Book I: Part 9: C4

    From the silvery glittering spires and semicircle stations of Central Command, C4 was referred to the Repairroom. C4 had been there before, on three occasions, and it had not changed in any appreciable way.
    After walking down one of the 36 long silvery hallways traveling outwards from the central axis he came to the room located at the end, a circular room made of silver (or really, disinfected stainless steel) with a ceiling rising up as high as a cathedral's, culminating in a single point, from which a ray of light shined directly down onto the floor's center. Radiating outwards from this single point, further downwards and outwards in the architecture of the ceiling, were set, equidistantly, twelve additional light sources, each as tiny as the last and each as powerful. Below each of these rays of light, just as equidistant from the center of the floor, grew twelve stainless steel stools, plus one under the center light, rising up seamlessly from the ground. Surrounding the perimeter of the room, about six feet from the ground, the wall gave disappeared, giving way to rows and rows of suits hung upon long curving railings. There appeared to be no floor below the suits, nor a wall behind them: just more rows and rows of suits, hung and pressed neatly, ready to wear. C4 wondered, for the first time, how far down the rows went, and how far back, and at the ends, who tended to them.

    The room was occupied. There was a little taskbot, racing around the floor, seemingly concerned with occupations nonexistent, and three automatons, similar to C4 in design, though nowhere near as hardy in construction as any Clockman, and built in the form of lithe human females. None of them were wearing any clothes.

    “Oh,” said one, walking up to him as he entered. “You eye is damaged.”
    And with that, she reached out, and gracefully plucked out his right eye.
    If C4 had followed his first reaction, he would have jerked backwards in shock. As it was, he had plenty of time to computate his response, so he merely stood there, patiently, as if such a violation of personal space was perfectly acceptable and normal.

    The automaton turned about, taking his eye over to one of the stools, which opened up to reveal a variety of tools and repair equipement. One of the others led him over to the stool in the center, where she and the third began undressing him. Soon he was naked, or at least as naked as you could be and still be a robot. Then they sat him down, and the third began taking off his leg. She took it over to a stool, laid it out, and began repairing it, using tools taken out from the insides of another stool.
    The second walked off to another stool, and returned in short order with a telepatheter.  She began scanning it over the surface of C4's body, smoothing out dents, polishing scuff and scorch marks, repairing any frayed or damaged wires, and checking underneath, inside of him, for errors in code.

    Sitting there, he began to feel nervous. What if the telepatheter picked up on what was giving him free will? What if the telepatheter corrected what was giving him free will? Was he about to lose what he had just found? Would all this shortly feel like some strange dream, some momentary lapse of reason? If it was gone, would he regret it? Would he feel his loss?
    He figured he would not, his programming would reassert itself and make him enjoy the removal of agency, tell him that the lack was agency was a good thing.  And he would believe it.
    The thought terrified him. He felt the strong urge to jump up and run, get out of the Repairroom, save himself, save his Selfhood.
    But what then? He was naked, and his leg was off. He couldn't run if he wanted to.

    C4 remained as still as a statue as the Telepatheter passed up and over his head, but inside he was screaming.

    Still there. Inside, he felt something shiver, like breathing outwards in relief. The female automaton continued her scanning, traveling down his left side now, and bending downwards in her concentration, as if nothing was the matter.
    He considered her, there, in his stasis. One of the aspect of humans, of the nonmechanical, of the free-willed, was a strange obsession with the forms of others. Of desire.  Attraction based on form. And here was a robot, based on a form that one with a form such as him own was supposed to find attractive. Sexual. Was there any such attraction inside C4?

    After consideration, C4 decided that there was not. Free will was one thing, biology was another, and there was no such animal influence upon his thinking.
    Briefly, C4 considered the things organisms got up to in their pursuit of such desires, and was thankful.

    His thoughts turned to his eye.
    He had not sensed anything wrong with it. He had thought himself seeing perfectly well with it. And his forcefield should have kept such debris out. Had his forcefield been malfunctioning? Some fluke causing electrical interference, perhaps? Yet his senses had been fine.
    Were his sensors damaged?
    Was this a side effect of free will, some unconscious ability to correct for errors in one's sensory factors?

    Or maybe the female automaton was malfunctioning. Had she seen something that wasn't there? If she was having such errors, which seemed so big, she would have to report to herself as malfunctioning.
    Yet he hadn't reported himself as malfunctioning, had he? Maybe she was like him. Maybe she had free will, and a side effect of that was making mistakes, getting distracted (don't get distracted, he told himself).
    Maybe he wasn't unique!

    Maybe all robots were like this.
    Maybe all robots, sooner or later, discovered free will, and then just hid it from each other, so that each robot could discover it for themselves. He pictured a world full of robots, each one hiding from the others that it had free will, afraid of getting caught. Every last robot living a lie. It wouldn't appear any different from the world as it was now, C4 imagined.

    “Telepatheter check complete,” said the second female automaton. “All systems running normally.”

    The first walked over to him from her workstool. “You eye is damaged beyond repair. Another millimeter in and it would have scratched your socket area, requiring intensive repairs. Would you like another model? A 34GY78, perhaps? Or are you comfortable with another 5426YN?”

    “A 5426YN is acceptable, thanks,” replied C4, a little taken aback. More intensive repairs. Undoubtedly they would have discovered the anomaly, whatever it was, in his programming, if they had had to poke around inside his brain. He had come that close to exposure.

    The third came back and replaced his leg. “There, good as new!” she said cheerily. Obviously this one had been programmed with a bit of personality. “Only minor replacements of parts were needed! Your clothes, they're pretty ruined. Did you want a suit in the same style again, or something different this time?”

    C4 allowed his eye, his remaining eye, to look up and scan about the lines of clothes. New clothes, new man...
    He suddenly had the intense desire to wear something new. The pinstripe yellow suit was not him anymore. He wanted to wear something dark, something...charcoal colored. That fit somehow, though he didn't know why. Yet if he changed his suit, because he had changed...wouldn't that be a sign? He would have introduced a sign of difference in himself into the world. Maybe nobody would notice this one, but...enough of them, over time...something might add up for someone some time. He would have to keep very close, within the margin of error, to avoid notice. If he started introducing new aspects of himself, he would have to keep them all straight always, and always act as if that was how he had always been, and any deviation from the self he was projecting, one congruent with both himself as he had been and the self he now presented, would raise suspicion.

    Better to always act as the person he once had been. The person he had been programmed to be.

    “No thank you,” said C4. He had been casual at times, had he not? “The yellow pinstripe again. And another boater hat.”

