Jeremiah Willstone and the Clockwork Time Machine

by Anthony Francis

  48.

  Jackson Truthsayer

  JEREMIAH OPENED HER eyes with a gasp. The light was not light, but a bright searing pain, creeping down her back and into her pelvis, a line of hot burning fire that slowly ate its way down into her leg, so hot that she imagined she could smell burning fat.

  “Ohhh,” Jeremiah said, tears flowing. “Blood of the Queen.”

  Doctor Jackson Truthsayer passed in front of Jeremiah, flinching as she did so. Jeremiah’s eyes refocused: she was still strapped to the frame, staring out past the tip of the ZR-101, at that massive column of a building in the distance.

  Her new eyes picked out sources of heat in the distant building: cook fires. Curious, she looked closer, and her eyes expanded the scene. She saw tribesmen and tribeswomen, herds, campfires and cooking, children playing—and what looked like a rape.

  Disgusted, she looked away from the dancing skeletons and got a dizzying view of a holey, transparent globe packed full of wires and crowned with a stack of thermionics. Her eyes refocused . . . and she found herself staring at Jackson.

  Jackson was not looking at her, studiously setting up a small reading area—chair, table, lamp, book—not three meters from Jeremiah. She left and returned carrying a tea service, and Jeremiah realized that Jackson planned to sit a vigil.

  For Jeremiah.

  “Jackson Truthsayer,” Jeremiah said, tilting her head at the woman to see her better. Her eyes refocused again, until Jackson’s skin was fully opaque and approximated human color. “Let me guess. Not Jay or Jackie, but JACK-son.”

  Jackson paused, then set the tea tray down.

  “I do answer to Jack,” she said. “And I do believe we may be related.”

  “You’re descended from my great-grandmother’s first cousin,” Jeremiah said, now staring at the pores of Jackson’s skin. But it felt rude, so she pulled back, looking curiously at that young-old face. “I know the branch. Puts you, or perhaps your mother, in South Wales.”

  “Very good—I grew up in Cardiff.” Jackson fretted at the tea serving. “Commander, my aunt served in that dreadful mess in Surrey, under a Commander Benjamin Willstone. Any relation?” Jeremiah drew a breath, and Jackson sighed. “Of course, that would be your grandmother—and Matthew Willstone was your mother, wasn’t she?”

  “Yes,” Jeremiah said. “Go on, say it—”

  “I’m so sorry,” Jackson said. “No-one should blame her.”

  “Yet people do,” Jeremiah said. “Did you have to sit vigil for your aunt?”

  Jackson drew a breath. “Yes. We didn’t have the term then, but Röntgen burns are a horrible way to die—well. I suppose you know that.” She shook her head. “Your mother’s example taught me a lot of respect for our soldiers—and contempt for the Peerage.”

  “This wasn’t the Peerage’s fault,” Jeremiah said. After that disastrous encounter in Surrey, her mother had been all that was left of her platoon—and only half of her came home. She’d lasted three weeks. “Her poor judgment got her whole platoon killed—”

  “Soldiers have been overrun from the day that they took up positions,” Jackson said, voice surprisingly strident. “Your mother’s misfortune was not her valiant service, but simply being one of the victims of the first Foreign attack recorded on a widely distributed aerograph disc—”

  “Her platoon were victims,” Jeremiah said, “of her attempt to parlay with the monsters—”

  “Soldiers have been killed under the flag of truce since the day it was invented,” Jackson said. “Believe me, I know. I always wondered why Berenice kept spinning that damn disc of the Surrey attack, watching it over and over again, and now I know that too—”

  “She was his sister,” Jeremiah said—and her mother, but she would not let this woman see her cry, and sought out anything she could to flip things back on the boffin. “How could you not know that about the man who bankrolled you? Let me guess, never been one to pry?”

  “No,” Jackson admitted. “Clearly, I should have. In fairness, he never mentioned it—but did compliment her valor: her waving that flag, standing before that death ray—he often says, ‘That’s what we need, a soldier who stands up to them.’ I think that’s why he picked the Scarab—”

  Jeremiah blinked. “I’m sorry, but what?”

