The Return of the Discontinued Man (A Burton & Swinburne Adventure)

by Mark Hodder

  No, not costumed. They always dress this way.

  Burton started to walk down the slope toward the base of Constitution Hill, struggling to overcome his growing sense of dislocation.

  “Steady, Edward,” he muttered to himself. “Hang on, hang on. Don’t let it overwhelm you. This is neither a dream nor an illusion, so stay focused, get the job done, then get back to your suit.”

  Job? What job? I am here to observe, that is all.

  Again, it was as if a second voice existed inside him. It whispered, Stop him! Stop your ancestor!

  Burton reached the wide path. The queen’s carriage would pass this way soon.

  My God! I’m going to see Queen Victoria!

  He looked around. Every single person in sight was wearing a hat or bonnet. Most of the men were bearded or moustachioed. The women held parasols.

  He examined faces. Which belonged to his forebear? He’d never seen a photograph of the original Edward Oxford, but he hoped to detect some sort of family resemblance. He stepped over the low fence lining the path, crossed to the other side, and loitered near a tree.

  People started to gather along the route. He heard a remarkable range of accents, and they all sounded ridiculously exaggerated. Some, which he identified as working class, were incomprehensible, while the upper classes spoke with a precision and clarity that seemed wholly artificial.

  Details kept catching his eye, holding his attention with hypnotic force: the prevalence of litter and dog faeces; the stains and worn patches on people’s clothing; rotten teeth and rickets-twisted legs; accentuated mannerisms and lace-edged handkerchiefs; pockmarks and consumptive coughs.

  “Focus!” he whispered.

  A cheer went up. He looked to his right. The queen’s carriage had just emerged from the palace gates, its horses guided by a postilion. Two outriders trotted along ahead of the vehicle, two more behind.

  Where was his ancestor? Where was the gunman?

  Ahead of him, a man wearing a top hat, blue frock coat, and white britches straightened, reached under his coat, and moved closer to the path.

  Slowly, the royal carriage approached.

  “Is it him?” Burton muttered, gazing at the back of the man’s head.

  Moments later, the forward outriders came alongside.

  The blue-coated individual stepped over the fence and, as the queen and her husband passed, took three strides to keep up with their vehicle, then whipped out a flintlock pistol, aimed, and fired. He threw down the smoking weapon and drew a second.

  Burton yelled, “No, Edward!” and ran forward.

  What the hell am I doing?

  The gunman glanced at him.

  Burton vaulted over the fence and grabbed his ancestor’s raised arm. If he could just disarm him and drag him away, tell him to flee and forget this stupid prank.

  They struggled, locked together.

  “Give it up!” Burton pleaded.

  “Let go of me!” the would-be assassin yelled. “My name must be remembered. I must live through history!”

  I must live through history. I must live through history.

  The words throbbed into the future, echoed through time.

  The second flintlock detonated, the recoil jolting both men.

  The back of Queen Victoria’s skull exploded.

  Burton gripped the gunman, shook him, and heaved him off his feet.

  His ancestor fell backward, and his head impacted against the low cast-iron fence. There was a crunch, and a spike suddenly emerged from the man’s eye. He twitched and went limp.

  “You’re not dead!” Burton exclaimed, staggering back. “You’re not dead! Stand up! Run for it! Don’t let them catch you!”

  The assassin lay on his back, his head impaled, blood pooling beneath him.

  Burton stumbled away.

  There were screams and cries, people pushing past him.

  He saw Victoria. She was tiny, young, like a child’s doll, and her shredded brain was oozing onto the ground.

  No. No. No.

  This isn’t happening.

  This can’t happen.

  This didn’t happen.

  Burton backed away, feeling terrified, fell, got up again, shoved his way out of the milling crowd, and ran.

  “Get back to the suit,” he mumbled as his legs pumped. “Try something else.”

  He raced up the slope and ran into the trees.

  His heart was pounding.

  He pushed through to where he’d left the time suit.

  I’ll go farther back. I’ll change this.

  He suddenly registered that someone was behind him. Before he could turn, an arm encircled his neck and squeezed with agonising force, crushing his throat. He saw his suit, the boots and headpiece, just feet away. He reached for them, but it was hopeless. He knew he was going to die.

