Flashback ( PDFDrive )

were moving. She only knew they were because the crystal skylight
grew closer and closer.
“Did you design all of this yourself?” Dex asked, running his hand
along the silver wall.
“Don’t you work alone?” Tinker wondered.
“Mostly,” Dex admitted—which wasn’t the answer Sophie had been
expecting. She’d always thought of Dex as part of her same team. But
then she remembered how often Dex had to stay home, working on
gadgets by himself while the rest of their group tackled some other
project.
“It’s lonely speaking a language few others understand, isn’t it?”
Tinker asked him.
Dex looked away as he nodded, and Sophie tried to think of
something to say. But all thoughts slid out of her head when she
caught a glimpse of Tinker’s laboratory.
The room was bigger than she’d been imagining, and much, much
messier. Each of the long steel tables was piled with gadgets that were
still in the process of creation, their gears left exposed, wires tangling
in every direction. And the copper floor was covered in screws and
nuts and bolts and shards of metal and glass. The air smelled like
grease and metal and oil—but not unpleasantly so. It was the scent of
a place where hands got dirty and set to work. And all the whirring
and humming and ticking gave the space a buzzing energy that made
Sophie want to grab the nearest tool and build something.
Dex looked desperate to do the same thing, his eyes staring
hungrily at the half-finished gadgets as they followed Tinker deeper
into the lab. They had to weave around enormous springs that
connected the floor to the ceiling, like columns, and they eventually