Laurentius Heterdyne And The Green Fever

Chapter One : A Second Child stays At Home.

It is never easy to be the child of a famous hero. It's harder to be the scion of a pair of great houses, one The Dread House of Heterodyne no less. And being the younger child, behind a single-digit Breathrough elder sibling, is an extra scoop of difficulty.

Laurentius "Lars" Heterodyne had enough personal anecdotal evidence that he was willing to put forth a strong hypothesis that famous parents were a significant psychological drag factor between the ages of 12 and 24. And this was only because, at the age of 24 he was still struggling with it.

People said he took after his mother, he had certainly inherited her unmanageable blonde hair and deficient eyes, although he ran a lot leaner than she did, to the point that he had, since the age of 10, had to tolerate streams of enquiry regarding his calorific intake from friends, family members, monstrous retinue and architecture.

And then there had been the question of his own Breakthrough, which didn't happen until he was nearly eighteen. Statisticians working at Transylvania Polygnostic had long since shown that, while a young breakthrough (defined as pre-12 years of age) did correlate heavily with strength of gift late breakthroughs (defined as post-16) had no correlation with strength of Spark. Nevertheless the fact that he was the oldest Breakthrough in the last 300 years of the family, combined with his passable but far from exemplary academic results, had tarred him with a reputation for being "The dim one" that he had not yet fully shaken, or at least so he often felt. Even after his Breakthrough his interests lay outside what most people considered to be the traditional fields of Sparkish endeavour, although he enjoyed clank building as a hobby. His Breakthrough creation (a logic-gate network capable of projecting the price, availability and quality of over 300 different material goods, from gold to snails to tadpoles, in any given hypothetical city up to 3 months into the future) hadn't even caused an explosion, and it had taken hours to explain to anyone other than his parents why that was so dangerous. Well that and the castle, and the Generals come to think of it, although they viewed it mostly as a tool for planning for a siege.

He'd had it moved into The Shrieking Tower when he came back from University and decided to, as The Castle told him many second Heterodynes before him had also done, adopt the semi-isolated tower with its comfortable suite and independent laboratory as his own.

This had been compounded by the fact that whenever he started to apply for places at the great institutions of learning he hit an existential crisis when TPU sent him what amounted to an acceptance letter before he had even applied. Only to be expected of course, he was a Heterodyne (if not The, and hopefully never would be) and they loved to claim his mother as an alumnus, however dubious that technicality was. But it raised the question, where could he apply where he would be certain to get a place not based on his name alone? Its not like he could blame the old adventuring chums of his parents from viewing his applications in a favourable light after all.

In the end he decided to perform an experiment. And why not?

He sent a polite enquiry to a long list of institutions asking if they could provide him with information regarding their economic and sociological curricula, a credible request as these were not major foci of most institutions. He then also sent an actual application to each of these institutions' economics departments, or the closest equivalents, under an assumed name.

Most of his pseudonymous applications were met with a tentative offer, which was heartening, although there was invariably a much more enthusiastic interest in his "Heterodyne" non-application. His letters to Paris had been collated into one file and returned with a friendly letter from Colette, applauding his attitude and ending with "If you wish to study in my city mon chérie, under whatever name, you would be most welcome." Which was why he spent two years there between doctoral and post-doctoral work.

In the end it was the enthusiastic response his covert application received, combined with his personal letter simply being sent a bookmarked prospectus, that lead him to spend the majority of his education at Rijksuniversiteit Groningen en Ulrum. It had been fun, challenging and really given him a lot more to discuss with Her Von Mekkan now he was home.

It had also filled him to the gills when it came to travel. The rest of the family could say what they liked about adventure and he certainly agreed that when an old family dodad appeared and threatened a town they had an obligation to go and deactivate it, but he was more than happy to hold down the home front, sign whatever Von Mekkhan needed signing in his mother's absence and work on his own projects. Specifically "The Mechanisberg Banking and Loan Company".

Even then the only person in the city who seemed to understand why was Lord Scorchmaw, who Lars didn't bother too often for politeness sake, although he had agreed to be put down as "Special Security Consultant" on The Bank's paperwork as a way of impressing customers. There was something that spoke to him, deep in his core, about people either begging him for money on the understanding that bad things would happen if he didn't get it back or otherwise paying him to put their treasured possessions deep in the vaults under the city, surrounded by traps and monsters.

Goomblast had once said it sounded like an inside-out kidnapping.

Customers had been slow to come, and more than a few had decided, upon seeing what the contract authorised him to use as collections agents, that they didn't need the money that badly, but there had been some, and now that Proffessor Knackerabber's expedition had returned successfully and paid off their loan in full the public image of The Bank was sure to improve.