  A man hissed in his ear, “You don’t deserve this, but I have to do it again. I’m sorry.”

  Do it again?

  He felt his head being twisted.

  My neck! My neck! Get off me!

  His vertebrae crunched.

  White light flared.

  He felt suspended, as if time had halted.

  He heard Charles Babbage’s voice.

  “It is nine o’clock on the fifteenth of February, 1860.”

  “It is nine o’clock on the fifteenth of February, 1860.”

  “It is nine o’clock on the fifteenth of February, 1860.”

  “It is nine o’clock on the fifteenth of February, 1860.”

  “It is nine o’clock on the fifteenth of February, 1860.”

  The voice overlaid itself again and again, as if thousands of Babbages were speaking at once.

  Flee! Burton thought. Get away from here! Back home! Back home in time for supper! Back home! Back home in time!

  It was one o’clock in the afternoon on Monday the twentieth of February, and fourteen individuals were gathered in the library of suite five at the Royal Venetia Hotel. They were not particularly comfortable, for the room was bursting at the seams with books and the group had difficulty finding places to sit or stand among them. The volumes, which ranged from boys’ adventure novels to esoteric tracts, from political memoirs to philosophical treatises, lined every wall from floor to ceiling, were stacked high on the deep red carpet, and were piled haphazardly in every corner.

  Sir Richard Francis Burton’s brother, Edward, presided over the meeting. Morbidly obese, with a face disfigured by scars, he was wrapped, as was his habit, in a threadbare red dressing gown and occupied an enormous wing-backed armchair of scuffed and cracked leather. There was a half-empty tankard of ale on the table beside him. His clockwork butler, Grumbles—with his canister-shaped head of brass cocked slightly to one side—was standing nearby, ready to refill the glass.

  “So the jungle is dying?” Edward asked.

  “Withdrawing might be the better term,” Burton replied. “In a few days, nothing of it will remain except mulch. It has fulfilled its purpose. London will soon be clear of its unseasonal blooms.”

  “Sentient herbage. Utterly preposterous.”

  “That’s not the least of it. The jungle and Algernon are one and the same.”

  Edward Burton glowered at the king’s agent, then at Detective Inspectors William Trounce and Sidney Slaughter, Police Constable Thomas Honesty, Sadhvi Raghavendra, Daniel Gooch, Charles Babbage, Richard Monckton Milnes, Captain Nathaniel Lawless, Maneesh Krishnamurthy, Shyamji Bhatti and Montague Penniforth. Together, these individuals comprised the secretive Ministry of Chronological Affairs, of which he was the head.

  “All of you give credence to this fantasy, I suppose?” he asked.

  “I trust Sir Richard’s judgement,” Gooch said.

  “Likewise,” Trounce muttered. “Which means I may have to start doubting my own.”

  The others nodded, apart from Babbage, who appeared to be counting his fingers.

  The minister addressed Swinburne. “And what do you make of it, youn
g man?”

  The poet kicked spasmodically, accidentally knocking over a stack of books, and shrilled, “It’s delicious! The jungle is me and I am it and we are one and the same. Or some such.”

  “That isn’t much help.”

  “May I partake of a bottle of your ale, Minister? I feel sure it will clarify my thoughts.”

  Edward Burton impatiently waved his permission.

  Burton said, “We know that in Abdu El Yezdi’s native history, when he trekked to the Mountains of the Moon, a version of Algy went with him. El Yezdi never explained what happened to his companion, but he does record that a Prussian agent, Count Zeppelin, followed them, and that the man possessed venomous talons—a product of eugenics. As fantastic as it sounds, the toxin caused an individual named Rigby to transform into vegetation. It appears that the same fate befell the poet.”

  From the sideboard to which he’d moved, and with a bottle in one hand and a glass in the other, Swinburne said, “The other jolly old Swinburne is now a plant-based consciousness. It possesses a unique perception of time and is aware of every variant of history. It was able to send its roots through into our world to warn us what has happened. Simply splendid! I feel thoroughly proud of it, him, and myself!”

  Edward gave a puff of incredulity. He lifted his ale, gulped it down, and jabbed a fat forefinger toward his brother. “It inflicted the visions upon you?”

