CHAPTER EIGHT

The next three weeks passed in nearly the same way. Each day a new list of names. Each morning a new set of blank little rooms with blank men. And at the end of each day they had a new list of their own to deliver to Evans, who would then presumably deliver it to Brightly, or at least someone higher up on the Security chain.

However, what happened after that was never made known to them. Hayes was not sure if there were arrests made, or inquiries, or if other investigators were following up on the allegations brought to light by their interviews. Samantha once asked him about it, wondering if this was procedure, but Hayes could do no more than shrug. This union angle was completely new to him, he admitted. He’d no idea what the procedure was, or even if there was any.

Then one day on one of their rare free mornings Hayes swung down to Payroll and checked on a few suspicions he’d been nursing. He frowned when he heard the answers to his queries, and then took the elevator up to the Communications Office for Securities and sent off a telegram directly to Brightly, asking to meet. Then he sat in the waiting room of the office and watched the gray clouds drifting by outside.

It was extraordinarily difficult to get a meeting with Brightly. The man moved constantly. As far as Hayes was aware he didn’t even have an office. There was a rumor that the short, red airship that they saw hovering near the McNaughton cradle so often was his own personal vessel, ready to swoop him up and drop him down wherever and whenever he needed it. Hayes felt sure this was a lie. Brightly wasn’t one for flash and style. Whatever he was, he was far from Father Christmas.

Suddenly the telegraph came to life, rattling and clacking, and the clerk ripped the reply message from the machine’s teeth:

CURRENTLY IN ENG SUMMIT STOP COME TC OFF 1100 HRS STOP USE BCK ENTR STOP

—B

Hayes was surprised. He’d hardly expected a response, let alone one so quick. He thanked the clerk and then headed out to the street to catch a cab over to the Telecommunications Office.

He arrived early and waited across the street from the dull gray building. It had none of the flair of any of the other McNaughton structures, but then like most McNaughton buildings much of the work was done in the spacious basements and offices underground. At ten-thirty a crowd of men in cheap suits and shirtsleeves threaded out, talking and babbling to each other. Engineers, he guessed, from whatever meeting they were holding. No doubt Brightly had wanted Hayes to steer well clear of them.

Finally at eleven Hayes sauntered around to the alley behind the office and found the back door. Although it was made of wood and iron a light key slot was set into the side. Hayes took out his own light key and slid it in. There was the familiar whir and clunk and he pulled the door open. He hadn’t been positive it’d work; his light key was accepted by most McNaughton doors, but some areas, like the Records floor and some labs and engineering bays, were specifically off-limits to him.

He entered a long, empty corridor. The lights were mostly off, and as he walked in he felt wary for some reason. Then as he passed two swinging doors he looked through their windows to see Brightly lounging at the front of what looked like a large teaching auditorium. Arced desks descended down to the front stage in concentric circles, and most of the lights were off. The desktops were covered in papers and pencils and all sorts of clerical rubbish. At the front of the room was a large blackboard and many graphs and charts, and before them sat what looked like a large iron lamp on a pedestal.

Hayes pushed open the door. Brightly looked back, surprised, and then stood. An easy smile played across his face, but his right hand quickly reached into his pocket to pull out his pocket watch. He glanced at it, then called up, “Good morning, Hayes. You’re early. Or, actually, on time.”

Hayes grimly reminded himself that Brightly wasn’t checking his watch to see if he was early. “Yes,” he said, walking down. “Had some minutes to spare. Thought I’d skip over early. Who were those boys leaving just now? Pale, unwashed-looking chaps. I guessed they were your scientists. That so?”

“Yes.”

“I suppose you had me come in after so I didn’t hear what they were saying?”

“I didn’t want any interruptions,” said Brightly, his voice fruity and jovial as though they were discussing news at the club.

“Or perhaps so I wouldn’t hear what they were thinking?” asked Hayes.

Brightly’s easy smile didn’t twitch a bit. But then, however much Hayes needled, it almost never did. Brightly was an impenetrable wall of a man, physically and spiritually. He was six feet tall with bulky shoulders and the build of a powerful man happily gone to seed. He was somewhere in his early fifties, but his head was crowned with leonine, prematurely white hair. He always had the smile of a boy just leaving grade school, wickedly delighted at the way the world was perpetually coming to his favor, which perhaps for Brightly it was. Hayes knew very little about him, but he’d heard he’d cut his teeth in Africa during the Boer Wars, when his salesmanship to the Boer Republics had pushed the war in their favor. At least until Britain put up a better bid, and it all went to pieces for them. It was supposedly after Britain annexed the Republics that Brightly orchestrated McNaughton’s unspoken alliance with the British Empire. After all, it was said, since McNaughton was clearly going to be the dominant empire of the coming years, they might as well learn a few tricks from an old hand. Some even said Brightly had sold arms to the Boers just to get Her Majesty’s attention and attract a bid.

