The Immorality Engine

CHAPTER
21

For a while, Veronica had thought the world was ending.

Newbury’s screams had brought the attention of the guards, who had peered in through the slit in the door, unsure what was happening inside the cell. One of them had bellowed at her to shut him up, threatening to come inside and put a bullet through his head. Veronica felt as helpless as she had ever felt, unable to quell the nightmares that were plaguing him, unsure if there was anything at all she could do to make him stop.

The poppy, it seemed, held him in a tighter, more excruciating grip than she had even dared to imagine, and now, hours without it, the weed was abandoning him, leaving him writhing in agony and confusion on the cell floor.

At first she had tried to hold him, wrapping her arms around his shoulders and whispering to him that she was there for him, that she wouldn’t let him come to harm. But then he started to scream and scratch at the walls, and she’d been unable to hold him any longer.

The fever had brought with it all manner of dark hallucinations, and she had backed into a corner of the cell while he had writhed on the floor, banging his fists and fighting with demons that only he could see. He had scratched strange symbols into the dust on the ground, whispered arcane rites in languages she had never heard. And then he had screamed again, clutching at his belly as he seized, just like Amelia had seized when they were children. It had caused the memories to flood back, to overwhelm her. She’d found a piece of broken wood to wedge between his teeth and had held his head until the fitting had passed.

In his brief lucid moments he had begged her for a drop of laudanum, as if he thought she somehow had a bottle of the stuff on her person and was hiding it from him. He’d grown angry, then remorseful, and then seized again, his stomach muscles going into spasms, his fever burning through his mind as every cell in his body craved the sweet-smelling drug simultaneously.

If she’d had the laudanum, then, she would have given it to him, just to end his suffering and pain. Just to have Newbury back. But, of course, she had none, so instead she had been forced to go through it alongside him, forced to watch and listen and weep as the opium burned its way out of his system.

Finally, after five, six, seven hours-she was unable to tell, trapped in the endless night of the cell-the fever broke, and Newbury fell into a deep slumber on the cell floor.

At first, Veronica panicked that he had died. She had rushed to his side, feeling for his pulse, listening for his shallow breath. But he’d put up an admirable fight, and though weak, he was still alive.

Veronica had tried to sleep then, too, but she found she couldn’t rest. Her mind was racing, full of concern for Newbury, for Amelia. Full of concern for herself and what Graves might do. Would it all be for nothing? Had Newbury gone through all of that only to face execution at the hands of the Bastion Society? Were they both going to die? She wasn’t sure if she was strong enough to get them out of there alone, although if it came to it, she’d put up a damn good fight.

Finally she had fallen into a fitful sleep. When she woke, Newbury was sitting up, watching her from across the cell.

He looked dreadful. His eyes were sunken pits and his hair was matted with sweat and grime. But he smiled at her, and she knew that the worst of it was over.

“I’m sorry,” he said softly, and she could sense the weight behind the words.

She nodded but didn’t speak.

“What time is it?”

“I have no idea,” Veronica said truthfully. “Sometime after dawn.” She was huddled against the opposite wall, her knees drawn up beneath her chin. She was cold, tired, and scared.

Newbury looked bewildered by this revelation. “We’ve been in here that long?”

She nodded again. “And all the while, Amelia’s been trapped in the Grayling Institute in terrible danger.” She banged her fist against the wall in frustration.

“I’m sorry,” he said again. There was nothing else he could say. It wasn’t his fault. She was grateful he didn’t offer platitudes or try to reassure her that everything was going to be all right. “Have they given any indication of what they’re planning for us?”

“No,” she replied. “They’ve told me nothing. But I’ve been thinking about what you said, about Graves and the duplicates. About how you thought he was telling the truth that they were never actually alive.” She unfolded herself as she talked, curling her legs beneath her. Newbury listened intently from the other side of the cell. She couldn’t tell what he was thinking, whether he was even in any fit mental state to understand what she was saying, but she needed to talk, to get it out.

“Go on,” he said, urging her to continue.

“If that’s true, then what Fabian is doing with Amelia is something entirely different. His technology creates living copies. He clearly doesn’t share the beliefs of the Bastion Society, so there has to be another reason, other than simply generating duplicates for ritual use.” Veronica cleared her throat. Her mouth was dry. There was no water in the cell, and despite having harangued the guards a number of times, none had been forthcoming.

“I came to the same conclusion myself. I imagine it’s to do with her clairvoyant abilities, that Fabian is using the duplicates to try to predict the future.” Newbury coughed into his cupped hands.

