And there it was: a mountain in the heart of London, a snow-capped needle of glass and steel piercing the night sky. The Cathedral of the Steel God watched the world the way an earthly lord might survey his domain. Soaring amongst the clouds, it claimed a place in heaven. The icons of the Steel God were crusted in ice and snow, white on grey metal. The everlasting torch flicked from the top of the glass pyramid, a beacon for the lost.
But the sight brought no cheer to Josiah as he trudged along the twenty-eighth skyway. He did not feel that stirring of heart that true believers felt on approaching the cathedral, nor did he feel the thrill he had once felt on nearing his place of work, looking forward to seeing Elijah. It was bitterly cold up here. He could have taken a lower skyway but this was the most direct route - Josiah begrudged any waste of time.
Visions of Amber filled his mind. Tortured, caged, beaten. What were they doing to her? Anxiety gnawed at his gut and ate away at his stomach. If only the skycars had been running. This damn snow. The skyways were covered in a layer of black ice, slippery and treacherous. If he had had a car, Josiah might have taken the risk, but like everything else in his life, the Circle had taken it from him. He had known nothing else, and they had thrown him to the dogs. And now they had Amber. What more did they want from him? The machine - his last act of heresy, the last corner of himself. All he had left was his life, and what was that worth?
When he had last rode the skyways he had been with Amber, driving till dawn. Now it was 3am Central Europe Time, and dawn was out of reach. Shivering violently, Josiah gritted his teeth, pulled his cloak around him, and marched on. Not far to go now, it was almost over.
Josiah had not thought he would look upon this place again - he had thought that he had escaped the past but he was finding that he could not. He had spent fifteen years of his life in this place, his first memories were of steel fists and full moons. The Circle had been his family, Elijah his father and teacher.
The Cathedral loomed ever larger as he approached, filling his vision, making him feel small and insignificant - as it was intended. For the last five years he had made this journey every day, and it seemed that each day his excitement had dwindled. Now there was simply a hole inside him.
What would he find? And more importantly, who? If he got his hands on Lovecraft... She would be alright, they would both be alright.
Josiah reached the back door, its dirty paint flaking away, and knocked twice. A shutter slid back and was filled by a black visor.
“You’ve been expected. You are alone?”
“I am,” he replied with a shiver.
The door opened. Two Security guards stood within the badly lit hallway, pointing their long guns in his direction.
“Hands where I can see them,” ordered one.
Josiah raised his hands above his head as one of the guards moved forward and searched him. The other stood motionless.
“He’s clear.”
“Good,” answered the other, “cuff him and we’ll take him upstairs.”
The handcuffs closed about his wrists, binding Josiah’s hands behind his back. The metal bit into his skin but he was too cold to feel anything. None too gently, he was shoved inside and escorted to some sort of service elevator. There was barely room for three people, especially with the heavy armour of the security guards but the walls were lined with mirrors on all sides, giving the illusion of infinite space. The doors closed slowly but inevitably, and then, with a lurch, the elevator began to rise.
The speed they travelled at, and the length of time it took, confirmed at least one of Josiah’s theories - he was being taken all the way to the top, to the inner sanctum, there to meet with… Lovecraft? Elisha? Who would want to meet him in the shrine?
They shuddered to a halt. The doors opened and he was inside the glass pyramid.
The sloped glass walls began several metres above his head. Up to that point were wood-panelled walls, grey and austere. Josiah knew that the pyramid itself was larger than it seemed, that the panelled walls concealed corridors, antechambers and elevators, but when the doors were sealed, it was impossible to see where the wall ended and the door began. It was through one of these hidden doorways that Josiah had entered.
The sloped glass walls that reached far above his head were, he knew, intricate stained-glass windows, portraying, in sequence, the rise of technology, the golden age and the fall, ending with a single panel showing the coming of the Techno-Messiah and the return of the halcyon days. He remembered his first sight of them as a child, how he had puzzled over how such things could fall. But now the images were invisible - beyond the walls, all was black.
