‘That jacket looks good on you,’ Wink said.
‘Er, thank you, Wink,’ I said, confused.
‘Oh, Wink got caught in an unfortunate Librarian disharmony grenade,’ Mink added. ‘Messed up his brain a little bit. He gives great advice . . . it’s just not always on the topic you want at the moment.’
‘Never get involved in a land war in Asia,’ Wink added.
‘Great,’ I said. ‘So you think there’s no way out of this?’
‘The dome is going to crack soon,’ Dink said, shaking his head.
‘These burrows are coming more frequently,’ Mink said. ‘They’ll keep digging into our city, knocking more and more people into comas until there’s nobody left to fight back.’
‘Always wear a hat when feeding pigeons,’ Wink added.
All three of us looked at him. Wink shrugged. ‘Think about it for a moment. You’ll figure out why.’
‘So,’ Bastille said, walking up, arms folded, ‘you’re saying that if we can keep the dome from falling and protect against the people digging in, we can hold out.’
The three advisers looked at one another. ‘I guess,’ Mink said. ‘But how are you going to do that?’
‘Alcatraz will figure something out,’ Bastille said.
‘I will?’
‘You’d better.’
‘Never trust a three-fingered lion tamer.’
‘Why are you so sure I’ll figure something out?’
‘Because that’s what you do.’
‘And if I can’t this time?’
‘If you run out of toothpaste, you can make your own by mixing two parts baking soda with one part salt and some water.’
‘I just said that you would.’
‘Well, I’ll bet it would help if we could destroy those robots.’
‘How?’
‘An onion a day keeps everyone away.’
‘Teddy bears! We could use those purple bear grenades, the type that destroy nonliving things.’
‘We don’t have enough of them.’
‘Don’t the Mokians have any?’
‘I checked. They used all of theirs.’
‘Always throw paper first.’
‘Hey, guys! What are you doing?’
‘Aydee, Alcatraz is going to come up with a brilliant plan to stop the robots.’