Scientific Chronicles 8

The slimes were even more popular than expected. Or rather, one of her advertisement plans had worked better than she could have dreamed. She had given a few, free of charge, to various young ladies that she had… charmed, during her tenure at the University. Between them, there was enough exposure among the movers and shakers of the Parisian fashion scene that there was a small but extant chance that it would become ‘in vogue’, as they say in the City of Lightning. 

As it turned out, while Colette thought the slimes were cute but not anything worth getting excited over, she had many siblings, and some of those were about as easily swayed by her cute little dollops of ambulatory soap as one would expect from a Japanese teenage girl. 

Furthermore, the esteemed Princess Terebithia von Blitzengaard seemed exceptionally enamored with the idea of cleaners that did not have enough brain to say anything to anyone, so when Tanya finally got to attend one of her many parties… 

“It’s biochemical minimalism, Professor Bunbury.” Tanya said to the fifth spark that had learned that she was the inventor of the slimes that were cleaning up the stage; the Princess had bought them in bulk. “It does what it’s supposed to do and absolutely nothing else except shuffle around blindly and look cute.” 

Professor Bunbury was one of her competitors in the spark novelties market, he had a wide variety of patents on pocketable devices that performed feats that seem fantastical, each of which had whimsical, highly marketable names. He was also solely responsible for the relatively recent popularity of leather undergarments among beautiful women in public-facing roles. 

In other words, he was a man of culture and taste. As could be told by his eyes repeatedly drifting downward from making eye contact. “Come now, don’t think your little copy protection methods escaped the spark community.” The Professor said chidingly, “I tried to tweak one to eat clothes, and it turned pink! No one would ever be fooled by that…”

Tanya chuckled, idly positioning her fan to block his sight of her cleavage. This was surprisingly useful... “That was the idea, Professor.” She said, amused as she fanned herself. It was a pretty warm time of year, and neither ball gowns or power armor were good at thermal regulation, and she was wearing both. Alas, fashion is suffering… “Sure, you could make something that’s the same color and morphology, but it’d be easier to start from scratch to do so than to copy my designs.” Unfortunately, for the same reasons that she was even capable of making them with her limited skills with biological science, there wasn’t much stopping sparks from making their own copycat products, but local patent law and her agreements with the pet stores would limit the profitability of such things within Paris. 

“I suppose you have a point, mademoiselle.” Bunbury acknowledged. “But tell me, what do you plan to follow up with?”

Tanya waved her hand vaguely. “Oh, I recently developed a pharmacological solution that solves the accessory problem.” She said, referring to the fact that a slime couldn’t really wear anything. “A little solution you can brush onto an accessory, stiffening the membranes and letting them stick so you can affix little hats, or glass eyes, or what have you.” It used the same mechanism that signaled dehydration, which kind of ruined the point of that warning signal but it wasn’t like she cared about the slimes dying off, just that she could continue to produce more if needed. She had also invented another minor accessory from her first life; the plastic ‘googly eye’, and it tested well with the focus group (read: the girls she had given free samples to). 

Professor Bunbury actually shuddered. “Oh no. You’ve taken a fad, and added… fashion.” He stepped back, regarding her much more warily. “You’re mad.”

There’s only one correct response to such an accusation among sparks. “Oh, aren’t we all?” Tanya said, grinning wolfishly. She could already picture the profits… “While I do expect the utilitarian facets of the cleaning slime will keep me in residuals for a good long time, the initial surge of revenue from attracting the attention of Parisian high society is an iron that must be struck while hot; I’m sure you understand how fickle the market can be.”

“Isn’t that the truth.” Bunbury said, scowling at what was presumably the memories of past missteps. 

“Anyway, good day Professor, I notice a rather fetching young lady trying to sieze my attention.” Tanya said, gliding along the ballroom floor towards Princess Neena. She closed her fan and slipped it into the sheath cleverly concealed in her corsetry. 

