B00DW1DUQA EBOK (48 page)

‘You really think you can help her?’

‘We have a chance. That’s all.’

Nathaniel sagged visibly and nodded his head. ‘Wait here.’ He turned and strode down the corridor and into one of the other rooms. A moment later he returned with another cloak, neatly folded over his arm. ‘Take this. It’s all I can do for you. Once you leave here you’re on your own. I’ll deny it if you tell anyone I knew.’

Finn took the cloak. ‘Thank you. And, Nathaniel, I think you should climb to the top floor when we’re gone. There’s a hatchway there, and a ladder, and some high windows. Go there and you’ll see. There is a world out there. Whatever happens you should know the truth.’

Nathaniel looked alarmed, but he nodded his head in reply. Together, Finn and Diane ran for the stairs, working their way into their cloaks as they descended.

‘Which way?’ said Finn.

It was fully dark outside. Despite the Directory’s high walls, a cold wind, sharp as metal, cut into Finn’s cheeks. He span slowly around, trying to orientate himself, the cowl over his face blinkering his vision.

This late in the evening everything was quiet, although one or two figures still hurried to-and-fro, heads down, arms crossed inside their cloaks for warmth.

‘Come on,’ said Diane.

They skirted the wall of the Sanatorium and set off across an open space, paved with a swirling pattern of cobble stones. Finn glanced up and backwards at the spire to orientate himself. He tried not to appear too conspicuous. If anyone saw them their cloaks would protect them, but they had to be careful.

‘There. Let’s go that way,’ he said.

He’d seen what he was looking for. To find the clock-winder they needed to find a clock. He’d been looking for some high tower like the one near the Valve Hall, but instead there was a small, round clock on a building wall up ahead, its thirty-six digits picked out in gold. Two incandescent bulbs flickered beneath it, the clock’s single hand casting a long shadow up the wall.

‘If it’s
this
thirty-four he’ll be here soon,’ said Diane.

‘We need to get inside,’ said Finn. ‘He must adjust this clock. He has a regular route, ticks each one off in his book as he goes around.’

‘OK.’

The clock building at least had doorways. The first they tried was locked. They walked as slowly as they could to the next one, trying to look as if they’d made a simple mistake and really knew where they were going. A solitary cowled figure strode across the square but said nothing to them. They tried the next door. This one swung open, leading into deeper darkness. They stepped inside, Finn tripping over a lip of stone in the doorway. He stood, waiting for his eyes to adjust, hoping there would be enough light to see by. Then electric lights snapped on. Diane stood beside him, one hand still on the switch. She shrugged as Finn looked at her.

‘Let’s find the clock mechanism,’ she said.

They hurried up stairs and along stone corridors, seeing no-one. Occasionally they passed windows and Finn glanced outside, partly to work out where they were in relation to the clock, partly to see if any throng was searching for them.

‘It must be about here,’ he said. Each door bore a number embossed on an oval metal plate, but had no other indication of what might be inside. Finn expected cowled figures to burst out of each. None did. Eventually, by listening at each for the ticking, they found the door that led to the clock mechanism.

Finn tried to open it but it was locked. For all they knew the clock-winder had just left or was about to arrive. He looked at Diane.

‘We’ll have to wait here for him,’ she said. ‘Let’s try and find somewhere to hide.’

They worked their way along the corridor, listening at the doors, rattling their brass handles, all pretence of belonging in the Directory gone. Eventually Diane found one that opened. She peered through the crack then stepped inside. Finn followed.

‘Leave the door open slightly,’ said Diane. ‘Then we can watch for him.’

The room smelt of dust and old paper. The walls were lined with hundreds and hundreds of wooden drawers. While Diane watched the corridor, Finn opened a few of them at random. ‘They’re just full of old books. Plans and diagrams. They look ancient.’

‘Perhaps they’re the original plans for Engn. Before they built the Blueprint Hall.’

‘Maybe. There are lists of names too, like old records of who lived here. Hundreds and hundreds of them.’

‘Strange how it’s all so deserted now.’

‘I suppose it’s like Shireen said; they have machines controlling the machines now.’

‘I suppose.’

