The Return of the Discontinued Man

by Mark Hodder

  “But it looks identical my old ship,” the airman observed.

  “It is your old ship, sir. We have preserved it all these years. And it’s a good thing we did. Nowadays, that is the standard of technology available to the masses.”

  Burton and Lawless exchanged a puzzled look. The king’s agent said, “Has there been some manner of reversal?”

  “There has—a result of the failed uprising of the 2080s,” the Cannibal responded. They started across the grass toward the vessel. “The Empire was torn apart by seven years of rioting and civil disobedience. The people attempted to throw off the shackles imposed on them—literally, in the form of the bracelets—by the government. They failed. As a consequence of their actions, the division between the privileged minority and the underprivileged masses widened even farther. The latter were denied most of the advanced technologies. For them, it went retrograde. The more primitive varieties of steam machines were resurrected. The underclass has become very much like the workers of your own period, except they hardly know it.”

  “Do you mean they’re drugged?” Wells asked.

  “After a fashion. AugMems, which are injected at birth, enforce upon them an illusion of contentment. Their gruel tastes to them like honey, their relentless toil is imbued with false meaning, the filth in which they exist is perceived as comfort, and their empty lives are filled with distracting entertainments. They are happy because they are unable to recognise the severity of the limitations under which they labour.”

  A man and three women met them at the foot of the old Orpheus’s boarding ramp. Bendyshe turned to Lawless, Gooch and Krishnamurthy. “You three will not witness the truth. Think yourselves lucky. May I introduce Jacob Hunt, Carolyn Slaughter, and Rebecca and Ben Murray? They’re overseeing the refit of the ship. If you’ll accompany them, please.”

  “You won’t have any problems understanding the Orpheus, sirs,” Carolyn Slaughter said. “She’s hardly changed. Just a few additions.” She smiled at Lawless. “It’ll feel like coming home for you, I expect, Captain.”

  Lawless, Gooch and Krishnamurthy bid their colleagues farewell and followed the Cannibals into the familiar ship. Bendyshe led the rest toward the other. “The Mary Seacole. We’ll fly her to the Battersea airfield.”

  “It’s still there?” Detective Inspector Trounce exclaimed.

  “Greatly expanded.”

  “Mr. Bendyshe,” Wells said. “What did you mean by that comment, think yourselves lucky?”

  “Only that the truth is rather disturbing.”

  They ascended the ramp, entered the ship, and were escorted to its lounge where they settled on chairs and sofas and were served food and beverages by Bendyshe. Burton felt uncomfortable eating once again in such an informal manner, and suddenly longed for Mrs. Angell. You’ll not take your supper in the study, sir! Not again! If you want to eat, you’ll find your plate on the table in the dining room, where it bloomin’ well belongs!

  “You spoke of the privileged and the underprivileged,” Wells said to Bendyshe, “but what has become of the middle class? Back in 1914, I thought they were poised to take over the Empire.”

  “They were a relatively brief phenomenon,” Bendyshe answered. “They grew throughout the twentieth and twenty-first centuries but proved ungovernable. Before, in Sir Richard’s time, when there were simply the ‘Haves’ and ‘Have Nots,’ each individual knew his or her place in the world, and society, though not in the slightest bit fair, was at least stable. The middle classes were problematical. They always wanted more. They developed the notion that they could better themselves. They sought control. They felt they could be raised to the level of the elite, though they were rather less supportive of the idea that the lower classes might be raised to the middle. Such aspirations led them to instigate the failed revolution of the 2080s. Victory, they thought, was assured, for surely the minority wouldn’t employ brute force against a vast majority.”

  Burton said, “They miscalculated?”

  “Very. They didn’t know what we know, that those in power were under the sway of Spring Heeled Jack. The crackdown, when it came, was ferocious beyond belief. The constables killed millions. Literally millions.”

  “Still stilted pigs?” Farren asked.

  “Yes. Rather more mechanised than they were when they made their debut in the 1960s but essentially the same. They overwhelmed the rebellion, AugMems were employed to control the population, and the middle classes were forcibly thrust into the lower.”

  “I don’t mean any offence,” Sadhvi said, “but to which class do you belong, Mr. Bendyshe?”

