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The Case of the Museum of Wasted Time

From the files of the MPY Kuudere Detective Agency


It was just past noon on April Fool’s day when the office door opened. We had finished scanning the newsfeeds for spoof stories, and we were ready for some proper work. Drama should ensue when a boi with a gun kicks his way in, but that isn’t what happened. Instead, a mysterious figure in a long grey cloak, the hood of which overshadowed their face, entered serenely.

My nerves tingled. I sensed the presence of Skyen the Mod, who usually visited in disguise but there was no fooling me since I was bound to her service. I stood in respect.

Skyen threw back her hood to reveal wolf ears. Her aura filled the room, and Moon stood.

“Mz Olympe Reese,” the Wolfgirl said, “Mz Moon Potato,” and bowed towards my partner. “I am sent by Mistress Kou. You are to investigate The Museum of Wasted Time. The usual fees will be paid. Please ready yourselves to leave immediately, as there is no time to lose. I will brief you in the taxicab.”

Moon muttered “Fucc, yeah!” because Mistress Kou always paid well, and she delved into her desk drawers to gather her detective equipment. I had my handbag ready, so I just nommed a last bite of donut, swallowed down the dregs of my coffee, and grabbed my Grenfell coat.

We locked the office and got into the taxicab Skyen had waiting outside with the meter running. The driver quickly took us to the Ambition Crossing channel, which I guess I should have known more about but we hadn’t had a case down that way before. I waited for Skyen to explain.

“This case involves the foundation which runs the Museum of Wasted Time. I need you to act as tourists, view the exhibits, buy something in the gift shop, and report back to me on your impressions of the place,” Skyen explained.

“Why?” Moon looked suspicious. It didn’t sound a difficult assignment.

“For several years the Mods have been concerned that external forces are trying to infiltrate The Server. Obviously you are familiar with the Cases of the Zombot Apocalypse, the Halloween Hauntings, and the Nameless Detective. OTOH the Head Patting Cafe came to nothing. I need you to determine whether the Wasted Time members are a potential threat, or simply enthusiastic archivists.”

“We’ll do our best,” I assured the Wolfgirl. Skyen gave me a direct look, and I felt uneasy.

“I know you will, Olympe,” she replied.

The cab arrived at the supposed museum. The facade was a miniaturised version of the Victoria and Albert in central London IRL; a mad confection of red brick, pale sandstone (I guess?) and Norman arches over huge windows which might be sashes only they weren’t. A two tier wedding cake turret crowned the frontage above the main door, which was barely large enough for two members to enter at once. I wondered who had been the architect -- perhaps a low-grade AI.

Moon and I decanted ourselves from the car, however Skyen did not follow. The cab peeled away from the kerb leaving us alone.

“Well, great,” I said flatly, still feeling Skyen’s compulsion on me, but not her support.

“Maybe it’s not so popular here, Pia,” Moon said, after perusing the scene. “Cause they’re in a bad location. There’s no trolleybus rails.”

True. You’d think on a holiday afternoon there would be some visitors wandering in and out, even if they had to arrive by taxi, however me and Moon were the only members in sight.

To try and raise morale I gathered Moon close, turned us away from the museum’s entrance, and set my smartphone to point 5 mode for a selfie. Moon’s monochrome tweed skirtsuit and my green coat contrasted with each other and the antique backdrop.

“Looking sharp!” I exclaimed, and took a burst of shots, none of them to be uploaded to social media. You can’t go on for long in the undercover game if you spread your fizzog all over. I like to keep my own secret memories, though. My morale got boosted by the sight of my long, red stockinged legs, and white zip-up gogo boots. I struck a pose and took some more pics. Moon’s eyebrow twitched -- she was clearly about to give me a hard stare -- so I slipped the phone away.

We strolled to the entrance of the museum. It was one of those annoying automatic spinning doors, a cylinder divided into three by glass walls. Each chamber’s too large for a single member and too small for three unless you get into the right formation. If you don’t, the thing won’t move because someone is too close to the sensors in front or back. In a hotel, suave staff in the lobby watch you fumbling.

Feeling energised, I was too eager to progress. There were sweary seconds when the mechanism began to activate haltingly, stop, restart, and generally frustrate me.

We got through to a central reception hall where a ticket desk staffed by a bot was flanked by the entrance to the exhibits, the exit of the gift shop, and a discreet passage to the cloakrooms. I purchased two tickets, and slotted a few 67-Coins into a large perspex donations box which held just enough cash to encourage more gifts.

