The Doomsday Machine (Horatio Lyle)

by Catherine Webb

  ‘Tell me what you know!’

  ‘Get me out of here first.’

  ‘No! No, I’m sorry - somewhat - a little - perhaps - but no! You’re such an enthusiast for the continued survival of the Tseiqin, you know so much, tell me! Let me help you - help them!’

  ‘You are our enemy!’

  ‘Yes, and you’re mine, and it’s all deeply confusing and frankly I don’t know what I’m doing here. But this . . . this Machine, this device of Havelock and Berwick, if you know what it is, how it works, how it functions, tell me and I can stop it. Probably. With a bit of luck.’

  ‘You? How? Why?’

  ‘You know well enough how good I am at stopping things I don’t like,’ snapped Lyle with an edge of cruelty. ‘You and I have already tested this hypothesis to the utmost. As for why . . .’ He hesitated.

  ‘I would have thought you were the kind to build this device, Mister Lyle, not destroy it.’

  ‘It’s indiscriminate.’ Lyle was surprised to hear himself, but he was beginning to feel that way about a lot of things.

  ‘That’s it?’ Incredulity spiked the flat cold of Moncorvo’s voice.

  Lyle glared. ‘The Machine is indiscriminate,’ he repeated. ‘That’s what Old Man White says. I find it hard to believe, but if it is true . . . so many dead in a moment . . . Not one chance, not a moment to explain, no . . . no justice. I’ve met some bastards in my time, Lord Moncorvo, from murderers up to the moral turpitude of cattle rustling, and you cap the list. But until I know, until I know that every one of your kind is as cruel as you, I have no . . . there is no mercy in it. There is nothing in the Machine to make it different from what you would have done to us. It is without feeling, judgement, empathy. You’d build one in an instant, I think, my lord, if it worked your way.’

  ‘Of course. And I respect the man who does so.’

  ‘You respect Augustus Havelock?’

  ‘As a man who does what he believes needs to be done.’

  ‘And you expect me to listen to all this?’

  ‘I notice you haven’t walked away.’

  ‘No, that’s something I really should learn,’ muttered Lyle.

  ‘So,’ said Moncorvo easily, ‘what do we do now, I wonder?’

  Lyle stepped back from Moncorvo. ‘Look, I’m not here just to cause riots or to break out dangerous prisoners. I was here to get the information I need; and above all other things, more than almost anything else ever, I am not here to get you, of all people, back out there. I get in under a fake name and am never recognized, never seen, just another face in the crowd, you understand? I can’t go around breaking people out of prison willy-nilly, it’s not the law!’

  ‘And is the law so important to you?’

  ‘The law is bloody well all we’ve got!’

  ‘But you are thinking how to get me out.’ It wasn’t a question, it wasn’t even smug - just a flat statement of fact, waiting on a plan and an answer.

  Lyle scowled. ‘You tell me just one thing - one thing only and maybe I’ll help you, all right?’

  ‘All right.’

  ‘Where is Berwick?’

  ‘I don’t know. Don’t you?’

  ‘Oh well, goodbye then.’

  ‘If I needed to, though, I’m sure I could find him.’

  ‘Really? How?’

  ‘If I told you that, it would hardly give you reason to get me out, would it?’

  Lyle groaned, ran his hands through his hair and turned a few times on the spot in uneasy tight circles. ‘All right,’ he muttered. ‘Let me think, let me think . . . you evil Tseiqin, need to save all Tseiqin, can’t let Machine detonate, you hate me, I hate you, probably back-stabbing along the way, but you can’t let it work. You know something, I help you, you stop it . . . what have I missed? I let you go, you try and stop the Machine. Can you? Can you really stop it? In here you could survive if it really does work by electromagnetism, iron walls, Faraday cage, but could you? Finding Berwick, he can finish it . . . would you hurt Berwick?’ He looked up sharply, turning the words into a question. ‘Would you hurt Berwick?’ he repeated, louder.

  ‘That is one of those areas where you and I may have to compromise. ’

  ‘If I let you out and you’re lying, you’ll die from the Machine anyway.’

  ‘So what harm is there?’

  ‘Don’t even ask me what harm there is,’ said Lyle. ‘You of course realize that I have no concrete plan on getting you out.’

  ‘How did you get in?’

