I try to be near Xue-Fang when Big Stuff is happening, and Big Stuff was definitely happening. Through a bunch of the armory, there’s these walkway thingies that sorta hang from the high ceilings so the scroblins and maintenance troopers guys can reach the things on the ceiling, like the lights and the ventilation ducks. I mean, ducts. Ha, silly me! Well, when your super defensible villain lair is made up mostly of moving clockwork parts, there’s a w-h-o-o-o-o-l-e bunch of maintenance. Like, they are always fixing something in this place.

I’m not even really sure why everything except for the ballroom has to be clockwork. Can’t a wall just be a wall? But Xue-Fang says it’s really the texture that counts, the “sinister ess-thetic.” I made a mental note to look that word up, but I haven’t found a dictionary anywhere in this entire place.

Anyway that’s where I was when I saw them from above, walking around in the high-up walkways, pretending to check on the personnel we had up there. A couple of scroblin engineers were arguing over blueprints and replacing some gears. A sniper stood at attention when he saw me, but I didn’t say anything.

And there they were—but there were four, not two. I knew we had the soldier and the backpacker already in the Armory prison. The philosopher had been taken away for processing, if you know what I mean. Xue-Fang called him our “insurance policy.” But there were two others with them too that I did not know we’d captured. And there was something about them… something… what’s the word?

A man and a dog. First, let me talk about the dog. The dog was w-e-i-r-d. There was, like, nothing smart about this dog. I don’t mean he was stupid, not like Tansy and Tor back in Jerkburg.

No, I mean like… this was his pet. This was not a dog who could, for example, have a conversation about gardening. You would not see this around Jerkburg and share the latest gossip. I never really know what to say to animals who can’t talk. Talk about awkward! He walked on all fours and I don’t think he even had any thumbs.

This guy was lucky he wasn’t in an Ohmpressor already.

The man was something else, from somewhere else. He reminded me of you-know-who from back home. We don’t need to talk about that. What’s done is done, right?

I will just say this: I’ve met Players before. Before everything happened, of course. Before I took up with the Bosses. But they always wore the bodies that made the most sense in the places they were visiting. In Jerkburg, you-know-who had a big ol’ head and the same stubby little arms as the rest of us. Maybe I’m a little stubbier than your average Garden Villa: Fresh Worlds (20♫0) townie, though.

But this guy was different. Sorry for a dirty word, but he seemed sorta naked! Even though he was wearing a shirt with a confusing design on it, and shorts and shoes. He was taller and thinner than you-know-who, shaped a little more like Xue-Fang, I guess. He seemed more… what’s a good Xue-Fang word for this? “Au-then-tic?” He seemed real, but not powerful. This guy was NOT all that and a bag of chips! I figured I could take him.

They didn’t see us, so me and the sniper just watched them as the Ohmpressors and Troopers led them to the Court of Clocks. I ran off and took some back ways I know about, a shortcut through the ducks. And I brought my silver shovel, of course. All shiny and sharp.

Wait. Ducts! Sorry! Silly Bianka!

Anyway I was a little mad that Xue-Fang had summoned them without me. Hopped on the minute hand and ran to watch from behind the throne. I couldn’t take my eyes off this weird guy and his dog. It was like looking at one of the gods–which some people say they actually ARE that, but don’t let the Boss Council catch you talking like that. It was like he wasn’t made of the same stuff we were made of. More… mushy and uh… elegant, maybe. Like he was grown in a super fancy garden. I didn’t like the way the dog was looking at me, either.

Xue-Fang had me push a crystalliced trooper into the clockworks under the throne room, just to let this god or whatever know that we weren’t messing around. I made a big show of whipping out the silver shovel, letting them see how gleaming and sharp it was, and tapping the frozen trooper over the edge. He got ground up by the gears and stuff. Not pretty! But, you get summoned to the throne room, it’s a coin flip which way it’s gonna go for you, right?

Then the knucklehead Player threw something into the clockwork. I didn’t see what it was, but it really did a number on the gears and stuff turning beneath the Court of Clocks. Victoria says those are the strongest gears in the whole place, and they can grind up anything. Our very own garbage disposal.

It burped and hiccupped and sort of… started banging and clanging. One time Tor the Boar tricked me into eating a bowl of noodles with some hot chili peppers that he grew in his garden, and this was kinda what happened with my poor tummy then. Nothing was right for a while. I could hear something loose bouncing around somewhere it shouldn’t. A big ol’ blast of wind blasted out, which was weird. There shouldn’t be wind in the clockworks.

