The Infinity Engines Books 1-3

by Andrew Hastie

  Her instincts told her that this wasn’t the kind of place to hang around and wait for some kind of rescue. No one came back from the maelstrom — except maybe for Daedalus, and even his return was something of a mystery. All she could do was find a safe place to hole up and start working out how she was going to survive.

  The buildings around her shifted; some disappeared and were replaced by others, as if someone were playing a gigantic game of chess with them. The street was becoming more unstable since Darkling left, so she would have to find a more reliable region, one where she could start to build a base.

  A grinding sound pre-empted the sudden disappearance of the wall that Caitlin had been hiding behind, and she found herself standing before the spectre of a middle-aged Victorian governess pushing a pram. The ghost turned towards her, its pale eyes scanning in Caitlin’s general direction as if sensing a presence but unable to see her.

  Caitlin stood perfectly still, holding her breath. The apparition left the pram and wandered over towards her. The air around them prickled with static as the woman came closer; the hairs on Caitlin’s neck stood on end as its aura brushed against her skin. She could hear voices too — like children whispering in another room, all talking at once.

  The woman reached out with long, bony fingers, snatching at the air in front of Caitlin as if she were trying to catch a fly.

  Caitlin carefully moved back from the spectre, unsure of what it was trying to do, but instinctively knowing that making physical contact with it wasn’t going to end well.

  Her heel caught on a step that hadn’t been there a moment ago, and she fell backwards onto a flight of stone stairs.

  The governess was so close now that Caitlin could smell the faint scent of her perfume, her grasping fingers raking at the air where Caitlin had stood, chasing her shadow.

  Before she could get to her feet, there came a terrible sound from the other end of the street; a low, guttural howl that resonated through her bones. The governess seemed to hear it too and turned towards the noise, her body flinching when the howl came again, and forgetting Caitlin, she turned and ran back to her child.

  All of the spectres were running from the noise, fleeing into side streets, disappearing through doors into houses that collapsed seconds later. Caitlin didn’t wait to see what they were running from. She picked herself up and, ignoring the pain in her back, ran up the stairs into the grand building that had appeared at the top.

  Legions of monads swept along the street. Using the roofs of the buildings, they leapt from the chimneys, weaved in and out of attic windows and skittered over tiles towards her. She watched them from an upper floor of the government building as they hunted.

  There were too many to count. They were like a pack of wolves, working together to single out their prey; the spectres too slow or too stupid to escape were taken mercilessly, their essence turning to dust as the monads devoured them.

  They howled as they stalked their targets, a strange, haunting shriek like a detuned scream of despair.

  Caitlin watched, horrified, as the last of the stragglers were caught and dispatched. She sighed with relief when she realised the governess had escaped, even though she wasn’t sure if she had meant her any harm, she wouldn’t wish a monad on her worst enemy.

  The horde gathered at the foot of the stone stairs, their bodies shrouded in skeins of smoke and dust, the remnants of the lives they’d taken — wearing them as trophies.

  At their centre stood a larger, more powerful creature, not something that Caitlin had ever seen before. It wasn’t the usual monad — something that had once been human. The thing stood nearly twice the height of a man, and it was wearing armour that had a mirrored metallic quality as though it were made from mercury. It wore an oval helmet with a symbol of two F’s back-to-back etched onto the side.

  The monads gathered around it, each jostling for attention while the creature collected their essences like a beekeeper drawing honey. They glowed a little as it attended to them, their decrepit bodies replenished by its touch.

  The analytical part of her was intrigued by this interaction — no one knew that the monads hunted in packs, let alone that they were organised by a higher being — an alpha. Caitlin looked round the room for something to make notes on. She was in some kind of Russian records office, full of boxes and filing cabinets, with a long table covered in old personnel files sitting in the middle. Paper was not a problem, but no matter how hard she searched she couldn’t find a pen or pencil.

  While Caitlin was trying to lever open a locked drawer with a letter opener, a scream went up from outside, and she ran back to the window.

  The scene was the same, except for a small figure that had been dragged into the centre of their circle. Caitlin had to strain her eyes to see what the monads were screeching about, but then she recognised the figure of the governess and her heart sank.

  The alpha held the thin woman up like a doll and studied her, twisting her limp body one way then the other before parading it in front of its minions. They sniffed at her, like hounds getting a scent.

  Tossing aside the lifeless shell, the creature turned directly to the building that Caitlin was hiding in and raised an arm. There was no mistaking the instruction — she turned and ran, the sound of its shrill command still ringing in her ears.

  The building was immense, with long corridors that led off in all directions. Her first instinct was to find somewhere to hide, but she knew that they wouldn’t stop until they found her, and there were too many to fight. As she ran through the building, making random changes in direction, she tried to think what could possibly throw a monad off the scent. She’d need something with a stronger attraction than her, or move so far out of their range that they’d lose her trace.

  A monad appeared at the far end of the corridor, and Caitlin instinctively bolted through the nearest unmarked door.

