The Return of the Discontinued Man (A Burton & Swinburne Adventure)

by Mark Hodder

  Why was the traffic moving at such a sluggish velocity? Why did the quiet hiss of the vehicles, the subdued murmur of the pedestrians, and the steady low drone of the Muzak, amount to so much silence? Where was the life?

  “The shadows,” Sadhvi whispered.

  “What about them?” he asked.

  “They don’t match.”

  She was right. The many electric street lamps, cutting through the permanent gloom at the base of the towers, endowed every individual with multiple shadows. For the most part, due to the crush of people, these couldn’t be seen separately, but occasionally there came a break in the crowd and the shadows were made visible. Burton saw them and was horrified. Most were normal but many were misshapen blots or spiked puddles or stringy smears or snarled scribbles—not at all the contours of human beings.

  “By Allah’s beard!” he hissed. “What are we looking at?”

  Wells glanced back at him and made a gesture, obviously having noticed the same. Burton responded with a curt nod and swallowed nervously.

  They walked on. The king’s agent kept feeling things bumping against his boots, as if the pavement was as littered as those of the old East End, but when he looked down, there was nothing there.

  Now and then, he became aware of apparently sourceless sounds—creaks and snaps and groans, the clip clop of horses’ hooves, the clank of a misaligned crankshaft, a hiss of pressurised steam—as though noises from his own London were somehow penetrating into this.

  It’s my expectations, he thought. They’re imposing what I’m familiar with onto this wholly unfamiliar city.

  He was unnerved and disoriented. There was a lump in his throat. He longed to see top hats and canes, parasols and bonnets, hansom cabs and horses, chugging steam engines and wobbling velocipedes.

  Where has my London gone?

  That struck him as a very uncharacteristic thought.

  For all his life he’d felt an outsider. He’d cursed the ways and mores of his native land. It had rejected him, considered him too unorthodox, too untamed, and too unsophisticated. Society damned him for admiring the Arab and condemned him for mixing with African savages. Ruffian Dick! Beastly Burton!

  Yet, how he wanted to be back there.

  For perhaps the first time in his life, he felt helpless, and he felt humility. He realised that he had, in the past, conducted himself from a position of self-appointed superiority. Yes, he’d been an unwavering proponent of Arabic culture; yes, he’d dispassionately observed tribal societies; but he’d done so as a wayward son of the Empire, knowing that, though it looked askance upon him, it was always there as a measure by which to judge.

  Fool! he thought. Fool to think that you somehow existed outside of its confines. It made you!

  And now he was, at one and the same time, home but as far from it as he’d ever been.

  As they shoved their way around the corner into North Audley Street—a much different junction to the one he’d seen in ’68—he remembered his parents, how they’d dragged him from one place to the next, from Torquay to Tours, from Tours to Richmond, from Richmond to Blois, from Blois to Naples, from Naples to Pau, from Pau to Lucca, always moving, always compulsively restless, never giving him a moment to stop and form attachments, never a moment in which to simply belong.

  He felt anger and sadness, resentment and self-pity.

  Isabel. Isabel. Isabel. You were my hope, my foundation, my stability. Only through you could I be me. Why did you have to die?

  In his mind’s eye, he saw her, waiting in a garden, with a tea cloth over her arm.

  You’re going now? she asked. Supper is almost ready.

  Yes, he replied. But don’t worry—even if I’m gone for years, I’ll be back in five minutes.

  “Damnation!” Burton muttered to himself. “Are my memories no longer my own?”

  The chrononauts, led by Thomas Bendyshe, arrived once again in Grosvenor Square, the middle of which was, thankfully, a great deal less congested than last time. From here, the travellers gained a better view of the upper reaches of the city. London had achieved phenomenal heights. Its towers ascended to such a level their top storeys faded into the atmosphere and their internal heat generated clouds, which streamed from them in wispy trails.