  “The Scarab has enormous regenerative powers,” Jackson said. “They’re not infinite, but the adult form can heal from almost any wound. On one of my jaunts, I saw a Scarab-infested elephant withstand a death ray much more powerful than the one that . . . well. I think it inspired him, to craft a soldier who could stand up to anything the Foreigners threw at us. Yes, the Scarab eat into their victims’ brains, but they fanatically preserve their hosts—some even say, they love them.”

  “Oh, that I well know,” Jeremiah said, looking carefully at the expressions flickering across Jackson’s face—and still, Jackson planned to sit a vigil. “I appreciate the sign of respect you’re showing me, ma’am. I know this thing revolts you.”

  Jackson smiled tightly. “I . . . had not been trying to let it show.”

  “I know the workings of people as well as you know your machines,” Jeremiah said. Even if she granted her uncle’s sincere desire to save the world, he had a truly horrific plan, questionable allies—and where did this woman fit in? “Why in God’s name are you helping him?”

  “I swear on Mark Willstone’s grave,” Jackson said, “the Baron has never spoken seriously to me of upending history. He offered a few idle speculations when he first retained me, and we had a more detailed discussion after I built the Machine, but I quickly dissuaded him—you can’t shrug just one apple from a cart by upending it; you’ll lose the whole load. Until today, I had no inkling of what motivated his request. You have to believe, if I thought he meant to undo Liberation—”

  “He’s a renowned misogynist,” Jeremiah said sharply. “Or at least allied to their cause—”

  “If by that you mean he’s a Restorationist,” Jackson said frostily, “then I again remind you that I, too, am a Restorationist, and I dispute the idea that advocating the Restoration of Parliament over our current unelected aristocracy necessarily means calling for the end of Liberation—”

  “Have you met the Lady Bannerman?” Jeremiah said. “If you don’t know the Restorationist banner is a pennant for every misogynist who wants to overthrow the Queen just so they can put a king on the throne, then, ma’am, you do not know the people you have allied yourself with.”

  Jackson stared at her sharply, then gave in to a wry smile.

  “She’s quite a piece of work,” Jackson admitted. “Oh, those splutters when she learned I designed the Machine—yes, we are allied with renowned misogynists who have funded our necessary work defending Earth. True, Berenice puts on a good show for Bannerman and the Restorationist old guard—but if what you said is true, that was a mask he put on to protect you. He did everything in his power to keep you out of the line of fire, even if that meant trying to change the world.”

  “I don’t buy it,” Jeremiah barked—but . . . she could see it might be true. She looked away, as best she could, with the thing embedded in her neck. “Oh, bollocks. I’ve done the same thing, played the part I had to, to get the help I needed. He . . . just played the part so well—”

  “What is your relationship?” Jackson asked. “Uncle, yes—but what is he to you?”

  “Not a father figure, that’s certain,” Jeremiah said, then grudgingly admitted, “but . . . he was once. He stepped up to protect me after . . . well, after Surrey.” She closed her eyes, recalling all that . . . talk while her mother lay dying, and how much she’d idolized her uncle for sticking up for her, or for his example of service—that is, before he started discouraging her. “He took me in for a while after she passed, and I stayed with him until my father returned from hospital. Even before that, his d
aughter was my babysitter. She died trying out for the Falconry—”

  “As he said, he lost a mother, sister, wife and daughter to soldiering,” Jackson said. “And you wonder why the Baron went through a phase of opposition to the service of women? Have you considered that your personal conflicts with him have colored your judgment?”

  “God, I hope not,” Jeremiah said, laughing bitterly. At Jackson’s shocked expression, she clarified, as gently as she could. “Look what’s happened. If I’ve misjudged him, if he really is a good man . . . I’ve ruined myself for nothing. I haven’t even managed to save the Scarab from him.”

  “Save the Scarab—from him?” Jackson said. “Why would you—”

  “This thing, this monster on my back?” Jeremiah said.

