A Time to Panic

         The massive clock pulsed again.  It was clear to Rick that some major error had been made.  The hands on the clock moved forwards by a few hours and minutes and then returned back.

         "This doesn't make sense"  Rick said while rubbing his chin.  He looked at the vast dining hall.  The roman numerals from the clock face seemed to be projected about randomly on all the surfaces in the room.

         The mansion vibrated eerily and the clock chimed rapidly in high pitch.  The clock pulsed again.

         “Mr. Rick, you are a brilliant scientist and all, but I’m paying you for a clock, not some kind of bizarre space time anomaly.  I want to impress guests, not have them eaten by dinosaurs.”

         “What’s that?” Rick said as he looked back at his billionaire client who was pointing at a reptile who was curiously coming out of  a table cloth.  Rick ran over and waved his hands at it until it disappeared back into wherever it came from.  “Sorry, it isn’t supposed to that, not by design at least.”

         “Indeed.”

         Rick slowly walked up to the clock but was followed by a number of other Rick’s which each seemed about half a second out of sync.  He waved his hand in the air and enjoyed the delayed reaction until the one in the back exploded violently.

         “Oh, that’s not good.”

         “Mr. Rick...”

         Rick opened the clock face and pulled out the nuclear core.  He turned back and saw the sixth Rick behind him explode.  “Exploding duplicates… might mean I put the power supply in backwards?”

         Rick flipped the core in his hands and jammed it back in.

         The clock stopped pulsing, the duplicates had disappeared and everything went back to normal.

         “There, we go.”

         “Mr. Rick, bravo… wonderful job as usual.”