Book I: Part 16: Sirius

The day lasted forever, and when it was done Sirius was belched outwards into the nightair. It was cool now, the whinds of nearfall gusting down the rodeway, the others that remained, let off from their shifts, milled shortly along the sideways, inclemently dispersing into ether. He was tired, and the whind such as it was was cooling. If he sweeted much he would be very sweety right then. He saw Fred walk by, not noticing him. Mare passed him by, and stopped to talk.

“Well,” hear we are,” sed Mare.

“We are always here,” repped Sirius, in a bit of a revelay. “Nothing ever changes. Where always right where we are.”

“What?” intergated Mare.

“Sorry,” sed Sirius, shaking his head. He started walking towards the train station. “I am just starting to slip, that's all. See you on the marrow.”

Book I: Part 15: C4

     Later, C4 would review what had happened over and over again, trying to put events together, to make the whole thing fit into some kind of coherent whole. But no matter what he did, he could just not figure out why what had happened had happened, why it had all gone down as it did.  He would be quite certain that what he thought had happened, what he had tried to assume, based on dispassionate logic, was completely outside the realm of the possible, the fevered result of these new-found emotions working within him.  But in the end, his suspicions would remain, haunting him, both evanescent and eternal, ghosts, demons or angels, lying just above and behind his shoulders.

     They had bridged into the open sky.  Once again, C4 was falling, but it was a controlled fall this time, the levels of towers passed by in the blink of a human's eye.  He was in a middle of a great chasm, one of the greatest he had ever yet traveled to, nearly a quarter of a mile wide.  Bridges, actual real bridges, not a Clockman's portal, were crisscrossing farther down in the depths, but up here, the buildings were separate and isolated, great monochrome monoliths.  Birds wafted past him on the wind, and he could see the nests tucked away in crevices and nooks.   

      And there, flying past him, just below and then above him, was Dadalus, spiraling and looping and shooting through the air, gliding and turning upon his great wings.  

     He knew where the Pteranarchist was now.  He had him directly in his sights.  His PLS was locked into by C4's computers.  He calculated based on current position, velocity, acceleration, angle, just where Dadalus would be, and when.  

     He bridged again.

     He came through the bridge-portal, timed just right to fall on onto Dadalus' back...and collided with C5, coming to the same place from the opposite angle. 

     They spun off to the side, tailspinning, and Dadalus flew on.

     "Oof! Sorry, mate," said C5.  He pushed off from C4 without another word, across the freefalling distance, into a waiting bridge-box of rainbow colored light. 

     For Maker's sake, C5, watch where you're focking going! messaged C4. 

     I said I was sorry, mate! returned C5.  It was an honest mistake!  Nothing to get out of sorts about, what?

     No, no, of course not, sorry.  C4 replied.  Within, he reprimanded himself.  He couldn't allow outbursts like that.

     He straightened out and disappeared straight down a bridge, appearing directly in front of Dadalus.  He figured, why not a frontal assault?

     It didn't work.  His timing, he thought, had been perfect.  (He was, after all, a Clockman.)  He should have arrived just in to collide head-on with the Pteranarchist.  Instead, Dadalus had, in the midst of the bridging, decided on an upwards trajectory.  C4 was able to just miss reaching out and touching the  villain's boot before falling below and behind him.  Up sailed Dadalus, down went C4.

Another Clockman, it looked like C2, tried the same move, but Dadalus' ascent was a curved one, which are always hard to calculate on the fly, at least in real life¹.  C2 came up short as Dadalus shot up into straight into the sky.

     Nice day, messaged C4 to C2, falling parallel and and slightly above him. 

     I knew I shouldn't have gotten out of bed this morning, deadpanned C2².  Good to have you back.

     Good to be back, replied C4. 

     Where'd C5 get off to? messaged C2.

     Haven't seen him in 12.85 seconds, replied C4.  He bridged again, coming out a little further down the chasm, then again, this time coming out at a point far beyond Dadalus.  He couldn't get a jump on him from here, he would be far too far down by the time Dadalus came about, but he wanted to at least keep the Winged Anarchist in his view.

     C5, were the fock are you? messaged C4.

     Just enjoying the view, mate, bopping along buildings and keeping a weather eye on our fair-feathered friend.  Our John.     
     That's not exactly fair, is it?  Leaving all the bridging to the rest of us?

     There's only been the two of you so far, mate!  And neither of you have managed to exactly go about not cocking up this endeavor.

     Sigh.  Fine.

     He straightened his body out and disappeared sideways through another bridge, tumbling out upon the patio of a penthouse, far up in the sky.  He somersaulted expertly, a figure preset with the laws of physics as instincts, and landed upon his feet.

In the distance, across the chasm, he could see Dadalus wafting over open air.  A Clockman appeared in midair beside him, missed him in freefall, then disappeared again.  Then another, then another, then another.  He saw C3, C6, C7.  Then C9, C10, and C11.  Everyone was here, except for C1 and C12.

     What is going on here? cried C1's voice in his head.  It was the only place he ever heard it. Align! Align!

     C2, reporting, messaged C2, and C4 knew C2's precise PLS.

     C3, reporting, continued C3.

     C4, reporting, chimed in C4.

     C5 was next, then C6, and on down the line they went, linking into and aligning, setting themselves up in a communal alignment, each knowing just where each of the other ones was, until finally C12 announced his number. The locations appeared in C4's brane like some mystery constellation. They were all together now. Ideas and plans and feints of attack bounced between them at the speed of thought. Robot thought. Clockmen blinked out of and into existence across bridges, the constellation reconfiguring in endless variations. None jumped. The Clockmen were circling, like buzzards, or ghosted, staying to the outside of Dadalus' wafting flight across the canyon. Bickering and arguing, no plan could be agreed upon among the 12.

