"Well?" Chas asked Jeremy coldly. "You heard the evil genius. It was him who killed your grandfather, not me. And you've heard his plans. You're living, you're human, there's no way you're going to be spared. What are you going to do about it?"
Jeremy just stood there, looking shell-shocked. Behind him the machine with the big red button intoned:
"There is one hour and twenty minutes left before activation and the end of all life on Earth. Have a nice day."
"God, I am so going to enjoy melting that machine down for scrap," said Spud.
Footsteps sounded behind Jeremy, and he turned around to see Barbra and her two clockwork pets walking towards him.
"I don't know what you're talking about," he said to Chas.
Barbra said: "The Master wishes your assistance with some repair work."
"I-I-I-I'm on my way," he stuttered. And walking like someone who's only the tiniest bit aware of his surroundings he staggered out the door.
Barbra stood and watched the group with unnerving stillness.
"Chas," whispered Nics. "Are you alright?"
"What do you mean?" he asked.
"Only, you said that you didn't kill Jeremy's grandfather..." she said.
"Oh," Chas said. "Slip of the tongue."
"But it's the second or third time you've said something like that. Are you alright?" Nics pressed.
"Yes," he said, with a strange little smile. "I've just remembered a few things, that's all."
Spud was looking up at the young man encased in glass.
"Do you think he'd help if we got him out of there?" he asked.
"No," said Barbra, stepping closer to the group. "He wouldn't."
Nics looked at her closely for a long moment.
"You, you're special, aren't you?"
Barbra looked back, eyes unblinking, making no pretence at being human.
"Oh, that robot look doesn't fool me in the slightest," said Nics, glaring at her. "You're more than you're letting on, and you know it. You've gone and done by yourself what was given to me. You've found a soul."
Barbra smiled, and it was horrible. It looked like her face was cracking.
"Prove it," she said.
"Oh, I will," said Nics. "But even if I don't, how long do you think it'll take before Mr Cuckoo notices? And once he does, once he finds out you've got free will, how long is it going to be after that before he destroys you, or puts you in one of these damn collars? How long?"
Barbra's voice was very calm and very very cold.
"Cuckoo's a fool. A genius, but a fool. And he's very easy to control."
She turned and took a few steps away, then stopped.
"If you don't like your collar, have a thought for the one the dog is wearing," she said, and walked out with another word.
"Hey, look, there's our house," said Spud as she stepped out the door. He'd been watching the CCTV camera footage on the big screen with the avid interest of a hardened couch potato.
"Nice one babes," said Chas to Nics. "Now, let's get planning. What are our assets?"
Spud didn't take his eyes from the screens. "You, me, Nics, some greasepaint and an empty pizza box. Oh, and a spare soul, though I've no idea how that could help."
"You can't rely on me," said Nics. "Not with the collar on me."
"So we figure out a way of getting the collar off," said Chas.
"And off Sam too," she added. "He's as much a victim and forced into this as I am."
"Alright, and Sam too," agreed Chas. “Even if he is a miserable fleabag.”
They sat in silence for a while, thinking.
"I don't suppose the Agency can help?" Nics asked Spud hopefully.
Spud sighed and shook his head. "Nope, that was the message. I've got to deal with it. The Agency are bringing in the cavalry, but it's not going to happen in enough time to help."
Nics sighed, and went back to pulling at the gold choker. This meant that she nearly ended up choking herself on it when the mouse that had been hiding in Chas’ breast pocket popped up and squeaked.
"Sorry mate," Chas told it. "I was kind of keeping you as our secret weapon. No slight intended."
Nics shuffled as far away from the mouse as she possibly could, right to the edge of the circle of golden clockwork dragons that stood guard around them. The mouse looked at her, twitched its whiskers and ran straight for her, squeaking wildly.
She screamed and ran away from it, her feet stomping straight down onto one of the golden dragons. Quick as a flash there were dozens of them crawling all over her and she was screaming, and screaming and trying to pull them off herself.
