The Sensaurum and the Lexis

by Richard Dee

  “I think it’s a foolhardy idea,” said Jessamine, “and I think you should consider carefully before you embark on it.”

  “Langdon saved my life,” said Alyious simply. “He pulled me from the gutter; I would have been a dead man if he had not. I owe him more than life. I have had a new start. If this might help him, I think I must do it.” Alyious stood. “I’m off to prepare,” he said. “Forget this conversation. If anyone asks, I have gone out for a walk; tell them that I might be some time.”

  Chapter 30

  Next morning, at fast-break, Alyious was absent. Jackson and Jessamine exchanged glances, nobody else had noticed. They repaired to the classroom, where they were addressed by Langdon. “There are reports of a disturbance in the city in the middle of the night, a crowd suddenly formed, marched on a bank and attempted to rob it. When the Watch arrived, the crowd broke and dispersed. It sounds very much like they were under control, when the Watch arrived, that control was removed. The Watch treated it as a random crime, the people they detained all claimed to have no knowledge of why they were in the vicinity, or what they had been doing. The Watch had no choice but to let most of them go, they had insufficient cells to hold them all, and on what charges?

  “Of course, they knew nothing about our investigation; we are fortunate that one of them was belligerent and assaulted a Watchman. He has been kept overnight. When I learned of these events, I went to the Watch station, where I was able to examine the fellow. I found that he had a scar on his neck, which he said was the result of a recent visit to his doctor.”

  He paused for breath while they digested this, then delivered the rest of his news.

  “Not only that, last night I found that there has been a message received, it has been passed to the government in secret, they have now sent it on to me. It warns that the events on the aerialway and in the Locals are just the start. More and worse will happen unless certain demands are met. The events at the bank were not mentioned but it’s obvious to me that the same man is involved, I have suggested that this is a continuation of the pattern that we have been tracking.”

  “It must be the work of Rodney,” said Jackson. “Did he have the arrogance to sign the message?”

  “He did not,” said Langdon. “The sender simply refers to himself as the Master of Automata.”

  “But it must be him,” added Jessamine. “This name is chosen to make him feel important, to create an aura and confer status on his evil plan.”

  “I agree; he is the most likely, on what I have seen. It’s frustrating but I have been instructed again that I cannot move against him or his factory. As I said before, I’m sure that he has friends in the upper reaches, they bleat to me about requiring more evidence. In any event, the government are not minded to pay such a ransom, it would set a dangerous precedent. At the moment, they are asking him for more time, we know not if their response has been received.”

  “Then what can we do?”

  “Our priority is to find the second word, the one that will stop the people being controlled. We also need to know what this Master’s final plan is; I’m guessing the overthrow of the government in his favour will be only the start. Meanwhile Oswald has started building his own device and determining how it is activated. He says that it will take him some considerable time, to build and test, but he has everything he needs.”

  The rest of the morning was spent in devising a plan to search the city for anyone carrying one of the boxes. Jackson was about to depart for Clarry’s with new instructions when Langdon received a message. Jackson was stopped at the gate and instructed to return.

  “There has been a change of plan,” he was told. “There are reports of a mob attacking a bank in the city; I want you both to attend, along with Fairview. Take Oswald and his device. If needs be; if you cannot find and stop the instigator, you may have to use it.”

  Oswald held the box tightly as they raced down the road in the mobile, Jessamine at the wheel. She swerved expertly through the traffic, avoiding trams and pedestrians without slowing, sliding the large vehicle around sharp corners. “Have a care,” cried Oswald from the rear seat, “my detonator is a piece of delicate scientific equipment.”

  “Why do you call it that?” asked Jackson, glad to have a reason to turn his head from their progress, which must surely end in disaster.

  “I named it so, for the effect it had on your boots,” said Fairview. “Like the blast of a gas-shell, detonating over our enemies.”

  “And which it may soon have on some poor innocent’s head,” added the flustered scientist. “I have not been outside for months, now I’ve hung from the aerialway and been flung around in a mobile, all in a few weeks.”

  “Ah but you love the excitement, don’t you?” said Jessamine, as they slid by the side of a flailing Exo-man and entered a side street. “We’re here,” she muttered as the mobile screeched to a halt and they composed themselves.

  They finished their journey on foot, arriving at a position opposite the bank, which was situated in a quiet square. They could see a throng of at least fifty had surrounded the building. A group were at the doors, which were shut, the mob were pounding on them, the rest were attempting to climb in the windows and throwing stones at the panes, which were shattering. There were about ten Watchmen standing in a group, without a senior man present they seemed unsure of how to proceed.

  “What can we do?” asked Oswald. “Why are the Watch not taking control?” He gripped the box tightly, Jackson realised that there was something different about it. “How is it driven, without its steam supply?” he wondered.

  “Well,” said Oswald, “I have replaced that with a hand crank.” He unfolded a handle from a recess in the side of the box. “This will now spin the magnet directly.”

