Book I: Part 7: Arthur

    He felt better now.  He had some food in his stomach and the coffees were starting to kick in.  He felt a little jumpy.  But now he was back to square one.  He had no money, and no idea where he was. “Perhaps I should ask someone for help,” he thought.
    Outside, people were milling about and bunched up in clumps around where Dadalus had dived off the platform, looking down and squinting, trying to see what might be going on below.  Robots dressed  in nice suits where pushing and shoving their way through the crowds, yelling for all the people to go away. 
    The robots reminded him of the one he had seen on the terrace, the one that had made him run.  He laughed at himself.  Now why had he done that?  What did he think the robot would do to him?  Were the robots important?  Authority figures of some kind?  That would make sense; they had chased Dadalus off the ledge, after all.  “Ask the robots for help,”  said a voice in his head.  “Like you would ask a policeman on the street.”
    He sighed.  Well, what did he have to lose?  He got off the stool.  Approaching the door, he stared at his reflection in the window.  He could just barely make out the faintest trace of it, smiling sickly at him under worried eyebrows.  His hand joined with its, and he opened the door. 
    It was even windier than he remembered.  The crowd was starting to disperse, walking slowly away, like cars driving by an accident. 
    Two of the robots were standing by the ledge where Dadalus had jumped.  One had an enormous round clock for a head, reading the correct time.  From a certain angle, with the glare just right, it looked like a gigantic eye.  It wore a yellow suit and was talking excitedly to the other robot, who wore a blue suit and had clockfaces in place of its eyes, mouth, and nose, looking more or less like it had a complete face.  The clockheaded robot had a loud, booming voice that seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere. 
    “—back to CC,” it was saying.  “Make sure four shows up and is attended to and yell at five if he is still lounging about I want to know why he didn’t follow the summons, the org, and for Fibonacci’s sake I want to know how this panel got open there should have been no way to bypass those codes—”
    Arthur stood still, hands at his side.  Both robots were nearly a head taller than him.  The way they moved reminded him of animatronic dolls at a theme park: much more complex, and smoother, but with the same sense of predetermination.  He felt vaguely as if he was watching some kind of performance, maybe some form of theatre, like kabuki or Greek tragedy.   
    The clock-headed robot was still talking, and Arthur was starting to feel embarrassed standing there.  He was about to turn and leave, when the robot with clock features left abruptly, and the clockheaded robot turned abruptly towards him. 
    “Why, hello!” said the robot.  “I am C1.  How may I be of service to you?”
    “Ah,” said Arthur, “well, the thing is.  Oh, I-I don’t want to be any trouble, you are obviously busy, and.…”
    “Oh, no trouble.  I have just wrapped up my business in this area, and am ready to devote my full attention to other matters.  What seems to be the trouble?”
    “Ah, well,” said Arthur.  “My name is Arthur Luther Walpole, and.…” He launched into a brief description of the events that had happened to him, at least as he remembered them.  The entire time, the robot stared at him—or at least faced him—with its huge clock face, which nodded in a manner that seemed to convey intent and interest.
    “Oh, what a truly astonishing tale, Messer Walpole!” exclaimed the robot.  “Oh! I hope the dread Dadalus didn’t injure you, did he?  Talk to you long?”
    “What? No,” said Arthur.  “He just came in, ordered something, and left.  When he heard you coming.”  He thought it best to leave out the talk of anarchy, if he could. 
    “Well, that’s lucky.  Very slippery is that Dadalus, Messer Walpole, and dangerous.  You are lucky we arrived in time.  I am sure the Pteranarchist would have done unspeakable things to you, sunk his venomous ideas into you mind and corrupted you.  But don’t worry, we’ll catch him today, mark my words.”  The robot— C1—squeezed Arthur’s shoulder, hard, and said, with a sudden edge, “We will make him crawl.”
    Arthur winced.  The robot’s grip hurt.  The robot quickly withdrew his hand, though it seemed to notice nothing. 
    “Hmm, yes,” continued C1.  “You story is very interesting, Messer Walpole, let me think …” Arthur couldn’t be sure if that just wasn’t how robots were, but he had the distinct feeling that C1 was a bad actor.  “Ah!  I see,” it cried, pointing a finger into the air.    “I think I know exactly what your problem is, Messer Walpole.  You are a bleeder.”
    “A what?”
    “A bleeder.   You see, reality is a fairly weak thing, Messer Walpole, and sometimes things cause it to get … hurt or bruised.  Or cut, metaphorically speaking.  The proper term is time/space lapses, or TSLs.  When these “cuts” happen, things have a tendency to cross over, between time, or space, or across dimensions.  Objects bleed through, so to speak.  And we call these objects who bleed through bleeders.  The more technical term for such a thing is time/space anachronism, or TSA, but most people just use the vulgarism."
    “Ah.  And, is there any way for objects to …”  Arthur gulped.  “Go back?”
    The robot C1 placed a comforting hand on Arthur’s shoulder.  “I am deeply sorry, Messer Walpole, but no one knows quite how TSLs occur, or can predict when or where they will occur, and the metaphorical weight of the term carries over to this quality as well.  For, once blood is shed….”
    “It can’t go back.”  Arthur’s face turned pale.
    “Yes.” the robot sounded deeply solemn. 
    There was a sinking feeling in Arthur’s stomach, like a bomb dropping.  It had not hit him before now.  He could never go back.  He would never again see his coworkers, or his mother or his sister.  Perhaps they were all long dead, now part of some ancient past.
    “Now, Messer Walpole, I assure you that this is all terribly routine.  Bleeder occurrences, while rare, occur often enough that there is a prepared procedure to accommodate and acclimate them into society.  Ordinance 7512-AB provides for the proper integration of bleeders.” C1 patted his arm.  “You are lucky you came to me, Messer Walpole.”
    “What year is it?” asked Arthur. 
    C1 tilted his head.  “In what year system?”
    “What year system?”
    “Well, yes.  There are several different year systems that are used:  THC, PBH, CX, to name a few.” 
    “Uh, AD??”
    “Ooh, sorry.  Not familiar with that one,” replied C1 apologetically.
    His family was definitely dead.  “How about CE?  They sometimes use that instead.”
    C1 Shook his head mournfully.  “No.  Sorry.”
    Arthur sighed.
    “Don’t worry,” said C1, in an overly soothing voice.  “It will be all right.  Come.  Let me take you to Integration.  It will be no trouble at all.”  Arthur looked up at C1, at the empty clockface.  There was no sign of emotion in it.  Just his face, reflected back at him, haunted and haggard.  What else could he do?  No money.  No food.  No clue. 
    “All right,”  he said. 
    Something in C1 seemed to brighten.  “Excellent!” he said, in his loud booming voice that seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere.  He waved his hands. 
    A square of shimmering rainbow light opened above their heads, and fell down upon them. 
    “What?” said Arthur.  He and C1 were standing in a green room. 
    “Terribly sorry,” said the robot.  “That was simply the fastest method I know of to teleport.  I assure you the sickness will pass in time.  If you are nauseous, I can …” The disembodied voice trailed off, and the robot tilted it’s head to one side, seemingly genuinely confused.  “Oh well, that’s lucky.  Forgive me, one in four are adversely affected by teleportation, and I just assumed, that is...you looked like the sort, is all.”
    “Uh, no,” said Arthur, a little nonplussed.  “I don’t, well, I don’t really think I feel any different.  Um, in fact, I don’t really understand what just happened.”
    “Oh, we just traveled through a Bridge, in an act known as bridging.  It is a teleportation technique that all Clockmen are equipped for.  Excuse me a moment.”  The robot walked towards a large desk in the corner.  Arthur started.  Behind the desk sat a woman, covered in yellow fur, with pointed ears and whiskers. 
    “A catwoman,”  thought Arthur. 
    “Ah, Spheeris.  How are you?”
    “Hello, C1,” purred the catwoman.
    “You look quite well, if I may say so.  I very much appreciate what you have done with your hair.”
    “Why thank you.  How very kind of you.  And what brings you this way?”
    “Oh, I have an candidate here for Integration.  His name is Arthur Walpole, I believe, he—’
    Arthur stopped paying attention.  His gaze wandered off.  To his right was a large window, through which he could see, and faintly hear, the city.  (It looked slightly different than Arthur remembered seeing it.  Messier somehow.)  In one corner a large blue tube sat on top of a pedestal.  Along the wall opposite the desk was a row of red chairs, broken in the center by a normal door.  Turning all the way around, behind the desk he saw a large plaque, about as large as a painting, that read

