Lazarus Machine, The (A Tweed & Nightingale Adventure): 1 (16 page)

That was something at least. Tweed had had a terrible fear that there would be no automata inside the Ministry, that the note about them being used within the walls of the complex was wrong.

Right. Nothing else for it. He pushed the small button attached to the palm of his automaton costume.

“Testing, testing,” he muttered.

Octavia was just climbing into the back of the steamcoach when she heard Tweed's voice crackling over the speechifier built into the Tesla transceiver.

“Testing, testing.”

Stepp was busy clicking away at the keys on her Ada, so Octavia picked up the transmitter and depressed the trigger.

“Octavia here. We can hear you fine, Tweed. How are things?”

“Hot,” said Tweed's voice. “This suit is incredibly uncomfortable.”

“Take it up with your father when you find him,” she said. “He built it.”

“I will. I'm about to enter the main section of the Ministry.”

“Does he have the codes?” said Stepp, without looking up.

“Stepp asks if you've still got the codes,” said Octavia.

“Of course I have. Tell her I'm not an idiot.”

“He says—”

“I heard,” said Stepp. “Tell him, ‘opinions are varied on that point.’”

Jenny leaned into the carriage and picked up a satchel from the floor. She winked at Octavia and ducked back out again. Carter waved, and they disappeared into the mist.

They were going to take up position outside the Ministry building, close to where they'd kidnapped Maximilian. The satchel was filled with small bundles of explosives. If they needed some kind of distraction, they were to drive the steamcoach along the road past their hiding place. That was the signal for Jenny and Carter to
plant and detonate one of the explosives to draw the attention of the Ministry to the upper floors. Octavia hoped they didn't have to do it, though. No matter how small the explosion, that kind of thing was getting into incredibly dangerous territory.

“Right. I'm going now,” said Tweed's voice. “Not sure when I'll be able to talk again.”

“I'll be here,” said Octavia.

I'll be here.

Tweed found that quite comforting, even though it wouldn't exactly be a help if he got caught.

Tweed had memorized the map. It had been easy enough, especially with all the training Barnaby had given him growing up. Who'd have thought all those lessons would actually pay off? He'd have to keep that to himself, though. If he told Barnaby he'd never hear the end of it.

Tweed walked slowly along the corridors, mimicking the speed of the other automata, praying that no one would look at him too closely. He realized he should probably be carrying something. It would make him look as if he was actually doing something, was under someone's orders. First chance he got he would pick up some papers or files.

The corridor led to a stairwell with ornate, old-fashioned banisters and wide, institutional stairs. And again with the green walls. Tweed wasn't sure what he'd been expecting from the Ministry, but it just looked like any other working office building filled with bored personnel waiting to get home at the end of the day, serious workers who thought this
was
their home, and every shade in between.

Tweed walked awkwardly down the stairs. The knees of the
costume didn't bend very well, so his rolling gait became even more pronounced. He passed lots of people, but no one even gave him a second look. His hunch had been correct. No one noticed constructs. They were tools, there to do their jobs.

Octavia's voice came suddenly over the earpiece, almost making Tweed miss his step and tumble down the stairs.

“I asked my mother once, why she married my father,” she said. “Not to be nasty, just because they were such total opposites.”

Tweed maneuvered around another turn in the stairs. There was no one around, so he leaned over the banister to see how far he had to go.

Quite far, was the answer.

“She said
that
was what she loved about him. He was this straight-laced young man who took her to the museum when he was courting her. She thought that was charming. Even back
then
she was different. A bit…wild.”

Tweed clumped on, trying to move faster, wondering if there was a point to this story, or if she was just trying to bore him to death.

“But she said not once did he try and change her. Not once did he ever tell her to cover up, to dress a bit more demurely. She asked him about it, years later, and do you know what he said? He said ‘Why should I want to change you? You're who I fell in love with. You can dress how you like, dance how you like. You can even flirt if you want. And do you know why I don't mind? Because I know we'll be going home together, and the poor helpless fool who has just fallen in love with you will have nothing but a memory and the knowledge that he lost something special.’”