Finn leafed through some of the old papers, trying to make sense of the closely-written tables, the abbreviations and symbols. He could make nothing of them. They appeared to be written in a language he didn’t recognize. Shutting the drawers, and having to fight back a sneeze from all the dust, he wandered further into the room. There was another doorway at the back. He could hear no sound coming from that way. He pushed it open and peered through but it was too dark to see. He found the light-switch by the door. It was another room lined with thousands of small drawers, these metal rather than wood. They tinkled as he pulled one open. Instead of papers each held an array of slim metal cylinders, each about the size of a pen, one-hundred and forty-four of them to a drawer. Finn picked one up, trying to understand what it was. It was solid metal and had tiny grooves etched all the way over its surface. It was like some very fine file. Perhaps it was just a decoration. Perhaps it didn’t do anything, like the valves. But then why were they all being stored so carefully?

‘Finn!’

Diane’s whisper roused him from his thoughts. He shut the drawer and walked back to her as quietly as he could. He peered out through the narrow gap in the doorway. The old man was twenty yards away, bent almost double, trudging his way along the corridor. His head was invisible, thin legs protruding from the great, oblong regulator clock he bore on his back. They watched as he selected a key from the ring on his belt, unlocked the door and went inside.

‘We’re in luck,’ said Diane. ‘It’s
this
night.’

‘I suppose,’ said Finn.

‘What?’

‘It just seems unlikely. And odd that Shireen didn’t say which day it was too.’

‘She didn’t have time.’

‘Maybe. Or maybe there’s another reason. Maybe he comes this way every day.’

‘Because the clocks in the Directory are more important?’

‘I suppose. Perhaps they’re just older and need more adjusting.’

They waited in silence for the old man to emerge. Finn, fearing the clock-winder had left by another door, was about to suggest they creep into the corridor when the old man reappeared. His wild grey hair first, then the clock, almost horizontal on his bent back. He locked the door behind him and continued on down the corridor, away from Finn and Diane.

‘Come on,’ whispered Diane. They stepped out of the room and crept after him.

They followed along corridors, down steps, across rooms, not daring to get close but terrified they’d lose him if they let him get too far ahead. Finn well remembered the old man’s habit of disappearing through secret doorways no-one else could find.

They were soon underground, the rough stones of the walls thick with blooms of green algae. Finn lost all sense of direction. They could be moving towards or away from the Director’s building. Perhaps the old man had already been there and was now leading them to the next clock on his list, elsewhere in the Directory, or even somewhere else in Engn. Which was an interesting thought. The Directory was supposed to be sealed off. Yet, clearly, the clock-winder knew tunnels that allowed him to come and go.

Diane’s hand on his shoulder froze him. He hadn’t been paying attention. Up ahead the old man stood outside another opening: a rough stone lintel above a rusting metal door. Next to it, part way up the wall, was a tall rectangular alcove. The old man stood with his back to this so that the clock was inside the alcove, then pulled his arms free, leaving the clock there. It fitted perfectly. He stepped away, arms on his lower back as he stretched himself. He looked much taller standing properly upright. He stood before the iron door, picked another key from his jangling collection and slid it into the lock.

‘This must be it,’ said Finn. ‘The Director’s building.’

The clock-winder pushed the door open and stepped inside. He left the door ajar. Finn and Diane shared a look then crept forwards. Was Connor there, somewhere inside? And the Director too? They walked forwards to the doorway.

‘Why didn’t he take the clock in with him?’ said Diane.

‘And why has he left the door open?’

Through the doorway, a flight of stone steps led upwards, curving around into brighter light. Something flickered and hummed up there, some mechanism they couldn’t see.

‘We need to hide inside,’ said Diane. ‘Until we can speak to Connor. Let me go first. If he sees you he might recognize you.’

‘I doubt it. Not now.’

‘But if he did he might raise the alarm. At least he’s never seen me. I’ll sneak up and see if there’s somewhere I can hide. Wait a bit and follow me up.’

