by Paul Crilley
“Hang on,” said Stepp's crackly voice in his ear. “Just testing all this out.”
Tweed's stomach twisted as he waited for Stepp to do whatever it was she needed to do. What if it didn't work? After all this?
“Right,” said Stepp. “Try it now.”
Tweed licked his lips and stabbed at the button. The elevator lurched and started to descend.
“I suppose I should see if Barnaby's even logged in their system,” said Stepp.
“Yes, that would be a good idea,” said Tweed. “And don't forget to search for Octavia's mother as well.”
“I won't, I won't. It's all she's been going on about.”
“Hey!” came Octavia's distant voice, still discernible even though she wasn't holding the transmitter.
The prison level was fully automated, so no chance of anyone seeing him. Tweed unclipped the automaton mask and took a huge gulp of fresh air. He took the arm panels off again and wiped his face with his shirt. It didn't do much good. The shirt was soaked through with sweat.
The elevator juddered to a halt. The doors slid slowly open and Tweed found himself staring out into a black metal corridor. The change in appearance was so marked he froze for a second, surveying everything. Small white lights traveled the length of the passage, shining upward and reflecting from the dark walls. The floor was made from smooth grey concrete.
“You're absolutely sure there are no people down here? That it's all automated systems?”
“That's the beauty of having a government that worships technology,” said Stepp. “They like to take humans out of the equation. Now be quiet while I search for your dad.”
Tweed stepped out of the elevator, stepping over a stain on the floor that looked worryingly like old blood. If he remembered the maps correctly, this level was built like a wheel. This elevator was one of ten that stood in a circle, and the corridor in which Tweed stood was one of the spokes that met at the hub of the central prison shaft.
He hurried along the passage, waiting to hear Stepp's voice again. Hoping it would be good news.
“Hmm,” said Stepp.
“What?” snapped Tweed. “Don't you dare say ‘hmm’ to me, Stepp. I don't want to hear it.”
“Calm down. There's no Barnaby Tweed listed here, but someone was brought in the night your dad was kidnapped. I think they used a false name.”
Tweed breathed a sigh of relief. “What do I do?”
“Head on over to the shaft. Time to rescue your dad.”
Stepp typed a few more things on her Ada, then she turned and treated Octavia to a huge smile.
“Octavia.”
“What?” asked Octavia suspiciously.
“Am I correct in assuming you can drive this thing?”
“Uh…I haven't driven this one, but I can drive steamcoaches. Why?”
“Well, here's the thing…just check that boiler will you, make sure there's coal in it?”
Octavia used the metal poker to open the boiler door. It was half empty so she filled it up with coal.
“Good. Now just make sure there's enough steam power available.”
“Why—?”
“Please? I'll explain in a moment.”
Octavia clambered through to the front of the carriage and started pumping the lever to work up a head of steam.
“Good,” said Stepp. “Now, the thing is—and don't panic, yes? I anticipated this—the thing is, you know how I piggybacked the Ministry systems and gained access to their security protocols?”
Octavia nodded.
“What that means is that we, and by we I mean this Ada machine, is putting out a very unique signal, a signal that is not supposed to exist outside of that room Tweed was just in.”
“Stepp, what the bloody hell are you trying to say?” shouted Octavia, exasperated.
“What I'm trying to say is that the Ministry can track our location, that they will try to shut us down…” Stepp's eyes widened slightly and she nodded out the front window. “And here they come now.”
Octavia whirled around to see about ten men in black suits sprinting directly toward them.
She let out a yelp and shoved the brake in, mashed down the gear to put the carriage into reverse, and released the steam valve. The carriage lurched backward, jouncing and bounding over the cobbles. Octavia ducked her head, trying to see through the tiny window at the back of the carriage. She collided with a set of dustbins, sending them flying into the air with a terrific clatter, and burst out of the alley directly into traffic.
