Arcadia Snips and the Steamwork Consortium Part 10

"Right," Snips said. "I'm just trying to explain to her that I need to find out where Copper lived."

"Well, I could take you to his apartment, if you liked."

"Really?" Snips asked, waggling her eyebrows. The expression clearly made William uncomfortable.

"Er, yes," he said, s.h.i.+fting his weight from foot to foot. "I'm just getting off work now."

"Lead on, good sir." Snips paused, before adding: "Actually, I need to make one little stop on the way, first. If you don't mind."

"Erm, not at all," William said, fl.u.s.tered.

"It's a bleedin' travesty, s'what it is."

"Unghunh."

"Succession of bleedin' governmental authority through bloodlines? Since when is bleedin' heredity any significant demonstration of legitimacy to rule?"

"Unghungh."

"Naw, we ain't bleedin' got that. I mean, th'boss-the real boss, I mean-he ain't possessin' no authority on the bleedin' basis of who hooked up with his ma. We thugs are bleedin' civilized, see."

"Unguh?"

"Aye. He's in charge 'cuz he could kick our bleedin' a.r.s.es."

Mr. Cheek and Mr. Tongue paused in their conversation, having made their way up to the front counter. The teller stared at the two mismatched collection of body parts and proceeded to do the only sensible thing: she fainted.

A moment later and the bank manager had taken her place, providing the two ruffians with a smile. "h.e.l.lo, gentlemen," he said with a nervous t.i.tter. "I'm Mr. Caddleberry, the bank manager.

If you give me just a moment, I'll be happy to open the vaults for you. No need for any violence," he quickly added.

Mr. Cheek narrowed his one eye; Mr. Tongue proceeded to gurgle with indignation.

"Unghungh!"

"Aye," Mr. Cheek agreed. "We ain't here to bleedin' rob you, stupid git. We want to open an account."

"Oh-Oh! Oh, of course!" Mr. Caddleberry exclaimed, throwing his hands atop of his heart with shock. "How absurdly ridiculous of me. An account-yes, yes! We'd be happy to have your business, Mister-"

"Just make an account followin' these specific bleedin'

instructions," Mr. Cheek announced, thrusting a card out to the bank manager. "Absolutely no bleedin' deviations, understand?

Exactly as the bleedin' card says."

"Of-of course," Mr. Caddleberry said, accepting the card with great reluctance. He read the instructions and a.s.sumed a rather confused look. "This is a bit... Erm, well, I mean-opening an account here under these conditions... It's quite unusual. You'd stand to lose more money than you'd gain, and-"

"Did I ask for a bleedin' opinion? I can't recall. Mr. Tongue, did I ask for a bleedin' opinion?"

"Ungunh."

Mr. Cheek turned back to the bank manager, bringing one immense fist down to tap on the counter. "No, I didn't bleedin'

think so. So if you don't mind, Mr. Babbleworry-"

"Caddleberry," he corrected, and instantly regretted it. "Er, although Babbleworry is quite fine. My closest friends often call me Babbleworry. Kind of a nickname, really."

"-we'd like it very bleedin' much if you'd just open an account followin' those specific bleedin' instructions."

"I'll input these numbers into the calculating engine right away," Mr. Caddleberry said. "I'll do it myself. This instant!" He nearly tripped over the still-unconscious bank-teller on his way to do just that.

ACT 2.

"Professor Von Grimskull's monocycle roared beneath him as it thundered through the crimson night-sky, the wheel forged from sheer awesomantium snarling its way across the flaming dirigible's upper frame. The legion of steam-powered zombie air-pirates had all ready taken control, their engine-ladened frames churning out thick choking whorls of vaporized smoke; soon, the zeppelin would crash into the swirling energies of the temporal anomaly, completing the necrocthulthic ritual and fulfilling the eldritch prophecy - bringing an end to the universe.

The bronze-nosed Von Grimskull made a low, deep-throated snarl. "The Doctor is in... VINCIBLE! ""

-Professor Von Grimskull and the Zombie Sky-Pirates, Page 5 ~*~.

CHAPTER 11: IN WHICH OUR t.i.tULAR PROTAGONIST MEETS WITH A SINISTER CRYPTOZOOLOGIST AND MISS PRIMROSE FAMILIARIZES HERSELF WITH ABERWICK'S ESTEEMED BANKING SYSTEM.

Snips was unaccustomed to traveling by anything other than foot; she had always preferred the feel of cobblestone beneath one's toes to the well-cus.h.i.+oned luxury of a hansom cab. But William seemed rather tired, and Snips was worried about officers in the upper ward recognizing her face. When he sent for a cab, she didn't complain.

She gave the man directions and turned to William, her eyes drifting to his umbrella. He had drawn it off the coat rack moments before leaving the Steamwork; Snips could not wrest her gaze away from it.

"Is something wrong, Miss Snips?"

"Your umbrella," Snips said. "Before, you mentioned it was your father's-"

William grimaced and sighed. "Yes. Professor Daffodil."

Snips nodded. "So you're-"

"I'm afraid so," William said dejectedly, s.h.i.+fting awkwardly in his seat. "I am William Daffodil; Jeremiah Daffodil and Abigail Daffodil's son."

"I heard of them," Snips said, which was at least half of the truth. "Big scientists, right? Ran the Steamwork?"

" Mad scientists," William corrected her. "Responsible for endangering nearly half the city in that awful affair a decade ago."

