Arcadia Snips and the Steamwork Consortium Part 20

"Exactly."

"How do you stop other people from just inventing this stuff on their own, though?"

"Oh, they're free to invent it on their own," Mr. Eddington agreed. "And quite a few have. But in each case, I have used my patents to sue them into dest.i.tution."

"You've been trying to create a monopoly on ideas. You're suppressing scientific progress in the name of your profit margins,"

Snips said, eyes narrowing. She had nearly reached one of the display cases.

"But sadly, the well has started to go dry," Mr. Eddington said. "Many of the businesses I've been extorting have either diversified or found ways to deal with the compet.i.tion on their own. For the past half decade, my profits have been going to the proverbial outhouse-which means I've been forced to find another source for my profits."

"The calculation engine. Let me guess: You're responsible for the attacks on the banks. You're Professor Hemlock," said.

"Not quite," Mr. Eddington laughed. "Although I suppose that's close enough. How fortunate it was that I came across the scion of the Daffodil legacy-and he proved to be as ingenius as his father!"

"And when Copper managed to figure out how to make calculation engines communicate with one another via electrical wiring-and proposed a bank model that threatened yours-"

"Eh?" A moment of confusion flickered over Mr. Eddington's face. "Copper had a new bank model?"

Snips seized the moment. She brought her elbow down hard against the gla.s.s of the display case, grimacing at the pain that bolted up through her arm as the pane shattered. In a moment, she had plucked up the weapon inside; it was an odd affair, being slender and elegant and yet bulging out at peculiar places; entirely encased in iron, it was far heavier than it had any right to be. The barrel looked as if it had been built from an elegant candlestick, with all manner of electric coils, wires, and gla.s.s bulbs protruding from the back half.

Snips ducked behind the case, hefted the gun up, and pulled the trigger. At once, it growled to life-and a gear-driven b.u.t.ter knife popped out, desperately trying to slather b.u.t.ter into the air.

Snips blinked and turned the gun about in her hand, staring at it in confusion. Mr. Eddington chuckled.

"What a ridiculous note to die on," he said, then lifted his gun to fire.

Dunnigan brought the kettle of scalding tea down like a hammer across the top of Mr. Eddington's head, throwing him forward. Mr. Eddington had precisely the amount of time it takes to say 'ungh' before he slammed face-first on the floor.

Dunnigan threw the kettle aside, disgusted. Snips peeked out from behind the case, shuffled to her feet, and walked over.

"Dunnigan-"

"Consider this my letter of resignation, you rat-faced sc.u.m-sucker," Dunnigan said, spitting down at Mr. Eddington.

"Dunnigan," Snips repeated. "Could you go fetch me a length of rope?"

"The umbrella in your lobby," William said, settling in the chair. "I have one just like it. I-" He suddenly realized that he had left it at Detective Watts' house. "I don't have it on me now, but I recognized it when I visited here prior."

"Yes," Nigel said. "It was your father's, wasn't it?"

William accepted the second cup of tea that Starkweather offered. "Yes. It's all I have of him, really."

"A shame. Your father was a brilliant man."

"A terrible man," William added, then blushed. "I mean, that's what I've been told."

"Of course. That is what most people have been led to believe."

"You would claim otherwise?"

"I would," Nigel said, as Starkweather laid out a cup of tea on the nightstand besides him. "A grievous one. Your parents' story is not a tale of villainy, but one of tragedy."

"They nearly destroyed the city," William said. "I mean- didn't they?"

"In a roundabout way, I suppose they did," Nigel admitted.

"But they were victims of circ.u.mstances beyond their control."

"Could you-could you possibly tell me more?" William asked.

"Yes, of course, of course. But first, answer me this: How have you come to know my daughter?"

"Your daughter? You mean-Miss Snips?" William blinked.

"She's your daughter?"

"Yes, although she would likely be loath to admit it," Nigel said. "We have not always gotten along, her and I."

"Well, she seems quite sociable to me," William said.

Nigel's lipless mouth twisted into a smile. "Oh, yes," he said, stifling his chuckle. "Very sociable."

Timothy Eddington awoke to the feel of cold iron and the glint of a silver tooth.

"Comfy, Timmy?" Snips asked, grinning. "Nothing chafing?"

Eddington jerked with a start; he was wrapped in great lengths of chain linked together by a st.u.r.dy padlock. The entire ensemble had been latched atop a pulley that kept him suspended upside down above the ma.s.sive calculation engine he had helped design. The workers had all gone home for the night; there was only him and Snips.

The engine roared to life; gears ground and cogs growled.

Snips had a dreadful sort of look on her face-the sort of hungry stare that Eddington had seen on William when he was deeply immersed in some difficult equation. At that moment, Mr. Eddington knew precisely how a math problem felt when it was about to be completed Mr. Eddington swallowed. "My nose itches."

Snips leaned forward, scratching the tip of his nose. "I bet you're wondering why you're hanging over the calculation engine," she said.

"The question might have occurred to me," he admitted.

