The clattering heap squealed to a halt before the gravel, and the driver, an elderly, moustached man wearing a flying jacket and a flat cap, leapt out muttering obscenities. He grasped a pocket watch by its chain. Never once looked anywhere but where he was going. As soon as he’d unlocked the gate—by way of the brass plate puzzle—it crept open on its own, but too slowly for him, as he shook his steering wheel impatiently from the driver’s seat and then hurled his hat at the fence in frustration when the car took its good time accelerating. He drove into the cemetery without looking back. The gate closed behind him.
Meredith fetched the flat cap, thinking to use it as an excuse for following the man through the gates if she was caught—an attempt to return it to him. The time he’d spent besting the puzzle, no more than twenty seconds, encouraged her. He’d carried his Atlas pocket watch, too, so he had to have used the monocle. To read something perhaps? Something ordinary light would not reveal?
Hmm, it all seemed to fit. The steel hangman’s post with a magnet on the end, to undo the case. The oval of raised buttons one could press till doomsday and not find the right sequence to unlock the gates, unless one had a correct code on the correct day? And the monocle, given to read the real buttons which...yes, yes...appeared in the empty grid squares around the oval. Flat, square buttons numbering from zero to nine that only revealed themselves when viewed through a pinkish-red lens. She had to breathe on the glass to achieve the right hue.
But what’s the combination? The Atlas entry code?
The unique number engraved on her case—eight-two-six—was the only one she could think of. If this didn’t work, she might have to go—
It did.
As the imperious iron gates inched apart, a growing queasiness turned her stomach and the gravel path before her and this whole misadventure to quicksand. Uncertain ground. Beyond, danger most certain. It was the momentous moment of her life away from home, a point of no return, and that it drew her toward it rather than repulsed her satisfied Meredith deep inside. This she could do. This she would do. This...she was born to do.
The gates whined closed behind her, and she scurried off the path, flitting from yew to yew a whisper away from an eternity of moonlit headstones.
Wheel tracks grooved the soggy path of compacted wood chippings until she could no longer see the gates behind her through the mist. A pungent smell of wet soil accompanied her off-road, while the occasional ship’s horn from the Thames provided the only sound. At first.
Heavy footsteps disturbed the gravel ahead. She ran behind the nearest tree. The steps continued toward her, first at a slow walk, than at a trot—not a run, the thing now had more than two legs. It had started off with two, now it had four? Or perhaps there were two people and their steps had been in sync at first.
Raspy breaths, almost snarls, ricocheted quietly around the cemetery. Closer. Now farther away. But where? What was it? She peeked around the tree but there was nothing there.
A wolf-like howl erupted, goosing her spine. Still nothing to see. Then a series of vicious snarls, as though the wolf was fighting with its prey. They couldn’t be...phantom animals, could they? She shook the idea from her head. The fool driver had planted that superstitious seed with his hinting at the full moon.
But what is making those noises?
If Sonja were here she’d tell Meredith to think this through with logic, deduction, a dispassionate mind. All sound had a source. And if she couldn’t see the source then it must be hidden. But why? Who would want to create this illusion? Someone intending to frighten people away. And who would do that?
Someone protecting a secret.
She crept by the second row of overgrown headstones until she was certain the raspy breaths and the snarls and the footsteps were emerging from the grass at her feet. Sure enough, a little rummaging among the weeds dislodged a metal speaker attached to a wire that fed into the ground, into the grave.
How utterly ghoulish.
But the charade was clear—a cheap but effective gimmick to repel visitors from a place already conducive to people’s worst fears and superstitions. The cemetery. An ideal place to hide secrets.
Somewhere off to her left, an undead groan. A long way up ahead, a ball and chain being dragged over the shale. They might scare the Dickens out of unsuspecting visitors—yes, they were straight out of A Christmas Carol—but Meredith merely shook her head. Then swallowed.
They’d best all be fake.
The line of yews ended and still the wheel tracks went on, dozens of them. They veered right at a cobblestone crossroads, into an imposing section of the cemetery where simple headstones gave way to ever larger, more elaborate and overgrown gothic crypts, some made of limestone, others of marble.
