Terra Nova Research Base, Antarctica.
RAIN-739: Lewis Carroll’s Pocket Watch.
Published in 1915, 1923, 1957
We have a particular predicament with this artefact. Records show its checking in four separate occasions; three within the tenure of the RAIN, and one during the times of the Artefact Collection in Sophia. The most surprising thin, however, is that in no time in recorded history the artefact was checked out by any members of the retrieval teams. Well, it will be surprising if it weren’t for whom the object was checked in.
Ms. Alice Athenida.
I am going for the chronology of the Archives to fill this report, though it isn’t the timeline of the artefact itself. Yes, I’m aware it is confusing, but, somehow, I need to get a grasp of this before someone starts to get mad with endless discussions of timelines and altered realities.
So, the first time this artefact was checked in, was during the tenure of the old guard, myself included. In 1866 the pocket watch was registered as an item in storage, but outside of the security of Sophia, in care of Mr. Athenida himself and his family. Members of the personal circle knew, of course, in reality the artefact was in the hands of the small Athenida and not her father, which gave us a bit of an uneasy feeling. With the incorporation of Ms. Alice to the retrieval team of Sophia in 1870, the nominal record went to be the official one, as it was placed in a lead box inside the Special Containment Unit, given its particular proprieties.
With the disappearance of Ms. Alice in 1918, when the outbreak of Spanish Flu began in Europe, the pocket watch vanished from the box where it was during the transportation. We didn’t find out it was missing until the container reached the Falcon-Scott Base, we opened it, and was empty with a note from her. “Taken on necessary mission; to be replaced”.
The watch reappeared in inventory in 1923, with the resurface of Ms. Alice. She conducted herself as Overseer of this facility for almost two years, until her death in 1925. Since her genetics and health condition in general did not foresee this untimely death, we can only assume her fast illness was a direct result of her messed up timeline. The watch again disappeared with her death, since, after the burial, neither this nor the body was found.
Over eighty years passed with no information regarding the watch. Mr. Athenida guaranteed it wasn’t in his possession, and no member of the staff in the base during those years have any knowledge regarding the location and condition of the watch.
Ms. Alice, as an eight-year old, surfaced in the outskirts of the large propriety the Athenidas had bought in the infinite forest of Nihteard, where she was swiftly picked up by her parents. It was 2005, and the RAIN had at least fourteen bases scattered around both worlds, so the existence of the watch went unnoticed for the first couple of months. Nonetheless, the retrieval team of the early 21st century finally got their sh*t together and went to gather the artefact. The Athenidas returned it to the RAIN, with the expressed condition that it had to be loaned back to them in a specific point in history: October 27th of 2011; Mr. Athenida’s 7.012th birthday.
With no other choice, the team retrieve the artefact with aforementioned condition and stored it in Antarctica Base inside the same lead box it was during the 1800s. The box was sealed shut with a spell Ms. Alice developed when she was Overseer; it was meant to never open unless for the exact reason it was needed for.
On October 27, 2011, the reason it was needed for came to be. The box opened by itself, since the Base had no intention in honouring its deal, and the watch disappeared again, with Alice on toe.
The last recording of the artefact came a month later. November 5, during the celebration of Ms. Fawkes birthday, the Athenidas adopted daughter, when the Alice who was scaping from the Spanish Flu epidemic appeared on their doorstep, refusing to upset her sister’s celebration. The family immediately surrendered the artefact, on the same conditions as before, and the Base had to agree unconditionally this time.
Finally, the watch disappeared from the containment unit after the events of the End of Days. In those times, the Antarctica Base was in disarray. About a dozen or so artefacts were moved or unaccounted for during the immediate fallout of the events, and it took months to everyone working there to catalogue everything again. Amidst the chaos, the watch was taken during some point in 2013 and Ms. Alice vanished again, being obvious to everyone that she went back in time to where she needed to be. The watch itself was never recovered after the death, and is now catalogued as “Missing”, being the only artefact that has that condition and, at the same time, its whereabouts known for almost all the time it’s been labelled this way.
So, for any agent trying to keep score of the watch in its personal timeline, it is as follows.
From the unintentional retrieval of Ms. Alice in Christmas of 1859 to July of the following year, the watch was in Featherhill House, Oxford. Then, it travelled forward in time to 2005, where it went into custody of the RAIN until 2011. From 2011 all the way back to 1866, when it was in a nominal retrieval but still in possession of Ms. Alice. 1870 to 1918, the artefact was in storage in Sophia and the Artefact Collection (Special Containment Facility), and then between 2011 to 2013 again in the RAIN. Finally, it went back a last time, in the tenure of Ms. Alice as Overseer 1923-1925, when she died of unknown causes and the watch vanished from the timeline altogether.
I know is confusing, but trust me on this one. We have absolutely no other way of making this artefact timeline less convoluted.
Ariel Bonheur, Chief Archivist
Comments (0)
See all