Clock Breakers

Rule 11: You're Smarter Than You Think

T-minus one week until the world breaks.

The hospital was operational and mostly normal, with a tired woman looking over her glasses at me from the desk. I nodded to her and went into the elevator, holding my watch to the panel. Nothing happened. I looked at the buttons, finding no basement.

"Hey, uh," I said, approaching the lady, "is there a basement here?"

"A basement?" she asked, eyeing me up and down. "No, this is a research hospital. We're right above the foundation. You might be thinking of the hospital on fifth street, I think that one has a sublevel?"

"Sorry, I must've gotten my buildings confused. Thanks anyway," I said, wandering around to find the stairwell. The first three I found only went up. I walked easily, with no excuse ready if someone asked to see my credentials. One of the stairwells had a scratched off sticker still clinging to it. I looked around before pulling a lockpick from my pocket. Couldn't train me out of everything, Nash. I slipped in and shut the door behind me, finding stairs that only went down.

The power was shot, the stairs spitting me out near the weird fake apartment lot that was, so far, still missing its building. I didn't realize how fast the elevator was until then - we weren't one level down, we were about fifty. The only way to break the real lab was if it imploded; nothing could touch it from the surface. My flashlight ran over the cold, white tile. I walked around the abandoned lab slowly, my breath and boots the only sounds to be found. Boss' office didn't have a door yet. An empty closet of concrete walls, that's all it was. I picked up the broom against the wall and started sweeping, leaving the dirt in the hall. I didn't need everything spotless yet, just an empty patch on the floor.

I set my flashlight on the floor with my tree book. I wrote the coordinates on my arm and poofed away, having a vague idea of where those pieces always vanished to. I had the glass and the number roll in my pocket. I landed in the office and noted the time, picking the bullet off the desk. I shook my head at the door. It was always you, dumbass, that's why it felt weird. I stole the indenter we found in my dorm... in six days, the tin I'd found under the burning boat the first time, the watch crown I'd found in the pill case before the car accident (when did Nash actually break out of there?) - I froze, looking up at the door to the office. Nash didn't break out, not anymore. He didn't hunt me, didn't grow old, didn't wear a mask over the face I'd melted. He didn't leave himself on the side of the road or point a gun at my head in a hospital.

"Overlapping memories," I mumbled, grabbing the crown and porting back to the dark closet. I sat on the floor and laid out all the pieces, including Nash's cracked watch. I twisted open the bullet, pouring out its contents. A tiny screwdriver with the note reading microwaves. I set it aside, opening the water tin and pulling out the gear. I picked up the flashlight and looked over the pieces as they surrounded Nash's watch. I chewed the inside of my lip, completely lost. I knew what I had to do, but knowing how to do it was a completely different beast. I looked back to my watch, tapping the glass as I noticed the seconds hand ticking back and forth. My blood ran cold and I looked at Nash's watch, doing the same.

I took off my own watch, setting it next to Nash's. Mine had three dials, his had two. My glass was scratched - it was when I got it, his was shattered but otherwise fine. I closed my eyes and rubbed my temples. There was a note with my watch when I got it, what did it say? It was in my own handwriting, that I remember. I remember ignoring the obvious cause of it, too. I opened my eyes, looking between the watches again. Remember rule eleven. What were the first ten rules? Some shit Nash tried to teach me, but anything could be rule eleven, it wasn't fair to leave me with just that.

Whatever. You're smarter than you think, Freeze, just figure it out and deal with that later. I picked up Nash's watch and pried the broken glass off with my knife. I poked around the dial a bit, but it was responding like normal, other than the back and forth. I took a deep breath. It could always be a fluke, a weird magnetic pulse from the sun, maybe I was too close to a machine in the hospital, it could be anything.