  “I’m so sorry—”

  “This thing, it’s a person,” Jeremiah said, shocked to find herself defending it, but believing the words nonetheless. “You heard rumors the Scarab love their hosts; I tell you it’s true, from direct experience. The Scarab speaks to me, sings to me—”

  “Phantoms,” Jackson said. “Caused by interface tendrils, invading your brain—”

  “The Scarab has a map of the galaxy in its racial memory. It saw the cycle in your graph in an instant,” Jeremiah said. “It has a keen mind, and it sings to me. It’s scared and hungry and alone, but its first ‘words’ to me were a lullaby, a song of comfort—”

  “It’s a Foreigner,” Jackson said hotly.

  “It’s a victim,” Jeremiah said. “It’s here because my uncle called it down here to destroy its brain and take its power.”

  Jackson stared at her. “These things would take our world in an instant—”

  “Who told you that?” Jeremiah said. “The Black Tea?”

  Jackson leaned back. “Ah,” she said.

  “You can’t trust the Tea any more than you can the Scarab,” Jeremiah said. “Not even what they say about each other—the Scarab confessed that much to me. You know the Scarab eat creatures alive, and the Tea possesses minds. Really, what’s worse?”

  “The Scarab,” Jackson said.

  Jeremiah canted her head, which caused a twinge of pain. “I . . . I’m still myself.”

  “Are you?” Jackson said. “Your speech is starting to slur, and your emotions go from fire to flat in an instant. You’re too far gone to see it, but it’s already ruined your brain. You speak of it singing to you, empathizing with you. How do you know the Tea doesn’t sing to its victims?”

  The Scarab on Jeremiah’s back shivered, and she winced. Then it spoke.

  It doesn’t, the Scarab whispered, but she’s right. You have no way to know that. You have no reason to trust me, since I am destroying you. I am so sorry. This is forbidden, and this is why. I have no excuse.

  Jeremiah lowered her head, as far as the thing embedded in her head and neck would let her. “I don’t, of course,” she said. “And the Scarab admits you are right. It agrees there is no way to know, no reason to take its word—”

  “The Scarab admits?” Jackson stepped back suddenly, her face rigid. “It can hear me?”

  “And see you,” Jeremiah said, and Jackson stepped back further. “At this point, I think I’m using its eyes and ears.”

  “Don’t you mean that the other way round?” Jackson said.

  “I can see the wiring in your skull and hear the pounding of your heart,” Jeremiah said. “My eyes and ears were never that good.”

  Jackson’s hand shot to her head, to the crown of thermionics Jeremiah could see beneath her sharp high hat. Her hand convulsed, seizing a cable, and Jeremiah swore the woman was about to unplug herself.

  “You—you keep that thing out of my mind,” she said.

  “The Scarab can’t . . . can’t see that much,” Jeremiah protested.

  But Jackson wasn’t listening. Her young-old face, which moments ago had been a mixture of sympathy and fear, had drained white in real terror, and she began backing up. Her hand fell, brushed the teacart, which rattled, then she turned, as if to leave Jeremiah alone in the straps.

  Then a tall, rugged man with wiry grey hair and a dark soldier’s uniform stepped out of the shadows and seized Jackson. A half-cry escaped her lips, but before Jackson could call for help he raised a pistol to her lips and shushed her.

  ———

  “That’s far enough,” said Simeon, steam rising from hair singed white.

  49.

  Foolish, but Noble

  SIMEON WORE THE same dark uniform, but battered and singed—and he himself looked like he’d aged five years. Crow’s feet wrinkled the corners of his bloodshot eyes, grey streaks wove through his shaggy hair, in an odd echo of Jackson’s salt-pepper locks, and his mutton chops were frosted almost white. Wisps of white smoke still curled from his uniform, from his hair—and even from his skin, from mottled patches beside his ’chops like peeling sunburn.

  “That’s right, stay quiet,” he said with rough-throated menace, keeping the deadly dark metal of the mammoth pistol under her chin. “Now, Miss ‘Truthsayer’—”

  “It’s Doctor Truthsayer,” she hissed. She flinched as the gun barrel touched her chin, but she never lost her spine—or voice. “And those are time burns!”

  “Keep quiet,” Simeon said icily, pushing her chin up.

