Behold the Clock by Richard L. Rubin

Brian Hampton frowned as he gazed about the lavishly furnished conference room atop a spectacular highrise in downtown Geneva. Where was everybody–the other thirty distinguished scientists who were supposed to be gathered here, each sitting in one of the plush leather swivel chairs set around the massive mahogany conference table? Almost two hours past the appointed time yet there were only the two of them: himself and Professor Margaret Fontaine–a relatively obscure botanist from Albuquerque or some such place. Brian couldn’t understand it. Didn’t they realize how important this was? This was the designated time to set the Countdown Timepiece, the symbolic clock designed to alert the planet to how close it was to Zero Hour–the straight-up position on the Timepiece’s unique clock face–and Armageddon.

Just last month, following the unexpected retirement of Sir Edmund Locke, Brian had been appointed to chair this annual meeting of the council. It was a great honor. Brian had shown up for the council meeting two hours early to review the rules one final time, and to personally greet the other council members as they arrived. Fontaine had arrived about a half hour later–but after that, no one. It was very strange.

Brian looked at his watch one more time, then turned to the well-dressed, middle-aged woman seated a few chairs away. “Professor Fontaine, I think we need to commence.”

The woman looked up from the e-book she’d been reading and frowned. “Please call me Margaret. But how can we start if we’re the only ones here?”

“Thank you, Margaret, call me Brian. You know I’ve been appointed to chair this meeting of the council. I know it’s just the two us here so far, but I’ve gone over the rules.” He tapped the laptop in front of him. “The council’s bylaws plainly state that as long as the chair is here, those members in attendance are empowered to determine the new setting of the Countdown Timepiece. We don’t have to wait for a quorum or anything like that. Hopefully some of the other members will trickle in while we’re deliberating, but even if it ends up being just us, we are here to make the decision.”

He flipped on the official digital recorder beside him and intoned, “Let the record show the seventy-first annual meeting of the council is hereby called to order.”

Margaret paused. She still looked uncomfortable. She gestured to the window. “Let’s check the street and see if we can see anybody else on their way.”

She got up, and crossed the room to the large picture window, which took up most of the wall. After a moment’s hesitation, Brian joined her and they looked down at the wide metropolitan boulevard twelve floors below. It was early afternoon, but the streets below were eerily deserted, except for a thin haze of black smoke wafting slowly through the air.

“Pollution! Even in Geneva!” Brian spat out in disgust. “That’s why nobody’s out and about today. And it’s one more good reason to move the Timepiece even closer to the Zero Hour.”

They returned to their seats.

Margaret sighed, and said, “You know, I’ve been thinking lately: ‘Why do we bother with this?’ I’ve been coming to these council meetings for three years. I’ve read all about the history of this thing. All the council ever does is move that stupid clock hand back and forth for this reason or that. And then, about a year later, we come back and do it again. But in all that time, no matter where we set the Countdown Timepiece, no atomic weapon has gone off. No World War III breaks out. Sure, there are local conflicts. There may be some big terrorist strike or a natural disaster somewhere. But when those things happen, they have no correlation to where we set the Timepiece at the last meeting. What the heck’s the point?”

Brian didn’t believe this–how could anyone on the council say such a thing? Brian himself had been appointed to the council nine years ago, and had attended every meeting since. The principal purpose of the council was the annual resetting of the Countdown Timepiece, something that was done with great fanfare. Early after its inception, the Timepiece had been moved forward to three minutes to Zero Hour in 1949 when the former Soviet Union had exploded its first atomic weapon. In 1963, the clock had been set back to seven minutes to Zero Hour when three nuclear superpowers signed an atomic test ban treaty. In fact, the Countdown Timepiece had been vigilantly set and reset, back and forth, by the council annually for over seventy years. Of course, in all that time the world had not come to an end, or even come close. But that was beside the point. Brian sighed. Obviously this woman came from some academic backwater. Didn’t she see the big picture?

He said, “Don’t you realize how critically important this is? For seventy years, the council has been setting the Timepiece in order to alert the world to just how close we are to Armageddon, the Zero Hour! Once we make our decision, the official Countdown Timepiece will be set on the giant clock face at the top of this very building. Then the Countdown Timepiece will be reset on the council website. After that, the rationale for the time change will be published in the council’s monthly newsletter. There’s going to be a major press conference at 5:00 pm, just hours from now; the international media will extensively cover our announcement. Can’t you see all that? Let’s begin our deliberations.”

