Engines of Empathy (Drakeforth Series Book 1)

by Paul Mannering

  I pushed the nearest lift buttons repeatedly in the vain hope it would encourage the elevator to come and get us faster.

  The doors sighed gently and opened. We both stepped forward and then stopped. My desk was packed into the elevator. Anna Coluthon stood behind it, her arms folded, with EGS Benedict beside her, barely visible, peeping around the side. We stood stock still, the four of us staring at each other.

  The building shook as an explosion rumbled deep in its bowels. Drakeforth took my arm and pushed me into the lift. We stood there as the doors slid shut behind us. Only the desk separated Drakeforth and me from Benedict and Coluthon. You could have spread the air between us on warm toast.

  ‘The building is on fire,’ Drakeforth said in an apparent attempt to break the awkward silence.

  ‘Really? I thought someone had just turned the air-conditioning up,’ Coluthon said.

  ‘That would explain the alarms,’ Benedict said with forced jocularity.

  ‘Yes, turning up the air-conditioning would explain the fire alarms,’ Drakeforth replied. Coluthon’s eyes narrowed and she stared at him as if noticing him for the first time.

  ‘Is anyone going to mention the elephant in the room?’ I said with barely constrained anger.

  ‘Oh come on, she’s a curvy girl but I think that is a bit unfair of you, Pudding,’ Drakeforth said immediately. Benedict seemed to shrink slightly, tensing as if ready to take cover under the roll-top cover of the desk.

  Coluthon took her pipe out of a pocket and filled it from a leather tobacco pouch that bore an unsettlingly resemblance to a bull’s scrotum. The elevator was moving excruciatingly slowly and I found myself watching with grim fascination as she lit the pipe with a long, blue-headed match. Orange smoke jetted from Coluthon’s nose and her eyes never wavered from Drakeforth’s face. She was never more dragon-like than in that moment. I made eye contact with Benedict; he had the shocked expression of a man who has just discovered that he is trapped in a slow-moving lift that is about to become a bloodbath.

  ‘He’s cute,’ Coluthon said, ‘Did you get him from a rescue shelter?’ I opened my mouth to apologise but Drakeforth pulled me back in the small space available.

  ‘If you ever produce children, can I have one of the puppies?’ he said to Coluthon. Benedict made a strangled sound deep in his throat.

  ‘How’s the shoulder?’ she said with an audible smirk.

  ‘Well, my old high-school bounceball injury twinges occasionally, but otherwise it’s fine.’ Drakeforth flexed his arm in a way that must have come close to ripping the stitches out. His gaze never wavered from Coluthon’s face.

  ‘If I may—’ Benedict started.

  ‘Stay out of this, honey,’ Coluthon snapped and the little man subsided into a frowning silence.

  ‘You make such a cute couple,’ Drakeforth said. ‘The bunk beds can’t be convenient, though.’

  ‘You know it’s considered bad form to assault bystanders in a duel,’ Coluthon said, her pipe clicking against her teeth as she spoke. ‘

  ‘This isn’t some Sarkazian club. We aren’t bound by Sacmos Federation rules.’ Drakeforth replied. I inhaled sharply. I’d heard of Sarkazian clubs in college: secret societies where patrons gathered to duel with insults, put-downs and of course scathing sarcasm. They were outlawed on most college campuses after some defeated participants had committed suicide. It seemed we were in the middle of an illegal affront. This was street sarcasm at its cruellest, bare-knuckle slurs with no rules and no prohibitions.

  Coluthon gave the slightest of shrugs, ‘Of course.’ She knocked the ashes out of her pipe on the edge of the desk.

  ‘You know, I’d like to ask your mother why she chose to raise you as an idiot,’ she continued.

  ‘I’d ask yours the same thing, but I don’t speak cockroach,’ Drakeforth replied immediately.

  From there it was all on. The two traded barbs and insults with the skill of surgeons. I winced and gasped several times. When there seemed no come-back that could top the last, one of them would find the strength for another thrust. Back and forth the verbal sparring went. Sarcasm was countered with insult and derision parried cutting acerbity. Sparks flew as disdain clashed with scorn and they were quick to strike while the irony was hot.

