The Tea Machine (26 page)

“Industry. Fierce and uncontrollable industry,” Hubert answered. “This is the new beast. Factories instead of arenas, production engines instead of steam lions, and as always, the poor and the unfortunate are fodder for the machines.”

“What is this place?” Horror coloured her words. “It can’t be home.”

“This is the London I returned to after my travels with Weena,” Hubert said. “I have been here for several months trying to locate you using your temporal footprint. The time machine thankfully held a horological residue. I finally succeeded in pinpointing you and hauling you all back. I have managed to find Sophia, too. And as you suspected, she is more pre-historic than yourselves. Considerably so.”

“London? But it’s horrid.” Millicent was too astounded at the sight before her to grasp all that Hubert implied. “This has to contravene every by-law of the Public Health act. I shall write to the Board of Health immediately.”

“There is no Public Health act, Millicent. In this London, there are no philanthropists to push for sanitation or the provision of clean water,” Hubert said. “All of that occurred in another London, our London. A place that no longer exists.”

“This looks more like something from a period in my world’s history.” Sangfroid peered over their shoulders with little enthusiasm. “Massilia, Palma, Antioch. Boring old ancient cities poisoned into extinction by industry.” She looked out at the mess. “And now here’s Londinium, another cesspit.” She squinted at the hunched figures out on the pavement. The once refined, beech-lined Christie Mews was now a shuffling crush of pedestrian traffic. Everyday workfolk trudged along the smog-filled streets in head hanging misery. Their feet swilling through a mire of mud and refuse that clogged the gutters and flooded out over the pavements. Steam trams rumbled past, loaded with crates of raw materials heading for the maze of mills and factories. The air was rank, claustrophobic, and thick with despair.

“Look at the smog. It’s green! How the hell do folk walk around in that,” Sangfroid said. “My lungs would fall out my backside.”

“Life expectancy is not an issue here. Those are not folk,” Hubert said. “At least not as we know them.” Sure enough, a dull gleam from under a headscarf or cap gave away the true nature of the workers.

“They’re all automatons.” Millicent gasped. “Like Edna.”

“Not quite,” Hubert said. “These are steam people. Part flesh, part machinery. The poor, the criminal, the dispossessed, all crudely engineered into mechanical slavery. An entire populous of them. Ground down through ill repair and overwork.”

“Surely this can’t be London’s future?” Millicent said in horror.

“This isn’t the future. This is 1862,” Hubert answered quietly. “This is the same year that Weena swallowed me, and you followed Sophia to an ancient alternative Rome, and this is what we have returned to. Something has gone disastrously wrong.”

“Are you sure this is your own timeline?” Sangfroid asked. “It looks more like the industrial cities from
my
past. Brutal places. Technological expansion was at its peak then, and the automatons bore the brunt of it.”

“Yes. I suspect this is another element of your timeline’s history, a London, or Londinium if you like, with an equivalent date to that of our own and obviously with its own set of social issues.” He looked at Millicent for confirmation, as if the habits of the other Hubert were ingrained in this version of him, too.

“Yeah, but these are hybrids.” Gallo pointed to the rag-tags trudging along outside. “Where we come from, they are banned.”

“Why is that?” Hubert asked.

“Steamheads were outlawed eons ago. Bio-engineering humans is essentially unethical,” Gallo said. “Plus they tend to kill you.” This was added with a shrug. “There was a great steam slave uprising once, led by a semi-automate called Sparkitous. Lesson learned, don’t build a super race, then try to enslave it.”

“Bio-engineering?” Hubert sounded intrigued. “How would one go about that?”

“Please focus, Hubert,” Millicent scolded. “This is no time for tangential thinking.”

“Looks like history is repeating itself here,” Sangfroid said. “In Londinium 1862.”

“Yeah,” Gallo agreed. “If this city depends on steamheads, then it’s written its own death sentence. Steam slaves always end up venting, and, boom!” She threw her arms in the air with great gusto. “The mother of Vesuvius!”

“So you agree, this is a part of your timeline’s past?” Hubert asked.

“Not this technology.” Sangfroid glared moodily out the window. “I agree with Hubert, something’s gone wrong, and I think I know why we’ve landed here.”

