Tempus Regit Read online

  Tempus Regit

  Edmund Hughes

  This digital book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. It may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this title with another person, please purchase an additional copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  All rights reserved. This is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. All other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual events or persons is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2017 by Edmund Hughes

  Kindle Edition

  CONTENTS

  Tempus Regit

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  CHAPTER 12

  CHAPTER 13

  CHAPTER 14

  CHAPTER 15

  CHAPTER 16

  CHAPTER 17

  CHAPTER 18

  CHAPTER 19

  CHAPTER 20

  CHAPTER 21

  CHAPTER 22

  CHAPTER 23

  CHAPTER 24

  CHAPTER 25

  CHAPTER 26

  CHAPTER 27

  CHAPTER 28

  CHAPTER 29

  CHAPTER 30

  CHAPTER 31

  CHAPTER 32

  CHAPTER 33

  CHAPTER 34

  CHAPTER 35

  CHAPTER 36

  CHAPTER 37

  CHAPTER 38

  CHAPTER 39

  CHAPTER 40

  CHAPTER 41

  CHAPTER 42

  CHAPTER 43

  CHAPTER 44

  CHAPTER 1

  Tempus was next to invisible outside the recruiter’s window. The haven city wasn’t much to look at to begin with, and most of its grey buildings and dirty streets were obscured by the thick, constant smog billowing from the coal plants. The ever rising energy needs of the citizen’s district meant increasingly that that coal plants stayed online longer and longer, choking out the unlucky denizens of the outer city.

  The recruiter came back in through the door, quietly humming under his breath as he walked around to the other side of his desk and sat down. He wore a wool vest over a light blue jumpsuit. He was a citizen, judging from the lack of stains on his clothing, though his demeanor and job title alone had already told Archer that much.

  “Hmmm…” said the recruiter. “Archer… Clark?”

  He raised an eyebrow, enunciating Archer’s last name with emphasis.

  “Yes,” said Archer.

  “Archer Clark, as in, you’re related to…”

  “Yes,” said Archer. He ran his hand through his hair, feeling the grime of coal residue mingling with the buildup of grease. He wished that he’d had the money to take a shower before the interview.

  “So…” The recruiter held his hand out and circled it through the air, as though winding Archer up to give a better explanation.

  “Yeah. He’s my brother,” said Archer. He frowned, glancing at the muted television on the stand behind the recruiter. It was an expensive artifact from a time before the stagnation, outside the reach of the smogs and the coal class living in the outer city. He glared as he watched his brother Trevor came on screen, smiling with perfectly white teeth, and wearing clean and expensive clothing.

  “Speak of the devil!” said the recruiter, pulling out a small device that controlled the television remotely. “Though to be honest, your brother is just about the opposite of that.”

  Not to the people who know him, thought Archer. The people who’ve gotten a look behind the mask.

  An attractive reporter, a citizen judging from her impeccable suit, was interviewing Trevor. It was an old interview, one that Archer had seen before. They both stood on Tempus’s outermost wall, the left side of the shot showed the barren, grey, wasteland beyond the wall. The right side displayed what was left of humanity, a walled city in concentric rings.

  The reporter was looking at Trevor with eyes that were full of worship, and Archer thought he recognized a gleam of lust there, as well.

  “What is it that allows a Metal Knight to do what they do without hesitation?” asked the reporter. “You risk your life for Tempus every day, traveling outside the wall on potentially deadly missions. How does fear not become part of the equation?”

  Trevor ran a hand through his clean blonde hair and grinned at her. He leaned in a little closer, clearly as much for the woman’s benefit as for the dramatic moment it created.

  “We have the best people and the best technology supporting us,” he said. “There are only seven Armor Skins in existence, and-”

  “Isn’t there an eighth currently in development?” interrupted the woman.

  A flash of anger passed across Trevor’s features, but it was gone almost as soon as it was there.

  “Yes,” he said. “My point is that they are powerful defensive weapons. There’s no need to fear the fabricants from inside one of the suits, or inside Tempus, behind the wall. As long as we have good leadership and we support the Overseer, we can rest easy at night.”

  The reporter started to ask something else, but the recruiter sitting across from Archer turned the screen off before she could. He smiled absently for a moment, the expression almost paternal on his face.

  “Every time I hear him speak, it gives me a little more hope,” said the recruiter. “Even with all this outside.”

  He gestured to the thick smog pressed against the window outside. Archer didn’t say anything. He knew that if he opened his mouth, he wouldn’t be able to control what came out.

  “I’ve heard the stories, Archer,” said the recruiter. “Trevor’s had like, what? Five biographies written about him? I know that you tried to kill him.”

  Everybody thinks they know the truth. They eat up everything he says, take every word at face value.

  Archer took a deep breath and tried to stay calm.

  “We tried to kill each other,” he said, slowly. “It was mutual, despite what you may have heard.”

