Jeremiah Willstone and the Clockwork Time Machine

by Anthony Francis

  An infinity of places to hide, but that didn’t interest her: she could see, far down the tunnel, a light spilling sideways out of a door—and with the eyes of the Scarab, she saw that the room beyond had an unguarded door to the outside.

  Jeremiah limped forwards, feeling a jolt of pain with every step. The thing swayed behind her, keening inside her, wailing its own song of pain and hunger, begging her to stop. But she just kept going, limping, then walking, then running.

  Please stop, the thing said, I can’t keep this up—

  Behind her there was a squeal, voices, shouts—had they seen her? It didn’t matter; the door was close now. There was an unoccupied room, an unguarded door, an empty field beyond; all she needed to do was make it—

  ———

  The thing screamed with pain and bit into her, severing her spine.

  53.

  An Unlikely Volunteer

  JEREMIAH SCREAMED as well as her legs disappeared from beneath her in a flash of pain. She hit the concrete, skidding to a stop, the deranger sliding away. With horror she pushed herself up onto her hands—and stared back at her useless legs.

  “My God!” Jeremiah screamed. “You’ve ruined me!”

  I’m so sorry! the Scarab cried in her mind. I’m so hungry—

  Feet ran up around her, but she didn’t look up to see them; she just stared at her broken legs, felt a prickling pain from her back slowly disappear as the nerves died. Finally she let herself slump to the deck, sobbing.

  “End of the line, Commander,” said Quincy.

  “She’s pissed herself,” one of them laughed.

  “That’s enough,” Quincy’s strong voice said. “A bit of decorum.”

  “You’ve ruined me,” she repeated, “and now they have us.”

  “Who is she talking to?” one of the footmen said.

  “The Scarab, you idiot,” Jeremiah said. “I’m talking to the Scarab.”

  “On your feet, Commander,” Quincy said.

  “That may never happen again,” Jeremiah said, letting her skinned cheek rest against the cool concrete. “The thing has eaten into my lower spinal column.”

  “God,” Quincy said. “It’s accelerating. Get her up.”

  Hands seized her and lifted her up. She cried out.

  “Careful!”

  “Don’t drop her!”

  “Lord, she has pissed herself—”

  “Show some spine, man!” Quincy said—and Jeremiah let out a broken sob. He straightened, even as the weight of the thing forced her head down to look down at the drape of her useless legs. Quincy said, “My apologies, Commander. I did not mean to make light of your condition.”

  Jeremiah grimaced, staring at her right foot, turned awkwardly aside against the concrete, insensate. She cried out again as the men lifted her a bit higher, and her feet swung uselessly in the air, a bit of blood and piss trickling down the left one. God. Had she no dignity left?

  “Apology accepted,” Jeremiah said hoarsely. “Please . . . just get on with it.”

  ———

  THE FRAME WAS not ready, so they put her in the cage—the same iron cage that the Scarab had been birthed in, welded back together. Jeremiah actually squealed when she saw it, echoing the cry of the creature within her. But they put her in it anyway, folded up like a yogi.

  When the chains crossing her wrists across her chest went taut, the last weld was completed, and the cage was hoisted in the air, they let her alone—at the center of six guards, three looking inward, three looking outward.

  Behind her she could hear her uncle working on the mechanism that would destroy her; before her she could see Jackson and Ryder working on the controls. But that didn’t bother her as much as seeing her dead legs below her.

  Her legs were gone. Her left arm was gone. And her eyes were no longer her own. She thought with bitter mockery of the words of Simeon: Never give up. As a youth Jeremiah had been mocked because her mother had given up, at least in most people’s eyes … but Jeremiah liked to think she’d really been fighting to the end—and where had that gotten her?

  No. It wasn’t something she liked to think: she knew. She’d been at that hospital bed. She knew her mother had never given up. She’d stood firm, even when she couldn’t stand. She’d hung on, even to the bitter end—and it may have not saved her life, but it granted her dignity.

  Perhaps, Jeremiah thought, she should take Simeon seriously.

