“Maybe I can help?” Tootz suggested.
“How do you mean?”
“I was thinking about this Whirligig project that you’re building,” she replied, “and I think I’d like to invest in it.”
“You would?”
“It has a lot of potential, Gappy,” she said. “Business-minded or not, you must see that.”
He looked away for a moment. “We could definitely use the funding.” Then he began to think of all the things he’d been through over the last few days. His father’s death, leaving Hubintegler, buying a barn, dealing with the Halfia, dealing with Shrit, and dealing with Mr. Xorg. “But I don’t think so, Tootz,” he said finally. “I mean, I sincerely appreciate your offer, but I left Hubintegler to follow my dream of building the Whirligig. And while I know it will be a struggle at times, I have to do this on my own.”
“I can respect that,” she replied sourly. “Hopefully you don’t run out of money before completing the project, then.”
“I should be okay as long as the stupid Halfia stays away from my business.”
“Yes, they can be dreadful.”
“Do they bother you, too?” he asked with concern.
“Not anymore.”
“What did you do to stop them?”
“Purchased their protection.”
“Oh.”
FOLLOW THAT GNOME!
Tootz was agitated as she returned to her office.
She had felt certain that Gappy would let her invest in his project. She had originally wanted him run out of town, but after seeing the blueprints for that machine he was building, dollar signs began to dance in her head. She’d used her wiles, pretended to be “friendly competition,” and even bought the little weasel lunch, but he just wouldn’t budge.
Tootz sat down, feeling a little bad about thinking of him as a weasel. He was actually a nice guy. Her past didn’t bring up many Gnomes who were genuinely nice. Gappy would no doubt feel that all Gnomes were good, even if they grumbled a lot, but he was from a different part of Hubintegler than she was. Her side of the tracks was where the business-minded Gnomes came from. They were just as ruthless and conniving as your run-of-the-mill Orc executive in the land of Pren.
But, as it had been ingrained in her since day one, business was business.
She pressed the button on her desk to call her assistant into the room.
“Scrumptious,” she said, “I have an important job for you.”
“You want me to get you tea, ma’am?”
“No, that’s not …” She paused. “Actually, yes, but as soon as you’re done with that, I want you to do a little reconnaissance work for me.”
“Of course, ma’am,” Scrumptious said with a nod. “Ma’am, may I ask what that is, exactly?”
“Spying, you acorn,” she said with a grunt. “I want you to hide out in the woods by Mr. Whirligig’s house and report to me every hour about what you see.”
“Oh, I understand, ma’am.”
“If he goes into town, you follow him. But not too close. We don’t want him to know he’s being followed.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“This is important, Scrumptious. You have to be stealthy. We don’t want Mr. Whirligig or his Orc lackey to know that you’re spying on them.”
“I’ll be like a tree in the forest, ma’am.”
She looked at him. “Speaking of that, what exactly have you got to wear that would allow you to blend in with the trees?”
“My white shorts and bright yellow shirt should do it, ma’am.”
“That will make you stick out like an Elf at a sporting event,” Tootz observed. “You’ll need to wear dark clothes, Scrumptious. Something gray or black should do it.”
“To a sporting event, ma’am?”
“No, for spying.”
“I’m confused, ma’am,” Scrumptious said with a grimace. “Am I going to spy or go to a sporting event with an Elf? If so, which game will we be watching? I don’t like the one where the contestants tackle each other. It’s too violent for my taste.”
Tootz just sat staring at him. This was obviously going to take a while to explain.
GETTING TO WORK
Shrit was busily toiling as Gappy came up the lift. Even with his big hands, the Orc had managed to craft the intricate design into the mold that he was using for the twisty handles project.
Gappy pulled over a little ladder and checked Shrit’s work.
“These look amazing, Shrit,” Gappy said in awe. “I had no idea that you knew anything about working with metals.”
“I don’t,” Shrit admitted. “Well, didn’t. I just looked it up on the UnderNet and started working on it. The first few were pretty bad, but after I got the kinks worked out, it started coming together nicely.”
“Incredible. How many have you done?”
“Just over half of the order. I still have to polish and package them, but that shouldn’t take too long.” He turned back to his work. “I should be done tonight.”
“Mr. Trapshure’s not expecting them until next week. We’ll get a nice testimonial out of him, for sure.”
“Yeah? That’d be nice.”
“If he happens to give me an early-completion bonus, I’ll just give it over to you.”
“No fooling?” Shrit said, looking back up. “Thanks, Gappy.”
“No, thank you.” Gappy felt proud of the Orc. He’d been planning to start on this project when he’d returned. Who knew that Shrit was this talented? “Since you have that running so smoothly, I’m going to work on the Whirligig.”
“That will take you some time,” Shrit said.
“I don’t think it’ll take long at all. I’ve built this thing about a thousand times in my head, Shrit. I know it like the inside of my goggles.”
“Well, have fun with it.”
Gappy moved to the other side of the workspace and started pulling materials together. A lot of things were too heavy for him to lift alone, but Shrit helped out whenever that happened.
He started out with the engine component, machining each piece to the exact dimensions needed, and then polishing them to a fine shine.
