by Giselle Ava
“Obviously.”
I have never spoken to Fortescue before.
“I take it this won’t be a simple conversation,” Fortescue says, his voice crackling. One thing about the copper wires here, they’ve never been too good. They’re dirty and dirt causes interference. His voice is metallic, vaguely robotic.
“No. We have Bernard Craxton here.”
“What do you want?”
“To bargain.”
“I’m listening.”
“We offered you peace before. You didn’t take it. Is this what you want? London in flames? Millions dead? We want you to call off the violence and help us repair the damage that you have done. We know about the death camps. Shutting that down will be a start.”
Fortescue chuckles on the other end. “I agree with you that enough blood has been spilled. I agree that war was never the solution. Revolt was never the solution. Not Miss Piper’s antics. Not yours. Arthur, I don’t see how we can come to a truce.”
“We will,” I tell him.
“Will the people who fight for you?”
Suddenly, I feel the weight of every mechanical left in London. Persecuted. Denied their rights to be human. Denied their freedom.
You led them.
I led them.
You inspired them.
I inspired them.
You told them to burn down London.
I told them...
You’re lying.
There’s a gunshot and a bullet rips through the wall. Cecelia screams with the gag. Craxton curses, flinching into the revolutionary’s arms. A single beam of light erupts into the room. Dust falls from the rafters. I don’t even feel my finger around the trigger, but there’s smoke blossoming from the barrel of my gun.
“Let us meet,” I demand.
“No, Arthur. We will never come to an agreement, you and I.”
“I have Bernard Craxton here, and his daughter too. I will kill them!”
For a moment, there’s nothing but a crackle from the speaker.
And then, Charles Fortescue says, “Do as you will. I expect they will not be the last to die, nor will they be a means to an end, just two more meaningless deaths. However I will warn you, needlessly killing my men will not come without its consequences. You must understand this.”
“Let us meet—” I begin.
The connection is cut.
I have never met Charles Fortescue.
Yes you have, Arthur.
I feel hot energy surge through my body, so intense I feel as though steam ought to be vaporising from my skin. It feels like being Human. I remember what it was like, when they made us fight in their war, when they turned us into monsters.
Why did they do it, Arthur? Huh?
We could do what they could not.
We were uncontrollable.
What did you have that they did not?
We could do things. Horrible things.
Craxton is staring at me with fear in his eyes and I realise my hand is pointing the gun at his face, and it’s still got smoke coming out of it. My finger is on the trigger. Cecelia is whimpering and trying to scream but the gag has been forced deep down her throat.
They fear you, Arthur. Why?
We were different.
No. That’s not it.
We made them fear us.
You made them fear you.
“Arthur.”
Someone’s talking to me.
I look around the room and it’s Frederick. He’s standing right beside me. The floorboards shake and something heavy crashes downstairs. Somebody shouts. There’s a gunshot.
Frederick says, “They’re here.”
“Who’s here?” I respond.
“The police,” he tells me.
I’m staring at Craxton. I have never seen fear so intense on somebody’s face before. But the fear breaks as there’s another crash from downstairs and then the sound you hear when somebody climbs the stairs to the second floor.
“What did you do?” I say to Craxton.
A fist bangs against the door.
Craxton’s eyes go wide. “You’ve killed them.”
“No,” I respond.
“Look at what you’ve done!”
“I didn’t do this!” I scream.
A fist bangs against the door.
“They know we’re here!” screams the man on the other side.
“Arthur, this is all your fault!” Craxton screams.
My gun goes off and a bullet splits the man’s brain. He drops like a sack of decapitated heads. Cecelia spits out the gag and screams. My gun falls to the floorboards with a slam. I’m going to be sick. What the hell have I done? What the hell did I do?
This is all my fault.
You’d better get out of there, says the whine.
“Father!” Cecelia cries, clawing at the floorboards.
“Arthur!” Frederick yells into my ear.
There’s a gunshot and the man on the other side of the door dies.
“This is the police!” somebody yells.
“Arthur!” Frederick screams into my ear.
I’m looking at him. I’ve never seen him so up-close before.
The police are here. Bernard Craxton is dead. Cecelia is screaming. We have to use the fire escape but I’m rooted to the spot and there’s a voice in my head telling me this is all my fault. We offered them peace. We offered them peace. We offered them peace—
I burned it all to the ground.
You killed Mildred Piper.
I killed all of them.
This is my last thought before everything goes black.
Alan Piper
There’s a whine in my ear and it sounds like the highest note of a grand piano. This whine has been here ever since the revolution fell apart. It wasn’t there before, not when I was a child, not when they found out what I could do and then drafted me into their war. This whine knows things that I do not. It keeps telling me I destroyed the revolution.
I know everything, Arthur.
There’s a figure standing before me, a red light in the darkness. My feet are planted on sturdy ground and there’s a cold wind against my broken face, which tells me I’m alive. Or is this what death feels like? It’s a glassy box of nothing but black, an apparition of red light several feet in front of me. My hands reach out to grab a hold of something but there’s nothing there, nor do I need to, because everything is still, and my feet are on something solid.
