Smells Like Hope Part Eight: Meanwhile
Jun. 10th, 2018 06:03 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
hat_writes_stuffTitle: Smells Like Hope Part 8: Meanwhile
Author: Almighty Hat
Fandom: Girl Genius
Characters: Jorgi, Klaus Wulfenbach, a couple of Geisterdamen, Mr. Rovainen, Dr. Bren, Boris Dolokhov, sundry background characters
Word Count: 5,018
Rating: G to PG
Pairing(s): Agatha/Jorgi, background
Warnings: Mentions of the Other and associated Nope, Klaus Wulfenbach and associated perceptions of morality, Mad Science of the 'victim strapped to a slab' variety (with attractive human-looking female victims), canon-typical violence and associated redshirt death, a female monster in a violent wrestling match with a male monster, syringes/needles, mind control and someone trying desperately to subvert it.
Author's Notes: With thanks to Para and Lilithqueen for inspiration and gracious permission, and Celaeno for beta-reading. (Sorry I started you reading a fifteen-year-long comic archive!)
All canon characters, situations, and plot elements are property of Studio Foglio; no money is made from this fanwork and no infringement is intended.
Summary: Klaus Wulfenbach won’t accuse the Geisterdamen of serving the Other without conclusive proof. Geisterdamen can command their Goddess’s ‘lesser servants’ (slaver wasps and revenants). The mindless, shambling revenant of the Other War is an outlier; hardly anybody knows that most revenants look just like everybody else.
Proof happens.
Previous Part
To say the Other devastated Europa is to miss an excellent opportunity to use the word ‘ravaged.’ The Other’s typical attack pattern relied on aerial bombardment of a Spark’s castle, followed by an invasion of Slaver Wasps; mantis-like warriors to protect the queen and keep survivors of the initial attack within reach of the swarm, and the smaller (one might, tastelessly, say ‘bite-sized’) parasitic members of the swarm itself, each of which would burrow into a victim and all too quickly transform them into the classic shambling revenant. Though the Other’s methods were predictable, they were hellish to fight and inflicted on targets with no discernable pattern. No less than forty-three of the Great Houses were destroyed by the Other.
Jorgi had not been part of the unit sent to capture a Geisterdame-- the first step of Baron Wulfenbach’s plan to prove or disprove that they were actually Lucrezia’s followers-- which was a little bit disappointing. On the other hand, if it were true that the Geisterdamen worshipped the Other as a goddess and wanted to find Lucrezia’s daughter so they could do some Sparky brain thing to her to pour Lucrezia into her daughter’s body and get their lost goddess back, it was probably for the best not to send him out hunting spider-riders, since he was one of the few people who knew who that daughter was and right where to find her.
Not that Jorgi would willingly reveal his hidden Heterodyne mistress to her enemies, but who knew what other kind of Sparky brain stuff the Geisters had access to? It wasn’t worth the risk if there was any possibility they could just pour the information out of his head, no muss, no fuss, no torture chambers.
And though the unit that did go had all been enhanced somehow, and had brought back two unconscious Geisterdamen and their big white spiders, it hadn’t been easy. Nobody was dead, but a lot of clanks needed fixing and somebody-- Jorgi hadn’t caught who, except it hadn’t been a Jäger-- had spectacularly broken both ankles jumping off a giant spider. In the end they’d needed to use C-gas, because the Baron wanted at least one Geister alive.
Now he had two.
And now, Jorgi had been invited along-- officially assigned as security, along with a handful of other Jägers, but Jorgi also suspected including him was as a gesture of trust or goodwill or something toward both the Generals and the Heterodyne. While letting Jorgi see whatever happened wasn’t exactly the fastest way to get information to the Heterodyne, it would certainly be direct, and subtle-- the next time Jorgi had leave, he’d visit Zumzum and tell his girlfriend all about it, and since Agatha was Master Bill’s daughter and Heterodyne in her own right, it would effectively be the same thing as giving an official report, only possibly with hugging. (Plus the Jägergenerals had decided that, for now at least, Agatha’s existence and whereabouts were need-to-know or you-already-know-so-it’s-fine-I-guess, even among Jägers. That could change in a hurry if the Baron started acting like he wouldn’t support Agatha, but for now she was safer with fewer people knowing who and where the Heterodyne was. Jorgi didn’t love that decision-- there were a lot of Jagerkin who could really use to hear that they had a Heterodyne again-- but he understood why the Generals had made it. Most Jägerkin wouldn’t need a reason besides ‘they’re working for the Other’ to hunt Geisterdamen, and explaining why their Heterodyne was in hiding… well, Jägers weren’t well-known for their cool heads and even tempers.)
On the whole, though, the setup took him back-- a pair of beautiful-girl-shaped monsters chained to stainless steel slabs, Jägers standing guard, Sparks and minions everywhere, piles and piles-- well, okay, tidy organized racks and trays-- of medical equipment he understood maybe half the uses of at a glance... True, it was the clean tile-and-metal finish of one of Castle Wulfenbach’s Dangerous Biological Labs (rather than the native stone of Castle Heterodyne), and the Baron was running the show (though at least he was a family friend), and there were actually more of the Vespiary Squad hanging around than Jägers or even regular minions, but one way or the other, they’d learn something that should help protect his lady today.
Dr. Bren, the Spark who ran the whole Vespiary thing, lab work and field work and weapons development and all, was telling the Baron, “This is a hell of a risk to take based on a madman’s secret files.”
“Believe me, Dr. Bren, I do know that,” the Baron said, stepping aside to let someone with a tray of instruments pass by, “but Tarsus Beetle believed he’d found a way to control the Other’s creatures-- and included the Geisterdamen on that list alongside wasps and revenants. If he was wrong, then we go no further than these two.”
“I don’t know how you expect to prove a negative, Herr Baron,” Bren pointed out.
But the Baron didn’t get a chance to offer any suggestions, because one of the Geisters shrieked, wide awake and struggling away from the lab tech-- oh, no, that wasn’t a lab tech, that was Mr. Rovainen. Shrieking would’ve been a reasonable reaction to waking up to Rovainen in your space without being strapped down and faced with a syringe. (At least the syringe was empty. It was the full syringes you really needed to watch out for.)
The Baron stepped forward. “Do you speak Romanian?” he asked, but the Geister replied with-- well, it wasn’t any language Jorgi had ever heard, including Greek. The Baron tried in several more languages, proving at least he spoke a few Jorgi didn’t. “Zur baken Skiff?” sounded like a last-ditch effort, even.
But the Geister had settled on repeating the same phrase over and over-- head twisted to look over at the other Geisterdame, who was also starting to shake off the C-gas. Jorgi-- and everyone else on guard duty-- shifted, weapons held that much tighter. The whole thing felt like an experiment that was about to go horribly, horribly wrong.
Or horribly, horribly right. Sometimes the result was pretty similar.
The second Geister groaned and opened her blank eyes. “Smagga du bokk!” and if Jorgi didn’t know what the hell she was saying, he could at least tell she was swearing.
