"I expect your mother asks the same question on a daily basis," Ulysses threw back.
"What shall we do with him, Mr Tesla? Any ideas?" Kane mused, feigning indecision.
"We could use him as a test subject, Agent Kane," the goggled scientist suggested. "Strap him to one of the devices, set it off in one of the lower tunnels. See what happens."
"Hmm, fun as that sounds I don't think so. It would be a waste of resources. No, but I do like the sound of the lower tunnels. Bring the bastard with you and follow me," Kane said addressing the two guards, "and bring some rope as well."
Ulysses was dragged back down the steps by which he had entered and back to the flooded Underground tunnels. The two guards heaved him into the numbing, fetid water and, at Kane's direction, forced him down into the chill subterranean canal. But he was not prepared to go willingly to his doom. In desperation he struggled to free himself until, eventually, Kane put an end to his thrashing by giving him a kick to the head.
Barely conscious, Ulysses could do nothing as the guards tied both his hands and feet to the rusted rails submerged beneath the water, leaving only his head above the filmy surface. Once he was secured Kane crouched at the edge of the platform and looked down at his prisoner, shining a flashlight into Ulysses' eyes.
"You want to know something interesting about these tunnels?" he said with a dark smile. "The water that fills this flooded labyrinth comes straight from the Thames, and just as the Thames is a tidal river, so these channels too are tidal. Only, because the water's forced into such constricted passageways, as the river rises the water level in these tunnels can change dramatically. The water in here can come right up to the top of those stairs we came down by and the tide's on the turn. I'll let you work the rest of it out for yourself."
Kane rose, ignoring Ulysses - who made to shift the ropes by pulling with his arms and trying to bring his knees up - and spoke to his fellow conspirators. "Fun's over. Get back to work. The clock is ticking. The new dawn is coming."
As the scientist and guards left, Kane hung back, looking down at the futilely struggling Ulysses once more. "Any last words? Any snappy retorts? A last clever one-liner by which you would like to be remembered?"
"I hope you burn in the hell of your own making!"
"Oh yes, very witty. Very clever. Say hello to eternity for me."
With that Jago Kane turned on his heel and left.
Alone in the cold and the dark Ulysses contemplated his fate. If he could loosen his bonds even just a little he might be able to create enough friction between them and the rusted rails to break through. Muscles bunching he pulled, feeling the rough hemp of the rope rubbing the flesh of his wrists raw. Similar agonies were being suffered by his ankles.
Was it his imagination or was the water level in the tunnel already beginning to rise? As Ulysses thrashed against his bonds, his head aching from the cruel blows he had received, the water splashed against his face and he spluttered to keep it out of his mouth.
Ulysses did not consider himself a particularly godly man but now seemed like an ideal occasion to become better acquainted with the Almighty before they actually met face-to-face. Closing his eyes, arms and legs still straining, he prayed for a miracle.
His constant struggling was beginning to take its toll. The throbbing in his head was worsening and white-hot pokers of lightning pain shot through his muscles. Gritting his teeth he let out a great howl of rage, frustration and exhaustion. Filthy black water poured into his mouth. Ulysses coughed, gagging on the brackish liquid, and cleared it from his mouth with a gob of oily phlegm.
For a moment he stopped struggling, submerged up to his neck, muscles straining to keep his head back out of the water. It was in that moment that he heard a tiny splash - little more than a ripple - as something lithe and sinuous broke the surface of the water.
In the meagre luminosity of the moss patches Ulysses could not see what it was that was approaching him, but he could see it in his mind's eye all too clearly. His desperate sixth sense, scratching furiously at the inside of his skull, wailed at him from his subconscious.
Something touched his leg and Ulysses kicked out. A wall of water suddenly rose out of the murky flood in front of him. Then, as it cascaded away, the hulking, hideously changed shape was revealed to him, a dark shadow that glistened in the near-impenetrable gloom. Ulysses could make out the outline of its broad, curving shoulders, muscular arms and barrel-like torso. But there was something else, the impression of an equally broad toad-like head, a wide mouth bristling with needle-like teeth. Smooth skin glistened. A hand - fingers more like sucker-tipped tentacles than shredding talons - reached out and stroked Ulysses face, the languid touch making him shudder in revulsion. He felt the caress of a finned tail against his legs.
