On Her Majesty's Behalf

by Joseph Nassise

  Assyria was left behind as quickly as Egypt, and Veronica and her companions found themselves entering the world of Alexander the Great and Hellenistic Greece. This gallery held even more wonders than those before, including a gorgeous marble statue of the Greek goddess Demeter and dozens of smaller terra-­cotta figurines and gold bowls and dishes.

  As they rushed through the gallery, Burke said a silent prayer of thanks that all this accumulated history hadn’t been demolished during the German bombing of the city. A few well-­placed munitions and all this would have been lost to future generations; it made him cringe just thinking about it.

  Of course, it might still be lost, he knew, if they couldn’t find a way of dealing with the shredders and whatever else Richthofen had in store for them in the future.

  It was not a comforting thought.

  Beside him Graves gave a low whistle. The sound pulled Burke out of his musings and back to the present, where he noted that they had finally come to a halt inside a gallery devoted to Greek culture, if the meticulously reconstructed temple they were facing was any indication.

  The reconstruction dominated the room, taking up about half the available floor space, and had no doubt been placed just where it was to draw visitors’ eyes as they entered the room.

  Three exquisitely carved marble statues stood in the spaces between the four columns that held up the triangular entablature leading to the temple’s roof. Relief carvings covered the front face of the temple and ran as a frieze around the lintel just below the roof. A door stood behind the columns, leading into the depths of the temple itself.

  Beside him, Graves whispered, “The Mausoleum of Halicarnassus. One of the seven wonders of the ancient world. Every other mausoleum in the world is named after this one.”

  Burke could see why. Even the ruins were glorious to behold, and he could barely imagine what it must have looked like with all that white marble shining under the hot desert sun.

  Graves continued the history lesson as they walked closer. “Built somewhere around 350 B.C. by Queen Artemisia to honor the man who was her husband, brother, and king all at once—­Mausolos. It stood on a platform one hundred forty feet high atop a hill overlooking the city. Mausolos was a great admirer of Greek culture and so the tomb was decorated with relief carvings and surrounded by statues of the Greek gods and goddesses, as you can see.”

  The men slowed as they drew closer to the exhibit, naturally reluctant to disrupt the exhibit, but Veronica stepped over the velvet rope placed to keep the public from coming too close and walked around the side of the structure.

  Surprised, the men scurried to follow suit.

  A small set of steps was built into the side of the platform and Veronica climbed them without hesitation, stepping into the temple foyer and approaching the doorway that led inside.

  With Graves and Drummond on his heels, Burke followed.

  He paused in the temple doorway to let his eyes adjust to the dimness inside and saw that the illusion of a room beyond the doorway was just that, an illusion. In reality the space ran for less than a half-­dozen feet before ending flush against the rear wall of the gallery. Veronica stood a few feet away, running her hands over a particular section of the interior wall, clearly searching for something.

  Burke was about to ask what she was looking for, intending to help, when she let out an audible “Aha!” She twisted her hands once, sharply, and then stepped back.

  There was the hiss of releasing steam, the creak of gears getting under way, and then a loud grinding noise as a portion of the rear wall slid backward a foot and then slid to one side, revealing a set of stairs, lit with flickering lightbulbs, leading downward.

  The Queen turned and grinned in their direction. “Gentlemen, welcome to the Round Table.”

  Chapter Twenty-six

  The Round Table

  British Museum

  PORTABLE LAMPS WAITED on a shelf just inside the doorway. Veronica took one for herself and handed one to Burke, showing him how to operate it with the switch on the side. Light illuminated the small space they stood in, revealing the long, narrow staircase leading downward just a few feet away.

  “Watch yourselves; the steps can be slippery.”

  Down they went.

  Veronica knew that their destination lay nearly one hundred feet below street level, far beneath the two basement levels the British Museum was known to possess. The complex had been carved out of the bedrock underneath the museum during the building’s initial construction with the help of the Arcanaum, a secret order of British mystics devoted to the security and sanctity of the Crown. Only a handful of those who had helped create the facility were still alive and there was no doubt of their loyalty; they would protect the secret until their deaths and, in certain instances, even beyond.

  Nicknamed the Round Table by those in the know, the facility served as the headquarters for Project Merlin, the British government’s answer to the research and development programs being run by both the Germans and the Americans. It was here that the Crown’s best and brightest gathered together to discuss advancements that might improve the welfare of the empire, just as Arthur and his knights had once done. Where America had its Tesla and Germany its Eisenberg, Britain had James Damien Highmoore III, or just JD for short. Veronica just hoped he was in a good mood; he could be a cranky old codger when he wanted to be.

  A large vaultlike iron door waited for them at the bottom of the stairs. Veronica stepped over to it and spun the hand wheel that secured it, dialing through a sequence of six digits, spinning the tumblers first one way and then the other until the entire combination sequence was locked in.

  “That should do it,” she said, when she was finished. She spun the massive flywheel in the center of the door to the left until it clicked and then stepped aside. “Sergeant, if you would be so kind?”

