Agatha H. and the Airship City

CHAPTER 1

Agatha dreamed… Mathematical formulae and gear ratios wound through her head and took shape with a feeling of inevitability that terrified her as much as it excited her. With a groan, the vast machine lurched to life, gears meshing together in a jewel-toned mechanical ballet. As more and more of the machine coalesced, Agatha noticed that the great engine was pulsing at the same rate as her heart, sending waves of energy through her like waves being dashed upon a rocky shore.

This was the answer, ringing in Agatha’s ears like a chorus of clockwork angels. Impatiently she reached forward, trying to grasp the shifting, glittering thing before her. Something clicked into place in her mind. She began to recognize the patterns forming before her. She realized that all of the surrounding space was beginning to react to the shining thing before her. Of course. The principals involved could be expanded infinitely outwards, therefore—

A vise slammed shut on her mind. A dark tunnel closed in on her perceptions and squeezed the glittering pattern down, down, down to a speck so small she couldn’t see it except as a twinkling mote of light just out of reach. With a sob of desperation Agatha lunged forward to grab it, and—

With a SMACK, her hand struck the wall.

The pain snapped her fully awake. She was gasping as if she had run all the way to the University and back, and covered in a sheen of sweat that had soaked her bedding. Her head was a throbbing ball of pain. Gamely she tried to swing out of bed, and almost crashed to the floor. Belatedly she noticed that her muscles were stiff and cramped, and that her blankets were knotted and wrapped around her in a way that told her she must have spun like a top in her sleep. As she began to unwind herself, the headache began to subside. Agatha was a connoisseur of headaches, and was relieved at the transitory nature of this one.

Once free of the bedclothes, Agatha snatched her spectacles from a small shelf and slipped the brass loops over her ears. The world clicked into focus and she was soon at her desk ripping bits off of a small machine, hastily adding others, bending wires and shuffling gears in a frantic attempt to capture the quickly fading memory within the structure of the device.

On an overloaded bookshelf in the corner, a painted metal woodsman struck a golden wolf repeatedly with a miniscule axe. First clock. An enameled couple wearing tiny crowns struck up a mazurka while a chime counted time to their bouncing feet. Second clock. Agatha began to work even more frantically. The beat of the mazurka insinuated itself into the last memories of the dream machine’s song, tangling them up and then sweeping them away in three eighths time.

Agatha growled in frustration and sat back onto her chair with a thump. She blew an errant lock of blonde hair out of her face. Gone. She touched the golden trilobite locket at her throat and sighed.

Getting to her feet, she stripped off the damp nightshirt and stretched in the early morning light that came in through her attic window, past several plants and what appeared to be a small mechanical spider. A variety of prisms caught the light and scattered it throughout the small room. Flashes of bright color glowed against her hair.

On a shelf by the window crammed with devices constructed from wire and fish bones, a small brass mushroom chimed as a cheerful mechanical centipede clog danced around the stalk. That was the third clock, which meant that it really was time to go. She would have to skip breakfast again.

She poured a dollop of water out of the blue ceramic pitcher into her washbowl and quickly washed up. Her skin pebbled in the cold air as she considered the meager contents of her closet. A white linen shirt, and her green tweed skirt and vest. These last had been a birthday present from her parents, and were Agatha’s current favorites. Long striped woolen stockings and a stout pair of boots completed her outfit. Quickly she stripped the sheets from her bed and hung them from the pole that held the bed drape. Then it was down the stairs, grab the large military greatcoat and cap that hung from her hook in the boot room, and through the door of the smithy to the outside world. The device she had cobbled together banging against her thigh through the pocket as she ran down the steps to the street.

She breathed deeply of the crisp cold air and blew out a great cloud of vapor. The sun had barely cleared the city walls and the lamplighters could be seen striding above the cobblestoned street, their stilt suits clacking as they hurried to douse the last few streetlights. It was evident that the city gates had been opened for the day, as the streets of Beetleburg were already full. Carts piled high with everything from produce to machine parts were pulled by horses, oxen and the occasional mechanical construct as they rumbled through the center of the street. On either side, the shops had opened and exposed their wares. The small fried pastries of several different cultures were hawked next to dried fruits and vegetables. Ovens unloaded aromatic platters of fresh bread. Several hundred different types of sausage and an equal number of cheeses were grabbed from hooks and shelves and consumed before the purchaser had gone three meters. Schools of smoked fish and eels hung next to sellers of hot beverages, and everywhere there was a bewildering variety of unclassifiable foodstuffs that were served on sticks.

The people consuming this bounty were a varied group. The great university drew students from all over the known world. Most were garbed against the March cold in what were obviously scrounged military uniforms. The garish colors added a festive note to the cold gray streets. Many were workers, trudging to or from the Tyrant’s factories. Occasionally men from different shifts would meet and stop briefly to pass along news or laugh at a humorous incident. Clumps of students headed towards the great gates of the University. Some groups were engaged in serious debate, others looked like they’d had a bit too much to drink last night.

Agatha was surprised to see a lone Jägermonster strolling casually down the street. People looked at it nervously out of the corner of their eyes, but were determined to act casual… which the monster soldier seemed to find quite amusing, but then, apparently, Jägermonsters found everything amusing. Except when people tried to beg for mercy. That they found downright hilarious.

This one still retained most of its humanity, as far as Agatha could see. Its frame still fit into an obviously scrounged uniform, although its arms were disturbingly long. The face was covered in what appeared to be small spikes, but that didn’t keep it from sporting a large, disturbing grin.

