by Phil Foglio
Krosp and Agatha looked at each other.
Vapnoople picked up his duster. “And so you see why I cannot leave. Now, I must get back to my important work, so that the Baron does not suspect.” So saying, he turned away and, cackling occasionally, returned to cleaning.
Agatha gently put a hand on Krosp’s shoulder and whispered, “We have to go.”
Krosp addressed Vapnoople’s broad back. “I’ll come back for you, Papa. I’ll take you and… your bears and we’ll go somewhere safe. I promise you.”
Dr. Dimitri waved a hand without looking around. “I’ll save you a fish.”
Krosp was quiet. Several times DuMedd had to prod him to get him to tell them the correct turn to take, but quickly enough they opened a large door and found themselves in one of the hundreds of airship docks that peppered the sides of the vast dirigible. This one had bays for over a dozen mid-size ships, and from the debris that littered the deck, it was obvious that there had been a great deal of activity a short time ago. The only ship in evidence was a tiny two-engine pinnace. The three headed towards it, but stopped dead when they found a half-dozen Wulfenbach crewmen, unconscious and neatly lined up next to a fuel barrel. A faint whistling was heard, and to Agatha’s amazement, a cheerful Othar straightened up from behind the ship where he was coiling some rope. He spotted them and his face broke into an easy grin. “Ah! Excellent! You made it!”
“Othar!” Agatha exclaimed. “You’re alive!”
“As always!” he replied.
Theo’s eyes widened. “That’s really him? You know a talking cat AND Othar Tryggvassen?”
“But… he… Gilgamesh…”
Othar waved this off with obvious disdain. “I knew you’d choose the side of good in the end.”
This snapped Agatha out of her confusion. “I’m not here for you—!”
She was cut short by Krosp shoving her towards Othar. “No time! Come on!”
“Yes!” Othar agreed. “Come on! It’s time for adventure!”
Agatha looked at him levelly. “Get on the airship.”
Othar looked surprised. “Don’t you want to hear the exciting tale of my escape?”
Agatha was now on the ship and at Krosp’s direction was untying ropes. Othar quickly clambered aboard. “Casting off!” she called out.
Theo came up. “Good luck.”
Agatha looked surprised. “You’re not coming?”
Theo shook his head. “I was, but now that I know you’ll be traveling with Herr Tryggvassen, I know you’ll be safe. I’ve got to see how the others are doing, I’ll bet some of them will want to come along. We’ll catch up to you in Mechanicsburg!”
Agatha looked panicked. “But—”
“That is where you’ll be going, right?”
“Yes, but I don’t want to travel alone.”
Othar clapped her on the shoulder. “Silly girl, didn’t you hear? You’ll be under the protection of Othar Tryggvassen, Gentleman Adventurer!”
Krosp pulled her skirt. “And don’t forget me.”
Agatha looked at them and turned back to Theo. “No, really. You sure you don’t want to come? There’s room. Or I could stay with you.”
Theo laughed. “Don’t be silly.”
Agatha sighed, “Well, you should know that Gil’s got some kind of invisibility device.”
Theo’s eyes lit up. “Is that what that was? Interesting.”
Agatha nodded. “It might help.” With that, she reached out, drew his head towards her and placed a kiss upon his forehead. “Thank you for everything. And take care of yourself, cousin.”
Theo grinned. “You too, cousin.” With that he stepped back and helped shove the airship out of the docking cradle. It floated beside the hanger bay until Krosp, standing atop a crate, activated the engines, and the tiny craft warped away from the side of the great airship. Suddenly Theo heard a rhythmic thudding from the corridor leading to the hanger. He ducked behind a gas tank just as Klaus’ transport clanked through the doorway.
Klaus saw the airship pulling away and swore. He then directed the clank to the nearest signaling station. He picked up the handset and cranked the handle to activate the system. Suddenly an explosion gently rocked the deck, almost causing the clank carrying the Baron to fall. A cloud of smoke rolled out of one of the hanger doorways, and several coughing figures stumbled from it. They were revealed to be some of Castle Wulfenbach’s fire-fighters. Most of them quickly recovered and rushed over to a water cistern and began refilling the pumper tanks they wore strapped to their backs. One of them saw the Baron and ran to him. “Herr Baron! You should get out of here! All of the experiments in the lower labs have either been let loose or activated, and three of the compartments are on fire.”
Klaus stared at him, and with another oath, slammed the speaker phone back into place. “Assemble your men,” he told the fire-fighter. “Have each of them grab one of those cylinders of Carbonic Acid Gas and then follow me!” He grabbed a cylinder himself, urged his clank forward, and the group ran back into the smoking doorway.
Agatha lowered the telescope she had been using. “And now they’ve gone back to fight the fire, I guess. The Baron looked pretty mad.”
Othar laughed. “I imagine so. The little diversions I arranged before we left should keep him too busy to worry about us for a while.”
Krosp nodded. “There’s a lot of smoke, but I don’t think the envelope is going to catch. But it’s looking bad enough that the support fleet is moving in to assist. They’re not going to waste time on us. We need to put as much distance behind us as we can.” He turned back and spun the ship’s wheel so that they were traveling in the opposite direction as the Castle.
“Normally I don’t work with children or animals,” Othar murmured, “but that is one amazing cat.”
Agatha nodded. “Yes. I guess I’ll have to get used to things like this now.”
Othar grinned and clasped her shoulder. “Ah! So you’re taking the sidekick job! Now it’s strictly a profit-sharing situation, so—”
Agatha shrugged his hand off. “No. I’m not. I’m my own Spark, thank you. I’m going to have to get my own sidekicks.”