"Are you familiar with the concept of Pi, Mr. Eddington?"

"Yes," Mr. Eddington said, speaking over the engine's constant hum. "I believe I am."

"Well, just for fun, I've set the engine to figuring out Pi to it's final digit."

"That's, er, impossible."

"Is it? I must confess, I've never been very good with maths," Snips said. "But I'm curious to see whether or not adding you to the equation might help us find out if that's true."

Snips tugged the chain that held him aloft in the air. Mr. Eddington inched towards the grinding gears. Swallowing, he stiffened. "I don't suppose there's any way I could dissuade your, ah, mathematical curiosity?"

"Maybe if you satisfy some other curiosities in exchange,"

Snips said. "Answer my other questions, and I won't indulge.

Clear?"

"Crystal," he said.

"Copper. Why did you kill him?"

"I didn't."

Snips twisted the chain and let some of it spool between her fingers. The pulley rattled as he dropped an inch or two. "Oh, come on now, Mr. Eddington. Let's be friends here, hm? Go ahead and spill the beans. You can trust me. I'm great at keeping secrets."

"I didn't kill him!" Mr. Eddington shouted, his face growing red with fear and frustration.

"Then who? One of your minions? A business partner?"

"I don't know!"

Snips let the chain slip further. Mr. Eddington could feel the vibrations of the engine's calculations traveling up through the catwalk, down through the chain-all the way down to his teeth.

They chattered with stark terror.

"Please! Oh, G.o.d! I've killed men before, but not him! Not him!"

Snips gave the chain a harsh pull, reeling Mr. Eddington up.

"Wait, what?"

Gasping and wriggling, Eddington fought for words. "I'm telling you the truth! I've killed men in the past, but not Mr. Copper. I had no reason to! He a.n.a.lyzed the technology, figured it out, but even if he wanted to, he couldn't do anything with it! He could never find the funding for the inventions. Every business man in the city would refuse to provide funding for his work, and even if he did find one, we'd drive him out of business."

"Then who killed him?"

"I told you, I don't know! It must have been the fellow in the jackal mask!"

Snips released the chain.

Eddington screamed as he descended down a good six feet; the chain jerked hard as his head dangled only inches away from a furiously churning cog. He could smell the grease, even feel the heat of friction rising up in great swelling waves. "Oh, oh G.o.d-"

Snips' voice had changed now; gone was the jovial charm and playfulness. Replacing it was nothing but frost and murder.

"Jackal," she said. "With a b.u.t.terfly."

"Y-yes!" He stammered. "A b.u.t.terfly pin made of paper!"

She hauled Mr. Eddington back up until the red-faced administrator was eye-level with her. "Tell me everything," she said. "Starting with the Hemlock Initiative."

Mr. Eddington gulped. "You-you must know that this is illegal! You are committing a crime!"

"Oh sweet mercies, am I?" Snips asked. "Do you think they'll lock me up in prison?"

Realizing the futility of his tactics, Mr. Eddington started to speak rapidly. "The fellow in the mask gave me equations to use against the banks-a list of formulae that, when inputted into a calculating engine, causes a chain reaction leading to a break down."

"So you've been posing as Professor Hemlock, attacking banks and generating a need for your new and improved calculating engines," Snips said. "But how do you get the banks to input your equations in their engines? It's not like you can just walk up and jam the numbers in. Banks guard those things like their private vaults."

Mr. Eddington panted. "The jackal-masked fellow devised a way to open accounts at different banks using very specific instructions that will, when those accounts are inputted into the engines, reproduce the circ.u.mstances that lead to an illegal operation."

"So you've been making a bunch of dummy accounts in these banks, creating ticking mathematical time bombs," Snips said. "You then throw out some bogus message about Hemlock doing it for whatever reason, throwing the police off your trail."

"Y-yes. Now, if you'd please-as you can see, I'm merely a p.a.w.n in this whole affair-"

"I have more questions," Snips said, eyes narrowing.

"If I answer, will you l-let me live?"

"I'll take your request under consideration," Snips said.

ACT 3.

"Nothing in the history of Aberwick has captured the city's fear and imagination as intently as that of the Lost Hour. Ten years ago, our fundamental understanding of the universe violently changed.

In that moment, a quarter of the city disappeared beneath a wave of fire and brimstone; thousands outside of the blast radius disappeared, while thousands more found themselves in a place they did not remember traveling to. And perhaps most inexplicably, men and women across the world realized that approximately an hour's worth of time had been forever lost.

What transpired on that day remains an enigma; all we know for certain is that at the event's center lay the mysterious experiment conducted by Jeremiah and Abigail Daffodil, and-for better or worse-they are the cause and reason behind 'The Lost Hour'."

-Page 136 of A History of the Isle, by Count Vladimere von Orwick ~*~.

CHAPTER 21: IN WHICH MR. ARCANUM DISCUSSES THE DAFFODIL SCION, AND THE a.s.sa.s.sIN MAKES HIS MOVE.