They were both whispering, feeling very exposed in the deserted corridor. Diane set off, treading carefully on each step so as not to make a noise, peering upwards in case someone came down. She disappeared around the bend in the steps. For some reason he couldn’t understand, Finn found himself counting slowly upwards. When he reached thirty, and Diane hadn’t reappeared, he set off himself. He wondered what the old man was doing up there. Perhaps he had to report to the Director about all the clocks he’d corrected. They’d have to wait and hide until they were alone with Connor. Assuming Connor was even there at all. Perhaps the grapevine wasn’t actually so reliable after all. They didn’t know for sure he was here. They didn’t know anything. His heart hammered in his chest as he stole upwards into the light.

At the top of the stairs he hid behind a squat, stone pillar that supported a high roof. Blue light flickered out from a large room up ahead. From the glimpse he’d had of it he guessed it was the interior of the Director’s building. The size and shape seemed about right.

Holding his breath, he peered around the pillar again. A younger man bent over a line of glass orbs, the light from within making his features glow, flickering shadows across his face. It was Connor.

In the middle of the room, staring vacantly around as if awaiting instruction, stood the clock-winder. There was no sign of the Director. But Finn could see Diane. She’d worked her way behind a screen of pillars to the far side of the room, a spot where Connor could see her if he looked up. She waited. For that moment the three of them, Finn, Connor and Diane stood in a perfect line.

Connor glanced off to the side, towards Diane, then stood up straight, his back to Finn.

‘You can come out now, Diane.’

Finn watched as Diane stepped forward, her gaze switching between the clock-winder and Connor. If Connor would just tell the old man he was no longer needed then they were there, they had succeeded. The three of them together in the control room of Engn.

‘Kill her,’ the old man said. He waved a hand towards Diane.

Connor dipped his head in acknowledgement. ‘Yes, sir.’

Connor drew a small, metallic device from inside his robes. With Connor in the way Finn couldn’t see it clearly but he could tell from Diane’s expression, her wide-mouthed shock, what it must be. Connor stepped towards her. Diane, her eyes on Connor’s face, on the gun he held in his hands, stepped backwards. But only to reach the stone wall behind her. She lunged suddenly to the side, trying to get away. The booming
crack
of the gun echoed in the confined space. Diane flopped to the floor in mid-stride and lay in a shapeless huddle on the ground.

Connor walked up to her, the old man following. They appeared to speak, too quietly for Finn to hear. Finn stood stunned, his mouth open, his useless shout of warning still unuttered. Connor had killed Diane. The old man had told him to and he'd done it.

He could run, he knew. He could fall back down the steps, get back outside, maybe reach the tunnel and get away from Engn for ever. He saw that path very clearly. It was probably the wise thing to do. But something else stirred inside him, a clear determination not to just give in. There was the machinery that controlled all of Engn. Switches and dials and levers filled the walls of the room. Connor and the old man stood over Diane’s body. How much damage could he do in the few moments before they stopped him? Perhaps enough. He strode into the control room, picked the biggest and most important looking controls he could and began to twist and press and pull, hoping that somewhere in Engn he was sending vital parts of the machinery into overdrive. One particularly large, brass lever caught his eye. The knob on its end was polished smooth as if it had been pulled many times over the years. It had to be vital. Using both hands, Finn grabbed it and began to heave.

‘Finn.’

It was Connor, behind him, speaking calmly. Finn ignored him. The lever wouldn’t budge. Finn swung all his weight onto it, trying to force it down.

‘Finn,’ said Connor again. ‘You can’t move it. It’s pointless.’

Finn let go and returned to the other controls he could see, twisting and pressing again. He’d lost track of what he’d already done. Perhaps he was just setting everything back to how it was. He carried on anyway.

‘Finn, stop. You’re not doing anything to harm the machine. The control mechanisms are locked out. You’re not affecting anything.’

Finn turned to see Connor standing in the middle of the room, the old man behind his shoulder. Connor held the gun in his hand, pointing it directly at Finn. He smiled warmly.

‘It’s good to see you again, Finn. I wasn’t sure you’d ever make it here. You’ve done well.’

Finn didn’t speak for a moment, trying to understand what was taking place. ‘Then this … this was the plan all along?’

‘Oh yes. You’ve played your part well.’

‘And it’s true Engn is controlled from here?’