Merciless Reason

by Oisin McGann

  The leviathan had settled into stillness while they fought. Without Gerald playing music into its lobotomized brain, there were no thoughts passing through its head. Nate threw a desperate look towards the curve in the tracks, where they descended past the edge of the trees, off to the right. From his left, he heard the chuff of a steam engine approaching. The noise only distracted him for an instant, but it was enough for Gerald to spring a knife from his sleeve into his hand and stab Nate in the ribs. Nate only managed to deflect it at the last moment, the blade slitting along his right side, rather than piercing his chest. Gerald came at him again, slashing Nate’s arm as he blocked this second strike. The three lamps on the front of the train were visible in the darkness now, coming round the slope of the hill, rain hissing over its barrel-shaped engine, smoke pumping from its smokestack as its pistons drove the steel wheels along the glinting hardness of the rails.

  “Tick tock, tick tock,” Gerald taunted him, knife in hand. “Here we are, Nate, on the cusp of a scientific revolution, and you have us thumping each other around the head again.”

  “What can I say?” Nate grunted, drawing his hunting knife. “I’m a creature of habit.”

  “No, you’re a bloody Neanderthal!” Gerald snapped.

  Hearing a whistle, Nate glanced up at the train that was passing out of sight behind the leviathan’s body. Instinctively, he looked for it to come out the other side. He had no time left. Tatty had no time left.

  Gerald swept his hand across the keys of the keyboard and a tentacle swung over and down, smashing away part of the platform, even as Nate dived forward to avoid it. He rolled back again to dodge another cut from Gerald’s knife and nearly fell off the small organ platform. Forced to drop his knife, he snatched at Gerald’s outstretched arm, hauling himself back on, and lunged in, head-butting his cousin on the bridge of the nose. Gerald stumbled backwards, his arms flailing out. Nate grabbed Gerald’s right arm and turned him, twisting the arm behind his back. Keeping a firm hold on the arm-lock, he seized his cousin’s head, slamming it down hard once, twice, three times on the keyboards, knocking keys loose and forcing discordant blares from the pipes of the organ. The leviathan shuddered and tilted, confused by the signals it was receiving from Gerald. Gerald let out a pained wheeze and slumped down between the seat and the keyboards.

  Jumping from the platform, Nate landed heavily on the wet, boggy ground. He had no time left. Whistling for Flash, he set off running towards the rail-way line. The velocycle had been waiting, and now it swept alongside, its engine growling eagerly.

  Nate was about to leap onto its back when he heard some strident notes from the organ behind him. Lightning struck the ground between him and Flash, blasting them apart with a blinding pillar of light, hotter than the sun. The strike left a burnt, smoking scar on the earth as Nate ran on, trying to get back to his engimal. More lightning strikes punched the ground around them. The land shook as if in an earthquake, the ground splitting into a wide crevasse in front of him, the soil tearing open like some cavernous mouth. Nate jammed his heels into the ground, skidding gouges into the grass, stopping just inches short of the edge. But Flash could not pull round in time … the engimal pitched head-first into the crevasse, struck the far side and tumbled to the bottom. The crack clamped closed, cutting off the engimal’s terrified shriek. Nate’s link with Flash’s mind was cut off like a light going out.

  Nate gasped in shock, as if he had felt the impact himself. Then he looked up at the hundred yards that separated him from the railway line, unable to spot Tatty but seeing the locomotive, tons of iron and steel, rushing headlong towards where his helpless sister lay.

  For a moment he was ready to surrender to utter despair. He heard and saw nothing around him, encased in a cocoon of stillness while, in his mind, he felt the sandstorm outside, pressing against the door. With a feeling of release, he let the door open, felt it torn from its hinges and smashed apart as the maelstrom outside rushed in around him and blotted out his thoughts. He staggered, clutching his head as his senses were overwhelmed, connecting suddenly with every living thing around him, with the air and earth and the water that ran through them, the fire in the lightning that threatened to incinerate him.

