‘OK,’ he told The Lone Star. ‘You can pass. We are done here.’
***
Philipe switched on the audio- and video-recording equipment, and sat in the armchair next to the fire. He stared at the room’s gaudy magnificence, its impressive wood panelling, heavy portraits and intricately-carved beams, thinking that this five-hundred-year-old space would appear positively futuristic to Halford.
He checked his watch. He had been told that Halford would be subjected to various medical tests before being released for interview with Ruby acting as a reluctant interpreter. They should be done by now. It was time for Philipe to meet the man who understood the ancient technologies that he had for so long been trying to reverse engineer.
Impatience turned to concern. Was Halford experiencing the same rapid aging that had afflicted Otto? Was the delay due to a medical complication? He made his way to the double helix stairs, ran down them and thrust open the door to the genesis room. The room was silent and empty, Otto’s body having been removed in the night. He looked into the adjacent laboratory. The plastic isolation tent appeared shredded. Medical equipment lay scattered on the floor. He could make out the shape of a body behind the opaque plastic curtains. Philipe pushed open the door and pulled apart the flapping sheets. A man dressed in blue scrubs was dead, stabbed in the neck with a scalpel.
But it wasn’t Halford.
Philipe heard someone approaching through the genesis room. Orlando was moving slowly across the floor, tapping loudly with his cane. He was out of breath.
‘Philipe, I have tried to find you. It all went wrong.’
‘So I see,’ Philipe replied, pointing at the body of the doctor.
‘The genesis worked,’ said Orlando, ‘but they didn’t want to communicate with him. They put him straight into the isolation bubble to sample his cold virus. They wanted it for use as a potential biological weapon.’
‘My government would do that?’ asked Philipe, stunned.
‘They were never interested in the technology, Philipe. After what happened in Guatemala, policy changed. They stopped believing in you. They didn’t think you could achieve your goals. Whatever they might have told you, they were never going to release Halford to you. They were only interested in farming his cold virus as a potential biological weapon.’
‘How could you know this?’
‘Because I’m still the Guatemalan president. They offered me the chance to be their first customer. But Halford has the genesis glitch, too. His cells are mutating so fast that the cold virus was gone in minutes. He doesn’t pose a health threat to anyone.’
‘What happened?’
‘Halford was in here with Ruby and the doctors. No one else was permitted entry, including me. I heard that something went wrong after they put Halford in the isolation tent. Halford’s gone. Ruby, too.’
‘How did they get away?’
‘That container lorry that you used to bring Ruby here. They say it’s missing.’
***
The dormant woodlands around Stiperstones Manor appeared to shiver, every bare branch shaken by a blast of wintry air. From the back seat of the rental car, Ratty regarded his world. Though all was dead, it would not be long before the cycle of life returned and the estate began to bloom. Here, genesis happened every year, and did so without a glitch.
However comforting it was to return home, the occasion was soured by his concerns. There had been no word from Ruby. His journey to south-east Asia had shed no light on her whereabouts, and had left his manor vulnerable to those who seemed intent upon helping themselves to whatever was to be found within bedroom twenty-three.
Madison’s objections to Britain’s ‘back-to-front’ roads petered out not long after leaving the airport. Her insistence on driving, despite the apparent ‘third world’ state of the roads and the insanity of putting the steering wheel on the passenger side, made her moody, a state of affairs not helped by the accompanying jetlag. Despite her curiosity at seeing the home of a real English lord and her desire to make amends for the wrongs she had inflicted on Ratty, she started to wish she had gone straight home to Texas.
As they pulled up in front of the house, Ratty tapped the Patient on the shoulder to wake him.
‘What ho!’ Ratty said, with false joviality that failed to disguise his inner anguish. ‘We seem to be home.’
He walked from the car to a broken statue of the beloved horse of a forgotten ancestor and withdrew a large key from a crack in the monument’s flank. Approaching the door, he paused. The door was ajar. He signalled for the Patient and Madison to follow him inside, creeping low as if that would make less noise.
