Reina had to move quickly.

The goons she hired weren’t going to be able to keep Thode occupied for long. The blasted grease monkey was armed to the teeth with high end Gadgets and top-quality Gear pieces beyond any Gearwhiz she’d ever known. He could easily go toe-to-toe with a Gearace. And the way Reina was now, she didn’t think that even she’d be able to take him. Not with only one hand.

But that’s not what she wanted from him. She wasn’t spoiling for a brawl, she wasn’t a copperhead.

No, what she wanted was what he was lugging around. Thode tried to conceal them from her, but he wasn’t that grand at hiding…

He had Gears in his room. Gears that she could use.

It had taken her a couple of weeks to figure it out. Right after they escaped from Arcwatch, he hadn’t trusted her enough to release her bindings. It wasn’t until she bribed him and his grandpa with CCs that they finally freed her.

With her mother gone and Arcwatch burned to the ground, she was the sole living person to have access to House Gunnslow’s relatively large wealth. And she knew all of the banking codes.

Her mother had forced her to memorize them before she was even 10. And since there was only a single, unified bank on Crankedge, it was a simple matter to gain access to the Gunnslow account.

For Hanged Gods’ sake, there was only one bank in the entire star system — the Coalition Reserve. They standardized the Coalition Coin across all six planets and their respective economies with Gearkings and queens from each race that sat on their board. That meant that Reina would have access to her House’s bank account in any city on the planet.

So what if she paid for the hangar rental where they stowed that airship cutter of theirs. So what if she paid the upfront cost for his membership into the delvers’ union. She was about to get her return on her investment and then some.

Reina sprinted down catwalks and across hanging bridges, her footsteps so light that they barely swayed as she ran past. She didn’t like Glokham. It was too cramped, too claustrophobic.

She was a Noxdennite. She needed room to spread her wings. Reina hated feeling like she was cooped up in a cage. She’d had enough of that in her life.

Now, with her mother gone, she had the freedom to do whatever she wanted, though a brief glance at her hook-hand made her recoil. Once I get rid of this blasted thing, I’ll really be free. I can go wherever I want without any fear.

Those thoughts only spurred her on, reaffirming her resolve. So she sped up, pumping her heart and spine Gears for all they were worth.

In a handful of minutes, she was at the rundown inn she and Thode were staying — the Brass Lantern. She’d had to pay for Thode’s room at first too, though after a few contracts, he was able to pay for it himself.

Since the whole city of Glokham was made of garish metal buildings, eight stories tall and squished close together, the inn took up about three stories worth of real estate in a single building.

She rushed through the common room, then flew up the stairs, relying on her integral Gears to get her up them four or five steps at a time. Her room was on the second floor, but Thode’s was on the third. And since she first paid for it, she was able to get a key as well.

Within moments, she was inside his room, rummaging through his stuff. What she wanted wasn’t in the overstuffed duffel bag that he had sitting on the floor with its contents spilling out on the worn down carpet of the room. He kept his best stuff in his Barrel of Feathers.

Reina had to admit, the grease monkey was a pretty dynamo machinist. She’d never had the knack for it. Sure she could maintain her own Gadgets or Gears, but if she needed an upgrade or something custom built, she simply went to the machinist that House Gunnslow used to keep on retainer. That old clanker was most certainly dead and buried beneath a pile of rubble now, so she would need to figure out another option.

Fortunately, she had CCs to burn.

Flipping open the storage barrel, Reina was rewarded with the sight that she hoped for. Aside from a bunch of junk that looked to be half built pieces of scavenged parts, there were three distinctly light blue metallic Gears.

An arm. A heart. And a pair of legs.

Before she even registered it, she was holding onto the prosthetic arm like it was a long lost friend. She glanced at the heart and legs, but quickly shook her head. She didn’t need them. Her heart was already mechanized and she’d rather have a new arm than new legs.

Other than those three Gear pieces, nothing else truly caught her attention. Ultra high-grade Gadgets were easy enough to come by when you had the amount of CCs that she did. She could go to any high end machinist shop and kit herself out. But a Gear arm? Especially one made of low cobalt? That was priceless.

