The Clockwork Dragon Read online

  Gwen took a half step forward. “We need a favor.”

  “A favor?” He gave her the winning smile that had made him Mrs. Hudson’s favorite. “I’m intrigued. But let’s chat once you’ve run a few laps. Make it four.”

  “But, Ash—” said Gwen.

  “Four laps.” He tucked the cane into the crook of his arm and clapped. “Off you pop.”

  Once they had finished, huffing and puffing, Ash put Gwen off again. “I don’t want to lose our momentum,” he said, and tossed each a pair of fingerless gloves. He pointed the wolf’s-head at a platform jutting out from the walkway. “Over there. I have something special for you.”

  Out in the open space of the arena, the bronze quad-style QEDs were busy pushing oak and mahogany obstacles into a loose formation. Ropes, climbing walls, monkey bars, and stairwells all floated on glowing white thrusters. “Who designed your course?” asked Jack. “M.C. Escher?”

  Ash helped them both onto a single floating disc, barely large enough for one person, let alone two. They had to hug to keep from falling off. “This will be an exercise in dynamic problem-solving,” he said, poking Jack’s hip with the cane to send them drifting out into open space.

  Jack peeked down over his arm. A dark fog churned at the bottom of the arena, nine stories below. “More like an exercise in certain death.”

  “Oh, don’t be melodramatic.” Gwen found her balance and pulled on her gloves one at a time, wiggling her fingers. “That sort of thing is far too American.” She raised her voice in a humdrum tone. “We’ve done obstacle courses before, Ash.”

  “Not like this one.” On cue, the obstacles eased into motion, moving left and right and up and down. A black rope hanging from a thruster disc wheeled around a central staircase. “Welcome to the moving maze. Only certain obstacles, passed in order, will get you to the other side.” Ash dug his thumb and forefinger into the front pocket of his waistcoat and drew out a stopwatch.

  The motion cracked Gwen’s bravado. She chewed her lip. “I know you, Ash. You wouldn’t send us off without a clue.”

  “Too right. Try this one, then. ‘Chess master.’ ”

  “Chess master?” asked Jack.

  “You have fifteen minutes. Fail and you can forget that favor you wanted.” Ash raised the stopwatch and pressed the button. “Go.”

  With a sudden leap that almost sent Jack careening off the disc, Gwen caught a rising set of wooden monkey bars. “Come on!”

  After a quick glance at Ash, who held up the watch, swinging from its chain, Jack rolled his eyes and leaped after his partner.

  The two dangled from the bars a foot apart, facing each other, while Gwen muttered to herself. “Chess master. Chess master.”

  “What does it mean?”

  “Haven’t the foggiest.” Her pupils were shifting all about, scanning the obstacles.

  “Shouldn’t we have figured that out before we left the stand?”

  “No,” Ash called from the platform. “That’s why we call it dynamic problem-solving. Think, Jack. How does a chess master win?”

  Gwen answered for him. “By looking three and four steps ahead.” Her eyes locked onto a target. “That’s it.”

  Ash thumped the platform with his cane. “Keep moving!”

  “That climbing wall,” said Gwen, “moving right to left. Now!”

  They both swung for it at the same time, and Jack grunted as his cheek squished against the wood. The polished grain left dark furrows across his tracker brain. “How . . . can you be . . . sure?”

  Gwen was already climbing. “We find the good path by eliminating the bad—follow each potential path in our heads, looking for the obstacles to avoid.” She reached the top and helped him up beside her. “Concentrate, Jack. See the vectors like the tracker you are.”

  “Right.” He let the data fill his merging senses. The gray whoosh of the moving obstacles. The bronze hum of the thrusters. The play of light and shadow against the ironwood walls. All of it merged into one picture—one confusing picture.

  “Two minutes down,” Ash called from the platform. “You’ll never make it at this rate.”

  “Yes we will,” countered Jack. Vectors emerged amid the chaos in his head as ghostly white lines. “Those stairs,” he said, pointing to his left, “and that trapeze. They’re dead ends.”

  Gwen slapped his arm. “Well done! That leaves the rings. Keep on it!”