Octavia trailed off with a sigh. Tweed was nearing the bottom now, only a few more flights to go.

“I haven't been there for him,” said Octavia. “All I've been thinking about is how
I
feel, how I miss my mother. But how must
he
feel? She's the love of his life.”

Tweed wanted to say something, but there were people approaching up the stairs.

“Seeing Jenny and Carter together made me think of them both, and what they used to be like. He was never…spontaneous. But the way he looked at my mother, with that light in his eyes…Everyone should have someone like that in their lives, Tweed.”

Er…all right. He got the story. But what did she mean by that bit at the end? Did she mean that he was going to grow old alone? Or was it something else? Maybe—

Octavia's words cut into his thoughts. “And even though I've only known you for, what, two days now? I bet you all the money you have that you're analyzing my words, trying to look for hidden messages, trying to understand the logic behind the emotion.”

Tweed swore under his breath.

“I heard that,” said Octavia. “You need to learn to just go with the flow of things, Tweed. Stop analyzing. Stop breaking everything down so you can see how it works.”

This was most unfair. Octavia had a captive audience. She could sit there and spout her theories and stories and there was nothing he could do about it. Bad form.

Octavia had trailed off into merciful silence. Tweed finally reached the bottom of the stairs and pushed open the doors.

Where he froze.

Opening out before him was a huge floor, easily a quarter of a mile across. Desks were scattered everywhere, seemingly following no pattern at all. Ministry employees scurried to and fro, hurrying between desks, moving between huddles of people talking and comparing papers and files. There were offices all the way around the walls of the huge space. Some offices had uncovered windows, while others had dark blinds pulled down to hide whatever was going on inside. Automata moved everywhere, carrying notes, boxes, files, even tea.

Large tubes hung from the ceiling. They were used by the staff to ferry sealed containers holding what Tweed assumed were orders or intelligence reports up to various levels of the building. Babbages the size of garden sheds were placed in long lines all over the room. They were covered with flashing lights, buttons, and dials. Operators sat behind viewing screens, typing and sending information and orders out to various locations around the Empire.

Tweed realized he was just standing in the doorway. He forced himself to walk into the huge room, heading straight across to the distant door. When he finally arrived he quickly yanked it open.

To find yet another room identical to the first.

Tweed actually turned around to make sure the first one was still behind him.

It was.

These areas on the maps just showed offices and work stations, but Tweed had thought it meant proper, enclosed rooms. The maps didn't say anything about them being one huge space.

He moved through the second room and into yet another one. Tweed cast his mind back to the maps. There had been ten of these spaces, hadn't there? Tweed gritted his teeth. He knew the Ministry was big, that they controlled a lot of things, but this was ludicrous.

Half an hour later, Tweed finally made it through the final room and found himself in another corridor. By then he was sweating, the moisture dripping down his face, trickling down his back. Any second now he'd start leaving a trail behind him as he walked.

Down another set of stairs he went, then through a few doors, following more passages and corridors, until he finally stood before his first destination of the night.

The programming room.

He pushed down the handle and opened the door.

Tweed closed the door behind him and stood facing row upon row of empty keypunch machines. Each machine consisted of a chair facing a viewing screen housed in a large brass and wood cabinet bolted against the wall. A small table folded out from the cabinet, making it look like a school desk. Tweed walked forward and studied the closest one. Each desk had a long, jointed arm attached to the cabinet on the wall, with a metal card puncher attached to the end. And in the center of the desk was a rectangular frame for holding the punchcards.

“I'm in,” he whispered.

Octavia breathed a sigh of relief and handed the transmitter over to Stepp. She ignored Octavia, frowning at the screen of her Ada, her thin face illuminated in a sickly, sepia glow. Octavia had to prod her with the transmitter before she actually peeled her eyes up from the viewing screen to glare at her.

“I need to prepare all this before he goes ahead,” snapped Stepp. “Give me a second.” She started to turn back to her screen, then paused. “Tell the idiot to get the punchcard ready.”