Octavia yanked up the brake, juddering to a stop. An automaton pulled up short, narrowly avoiding smashing into them. To her left, a driver yanked hard on a horse's reins to avoid colliding with them. The horse reared up, kicking the air and whinnying loudly while the driver shouted and swore at them. Octavia peered through the front window. The Ministry goons were about halfway down the alley.
One of them stopped running and pointed at her. She heard a loud bang, and the front window suddenly sported a hole with cracks radiating from its center.
“They're shooting at us!” she exclaimed.
“Yes, they tend to do that when they're annoyed. Now get us out of here! We need to keep moving.”
Octavia shifted gears and lunged forward into traffic, bumping another automaton out of the way. It veered to the side, struggling to keep its cab upright.
“Sorry!” she shouted at the panicked occupants. “Emergency!”
She weaved into the line of traffic, ignoring the blaring of horns and shouted insults. She glanced over her shoulder but couldn't see any sign of their pursuers. They had lost them. For now.
A second, curved corridor intersected the dark hallway Tweed was using. He turned left into it and kept walking. The circular corridor passed other dark passages like the one that led to the elevator; the other spokes of the wheel.
Tweed eventually came to a door on the right side of the passage. He tried the handle but it was locked.
“Stepp?” he said. “I need access to the prison shaft. Can you open the door?”
There was a pause, then, “Uh…sure thing. Just…hold on a second. Have it done soon.”
Tweed frowned. Why did Stepp sound so distracted? And what was all the noise in the background?
“Everything okay out there?”
“Yes, yes, everything is perfect. Why do you ask?”
“Uh, you just sound a bit…off.”
“No, no. Just concentrating. Here you go.”
The door in front of him clicked open. Tweed felt a waft of air against his face, and got the impression of a vast space opening up before him. He stepped forward, finding himself on a huge circular balcony, the floor of which was about twenty feet wide. Separating the balcony into two halves was a bank of Babbages that traveled all the way around the circular gallery.
Tweed walked to the safety railing, his feet echoing loudly in the vast space. He gripped the cold metal and looked down.
The empty shaft was about a hundred feet across. It receded below him into distant darkness. All the way down he could see multiple levels, each with its own balcony and railing that circled around the circumference of the shaft. He counted forty such levels before giving up. Each of them was made up of wall-to-wall prison cells. Bright white lights shone from hidden alcoves, illuminating the metal and steel of the clinical prison, haloes rebounding from the polished surfaces.
The scale was just…immense.
A steady breeze blew up against Tweed's face. In the center of the shaft was a steel pillar. About halfway down, Tweed saw an articulated arm that held a brass cage over the empty void.
“Stepp? There's some sort of arm with a cage attached to it that ferries people down to the cells. Can you call it up for me?”
There was a burst of static, then a shout of, “Not that way! You're heading back toward them! Turn around!”
Tweed frowned. “Songbird? What's going on?”
“Songbird is a bit busy right now,” said Stepp.
“Give me a moment and I'll get you moving.”
“Stepp! Tell me what's happening!”
“Uh…nothing big. Just that the Ministry is tracking the signals I send into their systems, so we have to keep moving around a bit. That's all. DUCK!”
Tweed heard a loud bang, a bang that sounded very much like a gunshot. “Stepp,” he said, worried. “You still there?”
“Still here. No, not that way. Next time just run them over! I don't care if you don't want to kill someone, I don't want to get shot! Hey, Tweed, let me just get this…Yes, I see where you are. Here you go.”
The articulated arm below Tweed suddenly drew itself in, pulling the cage close to the shaft, then it slid smoothly up the pillar. The arm spun to Tweed's side of the balcony where it extended the cage directly at him.
The safety railing Tweed leaned against had little chain links that could be unfastened. He unclipped them and stepped into the cage, pulling the trellis door closed.
“I'm on the elevator.”
No sooner had he said the words than the cage swung around and slid downward, the air rushing past Tweed's face. He held on to the door as the arm dropped down ten floors and stopped directly in front of one of the prison cells.