His first thought was to go with the reciprocating gasoline engine that The Spinbolt Schematics used as the focus of discussion. Gappy felt that a turbine engine was more apropos for this project, though, so he had referred to both Deadsetter’s Gears and one of the books that Mr. Cloogate had traded to him, which was called Trelbeggle’s Turbine Compendium.
Gappy had already done a lot of secret studying on Gnomepedia on turbine engines over the years, but everyone knew that you couldn’t just rely on things that Gnomepedia said, unless you were studying something like history, of course.
He slaved over the engine for the next four hours, adjusting components and setting the blades just so. On a production line, this engine could be churned out quickly, but being that it was his first time building one, he took his time.
Gnomes were known for their speed in building components and engines. Where most races would take weeks or even months to build out something this complex, a Gnome could produce it in a few hours. Everyone assumed that this was due to the way that Gnomes thought, and that was partly true, but what it came down to was that the Gnomes were often about the same size as the object they were building. This meant that they were able to interact with the unit without the need to use specialized tools. It was rare for anything in the engine cavity to be too tight for a Gnome to squeeze through.
Once the engine was set, Gappy enlisted Shrit’s strength to help carry everything outside. Obviously the Whirligig could not be built inside as it was too large, but that worried Gappy since he was sure that the Halfia hadn’t yet finished with him. It wasn’t much protection, but Gappy decided to put everything behind the barn to at least hide it a little.
“I’ll install some sensors around the barn, just in case Huido and his henchmen come back,” he said. “If nothing else, that will give us enough time t
o get out and meet them before they can do any more damage.”
“Good idea, Gappy,” Shrit affirmed. “I doubt they’re smart enough to look behind the barn anyway.”
“Probably true,” Gappy said with a laugh.
Shrit set down the last of the pieces. “I think you should be able to use that GizmoBuilder thing to put everything together, right?”
“Yep. I should be good.”
“Great. I want to get back to the handles.” Shrit looked thoughtful. “I’m honestly having the time of my life building those things.”
“Maybe you’ve finally found your calling, Shrit,” Gappy stated.
“I guess we’ll see,” Shrit replied as he turned to head back inside.
The mass of parts sitting in front of him would probably have been daunting to most people, but not to Gappy. He relished the fact that he was getting closer and closer to his dream becoming reality.
He climbed into the GizmoBuilder that had belonged to his father. It wasn’t something that could be used to carry items over long distances, but it was the perfect tool for a Gnome who needed to lift large objects and delicately put them into place. The machine itself stood about half the height of Shrit, had long, powerful arms and tractor-like wheels. Most of the basic models were painted yellow, but Gappy’s father had opted for the upgraded version that was blue. It had better dexterity, an extension booster that consisted of a center pipe that could push the main cockpit up to double the machine’s normal height, and telescoping arms as well.
Gappy did a few test lifts, rotations, and moves before he settled in to his work.
MURPHYFIELDS
The sun was sinking as Gappy put on the final piece of the Whirligig. It looked exactly like he’d envisioned it would, except that this version wasn’t painted. Before he tested it, he planned to at least paint a serial number and his name on the side, but that wouldn’t be tonight.
He hopped down from the GizmoBuilder and rubbed his hand along the side of the flying machine.
“I did it, Father,” he whispered. “I don’t know if you can hear me or not, but I did it.”
That’s when thoughts of the Halfia came back to him. He wasn’t about to let them get to his invention without a fight.
He scuttled back to the barn and took the lift to grab the sensor array he’d planned to install around the main part of the property. Anyone who walked through it would trip an alarm that would wake Gappy and Shrit before any damage could be done.
“Hey, Gappy,” Shrit said while closing up a box. “Everything is done and ready for Mr. Trapshure.”
“That’s amazing, Shrit.”
“I made one extra twisty handle for us to maybe hang up on the wall or something. You know, as like a memento kind of thing.” The Orc shrugged. “I mean, it’s your shop, but …”
“I think that’s a great idea, Shrit.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.” Gappy smiled and then started digging out the sensors. “I’m going to set up some sensors real quick and then I was thinking we could get some pizzas.”
“That would be great,” Shrit said. “I’m starving.”
“Well, put in the call and I’ll get to work on this.”
Gappy had finished everything up by the time the pizzas arrived. As a test, he waited for the pizza delivery guy to come up to the barn door. When the guy got within 35 feet, the alarm went off. Gappy clicked the switch to silence it as he smiled at Shrit, who nodded his approval.
They sat on the floor of the bottom level of the barn and ate.
“What would you think about setting up a little apartment here, Shrit?” Gappy asked between chews.
“You serious? I thought you were just waiting for me to get some extra cash so I could get out of your hair.”
“You can do that if you want,” Gappy replied, “but I don’t see any reason to leave all this space unused. Besides, you’d be a much better deterrent to the Halfia than anything else I can imagine.”
“That’s true.” Shrit stood up and looked around at the framing. “I could section off a small place, I suppose.”
“I’d say use as much as you need,” Gappy suggested. “Just leave enough for a hallway so that we can get up and down the lift. Actually, we could also connect a heavy lift on the outside wall so that we can easily raise and lower larger pieces.”
