Twincy Quinn and the Eye of Horus Part One (10 page)

‘
Of course, sir, I am sure you would be able to solve this very
quickly,’ I said, and there wasn't a hint of sarcasm anywhere in my
tone. In fact I looked at the inspector exactly as he wanted me to.
With adulation and respect.

The Inspector
blinked, now letting his hand drop from the desk. Puffing his chest
up, he appeared as though he were inflating like a fat pigeon for a
brief second. Then perhaps reality caught up with him. ‘I am sure
you are correct, my good man, however I am far too busy for such a
task. I will delegate.’

I offered him
a slight smile. Of course he would. He would also stay as far away
from this mysterious, unsolvable case as he could. For if the
inspector ever deigned to get down to some real work, and ever
deigned to evaluate the facts of these cases, he too would rapidly
find it beyond him. No, he was simply going to leave it in the
hands of detectives like myself, detectives who were, at the end of
the day, expendable.

The Inspector
brought up two fingers. ‘Two weeks,’ that bustling moustache of his
twitched over his top lip, ‘two weeks,’ he repeated needlessly.

I gave a nod,
and took a step back, intending to leave.

‘
Before you leave, Detective, there is something else I wish to
talk to you about. I am going to need to take resources and
redistribute them to Lord Ridley's exhibition. It is very important
that we assure him that his exhibition will be safe. The wonders he
is bringing to London are beyond value. We must respect his
decision and provide him with the security he needs.’

Of course.

Children were
being kidnapped, and some rich man was bringing a few trinkets he
had stolen from another country to put them on display in the
museum. It was his own liability, his own collection, and his own
choice, yet the inspector was more than happy to contribute the
entire police force of London, putting it at the beck and call of
this one Lord.

Again, keeping
my thoughts to myself, I gave a dutiful nod. ‘Of course, I will get
by with what I can. Good day, Inspector.’ With that I turned
sharply on my foot, and headed quickly for the door, in what I
hoped was a determined way. I did not need the inspector to
interrupt me further. We were done here.

After a pause
he mumbled good day to my back, and doubtlessly got back to
re-writing his smudged letter. Those letters were likely addressed
to the upper echelons of London. And while he wrote them, London
herself lived, died, fought, stole, ate, and laughed outside the
enormous windows behind him.

Twincy
Quinn

I did not get
long to enjoy my bath. All too soon I was shaken from my reverie by
a strange screeching sound at the door. I did not immediately jump
out, grab a towel, and race to find out what was occurring. I knew
that screeching sound, and I knew the exact tone and pitch did not
indicate the sky was falling.

Grumbling to
myself, I stood up, dried quickly, and dressed.

I opened the
door to the sight of John standing there, his round, cherub-like
face covered in soot, and his blue eyes wide, the rims red with
rage.

‘
John?’ I leaned against the door, propping my head into the
frame as I stared down at him.

‘
She interrupted my experiment,’ he said in a high-pitched,
nervous chatter, ‘I was close to having it this time.’

I gave what I
hoped was a fair nod, patted him on the shoulder, and pushed
forward.

‘
Vanessa,’ I called out, grabbing at my still wet hair and
trailing it through my fingers, trying to keep the dripping locks
off my dress.

‘
She needs to be punished,’ John said with a huff as he closed
his arms tightly around his middle, and shot me a look.

Sighing to
myself, I waited for Vanessa to walk into view. She always had the
stiffest, smartest of walks, and her neck was always long, her chin
raised high.

‘
If this is about John's tantrum, do not bother,’ she assured
me with an efficient nod, ‘I interrupted it because I've
ascertained it was not safe.’

‘
Was not safe?’ John made fists by his side and stamped his
foot into the creaking floorboards beneath him, ‘it was perfectly
safe. I knew exactly what I was doing.’

‘
I have already ascertained that it is an unwarranted risk to
develop communication devices,’ Vanessa stared back at him, and her
gaze indicated that not only was she not put off by his act, she
never would be. She showed no remorse.

‘
We require communication devices,’ John shot back, thankfully
not making his point with another stamp. This factory, after all,
was old, and there were enough explosions caused by Carolyn and her
fantastic chemical exploits, to undermine it as it was.

‘
Doctor Elliot Esquire has numerous communication devices, and
at this stage, we do not know the range of his abilities. If you
create something akin to the machines he already has, he may be
able to cross communicate with them. He is an intelligent and
resourceful man. We know he attempts to spy on us, and we should
not give him an easy means to do so,’ Vanessa arched an eyebrow as
she planted her hands on her hips.

‘
I know what I'm doing. I believe I have ascertained the
frequency upon which Doctor Esquire bases his devices. As long as
we use one outside of his range, I'm confident that we will be able
to go undetected,’ John narrowed his eyes back.

‘
Confident, but not 100% certain, and without certainty, it is
too much of a risk. Need I remind you what Doctor Elliot Esquire
would do if he got hold of any of us?’ As Vanessa spoke, she
deliberately shifted her gaze around the room, picking out the
various children at work, then she finally rested on me.

It was a moot
point. I was not involved in the argument, yet perhaps I was the
one person in this room who could appreciate her point better than
anyone else. It wasn't just that I was older, it was that I,
amongst all, was Doctor Elliot Esquire's jewel. The one thing he
would give his left arm to get back.

‘
Children,’ I finally intervened, letting my hands drop as my
still-wet hair slapped across my chest and shoulder.

‘
Tell her to stay out of my experiments. I am responsible for
our new technological developments. I am responsible for creating
the devices that we sell and that enable us to live. I am
responsible for creating the technology that helps us to continue
to fight Doctor Elliot Esquire. And I am responsible for fixing
Twincy,’ John stamped again.

He had a
point. He was responsible for all of those things.