These days the Jägermonsters served Baron Wulfenbach, whose rule currently stretched across most of Europa, but it was unusual to see any forces of the Empire here. Relations between the Tyrant of Beetleburg and the House of Wulfenbach had been cordial ever since the city had been peacefully annexed into the Pax Transylvania over a decade ago. In spite of this, Beetleburg continued to be patrolled by the Tyrant’s own mechanical forces. Even now, one quick-stepped around the corner, jogged to the center of the block, stopped, and swiveled twice around its axis, looking for trouble. It registered the Jäger, and with a snap, extruded a pair of guns as it skipped towards it. Agatha always thought the watchmen clanks looked like indignant wind-up toys. Everyone did, really, until they started shooting.

The Jäger went still. The clank stopped three meters away from the monster soldier. There was a hiss, and then a scratchy voice asked the Jäger to slowly and clearly state its business. This should be amusing, thought Agatha. The Jägermonsters carefully cultivated and maintained their original Mechanicsburg accent. There had been numerous instances where clanks or other devices that relied on verbal instructions had, upon hearing it, simply opened fire. This was especially disconcerting when said devices were otherwise harmless household appliances.

Agatha was again surprised, as the soldier fumbled at its belt, and pulled out a crumpled bit of paper. It nervously scrutinized it for a minute, turned it upside down, checked it again and then laboriously stated, “I am coming to… the mar-ket to…” The Jäger was visibly sweating now. “To buy, not schteal… a piece of… ham.” He looked up expectantly. The entire street had gone still, and Agatha could hear the clacking as wax disks shuffled about inside the steel watchman.

The voicebox crackled to life. “Please move this horse. I believe it is dead.” With that the mechanical soldier swiveled about, and continued on down the street and bobbled around the next corner.

The Jäger blew out a huge sigh of relief, saw Agatha looking at him and gave her a cocky “thumbs up,” before tucking the paper back into the pouch at his belt and strolling on.

As the Jäger passed, the rumble and buzz of the town resumed. Housefraus resumed their dickering over soup bones, peddlers hawked candied fruits and insects, and swarms of children flowed through the crowds shrieking and looking for dropped treasures.

Agatha frowned. It wasn’t the first time that the Tyrant’s clockwork soldiers had made a harmless error, but she had been noticing them more often. Discussing it with the Tyrant, however, had proved fruitless. He frequently avowed that the Clockwork Army that had successfully defended Beetleburg for over thirty years had been declared the finest fighting force in Europa by the Baron himself, and thus wasting time and resources on them was unnecessary. Still, Agatha had heard stories about the battle clanks that the Baron’s armies used, and more and more she had found herself thinking about ways Beetleburg’s defenders could be improved—until a quick, sharp blossom of pain behind her eyes ended the chain of thought. It never failed.

Massaging her brow, Agatha found her progress was suddenly slowed by a crowd of people clustered in front of her. Focusing, she saw that she was in front of the familiar windows of the local booksellers. The display inside explained the crowd, a new Heterodyne Boys novel had arrived, and people were in line waiting for the shop to open. A card in the window displayed the title: The Heterodyne Boys and the Mystery of the Cast Iron Glacier. That sounded promising. Agatha made a mental note to put her name down on the request list at the university library. Agatha’s parents disliked the Heterodyne Boys novels, and refused to permit them in the house.

People in the bookstore line were eagerly discussing the book, analyzing the cover art, or just reminiscing about the actual Heterodyne Boys themselves.

Passions were easily aroused by this, even though the Heterodyne Boys had vanished over fifteen years ago. Things were a lot quieter now, the older people constantly reminded the younger generation, but before the Baron had imposed the Pax Transylvania, all of Europa had been a crazy quilt of kingdoms ruled by Sparks, embattled royalty, or any number of improbable and unstable combinations thereof. If a mad scientist wasn’t at war with at least two of his neighbors, it was because he had his back to the sea, and even then he had to watch out for an invasion of intelligent sea urchins. The populace at large was used mostly as soldiers, laborers, bargaining chips, or in some of the worst cases, monster chow. Into this nightmare world had come the Heterodynes, a pair of Sparks who had taken on the Sisyphean task of stopping the more malignant despots, a task which seemed to involve battling an endless stream of monsters, clanks, armies of various species, and the insane madmen who’d created them.

Now there was a legitimate school of thought that held that the Heterodynes did not actually accomplish all that much. They were, when all was said and done, just two men, two incredibly gifted Sparks accompanied by an ever-changing coterie of friends, assistants and fellow adventurers to be sure, but they could only do so much. The world produced a never-ending supply of dangerous creatures, as well as the scientists who had spawned them. But the point wasn’t that they had taken down the diabolical Doctor Doomfrenzy and his giant moss-bees, it was that there was someone actively out there, in the world, trying to make said world a better place, and in some small, measurable way, succeeding. They gave people hope, when hope was in desperately short supply.

And because of this, people remembered them as heroes. Almost everyone over a certain age could recite an incident that had, in some way, touched them personally. As she moved through the crowd, Agatha heard the old arguments about how the world would be better if the Heterodyne Boys were still around, as well as the fervent assurances that one day, Bill and Barry would return and make everything better, starting with the price of oats.

By the time Agatha cleared the crowd and hit the Street of the Cheesemongers, she had slowed to a walk and was once again deep in the mists of her own thoughts. Her feet followed the route to the University automatically, which brought her near the institution’s great bronze gates.

The answer she’d glimpsed in her dream was still there, somewhere in her head. If she concentrated, she could almost visualize the correct assembly that would make her little machine actually work. Almost… and then the order of the parts would muddle and blur, the formulae would lose themselves in the murk of her mind and her head would feel as though it were filled with honey—thick and comforting, but impossible to work through. If she could just filter out all of the distractions… She unconsciously hummed a few notes… trying to sharpen her mental sight and cut through the sticky thoughts…

She was so busy chasing ideas around her own head that she didn’t notice the cries of surprise from the people around her, or the electrical smell on the air. A small arc of blue electricity leaping from the metal rims of her glasses to her nose brought her back to the present and she gave a small yelp.

