by Mark Hayes
I passed at least one painting of a pharaoh with a hook nailed into his eye in order to run a rubber-coated electrical cable. If I was of a philosophical turn of mind that would have made for a wonderful metaphor for the Empire’s occupation of Egypt no doubt. For my sins, I found it more amused me than anything else. Though I suspect Miss Wells didn’t appreciate the mirth it caused me, considering the sharp look she gave me.
After we had trekked what seemed like a mile or more underground, we came to another of those rusted iron doors, this one with two Sleep Men standing as silent guardians. Their heads turned in unison to watch us walk towards them. Causing me to miss their ridged brethren we had pasted earlier.
Gates fumbled for a while with a large bunch of keys, all fidgety and nervous. This was either his normal state, or we disturbed him as much as he disturbed me. I got the feeling once more that he was a man unused to dealing with people, but then I got the feeling he wasn’t quite able to understand what people were. This, in hindsight, would explain much about William Gates.
Eventually, he got the door open, which was all to the good as far as I was concerned. The ominous, brooding presence of the men in heavy coats was playing with my own nerves, and I was sick of dim-lit corridors. If truth be told, I was sick of being in the dark in general. If nothing else, beyond those door there may be some answers at least.
Ignorance is not, I find, bliss. Not knowing what is going on is bloody dangerous in fact. Like a footman walking in on Old Iron Knickers helping her old flame to fit a new ring. It could get you in a world of trouble.
“In here then, both of you, come on now,” Gates said, still fidgeting strangely as he ushered us through the door. He pulled on a large contactor switch as he did so, bringing the lights on in the room beyond.
The room was large. A couple of dozen yards or so square, with four columns forming a square in the centre of the room where there was what at first looked to be a stone desk set up. Between the far two columns, some scaffolding had been installed, built with the same lack of care as the doors and lighting in the passageways. Large disc shaped things were bolted to it. Dozens of them. The discs were like brass lined portholes and of all different sizes. In them were all kinds of images, a different view in each.
The images themselves were clouded. Occasionally static would interfere with them, making them drop in and out of focus. It was like looking out upon a hundred different places at once through goldfish bowls. I remember wondering in an amused way if this was how Gates saw the world through his own jam jar thick glasses. It’s strange what thoughts will cross your mind at times like that.
Gates ushered us towards the stone desk. It was only as I got closer I recognised it for what it actually was. A relic as old as this complex itself, which had been put to a new use. As this dawned on me, I wondered if the corpse it once contained was still inside the sarcophagus, wrapped up tight in its bandages, its inner organs still in jars elsewhere in this strange complex. I couldn’t decide what would have offended me most, if it had been removed from its resting place, or if it still lay within while its tomb was being used as a reading desk.
I pondered on which ancient king may lay within it. Waiting to start his journey to the afterlife. ‘Poor sod,’ I thought to myself. ‘You die, they pull your brains out through your nose, stick your heart in a jar, then some bastard comes along a few thousand years later and doesn’t even use a coaster when he puts his coffee mug on your tomb.’
After this moment of strange reflection, I found myself drawn to stare at the different pictures on the porthole devices. I was fascinated by the way they moved, the way the images seemed to each be from the perspective of an individual. Most were hard to place, they could’ve been almost anywhere, but in others, I saw images that sparked recognition.
A view of a street in London, one just off King’s Cross, I was sure, because I recognised a public house that swung into view. A tatty little place but one that did boast a decent hand pumped ale.
Another was of Venice, if I am any judge, the Grand Canal, I suspected, though the steam-powered gondola floating past was a bit of a clue in its case.
Yet another I recognised as somewhere in America from the flag of the confederates hanging tattered and bullet-ridden from some white stone mansion or other.
There were plenty of others that sparked no recognition in me. But they were often inside buildings or looking out across a table at someone or other. A couple were just black and featureless, yet the little lights on the side that flashed would suggest they too were working.