“Stepp says she'll be with you momentarily,” said Octavia in Tweed's ear. “She politely requests that you ready the punchcard.”

Tweed looked around. Right. The punchcard. That was the whole
reason this had to be the first part of the plan. The government used their own patented type of card, the only kind that could be used in their Babbages. That meant they couldn't just pre-punch a card on the outside and bring it in with them. It had to be done here.

There was a large wall cupboard behind the door. He hurried over to it and pulled, but it was locked. Typical. Tweed tried to yank it, but his automaton arms hampered his grip. He quickly undid the latches under his forearms and pulled the casing from his arms and hands. A cool breeze wafted into the rest of the suit.

Tweed took a firm grip on the door and pulled again. The stupid thing still didn't budge. He needed something to use as leverage. He looked around, his eyes falling on the arms that were used to punch the cards. That would do. He went to the nearest machine and ripped off the arm that held the card puncher, splintering the wood of the cabinet as it pulled free of its moorings. He forced the thin end of the arm into the small gap between the doors and put all his weight against it. The lock snapped and the door sprung open, banging against the wall.

Tweed dropped the arm. The cabinet was filled from top to bottom with the Ministry's unique oblong punchcards. He took one from the pile and sat down at a nearby machine, slipping the card into the frame on the desk. He didn't switch it on, as he was doing this manually. No telling who would see if he started typing instructions into a government-run Babbage.

He stared at the arm, then at the keypad to his left. The keypad was a facsimile of the actual punchcard. Whichever button he pushed, the card puncher would then punch a corresponding hole in the card. Simple.

He wondered why they bothered mounting it to a Babbage at all. It seemed pretty straightforward. What added benefit did they get from such a machine? Maybe they did multiple copies? You put a
pile of punchcards in, and the Babbage did one after the other? That would only work if each card was to be exactly the same. Any variation in each card would still have to be programmed—

“I'm here,” said Stepp. “Are you set?”

“Of course I am,” Tweed replied.

“Good. Make sure you type in these numbers exactly as I say them.”

Stepp then proceeded to recite a long series of numbers. Tweed typed each one into the machine, watching the arm move the card puncher across the punchcard and stab neat holes into the waxed material.

It took ten excruciating minutes. Every ten seconds Tweed would glance over his shoulder, convinced someone was about to walk into the room and catch him. But his luck held. He supposed it made sense. Who would need newly programmed punchcards at this time of night?

“That's it,” said Stepp. “All done. You'd better get a move on, Tweed. You've been in there over an hour now.”

Over and hour? So long? It certainly didn't seem like it. Tweed pulled the card from the frame and slid it into a hidden panel on his suit. Then he buckled on the arms and gloves again.

There was a thick pile of papers on a desk near the door. Tweed picked it up, then stepped back out into the corridor.

He had to head back the way he came in, moving quickly through the corridors and then through those massive open office spaces. His route took him all the way back to the fifth room. He pushed through the door, consciously forcing himself to slow down. He had to constantly fight his instinct to move faster, to get this over with. He glanced around, searching for the elevators. He spotted them over by the far wall, a line of ten grey-painted doors.

Tweed headed toward them. He really wanted this finished. The
tension was starting to get to him. The back of his neck was crawling. He kept expecting a hand to clamp down on his shoulder. Or to turn around to find everyone in the room staring at him.

Not only that, but the tension of wondering if he was even going to find Barnaby was making it even worse. They were taking a huge leap of faith in their assumption that his father was even here.

Tweed pushed the button on the brass panel next to the door. He waited, staring straight ahead, trying his best not to fidget. Knowing he had to stand absolutely still made him want to move all the more. He had an almost overwhelming compulsion to lift his feet, to stretch out his ankles in an attempt to relieve the cramp.

Someone came to stand next to him. He couldn't see who, but he heard the rustle of cloth, the whisper of breath going in, the slightly wheezy, wet air coming back out. A smoker, definitely.

