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Clockspinning - Chapter 2

One day for you, time stops. There's no warning, no obvious trigger, but until you sleep, time will not pass, the world and almost all its people frozen in place. You can go wherever you want. You can do pretty much anything your heart could desire. And there are people from that first day, hunting you, determined to eliminate all who are like you. You are now a Clockspinner. "I am so sorry."

A webnovel about fighting back, about harnessing your gifts, and about being unapologetically proud of what you are. Chapter one below the cut. TW: guns, violence, mentions of transphobia, covid (Please let me know if I missed any)

New to the story? Read The First Chapter Here

As I stepped outside, I had blinkers on about as bad as the guy now lying on the floor in a pool of his own blood. My eyes went first to the back of his head, wincing a little at that gory detail, but my relief at checking and seeing he still breathed in low heaves mixed with regret that he did indeed still breathe. I’d never hit someone with a weapon before, like, a slap at most, but I think I knew I was prepared to take a life if it came to that. I’d struck with as much intent.

The pipe lay by his side, and it would be the smart thing to do, but I held off, as much not to scare my new friend in case she saw me. Instead I settled for rummaging in his coat, pulling out a phone and wallet, and a pocket watch for some reason in a heavy bag. I frowned at that, but chose not to pull it out; present me would like to take a moment to thank past me for that prudence.

Looking about as I straightened up, an idea came to me at once dumb, but also low-key brilliant. I didn’t know this guy’s story but I know trash when I see it. After a few minutes work, helped by more than a few years of regular gym visits, I wiped my brow and surveyed the scene again. Aside from the small pool of red, any trace of the dude no longer stood out in the street, aside from the reign of gunfire-carnage mysteriously ending here. Switching his phone off, I debated smashing it and leaving it behind, but my gut told me to hold onto it for now. I bit my lip all the same, tasting the strawberry as my eyes moved back to the office window. He wouldn’t know where to look, I hoped. Without a better idea, I set off, keeping to the alleys to start with, but with tentative bravery ending up on the streets.

If you haven’t seen life frozen in place, there aren’t words to communicate the sensation. The closest allegory I have is virtual reality, specifically Google Earth VR. You stand in place, and look about, and you see snapshots of daily life, people going about their day, the variety of different happenings that phrases like ‘a picture is worth a thousand words’ exist to shorthand. Where this experience differs from the software, is in the freedom of motion you have, the walking up to strangers, looking into their statuesque eyes, knowing a living person stands there, unaware of this fractional moment in time. I didn’t touch - I respect boundaries, even if I did poke my coworker at the start of this. Less Google, more a classical museum, elegant in its own way, like wandering a painting. The scene formed a beautiful diorama, until I reached Terminus.

Terminus Road sits in the heart of Eastbourne, a name I always found a bit, I guess morbid in a weird way. There’s this pervasive idea that Eastbourne is ‘God’s waiting room’ in the UK, a bit like a less interesting Florida, right down to the ‘Suntrap of the South’ town slogan. I’m not gonna claim it’s the most exciting place in the country, but it’s a nice town, vibrant, a hell of a lot younger than people think before they visit, assuming they don’t stick to the beach hotels. So a name like Terminus, for a place so often in motion never sat right with me. I know it’s got more to do with this being where the busses used to stop, but the Terminus I looked out on here was death itself.

Bodies. I tried not to look at first, but when I got past the banks, that’s what I saw in too much abundance to block out, twenty, maybe forty of them. The feature tipping the scene into true surreal territory came from the nature of the bodies themselves. I’m talking people in fragments, but still posed like mannequins in motion, dismembered hands holding phones in charred flesh, like ice statues shattered by a flaming baseball bat. I didn’t know if the time stopping made the smell go away, or my sense of smell shut down on the spot; turns out the latter. I’m describing this in clinical terms, because all these years later, I still dunno if I’ve finished processing it. I still see Terminus when I close my eyes even now. I knew nothing about freeze-immunity back then.

