Chasing Schrödinger’s Cat - A Steampunk Novel (21 page)

Chapter
XXXXXVIII:

The
Black Brigade Rides Again –At The Museum

“B
rother
Liddel
, remind me one more time why we need to wear our
Sunday clothes and cover our faces with scarves,” Willie Fitzgerald said.

“As soon as the army shows up, you
just nip into the nearest store, take off your scarf and blend in with the
crowd.
 
They’ll never catch you.”

“Doesn’t seem right somehow, sneaking
about.
 
Still, if it’ll help get rid of
these Black Shirt bastards, me and the boys are in.”

I
tried to stop Sarah
from coming to the museum but she wouldn’t hear of it.
 
“If you think you can keep me away from the
big moment you are sadly mistaken,” she said.

Percy had somehow managed to get hold of a
Doble
steam car and three gallons of khaki paint which we used to militarize the vehicle.
 
He had also managed to get hold of a crown
shoulder insignia so that I went to the museum not as a First Lieutenant but as
a full Colonel.

“I have to be a Colonel,” I explained to Sarah.
 
“How else could I justify having my own
chauffeur?”

Sarah had wanted to be that chauffeur arguing that ‘there are plenty of
drivers in the Women’s Army Corps’ but having already seen her driving skills
in action, I convinced her to play part of the Colonel’s lady with Percy at the
wheel in the uniform of a Service Corps corporal.

W
illie Fitzgerald’s diversion
was set for one o’clock that afternoon.
 
By twelve forty-five we were idling on
Bucknell
Street keeping up steam and doing our best to ignore the glares of teamsters who
had to steer their wagons around us.
 
We
were all nervous.
 
Percy puffed on one foul-smelling
Woodbine after another.
 
Sarah fidgeted
with her malachite bracelet.
 
I checked
my watch every thirty seconds.

We heard the first sounds of breaking glass at one o’clock on the
button.
 
“That’s our cue,” I said, trying
to sound confident.
 
Percy eased the
throttle forward, there was a sudden hiss of steam and we were off.

T
he military presence
at the museum consisted of a Territorial Army platoon under the command of a
whiskey-nosed Sergeant and a Second Lieutenant who could not have been more
than nineteen.

“Fall the men in Sergeant,” the Lieutenant said when he saw me stepping
down from the running board of the
Doble
.
 
There was a sudden scramble as the platoon
organized itself into three ranks.
 
“First Platoon, present arms,” the officer commanded in a high, adolescent
voice.
 
The soldiers executed a series of
snappy movements which eventually brought their Lee
Enfields
into a vertical position in front of their rigid bodies.

“Thank you Lieutenant,” I said, attempting to sound as English as possible.

“Would you care to inspect the platoon Sir?”
 
The subaltern said.

“If you please,” I said, in my best senior officer voice.

I spent the next few minutes walking through the khaki-clad ranks, stopping
occasionally to chat with one of the men.
 
“How are they treating you?” I asked a lance corporal with acne.

“Alright Sir, but I’ll be happy to get back to the shop.”

“The shop?”

“Butcher shop Sir.”

“Most of the men are reservists who have been called out for the
emergency,” explained the Lieutenant.
 
I
noticed he was growing a moustache in an unsuccessful attempt to look older.

“Still, a very good turnout, Mister…?”

“Fellows Sir,” said the Lieutenant, reddening at the compliment.

“Mister Fellows, there’s a spot of bother on Oxford street.
 
A gang of these Anarchist Johnnies have taken
it on themselves to smash all the shop windows.
 
A damned nuisance, but I wonder if you and your men would care to sort it
out.”

“Sir?”

“Take your men to Oxford Street and arrest them.”

“Sir, if I may intrude, we have strict orders not to leave our post,” the
Sergeant reminded the Lieutenant in a warning voice.

“Your adherence to orders is most commendable Sergeant,” I said.
 
“But circumstances change.
 
I will assure your superiors that you were
acting under my instructions.
 
After all,
what are you accomplishing here?
 
I would
have thought a warrior such as you would relish the thought of action.”

The word “action” seemed to do the trick.
 
The Lieutenant drew himself to full height and his face took on the
resolute expression of a man asked to lead the Relief of Ladysmith.

“Have the men trail arms Sergeant,” he said.
 
“We will move out at the double.”

P
ercy and I checked
the main entrance as soon as they were gone, but of course it was locked.

“Take us around the block,” I said.
 
“There has to be a loading dock of some kind.”

“What is a block?” asked Percy.

“Just drive,” I said.

Not only was there a loading dock but there was also a paved ramp leading
up to it.
 
