Thief of Time - Clock

'Thank you,' said Jeremy, more calmly. 'Now, I hope I am a rational man, and I shall approach this rationally. A clock is a measuring device. I have built the perfect clock, my lady. I mean ladies. And gentlemen. It will revolutionize timekeeping.'

He reached up and moved the hands of the clock to almost one o'clock. Then he reached down, gripped the pendulum, and set it swinging.

The world continued to exist.

'You see? The universe doesn't stop even for my clock,' Jeremy went on. He folded his hands and sat down. 'Watch,' he said calmly.

The clock ticked gently. Then something rattled in the machinery around it, and the big green glass tubes of acid began to sizzle.

'Well, nothing seems to have happened,' said Dr Hopkins. 'That's a blessing.'

Sparks crackled around the lightning rod positioned above the clock.

'This is just making a path for the lightning,' said Jeremy happily. 'We send a little lightning up, and a lot more comes back-'

Things were moving inside the clock. There was a sound best represented as fizzle, and greenish-blue light filled the case.

'Ah, the cascade has initialized,' said Jeremy. 'As a little exercise, the, ah, more traditional pendulum clock has been slaved to the Big Clock, you'll see, so that every second it will be readjusted to the correct time.' He smiled, and one cheek twitched. 'Some day all clocks will be like this,' he said, and added, 'While I normally hate such an imprecise term as "any second now", nevertheless I-’

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The Thief of Time - p232-233