  Before they could do anything else, a large group of Watchmen led by two officers entered the square. The men already present jumped to attention as Fairview and the others shrank into the alley. Orders were given. The Watchmen surrounded the mob and instead of trying to stop them, let them continue their vandalism. They ripped at the fabric of the building with little effect, stones shattered a few more windows but the door held firm. Strangely, the Watchmen were ignored, the people never once looking behind them.

  “We must find the man who is controlling the mob,” whispered Fairview and as a group, they left the alley and searched around the periphery for anyone who was sporting a box. Arriving back at their starting point, they had failed to locate them.

  “It may be that the range of the box is large enough to keep the operator safe,” opined Fairview, “but it stands to reason that he will have been close enough to see what is going on and modify the orders he sends.” Try as they might, they could not find him.

  “He must be in one of the buildings, watching from a window or on a roof,” said Jessamine.

  As the people were oblivious to the Watchmen, so they in turn were unaware of the band behind them. “There must be an outer cordon of Watchmen,” suggested Fairview, “as no-one else has ventured into the square, we are caught between the two rings. I propose that you set off your device and see the effect. It’s cruel but it will send this Master a message, that we know his plans and have a way to stop him.”

  “If you are sure,” said Oswald. With reluctance he moved a switch on the box and cranked the handle. There was no noise from the contraption. By the reaction of the people attacking the building, a statics charge must have been detonated. Without a sound, save a series of sharp cracks, accompanied by spurts of blood, the crowd fell to the ground as one. The Watchmen all jumped back in alarm, then they turned and looked at Fairview and the others.

  “Who might you be?” asked one of the officers, his abundant moustache moving like two small rodents as he spoke. “Was that your doing?”

  “I’m Special Investigator Fairview, from the Ministry.” Fairview offered him a small card. The officer studied it for a moment.

  “Very well,” he said, “and are these you
r men?” He glanced at Jessamine. “Beg pardon, your agents?”

  “They are,” Fairview agreed. “And we had an inkling that we could stop the mob, using our new device.”

  “Have you seen?” prompted Jackson, with inappropriate enthusiasm. “Three Watchmen are also lying dead.”

  They regarded the scene; the Watchmen were sprawled on the ground, surrounded by a spreading pool of their life’s blood, just as the folk around the bank’s doors and windows. Beside them, one of the surviving Watchmen was being noisily sick in the gutter.

  “How do you explain that?” the officer asked. “Why are some of my men and my superior afflicted, why indeed is anyone harmed by that box you carry?”

  “I’m sorry,” said Fairview, “but I cannot tell you, the information is secret and privileged. Suffice it to say, it is a matter of national importance.”

  “Very well then,” replied the officer, his face anguished. “But those men were friends of mine, one of them my superior. What do I tell their families?”

  “Form your men up,” ordered Fairview. “Leave the outer cordon in place. I will address you all,” said Fairview.

  Once the men were assembled he addressed them, “A mob of anarchists was defeated today. And some of you died in the attempt. You will not, under pain of treason, mention anything about a box, or how they died. Do you understand?”

  The men muttered but nodded.

  “Very well,” added Fairview, “remember your promise today. Now, sir,” he turned to the officer, “you will keep the outer cordon in place until we have disposed of the bodies. Jessamine, go to Clarry and get him to bring a large mobile, these dead are coming back with us.”

  “That’s not all,” said Oswald. “I heard an explosion from a window, up there.” His hand shaking, he pointed. There was a broken pane on a second floor of one of the buildings overlooking the square; a man’s body was half out of the opening, a smoking object hung from his neck, swinging gently. As they looked the body fell, hitting the ground with a thud. The box smashed into pieces. Oswald hurried to it, bending to examine the mess of flesh and metal.

  “It’s one of the control boxes,” he said. “The fall alone did not break it; its workings had already been burnt beyond repair by the detonator.”

  “After the concussion had finished off its operator,” said Fairview. “It seems as if the detonator not only disrupts the filaments, it must also set up a vibration in the generator and overload that as well. It’s a pity it is so comprehensively destroyed, we need a box that we can examine.”

  “The threat is over then,” said the Watch officer. “Now this device and its operator are no more.”

  “Only for a short time,” said Fairview. “I expect the news of what happened here will travel, which is why I want to remove all evidence. Unfortunately, we still have no lead to the whereabouts of the person in control of things.”

  Chapter 31

  They spent the rest of the day transporting all the bodies to the orphanage. It was a grisly job, requiring Clarry and a fleet of covered carts, each allowed through the growing crowds around the Watchmen’s cordon. By the time they had finished it was evening and they were dismissed, leaving Oswald the unpleasant task of examining them through the night.

  Alyious had still not returned. Jessamine had looked in his room, but everything was untouched. “Langdon will be sure to notice his absence soon,” she said to Jackson as they collected their food.

  Sure enough, as soon as Langdon saw them, he asked straight away. “Where is Alyious?”

  The pair kept quiet about the conversation they had had, instead repeating the words of the boy himself.

  “The last we saw of him, he said that he was going for a walk.”

  Langdon looked suspicious. “Come on; you all whisper plans together, that was over a day ago, have you not seen him since?”

