Scientific chronicles 11

After a fun day of roller coasters and scams disguised as games, plus some carousing in the upper floors of Mamma Gkika’s, Tanya had finished her actual business in the city. But she also budgeted at least four days for this, so she had two left. Even if she was willing to add a day for additional flexibility, that still left her with an entire day of seeing the sights before she had to leave. 

As usual, the cheese, bread, and snails in Mamma’s lower levels were hearty and delicious, and the Jagermonsters happily suggested a few places in town she should visit as she spent another three hours bolting a few more customized cybernetics on their maimed bodies. Yes, they were just going to run back into battle and get even more injured, but she knew what it was like to be a wounded veteran; not personally, but she knew a fair few in the following years. Unfortunately, they ran out of good scrap, and only a fraction of the jagermonsters could be set right with just a nonstandard replacement part or two, so there wasn’t anything more she could do for them. The Jaferfrau, which is what the waitstaff in the upper levels who merely dressed like Jagermonsters were called, suggested a few more places that were popular with tourists. 

As she started her day late, her first stop was a light lunch of gingerbread and coffee, before looking to see if one of the ‘ride with the jagers’ tour groups (as she understood it, it was basically a themed bus tour of the valley) was starting soon, when she noticed that she was being followed. More to the point, she was being followed by someone of means, as she once more ‘heard’ that distinctive ultrasonic whining of a cloaking device that needed maintenance, and while most people, even sparks, register it as a sense of feeling watched at worst, she knew exactly what was causing it, and it was just so irritating!

Still, she went along her merry way, finding a good time to duck out of sight and activate her armor’s cloaking device. Once she did, after a beat the covert operative turned off their device and rushed (cloaking devices don’t do well with rapid movement) with diminished but still impressive stealth to try and figure out where she went. 

Hm. Sort of cute, she guesses? About Tanya’s height, a little curvier, well-muscled, but with messy hair. Storm King Red, but a somewhat darker shade, short, stringy… Tanya was briefly distracted with thoughts of the proper chemical formulas necessary to make that durian of a hairstyle into something pretty. 

Tanya tapped her on the shoulder when the girl approached Tanya’s position, deactivating her own armor’s stealth device. She could only keep it active for a minute or so at a time anyway before the systems get too stressed. “Shit!” The girl shouted, leaping into a higher position in surprise. 

“Why are you following me?” Tanya demanded. 

“Tch. Spotted by my quarry?” The girl moaned softly to herself. “Way to go, failure.” Hm. She did not have very high self-esteem, did she? 

“Talk fast.” Tanya said threateningly, letting her wrist launcher load itself as she aimed it at her. 

“The Burgermeister wants to talk to you!” The girl said quickly, “I work for him, I’m his secretary!” To her credit, she was dressed like a secretary, in a simple dress and fake spectacles with her actual stealth gear underneath. 

…Okay, maybe the Burgermeister isn’t just a figurehead in this town. “In the future, I would appreciate more politeness in official communications.” She said dangerously. “Well, my itinerary’s still open, so lead the way.”

“Really?” The secretary asked, surprised at the easy acquiescence. 

“You better hope that the Burgermeister isn’t in anyplace suspicious.” Tanya warned, the threat seeming to comfort the secretary. “And I have more weapons than just the pneumatic dart launcher.”

Fortunately, the trip to the nominal top official in Mechanicsburg didn’t take long, and it was in a courthouse-looking building, so all was well. Burgermeister Stanislaus Zuken, as his office was labeled, was a portly man with a large moustache and a sizable hat, not terribly distinctive. “Ah, Countess. Good job, Violetta.” He said, and the secretary demurely left the room to man the front desk. “Now, are you aware, Countess, that the Baron frowns upon re-arming Heterodyne weapon systems?”

He did? Well, she supposed that did make some sense… “Is it illegal?” Tanya asked with confidence, which was the most relevant question. 