  Bendyshe grinned and for an instant looked almost identical to his ancestor. “By virtue of our ability to evade government influence, the members of the Cannibal Club cannot be classified. We are fugitives. Ghosts. We inhabit the cracks in the system.”

  The floor vibrated, and a rumble signified the starting of the ship’s engines.

  Having been reminded of the original Thomas Bendyshe, Burton said, “You hinted at some reason for your resemblance to your—what?— great-great-great-grandfather?”

  “Seven greats.”

  “By my Aunt Gwendolyn’s woefully woven wig!” Swinburne cried out. “Have we really come so far?”

  “You are two hundred and seventy years from home. Yes, Sir Richard, I resemble him because my father’s DNA was manipulated to accentuate the Bendyshe inheritance, and I am his—my father’s, I mean—clone.”

  The floor tilted slightly as the Mary Seacole rose into the air and turned.

  “You’ve lost me,” Burton said. “I understand what DNA is, having briefly inhabited the mind of the sane Edward Oxford, but—”

  “That doesn’t help me,” Trounce grumbled. “I hardly understand a bloody word. You might as well speak in Greek.”

  Burton looked at his friend, thought for a moment, then said, “DNA is a component of the cells in your body. It dictates how you will grow, what you will look like, what strengths and weaknesses you possess, and to some extent, how you will behave.” He turned back to Bendyshe. “Correct?”

  “In a nutshell.”

  “But clone?”

  “Cloning involves the exact reproduction of DNA. I am not my father’s son. I am his replica, as he was of his father. All the current Cannibals are identical to their immediate forebears. You see, it was discovered during the twenty-first century that memories are inscribed into DNA and can be passed on to clones, though it requires medical intercession to make those from earlier generations available. My father had many of his ancestors’ recollections brought to the fore. They’ve been passed on to me. The Cannibal Club’s mission is one that spans centuries, so we felt it would be advantageous to have this continuity.” He stopped, peered at Burton, and went on, “For example, I vaguely recall your last meeting with my namesake. I believe we—I mean, you and he—took lunch at the Athenaeum and were interrupted by the arrival of a constable?”

  “Bismillah! How is it possible?”

  “It must seem miraculous, I know, but it’s only science.”

  “Only!” Herbert Wells cried out. “What miracles Man has achieved!”

  “Woman, actually,” Bendyshe corrected. “The inscription of memory and character on DNA was proven by Doctor Hildegunn Skogstad in 2093. She then went on to develop the techniques we use to retrieve it.”

  Swinburne scratched his head vigorously, crossed his legs, and uncrossed them. “I must say, old chap, despite the similarity of appearance, you’re considerably more subdued than the Tom Bendyshe I knew. You must count yourself fortunate. He was an utter ass. Loveable. But an ass. My goodness, I saw him—what?—last week and suddenly miss him terribly!”

  “I’m my own man,” Bendyshe said. “I’m writing my own memories.”

  “This must be what Patricia Honesty was referring to when she said we’d no longer need to take a new Cannibal aboard at each stop,” Burton murmured. “You’re better placed to advise us.”

 
“Yes, because I have the history you hopped over stored away in here,” Bendyshe said with a tap to his head.

  “I’m tripping,” Mick Farren declared, then clarified, “Hallucinating. You’re talking about stuff that’s so far out there it’s like, y’know, just plain crazy, man. And suddenly you’re all wearing the same clothes. What’s up with that?”

  “Democratic greys,” Bendyshe said. “Your AugMems are taking effect. We won’t block the government’s broadcast yet. I want you to see what they want you to see before you’re exposed to the truth.”

  “Riddles,” Trounce murmured. “I bloody hate them. It’s why I became a detective. To solve the bloody things until there were none left.”

  Burton blinked. A moment ago, the Scotland Yard man had been wearing a dark suit. Now he was in a grey and very utilitarian one. The chrononauts uttered cries of astonishment as they, too, experienced the odd transition. In a matter of moments, they were all attired in identical outfits. Yet they discovered that, when they looked down at themselves, they perceived their own clothes.

