Grabbing the droid in both hands, Ulysses yanked it free. Eliza gave an agonised wail as the spider’s hooked feet tore free of her flesh.
The clattering of metal on stone told Ulysses that other spider-bots had started dropping from the walkway. Hurling the automaton in his hands as far as he could, he pulled the bleeding and moaning Eliza to her feet, turning towards the stone archway. There, in front of him, another spider was descending the wall, ready to pounce.
At the periphery of his vision Ulysses could see others approaching from all sides now, but none of them had attacked yet. He could almost believe that they were waiting, somehow communicating silently with one another, combining their efforts to bring the invaders down.
Ulysses fumbled for the box of bullets he always kept close to his pistol. As, with shaking fingers, he forced a bullet into an empty chamber, the spider lurking above the archway leapt. Ulysses ducked.
The shout of “Yahh!” took him completely by surprise, but not as much as the whoosh of something heavy slicing through the air inches above his head and the resounding clang that followed half a second later.
“Take that, you bastard!” Eliza roared as she sent the spider-bot flying with a wallop from the length of railing she gripped tightly.
The automaton struck the wall before landing several feet away, its camera eye twisting wildly as it struggled to stand, two of its legs flapping uselessly from their mountings.
Ulysses spun round, a look of sheer astonishment on his face. “Remind me to look you up if the Old Boys’ Cricket Team’s ever in need of a twelfth man!
“Look out!”
Eliza spun round, blocking the next spider-bot’s attack with another powerful swing. The droid went spinning away, its ruined internal clockwork making a harsh grating sound.
Eliza gave a harrumph of delight, her former panic replaced by the adrenalin-fuelled thrill of the kill.
“Now, for the last bloody time, let’s get out of here,” Ulysses said.
The two of them entered a dark, unlit tunnel. At its far end, thirty yards away, Ulysses could see the dull amber glow of electric light. They backed away slowly along the tunnel. Ulysses shot any ’bots that entered the tunnel after them, while any who escaped his bullets met with the edge of Eliza’s steel pole.
And then, at last, they reached the end, entering another gloomy subterranean chamber. This one was nothing like the factory works of the bottling plant or the brew-house. it was significantly narrower and had a broad arched ceiling, disappearing away into the gloom as far as Ulysses could see. But now wasn’t the time to stop and have a proper look round.
The only thing Ulysses was really interested in at that moment was the heavy steel door that had been left open at this end of the tunnel.
“Quick!” Ulysses commanded Eliza. Once she was inside he started to push against the door, putting all his weight against it. “Help me with this.”
The girl joined him, but as the door began to close, with painful slowness, feet could be heard echoing from the walls of the tunnel as the spider-bots made their final assault.
Spurred on by fear, they managed to slam the door shut, snapping off a number of silvery limbs that had managed to gain purchase on the doorframe.
Ulysses leaned against the steel and gave a sigh. “Thank God that’s over!” And then he saw the ball of steel limbs unfold itself as the only spider-bot to make it through sprang.
But Eliza was there with her improvised bludgeon again, batting it away with a gleeful grunt of effort. The spider hit one of the caged lights that lined the passageway. The bulb shattered and the automaton’s limbs became entangled within the wire frame of the cage, a surge of electricity frying its internal components.
Eliza let the pole fall from her aching fingers with a resounding clang.
For a good few moments, the only sounds were the heavy breathing of the two exhausted escapees, the sputtering crackle of the spider-bot burning, and the glug of chemicals being transported away up the tunnel through another massive pipe.
“So,” Eliza panted, still doubled up, hands on knees, the back of her blouse saturated with blood, “where are we?”
Ulysses tore his gaze from the smouldering carcass of the burnt-out spider-bot to peer into the stygian gloom ahead of them.
“I don’t know. But I have a feeling, if we follow that pipe we’ll find out, eventually.
