“Bookworms?” asked Landen.
“It’s not what you think.”
“Mademoiselle Next?”
There were two of them. They were dressed in sharp suits and displayed SpecOps-12 badges that I hadn’t seen before.
“Yes?”
“Préfet Lavoisier, ChronoGendarmerie. Oé¹ est votre pé¨re?”
“You’ve just missed him.”
He cursed out loud.
“Colonel Next est un homme tré¨s dangereux, mademoiselle. Il est important de lui parler concernant ses activités de trafic de temps.”
“He’s my father, Lavoisier.”
Lavoisier stared at me, trying to figure out whether anything he could say or do would make me help him. He sighed and gave up.
“Si vous changez votre avis, contactez-moi par les petites annonces du Grenouille. Je lis toujours les archives.”
“I shouldn’t count on it, Lavoisier.”
He mulled this over for a moment, thought of something to say, decided against it and smiled instead. He saluted briskly, told me in perfect English to enjoy my day, and walked away. But his younger partner also had something to say:
“A piece
of advice to you,” he muttered slightly self-consciously. “If you ever have a son who wants to be in the ChronoGuard, try and dissuade him.”
He smiled and followed his partner in their quest for my father.
“What was that son thing about?” asked Landen.
“I don’t know. He looked kind of familiar, though, didn’t he?”
“Kinda.”
“Where were we?”
“Mrs. Parke-Laine?” asked a very stocky individual, who stared at me earnestly from two deep-set brown eyes.
“SO-12?” I asked, wondering quite where the little beetle-browed man had sprung from.
“No, ma’am,” he replied, seizing a plum from a passing waiter and sniffing at it carefully before eating it, stone and all. “My name Bartholomew Stiggins; with SO-13.”
“What do they do?”
“Not at liberty to discuss,” he replied shortly, “but we may have need your skills and talents.”
“What kind of—”
But Mr. Stiggins was no longer listening to me. Instead, he was staring at a small beetle he had found on a flowerpot. With great care and a dexterity that belied his large and clumsy-looking hands, he picked the small bug up and popped it in his mouth. I looked at Landen, who winced.
“Sorry,” said Stiggins, as though he had just been caught picking his nose in public. “What the expression? Old habits die hard?”
“There’s more in the compost heap,” said Landen helpfully.