In the rusty veins of Nova-Veridia, the air inside the metro car, rising vertically like a curse against gravity, smelled of wet wool and ozone. As the car climbed the tracks riveted to the skyscrapers' facades, that high-pitched shriek born from metal grinding against metal reverberated in the passengers' bones. Below, Sector 9, trapped in the ceaseless acidic rains and the smoke spewed by factory chimneys, receded like a grey sludge. Above, meanwhile, the Upper City, woven from glass and chrome, shining like a promised paradise, awaited them with cold indifference.
Kaelen leaned his shoulder against the car's fogged window. Or rather, where his shoulder was. The wound, covered with bandages, was physically there but devoid of sensation; as if his body had detached from reality at that point, turning into an image with missing pixels. He checked his watch. The hour and minute hands advanced with a muffled growl instead of tick-tock sounds.
"09:45," he murmured to himself. "Time is running out."
Jester was glued to the car's door window, watching the city slide away below. The worn fabric of his purple jacket took on a sickly hue under the car's flickering fluorescent light. He drew a smiley face on the fogged glass with his breath, then smudged it with his finger.
"An insult to gravity," Jester said, his voice more serious than usual, almost metallic in tone. "People spend so much energy to go up, but falling is free. Falling is always free, Detective. It's the only promotion the universe offers us."
Kaelen didn't answer. He shifted his gaze to the other passengers in the car. Grim-faced factory workers, couriers with cables dangling from beneath their leather jackets, and androids in cheap suits standing rigidly with expressionless faces... There was the same emptiness in all their eyes. That sluggish acceptance brought by the Static Age.
"We need to make two more transfers to reach the Clock Tower," Kaelen said, trying to suppress his tension. "This damn thing is too slow."
"If we go by metro, yes," Jester said. His eyes were fixed on the digital billboard inside the car. A crackling image rotated on the board: a stylishly dressed man looked at the camera with a reassuring smile. The scrolling text below was clear: **"SYNDICATE INSURANCE: Your Time is Our Trust."**
"We have no other way," Kaelen insisted.
Jester returned the smile of the man on the billboard. But his smile was that unsettling expression of a predator spotting its prey. "There is," he said. "But you might get sick. If you puke, I'm not cleaning it."
Just then, the car shuddered with a violent jolt. The metallic screech from the tracks suddenly turned into a high-pitched tearing sound. The car's ceiling ripped open like a giant tin can. A mechanical claw tore through the steel like paper and plunged inside.
> *"In a decaying world, the greatest luxury is not knowing when disaster will strike."*
>
> *— Dr. Aris Thorne, Lost Physicist*
The sluggish silence inside the car gave way to panicked chaos. Through the rift in the ceiling, a spider-like, four-armed, matte black drone descended. The machine's single, cyclopean red eye scanned the car's gloom and settled directly on Jester. A mechanical voice echoed, not from speakers, but directly within the passengers' skulls:
**TARGET DETECTED. ELIMINATION INITIATED.**
As passengers trampled each other, piling up at the other end of the car, the drone fired its laser weapons. Red beams of light seared the air, melting the seat upholstery and spreading a sharp smell of burnt plastic.
Kaelen, reflexively, drew his weapon. It took milliseconds to aim. *Bang! Bang!* The muzzle flash momentarily illuminated the car's darkness. The bullets struck the drone's armor, sparking and ricocheting, but left not a single scratch on the machine.
"Don't you have armor-piercing rounds?" Jester yelled. He was cackling at the laser beams passing over his head, taking cover behind a seat.
"Budget cuts!" Kaelen roared, changing his magazine. "The police force only hands out batons now!"
The drone clung to the car's ceiling with one of its mechanical arms, while continuing to unleash death with the others. The car continued to ascend rapidly on the vertical tracks; outside, the skyscraper lights blurred into streaks.
Jester poked his head out from his hiding spot. "Alright, this car is getting boring. And the graphics are low-res."
Before Kaelen could understand what was happening, Jester sprang to his feet. He emerged from cover and *ran* directly towards the death-spitting machine.
"Get back, you fool!"
