Doctor Dupyre applauded, impressed with the sudden turn of events. “Well done Dr. Falcon! Quite an ace hidden up your sleeve!”
“You haven’t seen anything yet, Doctor!” Avariel said as she turned back to face Mephistophicles. The clockwork minotaur snorted at her simple but unexpected deceit. His horns glowed a sickly green as her own gave off a vibrant dark purple.
Dupyre raised a hand to forestall them, a small grin spreading on his features, “No my dear, I’m afraid this is the end of your battle against my creation. Mephistophicles, withdraw!”
“Wait, are you giving up?” Avariel blinked as the clockwork bowed its head and stepped back, retreating behind the curtain from whence it came. “That’s not fair! I wanted to thwart you!”
“I am sure you do, Doctor Falcon, but you both possesses the ability to warp the aether. A battle of that magnitude would endanger the lives of everything in this station. Besides, you two would irrevocably destroy the other eventually.”
Dupyre nodded to the scientists, pirates, and other villains gathered. He gestured towards them warmly, “Banter aside, I truly do value life Doctor Falcon. I wouldn’t want to see them killed with the possible exception of Doctor Hartschlägel.” The audience heartily guffawed at that while others raised their tankard. Only a few of them spit, having been looking forward to blood staining the floors. “No, I will be content to call our contest a draw for now. Especially since we have a superior device to test against you!”
Doctor Dupyre reached back and pulled Gammis up to join him. The nervous man yelped as he almost fell over the railing. “If you can best this invention, which is superior to even my own, then I will admit that you have defeated me Dr. Falcon! But you should know that it isn’t my creation! This is something that Dr. Winston Gammis has prepared!”
The scientist winced as his creation was dragged out from behind the large curtain by clockworks pulling on heavy chains. Avariel watched the oncoming invention expecting something horrifying at this point. A clockwork dragon, a demonic spider-lady, giant bunnies, aetheric death rays, anything could emerge from those red drapes.
She prepared herself but was disappointed and confused by a large rather unimpressive looking device being pulled forth. It didn’t appear to be very dangerous as the front was flat and unmaneuverable. The rear of the bulky machine had control panels and wheels, but nothing to indicate what it was. “What is that thing supposed to be?”
“That my dear is a very special magnet! A smaller version of a device that will allow us to pull even an airship out of the skies!” Doctor Dupyre replied confidently, before he called down, “Throw the switches!”
“Hah!” Avariel Falcon could not believe her luck. She nearly pranced in place calling the ridiculous bluff. “No mere magnet could ever hold me, villain! You’re already beaten!”
Avariel said that, but then she noticed a powerful pull drawing her forward. Startled, she dug in with her hooves as they skid towards the device. With a final yelp she rose from the ground and crashed against the heavy device weakly. She tried to affect the aether but found that too was drawn towards the pull of the magnet.
“This was no ‘mere’ magnet my good lady,” Dupyre replied as he leaned over the second story to look down at her while holding his hat. All the fanfare was gone from his voice and replaced with scorn, but it wasn’t directed at Doctor Falcon. He looked to his colleague who was still clinging to the railing looking at Avariel regretfully. “Doctor Gammis is an aetheric scientist, and one who deserves more recognition than he has received for his work on its manipulation. Work stolen by lesser ‘Deans’ and claimed as their own.”
“No! That’s not true!” Avariel shouted from her precarious position uncomfortably. She could barely move her jaw so it came out garbled, but the audience understood her. “That is preposterous!”
“They have been doing that to students for decades, Doctor Falcon.” Dupyre said overriding her objections. “Do not pretend that you have not heard of businessmen rushing to the patent office claiming their employees work as their own. This is why Doctor Gammis joined Progress and why he has been devoted to our cause! We have never claimed to create his devices. We use them and praise his ingenuity.” Dupyre indicated his blue glowing gauntlet. “Even this is due to his research and I proudly admit it.”
Doctor Falcon snorted as she tried to flick her tail. That too was immobilized by the potent magnetic forces. “Is that it, Doctor Gammis?” She turned her eye to stare at the traitorous scientist balefully. “Is recognition and a few of your ideas ‘stolen’ worth all the pain your betrayal has brought? Was it worth the destruction in Wuldram Shores? Did it make lying easy for you? Does it reduce your fear the cloud angel could kill everyone here?”
Gammis deflated with each word in her litany of questions. Doctor Dupyre put a comforting hand on his friend’s shoulder. “It really will be better for her if you admit it, Winston. She already hates you, but at least this way there can be closure.”
Dr. Gammis didn’t seem to heed Dupyre at first. Finally, he steeled himself and addressed his accuser. “I am sorry Doctor Falcon. But everything I have done, I have always done ‘In the Name of Progress’.”
The clockwork unicorn snorted bitterly and turned away from him closing the eye that could see him. Dupyre grinned and announced a late night celebration in honor of their final triumph over the Resistance.
***********
Leisig the Hunter waited until the electrified floor became safe to traverse before he carried the unconscious Tepic down to the Menagerie. The childs nose had stopped bleeding but still stained his face. Leisig’s dogs had even had time to join him before he was given that opportunity.
He removed Tepic’s jacket and turned out the pockets rather than waste his time searching them. The clockwork was now struggling in the boys bag. With his dogs here the hunter made his way down the nearest stairwell with his bounty.
