The Rise of the Automated Aristocrats (34 page)

Burton bent over him and pushed the barrel of his weapon into the back of his neck. “Stay down, old fellow. Don't move and I won't shoot you. Understood?”

“Yes, perfectly well,” came the quavering response. “I'll not so much as blink.”

“Good man.”

Burton swung around, levelled his pistol at the topmost opening in the head of the immobilised clockwork man, and fired three bullets into it. He pulled his cane free then stepped over to Bradlaugh and helped him to his feet. “Come on, you two,” he said. “We have to get out of here—and fast!”

The three men took to their heels. Behind them, the shot mechanism's head erupted into flames then exploded.

Sprinting to the end of the road, they turned left into North Audley Street, then right into Providence Court.

“We'll try to lose ourselves in the back streets,” the explorer panted. “The fog will help us.”

A small rotorship flew across the road just ahead of them, its passing marked only by a fleeting shadow, a sweeping searchlight, and the growing then diminishing wail of a siren.

Left into George Street and there, through the murk, they saw two blue lights moving toward them. Quickly, they veered right into Hart Street, pounded along it to Duke Street, and hurried up to busy Oxford Street, where they hoped to lose themselves in the bustling throng.

Two more SPG machines became visible ahead. The three men crossed the road to avoid them, running between clanking vehicles, narrowly avoiding a rolling steam sphere. A velocipedist swerved to avoid them and hit the side of a hansom. He shouted. A police whistle blew. Burton looked back and saw the constable he'd left on the pavement. The man was pointing at him and blowing repeated blasts.

Clockwork policemen closed from the left. A second pair from the right.

A rotorship plummeted out of the sky, siren howling. Horses bucked and whinnied in panic as, suddenly slowing, the flying machine set down amid the traffic.

Burton's breath hissed through his teeth. “Damnation! We're corralled!”

“I fear, good sir, that you may regret coming to our rescue,” Monckton Milnes murmured.

With an incongruous glimmer of amusement, Burton realised that his disguise had fooled the two Cannibals. Despite the circumstances, he'd instinctively maintained the accent.

“Stop!” one of the approaching SPG units commanded. “Kneel and submit.”

“Resistance will not be tolerated,” another declared.

Truncheons extended.

As the contraptions closed on the three men, a door in the side of the rotorship hinged down and four more machines emerged.

“We don't stand a chance,” Charles Bradlaugh observed. He knelt.

Reluctantly, Burton and Monckton Milnes followed suit.

Minutes later, they were sitting in the rotorship with their wrists cuffed together behind their backs. Four clockwork men watched them wordlessly. Burton's gun and swordstick had been confiscated.

“I'm Richard Monckton Milnes,” his friend said to him. “And this is Charlie Bradlaugh. Neither of us knows why we're arrested, but I'd like to thank you for—” He finished the sentence with a quirk of the eyebrow.

“For acting impetuously and getting myself arrested?” Burton said with a grim smile. “I am Count Palladino.”

Bradlaugh said, “Have we met? I feel I may have made your acquaintance at some point. At one of the clubs, perhaps?”

“I have that sort of face,” Burton replied.

The vessel's engine hummed, and the floor shifted beneath them. The flight was short—little more than a hop—and when the door opened, the explorer wasn't at all surprised to see the Mall beyond it.

“Out,” they were ordered.

“I'll ask again,” Monckton Milnes said to one of the SPG machines. “With what are we charged?”

“Resisting arrest.”

“Yes, but before that? Why did you come to my house? What is it I am supposed to have done?”

“Out.”

They stood, exited the ship, and were promptly hustled by the clockwork men to the gates of the enclosed park.

“What in God's name?” Monckton Milnes exclaimed upon seeing the tall fence.

“It went up last night,” Burton said.

They were guided through the gates.

Looking down the slope to the Victoria Monument—which for some obscure reason appeared to Burton to be different in form to what he expected—he saw row after row of sheds and, beyond them, the shadowy fog-veiled bulk of the rotorship he'd heard landing earlier. There were men—but no women—scattered around, most garbed in suits but a few in pyjamas. There were also a great many clockwork figures, these with normal rather than SPG helmet-shaped heads and painted dark green rather than blue.

Burton, Monckton Milnes, and Bradlaugh were escorted to the end of a queue of men. The line led to the door of a large shed. A sign above the portal declared PROCESSING.

“Wait until your turn,” one of the SPG units said. “Do not attempt to flee. Do not object or ask questions. Do not give false information. Do not cause an affray. Do not resist orders.”

“May I scratch my arse?” Bradlaugh asked.

“Yes.”

The mechanised policeman unclipped their handcuffs and took from a metal pouch in its side three red ribbons, which it tied around their left upper arms.

“What do these signify?” Burton enquired.

“Do not remove them,” the machine replied. It marched away.

“I have to say,” Monckton Milnes muttered, “that this is all thoroughly inconvenient yet also rather interesting.” He tapped the shoulder of the man in front of him, a tubby fellow in a yellow dressing gown. “Hallo there! Do you happen to have any idea of what's happening?”

“None,” the other replied. “I was asleep. They hammered at my door this morning, woke me up, dragged me to a police station, and left me in a cell for hours and hours. Arrested! And look! I'm in my bloody slippers! I've not eaten since yesterday. What will the manager say?”

