“This was checked later of course,” the detective went on. “It all turned out to be just some kind of small blunder in spawnpoint placement. A regular spawn, the system said, just a bit misplaced from a garage nearby — exactly sixteen feet, which should tell us that whoever did this was either British, or American.”
“It means nothing,” Ben said.
“Please hear these two old men out, young man,” Inspector Braggs stopped him with a gesture. “So the next miracle is, the entire route his car undertook is binary, all adding up to a course that seems to be drawn with a ruler. Ideal lines, ideal angles. And then, he goes straight through a boulevard, a pedestrian area which was open to hunters, of course.”
The Inspector pursed his lips in visible distaste, and then the detective went on: “So naturally, his dinosaur of a car mows down a lot of innocent people, tens of citizens and visitors despawned and kicked the hell out of the Web. So naturally, the local quote unquote policemen receive an order: stop this car, bust the guy, score some points, the regular gameplay routine so far. So these make-believe cops pull out en masse and build a roadblock in the offending vehicle’s way. Can you guess what happens next?”
“He busted through the roadblock,” Ben said. “His car was quite heavy.”
“Worse than that!” Detective Heart shook his head. “He mowed down a few make-believe cops in the process, went right through ‘em. So the next thing you know, there was an APB on him, the choppers, the National Guard, everything. And they had him cornered near the nightclub, where you saw him. There, he suddenly disembarks, takes a potshot at a helicopter, and a sniper removes him with a clean headshot.”
“This I saw,” Ben agreed.
“So guess what’s next,” the Inspector said. He nodded at Detective Heart. “They never found the sniper.”
“Not just that.” The Detective shook his head. “Another miracle. There’s no murder, either. No one died.”
“Didn’t you find a… a corpse?” Ben asked.
“Well, the point is, the Baron’s corpse was an empty ragdoll. A prop,” Detective Heart said. “We checked the database, and it says no one even controlled this ragdoll.”
“Of course this is what a dead body is in the Dreamweb, a ragdoll that despawns after a while,” the inspector added.
Ben merely stared at him. “So the Baron was what, a zombie?” This made no sense. A crime world of New York, with zombies? Ben would never think something in the Web would reek of such poor taste. But what if it was an Easter egg of some kind? A one-time event of sorts?
“There was no Baron in this part of the Web,” Detective Heart said. “He wasn’t in NYC at all. He disappeared from his own mansion, in Albion, Clockworld, two hours before you saw him. He never reappeared on American servers. There’s no trace of it.”
“Hm,” Ben said. “So how can I help? I have no idea what’s going on.”
“Ben.” The Detective propped his hands onto his knees and spoke to him in fatherly manner: “A few hours ago, you received a large transaction in an unknown cryptocurrency which seems to come from people you don’t want to be affiliated with. You’re a business owner, and although crime doesn’t exist officially, illegal things do happen to some private entrepreneurs who won’t sell out. This is a well-known fact. It’s in human nature.”
“So please tell us, Benjamin, is business any good these days?” Inspector Braggs asked.
Ben thought of telling them about Mr. Reaper, then changed his mind. The cops, even though these ones were real, didn’t seem to care about Daphne. And, whoever this fellow in hovershoes was, he did know about Ben’s girlfriend. They thought his business was in danger, and Ben knew this danger was nothing new… not like Daphne being gone, though she was possibly one of the “spooks,” maybe the only one entrusted with the Baron’s disappearance. This was worrisome enough. He couldn’t afford to let these policemen interfere.
“Business is not good,” Ben said. “I did have a good sale though. A Harley and a Triumph. That must be the cash you mentioned.”
“Well, technically, the cash is — ” Inspector Braggs started.
“Anyway,” the Detective interrupted him. “Please let us know, Benjamin, what’s next? Do you plan to keep earning money somehow?”
“Actually, I did plan something,” Ben said. “Gonna find me some work in Clockworld, at Royal Fusiliers.”
“That’s Albion? Splendid!” the Inspector smiled.
“You do that, Benjamin,” Detective Heart said, eyeing Ben with attention. “You do that.”
