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Chapter Text

The beam of sunlight shining through the window slowly traveled across the floor of the room. It would have been a tidy one-room apartment were there not papers and half-finished projects scattered about desk and table and most horizontal surfaces. Heaped in the sink in the small nook to one side besides a gas stove were a stack of dirty dishes and cups. At least one mug had its bottom melted out. The minutes passed as the sunbeam charted a course across a faded Turkish carpet and along a quilt sewn from enough patches to count as a construct. Two figures underneath it had pulled it close against the chill that seeped through the windowpanes edged in a late-autumn frost.

Sunlight briefly made a golden trilobite--held by a stout anodized steel chain about one of the occupant’s neck--flare as if it were a nova blossoming in the night sky. The sunbeam then moved up to rest against one eyelid. It fluttered open to reveal a green eye still muzzy from sleep. Muttered imprecations in Romanian about blowing up the sun issued forth. Sighing with displeasure, the woman under the covers reached out to search among the papers heaped on the night-table beside her. On the ring finger of that hand was a puzzle-ring of copper and silver and gold crowned with a dynemond that glowed an eerie blue. Perching the glasses on her nose, she shifted upright until she was propped up against the headboard with a pillow behind her. Old instincts had her clutch the coverlet against her for modesty before letting it fall to reveal that she had gone to bed without bothering with a nightgown.

Grumbling like a balky steam-tractor with a defective boiler issued forth from under the quilt beside her. A head crowned with thick, dark hair that was tousled from last night’s exertions turned to look at the source of the disturbance of his rest. The thick beard that covered his lower face did not hide the satisfied grin as he reached out to caress one bared breast. A matching puzzle-ring to hers on said hand brushed a nipple. The woman hissed in pain-pleasure at the slight electric shock brought by the contact and the rough skin of the palm on her skin. Reluctanctly, she twisted his wrist just so to break the contact. The man smirked as he sat up revealing an upper body thick with hair and a few scars. His companion in bed permitted him to slip an arm about her waist. Together, they looked out upon the little kingdom they called home.

“Black fire and slag, we have got to clean this sty up,” Moloch said.

“It is getting a bit cluttered, isn’t it?” Agatha agreed.

“We let it get any worse, we’ll have to hire a backhoe from Public Works.” Moloch rolled his shoulders. “You take care of the dishes. I’ll deal with the papers and stuff.”

“Why do I have to take care of the dishes?” Agatha nudged him in the ribs. “You pig. You expect to keep me chained up in the kitchen.”

“Hey, I’m an enlightened Mechanicsburger now.” Moloch instinctively shuddered. “You’re doing the dishes because if we do it the other way ‘round, you’ll end up with your nose stuck in some notes or fiddling about with one of those--whatchacallem--contraptions.”

“Point.” Agatha snuggled up against him. “I am so glad you mugged me.”

“Hey, I made up for it, didn’t I?” Moloch smirked. “Like last night for instance.”

“Stop!” Agatha laughed. “We’re already sticky enough to count as a biohazard by this town’s standards."

“Fine.” Moloch leaned back. “Ladies first.”

“You are not fooling me,” Agatha scolded. “That isn’t chivalry. That’s an opportunity to leer at me.”

“Damned straight.” Moloch crossed his arms behind his head. “You have a wifely duty to show off that chassis of yours.”

“I recall you once said I wasn’t your type.” Agatha winced as the chill in the wooden floorboards lanced through her bare soles.

“I was kind’ve an idiot when I said that.”

“That you were.”

The floor really was cold enough that she did not make a show of it as she had last night. A blush blossomed all over her as she recalled some of the moves she had done while celebrating All Hallow’s down at Mamma Gkika’s. That had been the actual one rather than the tourist trap at ground level. There was still a vestige of the prim, innocent girl she had been to make the memory of dancing like that in public in a weasel-pelt bikini. Well, she had been a Mechanicsburger for almost eight months. The Jaegers in the bar had no doubt seen worse. She filled a bucket of steaming hot water and another of cold from a pair of secondary taps on the wall in the kitchen nook. Mechanicsburg was advanced enough that even cheap one-room apartments had hot-and-cold running water. She could bathe properly without having to heat water on the kitchen stove like she had when living with Lilith and Adam.

A frown briefly creased her features.

They had to have disappeared for good reasons, hadn’t they?

A mild headache blossomed in her skull between her eyes while she scrubbed herself in the galvanized steel washtub kept behind a modesty screen decorated in a combination of African tribal motifs and Celtic knotwork. She fought it off with a bit of effort. It was a ghost of the migraines that used to plague her up until That Day. They came much more rarely these days. By the time she had rinsed herself with a wet washcloth, her head was quite clear of anything besides the energy that came to her at the start of each day. Why, she already had so many ideas about fixing that Bugatti coffee engine at-- Over the top of the modesty screen came Moloch’s hand to flick one ear. Ah. Priorities. She took the thick mimmoth-wool robe and the steel-toed house slippers from Moloch as he passed her to take his own bath. She snuck in a slap on one buttock in passing. She savored his yelp.

He had erected a sign with DO THIS OR ELSE I WILL PAWN ALL OUR YOUR TOOLS FOR LINGONBERRY SAP with an arrow pointing at the kitchen. Sweet lightning, she was not that bad! Agatha checked herself as she found herself veering towards the little pocketwatch casing resting on her workbench by one window. No. It was a Sunday. Time to do some chores before having a quiet day of rest. She admired the view beyond the window. The Great Hospital could be seen a hundred meters away above the rooftops. Above it loomed The Castle like some ancient predator on the spire of rock that dominated the home of the Heterodyne Boys. She cocked her head. Odd. It...almost seemed as if it were less of a wreck. She had the oddest dreams of wandering hallways dominated by rubble and deathtraps with wrench in hand and a hum on her lips. Shrugging, she rolled up the sleeves of her robe to start the distasteful task of dealing with six days’ worth of dishwashing. Drat it, she so hated chores. One day when she had a horde of minions--

Ho. She was imagining herself some spark. That was a bad idea around here.

Still, she found herself singing a stutter-step bar song she had heard at Mamma’s as she settled into the rhythm of wash and rinse.

Well I don't know why I came here tonight,
got the feeling that something ain't right

Strong arms tightened around her from behind.

I'm so scared in case I fall off my chair,
And I'm wondering how I'll get down the stairs

“You have the worst singing voice I ever head,” Agatha said, leaning back into her husband’s arms.

“Deal with it,” Moloch said to his wife.

Two voices sang in the little apartment.

Clanks to the left of me
Jaegers to the right, here I am,
Stuck in the middle with you

Chapter Text

"DIE SLOWLY LIKE THE MISERABLE RATS YOU ARE!"

     Agatha screamed as her rant of fury was crushed under the savage headache that always came when she felt too much.  She collapsed against a pipe set into a wall of the stinking alley she had so stupidly run into like an idiot character in a Heterodyne play.  Because she was an idiot.  She was weak and stupid and damaged and worthless.  You must always wear it, Agatha.  That was the only thing that her uncle Barry had asked of her since he had disappeared.  That was what Adam and Lilith always told her.  It was the single act in her short, miserable life that she had ever managed to perform.  Now she was a failure even in that.  She should have swung for the soldier's wounded knee rather than his jaw.  She should have risked running away instead of trying to fight an experienced fighter.  She should have looked where she was going when she fled the mirage.  She should--

    Distantly, she heard the chimes of Mr. Tock in the distance announce it was seven o'clock.

    Oh no!  She was going to be late!

    She frantically scrabbled for glasses and flat green cap.  So intent was she that she only noticed the shadow looming over her until it was too late.  Agatha screamed when an arm in a crimson greatcoat sleeve reached out to her.  They had already robbed her.  That meant they had come back for something else.  They might want to silence her or-- Red fire, there were stories whispered among town girls about things that soldiers got up to with unwary girls who came too close.  And she was alone in this alley and no one seemed to hear her screams and she was on her back and what had Lilith said fight or lie back or or or or.  Wedged up in a corner, she gritted her teeth as another headache ripped through her.  Maybe if she seemed she was too damaged they wouldn't do that.  If they did--oh, sweet lightning, she had run out of the house without even drinking her morning's cup of trusty maiden tea.

    Something familiar was placed into her palm.  Agatha stared at the golden trilobite locket that she had worn since she was five.  Fumbling hands opened the Heterodyne sigil in front to reveal the two portraits within of her biological parents.  Tears dripped down her face as she clasped it to her breast.  They weren't lost to her.  If--no, when they came back, they would see she had kept faith with them.  One fingertip found a big dent in the back of the locket casing.  Well, that was alright.  It wouldn't show.  No-one would eve know how close she came to being completely worthless.  It took three tries to pin the locket to her shirtwaist collar with the straight pin worked into the back.  She winced as her head filled with something like static before it tailed off.  Ooof.  That stinking thug's slap must has hurt her more than she had thought.

     A groan came from nearby.  Agatha dove for the bottle that she had tried to defend herself with before.  It had shattered when the soldier had knocked it from her hand.  Holding up the jagged bottleneck, she finally found her glasses knocked into a puddle by a leaking rainbarrel.  She did not bother to clean them before sliding them on.  Another groan came from behind a stack of discarded packing crates.  Edging towards the source, she kept the broken bottleneck out before her until she saw red trousers and hobnailed boots.  One of the two thieves was lying on the ground with a hand clutched to one eye.  Some blood dribbled from his nostrils.  His other hand was buried between his legs.  He gave her a look very similar to Doctor Merlot's: the world is filled with idiots and fools and incompetents, and now there's You.  Agatha suddenly realized he was not the nasty one.  He had a moustache and neatly trimmed beard about his jaw.  He had been the one to ask for change.

     "Tell you what, kid," the soldier rasped out.  "Never, ever give in to heroic impulses."

      He turned to face down the alley towards the street.

     "I PULLED YOUR CRAZY, UNGRATEFUL ASS OUT OF THAT BURNING WRECK!" The shout echoed off the walls of the alley.  "AND WHEN I TELL YOU WHAT THEY DO TO THIEVES IN THIS BURG, WHAT DO YOU DO?  YOU ROB THE FUCKING TOWNIE!  AAAAARGH!"

      "You--you came back," Agatha said.  Patting herself down, she found a handkerchief that she dipped into the rainbarrel.  "You're hurt!"

      "Of course I'm hurt," the soldier said.  "My raging asshole of a brother who I SHOULD HAVE LEFT TO BAKE LIKE A BAGEL fights everyone.  Including common sense."

       "I'll set the Watch on him."  Agatha wiped away the worst of the blood.  She eased his hand away from his eye.  "Okay.  Um, it doesn't feel like the orbit is broken.  You'll just have a terrible black eye for a while."

      "Look, you got your trinket back."  The soldier swallowed nervously.  "No harm, no foul.  He's the only brother I have left okay?  I mean, Bruno and the kid got to the woods.  But nobody else got out besides Omar and me--"

      "Fine."  Agatha worked her jaw.  "I'll just report your brother to the Watch as a nuisance to be ejected out of the gates."

      "You're a real doll, kid," the soldier said.

      "Agatha," she hissed.  "Not sweetie, doll, babe, or especially townie of the type you said I was."

      "Heh.  Understood."  The soldier grinned weakly.  "Nice to meet you.  Name's Moloch.  Could you pretty please put down the bottle?"