The drone locked its red eye onto the running clown. A high-intensity laser beam fired towards Jester's chest. Kaelen had to squint. He expected Jester to vaporize. However, the laws of physics, at that moment, entered Nova-Veridia's infamous grey zone.
The instant the laser struck Jester's chest, the clown's body flickered like a glitch on an old VHS tape. Instead of piercing flesh and bone, the light *passed through* Jester. The clown's body pixelated, hung in the air, and reintegrated behind the drone in less than a tenth of a second.
**GLITCH: PHASE SHIFT.**
Jester rode the metal spider like a rodeo cowboy. The drone spun wildly, flailing its mechanical arms to dislodge the unexpected weight on its back. Jester pulled out that rusty, bent spoon from his pocket. That meaningless object Kaelen always mocked now gleamed in Jester's hand like a surgeon's scalpel.
"Time for a software update!" Jester shouted gleefully. He plunged the spoon into a microscopic gap between the drone's armor plates, right where a sensitive cable bundle lay.
A metallic *crack* was heard. The drone spasmed in mid-air. Its red eye flickered, went out, and then turned a bright, friendly blue.
"System error!" Jester said, laughing atop the machine.
The drone shook uncontrollably and shot out through the car's ceiling, into Nova-Veridia's misty void. But it didn't let go of Jester; or rather, Jester didn't let go of it.
"Jester!" Kaelen looked up through the torn ceiling. The wind whipped his face.
Outside, the free-falling drone and the clown on its back traced an impossible arc around the tracks in the sky. Jester, using the spoon like a joystick, had hacked the drone's engines, turning it into a suicide rocket. They weren't plummeting down, but *up*, hurtling towards the Clock Tower.
As the car jolted to a stop at a station, Kaelen burst out as soon as the doors opened. He looked up at the sky. Jester was receding like a blue star gliding among the city's neon lights.
"Crazy," Kaelen said, breathless, his lungs burning. "Utterly crazy." And he started running. The stairs awaited him.
***
The Clock Tower rose in the very heart of the city, like a gothic nightmare monument. Its colossal clock face displayed not only time but also the pulse of the energy lines flowing beneath the city. The square was paved with black stones, gleaming under the ceaseless rain.
Jester's "landing" was more of a controlled crash. The smoking drone plunged into the ornamental fountain in the square with a loud splash. Water, steam, and metal fragments scattered into the air.
From inside the fountain, a drenched purple silhouette straightened up. Jester, his face paint streaked, his jacket heavy, climbed onto the edge of the fountain. His wet shoes made a *squelching* sound with every step.
"Should've checked the landing gear," he muttered, wringing his jacket and letting grey water stream onto the ground. "There's a bug in the physics engine."
By the time Kaelen reached the square, his lungs were on the verge of collapse. He bent over, leaning on his knees, trying to regulate his breathing. "You... went... without... waiting for me..."
Jester walked towards the tower's massive oak door. "The elevator was broken, Detective," he said, touching the heavy, electronic lock on the door. Purple sparks flew from his fingertips. The lock mechanism groaned with the sound of melting metal from within and clicked open. "We have to climb. Stairs are good for cardio."
Inside the tower, isolated from the chaos outside, there was a dusty and heavy silence. Only the sound of colossal gears turning could be heard: *GRIND... TICK... GRIND... TOCK...*
When they had climbed hundreds of steps and reached the top of the tower, the room with the colossal gears and cogs, Kaelen's legs were trembling. However, the sight he beheld instantly erased his fatigue.
In the middle of the room, directly in front of the colossal main gear, an old man was tied to a chair. **The Watchman.** That invisible hero who ensured the city's time synchronization. His mouth was taped shut, his eyes wide with terror. And to his chest... to his chest, a digital counter woven with complex cables was attached, seemingly embedded in his skin.
The red digits on the counter mercilessly ticked down: **00:04:59... 58...**
Kaelen reached for his weapon, but Jester stopped him with his hand. The mocking expression on the clown's face had vanished, replaced by deep fear. He approached the device, his pupils dilated.
"This isn't an explosive," he whispered. His voice trembled. "It's a Frequency Absorber. It won't explode when the time runs out, Kaelen. It will absorb all 'time perception' from the Watchman's mind and broadcast it as a reverse frequency into the city's main grid."
