Day of Rebellion

by Johnny O'Brien

The Heavenly Kingdom comes to Edinburgh

  Welcome to the Taiping Experience

  “Do you think this is Dad trying to be funny?” Jack asked.

  “Why?” said Angus.

  “This… big China exhibition thing. China in the mid-nineteenth century – Taiping Rebellion, Opium Wars, all that…”

  “What about it?”

  Jack sighed, “It’s the same as the game, the new Point-of-Departure – Day of Rebellion.” Jack tapped his temple with his index finger. “Duh. It’s all the same period of history. Dad knew we were playing POD China and so he thought it would be funny to meet us here where they’ve got a big exhibition about it.”

  “Oh right… I get you,” Angus said, then grimaced. “Do I?”

  Jack shook his head in despair.

  “Anyway, what do we do? Just hang around for him?”

  “He’ll probably be keeping a low profile. I suppose we should wander around.”

  They approached the front desk where a young assistant was pointing a couple towards the far end of the huge atrium, “…introductory lectures are in the open area at the end of the hall there, then there’s a guided tour of the main China exhibit. The guide is just starting one now…” The woman nodded towards the far end of the hall where people were seated in rows in front of a large screen.

  Jack shrugged, “Might as well take a look…”

  As they moved through the main hall towards the presentation, they could already hear the amplified voice of the guide talking to the group.

  “… the Taiping Rebellion in China was the second bloodiest war of any kind in history,” she announced. As she spoke a series of images were scrolling by on the big screen behind her. There were pictures of great throngs of soldiers holding black flags, Chinese cities with amazing architecture, astounding works of art, peasants at work in fields… The guide kept talking: “Some estimate that the total number of deaths during the Taiping Rebellion, between 1850 and 1864, may have exceeded thirty million. That’s three times as many as died in the First World War. Yet, in the West, few have even heard of the Taiping Rebellion…”

  “Do we really want to listen to this?” Angus sighed. “I mean, people talking about history is OK and everything, but they should really ask the experts – people who’ve actually been there. Like me.”

  Jack smiled and tuned in to the guide’s talk.

  “There were many amazing things about the Taiping people, and their enemies – China’s ruling Qing dynasty. Take, for example, Taiping rebellion’s leader, Hong Xiuquan—” the guide paused and a line drawing of a Chinese man in an elaborately embroidered robe and an ornate hat appeared on the screen. “It is said that Hong Xiuquan fell into a trance and saw visions of heaven that inspired him to over throw the Qing. He and his followers practised their own version of Christianity, and because the Taiping were Christians, they attracted some European support. For a while the Taiping were very successful. They had a good army and they moved north, eventually taking the city of Nanjing in 1853. But the rebellion left China weak and open to exploitation by the British, French and others…”

  The guide droned on and after a while Jack found his attention wavering. With the words, “Now, let me welcome you to the Heavenly Kingdom – and the Taiping Experience…” she suddenly stopped talking and the screen rose upwards, revealing two large glass doors which swung open to allow visitors into the dimly lit exhibition areas. The crowd drifted forward.

  Jack nudged Angus, who was gazing distractedly at the floor. “We’re on.”

  It was an impressive exhibition. There were intricately patterned silk costumes of all shapes and sizes. Then there was a full model layout of the Third Battle of Nanjing with an Imperial army assault on the city battlements. It was all laid out in miniature with row upon row of soldiers, cannons and cavalry. The city was being defended by the Taiping – in their red jackets and blue trousers. Further down the exhibition hall, there were more figures, this time representing the Taiping’s enemy – the Imperialist Qing. There was a bit on punishment and torture, including photographs of ‘slow slicing’, where a series of precise incisions cut away the victim’s flesh before he was left to die.

  Suddenly, Jack felt himself being jostled by the crowd behind. He half turned in irritation and felt something thrust into his hands. It was an envelope. He scanned the faces behind him but whoever who had delivered the envelope had already slipped away into the throng.