“Look, so what’s the official version?” Ben asked him. “Was it a murder? Is the Baron dead?”
“The most perfect version that fits,” Inspector Braggs said, “is this: the Baron was killed back at his home, which also happens to be in Clockworld. So this is quite a coincidence we’ve got there, huh?”
“Was he also with Albion?” Ben asked, ignoring the inquisitive tone.
“In fact, he still is,” the Detective said. “Unless you lied to us about your affiliation with the Church. It’s their official version. They claimed responsibility for the Baron’s murder. Except this one is hush-hush.”
Ben remained silent. He didn’t believe the cop anyway. He checked the news on the mirror every morning while chewing a mint stick and shaving, and never saw anything about Faith claiming responsibility for the Baron being gone. A cop is not your friend, Ben remembered his father’s street wisdom. Perhaps this local inspector and this American potbellied sleuth were trying to play him in the end.
“So they killed him back at Clockworld, and then again in New York?” Ben asked.
“I do admit it sounds crazy,” Detective Heart said. “So the second version is this: someone erased all traces of the Baron’s stay in NYC. This, along with the spawnpoint that moved, assumes great hacking skills. Now, a hack, a malware of any kind, is something a computer could remove only if a human points the finger. Otherwise, the computer will miss it, because said malware becomes a part of its AI, and the first thing it does is make the AI believe it’s inherent to it. This, however, is out of our jurisdiction. All we can do is isolate every contact Baron Plunkett had, and process each one, and make sure the person doesn’t have hacker connections and wasn’t found connected to Web hate or DC hate crimes, this kind of thing.”
“I see,” Ben said. “Well, I told you everything I know.”
“We know.” The Inspector nodded, suddenly with a friendly smile. He held out a plastic caller ID card to Ben. “Call us if you remember anything else, anything at all.”
“And do find a paying job,” Detective Heart recommended.
“Uh huh,” Ben said. “I’ll be going then?”
“Please do stay in touch,” Inspector Braggs said. “Let me show you out.”
The rain outside changed to a slow, steady patter, heavy drops falling from above like little bombs. Ben looked on at the endless wall of concrete project buildings forming a wall and sighed. It seemed like he’d been left all alone in both worlds now. And he had no idea what to do, except for the job at Royal Fusiliers he’d told the cops about.
He had to try this Clockworld thingy at least once, he thought. In case they checked on him.
Chapter 4: Crowd Control
I told you the world went down the drain on Sunday night, November 22nd, 2099 — this is because I was there right from the start, I saw all the pieces of the puzzle; I simply lacked the skill to put them together.
For most people, the real trouble happened three weeks later, when it was Christmas in Clockworld, and the decorations were already hung in the Wakeworld as well.
My New Soho bed had a canopy peppered with stars, and of course, there was the Moon, this one a crescent; and there were Zodiac signs all scattered here and there on the silk. I had no idea what Daphne’s Zodiac sign might be. I lost her two weeks ago.
So I still woke up to the Moon, but now there was no water, just the pleasant
heaviness of my heavy blanket. Everything in Clockworld was pleasantly heavy. It’s what most of the European Web looks like. The world of physics, basic mechanisms weaved into more complex mechanisms, ad infinitum.
So my breakfast was prepared for me automatically, a toast popping out of a fat spring-loaded toaster, a fried egg sliding down a pipe into my china plate — and it was all very English, in this part of Clockworld named Albion, a British Museum of a virtual country.
What was also valued here is time. The more of an automaton you were, the more surplus cash you were raking up while rolling with Albion. My fat mechanical clock was built into my wallet, which had a small purse my earned bitpounds spawned into, heavy coins of red gold, heavy and pleasant like nothing else.
The coins were kept in a leather part of the wallet, but the spring-driven part of it was mostly a metallic thing. It had many compartments: you press a button, and a stack of cards pop up, sort of like Tarot Cards.
Royal Fusilier
You are a member of Royal Fusiliers, the backbone of Albion’s brave and dedicated army.
