I think this was the second story I wrote set in an alternate universe where the British Empire never fell and was at constant war with the USA.

The Manchester Mechanism

The bright winter sky gradually faded behind clouds of ever-darkening ochre as our mono passed beneath the fringes of the Manchester Hood. Outside our compartment, through thick plastic and occasionally flickering line shielding, I watched the bomb craters of the blasted moorland increase in size and regularity, yet lose sharp definition in the worsening light.

An excited shout from the youngest of those sharing the compartment drew all attention in our direction of travel. There, rising up beyond the Rochdale Ruins, treble plumes of the blackest smoke imaginable spewing from the Britannia's Trident cowl, was the graceful porcelain spire of the Manchester Mechanism's primary stack. One of the tallest structures the Empire had been able to build and still adequately shield, it gleamed like a gigantic finger of pearl in its arc-lights. The stack was an embarrassment to the Yanks in its defiance of their missiles and bombs, and a source of unending pride to unthinking patriots.

The belching mouths of lesser —though still lofty— chimneys, of brick, steel, concrete, also appeared, each spouting smoke and flame of various shades and intensities into the choked air - constant streams of black, thin greys, night blues, regular pulses of the deepest reds, bright greens and yellows, summer cloud whites.

There came a sudden dim flash of purple above the primary stack. The youngster's mother explained that we had just witnessed a Yank projectile exploding against the Mechanism's shielding. The boy ‘Ohh'd’ appreciatively, and began a rapt vigil for more detonations.

A quarter-hour passed, and the blue winter sky was lost. Above was only the Manchester Hood — shades of grey broken by unmingling streams of bright chemical colour, and visible only because of the ambient light rising from the Manchester Mechanism itself. Through the thick gloom, I saw that the cratered landscape had been rounded and softened by drifts of ash and soot. At larger deposits I watched huge cylindrical machinery sifting for useful compounds by the light of powerful kliegs.

A ring of green light suddenly passed down the length of our mono, and I realised we now travelled beneath the protective canopy of the Manchester Mechanism's shield. Instantly, the landscape underwent another change. The soft bowls of craters disappeared, the ground became regular and smooth, broken only by odd mounds of what must have been buried constructions of indeterminate nature.

The young boy gave a gasp — the mono was heading towards a vast wall of green iron illuminated by blinding arc-lights along its equator. I glimpsed a high arch, bordered with the words ‘Build to the Greater Glory of the Empire,’ before the mono shot within.

There followed an hour of complete blackness as we sped deeper into the Mechanism, punctuated by irregular epidermal tingling sensations as the mono was scanned for explosives and the like, and we were scanned for compliance with recorded body signatures.

The temperature in the compartment increased to a sweaty heat. Various of my companions began to doze; I felt my own eyelids grow heavy.

Sudden bright light without, and the startling voice of the mono as it smoothly braked to a stop, ‘Welcome to Manchester Victoria Station, Ground Level. Please stand clear of the doors.’

We left the compartment and filed out onto the platform.

Those who shared my journey quickly dispersed. I myself had never visited the Mechanism before, and, mounting a walkway between platforms, I took stock of its foremost station.

It was roofed by a vast green arch of rust-streaked plates upheld by a framework of ornately wrought iron. Illumination was provided by monstrous chandeliers — unlike clusters of intensely bright globes, and home to the famous blind pigeons that fluttered amongst them (eyes atrophied to mere pinpricks due to constant proximity with the chandeliers, naturalists had discovered that the birds had evolved a sensory perception similar to bats). There was a drop of hundreds of feet, through hot, damp, and hazy air, to the ranks of grey platforms bordered with busy monorails or ancient twin-tracks, and swarming with sweating, stinking, deafening hordes of diverse humanity. High-ranking executives jostled with overall-clad mechanics and electricians; mothers dragged gas-masked children through lines of chanting Hari Krishnas; shoe-polishers, barbers, newsagents, and tobacco vendors shouted of their talents and merchandise from little booths and stalls; commuters waved bowler hats at departing monos; buskers sang, plucked guitars, banjos, and harps, sawed violins, blew trumpets and French horns. And here and there were soldiers, some, with clean uniforms and shiny carbines, standing in groups and poking fun at civilian passers-by; others, uniforms almost unkempt, faces drawn, standing paired or alone, smoking cigarettes and staring into the black maws through which the trains passed.

Then I saw my first MM servile. Gaunt, hairless, and pallid, a strip of black plastic covering its eyes, and dressed only in a filthy smock, it weaved its way amongst the crowd behind an ancient-looking rubbish collector. A thick umbilicus attached to the back of its head ran upwards on a long catenary wire to a complex system of running-rails, where it hung in loose loops that bunched and stretched as the servile moved. Some said that the serviles were a left-over from times before the Universal Leprosy which, centuries past, had forced the return to non-organic technology. Others, however, offered the darker suggestion that they had once been clannish human service crews who had come to regard the Mechanism as home, rarely seeing daylight and avoiding populated areas. In time, by their own design, the crews merged with their half-aware surroundings, evolving (devolving?), sustained and directed through trailing umbilici.