  I held my breath for what was the longest minute of my life and then the lift slid to a halt. I exhaled as Drakeforth brought a double-entendre with a back-stabbing character assassination crashing down on Coluthon’s head. The elevator doors opened and I could see in her eyes that Coluthon was beaten. She’d taken on the grandmaster of rudeness and come away with her panties in a bunch. I glanced out at the foul-smelling smoke now curling lazily down from the ceiling. The atmosphere out in the empty hallway seemed a lot less toxic than that of the lift.

  ‘We’re taking my desk. We are taking it home and I don’t expect to see either of you ever again,’ I said grabbing one side of the desk and pulling the trolley out into the corridor. Drakeforth helped by pushing from the other end as it slid past.

  ‘Lovely to see you again,’ Drakeforth said charmingly. ‘We’ll be sure to pop in and say hello next time we are visiting the zoo.’

  Coluthon snarled and lunged forward. I threw up a hand, feeling the empathic energy powering the lift bend towards my own resonating field. The lift doors slammed shut. A moment later I heard Coluthon’s howl of rage fading as the lift shot upwards.

  ‘The fire is spreading. They may not make it out safely,’ Drakeforth said.

  ‘I’m sure they will be fine,’ I replied, and I hoped it would be true.

  We pushed the trolley carrying the desk out through the building’s deserted front entrance. I could hear sirens in the distance and a heavy pall of smoke obscured anyone who might still be around the building.

  ‘Now,’ Drakeforth said, looking about, ‘where did that charming couple leave their truck?’

  *

  Drakeforth insisted on driving Benedict’s truck home. I felt too tired to argue, and slept through most of the long drive.

  I woke up at one point to find we were in the middle of a parade with floats and marching bands. The sun shone down on the streets, which were lined with Goddens six rows deep, each one waving in synch and cheering loudly. I wanted to ask Drakeforth what was going on, but he had turned into a giant marshmallow and was waving back at the Godden crowd.

  ‘I’m having a very odd dream,’ I said to the marshmallow Drakeforth.

  ‘Watch out for snakes,’ he said. I nodded and closed my eyes again.

  The sun was rising when we arrived home. I groaned and stretched, feeling the familiar aches introduce themselves to the new ones. I felt bruised and filled with broken glass.

  ‘You really don’t do mornings,’ Drakeforth observed. ‘Come on, I’ll astound you with my breakfast-making abilities,’

  Climbing out of the truck I limped towards my front gate. The front door seemed to whisper faultless promises of the hot shower and soft bed to be found within. I fumbled with the key and made it as far as the kitchen before giving up and slumping into a chair.

  ‘I expect one day this kitchen will become famous,’ Drakeforth declared. ‘Parties of schoolchildren will come through and be told, this is where it started, you ungrateful little skunks. This is where the master plan for saving the world was conceived and put into action. If not for the heroic and selfless actions of Vole Drakeforth and Charlotte Pudding, you’d be answering to an entirely different kind of master right now.’

  ‘Put the kettle on. I need to take a shower.’ I returned twenty minutes later, somewhat revived and recalibrated. Drakeforth presented a breakfast of burnt toast overlaid with thick slices of barely melted margarine. The aronga-lobe extract in the tea was nice, though.

  After eating we unloaded the truck and unwrapped the plastic sheeting around the desk, settling it on its usual spot on the faded carpet of my office.

  On impulse I slid the roll-top lid up and crawled onto the desk’s writing surfac
e. Even with my legs pulled up against my chest I was now too long to fit in the space. I set my feet on the chair and slid the lid down, my top half inside, and my feet resting on the chair. Dying here would be pleasant, I felt, though possibly quite traumatic for Drakeforth, who was uncharacteristically silent.

  I ran my fingers over the long interconnected slats of the desk cover; narrow oak strips, connected by some craftsman’s magic. They rippled slightly when my fingers stroked them, as supple as living tissue.

  Never having lain in this exact position previously, I had never before discovered the false slat in the roll top. It dropped off under my fingers.