The chamber was lit by a series of concealed lights, that reflected off the walls and illuminated the room. The floor was seemingly of stone slabs, with large blocks of marble marking the tomb of the first Arch-Lector, but Josiah suspected it was merely a veneer, hiding a layer of concrete.
Unadorned steel pews lined the church - cold and uncompromising, like the Steel God himself. When worshippers knelt to pray, they knelt on hard stone. On the back wall was a huge banner, emblazoned with the fist and moon, woven in black on silver on red, and a forbidding wooden altar, draped in gunmetal cloth. But it was to this altar that Josiah’s eyes were drawn, for on it, bound hand and foot, was Amber. She looked at him - terror in her eyes.
Above her stood a short, stocky figure, with a wrinkled face and grey, bushy eyebrows. He was dressed in a long silver robe, that glistened like a waterfall, a tall collar framed his face in light. Behind him, beside the banner, were three more guards, but right now he hardly noticed their presence - it was Elijah.
“Elijah? What’s going on?”
“My son,” Elijah said, his voice sounding older than Josiah remembered, and sadder. “Step forward, my son.”
Josiah took a few steps forward, each footfall echoing around the chamber.
“Did you do all this? You kidnapped Amber?”
“I did what I had to do, my son. I am sorry. Do you have the machine?”
“Where’s Lovecraft?”
“Far from here. Revenge does not become a man like you. Where is the machine?”
“Your eminence,” said one of the guards that had brought him up in the elevator, “we searched him thoroughly, we found no machine.”
“Josiah, I told you to bring the machine with you. Now you will reveal its location to me or with deep regret I will inflict great pain on your friend.”
“Don’t tell him anyth…” Amber cried but a guard cut her off with a slap in the face. Josiah flinched involuntarily.
“Elijah, please. Tell me what’s going on. I trusted you.”
“The time machine. Now.”
Josiah said nothing.
“Then you may begin,” said Elijah, gesturing to the guard that had slapped Amber.
He removed his black gloves, and pulled out an array of vicious knives from beneath the altar, and thin black wires that he attached with pads to Amber’s head.
“The electrodes were my own rediscovery,” Elijah said, never taking his eyes from Josiah. “They heighten the sensations of pain while simultaneously suppressing the body’s natural defences against them - namely falling into unconsciousness.”
“I remember,” said Josiah, “we found it together.”
Elijah smiled sadly. “So we did. I had almost forgotten. We used to be quite a team, did we not?”
Carefully and methodically, the guard scanned through his tray of implements before selecting a razor-sharp blade and raised it the light. It flashed like fire.
“Begin with an ear,” Elijah said.
Apart from his eyes, which were never still, Elijah had not moved a muscle. He faced Josiah, engaged in a battle of wills.
The knife moved ever so slowly, and reached Amber’s pink flesh. A scarlet drop formed and fell. Amber screamed. All blood drained from Josiah’s face.
“I’ll tell you! Please, don’t hurt her.”
“Do not move,” Elijah ordered the guard. “Josiah, I wish to harm neither you nor your friend. For the last time, where is your time machine?”
Josiah’s voice was thin and resigned. “It’s part of me, implanted beneath my skin, spread throughout my body.”
Elijah raised an eyebrow in disbelief. “Under your skin? You never told me of this.”
“Scan me if you don’t believe me - I am the time machine,” he said, a strange pride rising in his chest.
The guard behind him adjusted his visor.
“He’s telling the truth, your Eminence, I’m reading high tech-levels throughout his body.”
“I see. Perhaps I underestimated you. I should not have done.”
“You have me, you have the machine. Let her go, please.”
“I shall, but not yet. Release his bonds, we have much to discuss.”
Josiah felt his handcuffs being removed and rubbed his wrists, trying to restore life to them. He noticed that two of the guards still had their guns aimed at him.
Elijah smiled a smile that Josiah once would have slaved for. Now he looked deep in Elijah’s eyes, and struggled to recognise him.
“All those years we worked together, there was one thing I never really asked you,” Eli said. “Did you ever believe?”
