Book I: Part 11: C4

     When C4 walked out of the spirelike hallway into the lobby at Central Command¹, C5 was there waiting for him.  The Clockman was leaning upon the railing, his elbow arched outwards into the void, slouching in a manner that was not inelegant, and wiping his pinch-nez with his pocket handkerchief. 
      "Fancy seeing you here," said C4.  He walked carefully and precisely up to his colleague, measuring each step to be exactly the same length (0.5 meters)².
     "Aye?  Oh, you're here too then, eh?" said C5, feigning looking over towards C4.  "That's a surprise, then."
     With the possible exception of C1 (whose head was a giant clock) C5 possessed the most alienating visage of any of the Clockmen in C4's unit³.  That was because C5 didn't have a visage.  His face was a smooth, almost completely featureless, a shiny metal mannequin's head.  
    "Nah, I'm only having a laugh," said C5.  "I knew you'd be about.  Heard you had a great nasty spill then, yeh?"
     "Yes," said C4.  "But I am better now."
     "Naturally, naturally.  As expected.  In fact, they sent me along to collect you, dont'cha know, after they heard I was about the area."  C5 replaced his pinch-nez to his nose, where it snapped magnetically into place.  The pinch-nez were actually the method by which C5 saw, transmitting visual signals to his brane.  Each lense of the pinch-nez was a coin-sized clockface, lit, when in use, to a light shade of blue, and telling the time in small holographic minute and hour hands.
     "Really?" asked C4. 
     "Oh, aye.  Though all honesty, mate, I had no fockin idea you'd be about when I first showed up.  That was just Fortune at work.  Really, I came here for a quick pick-me-up.  Notice anything different about me?"  C5 threw his hands wide in a gesture of presentation.
     "New suit?" replied C4. 
     "Ach, I knew there was no fooling you, mate." C5 had previously been dressed in midnight-blue, pinstriped, doublebreasted, two-piece suit with notched lapels and a single vent, accompanied by a matching fedora.  Now he was wearing a plain black, singled-breasted, three-peice suit with peaked lapels and double vents, accompanied by a matching black bowler hat.  His tie, formerly a solid red, was now a slightly metallic ooze of all the colors of the rainbow.  However, his shirt was still white, and his shoes were still black leather (but then, a different black leather).  The red handkerchief was the same red handkerchief that C5 always had, but then, C4 knew that C5 always hung on to it, through every wardrobe change, for reasons that could only be called sentimental.  
     "Well?  Be honest.  What's your opinion?"
     "It's quite nice.  The look suits you."
     "Suits me?  Fock, it's a pun.  Ha!"  C5 returned his handkerchief to his side pocket.  "Eh.  I figured it was time for a change, yeh know?"
     "I understand the sentiment."  C4 turned his head metronomically to the left, as if to stare off at some point of interest.
     "You could use a change, yourself, mate."
     "Hmmm."
     "You never change."
     "So, is this why you weren't involved in the chase earlier, then?" asked C4, desperate to change the subject.
     "Oh, aye." said C5, seemingly noticing nothing.  "And you wouldn't believe the great fockin stink C1 put up about it.  But what was I supposed to do?  Rush off in me knickers to fight the great horrible Dadalus?  And do what, exactly? Take a great flying leap of a building with me counterpart?  No offense, mate."
     "None taken," said C4, with a wave of his hand.  "You said you were to collect me?"
     "Hmm?  Oh, aye.  Yeh, they got back on his trail a while back.  Hold on."
     C4 felt a package arriving, and accepted it.  A collection of PLM⁴ coordinates and streams of timestamped VAST recordings.  A conception was formed of what had occurred to the Pteranarchist, since C4's fall into grace. 
     "So that's where we are headed, then, is it?" asked C4.  He sent a package of PLM coordinates to C5⁵.
     C5 nodded.  "That's where we're headed."
     C4 nodded in return.  "Well, all right then.  Let's bridge."
     Coordinates were exchanged.  Boxes of rainbow light opened over C4 and C5, and they were gone.


     1. The lobby of Central Command was, like each of the rooms at the end of the 36 spires, circular in shape, and 330 feet in diameter—or, an eighth of a mile.  However, this floor was not continuous.  In the center of the lobby was a hole, surrounded by railing and 110 feet in diameter.  This hole opened both up and down into the other levels of Central Command Structure, of which there were 36 in total (C4 had been repaired on the twenty-first).  As each level of Central Command was 330 feet in height, to accommodate it's various cathedral like rooms, the total length of the Central Command Chasm (as the space between all 36 lobbies was called) was 2.25 miles, with only the last mile being above the surface of the earth.  Once when C4 and C5 had taken a civilian on a tour of the facility, the civilian, an organic man answered to Messer Roy G. Biv, had inquired why each level had ten hallways.  Why not twelve, like a clock? asked the man.  "Cuz it's naught a fockin clock, mate.  It's a fockin circle.  Anyone can fockin see that, ya great fockin twad." 
     2.  For some reason, C4 had always preferred to measure and think in metric terms, or at least had been programmed to.  As it was he still preferred to think in such terms, even with free will—which, he supposed, was something he welcomed.  It was nice to think that, free will or not, he was at least the same person (persona?) on some level.  Anyways, he would have to keep thinking in such a manner anyways, wouldn't he?  He had to keep up appearances.  But this was an appearance he enjoyed keeping up.
     3.  That is, Unit C of Section 49-FF.  There were 26 such units per section, each set with 12 such robots.  Each of the Units was further subdivided into partners, with the C1 and C12 units always being together, then the C2 and C3 Clockmen, C4, and C5, etc. Section units were not necessarily limited to their Sections: they could pursue leads across the boundaries, on the occasioned when they arrived, especially if the sections were serviced with Agents instead.  Still, the Sectional Units were a useful way for Central Command to organize their efforts.
     4.  Planetary Location Matrix.
     5.  Speaking conversationally was all well and good, but somethings were better left to telepathy.