“No. I don’t think so.” Veronica rubbed her knees to try to get some warmth back into them. “I think there’s more to it than that. The Queen is obsessed with longevity. She’s desperate to extend her life and her reign. I think she’s tasked Fabian with finding a way to duplicate her, to create a new, healthy body so she can continue her legacy.”

Newbury sighed. “Ah, yes. The Queen. I forget, you know all about the Queen.”

“Well, I…” Veronica was momentarily taken aback by the sarcasm in his tone.

“Why did you keep it from me, Veronica? Why am I the only one you didn’t tell?” His voice was firm, controlled. There was no sign of the man who, only an hour or two earlier, had been scratching at the walls and howling in agony in the grip of opium withdrawal. He met her gaze, and she couldn’t help but see the accusation in his eyes. “For God’s sake, even Graves knows the truth about you!” His voice dropped, tinged with sorrow and confusion. “Why did you do it?”

Veronica’s heart was pounding in her chest. She felt sick, her stomach twisted into a tight knot. Dizziness threatened to overwhelm her. It was finally here. The conversation she’d played out in her mind so many times before. The conversation she’d always hoped to avoid but knew would come one day. She was shaking. She didn’t know what to say, how to explain. Why had she done it? Duty, she supposed. And fear.

She closed her eyes. She couldn’t look at him, didn’t want to see his reaction. “I did it because I thought if you knew, you’d shut me out. Because I didn’t want you to believe that I doubted you. Because I didn’t want to lose you, Maurice. I couldn’t bear to lose you. I…” She sobbed, hanging her head. She couldn’t say the words.

“I’ve known for months,” he said quietly, and the words were like an arrow through her heart. “Ever since that time in the cellar with Aubrey Knox. Since I followed you to the palace and saw you go inside. You should have told me, Veronica.” He paused, hanging his head. “You should have told me.”

“And what then, Maurice? What if I had told you? What difference would it have made?” She left the questions hanging. She felt conflicted, unsure of her own emotions. On the one hand she knew that her duplicity had most likely played a part in Newbury’s spiral into despondency and drug abuse, but on the other she knew that he was responsible for his own actions, and that there was little she could have done to prevent it. Part of her was furious with him, and another wanted only to gather him up in her arms and hold him. “I’m sorry,” she said, and she knew it wasn’t nearly enough.

For a moment Newbury didn’t respond. When he did, his voice was cracked with emotion. “You could have put a stop to it, Veronica. You could have told her you weren’t prepared to go on.”

Veronica shook her head. “No! I had no choice! You know what she’s like, Maurice. You never say no! No one ever says no to her! She would have reassigned me, and that would have been the end of it, of everything.” Veronica could hear the exasperation in her own voice. “She would have prevented me from seeing you, even if it meant I’d have to face the firing squad. She would have orchestrated someone else to spy on you instead, some puppet who really would have told her everything about you. And then where would we be? Where would either of us be?”

“So it was better that you spy on me than anyone else? Is that it?”

“I didn’t spy on you, Maurice! You have to believe me. I told her only as much as she needed to know. Just enough to keep her out of our lives. I’ve never betrayed you, not once.” She got to her feet and crossed the cell, kneeling before him. “I’d never betray you, Maurice.” She put her hand on his cheek. “Never.”

He refused to meet her gaze.

Veronica slowly withdrew her hand. She felt like she wanted to scream in frustration. This was everything she’d feared. He’d discovered the truth and now he couldn’t even look at her. After all they’d been through, he wouldn’t even look her in the eye. Here, in a cell, somewhere in the bowels of the city, waiting to die. She felt the anger welling up inside her. “Why didn’t you tell me you knew? Why did you just pull away like that, hiding behind that damn weed instead of simply talking to me about it? You had a choice, too, and you chose the easy way out.”

He raised his head. Their eyes met. He looked scared. “Because I didn’t want to lose you, either,” he said.

And then he was holding her in his arms, kissing her deeply and passionately on the lips. She kissed him back, pulling him closer, running her fingers through his hair. She had wanted this for so long. But she knew she couldn’t hold on to it. Not now, not here. Not like this. Not while Amelia was still trapped in that horrible place, and Newbury was still a slave to that dreadful poppy.

Veronica felt numb. Slowly, she pushed him away. She was shaking.

He stared at her, confusion in his eyes. “I thought…”

She shook her head. “Not here, Maurice. Not like this. You’re ill. You don’t know what you’re doing. And Amelia’s still out there in need of our help.” She paused, fighting the urge to reach for him again. Instead, she ran her fingers along the front of his jacket, brushing the dirt away. “When this is over. When you’re better.” She broke off, unable to go on.

