I quickly dropped my clapped-out portable door on the bench in front of him. "I need this recharged. And as soon as possible."
"I know, I know; I’ve read the chitty. Matriarch wants you fully equipped with the best we’ve got and out of here, on the double. Business as usual, these days." He called for one of his interns, who came and took the portable door away, holding it at arm’s length like a dead mouse. The Armourer lurched to his feet and fixed me with a penetrating stare. "You come with me, Eddie. And I’ll show you a few things that might just keep you alive when everyone else wants you dead."
He led me over to another testing bench, shooing away half a dozen interns, and picked up a large silver handgun. He weighed it thoughtfully in his hand, and then passed it over to me. I raised an eyebrow at how heavy it was, and he smiled proudly.
"That is a Colt Repeater. It never runs out of bullets, and it aims itself. All you have to do is point it in the right general direction, and the gun will take care of the rest. Even you should be able to manage that, Eddie."
"What about recoil?" I said, just to be picky.
"Since I made it with people like you in mind, none worth the mention. Try not to use it for too long at one time, or the binding spells will overheat, and the replacement bullets might not be able to find the gun."
"Why is it so heavy?"
He grinned nastily. "So if you do run out of bullets, you can club the buggers to death with it."
He tossed me a shoulder holster, and I struggled into it as he led me over to another bench. I hate shoulder holsters. How women manage with brassieres, I’ll never know. I’d got it more or less into place by the time the Armourer was ready to show me his next creation. It looked a whole lot like an ordinary wristwatch.
"It looks a whole lot like an ordinary wristwatch," I said.
"Well, you wouldn’t want one that shouted Look at me! I belong to a field agent!, would you? This is a reverse watch. Looks and works as normal, except for this button here. Don’t touch it, except when you mean to use it. Push it down hard, and the watch will reverse time, rewinding the last thirty seconds of your life. This will give you a second chance to undo your more serious mistakes. But be warned: any attempt to meddle with time is dangerous. Don’t use the reverse function too often; it might attract the attention of certain beings who take time disruption very seriously."
I accepted the watch gingerly. "How does it work?"
"You wouldn’t understand if I told you, so just put it on and pay attention to this."
I put the watch on, slipped my old Rolex into my jacket pocket, and looked at the compass the Armourer was holding. It looked a whole lot like an ordinary compass. The Armourer looked at me, but I just smiled politely. I hate to be predictable.
"This compass will show you the best way out of any situation, no matter how turned around you’ve got yourself. It’s preprogrammed to lock onto the nearest viable exit and take you there. Just follow where the needle points. The Matriarch specifically asked for something simple in this line, and this is so simple a dog could use it. Just keep it away from strong magnetic forces, or it gets confused. If it starts sticking, grease the works up with a little butter. Only the best butter, of course."
"Oh, of course."
"Now then, what else have I got for you? I had a really nice aboriginal pointing bone, but someone stirred their coffee with it, and it was never the same after that. Then there was the personality enhancer…Looked really good on the drawing board. The idea behind that one was that you’d use it to bring to the fore whatever part of your personality was best suited to deal with the situation you found yourself in."
"Do I gather something went wrong?"
"The enhancing part went fine. It was shutting the bloody things down afterwards that was the problem. So far we’re dealing with six cases of multiple personality disorder, and two cases of people refusing to talk to themselves. Further testing has been suspended. Ah! Yes; this is what I was looking for."
He presented me with a small blue-black lacquered box, not much bigger than a matchbox, with a big red button on top. I shook it to see if it would rattle, and the Armourer actually winced.
"Please don’t do that. What you’re holding is a prototype we haven’t finished testing yet, but the Matriarch said she wanted you supplied with the very best we could offer, so…That is a random teleport generator. Press the button, and the box will instantly send you somewhere else. And because it chooses each destination at random, no one will be able to trail you. Use it to escape from prison cells, blind alleys, death traps, that sort of thing. It works perfectly, except for the times when it doesn’t."
"What?"
"Which part of the word random do you need explained to you, Eddie? This box could send you anywhere, theoretically. It’s preprogrammed not to rematerialise you inside anything solid, but apart from that, all bets are off. You could end up at the North Pole. Or Death Valley. Or the Mariana Trench—"
"I get the idea. Think I’ll pass on this one."
I handed the box back to him very carefully. He shrugged and put the box down very carefully on the bench. "Suit yourself, boy."
"Maybe Matthew would like to test it."
"Now you’re just being nasty."
I grinned and nodded my thanks to the Armourer. He looked at me for a moment.
"You watch yourself out there, Eddie," he said gruffly. "It’s a lot scarier out in the world now, than it was in my day."
The Armourer had spent twenty years as a field agent. That was what made him such a fine Armourer. He always understood that his clever devices had to work in the real world, not just in the labs. Alexandra, on the other hand, had never been out in the field in her life.
"Don’t worry," I said. "I’ll be careful, Uncle Jack."
But he was already hard at work on something else. Two of his interns had brought him a large wooden case held together by half a dozen faded leather straps with heavy black iron buckles. He undid each one carefully, opened the lid, and rooted around in the packing material, before bringing out a large old-fashioned chest plate. He held it up to the light to study it, and I leaned over his shoulder. The dark scarlet metal was wafer thin and deeply scored with long lines of writing in Sanskrit. The Armourer placed the chest plate gently on the bench before him and screwed a jeweller’s loupe into one eye to study it close up. I was puzzled. If this piece of armour was as old as it seemed to be, it ought to be part of family history, and I ought to recognise it. But I’d never seen anything like this before.
"What is it?" I said, trying to sound just casually curious.
He grunted, not looking up, and not fooled for a moment. "This is part of a Juggernaut Jumpsuit. Not dissimilar to the armour we wear, except on a much higher level. This is the kind of thing you wear when you want to push a mountain over onto its side with one hand. And the reason you’ve never seen it before is because it’s a part of the Armageddon Codex."
I actually just stood there and gaped at him for a moment. "But…but…those are the forbidden weapons! The weapons too dangerous to be used, except when reality itself is threatened!"
"I do know that, Eddie."
"Then what the hell is something like that doing outside the Codex?"
"Matriarch’s orders. She wants all the forbidden weapons removed and examined, one at a time, and checked to make sure they’re operating at peak efficiency. Just in case they should be needed. She hasn’t actually ordered any testing yet; I don’t think the council would stand for that. But how bad must things be if we’re opening the Codex for the first time in centuries?"
I leaned in close for a better look at the scarlet metal chest plate. I’d never seen anything from the Armageddon Codex. I don’t think half a dozen people in the family have.