Jorgi had them mentally sorted into The Scared One and The Angry One when Angry snapped out, in perfectly clear Romanian, “People! Hear me! Act: aid us! Go: now!”
And all hell broke loose.
Rovainen got one of Scared’s wrist restraints undone before the Baron cuffed him and the little man scrambled off, one of the human guards shot Grishnarf in the leg, Grishnarf let out a bellow (because getting shot did sting) and clobbered the guy, and by then Jorgi was on the move to stop Angry, who he hadn’t even seen get loose, from stabbing Dr. Bren with some of the pointier goodies from the tray Rovainen had been carrying, and couldn’t keep track of what everyone else was doing.
Geisterdamen, it turned out, could punch almost hard enough to make Jorgi see stars. He grinned at the white lady, making sure all his teeth were on display. “Vell, dis is gonna be fun,” he snarled, and took a swing-- that didn’t connect.
Geisters were also fast. This would be fun. Jorgi dove for Angry’s legs as she tried to weave around the slabs, knocking her flat to the deck, and in the split second he had to wonder if he should’ve just shot her, the Baron bellowed, “Jorgi! Keep that one alive if you can!”
“People!” screamed Angry-- Jorgi scrambled forward, “Act--” but whatever command she was going to give whoever would listen (why? Also how?) was snatched into a scream as Jorgi caught a fistful of that long white hair and yanked.
Angry bent with the pulling, because she wasn’t fool enough to let Jorgi tear her hair out by the roots, but that put her head within his reach-- close enough for him to clamp his free hand over her mouth and pin her head to his shoulder. She clawed at his arm and he grabbed her wrists and pinned them to her chest, she tried to kick at him and Jorgi was pretty sure his knee was going to regret it when he finally got to move, but he managed to pin her legs.
Then she started biting his hand.
Hard, hard enough to hurt, to leave a spectacular bruise if she didn’t break the skin, but Jorgi let out a roar and a string of cursing instead of letting go.
No matter how tight Jorgi held on, Angry thrashed like a mad octopus trying to buck Jorgi off or tear a piece out of him-- it probably looked like a lot more fun than it actually was-- until she suddenly went limp in his grasp.
And there was Dr. Bren, on his hands and knees-- well, one hand, the other was still on the syringe he’d jabbed into Angry’s thigh. He looked scared and smelled terrified, a hell of a thing for a Spark who worked with slaver wasps.
But he’d helped out anyway. “Thenks,” Jorgi told him, smiling genially (well, he meant it genially), and hauled himself to his feet, Angry under one arm.
He stood up just in time to see the last blow of the fight-- a Jäger (Gorb, he thought? Could be Minsk, hard to tell from behind-- no, there was the shoulder-braid, that was Gorb) decking a human (who Jorgi didn’t recognize) who hit the ground like a sack of potatoes-- and take in the aftermath.
Three, maybe four people were dead, Grishnarf wasn’t the only Jäger bleeding but they all seemed more or less upright, Bren was alive which was good, the Scared Geisterdamen was very dead, and the Baron was alive but his shirt had been brutally murdered.
The Baron also looked preoccupied, stalking around the room like he was looking for something.
“Where,” he growled, “is Mr. Rovainen?”
Rovainen had freed one of the dead Geister’s hands.
And he didn’t seem, after a quick search, to be hiding under or behind anything.
Why would he have done what the Geisterdamen said?
That was a question for later-- the question for now was, where would he go? Running made sense, he could be hip-deep in trouble, because the whole thing here was to prove (or disprove, but Jorgi knew where his bets were, they knew, they just needed to prove) that the Geisterdamen were the Other’s creatures, if not her creations. Helping them was helping the--
… Helping the…
… The Other--
Jorgi looked to the Baron, mouth open to spit out his suspicion, but the Baron beat him to it, snarling out, “The hive engine. Gorb,” he snapped, “get Dr. Bren to a support dirigible.” Gorb snapped to, grabbing Bren and taking off at speed, not paying Bren’s squawk of protest any mind. “Vespiary Captain, mobilize as much of your unit as you can, and bring along those wasp eaters-- we have no idea how long it takes to generate the swarm.”
“Herr Baron,” the hooded Captain said, nodding, grabbing four of his people and taking off at a run.
“Grishnarf, can you run on that leg?”
“Yah, Herr Baron,” which was good, it meant the bullet hadn’t wedged anywhere important (or that Grishnarf was pretending he was less hurt than he actually was).
“Then you will run to the Jägergenerals, inform them the hive engine may be breached, and relay my orders to scramble the Jägerhorde, the Lackya, the Dreen, and the battle clanks. Now!” Grishnarf went, and wasn’t lying about being able to run. “You five,” the Baron said to a convenient knot of Jägers and crewmen, “remain here. Restrain that Geister and gag her, then restrain everyone who aided her.” There was an unspoken order in there, and Jorgi none-too-gently dumped Angry back on a slab. “When that is done and not before, sound the alarm to evacuate the labs. Everyone else who isn’t grievously injured, with me!”
The Baron took off at a run, and Jorgi scrambled to follow-- along with a mixed pack of others, a human with a black eye, a handful of Jägers. They caught up fast and the Baron grabbed Stosh by the shoulder, hauling him up to share point. “Can you track Rovainen?”
A fair question, Stosh had a good nose. “Hy tink so, bot depends on if he double back de vay ve kem in.”
“Alert me if his trail takes a turn we don’t, then,” the Baron said, and continued barreling toward the Large Dangerous Mechanical Lab.
The first locked blast door was a shock, but the Baron got them past it easily enough-- it was his Castle, after all, of course he had the right keys and handprint or blood drop or code or whatever it was to unseal a sealed door.
The second was an annoyance.
By the third, Jorgi strongly suspected when they caught up with Mr. Rovainen, Baron Wulfenbach was going to turn him inside-out with his bare hands without stopping to ask any questions.
The door to the Large Dangerous Mechanical Lab wasn’t locked, and the Baron almost stumbled through it.
Dr. Vg was on the floor, dying but not dead, clutching ineffectually at a sucking chest wound. “Fight it!” Vg managed-- not even looking at the small horde trying not to slip in Vg’s blood. Vg’s attention was on Rovainen.
“I am!” Rovainen insisted, fiddling with… parts of the hive engine, Jorgi didn’t know enough about hive engines to know what they were.
“Not well,” the Baron said, seizing Rovainen by the back of his coat. “Two of you take Dr. Vg to Medical immediately. Mr. Rovainen and I are going to have a little chat.”
Rovainen slumped. His expression was hidden behind goggles and scarf, his scent always a little weird, but Jorgi thought he seemed relieved. “He’s a revenant,” Dr. Vg managed, wetly, “I guessed, but he admitted it.”
Then Vg was carted off to Medical at a brisk trot. The Vespiary Squad charged in past them, bristling with weapons and hissing, shrieking eight-legged weasels.
At that point it was all over but the clean-up.
Well, okay, the clean-up and the interrogations.
