Part One Hunkered shoulders and skinny, bent knees cast a crooked shadow from the back corner of the laboratory, where the old man tried to remember the next step in his formula, or possibly–as Edwin was forced to consider–the scientist simply struggled to recall his own name. On the table against the wall, the once estimable Dr. Archibald Smeeks muttered, spackling his test tubes with spittle and becoming increasingly agitated until Edwin called out, “Doctor?” The doctor settled himself, steadying his hands and closing his mouth. He crouched on his stool, cringing away from the boy’s voice, and crumpled his over-long work apron with his feet. “Who’s there?” he asked. “Only me, sir.” “Who?” “Me. It’s only…me.” With a startled shudder of recognition he asked, “The orphan?” “Yes sir. Just the orphan.” Dr. Smeeks turned around, the bottom of his pants twisting in a circle on the smooth wooden seat. He reached to his forehead, where a prodigious set of multi-lensed goggles was perched. From the left side, he tugged a monocle to extend it on a hinged metal arm, and he used it to peer across the room, down onto the floor, where Edwin was sitting cross-legged in a pile of discarded machinery parts. “Ah,” the old doctor said. “There you are, yes. I didn’t hear you tinkering, and I