“Nonsense,” said Brightly. “Our secrets are, naturally, your secrets. You’re company, after all. So what can I do for you?” As Hayes came before him, Brightly checked his watch once more.

“I want to know what we’re doing with the unions,” said Hayes.

“With the unions?” said Brightly, faintly confused. “That’s obvious. We’re investigating sabotage and propaganda.”

“Yes, yes,” said Hayes. “But we’re not arresting any of them. I went to Payroll today. All of the men we identified as saboteurs are still working. Still coming in for their shifts. We’re still paying them, for God’s sake. Doesn’t seem to add up.”

“That assumes we’re doing simple addition,” said Brightly. “You’re thinking too small.”

“Am I? Then please, broaden my mind.”

“Hm. How far would you say the union infiltration goes, Hayes?” asked Brightly cheerily. “How far do you know, for sure?”

Hayes shrugged.

“Exactly,” said Brightly. “We don’t know. Or at least we don’t know much. You just have a few thugs.”

“A few killers.”

“Killers, yes, but thugs all the same. They’re superficial, low-level. So why flush them out so early, when we know so little, and our product so far is so meager? Why startle them by arresting just a few violent brutes, when we’d much rather have bigger fish on the line?”

Hayes thinned his eyes. “You’re talking about Tazz.”

“Time!” called Brightly, still smiling. Then he abruptly turned and walked away from Hayes to the far corner of the room without saying another word. He stood there with his back to him, silently looking at his watch in the palm of one hand.

Hayes did not follow. Instead he grimaced, and then silently counted off a full minute while Brightly did the same. Once it was done Hayes followed him to the corner of the room.

“So we’re not making any arrests until we’ve got Mickey Tazz, is that it?” he asked.

“Tazz, or whoever,” said Brightly. He checked his watch again. “We just don’t know. And until we know, we won’t make arrests, now will we?”

“It’s still not safe,” said Hayes. “Leaving saboteurs working at your plants. They’ve killed, you know.”

“I’m aware,” said Brightly mildly.

“They may kill again.”

“Precautions have been taken,” said Brightly. “We’re keeping our eyes on them. They won’t be doing any more damage.”

“You’re keeping your eyes on them, but not too close because you don’t want them spooked?” said Hayes. “Christ. You know that’ll never work.”

Brightly smiled placidly. “I think I’ll judge what works and what doesn’t. We need to know everything we can. There may be other groups of them, committing crimes we can’t see. Hidden pockets in other plants. If we eliminate one, we leave others still functioning. Or maybe doing worse damage, since they’d know we’re onto them.”

“If you want me to find out if there are any others, let me grill the ones we’ve identified. I can work them over and find out everything they know. You haven’t even let us bring in Naylor or anyone else connected.”

“That’s assuming they know anything,” said Brightly sternly. “And you know we’re not going to let you do that. Not after Ferguson.” He sighed a little as though disappointed. “You know, this is not normal procedure. You honestly shouldn’t be going above Evans’s head on this.”

“Evans doesn’t know what you’re doing either,” said Hayes. “And Evans can’t give me what I want.”

“And what’s that?”

“To go after Tazz directly, on my own,” said Hayes.

“Time!” said Brightly, snapping his watch shut. Then he lumbered away back down to the front of the room.

Hayes opened his mouth to say something, but refrained. He stared at the ground at his feet as Brightly took the steps up to stand on the edge of the stage, humming to himself with his back to Hayes. Hayes counted off another sixty seconds, then crossed the auditorium and followed him up the steps.

Brightly turned to face him as he approached. “Now, Hayes, you know we can’t let you do that.”

“Why not? It’s Tazz you’re after, that’s obvious enough.”

“Is it?” said Brightly. “Are you sure it’s Tazz we’re after? Tazz seems a politician to me. A rabble-rouser, albeit a secretive one. There may be other, nastier men who do his ugly thinking for him. Tazz, after all, probably has to stay clean.”

“I can ferret them out, regardless of who they are,” said Hayes. “I just need…”

“Need what?”