The elevator doors slid open. Tweed walked inside, then turned slowly around. The person followed Tweed inside: a short, overweight man wearing a tatty plaid suit, holding an accordion file very tightly to his chest.

He barely even glanced at Tweed, just turned around and hit a button. After a few moments, he turned and frowned at Tweed.

Tweed felt a rush of alarm. What? What had given him away? Then he realized he hadn't pushed a floor button. Tweed only just managed to stop himself lunging forward and slapping one of them. Instead, he moved slowly, jerkily, and depressed a button three floors below the one the man had pushed. It wasn't the floor he was going to, but he didn't want this person knowing where he was getting off.

The elevator shook and started its jerky descent. Ministry staff entered and exited until finally it was just Tweed on his own. He pushed a button:

20

The elevator trundled down the remaining floors and opened into
a dim corridor. Tweed hesitated, peering out between the doors. The corridor was older, less clinical. Upturned lights in the walls cast their glow directly onto the stained roof, leaving the lower half of the passage cloaked in shadow.

Well, that actually worked in his favor, didn't it? No one would be able to see him clearly. Tweed stepped out of the elevator. According to the maps he needed to head along here, turn there, through these doors, along this corridor…

He followed his own directions until he stood before a nondescript wooden door: the programming hub of the Ministry.

Interesting that it was tucked away at the bottom of the complex, hidden beneath everything. From the room in front of him the Ministry sent out secret instructions to the Babbages upstairs, which were then sent to their automata throughout the city, to agents overseas. Every Babbage owned by the Ministry, every piece of security equipment they used, the Tesla Towers themselves, they were all controlled from here.

And Tweed was going to set it on fire.

Well, not quite. He
had
suggested it, but Stepp had been horrified at the thought and had threatened to pull out of the whole operation should Tweed even bring it up again. So a compromise was reached.

He checked the opposite side of the corridor and picked one of the closest doors to the programming room. He knocked, but there was no answer, so Tweed pushed it open and peeked inside. It was filled with filing cabinets and wall-mounted shelves stuffed full of books and files. A records room. Perfect.

Tweed closed the door behind him and hastily yanked his arm plates off. He opened up the folder he carried and crumpled up the paper inside. He pulled open random drawers in the filing cabinets and tossed the scrunched-up balls inside. Then he pulled out a
matchbook of Lucifers and lit one of them, touching the flame to the crumpled papers.

He waited till the paper was burning merrily, the orange light flickering up the walls, then he grabbed his arm casings and slipped back into the hall, leaving the door open.

He waited.

And waited.

Surely there had to be some sort of fire alarm. The orange glow was getting brighter, spilling out into the corridor. Smoke crawled out the top of the door, reaching up to the roof of the passage.

“The alarm is not going off,” he whispered urgently.

A pause. Then, “What?” asked Octavia.

“There is supposed to be a fire alarm,” he said. “It's not going off.”

“Are you sure the fire took?” asked Octavia.

Tweed stared at the flames now licking up the doorframe. He could feel the heat on his face.

“I'm fairly sure the fire took,” he said.

“Then improvise!” snapped Octavia.

Improvise. Right.

Tweed whirled around, yanked the door to the computing room open, and bellowed, “Fire!” at the top of his lungs. Then he darted into one of the other rooms along the passage and listened to the panicked rush of feet, the shouts of alarm, the shrieks of terror.

He poked his head around the doorframe and saw a last person staggering out of the programming room, heading for the elevators. Tweed darted into the corridor, through the door to the now-empty room, and closed it behind him.

He hoped they managed to get the fire out. This would all be a bit pointless if he actually burned down everything on this level.

He looked around. The room was brightly lit and large. All around the walls were viewing screens. Lots and lots of viewing
screens. There must have been hundreds of them, all showing different images: the streets of London, various buildings, and what appeared to be hospital wards. Others, somewhat alarmingly, seemed to show images from inside peoples’ houses: normal people, sleeping in their beds or shuffling about for a late-night cup of tea.

Tweed let out a long, pent-up breath.

“I'm inside,” he said.