Farren paled slightly. He dug his fingers into his bushy hair. “Look, man, I’m all for it, but what if we’re stopped by the pigs? Things didn’t go too well last time.”
“Don’t worry. Members of the Cannibal Club are lurking nearby, ready to intercede should anything go wrong. They’ll be shadowing you.” Bendyshe tapped his ear. “CellComps have gathered in your earlobes and jawbones. It’s how I contact my colleagues, and through them I can also communicate with you. If the Cannibals have to move in and get you to safety, they will, and I’ll alert you.”
Farren looked at Burton for encouragement. The king’s agent gave him a nod and said, “North then east, straightforward and not much of a distance. I think we can manage.”
The two groups divided.
As Burton, Swinburne, Trounce and Farren entered Regent Street, Burton moved close to the Scotland Yard man. “Are you coping, William?”
Trounce grunted. “I’m still with you. These nanny-whatsits they’ve dosed us with do a better job than that Saltzmann’s of yours. By Jove, though, this world! What has the Police Force become? I joined to protect people. All I’ve seen as we’ve travelled forward through time is increasing intimidation.” He rubbed his thick fingers over his square chin. “Not that I can trust my senses anymore.” He made an all-encompassing gesture. “None of this is real.”
“I wonder,” Burton said. “How much of the world you and I have come from was real? We operated under the assumption that we were the most civilised country in the world, but I personally witnessed the destruction we wrought in India and Africa, and we know what senseless vandalism Lord Elgin inflicted upon China.” He paused and watched a very large dome-shaped vehicle pass by. What was its real form? A creaking stagecoach? A rumbling pantechnicon?
“Humph!” Trounce said. “And I saw too much of the Cauldron to believe in our claims of superiority. I see your point.”
“Perhaps Charles Darwin was too optimistic. Perhaps this world is different from ours only in that it’s cloaked in a more pervasive illusion. The only thing that’s evolved is our ability to fool ourselves.”
The four men pushed on. Two constables click-clacked past, their smooth featureless faces slowly turning toward the group before, thankfully, looking away.
“It’s weird,” Farren said. “I truly can’t believe my eyes.”
They came to Oxford Circus and bore right into Oxford Street. As in their own ages, the thoroughfare was lined with shops, and Burton and Swinburne were both astonished to see Shudders’ Pharmacy among them.
“Surely not!” the poet cried out.
“Generated by our AugMems, perhaps?” Burton theorised.
Unable to resist it, they went in. The chimeric neatness of the exterior didn’t extend to the inside. The shop was shabby and in serious disrepair. Damp plaster sagged from its walls, and its ceiling had collapsed in one corner. Makeshift shelves supported a sparse stock of bottles and cartons.
A stooped white-haired old man in a grubby laboratory coat greeted them. He smiled. His eyes were filmy and unfocused. He rubbed his hands together and bowed obsequiously. “Can I help you, my lords?” He gave an uncertain cough that sounded like “a-hoof!”
“My lords?” Swinburne whispered.
“Your name?” Burton asked.
The man looked afraid. “I’m Martin Ocean Englebert Shudders, citizen number eight triple-four seven six three nine eight. Is there—a-hoof!—a problem? My paperwork is up to date. My payments are made. My accounts are—a-hoof!—in order. I’ve re-registered my citizenship promptly every month. I’ve never spoken out of turn.”
“We haven’t any concerns about you,” Burton said. “We just wanted to see your shop. Has it been here for long?”
“Fifteen years. Perfectly legal and—a-hoof!—aboveboard. The regulations have always been adhered to. My family’s loyalty has never been in question. None of us are socialists or objectors. I hate the U.R.E. and the U.S.A. I deplore their savagery. I wish those barbarians were all dead.”
“It’s all right. As I said, we don’t doubt you. What was it before it was a pharmacy?”
“I don’t know, my lord. It was empty when I started to—a-hoof!—rent it. But my grandfather held that it was in the family many generations ago, and was a pharmacy then, too. Many of my family have been in the trade. Legally.”
“Thank you,” Burton said. “I’m sorry to have disturbed you.” He moved toward the door, the others following.
“You don’t want to take anything?” Shudders asked. “Please.”
“No. I’m sorry. Unless—do you stock Saltzmann’s Tincture?”
“Saltzmann’s, my lord? Saltzmann’s. Saltzmann’s. No—a-hoof!—I don’t think I’ve ever heard of that. I have tranquillisers. Plenty of tranquillisers. Would you like tranquillisers? Please, have a bottle. Two bottles.”
“No thank you.”
They exited, looked back, and suddenly the windows were clean, and, through them, neat well-stocked shelves were vaguely visible.
They continued along the street.
“How very curious,” Swinburne muttered.
“Echoes, rhythms and repetitions,” Burton said. “Time is exceedingly strange.”
They hastened forward, all suddenly feeling the need for the safety of the minibus, worried by their separation from Bendyshe, Wells and Raghavendra.
“Don’t look back,” Farren said, “but those pigs that passed us earlier are following.”
“Why?” Trounce asked. “We haven’t done anything.”
“Two more on the other side of the road,” Swinburne said. “Watching.”
A third pair of constables dropped out of the sky and bounced on their stilts ahead of the group.
“Damn,” Trounce muttered. “We’re in trouble.”
“Stay calm, ignore them, and keep moving,” Burton ordered. He flinched and uttered a small cry of surprise as Bendyshe’s voice sounded in his ear.
“Sir Richard. Don’t be alarmed. You entered a shop?”
Burton murmured, “Yes.”
“But didn’t take anything. That’s not done. When the elite enter the establishments of the poor, it’s customary to remove something without paying. Your failure to do so aroused suspicion. The shopkeeper immediately reported you. Constables are now closing in on your position. Two of my colleagues are on their way to extract you. Kat Bradlaugh and Maxwell Monckton Milnes. Do whatever they say, please, without question or hesitation.”
Burton turned to address his companions, but Swinburne tapped his own ear and said, “We heard. We’re in trouble with the law because we failed to steal.”
“I wish I had my revolver,” Trounce mumbled.
New Centre Point was just ahead, but so were more constables.
“They’ll take us before we can reach the minibus,” Farren observed.
Bendyshe’s voice: “Turn right and start running. Kat will land a flier in Soho Square. Sir Richard, Algernon, get into it. The moment it departs, Maxwell will arrive in a second machine. Mick, William, that one’s for you.”
“The square’s not far,” Farren noted. “Unless it’s been moved.”
They rounded the corner into Soho Street and took to their heels. People scattered out of their path. A siren started to wail.
A constable flew through the air and landed in front of them, lowering a hand to the paving as it skidded across it. The pig creature stood, viciously swatted a young woman out of the way, and pounced onto Swinburne. The poet shrieked as solid arms clamped hard around him, catching him in mid-stride. He was lifted, legs kicking.