Chapter Two 6-3
From Long After Reality Failed
Time.
To some, it was a luxury.
To others, a curse.
Some called it a sixth sense.
Some called it a fourth dimension.
It was things that had gone before.
It was things that would come after.
It was everything in between.
To Mr. Marks, time was a state of being. It was the cornerstone of his existence, not just the means, but the end as well. Time was everything. There was always just enough for him. Just enough.
The clocks all chimed at once, hundreds of them, perhaps thousands. At exactly noon they all began their song. They sang in unison, filtering in front every corner of the apartment. A single note, a choir, a full orchestra. It was the music of the moment. Mr. Marks revelled in it. He left the apartment at exactly the same time every day, descended two flights of stairs, thirteen stairs each, in exactly 9.63 seconds. It took him an additional 3.02 seconds to reach the front door, and anywhere from 2.59 to 8.33 seconds to retrieve the mail from the box next to the door. Another 3.04 seconds to reach the stairs, 11.2 seconds to ascend, and usually in the vicinity of 1.56 seconds to enter his apartment again and close the door. At its lengthiest, the process took slightly less than 37 seconds. The rest of the day was similarly scheduled.
At ten in the morning, or within a 173 seconds' variation either way, The Colonel would begin his speech. Mr. Marks was not interested in what The Colonel had to say, only in how many followers he gained daily. Other than the city's steady homeless population, this number seemed to be minimal. Plans were already in motion to stop The Colonel from continuing his daily tirade, but until those came to fruition, Mr. Marks monitored his progress on a day-to-day basis. It cost him nothing but time.
There was a message for him in the mail. A bill from Waste Management Services. The numbers contained a breakdown of his waste products by biodegradability and recyclability. Mr. Marks only threw away mail. His apartment was subject to no other waste products. The bill was the message, and it only took moments for him to decode the text hidden within the numbers. 2.11 seconds, to be exact. There was a problem. An interloper. Mr. Marks had heard from the local news of the appearance of a car inside the roof of the cathedral a few blocks over. He had felt the eddies in space and time as the new arrival punched through the very fabric of reality. No doubt, the new hunter would scare off the game, if allowed to continue unintercepted.
Mr. Marks shuffled his mail. There was a second bill. He opened it. It was short, a follow-up charge for animal remains mixed in with paper products. The previous message was only a warning. A decision had already been made. Hallowed Ground was in effect. Jericho was under lockdown. The Committee would dispatch her to deal with the problem. Mr. Marks felt confident he knew exactly who it was they would send, though he felt that the vicinity had gotten crowded with her's as of late. The name came to mind quickly enough: Le Petit Tueur.
He quickly created a return message, explaining the situation and that if she were applied to the mission at hand, it could very well tip the scales in the favor of the KI. Such an event would be disastrous for not just the citizens of Jericho, but for all parties involved, including the Committee itself. There were too many variables. It was like a game. Too much time had been spent setting up the game pieces. There were too many Dominoes set up to play indiscriminately. One wrong move, and it could begin a chain reaction that would only end when it all had collapsed. The devastation would be untold. The result: apocalyptic.
Mr. Marks transmitted the message in the usual way, and returned to his daily schedule. He had lost enough time to the future, to the possibility of things to come. It was time to concentrate once again on the present. Somewhere in the city, the interloper and the KI were getting closer to finding what they both sought. Mr. Marks doubted that they both knew it was the same thing. They would discover that conflict, in time.
He watched The Colonel preach far below, and waited.
They had nothing but time.
