"Machina!" Sunny insisted, and pointed at the sky. The children took their eyes off the approaching mob and looked up, and there was the greatest example of deus ex machina they had ever seen. Floating just over the children's heads was the superlative sight of the self- sustaining hot air mobile home. Although the invention had been quite marvelous to look at in Hector's studio, it was truly wondrous now that it was actually being put to use, and even the angry citizens of V.F.D. stopped chasing the children for a moment, just so they could stare at this amazing sight. The self-sustaining hot air mobile home was enormous, as if an entire cottage had somehow detached itself from its neighborhood and was wandering around the sky. The twelve baskets were all connected and floating together like a group of rafts, with all of the tubes, pipes, and wires twisted around them like a huge piece of knitting. Above the baskets were dozens of balloons in varying shades of green. Fully inflated, they looked like a floating crop of crisp, ripe apples glistening in the last light of the afternoon. The mechanical devices were working at full force, with flashing lights, spinning gears, ringing bells, dripping faucets, whirring pulleys, and a hundred other gadgets all going at once, but miraculously, the entire self-sustaining hot air mobile home was as silent as a cloud. As the invention sailed toward the ground, the only sound that could be heard was Hector's triumphant shout.
"Here I am!" the handyman called from the control basket. "And here it is, like a bolt from the blue! Violet, your improvements are working perfectly. Climb aboard, and we'll escape from this wretched place." He flicked a bright yellow switch, and a long ladder made of rope began to unfurl down to where the children were standing. "Because my invention is self-sustaining," he explained, "it isn't designed to come back down to the ground, so you'll have to climb up this ladder."
Duncan caught the end of the ladder and held it for Isadora to climb up. "I'm Duncan Quagmire," he said quickly, "and this is my sister, Isadora."
"Yes, the Baudelaires have told me all about you," Hector said. "I'm glad you're coming along. Like all mechanical devices, the self-sustaining hot air mobile home actually needs several people to keep it running."
"Aha!" cried Mr. Lesko, as Isadora hurriedly climbed the ladder with Duncan right behind her. The mob had stopped staring at the deus ex machina and was now marching once again toward the children. "I knew it was a mechanical device! All those buttons and gears can't fool me!"
"Why, Hector!" an Elder said. "Rule #67 clearly states that no citizen is allowed to build or use any mechanical devices."
"Burn him at the stake, too!" cried Mrs. Morrow. "Somebody get extra kindling!"
Hector took a deep breath, and then called down to the mob without a trace of skittishness in his voice. "Nobody's going to be burned at the stake," he said firmly, as Isadora reached the top of the ladder and joined Hector in the control basket. "Burning people at the stake is a repulsive thing to do!"
"What's repulsive is your behavior," an Elder replied. "The children have murdered Count Olaf, and you have built a mechanical device. You have both broken very important rules!"
"I don't want to live in a place with so many rules," Hector replied in a quiet voice, "or a place with so many crows. I'm floating away from here, and I'm taking these five children with me. The Baudelaires and the Quagmires have had a horrible time since their parents died. The Village of Fowl Devotees ought to be taking care of them, instead of accusing them of things and chasing them through the streets."
"But who's going to do our chores?" an Elder asked. "The Snack Hut is still full of dirty dishes from our hot fudge sundaes."
"You should do your own chores," the handyman said, as he leaned over to lift Duncan aboard his invention, "or take turns doing them according to a fair schedule. The aphorism is 'It takes a village to raise a child,' not 'Three children should clean up after a village.' Baudelaires, climb aboard. Let's leave these terrible people behind us."
The Baudelaires smiled at one another, and began climbing up the rope ladder. Violet went first, her hands clutching the scratchy rope as tightly as she could, and Klaus and Sunny followed closely behind. Hector turned a knob, and the mobile home rose up higher just as the crowd reached the end of the ladder. "They're getting away!" another Elder called, her crow-shaped hat bobbing with frustration. She jumped up to try to grab the edge of the ladder, but Hector had maneuvered his invention too high for her to reach. "The rulebreakers are getting away! Officer Luciana, do something!"
"I'll do something, all right," Officer Luciana said with a snarl, and tossed away the blanket she had been holding. From halfway down the ladder, the three climbing Baudelaires looked down and saw a large, wicked-looking object in Luciana's hands, with a bright red trigger and four long, sharp hooks. "You're not the only one with a mechanical device!" she called up to Hector. "This is a harpoon gun that my boyfriend bought for me. It fires four hooked harpoons, which are long spears perfect for popping balloons."
"Oh no!" Hector said, looking down at the climbing children.