‘You guys expecting visitors?’ asked Madison in a vaguely disgusted tone. She had expected to find grandeur and stateliness in Stiperstones Manor: if it still possessed those characteristics, they were difficult to detect beneath the veneer of neglect and decay.
‘Shush,’ whispered Ratty. ‘Intruders.’
In the kitchen, they found evidence of recent occupation. Dirty mugs, warm kettle, crumbs on the table. Other rooms downstairs seemed untouched.
‘Check your safe,’ said Madison.
Ratty looked around and announced,
‘Thank you, yes, I feel perfectly safe.’
‘I mean your safe. Where you keep your money and gold.’
‘Alas, I have no such security device.’
‘Why not?’
‘If I spent the pitiful remnants of my shiny stuff on a safe I would have nothing to put in it.’
‘You got nothing of value in this little place, huh?’
‘No. Only the collection of suits of armour upstairs. And all the stuff I keep in the turret room. Jam packed with antiques and wotnot. But everything there is past its best.’
‘It would be wise to perform a brief visual assessment of the room’s contents,’ said the Patient.
‘Really? Rather a lot of stairs involved. You sure you want to put the old pins through that kind of torture?’
‘These are strange times. And we should examine the integrity of the door to bedroom twenty-three on the way.’
‘Huh?’ asked Madison.
‘Long story,’ said Ratty.
The door to the genuine bedroom twenty-three showed no sign of forced entry and remained locked. They continued past the suits of armour to the turret staircase. As they ascended, Ratty noticed an unfamiliar odour. The damp and various kinds of rot that existed throughout his home all possessed their own distinctive flavours, but this was different. It was an obscene affront to his nasal privacy, a more deathly stink than he imagined possible.
‘I can only apologise,’ Ratty said, looking down at the others behind him on the steps. ‘This house usually smells like it’s alive. Today it appears to have died.’
There were noises above them. A door creaked open. A voice called out,
‘Who is it?’
Ratty exchanged glances with the Patient. Both knew the voice. They ran the final steps and found Ruby stood at the doorway of the turret room. Deep shadows stained her face beneath the eyes. Her head hung low.
‘Oh,’ she said. ‘It’s you. About time, too. I’ve been waiting ages for you to get home. Where have you been?’
‘Nowhere interesting,’ said Ratty. ‘I trust you are not the root cause of this infernal pen and ink? If so, I apologise if it is a result of the failure of the hot-water system.’
He noticed a figure seated in a moth-eaten armchair, facing away from them, just as Ruby noticed the strange woman who had accompanied her friends.
‘Some introductions might be a good idea,’ said the Patient. ‘Ruby, this is Madison. She is from Texas, and she has kindly brought us here at her own expense.’
‘Oh Ratty, I told you before about getting guests to pay for your taxi,’ snapped Ruby.
‘It was considerably more than a taxi, honey,’ said Madison. ‘But it’s OK. Payback for their services. How’s it going?’
‘Madison has flown
us from Myanmar in her private jet,’ explained the Patient.
‘Burma,’ mumbled Ratty.
‘What? OK, that’s insane,’ said Ruby, ‘but we have a more important consideration.’ She pointed at the figure seated in the turret room.
‘Madison, Ratty and the Patient, I’d like to introduce you to our guest. His name is Halford. He’s twelve thousand years old and he’s come here to die.’
‘Everyone out of the room!’ yelled the Patient. He ushered his companions out to the staircase and shut the door, leaving Halford inside. ‘Remember the scrolls! Halford was suffering from a common cold when he self-embalmed. We may have lost immunity to that ancient strain of virus.’
‘It’s OK,’ said Ruby. ‘He was tested. Thanks to the genesis glitch his accelerated body overcame the virus before he could so much as sneeze. But he’s been aging before my eyes. I don’t think he has long to go.’
‘Why did you bring him here?’ whispered Ratty.
‘I didn’t. Well, I did, but he made me do it. When he learned my name, he killed a doctor at the chateau and forced me to help him escape.’
