Agatha H. and the Airship City Read online

  “The Baron has established a curfew,” Agatha warned her. “He’s using clanks and those creepy Jägermonster things.”

  Adam and Lilith looked at each other. To her surprise, Agatha saw that they were more relaxed than she had seen them in quite a while. “Really? It’ll be like old times then. Now get to work, lock the door, put up the ‘Away’ sign, and don’t let anyone in while we’re gone.”

  “Okay.” Agatha headed up the stairs. “Be careful.”

  Adam and Lilith watched her go. Lilith allowed herself a brief fierce hug with Adam. “Confound the master,” she muttered into his vast chest, as he tenderly patted her head. “We’re not equipped to deal with this. Eleven years! Where can he be?”

  Three hours later, Agatha sat wearily on her bed. She had tackled the cleaning of the house first, then the dismantling of the generators. Although she knew that Adam and Lilith were constructs, her parents had never talked about who had created them. Agatha suspected the reason had something to do with the competence of that unknown Spark or, rather, the lack thereof. There were numerous flaws with the pair, such as Adam’s inability to speak. The most painful to them was their inability to have children. The most embarrassing was the lack of care that had been taken when assembling them regarding things like uniformity of skin tone, and Lilith’s left eye, which was noticeably larger than her right. When she was younger, Agatha had pointed out that the variegated skin revealed that at least their creators had been equal opportunity exhumers, while her mismatched eyes were a flaw shared by the famous Heterodyne construct, Judy, and thus no detriment. Lilith’s reaction to this statement had always puzzled the youngster. It was only as she got older that she realized that the Heterodyne plays that were performed at fairs and circuses by traveling players consistently portrayed the Heterodyne Boys’ construct servants as buffoons, and that none of the constructs that her family knew enjoyed these plays. Agatha had thus realized that constructs were considered second-class citizens, and explained her parents’ efforts to keep their status as such hidden.

  But the most annoying flaw in their construction was that they were unable to maintain the charge that gave them life. Periodically, they had to hook each other up to a small hand-cranked generator and re-vitalize themselves. At a young age Agatha had once stumbled upon them during this process and had suffered nightmares for several weeks as a result. The generator was never talked about except when absolutely necessary.

  Agatha looked around her room now, and mentally packed the large rucksack at her feet. No matter how she did it, there were things she loved that were going to have to be left behind.

  Before Adam and Lilith, she had lived with her Uncle Barry. All she could remember about him was that he was a large, good-natured man who was very good at repairing things, seemed very worried about things he couldn’t talk about, and who would, without warning, periodically uproot them from whatever town they had established themselves in and have them travel for days, sometimes for weeks, to another town.

  In the beginning Agatha had thought it was fun. But as she got older, she realized that she had no friends. Partially this was caused by their constant travel, and partially by the fuzzyheadedness that began to increase its hold upon her thinking around that time. Upon their arrival in a new location, children could tell that there was something not quite right about the newcomer, and with the casual sadism of the young, proceeded to give her a hard time. After an especially cruel series of pranks, which even her perennially preoccupied uncle had noticed, they had come to Beetleburg, and the Clays, where she had found the loving stability she had so desperately needed.

  She remembered the guarded joy she had felt when the Clays had told her that this was her room. For quite a while, she tried to do as little to it as possible, convinced that they would soon leave. It had started out as a simple, bare attic, but as time passed, Agatha had begun to devote a great deal of time to it, and now it was a thing of beauty.

  At a young age, Adam had shown her how to carve wood, a skill many machinists honed, as they often had to design and forge their own parts. Her early efforts defaced the bottoms of newel posts and cabinet doors, but eventually she began to develop a grace and geometric precision that allowed a profusion of cunningly interlaced designs to cover many of the wooden surfaces. The ceiling had been painted a dark blue and covered with bright yellow, white and orange stars. Hanging from the ceiling were various objects that Agatha found interesting: a gigantic dried sunflower (which she had been convinced was the result of some Spark’s biological tinkering), a stuffed iguana she had discovered in a musty old junk shop, an airship kite that her uncle had built for her long ago, and a Roman sword that Dr. Beetle had discovered while digging the foundation for a new building. Crammed on shelves were her precious books, fossils, unusual bits of madboy tech, clocks, and a small misshapen clay dog that a boy had given her when she was eight.