Seven Gateways
Enhancement, Replacement, Recollection, Formation,
Summation, Interpretation, and Integration
An AI INC. company.

     Integration.  He had never really asked what that meant, exactly.  Was that like Assimilation, like the Borg or something?  Did it have something to do with integers?  Maybe he was being assigned a number, like for Social Security.  Maybe he was a number.  Arthur thought of a whole bunch of numbers, operating and working together with one another, shrinking and growing, exchanging digits on balances recorded in an account book.  Maybe he was just being entered on a balance sheet, like a profit.  Or a loss.  How would you do this, if the loss column was in 2016 and the profit was in, well, whenever here was?  Or the other way around; maybe it was a profit for 2016, glad to be rid of him.  Was he a positive number or a negative number?  Maybe a zero?  Arthur wondered what someone who was a zero would be like. 
    C1 was walking back towards him.  “There,” it said.  “Everything is taken care of, Messer Walpole.  Just have a seat, and they will deal with you shortly.  Have an enlightening afternoon.”  A shimmering square of rainbow appeared above the robot’s head. As it lowered over him, his body disappeared into it.  Nothing remained above the rainbow square as it fell, until his body was gone, and the light vanished. 
    “Huh,” thought Arthur.  “So that’s what that looks like.”  It was very odd, when the torso was gone, and only the feet remained.  Bridging.  Teleportation.  Moving something from one place to another, immediately.  Subtraction in one account, addition in another.  Simple to describe really, even if he had no idea how it worked. 
    The catwoman smiled at him.  She pointed at a box on the desk, full of various small balls of various colors. A sign mounted above it said “pick one.” 
    “Here,” she said.  Why don’t you take one of these and have a seat.  I am sure an operative will be ready to deal with you shortly.” 
    Arthur picked out a ball that was red like an apple and sat down in one of the chairs.