Grey Griffins: The Clockwork Chronicles #1: The Brimstone Key (13 page)

“They have a point,” Monti reminded them. “Don’t forget, Stephen is still missing. The THOR agents would have a difficult time tracking all of you at a block party. Keeping you isolated makes sense.”

“I guess,” Ernie lamented. “I’ll just have to bring my sketchbook so I have something to do.”

“That reminds me,” Monti said. “When am I going to get the first issue of
The Amazing Adventures of Agent Thunderbolt
?” Monti was referring to the comic book that Ernie was writing, drawing, inking, coloring, and lettering on his own.

Ernie sighed. “I was hoping to have it done for the Christmas rush, but I don’t know if I’m going to make it. I have the first issue written, but I haven’t started drawing it yet. Plus I need to find a way to add a Transmuter, but homework keeps getting in the way.”

Monti was a graduate of Stirling Academy, so he understood what Ernie was talking about. “Don’t worry, it’s only going to get worse.”

“Great,” Ernie moaned before disappearing to the back of the store. Harley and Natalia wandered off as well, leaving Max alone with Monti.

“You used to play Round Table, right?” Max asked.

“I was on the varsity team at Stirling, just like Iver and your grandfather. I wasn’t too bad, if I do say so myself. Why? Are you thinking about trying out for the team at Iron Bridge?”

“Actually,” Max began as he pulled out the mysterious
deck of cards they’d found in the underground bunker, “I wanted to get your opinion about these.”

“Let me take a look.” Monti adjusted the armature on his glasses and thumbed through the stack several times.

“Where did you say you found these?”

“We’re not supposed to talk about it,” Max admitted after a long pause.

“I see,” Monti said with a smile. He looked back at the clock. “I know it’s getting late, but if you have some time, I might have something that could help. We have to hurry, though. The
Zephyr
leaves for New Victoria in a few minutes, and it won’t wait.”

“New Victoria?”

“That’s where my workshop is,” Monti explained. “Just give me a minute to clean up.” With that, he tapped a sequence of numbers onto the screen of a small handheld device. A blue beam shot out of the ceiling and spread across the room. There was a puff of mist that smelled like lilacs, and then it was gone.

“It’s a dust atomizer and furniture polisher,” Monti explained.

“Where did you get it?” Harley asked with admiration as he rejoined the group.

“I built it.” Monti tapped another code, and armored shades dropped over the doors and windows. The lights dimmed, leaving the store bathed in the red glow of an exit sign.

“Pretty heavy protection for a comic-book shop.” Harley nodded appreciatively.

“After what happened at the Shoppe of Antiquities, you can’t be too careful.”

Twenty minutes later, the
Zephyr
dropped them off at the Farringdon Street platform in the heart of New Victoria. Monti led the Griffins through the empty underground and up the tiled steps to a busy street corner. Draft horses pulled massive carts laden with wares as elegant motor carriages and MERLIN Tech hovercycles zipped past strange steam-powered tricycles. Men and women strode down the wide sidewalks in top hats and bustled gowns. Others wore faded jeans and derbies. There were pixies that carried on conversations on windowsills, hobgoblin fishmongers, and just about every assortment of strangeness that Max could have imagined.

As they moved through a throng of charm peddlers, Monti pointed out a few landmark sites. The Griffins were too entranced by the city to pay much attention. Most of the people they passed seemed entirely uninterested in
the Griffins, but Max still had the feeling that they were being watched.

“Welcome to the warehouse district,” Monti said as he turned down Walpole Road. The street looked like a nest of warehouses and factories. Men with thick arms sat on steel girders high in the air, eating their sandwiches as others unloaded copper cable from the back of a wagon.

“New Victoria isn’t so bad,” Ernie said as he watched an airship lift off with a load of goods.

