Monsieur Peter Barbiaux has been chosen by the Wulfenbach Empire as a benchmark to show the passage of time. There is a piece of paper with his name and some notes written on it clipped a surveyor's range pole set up in front him. He dropped a cup right as the Take-Five Bomb detonated. A gauge marker has been set up on the pole by the Wulfenbach Time Tunnelling Team, to show where the level of the cup was when he was first discovered. Presumably, the rate of fall of the cup gives this team some idea of how fast time is passing in the frozen city of Mechanicsburg, by comparing to rate of fall during normal time.