The Discovery of Time

The Discovery of Time
a.k.a. Kommiku Hachigen's travels in Time and, more likely, Space.


Part Two of Four
Loss leads Boss to Toss

Kommi-kun worked for "Declan's Cut-Price Aqueducts" for almost three months before his first on-time arrival, and that was only due to a sleepless night worrying about his upcoming probationary review. His simple brain could not quite figure out the problem: he left on the 7:45 train which, without delays, would land him in Sansai City at 8:30am. And yet, having walked three blocks from the train station to his office, he found an hour had passed. The even more confusing thing was how the train arrived in Seijitsu a full 15 minutes before it left Sansai.

His mind whirred with the possibilities. Maybe a rift in time and space had opened at the mountain's ridge! Maybe he would be the discoverer of this fantastic scientific achievement! Or perhaps his memory was going. His mother had suffered from Alzheimer's syndrome towards the end, and he wondered if this was how it started. The small seeping of numbers from his brain. Should he talk to a doctor?

The day of his probationary review came quickly. His boss was not pleased. "You're never on time, Hachigen. It makes sense for me to let you go. Do you have anything to say for yourself?"

"I keep a watch with me all the time, but I can never work out if it's right! The time changes everywhere I go! I never know whether to go to bed or have breakfast!" he cried, sobbing into his sleeves. "My wife doesn't believe I even come to work. She thinks I'm having an affair because I always get home earlier than I'm supposed to leave here."

"I'm sorry, Hachigen. Maybe you should take some time out, see a doctor..." His boss paused, toying with his pen. "...get yourself sorted. If you come back in, say, four months, we'll give it another shot. Okay?"

As she saw him wiping his eyes on his sleeve as he walking into his Seijitsu home, Virginia broke. The next morning, with his clothes in a holdall, Kommiku Hachigen got the train to Sansai and Seijitsu General Hospital and checked himself in to see the best doctor they had. When the doctor entered, Kommiku broke down, sobbing yet again into his sleeve, and rocking himself into the corner of the room.

The Discovery of Time
a.k.a. Kommiku Hachigen's travels in Time and, more likely, Space.


Part Three of Four:
Gain leads Brain to Strain

Heavily sedated, gagged and strapped to a bed, with no control over his speech or bodily functions; Hachigen wept without knowing, or questioning, why. The tears flowed rapidly now: he could feel their course down his crumpled cheeks and soaking into the bedlinen. He must be upset, he thought to himself as his awareness of the world around him ebbed back into existence, otherwise he wouldn't be crying. And why had they strapped him down? Had the straight jacket not been enough to hold him?

He knew that if he was to unravel where he was, and who had strapped him down, he would have to retrace his steps from the last thing he could remember. His brain hadn't had to work this hard in the last six months, not since he had lost the Bloody Regalia to that....

The memory returned of his old straight jacket, the black scraps of cloth held together with belts and hooks. His wife had hated it, of course; always clogging up the washer and shredding any clothes that accompanied it's journey through the suds. She had lost five of her sweaters that way, and in the end, when his career as a King of the AT world had ended, she had been first in line to burn the damned thing. Where was Virginia, anyways? How long would she let them keep him here?

She had kicked him out. He remembered that much. She had screamed at him, all because of his stupid boss - ex-boss, he recalled - and his stupid clocks that were an hour fast. Their two sons - Peter and Taro - had glared at him with disgust as he walked from the house, and that feeling of horror still hadn't left Hachigen, even in his waking moments. Where had he gone next?

To the hospital, with his clothes in a holdall, to check into the psych ward and get himself evaluated. Sansai and Seijitsu General Hospital, the healthcare center for the twin cities, had the best psych ward in the region. And it was close enough to catch the train to with all the money in his pocket. He hadn't wanted to use the joint back account, he had wanted to leave her enough money to get by. None of that mattered now, he realized as he heard the approaching footsteps; soon he would be dead, strapped down on a dirty hospital bed...

