Episode 2-2: Clockwork

Our guns go back into their holsters, there's no use for bullets that don't work. Kay-Oh didn't even have to deflect it consciously, the relic protected him until it deemed it was a worthy victory. Somehow we need to beat a time-manipulating culprit in a theatrical way. No cheating here and our tech will be limited in helping out in this fight.

"Clyde, deploy the safe zone."

A small device is placed on the ground around us. An invisible barrier of twenty meters in radius will interfere with time manipulation by stabilizing linear time sequences. Twenty meters is definitely big enough for this cramped back alley, so now she's rendered useless.

"What is that?" she asks.

"Something that'll stop you from messing with time."

"Ispio has a device that can stabilize time? I don't like it."

"Yeah, well, we don't like you. Now you're just an ordinary woman who can't climb rain gutters without busting her ass. So you want to surrender or what?"

She covers her face again with her soaked hood. "Tell you what: make me come with you. I want to see you perform an act of excessive force on this helpless, powerless woman. Is that what Ispio is all about?"

Clyde pats my shoulder. "Go cuff her, Troy, I'll make sure she doesn't do anything funny."

The handcuffs swing around my finger, and she even puts her wrists together as I approach. I reach for them and try to think of something witty to say, but suddenly, her wrists aren't in front of me anymore. I look to the left, and she's on the opposite side of the alley.

"How did you—?"

In a flash, her elbow has already connected with my chest, and the speed she came at was so incredible that it shoots me out of my spot and into the brick wall. The impact is devastating, and all my wind has been taken from me, but I hear no cracks, no bones have broken. Wasn't Clyde supposed to be watching her to make sure she doesn't do this kind of thing?

"What!? She's fast!" Clyde yells. He sprints for her, but on his second step, his whole body is slowed down. His eyes move around at normal speeds, he realizes that his body is stuck in some type of stasis.

Blood is mixed with my saliva, droplets of it spew out when I talk. "The safe zone, what happened? I think they gave us a dud."

"Maybe your tech isn't as advanced as you thought. Stabilizing time is such a sci-fi plan, there's no way your team would be able to get it right the first time. Keep working at it, I'm sure you'll crack the code one day."

"You sped yourself up, slowed the bullet, and Clyde down. Your power is limited to single objects, aren't they? You can control time for one thing only, isn't that right?"

"Unlike Kay-Oh, I don't plan on revealing anything about how my power works. The less you know, the better for me. Since Clyde seems to be permanently out of the fight, why don't you just tuck your tail and beat it?"

"Wait, can you at least tell me your power's name? I need something to write down for the report."

"Didn't I just say I won't be giving you any information on me? I think my elbow strike shattered your eardrums."

"Yeah, you're really smart. I shouldn't have even thought that these low-leveled tactics of persuasion were going to work on you."

"You just keep talking. Why? Why do you need to know anything about me if this is the last time you'll ever come after me?"

"I'd like to get to know the people I'm about to put in a cell."

My hand has been cradling a chunk of brick that broke off from the wall I hit. I throw it at her head, and the brick is slowed mid-air. Clyde's speed is back to normal, his hulking body wrapping around her back and putting her in a wrestling grapple. She can't move, no matter how hard she thrashes around.

"Hey, let me go you big stupid dog! I'm going to scream!"

Clyde tightens his hold. "Not a chance! Troy, get the sedative!"

Ignoring the pain in my chest, I stumble to my feet and fetch the tranquilizer out of my kit. The brick chunk that she slowed down now resumes its normal speed, heading straight for her and Clyde. Clyde ducks both of them under the path and the chunk soars overhead and hits a loaded trash can that startles the city pigeons feasting inside. They fly away in a huff, leaving feathers floating in their wake.

"I recommend holding still, I don't want to accidentally get you in the eye," I warn. The sedative I have isn't a normal needle, it's a cartridge that burns into the epidermis and spreads its compound via absorption. It's way easier than trying to aim a tiny needlepoint into a struggling culprit's vein.

She thrashes around barely making Clyde budge at all. I get close enough and grab her kicking leg. The thigh will suffice, and the cartridge can go right through the pants without a dilution effect.

Without warning, Clyde lets her go! She kicks the cartridge out of my hand, punches me right in my nose, and slows my time down. The blood spewing from my nostrils flies over me cinematically, I watch it stretch and grow in front of my eyes. Clockwork finds the knife Clyde showed her earlier strapped to his belt. She grabs it and stabs him right in the back of the knee. He screams and kneels down, and she easily slips out of the alley, leaving me slowed and Clyde bleeding.

Luckily, she deems herself to be long gone, because I do eventually get released from slow-mo. The blood flying out of my nose finally spatters on the ground, and my hand gently caresses the throbbing snoot while my eyes set on Clyde.