  The many walkways and—Burton now noticed—monorails were of such a multitude that it looked as if the city was entangled. Small flying machines buzzed hither and thither, and, at a higher altitude, massive airships floated. Many were like the Orpheus and Mary Seacole, airborne antiques, appearing entirely out of place. Others were smooth disks of silver or gold, their mode of propulsion invisible and mysterious.

  “I see nothing of my own time,” Mick Farren said. “I might as well be on another planet.”

  “I see the same shaped plot of land,” Detective Inspector Trounce observed, pointing around them. “This is still Grosvenor Square.” He shuddered. “I didn’t much enjoy what little I remember of my last visit.”

  Farren indicated a tall pyramidal structure. “That’s where the American Embassy used to be.”

  “It’s still the embassy,” Bendyshe said. He looked around, and when he was satisfied no one was close enough to eavesdrop, he continued, “It’s inhabited only by a few technicians nowadays. They oversee the equipment that broadcasts to your AugMems. The building is a part of an inner circle of establishments. From it and the others, a web of deception expands.”

  “Inner circle,” Wells said. “And what is at its centre? The Turing Fulcrum?”

  Bendyshe gazed at the embassy. “We think so.”

  He waved the chrononauts across to an area beneath a leafy tree, which, when Burton placed his hand against its bark, proved to be of the material called plastic.

  Nothing is real.

  The king’s agent struggled to maintain a connection. His mind kept wandering, his attention being attracted by first one thing then another. His powers of analysis failed. Automatically, his hand went to his pocket, seeking Saltzmann’s. There was none.

  “What you’ve seen so far is but a single layer of the illusion under which the population labours,” Bendyshe said. “I’ll now give you a taste of the rest. I’m adjusting your AugMems.”

  He put his finger to his right earlobe and muttered, “Okay. Proceed.” Suddenly, he was enveloped by a colourful aura. Burton looked at his friends and saw that they, too, appeared to be generating beautiful halos.

  “We are masquerading as the elite,” the Cannibal explained. “Thus we glow with the light of the upper classes. However, what we see is what the general populace sees. Look at the city’s citizens.”

  Burton gazed across to the pavement. He saw, amongst the shuffling crowd, three people who were also surrounded by light. The rest were not. His eyes rested on a pedestrian. A calm voice whispered in his ear and caused him to jump in surprise. He heard the others utter sounds of astonishment.

  John Thresher, cook, thirty-two years old. Three thousand two hundred and twenty-nine credits in debt. He plays poker. His wife has a lover. John hopes to win a fortune and lure her back, but he’s lost money eleven games in a row.

  The king’s agent looked from person to person.

  Teresa Chowdhury, child minder, nineteen years old. She is learning to read so she can train as a nurse. Her father tells her she has ideas above her station.

  Cecilia Sanz Garcia, cleaner, forty-seven years old. She has pre-diabetes and a glandular disorder that causes extreme mood swings. She struggles with relationships.

  Steven Powell, clerk, thirty-three years old. He suffers from shyness and has a tendency to stutter.

  Blake Cresswell, baker, seventy-one years old. He’s never held a job for more than two years. He’s a convicted felon. His last crime, burglary, was committed twenty-seven years ago.

  Mary Suzanne Clayton, metalsmith, twenty-four years old. She owns a small allotment from which vegetables are frequently stolen. She has hidden homemade wiretraps around its perimeter to catch the thieves.
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  “What’s this?” Sadhvi Raghavendra exclaimed.

  “In your time,” Bendyshe replied, “I believe it was called tittle tattle.”

  “Gossip?” she said.

  “Yes. Everyone knows everyone else’s business. Only the upper classes are immune to the intrusion.”

  “It’s a blasted liberty!” Trounce cried out. “By God! Has no one any privacy?”

  “Only in their thoughts, and they have to be extremely cautious in expressing those, else they’ll certainly fall foul of informants. Anything that can possibly be interpreted as seditious is reported, and the punishments are brutal.”

  “How can anyone think at all with all this horrible chattering in their ears?” Swinburne objected. “Can’t they turn it off?”

  “Only the elite have that privilege. As for thinking, I suspect the system is expressly designed to discourage it.”

