The Rise of the Automated Aristocrats

by Mark Hodder

  “Ha!” Chumleigh crowed.

  Burton chopped. A second canister-like head dropped. Both metal figures toppled over.

  The explorer examined the edge of his blade. “Excellent weapons, these, but they’ll not weather repeated cuts against brass.”

  Spluttering and muddy, Swinburne rose from the water. “Did I get him?”

  Trounce said, “You’d better let me have the sword.”

  “No,” Burton said. He pointed toward the steps, down which the two clockwork men had come. “William, I want you to go that way. The stairs lead up to the end of the bridge. If the Orpheus is attacking the Tower of London, it’ll be enough of a distraction that you’ll be able to skirt along the edge of the river unspotted. Make your way to Whitehall and Scotland Yard. Stay hidden. Remember, you’re a wanted man, but find a way to marshal your forces. Quickly, and the more, the better.”

  Trounce pulled his fingers through his beard. “And do what with them? Attack the tower?”

  Burton moved forward and gripped his friend’s upper arms. “No. Understand this, William: despite all appearances, I believe my brother is working with us and that we’re facing something bigger even than a crazed government. I don’t know what it is, but I’m certain it lies in that direction.” He tipped his forehead toward the greater length of tunnel.

  Trounce and Swinburne both exclaimed, “What?”

  “Your brother!” the poet protested. “But he betrayed us!”

  “I’m not so sure,” Burton countered. “I have a hunch that we’re caught up in one of his Machiavellian stratagems and that he has, in fact, been working to help us while pulling the wool over Disraeli’s eyes. I think he’s aboard the Orpheus right now, having Lawless and his crew provide us with cover.”

  “By Jove!” Trounce exclaimed. “Have we suffered at his hands just to—just to—?”

  “Just to experience, in no uncertain terms, to what extremes the prime minister’s regime will go. Also, remember, we had no idea where Babbage and Young England had its base of operations. Edward got us into the thick of it, into the tower, and that way—” He again indicated the opposite end of the tunnel, “across the river, there lies, I believe, the heart of the whole scheme.”

  “In Southwark?” Trounce frowned. “It’s an industrial district and—humph!—the extent of Tooley Street has had restricted access since April. A tall fence surrounds it. Building work, apparently.”

  “Ah. Interesting. Well, I think we shall have to take a gamble on it being otherwise. Algy and I will infiltrate the district through this tunnel and will try to find Babbage. You go, get your men, and mount an assault on the area. The revolution has begun, old fellow. Let’s try to make it as brief and clean as possible.”

  “This, on a—a hunch? Something bigger, you say? What? How do you know?”

  Burton shifted uncomfortably from one foot to the other. “I can’t explain, William. I simply feel, with absolute certitude, that Disraeli and his scheme are merely distractions and that our real enemy—” He gestured toward the far end of the tunnel, “is there.”

  A sudden vulnerability showed in Trounce’s eyes. Quietly, he said, “While I was imprisoned, I remembered who I am. Recalled my other life. I know this is my second chance. I don’t want to—to make mistakes.”

  “I remembered, too,” Burton said. “And you won’t.”

  “I share your concern, William,” Swinburne put in. The soaked poet was standing with his arms wrapped around himself. His teeth were chattering. “But right now I feel the only mistake we can make is to doubt Richard’s instincts.”

  Trounce grunted and examined his knuckles. “In for a penny, in for a pound, then. Let’s see whether, this time, I can do something that counts.”

  Burton gripped the detective inspector’s hand. “Good luck.”

  “And to you.”

  Swinburne sloshed forward and also shook the Yard man’s hand. He didn’t say anything, but their eyes met and a wealth of unspoken sentiment passed between them.

  Trounce departed.

  As Burton and Swinburne turned and walked past the half-submerged clockwork men, the poet indicated them. “I’m not wholly comfortable with what we did to Chumleigh and Braithwaite. Some might call it murder.”

  “You didn’t do anything,” Burton responded. “Except throw yourself full-length into the water.”

  “You know what I mean.”

  “They aren’t dead. Their minds are still preserved in crystalline silicates but, detached from the mainspring that powered their babbages, they can’t translate thought into action.”

  “To quote William,” Swinburne said, “Humph!”

