“You’re having trouble accepting who I am. This is underst—”
“No, I can accept you’re H. G. Wells. In fact, it explains a lot.” Eliza looked him up and down. “But you’re . . . Doctor Sound to me, and quite frankly you always will be.”
Wellington felt an urge to correct Eliza, to explain that no matter how sentimental she felt, this man who had led them all these years into investigations of the unknown was in fact an accomplished writer of both fact and fiction, an artist, a biologist, and a man of many other talents. This revelation changed everything they knew, everything they accepted as fact.
No matter what we learn, no matter what we prove and reaffirm, Wells had said earlier, there is that which cannot be explained.
Doctor Sound was absolutely right. This cannot be explained. Perhaps it was best not to try.
“She does have a point, Doctor Sound,” Wellington said.
“Oh, how disappointing, I had hoped after telling you this little secret, I would hear my own name between us.” He gave a shrug. “Perhaps I should look on the brighter side. At least this chaos didn’t occur when I was Woodruff Spring. I had one agent from Dorset—Smithers was his name. Lyle Smithers—who insisted on calling me ‘Woody’ all the time. Bloody annoying.”
“Doctor Sound, if this,” Eliza said, motioning to the array underneath them, “is the Archives, then what exactly were Wellington and I maintaining all this time? It just all feels like a grand lie.”
“Not at all. Quite the contrary,” Doctor Sound said, nodding to both her and Wellington. “This incredible journey that inspired the Ministry of Peculiar Occurrences needed a central point, as it were, of activity, and it was this time period—a time period I flourished in—that, according to the models I’ve been following, seems to be where the trouble in the space-time continuum first grew roots. When Ministry agents would unearth or solve various phenomena, I would return to the origins of said case and see if I could go further into the mystery. Sometimes, that would mean travelling to the past. Other times, it would involve the future, although the future can prove rather tricky, as every event of the past carries a cascade of consequences, much like throwing a stone into a millpond.”
It was Wellington’s turn to interrupt. “If you are doing what you are insinuating—”
“I am not insinuating anything here, my boy. I am doing it. Perhaps just hearing yourself say it may help you accept all this much easier.”
Wellington swallowed hard, took in a long breath, and felt a calm wash over him. Doctor Sound’s logic, considering all things at present, was absolutely staggering. “Sir, if you are travelling willy-nilly through time—”
“And space.” Doctor Sound looked over to Eliza. “I’m particularly proud of that trick.”
“Exactly why do you not invite the Ministry in on this little secret of yours? Could you imagine the lives we would have saved in the field had we been able to do what you are doing?”
“Oh, I would agree that we would have saved quite a few lives by allowing agents to take advantage of this incredible technology.” Sound leaned against the railing and crossed his arms as he looked at the both of them. “But in light of Agent Campbell’s betrayal, a frailty in men and women that is not foreign to this or other agencies under the Queen’s rule, I could not risk it.”
“So you shouldered the responsibility of time travel all on your own?” Eliza’s eyes narrowed. “Aren’t we an arrogant pommy bastard?” Her earlier delight looked to have worn off.
Doctor Sound’s smile faded. Eliza’s bold statement, Wellington admitted, was quite sobering.
“You are not God, nor should you consider yourself the only one able to wield such power,” Wellington stated. “I can think of several men and women in our Archives that fell to such seduction.”
“An intriguing argument.” Sound’s voice adopted an unexpected chill that Wellington had never heard from the man, nor ever wished to again. “However, I am shouldering it nevertheless and sharing the burden now with you. If I have made the wrong assumption about the two of you, I will rectify this judgement and do so with a clean conscience.”
“Mate,” Eliza said, her tone bristling with confidence and a hint of rage, “I’d like to see you try.”
“Do keep in mind, Eliza,” Wellington said, his eyes motioning around them, “you’re not only threatening the man who has led the Ministry for over fifty years, but who has also mastered the ability of traveling through time.”
“And space,” Sound added once again.
Eliza shook her head. “It’s pretentious. It’s disgusting. It’s—”
“Necessary, Eliza,” Sound insisted. “Think for a moment if not one but many people were floating throughout time. Do you think they would be bandying about dimensions benevolently?” He shook his head. “And then there is a matter of balance. One person travelling through time on his or her own volition can effect everything from individuals to empires. Introduce an international government agency to time travel, and you increase the potential for Armageddon exponentially.”
“So why exactly did you decide to show us all this?” she asked.
“My chrono-model revealed that the both of you were entrusted with this secret. That is what I rescued from my office—fragile piece of equipment don’t you know.” He took out the watch from his pocket and his eyebrows popped up. “Now, if you please, follow me. We cannot miss our upcoming window.”
Eliza and Wellington shared a glance between themselves before following Sound towards the end of the walkway. Ahead Wellington could make out a large bank of displays and larger versions of the glass monitors that he had seen in the airlock. Floating by a rather impressive door—a most sturdy one, made of a heavy dark cherrywood and sporting a single thick brass handle—was Sophia, still asleep on the floating stretcher. This must be the area of Beta Archives that Sound had referred to earlier as Event Control.
