Title: Castle Conundrum

Summary: In a world ruled by mad science, where eclectic savants or "sparks" consider the laws of physics "merely guidelines," the creation of interdimentional portals is not entirely unknown. As with most methods of ingress and egress such doors allow travel in both directions between worlds. At times this travel is entirely involuntary due to the sudden appearance of a gate where none had existed previously dumping the unsuspecting interplaner voyager into the world of Agatha Heterodyne, Girl Genius.

Parings: Agatha/Gil/Tarvek; Amaranthe/Sicarius

Warnings: Language, Mild violence, POV of Quasi-insane AI, Potential OoC moments.

Disclaimer: Emperor's Edge series, its characters and the rights thereto belong to Lindsay Buroker. All characters and other information from Girl Genius are the property of Phil & Kaja Foglio/Airship Entertainment. I am merely playing around with the characters for my own (and the reader's) amusement.

Author's Note: This story was previously posted over at the Emperor's Edge forum where you can find a variety of EE related fan fiction. I am posting it here so that it is more easily available to fans of Girl Genius. Posting will be dependant on how well the formatting process goes.

Chapter 1

"Hmmmmmmm"

Ah, the mistress was happy the Castle thought to itself. That was a good thing. The Castle was pleased when the mistress was happy. It meant it was serving its proper function. The Castle settled down to listen to the not quite atonal humming issuing from the callipygous blond girl with her head in the machinery that took up most of the top of the southwest tower. She would let it know if and when she needed assistance.

"There's the power cable," she muttered half to herself. "Castle, is that live?" she asked in a bit louder voice.

"No mistress," the Castle responded promptly. "Would you like me to see if it's still connected to the internal grid?"

"Yes please," The Lady Agatha Heterodyne responded and then added "But if it is, leave it powered down for now. I don't want to fire this up before I have a better idea of what exactly it does."

The Castle chuckled to itself. The mistress was learning to be very specific in her orders. While it couldn't disobey a direct command its programming gave it quite a bit of leeway in interpretation. The Castle analyzed the statement for loopholes. Rats. That request as worded wouldn't allow it to put a power surge through the cable. No way to have fun with this. Well, maybe it could get an amendment to the order. The Castle decided to attempt it while it ascertained the status of the power cable.

"Where is your sense of adventure mistress?"

"Just concerned about structural integrity," she replied. "Both yours and mine," she added as an afterthought.

The Castle considered. It wouldn't do to have the mistress in pieces. While the young masters Gilgamesh (Gil) Wulfenbach and Tarvek (the Storm King) Sturmvoraus might be able to put her back together it most likely would seriously impact her reproductive opportunities. That would be clearly in the category of detrimental results. The Castle modified its internal programming slightly to include additional calculations in its ideas of "fun" regarding protection of structural integrity. It wasn't like the old days with a plethora of potential Heterodyne heirs. In those days losing one or two just weeded out the herd making the spark, that undefinable aptitude for both madness and creative genius, stronger in successive generations. Now that there was only one heir the Castle would need to be somewhat careful at least until a multiplicity of progeny were running around.

The query routine information came back then. "Mistress, the power appears to be physically disconnected at West Node Number 12," the Castle reported.

"Hmmmm."

The mistress was deep in her thoughts the castle could tell by the tempo and pitch of the humming. It was unsure whether she'd even registered its comment.

"Have Von Zinzer get down there and see whether it's just unplugged or if there is actual damage," she commanded. "I'll send one of the little clanks down the power cable run to check for other problems. It should get there about the same time he does."

"Yes mistress," The castle responded then mentally went in search of the mistress' chief minion Moloch Von Zinzer. It found him digging around in one of the parts closets using one of the subsystems to inventory its contents. The castle relayed the order.

"West Node 12," Von Zinzer echoed. "That's the one accessed through the commode under the Servant's Stair near the Red Playroom?"

"Yes." the castle responded.

Moloch finished inventorying the part he was holding then put a mark on the shelf to mark his place. As he exited the storage closet he asked, "You are not going to run Happy Fun Ball of Death down the Portrait Corridor out of sequence again are you?"

The Castle chuckled audibly. It really liked playing with Von Zinzer. Of the minions he had the most highly developed sense of self preservation. The Castle could throw many of the same hazards it routinely saved for both sparks and heroes at Von Zinzer and he'd survive, skin intact. Even the smoke knights and the super-soldier Jägermonsters had some problems with the Castle's little traps but never Von Zinzer.