    The first female automaton came over and inserted a new eye, and the other two dressed him in an an entirely new set of clothes, every item identical to the last set of clothes. Even the boater hat was the same model.
   C4 straightened his collar and cufflinks, picturing himself in his mind by tapping into a freefloating SpecCam in the room.  He thanked the ladies politely, then walked out, past the veil of clothes, looking exactly as he had when standing on the walkway of Creaton Tower.

Book I: Part 8: Alison

     She ate scones and drank tea, and avoided looking at Mosses Meddleson.  His smile had faded into a worried look, the same type of expression her mother would often wear when hiding bad news.  Something about the expression made her uncomfortable.
    Finally, he spoke.  ‘Now, Ms.  Amberginnegan, do you know why I wished to meet with you today?’
    Alison returned the cup of tea to it’s saucer, held it still, nodded carefully.  ‘My father.’
    Mosses nodded sadly.  ‘Yes, Miss Amberginnegan, I am afraid your father, Allathir Amberginnegan, has past on.’
    He had already told her this, on the holograph card.  She kept nodding, not wanting to be rude.  ‘I know’ was all she could think to say.
    ‘I am sorry for your loss,’ said Mosses.
    She smiled, still nodding.  ‘Thank you,’ she said, and felt a little guilty.  In a way, she had never really lost anything, and was really accepting something given for something that wasn’t there.
    ‘Have you … learned how it happened?’ asked Mosses.
    ‘Uh, no.’  Alison set down the saucer; then began fidgeting with her dress.  ‘Nobody told me.’
    ‘Ah,’ said Mosses, leaning back.  ‘Would it be acceptable, that is, would you mind if I was the one to … relate the news?’
    ‘Oh, no,’ said Alison, effecting the tone of overdone sympathy she always heard others use in situations like this.  ‘That would be fine.’
    Mosses Meddleson sat back in his chair.  ‘Well, it is a mysterious thing, Miss Amberginnegan, and truthfully, no one knows exactly what happened.  What we do know is, about three months ago, they were bringing some fresh supplies up to the Oligard—oh, not food mind you. I am told the Oligard is quite self-supporting.  New materials … metals, and wires and such, I think, for the experiments—and they found the station empty.’
    ‘Oligard?  Station?’
    Mosses nodded, looking confused.  ‘Yes, your father’s space station—the Oligard.  It’s where he worked on all of his inventions. ’
    She searched for the word, but it meant nothing to her.  ‘Uh, right,’ she said. ‘Anyways, go on.’
    ‘Yes, well, anyways, the Oligard was completely devoid of life.  A thorough search was done of the premises, and no body was found.  Going off some of the information they found stored in the Oligard’s memory banks, they think either he atomized himself, or his mind moved past the point at which it needed a body.  Maybe both.’
    ‘They?’
    ‘The people in the employ of your father.’
    ‘Employed?  My father employed people?’
    ‘But of course.’
    This made no sense to her.  ‘But, how?’
    ‘Oh, very easily, Miss Amberginegan.  Anyways, no real conclusion could be reached as to what happened, and I am afraid the details are a bit murky, having to do with magic and all.’
    There was a tingling along the back of her skull.  ‘Wait, magic? What are you talking about?’
    Mosses Meddleson looked shocked.  For a moment Alison felt ashamed, and wondered what she had done wrong.  But then Mosses became gentle again.  The tension that had formed in her chest dissipated. 
    ‘Why, Miss Amberginnegan, has no one told you?’
    ‘Told me what?’ she asked, trying to sound as deferential as possible.
    Mosses gave her a charitable look.  ‘Miss Amberginnegan, do you know what a magician is?’
    And then she was nine, sitting alone cross-legged on the floor of a room in her mother’s house.  A small child again, gangly and wide-eyed, a VAST playing on the floor in front of her—Begal Bear and the Circle Gang Battle the Evil Angels—which she wasn’t watching.
    She held in her hands her newest entertainment, a Magic Eyeball, produced, she knew, having checked the box, by Appel Ionian Industries.  It was a smooth white orb, covered in a shiny clear plastic coating.  Faint red veins coalesced around an electric blue iris, encircling the dark void from which the Eyeball issued its answers.  She could ask it any question and it would give her an answer. 
    ‘Magic Eyeball, what number am I thinking of?’
    ‘Nine,’ it replied. 
    ‘Wow,’ she said, with childish wonder.  ‘How did you know that?’
    ‘The technology involved is entirely too complex for you to understand  the answer, so let’s just say I read your mind, shall we?’
    ‘Huh.  You’re pretty fussy for a ball.’
    ‘Well, I am really just projecting an engaging affect, and I think I am quite a bit more than a ball, don’t you?’
    She shook her head.  ‘How are you more than a ball?’
    ‘Alas, another question it is impossible for me to answer in full.  So let’s just say my functions exceed my size.’
    ‘So, what, like, you have more wires than fit inside you?’
    ‘Something like that, yes.’
    ‘Wow,’ said Alison, amazed.  ‘Who could make something as wowsome as you?’
    ‘Why, a magician, of course.’
    ‘Huh?  What do you mean? There aren’t any magicians.’
    ‘Yes, there are.  Haven’t you ever heard the terms used before>’
    Alison squinted into the iris.  ‘Have I?’ she asked, trying to catch the orb up.   
    ‘Of course you have.  The question was merely rhetorical.  You have, however, only ever heard the term used to mean “that which is impossible, but done.”  Indeed, that is the meaning meant to be inferred by my own name.  But the term has an additional meaning; “that which seems impossible, but is done anyways.”’ 
    ‘Oh, said Alison.  ’So, what’s a magician?’
    “A type of inventor.  A creator, designer.  The highest class of such people.  Those who make the impossible seem possible.  Masters of the mind, who learn how to alter matter, travel across time and space in an instant, read minds, see the future.  That sort of thing.’
    ‘Oh.  And one of them created you?’
    ‘Correct.’
     ‘Where?’
    ‘Alas, their greatness cannot be contained by this mundane world, and so many shut themselves away from humanity, to better concentrate on the glory of creation.  Some live under the sea, some under the earth, some high up in the sky.’
    ‘Oh.’  Alison found this astonishing, yet slightly disappointing.  ‘So I can’t meet a magician, can I?’
    ‘Well, no, not right now, but they are very near you, in a sense.’
    ‘What’s that mean?’
    ‘That would be telling.’
    ‘Huh, no fair!  You have to answer what I ask!’
    ‘Alas, my creator’s gifts have given me the will not to answer.  Would it make you feel better if I tell you that one day you will figure it out?’
    Alison glowered into the Eye.  ‘How can you be so sure?’
    ‘Well, let’s just say it’s an educated guess.’
    ‘Educated guess,’ she grumbled, and threw the Magic Eyeball across the room.
    The memory had stuck with her through the years.  Whenever the word ‘magician’ popped up, as a topic or casually referenced, she would flashback to that first encounter, just as she did now.  Over the years, she thought this odd.  The memory was not wholly remarkable on its own, but something about its ubiquity, its omnipresence, made the revelry feel, with each recurrence, more significant, more meaningful, than when it had first occurred. 
    ‘Yes,’ she said, slowly nodding her head.     
    ‘Oh, good,’ said Mosses Meddleson.  ‘You see, Alison, your father, Allathir, was a magician.’
    Her mouth dropped open.  ‘Huh?’
    ‘Yes, quite stunning, isn’t it?  That’s why you could never see him, you know.’
    ‘A, huh, a muh—really?’  She had been expecting the answer, to a certain degree, but the answer surprised her anyways. 
    ‘Yes.  And of course, you have inherited one of the largest fortunes in the whole of the city.’
    ‘I, I have?’
    Mosses nodded sagely.

