The Gravity Engine (6 page)

‘Nothing will happen. I promise.’

‘But if I’m not the real Clarissa then you
’ll want to be with the real one! Where will that leave me? I could be a living bomb, programmed to explode the minute I’m back home!’

‘I love you.’

She looked up into his eyes, desperate, and must have seen his uncertainty because she turned and ran out. Rhonda and Michael hurried to follow her. She scurried up the stairs and along the landing, threw herself through a door and slammed it shut.

He rapped on the door. ‘Clarissa?’

‘Go away!’ she shouted from inside.

‘Michael.’ Rhonda gently pushed him aside and stood next to the door. ‘Clarissa? Let me in. We can talk.’

There was no reply, and Michael had a horrible vision of Clarissa harming herself in her desperation and panic.

‘Clarissa, I’m in the same situation as you
; I could be a copy as well. Let me in and we can talk.’

Clarissa was silent for a long moment, then she said, full of tears, ‘Just you, Rhonda.’

Rhonda nodded to Michael, who nodded back.

‘Go back down and finish your dinner,’ Rhonda said. ‘Just leave us
and we’ll talk tomorrow when you’ve rested. Find an empty guest room, there are plenty.’ She opened the door gently, went inside, and closed it behind her.

Michael stood, helpless, in front of the door and didn’t hear them talking. Eventually he wandered back downstairs
to the dining room and sat in front of his cooling beef.

When the demons came to clear the plates, he stopped one. ‘You. Wait and talk to me.’

She stopped, hovering over the plates, then stood back from the table and wrung her hands. She was in the form of a teenaged half-European, half-Chinese girl; slim and childlike, with huge, terrified eyes.

The other demons quickly took the untouched plates and returned to the kitchen, obviously pleased that they hadn’t been singled out.

‘What’s your number?’ he asked the female demon.

‘I don’t have one, sir,’ she said, studying her hands as she twisted them together. She realised what she was doing,
put her hands behind her back, and continued to look at the floor in a show of humility.

‘
No number? You have a name?’ Michael said, surprised.

‘I don’t have anything, my Lord. When the masters need me they shout at me. Exce
pt for the King, who makes me do things with his will alone.’

‘I understand. How long have you been here?’

She shook her head, silent.

‘No idea?’

She shook her head again.

‘Have you always been here?’

‘I have vague memories from before I came. Nothing much, sir.’

‘I won’t hurt you, you can relax. I just want some answers.’

She stiffened and collapsed in on herself, bending her head even lower.

‘Are there any other humans here?’ he said.

‘Not in this building. This building is the only one I am permitted to be in.’

‘I see. Have you heard sounds that would suggest there are other people here?’

‘Never, my Lord.’

He took a wild shot. ‘Has the King ever discussed his plans in here?’

She went silent and dropped her head even more. She was so curled up with submission that her chin was resting on her chest.

‘Thank you. Dismissed.’

Her head shot up and she gazed at him with wonder.

He waved her away. ‘I mean it. Thank you, you’ve been very helpful. Return to your duties.’

She lit up, then quickly shut down the smile. She nodded to him and raced back into the kitchen. A minute later she returned to the dining room and bowed deeply to him. ‘I thank you for your kindness, my Lord.’ She slipped back into the kitchen, still full of wonder.

The demons returned with a dessert of plain sponge cake that was not only obviously pre-packed, it had seen better days
– it was dry and crumbly. The serving demon – a different one – cringed away from him as she placed the plate in front of him.

‘Don’t wor
ry, I won’t hurt you,’ he said to her, and she jumped. She didn’t reply, she just ran into the kitchen.

He fiddled with the cake for a while then rose and left the dining room. He checked Clarissa’s door; no sound from behind it. He rapped on it and was ignored.
He sent his senses inside; both women were in there, asleep. Rhonda had obviously nodded off sitting on the bed with Clarissa’s head in her lap. He smiled slightly at the fond relationship they had developed, and wished for a moment that this was real and they could come home with him and be a loving family. He shook his head; that was for later. Right now he had a job to do.

He went down the stairs to the entry hall and tried the front door but it was securely locked
even though there was no locking mechanism he could see. He could use his metal abilities to dismantle it but it felt like vandalism to destroy something so beautiful. He wandered through the ground floor until he found the kitchen; the work surfaces were stainless steel but the stove was a huge wood-fired one and there was no refrigerator. The demons were busy washing the plates and all stopped when he entered.

‘Where are the deliveries brought in?’ he asked them.

One of the quivering demons pointed at the solid metal kitchen door. He tried it and it was locked in the same way as the front door.

‘Can anyone open it? I want to go for a walk and get some fresh air,’ he said.

The demons all shook their heads. The same slim girl was pushed forward by her comrades to speak to him. ‘They open the door when there is a delivery, my Lord,’ she said.

‘I see. Thank you,’ he said
.

He
put his hand on the door handle, gave it a good tug with his full strength, and it didn’t open. He softened the metal slightly and felt it sag beneath his touch. He spun it back together, then went back out to the entry hall. He’d go out exploring later when the demons were shut down for the night.

The other rooms on the ground floor were furnished with European-style pieces that
were detailed with inlays of wood and semi-precious stones without being overly ornate. There was a large, comfortable living room with many cushions on the floor, still appearing as new, and a massive black glass fireplace that would be a feature of the room on a cold night. He looked up; the construction was silver amalgam and glass panels, and he wondered how the ceiling–floor interface worked.