Part of Ulysses' subconscious mind, disconnected by the horror and desperation of the moment, reasoned that Professor Galapagos had tracked him down at last, and yet that this was not the same Professor Galapagos he had battled at the edge of the sewer precipice. The damned biologist had changed again, into something soft-bodied, amphibian, newt-like.
But no matter what the truth of the weird science behind it all, Ulysses knew that he was still going to die and resigned himself to his fate.
However, God had clearly decided that it was not yet time for his meeting with the dandy, for it was then that the longed-for miracle came.
A shot rang out through the flooded tunnel, the unreal acoustics of the place giving its echo a strange, otherworldly quality. The amphibian-Galapagos turned, distracted.
There was a second shot. The creature howled - a grotesque wailing hiss, a grisly parody of a voice - and suddenly the Underground station was filled with the noise of splashing, human shouts and half-human yelping.
Something bounded out of the darkness, leaping through the water towards Ulysses, yowling as it did so, all pallid flesh and lank hair flapping around its shoulders. This new arrival sounded like it was trying to scare the amphibian away, and it was working. The amphibian recoiled, hissing in annoyed retaliation. Then the Neanderthal was on top of it, fists flailing. The toad-creature fought back but the proto-human soon proved itself to be stronger. The Galapagos-amphibian freed itself from the Neanderthal's clutches and, as its attacker lunged again, the apeman determined to trap the huge newt in a crushing bear hug, the creature slipped back under the water and was gone.
Torchlight flickered across the tunnel walls. There was more splashing as another figure strode through the water towards Ulysses.
"Sir," came an acutely cultured voice, the sound of which filled Ulysses with unadulterated relief. "It looks like you could do with a hand."
Ulysses opened his mouth to speak but water rushed in before he could say a word. The tide was still rising.
His faithful manservant reached him in four more strides and, attempting to haul him up out of the water, immediately made an accurate assessment of the situation. It took Nimrod no time at all to take a knife to the knots and free his master, lifting him under his arms and up onto the station platform.
"Just in the nick of time, eh, Nimrod?" Ulysses managed before his body was wracked again by hacking coughs.
"It is a batman's duty, sir. After all, look what happens when you're left to your own devices," Nimrod added, rolling Ulysses onto his side on the cold, wet platform.
The last of the oily water dribbled from the side of Ulysses' mouth. He lay there for a moment, gathering his reserves of strength. "Are you alright Nimrod?"
"Apart from smelling like a blocked drain," the manservant replied, his nose wrinkling, "I suppose so." Nimrod looked as dishevelled and unkempt as Ulysses felt, quite a contrast to his usual impeccable appearance. "A few more shots from my pistol soon sent that despicable lizard-thing running for cover."
"They've got a factory down here, Nimrod. A bloody bomb factory!" Ulysses spluttered between hacking coughs, as his body expelled the rancid water from his lungs, trying to push himself up on his han
ds. "We've got to shut it down."
"All in good time, sir. You've just narrowly escaped drowning."
Ulysses gave in to the coughing fit seizing his body, and closed his eyes against the pain for a moment. Nimrod was right. The Waterloo operation could wait five minutes. Kane and the Darwinian Dawn wouldn't be going anywhere in a hurry.
There was more splashing and Ulysses opened his eyes to be greeted by a guttural grunt and the lumpen face of the Neanderthal peering at him from the edge of the water channel. He blinked. Its face a gormless mask, the proto-human blinked earnestly back.
"Nimrod," Ulysses croaked, "you appear to have found yourself a friend."
"Yes, sir." Nimrod glanced at the Neanderthal, making no effort to hide his expression of disdain. "It would appear that he - it - followed us down into the sewers after all. I bumped into him - it! - again after driving off the saurian, sir. Couldn't get rid of the bally thing after that, and believe me, I tried."
