The Rise of the Automated Aristocrats

by Mark Hodder

  “Is it?”

  “No. They were out of my sphere of influence for more than a year. In their report of that period, there are obvious omissions. Lawless and his crew, who have demonstrated that they remain loyal to me, were not present during many of the key events and cannot give a full account of what occurred. Of one thing, however, I am convinced—”

  The minister levelled a fat forefinger at his sibling.

  “That individual is not Sir Richard Francis Burton.”

  The prime minister’s blank face showed nothing but reflected light and, through its topmost opening, tiny spinning gearwheels.

  “Then who is he?”

  “I believe him to be a doppelgänger from a parallel history.”

  “So he is Sir Richard, but not our Sir Richard?”

  “Precisely.”

  “On what do you base that supposition?”

  “On the fact that, while his objectives are unmistakable, his ability to carry them through is markedly lacking. My real brother would be causing you considerable difficulties by now. This person has merely blundered about and made an irritant of himself. His activities must be curtailed, of course, but more importantly, we must find out why he is here and what has become of our own man.”

  Disraeli’s neck buzzed again as he moved his head to regard the explorer. “Do you care to explain yourself?”

  “I am Burton,” the other responded. “I am opposed to the foul scheme you call Young England. I believe the many black diamonds that have accrued in this time stream are causing a resonance that has driven you out of your mind and, in consequence—and for the good of the empire—you and your government must now be overthrown. Since you’ve made that impossible by democratic means, others must be resorted to. It was I who brought the stones here, therefore it falls to me to defeat you. Once I have achieved that, I shall recover the gems from wherever you’ve secreted them and will see to it that they are destroyed. Were you still human, I would hope that, after their destruction, you’d recover your sanity, see the error of your current policies, and be able to resume your duties and rectify the situation. However, I understand now that it has gone too far. I’m sorry, Mr. Disraeli. Sorry for you, and sorry for what I must do.”

  The prime minister gave a slight nod. “I see. Sir Richard, let me tell you, what you regard as madness is, in fact, nothing more or less than a necessary and unequivocal response to the information you gathered during your voyage into the future. I have been ever of the opinion that revolutions are not to be evaded. History, at regular intervals, grows stale. Institutions that were once visionary become fossilised. Rather than fuelling progress, they hamper it. Old orders must either be refreshed or be overthrown. For stability’s sake, I favour the first of those options, that experience and wisdom not be lost. You, apparently, do not.”

  Burton’s eyes, dark and fierce, took in every visible inch of the prime minister’s new body: the gleaming brass, the lines of rivets and engraved decorations, the tiny gears and pistons, the springs and flywheels, the regulators and gyroscope.

  He said, “I prefer my country to be run by men than by exaggerated clocks.”

  “Clocks are more reliable than men,” Disraeli countered. “They have the measure of Time. Once Young England is fully established, we will keep the pace of change and evolution steady. No more racing at full pelt into the unknown. No more grappling with the unanticipated penalties of our haste. Power has only one duty, Sir Richard, and that is to secure the social welfare of the people. The doyens of Young England are now best placed to achieve that noble purpose, for we are no longer tainted by selfish motives. We are eternal, and we want for nothing. Whatever you are withholding from us—for you are certainly withholding something—and whatever the reason you have replaced the man we sent forward through history, you must forget it all. It no longer applies. The future you returned from is being rewritten, and the present you now inhabit is not the present you left.”

  Burton’s upper lip curled. “You are dehumanised, sir. How can you claim to know what is best for the people when you are no longer a person? This immortalising of the elite, dismantling of the middle class, and sentencing of the workers to inviolable slavery is utterly loathsome. All that you seek to establish must be erased.”

  The prime minister flicked the digits of his right hand dismissively. “How much easier it is to be critical than to be correct. Your judgment is too much sentiment and too little sense. In politics nothing is contemptible. Your revolution, had you ever developed the wherewithal to begin it, would have amounted to nothing beyond mindless vandalism. You consider me insane, but my revolution will create a better and more stable world.”

