So I took out the skeleton key again, and waved it vaguely back and forth in front of the computer, hoping it might act like a Hand of Glory, but it didn’t. The computer just stared back at me, smugly mute. I looked at the bone key. Since it was a key, perhaps it needed to be inserted and turned . . . I pushed the key against the computer, and it sank into and through the plastic casing. The surface just seemed to soften and open up, and the key disappeared inside, almost sucked in. I was so startled I almost let go of the key and lost it inside the computer. But I held on, until my hand was pressed right up against the computer casing. It felt disturbingly warm, almost organic . . . I turned the key, and the computer started up. The monitor screen turned itself on, and all kinds of passwords and secret protocols flashed on and off. I gingerly withdrew the key, but the computer just kept going, all but rolling over on its back and showing me all it had. Records going back centuries, trivial and ultra secret, were all right there at my fingertips.
First things first: where were Doctor Delirium and Tiger Tim, and the Apocalypse Door? The computer didn’t even hesitate: all three were now located at Area 52, in the Antarctic, out past the McMurdo Sound. I grimaced, despite myself. There were harder places to get to and get into, but not many. Area 51 has always been a government joke, a public distraction, all smoke and mirrors to hold the world’s attention, while all the real secret research goes on in Area 52. That’s where America keeps all the dangerous and exotic weird stuff it’s accumulated down the years, trying to reverse engineer something useful out of it. Far and far away from anywhere civilised, of course, so that if something does go wrong . . . they can always blame it on global warming. Of course, they never get their hands on the really dangerous stuff. We always get there first, and grab the good stuff for ourselves. Droods aren’t big on sharing. But we let America find enough to keep them happy, and occupied. And who knows, maybe one day they’ll create something really neat. And then we’ll probably step in and steal it. Droods aren’t big on playing well with others, either.
I found an attached and encrypted file that looked interesting, so I opened it. Turned out to be a recent communication between Tiger Tim and the Immortals, in the form of a video recording. So I set it running, and sat back to watch it. The screen showed Tiger Tim, sitting at ease in an office I didn’t recognise. So this had to have been sent after he left the Doctor’s Amazon base. The rogue Drood looked very relaxed, and almost indecently pleased with himself, like the cat who’s just licked cream off the caged bird. He smiled casually at the camera.
“Hello, my secret masters. My hidden partners. Or whatever you see yourselves as this week. As far as I’m concerned, you just exist to get me what I want, and don’t you forget it. If you choose to think you’re in charge, that’s fine by me, but don’t get uppity. My family, the high and mighty Droods, thought they were in charge of me, right up to the point where I decided to prove them wrong. Anyway, you asked for an update, so here it is.
“Dear Doctor Delirium is still in the dark about our relationship. He still thinks he’s in charge. Though he doesn’t do much of anything, anymore. Just sits there in his very private office, weirding out over the Apocalypse Door. Won’t let anyone else near it. They say he talks to it, but until it starts actually answering him, I don’t think I’ll worry. I’m having him carefully watched, round the clock, just in case he suddenly decides to try and open the Door ahead of schedule. In which case my people will jump on him with heavy boots on.
“On your orders, oh my masters, I persuaded him to move everyone here to Area 52, and we’re settling in nicely. Taking control meant using up most of our remaining Accelerated Men, but that was to be expected. I’ve got my people running everything now. Everyone else is dead. The Doctor ordered them dumped outside in the ice, so he could use them for experiments later, but his heart wasn’t in it. He only really cares about his precious Door, these days. So I just have a few bodies brought in, now and then, for snacks.
“The Doctor did show some interest in the wide variety of strange and unusual objects stored in the Area Armoury. He was like a kid with new toys there, for a while. I kept an eye, just to make sure he didn’t press the wrong big red button. However, the Doctor now seems convinced that he’s found something he can use to keep himself safe and protected, after he opens the Apocalypse Door. So he can be King of the Earth, with all the hosts of Hell at his command. I am not convinced. He won’t let me see what it is, so I can’t be sure of what he’s found, or indeed if it exists at all outside of his increasingly addled mind. While we’re on the subject, take a look at this.”
