Foston Slacks - Good's Intentions

26

After an hour, Clara had all but given up any hope of ever leaving the quarry. Foston had sat and stared at the crystal ball machine that held the captured created Breach. Time sat and stared at the captured Breach. Effort sat and stared at the caged Breach with such intensity that Clara worried that her glare could crack the crystal ball wide open.

But nothing else happened. She fell backwards with a groan, squishing into the wet dirt of the quarry floor, not even caring that her shiny space jacket and dungarees were becoming soaked. There were many things Clara hated (many, many things), but one that sat in the all-time top ten of things she truly despised was boredom. Foston had promised answers and had delivered nothing but silence.

"Are you even trying?" It seemed Time had also come to the end of his tether, addressing his question to Effort. "You know, just holding your breath and looking as though you're going to beat up the Breach is not going to get it to reveal its secrets."

"Of course I'm trying!" Effort redoubled her glare, leaning forward, her nose almost touching the crystal ball. "It's part of my entire make up. I leave nothing on the field. I give everything I've got and then some. I give one-hundred and fifty percent, all the time!"

That seemed more than fair to Clara. If anyone looked as though they weren't doing anything, it was Foston. He hadn't even touched his watch in half-an-hour and that, in itself, was unusual. She looked at her own watch, but all it displayed was an ominous, deep, dark red colour that looked as though black lightning flashed within it. She switched it off and back on again.

"Well, I think it's pretty obvious that we aren't going to get anything from this thing." Foston threw his hands in the air, stretching out. Clara heard several painful clicks come from his spine. "So far, mine and Clara's watches haven't managed to triangulate the whereabouts of the entity. Time?"

"Nothing. It's as though this thing doesn't even exist as we know Breaches to exist. It's like a newborn." The cartoon clock features turned into a frowny-face, replete with a dark cloud near the top of Time's clock head. "I've tried everything to see who has manipulated it, but it's like it's sole purpose was going to Birmingham to capture Clara. Effort?"

"I'm pouring everything I've got into it. Everything!" Indeed, sweat had started trickling down Effort's face moments ago. "Try as I might, I can't get it to talk. I've threatened it, cajoled it, negotiated with it. I even offered to take it on a holiday to somewhere nice. It's not having any of it. Clara?"

"Umm. I looked at it." After a few moments of booting up, her watch pinged to tell her it was back online. "Oh! My watch turned red. And now it's saying I have updates that will take somewhere between forty-two seconds and seven-and-a-half million years to complete. I'm not entirely trusting of either of those numbers."

Everyone's heads turned towards Clara and, at first, she wondered if she had something on her face. She wiped it, as stealthily as possible, to make sure, but they continued looking at her. Her second thought was that someone had creeped up on her and they were all too scared to tell her. A quick turn of the head dispelled that idea. Her third thought, and she doubted this was the reason they stared, was that she had said something so brilliant, so profound and so spinetinglingly pertinent that she had surprised them all with her amazing mind. Or, fourth possibility, they just decided to look her way at the same time.

"What kind of red?" The tone of Foston's voice made Clara feel a little worried. "Describe it as painstakingly as possible."

"Well, it was sort of a really deep, and dark red, like blood that had started to congeal, but still could get squished on a finger." She had no idea where that description came from, but she rolled with it. It seemed close enough to the colour. "Oh, and lightning. I think. It could have been interference, this watch can get a bit jittery, sometimes. But, yeah, it kinda looked like black lightning."