B00DW1DUQA EBOK (12 page)

Meanwhile, he prepared. He had the message he would send clear in his mind. He just needed Matt to start transmitting. But Matt’s line was silent for the first day, and the second, and the third. Sometimes he went weeks without communicating. Finn was just beginning to think he would miss his chance when, late on a dull, grey day, a light began to flicker in Matt’s bank square. The address was clear. 1A11.

With a practised hand, Finn aligned Matt’s ‘scope with its receiver. But not the trunk line. The message wasn’t going to leave the valley. He would capture it and put it with all the others, in case he was able to decipher it.

Once the complete message had been sent, Finn paused, heart hammering, his finger hovering over the line-of-sight connected to Matt’s. He had to get the timing just right. If he was too quick, Matt would be suspicious. But if he left it too long Matt might not be there any more.

He’d resolved to count slowly to thirty. He got as far as twenty before giving in and sending his message back down the line to Turnpike Cottage. He punched in the message slowly, deliberately pausing after each character. It was probably unnecessary but he was taking no chances. Mrs. Megrim could spot his line-of-sight style but he doubted anyone else could.

Sent in plain text, the message flickered off through the night to Matt.

Send key to confirm identity immediately. Masters of Engn
.

He made the message as terse as possible, hoping to alarm Matt into co-operating, hoping he would comply from fear of displeasing the masters. He also overwrote 3C87, the sender address of the Switch House, with 1A11. This was, in fact, very easy to do, although not many people knew it. Then he sat back and waited, not moving, only half-believing he’d actually carried out his plan. He regretted it almost immediately. What would Matt do? He imagined him sitting down there at Turnpike Cottage, reading the message, frowning. There was no way he would fall for it. If another encrypted message came through, Finn knew he was in big trouble. His only defence would be to deny all knowledge. Messages could be intercepted anywhere; the journey to Engn must hop through ten or twenty Switch Houses. He waited and waited. He was about to turn Matt’s ‘scope back to bank and hide all the evidence of what he’d done when the second message came through. It was very short. Unencrypted. Ten digits with no explanation. Finn scribbled them onto one of the printouts as they came through. Then he waited, counting to twenty once again. Finally, he sent a second message of his own.

Confirmed. Resume encrypted communication. Masters of Engn
.

He had done it. It was incredible. Shaky with panic, Finn returned Matt’s ‘scope to bank. He imagined Mrs. Megrim bursting in at any moment, demanding to know what he’d been doing. No-one came. The only sound was the winter wind moaning through the trees outside. Finn sat and gave his full attention to the bank wall for the rest of the evening, the perfect Switch House operator.

The following day, Mrs. Megrim was still house-bound. A line-of-sight from her gave Finn a list of additional duties to perform that day. The lenses of all the ‘scopes were to be polished, but only after each was substituted for a temporary device so no communications were lost. Each ‘scope to be recollimated and checked by sending down a test message to each house. The floor to be swept clean and the bank wall given a fresh coat of black paint.

Finn worked hard for three hours, completing all his labours as well as routing through seven messages. Finally, he could wait no longer. He peered out through the ‘scope ports, up and down the lane, checking no-one was coming. Then he set up two unused devices in the middle of the room, pointing only at each other.

On one, the receiver, he dialled in Matt’s ten-digit code with his thumb. Then he sat at the sender and began to punch out the most recent of the encrypted messages. It was slow work. In the dim light he had to be very careful each character was correct. There were no words, no meaning to the message, to guide him. Finally, when it was done, his stomach fizzing with anticipation, he stepped around to the receiver to see what message had been printed out.

He expected more gibberish. It would mean not only that he couldn’t decipher the messages, but also that Matt had suspected something and sent a false key. But there, in perfectly-formed words, was a message, an actual message. The first line read
To the Lords and Masters of Engn
.

Within an hour, he had all the intercepted messages unscrambled. He disassembled the line-of-sight rig, then stepped outside to burn the dog-eared encrypted messages he’d been carrying around for so long. The small iron brazier they used to destroy all paper copies soon consumed them. To be doubly sure, he stirred the embers around with a stick, encrypting them irrevocably and permanently. The smell of the smouldering paper was sweet.