I puked. I’m not ashamed to say it. Didn’t cry which, feels weird. I didn’t know these people but loss of life is supposed to ruin you isn’t it? Even the puking, I think had more to do with the smell, my body reacting involuntarily even as my brain hit the big ‘NOPE’ button on scent. As I managed to breathe after the final wretch, I straightened up, and tried to become more objective. I hadn’t come here for sightseeing. I looked not at the body parts and fallen people, eerily dispersed among those upright and frozen in walk as if nothing were amiss, and focused instead on the patterns.

It took all of a couple of minutes to find where the bomb went off. As to why a person took to bombing the town in this way I lacked any context, but my nutcase with his gun seemed as likely a suspect as any, and his behavious bordering on psychopathy from my perspective. Even so, as I walked to the middle entrance to the Beacon shopping centre, the clear epicentre of the blast, I had an uneasy feeling in my gut. What do you do when you hear an explosion? Heck, what had I done? You do one of two options, we all know them: fight, or flight. Technically also ‘freeze’ but, most of these fuckers had no choice on that one. So of the two former options, what’s the factor both have in common is that they do not share with the statues of passersby?

I scanned about for any signs of movement, but presumably anyone who did move in the moments following the freeze and blast met the same fate as Clara’s green haired friend. My stomach twinged a bit at that thought, knowing in all likelihood what I’d see when I turned the corner past Weatherspoons onto Gildridge. I had no way to know, but suspected his gore would be much more, conventional, than the statues here. Nothing prepared me for what I saw around that corner.

Clara said he had green hair. If she hadn’t, I’m not sure I’d know. He lay face down on the pavement, but if he still had a face given the gaping hole in the back of his skull, I’d be amazed. Bullets alone don’t do that. The bloody rear of the gun flashed in my memory, along with a grim certainty I now knew how the blood got there. How many hits did that take? Not a double-tap, but a bludgeoning. His name was Harry, Harry Singe. I looked down at his provisional licence, born in 2009. Fucking hell, not even an adult, a teenager killed in cold blood.

When I continued to search the body, I felt his jacket vibrating. Reaching in, I pulled out a phone, an unknown number calling. I reacted without thought, swiping to answer.

“Harry, for fuck sake don’t scare me like that!”

“Who is this?”

The line went cold. Combined with the silence of the frozen world, time stopped all over again as I held my breath.

“Did you kill him?” The voice on the other end of the line had none of the fear in Clara’s voice, nor the adrenaline I tried to suppress in my own. As I would come to know in time, Lucille Waters knew this type of call all too well. In that moment, I didn’t know her name, nor what a tough and admirable leader she served as to our people. I knew a dead seventeen year old lay at my feet, and the only answers I would ever get for what the hell happened might come from a person I couldn’t call back.

“No. The guy who did is out cold. He was chasing a girl, gunning her down too. She’s safe. Who are you?”

“Jesus Christ…” I heard the sigh, the thoughts whirling. Yet just like me, Lucielle thinks fast. “Position?”

“You didn’t answer my question.”

“You’re not safe out there. I need to get both of you out of the streets before they get you too. You wanna risk that?”

I’m not a sarcasm-bitch. I can be wry, and I can be obstinate. But looking at the body, sensing the devastation behind me, I came to a quick conclusion.

“Gildridge Road, Eastbourne. But I’ll be on the final stretch of Terminus with the girl in 5.”

“Stay indoors. We’ll call this phone when we’re nearby. First time?”

“Yep.” I didn’t need to ask what she meant by that,

“Sorry you got roped into this. We’ll be there soon.” And she hung up. I stayed for maybe a few moments too long over the body, unsure if I should do anything about it. In the end, I left it there, and took his ID and phone with me as I set back off, unaware that in doing so, I likely saved the poor bastard’s life. Turns out when they hunt us, there’s a reason they aren’t supposed to aim for headshots.

By the time I got back, and pushed through the front door, Clara stood at the top of the stairs. I gave her a look, trying to figure out if she’d meant to escape or anxiety drove her to wait on the step, but the relaxing of her shoulders told me before I needed to ask.

“Help’s on the way, I think.”