  “They weren’t visions exactly,” Burton corrected. “The jungle worked with the Beetle and the children under his command to produce Saltzmann’s Tincture from its fruits. Through a vague mesmeric influence, and over the course of half a decade, it introduced the decoction to me and slowly increased its potency. The most recent doses caused my awareness to slide from one iteration of history to another, drawing my attention to the advent of what we might term the Spring Heeled Jack consciousness, which was created when all the Charles Babbages across all the histories performed the same experiment at the same moment.”

  “It knew ahead of the event that it would occur?”

  “As I say, the jungle has a unique perception.”

  “And what of your experiences as Edward Oxford?”

  Burton paused to light a cheroot. “The one sane fragment of Spring Heeled Jack caused black diamond dust to be injected into my scalp. It was an act of suicide, for my own thoughts would soon overwrite it. However, before that occurred, I received from it memories of the time suit’s construction and the final moments of its inventor. It was a message, or rather, it was the gift of an essential item of information.”

  “What information?”

  “Before I answer that, I think you should hear what the jungle showed Algy.”

  The minister turned his eyes back to the poet.

  “Well?”

  Swinburne, who had a glass to his lips, swallowed hastily, coughed, spluttered, and dragged a sleeve across his mouth. “What? Pardon? Hello?”

  “Your leafy counterpart,” the king’s agent said to him. “Give an account of your experience while under its influence.”

  “Ah, yes. I say! This is a fine beer, Your Maj—um—your ministery-ness. What! Er. Well. It happens to be the case, apparently, that our history is where the destiny of the human race will be played out. This, thanks to the efforts of Abdu El Yezdi—he having averted the next century’s world wars, the ones that’ll so afflict the other histories. Ours is the stage upon which Mr. Darwin’s theories will be enacted.” Swinburne moved back to his seat, sat, and crossed then uncrossed his legs. “In our distant future, the year 2202 should be one of transcendence and transformation. Perhaps Oxford’s breakthrough, his overcoming of the limitations of time, is meant to be a part of it. Unfortunately, it has all gone completely arse over elbow.”

  “Because of Spring Heeled Jack, I presume,” the minister said.

  “Yes. The insane Oxford consciousness has fled back to that year and has there somehow blocked the evolutionary process.”

  “And the jungle knows this—?”

  “Because it is—that is to say, I’m—it’s there.” Swinburne hiccupped.

  Detective Inspector Slaughter, who had a tankard of milk in his hand, cleared his throat, smoothed his huge moustache, and said, “Forgive me for interrupting, and forgive me again if I seem a little cold-hearted, but need we be overly concerned about events that are occurring three and a half hundred years hence? We shall be long dead by 2202, after all.”

  Constable Honesty snapped, “Child on the way. One day, perhaps, grandchildren. So forth.”

  Slaughter held up a hand. “I concede your point, Constable. I myself have a daughter.”

  “With all due respect,” Burton said, “the issue goes deeper even than protecting your descendants. Every evening since Charles performed his experiment, we have been invaded by stilted mechanisms.”

  “Eleven of the monstrosities last night,” Trounce interjected.

  “That the Oxford consciousness is sending them back to the year it was created implies what we might term a soul searching, a quest for identity.”

  “Why are the creatures so obsessed with you?” Monckton Milnes asked.

  “Because Oxford has twice been killed by a Richard Burton, and those deaths, paradoxically, were integral to the creation of this Spring Heeled Jack intelligence.”

  Trounce snorted. “By Jove! Does it think you’re its father?”

  “I wouldn’t go that far, old fellow, but it may well regard me as essential to its growing self-awareness, and I’m certain it fears me and has an irrational need to kill me.”

  “Patricide,” Slaughter put in. He shook his head wonderingly. “Though—no offence intended—it isn’t going about it in a very efficient manner, is it? Why are the stilt men so—”

  “Nutty,” Swinburne interjected. “Absolutely bonkers.”

  “I was going to say disoriented.”

  Burton drew on his cheroot and blew out a plume of blue smoke. “If the Spring Heeled Jack mind is still coalescing into a functioning entity, perhaps they reflect its incompleteness.”

