The Return of the Discontinued Man (A Burton & Swinburne Adventure) (31 page)

“I can’t take it off!” Gooch grumbled.

“A blasted liberty!” Swinburne complained. “What’s the meaning of it, Miss Brabrooke?”

“T-bands,” came her mumbled response. “T for Turing.”

“Turing!” Farren cried out. “I knew it!”

“Trust us,” Patricia Honesty said. “They’re necessary. Now, Sir Richard, it’s absurdly early in the morning, we’re standing in an open doorway, and there’s a chill wind blowing on my neck. Invite us in or throw us out, one or the other.”

Burton bowed politely and waved the three visitors in. They moved through to the lounge—Gooch and Krishnamurthy followed after securing the door—and settled on the sofas. Farren got to work at the coffeepot. Burton asked Honesty, “So, ma’am, how stands the Cannibal Club?”

“Ma’am? How quaint. I like it.” The old woman gestured toward her daughter. “My child has taken the reins.”

Burton turned his eyes to Marianne, who said, “We are fewer. Twelve of us. Secrecy has become a matter of life or death. The world is vastly changed since sixty-eight.” She held up an arm to reveal that she, too, wore one of the bracelets. “These are to protect you.”

“From what?” Burton asked.

“From the government.”

“What on earth has happened?” Swinburne exclaimed.

“The Turing Fulcrum.”

Patricia Honesty, jerking her chin toward Farren, interjected, “You remember—when we last met—Mick told you about the Automatic Computing Engine? What we suspected then was true; the government was developing it in secret. During the 1980s, the technology finally saw the light of day. Turings went into mass production. Now, everybody has one.”

Krishnamurthy held up his arm and examined his bangle.

“No, Mr. Krishnamurthy,” Honesty said. “I’m not referring to T-bands.”

“Then what?” he asked.

From her bag, Lorena Brabrooke produced a thin eight-inch-long tube of what looked to Burton like brushed steel. She gave it a slight shake, and the chrononauts uttered sounds of amazement as, emitting a chime, it unfolded and, seemingly with a life of its own, snapped into a flat sheet, eight inches wide by ten long, and the thickness of a book cover. One side of it lit up, displaying colours and shapes that, when Brabrooke turned it to face them, they didn’t comprehend at all.

“This is a Turing,” she said. “It—um—I suppose it’s a bit like one of your old babbages except, rather than being a distinct device, it exists in connection with all the other Turings, forming a network. It can give you any public information you require. Look.”

Burton and the others leaned forward and watched as she moved her fingers across the screen and conjured up a mass of movement that, for a few moments, meant nothing to the king’s agent. Then he suddenly realised he was looking through a window and, amid a great deal he didn’t understand, he recognised the British Museum.

Brabrooke slid her fingertips across the screen, a little above it, and, dizzyingly, the scene rushed forward, as if the window was flying up the steps of the building. Doors whipped past. The entrance lobby—and the people in it—went blurring by. The viewpoint shot up the still-magnificent staircase.

Burton felt both absorbed and disoriented as Brabrooke moved the window through corridor after corridor, past exhibit after exhibit, until it slid into place beside a group of visitors who were standing in front of a plinth upon which there knelt a familiar figure.

“Brunel!” the chrononauts chorused.

Brabrooke touched a small circle on the screen, and a voice sounded from the device. “Isambard Kingdom Brunel, born on the ninth of April 1806, was an English mechanical and civil engineer and the founder of the Department of Guided Science. His designs, which revolutionised public transport, also allowed for the rapid expansion of the Anglo-Saxon Empire, and are generally regarded as—”

A flick of Brabrooke’s finger caused the volume to decrease until it was barely audible.

“Magic!” Swinburne whispered. “Utterly impossible!”

The girl gave a small smile. “The devices are used for work, study, communication and entertainment, and—like I said—they can access any public information. That’s the problem.”

“Ah,” Burton said. “Public.”

Farren, who’d paused in his distribution of coffee to watch the display, said, “Information is controlled?”

Marianne Smith gave confirmation. “Yes. Tightly. Extreme restrictions. Also, all activity on Turings is monitored.”

“All?” Burton asked. “But you said everybody has one. How can sense be made out of so much information?”

“By a central machine. The Turing Fulcrum. It reports to the authorities anything it interprets as illegal or suspicious activity.”