‘Chateau?’ asked Ratty. ‘We were looking for you in Myanmar.’
‘Why didn’t you say Burma?’ asked the Patient.
‘I panicked.’
‘French agents found him near Burma and brought him to France,’ she continued. Halford believes in that prophetic nonsense that I’m the key to his power. I tried explaining that my name could not possibly have been foreseen, and besides there are other people and places that share the same name or similar. I decided, since we were in need of somewhere to hide out, that Ratty’s ruby tower would prove to him that he didn’t need me. A vague prophecy can have multiple interpretations, and is therefore pointless.
‘How did you bring him here?’ asked the Patient. ‘I assume he has no passport?’
‘The same why I got to France. In a shipping container.’
‘You made your escape in a large lorry with a container on the back?’ asked the Patient. ‘And the finest police in France were unable to stop you?’
‘We had an hour’s head start. It was all we needed. At the first truck stop I saw a similar lorry with a crane attached. I paid the driver to switch containers. He took our lorry south, but with his container so he wouldn’t lose his job, while we headed north with Halford in the more comfortable container. I checked it in at Le Havre and hired an English trucker to collect him at Portsmouth and meet me here.’
There was a commotion at the foot of the stairs. Feet pounded the spiral steps. Voices, angry and tired. First to arrive was Philipe, sweating and dishevelled.
‘He’s in there, isn’t he?’ demanded the French scientist.
Ruby blocked the doorway.
‘Yes, and he’s dying. Give him some dignity.’
‘But he killed a man! Besides, there’s no time! We may have only minutes left to learn the missing pieces of the nuclear puzzle! Ruby, this is the culmination of my life’s work. With Halford’s knowledge we could create weaponry and military power on a scale not seen for twelve millennia.’
Another body squeezed onto the increasingly cramped landing. Constable Stuart docked his helmet.
‘Sorry, sir,’ he told Ratty, ‘the French gentleman was most insistent. I tried to stop him.’
‘You work for me!’ shouted Philipe.
‘Who I work for is my own business,’ the policeman replied. ‘And I am sorry to have treated Miss Towers so badly. If it’s any consolation, that container lorry played havoc with my delphiniums. And I had heard reports of dubious parties scouting the area – even more dubious than the French. I could not have protected you, Miss. Co-operating in the plan to send you by secure means to the chateau seemed the best way to ensure your safety.’
‘Stop talking and get that door open!’ Philipe shouted.
‘Has anyone seen Madison?’ asked the Patient.
Ratty looked around him. In the huddle of bodies, there was no sign of Madison. He tried the door. It had been bolted from within.
‘Kick the door in!’ yelled Philipe.
‘Be my guest,’ said Ratty. ‘That door was designed to repel Cromwell’s army. The iron bolts were cast by the finest smith in the county.’
Philipe pushed at the door. He thumped it. He screamed at it. When his passion was spent, Ratty nudged him gently aside.
‘I say!’ called Ratty through the door. ‘Madison, would you mind awfully letting us in?’
Some awkward, silent moments passed, then the great bolts began to scrape open. The door moved and Madison’s face appeared.
‘I guess I should get going,’ she said.
Philipe pushed past her and ran to the other side of the room. He now saw for the first time the face of the man in the armchair, and it was not the face he had expected. This was no dictator, no slayer of humanity, no genocidal maniac. The eyes were two dark caves, overshadowed by a heavy brow. Isolated wisps of white hair protruded across the skull. Skin like the burned crust of a wholemeal loaf. It was the face of frailty, of an archetypal great-grandfather, the sort of face to which unthinking priority would be given in a busy boulangerie. The face even bore a trace of a smile between hollow cheeks.
The others entered the room, and Madison hovered at the doorway, seemingly in no hurry to depart.
‘Translate for me, Ruby!’ ordered Philipe, holding out a portable digital recorder. ‘Ask him about cold fusion.’
Ruby spoke. It was a rough attempt at the lost language of the ancients. So distant was its connection to the proto Indo-European roots of current languages that its sounds were alien to modern ears. But to Halford, it was comforting, a human connection that he understood.
