Michael stood up on the wall. As he did so, Queen Victoria’s hovercar came gliding swiftly across the park. It stopped close to the edge of the crowd. Out stepped Sir Winston Churchill, who then turned and gave his arm to support the Queen.
“Well, young jackanapes,” called Sir Winston in a surprisingly loud voice, “I hear you think you are important enough to babble some nonsense or other to the good citizens of London. Out with it, boy, then we can all have a laugh and go home to our tea. And mark democracy in action, boy. Even the Queen is prepared to listen to your blather—at least, for a time.”
“Sir Winston,” said the Queen, “pray do not be too hard upon the young man. Freedom of speech is one of the values for which we have waged a just and terrible war for so long.”
Michael stared at them. At last he understood. The pattern was to be intimidation and ridicule. He was to be discredited and humiliated in front of the other fragiles. That was how the truth would be destroyed.
He looked at Emily and Ernest. Their faces were white, drawn. But suddenly, Michael himself was no longer afraid. It was as if fear was a dark tunnel; and, miraculously, he had just come out at the other end into sanity and daylight.
“Your Majesty, Sir Winston,” said Michael calmly, “since you are not here by invitation, perhaps you would be good enough to remain silent. What I have to say is meant for my friends.”
Gasps and murmurs came from the crowd.
“Ho, ho!” roared Sir Winston. “The boy has spirit. He also claims to have friends. Where are they?”
“Here are two.” It was Ernest’s voice. He took Emily by the hand and led her to the play school wall to stand near Michael.
“Michael, come home. You are making a fool of yourself.” That was Father’s voice.
“That is the point!” shouted Michael. “It is you and all the other mechanical imitations of people who have been trying to make fools of us. You, the drybones, the ones who don’t bleed. You have tried to keep us as children, you have tried to destroy our independence of thought.”
“Your Majesty,” roared Sir Winston, “I greatly fear this is treason.”
“You are right, Sir Winston,” snapped Michael, “it is treason. I am rebelling against imprisonment, I am rebelling against tyranny of the mind, I am rebelling against a collection of machines with interchangeable faces. Above all, I am rebelling against my own ignorance and your deliberate deception. And eventually I am leaving this toy city you call London. And if you stop me, or if I disappear, all my friends—all the true people, the ones who can bleed—will know what has happened. And if that occurs, your own plans will come to nothing…. There are not many of us. You could easily destroy us all. But you will not do that because, if you did, you would be left without purpose and with nothing but useless machinery.”
“Sir Winston,” said the Queen angrily, “I will hear no more of this—this abuse. Let us leave the madman, and I recommend all honest citizens to do likewise.”
“Scoundrel,” shouted Sir Winston, “you will live to regret this. I shall advise the Queen to recall the Brigade of Guards.”
“Advise her also,” said Michael, “to stay out of my way. Advise all drybones to stay out of our way. We have had enough.”
Sir Winston helped Queen Victoria into her hovercar. Then he got in after her. The hovercar sped smoothly away.
“Michael Faraday, I disown you!” That was Father’s voice again. “The Queen is right, as always. All sensible people will leave this place. Only traitors will remain.”
“Go and choke on your own clichés,” said Michael evenly. “Your task is over. If it was to make me grow up to accept this nonsensical world, you failed badly.”
In twos and threes, the drybones began to drift away, some murmuring, some making threatening gestures that now seemed oddly comical. Michael wondered with amazement now why he had been so dreadfully afraid. Then suddenly he understood. It was a joke—a rich, rich joke. It was not the fragiles but the machines who had been on a no-win basis. Their experiment—or whatever it was—contained its own defeat. If the machines restrained the fragiles, it failed. If the machines did not restrain the fragiles, it failed. It could only ever have succeeded if the fragiles had remained passive, uncurious, unadventurous.
Michael looked at those who remained, and counted them. Forty-two fragiles—and himself.
They looked at him, some amazed, some bewildered, some smiling, some proud.
He felt a great surge of kinship. These, he thought, are my brothers, my sisters. I belong to them, and they to me. From now on, the fantasy, the pretense, is over. From now on, what we do, we will do together, and we will do it openly. We will never submit to the drybones again.
He climbed down from the wall and held Emily’s hand. The other fragiles came closer. Charles Darwin Mary Kingsley, Dorothy Wordsworth, Joseph Lister, James Watt, Charles Babbage, Elizabeth Barrett, John Dalton…
“Now,” said Michael, “we are the only real people in this place we have been taught to call London. At last we can all speak freely and openly to each other. I think there is a great deal to be said and a great deal to be decided. One thing is certain: There can be no going back. Whatever happens, life can never be the same for us again.”
30
The fragiles talked to each other. At last someone had had the courage to confront the drybones with secret and forbidden thoughts and—most important of all—to defy the drybones, to challenge their aims and actions, their authority. At last the psychological barriers were down, and the fragiles felt free to talk to each other as they had never talked before.
For a time, there was babbling chaos as people crowded around Michael, asking questions, contributing their own items of information. For a time, they could not stop speaking, chattering, even laughing. Until now they had not realized the depths of their inhibitions, the extent of the loneliness and mistrust and insecurity to which they had been driven by the drybones.
Amid the torrent of words, Michael discovered that others had begun a program of exploration. James Watt had already discovered that the Thames was not a river. Charles Darwin had found that there were no roads leading out of the city.
At length, when the first dizzy exhilaration of freedom had subsided a little, Ernest was able to call the fragiles to order so that Michael could now carry out his original intention of making public all that had been discovered so far.
Few of the fragiles were greatly surprised to learn about the Thames or the roads; but they were all immensely excited to learn of the existence of the library and its contents. Those who had long ago joined in the laughter and ridicule when Michael and Ernest had persisted in their determination to read now bitterly regretted their own lack of confidence and interest, the subtle conditioning of the drybones.
Michael explained how he had discovered that the war was a farce, that in reality it had been an entirely different war, and that—according to the books—it was now part of history. He also told of the discovery that every fragile, or almost every fragile, had names that were the same as great writers, scientists, explorers. And he recounted the exploration of one of the underground passages leading from the library, the destruction of Aldous Huxley, the discovery of his body in the strange world that lay outside London. Finally, he explained how Horatio Nelson had died and how Jane Austen’s suicide had convinced him that there could no longer be any secrecy; there could no longer be any division among the fragiles.
“It comes finally to this,” said Michael, gazing at faces he was learning to see anew, at people he was learning to love and accept and respect, “we are the true human beings, the real ones…. There are very few of us—why, I do not know. But I am sure we will find out.” He extended his arms in a dramatic gesture. “All this—this elaborate stage scenery was, I am sure, constructed entirely for us. We, therefore, are the precious ones. They are expendable. They are only instruments designed for a purpose. And the purpose lies with us.”