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 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 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.