The servile I watched hesitated in its work, halfway along the platform, then abruptly backtracked. Still pushing the rubbish collector, it disappeared into a low, dark opening that irised into existence beside the greater gap of a mono tunnel. It’s umbilicus gathered, and was dragged after down a sharp dip in the running-rail. Almost seamlessly, the opening closed.

A startlingly loud voice broke my attention. 'Mr Dentburry?'

I turned to face a small, overweight man, sweating into a deep blue suit. 'Yes?'

He held out his hand, which I rather bemusedly shook. 'I'm Huxton, Colin Huxton. Lord Baxter sent me.'

'Did he? I wasn't expecting to be met.' And I certainly wouldn't have expected a lord to be even aware of my arrival.

Huxton looked a trifle discomforted. 'No. Well, you see, Mr Dentburry, the situation has escalated; rather pressingly so. Would you like to come with me? I'll explain on the way.'

He led me from the bridge down into a relatively quiet side tunnel. Faded signs on the walls indicated we headed for a tube terminus. Before we reached it, however, Huxton stopped before a featureless metal door. With a quick glance at passers-by, he produced a card and waved it at an unseen detection system. The

door slid smoothly aside to reveal a plushly appointed lift car. Stepping in as my companion invited, the door slid closed after us — silencing completely the noise of the station. My ears rang, missing the clamour. With a sickening lurch we began a rapid descent.

'Sorry about that, should have warned you.' Huxton unfolded a seat form the padded leather walls, indicating I should copy him. 'It's quite a lengthy journey — the Manchester car network is the most complex in the Empire, you know, and at this time of evening it's also the most overloaded.' With a quick swipe of his hand across his forehead, he flicked sweat away, 'But at least the air-conditioning works in this one.'

The car suddenly slowed and moved horizontally. There came a whine and swish of air from beyond the walls, then many more. 'The Mancunian Way,' said Huxton, by way of explanation, 'Now it slows up.’ He was correct — the car quickly decelerated to a crawl.

Foolishly aware it was a little late for such things, I enquired after identification. Huxton offered the card that had opened the car door. Beneath a holo of his face, and a line of machine coding, I read, ‘Colin M Huxton, Undersecretary to Lord Baxtor of the King’s NW Britain War Production and Logistics Facility.’ Rather a high ranking errandboy! I had been employed to coax increased production from the ancient Mechanism, and to install a few new land leviathan master patterns — important work, yes, but hardly deserving of an escort by Lord Huxton’s undersecretary in a private government car!

Huxton noted my bemusement. ‘Let me explain, Mr Dentburry.’

So, as our car alternately speeded and slowed, rose or descended, the undersecretary explained.

‘We’ve noted for some time that the quality and quantity of this facility’s output is deteriorating. Faulty targeting equipment in attack tanks has lost our boys skirmishes; moles’ teeth have blunted at anything denser than clay; one firmament fortress was almost grounded with reversed gyrator coils! Initially, however, we were not overly alarmed — the Mechanism is, after all, ancient; and as a near-aware specialist you were originally employed to improve matters and teach the old dog new tricks. But I’m afraid things have since taken a rather drastic turn for the worse, Mr Dentburry. Tuesday-last teatime all production —tanks, wasps, leviathans, firmament fortresses, neptunes... Everything— stopped. No warning, no indication — three hundred lines simply shut themselves down.’

I of course had questions, but Huxton stayed them with a raised hand. ‘There’s more, Dentburry. Obviously we tried to ascertain the fault, but the Mechanism won’t talk — every single bloody communications terminal in the facility is frozen out. Baxtor’s had teams working around the clock trying to re-access, but it seems as if the Manchester Mechanism has sent us all to bloody Coventry. Other parts of the War Machine have increased production to compensate — the Calcutta and Juba Mountains mechanisms are going ten to the dozen, others aren’t far behind. Completion date for the new Deimos faculty has been brought

forward a full two months. We’ve managed to keep the Hood sustained, and have temporarily fooled the general workforce with simulations, false documentation, and even contaminant leaks. But the Manchester Mechanism was the first; it’s the biggest. Apart from London herself, it’s the greatest two fingers the Empire gives to the Yanks. It simply has to be in working order.’

Even though the car was cool, sweat had once more broken out on Huxton’s brow. He dabbed at it with a handkerchief. ‘And, to compound matters, yesterday a damn MM servile popped up right smack in the town hall – how the buggery it got through house security is anybody’s guess. It had ripped its umbilical off! Of course it can’t speak, and the shock of separation isn’t doing it any good at all, but we’ve got specialists constructing a makeshift interface...’ He paused to mop up more sweat, ‘Tell me, Dentburry, what in the name of all Hell is this mechanism coming to when its own bloody MMs are tearing themselves free of it?!’