     In their flurry, it was a standoff.

     “Fock this,” thought C4, though only to himself.

     He bridged to the top of the Lookingglass Tower. He stood upon a 20-foot circle of concrete next to a tall antenna, 8 feet in diameter at the base, 50 yards and one foot 11 inches in height, black as obsidian. A monolith. Surrounding him was a large dome of glass, actual glass, supported underneath by a continuous forcefield, stretching out a circular base a quarter-mile across. Below, there was a vast pleasure garden, made of trees and jungle fauna and artificial streams and waterfalls. Standing on the edge of the concrete platform, he could see little figures dancing and running through the forests far below.

     He looked up. The tower, as he already knew, stood at the edge of juncture of the canyon, where suddenly it split, like a forked path in the sky. Along one path, the path of the canyon became more steppe-like in descent, level after level of buidlings getting shorter and shorter the farther form the edge you got. The other path was a steep drop. Dadalus would turn right on the fork, along this path. C4 didn't know why. He just figured it would be unexpected was all. C4 wasn't really thinking. He stared off, for the moment, towards the buildings lying at the point of the fork, the place where the two canyons departed from. There, in their majesty, were the twin Legacy Corp Towers. One white, one black, rising high above the buildings around them, like a pair of Clockmen in a crowd.

C4 turned about, walked to the end of the concrete platform. He was not thinking. In the back of his brane, the Clockmen argued insistently with one another over this or that position, where they needed to be, whether or not they were guiding Dadalus through their positioning, whether Dadalus cared³. C4 turned back around and, without looking, started running.

     He ran as fast as he could, jumping at the last possible moment. He did not attempt to control his descent. Everything just seemed right for a moment. He was operating on instinct. Fierce joy filled him.

     C5: C4, the fock you doing mate?

     C1: Yes, C4, why have you not been contributing to the conversation?

     C4: Not now.

     The slope of his descent was shallow enough that he managed to clear the glass dome. Greenery passed beneath him as if he flew over the canopy of forest. Then he was free, across open air, falling diagonal, into whatever he hit first.

     He was not remotely surprise when the first thing happened to be Dadalus.

     C6: Excellent!

     C3: What?

     C8: Finally, some success.

     C7: Contact!

     C5: I say, good show, old chap.

     C2: Well, maybe this day won't be a total waste.

     C10: Yay!

     C1: Aha! Our feint worked!

     C12: Good work everybody.

     C9: Well, that didn't make sense at all, but whatever.

     C10: Just go with it.

     For a moment, C4 and Dadalus were a tangle of limbs, working furiously towards freedom, or perhaps only understanding. They spun about in lopsided spins, Dadalus' wings throwing the pattern of their descent in doubt. C4 held on for all he was worth. There was no concern in his head now, beyond hanging on.

     In his desperation, he was wresting, struggling to gain some upper hand in their struggle. He found himself, face to face, chest to chest, with the Gray Mothman, their legs dangling wildly in space.

     “Good Morning, Citizen!” greeted Dadalus cheerfully.

     For a moment, C4 was disarmed. Confused.

     Something shattered around them, exploded, like glass.