Mr. Zuken squirmed uncomfortably. “Well, not as such, no…”

“Then why are you bothering me about how I spend my vacation?” Tanya asked, going on the attack. This seemed to just be some petty power play, it was no time to be agreeable. “I had a lovely time fixing up that old carousel,” She really did, she’s never led a project with quite so many assistants, nor ones as eager as they (they must have really liked that carousel). It made her a bit giddy thinking about when she could train up her own cadre of assistants in her lands for large projects. “and citizens of the Empire are now safer with slightly higher defenses against invasion. I don’t see the problem.”

“It’s Mechanicsburg.” Zuken reiterated, “It is the policy of the Empire that Mechanicsburg be disarmed, and you’ve given my boys more work to do.”

“Well, it’s a bit late to tell me that now, rules that are not communicated are worthless.” Tanya said flippantly. Yes, she was being a bit hypocritical here, but she was not in a financial position to be paying fines, so she can’t be acknowledging wrongdoing. “I won’t fix up anything else for fun, and that’s all I can promise you.” Only if it served some kind of purpose. “Would that be all, Burgermeister?” She made sure to put in as much derision for the title as she should muster, playing the part of the arrogant noblewoman so he wouldn’t do something that would inconvenience her, like doing the sabotage work herself. 

Despite being less than half his size, he swallowed nervously. “Yes, well, don’t do it again!” He said, in a feeble attempt to reclaim his nonexistent authority over her. “Violetta, see her out.”

The assistant was downright clumsy when she returned, probably faking a civilian’s level of training. “Yes, Burgermeister Zuken.” She said, a little sarcastically. “This way, Countess.”

“Does the Burgermeister make a point to meet every spark that comes to town, or am I lucky?” Tanya asked idly on the way out of the building. 

“This is the first actual meeting he’s had in days.” Violetta said, “Unless you count his lunch meetings. Of which he has plenty.” 

“He did seem the type to take full advantage of expensed lunches.” Tanya agreed, patting her belly to hint as to her meeting. The two of them giggled at the admittedly mean-spirited joke. “At least he’s not a creepy flirt.”

“Small mercies.” Violetta said, nodding in feminine solidarity. 

Once they were at the door, Tanya decided to bring up another matter. Leaning in close, she whispered: “Also, here’s your cloaking device back. I fixed it.” It appeared to be made by the same spark that makes Seffie’s retainer’s devices. While it used basically identical principles to the one that Neena’s bodyguard uses, there were subtleties between the two makes. It wasn’t exactly the same device, but Tanya chalked that up to this one being a probably-older model. 

“Wha-” Violetta patted herself over, helpfully pointing out all of her hidden pockets. “How did you- are you trained in the ways of the Smoke?” She whispered back. 

“No, I’m just Seffie’s friend.” Tanya replied back, “Her retainers all have that same model of cloaking device. Do you work with them?”

“...Xersephina Blitzengaard?” Violetta whispered back. “No, I work for the Sturmvoraus.”

Like Tarvek? “Well, don’t let me take you from your job. You probably shouldn’t be using your spy stuff when on official tasks, though. Bad tradecraft.”

“It is?” Violetta asked, “Damn it, I suck at this…”

Tanya patted the girl on the back sympathetically. It had been lifetimes since she felt the sting of feeling like she was incompetent, making stupid mistakes, but it was a pain that everyone with an ounce of self-awareness felt at some point. “At least this is a safe, easy posting.” She added consolingly. “You’re not even compelled to put in excessive effort on your appearance; back in the day I knew quite a few secretaries who were practically required to beautify themselves as much as possible.” Tanya was not a huge fan of the law firm she spent her student days with, for that reason among others. The Empire’s civilian industries were not as egalitarian as the military was. 

Violetta flushed. “Right. Of course. I don’t want to look pretty, so I don’t put in the effort.” Real convincing there…

Okay, either this girl was really as incompetent as she seemed, or she was a master manipulator. Given how spontaneous this interaction was… Tanya thought the latter was unlikely. As much as her logical brain was screeching in paranoia, no spark ever got anywhere without learning to trust their metaphorical gut at times. 

Still, there was one thing she could get out of this agent, so… “Come on, I’ll give you some tips. But in return, I want information: Do you know Tarvek?”