“You haven’t been here after dark,” Monti retorted, stopping in front of a green door with a polished brass knob in the center. He pulled out a device that looked like a pocket watch and wound the stem. Suddenly a series of eight brass legs extruded from the casing until it sat in his hand like a mechanical spider. Natalia’s eyes shot wide as she thought about the scarab they had found in the tree house. She was about to say as much, when she caught Max shaking his head at her.

Like the beetle, Monti’s clockwork spider was elegantly designed. There was a series of floral designs that came together in the form of a magnificent ship that was etched on the back. The design was flawless, right down to the smallest coil and articulated joint.

“I made this, too,” Monti said. “If somebody other than me tries to use it, it’s programmed to inject a serum that will paralyze them until the authorities come.”

The strange mechanism crawled across his palm
before leaping onto the wall. It skittered across the bricks until it landed on a brass plate with an indentation that was just about the size of its body. The spider lowered itself into the groove and spun in a combination of directions that was followed by a click. Then it hopped back into Monti’s hand and returned to its original form. “Wait until you see what I have inside.”

Monti’s workshop was bigger than a warehouse. The monstrous structure was a symphony of steel and glass that stood over a floor of polished stone. There were hoists, cranes, metal tables, hissing machines, and an array of amazing contraptions in various stages of construction.

As the Griffins followed Monti across the floor, they had to duck away from flying sparks that shot out from mechanized welding machines.

“Is the whole place automated?” Harley asked.

“For the most part,” Monti responded, as they passed a beat-up automaton that was testing a rocket pack. “This is kind of like a jet pack, but it’s run by MERLIN Tech.
The clockwork running the tests is one of my oldest models. They don’t make them like that anymore.”

“I can see why,” Ernie commented. “That thing is a hunk of junk.”

“I don’t know,” Monti said. “The pack he’s wearing has exploded three times this month, and he withstood each hit. That’s pretty impressive.”

Everywhere the Griffins looked, they could see other automatons working tirelessly under the flat glass roof.

“You make weapons here, too?” Ernie called as they neared a movable wall filled with dangerous-looking contraptions.

“Someone has to keep Logan and his THOR agents on the cutting edge if they’re going to take the fight to all the bogeymen that go bump in the night,” Monti noted proudly. He patted the stock of one of his rifles. “This is Logan’s MVX. It’s a pulse rifle, and he requested some upgrades.”

Monti motioned toward a palm-sized pistol with a filigreed barrel and an ivory handle. “This model is the Peapod 7000. It’s a concealable six-shot plasma pistol with a fairly big bang considering the size of the weapon.”

Monti went on, describing the rest of the weaponry with obvious pride.

“We’re also developing specialized armor and advanced field science over there,” he said, pointing to the far end of the workshop. “That’s where you’ll find the Magma Manacles, jump boots, and a few other toys.”

“What about this?” Harley asked, picking up a small device that looked like a remote control for a television.

“It’s a hologram projector,” Monti said. “I’m still beta testing, but we’ve had good results. Here, watch this.” He took the control and punched in a series of numbers. Suddenly a Tundra Troll appeared next to them. It was nearly twelve feet tall and covered in thick white fur. Horns jutted out from the sides of its head and tiny black eyes scanned the room as it growled.

Ernie ducked behind a table as Monti walked right up to the monster. He was laughing as his hand passed through the troll. “See,” he said, “it’s just a three-dimensional projection. I can only make it last for a few seconds, but we’re working on it. Not bad, huh?”

“This place is amazing,” Harley said, relaxing. “I’d give just about anything to work here.”

Monti shut the projector down. “I’ve been thinking about bringing you on as an apprentice this summer. Maybe we can work something out. I’ve got an airship I’m working on, and I could use the help.”

“What’s with the killer robot?” Ernie asked, as he gawked at a towering clockwork that looked an awful lot like the war machines from the schematics the Griffins had found in the bunker.

“That, my friend, is a Grimbot,” replied Monti. “In fact, it’s one of the few complete war machines that still exist.”