And then a hole in the sky opened up. A huge silver figure pointed the accusation at her as an unearthly voice rang out: “—LIKE THAT?”

In his long military career, Machinist Second Class Moloch von Zinzer had sampled quite a wide variety of alcoholic concoctions. In good times they were made from potatoes, grapes, or sometimes barley. However, in his experience, decent brews could be wrung from wheat, oats, rye, honey, pears, melons, corn, apples, berries, turnips, seaweed, sorghum, sugar beets, buckwheat, zucchini, rice, yams, sunflowers, artichokes, cattails or giant mushrooms. It was sort of a hobby, and one that made him popular with his fellows.

One used what one was able to scrounge, which meant that the drinks were usually brewed up on spare bits of madboy equipment, so occasionally the stuff was blue, or caused you to grow an extra set of ears, but it usually got the job done. But this—this was a new low. He looked at the crudely printed label on the bottle in his hand. “Beetle Beer” it proclaimed. Fair enough, he thought, I can believe that.

Moloch sighed and took another pull. What made it even worse were the smells that even the dank air of the little back alley couldn’t hide. Shops selling all kinds of foodstuffs lined the streets, the rich aromas of cheese, sausages and pastries filled his head. To a soldier who’d seen the outside world, a world filled with shattered towns and endless kilometers of abandoned farms, the sight of shops piled high with food that could be bought directly off the street by anyone with a little money was astonishing. It was like stepping into a world he’d thought lost forever. The bread was the worst. He’d have killed for any one of the fresh loaves he could smell baking.

So what had Omar spent the last of their money on? Beetle Beer. Well, it was sort of like bread, and it was all the breakfast he was going to get. When money failed, philosophy would have to do.

Moloch took a long look at his brother. Of all of the companions that he could have been left with, lost in strange territory, his brother Omar was surely at the bottom of his list. He stood in the middle of the alley, despite his wounded leg, swilling his beer with characteristic nervous energy. Moloch wished that Omar would pull up a crate, relax, and for just once, not be poised to fight. Moloch was well-and-truly tired of fighting. Omar would never get enough. He had laughed off Moloch’s protests over the lack of breakfast. He’d find money enough, somewhere. Moloch didn’t like to think where.

Out in the street, shouts erupted. A bright electrical light flared, the shouts turned into screams and a girl wearing an overlarge officer’s coat ran down the alley toward them. In her panic she tripped on a box and landed sprawling at their feet. Her glasses flew off her nose and skittered out of arm’s reach.

Agatha blinked. There were muddy boots a few inches from her nose, and she realized that she had just missed plowing into their owner. She looked up. The uniform proclaimed a soldier, its condition implied hard use. Although his face was blurred, she could see that he was smiling, and that it wasn’t a nice smile. A bottle dangled from one hand.

Agatha had led a fairly sheltered life, but even she could tell that this person was bad news. Her eyes never left Omar’s as her hands franticly patted the ground about her, unsuccessfully searching for her glasses.

“Well! What have we here?” Omar eyed her speculatively. “Obviously our very own angel of mercy, here to help out a couple of poor lost soldiers who are down on their luck.”

Moloch could see his brother’s habitual nastiness gearing up. His heart sank. Begging and intimidation. So they were reduced to that. He shifted in his seat on a stack of crates. The girl started, she hadn’t seen him right away. “Ha. She must know that you just spent our last groat on this swill you call booze. Well, help her up, Omar. Show her we can be friendly.” Moloch tried to keep his tone happy. Maybe she wouldn’t notice the edge to Omar’s voice. Maybe she could be convinced to give them a handout quickly, and go away, before Omar had a chance to get them into trouble. Ho ho, look at us, two jolly soldier boys, just like in the music halls. Except one of us is a murderous bastard who couldn’t keep out of trouble in a locked duffel… He smiled at Agatha. “Spare some change, Miss?”

Omar stepped toward Agatha. He had got round her as she stumbled to her feet, and was now between her and the alley mouth. “Oh, no, she can spare more than that, look at that fine locket!”

Agatha abandoned the search for her glasses and backed up, eyes huge. Beetleburg was a safe town, but mothers still passed down stories about what soldiers did to girls who didn’t take care. Being mugged was a new experience, and her head was still humming from the shock of the apparition in the street, but Agatha still knew she was in trouble.

“A pretty little townie like this, she’ll have a whole box of the stuff at home. She’ll never miss a couple of small gifts to the deserving. And then—” Omar’s grin grew even larger. “Maybe she’ll let us show her just how nice we can be.”

While a lot of the advice and instruction that Agatha’s parents had passed down had been either tantalizingly vague or dryly academic, certain situations had been discussed in detail, as well as their possible consequences. This was one of them.

As Omar reached out towards her chest, Agatha sidestepped him neatly, grabbed Moloch’s bottle and in one fluid motion swung it round to connect with Omar’s face. Moloch had to admit that it was a superb shot, but with nowhere near enough force to do anything useful. Agatha looked a bit surprised at what she had done, but gamely swung again, and this time Omar was ready. He stepped within her swing, grabbed her lapel, jerked her off balance and delivered two quick slaps that set Agatha’s head ringing. As she slumped, Omar’s eyes narrowed and a grin of anticipation crossed his face as he slowly drew his fist back.

Suddenly Moloch’s hand gripped his upper arm. “That’s enough, Sergeant,” he roared in his best military voice. As he’d hoped, the reference to rank checked Omar’s swing.

Omar had endured enough punishment duty that its memory could stop him when appeals to reason failed. “She hit me,” he hissed petulantly. “I am not taking that from a lousy civilian!” He tried to shake off Moloch’s restraining arm.

“Stop it, you fool! Don’t you remember what they do to people in this town? Do you want to wind up in one of those damned jars?”