Partway along this row, dense grass had completely covered the cobblestone. Here the tracks seemed to disappear altogether. An unnatural archway of ribbed wooden beams decorated with moss and fake bark seemed odd. From a distance it resembled trees bowing over the road. Perhaps that was the intent. Meredith backtracked to make sure she hadn’t missed a turning anywhere between crypts. No, and it didn’t make a jot of sense. How could vehicles and horses up and vanish without a clue in the middle of a lane? Unless...
She kicked at the edge of the grass, bent low to inspect the ground where stone met vegetation. Hmm, it appeared normal, natural, but something had to be amiss. The crypt buildings opposite were very old, partially thatched by the tangles of dead brown creepers. Outside the one on the left stood a discoloured brass plaque on a stone pedestal. Again, to the unsuspecting eye it didn’t seem unusual, but Meredith was starting to think like an Atlas agent.
If a vehicle can’t disappear from thin air, then it has to have been moved.
After lifting the plaque lid as she had at the gate—the latch on this one was disguised as a gilded octagon—she re-entered her code on the identical buttons, using the tinted monocle to read the hidden digits. A distant ratcheting of metallic cogs and gears made her step back from the cobbles. A vibration underfoot tickled her soles and shins.
The entire road ahead began to slide away. The thick grass was merely camouflage on the roof of some sort of underground vault. This roof was moved by means of two huge iron chains attached to a steam-powered crank. The hot vapour cloud billowed out of an exhaust grid in the ground near the left hand crypt.
A shallow concrete slope led down inside the vault, and here she saw the continuation of damp wheel tracks leading far, far below the graveyard.
So here we go...
A McEwan ventures underground.
The purpose of the artificial archway was now clear, too—it hid this operation from spying airships.
If it had been more cramped inside she might not have risked it, yet there was room enough for horses and carriages and great big clunking cars: hopefully more than enough room for her to hide in.
After removing her shoes (again) she gripped the Atlas case in her gloved hand, said a prayer, and stole inside the vault.
At the foot of the slope, gas lamps stood equidistantly along the walls of an enormous concrete sanctum, not home lights but full-sized streetlamps. A lever next to the first lamp recovered the roof. Meredith hoped no one was close enough to hear it.
All right, now what?
A doorway in the left hand wall beside the ramp led to a staircase, presumably accessed from the crypt up top by those who came on foot. She followed the faint muddy boot prints and wheel tracks downhill until they turned left into a vast tunnel at least sixty feet wide, fifteen high. She couldn’t see its end. It seemed to dip and then rise concavely for half a mile or so. Dozens of broad white portcullises barred regular entry points into either wall of the corridor. Each was lit by a streetlamp, and all appeared to be closed. So where had the vehicles gone? All the way up the corridor?
Eight thick, raised, parallel metallic lines ran along the floor of the passage, four on the left, four on the right. There was a walk space in the centre, and another on eith
er flank. The lines started after the second portcullis. They gleamed, appeared to be brand new. Electric cables fed from the lines up the wall on either side. They attached to curved apparatuses resembling broad, upside-down periscopes in the ceiling. These measured the width of each set of four lines. The same set-up repeated at regular intervals along the tunnel on both sides, the periscopes on the right hand side facing the opposite way.
It behoved her to be extra cautious from here on as there was nowhere to hide, and nowhere to retreat to, should she brave this enormous passage. The flat cap might be a decent disguise if only she weren’t dressed like a tsarina.
She backed up. Beyond the turn into this central corridor, shadowy alcoves surrounded a large, empty rectangular space with a low ceiling. Two or three sets of footprints headed in that direction. It had the feel of a utility area, and might provide her with a way to orient herself, to learn more about this underground sanctum.
In the first alcove she found a dark, musty room about the size of a work shed. Strange metallic sleds of various sizes, some twice as big as her, hung on padded wooden racks from floor to ceiling. The smaller sleds weighed almost nothing but seemed firm enough; she could neither warp nor press the metal. The bottoms were lined with a curious layer of something thin and grey.