  Jeremiah knew she was physically ruined; she would never fight again. But she knew that even she had never been the fighter that Dame Alice once had been. Dame Alice had been ruined, she would never fight again—and yet she persevered.

  Jeremiah had been a fighter—but she was also a brilliant tactician. Or, at least she had been, once, back at Academy, before her string of successes as an Expeditionary tricked her into devolving into a running caricature of herself. But did she really need to run, always, to be herself?

  Maybe she didn’t need her legs.

  “I could be Dame Alice,” she murmured. “I can be better than Dame Alice. I can deal with this, if only given the chance.”

  They will destroy us shortly, the Scarab said in her mind. Or not. In either case, we will both die. You are not enough food for me to mature. I’m so sorry.

  Jeremiah looked up. She stared at Jackson Truthsayer, who kept glancing at her and looking away, guilty. And then Lord Christopherson, once again in more formal white tie, joined Jackson—and he too glanced at Jeremiah, then looked away with the same guilty look.

  “Never give up,” she murmured to the Scarab, staring straight at Jackson, then shifting her gaze to Lord Christopherson. “Uncle, I have a proposal.”

  Lord Christopherson ignored her, inserting tubes into the machine.

  “Uncle, please,” Jeremiah said. “Listen to me—”

  He hissed, shook his head, and looked away.

  “If you won’t listen to me, listen to the Scarab,” Jeremiah said, and then her voice caught, a great hand squeezed her lungs, and she croaked, “HEAR HER.”

  Christopherson looked over sharply; Jackson raised her hand to her mouth. “That . . . that wasn’t a vocalization,” he said. “That came from her lungs—”

  “It probably doesn’t have control over her vocal cords,” Jackson said, “but it’s invaded quite a bit of the rest of her.”

  “Blast it,” Christopherson said. “This will complicate the transplantation.”

  “The transplantation won’t work,” Jeremiah said. “We’re too far gone.”

  Christopherson swayed there a moment. From the look in his eyes, she knew this to be true. The Scarab was already pupating; it was too late to transplant. Everything they were doing right now was a ploy of desperation. They fully expected the procedure to fail before the implantation.

  “Listen to me,” Jeremiah said. “Please take me seriously. I’m speaking in good faith. I am a living, thinking creature . . . and so is the Scarab. Both born on Earth, whose people you swore an oath to protect. Neither of us want to die . . . so I want you to figure out to how to save us.”

  Lord Christopherson turned away, a curse under his breath.

  “Please hear me out,” Jeremiah said. “It’s too late. You know we are already pupating. The Scarab can no longer be transplanted; she must mature where . . . where she is, or die. This procedure is going to fail, and if it does, it might not just kill us. It might kill you too.”

  “I think we have overcome the difficulties,” Christopherson said, and now there was fear along with the guilt in those crystal-blue eyes. “This machine can provide energies in a form the Scarab can use for an accelerated pupation. Combined with intravenous feeding, that . . .”

  “Might do the trick . . . but probably will not,” Jeremiah said. “You’re not big enough.”r />
  Lord Christopherson glanced at Jackson, then nodded.

  “We’ll probably die before the lobotomy is complete,” Jeremiah said. “So you’ll abort. So you’re going to kill us for nothing.”

  “Jeremiah,” Lord Christopherson said quietly. “You’ll die anyway—”

  “Only because you’re not even trying to save us,” Jeremiah said. “You’re treating the Scarab like a thing and me like a casualty of war. But I’ve seen both of you in action. You’re brilliant. If anyone can find a way to save us, you can—”

  “Jeremiah,” Jackson said gently. “The Scarab is already woven through you, and as you said, its body is already showing signs it’s preparing for the pupation process. Even now, even more so once it pupates . . . there’s no way we can separate the two of you—”

  “I’d be a paraplegic,” Jeremiah said. “And almost certainly blind. But similar injuries haven’t stopped Dame Alice. And it’s just possible, with a big enough host, the Scarab might live. Legend says they can heal from almost anything, though, this late in the game, she might be . . . damaged . . . by the transfer. But life grazing on the back of a cow is better than life without a mind.”