“Come on,” he said for the umpteenth time since they had embarked on their adventure underground, flashing her a devilish grin, “this way.”
ULYSSES QUICKSILVER AND his latest female companion stood together, the open man-hole cover behind them, and stared at the emptiness of the vast hangar before them. Other than for a few abandoned crates, oil-drums and coils of rope, the place was deserted.
“It’s gone,” Ulysses said in stunned disbelief.
“What has? What’s gone?”
Ulysses didn’t answer, but instead started to pace slowly towards the middle of the hangar. Dust rose from the floor in flurries around his feet and sparkled like spun gold in the shafts of morning sunlight that pierced the high windows. He was momentarily reminded of another hangar-like space he had found himself in eight months before, although that one had been anything but empty.
Disheartened and bone-achingly weary after his night-time exertions, for a moment Ulysses simply enjoyed the fact that he was free of the cloying chemical miasma of the factory tunnels. They had walked for miles, negotiating the labyrinthine tunnels of the sewers as they had followed the outflow pipe from the processing plant to the hangar on Hampstead Heath.
They had seen two different chemical compounds being concocted within the underground factory. One was the secret, wholly stomach-churning, ingredient of Dr Feelgood’s Tonic Stout. The other had been pumped miles underground to the site where Prime Minister Valentine’s glorious Jupiter Station was being put together ready for its launch day, although it was no longer there.
“What’s the date?” Ulysses suddenly demanded, spinning on his heel and sending another cloud of dust into the mote-shot air.
“Pardon?” Eliza responded, shaken from her exhausted reverie, the dull ache of the wounds left in her back by the spider’s claws sapping her of strength.
“Today’s date! What is it?”
“All right, all right. Keep your hair on. It’s the fourteenth, I think.”
“Damn!” Ulysses struck the palm of his left hand with the shaft of his cane.
“You mean you didn’t get any cards either this year?”
“It’s today!”
“I know it is, but that’s not what you’re talking about is it?”
“I hadn’t realised we’d been so long underground.”
Ulysses took out his fob watch, rubbing its face clean of mud and sewer slime. But the muck had got into its workings.
Instead to gauge the time, he looked up at the sunlight filtering through the windows.
“It’s still early, which might mean that it’s not too late.”
“I would ask what you’re talking about,” Eliza complained as Ulysses removed a brass and teak device inlaid with enamel keys from a jacket pocket, “but it doesn’t look like you’re interested in answering my questions.”
He flicked open the personal communicator and the tense grimace on his face relaxed slightly as he heard the hum of a signal tone when he put it to his ear. He wasted no time in keying in a number.
Eliza watched, having seated herself upon an upturned barrel, arms folded across her chest as Ulysses waited for someone at the other end to pick up.
“Quicksilver. Ulysses Quicksilver... I need to speak with De Wynter... Well where is he then? Yes, I’ll hold...” Eliza could read the anxiety on Ulysses’ face quite clearly. “Well try again!” he demanded after a minute’s silence. “Tell him the launch has to be stopped. Do you understand? He has to stop the launch. The Jupiter Station cannot be allowed to take off!”
With a grunt of annoyance Ulysses took
the communicator from his ear and immediately began to key in another number.
“Who are you calling now?” Eliza asked.
Ulysses ignored her question.
“Nimrod?” he said loudly, with obvious joy and relief. “Thank God you’re alive... Yes, yes, we’re fine. Now listen up, old boy. Pick us up from Hampstead Heath, would you? It’s a long story. We need a lift to Hyde Park... Yes... Yes, that’s right... We have an official function to gatecrash!”
Act Three
Metamorphosis
February 1998
My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings:
Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!
Ozymandias, Percy Bysshe Shelley
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Jupiter Ascending
TO THE CHEERS of the assembled flag-waving faithful, tethers were loosed, anchors withdrawn, mooring clamps blown and finally, after long months of preparation, the Jupiter weather station ascended gracefully into the Smog-bound London sky.
