Frankenstein's Legions
CONTENTS
Chapter 1: They March By Night.
Chapter 2: A Day in the Life of Julius Frankenstein.
Chapter 3: A Day in the Death of Lady Ada Lovelace.
Chapter 4: No Fire Without a Spark.
Chapter 6: Duck Island Discussions.
Chapter 8: A Cravat Interrupted.
Chapter 9: The Council of Box Hill.
Chapter 10: Dead Man Still Walking.
Chapter 11: A Vision of Vectis.
Chapter 13: Oh, I Do Like to be Beside the Seaside.
Chapter 14: A Festival of Falsehoods
Chapter 15: Honesty is the Best Policy. Discuss.
Chapter 16: Ada Walks on Water.
Chapter 17: Don’t Mess With the Belgians.
Chapter 18: A Swiss Hero Exhumed.
The Way of the World: Miscellaneous documents
Chapter 1: A Day in the Life of Julius Frankenstein (2).
Chapter 3: Moustachioed Elopement.
Chapter 5: Behold the (Former) Man.
Chapter 7: Sun-dried Promotion.
Chapter 8: Sword of Damocles (2).
Chapter 9: In Pharaoh’s Boudoir.
Chapter 10: Lust-crazed Nurses.
Chapter 11: What the Butler Saw.
Chapter 12: Eat! And Be Merry.
PART THREE: LIFE MORE ABUNDANT
Chapter 1: Staring in the Sistine.
Chapter 4: Top-Secret Terminology.
Chapter 6: Peeking at Posterity.
Chapter 11: When Fellatio Fails.
Chapter 14: Loseley Liberation Day.
Chapter 15: World Liberation Day.
Epilogue: Tomorrow (& Yesterday) Belongs…
FRANKENSTEIN’S LEGIONS
by
John Whitbourn
‘Even if they
[his creations]
were to leave Europe, and inhabit the deserts of the new world, yet one of the first results of those sympathies for which the dæmon thirsted would be children, and a race of devils would be propagated upon the earth who might make the very existence of the species of man a condition precarious and full of terror.’
Thoughts of Victor Frankenstein, 1796.
PART ONE: DEATH
ENGLAND EXPECTS!
TO ALL YOU JOLLY JACK TARS & STOUT FELLOWS OF OLDE ENGLAND! AN EXHORTATION & OPPORTUNITY.
WHEREAS ENGLAND HAS BRED YOU BOLD & STRONG, YOUR NATION DESERVES SERVICE IN RETURN.
OUR GRACIOUS SOVEREIGN REQUIRES MEN OF ALL DEGREES TO SERVE ABOARD HIS NAVY OF SO MANY GLORIOUS TRIUMPHS.
LIKEWISE, BRAVE LORD
NELSON
OF IMMORTAL MEMORY.
FRESH VICTORIES AWAIT!
SHALL THE CALL GO UNHEEDED? SHALL THE DASTARDLY FRENCH ACCOUNT OUR RACE AS COWARDS ? WHAT STORIES SHALL YOU RECOUNT IN AFTER-TIMES TO YOUR LITTLE ONES AND SWEETHEARTS? WHEN DEATH CALLS (AS IT MUST TO ALL IN DUE FRUITION) WHAT TALE WILL YOU TELL?
REPAIR TODAY TO
HIS MAJESTY’S DOCKYARD, PORTSMOUTH
WHERE BOLD LORD NELSON OFFERS GENEROUS TERMS & ADVENTURE TO:
ABLE & ORDINARY SEAMEN &
MERCHANT MARINERS &
WAISTERS & LANDSMEN &
TIME-SERVED MARINES & SOLDIERY &
WILLING APPRENTICE LADS &
OWNERS OF RECENTLY REVIVED UNDEAD.
ENGLAND EXPECTS THAT EVERY MAN—LIVING OR LAZARAN—WILL DO HIS DUTY.
GOD SAVE THE KING
Printed under Royal license and gracious permission by Thomas Pothecary, bookseller and stationer by appointment. Mincing Lane, London, the Year of our Lord 1835.
PROLOGUES (plural)
‘More wine!’ ordered Ada—but got death instead.
True, Foxglove, her butler, whom she expected to bring the wine, occasionally looked like death warmed up, especially after a night on the tiles or a boxing bout, but he was most definitely numbered amongst the living. Those who answered Ada’s call down the voice-tube couldn’t say as much.
In fact they couldn’t say much at all. Low grade Lazarans were the product of low grade serum which started the heart but would never fire up witty conversation.
They did bring wine though. A bottle of it with which they broke poor Ada’s head.
The bottle contained a fine vintage and when shattered against her skull released the ghost of a long lost Spanish summer. Likewise, the skull it shattered released a ghost of equally fine lineage: the descendent of soldiers and poets mixed with a heady dash of genius or madness.
Her many admirers said that Ada was a blue blood as well as ‘blue-stocking.’ Not so. The deep-dark wine proved a perfect colour match to Ada’s lifeblood as it ebbed away. Both pooled on the writing desk on which they killed her, too free-flowing to be soaked up by the piles of paperwork.
Ada’s calculations for Mr Babbage were quite spoiled.
* * *
Wine was Mr Babbage’s downfall too. A single glass (never more nor less) was his invariable habit before retiring for the night, but it had never made him sleep so sound before...
‘Oh dear,’ said the police constable who eventually shook him awake. ‘Oh dear. What a busy bed!’
