As the Night Watchmen struggled to manage the crisis, Becker backed away from the Windows, and for the first time that night, he began to feel the magnitude of what was taking place. There were not merely a handful of Night Watchmen, or a dozen, but rather hundreds, perhaps thousands, stacked row upon row on top of each other, rising into the air as far as the eye could see. On every monitor was a Sleepless person. In every chair, a Night Watchman was on the verge of freaking out.

"What are we gonna do, sir?"

Hundreds of pairs of eyes turned to Becker, as if he were the one that could rescue them from this impending nightmare. His mouth felt dry again and his heart began to pound, and for a second he thought he might pa.s.s out. But luckily, there was somewhere he he could turn . . . could turn . . .

Beside the Nature Trail and just off the Beaten Track, there exists a small complex where those in attendance are given Tools (both literal and figurative) with which to save The World. And just as Becker had done when recalling his Procedures, he now harkened back to those halcyon days when he was sculpted into the form and shape of what they call a Fixer.

Mission Simulator "F," Inst.i.tute for Fixing & Repair- Two and a Half Years Ago It was a rainy day at the IFR. Droplets fell off the poplar trees and onto the marble statue of Jayson-legendary founder of the Fixers-which was hand-carved with his famous last words: "LIVE TO FIX. FIX TO LIVE."

Every Candidate who walked through these doors lived by that credo, but not all of them could reach that lofty plateau. At this point in the process, Becker's cla.s.s had dwindled to seventeen (six had dropped out due to injury and one for "personal reasons"), but those who had remained were beaming, because they had finally left the cla.s.sroom and were getting their first taste of the Mission Simulators.

"It's about time," touted Becker, anxious to see a real Mission in the (virtual) flesh. Thibadeau Freck, the Frenchman he'd met that first day at Orientation, walked beside him, tightening his IFR bandanna.

"What? You're not satisfied learning how to change the air filter on a Stink Tank?"

"Only if I can scrub out the inside of a Fog Horn first."

Becker laughed as they entered the door marked "F." He and the Parisian teenager had become fast friends and would often partner up in Shop or shoot pool in the Game Room during breaks. Thib was anxious to continue their contest of one-upsmanship, when- "Quiet, Candidates!" Fixer Blaque hushed everyone to attention. "I know everyone's excited, but this is one of the most important lessons you will learn about Fixing, so focus."

Unlike some gurus or teachers whom Becker had run into in his time, Blaque's "lessons" weren't really lessons at all- they were more like really cool vids or tricks of the trade-and Becker often wondered why he wasn't still practicing in the field. Rumor had it that Blaque had been #2 on the Duty Roster and in line to receive the Torch, but something happened to him on a Mission, and he was forced into early retirement.

"Please begin the simulation!"

One of the Mechanics15 inserted a cartridge labeled "The Day That Time Stood Still" into a clunky-looking player, and the nondescript room was instantly transformed. inserted a cartridge labeled "The Day That Time Stood Still" into a clunky-looking player, and the nondescript room was instantly transformed.

"Take it in, people." The Candidates now stood in a holographic reproduction of a vault in the Department of Time. On that fateful day, uniformed workers bearing the insignia of a bra.s.s gear were running about in a state of extreme duress. "See what can be seen."

A Time Keeper, rendered in perfect detail, ran directly through Becker's stomach, causing him to reach down and confirm his intestines were still intact.

"Save the Frozen Moments!" The Keeper was carrying a tray of ice cubes, each with a preserved image of something happening inside. "It's a Meltdown! A Meltdown!"

"Now notice Fixer Jackal." Blaque turned the attention of the cla.s.s to the corner of the room, where an older Fixer in a sheepskin bomber jacket and aviator helmet was struggling to stem the tide of cubes that churned out of an archaic ice machine. "What mistake did Tom make on this day?"

A few hands shot into the air.

"Mr. Larsson?"

"He didn't have a big enough ice bucket."

"Incorrect."

"Mr. Carmichael?"

"Check out those threads-the man ain't got no style."

"Incorrect." The cla.s.s cracked up, and even Blaque couldn't help but chuckle. Harold "C-Note" Carmichael, the medical student, had proved to be a formidable Candidate but hadn't lost his knack for keeping it light.

"Mr. Freck?"

"He tried to save the entire World."

"Correct." This was no surprise. It often seemed to the rest of the Candidates that Thibadeau and Fixer Blaque were having an ongoing private conversation that no one else was party to. "Please elaborate for the benefit of the cla.s.s."

Thibadeau winced, a little uncomfortable at being set apart from his fellows.

"When you're in the middle of a job, you can't start to think about the consequences of your actions, or what might happen to The World if you fail. That can be a very slippery slope, which can only lead to one place . . . "

He turned back to Fixer Jackal, who in his effort to save every single ice cube, was, in fact, saving none.

"Attaque de panique."

"Exactly," agreed Fixer Blaque. "If you try to absorb the entire scope of a problem-if you try to save The World in toto-you will end up saving nothing at all."

Becker offered Thib a covert low-five but yanked it away at the last moment.

"Teacher's pet."

Thibadeau faked a punch, before both of them returned to the lesson.

"Pause sequence!"

The action stopped, leaving the Time Keepers frozen in midstride and Fixer Jackal drowning in a pool of melting Moments.

As with every lesson, Fixer Blaque saved the most valuable part for last.

"In every Mission, there is something small, something you can wrap your heart around, that will grant you the power to transcend the fear." Fixer Blaque called out to the Simulator staff, "Enhance 224 to 176!"

