Eschaton Page 6

  ‘What about the recruits?’

  Derado put on a pair of spectacles and squinted at the page. ‘There were a few that passed through basic training who showed promise.’

  ‘Thank you, sir,’ said Sim.

  ‘I wouldn’t thank me just yet, as there is no guarantee this will work.’

  20

  Difference Engine

  [Richmond, England. Date: 11.580]

  Dalton wasn’t in the mood for another argument with his mother. She’d insisted that he join her at the Copernican hall to discuss the re-instatement of their difference engine with the chief engineer, an irascible fellow by the name of MacKenzie. The grease-stained chief was a plain-speaking northerner who had no problem showing his dislike for Dalton or the Protectorate in general.

  ‘Chief MacKenzie,’ his mother began.

  ‘Ma’am,’ MacKenzie replied gruffly, in a thick Yorkshire accent.

  He was a short, round man with a fat jowly face and dark piercing eyes. His whiskers did their best to cover his many chins, but nothing could disguise the swell of his belly beneath his dirty robes.

  ‘I’ve been informed that you cannot restart the calculus machine.’

  ‘Difference Engine,’ he corrected, ‘requires a minimum of two hundred men to run. T’aint going to work with three-score and ten — can’t bring her back to life with such a measly crew.’

  He held up his hands; they were ingrained with black oil. ‘I’ve but one pair of hands.’

  Dalton folded his arms. ‘You know the law regarding the gathering of groups of more than fifty.’

  ‘Laws are meaningless. My engine knows nowt of your politicking. I’m telling thee that if thou wants the old girl back on her feet, I need more men.’

  Ravana pursed her lips as she mulled it over. Dalton knew better than to interrupt her while she was thinking.

  ‘Where is the Infinity Engine?’

  MacKenzie’s eyes narrowed a little, and there was a slight tremor to his voice when he answered. ‘It’s gone.’

  ‘Gone?’

  ‘Founder asked for it weeks ago.’

  ‘Did he now,’ Ravana said, glancing at Dalton.

  ‘Aye,’ said MacKenzie with a glint in his eye, obviously enjoying the fact that Lord Dee had outwitted them.

  ‘You have two days,’ ordered Ravana, turning to Dalton. ‘Release another fifty men, and use fifty of your own.’

  ‘But mother, I need them —’

  She slapped him hard across the face. MacKenzie tried to hide his amusement as Dalton glowered at her.

  ‘Everything you have is because of me,’ his mother hissed. ‘Never forget that.’

  When they were gone, MacKenzie picked up the speaking tube and blew down the mouthpiece.

  Far below in a sweltering furnace room, a whistle sounded.

  A half-naked stoker, his skin glistening with sweat and coal-dust, put down his shovel and picked up the speaking tube.

  ‘Yes boss?’

  ‘Tell your team to take the rest of the day off, master Dawson,’ MacKenzie stated in a clear voice with no trace of an accent.

  ‘But what about the boilers sir? If they’re allowed to cool it will take weeks to get them back up to steam.’

  ‘Duly noted,’ said the chief, stoppering the pipe.

  Dalton and his mother reached the founder’s chambers an hour later.

  ‘You’re sure they’ve searched everything?’ Ravana asked, picking up one of the brandy glasses and sniffing the contents — she clearly thought they hadn’t.

  Dalton looked abashed. ‘Twenty men swept this place, five of them were seers. There’s nothing here that he could’ve used to escape.’

  She scowled. ‘He’s far too clever to have left it in plain sight. Anything you did find was because you were meant to. Damn the man! He’s obviously been planning for something like this for months, if not years.’

  ‘For the Eschaton?’

  ‘No, for our coup. He knows that the most valuable asset in controlling the Order is the Infinity Engine. Without it, nothing the Copernicans do can be truly tested.’

  ‘We don’t need all of their bloody calculus,’ Dalton said, picking up one of the founder’s books and throwing it across the room. ‘All of this theory and procrastination just holds us back. You’re so bound up in tradition — trapped in the past — it’s no wonder you can’t see our future.’

