Trust.
So he rolled on past the junction towards the laboratory. He chose to hold onto the piece of humanity he never really believed existed. At the end though, it was welded shut. None of them anticipated that, but even as he considered returning he understood something.
Perhaps it was the Anatolian city waking something inside him, but he could feel his own parts now. Whatever the Monster did when he made him, he…
Potts paused. Even though he was excited to find he understood his own inner workings, he also discovered other knowledge. It wasn’t a man that made him like this—it was a woman.
A woman with grey hair, and a lilting pleasant voice. A Welsh woman, just like the creature Driscoll. Now he definitely should have rolled the other way.
The Monster had Verity, Julia and her mother. A hatch popped open on his right side, and when he felt for it, there it was a tiny blow torch. The Welsh monster made him to serve a purpose. He was to be her helper, mindlessly constructing more like him.
Well, that simply wouldn’t do. With grim efficiency, Potts burned his way through the hatch, and rolled free of the pipeline.
This was definitely some kind of entrance hall. Potts didn’t need a degree in archaeology to see that straight away, but it had a decidedly scientific bent. Large wooden stands held hundreds of scrolls, just waiting for an engineer to pick them up.
The light in here was low, but ahead through the open door there was a great deal more. He wouldn’t face that by himself though; he’d made a promise to help.
Rolling towards the door, he found the lock quite simple, and easing it open nearly had Liam, Christopher and Emma fall on top of him. They must have pressed against the door.
They silently scrambled to their feet, making so little noise it was hard to believe they were children at all. Yet they were, he reminded himself, children who survived on their wits and courage.
He pointed towards the light, and as he did so, a low rumble came up from the floor. Voices grew louder in the room up ahead. It was however when a woman’s scream sounded that all possibility of lingering in the foyer disappeared.
He’d developed a lot of strange new instincts under the influence of the city machine, at least that was what he told himself as he dropped his wheel and raced forward.
“Monkey Wrench!” Emma called, but he took no notice. Gallantry was some new kind of programming he’d never expected.
He supposed it might well be the end of him.
Chapter Twenty-One
Teatime gets violent
The Illuminati loved a late night. Lying in his narrow cot, down the hall from the laboratory, Henry heard the laughter and clinks of glasses with growing impatience. He would have already been up and casing this floor if all the hubbub died down.
However, it showed no sign of relenting, and by his best guess if he waited any longer the sun would start coming up in a couple of hours. If he was going to make his move then it had to be now.
Levering himself out of bed, Henry went to the door. It was locked, but that wasn’t a bother. Concealed in the cuff of his trousers were his lock pick kit. He never went anywhere without them. They found his knife and thought they’d secured him. Illuminati they might be, but they weren’t familiar with life on the streets.
Picking the lock, he eased open the door and peered into the corridor. The party rumbled on downstairs, but so far there was nothing up on this level. He worked his way along the wall, keeping to the shadows, until he got to the door where Eddie was. Even though the so-called scholar got him into this mess, the young man still considered it his duty to get him out of it.
When he peeked him however, there was no sign of its inmate. Perhaps they were performing some terrible experiments on him somewhere. He kept hold of that belief, until he reached the next door which was half ajar, and spotted Eddie.
Henry almost walked right in, but a heartbeat later he was glad that he did not. Taking just that moment longer allowed him to assess the situation, and it was one he wasn’t prepared for. Eddie stood under the light, no colander on his head, but leaning forward towards a fancy automaton. Like the one Henry observed the previous night, this one was female shaped, and made of porcelain, but there the comparison ended. This one’s skin was blue and white, like the willow pattern teapots that some folks had in their parlour. It covered her whole body, turning into a flared dress so not to give the idea she was naked. The cracks in it made for excellent jointing, and Henry admitted she was impressive.
Doctor Jones never showed him this, keeping a card in reserve like a proper street buttoner. Eddie seemed right at home with it though. He hummed to himself as he worked on the open chest cavity, and whispered things to her that Henry was sure he didn’t want to hear. They’d got to him was the only conclusion, either that or they’d fixed what was broken in him.
Either way, he couldn’t be trusted. Holding his breath, Henry eased back from the door and padded his way towards the records room. Using his tools, he soon had the door unlocked, and slipped in.
Rows of card catalogue drawers sat on one side, while at the other was a desk, with its lamp turned off. Thorne talked often of the archives in the Ministry of Peculiar Occurrences, though not one invitation came the Seven’s way to visit it. Henry imagined it looked somewhat like this, but grander. Driscoll took his glasses, so he pulled down the little blind against the window in the door, and risked switching on the lamp.
Electricity was still pricy, but the Illuminati obviously didn’t care about that. He knew he must be quick about it. At any moment a drunken party-goer could stumble up onto this floor.
What the Ministry wouldn’t have given for access to this treasure-trove. Henry idly considered maybe finding some things to sell to them, but much of what he rifled through that appeared to be the best secret stuff, was in some kind of code. He wouldn’t know what he had, and that didn’t make for good bargaining.
Instead he stuck to finding their list of contacts. It was in the last catalogue, and it was impressively large. His throat went dry as he understood that it was broken up into social strata. Lords and ladies, the clergy, parliamentarians, at the top, and on the bottom street contacts.