Not that it mattered because
the loading doors were locked too.
 
Percy
and I took turns ringing the call bell but there wasn’t a hint of movement
inside.
 
We were looking for an open
window when we heard the sound of the
Doble
shifting
into gear.
 
The big car came charging
down the lane like an enraged Water Buffalo with Sarah hunched over its wheel.
 
 
The
Doble
hit the ramp hard, hurtled through the massive loading
doors and kept on going until it hit a stack of packing cases.
 
We ran inside to find Sarah still in the
driver’s seat enveloped in a cloud of white vapor.

“What took you two
layabouts
so long?” she said,
brushing wood splinters from her dress.

Chapter
XXXXXIX:

Up
To The Roof –Tesla’s Machine

“W
hat did you do think you were doing?” I shouted at Sarah.

“We haven’t all
day,” She said coolly.
 
“The soldiers
will be back soon.”

“Do you think
they might notice that a large car has smashed its way into the building?”

“All the more
reason for us to get a move on.”

B
ut move on to where?
 
There is no shortage of signage in The British Museum.
 
Washrooms, exhibits, shops, lost-and-found
are all clearly marked.
 
But there are no
signs saying ‘this way to the roof.’
 
We hurried
past Etruscan Vases, Egyptian Mummies and Suits of Armor, doing our best not to
stop and gawk.

Percy was
particularly struck by a wax reconstruction of a Neanderthal man, commenting
“He doesn’t half look like my Uncle Bert.”

We finally found a service door next to a display
of Roman coins.
 
It didn’t lead to a
staircase, that would have been too easy.
 
Instead it opened to a ventilation shaft inset with iron rungs.

“You better go first just in case,” I said to
Sarah.

“In case of what?” she said scornfully.
 
A moment later she was on the roof urging us
to “get on with it.”

The British Museum is fundamentally nothing more
than a huge quadrangle centered around a central courtyard so we had only two decisions
once we were on the roof.
 
We could go
east or we could go west.
 
We chose east
because the west side was clogged with scaffolding and construction material.

“What’s this particle thingamajig look like
anyhow?” Percy asked after we had been walking for five minutes.

“Beats me,” I said.

“Cause we just passed a metal thing that looks
like a cross between a gas works and a mushroom.”

Percy’s description of the Particle Beam Generator was as good as any.
 
Tesla’s machine consisted of a cylindrical
latticework of steel bars topped by a metal-skinned hemisphere.
 
The device looked crude and I suspected it
was a prototype.
 
Would it still work
after all this time?
 
We would know in a
moment.

Chapter
XXXXXX:

Here
Goes Nothing –Adventures In Relativism

T
here was a
small wooden cubicle like a phone booth centered at the base of the tower and
the only way to get to it was through a rusted-shut access door.
 
It took all three of us to pull the door open
but it finally yielded with a protesting metallic squeal.

Once inside I tried the
bifold
door of the cubicle.
 
It too was stiff from disuse but grudgingly opened after a few kicks and
shoves.
 
I had half expected to find a
bunch of mad scientist stuff inside but the compartment was almost empty.
 
There was a crude wooden seat jutting from
one wall facing a console consisting of nothing more than a shelf and a
connection port centered between two vertical metal handles.

“How are you meant to know what
you’re doing sitting inside there where you can’t see anything?” Percy asked.

“Only one way to find out,” I
said.
 
I lifted a small brass flap on the
side of the translator and uncovered its connection jack.
 
Then I removed Max’s collar from my trouser
pocket and pushed one of its ends into the jack until I felt it click into
place.
 
I went into the cubicle, sat on
the wooden seat and placed the translator on the shelf in front of me.

It was time for liftoff and I won’t
lie to you I was scared out of my wits.
 
What if the whole shebang went thermonuclear?
 
Well one thing was for sure, if I was going
to meet my maker I wasn’t going to do it trussed up like a Christmas turkey.
 
I undid my Sam Brown belt and laid it on the
roof outside the cubicle.
 
Then I smiled
weakly at Sarah and Percy, took a deep breath and plugged the other end of
Max’s collar into the port on the wall of the booth.

Nothing happened.
 
The only sound was the wind whistling through
the tower’s steel framework.

So.
 
All our efforts, all the risks we had taken had been for nothing.
 
God help Tesla if I ever got my hands around
his throat.

I tried to get up but the seat was
so awkwardly placed I couldn’t stand.
 
I
reached for one of the handles protruding from the shelf but I couldn’t get
enough leverage so I grabbed the other one too.

A surge of raw energy pulsed
through my body throwing me into spasm.
 