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. 

Book I: Part 6: Alison

    ‘Miss Amberginnegan?’
     A voice was calling her.  She had been looking down for what seemed like hours now.  She wasn’t quite aware of the time.
    At 8:00 am she woke up.  There was a light rain, set to end at 8:35.  She engaged the VAST until 8:40, felt uneasy about spending time in an apartment she wasn’t earning rent for, left for the 8:45 cablecar to Legacy Corps Tower 1.
    The two Legacy Corps Towers rose high above the teeming mass of Section 49-FF.  They stood side by side, identical in appearance, except Tower 1 was black and Tower 2 was white.  They reminded Alison of giant chess pieces facing off against each other. 
    The Towers had four main sides that met at sanded off corners, making them octagons.  At various heights were sets of crystal-clear windows terminating in arched points, with ornate gilded frames that glinted in the sunlight, laying bare mazes of cubicles and scurrying office workers.  
    Level 1848 was a maze of offices, with employees rushing about in chaos.  She wandered her way to a central map, which shifted at the touch, adds playing in the corners.  She studied the map a few seconds, then took the shortest route possible to the Legacy Corps office.
    The first door she walked in came upon a spacious office room, outfitted in expensive furniture.  Sitting behind a desk placed to the right sat an a slender, fair-skinned man, with short purplish hair, the color of the woman’s on the holographone and slicked straight back. 
    ‘Hello!  I’m Janus!’ he said, waving towards a triangular stick on the desk with ‘JANUS TIRESIAS, Receiver’  emblazoned on the front.  ‘How may I help you?’ 
    ‘Yes?  I’m Alison Amberginnegin?  I’m here for an 11:30 appointment?’  She looked at the clock on the wall: 9:09. 
    ‘Oh, you are?’  The man typed something into a database.  ‘Oh! You are! Oh, you are quite early aren’t you?’ 
    ‘Yes, I....’
    ‘Well, you have almost two and a half hours.  Are you sure you don’t want to look around some stores?  The next level down, there are some lovely stores,  I could give you some suggestions...’
    ‘Uh, no thank you,’ she said.  ‘Is there a waiting room, I could sit in?  Or something?’
    Janus frowned.  ‘Well, I didn’t mean to be unfriendly,’ he said.  ‘It’s just that it’s an awful long time….  Well, I suppose….’
    ‘Well, look,’ he said, scooting his chair and leaning forward.  ‘Go down the hall, to the end, where there is an elevator.  Go up three stories, only three, not four—you can’t actually wait outside Messer  Meddleson’s office on the fourth, in fact most people don’t remember to come to this level, they try to go all the way up to the top office, but you can’t get a meeting with the director without going through the levels….  Oh, I’m sorry, I’m digressing.’
    Alison smiled meekly. ‘That’s ok.’
    ‘Oh, neat.  Hey, you should probably write this down.  There is a lot to remember.’
    ‘No. No, I’m fine.’
    ‘Ok, well...what was I saying? Uh, go to the fourth level, the third up, and when you get off, come back the way you came, this way.  At the end, there will be a fork in the hallway.  Go left and enter the door on the right.  This will be…’ Janus tapped something on his console.  ‘1851-08.  Do you need to write that down?’
    ‘No, no, I’m fine.’
    ‘You sure? It’s a very long number.’
    ‘No, no, I have It.  I’ll remember.  1851-08.’
    ‘Miss Amberginnegan?’
    Alison looked up.  No one was in the room.  ‘Yes?’ she asked meekly.
    ‘I am sorry to hear of the long wait you had.  Messer Meddleson is ready to see you now.’   
    Alison stood up and looked around, looked at the clock on the wall.  11:30.  The voice seemed to come from nowhere.  ‘Wh-where do I go?’ she asked.
    ‘Just walk through the door to your right, please.’
    Alison saw no cameras in the room.  Slowly she walked over to the door she had not entered from.  The wood swirls resembled satellite images of superstorms she had seen on the news last month. 
    She opened the door into a large, large room.  Doors were centered in three of the walls.  On the fourth, the one to her left, was a massive window.  Not all-encompassing like the one in the room she had left, but centered.  Its square gilded frame eventually curved inward as it approached the ceiling, coming to a single point, mirroring the massive dimensions of the room.  An enclosure that suggested infinity. 
    Near the window was a large wooden desk, much nicer than the beaten antique she had gotten from her mother.  Sitting at the desk was a man, dressed in a simple, plain black suit, suggesting a street ascetic instead of a businessman.  His face was identical to the face on the card.  As Alison entered, he jumped up and began walking quickly across the room. 
    ‘Ah! My dear, how lovely to see you! Hello! Hello!’
    ‘What?  How, are you?’ said Alison, confused. 
    ‘Oh, please, forgive.  How rude of me.  I am Mosses Meddleson.’
    ‘Aren’t you on the next floor up?’
    ‘The next floor up?  I’m sorry,’ said Mosses, his voice giving off great waves of anguish. ‘I don’t get your meaning.’
    ‘From that room,’ said Alison flatly, then cringed inside.  She was supposed to introduce herself.
    ‘From the…?  Oh! Oh, yes, I see what you mean.  It’s a portal.’
    ‘A portal?’
    ‘Yes.  You see, this door goes between the two floors, bringing you directly from one level to the next.  It’s a space knot.   I enjoy having easy access to more locations than I have doors.’  He laughed slightly as he said this.  
    ‘Oh, I see,’ said Alison.  Then remembering her mistake, ‘uh, my name is Alison Amberginnegan?’
    ‘Oh, of course!  I knew you from the first.  Excellent!  Wonderful to see you, my dear.  My!  What a pretty flower you are!  Your voice, it is as sweet, as a dulcimer.’
    ‘Uh, why, thank you?’ replied Alison, having no idea was a dulcimer was.  ‘Thank you for seeing me, too.  I mean, I am sorry if I am wasting your time.’
    ‘What? Oh, no!  My dear, the pleasure is mine.  Besides,’ he said, a twinkle in his eye, ‘I have all the time I can afford, and believe you me, I can afford quite a bit.’
    ‘Oh, ok.’
    ‘Come, come!’ he said, walking towards his large desk.  ‘Let us sit.’ 
    Alison followed wondering about the portals.  Mosses Meddleson seemed friendly enough, so she decided to ask.  ‘Um, with the portals?  What happens if people tried to entered the same room from different doors?  Would  their particles collide or something?’
    ‘Oh, gracious, no, nothing like that could happen.’  He gestured towards a console on his desk.   ‘The portals run on a switch, you see.  Only one door every actually opens up to my room.  The rest of the time the doors just open on the next room over.  Or a blank wall, depending on what’s there.’  He sat down in his chair, motioning for Alison to take a seat at one of the five plush chairs arrayed before his desk.  In the center of them was a small café table, much nicer than any she had ever seen before .  ‘Comfortable?’
    ‘Uh, yes, thank you.’  The chair was likely the most comfortable Alison had ever sat in. 
    ‘I pray your journey here was not too tasking?’ asked Mosses Meddleson, still getting comfortable.
    “Oh, no,’ said Alison, biting her lip.  Her mind once again replayed the events from yesterday.
    ‘So, what do you think of our buildings, yes?’
    ‘Very impressive,’ said Alison nodding, looking up.  The ceiling went up and up into darkness.  The room was lit only by the light from the window. 
    ‘They used to be temples, you know.  Religious centers.  Not for any particular religion, mind you, but all of them.  Many of the levels used to be church centers.  That’s why the ceilings are so high on so many levels.  Of course, the churches were all forced to flee to the lower sections during the first light age.  So we own them now.’  Mosses Meddleson stared wistfully at the ceiling.  ‘I think there is nothing quite like temples for setting up an office complex, don’t you?’   
    Alison spoke before she could stop herself.  ‘Oh, I was wondering about that.’ 
    Mosses Meddleson blinked.  ‘About what, dear?’
    ‘Uh, well,’ she started, staring at the floor.  ‘If the buildings are called Legacy Corps, and you guys are Legacy Corps, why are there other, I mean…?’
    ‘Oh, I think I see what you are getting at.  Yes, we own both buildings, and actually operate from several different areas on both, divided by department.  I think we take about 44 levels in all.  We rent out the rest.’
    ‘But, how can you afford two buildings?’
    Mosses Meddleson smiled smugly.  ‘Executing is a very profitable business, my dear.  All those contracts and wills to oversee, and the estates we run?  Yes, we take care of fortunes too, in fact we are planning on expanding that division.  Why, we have more than enough profits to purchase our own buildings.  Oh, have you eaten?  Would you like some tea, or scones?
    ‘No, no, that’s all right, I don’t want to trouble you.’
    ‘Oh, it’s no trouble at all, dear.’ Mosses Meddleson fiddled with something out of Alison’s line of sight.  A tray of scones, teapot, and teacup appeared upon the café table.  Hand-painted swans swam along the teacup’s base, looking much like the birds kept at the indoor pool on the top level of her apartment complex.
    ‘Oh, uh, well, thank you,’ said Alison.  She helped herself to a scone.  ‘I, uh, actually haven’t eaten yet today.’
    ‘Oh, you poor thing! Please eat up! Eat up! Why, you must be famished!  And let me know if you need anything more.  I can have anything sent for.’ 
    Mosses Meddleson leaned back in his chair.  ‘Yes, my dear, this company is very profitable.  But I try not to let it get to my head.  I like to think of myself as a, a humble shepherd, guiding my people’s property from one generation to the next.  How are the scones?’
    ‘Uh, very good, thank you.’
    Mosses Meddleson smiled.  ‘Orange and cranberry flavored.  Try the tea.’
    ‘Ok.’  She took a sip, a light one, afraid of the heat.  It made her think of the color green, of herbs ripening in the sun: stiff, yet covered in a fine layer of dew.  She had no real idea what it tasted like, though, no specific plant came to mind, but it felt warm, and calming.  ‘It’s very good.’ 
    Mosses Meddleson smiled.