  On the shelf in front of her single window were racks containing pots of plants, some common herbs, some exotic and strange things that she had collected from the spice shops or the Tyrant’s Botanical Gardens.

  It would all have to be left behind.

  Even, and the thought filled her eyes with tears, her work table, a vast swivel-topped affair that Adam had constructed in secret for her one Yuletide several years ago. All that remained on it were her drafting tools, her notebooks, and the remains of the few, painfully few, devices she had constructed that actually worked: the butter clock, the air-driven quill sharpener, the hooting machine, and the wind-up hammer. They had already been dismantled, and that had been the hardest thing to do. With a groan she allowed herself to fall back onto the bed in despair.

  They had all lived together happily for several months, and Uncle Barry had made the occasional trip while leaving Agatha in the care of the Clays. Agatha had vague memories of a growing tension amongst the grownups, which culminated in a late night argument she could dimly hear from her bedroom. The next morning, the tension appeared to have cleared and Barry announced that he was going on another trip. A lengthy one, that might take as long as two months. He had written three times: once from Mechanicsburg, the home of the fabled Heterodyne Boys; once from Paris; and over a year later, a much travel-stained letter, full of disquieting and vague ramblings, that was found to have been slid under the Clays’ front door while they had been outside the city picking apples.

  It was the last they had heard from or of him.

  The thought of returning to that wandering lifestyle filled her with apprehension and she felt her head begin to throb in a peculiar way that left her feeling dizzy.

  “Maybe a short nap,” she muttered, and stripped down to her camisole and pantalets before burrowing under the covers. A thought eased its way to the forefront of her mind even as she felt herself begin to slide into sleep: her whole day had started going wrong when that electrical phenomenon had appeared. But bizarre things occurred all the time, such as last week’s sudden mimmoth infestation. The tiny pachyderms had been discovered living in the sewers, and an ill-thought-out poisoning scheme had seen the creatures emerging from drains in alarming numbers and establishing themselves in houses all over town.

  No, the problems had really begun when those two soldiers had stolen her locket. Agatha’s last coherent thought as she succumbed to sleep was “I wish I could get my hands on them.”

  In a small, cheap rooming house, the objects of Agatha’s thoughts were reaping the results of that morning’s encounter. Moloch paced back and forth in the tiny room, as a lean man wearing a long white apron over his suit examined Omar. Moloch’s brother was stretched out unconscious upon the room’s single bed. The doctor removed his stethoscope and leaned back with a hiss of annoyance.

  Moloch turned towards him. “Please, Herr Doctor, can’t you help him? What’s wrong with him?”

  The doctor tugged at his small beard in frustration. “I don’t know. I’ve never seen anything like this. This man should be in a hospital.”
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br />   Moloch shuddered. “Oh no, I saw enough of them in the war.”

  “I don’t mean one of those butcher shop field hospitals. Ours is fully equipped and your brother needs—”

  “What? What does he need? What could they do? You don’t even know what’s wrong with him!”

  The doctor opened his mouth, hesitated, and then nodded reluctantly. “Yes. No fever, no chills. No respiratory problems, no sweating, no convulsions—But… it’s like he’s… shutting down, like…”

  “Like a boiler when you’ve blocked the air intakes.”

  The doctor looked at him with mild surprise and nodded. “Yes. Well put, young man.”

  Moloch ignored the compliment and leaned over the unconscious man. “Ach, Omar,” he muttered, “you’re a jerk, but you’re all I have left. Fight it!” He slapped his brother’s face but got no response.