  “Much of the Empire is in the same way illusory,” Bendyshe explained. He stood and stepped over to a porthole. “We’re crossing the Channel. The Mary Seacole is registered as a freighter. She’ll not raise suspicion. We’ll land in fifteen minutes or so.”

  “Our agenda?” Burton asked.

  “I understand you were involved in the Grosvenor Square riot of 1968?”

  “We were, unfortunately.”

  “We’ll revisit the scene. Don’t worry. There won’t be any trouble this time. I simply want you to compare the present with what you’ve already experienced. On the way there, you’ll be exposed to the lie generated by the Turing Fulcrum. On the way back, I’ll reveal to you the reality of the world.”

  Fifteen minutes later, the chrononauts crowded around the portholes and gazed in wonder as dawn broke over the substantially expanded London of 2130. The city sprawled from horizon to horizon and stretched its thousands of towers high into the sky. It was a glittering, shining, blinking, reflecting, dazzling, multifaceted jewel cut through by the meandering Thames, the only part of it instantly recognisable to the travellers, though they eventually spotted the tiny-looking but apparently timeless landmarks of St. Paul’s Cathedral, the Tower of London, Tower Bridge, and the parks—Hyde, Green, Regent’s, and Hampstead Heath.

  Gone, though, was the Battersea Power Station. Where it had once stood, and extending across all of Battersea Fields, there was now a massive aerodrome. As the Mary Seacole sank toward it, Bendyshe said, “The station was demolished in 2040. It had been standing derelict since the old Department of Guided Science was disbanded in the 1880s.”

  “I thought it a permanent fixture,” Burton murmured.

  “Nothing is,” Bendyshe responded. “Only Time has dominion.”

  The rotors moaned, and the ship settled with a slight bump.

  Bendyshe ushered the chrononauts toward the hatch. “We’ll drive to New Centre Point then walk from there to Grosvenor Square. We’re sightseeing, nothing more. When we’re on foot, keep your voices low. Try not to be overheard. If any citizen hears you say something that can be regarded as suspicious or unusual, they will report it. Informing is a means to earn credit. The citizens of the Anglo-Saxon Empire are eager to denounce one another. Careless talk costs lives.”

  He opened the hatch. A vehicle was parked at the end of the ramp, a six-wheeled contraption of smooth curves and black glass.

  “Straight into the minibus, please,” Bendyshe said. “Our driver’s name is Odessa Penniforth.”

  He hurried them down and into the conveyance. As they settled on the soft, well-upholstered seats, a slightly built young woman with cropped blonde hair and wide brown eyes looked back at them and said, “Hallo! I can’t believe it. Are you really from the past?”

  “Miss Penniforth,” Burton replied. “We are practically dinosaurs.”

  Bendyshe pulled the door shut. “Let’s go.”

  Smoothly and silently, the car pulled away and headed toward Chelsea Bridge, which proved to be a different and much wider structure to the one Burton and his friends had known. It was clogged with crawling traffic.

  “Your cars appear more efficient than those from my time,” Farren noted, “but why are they moving so slowly?”

  “You’ll see,” Bendyshe said mysteriously.

  They crossed the river and drove in a north-easterly direction. Though the vehicle’s windows were opaque from the outside, they were transparent from within, and its passengers stared out in awe at the buildings that soared to either side of the road. High above the city, a network of thin bridges and walkways spanned the distances between the spindly towers, and many were hung with garish flags, vaguely reminiscent of the Union Jack but made much more complex by additional stripes and colours.

  The king’s agent gazed out of the window and wondered how he could fight an intelligence around which a whole society was forming. This London was virtually unrecognisable to him. Its citizens, who thronged the pavements in astonishing numbers—the population appeared to have increased tenfold—were all dressed in grey. The streets along which they moved, illuminated by electric lights despite it being early morning, were drab and characterless. There were none of the hawkers and performers of his time, no stalls or braziers, no dollymops or beggars, no ragamuffins or newsboys. It was all steel and glass and crowds of grey, grey, grey.

  And there were constables everywhere, tottering along on their stilts, their pig faces now hidden behind blank white masks, their limbs longer and more human in form than their 1968 or 2022 counterparts, so they much more resembled the Spring Heeled Jacks who’d assaulted him back in 1860.