Can the air be solid?
This isn’t a place, says the thing before me.
Where is it then? I respond.
It’s where I live.
It’s the whine. I know this because it has the exact voice—it even looks like what I imagined the whine to look like, red and misshapen, diaphanous and omnipresent.
The whine slowly approaches me without walking.
Why am I here? I ask it.
You have nowhere else to go.
What does that mean? Am I dead?
Can the whine chuckle? It does.
You are not dead, Arthur.
The whine stops in front of me but it has no features, just red light in the shape of a person, and I know the light is excruciatingly bright, yet I don’t squint or even flinch. It’s like opening your eyes and staring straight ahead in a pitch black room.
How did I get here? I ask.
You had nobody else to turn to.
That’s not true.
Then make up your own goddamn reason.
It’s so cold. No. It’s nothing. There’s no warmth and there’s no cold; there’s nothing except me and the whine and the black walls that surround us.
I am the truth, says the whine.
And I am the lie.
There was peace. You did not want peace.
I didn’t want peace.
You turned this into a war.
I turned it into a war.
Mildred Piper is dead because of you.
I’m the one who killed Mildred Piper
.
You murdered Bernard Craxton in front of his own daughter.
His daughter helped me when I needed her.
Arthur, you’re the villain.
I…
You are the villain.
Eyes open.
I’m lying on a workbench in a room that smells like grease and copper. There’s a single light hanging from the ceiling above me, and something buzzing—a loose electrical wire, perhaps. My entire body feels like it’s coming apart, what’s left of my humanity throbbing with warm pain.
The first thing I do is touch my face.
Something falls to the floor with a crash and there’s a man looking at me. He’s short but not comically short, with large arms and a white apron smeared with black grease. Straw-hair clings to his head more out of desperation than intention. Safety goggles protrude from his face, giving his eyes the impression of being twice their size. Welts and burns stick out of him.
I know that this is Alan Piper, the uncle of Mildred Piper.
We were the Piper Revolution once.
Alan Piper walks over to me, bends down and picks up a spanner off the floor, placing it in a toolbox that’s on a small bench nearby. “You awoke two seconds later than anticipated,” says Alan Piper as he grips a lever and begins to turn it. The backrest of the workbench begins to incline, raising me. “How are you feeling, Arthur?” His voice is gravelly but kind, his breaths loud and hoarse, yet strangely expected. He looks at me. His eyes are the same as Mildred’s, green; I wouldn’t have been surprised to find fossilised insects inside them.
No. I have never met Mildred.
I have met her several times.
Alan lifts something up and, with great shock, I determine that it is my arm. “This is a new model,” Alan says, checking something on my new arm. “Sturdy and quite reliable.” He lets it sink to my side and I take a moment to observe it. My fingers clench, then relax. You can hear the sound of literal gears whirring inside them, a beautiful sound.
I touch my head.
Are you in there?
Alan is looking at me with concern. “Frederick brought you here as soon as he could. He told me to tell you, when you’re ready, they’ve gone back into hiding.” A slip of paper leaves Alan’s hand and drifts into my own. I glance at the address. It’s a room in an apartment building about fifteen minutes away from here. I memorise it and then scrunch up the note, handing it back to Alan. He eyes it for a moment, then carries the note away. I hear the hiss of fire and then can safely assume the note is no more, the address hidden.
“Why did I black out?” is my first question.
“You likely suffered a head trauma,” Alan tells me.
“Why am I hearing a voice?” is my second question.
This time, Alan doesn’t respond right away. His silence tells me two things. The first is that he knows about this voice. The second is that the voice isn’t normal.
He slowly walks back over to me. The man is short but he’s outright intimidating when he’s looking at you like this, half-silhouetted by the overhead lamp. I’m staring straight into his green eyes but it’s impossible not to notice the dust motes floating around his head.
“How’ve you been feeling, Arthur?”
“Is there something wrong with me?” I ignore his question.
Alan draws a shaky, whistling breath. “Arthur…” His voice is low and whispery. There’s a burn underneath his left eye, which shines with ointment. “You were in a world of distress when they brought you to me. Unimaginable distress. I understand. Mildred passed in the fighting, as I’m sure you are aware. I have made the decision to step away from all this, for the sake of my own sanity.” He pauses. “Might I suggest you do the same? Get some help?”
Alan Piper offers me a feeble smile.
I don’t know how to respond to this, so I say nothing. I feel for the train ticket in my pocket and Alan holds it out for me. There’s a splash of blood on it.
“It’s expired,” Alan says.
“Keep it then,” I tell him.
Alan scrunches it up and puts it on the table. I slide off the workbench and feel the weight of gravity level me on the ground. A sharp breath leaves my lips, but it feels good. My jacket is hanging on a coat rack by the door. I grab this and throw my arms into it.
This was Bernard Craxton’s jacket.
Alan’s footfalls are heavy as he approaches me. “Be careful.”
