‘So now you’re, what was uggs discount it again . . . crackers?’ Moist said.
     ‘That’s right,’ said Mad Al. ‘Because we can crack the system.’
     ‘That sounds a bit over-dramatic when you’re just doing it with lamps, doesn’t it?’
     ‘Yes, but “flashers” was already taken,’ said Sane Alex.
     ‘All right, but why “Smoking Gnu”?’ said Moist.
     ‘That’s cracker slang for a very fast message sent throughout the system,’ said Sane Alex proudly.
     Moist pondered this. ‘That makes discount uggs for women sense,’ he said. ‘If I was a team of three people, who all had a first name beginning with the same letter, that’s just the kind of name I’d choose.’
     They’d found a way into the semaphore system, and it was this: at night, all clacks towers were invisible. Only the lights showed. Unless you had a good sense of direction, uggs discount the only way you could identify who the message was coming from was by its code. Engineers knew lots of codes. Ooh, lots.
     ‘You can send messages free?’ said Moist. ‘And nobody notices?’
     There were three smug smiles. ‘It’s easy,’ said Mad Al, ‘when you know how.’
     ‘How did you know that tower was going to break down?’
     ‘We broke it,’ said Sane Alex. cheap uggs online ‘Broke the differential drum. They take hours to sort out because the operators have to—’
     Moist missed the rest of the sentence. Innocent words swirled in it like debris caught in a flood, occasionally bobbing to the surface and waving desperately before being pulled under again. He caught ‘the’ several times before it drowned, and even ‘disconnect’ and ‘gear chain’, but ugg boots discount outlet the roaring, technical polysyllables rose and engulfed them all.
     ‘—and that takes at least half a day,’ Sane Alex finished.
     Moist looked helplessly at the other two. ‘And that means what, exactly?’ he said.
     ‘If you send the right kind of message you can bust the machinery,’ said Mad Al.