The image on the screen changed abruptly, to show surveillance coverage from a presumably hidden camera in Doctor Delirium’s office. The mad scientist was dancing in front of the Apocalypse Door, which stood quietly upright on its own. The Doctor stopped abruptly and railed at the Door, waving his hands about. His voice was loud and harsh. I hit the pause button, and then zoomed in on the Door itself. I’d never seen it before. It did look quite remarkably ordinary, and everyday, except for the fact that it stood upright entirely unsupported. But given what just simple proximity had done to the Doctor . . . I started the message running again, and listened to the Doctor rant.
“It didn’t have to be like this! It didn’t! I was just going to blackmail all the governments of the Earth, and have them all bow down to me, and give me everything I ever wanted, but not now. Not now! You showed me. You were right all along. They laughed at me. They laughed at me! Never took me seriously! Well, now I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take it anymore! No. No. I will open the Door of Hell, smash all the locks and break all the bolts and the dead shall come forth to take their revenge on the living. Oh yes! And all the peoples of the Earth shall be outnumbered by the damned . . . Yes. People. Why should I care about people? What did they ever do, but laugh at me . . .”
He disappeared, his image replaced by Tiger Tim, slouched almost bonelessly in his comfortable chair. “See what I mean? Loony tune, big time. It’s a wonder to me he can still dress himself. Do we really need to indulge him anymore? Can’t I just kill him? As long as I don’t actually do it in front of his people, they’ll carry on taking orders from me. I don’t know why you’re dragging your feet on this. It’s not like we need him for anything . . . Except as a possible scapegoat, in case the Door turns out to be a dud, and we all need to disappear hastily into the background . . .” He smiled suddenly. “No. It’s real. The Door is very definitely everything they say it is. You can’t be around it for more than a few moments, and not know that. You can feel it, right down in your bones, in your soul. I’m quite looking forward to the opening. Let loose the Dogs of Hell, rain darkness down upon the Earth . . . Cull Humanity back to a more manageable level, just as I always wanted. And unlike the dear Doctor, I will be in control of the Door. I’ve done my research, quite separate from the Doctor’s. It should be simple enough to reverse the process, and have all the devils and all the damned just sucked back through the Door into Hell. And then I will slam the Door shut in their faces, and laugh at them. All right, yes, I admit it, that is just a theory. But then everything is, where the Apocalypse Door is concerned. But it all seems straightforward enough. As though whoever originally created the Door intended for it to be easy to use.”
And all the time I was thinking, You fool. You bloody fool. Easy to open and easy to close? That’s what the Door wants you to think.
“We have to do something soon,” said Tiger Tim. He was suddenly quite serious, and all business. “The American military has to know that something’s gone wrong at their precious Area 52. All communications are down, and all the security protocols have been compromised. But they can’t know exactly what’s happened, so they’re going to be cautious. They’ll take their time looking us over, before they try and break in. But you can bet their best military units are already on their way here. They’ve got a lot of golden eggs locked away in this place that they won’t give up without a fight
. I’d say we’ve got twenty-four hours at most, before someone comes banging on our door. So we’ve got to be prepared to open the Door before that, or be ready to move it somewhere else. Your call, Immortals.”
The screen went blank.
So. I had a new deadline. I had to get this information out of Castle Frankenstein in a hurry, and then use the Merlin Glass to transport me straight to Area 52. Someone in the family would know exactly where it was. We know where all the secrets are buried. Still—Area 52. In the Antarctic. I should have dressed warmer.
I reached out to my duplicate at the far end of the cavern, and immediately his sensory input crashed into prominence. I was standing at the foot of the back stairs, watching and listening, but so far no one had come down. I could feel my other self calling me, and immediately I was back in the computer room. I concentrated, and called my dupe back into me. I just had time to grab hold of the desk to steady myself, and then the two of me slammed back together. The two sets of memories were harder to reconcile this time. The longer two of me existed, the more different we inevitably became. Gradually, my mind settled down again. My head hurt viciously, and I had to struggle to remember what I meant to do next. I was going to need a hell of a lot of downtime, when this was all over.
