by KW Jeter
“I can scarce believe this of you–” I eyed him with a considerable degree of doubt in my mind. “You have gone to great lengths to convince me of your essential rascality and criminal-mindedness – and I still believe those to be the case. Yet now you endanger yourself by bringing the Elohim’s schemes to such a catastrophic end – what would have inspired such a worthwhile deed, so uncharacteristic of one such as yourself?”
“Worthwhile deed–” Spivvem scoffed at the mere suggestion. “As if ever would do such a thing. Had me dead to rights with first assessment – I’ve no more wish to do Humanity a good turn, or ability along such lines, than could flap arms and fly. But need take the long view – my tribe and I make our livings by way of others’ foolishness, so as we can thieve and swindle of ‘em. How would we be able to go on doing such like, if people be bluidy machines? Trouble with those, can’t be fooled, can’t run a fine confidence game on ‘em – machines, and people with machines stuck in their guts, they just go clanking on like clockwork, doing what been wound up to do. Sure, fine for those Elohim bastards, have all Mankind working way they want ‘em – but what’s left afterward, for decent crooks such as myself? Damn Elohim might well be right, people’d be happier if they were less like people and more like clocks and other ticking gadgets – but my kind would be left out in the cold, were that great change to happen. Sure, a few coins in hand now, for having delivered goods they wanted, but that’d be just about the final brass I’d ever pocket.”
Against the din of the factory’s machinery, goaded by the maladjustment of their controls into an increasing fury of self-destruction, Spivvem had been forced to shout the explication of his devious motives, though my ear had been but a few inches from his mouth. Nevertheless, he had made his meaning clear to me, and in an impassioned manner; the Future that I had glimpsed to my dismay, seemed equally appalling to him, though for different reasons. He and his kind were predators upon their neighbours, and unabashedly so; in that sense, he was like a tiger faced with the prospect of the herbivores upon which he dined being transformed to inedible iron – thus, Samson-like, he had brought the pillars of this industrial temple crashing down.
Or perhaps there was a simpler reason for the destruction he had just accomplished, and one that I had already observed in the man. When he and I had been up above the earth, racing over the British landscape on the aerial cemetery, I had glimpsed the delight he had taken in those misguided actions on his part, that had set the construction disintegrating about us – as I had noted before, there are those among us who relish chaos, the more explosive the better for their apocalyptic taste, even if it threatens their own lives; they prefer the fiery crash to the dull placidity of an uneventful old age. How wrong I had forced myself to be about him, when afterwards we had traversed this immense factory floor, and I had seen him gazing covetously at those very same levers and controls that now were bringing about the end of this construction – his hands had seemed to twitch with a barely restrained desire to lay hold of those workings and thrust them into a final and fatal disarrangement. I had been convinced, or at least had pretended to myself that I was, that a normal wish for self-preservation would keep him away from them; now I saw that I had been correct before about his true nature. What other men most feared, he ran toward with abandon.
“This? This be nothing–” As though able to read my thoughts, Spivvem had perceived the course of my mounting agitation. “Soon enow, see bluidy lot more–”
The dire promise of his words was fulfilled, immediately upon his speaking them. As the factory’s machines continued battering themselves and each other, the violence of the spinning gears and thrusting pistons tore away whatever elements had previously restrained their motions. With those governors eliminated, the only possible result ensued, that of the vast interconnected assemblage transmitting a crescendo of shocks into the underlying earth. A quake of such magnitude as to make earlier upheavals seem like mere teacup-rattling tremors, of no consequence, lifted the ground below us; I fell backwards, saved from landing upon my back only by Spivvem’s grasp of my arm.
Worse, the effects of that event did not fade, but rather multiplied; holding onto the other to maintain my balance, I witnessed shuddering forces swarm up the stone walls of the subterranean chamber, launching cascades of shattered boulders tumbling down upon the factory below.
“There!” Swept into a frightening state of excitement, Spivvem pointed upward with his free hand. “You see?”
It would have been impossible for me not to have, as the vaulting dome above us, that had been only excavated rock before, lit orange by the glow of the furnaces and boilers, was entirely transformed as I watched. Jagged cracks shot through the stones, as though lightning had been inverted to pitch black. The apertures widened, boulders breaking free of their moorings, and plummeting to the racketing chaos below. For a moment, the broken dome held in place, though its surface seemed a crumbling web – then gravity asserted itself, and the remaining pieces rained down with a shouting roar loud enough to stagger backward both Spivvem and myself.
Dust churned upward, its obscuring cloud filling the chamber; some of the factory’s machines were silenced, their girdered forms buried beneath the rubble, but others still pumped and thrashed with futile but relentless energy. If any of the human creatures attending the devices had survived, there was no sign of them; the only mercy that might have been granted was that their annihilation had been swift and final.
