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Mortal Engines Chapter 2 Summary

How It All Goes Down

Valentine

  • As punishment for skipping work, Tom gets sent down to the Gut—London's engine room.
  • He ends up on the receiving end of a pleasant surprise: tonight's supervisor is Thaddeus Valentine—author, archeologist, and Tom's hero. Valentine's pretty much Indiana Jones with a sword instead of a whip and an airship instead of a bi-plane. 
  • The cherry on this sundae: Valentine's beautiful daughter, Katherine, is with him. And so is her dog, Dog. Well, it's a wolf named Dog, but that doesn't make the name sound any better. Maybe later we'll meet her bat, Bird; her dolphin, Fish; and her guinea pig, Gerbil. 
  • They go check out what was salvaged from Salthook, the town London devoured.
  • Hoping to impress Valentine, Tom scours the junk and finds something of value: an old CD. Ooh, shiny.
  • Valentine is chatting with the scavengers when one of them leaps toward him with a knife. Egads.