The Life of the World to Come (28 page)

Read The Life of the World to Come Online

Authors: Kage Baker

Tags: #Adult, #Science Fiction, #Adventure, #Fantasy, #C429, #Extratorrents, #Kat, #Travel

BOOK: The Life of the World to Come
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“Yes indeed,” Chatterji said, getting up to pour himself another punch. “There were house-to-house searches all through England.”
“Then he must have been smuggled out of the country, somehow.” Rutherford paused to grab a biscuit and kept pacing. “Placed with one of our paid people in that era, I suppose. Somebody with security clearance. A British national living abroad.”
“Sequence proceeding,” Ellsworth-Howard informed them. “Baby’s born.”
“Who’ve we got in that time period?” Chatterji sat down
again. “Access the records, Foxy. Who’s on the Company payroll, British, married, living abroad?”
Ellsworth-Howard pulled up a long string of names. “Got ’em.”
“All right, narrow search: reproductive age, both parties of similar genetic profile to subject.”
“Yeah.” Ellsworth-Howard worked the buttonball and the list grew abruptly shorter.
“Now.” Rutherford turned on his heel, “Search for any who announce the birth of a son in the period immediately following the disappearance of Elly’s baby.”
“Here they are,” said Ellsworth-Howard at once. He listened again. “Junior executive with Jovian Integrated Systems: Roger Jeremy St. James Alistair Checkerfield, sixth earl of Finsbury. Married to the Honourable Cecelia Devereaux Ashcroft. Pleased to announce birth of son, Alec William St. James Thorne Checkerfield. Date of birth given as one week after Elly’s baby.”
“A peer!” Rutherford threw up his hands. “Perfect. They don’t need reproduction permits. Whereabouts abroad were they living?”
“Hm.” Ellsworth-Howard squeezed in a request and listened. “In the Caribbean. Baby supposed to have been born at sea. Parents’ address given as the
Foxy Lady
out of Southhampton. Living on their yacht, I reckon.”
“Better and better.” Rutherford began to do a little hopping dance, skipping back and forth between the table and the fireplace. “No witnesses other than paid servants. What’s the rest of the story like? To the present day, I mean?”
Ellsworth-Howard asked for more information.
“Marriage goes bang in 2324,” he said. “His lordship stays on the
Foxy Lady.
Kid raised at London home here by servants.”
“It’s all falling into place,” said Rutherford. “There’s the sense of shame we need, you see? Not illegitimacy this time, but rejection by his parents. Perhaps he can be made to feel he was responsible for the divorce.”
“Here’s his schools,” said Ellsworth-Howard. “Here’s his entry in
Who’s Who
and shracking
Burke’s Peerage.
Became
seventh earl of Finsbury after sixth earl had a nasty accident whilst diving. That was in 2337.”
“Good lord! Funny to think he’s alive right now, isn’t it?” Chatterji remarked. “He is still alive, isn’t he?”
“Oh, yeah,” Ellsworth-Howard said. “Only thirty.”
“Can we—can we see a picture of him?” Rutherford advanced toward his chair. “That will prove he’s the right man, you see.”
“Might take a second,” said Ellsworth-Howard. “This is in real time, you know.”
“Make it so,” said Rutherford. He resumed his comic dance, waving his arms in the air. He began to chant. “Spirits of Cause and Effect, I summon thee! I bend thee to my will! Spirits of Action and Reaction, I conjure thee, grant my desires! Schrodinger’s Cat, heed my commands! Oh, Spirit of Time, oh, thou Chronos, oh thou, er, Timex, Bulova, um, Westclox, Swatch, Rolex, Piaget! Uh … In the name of Greenwich, in whose image all Time is made!”
Chatterji began to giggle helplessly, watching him. Ellsworth-Howard wasn’t noticing, frowning at the images that flitted past on the screen. Outside the snow fell ever faster, and in a distant tower ancient machinery began to vibrate. A hammer was cranked back in the dark and freezing air—
“In the name of Big Ben, Lord and Keeper of our days,” said Rutherford. “Thou who hast measured all possible Pasts, Presents and Futures! I charge thee now, bring him to us! Bring him to us! Bring him to us! Let us in our time behold
Adonai
!”
“Oi!” said Ellsworth-Howard. Just as the hour struck and the familiar bells began pealing, the face appeared on the screen: Alec Checkerfield, seventh earl of Finsbury, smiling at the camera that had taken his passport image. He was wearing a shirt with a vividly tropical design. There were a pair of sunglasses folded in the front pocket.
