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“I could pop her,” Tania offered. “Make it look like the traps got her.”
“If she’s here to explore, it wouldn’t be weird,” Selma said with a nod. “Sounds neat.”
“Could be too neat,” Mila said. “If her family’s got bodyguards and all of them got popped at the same time, it’d be more weird.”
“But it happens,” Tania argued.
“Rarely,” Milo said, agreeing with Mila. “Usually someone gets away to tell what happened.”
“My money’s on them having killed everyone else,” Tania pouted.
Selma put a hand on Tania’s shoulder and smiled. “I know, sister. I wanna kill her too.”
“We all do,” Mila said. “But not if it gets Milo in more trouble.”
It was the easiest option, he thought.
But it was also the one which would cause the most trouble in the short term. Fergus getting killed was troublesome, but they were able to avoid too much suspicion thanks to Fergus heading into the Vault.
If the same sort of thing happened to Vesna, it might be seen as a pattern.
He couldn’t afford to earn the attention of the Mage Court.
If they sent an investigator, that investigator might follow him. And eventually they’d find the Workshop. And take it from him.
What would happen to his golems, then?
Dismantled for their cores.
That’s what he suspected.
Milo shook his head. “Let’s just forget it,” he said. “Right now all she’s got is her gut feelings. There’s no proof I knew anything about it anyway. And it’s all my fault. I shouldn’t have sold it. Maybe I got a bit greedy.”
“You were thinking of the future,” Tania said. “There ain’t nothing wrong with that, Milo. That just proves you ain’t no strangler when it comes to gold, right? You were looking out for us.”
He looked up from what he was working on, which was the knee of a massive golem called Stonks.
The big golem had fascinated Milo when he was still a clocker. He’d even followed it around for a while, once. Sketching it and imagining how it worked. And what its insides looked like.
Now he knew.
Stonks had been coming in regularly for the past few months, and Milo had repaired a lot of parts which had degraded over centuries of constant use.
The big golem spoke only in heavy muted whistles, beeps, and sometimes a huff of steam from a valve in his back. But Selma had told him the big guy was very grateful.
And probably a bit of hypochondriac. The golem came in for every little thing now, taking any excuse to show up and get cleaned or have something replaced.
His golems had started calling him a big baby.
As opposed to Milo, who felt like their little baby.
Grunting, he worked to undo a nut that hadn’t been turned or greased probably since the golem had been made. It was refusing to budge.
“You’re spoiling him,” Tania said, stepping up beside them and putting her hands on her hips. Then she reached out and slapped the big golem on the arm. “He’s getting soft.”
Milo shrugged. “I find it relaxing. And it’s nice to test my knowledge.”
This was true. He hadn’t had to refer to the blueprints for the 2C model.
“Draggers shouldn’t get too soft, though,” Tania said.
“Draggers?” Milo looked up at her. He’d heard the other golems refer to Stonks as a dragger, but this was the first time he’d thought of it as a type of golem rather than one of Tania’s weird phrases.
“Yeah.” She shrugged. “That’s what he is. A dragger.”
He stared at her.
Waiting.
Then, when she gave him nothing but a slightly amused stare in response, he squinted again. “Alright. I’ll bite. What’s a dragger?”
“He is.” Tania patted the big golem’s massive arm which was almost as big as she was. The loud clang rang through the Workshop. “Ain’t ya, ya big lug?”
The golem let out a deep bass noise from somewhere in its throat.
Milo hadn’t got as far as working on its upper torso yet.
“See?”
“Not really.”
“Well.” Tania squatted down beside him, fully aware that her skirt rode up to flash the thin white cotton panties covering her crotch. “Imagine you’re a dwarf, right?”
“Okay.”
“And you’ve had a long day. You’re tired. What do you do?”
“Go to bed?”
“No!” She gave a firm shake of her head. “You gotta imagine you’re a dwarf, Milo. No self-respecting dwarf is gonna snooze just because he’s tired. He’s had a long day. He’s got a lotta static inside, right? What’s he gonna do, then?”
“I don’t know.”
“Get sloshed,” Selma called helpfully.
“That’s right, sister.” Tania nodded. “You’re gonna hit the town like a lush on payday, right?”
Milo could see that. Kind of. It would explain their temper. “I guess so.”
“Right. So, ya find yourself a cheap joint, because ya ain’t no kale-flasher, and ya sit down and ya dip your bill. And when ya get nice and ripe, what do ya do?”
“Go home?”
“Dwarf, Milo! Ya gotta think like a dwarf!”
“Sing!” Mila cried, clapping her hands. “Sing and dance!”