While Tanya had a new ball gown that was secured to her moderately discreet power armor, Neena had a much more daring ensemble with stockings going up to mid thigh and a dress slit that went up two inches higher. MIss Poppins was off to the side, standing primly while holding a box. “Tanya, everyone’s talking about your slimes, it’s time for your pitch.” Neena said. She normally didn’t attend the parties, not really enjoying them, but she was rather task-oriented, with an objective to focus on, she was having a much better time. 

“Thank you.” Tanya said, taking the box from the maid and walking to the stage, now sparkling. “Attention!” She half-shouted, subtly activating the vox system in her power armor’s shoulders. “My name is Tanya von Degurechaff, and if you didn’t know, I’m the inventor of these charming cleaning slimes.” She paused, gauging the crowd’s reaction. Polite interest for the vast majority, a minority of bored disinterest, and she couldn’t see any outright hostile expressions.

Excellent. “If you wish for any of your own, most pet shops in Paris have a supply of these helpful cuties, supplies are limited so act quickly!” Tanya gave her best salesman smile. “Now, as for those of you who already have one of my adorable slimes, I have listened to your customer complaints, and I present to you: Hats!” She opened the box and brought out Sekken-chan, holding its soapy bulk. Sekken-chan was wearing a wizard hat, a ring of rubberized membrane providing a high-friction surface for it to affix to. The glue-like solution wasn’t a very strong adhesive; she used it to stick bits of paper onto surfaces so she could leave herself notes but it couldn’t handle anything heavier, but it was enough to make the accessories not fall off all the time. 

Several of the crowd’s expressions of polite interest became less polite, eyes widening and lips quirking into smiles at Sekken-chan’s power of moe. But she wasn’t done. “A newly developed pharmaceutical glue harmlessly rubberizes the slime’s membrane, allowing accessorizing of your cleaning slime without substantially compromising function.” That was a bit of a stretch, there were circumstances where the slime is absolutely impeded by the accessories. This is what weasel words like ‘substantially’ come in. “Furthermore…” She turns Sekken-chan around, revealing the useless bits of plastic. “I bring to you the latest in cute accessories!” She shook the slime, letting the suspended bit of black plastic move around the fluid-filled plastic shell. 

The noises of interest were notably high-pitched, which was exactly what Tanya wanted to hear. She put Sekken-chan down, and it started to hunt for food, showing itself to be more fashionable than all the other slimes. Multiple women ‘aww’ed at her cute little slime. Perfection. 

Business was booming. 

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Tanya expected to get something of a reputation for her relentless pursuit of beautiful co-eds, as she knew from experience in all of her lives that you couldn’t dresses on the floor without seizing the initiative. Granted, having a princess as a roommate did mean that she had to have her dalliances in the rooms of her paramours, or inside the Absolute Safety Mecha mk. IV, but that only increased her profile. 

What she did not expect was her half-assed musical projects, intended to give her an accessible place to stash her mecha, would be the larger part of her local reputation. In hindsight, it made some amount of sense; musicians and singers were notoriously libertine hedonists, and she did associate with another libertine artiste by the name of Gilgamesh Holzfaller, performed songs he wrote, etcetera… It meant that her romantic overtures accentuated her reputation as an artiste rather than overpowered it. 

But she didn’t think herself good enough to perform in the Paris Opera House, singing Gil’s first full-length opera. The time wasn’t the best, middle of the week in a less popular early show, but it was still impressive that he was able to get the slot at all. Gil was evasive on how he managed it, but Tanya suspected that his habitual heroics got someone with influence to owe him a favor. It could have been Seffie, but Tanya was certain she’d have heard the Blitzengaard princess brag about it if that was how…

In any event, the opera was a rather typical example of a tragedy: a story of a mad boy who incited tragedy (in this case, killing his brothers) by breaking through at an incredibly young age, forced to conceal his genius from others by his protective parents, only to end up going insane and provoking an even greater tragedy (killing the love of his life) as he grew to become a man. In his grief, he attempts to conquer the world, only to be stopped by the very woman who was supposedly killed, brought back to life by blasphemous science. 