  Edward Burton signed for Grumbles to refill his glass. “It has to be stopped.”

  “Yes,” the king’s agent replied.

  “What, brother, do you suggest we do?”

  Turning to Babbage, Burton said, “Charles?”

  Daniel Gooch reached out and prodded the preoccupied scientist, who looked up, blinked, and said, “I’m not to blame. The probability of all my selves performing the experiment at the same moment is so low as to be virtually inconceivable. The only explanation is that time itself possesses an agenda.”

  “No one regards you as the source of the problem,” Burton said. “But you might have the solution.”

  “How so?”

  “In one of the alternate histories, you proposed to apply the principles of the time suit to a specially constructed vehicle in order to send a group of us through history.”

  “Did I, indeed?” Babbage exclaimed.

  “Microscopic components reproduced in macroscopic form. Could you do it?”

  “Hmm!” Babbage raised his fingers to his head—tap tap tap!—and muttered, “I’ve just finished designing the Mark Three probability calculator. It has nowhere near the power of the suit’s helmet, but I daresay it could be adapted to the task. We also have plenty of the black diamond shards. However, without the mathematical formula that enables the procedure—”

  Burton reached up and, aping the scientist’s habitual gesture, tapped his own head. “I have the equation. That was the message given to me by the diamond dust, by the undamaged helmet. The jungle helped me to understand it.”

  Babbage gave a shout of excitement and leaped to his feet. “You can recall it?”

  “If I put myself into a mesmeric trance, I should be able to retrieve the memory. I warn you, though, that writing out the formula will probably take some days. It is exceedingly complex.”

  “By the Lord Harry!” Babbage exclaimed. He wrung his hands eagerly th
en stopped and frowned. “Hmm. But it won’t solve the principal difficulty, which is that to duplicate the suit’s function I’d have to create a machine the size of a room. It would need to be inside a very large vehicle, and a flying one at that.”

  Burton addressed Nathaniel Lawless. “Captain?”

  Lawless’s face turned as white as his finely trimmed beard, and he stammered, “Surely—surely you don’t mean to—to—to pilot the Orpheus into the future?”

  “Yes!” Babbage shouted. “Yes! I could adapt your rotorship!”

  “Pah!” Edward Burton barked. “Dick, this is an absurd notion! You mean to take the fight to Spring Heeled Jack? To the year 2202? What will you do when you get there? You’ll be hopelessly lost. A fish out of water. A centuries-old antique!”

  “Richard,” Monckton Milnes added softly, “the shock of finding himself outside of his own era turned Oxford into a raving lunatic. What’s to prevent the same from happening to you?”

  “The jungle had two hundred bottles of Saltzmann’s delivered to my pharmacist,” Burton said. “A small dose each day will be sufficient to counter the deleterious effects.”

  Sadhvi Raghavendra protested, “On what do you base that supposition?”

  “I’ve been using the tonic for five years. I’m well acquainted with its effects.”

  She gave a dismissive wave of a hand. “It turned you into an addict.”

  “A froth-mouthed gibbering imbecile,” Swinburne added.

  “Hardly that, Algy. And the addiction is already easing now that its purpose is achieved.”

  Raghavendra arched an eyebrow at him and said nothing more.

  “I repeat,” Edward Burton murmured. “What will you do?”

  Burton smoked. He narrowed his eyes. He drawled, “Whatever is necessary. We’ll work it out when we get there. The advantage is ours.”

  “And how, may I ask, do you draw that conclusion?”

  “Because we can plan ahead.” Burton nodded toward Thomas Honesty. “Tom has a baby on the way.” He indicated Montague Penniforth and Detective Inspector Slaughter. “Monty already has a little boy, and Sidney a daughter. My Cannibal Club is populated by eligible bachelors. I propose that we transform it into a secret and elite organisation whose members will pass down to their descendants the details of our mission. We’ll move forward through time in a series of jumps, stopping to meet with them along the way. They’ll advise us with regard to social and technological developments. They’ll keep their eyes open for Oxford’s presence and will tell us if it manifests ahead of 2202, and will also assist us in avoiding detection.” He spoke to Honesty, Slaughter and Penniforth. “How about it, gentlemen? Will you join the group? Will you become Cannibals?”