“Window?” Eliza asked. “Why would you be concerned about missing anything? You’re travelling through time.”
“Time travel is hardly a matter of saying, ‘I would love to enjoy a bite with Marie Antoinette on September 23, 1775, just past noon,’ but more of calculating intersections between events.”
His mind should have shut down the moment they entered this Archives of Sound’s making. Wellington knew the mind simply reaches a point, be it in the battlefield or in the confines of a library deep in research, where it can no longer take in any more information. Presently, he could not stop taking it all in. Doctor Sound continued to peel back layer upon layer of this mystery, and all Wellington could do was keep exploring, keep delving into this amazing revelation.
He also just couldn’t help himself. He had to know. “Events? Are you saying there are points in time that are fixed?”
“It’s a bit of a theory that has proven to explain quite a bit of what I’ve been doing, but yes, there are these moments in time that are so clearly defined that the array—my Time Machine, if you will—can connect them, and this is how I travel back and forth.”
“But the amount of power it would take to power such a device,” Wellington began, looking from one end of the computer banks to the other. “It is—”
“The Thames.” Sound rocked back on his heels, crooking an eyebrow. “Are you telling me that you truly believed the generators here were solely for your analytical engine’s operation?”
“Well . . .” His voice trailed off as he felt a blush rise on his cheeks. “If this area hadn’t been so restricted, as it were, perhaps I would not have been led to believe as such.”
“Perhaps,” Sound chortled. He then turned to the array’s main keyboard and monitor and began to tap into it what Wellington could only assume was a sequence of some kind. “Now then, we have an errand to run for our Whiterock compatriots. There is an ally that I have remained very tight-lipped about within our ranks.”
“Another secret? Blimey,” Eliza grumbled. “With this much trust, it’s a wonder you bothered to let us loose in the field at all.”
“I’ve remained tight-lipped about this ally,” Sound repeated, giving Eliza a sharp stare, “on account of this man’s rather unique situation. He has provided incredible intelligence in the past . . .”
His words trailed off as he continued to type on the keyboard. Wellington started at what sounded like massive generators spinning to life underneath them. Eliza’s hand clasping into his own reassured him that feeling unnerved was proper, if not completely understood.
Words, displayed in their strange typography, materialised on the main screen above them:
Event horizon stable. Connection established.
“Wellington, Eliza, if you please?” asked Sound as he motioned to an ornate door in front of them.
With a polished brass handle designed as the face of a clock at its centre, the door’s shape was reminiscent of an old cathedral hatch, and was incredibly out of place compared to the polished metal and odd wood—if that was what Wellington was indeed feeling under his touch—reaching to either side of the chamber they stood in. It was a wonder he had not noticed the hatch before. The wooden door was stout and heavy, made of a rich, dark cherrywood, polished almost as bright as the sophisticated materials surrounding it; and as it was nearly fifteen feet in height, the portal towered over them. Wellington could not be certain if it was growing taller the closer they drew to it.
Sound placed a hand on the door handle and then turned back around to the two of them. “Ready, are we?”
“For?” he asked.
“A trip ‘through the looking-glass’?” he said, the lights around them creating a twinkle in his eyes.
The handle turned quite easily in the director’s grasp. From the other side, inviting smells of cinnamon, nutmeg, and burning wood invited them across the threshold.
Feeling Eliza’s grip tighten ever so slightly, Wellington looked at her, managed a smile that conveyed a “Why not?” sentiment, and together they followed their director through the open door.
FIFTEEN
In Which Eliza Braun Marvels at a Sunset
A fire crackled in an impressive hearth. There were small incense burners filling the room with scents that reminded Eliza of Christmas. With the amount of books—and there were a lot of them—she would have surmised this was a study at a fine English manor had it not been for two rather odd qualities of this conservatory. There were large glass panes above and around them revealing a landscape reminding her of the Arizona Territories in the United States, only this landscape was far darker. It took her eyes a moment to realise the glass above and around them was tinted. It was a deep golden hue but not such a dark colour as to prevent the dying light from still illuminating the room. The other oddity of this expansive room was how its walls—not the furniture, but the actual walls in which the bookshelves and desks were built—were not wood or brick, but of raw stone. Eliza ran up to the wall and touched the cool rock, confirming her initial thoughts of the wall’s slope, its composition, and their relative height based on their breathtaking view.
“We’re inside a mountain,” she stated.
Turning back in the direction she had come, she could see, just behind Wellington, Sound closing a completely different door, this one weather worn and beaten with a rustic door handle far less ornate than the one they entered through. Just before the door closed, she caught a parting glimpse of Event Control.
“Yes, indeed you are,” a voice answered her. From its gravelly baritone and American drawl, it was obviously neither Wellington nor Sound. “My wife and I come here often to entertain dignitaries or friends from far-off places.”
Eliza felt her back straighten just a fraction at the sight of the tall man entering the room. The stranger exuded a commanding presence, through a confidence he carried and eyes of a hard, steel-grey colour. All this kept her rooted to the spot. He wore his long raven hair in an intricate braid tied back with a leather thong. While that hair was greying slightly at the temples, his face and trim, muscular frame was that of a man no older than thirty.