  Before Burton could respond, Swinburne shrieked, “My hat! What risible rubbish! What tedious tripe! What cretinous claptrap!”

  “A fine example of your poetry, Mr. Swinburne,” the premier said, “which is, as ever, cluttered by alliteration while notably lacking in profundity. I’ll have no more of it, if you please. Now, gentlemen, I am very busy and must bid you farewell. I will give you a few days to decide your own fate. If you choose to divulge the secrets you are keeping, the information will be gratefully received, and you will be extradited to the Indian work camps where you will toil for the remainder of your days. If you choose to remain tight-lipped, I must regard you as enemies of the empire, and you will be executed.”

  Trounce exclaimed, “By thunder! You’re the devil himself!”

  “Nonsense. Take them down to the cells, Colonel.”

  “And this man?” Rigby asked with a nod toward the minister.

  “He and I have a great deal to discuss. I will inform you of his status when I’ve decided what it is.”

  Rigby turned and signalled to the prisoners that they should precede him out of the enclosed area.

  With a last withering glare at his brother, Burton led the way back into the main room where he, Trounce, and Swinburne were once again subjected to the unyielding grip of the SPG units. The group retraced its steps down the spiral staircase to the ground floor, crossed the Tool Room and, rather than returning to the armoury, entered the room beneath the chapel.

  Rigby escorted them to a shadowy corner and there opened a door, revealing the top of another set of steps.

  Oil lamps illuminated their descent, and Burton was surprised to find it a much longer one than he anticipated—the stairs extending far lower than the tower’s original cellar, he was sure. He recalled that another Burton had described this place in the account entitled Expedition to the Mountains of the Moon, and, when the party came to a metal door, he experienced a powerful familiarity, and knew that beyond the barrier there were secret government chambers.

  Rigby produced a key and unlocked the portal. They stepped through into a wide and stark hallway and proceeded along it. A man with a bucket and mop was cleaning the floor, upon which Burton noticed muddy footprints, and others were coming and going, passing in and out of doors to either side. The various portals bore signs: Conference Rooms 1 & 2, Offices A–F, Offices G–L, Administration Rooms, Laboratories 1–5, Medium Rooms 1–4, Vault, Weapon Shop, Monitoring Station, Canteen, and Dormitories.

  The ghosts of events he’d never experienced haunted him. The underground complex and its closed off rooms suddenly felt like the depths of his own mind, filled with inaccessible spaces, populated by enigmas and incarcerated agonies.

  By God, how many Burtons are there and which of them am I? How many struggles have I endured? How much trauma have I suffered? And now this.

  At the end of the passage, Rigby opened a door marked Security. With a curt gesture, he had the SPG machines drag Burton, Swinburne, and Trounce through into a rectangular chamber. It contained a great many tall filing cabinets, a desk piled high with documents, and walls punctuated by six sturdy metal doors, each numbered.

  A uniformed man, with legs terribly bowed by rickets, looked up from an open drawer and said, “Busy.”

  “Jolly good!” Swin
burne piped up. “We’ll be on our way, then. Bye-bye!”

  Rigby ignored the poet. “New inmates, Mr. Thresher. A room apiece.”

  “Drat it! Don’t I have work enough? Can you not see all the paperwork? There are hundreds of dratted babbages walking around this castle that could do the work, yet I—just one man—am expected to keep track of all the dratted prisoners.” He pointed to the tallest stack of documents on the desk. “That alone is from Green Park. These others come in every dratted morning from the other camps: Manchester, Liverpool, Birmingham, Edin—”

  Rigby cut him off. “I’m simply ordering you to open the doors, Thresher. And you’ll do so at once and without further complaint. Nothing more is expected of you. A clockwork man will attend them when necessary.”

  Thresher grunted, pushed the drawer shut, and unclipped a bunch of keys from his belt. “It’s still a dratted inconvenience.”

  Swinburne wriggled in his captor’s unyielding metal hands. “Why don’t you tell the colonel to bugger off, Mr. Thresher? My companions and I will promise not to bother you again.”

  The gaoler said, “Cells three, four, and five.”