  Drummond stepped forward, grasped the handles in both hands, and pulled.

  The three-­foot-­thick door opened without a sound, revealing a large room beyond. There were lights on inside the vault, and Veronica could hear music playing faintly somewhere in the background.

  Good, she thought. At least JD is up and active. She’d been afraid the recent bombing might have sent him into one of his infrequent “sleep” periods. She listened for a moment, recognized the strains of Wagner’s Ride of the Valkyries and frowned a bit at the choice of selection. The Germanic opera was a bit too prophetic at the moment for her taste.

  “Is there a problem?” the American major, Burke, asked suddenly, and she turned to find him watching her closely, clearly reacting to the expression on her face despite how little she’d let show.

  He’s more perceptive than I expected, Veronica thought.

  She smiled and waved away his concern. “Everything’s fine. German opera just isn’t my taste.”

  At his puzzled expression, she realized that he hadn’t noticed the music at all, that he must have been paying more attention to her than to the room before them.

  How interesting, she mused, and turned away to hide the slight heat she felt in her cheeks.

  She liked the idea that the American officer found her intriguing and had to admit that she found him just as interesting in turn. He was very different from what she might have expected.

  She’d met a few American officers before, the high-­ranking types that were often invited to state dinners hosted by her parents, and as a whole she found them to be loudmouthed bores with few social graces and an appalling lack of manners. They were all too often convinced of their own superiority and attractiveness and unfortunately were far more often wrong on both counts than right.

  But Burke seemed . . . different. Yes, he was full of the easy self-­confidence that she’d seen in other American officers, but it was a confidence that appeared to be tempered by an innate understanding of his own limitations.

&nb
sp; He did not make grandiose pronouncements and, in fact, said very little beyond what was actually necessary. That silence did little to hide the intellect she knew was lurking there, though; he appeared to miss very little, as the incident of just moments before had shown.

  At first she’d been a bit annoyed that he hadn’t simply followed her orders back at Bedlam, but that was before she had reminded herself that he was an American citizen and not a British one. Her orders were not his orders, no matter how much she might like them to be. His stubborn refusal to simply take her to the museum when she’d first stated that would be their destination had definitely been irritating, but in hindsight she had to admire him for both his clear focus as well as his steadfast dedication to saving her life.

  This was a man who took his orders seriously, she knew, and despite barely knowing him she had to admit that she did feel better knowing he was in charge of seeing her clear of this disaster.

  Even that mechanical hand of his was more intriguing than anything else. It was impossible to miss, with its brass gears and steel panels clicking and whirring while in use, but it was so intricately designed and exquisitely manufactured that it almost looked natural, rather than artificial.

  Veronica found herself idly wondering what it would be like to be touched by that hand.

  She shook herself, scattering her thoughts and bringing herself back to the issue at hand. Enough nonsense about the American, she scolded herself. You have a job to do, now get to it!

  The room before her was large and rectangular in shape, running lengthwise away from the staircase. Tables and benches were scattered throughout, taking up much of the available space while still leaving rows to walk between them all. Every visible surface was covered with an experiment of one kind or another, from partially disassembled firearms to partially dissected shamblers. There were strange chemicals boiling away in beakers atop small gas flames and plants in giant terrariums being subjected to the effects of different types of gas. It was a wizard’s laboratory, and she was here to find the resident wizard.

  It didn’t take long to find him, just a few moments, in fact, for JD was right where she expected him to be, bent over a table near the back of the room with his hands inside his latest experiment. If reports were correct, the experiment was a device designed to bend light in such a way as to make things seemingly disappear into thin air. Invisibility, he called it, which sounded bright and fanciful but that, at the moment, had yet to yield any results.

  “Good afternoon, James,” the Queen said brightly.

  The automaton was fashioned of brass and steel, giving its “skin” a decidedly shiny appearance. Overall it was the same size and stature of a man, albeit a short one, and it was even dressed in a blue jumpsuit that covered most of its bodily form. Its face had been molded to give it a male appearance, complete with a reasonable facsimile of a smile, but its eyes were completely mechanical and seemed almost alien in comparison to the other attempts to make the creature fit in with the humans around it.

  The automaton didn’t look up at the Queen’s greeting. It kept fiddling with whatever part had captured its attention, its head bowed, while rudely addressing her in the tone of an annoyed older uncle.

  “Good?” he muttered. “What, pray tell, is good about it?” he asked. “Did we win the war and someone forgot to tell me?”

  Burke stepped forward, the anger at the way she was being spoken to plain on his face, but Veronica calmly put a hand on his arm and smiled at him, to show him everything was fine.

  “Nothing so dramatic, James. I’ve simply brought company along with me this afternoon. Perhaps you could say hello?”

  That, at least, got the automaton to look up.

  James Damien Highmoore III had been one of Britain’s most promising scientists, perhaps the most promising Veronica knew, until a freak lab accident had caused a fire, leaving him with burns over more than ninety percent of his body. Faced with little chance of survival, Highmoore had decided to use himself as a guinea pig to attempt what had never been done before—­transplanting a human brain into a mechanical form. He selected a cutting-­edge automaton prototype to serve as his physical form and had then meticulously instructed the country’s top surgeons through the procedure itself.