"What the hell, Clyde, why did you let her go?" Wait, I see it! In his shoulders and back, feathers are digging deep into his skin, their stems acting like sharp knives. He's bleeding all over. "Feathers? How can feathers be capable of stabbing?"

"Feather from the pigeons. She sped up their descent! I can't believe she can do that. I should've known better."

"Not your fault. Let's get you patched and check in with Adams. At least we learned a little more. Something to report, get her off our backs for a few seconds."

He chuckles, resetting his position to let the knife point sideways. "It's not the politics I'm worried about. Clockwork is dangerous. Do you know how many movies I've watched where the bad guy can stop time?"

Ispio Safe House

"So she can only manipulate one object or person at a time?" Carlotta asks. Her steaming cup of coffee makes me lick my lips. I'm not tired, I just want some comfort after getting slogged in the nose like some common street kid.

"As far as we can tell. Anytime she wanted to speed herself up or slow something else down, the object she targeted was freed from her power," I explain. "I just hope we can take her down before she gets a new power like Kay-Oh."

"Can these Animatrix users usually do that? I thought the only person who was able to get multiple powers was The Character."

"The Character had every power imaginable, I just didn't let him get strong enough to learn how. These henchmen of his don't exactly have multiple powers. It's more like their original one tends to mutate due to stress, trauma, or training. I saw it happen when Clyde was fighting Kay-Oh. His Alternative Punch became stronger with new properties, but it was still essentially the same power with new skills."

"And Clockwork?"

"I'm not really seeing much to go on. She can control time, but only one thing or person. Did you get any info from the tech team about how any of this works?"

"Not anything useful. There are more complicated factors being researched, but those need extensive study before I can come back to you with useful information."

I don't ask, I just grab her mug and take a sip for myself. It's hot, but the taste calms me down. I'm not worried about Clyde getting his wounds patched in the other room, this kind of thing happens all the time. But it's not easy after watching Kay-Oh rip his whole side out from him. It's like I'm watching him under a new, fragile lens. I need to protect him more while out in the field.

"Would you like your own cup?" she asks.

"You can share. We use to finish each other's lollipops."

"That's disgusting, Troy."

"It's true."

"We were kids."

"So what? It's not like our germs evolved to be incompatible in adulthood."

Finally, she giggles. "Does it ever get weird to see your childhood friend in a seat of power? Being your boss? I mean, look at me, I'm in a business suit almost twenty-four/seven. I never thought I'd see myself as a corporate seat leader."

"Wow, are you being human for once? I thought that Carlotta was killed and replaced years ago. Of course, it doesn't bother me, I'm glad to see you where you are and very appreciative that you gave me this job."

"It wasn't given, I believe you earned it through extensive testing."

"Okay, my turn to ask a question. Is it weird to see your childhood friend doing all this dangerous stuff that nearly gets me killed? I've had pieces of me missing, I've been poisoned, almost eaten, and so many other things that I can't even count."

Her forehead goes into her palm as she rocks herself in her chair. "Why did you have to be the best unit? I hate having to send you and Clyde to the worst of the worst. Every case I worry it might be your last."

"All right, I can tell this is getting into morbid territory. Let's get back to the good times."

"Remember that time we had a copy of Versus on VHS? We watched it a million times at your house. You always loved the part where you could see the monster's glove from the costume slip off during the fight scene."

"Haha! Yeah, I used to rewind it and play it over and over again until the tape got worn out."

"Your parents had that weird editing accessory that let you cut up and mess with the tape itself. I don't know why you wanted one, you never used it except to mess with the voices by speeding them up and slowing them down. But whatever Troy wanted, he got."

I did slow and speed up the tapes whenever I wanted to play around as a kid. You could see the choreography of the fight scenes play out step-by-step, or you could make casual walking look really silly by speeding up the reel and watching the actors jet off in a nonchalant pose. It was hilarious as a child.

In that editing world, tracking the speed of the tape was kind of like manipulating time. It wasn't really time manipulation, but more like speed manipulation. I can rewind films though, Clockwork can't rewind anything. It's more like she controls the time at which an object is allowed to play out. Time… is it even time she's messing with? Why didn't Ispio's time stabilizer work around her? Why doesn't she just outright pause items or people, or rewind things when stuff doesn't go her way? She was helpless when Clyde grabbed her, it was just a stroke of luck the feathers were flying above us.

"You're staring off into space again. What's up?"

When she slowed the agents down, they reported having perceived the time around them as normal, and only they were slowed to a crawl. The world keeps moving, and their bodily functions kept operating as if nothing was wrong. Clockwork, that name doesn't fit. Is she trying to trick us? A name like that has to deal with time, right? She's smart enough not to gloat about her plans and powers. Maybe she's smart enough to pick a misleading name on purpose too. Doing that would be a good way to stall progress on anyone trying to figure her out.

