The Immorality Engine

CHAPTER
7

Dr. Lucien Fabian hated rushing. And today, he felt nothing but rushed.

He had arisen early, taken rounds with his patients, and then administered another battery of treatments to the Hobbes girl, all before lunch. Then Mr. Calverton had appeared with a note card from the palace, and all of a sudden he had to abandon his half-eaten beef Wellington and his half-drunk glass of merlot, get in his carriage, and head off at a phenomenal speed to see the Queen. He clutched the seat, fearful that the driver was going to lose control of the vehicle at any moment-or, perhaps worse, plough directly into the path of an oncoming ground train. They bounced over the cobbles, almost dislodging the glasses that perched precariously on the end of his nose. The engine was raging, and black smoke billowed around the carriage like a dark smear across the windows. He wondered if the driver could even see where they were going. The day had not exactly worked out as he’d anticipated.

Then there was the Queen herself to contend with. What could she possibly want? What was more important than his work? The message had been clear-this was no medical emergency. The life-giving equipment he had cocooned her in was still in perfect working order, breathing on her behalf, pumping the blood around her veins, feeding her. So what was it? Why had he been so rudely torn away from the Grayling Institute? He hated the notion that he was permanently available for her every whim, on call like a lapdog. Was it like this for her other agents?

Of course, Victoria refused to acknowledge his true standing at her Court. She acted as if he weren’t important in the least, like she could operate perfectly well without him. At first he’d wondered if this was a sign of her embarrassment, her way of disguising the fact that he was, perhaps, the man who now knew her most intimately of all, at least medically speaking. But he had come to alter this opinion, realising that she was simply a heartless witch.

He chuckled at his own joke, quite literal in this case. Victoria’s heart was now nothing but a series of brass cogs and elaborate timing mechanisms, ticking beneath her rib cage like a secret, buried clock. He had constructed it for her, and placed it in her chest with his own hands. That heart was, perhaps, the finest piece of work he had ever crafted. It was a shame he hadn’t given it to someone more deserving.

Fabian sighed and stared out the carriage window. He supposed that her attitude towards him was to be expected. She was, after all, the ruler of the biggest empire in the world. She was bound to feel the need to assert her will. But it did nothing to alter his mood as they charged on towards Buckingham Palace for an interview that he neither needed nor desired.

Sandford, the agent’s butler, had proved his usual accommodating self. He’d ushered Fabian in through the private entrance, taking his cloak and offering him a stiff drink. From the look on the old man’s liver-spotted face, Fabian had gathered he might need it, so he accepted it with grace and downed it quickly, thankful for the fortification.

Now he was standing before Queen Victoria herself, resplendent in her mechanical glory.

The audience chamber was kept shrouded in a permanent gloom, the heavy drapes pulled shut over the curtains. The reasons for this were twofold: both to keep prying eyes from seeing in-the world outside the palace knew little or nothing about the Queen’s current condition-and to protect her from the sunlight, as light sensitivity was an unexpected side effect of his treatment regime. Anything stronger than a dull glow would cause her to recoil in agony, so she mainly inhabited this one room at the palace, wired into her life-support system, hidden away in the darkness.

The Queen rolled forward in her wheelchair to greet him. She looked old and tired. Fabian moved to inspect the machinery that encased her. She was lashed into the chair, held in place by two large tubes that jutted from her chest, feeding her collapsed lungs with oxygen from the tanks that were strapped to the rear of her device. Humming machines pumped fluid around her body, a pinkish substance created by the Fixer, distilled from the essence of rare plants he had obtained in the jungles of South America.

“How are we today, Majesty?” Fabian bustled around her as he checked the connections and levels of the machines.

“We no longer sleep, Doctor. We pass the nights alone in the darkness while the Empire rests. We have the most lucid waking dreams.”

“Of what do you dream, Majesty?”

“Of Albert. Of a decaying Empire, fading as the light of England fades. Of everything we have built becoming dust without a firm hand to guide it.” Her eyes were glazed and she was staring away into the distance, as if seeing something else other than the shadowy interior of the audience chamber.

He stood back, inspecting his own handiwork. “Fascinating.”

Victoria’s head snapped around to regard him. Her eyes flashed with anger. Her tone changed seamlessly from whimsical to commanding. “We are not one of your little experiments, Fabian. You’d do well to remember that.”

Fabian bristled. He felt little beads of sweat form under his hairline; it was hot inside the audience chamber. “Yes, Your Majesty. Of course. I merely seek to understand so that I may help-”

Victoria waved her hand dismissively as she cut him off. “Prattle and poppycock. We know how your mind works, Doctor. Do not dare to attempt to placate me with platitudes and fabrications. My body may be faltering, but my mind is not. You consider me a puzzle, a medical aberration to be solved. On occasion that perspective has proved beneficial to one’s situation. But you must never forget we are also your Queen, and we demand and insist on your respect.”

