The hip-flask hit the stunned Edison directly in the centre of the accordion-like device strapped to his chest. Sparks flew out, and he jerked backwards, arms spasming. Lights flickered all over the device, and suddenly I could hear a hissing, rushing sound like one of those pneumatic tubes they have in department stores to move money and receipts around. The tubes plugged into Edison’s scalp all flexed in unison, as they filled with air. All of them, at the same time.
Edison screamed.
Something flew from Mrs Bridges’s hand towards Tesla, catching him in exactly the same place on his chest, and with the same result. His eyes bulged, he dropped his weapon, and I swear—I actually swear—that I saw his head start to expand.
Edison’s eyes were red-rimmed and weeping now. His hands, which had been clutching at the device, seeking to switch it off, reached up to take hold of his head. He almost seemed to be holding it desperately together.
Tesla felt to his knees, crying out in agony. Edison staggered backwards, mouth gaping in an ‘o’ of incredulity.
“Two whisky hip-flasks?” I asked Mrs Bridges. “That seems a little excessive.”
“I hate to drink alone,” she said.
“Get out of here.” I turned and nodded towards the doorway. “Send a message to the British Embassy. Get a clean-up crew here.”
“Of course.” Three decisive steps towards the door she turned to look at me. “What about you?”
I indicated the cannon-sized heat ray and the armoured suit, off to one side. “I think it would be poetic justice to use their inventions against them, don’t you?”
She gazed at the two men, who were writhing in indescribable agony. “I think it would be a blessing,” she said. “Try to retrieve the flasks, if you can. It’s very good whisky, and I think we may be needing it.” She glanced back at me, and I could see the same expression on her face that I thought I had on mine. “The things we do for England,” she said, and left.
I turned back to the room. Both Tesla and Edison were screaming now—high-pitched sounds, more like animals than humans. I moved over to the suit and tried to work out how to get into it.
I had some clearing up to do. For England. For the Queen.
About the Authors
Stephen Baxter published his first science fiction novel in 1991. His The Massacre of Mankind (2017) is a sequel to HG Wells’s The War of the Worlds.
Based in Scotland, Emma Beeby is best known as the first woman to write Judge Dredd comics in its almost 40-year history. Emma has also written titles such as Doctor Who; Judge Anderson, and a team up of Wonder Woman & Catwoman for DC Comics. Her first creator-owned comic series, the biographical story of notorious World War One double agent and exotic dancer, Mata Hari, was published earlier this year by Dark Horse Comics. Her writing has been nominated for awards by the Writers’ Guild of Great Britain, the British Comics Awards, and Emma won Best Writer and Best Newcomer in the 2015 Scottish Independent Comic Book Awards.
I. N. J. Culbard is an award-winning graphic novelist and has adapted Conan Doyle, Burroughs, Wilde, Chambers, and Lovecraft. He is an artist on original series such as The New Deadwardians (Vertigo), Dark Ages (Dark Horse Comics), Wild’s End (Boom Studios), Brink (2000 AD), and Brass Sun (2000 AD).
Nathan Duck has been teaching English and media to the youth of the West Midlands for over 25 years. A life-long science fiction enthusiast, he likes nothing more than to walk his dog, Luna.
Ian Edginton is a New York Times bestselling author and multiple Eisner Award nominee. His recent titles include the green apocalypse saga The Hinterkind for DC/Vertigo; Steed and Mrs Peel for BOOM, the steam- and clock-punk series Stickleback, Ampney Crucis Investigates and Brass Sun for the legendary UK science fiction weekly, 2000 AD; game properties Dead Space: Liberation and The Evil Within for Titan Books and the audio adventure Torchwood: Army of One for the BBC. He has adapted the complete canon of Sherlock Holmes novels into a series of graphic novels for Self Made Hero, as well writing several volumes of Holmes apocrypha entitled The Victorian Undead. He has also adapted H. G. Wells’ The War of the Worlds as well as several highly acclaimed sequels, Scarlet Traces and Scarlet Traces: The Great Game. He lives and works in England. He keeps a Bee.
