B00DW1DUQA EBOK, page 39
‘Finn.’
It was Connor, behind him, speaking calmly. Finn ignored him. The lever wouldn’t budge. Finn swung all his weight onto it, trying to force it down.
‘Finn,’ said Connor again. ‘You can’t move it. It’s pointless.’
Finn let go and returned to the other controls he could see, twisting and pressing again. He’d lost track of what he’d already done. Perhaps he was just setting everything back to how it was. He carried on anyway.
‘Finn, stop. You’re not doing anything to harm the machine. The control mechanisms are locked out. You’re not affecting anything.’
Finn turned to see Connor standing in the middle of the room, the old man behind his shoulder. Connor held the gun in his hand, pointing it directly at Finn. He smiled warmly.
‘It’s good to see you again, Finn. I wasn’t sure you’d ever make it here. You’ve done well.’
Finn didn’t speak for a moment, trying to understand what was taking place. ‘Then this … this was the plan all along?’
‘Oh yes. You’ve played your part well.’
‘And it’s true Engn is controlled from here?’
‘It is. We call this the Panopticon. It’s the one place where you can see everything that is taking place, control everything. See for yourself. It’s only fair.’
Finn looked down at one of the flickering glass orbs, identical to those he’d seen all over Engn. He could see an image inside it, a black-and-white picture suspended, somehow, in the middle of the sphere. He studied it closely; it looked familiar. A quadrangle with a floor of hard flints. Incredibly, the picture moved as a huddle of apprentices walked across the scene. He knew where it was, then. The Octagon.
‘But that’s miles from here,’ said Finn. ‘Are these some sort of line-of-sight?’
‘Something like that,’ said Connor. ‘But much, much better. They send pictures rather than words. We have eyes all over Engn, watching what is happening, relaying the pictures here.’
‘It’s incredible.’
Finn stepped slowly around the room, looking into each sphere. There was the Valve Hall, unchanged since he’d laboured in it all those years ago. There was the high walkway above it, the whispering gallery. There was the top of the Drop Tower, the Blueprint Vault, and countless other places he didn’t recognize.
‘The mines? Are they here too?’
‘All here, Finn.’
‘So, all those years I worked away down there, wondering if you were still alive. Wondering what had happened to you. You were watching me?’
‘Yes.’
‘You saw me when I nearly died down there? And when we escaped on the water-wheel?’
‘Yes.’
‘And you control it all from here? The bells, the machines, everything?’
‘The flow of water and electricity. The regulation of the furnaces and the wheels. The speed of the beam engines. All of it is governed from this room, Finn.’
‘Then that means we can do it, doesn’t it Connor?’ He glanced at the old man, expecting him to look alarmed. Instead the expression on his face remained unmoved. ‘That’s been the great scheme hasn’t it? Pretend to work for Engn. Become the Director’s apprentice. Because from here we can finally destroy it, can’t we? The right knobs turned, the right switches opened and we can make the furnaces explode and the water flood. That’s it, isn’t it Connor?’
It was a glorious scheme. Connor had been true all along. Everything, everything had been worth it. Yet still, there was the simple fact of Diane’s body on the ground. And of the gun barrel pointing at him.
Connor looked thoughtful. ‘And you still think, Finn, that we should do what we promised all those years ago? Those three ignorant children with mud on their faces.’
‘Yes. I do,’ said Finn.
The old man, the clock-winder, stepped forwards then, to stand next to Connor. ‘And what of all the people who live here, who work here? You would destroy all that? You could destroy everything from here, it’s true. But how many people would be killed if we did that?’
‘And what of all the people not yet born who will be forced to waste their lives here?’ said Finn. ‘What of all the children who are out there now, playing in the fields and woods, unaware of the Ironclads marching from Engn to collect them?’