Tweed swallowed nervously, staring at the metal door in front of him. Was this it? Was Barnaby inside that cell?
He opened the cage and undid the chain, stepping on to the metal walkway. There was a panel about halfway up the door. Tweed gripped the handle and slid it aside, revealing a book-sized hole that opened directly into the cell.
There was a man sleeping on a bed shoved up against the wall. His back was facing Tweed, but he recognized that long grey hair anywhere.
He almost sobbed with relief. After all he and Octavia had been through. All the fear, all the uncertainty.
And here he was. Still alive after all.
“Barnaby,” Tweed whispered.
Nothing.
“Barnaby,” he said again, louder this time.
Barnaby stirred in his bed, his head tilting slightly as if he thought he was hearing things.
“Get up you fool. I'm here to rescue you!”
Barnaby whirled around and fell out of his bed. He scrambled to his feet and stared at Tweed in amazement. Tweed had never seen him look so shocked. Under any other circumstances, it might have been amusing.
Barnaby hesitated, then moved slowly forward, as if worried Tweed might vanish before his eyes.
“Tweed?” he said, not even trying to keep the shock from his voice.
“The one and only,” said Tweed with a grin. He couldn't help it. He didn't think he had ever managed to surprise the old man the way he had right now. It was rather a glorious feeling.
“What are you doing here?” whispered Barnaby furiously. “How did you get in? Why—never mind. Sebastian Tweed, I order you to leave this installation. Right this minute. Do you hear me? Get out!”
Tweed's grin faded. Interesting reaction. He had expected gratitude. Happiness. Relief. Pride, even. Not what appeared to be anger.
“Well, good to see you too,” he said.
“What? Yes, yes. Of course it's good to see you. But you're in danger, you fool. Flee. At once.”
“Do you realize how hard it's been to get in here? If you think I'm leaving without you, you're clearly more insane that I ever thought. Hey,” he said into his transmitter, “how about unlocking his cell?”
“I'm trying,” said Stepp. “In fact, I've been trying for the past five minutes.”
Tweed frowned. “Problem?”
“Not sure. The locks aren't responding. Just…let me concentrate.”
“Who are you talking to?” asked Barnaby
“Stepp,” said Tweed.
“You've got her involved? Tweed, she's only twelve!”
“Eleven. But I needed her help. Jenny and Carter are here as well. And while we're at it, why the hell didn't you tell me you used to work for the Ministry?” demanded Tweed.
Barnaby froze. He stared at Tweed, his face going slack. He stepped away from the door. “How did you find out?”
“Jenny and Carter tracked down someone named Horatio. Said he used to work with you. Is it true?”
Barnaby sighed, rubbing his hands over a face that looked suddenly ten years older. “Aye, son. It's true.”
“Why didn't you tell me?”
“It was in the past! That wasn't who I was anymore. I wanted to move on, leave that life behind me.” He sighed. “How much do you know?”
“Horatio told me about the Mesmers. About the Ministry's experiments with human souls. How that led to the automata.”
Barnaby laughed bitterly. “That's not even scratching the surface. Horatio left before the bad stuff happened.” He nodded at the lock. “This going to take long?”
“I have absolutely no idea. That's Stepp's department.”
Barnaby nodded. He started to pace in the small cell. “The head of the Ministry is a man named Lucien. He used to be my boss.”
“We know about Lucien,” interrupted Tweed. “We also know Sherlock Holmes is working for him. That he's the one who took you.”
Barnaby waved a hand in the air. “That's not Sherlock Holmes. Well, it is, but not really.” Barnaby sighed. “Lucien. It all comes back to Lucien. He's been in charge of the Ministry for over five decades now, using it to gain power, to push his own agenda. Lucien was always obsessed with science, with seeing just how far we could…prod nature. Give it a helping hand.” Barnaby ran his fingers through his hair. “About forty years ago, Lucien heard about the work of a man named Viktor Frankenstein. This doctor—if you can call him that—was…meddling with nature, trying to create life. When Lucien heard of his research he became obsessed. He thought Frankenstein a visionary. He sent a team of agents to Europe to steal the doctor's research.” Barnaby paused in his pacing. “You understand, I'm not just talking about normal research here. Frankenstein was experimenting with reanimating corpses, with creating stitch-work people. He succeeded too, if rumors are to be believed.
