The Clocks

Introduction

"Welcome to Applied Sociology VIII. I see a number of familiar faces from last year's App. Soc. VII, and I commend you for continuing, especially as, unlike App. Soc. VII, this course is not required. There aren't too many beings willing to take any more classes with me after their first exposure. That makes you either too stupid to remember how I'm going to treat you if you screw up, or smart enough to realize that there's no better place to learn about our subject, and your enthusiasm for learning is great enough that you're willing to put up with me."

Professor Ptica paused for a few seconds to allow those new to her classes to turn to their experienced classmates and verify her statements. As always she was inwardly amused to see generalized gestures of veracity by those who knew her. To be more precise, what amused her even more was seeing many faces pale in shock when the beings asking the questions realized what they'd gotten themselves into.

"First let me give you a synopsis of what was covered last year."

She shrugged her minuscule shoulders. "Yes, I know that course is not a prerequisite for this one. Why the Curriculum Committee made such an incredibly stupid decision is beyond me, especially as anyone who hasn't taken App. Soc. VII will need to do so eventually if they wish to graduate. If you don't have any background, it's going to be extremely difficult for you to understand what's going on in this class as we're continuing from right where we left off last semester. I can't require you to do so, but if you have the brains that the university admissions office says you do, you'd better at least read through the text from App Soc VII, preferably immediately."

She ruffled her feathers to settle them properly then continued, "So here we go. I'll present the synopsis, but you'd best get to reading this weekend. You probably wondered why your first class is on a Friday. You shouldn't be wondering any more. If you still are, I suggest that you transfer out on Monday. Anyone who hasn't figured it out doesn't have the brain power to benefit from my classes. Go take Floral Appreciation instead. It'll be more suited to your lack of intellect.

"Now then, let's get started....

"No. I've changed my mind. I'm going to just let you read the intro. That way you won't miss anything. You may have the rest of the class period to do so. Once you're finished I suggest that you bribe those of your classmates who already took App. Soc. VII with their favorite beverage or snack and get them to fill you in on what's not in the synopsis.

"I'll see you promptly at 08:30 on Monday. Let me warn you. You do not want to be late for my classes. You won't like the consequences."

With that she fluttered off her perch and stalked out of the classroom. Ordinarily seeing a creature less than a meter high stalking away from you would cause at least some degree of amusement. Nobody even snickered. Those with previous experiences with the professor knew better. The newbies were either all too busy reading or using their datalinks to find another class, any other class, to transfer into.

-----------------------

Second day of classes, Monday, September 6, 2483

Ptica hopped onto her perch-lectern and began. "The City of The Bells is without doubt the most unique city in the entire cosmos. There are of course many thousands of unique and interesting cities in the various 'verses. That goes without saying. However this particular city stands alone for several reasons.

"First of all we must address its creation. Rather than growing haphazardly, as most all cities do, because of an accidental confluence of rivers, roads, etc., this city was planned. Now I know what you're going to say. Lots of cities are planned. That is undoubtedly true, but no other city was planned like this one. This is the one city in all the known 'verses that was founded as an experiment by beings living approximately 5,000 years in the future. (The exact time period, or for that matter the location, of the planners is still unknown.) What is definitively known about them is heartbreakingly sparse and was gleaned from chance comments they made to residents of The City over a period of several hundred years.

"Coming up with 'what if' questions is one of the primary hobbies of beings living throughout the 'verses. This time though, the beings in question had the ability to create a situation to answer their 'what ifs?' Their question was simple. What if there was an impregnable city in northern Italy that would be able to prevent invasion through the mountain passes leading from northern Europe? How would it change history, or would it change history at all?

"It must be said that the idea for this experiment was not the result of years of systematic planning and research. It resulted from a chance comment made by one of a group of scientists who'd gone out to party after work and were close to falling-down drunk. They were arguing about history when one, whose name was never recorded, said 'put up or shut up' to another unnamed scientist who had spent far too long pontificating about the effects of such a city.

