The Rise of the Automated Aristocrats (45 page)

The mental confusion even crept into the material world when, while he was attempting to sleep, he turned and was stabbed in the flank by a sharp object in his pocket. Puzzled that anything should be there—he'd been searched and divested of his every possession on the
Orpheus
—he retrieved the item, sat up, and gazed at it uncomprehendingly.

He strained to understand. He ate two meals, bathed, smoked a cigar, and spent hours contemplating his find.

Finally, he dared to give it a name.

A set of lockpicks.

He laughed. Reality was such a jumble that now his imagination was manifesting objects that could not possibly be there.

He concealed the picks beneath his mattress and forgot about them.

Perhaps more time passed.

The door clicked.

Rigby?

No, the servant.

Food.

Eat.

Sit.

Sleep.

Nothing.

Except—

Amid the cacophonous impressions and tattered memories, he began to sense a presence that was not a variation of his own. There was something
else
out there. He felt mental fingers groping for him. They brushed the peripheries of his mind. Cold. Calculating. Inhuman.

He flinched away from them.

Illusion, like the lockpicks.

He was on the bed and, turning onto his side, slid his hand under the mattress to reassure himself that the picks weren't there.

But they were.

He pulled them out, laid back, and held them over his face, turning the slim tools this way and that, examining every part of them.

If these are real, then—

He didn't want to continue that line of thought, didn't want to consider the possibility that what he vaguely perceived might also be real. A powerful intellect. An
other
. Watching. Waiting. Planning.

How could lockpicks have found their way into my pocket?

Unless someone put them there.

Edward.

He sat up and looked around, frowned, and ran his fingers over his stubbled jawline.

Edward. He fumbled at my clothing during my fight with Rigby. Why such clumsiness from a machine? It must have been purposeful. The picks are real. He slipped them to me.

With a small cry of astonishment, he threw himself off the bed and moved into the main room.

Come on. Come on. Think.

What was it his brother had said?

“Is this version of you incapable even of putting up a decent fight? Consider what that other achieved. When all was lost, he still summoned resources enough to invade this base and rob its vault. Its vault
!”

The slight but definite emphasis on a single word.

Vault.

“And you can't even give a good account of yourself when it comes to basic fisticuffs. I'm thoroughly alarmed
to witness such weakness.”

Again, the accent had been subtly placed. Not so forcibly that Rigby would notice it but, in retrospect, unmistakable.

“You're going to have to dig deep. The other Burton did so. Follow his example.
”

He slipped the picks into his pocket, crossed to the table, and poured a glass of brandy, which he knocked back in a single swig. He thought of the mud he'd noticed on his brother's mechanical feet and on the floor in the hallway.

“Burton,” he said, “has seen mud with that distinctive hue before. Where?”

The Thames at low tide.

Dig deep.

It came to him. Yes. The Beetle had—or was going to, in a different history—manipulate events to ensure that Algernon Swinburne would be captured. Burton was going to use his dog, Fidget, to follow the poet's scent. It would lead to the Thames and to a tunnel running beneath it, under London Bridge.

The bridge was right next to the Tower of London.

Did Edward want him to retrace that route? Why? And even were he to use the picks to crack the lock of his cell, how was he supposed to escape the tower, which was occupied by so many clockwork and governmental men?

He paced and fretted.

Use the picks. Overpower that Thresher fellow. Release Algy and William. Then what? The vault?

He vaguely recalled a chamber he'd never seen, one filled with bizarre objects retrieved from alternate histories. The room he envisioned belonged in a different version of the tower. What he'd find in this one might not match the memory. Nevertheless, his brother appeared to think it held something of significance.

What was Edward up to?

Crossing to the metal door, he crouched and examined the keyhole. The lock would present a challenge but not an insurmountable one.

When to risk it?

He felt indecisive, as if Rigby had knocked a vital part out of him, and experienced such a dreadful sense of shame that he stumbled back, uttered an inarticulate cry, and fell to his knees.