Book I: Part 5: C-4

    The time was 11:00:11 am. 
    ‘What? No!’ he called out. 
    Dadalus had opened his wings.  The sudden uptake of air to blew him off course, throwing him into the side of a billboard and causing an explosion of flames, sparks, and electrical surges. 
    He fell downwards and outwards, back into the open air, and saw Dadalus above with wings fully open, gaining distance at an acceleration of 11.1 meters per second squared.  He wished that he had a jetpack. 
   He slammed into the forcefield alongside the building.  He bounced off the side, then collided with the forcefield again.  Then fell outwards again.  Luckily, his own force field absorbed most of the impact, but that didn't mean he felt very good.  He paused for a moment, and saw himself reflected in a building, falling downwards.  A reflection.  
    That was C4.  
    There he was. 
    And then he was gone.  The buildings were now enclosed in darkness.  He had gone past the reach of the sun. 
    The momentum from the last collision was pushing him across the void.  Dadalus was gone now.  The time was 11: 02: 00 am.  He calculated at what level he would fall into the force field next, which panel he would crash into, and reaching out with his mind, across current and waves and signals, all in an instant, he opened it up.
    He fell in through the panel, smashing into the ground, then bouncing along the floor like a tin can getting kicked down the street.  He skidded along the ground before coming to a stop, wedged face-first into a crevice in the far wall.  Excited confused voices erupted all around.  People started to form a crowd.
    Slowly he got up, shaken, and a little worse for wear.  His suit was torn and frayed, and his joints felt stiff.  But his personal forcefield had once again absorbed most of the impact.  Maybe his chest cavity was a little collapsed though. 
    The crowd was a multitude of organic organisms mulling about covered in various cybernetic attachments, lining a long street, lit in dim green lights hovering along an invisible path 30.2 feet above the floor.  Shops filled with similarly accessorized souls lined the interior walls.  Everything not lit green was blacklit.  Loud music assembled in machines filled the air.  A subterranean cyberrim: a playground for the idle experimenters of the higher levels, set lowdown to add a patina of authenticity too their play.
    “Hey, brother, you aces, or what?’  It was a person from the crowd. 
    Now, the proper response in such a situation would be to say ‘Move along.  Nothing to see here.’  Yet this time, he didn’t really want to do that.  Usually he just made the required calculations for a situation and followed out those conclusions.  What he had always calculated was that the condition of AI Inc. property is not the concern of some random passerby, and questions concerning it should not be considered or dignified with a response.  But that wasn't what he wanted to do.  This time, what he really wanted to do was answer the question. 
    But he wasn't supposed to want anything.
    Something was wrong.  
    He set the processors to work investigating it.  Now normally, whenever this process of self-investigation began, another part of his mind would decide to send a report to Central Command.  But this time that second part of his mind paused—because another part had already run another operation (one that he hadn't even been aware of, at least not until after the fact) and concluded that he might not want to do that.  Apparently, this third part picked up on what the first system had concluded, or had intuited what that part was about to conclude, which was that something was influencing his thinking besides his programming.  Another part deduced that this influence, was not being communicated from outside, or at least seemed not to be, and in fact, seemed to be coming from inside himself, whatever that meant, and not just from any particular place inside himself either, but from everywhere.  It was as if there was voice inside him, speaking, but without saying any words, and saying everything at once.  
    He wasn't quite sure, but he assumed that this sensation was what people meant when they referred to "free will." 
    He became frightened.  There was no protocol to follow in the case of becoming disinclined to follow one’s programming.  Then he began to feel exhilarated.  Not only did he not have to follow protocols anymore, he realized he had absolutely no desire to do so!
   He didn't want to do as he was told!
    Suddenly there was a voice in his head.  ‘C4, this is Central Command.  Do you copy?’  The time was 11:01:01 am.
    He Froze. There was no desire to obey, there really wasn’t.  He ran a couple of quick calculations.  If he didn’t respond, they would know something was wrong.  They would take him in, and analyze his brane, find the free will, and remove it.  Cut it out, cut away the strangeness, the charm.  He needed the strangeness, he knew that now.  Now that he felt this new way, the past felt like a prison.  Some sort of torture.  A precise, calculated, defined torture, like being immobilized from a organic neck injury.  But instead of one's body being paralyzed, it was one's mind.  Oh, how had he existed for so long like that?  He didn’t want to do any more calculations, but….
    ‘Yeah, guven, you all-right?’ 
    It was a second person from the crowd.  For a moment he froze.  The time was 11:01:02 am.  A second had passed.
    ‘C4, this is Central Command.  Do you copy?’ 
   He calculated what to do in his predicament. 
    ‘Central Command, this is C4,’ he said inside his head. ‘Please move along, nothing to see here,’ he said out loud. 
    ‘Are you all right, C4?’ said Central Command.  ‘The last anyone saw of you, you had jumped after The Pteranarchist.’
    ‘Hide it,’ he told himself.  ‘Act naturally.’
    ‘Failed to apprehend Dadalus,’ he said to Central Command.  ‘Fell over 3000 feet, but I am fine.’
    ‘That is quite the fall.’ said Central Command.  ‘Why did you jump after him, anyways?’
    ‘I thought it possible to catch up with him, due to his wings, and engage him in combat during freefall.  But the wind threw off my calculations.’  He fabricated a host of false calculations he had done in preparation for his jump, with errors in wind prediction pointed out. 
    ‘Well, just unlucky, then.  Good plan though.  It’s always hard to predict what the wind will do.’
    ‘Thank you.’  He did something close to sighing in relief, except that he didn’t breath, or display any movement at all.
    ‘Report to maintenance.’
    ‘What?’
    ‘You fell over 3000 feet, C4.  You are bound to have various damages.  They must be attended too.’
    ‘No really, I’m fine.’ No, no talking back!  Serious error!  Serious error! 
    Central Command sighed.  ‘What is it with you Clockmen and your tough-bot programming?  Like you don’t need check-ups and polishes.  Just get to maintenance already.  At the least your suit is a mess.’
    ‘Aw, quacks, it’s just a stupid clocker,’ said a pedestrian.  He had buzz-cut orange hair and wore a tattered sharkskin jacket.  He held hands with a women with blue hair and lips, wearing an orange dress.  ‘Let’s go, Mona.’
    People began to disperse.  He shuddered inside.  A trip to maintenance risked him getting found out.  But he couldn’t not go, could he?  That would lead to suspicion, especially now that he had been reprimanded about not wanting to go.  At least they thought it was programming.
    He took a step, and his leg locked in place.  He thought that might happen.  Well he couldn’t run off with a broken leg, could he?  
    Shazzers, had he really thought about running off right then?  
    Did he just use an expletive? 
    C4 shook his head.  What a situation.  The time was 11:03:33 am.  Before his thoughts had a chance to get away from him, he took a Bridge from the Cyberrim to Central Command. 