"Now!" yelled Chas, and launched himself at the thinned line of dragons. He caught one as it jumped at him and threw it across the room, crushing another under his feet. And he was out of the ring and causing carnage.
Spud followed him, wielding the grease laden empty pizza box like a very soggy club. The mouse ran straight past Nics and disappeared behind some serious machinery.
There followed a very short but very intense fight, with golden cogwheels and a not inconsiderable amount of blood from all concerned flying everywhere. But in the end Chas and Spud stood battered but unbowed in the centre of a battlefield made of clockwork pieces. Spud still clutched the shreds of cardboard that were all that remained of the battered pizza box.
Nics hadn't wasted any time once she'd been freed from the crawling mass of dragons. She was straight over to the workbenches looking for anything that could be used to cut the control collar from her neck.
She pulled a huge pair of long handled pliers from a pile of weird and unusual tools and took them over to Chas.
"Get this damn thing off me now," she told him.
He looked at her, and then at the pliers, and started chewing his lip.
Spud had approached the machine with the big red button on it. He looked at it for a moment, crouching down to see underneath it, trying to get a grasp of how the thing worked. But, as far as he could see, there was no way into it; it was a completely sealed, featureless box, with only the big red button and LED display on it.
So he did the only thing he could think of. He pressed the big red button.
The disembodied voice of the machine said:
"Thank you for pressing the big red button. There is now one hour left before activation and the end of all life on Earth. Have a nice day."
"One hour!" Spud cried. "I thought we had more time than that!"
And he hit the button again, three times. To get the disembodied voice saying again:
"Thank you for pressing the big red button. There is now fifty minutes left before activation and the end of all life on Earth. Have a nice day. Thank you for pressing the big red button. There is now forty minutes left before activation and the end of all life on Earth. Have a nice day. Thank you for pressing the big red button. There is now thirty minutes left before activation and the end of all life on Earth. Have a nice day."
Chas and Nics both lunged for him yelling:
"Spud! Don't press the Goddamn button!!!"
Spud, having realised what he'd just done, stuck his hands in his pockets and tried to look innocent.
"Alright," said Chas, trying to stay cool. "Less time now."
He took another look at the pliers in his hands, and a closer look at the gold collar around Nics' neck and shook his head.
"Sorry babes," he said, dropping his hands. "If I try to cut through it I'll just end up cutting your throat."
Nics swore, on the edge of furious tears once more. She took the pliers from his hands and wound up and threw them.
They sailed though the air and hit the glass case surrounding the young man. A large crack jagged crazily across the surface of the glass.
Nics looked at it a moment, then said:
"You guys break that machine. I'm going to get him out of there."
She started dragging lab benches over so she could use them to climb up.
Chas went over to have a look at the machine.
"There's no way in," said Spud. “And I don't think it has an off switch."
"This is a workshop," said Chas to him. "There's got to be a tin opener in here somewhere."
Spud scurried off to look, and came back in no time at all armed with a sledgehammer, a blowtorch, an axe, a band saw, an electric cordless drill and a stack of sandpaper.
"Sandpaper?" Chas asked him.
"First thing I saw," said Spud, dropping all but the blowtorch. He fired it up gleefully and went to work on the casing of the machine. Chas picked up the cordless drill and went to work as well.
A few minutes later, and the only sign of their efforts was in the slight scorch marks on the casing and a few scratches. The drill bit was well and truly worn down to nothing.
"Blowtorch is out of fuel," said Spud, shaking it and looking glum.
He aimed a kick at the machine case. "How the hell do we get into this thing?"
"Dunno," said Chas. "But it's really inconsiderate of Cuckoo. Most evil geniuses at least have a fairly obvious off switch built into their doomsday devices."
"Yeah, but neither of us is James Bond remember?" Spud reminded him.
Chas snorted.
Nics had made her way onto the top of a rather precarious pile of benches and had reached level with the glass case and the young man inside it. Shielding her eyes with one arm, she swung the hammer she held in her other hand as hard as she could against the glass.
