Metronome

Overview

Metronome is a Praetorian entity encountered (directly and indirectly) in the story arcs of Alec Parson, Penelope Yin and IVy. He is responsible for the Rogue Clockwork.

Dialogue

In Crossed Signals, he talks to the character directly:

Character...You should not have come here.

My quarrel is not with you, Character. It is with another.

Leave this place now, or your fate will be to join he who is most deserving to die.

You cannot stop me, for I am without number. You cannot kill me, for I do not live.

I am inevitability, Character. I am the rhythmic tapping of Death's fingers upon the booming drum of vengeance!

I...

Am...

Metronome!

And indirectly:

Metronome Prototype: This doesn't involve you, Character!

Metronome Prototype: This is between me...

Sweeper: ...and Raymond Keyes!

Metronome Prototype: He's going to pay...

Sweeper: ...pay for his treachery!

Metronome Prototype: He betrayed me!

Sweeper: My work!

Metronome Prototype: He stole everything!

Sweeper: My life!

Metronome Prototype: I will have my justice, and it will be cold and poetic!

Sweeper: By the hands of the very machines he stole, his life will end as he ended mine!

Further clues as to Metronome's possible identity are provided by Alec Parson in his final debriefing:

An army of strange prototypes? Someone calling himself Metronome and vowing revenge against Doctor Keyes for stealing his work and his life?

Wait... Metronome. Why is that familiar...?

Time... a metronome keeps time... time is 't'... < BR > plus 't'...

Character! That wasn't code, it was a name! Or rather, a signature! Let me explain.

Raymond Keyes had an assistant during the time he invented the Clockwork. A brilliant scientist in his own right by the name of Russell Brandt. Brandt died a month before Keyes unveiled the Clockwork to the world. He used to sign his documents with a combination of hacky computer code and a play on his own last name. '< BR >' '+' 't'... Br-and-t... Russell Brandt!

You said that the Clockwork claimed that Doctor Keyes had betrayed and murdered him. Maybe Brandt knew what Keyes was planning and planted a virus in the Clockwork to exact vengeance later?

But that doesn't explain the psychic energy we detected. Maybe Brandt is controlling the Clockwork from beyond the grave? Or maybe it wasn't Brandt at all, but a third party using his name to draw suspicions away from the true puppeteer.

Whatever the case, he's beaten. But I have a feeling that this isn't the last we've seen of 'Metronome.'