  No one had known whether or not it had worked until the day, nearly a week after the operation, when the automaton had opened its eyes and asked to be discharged. There was work to be done on behalf of the Crown, after all.

  Since that day nearly two years before JD, as he was now known, continued his efforts to increase the knowledge and scientific ability of the British Empire and would no doubt continue to do so until either the world ended or the Empire fell, and no one was taking bets on which would come first.

  With his hands still deep inside the gadget in front of him, the automaton could neither shake nor salute, so it settled on nodding its head slowly in a gesture of respect. “Hello, Your Highness,” JD said, in his usual rich, baritone voice.

  JD dismissed Major Burke with barely a glance; military personnel usually didn’t interest him in any way. The same couldn’t be said of Burke’s companion, however. JD looked over at him and nodded his head several times in excitement.

  “Oh. Hello, Graves,” the automaton said. “Good to see you again.”

  Graves, who had been looking around the room with the expression of a boy turned loose in a candy shop, spun around at the sound of his name and focused on the automaton, his eyes growing wide at the sight.

  Without taking his gaze off the mechanical man in front of him, but clearly directing his question to the Queen, Graves asked, “What manner of trickery is this? How did you program it to know my name already? Are you doing it remotely somehow?”

  Veronica winced, but by then it was too late. The automaton stopped what it was doing and then, very slowly, raised its head to stare at Graves with those unblinking eyes.

  “It?” JD asked, in an icy tone. “Did I just hear you call me an ‘it’?”

  If JD’s earlier remark had surprised Graves, this last one practically knocked him off his feet.

  “Good God!” he swore, his voice trembling with what sounded to Veronica like excitement. “It’s self-­aware.”

  Beside her, Major Burke opened his mouth to say something, but JD beat him to it.

  “Of course I’m self-­aware, you idiot! How do you Americans ever manage to get anything done when all you do is go around spouting the obvious? It’s a wonder Tesla ever took you on as his student. I would have sent you back for remedial lessons in observation!”

  Graves took a few steps forward, staring at the automaton closely. Veronica could see the confusion playing across the man’s face as he tried, no doubt, to determine just how this was happening.

  “Come, come, Graves! I’ve never known you to be so slow. Surely you remember the time you and Nikola came to visit me at Cambridge?”

  Graves jerked in shock. “Highmoore?” he whispered.

  The automaton chuckled. “Were you expecting God himself? Of course it’s me! Now get over here and lend a hand with this while you tell me why you are in my country.”

  As Graves hurried over to his friend’s side, Veronica turned and looked at Burke. “You didn’t tell me Professor Graves knew Dr. Highmoore,” she said, with a hint of accusation in her tone.

  “Given that I didn’t know Dr. Highmoore existed prior to a few seconds ago, I would think you’d have to forgive me for that. What are we doing here, anyway?” he asked, glancing around the place with what seemed to Veronica to be a combination of awe and loathing. Given the clockwork arm he wore, Veronica guessed he’d had some personal experience in someone else’s version of this place and the memories weren’t all that pleasant.

  “Before leaving London, I need to fulfill my father’s last command, which was to remove a certain item from this place and keep it safe. It won
’t take long, I promise.”

  Veronica headed toward the two scientists, now lost in earnest conversation. Along the way she stopped at a table and picked up a satchel and several lengths of cotton packing material. She would need both to transport the stone.

  Reaching the two men, she leaned in and interrupted them, speaking directly to JD. “I need to access the vault,” she told him.

  It was as if he immediately forgot the conversation he’d just been involved in. He stiffened, nodded, put down his tools, and then waved one brass hand in a “follow me” gesture. He led her over to the blank wall that she knew actually contained the hidden entrance to the vault.

  The automaton turned to her and asked for the password.

  “Londinium has fallen,” she said clearly and distinctly, knowing that the rules governing the automaton’s behavior allowed for only one response. If she was misunderstood, the jig was up, as the Americans liked to say. They wouldn’t get another chance.

  Thankfully, JD understood her just fine. He nodded, once, and if that brass face could have changed expression, she was certain it would have smiled.

  Grasping his left hand with his right, JD gave a sharp twist and removed the entire appendage from his wrist, exposing a strip of iron that looked very much like an old-­fashioned skeleton key. The automaton then stepped forward and inserted the iron on the end of his wrist into the slot in the wall.

  Electricity sparked and spattered as the connection was made and the smell of ozone filled the air. Veronica waited patiently; she’d seen the vault opened once before and knew what to expect. After a moment, a door appeared in the center of the blank wall in front of her as the electrical current running across its surface countered the magnetic field that kept it concealed.

  She turned to Major Burke, said, “I’ll be but a moment,” and then pushed through the door before he could protest. She wasn’t worried about being followed; JD was under orders to prevent anyone but the royal family from entering the vault unless expressly ordered to allow it and she had given no such command.