“Need more rope,” said Hayes. “And I need to be on my own.”

“On your own?” said Brightly merrily. “You mean without Miss Fairbanks?”

“Yes. She’s not bad, but she’s… She’s slowing me down.”

“Is she? From my perspective you’re doing better than you’ve ever done before. Rather than your usual erratic bursts of product, Hayes, you’re delivering small payloads of gold every day. Do you know that? Have you even been paying attention to what’s going on?”

“Yes, I have. We’ve turned Securities into a sausage factory. We’re too timid.”

“You mistake sloppiness for action,” said Brightly. “Miss Fairbanks, while lacking your formidable talents, is an invaluable compass for your investigation. And the little woman’s no fool herself, you know that. Do you know we’ve been allowing her to select your interview subjects for you for the past week? And you’ve been bringing home kills, each time. You’ve seen that, haven’t you?”

“I haven’t,” said Hayes stubbornly. “I don’t know what happens when I report something. No one tells me anything anymore. And no one tells her, either. No one even told her what I could do.”

“Time,” said Brightly, looking at his watch. He did another about-face and walked down the steps and up to the edge of the auditorium. Hayes watched him go, frowning, and began counting seconds for the third time.

Whenever he spoke to Brightly, which was very rarely, the conversation was always conducted this way. That, or it was extremely short. Brightly was well aware of the limits of Hayes’s abilities, and he’d always been very careful to prevent Hayes from overhearing anything he shouldn’t. So every four minutes Brightly would interrupt their discussions to move outside Hayes’s vaguely defined range, and then wait a full minute to continue the conversation again. Yet for some reason Brightly never felt comfortable shouting across a large room. He felt it was improper, and refused to consider it. And so rather than their continuing the conversation as they marched across the large auditorium, Brightly would turn his back and pretend Hayes wasn’t there at all, and they’d both stand in silence while Hayes’s slippery grasp on his errant thoughts faded.

Hayes didn’t like it, but he’d grown used to it. At least Brightly was kind enough to move himself, rather than making Hayes walk away. But still each time he met with Brightly he felt powerfully small, as though he were no more than a supplicating little creature forever trapped in Brightly’s shadow, and scrambling to keep up with the man’s heels as he steadily moved away.

As Hayes counted he looked to his right at the large iron lamp on the pedestal. It must have been the subject of whatever summit Brightly had held there. Unlike that of other lamps, its glass chimney was extremely small, no more than three inches tall, and it was nestled within columns of complicated-looking wires and plumbing. Strangely enough, the little chimney seemed to be holding some sort of clear fluid.

Hayes turned away from it as the minute ran out. He walked up to Brightly and saw that at the back of the auditorium where he stood there was another lantern on a pedestal, only this lantern was much smaller.

Hayes ignored it. “So what am I supposed to do?” he asked.

“Keep on doing what you’re doing,” said Brightly. “We’ll have everything planned out for you.”

“And Sam?”

“She’ll do what we plan for her as well. I don’t understand why there’s friction between you two, I understand she’s a lovely girl.”

Hayes paused. “She doesn’t know about me. And no one plans to tell her.”

Brightly shook his head. “She doesn’t need to know. It’d only trouble her. And besides, you’ve already turned her inside out, haven’t you? Read all the words written on the inside of her skull? What more could there be to protect?”

Hayes did not answer. Brightly turned to look at the little iron lamp on the pedestal and cocked an eyebrow, thinking. “Here,” he said. “Here, Hayes. Do you want to know why we’re having you do this? Why we’re stressing security as much as we are, and making you do all these tasks?”

“Because they’re sabotaging our factories, of course.”

“Yes, yes, but there’s more than that.”

Hayes just shrugged. “I just assumed it was for profit.”

“Well, yes,” said Brightly, eyes glittering. “I’d be a liar if I said it wasn’t. But there’s more. Much more. Here. I’ll show you.” He leaned over and hit a switch on the smaller lamp. It began humming very, very softly, a low hum that seemed to build but never grew truly loud. Once it was on he walked down to the stage, leaving Hayes behind once more.

“Is this part of your minutes of silence?” Hayes called to him, but Brightly did not answer. Instead he switched on the larger lamp and stood back.

“This may take a bit to warm up,” he called up from the stage. “They need time to recognize one another.”

“Who?” said Hayes, but again Brightly said nothing.

Eventually the lamp on the stage seemed to hit some threshold. Brightly smiled, walked to it, and called, “All right, now—watch.”