Prime Minister Devlin Valentine stared out of the observation deck window at the colourful jostle and bustle of the crowds – his grateful people – dwindling before his very eyes, a benign smile on his face, as the Jupiter, with its complement of invited dignitaries on board, ascended heavenwards. As he watched, the paths, fountains and flowerbeds of the park diminished as it was swallowed up by the crowding buildings of Marylebone. He saw the familiar face of London form as they rose high above it, its features formed from the streets and railway lines, the ornate public buildings and the haphazard slum tenements, its parks and its waterways, the Thames, cutting through it like a serpent slithering through the greatest city on the face of the Earth, or beneath the seas, the river glittering in the morning sunlight that was burning through the pall of pollution.
“My lords, ladies and gentlemen,” the smooth baritone of a crewman came over the tannoy, “we are currently ascending to our operating height of ten thousand feet at a speed of approximately ten feet per second. Once there we will fire up the elemental engines and give you a short demonstration of the Jupiter’s capabilities before the dirigible-ferries arrive to take you back to the ground to rejoin the celebrations taking place in Hyde Park. The weather over London is fine, with a wind speed of three miles an hour. Enjoy the ride.”
This was the beginning of something special, the dawning of an age of enlightenment and accountability and awareness for all. And at its head was Devlin Valentine, visionary and altruist, a new kind of hero for a new age. An age of tolerance and understanding, in which Magna Britannia, and Londinium Maximum, would become the utopia it had always had the potential to be, as the greatest empire the world had ever known entered the twenty-first century.
Valentine was only sorry that Her Majesty Queen Victoria was not been there to bear witness to his crowning achievement. But the Widow of Windsor had not left Buckingham Palace since the Wormwood Affair and the debacle that had consumed her 160th jubilee celebrations the previous year.
A purple-faced dignitary, wearing the finest handlebar moustache Valentine had ever seen and holding a champagne flute, approached him. Valentine turned to face the toff with a look of unalloyed joy on his face, beaming broadly.
“Marvellous achievement, old chap,” Colonel Russen said, chinking glasses with Valentine. “What? All this? Bloody marvellous. Now let’s just hope the damn thing works, eh?”
“Oh, have no fear, Colonel. The technology utilised by the Jupiter Station is cutting edge, state of the art, making use of the very latest in cavorite gravitic-repulsion systems, atmospheric excitation inducers and cyclonic dissipaters.”
“And what does that mean when it’s at home?” Colonel Russen laughed.
“It means, it’ll work, Colonel, it’ll work.”
“Ah yes, but will it work?”
Tapping his nose with one finger whilst winking about as subtly as a Covent Garden tart, the Colonel marched off again across the public viewing gallery. It was here that the dignitaries had been contained, mainly to keep them out of the way of the crew.
It was an impressive space, beautifully wrought from steel and glass, as fine an example of the ironsmith’s art as Oxford’s Natural History Museum or the atrium hall of the London’s own Natural History Museum. However, where the former was decorated with beaten metal foliage, here the metalworkers had based its decoration on recognised weather symbols, from shining sun discs and clouds to snowflakes and lightning bolts.
It really was incredible, Valentine thought. Here they were rising thousands of feet into the air and yet the ride was smoother than if they had been on board ship on a calm sea. There was almost no sensation of movement at all, certainly nothing that was likely to cause a bout of air sickness amongst any of the passengers.
White jacketed waiters moved between the great and the good, bearing platters of vol-au-vents and crudités, and topping up champagne glasses.
Valentine realised he was being selfish keeping himself to himself. He needed to make sure he shared his own company with those grateful souls whose lives he was about to transform forever.
Valentine turned to study the reactions of his guests.