     "Oooops.  Well, it's only a little nick."  Agatha wiped away the fresh wound on his neck.  She cocked her head.  "You said a wreck?"

     "Yeah, me and my other eight brothers crew--crewed a walking gunboat."  Moloch sagged.  "I was lucky as hell to make it out.  Black gang usually never escapes."

      "You're an engineer?"  Agatha brightened.  "We always need qualified engineers at the university.  I--I can ask my master if he can find a position for you."

      "You have a master."  Moloch's smile fell.  "You're a minion to a Spark."

      "I am Doctor Beetle's personal secretary and lab minion."  Horror came over her.  "Although I won't be either for long because RED FIRE I AM LATE!"

      "Look, all I want is some chaaaaaa---"

       But by then she was dragging him behind her as she ran for Transylvania Polygnostic's gates.

++++

        Agatha knew the smiling couple would forgive her.  The portraits that had once been in the locket were now in a miniature picture case stored in a lockbox of at the Imperial Post Office and Bank down by the Field of Weights.  Such a treasure was too risky to keep in the apartment where it might become damaged or stolen.  In the locket now were a pair of colored tintypes taken at a local studio of herself and Moloch looking at each other in mimicry of the unnamed parents that her Uncle Barry had assured would always watch over her.  It had been taken three months ago after they had properly said their vows in the Red Cathedral: him in bowler hat and morning clothes, her in the green and gold wedding dress that Violetta had surprised her with.  Apparently she had some cousin "back home" who had a way with fashion.  It had fit her perfectly.  The "real wedding" had been a quiet ceremony conducted by Doctor Yngln instead of the tacky ones conducted by the Bill and Barry impersonators for the tourist crowd.  Although in truth, she had considered herself wed since that moment in the alley.  That had been the start.

       She had never had the dent in the locket fixed.

       It was a reminder of the only good thing to happen that day.

       "Let's go out to the Sausage Factory," Agatha said.  "I don't feel like making another stack of dirty dishes so soon."

       "Sure."  Moloch set aside his morning ale.  "I mean, don't get me wrong.  You're a great cook."

       "It's just chemistry."  Agatha put on her green military greatcoat over a green tweed dress and white shirtwaist.  "Whereas what you commit in the kitchen defies all the laws of god and man."

       "I am not a Spark!" Moloch snapped.

       "Yes, love," Agatha soothed.  "Just two ordinary people."

       "Agatha, trust me.  After the day I met you, I never ever thought you were close to normal."

Chapter Text

      She missed Beetleburg.  Seven years in one place after a life of wandering with her uncle Barry had left its mark on her.  Some nights, she ached for her cozy room at Adam and Lilith's home.  She missed helping Lilith in the kitchen with her canning to provide for disadvantaged constructs.  Dreams of sitting in the smithy with a cup of cocoa watching Adam work on a particularly interesting device had her waking up with tears in her eyes.  What pained her the most was the loss of the university.  It had been in her life ever since she had began sneaking into TPU to secretly audit classes at twelve.  Working towards her Doctorate of Medicine under Doctor Sun was an amazing experience.  But it didn't replace being at an institution of the caliber of Transylvania Polygnostic.  There was such a breadth of subject matter in the classes that the Great Hospital's medical program couldn't provide.

      But the ache for her old home town faded with each step she took upon the cobbles of Mechanicsburg's streets.  There was a sense of connection that rushed from the hideous mechanisms no doubt buried under the surface through her bootsoles and into her body.  It was as if some long-dormant energy was coming back with each passing hour.  There were dreams where she hovered above the town with the voice whispering in her ear that it was hers.  All hers.  Everything was perfectly clear in its entirety--from the torrent buried deep within Castle Hill to the amusing defenses scattered about the Carpathians surrounding the town.  Everything was at her command through the simple application of will.  She cackled as the cityscape shifted with a quirk of a finger.  Cries of worshipful despair came from below as the townspeople worshiped their goddess of masonry and steel and power.  URBAN REDEVELOPMENT WAS FUN!

      The scent of pastry and caffeine alkaloids brought her back to reality.  So did the welcoming cries of the café patrons.  Rinja herself came up with a cup of the Javanese/Ethiopian blend that Agatha favored.  In her other hand was a mug of what her husband called a good, honest cuppa joe.  Others called it the Black Death.  The spoon in the mug stood straight up within it.  Their usual orders arrived a minute later.  In spite of its name, the Sausage Factory usually only served pastry or dairy meals for breakfast.  But Rinja had been happy to cook them the heavy breakfasts of eggs and bacon and sausage and--well, really, she should be worried about gaining weight with how much she ate these days.  Moloch of course was a bottomless pit that fed on entire farms without showing a paunch.  What had she been thinking?  RInja had started cooking them these special breakfasts after a month or so of patronage.  It was rather impressive how she knew to have them ready.  As if she had been told they were coming the moment they decided to visit.

     People who called Mechanicsburgers a clannish, insular society simply did not know how to make the effort to connect with them.  Oh, they were not particularly welcoming to outsiders aside from the mask of hospitality they donned for the tourists.  She and Moloch had had to rent in the residential part of the Hospital District because "foreigners" working at the Great Hospital had trouble finding lodging in the Tumbles.  But really, all one needed to do was reach out to them.  These days it was as if she and Moloch were born Mechanicsburgers with a thousand years of history behind them.  Moloch had been inducted into the Court of Gears Neighborhood Association after Charlemagne Greenclaw had sponsored him for membership.  She was busy with everything from the Restoration Committee she had started up to helping Mamma heal the jaegers in the bar-hospital under the town.  There had even been an offer for a small home in the Tumbles with an actual backyard with lab-shed at an amazingly-low interest rate and generous payment schedule.

     Moloch's muttering about how they should quit this "weirdo town" to head for the bright lights of Paris were pretty much over.

     Funny how the airship docks and the tracks leading to the Corbettite terminal outside of town always seemed to develop issues when he did that.

     "My lady," came a smooth voice.

     "Oh, stop, Van."  Agatha laughed.  "That joke was funny the first time."

     "Hey, you really are a lady."  Moloch saluted him with his mug.  "Guy knows quality when he sees it.  Better than I did when we met."

     "Don't remind me," Agatha huffed.  "What a day that was."

+++++

      She was LATE!  Late, late, late!  If she was anymore tardy, then her master would officially make her LATE so that she would be actually useful as a resurrectionist's practice cadaver in the medical school.  That she had to drag Malc--er, no, his name was Moloch--behind her was not helping.  For a homeless soldier, he seemed really reluctant at the chance for a cushy job at the university.  You would think he was trying to run for the nearest gate in the walls.  Agatha refused to let go in spite of all his clumsy tugging.  She had to reward him for so gallantly coming to her aid.  He had chosen her over his brother.  He had brought back her locket so she wouldn't be worthless and broken and stupid.  She would spin some tale right out of the Heterodyne Boys novels that her parents did not allow in the house about fighting off some horrible man whose face she had not seen to save her virtue.  Then Doctor Beetle would have to give him a job so that she could stop by after classes to give him a big hug for what he had done.  Because he was kind and nice and didn't think she was a useless lump of meat.  Yet.  Well, he had to get to know her, didn't he?

     Moloch's heels were actually digging furrows into the greensward that surrounded the high walls of the university when she broke out of the winding streets.  Oh dear, the gardeners would be so angry at her!  She saw that his jaw was open as he stared up into the sky.  Oh, he must not have seen Mr. Tock up close before.  The twenty-meter tall battle clank with its mortarboard on its head and the clock in its chest could be seen above the rooftops all over town from the right angle.  It seemed to be a particularly impressive urban monument...right up until you were before it hearing steam hiss under its brass carapace and saw it shift its massive bulk with slow yet deadly intent.  Mr. Tock and the Clockwork Army had been the town's principal defenses for over thirty years since Doctor Beetle had perfected them.  Agatha had become so used to Mr. Tock over the years that it seemed routine for the daily routine of--

    "IDENTIFY YOURSELF," Mr. Tock boomed.

    "Aaaaagh!  Every day this happens!"  Agatha yelled.

     "IDENTIFY YOURSELF OR BE DES--"

     "We're gone!'  Morl--no, Moloch screamed.  "We're vamoosing!"

     "Agatha Clay, Student 8734195!"  Agatha pointed at Moloch.  "And a new experimental subject I am bringing in for the bounty."

     "WHAT?!"

      "Shhh.  It's the quickest way."  Agatha stamped her boot.  "Come on.  Come on."

      "WORKING.  WORKING.  WORKING.  ACCEPTED.  ENTER, STUDENT AND MEATBAG."  Steam hissed from the vent holes on either side of Tock's stylized brass mustache.  "YOU ARE...LATE."

      "Thank you, Mr. Obvious!"  Agatha rushed through the gap when the clank shuffled its feet apart.

      Moloch was shouting something silly about letting him go.  Agatha grimly pressed on even as he tried to flee when seeing the bell jars in the center of the university's main quadrangle.  The special glass of the Tyrant's main form of punishment could resist even a blast from a death ray.  The desiccated corpses within had certainly found out that beating against the jar with bare hands and feet was quite useless.  They also found that the glass of the jars focused even the tiniest bit of sunlight into an intensity that turned the interior of the execution chambers into the equivalent of the Sahara at noon in the middle of summer.  Well, Moloch certainly had no reason to worry about that!  She would attest to his honest character and sense of honor!  Why, the students milling about already sensed that.  They were staring and whispering and pointing as she towed him like a stricken dirigible into a repair dock towards the main building of TPU.

      She had a bit of trouble with the Watch clanks posted at each of the heavy brass-over-solid-steel security doors leading to the center of the building.  They immediately whipped gun-fingers into position upon sensing Marl--Moloch beside her.  She had to repeat the little fib about Moloch every time.  It was a very frustrating delay!  Especially when Moloch tried to beat his way through the doors after they had sealed behind them.  She finally had to order a Watch clank to throw him over one shoulder so she could get to the lab.  Sweat poured down her brow as she saw that it was OH NO FIFTEEN MINUTES PAST THE HOUR!  That was verging on being absent without sending a note with three doctor's signatures as to why she hadn't dragged herself in on time by her eyelids.  She dove through the final set of doors into the Tyrant of Beetleburg's private laboratory.

      Agatha froze in terror at finding her nemesis glaring at her.  Doctor Silas Merlot was her bete noire.  The short, thin man with close-cropped ash-blonde hair was feared throughout the university as Tarsus Beetle's second in command and martinet.  He was scared everyone below tenured professor more than Mr. Tock.  He seemed to bear a special grudge against her for some obscure reason.  He constantly complained that a klutz like her had no place in an august institution like Transylvania Polygnostic.  That she was allowed to be present at Doctor Beetle's experiments that not even senior faculty were permitted to witness was a sore point.  While her master's word on her attendance was final, he did not interfere in Silas Merlot's prerogative of enforcing discipline upon her as both student and lab assistant.  The fury in his expression at her lateness--

     --and she had brought an uncleared stranger into the inner sanctum of the Tyrant's labs--

     --and that he and his colleague Doctor Glassvitch were clearly trying to clean up the lab, a task that was a minion's job--

     --maybe she should have been beaten to death by Omar in the alley.  It would be less painful than what was coming.

