“What a good thing you had all those clockwork ducks”
[AN: Your Girl Genius fandom is showing. And so is mine, because I know exactly where that line came from]
Rael peeked through the one hole in the barrier that let him see without being seen.
“Okay,” he recapped. “They’ve got our ship surrounded. They’re armed to the teeth. And there’s hundreds of them. And only two of us.”
Shayde was checking her Pockets. Not the ones in her clothes, but the tiny entrances to pocket realities where she kept an impossible array of articles which she simply summed up as “me shit”.
Rael watched the soldiers rather than watching Shayde’s hands dip out of reality. “We’re already in a lot of trouble, just being here. You’re not going to cause any of your famous collateral damage, are you?”
“No’ if I can help it. They’re jus’ folks doin’ their job. Better tae distract them.”
That was less reassuring than she hoped it was. “Not one of your epic distractions?”
“Ha! Got it. Just the thing.”
Rael stared at the box in her hands. “Clockwork ducks?”
“Start windin’.”
*
This was not your average clockwork duck, that spasmed erratically for ten minutes, falling over in the process mere millimeters from where they started. These were the sort of clockwork ducks DaVinci would make if he had the patience to do more than one.
They walked. They quacked. They randomly pecked at the ground. They roamed in stately grace in directions of their own choosing.
Shayde timed it so that the next duck was released just after most of the attention was on its previous copper sibling.
And, just like the obligatory stupid guards of Shayde’s old-time adventures - the guards wandered off after the ducks. Rael watched in stunned amazement as it worked like a charm.
“It shouldn’t work. It’s beyond stupid…”
“If it’s stupid and it works, then it ain’t stupid,” Shayde released the last duck, grabbed his arm, and bolted for their ship.
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