They were, all of them, to a man and woman, caught up in the wonder and the spectacle of the moment. It was as if the Wormwood Affair had never happened all those months ago. Devlin Valentine had succeeded in wiping it from the nation’s mind with the new wonder he’d bestowed upon the beleaguered capital that, only ten months ago, had seen the dinosaur herds of London Zoo running amok through its streets. Although, of course, if Wormwood hadn’t almost brought the nation to its knees with his attempted coup, Devlin Valentine wouldn’t have been standing here now enjoying the realisation of a long-held ambition.
All of those assembled within the viewing gallery were enraptured, all except for the one man who should be relishing this moment as much as Valentine; Halcyon Beaufort-Monsoon.
Monsoon sat in his wheelchair a little way from the other guests, guarded by his fierce nurse.
There was something about the two of them that unnerved him – the way they were looking out of the window distractedly, the way they weren’t conversing with the rest of those on board, or the way they kept giving each other stern-faced looks that obviously spoke volumes.
Every now and again, one of the launch party dignitaries would approach them and be given short shrift. If Valentine wasn’t careful, Beaufort-Monsoon’s attitude could turn this whole carefully orchestrated public relations exercise into a PR disaster. There were even a number of specially invited men and women of the press on board and the Prime Minister wanted only positive headlines following the launch and not write-ups about how grumpy London’s benefactor had appeared to be. Couldn’t the man see what he was doing?
For someone who had effectively given away millions of pounds worth of goods and labour in gifting the Jupiter Station to the nation, the philanthropist was incredibly ill-tempered. Valentine would not have expected that someone whose lifelong dream it had been to improve the state of the nation would have been such a cantankerous curmudgeon.
Valentine was stirred from his reverie by the approach of the Leader of the Opposition.
“Very impressive, Prime Minister,” his opposite number said, making no effort to hide the sneer on his face. “You are to be congratulated, Valentine. You and this Beaufort-Monsoon chap.”
“Why thank you Sutherland.”
“Funny thing though.”
“And what’s that?”
“Well, it’s just that I’ve never come across this Monsoon chap myself before.” Sutherland let that thought hang for a moment. “Funny that, considering all my contacts in the world of industry.” And with that the rival politician moved on to talk to Lady Imelda Brize-Rose of the London Clean Air League.
His brow furrowing, Valentine gazed at the receding rooftops and the splodges of green that marked where the public parks lay, as he struggled to put the nagging doubts from his mind that Sutherland’s remark had stir
red up.
And he had been having misgivings for some time now, ever since their joint venture had begun, if he was honest with himself. It was strange that Sutherland should mention that he hadn’t heard of Beaufort-Monsoon until the commencement of the Jupiter project. Up until that point, no-one had.
The ailing industrialist had turned up at just the right moment, or at least his people had, offering Valentine the prize that would see him win the election, after Wormwood’s forcible removal from office. A device that promised a better, cleaner London for everyone. The launch of the Jupiter Station was also just the sort of spectacle that he needed to make sure his tenure as Prime Minster would never be forgotten.
But he wasn’t going to let Sutherland put a dampner on things for him. Yet, still the doubts persisted.
Valentine didn’t know much about London’s saviour, other than what was written in the official press release – his childhood in India, his first job in a ball-bearing factory, working his way up from gopher to managing director, his move into manufacturing and construction work, the undersea cities boom, a fortune made practically overnight, investment in new technologies. But then, he hadn’t met anybody who had come across Beaufort-Monsoon before six months ago either, which surprised him. In fact, it worried him. Somebody didn’t get to be as rich and successful as Halcyon Beaufort-Monsoon appeared to be without attracting some media attention.
Despite his best efforts to put the concerns from his mind, doubt was now gnawing at the pit of his stomach. It was nothing but the product of nervous excitement, that was all. Nothing was wrong. Nothing was going to go wrong. Nothing was going to spoil this moment for him.
He hadn’t known what to make of Beaufort-Monsoon at their first meeting, and he certainly didn’t relish the prospect of having to make conversation with him now, but he had to be seen to be doing the right thing.
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