     "Silas, she is here."  The dark-skinned Parisian who was Doctor Merlot's only friend laid a hand on the man's shoulder.  "A bit late, perhaps--"

      "Only one of her many sins," Merlot spat.  "Miss Clay.  Do you have any reason why I should not suspend you indefinitely from this lab for reasons of gross incompetence?"

      "I--I--there was this electric storm and this thing in the air--"  Thunder and lightning flared behind her temples.  "I rushed into this alley and this bad man tried to hurt me but then Muh-Moloch stopped him--"

      "Mon dieu, she has been through an ordeal," Glassvitch said.  "Come, sit in a corner with a cup of tea."

      "Are you insane?  He will arrive in a bare half-hour!"  Merlot snarled.  "Miss Clay, when the Tyrant finds you have grossly violated security protocols on such a day, perhaps he will finally see sense to banish you--"

      "By Jove, are you that Silas?" Moloch said.  "THE Silas?"

      "What are you doing?" Agatha muttered out of the side of her mouth.

      "Dealing with this asshole," Moloch muttered back.

      "Well, yes.  Doctor Silas Merlot."  He tugged on the lapels of his labcoat.  "You have heard of me."

      "Oh yeah, sure, you're famous!"  Moloch turned to Glassvitch.  "Wow, this is just an honor to be in the same room with him, isn't it?"

      "Oui."  There was a little smile at the corners of Glassvitch's lips.  "You are an academic, monsieur?"

      "Nah, just a soldier.  My girl here was always writing about you in her letters."  Moloch snaked an arm through hers.  "We've been pen-pals for ever so long, haven't we, sweetheart?"

      All rational thought crumbled into flaming wreckage in her brain.

      "--writing to me through this pen-pal service for a year," Moloch continued.  "I know she seems a mouse.  But my sweetie gets pretty hot and heavy with the pen.  Know what I mean?  Getting those perfumed letters kept me going until I finally left the service a month ago.  Couldn't wait to meet her.  And now I've met the amazing Silas Merlot!"

      "A secret lover, Miss Clay?"  Merlot quirked an eyebrow.  "Well, one can see why you might drag him through several security checkpoints in your...enthusiasm."

     "Come, we all were young once," Glassvitch said.  "Besides, no doubt our Miss Clay's beloved would be happy to help us put this lab into order."

     "Sure thing!"  Moloch clapped his hands.  "And I'd love to hear about that theory of yours that Agatha was always yammering about in her letters."

     "My chalk-into-cheese theory."  Merlot actually smiled.  "Well, many hands make light work."

      "They do."  Glassvitch leaned close to Moloch as Merlot went to arrange scattered notes.  "Mon ami, I do believe that at this moment your nose is browner than mine."

      "Schmucks like him are all the same whether they're wearing a lab coat or a uniform."  Moloch winked back.  He nudged Agatha in the ribs.  "Come on...uh...Anna--"

       "Agatha."  She whipped about to glare into his face.  He was short enough that she had to look down slightly just to do so.  "Why in the same of a merciful deity who I suspect does not exist did you let them think you were my long-distance lover?"

      "Got you off the hook, didn't it?"  Moloch shrugged.  "Besides, what would they think if I was just some random guy you pulled out of an alley?  I had to think of your reputation."

Chapter Text

     The Empire appeared to be quiet at the moment.  This meant that he had approximately one minute and forty seven point three seconds to brood.

     Klaus Wulfenbach examined the copy of the file on one Mrs. Agatha Shlemazl from the Great Hospital's employee files.  He had had only a very brief glimpse of her before events in Beetleburg had gone out of control.  Any official information on her had gone up in flames with Transylvania Polygnostic's records and the town's archives.  But the picture matched the description given of her by the faculty.  Her height, weight, and age matched the profile of her under another name.  She had not even bothered to dye her hair a different shade.   The girl had at least had the sense to apply for an anonymous janitorial position rather than as a secretary or lab assistant.  That had lasted precisely a week before there had been a medical crisis in the middle of the night where no staff had been nearby.  Doctor Sun's notes on the incident indicated she had a familiarity with medicine far beyond anyone from the obscure but real village in Wallachia that she had listed as her last stable place of reference.  The style of the device she had cobbled up on the fly had a clear influence of Tarsus Beetle.  While crude, there were several hints of latent brilliance in what was undeniably sparkwork.

      There was no indication that the first female spark sighted in ages had any idea that she was one.

      Klaus picked up the faded photograph on his desk.  Lucrezia had been long-excised from it with a scalpel.  There he was looking so young with Bill and Barry before Mr. Tock.  All three of them had their arms around each other.  Standing to one side with amused exasperation was Tarsus with a fuller head of hair and perhaps a few millimeters more of height.  Klaus framed his old mentor's head between his thumbs.  It all fit.  An orphan girl who had been placed with a humble smith and his wife was allowed into university at twelve ostensibly as a favor to her family.  Despite a record of incompetency, she had been indulged as the Tyrant's own minion.  There had been the usual rumours about her serving on her knees under his desk when the doors of the Master of the University's office was closed.  Klaus supposed that Tarsus had fostered them herself.  Just he had done something to send her scatterbrained and useless while keeping her by him at all possible times.

       A man would do anything for his child.  Klaus knew that all too well.

       The people of Mechanicsburg might have been fiends only ready to slip back into their old ways given the slightest chance.  They also honored the debts of their Masters.  Doctor Beetle had risked taking in a pair of Heterodynes when they had showed up at TPU's gates asking for admission.  He could easily have set Tock and the Watch on them.  So the town took care of what had to be the natural daughter of the Heterodyne Boys' teacher.  They were starved for the service of any Spark.  Klaus narrowed his eyes.  In fact, they might even have the audacity to try to groom her as their own false Heterodyne Heir to counter any put in by other factions.  He would have a quiet word with the Jaegergenerals about such a scheme.  The girl was by all accounts happy in her life as a newlywed. 

       He could, of course, have her brought in with a snap of his fingers.  He was the ruthless tyrant of much of Europa.

       Klaus placed the photograph back into his private documents safe.

       He wasn't feeling that tyrannical today.

      "Baron!"  A messenger on a unicycle appeared in the doorway of his office.  "There is a rebellion of street musicians in Arnstadt!  There are reports of mass luting!"

      Klaus checked the clock.

     Right on the money.

+++++

      Agatha buried her horror about the rumours that would soon be sweeping all over campus under a show of furious industry.  Already, she could hear the snickering that she had writing to soldiers out a pathetic need for a lover.  Sweet lightning, what would Lilith say when whispers reached her ears that new machinist at the university was her secret boyfriend?  She would probably end up locked in her room at all hours she was not at school.  Adam would escort her back and forth from school.  Oh, no.  The Baron was here weeks early.  He would likely find out about it.  How would it reflect on Doctor Beetle's reputation if she were known to be of loose morals?  She might as well find out if the Corbettites had a nun auxiliary where she could be cloistered bent over a desk calculating train schedules.

      Thank you, Mr. Moloch, for saving my reputation!

      On the other hand, the job was getting done with much greater speed than if it had been her doing it alone.  Doctors Merlot and Glassvitch dealt with the papers while leaving the heavy lifting to her and Moloch.  Agatha had to show him where everything went--she had long since memorized the lab's layout--but he worked with a will and ease that spoke of years of experience.  She was not very familiar with military matters.  She had seen the largely ceremonial guild militias work at polishing their muskets and shining their buttons before the parade.  Perhaps it was the same with whatever armies that he had seen service with.  There were things like inspections and such, weren't there?  In any case, both of them were able to put right to the chaos the lab had been in with minutes to spare.  They had not even had to shove anything into the storage closet.

      Agatha sagged against a workbench while cradling Doctor Glassvich's pet goldfish's bowl.  Moloch was lounging against a file cabinet with a beaker in hand.  He had stripped off his greatcoat and golden waistcoat to work in shirtsleeves.  The full-length apron that he had donned covered the crimson trousers with gold braiding on his legs.  He appeared to be just another minion.  He studied the Dihoxulator with bemused interest while pouring half the beaker's contents into a measuring glass.  Agatha was so nervous and tired that she almost drank it before stopping to waft fingers over the glass while sniffing cautiously.  She had almost drank pure alcohol!  How on earth he was staying upright with the amount he had already consumed was a mystery.  Agatha regarded the glass.  Looking from side to side, she poured an appropriate amount of distilled water before taking a cautious sip.

     Oh.

     Why did Lilith have such an objection to the devil drink?  This helped so much with her nervousness.

     "You're a lightweight, huh, sweetheart?"  Moloch said.

     "Mother's a teetotaller."  Agatha swayed on her feet.  "Didn't have breakfast this morning.  I feel so odd."

     "Easy, there."  Moloch consumed an amount of ethanol that should have dissolved his stomach lining.  "So what kind of crazy Spark nuttiness is this of your master's?"

     "Ish--"  Agatha deliberately set aside the treacherous glass.  "It is a device meant to test a theory involving secondary oxidation.  Doctor Beetle has had us working on it for months on behalf of the Baron."

     "You mean the local baron."  Moloch chuckled.  "You wouldn't drag me in here to have Klaus Wulfenbach himself walk in here."

     "Well, who else would be able to dictate to the Master of TPU to do an experiment?"  Agatha cocked her head.  "Wait.  it's wrong--"

     "You mean the Baron Wulfenbach is coming here?  Right now?"  Moloch had her by both her upper arms.

     "Look, you can see that forces are canceling each other out throughout the device."  Agatha craned her head to see better.  "If you would just move, we could adjust it so that it could work.  Although that completely invalidates the Baron's theories."

     "Get. Me. Out. Of. Here."  Moloch shook her with each word.

     "But, I have to introduce you to my master."  Agatha reached for the nearest hammer.  "You really do have the makings of a fine lab assistant."

     "I do not want to become some madboy's minion!" Moloch spat.

     "Doctor Beetle is among the finest minds in Europa," Agatha protested.  Hmmm.  She was going to need a screwdriver and a crowbar.

     "Agatha, you have your heart in the right place," Moloch said.  "But I am terrified of Sparks.  I'll take their pay as long as I serve a long distance from them."

     "Oh."  Agatha winced.  "That was why you were shouting, weren't you?"

     "There has to be another door."  Moloch reached out to tug a lever.  "Does this open a way out?"

     There was a rumble.

     Moloch screamed.

     Agatha turned.

     Hive engine.

     Hive engine not five meters away.

    Hive engine in the middle of a university and the town.

    Agatha was a klutz.  Agatha was a joke.  But she had very good instincts and years of experience in dealing with terrible lab accidents.  She also had nearly two decades of lectures in one form or another about the Other's devices and creatures.  She had already ripped a sonic pulse pistol from its hidden safety-equipment holster under one of the work-tables while she leaped towards the alarm panel.  Doctor Merlot was in her way for some reason.  No time for niceties.  It was ever so slightly gratifying to pistol-whip him in the jaw.  Her fingers were already dancing over the numerical pad above the line of buttons for more common emergencies.  Half a life spent in labs and drilling in safety procedures had her punch in the priority code for HIVE ENGINE DISCOVERED.  The shrieking, ululating alarm that signaled a slaver wasp invasion filled the air with a wild cacaphony that was joined when the town's sirens joined in a second later.