Again, the Baron ordered Jorgi to come along with him as a wasp-proof guard, but considering he only collected Jägers who’d been guarding the Geisters from the start and Vespiary Squad personnel, Jorgi suspected he wasn’t getting ‘connected to the Heterodyne’ special treatment so much as ‘already in the loop don’t make me stop to explain myself’ special treatment. The Baron only slowed down to have the lab evacuation order canceled, and send someone for Boris.
Baron Wulfenbach started with Angry.
Instead of being strapped down in a lab, now Angry was in a cell, chained to a wall under a gas vent, just in case. “I will tell you nothing,” she bit out as soon as she saw the Baron.
“So I strongly suspected,” he told her. “You needn’t tell me anything at all, I’m perfectly capable of learning through observation. I will still ask questions.”
Angry set her jaw.
“Where are you from?” the Baron asked, like they’d just met at a mutual friend’s tea party, or like he was giving a job interview.
“Nowhere you can reach.”
The Baron only nodded. “Sightings of your people in Europa go back approximately fourteen years, does that sound about right to you?” Angry’s mouth twitched, but she held her tongue. The Baron nodded again, as though she’d politely answered. “And how long have you, personally, been working for the Other?”
The Vespiary guy behind the Baron stiffened, but Jorgi watched Angry-- her shoulders squared and her chin came up, and this time, she actually answered. “Our Goddess is Eternal,” with a measure of fervent pride.
“Then she has been very quiet as of late,” the Baron said, and Angry bristled. “Common wisdom has it that the Heterodyne Boys defeated her.” Angry bared her teeth, but didn’t reply, so the Baron twisted the knife a little harder. “You’d think she’d at least come after me-- I’m the one who’s been collecting, studying, and destroying her work. I think your ‘goddess’ is dead.”
Angry surged forward as far as her chains would let her; Jorgi and the Vespiary guy leveled their guns at her. “When we find the Holy Child--”
“You intend to replace your ‘Holy Child’s’ mind with that of your mistress, creating what I suppose you might think of as a second coming,” the Baron said, one corner of his mouth lifting at Angry’s shock. “Oh, come now, you don’t think I collected you and your companion on a whim, do you? No, I needed proof that you were the Other’s creatures. Though I do wonder if her hold on you can be broken or subverted--”
“Blasphemy!” Angry hissed, recoiling.
“I see.”
The door opened and Boris slipped in with a thin filing folder, which struck Jorgi as really stupid-- paperwork now? And there couldn’t be much in such a skinny folder--but the Baron just said, “Excellent timing,” and accepted it. He took a peek inside, nodded, and then asked Angry, “Tell me, do you recognize this person?”
He held the folder so only the Geister could see it, and when she got an eyeful of whatever it was, her face twisted up in rage and she lunged as far as her restraints would let her. “You dare mock me with the Lady’s Joyous Aspect!?”
“Your lady wears other faces, then?”
The Geister’s blank eyes went wide-- Jorgi figured she’d realized that she’d given away something important. It might keep her alive, if she cared about that kind of thing. No Jäger would, but then the Geisterdamen might be bound to their mistress by something… less consensual than the Jägertroth.
“No matter,” the Baron said. “Your Romanian is excellent, I must say. I’m surprised after your rather stilted orders in the lab.” The Geister tried to make her face blank and keep it that way, and Jorgi wondered what the Baron was getting from it. He was just nodding, as though she’d said something mildly interesting. “That, I think, will do for now. I have other pressing matters to attend to. I expect I will see you again, when I have more questions. Madam.”
The Baron turned and left, and the lot of them trailed him out of the cell.
“Boris,” he said, when the door was locked behind them, “I want this door guarded by four hands at all times. Use primarily Jägers and clanks-- do not use humans, not yet.”
“The Lackya or Dreen, Herr Baron?” Boris asked, busily making notes even while they all trotted along to keep up with the Baron. The Vespiary guys were going to be out of breath unless they were in really good condition.
But the Baron shook his head. “Not yet. We are on our way to interrogate Mr. Rovainen-- who is, apparently, some kind of revenant.” Boris paled and faltered, but didn’t stop. “I thought perhaps he was some sort of outlier-- you are familiar with Mr. Rovainen,” and Boris had to nod. It wasn’t that hard to think of oily, weird little Mr. Rovainen having done something to himself that let his mind survive infection, but-- no, Jorgi had been there, Rovainen wasn’t the only-- “But five other crewmen, all human, responded to that Geister’s demand for help, and the two or three faces I caught a look at seemed unhappy with their own actions.
“I don’t want to put the Dreen on guard duty here until I must, and while the Lackya should be too recently-constructed to be revenants, I’m not betting Castle Wulfenbach’s safety on that. For the time being, the Geisterdame’s guards must be immune to the Other’s influence.”
“Understood, Herr Baron,” Boris conceded. “You took quite a gamble trusting me in there.” It wasn’t quite a question and it wasn’t quite a thank-you.
“He din’ haff to,” Jorgi said, with a grin he didn’t completely feel. “De Baron and two Jägers? Ve could haff knocked hyu out vitout breaking hyu glasses, Meester Boris.”
Boris only rolled his eyes, but they were at Rovainen’s cell quickly enough-- out of earshot of Angry’s cell but not too terribly far away.
The greasy little guy was strung up very much like the pretty monster down the hall.
“Mr. Rovainen.”
“Herr Baron,” Rovainen allowed, strained.
“You attempted to activate a hive engine,” the Baron said, far more darkly than anything he’d said to the Geister. There was a bitter edge to it that Jorgi thought was disappointment-- that, or hurt. Rovainen had been aboard for ages. “I would very much like to know why.”
“I--” but the word cut off, strangled, and nothing more came out.
“Even for a revenant--” and Rovainen’s shoulders twitched, not quite relaxing-- “that was a disturbing interpretation of ‘aid us.’”
“I know you, Herr Baron,” Rovainen said. “And your son and your second, there. You would have ordered Castle Wulfenbach destroyed before risking it in the Other’s control, even secondhand. The deaths-- the deaths would have been clean.”
“As with Dr. Vg?”
“I did not expect you to catch me so quickly. But yes-- better death than--”
“Than life as a revenant?” The Baron arched a brow, his tone cold.
“There are sensible agents of the Other in Europa! I am not--” Again, that touch of strangle.
“You are not the only revenant aboard Castle Wulfenbach,” the Baron filled in.
“I am not,” Rovainen agreed. “It is-- not… resistible, but without direct orders, one may… procrastinate. There was no-- direct benefit to activating the hive engine, before, no harm in studying it, disassembling the control mechanism to determine its age. I-- would have protested its destruction, but with no direct orders, it-- wouldn’t have-- been a problem to have my protests ignored.”
“You can tell me all that,” The Baron said, “but you couldn’t manage to tell me that you’re a revenant.”
Rovainen sagged further in his bonds. “Not until you knew, Herr Baron-- no. Not until I knew you knew. If you know, why, what further harm can I do to the Other’s plans by confirming what you know?”
