The young fox sauntered towards the Power Station, sack over his back, ignoring the clockworks and steam driven raptors pacing the streets. He vaulted over the wall into the courtyard, and presented himself to the black unicorn.
“Hello there young master Tepic.”, the graceful clockwork greeted him
“got some stuff fer you, an a mutual feline aquaintance asks if yer can send a message ter Mondrago…” he said, tapping the side of his nose and winking.
“I can do that.” the unicorn agreed, tossing her head.
Tepic handed Miss Falcon the bits of the hypnotic device Mr Arnold had taken apart, fishing the bits from his sack.
“Is the message to be sent with the telegraph, or by aetheric package?”
“errrr….. can it be dropped there through one of yer portal thingies?”
” Aetheric package it is!”, she said, decicivly, then asked what the message was.
” ‘e askes if Mis Erewhon can come quick, as ‘e needs her cus he’s in danger….”
Miss Falcon nodded, and said she would send the message right away. The fox boy sighed with relief that he had discharged his duties, then sprinted away, yelling “thanks Miss! i gotta go, the Sneaky Vole’s gettin busy these days!
“Keep well young master Tepic!”
That…wasn’t quite the message I wanted conveyed….but close enough.
Erehwon was having her middle-late-morning coffee on the balcony of her workshop when she heard a loud pop followed by the dull thump of something landing on the canopy.
She set down her notebook and coffee and saw a box indenting the fabric of the canopy. After some effort with a pole and a ladder, she pulled the box down and set it on the workbench.
It was from Babbage, and marked with “By Aether Post” stamps, opening it she found a typewritten note on top of a pile of parts packed in sawdust. The message read “Magistrate, please come to Babbage at earliest opportunity, Mr. Arnold is in danger.”
Shaking her head and cursing at the cat, she pulled out the components, which looked like the sketches Arnold had made of one of Doctor Dinosaur’s mind control gadgets. She started a fresh pot of coffee, grabbed her notebook with the information Ifurita and Doctor K had collected about the message formats, and pulled her goggles over her eyes. It was going to be a long day and night.