The man’s eyes softened when he turned to Doctor Sound, his smile warm and inviting as he approached the Ministry director. “Herbert,” he said, laughing gently as he embraced him, “you are looking . . .”
His words trailed off as he looked over Sound.
“I look forward to your probing observations, Jonathan,” Sound chortled.
“Well, it has been a while,” their host offered. “When I last saw you, you were in better physical condition—but also twenty years younger. Now, look at you!”
“It’s the perils of time travel, as you know, different selves and all those complications . . .”
“Yes, yes, and please, don’t remind me again of how it all works,” implored Jonathan. “I doubt if I understand it anymore. It’s all too fantastic to grasp, anyway.”
Sound motioned around him. “You’re one to talk!”
Their laughter subsided as Jonathan glanced over to Eliza, then to Wellington. “I see by the looks on your faces,” he began, striding over to a bar, fully stocked with decanters of what Eliza could only hope were the best in spirits, “that Herbert has told you about his fantastic machine, so I will assume you will want a drink immediately. Would you care for scotch? Cognac? Or perhaps something stronger?”
“I could do with a scotch,” Wellington said.
Being of a curious nature, Eliza selected, “Stronger.”
When his steel-grey eyes looked at her now, Eliza felt her knees weaken slightly. “A girl after my own heart.” He poured two fingers deep of scotch into the first glass and handed it to Wellington with a polite nod. Into the second glass, he poured a deep red liquid. Then, as Eliza looked on, Jonathan tapped the rim of the snifter, causing the left portion of the liquid inside to suddenly glow with a dull orange flare. “The locals call this Ketumsh-ke. The Sunset. Drink the part that isn’t glowing.”
Eliza nodded and took a sip of the crimson liquid. What struck her taste buds was an unexpected combination of bourbon and citrus with an overtone of vanilla. It was far stronger than anything she had ever tasted in her travels around the world, and threatened to knock her back a step; but the warmth receded as quickly as it had overcome her.
Whatever this Sunset was, she wanted more of it.
“Where are my manners?” Sound said, clicking his tongue as Jonathan handed him a glass. Of what, Eliza could not be certain. “Wellington, Eliza, may I introduce to you Captain Jonathan Carter.”
“Friends and welcomed guests call me John,” he said, offering Wellington a hand. “I prefer that.”
Wellington returned the handshake. “American? The Carolinas?”
“Virginia actually,” John said. “Welcome to my home. Please, have a seat.”
Sound took a seat in a luxurious, high-backed chair. “And how is the family, John?”
He sat back in his own grand chair and shook his head. “Healthy and happy, although I am in for a very hard ascension. My daughter. Oh, Herbert . . .” He groaned lightly. “She is growing up to be just like her mother.”
“Well, seeing as how well things transpired between you and your wife, you have an inkling as to what lies ahead.”
John toasted his drink to Sound. “You have a point there, Herbert.” He took a quick sip, then set his drink to one side. “However, I believe this visit is hardly social in nature.”
“Not entirely, no,” he admitted.
“When I received your message—”
“Excuse me a moment.” Eliza took a deep sip of her drink; the glowing portion of it felt warm against her face. Her courage somehow returned to her, and so she turned to Sound. “Did we just time travel?”
“Well, we did not go so far back in time,” Doctor Soun
d said with a shrug, “but yes, Eliza, we did travel.”
She looked over to John. “When did you receive this message from Sound?”
The man took a sip of his own drink, and she had the distinct impression he was studying her closely. “This is their first trip, isn’t it, Herbert?”
It could have been an effect of the drink or the lighting of the room, but Eliza thought she could see Sound blush. “Yes,” he admitted.
John’s mouth bent into a smirk. “When did you plan to explain the principles of how you travel?” He pointed to Sound with an accusatory finger. “I am speaking from experience. Nothing is more unnerving than finding yourself unexpectedly somewhere other than where you plan to be.”
“Things have been moving rather quickly,” Sound replied, a tone of sudden regret in his words. “Sometimes I get a bit—”
“Caught up in things, yes, that happens with you often.” John motioned to Eliza and Wellington. “Why don’t you take a moment? Get your agents here caught up?”
Sound blinked. “I know your time is most valuable . . .”
“Knowing how they must feel, I insist.” He raised his glass to the agents. Eliza returned the gesture with an awkward and slightly uncertain smile.
“Very well.” Sound took another sip of his scotch before setting it down and clapping his hands together lightly. “So, while I did explain in brief how we travel between two fixed points in space and time—I should have explained exactly how Event Control accomplishes this.” Sound reached for the table between him and John, and took from the small memo desk a simple slip of paper. “The central analytical device searches for the closest fixed point and narrows down either previously visited points or stable coordinates in which to establish a connection.” He quickly drew two X marks at the top and at the bottom of the paper before holding the paper up for Eliza and Wellington to see. “A brilliant physicist will hypothesise”—he cleared his throat before adding—“fifty years or so from now—that the most efficient way to travel either through space, time, or both, is to connect a departure and an arrival point,” Sound explained as he bent the slip of paper, making the two X points touch.
The Diamond Conspiracy: A Ministry of Peculiar Occurrences Novel Page 29