Othar went still. “What?”
Agatha nodded and leaned on the railing. Below her the countryside sailed serenely past. “I’m a Spark. I’m afraid it’s true, it explains so much.”
Othar came up behind her. “I’m… very sorry to hear that.”
Agatha rolled her eyes. “Yes, well, you don’t have to make it sound like a death sentence.”
“But it is.”
The tone of Othar’s voice brought Agatha around quickly. Othar’s face was different. It was set in a grimace, and a small pistol was pointed unwaveringly at Agatha. “I’m really sorry about this,” he muttered. “But you have to die.”
Agatha realized that the comically jovial Othar she thought she knew had vanished entirely. “Why?” she asked.
For a terrible moment she thought he wasn’t going to answer. When he did, his voice was strained and intense. “What is the cause of everything wrong in the world today? Madboys. The Spark. They create monsters. Rip apart the cities with their constant fighting and terrorize the countryside… They can’t help it. They’re like mad dogs. They’ve almost completely destroyed civilization. Surely you can see that. For the good of the world, all Sparks have to die, and since you are one of them—”
“But you—You have the Spark.”
Othar grimaced. “Yes! But I alone have the resolve to do what must be done! I must hunt down and destroy every Spark in existence! And then—” He threw his head up and screamed to the heavens, “And then I can finally kill myself! And rid the world of this scourge once and for all!”
He stood there panting and trembling while Agatha stared at him. “Well, why didn’t you say so?” she exclaimed.
Othar paused. “I—what?”
Agatha nodded furiously. “Being a Spark has ruined my life! My parents were killed by some insane co
nstruct! I spent most of my life crippled by some mind-altering device! Everyone wants me dead or on an examining table!”
Othar raised his pistol. “You do understand.”
Agatha stepped up to him and grabbed his sweater in both hands. “Of course! And now you say that I can work with you to destroy them all? Count me in!”
Othar’s jaw dropped. Slowly a tentative smile, not the forced jocularity of his public face, but a genuine smile, blossomed upon his face. “At last.” He whispered, “Do you really mean it?”
Agatha rolled her eyes and puffed out her cheeks in dismissal. “No.” And she shoved Othar over the side of the airship.
As he plummeted from sight, he called out, “Foul!” and snapped off a single shot from his pistol before he vanished into a cloud below.
Agatha and Krosp peered over the side for a moment. When nothing happened, Agatha slumped down and cupped her head in her hands. “I really owe Gil an apology,” she muttered.
A faint sound caused Krosp to peer upwards. He frowned. “The idiot hit the envelope. But we should still be able to stay up for a few hours.”
Agatha roused herself. “Perhaps they have a patch kit.”
Krosp shrugged as he hauled himself back onto his crate. “Doubt it. Ship like this, they judge every gram. A minor repair like this would get fixed at a dock before it was a problem. Won’t hurt to check though,” he conceded. “We’ll need to see what we have available anyway.”
“Oh?”
“We’ve got to steer clear of civilization. Our best bet is the Wastelands.”
Agatha shivered. She had heard stories about the Wastelands. Although the Empire of the Baron was extensive, there were large tracts of land that were still uncontrolled, wild expanses where entire towns had disappeared overnight. It was the perfect place to hide, but there was a distinct possibility that once in, they’d never return. Agatha felt a sense of desolation filling her. The future looked bleak.
Mad, Othar may have been, but he certainly had a point. The last several hundred years had been filled with a distressingly long list of catastrophes, disasters, blights, monstrosities and terror directly attributable to a small handful of crazed geniuses.
“Why am I bothering?” she whispered.
Krosp shrugged. “What?”
“Why shouldn’t I just turn myself over to the Baron? Why shouldn’t I just throw myself over the side right now?”
Krosp scratched his chin and then jerked the steering wheel. The little airship lurched to the side. Agatha grabbed onto the railing and held on tightly. Krosp pointed to her hands. “Because you don’t want to die.”
“But Othar had a point. Sparks—”
“Not all Sparks,” Krosp interrupted. “Most of them are dangerous,” he conceded. “But what about the ones who fight the monsters, save the towns, build the machines that help people. It’s not what you are, it’s what you do with it.”
“But so many of them are monsters!”
Krosp grinned. “That’s because being a monster is easy. Doing good, making a positive difference. That’s hard. But that’s what your parents did.” He considered her. “Unless you think the construct was lying about the Heterodynes being your parents.”
Agatha didn’t even have to think about that. “Lilith wouldn’t lie to me. Not about that. Not then.”
Krosp nodded. “I have to agree. It’s not like she did you any favors acknowledging it.”
“And everybody is making such a big deal about it. The Baron must discover new Sparks all the time.”
Krosp glared at her. “Because you’re not just a Spark. You’re the last of the Heterodyne family. Surely you must understand how momentous that is. As long as you’re around, the Baron and every other major power in Europe will want to control you, and everyone else will either want to follow you or kill you. You’ve got to understand that.”
“But that’s all… politics. I don’t care about any of that.”
“Well you’d better start to care. Because everyone’s going to care about you.”
“You mean they’re all going to want something from me.”
Krosp nodded. “That’s right, and like it or not, you’ll cause a lot of trouble just by existing.”
Agatha thought about this and had to admit the logic of it. Her jaw tightened and she straightened up. “All right then,” she declared. “Let’s go cause some trouble.”
Table of Contents
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