From Violetta’s instant scowl, she knew him quite well. “Ugh, that guy…”

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One could say that running into Tarvek’s personal (sort of, she was assigned to him before this assignment but reports to Prince Aaronev now) spy in Mechanicsburg was a rather unlikely coincidence, it really wasn’t when one thought about it: first, Sturmhalten’s whole purpose for being was to be a bulwark, one of many, against Heterodyne invasion, and the Sturmvoraus family runs that city. So of course they would want to install an agent in the political center of the city. If Tanya had competent spies, she’d want to do the same.

Now, having sent someone incompetent enough to not notice the shadow government was a bit unfortunate, but Tanya wasn’t about to go blabbing about Mechanicsburg’s secrets to others, that would lead to bad things for her and her county if found out. So if she had competent spies, she’d send them to become a barista in the Sausage Factory cafe instead, but she didn’t, so she wouldn’t. 

Still, it reminded her a bit about being back on Castle Wulfenbach, exchanging tips, beauty and otherwise, with Violetta. As it turned out, while the girl was awful at a lot of the intellectual aspects of spycraft, like planning or infosec, she was actually quite competent when it came to things such as stealth, misdirection, or sleight of hand, she just had a bit of a confidence problem which caused her to miscalculate at times. 

“It’s so beautiful…” Violetta said in awe at her now-long flowing locks of hair. She looked like a completely different person, to be frank, fit to be among high society attendants (she’d need a prettier dress to fit in among the noblewomen) rather than skulking in the shadows. Tanya was self-aware enough to know that if this was her first impression of the girl, that she’d absolutely have flirted with her. 

“Your drug kit and my personal supplies had everything I needed.” Tanya said in faux-humility, as if she didn’t just go on a sparky rant about the horrific concoctions the covert operative just had on her at all times, “Hair growth isn’t nearly as complicated as the Parisian beauticians would like you to believe, it’s just a bit tricky to compensate pharmacologically. Just keep taking the supplements, the whole bottle, that I’ve given you and your hair and nail growth will resume in a week or two. The new growth is also a bit more fragile than naturally grown hair, but the conditioner I’ve given you should fix that before the bottle runs out.” If the growth was only a few centimeters at a time, the side-effects weren’t as bad, but for turning her boyishly short hair into the shoulderblade-length style it was in now? It required delicacy to not make her bald… unless she wanted to affect more than just her hair and nail growth. 

“So I cut it off when I change assignments, right?” Violetta asked, once more playing with her new hair. 

“There are styling guides I could recommend that could help keep it out of the way without cutting.” Tanya said, “But that also works. Long-term infiltration like this? Nothing wrong with growing your hair out for it. Just remember to act appropriately pleased when questioned, as this kind of sparkwork is usually pretty expensive.”

Violetta giggled, turning around in front of the full-sized mirror that was in her apartment, because they were not expensive in Mechanicsburg so the room came pre-furnished with one. “Yeah, sure.” She said idly, lost in some fantasy. How cute…

“Well, I’ve still got an evening free, so if you’d care to join me on a walk of the town, I’m always appreciative of… lovely company.” Tanya said, waggling her eyebrows. 

That snapped Violetta out of it. “Ah…” Her face became steadily redder as she only now realized Tanya’s innuendo. Unclear sign… “I’m sorry, but-” There we go. 

“Say no more. I’m no boor who pushes past propriety…” Tanya said, widening the gap between them. “-unless invited, of course. While the circumstances of our departure were sour, Tarvek was still my friend,” and more importantly, just a child at the time, “-and it is good to know that he did not suffer for his failure.” The boy, from Violetta’s complaints, seemed to be thriving back home, once you disregarded ‘being bad at fighting’ as a problem, which settled something inside her that she didn’t even realize was there. 

Besides, she learned a lot more about those drugs than Violetta likely realizes, which was objectively valuable knowledge. She has new topics to research back in the Immortal Library. But she wasn’t going to tell the girl that, let her think that this was some elaborate bit of flirting instead of a casual taking a shot while completing other objectives. “The offer is still open, even if just as acquaintances, but I’m on vacation, and wouldn’t be able to commit to any sort of relationship regardless. I’ll just make my way out. Au revoir mademoiselle!” 

