The Rise of the Automated Aristocrats

  “Quite so,” Flywheel answered. “But our context is what it is. The new Young England applies to it.”

  “Then you feel it apposite to work within a system that favours a few over the very many than to apply yourself to improving the system so that more may prosper?”

  “I, Count Palladino? I am but a machine.”

  “My apologies. I refer, of course, to Mr. Hope’s stance on the matter.”

  “I believe my employer would ask you whether it is a kindness or a cruelty to instil into a man, who exists on a lower rung of society, the conception that the ladder is scalable. Surely, if he believes his circumstances are prescribed, then he will labour to make the most of everything they have to offer. If, however, he perceives that an ascent is possible, he will overlook the opportunities that exist within the bounds of his own particular position and will instead strive to step up to the next. Surely, in most cases, this can only lead to thwarted desire and a seething frustration. Is it not the case that a man who embarks on a journey while considering the stars is liable to fall into the first hole that comes along?”

  Burton chuckled. “I must say, Flywheel, you are very eloquent for a thing of gears and springs. I can find but one fault in your argument.”

  “Which is what, sir?”

  “The ladder. If its rungs present too great a step for the average man, then surely it is advisable to make a new one, with more rungs, each placed closer together.”

  Incredibly, the machine laughed. “Oh, I’m happy to have an artificial brain! It furnishes me with the ability to remember this conversation word for word. When Mr. Hope is better, I shall recount it to him. I am certain he’ll find it most fascinating. But, alas, my good Count, I have duties to perform and regret that I must cut your visit short.”

  Flywheel uncrossed its legs and got to its feet. Burton also stood. The mechanism again extended a hand, which the explorer shook. When he tried to release it, he found his fingers held tightly by the other’s metal digits.

  “I shall send you on your way with a statement to consider,” the brass man said. “If the ladder could be more easily climbed, the weight would surely accrue at its top, and inevitably, it would overbalance and fall. In order to be safe, the centre of gravity must remain at the foot. Thus does the empire’s stability depend upon there being a clear division between the few at the heights and the labouring masses at the bottom.”

  Tiny pistons contracted and for the briefest of moments the bones of Burton’s hand were squeezed to breaking point before being released. He was ushered out of the room and to the front door.

  “Please give Mr. Hope my best wishes for a speedy recovery,” he said.

  “Thank you for calling, Count Palladino. I have very much enjoyed our brief discussion.”

  “Are you capable of enjoyment, Flywheel?”

  “I am designed to be polite, sir.”

  “Ah, I see.”

  Stepping out into the fog, Burton descended the steps then turned and looked back. Flywheel, framed in the doorway, was watching him, motionless but for a swinging pendulum and turning cogs; metal and inscrutable.

  “One final question,” Burton said. “When were you last recalled for servicing?”

  “I have not yet been in operation long enough for that requirement, sir. Have I given you cause for concern? Some perceived dysfunction?”

  “Not at all. Not at all. Quite the opposite. You’re a remarkable device.”

  “Thank you.”

  The door was pushed shut.

  Burton looked at the upper storey. None of its windows were lit. Walking a little way along the street, he rounded a corner into Duchess Mews. From there, he could just make out, through the murk, the back of the house. Its upper rear rooms were also dark. If Henry Thomas Hope was awake and reading, one of those rooms would have been illuminated, so either he was asleep—

  “Or he’s not at home,” Burton murmured. “In which case, where is he?”

  Returning to Duchess Street, he strode to its end, entered Portland Place and followed it through into Regent Street, heading southward toward St. James Square, where Alexander Baillie-Cochrane’s residence was located. He passed shop fronts from which ruddy light bled into the swirling mist, so that the vapour and pollution took on the appearance of a glowing airborne sludge. Large puddles had accrued, and these, too, appeared to have absorbed the illumination, sucking it in and reflecting it back with intensity, like flat sheets of fire.

  London had become infernal.

  In this part of it, the thoroughfares were less populated than usual, the caustic pall encouraging those who could afford to do so to remain in their homes. Not so the workers, who had no option but to labour on, earning their meagre pennies.

  Men and women balancing fish-, fruit-, or vegetable-filled baskets on their heads, or wheeling barrows, or carrying the tools of their trade, materialised, became solid as they trudged past him, then faded into nothingness behind. Wagons and carts, drawn mostly by horses or donkeys, trundled along the road. A pantechnicon, carrying live cattle, went chugging by, so noisily that he could hear nothing else until it had gone. The huge machine contributed such a dense cloud of vapour to the fog that, for a few paces, he couldn’t see his hand in front of his face.

  The hustle and bustle gradually increased as he drew closer to the centre of the city. By the time he crossed the junction with Oxford Street, Burton was shouldering past people, and his ears were ceaselessly assaulted by the cries of costermongers and street entertainers, the discordant tones of organs, and the forced merriment of wan-looking singers.

  When he reached Regent Circus, the hubbub was suddenly drowned by a deafening bellow from overhead; a deep, moaning lament that vibrated through his bones and echoed into the distance, like the keening of a wounded whale. It gave way to an insistent throbbing.