Book I: Part 14: Alison

     ‘Oh bother,’ said Mosses Meddleson.  ‘What a nuisance.  I’m terribly sorry about this Miss Amberginnegan.  Miss Amberginnegan?’
     Alison had not heard the announcement, or at least hadn’t been paying attention to it.  The closest thing Alison Amberginnegan had ever had to an adventure was when, at the age of fourteen, she had traveled to the Orcas installation, a small artificial island in the Wetworks where she and her mother had taken pills that turned them into seals. 
     ‘Isn’t this like magic?’ her mother had said, and she had nodded, and remembered. 
     They spent six days living in the water, where everything was shocking blue.  A sense of weightlessness would overtake her on deep dives, giving her the illusion of flying.  Swimming after fish, going out into the deep to where the coastline and its skyscrapers sank below the horizon, she would surface, adrift on an endless sea, the only civilization the occasional Wetworks installation dotting the waves. 
      And then, when the six days were up, she and her mother made their way back to the Orcas installation, shed their pelts, and returned to the pedestrian life.
     ‘Miss Amberginnegan?’
     ‘What? Oh, sorry.’  She blushed and stared at her lap.  ‘How long have I just been sitting here?’
     ‘About a minute, I think.  Are you all right?’
     ‘Yes, I’m fine.  I was just … reliving a memory.’
     ‘Reliving?’  Mosses Meddleson leaned back in his chair, stroking his beard.  ‘It must have been quite an intense memory, to relive it.’
     ‘Oh, it was.  Well, not for me, that is … um….’  She stared off to the side and bit her lower lip, which quivered.  ‘See the thing is,’ she began in a voice higher than usual, ‘I have this condition?  Called Eidetic Hyperthymesia?’
     Mosses Meddleson frowned in a sympathetic way.  ‘I’m sorry, Miss Amberginnegan, I don’t believe I’ve ever heard of that before.’
     ‘It means I have really detailed memories of things?  I remember everything.  I mean, everything.’
     ‘Oh, so your memory’s photographic, then?’   
     ‘Well, yeah, but that’s just the eidetic part.  I mean, I can do all the photographic memory things, like read a book and know all the words in it, or what look at a deck of cards and then recite the order back. But its more…I remember everything that happens to me, ever.  Not just facts, but things that happen to me too.  I can remember any or it, instantly.’
     ‘So, you can recall everything that has ever happened to you? In perfect detail?’
     Alison nodded, her face becoming lost within the bramble of her hair. 
     ‘Why, why that’s astonishing!’ exclaimed Mosses Meddleson. 
     ‘I suppose so.’ Alison’s voice was quiet, barely above a whisper.  ‘Everyone I tell about it tells me that.  It’s pretty normal for me, though.’
     Mosses Meddleson looked flustered.  ‘Oh, well.  Obviously.  Pardon me, I didn’t mean to be rude.’
     ‘Oh, no, I-I didn’t mean anything like that at all!’  Alison squeaked, sinking lower into her chair. 
     Mosses waved a hand in the air, as if to say ‘No, please, think nothing of it,’ and smirked knowingly.  ‘Ah, Miss Amberginnegan, what a fantastic gift you have, no doubt another gift from old Allathir.  My! Think of all the wonderful things you could do!  Why, with a mind like that, you could learn, well, everything!’
     ‘Well, I don’t know,’ she said, smiling.  She thought he was being a little hyperbolic.  Her hand absently began playing with her skirt.  ‘I mean, I just … I just feel lost, most of the time.  I get … confused?  Like, I hear a word, or see something?  Or smell something?  And I’m off.  Like I’m time traveling.  Reliving something I did, or read, or thought sometime.  Sometimes, the memories just keep, like, sparking other memories?  And there’s just all these things going on?  Like, like, being in a department store, in the VAST aisle? And trying to pay attention to everything at once?’
     Mosses Meddleson nodded as if he understood perfectly.  ‘Ah, a kind of sensory fugue state.’
     ‘I, I guess.  And besides, I don’t think I could learn everything, anyways.  I mean I would need forever to learn everything, right?  And I can’t do that, so….’
     For a moment, Mosses Meddleson, looked horribly, horribly shocked.  ‘You don’t?  But how, when…oh.’  He nodded to himself, and looked downwards.  ‘I see, I see,’ he said quietly, to himself, as if Alison had suddenly disappeared.  She imagined herself doing so. 
     His expression changed suddenly, as if to hide some nasty faux pas, and then he was smiling again.  Smugly this time.  ‘Oh, I object to that, Miss Amberginnegan,’ he said, ‘I object to that very strongly.’
     ‘You do?’ squeaked Alison. 
     Mosses Meddleson opened a drawer in his desk, rummaged daintily through it, then pulled out a small bottle, which he tossed lightly over to Alison.  She didn’t manage to catch it, but it landed in her lap nonetheless.  Its cap curved upwards, and there was a lining along the bottom, making it look like a miniature chalice.  The label on the side, after listing itself as the property of Mosses Meddleson, read

        STASIS 50 mg cap zenith
        QTY 60
        By Vail Hall, Dis.
        Take once a week with water.

     ‘What’s this?’ she asked.
     ‘Those are pills, Miss Amberginnegan, pills developed by your father, in fact, long ago, that prolong the human life span indefinitely.’
     There was a weird sensation in her fingers, like energy was flowing out from the bottle and paralyzing her.  ‘Really?’
     ‘Oh yes.  They halt the aging process, keeping the body at a happy equilibrium.  They prevent cancers from forming, make the body resistant to all but the gravest disease—which are all curable now, by the way, if you can afford the treatment.  Which, of course, you can.  Taking these pills, a person can remain at the height of health forever.  Why, I myself am 1066 years of age.’
     Alison started, then looked at Mosses Meddleson with new eyes.  She set the pill bottle down on the table, and tried, as much as a person can who is sitting, to back away.  Somewhere a box opened; the world shifted around her, and became very large and strange. 
     Mosses Meddleson did not seem to notice.  ‘Do you not see what you have come upon, Miss Amberginnegan?’ he said.  ‘Why, you have found a source of eternal life that you can easily afford.  In fact, you own a source of eternal life.  You can do anything.  Everything.’
     Mosses got up hurriedly and walked over to Alison, he grabbed her by the arm and drew her up out of her seat, and began guiding her towards the window.  She came, blankly, cowed by  the man before her, with his wealth, his great age. 
     ‘I had heard, but I did not believe, my girl, that things had been so, so different for you all these years!  But those days are over now!  You have entered a new world! Look!’ 
     They stood at the window, looking out over the city, the wide chasms and shadows and buildings lying below. 
     ‘The people down there, they live brief, pointless lives, with little import but the propagation of their species.  But we, Alison, people like you and me, we are part of the elect.  We are chosen, you see!  Look at them down there.  From this window, you can barely see them.  They scurry about like, like insects, while we stand above, like, well, like Magicians!  No longer must you dwell down there in the darkness, Alison.  You have been selected by fate.  You have been given a destiny.  History will be merely a record of your actions upon the world!  Everything you could wish to accomplish—why, even learning everything there is to know—you can do.  You should do.  Why you almost have to do it.  And why not do everything, when you can live forever?’
     At that moment, the voice that came from everywhere and nowhere returned. ‘Attention residents of Legacy Corps Tower One,’ it said, ‘Due to the actions of the Dread Dadalus, the Winged Anarchist, the structural integrity of this skyscraper has been weakened.  All residents on levels 1852 and above should evacuate immediately, either to a floor below, or out of the building entirely.  As this is 150 levels worth of evacuation, I think that leaving the building would be the best course.  Having a smashing afternoon.’