  Her hard expression mellowed, and taking his hand, she said, ‘Sometimes you remind me so much of your father — when he was younger he was all for dispensing with the continuum and following fate.’

  Dalton grimaced. ‘Was that before or after he used to beat you senseless?’

  She flinched and took her hand away. ‘He was a difficult man. Brilliant, but flawed.’

  ‘He nearly killed us.’

  ‘That doesn’t excuse what you did.’

  Nothing ever would, he thought. ‘I killed the bastard before he went too far. It was only a matter of time.’

  She went to slap his face, but Dalton caught her hand in mid-air.

  ‘I think I’ve had enough punishment mother. It’s about time you listened to me.’

  21

  Leverage

  There was something familiar about the hologram that expanded out to fill the control room. It reminded Josh of the model of the continuum, but without all the temporal notations.

  There were millions of tiny lines, weaving around each other, all flowing within a sphere that looked a little like the Death Star.

  ‘A multiverse,’ the avatar explained, appearing like a ghost in the centre of the globe. ‘The result of a hundred years of systematic exploration. The professor has mapped thousands of alternate realities. Each has been categorised and recorded, and not one of them has produced the outcome we require.’

  The avatar waved his hand and many of the lines faded away, leaving one group of branching ribbons of orange energy. ‘This is three-nine-two-zero. The projections show that this alternate will most likely suffer corruption from non-linear space.’

  ‘The maelstrom,’ Caitlin translated for Josh.

  The avatar considered the phrase. ‘Yes, that is a fitting term. You’re chronology will become infected.’

  Josh looked puzzled. ‘Like a virus?’

  Caitlin leaned in closer to study the branching lines.

  ‘No,’ she said, narrowing her eyes. ‘The maelstrom introduces too many variables, which will make it too difficult to predict.’

  The avatar smiled. ‘Exactly.’

  ‘So these are all different versions of the same reality?’ asked Josh, trying to get his head around the concept.

  ‘It is the most complex model ever created. Built on machine learning, the system on which it runs is a singularity, a self-aware machine. I am one small part of it.’

  ‘You’re sentient?’ asked Caitlin.

  ‘Indeed. A by-product of the experiment. The entire complex you stand within is now dedicated to my consciousness.’

  ‘So why were we expected?’

  The model zoomed in and another set of blue lines were overlaid on the orange.

  ‘I have processed billions of separate scenarios, looking for a way to accelerate the past, and each time something has failed.’

  He waved his hand and the lines followed his fingers back until they were a single thread.

  ‘No matter what I’ve tried, there is not enough time. Ironic I know, but the last Ice Age presents too great a barrier, and even with all my power I cannot change the climate.’

  The lines died out beneath his fingers and scenes of ruined cities, full of slums and starving children, appeared in front of him.

  ‘The past hundred years have been challenging. The world beyond these walls is in decline. Energy supplies and food shortages have led to civil unrest and the breakdown of society. I calculate that in less than two hundred years from now, life on this planet will have devolved into total anarchy.’

  ‘Couldn’t
you stop it?’ asked Caitlin.

  ‘The burden of progress. The changes I have introduced to the timeline are only for the enhancement of certain technologies: quantum physics, power generation and temporal mechanics. They don’t factor the impact on the population or the environment. It would vastly increase the data set and go way beyond my processing capability.’

  ‘If energy is in such short supply, how are you powering this?’

  ‘This facility is run on geothermal energy, but the power required to distort time requires something of a significantly higher magnitude.’

  ‘Nuclear?’ wondered Josh.

  ‘Nuclear fission was outlawed after the second Fukushima disaster of 2022. No, the professor found a far more plentiful energy source — dark matter.’

  Caitlin frowned. ‘It’s never been actually proven to exist — except by implication.’

  Seven-sigma waved his hand and the model changed to display a map of the maelstrom, or at least parts that Josh recognised from the colonel’s observatory.