  Tantallon

  Jack barged through the crowd out of the gloom of the exhibition hall and into the light of the atrium. He ripped open the envelope. Inside, there was a single sheet of folded paper. It read:

  Meet you at Tantallon

  “What does that mean?” Angus said, finally catching up with Jack and peering over his shoulder. “Did you see who gave it to you?”

  Jack looked anxiously around the museum, but it was just the same scene of visitors and tourists quietly milling around. The mystery contact had vanished into thin air.

  “He’s gone.” Jack stared at the piece of paper. “Didn’t even see him. Was it Dad?”

  “No – he wouldn’t have just left. Anyway, what’s Tantallon?” Angus pressed.

  “It’s a castle on the coast… Mum and Dad used to take me there when I was a kid.”

  *

  Angus gunned the KTM due east and the Edinburgh suburbs peeled away into the East Lothian countryside which spread out from the bare, rolling hills of the Lammermuirs down to the grey-blue sea of the Firth of Forth. It was a fine day, but Jack worried about what they would find when they arrived.

  He reached into his pocket and pulled out his VIGIL smart device. He’d lost the previous model in Paris in 1940, but VIGIL was issuing new devices to all their personnel. Jack had received his the day before at VIGIL and Angus was fed up that his had not yet arrived. The device looked like a smart phone and it gave the user access to all sorts of apps. But it also gave VIGIL agents access to a number of special VIGIL applications about history, technology, inventions and most fields of human endeavour. It was like having a whole encyclopaedia in a little box and, for any VIGIL agent called on another time-travel mission, it would be invaluable.

  Jack had shown Angus an amazing VIGIL app that had detailed descriptions of how things worked, with technical drawings, cutaways and animations of different car and bike engines, aeroplanes and just about anything you could think of. The app also showed how these technologies had developed over time. It was important for VIGIL to understand, study and record such things, so they knew how things fitted together and their impact on history. Right now though, Jack was only interested in the device’s Sat Nav, which he was using to guide Angus towards Tantallon.

  An hour later they were well into the countryside and had turned off an isolated coast road onto a dirt track. It was a flat, treeless landscape and there was no one around. They could see the sea in the distance and smell the fresh salt air.

  After ten minutes, they pulled up to a simple wooden shack built next to a small turning circle.

  “There.” Jack said.

  There was a rusty sign next to the shack:

  TANTALLON CASTLE

  “Not much of a castle.”

  “That’s not it. That’s where you get in. The castle is further on.” Jack looked around and took off his helmet. The breeze ruffled his hair. “I remember it now. It’s ages since I was here.”

  They walked towards the shack.

  “Can’t believe there’s anyone in there.” Angus knocked on the window of the shack. Inside they could see an assortment of yellowing postcards, a few souvenirs and a mouldy fridge with some soft drinks way past their sell-by date.

  Angus knocked again. “Anyone at home?”

  Suddenly a head popped up from behind the counter and the window slid open. Angus jumped. The attendant was old and grey and he had a pipe in one hand which he rested on the counter. He stared at them with beady eyes.

  “On your own?” He looked at
them suspiciously and then craned his head out of the shack to check there was no one else around.

  “Yes…”

  “Follow the track up to the castle.” He nodded at the bike. “You’ll have to leave that here. And you’ll need this.” He handed them a small package. “Go to the pit prison. It’s inside the castle; you’ll find it easy enough. Only open the package when you’re down there. Don’t worry, there’s no other visitors today…” he flashed a toothless grin. “Like most days.”

  “But…”

  “Go!” The man hissed and he slammed the window shut and the hut shook.

  “Polite here, aren’t they?” Angus said.

  They opened an old gate next to the hut and set off down a track through a mown field. Ahead was a vast, grassy rampart. Jack and Angus rounded the rampart and suddenly there it was – a massive ruined castle. In fact, it looked less like a castle and more like a solid wall of red sandstone. It towered over twenty metres into the sky and extended across a large promontory hanging over the sea.