  “We have been kept busy carrying Oswald’s grisly acquisitions to the basement,” she said innocently. Langdon was about to say more, a call from Oswald tore him away.

  The morning passed swiftly, Oswald reported privately to Langdon, what he said was unknown but soon the corpses were loaded back onto the mobile, save those of the Watchmen. A little while after it departed, a Watch-wagon arrived and took them away separately. Langdon called Jackson and Jessamine to the basement, when they arrived Fairview was also present.

  “Oswald tells me the men all died from injuries to the neck,” he said, “consistent with the destruction of the filament. That is no surprise, what troubles me more is the presence of the device in Watchmen.”

  “We have investigated that,” said Fairview. “According to records at the Watch-house, all three had recently attended a doctor in the city, all with symptoms of neuralgia. They were invited to take part in a trial of a new treatment.”

  “And you think that this doctor was connected to the information that we recovered from the Prosthesium?”

  “We are still investigating that. It will take time to consult with the families and make connections. I cannot just go down to his consulting rooms and accuse him of working for Rodney.”

  Just before luncheon, Oswald was disturbed by a buzzing from an apparatus on his desk. He had returned to the less grisly task of making a Sensaurum box, using the plans Jackson had recovered. He wanted to create a statics field, like the controlling one, that would make the filament immune to commands. The work was going well, he had all the parts needed, everything except time and a means to test it once completed.

  ‘Someone is using the keypad to gain access’, he noted, ‘although I know of none that are abroad.’ He watched as the code was entered. ‘It’s Alyious, there is his code.’ But the entry stopped before the final digit of the date was entered. He waited for a moment, but there was no more action. ‘It must have been children playing,’ he thought and turned back to his task.

  Five minutes later, there had been no further action at the gate. He had a memory, Alyious had been absent, Langdon had remarked on it. He hurried to tell someone.

  On his way, he saw Jessamine. “Alyious is at the gate,” he told her, out of breath from the exertion of the stairs. “The keypad on the door was activated minutes ago, with his code. At first I assumed it was children playing; before the numbers could be completed, they stopped. There has been nothing more. I remembered Alyious was missing and I’m concerned.”

  “I will come with you,” she said, calling for Fairview. They went to investigate. Outside the gate, they found Alyious. He was slumped to the ground, a trail of blood led from the keypad to the floor, as if he had been typing the number with his last efforts. He was curled into a ball and quite dead.

  “His body is not yet cold,” said Fairview when he arrived. “He can only have expired a few short minutes ago. We must take him inside.”

  When Fairview lifted the body, he found scrawled in blood, the letters r-e-v in a shaky hand, drawn on the ground. It must have been daubed with Alyious’s last actions in this life. There was also part of a leather harness under the corpse.

  There was shock at the news, replaced by an anger that it had happened. “Alyious must have had a Sensaurum and was bringing it to us when he was caught,” said Fairview. “It has been ripped from him and he has been savagely stabbed, several times.”

  “Could it have been common criminals, or must we again point the finger at Rodney?”

  “It seems likely that he was followed, to see where he had come from, perhaps they thought him a Watchman or other official. Once they had the place, he was killed.”

  “Then will Rodney or his lackeys now know where we are based?”

  “Quite possibly. What he was writing, it’s clearly important, can ‘rev’ be the word to release control?”

  “There is only one way to find out, we must await the next attack and rush to it, find the Professor or whoever is operating the equipment and take him alive. We can then persuade him to tell us.”

  Langdon paced the room, once he had been i
nformed. “That is a setback, he should not have disobeyed me,” he said, as if Alyious was somehow at fault. “Where did the idea come from?” he asked. “Does anyone know?”

  Sometimes the cold nature of Langdon startled Jackson. Alyious had given his life to try and help yet Langdon blamed him for disobeying orders.

  However, it seemed that Langdon’s wrath had been tempered. “There is no time for criticism, another message has been received. ‘Since you will not pay, or even acknowledge my messages I will show you more of my powers, fear me. The Master of Automata’.”

  “Does he not know that we can stop his men now, by use of the Detonator?”

  “I’ve been considering.” Langdon had clearly come to a decision, yet by his demeanour, all could tell that it was not one he relished. “Alyious has shown the way, through his insubordination. I have decided to go against the government, because I feel that they are wrong.”

  “What do you mean, move against the Prosthesium?”

  He nodded. “We need the box. Oswald is going as fast as he can on his countermeasures; the problem is, we know not how much time we have. You two will have to do it; I have no time to spend getting others familiar with the layout of the factory. You will have to go and take a box. If the professor is present, Jessamine, you will have to distract him, seduce him if you must. While they are engaged, Jackson, you must make off with a box. Together you will return and give it to Oswald. It will help him in his search for a solution.”

  Jackson felt ill inside as he heard Langdon’s orders. It was as if Alyious was speaking to him from beyond the grave, ‘I warned you,’ he heard him say in his head.

  “Jackson,” Langdon repeated. “Pay attention. What can you remember about the shape of the room?”

  Jackson cast his mind back; his memory sharpened by the methods taught him by Fairview.