It was one o’clock in the afternoon on Monday the twentieth of February, and fourteen individuals were gathered in the library of suite five at the Royal Venetia Hotel. They were not particularly comfortable, for the room was bursting at the seams with books and the group had difficulty finding places to sit or stand among them. The volumes, which ranged from boys’ adventure novels to esoteric tracts, from political memoirs to philosophical treatises, lined every wall from floor to ceiling, were stacked high on the deep red carpet, and were piled haphazardly in every corner.
Sir Richard Francis Burton’s brother, Edward, presided over the meeting. Morbidly obese, with a face disfigured by scars, he was wrapped, as was his habit, in a threadbare red dressing gown and occupied an enormous wing-backed armchair of scuffed and cracked leather. There was a half-empty tankard of ale on the table beside him. His clockwork butler, Grumbles—with his canister-shaped head of brass cocked slightly to one side—was standing nearby, ready to refill the glass.
“So the jungle is dying?” Edward asked.
“Withdrawing might be the better term,” Burton replied. “In a few days, nothing of it will remain except mulch. It has fulfilled its purpose. London will soon be clear of its unseasonal blooms.”
“Sentient herbage. Utterly preposterous.”
“That’s not the least of it. The jungle and Algernon are one and the same.”
Edward Burton glowered at the king’s agent, then at Detective Inspectors William Trounce and Sidney Slaughter, Police Constable Thomas Honesty, Sadhvi Raghavendra, Daniel Gooch, Charles Babbage, Richard Monckton Milnes, Captain Nathaniel Lawless, Maneesh Krishnamurthy, Shyamji Bhatti and Montague Penniforth. Together, these individuals comprised the secretive Ministry of Chronological Affairs, of which he was the head.
“All of you give credence to this fantasy, I suppose?” he asked.
“I trust Sir Richard’s judgement,” Gooch said.
“Likewise,” Trounce muttered. “Which means I may have to start doubting my own.”
The others nodded, apart from Babbage, who appeared to be counting his fingers.
The minister addressed Swinburne. “And what do you make of it, young man?”
The poet kicked spasmodically, accidentally knocking over a stack of books, and shrilled, “It’s delicious! The jungle is me and I am it and we are one and the same. Or some such.”
“That isn’t much help.”
“May I partake of a bottle of your ale, Minister? I feel sure it will clarify my thoughts.”
Edward Burton impatiently waved his permission.
Burton said, “We know that in Abdu El Yezdi’s native history, when he trekked to the Mountains of the Moon, a version of Algy went with him. El Yezdi never explained what happened to his companion, but he does record that a Prussian agent, Count Zeppelin, followed them, and that the man possessed venomous talons—a product of eugenics. As fantastic as it sounds, the toxin caused an individual named Rigby to transform into vegetation. It appears that the same fate befell the poet.”
From the sideboard to which he’d moved, and with a bottle in one hand and a glass in the other, Swinburne said, “The other jolly old Swinburne is now a plant-based consciousness. It possesses a unique perception of time and is aware of every variant of history. It was able to send its roots through into our world to warn us what has happened. Simply splendid! I feel thoroughly proud of it, him, and myself!”
Edward gave a puff of incredulity. He lifted his ale, gulped it down, and jabbed a fat forefinger toward his brother. “It inflicted the visions upon you?”
“They weren’t visions exactly,” Burton corrected. “The jungle worked with the Beetle and the children under his command to produce Saltzmann’s Tincture from its fruits. Through a vague mesmeric influence, and over the course of half a decade, it introduced the decoction to me and slowly increased its potency. The most recent doses caused my awareness to slide from one iteration of history to another, drawing my attention to the advent of what we might term the Spring Heeled Jack consciousness, which was created when all the Charles Babbages across all the histories performed the same experiment at the same moment.”
“It knew ahead of the event that it would occur?”
“As I say, the jungle has a unique perception.”
“And what of your experiences as Edward Oxford?”
Burton paused to light a cheroot. “The one sane fragment of Spring Heeled Jack caused black diamond dust to be injected into my scalp. It was an act of suicide, for my own thoughts would soon overwrite it. However, before that occurred, I received from it memories of the time suit’s construction and the final moments of its inventor. It was a message, or rather, it was the gift of an essential item of information.”
“What information?”
“Before I answer that, I think you should hear what the jungle showed Algy.”
The minister turned his eyes back to the poet.
“Well?”
Swinburne, who had a glass to his lips, swallowed hastily, coughed, spluttered, and dragged a sleeve across his mouth. “What? Pardon? Hello?”
“Your leafy counterpart,” the king’s agent said to him. “Give an account of your experience while under its influence.”
“Ah, yes. I say! This is a fine beer, Your Maj—um—your ministery-ness. What! Er. Well. It happens to be the case, apparently, that our history is where the destiny of the human race will be played out. This, thanks to the efforts of Abdu El Yezdi—he having averted the next century’s world wars, the ones that’ll so afflict the other histories. Ours is the stage upon which Mr. Darwin’s theories will be enacted.” Swinburne moved back to his seat, sat, and crossed then uncrossed his legs. “In our distant future, the year 2202 should be one of transcendence and transformation. Perhaps Oxford’s breakthrough, his overcoming of the limitations of time, is meant to be a part of it. Unfortunately, it has all gone completely arse over elbow.”
“Because of Spring Heeled Jack, I presume,” the minister said.
“Yes. The insane Oxford consciousness has fled back to that year and has there somehow blocked the evolutionary process.”
“And the jungle knows this—?”
“Because it is—that is to say, I’m—it’s there.” Swinburne hiccupped.
Detective Inspector Slaughter, who had a tankard of milk in his hand, cleared his throat, smoothed his huge moustache, and said, “Forgive me for interrupting, and forgive me again if I seem a little cold-hearted, but need we be overly concerned about events that are occurring three and a half hundred years hence? We shall be long dead by 2202, after all.”
Constable Honesty snapped, “Child on the way. One day, perhaps, grandchildren. So forth.”
Slaughter held up a hand. “I concede your point, Constable. I myself have a daughter.”
“With all due respect,” Burton said, “the issue goes deeper even than protecting your descendants. Every evening since Charles performed his experiment, we have been invaded by stilted mechanisms.”
“Eleven of the monstrosities last night,” Trounce interjected.
“That the Oxford consciousness is sending them back to the year it was created implies what we might term a soul searching, a quest for identity.”
“Why are the creatures so obsessed with you?” Monckton Milnes asked.
“Because Oxford has twice been killed by a Richard Burton, and those deaths, paradoxically, were integral to the creation of this Spring Heeled Jack intelligence.”
Trounce snorted. “By Jove! Does it think you’re its father?”
“I wouldn’t go that far, old fellow, but it may well regard me as essential to its growing self-awareness, and I’m certain it fears me and has an irrational need to kill me.”
“Patricide,” Slaughter put in. He shook his head wonderingly. “Though—no offence intended—it isn’t going about it in a very efficient manner, is it? Why are the stilt men so—”