But for now, I’d had enough sneaking about. I had the computer download all its secrets onto a number of discs, and slipped them into pockets about my person. Centuries of knowledge, secrets and essential information. The Drood archivists would be studying this for years. Maybe even centuries . . . Time to go. Time to get the hell out of Castle Frankenstein, and head for Area 52. Busy, busy, busy. I laughed briefly, subvocalised my activating Words, and my armour slid smoothly into place around me.
Immediately, every alarm in the world went off at once. Bells and sirens and flashing lights; not just down here in the cavern, but up above as well, from the sound of it. Steel shutters slammed down all around me, covering the glass walls and closing off the only door. I was locked in. I snorted, inside my golden mask. It would have worked on anyone else. I smashed my way out in a few moments, tearing the heavy steel shutters like paper napkins. I stepped out into the cavern, and headed for the back stairs. I did some damage along the way, just to show I’d been there. The Immortals needed to take the Droods more seriously. There was still no sign of any security guards. What did I have to do, to earn their attention? No doubt the Immortals upstairs were still arguing about whose turn it was to do something. They’d grown soft and complacent in their Castle refuge, never dreaming anyone would dare to break in and menace them where they lived.
I ran up the back stairs, taking them three steps at a time, and burst back onto the second floor. The alarms were more muted here, so as not to upset anyone. But there was no one around. No one running, or panicking, or shouting orders. I moved swiftly along the passage, looking curiously about me and listening at doors, but there was nothing, nothing at all. Until I came to one door that was standing just a little ajar. I heard raised voices. Curious, I eased the door open a little and looked inside.
It was a massive lecture hall, packed full of hundreds and hundreds of Immortals. Every single one of them, for all I knew. They were giving their full attention to one teenager, standing alone on a raised dais in the middle of the room, addressing them all in a calm, reasonable and only slightly mocking voice. Everyone else sat in circles of seats, surrounding the dais, radiating out to the sides of the hall. Given how many Immortals were here, this had to be seriously important. Especially if they were ignoring the alarms. So I armoured down, revealing my fake teenage self, eased the door open and slipped inside. I stood at the back of the hall, and concentrated on what the Immortal in the centre was saying. I knew I should be getting out of the Castle and heading for Area 52, but . . . I was curious. I had been sent here to get information, after all . . .
The teenager on the raised dais stared calmly about him, and spoke commandingly to his audience. It took me only a moment to understand that this was, this had to be, the Leader of the Immortals. The oldest of them all, who’d first made contact with the extra-dimensional Heart, when it first descended into this world all those years ago. It was the way he stood, the way he held himself, and in every word he spoke. You couldn’t take your eyes off him.
He didn’t look like much. Just another teenager, wearing a T-shirt and jeans. The T-shirt bore a simple message: EAT THE WORLD. He was short and squat, barely five feet tall. Broad shouldered and well muscled, with dark shaggy hair, a broad face, dark eyes and a quick wolfish grin. He had the look of a man who’d be able to bargain with a god fallen to earth.
I tore my gaze away from the Leader and studied the teenagers sitting in circles around the dais. Those in the closest circles looked the most like the Leader. These would be the Elders, all that was left of the Leader’s family and friends of that time. As the circles spread farther out, the genotype grew more diluted, spreading through generations of children bred with non-Immortals.
“Call me Methuselah,” the Leader said smoothly. “The old jokes are always the best, aren’t they? I am the oldest of us all. I met the Heart as a teenager, and made my deal with it, and here we all are. Forever. Or as near to forever as makes no difference.”
I glanced around the packed lecture hall. The Immortals were all sitting very still, hanging on his every word.
