Jeremiah Willstone and the Clockwork Time Machine

by Anthony Francis

  “Even the largest ripples only travel within their own stream,” Quincy said. “Whatever the paradox was that erased me back home, it never propagated to this reality. I’m a . . . what did you call it, Jack, a walking ghost of probability, alive here, but forgotten—erased—back there.”

  “The Machine lets you travel in time,” Lord Christopherson said, “but it doesn’t help you make changes to your own reality. The ripples of your changes propagate back until they begin upending the decisions you used to make your journey, and ultimately upend you—”

  “You literally can erase yourself,” Jackson said. “It isn’t that two versions of one person cannot coexist; quantum mechanically, they do not coexist, with probability zero. But the Machine takes a chunk of matter out of the causal stream. When you’re traveling, you’re no longer affected by past events, only by your immediate history in the Machine. And travel to a new reality, you’re out of the old causal flow and into a new one. Two separate equations that do not interfere.”

  “Here, we aren’t just Foreigners adjusting to an alien environment,” Quincy said. “We’re fish dropped in a new stream, insulated from changes in our original timeline. Right ‘now,’ whatever that means, all of Victoriana could pass away, and we would not be affected in the slightest—”

  “We have some . . . notes on the matter,” Jackson said. “We believe I may have had another research partner, in addition to Quincy; another scientist. We don’t know his or her name, but there are influences, handwritten notes, even equipment, cached away for the struggle.”

  “The struggle?” Jeremiah asked.

  “The struggle to retake Victoriana from the Tea,” Lord Christopherson said. He’d been talking quietly to some footmen while Jackson and Quincy explained, and Jeremiah had gotten a creepy feeling. “This is our base of operations in a war that spans realities—”

  “Our port of refuge,” Jackson said, “in a crosstime storm.”

  “Capital,” Jeremiah said, eyes narrowing. The truth appeared to be precisely what Marcus’s friend Rosalind had guessed: her uncle’s goal in changing history was simply to save the world from Foreigners. Wonderful if true, and Jeremiah desperately wanted to set her suspicions of her uncle to rest . . . but there was one last thing she needed answers about, gnawing at the back of her mind—or, more literally, at the back of her head. “So . . . how does the Scarab fit into all of this?”

  “We need weapons against the Tea,” Lord Christopherson said simply. “The Tea itself does not use technology; it simply exploits the technology of the races it conquers, which paradoxically makes it almost unstoppable: it can use anything—except Scarab technology.”

  “Why not?” Jeremiah said, even as she realized the answer. “The Tea, it burned me—”

  “A defense mechanism,” her uncle said. “The Scarab are the most advanced of all the races that have come to Earth and the only ones we know ultimately beat the Tea—by sealing away their technology, which can only be accessed by a native member of their species—”

  “Or, since true natives are half a galaxy away,” Jackson said, “by a creature who has gone through an elaborate maturation process, one designed to prove the authenticity of the creature calling itself a Scarab—and purge the host of any trace of the Tea.”

  “That’s why the most advanced creatures in the galaxy begin life so . . . dependent,” Lord Christopherson said. “The larva is going through an elaborate call-and-response with its own technology, trying to prove to itself that it is not handing Scarab technology to the Tea.”

  “So what now?” Jeremiah said. “What’s in store for me?”

  Lord Christopherson stared at her sadly. “The thing will keep eating into you,” he said. “It’s trying to merge its nervous system with yours, but as for the rest of your body . . . the larva must store up enough food to mature. We will . . . well, we’ll try to keep it alive through the pupal stage; then, while it is dormant—at that instant in which it is weakest, yet simultaneously is reaching the full bloom of its power—we will extract it, lobotomize it . . . and let it implant in me.”

  At the word lobotomize the thing inside her screamed in horror. The Scarab fully understood what everyone was saying around her now and was frantic to escape its fate. Jeremiah clenched her teeth as the thing’s limbs, now embedded in her, tore at her flesh. When the thrashing stopped, she let out a breath, then spoke.

  “So I’ll die,” she said, “and it . . . it will become a vegetable. Your slave.”

