The Nature of Time

Chapter 27

"I love playing with new toys," laughed Addy. "The problem is where to find more hired hands when I've had my fun. Good help is hard to find these days." Damien helped Gerard up from the huddled position they had been in. The tail of his coat bristled with bite marks from rancid flame and peppered caustics. A foul fume waived like soft smoke, rather clear as smoke went, from burnt streaks of ash where the cloaked figures had been.

"You use people to any end you see fit," spat Gerard, wiping his clouded glasses on his shirt. "There is no honor in that nor in using people as your playthings."

Addy paced forward, circling, and twirling with a bravado one would normally see on a dance floor. His face was very sane, controlled to the point that his features looked like a mask. He began to stalk the two, slowly walking around them as if reprimanding two children.

"So, too does the crown, dear Gerard," he growled. "So too do our families and so to do all those making plans behind closed doors which none of us have a say in."

He walked forward, motioning to Gerard and Damien to follow. Pipes, both large and small, ran on the sides of the walls. A soft whirring purred in the background, staggering in contrast to the explosion that had happened earlier. Damien watched the cylindrical metal vibrate ever so slightly and he tugged his coat closer to his body. Spindly fingers of thin ice coated parts of the larger valves the further they approached a descending hallway. The air became colder, flushing his cheeks with a heat to combat the bite that chilled.

"You see, most think that I am an evil man," began Addy. "That I truly do no good on this little island. The truth, however, is I'm more loyal to my country than even the most devout of ministers. They can wag their heads all they want, spewing values and beliefs and ideologies, but that's all they do. I'm actually creating change."

The doors opened before them at the last of his words. What Damien and Gerard saw terrified them. A large cylinder towered at the center of the room. Huge fans roared overhead creating an up flow of heat that wrestled with the cold valves, a fire just out of reach during a blizzard. It's casing was the same he had seen in Vienna; brass, yet this one held a swirl of metal that he couldn't identify. Coils wound around its heavy circumference that attached to six points upon the cylinder. Motor cogs whizzed at a steady pace interlocked with pistons and other drivers. Various workers tended to different parts of the complex machine, holding clipboards while checking readouts of numerous instruments. Gerard raised his bear arm noticing hair follicles raising and lowering. A static pressure ebbed all around them and Damien gripped onto his side. His coat covering his appendage wobbled with the static, almost twitching with the cascades in the energy.

"I doubt that Addy," said Gerard. "What kind of change are you creating?"

"The only kind I know how to," said Addy. He laughed as orders flew to the workers around him. They rushed about flicking nobs and switches that hissed as they did so. Ice formed across the largest valves, coating them further in a thickening crust that metastasized to the larger cylinder in the center.

"You know what that is, don't you Damien?" whispered Gerard, aghast.

"A crudely constructed centrifuge," responded Damien, his mouth agape. "Likely pieced together from discarded blueprints from the Ministry."

Addy withdrew a silver watch from his pocket. A link from the watch's end attached to his vest, holding it only a short length away from him. He played with it, toddling it about his fingers as a street performer would with coins given to him in trust. Strangely, the link never coiled about his fingers from the practiced movements.

"I told you your watch wasn't so special," he grinned.

"How did you get that?" barked Damien. "A madman such as yourself shouldn't have anything like it."

Addy looked down to him from his perched position near the center of the centrifuge. A stairway led up from the ground more makeshift and hastily put together by the hands of rushed workers. The balcony that he stood upon wrapped the midsection of the large device and his eyes were condescending.

"Everyone has their price, or their breaking point," retorted Addy.

The thought of Ministry agents selling their links or even being hunted twisted Damien's stomach. Perhaps it was far worse. Maybe there were architects in the Ministry working for more than one side. His fists tightened, his blood boiled as Addy's grin widened.

"This is the start of a new area, Gerard and Damien," Addy stated. "Power will no longer be held in the hands of those who would gain from it's abuse. The question is this: Who's side will you be on?"

In an instant, his image flicked, leaving only the two of them behind with a procession of guards. They all wore the same cloaks as those before, darkened fabric that absorbed all light making it appear darker than a consuming night sky.

"I don't suppose we'll just walk out of here, will we?" jested Damien.

"Don't you dare, Damien," ordered Gerard. Damien trapped the man's wrist in his tight grasp as the cloaked figures lunged at them. In a blink, he screamed and they were gone, only a scrap from Damien's coat tail left in one of the figures clawed hand.