  ‘Oh, got myself arrested, incarcerated, used a high-velocity device to attach a rope to a wall, had Tess scale it, drop in some lock picks and a lot of smoke bombs, had a distraction outside, fireworks, smoke, bangs, a lady who swears she’s good at causing havoc and who may not lie, you know . . . the full works.’

  ‘Is there still a lot of smoke?’

  ‘There should be. Plenty of fog, too.’

  ‘So the risks are somewhat less?’

  ‘I imagine so. And it’s possible . . . I have a few ideas.’

  However, what these ideas were, no one had a chance to discover. In the darkness above the iron room with its iron walls and iron doors, the warden of Pentonville crawled from one patch of darkness towards another, holding a gun in his shaking hand. ‘Keep away!’ he shouted.

  Nothing answered in the darkness. ‘I know about you! I know about your fears, your magics, they told me everything! Keep away!’

  A swirl in the fog - he fired, the flash temporarily blinding him, so sudden and bright and white in the night. When the darkness returned it was even thicker, pooling around him. ‘You can’t get to him,’ he called out, louder. ‘There are iron walls and iron doors and iron stairs and iron floors, your kind are old! Dead! You will die, that’s what they said, you are going to die and . . .’

  A faint sound, a footfall somewhere in the smoke, and the warder’s voice disintegrated into a whimper. ‘Keep away,’ he muttered, turning on the spot, raising and lowering the gun like a see-saw as if uncertain whether his attacker would be dwarf or giant. ‘Keep back.’

  A movement right by his shoulder: something cool, but not as ice cold as the gun in his hand, brushed by his neck, making him jump. A voice said, ‘Now, not too fast, sir, not too fast.’ The blade against his throat was bronze; the edge wasn’t hard or cold enough to be iron. A white-gloved hand patted him on the shoulder; the wind-chime voice seemed oblivious of the gun still held in his hand.

  ‘But . . . you’re a woman,’ he whispered.

  ‘If I weren’t hardened already by the shocking failures of your gender, I would be indignant,’ sighed the voice in his ear. ‘As it is, I am, so I’m not.’

  ‘You did all this?’

  ‘Not at all. Flash bombs and smoke bombs and shots in the night and doors unlocked and pathways cleared - I could not do all this. As you said, the floors are iron, the stairs are iron, the walls are iron. You make my skin crawl, and it’s not just the smell of your breath smothered in the smog.

  ‘I simply like to dance, sir. You see, I know that my kind are faster, stronger and smarter than yours. I am alone, but I see in the dark: I see you all running like frightened animals, some overcome with the smoke, coughing and cowering in the dark. It is easy in this chaos of bangs and booms to separate you out one at a time, and leave you sleeping in the night. We live in an understanding with the world around us, comprehend the currents of this world, in a way you people can never begin to conceive. On the other hand, my people never invented the waltz, or the polka, or the mazurka or the stripping of the willow or even the morris dance, although perhaps we should be grateful for that. It is for the sake of the waltz, sir, that I let you live. Run away, little human, and tell your masters that the Tseiqin have come for one of their own.’

  He ran, and didn’t think twice about it, as he stumbled on into the dark.

  The bells were striking half past three when the lights stopped exploding in the courtyard of Pentonville Prison, bright white fizz-b
angs that seemed to conduct through the fog like electricity through water. At least, that’s what Tess thought they struck. She recognized the half past strike, and the bells, flat and distant, but it was hard to remember what hour it was. Despite herself, she was beginning to yawn. The darkness had settled to a complacent, busy silence, full of distant trains, the stamping of the bored horses and, from inside the prison, the occasional exclamations of a guard.

  ‘Bigwig?’ muttered Tess. Her head was drooping lightly on his shoulder.

  ‘Yes, Miss Teresa?’ Thomas’s cheeks were glowing scarlet at the proximity of a lady’s - at least, in theory - head anywhere within a half-foot of his own suit.

  ‘Got summat to eat, bigwig?’

  ‘What with the High Velocity, Low Torsion Wind . . .’

  ‘The big thing with the gears an’ all.’

  ‘. . . Device, and the ladder and the smoke bombs and the spare packets of potassium chloride you made me pack and . . .’

  ‘You never know when you might need pota . . . potass . . . that stuff! It’s a vital component of all things what go bang!’

  ‘. . . I fear I neglected to bring breakfast.’

