Brandita Gathered the Chapstick Tubes
He is a stupid fool- copying Mother Nature isn’t always the best approach
- all he kept was the duffle bag
- elbows tight against my sides
- , and the dance begins
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Brandita gathered the chapstick tubes we’d been using during the Baron’s demonstration, and placed them reverently back in their ceremonial box. All the while, the Baron stared at the postcard, crossing and uncrossing his eyes, blinking one and then the other, and otherwise making a great show of squinting officiously. He is a stupid fool, I thought, at least when it comes to codes. Even with so many clues he still could not decipher the message.
Tessa tapped her foot impatiently. “Are we getting off this island, or what?”
Von Dimpleheimer sneered at her. “The man who built you should have realized that copying Mother Nature isn’t always the best approach, but it seems that when god was handing out engineering smarts, all he kept was the duffle bag.”
“Hey!” I said. “There’s no reason to be rude!”
The Baron swiveled his head to me. He arched one bushy eyebrow. “I am not insulting your lovely robot, just the man who made her. All TSS-A Units are adept cryptographers. The feature is supposed to be well-hidden, but is actually easy to access.”
He directed Tessa to stand close in front of me, arms around my waist, elbows tight against my sides. “And now,” he said, “the music starts, and the dance begins, and the TSS-A Unit’s linguistics operations are mine to exploit.” He turned the crank on his victrola. “I’ll have that postcard decoded in no time.”
bonus points for using them in order