by Kaja Foglio
“Believe me, I took that into consideration,” Othar sighed. “Anyway, she said I was crazy!”
Sanaa drew herself up furiously. “You are not crazy! You’re my brother and you’re a hero!”
Othar straightened up and gently ruffled her hair. “Why, thank you, little sister! I am touched!”
“Yeah, you sure are.” Sanaa smiled. “Now, let’s go save your—” Sanaa glanced sideways at Othar’s frown. She shifted gears. “Um… your hated enemy who is not your boyfriend at all in any way?”
Othar actually stamped his foot in frustration. “I said Gilgamesh Wulfenbach is no friend of mine, ‘boy’ or otherwise! How you could even think I could be friends with such a—”
“Okay, okay! Jeez!” Sanaa interrupted. “I get it!”
The area they were in was in rough shape. The disaster that had shattered Castle Heterodyne had toppled walls and left furniture and enigmatic machinery scattered everywhere. As Othar scrambled over a tilted floor, Sanaa tried again. “So, if this Gilgamesh guy is such a villain, shouldn’t you be taking him out? I mean, instead of rescuing him?”
Othar shrugged. “Ordinarily, yes. But I have a rather ‘under-duress’ agreement with the Baron.” He pulled aside the fabric of his sweater to reveal a metal collar with a trilobite set at the throat.
Sanaa’s breath hissed between her teeth. She herself wore a matching device—all the Castle’s prisoners wore them—and all the Castle’s prisoners knew that the collars would explode if removed or taken beyond the Castle walls.
“So you’ve got a ‘splody collar too, huh?” she said. “But you can crack it, no problem, right?”
Othar rearranged his collar. “Well, possibly. But I would have to do it perfectly the first time, yes?”
Sanaa bit her lip. She’d certainly seen her share of smart people who had guessed wrong about that. Usually spread out over several meters.97
Othar continued. “Besides, that would take time. The fastest course is simply to grab young Wulfenbach and get him out of here. The Baron is a tyrannical fiend, but they say he does tend to keep his word in cases such as this.
“Probably only to look good in the public eye, of course,” he added.
Sanaa considered this. “So…if this guy really isn’t your boyfriend, then that makes him fair game, right?”
Othar stopped, shocked. Then he whipped round and thundered at her. “For any young lady of extremely questionable morals and taste who is not my sister—I suppose it does!” he roared. “But you will stay far away from him or I will send you back home to Mother aboard a livestock transport scow!” He paused. “Actually, I really ought to do that anyway. Mother will be worrying, and that always makes her break things.”
“Oh, no you don’t! Just because you’re a Spark doesn’t mean you get to push me around!” Othar shrank before Sanaa’s fury. She continued. “You already left me behind once, and I ended up here! You owe me! I want in on this!”
Othar threw his hands up in surrender. “Very well! Just this once.” He scowled and shook a finger at her, “But no romantic ideas. Remember—he is a nefarious fiend who must ultimately die.”
Sanaa squeezed her eyes shut and danced in place. “Whee! I finally get to rescue a Prince!” she sang.
Othar gave up.
In the Great Movement Chamber, Gil was back on his slab, with Agatha, von Zinzer, and Sleipnir reattaching him to the newly repaired array. Tarvek stood by, keeping an eye on Gil. Agatha was describing to von Zinzer what she was planning to do next, and Gil was awake, listening in woozily.
“I guess you could say it’s sort of like galvanizing,” she was saying.
“What?” Von Zinzer asked. “You’re going to dip him in molten zinc?”
Agatha laughed. “Only metaphorically!” she assured him.
“Huh,” Tarvek said. “It’ll probably feel similar.”
“It’ll probably be a step up, actually,” Gil added.
“Yeah,” Tarvek told him, “but then you’ll be completely stable and we can…” Tarvek’s voice trailed off and his eyes lost focus.
Violetta appeared and looked at him critically. “Tarvek? Are you all right?” she asked.
Tarvek swooned slightly and abruptly sat down. “Sorry,” he muttered. “I still don’t feel all that good.”
Gil rolled an eye toward him and frowned. “Why’s he still acting sick?” he muttered. “The secondary core annealing process should have fixed all that.”
