he needed him, very likely be perched high atop his bulldozer, waiting patiently for instructions or consultations whenever he would sense Fulcrum approaching. This, too, was part of their joint daily routine.
Barnz was somehow special in Fulcrum’s estimation. He was a black fellow, not entirely young anymore and perhaps even somewhat unremarkable at first glance despite his stature and height. He was a tall man with just a hint of a potbelly discernible beneath his coveralls. He had a head full of mottled, evenly cropped dense grey hair and a soothing but gruff voice that suggested to Fulcrum that Barnz was likely somewhat older than he himself was. Fulcrum hadn’t the faintest notion where Barnz actually came from. One day, out of the blue, he was just there and it seemed as though he’d–in some hard-to-describe way or another–always been there. It was all a bit uncanny, but Fulcrum possessed the good sense and wisdom to instantly trust Barnz. He was clueless about where Barnz grew up or went to school in his youthful days but wherever it was, Fulcrum reasoned, the place must have been nothing short of fantastic: the man was incredibly smart. Fulcrum had never seen anything like it in his entire life. Barnz knew absolutely everything. Barnz had impeccable manners, he was patient and sometimes, it appeared to Fulcrum, Barnz even seemed to be perhaps a tiny bit clairvoyant.
And, in truth, Fulcrum was not wholly wrong with his suspicion or secret assumptions–although he wasn’t entirely correct, either. The fact is that Barnz was not clairvoyant; he could not actually see into or predict the future.time–at least not any more than any other person endowed with a minimum of common sense could. But Barnz did, unbeknown to anyone around him, possess the remarkable and unique ability to recalibrate time–which he tracked faithfully with a magnificent platinum Breguet Classique Grande Complication that he wore, usually concealed beneath the cuff of his sleeve on his right wrist–just a tiny degree back to the past.time, thereby enabling himself the opportunity to subtly alter the outcome of what was the present.time and thereby tweak that which was subsequently perceived to be the future.time as well.
What he could do, for example, was, for example, to push a book off a shelf, and then reset the time just enough so that everything around him might register the book dropping to the floor but never, ever noticing that anything else was amiss. By recalibrating time in this manner via the past.time, whatever subsequently ensued was by necessity different than it would have otherwise been. It was a simple, but also very practical, capability to possess in a world where outcomes were not always assured to be just.
It was never clear why Barnz, of all people, would be gifted with such an astounding capability or which circumstances or even where he got the extravagant timepiece which was his tool. But it could rightfully be argued that, for one, he was absolutely incorruptible and, secondly, his personality doubtlessly possessed both a keen sense of balance and something at least remotely angelic. Alone these two traits were enough of an assurance that his capability to alter time, or perhaps only everyone’s perception of it, would not be subject to abuse and therefore found itself placed in competent and trustworthy hands.
But, as the bearer of such capabilities, Barnz also needed to exercise extreme caution. The watch, while it gave him the power to reset time and thus alter the outcome of whatever circumstances he might happen to find himself in, did not afford him any protection beyond what might be regarded as the information advantage that such a capability discreetly provided him. Barnz was, in fact, every bit as mortal and just as vulnerable as everyone else around him.
But he was also, as Fulcrum had correctly observed, an incredibly smart fellow.
Barnz’s bulldozer was a massive piece of machinery, painted in a gaudy bright screaming blue color with the logo CRΞΔTΩR 2.0.50 stenciled in vivid large white lettering on both sides of the cab. With the exception of the windshield, the windows of the cab were tinted. The comfort and the controls as well as the sound insulation within the cab were state-of-the-art.
It even had a very decent 14-speaker sound system installed. Fulcrum had actually once had an opportunity to try it out and judged it to be divine. The subwoofer was absolutely phenomenal.
As a member of Fulcrum’s crew, it was very often Barnz’s task to flatten the land upon which the huge windmills, the NextGen PowerCranks, would be erected. But even more importantly, it was Barnz who had, over time, become tasked with explaining many of the intricacies of the worldmonde.Planet to Fulcrum and, in a more localized context and thus especially significant given the sad liability of his fading eyesight, what was necessary for them to best get their mutual job done. Because of this, he was more than just a valuable member of the team–he was utterly indispensable.
And, most importantly for their professional relationship, Fulcrum knew and appreciated the fact that Barnz was a friend as well, a man who could be fully and unconditionally trusted. Fulcrum was steadfast in his knowledge that Barnz would never, ever fail him, nor was it conceivable that he would ever disappoint anyone else who would prove wise enough to invest their trust in him.
And after all, Fulcrum did have every reason to be cautious. If word were ever to reach his senior management downtown that he was pretty much blind, his livelihood as 4.MΔN on these prestigious projects might doubtlessly be in great peril. Fulcrum was a bright fellow and he certainly harbored no naïve illusions about this fact; he knew that it was extremely unlikely that his em.Dee1 would react with any degree of sympathy to such news. Luckily for him, however, the em.Dee1 was a fellow who was burdened with what seemed like a gazillion other vitally important commitments and who had therefore never exhibited any great inclination to meet with him, let alone get personally involved in the more mundane activities at the various construction sites. He preferred instead to manage his multitude of business interests as comfortably as possible by MindφSet or SpeakEZ, calling only very occasionally from his office located in a suite at the top of a sleek-looking blue-tinted glass cube situated near the center of town and, even then, only when he deemed it to be absolutely unavoidable.
And, as things stood, he had not a single reason in the entire worldmonde.Planet to be dissatisfied with Fulcrum’s performance or with the progress of any of his work performed for the corporation. As em.Dee1, he obviously had a well-functioning team in place; he knew that he could rely on them to get the job done on cost, on time, every time. For this very simple reason, it was just as well that they did not speak often.
And Barnz, the man at home behind the controls of CRΞΔTΩR 2.0.50, was not only trustworthy beyond any doubt, but also exceptionally gifted in his ability to explain things graphically to Fulcrum. His ability to clearly and concisely elucidate events, to explain people and processes, was so keen that it enabled Fulcrum to easily visualize what was meant and, secondly, keep him reliably informed of what was actually transpiring in the world all around him. As long as this was the case, Fulcrum felt reasonably confident and relaxed, able to simply concentrate on accomplishing the managerial aspects of his job. At the end of the day, that was all he needed to do to keep his boss content.
After all, he rationalized about this in his own mind, Ludwig van Beethoven was hard of hearing. And that was apparently putting it mildly. In all actuality, he recalled learning as a child back in school that old Ludwig was just about as deaf as a doorknob. Nonetheless, the œuvre of music he composed was judged to this day to be nearly divine by many successive generations of music aficionados. Fulcrum wasn’t extremely and deeply savvy about the subject, but he did enjoy listening to a bit of classical music now and then–mostly a bit of Bach or Händel. In a wider sense then, he sometimes mused, Barnz might by extension be viewed as being the conductor at the podium in front of Fulcrum’s own construction site orchestra. As long as he and all of the other workers played their parts well, neither em.Dee1 nor anyone else was ever going to seriously question the competence of the composer.
Barnz was a capable enough fellow, then. He was without question Fulton’s right hand man and he, too, somehow appeared to relish the responsibility that went with this role. Their friendship and their mutual professional life was a combination of unbelievably fortunate circumstances which Fulcrum appreciated fully.
Fulcrum simply believed in Barnz.
And although Fulcrum couldn’t see him at this moment yet, Barnz had already dismounted from the ladder leading to the cab of his bulldozer and stood carefully cleaning the lenses of his sunglasses