Evolution Expects

by Jonathan Green

  Now, thanks to Mrs May’s nutritious home-cooking, and lots of it, married to his new exercise regime, through which he pushed his body to the limits of endurance, he came close to regaining the level of physical fitness he had enjoyed as a younger man, and the mental focus to match. Only now that focus was centred wholly on completing the challenge his father had set him from the beyond the grave.

  Make me proud, James Sanctuary had written, and Thomas was determined that he do just that, by seeing those who had ruined his family name pay for their crimes.

  Thomas pulled the mask of the suit down over his face and gazed out at the city through the red lenses of its goggles. From the towers and spires of the Upper City and the multi-levelled tracks of the Overground, to the Smog-shrouded streets and public parks, to the festering slums, suddenly the dark palette of dusk took on an altogether different hue. From the intense white of a super-heated steam gouting factory chimney to the deep scarlet of the trees on the heath and the even deeper maroon of the cobbled streets, everything appeared in shades of red, as if the city were bathed in blood.

  He stretched out his arms, checking the cape would still unfold properly to form the gliding wing he would need to help control his descent, making sure that is wasn’t hooked onto the jetpack. His father appeared to have been inspired by the structure of a bat’s wing, replacing the flying mammal’s long, thin finger bones with light-weight metal rods and the webs of skin between with a strong, but lightweight fabric. With Thomas’s arms relaxed at his sides, it hung behind him, a plain black cloak. But as soon as he flung out his arms, a spring-loaded mechanism forced the steel frame to extend, turning the loose folds of the cloth into a taut membrane, that would allow him to ride the thermals created by the firing jetpack.

  His father had come so close. He had designed the suit, the gliding cape, and the amazing infra-red, night-vision goggles, as well as the chemical propellants that would react to release enough energy to allow a man to fly. His only stumbling block had been a problem with over-heating, which meant that the jetpack had never worked properly and, without the jetpack, the suit was nothing more than a cumbersome get-up.

  All that Thomas had had to do was incorporate a cooling system and make a few adjustments, so that the suit fitted him like a glove. Not that the suit needed much adjusting – it was almost as if it had been made for him. But Thomas still found it hard to entertain that idea that that had been his father’s intention all along, contrary to the message James Sanctuary had left him, and the existence of the suit itself. However, they had gone a long way to improving his image of his father, to the point where, during moments of exhausted guilt and self-pity, he wished that they had been given the time to re-build their relationship.

  And now, here he was, strapped into the hard leather of the figure-hugging suit, potentially a bomb on his back, just waiting to explode, teetering on the brink of the battlements, three storeys up, a cold wind whipping the cape behind him.

  There was nothing more to be done now other than to take the jetpack out for its first proper test flight, throwing himself into the void in the name of invention and revenge.

  He checked the harness one more time – not wanting the jetpack to take off without him, or worse still, to fall out of it mid-flight – the buckles of his boots and the belt that held everything together. He made sure his thick leather gloves were on securely and buckled tight, took a deep breath and thumbed the ignition switch he had fed through the suit, from the control, to his hand.

  There was a faint click, the crackle of a spark, followed by the hiss of the pilot light igniting and then, with a whooshing roar, the jets fired as the pack’s chemical propellants were fed through the complicated arrangements of pipes and combined within the internal workings of the jetpack.

  As Thomas tensed his legs in preparation for the imminent launch, he gave thanks for his father’s foresight in giving the seat of his rubberised leather trousers an extra layer of fire-retardant padding.

  Bending his knees ready to make the ultimate leap into the unknown, Thomas adjusted the throttle via the control held in his right hand. The roar of the jets increased and, feeling the pack tug on the harness, pulling him upwards, he leapt into the air, his heart in his mouth, and thumbed the throttle to what he judged to be launch velocity.

  Thomas rocketed skyward, the sudden G-forces pushing his head back so that he found himself staring up at the rapidly approaching soot-stained clouds. His body, straight as a torpedo, went into a slow spin as he hurtled heavenwards.

  He felt exhilarated, amazed and terrified, all at the same time. But still a small, focused part of his brain addressed the matter of his whirling trajectory. One of the jets must not be firing properly, he thought, which could be down to the feed not coming through evenly.

  His body pummelled by the wind and rippling G-forces, Thomas slowly reduced the throttle, decreasing the jetpack’s velocity. The jets spluttered for a moment, and he felt his stomach lurch as his upward momentum suddenly ceased. His pulse raced and then the feed lines cleared and both jets fired again, hurtling freefall becoming a smoother horizontal descent.

  All this had only taken a matter of seconds, but Thomas was already high over the city, having crossed Highgate Cemetery, and having left Sanctuary House far behind. It was only then, hearing the whip-crack of the toughened fabric billowing behind him in the slipstream created by jetpack, that he remembered the flight-cape.

  Throwing his arms out in front of him, fists balled, the metal framework sprang open and the cloak immediately snapped into shape.

  Thomas went from being a human rocket, barely able to control his own trajectory, to soaring over the city, skimming the low cloud smothering London in a miasma of hydro-carbon pollution.