“And why would that be?” A familiar voice asked from the doorway. They turned in unison as Millicent entered the room. At least it looked like Millicent, except that, like her brother, this was a coolly confident, better dressed, and much more sophisticated version.

“Ah, there you are.” Hubert moved towards the newcomer. “Millicent, please meet Millicent. This is you,” he told his sister, “only a little sideways.”

CHAPTER 26

“This is impossible. You are
counterfeit. You cannot be me,” Millicent blustered. Her cheeks blazed at the stupidity of her statement. This woman was the spitting image of her. Of course it could be her. Had she not witnessed her own duplication in time during their escape from the Amoebas? Then, there had been two of her racing through the same timeline. She had accepted that possibility, but standing face-to-face with another version of herself was something else altogether. Nevermind it was a swished up, highly polished version of herself.

She was at once acutely aware of her grubby face and blood-speckled tunic compared to this other, pristine, and annoyingly self-satisfied Millicent. The warm smile that greeted her was as cloyingly superior as it was infuriating. The newcomer had a relaxed, almost feline charm that Millicent could not in any way equate with herself. It was beyond all imagination and so had to be false.

“Now that’s just creepy,” Gallo muttered. “Two frocks. Soon we’ll be a friggin’ boutique.”

“Granted, it must be difficult for you to contemplate,” the new Millicent said and waved a languid hand at her elegant ensemble. “But please rest assured that, as doubtful as it may seem, I actually
am
you. Imagine me as an advanced version.” She sauntered over to join her brother. Millicent frowned at the sway of her hips. It seemed not only uncalled for, but totally unnecessary for ladylike propulsion. Her frown deepened as she noticed Sangfroid’s gaze fixed upon it, too.

“Hubert, I demand an explanation.” Millicent had to stop herself from stamping her foot. First, he dismantled her favourite parasol, then he tinkered with the servants, and now this. It was too much. The cynical, cool assurance of this new Millicent utterly dismayed her. She was like the new Hubert; the same, yet different, and somehow...better?

“Have you been making automatons of me?” she demanded.

“No, dearest. This really is you, only from a different time dimension.” Hubert tried to soothe her. “I can see where the confusion lies.”

“It’s weird.” Sangfroid was squinting back and forth between the two. “But I can sort of tell the difference.”

Millicent’s face flamed. The difference was obvious. This new Millicent was a trollop. Over curved and over confident, and dressed in a sophisticated way that somehow displayed it all to full advantage. Her hair was gloriously styled and shone like spun copper. Millicent self-consciously patted her own bedraggled locks and dislodged a smattering of sand onto the carpet. She was acutely aware of the grimy Roman tunic that barely covered her scraped knees. She was as tattered as one of Mr. Dickens’s urchins and not nearly as effervescent.

“What do you think?” Sangfroid asked Gallo, who took a huge gulp of whiskey and glared from one Millicent to the other.

“I can tell you this ain’t medicinal anymore.” She indicated her glass. “Seeing two of them makes me queasy. Prof, does this mean there’ll be other versions of us popping up all over the place? Because that would be as much fun as an asteroid up the Vestals.”

“It shouldn’t happen, but obviously does, and usually with careful planning,” Hubert said. “On this occasion, Millicent,” he indicated the newcomer, “has made a concerted effort to meet you. She has been so kind as to help me out with my algorithms. It is because of her intervention I eventually found you.”

“Must you call her Millicent? I mean it’s all so confusing,” Millicent said, aware of the whine in her voice but unable to stop it. “I cannot believe she is not some sort of enhanced automaton.” She shot the new Millicent a sharp look that easily slid off the over-curved surfaces.

“I assure you I
am
you,” the other Millicent answered, a little too smoothly. “But should you wish to test me, I can reveal some of our darkest secrets as proof, like the time you unpicked the seams in your underdraw—”

“I do not need to test you!” Millicent interrupted hurriedly. “I accept you are nothing more than a timeline anomaly.” This was offered rather grumpily. “Furthermore, I suggest you be referred to as Millicent number two until all this is over. It will make life, if not easier, at least a little more accountable.”

“I think you’ll find, in this timeline, I am nearer to the original.” The other Millicent looked equally mulish. The Millicents squared up to each other, and the temperature in the laboratory seemed to rise by a few degrees.

“Hubert,” they said simultaneously and turned on him with alarming synchronicity. He stepped back, startled.