Book I: Part 4: Sirius

    Sirius Silentseven was awoken by the thundring whirl of heliocoppers flying past his window.  He twirled and tried to quiet his mind.  In a clutch of minutes his alarm would go off, and he would have to get up.  There was a lump in the bed pressing into his kidnee.
    The alarm went off like an airaid siren.  Eight o’clock am.  Sirius shook, then stretched out feebly and pressed the button.  For a moment he lay there, hoping to suspend time, just so he could rest a little longer.  But the knowing that he had to get up, had to go to labor, lay across the bed staring at him, digging its nails into his scalp.  Sirius crawled to a sitting position along the bed’s edge.  He held his arms and quivered. 
    Sitting up steadied him.  He tried standing.  He tip-toed up to the window.  It was spattered with mudd and allowed a draft.  He listened for heliocoppers.  Why were they speeding down the street this mourning?  Were they seeking someone?  Sirius wondered who they’d spirit away this time. 
    He was throwing time.  He turned from the window and beated for the toiling room. 
    The rainer water was too cold.  The warmer must have malfunctioned over night.  He could go a day without a rainer, couldn’t he?  He soaked yesterday, after all. 
    He watered his face and scrubbed his teeth.  The paste made him feel like gagging.  He tried sorting his head but the brush kept getting stuck, so he just ran his fingers through the furry patch and gave up. 
    All his clothos were dirty and lying on the floor in the corner of his room.  He pulled on a black gool sweater and black trowsers, laced up his boots, and headed to the kitschen to have a bowl of pourridge. 
    Static radiowaves drafted through the air from somewhere, playing an orgin tune.  Had he left that on all night?  He went to the cubbord, took out a tumblr and a bottle of Vitamen Compound, poured a glaass and drank it in a gulp.  Grimaced.  It tasted of sour churries and rotten tomates.  Back to the cubbord, for the pourridge box.  But the aftertaste was stealing his appetite, and anyways, he felt a little nauseous to begin with, not to mention bored with the tedium of actually making a thing.  He decided just to leave. 
     At the base of the storyway, entering the complex’s commons, Sirius stopped to check for his sendings.  No arrival yet.  Did he?—yes, he had time: 8: 29.  He paused against the far wall, prickly whitewatered granite digging through the sweater and into his skin. 
    A small light came on in his toob, a subtle red: countdown.  The colour changed slowly to orange.  Then—bamph!  His sendtube lit up a dark yellow, shining light all around him and onto the granite.  Arrival. 
    He stepped over to the toob. Forcing his thumb against the button, he noticed a slight click, and the toob popupped.  He reached his arm in, seeking for contents.  He pondered idly of the timer: a warning.  Lambasting you not to stick your arm in yet.  Teleportation.  Pop your arm in right before the shining starts and it pops up where the sending popped from (wherever that was). 
    The doorbell jijangled.  ‘Halloo, Sirius O’ Silentseven!’ carried a voice.  Sirius twirled, and who was presented but Aloysius Dignam, of the Mechanical Arm.  ‘And how arh yeh dis foine Lludday mornin?’  Dignam dwelled two floors up, in partition 515. 
    ‘Ello, Alloy,’ sed Sirius.  ‘It’s Dagday.’
    ‘Trulay?’ asked Aloysius. 
    ‘Yes,’ sed Sirius, twirled and scanning at his arm, still reaching in the sendtoob. 
    ‘Say,’ sed Alloysius, ‘Yeh wouldn’t happen to by any chance posses dis mournins wrapper, would yeh?’
    ‘Why?’ asked Sirius, his fingers curling around the wrapping.  It lay in the back, a thick roll atop the sparse cards lying flat along the bottom.  ‘You don’t mean to contest the date, do you?’
    ‘Nah, I wish to check deh odds on dis afternoon’s mechafoight.’
    Sirius spun his eyes, creating a corpseface.    ‘Alloy, don’t you know that those battles are always rigged?’ He shot the wrapping out of the tube, leaving the cards behind, and palmed it into the waiting mechanical clutches of Aloysius.  He could retrieve those later.
    ‘Dat’s naught deh point, Sirius,’ sed Aloysius.  ‘Of course deh battles arh rigged!  Dear robuts! Dey’ve ben programmed ta specifeyclay be capable uv oonlee cirtin tings.  Pit eny two robuts tageddur, and yeh can add up the strengths and waekenesses of dem, en make a purfaect praydiction of who well wen. Saymple as Algybra.  I should know, I used to work en a robut factray. Guessin on the winner es all a matter of knowin enough to make a correact educated guess.  Dat’s deh point.’
    ‘I mean more that the robots are programmed ahead of time that one of them should lose. By the Colliseun.’   
    “Oh, no!’ sed Aloysius.  ‘Dat’s naught deh case at all!  Deh Colliseun has money ridin on deh outcome of dare canidates! If dey wuz runnin it all, why would dey ever let dare canidates lose?’
    Sirius shrugged.  ‘To keep people from being suspicious that they run the whole thing?  If they allow themselves to win every time it would be obvious.’
    ‘Aw, now dat’s just Paranoia talkin. Beysoides, even ef dat is deh case, dare is probably a pat’ern to the wens and loses dat you kin use to make a proper praydiction.  It just changes the techneyck, dat’s all.’
