The Curiosity Machine

by Richard Newsome

  Gerald laughed. ‘It’s a shame your mum and dad couldn’t come on this trip, Felicity,’ he said.

  Felicity turned her back on the flickering screen and tried to ignore Sam’s delight at finding a flamethrower. ‘The Colonel is stuck in Afghanistan with his regiment,’ she said, ‘and mother can’t bear to leave the ashram in Nepal until she achieves nirvana, so there’s not much point in worrying about them.’ She closed her eyes and let out a slow breath. ‘Still, one must carry on. I’ve packed three swimsuits, and I plan on going back to England with at least some sort of a tan. I intend making the girls at St Hilda’s green with envy.’

  ‘We’re spending a month swimming, snorkelling, cruising and exploring from Bora Bora to Martinique on board a luxury mega yacht,’ Ruby said. ‘Somehow, I don’t think it’s a suntan that’s going to make them jealous.’

  Felicity raised her perfectly formed nose a little higher in the air. ‘Just so long as someone is jealous,’ she said.

  A cry went up from Sam as a dozen zombies wrestled him to the ground and feasted on his entrails. He screwed up his face. ‘Oh, nasty,’ he said. ‘Here Gerald, see how you go.’

  Gerald dropped onto the couch next to Sam and thumbed the restart button. The zombie hordes descended. ‘These things are relentless,’ he said, jerking the controller left and right. ‘They never stop.’

  Sam slid onto the floor by Gerald’s feet and stuffed a handful of popcorn into his mouth. ‘Just like a perpetual motion machine,’ he said, ‘only hungry for brains.’

  ‘Sam?’ Gerald said, toggling the controller to and fro.

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘That’s the last time I want to hear the words “perpetual motion machine” mentioned on this holiday, okay?’

  Felicity balled up a paper serviette and bounced it off Gerald’s forehead. ‘Don’t be such a misery,’ she said. ‘Trying to solve those puzzles to find the perpetual motion machine was fun, if you forget the near-death experiences. And deciphering a coded message that someone wrote in the 1830s then stuffed into a bottle and threw into the sea is sort of romantic, when you think about it.’

  ‘If that’s your idea of romantic,’ Sam said, ‘remind me never to ask you out to the movies.’

  Felicity turned twin eyes of liquid scorn upon Sam. ‘Girls like me,’ she said, ‘do not go out with boys like you.’ Sam’s face deflated like a soccer ball with a hole in it. Felicity returned her attention to Gerald. ‘Solving mysteries can be such fun, don’t you agree,’ she said. She sidled over to Gerald and eased onto the couch beside him. ‘We managed to figure out the perpetual motion machine is somewhere near the Galapagos Islands. That’s pretty fascinating. And that’s not even including those old plans we found in the cage under the Billionaire’s Club.’ She inched closer to Gerald. ‘Remember?’ she said. Gerald could feel the warmth of her breath on his neck. ‘Don’t you remember the plans? What were they for again?’

  Gerald didn’t respond. What was Felicity wittering on about? He had hordes of the undead to deal with.

  ‘The curiosity machine,’ Felicity said with a tinkling laugh. ‘That’s what the plans were for. The curiosity machine.’

  Gerald joggled the game controller left and right. ‘What?’ he said.

  ‘Am I allowed to talk about the curiosity machine, Gerald?’ Felicity asked in a teasing lilt.

  Gerald did not look away from the one-armed semi-decomposed monster that was trying to tear off his leg. ‘Only if you want to be dropped off on a desert island and spend the rest of your life surviving on a diet of coconuts and bird poo.’

  Felicity wrinkled her nose. ‘Ew! That’s gross.’ She slid even closer to his side. ‘Aren’t you the slightest bit interested in finding out what the machine does?’ She twirled a finger through a lock of Gerald’s hair. ‘Even the slightest bit…curious?’

  Gerald batted away Felicity’s hand. ‘Stop it,’ he said, his eyes fixed on the screen. ‘I nearly got eaten.’

  ‘You’re such a boy,’ Felicity said. ‘I knew you wouldn’t do anything about it so I did a bit of research. The curiosity machine dates back to Europe in the 1300s. Isn’t that amazing? And the last person to build a working model was none other than—oh, you’ll never guess.’ She prodded Gerald in the ribs. ‘Go on,’ she said. ‘Guess.’

  Gerald wriggled further along the couch, his eyes glued to the screen.