An ice cube on the floor lifted up and expanded to ten times its regular size. Inside were two people kissing in a snow-covered forest on a lost winter day, and the Candidates leaned in for a closer look.

"Find the Mission inside inside the Mission . . . " the Mission . . . "

Night Watchmen's Station, Department of Sleep, The Seems ". . . and you will have found the greatest Tool of all."

Once again, Becker's Training had paid off and his own "attaque de panique" was soon to be under control.

"Keep going. . . . . "

At the Fixer's request, Night Watchman #1 flipped through the Cases featured on his console: people in varying degrees of distress, all as a result of the Glitch in Sleep.

"I don't understand the point of-"

"Keep going!"

College kids at school. Bedouins inside their tents. And then . . .

"There!"

A girl with dirty blond hair and bright green eyes came up on the screen. She was about the same age as Becker, sitting in her bed and struggling not to cry.

"What's her story?"

With a keystroke, the Night Watchman pulled up her Case File on the screen. It had the seal of the Big Building on the front.

"Jennifer Kaley. Sector 104, Grid 11. I think that's near Toronto."

"Caledon, to be exact." Simly blushed for being a know-it-all.

The Night Watchman seemed troubled as he decompressed the file.

"It looks s like a 532 was ordered for her tonight . . . "

"What's a 532?"

"A Dream that only a Case Worker can call in. They use it when nothing else will work."

"Why? What's wrong with her?" asked Becker.

The Night Watchman hit another key, but the computer bleeped "Access Denied."

"Sorry, personal and confidential. You need a clearance level of eight to open that up, and mine's only seven."

"Here, let me try." Fixers have a clearance level of nine-plus (out of a possible eleven), and when Becker typed in his pa.s.s code, information began to scroll.

According to her dossier, Jennifer Kaley was being picked on at school for basically no good reason. There were snapshots of her walking down the halls, being shunned by the other kids. Sitting by herself in the cafeteria. And one really painful clip of her being jeered and mocked when she was just trying to walk home after school, with her head down and her tiedyed backpack hanging from her side.

"Well, did she get it?" asked Becker.

"Get what?"

"The Dream. Did she get it before the Glitch struck?"

The Watchman surfed and surfed but found only a solitary beep.

"Negative. And there's no way to get it to her unless she falls asleep."

The same hundred pairs of eyes turned to Becker once again, and as he looked at the girl in the window, he finally started to understand what Fixer Blaque had been talking about. Right now, she was forcing a smile so her mom wouldn't worry as much even while wondering how she was going to make it through the next day. Why Becker was drawn to her, he couldn't really say-there were probably bigger Cases in The World that day-but for him, Jennifer Kaley was the Mission Inside the Mission. And that's all he needed to know.

"Let's Fix."

[image]

9. Toolmaster 3000s are bigger on the inside than on the out.

10. Every employee in The Seems gets two weeks of paid vacation, and The World is a perennial hot spot.

11. A gated community overlooking the Sunset Strip.

12. For full description of all differences (anatomical and otherwise) between Seemsians and Humans, please see: The Same, but Different, The Same, but Different, by Sitriol B. Flook (copyright XVCGIIYT, Seemsbury Press). by Sitriol B. Flook (copyright XVCGIIYT, Seemsbury Press).

14. W.T.: World Time.

15. Staff members at the IFR.

[image]

4.

The Slumber Party Though miniscule in size, Glitches are a Fixer's worst nightmare. They typically pop up in one device, and if left unchecked, can spread across an entire department, eventually resulting in wholesale collapse. Glitches were thought to have been eliminated during "Operation Clean Sweep." It may be impossible to rid the system of what many believe to be the natural outgrowth of any complex machine.

Degree of Difficulty: 10.0 -The Compendium of Malfunction & Repair, p. 108 Office of the Foreman, Department of Sleep, The Seems "No. No. Not that one." The Sleep Foreman shuffled desperately through a dusty file cabinet in his office. "Ah-here we go!"

On his drafting desk, the devoted employee unrolled the faded blueprints of the famed Department of Sleep. The factory itself was ma.s.sive and composed of a series of "Bedrooms," each responsible for producing one individual component of Sleep. Yet the layout seemed to defy any known law of physics.

"The guy who designed this place was a freak. His whole concept was that the department should look and feel like a pillow fort."

If that was so, he'd certainly succeeded. There were hallways constructed entirely of blankets and pillows, doorways made of upturned mattresses, and soft, custom-made Night Lights, which cast a soporific atmosphere throughout. In addition, a handful of secret Bedrooms seemed to have no entrance or exit at all.

"Show me the progression of the Glitch," requested Becker.

"The initial Blip was in one of the Rest Areas," reported the Foreman. "But by the time we got there, it had already hit here . . . and here."

"Whoa, that's fast," Simly marveled.

Unlike Foibles, which tend to pop up in a single machine, unraveling its inner workings but usually staying put, Glitches move from machine to machine, trashing everything in their wake. Becker knew the only way to stop one is to track it down and Fix it, before it does damage beyond repair.

"The last alert was in the Snooze." The Foreman pointed to the location on the map. "But it could be anywhere by now."

"We need to pick up the scent." Becker checked his Time Piece, then turned to his Briefer. "Recommendation?"

Simly thought it over, then produced several items from his Briefcase.

"Well, you could use a Vindwoturelukinvor but those can be flaky at night. A Wharizit . . . oh, wait! I have the perfect thing."