Gears of Destiny

The Unmade-1

“They must be unmade, Robert.”

“I cannot.”

“Her Majesty wishes them expunged.”

“I shall not.”

“If you do not, Master Swift, then it will be your position within Her Majesty’s government that is unmade.” The elder man creaked leather-gloved hands together, wringing every last syllable from his over-emphasised words.

“How long do I have to consider your request?” Robert swept long, dark hair from his gaunt face, the hours spent in his workshop given clear definition by the single, flickering candle.

“How long? How long! Did I not make myself clear? The order has not come from some vagabond, some chance met acquaintance, some nobody, it has come from Queen Victoria herself. There are no ifs, maybes, or buts when discussing Her Majesty’s orders. One simply does as one’s told and does not question it. People that do oft’ regret it.”

“Is that a threat, Carrington?” Robert bristled in his seat, the glass of wine held in his right hand quaking at his intonation. A trace of the old fire sparked in the inventor’s tired eyes but soon dimmed to embers.

“That is Lord Carrington to you, Swift.”

“Or else?”

“One can be made to act as required. Facts and threats are rarely grouped together.”

“Then if I am not being threatened and am still allowed the freedom of choice, I refuse. I could no sooner unmake my left leg than I could my children.”

“Children!” Lord Carrington jumped to his feet as a man half his years should. “They are not your children; they are your handiwork. They are automata, constructs, or any number of other things, but when one sieves through the salient details of this disagreement, one will find one unequivocal and singular truth.”

“And that is?”

“That every one of those metal mishaps is the property of Her Majesty Queen Victoria, your sovereign and empress of half the world. She would rule the other half, too, if she wished it, but that is by the by. So, I ask again, will you unmake those you have created to facilitate the prolonging and general longevity of your monarch’s reign? Will you uncreate those designed to bring immortality to Her Majesty? Will you remove the criteria for others to do the same?” Lord Carrington ended the sermon with a sharp thrust of fist to desktop sending his own crystal-cut glass shattering to the floor.

“But why?”

“As I have stated, ours is not to question why.”

Robert took a deep, long breath and rubbed at his temples. “It is only through my children, their nature, their existence, that Her Majesty still functions. It is my children’s technologies that have inspired her adjustments. They have gifted her life, saved her life, it makes no sense to deprive herself of future corrections. She might die because of it!” Robert tore at his hair with frustration at the whole affair before regaining his composure. “Lord Carrington, I ask you again as a man I once held great respect for, why? Britannia would be without its Queen if not for my children.”

“Your point being?”

“My point being, without them she’d have died years ago. The explosive aftermath of Sir Belvedere’s vanishing would have killed her. Should have killed her. She bore its brunt yet lived. A miracle prolonged by my children.”

“How do you know about that? Carrington barked.

“My dear man, every citizen of a certain standing knows about that and certainly those who have dealt with its repercussions.”

“I see,” glared Carrington.

“What has Headlock to say about this, or Cuthbert, or even Monk, though I cannot abide the man?”

“It matters not what they say, think or do, because they are not she.”

“Then we have nothing further to discuss. I shall not be party to exterminating our Queen even if she sees it otherwise, and as I have stated, I shall not murder my family.”

“So, I am to gather from that little monologue that you are unwilling to concede them.” Lord Carrington spat the final word.

them“I will not, and they have left already. I could no sooner divulge their location than I could the contents of your sick mind.” Robert folded thin arms across his charcoal-suited chest and crossed one leg over the other in defiance.

Lord Carrington eyed him with a venom that the Britannian elite reserved solely for the underclasses; a societal standing Robert belonged to and was only too aware of. He sought to see inside the younger man’s soul with those jet-black eyes, to unpick the contents of his inner being. When he seemed certain of Robert’s underlying character, sniffing it away with a snoot, he bellowed, “Guards!”

Two men of imposing physiques dressed from head to toe in Her Majesty’s colours, a sure sign of her involvement, burst through the study door.

“Take Master Swift into confinement. Somewhere remote should serve best. He shall be dealt with at the Crown’s convenience.”

The two men nodded in symmetry.

“Oh, and gentleman.”

“Your Lordship,” one replied through a voice like crushed bricks.

“Make it an unpleasant arrival.”

“With pleasure, Your Lordship,” the same answered, as the other advanced on his prey.

* * *

Robert Swift was a scientist, an inventor, not a man of war. He did not fight back because he could not fight back any more than a mouse may beat away a cat’s fatal attentions. Those men of cruellest dispositions hurt and humiliated him as they dragged him through the halls of power. What was worse, Lord Carrington watched it all, a smile cleaving his ancient face, a manic glint in his eye. He observed every mistreatment, taking an obscene pleasure in the whole affair. Even the crunching of bones did not disturb his pursuit of those apes he controlled.

