Traffic had come to a standstill as Chris sat in his car, listening to his cellphone and radio as they let off their various noises and chatter. The man looked around him and saw a child singing in the back of a car to a song that the parent was obviously annoyed with. He looked on his other side and saw a taxi driver with two business women who were talking to one another and paying their driver no attention. Finally the cars in front of Chris inched forward and he did the same.

There were days when he would change the stoplights but he didn’t like doing it. He wanted to stay off the grid and if he messed with things too much, someone was bound to notice. The cellphone on the seat next him suddenly started to give off a variety of noise. Beeps, vibrations, and alarms came from the small device but Chris understood it all. The cellphone grew quiet as the man responded to it with his mind, making a map appear on its screen indicating a direction he needed to go.

With traffic moving at a snail’s pace, Chris gave in and looked at the stoplights. He poked them awake with a thought and a grid opened in his mind of all the stoplights in the city. Carefully he asked a cluster to switch from stop to go and cars began to surge forward around him. The man gave a thank you to the stoplights as he drove under them and then disconnected from them, allowing the machines to connect with their main computer again.

The map on his phone blinked and he saw that they were only a few blocks from the source of a power surge that he’d been following for the last month. Every now and then an incredible flux of electricity would flow through a machine in the city, sparking conversation between the other machines as warnings flared to life on their motherboards about the amount of electricity being pushed through one of their brothers. Having heard the conversations and talking with some of the victims of the power surges, Chris had taken it upon himself to locate the source and confront it. He was sure it was another person like himself and from the looks of things, that person appeared to be a thief.

The road Chris had turned onto was moving slowly again when a parking space opened. Talking to the cars around him, Chris made enough space for himself to drive into the spot uncontested and got out of his car. He grabbed the cellphone and listened as it fed him information and a picture appeared on the screen. The black and white frame showed a girl with a hat on, making her look bald, and a bright whiteness around her hand as she made contact with an ATM.

Chris picked up his speed as people rushed around him. If he hurried he might be able to catch up with the girl and talk to her. More importantly than stopping her, he wanted to just sit and talk to someone about his power and not feel like he was losing his mind. If there was another person in the city who could do something extraordinary maybe they could meet up and start some kind of a support group.

Vibrations jolted Chris hand as more and more pictures flowed into the phone from various cameras and other phones around the area. The girl had walked down the stairs to the underground and most cellphones lost their connection to the outside network. A blurry picture came in of the girl standing, waiting for the train, but Chris knew he’d never make it in time. He checked his watch and knew he’d be late getting to work. With very little prompting his phone made the call into work where a man answered in a slow drawn voice.

“Hello.” The man said on the other line.

“Hey Frank. This is Chris. I’m gonna be a little late to work. My phone had an update and my alarm didn’t go off because of it. I’ll be there soon.”

“Be here soon. You’ve got a good sized list for the week.” Frank responded repeating what Chris had just said while pausing in between sentences and keeping his voice monotone.

“I’ll be there.” Chris responded already walking back to his car. “Bye.”

The phone hung up and Chris’ car came to life with a little nudge from the man. He got into the driver’s side and quickly talked to the cars around him asking them to let him out on onto the road. They all obliged and he was quickly driving towards the clock shop, changing stoplights from red to green and maneuvering around cars through simple nudges to the devices. He found the alley that led to parking behind the shop and swiftly got out of the car and jogged to the backdoor of the shop.

When he entered the little store a silence followed him as he shut down his phone and let the manual clocks around him fill the void in his mind. The ticks of the clock hands relaxed Chris and the only machine to talk to was the old computer in the small office, and it usually only talked in binary code, giving Chris a break from the chatter of the world. Frank looked up from a small alarm clock he was putting back together and didn’t say a word as Chris walked past him and grabbed the clipboard off the wall.

Someone had brought in a couple of watches that need some gears worked on and Chris got to work. He grabbed his pair of glasses with magnifiers built in, along with his set of screw drivers and tweezers. The watches weren’t terribly old but he could tell just by looking at them that they had been neglected. Small spots of rust sprouted on their surfaces and the glass covering the faces of both watches were scratched.

Working carefully, Chris opened the back on one of the watches and began the work of pulling each gear out and inspecting it. He quickly found what needed replaced and finished the first watch in a matter of minutes. The door to the store opened and the bell above it rang as it swung inward and then closed as Chris put the watch in a silk bag. He looked towards the door but saw no one.

Chris looked at Frank who was working on a different clock but the man seemed unphased. Stepping out from behind the counter, Chris walked to the door and tested the knob. It had latched, so the wind couldn’t have just blown it open. He turned the handle and opened the door fully, feeling something rub his arm as if it were pushing past but saw nothing.

Giving up on the mystery, the man turned to get back to work but saw a piece of paper attached to the face of a grandfather clock. Knowing that Frank was a stickler for keeping the glass on the clocks spotless, Chris tore the piece of paper and tape off and read the note. He read it a good three times before walking back to his counter and taking a seat where he stared into nothingness.

The note was in his hand still and had read:

“We’re looking for her too. If you have any helpful information or would like to join us call us. We’re always watching.”

The number on the bottom of the paper had been smudged as if written in haste and then rubbed on accident. Chris looked at Frank again, but the older man seemed oblivious to the world around him. Not knowing what to do about the note, the man began to work on the second watch as his mind whirled with possibilities for what it all meant. He turned his phone back on and set it on the counter, asking it for pictures of the store front as he tried to figure out who could possibly know about him and why they would be looking for the same girl he was.