Agatha H. and the Airship City (3 page)

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!”