It was October the 31st.
Mornington had been spending most tinkering around in his lab in Clockhaven, oblivious to the other chapters that the automaton had been writing in City Hall. It wasnt until the clockwork rat which seems to be living in the old power plant in clockhaven informed him of the role he was playing, and the new page that appeared on the 31st that thing started to fall into place.
“Cloud Angel? Whats a Cloud Angel?” Charlie asked.
“To be honest Charlie, i dont have a clue. There’s been myths and legends of the Great Empire before its fall using something they call ‘Cloud Angels’ to power their machines, according to the myth, the angels gave off great light which the empire used to power their machines”.
Charlie looked at Vic with a grin, Vic looked back and shook his head.
“Honestly Charlie, i’ve been around a bit, seen loads of creatures on many various planets…i have never seen a creature described by the old myths before, but but the looks of it…i’m about to.”
Mornington hit the flight lever of his antiquated machine in the Lob, and it made a sound Charlie hadn’t heard before…
THUD…THUD…THUD
Mornington grinned, simply saying “Gotcha!”
2 hours later, in Morningtons home in Academy, Charlies curiosity finally got the better of him.
“What was with the 3 false landings in a row?”
“ohhhhhhhh that! It was a test to see how far this timelock goes, the old three thud trick, if it works it means the lock is protecting a partial predestined paradox”.
Charlie looked at Mornington with a sly grin.
“Come on Vic, you and me both know that predestined paradoxes are rare, infact rare is not the right word, they are almost impossible to acheive”.
With that, Vic pulled out his old 4 shot Webley and passed it over to Charlie. Vic pointed to the picture on the wall and told Charlie to shoot it…and he did. The bullet left a neat hole in the portrait.
“Now Charlie…shoot me.”
“WHAT?!”
“Shoot me!”
Charlie looked at Vic and looked at the gun, and let off a shot aimed at Vic’s shoulder. The bullet ricoched off of Vic’s shoulder and went through the back glass door.
Charlie looked at Vic and said “ohhhh…ohhhhhhhhh dear”.
“Exactly Charlie, the entire city is in a timelock for a reason. That book locked us into a predestined paradox, none of the folks names written in that book can die, or be killed. Not until the beginning chapters of that book are being written, then the lock simply becomes a timelock and the paradox is nullified.”
Charlie nodded…”Thats why whoever is responsible for all of this hasnt tried to kill any of the folks who attemtped to stop all this at the beginning of the book.”
“Exactly! Simply because, they can’t. They know as well as we do that this is a locked timeline. The fact that everyone who tries to time travel out of this city gets aged fast and dies only means that everything that is happening in this city right now, has to stay inside the city until the stage has been set and the players have taken their positions.”
Charlie looked at Vic…
“So, when will the stage be set?”
“Soon…i have a feeling it will be very soon…”
Truly Mr. Morington you should read more Shakespeare. ‘For what man could there ever be that was not born of a woman!’ <Laughs>
If Avariel knew this I expect she would sigh…
Meanwhile clockwork are still shadowing everyone who has been mentioned just incase someone were to try something silly.
Bookworm muttered “Cloud Angel…” to herself, then flipped back and forth through the pages. “So…this Sebastian fellow has the Cloud Angel; he gives it to Tenk, who gives it to Mornington, who takes it into the Piermont observatory. So what does it power? Jimmy’s ship? Whatever it is that sends it back in time? Both?”
She looked at the page a moment more, musing, then turned away to the other records stacked in the room. Time to research the Cloud Angels again, she thought. Then find Mr. Mornington, and this Sebastian person if she could, and see what they’d be willing to tell her. And, of course, continue trying to find Moriarty.
It was so frustrating, though, she thought as she pulled a record book off the shelf and brought it over to the desk by the Automaton. She hated groping in the dark like this. There were so many threads out there–Moriarty, Sebstian, the machines, and now she was hearing whispers of the Van Creed being back–there ought to be enough threads to be able to weave a coherent pattern out of them. And yet, so many of them refused to be grasped, staying stubbornly out of reach…or being kept out of reach by others. How could she take action without accurate information? With a sigh, she flipped open the record book and began reading…