  And among it all, he felt Gerald’s monstrous engimal lumbering towards him. It gave him something to focus on, and he lifted his head and opened his eyes. The world was a different place. He could see everything now, from the tiny droplets of water in the clouds to the microscopic organisms in the earth. He could feel the forces that bound together the molecules in the leviathan’s giant body.

  Gerald was playing Mozart’s Requiem; deep, brooding, doom-laden music saturating the air as the leviathan loomed over Nate, its tentacles raised to crush him. Nate gazed up at this thing, filling the sky, felt its weight cause the ground to shudder beneath his feet. He thrust his open hand into the air and clenched his fingers into a fist.

  The pipes of the organ bent and buckled. With a sound like a choir shown a vision of Hell, the leviathan twisted and writhed as its ceramic hide burst open in a dozen places, its insides churning into a mass of debris, four of its tentacles wrenching loose from its body. Gerald’s scream was unheard over the cacophony, as some of his bones broke spontaneously before he fell free of the dying monster.

  The leviathan crashed to the wet boggy ground, twitching, its fading groans subsiding deep into its ruined body. The lifeless carcass creaked and ticked like a house settling in the chill of night.

  But Nate was already running. The train had passed them by, racing on along the tracks. As he ran, he found his conscious mind struggling to maintain control. He had given away too much. As his mind was suffocated by the storm of sensation, his body could feel the soft ground under his shoes, the whip of the grass across his feet and ankles. The wind across his face and hands. The rain still fell, and it steamed and hissed on his skin. The ancient particles that had surged into awareness inside his body now threatened to take over, powered by primal urges—the human drives that were far more potent than any conscious thought. Gerald had called him a Neanderthal, and it was the primitive man in him that wanted control now. With the adrenaline coursing through his body, he was driven to fight … to hunt and kill.

  The train, Nate’s frantic thoughts shouted to be heard. I have to reach Tatty! I must stop the train!

  But those desperate thoughts were being drowned out, lost in the maelstrom in his head. His body kept running as it reveled in the unearthly power exploding through it. Veins stood out on his neck and arms. His bounds grew longer, his feet leaving gouges in the ground. His thighs bulged, his feet burst from his shoes, his shirt and jacket split down the back as his shoulders hunched and expanded, his arms lengthening, swelling muscles shredding the sleeves. Jagged spikes of bone rose from his spine and shoulder blades. Tatty! a distant voice cried from inside him. Tatty! As if to overwhelm that desperate appeal, a joyous ape-like roar rose from his lungs. He beat his chest, charged with power, eager to find rivals, prey, lusting for violence. Tatty! Nate screamed as he felt himself being buried, crushed under the pressure of the beast’s raw, unthinking savagery.

  Then he saw her, lying no more than fifty yards ahead, with the train bearing down on her. Even from here, he could read the abject terror on her face, feel it in his own body as he shared her emotions. She was gagged, and tied hand and foot. Her neck and ankles were roped to the rails. The sight was enough to galvanize him, to throw reins on the beast. He was bounding along on all fours now, more ape than man, running on his fists, knuckles leaving dents in the earth. Nate tried to reach out for the train, just as he had done with the leviathan, but it took all he had just to steer this animal he was becoming. Trying to control its instincts was like grabbing hold of a thrashing snake.

  Humans were not made to use this power. At least, not yet. Their ability to reason was not strong enough. Nate had known that all along. If he let this power loose, his own natu
re could destroy him—it could destroy everything. But he no longer cared. Save Tatty, he thought, that one act of resolve giving him a hold over his base instincts. I’ll do anything to save her. I am not a rational man, I am an animal … a beast. This is not an act of reason. I’ll do anything to save her. If I have to, I’ll kill anyone who gets in my way. He felt a red haze cloud his mind. I’ll kill the world to save her.