Back inside, he checked once again that no-one approached. Only then did he sit down in the circle of red light at the desk to read what Matt had been saying to Engn.

Half an hour later, he rolled the decrypted messages up into a thin scroll and slid them into his sleeve. It felt like he had been holding his breath since he started reading. He shook his head. Were there people like Matt all over the land? Spying on friends and neighbours, reporting everything back to Engn? Or was Matt the only one, playing some game for his own gain? He would probably never know. He did know that Matt couldn’t be allowed to get away with it. And while they could stop the messages being routed through, that wasn’t enough. Matt had to pay for what he’d done. The conviction burned bright in Finn’s mind.

He walked home slowly through the darkness that evening, ignoring the cold, letting his feet find their own way, while he pondered how he would go about it.

Two days into the crossing of the great grass plain. Finn, squinting out through the back of the moving engine, could see the mountains of his home shrinking away, melting into the horizon. Up ahead, the track led straight west, directly towards Engn. He had seen no villages out here, no people at all, apart from another troop of Ironclads on the road yesterday, heading out to the mountains. Only an occasional Switch House, relaying messages to and from Engn, broke the monotony.

His eyes closed again. The hours and days passed by in a daze. He would lose track of the time and of where he was. Sometimes he thought he was back in the Switch House, the engine’s air holes the line-of-sight ports. He would jerk awake thinking there was a message to route, or that Mrs. Megrim had shouted something to him. At other times he was trapped inside a giant cylinder, the piston hurtling towards him to stamp him flat. Or he was drowning in coal, the Ironclads lifting him up to hurl him into the engine’s roaring furnace.

He no longer heard the rumbling noise of the moving engine except when its note changed. It slowed now, something different in the sound of its usual huffing rush, a rattling grate that sounded like bare metal rubbing against metal. He peered back outside. Mid-morning. The sun beat down, the metal roof of his prison nearly as hot as the floor. They weren’t due to stop to give him food and drink for hours yet.

Someone, an Ironclad by their shape, heaved the door open. Finn shielded his eyes with his hands and squinted to see what was happening. An armoured gauntlet grabbed him and dragged him from inside the engine, sending him sprawling to the grass.

‘Something for you to see, boy,’ said the master from somewhere in the light.

Finn’s eyes began to adjust to the glaring white. They had come to a halt upon a low rise in the ground. The Ironclads had climbed down from their snorting, stamping horses and were gathered around the moving engine, peering into its workings. They shook their heads as if they couldn’t agree was wrong with the machinery.

Finn turned to look the other way, ahead across the plain. The track ran off in an unbroken line, from Finn’s feet away to the horizon. He could see grey clouds massing over there, like the bulk and peaks of another mountain range. At one point the clouds formed a sharp funnel down to the ground, as if they were being sucked out of the sky. He had never seen anything like it. He wiped his eyes and looked again. Now he could make out buildings beneath the funnel, a great clutter of misshapen blocks, with chimneys of different heights reaching up. A plume of grey smoke poured from the tallest chimney, widening into the delta that merged with the clouds. The whole sky was being made there; a sky of smoke from the chimneys of Engn.

‘A wonderful sight, eh?’ The master sounded happy for once, as if he and Finn were just old friends out for a walk. ‘Your new home, boy.’

Here and there, bars of sun through the clouds picked out the distant scene with white spotlights, glistening off metal towers and wheels nearly as high as the chimneys. It stretched all across the horizon: an entire, artificial mountain-range of machinery.

‘That’s Engn?’

‘We’ll be there tomorrow. Assuming these fools can fix the machine.’

The master turned and left. Finn continued to gaze at the scene, trying to grasp the scale of what he was seeing. He stood there until a tug on the chain shackled to his leg nearly pulled him over backwards. The Ironclads were attempting to jolt the engine back into motion. It spluttered and squealed but refused to fire. One of the Ironclads lay down on the ground, removed his helmet and wormed his way underneath the machine. Soon, only his legs and boots were visible. After several minutes of banging and clunking he began to squirm back out. Oily grime smeared his arms. In his hands he clutched a thick iron chain which had coiled around his wrist as if it was a living snake.

