And he had answered. The only way to make my paradigm more efficient would be if my team could actually travel in time.
And just like that, he was transferred to London, leading the WARP detail, and he quickly realized the potential of the time tunnel. Box’s superiors thought that the tunnel could occasionally be appropriated for black ops, but Colonel Box was thinking much bigger. The U.S.–U.K. alliance could be theoretically reverse-engineered to become a global empire.
It would be the most efficient use of the wormhole.
The tipping point came for Box when he returned from a babysitting mission in Victorian London to find that his beloved mother had been run over and killed by a drunk driver. Box was intensely upset by this and, after a quick Internet study, he realized that if he paid a visit to a certain baker in Victorian London, then that baker’s son would never emigrate to America, and the son’s great-grandson would not run over his mother in Texas.
And so, on his next jaunt, Box planned to take time out for a side mission. But, in order to get his tracker log changed, he had no choice but to confide in a technical operator, and the operator passed the log on to the man in the black uniform. Box was called in for another chat and warned off his planned side-op. He was told that the quantum tunnel would be used for the occasional approved target and nothing more.
Box was aghast. Such rampant inefficiency. It was akin to owning an AK-47 and using it once a year to shoot pigeons.
His mother would be saved, he decided. And the tunnel would be used to maximum efficiency.
Colonel Box applied his own parallelogram to the members of his squad, and over the following weeks recruited his own troops to his cause. They would return to the past; they would build an empire. It would be a great machine, run with total efficiency. And while they were there, Box would visit a certain baker.
Box and his men assembled as much technology and information as would fit in a Timepod, and they jumped back to Victorian London, ostensibly to change out agents. When they failed to return, the WARP program assumed that Clayton Box and his team had been compromised or torn apart by the tunnel, when actually they had moved into the catacombs and set about building their empire.
It has been a long road, thought Box now as he stood before his army, assembled in the great hall, eager for blood and battle. But the length of the road is irrelevant. My empire will be the most efficient this world has ever seen.
The only flaw in the plan had become apparent when he visited the house in Clapham where the baker was supposed to have lived and discovered that the records had been mistaken. The man did not live there and never had.
No matter, he had thought. When I am emperor and automobiles become commonplace, I shall make drunk driving punishable by death. And in that way Mother will eventually be saved.
CAMDEN CATACOMBS, 1899
Box surveyed his two hundred troops. They were ready, finally. After years for some and decades for others, their weapons were fabricated, their bullets were milled and loaded. How could simple rifles and cannon hope to prevail against trained soldiers in body armor wielding automatic weapons, grenades, and mortar? And once the country was theirs, the munitions factories would be handed new specifications for intercontinental ballistic missiles. Europe’s days were numbered.
Boxstrike.
Box liked the sound of that.
In fact, Box liked everything Vallicose had told him about the future. He had always planned to incorporate religion to some extent, as all the great dictators had, but Vallicose had shown him the way. He must go beyond what he had ever planned and take his lead from the pharaohs by becoming a god himself.
A new gospel is being written.
If Box had had a sense of humor he might have smiled, but he was aware that his occasional foray into bonhomie usually resulted in awkwardness all around. He had tried to be friends with Farley, engaging him in casual conversation as he had seen the other men do, but it had never worked. If anything, it had driven them further apart.
And now Farley is dead, which is very inconvenient, but the schedule is set, and so we must forge ahead.
Spread out on a table before him were the operations maps marked with strike sites and access points. Box folded the maps and, with one step of his long legs, he mounted the table and raised his arms for silence. He was an imposing figure in his black uniform with the newly stitched Boxite crest in gold on the breast, and the group of bristling men fell instantly silent.
Box took a moment to look them over and thought, Look at them, waiting for the traditional pep talk, as though that will increase or decrease their odds of survival. It is ridiculous. The only three words that should be necessary are Follow the plan. And yet I must urge them to victory. I must appeal to their basic humanity so that they can pretend they fight for a cause and not cold hard cash.
“The day has come, my warriors.” He began speaking through a futuristic megaphone on a strap around his neck, his amplified voice booming through the arches. “Today we take the first step toward a better world.”
He paused, waiting for the guttural cheers that his behavioral studies assured him would follow, and they did.
So predictable, he thought. So malleable.
“This country has become aimless and godless. Once we were great, but now we bow down to every foreigner with gold in his fist. There are heathens walking our streets, taking our positions of employment, conversing openly with our women, and I say: No more!”
Now they will say No more!, Box predicted.
And they did. Shouted it, in fact. Most boisterously.
“For those among you who have joined us from the Battering Rams, welcome, brothers! I know you have many questions. Where do our new comrades come from? For that matter, where do these fabulous weapons come from? Let me answer those questions for you. Our weapons are heaven-sent.” Box spread his arms like wings—a position he had learned from watching videos of Stalin and Jim Morrison—and he held the pose for a full minute before once again taking up the megaphone. “We are avenging angels, and we ask you to bear arms with us and guarantee your place in heaven. Will you join us?”