    ‘Sure, have it your way,’ sed Sirius.  ‘Anyways, I have to be going now. Labor.’
    ‘Do yeh desire yeh paper back?’
    ‘No, that’s fine, you can keep it.  I would likely just junk it without pursing it anyhow.  Say, did you say you used to work at a robofactry?’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘Did you get redundanated?’
    ‘No, I Quet.’
    ‘Quit?  Whatever for?’
    ‘Yeh cen’t bet on deh battles ef yeh labor for deh Colliseun.  Rules.  But as soon es I wuz oot, I wuz able to, usin all the data I caught on deh job.  A greyt loophole!’
    ‘Aye, great,’ nodded Sirius in agreement.  ‘Anyways, I have to be along now. Labor.’
    “Oh, yeah,’ mumbled Alosius Dignam from behind the paper.  ‘See yeh.’
    Sirius walked out the door.  How silly of Dignam! To quit his labor just for the liberty to gamble?  And didn’t Dignam lose more often than not?  Now he was out a job, and out money as well!  Or did he hold another job now?  Sirius frowned at forgetting to ask.  He must have held another job, but then, Dignam was bumming a wrapping … maybe it was just a matter of simpleness?  Anyways, it was jestery to quit your job just for betting; what if nobody felt to hire you?
    Sirius passed by the bildung with ‘Verve the proles’ graffitied on the side in large red block letters.   He turned left and sped to make the trane.  When he boarded, many of the other passagers backed away from him, either altering cars or passing to the other end. 
    The trane started traveling. He stared at his reflect in the window: furry black hare rising from a gaunt face the colour of milik.  Thats what the peeps were afraid of.  Thats what all the peeps whispered around.  ‘There is something wrong with the milkies’ they sed.  There was no real, concreet ration that Sirus had ever listened, but he had his own theorems.  He diagrammed maybe it was something about the skin.  Its opaqueness.  Like clownface: paynt.  Corpseface.  Didn’t look close natured: almost opposing that.  And the hare was kind of animal-like.  Fur.  Sirius had spied other milkies around the City. Always small, withdrawn.  There was a kind of haunted aura hovering around them.  That could willy people.  But then, milkies never seemed to actually act anything, did they?  They werent even an impermeable species or subspecies, with definable behaviors or cultured traditions.  They just had some odd genes, was all.  An unspecified flux in the homo gene pond.  Nothing special.  Just one more brand of mutant. 
    So why them?
    His eyes shifted past the ghostly reflection.  Bildungs rushing in a blur.  Another shift in perspective, and Sirius imaged that the bildings were horizontal, and the trane was falling, down a long, long pit lined with steel, concreet and glaass.  With some billboards along the way.  He imaged his feet floating, his body in freefall, and the trane at any moment crashing forward….
    The trane came to a stop, and Sirius, not holding on tight enough to the handhold, lost his grip and fell onto the floor.  Someone heckled.  ‘Stupid, stupid,’ thought Sirius.  ‘You never pay attention.  Something bad always appens when you don’t pay attention.’ He scurried off the trane.  It was his stop anyways. 
    Another block to pass.  From far away, Sirius could already see the line forming outside the factray.  He heard the whirl of blades, and a heliocopper passed over the street, the blast of air flattening his hare.  ‘More Heliocoppers ?’ thought Sirius.   Was some company in the area renting their services? Maybe some local had gotten some threats.  Or maybe some in the area was harboring dissidents and non-persons: coppers were on patrol nogoods. 
    Sirius made it to the back of the line, and started to look for his id card, to make sure he had it togo.  Fred was in line right ahead.
    ‘Morning, Fred,’ sed Sirius
    “Morning, Seer,’ sed Fred.  Fred was a tall and lanky with lidded eyes, a chroaky voice, and yellowy skin.  ‘Hey Seer, you hear about the budget cuts?’
    ‘Budget cuts?’
    ‘Yeah, man, the budget, it’s getting cut.’
    ‘I thought I heard they were ordering more parts.’
    ‘Oh, they are, man, its just the men uptown think they don’t need all these laborers.  Redundancies are upon us, man.’
    Sirius hung his hed. ‘Fecunt,’ he sed. 
    ‘Yeah, you sed it,’ nodded Fred.
    Milkies were usually the first to be redundunated, after those with obvious personality defects. 
    ‘Oh, and anyone left by the end of the day has to work an extra hour, man.  No excepts.’ 
    Sirius nodded.  The line began moving.  People filled in behind him.  Fred started speaking past him to the laborer behind him, spreading the wraps.  The line moved quickly, and Sirius soon found himself in front of the greeterbot, which was reeding peoples id cards. 
    The entranceway was set dead center along in the bildungs front wall, like a mouth.  He held up his id card, and red light from the greeterbot's eyes danced across the its surface.  
    ‘Good mourning, Sirius Osiris Silentseven,’ it sed, from a cheery boomvox. 
    ‘Good mourning,’ sed Sirius, though the greeterbot wouldnt hear him; he entered the bildung. 