  “If we can keep you both alive long enough, yes.”

  “Will that even work?” Jeremiah asked.

  “Almost certainly. Even lobotomized, the adult Scarab will reflexively attempt to repair its host,” Lord Christopherson said, motioning to a footman. “The stopgap host—the cow—was what the Americans call transgenic. As part of our deal with their government, that cow was specially bred with a copy of my germline code. You share a quarter of that code with me. In a way, you’re an even more ideal host than the cow was—except for size. That . . . we can fix.”

  There was a mild prick of pain, and Jeremiah looked over to see a footman inserting a needle into her arm. Tubes led to a huge bag of amber fluid, and she swallowed. “You’re going to pump me full of . . . what, blood plasma, and hope that I survive?”

  “Intravenous feeding,” Lord Christopherson said. “If we’re liberal with it, we might feed you enough to keep you both alive through the pupal stage.”

  “Oh, God,” Jeremiah said.

  “Don’t worry,” Lord Christopherson said. “You won’t feel it.”

  “Oh, God,” Jeremiah said. “Uncle, if you sedate me—I’ll never wake up!”

  “No,” Lord Christopherson said quietly, holding her cheek. “No, you won’t. Understand, I have to do this, and not just because you’re too dangerous to leave awake, even under guard. It’s because . . . I can’t bear to see you suffer.”

  “Uncle!” Jeremiah screamed, as a footman approached with a needle.

  ———

  Lord Christopherson nodded to the footman. “Put her out.”

  47.

  Falling For You

  GOLDEN LIGHT FLASHED before Jeremiah’s eyes, and she was falling, falling towards the sun. Not falling: flying, soaring through air and song in a vast cavern, sailing down towards a bright light that shone like a sun . . . but looked like a great golden heart.

  Around her in an endless swarm sailed butterflies, no, dragonflies, a glorious flying chorus of four-winged angels made of gleaming copper and glowing gold, bodies larger than humans, wings larger than sails, songs larger than life, all indescribably beautiful and uncannily familiar.

  She felt herself buoyed up by more than the music and looked down to see herself held aloft by spindly limbs wrapping around her. Instinctively she knew, just knew, that these were the limbs of the Scarab eating into her, and that this world was dream.

  But when she looked back, she could not see the truth. The Scarab was a bug monster, a dragonfly with the head of a prawn wrought from copper—and yet all Jeremiah could see was a beautiful Valkyrie, a phoenix burning with fire, singing to her a wordless song of love.

  Her burning guardian angel let her song end, then let go, and Jeremiah found herself drifting down through the air as the Scarab glided beside her. They detached from the swarm and settled down upon a glittering mossy knoll jutting from the wall of the cavern.

  She sat in the cool, springy moss, naked but for her shift, which now flowed around her like the idea of gossamer. The Scarab knelt beside her, and together, they looked down at the glittering swarm curling lazily around the great glowing heart beating at the center of the chasm.

  These are our homes, the Scarab said, her familiar whisper now sounding clear within Jeremiah’s mind. Our swarms spanned the skies of our homeworld, but as the core of the Galaxy
warmed we were driven underground, then out into the dark. The walls of these crèches became our new skies.

  “How . . . how do you know this?” Jeremiah said. “I thought you were a larva—”

  Racial memories, writ into the hull of my egg, the Scarab said. And personal memories, from the crèche. I was forged there, body and soul, then split: my soul asleep in the heart, my body divided into probe eggs that launched to the stars, towards the zone of the Galaxy which is still habitable. The scattered parts of my body sailed twelve thousand years in the dark . . . until one of them called my soul to it, when it found a suitable home.

  “So that is what you want of us?” Jeremiah asked, right hand resting limply on her knee. She dared not move. She knew this was not real and didn’t want to break the spell and feel the thing inside her. “To claim Earth’s skies as your own?”