  Stretching out his legs behind him, streamlining his body, he felt his speed increase still further, as he made himself more aerodynamic, and the jetpack ran more efficiently as a result.

  Thomas immersed himself in the moment, every nerve and fibre of his being revelling in his night-flight. It was an incredible feeling of freedom and exhilaration. For a moment he even forgot the end to which he had laboured so hard and so long to complete what his father had started.

  He was also starting to adjust to his new, ruddy view of the world, the night’s sky appearing as dark as a gleaming pool of blood.

  Countless people had enjoyed this view of the city before, as the great passenger dirigibles came in to land over Hyde Park, but surely no-one had ever experienced it as he was experiencing it now. He was closing with one of those airships now, its elongated gas bag drifting like some huge whale through the sea of toxic Smog, the cause of the pollution also clearly visible to Thomas from up here, the chimneys of scores of factories and hundreds of homes spouting smoke and vapours into the miasmic air.

  And then the dirigible was behind him, the Tower of London emerging from breaks in the Smog ahead of him, the capital’s maximum security prison instantly recognisable, even though the building work to repair the bomb-damaged structure had not yet been completed. White Tower itself was picked out in shades of pink and red, but clearly visible, despite the fact that night was falling fast across the city.

  He was starting to feel cold. For prolonged flights at these altitudes the suit needed better insulation. He would add that to the list of things that needed changing before he took the suit out for its second flight.

  He was glad of the mask, for this very reason, even though it smelt strongly of rubber. Without it, or his gloves, the cold night air would have stung at his hands and face and he would have been practically blinded.

  He looked down at his battered fob watch, which he had had the foresight to attach to the straps of the jetpack harness. By his reckoning, the jetpack carried enough fuel for thirty minutes of burn time, or enough to carry him right across London and back again, if he so wished.

  Using his whole body to direct his flight, cape taut behind him, he made a swooping turn, banking over the Tower,
then turning back towards the river, Tower Bridge coming into view ahead of him. It was too much of a temptation to resist. Thomas had tested the jetpack and glider wing within a horizontal plane, but he still needed to master changing altitude at the same time.

  Tensing his stomach muscles, he pulled his legs up while at the same time angling his head and outstretched arms so that they were now directing him downwards. He felt the effort of his exertions taking their toll on his aching muscles as his flight subjected him to all manner of unaccustomed forces.

  He immediately began to descend, the jetpack secured across his back adjusting to the change in direction as Thomas angled his body. The looming towers of the bridge soared away above him. He was coming in too fast. Suddenly, there was the cantilevering platform of the bridge directly ahead of him, only it wasn’t opening.

  If he remained on his current course, in a matter of seconds he would slam into the stonework with enough force to break every bone in his body and ram his skull down into his spine. To pull up now would leave him rising and out of control; chances were he would still hit the balustrade of the bridge. Thomas had only a split second in which to make his decision and act upon it.

  Angling himself down further he shot under the span of the bridge, closing at speed with the oily sludge and scattered detritus suspended on the surface of Old Father Thames. And then, every muscle in his back and shoulders straining, he pulled up sharply.

  He felt the toes of his boots momentarily touch the surface of the river, throwing up a spray of oily water in his wake, and then he was rising, his sudden, rapid climb becoming steeper with every passing second. The turrets of Tower Bridge dwindling beneath him, Thomas found himself giving voice to a great whoop of joy, exhilarated by the thrill of being able to fly.

  The night was dark around him now, but he could still see just as clearly as before, the cityscape beneath him painted in varying degrees of red, pink and white. He saw the white-hot smokestack of an Overground train as it chugged north on the Northern Line. The surface of the Thames appeared as a cold near-black burgundy, while people, setting out for the evening or returning home after an honest day’s labour, appeared as warm magenta blobs beneath their buttoned-up coats.

  Revelling in his bird’s eyes view of the city, Thomas banked again, turning back over the sky-scraping towers of the city.

  He would have to think of a name for himself, he pondered as he flew, an alter-ego in which guise he could set about his mission to exact revenge. He soared over the city, wings outstretched, like some strange amalgam of man and bat. Man and bat, bat and man, Thomas thought.

  And then it came to him, the perfect secret identity – the Vespertilian.

  He passed through a cloud of churning pollutants, leaving curling eddies in the smoke-stream behind him, glad again for the mask, but feeling that his breathing could be even better aided if he added some form of filter.

  It took him a moment to realise that the cloud was in fact smoke rising from the crowded buildings below, rather than from some chimney stack or other.

  The column of smoke was already billowing high into the sky, merging with the cloudy barrier of the Smog.

  Scanning the maze of streets directly beneath him, Thomas tried to judge as best he could where he was. He saw the loop in the river, the rectangular lozenge-shaped basins of the docks, their fetid standing water glittering darkly in the reflected lights of the city and decided that he must be over the East End of London, somewhere over Wapping, or Limehouse perhaps.

  Checking his watch again, Thomas saw that he still had approximately twenty minutes of burn time, during which he would have to cross the capital again. One thing that worked in the jetpack’s favour, however, was that it allowed Thomas to travel as the crow flew, avoiding the warren of streets that riddled the capital. There was time enough, he decided, to take a closer look at what appeared to be a tenement fire.