  The wide circle of a searchlight, its source above, slid out of the fog and across the pavement to momentarily illuminate him. It slipped away. Another flitted past to his right. The vapours billowed in agitation. He looked up and saw a gargantuan shadow gliding low over the rooftops. It was a rotorship, larger than any he’d ever seen—more massive even than the dreadnought class HMA Sagittarius, which had bombed the Old Summer Palace in China. The searchlights were glaring down from it, sweeping this way and that, and on its side, in brightly illuminated letters, were the words: DUTY. DISCIPLINE. LAW AND ORDER.

  He watched as the vast machine was swallowed into the murk, sinking past the buildings to his right.

  “Landing,” he murmured. “In the park.”

  His destination lay straight ahead but, curious to see again the construction work he’d witnessed in Green Park last night, he decided on a change of course and rounded the corner into Piccadilly.

  A pair of SPG units came stamping out of the gloom, approaching him, inky blue and menacing, side by side, face lamps sending pencils of light through the cloud. He stepped aside and they passed, their heads turning as they did so, examining him from hat to boots.

  Resisting the urge to sigh with relief as they continued on and disappeared from view, Burton resumed his walk. As he passed the junction with Dover Street, the corner of the park came into view. He stumbled to a halt and stared.

  Through the peasouper, he could just make out a tall barricade. He crossed the road and, a few paces later, came abreast the wall that lined the northern stretch of the park. Immediately behind it and flush to it, a wooden fence had been erected. It was solid and about fifteen feet high, backing the wall to the right and left of him and appearing to completely enclose the park. Bills of various sizes had been pasted onto the planks and the brickwork below. Most advertised the services of lawyers or promoted various newspapers. The larger ones bore what Burton assumed were governmental messages.

  THINK NOT “I” BUT “WE.”

  TOGETHER WE DRIVE THE EMPIRE.

  YOUR LABOURS ARE APPRECIATED BY ALL.

  DO YOUR BIT!

  It was almost i
dentical to material he’d witnessed in Spring Heeled Jack’s twisted future, and for a moment, he felt utterly disoriented, as if time had curled in on itself—as if all this was a dream and he was still in the year 2202, yet to battle with the demented intelligence occupying Isambard Kingdom Brunel’s mechanical body.

  Had that sentience, currently thought to be dormant in eleven black diamonds, somehow awoken and taken control of the government? Had Disraeli become a slave to it? No, it couldn’t be. It simply wasn’t possible. The Spring Heeled Jack of 2202 was an amalgam of the fragmented parts of several iterations of a single man, drawn together from several histories and thrust forward to that future year. Those splinters certainly weren’t in the present. There was nothing that could—

  Burton struggled to find the appropriate word.

  Activate.

  Yes. There was nothing in the contemporary world that could activate the Spring Heeled Jack intelligence.

  He walked beside the barrier, hearing the slowing thrum of the huge rotorship’s engines coming from the other side of it.

  To Hyde Park corner and left into Grosvenor Place, the fence continued unbroken around to Constitution Hill, which it then followed all the way down to the Mall, where it joined the Queen’s Wall, which had been considerably heightened. Thus was formed a large triangular compound just to the north of Buckingham Palace and its gardens.

  On the Mall, Burton saw tall gates and a number of low, makeshift wooden buildings. Police constables were present in great numbers. A group of men—twelve innocuous-looking individuals—were being herded into the park by SPG mechanicals.

  “Are they prisoners?” Burton whispered to himself. “Why?”

  They were obviously very confused and afraid.

  Approaching a nearby policeman, he said, “What’s going on here, constable? What’s happened to the park?”

  The uniformed man glanced at Burton then looked back at the scene. “A temporary measure, I’m told, sir. It’s been made an internment camp.”

  “For whom? Those men look like clerks and bookkeepers to me. What crime are they charged with?”

  “I’m sure I don’t know, sir, though I daresay it has something to do with the Yellow Menace.”

  “Yellow Menace?”

  “China, sir. They are probably sympathisers. I hear such sentiment is endemic among the middling sorts.”

  “And you believe that, do you?”

  “I’ve seen no evidence to suggest it a falsehood.”

  Burton blinked. “What? No evidence to suggest—? What of a man being presumed innocent until proven guilty?”

  The policeman chuckled. “Well, sir, they must have been found guilty of something—hey?—else why are they being detained?”

  Incredulous, Burton shook his head, started to move away, then stumbled to a halt and stared, thunderstruck, at a new group of men who’d just climbed down from a large police wagon and were being marched toward the gates. There were twelve in all. He recognised two of them.

  Thomas Bendyshe and James Hunt.

  Bismillah! Did my message not get to Monckton Milnes in time?

  He rapidly calculated the distance to the other Cannibals’ residences. Monckton Milnes’s town house was the closest, it being a little over a mile to the north, in Upper Brook Street.

  Adopting a fast pace, he left the Mall and followed the Queen’s Wall back to Piccadilly, which he crossed in order to enter Berkeley Street. This, he ran along until he reached Berkeley Square. Here, having breathed in too much ash, he was forced to stop and bend double, racked by a fit of coughing. He spat out black phlegm, got himself under control, and continued on, navigating through to Grosvenor Square and traversing it until he came to the mouth of Upper Brook Street.