“Help?”

“Possible help. Whoever that guy you were with wanted to take you to, I think. You don’t have to come with if-”

“Where do we need to be?” She spoke in a far more confident tone now, which I had to admire even more now I’d seen what she had to run through to get here. She came down the stairs, and I saw to even more admiration she’d managed to uncover the water bottle stash we built up over the last year, carrying one of the pallets under her arm. I took it off of her and we sat on the steps, a little ways up from the view of the doorway. I spotted more than a few wet spots on her dress, flecks of tissue, but chose not to mention them. I found it bad enough seeing the aftermath of what happened, let alone imagining living it.

“This your office?”

“Pfft, it’s where I work, not mine by any stretch.”

“Oh.”

“You a recent graduate?”

“I, yeah. How did you know?”

“Hunch. Right age, smart enough to run when the gunfire started.”

“Uni is INT not WIS.”

I raised an eyebrow.

“Tabletop?”

“Floor below, at Mana.”

“Oh you go there?” I knew of the local games store on the floor below, even if I’d never gone myself. More than once I almost detoured there, but ‘just be yourself’ isn’t the easiest for me, even now, so I hadn't done a whole lot of socialising. I think it hit me then that this might be the longest non-work conversation with a stranger I’d had since university, the thought more than a little sobering.

“Most weeks. It’s nice. I hadn’t seen you about before?”

“I work until 4 and slip out most days under a hood.”

“Oh?”

“Meh, is safer.”

“Safer?”

This raised eyebrow had a more puzzled than intrigued vibe. She had to know, I figured.

“You know I’m trans right?”

“I did see the sticker on your PC, assuming it’s yours. Is it that unsafe out there?”

“Pretty much.” I shrugged. Hyperbole, in the face of what we both saw today? Not really; you get used to trying to move around unseen. In a weird way, I’d been training for this kind of situation all my life.

“I’m sorry.”

“Why? You’ve been respectful.”

“Still doesn’t make other people being shitty any less wrong.”

“I’d say could be worse, but we both seem kinda fucked so…”

That got a snort. I liked Clara. If I learned one thing over this crazy journey, it’s that as diverse a pool as Clockspinners are, there is one trait they seem to share in common. Call it a survivorship bias, but they’re a tough bunch, right from the get go.

“You, gonna take the gun?”

“Hm?” It took me a moment to even remember my under-the-desk contraband. “Oh, I guess I should.”

“Better to have and not need it, right?”

“I’ll be real, I don’t think I have it in me to shoot a gun.” I remember saying those words without thinking, an automatic and honest response that, admittedly, clashed with my earlier violent actions. Also wrong as it would later turn out.

“What about, him?”

“That was different.”

“No I mean, sorry I mean are we, doing anything with…” Clara gestured her head to the left, and I realised her actual question.

“Er, I guess we, ask them? He’s still alive, I think.”

She shuddered at that. To this day I don’t know if discomfort at the idea he might be alive, or that I could kill someone right in front of her made her shiver. I chose not to ask at the time, and even with all she’s seen me do since, I don’t know if I’d want to know which of us made her uncomfortable in that moment. Sometimes we don’t want to know what the important people’s first impressions were.

“I’ll be right back.” I said instead, and got up to fetch the gun. I had it over my shoulder on its strap and stood at the top of the stairs when I felt my pocket beginning to buzz.

“Hello?”

“Outside, come quick.” The voice on the other end spoke with clipped urgency, calm but bordering on abrupt, and before I could say so much as a how do you do back, they hung up on me. After what I’d already seen, I felt ready to forgive pragmatic rudeness.

“That them?”

“Yep. Time to head out.”

As we walked out into the street, I felt the skin on the back of my neck crawl at the movement from my left. I could picture a looming man covered in trash holding a gun, aiming it at my face even as I held the only weapon he’d had on him. Instead, I turned to see a buggy pulling up in close to perfect silence. Large, with huge spherical wheels and a rollcage, it looked somehow futuristic and Mad Maxian all at once, the colours all light greys that blended in with the pavement. The helmet the driver wore, along with those slung on the back seat’s belts matched this, as if camolfaging the vehicle from above.