  Jack identified the obstacles to avoid, and Gwen picked the proper path. Each new phase revealed a new piece of the moving puzzle. They chose the rings, a rope bridge, and an annoying leather bag that jiggled and rotated whenever Jack shifted his weight, and within three minutes they had reached the motionless stairway at the center of the maze.

  They had the course licked.

  Until it started to rain.

  “Really?” asked Jack, looking up into the arena clouds. A slow drizzle wet his cheeks. “I think you people take the whole ‘always rains in London’ thing a little too far.”

  “Massive space. Poor ventilation. A common tale.” Gwen dabbed her face with her scarf. “There’s nothing for it. We have to finish if we want that favor from Ash.”

  Without further complaint, Jack climbed up onto the stairwell railing and grabbed the rope swinging past. A series of knots made the climb manageable at first. But the more the rope sailed through the drizzle, the wetter it became.

  His feet slipped.

  He couldn’t get them back into place.

  Down below, the yawning chasm of the arena opened up to claim him.

  Jack tightened his grip. “Uh . . . Help?”

  “Hang on!” Gwen reached the top of the stairs, waiting for the rope’s next pass.

  Jack’s steadily growing panic gave way to a burning sensation—not in his stomach, in his right hand. Steam and flames shot out between his fingers. “What the—?”

  The rope snapped.

  Jack fell at the same speed as the rain, as if the drops had frozen in space, and the arena was rising around both them and him. He could read his own vector the way he had read the vectors of the obstacles. A ghostly white line traced down from his eyes to the mists below. A purple-and-black scarf whipped through it.

  “Grab hold!”

  Jack caught the scarf with his left hand, patting his right against his hip to put out the flame. He crashed into the side of the floating stairwell. Gwen hauled him up over the rail.

  “Thanks,” he said, panting as he dropped to the floor.

  She laughed and eased herself down beside him. “Didn’t I say you’d want my scarf before the end?”

  A pair of QEDs pushed the stairwell to the platform, and Jack tucked the burned glove into his sweat suit. He did not want Ash to see.

  The quartermaster scratched his head with his cane. “I’ve never seen one of our ropes snap like that. Not a big deal, mind you. The QEDs would have caught you.” The two drones hovering on either side rotated to face him, widening their camera lenses in what Jack could only take to be surprise.

  “Right,” said Jack, stepping down onto the platform. “Sure.”

  Gwen hopped down behind him. “Ash, about that favor. I know we didn’t finish, but—”

  “You solved the maze, and you saved your partner. That’ll do.” The young quartermaster folded his arms. “Shoot.”

  “We need you to use that smile of yours to convince Mrs. Hudson to do something.”

  “And what would that be?”

  “We need her to send all three of us on Jack’s first sanctioned tracker mission.”

  Chapter Nine

  DESPITE ASH’S IRRESISTIBLE SMILE, Mrs. Hudson said no.

  Sort of.

  Jack squirmed in a coach-class seat, unable to get comfortable. The FASTEN SEAT BELT sign flicked off with a melodious bong, and the captain announced that they had reached a cruising altitude of thirty-five thousand feet, well on their way to Salzburg.

  “Are you asleep?” he asked, poking Gwen’s shoulder.
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br />   A rose tint at the edge of the window promised a magnificent sunset washing over the tops of the clouds, but Gwen had blocked the view with her squishy pillow. She nestled deeper in. “I’m trying to be.”

  “I’m kind of disappointed.”

  “Are you now?” She sounded kind of miffed that he was still talking.

  Jack didn’t care. “Since we’ve met, you’ve taken me on levitating trains, a submarine, a supersonic underground transport, and a rocket-powered zeppelin. All while going rogue. Now we’re out on our first ministry-sanctioned hunt, and we’re on a regular old airliner.” Jack pressed the little button on his armrest and bounced against his seatback, trying to recline. It wouldn’t budge. He sighed. “In coach.”

  “What can I say, Jack? Welcome to the glories of official ministry ops.” She held up a tiny snack bag. “Have some improbably small pretzels.”

  After the obstacle course, Ash had kicked his charm into high gear and made his pitch to Mrs. Hudson. She could send Jack and Gwen to Salzburg after the mysterious Mind of Paracelsus, an artifact that had come to light thanks to a clue Jack had uncovered in his grandfather’s notes—which was mostly true.