  As he approached number 16, he realised he was too late. There was a medium-sized police rotorship at the side of the road outside the house. At the foot of the front steps, three human constables were indecisively moving around two Special Patrol Group machines, each of which was gripping a struggling figure.

  One, Richard Monckton Milnes, yelled, “Get your damned hands off me!”

  The other, Charles Bradlaugh, cried out, “This is unconscionable! By what right? By what right?”

  “Get into the vehicle immediately,” one of the clockwork policemen ordered, “or you will be charged with resisting arrest.”

  “Arrest for what?” Monckton Milnes roared. “This is mistaken identity! It has to be! Let me go!”

  “You are a threat to the empire’s security.”

  “Don’t be bloody ridiculous!”

  Burton acted without thought. Plunging forward, he pounced on the nearest constable, who had his back to him, and with his left hand yanked the man’s helmet back. With his right, he brought his cane sweeping up and cracked its handle against the policeman’s temple. The man was insensible on the ground before knowing what had happened.

  Without the slightest pause in his movements, Burton sidestepped to his right and, reversing his cane, slammed its hilt into the face of the second constable, catching him precisely between the eyes. Knocked back against the police vehicle, the man slid to the pavement.

  The opposition reacted.

  The SPG mechanism holding Bradlaugh suddenly shoved his captive. Bradlaugh reeled into Burton, and they both tripped over the fallen constable and fell against the rotorship.

  Truncheons clicked out from metal wrists.

  “Identify yourself. You are under arrest. Do not resist.”

  Burton ducked his head and rolled aside, feeling a baton brush his hair as it whipped past and smacked into the rotorship’s door with a loud clack. He scrambled to his feet and stumbled backward until he thudded against the house’s front railings.

  The second SPG unit, with its left hand still holding Monckton Milnes by his jacket collar, thrust out its right arm. Metal fingers clamped down with brutal force on Burton’s shoulder. He gave a bark of agony and, as his knees buckled, stabbed sideways with his cane. By chance rather than design, it slid through one of the openings at the side of the contraption’s chest plate and penetrated the inner workings. Gears crunched and whined. The machine froze.

  “I am immobilised! Alert! Alert! Immediate assistance required!”

  The other, at the same moment, had regained balance, swung around, and was in the act of jumping at Burton when Bradlaugh, on the ground, snatched it by the ankle. As it overbalanced, Burton let go of his swordstick and brought up his arm to block a swinging baton, which fortunately lacked sufficient force to damage his limb. He pulled his shoulder free and, instinctively, delivered a roundhouse left uppercut to the contraption’s head. Knuckles banged against brass.

  “Ouch!” he yelped.

  The clockwork man clanged against the railings and tottered. Burton pushed it over, pulled a revolver from his pocket, and drilled it through the head.

  It said, “Krzzzzt!”

  The third of the human constables, who’d been stunned into helplessness by the unexpected turn of events, snapped into action at the sound of the gunshot. He stepped forward, shouting, “Now look here! What the blazes do you think—” Monckton Milnes stuck out a foot. The man tripped over it and fell flat on his face.

  Burton bent over him and pushed the barrel of his weapon into the back of his neck. “Stay down, old fellow. Don’t move and I won’t shoot you. Understood?”

  “Yes, perfectly well,” came the quavering response. “I’ll not so much as blink.”

  “Good man.”

  Burton swung around, levelled his pistol at the topmost opening in the head of the immobilised clockwork man, and fired three bullets into it. He pulled his cane free then stepped over to Bradlaugh and helped him to his feet. “Come on, you two,” he said. “We have to get out of here—and fast!”

  The three men took to their heels. Behind them, the shot mechanism’s head erupted into flames then exploded.

  Sprinting to the end of the road, they turned left into North Audley Street,
then right into Providence Court.

  “We’ll try to lose ourselves in the back streets,” the explorer panted. “The fog will help us.”

  A small rotorship flew across the road just ahead of them, its passing marked only by a fleeting shadow, a sweeping searchlight, and the growing then diminishing wail of a siren.

  Left into George Street and there, through the murk, they saw two blue lights moving toward them. Quickly, they veered right into Hart Street, pounded along it to Duke Street, and hurried up to busy Oxford Street, where they hoped to lose themselves in the bustling throng.

  Two more SPG machines became visible ahead. The three men crossed the road to avoid them, running between clanking vehicles, narrowly avoiding a rolling steam sphere. A velocipedist swerved to avoid them and hit the side of a hansom. He shouted. A police whistle blew. Burton looked back and saw the constable he’d left on the pavement. The man was pointing at him and blowing repeated blasts.

  Clockwork policemen closed from the left. A second pair from the right.

  A rotorship plummeted out of the sky, siren howling. Horses bucked and whinnied in panic as, suddenly slowing, the flying machine set down amid the traffic.

  Burton’s breath hissed through his teeth. “Damnation! We’re corralled!”

  “I fear, good sir, that you may regret coming to our rescue,” Monckton Milnes murmured.