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Clock King reluctantly sat in a surprisingly comfortable padded chair amongst a group of similar padded chairs set on an incline in the form of stadium seating. Robby Reed sat next to him and handed him a large tub of lightly buttered popcorn. Clock King was beginning to hate this whole ordeal, but he liked popcorn so he decided to give it a little more time.

“It’s movie night,” Reed grinned as he filled his hand with Raisinettes, the delicious chocolate covered raisin candies. “I’d say all will be revealed but you’ll automatically think I’m lying.”

“You’d be right,” Clock King responded as the projector behind them clicked into life. Flashes of light sputtered onto the screen, producing a scratchy picture of a ten second countdown. The ticks and whirs of the projector were out of rhythm with the count, a fact that annoyed Clock King to the point of almost walking out; the countdown was a little off as well, trying Clock King’s patience. Finally, after almost eleven seconds of a ten second countdown, the movie began.

“You might find this moving picture to be a bit familiar, Tockman,” Reed whispered as if there was a room full of movie-goers. Clock King looked around him to confirm that no one else was here.

A title screen flashed across the flat white screen announcing in a chorus of poorly recorded trumpets that the film was beginning. “The Wacky World of the Clock King” shone in glorious black and white, presented in stereophonic Clock-o-vision.

Clock King’s mouth gawked with surprise. “What the hell is this?” he demanded of Reed.

“Shush,” Reed whispered through a mouthful of popcorn. “It’s starting.”

With nervous tension growing, Clock King watched the film.

A scene opened in a hospital room. A woman was on her back, covered with a white sheet and bulging with pregnancy. As her legs strained in the air held by stirrups, a doctor of advanced age pulled a gooey baby from her lady parts. He cleared the baby’s nose and mouth of the disgusting slime and made the special announcement.

“Mrs. Tockman,” he smiled. “You have a beautiful baby boy.”

He wrapped the baby in a blue woolen blanket and handed him to his smiling mother. The doctor looked at the clock and gestured to the nurse. “Time of arrival: 2:14 PM and thirty-two seconds.”

The nurse wrote the time down on a clipboard as the baby subconsciously committed the numbers to memory.

The film skipped ahead with a popping sound. The mother was alone in the hospital room, recovering from the childbirth, partially watching a rerun of a television show she did not really enjoy the first time she had watched it. As she wished for her husband, father of her child, to finally make it for a visit, she was surprised by an unexpected visitor.

The man appeared beside her bed instantly with no indication that he needed doors to enter rooms. His look was completely otherworldly; his body was completely covered in white, parts of his costume ran purple with amorphous energy. His black eyes were slivers of malevolence, his small mouth barely discernible.

He wore a glistening clock in the center of his chest. As Clock King watched him on the screen, he noticed that the time on it did not match the time on the clock above his mother’s bed. Clock King always noticed things like that in movies.

The mysterious stranger leaned down to the woman slowly and whispered into her ear. The sound quality of the film did not allow the words to be understood, but Clock King listened really closely anyway to no avail. After the strange man was finished, he straightened as the mother nodded in agreement. Without further discussion, the man disappeared as instantly as he had arrived. The screen went black and was replaced with a flashy “Intermission” declaration, accompanied by some big band music.

Clock King frowned with thought. Despite the film only running for four minutes and nineteen seconds before an intermission, he had other questions concerning the plot of this unlikely drama.

“What the hell is this?” Clock King asked, the question becoming one of his regular turns of phrase. “Who was that guy? Am I supposed to believe that this really happened?”

Reed grinned. “People usually wait until the end of a movie to discuss it,” he said as he slurped on the straw of his large drink.

“This is just about the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever seen, Reed,” Clock King spat. “Don’t people just answer questions anymore?”

Reed did not answer as the intermission music ended abruptly, replaced with another countdown. “Ooh!” Reed exclaimed. “It’s coming back on!”

The scene was different, although still that of a hospital. Clock King watched a younger version of himself sitting in a gown on an adjustable bed covered with tissue paper. Every few seconds, he fiddled at his watch, never looking at it. He compared the time in his head to the clock on the wall. Of course the clock on the wall was wrong. After a full minute of nothing, a doctor entered the room. The look on his face was conflicted, almost sad.

“Thanks for your patience, Mr. Tockman,” the doctor said in a slow, calm voice. “Your test results have come back and we have some information that will explain what’s happening to you.”