  Rigby shrugged. “I don’t care which. Just lock ’em up.”

  “And shove Rigby into number six,” Swinburne suggested.

  Thresher clicked his tongue despondently. “I’ll have to add to the files. More dratted work.” He opened each of the cells and one after the other the prisoners were pushed into them; Swinburne into number three, Burton into four, and Trounce into five.

  Swinburne called, “Don’t turn your back on him, Thresher. He has unnatural tendencies. You’ll be—” The door of cell three slammed shut.

  Burton was thrust into the next chamber. Rigby stood in its doorway and contemplated his old enemy for a moment. Then he smiled, said, “You’re finished,” and pushed the door shut. Burton heard the key turn in its lock.

  He was alone.

  The chamber more resembled a sitting room than a prison. It was carpeted. There were shelves of books, a desk, a bureau, a couch and armchairs, ornaments on a mantelpiece, and pictures on the wall. A door to the right opened onto a bedchamber. He could see fresh clothes laid out on the bed.

  “A considerable improvement over hut zero,” he murmured.

  Limping to the wall that separated his cell from Swinburne’s, he hammered on it with his fist. It felt solid and thick. There was no way to communicate through it, that much was immediately obvious.

  He crossed to an armchair and gingerly sat, his raw back forcing a moan out of him.

  An occasional table was positioned beside the seat. On it, there was a box of cigars, a glass, and a decanter of port. When he attempted to pour himself a drink, his hands started to tremble violently, causing the neck of the decanter to rattle against the glass, spilling the liquor.

  He gave up and instead braced his forearms on his knees and abandoned himself to the reaction that now took hold.

  His teeth chattered, and his respiration came in sharp gasps.

  Darkness pushed in.

  “Bismillah!” he whispered, squeezing his eyes shut. That was a mistake. He saw again the blade sliding into Doctor Quaint’s brain, the bullet shattering Henry Ashbee’s skull, and the swollen flesh of Tom Bendyshe’s battered countenance.

  The barbarity! If Disraeli must resort to animals like Rigby and Kidd to maintain his regime then the empire is sick beyond saving.

  With an effort, he hauled his thoughts into order and tried to direct them toward a contemplation of his brother’s deceit. Since joining the government, Edward had become a cold, calculating machine, his body regarded as little more than an inconvenience, his existence defined solely by his stratagems and wiles, by his ability to collect, process, and cunningly employ information. In many regards, he was already a corporeal rendition of a babbage probability calculator, so was it particularly surprising that he should now choose to go all the way and abandon his flesh? His body had, after all, failed to emerge undamaged from the devastating beating he’d suffered in Ceylon and was now proving itself deficient once again. Logic dictated that if given the opportunity to survive its demise, he should take it.

  Burton put his fingertips to his neck and felt the abrasions upon it. Beaten half to death and almost hanged, and all so he’d have unquestioning faith in his apparent saviour.

  “I would have had faith in you anyway, Edward,” he whispered. “You’re my brother, damn it.”

  Overcome by an inner pain far worse than that of his sore neck, burned hand, striped back, and bruised ribcage, he attempted to occupy himself with thoughts of escape, but, again, the mental path led only to torment, this time the guilt he felt at abandoning the occupants of hut 0.

  I had no choice in the matter. Besides, they were tortured only as a means to force me to speak. Now that I’m gone, they’ll be left alone.

  He wished he knew what secret Edward thought he was withholding. If he did, he’d gladly divulge it.

  Why does he question my identity? Why am I reluctant to tell him how I defeated Spring Heeled Jack? How—how did I liberate myself from the Brunel machine?

  There was a gaping hole in his memory.

  Pressing his palm against his forehead, frowning, he strained to penetrate the absence. He wondered whether he, too, had been affected by the black diamonds. Up until now, after the crew of the Orpheus had been exposed to the gems for so long—taking Saltzmann’s Tincture to counteract their deleterious influence—that he’d thought he and they had become virtually immune.