Then I saw one that made me pause, in the corner of the array. The view from which was of the array itself. It took me a moment to realise it was a view from close to the spot on which I stood. I thought the camera must be on the back of the column to my right, but as I started to turn to look, I realised to my horror the image was panning with me.
“What are these?” I asked Gates, already a little certain of what the answer would be. The view was disturbing. I walked towards the porthole, and once I got close enough my own reflection stared back ghosting on the glass, then ghosting again inside it. A double vision of my own reflection, one inside the other, then as I got closer still I saw those reflections going further back, into infinity. A view of my reflection from my own eye in the screen.
“It’s just something I am tinkering with. I’ve not got it working perfectly yet, the reception varies sometimes, and the delay factor needs some work,” Gates replied with the enthusiasm of a boffin for his creation.
I looked sharply at him. The bells that his name rang earlier suddenly chiming loudly.
“The spider,” I said. It wasn’t a question, though Gates didn’t seem to realise that.
“Arachno-Oculus,” he corrected, and in doing so he almost sounded like he was chiding me.
“Spider, Mr Gates, it’s a god damned spider!” I snapped back in return.
Miss Wells looked as uncomfortable with the conversation as I was with the thought of the thing in my eye. This was the man responsible for its creation. I can’t pretend I wasn’t tempted to do some bloody violence upon him at that moment. The fact that there was a lady present didn’t do much to dissuade me a great deal either, truth be told. Ungentlemanly it might be, but as I’ve mentioned, I’m not so much the gentleman as I pretend to be.
Besides which, I suspected Miss Wells wasn’t the kind of wallflower to be offended by acts of violence. The way she’d been looking at Gates since we arrived made me suspect she might well hold the desire to thrash the snivelling little swine herself.
“I will admit some similarities in the design, Mr Smyth. Indeed it was how we came up with the name. Latin, you know. Spider eye. Clever, isn’t it. I suppose if the Arachno-Oculus is a spider as you say then this is its web. Well, this and the host array in London. With it we can monitor The Ministry’s ‘ahem’ web of agents throughout the wide world, if you’ll pardon the pun.” He chortled at his own joke.
No one else did.
“I really don’t see why that upsets you so much. There is no need to be antagonistic. Indeed it would please me greatly if you could temper your language. I am you see, unused to profanity,” Gates said, suddenly looking a little flustered.
I growled at him, but in a moment he was somewhere else, lost in a well of thought that had little to do with the rest of the conversation. Ignoring me completely now he muttered something under his breath. As if he was trying to grasp an idea that had just come to him. “Web World Wide… hum… yes, that sounds, no, it’s not quite right, yet somehow… perhaps… you see it is an iatrical web of connections… of course, yes, there are connections, but it’s a web, a web, an iatrical web or a net maybe… damn it why are names so difficult to get right?”
Whatever he was trying to figure out, it clearly had nothing much to do with reality. A place William Gates seemed to pass through only on the way to somewhere else most of the time. He was lost in his own erratic mind, which was getting us nowhe
re. An observation that Miss Wells seemed to share, as she coughed loudly before she started to berate the greasy haired pipsqueak.
“I think, William, that Mr Smyth’s antagonism towards you stems from having one of your creepy little devices inserted within his eye against his will,” she snarled, which had the desired effect of pulling him back to the conversation. Her voice contained a level of spite to it that almost shocked me. Not that I’m unused to women of a forceful nature. Indeed, I’m rather fond of them if truth be told. I grew up surrounded by strong-willed women in the East End, and I’ll admit to having an affection for a certain forthrightness about a lady, in some quarters at any rate. I just didn’t expect such a tone from Miss Wells here. I was however gratified to realise she was doing so in my defence; it gave me a little hope for some further mutual understanding down the way.
Gates was clearly unused to strong women, or possibly women in any regard. So became flustered once more.