The green soldier lady turned to the Player. R-e-e-e-a-a-a-l slow, like she was so mad she couldn’t believe just how mad she was and didn’t trust her own words. Her eyes almost bugged out of her head. She gasped with anger. And like, I get it. (But also, I didn’t get it.)

She jumped at him so hard that she knocked one of the Sorrow Troopers over the guardrail and into the grinding gears, and she didn’t even notice! She shoved another one out of the way without looking, and threw her hands around the Player’s throat. The dog started barking, bug I couldn’t always hear him over the loud bangs and clangs of the clockwork getting all messed up. The backpacker, whose backpack we had taken so I guess he was just sort of a guy now? Anyway, he was jumping into the middle of them trying to convince the green soldier not to strangle him to death.

And the whole time, I’m thinking: Holy mackerel! This is who the Princess sent against us? (Sorry again for the language.) Xue-Fang just looked at me and shrugged. They were here to get their Radians back, the little bits of their sun that Victoria stole. And here they were in the throne room, attempting to kill one another. Incredible.

Well, the clockwork started getting really goofy. There was a big vibration coming from under us, which moved into the walls, then moved into the ceiling. One of the guard rails shook loose and fell into the gears. Then one of the wall panels fell off and got in the way of the second hand, and there was this BIG screaming sort of sound, and the metal panel flipped over and flattened a couple more troopers, and knocked over two Ohmpressors.

One of ‘em’s canopy cracked open and a little skunk just bolted out through the chaos. And yeah, it was chaos by then. Bits were falling off of the walls. Gusts of wind blew up and down the halls, slapping gears and levers right off the walls. The scroblins were going to have a fit when they saw how much they had to repair and clean up.

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I think she was gonna kill the player right then and there. Even our troops couldn’t get her attention. And look, I get it. Who among us hasn’t gotten a case of tunnel vision when they fly into a murderous rage? I’m over here yelling because if he dies, does he take the Radians he’s got with him? Does he reset someplace? Does he have more lives to go, or is this it?

Plus, a certain part of me is thinking: If he dies, I’ll never get to chase him around in my Maze. I’d like that. That would be a good time for everybody. (Not him, though!)

Well, I never got the answer, because just then the backpacker, who is very handsome for a humanoid if that’s not awkward for me to say, ripped open his shirt. The green soldier’s eyes got real big and she let go of the Player, and sort of took a couple steps back and blinked.

Then all heck broke loose. The second hand twisted itself the wrong way and messed up the minute hand too, which went sideways. The whole Court of Clocks was turning into a pile of brassy metal stuff, like a construction zone. It was fun to watch, but not fun to be in the middle of.

The next part was kind of a blur. You know when a lot of stuff all happens at the same time and you know what happened, but you have to r-e-e-a-a-l-l-y think about it to actually tell the story?

Yeah.

Wind—really hard wind—lifted me up and hurled me down one of the entry halls. I was lucky to land on the catwalk and not get all mixed up (and chomped!) in the clockwork. I remember running from some loud sounds, and jumping into one of my air duct shortcuts. I looked back and watched the metal walkways being all sideways and sinking into chomping gears like the way they always show big boats sinking, straight up and down.

I scrambled and screamed. I crawled through that little passage with all those horrible sounds happening around me, like when we would turn our houses into haunted houses in the fall in Jerkburg, and Kamau and Moustafa would bang on the other side of the cardboard tunnel next to your head and yell to scare you. Or, really just me, probably. Only, this was about ten times worse.

Another big gust of wind whistled through the duct and shot me out like a cork from a pop-gun. I was back on one of the ceiling catwalks up top, and there were scuffed-up boots in front of me. Those were attached to Victoria, who was standing up there looking like she wasn’t even worried about the earthquake that was happening, or whatever it was.

“Oh,” I said. “Hi Victoria.”

She was in her long white coat with all the stains, with the boots and the gloves and all that. She just had her arms crossed and she hardly noticed me. She just nodded toward the lower level, where I could see a big, red dude wandering around the walkways even as they fell to pieces. He was huge, and steam was coming out of his ears, and his eyes were bulging. He flexed and worked his fingers like he wanted to grab and crush and tear. Again though—I get it. That’s kind of the default feeling I start every day with.

“Who’s that?” I asked her. “We don’t let Street Toughs in here, do we?”

Victoria Nietsneknarf shook her head. “It’s Final DuChamp.”