"Raise the self-sustaining hot air mobile home, Hector!" Violet called. "We'll keep climbing!"
"Our Chief of Police is using a mechanical device?" Mrs. Morrow asked in astonishment. "That means she's breaking Rule #67, too."
"Officers of the law are allowed to break rules," Luciana said, aiming the harpoon gun in Hector's direction. "Besides, this is an emergency. We need to get those murderers down from there." Members of the mob looked at one another in confusion, but Luciana merely gave them a lipsticked smile, and pressed the harpoon gun's trigger with a sharp click! followed by a swoosh! as one of the hooked harpoons flew out of the gun straight toward Hector's invention. The handyman managed to manuever the self-sustaining hot air mobile home so the harpoon did not hit a balloon, but it struck a metal tank on the side of one of the baskets, making a large hole.
"Drat!" Hector said, as a purplish liquid began to pour out of the hole. "That's my supply of cranberry juice! Baudelaires, hurry up! If she causes any serious damage, we're all doomed!"
"We're coming as fast as we can!" Klaus cried, but as Hector moved his invention even higher in the air, the rope ladder was shaking so much that the Baudelaires could not move very fast at all.
Click! Swoosh! Another harpoon flew through the air and landed in the sixth basket, sending a cloud of brown dust fluttering to the ground, followed by some thin metal tubes. "She hit our supply of whole wheat flour," Hector cried, "and our box of extra batteries!"
"I'll hit a balloon with this one!" Officer Luciana called. "Then you'll fall to the ground, where we can burn you at the stake!"
"Officer Luciana," said one of the Council of Elders in the crowd, "I don't think you should break the rules in order to capture people who have broken the rules. It doesn't make sense."
"Hear, hear!" called out a townsperson from the opposite side of the crowd. "Why don't you put down the harpoon gun, and we'll walk over to Town Hall and have a council meeting."
"It's not cool," called out a voice, "to have meetings!" There was a rumble, as if another large potato had arrived, and the crowd parted to reveal Detective Dupin, riding through the mob on a motorcycle painted turquoise to match his blazer. Below his sunglasses was a grin of triumph, and his bare chest swelled with pride.
"Detective Dupin is using a mechanical device too?" an Elder asked. "We can't burn everyone at the stake!"
"Dupin isn't a citizen," another member of the Council pointed out, "so he's not breaking Rule #67."
"But he's riding through a crowd of people," Mr. Lesko said, "and he's not wearing a hel
met. He's not showing good judgment, that's for sure."
Detective Dupin ignored Mr. Lesko's lecture about motorcycle safety and pulled to a stop beside Officer Luciana. "It's cool to be late," he said, and snapped his fingers. "I was buying today's edition of The Daily Punctilio."
"You shouldn't be buying newspapers," said an Elder, shaking his crow hat in disapproval. "You should be catching criminals."
"Hear, hear!" said several voices in agreement, but the crowd was beginning to look uncertain. It is hard work to be fierce all afternoon, and as the situation grew more complicated, the citizens of V.F.D. seemed a bit less bloodthirsty. A few townspeople even lowered their torches, which had been heavy to hold up all this time.
But Detective Dupin ignored this change in V.F.D.'s mob psychology. "Leave me alone, you crow-hatted fool," he said to the Elder, and snapped his fingers. "It's cool to fire away, Officer Luciana."
"It certainly is," Luciana said, and looked up into the sky to aim the harpoon gun again. But the self-sustaining hot air mobile home was no longer alone in the sky. In all the commotion, no one had noticed that the afternoon was over, and the V.F.D. crows had left their downtown roost to fly in circles before migrating to Nevermore Tree to spend the night as usual. Now the crows were arriving, thousands and thousands of them, and in seconds the evening sky was covered in black, muttering birds. Officer Luciana could not see Hector and his invention. Hector could not see the Baudelaires. And the Baudelaires could not see anything. The rope ladder was right in the path of the migrating crows, and the three children were absolutely surrounded by the birds of V.F.D. The wings of the crows rustled against the children, and their feathers became tangled in the ladder, and all the three siblings could do was hang on for dear life.
"Baudelaires!" Hector called down. "Hang on for dear life! I'm going to fly even higher, over the crows!"
"No!" Sunny cried, which meant something like, "I'm not sure that's the wisest plan — we won't survive a fall from such a height!" but Hector couldn't hear her over another click! and swoosh! from Luciana's harpoon gun. The Baudelaires felt the rope ladder jerk sharply in their hands, and then twist dizzily in the crow-filled air. From up in the control basket, the Quagmire triplets looked down and caught a glimpse, through the migrating crows, of some very bad news.