That stopped Omar, as it stopped a lot of people. The Tyrant of Beetleburg had little patience for those who broke his laws. A popular punishment consisted of simply placing wrongdoers inside large glass jars in the public squares. There they eventually died of thirst or hunger. Their bodies lay undisturbed until a new lawbreaker was put in. Consequently, the locals rarely broke the law.

Omar nodded to his brother, but a smirk twisted his face as he drew a dazed Agatha toward him. “Okay, doll, it’s been fun, but we have to leave. To remember these happy times—” with a flick of his wrist, he gripped, twisted, and snapped off the large golden trilobite locket at Agatha’s throat, “—I’ll just take a little souvenir.”

Agatha’s eyes bugged, but before she could yell, Omar swung his foot and swept her feet out from under her. She collapsed in a heap on the ground as he took off down the alley with a laugh and a wave. “Thanks for the souvenir!”

Moloch trotted along after him, with both of their duffels under his arm. “You are such an asshole,” he hissed. Omar grinned.

Agatha scrambled to get up. She spotted a glint upon the ground, which proved to be her glasses, thankfully undamaged. Her anger finally roared up and gave voice. “BRING BACK MY LOCKET!” she screamed, as she went pounding up the alley in pursuit. She burst out onto the street and was confronted by a milling crowd of soldiers and ordinary citizens. Of the great hole in the sky, there was no sign, as there was no sign of the two thieves.

Agatha felt tears well up in her eyes. “You miserable wretched knaves,” she fumed. “I’ll inform the Watch on you!” Her voice started to climb in volume, and a wild note entered her voice. People in the vicinity began to regard her with suspicion and then fear, as her voice entered registers that set off alarm bells in their heads. “They’ll comb the city, and they’ll find you, and when they do, they’ll put you in the jars, and I’ll come down every day and watch you beg and scream and claw at the glass as you die slowly—like the miserable rats you are!”

She took another deep breath and then to the onlookers it seemed as if an invisible bolt of lightning had struck her in the head. Agatha clutched at her temples and screamed in pain as she collapsed to her knees. Another headache. She always got them when she got worked up, and this one reflected her rage with skull-splitting force. A small crowd formed, but no one approached. When people acted strange, anything could happen. In addition to the pain, Agatha felt a wave of embarrassment flow over her.

Suddenly there was a flurry of activity over to one side, and a tall figure loomed over her. A greenish, hirsute hand offered her a canteen. Agatha looked up into the interested face of a Jägermonster. A different one than the one she’d spotted before. “Hey dere, gorgeous.” He smiled a smile with way too many teeth. “Iz you okeh, or iz you gonna change into sum kinda giant ting mit no clothes on?”

The concept caused Agatha to blink in surprise, and wonderfully, her headache began to recede, almost as quickly as it had arrived. That was a rare and welcome occurrence. She climbed unsteadily to her feet while trying desperately to look like she wasn’t avoiding the monster’s proffered hand. “Um… not this time.”

“Oh vell, ken’t vin dem all.” The canteen disappeared with a gurgle. The main clock in the Market Square began to toll. Agatha’s head whipped around. The hands stood at seven. “Oh no! Oh NO! I’m LATE!”

Taking off like a shot, Agatha pelted off down the street. The crowd dispersed and yet another Jägersoldier joined his companion. “So vot hyu say to her, eh? Not de old fang polish line again?”

“I din say notting!” He looked after the retreating girl and a quick smile twisted his upper lip. “Pity doh, she smelt verra nize.”

Late! Late! Late! Dr. Merlot would have her boil every bottle in the building before she could go home tonight, and little he’d care for her stolen locket. He was Dr. Beetle’s second in command, and while not a Spark himself, was as ruthlessly despotic as one. He drove everyone around him as hard as he drove himself, seemingly trying for a breakthrough by the sheer amount of misery he caused his subordinates. He had been with Dr. Beetle for the last twenty years, and had resented Agatha’s presence almost from the moment she had been brought into the lab as an assistant, but Dr. Beetle was The Tyrant, and one did not argue with The Tyrant. There were times Agatha wished that she had been assigned to another lab, but she had to admit that the most interesting work was being done by the Doctor himself.

The thought processes of a major Spark were difficult to follow most of the time, especially with her limited understanding. But Agatha found the work exhilarating in a way she couldn’t explain. After a heartbreaking series of setbacks in her own fumbling experiments, it only took a few minutes in the presence of the man to fire her up full of enthusiasm all over again. Indeed, part of Merlot’s annoyance with her could be explained by Dr. Beetle’s insistence on spending as much time with her as he did. She was to be present for every major experiment, and he always asked her opinion, even when the subject was one that had Merlot or Merlot’s Chief Assistant, Dr. Glassvich, thoroughly muddled.

Agatha cleared the last of the shops and angled across the greensward that circled the walls of Transylvania Polygnostic University, and towards the great front gates and the cyclopean figure that guarded them.

Mr. Tock was the largest mechanical construct anyone had ever seen, and was still considered the Tyrant’s greatest feat of engineering to date. It towered almost twenty meters high. The great clock in his chest was the timepiece the town set its watches by. As intricately decorated as the smaller clanks that comprised the city Watch, but infinitely deadlier. It appeared to move slowly, but this was an illusion brought about by its great size. Those who had underestimated its fighting ability had done so to their regret. Tock had been known to single-handedly quash several small rebellions, one (admittedly poorly organized) army, and an invasion of giant slugs, an event nobody ever wanted to talk about, especially over dinner.

Each year the various schools within the University vied for the honor of polishing the behemoth for its quarterly parade through and around the town, and as a result, his brass exterior gleamed in the morning sun.