  Already having a better understanding of how the jetpack would adjust to his altered body shape, Thomas pointed himself towards the source of the billowing column of smoke. This time he descended at a more even pace, maintaining greater control over his descent. Keeping his body angled into the turn, decreasing spirals brought him closer to the source of the smoke, and the fire he could now see raging within the boxy building stood at a street corner amidst the twisting thoroughfares of Limehouse, archways, the Overground and tenement-supporting bridges rising over one another, creating a treacherous aerial labyrinth for Thomas to negotiate as he came down.

  Now that he was approaching street level, Thomas was suddenly reminded of how fast he was travelling, the sensation of a sedate pace created by distance taken from him in an instant.

  Suddenly he was hurtling towards the street, the burning structure directly ahead of him, hungry flames licking at a sign attached to the side of the building, the words ‘Palace Theatre’ flickering in the incandescent flames between billows of black smoke.

  The end of the street lay before him, looming tenements rising up on every side now and, suddenly, he had no choice but to attempt to land. But there was too much to think about, too many variables to consider. He had planned to return to Sanctuary House and come down somewhere within the apple orchard, or on the heath – somewhere open at least – not in a narrow rat-run of an East End street.

  As the cobbles rose up to meet him, the polished stones glowing a ruddy orange, writhing with liquid fire, he tried to manoeuvre himself into an upright position, desperately hoping to somehow turn the momentum of his hurtling, rocket-propelled flight into a decelerating run. Arms flailing in sudden uncontrolled panic, his glider wing folded up, and he lost what little control he had left.

  At the last second he cut the fuel feed to the jetpack and felt its weight slam down on top of him. He lurched forward, completely unbalanced now, and landed heavily on his front, skidding to a stop in an agonised heap, thankful for the thick leather of his suit.

  Thomas lay in front of the blazing Palace Theatre, images of the Chinese magician Lao Shen crinkling and blackening in the heat, windows cracking and exploding. His body was a knot of pain, muscles burning from the strain they had been put under during the test flight. His knees and elbows had been rubbed raw with friction burns through the fabric of his suit.

  He turned towards the crackling flames, feeling their heat through the leather of his suit, supernovae bursting across the glaring white and red world he saw through the tinted-goggles of the mask, his head reeling. He felt like he was still hurtling through the air and waited for the world to stop spinning around him.

  And then he saw it.

  It emerged from the intense white heart of the fire, fighting its way clear of the burning building, demolishing what was left of the entrance doors as it did so. In his red-tinged world, the hulking shape – like some living mountain of clay, moving like an animated brick outhouse – glowed almost as hot as the raging conflagration, and yet appeared insensible to the scalding temperatures and not at all perturbed by the fact that the lobby of the theatre was collapsing in flames around it.

  With relentless, purposeful steps, the behemoth shook itself free of the last shattered door frame and paused. Thomas felt its eyes upon him and knew that the true moment of testing had come. His knees and elbows screaming in agony, his struggled to his feet, pulling himself up tall before the advancing hulk.

  And then the monster turned and set off, trudging away along the streets, away from the fire and the smoke, into the cooling darkness.

  Thomas set off after the retreating hulk at a limping run, soon catching up with the lumbering brute. Up close it was huge, at least eight feet tall and just as broad, its hide cracked like old glaze, its body plinking as it cooled.

  “Stop!” Thomas shouted, not knowing what else to say, his voice strangely altered by the mask.

  To his surprise the monster stopped.

  It turned slowly, its baleful gaze sweeping over Thomas and he suddenly felt very small and vulnerable. He was already
backing away as the colossal arm swung at him. It caught him across the chest, knocking the wind from his body as surely as if he had run into a steel girder. And then he was flying again, backwards through the air, his limp body describing an arc before he crashed down only a few feet from a pile of burning rubble.

  As he lay there, curled in a ball of agony, listening to the roar of the burning theatre merging in some unholy symphony with the distant wailing of sirens and the half-heard cries of helpless onlookers, the fire dwindled before his eyes as the shadows swarmed forward to claim him.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  The Queen of Hearts

  THE MARK IV Rolls Royce Silver Phantom, rolled to a halt outside the shuttered Belgravia townhouse. Passers-by, keen not to be seen themselves gave it furtive glances as they quickened their step and hurried on their way. The passenger door opened and the renowned dandy, bon viveur, and Hero of the Empire, Ulysses Quicksilver stepped out. He looked up at the unassuming building, taking a moment to make sure that his top hat was on just so and to straighten his plum frock coat.

  “Thank you, Nimrod,” he said, “that will be all.”

  “Do you want me to wait, sir?” Ulysses’ aging manservant asked, everything about his manner, from the tension in his body language to the look on his face as he peered up at the façade of the townhouse, making it patently clear what he thought of Ulysses visiting such an establishment.

  “No thank you. This isn’t the lair of some lunatic megalomaniac monster. I think I’ll be able to handle myself in there.”