  “I don’t believe you.” The recruiter waved his hand through the air dismissively. “And I also don’t believe that you’d be able to fit neatly into the command structure of the Watchers without causing drama.”

  “I’m not interested in causing drama,” said Archer. “I just want to-”

  “You would cause drama,” said the recruiter. “You probably have a huge chip on your shoulder. The younger brother. The evil brother. It would be a fucking mess.”

  “I just… want to live my life,” said Archer. “I’m nobody. Forget the last name.”

  “You’re nobody?” asked the recruiter, a smile spreading across his face. “Well, how about this?”

  He pulled out a small, digital tablet. If the heavy, box television had been an expensive artifact, the device the recruiter now held in his hands was worth a literal fortune. Archer had only seen them a couple of times before in his life, and never actually touched one.

  “I can use my tablet computer to edit the records of people in the coal class,” said the recruiter. “It’s how I gave you permission to enter the compound. I could, if I had sufficient reason, also use this to officially change your name.”

  Archer stared across the desk at him, taking a second to process what he’d just been told.

  “You want me… to change my name?” he said.

  “I’ll even give you a signing bonus if you do it,” said the recruiter. “I think you could be a good Watcher. You’re patien
t, and that’s something you need when you’re up on the wall or patrolling the city.”

  Archer slid his chair back and stood up. He turned to leave, and the recruiter laughed.

  “I knew you wouldn’t,” said the recruiter. “It fits with everything they say about you. You’re just a sniveling wretch, jealous of your brother, but desperate to hold onto your link to him at the same time.”

  Archer pushed his way out through the metal door, not bothering to close it behind him. Sabrina was waiting outside.

  “Well?” she said, pushing off the wall she’d been leaning against. “How’d it go?”

  Archer smiled at her and gave her a truncated version of the interview. The recruiting office lay within the Watcher’s compound, built snuggly against the wall of the inner city. This was where most of the important buildings in the outer city were located. As far away from the outer wall as they could build without intruding into the territory of the citizens.

  “You should have just done it, Archer.” Sabrina pushed a few strands of black hair out of her face. “What’s the big deal about a name, anyway? It doesn’t get you food, or coins. It’s just baggage for you, at this point.”

  Sabrina was attractive, and not just by coal class standards. She had generous breasts, a trim waist, and the kind of hips that made men think. The dress she wore was a step above Archer’s ragged and dirty clothes, but still clearly below anything a Tempus citizen would be caught dead in.

  “I still need it for something,” said Archer. “It’s got nothing to do with Trevor, though. Trust me on that.”

  “I trust you, Archer,” she said. “But you need to stop getting in your own way.”

  They were passing through one of the many shanty towns relegated to the outer city. Recycled metal shacks leaned precariously and groups of homeless, men, woman, and children, huddled around burning barrel fires. There was a coal plant on almost every block, though few buildings outside of the government compounds along the inner wall had electricity.

  They slowed as they approached Sabrina’s destination, a nondescript building just off the wall. Even from outside, through the ambient smog, Archer could catch a whiff of perfume and sweat.

  “I’m probably staying the night,” said Sabrina. “No need for you to walk me home, this time.”

  Archer nodded.

  “I figured as much.” He smiled at her, hiding his frustration behind the expression. Sabrina smiled back at him, her brown eyes meeting and holding his gaze.

  “You know, if you’d just sucked up your pride and done what the recruiter wanted, you’d be able to afford me on your salary.”

  Archer chuckled.

  “But I didn’t,” he said. “And even if I had, I think I’d have better uses for my coin.”

  Sabrina set her hands on her hips, her expression filled with mock anger and pretend outrage.

  “You asshole!” she said. “We both know the truth.”

  “I think you just want it to be true,” said Archer, watching as she got a little more flustered. “You do look good in that dress, though.”

  “…Thanks.”

  She looked at him for another moment or two, waiting for something, or maybe not. Archer kept his expression still until the tension was too much for both of them to bear, and then nodded to her.

  “I should go,” she said. “First client’s probably already waiting inside.”

  “Right,” said Archer. “Be safe, Sabrina.”

  She frowned.

  “You too, Archer.”

  She turned away from him and headed through the door. Archer stood in the street for a moment. He was hungry, tired, and jobless.

  Hopeless.

  Maybe I should have just given up the name.

  CHAPTER 2

  Archer walked through the outer city, choosing his route carefully in the fading light of the late afternoon. It wasn’t unusual for violence to spontaneously erupt in the slums. He knew the coal district of Tempus intimately. Outside of a lucky few, everyone born as a smog in the outer city went on to die as a smog in the outer city.

  He passed through one of the less dangerous alleyways wedged in between two ramshackle apartment complexes. Clothes lines ran from building to building, high enough up to keep prying hands from tearing them free and running off with them.

  Archer turned left at the next intersection and then stopped in front of the door of one of the few concrete buildings in the coal district. He opened the door and stepped inside, his eyes adjusting to the lamp light within.

