Skyward - (NaNoWriMo 2013 Novel)

An Unexpected Guest - (Nov 4, Monday)

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"His name is the Ticktock Man, and that is what ye should be calling him if ye fancy keeping dem pretty heads perched on dem shoulders, me cullies."

Benedict's eyes seemed to go somewhere else for a moment, and he whispered "the ticktock man..." to himself.

* * *

"There's out there wots now Wild but was once meant ter feed us, so feed on it we do. Proper weapons, we still have: edge weapons. Blades. Arrows. And the occasional powder, too--oh yes, me cullies! We be hunting out dere in the Wild, and we be keeping ourselves well stocked from it!"

Benedict dropped his plate.

"Don't eat it," he said to the boy. "Don't eat any of it. It's Wild. It's tainted. It's probably why they're all playing with only a half deck in here."

"Come now!" The Ticktock Man roared. "Is that any way ter repay our hospitality!?"

* * *

"Yer the Boy, well and surely so," The Ticktock Man said, leaning in close to the child.

"And though ye don't much look the part, ye must be his Gunslinger."

"Gunslinger...?" Benedict said to himself, his eyes taking on that far-off look once again. "Gunslinger...Ticktock..." His eyes were wandering the throne room. Suddenly they seized on a battered paperback book that had seemingly been discarded at the base of the throne. The boy could vaguely make out a shape on the tattered cover: a locomotive, but it also looked like a skull.

"Wastelands" Benedict whispered beside him, and his eyes that had been wandering before were fixed now on that discarded book, as if it were the most important thing he'd ever seen.

The Ticktock man finally realized where Benedict was looking, and his mad face cracked with glee.

"Aye, Gunslinger. I've read yer book. Did you think I'd miss it? Didja think that I couldn't see that we are living in Ludd, that I had a part to play in bringing some leadership to this insane band?"

Benedict had begun backing away, with a hand on the boy's chest, pushing him back with him. He spoke to the boy from the side of his mouth.

"This man is dangerous." He spoke it as if it was news.

"Yes. That is apparent." The boy responded.

"No. More dangerous than any of the others. He's not just mad from all the Wild game. He has actually got a plan that he's following. He thinks he is another, and he wants what that other wanted."

"And what is that?" The boy asked.

"If i'm right, pandemonium...pandemonium, and worse."

The Ticktock Man had been watching Benedict this whole time with a curious look on his face. He finally saw whatever it was he had been waiting for and spoke.

"Aye. I can see yeh know who I am and what it is I want. The treasure burried at the heart of the Core. The dipolar computers and the slo-trans engines that keep all dem luverly 'Dos runnin'."

"There are no slo-trans engines. There are no dipolar computers." Benedict was speaking in a slow, deliberate voice, as if he were trying to disarm a bomb with his words alone. "There is nothing under the Core that you want to find but tunnels and abandonned trains. You know that the MegaDos are self-sufficient. They are self-sustaining contained systems. I've seen the plans; I was part of the build team for the bloody things--"

"BUILD TEAM, was it?"

Benedict winced visibly. Cut the wrong bloody wire.

"SEEN PLANS, is it? Well, Cully, we not all be as daft as ye think. I've seen plans of my own, and it doesn't take such a trig brain buckets to see interesting patterns in dem lines: funny curved bits where all else seems teh be straight."