"Why didn't you shoot it then?" Ulysses said, managing a tired smile.
"It would seem that I simply hadn't the heart, sir."
"Fortunately for me, as it would transpire."
"As you say, sir, fortunately for you. It was the brute that tracked you down here. I think it somehow managed to follow your scent, despite the hellish stench of these tunnels."
"And now he's saved me from poor Professor Galapagos' attentions again. Did you see what he's become now, Nimrod?"
"Barely, sir."
"He looks like a ruddy great toad, or a newt or something. There can't be much further for him to travel back down the evolutionary ladder before he's just pond slime."
"So it would seem, sir."
"But anyway," Ulysses said, sitting up and starting to rise to his feet, "back to more pressing matters. The bomb factory."
"Very well, sir."
By the time Ulysses had led Nimrod back to the station concourse and its wheezing, rattling production line, there was no longer any sign of Jago Kane or the scientist-engineer, Tesla.
"What now, sir?" Nimrod whispered as the two of them peered around a tiled pillar.
"The devices come off that conveyor over there," he said, pointing through the clouds of filthy steam. "If we can find where they're storing them, I think from that point on it would be a relatively straightforward thing to bring an end to this terrorist facility."
"What did you have in mind, sir?" Nimrod asked guardedly.
"Just a few fireworks. Nothing spectacular."
"And how do you suggest we achieve the initial part of your plan?"
"Oh, you know me, Nimrod. I'm making this up as I go along. We need a distraction. Something that will keep those guards off our backs."
There was a grunt from the shadows behind them. The Neanderthal knuckled over to the two men.
"By Jove, Nimrod, I think this fellow here's got the right idea. I think he understands just what we've got in mind."
"You think he can understand more than a few simple phrases?"
"You shouldn't have such low expectations of your new friend. He's not a dog, you know? What do you say, boy?" Ulysses said, turning to the Neanderthal. "Do you think you could cause a bit of a rumpus in there for us?"
The hulking subhuman nodded excitedly, his tongue lolling from his mouth like that of a happy hound.
"Off you go then."
Scampering forwards on all fours the Neanderthal disappeared into the obscuring smog of the factory floor.
"And good luck, eh, old chap?"
It was only a matter of moments before startled shouts of surprise came to their ears followed rapidly by the chatter of sub-automatic gunfire as the Neanderthal swung out of the roiling smoke right into the midst of the Dawn's guards, only to disappear back into the obscuring clouds a moment later.
It was exactly what Ulysses had hoped for.
"Come on, Nimrod. Let's get this party going with a bang!"
"Are you sure this is a good idea, sir?" Nimrod asked, with the tone of a disapproving schoolmaster, as Ulysses ran his hands over the explosive device on the gurney in front of him. Its hard metal body was a full metre in diameter.
"Don't worry, Nimrod," Ulysses said, flashing a devilish grin. "Remember, I've seen how these things were constructed. Now if I turn this knob here, and then depress this switch here..."
The bomb on the rack in front of him had been silent all the while Ulysses had been examining it. But with the depression of the button an ominous ticking commenced somewhere inside the spiked steel ball.
"Ah, I think it's time we weren't here, Nimrod." Ulysses jumped to his feet.
"I couldn't agree more, sir."
The two men sprinted out of the side passage and back across the concourse, not caring now whether they were seen or not.
Explosions ripped through the station, shaking its very foundations, as one detonation after another tore through the factory, bringing the great conveyor production line to a standstill before blasting the machinery to smithereens. The wreckage of monstrous steam presses was hurled about, along with the shattered remains of automata-workers. The mutant workforce died or fled in panic, Darwinian Dawn troopers and scientists suddenly made equal by the threat of sudden, violent death.
"This way!" Ulysses yelled over the sounds of destruction ringing in their ears. They ran hell-for-leather across the concourse and through the archway underneath the Waterloo sign. They found themselves in a broader exit tunnel. There was another concussive blast behind them and dust and fractured tiles fell from the roof.
