The Celestial Clockwork
Chapter 13: The Audacity of Uselessness
Ne Job led the way through the echoing corridors of the Bureau of Cosmic Alignment (BCA), followed by The Muse—who was now carrying a small, heavy, felt-lined box—and the newly introduced, high-authority figure: Princess Ling's emissary. The emissary, whose name Ne Job still hadn't had time to acquire, maintained a pace of regal impatience.
"Head Archivist," the emissary stated, her voice sharp enough to cut structural steel. "This 'Irresponsible Conceptual Barter' you speak of is an unacceptable deviation from protocol. The Celestial Lineage requires stable hydrological structure. We do not engage in bazaar trading for essential resources."
"Princess Ling's emissary," Ne Job replied, not breaking stride, "the Department of Fiscal Integrity (DFI) is currently operating under a flawed logic loop. Any attempt to use standard protocol will be met with a rejection based on 'Conceptual Debt.' We must, therefore, bypass logic with conceptual contradiction."
They arrived at the entrance of the DFI—a severe, granite-and-steel cube that somehow looked more judgmental than The Architect's sentinel. The only guard was a single, automated, holographic projection of an impeccably dressed accountant, labeled Chief Fiscal Officer (CFO) V. Aligned, humming with the cold certainty of arithmetic.
"Access Restricted. All resource expenditure is currently suspended pending a full reassessment of all accrued Karmic Interest," the CFO hologram droned.
"There is the flawless logic loop," Ne Job muttered. "It cannot accept a requisition because the total debt is currently unquantifiable."
Ne Job signaled to The Muse, who carefully opened the felt-lined box and retrieved their currency: the Orb of Minor Vexation. It was a small, perfectly polished sphere of dull grey metal, utterly unassuming, but radiating a low, psychic frequency designed to cause instant, disproportionate annoyance.
"This, Emissary," Ne Job explained, holding the Orb aloft, "is an Artifact of Unfinished Trajectories. It has no structural or fiscal value. Its sole function is to cause the nearby listener to become intensely, instantly irritated by the most mundane of acoustic inputs—namely, the sound of their own or anyone else's chewing."
The Emissary frowned, visibly fighting a sudden urge to grind her teeth. "That is utterly useless."
"Precisely," Ne Job confirmed. "It cannot be assigned value, function, or threat level. The DFI's firewall cannot file it."
The Muse—with a mischievous gleam in their eye—tossed the Orb lightly at the holographic CFO V. Aligned. The moment the Orb passed through the projection, the low hum of the DFI's Financial Integrity Firewall faltered.
The CFO hologram began to flicker, its perfect poise crumbling. "Analysis: Uncatalogued Object. Threat Level: None. Emotional Response: Moderate, Unjustified Irritation."
Then, the holographic figure of CFO V. Aligned raised a hand to its own projection of a mouth.
"Why is the sound of my own silent, projected mastication so acutely distracting? It violates the structural integrity of my thought processes!" the CFO shrieked, the hum of the firewall degrading into a static buzz.
The Orb, a perfect, illogical source of frustration, was breaking the firewall not by force, but by nuisance.
"The logical mind cannot accept a perfectly solvable problem with an utterly irrational negative emotional outcome," Ne Job explained to the emissary, who now looked faintly green. "The DFI's firewall will reject the Orb, but it must first assign it a value, a function, and a threat level. It is trapped in a loop of trying to account for something that is pointlessly annoying."
As the CFO hologram dissolved into a flickering, highly distressed heap of numbers, Ne Job and The Muse slipped past the entrance and into the vast, cavernous DFI Vault.
The vault was not filled with gold, but with shimmering, categorized columns of Conceptual Debt and Karmic Credit. In the center, secured by a complex, pulsating energy cage, were the Ethereal Resource Coils (ERCs)—massive, glowing spools of concentrated cosmic energy, reserved for emergencies.