  Felicity soldiered on. ‘It was King Rudolph of Bohemia, thanks for asking,’ she said. ‘Yes, the same King Rudolph who bought the Voynich manuscript that almost led to Ruby’s heart being ripped out of her chest. Sorry, Ruby, I’m just telling the truth. The same King Rudolph who once owned the perpetual motion machine that everyone in the world, except for Gerald, is interested in finding. The same King Rudolph who seems to be at the centre of every terrifying adventure we’ve had.’

  ‘Terrifying for you maybe,’ Gerald said, slicing his way through a field of reanimated corpses. ‘It’s not worrying me.’

  Felicity’s eyes frosted over. ‘That’s because you have a terminal lack of curiosity.’

  ‘If only I had a machine that could make some for me,’ Gerald said.

  ‘Very funny. Don’t you want to know what the curiosity machine does?’

  Gerald concentrated on the vision of splattering gore that filled the screen in front of him. ‘Not really,’ he said. ‘But I get the feeling you’re going to tell me anyway.’

  Felicity raised her chin and brushed a strand of hair behind her ear. ‘I am. Just try to stop me.’

  ‘I wouldn’t dream of it.’

  ‘Good. Because I’m going to tell.’

  ‘Go right ahead.’

  ‘It’s ever so fascinating.’

  ‘So you keep saying.’

  ‘The curiosity machine…’

  ‘Uh-huh.’

  ‘…what it does…’

  ‘Yes?’

  Felicity took in a deep breath. ‘Well, no one actually knows what it does. It’s a mystery. Rudolph built the machine in his dungeons, but I couldn’t find anything about what it actually does. Which is frustrating. But you have to admit, it’s fascinating as well. And Mason Green almost gave birth on the spot when he heard you had the plans.’ She folded her arms across her chest and glared with annoyance at Gerald’s lack of interest. ‘I don’t understand you, Gerald Wilkins. You crack an almost two-hundred-year-old code that basically tells you where to find a mythical perpetual motion machine, and you don’t want to look for it. Then you find the blueprint for something as intriguing as a curiosity machine, and you have no interest in what it does. What’s the matter with you?’

  Gerald jerked the game controller to the side. ‘You can’t find something that’s mythical,’ he said.

  ‘What?’

  ‘If it’s mythical, then it’s make-believe. It never existed. The moment you find it, it ceases to be a myth. It just…is.’

  Felicity lashed out and snatched the controller from Gerald’s hands.

  ‘Hey!’ Gerald protested. ‘Give it back!’

  Felicity held the controller above her head, fending off Gerald’s attempts to retrieve it. ‘Oh, look at that,’ she said, nodding at the screen. ‘You appear to have been eaten.’ She flipped the controller over her shoulder and strode towards the door. ‘How terribly sick-making for you.’

  *

  The airfield at Bora Bora had never seen anything like it. Set up to handle small commuter aircraft, the remote island airstrip was barely long enough for the Archer A380 to touch down without skidding off the far end. Pilot Laura Baulch’s voice sounded over the intercom: ‘Hold tight everybody. This is going to be like a condor landing on a coconut.’ Inside the jet, fingernails dug into upholstery as the giant Rolls Royce engines roared with reverse thrust. The aircraft sped along the tarmac and careered towards the ocean beyond. Tyres smoked and walls shuddered before the jet came to a groaning stop just short of the water.

  Gerald and Ruby swapped relieved looks. ‘The seatbelt almost
cut me in half,’ Ruby said, rubbing her ribs.

  The loudspeakers crackled and Captain Baulch’s voice again sounded out: ‘Like they say, any landing you walk away from is a good one. Welcome to Bora Bora everyone.’

  Gerald’s mother powered down the aisle, clapping her hands like an over-caffeinated tour director. ‘Too exciting! Too exciting!’ Vi trilled as she passed rows of guests snapping off seatbelts. ‘The helicopter will start ferrying people to the yacht straightaway. Don’t forget your hats, handbags and hearing aids. Oldies first, kiddies last.’

  Gerald unstrapped himself from his seat and stood to block his mother’s path. ‘Mum, how come we have to wait?’ he asked. ‘Why is it the kids always go last?’

  Vi pulled up short and delivered Gerald a glare that would freeze lava. ‘My darling boy, you are the host for your birthday celebrations. I’m sure you would want your guests to go first.’

  Gerald mumbled something about the festival of Gerald not going much to plan but his mother breezed past him to check on catering arrangements with Mrs Rutherford. He opened a storage locker and lifted down Felicity and Ruby’s bags. ‘What have you got in here?’ Gerald asked Ruby. ‘House bricks?’