  “Anyway, I had to act before they employed their internal communications to alert Rigby.”

  “Let’s hope you immobilised them in time. My hat! This water is freezing, and my legs are numb. Let’s get out of this blasted rabbit hole, though I fear we may emerge into the opposite of Wonderland.”

  The tunnel proved to be some eight hundred feet long. It ended at more stairs, but to the left of them, an arched opening gave onto another tunnel, which they entered, heading east. It gradually sloped upward, and they were glad to step out of the disgusting water, though dismayed to find their ankles and feet caked with stinking mud.

  They didn’t have far to walk before encountering a closed wooden door. Burton put his ear to it but could hear nothing. Carefully, he twisted the handle and pushed. The portal suddenly flew open, pulling him with it. He stumbled into daylight and into the arms of an SPG unit.

  “Unauthorised!” it declared. “This is a restricted zone. Identify yourselves.”

  A loud clang sounded, and the machine immediately went limp, its head clanking onto the ground. The brass body slipped from Burton and followed it down.

  Swinburne waved his khopesh in the air. “See! The other was just practice.”

  “Well done, Algy.” Burton looked up at the sky. It was clear—the fog had dispersed at some point during his incarceration—and a deep mid-afternoon blue, though smudged with a dirty layer of coal smoke. “What’s that noise?”

  A clattering thunder was echoing overhead.

  “Drilling?” Swinburne suggested.

  The door had given onto a short and narrow alleyway. The far end abutted a road with a warehouse opposite. The nearest end gave onto a riverside wharf. They moved to this, dragging the fallen SPG machine with them, and pushed the contraption into the mud at the edge of the river, which was at low tide. Swinburne tossed the head in after it, his eyes fixed upon the opposite bank.

  “By my Aunt Marjory’s ermine muffler! Will you look at that!”

  The Tower of London was half obscured by a cloud of dust produced by bullets slamming into its side.

  The Orpheus was slowly circling the edifice with weapons blazing. The noise they’d noted was the roar of its Gatling guns—a tremendous racket, even from this distance.

  Police vehicles darted around the big flying machine, veering away, then swooping back in, but their meagre armaments were doing little damage, and, even as Burton and Swinburne watched, two of the attackers exploded and rained in pieces down into the tower’s grounds.

  “You really think it’s your brother?” Swinburne asked. “Is he with us, after all?”

  “I can’t imagine who else it might be,” Burton replied. “I doubt that Lawless, fine man though he is, would take such action on his own account.” He leaned forward over the edge of the wharf and looked to the right and left. “There’s no riverside activity, and these wharves are usually swarming with dockworkers. That strikes me as very unusual. Let’s reconnoitre.”

  They unslung and hefted their rifles then moved from the wharf back to the mouth of the alley from where, peering around its corner, they saw the passage was empty. Running along it, they passed the door to the tunnel, and continued on to the junction. A plaque on the warehouse opposite gave the name of the road as Pickle Herring Street.

  “People,” Swinburne
said, pointing to the left.

  Six men, apparently guarded by two SPG units, were walking toward them but then entered a side street and disappeared from view. Checking that no one else was in sight, the explorer gestured for his companion to follow and ran to the end of the street into which the group had turned.

  It was Stoney Lane, leading through to Tooley Street.

  The party was a little way ahead, and beyond it, Burton saw four gleaming clockwork mechanisms pass the junction. Nevertheless, the area as a whole appeared to be uncharacteristically deserted, lacking the crowds of sailors and workmen that usually filled it.

  Burton drew his friend’s attention to a shadowy doorway halfway along the lane. He and Swinburne bolted to it and sheltered in its darkness. From there, they watched as more people and clockwork men passed to and fro on Tooley Street. Groups of SPG machines went by, all hurry­ing westward.

  “Busier there,” Burton whispered. “I want to take a look, but it’ll be risky. You stay here.”

  “No. I’m with you.”

  “I need you to guard my back. I shan’t be but a minute.”

  “Very well, but mind the mutton shunters.”

  “The what?”

  “Police. Slang. Slippery Ned Beesley learned it.”

  “You’ll soon rival Pox.”