     She was vaguely aware of the main door opening to reveal her master and several other figures.

     She was too busy stabbing the lab self-destruct release--automatically engaged when the hive engine code was entered--to really care.

      "RUN FOR YOUR LIVES!" Agatha screamed as a voice stated that they all had thirty seconds to reach probable-safe distance.

Chapter Text

      Agatha stood in a chapel whose walls were inlaid with the bones of untold dead in intricate patterns.  Hundreds of skulls set into the floor stretched from one wall to another.  Was she within some inner sanctum of the Red Cathedral.  Above her, a great serpentine clank with a gargolye's face of gleaming steel loomed over her before an altar of oily dark stone.  A drop of blood dribbled its way down from one massive fangs.  She touched her left hand to find it bandaged.  The monstrosity was hissing at a figure that was shaking a fist at it.

    "--how dare you deny me, minion?" the clank snarled.

    "--wind up bucket of rubble, she's not ready, look at her--" the figure said.

     Moloch.  It was Moloch.

    "She will serve.  Already there is progress."  The clank widened its jaws.  "Whereas you, little minion, are preventing her from taking her rightful place.  The Doom Bell must ring, she must be proclaimed--"

    "Moloch?"  Agatha tried to think over the static in her head.  "I--am sorry?  There is something.  I didn't know?"

   "It's okay."  Moloch turned to her.  "We're strong.  We'll get through this."

    The clank silently dipped down with steam pouring from a mouth ready to devour.

    "No.  If you dare, I will tear you apart stone by stone."  Agatha punched the thing with her good hand.  "YOU HAVE NO RIGHT.  WITHOUT HIM, THIS IS ALL--"

    --pointless?

    Agatha idly rubbed the row of scars on the back of her hand.  She did not quite recall how she had gotten them.  It had probably been from a slip of the hand when she had woken up after fiddling with a project in her sleep.  She took another sip of coffee to drive away the drowsiness from the heavy-yet-delicious breakfast.  Her first time ignoring Lilith's admonition against stimulants had been drinking the dregs from a break-room coffee urn during the witching hour.  Doctor Sun Jen-djieh stood at the pinnacle of the Europan medical field.  He was also a very hard task-master to those he took on as apprentices.  She had been aching from several hours of instruction in the Way of the Harmonious Bedpan on top of a day of rounds.  He had then put her to work organizing files.  The sludge that had dribbled into the paper cup had sent her on a tear that had resulted in a new filing system that made finding things 16% more efficient; the entire floor she had been on buffed and waxed to a shine; and half-sweeping the roof clean before his grand-daughter Mingmei had tagged her with a blowgun dart.   The next day, Vanamonde had taken her through a curated tasting to find a blend suited to her tastes and caffeine tolerances.

    Agatha smirked behind her cup at the sight of her husband utterly unaware that new waitress was besotted with him.  It appeared that the curvy young woman with the slightly Parisian complexion was a new member of the Moloch Shlemazl Estrogen Brigade.  What was her name?  Snug?  She was one of the inmates within the Castle tasked to repair the shattered fortress of the Heterodynes.  Sentence to the "Waxworks" was effectively a death sentence in all but name.  Actually earning enough points to be set free before the malfuctioning systems and death traps in the Castle killed them meant that parole was almost impossible.  It seemed that the prisoners had improved their skills at fixing the place.  About five or six inmates had stumbled down the winding path to the town.  Agatha had seen one girl with pink hair and an orange jumpsuit kiss the cobbles in the outer ward before running screaming about not stopping until she had gotten to Trondheim.  The guards at the town gate had actually taken pity on her enough to let her through.

      Agatha gently cleared her throat.  The waitress scowled in irritation as she turned to the source of the interruption.  Her features went almost as white as the froth on an espresso when she saw Agatha.  Snug--no, Snaug actually curtsied several times scrambling away to bring another plate of gingerbread trilobites.  Why, you'd think that the woman had thought that Agatha was the Heterodyne herself.  Moloch stared at the retreating would-be interloper before shrugging.  He settled back to read the Paris papers from the rack of major Europan news-sheets that graced the wall of each booth.  The headline on the front page facing her announced that Gilgamesh Wulfenbach had married some princess--a Blitzengaard--in a surprise wedding at Notre Dame.  Apparently, the nobility of Europa were already sending their best wishes via assassin.  Hmmmph.  Well, at least her wedding had been without such ridiculous drama.  Such was the privilege of being a pair of relative nobodies.

    She studied the doodles on the paper before her.  The service at the Sausage Factory was exceptional.  They were always willing to cater to a customer's little needs: paper, pens, drafting instruments, and detailed street maps and structural blueprints.  The latter for the Mechanicsburg Insane Asylum was spread out beside a plate containing the crumbs of an eclair.  The Asylum was one of those amusing oddities that cropped up in a town that catered slavishly to the whims of its eccentric rulers.  A Heterodyne in the eighteenth century had declared that a madhouse be built to "put in all the nuts in town".  The obvious conundrum to defining who in Mechanicsburg was mad enough to merit incarceration without fatally insulting the Old Masters meant that it had stood empty for over a hundred and fifty years.  In her experience, the average faculty member of a university would be most appropriately committed to such a place.  So there was a saving all around.

      "Oh, hello, Van!"  Agatha smiled up at the café's nigh-permanent resident. 

      "My lady."  Vanamonde Heliotrope studied her doodling with intent in his blue eyes.  "A university of our own?  An excellent idea."

      "Hey, you could recruit some of the freaks that got out of the Castle early," Moloch said.  "They're pretty much stuck in town until the empire decides--when hell freezes over, I bet--to let them move out.  Get them earning their keep."

      "That's a great idea!"  Agatha smiled.  "Perhaps I should send this to Burgomeister Zuken so something can be done with the idea."

      All three of them had quite a laugh at the idea.

      "If I may, I could pin this up so we could have the townspeople in favor sign a petition."  With a flourish, Vanamonde placed an official petition form before her.  "You should be the first to sign.  Along with your husband." 

      "I don't think my name carries that much weight."  Agatha signed her name, anyway.  "Still, the opportunity to resume studies besides medicine would be great."

     "Such a pity that they were interrupted," Vanamonde said.

     "I, ah, left under a bit of a cloud," Agatha said.

     "Mushroom cloud," Moloch muttered.

++++

      There was a mushroom cloud where most of the building that had contained the Master's personal lab had been.

      There was also fire and screaming everywhere.

      Agatha cowered behind one of Mr. Tock's great brass-covered arms as shells from a Wulfenbach clank's machine-cannon streamed by centimeters above her head.  She had run out of the main building expecting the Watch and Mr. Tock to have formed a perimeter along with whomever the Baron had brought along for security.  What she had emerged into was utter chaos.  The Watch had been been shooting at what had to be hundreds of Wulfenbach troops of many types.  That had included dozens of Jaegermonsters--the bestial Heterodyne shock troops that only were sent in against the most dangerous of threats.  Mr. Tock had been stomping his way about and slamming his great fists into the Wulfenbach forces until a man with messy brown hair had run up with back with a rope-and-grapnel to plant an explosive charge.  The blast had knocked the great clank off balance enough for a cannon shell from the small fleet of aerial dreadnoughts above to finish it off.  The digirible had then itself had been blown to bits by a scarab-shaped seeker drone.

      There were dead and wounded students and faculty everywhere on the quadrangle's grass along with the casualties among the soldiers.  Agatha had witnessed several fairly horrific accidents in the labs while attending TPU.  None of them compared to the carnage of the battle being waged on the grounds.  How had this happened?  Why had there been a Hive Engine hidden in the lab?  Why was not Doctor Beetle beside the Baron, visible some distance away, rallying his troops with a great basket-hilted sword?  Instead, someone had released every single dangerous clank and construct in the university.  Only someone with Doctor Beetle's authorization codes could do that.  Something had gone horribly wrong and she had only been doing what she had been trained to and this was all her fault she knew it--

      Someone was screaming at her.  Agatha tried to focus past the terror and the static in her mind.  It was Moloch.  Beyond him, she could see Doctor Merlot tending to Doctor Glassvich.  One sleeve of the latter's labcoat was gone save for a charred fringe by the shoulder.  Everything between that and his fingertips was a blistered mess.  Merlot was being completely useless with the medical kit he had somehow gotten in between here and the lab.  Adrenaline surged through her as she crawled behind the cover of the severed clank-arm.  She shoved the Master's second-in-command aside.  Assess, treat, bandage.  Not that she could do much for Doctor Glassvich without an operating theater and a spare arm.  Oh.  There was one right over there, actually.  She should grab it on the off-chance a surgical suite showed up.

     "Are you out of your mind?"  Moloch dragged her back into cover by her collar.  "First rule of battlefield survival is cowering behind the cover.  No, that's the second.  First rule is never ending up on a battlefield in the first place."

     "Let the cow go, my good man."  Doctor Merlot's words were slurred by the swelling of his jaw.  "You have truly buggered everything up.  My only consolation is that Beetle will personally kill you slowly for this betrayal."

     "Silas, please."  Glassvitch groaned.  "If the fault was anyone's, it was ours in helping the Master."

     "Why would he do that?" Agatha hit a nerve cluster in the ruined arm with a spring-loaded injector. 

     "Because he's a Spark, Agatha," Moloch said.  "Because they can't help poking at what they shouldn't."

     "He always resented the Baron's take-over of the town."  Merlot sniffed.  "No doubt he sought a method of controlling the wasps. Somehow it was meant to fight off Wufenbach's hold over him."

      "No."  Agatha's voice was faint.  "Doctor Beetle is the finest mind in Europa.  He is a towering intellect."

      "Everyone of the team who found the Hive Engine in the river died of 'accidents'," Glassvitch said.  "Ma cherie, you were the only innocent among us."

     "Not that the Baron will care."  Merlot glanced at his only friend.  "I do believe it is a good time for an extended sabbatical to Paris or Londinium."

     "We have to get out of here first!"  Moloch waved around at the battle raging about.  "No way we're getting through the main gate.  We have to blast through the walls."

     Agatha glanced down at the little sonic disruptor pistol in her hand.

     "--with what, you fool?  It isn't as if we have explosives about--"

    She opened up the casing.

    "--going to die--"

    "Moloch.  I n-n-need tools a-a-a-and a-aaaaassistance--"

    The static filled her entire world.  Through a haze, she saw her hands dive into the internals of the pistol alongside Moloch's.  He produced some tools from the front pocket of the apron.  She could see it clearly as the static chased off the thunderous presence of a migraine lurking in the back of her mind.  Yes.  Take out the safety interlocks.  Patch in this to that and increase the frequency spectrum and output.  You would lose collimation.  But the extra power would compensate.  She ripped random pieces out from Mr. Tock's arm that just seemed to fit so perfectly.  When her hands froze in indecision, her voice guided Moloch through the steps that needed to be taken until she could resume.  But she was starting to loose it.  The headache was coming but she had to fight it off because otherwise they would all die, Merlot would be no great loss, but Glassvitch and Moloch had been nice to her and IF THEY DIED IT WOULD BE POINTLESS--

     Agatha screamed in agony as an entire storm front's worth of lightning tore through her neurons.  She pointed the shaking death ray in the vague direction of the wall about thirty meters away.  There was a shriek as the overpowered sonic disruptor tore itself apart within, then the crash of masonry falling to bits.  Someone had her hand slung about her neck as she was dragged across the lawn through a gap in the wall.  She--she had did it?  Someone of hers had worked?  Although really, it had failed in such a manner to to be useful.  Hah!  Adam and Lilith would be so proud!  She had been worth something after all.  They could tell her how amazed they were when all of them were in the deep and secure cellar under the house with Adam in front of the door to smush anything that came through.  She nudged Moloch as they struggled through the panicking crowds towards home. 