“Well,” he stammered, “I, I, I can’t be held responsible for, for that, and while I apologise if that is the case, Mr Smyth, it really is not my fault. I just design the devices. I have no control over what your masters do with them. As such, I feel I really must protest…”
As far as I was concerned he could protest all he liked, it wasn’t going to dissuading me from giving him a good lamping if I had half a chance. Oh, I know it may seem petty of me. What he was saying was perfectly true. I couldn’t hold him to task for the actions of The Ministry. Any more than it would make sense for some half rotten plague victim to beat up the inventor of the virus bombs after they were used on Washington at the end of the second American civil war. But I’d be the last person to hold it against anyone who survived that holocaust wanting to plant one on the eminent bastard who did. Just like I wouldn’t have lost a lick of sleep if I had given William Gates a black eye right then.
Even small victories are victories after all.
Indeed, I was in the process of pulling back my fist to give him a good old East End hello when there was a crackle of static from over near the sarcophagus, followed by a voice I’d never wanted to hear again. Speaking out of the ether.
“Mr Smyth. We would take it as a kindness if you did not strike the good professor Gates. I would have to censor you, and I deplore the need for violence over something so trivial.”
To be more precise the voice came out of a radio speaker. But crackly though it was, I could still detect the self-same nasal smugness about it. It grated on me somewhat, as I am sure you can appreciate. I was still more than tempted to ignore its utterings, after all, it might have been the only chance I ever got to pummel Gates, and I sorely wanted to. But regardless I relaxed my arm, collected myself and turned towards the direction of the voice. Memories of the pain Gates’s little pet in my eye could inflict were enough to keep me in line, as I had no doubt our friend on the other end of the speaker would have no compunction against using it on me if I didn’t relent.
Some victories are, after all, too small.
“Mr M, so pleased to hear from you, old boy. I can’t tell you how much I’ve missed our conversations,” I said to the air as I turned. Then was unsurprised to see the voice’s owner’s visage filling the largest of the porthole screens. He winced ever so slightly at the ‘Mr M’ as if it had left an ill taste in his mouth.
Which did much to improve my mood.
“Front and centre, Mr Smyth, if you would be so kind, and you as well, Miss Wells. Gates, go play with some of your equipment elsewhere if you please. Let’s keep you out of Smyth’s reach for a while, shall we?” M said through the speaker.
It was hard to tell from the image where he was, beyond he was sat behind a desk in an office somewhere. In London, I assumed, given in the background there hung a picture of dear old sticky Vicky herself, but for all I knew he could be in the next room along.
“I should really monitor the reception to make sure the delay across the iatrical-web doesn’t become too distorted…” Gates uttered, making no effort to move, other than to fiddle with some equipment on the sarcophagus.
“The what?” M asked, looking irritated.
“The iatrical-web, it’s what we are calling this now,” Gates replied. Clearly pleased with his new found word.
“No!” M replied sternly. “I do not think we are.”
“But…”
“No, Professor Gates, now off with you.”
“But. The reception…”
“No, Gates, I am sure we will be fine, so off you go now,” M said, pleasantness returning to his tone, but pleasantness which did nothing to disguise the dismissal.
“Well if you’re sure…”
“Quite sure, thank you,” M said and ushered him off with a wave of his hand.
Gates wondered off, sloped is perhaps another word, and in a couple of moments had left the room.
Silently I watched him go and regretted the lost opportunity to rearrange his nose.
“Irritating little man,” muttered M after Gates had gone, in what was the most human display I’d seen from him. A definite chink in his civil service armour. I almost smiled at this realisation.
“I don’t suppose you could tell me what all this is about, ‘Mr’ M?” I asked after a moment, which was redundant I suspected. It was far and away the most likely reason I and my delightful companion had been dragged below the sands, but it gave me a sense of self-determination to ask.
“You don’t know?” Miss Wells said, having the decency to sound surprised.
