The Time Stone, Third Edition (Extended Version)

“What the hell happened to you when you passed out on me like that?” asks Tina.

“I wish I could tell you. I saw something that gave me a bad feeling that I can’t explain.Have you ever seen things that you could not explain, Tina?” asks James.

“Like hallucinations and stuff?” Tina asks.

“Kind of but it is internal. It is kind of like in my mind, sort of like a dream, but I was able to participate in certain interactions of these remote environments. They were not really the past or the future like anything I have ever seen before, but actual goings on as if I was there. It smelled real, sounded real, seemed real to the eyes, even felt real … lucid you know?” His eyes seared through the bars and seemed to penetrate her soul.

“Deep, Man! That is like that lucid dreaming stuff. I read about stuff like that being very common, but not when you’re awake. What does this mean? You’re some kinds of psychic?”

“Maybe I am losing my mind.” He shrugged it off.

“Well we shouldn’t rule out anything … you know it’s weird … many religions believe in this type of stuff. There is even a science about it … um parapsychology or something.”

“You know a lot about this” James says with a raised eyebrow.

“Well ancient folklore across the world is somewhat a hobby of mine and I know that psychics have been revered for centuries by many different cultures, like the Haitian Voodoo priests, Native American Shaman, and even modern fortune-tellers on the streets of Superior City.” She laughs to herself not realizing that James is mesmerized in another trance having his mind’s eye focused on the bars and roof adjoining their heads.

“James … James…?” She shouted at him, but his mind remained fixated. “Oh great,” she grimaced. “Give me a signal when you go out like that” she crossed her arms, pouting to herself.

James’s mind raced with the colors of the spectrum as he gazed inward again seeing the courthouse above them, the exterior, the rooms where they were sent for arraignment, the booking areas, the holding cells, a lounge where guards played poker and smoked cigars while cracking jokes of their latest collars. He saw all of this in a single moment of time and realizes he is more than a conscious observer this time, he could willfully manipulate things. He focused his mind on a stack of papers in the corner of the desk of one of the guards and the papers fell to the ground.

“What the hell? Is there a draft in here?”One of the guards asks his colleague curiously.

“How should I know?” The other guard responds curiously, but turns his attention back to reading his newspaper without a second thought.

“Oh well” the guard nodded picking up the papers and dropping them on the desk.

James realizes if it worked with the papers why not with something heavier, “like the keys” he thought to himself. He focused on a set of keys hanging from a ring on the guard’s belt slung to a coat rack in the outside hallway.The keys slowly began to jingle and James feared they would be heard.He focused his mind as if developing two invisible hands one slowly grabbing the bundle of keys and squeezing them together to avoid too much noise and the other hand unhooking them from the belt and together both hands carrying them slowly through the hallway down to the ring of cells and into his waiting lap. With eager excitement in his inner spirit, he awoke suddenly in his physical body.

“Wow,” he envisioned his verbal response in his mind grabbing the keys and he smiles, staring at the end physical result of what he has accomplished. He looks at Tina who has been staring at him with a pale complexion and wide eyes, as if she has seen a ghost.

“What the hell is that?” screams Tina maniacally.

“I don’t know” replies James “but I like it.” He glared at the keys and fiddled with them, trying each one into the locks on his shackles. He fiddled with the keys until the third key popped open the shackles and he set himself free. He rose to his feet and found the first one opens the door to his cell and he let himself out.He sensed Tina moving about frantically.

“Oh my God, you’re freaking amazing. Hurry up and let me out.”

“I don’t think so, Tina.”

“What do you mean, James? You got to get me out of here.”

“Why?” asks James. “Why should I do that?How do I know you don’t belong here?You said it yourself you are involved in crimes all the time and you do what you have to do.”

“Like you? We are more the same. There is more to us than you realize.We are old friends.”

“We haven’t talked since high school.” James looks at her impatiently.