Something moved out in the hallway, and Eddie’s laughter echoed after. Henry’s heart began to race quick time then, and much as he would have loved to make notes, he didn’t have a pen or Emma’s memory. He’d just have to settle for looking for their address.
When he found Verity’s name, he almost swore, but there it was printed out neatly on white card. Below it was written ‘Known associate: McTighe, Julia (see: McTighe, Hamish and McTighe, Una)’ but that was all.
Underneath they put ‘Address’ however there was nothing attached to it, also nothing mentioned any of the other children.
The date in the corner was only from a fortnight ago, so they hadn’t been tracing her for long. Letting out a long breath, he put the card back in place. They were going to have to be very, very careful from now on. It might even warrant Verity taking up some disguise, and avoiding Julia McTighe altogether. His mouth twisted at the thought how that would go over.
Easing shut the drawer, he crept to the door and listened. Nothing stirred outside, but the skin on the back of his neck prickled. He only had to get to the window at the end of the corridor, once he was on the roof Henry was certain he could get to the street quick enough.
Taking a breath and pushing open the door, he kept low as he went back out into the open. Things looked alright, until the moon came out from behind a cloud, and shone through his escape exit. The automaton stood, arms spread wide right in front of it.
Eddie peered over her shoulder and grinned. “Go get him, Anna!”
“I liked you better with the colander,” Henry growled. His options were limited. He might run back to his room and barricade himself in, but the machine would soon batter it down. He could fight, but they’d taken his knife and the archives wasn’t exactly full of weapons. So it had to be run.<
br />
He only needed to get to the window. The automaton couldn’t be as spry as a young man with determination and fleet feet.
Anna came stomping down the corridor like a bare-knuckles brawler. The sound of her porcelain joints grinding on her added a little extra menace to the situation, as well as the moon shining off her far-too white face. Eddie backed into the corner, his eyes fixed with some glee on what was about to happen.
Anna swung at him, and Henry swayed backwards narrowly avoiding getting his face smashed and sliced. He tried to follow it up by ducking around her, but her leg came up and caught him in the chest. She might look as pretty as his Nana’s tea-set, but she left a mark when she made contact. Staggering back, Henry fought to recover his breath.
Even if he did have his knife, this wasn’t a situation where it would have made a difference. He’d tried to find more options to this predicament, but he couldn’t think of any. He had to make it to the window or get crushed by Anna while Eddie watched on.
Yet doing that seemed incredibly unlikely. When he darted under her arm and made a break for it, the automaton grabbed hold of his shoulder and slammed him back. Colliding with the floor hard enough to rattle his head, Henry rolled to his right, just quickly enough to avoid getting a steam-powered kick to his chest.
In the corridor there simply wasn’t enough room for him to get around her and not get crushed to jam in the process.
“You’re getting a first-hand demonstration, lad,” Eddie yelled, his hands bunched excitedly up near his face. “The Illuminati will live forever in shells like Anna.”
It might be an amazing machination, but there was nothing of the green flame about her. This was just a well put together automaton in a pretty porcelain dress—and it would kill Henry just as prettily.
When the first Shocker smashed through the window, Henry almost didn’t believe it. It didn’t hit the automaton, but struck Eddie in the head. With a faint sizzle he collapsed in a heap in the corner.
Anna turned around as Agent Harrison Thorne burst his way through the remaining window glass. Letting go of the rope, he raised a pistol with a glowing red chamber on its side, and fired at the automaton.
The explosion of porcelain and brass part beneath rattled the corridor. Alarms now blared from deep within the building, and Thorne looked most put out by that.
“Much as I’d like to stay, let’s get going,” he barked towards Henry, and for once the young man decided not to complain. Together they scrambled out of the window and then Thorne’s method of arrival was revealed.
The bat-winged ornithopter circled around, dragging the rope beneath it. Colin and Jonathan waved merrily at them. Behind them, came the racing of footsteps, but the soldiers of the Illuminati were a fraction too late.
Together Thorne and Henry grabbed the rope and swung out into the darkness beneath and ornithopter driven by two children. Just another day working for the Ministry, Henry supposed.
By the time they fought gravity and the wind to climb back on board, they were climbing away from the building and up into the racing clouds.
“Thank you, Colin,” Thorne said, relieving the youngster of his control stick.
The boy made a face, but grinned at Henry.
“I should complain about you going to Thorne,” the older boy shouted over the wind, “but I won’t… this time.”
Jonathan stuck out his tongue, and Colin giggled.
“You’re most welcome, Master Price,” Thorne said over his shoulder, fixing Henry with a hard look. “Ministry technology was how we tracked you to know when you were close enough for extraction.” He banked the ornithopter right, keeping his eyes now front and centre. “I don’t suppose you found anything useful to the Ministry in—”
Typical of the agent, Henry thought. Leaning forward he yelled in Thorne’s ear. “I found out the Illuminati are aware of Verity, but that they don’t know about us or Onslow Square. That’s all I cared about, but thanks for the rescue.”