Bill Tockman sat on the hospital bed, sweat beading on his forehead in worry. As Clock King watched from the theatre, he recognized the doctor as the same man that had delivered him as a baby. The doctor had not aged a day.

“You have what is called Creutzfeldt-Jakob,” the doctor said with practiced difficulty, “It’s a degenerative brain disease that will eventually reduce use brain to the consistency of a sponge. From what we can tell from the information we’ve accumulated, you have about six months to live.”

The doctor looked at Tockman with saddened eyes as the news sank into his patient.

“About six months?” Tockman asked, a tear slowly wobbling down his cheek. “Can’t you be more specific?”

The scene ended abruptly again as Reed pointed at the screen and laughed. “More specific?!” he cackled, coughing up some chewed licorice. “Y’know, because you’re Clock King! That’s a good one! I bet that drove you bananas!”

The intermission was shorter this time, giving them no opportunity to attempt discussion. The scene went to yet another hospital room but contained the same doctor and the strange man that had whispered unrevealed secrets to Clock King’s mother. The doctor gave no notice to the strange man as he flipped through the pages clipped to a clipboard, mumbling to himself.

“Well, Mr. Owens,” the doctor smiled as he read what must have been good news. “It looks like you have a clean bill of health. You should live to a ripe old age if you stay off the donuts and get on a treadmill.”

The strange man smiled, his image sputtering between his own out of place likeness to that of a middle aged, sickly looking fellow.

“Are you sure?” the strange man asked weakly. “Are you sure there isn’t a mix-up with the charts or something?”

The doctor laughed, almost too loudly. “A mix-up with the charts? Mr. Owens, that never happens.”

Again, the screen switched to the intermission indicator with the music that was quickly grating on Clock King’s last nerve. Reed was smiling obliviously at the screen, ignoring Clock King like it was in his nature. Clock King though to ask more questions, but he knew that he would get no answers from Reed.

“I’m going to take a leak,” Reed announced as he erupted from his seated position. “You need anything from concessions?”

Clock King stared at Reed in both confusion and disgust. He did not reply. Reed shrugged and departed as the movie resumed.

There was no hospital this time; the scene was replaced with a cluttered, dark room. The space was filled with colorful clothes and littered with swatches of random cloth. There were two people in the center of the room, both of whom Clock King knew very well. Paul Gambi was infamous for designing and fabricating the costumes of the Keystone City Rogues. He was a tailor beyond compare, proficient in design and manufacture as well as gifted in the art of villainy. The other man was Bill Tockman, the Clock King, getting fitted for his very first criminal uniform.

Gambi was on one knee, measuring Clock King’s inseam as the young Clock King analyzed himself in a full sized mirror. Gambi smiled as he worked, always proud of his own work.

“Are sure about this?” Clock King asked as he questioned the absurdity of the ridiculous costume. The loose fitting green full body suit was covered in sewn on clock faces, covering almost every inch of the suit from neckline to foot. The blue boots and gloves did not go well with the ugly green of the costume material. Clock King had not even tried on the helmet yet but had the overwhelming feeling that he was in for more embarrassment.

“This is great, Bill,” Gambi replied with a curling smile that forced most of his moustache into his teeth. “I’m going with the theme, taking it to the next level.”

He rose to his feet and admired his handiwork. With another misplaced smile, he turned and retrieved the helmet that would complete the ensemble. He gave it to Clock King and made him put it on. As Clock King had surmised, it looked ridiculous. A giant, head sized, working clock for a face plate would never confuse the heroes into thinking he was anyone else.

“Looks like the Clock King is ready for business,” Gambi declared as Clock King thought about getting his money back.

There was another abrupt scene transition without an intermission. Reed had been gone for a while but Clock King seemed relieved with his absence. A hospital waiting room bustled with activity. Clock King had never realized how many significant events in his life had taken place in hospitals until he was forced to watch said events in the form of a film.

A version of himself as Bill Tockman sat on a bench against a wall next to a handsome young fellow who was eating a carrot. Tockman was obviously annoyed by the open mouthed crunching produced by the eating process and glared at the man in contempt. After devouring most of the carrot, the young man finally noticed.

He offered the carrot stump to Tockman. “You want some?” he asked. “You look hungry.”

Tockman recoiled from the carrot and shook his head. The young man looked momentarily sad. “What are you in for?” the man asked, trying to make up for such a silly gesture.