“Unfortunately,” M replied for me with an unexpected amount of regret showing in his voice. “We required Mr Smyth be on his way rather urgently and we did not have the liberty nor the time to give him a full briefing. Other actors are on the stage and time has become an imperative.”
The other actor’s part of that statement worried at me. I suspected I’d met one of them already in the form of a particularly vicious little Not-in-any-conceivable-way-actually-a-maid. With that in mind, other actors meant… “The Americans…”
I uttered that thinking I did so under my breath, but apparently the microphones in there could pick up almost everything.
“Among others, yes. Affairs move swiftly, as they are want to do these days. There are the Russians as well of course, but most regretfully there are also certain ill-informed sections of the British government that have taken upon themselves to instigate some actions also,” M told us.
The latter came as a surprise to me, but with hindsight, it shouldn’t have done, Whitehall was ever full of different factions pulling against each other. I’d thought, mistakenly, The Ministry would be above all that. I should’ve known better. In my time in the Royal Air Navy we’d a saying, The Ministry of Defence has to be prepared to fight three enemies, foreign governments, insurgents and the bloody home office, and it’s the latter which were our biggest enemy.
When M paused, letting this revelation sink in, I came to a realisation, but being a tad slow, I came to it a moment after Miss Wells.
“Maythorpe…” she said, without making any effort to hide her distaste. I suspected she’d had a run-in with him just before I had been released from the coal box.
“So it would appear, yes. It’s no coincidence he is aboard the same airship as Smyth and yourself, Miss Wells. Our friends in the MOD are getting chummy with the Foreign Office and getting creative into the bargain, it would seem. They have chosen to meddle in things far beyond them. It appears they got word that our friend Mr Smyth here was being sent to India. I suspect they do not know why and just wish to make trouble for their betters. It is regretful that in doing so, we had to reveal your own involvement in our plans, Miss Wells.”
The way M said the word ‘regrettable’ implied it was ‘regrettable’ for them, not for The Ministry. Whitehall power brokers, it appeared, may be about to have a bad time of it all told. In other circumstances, I would’ve been delighted to hear this. If I wasn’t tangled up in The Ministry’s machinations myself. Or a
t least if I could see a way to detangle myself from them…
“Still,” M continued, “if needs must, we can always have that pawn removed from the equation.”
The callous lack of concern with which M said this caused me to choke slightly. Maythorpe may be a right royal pain in my rear, and I’d be lying if I were to say I wouldn’t be delighted to give him a good kicking should the opportunity arise. But I’d no particular wish to see him killed off out of hand, utter twerp though he may be. He was doubtless blissfully unaware that he was being used by Whitehall mandarins. A prawn, for want of M’s actual word, in a game he couldn’t even envisage, fishy swine though he was. But the implications of M’s rather cold statement were all too obvious.
“It needn’t come to that. Maythorpe’s a buffoon at best. I doubt he even realises why he was put on the flight,” I said quickly, though for all my distaste of the subject under discussion, I wasn’t entirely sure why I was defending him.
‘Twerp wouldn’t even be grateful if he knew you were defending him, Harry…’ I thought to myself, but if it saved the idiot’s life, I’d enjoy telling him that if I ever was in a position to do so. If only to take the wind out of his ever pompous sails.
“I do not require your advice on the matter, Mr Smyth. If it becomes necessary to remove him from the equation, we will do so. As of this moment, however, his actions have revealed the hands of his masters are at play, so steps will be taken in that quarter. Regardless of these trivial distractions, we must turn to matters at hand.”
“Would be about time…” I muttered, which raised an eyebrow from M but no comment.
“I will beg your forgiveness, Miss Wells, for repeating things you already know, but we have to bring Smyth up to speed so if you will bear with me, my dear,” M said and received the smallest of nods from Miss Wells before he continued. For all the polite nature of this interchange, the look on Miss Wells face spoke volumes; it was the same look of distaste she had earlier reserved for Mr Gates.