“It’s how it's supposed to work,” Colin chipped in. “The whole lark was about us rescuing you if things went pear-shaped. No one said nothing about not asking Mr Thorne here.”
That child was so tricky, Henry considered he’d make a great lawyer or a conman when he was older.
He sat back in his seat, and enjoyed the cool wind on his face. He was satisfied they had some breathing room, but what he’d seen in the Illuminati building convinced him worse was coming. A whole city of villains encased in automatons was not something he wanted to complicate.
Still when Verity came home, he’d have much to tell her, and he could take pride in the fact he’d completed the mission. Now all he wanted was to see her face.
Chapter Twenty-Two
The Mind of Callinicus
Driscoll got her automatons to march them through the door Verity spent so much effort opening. All the while she struggled to find a way out of this. Certainly she could get free of the ropes easily enough, but the automatons were like blank slates to her through the Sound. She wasn’t able to influence them, and now she came to find she’d relied a little too much on that. It was more than humiliating, but the truth was if she made her move, Julia and her mother would suffer immediately for it.
It was, she supposed why Driscoll brought them along. Verity understood the concept of leverage very well.
When the entered the foyer to Callinicus laboratory she found it not as impressive as she might have thought. The long lines of stacked scrolls were interesting, and she noted Una McTighe’s longing look in their direction. Still the rest was rather plain. Simple whitewashed walls, and lines of engineering materials. No dust though. This place was sealed as tightly as the Silver Pharaoh’s tomb.
However as the marched forward into the laboratory and the lights in the sconces sprang to life, all the women, even their captor drew in a gasp. It was a statue of the man himself, the inventor of the Emerald Flame, Callinicus of Heliopolis. The Jewish man who fled to Constantinople and worked his talents for the Byzantine Emperor. He’d come to the clockwork country to oversee the production of the Emerald Flame and after that his fate was lost to history. Unlike Psusennes he received no fantastic tomb.
Yet he did have this statue. Seated on a plinth he would have been twenty feet if standing, and he cradled two large amphora jugs, one in the crook of each arm. In front of him stood a large brazier and in it burned the Emerald Flame, captured in a giant aether crystal. It must have continued all this time since this place was closed up.
“Incredible,” Una breathed, straining against her captor, her face lighting up with the flame’s reflection. She seemed to forget all about their current predicament, but then given she’d worked years to find the Emerald Flame, so Verity wasn’t surprised. It rather entranced her, and she’d only known about it for a week or so.
One glance at Driscoll though, said she felt something completely different. Her expression was one of pure avarice. She glanced at the statue, but then stared at the flame for a long time. So long that Verity wondered her eyes didn’t burn out. She must be contemplating how many terrible thing she could do with it. How many professors she could stuff into automatons.
“Take the crystal,” she said to the mechanication clamped onto Verity. It shuffled sideways and reached into the brazier to grab hold of the aether crystal that contained the fire. Maybe Driscoll thought metal could survive its conflagration. It didn’t.
The automaton screamed, high and loud, like a woman who’d been stabbed. Someone was in this machine too, Verity realised in a sicking rush. This was the Monster Potts described, the scientist back in Bethnal Green who made him, and experimented on children.
That also meant Driscoll just forced a person to stick her hand into a flame. It didn’t smell like burning flesh, but it must feel like it. Yanking back its arm, it stared at the place where its hand once was. Now it was completely gone. Burned away in an instant.
Verity flinched away, horrified, but at the same time proc
essing another conclusion. The Emerald Flame burned, yet it didn’t produce any heat. She was very close to it, but her skin didn’t feel a thing. So it created a lot of light and power, but apart from that was nothing like a regular flame.
As the automaton tipped sideways in agony, Verity’s eyes darted to the pair of vases up on the statute. The machine was distracted, consumed with agony no automaton should experience. It was a moment she could take advantage of. Greek fire they called it, and from her reading it was stored in amphora when used on the ships. Exactly like those ones up ahead.
The automaton loosened its grip momentarily in agony, concentrating on its missing appendage. The bonds were loose enough, she was able to jerk her hands free from behind her back in an instant. Then taking a deep breath against the pain she knew would come from the sharp metallic fist on her shoulder, Verity wrenched herself loose and made a mad dash for the statue. The automatons might be strong, but they were not as nimble as a child from the streets of London. Also the one holding Julia and Una McTighe captive didn’t have enough arms to go after her as well.
Quick as her uncle’s squirrel, she scrambled up the side of the inventor’s statue. It was made of brass and slick, but there were enough folds in his attire to give her some purchase. In a moment she’d pulled herself into his lap.
“Get her down from there,” Driscoll bellowed to her automatons.
The one who thrust their hand into the fire, jerked its head up at her command. It held out its hand and a long barrel appeared from within the structure of its remaining arm. Verity’s eyes went wide, and she forgot about the amphora for a moment. She’d planned to see what the jugs contained, but gave up in a scramble to save herself.
“No!” Una screamed, finally recovering from her shock at seeing the flame.
Julia kicked and screamed furiously. “You jobby bawbag! Leave her alone!”
The Mystery of Emerald Flame (Verity Fitzroy and the Ministry Seven Book 2) Page 18