Message reads: There are precisely four focus patterns for this particular iteration of the inversion construct. Please be patient while these patterns are assimilated into the output buffer for review.

Pattern BeeGee, Historical Documentation and Open Cyclical Leverage.

Pattern BeeTee, Imaginary Render and Elemental Mass-less Index.

Pattern DeeWhy, Themed Specifics and Researched Data Flow.

Pattern EssDee, Contribution Basis and Compounded Reputation Leverage.

Stand By For Further Instruction. End.

It is why I continue. You don’t need to understand much more than that. There is method to this madness that has encapsulated my steps as I walk another stretch on this strange adventure. There is purpose here, and you can sit back an observe without feeling anything awful such as guilt or laziness. I can never be content with those things that make you happy. It is not that I’m better. It is that I am sure of what I want, and the path to get me there is more difficult than I can explain to any of you.

But I’ll send a postcard when I arrive.

This is But One Fragment Five Hundred Words Long Constituting Part of Something Much Larger, With At Least One New Episode Per Week, And May Be What We Call A Serialized Novella.

I’m waiting for Nusci in the High Street, sitting on a stone bench just across from Dragon’s Teahouse. The famed establishment is located in a squat stone building that is sheeted in hand-worked metal that is now not much more than panels of colourfully oxidizing iron alloys. This gives the structure a pre-Tempest Era aesthetic that seems all the more rare as modern glazed-tin architecture, such as what surrounds Dragon’s on all sides, gradually replaces the older buildings of a bygone age. There is deep history in Dragon’s walls but I doubt many of the patrons care. And it is only the raw mechanics of such a design that appeal to me now.

I’m early, but not too early. And it has been such a long time since I’ve bothered to walk this far from the carefully plotted geographical triangle of my daily life — work, food, and home — that I sit for what seems a long time in silent observation of the bustling life stirring in one of the city’s main thoroughfares. I try to remember the last time I had been in this neighborhood but the memory escapes me.

“Do you have the time, please?” An older man is standing a few paces from where I’m sitting, hovering expectantly with a dour expression on his face.

Couldn’t he just ask a bot? I think, spying a Model Eight lumbering along the stones there across the street. But I sigh as I pull my timepiece from my breast pocket and tell him — and he shuffles on his way, losing ground to both the bot and the rushing crowds. I lean into myself a little more, resting my elbows across my knees, and try to look unapproachable.

I’ve changed out of my utility cottons and I’m wearing a skirt that is both clean and more fitting for drinks in a High Street teahouse. My personal distaste for that sort of culture aside, I will admit I am acquainted sufficiently with it to avoid embarrassment. I had remembered to scrub the smears from my hands. I had remembered to tie my hair back. And I had changed from my comfortable shoes into a pair that had perhaps been in better fashion when I was in school but would serve today to pass me as deserving patron of afternoon tea on the High Street. Yes, there is a perception of equality between the sexes of this encapsulated little city, but the lingering uncertainty of everything in Asgarth has created an immortal dualism that will never crumble no matter how black I can stain my fingertips.

How easily it seems, I am thinking, that I can step into this delicate role and blend into the hurried facade of this cityscape. As if to confirm that idea, Nusci walks by me just then, pulling the door open to Dragon’s and strolls inside. She didn’t recognize me. I pull my bag back over my shoulder, take a deep breath, and follow her inside.

When it was the deepest days of cold winter the only excuse I ever really gave for not running was the lack of a sidewalk for fresh snow. Those Saturday nights when we were graced with heavy white drifts measured in multiples of inches on the paths made a leisurely Sunday morning jog close to impossible, if not only for my improvised running attire, then for the sake of not being able to back out of the driveway with the car to get to the starting line.

It is first of July, Canada Day, and a Tuesday. That means, in respect to the fact of work tomorrow, we did our over-exertions yesterday. And not only did I weed the garden and take the family to Fort Edmonton Park for a couple hours in the blistering heat, but I faithfully attended my weekly running clinic and jogged a painful four kilometers in thirty-one degrees of Celsius-certified heat.

I was nourished and hydrated, but still…

I couldn’t help but comment to one of my running companions that it was the original purpose of my running adventures to sign up for the deep, dark days of winter clinic so that running in summer wouldn’t seem so bad. My logic ruled that, well, everyone ran in the summer so it must be easy, right? Ok. Easier. Unfortunately, on days such as yesterday, sweating with abundance in the humid heat, such logic fails miserably.

