Excerpt: Time is Subjective

…met der Fuhrer today. Charming man, rather attractive actually. Intelligent, charismatic and very energetic… Spoke at length with him on everything from the Jews to America. Fascinating. A small man, but his personality makes him seem larger than life. Truth to tell, I really liked the man.

Shame I’m going to have to kill him…

- Translation of fragmentary diary found on a routine dig five miles out of West Berlin, 2008. Deemed a hoax, due to inconsistencies in context and date.

Chase stretched, and smiled. Feet on desk, hands behind head, he tilted casually on the office chair; very pointedly ignoring the towering stack of paperwork to his right. The sun was escaping the outside world, streaming in through the wall-width window in criss-crossed rhombuses of warmth. He could taste it on the air, that thick, hot taste when dust hits light. The corners of his eyes were filled with darting flecks of gold. A few fell on the desk, a few on the bookcase, a few on his rumpled black shirt. It felt good. He was warm, he was relaxed, and he was department head- newly promoted. So naturally, he was sweet fuck all to do.

The paperwork? No. Paperwork was for lesser mortals. He chuckled at his own arrogance. Here, in this office, he was God of his own little world. Hitler’s most serious failing, in his view, was the reluctance to start his own religion. That had been the first line of Chase’s MA paper, and it still made him smile. I’d make a great dictator, he thought.

‘Come on you arrogant bastard, wake up.’

Slowly, reluctantly, Chase opened one eye; raising an eyebrow in mock disgust.

‘Emily! How nice of you to join me.’

Standing just beyond the light, beside an irritatingly open door, was the petite assistant administrator. She frowned dark bloody murder at him.

‘I know exactly what you were thinking. Stop killing time and start doing your bloody job!’ For a pretty girl, she spoke like a sour grandmother. A slight frown wrinkled Chase’s brow. The day had quickly dissolved into vexation. Damn.

‘To be fair, darlin’, if you knew what I was thinking you’d have skipped the tirade and just slapped me.’ He grinned, ever attempting to melt the Ice Queen’s heart, and thought he saw a twitch of her own lips in response. More likely it was contained rage than humour…

‘Let me answer a few questions that may be floating around under that mop of hair, Chase: no, you are not God, you are not Jesus and certainly not getting paid twice my salary to sit on your arse and smile!’

‘You’re so cute when you’re angry!’ The words were barely out of his mouth when he cursed them. Why, why did he not think before he spoke? A single folder came spinning across the room at his head. He ducked, nearly knocking himself out on the computer keyboard.

Emily bared her teeth and gave him that look that she reserved just for him. He winced, rubbing at his forehead. Feet lowered to the floor, the chair thudded back from his tilt with a very wooden, very final sound. Inwardly, he groaned.

‘All right, all right, I give. Sorry. Something about sunny days, y’know?’ He doubted she knew. She’d probably never been outside. Maybe she lived here, sleeping in his office, hanging from the ceiling like the bat she was. He tried a winning smile, but it fell on the rocks of bureaucracy. She just stared at him. Chase wondered briefly how someone so small could look down on him so effectively. Then he realized he was sat down…

‘OK, what’s so important?’ A curt nod, a tight smile and the Devil’s Advocate crossed the room, dropping three thin files on his desktop.

‘Firstly, these three are reports on recent digs. Check them out, see if they’re worth adding to the research list…’

‘Done.’ Chase’s fingertips were tingling. This wasn’t work, this was fun. He’d taken the bloody job for this very reason- first dibs on new finds. Archaeology, pure and unadulterated; it was like being presented with a lavish feast.

‘And then you can make a start on the paperwork: student admission, evaluations, proposals, research reports, punishments, appointments…’ Sadism is an unattractive quality, Chase rolled his neck creating the crackle and pop of irritation that rose up his spine. Emily had left the worst til the last apurpose. His excitement was very quickly stuffed in a coffin and buried in a deep grave under the weight of her droning list. Administrator’s had no souls. There had been a quote, etched into the wall of his last office, just out of sight of the maintenance people: The road to hell is paved with Administrators. The memory almost made him smile. Bastards.

After Emily left, thoroughly satisfied that she’d crushed his spirit, Chase turned to the files. The University was renowned for it’s Archaeological Research. So much so that many Archaeologists sent their finds to it first. For a price, of course... But the University was always willing. Chase had been in the research division for ten years, following up leads like these three in the field. But that had always been with a team of other Academics and Archaeologists. Scrabbling through dark libraries and dust-plagued digs with ten to twenty others, like ants over spilt food. It had been chaos. This, this was far better. Now, he got to place his hands on the source material. He was practically drooling with excitement, as he ran his hands over the cover of the first folder. It was red, only a few sheets thick, but it caught his eyes. The tab in the top left corner read: FORGERY?

Question marks were good. Question marks were fun. Question marks meant that the Archaeologists didn’t have a fucking clue, and that was intriguing. They might be a stuck up, pretentious crowd, but Chase had to admit they knew their stuff. Confusion meant a mystery, and mysteries were his bread and butter.

He opened the folder. He began to read.

12-05-08 we were digging in a remote location three miles north/north-west of Berlin. Archaeological indications of an old Nazi store room/library/vault that would be of invaluable nature to Germanic Studies.

Chase chuckled. Poor bastards. If they were stuck out in Germany they must really have pissed their boss off. Everyone knew that World War Two had been consigned to the scrap heap of history. It was fodder for Hollywood now, and once history graced the big screen, nobody cared about the facts any more. He read on, just for kicks and giggles.

At approx. 1500 hours we broke through the obscuring rubble on the mountainside and found a single perfectly preserved room. Present were…

Chase skipped to the bottom of the page. He didn’t care who was trying to take the credit.

…inside was: one desk, one broken chair and one two page document. Disappointment, but we have found a blocked connecting corridor and will continue to search for the indicated store room. QUANDARY-> document found appears to be authentic, but contextual analysis contradicts location and appearance.

That was it. What the fuck did that mean? ‘Contextual analysis contradicts location and appearance.’ What complete bollocks. No wonder the guy was stuck in Germany. Chase frowned. His hand wavered, almost dropping the file into the bin. But his interest was fledgling, and needed to be indulged. He flicked the cover sheet into the bin and quickly scanned to photocopied document.

Dec 1931
Dear Chase…

He blinked. Then laughed. Then threw the folder into the trash, to join it’s momentarily estranged brother. A joke… Emily was messing with him. No… It was too clever for Emily. She’d already tortured him enough today. No, this smacked of Joe or Erik down in Research. Having a sly pop at him on his first day, trying to get him to trip up. He chuckled. Ah, he’d buy them a pint later. A letter from 1931, addressed to him. It was original, he’d give them that. Excellent…

He moved onto the second file. This one was black.