  Tess looked up sharply. ‘Were that . . . sarcasm, bigwig?’

  In the light of the single lantern on the carriage, Thomas’s face was nothing more than an innocent grey shape. ‘Miss?’

  ‘You ain’t never learnt sarcasm, bigwig. It ain’t what you’re all about.’

  ‘What exactly am I all about, Miss Teresa?’

  ‘You,’ she poked an accusing finger into his chest, ‘are all about doin’ what is needed to be done when asked, right? We ain’t needin’ cheek from you.’ She looked worriedly into the smoke and fog. ‘After all, what’d be left for me to do then?’

  Before Thomas could think of an appropriate reply, there was a sound from near the open prison gates. It went like this:

  ‘Oh my god oh my god it’s alive he’s alive help me immediately aaaahhhh!’, and was accompanied by running feet.

  Tess said, ‘That sounds like Mister Lyle.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘’Course. He ain’t never good at spinnin’ the yarn, like.’

  Thomas called out, ‘Mister Lyle?’

  In the darkness, the running stopped. A more normal voice said, ‘Thomas?’

  ‘We’re here, Mister Lyle!’

  ‘I can’t see a bloody thing.’

  ‘Where are you?’

  ‘Somewhere in the courtyard, I think. Shouldn’t there be guards everywhere?’

  ‘Miss Lin had a word with them.’

  ‘What, all of them?’

  ‘I think so.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘She can see in the dark, can’t she?’

  And right next to Lyle’s ear, a voice whispered, ‘I’m here, Mister Lyle.’

  Lyle jumped. ‘Bloody hell, don’t do that!’

  A warm female hand settled on his shoulder. ‘It’s all right. The guards are . . . indisposed.’

  ‘How indisposed, exactly?’

  ‘I promise you, only one or two had anything even slightly broken, and those are unimportant limbs only.’

  ‘My God, did you attack an entire prison’s worth of guards?’

  ‘No, no, not at all! I lured half of them into one of their own cell wings and locked the door on them. Then there were the ones who ran away to seek help and I think are now somewhat lost in the fog, and the rest were . . .’ In Lin’s voice, the sound of a shrug. ‘Night-shift duty only, I imagine. Doesn’t pay well enough for them to stay.’

  ‘But . . . I had a brilliant plan! An excellent, superb, utterly infallible escape plan, a work of true genius! I was going to save the day dramatically for the greater good!’

  ‘And I had flash bombs,’ replied Lin. ‘And may I say, an exceptionally invigorating time. Did you find what you were looking for?’

  ‘Well, it depends on how you look at it,’ muttered Lyle. ‘Did you really . . .’

  ‘Mister Lyle,’ said Lin, ‘I am a Tseiqin. I have spent my life learning how to fight, how to maim, how to injure, how to induce every conceivable kind of distress with the minimal possible effect, in fact, on . . .’

  ‘I’m beginning to regret that I asked.’

  ‘And today,’ - Lyle sensed her grin in the dark - ‘I am learning about the miraculous properties of magnesium and air.’

  ‘Oxygen.’

  ‘I beg your pardon?’

  ‘Not just air - oxygen.’

  She replied, ‘I can see why you are a popular man around town, Mister Lyle. Did you find out what we needed to know?’

  ‘Not in so many words.’

  And from the prison gates, a voice said, ‘Interesting. I had thought we needed a plan of escape. It would appear the path is already clear.’ Moncorvo stepped forward, into the night, and drew a long, deep breath of dirty fog and swirling smoke, as though it was the taste of the sea.

  Lyle sighed. ‘It’s going to be a terrible day,’ he announced. ‘Miss Lin?’

  ‘I’m here.’ Her gentle hand, on Lyle’s shoulder. He smiled grimly and said, ‘Thank you.’ In a second he had grabbed the hand, and turned on the spot, dragging Lin’s head back and down. He drew a magnet from his pocket and rammed it tight against the small of her back. Her face distorted in pain.

  ‘Tell me,’ he hissed in her ear, ‘tell me why that man is free,’ indicating Moncorvo. ‘Tell me why you sent me in there to get him out, tell me why you lied, tell me why you didn’t tell me, tell me what you really want!’

  Lin, dancing Lin, struggled; but the magnet burnt even through the clothes on her back. Its influence took the grace, the strength out of her body, and seemed to make her thin and limp. ‘He’s the only one with answers!’ she gasped. ‘Believe me, we like him no more than you do!’