The next room was a library, holding old-fashioned leather-bound volumes. He took
one down and opened it to find hand-written and brilliantly decorated text. The subject matter was obvious; detailed techniques for forging high-quality steel, complete with diagrams and instructions. He closed the book and looked around. The room was filled with these priceless manuscripts. One of these books may contain the secrets of creating the buildings and lowering the gravity. His memorisation skills were non-existent and he wouldn’t be able to carry the library away with him, so he would have to find a way to return and collect them after he’d left.

He went up the stairs and along the balcony that circled the entry hall. Each door led into a guest room and they all appeared identical. The one next to Clarissa’s had obviously been lived in for a while; his mother’s room. He went into the room next to that and sat on the bed. Each room had a bath and washbasin in a corner but no separation from the sleeping and washing parts
, except that the glass-tiled floor around the bed was covered in finely woven rugs depicting pine branches. A heavy wardrobe stood next to the wall and he opened it; it was full of the soft cotton unisex robes that Clarissa and Rhonda were wearing, all in pastel shades of blue and grey. A chest of drawers held female underwear and cotton breeches. Another guest room would probably hold clothing for a man and he went out to find one.

He found male clothes in
the next room, robes and breeches that would fit him, and male underwear. He fell onto the bed and looked at the ceiling. The time difference between Western China and Northern Europe must have been ridiculous and it was probably insanely early in the morning where he was from, but he wasn’t tired at all – he was too overwrought at the thought of these wonderful women who were intelligent and self-aware, who considered themselves his mother and fiancée, and who were demon copies.

He woke later with a start. He had a moment of disorientation before he realised where he was. The room’s window was dark and he had no idea how long he’d slept. He pulled himself out of bed feeling gritty and needing a shower, but he didn’t know how long he had until dawn, when his captors would come for him.

Teleportation
out of the mansion was impossible – his teleportation skills were blocked again. Time to do it the old-fashioned way. He went as silently as he could out of his room onto the darkened landing; all the other doors were closed. He sent his senses out; Rhonda and Clarissa were both still asleep in Clarissa’s room and he didn’t disturb them. He went downstairs and opened the door to the kitchen to find all the demons lying on the floor or sitting against the wall. No way could he creep through there without waking them. He returned to the entry and had an inspiration; he flew up to the ceiling to take a glass panel out and go exploring.

He flew too high and hard in the low gravity and crashed into the glass. He stopped and hovered just below it. He heard movement; someone had heard the noise and was waiting to see if it occurred again before investigating.
After a few minutes of silent hovering he put his hand on the glass panel and unravelled the metal holding it. The panel fell into his hands and was liftable – heavy, but liftable – and he flew through the opening it made in the ceiling and placed it on the roof to one side.

The sky was mostly dark with a
brighter smudge on the eastern horizon – dawn soon. The air was bracingly cold and full of the suggestion of snow. He tried to teleport again and failed; something about the nature of these European Heavens was severely limiting his powers.

He flew higher over the city and sent his senses out.
There were life signatures of birds and small animals, but nothing larger than a rat. He flew a kilometre over the breathtaking spires and found a building that looked promising; six storeys high, and more blunt and utilitarian than the prevailing airy decorative style. He landed in front of its door and tried it, and it swung open easily.

It was another library, with a vast central atrium
the full six storeys tall and stacks of shelving containing hand-lettered and bound manuscripts, covered in a light layer of dust. The floor hadn’t been walked on in a very long time. The amount of knowledge held there was awe-inspiring. Due to the Celestial nature of the location, he had no trouble reading the shelf labels: there were books on history, philosophy, engineering and ‘magic’. He opened a magic book and it was detailed descriptions of something identical to the Asian methods of energy manipulation – chi gong and martial arts. He walked up a flight of spiral stairs to the first level: medicine and history. He opened a history book and it contained a detailed description of the Roman expansion two thousand years before. He shook his head as he returned the book to the shelf; he had to find a way to retrieve this treasure from the demons’ control.

Something
shifted in the corner of his eye and he turned. The building was changing – the metal brightened from grey to almost white and the dust disappeared. He watched with wonder as the structure around him flared into life, the crystalline lamps becoming more brilliant and the glass clearer and more perfect.

A rhythmic banging began some distance away and it took him a moment to realise that it was the sound of a helicopter. He sent his senses out: it was the Demon King, returning with a Shen whose nature was completely different from any
Michael had experienced before – the spirit of the city. The city must be responding to its spirit’s return.

The Demon King needed to stay
unaware of his ability to leave the mansion otherwise he would probably be locked up. He rushed out the door of the library, closed it behind him, and flew as quickly as he could back to the mansion with sound of the helicopter’s rotors seeming directly behind him. He flew through the roof and replaced the panel with a quick weld of the amalgam. He hoped that was enough to hold it as he flew down to the bedroom he’d chosen.

His feet touched the landing just as the front door opened and the King entered with the spirit of the city.

‘Prince Michael,’ the King said, moving forward to speak to him. ‘Please come down here.’

Michael took a huge stride over the balcony balustrade and landed in front of the King on the floor below. He studied the spirit of the city; it appeared as an elderly European man in a brown robe similar to a monk’s habit. The hood was thrown back and the man had long grey hair held in a braid that fell down his back and a long beard
fastened in multiple smaller braids. His intelligent green eyes studied Michael curiously.

‘How did you get out of the mansion?’ the King said, his voice sharp with
controlled anger.