Pax Britannia: Unnatural History

by Jonathan Green

  As he sat there in the gloom, the nausea slowly subsiding, he realised that he was not actually in total darkness. As his eyes adjusted to the gloom, eking every scrap of light from his surroundings, he saw that the curved walls and ceiling of the brick-built tunnel were covered with patches of luminescent moss that appeared to thrive in the putrid, methane-rich atmosphere.

  It was as nothing in comparison to having a halogen beam or storm lantern but it was enough to help him discern one shadowy form from another. It was enough for him to make his way without braining himself against a low arch or stepping off the edge of a precipice, but he would still need to proceed with caution. The darkness could still hide a hundred hazards.

  Rising to his feet carefully, using the crumbling, slime-encrusted wall for support, Ulysses set off, following the same course as the brackish water through this stinking subterranean world. He saw little point in trying to return to where he had begun his frightful journey. He didn't fancy his chances of trying to scale the precipice he had been thrown from. And besides, the water in the tunnel would ultimately end up pouring into the Thames and lead him to a way out.

  So, in almost total darkness, save for the dull green glow of the bioluminescent vegetation, feeling weak and nauseous, as well as wet and cold, with barely any awareness of time passing, Ulysses Quicksilver continued to navigate the labyrinthine tunnels, every sense straining to make sense of this disorientating world.

  He had no idea for how long he had been exploring the dark tunnels. His watch had a luminous dial but it had rather uncharacteristically stopped working. He suspected that his dunking hadn't done the usually reliable timepiece much good. It hadn't done much for his communicator either.

  Steadily, through the nigh on impenetrable black murk, the broken edges of a patch of deeper darkness could be discerned in the gloom. It was ahead of Ulysses and slightly to the right. Cautiously he made this his focus and approached the hole in the darkness. As he neared the space his straining eyes were able to discern depth to the darkness too. Reaching out a hand, he ran his fingers over the broken, angular edges of bricks. Something in the past had caused part of the sewer wall to collapse. The current diverged at this juncture. Most of the stinking water continued on its way along the brick pipe, but some swirled out through the hole mixing with a second subterranean watercourse.

  Ulysses paused, listening. At first he could hear nothing beyond the rush and churn of the sewer and the ripple of water lapping against the wall. There was an echoing quality to the watery sounds coming from the other side of the hole, suggesting that the dimensions of the space beyond were of more cavernous proportions than the tunnel in which he now stood.

  Then he heard another sound, muffled by distance. It sounded like the clanking of machinery, a rhythmic tattoo, the beating of a mechanical heart.

  For a moment Ulysses considered the sewer passage ahead of him but then felt compelled to enter the larger tunnel, beyond the hole, and follow the sound to its source. With no other beacon to direct his way through the fetid darkness, Ulysses concentrated on the distant, echoed clanking.

  Clambering through the half-submerged rupture in the tunnel wall, Ulysses immediately felt the floor drop away beneath him and started treading water. The water filling this new tunnel was just as bone numbing as that of the sewer but, although it smelt old and brackish, it was like the scent of roses compared to the stench that he had just had to wade through.

  Ulysses let his senses adjust to this new space, hearing the rippling waves his swimming sent out rebound from a barrier only a matter of a few feet away. Light-excreting blankets of moss grew in irregular patches on the curving walls and ceiling here too, so that gradually Ulysses was able to make sense of the puzzle and realised that the space he was in now was much larger, but just as tube-like, as the sewer passage he had emerged from.

  The tunnel was flooded but the water here was more or less still; there was no restless current pulling him one way or another. Instead he directed himself towards the distant, rhythmic clanking that sounded like the echoing hubbub of a factory production line. He moved with a strong breaststroke. Ulysses followed the gradual bend of the tunnel, the sounds of the relentless machinery becoming clearer and being joined by other noises now - the wheeze of steam being released under pressure, the regular thud-thud-thud of a hammer, the wail of a klaxon, even human voices.

