The Map of Chaos (Trilogía Victoriana #3)(157)
“There are Scientists here?” she managed to stammer. “Bertie and I thought that you kill . . . you Executioners . . . were the only ones.”
“And to begin with we were. When the Scientists opened the first wormhole, they sent us ahead. In those days, we weren’t killers, we were explorers. We arrived here, discovered the nature of this multiverse, set up communication antennae, recorded images, took all manner of samples back to the Other Side; we even designed our own canes . . . All so that the Scientists could study this universe from the Other Side in comfort and safety. However, when they discovered the epidemic, they modified us. They reprogrammed us to turn us into . . . ruthless killers. And finally, when they realized that studying from a distance wasn’t providing satisfactory results, they decided to send a few men and women to this multiverse to carry out field studies. It was a difficult decision, but they had no choice. For hundreds of years on the Other Side, humans had been genetically modified to withstand extremely low temperatures, and those chosen had to undergo urgent adjustments so they wouldn’t melt from the heat in this world. They received refrigeration implants and electro-neuronal circuits to inhibit the anguish of randomness. Only those with the most brilliant minds and resilient bodies were sent out to different worlds, but none of them obtained any results. The Scientists came from such a distant future that none of them had a twin in this multiverse. And so they never developed the miraculous gift you and your husband possessed, thanks to which you discovered where the first infection took place. Only you were able to see and know everything.”
“And yet we never saw them!”
“Don’t be angry, Jane. It is logical. There are only a few Scientists in this infinite multiverse, and their work is clandestine. They are extremely careful not to give themselves away. They don’t get their hands dirty. They leave that to us.”
Jane looked frantically around the room. Suddenly, she pummeled the table with every ounce of strength her feeble body possessed.
“Are you saying that during that séance I was sitting next to a Scientist from the Other Side, someone to whom I could have entrusted The Map of Chaos? Are you saying I could have ended that whole nightmare there and then and prevented all that suffering, all those deaths?”
“Yes.”
Jane opened her mouth to reply but instead slumped in her chair and, burying her face in her hands, started to cry.
The Executioner took a step toward her.
“Jane.”
The old lady shook her head weakly.
“Jane.”
“What, for goodness’ sake?” she said, looking up.
A bluish light had begun to emanate from the eight-pointed star on the Executioner’s cane, illuminating the entire kitchen. Jane looked around in awe. It felt as though they were at the bottom of an ocean from which all the fish had been banished.
“My detector is connected to the minds of all the Scientists from the Other Side in this multiverse,” the Executioner informed her in his distant, metallic voice. “It is part of my job. I can locate them and go to wherever they are. Generally speaking, they don’t like to have anything to do with us. They despise us. But occasionally one of them needs us to take him to another world to carry on his research there. Ramsey, however, has never moved from the first world he appeared in.”
For a few seconds Jane simply stared at him. Then the Supreme Knowledge sparked an idea. She summoned all her remaining strength and smiled.
The air around the Executioner smiled back at her.
31
AND SO, LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, the dreaded Day of Chaos has finally arrived! The day when your world and all other possible worlds will end! But how can I begin to describe such an extraordinary day, especially when most of what I have to tell you will be happening simultaneously? Is it possible to explain Chaos in an orderly fashion? I doubt it, but despite my limited skills as a storyteller, I shall do my best. Allow me to disappear through the hidden trapdoor in Mrs. Lansbury’s kitchen and return to a stage with which you are more familiar, to the world where old Baskerville died, to a few days after the fire that burned Brook Manor to the ground. It is September 23 in this universe, a brisk wind announces the arrival of autumn, and dawn trembles before the night like an awkward young lover, afraid to divest her of her darkness, if you will excuse my purple prose.
Good, then it only remains for me to choose with which of the many actors who will take part in this performance to begin my tale. Although, for the moment, only three of them are awake, so that shouldn’t be too difficult. Wells is in the kitchen putting a kettle on the fire. A few seconds later, Inspector Clayton hurries down the corridor to take his kettle, which is whistling like mad, off the fire. Before long, the whistle of a third kettle begins to sound at Captain Sinclair’s house, causing his beloved wife, Marcia, to give a start in bed. Which of these tea-loving early risers should I decide upon?
I choose Wells, for no other reason than the fondness I have developed for him after narrating his adventures for so long. As I said before, although dawn has not yet broken, our author is already in the kitchen, having been woken by a loud bang from somewhere in the house. The window, the accursed attic window, he had muttered after recovering from the shock, and, still half-asleep, he had gotten out of bed to close it before the chorus of crashes woke up his wife. It was too early yet to listen to Jane nagging him again about his sheer idleness when it came to addressing minor domestic problems. However, when he reached the attic, he had found the window closed. He stood gaping at it for a few seconds. Then, as if one thing led inevitably to the other, he went down to the kitchen to put the kettle on.