A sign on the wall said, Undersides Made of Pyrolytic Graphite. Handle With Care.
Whatever that was.
Workmen had left overalls and mining helmets on hooks in one corner. A few pairs of Wellingtons stood underneath. They all smelled like underpants in summer but she’d come too far to quit now, and a disguise—any disguise—was essential if she wanted to go further. Relief from her constricting dress and stays left her a little giddy, energised. She imagined Sonja beside her, egging her on, rattling off nautical terms a mile a minute to frame all this as an adventure, something they should be doing as McEwans. It was in their blood, didn’t she know?
The overalls were too big so she turned up the sleeves and legs and hoped no one would notice how loose the Wellingtons were. If it came to a foot race, she might as well be wearing clown shoes crossing a bog. The mining helmets were uncomfortable as well as cumbersome, so she opted for the flat cap instead, taking care to tie her hair up as tightly as she could. Lastly, she used saliva to wet the mud on the underside of the Wellingtons, and smeared it over her face.
It wasn’t exactly what Cathy had had in mind for wooing London, but it would have to do.
She grabbed a sled from the rack and determined to figure out its use. If this was the preferred mode of transportation down here, it would only aid her disguise. How, then, did it work?
The other alcoves in this utility area were either empty or filled with trolleys, broken sleds, crates of empty milk bottles and cans of fruit, wooden beams, dustbins, horseshoes, assorted automobile parts, and endless stacks of metallic tracks, identical to those laid down on the middle of the corridor.
Attraction beats the iron gait,
So tend the field from twelve till eight.
She ran those lines from Donnelly’s verse over and over in her mind. Magnetism: the key to unlocking her Atlas case; also, she was now quite certain, the means by which the sled would be whisked down the passageway. For while science had never been her forte at school, inklings and intuition had; they’d seen her through several subjects she hadn’t expected to pass. They were the hidden reminders of one’s experiences, however unconsciously one soaked them up in the first place. Metal tracks and electric cables and metallic sleds?
Some kind of magnetic locomotion.
The main corridor remained still, empty. Behind the first portcullis on the left, a brass sphere supported by decorative steel spider legs sat in the centre of a room that pulsed ultraviolet and yellow alternately. A bizarre fungal growth covered the top third of the sphere, while tables filled with potted plants, glass tubes, beakers, and bottles of coloured liquids stood away to one side.
What the deuce is that all about?
The second and third portcullises faced one another. A lever was attached to the wall outside each. Beneath the lever, the wheels of a five-digit combination lock made her think twice. She only had three numbers, those engraved on the case. If she were faced with this type of lock further on...
Automobiles of every shape and size were parked in the left hand room. Horses and carriages waited in the other. Meredith heard voices coming from the latter, so she slung the sled over her shoulder and made for the metal tracks.
A notice on the wall next to the start of the four metal strips on the left read, Caution! Diamagnetic levitation uses powerful electromagnets. No heavy metallic items allowed. High setting for freight sleds ONLY. Single passengers use low setting. When light is green, pump lever twice. For smoothest ride, maintain centre of balance.
The light was indeed green, so she pumped the black-handled lever back and forth in the ground. Over the tracks, a heavy whuh-whuh-whuh began and seemed to cushion the air from underneath. As she lowered the sled, it rested just above the metal tracks on an invisible bed of air. When she let go for a moment it began to accelerate, perhaps pulled by the periscope overhead. Halting its progress took a considerable effort. But even then pulling the sled back was impossible, so she had to tilt it sideways to free it, then start again at the beginning. As she did, the butterflies in her stomach swarmed electrically to her fingers and toes in a vision-whitening pulse, making her gasp. It was a pleasant sensation, though, and left a prickly tickle all over her body.
She sat on the sled. It lowered ever so slightly and immediately picked up speed. Meredith found that the steadier she kept it, the more the egg-shaped whuh-whuh-whuh sensation flattened to a cockle-warming whir. Approaching each new periscope hanging from the ceiling produced another gentle spurt of acceleration, and there were hundreds. The periscopes on the opposite side of the tunnel faced the opposite way, so the right hand track had to be for travelling in that direction.