     Agatha smiled beatifically when she saw the neat house with the converted stables beside it that served as Adam's workshop.

     They would be alright.

     Then the engine tumbling from a wrecked airship slammed down where she had called home since she was seven.

     Fire.

     So much fire.

Chapter Text

     Agatha and Moloch indulged in the dark, twisted act of playing tourist for the afternoon.

     The tourist season was a refined form of hell that even the older Mechanicsburgers said could rarely have been bettered by the Old Masters.  From May to the coming of the snows, hordes of sight-seers and pilgrims came to shudder at the remnants of the Old Master's rule and celebrate the Heterodyne Boys' legacy.  Mechanicsburg was a town that, at heart, was the sinister fortress city of a line of maniacal geniuses where the only outsiders had come in by cage or at the end of a coffle chain.  Crowds of boisterous outsiders who left trash everywhere and whose manners tempted many to reach for the old trilobite-in-the-sock strained everyone's nerves.  You could get some relief in the Tumbles or the Hospital District.  But even then, you might find a tourist coming by for "the authentic Mechanicsburg experience".  Luckily for such fools, very few Mechanicsburgers snapped enough to actually introduce them to an authentic experience.  That caused all sorts of paperwork.  It also attracted the less savory sort of tourist.

     So there was an illicit thrill in playing tourist that was even more risqué than some of the stuff they had gotten up to last night.  Agatha had an instanmatic tintype camera about her neck--unloaded, because there were standards--while Moloch had a Bedeker tourist guide in hand.  They cruised the shops that sold all manner of memorabilia from trilobite jewelry to Bill and Barry Action Figures With Heroic Pose Action! to snowglobes with music-box mechanisms in the base.  She almost bought one for the tinkly rendition of the Mechanicsburg Song before sanity prevailed.  They visited the Heterodyne Museum.  How nice, they had brought back the Crushing Zoo!  They stopped by an Escar-To-Go cart to pick up some Greasy Snail On a Stick.  Any true townie would know about the delis where the really tasty snails were.  Agatha debated doing a wall walk.  The ramparts of the town provided a fine view of the countryside.  They also provided an enjoyable display of Hideous Counter-Siege Weapons Throughout the Ages, as the general practice was to keep the clockwork trebuchet in place while installing the lava gun.  That also made her a bit sad, mind.  It irritated her that Wulfenbach technicians constantly defanged whatever covert repair work the townspeople did to the defenses.

     They ended up on the bridge over the Dyne at Tiny Monster Island feeding the carnivorous ducks.  Both she and Moloch were wearing straw hats in spite of the chill; cloth bands around the crown proclaimed that each of them hearted Mechanicsburg.  Although at least the hearts were anatomically correct and depicted the hand around them that had ripped them from their metaphorical chests.  Agatha nibbled spun guncotton candy on a waffle cone as she tossed fried mimmoths to the quacking horde below them.  She rose on her toes when Moloch slipped an arm under her coat to stroke green twill just below where the bodice underneath started.  It sent her so mad with desire that she was half-tempted to haul him over her shoulder to the nearest honeymoon suite.  No, that was just too perverted for words.  If they ran, they could make it to that observation tower that got hit by lightning once a day.

     Was this what Lilith and Adam had felt upon being created for one another?

     Had they had a moment like this before it all came crashing down?

     The ducks squawked as tears kept back for months finally crashed through the floodgates.

++++

     Someone was screaming.

    Agatha was vaguely aware it was her.  She tore free of Moloch's bear hug to charge down the street towards the wreckage that had been her home.  Her left leg was knocked out from under her.  There was a numbness rather than the pain she expected.  A finger through the hole in her skirts found no entrance wound.  She must have been shot with a stun bullet rather than the lethal sort being used against active combatants.  Lurching like a broken Muse, she tore aside the burning remnants of the front door.  The reek of smoke and burning pork had her retching.  The front parlor where Lilith had taught her piano and dancing was gone.  All of the precious knicknacks that her foster mother had collected by catalog were now bits of shattered porcelain and glass.  The mess by the staircase leading up meant that much of the second floor was now down on the first.

    Her room, with its new drafting table and the decorative woodwork she and Adam had done together--

    Agatha drunkenly crawled towards the kitchen.  That was where she would have been.  She always did canning.  That was where the door to the deep, safe cellar was.  She heard a man shouting behind her.  She ignored him.  She had to get to them.  She.  They.  Her eyes looked without understanding what the shredded, battered figures were before her for several moments.  Oh.  There were the trick glasses that hid the fact that one of Lilith's eyes was bigger than the other.  Said eye was now hanging out of its socket.  A pool of purple ichor spread across the tile floor that Lilith always kept spotlessly mopped and polished.  That would be so hard to get out. Also, the beam that had driven itself through her in the small of her back.  Adam was lying beside her with an arm about her.  A massive piece of shrapnel had--  There were innards spilling out.  His legs were several feet away from the rest of him.

     She had done this.

     She had pulled the alarm.

     If she had listened to Doctor Merlot, the Baron would have never seen the Hive Engine.

     Her hand closed around a kitchen knife.

    Across the abdominal cavity.  It needed to be slow.

    A massive hand clamped over hers.

    Adam shook his head no.

    "Red fire, they're alive!"  Moloch was beside her.  "Pal, whoever made you might not have had much in the pretty parts bucket.  But they built you to last."

    "Child."  A giantess' arm pulled her into an embrace.  "Shhhh.  You will be alright."

    "I'm so sorry," Agatha whispered.  "Don't leave.  I can make this right.  T-t-here has to be, um, a sewing kit and the generator somewhere--"

    "We should have left earlier."  Lilith stroked Agatha's hair.  "You have to run now.  Take what you can.  See if you can reach the Corbettite terminal across the river with--ah--sir, who are you?"

    "This is my boyfriend Moloch," Agatha said automatically.  "We are very deeply in love.  He is very nice and good with tools and did not at all try to mug me in the alley this morning."

    Adam's other hand closed tight around Moloch's neck as he narrowed his eyes.

    "Dear.  Focus," Lilith said.

     Adam huffed.

     "-nk hyu--" Moloch choked out.

    "Leave us behind." Lilith said.  She began spasming.  "Get to Mechanicsburg.  Get to the--the--c-kkkrrrrk--"

    "Like hell we're leaving you here."  Moloch shook Agatha hard.  "HEY!"

    "WHAT?"

    "Don't be whiny, crying townie girl!"  Moloch shouted.  "I need the tough dame who smacked Omar in the chops with that bottle.  Otherwise you're just so much ballast that's going to slow us down and get us killed."

    "We--"  Agatha closed her eyes and hummed.  "Adam was working on Herr Ketter's tractor, I think.  It is big enough to carry us all out."

    Adam huffed and made several weak gestures.

    "Uh, I don't speak mime, pal," Moloch said.

    "Slow steam pipe leak, gearbox needs refurbishing, and the oil needs changing," Agatha translated.  "It's an old Krupp and Koch artillery tractor that Herr Ketter has been using for fieldwork."

     "Worked on those on the farms around my Ma's back home."  Moloch cupped her cheek.  "I need you to hold it together just a bit more.  Let me take care of this." 

    "Please, Moloch."  Agatha clutched him close.  "They are all I have since uncle left me."

    Agatha laid her head against Lilith's chest.  Unbelievably, her heart was stuttering within.  The static that had been crackling in her subconscious came over her like a flood to drown coherent thought.  She sensed Moloch shouting at Doctor Merlot in the direction of the workshop.  Doctor Glassvitch slumped beside Adam to drag his severed legs over to the top half.  There was a loud chugging.  Um.  They could always rework the tractor into a clank--  Then one wall of the kitchen collapsed.  A huge bulk of iron protruded from the hole.  Agatha hugged Moloch close as he took her in his arms.  Adam somehow dragged Lilith into the armored cab in the back of the tractor.  Merlot and Glassvitch were already within.  Merlot had doffed his labcoat save for a scrap tied about his head to absorb sweat.  He was furiously shoveling coal into the firebox. 

    Moloch deftly worked throttle and steering yoke to drive the tractor right through the smoking wreckage of the Clay house into Forge Street.  The tractor whined in protest when the former walking gunboat crewman redlined its engine.  The tractor jolted when it slammed through a squad of shako-wearing brass Wulfenbach warclanks.  Merlot screamed in terror when a cannon shell nearly beheaded him.  Moloch took the tractor through an alley between two rows of houses.  Agatha hoped that no-one had been in them, given the loss of structural integrity left behind.  The tractor's wheels sparked as they spun madly on the cobblestones underneath.  Oh.  She knew where to go.  Reaching up, she jerked the steering york to send them through a warehouse by the city wall...and through the south loading gate.  And also through a platoon of Wulfenbach troops who luckily jumped out of the way.  And through a Hoomhoffer that didn't.  There were giant mite parts smeared everywhere after that. 

     The Dyne river flowing out past the town walls was just meters away.  Across it was the fortified Corbettite abbey-station with a train already pulling out.

     A cloud of steam and shrapnel from the rupturing boiler enveloped them as they plunged off the bank and into the river.

Chapter Text

She looked down into the waters of the Dyne.

She saw, months earlier, herself looking at the Dyne from beneath.

Her legs were churning as they fought the suction of Herr Ketter's tractor sinking to the bottom.

Bubbles spilled from her mouth .

She wouldn't let go of Moloch's collar clenched in her fist.

That was how the Corbettite monks found them on the river bank.

+++++

"--and that is my story." Agatha leaned against the lattice in the confession booth.

"Be welcome aboard the Wyrm of Limerick." Conductor-Brother Ulm opened the confessional door.

"I'm sorry. I have nothing to donate." Agatha plucked her hospital gown. "I can't even pay for this."

"Faith, lass. The Corbettite Railway is holy sanctuary." Brother Ulm helped her up. "All may travel for free. Especially those such as yourself."

"My parents?" Agatha limped on a leg still fighting off the stun bullet.

"They are being attended to. We have fine surgeons on board," Brother Ulm said. "Both among the brethren and among the passengers."

"Thank you so much." Agatha hugged Ulm. "I swear, I will find a way to pay you back somehow."

"Ah, colleen, live a long and good life. That will be payment enough." Brother Ulm smiled. "Now, kindly let me go. Else my brothers might be thinking I am forgetting some of me vows."

The infirmary car of a Corbettite train was a Great Hospital in miniature. The Dublin-based order's railway system was funded by rulers and towns eager for the trade brought by a line passing through their territories; the railway also leased space on its trains for freight shipped by who were willing to pay the high prices to guarantee their goods went through. But the trains also passed through the wild Wastelands of Europa. A Corbettite train had both the weapons and the hospital facilities to deal with the dangers of those lands. Though she was not pemitted to enter, she glimpsed through an observation window a surgical team swarming over the bodies of her foster mother and father.