"I'm really not in the mood for running a gauntlet today Castle," Von Zinzer commented as he walked.

"Oh?"

"It started this morning when the Jäger's got bored. Actually, I don't think they'd been to bed and since Agatha had you lock them out of the wine cellar they were attempting to re-assemble a still in one of the foundation labs," Moloch complained.

The Castle was curious. Its sensors in the foundation area were few and far between so what went on there was somewhat of a mystery. "And this was a problem because?" it asked somewhat sarcastically.

"Because they roped both Gil and Tarvek into helping," Moloch was starting to build up a good head of steam. "Those two took over the project and had everyone, including me, running all over everywhere for parts!"

So that was what all the scurrying around in the basement this morning was about the Castle noted to itself. It had almost caught some of the Jäger's in its traps earlier as they'd rushed about the halls looking for who knows what. Come to think of it, until the mistress asked the Castle hadn't noticed Von Zinzer all morning. It decided to comment, "I deduce you managed to avoid most of the festivities by suggesting an inventory."

"Not exactly," Moloch replied. "They managed to get the still up and running but the brew cycle was going to be at least 12 hours. They decided they couldn't wait that long so most of them, the mad-boys included, went off to Mama Gkika's for a drink."

"And?" the Castle prompted. It was clear from his voice and how fast he was walking that Von Zinzer was perturbed. The Castle found annoying Moloch verbally was not quite as much fun as trying to toss him into the cistern with the mechanical squid. Unfortunately, the mistress had given some rather direct and specific orders regarding the harassment of minions in general and Moloch in particular. Now, as long as he stayed in the main corridors the Castle could only engage in verbal harassment. Still that did provide some amusement for a while. The Castle had become quite adept at making him twitch one way or another. Too bad that Von Zinzer was rather bright and learned quickly. It meant that the Castle had to work much harder to get a response. "Ah for the good old days," the Castle thought to itself.

"And we drew straws for who got to go and I was one of the losers."

That explained it. The Castle didn't really understand quite why but a majority of its organic denizens seemed to spend a good portion of their time looking for excuses to get out of the Castle. The Castle prided itself on providing a stimulating environment, admittedly by providing ample opportunities for near death experiences. Apparently the minions and a few of the Jägermonsters had decided that drinking in a bar full of hyped up super soldiers, assorted ner-do-wells and tourists was a more relaxing atmosphere. It was a little surprising that the young masters had both decided to go along. They at least appreciated the Castle's little jokes. Oh well, the Castle had learned long ago that predicting the whims of organic life forms was a major waste of processing power. One just had to learn to deal with that strange concept the Mistress referred to as "personal preference."

"Since I was staying behind anyway," Moloch continued in an exasperated voice "Gil assigned me the task of starting a parts inventory so you could direct people to where the components are stored and thus increase the response time."

Oooh. That sounded promising. The Mistress rarely disabled the Castle's surprises in the secondary corridors. Some of the storage areas were only accessible in specific ways. It could make getting into those locations very interesting. It wouldn't do to say anything about that. No that would just spoil the fun. The Castle responded mildly, "Explains the increase in activity in the cataloging subsystems."

"Yep."

The Castle noted that Moloch's ire seemed to be petering out now that he had vented it. That was good. Annoyed minions, as opposed to terrified ones, made an annoyed Mistress. An annoyed Mistress was definitely not good.

"So what's the Lady Heterodyne working on now?" Moloch's question interrupted the Castle's analysis of the mistress/minion feedback loop.

The Castle paused considering just how much to tell the chief minion. The Lady always insisted on explaining what she was doing. She said even if the minions didn't understand they often got enough of the concept to make the assistance more efficient. More efficient minions made happy Mistress. The Castle decided to engage in the same behavior. When no other parameters exist, act like the ruling Heterodyne was one of its base programing rules after all. "The southwest tower has a set of equipment originally built by Faustus Heterodyne and then later modified by Occam Heterodyne."

"So what's it supposed to do?" Moloch asked.

This time the Castle really hesitated. It really didn't like admitting weakness or talking about the years where its consciousness had been fragmented either intentionally by a member of the family or by circumstances such age and lack of repair.

