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Part 1-14: Seconds
Its guts whirred and clacked, noisy and echoing throughout the room. It had a long, spindly second hand that moved at least five times too fast. Persi had her fists balled up around her face, staring. We all watched, frozen, as the hand arced through the numbers. I wanted to run up and open it up to check for a way to stop it, but remembered Persi’s warning about the latch. Dack may have had the same notion, because Deluxe yanked him away.
The second hand made a rotation, but the minute hand stayed put. Unable to say why, I knew this was a very good thing, and I didn’t need to hear Persi’s rushing sigh to prove it.
Then Willy sat straight up. His head did the budgie twitch again, finding me. I yelped and pointed, and Dack spun around, crowbar rising. Persi screamed and leapt up, but she was really slow at doing it, moving like an old lady. She’d never make it… but then I noticed that Dack and Deluxe seemed to be caught in slow motion as well.
Behind them all, the secondhand kept on spinning.
Willy got to his feet at normal speed, and I brought my flashlight up. It was a heavy duty one, almost a foot long. The lights faded. Or rather, the light. The whole room got dark, except for Willy. And the clock face. It hovered behind him like a low moon. I didn’t feel afraid, not in that moment. I felt ready. Every time we had opened a door or turned a corner in the office, I’d braced a little, ready to attack. Now I had him square in my sights, I was armed, and I was going to fuck him up if he got too close.
When the last of the light drained away, and there was only Willy and clock face, the secondhand slammed to a stop, pointing directly at twelve.
“What. Are you,” said Willy, in a flat, inhuman voice.
“What are you?” I shot back.
He looked down at his hands, flipping them over, squeezing them into fists. “I was this…” he said.
“What’s your name? Are you the clock?”
“I. Am Willy.”
“Bullshit. What’s your real name?”
“Name… Eden.”
“Great. Eden. What do you want?”
“Need, out. You, help.” It squinted at me.
“If you let Willy and Persi go, maybe we’ll help.”
“Per-simmon…” it said, eyes searching upward.
I waited. The thing in Willy did not move toward me. Its pose was relaxed. The secondhand began to tick, this time moving at a normal speed. Eden looked back at me.
“Tell me. What is… wifi?”
“The Internet? I don’t know! Signals, wireless signals. Deluxe knows how that all works, not me.”
“Deluxe.”
I kicked myself, mentally. Now it knew her name. I couldn’t think of any way that could be a good thing. I tried to reel it back away from thinking about her. “My name is Alena Bisk. I want to help, but you need to tell me what you are, what you need, and why you keep… blowing stuff up around town.”
“Explore,” it said. “Find… keys.”
“Keys to what?”
“Out. Free.”
I was running out of ideas. “Let me talk to Persi and the others. We’ll try to help.”
“Help.” It nodded. “Park with… water, lights. Wifi?”
“I don’t know what you’re on about. Say again?”
“Soon. Alena, Bisk. Very, soon.”
Then the room was back.
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