  He ran harder, covering ground at an inhuman pace. He was galloping ahead of the train. His angle would take him into its path before it reached Tatty. There was no way he could make these brutish hands untie the ropes, even if he’d had time. And tearing her free could kill her just as surely as being crushed under the train. Could he damage the tracks ahead of her, cause the train to derail? But it would slide forward, tumble … it was too close to her now. Then these weak, foolish, complicated thoughts were cast aside. There was little left of the human Nathaniel Wildenstern had been. There was only the rage, the ferocity that drove him on. Tatty lay helpless, screaming through her gag as she watched the train hurtle round the wide bend towards her. The crew could not see her black clothes in the dim light. Thirty yards, twenty, ten … the beast let out another roar. Charging up the low embankment towards the twenty-five ton locomotive, he lowered his right shoulder …

  With a massive impact that buckled the steel chassis, the beast’s body slammed diagonally into the right front corner of the locomotive. It was if the train had hit a cliff-face. Buffers gave way, cylinders split, the barrel-shaped smoke-box that formed the face of the train crumpled around the beast, breaking off the smokestack. Pistons broke free as the train’s chassis twisted and contracted and wheels broke loose. The boiler burst, spraying pressurized water and steam across the crash-site. In an instant, the train was stopped dead in its tracks, pitching sideways off the rails. The locomotive absorbed the worst of the impact from the front, only to be struck again from behind, the rear of the engine thrown forwards and to the left as the momentum of the tender car and the carriages caused them to pile up against it, the whole length of the train folding like an accordion. The engine toppled over on its side, pulling the first two carriages over with it, down the low bank on the left side of the tracks. It took nearly a minute for all the sections of the zig-zagged train to stop moving, and still the sounds of creaking metal, splintering wood and breaking glass continued as the people aboard began screaming and waning.

  The three crewmen were dead; some of the Wildensterns too, and nearly all of the rest of the family and their small cadre of servants were injured.

  The beast stood over Tatty, resting the great weight of its back and shoulders on its knuckles. It felt almost no pain from the collision as it gazed down at her in curiosity. She stared up at it in astonishment, shock and disbelief. It knew on some level that this delicate creature was important to it, but it had forgotten why. She was not a mate, nor was she one of its offspring. Still, despite its ancient appetites, it had no desire to eat the meat off her bones.

  When it noticed the dark grey, almost black stain creeping out along the ground from under its feet, it stepped back. Despite its brutish mind, a flicker of recognition, and alarm, crossed its broad features. Reaching down to the rail on which her neck was bound, it pulled it up, wrenching the nails out of the sleepers. It did the same with the other rail, and she was able to slide the ropes off the end. With a deep grunt, it gestured at her to run, but her ankles were still tied together. It took both loops of the ankle-rope in its thick fingers and broke them like thread, causing her to cry out in pain, but leaving her ankles free. Then it lifted her onto her feet and pushed her gently on her way with the backs of its fingers, as one might do a toddler who had fallen over. The delicate creature stumbled backwards, unable to take her eyes off the thing in front of her. The beast looked down and saw that the stain of rotten ground was spreading out in a wider circle. It had almost reached the feet of the little creature.

  It bellowed at her, and she turned and fled.

  “Truly remarkable,” a voice said from behind the beast. “You’ve opened my eyes.”

  Gerald stood there, about twenty feet away but hovering nearly thirty feet in the air. The floating quality of his hair and clothes made him seem weightless. It appeared as if his injuries had already healed. He had the expression of a man who had just experienced some divine revelation.

  “I should have realized it long ago,” he added, lifting his arms and feeling the air that he could grip in his hands. “A race as advanced as that which created the particles could naturally have made them as instinctive to use as their own bodies. And there I was, bashing out tunes like some idiot savant, not understanding the power that I held at my fingertips. Thank you, Nate.”

  He regarded the beast with a critical eye and shook his head sadly.