Well, in this case, the price of the arm was everything that Reina had already paid for on top of the fact that she’d even watched him assimilate the second half of her old Gear eye that her mother once surgically removed.

By her account, it was a fair trade. An eye for an arm.

Swifty leaving everything in the room the way she found it, Reina was out the door and flying down the stairs in a matter of moments. She bypassed her room since there was nothing in there. Everything she needed was stuffed in her trench coat already.

She didn’t even stop by the front desk to check out properly. Instead, Reina flipped the counter girl her and Thode’s keys and was out the front door in a clock tick.

Her heart pounded in her chest as her breathing came hot and fast, more from her nerves rather than fatigue. She needed to get out of here as soon as possible before Thode got back.

So she ran. Ran away with her precious new arm. And never looked back.

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While the Gizmeren blocking Thode’s path eyed him intensely, his actual attention was somewhere else. Thode had already written the arrogant snowrunt off after identifying them as a simple Gearpunk with a single Lignite-level Gear that had replaced their left arm.

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Their partner standing behind them was surprisingly a ‘blank’ — someone who had no Gears whatsoever. It was bold of this group to have someone like that along when facing off against a higher ranked Tinker.

Focusing further on his sonar, it revealed the two Cinderrans’ positions behind him. One was at the far end of the bridge to block Thode’s escape, while the other was inching their way forward, closer to Thode’s back.

The situation seemed bad — four against one — but none of these vexers looked all that powerful. Maybe they had an ultra high-grade Gadget or two between them as opposed to Thode, whose entire utility bandolier and suspenders was adorned with so many Gadgets you could barely see the leather straps underneath.

His opponent’s hand suddenly twitched to the Gadget on their belt and Thode’s eye blasted an ice beam that froze their hand straight to their waist.

“What the fra-” the snowrunt started, but Thode activated his attraction shield from his left Gear eye and interrupted them.

In the next instant, both the Gizmeren in front of him and the Cinderran sneaking up on him shot forward as if pulled by a magnet. Their bodies may have been made of flesh and bone, but their clothes and utility belts were covered in metal.

They flew towards him and he triggered another one of his new eye’s innate Fluxpowers — his perception of time slowed as the dark cobalt wires in his brain scintillated with Flux energy. This burned through his Coal reserves like a fire on a fuse, but he didn’t need it to last long.

The screaming snowrunt suddenly came to a crashing crawl as if they were caught in invisible molasses. Then, just as his opponent came within arm’s length, Thode abruptly switched the direction of his magnetic field and repulsed them both away.

In the next heartbeat, he released both of his Fluxpowers and was rewarded with two screams as his ambushers were thrown over the edge of the suspension bridge.

All of that happened in two blinks of an eye, leaving the other snowrunt at the end of the bridge slack jawed. Thode simply smirked and pushed off his feet.

But instead of attacking the opponent in front of him, he actually dashed backwards in a blaze of electrical flames, surprising the remaining Cinderran behind him. At the last instant, Thode twisted and slammed an elbow in the squid-head’s face with enough force that it sent teeth and blood flying.

A quick scan of the ambusher showed him that this one was also a blank. What were these copperheads thinking sending a pair of Low Tinkers and a pair of blanks against me? Is this some kind of joke or did they really underestimate me that much?

In one fluid motion, he swiftly followed up with a knee in the Cinderran’s gut and he heard bones crack. His enemy bent in half like a sheet of metal, groaning as they fell on the ground. He turned to find his last ambusher shakily pointing a brassteel pistol in his direction.

But before Thode could rush at the scared snowrunt, Zeb brought him up short by floating in front of his face. “Woah there, boyo, we’ve got a problem! One of the alarms in your inn room just went off. Pretty sure these vexers are just a distraction.”

“Blast them to the Depths!” Thode growled as he looked past Zeb and glanced at the last ambusher. A quick ice beam from his eye froze the Gizmeren’s hands and gun, then he jumped over the side of the suspension bridge, then vented fiery lightning.

