Murder in Babbage - Grande Finale

So it is over. At least I think so. And since all Babbage has seen it on that day, up in the skies, I feel I should try to recollect here what exactly happened. I've spoken to orphans, Myrtil, McKay and Loki, and to other people, and here is the chain of events of that day as I understood them...


There was a town meeting in the evening, as every other month, but today it was held under the Babbage square in the engine hall. And while we, citizens of Babbage, were listening Mayor's assurance the Eliot's device is kept safe and guarded in Bow Street police department, the real Eliot's device was at that very moment in the secret room under the floor of the Imperial theater. I still don't know how has Jason Moriarty found all three parts of the device, but one was given to him by McKay Beck, as an exchange for the life of Victor Wunderlich aka Ally Wunder, whom Moriarty has kidnapped. In that secret room, Moriarty plugged the device, fueled now by human blood, into the big mechanism under the theater. I was true – the Moriarty's painting in Absinthe house was really portrait of Eliot's device, connected to this big machinery and fueled by human essence. It wasn't symbolic painting, it was almost an operating instructions!


So while we were listening to Mayor, Moriarty was working, trying to open the gate and bring the old gods into our world. The Eliot's device was the most important part, but it worked only connected to the Imperial theater. Not only the big machinery in the attic floor, but all the pipes and forcers, covered by dust, all those old distribution systems everybody ignored, because Babbage is full of stuff like that, even the old projector and screen... I'm sure no one has ever seen the theater working as a theater. As a matter of fact, the whole building was designed by prof. Eliot to multiply the effect of his invention, and open the gate. Now is clear why Reifsnider and The Grand Lodge wanted to tear down the theater so bad.
The building was the gate.


And so we saw it, the monstrous vortex raising from the old theater, beam of energy of unbelievable powers. I just stood there with the others, unable to think of anything I could do to stop it. And then McKay told me Prof Nishi is inside, with Moriarty, helping him to open the gate! I couldn't believe that! She couldn't be traitor! Or could she? Was I wrong all the time about her?
But I had no time for thoughts like that. In the center of the vortex, something appeared. Something big, a monstrous cluster of tentacles... The Old Gods were coming!


People, standing on the streets, sitting on the rooftops, were in shock. Some of them tried to fight this monstrosity; Miss Frye was shooting at it, Mr. Mayo used some kind of his peculiar magic, Mr. Shepherd with his new aircraft tried to get closer... all without any result. Even worse: two other, smaller monsters appeared and begun to hunt the Babbage streets... We were doomed.

We heard Moriarty shouting at Prof. Nishi something that they can be stopped, then Prof. Nishi's voice ordered everybody leaving the theater. And then, with huge explosion from inside the theater, the vortex and the big monster disappeared.
But those two lesser monsters still hovered above Babbage streets! And again – no one was capable to defeat them, until Prof. Nishi appeared above the roof of theater. She looked... different. Like she was some creature from another world herself...

She started to fight those monsters. She used something like blasts of very powerful energy... but those creatures were though ones. And whole Babbage just stood there, breathless, and watched those unbelievable duel.
Suddenly, it was over. The monsters were gone, sky was clear again, and Prof Nishi was falling down from those height, exhausted, probably unconsciousness. She hit the pavement hard, and the crowd gathered around her. She looked dead, laying there, fragile and broken, her hair turned completely white.


But thanks God, she was alive, and her friends took her to the museum to take some rest. There were no more Old gods coming, no vortex of energy, no Moriarty.
The Babbage was safe.
(to be continued)