Homebound: The Timeshatterer and the Stoneweaver

The First Rewind of the Day

The breather pipes skirled to wake the Slums. They sang their cacophonic tune, like wounded metal lungs. The chem-lights outside intensified into bright gold, negating the flaring blue light of my long-lamp, as they filtered through the Gray encasing the outdoor air, only to beam in between the slits of my window curtains. Through a radio's grilled speaker, mellow late-night piano tones gradually faded out with tender steps. The timekeeper I'd set last night ticked like a metronome. Every hour, minute, and second rolled down its display, with ever increasing number.

Three hours. Six minutes. Zero seconds. And counting.

I groaned, the taste of soured saliva riding on my breath. Too much time wasted on sleep. I moved my arms to prop myself up, waking them from their sleeping position, which had inadvertently shoved crumpled paper, measuring gear, tools, and wires. My stomach sizzled and my throat felt drier than a worn out fume-pipe.

Madame Eddiefray's upside Piltovian accent sounded through the grille of a radio. "Good morning, Zaun!" Orchestral music blared in a bombastic entrance. Ugh... "It's six bells before mid-day! The Rising Howl's a grinding, the Factorywood's a stirring, and productivity is high, high up as always..."

Though my eyes resisted my efforts to pry them open, I searched for my stylo in the chem-lit blur, scanning among the screws, papers, and components. I felt its cylindrical body roll past my finger, approaching the end of my desk- which was way opposite the stylo-holder- only to tumble down at the other side. I caught it, setting it between my tired fingers, and gave it a few clicks. Like hatch grates, a row of tallies stretched end-to-end on a piece paper I had stamped on the radio.

Thirty-three days.

Not a second to waste. I set the stylo down, stretched out with a waking yawn, and felt a breath leave me like shriveled dust out of a chute.

The can of waker-juice shifted slightly against my naked feet. I picked it up among the pile of its emptied brothers, just right beside the dexrofoam husks of delivered quick-bites, and took a good, long sip. The taste of hyper-sweetened, frizzy fluid burned down my throat, toward my belly, and into the back of my eyes. Have to stay awake.

I searched for my micro-welder and found it resting beside my zoomer-lens. Its tiny engine roared in a quiet whir beneath the iron casing. Shouldn't have left this plugged in. I sighed as I pressed its button to check it. Highly concentrated ionflame erupted from its nozzle like a spike of energy. But the wear and tear won't matter once I'm done. I turned it off.

A mess of wires spilled out of the Zero Drive's metal casing, like a bronze cap linked to a thick brush of black tubes, which in turn connected the device to the Z-Augment, an amalgamate machine of components, microdrives, capacitators, limitators, and all other sorts of tech I'd been piecing together like a sculpture for remembrance day.

I placed my naked fingers on the glass capsule of the Z-Drive. Wisps of blue crystalline fragments swirled idly within the hourglass-shaped chamber... Always good to see you still running. Then, with a sigh, I moved my hand to the wirework and searched for the bolt I'd been welding to secure another capacitator before I fell asleep. Too far in for a rewind... I pressed my micro-welder's button. Sparks hopped out of the juncture of metal and concentrated power, birthing a straight, perfectly aligned red-hot trail

Particles erupted, flaring out every second. Like tiny gunshots. Reminders.

Knocks boomed at my door. I jumped up, almost letting go of the micro-welder and slicing open all of my work. Oh no, oh no. I looked at my progress as frantic calculations of how to dismantle and hide this all raced in my mind, but before I can even notice the most obvious idea gleaming back at me from the Z-drive's primer rod, the hinges burst open.