Book I: Part 13: Arthur

     Arthur didn’t know how long he waited in the green room. 
     He kept himself occupied by bouncing the ball.  He focused on its travels, watching it as it hit the floor, then bounced up up up, reached it’s high point—that frozen moment of zero acceleration—then down down down, along the path it had just traced, until it reached its original point of impact.  It did this over and over, each time losing energy, rising just short of its height from the time before, until it finally just shuddered along the floor.  Then Arthur would pick the ball up and start the process all over again.     
     “An operative is ready to see you now, sir.”  It was the catwoman.  Spheeris, was her name?
     “What?  Uh, oh, thank you.”  Arthur snatched the bouncy ball from midair and slipped it into his jacket pocket. 
     “He’s waiting for you in room one-one-zero-zero-one-one.”
     Arthur blinked.  “Uh, I’m sorry, could you say that again?” 
     She did. 
     “Thanks.” 
     He wandered off down the hall, writing the number out in his head.  110011.  He passed room 110002, and room 110003.  Apparently the room was room eleven...on the 1,100th floor?  Could he really be that high up?  How many floors did the Sears Tower (or whatever they were calling it these days) have?  A hundred?  A hundred and ten?  Here he was, ten times as high in the air as the top floor of the tallest building in the country, his country, in what was probably nowhere near the top floor in what was probably not even the tallest building around.  
     He sighed.
     He took a right.  Walking down the hall, he felt as though there was something familiar about the experience, as if he had only just recently done the exact same thing.  The déjà vu intensified as he reached door eleven. 
     He paused, then, closing his eyes, twisted the handle and walked in. 
     Inside was a white room.  Along the back wall hung a pair of black curtains.  In the center of the room was a blue chair, facing away from the door.  Directly beyond this chair, about 10 or 11 feet away and framed by the curtains, was a small black table with a black chair positioned to its left side.  Sitting in the black chair was a man who had neatly arranged a stack of papers atop the desk.  He wore a plain black suit and had glowing red eyes. 
    The man with red eyes smiled.  “Hello,” he said.  “Mr. Walpole isn’t it?  Please, have a seat.”  He gestured  toward the blue chair. 
    With trepidation, Arthur walked to the center of the room and sat down.  The man with red eyes smiled again, showing teeth. 
     “Now, Mr. Walpole,” he began, “I am going to administer a test, in which I shall ask you a series of questions.  Each answer you give will determine the next question I ask.  I will be paying attention not just to what your answer is, but how you answer as well, so please, answer very carefully.”
    Suddenly realizing he could not see the ceiling, Arthur glanced up. 
    About thirty feet overhead,  slender apparatuses of white plastic and silver chrome were arranged, like a lotus blossom, directly over his head. 
     He laughed nervously.  “Uh, what’s all that stuff?” he asked. 
     The man with red eyes smiled again.  “It’s integral to the examination.  Are we ready to begin?”
     Arthur breathed out in spasms.  Butterflies entered his stomach.  His hands, clasped white in his lap, started shaking.  God, it felt like college finals all over again.  “As I’ll ever be.”
     “Good,” said the man with red eyes.  “What is your name?”
     “Uh, Arthur Luther Walpole,” he said deliberately.  “D-don’t you know that already?”
     “What is your job?”
     “Uh, I am an accountant.”  He pictured the offices of Edgars, Eggers and Edwards.  The rows and columns of cubicles, the heads of employees bobbing up occasionally like monks at work in their cells.  There was no ceiling above the office, and the faces of the three ancient founders loomed above the void.  Mr.  Edwards began to lecture Arthur on punctuality.  Mr.  Edwards was always lecturing Arthur on punctuality, because Arthur was never late.  Perhaps Mr. Edwards was always lecturing (lectured?) Arthur because he sensed a kindred soul, a fellow lover of punctuality, but somehow the lecture never ended up including any compliments. 
     “What is your favorite color?”
     “Blue,” said Arthur, raising his voice.  He had to resist the urge to shout “No, yellooow …”  What a weird coincidence.  Yes, the middle question was a little off, but still….  His mind summoned up images of smoke trails, a decaying rope bridge, and a wasteland beyond.  And Terry Gilliam in old man makeup and beggar costume. 
     “Date of birth?”
     “July 3rd, 1983.  Uh, AD, if you know what that means…by any chance.  Not sure how much good that will do you.  Sorry.”
     “Age?”
     “I am 33 years old, and …”—he did some quick calculations in his head—“…43 days.  I think.”
     “What is your height?”
     “About 5’9”, I think.  5’10”, maybe.”
     “Weight?”
     “Maybe 170?  I mean, I used to be about 185, uh, pounds, that is, but, I don’t know, I feel, uh, lighter, somehow, since I, uh, bled, as it were…”  Arthur’s butterflies regressed back into caterpillars.  He felt like he was doing horrible.
     “Place of creation?”
     “Uh, as in birth?  Chicago, Illinois, in the United States of America.  I don’t know what hospital, I can’t recall. Is that relevant?”
     “If you were an animal, what animal would you be?”
     This question threw him.  What did that have to do with anything?  “Oh, I don’t know … a dragon, maybe?  Can I say a dragon?  Or are mythological creatures not allowed?  If it has to be a real animal, I, I guess a coelacanth.” 
     He remembered reading a book once about coelacanths.  How they were once thought to have gone extinct millions of years ago, around the same times as the dinosaurs, and then they were found again, still alive.  Someone caught one in a fishing net, in the 1900s. 