  What have I forgotten? If only I could remember. I could tell Edward, be sent to the Indian labour camps, escape from them, lose myself among the natives like I used to do twenty years ago. Go back to the beginning. Disguises. Perfected accents. Accurately mimicked manners. Become someone other than me. Total immersion. Never come back. Never be Burton again. Change into someone utterly different.

  He wondered whether he was already somebody utterly different.

  Exhausted, he drifted into an uneasy sleep and dreamed of porridge and gritty coffee.

  When he awoke, he was in bed, though he’d no memory of leaving the armchair and moving to the bedchamber. His entire body was stiff, and he struggled to sit up, groaning as he did so. He felt as if considerable time had passed. He was ravenously hungry. After splashing water onto his face, he moved back to the main room and found, on the table, a tray holding a teapot, a cup and saucer, a jug of milk, and a bowl of sugar. The tea was cold. He drank it anyway.

  He moved about the room, flexing his limbs, working the kinks out of his muscles, looking at the books and pausing when he found a copy of Camoens’s The Lusiads. Taking it down, he opened it at random and read aloud.

  “‘Ah, strike the notes of woe!’ the siren cries;

  ‘A dreary vision swims before my eyes.

  To Tagus’ shore triumphant as he bends,

  Low in the dust the hero’s glory ends—’”

  Giving a snort of impatience, he returned the tome to the shelf and selected another, Thackeray’s Vanity Fair.

  He crossed to the chair, sat, and started to read.

  Bide my time. Let the wounds heal.

  He’d reached chapter four when the door opened and a clockwork man entered. It placed a tray of food on the table.

  Burton said, “What time is it? What day?”

  The machine didn’t answer. It departed, locking the door.

  The meal was of roast beef, potatoes, carrots, peas, and Yorkshire pudding. He ate it eagerly—it was his first decent repast in weeks—then smoked a cigar and drank a glass of port.

  He read. He slept again.

  More food was delivered. He ate.

  Hours passed, but he was hardly aware of them.

  The relative luxury of his cell was, he vaguely realised, designed to lull him into apathy, to suck the fight out of him. It wouldn’t work. He’d rest and recuperate and—

  He slept.

  Upon finishing Vanity Fair, he
read Tom Brown’s School Days, The Mill on the Floss, and Barchester Towers.

  He sensed that days were passing but hardly cared; couldn’t access the frustration he’d felt in hut 0. All emotion was held in abeyance.

  His welts and bruises faded.

  Very rapidly, and without him realising it, the chamber became not a prison cell but a haven. Here, there were no roll calls, no beatings, no SPG units, no lunatic prime ministers, and no treacherous brother.

  He enjoyed the peace, solitude, and routine.

  Read. Sleep. Eat.

  Don’t think.

  Don’t feel.

  Don’t remember.

  There was a mirror affixed to the wall above a basin in the bedchamber. When he looked into it, he did not perceive the man who looked back, and it didn’t matter.

  The Woman in White.

  A Tale of Two Cities.

  The Cloister and the Hearth.

  He started to dwell on the structure of the narratives. In a remote region of his mind, it finally occurred to him that his own story was currently suspended.

  The walls started to press in.

  Claustrophobia squeezed memories out of him. He resisted and clung to the false serenity his cell offered, but his period of grace was fast eroding, and he became increasingly disturbed and agitated. Recollections of his entrapment in a six-armed metal prison haunted him.

  How did I escape? How am I now in my own body?

  That his brother—that anyone—would willingly condemn themselves to such a confinement was inconceivable to him. Immortality, maybe, but also an everlasting torture. Besides—

  He held up a hand and flexed his fingers, watching the skin crease and the muscle at the base of his thumb bulge.

  One must age. It is a part of living. With the waxing then waning of vitality there comes a developing understanding of what it means to be human. A reassessment of values. A constantly renewing appreciation of the various elements of being. I could not lose such pliancy. Were my body permanent then surely my very essence would become fixed in place, too. These automated aristocrats will calcify. Their appreciation of life will dwindle and so will whatever little measure of decency and morals they possess. Inevitably, any ability to empathise will be lost. That will make them dangerous. Very dangerous indeed.