The old man looked calm, unconcerned. He had a look in his eye Finn had glimpsed there before: a keen-eyed intelligence. With alarm pounding away inside him Finn suddenly understood who this old man was. He wobbled his way all over Engn, seeing everything, keeping an eye on everything, and no-one paid him any attention. The Director of Engn. A trail had been laid for Finn, but it wasn’t Connor’s trail. It was the Director’s. The old man who’d met him at the gate on the day he’d arrived in Engn, who had sent him on his way to the Blueprint Vault.
‘It was you beckoning to me from that dome, wasn’t it?’ said Finn to the old man. ‘It was you all along.’
‘It was.’
‘Why?’
‘You know why. To test you, as was explained,’ said the Director. ‘To see where your heart really lay. But you failed long ago. The day you set fire to the blueprints.’
‘So why am I still here? Why is Diane?’
‘To test Connor of course. Don’t you see? You’re his test. You and Diane over there. That’s all you are. I wanted to know which side he is really on. Who he’d choose when it came down to it. Me or you.’
Finn looked at Connor, his old friend’s familiar eyes in that older, sadder face.
‘Connor?’ said Finn.
‘Kill him, Connor’ said the Director.
‘Yes sir,’ said Connor.
Connor raised his gun again. The bright light blinded Finn for the briefest moment before the shot knocked him backwards and he saw no more.
Chapter 35
‘... and this is the master time signal generator. It all depends on this, understand? Everything comes down to this. The other generators about Engn get their time from here so everything is in sync.’
‘I understand,’ said Connor.
Finn’s chest roared with a vast pain. Some terrible injury. How had he survived? The floor was hard beneath his back. He didn’t understand why he wasn’t dead.
Somewhere nearby he heard the familiar jangling of the old man’s keys.
‘And this is the key to activate the control panel. Small and unimportant, isn’t it? No-one would ever imagine it governs the whole machine. You’ll need the code as well. Insert the key and I’ll type it in. You must watch and remember it. Never write it down, hear me? Never.’
Finn didn’t dare move. Didn’t want to explore his wound, afraid of what he’d find. His head throbbed, but it was a lesser pain, drowned out by his chest. He flickered an eye open and shut. He lay on the cold ground of the Panopticon. Across the room, Connor stood with the Director, the two of them leaning over some of the controls. Finn recognized the object of their attention immediately; he’d seen one like it before. A large, silver sphere, not glass like the image line-of-sights, but metal. Hundreds of cables led off from it, a thick sheaf of them snaking into a duct.
He heard the plunk, plunk, plunk of buttons being pressed.
‘There,’ said the Director. ‘Sixteen digits. Got them?’
‘Yes,’ said Connor. ‘But what if I forget? Or if something happens to me. What if something had happened to you?’
‘Then the whole system would need to be reset. Engn shut down, recalibrated, a new code entered and everything started again. Weeks of disruption to the schedule. Don’t let it happen. There are two people in Engn who know how to do it apart from us: the Silverclad General and the Master of the Inner Wheel. Neither is allowed in here, of course. Just make sure you don’t forget the code.’
‘I won’t,’ said Connor. ‘I promise.’
‘There,’ said the Director. ‘Now we have control. Normally you don’t have to touch anything. Like most things in Engn it’s self-regulating these days. Not like the old days. If you do need to fix it, take manual control and reroute the timing signals to the back-up device over there. Only then is it safe to deactivate. Got it, boy?’
‘Yes. It’s very clear what I have to do.’
‘Good. Type in the code to lock it up again. That’s it. Now an 8. That’s it. Doesn’t matter if you make a mistake. Just pull this lever and start again. There, you have it. Excellent.’ The old man let out a long sigh. ‘So. Think you’re ready?’
‘Yes,’ said Connor. ‘I’m ready.’
‘Your mother will be very proud of you.’
‘I hope so.’
‘And of course, only the masters and the Ironclads and the Silverclads will know who you are. Think you can handle that? Sometimes it is difficult to remain silent.’
‘I’m good at staying silent when I have to.’
‘Very well. I’ve shown you everything. It’s up to you now, Connor.’
‘And what about them?’