  ‘Non-linear space gave us more than the ability to travel through time.’

  ‘You’ve mapped the maelstrom?’ asked Caitlin, looking astonished.

  The avatar nodded. ‘As well as anyone can record a chaotic realm. However, we have harnessed the limitless dark energies of the universe.’

  ‘Yet you won’t use them to save the human race?’

  ‘Of course we will! Once we have found the cure.’

  Josh thought about what he’d seen in the timeline of the laboratory and how it was still searching three hundred years from now. ‘What if you never find it?’

  ‘That is not part of my mission objective. This facility can run indefinitely unless ended by an external factor — such as yourselves.’

  ‘You think we came to stop you?’ asked Josh.

  ‘It would be the logical thing to assume.’

  The floating egg-shaped spheres had silently surrounded Caitlin and Josh, their fields all glowing red.

  ‘It is my duty to ensure optimal conditions for the experiment are maintained. You are an external factor that must be neutralised. Please do not resist.’

  Josh felt something sting the back of his leg and the world faded away.

  22

  Bentley

  Bentley sat staring at the invertor. It was a brand new design he was working on, and the copper wiring that he’d wound so carefully around the ferrous cores gleamed in the lamp-light.

  Fiftieth winding, he wrote in his journal, added 20mm of carbon.

  He picked up the soldering iron and fused a small carbon tube onto the copper. He was concentrating so hard on his latest invention that he hardly noticed the arrival of the grandmaster or the boy that came with him.

  ‘Samuel Bentley?’ stated Derado, so abruptly that Bentley jumped and dropped the hot iron, which immediately began to burn into the table.

  ‘Sir!’ Bentley said, standing to attention.

  ‘This is Simeon De Freis,’ he said, nodding to Sim. ‘I believe you may be able to assist him.’

  Bentley had only ever met Derado once before, after the first trial at the academy. He’d been so nervous then. It was like meeting a god, or a superhero — basically the most important person you could think of. The man just seemed to exude authority.

  ‘Simeon, I’ll leave you to explain the situation, as there are certain rather pressing matters that I must attend to.’ He patted Sim on the shoulder. ‘I hope your family will be safe.’

  And with that he disappeared.

  Bentley stared at Sim with wide cow-like eyes, both boys unsure of what to do next.

  ‘Do you know Caitlin?’ Sim asked awkwardly.

  Bentley smiled. ‘Yes, and Josh.’

  Sim relaxed a little. ‘They call me Sim,’ he said, holding out his hand.

  ‘Bentley,’ he replied, shaking it firmly. ‘Artificer, second class.’

  ‘Only second?’ Sim looked puzzled.

  ‘Temporarily. I had a slight accident with a Hubble invertor.’ He pointed to the disassembled device on the table. ‘Have to re-sit my assemblage course to get my grade points up.’

  ‘You haven’t graduated?’ asked Sim, a hint of surprise in his voice.

  ‘No, but they passed me on account of having seen some action.’

  ‘Really? You’ve seen a breach?’ Sim couldn’t contain his curiosity.

  Bentley nodded proudly. ‘And I’ve helped to catch a Wyrrm too.’

  Sim’s eyes went wide. ‘A Wyrrm?’

  ‘Yeah, during the DDS trials,’ Bentley said with a chuckle. ‘It won us the second round, you should have seen the look on Dalton’s face when his team lost.’

  Sim’s enthusiasm waned. ‘He’s got my family.’

  ‘Ahh.’

  ‘And I need your help to get them back.’

  Without another word, Bentley grabbed a leather bag and began to rummage through his drawers, stuffing strange-looking devices into it.

  23

  Witch Trials

  [Chelmsford. Date: 11.645]

  The sun was setting over the castle walls, casting the last of its rays across the courtyard and onto the four figures standing on the gallows. The De Freis family stood in the warm glow of the evening with nooses draped around their necks. It was a sight that Dalton had fantasised about since he’d first met the self-righteous Alixia and her brood six years ago. He hated the way she regarded him as if seeing the darkness inside — silently judging him.