“Uh… yeah. Goodbye.” Violetta said softly as Tanya sashayed out of her apartment. 

After a few minutes, Tanya activated her armor’s cloaking device sensor. It was a bit like a radar ping, but it ever so slightly disrupted active cloaking fields, making them stutter and start making that noise she finds so irritating for a few seconds before it regains equilibrium. Unfortunately, it was a bit too high energy to keep going constantly, not to mention annoying. 

…Nothing. Good, she wasn’t being followed.  Well, surely there was something new she could experience!

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Like any tourist town, Mechanicsburg had an active nightlife. She already experienced what Mamma’s has to offer, that she could afford anyway, and while she didn’t have much left of her funds, she still had enough to reasonably enjoy herself for another day and two nights. Then she’ll have to leave. 

The jagermonsters, when consulted on an evening activity that wasn’t Mamma’s, were no help, but the jagerfrau had plenty of suggestions, as they were secure enough in their market share that they were willing to acknowledge that variety was the spice of life. 

As it turned out, ever since the attack, the Dyne, which was the river that bubbled up from a presumably-volcanic (Tanya assumed it was, the history’s descriptions was consistent with very strange mineral contaminants that are presumably filtered by still-operational castle systems, and it explained the castle’s energy source, it was geothermal) spring that the castle was built on, had this odd habit of surging in strength every eighteen hours and thirty-three minutes on the dot. Tanya guessed that there was some damage that coincidentally created some kind of siphon effect, similar to a water clock. This evolved into a white-river rafting/tubing/surfing event, and that sounded like a fun time, and the surge was to be in the evening today, so that was what she was doing. 

“Excuse me, but is there room for another in your event?” Tanya politely asked the gentleman organizing the next ‘Dyne-amic surge wave’ event. “I’m afraid I was distracted from signing up yesterday.”

“No ma’am.” Said the gentleman, looking genuinely sorry. 

Another local, however, looked at her curiously. “Aren’t you that Countess that fixed up Scopic Circle?”

“Yes.” Tanya said immediately, “The Rotary Murder and Merriment Fixture was a delight to rebuild and I hope everyone liked my improvements. My condolences on the false claimant, by the way.”

“You can have my spot.” The local said, “I can go tomorrow. Right Lucius?”

“I’ll put you on the list.” The now-named Lucius said grumpily.

“Excellent.” Tanya said, “How much?”

“Nonsense, Countess!” The bureaucrat said, “This asshole might just be wanting a sunnier spot, but I wouldn’t dream of charging you after what you did for the town. Just take your spot.”

“Uh… pardon me for asking, but how do you plan on surfing in that dress?” The still unintroduced local added awkwardly. 

Her dress immediately grew spikes out of the hem and opened up in front, letting Tanya step out with her rubber armor: It wasn’t a bikini, not even underwear was that revealing in this era in most places, but it did show off the bottom half of her thighs, the top half of her calves, her entire midriff, and her upper arms, and it was reasonably thin and skin-tight on what it did cover, except for the structures (which bulked out her wrists, hips, ankles, and breasts) that had the projectors inside. While creating sensitive technology that could project its functions through the waterproof covering was an engineering challenge, she did like the results. This would be the first field test. “It’s a beautiful day for science, don’t you think, gentlemen?” She asked rhetorically. 

Staring dumbly at her, they nodded. 

Her dress, which was the special model that was designed for this purpose, immediately folded up into a carrying case. “I assume you have some level of luggage transport to the end?” Tanya asked. At their nod, Tanya passed the case to Lucius. “This will be all, thank you. Is there any claim check process?” They shook their heads. “Excellent. I’m sure you’re smart boys, there won’t be any trouble, will there?” She let her smile turn a bit menacing. 