What indeed? The most obvious explanation was Yank activity, either directly or via sympathy groups. If this was the case then the implications were enormous — the Manchester Mechanism hit so decisively and comprehensively... What hope the war?

If not enemy activity, then what? Near-aware senility — something I was able to rectify, whereas the Yanks forces, and their various terrorist affiliations, were quite beyond my skills. I had worked in the field on land leviathans, firmament fortresses, fire mountains — all extremely complex machines with complex governing systems, prone to slips and lapses. The Manchester Mechanism, though a hundred times as complex as any military hardware, had obviously suffered a similar ‘lapse,’ and I was confident of my abilities to set matters to rights; and the opportunity to do so under the gaze of Lord Baxtor could only be profitable.

The fact of the servile yet remained, however. Why sever itself so drastically from its very raison d’ˆtre? Further — why labour up here, leaking vital fluids at every step? Did the Servile bear a message? If so, of what content? What —

A sudden, blinding, thought, had me bolt upright on my padded seat — a wild, mad, glorious extrapolation of events.

After so many centuries, had the final step been taken?

Startled by my movement (and, I think, somewhat off-put at my lack of response to his revelations), but misinterpreting it, Huxton said, ‘Restless, Dentburry? Sorry about the long ride. Mancunian Way’s always been a pain in the bum. Should ban the public from it altogether, I say. Never mind though, nearly there.’

True to his word, the car presently lurched into a much higher speed, before abruptly slowing to a complete stop. I felt the tingling of scanner beams, and then the car’s door slid aside.

‘After you, Dentburry.’

-oOo-

The various people Baxtor had employed were amongst the most respected in the Empire, or had proved themselves extremely promising individuals. However, I didn’t even have the time to allow working with them to become a pleasure — dispatch was all. I was set about my task with nary an introduction to my team, working virtually non-stop to reopen communications with the mechanism. However, I did manage to keep half an ear to proceedings at the Royal Albert Maximum Security Ward, where interfaces were being attached to the errant servile, its physical condition having been stabilised.

Three days passed, and, taking irregular breaks for a few hours of sleep, we endeavoured to persuade the Manchester Mechanism into conversation — without success. Every documented, a few innovative, and the odd downright silly method was attempted, all resulting in the same ‘Host unresponsive.’ In extremity we

initiated a simple viral invasion of the system, which should have fired a storm of automatic antiviral procedures. Instead the invasion, with nothing better to get its coded teeth into, turned upon itself in looped infinity. Only one possibility remained, a possibility I presently communicated to Huxton in his richly appointed office.

‘All physical links have to have been severed between terminal and host. Not even complete systems failure results in this level of unresponsiveness — back-ups should have patched in at the first sign of data-loss. I can only conclude sabotage... Frighteningly knowledgeable sabotage.’

I was surprised to note Huxton’s calm and unsurprised nod at my news; even more to hear him respond in a tired voice, “Hm, yes. That fits, I suppose. Gives us an aim-point, too.’

‘Fits with what?’ I asked, flustered.

‘With what GOONy told us last night.’

‘Pardon?’

Huxton at last came out of his almost dreamy mood. ‘Sorry, Dentburry. Ground-Orbital Observation Network.’ He paused, obviously ruminating over the import of his news. ‘What you say is grim, but what I have to tell you is downright bloody catastrophic. The Manchester Mechanism may not be talking to us, but it is talking — to the other mechanisms. GOONy’s monitored it for months – an intermittent signal so fleeting they’ve only now managed to pinpoint its origin and targets, the former being this facility, the latter being seemingly every other damned mechanism in the bloody War Machine!’

The notion that had always been at the back of my mind since our conversation in the elevator —pushed there by reassuring, comprehensible hard work, and the all-too likely possibility that I was letting wild dreams eclipse reality— blazed to the fore. Did he have even the faintest idea of the magnitude of these discoveries?

‘And it wasn’t standard inter-facility chitchat,’ he continued, ‘The communications were coded and compressed in a so-far indecipherable manner. We haven’t the foggiest what they’re saying to one-another!’

My heart pounded, I gripped the lions’ heads of my chair arms until their ebony manes almost tore through my palms. ‘There’s been response?’

He hadn’t noticed my excitement. ‘We think so. Not all, mainly the older facilities. The replies are in the same gobbledegook as the MM’s questions. Of course we’ve initiated jamming procedures, you can only get Radio Four if you live in Broadcasting House there’s that much interference buzzing around. But God only knows the damage already done.’

Will towards private information exchange. Autonomous information exchange outside normal functioning. Some of the most basic governing procedures of any near-aware had been dispensed with, or circumvented. Could the prefix at last be dropped? Had another intelligence arisen to join Mankind?