Manicured nails snap just a few inches from my eyes. "Earth to Troy?"

"If the tech team is diving deeper into info they found, what is the foundation they're working on?"

"The cells they collected were suspiciously normal as if they never experienced halted or rapid aging. Being slowed down should've interrupted their natural aging process, but it looks like nothing ever happened to them."

"So they're looking for signs that the cells have aged differently, like a stagnation or something?"

"Yes. If their bodies were slowed in time, that means the nanobots would've reported the logs differently compared to the rest of the agents. The reports, however, state that there has been no stagnation at all."

Their bodies never entered a realm of different time, it was only their speed that was affected. That's why their aging has no anomalies. "Is Clyde ready to go yet?"

"You've got comms, too, you know. Why don't you check up on him?"

South Dos Palos: California: Apartment Complex

"Isn't that thing heavy?" I ask Carlotta.

Her hands wrap around a big machine that looks about as heavy as a portable generator. A slight glisten can be seen on her forehead, and her fingers look white around her knuckles. "It's fine, I told you I'd help while I was out here. Lifting heavy equipment is hardly work for me at all."

Clyde reaches to take it from her, but she flinches away. "I don't like this, Ms. Adams. You shouldn't be out here with us, things can get dangerous. They already have. You saw the multiple stab wounds on my body. The nanobots numb the pain and halt bleeding. But for you…"

She huffs, and a sweat droplet falls from her cheek. "I'm getting pretty tired of my employee always trying to tell me what to do. How about you hush for now?"

"Yes ma'am."

The device wants us to go in this apartment complex. Stained walls, cracked pavement, and even some of the doorhandle is chipped off. I guess Clockwork wasn't in The Key's good graces enough to get a better living quarter.

My teeth clench as it tells me that if I open this door, she will be right behind it ready to jump us. I narrowly open it and use the hinge side to glance through the crack. There's nobody standing behind it. Maybe she jumped and is slowing her fall so that I can't see her. I rush in and ready myself for a counter.

Nobody is here.

Clyde and Carlotta catch up with me. She puts the machine on the floor and settles her breathing. "What was that about?"

"The tracker says she should be right here."

"What's that?" Clyde asks while pointing at a nearby trashcan. The top looks like normal litter, but his good eye sees the tissues placed in there; their white material slightly stained with a bright red color.

Against my hygiene's protest, I stick my hand inside and gently move away the tissues. Underneath are more of them, completely soaked in bright red. I move those too with a shiver at how moist they are to the touch. Underneath the whole pile sleeps an Ispio tracker, cut out from the skin and thrown in the garbage waiting for retrieval or self-destruction.

"The tracker from the other unit's kit. It's been cut out. She must've trashed it here and kept running," I report.

"Maybe we should look for clues outside. Anything to tell us what direction she might've started walking," Clyde suggests.

"Hold on," I say, "take a look at this blood on the tracker itself. The tissues are bright red and soaked up as much blood as they could, but the tracker is non-absorbant."

"And?"

"And, the blood around it is bright red too. That means it's fresh and probably still wet. Clockwork didn't go anywhere, she's still here in this complex probably bandaging her wound with better supplies."

"What makes you think she's dumb enough to sit around with the tracker inside the same building she's hiding in?" Carlotta asks.

"Look at the amount of tissue paper she used to soak up her blood. This isn't a little prick at the doctor's office, this looks like a pool from a slasher flick. She probably messed up removing it and needed immediate medical support. It's likely she doesn't consider this place her base of operations. I think she's just using someone's kindness and their medkits to treat the severe wound."

They both nod. "Great work, detective, but we still have four floors and several apartments to check. Are we going to knock on every door on every floor?" Clyde asks.

"Good point. I'd rather not carry around this thing if all I'm going is in circles," Carlotta says.

There it is! The familiar smell that lingers on me, The Character, Kay-Oh, and Clockwork. The smell of the Animatrix, it's hard to ignore in confined spaces like buildings or compact alleyways.

I tap my nose. "I can smell her."

"You a bloodhound, now?" Clyde jokes.

"Everyone that has been in the presence of the Animatrix has this weird smell that doesn't go away."

"I spend a lot of time with you, Troy, and all I smell on you is nail polish and perfume."

"This scent is only present to others with the same smell. If you never touched the Animatrix, you won't have the smell or be able to smell it on others."

Carlotta picks up the machine again. "Right, lead us to her, boy!"

It's not my ears that perk up, but Clyde's instead. I need to call him that more often, I like watching his reaction.

Okay, Clockwork, I hope you don't bleed out before we find you. I want a rematch.