Consequences by Carla Jablonski Page B

chance using balsa wood.”
    A metallic clinking behind him caught Slaggingham’s attention. He turned to see screws fling themselves out of their spots, and then a grate popped open. A metal hand with screwdrivers and pliers for fingers appeared, and Awn the Blink, Slaggingham’s nemesis—troublemaker extraordinaire—pulled himself out of the tiny space.
    â€œBalsa wood, was it?” Awn the Blink asked. “I thought it tasted a bit organic.”
    â€œYou!” Slaggingham growled.
    â€œThat’s right, sir. Awn the Blink, in person. And not precisely at your service.”
    â€œYou’ve gone too far,” Slaggingham fumed. “Seventy-seven ratcheting years it took me to build this Extractor! I won’t have my beauty tampered with by an antennae-topped figment ofTimothy Hunter’s imagination.”
    â€œSo you figured out it was I who’d done it, eh?” Awn the Blink said. “You’re smarter than you look. And ’cause I’m a kindly soul, I’ll help you out. I can tell you what’s wrong with your invention.”
    â€œCrank me! Would you?”
    â€œI will indeed.”
    Slaggingham beamed. “You know the moment I clapped eyes on you, Mr. Blink, I said to myself, now there’s an honest son of toil. Why, look at the hands on him. Those stalwart hands aren’t stained with the blood of the oppressed laboring classes, by jingo, those hands—”
    Awn the Blink cut him off. “Fifty pounds, squire. That’s the deal. Take it or leave it.”
    Slaggingham’s jaw dropped open. Then he snapped it shut with a bang and his eyes narrowed. “Forty pounds, and not a farthing more.”
    â€œSixty,” Awn the Blink countered.
    â€œVery well, you profiteer. Fifty it is.”
    â€œSeventy-five.”
    â€œTinker and blast.” Slaggingham threw up his hands in defeat. “Done!” Slaggingham pulled a wallet from inside his jacket pocket. Muttering oaths under his breath, he counted out the bills into Awn the Blink’s metal palm. “Pirate. Thief.”
    Awn the Blink ignored the name-calling, and double-checked the number of bills. Satisfied, heshoved them into the back pocket of his baggy, grease-stained blue jeans.
    Slaggingham tapped his foot impatiently. “Well?” he snapped.
    Awn the Blink grinned. “All right, guv’nor, now that we’ve taken care of the business portion of our conversation. About this Anti-Tantalic Extractor apparatus of yours.”
    â€œYes?” Slaggingham hated the eagerness in his voice, knowing it revealed the fear behind the question. Confound it! He shouldn’t need explanations from the likes of Awn the Blink! His own scheming blueprint of a brain should be capable of solving every conundrum.
    â€œThe design is a pippin,” Awn the Blink declared, “and the construction is every bit a wonder.”
    Slaggingham beamed. “Of course, of course. No need for compliments.” His chest puffed out a bit. Perhaps he’d misjudged the tool-fingered contraption.
    â€œYour problem is entirely conceptual.”
    This caught Slaggingham up short. “Oh?” His eyebrows rose. A conceptual problem? Impossible! That would mean the problem had been there all along and he had never seen it. In fact, one might hazard to say that if it were a “conceptual problem,” then it was he himself who hadcaused it. If that were the case, how could he live with himself?
    Awn the Blink patted the Extractor, his metal fingers clanking on the machine. “This setup you got would work fine for extracting particles or gases from the atmosphere. But happiness? Hah!”
    â€œWh-what do you mean?” Could the little blighter be right? Was there a flaw in the concept itself? What could I have missed? Slaggingham wondered.
    â€œEmotions don’t float about in the air like flipping molecules, squire. You were doomed to failure