***********
The air chilled and snow fell around them heavily again. The caravan of mobile cannons and brown-coated men passed through the ravine nervously scanning the upper crest and trees for signs of the dreaded Koudra. No one was watching Loki turn the key on Beryl’s collar releasing them.
There was no immediate response as the machine shut off. Beryl remained immobile and their orange eye gave no other indication it was aware. Loki looked to Yang and shrugged. It could be some time before their friend could escape with them.
Time they would not have. Loki had imagined Koudra to be enormous bunnies with antlers, giant jackalopes. He’d even day dreamed of riding one into battle beside Tepic.
The Koudra lining the ravine walls were nothing like he had imagined. They were giants far beyond the men of Wuldram Shores. They were anywhere between fifteen to thirty feet tall. Some towered above shorter trees, and their faces appeared more like haunted deer than bunnies. Blood stains covered their fur from open wounds everywhere, but especially their ribs and mouth. Despite how large they were they looked thin, like each of them was hopelessly anorexic and starving.
Loki gulped as he realized they intended to satiate their hunger with the travelers. The men shouted as they opened fire with their cannons and the flamethrower ‘Angel’s Breath’. But he could hear men screaming from every direction. They were surrounded.
***********
A damp cloth patted her head taking some of the heat and pain from her, but failing to return her senses to Captain Bookworm Heinrichs fully. She stirred pitifully as she felt her throbbing head. She thought she heard someone speak, but it was unintelligible out of one of her ears. “What was that?”
“I said, you are finally awake. That is good.” The familiar voice of Sister Pankirst spoke. Bookworm sat up abruptly, remembering what had happened, and winced, groaning at the pain in her head. Opening her eyes again, she found herself in a cell with thick metal bars between her and freedom. They had taken her weapons and the Progress coat, leaving only the garments she had worn underneath.
“Where are we?” She asked and felt at her ear. She still couldn’t hear out of it. After a moment she remembered the device that had been surgically implanted in that ear. She had been rendered deaf without it thanks to the Man in Blue, and now the electricity had either damaged the device, or heated until it burned her ear. Neither possibility filled her with hope.
“The Menagerie,” The old nun replied as she led Bookworm to lie back down and rest. She approached the bars to view the others held within the cells and the aetheric dampener on the ceilings. “It is where they stuck weaker test subjects and some of the abominations they created in defiance to the Builder. Many of your friends were brought through here looking rather upset.”
Bookworm turned her head so she could hear with her good ear, “Who?”
“Those that came with you, Doohan and Mariah are alive. They will not hold a weapon, or even a cup of tea, soon I fear. The clockwork and the wolf came most recently, but I know that they have captured your other friends.” Sister Pankirst replied calmly, but there was sorrow hidden in her tone. “They were taken just before Doctor Hartschlägel destroyed the Cathedral.”
Bookworm winced at her announcement. Events were not boding in Bookworms favor but she would not surrender. She had escaped from hopeless imprisonment before. “We need another escape plan, Sister. I hope you can help me convince everyone to join my plan this time.” She did not have one yet beyond ‘create a plan with known assets’, but she figured that counted towards five percent of a working plan.
“Why would we require a new stratagem?” Pankirst asked with a raised eyebrow at her presumption. “Father Walstrand’s strategy has not failed us yet.” The clergy woman’s broken face bore no tears but her eyes were bloodshot. Bookworm assumed it would be best to avoid the subject of Walstrand and the destroyed Church.
The captain began tactfully, “It was a good idea, but Dr. Gammis betrayed us.” Pankirst stared at her flatly. “I mean, he has betrayed us again. He was there with Doctor Dupyre when we brought Mayor Dekkar to meet him. Gammis told them everything. They know about us and-”
“He was supposed to be with them, Captain.” Sister Pankirst explained with exasperated patience, but kept her voice low as she spoke conspiratorially. “Father Walstrand knew that his behavior would look suspicious with numerous future visits to the church. From the first confession it was the Father who told him to go to Dupyre and report on the resistance as a spy. To say that Walstrand approached him. Our plan required the complete belief that Gammis was his ally no matter how weak willed he appeared otherwise.”
“You mean,” Bookworm said and then paused as the Sister put a silencing finger next to her mouth. Having one deaf ear again was making it hard to modulate her voice to a whisper, “You mean to say that betraying all of us was part of the plan! Why didn’t you tell us?! Even the mayor looked like he didn’t know!”
“That is because we did not inform him. How else could we have expected the Captain to play a convincing role when he found out?” Pankirst stated this as if it was the most logical thing. “We needed everyone’s reactions to be as authentic as possible. However,” the Sister looked at Bookworm sternly. “You could have put more faith in our Reason.”
Bookworm inwardly cursed herself at that. The Brothers knew things about Dr. Gammis she did not having lived here for decades. But if she had known the scientist had not betrayed them, she would not have tried to escape on her own. She could have avoided the pain in her ear. Sullenly she replied, “Perhaps we can just agree that your plan worked too well.”
“There is no such thing as a strategy working too satisfactorily.” The school teacher went over to Bookworm and indicated the uncomfortable cot. “It deceived you as it needed to deceive everyone. Our hope remains if we are cautious and quiet. Now, you should recover your strength. We do not know when our spy may emerge.”
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