  Wedged in the space behind the slat was a folded sheet of paper, long and packed tightly into the small hollow. I gently pulled it out and tried to sit up, knocking my head on a shelf. With some rapid fumbling I lifted the desk cover and slid out.

  ‘Have you quite finished?’ Drakeforth asked.

  ‘We may be just beginning,’ I replied, carefully unfolding the square of paper on the desk. The sheet was densely covered in small writing, a tight, concise hand that I did not recognise. Intrigued, I began to read aloud.

  ‘Whoever finds this – and I dearly hope it is a family member to whom I have entrusted this desk, my most faithful companion in all manners academic and alchemical – I must firstly say congratulations on having the type of enquiring mind that refuses to leave well enough alone. It is your complete disregard for the sanctity of this fine piece of furniture that has led to you discovering this, my letter of explanation and farewell.

  ‘I am betrayed. I expected my life’s work to contribute to something quite wonderful. Huddy Godden’s empathy technology, using the empathic energy that my colleagues and I have discovered, is now poised to be shared with the world. I can see no future that does not promise joy and relief from arduous toil for all mankind.

  ‘I now have the confidence that empathic energy will continue to be developed and adopted as the power source for all things in the future. As you will by now well know, if you have read any of the no doubt myriad number of scientific papers on the subject, empathic energy is enhanced by contact with living things, and it can be used for almost anything. A clean, constant, and never-ending source of power. Yes, I’m digressing again.

  ‘You may be wondering where I am. What became of me, and why my body was never found.

  ‘My body has been consumed. At least it will be consumed. It occurs to me that writing to you like this is as close as we may ever come to time travel. A window for you, in my future, to me in your past. Astonishing really. I’m actually waving to you right now, anonymous reader. Hello!

  ‘Tomorrow I am going to give myself utterly into one of the new e-flux capacitors. I have given instructions that this particular e-flux capacitor is to be installed into the power system of the new Python building. When completed, this building will be a triumph of empathy technology in-situ. I will be a part of that, an eternal engine of empathy. My life touching so many for all time.

  ‘Rather exciting really.

  ‘Spaniel Pudding.’

  I became aware that I had stopped breathing. The Python building, which had always been so important in my life. My father had worked there; my grandfather always spoke of it with pride. The Python building and the empathy engine within it housed the entire life force of my great-grandfather.

  ‘Drakeforth …’ I said.

  ‘As far as earth-shattering discoveries go, this ranks up there with toast always landing butter-side down due to the quantum nature of Hagel’s Law of Disappointment,’ he said, having read the letter over my shoulder. I gave him a look. ‘Of course, this is incredible,’ he back-tracked quickly.

  ‘It’s everything …’ I said in a hushed whisper, clutching the letter to my chest. Drakeforth raised a hand, and then, with an unlikely clumsiness he touched my arm. Overwhelmed by the moment I thought, oh why not? and moved in for the implied kiss. A sudden pounding on the front door cut between us like an emergency bulkhead coming down in a ruptured submarine. I went and opened it.

  ‘Diphthong?’ I said.

  ‘I have been told that you have brought the living oak desk home,’ he said, his face shining.

  ‘Well yes …’ I admitted.

  ‘I have brought you patchouli oil!’ he thrust a small bottle at me.

  ‘Where did you get it?’ I said, pleased and intrigued as I took the small sealed bottle.

  ‘Well,’ he said, his chest puffing out. ‘I scoured the city until my investigations led me to a man in a most unfortunate state. He was confined to a wheelchair, having lost his arms and his legs in some tragedy, which I did not feel was appropriate to enquire about. Interestingly enough, he was able to move about by controlling a team of small dogs in harnesses—’ Still smiling, I closed the door in Diphthong’s face.

  ‘Who was that?’ Drakeforth asked from the doorway to my office.

  ‘A representative of an underground organisation that takes my protection and safety very seriously,’ I said walking slowly towards Drakeforth while uncorking the bottle and inhaling the lavender scent.

  ‘What’s that?’ he said gesturing to the bottle as I walked past him and into the kitchen.

  ‘Nothing important,’ I replied and dropped the bottle in the trash before putting the kettle on for a fresh pot of tea.