The opera was supposed to conclude with the madboy getting killed and with the now-construct female lead giving a sad song to lament the loss of his genius, but the performance was interrupted.

Tanya let her legs fail her, faking being overcome with emotion as she dramatically leaned over the mecha that the male lead, played by Wooster, had been using before his death. It was a glorified cherry picker crane, with everything but the platform that Wooster’s pretend-unconscious body was on just a shell with just enough support to move with the rest of it. She had mixed up some eye drops that made her tears quite convincing, activated by a little puff of dry air from a little device she had concealed in her costume. 

The chorus singers, led by the actually quite talented Zola, started the soft singing that led into her final act, and Tanya began to wordlessly sing the first few notes when it happened: The lights all cut off, and the sound systems stopped taking her microphone’s input. 

In one of the balconies, a man with a half-mask and a drum cackled as he pounded out what was probably a coded sequence of drumbeats, as the doors all suddenly became barricaded by metal shutters. She remembered him; he was Erik Destler, one of the stage technicians. While he was employed, Tanya thought he gave off NEET vibes, having to be dragged out of his basement lair to actually do his job. 

“Attention, guests!” Monsieur Destler announced, his voice resounding appropriately into the Opera House’s surround sound system. “Today’s performance shall be a double feature! The pedestrian show you just finished watching…” Hey! She wasn’t done! “-and a much better opera written by my illustrious self. Hit it!” 

The sound system started playing a completely different, bombastic set of instruments, conveying the inherent tragedy of the introduction. Monsieur Destler started to sing about how he had been scarred in his youth, and Tanya really stopped paying attention, as one of the stage clanks, a mere thirty centimeters tall, gave her some instructions under the cover of not being in the spotlight. Gratefully taking the flask of water that was also provided, Tanya looked through the instructions. 

…Absolutely not. She had just spent the last three hours singing, this was at least another full hour’s worth of song, although broken up into seven different pieces. Even if it was spread out, she didn’t get to do any rehearsal, and she was not some talented diva, she couldn’t just spontaneously sing something without a trial run! 

Maybe if it was only one song, she’d consider trying, but seven? Tanya glanced around, assessing her options. She wasn’t wearing her power armor, unfortunately; the outfit she had to wear to perform didn’t allow for it. She did still have her holdout tools and weapons, but defensively? She had nothing. 

Gil was already running backstage, his brutish frame bulging as he exerted himself. 

The chorus had apparently been given their own instructions, because they were now singing along with Destler’s madness. Well, they were getting paid… 

According to these instructions, she didn’t come in at all for this song, but instead sang the next one. So she had… eight more minutes to act with impunity? 

Tanya examined the situation. The crowd was relatively sparse, maybe forty percent of the seats were occupied? Reasonable for a no-name composer like Gil’s first opera in a bad time slot. The next time slot was much better, so there was probably a crowd starting to form outside? The exits were guarded by stage clanks, clearly co-opted into a military force by Destler’s actions. Was he a spark, or just working with one? Unknown. 

Unfortunately, by ‘exits’, the ones she could potentially use were included in that list. In fact, there were a few stage clanks who look ready to attack her if she didn’t go along with her script… 

Okay, so she does have some weapons, but she wasn’t really comfortable using them without some kind of armor or defensive position, and she didn’t have one of those. There was the fake mecha on stage with her… Hm. She just got an idea. Taking out a prybar, she waited for a particularly loud bit in the song and opened up the shell she was previously leaning on, slipping inside with only a little bit of wiggling required to get her hips through the small opening. 

Now, the fake mecha was, as previously noted, a glorified puppet attached to a cherry picker. But what was the difference between a giant puppet and a mecha? It wasn’t very much, when you got right down to it. 

The song got interrupted by Zola screaming, Destler shouting in anger about his masterpiece getting disrupted, and Gil shouting back about how this was his opera, and how he was going to finish it. 