As Agatha approached, the glowing blue eyes swiveled down at her, and a plume of steam puffed out from his upper lip, much like an old man puffing out his moustache before speaking. Its great metallic voice tolled out across the grounds: “IDENTIFY YOURSELF.” Agatha groaned. Students were expected to be within the gates by a certain time.

“Mr. Tock, it’s me! You’ve seen me every day for eleven years! I’m late and—”

“IDENTIFY OR BE—”

“Agatha Clay! Student 8734195!”

“WORKING…”

“Come on.”

“WORKING…”

“Come ON!”

“WORKING…”

“Oh please come on!”

“ACCEPTED. ENTER STUDENT.” The great feet began to shuffle aside, and then, maddeningly, paused. “YOU ARE… LATE.”

“I KNOW!” Agatha screamed and darted past the giant.

The T.P.U. campus was a large complex, and the building Agatha was aiming for was near its center. Clusters of students talked together, many of them discussing the electrical phenomenon of that morning. Several groups were disrupted by Agatha cannoning through them at full speed, leaving nothing but a barely heard “Late!” fading behind her.

Agatha was a familiar figure on the campus, and many of the students simply rolled their eyes at her retreating back. Agatha would have been astonished, and rather appalled, to know that she was the subject of many a speculation. Most of those who tried to strike up a conversation with her were put off by her odd behavior, the more persistent or outspoken found themselves hauled in and given a quiet talk by university officials. Agatha Clay was the Tyrant’s assistant and thus Off Limits. This, of course, only added fuel to the speculative fires.

As she approached the massive stone edifice that was Laboratory Number One, the door-clank swung the great bronze portal open in time for her to dart through. Helpfully, it informed her that she was late, eliciting a howl of despair.

Finally she slammed through the blast doors into the Central Laboratory and clung to a railing and gasped as she caught her breath. Below her, on the main floor, Dr. Hugo Glassvitch turned away from a humming device and mildly remarked, “Mademoiselle Clay? You’re late.”

“I KNOOOOOWW!”

The doctor picked himself up off the floor in time to find his arms full of a sobbing Agatha. “You’re only a little late,” he said comfortingly.

“My locket! Oh, Doctor, they stole my locket!” Quickly she filled him in on what had happened that morning. “It had the only pictures I have of my parents and it belonged to my mother and now it’s gone!”

Dr. Glassvitch looked surprised. “I didn’t know that. You never showed—”

Agatha interrupted. “My uncle gave it to me before he went away. He made me promise to never take it off and now it’s gone and he’ll be disappointed in me again and he’ll… he’ll never come back because I’m… I’m stupid and damaged!” To Glassvitch’s horror, she slid to her knees and began to sob even louder. “Why? Why can’t I do anything right? What’s wrong with meeeee?”

“Agatha! Mon Dieu!” Agatha only sobbed louder. Glassvitch’s specialty was chemical engineering, which minimized his experience with hysterically sobbing young ladies. Up until now, that had seemed like a perk, but now he realized he had no idea what to do. He cast about desperately and his eye fell upon a bulge in Agatha’s greatcoat pocket. “Agatha!” He gently shook her shoulder. “Show me your latest machine!”

Agatha’s cries stopped as if a switch had been thrown. She blinked up at Glassvitch through her tears. “My machine?”

“Oui!” Glassvitch patted her pocket. “Your petite clank? Does it work?”

Agatha got to her feet and smoothed down her skirt. “I… I don’t know.” She pulled the little device out of the pocket. It looked like an excessively large brass pocket watch. She wound the stem at the top as she talked. “I… I wanted to show it to you before I showed it to the Master.”

Glassvitch nodded encouragingly. “Ah. Good idea. We don’t want to waste his time, eh? Let’s see it.”

“All right.” Agatha smiled nervously at him and placed the device on a lab bench. Her index finger hovered for an instant, and then pushed down the stem with a sudden click. Immediately, the sound of gears grinding emanated from within. The device shuddered and a small dome on the face snapped up, revealing a crude eye that jerkily surveyed its surroundings. With a lurch, a pair of legs unfolded from the bottom and it shakily stood, then took an uncertain step forward. Suddenly, the ticking of the gears ended with a Poink! A horrible grinding rattle came from the little device and it began to shake uncontrollably. Its single eye rolled up out of sight, the body twisted violently and exploded in a shower of tiny gears and springs that sent half of the body casing shooting past a startled Agatha and Glassvitch and out through a window pane. The remaining small bits showered down throughout the room.

Agatha looked at her shoes and whispered, “Sorry. I… I was so sure…”

Glassvitch shrugged and patted her shoulder. “Well, at least this one actually moved before it blew up. That is improvement, no?”

Agatha looked up at him in surprise. She opened her mouth—

“I should have guessed.”

The two flinched and turned. At the door stood the Tyrant’s second in command, Dr. Silas Merlot. A small, thin, elderly man who owed his current position not to the Spark, but to procedural brilliance and a dogged perseverance in his work. He was rubbing his head and clutching the piece of Agatha’s device that had shot out the window. Agatha groaned mentally. Dr. Merlot hardly needed this additional excuse to cause her trouble.

Dr. Glassvitch smiled. He was one of the few friends the cranky scientist had, and often interceded on Agatha’s behalf. “Good Morning, Dr.—”

Merlot interrupted him. “I don’t know why you encourage her, Glassvitch, we have enough problems today.”

“Problems?”

“Baron Wulfenbach is here.”

The smile drained from Glassvitch’s face. “WHAT? He’s early! Weeks early! We’re not ready!”

“He’s with the Master, if you’d care to complain.”

“No! I meant… What do we do?”

“We’ve got to remove all traces of the Master’s project from the secondary labs. Miss Clay, get this lab cleaned up. You’ve got half an hour.”

Agatha started and looked wildly around the lab. It was a rat’s nest of equipment and papers strewn about the room. The Master always demanded that it remain untouched during an ongoing project. “Cleaned up? By myself? In half an hour? This room is a disaster area!”