  Behind his back, the doctor’s look of worry increased. “How long has he been like this? Days? Weeks?”

  Moloch shook his head. “He started to feel dizzy, um… a little before twelve hundred. He got more and more disorientated and collapsed around fifteen. Towards the end he had trouble talking, and I… I don’t even think he knew who I was. He passed out around sundown.”

  The doctor looked shaken. “That quickly? Dios,” he muttered. “How do you feel?”

  Moloch looked surprised at the question. “Me? Okay, I guess, why?”

  “I’m trying to decide if I should have you moved to the hospital along with your brother.”

  “What? But I’m not—”

  The doctor was paging through a book he had removed from his medical bag. He stopped and looked Moloch in the eye. “Listen, von Zinzer, was it? This could be some sort of plague.”

  Moloch went white. “Plague?”

  The doctor nodded. “The big question is how contagious it is. Aside from hospitalization, my other option is to quarantine the pair of you in this inn. You talk to anyone other than the innkeeper?”

  “No, there weren’t any customers when we—”

  “Praise be for that. Where do you work?”

  “Nowhere. I mean, we just hit town this morning.”

  The doctor made a small grunt of satisfaction at this news and made another checkmark in his book. “Mm. Probably something you picked up outside then. Eat anything unusual? Find anything odd?”

  “Odder than Beetle Beer? No, we—”Suddenly Omar convulsed upon the bed. A strangled groan came from his mouth. Moloch and the doctor were at his side instantly.

  “Omar?” Omar’s head whipped from side to side twice, froze in position, and a deep final breath rattled from him as he sagged back into stillness. Moloch knew he was dead even before the doctor checked his brother’s pulse and then drew the sheet over his head. In the silence, the sound of something hitting the floor echoed through the small room with unnatural loudness. In death, Omar’s hands, which had been clutched for hours, had relaxed, and Agatha’s locket had dropped to the floor.

  The doctor reached down, examined it briefly, and handed it over to Moloch. “I’m sure it gave him some comfort.” Moloch looked at him blankly, the locket clutched in his hand. The doctor continued, “I myself don’t know whether the Heterodyne Boys will actually come back someday, but I do believe that we should live our lives as if they were. People like your brother, who try to make the world a better place, do so by the very act of trying. I’m sure the Heterodynes would have been proud of him.”

  Moloch looked woodenly at the locket and then back at the doctor, who changed the subject as he donned his hat and greatcoat. “I’m afraid I must be going. Now listen up, soldier. I’m confining you to this room. I’ll have a medical disposal team up here before dawn for your brother. You can relax, our Dr. Beetle doesn’t permit unauthorized resurrectionists in this town. You’ll be fed and examined for the next week and after that you’ll be free to go. So sit tight soldier, and we’ll do our best.” And with that he slipped out and shut the door behind him.

  Moloch grimaced. “Reckon Omar and me have seen your ‘best.’” He turned to glare at the sheet-covered form. “You idiot!

  Your last act on earth is to steal from a townie and leave me stuck holding the evidence waiting for her to report me. That’s making the world a better place, huh? Leaving me stuck like a sitting duck!” In his fury he threw the locket against the wall where it smashed open with a bright blue flare and the sounds of gears scattering. A smell of ozone filled the room and brought Moloch up short. “What the…?”

  He bent down and gingerly picked up a few bits of the locket. It had contained a pair of portraits, a handsome-looking man and woman. But hidden behind the portraits were the smashed remains of delicate machinery. Machinery that Moloch was totally unfamiliar with.

  He muttered as he gathered together the bits from the floor. “Too complicated to be a watch. Not a music box. I’ve never seen anything like this…” A chill swept over him. “This is madboy stuff.” He examined it again. “But what did it do?” He raised his eyes and found himself looking at Omar’s body.

  With a cry he leapt back, scattering bits of locket across the floor. After a moment, he gingerly picked up the larger pieces and examined them again, to ascertain that it was indeed broken. Of this there could be no doubt.

