He tried not to look at his watch as he cycled. But Arthur couldn't help catching glimpses of its shining face as the minute hand moved so quickly towards the twelve. By the time he got to the high chain-link fence around the old Yeats Paper Mill, it was 11:50. Arthur only had ten minutes, and he didn't know how to get through the fence, let alone get under the old mill - whatever that meant.
There were no obvious holes in the fence and the gate was chained and padlocked, so Arthur didn't waste any more time looking. He leaned Ed's bicycle against the fence, stood on the seat, and pulled himself up on one of the posts. Despite being scratched by the top strands of old, rusty barbed wire, he managed to swing himself over and drop to the other side. At the bottom he checked his shirt pocket, to make sure it hadn't been torn off with the Atlas inside. He'd lost it that way before and he was not going to lose it again.
"Underneath ? underneath," Arthur muttered to himself as he ran across the cracked concrete of the old parking lot towards the massive brick building and its six enormous chimneys. No paper had been made at the Yeats Paper Mill for at least a decade, and the whole place had been set aside for some sort of development that had never happened. Probably a shopping mall, Arthur thought sourly.
There had to be underground storage or something here, but how could he find a way down?
Wheezing, Arthur ran to the first door he could see. It was chained and padlocked. He kicked it, but the wood held firm. Arthur ran along the wall to the next door. This one looked like it had been opened recently, and the chain was loose. Arthur pushed it open just wide enough to squeeze himself through.
He hadn't known what to expect inside, but he hadn't thought it would be a huge open space. All the old machinery and huge piles of debris from former internal walls had been pushed to the sides, leaving an area about the size of a football field. Light streamed down in shafts from the huge skylights and many holes in the tin roof.
In the cleared area, a strange machine squatted. Arthur knew instantly it came from the House and was not a relic of past papermaking. It was the size of a bus and looked like a cross between a steam engine and a mechanical spider, with eight forty-foot-long, jointed limbs that sprouted from a bulbous cylindrical body - a boiler - with a thin smokestack at one end.
The limbs were made of a red metal that shone dully even where the sun did not fall, but the boiler was a deep black that sucked up the sunlight and did not reflect it.
There were several huge bottles of the same black metal near the spidermachine. Each one was taller than Arthur and easily three or four feet in diameter.
Arthur sneaked across to a pile of debris and took another look. He couldn't see anyone, so he slinked along to the next pile and then the next. When he was level with the machine, he was surprised to see a very normal-looking office desk next to it. There was a giant plasma screen on the desk, and a PC beneath it. Arthur could see a green activity light flashing on the PC, de-spite the fact its electric lead was coiled up on the concrete floor, not plugged into anything. He could also see something on the screen. Graphs and rows of figures.
Arthur was just about to creep forward for a better look when a Grotesque walked around from the other side of the boiler. Arthur wasn't sure if it was one of the two he'd seen before. Whoever it was, it was no longer disguised in a modern suit. Its leather apron had what looked like scorch marks all over it, and numerous tools were sticking out of the pockets on the front.
Arthur ducked down behind some fallen bricks and froze. The Grotesque sang to itself as it picked up a huge pair of long-handled tongs from the floor and went over to the dark bottles.
"Double, treble, quadruple bubble, watch the stock market get into trouble?"
Using the tongs with much grunting and shuffling, the Grotesque picked up one of the huge bottles and slowly maneuvered it over to the boiler. It put the bottle down for a moment to open a hatch almost at ground level directly below the smokestack. Then it drew out gloves, a tightly fitting hood, and goggles with smoked quartz lenses from inside its apron. It put these on, picked up the tongs again, and used them to lever the bottle into a position where its neck fitted into the opening in the boiler.
Then it spoke. Three words in a language that Arthur did not know. Words that sent a shiver through the soles of his feet and up his spine. Words that caused the heavy wax seal on the bottle to shatter and release the contents into the boiler.
The contents were Nothing. Arthur saw a dark, oily waft that was both liquid and smoke at the same time. Most of it poured into the boiler, but a few tendrils escaped, winding back towards the Grotesque, who stepped smartly back. It dropped the tongs and drew a glittering blade of crystal that crackled with electric sparks.
The Nothing that had escaped began to eddy and spiral, taking a definite shape. At first it looked like it would become some sort of animal, something tigerlike, with clawed paws and a toothy mouth. Then it changed to become a human shape, but one with bunched tendrils instead of hands.
A Scoucher!
The Grotesque sheathed its crystal blade and eased one of the many rings it wore off its middle finger. As the Scoucher's shape became definite and it lunged forward, the Grotesque flicked its ring. It struck the Scoucher in the face, and once again Arthur heard the sizzling sound. A moment later, the Scoucher was gone, and the ring bounced on the floor with the clear bell-like sound of silver.
The Grotesque laughed and bent to pick it up. Arthur chose that moment to run to the next pile of debris. Instantly, the Grotesque swung around, its crystal blade in its hand once more. Arthur instinctively flinched, but the Grotesque did not rush over to attack. Instead it smiled and flourished its hand at the machine.
"So the Master of the Lower House has come to see my strange device. I presume you require a demonstration? A little foretaste of what is to come at twelve o'clock?"
The Grotesque strode to the side of the machine and turned a large bronze wheel. A shriek came from the boiler, rising in intensity with each turn of the wheel. Smoke suddenly poured out of the smokestack. Weird smoke that was gray and slow and thick, pitted with tiny specks of intense blackness. As the smoke rose and the shrieking grew louder, the arms of the machine rose high in the air and began to jerk and jitter from side to side.
Arthur looked around frantically. Whatever the machine did, it would be bad. He had to find the way into the House!
"Oil up fifteen percent!" shouted the Grotesque and it spoke another word that made Arthur feel suddenly ill. In response, the spider-arms stopped for a moment, then began to dance in a rhythmic, mesmerizing pattern. As they moved, sparks fountained out of the pointed ends of each limb, leaving luminescent after-trails across Arthur's eyes. Bright trails that were vaguely reminiscent of mathematical formulae and symbols, though not ones that Arthur recognized.
On the plasma screen, the graphs suddenly disappeared, replaced by a spinning BREAKING NEWS logo. It was replaced a moment later by the face of a TV network woman, with the words SUDDEN OIL SHOCK scrolling across the screen. Arthur couldn't hear her over the shrieking machine and the whirr and buzz of its arms, but he could guess what she was saying.
The Grotesque's bizarre machine had somehow sent the price of oil up fifteen percent.
"What stocks does your father own?" jeered the Grotesque. It took a piece of paper out of its apron pocket and looked at it. "Oh, I know. Music Supa-Planet, down fifty percent!"
Again it spoke a strange word that sent a ripple of pain through Arthur's joints. The spider-arms stopped at the word, then began a different dance, tracing out their strange formulae in patterns of light.
Arthur shook his head to try and clear the aftereffect of the bright sparks and the words. On the second shake, he saw something. A little door at the base of one of the huge paper mill chimneys. A metal inspection hatch that was slightly ajar.