Agatha looked at the wrecked machinery, the shattered Muse, the busy scientists and their assistants. She bit her lip. “Um…We didn’t get to do any secondary process.”
Gil’s face cleared and he sank back with a relaxed sigh. “Ah, that would explain it.” He then snapped upright and began to shout. “Sturmvarous! You never finished the procedure? Idiot! What would your father say to a labman who did something like that?”
Tarvek considered this. “I think he’d say, ‘Help me, help me, I’m trapped in this sarcophagus.’”
This checked Gil long enough that Tarvek was able to slam him back onto his slab and tighten a hose that had almost come loose. “We have been kind of busy here,” he snarled.
Agatha came up next to him. “Yeah. You’re the one who still needs processing. We feel great. Well, I do, anyway…” A wave of dizziness gave the lie to this statement. It passed swiftly, but Gil missed nothing.
“You idiots are still feeling the effects of the Post Revivification Rush. Look at how flushed your faces are! You’re burning through energy at an unsustainable rate! It we don’t cap it, you two will slip into a neurological cascade and we’ll all die!”
Both Agatha and Tarvek looked about at the damaged equipment. “Would reestablishing the Si Vales Valeo do the trick?”
Gil paused. “To stabilize the runaway loss? Maybe…that’s a good start…are the machines intact?”
Tarvek waved this aside. “Enough of them that we can rework them. It’ll be a lot simpler this time, since we’ll just be artificially equalizing—”
Agatha placed a finger on Tarvek’s lips. “I could listen to that kind of stuff all night,” she said. “But don’t explain it—do it!”
Tarvek took a deep breath and hurried off. Gil tried to grin at Agatha and whispered, “I could explain it better than he could.”
Agatha snorted. “Well, let’s hope you get a chance to prove it.” Red-faced, she turned to Professor Mezzasalma, who had found an enthusiastic student in Theo. The two of them had been attacking the aging electrical system.
“Can you two get us a stable power flow?” she asked them.
“It’s tricky, but I think its possible…” Mezzasalma answered.
“Good.” She walked to Tarvek, who was busily scribbling calculations onto ragged sheets of paper.
“There!” he told her, “I’ve calculated the galvanic essence levels we’ll need for each of us.”
Agatha peered at his work. “Oh, very elegant!” she told him. “Now work out the most efficient shunt layout.”
After making sure everyone was busy, Agatha slumped onto a stool and closed her eyes. A while later, von Zinzer prodded her with a sheet of paper. “Here’s the power figures from Mezzasalma, plus the latest readings from the three of you.”
Agatha took the paper and scanned. Von Zinzer saw her face freeze. “Hey—what?” he asked her. “What’s wrong?”
“It’s too late,” she whispered. “Between the three of us, we don’t have enough Galvanic Essence left.”
Von Zinzer stared at her. Impatiently she pointed to a column of numbers. “Look at these readings. This is the three of us, from twenty, fifteen, and ten minutes ago, right?”
“Yeah…” Von Zinzer frowned. “Oooh. They’re dropping fast,” he admitted. “If this progression continues…”
“Yes. You see it, too.” Agatha said. “All of our energy levels are decaying. Tarvek just felt it first. We don’t have enough energy between the three of us to finish the process.”
Agatha rolled her eyes. “This is…is Élan Vital. Galvanic Essence. Not regular electricity. You get it from living things, or… or…”
Von Zinzer interrupted. “Well, then, why not just add someone new to the circuit?” He paused. “Who isn’t me?”
Agatha shook her head. “Because adding someone new, who hasn’t undergone the first part, would destroy our current level of synchronization.”
Von Zinzer looked at her blankly.
“We’d all just fry,” she clarified.
“Ah.” Von Zinzer nodded. “Okay, well, let’s go. We’ve got, what, five Sparks here? The pack of you should be able to come up with something, right?”
“No!” Agatha grabbed his arm. “That’s exactly what we aren’t going to do. There’s too many Sparks. Everyone will have their own ideas and we’ll waste far too much time arguing about which path to take and by the time all the shouting dies down it’ll be too late to do anything!”
Agatha snatched up some more paper and began scribbling furiously. “No. We’ll do it my way and skip the debate.” She began passing papers to von Zinzer. “Give that one to Tarvek. This one to Theo and Professor Mezzasalma. The third to Sleipnir. Don’t let any of them see anyone else’s.”