Tockman declined to answer; his mood was not particularly sociable at the moment. He was waiting, and had been waiting for two hours, six minutes and forty-three seconds for a doctor, any doctor, hell, even a nurse, to give him some information. As Tockman ignored, the young man finished his carrot.

Tockman was so busy ignoring the carrot eater that he did not notice the doctor hovering over him. As he was jostled to attention by a sudden hand on his shoulder, he immediately recognized the doctor to be the same man that had diagnosed him with a fatal disease and about six months to live three years, two hundred four days, three weeks, five days, one hour and thirty-three minutes ago.

“Bill Tockman?” the doctor asked pleasantly and with the same premeditated sadness in his eyes. Tockman rose to his feet to hear the news.

“I’m sorry to tell you that your sister took a turn for the worse on the operating table,” the doctor announced regretfully. “She passed away.”

Stunned, he teetered on his heels until collapsing back to the bench next to the young man. The doctor bowed politely before making his leave. Tockman was left mumbling and stunned.

“This was all for nothing,” he muttered under his breath. “All that work, all those clock-themed heists, all those gloving glove arrows to the face. That humiliating costume...” he trailed off.

He closed his eyes and quietly sobbed until he heard a familiar clinking of metal and a sudden cold pressure around his wrist. He darted his eyes back open and saw the carrot-eating young man had handcuffed him. Tockman gaped with surprise.

“Bill Tockman, a.k.a. Clock King,” the young man said as he stood to face the wanted criminal. “My name is Officer Anthony Drake of the Phoenix Police Department. You’re under arrest for the murder of Alexander Owens.”

A quick burst of dramatic cliffhanger music jolted Clock King with surprise. He had become so immersed in the plot of his own life, he had not even noticed that Robby Reed had returned and was again sitting next to him.

“Did I miss anything?” Reed asked, knowing that he had.

“Shut up,” Clock King replied as the movie yet again resumed. What followed was an insane montage of scenes from the heart of Clock King’s criminal career, complete with a musical score consisting of Europe’s The Final Countdown, rocking the theatre’s speaker system to its maximum threshold. Green Arrow, before his fancy moustache, and Speedy, before his heroin addiction, barely escaped from a giant hourglass filled with deadly and unbreathable sand. Batman foiled a seemingly foolproof plan to steal an old man’s grandfather clock. Animal Man, the Shining Knight and Vibe, in one of the most awkward team-ups in history, saved the Liberty Bell from being shot into space. There was a series of all of the failures that had accumulated into what was considered the career of the Clock King. The film left nothing out, going so far as to depict Clock King’s battle with Jimmy Olsen, which led to several broken bones and a stiff prison sentence. Robby Reed laughed all the while as though he was watching an award winning comedy.

The Final Countdown reached its crescendo and the montage faded to black before being replaced by an unfamiliar room that may or may not have been a cafeteria. The room was filled with an assortment of heroes, each arguing about something that Clock King was uninterested in hearing. In the crowd, he recognized himself, in the same costume that Robby Reed had given him a few hours ago. He had never worn it before, yet he was watching himself on screen wearing it now. Thinking as he continued to watch, he could not remember this scene anywhere within his memory.

The hero argument was loud and indecipherable, what seemed to be a group of assorted Teen Titans squabbling with an assorted group of older Teen Titans about something noisily. Clock King could remember the names of a few of them. The one that used to be Aquaboy, Cyborg, a girl Flash, the green kid, the girl that threw boulders at people and, of course, Vibe, were all there; seeing Vibe again so soon after seeing him in the montage reminded Clock King how much he hated him. At that moment, Clock King decided that, if ever presented with the opportunity, Vibe would become his arch-enemy.

Through the bustle of the argument, an attractive blond woman approached Clock King and escorted him out of the pseudo-cafeteria into an adjacent corridor. The relative quiet in the hall was a relief as Clock King was led to a room with a bed and no clocks.

“This is where you’ll be staying,” the woman said, her voice the sound of feminine gravel; not unattractive to Clock King’s taste in women.

“There aren’t any clocks,” Clock King noticed right away. “How am I supposed to…”

“Deal with it,” the woman said as she closed Clock King into his room, turned the knob on the other side to secure him inside. “We don’t want you in our custody as much as you don’t want to be here, so behave and you can go after your sentence is remanded.”