"There was some rapid scribbling on napkins after that. Within an hour those present realized that it WAS possible to manipulate the past and cause a city to grow there. Five years later they were ready to begin and the result was what you learned about in class last year -- at least you'd BETTER have learned it if you hope to pass again this year. (New students are included in this admonition. Which is why you'd best have caught up this past weekend.)

"What the engineers didn't know was that there was one other being who had become interested in their project. She had her own agenda, which would dovetail nicely with theirs. She had an experiment planned that involved the development of a particular societal mindset (in more ways than one), and the city being planned would make a perfect tabula rasa.

"With that in mind, literally moments before the scientists triggered what they hoped would result in the founding of The City, she acted first. As we know, her 'trigger' was much more effective than that which the researchers had planned. Eventually they wrote it off as a rather amazing coincidence. The only thing they cared about was that The City would exist. The idea that sentient beings would live in it and die in it somehow never entered their collective consciousnesses.

"We've already seen how the residents of The City reacted once they'd learned about the ostensible cause of The Founding. With the help of the one they came to call Lady Blue, many generations of inhabitants strove to mold The City according to their plan rather than that of a group of strangers living thousands of years in the future.

"As a result, The City of The Bells grew in ways that nobody would ever have expected, even given its rather spectacular triggering event. This year we will continue exploring the stories of some of its residents."

-------------------------

Monday, August 09, of The Year 723 After the Founding

Very few natives of The City of The Bells would have consciously noticed the trio passing them as they walked down the street. They were neither ambling along nor hurrying, but rather were moving at a steady pace, as if they had a specific destination in mind. Indeed they never hesitated at a turning. However, if one had a reason to follow them, one might eventually have noticed something atypical about their behavior.

It wasn't that they were holding hands. Twin trios, while not common, were also not rare in The City. It has recently been calculated (by someone with far too much time on their hands if you ask me) that, over the previous 100 years, an average of 18% of identical twins had been in such a relationship due to their inability to live apart from each other. (No fraternal twins have thus far been known to be so afflicted.) Said inability has been labeled "Separation Sickness." Given a population of approximately 80,000 native-born currently in The City, (with just over 9,500 other permanent and temporary residents), and considering that 40% of the native-born citizens were twins, (90% of whom were identical) that meant that there were just over 2,500 such "pairings" in The City. (To put it another way, for every 11 people you knew, there would be one in such a trio.)

So if it wasn't that, what was it that would have caused an observer to think that they were strange? Let me add two additional facts. The three were two, small, teen girls (age 14 to be precise) flanking a fairly tall boy (almost 13 1/2) and they weren't talking -- at all.

(I'll be the first to admit that the notion that all adolescent female beings, regardless of species, talk all day, even if they don't have anything to talk about, is nonsense. However not talking at all is about as rare as seeing a penguin in the Sahara Desert. If you don't know what either of those are, look them up, I'm not going to waste valuable class time explaining them to you. We have far too much to cover this semester to digress for such trivialities.)

In reality, they were carrying on a steady conversation. Because it was in "twin," which is a private, telepathic language, there was nothing for our theoretical observer to hear. Even that wasn't all that remarkable when all is said and done. ALL twins born in The City can do the same with their counterpart, identical or fraternal, so silent pairs walking the streets were common. No, what was truly rare was that their boyfriend, for so he had to be given the situation, wasn't speaking either.

Everyone knew that twins could speak to each other mentally, but ONLY to each other. They had to use their normal voices to communicate with everyone else. Their young man was, as far as anyone knew (more on that later), the only non-twin who could "speak" twin. It had eventually been concluded that the reason was that they were classmates at school and he sat directly between the two girls. Over several months he had gradually been able to "tune in" to their conversations.

At first he'd only been able to "hear" what they said, but within only a few weeks he'd picked up the knack of "speaking" himself. Now, nearly 14 months later, it was almost as natural for him as it was for the girls.

