The Live-Forever Machine (18 page)

There was a centre of perfect blackness, like a drop of tar, in each of his eyes. Eric felt as if he were drowning in them. Chris, when is the tower going to overheat? he thought desperately. Why isn’t it working?

“And Bob’s going to spin for the bonus!” wailed a game-show host from one of the televisions. The studio audience sent up a huge groan.

Coyle’s eyes flicked to the screen. “Don’t do it, Bob!” he shouted. “You’ll lose it all! Happens every time!”

Eric was startled by the intensity in Coyle’s face. He was completely absorbed by the game show, his eyes locked to the television. Bob spun the wheel; the pointer missed the bonus mark and all his money was taken away from him by a beautiful woman. Coyle snorted in disgust.

“Protex laundry detergent,” crooned another television, “is the detergent you’ve been dreaming about all these years.”

“It’s better than the leading brand!” Coyle chanted, snapping his gaze to the next screen. “Cleaner, faster, cheaper!”

“Don’t leave me, Walter,” pleaded a woman in a satin dress. “We can talk, we can work this out.”

“Leave her, Walter!” raged Coyle. “She’ll whine you deaf!”

Eric felt a chill pass through his body. It was as if Coyle had been mesmerized by the televisions. Symbols from the computer monitor swam across the ranting man’s face, and as Eric watched, a green word wavered on his cheek.

Eric watched as it began to flash. Another message appeared across Coyle’s mouth, distorted by the smile that was twisting his lips.

It’s happening, Eric thought. Chris, it’s working! He eyed the canister on the table. Should he make a run for it?

Coyle’s gaze was fixed on another television screen. A bovine man dressed like Henry the Eighth was gorging himself on macaroni and cheese.

A horrible groan issued from the computer tower. Coyle whirled in alarm. One of the huge levers was grinding around laboriously. It faltered, turned a little more, then jammed. A jet of scalding oil shot from the machine’s side.

“It’s overheating!” Coyle hissed, looking down at his monitor. He saw the warnings, but before he could do anything, another message flared on the screen.

“No!” Coyle shouted. “No!” His hands flew over the keyboard. Eric looked back to the memory tower. Wisps of smoke were lifting from its bristling mechanical surface. He saw Chris lean out from behind the base, flash the thumbs-up signal, and run for cover into the tangle of pipes and cables. They had shut it down, Eric thought jubilantly, but when he
looked back at Coyle’s computer monitor, the smile died on his lips.

And then, before his amazed eyes, the translated contents of the live-forever machine began to scroll across the screen. His heart sank. They had been too late.

Coyle switched on the printer. A shriek rose from its insides and the machine went dead. “Come on!” Coyle growled, hitting buttons. “Work!”

The text was gradually filling the screen.

Coyle looked in a frenzy at his failing computer equipment. He knew he was going to lose the translation if he didn’t hurry. His neon-blue eyes shone with terror. He grabbed a pen and a piece of paper. Eric watched as Coyle held the pen awkwardly, slowly forming his letters one at a time like a child. Eric couldn’t believe it. So out of practice he’d almost forgotten how to write words.

The text of the live-forever machine had now filled the whole screen and was erasing itself as it scrolled. It was impossible for Coyle to keep up.

“You do it,” he said, turning to Eric in pleading desperation.

Eric felt the slightest twinge of pity.

“Do it!” Coyle bellowed.

Eric shook his head, his knees trembling. Would he be shot?

But Coyle turned back to the screen and tried in vain to keep up. Now was the time. Eric snatched the canister and ran.

Chris emerged from their hiding place to meet him.

“It’s done,” Eric panted. “He’s lost it.” He looked back and saw Coyle still staring feverishly into the computer monitor. The screen suddenly exploded outwards, sending glass and sparks into his face. A horrible bellow rose from his throat.

“Back to the stairs,” Chris said. And then they were running, ducking and veering around hanging cables, hurdling over pipes. Eric had to push himself to keep up.

A sound like ripping fabric echoed through the concrete cavern, and a jagged spark flashed past them and arced down into the water.

“What was that?” said Chris.

“Lightning.” Eric said breathlessly. He cast a glance over his shoulder and saw Coyle sprinting after them, the long rifle slamming against his ribs. His face was scored with glass cuts, oozing blood. “Just keep going! We’ll outrun him.”