Clock King tried to open the door but it was firmly locked in place. “When do I eat around here? I’m starving, woman!” He called through the small glass window on the door.

“You’ll address me as Agent Rock, Tockman,” the woman demanded as she began walking down the corridor back to the cafeteria. “And lunch is in an hour. We’ll come and get you when it’s time to eat.”

“An hour?” Clock King yelled. “Can’t you be more specific?”

The scene ended with a comical trumpet line and, for some reason, a laugh track of a studio audience. Robby Reed was laughing, almost in tears. Clock King sat baffled and confused. None of that had happened to him. He had never met an Agent Rock and had never been held in the custody of some form of Teen Titan organization. He paid no attention to Reed as he waited to see what else this film was going to show him that he had not experienced.

The screen adjusted from black to a glowing green that diminished into a view from high above the grounds. A streak of green zipped through the sky, leaving a comet-like trail behind it as it went. As the view grew closer, Clock King saw himself dangling from the grip of a Green Lantern.

“I wonder how long it would take to fall before I hit the ground.” Clock King asked the Green Lantern. He thought for a moment, possibly waiting for a response. “Are you up for a little experiment?”

“What?” the Green Lantern asked.

“Drop me,” Clock King said. “I want to see how long it takes to fall to the ground.”

The Green Lantern was totally opposed to the idea. He had many better things to do than traipse across America dropping criminals from the sky. “I’m not dropping you,” he said without a hint of even considering it. “You’re already wasting too much of my time. Now shut up. You don’t talk to me and I don’t talk to you. Our relationship will go much smoother if you shut your face.”

“Hey, I’m just trying to pass the time, Green Lantern,” Clock King said as he kicked off one of his boots and let it fall. He counted the milliseconds as they passed until he could no longer see his falling boot. “Heh, that’s interesting,” he said as he ran the numbers through his head.

“What’s interesting?” Green Lantern asked.

Clock King looked up at Green Lantern through his clock mask, which of course, showed the correct time with the utmost accuracy. “I wasn’t talking to you. I don’t talk to you, you don’t talk to me, remember? That was only seventy-four seconds ago and already you’re breaking your own rules.”

The scene ended there as Clock King sat agog with a revelation. The Green Lantern that was carrying him through the sky was the same police office that had arrested him when his sister Beverly died. Yet Clock King did not recall this event and as he thought, he was not sure if he remembered the carrot eating policeman properly either. Was any of this real?

The film began again and Clock King was transfixed on the images. This was by far the most intriguing movie he had ever seen. In fact, he was so interested, he had almost lost track of time. After checking with himself, however, he sighed with relief after realizing that he still knew what time it was.

The following scene was short, showing a boot crashing through the roof and ceiling of a small cottage at terminal velocity, striking an old man on the head. The impact killed the man but did not destroy the calculus equations that he was scribbling on an oversized chalkboard. After the old man’s head bled out, the boot was collected by the strange man in the white and purple…the same man that shared such secrets with Clock King’s mother. He looked at the chalkboard, laughed, and dissipated into the air.

More dramatic music played as the screen morphed into a city sidewalk, rumbling noises and crashes came from everywhere. Clock King dragged a potato sack full of hidden objects down the street, heaving with effort to pull it along with him. A floating girl with purple skin flew past him and paid him no mind. A sizable chunk of concrete narrowly avoided him as he dragged the sack and he looked relieved to have survived the close encounter. He continued his journey through what was clearly a warzone, stopping abruptly only when he heard the familiar cocking of a familiar hand gun. He put one hand in the air, the other one still grasping the sack and turned around slowly.

“What’s in the bag, Clock King?” the feminine graveled voice of Agent Kimberly Rock asked him. Clock King smiled, as he normally did and had done on numerous occasions throughout the course of his affiliation with Agent Rock. His many escape attempts were always met with that same pistol cock and that same gravelly voice. Clock King might have been in love.

“Donuts?” Clock King lied unconvincingly. “No, wait, gift cards for orphans,” he corrected, proud of himself for his humanitarian interests even though it was all lies.

“Don’t you see what’s happening around you, Bill?” Rock asked urgently. Clock King looked around at the carnage in the streets around him. There seemed to be a full scale alien invasion happening. He had barely noticed. “We need you back at the compound. The rest of the team is up in space fighting Kanjar Ro and there’s no one at the base protecting the children.”

