The Celestial Clockwork
Chapter 28: The Paperwork Time Loop
The Oracle's Sanctum had been hastily redesignated as the Interim Headquarters of the Department of Unforeseen Contingencies (DUC). Ne Job, the Head Archivist of Section C-7 (Intern Status), sat at a desk cobbled together from salvaged structural debris, the Celestial Clockwork Control Key resting beside his pen. He was the de facto manager of all cosmic reality, yet still subject to the BCA's rigid hierarchy.
"This is structurally unacceptable," Ne Job muttered, clutching his vest. "I'm running a Department of Existential Importance from a desk that is technically still classified as 'Debris: Unsorted.'"
The new problem was immediate and suffocating. The SDC's impact hadn't just created new threats; it had broken the structural barrier between time and bureaucracy.
The sanctum floor was slowly being buried under a rising tide of paperwork. These weren't new forms; they were old, unfiled, unpassed administrative forms from the BCA's entire history, being generated retroactively by the unstable timeline.
"It's a Retroactive Bureaucracy," The Muse observed, wading through waist-deep stacks of millennia-old Staffing Requisition Forms and Objection to Form Filing Forms. "Every moment of the past that should have created a file but failed to is now physically manifesting the paper in the present. It's the universe's ultimate administrative back-log."
"The sheer volume of unlogged history is overwhelming the present," Ao Bing, the Hydrological Scion, stated, using concentrated jets of water to hold back a growing wall of Ancient Conceptual Tax Forms. "I can't contain it indefinitely. The physical paper is threatening to collapse the DUC's conceptual structure."
Ne Job grabbed a handful of the oldest forms. They were dated from the First Eon, detailing Conceptual Barters and Structural Guarantees that underpinned the entire BCA. If these were not dealt with, the sheer, unfiled weight of the past would delete the present.
"We need to find the temporal origin of the paperwork flood," Ne Job determined. "The point in time where the SDC hit a core filing process and broke the 'No Retroactivity' protocol. The Clockwork is the key."
He hurried to the Celestial Clockwork, which stood silently ticking. Using the Control Key, he accessed the diagnostic logs.
"The Clockwork registers the rupture point..." Ne Job scrolled through the temporal data, his eyes wide. "The flaw isn't in a filing system; it's in a person. The breach is localized to the moment of the Great Temporal Audit of the Fifth Eon."
"Who was in charge of the audit?" The Muse asked, batting away a fluttering form for a Universal Boundary Correction.
"The auditor was the original Royal Archivist for the Celestial Lineage," Ne Job read, his voice dropping in administrative horror. "The one trapped in the temporal bubble in the Jade Citadel... the silver-uniformed Assistant Yue!"
The reality slammed into them: the SDC hadn't just released Yue-Royal; it had weaponized his single greatest flaw—his unresolved administrative anxiety. The paperwork deluge was a physical manifestation of his fear of the Great Audit's complexity.
"We have to go to the Fifth Eon," Ne Job declared. "We have to neutralize the original moment of Yue-Royal's anxiety, stop the paperwork at its source, and get back before the present is buried."
The team engaged the Celestial Clockwork, using its power to navigate the tumultuous, destabilized timeline. They plunged into the past, landing in a vast, sterile chamber dedicated entirely to the Great Temporal Audit of the Fifth Eon.
The chamber was overwhelming, crisscrossed with millions of glowing data streams representing every filed action in that period. And in the center, a solitary figure in a crisp, silver uniform sat slumped over a console: a younger, less stressed version of Assistant Yue (Royal).
"That's him," Ne Job whispered. "The source of the flood. He's about to freeze under the pressure of the audit, and that anxiety is what the SDC latched onto, creating the retroactive flood."
Suddenly, the data streams around them began to flicker. A voice, cold and geometrically precise, cut through the air.
"Archivist Ne Job. Your violation of the temporal constraint is noted."
The Architect materialized, not in a physical body, but as a massive, translucent, multi-dimensional Geometric Construct that spanned the entire audit chamber. He was protecting the breach.
"The chaos you unleashed is predictable, Archivist," The Architect's voice boomed from the geometric form. "The stability of the past is structural. Your interference is an unacceptable variable. I will seal this moment, locking the paperwork flood into permanent existence, and you will remain as a temporal impurity."
The Architect's Geometric Construct began to collapse the data streams into solid, black Cubes of Absolute Temporal Certainty, aimed directly at the young Yue-Royal.
"He's going to structurally seal Yue-Royal's anxiety into a permanent memory block!" The Muse shrieked. "That will make the paperwork flood endless!"
Ao Bing immediately created a barrier of pressurized water to deflect the approaching cubes. "We cannot breach his form! The past is more stable than the present!"
Ne Job looked at the young, paralyzed Yue-Royal, then at the mountain of potential paperwork that was still minutes away from being retroactively created. He realized the solution was not structural, but administrative.
"We don't need to fight The Architect's structure, Ao Bing," Ne Job declared, pulling out his pen-device. "We need to solve Yue-Royal's immediate administrative problem before the cubes hit! The Audit is too complex; we must simplify the premise of the audit!"
"But how do you simplify the audit of an entire eon?" The Muse asked desperately.
Ne Job looked at the overwhelmed archivist and realized the answer lay in bureaucratic common sense.