Good, they’re distracted. She had some modifications to make…

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[Gilgamesh Wulfenbach Holzfaller]

Every time! Gil didn’t like to think of himself as cursed, but it seems like every time he’s within a hundred meters of Zola, some madboy decides to take over Paris or some subset thereof. It couldn’t be just Zola, because if that was the case, she’d wouldn’t have survived a month in Paris without him there, and she said she had been working at the Island of the Monkey Girls for half a year.  Also, speaking scientifically, it only happened maybe half the time. Less than that, really. In the last ten weeks, it’s only happened seventeen times, and he’s met her forty-three times, in varying places. 

And then there’s this asshole. Number seventeen. 

Gil didn’t know who this cut-rate stage villain (literally) was, but he was interrupting the ending to his first opera! It took weeks of writing, rewriting, valiantly resisting the urge to use his status in his favor, and multiple lucky breaks to get even a disfavored timeslot in the most popular opera house in Paris, and this peasant was ruining it!

He knew that one day, he would take over the Pax Transylvania. Personally administer The Baron’s Peace. It was assuredly a time long in the future, his father was basically unkillable on a personal level due to technically being a construct, and his iron fist suppressed anyone who was willing to take a shot anyway. 

Of course, his father would absolutely step down at some point, retire to pursue his one true love, Science. At that point, Gil will have to take over. Father’s tests were endless, but speaking realistically, he probably had his whole twenties to himself until Father gets impatient and starts saddling him with responsibilities, but at the bare minimum he has his years of attending University. He should enjoy them while he can. 

So, he went to Paris. The center of the world for the arts! Science, too, but even though he’s an acknowledged Spark now, the habit of keeping his thoughts on scientific matters mostly to himself, back when he had to hide his Spark from the rest of Castle Wulfenbach,  hadn’t really broken yet. With music and poetry, he could talk all he wanted, and that made all the difference. 

More importantly, he knew that science is what Father wants him to learn. He’ll do it, of course, no one with the Spark could resist learning more of the secrets of the universe, but… if he’s known for his operas, his musical compositions… maybe people won’t look at him, once he takes his place at his Father’s side, and see Klaus Wulfenbach the second. 

So this man’s intrusion was unacceptable! He bowled through the repurposed stage clanks, knocking them aside like the cheap toys that they were. “You cur!” He shouted as he tackled the bastard off the balcony, but quickly realized that the man he had accosted was yet another clank. He was tricked! 

Still, Father didn’t train a clumsy oaf, so he flipped to land on his feet, throwing the clank puppet aside onto the stage. Where did Tanya go? He hoped that she didn’t get some random stage light falling on her head, Gil had promised her that she’d end the day completely unharmed. “This is my opera, and you will regret interrupting it!” He shouted angrily. 

Zola screamed, and Gil looked up at the chorus balcony. The man (or possibly another clank copy) was there, and he was gripping her by the waist, still singing his absolutely awful song. 

The sad thing was that the audience seemed more engaged now than they were during his opera. Nevertheless, he looked around- wait, where did the dummy clank go? Actually, all of the broken clanks seem to have vanished from the area. Still, not currently important. Another wave of clanks moved in to engage, he might have been in trouble if they had guns. 

But they didn’t, so he wasn’t. He brought out his sidearm and shot each of the clanks through their control engine. As these weren’t combat clanks, it was easy to spot and easier to break. It was a really nice gun, too: Tanya gave it to him for his birthday, ‘so you can get out of trouble with fewer broken bones’. It was a coilgun, using magnetism to launch metal slugs with great speeds. The recoil was kind of a bear, but it was a good way to quickly break clanks, at least. There just wasn’t anyone he hated enough to want to use it on a person. 

The seating area started opening up, causing a bit of a panic among the audience, and out came a rather large clank, rather slipshod in his expert opinion but it was still big and was at least well built enough to move its gargantuan bulk, so that was not something he’d want to fight. Particularly because he was already out of ammo. 

“Now you will all see my genius!” The madboy shouted, laughing maniacally. 

“Gil!” Zola cried, “Help!”

Ugh, he better take out the spark, handle the clank second. He liked Zola, he really did, but she was a very high maintenance friend. He shot for the stairs again, but the large clank that had emerged had brought its giant hand in the way, and it was able to clench its fist fast enough that he got caught. 