It shattered, sending pieces flying everywhere. With great care she reached in and undid the straps that held the young man in place, putting him over one shoulder in a fireman's carry, and climbing down again.
On the screen behind her were images from a darkly lit theatre. A woman in a white dress with red boots was talking to a woman in a red dress with white boots. Both wore masks made of duck feathers.
Spud and Chas looked at the machine, and looked at each other.
"There is fifteen minutes left before activation and the end of all life on Earth. Have a nice day."
Three mice ran up the side of the machine, and, defying gravity, across the shiny glass plate of the LED countdown.
"Oh look," said Spud. "Your mouse friend has brought some friends."
The mouse looked at Spud like he was the least intelligent life form on the planet, and ran across the LED plate again, this time squeaking pointedly.
"Of course," breathed Spud in tones of profound realization, "the glass of the countdown display."
Chas simply picked up the sledgehammer and hefted it. The mice quickly got off the machine and retreated to a safe distance as he swung the sledgehammer at the display.
It popped out of its frame very neatly indeed. The two lads peered in, looking into a maze of belts, chains, clockwork pieces and cogs.
"So, which wire do we cut then?" asked Chas. "Spud? You're the expert."
Spud glared at him. "It may surprise you to hear this, but they don't exactly teach a course in how to disarm clocks in the Agency. Bombs, yes, clocks no."
"Well, if we can't disarm it, let's break it then," said Chas, sticking the head of the sledgehammer through the gap and wiggling it around, totally failing to cause any damage to the machine's innards at all.
"Step aside," said Spud grandly. "Breaking things is what Spud's do best."
He reached inside the machine and grabbed something and pulled. No result. He tried again, this time using a pair of pliers. No result. He chucked the empty blowtorch, the dead cordless drill, the pile of sandpaper, seventeen screwdrivers and a glass beaker into the machine in the hopes that it would jam.
"There is ten minutes left before activation and the end of all life on Earth. Have a nice day."
"What Spud's do best, eh?" said Chas, one eyebrow arched. "No rush. Take your time..."
Scowling in frustration Spud thrust the greasy pizza box inside the machine. And smiled as he thought of something.
"Fire," he said. "Where the hell did I put my lighter?"
"You keep losing it, remember?" said Chas, just as Spud pulled a lighter out of one pocket. Then another, and another, and another.
He burped, and pulled a lighter out from his mouth.
Chas winced. That looked far too unpleasant for words.
Spud patted himself down, producing lighters from every pocket, from up his sleeves and down his trousers, from behind his ears and even out of his nose. After he'd amassed a huge pile of them he dumped all but a few inside the body of the machine. The remaining few he fiddled with a bit, then consigned them too into the junk pit that was the machine's innards.
"You might want to stand back a bit," he told Chas as he fiddled with the last lighter.
Chas dove for cover.
Spud flicked the lighter on and threw it into the machine and ducked. Nics sneezed at exactly the same moment that an almighty fireball exploded out of the frame where the display had been, melting the big red button and leaving nasty bright afterimages on the eyes. The machine's disembodied voice came from the dirty black smoke that followed the fireball.
"There is ten... minutes... left... before... activvv.... wooooopppp..."
"Did you do it?" asked Nics from where she was bent over the body of the young man. "Have we stopped Mr Cuckoo's infernal plan?"
The jewel on her collar flashed, and she stood up rigidly. Mr Cuckoo, along with the remnants of his collection of one hundred and one golden clockwork dragons, Jeremy, Sam, Barbra and her clockwork pets had just walked in.
"I'm afraid not," Mr Cuckoo said to her as Spud dove for cover behind the shell of the doomsday device.
"I underestimated you. You have delayed me, yes. But you have not come even close to stopping me."
He lifted one monstrous clockwork hand to reveal an ornate box with a red button prominently placed in the middle of it. He pressed it with one thumb, and laughed loud, long and maniacally.
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