Jonathan Green is a writer of speculative fiction, with more than seventy books to his name. He has written everything from Fighting Fantasy gamebooks to Doctor Who novels, by way of Sonic the Hedgehog, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Judge Dredd, Robin of Sherwood, and Frostgrave. He is the creator of the Pax Britannia steampunk series for Abaddon Books, and the author of the award-winning, and critically-acclaimed, YOU ARE THE HERO—A History of Fighting Fantasy Gamebooks. He also edits and compiles short story anthologies. To find out more about his current projects visit www.JonathanGreenAuthor.com and follow him on Twitter @jonathangreen.
Andrew Lane has written thirty-eight previous books, including eight books in the Young Sherlock Holmes series, two in the Lost Worlds series, three in the Crusoe series and four in the AWOL series. He has also worked extensively in the extended universe of BBC TV’s Doctor Who, and he is currently developing a new series (Secret Protector) directly for a German publisher.
James Lovegrove was born on Christmas Eve 1965 and has published around sixty books, among them Days, Untied Kingdom, Provender Gleed, Redlaw, and the Pantheon series, including New York Times bestseller The Age of Odin. His acclaimed Sherlock Holmes pastiches include The Stuff of Nightmares and Gods of War and a Holmes/Lovecraft mash-up trilogy The Cthulhu Casebooks, and his Firefly tie-in novels include Big Damn Hero and The Magnificent Nine. He reviews fiction for the Financial Times and lives with his family in Eastbourne on the south coast of England.
Maura McHugh lives is Galway, Ireland and has written three collections: Twisted Fairy Tales and Twisted Myths—published in the USA—and The Boughs Withered (When I Told Them My Dreams) from NewCon Press, UK. She’s written comic books for Dark Horse, IDW, and 2000 AD, and is also a playwright, screenwriter, and critic, and has served on the juries of international literary, comic book, and film awards. Her monograph on David Lynch’s film Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me was nominated for a British Fantasy Award for Best Non Fiction. Her web site is http://splinister.com and she tweets as @splinister.
Mark Morris has written and edited almost forty novels, novellas, short story collections and anthologies. His script work includes audio dramas for Doctor Who, Jago & Litefoot and the Hammer Chillers series. His recent work includes the official movie tie-in novelizations of The Great Wall and (co-written with Christopher Golden) The Predator, the Obsidian Heart trilogy (The Wolves of London, The Society of Blood and The Wraiths of War), the anthologies New Fears (winner of the British Fantasy Award for Best Anthology) and New Fears 2 as editor, and a new audio adaptation of the classic 1971 horror movie Blood on Satan’s Claw, for which he won the New York Radio Award for Best Drama Special.
Chris Roberson is the co-creator with artist Michael Allred of iZombie, the basis of the hit CW television series, and the writer of several New York Times best-selling Cinderella miniseries set in the world of Bill Willingham’s Fables. He is also the co-creator of Edison Rex with artist Dennis Culver, and the co-writer of Hellboy and the B. P. R. D., Witchfinder, Rise of the Black Flame, and other titles set in the world of Mike Mignola’s Hellboy. In addition to his numerous comics projects, Roberson has written more than a dozen novels and three dozen short stories.
Adam Roberts is the author of twenty novels, many short stories and various other kinds of writing. He is Professor of Literature at Royal Holloway, University of London, and his literary biography of H. G. Wells is forthcoming from Palgrave. He was inducted into the Royal Society of Literature in 2018, at which event he was given the choice of signing the membership book with either: Byron’s quill, George Eliot’s nib or T. S. Eliot’s fountain pen. That he chose without hesitation to use the latter has much to say about the form of his story for this anthology.
Dan Whitehead is a write
r of comics, prose and the story bits in video games whose past credits include Frankenstein Texas, Wulverblade, Hex Loader and the children’s historical time travel novel Atlanta meets the Cotton Slaves. He once smuggled a joke about crisps into an official Star Wars book and is exactly as tall as he appears.
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