Wooster though, clever spy that he is, managed to break some of the hydraulics keeping the grip shut with a well-swung spanner, and that allowed him to escape. Now, how to deal with-

Suddenly, the fake clank-puppet thing that was on the stage for the opera started to lift itself up, deflecting the other hand of the large clank as it tried to grab at Gil. Familiar high-pitched laughter echoed from the fake clank. 

“Did you honestly think I would have just gone along with your dreadful plot like a meek little actress?” Tanya shouted, clearly insulted. Her voice was reverberating throughout the opera house, so she had clearly hijacked the sound system right back from the madboy. “I think it’s time I show you who you’ve crossed! I am Tanya von Degurechaff!” 

As Tanya’s mecha engaged the clank that emerged from the seats, the audience off to the side watching the show with great interest, Zola screamed again and Gil climbed up Tanya’s mecha to get up to the balcony where the chorus girls, save for Zola, used to be. “Pardon me, monsieur!” Gil shouted, separating Zola from her captor. The man wasn’t even armed! It was a little insulting, to be honest. 

A loud drilling sound echoed from Tanya’s battle with the madboy’s mech. Okay, he did have that… 

Still, one good punch and the man was knocked out. “Gil!” Zola shouted happily, giving him a massive hug and giving his cheek a kiss. “You saved me…” She said more softly, clearly relieved. Tears started to well up in her eyes. “Thank you…”

Gil paused awkwardly. “It’s okay Zola, it’s over.” He said. 

The noisy mecha battle finally concluded. “I have destroyed the computation core of the clank!” Tanya announced, “Gilgamesh! The spark should have some kind of control mechanism for the lesser clanks!”

Oh, right. Gil found it quickly, it was a bracer the madboy had on his right wrist, and he quickly shut it down. The clanks followed his last command to them: returning to their maintenance bays. 

After a few minutes of Gil helping Zola back down to the ground, the audience, now that the danger had passed, started to applaud. “Thank you, thank you.” Tanya said over the speakers, half-distracted. “Now if it’s all the same to you lot…” The madboy’s clank powered back up. “I’m keeping this.”

Only Tanya could hotwire a clank into something she can pilot that fast. 

-------------------------

“Well, you’re never going to top that.” Was Collete’s assessment of the opera’s performance. “Unless you can get a madboy to interrupt another performance, I suppose.”

“That’s easy.” Tanya said, giggling drunkenly. “Just give Zola the leading role.” They were at Colette’s favorite bar, the Taste of Paris. The drinks were okay and the food was admittedly superior, but the shows were mostly poetry and music rather than the burlesque displays the Island of the Monkey Girls had. He knew what he liked better. 

“She’s not that bad!” Gil insisted. Honestly, what did Tanya have against Zola? She was nice! Granted, she couldn’t hold much of an intelligent conversation, but he couldn’t hold that against her. The number of people who he could have intelligent conversations with was… basically just Tanya, and a few other classmates. Colette was sharp for a non-spark… but despite her parentage, she was no spark. 

“Yes she is!” Xerxsephnia insisted; she was one of the girls that Father had warned him about; Tarvek’s family was a nest of vipers, and while she never indicated that she knew he was a Wulfenbach… well, Princesses of the Storm King’s line didn’t express so much interest in sparks with no lineage; she knew something. Maybe not everything, but Father was certain she was working some kind of angle. 

It was of course awesome to receive positive attention from a girl that might actually be interested in him, but Xerxsephnia also couldn’t really keep up when he started talking about his actual interests. If she could… well, she couldn’t, so there was no point speculating on what-ifs. 