Around nine o’clock we had one of those momentary glimpses of what amounts to neighborhood chaos: picture a white pickup truck, front driver-side wheel folded limply under the vehicle, swerving and accelerating down the street in front of our house. Now picture him doing multiple u-turns, slamming into the curb and at least one parked car, all the while scraping a three-inch wide, sparking gash down the asphalt. Now picture thirty or so of my neighbors rushing around trying to compose the situation, the girl across the road sprinting down the sidewalk on her cellphone attempting to get a license plate identification and the guy across the street snapping photos of the action with his mobile, while another car apparently driven by a local off-duty cop speeds behind in pursuit.

I rushed the scene, Sparkle in tow, if only to investigate around my own curiosity. And when I took Spark for a walk an hour later, the fuzz were still lingering.

This is But One Fragment Five Hundred Words Long Constituting Part of Something Much Larger, With At Least One New Episode Per Week, And May Be What We Call A Serialized Novella.

The next day Ludek and Nusci stop by Building Three to check up on the progress of the new models. Ludek hasn’t worked with us in nearly two years, but it has been only a single season since Nusci was promoted right out of our lab and into a medium-level Voxing group in Building One. By some accident of administration Nusci and Ludek run the technical designs of the project overall and are sympathetic to our struggles.

There is little talk about Timo’s fumbling accident a few days prior and we all assume that the official report has long-since circulated and has become just another footnote in the Company’s history. Ludek confirms this with a vague comment to Timo about “not troubling himself too much, anymore” and this seemed to be the final affirmation Timo needs before settling back into his regular, light-hearted personality.

Whenever these kinds of inspections happen lately, I notice that Nusci lingers a pace or more behind Ludek as they informally survey our work. It is a strange realization for me because Nusci was always the one we admired in the lab, here, and it is curious to see her that submissive. Then, maybe that is deliberate — orchestrated. Maybe she’s become an apprentice, of sorts. Who knows how the Voxers run things?

There is a lot of casual talk and Ludek is polite when he suggests that the new clockings are coming along a little behind schedule, but admits the work so far is impressive — particularly for the demands of the new technology.

“Can I ask you something Mozari?” Nusci pulls me aside near the end. She addresses me by my full name, something people rare do, so immediately I’m on my guard. “Of course. But why so formal?” I say.

“Oh.” She seems to be checking her own thoughts, then says. “I’m sorry. It’s only we’re quite formal in the Voxing Group. I didn’t think…”

“What is it?”

She hesitates. “Were we close? I mean to say… would you have considered us friends? After all, there was only the three of us in the lab. And Nacks and I were never very close.” I’d never been bothered by the outnumbering by men of women in the lab, but Nusci had struggled with it as if it were some kind of burden.

I shrug noncommittally, and nod. “What’s it like over there?”

“Just me.” She say. “And nine men.”

“And?”

“It’s not like that.” She waves her hand, brushing the idea out of air in front of her. “Only… well, we need to do drinks sometime. Soon. And catch up.”

The tips of my fingers are nearly black from the grime of the clockings, so I slowly wipe my forehead with the back of my hand. “Drinks.” I can do that. “How about tomorrow then?”

Nusci visibly relaxes. “Excellent.” She grins. “Meet me at Dragon’s on the High Street after you finish here. I’ll wait.” And she rushes to follow Ludek out the door.

Assisting dad with his Saturday morning coffee addiction by causing him to tip his long-anticipated morning brew all over the living room floor as he lunges to prevent you from grabbing it just moments before realizing that he could really use three hands in this parenting gig.

Baffling dad with your never ending chatter and babbling, sometime happy, sometimes sad, always a nonsense stream of vocalizations that make him wonder what is going on inside that little brain of yours.

Confusing dad by not letting him gain any sort of ground in understanding you from day to day, ensuring that you act different with every person you meet, respond different to every food that is put in front of you, and that you never show any consistency in your sleeping, bathing, napping, playing, or other activities.

Discouraging dad from watching too much TV by figuring out that remote controls he’s carelessly left laying around are more than just fun toys, but also that by mashing them they make dad go running as the channel changes to static or the volume scurries towards maximum.

Elating dad with your new found balance as you totter across the floors, often picking your way along the couches and tables, but occasionally finding your courage and venturing to take a half-dozen steps with no one’s help but your own.

Frightening dad and giving him a near heart attack as he realizes that choking sound you’re making has nothing to do with your diaper, but is being caused by one of mom’s earrings in the back of your throat, thus causing dad to improvise first aid and emergency chocking procedures and ultimately dislodging the jewelry.

This is But One Fragment Five Hundred Words Long Constituting Part of Something Much Larger, With At Least One New Episode Per Week, And May Be What We Call A Serialized Novella.

It’s two days after the accident and Timo seems to be his usual self again.