“I’m watching,” said Hayes.

“Are you watching closely, though?”

“Damn it, yes.”

Brightly adjusted some dials on its side. Then, glancing up at Hayes, he held one hand over the top of the lantern and pushed a button. Immediately the little glass chimney lit up, glowing with a soft blue light. At first Hayes was unimpressed, and he opened his mouth for a smart remark, but then he noticed the chimney in the lamp beside him had lit up as well. Brightly released whatever button he’d tapped, and the lights went out in both. Then he tapped it twice more. Both lamps flashed blue simultaneously. Then he began tapping out a little rhythm, each lamp flashing with the long and the short beats exactly.

“What are they?” said Hayes.

“They’re our newest prototype,” said Brightly. “And they’re going to revolutionize everything. And I do mean everything, Hayes.”

“Just these… these lamps that light up?”

“Not just light up. They light up instantaneously.”

Hayes stared at him blankly. “So?”

Brightly frowned and released the button. The lamps went dark. “They’re called the Siblings, or at least that’s what we’re calling them for now,” he began. “I rather like the name. Gives it a fraternal feel, like a family. Something the average man can appreciate. They’re crystals, Hayes, crystals that are paired together. Very, very small ones, just the size of molecules. But they’re remarkable, because if you split them up and put a minute charge through one of the crystals—just a very, very small one—then the other crystal immediately experiences symptoms of that same charge. Even if it’s not physically touching, which you can see as there’s one half floating in each lamp here. And they do it instantaneously. There’s no delay at all.”

Hayes looked at the lamp beside him. “None?”

“No,” said Brightly. He tapped out another rhythm on the lamp, and the other one flashed with it. “And usually everything has a delay. Radio waves. Electrical impulses. By God, even light has one,” he said, laughing. “But, as far as we can tell, these crystals don’t have any. They conduct the same tiny charge, no matter how far apart… to an extent.”

“An extent?”

“Yes,” said Brightly. “It’s mostly limited by proximity and duration. Depending on the machine that powers them, they can instantaneously conduct charges within a certain radius. With these it’s, say, half a mile. And, as you saw, it takes several seconds for them to recognize each other. They can only do it in pairs for now… But can you see what use this would have, Hayes?”

Hayes stared at the little lamp, thinking. “Communication,” he said.

Brightly beamed. “Exactly. If you make chains of them, paired across the world, you can conduct messages with almost no delay at all. But even better, if we can get them powered so they broadcast far enough, we won’t even need chains—you’d be able to communicate with the other side of the globe, immediately. People could pick up the phone and call France if they’d like and hear a voice right away.”

“And generals could communicate the movements of the enemy to their separated troops,” said Hayes.

Brightly’s smile thinned. “What a nasty idea.”

“Yet a lucrative one, isn’t it?”

“Possibly,” said Brightly. “The military possibilities of the Siblings have not gone unacknowledged. But we can’t decide what people do with the things we make, can we? Is that burden for us to bear?” Somehow his smile became even more placid.

“How many does the government have now?” asked Hayes flatly.

“Oh, none. These are prototypes, and crude ones at that. We’re experiencing some mathematical problems. Theoretically, they shouldn’t be limited at all, by either time or duration, and we still haven’t increased the range as much as we’d like… but we’re still figuring it out. We won’t be ready to go into production for a year, at least.”

“And what does that take?” asked Hayes.

“Well, that’s a bit more complicated,” said Brightly, turning off his lamp. “Apparently it involves some very hot temperatures, some high-speed collisions of some very small things, and some very tricky math. Of a sort.”

“Of a sort?”

“Yes. You see, they had to make up a new kind.”

“A new kind of what?”

“Of math,” said Brightly simply.

“Of math?”

“Oh, yes.”

“How did they do that?”

“Come now, Hayes,” said Brightly. “Surely you can’t have forgotten our patron saint?”

Hayes thought, then rolled his eyes. “Kulahee, again.”

“Yes. The man spent hours and hours toying with equations. Making numbers do things they’d never done before. It’s taken years to decode some of his scribbling, but we did it. And now we can stand on the shoulders of his giant figure, and move the very stars.”

“Very nice, Brightly,” said Hayes. “You ought to write that down.”

Brightly glowered at him. He marched up the stairs and said, “Turn off that one and come with me.”

