Фил Фоглио - Agatha H. and the Siege of Mechanicsburg

Agatha took a step and then stopped. “Wait. Did we leave Gil . . . is he still in that plant?”

Tarvek rolled his eyes. “Don’t worry, he’ll figure out where we’re going.”

“But if he doesn’t get out . . . ”

“Oh, he’ll get out and somehow make me look bad while doing it.”

Agatha looked at him and frowned. “You have issues.”

Tarvek sighed. “I don’t want to talk about it.” He studied her critically. “You’re still staggering a bit. Here.” So saying, he pushed the clank head into Agatha’s hands and then scooped her up in his arms.

“No!” Agatha protested. “If you’re too slow she’ll kill you too.”

Tarvek grinned at her sardonically. “Well, Lady Heterodyne, don’t let her.”

Agatha paused, and her jaw firmed. “I won’t. Fine. Let’s go.” She pointed up a long flight of stairs. “The library should be right up there.”

Tarvek grunted and took a step. “Your wish is my command, O princess.” He looked up the long set of stairs and groaned inwardly as he shifted Agatha’s solid weight. This looked a lot easier on the book covers.

Agatha smacked his shoulder. “Faster!”

In the conservatory, Zola staggered back, her face swollen from repeated blows. “I can’t believe this,” she growled. “How many times do I have to hit you?”

Higgs frowned at the latest gash on his arm and resumed his determined stride towards her. He checked his movement, and her blade hummed scant millimeters from his face. He gave a small, tight smile. He was learning the rhythms of Zola’s fighting style. Soon.

From where she was kneeling next to Zeetha, Violetta called out. “Don’t even try to knock her out, you hear me? She’s had a whole vial of Movit Eleven. She’ll be unstoppable until it wears off.”

“I hear you,” Higgs muttered.

But Zola could feel the effects of the drug beginning to fade. Thank goodness a boost like that isn’t sustainable for too long— Her rumination was cut off by yet another blow to her face. “I have other people to kill,” she screamed. “More important people than you! I’ve got to get Gil out of the plant and hunt down my inconvenient cousin, and you are getting in my way!” With that, she pivoted, but instead of moving away, she gracefully lunged towards the startled airman, dropping to one knee, and driving the sword up through his abdomen. “So stay down!”

Zola had only microseconds to revel in the astonished look that crossed the airman’s face. She was pummeled, in quick succession, by one punishing blow after another. Finally, Higgs’s fist approached her face dead on and everything seemed to slow down. This must be it, Zola thought. The fist connected and she recognized that time hadn’t slowed; her attacker’s fist had. It bounced off of her swollen nose with a gentle bonk. She stared as the airman’s face slowly clenched in pain. Then, through clenched teeth, she heard a puzzled, “Ouch?”

The implications of this terrified her. She scrambled back as the man slowly doubled over and dropped to his knees, a look of intense concentration on his face.

“Ha!” Zola yelled. It felt so good that she yelled it again and shook her sword at him. “Ha! Take that!” He slowly swiveled his head towards her and glared.

Zola stepped back. A distant part of her mind, the part occupied by Lucrezia, was shrieking at her: There was nowhere near enough blood. Zola hefted her blade, determined to finish this monster off, when a sharp jab in her exposed arm spun her about. But there was no one near. A quick search revealed the tiny dart of a Smoke Knight. She swore and pulled it free. She looked up to see Violetta reloading a trim little blowgun.

“Ha!” she said yet again. “You pathetic loser! Did you just try to poison me?” She threw her head back and cackled manically. “As if that could stop me now!”

Violetta smiled. “Oh, I know that. That wasn’t poison. That was another dose of Movit Number Eleven.” She finished loading her blowgun. “I wonder how much more you can take before you combust?”

A tidal wave of ice-cold clarity and energy burst through Zola’s mind. Not much at all, it told her. She spun and used the sword to swat Violetta’s latest dart out of the air. “I just have to move fast enough to burn it off.” But instead of leaping forward, she crashed to the ground. Twisting about, she saw the airman—impossibly still alive—holding her ankle in a grip of iron. Pinpricks of fire bloomed throughout Zola’s body. I cannot let him keep me from moving, she thought with a jolt of terror. Screaming, she lashed out with her free leg, kicking desperately at the hand that held her. She might as well have been kicking at a steel manacle.

She rolled onto her back and swung the sword on high. “Chop head tiny bits!” she shrieked, bringing down—not a sword, but a long flower stalk that splatted harmlessly on the surprised airman’s hat.

Behind her, Violetta chuckled as she examined the sword now in her hand. “Wow! You must be messed up! That never would’ve worked before.”

Zola scrabbled at the ground and flung a handful of rocks and broken stones at Violetta, who stumbled backwards and fell against a large ornamental pot. This gave Zola time to twist her foot, slide it free of her boot, and leap to her feet. For an instant she considered staying—trying to finish them off—but inside her head Lucrezia was howling at her to run. She needed little convincing. “Fine!” Zola bolted from the room, shouting defiance. “I don’t have to stay here! I can kill people anywhere!”

Cursing, Violetta wiped at the blood and dirt on her forehead and rolled to her feet. “Oh no you won’t, ’cause I’m going to make sure you—”

“No.”

Violetta turned and stared as Higgs slowly rose to his feet. Impossible, she thought.

“Miss Zeetha is still alive. You stay here and make sure she stays that way.” He stood straight and rolled his shoulders. “This imposter is mine.”

Violetta stepped back. “You got it.”

CHAPTER 3

The encyclopedia is the only place in the world where World Domination comes before Work!

—The last words of Joaquin the Illiterate, just before he hit that big red button labeled Do Not Touch

The room was immense. A circular cavern easily nine stories tall. It was capped with a thick dome of green glass, ornately embossed and etched. Years of accumulated debris on the outside blocked much of the light that would once have filled the room, but the dome remained whole, unlike many of the Castle’s other glass windows. Even from the ground, Agatha could see evidence of automatic hydraulic braces. Someone had taken a great deal of trouble to ensure that time and the elements would not touch this place.

Wan chemical lights flickered from lanterns hanging from the ceiling or resting in alcoves. Agatha’s eye was drawn to a small reading room: a steel-lacework gazebo suspended from a cyclopean chain dangling halfway between dome and floor. Agatha realized her eyes had been avoiding the walls lined with ornately carved shelves of books for the simple reason that they were overwhelming.

There were a stupefying number of books. Shelf upon shelf of them: neatly arrayed, stretching all the way up to the base of the great dome. Many were behind glass case doors. An entire section was carefully tucked into what appeared to be an atmospheric chamber filled with clouds of softly swirling green gas.

Books bound in a thousand kinds of leather, in inlaid wood, in polished metal, and several other substances she couldn’t identify. They ranged in size from pamphlets so tiny they seemed to be made by insects, to enormous tomes that were surely created for studious giants. Titles picked out in gold and silver glinted from the semidarkness.