Kaelen drew his knife to cut the Watchman's bonds. "What will happen?"
"Everyone freezes," Jester said, without taking his eyes off the counter. "Not physically. Mentally. Everyone will be trapped in an eternal 'now'. The past will be erased, the future will never arrive. Just a static, grey, endless moment. Nova-Veridia will live the same second forever, like a broken record."
Jester reached for the device, his fingers trembling. Just as he was about to touch it, a smooth, synthetic voice from the shadows froze them.
**"Touch it, and it accelerates."**
From the darkness, a tall figure in a long, grey overcoat glided forth. On his face was an expressionless, porcelain-like white mask. This was no Silent. The aristocratic grace in his movements betrayed his identity: **The Syndicate's Emissary.**
"Jester," said the Emissary. His voice was flawless, as if emanating from an expensive sound system. "It's good to see you after all these years. Still wearing that broken costume. Still a glitch."
"And you're still making cheap threats," Jester said, without changing his stance. But Kaelen saw Jester clench his fists, his knuckles turning white. He knew this man. This encounter summoned the ghosts of the past.
"Let the Watchman go," Kaelen said, aiming his weapon directly at the center of the Emissary's mask. "Or I'll rip your mask off, along with your face."
The Emissary let out a mechanical laugh. "The Watchman is merely a pawn, Detective. You were the real target. We wanted to draw you here, to center stage. The audience wants to see the finale."
The Emissary pressed a small, silver remote in his gloved hand. The clock's colossal gears ground to a halt with a deafening roar. The windows rattled. Time, mechanically, had stopped.
"Chapter 1 is over, gentlemen," said the Emissary, walking backward towards the open window behind him. The wind billowed his overcoat.
The Emissary let himself fall into the void. When Kaelen ran to the window, he saw rockets on the Emissary's back ignite, and the man ascend into the sky, among the smoky clouds.
Jester's voice drew Kaelen back into the room. "Kaelen! Don't cut the cable!"
Jester was looking at the counter on the Watchman's chest. **00:00:10.**
"I'll take this," Jester said. His voice was strangely peaceful.
"What?" Kaelen didn't understand.
"I can't let it spread the energy to the grid. Someone needs to absorb this 'static charge'. My make-up is suited for it. I'm already a glitch."
Jester placed both his hands on the device. His palms stuck to the metal surface. **00:00:03...**
"No!" Kaelen shouted, lunging forward. "Don't!"
**00:00:00.**
A purple shockwave emanating from the device enveloped the room. The Watchman convulsed and fainted. But all that destructive, time-bending energy flowed into Jester's arms, and from there, into every cell of his body.
Jester screamed in agony. It wasn't a human scream; it was the sound of a digital corruption, a tearing file. Blinding white lights burst from his eyes, mouth, and fingertips. His body overloaded, trembled, oscillating between existence and oblivion.
**SYSTEM... CRITICAL... ERROR...**
When the burst of light in the middle of the room faded, only smoke and the smell of burning remained. Jester lay on the floor. Motionless.
Kaelen rushed and knelt beside him. What he saw took his breath away.
Jester's exaggerated, colorful costume was burnt, turned grey. The thick white paint on his face, the red smile, had completely vanished. Beneath it was the face of an ordinary, tired young man with dark circles under his eyes. Perhaps twenty-five, perhaps thirty years old... A face you'd never look twice at on the street, crushed under the weight of life.
Kaelen checked his pulse with trembling hands.
It was very weak. Almost imperceptible. But it was beating. However, the rhythm was irregular. Not like a human heart, but like a sputtering clock.
*Tick-tock... Tock... Tick...*
At that moment, the colossal gears above them began to turn again with a roar. *GONG... GONG...*
The city's heart was beating again. Noon had arrived. Time was flowing. The city was saved, but the "glitch" that saved it was about to be erased within the system.
Kaelen gently lifted the unconscious Jester —no, this young man— onto his back. The man was as light as a feather. Kaelen approached the window, looking down at the chaotic, grey, rainy city.
"I'll fix you, clown," he said, his voice as hard as steel. "And then we'll find that Emissary and pull his plug."
The rain continued to beat against the windows, but this time the rhythm was different. They now had a purpose.