The threat in her voice snapped them out of it. “No, Mistress!” Lucius stammered, holding up the suitcase. “I’ll be waiting at the edge of town with your things. You have fifteen minutes to get in position.” He hurried off. Once more, Baron Wulfenbach’s monograph on effective communication in the workplace pays dividends. The man truly understood this world’s culture in a way that really spoke to her. 

As she expected, her armor drew quite a bit of attention. Partially because it was clearly spark technology, but mostly because she was the most provocatively dressed girl there. There was a grate that people were standing on over the river, boards and tubes and other, more exotic floatation devices were at hand, but a man with a whistle and a pocketwatch was keeping an eye on the time, so no one was fully ready yet. 

She spent a moment making sure her hair was sufficiently secured by the last part of the Marine Environment Raider Suit, or the MERSuit. It had projectors for protecting her head, yes, and another waterproof casing like the rest of the suit, but it was where her latest iteration of her mind-machine interface styled after computations orbs were stored, which is what controlled those aquatic semi-polar manipulation projectors. The controlled tests all worked great but… there was always a bit of nervousness when the prototypes were truly put through their paces. 

A brother and sister pair, both teenagers with sandy brown hair, looked at her curiously. “Oi, where’s your board?” The brother asked. “You can share mine if you don’t have one.”

“Or mine!” The sister said, looking Tanya up and down. Oh ho? 

“I’d love to, fraulein,” Tanya said, looking straight in the sister’s eyes and excluding the brother with her body language. “-but Science will be my board today.”

Both seemed even more interested, but didn’t ask further, instead taking this gossip and spending the ten minutes until the event spreading word of the test. The attention she had been getting shifted, and by the time the whistle sounded, she could see people on the rooftops coming out to watch. She better give them a show… 

“MERSuit mk. I startup sequence engage!” Tanya announced, putting pressure on the hidden buttons, still sealed inside, within her hair. A tingling sensation in her head traveled down her nerves, sending several of her biological systems into high alert. “Ah, that’s the stuff!” Her battery life with this suit was limited, but the world slowed as the water finally became visible as it rushed down the sluiceway. “All systems online!” She shouted, which sent the crowd into a cheer. “Strider Module primed and ready! Brace for impact!” The other tourists were already prepared, but the Mechanicsburgers focused on the incoming water at her words. 

The water hit, and Tanya whooped as she skimmed across the surface of the rushing water, feeling her feet warm as the projectors manipulated the surface tension to act as a high-friction solid, carrying her forth without sinking. “First test successful!” She announced to the crowd past the first bend, leading to another cheer. This city really loved science! 

After a second bend that the Strider Module took with aplomb, there was a small waterfall, so Tanya announced her next move: “Pelican Module primed and ready! Begin the test!” She transitioned into a dive, and the water’s density and internal tensions were shifted to divert her momentum into a darting swim forward that allowed her to, for a moment, outpace the rushing water. Yes, yes! “Begin the next test!” She commanded, activating the next system. 

She was completely swallowed by the water, but it felt no harsher than a spring shower. Instead, she floated along with the rushing water, watching the surfers and tubers above her continue to ride the wave. She moved back up, and popped out of the water. “Successful test!” She announced, doing a handstand on top of the water as the rushing wave felt like solid ground beneath her. If only she wasn’t losing battery power so fast… and it was getting pretty hot in this suit, if this water wasn’t so chilly she’d have already been in big trouble. 

Actually, there was no way this was going to hold up for the last third of the course. Better activate the fallback system. The thin portions of her suit suddenly inflated, becoming floatation devices that allowed her to lay back on the water, drifting behind the wave’s largest concentration of energy and joining the rest of the tubers. Sighing in content, she looked at what appeared to be a young mother and her probably-too-young-for-this son. “Emergency backup system test… successful.” She said smugly, offering a hand to high-five the boy. He did so, giggling. 

The end of the course was a stretch of placid water right outside the city’s main gate, the riverbed widened substantially and spreading the wave out to uselessness. Back in the city, Tanya knew there were water control gates opening back up, restoring the canals back to being a useful municipal system instead of a thrill ride, although it’d be a few minutes until the city’s outflows actually reflected this. 