  The sounds were so clear now that Ulysses felt that he was on the verge of making out recognisable words, snatches of conversation, between the loud thumping, pounding and rattling of the hidden production line. As he rounded the bend, the architecture of the tunnel changed, as the roof seemed to rise away above Ulysses' head, an oblong shape emerged from the gloom to his left. At the same time his feet kicked against the bottom of the tunnel floor. His foot slipped on a submerged obstruction. It felt like the floor was cut with grooved channels or... set with rails.

  Then the pieces of the puzzle finally fell into place.

  The oblong was a ledged walkway. He pushed his way through the sludgy water and there hauled himself out of the chill, oily lake. He sat for a moment listening to the clank-clunk that seemed to come from above as well as beyond now, feeling the slight tremor of a vibration pass through the stone beneath him.

  Ulysses reached out a hand to the wall. The surface his fingertips came into contact with was cold and slick with moisture, but it was smooth. In fact it felt like glazed ceramic.

  "Tiles," Ulysses said to himself. Leaving the collapsed sewer he had entered the flooded tunnels of the old, abandoned Underground railway system. It explained much - the increased size of the tunnel, the materials from which it had been constructed. He was sitting on a station platform.

  The Underground had been abandoned for more than sixty years, ever since the Kingdom Incident, as it had since become known. The capital's subterranean rail network had been replaced by the far superior Overground in the intervening years. Ulysses had believed most of the Tube tunnels to be completely flooded, but it would appear from the evidence of his own eyes that this was only partly the case.

  He got to his feet. Fetid water ran from his body and clothes, pooling on the slime-coated platform under the soles of his sodden shoes. Taking a moment to gather himself, he pushed his wet hair out of his face, slicking it down with a greasy palm.

  He was lost within the forgotten tunnels of the London Underground which had once been the pride of the nation, having been thwarted by the lizard-beast that the missing - not to mention, evolutionarily-degenerating - Professor Galapagos had become. Whatever awaited him within the supposedly abandoned labyrinth of the subterranean railway system could not possibly surprise him - not now. It was all in a day's work for Ulysses Quicksilver, dandy adventurer and servant of the crown.

  "You couldn't make it up," he said to himself, smiling inwardly, despite the dire state of his personal attire and the nature of his current predicament.

  Further along the platform he found himself at the opening of a side passage, which connected to a flight of steps. A flickering orange glow came from above, illuminating the top of the steps. Ulysses blinked, his eyes taking a moment to adjust. Then, taking a firm hold of the rusted handrail next to him, he began to ascend.

  Pressing himself flat against the smooth tiled wall, Ulysses took several measured breaths and then peered warily around the edge of the archway.

  The place might once have been the warren of gleaming tiled tunnels that made up an Underground station concourse but it had now been filled with machinery and transformed into an underground factory. Ulysses was looking down on a veritable production line, which would not have been out of place in one of the steam-driven mills of the Black Country. The whole place lay under a fug of steam and coal smoke, whilst caged sodium lights pierced the smoggy murk, looking like fog-distorted ship's lanterns. The factory was also pervaded by the noise and vibration of the working machinery.

  To Ulysses' left, at the far end of the concourse, massive mac
hines - all spinning flywheels, thumping hammers and crushing compressors - produced shell-like spherical steel cases, from which protruded sea urchin-like spines. Steam and clockwork powered automata-drudges separated each steel globe into two equal halves, and half of these hemispherical cases were then heaved onto a rattling conveyor system. These shell casings then passed along the production line to have other components fitted inside them by other robot-drones. The air reeked of lubricating oil and hot metal, accompanied by an all-pervading acrid chemical smell.

  To the far right, in the shadow of a broad archway at the end of the relentless production line, yet more drones put the two halves of the metal spheres back together and from there they were ferried away into the darkness of a side passage on great wheeled frames.

  On the wall above it all, through the smoke and steam, Ulysses could make out the rusted Underground sign that signified which station it was he now found himself in. The name on the banner read: Waterloo. It somehow seemed apt.