Another spark shot past and struck a huge
pipe. The pipe swayed slightly, and then the metal clamps holding it to the wall gave out, and it came crashing down across the cavern floor. Scalding steam filled the air. Eric raised a hand in front of his eyes and turned away, cursing. They’d never get through that.

He glanced at the water boiling through the storm drain. Too fast, too fast. He looked up. About five metres overhead, a pipe spanned the cavern.

“Up,” Eric said to Chris. He found footholds in the wall. His hands grasped cables for support. Chris clambered up beside him, his useless gun clattering against the concrete and metal. They finally reached the pipe. It was thick enough to walk across, but it would be a tough balancing act. Coyle was gaining fast.

One foot darting in front of the other, Eric teetered across the pipe, afraid to slow down in case he lost his balance. The far wall slipped and shimmered before him.

“Hurry!” Chris shouted behind him.

“Stop!” Coyle roared. “You’re very easy targets! I’m going to count to ten—no, let’s make it backwards from five for novelty.”

Eric could see their pursuer at the edge of the storm drain, shouldering his lightning-maker. The glass cuts on his face had completely disappeared.

“Don’t stop!” Eric called to Chris. “Keep going.”

“Five … four …”

“We’re not going to make it,” Chris spluttered.

“Come on!”

“Three …”

“Eric, we’re not going to make it!”

“He won’t do it! He needs the scroll!”

“Two …”

“Eric—”

“One!”

Eric made it to the wall and looked wildly back over his shoulder. Chris was only about halfway across.

“Come on!” Eric yelled.

But Chris didn’t move. Instead, he unslung the machine gun from his shoulder and, as Eric watched in horror, levelled it at Coyle, as if he were going to open fire. The air began to crackle with electricity.

Chris threw the gun into the air.

The bolt of lightning arched towards it and, in a flash, incinerated it. Eric looked back to Chris in relief, but his friend was swaying on the pipe, his arms flailing for balance.

“Chris!” Eric cried.

Another stroke of lightning slammed against the pipe and Chris fell forward, his hands
grabbing air. Then it was all slow motion. Eric saw Chris’s feet slip off the pipe. He saw his friend’s mouth move, no sound, saw him hit the water below with a silent splash. And the current swept him away into the darkness.

Eric felt his throat constrict. Then his voice seemed to surge out of him.

“You bastard!” he screamed.

“The scroll!” Coyle wailed up at him. “I need the scroll.”

“You killed him!” His mind had fogged with hatred.

“I’m promising you a glorious future, better than ever before, new and improved, bigger, faster, brighter. Don’t you see the things I’ve been telling you?”

Eric looked at the trembling hand that clutched the canister, then down at the swirling water of the storm drain.

“You’re running out of time!” shrieked Coyle. “I’m offering you the way of the future! Give me the scroll or I’ll shoot!”

“I’ll drop it!” he bawled back.

“No you won’t,” Coyle said with a sly smirk. “You’re like old Alexander. You wouldn’t ever do that.”

Let it go, Eric commanded his fingers; just let it go.

“You won’t do it,” Coyle repeated.

Tears of frustration sprang up in Eric’s eyes. Why couldn’t he let it go? Come on! he raged inwardly. What does any of it matter now?

“You see,” said Coyle. “You can’t. Give it to me!”

And then Eric saw it: a glittering in the air in front of him, a bright sparkle.

Jonah’s fishing hook.

In a single overhand swing of his arm, he plunged the canister’s leather handle onto the hook and gave a sharp tug. And then the line was being reeled in and the scroll was drawn swiftly upwards.

And Eric started to laugh, a deranged laughter that he didn’t even understand. It just tumbled out of his mouth, echoing against the walls of the cavern.

“No!” Coyle roared.

He heard the electric snap of the lightning-maker, and a spark hammered against a pipe next to his head. He pressed himself into the tangle of cables, tears streaming down his face. He could see Coyle on the far shore, waiting for his gun to charge up again.

“You’ve only wasted your own time,” Coyle roared. “It’s only a matter of years before I find the scroll again. I’ll live forever!”

Eric was barely listening. He was moving fast
towards a pipe that would shield him from the next blast.