  Chapter 19

  We drove my Flemetti Viscous out to the Monastery of Saint Detriment the next day. As we walked in through the open gate, Drakeforth was immediately surrounded by excited monks. They lifted him up on their shoulders and carried off to the Collider, demanding he explain key points of what the excited congregation were calling Arthur’s Revelation of the Retirement.

  ‘I hope we haven’t caused too much trouble,’ I said to Hoptoad as we sat outside in the shade, drinking iced tea and watching the herbs grow.

  ‘Hardly. As far as religions go, Arthurianism needed some new material. The old dogmas are comforting, but we need a new challenge. In fact, I’ve already refused an offer of sainthood. “Saint Hoptoad” sounds a bit silly if you ask me.’

  ‘I think you would make a fine saint.’ I smiled at him.

  ‘A true saint would conduct miracles. You are looking well today, but there are some things even we proto-saints can’t change.’ Hoptoad regarded me with a fatherly concern.

  ‘There’s nothing anyone can do. I thought I might have been cured, but that didn’t last. Anyway, I’ve been ignoring my doctor’s advice for months.’ I waved his frown away.

  ‘Does Drakeforth know?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes he does. I’m avoiding further disucssion with him. I expect he will just say something sarcastic and insist on taking me on a crazy adventure looking for a cure for the incurable.’

  ‘Love makes fools of us all,’ Hoptoad said.

  I almost laughed, ‘It’s hardly love. We’ve only known each other a few days.’

  ‘What are your plans?’ he asked.

  ‘I don’t know. I guess I’ll know when they happen.’

  ‘The true traveller cares not for the destination. The idea of the journey is the reason he reads the travel brochures,’ Hoptoad said with a grave solemnity.

  ‘Can you tell me why?’ I asked.

  ‘Why we have been providing the Godden Energy Corporation with empathic energy for the last one hundred years?’

  ‘Well yes. I guess that sums up my key questions.’

  ‘Do you think that anything will be actually achieved by revealing this truth to the world?’ Hoptoad sipped his iced tea and sighed with contentment.

  ‘It’s not about telling anyone. It’s about understanding the world we live in. My great-grandfather was involved you know. Huddy Godden, Wardrock Drakeforth and Spaniel Pudding.’

  ‘You must feel relieved to finally know who your ancestor is.’

  ‘I always knew who Spaniel Pudding was. Maybe not his name, but I knew the smell of his pipe, the love he had for that old desk. I created an impression of
him that was very real for me. That is a memory I shall always treasure.’

  ‘Observation creates reality. It can be for the best,’ Hoptoad said. ‘In answer to your earlier question, people volunteer. An astonishingly regular number of people over the decades, as it turns out. Not just here at Saint Detriment of course, all over the world. Every Arthurian Monastery and temple has the facilities to gather and store the full quanta of an individual’s double-e flux.’

  ‘They volunteer to die? Surely someone would have noticed?’

  ‘It’s not quite death. Only your physical form is destroyed. For without energy, matter doesn’t.’

  ‘Doesn’t what?’ I asked.

  ‘Matter.’

  ‘Yes,’ I said, not entirely sure I followed.

  ‘When people die, they change. Their energy is converted to a new form. They become part of the trees, the grass, the air, the soil, the animals that live in the soil and the trees, and the grass. Then the animals that eat the trees and the grass.’

  ‘It’s one way of looking at basic biology.’

  ‘It goes well beyond basic biology. It’s fundamental chemistry, physics and metaphysics. You never actually die. Your chemical energy becomes something else. Dead people are in fact all around us, and in us and are part of us. Not just dead people either. Dead stars.’

  ‘And you don’t mean sense-media celebrities?’

  ‘No, the stars in the sky. Long dead, but sending out their matter and energy into the fertile space of the universe.’

  ‘So people volunteer to have their bodies converted to double-e flux because …?’

  ‘Because they want to live forever. They want to cast off their worn and tired physical constraints and become one with the greater universe.’

  ‘But the sentience, the sense of self – all of that is destroyed when the empathic energy is distributed over millions of devices. Only the barest trace of self remains. We think empowered technology displays life-like traits only because we have an emotional response to the double-e radiation,’ I insisted.