  “Impressive.”

  “Yeah. Beyond that huge wall there is just some land which juts out to sea. There are cliffs on all the other sides. But I don’t get it – why has Dad sent us here – where is he anyway?”

  “Yeah – why not just meet us at the museum?” Angus said.

  “Maybe he’s still afraid we’d be followed or something. Maybe he’ll be waiting for us in the pit dungeon, or whatever it’s called. We’d better try to find it.”

  Suddenly, a worrying thought flashed into Jack’s head. What if the note hadn’t been from his dad at all…?

  “Pit prison – sounds pleasant. Look – there’s a plan of the castle on that sign.”

  They crossed the drawbridge over the ditch at the front of the castle and passed through the gate into the central courtyard. There were breathtaking views out to sea, which sparkled in the sunlight.

  “Look at that.”

  Angus pointed at a huge rock rising vertically from the water only about a mile out from the castle.

  “That’s the Bass Rock. It’s an island. I remember going round it in a boat once. Nearly threw up. You should see it close up – the cliffs are incredible. It’s got a lighthouse. See?”

  “People live on it?”

  “No. I think there used to be a prison… would have been impossible to escape. Come on – this hanging around is making me nervous.”

  They entered the ruined state rooms at the west end of the castle site.

  “Down here…”

  “You going to open that package now?”

  “The old guy said to open it when we got down there.”

  Jack could scarcely see his way as they stepped from ground level and brilliant sunlight into the dank bowels of the castle. They descended a steep spiral staircase before finally reaching a small room. A single electric bulb up on the wall gave off a faint light. The room was empty.

  “Grim. Is this it?” Angus asked.

  Jack nodded. “Time to open the package.”

  He peeled back layers of brown paper and out slipped a thin plastic object. His heart jumped when he saw it and he glanced knowingly at Angus.

  “Interesting. Looks just like a VIGIL access device. You going to give it a go?”

  Jack’s thumb twitched on the device and suddenly a small opening appeared in the floor beneath Angus’s feet.

  Angus jumped aside, “Whoa!”

  Where Angus had been standing, there was a circular metal covering set in a concrete base. It looked a bit like a large drain cover.

  Jack pressed the device a second time and the metal cover slid open to reveal a hole in the ground. It led to a steeply raked spiral staircase.

  Angus gawped. “Identical to the VIGIL entry portals.”

  “Yeah. But I don’t think this one goes anywhere near VIGIL. I think it goes somewhere else altogether.”

  Sub-sea

  As they walked onto the spiral staircase, the steps began lowering automatically and the aperture closed silently above their heads. After a few minutes of descent they came to a gentle halt. Ahead of them was a door. Jack pressed the device again and the door opened into a short metal-clad corridor lit by a dim blue glow. At the end of the corridor was a circular metal door. Jack and Angus exchanged glances.

  “I’m assuming your dad intends us to keep going…”

  “Incredible – everything’s just like VIGIL.” But then Jack noticed that the door did not have the familiar ‘VIGIL’ logo etched onto it. Instead, there was a phrase:

  Change the Past. Save the Future.

  The door opened without a sound, revealing a long tubular passageway which melted into the darkness. The passage walls at the VIGIL complex were brilliantly engineered – completely smooth with no rivets and no seams. But this place was different. The passage was hewn directly from the rock. Water dripped down from above and every few metres the roof was supported by old and rusty steel struts. It was like a badly maintained mineshaft.

  “This tunnel has got to go right under the sea.”

  “It’s giving me the creeps… and it all looks pretty rickety. Are we just going to go on?” Angus said.

  “What the…?”

  Jack jumped as, suddenly, a small open car appeared out of the gloom and glided to a halt right in front of them.

  “It’s on rails…”

  “Nearly gave me a heart attack… it’s just like a ghost train.”

  “It must be automatic. Do you reckon we just get in?”

