“I think you’ve meddled quite enough,” said Burton.
“And I say I’m just getting started,” said Nebogipfel, twirling a finger in the air.
On this signal, rough hands seized Burton.
“What are you doing?”
“Giving you the gift I mentioned earlier.” Nebogipfel stepped toward Burton, holding a familiar-looking brass device attached to a leather strap. He secured it onto Burton’s wrist.
“This is a Time Machine similar to Miss Hemlock’s,” he said. “But with one difference. Only I can control it.”
“You mean to strand me somewhere in Time?”
“Heavens, no. Your history is already written. I have seen your death, friend Burton, years hence and many miles from England’s shores. No, I mean to show you something. You’ll move through Space as well as Time, via a mechanism too complex to explain.”
Burton glared at the device, flexing his hand.
“But I must warn you, Burton. “Do not attempt to remove it or alter its workings, or you shall become unstuck in Time, drifting either forward or backward forever, and not even I can locate you and effect a rescue. Good journeys, Captain Burton.”
“Do I have a bloody choice?”
Nebogipfel nodded, and the Morlocks released him, stepping back from the explorer in a widening circle. Nebogipfel stepped once more to the dirigible’s controls and flicked a crystalline lever. “While you’re gone, I am going to go back and deliver the Map of Time, as you call it, to Mycroft Holmes. You interrupted my first attempt.”
Burton saw orbs of light once more flicker before his eyes, and the scene aboard the dirigible began to pull away from him, growing indistinct. He felt ghost-like, his feet passing through the inlaid brass floor of the Time Balloon as he sank into indigo mists.
10. The Ratiocinator
Captain Sir Richard Frances Burton emerged from indigo mists to the sound of a blaring horn and a large, wheeled vehicle careening towards him.
The explorer, eyes wide, dived out of the way just in time, landing in the mouth of a refuse-strewn alley. The contraption belched smoke from a pipe jutting from its rear, its driver yelling a string of incomprehensible curses as the craft swerved around a corner and disappeared.
Burton stood, brushing himself off, Nebogipfel’s Time Machine heavy on his wrist.
“Blimey,” said a young voice from the alley. “Are you all right, gov? You almost got creamed by that lorry.”
“Creamed,” Burton murmured. He looked into the alley and saw a small boy, about twelve years old. He was rail-thin, and dressed in threadbare clothes. He clutched a bundle of newspapers under one arm.
“Uh, yes,” said Burton. “I suppose I nearly was. Say, can you tell me the date?”
“April first,” said the boy.
Burton eyed his collection of newspapers. “Can I see one of those?”
The boy backed away. “Gotta pay for it first.”
Burton nodded. “Of course. How much?”
“Five pence.”
Burton almost balked, then realized things probably cost more in the future and, in a functioning economy, must do so. He reached into his pocket and fumbled around until he had the five pence. He placed this in the boy’s hand.
“Blimey!” he said, staring at his open palm. “These are old coins. My Da collects ‘em. For these, you can have my whole bloomin’ stack.”
Burton chuckled. “That won’t be necessary, my good fellow. Just one is enough, and you can keep the money.”
The boy pocketed the coins and handed Burton a paper, his eyes growing wide when he saw the Time Machine strapped to Burton’s wrist.
“Is that a Ratiocinator? Looks different.”
“A what?”
“You know. A Thinker.” The boy pulled up his right sleeve and showed Burton a smaller brass device secured to his wrist by a worn leather strap. Its face had a sickly green orb for a dial with a tiny grille underneath. It reminded Burton of a smirking cyclops.
“It tells us when there’s trouble,” said the boy.
As if to demonstrate, the dial began to glow and a tinny voice issued from the strange device.
“Air raid tonight. Stay indoors from 8 p.m. to midnight. Greater threat levels in Greenwich, Covent Garden, and West End.”
“What was that?” asked Burton.
“That’s The Thinker. It operates out of old Big Ben. Where have you been?”
Burton smiled at the boy and nodded, unfolding his paper. The newsie shrugged and, clutching his antique coins, ran away up the street, dropping the rest of his bundle, heedless of any lost revenue they might represent. The explorer looked up from his paper to watch the boy go, shaking his head before returning his attention to the newspaper.
There, under the masthead, was the information he sought: Tuesday, April 1st, 1945. The Time Traveler’s doppelganger had stranded him in the future. But for what purpose?
Burton turned and stepped from the alley’s mouth. He had always been an explorer at heart; and would be again. Concealing the Time Machine as best he could under his coat, the accidental Time Traveler merged into the throng and let it carry him away up the street.
The city had grown more crowded and clamorous in the intervening eighty-five years, the streets filled with more of the machines like the kind that had almost run him over. It seemed they had completely replaced the horse and buggy as the preferred means of transport. People dressed strangely and, Burton was pleased to see, a bit less formally. Gone were the tight corsets and voluminous bustles for the women, and beards and top hats seemed to have gone out of style for the men. The only formal dress Burton saw were among the soldiers, young lads decked out in crisp, dark green, with gleaming gold epaulets and symbols of rank that Burton found comfortingly familiar. But everyone had one item in common: the queer Thinkers, like the one the newspaper boy wore, strapped firmly to their wrists.
The air smelled just as foul as the London he remembered, only instead of coal smoke and refuse, it was something else, possibly the fuel they burned in their calamitous auto carriages. It was a wonder they all didn’t suffocate and die where they stood. Burton needed a plan. The sooner he saw whatever it was Nebogipfel wanted him to see, the sooner he could be gone from this abysmal future time. Besides, he wasn’t about to wander aimlessly around this familiar yet alien city like a bloody lost tourist. Looking around to get his bearings, Burton spied the familiar Nelson’s Column, the poor fellow looking dingy and much the worse for wear. This put him at Trafalgar Square.
He moved east, threading his way through the throng of people and vehicles, with no clear idea of where he was going. Until he saw the sign. It read Occult Ministry, and was fastened to the front of a tall, imposing brick building onto which esoteric symbols—possibly ones of protection—had been painted. Burton found it odd that such a department not only existed, but that they would announce their presence so boldly. Burton surmised that in this future time, the existence of the occult was common knowledge, and a shudder ran through him. It meant that his—and the Shadow Council’s—efforts to keep such things secret were all for naught. He stepped up to a set of heavy wooden doors, turned one of the knobs and walked inside.
He found himself standing in a dim and cavernous hallway. People moved about, heedless of Burton’s presence. On either side of the hall were open doors leading into various offices, from which Burton heard a strange rhythmic clacking and, from the far end of the building, an insistent, shrill bell that rang loudly at random intervals.