‘Timing chain’s broken,’ the Ironclad said. ‘We need to vent the steam, otherwise the engine will overheat. It could explode.’

‘But you can fix it,’ said the master.

‘If we work through the night.’

‘Then get to work.’

The Ironclad nodded and prepared to worm his way back beneath the machine. The master scowled, angered by the delay. He kicked the ground with his boot.

‘Do we camp here?’ asked Finn.

‘Got no choice have we? I suppose we’d better unshackle you in case the thing does blow up. You wouldn’t be much use in pieces.’

The master took the key to Finn’s chain and reached inside the engine to free him. Finn looked around. For the moment, no-one was watching him. This would be a good time to escape. The engine was broken and the Ironclads were all off their horses, huddled around the machine. His stomach fluttered as he prepared to run. But the grass plain stretched unbroken all around him, vast and empty. Where would he run
to
? Sooner or later they’d catch up with him. He’d bide his time. Perhaps the engine would explode and kill all the Ironclads. Maybe then he’d have a chance. If he could steal one of the horses, he could perhaps evade the master at least. He’d watched how the Ironclads rode, the way they controlled their mounts. He could manage it, he knew.

‘What’s this, boy?’ The master had turned to face him. He held the end of Finn’s chain in one hand but in the other was a folded square of paper. Finn’s heart hammered. It must have fallen from his pocket inside the engine.

‘It’s nothing.’

The master dropped the chain and stamped one of his feet down onto it to stop Finn running. He unfolded the paper.

‘Well, well, secret messages. We were told you were a tricky one. A trouble-maker. Going to join the wreckers are you? Going to overthrow us all?’

The master showed the scrap of paper to the standing Ironclads, his grin broad. A murmur of amusement coming from them. Standing there, the idea of being able to defeat any of them, even one of them, seemed utterly ridiculous.

‘Wreckers? What are wreckers?’ he asked.

‘Oh, very clever,’ said the master. ‘Do you think we don’t know all about your secret plans?’

Finn’s insides fizzed with alarm, clenching his stomach like a fist. They knew. They knew everything. How did they know? The pact with Connor and Diane was his only hope, his only light in the darkness. Without that he had nothing.

‘What plans?’ he asked. It sounded unconvincing even to him.

The master shook his head. ‘Everyone we take has secret plans to wreck the workings, boy. Save the world. You’re no different, I’m sure.’

So they didn’t know everything, then. Maybe, somehow, he still had a chance.

‘So you once wanted to destroy Engn, too?’

The master stepped forwards, looking like he intended to strike him. Finn cowered back from the blow, eyes closed. But it didn’t come. When he opened his eyes again the master stood before him, shaking his head.

‘Perhaps I did. Childish fantasies. They don’t last once you grow up a bit and find out how the world really works. Don’t worry. We’ll soon have that defiance beaten out of you.’

Watching Finn’s eyes he tore the square of paper into half, and then into halves again, and again, until he held only scraps.

‘Open your mouth, boy.’

‘Why?’

The master did strike Finn, then, a blow to the side of his head. He seemed to feel his brain bang into the side of his skull.

‘Do as you’re told,’ said the master. ‘Open your mouth and keep it open.’

Finn opened his mouth. The master began to stuff the squares of paper inside. ‘Now chew them up and swallow them like a good boy.’

Finn’s mouth was already parched but he did as the master told him. The taste of the ink made him retch.

‘Swallow!’

The side of his head where he’d been struck thudded with pain. With an effort he swallowed the paper down. It felt like sandpaper on the back of his throat.

‘Show me!’ said the master.

Finn opened his mouth again to show him the paper was all gone.

‘Very good,’ said the master. ‘Now, follow me.’

The master strode away from the broken machine, yanking Finn along after him with the chain. He stopped some distance away from the machine and sat down. He hooked the end of Finn’s chain through his own belt and locked it in place, ensuring Finn couldn’t escape. Then he lay down and closed his eyes.

‘Sleep if you want. Just make sure you don’t disturb me, boy.’