Free Arcadia Snips and the Steamwork Consortium by Robert Rodgers Page B

inside, her eyes nearly sprang from her skull. All other thoughts disappeared in a flash: there was not a single object in the room that was not worth stealing. Even the pens looked like they could feed a family of six for a month. A chain of ivory statues sat on an ebonized desk; books with gold leaf foil bindings littered the shelves. Crystal tumblers lined a fully stocked liquor cabinet, filled to the top with the good stuff.
    Snips' fingers started to twitch. She shoved them so deep into her pockets that her pants started to sag.
    "Is there a problem, Miss Snips?" Mr. Eddington asked.
    "Not at all," Snips blurted out a little too quickly. "Just a little, uh, chilly in here. My, you have a lot of expensive stuff." She felt her fingers spasm in her pockets, fighting for freedom. "Quite a lot of expensive stuff."
    "Yes. I enjoy the finer things in life," Mr. Eddington said, walking around his desk to take a seat. "Please, make yourself comfortable. If it is all the same with you, I would like to finish this up as quickly as possible."
    Snips moistened her lips. "Right, right," she said, sitting.
    "Just have to, you know, ask you a few questions."
    Mr. Eddington raised an eyebrow. "Miss Snips, why are you stuffing my gold engraved pen in your pocket?"
    Snips froze, looking down at her hands. She immediately placed the pen back on the desk and proceeded to flatten her palms to the seat of the chair, sitting on them. "Sorry," she said. "You know how people can be with pens. Thought it was mine for a second."
    Mr. Eddington's eyebrow continued to lift, disappearing underneath his graying hairline. "I... see."
    "Anyway. I was just asking Daffodil back there about the calculation engine project you're running." Snips allowed her eyes to slide across the room, trying to find something to distract her from all the interesting things on Mr. Eddington's desk. She caught sight of something in particular; a small bulletin board that had various newspaper clippings attached to it. They dealt with new groundbreaking inventions the Steamwork had been responsible for. Snips noticed that most of them were dated back from at least a decade ago.
    "Yes. It's quite a lucrative arrangement. Mr. Tweedle and his banks gain added security and invulnerability toward mathematical mischief, and in return we charge a considerable yet wholly appropriate fee," Mr. Eddington said. "However, I fail to see precisely what this has to do with Mr. Copper's demise."
    "Just coming at this from every angle possible," Snips said.
    "What else does the Steamwork do? Besides the bank stuff."
    "We invent things, Miss Snips. Our improvements on the calculation engine is merely one such example."
    "Such as?"
    "The original calculation engines. The gas piping that provides the city with light and power. A system of pneumatic tubing that allows for instant communication between parts of the city. In essence, the Steamwork is a factory for science. We mass produce technological wonders."
    "What was Basil working on? Mr. Daffodil wasn’t quite sure himself."
    "At last, something that has to do with your case," Mr. Eddington said with an exasperated sigh. "He was working on several minor projects. Most of them were rather dull. Nothing of any particular interest."
    "Well, like what?"
    "He had a rather absurd idea concerning replacing gas lighting with bulbs of glass containing lengths of galvanized filament."
    "How would that make light?" Snips asked, frowning in thought.
    "That was precisely my question. As for what his current project was, I do not know. Although he was my research assistant, he was up for review; he had defied many of my attempts to put him on a more constructive project ever since he became obsessed with matters of electricity."

    "Do you think he was working on anything dangerous enough to cause an explosion?"
    "Yes. I hasten to add that, on several occasions, Copper has ignored safety protocols when conducting his experiments—and this is not the