Merlot narrowed his eyes. “Don’t be impertinent with me, Miss Clay. The Master may derive some twisted amusement from your pathetic antics, but if this lab is anything less than spotless, you’ll see how patient Baron Wulfenbach is with incompetents. Now move!”

As the two scientists hurried to the secondary lab, Glassvitch frowned. “Silas… there’s no need to frighten the girl—”

Merlot cut him off. “Listen. The Master’s little pet may actually prove useful for once. With her crashing around, perhaps the Baron will not look too closely at the rest of us, understand?” Glassvitch frowned, but after a moment, reluctantly nodded.

Meanwhile a stunned Agatha surveyed the mountains of equipment. “Half an hour?” she whispered to herself. “How can I possibly—” Her eye was caught by a storage closet. Her jaw firmed, she nodded to herself and rolled up her sleeves.

Twenty-nine minutes later, Merlot and Glassvitch were striding back to the lab, muttering to each other.

“Have we forgotten anything?”

“Ssh. Hugo, we have done the best we can. This whole project was a mistake just waiting to destroy everything we’ve—”

They turned the final corner and stopped dead in their tracks. Before them was the main lab. Every surface was cleared. Every shelf was tidy. The floor was swept and the instruments had been neatly laid out in geometrically perfect rows. In the exact center of the room, a deeply breathing Agatha stood with her hands clasped behind her back.

Dr. Merlot blinked, opened his mouth once or twice and in a dazed voice said, “Well…” It almost choked him to say it. “Well done, Miss Clay.” And, because he was an honest man, “I’m… impressed.”

Dr. Glassvitch nonchalantly slid his hands into his pockets and rocked back on his heels with an enormous grin lighting up his face. “Not quite so incompetent after all, hm?”

Agatha smiled demurely, “Thank you, doctors.”

Suddenly the main door slammed open and a harsh voice commanded, “No von move! Dis is you only varning!”

The hairy face of a Jägermonster quickly surveyed them and as quickly dismissed them, although his weapon never left them. He made a quick motion with his free hand and, with a crash and a hiss, two large Wulfenbach trooper clanks lumbered into the room. The tops of their shakos barely cleared the doorway and their gigantic machine cannons never stopped moving. Agatha saw at once that everything she’d heard about them was correct.

Unlike the Clockwork Army, these clanks moved as smoothly as animals. You knew these machines were dangerous.

Behind them came a group of four people. At the center was Baron Klaus Wulfenbach, the man who currently controlled a significant part of Europe. He loomed above the rest of the group, and his movements were those of a jungle cat kept in check. No one knew how old he truly was, the only sign of age was the silver color of his hair. Klaus had been an adventurer in his youth, and indeed had traveled with the Heterodyne Boys. It was known that Klaus and Bill Heterodyne had both vied for the favors of the beautiful but villainous Lucrezia Mongfish, with Klaus finally losing out to his more heroic rival, who had managed to win her over to the side of the angels when he took her as his bride.

Klaus had vanished before the wedding, off to nurse a broken heart it was said. He reappeared six years later, when Europa was deep in chaos and ruin with the Heterodynes, as well as most of the other Great Sparks, gone. The final blow came when he found his ancestral castle, as well as the town around it, completely destroyed.

He had reestablished the town, and declared that anyone who attacked it would be mercilessly wiped out and their lands absorbed.

Up until that point Baron Klaus Wulfenbach had been considered a minor Spark adventurer, who had never been taken very seriously, as he had always allowed himself to be overshadowed by his more charismatic companions. His proclamation was considered mere bravado. Nearly fifteen years later, thanks to this simple policy, the Wulfenbach Empire stretched from the great bronze gates of Istanbul almost to the Atlantic Ocean.

Next to him was his son, Gilgamesh, who, though fully grown, had only recently been revealed to the world.

Physically, he resembled his sire. Not quite as tall, nor as broad at the shoulder, perhaps, but impressive none the less. His face was set in lines that seemed too grim for one his age. This was no doubt brought about by the numerous attempts on his life that had occurred since his identity had become known. There were many who had reluctantly knuckled under to the Empire, telling themselves that Klaus was but one man, and thus could be endured. These arguments went out the window with the appearance of an heir. The additional knowledge that he was supposedly possessed of a Spark nearly as strong as his father’s, just made things worse.

Quietly standing at the Baron’s right hand was his secretary, Boris Vasily Konstantin Andrei Myshkin Dolokhov, a man feared throughout the Empire almost as much as the Baron himself. He had started out in life with two arms and an eidetic memory, which had brought him to the attention of the Spark who ruled his homeland. Said Spark had given him enhanced speed, strength, balance, and an additional two arms in an attempt to build the ultimate juggler. Sadly, for Boris, he succeeded.

Boris spent several miserable years as court jester before his master had sent an ill-conceived army of land squids against the Baron. This had resulted in the area quickly being absorbed into the Wulfenbach Empire.

Klaus has a sharp eye for talent, and quickly realized that Boris was not born to the stage. However he was a natural secretary, and had quickly risen to become Klaus’ second in command.

Buzzing angrily around the Baron was the Tyrant of Beetleburg, the Master of the Unstoppable Army, Owner and Headmaster of Transylvania Polygnostic University, Dr. Tarsus Beetle.

Dr. Beetle was a third-generation Spark whose family had established and run the university and its environs for the last hundred and twenty years, maintaining and defending it against other Sparks and their armies. Like the great city-state of Paris, Beetleburg was considered neutral ground. Thus many of the Great Houses of Europa, and elsewhere, had T.P.U. alumnae on staff. About ten years ago, after a particularly hard winter had strained the resources of the area, Klaus, a former student of the University, had offered to absorb both the University and the surrounding town into his expanding empire and extend it his protection, while the Tyrant retained control. Dr. Beetle accepted. This arrangement had worked out well for all concerned, which was why the apparent anger of the Tyrant toward the Baron was so surprising. Indeed he was yelling nonstop as the group entered the room.

