Burton leaned into the air as it rushed around him. Above its howling, he yelled, “They will be enslaved. They will be subject to your insane whims. What of freedom?”
“A myth!” Brunel answered. “None of us are free. We are forever chained to the consequences of our actions. Time rules all. But I—” He put his head back and loosed a peal of demented laughter. “I rule time.”
A hand closed around Burton’s arm. He looked down and saw Swinburne at his side. His friend’s red hair was whipping about his head like an inferno.
“Hey!” the poet screeched at Brunel. “Hey! What of the seventh?”
Brunel lowered his face. “You are Swinburne, I believe?”
“How do you do. Pleased to meet you. Charmed, I’m sure. What of the seventh? You said seven births and seven events. You’ve only ranted about six.”
“Ranted?”
“Like a nutcase of the first order.”
“Obviously, you don’t value your life, little man.”
“And obviously you don’t value rationality. But enough of this delightful flirting. Number seven? Spit it out, old thing. I’m on the edge of my seat.”
The engineer swung up his Gatling gun and pointed it at the poet. “The final birth is yet to come, and with it the final event.” He slid the weapon sideways until it was aimed at the king’s agent. “You will initiate them, Burton.”
Burton raised a questioning eyebrow.
“As I have stated, I shall ask you a question,” Brunel said. “Through your answer, I will be completed, and the seventh event will be your death, quick and complete or slow and recurring, as you please.”
“Answer a question then die?” the king’s agent said. “That doesn’t sound like a particularly attractive deal. Why should I cooperate?”
“If you do not, I’ll torture your friends in front of you.”
“I thought you might say something like that. Very well, let’s get it over with. Ask.”
Brunel stepped closer and leaned down until his blank face was almost touching Burton’s. From the dark eye sockets, his red mechanical eyes burned.
“Tell me. What is my name? Who am I?”
“My hat!” Swinburne cried out. “You don’t know?”
Burton looked down and saw that one of Brunel’s hands was gripping the blade of his sword. He felt cold fingers slide around his throat, holding it gently but—he knew—able to close with such speed and force that he’d be decapitated in an instant.
He gazed into the glaring eyes.
“You were once a good man, a historian, philosopher, engineer, inventor, and genius. You wanted the human race to be the best it could be. The things you created were helping it to achieve a new kind of consciousness. In addition to such an incredible contribution to the welfare of all, you also had personal contentment. You were married to a woman named Jessica Cornish, and your first baby was just weeks away from birth. However, you became obsessed with a crime committed by a distant ancestor, an impulsive and irresponsible act that was forever recorded in history. That preoccupation was your route into madness and death and this dreadful rebirth.”
“What is my name?” Brunel repeated, so quietly that his voice was barely audible above the din of the chronostatic storm.
“It is the same as your ancestor’s. It is Edward Oxford.”
The air screamed around them. Time suits hurtled past, spinning ever faster, energy tearing from one to the next, flooding down into the motionless brass man.
For a minute, he didn’t speak, didn’t react, then his fingers eased from Burton’s neck, his hand fell away from the sword, and he softly clanged, “Edward Oxford?”
He stepped back.
“Edward Oxford?”
He raised his hands to his face.
“Edward Oxford?”
He threw his head back and shrieked, “Edward Oxford!”
Toppling backward, the massive figure hit the floor, arched its back, and started to thrash its limbs. In a voice like shearing metal, it screeched, “My neck! Don’t! Twisting! Don’t! Don’t! Please, don’t! I didn’t mean to hurt the girls. I made a mistake. I don’t care about myself anymore. I’m a discontinued man. But let me restore history. Restore! Restore! Back! Back in time for supper! Edward Oxford!”
Ribbons of lightning started to peel away from the suits, crackling out in random directions. Burton saw a bolt hit a woman in the front row of benches. In an instant, she shrank and rolled out of her clothes, a mewling infant.
The politicians erupted into panic. They stood and began to crowd the aisles, pushing and pulling at one another, babbling and gesticulating, stampeding down to the floor and across to the exit.
The king’s agent snapped into action. He yelled across to Trounce. “William, get Bendyshe out of here. This might be our only opportunity.”
Trounce hauled Bendyshe upright while gawping at the convulsing machine-man. “By Jove! What the blazes did you do to him?”
“Told him the truth. Go! Back the way we came. Once you’re clear, try to contact Lorena Brabrooke. She—”
“Yes! Yes!” Trounce gestured at Bendyshe. “She might be able to disable the nanomechs.”
“I’m all right,” Bendyshe moaned. He plainly wasn’t.
Trounce dragged him toward the door. Swinburne moved as if to follow, dithered, then stepped back, closer to Burton. He shouted, “Save him, William.”
Trounce gave a determined nod.
“My neck! My neck!” Oxford yelled. “In cold blood!”
“What’s got into him?” Swinburne asked, looking down at the flailing body.
“Oxford has,” Burton answered.
Floor tiles shattered beneath Oxford’s drumming fists, elbows and heels. He bucked and writhed; hollered incoherently. Burton stepped closer to him, raised his sword, and looked for a viable insertion point.
Swinburne waved him back. “Out of the way. A grenade will do a better job of it.”
Burton jerked his head in confirmation, but before he could move, the sword was yanked from his hand and thrown aside. Overbalanced, the king’s agent fell forward and six arms clamped tightly around him.
Oxford rose, lifting Burton with him.
Swinburne backed away, aiming his pistol, unable to shoot without killing his friend.
“I am Oxford! Edward Oxford! How does it feel to change history? I haven’t changed history. History is the past.” Oxford laughed—or sobbed—a discordant jangling of bells.
“Remember!” Burton cried out. “Remember who you used to be. Remember the world you came from, the original 2202.” He struggled to free himself, but his efforts caused Oxford to tighten his grip. With his ribs creaking under the pressure, Burton gasped out, “Can’t you see how you’ve distorted everything? You sent history careening off-course. You broke the mechanism of time, and now you’ve created a future that’s nothing but a grotesque mockery of the past.”
“Maybe, maybe,” Oxford clanged. His arms relaxed slightly. Burton sucked in a breath. Quietly, in his ear, he heard his captor whisper, “The problem, Burton, is that although the future might not be what it used to be, I like it the way it is.”
In front of them, Sir Robert Forest Beresford entered, pushing through the last of the fleeing politicians. He skidded to a halt, ducked down and gaped at the spinning time suits.
Oxford levelled his Gatling gun and demanded, “Where is the queen?”
“He threatened to kill me!” Beresford shouted. He squealed in fear as a ribbon of energy snapped into the floor beside him. “That man—Trounce, was it?—I met him in the corridor. There are dead equerries everywhere. He threatened to kill me unless I let him pass.”
“Stop yammering, idiot. The queen?”