Yesterday, we had endured a gradual progression of his darkened moods from insular and unbearable to only just tolerable. Early in the day, while he hunched over his bench in a pitiful silence, he would glance up only after long intervals to bombard us with scowls and questioning stares as we kept our distances and diverted ourselves with speculative conversations. By mid-day, he had broken his silence, muttering commentary from a distance at overheard discussion but never offering more than a few fragmented glances into his reprimand. And by the time we were tuning down the cores, I had seen him sharing animated chatter and a few wary grins with Nacks in relatively close quarters.

But today he is Timo again.

The story of that lost hour with the Rankers after the accident is not fully revealed, though Timo offers vague insinuations that we are certain are private, and we let our imaginations fill in the gaps, discussing it over warm teas during our break. He is deliberately skipping over the finer details as he insists — adamantly insists — there is something wrong with the Essence in the new models, but when we press him he winces visibly and drops it, adding “the Clocking was sound, and it should have worked.”

Klaas offers a theory that all of us Technicals — Tinkers, Clockers, and even the Voxers — are showing signs of reducing our personalities to the state of our machines. He says Timo is a good example of trying to find fault and justification in some external factor to balance the guilt of what is just a simple careless accident. We’re all survivalists, he claims, following a basic clocking to avoid pain and keep our jobs.

“Look at Timo.” He says. “You want to believe that he is a self-determined young man in the prime of his career, right? But in reality he is simply acting out the clockings that are his employer’s demands. We all are. We work to refine the machines. For countless reasons they might break. We are reprimanded and frightened into working harder — and we do just that.”

I tell him I disagree with his fatalistic views and that he needs to get out of the lab more often. “And how does our own happiness fit into that basic clocking?”

He just shrugs and says, “It doesn’t. Happiness is a by-product of survival.”

I want to argue that my own happiness is more than just the overflow of not getting a wrist-slap while doing my job, but I can’t think of a concrete example. Maybe he’s right. Maybe his perspective is less clouded than the rest of us. After all, Klaas has been in the lab for only one season.

“Well, I’m happy, anyhow.” Nacks insists, but she doesn’t offer any other justification and we all recognize this as an awkward and abrupt end to our tea break.

This is But One Fragment Five Hundred Words Long Constituting Part of Something Much Larger, With At Least One New Episode Per Week, And May Be What We Call A Serialized Novella.

Part 1

Just before lunchtime, Timo inverts a logic circuit on one of the new models and the whole lab is evacuated to let the hazard crew do their clean up.

Essence is tricky like that.

Timo feels really sore about it so Nacks, Ving, and I tug him away from a scene that seems to be increasingly panicked and we eat our meals at Epsie’s. It’s not our usual spot — and few more skrip than we are accustomed to paying — but we all swear up and down that it’s a rare occasion requiring increased extravagance, despite Timo’s protests. We take an extra half an hour but still, there is no need to rush back, and we spend another forty-five minutes sitting around on the cold, stone benches in front of Building Three before they will let us back inside.

Timo disappears for an hour or so after that, and when he comes back to the lab he is really quiet and “doesn’t want to talk about it, so shut the fids up!” Ving tries to cheer him and clocks an old Model Four to sneak up on Nacks and pinch up her skirt. Nacks gets angry and kicks the bot’s arm clear off, sending it sailing into a gear rack Everyone finds it funny — even Nacks in the end — but Timo mumbles something about needing to get his work done so Ving cleans up the mess from the toppled equipment, and we are all pretty quiet for the rest of the day.

The Rankers must have gone at him pretty hard this time. Deliberate or accident, there is no such thing as justice for a Clocker.

A couple seasons ago the Rankers had circulated a personality survey with a few dozen cryptic questions purportedly meant to divine unstable aspects of every employee. They claimed it was anonymous, but no one believed them, and we still assume they are all coded into a voxcore somewhere. We had filled them in, sharing answers and unsettled laughs at the weight those mandatory questions. Number fourteen, seemingly innocent, asked each of us to “name three topics outside work that you would like to know more about” but was clearly there to be later presented as evidence of our low job satisfaction. But blanks were not an option so Ving had written:

1. airship design
2. the chorus arts
3. the inner workings of Asgarthan politics

which was something of a ruse because he knew more than most people about airship design. He rationalized this by explaining (to us anyhow) that his father, formerly a traded airship Tinker, told him repeatedly that he “didn’t know nothing about no fid-damned airships” and that he had chosen the wrong profession. We hadn’t pressed the topic any further.

I had answered:

1. life outside of Clockers
2. home cooked meals
3. life outside the Southbend

all of which are as true now as they were then, I reflect. As usual, I walk home from the lab alone.