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Part 3-4: Diner
Deluxe expressed interest in the oddity of Persi’s golden glow, but insisted that we didn’t know enough about Clockworld’s mechanics to conclude anything concrete at this time. This annoyed me to some degree, but I drew some comfort from knowing that she was aware, and hopefully—more alert.
At home, we used an honest to goodness physical white pages phone book to creep the town’s collection of Walkerbys. There were only three, and only one lived near Tennesbury Road. My gut was accurate: the property was more or less on the edge of my warping limit.
So, we rang everyone up again and made a fast plan. There was a roadside diner about a mile away from the area. Me, Dack and Persi would get a heaping amount of takeout, giving us a plausible reason to stay parked in the lot. She and I would enter Clockworld and head toward the area, leaving our physical bodies in the car with Dack. Meanwhile, Fergus and Deluxe would pose as campers and set up shop nearby. They’d ‘meet’ us at an arranged place and time, then we’d scout it out, with Dack coordinating communication between us. Deluxe would be using her technology to scan for anything strange, and Fergus would attempt to ward off anything nasty.
Ideally, Dack would accompany Deluxe… he was clearly more physically suited to the role, however, he was still on suspended leave from the fire department thanks to his brash role in helping defeat Eden at the park. Deluxe refused to let him traipse around an area that the cops might have their eye on.
He glowered about it as we drew closer to the diner’s lot. “I should be in there,” he said, gassing the pedal a little too hard.
“She means to protect you, so I think,” said Persi. She rode shotgun, and turned to look at me.
“It wouldn’t look good if they found you out there with a machete and bunch of weird Deluxe devices,” I agreed, gripping my seatbelt. We came to a jerking halt in a parking space.
Dack wrenched himself around. “It wouldn’t look good if that thing comes back… and does…”
“We don’t even know if anything’s even out there,” I said.
“Fergus seems capable of fending off threats,” Persi said. “Don’t you trust your friend?”
“Of course I trust Fergus. It’s just… it should be me.”
He turned around and sat quiet for moment. Persi looked like she was going to say more but I caught her eye and waved her off. After a moment, Dack unbuckled and got out. We followed and ordered what hopefully passed as a meal worthy of an extended parking lot feast.
Persi joined me in the backseat when we came back. We piled the food in the empty front seat and I tried to breathe easy. Though I’d been testing my Clockworld visiting powers, this was going to be the longest stint, and probably an exhausting one. My stomach filled with the sort of nerves I associate with job interviews. After a week of relative calm, we were finally stalking our quarry again.
“You guys ready?” I said.
“Ready,” said Persi.
“Yeah,” grunted Dack.
I gripped Persi’s hand as Dack plugged a heating pad into the car’s outlet. I slipped off my right shoe and stepped on the pad: its heat would give me an extra anchoring feeling to concentrate on if I needed it. There was also the smell of our takeout.
I coaxed the tingles from the ring and guided them up my arm. They were strong and comforting, but moved like molasses, so much slower than when I was doing it in town. I had to be patient and concentrate. Any errant thought or distraction caused them to slow or even stop. After about two minutes, they hit some kind of magical threshold and flowed into me. I pictured Clockworld, and I pictured Persi there with me. The sight of her yellow glow was a helpful visual; useful for making sure she made it in too. If I failed to bring her in, I had to come out and do it again from scratch—and I doubted I’d have enough energy for that.
The world flooded with white haze, and it felt like a midsummer sun was cooking the back of my head and neck. The diner’s wifi.
I stood and lurched forward, feeling for two bodies, two intertwined hands. I was pretty sure she was with me, but it was too blurry to see, so I waited until I’d moved far enough away from the car, then said, “Persi?”
“Here, with you,” she said. I felt her squeeze Clockworld-me’s hand.
I squeezed back, then found the sensation of the heating pad.
“We’re in,” said car-me.
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