Teacups & Tentacles | ONC 2022

23. The Caterwauling of a Love Sick Gecko

The giant bulk of the octopus slithered its way over the sandy bottom of the Pool of London, stirring up the dreck of centuries, waiting to rise with the incoming tide.

Finally, when the bell in the clock tower of St Giles the Leper struck eleven, it broke the surface. Moonlight glistened on its slick, wet skin. Its arms surged upwards like vines to feel for toeholds in the cracks of the ancient white stone. Its head, with its large black eyes, tilted back and it began to climb.

On the opposite bank, a chorus of sharp, high-pitched whistles echoed through the streets and alleyways along the waterfront.

Seconds later, a lone flare rocketed up into the sky and exploded in a glittering shower of green.

Hercules Finch, cocooned in the body of the creature, sweating with excitement and positively shaking with nerves, neither heard nor saw any of the alarm signals. Nor was he aware that a half a kilometre away in Lewisham, the engines of no less than seven private flying contraptions had just sputtered into life and taken to the air carrying a troupe of Masterminds and their highly explosive cargo.

The Tower guardsmen were ready, as well. Once the first squirming arms, fully illuminated by the full moon, had felt their way over the parapet, they had formed up into a double line on the grass of the central courtyard and fired the first volley.

The bullets sunk into the rubbery, flexible skin of the creature or bounced off, doing no damage to the outside, nor the inside machinery. The octopus continued moving forward, sliding its massive bulk down the wall, unimpeded.

Finch howled in delight. The bulletproof resins he'd so painstakingly developed were holding up! "C'mon, fire again!" he shouted. "Let's see your faces when you realise your precious rifles have no effect."

The guardsmen reloaded and at the drop of the captain's sword, fired a second volley, just as all the creatures arms touched ground on the grass and it surged forward, only slightly aware of the loud drone and the dark shadows that passed overhead, blocking out the moonlight for a moment.

"What's that?" cried Finch, leaning forward.

A grid had fallen over the optical portals embedded in the eyes of the octopus. Then another one fell with a dull thwap and pressed hard against the first.

Finch realised with a tremor of shock that he was no longer moving forwards, but backwards. Something had jammed the arms. The cogs, wheels and pistons were still functioning, straining against whatever was holding them back.

Whiffs of smoke and the stench of overheated lubricant seeped into the octopus' head.

The guardsmen launched another volley, but Finch hardly noticed. He was too busy jerking levers and cranking handles.

A net! He was caught in a net!

He reached for the special console that controlled the ninth arm. Within the tip was an array of tools for the delicate work: knives, saws, lock-picking instruments, tin openers and a single shot rifle.

The button with a picture of a large saw was pressed...but it did no good. The body of the octopus collided with the wall it had just scaled and Finch was thrown away from the control panel and against the wall over his bed. The room tilted and he tumbled towards the door hatch, landing hard on his left shoulder.

With no one at the helm, the arms of the octopus flailed out of control, knotting themselves up into a tangle against the steel cables of the net, the ninth arm pointless sawing away at the third arm.

In the air above, the engines of five of the flying contraptions  whined with exertion as they pulled the double net up the wall of the Tower.

The remaining two machines, one in the shape of a Viking longboat and the other in the shape of an umbrella, crossed over the octopus' head, simultaneously dropping their own nets over the creature before arcing away in opposite directions.

Five seconds later, just as the octopus had reached the top of the parapet the detonators exploded, setting the resin epoxy of the creatures skin aflame.

The five contraptions hauling the nets let go of their cables. The creature – now a fireball with whirling plumes of black, acrid smoke -- plummeted into the Thames. A wall of water and steam shot up when it hit the surface like a stone and sunk out of sight.

In the umbrella, Godwin leaned back and breathed a sigh of relief. Harriet Kroening, who was hunched in the pilot's booth, and Reginald Thwackshift, who was strapped into the seat next to his, whooped and shouted. Reginald reached over slapped Godwin on the shoulder.

"Did you see that explosion? We showed him! Nothing but a pile of rubbish now, what?" Godwin smiled, but his hands were still shaking. Holding that amount of tightly packed explosives even for the few minutes they were in the air had not done his nerves any good.

As he had half-joked to Alistair, as charming as they usually were, one didn't want to see what damage a contingent of determined Masterminds armed with sharp tools and detonators could inflict. The scorched walls of the Tower behind them and the wreckage under the gentle lapping of the river was proof of that.

But it was over.

They'd got Finch, or at least destroyed his mechanical beast without having implicated themselves. London was safe again, as was the reputation of the Mastermind Society. Royston's would have a full bookings by the end of the week, and that meant he could get back to his accustomed disgruntlement with Edwin and Susie, which was far safer for life and limb than Mastermind plots, if perhaps just as explosive.

In the longboat, Amelia ripped off her goggles and stared back at where the octopus had disappeared.

"We did it!" she shouted over the hum of the engine. "We got him!" Flipping back around in her seat, grinned from ear to ear.

They would not be seeing any cash for their magnificent coup, or have medals pinned on them by the queen -- which was a real pity, she'd have loved to seen Rose's face when that happened-- but news clippings of the event would surely grace the walls of the front salon. And in time, the affair would become the stuff of Mastermind legend, to be written in the yearly log book, told and retold in the bar for decades to come.

But that was just the icing on the cream bun. Finch had been vanquished and London saved.

That was all that mattered.

And, of course, the minor fact that she only had five more months under Rose's care before she could move out and get a place of her own again. Doris and a few others had already offered their assistance in finding her a room or a small flat near the Society where she intended to take up an executive position. Perhaps on the yearly challenge committee.

Amelia looked up at the moon, closed her eyes and produced her best impression ever of the caterwauling of a love sick gecko.

Doris wagged the wings of her contraption in an aeronautical two-step of joy.

The dark shapes of a tortoise, a stork, a locomotive, a carrot, a tea pot and an umbrella motoring behind them through the moonlight did the same.