  “Stop it, please,” Burton said. “It’s too much.”

  Bendyshe touched his ear again and mumbled something. The whispering voice fell silent. The auras faded. “That,” he said, “is what the majority of the population must endure. Maximum distraction. Minimum meaning. Their existence is overflowing with inconsequential information. They drown in it. They are mesmerised by the trivial minutia of one another’s lives, and so the really big issues evade them. Questions pertaining to justice and human rights and the distribution of wealth, the preoccupations of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries are no longer asked.”

  “This is perfectly foul,” Herbert Wells cried out.

  “Shhh!” Bendyshe urged. “You’ll have the constables onto us.”

  “But he’s right,” Mick Farren said. “How could it have happened?”

  “People were seduced,” Bendyshe said. “The Turing devices and other technologies gave them an endless choice of entertainments, but the corporations that made those entertainments, in competing with each other for customers, rapidly reduced everything to its lowest common denominator. What might once have carried philosophical weight became nothing but empty spectacle; what stimulated the intellect now did nothing but titillate superficial emotions. By 2100, intellectual had become a pejorative term.” He stood. “Come with me. It’s time to show you the truth of the Anglo-Saxon Empire.”

  They followed him across the square to the mouth of South Audley Street, coming to a halt on the exact spot where, a hundred and sixty-two years ago, they’d fought off three constables.

  Bendyshe pointed along the length of the thoroughfare. “Watch the street. I’m going to temporarily deactivate your AugMems. I’ll give you a full minute of unadjusted reality. It’s risky.”

  “Risky how?” Wells asked.

  “AugMems work in both directions. They accept the government transmissions but also send out a signal that holds your personal details—false information in your case. If the latter is interrupted, the loss will be noted and constables will be sent to investigate. They’ll hunt for any individuals who aren’t broadcasting. It’s therefore vital that we keep moving. I should be able to restore the AugMems’ function before we’re located.”

  “Is it worth endangering our mission?” Burton asked doubtfully.

  “I think so. You need to see this.”

  “Very well. Please proceed.”

  “Start walking. Try not to react. We’re going down to Green Park to take a look at the palace grounds.”

  They set off.

  “Brace yourselves,” Bendyshe said. He put a hand to his ear, quietly muttered a few words, then announced, “The AugMems will disengage in three, two, one—”

  Burton gasped as the world around him flexed and suddenly took on an entirely different aspect. The blazingly reflective towers still soared above him, but now they were supported upon titanic legs and arches, so that the great vertical mass of the city was raised above the ground-level structures, which were now revealed to be shabby, dilapidated, and in many cases derelict buildings. Burton saw broken and boarded-up windows, cracked doors slumping on rusty hinges, peeled paint and crumbled brickwork, collapsed walls and piles of debris. The pavements were strewn with refuse. Malodorous air assaulted his nostrils.

  He realised why the traffic was moving so slowly. The polished silver vehicles, which had filled the roads, were now in the minority. Most had transformed into ramshackle steam-driven carriages—there were even a few being drawn by mangy horses—all of which appeared even less developed than those of his era.

  And the people. Bismillah! The people!

  Attired in ragged, patched and mismatched outfits, pock-marked, rickets-twisted, lank-haired and brutish, the population of this London reminded Burton of the very worst disease-ridden enclaves of Africa—of the places where the Empire had intruded and devastated cultures, leaving only hopelessness, starvation, and a lack of identity in their place. Shambling along streets that now struck him as being the gutters and drains of the upper city, the denizens of this—literal—lower level of society were bowed beneath the weight of palpable fear. They flinched away from the constables who strode arrogantly among them, bouncing on their stilts, white and masked and fearsome; they avoided eye contact, though they were forever casting surreptitious and cunning glances at one another. They were as close to the feral state as he’d ever seen in his own species.

