Agatha H. and the Clockwork Princess

A frantic nodding. “Especially with you!”

A peculiar calm settled upon Gilgamesh. For years he’d imagined what would happen to him if he failed to measure up to his father’s never-ending tests. Surely the reality couldn’t be worse. Probably. He nodded. “Very well.”

He turned to Ardsley and put a hand on the distraught man’s shoulder. “Wooster, go on to the lab without me. Work with Zoing. Keep everything stable for as long as you can. I...” He swallowed. “I may be gone for some time.”

Despite this acceptance, it was still a pale, nervous face that shortly peered around the slightly opened blast door to Klaus’ laboratory. “Father?” he ventured.

“GET IN HERE, YOU IMBECILE!” Klaus roared.

Gil quickly threw the door open wide and was hit with a wave of moist heat. The lab was like an oven. Even his father, who was a stickler for formal dress most of the time, was clothed in little more than rolled up shirtsleeves and a foundryman’s leather overall. Gil tried not to stare. His father was sweating, which combined with his unshaven face and the circles under his eyes, gave him a terrifying appearance.

Reflexively, his eyes swept the room and discovered it equipped with a baffling hodgepodge of chemical, electrical and medical equipment. Whatever it was that the Master of Castle Wulfenbach had been working on, it had been tortuously complicated.

Gil took in the large camp bed and the various kitchen trays, which indicated that Klaus’ residence here had been prolonged and that this project had required constant supervision. He felt a flicker of curiosity, which was then snuffed out under the force of Klaus’ rage.

Klaus grabbed Gil’s upper arm and dragged him towards the center of the room. Gil saw an ornate, and obviously handmade container, over three meters in diameter, somewhat resembling a steam boiler, but fitted out with a bewildering array of additional devices. Studying it, Gil was even more puzzled. He could identify almost all of the devices in play, but could not conceive of what possible project they could all be working on in concert.

Releasing Gil, Klaus strode up to the container and threw a knife switch on the side. A set of green lights on the bottom of what was revealed to be a fluid filled tank flared on. Klaus spun about and pointed to the tank. “Who the blazes is that?!”

Gil stepped forward. Within the tank floated a naked girl. Gil estimated that when she stood, she would be tall and full figured. A short, thick mane of curly black hair floated above her head. Her eyes were closed, and there was a curiously blank look on her face. Gil studied her intently, frantically searching his memory.

Finally he gave up and turned to his father. “I... I don’t know who she is, father. Should I?”

This only seemed to further infuriate the elder Wulfenbach. “That is the girl who’s body you brought back!”

Gilgamesh stared at her. “Girl? What girl? I didn’t—” Realization hit him. “Miss Clay?” He stepped forward. “That’s Agatha?”

“No!” Klaus roared. “That’s the girl you told me was Agatha!” He slammed his fist upon the container, which boomed in response. “Weeks of preparation! Constant monitoring! I’m finally set to decant her, and this is what I find!” He glared at Gil. “You fool!”

Gil felt his head start to reel. He stepped back. Not from the heat of his father’s rage, but from the waves of realization that were battering him with successive bursts of insight.

“She’s still alive!” Another realization. “The circus... they tricked me!” He looked at Klaus blankly. “Father—they tricked me!”

Gil hadn’t believed that Klaus could get any madder. He was incorrect. “Am I supposed to feel better because the heir to my empire was duped by a pack of carnies? ”

Gil wisely realized that there was no good answer to this. Klaus turned away in disgust. Gil felt the ambient heat begin to diminish. He considered breathing.

“Fortunately,” Klaus continued, “I decided to attempt a revival.”

Gil blinked. “But... her head was—”

Klaus waved him into silence. “Yes, the brain was a complete loss. But then, I thought, a Spark’s brain can be such an obstreperous thing. But a Heterodyne, ah—that would be a useful thing to have in one’s arsenal.” He turned to look at the floating girl. “I had the body. If I could repair that, why then I could fill it with any brain I wanted.”

Gil stared. It was an audacious plan. But what left him breathless was the medical miracle that Klaus had developed solely in order to implement it. Even after this fiasco, the Baron’s scientists would be developing and refining this for years to come.

“But now—!” Klaus ended this speculation by again smashing his great fist onto the tank. “I want her back here!”

Gil felt himself nodding frantically. “I’ll—”

“No!” Klaus fixed Gil with a look of contempt. “I will take DuPree and I will fetch her myself!”

Gil blanched. He thought desperately. “Do you know where she is? It’s been months.”

This checked Klaus. “True...”

Gil tried to sound reasonable. “You’ve done some astounding work father, but you must be exhausted. You’re the one who always says that important decisions should always be made twice —once when tired, and once when rested.”

Klaus hesitated, closed his eyes and wearily rubbed his great jaw. “I do, don’t I?” He regarded Gilgamesh with an unreadable expression upon his face. “Perhaps you are—” he paused. “Yes, Boris?”

The four-armed secretary checked the knock he had been about to complete. “An important emissary from Sturmhalten has arrived, Herr Baron.”

This was unusual enough that it piqued Klaus’ interest. “Very well, show him in.”

The Count Hengst von Blitzengaard, immaculately attired in a formal traveling cloak, stepped into the lab and kept from perspiring by sheer force of will. Gil was impressed. He crisply bowed and formally presented a large black envelope, encrusted with the winged sword and gear sigil of the House of Sturmvarous.

“Forgive the intrusion, Herr Baron. I bring most grave news[57].” Klaus accepted the envelope, snapped the wax seal with a thumb and unfolded the document within. He looked at his son.

“Prince Aaronev Wilhelm Sturmvarous IV, is dead,” he announced.

Gil frowned. That meant that Aaronev Tarvek Sturmvarous was the next prince. He shook his head. There would be trouble there—

“A lab accident?” Incredulity filled Klaus’ voice. He slapped the paper. “It says here that Aaronev died in a lab accident.”

Gil shook his head. “Preposterous.”

The Count cleared his throat nervously. “The Royal Family assured the medical—”

Klaus interrupted him. “There are many things I can say against Prince Aaronev, but in the lab he was the most meticulous and procedurally brilliant—” Klaus stopped dead. Within his uniquely convoluted brain things were coming together. “It’s her!”

Gil tried to understand. “Her who, father?”

“The girl! Agatha! I know it!”

“How could you possibly—”

Klaus waved his hands impatiently. He had enough confidence in his son’s thought processes that he did not even bother with full sentences. “Circus! Passholt gone! Balen’s Gap! Time versus distance. Aaronev is a fan of Heterodyne shows—he was always Lucrezia’s slave! Of course that’s where she’d wind up!”

He turned to his secretary, who was already poised to receive his orders, notebook in hand. “”I’ll be leaving for Sturmhalten within the next three hours. I’m assigning the Seventh Groundnaut Mechanical, the Fifth Airborne, a