Spivvem and I had been forced to press ourselves as far back as possible, to avoid a similar fate; stones and shards of lesser dimensions rolled within less than a yard from us. As a few last fragments came free from above and fell upon the mountain that had assembled with such speed at the centre of the factory, a cold wind surged through the space, parting the gritty cloud choking our lungs. The gale swirled about in the manner of a tropical hurricane, the air itself rising from the battered iron floor and up to the heights above.
That motion drew my own gaze upward, and with head tilted back I perceived an even more astonishing sight. Through the thinning dust, stars were visible, studded in the night sky. So massive had been the destruction unleashed by Spivvem’s manipulation of the factory’s controlling levers, that the enclosing subterranean chamber had been completely broken open, exposing its contents to the outside world.
If that had been all his mischief had accomplished, there might have been a measure of safety afforded us – but I could see that while the greatest damage might already have taken place, the process was still ongoing. The surrounding earth had been so jolted by the impact of the factory’s unleashed fury, it was still collapsing, sending more boulders down the chamber’s sides. Indeed, even as I watched with widened eyes, a particularly large fragment struck the ground nearby, then bounced like a child’s toy, its violent motion only stilled when it struck the wall a short distance from us.
“You bloody fool–” I flung away Spivvem’s grasp on my arm, so that I could turn toward him and hurl my words directly into his face. “I hope you’re satisfied – there will be no escape this time; you have engineered our burial!”
“Ever stop complaining?” He shook his head in disgust. “All’s so serious with you.”
“Are you insane? I allowed myself to be dragged here–”
“Didn’t have much choice about that.”
“Nevertheless–” Rage fuelled my persistence. “I would have been more obdurate, if I had known that you not only wanted to bring about your own demise, but mine as well.”
“Demise…” There was still so much noise from the plummeting rocks and the factory’s mechanical agonies, that his muttered response was almost inaudible. “Overly dramatic, a bit.”
“Do you not comprehend our situation? There is no way out of this place.”
“Bosh. Always way out, if not blind and feeble-witted. Look–” Spivvem pointed with an outstretched hand. “Right there.”
I followed his direction, but it was some
moments before I could discern, through the clouds of smoke and dust, that one side of the chamber – once totally underground, but now more like a giant well or the type of steep-sided canyon an explorer might find in the American deserts – had remained relatively clear of the stony debris that had buried the centre and other reaches of the space. Something like a narrow trail ascended diagonally along that farther wall; whether it had existed before, and to what purpose, or whether it had been exposed by the quake that had so shaken the surroundings, that could not be determined. Equally unknowable was whether the fragile path continued all the way to the surface above, or whether it was blocked at some point along its way, rendering any escape impossible.
“Very well–” A spark of hope, so slight as to make it easily extinguished, flickered in my breast. “Then lead the way; I have no other option but to put my trust in you, however discouraging my previous experiences have been.”
“‘Pologies, Dower – be on your own.” His skewed smile appeared again as he punched a fist to my shoulder. “I’ve more business take care of – see you topside, maybe. Or…” He glanced back at me as he started away. “Maybe not.”
I was struck speechless by both his words and his departure. The latter was quickly achieved, as he strode with what seemed to be unnerving sang-froid into the very thick of the tumult that had engulfed the factory grounds, his silhouette outlined by the flames before him, then masked by the roiling clouds of steam and smoke. What his intent was, I could only imagine; the levers and controls, the disarraying of which had initiated the engulfing catastrophe, might still be accessible somewhere in the rubble – if so, he was hardly likely to reset them to a position lessening the forces he had unleashed; if anything, he would prod them to allow even greater destruction, such being the personal inclination he had already displayed.
Which meant that I had no time to spare, if I wished to save myself; the irony was not lost on me, that at those sad and desperate moments when I had most wished to cease living, I had ample leisure to bring that about – but when my future prospects were constricted to mere minutes, then the desire for survival was keenest.
Philosophy such as that would have to wait; instead, I swiftly calculated what seemed to be my best course for reaching that section of the enclosing walls, at which I could mount upon the questionable but only apparent path upward. To plunge into the centre of the space, as the now-vanished Spivvem had, and hope to cross directly to that distant point, epitomized self-destruction to my mind; whatever evasive skills I might possess would be quickly overwhelmed by the fires and crashing machinery still in furious and erratic operation. Far safer, I decided, to take the longer way around, sticking close to the space’s circumference and edging past the sparking and smouldering rubble toward my destination.
With no certainty of achieving that result, I turned about – and was immediately struck by a sight that halted me in my tracks.
The boy – my son – stood in the doorway from which I had exited a few minutes ago. He had disobeyed my order to stay where I had left him, and had come seeking to discover what events had so disrupted this world.
I stood frozen, my gaze locked upon his. At the centre of his eyes, so large in his pallid face, reflected as though in mirrors, were the mounting flames behind me, that would soon overwhelm this space where we stood, only a few feet apart from each other.
Madness to think that I could take him with me – the path that I hoped to climb was so threadlike and narrow, that it would require all of my agility and dwindling strength to clamber over the barriers it so obviously held. To take a child along, even one as starved skinny as this, would doom us both to our deaths in this inferno.