Wisely, when they'd first discovered Jason's new talent, they'd made certain that he didn't speak of it to anyone, even his own family. It was hard for him for several reasons. The first was that he'd always shared his feelings with his mother, as she was the only family member who truly understood his difficulties in relating to others. The second grew out of the first. It was rare that anyone praised him for anything, and like most humans, he liked being told he'd "done something right for a change."

It really wasn't a very nice thing to say, but it was about the most he'd ever received in the way of a compliment, and he'd learned to appreciate whatever he could get. Now though, there was something even more important, and that was the approval of his companions, Yoko and Hibiki Macklin. From the beginning they'd treated him like a real person instead of an embarrassment, which was probably why he'd come to love them so much.

At first he'd decided, quite rationally, that he should be with them because they were the only ones who could help him control himself when he was about to do or say something that would be either misunderstood as either "childish behavior" or sarcasm. It took about six months before he realized how cute they were in addition to being the people he depended on for stability. (He should be "given some slack" for this, inasmuch as, when they actually got together, he had barely been 12 and was only just beginning to think of girls in that way.)

The girls would have been mortified had they known that Jason had talked about his changing feelings for them with his mother on multiple occasions. He'd analysed and dissected everything and was still confused. His mother had listened patiently as he teased apart every thought and action, over and over and over, for several months. Finally he'd asked the questions she'd been waiting for: "Mother, I just don't understand at all. It isn't rational. I can't parse it. Why do I want to be with them all the time, and why do I feel sad when I say goodbye to them every afternoon? Do you suppose I might be sick?"

He struck a pensive pose, with his chin resting on his fist. "No, it can't be that. I asked the school nurse Mrs. Chandler already. She checked me over and said I was fine. It's strange though 'cause she had a big grin on her face when I left the infirmary. Do you have any idea why she'd do that?

"Oh wait, never mind. Yoko says I should finish one topic 'before you start chasing after another'. So what do you think is going on with me?"

Akane Fukui had smiled up at her son and answered gently, "Some people would say that you are ill, if you look at it in a certain way. It's called being 'heartsick'."

Seeing his puzzled face, she elaborated, "It means that you're probably in love with them. You're a bit young to be entirely sure, after all you were only 12 and a half when you began to recognize how you felt, which means that you shouldn't mention it to them yet. You should be absolutely certain of your feelings first. Therefore I'd advise that you wait, oh, probably at least until after you turn 14 next Spring before you say anything."

"But Mother, that doesn't make sense. If you discover the answer to a difficult problem, shouldn't you tell the other people involved?"

Akane took his hand and began to massage it, something she'd learned from Hibiki as a means of helping Jason calm down when he got overly fidgety. It wouldn't do if he started bouncing and lost his ability to concentrate.

"That's a difficult question Jason, and one that people have struggled with for, probably, as long as there have been people. The answer is that experience teaches you when to say and when not to say things. You've told me that the girls have helped you with that already, correct?"

Seeing his careful nod she went on, "And I can tell you from my experience that there might be problems with your relationship if you tell them now how you feel about them. I know you want to be with them as much as you can, but if you tell them right now about your feelings, you might have to spend quite a bit less time with them instead of more. You don't want that, correct?"

Another nod, though this time a bit on the reluctant side.

"Please take my guidance on it."

Akane struggled to find a way to explain, then... "Ah.... That should work."

She sat straighter and focused her gaze on Jason's face. "Why don't you consider this? What you can do now is tell them that you enjoy spending time with them. That's entirely true, is it not?"

"Yes Mother. I really, really do like being with them. So it's OK to say that now? OK. Yes. That makes sense. I'll do that and see what happens. It's like what our science teacher Mr. Sanders taught us. When you do an experiment it's best to change only one variable at a time. That way it's easier to figure out why things happen."

He bent down and kissed his mother on the cheek. "Thanks Mother. That helps a lot!"

Akane smiled as he left the room and carefully closed the door behind him. That was another thing that the twins had taught him. She had to admit that it was quite pleasant given that previously he'd had a distressing habit of slamming every door when he closed it. The relative silence now was almost Zen-like.