“Come on, I know you feel it isn’t right to leave me here like this. What you have is a gift.I can help you.I know about things like that, history, metaphysics, science, and religious and cultural folklore. I know multiple languages too. We can be good friends, more, I’ll have sex with you…” she pleaded endlessly begging on her knees and trying to rise up against the bars before her, but the weight of her chains combined with her own fears and anxiety kept her down to the ground.

“Now I know you’re desperate.” He began to walk past her cell.

“You need someone like me. I will be with you. I’ll fight by your side. I will help you understand who or what you are with your ability.”

”I can manage on my own.”

“But can you manage out there in a world that barely understands itself and won’t have tolerance for those who are different like this.” She speaks adamantly and crossed her arms as he looks curiously. “I know we can work together to unravel this mystery. Two heads are better than one and knowledge is the power. I have information that can help us understand it, please.”

“OK” he looks into her deep brown eyes and saw fear, but also the sincerity and the words ran through her lips were as those in his head that he hears all his life, but never heeded “knowledge is power”. Perhaps they did share a common destiny as the twinkle in her eye matched his. “Hurry up, we don’t have much time.” He tossed her the ring of keys and she smiles frantically searching for the one to unlock her bindings and then the jail cell door.

“Excellent” she smiles at the taste of freedom again.

“Let’s go, we’re not out of the woods yet.”

The two prisoners slowly made their way up the stairwell where voices could be heard of guards talking about a transfer to take place.

“These two in lower cell block D-F, Prescott and Timewalker, are going to be transferred to Ratzinger’s State Penitentiary tomorrow morning at 0800 hours.” An obese guard speaks with a mouthful of cheese puffs stuffing them into his mouth.

“Why tomorrow?” An upright guard asks.

“I don’t question orders and neither do you.”

“It just seems weird; there is no pre-scheduled order as usual.”

“I don’t care. Let’s get some more cheese puffs.”

The two guards wandered off down the hall laughing.

“Did you hear that? We haven’t been sentenced yet on our plea deals. The cases aren’t supposed to be over. Why are they transferring us?” James asks with a curious curled brow and a self-righteous grin.

“Beats me, let’s keep moving.” Tina replies.

The duo made their way up the stairs quietly creeping passed the many closed private offices until they heard voices through the slightly ajar office door of Judge Wilx’s Chambers.

“I don’t care what you say Mr. Jones this is highly irregular,” says Judge Farnsworth Wilx after dismissing his clerk into the next room leaving the judge with the district attorney Vladimir Jones.

“Judge, we have a limited time frame and window of opportunity in these two highly sensitive matters and we are facing political pressure from various sources.”

“Aside from being ex parte, this communication is improper and tantamount to misconduct.”

“Judge, I assure you that these matters are very important to my office. We need to have Prescott and Timewalker facing justice imminently to avoid a major political incident.”

“How is that so, Mr. Jones?”

“The report on your desk speaks for itself. I cannot serve it on the defense without jeopardizing a very sensitive investigation of my office regarding these two prisoners.”

“It will be dealt with.” Judge Wilx nodded looking at the thick hundred pages on his desk, a symbol on the front cover he has not seen in years, but he knew all too well from his glory days, a double curved upside down arch, the symbol of the Egyptian snake god Apophasis and the symbol of the Temporo Inc.’s secret label 12VMX.

“Thank you, your honor.”

Tina and James looked at one another near the open-door office they were peering into.

“I’m confused.” Tina whispered to her colleague. “Why are we so important?”

“I don’t know, but I think we are going to find out soon enough,” adds James.

They continued passed the door and hid in a nearby storeroom that is open down the hall as they saw Mr. Jones leaving the judge’s chambers and walking out briskly passed them without noticing them.

“Whew, that was close,” says Tina.

They ran out and as they exited the main door at the end of the hallway, a large alarm sounded and a guard saw them and pointed to them, “freeze!”

“Oh crap, let’s get out of here.” James yells leading them into a stairwell.