     Well, that was kind of like what happened to him, wasn’t it? Disappeared and popped up again, across time or space and the changing world or whatever?  Except he hadn’t traveled nearly that far.  Surely not.  Still he thought it was a funny analogy, and it hadn’t occurred to him until after he answered the question.  How had he worked that out? 
     Had he worked that out?
     “Do you often feel worry about your loved ones?”
     He laughed nervously.  “Well, sure, doesn’t everyone?”  He tried smiling, but it soured  into a grimace.  Something that was not a memory passed through his head.  More of an imagining.  He had not seen it happen.  A car running a red light, an oncoming semi, the edge of the car colliding, metal twisting, the car lifting up into the air, spiraling in slow motion, glass shattering and flying everywhere, (being put back together again) the car’s side landing with a loud boom on the concrete, bouncing, landing, but upside down, the interior imploding.  A bloody suit-coated arm coming to rest on the pavement.  The semi and other cars screeching and stopping. 
     Memories now.  Snapshots.  His mother and sister crying, and holding each other, and him standing in the doorway, his hand on the open door, numb. Talking on the phone with his sister, angry.  Another door closing, a wave of blond hair disappearing behind it.  Another car, parked this time, with him inside it, staring through a gated steel fence at a courtyard, as figures dressed in black and white robes entered the abbey, trying to guess which ones were his mother and sister, based on their movements. 
     There were other memories too, fleeting, filling in the details, but they passed below the surface, not fully seen, subliminal flashes he couldn’t make out, but knew were being alluded to. 
     The man with red eyes smiled again.  Arthur felt a spasm in his left leg.  “Are you all right?”
     “Yes,”  said Arthur, willing out the spasm.  “I’m fine.” 
     The man with red eyes looked back down at his pile of papers.  “Does music have an emotional effect on you?”
     Arthur fidgeted. “Of course, doesn’t music have an emotional effect on everyone?  I mean, you would have to be a robot or something for it not to, wouldn’t you?  ...Are, uh, are robots effected by music?”  He tried to imagine C-1 sitting alone, listening to “Hey, Jude” on a stereo and humming along, but he couldn’t picture it happening.  Arthur tried playing the song in his head.  He couldn’t remember what the second line was.  Was it “under your skin,” or “into your heart” the first time?  He just couldn’t quite hear it. 
     And he would never hear it again. 
     “Do you ever sing or whistle to entertain yourself?”
     What?  How?  How did he know what he was thinking about?  Or was this a coincidence?  For some reason the red eyes suddenly felt incredibly familiar to him, but he couldn’t figure why.
     He had waited too long to speak.  The man was staring at him expectantly, only smiling a little bit, not blinking.  He tried to think of an answer.  He didn’t know how to whistle, and he had a horrible singing voice.  He never tried to sing; he was too afraid too.  “I hum sometimes,”  he said, “When I daydream.”
     “What creature walks on four legs in the morning, two at noon, and three in the evening?”
     “Really?” thought Arthur.  “Is he really asking this question?” 
     “Uh, man,” he answered. 
     “Huh,” said the man with red eyes.  He seemed amused, and wrote something down on a sheet of paper.  “Never heard that one before.  Most  people say a transmorphopod.”
     A what?
     The man with red eyes took a deep breath. “A flying car leaves a port and flies west at 760 klamatters  per hour.  After waiting fifteen minutes, another flying car at a port 250 klamatters to the west of the first starts flying east at only 440 klamatters per hour. How long after the second car leaves will the two cars pass each other?”
     Arthur stared straight at the man with red eyes.  A word problem?  He was getting asked a word problem now?  “No, no,” he thought.  “Stick to the test.  You need to do well on the test.”  He ran his fingers through his hair, and thought. 
     “Three minutes,”  he said. 
     “How many angles fit on the head of a pin?”
     What?  “Did, did you say angles?  Don’t you mean angels?  Because an infinite number of angels fit on the head of a pin.  They don’t have mass or dimension, see, they are, uh, points, just like angles, I guess, come to think of it, so, uh same number?  An infinite number of angles fit on the head of a pin.”  He paused for a second.  Did they still have pins?  “Look, why are you asking me this, what does it have to do with anything?”
     “If a spaceship explodes in space, does it make a sound?”
     “Huh? Of course not! I mean, it’s in space.  There’s no air!  Sound can’t travel!  Soundwaves are air vibrations, that’s simple, why are you asking me that?  Why are you asking me any of this?” 
     “What is the sound of fingernails on a frictionless surface?”
     “What?  That’s practically the same question!  It’s oh, you know, uh…no, no.  The sound would be disruption, uh….  There is silence.  Besides, a frictionless surface can’t exist.  So no sound.  Or nothing.” 
     “Who are you?”
     “What?  I already told you that!  Wait, I mean, uh, I don’t know, it’s too broad.  I mean, how can anyone really know who they are, how do you sum up who you are?  I-I’m me, whatever that is.”
     “Is it bigger than a breadbox?”
     “Is what bigger than a bread box?  How can I even answer that?  It needs context!  I … wait, this isn’t really the test, is it?  It hasn’t started yet, has it?  This is just some preliminary thing?”