“Manager?”

“At the bank. Scrannington Bank. It's where I work. I'm meant to be there. I'm the chief underwriter. Insurance! Great heavens! Insurance! And me in my slippers!”

Bradlaugh said, “What did you do, if you'll pardon my asking?”

“Do? I just told you. Insurance.”

“I mean, what did you do to be arrested?”

“Nothing! I was asleep, I say!”

“Some sort of misdemeanour?”

“How dare you!” the man objected. “I insist, I've committed no crime. I'm an underwriter not a thief.”

A man farther along the line but within earshot looked back over his shoulder and called, “You'll not find any criminals here, my friend. We're perfectly ordinary. No one has the vaguest idea what this is all about.”

Monckton Milnes turned to Bradlaugh. “I suppose it'll all come out in the wash. Once they realise they've made a mistake—”

They took a few steps forward as the queue moved.

Burton wanted to reveal his identity to his friends—tell them that Tom Bendyshe and James Hunt were also in the camp, enquire about the message he'd sent via the Whispering Web and ask after Brabrooke and Murray—but feeling there might be an advantage to retaining his disguise, he resisted the temptation.

It was now late afternoon, but there was no change in the curious light, which appeared to be an element of the fog itself. The summer sun, shining down on the near-impenetrable peasouper, wouldn't set until past nine o'clock.

Monckton Milnes pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and used it to wipe beads of perspiration from his brow.

They moved closer to the door.

Men were added to the queue behind them. Questions were asked, but Burton and his friends had no answers to offer.

Finally, they entered the hut.

One by one, the men in front of them shuffled forward and stood in front of a desk. A flabby-faced individual in a rather-too-opulent ceremonial Army uniform was sitting behind it with a green-painted clockwork man beside him. Four more of Babbage's contraptions were also present. One was holding a bucket of white paint and a brush. Another stepped forward and searched the men, finding only ordinary items—pipes, tobacco pouches, wallets, keys, and so forth.

Names were taken, a list consulted and ticked with a pencil. Protests were waved aside. “All will be explained. Be patient.” The man spoke in a clipped and cold tone, as if delivering the words by rote. “You are assigned to hut fifteen. If you hear the siren or a whistle, line up outside of it. A meal will be provided later.”

“But why are we here?” one of the men asked.

“Don't make a fuss,” came the reply. “As you can see, we are very busy. Your cooperation is appreciated. Exit through the door to your left, please.”

As the men moved to the indicated portal, they were each stopped by the mechanism with the paint bucket and a number was brushed onto the back of their clothes.

“My dressing gown! You've ruined it!”

“Move on, please.”

Monckton Milnes approached the desk. His red ribbon was noticed, and when the man looked beyond him and saw that Burton and Bradlaugh were also so adorned, he gestured for them to step forward too. They were searched and divested of their belongings.

“You three are together?”

Monckton Milnes ignored the question and drawled, “My good man, I rather think an introduction is called for, don't you?”

“Very well. I am Commander Thaddeus Kidd. And you are?”

“Extremely disgruntled. I demand to know why I've been manhandled from my home and forcibly detained.”

“I can't answer that unless you give me your name.”

“I am Richard Monckton Milnes.”

The clockwork man handed a sheet of paper to Kidd, a different list. He ran his pencil down it and, seeing what he was looking for, murmured, “Ah, yes. Good.” He looked at Bradlaugh. “And you?”

“Sir Charles Bradlaugh. And I intend to notify the War Office and have your damned hide for this.”

“Do you now? Do you?” Kidd responded with the trace of a sneer. “We shall see about that.” He checked the list again and gave a grunt of satisfaction before levelling his eyes at Burton. “So you must be either Murray or Brabrooke.”

The device at his side said, “No, sir. This individual is not listed. He was apprehended after preventing police constables from performing their duty. He was carrying a pistol and disabled two units.”

Burton, who hadn't seen any of the SPG machines that captured him enter the hut, wondered whether that statement was another example of nonverbal communication.

“I am Count Palladino. Visiting from Italy.”

“A spy?” Kidd asked.

“Don't be ridiculous.”

“Ridiculous? You were carrying a gun. Why did you interfere with police business?”

“I acted on impulse.”

“It may cost you. The law is absolute. You will remain here until we decide what to do with you. All three of you will bunk in hut zero. Stay inside. Do not mingle with the other detainees. You will be guarded. Dismissed. Out that way, please.” He cocked a thumb at the side door.

“I'll not stand for this!” Monckton Milnes bellowed. “I know my rights. You have no—”

A clockwork man grabbed and held him while “287” was painted onto his back. Bradlaugh received “288” and Burton “289.” They were hustled out. Four mechanical guards took charge of them and marched them across the grass to a nearby shed, its door marked with a large “0.”

Monckton Milnes's face was red with fury. Bradlaugh kept whispering, “I don't understand. I don't understand.”

The door was unlocked, and they were pushed into a long, low, windowless room lined with bunk beds and illuminated by a single oil lamp. There were other men present. Doctor James Hunt rose from his bed and greeted them.

“Hallo, chaps. Welcome to the house of the undesirables.”

BRUTALITY AND MURDER IN HUT O

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