The city’s engines were old. Decrepit, most people would call them. Miss Rebbecca Pannicot called them vintage. The engine room was her domain, a job passed down to her by her father and his father before him. The council had expressed a concern when she, at a bright young eight years of age, had shown up to work the day after her father’s death. The problem was, nobody else knew the engines like she did. Much to the council’s dismay it turned out that nobody else knew the engines at all. So she was back the next day, solemnly ordering about boys twice her age.