Brabrooke said, “If I used my Turing to write T-mail to a friend—”

“T-mail?” Farren interrupted.

“A message. Like a letter but without any physical existence.”

Patricia Honesty interrupted, “And you should know that there’s no longer any other way to send a written communiqué.”

“—and in it,” Brabrooke continued, “I criticised government policies, I’d soon find the authorities knocking at my door.”

“A police state?” Farren asked.

“Very much so.”

“With pigs on stilts?”

“Yes. The constables.”

Burton raised his arm. “And these bracelets?”

“They generate power from the motion of your arm and transmit it to the nearest Turing. They’re also used for communication, to transfer funds when making a purchase, and they monitor your health and location.”

“So why do I find myself with one on my wrist?”

“Because it’s illegal for any citizen of the Empire to
not
wear one. Anyone seen without a bracelet is immediately arrested.”

Patricia Honesty patted Brabrooke’s arm. “Lori is our technical expert, Sir Richard. She’s given each of you a false identity and a credible background. Every member of the Cannibal Club has the same. Our Turings are altered, too. They hide themselves. We—and our activities—are all invisible. That’s a far more complicated achievement than it sounds. If it wasn’t for her, you’d not be able to leave the
Orpheus
.”

“By which statement,” Burton said, “I presume you feel it apposite that we do.”

“Yes.” The old woman entwined her gnarled fingers and rested them on her lap. “The intelligence in each Turing is contained within microscopic squares of crystalline silicon.”

“Got him!” Daniel Gooch cried out. “Silicon crystallises in the same pattern as diamond. If it’s resonating at the same frequency as the gems in the time suits, the Oxford consciousness could easily enter it.”

She nodded. “Precisely. Silicon is at the heart of the technology Alan Turing created, so it’s quite possible that the insane intelligence which vanished from beneath your noses in 1860 has gradually been gaining influence since the 1950s.”

Mick Farren pressed a hand down onto his great bush of hair and shook his head. He glared at Patricia. “How could you have let this happen, Pat? We were meant to overthrow the straights. Now they’ve got shackles on the whole population!”

“Consumerism conquers all,” she answered. “Everything threatening was repackaged as something bright and cheerful and harmless. Whenever there’s a challenge to the system, the system transforms it into a product and uses it as a weapon to keep the people distracted. We create our own oppression. Even the war has been reduced to entertainment.”

“Whose war?” Burton asked. “America’s, still?”

“Yes. Since your last visit, it has expanded into South China. The U.S.A. and United Republics of Eurasia are at it hammer and tongs. Their economies are suffering badly.”

“And the Anglo-Saxon Empire?”

“During the seventies, the A.S.E. continued to offer cautious support to the States while managing to avoid any direct involvement with the conflict. Then Thatcher happened.” The old woman produced a handkerchief and wiped her nose. “Our politicians are entirely lacking in ethics. It’s a problem that has magnified with each subsequent generation, and it achieved its apotheosis in the last of our prime ministers, Margaret Thatcher. She came to power in 1979. Seven years later, she announced the cessation of the Empire’s trade alliance with the States. The declaration came on the same day the first Turings went on sale—the day after, we suspect, the Fulcrum was activated. In fact, we think the withdrawal from the alliance was probably its first recommendation.”

“Why?” Farren asked.

“Because it was such a contradictory turnaround. Rather than taking any notice of the people’s opposition to America’s aggression in South East Asia, the government, especially under Thatcher, had been ruthlessly curtailing the public’s right to express it. By the eighties, the authorities had the power to limit how many people could gather, where, and for how long. Protest marches were made illegal. Why then, the sudden change of policy, the sudden bowing to the will of the populace? The answer wasn’t clear until about twenty years ago, when one of our own people—a Cannibal descended from your friend, James Hunt—discovered that the British government was secretly supplying arms to both sides, to the U.S.A. and to the U.R.E.”

“Despicable!” Swinburne shrilled.

Burton slid his fingers into his hair and felt his scars. “Abdu El Yezdi worked tirelessly to create a history free of world wars. Spring Heeled Jack appears to be working equally hard to undo everything he strove for.”

