What Went Wrong With Mrs Milliard's Mech?

by I H Laking

  * * * *

  “Well if you didn’t do anything, then why did you run?” Ambrose demanded. He and Percy were standing in the middle of the workshop, interrogating the bodyguard, whose name had turned out to be Cooper, about what he was doing in the Aurelious Workshops. Around them, a team of four young men in white jumpers were cleaning up the huge mess that still littered the floor. Ambrose and Percy had found them in a locked room upstairs, where they had been hiding from the intruder. They still looked deeply uncomfortable with the situation, but as they had explained, they were all simply assistants – the Artisans were out of town, and the workshop was not going to be functioning for at least a month, especially considering the damage that had occurred earlier in the week, when someone had broken in and caused an even bigger mess in the basement.

  “I didn’t know what was going on. I’m not from around here, and I was afraid you were going to deport me.” Cooper’s face seemed genuine, Ambrose noted, but if he was innocent, he had managed to find himself in an awfully compromising situation. “Why were you here then? Who sent you?” Ambrose demanded – he was sick of not having answers, and this could be the break they needed to find out how to fix Morris. Cooper looked sheepish. “It was Mrs Milliard who sent me.” “What!?” exclaimed Percy, looking up from his notebook “But why? You expect us to believe that?” Cooper nodded. “I know that it seems strange, but she asked me to come down here because of something you said, Inspector. You asked about Morris’ Artisan, and since you were busy interviewing people near the shop, she thought I could go and have a look around here, see what I could turn up.” Ambrose frowned. He hated to admit it, but clearly this man didn’t have the brains to be plotting something big. His problems boiled down to his job and his identity – foreigners without a well-paid job or work papers tended to not be welcome in Traville. “Very well” he began. “Let’s assume for a minute that you did come down here for that very reason. What on earth caused this mess? You must have had quite a struggle with someone in this spot.” Ambrose pointed to the space where they were standing. Cooper dropped his eyes. “That’s true. These lads let me in, but when I got to the middle of the floor they suddenly set upon me. I had to try and get free. I chased them upstairs and they locked themselves in that room you found them in. Since they were out of the way, I figured I’d just keep searching.” Ambrose whirled around to look at one of the assistants “Why on earth didn’t you tell us this earlier? You never mentioned there was a struggle down here!” One of the assistants piped up from the corner “We were a bit embarrassed to be honest… four of us couldn’t even subdue one man! We were lucky to even make it away from him. He fights like a beast! It’s not human!” Ambrose couldn’t believe it. Between suspicious citizens, nosy shopkeepers, and lying young assistants, it didn’t seem like he’d even get to the bottom of this case. “Alright” He gathered his thoughts together “I need everyone to stop lying, and simply tell me what’s going on. I don’t care about your bruised egos” he indicated to the assistants, who had gathered together near the centre of the room “and I’m not here to deport you” he said to Cooper, who looked somewhat relieved to hear that. “But I am here to solve this case, and to solve it quickly. So who can tell me what’s going on?”

  One of the assistants, who introduced himself as Anthony, talked Ambrose and Percy through the events of the past week. It seemed that someone had broken in overnight about six days ago. They had ransacked the lower part of the building and left. Nothing appeared to have been taken, but equally so, the Artisans kept nothing of value in the workshop. “And if I was looking for something of value, where would I be best to look?” Ambrose enquired. “In the vault.” Anthony replied, nodding towards the back of the workshop. “The entrance is through a trapdoor there, but only the assistants know the location of the key.” Ambrose nodded. Anthony then proceeded to detail the work the assistants had put in to try and clean up the shop and restore their dignity before the Artisans returned home. They had nearly cleaned up the mess when they ran into further trouble with Cooper, and now they were all concerned about how things could look for them with two break-ins so close together. “Very well.” Said Ambrose, who was by now quite sick of hearing about the worries these young men held for their respective careers, “Have you done a thorough check of the vault?” Anthony looked perplexed. “Why would we? It’s mostly just Mechs down there. And even if someone figured out how to get into the vault, how would they get a Mech out without us hearing it?” Ambrose didn’t dignify the assumption with an answer. “Show us the vault.” He ordered.

  The young man led Ambrose, Percy and the begrudging Cooper out around the back of the workshop, to a large trapdoor that was covered in leaves. It was muddy around the back, as very little sunlight pierced the boughs of several tall trees that hugged the rear fence near the building. Ambrose took the scene in whilst Anthony went to retrieve a key. Ambrose paused. “When would you say you last checked the vault?” He called to Anthony, who was negotiating a tree branch. “Oh, probably a few weeks ago. We don’t go down there without the Artisans. It’s just too spooky in the darkness with the Mechs.” He removed a large brass key from a cavity in the trunk and started walking back. Ambrose didn’t bother to formulate much of a response; he simply waited for the assistant to look up. Anthony stopped, almost dropping the key as he realised what he was seeing. There was no need to unlock the trapdoor; Ambrose had already opened it. The lock was smashed, and there were muddy footprints leading down inside.

  “Seems that someone around here isn’t afraid of the dark.” Said Ambrose as he led the way down.

  The vault certainly was a dark place. Gas lights were burning every few metres on the right hand wall, but they failed to cast much light into the dusty gloom that filled the long corridor. On the left wall was the real reason that someone had wanted to get inside. Every few metres, opposite a torch, there was a curved cavity in the wall containing a Mech. Both Percy and Cooper let out a few gasps as they all traipsed along the corridor, following the footprints. Each Mech was a work of art. Here was housed much of the experimental work of Archibald Aurelious, one of the greatest Artisans of all time. No one before or since had matched his imagination and design abilities. Ambrose pondered the fact that such a treasure trove was so easily broken in to, but there was no point dwelling on it, he decided. Each Mech they walked past had never been activated, so they simply stood there, lacking a Life-Spark and staring into the distance. Each one had a serial number and a note above it. Some were clearly meant to be reused but had never been touched: “4-5-4 Prototype. Send for further testing.” Whilst others were more concerning: “Juggernaut influence. Request immediate cessation of production.” Or strange: “Promoto-Araya. Translation matrix failure.” After what seemed like an age, the footprints finally came to a stop beside an empty cavity in the wall – the only empty space in the entire vault. The sign above it read: “Sosie Model. Extraneous to requirements.” Ambrose whirled around and faced Anthony, whose face had dropped as he surveyed the scene; there on the ground were marks in the dust where a Mech had stood for years, but was now missing.

  Ambrose cleared his throat. “Well young man. It seems you’ve had a burglary.”