In fact, as he said it, I let my eyes drift down to my left
arm. Not too long ago, I had almost lost it. In a fight with
several
suitables
,
I had been pinned on the docks, and an enormous crate had fallen on
top of me. Ordinarily that would not matter, yet the crate had been
filled with heavy metal. It had gouged into me as the wood had
broken, and had cut all the way down to the bone. Though I
inherently healed quickly, it had been John who had repaired the
devices within, and seen to it that I had not lost the
arm.

‘
And I am responsible for keeping her safe and secure,’ Vanessa
shot back immediately. ‘It is my analysis of security and risk that
keeps us hidden. It keeps our enterprise sustainable. Doctor Elliot
Esquire is after us, and he uses every single one of his
considerable resources to track us down. It is only through a
rigorous understanding of risk and management of it that we
survive. And I am telling you, attempting to create communication
devices is a risk that we cannot account for.’

She had a
point. Unfortunately, they both had points. It would be extremely
useful for John to craft some kind of device that could keep us in
contact. I would be able to warn the children if I ever found
somebody approaching our hideout, and they would be able to warn me
when I was on a mission if they came across useful information. It
could give us an edge, one we desperately needed. Yet,
unfortunately, Vanessa also had a solid argument. We did not know
the range of Esquire’s abilities, but we did know he possessed
communication devices, and he had been dabbling in that area for
much longer than John. He would know more, he would be capable of
more, and we would never be 100% certain that he would not be able
to intercept our communications and track us down.

Closing my
eyes for a brief moment, I brought my thumb and forefinger up, and
pinched them into the bridge of my nose.

‘
Twincy,’ Vanessa nodded at me sharply, ‘tell John he can't do
it.’

‘
Twincy,’ John growled, ‘tell Vanessa we have to do
it.’

I did not and
I could not. Instead I let my hand drop, blinked one eye open, and
listened as my stomach gave a sudden rumble. ‘I need dinner.’

Both of them
swivelled their heads to look at me; it had not been the response
they were expecting, nor was it one they wanted.

‘
Look, you both have good points. We do need an effective
communications technique, however Vanessa is correct, Esquire has
been dabbling in this field for longer than we have. So, John, you
must create something sufficiently novel and unique that Esquire
has no way of infiltrating it.’

At first John
looked downtrodden, shortly thereafter his cheeks brightened as he
realised I'd offered him a challenge. ‘Sufficiently novel, you say?
Well of course I can do that.’

‘
But it must be so different to Esquire's current communication
devices that he will be unable to hijack it,’ Vanessa ticked her
head to the side sharply.

John fobbed a
hand at her. ‘Oh pish, of course I can do something like that.
Esquire is an old horse,’ John rolled his eyes, ‘and I am at the
beginning of my illustrious career.’

I pressed my
lips together, not wanting to point out that John was all of seven
years old. Instead I took a step back and realised that, for now, I
had managed to broker peace. Which meant I could finally get around
to finding something to eat.

Vanessa
cornered John for several more minutes, emphasising again and again
that he had to develop something so beyond Esquire’s technology,
that the man would have no idea how it worked.

I left the two
of them to bicker, and wandered off to the kitchen.

Though Carolyn
popped her head out from behind the thick black curtains of her
laboratory to offer me something she had just invented, and
something she called a fantastic nutritional source, I waved her
off with a thank you, and quickly found a chunk of old cheese and
bread. Grabbing it, finding a pitcher of water, I walked out into
the very small extension that led from the third floor up to a
ladder that one could take all the way to the roof. I climbed it
easily, still holding my food and water. Sitting confidently on the
edge, letting my feet kick out over the gutter, I stared forward.
Then I let myself flop down onto the roof unceremoniously. I
slowly, luxuriously closed my eyes, feeling the gentle caress of
the afternoon rays warm my cheeks and bare arms.

It had been a
long several days. In fact, all of my days were long, for another
peculiarity of my form was I hardly slept. Somehow the devices that
Esquire had crafted into my body prevented me from being dead to
the world for more than an hour or two a week.

Sleeping was
against my purpose, after all. The reason for which Doctor Elliot
Esquire had imagined and crafted me.

If the
suitables
were his foot soldiers, I was his general, yet more than that,
I was the asset he would send in to end a battle before it had
begun. A first-strike weapon, and yet a last-ditch tool as
well.

All in all, a
nasty and thoroughly disreputable destiny.

Yet one I was
shrugging off like a heavy riding cloak. I was determined to put
that destiny behind me.

I could hear
the children still bickering, even though I was all the way outside
on the roof. It did not irritate me; it made me smile. For it
reminded me that regardless of where I had come from and what I had
been crafted into, I still had family. Imperfect, of course, but
family, nonetheless.

I lay out
there on the roof, sipping at my water, and eating my bread and
cheese until the light started to cast longer and longer shadows.
And I thought, and I hummed to myself, and I picked at the hem of
my skirt. In short, I did nothing meaningful, I simply rested, in
the only way I could. And I tried, however ineffectively, to keep
my thoughts from the war.

When the light
became too thin and the dusk deepened into night, I finally
clambered down from on high. Taking the ladder easily, I took a
deep sigh before finally re-entering my very own abandoned
warehouse.

As I did, of
course I was met with the usual rough and tumble of the children.
Vanessa was still busy shouting at John, Carolyn was still occupied
trying to make things explode, and Theodore was likely still down
on the streets hawking his goods.

Some things
didn't change.

Some did.

Before I could
settle too far into my night, Vanessa came to me with a strangely
nervous look on her face. She was always a figure of strength, even
for me. She would face all situations stalwartly, and with the
attitude that anything could be solved, and if it could not be
solved, then one could still manage risk accordingly.

Yet now she
walked over the creaking floorboards with an expression that was at
odds with her usual ease.