Bangladesh smiled wickedly. “Awww, c’mon. Let me tell him.”
Klaus cleared his throat. “I think not. At this point, all Gilgamesh knows is that I want her here because, as the last of the Heterodyne family, she is a threat to the peace.”
He sighed. “That’s certainly true enough, and if a Heterodyne is all that she is, that’s fine. But if I have to destroy her—” Klaus paused. “Well, he’s very much in love with her. He is unlikely to be reasonable about all of this, no matter what I say, and I don’t think he’d let me.”
Bangladesh blinked and then looked at Klaus incredulously. “You don’t think he’d let you? Gil?” She let out a burst of laughter that caused everyone in the control room to flinch. She spun about in her chair holding her stomach. “You’re fretting about Herr Sensitive? Klaus, please.”
Klaus frowned in embarrassment. “I assure you, if he allied himself with The Other, it would be very bad indeed. Not just for Europa, but possibly for the entire world.”
Bangladesh tried to control herself and wiped a tear from the corner of her eye. “Oh, I understand, Herr Baron. Heaven forbid I have to face a put-out Gilgamesh.” She broke into another series of giggles.
Klaus studied her in annoyance, but because DuPree was, in her own way, a valuable asset, Klaus felt he had to make an effort to warn her. “You knew Gilgamesh in Paris. While there, he tried to hide everything important about himself. Even from me.” He eyed Bangladesh who tried to look innocent. It didn’t suit her. “The Gilgamesh you think you know is not the real Gilgamesh. Do not underestimate him.”
Bangladesh nodded, and Klaus could almost see his words slide free from her far ear and sail off into space. Mentally, he shrugged. He had done his best, and if worst came to worst, the boy could always use another test.
Lucrezia sat back and tapped the device that sat on the bench before her with a fingernail. The mechanism shivered, and began to spin gently.
She sighed in satisfaction. “There? You see? Place this in the control node, and the main device will be working better than ever.”
Tarvek leaned over her shoulder, a look of rapt attention on his face. “Amazing!” he breathed. “I had no idea! You must teach me more!”
Lucrezia shrugged. The things she was revealing were, in her opinion, elementary advances to existing mechanisms. Tarvek’s reactions suggested that she had progressed more than she had realized.
“Well I certainly had the time,” she conceded to herself. This was good, as it meant that she had more scraps to throw out that would keep the young Spark within her sphere of influence. To Lucrezia, it was patently obvious that Tarvek was an opportunist, one able to ideologically turn on a copper coin when circumstances warranted it, and she was well aware that she would command his loyalty only as long as she looked like she was going to win.
Lucrezia found that she actually enjoyed this. It was a refreshing change from the blind obedience of the Geisterdamen and she realized that once she started dealing with the various powers of Europa, they would be more like Tarvek than not. She was well aware that when it came to dealing with people, she was woefully out of practice.
She patted him gently on the cheek and smiled. He was also rather decorative. When she had the time, there were quite a few of the organic pleasures that she was determined to catch up on. “Of course, dear boy,” she assured him. “You’ll be ever so much more useful to me when...” she swayed, and Tarvek caught her by the shoulders.
“My Lady? Are you well?”
An alarmed Lucrezia shook her head. “I don’t know. I... I feel terrible.”
Tarvek sat her down, fished his watch from his pocket and took her pulse. He frowned. “Well, I can’t say I’m surprised. Aside from a brief period of unconsciousness before you... ah... took over, this body has been without sleep for far longer than is healthy.” He closed the watch with a click. “You’re going to spoil it at this rate.”
Lucrezia closed her eyes, and had to force them open again. “Oh, that tedious sleep business. I can’t say I missed that. So silly of me to forget.”
Tarvek kept his face neutral, but he had to admit that these little snippets of information about Lucrezia’s previous state of existence were filling him with a burning curiosity, as well as a chilling sense of foreboding. What in the world had happened to her?
Lucrezia snapped back to attention. “But I am relieved. I had almost imagined that this body was rejecting me. Or even that the girl herself was fighting back.”
Tarvek looked at her sharply. “That’s impossible.” He paused. “Isn’t it?”
Lucrezia regarded him and frowned. “Oh dear. I do so mistrust it when ‘impossible’ is one’s initial reaction to an idea.”
She stared off into space for a minute. “Your sister—have they found her yet?”
Now Tarvek started to look worried. “No, my Lady. Your priestesses have not returned with her since last you asked, and you’ve already sent them all, so—”
Lucrezia felt a small jolt of fear. “When did I last ask?”
Tarvek again consulted his watch. “Ah—eleven minutes ago.”
Lucrezia swayed in her seat. “Oh dear. I think I do need a dose of sleep.” Then she sat up and delivered a brutal smack across her own face. “No! No, I must have this completed before Klaus’ terrier arrives. It’s such a perfect opportunity...” She turned to Tarvek. “Tell me, dear boy, can you mix me up some sort of stimulant?”
Tarvek frowned. “It’s against my better judgment, medically speaking, but yes, of course, my Lady.”
Lucrezia sighed in relief. “Good. Then I can—” and without any warning, she collapsed into a startled Tarvek’s arms.
“My lady?”
A small, girlish snore was her only response. Tarvek sighed, and with a grunt, he hoisted her up into his arms. “Marvelous,” he muttered. “Now what do I do with you?”
A hand reached up and grabbed his collar. He looked down to see Agatha glaring back at him. “Start by telling me what the heck is going on!”
Tarvek almost dropped her. “Agatha?”
The girl stared at him. “Yes?”
A wave of emotion crashed over Tarvek, catching him completely by surprise. He had accepted that Agatha was gone, gone forever, as he had been forced to accept so many other terrible losses in his life. Now that she was unexpectedly back, feelings that he had suppressed swept him up and threatened to overwhelm him. He hugged the surprised girl tightly to him, and whispered into her hair. “I thought you were gone.”
Agatha realized that she took comfort from the feeling of Tarvek’s arms around her, and relaxed slightly. “I think I was... asleep?” She pulled back and looked Tarvek in the face. “I was so... so angry. It was hard to wake up, but I knew I had to keep trying—what’s been happening?”
Tarvek didn’t even bother to calculate how this changed things. He gently set her down and answered honestly. “You’ve been... well, possessed, I suppose, by The Other.”
Agatha nodded slowly. Things were making sense. “My mother. Yes, I still am.”
Tarvek looked alarmed. “What? But—”
“She’s still in my head... pushing.” A disconnected look crossed her face. “Maybe I’m still dreaming...”
Tarvek grabbed her shoulders and gave her a shake. “No! This is no dream! You’re only awake because Lucrezia fell asleep. You’ve got to stay awake! I’ll help you!”
Agatha looked at him dreamily. “I don’t think I can. It’s so hard to think. Oh! Yes...”
With that she closed her eyes and began to hum a bizarre little atonal drone. A realization struck Tarvek that sent a shiver down his spine. “That’s... you’re heterodyning[64],” he whispered. “It’s real? It works?”
64
No other single attribute or talent of the Heterodyne family is so little understood, even today as the ability they refer to as heterodyning. True heterodyning consists of producing an audible frequency that is the exact opposite of an existing audible frequency. These two frequencies ideally “cancel each other out.” Agatha and other Heterodynes claim that they could produce a type of vocal “humming” that reduced or eliminated ambient noise, making it much easier to sink into a Spark enhanced fugue-state.