He spreads his arms out and tries to slow himself. He does not die, or even suffer serious injury—although he suspects he may have dislocated a thumb and cracked some ribs, and wonders at the change in circumstances which causes him to see this as minor—and when they are finished, they let him out. He staggers and weaves and empties his stomach onto the white floor. They hold him, and he thanks them.
Mr. Ordinary smiles.
Instead of taking him back to his box (he struggles with himself to avoid identifying it as “home”) they put him into another room just next to it. There is a man inside, smelling of rubber boots, mud and seaweed, and his body is a mass of burns and scabs.
“We’re down in the ivy,” Ted Sholt says.
Joe, looking down at this silvered head and the man he suspects is dying, feels a strong familiarity.
They have done something strange to Ted Sholt, something odd and clever and very terrible. He is shaking, but not like a man who is cold or tired or afraid. He is shaking as if his muscles are coming away from his bones, and his skin has a strange, stretched look, as if the fat of his body is pooling in places where it should not.
“Ivy inside,” Sholt says hoarsely. His eyes are searching, but not finding, and Joe realises that he cannot see. “Ivy in the blood. Ted’s head’s full and Ted’s a fool, God’s a figment, devils rule.”
“It’s me, Ted,” Joe says softly. There’s no need to shout. They are pressed against one another like lovers. They can have something approaching privacy only if one of them stands. “It’s Spork the Clock.”
“You can’t let him go through with it,” Ted says vaguely. He tries to lift his body with his stomach muscles, and something makes a gristle noise. He moans.
“Ted… I don’t think there’s anything I can do. I don’t know what’s going on.”
“Brother Sheamus. Frankie’s machine.”
“Yes, but I don’t know what that means. I don’t know what they want from me. I don’t know anything. I’m just the idiot who turned the key. You were there, Ted.”
Sholt tries to speak, and then screams again, and this time when he arches his back he crackles, as if his bones are breaking. “What cart will Frankie’s engine pull? Science has many faces, each mouth whispers to the world in different ways. Frankie’s gone, her blade will cut in all directions. Whose hand holds the knife? Sheamus, of course. Always Sheamus. Bastards.” He shudders, and Joe feels something move inside the other man’s body, something which a profound instinct tells him should stay in one place.
“Ted, please. Stay still.”
“She said it was salvation. She said too much truth turns us to ice and we shatter, so she set it all perfectly. But Sheamus… he wants more than that. Wants a reckoning with God. Wants to reset the machine. See all the truths at once. He’ll kill the world.”
“But he can’t do that without the calibration drum, and he doesn’t have it, does he? Of course, he doesn’t. Because Frankie wasn’t an idiot. She gave it to someone she could trust.”
Oh, shit. Daniel. She gave Daniel the keys to the apocalypse. Of course, she did. Who else do you give something which can destroy the world, which will be hunted by monsters and thugs, except the father of your child who still loves you even after you’ve played hide and seek with his heart for thirty years?
Daniel, and hence, Joe.
Shit, shit, shit.
If Joe has it, he does not know. If they took it when they raided the warehouse, they also do not know. Therefore it is concealed. It is hidden, of course, hidden by Daniel against this very day. Hidden too well. Perhaps it was in Daniel’s lost effects. Perhaps Mathew, all unknowing, sold the ignition key to the most dangerous object in the world for the price of a meal at Cecconi’s.
Shit.
Ted Sholt is rattling on. “But Sheamus just wants to know his score. Wants to know if he won or lost. Stupidity is a symptom of enormous power, they say.” And then: “You must stop him. You must! Go to the Lovelace. Where I left her.”
“Don’t tell me, Ted. Not here. I can’t keep it secret from them.” They will have it from me. What they did not get from you, I will give up. I cannot keep it inside.
Sholt stares right at him, into him, madman’s fox-eyes seen briefly in the dark. He lifts his head, and something gristles softly in his stomach, something broken. He snarls. “Yes, you can! You must!” and he is going to tell, without question.
Joe bends his neck, and Sholt whispers directly into his ear barely any sound at alclass="underline" “She’s under the hill at Station Y.” He slumps back.
Joe shakes his head, relieved. “Ted, I don’t know where that is.”
“Matter of public record. Obscure, but simple. No: listen! I can tell you how… Stand on the box and see the hill, down the tunnel into the dark. Open the door with Lizzie’s birthday. And you’re in. Now! Garble it, in your head! Mix the letters and remember the jumble. Say it: Matron Fry. Nation’s Eye. God loves sinners, patients cry. See? That way you can always choose whether to say it aloud or not. You can scream it, if you have to. Shout the answer at them and let them figure it out. Tell the truth, but keep it from them. You must, Joe! You must!” He wheezes and shuts his eyes tight. “It’s all in there. Do anything. But stop him.”
Ted gasps and squirms, and more things crackle inside him. Joe wonders whether, if he banged on the door and offered to talk, he could get Ted a doctor.
Probably not.
So he lies instead, mercifully:
“I will, Ted. I will.”
Later, when they use the water, Joe dies for two minutes and eighteen seconds.
The water is cold and fresh against his face, but tastes of salt and chemicals. It is a special preparation, Mr. Ordinary explains, to reduce the risk of fatality. Joe thinks, objectively, as it worms into his lungs, that it does not work very well.
He starts to drown. One of the Ruskinites is next to him, very close, listening to the sound of his choking. It turns its head, listening for the sound of water in his lungs. It has experience. It is a craftsman. It can tell by the noise his body makes when it is time to stop.
He wonders when he stopped thinking of the Ruskinites as people. He wonders whether they ever thought of him that way.
Part of him cannot help but notice that they have not asked him any questions recently. Perhaps they do not intend to. Perhaps they are just going to kill him.
The idea is horrible, and he starts to struggle. He struggles until he cannot continue, and inhales a great deal of water, and the listener holds up his hand. A crash cart barrels in, orderlies and doctors shouting.
They have to resuscitate him, which they do with a machine, because—when one of them goes to give him mouth-to-mouth—Mr. Ordinary warns that he is dangerous and may bite their lips off, also that they have no idea whether he carries any diseases.
Joe wonders why on Earth they haven’t checked for that. It seems so obvious. While they struggle to force him not to die, he debates whether to cooperate. He suspects he could just depart now, and be gone. But death does not seem much of an answer, and he has things to do. People are depending on him.
He has always avoided thinking too much about death. The whole idea appals him, and always has. Damn Daniel’s Death Clock, commended to his special attention. He wonders why it seems important, here, now: a wretchedly gloomy bit of Victorian tat. And why would Daniel be so keen on it, when he loved life so much?