“And you cannot act, of your own volition, to harm the Other’s plans,” the Baron concluded, a finger curled over his chin-- thinking. “Overtly. Obviously?”
“Unjustifiably,” Rovainen agreed.
“You couldn’t justify ignoring the Geisterdame’s orders-- but activating the hive engine would have been fulfilling the compulsion to aid the Other, the order to aid the Geisters, and yet ensure both the engine and the Geisterdamen would be destroyed-- along with Castle Wulfenbach, but you’re right, I would have considered this airship a small price to pay for containment.”
“It-- is a relief,” Rovainen said, carefully, “that my plan didn’t-- that everything played out as it did. The Other has not returned, only some of their servants have been uncovered. … Favored servants, to share the Other’s authority, it seems.”
“You didn’t know about the Geisterdamen?”
“I knew the right voice could command me. I did not know there could be more than one right voice.”
But Rovainen knew now, and the Baron had known before-- so had Jorgi. And Tarsus Beetle. But they’d all thought it was Agatha’s voice that would do the trick, and nobody else’s. (Jorgi hoped he’d hinted strongly enough about the voice thing in his last letter to Agatha, but there was only so much he could say in a letter anyone could open.)
“I had my suspicions,” the Baron admitted. “How long have you been a revenant, if you know?”
“Since just before commencement,” Rovainen admitted, wryly-- and oh, that had been a long time, then, sixteen or seventeen years, something like that. Rovainen was Mr. Rovainen because right before he’d been due to become Dr. Rovainen, the Other had smashed his town. … Though at least that meant he’d had time to work around the compulsions. To learn to think around them.
“I don’t suppose you know why you’re a revenant,” but that wasn’t a question.
“Oh, a wasp to the face, Herr Baron. I knew. The whole time, I’ve known what I became.”
There was a brisk, urgent knock on the door, just shy of pounding.
The Baron gestured to his guards to reposition, and Boris opened the door. A one of the Vespiary Squad-- a Sergeant, but Jorgi couldn’t quite think of his name, it was on the tip of his tongue-- wasted no time with, “Herr Baron-- excuse me, Herr Dolokhov-- Herr Baron, we think we’ve got something you should see.”
“I suspect Mr. Rovainen won’t mind the interruption,” the Baron allowed. It really wasn’t Rovainen’s fault, apparently. A little splashy and stupid, but he hadn’t made his decision without thinking and double-thinking it through.
“Bring it in, then,” the Sergeant said, and a hooded, masked Vespiary guy carted in a wasp weasel. Then he started shoving it in everyone’s general direction-- the weasel would sniff idly and turn away or sneeze. When held close to Rovainen, however, the little eight-legged beastie shrieked like it had been stepped on.
“And?” the Baron demanded.
“Fits with what Dr. Bren noticed, Herr Baron,” the Sergeant said. “You ever have this one--” he jerked a thumb toward Rovainen-- “around wasp eaters before?”
“Periodically. That’s a normal reaction, and not just to Mr. Rovainen. I do keep abreast of Bren’s developments-- by and large the wasp eaters ignore anyone who isn’t a handler, but now and then they take exception to individuals--”
“To every individual,” the Sergeant said (was his name… Scorpio? Scorpius? Scorponok? Scorp something), “who answered to your Ghost Lady, according to Dr. Bren.”
“Sergeant Scorp and I were sent to confirm Mr. Rovainen produced the same reaction,” the weasel handler agreed.
Oh. Just Scorp, then.
… Wait--
The Baron looked to Rovainen and said, “The others who came to the Geisterdame’s aid-- do you believe they are revenants, as well, or that your state is a result of your modifications?”
“I… cannot be certain,” Rovainen said, slowly, “but it follows. If the Other wants to rule, not just destroy--”
“And you don’t know that, either.”
“I don’t believe I know more-- that they will know more-- than necessary to further the spread of the Other’s wasps. My apologies, Herr Baron.”
“Save your apologies for Dr. Vg, provided Vg survives. I believe a stab wound calls for some measure of influence on your ultimate fate.” The Baron turned from Rovainen to… everyone else. “Gentlemen,” he said, and ushered them out.
“Herr Baron?” asked Boris, once the door was sealed.
“We will need a portion of Castle Wulfenbach-- a very secure portion, and I don’t know yet how large-- sectioned off as quarantined living space. I will want my son, the Deep Thinkers, the Jägergenerals and such aides as they care to bring, Dr. Bren and such aides as he cares to bring-- and a wasp eater-- in the Situation Room in a quarter of an hour.
“There is no doubt in my mind that the Geisterdamen are agents of the Other. As soon as we have a method by which a skeptic can prove it, we distribute that information and begin exterminating them.”
“Und vot about de new revenants?” Jorgi had to ask. Well, someone had to ask, and why not Jorgi?
Damn Lucrezia. Jorgi hoped she’d died a death she couldn’t come back from, and that if she hadn’t had the grace to set her brain on fire or something, he hoped that he’d at least get the pleasure of seeing her die a final death.
“After quarantine, because of the tremendous security risk they pose? We must attempt to cure them.” There was a collective gasp from those around the Baron-- common wisdom said you couldn’t cure a revenant. Then again, the only revenants they’d known about until half an hour ago had jellied bugs for brains, which was why you couldn’t cure a revenant-- there wasn’t anything left of the person they’d once been to cure. Rovainen had been fighting, in a roundabout way, as best he could. Maybe there was hope for the new revenants. “If we can’t manage that, I think we can at least provide the peace of mind that comes from knowing any of the Other’s Geisterdamen who could compel them are irretrievably dead.”
And that was a careful little dance of words.
The meeting itself devolved quickly into the Baron, young Gilgamesh, and Dr. Bren throwing theories at the wall about Geister biology, and Boris dismissed everyone who wasn’t itching to head down to the Vespiary Labs, where the dead Geister was apparently waiting to be turned into a bunch of different samples for study.
They weren’t letting people who hadn’t been cleared by weasels off Castle Wulfenbach, but it only took a few days for the paper to be written, checked by people who weren’t Sparks for sense and repeatability, and printed-- and distribution began immediately. Copies went out to all the Great Houses, all the primary and cadet branches of the thicket of the Fifty Families, to Universities, larger schools, public libraries, the Immortal Library, post offices, even to the Master of Paris and Albia of England, for all it was probably pretty hard to get a giant spider into an underwater kingdom without somebody noticing. Flyers and posters went up, too, with painstakingly accurate illustrations of the giant spiders and the Geisterdamen alike.
GEISTERDAMEN
Also called Weißdamen, Spider Riders, Pale Ladies, et cetera
Those Identical Constructs seen in the Wastelands
CONFIRMED as AGENTS of THE OTHER
Citizens are advised not to approach!