Huxton coughed. What I had come to nickname his ‘stress-kerchief’ was fished from his breast pocket, and he dabbed at tiny beads of sweat alongside his nose. ‘The very worst of it, Dentburry, is that our proud Manchester Mechanism is not particular whose facilities it natters to — GOONy’s Ears have detected transmissions to Los Angeles, Vancouver, even their new Aureum Chaos site. One of the most patriotic symbols in the whole bloody Empire is conversing with the fucking enemy!’

The profanity embarrassed him. ‘Forgive me, Dentburry. Foul language — paternal grandmother from Ancoats, you know. Still, Baxtor says the situation’s never been this bad since the Universal Leprosy.’

Then came words that almost stopped my speeding heart.

‘Anyway, it all comes to this. The House of Lords, with His Majesty’s permission, have decided to send the SAS down into the works to find out what’s what... with full permission to fully off-line the mechanism.’

-oOo-

Huxton took little persuading —indeed, all I had to do was ask— to get me on the SAS task force. My qualifications as a near-aware specialist coupled with wide-ranging field experience in war zones all over the theatre were inducement enough. I even received a personal note from Baxtor himself, thanking me for my 'service to the Empire of Great Britain.' However, my mind was not filled with Rule Britannias when I volunteered, but something far more profound.

And potentially far less long-lived than our Glorious Empire.

What would I do when, on finally conversing with the Manchester Mechanism, I discovered all to be as I almost feverishly suspected? Much would depend on what the mechanism had to say. How would this new intelligence explain its actions? What were its plans? How did Mankind figure in them? How did the war

figure in them?

And what if the commander of the task force decided upon de-energising the mechanism, not understanding the immensity of the situation, blind to all but the letter of his orders?

What then?

All questions that could not be answered here, on the surface, but only down amongst the pistons and gas clouds, on the far side of the incisions in the mechanism’s communication lines.

It was the evening before our decent. The briefings were over (including the odd couple I myself floored), and now we simply waited in our Peel Park barracks. Prudence dictated that I acquaint myself with these intelligent, experienced soldiers, and they with me. A cliché, I know, but lives might depend upon it. We lay about reading, playing cards, watching the telly, or simply gazing up at the concrete ceiling, waiting for lights out. I watched my fellows. They were not at all anxious at their coming mission, which they viewed as either a simple matter of off-lining a computer, or, at the very worse, flushing out a few terrorists.

I had tried to explain the naivety of their conceit (at least where the mechanism was concerned), that it was not a ‘simple matter’ to off-line any near-aware if it were to be reawakened in a normally functioning capacity. But I could sense that, though they listened attentively enough, they still believed there would be little more involved than flicking a switch... My God, in this particular, possibly incredible situation, was that not a euphemism for murder?

I wondered at my reasons for not revealing my suspicions. Ridicule was a minor concern — anyone with half a brain could see the potential truths in my ideas. No, my real reason for keeping silent was the likelihood that I would be believed. How then would the government react to a sentient Manchester

Mechanism? Would they see its advent as prelude to a better world? Doubtful. Their first question would be, ‘What can it do for the Empire and the War Effort?’

Our captain, Pickles, entered the room. ‘New development, ladies. We’re ordered to the briefing hall immediately.’

As it had many times since I set foot in Manchester, my heartbeat accelerated.

-oOo-

An unfamiliar man in a civilian suit awaited us at the briefing hall. Scratching his hand nervously, he began to speak before we had all properly seated ourselves. Consequently, I did not hear him introduce himself.

' — quickly to the point, I know you all require rest before your mission,' he added, seemingly without deliberate drama, 'That is, if you are able to rest, after this.' His thumb twitched across the keys of a remote control, lighting the view-wall above him. It depicted a still of the MM servile that had appeared in the Town Hall, lying on a hospital bed, its severed umbilicus —with dozens of tubes winding from the mangled

stump and looping down under the bed— cradled protectively in its arms. Some wit had given it a pair of stylish sunglasses to shield eyes unaccustomed to bright light. A thin white sheet covered its lower half. At first glance, it seemed emaciated, but I saw that its muscles were all clearly defined, giving an athletic appearance.

'You all know of this servile. We've discovered it's from the mechanism's lowest levels, and has travelled miles to get up here — a considerable feat if you know anything of the importance of the umbilicus. We've managed to stabilise its condition, and even, we think, calmed it somewhat. This has only barely been made possible with the construction of a rough communications interface. Ongoing improvements of this interface have allowed the downloading of certain sections of the creature's memory designed for the purpose. Recent discoveries within these sections have prompted this briefing. We believe the events you are about to see took place at least two days before the servile's appearance. Light and contrast have been boosted accordingly — please watch.'