Newbury nodded. “I will get better, Veronica. I promise you that.”

They were silent for a while, both gazing at each other in the darkness of the cell. Later, she promised herself. There would be time then. For now she had to focus on getting out of the cell alive, on saving Amelia. She had to be strong enough for all of them. “Maurice… All this with Amelia and the Queen…” She paused, unsure quite how to go on. “I think we might be part of something dreadful.”

Newbury shook his head. “No, Veronica. I can’t believe that. We work for the British Empire, for the monarchy. We work for the Queen of England!”

Veronica put her hand on his sleeve. Her voice was soft. “But what if the Queen has strayed? What if Fabian’s machines have turned her into a monster, unable to tell the difference between right and wrong? What if you and I and Sir Charles are working for the wrong side? What then?”

Newbury looked pained. “You can’t think the Bastion Society is a better option, Veronica! Surely you can’t think that?”

Veronica shook her head emphatically. “Of course not. But I’m worried there isn’t a great deal of difference between them anymore. I think they’re all as bad as each other: Aubrey Knox, Dr. Fabian, Enoch Graves… and the Queen. How could she condone what Fabian has done to Amelia? How could she encourage him?”

“I…,” Newbury started, but faltered.

“And look at us, Newbury!” she continued. “Look what she’s done to us. She’s poisoned us with her ridiculous games. She’s had me spy on you. You! One of the best men I’ve ever met. The best man I’ve ever met. And look what that did to you.” The tears came then, in great floods down her cheeks. She didn’t even bother to try to stop them.

Newbury leaned forward, wrapping his arms around her in a warm embrace. “You might be right,” he said, and she knew then that he believed it. “It’ll be over soon, Veronica. One way or another.”

“What do you mean?”

“The Bastion Society is moving against the Queen. They believe her to be a living blasphemy, a soul trapped in an undying body, and they intend to storm the palace to bring her reign to an end.”

Veronica looked up at him, her eyes wide with shock. “It’s just as Amelia predicted. Cracking walls and fire and pain. And the one who sits in the chair is key.”

Newbury released her and slowly pushed himself up onto his feet. “We need to find a way out,” he stated flatly. “We have to warn her. Whatever she might have done, Veronica, we can’t let an army of occultists storm the palace. It’ll bring the Empire to its knees.”

Veronica nodded. “It may already be too late. It’s been hours.”

Newbury cursed under his breath. “All the same, we have to try. We have to get away from here. Graves said he would keep us alive long enough to show us the ruination of everything we hold dear. Either way, if we don’t get out of here soon, we’re dead.”

Veronica smiled. For the first time in hours, she was starting to feel a glimmer of hope. She’d thought it was over when Newbury had been deep in the throes of the opium withdrawal. Now, he was beginning to muster his strength. He was weak and bedraggled, but he was Newbury. His instinct was kicking in. He wanted to live.

“We need to work out how to get past this lock,” he said. “They took everything useful before they tossed me in here.”

“The lock isn’t the problem,” she replied, reaching up and extracting two thin metal pins from her hair. She held them out to him. They were lock picks, taken from his collection in Chelsea and secured there as they’d prepared for their spot of breaking and entering. Experience had long since taught her to conceal a few such items upon her person, just in case. She pointed towards the door. “That’s the problem.”

Newbury followed the line of her finger. There, perched on the wall just beside the door, was a large mechanical spider. “Damn it!” he said. He took a few steps towards the door. Three red lights flickered to life atop the machine, a little cluster of them, like glowing eyes. The body raised up on its eight spindly legs, and it emitted a high-pitched whirring sound as the blades in its belly began to spin and hum. Newbury stopped dead in his tracks, about three feet from the door.

“It’s just like the one that attacked us at my apartment,” Veronica said. “It sits there quietly, powered down, until one of us approaches the door. Then it stirs. I’ve not dared to get too close, in case I incite it to attack.”

Newbury nodded. “Graves said they had more of them.” He rubbed his face.

Veronica felt her newfound hope beginning to seep away. “I didn’t know what else to do. I didn’t want to provoke it. There’s nothing in here we can use as a weapon. I would have had us out of here already if it hadn’t been for that.”

Newbury shrugged. “Bring those here. The lock picks.”

Veronica got to her feet. Newbury was sizing up the mechanical beast. He took another step towards it, and the scream of the spinning blades increased in intensity.

“Maurice, don’t be stupid. One wrong move and it’ll tear you apart,” she said.