Instead, report sightings immediately
Wulfenbach Troops with Immunity to Wasps will be dispatched
Copies of the Full Scientific Report on Geisterdamen as the Other’s Agents available at
Your Local Post Office and Public Library for Independent Perusal
Copies for Private Individuals available by Request for a Nominal Fee
Author: Almighty Hat
Fandom: Girl Genius
Characters: Jorgi, Klaus Wulfenbach, a couple of Geisterdamen, Mr. Rovainen, Dr. Bren, Boris Dolokhov, sundry background characters
Word Count: 5,018
Rating: G to PG
Pairing(s): Agatha/Jorgi, background
Warnings: Mentions of the Other and associated Nope, Klaus Wulfenbach and associated perceptions of morality, Mad Science of the 'victim strapped to a slab' variety (with attractive human-looking female victims), canon-typical violence and associated redshirt death, a female monster in a violent wrestling match with a male monster, syringes/needles, mind control and someone trying desperately to subvert it.
Author's Notes: With thanks to Para and Lilithqueen for inspiration and gracious permission, and Celaeno for beta-reading. (Sorry I started you reading a fifteen-year-long comic archive!)
All canon characters, situations, and plot elements are property of Studio Foglio; no money is made from this fanwork and no infringement is intended.
Summary: Klaus Wulfenbach won’t accuse the Geisterdamen of serving the Other without conclusive proof. Geisterdamen can command their Goddess’s ‘lesser servants’ (slaver wasps and revenants). The mindless, shambling revenant of the Other War is an outlier; hardly anybody knows that most revenants look just like everybody else.
Proof happens.
Previous Part
To say the Other devastated Europa is to miss an excellent opportunity to use the word ‘ravaged.’ The Other’s typical attack pattern relied on aerial bombardment of a Spark’s castle, followed by an invasion of Slaver Wasps; mantis-like warriors to protect the queen and keep survivors of the initial attack within reach of the swarm, and the smaller (one might, tastelessly, say ‘bite-sized’) parasitic members of the swarm itself, each of which would burrow into a victim and all too quickly transform them into the classic shambling revenant. Though the Other’s methods were predictable, they were hellish to fight and inflicted on targets with no discernable pattern. No less than forty-three of the Great Houses were destroyed by the Other.
Jorgi had not been part of the unit sent to capture a Geisterdame-- the first step of Baron Wulfenbach’s plan to prove or disprove that they were actually Lucrezia’s followers-- which was a little bit disappointing. On the other hand, if it were true that the Geisterdamen worshipped the Other as a goddess and wanted to find Lucrezia’s daughter so they could do some Sparky brain thing to her to pour Lucrezia into her daughter’s body and get their lost goddess back, it was probably for the best not to send him out hunting spider-riders, since he was one of the few people who knew who that daughter was and right where to find her.
Not that Jorgi would willingly reveal his hidden Heterodyne mistress to her enemies, but who knew what other kind of Sparky brain stuff the Geisters had access to? It wasn’t worth the risk if there was any possibility they could just pour the information out of his head, no muss, no fuss, no torture chambers.
And though the unit that did go had all been enhanced somehow, and had brought back two unconscious Geisterdamen and their big white spiders, it hadn’t been easy. Nobody was dead, but a lot of clanks needed fixing and somebody-- Jorgi hadn’t caught who, except it hadn’t been a Jäger-- had spectacularly broken both ankles jumping off a giant spider. In the end they’d needed to use C-gas, because the Baron wanted at least one Geister alive.
Now he had two.
And now, Jorgi had been invited along-- officially assigned as security, along with a handful of other Jägers, but Jorgi also suspected including him was as a gesture of trust or goodwill or something toward both the Generals and the Heterodyne. While letting Jorgi see whatever happened wasn’t exactly the fastest way to get information to the Heterodyne, it would certainly be direct, and subtle-- the next time Jorgi had leave, he’d visit Zumzum and tell his girlfriend all about it, and since Agatha was Master Bill’s daughter and Heterodyne in her own right, it would effectively be the same thing as giving an official report, only possibly with hugging. (Plus the Jägergenerals had decided that, for now at least, Agatha’s existence and whereabouts were need-to-know or you-already-know-so-it’s-fine-I-guess, even among Jägers. That could change in a hurry if the Baron started acting like he wouldn’t support Agatha, but for now she was safer with fewer people knowing who and where the Heterodyne was. Jorgi didn’t love that decision-- there were a lot of Jagerkin who could really use to hear that they had a Heterodyne again-- but he understood why the Generals had made it. Most Jägerkin wouldn’t need a reason besides ‘they’re working for the Other’ to hunt Geisterdamen, and explaining why their Heterodyne was in hiding… well, Jägers weren’t well-known for their cool heads and even tempers.)
On the whole, though, the setup took him back-- a pair of beautiful-girl-shaped monsters chained to stainless steel slabs, Jägers standing guard, Sparks and minions everywhere, piles and piles-- well, okay, tidy organized racks and trays-- of medical equipment he understood maybe half the uses of at a glance... True, it was the clean tile-and-metal finish of one of Castle Wulfenbach’s Dangerous Biological Labs (rather than the native stone of Castle Heterodyne), and the Baron was running the show (though at least he was a family friend), and there were actually more of the Vespiary Squad hanging around than Jägers or even regular minions, but one way or the other, they’d learn something that should help protect his lady today.
Dr. Bren, the Spark who ran the whole Vespiary thing, lab work and field work and weapons development and all, was telling the Baron, “This is a hell of a risk to take based on a madman’s secret files.”
“Believe me, Dr. Bren, I do know that,” the Baron said, stepping aside to let someone with a tray of instruments pass by, “but Tarsus Beetle believed he’d found a way to control the Other’s creatures-- and included the Geisterdamen on that list alongside wasps and revenants. If he was wrong, then we go no further than these two.”
“I don’t know how you expect to prove a negative, Herr Baron,” Bren pointed out.
But the Baron didn’t get a chance to offer any suggestions, because one of the Geisters shrieked, wide awake and struggling away from the lab tech-- oh, no, that wasn’t a lab tech, that was Mr. Rovainen. Shrieking would’ve been a reasonable reaction to waking up to Rovainen in your space without being strapped down and faced with a syringe. (At least the syringe was empty. It was the full syringes you really needed to watch out for.)
The Baron stepped forward. “Do you speak Romanian?” he asked, but the Geister replied with-- well, it wasn’t any language Jorgi had ever heard, including Greek. The Baron tried in several more languages, proving at least he spoke a few Jorgi didn’t. “Zur baken Skiff?” sounded like a last-ditch effort, even.
But the Geister had settled on repeating the same phrase over and over-- head twisted to look over at the other Geisterdame, who was also starting to shake off the C-gas. Jorgi-- and everyone else on guard duty-- shifted, weapons held that much tighter. The whole thing felt like an experiment that was about to go horribly, horribly wrong.
Or horribly, horribly right. Sometimes the result was pretty similar.
The second Geister groaned and opened her blank eyes. “Smagga du bokk!” and if Jorgi didn’t know what the hell she was saying, he could at least tell she was swearing.