“Um…Um,” he said, stuttering into his diplomacy mode. “Er. I…I think the earlier Millicent may have a harder time adjusting. Would it really hurt to differentiate in such a way?” He pleaded with his swishier sister.

“Very well,” the new Millicent said graciously after a short contemplation. “I concede to being Millicent the second for as long as this visit lasts.” She gave an ingratiating smile at her counterpart that somehow managed to remove any sense of victory the other may have assumed.

“You were about to share your adventures with Weena, Hubert.” Millicent2 seamlessly moved on to other business. “I’m sure our guests will be very interested in your findings.”

Hubert’s face grew grim, and he moved back to the hearth and took a seat. The others followed likewise.

“Millicent.” He took care to look directly at the original, grubby version of his sister. “Have you ever thought that if we were to fix Sophia’s
mess
, Sangfroid and Gallo may no longer exist?” he said. “In fact, might never have existed.”

Millicent was surprised. “Of course they would exist. They would exist in their own timeline. Granted, it may not be as technologically sophisticated as before. If Sophia had not interfered, then surely that other timeline would have more or less evolved at the same rate as our own, wouldn’t it?”

“You’re assuming these timelines run parallel,” Hubert said.

“Yes, I suppose I am. But why do you say Sangfroid and Gallo might not exist?” The thought was disconcerting.

“Yeah, why?” Sangfroid asked. Neither she nor Gallo looked happy at the idea. “Constantly killing me is one thing, but not ever existing is a whole new dice game.”

“We’re assuming that Sophia somehow projected the ancient Romans onto an advanced technological path that made them capable of deep space exploration by, in our calendar, as early as 1957. Far sooner than we could reasonably expect mankind to travel into space.”

“Just because
you
can’t do it doesn’t mean the rest of us can’t,” Sangfroid said.

“Please, let me explain,” Hubert said. “This is not a competition between our cultures. The problem is this, if Sophia went back to a predetermined point in time, and if she then accidentally introduced a new technology to your ancestors, there is a probability that she split off from one timeline and took you all off in an unnatural direction. Like grafting a new branch onto another plant.” He looked to see that they all understood.

“Okay,” Sangfroid conceded. “So maybe we’re from the same plant, and maybe we grew off in different directions, but our branch is nearer the top, so we should take it as the norm.”

“Why do you say that?” Millicent demanded.

“Because we’re the more advanced civilization.”

“You are not. We barely survived your bloodthirsty world. Anything capable of killing, they put a steam engine in it and let it loose,” she told Hubert.

“Please listen.” Hubert ignored their bickering. “If Sophia
did
interfere, we cannot deny that the changes she wrought produced an even more powerful and successful Roman Empire. If we change anything, we cannot ensure how the future would unfold for that other timeline, and whether the conditions that brought Gallo and Sangfroid into existence would prevail. Why, their timeline might never have come into being at all.”

Millicent sat very still. She did not like Hubert’s prognosis. Her mind immediately flew to Sangfroid. She did not like the idea that this woman she had gone through so much to save might eventually not exist anywhere in the universe at all. How fruitless the struggle would have been. How empty she would feel. Her thoughts drifted of their own accord to the kiss they’d shared in the arena. The dry tang of Sangfroid’s mouth on her own and the divinely inappropriate flutterings and murmurings of her body in response—She broke away from the thought, fighting against the blush she knew flooded her face, and corralled her mind back into order.

“Then why can’t we let that timeline be? Let it stand as Sophia left it and simply return Sangfroid and Gallo to where they belong?” Any world where Sangfroid was safe was a welcome compromise, despite the madness outside the window. Let that cruelty remain a part of Sangfroid’s history, as long as she was
in
its future. That was all that mattered to Millicent. “Can we leave them back far enough so they’d be safe? Back on their troop ship, before the Amoebas was attacked, and the whole rigmarole with our timeline began?”

“Ah, the Quintus Prime.” Gallo sighed, dreamy-eyed at the mention of the troop ship. “She may be a rusty old turd tub, but she’s home. To the Quintus!”

“The Quintus!” Sangfroid joined her in a toast.

“I knew you’d come to that conclusion,” Hubert said, continuing his conversation with Millicent as if the other two hadn’t spoken. “Previously, I would have agreed. Until Weena took me back to the Amoebas, and I saw the outcome of the battle for myself.”