  There was no doubt in Ulysses' mind that this place was a bomb factory. But how long had production been in operation on this spot, hidden from the prying eyes of the world above?

  Carrying out all manner of unskilled labouring jobs around the automatons, so that the man-machines might complete their work without hindrance, were the kind of dregs of society that made the beggars on the city streets above look fortunate. These troglodyte workers might once have been human but they were now barely more than warped wretches, their bodies afflicted by all manner of hideous mutations.

  They all wore the same, shapeless, grubby overalls and shambled about the place with their ankles shackled together. They were prisoners here, as much as they were workers, employed to do the jobs deemed too lowly even for the automated workforce. Not one of them would have looked out of place in a circus freak show. They all looked like they could be descendants of Joseph Merrick, the Elephant Man. These people - if they could still be referred to as people - were either losing their hair, or their teeth, no doubt as a result of the terrible conditions in which they were forced to work, their faces and bodies misshapen by hideous growths of pallid, purple-veined flesh. In some cases, their disfigurements were so extreme that it was impossible for Ulysses to determine the gender of the limping creatures that had been enslaved to the production of the evil devices.

  It was these same wretches who were spooning a noxious, bubbling green gunk from a crusted iron vat into each of the shell casings. Wisps of malodorous vapour rose from the patently toxic goo. Ulysses' eyes stung and he was in no doubt that it was as a result of this poisonous stuff diffusing through the atmosphere of the factory.

  Watching over the production line from gantry walkways and the openings of side passages were armed men, dressed in plain black uniforms. The only distinguishing marks on any of them was the insignia of their clandestine organisation that until, only a few weeks ago, Ulysses had never even known existed. They each wore the badge of an encircled dinosaur skull on their arms. Each of them was armed with a sub-automatic machine pistol, their faces hidden by the rubber snouts of gas masks.

  Ulysses' rage at witnessing first-hand the fate that had been forced upon the poor mutant work force seethed and simmered just beneath the surface, ready to explode with volcanic fury. He would dearly have liked to vent that fury against any one of the armed guards but such recourse would merely lead to his own demise. He was still unarmed, and no matter how skilled he might be, in unarmed combat the odds did not appear to be in his favour.

  No, he would have to bide his time and wait, and perhaps then a more practical course of action would present itself to him.

  Watching the factory floor, Ulysses saw a figure unlike any other he had so far seen. He was wearing a grubby lab coat that might once have been white. His eyes were hidden by a pair of thick goggles. His hair was matted and spiked with filth. His hands were encased within heavy rubber gloves. He grasped a stained clipboard on which he was scrawling notes as he monitored progress on the production line. He was followed by a gaggle of similarly garbed assistants, but there was no doubt that this tech-engineer scientist was their senior.

  Ulysses watched the scientist as he made his way through the converted station concourse. There was little he could do directly to counteract whatever the Darwinian Dawn were doing here, but if he stealthily shadowed this individual he might be able to get one step closer to the heart of the group's operations. They were obviously planning a bombing campaign on a scale undreamt of before by those in power in Whitehall. Quietly, Ulysses ducked out from behind the pillar and in two long strides was hunkered down behind one of the supports that held up the clanking conveyor.

  He was suddenly distracted by a shout from the other side of the factory. He glanced to his left, peering between cast iron spars and his heart was suddenly in his mouth.

  A figure, dressed in practical black clothes had emerged from a passageway on the other side of the concourse, accompanied by two of the armed guards. It was Kane - Jago Kane - here! He was instantly recognisable, thanks to the distinguishing mark of the livid scar that bisected his face. It was all Ulysses could do to stop himself gasping in surprise. So the blackguard was at the centre of the Darwinian Dawn's operations. Ulysses had known it!

  The vile revolutionary joined the scientist-supervisor and his lackeys on the factory floor. The two of them immediately engaged in what appeared to be an intense discussion. If only Ulysses could discover what it was they were talking about, the information he could then provide to his masters in Whitehall would be all the more valuable, but to achieve such a thing he would have to get closer.