“I remember everything,” said Methuselah. “Every year, every century, every day since I made my way slowly and disbelievingly through miles of burned and shattered trees, across blackened earth and through smoke-filled air, treading past the bodies of blown-apart animals and birds that had fallen dead from the heavens. It was early morning, and the sky had changed colour. I thought it was the end of the world. Just a teenager then, but already a man as far as my tribe was concerned, because no one lived long in those days. I pressed on, when no one else would, when no one else dared, because I was too fascinated to be properly afraid. Centuries ago . . . but only yesterday to me.
“I found the Heart. It was still deciding on a shape then, and what I saw made my eyes bleed and my head hurt. I should have taken it for a god, or some great being fallen from the starry sky, I should have fallen to my knees and worshipped it, but I was a contrary soul even then, and had problems with authority figures. So I just stood there, watching it twist and turn in the great crater it had made, and it talked to me. I think . . . I amused it.
“Later, the Drood ancestors came and found it, and asked it to make them shamans and protectors of the Human tribe. The Heart gave them their wonderful armour, in return for sanctuary and sacrifice. The Droods never knew I got there first. And I didn’t want to be anyone’s protector. I wanted to live forever, along with some of my family, and a few friends. So the Heart made us Immortals. The Droods got to be shepherds, and we got to be lords of all we surveyed. Can’t help thinking we got the better deal.
“And so we survived and prospered, down the ages. Discovering along the way that if you live long enough, you can learn to do all sorts of amazing things with your body. Make your flesh do anything, become anyone. Change your face, change your shape, change your identity. Become a man, become a woman, an old man or a young girl, anything you can imagine.”
His face shifted suddenly, his features slipping and sliding across his bone structure, until abruptly he looked just like Doctor Delirium. His audience laughed, and applauded. His face changed again, all the details of his flesh rising and falling, until suddenly . . . he looked like me. Eddie Drood. The audience really liked that one. Methuselah let them enjoy it for a while, and then took back his own face again, and continued with his speech. I wasn’t sure where he was going, what this was all about. And, why was his audience so intent?
“We are everywhere,” said Methuselah. “We are everyone. Or at least, everyone who matters. We supply a word here and a push there, and the world goes the way we want it to. Always remember the Creed I gave you. Words to live forever by. Greed is good. Contempt is good. Hate i
s good. The crushing of the weak and glorying in their plight is good. Anything that profits us is good. Because we . . . are all that matters. No one else lasts long enough to matter. They come and they go but we go on. Everyone else in the world is just there to serve us, or for us to play with. They are mayflies. We are Immortals. Now, my special guest tonight is the man you’ve all been waiting for . . .”
He gestured to one side, and suddenly Tiger Tim was there, standing right beside Methuselah. He was still wearing his Great White Hunter outfit, down to the tiger-skin band on his bush hat. He smiled and waved condescendingly to the assembled Immortals, as though he was slumming just by joining them. They rose as one from their seats and booed and hissed him, hurling abuse and angry words. The sound was deafening, but it didn’t bother Tiger Tim in the least. Methuselah let it go on for a while, and then gestured sharply at his audience, and they all fell silent and sank back into their seats again.
“Hush,” he said, with just a hint of mockery. “We must all be very grateful to this rogue gentleman, who has done such good work for us. He may be a Drood, but he is our Drood. He set us on our present course, when he saw the potential in the Apocalypse Door, and brought it to our attention. He is our inside man at Area 52. We can’t put one of our own in there; Doctor Delirium has seen to that. So I want you all to listen to what Tiger Tim has to say. Because we are very near the point of no return, when with a single act, I shall change the world forever.”
“Why have I been summoned here?” Tiger Tim said bluntly. “You know I hate teleporting; it always makes my fillings ache. I have to get back to Area 52 soon, before I’m missed. Not by Doctor Delirium; he’s still obsessed with the Door. But some of his peo ple are getting seriously suspicious about me. Some have actually started questioning my orders, and I can’t kill them all. Rumours are beginning to circulate about what happened to the people left behind at the Amazon base. I get the feeling that when the truth finally comes out, these people won’t see the funny side.”