  “Jeremiah, the kind of surgery you’re describing . . .” Lord Christopherson began, but Jeremiah wasn’t listening. She was hearing only the Scarab, pleading within her: No. Please. I don’t want another host. I just want you. Just you. You are my host. I do not want to live without you.

  “Or . . .” Jeremiah said haltingly, interrupting whatever her uncle was nattering on about. “If you can’t separate us, if you could only save us . . . well, together . . . maybe that wouldn’t be so bad. It’s better than lobotomizing her—”

  “That thing you’re pleading for is a Foreigner,” Lord Christopherson said—but it was his voice that was pleading. “The kind of thing that killed your mother—my sister—”

  “The kind of thing, but not the same thing,” Jeremiah said. “We both lost much, yes, but we can’t blame this thing for it, because it never was an invader from the stars.” Then, she found her dagger. “It’s a child of a dying race—and you tricked it into coming here, knowing that.”

  And yes, at that moment, Lord Christopherson looked like he’d been stabbed.

  “I’ve seen your eyes,” Jeremiah said. “I know you still feel guilty.”

  Lord Christopherson looked away, as did Jackson.

  “The Scarab was never an invader,” Jeremiah repeated. “Her probe egg found this world inhabited, declared it unsuitable—and went dormant. The Scarab’s soul could have waited another twelve thousand years until one of her probes found a suitable world, but you tricked her into incarnating. You woke the egg, called to her, lied to her, told her this was a suitable home—”

  “Jeremiah,” Lord Christopherson said tensely, not looking at her.

  “It’s a terrible thing, living with guilt,” Jeremiah said. “So we’re asking this one simple thing: just . . . try to save us. Put your minds to it. Make your best effort to save us, to save both of us . . . and if you honestly cannot . . . then . . . we volunteer for the alternative.”

  Lord Christopherson inclined his head. “What did you say?”

  “If you make an honest effort to save us . . . and honestly tell us you cannot,” Jeremiah said, “then . . . we volunteer for your plan. We volunteer to be your stepping-stone, to be your victims . . . so you will not have to carry the guilt of slaying innocents.”

  Lord Christopherson glanced at Jackson. “You speak for the Scarab too?”

  “We speak together,” Jeremiah said. “We know this is a lost cause. We know we’re ruined. Ruined, thwarting your plan. But . . . you said your real goal is defending the Earth. We want to believe you . . . but everything we’ve seen says you’re a monster.”

  “Jeremiah—”

  “Prove us wrong,” she said. “We can’t do anything, caged or not. We’re done. All we have to offer is our cooperation. Show us you’re worth it. Treat us like people and not meat for your machines. Try to save us, in good faith. And if you do that, if you at least try . . .”

  Her voice broke. “Then at least we can die with dignity.”

  Lord Christopherson straightened. So did Jackson.

  “We accept your proposal,” he said.

  “Very well. Just . . . promise you won’t lobotomize her,” Jeremiah said. Then one last thing occurred to her. Of course. “Oh, Uncle: this is where the letter was mailed from. Two-day quickpost, delivered two twenty-seven in the afternoon, ask for signature, I remind you.”

  Lord Christopherson’s hand went to his pocket. He pulled out the ripped open note, glanced at its back, nodded gravely. “Of course. Is this . . .”

  “What I received?” Jeremiah said. “Yes. Minus the final seal.”

  Lord Christopherson resealed the envelope and scratched his initials.

  “Find a quickpost envelope for this, with their return,” he said, handing the letter to Ryder. He turned to Jackson and muttered something; Jackson nodded and quickly walked off, motioning to someone Jeremiah couldn’t see. Then he turned back to her, his face grim. “This may be unpleasant, but I promise we will do everything in our power to save you, Jeremiah—”

  “And the Scarab too?” Jeremiah said. “She’s done nothing to you—”

  ———

  “I expect,” he said, “it will be unpleasant for the Scarab too.”

  54.