Those were the bleak calculations that shot through my mind…
Our better natures, or at least those parts of which we are least ashamed, are revealed not by what we decide, but by those impulses that flare up on their own, unbidden.
But even that thought was left unheard within me. I reached forward and grabbed the child’s hand, pulling him along with me as I raced toward that distant spot.
* * *
The account of our arduous progress, mounting toward the open night sky, one clawing handhold after another – those events were scoured from my senses even as they happened. All that I had anticipated became true; the boy and I were forced to make our way along a trail no wider at times than my own boot soles, sidling with our back to the rock wall, fingertips bloodied as we barely kept ourselves from toppling into the smoke-filled air. At other points, we had to crawl on hands and knees over boulders wedged before us – I would go first, attaining some precarious footing beyond, then reaching back to draw the child above the blockage and on against my chest. I held him tight, arms wrapped around his slender frame – but only for long enough to catch our breath before continuing onward.
That we could not rest, even for a minute, was made evident by what I could see when I foolishly directed my sight to what lay below us. My surmise as to Spivvem’s intentions was proven by the increasing wrath made visible from our elevated position; the workings of the machinery did not cease because of the boulders that had struck them with such force, but rather increased in their violent slashing, the pistons like battering rams smashing into every object before them, either iron or stone, the monstrous gears spinning from their axles, teeth scything through all they encountered. And through all leapt the fires unleashed from the furnaces, sparks swirling high enough to sting our faces. Whether or not the factory’s saboteur still lived – a doubtful prospect – it little mattered; if his last desire had been to unleash forces beyond imagining, he had more than accomplished his goal.
But we persisted, the boy and I. We had little choice otherwise; to halt would be to die–
And we reached a place at last, where our safety seemed assured. A widened plateau on the trail, large and level enough that we could both collapse lengthwise upon it, face-down in dirt and ash, our chests heaving to draw in the fresher and cooler air that drafted down onto us. The fires continued to rage below, but their lessened heat indicated that we had escaped the worst of the leaping flames.
Still panting, I rolled onto my shoulder and looked upward; the stars were now a vast field of pin-pricked light, in which the coiling tendrils of smoke drifted and were lost. We were still some yards away from the surface, but only a sloping section of the path remained before us, clear of any obstruction. I could see what appeared to be the shadowed outlines of headstones, knocked askew by the eruptive shocks far beneath the graves they marked; we were evidently close to emerging within the confines of the cemetery at Highgate.
There were witnesses to our travails, or at least the simulation of such. I could see other silhouettes, and in erratic, jerking motion. Enough detail was revealed by the radiance below, that I realized our desired terminus was encircled by those mechanical beasts that I had encountered on the day of my wife’s second burial; the chaos erupting from the depths had further disordered their inner workings, sufficiently that they now seemed intent on battering themselves to pieces. The machines did so while wreathed in fire, their ragged sheaths ignited by the bright sparks swarming up from the pit. So fierce was the subterranean heat, that the nearest foliage had enkindled as well, darkly smouldering.
I was jarred by the impact of an object on the path just beyond me. Once again, I gazed into the blank visage of a giraffe; one glass eye was missing from its socket, and the other shattered. We had but a moment to recognize each other, before the disconnected head toppled over the path’s edge, and disappeared below.
I took this momentary spectre as a good omen; to emerge amongst these hapless constructs, however violent their actions, could hardly present greater dangers than those from which we were so close to escaping.
“We have arrived–” They were the first words I spoke to the boy, the rigors of our climb and the noise from the pit eliminating the possibility of any others. “Look: you can see.”
He made no re
ply; his eyes were shut, as though he were sleeping, and remained that way even after I knelt beside him, took his arm and gently rolled him onto his back.
“Not much further; I promise you.” I gave his small frame a shake. “Better that we should first get clear, and then rest.”
His eyelids fluttered, then opened; a tenuous smile wavered on his lips.
“That’s… very nice.” Voice but a whisper. “It looks… lovely.”
“Is there something wrong?” I gazed down at him with mounting concern. “Come – get to your feet. It is only a little ways.”
“You go on,” the boy said softly. “I can’t.”
“What do you mean? Of course you can – you have managed this far, and it was much harder.”
“Yes…” A little nod. “But now I’ve run down.”
A terrible suspicion struck me. Hurriedly, I undid the buttons and parted his thin shirt. Where I had hoped to see nothing but his pallid skin, I saw instead a clockwork assemblage in place of his heart, similar but for a few details to the ones I had glimpsed in the chests of the unmoving orphans left far below. Thus I realized how dreadfully I had misconstrued all that Spivvem had related to me; when he had described how the Elohim had discovered that the boy was unique among the orphans, that he was the one who could set all those hideous devices running, and therefore deserving of special treatment – I had thought that meant he was spared the same surgical monstrosity as the other children had received.
Or… that was simply what I had wanted to believe.