“Oh, it is him!” Rutherford dropped to his knees, staring with Chatterji and Ellsworth-Howard at the image on the screen.
“Height, one meter 97.46 centimeters,” recited Ellsworth-Howard. “Weight, 120 kilograms. Date of birth: 12 January,
2320. Dual citizenship Britain and St. Kitts. Residence: No. 16 John Street, Bloomsbury, London WC1. Communication Code: ACFin@777P17/33. Bloody hell! Want to talk to him right now, Rutherford? You could.”
“No,” squeaked Rutherford, biting his knuckles. “I—we oughtn’t. But order Elly’s baby kidnapped, Foxy. This is our man.”
Ellsworth-Howard gave a certain three orders in a certain sequence, and the invisible patterns of destiny in the room swirled and set. The clock had finished striking.
“Well.” Chatterji collapsed backward into his chair. “I think this calls for a celebration, don’t you? What about some sherry?”
“First rate.” Rutherford scrambled to his feet. He ran to the sideboard and filled three glasses, and brought them back without spilling much. They all settled into their particular chairs around the fire.
“To the seventh earl of Finsbury,” said Chatterji, and they drank.
“Ahh.” Rutherford settled back. “You know, I never imagined we’d be running a sequence in real time. This should be really interesting.”
“Rather frustrating, too, I should imagine,” Chatterji said. “No more instant results. We have no idea how he’ll turn out, but we’ll get to watch it happen. What sort of heroic life is he leading this time around, don’t you wonder?”
“You can find out,” said Ellsworth-Howard.
“By Jove, we can, can’t we? Not what he’s going to do but certainly what he’s done so far, over the last thirty years, with the noble programming we’ve given him.” Rutherford wriggled in his chair. “Pull it up, Foxy. Let’s see what sort of place he’s carved for himself in history.”
Ellsworth-Howard requested the information.
“You know, he probably works for Dr. Zeus,” said Chatterji.
“Perhaps he’s a scientist who’s made some vital discovery,” said Rutherford.
“Well … no, actually,” Ellsworth-Howard said, blinking at the screen.
“Oh, don’t be silly.” Rutherford sat forward. “He has to be
spending his life in service to humanity. It’s what we designed him to do.”
“Seriously, Foxy, what’s he done with his life so far?” Chatterji pulled out his sinus inhalator and had a drag. Ellsworth-Howard squeezed in another request and listened for a moment.
“Messed about on his shracking boat, so far as I can tell,” said Ellsworth-Howard dubiously. “The
Captain Morgan
out of New Port Royal. Doesn’t live at the Bloomsbury house. Spends all his time at sea, sailing about between islands. Not employed by the Company. Lives on investments and a trust fund left him by his father—well, the late earl. Absentee House of Lords. Regular layabout, it appears.”
Rutherford looked horrified. “There’s got to be more to the man than that! Look further. What about his accomplishments? What about charities and humanitarian work? What are his politics?”
“No politics.” Ellsworth-Howard shook his head. “No hospital visits, no village fêtes. He took care of the old cook and butler real well—nice place at Bournemouth and fat pensions until they passed away. Married twice. Divorced, no kids. Obviously.”
“Married?” groaned Rutherford.
“Hey!” Ellsworth-Howard’s eyes lit up. “Here’s something he did that made the news. Age seven, Pembroke Technologies sued him.”
“Sued? As in, filed a lawsuit?” Chatterji’s jaw dropped. “Against a seven-year-old child?”
“Yeah.” Ellsworth-Howard grinned. “I remember hearing about this on the news. Clever little bugger! It seems he made some unauthorized modifications on a Pembroke Playfriend his people had got him. Pembroke Corp. wanted to force his people to sell the unit back to them, so they could figure out what our boy’d done to it.”
“There,” Rutherford said. “There, he’s a genius at least.”
“What happened?” said Chatterji.
“Oh, they lost the case,” Ellsworth-Howard said. “Him being peerage and all, and only seven, too. They went into receivership two years later. Stupid bastards.”
“Did he continue to display genius at school?” Rutherford said.