“And do you know what else?” Coyle shrieked like an enraged child. “I’m going to make a fire like none you’ve ever seen! I’m going to burn the museum to the ground!”

A lightning bolt seared the wall and Eric was enveloped by smoke. Everything metal that he touched sent a shock through his fingers. The bitter smell of electricity clogged his nostrils.

“I’ll raze it!” Coyle was shouting below. “I’m going to destroy it all.”

“You can’t!” Eric shouted back at him, hardly realizing what he was saying, forcing words through his burning throat.

“It can all be destroyed!” Coyle bellowed. “Like the rare-book library, like the antiques shop. Everything must be forgotten!”

He fired his rifle again and again. And then the air seemed to short-circuit and the lightning really started to fly, arching across the cavern with terrifying, sky-rending cracks.

“You can’t destroy the past!” Eric shouted above the storm.

“I have!”

“You can’t have forgotten it all. You’re carrying it with you in your head!”

“No!”

“You can’t get away from it!”

“I jettison the past!”

“The first electronic computer, 1942!”

“Shut up!”

“The first television, 1925!”

“No!”

“The first all-steel building, 1896!”

Horror seeped across Coyle’s face.

“Henry Ford’s first car, 1893!

“Ohm’s Law, 1827!

“Benjamin Franklin’s lightning conductor, 1752!

“Albrecht Dürer’s flying machine, 1522!”

“Stop!” Coyle screeched.

“The Chinese use explosives, 1151!

“The birth of alchemy, 425!

“The fall of the Roman Empire, 400!

“The fire at the Library of Alexandria!”

Coyle shuddered and hunched forward convulsively, as if a huge weight had plummeted onto his shoulders.

“No!” he screamed. “No, it can’t—”

Eric’s hand touched something smooth and surprisingly cool. A wheel. The smoke cleared for a second and he could see a whole row of spoked wheels jutting out from the wall. The floodgates.

“You remember, don’t you?” Eric screamed
at him. “You remember it, Macer!” He bellowed out Coyle’s real name.

Coyle convulsed again under the sudden, titanic rush of memory. “It’s all got to be destroyed!” he shrieked in terror. “All of it! There’s so much!”

Eric grabbed the first wheel with both hands and turned with all his strength, until it wouldn’t turn any more. Then he moved to the next one.

“You’ll never get rid of it all!” he wailed. “You can’t ever forget it! There’s thousands of years of it.”

Eric turned another wheel. Then another and another.

“It’s part of you, Macer. You
are
the past!”

Coyle’s mouth was shaping words but Eric couldn’t hear them. The immortal’s whole body was trembling.

Then there was the sound of water. It was so loud, so sudden, that it seemed to drown out all the other noise. Then Eric saw it: water—more than a river, more than a lake, it must have been more than an entire ocean, he thought in that unreal moment as the waves came crashing down through the cavern, tumbling over the shores of the drain, sweeping over everything. He saw Coyle’s computer tower topple
under the massive waves, then the television sets and all the other machinery, gone, crushed beneath the powerful swell. Then he looked down at Coyle himself, standing absolutely rigid, watching the water rush towards him. Eric turned away and climbed as fast as he could, higher and higher, as the water rushed over his legs.

Eric climbed blindly upwards, his thoughts roaring like
TV
static. His body was carrying him away from the rising water. The wall blurred before his eyes, shifting in and out of focus. His raw, bleeding hands grasped cables and metal clamps; his legs pumped against the solid bulk of pipes and concrete.

“Get back to the top!” he whimpered to himself, not knowing whether he was actually gasping out the words or they were just thudding around in his head. The surface. Get help, maps of the drains! He didn’t want to come. He started to laugh again, but choked on it. You made him come. It’s your fault. You forced him. You made him feel stupid all the time. He didn’t want to come.

He paused, clinging to a pipe, his teeth gritted against the burning in his lungs. A quiet had descended over the flooded cavern. The tumultuous froth had calmed, and now only gentle
ripples shimmered across the water’s surface. He waited for more lightning, but it didn’t come.

He began to climb again, more slowly now, resting often. But still his fragmented thoughts kept lurching out. Don’t even know where the drain goes, where it empties out. Keep your head above water! Don’t breathe it in! Where would you end up?