“But this wasn't what Lucien wanted. He wanted much more. He devoted all of the resources of the Ministry to this work. He extended the research, took it in new directions, took it way beyond what Frankenstein originally intended.”
Barnaby stopped pacing and moved closer to the door. “He grew people, Tweed. He created simulacra, perfect copies, brand new human beings from nothing more than a piece of skin, or a clump of hair.”
Tweed's hands fell from the door. He stared at Barnaby in amazement. “He created human beings?”
“Quicker than nature could,” said Barnaby. “A thirty-year-old man could be grown in five years. Tweed, this was nothing short of a miracle.”
“A miracle? Barnaby, that's not a miracle, that's an abomination! The way you speak, it's as if you think it's a good thing.”
“I don't! Least, not now. But Tweed, when I first saw what could be done, I'll admit, I got caught up in the process. I…I was part of the team. It was my job.”
“And what did these things do? These simulacra?”
“Nothing. That was the problem. They were utterly empty, nothing more than living, breathing vessels. Expensive dolls. They didn't move, didn't speak, couldn't understand anything that was said to them.” Barnaby came even closer, so that only his eyes were visible through the gap. “They had no souls, Tweed.”
“Then what was the point? You should have destroyed them, burned the research. Barnaby, what you did…it goes against nature.”
Barnaby sighed. “I know that, son. Now. But at the time, we were caught up in the process of discovery. We were breaking new ground!”
“What happened next?’
“Lucien got creative,” said Barnaby. “The experiments with inserting human souls into automata had already been going on for some time. It was a separate field of research, handled by another branch of Mesmers. But one day Lucien came into our lab with a new plan. He wanted to see if we could pull a soul
from a living person and insert it into one of these simulacra. He wondered—he hoped—it would do the same for them as it had done for the constructs. You see, if the simulacra were already soulless, then they shouldn't reject the new souls being inserted into them. That was the theory.”
“And?” pressed Tweed.
“It worked. We took the soul of an old man—sick, dying—and using a device called the God Machine, we inserted it into a simulacrum.”
“My God,” breathed Tweed.
“Lucien was ecstatic. He had, for all intents and purposes, discovered the secret of immortality. He saw a new world order. No longer would anyone have to die. They could simply purchase a simulacrum and hire the Ministry Mesmers to transfer their soul into a new, younger copy of themselves. Actually, I say no one would have to die, but I should say the rich wouldn't have to die.
“Lucien made sure he was one of the first. He took tissue samples and stored them away for growing a duplicate version of himself. Then he ordered me to imprint on his soul.”
“Why you?”
Barnaby shrugged. “I was the Ministry's best Mesmer. Lucien didn't trust anyone else.”
“So what happened next? Actually, hang on.” Tweed tried the door but it was still locked. “Stepp? Getting a bit worried down here.”
Octavia grimaced as she was flung hard against the door. She spun the steering wheel back the other way, bringing the rear of the steamcoach back onto the road. “Sorry!” she shouted to the screaming pedestrians who scattered in every direction.
She could hear Stepp talking to Tweed behind her. “I don't know what's going on. My data says the locks should be on these protocols, but I can't find them anywhere. They're buried away behind a lot of numbers. Just give me some time.”
Octavia peered ahead through the cracked window at the front of the carriage. She was rapidly coming up behind a slow-moving steamcoach. She swerved to overtake it, then had to brake suddenly to avoid smacking into the back of a hansom cab. This was impossible! She craned her neck out the window, searching the streets behind her. The æther cages of automata glowed in the night. There was no sign of the Ministry goons, though. Maybe they were clear…