  No, the Scarab said, staring down at the vast pulsing heart. Jeremiah stared with it: the great orb was indescribably beautiful, a Fabergé egg the size of a mountain glowing from within—but as it pulsed with life, Jeremiah began to wonder whether she saw the heart with her eyes, or just through the Scarab’s. Perhaps that is what the Tea wants, but we last ruled the skies a billion years ago. We have learned to carve a niche for ourselves without destroying the worlds we inhabit. The crèches are our homes now.

  “Then why did you come here?” Jeremiah said.

  Trickery, the Scarab said, bitterness creeping into the whispers of the Valkyrie. The crèche heard whispers they thought were from my body, signals that yours was a suitable world. My soul leapt after my body, a second messenger to the stars. But when at last I rejoined myself . . . I found myself born into a cage.

  “I’m . . . sorry,” Jeremiah said. All this time the Scarab’s left arm had been draped about her waist, and her eyes flickered down to see the end of that arm fully merged with the hand of her own. Her eyes bulged at the metal filaments invading her flesh. “But . . . but what do you want of me?”

  We want bodies, the Scarab said.

  “Just like the Tea,” Jeremiah said.

  We are not like the Tea, the Scarab repeated. We fled the fire at the core of the Galaxy; it came out of the darkness beyond its rim. Our hearts beat with the glory that lights the stars; it is made of the dark shadows that bind the galaxies together. We earned our knowledge; it steals secrets. We coexist; they consume—

  “And both of you fight,” Jeremiah said, “over this . . . galactic habitable zone.”

  The Scarab was silent.

  Yes, the Scarab admitted. In ways we are opposites; in others, we are precisely parallel. We both had to flee our homes as the universe changed. We both find the same worlds attractive. And for both of us to live on a new world, we must bond with its native life—though for us, the process comes with . . . sacrifices.

  In horror Jeremiah glanced aside to see a vast, creeping thing the size of a whale that had crept up beside her. Her sense of horror deepened as she realized in appearance the thing was not a horror: it had the rainbow warmth of a caterpillar and wore the wings of the Scarab like a dainty tiara. The fear she felt was from the Scarab: that tiara meant there was a Scarab bonded with the creature—a Scarab that would never again fly. She couldn’t decide whether it was sad . . . or awful.

  “So, like me,” Jeremiah said, “you are a bird doomed to life on the ground.”

  Fear not, the Scarab whispered, I shall fix your inner ear. It paused. Not that it is likely to matter.

  “You mean,” Jeremiah said, “I’m going to die.”

  Not just you, the Scarab said. Both of us.

  The great caterpillar suddenly launched itself, floating away like an airship. Cradling its sides was a vast metal frame, not the burning gold and copper of the Scarab itself but silvery mechanism, glittering with blue lights like fireflies.

  Jeremiah watched it go, then turned away. “Why should I believe anything you say?” she asked hotly. “You can’t keep your story straight even in your own concocted dream. That monster seems to have no trouble flying—”

  In a frame? Do you feel like you’re flying, caged in glass on the bridge of the Prince Edward? the Scarab hissed in her mind. Do you think Dame Alice feels like she is running, bound in the arms of her steam-powered chair, no matter how fast it can roll?

  Jeremiah’s eyes bugged. “How do you know these things about my life?”

  I am in your mind, the Scarab whispered. I am learning your thoughts—

  “You mean you’re eating my brain!” Jeremiah said.

  Not just eating, the Scarab said, and Jeremiah felt a twinge of guilt from the thing. Learning. Merging. Augmenting—

  “Stealing. Destroying,” Jeremiah said. “Replacing!”

  You can see, the Scarab said. You, Jeremiah, can see with my eyes.

  Jeremiah’s breath caught. She wrinkled her nose, imagining she could feel wires crawling just beneath the skin; then she let her eyes refocus on the flying caterpillar, her perception zooming in on its details with the same ease it had when the thing sat next to her. Then she saw through it, as she had seen through the Prince Edward in the park, through frame and flesh and bone to the stars.

  “Like I never have before,” Jeremiah said. “Like I never thought possible before. I could never have imagined seeing through these eyes.” Never before in her life had she truly appreciated her eyes. She hated saying it . . . but, “Thank you.”