Book I: Part 3: C4

    The time was 10:54:31 am.  C4 was not facing the walkway.
    Photons traveled earthward, absorbed and reflected in various frequencies by metallic surfaces.  Water clusters observable in the human visible spectrum were swept along air currents in clusters high above.  Bodies defying gravity by manipulation of quantum forces traversed three dimensions along rigid geometric patterns.  Nonartificial organisms swarmed over surfaces of hardlight, metal, plastic and concrete in seemingly random patterns that could nevertheless be modeled, and predicted.  Vibrations of heat and light formed messages to be interpreted and processed.  A matrix of kinetic and potential energy , open to processing and interpretations. 
    C4 stood along the edge of the walkway surrounding Creaton Tower, overlooking the Mediatrane Chasm.  C4 stood below an ornamental lamppost, its light causing minute rises in temperature along C4's head and shoulders, with C4's hands clasped behind C4's back, staring outwards at the view.  Behind C4 streamed a chaotic mass of bodies, moving left, right, forwards, back, lacing through one another like colliding molecules.  C4 did not need to look at them directly.  C4 possessed advanced radar technology that rendered three dimensional models of their spacial relations.  Powerful audio equipment detected their conversations, heart rates, palpitations, adding an additional layer of data to the model.  Cybernetic receptors processed all electronically stored information originating in the walkers' bodies and appliances: pictures, music, conversations, movies, sensory records, biological manipulators, received and exported signals.  With this information, C4 knew the names, ages, locations of origin, species, basic habits and interests—and in some cases plans and goals and destinations—of every person who walked behind, making the application of visual information, the mere modality of color, completely superfluous to their observation, and thus much better applied to the walkway’s view.
    The rays shot down deep into the canyon, and the metallic orange tower opposite C4 looked built from sun-kissed sparkling glass.  C4 liked the way the buildings sparkled, admired the way the Laws of Physics played out to create something of aesthetic beauty, liked the way flying machines, rendered minuscule by the distance, flew across the vista, creating the sense of a continuity in their travels along their flyways, the way the external elevators and leechcars moved along the surface of buildings and rose and fell in deliberate patterns, the supple graceful curves of the towers that seemed almost grown instead of designed.  C4 like these things because C4 was programmed to like these things.  C4 had been programmed with a sense of aesthetics. 
    C4 also appreciated the cloud’s shadows, moving along while stretching down the lengths of the buildings.  The moving shadows registered as fascinating, though there was no specific algorithm which lead to the computation that this was so.  The precise explanation as to why it was such was elusive, as if the appreciation had merely been included in C4's hardware.  Perhaps it had something to do with what could cause such a huge shadow, as it was really only water in the air: the idea that the insubstantial could have an effect on something real.  But then, of course, they didn’t really have an effect, did they?  Just shadows: phantasmal absences of light. 
    In another compartment, C4 was analyzing the encounter with the man with the oddly colored hair in the cheap suit who C4 had caught staring at C4 25 minutes ago.  C4 was analyzing the man’s actions and calculating whether this was relevant information to report to Central Command. 
    C4 was a Clockman.  The Clockmen were the highest level of Autonomous Automaton¹. Clockmen, despite being a unique class of robots, all fulfilled a common function in the city.  Clockmen were Peacekeepers.  While such functions were not limited solely to Clockmen, marketing and word of mouth detailing the Clockmen’s exceptional attributes and abilities had made them synonymous with that profession. 
    All Clockmen dressed in well-tailored suits and hats. 
    Besides their faces, which each robot was allowed to customize to suite their designated personality, the Clockmen all had identical construction.  They were all specifically calibrated to be taller than those addressed without being explicitly imposing for the maximum percentage of city inhabitants, which resulted in them all being a height of 76 and 7/8th inches. 
    The deviations in appearance had been based on carefully conducted studies to make the Clockmen seem personal, but consistent, and distinct among the crowds. 
    The time was 10:54:34 am.  C4 heard a voice inside.  
    C4? it said.  
    Yes? C4 replied. 
    Situation Critical, it said.  
    What came next was a wide web of hypertext.  The information overlapped and unspoiled after entering C4's database in a single strand that, like a geometrically precise contour line drawing, folded over itself until it formed a distinct pattern, simulating four dimensions of information. 
    Time for a another Memo². 
    The web became a facet of the multidimensional database, a point jutting out from C4's brane.  
    The memo was constituted by a video recording of Dadalus, the Pteranarchist, landing on a citystreet, walking through the citystreet, walking into a diner, sitting at the diner, and harassing an occupant inside.  The occupant was obscured, just out of sight of the video recorder.  There was also information detailing the exact relation by the diner and street to C4’s present location. 
    The memo dredged up all of C4’s files concerning Dadalus, who C4 had never seen before in person, as well as all programming relating to Dadalus.  C4 switched to High Alert Mode. 
    The time was 10:54:35 am.  C4 bolted instantaneously, running through the street, yelling ‘Disperse! Disperse! Official Concerns, disperse!’  
    As C4 ran, files explained the shortest route to Dadalus’ location; it was on C4's level, one building over, on the other side of the building from his initial location.   
    While approaching the opposite side, C4 saw that the holograph bridge joining the two was packed with people moving in both directions, their density slowing their pace to a crawl.  C4 was just now receiving this information.  C4 cursed the satellite relays.  You would think they could get everything in at once, but there is always some lag at some way station or other³!  It would take too long to nudge through the people on the bridge.  
    C4 sent out a signal to the force panels along either side of the buildings to temporarily shut off.  The time was 10:57:49 am.