Jorgi had them mentally sorted into The Scared One and The Angry One when Angry snapped out, in perfectly clear Romanian, “People! Hear me! Act: aid us! Go: now!”
And all hell broke loose.
Rovainen got one of Scared’s wrist restraints undone before the Baron cuffed him and the little man scrambled off, one of the human guards shot Grishnarf in the leg, Grishnarf let out a bellow (because getting shot did sting) and clobbered the guy, and by then Jorgi was on the move to stop Angry, who he hadn’t even seen get loose, from stabbing Dr. Bren with some of the pointier goodies from the tray Rovainen had been carrying, and couldn’t keep track of what everyone else was doing.
Geisterdamen, it turned out, could punch almost hard enough to make Jorgi see stars. He grinned at the white lady, making sure all his teeth were on display. “Vell, dis is gonna be fun,” he snarled, and took a swing-- that didn’t connect.
Geisters were also fast. This would be fun. Jorgi dove for Angry’s legs as she tried to weave around the slabs, knocking her flat to the deck, and in the split second he had to wonder if he should’ve just shot her, the Baron bellowed, “Jorgi! Keep that one alive if you can!”
“People!” screamed Angry-- Jorgi scrambled forward, “Act--” but whatever command she was going to give whoever would listen (why? Also how?) was snatched into a scream as Jorgi caught a fistful of that long white hair and yanked.
Angry bent with the pulling, because she wasn’t fool enough to let Jorgi tear her hair out by the roots, but that put her head within his reach-- close enough for him to clamp his free hand over her mouth and pin her head to his shoulder. She clawed at his arm and he grabbed her wrists and pinned them to her chest, she tried to kick at him and Jorgi was pretty sure his knee was going to regret it when he finally got to move, but he managed to pin her legs.
Then she started biting his hand.
Hard, hard enough to hurt, to leave a spectacular bruise if she didn’t break the skin, but Jorgi let out a roar and a string of cursing instead of letting go.
No matter how tight Jorgi held on, Angry thrashed like a mad octopus trying to buck Jorgi off or tear a piece out of him-- it probably looked like a lot more fun than it actually was-- until she suddenly went limp in his grasp.
And there was Dr. Bren, on his hands and knees-- well, one hand, the other was still on the syringe he’d jabbed into Angry’s thigh. He looked scared and smelled terrified, a hell of a thing for a Spark who worked with slaver wasps.
But he’d helped out anyway. “Thenks,” Jorgi told him, smiling genially (well, he meant it genially), and hauled himself to his feet, Angry under one arm.
He stood up just in time to see the last blow of the fight-- a Jäger (Gorb, he thought? Could be Minsk, hard to tell from behind-- no, there was the shoulder-braid, that was Gorb) decking a human (who Jorgi didn’t recognize) who hit the ground like a sack of potatoes-- and take in the aftermath.
Three, maybe four people were dead, Grishnarf wasn’t the only Jäger bleeding but they all seemed more or less upright, Bren was alive which was good, the Scared Geisterdamen was very dead, and the Baron was alive but his shirt had been brutally murdered.
The Baron also looked preoccupied, stalking around the room like he was looking for something.
“Where,” he growled, “is Mr. Rovainen?”
Rovainen had freed one of the dead Geister’s hands.
And he didn’t seem, after a quick search, to be hiding under or behind anything.
Why would he have done what the Geisterdamen said?
That was a question for later-- the question for now was, where would he go? Running made sense, he could be hip-deep in trouble, because the whole thing here was to prove (or disprove, but Jorgi knew where his bets were, they knew, they just needed to prove) that the Geisterdamen were the Other’s creatures, if not her creations. Helping them was helping the--
… Helping the…
… The Other--
Jorgi looked to the Baron, mouth open to spit out his suspicion, but the Baron beat him to it, snarling out, “The hive engine. Gorb,” he snapped, “get Dr. Bren to a support dirigible.” Gorb snapped to, grabbing Bren and taking off at speed, not paying Bren’s squawk of protest any mind. “Vespiary Captain, mobilize as much of your unit as you can, and bring along those wasp eaters-- we have no idea how long it takes to generate the swarm.”
“Herr Baron,” the hooded Captain said, nodding, grabbing four of his people and taking off at a run.
“Grishnarf, can you run on that leg?”
“Yah, Herr Baron,” which was good, it meant the bullet hadn’t wedged anywhere important (or that Grishnarf was pretending he was less hurt than he actually was).
“Then you will run to the Jägergenerals, inform them the hive engine may be breached, and relay my orders to scramble the Jägerhorde, the Lackya, the Dreen, and the battle clanks. Now!” Grishnarf went, and wasn’t lying about being able to run. “You five,” the Baron said to a convenient knot of Jägers and crewmen, “remain here. Restrain that Geister and gag her, then restrain everyone who aided her.” There was an unspoken order in there, and Jorgi none-too-gently dumped Angry back on a slab. “When that is done and not before, sound the alarm to evacuate the labs. Everyone else who isn’t grievously injured, with me!”
The Baron took off at a run, and Jorgi scrambled to follow-- along with a mixed pack of others, a human with a black eye, a handful of Jägers. They caught up fast and the Baron grabbed Stosh by the shoulder, hauling him up to share point. “Can you track Rovainen?”
A fair question, Stosh had a good nose. “Hy tink so, bot depends on if he double back de vay ve kem in.”
“Alert me if his trail takes a turn we don’t, then,” the Baron said, and continued barreling toward the Large Dangerous Mechanical Lab.
The first locked blast door was a shock, but the Baron got them past it easily enough-- it was his Castle, after all, of course he had the right keys and handprint or blood drop or code or whatever it was to unseal a sealed door.
The second was an annoyance.
By the third, Jorgi strongly suspected when they caught up with Mr. Rovainen, Baron Wulfenbach was going to turn him inside-out with his bare hands without stopping to ask any questions.
The door to the Large Dangerous Mechanical Lab wasn’t locked, and the Baron almost stumbled through it.
Dr. Vg was on the floor, dying but not dead, clutching ineffectually at a sucking chest wound. “Fight it!” Vg managed-- not even looking at the small horde trying not to slip in Vg’s blood. Vg’s attention was on Rovainen.
“I am!” Rovainen insisted, fiddling with… parts of the hive engine, Jorgi didn’t know enough about hive engines to know what they were.
“Not well,” the Baron said, seizing Rovainen by the back of his coat. “Two of you take Dr. Vg to Medical immediately. Mr. Rovainen and I are going to have a little chat.”
Rovainen slumped. His expression was hidden behind goggles and scarf, his scent always a little weird, but Jorgi thought he seemed relieved. “He’s a revenant,” Dr. Vg managed, wetly, “I guessed, but he admitted it.”
Then Vg was carted off to Medical at a brisk trot. The Vespiary Squad charged in past them, bristling with weapons and hissing, shrieking eight-legged weasels.
At that point it was all over but the clean-up.
Well, okay, the clean-up and the interrogations.