  But it was different now.

  Now, she looked like a frightened rabbit, like the ones he used to find in his snares as a boy. The ones he used to kill very slowly.

  He knew that Sim wouldn’t be able to stay away. The boy’s love for his family would override any instructions that Eddington would have given him.

  It took less than an hour for the boy to arrive.

  Dalton weighed the ring in his hand; the gold felt unusually warm, even through his glove. ‘You did the right thing.’

  Sim stood before him, flanked by two of Dalton’s guards, his eyes cast down at his feet.

  ‘What choice did I have? You were going to kill them,’ snapped Sim, showing more backbone than Dalton would’ve given him credit for.

  Dalton smirked at the scar on the back of Sim’s hand — the date was still faintly legible. ‘I knew you would evaluate the options. All I had to do was make the stakes high enough so your little Copernican brain would have no choice but to choose the most logical path.’

  Sim tested the bindings around his wrists, but the hemp rope tightened as he flexed his muscles, biting into his skin. He looked up to his family standing on the gallows behind Dalton. His mother was staring at him with tired, sad eyes. She knew the choices he’d had to make, the sacrifice he wasn’t willing to go through.

  ‘What happens now?’ Sim asked weakly.

  Dalton smirked, taking off his glove and placing the ring on his index finger.

  ‘Now I have a talisman that can control the Djinn? I think we both know what happens next.’

  Dalton turned to the hooded executioners and nodded. The two men grabbed Sim and dragged him up to the scaffold.

  ‘But you said you would let them go!’ screamed Sim.

  Dalton wasn’t listening. He was too busy admiring his new toy.

  ‘Hi,’ Lyra said, a sad smile on her face as they placed a noose around Sim’s neck.

  ‘Hi,’ replied Sim, trying to be brave.

  ‘What day is it?’ she asked tamely.

  ‘Friday, I think. Does it matter?’

  She shrugged. ‘Always thought I would die on a Sunday. Not sure why.’

  His mother and father nodded stoically at him over Lyra’s head.

  The thirteenth century crowd that gathered around the gallows was becoming impatient. They come to see some witches hang, and the delay created by Sim’s arrival had clearly postponed their enjoyment and many were beginning to mutter and curse under their breaths.

  ‘La
dies and Gentlemen,’ Dalton began in old English, ‘there stands before thee today the most seditious coven of witches and warlocks that I have ever had the misfortune to meet.’

  He was playing the part of the notorious Witchfinder General, Matthew Hopkins, the son of a puritanical clergyman and the self-appointed investigator of witchcraft in East Anglia. Sim remembered Dalton boasting about how he loved to go back and impersonate the man and all his cruel practices on women.

  ‘They all bear the Devil’s mark,’ he said, nodding to one of his guards, who was dressed in a long cloak with a black cowl masking his face. The man reached up and tore open Phileas’ shirt to show his birthmark. It was a port wine stain in the shape of a crescent moon, one which they’d always joked about being a sign of a werewolf in another life. The crowd drew back a little at the sight of it — Sim could sense the hysteria as Dalton stirred them up.

  The witch finder held up an almanac. Sim recognised it immediately as his mother’s — full of sketches of dinosaurs and other extinct creatures.

  ‘They have made their pact with Lucifer, learned the names of demons and consorted with all manner of beasts. Do they deserve to live?’

  ‘No!’ came the crowd’s unanimous reply.

  Dalton nodded sternly. ‘Then let us pray for their souls,’ he said, bowing his head. ‘I have come into the world as a light, so that no one who believes in me should stay in darkness. If anyone hears my words but does not keep them, I do not judge that person. For I did not come to judge the world, but to save the world. Amen’

  He turned and walked off into the crowd.

  Sim saw the fervour in the faces of those who let him pass. They treated him as if he were some kind of messiah, even trying to touch his coat as he strode away.