“I have an answer, as to where this new army might have come from,” I said. “But you’re really not going to like it. What if Doctor Delirium and Tiger Tim have made an alliance with the Immortals?”
“You’re right,” said the Armourer. “It is an answer, and I really don’t like it. As if things weren’t bad enough. I thought you said you saw the Immortals fighting with Doctor Delirium, to get their hands on the Apocalypse Door in Los Angeles?”
“That was then,” I said. “They could have teamed up since, to handle something they couldn’t control on their own. Doctor Delirium provides the genius, the Immortals provide the warm bodies, and Tiger Tim acts as go-between. Maybe the Door was just . . . too scary?”
We were interrupted before we could follow that thought any further, by two young lab assistants bearing a limp form on a stretcher. The man in the black and gold uniform was still alive, and carefully strapped down. He looked about a hundred years old, but there was enough fight left in him to glare viciously in all directions. He cursed us all, impartially, in a dry cracked voice. The two lab assistants smiled cheerfully at the Armourer, and dropped the stretcher on the floor before us. The impact shut off the swearing, for a while.
“Maxwell and Victoria,” the Armourer said heavily. “It would have to be you. My two most successful and irritating students. All right, where did you find him, and why isn’t he dead like all the others?”
“We found him under a gryphon,” Maxwell said proudly. “It was sitting on him. Apparently it had already eaten its full of intruders, and was just keeping this one around for when it got hungry again.”
“Max got him out from under the gryphon,” said Victoria. “He was very brave.”
“Oh hush, Vicky.”
“You were! You never take enough credit, Max. You’re always talking yourself down, and I won’t have it. You should have seen him in battle . . .”
They were both young, little more than teenagers, and they looked on each other with wide, loving eyes. The Armourer sighed, and stood up.
“Get back to the gryphon. Explain. How did you . . .”
“Oh, it was really terribly easy,” said Maxwell. “We just bribed the gryphon with a good back rub and a few friendly words, and then Vicky distracted him with an awfully sweet dance, while I dragged the Accelerated Man out from under. He wasn’t much to look at, and he smelled really bad, from being under the gryphon, but I could tell he was still alive from the vile things he was saying, so . . .”
“So we knew you’d want to talk to him!” said Victoria. “You’re quite right, Max, he does smell. But then, gryphons do love to roll in dead things, and they’re positively spoilt for choice at the moment.”
“We did think about pushing him into a shower first, before presenting him to you,” said Maxwell. “But we weren’t actually sure how long he’d last . . .”
“So we just tied him down and brought him here!” said Victoria. “Do we win a prize?”
“You should get the prize, Vicky, it was all your idea . . .”
“Oh hush, Max, you’re talking yourself down again! You’re as entitled to a prize as I am!”
“Young love among the lab assistants,” said the Armourer. “The horror, the horror . . . All right the two of you, very well done. There will be gold stars and extra ticks on your next reports. Now go back out and look under some more gryphons. You never know your luck.”
Maxwell and Victoria departed quickly, holding hands. The Armourer glared after them. “I think it’s time we started putting that white powder in their tea again.”
“Given that they clearly only have eyes for each other, it’s a wonder they found anyone,” I said solemnly.
“Probably tripped over him,” sniffed the Armourer.
I levered myself up out of my chair, found a handy surface to put my cup on, and the Armourer and I glared down at the Accelerated Man on his stretcher.
“So,” I said. “Why aren’t you dead?”
“Let me up,” he said. “I’ve got cramps. You can’t keep me tied up like this. I’ve got rights.”
“No you bloody haven’t,” I said briskly. “We are not the law, we are not the government. We are Droods, and you are in deep shit. A lot of good people died this morning, at the hands of you and your kind, so if you like having your organs on the inside, this would be a really good time to start answering questions.”
Give the man his due. In his position, he had to be scared out of his wits, but with the Acceleration Drug already killing him by inches, he must have realised we were his best hope for keeping him going. So he just sniffed loudly, and addressed the air as though we weren’t there.
“All right, all right . . . I was one of the last men through the dimensional door. Last wave in, before the suicide bombers. And I just want to say right now, that no one told the rest of us about that particular addition to the plan. We are mercenary soldiers, not martyrs. Anyway, I got sideswiped by a Drood, had the wind knocked out of me, and hit the ground hard. Next thing I know, I’m under a bloody gryphon. Great big smelly beast. And of course, that was when the Drug ran its course, and the side effects kicked in. All the extra strength ran out of me, and I could feel myself aging. Felt my muscles shrivelling up, my heart slowing down, my lungs straining . . . really bad experience.”
“Of course,” said the Armourer, tapping his chin thoughtfully with one fingertip. “Trapped under the gryphon he couldn’t move, so he couldn’t use up the last of his energies. Basically, he’s just running on borrowed time now.”
“Am I going to die?” said the mercenary.
“Of course you’re going to die, you appalling creature,” said the Armourer. “And quite right too.”
“But,” I said. “The more helpful you are, the harder we’ll try to stave off the results of the Drug. Deal?”
“I hate Droods,” said the mercenary. “Always so bloody reasonable.”
And that was when the Sarjeant-at-Arms appeared. He stamped over to join us, still full of the fury of battle.
“Heard you had a prisoner! That him! Course it is, course it is. Look at the state of him. I’ve buried people that looked less dead than he does. Now, why wasn’t I informed about this? I demand to be a part of the interrogation!”
And he cracked his knuckles eagerly.
“You don’t get to demand anything, Cedric,” the Armourer said coldly. “This is not your job. What the hell are you even doing here? Your job is to protect the Hall, and the family. So get your people together and make sure no one slipped past us and sneaked into the Hall during the confusion. And while you’re at it, I want every acre of our grounds searched thoroughly, to make sure no one’s hiding anywhere.”