My hand finds the door handle and I turn it, before pulling it open. Evening light streams into the garage of an urban estate somewhere deep in London’s labyrinthine street network. A concrete path with a black car in the middle of it leads out to the road. Alan Piper lives at the end of a court. A dog is barking over the fence of his next door neighbour. There’s an industrial factory peeking over the fencing on the other side.
“I’ll be seeing you,” I say.
“Probably not,” is what Alan tells me, and I know he means it. For a moment I wonder why he told me where the revolution is when he wants me to walk away, but I say nothing.
I throw my hands into my pockets and head back into the city.
The Place Under Room 203
When I was twelve years old, they found out what I could do.
It happened because another boy, he was older than me and let’s call him Peter, started calling me names. He spread rumours about my mother, said she was a whore, said she was crazy. He called me Stick because I was a small, scrawny kid. He called me Bastard because he said my mother slept with other men and one of those men got her pregnant.
It happened in the schoolyard.
I remember Peter’s laugh, a cackle intensified by the raucous bellows of his crew. There were lots of them, more than I could take on all at once, but I never cared much about the others. They were just Peter’s lackeys. Peter was the one I hated.
I hated that he made me go home each night crying. I hated that he called me out in front of all the other kids and turned them against me. He told them I had a disease. He told them I was a thief. When nobody was looking, he would come up to me and whisper into my ear that one day he was going to kill me. I believed every word he ever said.
So we were there in the schoolyard and I was twelve years old, and there was Peter and he had me on the ground. I’d lost one shoe and my right eye was shut because he’d punched me hard, so hard my nose was bleeding. But I didn’t cry.
So Peter picked me up and punched me again.
My head smashed back against the gravel and my vision flashed. I remember the colour of the sky; it was a slate grey, swirling storm clouds—a storm was brewing. I remember the smell of petrichor before the rain had even fallen. I remember the naked tree branches; it was autumn.
“Get up, you cry baby!” Peter hollered.
Don’t get up, was that voice in my head.
I got up anyway. Slow. I rolled over onto my front, flattened my palm against the hard ground, and pushed myself to my knee. It burned. The skin on my knee had been shredded. I slipped my foot underneath me and felt the world settle.
Then I stood. And there was Peter.
This is what we can do:
Peter’s arm, it tore from its socket. Peter’s neck, it ripped apart. His eyes, they were dead before he hit the ground. He didn’t even have time to scream, but the others, they compensated for it. Imagine a choir but they’re screaming. You don’t even hear Peter’s body thump the ground, but you can imagine the sound. What sound does a dead body make? Not a good one, if you ask anybody who was there that day in autumn, 1909.
I never saw any of them again.
The year is now 1923 but nothing has changed.
My taxi stops outside a stout apartment building. I pay the guy and then I step out, gazing up at the dirty façade. There are six floors, all with black windows and no balconies. Newspapers flutter across the sidewalk and I step on one. There are reviews for last night’s play at the Lyceum, so it’s been just one day since I shot Bernard Craxton in the face.
“I’m looking for somebody called Frederick Hardy.”
The man stares at me. “What is your name?”
“Arthur.”
“I see. Very well.” He reaches down behind his desk and retrieves a white card, before handing it to me. The card is papery to the touch, but firm. There’s nothing on it. I eye the black man warily. He’s still staring at me and smiling. “Second floor. Room 203.”
Second floor. Room 203.
The door is fashionable but not incongruous. I knock twice and a man answers. He is statuesque, tall and stoic with a white moustache and pale, unblemished skin. He’s wearing a brown suit jacket and white shirt. His eyes spot the white card and he takes it, letting me in.
Room 203 is dark and dusty. I hear the door shut behind me and the man’s footsteps traverse the wooden floorboards until they end up on the other side, a door on the right.
“He said you would arrive,” says the man with the white moustache.
I say nothing.
“Follow me through here,” he tells me, and I follow him. The adjacent room has flowery, faded-green wallpaper and a single bed. The sheets are pulled to the side, drooping sadly along the wooden floorboards. The man ignores all of the room’s pitiful furnishings and takes me to a wardrobe, gently opening it up. The room seems to grow darker.
He looks at me. “You may enter.”
“The wardrobe?” I enquire.
“Yes,” the man says as though it were obvious.
Frowning, I carefully approach the standard-size wardrobe and peer in. There are two pairs of shoes on the ground and a single coat hanging from the rack. I step inside and the moustached man fills the entryway, staring after me.
“Thomas Cobbe will meet you inside.”
Who the hell is Thomas Cobbe—
The wardrobe door closes with an unlawful squeal and I’m standing in the cold darkness. There’s the smell of leather shoes and the tickle of dust in my nostrils. A paper-thin ray of light cuts in through a slat in the wall. There are two fist-shaped knocks against the wardrobe door, and then nothing. And then it feels like the floor has fallen away from underneath me and I get the sense I’m hanging over an extraordinary drop. The wardrobe swings gently.