Newbury looked back at her over his shoulder. “We’re dead anyway if we don’t get out of here. Might as well die trying.”

Veronica didn’t have any response. She knew he was right, but she could hardly condone his taking his life in his hands in such dramatic fashion. It was clear he was going to attempt to wrestle the thing out of the way.

Newbury seemed to take her silence as acquiescence. “Be ready with one of those lock picks,” he said. “When I say so, I want you to jam it in the recess behind those three red lights. I think those must be its eyes.”

“You think those are its eyes? What if they’re simply lights?”

Newbury looked exasperated. He ignored her and continued. “Once it’s in there, work it about a bit, try to damage the mechanisms. I want to make sure it can’t see us. Confuse it.”

Veronica sighed. She slid one of the lock picks into her belt and held the other in her fist like a dagger.

Newbury smiled. “Let’s get out of here, Miss Hobbes.” He sprang forward, surprising even her with his sudden movement. In one bound he was by the door, grabbing the spider machine from the wall by its legs, holding it at arm’s length, and grunting with the exertion of keeping it at bay. The spider bucked and wriggled, its blades screaming and whining as it fought to free itself from Newbury’s viselike grip.

One of the legs got free, stabbing at Newbury’s hand and causing him to cry out in pain as it buried itself in flesh. But he managed to hold on, his face locked in a grimace. “Now, Veronica!” he yelled.

She rushed forward, brandishing the lock pick. The spider thing continued to writhe and squirm in Newbury’s grasp. “Hurry!” he said urgently. She located the little cluster of red lights. They were less than an inch from the deadly blades. She risked losing her hand if Newbury wasn’t able to hold the machine still.

“Veronica!”

So be it. She jabbed down with the lock pick, shattering one of the glass eyes and jamming the metal shaft of the pick deep into the mechanisms of the clockwork monster. She forced the pick back and forth, feeling tiny gears crack and snap inside the device.

“Good,” Newbury said. “Good!”

She pulled the lock pick free and repeated the action, shattering another eye, wrenching more of the machine’s delicate internal systems out of place. It continued to buck violently in Newbury’s grip, but it wasn’t responding to Veronica. Blood was trickling down Newbury’s arm from a number of vicious cuts caused by the errant leg.

“Right, back away,” said Newbury, and Veronica did as she was told, retreating into the cell until her back was against the far wall.

Still holding the now-blinded machine at arm’s length, Newbury approached the door.

Oh, clever, Veronica thought, as she watched him jam the spinning blades against the door panel, aiming it carefully over the lock. Unseeing, acting purely on whatever instinct had been invested in its mechanical brain, the spider thing bit down into the wood with its saw blades.

Newbury held it there, pressing it firmly against the door as it chewed a hole in the wood. The blades screeched as they struck metal, but carved on through, cutting a large hole right through the door and taking the entire lock mechanism along with it.

Seconds later, the disc of wood fell to the ground with a loud clatter. With all his might, Newbury hefted the spider and flung it at the cell’s back wall. It collided with the rock face with a crunch and fell to the ground, three of its legs hanging uselessly at its side. It scuttled for cover, banging into the wall before disappearing into the dark recesses of the cell.

Veronica stared at Newbury in wonder. Even now, he still had the capacity to surprise her.

“Come on, the guards will be here any second,” Newbury called to her, reaching for her hand and dragging her towards the door. The lock was a mangled mess. She wouldn’t be needing the other lock pick.

Newbury tugged at the door and it opened easily, then they were out in the corridor.

Veronica couldn’t believe their luck. There were no guards. The fools must have thought after six or seven hours that the spider was enough of a deterrent to prevent them from making any attempt to escape. Instead, their inattentiveness had given Newbury and Veronica the chance they needed to get away.

“This way,” Newbury said, and they set off at a run, following the incline that would take them back to the surface and Packworth House. They rounded the kink in the passage a few moments later, and Newbury ground immediately to a halt. He held his finger to his lips.

Veronica listened. There were voices up ahead. Three-no-four of them. She looked at Newbury and held up four fingers. He nodded. Releasing her other hand, he flexed his shoulder muscles and began slowly creeping towards the sound of the voices.

Veronica grabbed his arm. She shook her head, mouthing, No! She knew they would be armed with pistols and swords. As he was, Newbury was no match for them, even with her help. His mastery over the spider had been impressive, but this would be suicide.

Reluctantly, she pointed back the way they had come. They would have to find another way around. Newbury nodded, silently accepting the inevitable.

They turned and ran on.