Steampunk Shenanigans

Damien was still messing with the cuff as he and Evie walked to the university in the afternoon. He hadn't slept a wink because he was messing with it so much, but it was really clamped on there tightly.

"So I can get security to let me into the office," Evie said. "That should be easy. You just have to tell me where to look."

"That won't be necessary," Damien told her.

"Are we visiting his house first, then?"

"Nope."

She seemed a little confused that they were casually just strolling into the building, and Damien would just nod politely to the professors and students walking past. He was making no effort to sneak around or hide, and that was clearly making Evie uncomfortable. She blinked in surprise when he picked a key out of his pocket and unlocked the door to Gilbert's office with no issues.

"I don't understand," Evie said.

"I took his position, so I have a key," Damien shrugged. "They weren't just going to toss everything in here out."

"But you said you didn't have access," she said.

"Yes I did."

"So you lied."

He stood up on a stepstool to reach up on a high shelf and take down a cardboard box, which contained the plans for the spider along with some small scale prototypes Gilbert had been working on before her passed.

"Yes I did," Damien repeated.

"Why?" Evie frowned. "You could have finished the project quick and ended this nightmare."

"I could have, but I don't really want to do that," he said. "To be honest, I don't think you want to do that, either."

"What do you mean?"

"I've been watching you interact with the Mycrofts," he said. "You don't like them. The only loyalty you have to them comes from that cuff on your wrist. Am I right?"

"Sure."

"What if I could take that cuff off?"

Evie was stunned into silence, holding her wrist as she stared at Damien with wide eyes.

"Can you do that?" she asked.

"In theory," he said. "These things are controlled by remote. If I can disrupt the connection to the remote and connect them to something I have control of, I can release them. It's just a matter of figuring out how to do that."

"And what would I have to do?" she asked suspiciously.

"Nothing," Damien shrugged. "Just play along. The Mycrofts need to think I'm working on the spider. And I will, but slowly and with purposeful mistakes to drag it out. If you can help me keep the lie up while I figure out this remote, I'll get those cuffs off you and you can go on your way, no more questions asked."

She looked down at the doubled up cuffs on her wrist, then back up at him. Then she gave him a firm nod.

"Deal."

"Good," Damien said with a grin. "I can tell you one thing, I don't want them to have the spider. I can only imagine the horrible things it can be programmed to do. They expect us to take all day finding these plans, so we have a few hours to get started on a plan."

Evie followed close behind him as he carried the box out of Gilbert's office and to the other end of the building, where his lab was. When they walked in, she curiously looked around all the machines and gadgets. She jumped a bit when Minnie dashed out in front of her and straight towards Damien.

"Sorry, Minnie," he said to the little fox as he walked over to refill her food bowl. "I know I'm late, but some weird stuff happened."

"You have a pet fox?!" Evie asked.

"I consider her more as a lab partner than a pet," Damien said. "She carries things around for me."

"You're kind of weird," she said, eyeing him warily.

"Well you're a bit of an odd duck yourself," Damien told her. "But we'd have to be a little strange and crazy to make this dumb plan work, right Ducky?"

She gave him a look when he called her "Ducky", but she didn't seem totally offended either.

"So where do we start?" she asked.

"First things first, I'd like to know the range of these cuffs," he said. "If I walk away, it zaps me. Right?"

"Right."

"So you just stay where you are and you should be fine."

"I don't know if that's a good idea," she grimaced.

"How else are we supposed to figure out the range?"

Evie still seemed unsure as she sat down in a chair, and Damien counted his steps as he walked backwards from her. He made it about twenty feet away before the cuff on his wrist whirred to life and sent a jolt of electricity through Damien's entire body. Like he thought, Evie was unharmed because she had stayed still and Damien was the one trying to escape.

He hit the floor and lay there for a few mooments with his dark hair standing on end. Evie appeared above him, staring pitifully down at him.

"Are your questions answered now?" she asked.

"All in the pursuit of science," he said hoarsley.

"Are you okay?"

"Yeah. I'm just gonna lay here for a minute though."