Agatha H and the Voice of the Castle

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.”

“Can’t you just get more?”

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.”