  Soon they were trundling through the claustrophobic tunnel and after a few minutes the mysterious rail car came to a halt next to a low concrete platform.

  “Guess this is it, then.”

  “I don’t get it, Jack. I mean, why isn’t your dad here to meet us? It’s almost like he’s set us a weird test or something.”

  Jack gave a shrug and looked around. “What now?”

  “Maybe we go down there – it looks like there’s some sort of lift?”

  At one end of the platform a mesh cage rose up from the ground and directly into the roof. They approached it and Jack craned his head upwards.

  “It’s just a big black hole – can’t see a thing, which is really weird, because I swear the tunnel was going in the direction of the sea. So I don’t get how we’re not underwater now – that hole just seems to go up.”

  “Maybe it’s the Bass Rock,” Angus said. “Maybe we’ve gone under the sea and now we’re under the rock itself. Look – there’s a button. Shall I give it a go?”

  Jack nodded. Angus pressed the button and there was a mechanical whirring from above.

  “Well, something’s working up there…”

  They waited with bated breath as they heard the lift cage rattling down the shaft from above. Suddenly, the bottom of the yellow-painted metal cage appeared and jolted to a halt in front of them. Jack’s heart missed a beat.

  Inside the lift cage was a man, with his back turned to them, leaning heavily against the latticed door. Without warning, the door slid open and the man tumbled out, slumping over the access gate. He didn’t move. Jack and Angus rushed forward. The man’s head fell back, his eyes stared unblinking at the tunnel roof.

  Jack’s heart was racing. He peered closer and then turned to Angus, his face etched with fear.

  “God Angus – he’s dead. Looks like he’s been shot.”

  They laid the man out onto the platform.

  “Who is he?”

  Jack shook his head. “No idea.”

  “What are we going to do?”

  Jack felt his chest thumping. “Dad. He must be up there. Maybe there’s been some sort of fight… maybe he’s in trouble. I think we need to go up.”

  “Hold on, Jack, is that clever? Maybe we should go back… get help… get VIGIL here.”

  “But what about Dad?”

  “Jack – we don’t even know if it was really your dad who sent the message… maybe it’s a trick…”

  “Well,
I’m going up – you can go back if you want.”

  They climbed into the cage. There were three buttons, one above the other:

  Ground Exit

  Complex

  Top Exit – Rock

  “What do you reckon? I’m going to try Complex.” Jack pushed the button.

  There was a jolt and the cage started to ascend through the lift shaft hewn into the rock. Minutes later the cage came to a halt with a lurch. Jack pulled back the gate and they stepped into a narrow tunnel. After a few metres they arrived at another metal doorway.

  “Guess this must be it. Entrance to the ‘Complex’. Whatever that is.”

  “Try the access device on this door. But get ready – we don’t know what’s behind it.”

  The door opened and for a moment there was just pitch darkness. Then, one by one, lights started to flicker on.

  Jack and Angus stood dumbfounded at the scene before them.

  The room was similar to the underground library at Jack’s house in Cairnfield. It was oval shaped and there were books and papers on shelves and stacked up everywhere. There was all sorts of paraphernalia on display in various glass cabinets.

  Angus found his voice. “This is it, isn’t it? It’s the Revisionist base. What VIGIL would give to see this.”

  “Buried somewhere beneath the Bass Rock in the middle of the Firth of Forth… mind blowing,” Jack said. “How did they build it all?”

  “And keep it secret?”

  Jack bit his lip. “It’s like the Marie Celeste.”

  “Yeah – too creepy.”

  Jack stepped further into the library and suddenly stopped in his tracks. He felt his insides convulse.

  “Oh God… there’s another one.”

  The Rock

  The second body was lying face up next to a low table in the library. The man’s lifeless eyes stared at the ceiling and a dark pool of blood oozed out from beneath him. Jack’s shock was tempered by only one thing. The body wasn’t his father’s.