“Good idea.” Shrit sat back down and picked up another slice of pizza. “Thanks, Gappy. I appreciate it.”
“Not a problem at all,” Gappy said as he held up his fizzie drink in salute. He rarely drank them, but he needed a kick since he’d not had much sleep as of late. His favorite was Dr. Buzzie. It was extra-fizzy and had a hint of sweet flavor to it. “What are friends for, eh?”
“Yeah,” Shrit said, raising his Diet Zinger in return.
“Actually, how about a toast?”
“Nah, I’m okay with the pizza,” Shrit said.
“No, not a piece of toast, Shrit…a toast.”
“Oh, right.”
Gappy got to his feet and held out his Dr. Buzzie again.
“Here’s to Gappy’s Gadgets. Today we’re manufacturing twisty handles, but in a couple of months we’ll have Whirligigs rolling out every day!”
“Hear, hear!” said Shrit. They both drank to that and then followed that up with the standard fizzie burp. “Speaking of the Whirligig, how’s that coming along?”
“Smoothly. Something is bound to fail soon enough, though, it’s just the nature of things.”
“That sounds pretty pessimistic, Gappy.”
“Not at all,” Gappy replied with a shrug. “It’s just how it works when dealing with things like this.”
“Really?”
“There’s even a term for it. It’s known as a Murphyfield.”
“Never heard of it,” Shrit said, leaning back against the wall.
“You’ve heard that saying that anything that can go wrong will go wrong, right?”
“Yeah, that’s Whizzy’s Law, named after that old wizard guy who’s been on TV a few times.”
Gappy nodded. “Exactly. Well, a Murphyfield is like that, but it’s kind of tied more to a particular person or area where weird things happen. Most of the time those things defy explanation, but even then they’re half-expected to happen and nobody is surprised when they do. If anything, people are surprised when they don’t.”
“Why not just call it a Whizzyfield?” ventured Shrit.
“I suppose you could, but this guy named Murphy swore up and down that the law that carries Whizzfiddle’s namesake was originally discovered by him, not Whizzfiddle.” Gappy closed up his pizza box, thinking to save a couple of slices for breakfast. “Nobody cared, including Whizzfiddle, apparently, but Whizzy’s Law stuck. So when people started talking about the fields, they threw Murphy a bone and called it Murphyfields instead of Whizzyfields. That’s the story anyway.”
Shrit nodded. “Got any examples of this thing?”
“Many,” Gappy said after another sip of his Dr. Buzzie, “but there’s one that was insanely weird. One of the tinkerers in my town, Lanker Spannerspan, who had been prepping for an upcoming trade show that the military was running, had built two pieces of machinery: a paint-pellet tank and a catapult with tracking capabilities.”
“Wait, why paint pellets? You said this was for the military.”
“Gnomes aren’t like other races, Shrit. We’re not all that fond of killing each other.”
“Neither are other races,” Shrit stated.
“Have you ever watched the news?” Gappy scoffed. Then he added, “Besides, we Gnomes do a good enough job of killing ourselves just by tinkering. We don’t need others to help us meet our demise.”
“Valid,” Shrit said.
“Well, Mr. Spannerspan had put the finishing touches on the machines and set them out in his backyard in preparation for the next day’s event.”
“Why did he put them in his back yard?”
“Because the military
brass came to each field to see the offerings in action, so he just wanted to be prepared.”
“Ah,” Shrit said. “Okay, go on.”
Gappy moved back to lean against the wall, too. Even though the GizmoBuilder had done all of the heavy lifting as he had pieced together the Whirligig, Gappy had spent the better part of the day building the individual elements, and he was quite sore from it.
“Nobody is exactly certain about how the following things unfolded,” he continued, “but the best guess is that a bunny rabbit had been hopping through Mr. Spannerspan’s yard around two in the morning. One of its hops brought it up high enough that it flipped on the tank’s switch.”
Shrit held up his hand and squinted at Gappy. “Why is there a switch on the outside of the tank?”
“Where else would you put it?”
“On the inside where nobody can just turn it on and off?”
“Huh,” Gappy said while rubbing his chin. “That’s an interesting thought.” He mulled over it for another couple of moments. “You’ve got novel ideas, Shrit.”
“Commonsense, I’d say.”
“Back to the story,” Gappy said, “it turned out that the tank’s turret happened to be pointing at the catapult. Once the rabbit flicked the switch, the tank’s recognition protocols told it that there was an enemy vehicle in front of it, and so it started firing paint pellets. Each time one hit, it made a ding sound.” He cracked his neck from side to side. “Getting struck caused the catapult to activate, and it began launching paint shots back at the tank, causing its own ding with each strike.”
By now, Shrit was leaning forward, obviously engrossed in the story. Gappy remembered feeling the same way when the schoolteacher had told the story to him and a bunch of other kids.
“Mr. Spannerspan,” Gappy continued, “had made both machines to be quite speedy with their firepower, so soon there was the sound of ding, ding, ding in rapid succession. And that’s when something truly strange happened.”
Comedic Fantasy Bundle #1: 4 Hilarious Adventures (Tales from the land of Ononokin) Page 63