“It seems so. And while we assist in our neighbours’ destruction of one another, we’ve been steadily increasing our own power, based on an industrial and agricultural foundation of genetically enhanced animals and adapted human workers. Our global dominance is rotten and immoral through and through, but, of course, we are told a different story. According to the government, we’re the bastions of civilisation, while the Americans and East Eurasians are little better than barbarians.”

“That sounds familiar,” Burton murmured. “My contemporaries depicted the Africans in the same light. It made it easier for us to justify the theft of their lands and resources.”

Honesty nodded. “The A.S.E. has consolidated its grip on almost a third of the Earth’s surface and a quarter of its total population. Its citizens are constantly warned of the threat posed by the U.S.A. and U.R.E. while also kept occupied by an endless supply of trivial entertainments and meaningless pleasures. Consumerism and war. Extremes of indulgence and fear. No one can think straight. No one has the will to muster resistance. The government can sneak in any policy it likes, and people don’t even notice.”

Burton sighed and shook his head sadly. “What did you mean by the
last
prime minister? What have you now? A president?”

“I meant the last of the
human
prime ministers,” Honesty replied. “These days, the government is formed by, and follows, the Turing Fulcrum.”

“You’ve given over governance to a machine? How could it have come to this so rapidly?”

“It may feel rapid to you, but it crept up on us like a patient and cunning predator.”

“Bloody hell,” Daniel Gooch muttered. “Spring Heeled Jack is in control.”

Krishnamurthy said, “This Turing Fulcrum—where is it?”

“Nobody knows. It’s the most closely guarded secret in the world. I sometimes think we’d have a better chance at locating the Ark of the Covenant. Nevertheless, we must do our best, which is exactly why we want you to leave the ship and come with us to London.”

“With the intention of destroying the bloody thing, I hope,” Farren growled.

“Ultimately, yes, Mick. But one thing at a time, hey? First, let’s find it.”

“What do you propose?” Burton asked.

Patricia Honesty turned to Lorena Brabrooke, who, responding to the prompt, said, “We believe the Turing Fulcrum was first activated at nine o’clock in the evening on the fifteenth of February 1986.”

Burton started slightly.
That date again! Nine on the fifteenth of February!

“Based on what evidence?” he asked.

Brabrooke held up her Turing, the flat panel of which still bore the image of the Brunel exhibit in the British Museum. “Based on Isambard Kingdom Brunel. There’d been no sign of life from him since 1860, but at that precise instant, he said two words.”

The chrononauts recoiled in surprise.

“What?” Krishnamurthy whispered. “He’s alive?”

Gooch slapped his right fist into his left palm and cried out, “Good old Brunel!”

Brabrooke shrugged. “He didn’t move and he’s never spoken since. Repeated examinations have found nothing—no activity at all in his babbage.” She shrugged again. “Just two words in nearly two centuries.”

“What did he say?” Burton asked.

“
I am
.”

The king’s agent frowned. “I am? I am what?”

“We don’t know, but our theory is that when the Turing Fulcrum was activated it sent out a pulse of energy that resonated with the Nāga diamond fragments in Brunel’s babbage. The words might have been an echo of the machine’s first moment of self-awareness. That’s why we regard Brunel as a possible key to the Fulcrum’s location. If there’s anything of him remaining, if we could possibly wake him up, he might be able to tell us what direction and distance the pulse came from.”

“A long shot, admittedly,” Patricia Honesty murmured. “But worth a try.”

“Miss Brabrooke,” Gooch interjected. “I’m an engineer. The thing you have in your hand—the Turing—is so far beyond my understanding that I can’t even properly focus my eyes on it. What they tell me I’m seeing, my brain is trying very hard to reject. With progress having achieved such miracles, how is it you can’t revive Mr. Brunel yourselves, yet you believe that we nigh on two-hundred-year-old fossils can?”

“Fossils!” Honesty protested. “You’re younger than I am!”

“Shock,” her daughter Marianne interjected.

Gooch looked puzzled. “Pardon?”

Burton muttered, “Yes, I see it.” He addressed the engineer. “Daniel, Isambard has no notion of our mission. We’d lost him before even conceiving of it. If he has any sense of the time that’s passed, the very last thing he’ll be expecting to see is us. The surprise of it might knock the wits back into him.”

“Fair enough,” Gooch replied, after a moment’s thought. “I suppose it might work, though personally I still think it more likely that his personality was completely erased. Beyond that, however, I have another, rather more serious reservation.”