  A man sat behind a desk in front of a long hallway, taking notes with a beat up pen on recycled paper. Archer didn’t recognize him. A different clerk had been out front each of the times he’d stopped by the hospital recently.

  “I’m here to see my mother,” he said.

  “And you are…?”

  “Archer Clark,” he said. “Here to see Beatrix Clark.”

  The man’s eyes widened slightly, but he made no comment. He cleared his throat and nodded, gesturing to the hallway behind him.

  “She’s in the third room on the left,” said the man. “Room 113.”

  Arched nodded as though it was new information and headed down the hall. He stopped in front of the open door and knocked gently on the wall before entering.

  “Mom?” he asked quietly. “Are you awake?”

  The room was lit by a single, small lamp, and shadows filled most of the space. The hospital provided little more than a bed, a chamber pot, and regular meals and checkups. Even then, it took just about all of the money and debt Archer could accrue in order to keep her in its care.

  “Oh…” whispered his mother. “Hello?”

  She’s so frail. I need to make sure she’s eating all of the food they’re giving her.

  “It’s me, mom,” he said. “Archer.”

  He pulled a chair in close to her bed, smiling as he sat down. His visits to the hospital had been discouraging at first. He’d only been 15 when his mother had first started forgetting, suffering from the early onset of Chaucer’s disease.

  In the three years since then, Archer had learned all he needed to about the effects of the condition. His mother’s memory was fading away, slowly but surely. Some things, like the fight between him and Trevor, he’d been glad to discover she’d forgotten.

  Others, like the name of their deceased father, or the fact that she was ill, had been difficult for Archer to accept that she’d lost, and even more difficult to constantly remind her of.

  “Archer…” whispered Beatrix.

  “I’m here, mom,” he said, taking her hand into his. “Told you I’d stop by again as soon as I could.”

  “Archer?” She looked confused as she watched him. Archer squeezed her hand.

  “It’s me,” he said. “How have you been?”

  His mother didn’t say anything. He waited a couple of seconds, and then continued.

  “I’m still looking for work outside of sifting through the scrapyards,” he said. “Interviewed for the Watchers today, actually. It doesn’t seem like a good fit for me, though.”

  “…Trevor?” asked his mother. “Is that you?”

  “No, mom, it’s me,” he said. “It’s Archer. Your… younger son.”

  She still looked confused.

  “Have you been eating all of your food, mom?” he asked. “You look a little thinner than the last time I stopped by.”

  “I don’t have a younger son,” said Beatrix.

  No. Please, no. Not this, too.

  “It’s me, mom.” He squeezed her hand a little tighter. “I know you remember me. Archer. I used help you make dinner. We’d make stew together, just the two of us, after Trevor left.”

  “It’s you…” she whispered. “Oh. Trevor.”

  She smiled at him, and Archer smiled back, even as his heart shattered in his chest.

  “…Yeah,” he said. “It’s me. Sure. It’s Trevor.”

  “Trevor…” whispered Beatrix. “I’m so proud
of you. You’ve done… so much.”

  “Mom…” Archer closed his eyes and leaned his head forward a little. It was suddenly hard for him to breathe.

  “No… you’re not…” Beatrix was shaking her head and looking confused again when he opened her eyes. “You aren’t Trevor… are you?”

  “It’s me, mom,” he said. “Please. It’s Archer. You remember me, I know you do.

  His mother pulled her hand back, sliding away from him on the bed. The expression on her face passed beyond confusion and into fear.

  “You’re not Trevor.” she said, raising her voice a little. “You’re not my son!”

  Archer ran his hand through his hair. Her words cut deep, echoing in his head in the silence that fell after them.

  “Mom…” he said.

  “Help!” shouted Beatrix. “I don’t know who this man is!”

  “Please, mom,” said Archer. “Just… try to relax.”

  “He’s not my son!” she shouted. “Help me!”

  One of the hospital’s employees, a burly man at least a head taller than Archer, ran in through the door way. Archer took a step back defensively.

  “Just let me talk to her for a minute,” he said.

  “Sir, you need to leave,” said the man.

  “He’s not my son!”

  “Mom!” Archer put his hands together, pleading with her. “Listen to me. You’re sick. You don’t remember.”

  “Let’s go,” said the man. “Don’t make a scene.”

  “I’m not leaving!” snapped Archer. “She’ll remember, just give her a minute!”

  The man grabbed him roughly and pulled him away from the bed, knocking the chair to the ground in the process. Beatrix was still screaming, but not for help.

  “Trevor!” she shouted. “Help me Trevor!”

  “He’s not here!” yelled Archer. The man dragging him out of the room banged his head against the doorframe, the movement too deliberate to be an accident. Black stars erupted into Archer’s vision.

  “Trevor!” shouted Beatrix.

  “Why are you still here, mom?” shouted Archer. “If he’s so great… Why did he leave you here?”

  “You’re just making it worse for her,” snapped the man. “If you really love her, be silent! It’s just going to get her more worked up!”