“I don’t know. Once perhaps.”
Elijah laughed, short and cold. “Ironic, really. Why did you stay?”
“I am a scientist, where else could I go?”
“Where else indeed.” Elijah seemed to think for a moment, then walked around the altar until he was only a few metres away.
“Josiah, I’m going to be entirely honest with you, so that you know why we are all here and what it is that we have to do. It begins before the fall.
“In those golden days, there was almost no limit to the wonders of Science. Legend tells us of machines that responded to thought, computers that cast their light into the very air! The Steel God blessed us with plenty - we were fruitful, we multiplied and we multiplied, until the earth teemed with us. It grew so full that it could not contain us all, and we spread to the moon, founding Luna-city.
“But in our folly, we supplanted the divine with the human, we declared that God was made in our image, we reached further than mortal man ever had before - and the Lord struck us down for our audacity.
“The true believers had grown in number before the fall, of course. We tried to force the world to see the error of their ways, to know that we are but mortal men before the machine, but the world was brash and would not listen. They had achieved as much as the Children of Flesh were ever supposed to achieve, but they were not satisfied - they ever hungered for more. They considered themselves to be all-powerful. How are the mighty fallen.
Our first warning was the expulsion from Eden - the building in which we now stand was nearly destroyed in a bombing that shook London. We had greedily eaten from the tree of knowledge - we were no longer welcome in paradise. But that was just the beginning - we did not heed the signs.
“The iron fist upon a full moon, black, on silver, on red. Do you remember what I taught you? What it symbolises?”
“The fall of Luna-city,” Josiah replied.
“You have no idea of the scale of that disaster - millions died in an instant. Their blood literally boiled in their brains. Millions died but that was only the beginning. The founding fathers of the church tried to stem the tide but the wrath of the Machine was upon the world, wreaking revenge for our insolence and our injustice. If Luna-city was our Tower of Babel, the Cataclysm that followed was our Flood. The world was wiped clean, all knowledge was brought within the church where we could set proper limits. This building is the ark, saving the remnants of a tattered world. But despite our best efforts, much was lost to us. The Steel God was appeased, but we had paid a terrible price.
“The fist symbolises the righteous fury of the Machine, striking down the accursed city that scourged the lunar landscape. But it also represents a warning, a reminder, that never again should we try and reach the stars, for the stars are the realm of God. The black is the anger and the oil, the silver is the light and the steel, the red is the blood that was spilled so that we might be saved.
“And we will be saved, for though we live in dark times, it was prophesied that the Techno-Messiah would one day come to us and free us from our troubles, returning us to days of glory. But this time we would know our limits, and respect the One who Moves the World.”
Elijah walked over to the stained glass window, the one that showed the coming of the Techno-Messiah and seemed to stare at it intently.
“Elijah, I remember your lessons and your stories. I think the time for such things has passed - we have both grown old. What does all of this have to do with Amber?” Josiah asked, impatient to be off.
“It has little to do with Amber, and everything to do with you. Do you remember your parents, Josiah?”
“No, not really. They died when I was young.”
“I know. I brought you in to the Circle when you were but six years old. A technobility score of 112 - utterly unprecedented for one so young. Even then we could see the signs. I had you admitted to St. Jonah’s, if my memory serves me correctly, a mere half-dozen floors from where we now stand. I wrote your letter of recommendation, Elisha seconded it. We needed you somewhere we could watch you, arrange your teaching, your work, your friends, that you would grow up into the right sort of man.”
“For what? I trusted you, all those years. You were using me? What the hell is going on?”
“You still don’t get it,” Elijah shook his head and sighed, “and I always thought you were a bright lad. You are the Techno-Messiah, the one of whom the prophesy speaks.”
“It isn’t true. There is no messiah.”
“Oh it’s true, there is no doubt. On the night you were born the first sign appeared - the moon was full, although the night before it had been waning. When you were brought in for your baptism, the great machine saw portentous things in your future. The tarot reading and your technobility score merely confirmed it.
