Routine Machine

At twelve minutes past six the next morning, Wallace found Number Sixty-Four inside the service workshop.

He stopped in the open doorway, letting his eyes adjust to the dim lantern light.

The car looked almost identical to the evening before. Dried gray mud still caked the wheel rims and the lower ash frame. Splatters of road clay clung to the canvas weather hood, and the radiator shell was coated in a dry film of limestone dust.

Underneath the open cowl, however, a company mechanic was leaning over the engine bay, a small flat spanner working in tight quarter turns.

Wallace walked in, his boots scuffing over the floorboards. "Morning. What are you tearing apart now?"

The mechanic glanced up, his face smudged with black graphite paste. "Morning to you, Wallace. Baron Teucher sent two apprentices over on bicycles before daybreak with fresh parts."