  Flitting across to the opposite side of the lane, Burton slipped along to the corner and leaned past it. He saw that Tooley Street was lined with warehouses all the way to the London Bridge Railway Terminus, the roof of which could be seen rising above a tall fence similar to the one encircling Green Park. The barrier closed off the road. There were gates in it, shut and heavily guarded.

  Halfway between Burton and the barricade, on the other side of the thoroughfare, a huge warehouse caught his attention by virtue of the many two-man police rotorships that were soaring up from its roof and skimming northward, no doubt to battle the Orpheus. The building was also remarkable in that it supported an exceedingly tall metal mast of unusual design.

  At ground level, men—both human and clockwork—were coming and going through the warehouse’s double-doored entrance.

  There was a sign above the portal.

  MESSRS GRINDLAY & CO.

  “Bismillah! I might have bloody well known.”

  Time has patterns.

  He ran back to Swinburne. “I think I just saw where Edward wants us to go.”

  “Hell?”

  “Ha! Do you recall the vertical rods that adorned the roofs of houses in the future?”

  “Yes. Aerials, I believe they were called.”

  “For receiving signals through the aether. There is what resembles a very large one on a warehouse back there.”

  “For communicating with the clockwork men? Babbage’s bolt-hole?”

  “I suspect as much. If we can disable that ability of theirs, Trounce’s force will stand a far better chance.”

  “Then tallyho!”

  Burton considered his sopping-wet friend for a moment then ran his fingertips over his own face, gingerly touching its bruises and scars. His right eyebrow rose. “Now that I recall again who we once were, I can wonder at the men you and I have become.”

  “We have changed, for certain,” his friend replied. “But our former selves were shaped in a world considerably less bizarre than this. We are adapting.”

  “It has so far proven a very painful experience.”

  “Indeed it has. But do you know what I think, Richard? I think that adaptation works in both directions. We must adjust to this new environment, but we must also imprint ourselves upon it. Since we arrived here, we’ve been thrown this way and that by circumstances we didn’t understand. Now we have a measure of comprehension. It’s time to make our mark.”

  Burton nodded, took a deep breath, and led the way forward. They sprinted to the corner and were just about to poke their heads around it when a clockwork man stepped out in front of them. They recoiled, fumbling for their weapons.

  “Hello, gentlemen,” the machine said. “Shall I have the bellboy fetch your luggage?”

  Burton saw the initials R. V. H. engraved upon its breastplate. “Sprocket?”

  “Yes, sir. Good day to you. Glad to be of service. Hello. Good-bye. Will you stand aside, please? I must report to the tower.”

  “Report what?”

  “That the factory is now functioning at full capacity, sir, and the next batch of men are required for conversion. Just ring for the maid. Yes, sir. Welcome to the Venetia.”

  “Factory? Where?”

  The brass man pointed at Grindlays. “That way, gentlemen. Glad to be of assistance.”

  “Is Mr. Charles Babbage there?”

  “Certainly, sir. Straight through. You’ll find the reception desk to the left. It’s a lovely day, isn’t it?”

  “I say, Sprocket, old thing,” Swinburne said. “Have you a screw loose?”

  “I am functioning at optimal capacity. Do you require room service? The dining room opens at five o’clock. Good evening.”

  They stood aside as the doorman stepped forward. It continued past them and entered the alley, obviously intending to cross the Thames through the tunnel.

  Swinburne exhaled noisily, sounding his relief. “He didn’t appear too bothered by our presence, did he? He’s obviously discombobulated, and, if you recall, so was Grumbles. Yet other clockwork men appear to be unaffected. What do you make of it?”

  Burton watched the comings and goings in Tooley Street. “We’re dealing with a variety of brass men, Algy. There’s the ordinary type, currently proliferating and taking on the jobs typical of the middle class. Then there’s the sort that, like Grumbles and Sprocket, have an additional component added to their probability calculators, it containing a grain of black diamond, which enables wordless communication across a distance.” Burton stopped speaking and ducked back, putting his fingers to his lips. Four men walked past the junction, escorted by an SPG unit. One of them was saying, “—expected to operate it when it disappears from beneath my bloody fingertips.”

  “Just be glad the walkway doesn’t vanish from under you,” another answered. “That’s what happened to old Sykes. He fell straight into a—”

  The group moved away, out of hearing range.