  Ruby caught the bag on her chest. ‘Books,’ she said with a grunt. ‘I plan to spend the next few weeks sunbaking and reading myself into a stupor.’ Gerald slung his St Cuthbert’s backpack over his shoulder and followed the others along the aisle, down the stairs and onto the tarmac. The tropical warmth wrapped around them like a grandmother’s hug. A soft breeze blew off the impossibly azure waters that lined the airstrip, infusing the air with the tang of seaweed and salt. Ruby pulled a pair of oversized sunglasses from her bag and perched them on the bridge of her nose. ‘Oh yes,’ she said. ‘I am going to enjoy this holiday.’

  The first load of adults climbed aboard a helicopter, Mr Fry at the controls. They lifted into the air, skirting a squat terminal building and buzzing low across the waters towards—

  ‘Holy cow!’ Sam said. ‘That’s your boat?’

  The Archer Corporation yacht lay at anchor like a sequinned hippopotamus in a turquoise bathtub.

  ‘Good gracious,’ Felicity said. ‘It’s enormous!’

  Ruby’s jaw fell slack. ‘That,’ she said, ‘is extraordinary.’

  It was the first time that Gerald had laid eyes on the 180-metre-long vessel and his eyebrows shot halfway up his forehead. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Yes, it is.’ He had seen photographs of the ship from his parents’ holiday soon after he had inherited his great aunt’s fortune, but a few glossy snaps in an album could not possibly convey the sheer extravagance of what floated before them: seven decks tiered up in a sleek impression of an ocean-going wedding cake. The helicopter made a slow descent to the foredeck, a tiny dragonfly against the colossal ship beneath it.

  ‘Isn’t she magnificent!’ Vi Wilkins paused in her mustering of guests for the next trip on the helicopter and gazed out at the yacht with undisguised adoration. ‘We were thinking of renaming her Geraldine,’ she said, ‘in honour of Gerald’s great aunt.’ She stopped for a moment and sighed. ‘That woman’s death was the best thing to happen to this family.’

  Gerald screwed up his face. ‘Isn’t that a bit tasteless, Mum?’

  Vi spun around and looked at Gerald. ‘Tasteless? Au contraire. Sometimes, one individual’s misfortune can lead to a greater good.’ She pointed at the yacht. ‘And I’d call that thing pretty great!’ Vi spotted two of her friends wandering the wrong way towards a refuelling shed—‘Oh, Frannie! Jacinta! You can’t smoke over there!’—and she charged after them.

  Gerald shook his head. The energy his mother put into hosting parties could power a small village for a year.

  Ruby sat on the tarmac in the shade of an aeroplane wing and studied the assortment of partygoers waiting to go to the yacht. ‘Who are all these people, Gerald?’

  ‘More importantly,’ Sam said, ‘do they all have presents for you?’

  Gerald plopped down next to Ruby and shaded his eyes with his hand. ‘The usual bunch,’ he said. ‘My dad’s golfing buddies and my mum’s tennis friends.’

  ‘I thought they looked familiar,’ Felicity said. ‘I’m surprised they’ve come seeing they were all kidnapped the last time they had anything to do with you.’

  Gerald scanned the collection of pale knees that poked out of tailored shorts. ‘It’s amazing what some people will overlook when there’s some luxury on offer.’

  Felicity put on a pair of sunglasses and gazed out at the water. ‘I don’t think I could ever forget something as horrible as being abducted,’ she said. ‘Being stolen away from the ones you love.’ Her voice trailed off.

  ‘Who’s that over with Mr Prisk, kicking the jet’s tyres?’ Ruby asked.

  Gerald looked across to where Ruby was gesturing. The Wilkins’ family lawyer, Mr Prisk (a man of single-minded seriousness), was pointing out aspects of the aircraft to a man Gerald didn’t recognise. The two of them walked over, and Gerald waved. ‘I didn’t see you on board, Mr Prisk,’ he said.

  Mr Prisk returned the greeting with a business-like nod. ‘We have just flown in from Los Angeles on a charter flight,’ he said. ‘I had some Archer Corporation business with the banks.’ For a moment, Mr Prisk’s smooth veneer of calm looked set to crack. ‘You know how I love a good meeting, but meetings with banks are never enjoyable,’ he said, smiling thinly. ‘You always feel as if you’re about to get mugged. But where are my manners? Allow me to introduce you to Mr Bourse.’

  Gerald looked at a man whose skin was so pale it seemed never to have seen direct sunlight. His dark hair was slicked straight back with a coating of oil that threatened to start frying the top of his head. Despite the temperature, the man wore a tie that was knotted at his neck in a manner that suggested he probably wore one with his pyjamas as well.