“Right, right,” said Hayes as he left. He turned to the little lamp and examined it. It had several knobs and buttons and switches on it, all of them pretty incomprehensible to him. He stuck his tongue in the corner of his mouth and leaned in, peering through the panels.

… messenger…

Hayes snapped back and stood up. He looked around, but found the room was empty.

“Hello?” he said. But, of course, there was no one there.

He blinked. He knew that sensation. It was the feeling he got when someone came close and a lone thought slipped from their mind to his. That one had just been one word, just “messenger.” Yet there seemed to be no one near.

He looked around again, curious. Then, shrugging, he turned the Sibling off and followed the path Brightly had taken. Hayes found him in a large side room off the corridor, this one much more industrial. As usual, the second he walked through the door Brightly checked his watch and marked the time.

But Hayes barely noticed. There in the center of the room was a Sibling, like the ones he’d just seen, but it was enormous, the size of a cathedral bell. Cables the size of his arm coiled through the many columns, and there nestled in the center was the same little glass chimney, no larger than the ones from the previous lamps. Hayes whistled as he looked the device over.

“Yes,” said Brightly. “This was for an experiment. We loaded this one’s paired Sibling onto a tanker ship, timed a team of watches down to the nanosecond, and floated it out into the middle of the Pacific. Then, at the exact agreed-upon moment, they recorded themselves tapping out a signal on it, and we recorded the reception on our end. When they returned to shore, we compared the two recordings. They were exact. The only delay involved was basic human reaction time. Even though there were countless storms in the way.

“When we first made the airships we thought oceans and seas didn’t matter. We could cross them without thought. But that was just a passing fancy. Now we know better. Now those great distances are truly immaterial. We’re going to make a new age, Hayes. In the next few years, the world will get smaller and smaller. Do you see?”

“I see,” said Hayes.

“Now do you understand why your task is so important?”

“Just for the Siblings?”

“Not just for them. This is but an example. One that may truly revolutionize the world.”

Hayes thought, then shrugged. “I still don’t see why I can’t go after Tazz.”

Brightly’s smile shivered a bit. He stiffly shook his head. “By God, sometimes you are the most useless fool I’ve ever met,” he said through his grin. Then he pushed open the doors and walked out.

Hayes smiled after him. He’d never gotten him to do that before. He turned to look at the massive Sibling and scratched his nose. He saluted it, though he didn’t know why, and then walked toward the door.

… messenger… from afar…

He stopped short and whirled around. “Hello?” he called out. “Who’s there?”

There was no answer. Only the low thrum of the Sibling. He checked behind it but could find no one hiding there. Then he stared at the device and moved closer, holding his hands out as though trying to feel any effects.

Had the Sibling spoken to him? Was it even possible for him to overhear a machine? He’d certainly never experienced anything like it before. Perhaps it was a transmission he’d overheard, somehow… But wasn’t this one a prototype, built only to see how far they could transmit? Or could someone else have somehow been sending messages through it?

He shook himself. It was a silly idea. It was much more likely there was someone on the floor above or below and Hayes had just happened to get close to them.

Hayes left and caught up to Brightly, who was standing with his hands behind his back at the end of the hall. He was wearing his traveling coat and his hat now, and he’d shed the smile for a dour glare. Yet no matter how angry he was, the second Hayes came near he checked his pocket watch and marked the time. Hayes would forever be a tool to Brightly, he knew, one that came with liabilities that required careful use. Every second Brightly allowed was one with a purpose, however hidden.

“I hope this has not been a waste of my very valuable time,” he said. “Has it, Hayes? Please tell me you’ve learned something useful?”

Hayes was silent. He gave Brightly a piercing look, then nodded slightly.

“I hope so,” said Brightly. “I honestly do. Some days I’m not sure why I’ve kept you on. We ask for you to do one thing, one little task, and we set the bar so low for you, and still somehow you find the need to buck us. But pay attention, now, because I’m going to keep this simple—if you don’t do these little, tiny, easy tasks we’ve set for you, you’ll be out. Out right away. No exceptions.”

“I just want to do my job. To get after Tazz.”

“No, Mr. Hayes,” said Brightly. “You are a man of addictions. And some of your addictions go far beyond any chemical or bottle. You want to chase Tazz the same way a drunkard needs his tankard. It’s simply another exciting little diversion for you, isn’t it?”

When Hayes did not answer, Brightly nodded. “Then it’s as I thought. Let’s hope this is one compulsion you can overcome, for your sake. Good day,” he said, and pushed through the doors and walked out to the street.