A fluorescent light tube disintegrated overhead, showering his hulking shoulders with sparks. “Huh.” I said. “So then that means…”

“DuChamp has been defeated,” she picked up my sentence for me. I guess I was getting there too slowly. Victoria turned to me then. “Which means they’ve got the Golden Plains Radian. And probably all the rest. And do you know what that means?”

If it was Xue-Fang, I would have been like “Yeah, definitely,” but there was no fooling Victoria. She would just stare you down if she didn’t believe you. I shook my head. I hate admitting defeat to another Boss.

“It means this enterprise is over.”

“Over?” I asked. “Like over over? I mean. We’ve got them in our lair and they’re hopelessly outnumbered.”

“No,” said Victoria. “This lair will be a pile of rubble soon.” Right then a huge gear dropped out of the ceiling and went crashing down in front of us, snipping catwalks in half and dumping Sorrow Troopers and scroblins into the gearworks below. Her timing is amazing. One day I’m going to learn villain speech timing like that. The gear kept falling and flipping, and passed between us and Final DuChamp. I figured he was dead meat. There was a terrible noise, honestly the worst noise I have ever heard in my life, and I’m including that time I sank Dietrich into my Maze. (Pretty bad noise.)

The noise was like… things that should hold things together snapping apart. Hot metal tearing, which I didn’t know metal could do. And a rain of little springs and caps and bolts against more metal. When it fell again, there was one long catwalk sticking out like a broken bone, and there was that stupid dog and the human—the handsome one, the backpacker, not the Player.

He tried to talk to Final DuChamp, but he was too mad to listen. He just rushed at them and started swinging and swiping, trying to throw them both off the catwalk and into the gears below.

“Should we help them?” I asked. Then I realized how wishy washy that must have sounded. “We should help them. I’ll go help them.” But Victoria only held up a gloved hand to silence me.

I didn’t love that. Being silenced in my own lair. I mean, she did design it, and I was still technically an intern under Xue-Fang. But I’m still supposed to be in charge-ish. I wondered if I could shovel her in the back, but then I remembered the stories of how she got to where she is now.

“Look,” she said. The giant gear had also split this other lair chamber cleanly in half. There was the backpack, its stuff laying out. There was that spooky Book that nobody could open. There were a bunch of half-dissected Ohmpressor chassis. Chassises? Research stuff like microscopes and delicate tweezers and scalpels and bone saws. It was Victoria’s private research chamber. If the dog and the guy got over there, we were pretty well heckaroony’d. (SORRY, but it WAS very serious.)

“Oh boy,” I said. “Okay. Time to go help.” I started to climb over the railing, but a hand gripped my shirt collar and pulled me back. She leaned down to talk to me, which I hate.

“No. It’s time to make a choice.” She crossed her arms over one knee as she knelt. She reminded me a little bit of Mr. Hootley when she did that, and I think some tears MIGHT have welled up in my eyes. “Listen carefully and answer even moreso, little bear. Xue-Fang is dead. Not now, but soon.” Of course I was like, huh??? “When you’ve been in the business of Bosshood as long as I have, you can read moments like these. This,” she waved at Final DuChamp picking up the guy as the dog barked at him and bit at his ankles, “is a critical domino, and it’s going to fall. It means our lair is destroyed, the Radians are as good as gone, and sadly my research will be interrupted. The question for you to answer is: Will you be one of the dominoes? Or will you be resilient like me, and live to strike when we are stronger?”

I wasn’t sure what to say. On the one hand, Xue-Fang was my mentor. He was the father I never had, after Mr. Hootley, who also wasn’t my father. He had opened my eyes to the new order before the Total Conversion, and helped me take control of my destiny in Jerkburg and break out of that boring, infuriating life. He saved me… he, taught me to save myself. He was the reason I was here. He brought me into the fold of the Boss Council. Without him, I’d be floating in space on a little fragment of Garden Villa: Fresh Worlds (20♫0), and that’s if I was lucky.

On the other hand, fuck ‘im. I nodded, although looking back that was kind of a stupid response, since it was an either-or question. Victoria knew what I meant. She looked back at her stuff, and sighed. She looked at Final DuChamp across the raging pit of gears and destruction. Final DuChamp looked at her—now he had both the dog and the guy in his hands, a grappler to the end. He let out a shout of pure rage, and hurled them across the pit into the research room before his catwalk disintegrated, and he plunged into the clockwork maw grasping at the air—or at us. We got the heck out of there before it came crashing down on us, too.