  ‘Flattery,’ sighed Moncorvo.

  ‘You let me go in there for him,’ spat Lyle. ‘You used me to free him, you used me and I trusted you.’

  ‘I suppose I should interrupt this,’ said Moncorvo, flashing a smile. ‘This is hardly the time for recrimination, Lyle. I suspect even this lady’s excellent handiwork will not keep us safe for long. Many people will not take my escaping lightly. Should we not find a means of transport, perhaps?’

  Lyle hesitated. ‘You . . . and he . . .’ he began, glowering at Lin.

  ‘I’m not on his side!’ she snapped. Lyle’s grip relaxed and she pulled away from him, eyes glowing with anger. ‘Yes! We did use you to get him out, because we couldn’t go down to that iron prison with iron walls and hope to win. But Moncorvo is as much our enemy as he is yours. I’m sorry we weren’t honest with you, but this - all of it! - is a necessary evil.’

  ‘Don’t tell that to Mister Lyle,’ murmured Moncorvo. ‘He sees everything in black and white.’

  Lyle stood, looking as if someone had merely assembled his limbs in a Lyle-shaped bundle and forgotten to animate them. He suddenly looked very small and tired. ‘Miss,’ he murmured, ‘I do not, and never will, trust you. Never. I hope we understand each other.’

  ‘Absolutely, Mister Lyle,’ she replied calmly.

  ‘Right. You watch him,’ a finger jabbed from Lin to Moncorvo, ‘and somewhere a long way from here, we’ll sort out this whole bloody mess.’

  CHAPTER 11

  Institute

  ‘Thomas! Tess!’

  Lyle had the tone that Tess associated with bathtime - an unstoppable command that made all cringe before it. He strode out of the darkness towards the waiting carriage, and stared straight at Thomas.

  ‘Thomas, I need you to take Tess home immediately.’

  ‘Is something wrong, Mister Lyle?’

  ‘Yes, very; now please do as I ask.’

  ‘What’s happened? Did you find the Tseiqin under the prison?’

  ‘Yes, and things are very wrong.’

  ‘You gettin’ us . . .’ Tess’s words disintegrated into a yawn, then re-emerged at the other end ‘. . . out of the
way so as we’re not causin’ trouble?’

  ‘I think it’s a lot past your bedtime, Teresa, and I’m afraid I don’t have time to argue this .’

  ‘What’s the matter? There ain’t . . .’ Tess saw something move in the shadows, and heard that voice, that voice she was never going to forget, even though she couldn’t see the face, that voice like black leather if it could speak, that voice like the flow of oil across a still surface in the moonlight, that voice that said . . .

  ‘I see you keep your pets, Mister Lyle.’

  Tess looked at Thomas, and saw how pale he’d gone. Lyle grabbed Thomas by the shoulders and gently shook him. ‘Thomas, now is not the time.’

  ‘My God,’ whispered Thomas, ‘she did bewitch you, didn’t she? It’s all gone wrong!’

  ‘This is me, I swear,’ hissed Lyle. ‘This is me from top to toe, I know what . . . well, no, I’m working out what I’m doing as I’m going along. Please, Thomas, I can’t deal with all this now. Get Tess back to your father’s house, please. I’ll send someone as soon as possible.’

  Thomas didn’t seem to see, his eyes burning into the darkness. ‘Him,’ he hissed. ‘He did it, he’s . . .’

  Moncorvo drifted into the light of the carriage, directed a humourless smile at Thomas and said, ‘Master Elwick, I am pleasantly surprised to see you endure.’

  Thomas gabbled, ‘Mister Lyle, you’ve got to make this stop! He’s evil, he’s the enemy, he’s everything that’s wrong with them. Please, you’ve got to go back, we can’t let him out! Not him!’

  ‘I know, lad,’ muttered Lyle. ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘Sorry? He will burn everything! Please, you’ve got to ... you can’t . . . he said that . . .’

  ‘This is what has to be done.’ Lyle’s voice had that firm edge to it again. ‘Thomas, please understand, this is what is necessary.’

  ‘Must we wait here much longer?’ asked Moncorvo. ‘I do believe the police will come eventually.’

  Thomas sagged, and looked wearily at Tess. ‘Are you ready to go home, Miss Teresa?’