‘Your friends? Call the Ironclads to have them removed. They’re not supposed to come into the Directory but they will if you give them a direct order.’
‘And what will you do?’
‘This transition of power is long overdue. I’m old and weary. But I’ll still be around. Keeping an eye on things.’
‘You must be sick of lugging that old clock around.’
‘It has its uses. You can sit here and gaze into the orbs all day but if you really want to know what’s going on out there you have to go and see. Still, that’s up to you now. You’ll do it your own way, I’m sure. Here.’
More jangling. Finn flickered his eyes open again. He watched as the Director, the old Director, handed his great bunch of keys across to Connor.
Footsteps clipped across the room. Finn shut his eyes again and lay still, thinking they were coming to check on him. But they moved away again. It was the old man, heading for the stairs.
‘Director?’ Connor’s voice sounded strange, strained.
‘Yes, Connor?’
‘You haven’t told me everything.’
‘I believe I have.’
‘You haven’t explained why. Why all this exists. What Engn is for.’
‘For, Connor? It isn’t for anything. It just is. An end unto itself. The vast and glorious machine.’
‘But you must know. I thought you of all people would know. The Hub, I mean. It all comes back to that. What did it do?’
‘The Hub? There’s nothing there, boy. It’s unimportant. You mustn’t believe all you read in the old records. I’ve told you everything that matters. Everything I was told by the previous Director. Now I must go.’
‘But what happened to the first three Engns? Why were they destroyed?’
‘Ancient stories, boy. They aren’t important.’
‘But the Event. Every three-hundred and seventeen years. What is it? What happens then?’
‘Nothing happens. All that matters is that the machine is kept running. And now I’m going. Look after it all.’
‘Director? One more thing.’
‘What now?’
‘I’m sorry. You’ve failed the test.’
The third roar of the gun made Finn wince. He expected more pain but there was none. He looked again. Connor stood in the middle of the room, gun held out, smoke or steam coiling off it, a chemical tang in the air. Over at the edge of the room, by the door, the old man lay in a heap on the ground. Face up, an expression of confusion frozen onto his face. For a moment nobody moved. Then Connor, letting the gun clatter to the floor, ran over to Finn.
‘Finn, Finn. Are you OK? Tell me you’re OK.’
Finn looked up into Connor’s face, looming suddenly very large over him. The look of worry told him everything he needed to know.
‘You always were a terrible shot,’ said Finn. ‘With a catapult or a gun.’
‘Can you stand?’
‘I don’t know. My chest feels bad.’
‘You’ll be bruised, that’s all. It was the only thing I could do. Two dummy slugs and one real one.I had to be very sure I loaded the bullets in the right order’
‘So, Diane?’
‘She’ll be OK as long as I didn’t hit her in the head.’
‘And the Director?’
‘I made no mistake about him.’
Finn struggled up to lean on one elbow. Sharp pain shot across his chest. He felt with his hand, expecting there to be blood, a gaping wound, but there was nothing.
‘I’m sorry, Finn,’ said Connor. ‘Sorry for everything. I know what you’ve been through. The mines, everything. It was the only way. They knew all about us. I had to convince them.’
‘Help me up.’
‘That day in the Vault. You threw me then. I never expected you to try setting fire to the blueprints. Incredible. But I had to sacrifice you. What else could I do?’
‘It’s OK. I never doubted you.’
‘Never?’
‘Well, sometimes.’
‘I didn’t dare do anything to give you a hint. It wasn’t safe. I had to pretend I was trying to finish you off.’
‘You did a good job.’
Between them they hobbled over to Diane, who still hadn’t moved. Finn expected a pool of blood. There was nothing.
‘Diane? Can you hear me?’
Finn hesitated then placed a hand onto her breast. He could feel her chest inflating and deflating. ‘She’s still breathing.’
Connor nodded, relief bright on his face. ‘We need her to come round. Once we start disrupting the timing signals Engn will blow. It’ll be cataclysmic. We won’t want to be anywhere near.’