The roar was deafening and entirely affirmative. Box was a little relieved, as he had thought the heaven-sent bit might be over the top; but no, the men had swallowed it. And they would swallow much more besides if what Vallicose had told him about the future was true. It felt premature to declare himself a god to these men, as many of them had known him for decades and knew just how human he was; but later, when the country was his, he could begin to build the legend.
“Our enemies wait for us,” continued Box. “They are corrupt men, grown fat on the fruits of our labor, and the time has come to knock them from their perches.”
This statement was carefully crafted and contained five of the top fifteen words calculated to incite bloodlust in insurgents: enemies, corrupt, fat, labor, and perch. Number one on the list was God and number two avenge, which Box had already ticked off the list.
“After our Emergence, things will never be the same again. Tomorrow the sun rises on a new day.”
More buzz words, more cheering. In truth, Box was growing a little bored, so he decided to skip a few paragraphs and go directly to the fireworks.
“There are those who would stand in our way,” said the colonel. “Would you the faithful care to see what will happen to these unbelievers?”
His soldiers, reliably bloodthirsty, pumped their fists in the air.
Box called over his shoulder. “Sister Vallicose, bring forth the heretic.”
Vallicose emerged right on cue, dragging behind her a limp Chevron Savano.
Box had no interest in public execution in itself, but he did acknowledge the potency of human sacrifice as a form of blessing on a campaign or even a structure. There were legends from ancient Japan about hitobashira, or the practice of sacrificing a human
pillar, in which innocents were buried alive at the base of new temples to protect the buildings against attacks from either nature or enemies. And in Homeric legend, Agamemnon was willing to sacrifice his own daughter, Iphigenia, to ensure that the gods would look favorably on his armies during the Trojan War. As for the Aztecs, those guys sacrificed eighty thousand prisoners in four days when consecrating the Great Pyramid of Tenochtitlan. Eighty thousand in four days! That was one labor-intensive ceremony.
When Savano was executed, the men would not realize that they were cheering on a ritualistic pagan sacrifice, but the sight would touch a primal nerve buried deep in their race memories and spur them on to greater acts of valor.
Idiots, thought Box then. Predictable pawns. They have as little control over their reactions as animals.
Savano had been drugged in order to keep her from whining pathetically and perhaps awakening sympathy in the newcomers. There were always a few squeamish weaklings without the stomach for what needed to be done.
This day we will lay open the entire country’s vital arteries, thought Box. And our endeavors must be baptized in blood.
He pointed a rigid finger at the drooping Savano.
“This is our enemy!” he said. “A spirit from hell come to thwart our holy mission.”
Box allowed his eyes to flare and his voice to shake with emotion.
“Oh, she may seem innocent, brothers. But is that not how the devil always appears?” He turned to Chevron. “Would you deny it, she-devil? Would you deny that the lord of lies himself sent you to spoil God’s plans?”
Chevie, of course, could not deny anything in her state. Box could have accused her of shooting Abraham Lincoln without fear of contradiction.
Even a child could see the girl is drugged, thought Box. And yet these drones are prepared to believe that she is a devil’s minion who refuses to defend herself.
“And there you have it, brothers. Her silence condemns her. String the demoness up, Sister Vallicose.”
Vallicose dragged Chevie through ranks of Rams and soldiers, and most stood aside but some leaned in to poke her with gun barrels, and others spat.
Pigs, thought Box. They are necessary pigs.
Mother would hate them, he realized, and he was suddenly glad that his beloved mother would never know about this stage of his plan.
It certainly will not be reported in the history books, he decided.
Vallicose reached the other end of the cavernous chamber and mounted a steep ramp that led to a wooden frame. Behind the frame, a block of plastic explosive was attached directly to the wall. It was pretty obvious that being secured to the frame would not be a safe situation in the event somebody detonated the explosives. Vallicose cuffed Chevie to the structure, then left her hanging there. Chevie was so out of it that she would probably have stayed put without restraints.
There were a few murmurs from the Rams now, as this entire ritual was beginning to seem unnecessarily cruel, so Box decided to step up the rhetoric.
“And now, brothers,” he said, “an example of my power.” He pulled a radio transmitter from his pocket. “When I press this red button, the wall will disintegrate. No cannonball is necessary, no dynamite. Just a slab of the holy paste. No need to be afraid, brothers. We are perfectly safe, as the charge is shaped to blow outward. If heaven wants this witch girl to be punished, then God will allow a small portion of the explosion to consume her. If she is innocent, then the force of the explosion will be borne by the structure. Either way, once this wall comes down, the war has begun; and we will man our vehicles, stream through the hole, and sweep though the city to our assigned target. And nothing will stand in our way.”
Box was reasonably confident that his once more unto the breach speech would be effective, as he had spent hours in front of his mirror practicing expressions and general body language that he had copied from the great dictators of history.
“Press the button!” shouted a voice.
“Press it!” said another, and soon the call was taken up as a chant and it reverberated to the very ceiling.
There was a counter-call, too—hard to hear at first, because it was only one voice, but the voice was loud and persistent. And it was singing. One verse over and over.
“We stabs ’em,
We fights ’em,
Cripples ’em,
Bites ’em.”