Clock King considered for a moment. “I’m not a babysitter, Kim,” he said. “I’m not even a prisoner anymore. I’m taking this bag full of money and I’m leaving.”

Agent Rock adjusted her grip on the gun and leveled it at Clock King’s chest. Clock King resumed walking, resigned to the fact that the woman he might love will never love him, since he’s a costumed criminal and a poor excuse for one at that.

Sad, romantic music faded the tragic happenings to black. Clock King blinked rapidly to moisten his drying eyeballs, he had barely blinked throughout the entire scene. He cleared his throat as he turned to Reed. Reed was looking directly at him, expecting questions.

“I’ve never met her before in my life,” Clock King croaked through a dry mouth.

“That’s because she doesn’t exist,” Reed answered with a poignant smile. He patted Clock King on the shoulder, partly to console him but mostly to wipe the greasy butter residue from his fingers.

“What? How?” Clock King asked desperately.

Reed held his index finger to his lips and pointed his other hand to the screen as the film began yet again. The screen filled with two shapes out of focus, muffled voices were trying to be heard. Slowly, forms gained substance and revealed two new characters into the film. A tall, attractive black woman with terribly messy hair leaned over a bed, holding a blood pressure pump. Another figure, humanoid but not human, stood by her, reading numbers at an inhuman pace; the numbers sped from the humanoid’s cranial dome at an escalated rate until resting at the patient’s ultimate blood pressure rate.

“Your blood pressure’s good,” the woman said to Bill Tockman as he lay in bed with a puffed blackened eye and bandages around his head and shoulder. “Despite the gunshot wound and the bash to the noggin, I’d say the first mission was a smashing success.”

“Mission?” a groggy Clock King asked, obviously medicated. “What mission? Who the hell are you?”

Peekaboo stood and smiled, revealing the winking smiley face on the front of her shirt. “It’s me, Peekaboo, Tockman,” she explained. “This is Artin.” She motioned to the robotic man behind her. “You saved him from the alien horde after you busted me out of a federal prison.”

“Data storage subsystem downloading mission log with accompanying music for your review, Clock King,” Artin streamed in a pleasantly robotic voice, just human enough to listen to but robotic enough to still be awesome. “Outsiders Case #1.0 mission catalog printing in kiosk presently.”

“Printing kiosk?” Clock King asked. Tired of not understanding, he closed his eyes and attempted to return to unconsciousness. As Peekaboo and Artin, two more strangers in this strange film, waved to the cameras, the screen went black and the credits rolled.

“What?” Clock King screamed as he jumped from his cushioned seat. He angrily turned to Robby Reed and slapped the popcorn bucket from his lap. Reed frowned as his precious popcorn rained to the ground in a beautiful, buttery yellow drizzle. “What does any of that even mean?”

He stormed down the aisle and back to what would normally be the lobby, followed by Reed closely behind him.

“Clock King, stop,” Reed said, surprised as he did so when Clock King actually stopped.

“So?” Clock King asked, anger ready and waiting to erupt. “Explain. Agent Rock? Green Lantern? Peekaboo? Outsiders? None of this ever happened and I’m not closer to knowing anything about any of this crap that you stole me here to do!”

“That sentence has so many things wrong with it,” Reed smiled, but immediately regretted it. He immediately got serious.

“Okay,” he admitted. “I brought you here to Bunny, our giant sentient interdimensional space craft, because you told me to.”

Clock King looked more irritated than confused, which was a good thing. “Not good enough,” he said. He walked down the gradual slope of the theatre at Reed, considering punching him until he heard the double doors behind him creak open. He stopped immediately and turned.

Three forms entered the darkened room and approached Clock King as he placed his feet in a defensive position. As they walked down the slope closer, he recognized all three of them. Although he had never met any of them in his life, he had just watched them all on the screen. Peekaboo and Artin walked on either side of the strange man in white and purple; the same man that was present the day Bill Tockman was born. The stranger pulled his mask from his face to reveal a gray haired Bill Tockman, a spitting image, albeit older, doppelganger of the Clock King whose birth he had witnessed and fate he had manipulated.

Clock King was speechless as the older him extended his hand in greeting.

“Greetings, Clock King,” the man said in an identical voice. “I am the Time Commander. Welcome to our Outsiders.”

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To Be Continued...

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