Snips bit down on her lip, turning to stare out the window.

Sensing her sudden distance, William tried to put her at ease.

"I'm well aware my father and mother were villains,"

William explained. "But I am nothing like them. Mr. Eddington and the others have been especially kind, granting me an opportunity to prove myself at their old business, the Steamwork."

"It's not that," Snips said. "Just, uh. It's complicated."

"I understand. It is not easy to accept the fact that I have no connection to my parents beyond biology," William began. "It's just-"

"Whatever your parents did or didn't do has absolutely nothing to do with you," Snips said, cutting him off.

The horse at the front of the cabby gave a whicker as it stopped at the front gates. "Come on," Snips told William, stepping out of the carriage and toward the black iron gates. "You can wait in the lobby."

"What is this place?" William asked.

"Just a guy I know," Snips answered, her voice hollow.

The Arcanum Estate occupied a small block of land in the upper ward; it was surrounded on all sides by metal fencing and signs that made it clear that trespa.s.sers would be shot, mauled by angry dogs, and then shot again. It was probably one of the only places in Aberwick that you couldn't have paid Snips to sneak into.

She and William walked past the front gates and straight to the stout oak doors. Snips gave them a solid knock.

The well-dressed servant that answered the door fit the definition of human only in the strictest sense. It was as if a creature with no conception of what a person looked like had been handed a basic description and then asked to craft one out of stone.

The final result had gotten the basic gist of it, but there remained several fundamental flaws.

His face was composed of an a.s.sembly of harsh angles and drastic, stark edges; it was several inches longer than it should be and was devoid of facial hair. He was as white as chalk and looked just as brittle. His expression was as stoic as rock and had all the cheer of a child's funeral; Snips had never seen the man smile and at this point didn't think that he was capable. A large black scarf swallowed his throat like a constricting serpent of linen.

"Evening, Starkweather," Snips said. "I'm here to see him."

"This way," he said, stepping into the house's dining room.

The home had very little light; neither Starkweather nor its owner required much. What illumination did flow in through the windows shone down upon every manner of curiosity the mind could conceive-gla.s.s jars stuffed full of strange and impossible creatures, varying from the naturally occurring to the wholly artificial. William stared in wonder, while Snips resisted the urge to peek in the bottles. She knew there were things inside them that, once seen, were very hard to put out of your mind without a month of steady drinking.

"You can wait here," Snips told William, leaving the young mathematician to make himself comfortable on a couch. William s.h.i.+fted nervously in the seat and threw Starkweather and Snips a meek smile.

The man she had come to see was inside the study. Neatly arranged diagrams of impossible machines framed under gla.s.s and pine lined the walls, with books littering the desk and floor.

Several of them were opened, with various pa.s.sages highlighted or underlined by a careful pen. Scarcely a shred of light penetrated this deeply into the home, making it hard to make out the silhouette that sat at the back of the room.

He was a wretched figure; nothing more than a burnt husk swaddled in antiseptic soaked bandages from head to toe. Despite his horrible affliction, he appeared to be reclining in a comfortable chair, wearing a pair of crimson bathrobes, a cherry-red fez, and holding a book in his lap. The cloth-wrapped claw that used to be his hand would occasionally swing over to brush across a page, dragging it from one side to the other; years of practice had turned this once clumsy gesture into an act of casual grace.

"Master Arcanum," Starkweather said, standing at attention.

"Arcadia is here to speak with you."

The man struggled to pluck up one of the bookmarks on the table besides him, working to push it between the pages. When he at last succeeded, he slapped the book shut and awkwardly put it aside. His eye and lipless mouth were the only things that were left of his face; one eye had been burned away, but the other was kept safe inside a lubricant-filled goggle that fitted neatly over the socket.

"My dear," he spoke in a moist rasp. "To what do I owe the visit?"

Snips wore a tight-lipped expression. Rather than explaining herself, she reached into her pocket and drew out the sc.r.a.p of burnt, colored paper, holding it up.

"Ah," he said. "Business."

"Business," Snips agreed.

"So, then. The scorched remains of a paper b.u.t.terfly. Where did you find it?"

"At a murder scene. An engineer named Basil Copper.

Employed at the Steamwork."

"I was unaware," he said, suppressing a cough, "that you were investigating murders, now."

"Not much of a choice. It's a long story and I'd rather not fill you in on the details. I just want to know one thing: Is the Society involved?"

"I have little relevance in the Society these days, Arcadia,"

Nigel Arcanum said, reaching down for his rubber gas-mask. He brought it to his face, releasing a nearby valve with a hiss and drinking deep of the nouris.h.i.+ng oxygen it released. "Mmn. I'm afraid I could not tell you. As far as I am aware? No."

"Was Copper a member of the Society?"

"Again, not as far as I am aware. But such knowledge is outside of my purview. I find it unlikely, however, as the Steamwork is notoriously worthless," Nigel said.

Snips raised an eyebrow. "Howso?"

"At one time, beneath the guidance of its once esteemed founder and his wife, the Steamwork was a factory of innovation,"

Nigel explained. "It has long since lost such notoriety."

"All the inventions Mr. Eddington mentioned the Steamwork being responsible for are things we've had for at least a decade," Snips said, agreeing. "I a.s.sume, then, he's incompetent?"

"Entirely. He has been steadily losing money since half a decade ago. He clearly commands only a trivial understanding of science."