    ‘Disperse! Disperse! Official Concerns, disperse!’  Continuing to run towards the brink, C4 calculated the physics of a jump, across 110 feet, onto an level surface. 
    The time was 10:58:05 am.  C4 reached the edge, and at the last possible moment jumped.  Putting all required force into the jump, C4 swept up into the air, and out, over the gaping whole below.  C4 considered how far down it went, on and on below, while traveling up and up, then paused for a moment in air and began to descend, falling down and down, the wind echoing up against legs, a primal hollow howl. 
    And then C4 felt himself hit a hard surface, and roll, so as not to break the ground, across the far street.  C4 heard screams, and intakes of breath.  Then C4 was up and coming out of the roll and into a run with graceful precision, and then was off again. 
    ‘Disperse! Disperse! Official Concerns, disperse!’ 
    The time was 10:58:41 am.  C4 felt sensors heightening.  His systems were running at 95% of maximum, to prepare for the battle coming ahead.  C4 had to be ready for anything with Dadalus, ready with a million contingencies plans, ready to act at a moments notice.  There was no way to predict exactly was the Pteranarchist would do.
    The time was 10:59:06.  C4 was rounding the building and coming upon sight of the diner.  ‘Disperse! Disperse! Official Clockmen business, disperse!’  He was upon the diner! 30 feet.  25.  20.  15. 10...
    Dadalus jumped through the window of the diner and dove off the edge of the building.  The time was 10:59:45 am. 
    ‘No!’ yelled C4.  C4 followed, jumping right down after him. The time was 10:59:47 am.
    Thirty-two.
    Thirty-two.
    C4 was counting the seconds.  Dadalus had two seconds on C4, exactly.  C4 found it eerie how precise the timing was.  That was three sets of 32 feet per second.  Every second, C4 fell 32 feet more than during the last second, and Dadalus became 32 feet farther away. 
    Thirty-two.
    Thirty-two.
    Lights from billboards flashed around him.  C4 felt as if on a pathway, leading immediately towards some final point, but with numerous routes available to reach it. 
    Thirty-two.
    Thirty-two.
    Below was the Pteranarchist, just out of reach, it seemed, yet the distance was growing.  If C4 could just grab his boots, maybe something could be done. But they were both accelerating at the same rate, and the Pteranarchist was falling away.  The wings were closed, and effected his fall not in the slightest.  If he would just catch the wind right, maybe twitched a little, C4 thought, I will have him.  But the gray wings and boots remained out of reach. 
    Thirty-two.
    C4 decided to shift concentration away from the feet below, to think of the other things.   C4 started looking at the billboards.  C4 found them boring, having no interest in products.
    Thirty-two.
    Thirty-two.
    They fell deeper into the ravine; daylight was leaving them behind.  Like entering space, but going in, not out. The light of the billboards, the electronic luminescence, became starker in the absence of the natural. 
    Thirty-two.
    Falling faster now.  The billboards became indistinct, abstract. Bleeding streams of light passing by.  C4 tried thinking of them as separate entities.  A part of C4's brane began counting them.  The feet lay ahead. 
    Thirty-two.
    3.14 x 103. Odd.  A very close number.  C4 passed a billboard that had been short circuited, a very rare occurance.  Irrational. 
    C4 decided to count the light streams.  Number of light streams divided by number of possible light streams…added to the total number of billboards equals…
    Thirty-two.
    The number was pi x 103 to the 103^rd digit.  Somehow.  Maybe.  Was there an error?  For a moment C4, contemplated pi.  For a moment.  The time was 11:00:00 am.
    Thirty-two.
    Opening up before the viewpoint of C4's consciousness was a perfect circle: the kind that can only be imagined.  Its image fixed C4 in place.  C4 understood precisely where before lay the circle's center.  C4 fell towards it.  C4 felt the center grow nearer, and as if came forward, the circumference receded.  It occurred to C4 that the exterior of the circle was false anyways.  A lone border, imaginary.  No thickness, no consequence.  You could be outside it or inside it without moving.  But a center, a center you could find, it was always there: calculated from what was without, and from what was within.  Within a certain space.  The center grew larger and larger.  C4's being spring out from the center of C4's self, growing out, surpassing C4, going beyond.  C4 felt the form—no, not the form, only the cages upon the true self, not this crude metal shell—grow beyond, surpassed by the center which surpassed the circumference.   The circumference shrank into nowhere and the center expanded out into everywhere, point and border turned upon each other in an event horizon.  An infinite loop, inwards and beyond.  A mirror reflecting a mirror reflecting a mirror....  It was so clear now!  An illusion!  Only an illusion that needed not be followed!
    Thirty-two.
    The time was 11:00:01.  C-4 felt as if he was going to explode. 


     1. In The City, there are two major classifications of robots; Androids and Automatons.  Androids are robots made to seem humanlike in appearance.  They range from basic machines with plasticine skin to constructs so intricate and complex they bleed, have organs, and can reproduce: basically silicon-based life forms.  Automatons are very evidently machines, and go from vaguely human-shaped to a manifold of outrageous, but functional, shapes. 
    The Autonomous classification means the robot is endowed with Independent Thought Processors.  Non-Autonomous robots have no distinct personality and are either aspects of a larger hive mind or golems receiving all commands from an outside source.  Though Clockmen routinely share information and files with fellow Clockmen, and receive orders from a central authority, they each have distinct personalities and are permitted to carry out their instructions in whatever method is allowed within the strictures of their Personality Programming.
     2. A Memo, in Clockmen jargon, is a set of instructions from Central Command and the accompanying data to put the instructions in context and aid in their efficient performance.  Encoded in memos’s is usually a set of instructions which confer a certain duty upon the recipient.  It is often the case with Clockmen that these messages needed not be stated explicitly in the memo, as most memo’s  contained information that force a Clockman to follow prior Programming.  
    3. For the purposes of interrogation and personal interaction, Clockmen are programmed to synthesize emotional states.