The Baron interrupted him in mid-shout and addressed the Jägermonster: “Thank you, Unit-Commander, stand at ease.”

“Jah, Herr Baron.” The soldier’s weapon never faltered, but he allowed himself to slouch a bit. This, for some reason, merely made him look more dangerous.

Beetle resumed his diatribe. “Blast it, Klaus, you’re too early! I told you—”

The Baron effortlessly cut him off and strode over to the group in the middle of the floor. “You’ve had plenty of time, Doctor. Now who are these people?”

Dr. Beetle swallowed his annoyance, and brusquely nodded to each of the staffers as he introduced them. “Dr. Silas Merlot, my second in command.”

As he paused, the Baron broke in, “Ah. I read your latest report with great interest.”

Merlot bowed and clicked his heels together. “I am honored, Herr Baron.”

“Dr. Hugo Glassvitch, my Chief of Research.”

“Welcome, Herr Baron.”

“And this is our lab assistant, Miss Clay.” As he said this, he turned away dismissively. “Now the machine—” Suddenly he stopped, and with a snap, turned to stare at Agatha. “Miss Clay!” He barked, “Where is your locket?”

Agatha blinked. “It… it was stolen, sir. There was an electrical anomaly of some sort and I was accosted by some soldiers while trying to get away.”

The Baron’s eyebrows rose at this. Beetle looked shaken. “Accosted? Stolen?” His voice rose, “In my city?” He clutched at his forehead. “Oh no! This is terrible! Terrible!”

Agatha tried to address his obvious distress. “I’m feeling better, sir, I—”

At this Dr. Beetle snapped out of his distracted state and grabbed Agatha by the elbow and began to hustle her towards the door. “Sh! No! You’re obviously distraught, my dear. I want you to go home. Yes! Go home and have a nice lie down and I’ll have the Watch find your locket as quickly as possible!”

“Wait.” The force of the Baron’s voice arrested Beetle’s movement as if he’d been grasped physically. Agatha looked up to see the Baron studying her with interest. “You actually saw the event in the town?” he asked.

“Yes, Herr Baron, I was right in the middle of it.”

The Baron nodded. “Stay. I would like your observations of the event when I am done here.”

Beetle went pale. “Klaus, the poor girl has had a terrible shock! You must let her go home!”

Agatha tried to calm the distraught scientist. “Master, please! I’m all right. Really.”

Klaus nodded to signal that the affair was closed. “I’m impressed by your concern for your people, Beetle, but the young lady appears stable. Let us get down to business.”

He turned to Merlot and Glassvitch. He gestured towards a large, obviously half-finished device that sat in the center of the room. It was a bizarre collection of tubes and coils that bent and twisted back on themselves in a most peculiar manner. “Doctors. My Dihoxulator. Why is it not finished? I’d thought I’d explained the underlying theory rather succinctly.”

Merlot took a deep breath. “We do not know, Herr Baron. We were able to construct the machine up to a point, but then we hit a block.” Beside him, Glassvitch nodded vigorously. “We cannot reconcile the final linkages with the rest of the assembly,” he added. “We just don’t know what to do to make it work.”

The Baron stared at him steadily for moment. “I see.” He raised his voice. “Gilgamesh?”

The young man looked up from the device he was examining. “Yes, Father?”

“These fellows seem to be having some problems. Can you assist them?”

“I can try, Father. If you’d explain the theory?”

The Baron nodded, placed a hand on his shoulder and drew him over toward the device. Beetle followed. “The basic idea is to promote secondary oxidation…”

Relieved that they were no longer under the Baron’s direct scrutiny, Glassvitch turned to his companion and whispered. “Silas, we’re doomed! We’ve accomplished nothing! They’ll ship us to the Waxworks!”

Merlot however, ignored him. He was staring at the Baron as a suspicion was growing in his mind. A very nasty suspicion. “…Of course.” He muttered, “The Baron knows we don’t have the Spark. We weren’t expected to finish this. It’s a test!”

Glassvitch looked even more distressed. “Then we’re failing!”

Merlot shook his head impatiently. “Not us, Hugo, his son! Gilgamesh Wulfenbach is the Baron’s only heir. I’ve heard rumors that the Baron is testing him, trying to determine if the Spark burns as brightly in him as it does in his sire.”

“And if it does not?”

Suddenly the Jägermonster loomed up behind them. “Dis is Baron Wulfenbach, sveethot! He vill break him down for parts and try again!” Having divulged this information, he gave them a sharp-toothed grin and sauntered off.

“Mon Dieu!” A shaken Glassvitch breathed.

Merlot shook himself. “Yes. Rather comforting to know there’s someone whose life is more wretched than our own, eh?” It was then that he noticed a peculiar buzzing hum that rose and fell in pitch. A scowl flashed across his features and he whirled around to face a distracted Agatha. “Miss Clay!” he shouted .”For the last time, stop that infernal humming!”

Agatha snapped back to the present and blinked wildly. “Hah? I… I’m sorry, Herr Doctor, but I was listening to the Baron, and something he said isn’t right, and—”

“Silence!”

Meanwhile Klaus had finished his explanation. Gilgamesh studied the half-finished device and slowly a frown creased his face. “Well?” Klaus prompted.

“Interesting, Father…” His voice trailed off as he scratched his head. “Hmm, I see what they were trying to do… but that won’t work… no… wait… hum… this makes no sense!” Gilgamesh stared at the device as if it had personally offended him. “No… this is all… wrong!” His voice began to rise. “This would work at cross purposes!” He wrenched off an armature and threw it across the room. “This is absurd! What are you fools trying to do? Can’t you see what you’ve done?” He began to rip apart the machine. “This is all wrong! I would expect a first-year student to do better! You have forces canceling each other out throughout the entire structure! Where are your plans?”

