Von Zinzer observed the needle bouncing erratically between thirty-four and thirty-two and rolled his eyes.
“Probably,” amended Mezzasalma.
Violetta began to look worried. “I need someone to monitor Lady Heterodyne!”
“I can do it.”
Violetta spun in surprise and saw a handsome, dark young man with a pince-nez peering over her shoulder with interest. He introduced himself with a grin. “Theopholous DuMedd. What are we doing?”
Mezzasalma swung over, enmeshed in a web of spitting electrical cables. “Modified Si Vales Valeo rolling resurrection chain between the three of them!” he shouted.
Theo stared at him in shock. “But that…that’s…” He grinned again, a mad fire lighting his eyes. “That’s amazing!”
Violetta rolled her eyes and then flinched as a board spat sparks and a dial-face exploded in a small ball of flame.
Theo flinched. “Sleipnir! We’ve got a fire—I need you!”
“You’d better believe it!” A red-haired girl with goggles sprayed the burning console with a quick blast of carbon dioxide. “I’m on it. Looks like an overloaded junction router.” She glanced at Violetta. “Do you have any butter?”
Violetta looked at the girl blankly. Sleipnir raised a hand reassuringly. “Never mind, brought my own!”
Violetta nodded uncertainly. “Well, then I guess everything is going to be fine then.” She turned around and found herself face to face with a large white cat wearing a gaudy red coat.
“You’re new to all this, aren’t you,” Krosp asked sympathetically.
“WHO ARE YOU PEOPLE?” Violetta screamed.
With a shriek of triumph, Lucrezia pulled herself free from her chair. “Oooh, Yes! Look out world!”
“She’s loose!” Violetta blanched. “But how? I strapped her down with—”
Theo gave a laugh and waved a hand self-deprecatingly. “Oh, I got those. After all, we’re going to need Agatha to—”
“THAT’S NOT AGATHA!”
Theo felt a fist close on his shirt and haul him up and forward. He stared down into Lucrezia’s triumphant visage. “She’s not?”
Lucrezia examined him with appreciation. “Ooooh, aren’t you a cutie,” she crooned. “Hello.”
At the sound of Lucrezia’s voice, Zeetha spun around, turning her back on the clank. “You took her locket off? Coming!” she called, dashing past Airman Higgs. “Deal with the clank!” she told him.
Higgs watched her go and then turned to look at the clank, which was climbing to its feet. He sighed and released a small puff of smoke from his pipe.
The clank saw him and pointed at him with a shaky hand. “You-You-You—” It stuttered as it lurched toward him. “You are all intruders and I-I will squash you into j-jelly!”
Higgs took his pipe from his mouth, absently crushed out the coal with a callused thumb, and slipped it into his pocket while giving the towering clank a sympathetic look. He spoke. “Hey.”
The clank paused in surprise. He continued, “I don’t want to fight you.”
The clank clashed its jaws in fury. “That’s too-too ba-ad!” It raised the girder high and swept it down faster than the eye could follow, shattering the stone floor.
The clank refocused its eyes with a click. The man had been standing right—
From the side, Higgs gave the clank’s elbow a knowledgeable prod. “Tsk. Look here. These joints are out of alignment.”
Gyroscopes squealed as Otilia spun in place, the girder sliced through the air—“DIE!” Otilia screamed—But Higgs was gone.
A fingernail tapped against Otilia’s spinal array. “Huh. Looks like all these load-bearing structures are out of kilter…”
This time the clank moved so fast that it actually connected. The fist holding the girder slammed into the airman’s face, sending him into the nearest wall so hard that it left cracks.
The angel shuddered in pleasure and turned, joints faintly smoking, towards the others. “And now-now-now I’ll kill the-the rest of you—”
“Huh,” a mildly surprised voice came from behind the angel. “But those galvanic relays are still working.” The angel spun back in surprise as Higgs pulled himself from the slight dent in the wall. He brushed his sleeves off thoughtfully. “That’s good,” he said to the clank sincerely. “Be a shame if you got too messed up.”
Lucrezia was gaily laughing as she waved Theo about at arm’s length. “You thought you were aiding my daughter, eh?” She gave him a playful shake. “How very droll!” The laughter cut off as if by a switch. “But now…”
“Wait!” Theo gasped. “You’re…you’re Aunt Lucrezia?”
Lucrezia almost fell over in surprise. “Pardon?”
Theo feebly waved his hands about. “I’m Theopholous DuMedd! Your nephew! Your sister, Serpentina Mongfish? She was my mother!”
Theo’s feet touched the ground. “Little Theo?” She stared up at him and shook her head admiringly. “Oh, how you’ve grown! I haven’t seen you since…”
“You came to my christening!”
Lucrezia gave a fond smile and put a hand to her cheek. “Why… So I did!”
Theo nodded. “And you brought me a clockwork snake!”
Lucrezia went misty-eyed. “Mr. Hissyfit! He used to be mine, you know,” she confided.
“Yes! He tried to eat my father and knocked the bishop into the punchbowl!”
Lucrezia smiled nostalgically and gently took Theo’s face in her hands. “Oh, let me look at you! My, yes! You do take after your father.”
Theo smiled. “Really?”
Her hand clamped around his throat. “Oh, yesss. You know, when we first met, he blew up my favorite lair, and then he had the temerity to leave me behind while he escaped with my sister, dear little goody-goody Serpentina.” Her fist tightened.
“Really,” Theo choked out.
Lucrezia’s eyes narrowed. “And I never liked her much, either.”
Stars slowly swam before Theo’s eyes. “Really?”
Lucrezia’s fist tightened again. “Really.”
The angel clank stared at Higgs, then glanced again at the damaged wall. “You-non-possible-you…” it said haltingly. It focused again on Higgs and new lights came on behind its eyes. “Accessing non-essential core memories…”
A set of lights flashed green. Higgs held up a hand. “Wait…”
Tarvek shivered back to consciousness and rose on one elbow. “What’s happening?” he mumbled.
The clank straightened and stared at Airman Higgs. “I know you,” it whispered. Tarvek coughed, and the clank pointed to him. “You must help me. By the terms of—”
In a single smooth motion, Higgs stooped and grabbed a large hammer off the floor. With a sideways blow, he hit the clank so hard that its top half tore free and smashed into a wall several meters away.
He then dropped the hammer and turned to Tarvek, who was staring at him in terror. “You…” His eyes clicked to the angel’s twitching legs. “How…” He then looked up into the airman’s bland, indifferent face. “Don’t…”
Higgs’s hand moved. Tarvek flinched—and then saw that the man was simply reaching into his coat pocket to pull out his pipe. Higgs continued to silently regard Tarvek as he slipped it into the corner of his mouth. He then pulled it out and pointed at the broken clank with the stem while his eyes never left Tarvek. “More messed up than I thought,” he sighed. “All this fighting must’ve been too much for it.” He put the pipe back into his mouth. “Not really made for fightin’, you know?”
The two men stared at each other for a timeless moment. Then Higgs squatted down until his face was a few centimeters from Tarvek’s own. “Don’t you agree?” He paused. “Sir?”
Tarvek stared up into Higgs’s eyes, and without the man shifting, or even changing expression, Tarvek was suddenly all too aware of the rock by his side, the one that could have fallen and smashed his head; The live wire sparking a meter away, the one that could easily have touched his foot; The great fists of the Muse, still twitching faintly, that could have, all too plausibly, crushed his throat just before it fell apart…