  ‘Call me Oscar,’ he said to Gerald in a no-nonsense Wall Street manner. He reached out a sweaty hand. ‘Timmy has been showing me the working capital. Impressive. Very impressive. Do you know what internal rate of return you get on this jet?’

  Gerald looked blankly at the man. ‘The internal what?’ he asked. ‘And who’s Timmy?’

  Mr Prisk’s cheeks flushed pink. ‘Uh, Mr Bourse is referring to me.’

  ‘Timmy?’ Sam piped up, a glint of mischief in his eyes. ‘Your first name is Timmy?’

  Mr Prisk’s face shone bright. ‘Timothy, actually. And you should feel free to continue referring to me as Mr Prisk.’

  ‘Sure thing,’ Sam said, ‘Timmy.’

  Mr Bourse still clung to the handshake. His stare threatened to bore a hole through Gerald’s head. ‘Timmy, can we schedule some quality time with Gerald? I’d value hearing some of his insights into the operation of the various Archer Corporation divisions and investment strategies.’

  Mr Prisk’s cheeks paled. He squeezed between Gerald and Mr Bourse, breaking their grip. ‘It’s such a beautiful day. It would be a shame to spoil the party with business, tempting as that might sound. Gerald, why don’t you and your friends go find something to do while I show Mr Bourse inside the jet.’ And without waiting for a response, he led Oscar Bourse up the aircraft steps.

  Ruby watched the two men disappear inside. ‘He seems an odd person to have along on your birthday cruise,’ she said.

  Gerald wiped his hand down the back of his pants, trying to dry the sweat from his palm. ‘Being odd seems to be the first requirement for anyone who comes along on one of my adventures,’ he said. He looked around to find Ruby, Felicity and Sam staring at him, arms folded across their chests.

  ‘Odd?’ Ruby said.

  ‘Really?’ Felicity said.

  ‘Lunch?’ Sam said.

  Gerald grinned. ‘I’m with Sam,’ he said. ‘Let’s find something to eat.’

  Chapter 4

  From the air, the Archer yacht looked like a floating football field, except, of course, it was much bigger. Mr Fry jockeyed the helicopter into position, hovering over the lar
ge white ‘H’ painted in a circle on a foredeck. Stretched out behind was the colossal high-rise superstructure of saloons, bridges, swimming pools, hot spas, luxury cabins and other accoutrements of excess.

  With a gentle bump, the skids settled onto the helipad. Gerald led the crouching dash from under the twirling rotors towards a spacious awning, beneath which a mingle of guests sipped cool drinks in iced glasses. Vi was directing two waitresses carrying champagne bottles towards anyone whose glass was not brimming with bubbles.

  ‘Don’t let the tide go out on your drinks, darlings,’ Vi called as she worked her way through the partygoers. ‘The sun’s over the yardarm somewhere so it’s bottoms up and full steam ahead!’ Gerald’s mother had changed into a fresh outfit of pressed white linen shorts and a blue- and-white-banded T-shirt with a red anchor embroidered on the pocket. The look was topped off with a captain’s cap perched at a jaunty angle on her head.

  ‘Your mum is really getting into the nautical theme,’ Ruby whispered in Gerald’s ear.

  Gerald grabbed an armful of lemonade cans from an ice bucket and handed them to his friends. ‘The only thing missing is the parrot on her shoulder,’ he said.

  Sam crossed to the rail and leaned out, taking in the scale of the vessel. ‘This thing is incredible,’ he called back to Gerald. ‘I think there’s a volleyball court next to the swimming pool, over by the outdoor café.’

  ‘At night it converts into a dance floor, complete with revolving mirror ball. Under a starlit sky, it is quite magnificent to see.’ Gerald and Sam looked up to find that a tall man with a salt-and-pepper beard was looking down at them from the deck above. He wore crisp whites and his captain’s cap seemed to carry more authority than the one worn by Vi Wilkins. The man’s face held a deep tan, and crow’s feet at his eyes attested to years of squinting against sun on water. He waved, then ducked back from the rail, and a moment later had descended a set of stairs and was striding towards them. ‘Mr Wilkins, it is a pleasure to meet you at last.’ The man shook Gerald’s hand in a firm grip, then greeted Felicity, Sam and Ruby by name. ‘I’m Captain Cooper, but please do call me Darcey. Welcome aboard the Archer, Mr Wilkins. The crew is delighted to have you here at last.’