He drew back his arm, poised to smash his fist into the floor, filled with frustration, but before he could follow the impulse a siren started to wail, its urgent keening—
Ullah! Ullah!
—driving all the emotion out of him.

Suddenly, he was calm and his head was clear.

He whispered, “The Slug and Lettuce. A second chance at life,” and he knew, without any doubt, that this was the moment to act.

Thoroughly alarmed.

Twisting, he scrambled back to the door, knelt before it, and applied the tools to the keyhole. He'd never used lockpicks before but another iteration of him had, and that skill was now his. Faint clicks. Resistance against his fingertips. Manipulation. The slightest of forces exerted.

Clunk.

He didn't think to arm himself with anything—not the decanter upturned and held by its neck, not a snapped off table leg—but simply yanked open the door and hurtled through into the room beyond it.

Thresher was standing by a filing cabinet. He gaped at Burton and said, “Drat it! What do you think you're—”

The explorer dived forward and, as the other fumbled for the pistol at his hip, grabbed the gaoler's wrist and delivered a slap of such force to the side of his face that Thresher immediately slumped. The gun was plucked from its holster and its barrel applied to the man's forehead.

“Tell me what's happening.”

Dazedly, Thresher mumbled, “Alarm. Don't know why. Get back in your cell.”

“I don't think so.”

“Drat you!”

Burton forced him across the room to the door of cell one. “Either open it or have me break your neck and do it myself.”

Thresher complied. As the portal swung open, Burton looked into a cell identical to his own and saw Algernon Swinburne.

“What ho!” the poet cried out. “About bloomin' time! Where the devil have you been? Do you realise how long I've been shut away in here? My hat! You look like a ghost! Are you all right? What's happening? Why the noise? Are we escaping?”

“If we can,” Burton confirmed.

The little poet leaped out of the cell and swiped a fist at an imaginary foe. “Lead on! Charge! I'm eager to flatten the minister's crooked nose.”

“He no longer has one.”

“What? What? What?”

“Later.”

Trounce was next to be released. He was bearded and his hair unkempt, his blue eyes filled with the remoteness that comes with prolonged isolation. Looking uncertainly from Burton to Swinburne, he licked his lips and mumbled, “By Jove! Is this happening?”

“It is,” Burton confirmed. “Are you fit for battle?”

“By thunder, I'm ready to take on the whole bloody government single-handed, metal men and all.”

“We may have an even bigger enemy.”

“Eh? Who?”

“Or perhaps
what
. I don't know, William. I sense something. A presence of some sort.”

“Sense?”

“Perhaps clairvoyantly. The black diamonds.”

“Humph! More of that nonsense, hey? Well, so long as there's a neck I can wring.”

Burton made Thresher unlock the other cells but found all of them unoccupied.

“Your records,” he said. “I want to know where two of your prisoners have gone.”

The gaoler's eyes widened then crossed as they focused on the gun barrel that was still pressed against his forehead. “Needles in a dratted haystack! There are thousands of prisoners. You're demanding the impossible.”

“I don't think so. They were among the very first taken—captured on the twentieth of March. Their names are Sadhvi Raghavendra and Maneesh Krishnamurthy.”

“Oh. That makes it easier, I suppose. This way.”

Keeping his pistol levelled, Burton followed Thresher to a filing cabinet and watched as he slid open a draw, rummaged through binders, and extracted two sheets of paper.

“Yes. Here we are. They are both serving at Sir Charles Napier B.”

“What is that?”

“A labour camp. It's located on the outskirts of Karachi in India.”

Trounce said, “Labour? What manner of labour?”

“They're building a clockwork-man factory, I believe. There's a big demand for the mechanisms. The British East India Company has a lot of jobs they can undertake. Saves costs.”

“Yes,” Swinburne said. “I recall that you suggested your own job could be done by them. Are you looking forward to your unemployment?”

“Pardon? I—” Thresher looked momentarily confused. He muttered, “Oh, drat it!” then tipped his head back and yelled, “Help! Help! The prisoners are esc—”

Burton's fist connected with the upturned chin, and Thresher hit the floor.