“Now you must fulfil your destiny. Below the altar is your plasma inducer. Take it. Use it under my guidance. Then you will go back in time and recover that which has been lost. Together we can recapture the golden age. We can rule the world in the name of Steel. I would like you to do this willingly but, if necessary, you will do it under duress.”
Now it was Josiah’s turn to smile, as understanding dawned on him. He turned and began to stroll nonchalantly about the room.
“Well,” said Josiah, “thanks for the offer but it seems to me that you left a few things out of your little explanation there.”
“Oh yes?” Elijah raised an eyebrow sceptically.
“My room being ransacked was obviously instigated by yourself, in an attempt to find the machine. When you could not find it, you made it look like a Piranha robbery so that I would be lured down into King’s Cross.
“And similarly, it must have been your team of security that captured Amber and burnt down her bookshop.
“But last time I heard, you don’t run the Circle, and the Arch-Lector is particularly noticeable by her absence. Now several things don’t make sense in your version of events. Why was I sent down to the Deep and almost certain death those years ago? Why was an assassin sent into Camden town to kill me? Surely you need me alive so I can fulfil your prophecies.
“There’s another element involved here, isn’t there? You want me alive but, for some reason, Elisha wants me dead. She sent me into a trap once but I survived. Then she kicked me out of the Circle and sent an assassin to kill me. And so the Nightmares must once have worked for her and have since switched sides, or they would have simply killed me when they had the chance. No, that’s not quite right, is it? They’re probably playing the two of you off against each other, the Archangel doesn’t seem one to take God too seriously.”
Josiah edged nearer the guards as he spoke.
“Now let’s see. To raid my room and attack Amber’s apartment would require what, no more than six men? I think that these five security guards are the only ones who follow your orders above Elisha’s. How am I doing?”
“I underestimated you again. After all the years we spent together I had not expected that you could surprise me. Truly you are the chosen one. Yes, in broad details your analysis is correct. But it changes nothing. You must join us or Amber will suffer.”
“Yes, I was thinking about that one as well,” said Josiah, and with a deft movement he disarmed one of the security guards, grabbed his gun, and pointed it at his own head.
“Touch one hair on her head and I blow my brains out!” he shouted.
“Come now, my son, be reasonable. Josiah, put the gun down or the sergeant here will finish the job he started with your friend’s ear.”
“No, I’m through with being reasonable. Set Amber free or I will shoot myself. You’ll be stuck waiting for another second coming.”
For a moment, Elijah’s eyes met his, and searched his soul. Then he looked away once more.
“Release her.”
“Yes, your Eminence.”
The sergeant reached over to Amber’s wrists and ankles, and slowly released the chains that held her down. Josiah watched him very carefully, his finger lightly on the trigger. He didn’t want to die but he would do whatever he needed. He loved her, he knew that now, and nothing else was important. Holding the gun against his temple filled him with a strange fearlessness - if he could shoot himself, he could do anything. He was completely free.
Amber climbed to her feet, rubbing her wrists and touching her ear where she had been cut. She looked okay, if understandably shaken. She limped over to Josiah, her leg still injured.
“Right,” said Josiah, “now you’re going to call the elevator. When it arrives, we will get in and we will leave. If you follow us, or attempt to impede our progress in any way, I pull the trigger.”
“Do it,” ordered Elijah and one of the guards moved to respond. “There is nowhere to go, Josiah. We will find you, you cannot escape your destiny.”
“I make my own destiny.” Josiah turned to go.
“Your Eminence,” the guard said, “the elevator is rising.”
“Good.”
“No, sir, I never called it.”
“This one is too,” called the guard who stood beside the banner, gesturing at the second elevator.
A flash of panic entered Elijah’s eyes.
“Well,” Elijah said, regaining his calm, “we have a situation. Any moment now, Elisha and her force of heretics will storm this room, and they want you dead. Now then, what are we going to do?”
Sweat pooled around the finger that held the gun to Josiah’s head. With every passing moment, it grew heavier and heavier.
No comments:
Post a Comment