Von Zinzer nodded. “What about Wulfenbach?”
Agatha glanced over to see Gil talking Violetta through a bit of rewiring. “Don’t let Gil see anything.”
Von Zinzer glanced through the papers and frowned. “Wait a minute…Now you’ve got all the energy coming from you.”
Agatha blinked. “How do you know that?”
Von Zinzer glared at her. “Hey. I am trained as an electrical machinist, among other things, and if you don’t learn something about how this kind of crap works in here, you’ll find yourself hooked up to power someone’s coffeepot.” He slapped the papers. “They’ll be fine, but you’ll die. I mean, for real die.”
Agatha looked at him, impressed. “No I won’t. I’ve got some ideas. Anyway, even if I do, I’m betting that if anyone could bring me back, it’ll be Gil and Tarvek.”
Von Zinzer stared at her. “I don’t know if that’s fatalistic, optimistic, or just crazy.”
Agatha gave a small smile. “That’s my life. Go hand those out.”
Von Zinzer patted her shoulder sympathetically and hurried off. Agatha sighed and slumped to one side. A hand holding a field cup full of water materialized before her face.
Startled, she looked up into the sanguine face of a Wulfenbach airshipman.
“Thank you,” she said as she took the cup. “Who are you?” The question seemed to catch the man by surprise. He pulled himself to attention. “Higgs, Ma’am. Airman Third Class.” He gave her a casual salute. “I’m currently assigned to…help young Master Wulfenbach.” He glanced over at the man in question. “Is he gonna die?”
“Not today. Help him do what?”
Higgs scratched his head. “Well, hold his hat, mostly.” Agatha stared at him. “But he’s here to help you.” He looked at her with frank curiosity. “Are you really the new Heterodyne?”
Agatha sipped the water. “Yes. I could cackle maniacally for you, if it would help.”
Higgs considered this. “It might.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Oh—not for me.” The airman reached back and hauled up the remains of the mechanical angel. It had been reduced to a shattered, one-armed torso and a head with a cracked cheek. Even in its ruined state, the eyes tracked her every movement. “This contraption claims to be Castle Heterodyne.”
The angel’s eyes flared. “You-you-you can-are-not be Heterody-dyne. You-you are-were-are a vessel for Lu-Lucrezia.”
Agatha folded her arms and drew herself up. “I am Agatha Heterodyne. Daughter of Bill and Lucrezia Heterodyne. Mother just…visits.”
The clank clacked its jaw at her. “You will prove this! Or you will die.”
Agatha rubbed her jaw. “You certainly sound like the Castle,” she muttered. “But I shut the Castle down. Why are you still active?”
“I-I-I ha-have been…contained.” The clank explained. “You-you have shut-shut me do-down?”
“I did. The Castle had shattered into warring segments of itself. They went mad. So mad that they would not obey me.”
The clank looked impressed. It stared at her and evidently made a decision. “The La-Lady Lucrez-zia prided herself on her-her abilit-ties in Consciousness Transferal.98 When sh-she had mastered organics, she sought to-to-go-go even further, to transfer artificial consciousness.”
Agatha nodded wearily. “If we had the time, I’d find this fascinating, I assure you. Doctor Beetle, my old teacher, taught that automata consciousness simulates animal consciousness through the expression of scripted responses to pre-delineated stimuli. But…he wasn’t sure that organic minds were all that different. He sometimes hinted at the hypothetical possibility of isolation and transfer of organics and mechanics.” She took a deep breath.
The clank nodded. “Tar-Tarsus Beetle. Transylvania Poly-polygnostic University. Ye-es, and Beetle was-was her te-eacher, was he not? Lucrezia wa-was never much interested in untested hypothesis.
“It was her-her great triumph: Co-coherent transfer of intellect ac-ac-across systems mech-anical and biological.”
Agatha sat down. “This explains so much,” she muttered. “If she had ever managed to perfect artificial to organic transfer…”
The clank clacked its jaw in evident amusement. “Oh, that was-was an-an easy one.” It jerked its head towards the hole from which it had crawled. “And-and the result wai-waits-waits for you down below—at the-the bottom of tha-that pit.”