<<< To Be Continued >>>

A middle-aged boi with dark skin and curly, salt and pepper hair, had been standing behind the bot. Seeing my donation he smiled and stepped forward into the light, revealing an elegant, retro three-piece suit in a tan fabric with a contrasting embroidered waistcoat. His white shirt collar was closed by a Paisley pattern bow tie.

“Welcome to The Museum of Wasted Time,” the dude said, and wobbled slightly. “I’m Doctor Charlton Abbots, curator. Please call me Charlton.” He had an English accent. Mindful we were on a secret mission, I put on my French voice.

“Allo, Charlton. I am named Viola Tremblay and zhis ees my friend Sukey, who ees showing me around Zhe Server. So. What ees your museum all about? I am fascinate.”

“Well, Mz Tremblay,” the curator began…

“Viola, I beg you, if we are to be on first names,” I rejoinded. He bowed his head.

“Viola, and Sukey. The purpose of the museum is to archive artifacts that memorialise courageous yet ultimately futile endeavours, and present them to the general public in interactive formats.”

“Yeah but why?” Moon asked.

“I will explain as we progress,” Charlton said.

“Progress what?” Moon asked him.

“Sorry, I mean I did not, er. It’s been a slow day,” the curator told us. “Since you’ve donated so generously, I’d like to give you a personal tour.”

“Zhat sounds superbe. Allons y!” I said, and quickly stepped off towards the exhibition halls, hoping to drag the others in my slipstream.

We entered a low-lit, pinkly decorated chamber which basically looked like a cocktail bar with no customers or staff. There was an empty coupe on the counter, and a sweet smell in the air.

“This is one of my favourite exhibits,” Charlton told us. “It came from a failed venue called the Munashi, a swinging hot spot in the NSFW channel where they specialised in cocktails using parma violet flavoured vodka made from vodka flavoured parma violets. Would you like to try one?”

“Dafuq?” Moon said.

“Ma déesse, non!” I exclaimed.

“It’s rather an acquired taste,” Charlton told us. He looked thirstily at the empty glass. “Well, let’s move on. There’s lots to see.”
.
Moon’s heels clicked, Charlton’s brogues clopped, and my rubber soled boots squeaked gently on the polished parquet floor, as we began to peruse a disparate range of exhibits, presented without any clear scheme of organisation. The lights were low, to save the artefacts from fading. There were signs forbidding flash photography.

We came to a large glass wormery, but it was full of ants.

Next there was an apparently homemade, mainframe computer, built on a rack of Ikea steel shelving, with an On-Off toggle switch glued to the framework. The switch was labelled Magic-More Magic with Dymo tape. It was currently set to More Magic.

The computer’s lights flickered hypnotically.

“Try it,” Charlton encouraged us. Moon reached out and flipped the switch to Magic. The computer lost all power and its lights went out. She flipped the switch back to More Magic and the power came back on. The computer began to reboot itself.

“Wow!” Moon exclaimed. However neither of us knew much about computers, so after 30 seconds of appreciating the renewed light show, we continued the tour.

A huge seawater aquarium with a sign reading Beware The Giant Octopus, only it seemed to be empty. There was a briney trail leading off into darkness. The curator tutted and ushered us by at some speed.

A lectern bearing Marcel Proust’s À la recherche du temps perdu, the Klingon edition.

A Lego shop made of Lego, with a display model of the shop in the middle. The shelves were stocked with kits for making the model shop. When I looked closely, the centrepiece of the built-up model was a special brick moulded as a tiny model of the whole model.

“We have the kits for sale in the gift shop. They make good souvenirs,” Charlton suggested.

My head began to whirl.

The Server’s largest jigsaw, which had 100,000 pieces and depicted a cloudless sky. One piece was missing.

A tiny cinema with only 11 seats, where Mel Blanc’s Silent Movie was being screened with simultaneous interpretation in British Sign Language.

“Famously this film has only one word of dialogue, spoken in French by a famous mime,” Charlton informed us.

Something claimed to be a working Astro Bail, a magical device for cheating at cricket. It was impossible to try out without a cricket field and players.

The Complete Works of Shakespeare written by the inhabitants of the Infinite Monkey Cage, whose presence loomed in the dark background.