“Rot in hell,” Carrington hissed, as they cast Robert into the darkness of the highest most inaccessible cell of the imposing Tower of London.

In the time it took to crumple to the floor, Robert was no longer the man he once was. A dreamer does not dream of evil, it is forced upon him and he had it shoved down his throat. The realisation that nightmares had a home amongst Britannia’s verdant shores horrified and surprised in equal measure. He would have much time to dwell on such things in those most squalid of conditions with just the rats to keep him company.

* * *

Night had fallen before Robert had even known he slept. The single, barred opening, too small to ascertain thoughts of escape, allowed just enough moonlight into the cell to emphasise his plight. The distant sound of the Thames’ chugging waters and the voices of the river people singing their melancholy songs trickled in through that eye on the sky. Robert allowed the sombre tones to caress his broken body, hoping for relief, but all they achieved was to remind him of his loneliness. He lay where he had fallen, unable to move and in agony if he tried. If not for a trembling hand that sought to block out the light, the only one he could lift, one might have mistaken him for a corpse. Perhaps, he was?

* * *

He heard the hissing, tasted the grease in the air and knew who came a calling; one always recognises one’s own handiwork. The thudding of brass pistons and copper-plated feet confirmed his acuity. She, though one might have been mistaken for thinking the sound an it, uttered a single guttural command to the guards Robert had not even realised were stationed outside.

“Open.”

The heavy door groaned inwards its ancient hinges, reluctant to comply, but not even metal dared disobey Victoria.

“Do you not bow before your monarch?” The sound of long since replaced vocal cords rattled around the cell.

“I cannot, Your Majesty,” Robert whimpered.

“Then, we shall make you.”

Robert found himself grabbed beneath each armpit and hauled with unceremonious agony from the floor. There the two guards held him, head slumped, mind woozy, a sheet on the line. He saw the polished metal of she who must be obeyed but could no more lift his head than if his life depended upon it, which it almost certainly did.

“I wish those wretched pieces of my past expunged. I wish my magnificence declared unique.”

Robert hung silent and still.

“I will be a queen without suggestion of frailty.”

Robert did not answer.

“I shall not be reminded in every cog and gear, every reshaped barrel, every welded seam, of the weak woman I once was and of my past indignities.”

“I am sorry, Your Majesty, but I cannot.”

“Do so immediately!” the Queen roared, her ruined voice stripping the walls of stone.

Robert lapsed once more into silence.

“Did you not hear me, Swift? Must I have you punished further?” That grotesque abomination of a voice, once so sweet, commanded respect. She did not get it.

“Ma’am, I say this with the greatest respect for the woman I held above all others, a woman who I was proud to call Queen, I shall not be party to committing you to death, even if you yourself do not believe it. I would rather kill myself than my children.”

A hissing of such magnitude ushered forth that the room filled instantly with burning steam. Even the guards coughed whilst leaning away, Robert, too weak to. In the confusion, it was a different voice, a softer voice that leant in through those temporary fogs. The smell of grease oil assailed Robert’s olfactory senses, and a cloying stench drew close. “I want you to kill me, Robert,” the regal voice whispered. “I’m begging you.”

Victoria’s final words drifted away as though those of a ghost. When the grey mist vented out of the barred window, she was gone, and Robert released in a crunching heap.

“I’m sorry, Victoria, truly I am, but I can no more kill my children than you could yours,” he wept to nobody in particular.

The stars came early to his slumber.

* * *

The next day, or so Robert presumed, the two opposing forces of light and dark blending into a seamless twilight, he awoke to the sound of cold steel being unbolted. His cell door opened inwards to a creaking protest and the voice of another tormentor entered to replace the last.

“Ah, Master Swift, I see you have been a rather bad boy.”

“What gave me away, Somerset?” Robert wheezed.

“Oh, nothing much. If I had to put my finger on it, I should say your stench.”

“What’s the matter, old friend, still bitter it was I chosen to rebuild Her Majesty and not you?”

The kick to his face from a booted foot was sudden and jarring, but Robert refused to succumb before the worst of Britannia’s citizens.

“You think yourself superior even now. How ridiculous you sound. You are a worm to be crushed beneath my boots.”

“That may be so, but it is still this worm that knows the Queen’s secrets and not you. I presume that is why you are here, to coax them from me.”

Somerset spat upon the floor and paced the perimeter of the room. He sniffed and tut-tutted, ran his fingers along the brickwork and then did so again. Six paces later, he had completed his circuitous route to stand back over his ravaged ex-colleague. The fop tugged at his pointed, black beard, straightened his sleeves, and eyed the man recumbent on the stone floor. “You know I shall learn your secrets. It will not take long for a mind such as mine.”