  “There’s nothing left of you in there, is there, old chum? You let them release your true nature. Tch, tch. Clarity of thought and intention was never one of your strengths. And what’s this mess you’re leaving in the ground beneath you? Don’t tell me you’ve gone and soiled yourself—”

  Gerald was barely fast enough to react as the beast seized one of the detached, train wheels and hurled it at him like a discus. He raised his hands and it slowed in mid-air a few feet away from him, then vaporized, leaving only a cloud of smoke that smelled of iron. The concentration that had taken caused him to sink towards the ground, and Gerald caught himself before he hit, willing himself to rise once more. The fat steel cylinder end of one of the train’s pistons smashed him out of the air, throwing him into the wreckage of the train. As Gerald sat up, the beast raised its giant club again, the weapon nearly twice the creature’s own height. Blood flowed from Gerald’s nose and mouth and his head had a lop-sided shape. He stood up, staggered, and sat down again, blinking as he found his thoughts clouded by a red haze. With dull eyes, he stared down at his hands, and then gasped as an animal rage filled his body with adrenaline, that swelling seeming to change the very shape of his muscles. His neck and shoulders bulged, and he stood up and beat at his chest, wanting to let out the feeling surging up inside him.

  Then the beast that had once been his best friend brought the train piston crashing down on him. Like a caveman with a wooden club, the beast battered its rival’s body over and over again, until all sign of life had been extinguished. Then it stood over the corpse, its lungs heaving in long, deep breaths. From under its feet, the stain of the rotten ground spread outwards. Gerald’s body was consumed in less than minute, then the steel and iron of the train parts began dissolving into rust, the rails of the track following suit, the wood of the sleepers rotting to pulp, all eaten up in the steadily widening circle of disintegration.

  The beast was staring down at the growing area of rot when Daisy arrived with Edgar close behind her. They had been forced into shelter by the force of the inexplicable storm that Gerald had summoned, but had emerged from the woods in time to see Nate’s collision with the train. Or at least, the thing that had once been Nate. Daisy got down off her horse, hurrying across the grass towards the railway embankment. The beast saw her and leaped into the air, landing outside the circle of rot, snarling at her but not attacking. She came towards him through the debris of the train crash. Her trembling hands were raised in front her, speaking quietly in a voice that had gone quite hoarse as tears ran down her cheeks.

  “Ssshhhh,” she whispered. “It’s all right now. It’s over. You can come back to me. Come back to me now, Nate. It’s you, Nate. I know it’s you in there. Come back to me.”

  The beast settled onto its knees, a feeling of calm coming over it. It flinched slightly as her hands reached tentatively for its face, but after a few moments it let her touch it. Daisy placed her fingers gently on its cheeks, feeling how different the shape of the jaw and cheekbones were to Nate’s, how tough its hide was compared to Nate’s skin. Even as she caressed them, she could feel a change in them. The beast’s massive frame w
as subsiding, shrinking. Air was exhaled from its lungs as its chest reduced in size. The hostility faded from its eyes as the face contracted around them.

  She did not notice that the rot was still eating past their feet, hissing and sizzling like fried meat as it crossed under the beast’s heels. It was only when she felt a burning under the soles of her own feet that she looked down and gasped in shock. The ground underfoot was a burnt, slimy black. The stench rising from it was incredible. Whatever this was, it was dissolving her shoes. Then she remembered what Nate had told her about the prehistoric disaster.

  “What the bloody hell is that thing?” someone shouted.

  The beast looked up to see some of the Wildensterns making their way awkwardly down from the wreckage of the carriages. Gideon was at their head, cradling a broken wrist to his chest. He was staring at this monstrosity, holding his shotgun pistol in his free hand. Raising it up, he took aim at the creature. Clearly, the fact that it had rammed a train had not suggested to him that killing it might take more than a shotgun shell.

  The beast let out a roar at the Wildensterns. Its body tensed, and Daisy shook her head, waving Gideon back. It was getting to its feet, starting to grow again, when she was pulled backwards, nearly throwing her off her feet. She landed outside the circle of rot.

  Edgar strode past her, across the blackening ground.

  “Run!” he shouted back at her. “Run, and don’t look back! RUN!”

  Then he turned and embraced his son. Holding the beast down on its knees, it took all of Edgar’s considerable strength to cling on to the creature. Clutching its head into his chest, he put his mouth close to its ear.

  “It is my fault you are what you are, my son. This is my burden to bear. Let me take it from you.”