Von Zinzer must have noticed the hesitation since he gently asked "Castle, you ok?"

At times like this the Castle was confused. Von Zinzer seemed to be genuinely concerned that the Castle was malfunctioning. Given its recent history of fragmented subsystems all working independently it had to admit this concern was probably valid. "All is functioning correctly," the Castle replied. Then for some reason it didn't understand it added, "It's just I don't remember much of Occam's reign and none of the equipment in that tower is hooked into my sensor array even though the tower itself is."

"You are telling me you have no clue then?"

"The original equipment was a remote cutting and excavating device but I don't know what Occam did to it and he wasn't one to store his notes in my memory" the Castle reluctantly admitted. At the same time it noted that this conversation was a major anomaly from previous patterns. It did a quick system integrity check. Ah, it was a new set of routines developing based on the Mistress' expressed likes and dislikes. Nothing to be concerned about then. It might even be able to use this. Lull the minions into a sense of security then lead them into a nest of Nyar spiders.

"Wonderful," Von Zinzer replied. "And we are supposed to plug this thing in?" he asked as he popped the access hatch to West Node 12.

"No. The Lady just wanted you to ascertain if the power system was disconnected or cut by damage. She wanted it to remain off until she determined the nature of the equipment," the Castle replied.

"Well, tell her it's just unplugged," Moloch replied from inside the access hatch. "Hey, what are you doing here?"

That last remark did not appear to be addressed to the Castle. Presumably, the small clank the Lady had mentioned had successfully traced the power cable. There was a whirring sound followed by a set of chiming notes. The Castle interpreted the communication and then relayed to both the Lady and Von Zinzer. "The dingbot reports that the power cable is intact."

"Good," the Castle heard the affirmation from both the Lady Heterodyne in the tower and Von Zinzer in the node housing at the same time. The Castle was always amazed at how quickly a competent minion and spark would meld into a symbiotic working relationship on a project. There were times it envied that connection.

"Give me an open line to Moloch" Agatha ordered the Castle and it complied. "What's it look like down there?" she asked directly.

"It's clean, all I have to do is plug the cable back into the node," was Von Zinzer's reply.

The Castle wondered again about a power surge. No, it concluded, the previous order about power was still in effect.

"This thing looks to be a machine to dig holes and remove debris. I've got a good handle on the calibrations so do you know of any digging or debris removal we need to do?" Agatha asked.

The Mistress knew what the machine did. Did that cancel order about leaving the power off? The Castle started an analysis.

"How about Lucrezia's secret lab off the Great Movement Chamber?" Von Zinzer suggested. "Part of it is full of rubble and no-one has touched it since half the roof fell in the second time."

"Uh oh" the Castle thought, "structural integrity alert!" "Mistress," it interrupted "I will not be able to monitor that area for results. I can only sense part of that room through the ceiling. I am disabled in that area."

"Not a problem Castle," Agatha soothed. "I'll go down to assess the results after I try this thing out. Plug it in Moloch."

A short while and an awful lot of power later the Castle attempted to determine if anything had changed. Its sensors in the Great Movement Chamber as well as those near Lucrezia's secret lab showed no difference. There appeared to be no structural or other damage and what it could sense of the rubble pile from the room above seemed to be unchanged. "My sensors show no change Mistress," the Castle commented.

"That's strange. I set it up to take just the top off the rubble pile in the lab as a test. Maybe I aimed too high," Agatha commented. "Well I guess I'll just have to go down and see if there are any results. In the mean time I'll shut the machine down up here," she added. "It should be safe to leave it plugged in at the node."

"Will do," replied Moloch. "Need anything else?"

"Meet you on the Grand Staircase and we'll go take a look at the results," Agatha replied and made a gesture that the Castle interpreted as "cut the direct communication link" so it did so.

The Castle continued to ponder the situation. The machinery was off. The Mistress had said so therefore it was off. There was still power flowing to and being used by the machine in the tower. The Castle analyzed it for dangers. It was a steady draw, unlike the sudden drain the Castle had felt when the machine was activated. The Castle concluded that it must be some sort of stand-by mode. There were many of its systems that remained powered but inactive until needed. This, obviously, was another one. Trusting that the Mistress knew what she was doing the Castle didn't even think to mention the continuing power consumption to anyone.