The men were looking around, searching for the singer who would deflate this powerful moment. Box knew immediately who it must be, and he also knew that this interference must be handled very delicately. The singing continued, and if Box wasn’t mistaken, some of the men were joining in—perhaps unconsciously, but in any event, other voices lent volume to the man’s words. And just as a corridor had opened through the men for Vallicose and Savano, now space cleared around Malarkey, for of course it was he striding toward the dais, cock of the walk, as though he were the regent in this place.
“No rules for our mayhem,” he sang.
“You pay us, we slay ’em.
If you’re in a corner,
With welshers or scams.
Pay us a visit,
The Battering Rams.”
The last word was sung on a high note, showcasing Malarkey’s very melodious tenor voice, and the man had the nerve to take a bow for his performance as many of his men applauded instinctively. Otto would never have his own revue in the West End, but he knew how to play to a room.
Malarkey stood and shook out his magnificent mane. Less a ram’s and more a lion’s. Most men would have followed their instincts and shot the so-called king where he stood, but Clayton Box did not have instincts as such; he had cauterized those nerves as a child, as impulse decisions were rash by nature and often flawed. What he did have was a very efficient thought process that flicked through options and possibilities at lightning speed, his jaw seesawing as he thought.
Box quickly decided that simply killing Malarkey in front of his men would make King Otto a martyr and sow the seeds of dissent at this crucial time. No, now that Malarkey had bought himself some credit with his Rams by behaving with the braggadocio that this type of thug had an inexplicable respect for, the only way to wipe his slate clean was to replace that image with an equally strong one, but in the negative column. Malarkey must be thoroughly humiliated. And then killed.
Box’s jaw returned to center as he reached his decision.
I have just the person to inflict that humiliation.
Otto Malarkey’s face was a mask of disappointment.
“Is this what we have come to, my bully boys?” he asked. “Skulking in the sewers?”
“Pah!” said a Ram, who habitually sported a hairpiece of badger pelt. “You is just hyperbolating, Malarkey. This ain’t no sewer.”
“Ah, Peeble, but there you do be in the wrong, old fellow,” said Otto. “I know it be a sewer and let me tell you for why.”
It had to be said, Otto had charisma, and the troops clustered around him to hear his argument.
“I know it be a sewer,” said Otto again, “for I see a rat.” He hitched a thumb at the man Peeble. “And I see a floater.” Now his thumb swung toward Box.
A fine joke it was, and this could not be denied. Laughter echoed through the hall, and even Box, as a lifelong student of human behavior, could not help but be grudgingly enthralled by this man who seemed to eschew logical behavior at all costs. Box had to admit, if only to himself, that Malarkey’s joke had deflated the pre-battle tension most effectively. Tension that he himself had painstakingly escalated.
But what could he possibly do now? The man was doomed, surely.
The colonel noticed some of his own men moving away from their units toward Malarkey, and he caught their eyes and shook his head.
Stay back, the shake said. But be ready.
“And now I finds me fine bully boys throwing thei
r lot in with those as would murder Queen Vic, God bless her. Those as would trample on what we all fought for on foreign swamp and desert.”
Peeble, still smarting over the rat remark, took up the argument. “That much is true, Otto; we fought overseas for rich men. Now we fights for ourselves and each other. The spoils will be ours alone.”
“That is your right,” said Otto magnanimously. “All’s you got to do is pick a champeen. You know the rules. The Rams fight for whoever wears the fleece. And that would be me.”
“We ain’t Rams no more,” said Peeble sulkily.
Otto whipped his own ruffled shirt over his head and flung it at Peeble, landing it neatly on the man’s head.
“You is Rams until I say you ain’t Rams, runt. Now step outta my radius, Peeble, less you want me to mistake you for a challenger.” Otto flexed his muscles. “So, will you coves honor yer vow? Or will you disgrace yerselves entirely?”
Box stepped down from his platform. “Mr. Malarkey, King Otto. I am the one you seek, but your own rules prevent me from challenging. I am not a Ram, after all.”
Otto rubbed his great hands. “Easy fixed, Yankee-doodle. King’s prerogative, don’t you know. I offers a one-time-only deal. All challenges accepted. All comers flattened without prejudice.”
Thank you, Otto, thought Box. You have sprung my trap.
He was almost disappointed at how easy it had been, even though he was impatient to blow the wall and unleash his army of God on queen and Parliament.
“Very well, Malarkey. All comers, you say? Then you will fight my proxy, Sister Vallicose.”
An excited murmur spread around the hall. Malarkey to fight a woman in an official challenge? It was not proper. But how could he refuse? All comers had been his very words.
“Sister Vallicose? You would have a lady fight your battles for you, Colonel?”
Box waved away his questions. “All comers means all comers, King Otto. Quick as you can, Sister. I have a button to press.”
Vallicose entered the fighting circle and stripped off her greatcoat, revealing a torso almost as muscled as Otto’s own. And while Malarkey may have had a slight edge size-wise, Vallicose was bred for war. If Otto was a bear, then Clover Vallicose was a panther. And Vallicose owned a singular advantage in that she genuinely believed she was fighting for God. Her eyes were bright and her hands shook not with fear, but from rapture.