  Burton said, “We also have the SPG machines, like the one that just passed, which are fitted with a new type of babbage device inspired by the Turing adjustments made to the Orpheus brain. And, finally, we have a variety containing sufficient crystalline silicates to hold a human consciousness.”

  “Automated aristocrats,” Swinburne commented.

  “Indeed. The records Gooch showed us indicate that Babbage adapted a number of the standard-type machines while we were on our expedition, adding the diamond component that he might command them from a distance and, in that manner, have them snatch the material we brought back with us. Perhaps their apparent confusion is a result of them being forced to behave in a fashion that runs counter to their original purpose.”

  He took hold of Swinburne’s shoulder and pulled him to his side. “See that group by the warehouse entrance? As soon as it disperses or moves away, we’re going to cross the road as if we belong here. You stay on my left. I’ll try to block your vivid hair and dripping clothes from view as best I can. Walk, don’t run. Or hop. Or skip. Or twitch.”

  “May I loudly recite a suitable verse?”

  “There is no such thing.” The explorer pointed to the nearest side of Grindlays, where a wide but shadowy alleyway gave access to its rear. “We’ll duck into that passage.”

  They waited.

  Swinburne murmured, “So Babbage created the other types of clockwork men once he got his hands on the future technology and learned how to employ the silicates.”

  “He did.”

  Looking to the left, Burton saw two brass figures walking away, the sunlight glinting on their back plates. To the right, the hustle and bustle around the warehouse doors suddenly lessened, as the group he’d
pointed out went inside.

  “Now!”

  They set off, trying to appear as if they belonged, crossed the road without incident, entered the alley, and there heaved sighs of relief.

  There were no doors or windows on this side of the building but, halfway along its length and one storey up, a platform extended, and from it, attached to a block and tackle, a rope was dangling. Burton pointed at it. “That’s our way in.” He put a hand to his head and winced. “Do you feel a peculiar yet familiar ache in the middle of your skull?”

  Swinburne grimaced. “I do.”

  “There must be rather a lot of black diamonds inside. Without out a doubt, this is where Babbage has his operations. Let’s go see what he’s up to.”

  THE INTENTIONS OF A SYNTHETIC INTELLIGENCE

  Why I came here, I know not; where I shall go it is useless to inquire—in the midst of myriads of the living and the dead worlds, stars, systems, infinity, why should I be anxious about an atom?

  —Lord Byron

  The second storey loading platform, there for the shifting of freight on and off of pantechnicons, opened onto an uninhabited and spacious room. Chains were hanging from rails affixed to its ceiling, and the floor was crowded with neatly stacked crates, each of which was stamped with a name and a registration number. Burton and Swinburne quietly moved between them until they came to a door in the opposite wall. Opening it a crack, Burton saw that it gave access to a gallery that encircled a huge chamber. By bending low, the two men were able to emerge onto it, remaining concealed by its balustrade. When they raised their eyes over the edge, the vista that met their gaze was utterly incomprehensible.

  “Am I mad?” Swinburne asked, gripping his companion’s forearm.

  “Indubitably,” Burton responded. “But that has little bearing on the matter. What in the name of Allah are we looking at?”

  They struggled to make sense of it.

  They were at the side of a massive space. It was three floors high and occupied at least a third of the entire warehouse. Below them, visible through the grating of the ledge on which they stood, hundreds of cases, trunks, crates, and sheet-covered items of furniture were heaped higgledy-piggledy against the wall—the original content of Grindlays. Burton recalled from his own native history that this material had previously been carefully arranged on tall and wide metal shelf units in sectioned off areas. The shelves were now dismantled and pushed aside. The central floor space was instead occupied by something that filled the entire chamber but was so difficult to discern it caused both onlookers to squint and frown as they grappled with the visual stimuli. Their ears told them they were gazing upon humming, clattering, grinding, clicking, and hissing machinery, but it took their primary sense a good two minutes or so to catch up with this fact. When they finally began to pick out metal planes and angles, gears and wheels, bands and belts, pistons and crankshafts, all intermingled and entwined, rising in a bewildering jumble up to the high ceiling—as if everything that had once occupied Battersea Power Station had been condensed into this smaller area—the sight still defied logic.