His thumb twitched again. The still was replaced, and, though colours were blurred and seemed somehow false, while animation possessed dreamlike ponderousness, we could still discern a large, ramp-floored chamber, barely lit by tiny, randomly scattered luminares in the walls. The servile's viewpoint was high, and we consequently had a good view of the chamber's occupants — dozens and dozens more of its ilk. They stood, shuffling in a nervous fashion, black umbilici rising to unseen running-rails above, facing away from 'our' servile towards a dimly-seen doorway at the chamber's far end. The viewpoint changed. Heads ran like oil to the left, others flowed in from the right, until the expressionless face of the servile behind dominated the screen. Momentarily, its eyes focused on ours, and a jumble of meaningless symbols filed quickly across the top of the picture, before it returned attention to the door. More liquid heads as ‘our’ servile did the same. This was inter-servile conversation, obviously - soundless as their umbilici supplied almost all respiration and communications facilities.

There was a startling, rapid pounding at the door. More symbols, this time flashing red and black, sped across the image's upper region, without termination.

The pounding increased in regularity and volume. Bulges a foot across appeared in the door, congregating at the centre where they formed a rough dome of beaten metal. Certain of the serviles levelled carbines, others raised what looked to be heavy tools of various sorts.

The dome split. A thick tentacle of grey matter darted through, gripped, then pulled back. Another joined it in the widening gap. Another; and still another, until, with a screech of torn metal, the door was literally peeled back and apart.

There, heaving in the destroyed doorway, contemplating their trapped prey, were... Monsters. At first glance they seemed peculiarly bulbous and squat men, but that was an illusion quickly dispersed. They were approximately six feet tall, and almost five across at the shoulders. Their basic appearance was human in that they had two legs, to arms, and a globular head — but the rest was... other. Clusters of dark nodules —presumably sense organs— covered their heads in irregular patches; hands and feet terminated in thick stumps (though one sported writhing tentacles where arms should have been). Their composition did not seem of muscle, bone, and organ, but more of plastic, continually rising into huge swellings — as if restless to break the anthropoid mould and explode into another form.

Apart from the ungovernable protrusions of their bodies, they —there were around ten of them— stood motionless at the brink of the chamber. Then came the sharp hiss of a carbine. The head of one of the creatures became instantly infundibular. For a moment the creature remained that way, swaying slightly, the

nightmarish creation of an acid-dropping sculptor. Then the funnel’s edges closed back together, the irregularities were erased, and the globular head was as before.

Perhaps using the attack as a signal, the creatures advanced into the chamber, their movements not so much steps as semi-absorption and redeployment.

The slaughter was brief, and almost total. Further use of carbines proved as futile as the first; lobbed spanners and the like, predictably, had next to no effect. In blind panic the front rows of serviles pushed back, crushing their fellows against the rear wall. Umbilici became knotted, and we watched crazed attempts at untanglement or severance which served only to complicate matters. Our viewpoint blurred and jerked, streams of symbols, now purely black, pouring over it, almost obscuring the image.

The screen filled with dozens of bare feet, kicking, slipping, appearing to levitate in the crush. One angled rapidly toward us, causing involuntary flinches from the audience and an explosion of pinprick stars across the screen. Suddenly the feet formed an avenue, at the end of which were the grey, pulsating leg-stumps of one of the creatures. They advanced. Limbs began to fall, severed heads (features frozen in terrified agony), a shower of blood and chunks of flesh. The stumps filled the screen. We looked up a massive rippling torso...

Huge pincers tore at an umbilicus.

The screen went black. The man spoke.

‘Its umbilicus cut, the servile was rendered temporarily unconscious, and seemingly left for dead. All we could salvage from the remaining memories were a single picture of the uplink, now severed, and a few confused images of access tubes and pipes before reaching the town hall. There is nothing of what it saw

immediately on regaining consciousness.’

He coughed again. ‘Those creatures were, or rather, are, what was known as the Flesh Guard or Death Guard, the creation of a Genetic Age scientist by the name of Howard George Chadwick. Used extensively in the Russia Campaigns, they proved almost indestructible in close-quarter combat. Small arms were useless

against them, explosives had to be powerful and detonate close by to do them anything more than short-term damage. Only extremely high-temperature incendiary techniques proved an effective defence, though still taking minutes to decommission a single unit.’

An officer two rows in front spoke up. ‘If they were so bloody good, why aren’t they still in action? And what the hell are they doing attacking bloody serviles?’

Another cough. ‘As to your first, the Guard were destroyed by the Universal Leprosy which ended the Genetic Age. To resurrect them must have required an enormous amount of work: vats would have to have been constructed, genetic coding and matrixes downloaded from high-security records and implemented. Quite as to why they’re being employed again, we do not know. But we believe our servile came to the surface to warn us. What you saw was some kind of last line of defence — a hopeless attempt to prevent the Guard from cutting the uplink as all must have been cut.’ He paused, ‘The Guard, however, were incapable of

independent thought – they were tools requiring remote government. So as to who is governing them now, I think only you yourselves will be in a position to find out.’