     He pointed at the white and chrome lotus blossoms emerging from the ceiling.  “I mean, you haven’t even used those things up there, have you?” 
     The man with red eyes wrote something down.  “Thank you, Mr. Walpole.  Your examination is complete.”
     Arthur froze.  “It is?”
     “Oh, yes.  I have gathered all that I need.”
     “You, you have?  How?”
     The man with red eyes pointed up, at the lotus blossom, and went back to writing.
     “But, but they haven’t done anything.”
     The man with red eyes ripped off a sheet of paper.  “Take this down to room one-one-oh-oh-nine-nine.  We have gathered all the information pertinent to your Integration, and are ready to begin the process itself.”  He held out the sheet of paper. 
     Arthur walked over and took it, his hand shaking. 
     The man smiled, with teeth.  “Have an entrancing afternoon.”
     Arthur felt the door click shut behind him.  A keen inkling that he had failed gripped at his throat.
     But failed at what?  He had no idea what he was doing, he was just following other people’s suggestions, carrying a flickering hope they would pan out in the end, getting out of this completely ridiculous situation he had somehow wandered into.  Whatever it was.  He wished to run, flee the building, out into the street.  But to where?  Where could he go?  He had nowhere else to turn, nothing to do but continue along the path he had been set on. 
     He wandered through the hallway, following wall-signs directing him to room 99, through a long series of turns, first going one way, then another, until he had lost all sense of direction, and came at last to room 110099, the last room in the hallway.  He knocked, and the door opened on its own. 
     He saw another blue chair, this one shaped like a dentist’s.  An apparatus like an adjustable x-ray machine was attached to it. 
     “Ah, Maysrrrwawrpaul, yu’re he’rr,” said a voice, deep and rich.  A creature stepped out of the corner, towering over Arthur.  It wore a blue apron and blue gloves.  Its head was shaped like a goat’s, with long floppy ears and snout and two black horns sprouting from the top of it’s head, but its skin was hairless, pallid and white. 
      All the blood fled from Arthur’s face.
     “Iyam D’glass Yeones, yu’er encowwderrr,” it said.  It bared it’s teeth.  Arthur had no idea what it had just said.  He had seen stranger creatures on the street, but none of them had been this close to him, and with the thing breathing down on him, he couldn’t shake the feeling that he had just entered some kind of nightmare.  The devil could look like this. 
     Baring it’s teeth, the creature gently took the sheet of paper out of his hands, examined it carefully.  “Ah, Yeass, Ev-raytheng ah-pee-arse do bay en ar’derr.  Roughteaswah.”  It took him by the arm, lead him into the chair.  Arthur sat down without thinking, panicking slightly inside, too afraid to think about what, exactly, was happening. 
     The next thing he realized the creature had clasped chrome manacles over his arms and legs. 
     “What?”  Though the manacles left plenty of room for his hands to move or free themselves, for some reason he could not budge them. 
     “Plays, oh-pin you’err eiss, Maysrrrwawrpaul.”  The creature pried Arthur’s right eye open with a small speculum, then did the same to his left. 
     The creature said something further, but Arthur couldn’t hear him.  He was too busy panicking inside.  The creature adjusted  the apparatus that was like an x-ray, until it was directly in front of him.  Two cylinders opened, and two beams of white light shot into his eyes. 
     Everything stopped, and for a moment Arthur seemed to pass outside himself.  Time and space fell away, and in that moment, he remembered everything. 
     And then he was back, and the memories stayed behind.  He awoke with a sense of loss, uncertain of time and place, and briefly thought he had just had his wisdom teeth pulled.  His tongue moved instinctively over and back, and felt the phantom depressions behind his molars, still there after all these years. 
     He blinked, and the details sunk back in, and he recalled the diner and the lobby and the hallway and sitting in the chair, and the two beams of white light.  The specula and restraints were gone, and the apparatus had been moved aside.  What had been done to him?  How long had he been sitting here?
     The creature moved into his field of vision.  “Ah, there you are, Messer Walpole?  All done.  Not so bad, was it?” 
     He could understand the creature now.  The strange sounds were words.  He just wasn’t used to hearing them so distorted.  It’s tone even sounded kind.  He understood now.  The creature was named D’glass Yeones.  He was an encoder. 
     And he belonged to the Fetonair species. 
     How did he know that? 
     “A large amount of information has just been downloaded into your long-term memory , Messer Walpole.  You might feel no different now, but it is all there now, and can be easily accessed just by you wanting to know something.”  D’glass Yeones  smiled.  “Provided you know it, of course.  Also, while you were out, we registered an identity for you.”  He handed Arthur two thin clear cards.  “This is your id card, and this is your crown card.  The id card explains who you are, your qualifications, your history.  The crown card is for economic transactions mostly, although the id card can be used for that as well.  The id card shows that you are now trained as an Executor, First Class.  Keep the id and crown card with you, but more can be ordered if these are lost.  You know how to contact us, of course.” 
     He offered his hand to shake, and Arthur returned the gesture.  D’glass Yeones hands were long, thing, and bony. 
     Arthur smiled nervously. 
     D’glass Yeones smiled back.  “Have a joyous afternoon,”  he said.