How far she’d have to travel she didn’t know, but none of the portcullis rooms seemed apt for a meeting place. They were laboratories and storage rooms, and she’d give anything to be able to explore them at her leisure.
Maybe later in the month, when the eight sects aren’t meeting?
The periscopes became more frequent as she began to climb. Several between portcullises. They dragged her uphill at a constant speed, a gentle ten miles an hour.
If all this was under the city of London, how many more tunnels had they built? Perhaps even the Leviacrum tower, despite its constant upward expansion, was simply not big enough to house the scientific ambition of its masters, and the only alternative was to spread downward, splay outward where none could gain access. She did her best to identify the experimentations she could only glimpse as she passed; some didn’t mean a thing to her, and she wished again that Sonja were here beside her to provide a little insight.
In one, an emerald light beam was suspended between two trees. Swarms of living fluorescent particles inside it appeared to give off flashes of electricity. These flashes struck a shiny metal orb mounted on a rotating light-sensitive wheel below. Glowing symbols then appeared on the wheel, as if the orb had translated the flashes into pictorial language. These symbols were then recorded, like photographs, onto a never-ending roll of film, before they disappeared and the wheel spun to record the next message. Communicating with intelligent microscopic life forms? Whatever next?
More than one laboratory was sealed with glass doors behind its portcullis. These contained human bodies afloat in large glass jars full of bubbling water. Alternating currents flash-crackled between silver globes above each jar, zapping the water repeatedly. It reminded her of the heinous science the characters in Sonja’s penny dreadful comics often practiced, twisted experiments inspired by Dr. Frankenstein’s. But what where they up to?
Another room boasted an iron vault door behind its portcullis, with no window. A notice on the door read, Caution! Live ammunition used inside. The next warned
of explosive chemicals, while the one after that contained highly flammable liquid. Meredith kept thinking of the recent cataclysmic explosions, first off Norway, then in the South Pacific, many had blamed on this institution. Were these research laboratories linked to those acts of destruction? If only she had a camera with her. If only she had access to the records detailing what went on here. If only the rest of the world knew about this place!
A junction up ahead signalled the end of her current ride. She alighted from the sled just before a corridor leading to the left. The sign said, Automata 8, Anti-Gravity 3, Elevators 15 & 16.
But elevators to where? Straying from this central tunnel probably wasn’t a smart move but Meredith’s curiosity was now insatiable, sugar-rich—the more she saw, the more she wanted to know. It coursed through her arteries with fizzy urgency. She might be the only outsider to have ever reached this far. It might be her only chance to go all the way.
Carrying the sled under her arm, she soon arrived at a gridiron bridge over an acre of glass-ceiled laboratory cubicles. The only lights were on the underside of the bridge. They revealed just enough of the sleeping mechanisms in the cubicles to tell her this was experimental automaton technology. And obscene. Half-man, half-horse machines. Then a hideous centipede-like mechanism made up of a dozen small man-shaped automata joined by flexible piping. Then a slender automaton dressed up like a prostitute. Lastly, disembodied metal arms and oversized heads protruding from a kitchen wall, the former for cooking, the latter for God-knew-what. If this was Automata 8, what the hell were they making in the first seven?
Beyond the bridge she found the elevators. She hurried past those because the one on the right was grumbling—in use? A couple of trolleys had been left outside a storage room nearby.
Fifty yards on she reached what had to be Anti-Gravity 3, a stupendous cavern over five hundred feet deep and about a quarter of a mile square. Reinforced glass shielded it from her current level, while there were umpteen observation levels on the far side. She used the high magnification on her goggles to look around. Nine concrete craters dotted across the cavern floor appeared to be the hubs, with equipment and boxes strewn around them. Miniature rockets were hung by scaffolding over four of them. Exactly what the propulsion might be she couldn’t guess. Anti-gravity? A new one on Meredith.
Imperial Clock (The Steam Clock Legacy) Page 17