Agatha H and the Voice of the Castle

Gil swept a hand around the room. “I know you well enough! You’re better than this! Look at this stuff! ‘This isn’t what we need’? Are you serious? Do you think molecular destabilizers show up in pork pies? Of course not! You have to build them out of sausage grinders and automatic bootjacks just like everyone else! With the machines in this room alone, you could cannibalize enough material to make anything if you weren’t all frozen up worried about killing him, which is stupid!”

By this time, Gil was shouting in full Spark voice, and Agatha’s tones matched his. “Gil, this stuff is dangerous! It would be easier to just kill him and then revive him!”

The two of them stopped and stared at each other round-eyed as amazing possibilities began to blossom in their imaginations.

“It…it would greatly simplify the procedure,” Agatha breathed. “But…there’s still the danger of catastrophic mental breakdown for both participants…”

Gil put his hands on her shoulders and looked up at the nearest machine. “Nonsense!” he said. “Once we cure him, sorting out the minor side-effects will be simple! Come on, if we try to get him to the hospital, it will be too late. We’ve got to act fast or we’ll lose him for good. I think, if we’re creative, these machines might actually be useful.”

Agatha turned to face him. She could feel her blood roaring through her veins. “Ah! Yes! We may be able to reconfigure that blood-to-brass thing to act as a filter!”

Gil’s eyes were wide. “Oh! Yeah! And it may be possible to eliminate death-trauma memory loss entirely if we shunt him out of his body while we work—”

Agatha slapped the copper lattice. “And we even have something that can generate the nuanced current!”

Gil was actually hopping in place. “Ooh! Ooh! And if we keep high voltage running through everything the whole time, while applying—”

Agatha squealed and clapped her hands. “Exactly! Then the cascade effects that usually kill everyone and set the lab on fire probably won’t even have a chance to begin!”

The next few minutes saw the two of them dashing about the laboratory, excitedly producing bits of arcane technology and figuring out how they could be repurposed. At the end, they were laughing and yelling, clutching each other’s hands, and jumping up and down while finishing each other’s equations. Finally they both simultaneously shouted out a final “Zero!” and stood panting, staring at each other with shining eyes.

Agatha gripped Gil’s shoulders. “This has a small, but fascinating, chance of actually working. Let’s do it!” she growled.

Gil wiped the sheen of sweat off of his brow and stared back at her with smoldering eyes. “This will be great!” he said fervently. “I can get killing Tarvek out of my system and give him a hard time about it later!”

At the mention of his name, Tarvek stirred and let out a small groan. Agatha flew to his side. His eyes fluttered open. “Agatha,” he whispered. “I don’t think I’m at all well.”

“No, no!” Agatha brushed his long bangs out of his face and patted him happily. “It’s all going to be all right! We’re just going to kill you and then you’ll be fine!”

Tarvek goggled up at her. Agatha wasn’t sure if he understood or not, but—

Gil stepped in. “Agatha… Okay, my turn.” He clutched his forehead. “Tch. You have a lot to learn about talking to patients.”

Agatha was confused. “Oh, but—Science—”

Gil put a finger to her lips and she paused. He then sat on the table next to Tarvek, who continued to look horrified. Gil was, apparently, something much worse than a simple nightmare. Gil leaned in. “Shut up,” he told Tarvek.

Tarvek, who hadn’t actually said anything, blinked, and continued to be silent. Gil took a deep breath. “Okay. Listen up. Because you are an idiot, you’ve somehow managed to get yourself infected with Hogfarb’s Resplendent Immolation. If you were paying attention in Professor Fauve’s lectures,⁷⁹ which I rather doubt, you’ll know that once the second stage begins, you’re going to go up like a torch. We’re going to try to prevent that by destroying the chroma igniters that have invaded your system.

“Now, we’ve got a bunch of old Heterodyne torture machines here, so we’re going to tear them up and try to cobble something together with the parts. It looks like we might have to drain all your blood and run it through an improvised filter—but we’re thinking we’ll combine everything with a modified si vales valeo which, yes, means that we’re going to have to kill you for a while. Unless…huh. Interesting. Actually, it’s possible that instead of a single moment of death, you’ll experience a continual rolling death for as long as we run the current. Still, that’s only if we can’t transfer your mind into a rat, or something…either way, do try to pay attention so we can take notes later.

“Also we think we probably might have a way to keep you from becoming a ravening monster but we’ll keep you chained down just in case.”