+30% to earnings for employing your Social and Mechanical skills
Yep, that’s my faction card. The artwork is pretty great, I mean, the thing looks mysterious and promising, slightly worn, just enough to feel like a rare possession.
Tired
-1 to Productivity and Reaction
This is another, with artwork in dark velvet, a mechanic wiping sweat from his brow inside of some clock shop, lots of intertwined cogs, gears, and bridges in the background.
Yep, that’s me alright.
I work in a vast workshop under the Royal Keep of Queenstanding, in a huge rat-infested cellar (the rats never show up but you can always hear them scuttling around, and it’s a distraction, extra-challenging. The Royal Fusiliers are all about extra challenges.)
What do I do? Oh, I work on Knightwalkers. It’s like a set of armor which makes your sword fall with as much power as a windmill blade (and the pilot inside a walker may actually make it flail its arms around like a windmill, cutting down small unarmored targets like weeds). The problem is, such a walking suit is an intricate thing. All the windup weaponry is useless against them, all of the blades and projectiles will merely bounce off. The most primitive stuff, however, the savage stuff like massive rocks and clubs and battering rams to the chest — these things are bad for a Knightwalker, if not outright lethal. This is why you want to keep those savages with clubs at a distance. Which involves booby-trapping the walkers with all kinds of hidden and attached machinery. Jury-rigging them all to the armor and winding them all up is a terrible, mind-consuming, boring routine. This is how they recreate the true hard menial work in the Web, by making it a boring grind.
It would be an insufferable job, a Royal Mechanic, if not for the fun benefits smartly woven into the crafting routine. Each trap you make must always be something new, and you must make each one of them a lethal surprise, either all by itself or given the Knightwalker’s deadly presence. I once came up with a thing that coughed pepper, disabling those bloody savages who got too close, allowing the Knightwalker’s pilot to react, windmilling and shanking them all like lettuce.
Here’s the crafting recipe for this one, and here’s an Inventor card I received as an achievement:
Pepper Bomb Launcher
Blinds enemies in the blast area
Radius: 6 feet
Inventor
You contributed to the list of items available to your faction!
For your mechanical inventions, you are rewarded with a permanent bonus.
Kinetics +30%
Speaking of lettuce, there’s also the Pit, which does smell of rotten cabbage. The Pit is where we, simple mechanic boys and honored inventors alike, hang out after we booby-trap us some self-propelled walking armors. The Pit is the place where illegal machines fight. The way this happens is, you nick some small parts at work, all kinds of springs and spindles and gyros and whatnot — for the armors, you normally need much less than they supply you with, if you know how to optimize your clockwork solutions.
I learned a lot of things in here, during my two weeks spent in Queenstanding, Albion. It helped me to get my mind off Daphne. Or at least, I wanted to believe so by now.
This day, I woke up as usual, threw back my blanket, and soon walked out of my flophouse — well, a stylish Victorian mansion of a flophouse — into the street, which, one of my fellow mechanics told me, is very typical for the northern part of Albion: all cliffs, gnarled trees, and circling crows; a clockwork and stonework town built on top of wild rapids spinning its many wheels. Here, in the north, is where the virtual British Empire’s smoking heart is. Queenstanding is its left ventricle, and New Soho is the most artistic part of its insides. The streets in here are pretty neat, all gardens with red flowers in bloom, and towering oak trees, and long copper chimneys with all kinds of energy-trapping gimmicks and weather vanes attached to them.
My working place, the Royal Keep, is just down a street full of red brickwork and square windows. This architecture was chosen as very authentic and atmospheric according to a real Brit, but I find it merely sad and boring. Still, it’s fun how I started to appreciate the Wakeworld better. I went to a park, even. But that’s a story for another day.
By the way, unlike the New York reality, Clockworld does have a day-and-night cycle — the sonopsychologists can’t seem to agree on what’s better for you anyway, to dream of night lands or to dream of sunlight? On me, the difference is lost altogether. It’s fun to watch the pink smears of aurora reaching through buttresses of a high stone wall surrounding the Keep. The lands to the South of us are wild, everyone knows that. Naked barbarians — actually, mostly little kids who visit Clockworld simply to bash things around — are dangerous enough to make a decent adversary for the Fusiliers.