The tarnished clockwork was propped up like a museum piece in a glass case. Its general shape was humanoid, with
armored shoulders, a Gatling gun instead of a forearm, and legs that were outfitted with propulsion units. Its face was narrow, and its eyes were nothing more than slits in the metal casing.

“Did it belong to the Clockwork King?” Ernie asked.

As soon as the words left Ernie’s mouth, Max wanted to throttle him. Logan had told them to be quiet about that stuff, and here Ernie was blabbing again.

“Now there’s a nickname I haven’t heard for a while,” Monti replied. “From what I hear, Von Strife didn’t care for it very much. He felt it was pejorative.”

“It means derogatory,” Natalia said, as she caught the confused look on Ernie’s face.

“Wait a minute,” Max said. “That’s the name on the statue with the missing head over at Iron Bridge.”

Monti laughed. “They still haven’t fixed that? Well, I guess I shouldn’t be surprised. He was a demanding teacher, which meant he wasn’t very popular with the students.”

“What did he teach?”

“Advanced MERLIN Tech,” Monti replied. “But after a few years he took a position leading a controversial research and development team for the Sciences Council. They designed advanced hybrid systems that combined traditional clockwork mechanics with molecular engineering and MERLIN Tech.”

“That sounds incredible,” Harley remarked.

“It was,” agreed Monti. “The Templar Grand Council
asked Von Strife to use his findings to create advanced weapons systems like this Grimbot. The entire world was at war. Millions of people were dying, and the Templar wanted to send a message that decimation on that scale would not be tolerated.

“Von Strife understood that his machines would need to react to complex battle scenarios,” Monti continued. “So he perfected something called Systemwide Turing Intelligence.”

“You’re telling me that Grimbots could think on their own,” Harley said with stunned admiration.

“Exactly,” Monti replied. “The artificial intelligence he developed was so close to human consciousness that many people believed that the machines were capable of actual emotions. Some even conjectured that the clockworks were able to feel pain. An ethics committee was formed, and once the politicians got involved, the program ground to a halt. Then they shut it down.”

“What’s this?” Harley asked. He had found a manual on Monti’s desk that was faded and cracked. Inside was a series of schematics for all kinds of clockworks, from insects to war machines.

“Please be careful with that,” Monti pleaded. “It’s one of the last known collections of Von Strife’s work. I shouldn’t have left it sitting around.”

“This is incredible,” Harley said, as he thumbed through the pages. “It’s basically a how-to guide for making your own clockworks. Can I borrow it for a couple days?”

Monti looked stunned. “I’m afraid that would be impossible,” he said. “If something happened, I would never be able to replace it.”

“Do you think that the school has a copy?”

Monti’s face turned white. “I doubt it. Unfortunately, owning a copy falls into a bit of a grey area.”

“You mean it’s illegal?” Harley pressed.

“Yes,” Monti agreed reluctantly as he moved to retrieve the manual. “It’s not exactly a secret that I have a copy. I’m just supposed to keep it discreet. You have to promise me that you won’t tell anybody.”

Harley smiled coolly. “You owe us one.”

Monti paused. “If I make you a copy and you get caught, you didn’t get it from me.”

“Deal!”

“That reminds me,” Max said. “Harley and I were at the arcade the night that Iver’s shop was broken into. We saw something.”

Monti stopped shuffling the papers on his desk. “I don’t understand.”

“We think it was a clockwork,” Harley said. “We could hear the thing ticking.”

Monti removed his glasses and rubbed the bridge of his nose with his thumb and forefinger. “Are you sure?”

Max nodded. “Its eyes kind of looked like camera lenses, and I think it took a picture of us before it ran off.”

Monti was listening so intently that he put his elbow in a full cup of coffee. He seemed flustered as he mumbled
something unintelligible and pulled out his pocket watch. “If we’re going to get you back to the shop before your parents start looking for you, we better get to work. Can I see those cards again?”