Again, the Baron ordered Jorgi to come along with him as a wasp-proof guard, but considering he only collected Jägers who’d been guarding the Geisters from the start and Vespiary Squad personnel, Jorgi suspected he wasn’t getting ‘connected to the Heterodyne’ special treatment so much as ‘already in the loop don’t make me stop to explain myself’ special treatment. The Baron only slowed down to have the lab evacuation order canceled, and send someone for Boris.
Baron Wulfenbach started with Angry.
Instead of being strapped down in a lab, now Angry was in a cell, chained to a wall under a gas vent, just in case. “I will tell you nothing,” she bit out as soon as she saw the Baron.
“So I strongly suspected,” he told her. “You needn’t tell me anything at all, I’m perfectly capable of learning through observation. I will still ask questions.”
Angry set her jaw.
“Where are you from?” the Baron asked, like they’d just met at a mutual friend’s tea party, or like he was giving a job interview.
“Nowhere you can reach.”
The Baron only nodded. “Sightings of your people in Europa go back approximately fourteen years, does that sound about right to you?” Angry’s mouth twitched, but she held her tongue. The Baron nodded again, as though she’d politely answered. “And how long have you, personally, been working for the Other?”
The Vespiary guy behind the Baron stiffened, but Jorgi watched Angry-- her shoulders squared and her chin came up, and this time, she actually answered. “Our Goddess is Eternal,” with a measure of fervent pride.
“Then she has been very quiet as of late,” the Baron said, and Angry bristled. “Common wisdom has it that the Heterodyne Boys defeated her.” Angry bared her teeth, but didn’t reply, so the Baron twisted the knife a little harder. “You’d think she’d at least come after me-- I’m the one who’s been collecting, studying, and destroying her work. I think your ‘goddess’ is dead.”
Angry surged forward as far as her chains would let her; Jorgi and the Vespiary guy leveled their guns at her. “When we find the Holy Child--”
“You intend to replace your ‘Holy Child’s’ mind with that of your mistress, creating what I suppose you might think of as a second coming,” the Baron said, one corner of his mouth lifting at Angry’s shock. “Oh, come now, you don’t think I collected you and your companion on a whim, do you? No, I needed proof that you were the Other’s creatures. Though I do wonder if her hold on you can be broken or subverted--”
“Blasphemy!” Angry hissed, recoiling.
“I see.”
The door opened and Boris slipped in with a thin filing folder, which struck Jorgi as really stupid-- paperwork now? And there couldn’t be much in such a skinny folder--but the Baron just said, “Excellent timing,” and accepted it. He took a peek inside, nodded, and then asked Angry, “Tell me, do you recognize this person?”
He held the folder so only the Geister could see it, and when she got an eyeful of whatever it was, her face twisted up in rage and she lunged as far as her restraints would let her. “You dare mock me with the Lady’s Joyous Aspect!?”
“Your lady wears other faces, then?”
The Geister’s blank eyes went wide-- Jorgi figured she’d realized that she’d given away something important. It might keep her alive, if she cared about that kind of thing. No Jäger would, but then the Geisterdamen might be bound to their mistress by something… less consensual than the Jägertroth.
“No matter,” the Baron said. “Your Romanian is excellent, I must say. I’m surprised after your rather stilted orders in the lab.” The Geister tried to make her face blank and keep it that way, and Jorgi wondered what the Baron was getting from it. He was just nodding, as though she’d said something mildly interesting. “That, I think, will do for now. I have other pressing matters to attend to. I expect I will see you again, when I have more questions. Madam.”
The Baron turned and left, and the lot of them trailed him out of the cell.
“Boris,” he said, when the door was locked behind them, “I want this door guarded by four hands at all times. Use primarily Jägers and clanks-- do not use humans, not yet.”
“The Lackya or Dreen, Herr Baron?” Boris asked, busily making notes even while they all trotted along to keep up with the Baron. The Vespiary guys were going to be out of breath unless they were in really good condition.
But the Baron shook his head. “Not yet. We are on our way to interrogate Mr. Rovainen-- who is, apparently, some kind of revenant.” Boris paled and faltered, but didn’t stop. “I thought perhaps he was some sort of outlier-- you are familiar with Mr. Rovainen,” and Boris had to nod. It wasn’t that hard to think of oily, weird little Mr. Rovainen having done something to himself that let his mind survive infection, but-- no, Jorgi had been there, Rovainen wasn’t the only-- “But five other crewmen, all human, responded to that Geister’s demand for help, and the two or three faces I caught a look at seemed unhappy with their own actions.
“I don’t want to put the Dreen on guard duty here until I must, and while the Lackya should be too recently-constructed to be revenants, I’m not betting Castle Wulfenbach’s safety on that. For the time being, the Geisterdame’s guards must be immune to the Other’s influence.”
“Understood, Herr Baron,” Boris conceded. “You took quite a gamble trusting me in there.” It wasn’t quite a question and it wasn’t quite a thank-you.
“He din’ haff to,” Jorgi said, with a grin he didn’t completely feel. “De Baron and two Jägers? Ve could haff knocked hyu out vitout breaking hyu glasses, Meester Boris.”
Boris only rolled his eyes, but they were at Rovainen’s cell quickly enough-- out of earshot of Angry’s cell but not too terribly far away.
The greasy little guy was strung up very much like the pretty monster down the hall.
“Mr. Rovainen.”
“Herr Baron,” Rovainen allowed, strained.
“You attempted to activate a hive engine,” the Baron said, far more darkly than anything he’d said to the Geister. There was a bitter edge to it that Jorgi thought was disappointment-- that, or hurt. Rovainen had been aboard for ages. “I would very much like to know why.”
“I--” but the word cut off, strangled, and nothing more came out.
“Even for a revenant--” and Rovainen’s shoulders twitched, not quite relaxing-- “that was a disturbing interpretation of ‘aid us.’”
“I know you, Herr Baron,” Rovainen said. “And your son and your second, there. You would have ordered Castle Wulfenbach destroyed before risking it in the Other’s control, even secondhand. The deaths-- the deaths would have been clean.”
“As with Dr. Vg?”
“I did not expect you to catch me so quickly. But yes-- better death than--”
“Than life as a revenant?” The Baron arched a brow, his tone cold.
“There are sensible agents of the Other in Europa! I am not--” Again, that touch of strangle.
“You are not the only revenant aboard Castle Wulfenbach,” the Baron filled in.
“I am not,” Rovainen agreed. “It is-- not… resistible, but without direct orders, one may… procrastinate. There was no-- direct benefit to activating the hive engine, before, no harm in studying it, disassembling the control mechanism to determine its age. I-- would have protested its destruction, but with no direct orders, it-- wouldn’t have-- been a problem to have my protests ignored.”
“You can tell me all that,” The Baron said, “but you couldn’t manage to tell me that you’re a revenant.”
Rovainen sagged further in his bonds. “Not until you knew, Herr Baron-- no. Not until I knew you knew. If you know, why, what further harm can I do to the Other’s plans by confirming what you know?”