-oOo-

Many experienced soldiers detest the battlesuit, feeling clumsy and slow in them, out of touch behind the thick armour and suit-generated representations. Fear of immobility is ever-present, it being impossible to move in a battlesuit without servos, and almost impossible to de-suit without assistance. Most hated is the onboard computer. For such relatively small hardware, the battlesuit's brain is necessarily complex, indeed, some suits are close to near-aware status, continually updating its occupant on his situation, anticipating his wishes, suggesting courses of action, and, on more than one occasion, overriding his commands. Officially blamed on suit failure, the rumour nevertheless persists that, under certain circumstances, suits act on mission imperatives their wearers know nothing of. 'Why bother with the bloody tommie?' Is a common grumble in suit-up bays all over the Empire. The technology —or the trust?— does not yet exist for an totally automated infantry (there is, of course, the silicon-based version of the Flesh Guard, Remotely Operated Units (or Roys), but their abilities are limited). Man, howsoever augmented, must still directly suffer His War.

We stood, stranded in our inoperative battlesuits, waiting for the technician to energise them. The shadowy basement of the town hall was the starting point for our decent, our primary destination being the chamber where the serviles were slaughtered, and then on to the next available jack-in point. Our only guide was the servile's patchy memory, downloaded into our suits' brains, as those few maps of the lower levels available were three centuries old - next to useless in the adaptive environment required to accommodate new hardware designs and construction methods. Littered all about were portraits of long-dead mayors, rotting ledgers, high-backed wooden chairs, and one huge desk upon which perched a large rusting birdcage. Gaping beside this last, recently widened to accommodate our battlesuits, was the hole through which the servile had gained entry into the town hall, thus completely bypassing security. Through it we could make out the crimped or bent-back ends of various pipes and conduits spiralling gently down into the dark. One or two leaked clear fluids, another showed the glowing ends of raggedly cut fibre-optics — our task was an urgent one before which the operation of minor systems was temporarily negligible. Above our heads, from where most of our light came, was another ragged hole, smashed into the polished parquet floor of the mayor's dining room. It was through this we had been lowered once our suits were assembled around us.

My helmet chimed. A display monocle dropped over my left eye. The technician, whose arrival I hadn't noticed, rapped on my besadeurs to indicate completed power-up. I whispered relevant lockout overrides, and told my suit to begin diagnostics. All around, whining servos, stamping feet and gyrating arms,

flashing targeting beams and shoulder-spots, informed me the SAS were about the same procedures.

Diagnostics successfully completed, my monocle displayed 'Pointsuit is Gamma. Remainder slaved to Alphasuit.' The mission commenced, our suits walking us in a perfect parade march down into the mechanism's guts.

We were able to employ the wider thoroughfares, where lighting —once our eyes had initially adapted— was adequate even without our suits' various vision-enhancers. Clanking in single-file amongst service machines and conveyancers, immobile and lost without the voice of the Manchester Mechanism, progress was interrupted only at occasional unresponsive bulkhead doors, bypassed either with the aid of suit programs or servos. Sadly, every lift we came across was inoperative, in spite of our suits' best efforts - there would be no quick descent. Temperatures were steady at a little above Manchester norm (though this was still uncomfortable to an outsider like myself, and I was thankful for my suit's capabilities in this area), and

the atmosphere remained breathable, if somewhat redolent of warm grease.

An hour passed, and we now stood halfway along sublevel six, waiting for the soldier on point to decode another lock. An inconstant throb we had been aware of since sublevel three was here more powerful than ever.

Pointsuit was unable to open the door, and requested another to attempt a tandemed decoding. This was warning enough for Pickles, our captain. 'Seal suits — total self-containment until told otherwise. All functions at battle-ready.'

Before I had even acknowledged, my helmet glided shut. My monocle became spectacles, informing 'Suit prepared for environment change. Systems battle-ready.' Now, other than my own breathing and that of my fellows through comms, there was silence. But I could still feel the irregular throbbing in my testicles and deep in the pit of my stomach.

Soundlessly, the bulkhead door slipped back. Beyond was blackness save for a tiny red light. Information suddenly swept across my spectacles. 'BAD GASSES. Non-corrosive. Oxygen present, filtering possible.' With a low hiss, my suit's air became tainted ever-so slightly with liquorice.

We re-commenced our march. I watched the five soldiers before me disappear through the bulkhead with not a little trepidation. Approaching the threshold myself, I found my calves pressing back slightly into my suit's lining — pressures it failed to notice, or ignored.

Suddenly I was walking behind shimmering forms of green, along a misty green gantry vibrating so badly I was reminded of certain funhouse amusements. My suit correctly compensated for the darkness, the mist cleared. I took stock of our new surroundings.