Of course, the most infuriating part of his love life was that he was good friends with the perfect girl… except that girl was absolutely uninterested in men. Well, saying Tanya was perfect was a bit exaggerated; their interests didn’t really align that much. He could talk shop about machinery and medicine with Tanya for hours, but when he wanted to talk about his compositions, her eyes glazed over in disinterest and she only refrained from changing the subject out of politeness. To be fair, he held a similar opinion whenever she got to talking about military topics or economics, but they were extremely relevant topics to his future so he tried to listen anyway. They were just… so… boring…

Gil’s hand shot out and caught a falling decoration; it looked to be some kind of sword? It had almost fallen point-first into Colette’s lap, where Tanya’s head was. You couldn’t be Tanya’s friend and not keep the space above her in your peripheral vision. It wasn’t very sharp, but it also seemed to be on the heavier side. “Thanks Gil.” Tanya said lazily, giving him a thumbs up. She then hiccupped, as she had drunk about four shots of strong liquor, and given that Tanya was also quite short and petite under that power armor that she wasn’t currently wearing, that was a lot. “Y’re a lifesaver.” She started laughing, her position laying across the laps of Colette and Xerxsephnia turning the chuckle into a gasping laugh that was really more of a cackle. 

“It was nothing.” Gil said absentmindedly. Of course, he also never told her about his status. It’s not that he didn’t think she could keep a secret… Well, she actually wasn’t very good at keeping secrets, so it was at least partially that. Not that she was a gossip, she was just kind of… unsubtle. She still thought he was a spy, and she kept writing coded intelligence briefs to him about various things that, if he was a spy (or some kind of merchant, he supposed), would actually be genuinely useful, which was the ridiculous part. Colette thinks it’s hilarious. Wooster thinks it’s hilarious. Hells, Neena thinks it’s hilarious, and he didn’t even tell her! He just leaves the briefs crumpled up in his wastebasket where Wooster can find them and puts them out of his mind.

“You’re doing a lot of thinking there, Gil.” Colette said, half-concerned. “Anything about?”

Wha? “Oh, just wondering how that sword got launched so far from its original mounting.” Gil deflected, “What was the probability of that happening?”

“With Tanya around? One in three, minimum.” Colette joked, running her hands through the girl in question’s hair, “Come on, I know you didn’t get to finish your opera, and you didn’t really make any money off of it,” After paying the performers and the house, including Tanya’s expensive rates, he actually lost money. Not that he cared, he just counted himself lucky for not having to pay for the damages. “But no one got seriously injured, and the perpetrator was caught and brought to justice. That’s a good day in Paris. Smile!”

Gil’s lips quirked. Okay, that would rate as a pretty good day in Castle Wulfenbach too, with no one dying and all problems having a clear perpetrator. He gripped the beer he had been avoiding drinking and took a deep pull of the excellent brew. “You’re right.” Gil said, “Today did end pretty well.”

Tanya shot up, picking up a fifth shot of the liquor she had been drinking. “I propose a toast!” She said, “To battles won, and to our next challenge!” 

“To new challenges!” Colette agreed happily, holding up her own shot of liquor. She had twenty kilos on Tanya, so she was much less drunk. 

“To success!” Xerxsephnia said, holding up her wine glass. 

What is his next challenge? After a moment of thought, he remembered. “To Finals!” He shouted, clinking his mug of beer with the girl’s drinks. He bottomed out his mug, and gave his drinking companions a big grin. 

Xerxsephnia was giggling, but Colette and Tanya had gone stock still. This made sense, as Xerxsephnia wasn’t a student at the Paris Institute of the Extraordinary, she just lived in Paris. “To forgetting I have a final tomorrow…” Tanya slowly said, looking quite ill, before finally drinking her shot. 

Colette looked similarly ill, then did a complete one-eighty in her attitude. “Wait, my next final isn’t until the day after tomorrow!” She said, “I can do whatever I want tonight!” She drank her shot and started to get up, carrying Tanya like a toolbox. “Au revoir!” She wasn’t completely steady on her feet, but she walked out of the bar with the barely-conscious Tanya in hand. 

Gil was conflicted. “Should I stop them?” He asked Xerxsephnia. 

“Tanya’s been flirting with Colette all semester.” Xerxsephnia replied, “I don’t think she’d forgive you if you did.”

Fair enough.