. Well, I have to go."

Alistair deactivated his watch, picked up his umbrella, then stood and stretched in an attempt to seem very nonchalant as he slowly slinked past the shouty woman.

"Were you talking to a little floaty head on your watch?" Penny asked, following the time traveler.

"I don't know what you are talking about," Alistair said as he picked up the pace and made his way back to the front door. Looking out the front door he noticed three of Delgado's Persuaded in the front yard. He slammed the door and leaned on it to think for a moment. He made his way to the back of the house and looked out the kitchen window. Persuaded began walking into the back yard from the woods behind her house.

"Yes you do," said Penny, "I'm not stupid and you were talking to a little man on your watch."

He turned to her becoming more frustrated by the minute, "Yes! Alright I was talking to a little floating head on my watch and I'm about to do it again. Ooooo magic!"

Alistair reactivated the communicator on his watch and Nicodemus' head returned, "Nicodemus, get me a time window right now."

The head replied, "I have some really bad news..."

"And now the bloody thing is talking back?" exclaimed Penny, a bit shocked by the marvel of technology, "Who are you, Dick Tracy? What's going on? And who are all those men in the yard?"

Alistair took a deep breath as he looked out the window again, "They're... crimeny, look at all of them... Who are they? Nothing good. I really should be on my way. Nice having a little chat and all but there really is no more time."

"What did you want with my father and why did you think he'd been murdered?" she asked.

"Because he was," Alistair explained without explaining anything at all.

"That isn't possible," Penny replied, "He passed away from natural caused ten years ago."

Alistair turned off his communicator and went back to the front of the house with Penny in tow. He looked out the front window as more and more Persuaded walked up to the house now, "I suppose it doesn't matter whether or not I tell you. Long story short: time travel. They went back about thirty to forty-ish years ago and killed him then. The people in the yard are very bad time travelers under the control of someone who is taking over the future. I came back to stop his murder but was sent to the wrong decade and now time might be catching up to us very soon which is also very bad."

She looked to him and then to the men out the window, "Lets say I believe you, just for fun, and if I did believe what you were saying, I'm only twenty eight."

"Yeah, I was afraid you'd say that," he sighed and ran to the back of the house then pointed out the window. She looked outside as the world in the distance appeared to simply fade away to nothing.