Fabian offered a tight-lipped smile. “You command and always will command my enduring support, devotion, and respect, Your Majesty.”

Victoria almost spat at him. “More platitudes. We fear, Fabian, that your opinion of your own importance has become somewhat overblown. You are a physician. Nothing more. Remember your place.”

Fabian took a deep breath and fought against the rising tide of anger that pushed at the limits of his patience. The woman was insufferable. He had saved her life! He had constructed the life-support system that had single-handedly ensured her survival. The only one who understood how to keep her breathing. The one who had given her a clockwork heart. The Victorian Empire endured because of him. She would do well to remember that.

It was within Fabian’s power to end Victoria’s reign with the flick of a hidden switch that he had incorporated into her life-giving chair during its construction. A safety measure, he had told himself. A means of ensuring that if it all went wrong, there was a way out. He’d initially considered this a precaution in case the surgery that had welded her to the chair had failed, but now he dreamed of the day he might trip that switch, and smiled secretly at the notion that it was he, not the Queen, who held the real power in the room.

Outwardly, however, he bowed his head and mumbled an apology, allowing the Queen to consider him admonished. Now was not the time to reveal his secrets. But there would come a point when it would prove necessary for him to assert that power. The thought galvanised him.

Victoria’s breath was rasping and dry. Fabian tentatively approached her chair and leaned in, making an adjustment to the intravenous fluid system that kept her hydrated. Close up, she smelled of stale sweat and chemicals, preservatives. He wondered whether her maids were washing her and changing her dressings as regularly as he had ordered. He would quietly check with them later.

“So? What news from the Grayling Institute?” This, then, was the real purpose of his summons.

Fabian stepped back from the chair. The bellows hissed and wheezed. He looked down at Victoria, meeting her gaze. He tried to keep the defiance out of his expression. “Things… progress. While the engine has proved ineffective on nearly all of our patients, on the girl it is finally beginning to work.”

Victoria rubbed her hands together with something approaching delight. The grin on her face was obscene.

Fabian swallowed and continued. “Seven days. Seven days is the longest we’ve achieved so far. But I am hopeful the duration will increase with further testing.”

“Why do they fail?”

Fabian shrugged. “The girl is frail and sickly. Her… special talents are a tremendous drain on her physical well-being.”

“We are not interested in her physical well-being. Her talents, however, are of much interest.”

“We are learning a great deal, Your Majesty. A great deal. But I have yet to identify exactly why the engine works on the girl and no one else, and whether those talents are part of the reason for our success. These are the two areas that concern me most: the long-term viability of the… product, and how to replicate the success with another subject. I would not want to risk causing any lasting harm to, let us say, a more significant patient…”

The Queen gave a sickly laugh. “You always were of a cowardly persuasion, Doctor, too keen to keep your own neck off the block.” She looked suddenly serious. “Ensure the machine is fully operational within a week. We grow weary of waiting.” She laughed again, but this time it was spiked with menace. “And close your mouth, won’t you? It’s unbecoming.”

Fabian, stunned, stammered out his reply, pushing his glasses back on the bridge of his nose. “But that’s impossible, Your Majesty. Absolutely impossible. Seven days! Our success has been incredibly limited so far. We’re making headway, yes. But a week! I simply can’t do it. We’ll need months of testing and experimentation before we’re even close to being operational!”

Victoria’s expression hardened. “You will do as we say, Fabian.” She used his name as a curse. “You will go from here and you will not return until the device is in full working order.” She seemed to consider her next statement carefully. “Double the amount of testing on the girl.”

Even Fabian felt himself blanch at this. “But Majesty, it will kill her.”

“We are not concerned with whether she lives or dies, so long as the tests prove successful. Identify the factor that separates her from the others. Discover the reason for your recent success. Go to work.” With this she turned her cheek to him and waved a hand in casual dismissal.

Fabian remained still for a moment, unsure how to respond. He wanted to rage at her for the ridiculous nature of her demands, her arrogance. But he knew he could not win that particular battle. He ground his teeth, dug his nails into the palms of his hands. Victoria resolutely refused to look in his direction; as far as she was concerned, their business was over and he had ceased to exist.

Fuming, and filled with a frustrating sense of impotence, Fabian turned on his heel and stalked out of the audience chamber, leaving Victoria chuckling to herself in her chair. He would do her bidding. For now. He could do nothing else. But the time would come for him to assert his dominance. And that time was growing closer by the day.