  Thank you, the Scarab said. You have a truly magnificent brain—

  “Then why are you eating it?” Jeremiah said. “What, is it a magnificent dessert for you—”

  I am not eating your brain, the Scarab said. Except . . . certain parts that I had to replace. The brain is a Scarab’s interface to its host, the foundation of their bond; we weave ourselves into them as we mature. Perhaps the Tea thinks we eat brains because we attack the brain first, but that is simply to get control of the host’s body—

  “Didn’t work so well with me,” Jeremiah said. “Wait, my arm—”

  Was all I could manage, the Scarab said. Your cerebellum alone is larger than the entire brains of our typical hosts. When I first attacked, I simply didn’t have enough filaments to control more. Besides, and now the Scarab sounded petulant and embarrassed, your brain is vast and confusing. In its folds, I . . . got lost.

  Jeremiah laughed, despite the horror. “Watch out, miscreants! Even the surface of my brain lays mazes to confound my foes.”

  The human brain truly is a glorious machine. Your foveae are a wonder, never mind your folded cortex—you’ve more brainskin for your fingertips than surface skin! We never take hosts sentient enough to speak. I could never have imagined a host like you. One that I could talk to, not just bond with.

  “You really don’t take human hosts?” Jeremiah said.

  It is forbidden to implant in an intelligent creature, the Scarab said sharply—perhaps, a bit guiltily? And not just forbidden—dangerous. Most intelligent creatures are . . . not large. Merging with a creature your size means . . . means certain death for a larva.

  “So,” Jeremiah said. She could feel it was true. “So we are going to die.”

  There was a pause. Yes, the Scarab said.

  “Even with the transfusion?” Jeremiah said.

  I cannot feed just on agar, no matter how much is pumped into you. I need living cells, with animal protein, the Scarab said. You simply do not have enough flesh to feed me as I grow. My mind will continue to merge with yours, but my body will consume your body . . . and then we will both die.

  Jeremiah stiffened. Then she turned away from the thing, as best she could with her left forearm merged with its own. She glared at the wires erupting from her skin, at the scales of metal covering her fingers.

  “You are not flesh,” Jeremiah said hotly. “I’ve seen you. You’re metal and fire, copper and
liquid gold. How can you live, feeding on me?”

  We are all made of the same atoms, all forged from the stuff of the stars, the Scarab said. Some metals in my wings and ions in my blood are not in your body, but I can synthesize them with enough energy.

  “My uncle,” Jeremiah said. “He must have had a plan. Some way to get you that energy—”

  Which I could exploit as an adult, the Scarab said. Not as a larva—

  “A larva, feeding on me!” Jeremiah said. “If the Scarab are so bloody advanced, why haven’t you found a better way?”

  We are all made of the same atoms, the Scarab repeated. All following the same rules. But atoms by themselves don’t have power, or even identity; only their patterns. Everything that is a thing starts as the simplest possible pattern of atoms. Everything that gains power has some moment when it started with none.

  Jeremiah was silent.

  My starting moment was birth in a manmade incubator, decanted from an elixir of fire already prepared for me into an egg stripped of its guts, the Scarab said. One day my blood may run with the elixir of fire, but I have not yet grown the organs which will let me synthesize it on my own, and I cannot until I pupate—

  “Damn it,” Jeremiah said. “You’ve killed me, ma’am.”

  Ma’am, the Scarab chittered. Well, I’m sorry . . . Dragonfly.

  Jeremiah convulsed. She knew the thing, on some deep but wholly unwanted level. She knew how it knew her nickname, knew it meant it tenderly, knew that everything it said was sincere. She knew that the thing that was killing her loved her, in some strange twisted way. But Jeremiah didn’t care, because in the end she was being killed by one of the monsters she’d pledged her life to fight.

  “You haven’t earned the right,” she hissed, glaring at the thing through eyes slitted against the ever-increasing light, “to call me by that name.”

  The angel of copper and gold stared back at her out of those shrimp eyes, expression alien and unreadable.

  ———

  You may not hear me use it again, it said, as the light grew and grew until even its gold fire was washed out. The tranquilizer is wearing off.