There were also talks of an Assassin raid not long ago, coming from the Crescent. The spies spoke of it, but it never came. So the trouble with the Crescent, the Sultanate’s virtual twin hosted in Turkey, was expected — Janissary, the feared elite troops of the Crescent, were by no means barbarians, despite their wild nature, and the Assassins included the best of their kind.
So the battlements were well-manned even this early in the morning, packed tight with ballistae and anti-siege cranes and tar topplers, every murder hole swarming with crossbowmen. They said all of this was new, the mobilization. Everyone in the Pit, just yesterday, was excited if a bit scared — Clockworld was an honest world, and it punished you hard in physical way, and did it with pleasure. I was stabbed in a dark alley once, when I decided to explore the New Soho at night, and I can tell you I never want to feel a poisoned dagger stuck between my ribs again.
This part was nothing new. Crime was a must. England had a massive criminal history, with many powers represented, and spawned many fun things like rhyming slang, so of course they had to have such a thing in Albion, lest it feel inauthentic. So the streets of New Soho, like the streets of virtual New York, are ripe with all kinds of brigands at night, and no house is safe from thieves. I even thought this was exciting, until that dagger.
Even worse, here they call themselves “murtherers” and converse in Shakespearean English. It’s their criminal fad. They rake in cash for every silly quotation from Macbeth they mutter as they stab you in the back. All of it is just creepy. The New York crime is better for you in my opinion.
The same street I followed in this morning light, I followed every night for the last 15 days, 17 hours, 15 minutes, and 20 seconds. And 102 milliseconds. In Clockworld, the perceived time is all wrong, so you always know the real world’s time, down to its every fraction. And this is not delivered straight into you head, either — the exact time presses on you from all sides instead — there’s a clock face built into everything down to a Rosetta stone, which is found above every second door.
I like these quiet morning walks to the Royal Keep — they help me relax and remember i
mportant things, for instance, the disappearance of Daphne, and the police visit, through a thick cushion of a lucid dream where everything is only half-serious. I have self-wound springs waiting for me around my work bench, coming in little ornate boxes and big riveted ones, of every size. Self-wound, that’s allowed by the local laws of physics. It’s needed for fun, this small trick with energy. Fun is dosed very carefully in Clockworld, or at least in Albion. Educational value is the priority here. Or bashing things, something called “hunts” or “sports”, their “cyber-“ prefix mostly omitted. Self-wound springs are a fine simplification. All local food represented by fried fish and fried potatoes — is not.
Fish and chips though, the humble subjects of the Empire should have in great abundance, and as I approach my place of work, which is found under the north-eastern watchtower, the smell of frying grease replaces all other smells in the street, and I have to make my way through sticky and wet clouds of emanations rising from many frying pans seeking clients along the sidewalk.
This is the problem with too much tourism, especially from countries where people love greasy fast food or something fishy and yellow. The quality goes down, in any world they swarm. It’s not hard to scavenge around for the parts for a primitive automatic stove and grill. Then, you don’t have to move a virtual muscle, either — you just sit by the stove while it churns out fish-and-chips, a burnt slice after a burnt slice. All you do is maybe throw in a couple new fillets once in a while. But otherwise, by doing nothing except for sitting by a street stove, you cosplay a street cook. Roleplaying is one of the four basic ways to make money on the Web, remember? Also, sports, erudition, and crafting.
Crafting is what I chose. Siege machines, the heaviest kind. Even the repair jobs on a catapult, or a crane, or a walking tower spraying automated crossbow fire — even small tinkering with these behemoths pays off huge. The problem was, before you’re a Master Mechanic and you can even get such a job, you have to make a name for yourself as an Apprentice Mechanic. This means low pay, working in the basement, invisible ever-scuttling rats, and booby-trapping self-propelled armors forever.
Enter the Clockworld Page 8