“And you cannot act, of your own volition, to harm the Other’s plans,” the Baron concluded, a finger curled over his chin-- thinking. “Overtly. Obviously?”
“Unjustifiably,” Rovainen agreed.
“You couldn’t justify ignoring the Geisterdame’s orders-- but activating the hive engine would have been fulfilling the compulsion to aid the Other, the order to aid the Geisters, and yet ensure both the engine and the Geisterdamen would be destroyed-- along with Castle Wulfenbach, but you’re right, I would have considered this airship a small price to pay for containment.”
“It-- is a relief,” Rovainen said, carefully, “that my plan didn’t-- that everything played out as it did. The Other has not returned, only some of their servants have been uncovered. … Favored servants, to share the Other’s authority, it seems.”
“You didn’t know about the Geisterdamen?”
“I knew the right voice could command me. I did not know there could be more than one right voice.”
But Rovainen knew now, and the Baron had known before-- so had Jorgi. And Tarsus Beetle. But they’d all thought it was Agatha’s voice that would do the trick, and nobody else’s. (Jorgi hoped he’d hinted strongly enough about the voice thing in his last letter to Agatha, but there was only so much he could say in a letter anyone could open.)
“I had my suspicions,” the Baron admitted. “How long have you been a revenant, if you know?”
“Since just before commencement,” Rovainen admitted, wryly-- and oh, that had been a long time, then, sixteen or seventeen years, something like that. Rovainen was Mr. Rovainen because right before he’d been due to become Dr. Rovainen, the Other had smashed his town. … Though at least that meant he’d had time to work around the compulsions. To learn to think around them.
“I don’t suppose you know why you’re a revenant,” but that wasn’t a question.
“Oh, a wasp to the face, Herr Baron. I knew. The whole time, I’ve known what I became.”
There was a brisk, urgent knock on the door, just shy of pounding.
The Baron gestured to his guards to reposition, and Boris opened the door. A one of the Vespiary Squad-- a Sergeant, but Jorgi couldn’t quite think of his name, it was on the tip of his tongue-- wasted no time with, “Herr Baron-- excuse me, Herr Dolokhov-- Herr Baron, we think we’ve got something you should see.”
“I suspect Mr. Rovainen won’t mind the interruption,” the Baron allowed. It really wasn’t Rovainen’s fault, apparently. A little splashy and stupid, but he hadn’t made his decision without thinking and double-thinking it through.
“Bring it in, then,” the Sergeant said, and a hooded, masked Vespiary guy carted in a wasp weasel. Then he started shoving it in everyone’s general direction-- the weasel would sniff idly and turn away or sneeze. When held close to Rovainen, however, the little eight-legged beastie shrieked like it had been stepped on.
“And?” the Baron demanded.
“Fits with what Dr. Bren noticed, Herr Baron,” the Sergeant said. “You ever have this one--” he jerked a thumb toward Rovainen-- “around wasp eaters before?”
“Periodically. That’s a normal reaction, and not just to Mr. Rovainen. I do keep abreast of Bren’s developments-- by and large the wasp eaters ignore anyone who isn’t a handler, but now and then they take exception to individuals--”
“To every individual,” the Sergeant said (was his name… Scorpio? Scorpius? Scorponok? Scorp something), “who answered to your Ghost Lady, according to Dr. Bren.”
“Sergeant Scorp and I were sent to confirm Mr. Rovainen produced the same reaction,” the weasel handler agreed.
Oh. Just Scorp, then.
… Wait--
The Baron looked to Rovainen and said, “The others who came to the Geisterdame’s aid-- do you believe they are revenants, as well, or that your state is a result of your modifications?”
“I… cannot be certain,” Rovainen said, slowly, “but it follows. If the Other wants to rule, not just destroy--”
“And you don’t know that, either.”
“I don’t believe I know more-- that they will know more-- than necessary to further the spread of the Other’s wasps. My apologies, Herr Baron.”
“Save your apologies for Dr. Vg, provided Vg survives. I believe a stab wound calls for some measure of influence on your ultimate fate.” The Baron turned from Rovainen to… everyone else. “Gentlemen,” he said, and ushered them out.
“Herr Baron?” asked Boris, once the door was sealed.
“We will need a portion of Castle Wulfenbach-- a very secure portion, and I don’t know yet how large-- sectioned off as quarantined living space. I will want my son, the Deep Thinkers, the Jägergenerals and such aides as they care to bring, Dr. Bren and such aides as he cares to bring-- and a wasp eater-- in the Situation Room in a quarter of an hour.
“There is no doubt in my mind that the Geisterdamen are agents of the Other. As soon as we have a method by which a skeptic can prove it, we distribute that information and begin exterminating them.”
“Und vot about de new revenants?” Jorgi had to ask. Well, someone had to ask, and why not Jorgi?
Damn Lucrezia. Jorgi hoped she’d died a death she couldn’t come back from, and that if she hadn’t had the grace to set her brain on fire or something, he hoped that he’d at least get the pleasure of seeing her die a final death.
“After quarantine, because of the tremendous security risk they pose? We must attempt to cure them.” There was a collective gasp from those around the Baron-- common wisdom said you couldn’t cure a revenant. Then again, the only revenants they’d known about until half an hour ago had jellied bugs for brains, which was why you couldn’t cure a revenant-- there wasn’t anything left of the person they’d once been to cure. Rovainen had been fighting, in a roundabout way, as best he could. Maybe there was hope for the new revenants. “If we can’t manage that, I think we can at least provide the peace of mind that comes from knowing any of the Other’s Geisterdamen who could compel them are irretrievably dead.”
And that was a careful little dance of words.
The meeting itself devolved quickly into the Baron, young Gilgamesh, and Dr. Bren throwing theories at the wall about Geister biology, and Boris dismissed everyone who wasn’t itching to head down to the Vespiary Labs, where the dead Geister was apparently waiting to be turned into a bunch of different samples for study.
They weren’t letting people who hadn’t been cleared by weasels off Castle Wulfenbach, but it only took a few days for the paper to be written, checked by people who weren’t Sparks for sense and repeatability, and printed-- and distribution began immediately. Copies went out to all the Great Houses, all the primary and cadet branches of the thicket of the Fifty Families, to Universities, larger schools, public libraries, the Immortal Library, post offices, even to the Master of Paris and Albia of England, for all it was probably pretty hard to get a giant spider into an underwater kingdom without somebody noticing. Flyers and posters went up, too, with painstakingly accurate illustrations of the giant spiders and the Geisterdamen alike.
Also called Weißdamen, Spider Riders, Pale Ladies, et cetera
Those Identical Constructs seen in the Wastelands
CONFIRMED as AGENTS of THE OTHER
Citizens are advised not to approach!
Instead, report sightings immediately
Wulfenbach Troops with Immunity to Wasps will be dispatched
Copies of the Full Scientific Report on Geisterdamen as the Other’s Agents available at
Your Local Post Office and Public Library for Independent Perusal
Copies for Private Individuals available by Request for a Nominal Fee