  Keeping himself crouched down behind the conveyor production line, obscured by the steam, any sound he might make drowned out by the roar of the bomb-making construction, Ulysses crept towards the plotters' position, at the same time assiduously avoiding the human slaves and their masked overseers. Gradually he began to pick up snippets of conversation.

  The scientist was assuring Kane that they would be ready, as planned, and on schedule. Kane pressed on about having the devices in position by... but then Ulysses missed the rest as an automatic valve released a burst of steam from a pipe above his head.

  The snatches of conversation didn't make any real sense out of context, and merely added to Ulysses' frustration and determination to find out more.

  Concentrating intently he pressed on. Kane seemed almost close enough for Ulysses to reach out and touch. Ulysses was concentrating so hard that he only became aware of the tingling at the back of his brain at the last second, when it was too late to do anything to save himself.

  With a sharp jab, the cold metal of a rifle muzzle was shoved against the back of his neck. He had been in such a hurry to catch up with his nemesis that he had thrown all caution to the wind and acted like some reckless youth.

  "Don't get up," came a gruff, uncultured voice from behind him, "unless you want me to put a bullet through the back of your skull."

  He was prodded in the ribs by a second gun muzzle and another voice declared, "At this time of social civil war you can consider yourself a hostage of the Darwinian Dawn."

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  A Bad Day to Die

  "So, Ulysses Quicksilver, we meet again."

  Ulysses looked up into the sneering scowl that was Jago Kane's face. Ulysses had been roughly searched, dragged in front of his nemesis and the scientist and then forced to kneel before them, his hands behind his head. "The pleasure's all yours."

  The punch snapped Ulysses' head sharply to the right.

  "Always there with the snappy, oh-so-clever retorts and hilarious one-liners," Kane snarled.

  Before Ulysses could come back at the revolutionary with another of his trademark verbal ripostes, Kane's fist descended again. Something cracked and Ulysses spat a gobbet of bloody saliva from between bruised lips. His head sagged.

  "Not so quick with the witty ripostes now, are you?"

  "I see falling from a train hasn't
dampened your eternally optimistic spirit, more's the pity."

  Fury seething in his eyes Kane said nothing, simply delivering a sharp kick to Ulysses midriff. Ulysses could not stop himself howling in pain and doubled up, his forehead practically touching the floor.

  "I won't ask how you stumbled upon our operation or how you got past the guards."

  "What, aren't you even a little bit interested?" Ulysses managed between agonised gasps.

  "No. Such details are irrelevant now because you're never going to get out of here alive."

  Eyes watering from the pain of the kick to his stomach Ulysses nonetheless managed to raise himself enough to fix the terrorist with a withering stare.

  "I know exactly what's been going on down here, you traitorous bastard." His voice was a strained snarl of contempt. "And when the authorities pick up my message..."

  "Again, irrelevant. You're never going to get the chance to report back to those self-serving idiots who so desperately hang on to the failing status quo. You're too late."

  "Too late?" Ulysses coughed. "I would think that a handful of Special Forces strike teams are on their way down here as we speak."

  "But your masters in Whitehall have no idea what is right beneath their feet."

  "Oh no?" Ulysses purred. "Before your goons here picked me up I sent a coded message to those in the know."

  "What on this?" Kane held out a hand. One of those same goons who had searched Ulysses passed the terrorist his waterlogged personal communicator.

  "I doubt very much that this is working after its dunking in God knows what."

  At least they hadn't found where he had hidden Galapagos' locket.

  "Well, it was worth a try."

  Kane hit him again.

  "Will you stop doing that?" Ulysses screamed, his nerve suddenly snapping.

  Kane looked down at him, eyes narrowing.

  "No one's coming down here to look for you. There are no strike teams on their way. And there is nothing to stop us proceeding according to schedule. But what should we do with you?"