The Clock Winked (The Sagittan Chronicles Book 2) (25 page)

“Why is there a bicycle here?” John muttered. “It must be
important. But it’s bolted down, meaning it’s not supposed to go anywhere. What
is its importance?”

“Or it’s not important. It’s just a diversion,” Quin said.

Simon loped across the floor and began to scan the bike with
his eyes. Little beams of light shot out and enveloped it in a red grid
pattern.

“No fingerprints.” Simon tilted his head sideways.
“Perfect condition.
Thick coat of dust,
containing local soils, pollen, insect remnants, and an unknown substance.”

“Is it dangerous?” John asked. “Like poison?”

“No, it seems to be a soil, but not one found here, on
Sagitta.
Identification not available in my memory banks.”

“Extraterrestrial dirt.
How
interesting,” John mused.

“Can we quit talking about dirt and start rescuing Bronwyn?”
Auvek said.

“First,” Quin said, “
while
we’re not being shot at, Simon should tell us what’s
going on.”

“Certainly,” said the monkey, turning around to face Quin.
The laser beams sucked back into his eyes, which seemed to vanish into the dark
fur on his face. His white coat was covered in mud. “On the planet Gwola, many
centuries ago, two brothers began to argue over the last tart. Their mother was
sadly killed by a falling star, and in their sadness and anger, the last tart
she ever made was also destroyed. The two brothers vowed never to speak again.
Several generations later, however, some of their great grandchildren, fourth
cousins as it were, began meeting secretly as lovers. Naturally, they were
discovered, and thus the two families began to war.

“The two brothers eventually died, but their legacy was one
of bloodshed, death, and destruction. For centuries, their children and
grandchildren warred without ceasing, until one day they both came to realize
that their civilizations would disappear if they continued to fight so
fiercely. So they came to an agreement.”

“Wait a second,” John said. “This story has nothing to do
with Pomegranate City. So you’re saying that the death of Chair Aderick is an
interplanetary issue?”

“I have said nothing about Chair Aderick.” Simon shook his
head, his face expressionless. “The agreement was this: build a clock. The
clock will keep peace. As long as the clock ticks, there will be peace and we
will build our cities and have our babies and grow our crops and not fight
against one another. When the timer runs out, we will begin our war again.”

“So they built it here.” Auvek said.

“Cerina Derosier built the clock,” Simon replied. “She was a
secret child born from a Lasta mother and a Woertan father. As she began to
plot the construction, a man named Olaf Zebigular appeared. He fell in love
with her and offered to help her build it. In fact, he built the ladder. But he
also offered her a suggestion that she couldn’t refuse.
A
place to build the clock.
This place was so secret that no one could
access it except the two of them. No one could vandalize the clock; no one
could hurt it. And they could live here, together.
Without
fear.”

“That’s not entirely true,” Jirin chimed in. “They got
caught. Some angsty Woertan teenagers found them and followed them. Then
shortly thereafter, some Lastans followed them too.”

“Yes,” Simon said, “and here, on Sagitta, the war began
again. On Gwola, the families lived in peace, yet their sons and daughters
warred on here.”

“So Butler’s family got in the way of a gang fight,” John
said. “And now he’s trying to get revenge.”

“Wait, wait,
wait,” Quin interrupted,
“Butler
?”

“Oh right,” John said. “Shortly after we got into Jameson’s
house, Jameson died—poisoned by Butler. The guy is deranged and somehow has
managed to start a war outside which he thinks will kill everyone and I don’t
know, pay for the deaths of his parents, perhaps.”

“Where is Aunt Llewellyn?” Auvek asked. “Is she okay?”

“She’s with Salve,” John replied. “I think.”

“Salve is here?” Quin frowned.

“He followed us. He’s nothing if not persistent,” John
replied, shrugging.

“Okay, so why are we in here then?” Auvek continued.
“Bronwyn is sitting on a ladder looking down over a gang fight. Butler is out
there, threatening to kill everyone—”

“—he thinks there will be an explosion, because he corrupted
the disk that is supposed to reset the clock,” John interrupted. He climbed
onto the bicycle and began to pedal slowly.