Percy told me later I “looked like cousin Mabel what had the St. Vitus’
Dance.”

There are two views on what
happened next, mine and everyone else’s.

As far as the rest of the world is
concerned, London was rescued by its two giant guardians, Gog and
Magog
, who first appeared as a mist swirling around the
apex of Tesla’s tower and quickly changed into two vast, cloudlike apparitions
striding soundlessly across the rooftops.
 
Now you take most cities, when people happen across a multi-story monster,
they run away in terror.
 
Think Tokyo
during Godzilla season or New York when King Kong comes to visit.
 
Londoners though, are made of sterner stuff.

“
Oy
,”
said Percy, in the relieved tones of a besieged homesteader who has just
sighted the U.S. Seventh Cavalry.
 
“It’s
Gog and
Magog
come to rescue us.”

Sarah’s expressions of gratitude
were more restrained.
 
“Took their time
getting here, didn’t they?” she said.
 
“Pair of bloody skivers.”

The two gigantic protectors did
their duty.
 
The watching crowds broke
into spontaneous applause as
Magog
extended a
wraithlike hand toward a Zeppelin gunship anchored over Russell Square.
 
A flash of lighting arced from his pointing
forefinger to the balloon’s mooring rope.
 
The Zeppelin floated into the sky and drifted inland where it was soon
joined by other black shapes.
 
Seeing
what was happening, the soldiers manning the outlying dirigibles winched
themselves back to earth.
 
Their job
finished, Gog and
Magog
assumed the form of two white
clouds floating over the city in an otherwise clear sky.

That is what everyone else
saw.
 
My experience was different.

Chapter
XXXXXXI:

The
Gardeners –An Abrupt Return

I
found
myself standing on a cobblestone path leading to a wrought iron double gate
suspended between ivy-covered gateposts.
 
The path was bordered by masses of hollyhocks and roses whose fragrances
mingled sweetly in the warm air.
 
There
were small white flowers growing between the cobblestones and I tried not to
step on them as I walked toward the gates with underwater slowness.

The gates opened silently as I
approached and I found myself looking out onto a vast prairie lying before the
tree-covered foothills of a far distant mountain range.
 
A warm, dry wind caressed my face and I could
hear the distant buzzing of locusts.
 
I
could just make out a tiny rainbow arching over a mist-covered waterfall
spilling from a gap between the two nearest foothills.
 
A shining river ran from the waterfall onto
the grassland where it branched into a network of distributary channels.

A winding dirt road led into the
distance, disappearing and reappearing with each dip and rise of the rolling
landscape.
 
A man clothed in full evening
dress was sitting on milestone next to the road with his back to me, stroking a
cat in his lap.
 
The man turned as I
approached and I recognized him as the magician Schrödinger, and the cat as my
old nemesis, Max.

“Welcome to the Gardens of the
Plain,” Schrödinger said, placing Max on his shoulder.

“I thought you were dead,” I said.

“I have indeed passed over,” he
agreed.

“What about Max?”

“Max is both dead and alive.”

“And me?”

“That too is undecided.”

I was getting out of my depth.
 
Where was Bill Fowler when I needed him?
 
I paused for a moment to take in my new
surroundings.
 
I saw that what I had at
first thought to be an unoccupied landscape was in fact teeming with life.
 
The plain was dotted with vegetable gardens,
some thriving and some going to seed.
 
Small
teams of people were cultivating each garden with antlike diligence.

“Why are those people working so
hard?”
 
I asked.

“Their very existence depends on
the health of their gardens,” Schrödinger answered.
 
“You can see for yourself the result of
failure.”
 
He pointed to an abandoned garden
in the middle distance where several bleached skeletons lay amidst the withered
stalks of a dead cornfield.

“Some of them are tilling new rows
on the side of their garden that faces the mountains.
 
Why don’t they put their energy into the
plants they already have?”

“They will plant the new rows before
the next growing season.
 
That way the
garden will move with them on their journey to the source.”

“You mean that waterfall on the
horizon?
 
What is so important there?”

“Even if I told you, you would not
understand.”

“So it is one of life’s mysteries?”

“On the contrary, it is one of
death’s mysteries and your time has not yet come.”

Schrödinger placed a gentle hand on
my shoulder and turned me back to face the wrought iron gates.
 
There was a sudden tremor, almost like an
earthquake.
 
The gates transformed themselves
into Tesla’s tower and the gentle hand became rough.

“Get out of there you,” said the harsh
voice of Alistair Fox.
 
I felt myself
being pulled from the
The
Particle Beam Generator’s
cubicle and pushed forward onto the roof of the British Museum where I fell
face down onto the asphalt surface.