“Did we win?” Sangfroid asked eagerly.

“’Course we did.” Gallo gave a confident smile. “We always win. It’s getting boring.”

“As we now know, two organisms can exist simultaneously in the same timeline as long as they constitute separate entities coming from separate temporal states,” Hubert continued.

“Huh?” Sangfroid said.

“He means an entity can exist in duplication within a singular modal of existence,” Millicent explained.

“Huh?”

“You can be two people in one place at the same time.” Millicent2 put it more succinctly.

“Ah.” Sangfroid went back to her whiskey.

“This meant that Weena and I could hide in the nearby gas fields and wait until the battle for the Amoebas reached its conclusion. Despite the fact that Weena, in infant form, was already onboard and trapped in the Beta labs.”

“Just as I saw myself in duplicate in the same laboratory,” Millicent said. “We already know this can happen.”

“That is not my point,” Hubert said, quietly. “It’s not a nice thing to return to a place where you know something awful happened.”

They sat silently as the embers settled in the hearth and waited for Hubert to begin his story—

He was with Weena, and she was sliding gracefully through space. Her body rippled softly. Her long, tendrilous arms delicately wove the interstellar propulsion that drew them steadily closer to a distant metallic dot. The dull, pewter sheen only caught his eye after they had travelled towards it for some time. He knew it had to be the Amoebas.

To their right, a huge shoal of space squid undulated away from the ship towards a vaporous mass on the southern edges of the nebula. Weena adjusted her route to outflank them, then homed in by a circuitous path on the abandoned ship. Through the thin skin membrane of her pouch, Hubert could now clearly see the research ship. It spun listlessly in space like a broken Christmas ornament, dangling at an obscene angle, all sense of convention and order stripped away. As they approached, the magnitude of the destruction became apparent. The hull was blackened and scorched. Large sections of metal casing had melted or were completely blasted away. From out of these gaping holes, the ship’s contents haemorrhaged into the vacuum around it. Fragments of everyday life hung around the breach, spinning aimlessly within the stir of escaping oxygen. A micro-turbine, a chair, a bottle, and unsettlingly, a shoe, drifted past them before disappearing into the void.

The ship was a wreck. There could be no survivors left onboard. He could only hope the majority of the crew had managed to evacuate safely. Weena manoeuvred carefully through a jagged tear on the port side, slithering past the debris cluttering the opening. She was not fully adult yet and could still fold herself into the smaller fissures. The ship was slung sideways making navigating the corridors disorientating for Hubert, but Weena flowed through them easily, bringing them directly to Beta hangar where the main battle had taken place.

Hundreds of bodies floated freely in the cathedral heights, angelic in their loose, splay-limbed flight. Below, others lay glued to the floor, hunched and twisted like melted gargoyles. Hubert was desolated by the many souls so casually surrendered to this echoing, airless chamber. He hated the futility of this kind of bloodshed and could not understand why Weena wished him to see this horrifying aftermath. Mankind had always waged wars, and the outcome was always monstrous and wasteful. And then a particular body caught his eye. It was a woman, large formed with corn-coloured hair. The emergency lights played across the brass of her uniform. She drifted quietly past on her back, a huge gash across her chest exposing the snapped ribs and a tatter of lungs. Sangfroid’s lifeless eyes stared blankly up at the hangar ceiling. Hubert’s throat tightened with a strangled sob as Sangfroid’s body grazed against another poor soul, and slowly spun away.

“Why are we here?” He gasped. “What is all this for?” His eyes were wet, and he was not ashamed. In answer, Weena rippled against him in empathetic gentleness and softly swam away to the far side of the hanger. There, in the farthest corner and far from any exit, he saw Gallo. She was unmistakable to him. Tightly hunkered against the wall, her head turned aside and eyes closed as if sleeping. From the chest down she was covered with a thick black liquid. Squid ink. It had glued her into the corner, and he could only imagine the fumes had asphyxiated her. His heart weighed heavy. Neither of his friends had escaped the carnage. The futility of it cast him further into despair.

Weena took him away from the hangar and down a darkened corridor to the Beta labs. She went directly to the small lab annex where they had first met and showed him, stretched out and seared to the table, the charred skeletal remains of her infant self. She had not survived either—