“That disk doesn’t actually reset the clock.” Simon climbed
onto Auvek’s shoulder and watched John’s feet. “That’s a myth passed down
through generations of Keepers. It was just a message from Bronwyn’s—or any
Keeper’s—parents. When it is inserted into door in the building of the clock,
then it can be updated for the next Keeper. There are only four different
disks. One quarter of all the messages to previous Keepers
are
on that disk.”

“So Bronwyn is the keeper.” John nodded. “And Jameson was.
And Canderick.
And Aderick.”

“The great secret of this clock,” Simon said, “is not the
clock itself. As you can see, everyone seems to know not only of its existence,
but also where it is located. The great secret is Olaf Zebigular. He was not
simply a builder of ladders, but a builder of Doors, of windows to other
worlds. At the top of the ladder is simply a Door.”

“So when Bronwyn Rae jumped off the ladder, she didn’t get
swept up by the winds,” John said. “She landed probably on her feet, just in
another world. She probably didn’t even really fall.” John let go of the handle
bars and began to twist his hair on both sides of his head, his brain piecing
everything together. “We saw an absolutely insane Samson Lebron running around
the house. How is he involved?”

“Oh, that’s easy,” Jirin chimed in. “He’s Butler’s brother.
And Butler has been pretending to give Samson inside information by posing as a
police officer.”

“And Samson didn’t notice?” John asked. He shook his head
and began to pedal faster.

“He never was the brightest bulb in the orphanage.” Jirin
grinned. “I was there too. So I know.”

“So we’ve established
that they’re brothers,” John said. “But why is he here?”

*****

All he could hear was the sound of guns. One shot after
another, ringing through the dark morning air; a pit-a-pat, pit-a-pat in the
distance, never ceasing. He sat up, groaning. His hands and feet were untied,
but blood was caked on his arm and his head ached horribly. He rolled over and
began to cough. After a moment, he stood slowly and began to make his way
towards the back door.

There was no one left in the house. He exited without
confrontation. A glimmer of sunshine peeked over the rim, and the bushes were
now faintly green instead of pitch black. He limped towards the maze and the sound
of guns. At that moment, his cell phone rang. It was his brother.

He answered. Laughter filled his ears – a sort of deranged
laughter.

“I’m here now.” The laughter continued, through the words.
“You never thought I would make it. But I’m here.”

Samson began to jog. Every bone in his body screamed,
begging him with the pleading whimpers of a million starving children to stop
moving. He ignored them. The grass flew by under his feet and the bushes of the
maze rose up around him as he carefully navigated their confusing paths.

“I’m here, and you aren’t.” The voice continued. “Marge
wasn’t yours, was she? Was she? I made sure of that. She gave Rathead her name,
her heart.”

The voice continued to cackle; breathing seemed to be
difficult. Samson’s breaths came harder. “You thought you could see it, watch
it from the sky. Meteor II.” A burst of laughter interrupted his train of
thought.
“From the sky!
Well I’m standing right on it.
Can you see me?
From the sky?
From
your star-traveling cocoon?”

Up ahead, shining brightly over the tops of the bushes, a
light began to shine. It bounced off the fog and back down into the maze, onto
the Clock, presumably, but simultaneously lighting up the entire garden.

More laughter.
Samson pulled the
phone away from his ear and looked at it for a moment. He hung up and began to
run. As fast as his old, sore, painful legs could carry him.

*****

Salve, with hands now untied, and Aunt Llewellyn watched
from behind a rather decrepit bush as Butler climbed up onto the face of the Clock
and lifted his hands into the air. From the top of the small tower a light
began to burn, shedding light on the ladder, the bottom of the wisps of fog, on
the face of the Clock, and on the entire maze. Slowly, the bullets ceased to
fly and men and women appeared from the bushes and surrounded the Clock, gazing
up at Butler expectantly. Almost imperceptibly, they moved slowly, dividing
themselves into Woertans and Lastans.

Butler smiled and began to laugh—if you could call it a
laugh. The sound crepitated, clanging against the trees and the rocks and
inciting a plague of winces among the people standing around the clock.