  In countenance, all were repellent, but some were worse than others, even to the point where Burton felt himself go cold with horror. He saw lumbering giants, tiny-eyed, massive-boned, and bloated with muscle. He saw slight little things, so small they might have been fairy folk. He saw a woman from whom spines extended, like a porcupine; a man whose lower face bulged into an exaggerated snout, his jaws like rock, his teeth huge and flat; an elderly lady with twelve-inch-long multi-jointed fingers, seven on each hand; a group of boys with freakishly enormous ears; an aged man with four legs; a young girl with innumerable spider-like eyes.

  “Genetic manipulation,” Bendyshe whispered. “People artificially adapted to suit particular functions.”

  “I shall faint,” Sadhvi said, her voice quavering. “Or lose the contents of my stomach.”

  The few elite who moved through the crowds were unmistakable. People looked away from them, moved out of their path, hunched into pathetic servility. Tall and willowy, dressed in colourful clothes, their faces haughty and disdainful, these privileged few all carried switches, which they employed with lazy contempt to strike at those who passed too close, causing little yelps of pain followed by hastily mumbled apologies.

  “The upper class,” Bendyshe said. “They inhabit the towers but sometimes venture down here on recreational jaunts and to remind themselves of their status.

  “This is atrocious,” Swinburne said. “How can the Empire be so divided?”

  “Empires are formed by a minority who gain a parasitical dominance over the majority. That applies inside, as well as outside of its borders.”

  Burton looked ahead and saw many more overarching walkways than he’d noticed before, so numerous they appeared to blend together, forming a large platform over the centre of the city. “That explains why it became so dark when we passed between the parks,” he said.

  “The parks are regarded as exclusive,” Bendyshe responded. “So they’re gradually being raised up out of the social mire. Do you see that huge framework in the middle of them? One day it will be New Buckingham Palace, the tallest building in the world. They started building it twenty-eight years ago and say it will take another seventy-two to complete.”

  “Why so long?” Wells asked.

  “Because every brick of it will be uniquely decorated, and because the technology built into it will make it the Parliament building and the monitoring station for the entire empire, the nucleus of a web that interconnects nodes—the American Embassy will become one such—that communicate with every existing BioProc and AugMem. Total control, all extending from that edifice.”

  “Seventy-two years,” Swinburne said. “Meaning it will be completed in 2202.
Interesting.”

  “And in its shadow an underworld,” Wells commented. He watched an apish individual shuffle past. “Inhabited by troglodytes.”

  “Who see it through rose-tinted spectacles,” Sadhvi added. “We suspected that Spring Heeled Jack might create an insane world. We were correct.”

  Quietly, Farren added, “If it’s like this now, what the hell will we find at our final destination?”

  They arrived at Piccadilly and started north-eastward, following the same route they’d taken after failing to catch a bus back in ’68. The sky was almost completely obscured by the heights of the metropolis, but, as Burton gazed up, a great many of the walkways suddenly vanished and the illumination increased. He looked down and saw cleanliness and glass, gleaming cars and grey-uniformed pedestrians.

  “I’ve restored the AugMems,” Bendyshe said. “And not a moment too soon. There’s activity on the police channel. We’ve been noticed. No need for panic; the constables will be alerted to an anomaly that matches the size of our group, so if we split up, we’ll be fine. Mick, Sir Richard, William, Algernon, the principal streets of the lower city haven’t much altered their topology since your time—you won’t get lost—so I suggest you head along Regent Street to Oxford Circus, and from there to New Centre Point. I’ll take Sadhvi and Herbert via Shaftsbury Avenue. We’ll meet back at the minibus.”

  Farren paled slightly. He dug his fingers into his bushy hair. “Look, man, I’m all for it, but what if we’re stopped by the pigs? Things didn’t go too well last time.”

  “Don’t worry. Members of the Cannibal Club are lurking nearby, ready to intercede should anything go wrong. They’ll be shadowing you.” Bendyshe tapped his ear. “CellComps have gathered in your earlobes and jawbones. It’s how I contact my colleagues, and through them I can also communicate with you. If the Cannibals have to move in and get you to safety, they will, and I’ll alert you.”