“At first we thought this was a very successful experiment, however when we checked, it turned out to be a Bowdlerised version. I’m afraid we don’t let visitors look at the monkeys because they are working on a new edition, and mustn’t be disturbed.”

The Infinitely Small Monkey Cage, which we couldn’t see because it was too small.

“Another attempt at duplicating Shakespeare,” the Doctor explained. “The concept was to reiterate multiple infinitely small cages containing infinitely small monkeys, to achieve the maximum density of operational monkeys and typewriters. Kind of quantum monkeying. However it failed. The cage is empty. The monkeys had been made in the Niziiro Grounds very negligently. They disintegrated when they were brought out. And so it came to us.”

“Incroyable!” I muttered.

There was a brief silence while we contemplated the seemingly empty display case.

“Yeah. Sad about those monkeys, I guess,” Moon said, “But, uh, what’s your favourite exhibit of ‘em all, Charlton? Something a bit more… upbeat, maybe?”

“As well as the Munashi Bar, I am particularly fond of the Silver Machine.”
.

The curator led us onwards. We went to another chamber where a large mechanism stood. It looked like the invention of a meticulous mechanic who set out to build a hybrid of a Harley Davidson motorbike, a skidoo, and a lunar landing module, and he succeeded remarkably well. There were lots of curved body panels, chrome metalwork, and protrusions of several varieties -- wheels, skids, vanes, turbines, and so on -- for propulsion and steering. Or so I thought.

“The Silver Machine,” Charlton said with pride. “If you take a ride, it flies sideways through time. Which is impossible of course, logically meaningless, but look at the quality of the work!” He beamed at us. “Would you like to give it a go? It’s perfectly safe. I’ve been on it dozens of times.”

Moon and I exchanged looks. We’ve both had some unfortunate experiences with time travel, and hers were worse.

“Thanks, Charlton,” Moon replied, “But I’d rather just watch you from a safe distance.”

He looked disappointed. I leant sideways to whisper in Moon’s ear. “I’ll go along, and keep him occupied so you can snoop around a bit.” She nodded.

“I would like a ride, Charlton,” I said. “If eet ees not too much difficult, please.”

“Great!” The curator was pleased. “Then let’s go. No time like the present, as the saying has it!”

Charton opened the cockpit. There were five seats in a conventional layout, a pilot station and two rows of two, all equipped with racing harnesses. He handed me to a front row passenger seat. I took off my Grenfell, wriggled around to get comfortable in the harness, and draped the coat over my knees. Charlton got into the driving seat, which faced a complicated bank of controls. He pressed a button to close the cockpit canopy. The view was good.

Moon had stepped away to what she considered a safe distance. I had to distract Charlton to let Moon slip into the shadows. He was fiddling with dials and settings. I waved Moon away.

“What will ‘appen on our ride, Charlton?” I asked my pilot.

“According to the lore, we may be so lucky as to see ourselves going by on the other side of the sky. I’ve never observed that but we can hope, eh?” He smiled, and pulled an important looking lever. The Silver Machine vibrated subtly, and began to emit a low-level bleepy hum like a mixture of sound tracks from big budget 1950s SF movies. Theremin, and pips you want the tell-tale lights to get in sync with.


The external view faded to a squirmy melange of blue-black sky, stars, and coloured whirlpools. It was as if we had fallen into a particularly vivid painting by Vincent Van Gogh.

“Oooh!” I exclaimed, because it was an odd sensation. It was amazing! I stared at the coruscating scene with all of my eyes.

“Pretty, isn’t it?” Charlton remarked. “I never get tired of it.”

The Silver Machine heaved and I squeaked. I wasn’t actually frightened, but I wanted to reinforce my girly girl undercover role.

“No need to be afraid, Viola, this is quite normal,” Charlton reassured me. “Next there will be some slow spinning, and soon we’ll come to a halt again.”

The ride played out as he had said. The sky revolved around us, or rather the Silver Machine rolled, pitched, and yawed, as I could tell from the slowly changing clutch of gravity on my body. I hugged my bag and coat to stop them falling around the cabin. If you like rollercoasters the Silver Machine might be rather tame. However, I was glad when the ship began to steady, and seemed to be preparing to land.

There was a moderate lurch and bump as we touched down.

“That’s different,” Charlton muttered. He went about switching everything off, and unlatched the cockpit.
.
<<<To be continued>>>