Book I: Part 12: Alison

    ‘You see, Miss Amberginnegan, with your father’s passing, he set aside a portion of his power, his legacy, his wealth, to you.   For the last three months, it has been … in a kind of limbo, if you will.  And the legacy has been set aside—protected—within these stony buildings, until the heir was found to come to and claim it.  Now you have done so, Miss Amberginnegan.  And under our protection, your father’s legacy has been passed on—to you.’
    Alison stared straight ahead. 
    Mosses continued.  ‘Now, of course, if you so desire, you are quite free to withdraw your legacy, and take it elsewhere, or attempt to manage it yourself.  Which of course, we here at Legacy Corps  would be perfectly understanding of.  However, as your executors, we are also happy to maintain and protect your various holdings, assets, and inventions, and will maintain all the ties that will ensure your fortune remains your own.’
      Alison’s throat was dry.  She swallowed, wetting her mouth, then spoke.  ‘How, uh, how much, that is, I don’t mean to sound greedy, but, how much is the, uh...legacy?’
    Mosses Meddleson rocked backwards in his chair.  ‘Ah, well, with a fortune this large, there’s no actual amount, just an abstract concept.’
    ‘Huh?  I’m sorry, I don’t understand.  How can money be an abstract concept?’
    ‘Well, it has a lot to do with the modern economy.’  Mosses Meddleson began pressing buttons on a console and took a remote control out of his desk.  ‘I have prepared a short visual presentation.’
    The lights in the room dimmed.  Along one wall a white screen appeared. 
    ‘You see, often people, corporations—or discorporations, as the case was with your father—earn money based on an investment, or by providing a service.  When income exceed costs, profit results.’ 
     On the screen appeared a stick figure, standing next to a drawing of a huge pile of gold. 
     ‘Some ways of acquiring profits are through patents, or inventions.  You register your invention with an enforcement agency, and then, as people use it—or apply it to other inventions—the enforcement agency makes sure they pay you a percentage of their profit.’ 
     The stick figure walked into a building with a sign reading ‘Enforcement Agency’ over it, then quickly exited, walking back to his gold pile.  Other stick figures appeared and entered the building, and arrows from the building traveled to the pile of gold, which grew larger and larger. 
     ‘As the invention becomes more and more ingrained in peoples lives, and more permutations are built upon it, The profits for the invention increase at a faster and faster rate.’ 
     A graph appeared, the y-axis labeled ‘profit,’ the x-axis ‘time.’  A straight line appeared upon it, headed upwards across the screen. 
    ‘The profits increase and increase, and if more inventions are created—and in the case of your father, many, many more inventions were created—they beget more and more inventions, and more and more profit is accumulated, causing not only profits to go up, but the rate of profit to rise as well.’ 
     Several more graphs, identical to the first, appeared on the screen, connected by plus signs.  They disappeared, replaced by a new graph.    
    ‘Here is a graph of accumulated profit.  The x line is time, the y profit. You see how the slope gradually rises over time, the line going higher and higher?  That’s due to the inventions becoming more and more ingrained in society, often so that we don’t even notice they exist, or they form...a kind of bedrock, upon which many of the tasks we perform throughout our lives are built.’ 
     The line on the graph began moving higher and higher, faster and faster, its slope curving, until…. 
     ‘Well, sometimes, all those accumulated growing rates, they keep getting higher and higher, as more and more profit is acquired more and more rapidly, until the rate of profit becomes so fast, the line becomes vertical.  And a singularity is reached.’
     The line on the graph went straight upwards. 
     ‘Profits has been accumulated so fast that the actual amount of wealth is infinite.  The magician's multitude of inventions are effectively a foundation of society, to the point that society as we know it, could not exist without them.  This singularity of wealth occurred for your father long ago.
    ‘Miss Amberginnegan, you are inheriting a portion of infinite wealth.’
    ‘What?’
    ‘Yes.  Quite exciting, isn’t it?’
    ‘What, uh, how much is a portion of,’ Alison gulped.  ‘Infinite.  Wealth.’
    Mosses Meddleson smiled.  ‘Why, infinity, of course!  Oh, Miss Amberginnegan, you are now one of the Kings and Queens of the City!  There are only 87 individuals in all of the City with as much wealth as you.  Why, you can purchase anything, so long as someone is willing to sell it to you.  Which means, of course, that you could theoretically own one eighty-seventh of all property in the city, if you were so inclined.  Maybe more, if you are ambitious.  Why, you can do anything! Anything any person could imaginably want to do, you can do.  Miss Amberginnegan, you are about to embark on a great adventure!’
    A monotone voice that seemed to come from nowhere and everywhere spoke over the intercom system. 
    ‘Attention residents of Legacy Corporation Towers,’ it said.  ‘We regret to inform you that Dadalus, the Winged Anarchist, is at present loose inside your skyscraper.  There is no reason to panic; Clockmen have arrived and are dealing with the situation.  However, it is advisable that at the present time you stay in your current location, and await further news.’

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.