Through a thick head and eyes prickled by broad daylight Mr Babbage perceived that his bed did indeed seem heavily laden, even more so than when dear Mrs Babbage was still alive. That was another mystery to add to this shockingly late rising and there being a policeman in his bedroom.
The constable enlightened him on the latter conundrum.
‘Your man-servant alerted us, sir. Shortly after delivering your morning tea and
Times
. And he begs me to inform you that he has quit your service to never return. Likewise all your staff when they saw.
‘Saw? Saw what?’
With curling lip the constable drew back the covers and thus resolved another puzzle. The mattress sagged because Mr Babbage had company.
Two oiled youths, one to either side, smiled invitingly—or as best those revived from death can. They signalled every sign of intimate acquaintance.
‘We—go—again?’ enquired one, in typically Lazaran flat tones. And reached out.
‘Errrgh!’ exclaimed Babbage, and tried to hurl himself from the bed.
‘Too late, sir, I’m afraid,’ said the constable, detaining him. ‘Likewise, I much regret I’m the unbribable variety of officer, so don’t try that malarkey, there’s a good gentleman.’
Babbage was half tangled in the sheets, half still embroiled in the Lazarans’ loathsome embraces. Prisoners of their programming, they called to him.
‘Come —back —to —bed —master...’
Babbage tried to bat them off with his night-cap.
‘I can explain everything, officer!’
But the policeman merely sighed and shook his world-weary head. And Babbage, being an honest man, saw his point.
‘No, you’re right,’ he conceded heavily. ‘I can’t...’
The arresting officer had the decency to look downcast as he took out notebook and pencil.
‘Sodomy’s a hanging offence as well you know, Mr Babbage. Sexual relations with Lazarans likewise. So we’ve really gone to town viz a viz capital crime, haven’t we, sir? But be of good cheer; maybe your—previous—good name—will get sentence commuted to the treadmill...’
There was nothing more to be said. Babbage’s mind was like the calculating devices he sought to construct. Even as he pondered the injustice of it all. Innocent as an angel of any wrongdoing and the victim of a wicked plot, his brain dispassionately processed the new data.
Farewell, house of thirty years and marital memories. Farewell, workshop wherein he’d laboured at machines to make miracles. Most certainly farewell, reputation and government grants towards his project.
Obviously blueprints and prototypes were now out of the question for the foreseeable future, even assuming he didn’t swing. However, perhaps mental computations might still be possible whilst turning a treadmill?
It was no idle question. History hung in the balance that morning in number 1 Dorset Street, Manchester Square, Westminster. The world’s future depended on the answer.
Alone of those present, only Babbage could perceive that. He saw, with a clarity that banished personal considerations like shame and sorrow, precisely what lay at stake. On the one hand stood further same old same old. History at its customary snail’s-pace. On the other a huge shovel load of coal stoked into the fireplace of human progress.
In short, was the Analytical Engine merely delayed or forever aborted?
When that question was resolved, then and only then, Babbage would turn his great intellect towards exactly who’d framed him. And why.
* * *
It wouldn’t work out that way. Reality shoulders innocence aside. It has powers of veto over even clever plans laid by clever people.
Mr Babbage was a clever man (perhaps the very cleverest of his Age) but the police constable (who’d barely skimmed schooling) could have corrected him. The difference was that the constable had been around the seamier seams of life. So, in some specific cases, he knew better.
Like about penal conditions for instance. Like how hard-labour and the treadmill left no energy for thinking, let alone detective work. Neither during the long days or at day’s end.
And when each of those of days had done with you there was no margin left for luxuries. No reserves. By the end of the first week Mr Babbage would be doing well to remember his name. One month in and his world would have shrunk down to his resultant double hernia. The treadmill had that focussing effect.
Sad to say therefore, this side of the grave, whoever had done Mr Babbage this ill-turn stood a good chance of escaping scott-free.
But this world is not an entirely cold place. When he was able (which was infrequent), the constable was a kind man. And so he kept his counsel and left Babbage a little while longer in blissful ignorance.
* * *
Unlike Mr Babbage, Lady Ada Lovelace didn’t go quietly. She’d no idea that was the done and dignified thing when faced with the inevitable. Her parents were to blame.
Papa, a poet, had scandalised his age (and wife) and so Mama, fearful of feeding the bad blood, fiercely shielded young Ada from all philosophy and liberal arts. Her education being strictly scientific Ada grew to womanhood having never heard of stoicism or noble resignation.
Thus when the Lazaran assassins came into her study Ada fought back in a most unladylike way. A lighted candle thrust in the face saw one off, and bringing the curtains down, pelmet and all, draped two more in a velvet shroud. Meanwhile, Ada shrieked like a banshee and generally made a drama out of a crisis.
Wasted wails and vain tears. From Lord Lovelace to the humblest servant in Horsley Towers, all were fast asleep, as all good people should be in the early hours before a busy day. Even the peacocks in the grounds who might have added their screams to hers dreamt peacock dreams. In short, she was the only living soul about. Unnatural Ada had troubled the silent night with her scribblings once too often.
Finally, the whey-faced Lazarans caught her. One pinned Ada to her desk and another brained her repeatedly with a bottle.
While her spirit and the other assassins fled, the best looking Lazaran stripped off his clothing and awaited developments.
Chapter 1: THEY MARCH BY NIGHT
‘Twenty pound and not a farthing more. Don’t waste breath trying to budge me.’