Gilgamesh made a soothing motion. “But if she’s here, why then, it’s a moot point.” He smiled at his old teacher disingenuously.
Sun raised an eyebrow—then began elaborately folding back his sleeves, a sight which caused Gil to go pale. “It’s been a while since I gave you a thrashing,” the old man remarked conversationally, “but under the circumstances, I’m sure your father would approve.”
Gil desperately waved at the bodies of the assassins on the floor. “Is this the right time, Sifu?”
Sun smiled. “Do give me some credit, young Wulfenbach. Rest assured that the pain will stop the instant I am finished making sure you understand.”
“Understand what?”
Sun pursed his lips. “Ooh, this might take some time.”
Gil took a step back, wide-eyed. Fortunately for him, he was spared this particular lesson. It was interrupted before it could begin by a giant mechanical ant which came smashing through the wall. It waved its antennae and declared mechanically: “Death to the despoiler of East Kruminey!”
Sun looked startled. “East what?”
Gil flicked a finger and the tip of his cane began to glow with a bright blue light. “It’s not really important.”
“I suppose not,” Sun conceded.
The tall Jäger, who had been following the conversation with great interest, stepped forward. “Allow me—”
Gil waved him back and shot a bolt of electricity at the ant’s head. Surprisingly, it absorbed the charge and discharged it back at him from its antennae.
“Interesting,” Gil grunted. He spoke to Vole. “No, I’ll handle this. I want you to bring the Heterodyne girl here. The one in the town.”
Sun looked alarmed. “No! Wait!”
Anything else he was about to say was cut off as another bolt of lightning shot from the mechanical ant and narrowly missed him but came perilously close to the insensate Baron.
“Go!” Gil yelled as he leapt onto the device’s thorax.
Vole saluted and slipped out the door before Sun could interfere. If this girl truly was a Heterodyne, the ex-Jäger most definitely wanted to meet her.
Back in the Sausage Factory, the now finished coffee engine gave a final “blurk” and released a great gout of savory steam. Several electrical discharge points gave a last crackle as the whine of a dynamo dopplered down the scale. An orange light began to flash. Everyone in the café realized that they were holding their breath and they all released it at the same time.
Agatha picked up an ornate china cup, held it under a silver spout, and threw a switch. A stream of black liquid sensuously poured out. The aroma that spread had everyone breathing deeply. It was the aroma of fine coffee, redolent with undertones of cinnamon, chocolate, and possibly, a soupçon of diesel oil. But there was more to it than just the aroma itself. Every person who smelled it found themselves remembering a frosty morning or an inn alongside a rain-soaked road or a quiet café in that indeterminate time between night and dawn when the city was just beginning to awaken and one could imagine that you were one of the few people left on Earth. Their mouths filled with the memory of the coffee that they had sipped then and how it was the perfect thing in the perfect place at that perfect time and how it restored one’s faith in one’s own humanity and reaffirmed your place in the world and gave you the strength to go on and do something amazing. Everyone who smelled the aroma that spread from the coffee in Agatha’s hand knew—they knew—that this coffee would be even better.
“It’s ready,” Agatha said brightly.
Carson ran a connoisseur’s eye over the device that loomed over the tables. “Not bad,” he conceded.
Vanamonde raised his head from beneath the table where he’d hidden when Agatha had turned the machine on. He looked like he’d been pole-axed. “But how did she…” He fished a watch from an inner pocket and checked the time. He then held it up to his ear to be sure it was still running. “But it’s impossible!”
Krosp shrugged nonchalantly, though Van noted that the cat had been sequestered under the table right beside him. “Never seen a real Spark in action before, eh, kid?”
Agatha sniffed the cup and then faced the crowd and gave them a small salute. “Well, here’s to Science!”
Instantly Vanamonde was before her, his hand covering the top of the cup. Agatha’s lips stopped millimeters away.
“Wait,” he said, as he deftly slid the cup from her hand. “As your seneschal, I should try this first, my lady.”
He glanced over to his grandfather and muttered quietly, “If regular coffee set her off, who knows what this stuff would do?” He was astonished to see a tear appear in his grandfather’s eye.
“Whatever happens to you, m’boy, try…” the old man said in a shaky voice, “try to remember that I’m so proud of you right now…”
Van blinked and examined the no-longer-quite-so-tempting cup in his hand. For form’s sake, he gave it a delicate sniff. “Excellent aroma.” He looked up and saw that everyone was watching him closely. With a feeling of trepidation, he took a delicate sip—
Light. Pure golden light burst upon his consciousness. The light one gets from a glorious clear sunrise at ten thousand meters in the sky with the fresh wind in your face. There was music—enlightening music—that filled his frame and made him want to dance and synchronize himself to its rhythms like a glorious symphony set to the tick of a metronome in tune with all of existence that gathered you in and showed you your place in the universe and how astonishing that it existed at all and how much more wondrous it was that you were there to appreciate its existence and realize that you were a part of it and that there was work to be done to make everything better and that you had an important part to play and that this was how it should be and you knew that nothing would ever be the same again because you now knew that the world and everything in it, all its glories and foibles, its madmen and saints, its agonies and its ecstasies, were necessary and that what we called “life” was how one surfed the edge of creation and that it was a glorious game and you were as good a player as anyone else and thus this moment and everything in it was—
“Perfect,” Van whispered, tears rolling down his face. A red-gold vision resolved itself in front of him. The Heterodyne. Of course it was she. Everything he was and that his family had been for generations recognized her as the thing that had been missing from his life and in that moment of realization he became forever and irrevocably hers.
The vision looked worried and languidly waved a hand before his face. “Does it taste okay?” She bit her lip. “Are you okay?”
Vanamonde’s mind tried to pull itself together. There was so much that needed doing, of course. Lists and schedules bloomed in the organized corridors of his mind. Everything would have to be reorganized. He began assembling a list of the various lists he would have to prioritize… But wait, the Heterodyne was still looking at him. How embarrassing. She’d been waiting for over an hour for him to answer.
“It’s perfect,” he assured her.
She nodded encouragingly.
Oh, how could he explain? He had to explain. He had to do whatever he could to make her life easier and more interesting. He took another hour or so to correctly formulate his response.
“The taste is a perfect blend of all the tastes and essences that make coffee what it is. A perfect blend—And yet I can discern each and every one, perfectly.”
He realized that he was still clutching the cup and saucer. And the coffee in it was still hot! After so many hours! Astonishing!