Crossing to the room's entrance, the explorer opened the portal an inch. The noise of the alarm increased. He peeked out at the hallway. Doors were standing ajar, and he saw two men hurrying along to the stairs leading up to the tower. Once they'd gone, the wide passage was empty.

“We might be in luck,” he murmured. “It looks like the alarm has sent them all scurrying upstairs.”

“Rather a providential diversion,” Trounce observed.

“I'm inclined to think it's by design.” Burton raised the revolver. “Let's move. Quietly does it.”

They crept out of the security section, advanced past the dormitories and canteen, and, next to the Monitoring Station, found the Weapon Shop.

Burton was about to speak when, a little farther along the hall, five men raced out from the doors marked
Offices G–L
. Without noticing the escapees, they pelted toward the far end of the passage and vanished up the stairs.

“I wonder what's causing the hoo-ha?” Swinburne whispered.

Trounce flexed his fingers. “Whatever, let's hope it continues. I need to bang my knuckles against something solid. Everything feels like a dream after being cooped up for so long.”

Burton pushed open the door of the Weapon Shop. There were two men inside, one long-bearded, the other white-haired. They were standing beside a bench and bolting a small cannon onto a tripod. Both looked up as he stepped in. Long Beard said, “Good! Help us get this up top, would you?”

“What's it for? Why the alarm?”

“Someone stole the
Orpheus
. The ship is shooting at the keep and into the grounds. This is the only weapon we have that's sure to bring it down.”

White Hair exclaimed, “Hold on a minute! Who are you?”

“The enemy.” Burton brandished his pistol. “Hands in the air, please, gentlemen.”

“Oh, botheration!” Long Beard said. He grabbed a pistol from the bench and swung it toward the intruders.

Burton shot him through the shoulder.

“Christ! Ouch! Bloody hell! That hurts. I surrender.”

“Don't kill me,” his colleague cried out, throwing up his arms. “I'm a lepidopterist.”

Swinburne laughed. “A butterfly collector? What has that to do with it?”

“I—I couldn't think of anything else to say.”

“It'll suffice,” Burton said, “providing you lie face down with your limbs spread out.”

“Like one of your pinned specimens,” the poet added.

“I'll do it. I'll do it.”

He did it.

“I can't,” Long Beard wailed. “My shoulder. Bad.”

“So sit beside him and shut up.”

The chamber was large and lined with armaments. Burton, Swinburne, and Trounce each slung a rifle over their shoulders, took two revolvers, and filled their pockets with ammunition.

“We'll be just outside,” Burton told Long Beard. “If either of you leaves this room, we'll start shooting.”

“I don't want to move. I'm bleeding. I feel horrid.”

“And I'm quite comfortable here,” White Hair added. “It's the first proper rest I've had for a few days.”

Swinburne gave a snort of amusement.

The group moved back into the hallway and crossed to the door marked
Vault
. It was a very solid metal affair with a complex lock that would have defeated Burton's picks had he required them. He didn't. It was standing slightly open. The explorer noticed mud at its threshold. Again, foreign memories brushed the edges of his awareness. He led them through into a long, fairly narrow room dimly lit by four oil lamps. It had an arched ceiling, and its walls were lined with shelves. There was equipment taken from the Norwood catacomb and a number of small machines he recognised from Battersea Power Station, including some he knew to be prototype Babbage creations. The hulking form of the late Isambard Kingdom Brunel was standing in one corner, utterly lifeless. The sight of it sent a shiver down Burton's spine.

That thing was once me.

He bit his lip nervously and moved on.

At the other end of the chamber, the wall had been cut through—fairly recently by the looks of it—and was now the mouth of a downward-sloping tunnel. Muddy footprints led to and from it. Burton headed toward the opening but paused when he came abreast a workbench upon which two long, flat, clothbound packages had been placed. Uttering an exclamation, he lifted one, unwrapped it, and pulled an oddly curved blade from its scabbard. “My
khopesh
! This might come in handy. Algy, take the other.”