Clockwork Zero Novels & Stories

Jax roared, growing to twice hzis size, his sapphire fur erupting into a mane of blue fire as he tore into the Null sentries. Sarah stood over me, her golden light creating a dome that shattered the shadow-spears as they struck. "Hurry, Elara! The anvil is getting hotter! I can't hold the souls much longer!" I entered the **Clockwork**. It was a world of infinite, grinding mathematics. I saw the strings of data that connected Silas to the Forge. They were like silver umbilical cords, feeding him the "logic" of the Nulls and draining his humanity.

Instead, he muttered to himself again and again, "Where's my cheat ability? Why did it disappear? Why can't I see the future anymore?! What's going on?!" His expression was twisted with madness, like a rabid dog gone out of control. [That skill was a limited-time quirk for the newbie male lead, and it was bound to be retracted after a week.] [Even if he stocked the wrong supplies, he should've at least gotten food too. But this guy stocked only ice?] [Another brain-dead male lead, abandoned by the system.] At that moment, the signal cut off. I shrugged again, before continuing to eat my grilled meat.

I ask. "This is Dr. Abstract Wrightwood. Come to the hospital right now or else I'll be the one coming to your house and pull off your ear for you to be here." "There's no way I will do that and there's no way you can find me." I said out of teasing. She laughed sarcastically. "Then, let’s see. If I find you within five minutes, I'll dissect you alive without any anesthesia so you can feel the pain or you'll be here before five minutes ends. Your timer starts now. Tick-tac!" she said then ends the call.

Now those tools were spread out on the table before her, small tools that she couldn't afford on her own. Gears from inside the clock were spread out before her. Upon opening the clock first thing this morning, she had discovered that something had damaged most of the moving parts inside. Teeth were missing from gears, and more than a couple of them had been broken in half. She wasn't certain how the inside of a grandfather clock could take such damage, but was determined to do her best.

Your wife's at home having a baby and you're out globetrotting. [Seriously, what was the excuse this time?] Jasper had replied underneath: [I told her a once-in-77-years planetary alignment opened a time portal and I got sucked through.] [Man, only you could come up with something like that. Aren't you worried she'll lose it?] [She's put up with it for three years. This time's no different. She'll be at home waiting for me like she always is.] Three years of patience and forgiveness, and all of it had become a running joke between him and his friends.

Sarah whispered, her voice blending perfectly with the 60-hertz hum of the wind moving through the Sombra-leaves. However, as the planet vibrated with the joy of the return, a final, tiny "Dissonance" flickered on the master monitors in the Spire's command center. In the deepest, lead-shielded vault of the old Federal Reserve in Manhattan—a place where the Sombra had not yet fully penetrated the thick, 20th-century steel—a single mechanical clock was still ticking. It was a relic of the "Old Standard," a device of brass and iron that measured time in discrete, isolated, lonely seconds rather than the continuous, flowing "Symmetry" of the new world. It was a rhythmic holdout of the era of the

Instead, a hidden latch hidden behind the carved wooden crown of the clock released with a dull thud. Vikram reached out, his fingers brushing against the cold, aged wood. The entire face of the grandfather clock swung open like a narrow door, revealing not the intricate gears and brass weights of a standard timepiece, but a dark, hollow shaft leading straight down into the foundations of the old house.