Book I: Part 10: Sirius

   Sirius moved through cordoors and arkways and tunnels of steal, up rickety irony stareways and down rickety irony stareways, that clattered and clanged and screeched, until he came to his place along the assembilation way.
    This was where Sirius spent all his time, 10 hours a day.  The rollers spun and gears shifted along chains and fifteen minutes after the facttray fired up a black jagged shiny metal sumthing came down the line, and after  the persona ante him and the persona ante them and the person ante them and so on and so on put on a part, Sirius put on his.  He took his part from a large cruddy bin filled to the brim, at least at the begunning of the daze, and cranked it in place using a tool tied to the way.  He used the same tool at alltimes and put on the same part everytime, as did the persona ante him, and the persona ante them, and the persona ante them, and so on and so on and so on.  And so also acted the persona post him, and the persona post them, and the persona post them too, and so on and so on and so on.  Everyone took their part and put it on, and slowly, surely, the black jagged shiny metal sumthing turned into sumthing else, but what that was, Sirius had no idea, for by then it had sojourned down the curving way and out of view, and if Sirius ever bothered to stretch and stare, he had forgotten, and anyways the parting had traveled down a tunnel a little after that anyways.  He had worked in the facttray for three yeers, and for the life of him he couldn't tell you what, in all this time, he had been constructioning, what he was helping to bild. 
    "Redundancies," sed Krist, talismanically.  Krist was the persona on Sirius' right hand.  He was long and gaunt without having height, with yellow suncoloured hair reaching down to his ribs.
    "I hear," repped Sirius.  He put a part in place.
    "I don't cog where they plan to redudunate," sed Krist.  "It's not as if there is extra people on the way."
    "Maybe they plan to place one person on two parts," Sirius pined.  "Maybe all of us on two parts."
   "Nobody can act two parts," whined Krist.  "You can't be at two marks at once."
   "You can," mused Sirius absinthely.  "You just have to run around alot."
   "I can't run round like that," whimpered Krist.  "I get shehn splents."
   "Somebody can," shrugged Sirius.  "End of daze, they will still have a part to place."
   Krist was silent after that, minus mutters from moments to moments.
   Sirius didn't like to converse on the way anyway.  He labored on.
   "Fecunt," sed Mare, nearing noon.  Mare was the woman on Sirius' left.
   "What?" inted Sirius.
    "Mob is coming," repped Mare. 
    "Aye?"  inted Sirius.
    "Yo," Mare shrugged her shoulder towards the right, then placed on a part.  She was a short thin hoarsefaced gurl with midnite hair and ocean skin.  Sirius always cogged she was preddy, but couldn't pop to why.  He always mused how she kept up her act here, being so small and fragile innocentlooking.  The labor should have surely broken her.
    Mob Bentic, was coming down the way, placing an arm over the shoulders, and smiling in their ears, saying sumthing lost in the depths of the facttray noize.  Bentic was eight feet in height and  broad as some passageways.  He had the head and skin of a whale, and was burly and blubbery enough to match.  His mouth parted wide and wider when he spoke, and rows and rows of baleen emerged from vicious smiling blubbery lips, edging a maw like a cavern.  Sirius thought, time to time, that if he wished, Mob Bentic could make someone disappear down that cavern.  Someone like Sirius.  (Luckily, Mob Bentic only chowed really small things.) 
   "I guess they aren't waiting around to redundunate us," sighed Sirius, as he put on a part.  His hands were shaking.  Milkies always got drank first.
   Mob Bentic was soon upon Krist, wrapping him in a thick arm, and smiling his welling cavernous smile.  Sirius kept putting on his parts.  He couldn't hear what was being said—the facttray noise cycle had reached a volume zenith, buzzing like a billion bees—but when Bentic unwrapped Krist, the palegaunt looked like someone had stabbed him in the gut.
   Sirius stared down at the ground, through the grill, trying for disinterest.  People scurried below him, on other labors, labors he couldn't cog or collate.  Sumthing rose within him.
    Maybe it was just the hairs on his neck.
   "Sirius," sed the Mob's deep voice.  "Sirius, ma bookie.  How ya doin?"
   "Fine, sir, fine," sed Sirius.  He stared up, past the smiling cavern that seemed to beckon him, to the large emptycoal eyes above and beyond.  The coal eyes stared down at him, deep down past him, and in with the coal there was something that alighted with joy.  Mob Bentic loved his labor.  
    "Yo know," Bentic sed, warping his arm around Sirius, "I really like you."
    "You do?" asked Sirius.
    "Yeah," repped Bentic, squeezing Sirius in closer.  Sirius could smell the krills on his breath.
    "You don't spend all your time slackin off, or mouthin off, like some peeps."
    "No, sir."
    Extra squeeze.  "You're one of the good ones."
    "Thank you, sir."
    "How you like workin here, Mr. Sirius?"
    "I like it here just fine, sir," sed Sirius.  Then, thinking maybe this called for a little more punch, "this job has been very good to me, sir."
    It was a lie, of course, but sometimes Sirius needed a lie.
    "Good, good.  That's what I like to hear," sed Bentic.  He pulled up his chin, appraising the small whiteface before him.  "You milkies, maybe you is allright."
   Sirius closed his eyes brieflike.  "Thank you, sir."
   A pat on the back almost sent him spawling.  "You'll be here with us a long time, I hope?"
  "I hope so too, Mr. Bentic." 
  "Good, good.  Say, Krist over there, he isn't going to be working with us anymore, ya know?  We've decided to...part ways.  Right?  Do you think...maybe...you could start putting his part on, after the nooner?"
  Sirius was binded against the whale too tightly to look over at Krist like he wanted.  He was denied that act of selfflagellating, of witnessing. 
    "I...sure," repped Sirius.  "Sure, I can place two parts.  They're right in a row.  Easy."
    The cavern deepened.  "Good good," said Bentic is a low rumble.  Bentic sure did say good alot.  He parted Sirius with a final thunderclap on the back.  "Well, back to the millstone, eh?" he sed, and walked on to Mare.
   There were three parts now waiting for Sirius, and he labored fast and faster to get them all additioned.  He had to scoot over some, to make sure he put his part was on Mare's.  Mare was smiling meekly, mouthing latitudes down Bentic's maw, about being proud to labor here, being proud to shoulder a bigger burden, for the greater good of the company.  "Good, good," repped Bentic.
    Mare would stay.
    "So," sed Krist, after Sirius had caught up, "It looks like you made it to the other end of the daze."  There were bitters in his mouth.
   Sirius nodded mechanically, his face masquelike, not gazing to either side.  One was saved and one was condemned.
   "I get to stay behind," he sed.