Tempus Clausuris (2)

Part Two:  And this is where you get off.


     "Creative structures," sighed Bernie, reviewing the latest animations with undisguised contempt.  "Basically, they're showreels for when they fuck off to Warp Zero.  Or Blizzard.  Or...anyone else who'll have 'em."
     Mick nodded.  "I hear your pain."
     "The thing is," said Bernie, "I totally get why they're doing it.  They know we're picking two of 'em to handle virtually everything Cutter wants done on the AV, and the rest of 'em will just have to float 'n' hope when they get the sorries and goodbyes."
     "You realise that Cutter doesn't have much choice about it, right?"
     "Doesn't stop me hating the system, but yeah.  Powerless dickwad.  I get it.  Hang on, what the fuck's this?"
     Mick glanced across at Bernie's monitor.
     "Woo.  What is that?"
     Bernie checked his paper manifest.
     "Sara Ryland.  She submitted late.  Jesus.  That's...involved."
     They watched for another ninety-six seconds in silence.  Then it ended.
     "Get her on the 'phone," said Mick.  "Seriously.  We need to bring her in."
     "I don't think we've got her number," said Bernie, flicking through paperwork.  "Shit.  Just an e-mail address.  Should we check with Cutter?"
     "Come on," groaned Mick, "You know exactly what he'd say."
     "Yeah, but...he's gonna want to see this."
     "Then we'll show him," said Mick, "But first, run it again, and...send me her e-mail address."
     "Really?" asked Bernie.  "You want to take a shot at this?"
     "Call me crazy," said Mick, "But I think this is one of those...divisional moments."
     As they watched the animation for a second time, an element of psytrophic animensis passed through the accepted matrix into their perceived reality.  Mick sensed it first.
     "We need to talk to Cade."
     "What?  Who?"
     "Huh?"
     "Who's Cade?"
     Mick shook his head.
     "Jesus, I think I'm going to have to Google.  That's never happened before.  E-mail her, get her in here.  I need to go and...sort some things out.  This is good."
     Bernie watched him leave, somewhat unsteadily.
     "No argument here, dude."


To be continued...

Tempus Clausuris (1)

Part One:  Why the long face, Mister Horse?


It had been a long time, and she couldn't deny it.  Lesser souls might've termed it 'decimation', but her innate devotion to the precision of grammatical precepts had knocked that particular descriptive on the bonce with little or no mercy.  "History is everything, Miss Ryland.  Everything with a pinch."
     She still heard his voice.  Here, there, and everywhere.  Much of it, she knew, was an illusion born of frustration, originally engendered by the cruelty of enforced separation.
     "We're going on a journey, you and I, and none of it foretold, nor predestined by what passes as Fate.  I hope, for your sake, you're equipped for the bumps."
     The 'bumps', as he had termed them, turned out to be nightmares in both flesh and consequence.  Removal and repair, readjustment and regret, resplendour and replacement.  They were all covered, but never in glory.
     At the interchange between Happenstance and Salvation she encountered Dikas.  He was interesting, because he professed to knowing at least one of her former associates.
     "Y'know, he's not as dead as some might suggest.  He's still there, doing what he does, but you should know he's changed."
     "Changed how?" she asked, checking her pockets for the piece of paper that would determine whether or not she was dreaming.
     "At a fundamental level," said Dikas, reaching out to stay her hand.  "He's not my friend, Miss Ryland.  He could never be that.  Truth be told, he says he got no friends, straight up.  There's a new particular upon the tapestry, something you should definitely be aware of.  Here's how it works..."
     Dikas revealed a vastly complicated paradigm in the form of symbolic structures built upon waveforms in the accepted matrix, and then he cut it all with a spike.
     "Too much," said Dikas, waving his hands like a thing possessed.  "Too much!"
     "No!" she cried,  "Not enough!"
     Dikas held his hands to his face with sadness.  "I failed you all."
     "What?"
     Dikas moved back, his hands still fusing with the power of the constrained paradigm.  "It is what it is, Miss Ryland.  All this power, all this knowing, it's..."
     The voice cut in, oblivious to the existing correspondence.
     "Unknowable."


To be continued...