The Patient and Ratty looked at Ruby, sharing an expression of surprise at her words. They understood her as clearly as Halford had done.
Halford’s grey eyes looked at Philipe, noting his anxiety and urgency. Though he could not understand the man’s words, he recognised in Philipe something of his former self. A self that felt like yesterday, and yet one which had no place in this strange world. He understood that he was dying, and that this time it was permanent. Ruby had taught him much in their brief, forced companionship. The world he knew was gone, destroyed by his own hand. Everything that had since come to pass in human history could be directly attributable to his past actions. She had also taught him that he was dying. That there could be no meaningful second life. The genesis procedure was fatally flawed. Thanks to the genesis glitch, Halford would never rise to the greatness of his former existence.
To Philipe’s undisguised relief, Halford began to speak. Philipe checked that his sound recorder was functioning and patiently held the device a couple of feet from Halford. The voice was weak, but it spoke with fluidity and confidence. The Frenchman had no understanding of the words, but he was convinced that their eventual translation – for if Ruby or her friends would not co-operate, it was only a matter of time until other scholars reached sufficient competence – would provide the means to complete his resurrection of the ancient technologies. National honours and Nobel prizes would follow. His country would develop and export the most advanced power systems and weaponry on the planet, and the glory would be his.
The words continued to flow from Halford’s mouth for many minutes. As they became softer, Philipe held the recorder closer to the mouth. This continued for a further time, each minute of speech weaker than before. When Halford finally ceased to speak, everyone waited in respectful silence to see if he would add anything further. But with his last words had come his last breath. Philipe turned off the recorder and walked out of Stiperstones without a word to the others.
A pile of Victorian blankets sat in a tea chest at the side of the room. Ratty picked one up and placed it over Halford’s body.
‘I don’t imagine many tears will be spilled over this chap,’ said Ratty. ‘Bad egg and all that.’
Even as he said it, he noticed Madison, still by the door, wiping
her eye. Constable Stuart reached into his pocket and passed a handkerchief to her.
‘Young Lord Ballashiels,’ said the policeman, ‘I believe that French chap may have contravened one or two significant local byelaws, if you know what I mean. Would it be prudent for me to apprehend the fellow and see to it that his little recording device meets an unfortunate and untimely demise?’
‘That won’t be necessary,’ said Ruby, with a wink.
‘Nuclear secrets are no laughing matter,’ protested the constable. ‘The world is already a dangerous-enough place without bringing back the technologies that destroyed it all those years ago. Surely we have a duty to stop him?’
‘The information on the recording device will be of no use,’ explained the Patient.
‘I didn’t ask Halford to talk about cold fusion,’ said Ruby.
‘So what was the late gentleman talking about for all that time?’
‘He talked about his journey from Chambord to Stiperstones, about his first experience of drinking tea, about this manor house, and, as he became weaker, about nothing. He became delirious and stopped making sense some minutes before the end.’
‘Poor Halford,’ said Ratty. ‘I almost pity the mass-murdering mindless cold-blooded despot. Must have been a frightful shock when he realised that there could be no meaningful second life.’
‘Sure,’ said Madison, patting her stomach. ‘But it sure cheered him up when he realised there could be a third one.’
***
The key to bedroom twenty-three was cold to the touch. Ratty gripped it hard, with a sense of futility. If his grandmother had some kind of spooky inkling about Halford’s exploits, it mattered not. Halford was gone, this time forever. Anything related to the prophecy was now a detail of history. Life was back to normal. Ruby was in Spain, uncovering the remains of a coastal development once inhabited by the ancient Greeks. Madison was back in Texas, counting the days until her pregnancy test and dreaming of reality television superstardom. The Patient was in the cottage at the periphery of the estate, spending his days immersed in books. Philipe was in Chambord, where he had yet to discover the worthlessness of his recording. And Constable Stuart was back on duty, keeping the peace in the most peaceful village in England.
The Genesis Glitch Page 8