“Get in.”

“Dude who killed your friend is in a dumpster over there.” I said, gesturing with my head. “You taking him too?”

I couldn’t see the face of our driver, but I got the distinct impression some baffled blinking went on under that helmet.

“Dead?”

“Don’t think so.”

“Saw your face?”

“Not mine,” I said, feeling Clara tensing beside me, “but, saw hers.”

“Shit. OK show me.”

My ingenious solution to stopping our little nutjob friend from scarpering on us took the form of one of the dumpsters down a nearby alleyway. I dragged him over, not taking much effort to make the trip pleasant, and unceremoniously hauled him inside, before lifting some poor person’s motorbike on top to weigh the lid down. All those trips to the gym over the years paid off, even if the bike took me more attempts than I’d like to admit to get up there. Between us we lifted it off, and then our driver told us to stand back as they opened the lid.

“Jeez that smells bad…” The driver shook their head, looking down.

“It does?”

“Probably didn’t to you, but as soon as you move stuff in a freeze, everything it would give off normally comes back,” they said, making a noise of displeasure, “including the smell. Poor bastard.”

“Don’t feel too sorry for him.” I chimed in.

“Oh I don’t. And he’s got far worse in his near future. Help me strap him to the back.”

Unsure if I understood what the driver meant, I learned fast that they did indeed plan to strap the bastard to the back of the buggy. Behind the roller cage a small ‘basket’-like boot sat, with several bungee-cords draped across it. I’d already tied his hands behind his back with his own ridiculous oversized balaclava, and now the three of us bound him even tighter into this less than safe looking ‘seat’. If we did actually roll, he wouldn’t hold onto all his arms and legs; given the driver’s cryptic warning, I didn’t take his getting out of this unscathed from here on out as a given at all.

Once we completed the ritual, Clara and I took our places, and our helmets, and in moments we sped off in total silence up the road, and onto the promenade where we lay just out of view of the main street. I cringed a little as the car ploughed through the statue-like people.

“Do you have to do that?” I asked, wincing as yet another vanished under our bumper.

“Doesn’t hurt them.”

“Yeah I gathered that but Jesus.”

“Sorry. I know it looks grim but it’s the best route forward. Once the freeze ends, everything snaps back to where it started. Including us.”

“Oh?” I looked at Clara, though thanks to the helmets we couldn’t see each other’s faces. “Everyone?”

“Everyone, everything.”

“Including, anyone who died?”

“Eh that’s a bit more complex. You’ll get orientation when we get in. Hold on.” The driver put on a burst of speed, and swerved back onto the road. Ahead, I saw the slope that took hikers close to vertical from street level onto the heights of the downs. I gritted my teeth, and on instinct my hand found Clara’s. She didn’t question, grabbing mine as the buggy hit the bottom of the slope and sped upwards, somehow not rolling or stalling out as it easily cleared the hill.

“Some buggy you got here.”

“Standard issue, HQ keeps these all across East Sussex.”

“And HQ is?”

“Orientation, sorry I’m just the driver.”

“You can give us more than that.”

“HQ is HQ.” They shrugged. “They work on keeping Clockspinners alive, the ones not like your friend in the back.”

“Clockspinners?”

“The rare movers in a world of statues.” The driver turned us onto the road again at the bottom of a slope, the old lighthouse dead ahead. “Is what we all are.”

“Why are they, we, called that?”

“Goes back to the early freezes. We didn’t have a network back then, only way to know another of us was nearby would be seeing a moving clock, and you could use it to figure out how long ago. Course back then everyone was more naive, or at least no one was killing us off.”

“How long ago we talking?”

“‘Bout four years.”

“Four years…?” I choked on the words. “Welcome to your new life. Sorry in advance.” That was all the driver said back. Can’t blame them in hindsight, because as it turned out, a lot had happened in those long four years.

#original fic #transgender #trans #writeblr #writblr #super powers #time freeze #queer fiction

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