It was then that Ulysses' sixth sense screamed a warning. He skidded to a halt. "Nimrod, back!" he shouted. "The roof's about to-" before he could finish his warning, with a yawning heave the roof of the tunnel came down ahead of them.
The two men turned tail, running back the way they had come, back towards the inferno that had taken hold of the factory.
"Bloody hellfire!" Ulysses exclaimed. "Now where?"
"Over there, sir!" Nimrod shouted, pointing back to the archway through which they had entered the factory. The Neanderthal was hunched there, its body smeared with soot, blood running from a number of gashes, but otherwise alive.
Ulysses didn't need any further encouragement. The dandy gentleman investigator and his manservant legged it back across the concourse - dodging falling masonry, throwing up their arms to protect their faces from the fierce heat and flying shrapnel of shattered machines.
As Nimrod joined the Neanderthal beyond the archway, Ulysses stumbled, his foot catching against a fallen scientist. In one hand the man - who was either dead or unconscious - clutched a clipboard, the notes it held sullied with stone dust and soot.
"What have we here?" Ulysses wondered.
"Sir, you must hurry!" Nimrod shouted back over the thunderous rumble of destruction.
"Don't worry about me," he called back, snatching up the clipboard in one hand, "you get yourselves out. I'm right behind you."
And then the three of them - master, servant and Neanderthal - were stumbling back down the steps to the flooded station platform. Their feet splashed into several inches of water, the tidal Thames having risen the level as Jago Kane had said it would. Had the Neanderthal not tracked him down here, Ulysses would have drowned in that same stinking tunnel.
There was another shuddering blast and a fireball of intense ferocity rushed down the stairs after them.
"Into the water!" Ulysses screamed, throwing himself forwards, pushing the subhuman and his manservant into the water ahead of him.
As the water closed over their heads, the flames ignited the pollutant film on its surface.
Ulysses surfaced again, some way further down the tunnel, amidst patches of flame. Nimrod and the Neanderthal both surfaced nearby.
"Nimrod, are you alright?"
His manservant gave him a wet, disgruntled look. "Again, apart from being soaked to the skin and smelling like a petrol sump, yes, sir."
A strong rubbery hand grabbed hold of Ulysses
' leg and yanked him sharply back under the water. Lit by the burning pollution on its surface, through the filthy murk Ulysses could see the fish-like features of the amphibian-Galapagos. The professor was persistent, he'd give him that.
For a moment his eyes met the lidless jellied orbs of the altered thing and a startled cry escaped his mouth in a rush of bubbles. Then he was kicking furiously at the creature. He planted a foot squarely between the fish-thing's eyes and the creature's grip went slack.
Ulysses surfaced again, gasping for air, followed almost immediately by the Galapagos thing, breaking the surface in an impressive salmon leap. The monster landed on top of him. Nimrod was shouting behind him, the Neanderthal splashing through the water towards him too, but Ulysses had the creature by the throat now. The tables had been turned.
Another explosion ripped through the tunnel and a fiery wind swept over the water's surface. Shielded from the blast by the creature in front of him, Ulysses witnessed something the like of which he had never known despite all he had seen in his curious life.
With a hideous gulping gasp, like a fishy death-sigh, the creature stopped fighting him and went limp. He could feel his hands sinking into its unnatural flesh as it went soft around them. It felt like he was putting his hands into buckets of cold semolina pudding. And then, quite simply, Professor Galapagos's body collapsed in on itself, the flesh dissolved into slime. Its fish-face mere inches from his own, Ulysses stared into its horrible liquid eyes, unable to tear his gaze away, as those same eyes melted like hot wax.
In mere moments all that was left of the transformed professor were strings of glutinous protoplasmic slime, cooking like frogspawn amidst the burning residue all around them.
Professor Galapagos - or rather the evolutionary-regressing freak that he had become - was gone.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
On Evolution and the Modern Man
Pax Britannia: Unnatural History Page 15