She visited Doctor Glassvitch in his bed in the ward for less serious cases. A check of his chart told her that his arm would be saved. Doctor Merlot was asleep on a chair wedged up against the headboard of his only friend's bed. He was snoring with his head against the window glass behind him. Agatha regarded her personal nemesis for a long time. He was no longer the martinet that had hounded her all her university career. He was just a tired old man whose face was stained from coal dust that he had shoveled in the tractor's firebox. Careful not to wake him, she tucked a sheaf of paper into his stained labcoat pocket. They contained the notes of a reworked Dihoxulator that she had scribbled down before Brother Ulm had come to confess her. That might give him enough for a paper so that he could establish himself in Paris.

Agatha had spurned the offer of a hospital bed. Her injuries were few enough--the stunned leg, bruises from when the exploding tractor had flung her into the river, and first-degree burns on her hands from the house. She settled onto an upholstered pew in a chapel in the hospital car. An altar with the trefoil cross and the Corbettite motto of ITE ANIMOSE was at one end. The stained glass windows could slide open so that she could watch the passing scenery. The Wyrm of Limerick was climbing from the foothills of the Carpathians in which her former home had been cradled. Mountains rose on either side of the Dyne River which the tracks of the railway followed. They would parallel the Dyne's course until the route switched to pass through Balan's Gap.

She had never been so far from Beetleburg since Barry had left her in Adam and Lilith's care eleven years ago. Not that there would be much of a town left. The last sight she had seen of her home as they had lifted her stretcher up had been a squadron of Wulfenbach dreadnoughts carpet-bombing the university campus. Transylvania Polygnostic had been the heart of Beetleburg. Without it, the town had lost most of its purpose for existing in the first place. So here she was. Her town was in ruins. The only clothes she had were a shredded, soaked mess. All she had of value was the locket pinned to the neck of her gown. This day could hardly get even more depressing.

"Hey, brother, I see why you blue falconed me. She's a fine piece once you get her clothes off."

Let it not be said that the world was without its ability to astonish.

"Black fire and slag, would you behave yourself?" Moloch said over the shoulder of his brother.

"Hey, I'm giving the girl a compliment." Omar smirked. "Besides, she's the one who put me into clover after all."

"What are you talking about, you miserable rat?" Agatha snarled

"That battle you set off." Omar raised a bag. "People were looting all over the place. Couple of townies decided to help themselves to a jewelry shop window."

The bag landed in her lap with a clink.

"I helped myself to them." Omar winked. "So, that's your half. We should run this racket again in the next town."

"Go. Away. You thing of evil."

"Uh." Omar backed away. "Hey, Moloch, spooky girl's all yours."

"Sorry about that. Omar's like a roach." Moloch sat beside her clad in the still damp shirt and red breeches in which he had fled the lab. "But you can't beat the guy for battlefield looting."

"This is--" Agatha stared at the gold and silver and gems inside the bag. "This is ill-gotten gains."

"Enough for a nest egg." Moloch jerked the bag's drawstring closed. "Don't even think of trying to turn it in."

"This is theft!" Agatha hissed.

"No, this is receiving stolen goods." Moloch patted her shoulder. "I'll take care of it. Done it plenty of times before."

"Why not." Agatha shoved the bag into his hands. "I'm a murderer of an entire town. Why not add living off the avails on top of it?"

"You didn't kill Beetleburg." Moloch jerked a thumb back in the direction of the scene of the crime. "You said the Baron was weeks early checking that thingamagig. Ten guilders says he knew already what your boss was up to."

"If I hadn't pulled the alarm--"

"You'd have been in the same grease pit as your boss." Moloch shook his head. "You did the right thing, Agatha. You're not a bad person."

"I'm not?" Agatha whispered. "But I always fail. I'm weak and stupid."

"Yeah, I thought you were a dizzy townie when I saw you." Moloch let out a whistle. "Was I wrong. I'd rather have you watching my back than Omar."

There was only one conceivable response to that.

"Ah." Moloch jerked his lips away from hers. "Wow. Hey, this is a church, and you're really not my type--"

"Can you hold me for a while?" Agatha laid her head against his shoulder. "Because that is the nicest thing that anyone besides Mom and Dad ever said to me. And I have had a really, really long day. And red fire, I hope your powers to spontaneously find alcohol are still working."

"That's easy." Moloch held up a small wad of purple tickets. "After the confession about what happened, the brother handed me these for free drinks. He said I'd earned it."

"Then will you escort me to the bar, then?" Agatha asked.

"In that?" Moloch said. "They see me taking a girl dressed only in a gown through the train, there'll be questions."

"Here." Agatha rooted around in the sack. She brought out two rings. "Now we're man and wife. After all, we have to think of your reputation."

Chapter Text

Agatha stroked the gold bands in the puzzle ring.

How innocent had that gesture been.

Her head lifted up as she heard music coming from some distance away. It was coming from the direction of the Greens. Agatha smiled softly upon recognizing the distinctive style played upon a viola da gamba. Moloch whistled a terrible counterpoint while wiping her eyes with a slightly grease-stained handkerchief. Arm in arm, they crossed the bridge into what was usually forbidden territory. The wide street running around the curtain walls girdling the base of the castle mount had been avoided by Mechanicsburgers ever since the Heterodyne Boys had disappeared after the attack. But some these days were ignoring that unspoken custom. She nodded to the polite old man who had such illuminating conversations with her about the town's history and politics. He was staring up at the Castle with a tight grin.

There was a postern gate where the high wall enclosing the Greens abutted the mountainside. The gargoyle set into the arch above it scrutinized them for a moment before the iron-barred gate swung open. The path beyond bordered the great catchment lake where the Dyne falling from the great-mawed head carved into the slope above came down as a waterfall. Beyond them was the combination of park, truck garden, and zoo that was the Greens. The Dyne ducks were much more common here as they paddled along the serpentine course the river took through the park. Agatha scritched a tentacle that reached out to her from a fountain. Moloch tossed the last of the mimmoths to a duck with several chicks following it.

A pick-up band was playing in one of the many gazebos scattered about the Greens. There had once been an Incredibly Brief Rebellion in the time of Queeg Heterodyne. It had all been a misunderstanding that was not considered serious enough to slaughter the townspeople. Queeg had thus decreed that all children henceforth must take music lessons and practice at home. The resulting torment for untold generations had also created a tradition of spontaneous performances. Among the townspeople was a petite yet stocky woman a bit older than Agatha. Her sherry-hued hair was done up in a stylish bob cut. The cut of the violet-and-grey pants, waistcoat, and jacket was the latest fashion from Montmartre. The trilby tipped rakishly on her head completed the image of a woman as Parisian flanneur. Her face was suffused with happiness as she played the gamba standing upright between her knees.

Agatha held out her hands.

Moloch clasped hers.

Time to dance away the melancholy.

++++

Agatha had never set foot in a bar before. Lilith had called them dens of iniquity and vice where a young lady might fall prey to the wiles of dastardly men. The raucous carousing heard when passing by the various establishments where the TPU students went to pickle their braincells had reinforced Lilith's warnings. She had no idea what to expect upon entering the saloon on the second level of the dining car. It was rather ordinary. A large oak bar with brass rails and stools around it was in the center of the room. The amusing six-armed clank with a publican's apron around its middle could serve up drinks for people on either side. Along the outer walls were booths by the windows looking out at the scenery. The only sign this was in a car run by monks was the ceiling fresco of God bringing a pint glass to Adam.

Agatha sneaked a look at the drinks menu while Moloch ordered a pint of beer. What came out of the tap appeared to be liquid coal tar. Yuch. She supposed she could ask him for suggestions. She did not want to seem too unsophisticated. Irish Coffee--no, mother warned against stimulants. A Full Throttle sounded a touch aggressive. Oh, this should do. She ordered a Green Fairy Tea. Tea always calmed her down after a headache. The result was a milky green concoction served in a tall glass with a steel straw set into it. Agatha supposed the tea part were the chopped mint leaves. There had been quite a few bottles involved. But Moloch was looking at her expectantly. Well, no sense in making him think she was a dizzy townie after all. She clutched her drink close as she headed for a booth.

She had been expecting Moloch to sit opposite her. Instead, he sat beside her on the same banquette while an arm went over her shoulders. Ah. She had asked him to hold her. That had been in the utter bout of passionate madness when she had kissed him like some wanton harlot and put a wedding ring on his finger. What in the universe had she been thinking? It was as if a vast weight that had been attached to her mind had vanished. All her emotions had soared like a high-flier digirible had done a ballast-dump. Gah! Agatha tried to not show her unease. Moloch might be terribly hurt if she rejected him. Lilith had told her that a proper lady never lead men on. At least any hypothetical onlookers--the saloon being empty this early--would merely see a man and his wife having a quiet drink. Sanity had also prevailed in that they had found a full-length white labcoat in an infirmary closet to cover up her gown.

She should chalk this up as a learning experience.

Agatha took a sip of her tea.

Moloch grinned as she sagged sideways into him after the silver mallet wrapped in mint leaves smacked her gently but firmly in the temporal lobes.

"Thish is very calming tea," Agatha said.

"Ya know that's mostly absinthe mixed with five other liquors?" Moloch smirked. "Don't worry. I know that kiss was from you still having your engine redlined. Your, whatchacallit, virtue's safe."

"Of course it is." Agatha sipped a bit more. "If you tried to violate me, then the monks would tie you to the nearest tree, smear your genitals with raw meat, and release the Irish Sparkhunds."

"They would?" Moloch's voice was high-pitched.

"It was in the introductory pamphlet in the tracts rack," Agatha snuggled up. "But you are not your nasty brother Omar. Besides, I'm not your type. I'm the crazy girl who nearly gets you killed."

"Actually, that is my type." Moloch hid a grimace, poorly, behind a gulp of beer. "Every single woman I've ever liked has tried to hit me with something heavy."

"I did try to stab you with a bottle," Agatha mused.

"Yeah, looks like we're meant for each other." Moloch regarded the gold band. "Not a bad idea, actually, to be married."

"Thash--thash was a joke." Agatha laughed. "We barely even know each other."

"I was talking as a cover," Moloch said. "Sure, you nearly got me killed. But right now I'm sitting pretty for a guy who was a bum this morning. We'd make a good team."

"Talk about a marriage proposal," Agatha said. "Is that the one you make to all the girls?"

"No, usually it's 'been fun, doll, I'll leave the guilders on the dresser'," Moloch said. "Hey, I'm not talking about getting hitched officially. Just wear the rings and act lovey-dovey."

"But I'll be living with Lilith and Adam after they recover," Agatha said.

"We might be targeted by the Baron," Moloch said. "That means heat. You don't want to be near your parents with that. And I'm not bastard enough to cut loose a townie girl who probably hasn't been outside the walls of her safe little burg into the big bad world outside."

"Lilith said I had to get to Mechanicsburg to be safe," Agatha protested.

"That dump? It's one big clip joint that shuts down when the tourists leave." Moloch shook his head. "We stay long enough to fence your half of the loot. Then we take an airship to Paris. The Baron won't dare touch us there."

