“Ah,” Harry said, stroking his chin. “The old Glove of Doom.”
Harry packed up his gear, wiping his hands on his oil-stained jersey. “Just make me a plate of pork and chive dumplings. And for goodness’ sake, tell your kitchen hands to stop putting gloves down the sink.”
He arrived at Cuba Street to find water pooling around the stormwater grate. A small crowd of tourists were pointing and holding their noses. Harry knelt down, opened the drain cover, and lowered Pīpī into the murky depths.
Harry grinned, paid for his dumplings (Moira refused the money), and headed back out into the wind. In Wellington, the drains never sleep. And neither did he.
On his screen, he saw the problem: not just the usual congealed fat and mystery noodles. It was a glove . A thick, rubbery dishwashing glove, inflated like a pale, floppy jellyfish, had wedged itself right where the restaurant’s pipe met the main city sewer.
The high-pressure jetter was a beast. It fired water at 4,000 psi—enough to strip paint off a battleship. Harry fed the hose into the pipe, braced his boots against the curb, and pulled the trigger.
The drain shuddered. The water in the street swirled like a whirlpool. For a moment, nothing happened. Then— FWOOMP —a geyser of murky water erupted from the grate, and with it came the glove, spinning end over end like a drunken seagull. It landed at Moira’s feet with a wet slap.