‘So we head back though the tunnel?’
‘That’s the plan. But we can’t pull her. She’ll have to be able to crawl on her own.’
‘OK. I’ll try and bring her round. How long will it take you to break everything?’
‘Not long. Once the timing signals are stopped everything will spiral out of control. Too much or too little fuel pumped, engines starved or flooded, wheels going haywire.’
‘You’re sure Engn will be destroyed?’
‘I’m sure.’
Finn thought about all the people he’d worked alongside, on the surface and down in the mines. Rory and Tom and all the others.
‘The people down there. And up here. They won’t have a chance.’
Connor sighed, looking troubled. He ran his hand through his hair. ‘They’ll have some chance. There are alarms. Once the machinery starts failing bells will go off across Engn. People will have time to evacuate. A little time.’
‘But there’s no way out of the mines.’
‘No. I know,’ said Connor.
‘People will get killed. Perhaps a lot of them. It’s inevitable.’
‘Yes,’ said Connor. ‘Are you saying you don’t want to do this, now? After everything you’ve been through?’
Finn found he suddenly didn’t know. The thing he’d wished for all these years, the thing that had kept him alive. But now it came to it, could they really do this? Destroy so much? Did they have the right?
‘You think we should?’
‘We have to.’ Diane sounded woozy, distant, but her words were clear. Finn knelt back over her.
‘You’re OK?’
‘I think. A bit sore. Glad to be alive.’
‘Connor shot us with dummy bullets. Then he shot the Director with a real one once he’d got the codes and the key.’
She sat up, looking around as if confused about where she was. ‘So, we can really do it? Destroy Engn?’
‘Yes,’ said Connor.’
‘What about all the Ironclads?’ said Finn. ‘They aren’t just going to stand by. Can’t they operate the machinery, shut it down safely?’
‘They might try,’ said Connor. ‘But it’s all so automated. And the Ironclads aren’t the machines people believe. They’re just men and women obeying orders. The Silverclads too. When they see how it is a lot of them will forget their loyalty to Engn, trust me.’
‘And the wreckers will stop any that try to save Engn,’ said Diane.
‘They might,’ said Connor. ‘There are thousands of them, all over Engn, but they’re disorganized. Once things blow I think they’ll be fleeing right alongside the Ironclads.’
‘And you’re sure you want to do this, Connor?’ said Diane.
‘What do you mean?’
‘Well, look at you. You’re in charge now. You could leave things as they are. You could live like a king here. Press a button to summon the Ironclads, blame the Director’s death on us and you’re in the clear. You could even tell yourself you were doing the right thing. That you were going to fix it all from within.’
Connor reached inside his gown and pulled something from a pocket. Something small and metallic. He slipped it onto his finger and held it up to show them.
‘You kept your ring,’ said Diane.
‘I did.’
‘Ours too,’ said Finn. They each put them on. The first time they had all worn them in seven years.
‘But you’re throwing so much away,’ said Diane. ‘I wouldn’t really blame you. You must be a bit tempted.’
‘I have been at times. I just looked at him though.’ Connor indicated the old man with a nod of his head. ‘I imagined myself ending up like him. Bitter, miserable, friendless. That’s no life.’
‘You could do things differently,’ said Diane.
Connor shook his head. You didn’t know Finn and me when we were very young. I had no-one. I mean I had everything I needed but I was alone. My father and everyone were busy all the time. My mother was house-bound. Then one winter’s day Finn became my friend. And later on, you. That’s all that matters.’
‘OK,’ said Diane. ‘Tell us what to do.’
‘Once I’ve unlocked the controls, start shutting down systems while I take the time-signal generator offline. Turn all those dials to zero. Got it?’
‘Got it,’ they both said.
Finn watched as Connor picked out the key the Director had shown him from the great bunch and unlocked the control panel. Taking great care he typed in the code he’d been shown. Tiny incandescent bulbs flickered into life all around the panel as the controls became active.