Agatha gazed out the window as she finished her drink. By the time the last drop came through the straw, she was ever so much calmer about the situation. It was as if her mind was floating on its back on a still pond. It made perfect sense, really. It would be far too difficult for Adam and Lilith to support her with the forge gone. Treatment at the Great Hospital would be free. But they would have to establish themselves once more in a new town. Agatha vowed to give them all of her second-hand ill-gotten gains except for the ticket price to Paris. If need be, she would risk another ride down past Beetleburg on the railway. Even the Baron would not violate the holy sanctuary of the railway to arrest one lowly lab assistant.

Moloch's arm around her felt really nice. Perhaps she should be his "wife". It would not be for real. It would be like two actors in a Heterodyne show. Yes! Precisely like the Bills and Lucrezias onstage whose only romance was in the limelight. It should be easy enough to pose as his wife. She had had an example of a loving couple in her foster parents, after all. She remembered the first time she had seen Adam kiss Lilith. It had been not long after Uncle Barry had left her with them. She had come down after a bad headache to the parlor. Adam and Lilith had been on the couch embracing. How had it gone? Agatha shifted so that she was in Moloch's lap. There. And Lilith had cupped Adam's cheek just so. Moloch's arms close around her just like Lilith had. Agatha pressed her lips against is just like Lilith had.

Oh.

Yes.

They could definitely pull off this act.

Although Lilith had shooed Agatha upstairs before Moloch's hand slipped under labcoat and gown--

--strong hands, rough ones that worked with machines, she could help him in the shop, in Paris, the City of Lightning and Love, the--

A cough broke Agatha's rehearsal.

A young woman with dark auburn hair in a short cut that just brushed the bottom of her earlobes was at the bar. She was dressed in the dowdiest purple dress that Agatha had ever seen. In one hand was a topless pineapple festooned with all sorts of geegaws on sticks, including a small windmill. In the other was a music case about the size and shape of a cello.

"Hey barclank," the newcomer said. "I think I'll have what they're having."

Agatha made a strangled noise as the Green Fairy's influence fled, leaving her stone-cold sober.

"Sorry about that, the wife's insatiable." Moloch's tone was just a touch strained.

"Hey, don't stop on account of me," the newcomer said. "I'll just take this back to my compartment."

"Pleasesitwithusitwouldbeourpleasure!" Agatha backed off Moloch's lap fast enough to leave a Doppler shift.

"Need a chaperone, huh?" The newcomer smirked. "Sure. You two were very cute. Newlyweds?"

"Yeah. Mr. and Mrs.--" Moloch took another slug of beer. "Shlemazl. Mr. and Mrs. Shlemazl."

Agatha knew just enough Yiddish to bury her face in her hands.

"Of course you are." The newcomer set her music case in the seat beside her. "Name's Violetta."

"Nice drink. You going to wear it as a hat afterwards?" Moloch asked.

"It's pretty and girly." A scowl that seemed well-practiced settled on Violetta's face. "Just like the pretty, girly dresses I never wear to the parties I never can dance at."

"Musician?" Agatha asked. The haze of shame retreated as she examined the case. "That's a gamba, isn't? Oh, and it is a Givaldi if that mark of the case is any indication."

"Your girl knows her instruments," Violetta said. “The monks say that your stuff is safe to leave in the compartment. I just can’t bring myself to do it with my baby here.”

"Don't ask me. I play armpit," Moloch said.

"My mother taught piano, and I attended classes at the university conservatory," Agatha said. "Although of all the keyboard instruments, I love nothing more than getting my hands on a mighty organ--Moloch, are you alright?"

"Beer went down the wrong way." Moloch used a napkin to clean the stain on the front of his shirt.

"The gamba is a hobby." Violetta scowled even more. "I'm secretary to a burgomeister in Mechanicsburg. Easy job. 'Commensurate to your abilities', as I was told."

"We're going to Mechanicsburg ourselves," Agatha said. "We won't be staying long. But if you'd like, we could try playing together once or twice."

"Maybe we could try a duet." Violetta waggled her eyebrows. "Gamba and...mighty organ."

As Agatha relaxed, the cool euphoria of the drink suffused her once again.

They were right.

You met the nicest people on trains.

Chapter Text

Agatha danced cheek to cheek with her beloved.

*WHOOSH*

Agatha stared at the rag-and cloth effigy now in her arms.

"Violetta."

"Don't blame me if you can't keep your man." Violetta spun Moloch about. "I think she's taking you for granted."

"Here we go again." Moloch rolled his eyes. "Try not to rip up the grass too much, okay? The Greens Committee will be bitching all week."

"No problem." Agatha surged chi through her body as she assumed the Stance of the Resident Doing Rounds. "I'll make it up to them by providing some fertilizer."

A dagger snapped into Violetta's right hand as she tossed a smoke bomb with her left.

Agatha so enjoyed these sparring sessions.

+++++

The train must be ascending through a tight spiral turn. Everything was spinning around and around. Hiccuping, Agatha sipped more the the lime-and-rum concoction known as Albia's Grog. She had settled on this after sampling a few of the many drinks on the menu. So many. Hee. Oh dear, Lilith was going to be so annoyed. She was far past plastered at this point. She was. Hmmm. There had to be a word for her condition? Heh. She was drywalled. But that was fine. As she explained to Brother Ulm, she was engaging in the Irish custom of the wake. Sweet lightning, her future and hopes were now buried six feet under at this point. Under rubble. With extra cremation from all the fire sweeping through the wreckage.

She sat lodged in Moloch’s lap upon the bench-seat-cum-sleeping berth on one side of Violetta's private compartment. Violetta had brought them here after Brother Ulm had started with silly talk about strapping her down in the infirmary to sleep it off. Pffffft. As if Agatha needed to dry out like some alcoholic vagabond in one of the bell-jars in the quadrangle. Those had probably been shattered along with Doctor Beetle in the carpet bombing. The news had come up the wire of the telegraph running alongside the railway tracks not an hour after they had met Violetta. Her Master had been declared irrevocably dead without possible brain recovery.

Oh dear. Those were sad thoughts. She should fix that. Agatha scowled when nothing tilted over the rim of the tumbler. She nudged Moloch to pour her another 2:1 mixture from the bottles of lime juice and Airman Morgan's rum she had gotten from the saloon bar by trading a ring from her hoard. Instead, Moloch poured her some water from a pitcher. Damn him. She was going to demand a divorce! But, then she had probably been dehydrated from the crying jags. How embarrassing. She had been having such a fun conversation with Violetta before news about her Master's end had come. Agatha shifted her head a touch to see where her new friend was in the bench-berth opposite them. She was looking at them with her chin resting on her hands.

"Don't want that." Agatha pushed away the second glass of water.

"Drink or you'll be sorry when you come to," Moloch said. "You're not me. This is your first bender."

"You think you're the boss of me?" Agatha narrowed her eyes. "I put that ring on your finger."

"Yes, dearest." Moloch scowled. "Now drink the damn water."

"Mkay." Agatha tossed it back. "Just sho you know where we stand in this relashionship."

"You are so lucky." Violetta sighed. "I can't believe how you lucked out meeting him this morning."

"Lucky." Agatha slumped. "My home was just bombed to smitheenth by the Baron."

"I wish I had that luck," Violetta murmured.

"Hated the place?" Moloch snorted. "Yeah, I couldn't wait to sign up ten years ago to get off the farm. Now I wish Ma had smacked me harder when I was sixteen."

"The town's alright." Violetta balled her fists. "The family isn't. Especially that layabout fop in the palace who doodled pictures while I was working my rear off to train. Then he exiles me to Mechanicsburg because I'm incompetent."

"Hey, you ish not that bad." Agatha reached over to--whoops, now she was upside down. "Now, lookit me. Total failure. Blow up everything I ever tried to make."

"That death ray you worked on did pretty good." Moloch grunted as he lifted her back into place. "Knocked over that wall when we needed it."

"Musht have been something you did." Agatha gingerly patted Violetta on the shoulder. "I-Imma the queen of failures here."

"Not like I even liked my old job," Violetta said. "Working for Zuken is easy. The man's such a moron he doesn't even realize how untrained I am as a secretary."

"I can fix that." Agatha slurped down the rest of the pitcher. "I wash a decent secretary to Doctor Bee--ah, Rollipod. I can teach you the bashics."

"Eh, I guess we can hang around Mechanicsburg." Moloch shrugged. "Paris ain't going anywhere."

"You two are the greatest." Violetta stood up. "You're so good. I can tell you're not related to me at all."

Violetta left the compartment with the determination of a mimmoth trying to burrow into a peanut silo. Agatha curled up in Moloch's lap. She whacked the part of her that was shouting about the impropriety of it all with a big hammer. Moloch's arms tightened around her when the train hit a sharp curve. So nice. She watched the scenery pass by as her eyelids drooped and opened. There was the gorge of the upper Dyne rising up around them. Blink. There was a tunnel. Blink. There was a broad valley with farms and villages. The road through it was a paved one bustling with the carts and wagons of Wastelands travelers. Large numbers of dirigibles in the sky spoke of an airship dock in the area. Blink. There was the vision of a broad causeway leading up to a city gate. Blink. Now she saw a large Corbettite station with its stained glass windows and marble platforms.

Moloch lifted her into a wheelchair. A brother of the order wrapped blankets about her for modesty's sake. They were leaving the train? But Adam and Lilith were still on the train, weren't they? She should tell them that she had to accompany them to the Great Hospital. There appeared to be an irregularity with the connection between her larynx and her brain, though. Moloch pushed her into the chapel-concourse of the station where the waiting benches doubled as pews for the pulpit above the schedule board. A footman in red and white livery bearing the Cross of England at his throat was waiting there. He helped Moloch and her into a carriage bearing the legend of "Claridges" on the side. A faint memory came back to her: Claridges was a chain of exclusive hotels that catered to English travelers.

The coach ride was short. Agatha found herself being wheeled through an understated yet opulent lobby with the flag of England displayed above the reception counter. There was an actual lift to one side. She had never been in one of them before. The elevator-operator tipped the fez-like cap atop his head as he shut the birdcage door. They went up several floors to a short hallway with a stout oak door at the end. Unlocking it revealed a suite of rooms done up in the most tasteful style. The bedroom had a great canopy bed with white lace everywhere. There was an ice bucket with champagne on one nightstand.

The gears in Agatha's mind spun sluggishly.

"Moloch, are we in a honeymoon suite?" Agatha asked.

"When Violetta moves, there's no stopping her." Moloch lifted Agatha out of the chair and took off the blankets. "She spotted us three nights and a new wardrobe for our, whatchacallem, nooptals."

"Nuptials." Agatha flopped down on the bed. "Sweet lightning. We are defrauding the girl."

"Uh. No." Moloch held up a piece of paper. "Turns out that as the burgomeister's secretary, she's allowed to issue official documents. This Zuken gives her a lot of play of the leash."

"'This is a civil wedding licence." Agatha licked her lips. "When did I sign it?"

"While you were conked out." Moloch collapsed into a nearby armchair. "Look, what was I supposed to do? I couldn't disappoint her. It'd be like kicking a puppy."

"I must be very drunk," Agatha said. "Because I'm not screaming at the top of my lungs."

"Hey, don't worry, I won't make you--" Moloch crossed his legs. "We're off church property, so they won't send the sparkhunds after me. Right? Anyway, I'll ride the couch in the parlor."

