Agatha H. and the Airship City Read Online Free PDF Page A

Off Limits. This, of course, only added fuel to the speculative fires.
    As she approached the massive stone edifice that was Laboratory Number One, the door-clank swung the great bronze portal open in time for her to dart through. Helpfully, it informed her that she was late, eliciting a howl of despair.
    Finally she slammed through the blast doors into the Central Laboratory and clung to a railing and gasped as she caught her breath. Below her, on the main floor, Dr. Hugo Glassvitch turned away from a humming device and mildly remarked, “Mademoiselle Clay? You’re late.”
    “I KNOOOOOWW!”
    The doctor picked himself up off the floor in time to find his arms full of a sobbing Agatha. “You’re only a little late,” he said comfortingly.
    “My locket! Oh, Doctor, they stole my locket!” Quickly she filled him in on what had happened that morning. “It had the only pictures I have of my parents and it belonged to my mother and now it’s gone!”
    Dr. Glassvitch looked surprised. “I didn’t know that. You never showed—”
    Agatha interrupted. “My uncle gave it to me before he went away. He made me promise to never take it off and now it’s gone and he’ll be disappointed in me again and he’ll… he’ll never come back because I’m… I’m stupid and damaged!” To Glassvitch’s horror, she slid to her knees and began to sob even louder. “Why? Why can’t I do anything right? What’s wrong with meeeee?”
    “Agatha! Mon Dieu!” Agatha only sobbed louder. Glassvitch’s specialty was chemical engineering, which minimized his experience with hysterically sobbing young ladies. Up until now, that had seemed like a perk, but now he realized he had no idea what to do. He cast about desperately and his eye fell upon a bulge in Agatha’s greatcoat pocket. “Agatha!” He gently shook her shoulder. “Show me your latest machine!”
    Agatha’s cries stopped as if a switch had been thrown. She blinked up at Glassvitch through her tears. “My machine?”
    “Oui!” Glassvitch patted her pocket. “Your petite clank? Does it work?”
    Agatha got to her feet and smoothed down her skirt. “I… I don’t know.” She pulled the little device out of the pocket. It looked like an excessively large brass pocket watch. She wound the stem at the top as she talked. “I… I wanted to show it to you before I showed it to the Master.”
    Glassvitch nodded encouragingly. “Ah. Good idea. We don’t want to waste his time, eh? Let’s see it.”
    “All right.” Agatha smiled nervously at him and placed the device on a lab bench. Her index finger hovered for an instant, and then pushed down the stem with a sudden click. Immediately, the sound of gears grinding emanated from within. The device shuddered and a small dome on the face snapped up, revealing a crude eye that jerkily surveyed its surroundings. With a lurch, a pair of legs unfolded from the bottom and it shakily stood, then took an uncertain step forward. Suddenly, the ticking of the gears ended with a Poink! A horrible grinding rattle came from the little device and it began to shake uncontrollably. Its single eye rolled up out of sight, the body twisted violently and exploded in a shower of tiny gears and springs that sent half of the body casing shooting past a startled Agatha and Glassvitch and out through a window pane. The remaining small bits showered down throughout the room.
    Agatha looked at her shoes and whispered, “Sorry. I… I was so sure…”
    Glassvitch shrugged and patted her shoulder. “Well, at least this one actually moved before it blew up. That is improvement, no?”
    Agatha looked up at him in surprise. She opened her mouth—
    “I should have guessed.”
    The two flinched and turned. At the door stood the Tyrant’s second in command, Dr. Silas Merlot. A small, thin, elderly man who owed his current position not to the Spark, but to procedural brilliance and a dogged perseverance in his work. He was rubbing his head and