K Jeter: Infernal Devices

Sir Charles nodded. "That is correct."

"So, if something happened to his brain – something to make it un-stolid… you know, like excited, right down to the spine – then the vibrations would be off! Outta whack! That machine down there would read them, but they'd be all wrong – it'd screw up the pulsations it's beating out, and they wouldn't work. It wouldn't be able to blow up the world, because it would be picking up new vibrations that were all haywire and resetting itself to them. The goddamn thing would screw itself up! All we gotta do is – change the vibrations from Dower's brain."

Miss McThane was the first to realise his meaning. Slowly, I turned towards her. Our eyes met; then I saw the corner of her mouth twitch into a smile.

I watched, speechless, as she grasped the neckline of her gown in both hands. She tore the bodice open, the fabric bunched into her fists. "All right, sucker!" she shouted. "England expects every man to do his duty!"

A strange, previously unknown feeling came over me. Perhaps by then I had gone mad, driven from my senses by the many travails through which I had passed, or the imminent destruction of the earth served to put all into a new perspective. The very walls of the house seemed to recede far from me, as I gazed upon the roseate satin of her skin. I let her take my hand and lead me up the trembling staircase. The chandelier swayed loose from the ceiling as we mounted the steps, the crystal shattering upon the floor below.

"With a sigh to the departed, let us resume the dull business of life, in the certainty that we also shall have our repose."

LORD BYRON, in correspondence to R. C. Dallas, 12 August 1811

The rain has ceased, for a period. It will recommence presently, wrapping in its grey shroud the brief interval of sunlight. Through the dark hours I have written, the dog guarding my labours even as it sleeps in front of the grate's last embers; with the dawn I will append the last stop to this History.

No great discernment is required to note that the earth was not destroyed; we stand upon its dull surface yet. Whether the failure of the attempt to render it asunder was due to Miss McThane achieving her longdesired satisfaction of me, or from a flaw in the device that my father had created, I know not. Suffice it to say that the walls of Bendray Hall still stood after the shuddering vibrations emanating from its cellar had ground to a halt.

Lord Bendray's grasp upon his own sanity proved rather more tenuous. He emerged from his Hermetic Carriage completely mad, obsessed with the notion that the earth had been destroyed, and that he had been taken to another planet by those beings whose acquaintance he had so desired to make. Though silence has been purchased by the proceeds from the Bendray estate, the receivership of which has passed into the hands of distant cousins, rumours still circulate about the pitiable crackbrained Lord, in the hospital wherein he is restrained. He is said to believe that the attendants are in fact those wise creatures from other worlds, and is only quieted by their fabricating absurd details about life on Mars or Venus.

No rumours, whispered or otherwise, have ever reached my ear concerning the Brown Leather Man. In my heart, I believe that dark figure to have returned to his ancestral home off the island of Groughay, there to brood and pass away with the others of his race. The brothel-keeper Mollie Maud is reported to be living in France, her carnal trade in this country having been abandoned due to the loss of most of her bullies in a pitched battle with the Dampford villagers. The simultaneous disappearance of Mrs Trabble, the noted morality crusader, remains a matter of speculation in genteel circles.

Upon making my return to London, I found my reputation to be irreparably blackened. The Paganinicon, passing itself off as me, had gone berserk during a concert attended by all of English society's loftiest members. This breakdown, unexplainable by those who witnessed it, I believe to have been caused by those same actions on the part of myself and Miss McThane, that overrode the earth-destroying device's regulatory mechanism. The Paganinicon's basic nature, already inclined to romantic conquests, was thus further stimulated by the temporary alteration to its adjunct brain. I must leave vague the details of the ensuing events – they are too indelicate to transcribe; I could scarce credit them when they were told to me – but it should be noted that Mrs Wroth and several other ladies of quality retired after the fateful concert to the seclusion of a convent. They are still there.

Due to the harassment of the crowds attracted by the scandals generated by the Paganinicon, I was unable to resume life and business in my shop as before. Fortunately, Sir Charles Wroth, perhaps to make amends for his earlier attempt to take my life (albeit in a good cause), arranged for the august scientific body of the Royal Society to purchase all the other devices left by my father in his workshop. The resultant sum of money was enough for me to go into seclusion in this little-trafficked district of London, accompanied by the loyal Creff, who had so patiently and faithfully awaited my return.

Another touching example of faith presented itself as Creff and I were loading my baggage into a carriage. Limping down the street came a bedraggled figure, its ribs protruding from the rigours of its journey, still scarred from the crash of the flying machine, scarcely recognisable. It was the dog Abel, who – as animals have been reported to do – had made his way over all England's hills and rivers, to return to that home where he was first kindly treated. The warm fire, by which he sleeps even now, and the fattening dish will be his rewards to the end of his days.

My own reward will be to lay down this pen, and pick it up no more. My apologia is finished, for all the good it will do.

Reports have reached my ears, of a lame man with tinted spectacles, in company with a woman, travelling from village to village in the North of England and Scotland. They are said to exhibit a few crude music playing automata, but are soon chased away by the town constables when various gambling and confidence games come to light.

Though I myself have come to this safe harbour – if safety can be found in this life – yet I mourn my former simple days. I have lost my Innocence, in more ways than one. I have seen the gears and furious machinery of the world that lies unreckoned beneath our feet. No longer can I note, as other men do, the passing hours upon the heavens' gilded face, without a vision of a hidden master-spring uncoiling to its final silence. I await the day when all clocks shall stop, including the one that ticks within my breast. Do thou the same, Reader, and profit from my example.