He had a thief to catch.

Like flexing a muscle, the thin metallic slats of brassteel and dark steel around his ankles unfurled in midair, snapping into place underneath the soles of his prosthetic feet to form a pair of skates — his Hoverhawks. His ankles then popped open to become thrusters and suddenly, he was sailing from one overhanging walkway to another.

Now that he was back in a city made of metal, he could take full advantage of his skates and their electromagnetic rims. He glided down walkways, jumping to the side to slide horizontally along walls when he had to avoid pedestrians in his way.

He left a trail of disgruntled and surprised Glokham folk as he made a mad dash back to his inn. It took him long minutes of bounding leaps and hectic skating to get from the sixth floor back down to the fourth.

Before long, he found himself skidding to a stop right in front of the Brass Lantern inn. He burst through the entrance and stomped past the common room, ignoring the angry mutters and suspicious stares. A pair of revolvers were in his hands before he ever reached the third floor. He didn’t even bother stopping for Reina. Whatever happened, Thode could deal with it himself.

His brassteel heel kicked in his own door with a bang, then he swept the room with his guns as he inspected every corner and crevice. After a few tense clock ticks, Thode scratched his head in confusion with a gun muzzle. “What the frag? It looks exactly the same? Did the alarm glitch?”

“Oi! Don’t blame the alarm, I made that thing with my own pincers!” Zeb exclaimed as it zipped out of Thode’s bomber jacket and began to float around the room. “Instead of doubting my impeccable craftsmanship, why don’t you just check the blasted recording?”

“Wait, there’s a recording?”

Zeb gave a heavy sigh, “Of course there’s a recording, ya copperhead!” It hovered before Thode’s face, its golden eye judging him. “You sure you’re my grandson?”

“Ugh,” Thode swatted at the automaton, “Just show me the footage so we can hunt the vexer down.”

Zipping over to one of the corners in the ceiling, Zeb said, “All you had to do was ask.”

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Thode inspected Reina’s room with a fine toothed comb, but came up with nothing. “I don’t think she came back here at all. My heat vision isn’t showing even a whiff of warmth. It’s as cold as an empty bed.”

“Aye, that filchin’ featherhead had this planned,” Zeb replied, while riding in its ant-drone exoskeleton to examine the room more closely. “Who knows how long she’s been schemin’ for that arm. For frag’s sake, she was practically taunting us on that last contract!”

Balling up his fists, Thode ground his teeth in frustration. He hated being played. Especially by someone who’d played him one too many times already.

He knew that Zeb was a fool for trusting the blasted Noxdennite. Even if his gyroscopic companion had lost its memories, Thode had witnessed parts of the original Zebulon Wedgecraft’s life.

The old Zebulon had learned firsthand how treacherous Noxdennites could be. And Thode really was a thick headed steam jug for having missed it. He’d wanted to believe in the old rustbucket. More than that, he wanted to give Reina another chance because she’d saved his hide during the invasion of Arcwatch.

But…clearly Noxdennites never changed their feathers. Reina was a spoiled heiress who thought only of herself.

He didn’t care that he’d stolen from her and her mother. She wasn’t supposed to steal from him.

It was the principle of the matter.

The blasted heiress didn’t almost get mauled to death by a blasted Gearjunkie in the depths of a fraggin’ Gearmonger ruin. She didn’t earn that Gear piece. And he was gonna get it back even if he had to rip it out of her socket.

“I’m gonna kill her, Zeb…” he said through clenched teeth.

Zeb sprang up onto Thode’s shoulder using its spindly metallic legs and settled in, “No argument from me this time, lad. We gave the featherhead a chance to be better than she was and she showed her true colors. I say we slag and bag that vexer, then sell her for scrap parts.”

“Finally, you’re speakin’ my language, old man. Where do we start?”

“Us, lad? We start by doing something incredibly glitched. And then? We do something else even worse…”

Thode just laughed and shook his head, “You son of a vexer, I’m in.”