As she quit before she actually ran out of battery, she was able to disengage the floatation devices and activate the swim-assist mode, allowing her to dart back to shore with only a few vigorous motions. She launched herself out of the water, doing a gymnastics flip before landing on her feet, giving a pose to the crowd, who clapped politely. They weren’t as enthused as the ones who saw the testing, apparently. They must be disappointed at having missed the good part. 

“How did your invention perform?” Asked Lucius, who was next to a wagon full of suitcases and luggage chests. He had hers in hand. 

Tanya used her suit’s systems to gather all of the water on her person onto her palm, and then shot most of it out back to the river. “The test was successful: all systems performed to acceptable standards, and further design refinements have made themselves clear. It was a great victory for Science!” 

Not only Lucius cheered at the announcement, but a large portion of the other people around joined in. 

She set down the suitcase, and it opened up into two impressions that matched her MERSuit’s boots. Tanya held up one foot, letting the remaining water clean the boot before withdrawing, leaving a clean, dry boot into the slot, before repeating the process for the other one. Once in position, the suitcase deployed her dress around her, once more making her look respectable instead of being an actress, dancer, or “dancer”. More importantly, the dress had more batteries and projectors. 

Something she had noticed was that the random accidents that she had initially chalked up to Being X trying and failing to kill her was that they had severely diminished in frequency over the years, although she had no idea why. No matter how she processed the data, no pattern emerged. 

Still, it was now late, so Tanya ended her day in the best way: with a late dinner plus a show at Mamma’s, including a nice private show from the jagerfrau who seemed most receptive to the idea of giving one to another girl. Yes, it was roughly what she’d be doing in Paris, only with even prettier company, but the thick cheese beers of Mechanicsburg were an excellent change of pace compared to the wines of Paris, and wasn’t that what vacations were all about? 

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Alas, while she had fun, she did run out of money before she could do everything she wanted. Luckily, she’ll be returning, and can probably fit in a few more activities at that time. So she spent her last day in Mechanicsburg working on her mecha, trading a few repair jobs for materials, and then left the day after. 

The Carpathian mountains were still beautiful, and the hike to Balan’s Gap was quite scenic as a result; the whole area had a ‘reclaimed by nature’ feel to it, as the rapacious hordes of the Heterodynes have not foraged in these valleys for decades. Sure, there were still expeditions by both locals and a few tour groups, picking at forage and hunting small to medium beasts for a little culinary variety, but they had nothing on the ferocious appetite of the Jagermonsters, so she had her own supplies stretched by the surprisingly generous bounties of the land. 

Oddly, there was a small war party of more Geisterdamen on the way, about five of them and their spiders. They attacked immediately, possibly having discerned her culpability for killing two of their other number. Or maybe they just thought her singing was annoying. In the future, she probably shouldn’t try and alleviate her boredom by broadcasting an impromptu concert through her mech’s speakers. 

It might have been something other than having done research, though, because they fell for the same tricks as the last pair, one of them getting injured by the explosive armor, two more by the anti-air weapons. Unfortunately, that left two more that kept their distance and shot surprisingly effective crossbows at her. 

She started executing the injured, which did work in compelling them to close the distance, and some quick work coordinating the tool arms with the weapon arms allowed her to pin the legs to keep them still and then kill their spiders. The two riders did, however, manage to retrieve one of the injured and retreated… before getting shot in the back by Tanya’s gatling gun, as she knew the spiders could dodge it and thus did not deploy it until the last moment. War crimes? Sorry, those don’t exist here. 

It was a little strange that the ghost women were so hostile to her… if they attacked anyone they came across, surely their reputation wouldn’t be so mysterious? 

Well, it wasn’t really important, in the grand scheme of things. They didn’t really move in larger formations, so unless she waltzed right into a garrison of them, or encountered a ready group when her munitions were depleted, like now, she should be fine. 

Here she was: Sturmhalten, the city that Tarvek called home, and the place that Gil should be waiting for her with her airship for the return trip back to Paris. 

It’ll be nice to see him again.