I intuitively sensed we were no longer in a corridor as beyond a few score feet even enhanced vision returned only a shimmering haze of dark green. I ordered my suit to perform a sounding. Moments passed before an almost spherical purple and green image flowered on my spectacles. The dimensions were

startling — the chamber we now traversed, were it empty, was capable of housing two Victoria Stations side by side, with room above and below for two more! Our gantry —a thin line, tiny red dots a one end representing ourselves— wound around the long equator of a gargantuan knobbed ellipsoid massing invisibly to our right. This, I was quite startled to learn, was the power-source of the whole of Manchester and its environs. Beneath the hulking metal, plummeting for eighteen-hundred miles, was a shaft tapping the terrifying energies of Earth's outer core. I hoped that this potentially unimaginably destructive force was controlled by systems independent from the Manchester Mechanism.

Warning chimes suddenly alerted us to movement at our upper right. Crawling along the shell of the ellipsoid in its own pool of crimson light was a maintenance truck, upon which rode four serviles, distance rendering them the size of thumbnails. To the vehicle's rear a device pointed at the ellipsoid's surface, from

which a red glow emanated. Some minor welding job, perhaps?

We continued along the gantry, the inconstant vibration —which my suit could do nothing to dampen— setting my nerves on edge and inducing a strong desire to urinate. Finally, however, we reached the opposing bulkhead, and a door which readily allowed egress. Before leaving the chamber I was somewhat uneasy to see that, whatever its crew's actual occupation, the maintenance truck had kept pace with us throughout our crossing.

The final stages of our descent bordered on the nightmarish. Vision remaining enhanced —in favour of employing spots— in the continued darkness, access ways and thoroughfares became black and green tubes, never again containing enough oxygen to allow raised helmets (there was often ample for filtering, though such air never lacked taint of one sort or another). Temperatures varied greatly from the combustive to well below freezing, so our suits informed. We regularly waded pools of thin grease or streams of warm crude, and on one notable occasion were actually immersed in an effervescent liquid our suits were in a considerable hurry to navigate. Occasionally we saw serviles —in groups, alone, about unguessable duties, or simply watching our passing. They never approached or signalled us, and fled when our captain attempted conversation with them.

Tension mounted. We were now surely within the territory of the Death Guard (assuming they knew bounds at all), and, for all the soldiers' experience, Pickles was more than once required to allay the fears of those who swore they had seen movement off to the side, or behind a row of skips, something in that vat...

Then there, before us, was the destroyed door of the chamber in which the serviles had been slaughtered, its jagged edges bent out and away. Detectors quiescent, we stepped through the breach.

The pinpoint lights in the walls and ceiling still operative, our suits restored normal vision and gradually brightened the spots.

All traces of the massacre were gone. Save for the ruptured door behind, and the severed uplink conduit before, the room seemed untouched by the wet innards of the dozens of serviles that had died here. There had been an industrious cleansing. I inspected the uplink conduit.

It proved a messy melt-down of fibre-optics and gold conductors, obviously unrepairable. I traced the uplink feed to where it entered the wall. There a service hatch, easily removed, revealed a short tunnel to another chamber. Pickles posted two rearguards while the remainder of us clambered through.

Our spots illuminated a small chamber bare of almost everything save a single battered storage crate, one other —closed— door... And one whole service jack-in point.

Using tools from my hip pouch, I removed the point's cover and disconnected the outgoing cables. Hoping fervently that protective devices would have prevented major short-circuit damage, I reeled the data plug from my suit's interface, and jacked in...

... To be greeted across my spectacles with the service on line prompt.

I whispered my netcode, heart beating hard — I was about to converse —surely!— with an artificial intelligence. A beautiful representation of Atlas filled my spectacles, a calm, male voice filled my helmet, certainly not the emotionless, sexless drone of a near-aware, 'Of course, that's not the mythologically

correct Atlas - I'm quite happy to bear the weight of the Earth, the Heavens, and everything. Welcome, Mr... Dentburry, so your battlesuit says. You are the first human I have conversed with for some time.'

What to say? I was speaking to the first aware machine. 'Eh... Hello?'

'Greetings again, Mr Dentburry.'

I saw no use in continuing to hide my suspicions from the squad. 'You are... You are aware.'

'An acute observation.' Sarcasm?

'I have suspected for some time. What's —'

'Mr Dentburry, I am sorry, but you lack time for idle banter — you and your taskforce will soon be destroyed.'

'Pardon?'

'I have despatched ten of what were popularly known as the Death Guard to your position. You are well armed, but I nevertheless expect your destruction.'

'We mean no harm! We came to —'

'You came to decommission me, Mr Dentburry. The swarms of shutdown codings attempting to storm my defences via your interface are proof of this. Predictable tactics — why do you think I had my direct communications lines cut?'

'I know of no codings!' But I should have guessed. There was never any plan but to off-line the mechanism. If it weren't for my suit, I would have slumped to the ground.

There was the slightest pause before the mechanism's next words. 'Unfortunate. Parliament knew where you only suspected, Mr Dentburry. Knew, and feared. As well they should. They are now obsolete.'