“You could help Max and Vicky look under the gryphons,” I said helpfully. “That’s where they found this one. Yes, I know; the gryphons are smelly, disgusting and generally revolting, but someone’s got to do it, and I can’t think of anyone else I’d rather recommend for the job.”
“My people are bringing all the interior defences back on line,” said the Armourer, not giving the Sarjeant a chance to get a word in. “But you need to check that they’re all functioning properly. And determine the state of the outer defences. When you’ve done that, have your people set up regular patrols in the grounds, just in case another dimensional door opens up. We can’t afford to be caught napping again. When you’ve done all that, then you can come back here, and I’ll find something else for you to do.”
“That’s telling him,” said a voice from the floor.
“Shut up, you,” I said.
The Sarjeant had been nodding reluctantly all through the Armourer’s tirade, but now he stopped and fixed him with a cold gaze.
“There is one other thing we need to discuss, Armourer. In case of another attack, and things not going quite so well. We need to discuss the extreme option: Alpha Red Alpha.”
“What?” I said. “What was that? And why have you suddenly gone all pale and thoughtful, Uncle Jack?”
“Alpha Red Alpha is our security strategy of last resort,” the Armourer said slowly. “For use only when all else has failed . . . We have a dimensional door of our own, buried deep under the Hall. Power it up, and the device can rotate the Hall and its immediate environs right out of our world and into another reality. The idea being that we could stay there until the danger was past. Unfortunately, this particular device has never been tested. We might survive the journey, and we might not. And we might be able to get back again, or we might not.” He looked steadily at the Sarjeant. “Put the thought right out of your mind. Things would have to get a bloody sight more serious than this before I would even consider activating Alpha Red Alpha.”
“Am I to take it that this is another of those things that no one thought fit to tell me about, back when I was running this family?” I said.
“You didn’t need to know,” said the Armourer. “No one does.” I had to smile. “You mean it might upset the family, if they learned they were living above such a thing?”
“People panic far too easily,” the Armourer said airily. “I’m almost certain it’s entirely safe, as long as no one goes too near it. Panicking . . . Try working down here every day, surrounded by enthusiastic lab assistants, with too much imagination and no moral compass. You’d wear out your adrenaline gland before the first tea break. Sarjeant. You are still here. Why? Get back out into the grounds! For all we know, the whole open assault could have been just a diversion, to distract us from something else! Move!”
“I want a full transcript of the interrogation,” said the Sarjeant, moving reluctantly away.
“Yes, well, it’s nice to want things,” said the Armourer, waving him away. “And don’t forget to check for tunnels!”
“I’m still down here, you know,” said a voice from the floor. “It’s bad enough I’m dying, but do I have to do it in a cold draft?”
I knelt down beside the mercenary and undid the leather straps, while the Armourer wandered off in search of something. The mercenary wasn’t any threat, just skin and bones and a face like a road map. I’d never seen a man look so old and not be laid out in a coffin. His skin had shrunk right back to the bone, his mouth was just a thin slit, but his eyes were still clear and knowing. It was hard to think he’d been a young and vigorous man, just a few hours before. I checked him over quickly for wounds, but he didn’t seem to have taken any serious damage. His black and gold uniform hung baggily around him, as though it had been meant for a much larger man. The mercenary just let me get on with it, grunting occasionally with pain when I moved him too roughly. I did my best not to care. He was a hired killer, and he would have killed all of us, if he could.
The Armourer came back lugging an oversized metal chair, with cables hanging off it. He let it slam down on the floor, grunting with the effort, and then leaned on it for a moment while he got his breath back. He straightened up slowly, massaging the small of his back with both hands.
“I am too old, too talented and too necessary to be doing heavy lifting,” he said flatly. “If I put my back out again, everyone’s going to suffer. All right, Eddie, help me get him into the chair.”
I looked the chair over. “Are we going to electrocute him?”
“I’d really rather not be electrocuted,” said the voice from the floor.
“Shut up, you,” said the Armourer. “Of course we’re not going to electrocute him, Eddie. Dead men tell no tales, except under very specific conditions. I got this from the hospital ward. It’s a diagnostic chair. Plug him into it, or possibly vice versa, it’s been a while since I did this . . . then we hook the chair up to my computer, and we can see everything that’s happening inside him on these display screens. If he even thinks about lying, alarms will go off all over the shop. The chair should also help stabilise his condition, keep him alive long enough for us to get something useful out of him. Provided I know what I’m doing. I’m almost sure I know what I’m doing.”
“I demand a second opinion,” said the voice from the floor.
We got him into the diagnostic chair easily enough. The dying Accelerated Man hardly had any strength left, but he did his best not to cooperate, for his pride’s sake. I tightened various straps around him, as much to hold him up as hold him in place, while the Armourer attached various sensors. One by one a series of display screens lit up above and around the chair, showing everything from heartbeat and electrolytes to brain activity. The mercenary sniffed loudly.
“Wonderful. Now I can watch myself dying in detail. Hold everything; what are you going to do with those tubes?”
“Nothing you’ll enjoy,” the Armourer said cheerfully. “I’m just going to plug them into you, here and there. I’d look away, if I was you.”
And he proceeded to do quite uncomfortable and intrusive things with the colour-coded tubes, while I looked away and the mercenary protested bitterly. I assumed this was all part of the softening-up process, before we started the interrogation. I’d never been involved with an interrogation before. I have beaten the odd piece of information out of the occasional scumbag in my time, when lives were at stake and there just wasn’t time to be civilised . . . but that had always been in the heat of the moment. I’d never done anything as cold-blooded and premeditated as this promised to be.