...the straight jacket had not held him, he suddenly remembered. Nor had it been expected to. The people who had strapped him into it had known that in a moment he would be out of it, swinging the buckled belts around him like a maniac - but at who? And why? The straight jacket had just been to slow him down, just until they had injected him full of enough horse tranquillizer to take down a rhino.

The door opened, and in walked his doctor. Hachigen's eyes lazily looked the man up and down, taking in his appearance and stance. He meant no harm, but his face was familiar. "Why have you strapped me down, Aihara? Was my humiliation not sufficient entertainment for you?"

"Don't be coy, Hachi-san." replied Aihara serenely. "You came to my hospital to get psycho-evaluated. You went furious as soon as you saw me. We sedated you and strapped you down until your temper had subsided. Now it has, I can begin my evaluation."

"Time keeps slipping! There's something wrong on the mountain!" He felt warmth seeping from his ears and, turning his head gently, saw the pool of dark red forming on his pillow. "And now my brain is melting!"

Nodding his head, Aihara sat down the other side of the room and started to make notes on his clipboard. It was going to be a long night.

The Discovery of Time
a.k.a. Kommiku Hachigen's travels in Time and, more likely, Space.


Part Four of Four:
Illusion leads Confusion to Conclusion

The chair was warm. The heat seemed to emanate from the tall arms, seeping inwards to bathe Hachigen in a cosy glow. He felt sleepier than he had ever felt, more tired than after the AT war with Sleeping Forest, back when he was just a boy. Why was he so tired? Was it some form of jet-lag?

"Tell me some more about this war. Last time we spoke of how it began; the fast-rising opposition, the old feud reborn, the mysterious warrior and his indecision with choosing alliances ... but how did it escalate? How did a simple AT battle, a Parts War observed AT battle, grow into the fiercest war that the world had seen since the '40s? And which side were you on?"

Hachigen groaned, tried to place his hands over his ears and failed, realizing that the buckles hadn't been loosened yet today. Instead, he shrugged himself further down into the chair. Seeing Hachigen's refusal to speak, and his retreat back into his own mind, Aihara rose to leave, shaking his head and sighing. "Wait." Aihara paused, staring at the ex-Fang King Hachigen and waiting. "You know how it started, you know how it finished; you've built both of your careers upon the foundations left by that massive clash in the sky. But now you want to know about the fighting? The front line, between the losers and victors? Where the real war was fought?"

"Yes, Hachigen," replied Aihara, lowering himself back into his chair with his pencil poised above the blank paper. "I believe that something happened to you there, something that changed you from the happy boy you were, the happy boy we've spoke upon many times, into the messed up man I see before me." He knew, even before Hachigen had interrupted him that it wasn't going to happen today; he wouldn't want to talk about the front line.

"Were you there? Did you see the war with your own eyes?" Hachigen fought back against his anger, unclenching his fists and leaning backwards into the chair. "No. No you weren't. They recruited you after you defeated me, you know what the newer ones told you before they disappeared. You haven't spoken to any of the old ones, the members who fought against my family's team, against my family's owners; the only link you have to the war, the actual war that was fought in the sky, is me. And you want to know, for your safety of heart, what happened. It's not about my health. It's all about you and your AT career. How do I even know you're real? How do I know you're not an agent for the current opposition, sent to protect the secret of the jet-lag?"

Aihara kicked himself. He had tried to talk about the war too soon into the session, and Hachigen had clammed up. Not only had he clammed up, but he was taking the conversation elsewhere, and all Aihara could do was follow. "Suppose it is some form of jet-lag," Aihara replied. "but you haven't been anywhere on an airplane in the last three years. You've just sat here, in this beaten-up old chair, taking your meds and talking to me every day. When would you have had the time to go plane-spotting?"

"But Sansai and Seijitsu have different times! The mountain-"

"Of course they have different times," cut in Aihara again, waving his pencil in the air. "they're in different timezones! But only an hour's difference, and that's not nearly enough to get jet-lagged!"

Sitting back gradually, Hachigen sighed. His ears had started bleeding again somewhere during his outburst, and Aihara could now see the widening crimson rivers on his shoulders.

It was about time.

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