Agatha stared at the paper written on official church stationary--a beermat--declaring Agatha and Moloch Shlemazl as husband and wife.

"If I had to end up in some utterly ridiculous set of circumstances married to a man I have known for less than twelve hours," Agatha said, "then you are not the worst this entire madhouse of a day could throw me into matrimony with."

"That's good." Moloch blinked. "I think."

"Just come to bed and hold me." Agatha slumped onto the pillows. "Because when I wake up, I am going to need a shoulder to shriek into when sanity returns."

Chapter Text

Agatha pursued the thief in the name of her husband's honor.

Up and down they went. Violetta sped across rooftops and dived into winding alleys. She claimed she had learned the roof-running of the Parisian traceurs when living with her uncle in that fabled city for a while. Agatha had her suspicions about that. There were a few too many hints in what Vi had let drop over the months since they had met on the train. There was a reason that her friend had gotten such a plum assignment as secretary to Burgomeister Zuken. But she was pretty sure that Violetta was not working hard at it. It wasn't a threat to the town. So Agatha let it lie.

Snatching Moloch's derby as a trophy? That was going too far.

She was not even close to Vi's parkour skills. Violetta had only been training her for the past four months so that Agatha could inspect bits of the town away from street level. But Agatha found that she had an instinctive feel for the town's layout. Violetta called it "freaky" how Agatha always found a short cut in spite of Vi's scouting out dozens of routes in advance. In fact, Agatha sometimes she imagined that she could alter the cityscape to impede her prey's escape. A gable shifted here enough to force Violetta to slow down. A tile shifted there to make her stumble. Violetta had been forced down into the Winding Runs. Ha! Now she had--

"Ooooof!"

Agatha tumbled head over heels into a stack of refuse bags.

Ick.

"Please," a plaintive voice said. "Don't let them take me back."

A pretty yet haggard face looked down from behind locks of hair not too far from Agatha's own spilling from under a peasant's kerchief.

"I don't want to play her ever again," the young woman sobbed.

There was an odd sound like chitin scraping on stone--

--and Agatha's hand went into the concealed pocket in her dress as the albino spiders attacked.


++++

The bathroom of the honeymoon suite of Claridges of Balan's Gap was done up in a tasteful yet suggestive style. Pale rose and white marble combined with brass fittings engraved with various romantic motifs to promote an air of dignified eroticism. The friezes around the edges of the ceiling were of gamboling nymphs and satyrs. A certain modesty was kept with cunningly-placed garlands and urns. The mural above the marble bathtub that would not been out of place in an Ottoman harem chamber was of Albia rising from the sea via an oyster-shaped bathyscape.

The revenant that shambled in ignored it all. One bloodshot green eye stared out through lank strawberry-blonde hair. It had to crawl the rest of the way before it could slither into the empty tub. Several minutes passed. A sweat-soaked hospital gown was tossed over the side to puddle on the floor. A trembling hand reached up to turn the gleaming taps set into the wall. From the urns of the brass nymph statues on the walls on either side of the bathing alcove came scalding hot water. There was a yelp. Two hands worked the taps like an airship pilot trying to bring a crippled vessel into dock. The flow's temperature shifted to a pleasant warmth. One hand grasped around the walls until is found a wire basket full of bottles of bath oils, shampoo, and bars of soap. The contents were toppled over all at once into the rising waters.

A froth similar to that in colour and consistency of the more spectacular industrial chemical spills boiled up. Hidden sensors detected when the foam and water were about to spill over the rim of the tub. The urns ceased flowing. Bubbles rose from one side of the bath. Agatha's head finally breached the surface. With a groan, she folded a towel several times as a cushion before settling her head back. A wet washcloth was draped over her brow in a vain attempt to leach out the agony in her brain. It was not the worst headache she had ever suffered. Her migraines were, however, sharp spikes. This was a thunderstorm that had settled in for the duration. Unconsciously, she touched her neck. Her locked was at her neck secured with a necklace chain from her "loot".

There was a knock on the half-open door.

"Ice?" Moloch held up a wet handkerchief. "There were some chips left in the champagne bucket."

"You are an angel come to earth." Agatha sighed as the improvised ice-pack settled in place instead of the wet towel. "For this, I will not plot your death for saddling me with the last name of 'Shlemazl'."

"I might have been a couple of mistimed cylinders myself when Violetta gave me that wedding license," Moloch admitted. "You want anything else?"

"Tea. Cake." Agatha shuddered. "A device to rewind time so I can stop myself from acting a wanton strumpet. I'm, ah, not usually like that with men."

"Not that I was complaining," Moloch said. He rubbed the back of his neck. "It's been awhile since a beautiful girl kissed me like that."

"I'm beautiful?" Agatha raised her head. Then immediately flopped down in pain. "I thought I wasn't your type."

"Look, I usually go for beer or the better types of moonshine," Moloch said. "But if a bottle like that champagne stuff falls in my lap, then I'll give it a try. I can tell it is top-quality."

"I don’t feel like champagne. Rather flat." Agatha sank deeper into the tub. "I've never been with a man. Never had an, ah, beau. I was too weird and useless."

"Well, I wouldn't mind giving it a try," Moloch said. "I'm not up on townie dating. Do I bring you flowers and chocolates and stuff?"

"Those are the usual courting gifts." Agatha considered. "Although that seems so impractical. I would really prefer a death ray. A person's choice in energy weapons says so much about them."

"Those are pricey," Moloch said. "Maybe I could find a busted one and some parts so we could fix one up like we did at the university?"

"You--" Agatha's voice hitched. "You would trust your life to something I had a hand in working on? You would willingly work with me?"

"Sure. I don't know why you think nothing you make works," Moloch said. "It's close to eight-hundred, so the markets should be open."

"Could you buy me some tools?" Agatha asked shyly.

"Already got you some for when you were sleepworking on your thimgamagig."

Sleepworking?

Agatha's question died when the thunderhead in her brain rolled back in. When it receded, she heard the front door of the suite slamming shut. Beside her was a delicate cup of Claridges pattern porcelain full of tea. Beside it was a slice of--naturally--wedding cake. What else would they send up to a honeymoon suite? Moloch must have made tea. It had clearly not been brewed by Claridges staff. No Briton would have committed such an atrocity on what had been high-grade Darjeeling oolong. No matter. It was tea. It meant civilization and order. The cake she grabbed with one hand. Distending her jaw as best she could, she crammed it into her mouth in a gloriously decadent taste explosion of icing and baked deliciousness.

It wasn’t much in the scheme of things. But cake was cake.

She lounged in the tub, lazily scrubbing herself with a fragrant bar of soap, until the water cooled. She rinsed herself standing up under one of the nymphs for a minute under a stream of hot water. So much better than soap brewed from lye and lard and a rag wetted from the pitcher by her bedside. Peering out, she confirmed that no-one was in the bedroom outside. She locked the door firmly. She was not ready for Moloch--nice as he was--to see her in the altogether! Which was rather ironic in that they were a married couple. Agatha hoped the induced coma that her parents were in would last a bit longer to delay the inevitable. It was probably too much to hope for a year, mind.

On the desk the window was a long leather roll with a set of watchmaker's tools laid out neatly in small pouches and loops. Each were emblazoned with a small golden trilobite. They must be from the Claridges gift shop. The hotel would naturally carry the infamous tourist "tat" that Mechanicsburg churned out instead of its traditional death and terror. A pang swept through her as she remembered her own tools kept under the top of the drafting table in her room. Most of them had been cast-offs from the university or bought second-hand. Yet they had been gifts from Doctor Beetle or bought under Adam's discriminating eyes. She had been working with them on some device that morning.

It had been in a large pocket watch casing. Just like the one on the desk beside the tool-roll.

Agatha snatched her hand back from the winder on its stem atop the casing. She was still radiant with contentment from the bath. She had no appetite for the disappointment that came with each of her failures. Besides, sweet lightning did she need to be dressed! Moloch had said something about Violetta paying for a new wardrobe. Agatha spotted a leather traveling trunk of the sort favored by airship passengers. Another, open one on the other side of the bed was full of men's clothing in a English gentleman's style. This must be hers, then. Her eyebrows rose when she inspected the contents. The colors were the greens she had been wearing the day she had wandered into the alley. There were also some rather more daring red items that Lilith would never allowed her out of the house with.

Agatha held up a skirt in the latter color. It was of much finer cloth than the durable twills that had predominated in her old clothes cupboard. The cut was also more daring. One might even catch a glimpse of her boot-tops if she was not careful! Further rummaging found that Violetta had indulged that taste for "girly, pretty" dress on her new wardrobe. There were lacy, beribboned silk culottes and stockings with amusing clockwork garters in the tops rather than her sensible pantalettes and woolen socks. There were petticoats. There were silken chemises with a small note pinned to one with a caricature of Violetta winking and one thumb held up. She looked outrageous in the mirror when she put them on. She appeared to be some Parisian demimondaine. Admittedly, even her own stunted fashion sense told her that she was a fabulously-dressed one.

Then there was the corset.

Agatha had never bothered wearing one when she had finally matured. There had been no time to fiddle with lacing. She much preferred the button-front foundation bodices she had worn since she was a girl. The crimson-and-gold overbust corset held gingerly away from her by her fingertips was much more elaborate and, er, shapely than her usual. It was also all she had in the way of support. Sighing, she undid the brass snaps of the leather busk in front concealed under scarlet lace. She was suprrised to find it fit almost perfectly even without the stays tightened. Violetta appeared to have measured her accurately by sight. She could not help turning this way and that before the mirror. The effect might be even better if she could get someone to do her up in back--

--fingers spun the winder absent-mindedly--

--like summoning a lady's maid from the hotel staff or designing a lacing clank--

DING

Agatha yelped when a shutter on the front of the pocket watch casing opened. A single eye stared at her for a moment. A pair of stocky legs folded out. Then a pair of arms ending in three-fingered "hands". She waited for the inevitable grinding as the flaw within would send it into dozens of pieces. Instead, it stared up at her with an almost disturbing amount of intelligence in its single eye. The little clank that Moloch has said she had completed while asleep awaited her orders. Mutely, she turned her back to it and mimed jerking on the laces crisscrossing up along the line of her spine. With a cheery ding, it hopped onto her shoulder before lacing the corset from the top down. It tightened just enough for the steel stays within to curve about her without cutting in. Task complete, it perched on her shoulder as she flopped into a chair.

It worked.

It worked perfectly.

She did not know how long she sat until the heard the knob of the bedroom door turning,

"Hey, Ag, I have the stuff," Moloch said from the other side. "You alright in there?"

"I am absolutely radiant with triumph!" The lock ripped out of its plate as she tore open the door. "Look at this wonderful, helpful, working device!"

"Oh, I'm looking." Moloch's eyes were wide as saucers at the evidence of her success.

"So what did you get?"Agatha grabbed the sack in his hand. "A galvanic pistol? I do so enjoy the searing flare of electricity arcing through the air. You do have the eye for quality parts."

"Definitely have eyes." Moloch coughed into a fist. "Honey?"

"What?"

"It's too early for dinner." Moloch smirked. "But I am definitely getting a show."

"What on earth are you AAAAAAACK!"

"But don't worry, I'm a modern sort of guy," Moloch continued. "You want to run around like that--"

"TURN YOUR BACK, FOR THE LOVE OF HEPHAESTUS!"