  She stepped out onto the platform of an abandoned tube station. A stale wind from the tunnel shuffled the old newspapers and discarded coffee cups in endless circles. The distant rumble of trains echoed from somewhere further down the line. There were three exits, two of which were barred by iron shutters, so she made for the third, a small maintenance door on the other side of the track whose security warnings flapped uselessly in the breeze.

  Caitlin jumped down without a second thought and grabbed the handle of the door. The sound of monads echoed along the tunnel as she wrenched it open and jumped inside.

  The interior was dark and smelled of damp and decaying things. It was some kind of sewer or service tunnel. She walked as quickly as she dared, trying to avoid the random pipes and obstructions that threatened to take lumps out of her head.

  A hundred metres of painfully slow progress, and Caitlin came to a ladder, a ring of daylight bleeding through the edges of the hatch at the top of it, and she took the rungs two at a time.

  Climbing through the manhole she found herself in the middle of a bombed-out city: buildings were broken open like dollhouses, their contents blasted to pieces and spread over the street. Bodies were trapped under cascades of bricks — pale, dusty limbs protruded through the debris, still clutching the treasured possessions they had tried to save as they ran for cover.

  She was losing precious time, and there was no room for sentiment — a wail echoed up from the sewer, reminding her they were only a few seconds behind.

  Across the street an old door stood defiantly in its frame, surrounded by the remnants of a wall that had once contained it. Caitlin scrabbled over the piles of broken bricks to land on it, knocking it down flat in the process.

  Hauling the heavy door open she dropped through the gap.

  The water was freezing; she felt her fingers numbing as she pulled herself up towards the glittering surface. It seemed to take forever to reach the air, and gasping lungfuls of it, she found herself in the pool of some ancient subterranean city.

  She didn’t recognise any of the silent, statuesque idols that stood guard over
the pool; Gods of a forgotten age, their blank eyes and eroded features lost to thousands of years of water damage — a forgotten civilisation whose only proof of existence was recorded in the old, crumbling limestone rocks.

  Pulling herself out of the water she became aware of a malevolent presence; a disturbing feeling of disorientation, as if she was being drained by something truly evil.

  Ahead of her, beyond a plateau of dark stagnant pools and grim statues, stood a vast ziggurat, a stepped pyramid carved with reliefs of ancient demons and symbols of power. It emanated a malignant, baleful aura that was a thousand times worse than anything she had ever encountered from any monad. Something was pulling her towards it, drawing her in like a moth to a flame, even though she knew that terrible things were waiting for her inside.

  Her bare feet felt the smooth sandstone floor give way to hard granite flagstones as she entered the heart of the ziggurat. There had been no sign of her pursuers, and she guessed that even the monads were too scared to follow her into this place. For some reason, she found this comforting — although she had no idea why. Perhaps, it was just a relief to have a break in the chase, or the finality of knowing that there was no escaping her fate. Whatever was waiting for her in the depths of this old temple had been there for aeons, and no matter which route she’d taken through the maelstrom, she knew it would always have led to here.

  The glyph on her hand began to glow. She had no idea why Darkling had left the final symbol, but it was reacting to the malevolence around her — trying to warn her of something.

  As she descended a set of worn stairs into the depths of the tomb, Caitlin knew that her chances of escape were shrinking with every step she took. Wherever Josh was, it was too late, this was her end, and if nothing else at least she would get to meet the most ancient beings in the universe.

  It was just a shame she would never live long enough to tell anyone about it.

  70

  Twenty Hours

  By Josh’s reckoning, they’d spent nearly an entire day in the observatory. It was difficult to keep track of time with no clocks or natural light to go by. The colonel had spent most of it staring through the telescope, calling Josh over every now and then to show him some cluster or other, but nothing had brought them any closer to finding Caitlin — the maelstrom was infinitely vast, and they had nothing to go on.

  There were thousands of notes pinned to the walls of the circular room. Josh had spent most of the time reading random snippets; they were like the unconnected ramblings of a lunatic — at least that was how it seemed at first.

  Half-finished sketches of Djinn were scratched on pieces of paper torn from old books, newspapers and the backs of cereal boxes. There were memos, to-do lists and references to places and times — some of which Josh recognised. The word ‘Nemesis’ came up more than once, and sometimes symbols were given a number and charted on a grid against others.

  Beneath the paper, Josh found lines of temporal formulae, time-coordinates and symbols scratched in charcoal around the walls, as though the colonel had tried to protect the room with some form of magic runes.

  The most interesting notes were the descriptions of the Djinn. The colonel had identified many different kinds of demon, like a Victorian butterfly collector, giving them names like Beliaoc, Mapheal, Asazeal. Each one looked more demonic and primeval than the last. If he hadn’t seen the Pentachion for himself, he would have thought he was looking at the work of a deeply disturbed man.

  ‘What do you think?’ the colonel asked, walking down to join Josh. ‘I’ve been working on a new catalogue. Discovered over seventy of the ugly buggers so far.’

  ‘They’re like something out of a nightmare.’

  ‘Indeed, I believe our basic concept of evil may be derived from a genetic memory of these horrors. Their influence may still continue to pervade our subconscious.’

  Josh shivered as he remembered the terrors that had lived in the dark places of his bedroom. The imaginary monsters that had kept him awake as a kid; perhaps his fear of the dark wasn’t so daft after all.

