"Damn the multiverse!" Queen Elizabeth spat as her guards hauled two inventors off to the Feeding Pit and methodically destroyed their creation.

"Multiverse again, your Highness?" William Cecil, Immortal High Treasurer of the Empire queried.

"It must be.  In every other world we've explored, we know how it begins."

"Calculators," Cecil said.

"Difference Engines," Nicholas Throckmorton, Immortal Enforcer of the Empire, added.

"Computers," said another advisor.

"Mass communication."

"The Internet."

"And the fall of all Empires," the Queen concluded. "I have held the power over this world for four hundred and fifty years, and I will not allow it to end!"

The limited gallery of advisors clapped politely.

"Stop that," she commanded off-handedly as she noticed one of the wolf guards with his leg up and attention on cleaning his nether-regions.  "Send in the next petitioner!"

The armored wolves loped to double-doors and opened them.

A solitary man entered.  He had disheveled clothes, distracted blue eyes behind wire-rimmed glasses, and a shock of hair that couldn't have been washed in months.  In his hands was a turtle-like object.

"Your Highness," he said reverently as he bowed.

"What do you have there?" she asked.

"It is a toy, your Highness.  Allow me to demonstrate."  The inventory turned a nob and set the curiosity on the floor.

The gadget clicked, popped and rolled toward the Queen.  Then it stopped, warbled, spun and zoomed off into another direction.  Chattering, clicking and singing the whole while, the young man's invention sped randomly across the room.  Elizabeth looked about the room to see the childish delight on the faces of her ancient advisors and felt a smile creeping to her own face.  It was adorable.  Her wolf guards were positively slavering over the possibility of a hunt.

With a pop and a whew, the toy came to a stop.

"Well done, young man," she applauded. "How does it work?"

"It's a wind-up, your Highness," he explained. "I used seven music box rollers to encode possible actions, while trying to keep them as random as possible."

"Very clever."

"Thank you, your Highness," he beamed.

"Kill him!" she bellowed and her wolves began to converge on the gobsmacked boy. "But, save the toy."