“There ya go.” Tania grinned. “Ya sing and dance. And then all that moonshine gets ya completely sozzled, right? And the stepping out makes it worse. So, ya do what every dwarf does…”
“…go home?”
“How ya gonna go home? You’re juiced on hooch! Ya can’t get one leg in front of the other!” She patted his arm. “Ya realize ya can’t go home, so ya drink some more.”
“Do I?”
“Ya do.” Tania smirked and nodded. “Ya drink a couple of cocktails because ya think you’re classy. Then ya step on somebody’s toes. Ya see a skirt ya think is a bit of a tomato. So, like the sozzled sap ya are, ya try dipping your beak in something a bit less liquid, right?”
“I don’t know.” He grunted, turning back and tugging on the nut.
“Ya do. But her guy ain’t a pushover, see?
So he thumps ya in the kisser. Ya thump him back, and then you’re both wailing away on each other.
Ya knock him down. Then, before the flatfoots arrive, ya hoof it.
Ya roll down the alley. But ya can’t stand up straight.
Ya shout and yell at some other guys on the street.
They yell back. Basically, Milo, ya make a tit of yourself. ”
“I don’t think I do,” he said. The nut gave with a metallic squeak. He started the easier job of unthreading it. “I don’t do that sort of thing.”
“Because you ain’t a dwarf.” She wagged a finger. “You’re a good egg, Milo. But now all you’re doing is making a mess all over the street. Ya can’t help but upchuck. And ain’t no one wants to see that. So, this big guy comes to do his job.”
“He arrests me?”
“Nah.” Tania shook her head. “Ya get up in his grille. And ya shout at him. Ya threaten ta take his nuts off. And then he shows ya why he’s built big and mean. He bops ya on the head. And out ya go! Out like a light.”
“What?” Milo looked up at the big golem, who didn’t respond. “His job is to beat up drunks?”
“Sure.” Tania grinned wider. “Then drag their snoozy little asses home.”
“A dragger.”
“That’s right.” She slapped the metal arm again. “That’s all he is. Bit hard for him to do his job now, though. Ain’t no dwarves for him to drag home.”
“That’s why he sometimes kills people,” Milo said, suddenly understanding. “People who look stocky and like dwarves and are drunk. He thinks he has to hit them unconscious and take them home.”
“Right,” she said. “But humans are a lot less durable than dwarves.”
“Huh.” Milo frowned. “He’s really just wandering around looking for drunk dwarves. That’s a strange job.”
“He likes it,” Selma said.
“But there aren’t any dwarves left.”
“That’s why he likes it,” Mila said with a giggle. “He’s lazy.”
Tania stood, dusting off her hands. “Told ya, Milo. He’s gone soft.” Then she glanced at his workbench where the little book he had found in the Workshop Blueprints Library was sitting. “How’s ya study going?”
“Hmm?” He finally got the nut all the way off and dropped it in a small jar of spirits. “Slow. But I think I’ve deciphered a few words. It’s a good thing the dwarves were like me. They talk a lot about gears and things.”
She stared down at him. “Yeah?”
“I think the book’s a manual for something. Not sure what, yet. But it seemed technical.”
“Technical? Really?”
“Yeah. A lot of terms in it are from things like this.” He pulled the nut out of the spirits and started wiping it down with a cloth. The dark black grease didn’t come off easily. “Nuts and screws. And gears and things.”
“Shafts?”
“Yeah.” He wiped his forehead with the back of his hand, unconsciously leaving a line of dark grease. “I feel like I’m close to understanding it now. Maybe it’s because I’m a clocker. I feel like I relate to them in a way.”
She patted him on the head and walked away. “Keep studying, Milo.”
He paused to watch her ass wiggle on her way out. She didn’t turn back, but he knew by the way she walked that she knew he was watching her.
Pursing his lips, he reminded himself again.
She wasn’t human.
Unfortunately, some parts of his body were starting to feel that denial wasn’t worth listening to anymore. He shook his head and put his brain back where it belonged.
On working the next nut free from the massive golem’s knee joint.
“You’re reading a book?” Selma asked. “A dwarf book?”
“Yeah, I found it among the blueprints.”
“Where is it?”
“On my desk.”
Selma crossed the room and picked it up. She looked at the gear wheel on the cover. Read the title. Frowned.
Then she flicked through it before closing it and slowly placing it back on the bench.
She walked out.
A sharp sound made Milo look up from the golem’s leg. Selma was shrieking with laughter in the hall while Tania was hissing at her to shut up.
Selma moaned as she tried to hold her laughter.
He turned his gaze to Mila, who was sitting cross-legged on the floor watching him. Her face was unreadable.
“What?”
She shook her head. “I don’t know. You know Selma.” She whirled her finger close to her temple. “She’s a ditz.”