  Ash would supervise, of course, and the three would return victorious, showing the council that the Ministry of Trackers could still do its job, and that the spooks and toppers were making noise over nothing.

  “Yes to the first part,” Mrs. Hudson had said, looking down on all three through her spectacles. “And no to the second. I am not opposed to your plan, but Section Thirteen is clear. If Mr. Buckles is to leave the country”—she focused her stern gaze on Jack—“to conduct an official tracker investigation, he must have a warden looking after him, not a quartermaster. I am sorry, Mr. Pendleton. You do not fit the requirement.”

  Ash was out.

  Shaw—with whom neither Jack nor Gwen would dare share the real purpose of their mission—was in.

  The oversize teen now snored in the aisle seat beside Jack. His big, weighty arm fell into Jack’s lap. Jack tossed it back over the armrest. “And where is our gear?” he asked, taking the bag of pretzels and stuffing it into the seat pocket. “All we brought were overnight bags.”

  At this, Gwen opened her eyes and smiled. “You’ll see soon enough.”

  Thirty minutes after landing in Salzburg, they were standing at the bus station.

  Spec came zipping around the corner.

  “Wot’s that, then?” asked Shaw, swatting at the drone as it did a lap around his head.

  Gwen opened the pillbox. “My nano-drone. I couldn’t very well send him through the scanners, could I? In you go, Spec.”

  Instead of returning to the case, though, Spec pushed closer to Shaw’s bulbous nose, making him go cross-eyed. With uncanny speed for his size, Shaw snatched the drone out of the air and tightened his fist, squeezing hard. “Gotcha!”

  “Stop it!” cried Gwen. “You’ll hurt him!”

  She needn’t have worried. Spec’s engines flared from blue to white, and in schoolyard-bully-why-are-you-hitting-yourself style, Shaw’s own fist rammed into his forehead over and over until he let go.

  Spec gave him an extra bonk and then did a backward triple-flip with a half gainer into the pillbox, snapping it closed.

  Shaw growled and stormed off toward the bus kiosk. “We need tickets into town. Don’t none of you move ’til I get back.”

  Waiting until the warden was out of earshot, Jack turned to Gwen. “What’s the deal with Spec, anyway? Not even the QEDs are that . . . quirky.”

  “Uncle Percy made him. The smallest QED ever built. Gave him to me as a Christmas gift.” She checked on Shaw, making sure he was still a good distance away. “He used a very special crystal as the foundation for the artificial intelligence chip.”

  “What sort of crystal?”

  “Let’s just say Uncle Percy never logged in all the artifacts he and your father found. There’ve been a few other Christmas gifts as well.” Keeping her hand close to her body, she touched her scarf, then her coat.

  “I knew it. That’s why your pockets never run out of room.”

  Gwen only smiled.

  The bus dropped them off on a snow-dusted riverbank in view of a hilltop castle with train tracks running up through the lower ramparts. At the base of the castle hill, they found a market square dominated by a statue of Mozart. Gwen nodded toward a shop in the darkest corner. Gold stenciling on the windows read ARNULF UND SÖHNE. Vests and neckties hung behind the glass.

  “A tailor?” asked Jack. “Seriously?”

  Gwen frowned at him. “Outfitter.”

  “Whatever. Are those lederhosen?”

  A sign hanging between the ties read GESCHLOSSEN, which Jack knew from middle school German to mean CLOSED. Gwen and Shaw pushed through the doors anyway, tinkling a little bell. An older gentleman stepped out from behind the counter, waving his hands. “Nein Nein Wir sind geschlossen.”

  “Not for us, if you don’t mind,” said Gwen, dragging Jack forward. “You have a contract with our agency, Herr Arnulf. A very old contract.” She snapped her fingers at Jack, which he had long ago learned meant, Show him the card.

  Jack pulled a platinum business card from the inside pocket of his leather jacket, showing Herr Arnulf the family name printed on the front. JOHN BUCKLES.

  A look combining wonderment and dollar signs filled the Austrian’s eyes. “Ah, wunderbar. I have not seen a tracker for many years, many years indeed.” He made a grandiose gesture toward the back. “Please, follow me.”