"The physical lock is a standard three-digit sequence," Ne Job said, pulling out his pen-device. "But the cage is powered by a Fiscal Integrity Lock—it only opens when an exact, predetermined fiscal transaction is executed."
"And we can't execute one because we have no money," The Muse concluded.
"Incorrect. We will execute the transaction—but we will substitute the currency with the concept of the currency," Ne Job explained.
He placed his pen-device into the lock's terminal. He pulled up the requisition for the ERCs, which required a payment of 10,000 units of Structural Value.
"I will attempt to register the Orb of Minor Vexation as the required value," Ne Job stated, beginning the complex conceptual hack. "I will force the system to accept the trade by overloading the 'Value' field with an unquantifiable amount of Narrative Utility."
"Go for it! Make annoyance the new cosmic currency!" The Muse cheered.
Ne Job hit the 'Execute' command. The vault screamed. The air filled with the digital roar of the system trying to convert the concept of 'the frustration caused by self-chewing' into a quantifiable fiscal asset.
TRANSACTION ERROR. VALUE ASSIGNED: 0.00
PROCESSING NARRATIVE UTILITY... 9,998... 9,999...
ERROR. NARRATIVE UTILITY CANNOT BE CONVERTED TO STRUCTURAL VALUE.
WARNING: STRUCTURAL INTEGRITY COMPROMISED.
The lock rejected the trade, but the near-success—the fact that the Narrativity score was so close—caused the vault to structurally reject the financial failure. The entire cage began to shake.
"The structural framework is unstable!" Ne Job yelled, grabbing two of the massive ERCs and hauling them free. "The system broke down because the Narrative Potential of the Orb almost equaled the Structural Value of the Coils!"
They now had the resources, but the vault's failure had triggered the physical alarm. Red lights flashed across the walls, and the distant CLANG of Assistant Yue's gold baton suddenly sounded much closer.
"We have the ERCs, Archivist! Let's get out before Yue and the entire DFI hierarchy get here!"
As they ran for the exit, Ne Job, despite the urgency, paused to retrieve the Orb of Minor Vexation. He replaced it with the two stolen ERCs' physical slot with a carefully folded slip of parchment on which he had scribbled a perfect, bureaucratic note: 'Reassigned as Conceptual Buffer. Value: Unquantifiable (See Exhibit A: Self-Chewing Nuisance).'
They burst back out into the corridor, where the emissary stood waiting, her expression a mix of horror and grudging admiration. The remnants of the CFO hologram were still twitching on the floor.
"You have the resources," the emissary stated, her voice tight. "We must return immediately. Ao Bing's destabilization is rapidly escalating."
They didn't make it two steps before the corridor ceiling began to drip, not with contentment nectar, but with actual water. The drops were ice-cold and fell with the rhythmic plink of a ticking clock.
And then, the sound changed. It was no longer a drip. It was the sound of a celestial tide.
The corridor ahead, leading to the BCA's central spire, was now filled with a shimmering, rising flood—a perfectly contained wave of crystalline, deep-sea water.
And standing atop the wave, a figure of stunning, dangerous beauty had fully manifested. She was clad in armor of shimmering blue and white, her expression one of cold, distant power. This was Ao Bing, the Hydrological Scion, who had arrived prematurely and violently.
"The stabilization unit is too late," the emissary gasped, stepping backward. "She has begun to claim her territory."
Ao Bing surveyed the corridor, her luminous eyes settling instantly on the two agents holding her stabilization resources. She raised a hand, and the wave of water surged forward, not as a destructive torrent, but as a silent, crushing display of structural perfection in liquid form.
She spoke, her voice the clear, cold sound of ice cracking on a deep-sea current.
"Head Archivist Ne Job. I require the coils. Surrender them, or I will structurally reclaim this entire sector into my oceanic domain."
Ne Job and The Muse are trapped. Ao Bing has them pinned with a massive wave of crystalline water, demanding the ERCs. What is Ne Job's immediate, crucial action?