Agatha’s mind raced. The clank made a dry chuckling sound. “Curious? But you ma-may never see-see it. Even if you-you are the Heterodyne, you are st-still merely a-an unprotected hatch-hatchling.
“By shut-ting down my-my maddened systems, you-you have removed your best defense.
“Your fortress is now-now merely a slowly-crumbling heap of stones. The-the enemies of the Heterodynes will mo-ove to crush us with-without pity.
“They will not wait-wait for you to become strong. But I-I can help you gain strength quickly, if-if you are truly what you claim,
“And then-then you may save us-us all.”
Agatha was staring at the bottom of the cup the airman had given her, and grinning madly. She could feel the tingling in her mouth and throat.
“Ah. You’re saying that you’ve had your lackey here give me water from the Dyne.”
The clank nodded. “He-he is not my lackey.” It said. “But ye-yes. The wat-ters of the Dyne have-have always contained an ex-excess of what you-you may call élan vital. You said-said you were ter-minally deficient—yes-yes, my audio receptors are quite ex-excellent, even in this damage-ed carapace.
“I have-have tak-en it upon my-myself to maximize your chances of sur-survival.”
Agatha felt a growing tingling sensation spreading through her chest. She focused on Higgs, her eyes growing wilder by the minute. “Excellent!” she said. Her voice was thick with the tones of the Spark.
Higgs took his pipe out of his mouth. “So you’re not mad-er-upset, then?” he asked.
“Don’t be ridiculous!” Agatha laughed. “All you did was save me time! I’ll admit, I was planning to use it a little later in the process, but this is so perfect!”
“Yessss…” the clank said, “but let’s ju-just add the next step, sha-all we?” It reached out and placed its remaining hand on Agatha’s bare arm.
Agatha ignored it. Her voice was rising to a mad, delighted shout, and she was staring into the distance before her. “So many things become clear! I can—”
Her rant was cut off as a blue bolt of electricity flashed through her.
Tarvek was sitting with his back to an electrical panel, examining the sheet in front of him and frowning. Theo stood next to him, double-checking the modifications he’d made to the el
ectrical system. After a while, Theo realized that Tarvek was no longer listening to the running explanation of the brilliant work he’d been doing. “What is it?” he asked.
Tarvek looked up. “I’m not sure…but there’s something about these modifications…”
“GET HIM!” The voice was Fraulein Snaug’s.
“What?” Tarvek jumped.
Sleipnir snatched the paper from his hands and shouted “Come on! Hurry!”
“Just grab him!” Snaug yelled again, and then she, Sleipnir and Violetta had lifted Tarvek off the ground and were rushing him back toward the array.
“Okay! We got him! Get ready!” Sleipnir shouted.
“What are you doing?” Tarvek wailed.
“What do you think, fool? We’re manhandling your royal personage,” Violetta said.
“It’s okay, your Highness,” Fraulein Snaug said worriedly, “It’s on the Lady’s orders.”
“How does that make it better?” he asked.
They slammed him onto one of the slabs. “Hook him in!”
“Set the clamps,” Professor Mezzasalma ordered.
“Just ignore the pain, sir,” Snaug advised him.
“Wait a minute!” Tarvek tried to break free. “We still have to test it!” He thrashed uselessly, but the women held him down.
“Agatha, tell them!”
“Nonsense!”
Tarvek froze. Agatha’s voice was…different. The tonal qualities a Spark’s voice acquired when the speaker was in the grip of madness usually raised the hackles of normal people. This voice had Tarvek and every other Spark in the room, desperately looking for an exit.
“‘Testing’ is for when you’re still guessing.”
The clamps had been set, and his captors stepped back. Tarvek could see Agatha now. It didn’t make things better.
Agatha was floating, and her eyes stared out at him from infinity. “And now,” she said in her strange new voice, “I have no need to guess. About anything.”
_______________
87 Despite its colorful label, the Poisoner’s Market, like most of Mechanicsburg, has scrubbed almost all of its authentically horrible past. It has maintained its original name because the tourists like it. Thus, alchemists no longer transmutate on the Street of the Goldmakers, resurrectionists no longer raise the dead on the Boulevard of the Blasphemies, and the infamous Dream Rendering Plant sells incense. This is known as gentrification. The original businesses still exist, of course, they just had to move to cheaper parts of town.
