The Miss Education of Dr. Exeter Read Online Free PDF Page A

blasted off to . . . France.
    Exeter bit back an unexpected grin. Only Phaeton could get lost in Paris. He approached the round, unkempt, and affable young scientist who waited for them on the platform outside the laboratory. “Mr. Noggy.”
    “G’day, Doc.” Tim Noggy nodded to Jersey and the ladies. “Nightshade and Shade-ettes.” The heavyset young inventor smoothed back a wild bunch of curly hair, only to have it spring back in his face. He gestured the group inside the lab. “As some of you already know, we moved Gaspar to an underground surgery at Black Box—my brother’s facility.” Tim rolled his eyes a bit, an expression he used with some regularity. “That would be the technology genius brother, not the short rebellious one.”
    “May we speak with Gaspar, briefly?” Exeter inquired. “There must be some sort of Outremer device we can use to communicate.”
    The largish inventor shook his head. “He’s being kept alive—in stasis—until we find Phaeton and reunite him with the Moonstone.” Tim exhaled a heavy sigh. “Ruby and Cutter keep a close watch.”
    Exeter nodded. Gaspar Sinclair was the organizer and de facto leader of the Gentlemen Shades. The man was also unraveling. In order to preserve his brain, the decision had been made to move him to a facility in the Outremer where the disintegration would be greatly slowed, if not halted entirely.
    And the security was impeccable at Oakley’s underground facility. Even in his decrepit condition, the man was still the leader of the Nightshades and, as such, was vulnerable to abduction by Prospero’s forces.
    “I understand . . . Jersey mentioned that he’s cognizant for a few minutes a day.” Exeter’s inquiry was more of a statement.
    “Only for a few moments. They raise him to near consciousness—keeps the brain synapses firing. I realize this sounds more like sorcery than science in this world.” Tim added with a shrug. “Ruby tells me he seems reassured that she and Cutter remain by his side.”
    Ruby and Cutter, as well as Jersey and Valentine, were the foursome who made up the Nightshades guard. Normally detailed to Gaspar’s security, they had been reassigned to watch over those closest to Phaeton, which included Mia and himself, and—the gruesome truth was—anyone who might be abduction and torture worthy. The stakes were high between desperate, competing forces whose world continued to disintegrate. They would find a way to motivate Phaeton, for it was he alone who controlled access to the powers of the Moonstone—in the service of which, according to Mr. Ping, were unlimited.
    There was a kind of genius on the part of the Egyptian goddess who bestowed keeper of the Moonstone on Phaeton. He was the least likely character of any of them to control such power, and yet Qadesh could not have made a wiser choice. Disdainful and delightfully dissipated by nature, Phaeton was also utterly incorruptible.
    “And Professor Lovecraft’s disabled son?”
    “Lindsay Lovecraft? He’s working with Oakley and Cutter.” Tim raised and lowered his shoulders. “It seems they’ve uncovered a large cache of aether buried under Prospero’s headquarters. Enough to keep the Outremer powered a while longer. They’re currently working on a way to redistribute the fuel.” Tim moved over to a tall worktable that had been cleared off.
    Jersey looked about the room. “Blimey—the lab is brighter than ever.”
    “The bulbs run off a turbine, electrical power converted from a steam engine in the rear of the iDIP,” Tim explained. He rolled out a huge sheet of paper. “This is the most current map I could find. According to Lovecraft’s manual, the iDIP isn’t capable of giving map coordinates outside of our own planet, which means that the location has to be— our Paris.” Tim hauled his hulking frame around the end of the lab table and spread out the street map.
    “Forty eight degrees . . . fifty-three feet . . .” Tim mumbled the