  “This is what killed Omar,” he muttered. “He started acting strange right after he stole it from that girl…” A new thought emerged. “The girl! She was wearing it and it wasn’t killing her. She must have… turned it on, somehow. She knew it’d do him, the black-hearted—wait! Wasn’t there a note?”

  He turned the locket over and indeed there was lettering engraved upon the back:

  If found, please return to Agatha Clay Clay Mechanical Forge Street, Beetleburg. REWARD

  Moloch grabbed his greatcoat and slung it on as he left the room. “A reward, huh? I’ll give her a reward a’right, and she’ll be making no reports when I’m done with her either.”

  Agatha was very small. She ran into a large room filled with tools and machines and things that she didn’t understand, but knew were full of magic, mystery and excitement. At the center of this collection sat the master of the magic, her uncle Barry. He was a large shadowy figure hunched over a workbench, where something full of gears and springs grew under his tools. “Hey, Uncle Barry,” Agatha cried as she entered. “I learned a trick!”

  The large man paused and slowly turned to look at her. Even now his face was in shadow. A small set of spectacles glinted in the light from his bench. “A trick?” he enquired.

  Agatha nodded, and jumped up and down in place with excitement. “Yeah! You know how when you’ retryin’ to think and there’s noise and stuff botherin’ you? Well I found out I can make other noises in my head and it makes the botherin’ noise stop! And then I can think real good! Listen!” With that she stopped jumping, serenely folded her hands and began to hum, no, to whistle? To buzz? No… It was all of these and yet none of them, a soft melodic sound that you couldn’t call music, but…

  The effect of this performance upon Uncle Barry was electric. He stiffened in shock and the handle of the screwdriver clutched in his hand cracked. His voice was strained. “You… no! It can’t be!” Agatha hummed on obliviously. “You’re only five years old! You’re too young! You’ve got to stop!” His large hands shot out and grabbed her shoulders and began to shake her. Agatha kept on humming. She could no longer stop, even as her uncle cried, “I don’t know what to do! I don’t know what to do! I don’t—”

  A particularly violent jerk snapped Agatha awake. She was slumped over a table—another jerk—someone was grabbing her hair!

  She twisted around enough to see that her assailant was one of the soldiers who had accosted her this morning! Without thinking she swung her left hand and the large spanner she was grasping connected with Moloch’s jaw and sent him crashing to the ground.

  Agatha blinked in surprise and examined the tool in her hand. “Where did this come from?” she muttered, and t
hen noticed that the hand holding it was black with grease and dirt. With a cry, she saw that both of her hands were dirty up to the elbow, as was her underwear—

  Her underwear? But she was in the middle of Adam’s shop floor! A wild look around showed her that tools were scattered and parts were littered across the floor. Heat still radiated from the great welding torch and, most astonishing, the tall double doors to the street were wide open.

  As Agatha hurried to close them, she saw that outside, in the first light of dawn, a small crowd had gathered to help the ironmonger across the way right his wagon, which appeared to have been overturned in the night.

  Slamming the doors closed and surveying the disheveled workshop and the unconscious soldier, Agatha could only mutter to herself, “What’s happened?”

  CHAPTER 3

  “When lightning hits the keep the wise man does not sleep.”

  —Traditional folk saying

  In the early dawn light, the streets of Beetleburg were quiet. Most of the populace peered out through shuttered windows or from behind curtains. Beetleburg was a town under occupation, the Tyrant was dead, and no one was sure what the future held.

  A few brave shops were open, carters still moved necessary supplies through the streets under the watchful eyes of Wulfenbach forces, but the heart of the town, the University, was closed. Crowds of students and teachers filled coffee shops and taverns discussing the events of the previous day. These conversations fell silent whenever the tall brass clanks of Baron Wulfenbach passed by outside. Their machine cannons constantly moved from side to side as they slowly strode down the center of the streets.