  “You need a physician,” she said. Her eyes squinted as he tilted her head back, but she still looked him over, terrified but undeterred by the gun. “How did you even get here? What, did you ride outside the Machine—”

  “A calculated risk,” he said.

  “Mother of God,” Jackson said, blanching. “That should have killed you—”

  “Damn near did,” Simeon said, sniffing, a bit of blood running from one nostril. With her new eyes, Jeremiah could see subtle damage over his whole body. “The air grew stale and thin outside that diving bell. Just now woke up in the landing gear. What did I miss, chica?”

  “Your people must want an invisible airship very badly,” Jeremiah said, “for you to gamble your life on your grip to the hull of a time machine.”

  “There’s more going on here than—” Simeon snapped, cutting himself off. He considered, then shook his head. “Besides, this was never about an invisible airship,” he said, cocking his head back at the vast spherical brass bulk of the Machine behind him. “It was about the Machine.”

  Jackson swallowed. “But how did you know—”

  “Where you have time travelers, you have to have a Machine,” Simeon said. “And Lord Christopherson was obviously a time traveler, or a man faking one—”

  “You always knew?” Jeremiah said. “But Marcus—”

  “Didn’t need to know,” Simeon said. “But he sure as hell confirmed it.”

  “But . . . but why did you grab onto the Machine?” Jackson pressed. “Even if you wanted it, surely you can’t have imagined that grabbing onto the Machine would have stopped it—”

  “Stopped it? I was trying to track it,” Simeon said. “After you betrayed us at the CDC, we got reports of a break-in at Roswell too. I guessed that Machine was heading back to your base, my cell had a GPS tracker, I tried to find a place to plant it, and got, well, stuck to the hull—”

  “The event horizon must have started to form,” Jackson mused, lost in thought. “You’re lucky you weren’t cut in half. Well,” she continued, with a bit of a smirk, “I think you’ll find we’re quite out of range of your global positioning system, sir; it is, after all, a time machine—”

  “I know that now,” Simeon said, smirking back, and Jackson blanched. “But thank you for confirming it. Now that we’re all on the same page, we’ll be piloting that Machine straight back to my home time, where I’m sure GPS, if not cell service, will work just fine—”

  “Not likely,” Jackson said—but she flinched a
s Simeon again lifted her chin with the gun. He stepped forward, looming over her, but Jackson set her jaw, balled her fists, and whispered, “I’m no stranger to threats, sir, far worse than you can deliver, and I repeat: not bloody likely.”

  Jeremiah swallowed. She didn’t know if Jackson realized the death threat was quite real.

  “How,” Jeremiah asked, “did you find the Machine, sir?”

  “I didn’t. I found you,” Simeon said, stepping back slightly from Jackson. “When we arrested your friends—that Patrick throws a hell of punch, by the way—we learned your side of the story, but too late to stop what went down at the CDC. I reviewed the security tapes for clues—and saw you nearly getting yourself killed trying to stop your uncle. Jesus. You’re crazy, you know that?”

  “Well, someone had to try,” Jeremiah muttered.

  “That was stupid—and noble,” he said, glancing at her while keeping Jackson under the gun. “The NSA has a hard-on for that airship, but I followed my nose. After that bug thing attacked you, I checked the police reports. I tracked one of a ‘weird bug lady going nuts’ to Piedmont Park, got there just in time to see them drag you into the Machine, and—hell. I had to try to do something—”

  “I admire your valor, sir,” Jackson said. “But still . . . damned foolishness.”

  “Maybe,” Simeon said, staring at Jeremiah. “Stupid, but I like to think . . . noble.”

  Jeremiah’s brow furrowed—and then she winced as something in the Scarab moved inside her. At last she said weakly, “Thank you, sir.”

  “Thank you,” Simeon said. “Now, if you please, Doctor Truthsayer—”

  But whatever he intended her to do, he never got to say. There were shouts and cries, an alarm sounded, and footmen began running up from all directions. First among them was Quincy the Walrus, brandishing two six-string crossbolts.

  “I swear to you, sir,” Quincy said, glaring at Simeon, who had swung Jackson around and was using her like a human shield, his gun again at her chin, “if you harm her I shall bludgeon you to death with your own pistol.”