  The Most Precise Source of X-Rays in the Universe

  “I’M SORRY, JEREMIAH,” Christopherson said. “There is no other way.”

  Jeremiah woke spread-eagled in the straps. Foam and vomit dribbled out of the corner of her mouth. She was in immense pain and hunger, she was strapped into the framework of machinery, she could hear it humming around her—and the drill had started.

  “Oh, God,” Jeremiah said, surging against the straps. Her body moved, but her head—and the head of the Scarab half-buried within it—did not move within some harness as rigid as iron. “You lied! You’re going to lobotomize us—”

  “No, we aren’t,” Christopherson said. “We’re trying to save you—”

  “For that you don’t need the drill!” Jeremiah screamed, as the whine of the drill grew higher, louder, and closer—and their frantic struggles got them not one millimeter further away. “You don’t need the drill!”

  “Yes, we do,” Lord Christopherson said, half shouting now over the whine. “The Stanford Linear Accelerator is the most precise source of X-rays in the universe—in the nearest dozen universes—but even it won’t penetrate the skull of the Scarab—”

  “I don’t believe you!” Jeremiah screamed. “We don’t believe you!”

  “There is no other way,” Christopherson said.

  “Lord Christopherson!” Jackson said sharply. “It’s starting! Move!”

  Lord Christopherson ducked out of the way as a brilliant light flooded Jeremiah from behind. Pumps began running, and Jeremiah’s blood began pounding in her ears. A deep hum began rattling through her, first just in her stomach, then rattling her bones, then rattling the frame, and finally echoing through the entire vast machine behind her.

  And then the drill bit into the back of the Scarab’s head.

  They both screamed, a tortured cry that began in her lungs and spewed out of her mouth like a teakettle as the drill bit into the metal of the Scarab’s skull, copper shavings flying everywhere around Jeremiah’s head. She felt her cranium crack under the pressure, a sound like a broken branch, and her vision went red.

  Then the Accelerator at last ignited and started burning them alive.

  White light flooding into her blotted out everything else. She stood there, transfixed in a blank space, feeling rather than seeing the Scarab, skull pithed and back cracked open, convulsing under the radiation. Golden thr
eads began swarming out into her body; golden liquid began pouring into her through a dozen more pumps. The Scarab grew, swelled, bulged like a swelling fungus. Her own body puffed out as the threads wove through her heart, her brain, her soul.

  Then the light broke abruptly with a wrenching metallic sound. Jeremiah realized she’d torn one arm free, not willfully but just a reaction to fear and pain—and growth. The energy was forcing the Scarab to pupate—to mature—to bond with its host. She screamed again, an animal sound, her body surging forwards out of the shambles of broken straps, flopping forwards onto the grille.

  “Keep the beam on her!” Jackson commanded. “Keep it on her! And for God’s sake, keep the pumps running!”

  They surged forwards, trying to crawl away, as best as they could using only her hands, but the white light once again fell upon them, pinning them like a bug. They screamed again as golden threads poured out of one bleeding hand. They reached forwards with the other to drag themselves away and saw instead a puffy mass of surging flesh and copper threads fall to the deck.

  Somehow it was no longer just Scarab flesh growing under the radiation; human flesh was growing too, growing and splitting and surging and reforming under the relentless assault of the Scarab and the awful pressure of the light.

  Under its actinic glare they were swelling up, spilling out, a giant puffy mass of cancerous flesh and copper threads, weaving through each other, dragging themselves forwards, useless legs trailing behind, sliding, away, away from the terrible burning light.

  They were melting now, the Scarab oozing into her, its frame sinking into her ribcage. The pain was excruciating, and Jeremiah opened her eyes upon the deck. She could no longer drag herself further, as the pressure built up inside.

  ———

  Jeremiah screamed, felt a tearing—and wings burst from her back.

  55.

  Seal of the Burning Scarab

  JEREMIAH’S LEGS SURGED out from beneath her, and she flopped sideways to the deck in a pool of piss, blood, and ichor, catching herself at the last moment on her hands, wings splaying out behind her as pins and needles ran down to her toes.