  “It’s a nightmare,” he murmured.

  “You’re not wrong,” Farren agreed.

  They steered into Buckingham Palace Road, drove between Hyde and Green Parks—the whole area struck Burton as being oddly dark despite the clear sky and open spaces—and proceeded along the Mall. The thoroughfare, once the tree-lined haunt of the well-to-do, was now made distinct only by virtue of the park on the right. On its left, there were the same towers, the same glass, the same grey, and the same patrolling pig men.

  Burton shook his head in disbelief.

  This isn’t real. It doesn’t feel real. It doesn’t look real. It’s like a desert mirage, seemingly solid, seemingly close, but when you try to reach it, it moves away from you. What is going on here? What kind of Jahannam has the Empire become?

  Up Charing Cross Road to Tottenham Court Road, and there the vehicle came to a halt, stopping among many similar machines in a rectangular plot of land beside an extraordinarily tall cylindrical edifice that appeared to have been constructed from diamond-shaped windows and little else.

  “What ho! What ho! This all feels oddly familiar,” Swinburne noted as he clambered out.

  “New Centre Point,” Bendyshe said. “Built on the site of the old one, which was bombed during the uprisings. It’s a monitoring station.”

  “What does it monitor?” the poet asked.

  “People.”

  Odessa Penniforth leaned out of the vehicle and said, “I’ll wait for you here. Enjoy the revelation, everyone.”

  “I wish I knew what was going on,” Swinburne exclaimed. “My hat! Do they still have public houses in 2130?”

  “They do,” Bendyshe confirmed. “The government came close to making them illegal but then realised that people speak before they think when under the influence.”

  “Must you keep calling upon your hat, Algernon?” Trounce complained. “Confound it! Why does no one wear them anymore? I feel naked without my bowler.”

  Farren looked this way and that, frowned at the hissing traffic, and muttered, “Is that music?”

  “I hear it too,” Herbert Wells said. “In the background.”

  “Muzak,” Bendyshe said. “Ubiquitous, bland and characterless.” He said to Farren, “You thought rock and roll would conquer the world. I
t didn’t. Muzak did. It’s the universal temper suppressant. An insidious tranquilliser.”

  “A horrendous hum,” Swinburne added. “A detrimental drone.”

  Bendyshe nodded his agreement. “A puerile pacifier.”

  Farren gritted his teeth and fisted his hands. “Oh man,” he growled. “What I wouldn’t give for a Deviants gig, right here, right now!”

  “You’d be shot dead on the spot,” Bendyshe said.

  Farren suddenly relaxed and chuckled. “Yeah, that was always the risk when I got on stage.”

  Staying close together they moved away from the minibus and joined the pedestrians flocking into Oxford Street. To Burton, it felt just as if they were joining the protest again, except the people—rather than being a noisy and colourful gathering with a purpose—were nothing more than innumerable and near-silent citizens squeezing along a highway too narrow for such a dense crowd.

  Sadhvi walked at his side. Wells and Swinburne were just in front; both small, both squeaky-voiced, both looking eagerly back and forth, weathering the assault on their senses. Behind the king’s agent, Trounce and Farren made quiet comments to one another; an odd combination, a police detective and a proto-revolutionary, united by a mutual disapproval of this confusing future world.

  Guided by Thomas Bendyshe and jostled by the city’s denizens, they shouldered past glass-faced shop fronts and comprehended nothing of what was displayed within, saw peculiar vehicles slide by and had no understanding of what their function might be, read signs and posters the words of which signified nothing to them, and were, without respite, subjected to the steady beat and sinuous melodies of soft and relentlessly insipid “Muzak.”

  Burton looked into the faces of the people and observed an incongruous mix of contented smiles and shifty eyes. Some, who were either tall or short or thin or fat, somehow left him with the impression they were just the opposite of what they appeared, as if a slender passerby was secretly obese, or a diminutive person a covert giant. This, together with the unaccustomed cleanliness of the city, gave the sense that he was among actors and moving amid a stage’s cardboard scenery. There was no depth. No connection. No meaning.