“I’m here. You can all see me.
You all—you
all who never knew my name.”
He laughed again; this time was as grating
as the first. “This Clock is so important to you, but do you even know why? No.
Only a few of you know. And most of them are dead. Do you know why they’re
dead?”

A murmur rang through the crowd.

“Because I killed them.
Chair
Aderick. He was a Keeper. Did you know?” He laughed. Tears of joy began to
stream down his face. “It was so simple. A bag of tea slipped to a poor
innocent intern who never knew the difference.” He turned to face a different
direction. People still slipped out from the bushes to join their groups.
“And Canderick.
He tried to hide.
Pretended
to be homeless.
Idiot.
And
Jameson.
Never saw it coming. I poisoned him right in front of his own
face. All it took was a little bit of cyanide.”

“Jameson is dead?” a voice called from the crowd.

Butler began to laugh hysterically, his voice crashing and
stumbling through the silence, like a
drunk
man who
has forgotten how to walk. Anger began to flood the minds of the crowd
surrounding the clock, building until it was a tangible force which threatened
to break through Butler’s insane hysteria.

“And she’s up there right now! Bronwyn, the Keeper!” He
pointed towards the ladder. Everyone looked up. The mist which sank over the
garden the night before and had lain dormant and heavy along the
ground,
was slowly clearing. The light of the sun was barely
visible over the curve of the planet and only a few wisps of the low flying
cloud remained, floating between them and the sky. At the top of the ladder,
the tiny figure of Bronwyn was barely visible. A murmur ran through the cloud.

“She thinks she’s doing her job, but really, it won’t work!”
He began to laugh maniacally. “It won’t work!”

“No! Wait!” Samson’s voice rang out from the maze.
“Stop!”
He limped into the clearing, bumping into Aunt Llewellyn
without noticing; in front of him, the gang members moved slowly apart to
create a path. Stumbling with each step and breathing with difficulty, Samson
dragged himself towards the insane Butler who stood triumphantly on the stone
clock.

“You’re here?” Butler asked. An angry scowl darkened his
features “You’re not supposed to be here! You’re supposed to be flying around
the planet over and over!”

“Well,” Samson coughed, spitting some blood into his hand,
“I’m not. I’m here. You have to stop. You can’t blow everyone up.” He fell to
his knees, coughing and spitting up more blood.

“Who says I’m blowing anyone up?” Butler asked, looking
slightly confused. A small smile crossed his lips. “As much fun as that would
be, I can’t afford it on the tiny salary I make. You could though, if you want
to team up.”

“No!” Samson’s exclamation incited another bout of coughing.
“You told me... you wanted to... destroy...” he gasped between coughs.

“Of course I wanted to, but that doesn’t always mean blowing
things up! I just programmed a virus onto that disk Bronwyn was supposed to put
into the clock. Then I killed all the other Keepers who were in line before
her, to make sure she at least got here.”

“You brought her here?” Samson asked. “You killed people?”

“I made sure she got here, and I would have just brought her
all the way to the clock if Jameson and Rathead and that blasted Llewellyn and
her lawyer hadn’t gotten in the way. If
Jameson had just died the first time I poisoned him all of this would not even
be in question right now. And if that idiot Rathead—where is he anyway?—hadn’t
had his nose in the whole process then all of this fighting wouldn’t have
happened either!”

“What did you expect?” a voice from the crowd cried out.
“It’s the deadline for the setback—we come here every time that happens.”

“Yeah, you ain’t as smart as you think,” another voice
yelled.

Butler’s attention leaped back to the crowd in front of him.
He scowled at their comments, but then smiled briefly. “Ah yes, you’re waiting
for whatever else I was going to tell you,” he said. “You probably won’t be
happy.”

“Of course they won’t, you degenerate bastard!” Samson
coughed.

“You’re not much better,” Butler replied. “You
lied
, cheated, stole, and who knows what else—just to get
into a position where you thought you could watch the clock. A space station!
Ha! I knew all along that the Woertans had infiltrated that. They’ve been there
for centuries!”

Samson sank his body onto the grass. “I think I can’t stand
any more. I can’t stand anything anymore.”