  Herr Arnulf led them past cherrywood shelves filled with a rainbow of shirts, socks, and handkerchiefs to a short platform with a three-sided tailor’s mirror.

  Jack knew what to do. His mom had taken him to get fitted for a suit when he was eleven. He stepped up on the platform and raised his arms, holding them straight out to the sides.

  Shaw laughed.

  Gwen did a face-palm.

  Herr Arnulf coughed and pressed Jack’s arms down again. “Perhaps . . . a little closer, yes?”

  Confused, Jack stepped deeper into the arc of the three mirrors. Something beeped. Red lasers ran up and down his body from both sides, and his ministry mug shot materialized over his own reflection. “What on earth?”

  Red boxes sprang up all over the combined faces, turning green in rapid sequence. A female voice, exactly like the voice that constantly reminded Tube passengers to Mind the gap, said, “Identification confirmed. Tracker. Welcome, John Buckles.”

  It was an access system. Jack glanced over his shoulder, not knowing the protocol for the others. “Um . . . and . . . guests?”

  “And guests,” said the voice. The mirror slid up into the ceiling, revealing a long hall filled with clothes, fabrics, and gleaming gear.

  Chapter Ten

  JACK WALKED ALONG A wall of miniature crossbows and dart guns. Titanium spheres and tungsten discs rested on satin cushions lit by pink lights. “This is a tailor’s shop?”

  “Out-fit-ter,” said Gwen, correcting him once again. “The ministry has contracts with masters across the globe. Our travel accommodations may be lacking.” She chose a titanium ball from a cushion and twisted the bottom half. The top sprang out into spinning blades, lifting it from her palm. “But there are perks.”

  Gwen wandered off to look at hats while Jack inspected a row of shiny gold and silver fountain pens. “Let me guess,” he said to the tailor. “Lasers?”

  Herr Arnulf removed a pen’s cap and pressed its clip inward. Blue-white flame shot from the tip. “Torches. These will make quick work of any alpine ice encasing an artifact.”

  Next came canes with heads in the shape of animals. Several had blue or purple sparks arcing within glass chambers on the shafts. Jack brought down a plain oak cane with a pewter bear on the end. “These are longer than I’m used to.”

  “A lengthy shaft is best for mountain work.” Herr Arnulf delicately retrieved the cane and returned it to the rack, trading it for another—onyx, ornately car
ved and topped with a silver leaping lynx. “Might I suggest this one?” He waved Jack back a few steps and pressed an unseen button on the shaft. With a pronounced shink, a tungsten spike stuck out from the end. “For icy mountain passes, yes? But that is not all.” He spun and fired. The spike shot out, dragging a microfilament line, and stuck into a dressing dummy at the far end of the room, missing Shaw’s nose by a fraction of an inch.

  “Oi! Watch it!”

  “My apologies, Herr Warden,” said the tailor as both the line and the spike came whistling back.

  Jack caught a twinkle in the old man’s eye.

  Herr Arnulf handed Jack the lynx cane. “It is interesting, mein Herr, that your eyes were drawn to the bear first. Your grandfather favored that same icon.”

  “My grandfather came to this shop?”

  “Oh yes. I kitted him out for two weeks in the Alps.” Herr Arnulf sized Jack up from his head to his sneakers, and selected a leather satchel. He strolled down the line of satin cushions, filling it up. “Sadly, I did not see him after that.” He paused, touching his chin. “Although there was an incident with a package.”

  “What package?”

  “A boy, a street urchin, brought me one of my own hollow copter scouts a week after your grandfather left. He would only say that John Buckles had asked that I give the contents to John Buckles.”

  “So . . . my grandfather sent a package to himself.”

  “Strange, yes?” Herr Arnulf glanced back at him. “I sent the item to London—a sphere, wrapped in packing paper—addressed as requested.” He returned and lifted the strap over Jack’s head, adjusting the satchel at his hip. “Now, will you be needing a suit?”

  A sphere, wrapped in packing paper. That was exactly how the zed had come to Jack’s father.

  “Herr Buckles? A suit?”

  “Hmm? Oh. I don’t think so.” Jack had always preferred jeans and his dad’s leather jacket.

  “Mein Herr, you are in Austria. In February. This”—he gestured up and down Jack’s form, frowning—“will not suffice.”