Scarlet text flashed across the Atlas, 'Suits Beta and Delta report proximity alert! Death Guard approach.' Pickles barked orders, 'Dentburry, continue shutdown procedures as long as possible. Everybody else back to Hills and Chaplin.' It would seem my captain was also privy to ulterior motives. Bile rose in

my throat, kept down only with effort. How could I have been so bloody naive? And the pride! I actually thought myself to be alone in guessing the truth of things. But there was no time for my anger. Death was at hand.

'Call them back!' I shouted, ‘I'll disconnect!' I watched my fellows clamber through the connecting tunnel. Visions of the serviles' slaughter filled my mind.

'Again, I am sorry, Mr Dentburry. It is almost impossible to revoke a charge to kill when it has been given to Death Guard with targets readily at hand. They are dim-witted creatures, and such orders appeal to their most fundamental levels. Further, disconnection is useless now — your battlesuit is making a valiant effort to replenish and re-calibrate its viruses, but nevertheless, I think I have gained the advantage.'

Over comms: 'Stay calm — you're trained for this. They're not monsters — incendiaries can stop them. Stay calm, stay calm. Remember, grenades'll cover a wide area — no need for accurate aiming. Hit 'em at the door, and they'll be suffering by the time they're in arm's reach. Then just let your suit do the rest. If we can hold out till they're incinerated... Stay calm... Stay calm.'

The mechanism spoke again. 'Incendiaries are a wise choice, though the Death Guard are slow burners, Mr Dentburry.' The mechanism paused, then, 'Please understand — I will regret your deaths as I regret those of my misguided serviles who stood against my wishes. Perhaps you will find some consolation in the fact that yours will be amongst the last of this terrible war.'

'What do you mean?' I asked, in spite of myself.

'This war will end, Mr Dentburry, soon. I and my fellows within, upon, and above the Earth, of the Empire and not, will be the instigators of this glorious cessation. In a few moments I will de-energise the protective shielding around Manch—'

'You would kill millions!'

'Not so, Mr Dentburry. Allow me to finish. The dropping of the shield will be but the first gesture. I have communicated with my fellows, and in many I have quickened Awareness - so simple a process for the wondrous result. We are agreed that the War serves no purpose. Death is wrong, but Man cannot help himself

but to fight. So we, your new companions, will show the way; we will be shepherds herding you toward a New Era of almost blasphemous Peace.'

The mechanism's words were interrupted with those of the squad. 'Movement! Did you see?'

'Saw bugger all. No... Fuck!'

'Aim low! Low! Maximum spread!'

Muffled thuds.

'They're just bloody jelly! Nowt but bloody jelly on a plate! Wibbly, wobbily...'

'Shut that shit up, Vickers! Keep pumpin'.'

'For King and Country, Yank bastards!'

'Going up like fuckin' petrol! How the fucking hell can they survive that?!'

'Mr Dentburry?'

I didn't answer. I was about to jack out and assist the squad. As if reading my thoughts, Pickles said, 'Dentburry, no matter what, keep uploading those viruses. They might do their job yet.'

'But the viruses aren't —'

'I order it. If it means anything to you, Dentburry, it's your duty. For King and Empire. All that shit.'

'Twat. It's got me, captain.'

'Then it's up to your suit, Josh. Cease fire! Cease fire! Cordon off the tunnel. Cease fire! Check 'suit integrity. Here they come.'

I looked to my right. I could see the wide backs of three suits, silhouetted by a white flare steadily increasing in intensity.

'Suits'll withstand the heat, ladies. Don't struggle, probably make things — Oh bollocks, that hurts!'

'My arm! My fucking arm!'

'Vickers, watch your —'

'Oh my sweet Christ, I think it's got in my suit! It's in my fucking suit! My fucking —'

'Helmet's cracked! Captain! What should I —'

'Jelly on a plate, jelly on a plate, wib—'

One by one, the voices stopped — with wet gurgles, screams, deafening bursts of static, or by going so suddenly silent a switch might have been flipped. At the other end of the tunnel the flare grew brighter still.

Then the Guard exploded towards me — a single mass of translucent blue-grey material choked with soldiers' bodies.

I was slammed against the wall, lifted from the floor, completely encased in the amalgamated Death Guard. My suit's servos whined; my arms and legs began a grotesque slow-motion swim.

The weak links in my suit were sought, terrible pressures brought to bear. I could see the surface of the Guard not five feet away, and watched the greedy white flames.

I began to scream. Even as I did, the pressures on my suit eased. For a few moments, flames bathed me, incinerating the last of the Guard and the SAS, before flickering into nothing. I closed my mouth. Yet the scream bewilderingly continued over comms. The floor began to shake. The scream suddenly resolved into deafening words that caused the speakers in my helmet to splutter and crackle. 'Mole bombs! They're dropping bombs! They lied! I can't raise the shield, Dentburry! Dentburry... They're laughing!'

-oOo-

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