Clockwork Dream

v The Automaton

Small winding hallways closed around him, like the ship's innards had been drawn by a three year old with a purple crayon, and the acrid stench of leaking gas was trapped within its confines. The wave of nausea that hit him was not improved by the fact that the entire structure slanted so that the floors were never level. When they stopped in front of a plain metal door he almost felt relieved.

He might have made some noise of protest, dripping wet and half wild but the pirate gave him little notice, muttering something about an emergency. He'd barely stepped foot in the room before the door slammed shut behind him. He waited for the man's heavy footsteps to recede before trying the knob.

Locked--of course. He'd had to try it at least. Sighing, he turned around to take a look at the room. It was better lit than most of the zeppelin, and oddly enough, wires and schematics and all manners of odd devices that even he could hardly identify were strewn about on every surface, including the floor, though he suspected that had more to do with the crash landing than anything else. As his eyes scanned for something that would make a useful lock-picking tool, they landed on something even more startling.

Off in a corner was a hunched figure, so still that he almost mistook it for a doll. Leo took a few steps toward the person before his head whipped around lightening fast. "You weren't there before," he stated.

"Erm, well no, I wasn't. Didn't you hear me come in?"

He didn't respond to that, just kept watching the boy with strange owlish silver eyes.

"Why are you here?" Leo asked, hoping he could gain some insight as to why he was sharing a room on a bloody pirate ship.

The strange man continued to stare, before finally asking "Gold or tungsten?"

"What?"

"Gold or tungsten?"

"For what?" Leo asked, bewildered.

"A gyroscopic telecommunicator," The madman replied, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.

To be fair, he had absolutely no idea what a gyroscopic telecommunicator was, but gold is a dreadful building material almost regardless of what you're making so he answered, "Tungsten."

The madman hummed contentedly, "Finally, finally, most of these fools don't understand, not the right specific heat capacity you see. You'll do, you'll do indeed," He murmured before turning back to hunch over whatever it was he was working on.

"People keep telling me that," Leo muttered as he turned away, looking once again for a suitable object with which to pick the lock. He could wonder why a group of pirates had a crazy inventor on-board after he got off the godforsaken ship. He didn't know what he was going to do or where he would go or- It didn't matter, he just had to get out of that room.

With so many spare parts lying about it wasn't difficult to locate a suitable wire. Luckily he was no stranger to picking locks. It was one skill that never let him down, even if he wasn't particularly proud of it. He had to will his hands to stop trembling, but it wasn't long before the magical sound of the final barrel clicking into place graced his ears.

Gently he twisted the doorknob that would lead to freedom. That was when he discovered that it was dead-bolted from the other side. Suddenly standing seemed like too much of a task and he sunk down onto a threadbare chair, face buried in his hands. Kidnapped by pirates: it sounded like some ridiculous fantasy one of his brothers had concocted.

Of course it had been stupid. It wouldn't have done him any good it the door had opened. He'd just needed to keep himself occupied. All at once the last dregs of adrenaline had emptied from his system. The terror and exhaustion he'd been trying to hold at bay washed over him in waves. A few minutes passed, Leo sitting curled up quietly and the madman occasionally muttering to himself, before a jolt caused him to tumble from his perch.