Particularly if he managed to get a little co-operation from certain masonry, but that would require a bit of an outflanking manoeuvre. As he sat on the balcony of his reading room he watched the rest of the family, and several other people who had been in his life as long as he could remember, fly off for yet another adventure somewhere west of Gibraltar. He sipped his coffee and perused an illustrated manuscript of the statuary of a number of now submerged English castles. There was one in particular, apparently a depiction of Sir Kay, that had the right sort of bearing, noble by way of thuggish. Perhaps if he added some horns. He added it's page number to a list of other promising candidates.

"Castle, do you have a moment?"

"Yes." Most people he noticed, even Castle staff and some of the monsters, found being addressed by the walls unsettling. He'd never minded, perhaps because some of his earliest memories had been of asking the endless cycle of "What's that" common to all four year olds and getting answers from a voice that seemed more than willing to explain. His mother had insisted The Castle modulate and curate its answers after the third consecutive bout of nightmares however.

"I wonder if I might make some enquiries as to your internal functioning."

"You are aware that I am limited in what information I can convey, for the preservation of myself and, in turn the family. Besides your interest and abilities do not align with most of my systems."

"Agreed. It was actually something mother had mentioned, from when she first arrived."

"Indeed?" Careful now, he didn't want to upset it. Those early days had been touchy, to say the least. "Incidentally on the subject of your mother, she did leave instructions regarding your tendency to skip breakfast. I am not permitted to force feed you, but I have instructed one of the footmen to remain in uncomfortable proximity until you have actually eaten something." There was a polite but firm knock at the door to the suite two floors down.

Lars steeled himself as he made a gesture to indicate that the door should open. "Regarding the Chapel of Bones in particular."

The door that had slowly started to open itself slammed shut, causing a rattle of silver and porcelain but not, Lars noted, any breakages. "If you intend to enquire about the succession mechanism" The Castle's voice was starting to rise in anger as it always did when it felt someone was overstepping their boundaries.

"Why no, why-ever should I do that?" Lars said, knowing full well that he had made conspicuous comments recently that, taken together, made it clear that he would consider a system capable of infallibly identifying a person by say, their blood, would be an ideal addition to the security of his bank.

"Oh, you aren't thinking of exposing one of my most vital secrets, the very mechanism by which The House of Heterodyne secures it succession, to public view as a simple security feature for your Bank?"

"I was more thinking of the avatar you possess there." He paused carefully. "As I understand its one of the few places in the the whole city where one can talk with you, face to face, as it were."

"What of it?" Downstairs the door started to creak open slowly.

"Well, there are a number of reasons I could think of where having a physical avatar, not just the ability to manipulate your structure or awaken a statue or whathaveyou, but a dedicated avatar system, might be valuable. For one, it removes ambiguity. For another it would allow you to get even closer to potential threats, assess them from closer angles and so on. Plus, if you start using an avatar like that, people are more likely to be indiscreet when it isn't around." He tapped a set of diagrams he had been working on for a slightly over human scale clank with stone cladding that, while inactive, would pass for statuary. He'd cribbed a lot of the details from other sources, but he felt the onboard weapons systems and high powered sense-array would be appealing. "I was thinking of calling it a Castellan. You've never needed a human one after all. There needn't be just the one of course. I value your opinion."

"It seems a little, low calibre." The Castle was clearly interested. At this point the footman entered and stood just close enough to be irritating without actually being rude. There was a tray of snail pastries and a stack of small breakfast-breads on his tray as well as, Lars noted, a fresh pot of coffee.

"You have plenty of high calibre. This is meant for precision and discretion in a moment of crisis." And to get you thinking on the right lines so when I get you to raise the subject of blood identification again you will consider a public example a clever ruse, as no one would believe that something displayed so openly might be connected to something so vital. "Plus I am sure there are certain things you would have longed to have had the satisfaction of having done with your own hands. Eject Dr Fergle for one." It wasn't often Lars saw his mother truly angry, but when the truth had come out about Dr Fergle and the disappearance of certain items from his mother's luggage in Brussels he was reminded of how dangerous she could be in personal combat. The Star Hall had also needed significant retouching on the mosaics when she was done.

"It may have some merit." Lars waved the footman over and took the coffee pot and, noting the Castle's hesitant interest, a Roseman Puff. He had meant to have breakfast he told himself, he had just forgotten. "Although I would need to make sure the co-ordinated."

"Funny you should mention that." Lars said, turning to his list of page numbers. The rest of the morning was spent in a conversation not unlike the ones he had had in Paris when the fashion houses released their new collections.