“Well, he got high marks in maths,” said Ellsworth-Howard, after listening again. “Top of his class there. Shrack—wonder how he got past medical scans all his life?” He looked panicked for a moment. “That brain I designed—oh, shrack, and his bleeding DNA!—”
“His Company handlers hushed it up, of course,” said Chatterji, with a wave of his inhaler. “Just as they faked the genetic assay.”
Ellsworth-Howard relaxed, and listened again. “No university. Seems he’s designed the cybernavigation system for his boat, though. That’s what he spends his money on when he’s not partying. And—aw, shrack!”
“What?” Rutherford and Chatterji stared at Ellsworth-Howard, whose face had contorted in fury.
“He’s shracked with my design,” Ellsworth-Howard snarled. “He’s had himself modified for interface. He’s a cyborg! Not one of them old plughole jobs but the new ones, look like a tattoo under the skin. Where’s he think he gets off, the sodding bastard?”
“Well, it’s his body,” Rutherford said.
“No it ain’t.” Ellsworth-Howard clenched the buttonball fiercely. “
I
designed it. If he’s gone and compromised my brain—”
“Ah.” Rutherford frowned in comprehension. “Well, perhaps that’s our problem. Nothing you could have foreseen when you designed him, Foxy. I think we were all envisioning he’d operate in pre-electronic eras. Perhaps he’s become one of those Lotus-Eaters one hears about, lolling around in cyberspace. That would explain this self-indulgent and useless existence.”
“Though he seems to be physically quite active,” said Chatterji, watching worriedly as Ellsworth-Howard worked the buttonball, attempting to break into Checkerfield’s cyberenvironment. There was a fixed glare in his eyes that Chatterji had seen only twice before, on two very unpleasant occasions. Ellsworth-Howard began to growl in his throat as he was repeatedly frustrated in his efforts.
“Most of the port junkies don’t get out much—” Chatterji was continuing, when Ellsworth-Howard gave an animal scream and threw his buke across the room. He was in the act of picking up his chair too when Chatterji seized him from behind, pinioning his arms. “Rutherford! The meds, for God’s sake!”
Rutherford ran for the sideboard and brought out a forced air applicator. Ellsworth-Howard was twisting in Chatterji’s arms, doing his best to bite him, when Rutherford darted in and jabbed with the applicator. There was an audible hiss. Ellsworth-Howard began to snicker. Laughing feebly he sagged to the floor, falling through Chatterji’s arms. His eyes rolled back in his head. He stopped laughing.
“Oh, poor old chap.” Rutherford ran and got a cushion from the sofa. “Let’s make him comfortable until he comes to, Chatty.” He tucked the cushion under Ellsworth-Howard’s head while Chatterji busied himself with opening Ellsworth-Howard’s collar and cuffs and checking his pulse.
“He’ll be all right,” said Chatterji shakily.
“He’s an artist, that’s all,” said Rutherford, climbing back into his chair and curling up. “It—it can be very upsetting to have your art interfered with.”
“Yes, certainly.” Chatterji got to his feet and looked around. He spotted Ellsworth-Howard’s buke, lying where it had fallen after bouncing off the wall.
“Oh, I hope it’s not broken,” he said, bending to pick it up. It didn’t seem to be. It was in fact still trying to obey Ellsworth-Howard’s last command, flashing its WAIT pattern in vain. Suddenly the screen cleared and Chatterji found himself staring at the seventh earl of Finsbury again. He was smiling out from the screen, not a very nice smile really. The pale blue eyes were so cold.
“Hi there,” said the pleasant tenor voice. “If you’re seeing this image, it means you’ve been trying to shrack with me. Do you know what
this
means?” The face transformed into a horribly grinning skull over a pair of crossed bones. From the eyes of the skull, a pair of cannons emerged. There was a flare of fire and the recorded sound of explosions, and the screen went black.
For a moment the room was so silent one could hear the faint chime of the electronic lights sparkling on the Christmas tree.
“Oh, dear,” said Chatterji at last. “Now he’ll really be upset.”
“The buke’s been destroyed, hasn’t it?” Rutherford. said faintly.
“I’m afraid it has,” Chatterji said. “Of course, he’ll have kept backups on everything. Won’t he?”
“Of course,” Rutherford said. “Except for the work we’ve done tonight. I’d like another sherry, please.”

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