  ‘Have you written many books?’ Josh asked.

  ‘Only completed one. A kind of journal, about my observations within the maelstrom. This second book is shaping up to be more of a bestiary.’

  ‘And it’s all about the Djinn?’

  The colonel smiled. ‘Yes. Everything I’ve learned about them. They’re fascinating creatures, and their true names are based on an archaic mathematical system.’

  Josh realised then that he was looking at the Book of Deadly Names — or at least the research behind it.

  ‘So, have you got anywhere?’ Josh asked, pointing at the telescope. ‘I can’t just sit around and wait for her to turn up.’

  ‘I might have one potential solution, but it’s risky.’ The colonel’s eyes creased slightly. He studied Josh intently as if deciding whether to tell him. Then a clock chimed somewhere and his expression grew more concerned. ‘Time, TikTok? Time?’

  The monkey whirred back to life, small metal-jointed fingers opening a panel in its chest to reveal the dial of a clock. A single hand was rotating anti-clockwise as a set of numbers in the centre counted down towards zero.

  ‘Where does it go? Dammit! Listen carefully boy, I haven’t got long to explain — I’m caught in a time loop. TikTok’s clock here will reset and so will my mind, and my memory of the last twenty hours will be erased — TikTok knows what to do, but it will be quicker if you remind me of what has occurred.’ He handed Josh a tattered old book that had the words ‘Read me’ scrawled on the cover.

  There was a chime from inside the monkey’s casing, and everything stopped for a moment — it was a chilling silence, the kind that made you hold your breath. The colonel’s eyes seemed to glaze over for a second, staring through Josh as if he wasn’t there. It reminded him of the way his grandfather had looked at him the last time his mother took him into the hospital. The final stroke had robbed him of his memories, seventy-three years of life wiped out in less than two minutes.

  The automaton whirred back into action, the numbers in the clock reading: ‘1.2.0.0.’

  The colonel’s eyes focused once on the book and then on Josh. ‘Who are you?’

  Taking a deep breath, Josh turned the book to page two-eight-five. It was headed: ‘The Nemesis coefficient.’

  71

  Bad Experiment

  The generals were lined up along the viewing window, every one of them with their arms crossed and a well-practised look of disappointment on their face.

  Fermi had tried to explain the basic principles of his experiment, but time travel was a hard concept to put into words that a group of simpletons could understand — it was like Einstein trying to explain relativity to a class of five-year-olds.

  What made things worse was that damned experiment was failing.

  Lenin stood silently beside the console, his white coat stained with the blood of the rat they had just watched explode in the field generator.

  ‘Are we to understand you’re asking for another two billion dollars to fund this fiasco?’ came a tinny voice through the intercom.

  ‘This is cutting edge research, General MacIntyre. The ability to weaponise time could lead to a major leap forward in stealth warfare. Imagine being able to remove a dictator before he was born? To stop his very existence — to do reconnaissance into the future to determine the best strategies for victory.’

  ‘Tell that to the rat,’ the General said, turning to leave as others followed him.

  ‘I just need a more powerful system! The NSA’s quantum array...’ Fermi shouted, staggering as he lost his balance. ‘An AI that is capable of assimilating all of the variables!’ He reached out for Lenin.

  ‘You okay boss?’ asked Lenin.

  ‘No,’ gasped Fermi. ‘These imbeciles, they can’t see the potential — we could change the world with this technology!’

  ‘You just need more time,’ Lenin agreed.

  Fermi felt th
e pain in his head grow worse. His hands were shaking, and then he collapsed.

  72

  Gods & Monsters

  Caitlin could feel their twisted minds probing hers. Cruel, primordial entities whose memory of what they once were had long since shrivelled and died — replaced with the madness of the void.

  The Djinn were insane. Made mad by their hatred of the temporal plane, it had consumed them until nothing remained but a hollow shell of self-loathing.

  Caitlin had felt their hostility ever since she’d arrived in the maelstrom. This was their realm, and she was an unwelcome visitor — or more accurately, prey. There was a certain inevitability about what was going to happen next.

  ‘The gods of eternity waste no tears on the fate of mortals.’

  For all his faults, Daedalus had a knack for putting things in perspective.

  Caitlin wondered if this was how it had ended for her parents. Had they managed to survive longer than her? They were undoubtedly more prepared, and they had each other. When she was younger, she’d made up stories about how they were hiding somewhere in the void, fighting demons and trying to find ways to escape.

  Those fantasies had faded away years ago. Now she’d experienced it for herself, Caitlin knew there was no way they could have survived for eight years. This place belonged to the dispossessed and the forsaken; there was too much despair here for anyone to stay sane.

  Like walking down into hell, the stairs wound down into a vast chasm with deep fissures falling away on either side. The steep walls that towered over her were covered with the fossilised bones of terrifying creatures.

  Above her, floating high in the inky darkness, she could make out the outlines of massive bloated bodies; a haunting collection of nightmares watching her in silence. She studied them in breathless wonder as they drifted in and out of sight, wishing she had a way to capture the scene — Lyra would’ve been so pleased to know they actually existed.