Margaret said, “Wait a moment, I have a friend, Dr. Maria Aznar, who’s coming here from Madrid. Let me try calling to see why she’s not here yet.”

Brian shrugged. Margaret pulled out her phone and made the call. After half a minute, she frowned and hit the redial button. After another half minute, she placed the phone down and said, “All I get is a recorded message saying the phone system is down. Wonder what’s going on?”

“Who knows? You’ve made your call, now let’s proceed.” He cleared his throat, then said more formally, “The Timepiece was set at five minutes to Zero Hour last year. Since then there has been expanded war in the Middle East and a breakdown in nuclear treaty negotiations between India and China. As the chair, I say we advance the Timepiece two minutes forward. That will make it three minutes to Zero Hour. That will scare the world and send the proper message.”

“Fine. As I said, the whole thing is beginning to seem kind of pointless to me, but if we’re going to reset the Timepiece, that makes as much sense as anything.”

Brian smiled. “Then it’s agreed. Let it be noted for the record that, after due deliberation, the chair of the council and the council members in attendance unanimously agreed that the Countdown Timepiece officially be set at three minutes to Zero Hour.” With that, he stood, and walked to the back of the room where the controls for the Countdown Timepiece were set in a recessed wall panel. From there he could set the giant clock face at the top of the building.

Before Brian finished entering the required passcodes, Margaret stood and went to the window again. After looking out for a few moments she said, “There’s some guy down there waving up at me. Now he’s coming into the building. He might be a late arriving council member. Hold up on resetting the Timepiece.”

A few minutes later, the door to the conference room burst open. A long-haired young man stumbled in, and slammed the door shut behind him. The youth was disheveled and out of breath. He was wearing torn and dirty khaki pants. His blue flannel shirt was bloodstained and torn off at the left sleeve.

“Thank heavens I found you two,” the man exclaimed. “I thought I was the last man left alive in Geneva!”

Brian stared at the youth, dumbfounded. “What happened to you? What are you talking about?”

“Haven’t you heard?” the young man exclaimed. “It’s the Martians! They landed this morning and they’re swarming everywhere. They’re riding around in giant tripods, roaming from city to city, firing heat rays all over the place, killing people wherever they go. They’re poisoning everyone with some kind of lethal black smoke. They’re going to take over Earth!”

Then the man started hacking and coughing. His eyes grew wide. “My God! I . . . must . . . have . . . inhaled . . . that . . . black smoke.”

He collapsed to the floor, his face turning a ghastly shade of purple. Blood spurted out of his mouth and nose as his body started to convulse. He took one final, desperate, raspy breath and then lay still, his face a darkened mask-like rictus.

The two council members, stunned, stared at the body on the floor. Then Brian shrugged and turned to Margaret. “I still need to set the Countdown Timepiece to three minutes to Zero Hour.”

Margaret looked at him in disbelief. “What? What about the Martians? They’re out there killing everybody!”

“Doesn’t count. What matters as far as the Timepiece is concerned is what the people of Earth are doing: peace treaty violations, nuclear testing, superpower confrontations, heedless resource extraction. That sort of thing.”

Margaret shook her head. “You’re absolutely crazy.” She grabbed her coat, then picked up her purse and laptop. Without another word, she charged out of the room and closed the door behind her, leaving Brian alone.

Brian shrugged. He returned to the Timepiece controls in the wall panel. As he manually set the Timepiece at the top of the building, he said to himself, “Three minutes to Zero Hour it is.”

His work done, Brian gathered up his personal possessions and went to the door to leave. As soon as he opened the door he saw two nylon-covered legs stretched out on the floor in front of him. My God, it was Margaret! Black smoke was thick in the hallway. He began to cough…

—

Richard L. Rubin has been writing science fiction and fantasy since 2008. His flash fiction story To Soar like a Bird was selected as the February 2018 Dark Fiction selection at Eastern Iowa Review. His short story sci-fi thriller Robbery on Antares VI is available on Amazon. Science fiction stories written by him also appear in Theme of Absence, The Weird and Whatnot magazine, the Aurora Wolf journal of science fiction and fantasy, and Broadswords and Blasters magazine. In a previous life he worked as an appellate lawyer, defending several clients facing the death penalty in California. Richard is an Associate Member of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America. He lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with his wife, Susanne. Richard’s website is at: richardlrubin.com.