Page 152 (1/2)

"It was an honor getting to know you, my dear," he h the hatch and into the penstock The professor watched her vanish into the darkness below

Cade reappeared at the hatch "I could use a light"

"Yes, of course" The professor passed him the taper "Know that you were alwaysman’s face "Do what you need to do, then follow after us We’ll wait in the boat"

The professor nodded "Hurry now!" and he replaced the cover on the hatch to forestall any

The basement was dark, but he knew his ell At the base of the stairwell he found and lit another taper and exa, even with the steel reinforce way He hastened up the stairs to the second floor and threw the lever to illuminate the room There were barrels he kept near the entryway in which he stored phosphorene to keep the lights functioning, but also it was there in case of an eency like the one he now faced

He rolled the barrels to the center of the floor and unplugged them The clear viscous fluid that was phosphorene flowed onto the floor, rather like the molasses he sometimes liked on cornbread The dry ht up The fumes drove the professor back

The barrels of phosphorene were not the only precautions the professor had taken He had feared this day ht come to pass, and so he had planned He could not allow his precious artifacts to fall into the hands of Ezra Stirling Silk,the shelves on the third floor he had stocked smaller barrels of black powder Silk may have rounded up most of the blastmen in Mill City, but what he hadn’t knoas that Bryce Lowell Josston, iy, was also versed in the art of blasting

He shook his head sadly anddesk He sat down, and frorandfather’s chronosphere He opened the sphere and watched the littlestick Half past the ’s first hour In all the excitement, he had not heard the city bell toll He snapped the sphere shut and waited

• • •

When the doors finally crashed open--first on one end, followed shortly by the door on the other end--the professor consulted the chronosphere once more It had taken them approximately ten minutes to break in since he had last checked That ht, and he congratulated hin, which, he hoped, had also provided Cade ti feet echoed up the stairwells, and he simply waited He listened as they cleared the base the hatch in the penstock or the trapdoor to the underground--and moved on to the first floor There, he knew, they found little more than discarded scraps of machinery

When they all clah the doors with arms drawn, the professor stood, picked up his taper which he’d kept burning, but left his pistol on his desk Each movement was followed by the muzzles of firearms and the lensed eyes of Enforcers