They followed the penguin’s directions and eventually they found the missing cats, littering the floor of an otherwise empty room, this one covered with yellow metal circles. Lisa went among the sea of cats and softly yowled, “Hespi? Are you here?” She perked her head as she thought she heard an answer.
Arnold stared down grimly, they couldn’t possibly carry them outside. They would get noticed and killed before they managed to save even one cat. He squeezed the penguin again, he didn’t know what else to do, “Is there another way out of here!”
Lisa sighed in exasperation from the far corner of the room, as the curled up cats slept off the effects of the catnip. Tepic looked about curiously, and then began to muse aloud, “This place sounds like like them blue boxes, an’ they tends ter move….we could nick it an’ drop em all off in Clockhaven…..”
“…you want to move a wardrobe…while we are shrunk inside of it?” Arnold asked him flatly. “That is….I don’t even know where to start…”
“If it’s like one of the street cleanin’ clockworks, we just gotta tell it where on the map ter go…..”
Arnold frowned…but he had to admit that if the wardrobe could take them to some magical realm where they were two inches tall then maybe it could appear somewhere else. “I don’t think it will be that easy…but at least you can try.”
Lisa nodded as she looked at the cats sprawled on the floor helplessly, “I don’t know that we have any other choice.”
They made their way through back to the first room they had been in, the penguin warking advice that they barely understood at best…or maybe Lisa did given how much attention she was giving it.
“There! That’s a map of the City! Yer can see Clockhaven plain! An’ where those two wires cross…. I’ll bet that’s where we are!”
The cat shook his head, this was beyond ridiculous, but then everything in his life had been ridiculous ever since the raptor had gotten involved. Shaking the penguin one final time he asked, “Can you operate this thing?!”
The penguin indicated a panel and they looked at it, Tepic muttered, “Those bits look like Miss Avariel’s power gauges….. an’ they are low…”
Avariel? The cat wondered if this thing could run on aetheric power. He stopped for a moment and just let himself feel for loose aetheric energy, but what he hadn’t expected was to feel something below them, below the clockwork…something that was almost alive…hungry….just like Professor Lionheart had been before he had…
He looked about desperately, handing the penguin to Tepic, “Where’s the battery room?” Instead of waiting for an answer he headed outside the door of this strange shrunken world. “Nevermind, I’ll get the power from out there!”
“How?” Lisa hissed while Tepic cried, “Wow….” He turned to his friend and whispered, “Told yer he’s a hero…”
He let that slide for now; Tepic could think he was a hero if he wanted, for now, but he knew he wouldn’t be doing this if the raptor had captured a bunch of dogs. “Just be ready!”
The last thing he heard or saw out of that strange room was Tepic smiled and said, “ello little bird.” From the sound of it warking, it did not feel reassured.
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