Merlot looked around, then quickly turned to Agatha. “The plans, Miss Clay! They were on the main board. Where did you put them?”

Agatha looked surprised. “Oh.” She said, “They’re in with—” She swung her attention to the storage room door in time to see a rivet pop out of one of the door’s straining cross bracers. She swung back and smeared a grin across her face. “A-heh. They’re in the files in the storage room, doctors. How about everybody goes and has a nice cup of tea while I dig them out?”

Gil strode forward and pushed her aside. “Bah! I’ll get them myself! I’m sure your pitiful filing system will be simple—” He turned the handle of the storage room door and yanked just as Agatha shouted “NOOOOOO!” and with a bang, the door flew open and a tidal wave of lab equipment roared out and over the young man’s head, smashing him to the ground and carrying him several meters back.

After the shower of material finished falling, Gil could be seen lying on his back, covered in debris. Clutched in his outstretched hands was a small goldfish bowl along with its grateful occupant.

Boris and the Jägermonster quickly clambered over the pile of equipment and began to dig him out and help him up. Agatha, Merlot and Glassvitch began to rush forward as well, and found themselves looking down the giant two-meter-long barrels of the clank’s guns, a steely “HOLD” their only warning. They skidded to a halt.

Gilgamesh slowly clambered to his feet. “That’s the worst filing system I’ve ever seen.”

Klaus rounded upon the huddled scientists. His voice was cold. “Beetle, this sloppiness is intolerable. Have these people—”

“No, Father, wait.” He was interrupted by a smiling Gilgamesh, “The thump to my head has cleared it, I think. I believe your theory is… incorrect.”

Klaus looked surprised. “What?”

Gil nodded. “Yes, what you want is possible, but your theoretical structure is flawed. There’s no way this machine could ever work.”

Klaus’ face darkened and he drew himself up. When he spoke his voice was glacial, and his words were measured. “Think carefully, boy. You’re saying that I am wrong?”

Gil paused, took a deep breath and squared his shoulders. He clutched the fishbowl to his chest protectively, but his voice was firm. “Yes.”

Klaus slowly relaxed and looked at him carefully before he swung his arm onto Gil’s shoulder and patted it twice. He smiled. “You are quite correct, my son.”

As one Merlot, Glassvitch and Agatha burst out with a loud “WHAT?”

Gil frowned in annoyance. “Another test, Father? I am beginning to find them tiresome.”

Klaus twitched an eyebrow. “Ah, it is much like raising children then. But I persevere for the moment.” He turned to the three shocked researchers. “Thank you, doctors. You will receive new assignments tomorrow.”

At this Agatha could no longer contain herself. “This was all for nothing? But they worked so hard!”

Glassvitch began to nod furiously in assent. “For three months we have toiled on this monstrosity!”

Merlot, who had seemed the most stunned, began to show signs of a growing annoyance. “We were simply… window dressing.” His voice gained energy. “I see. I understand.”

Glassvitch looked at him in surprise. “What? Silas, you’re the one who’s always going on about how little time we have for our own work.”

“Oh, yes—but now I understand why the great Dr. Beetle couldn’t be bothered to work on this oh-so-important assignment.” His voice began to break with emotion. “Unlike we mere mortals, he had real work to do.”

Dr. Beetle frowned and stepped up to the distraught scientist. “Merlot! I don’t like your attitude—”

“Then how do you like this?” With viper-like speed, Merlot spun, and his hand cracked across Beetle’s face, spinning the older man halfway around and sending his spectacles flying through the air.

The Jägermonster’s machine pistol lazily swung towards Merlot. “Ho!” He grunted, “I tink I bettah—”

A hand dropped onto his arm and Klaus shook his head. “Hold. Gil? You are about to receive an important lesson in employee relations.”

Meanwhile Beetle and Merlot had squared off, the aging scientist vibrating with rage. “How dare you! I’ll—”

Merlot interrupted him. “Shut up! Shut up! My attitude? How dare you treat us like this? Just because you have the gift you think we’re simpletons? I have faithfully served you for twenty years and you waste my time with this garbage? I thought you had finally given us something worthwhile! I am not a student! I am not a construct! I haven’t got The Spark, but I am not a fool and I do not have to take this from an arrogant has-been like you! Does the Baron know that his trusted old mentor has defied his strictest orders with his latest experiments? Experiments conducted in the middle of a civilian town?”

With a snarl he strode over to an unobtrusive wall panel, jerked it open and threw the switch inside. “Perhaps he would like to see the important work that has been keeping the Beloved Tyrant of Beetleburg so busy!”

Dr. Beetle screamed, “Merlot! Silas! For the love of God! NO!”

However, this came too late, as the back wall of the lab folded back into itself, revealing a hidden laboratory. Dominating the center of the hidden room was a massive glass and metal sphere, festooned with gauges and pipes. Within its depths swirled a thick roiling fluid. Within the fluid, shapes could only vaguely be seen, but when one slowly drifted close to the glass, what could be seen was extremely disturbing. After one look, the Jägermonster and the clanks independently swung their weapons towards the panicked Dr. Beetle. Dr. Glassvitch pulled Agatha back. The expression on Klaus’ face would have frozen nitrogen.

A triumphant Merlot gestured at the sphere. “Slaver wasps, Herr Baron! I wish to report that two weeks ago we found a fully functional, unhatched Hive Engine, which Dr. Beetle insisted upon bringing into the heart of this University!” He turned with a vinegary smirk towards Dr. Beetle. “Now—Master—show me how fast that superior mind of yours works! I want to see you talk your way out of this!”