THE NOISE GREW AND GREW. A great wind enveloped them; dust and sand swirled around in a gritty cloud. The noise was so loud, the sudden wind so strong, Augusta thought that they were in the grip of the Jinn.
“Grab hold!” a voice boomed from above, and Augusta looked up to see a harness falling down towards her. “Grab hold! Put your arms through it. That’s it. Hold tight.”
She put her head and chest through the padded loops and was whirled into the air. She saw Rogue staring up at her, his arms outstretched, as if to draw her back to him, but it was too late. She was being hauled up towards the craft hovering above. A small, squat machine, like an enormous mosquito, blades whirling above the body of it, like sycamore wings.
“Put your foot on the bar.” Tom’s voice came through the shatter of noise. “That’s it. See those handles? Grab hold and haul yourself in. That’s it! That’s it.”
Augusta pulled herself into the flying machine and fell on to the floor. She lay there for a moment or two, gasping like a fish on the shore. Then she inched towards the open door. The machine was rising with incredible speed. Rogue beneath her, getting smaller and smaller, still staring up, his arms reaching, his cloak-like wings; he looked like the dark angel he longed to be.
As they rose higher and higher, she saw Glass Town as she’d never seen it before. The towers and turrets, the enclosing walls, the spider span of the bridge, the darkglass gleam of river and harbour and the sea beyond. Lights showed here and there. Torches moved like lines of fireflies along the darkened streets, converging on the Great Piazza.
“There’s a clasp at the front of the harness,” Tom said without looking round. “It unclips. Come up here and sit by me.”
Some unseen mechanism slid the open door shut behind her and Augusta crawled forward cautiously, not trusting the shifting movement of the frail-looking craft, a mere skin of metal and glass between them and the empty air. She took the narrow seat next to Tom.
“Now it’s payback time,” he said. “Let’s see how Pigtail likes this.”
The craft wheeled around. They were diving down with an angry hornet’s whine. She could see the slender frame of the guillotine in the Great Piazza, the faces around it upturned in awe and wonder. Augusta cowered back, fearing that they were going to crash. Tom pressed a button with his gloved thumb and the piazza disappeared in a staccato blast of cannon fire.
The craft swooped up again, like a hawk in flight. The only sound was the thump, thump of the rotating blades. Tom turned to dive again, this time with the Duke’s Palace in his sights.
“No!” Augusta shouted and reached to cover over his gloved hand. “Annie’s down there and Keeper, Isaac, Amos and lots of innocent people. They don’t deserve to die. Go there—in the bay!”
The craft dipped and veered away, heading towards the sea where ships showed dark against the glint of the water. Tom pressed a button and missiles flew down, stitching their way across the harbour, targeting one ship after another, ending with the black freighter, which disappeared in a series of explosions, billowing smoke and flame.
They both stared, awed, their faces illuminated by the flickering red glow from the burning ships.
“That was carrying some serious ordinance.”
“What is this thing?”
Augusta looked around in wonder. In front of Tom and above his head were switches, buttons and dials, glowing green and red; small glass windows showing moving maps, bright and lit up; a compass, the dial white against black. They were flying almost due west, the dial registering even the slightest change of direction. She automatically reached out her hand.
“Don’t touch anything! It’s called a helicopter. A flying machine,” he tried to explain. “The blades on the top turn very fast, creating an updraught which keeps us in the air. The blades in the tail keep the craft stable.”
A flying machine. Why not? Men had always envied the birds and dreamt of such a thing. Didn’t Leonardo da Vinci sketch a machine that turned and turned like sycamore wings? Augusta savoured the word. Helic-o-pter. From the Greek, she guessed, helix and pteron—“spiral wing”.
She twisted round. Glass Town was slipping from view, a smudge in the distance. They were flying over water, the land a dark band receding all the time.
“We have to go back!” Augusta was filled with sudden panic. “We can’t leave now!”
“That’s the only thing we can do.”
“When will we be back again?”
“I don’t know.”
“Where are we going?”
“I don’t know that, either.”
That was the truth. Tom had no idea as he flew the helicopter out over the open sea. They were in another kind of game now, one where he could fly helicopters like a Navy Seal—Milo’s “fix”, no doubt, but one where Tom had no influence over where they were going. None of the controls responded to him. They were being taken on a predetermined trajectory, as if caught in a tractor beam. He didn’t have a clue where they were heading or how it would play out.
They were flying over water, the restless black glitter of the sea far below them. They were heading west, into a constantly setting sun. Augusta sat quietly, taking in all this strangeness.
“What are all those little lights in front of you?” she asked. “The switches and dials?”
“This shows how high we’re flying; this shows how fast. This is for…” Tom paused. “Not sure what that’s for, or that, or that. Oh, I think that one’s fuel. This is a gyro, keeping us steady; these are maps, showing where we are and where we’re heading; and this is a compass.”
All Augusta really understood was compass.
“We’re travelling north-west,” she said.
“Looks like it.”
She was intensely curious, wanting to know how the machine worked, asking all sorts of questions that Tom couldn’t answer. Amazing how much you took for granted. This was a helicopter. They just were.
“Are there more machines like this?” she asked when she’d exhausted his scanty knowledge of the craft. “That can fly?”
“Yes,” he answered. “Many. Bigger than this, more powerful. Flying higher and faster—much faster. Rockets, even, that can travel to the moon and out to the planets.”
“With men in them?”
“To the moon, yes. The planets are much further, so not yet.”
Augusta was silent. She didn’t seem fazed by any of this. Not at all. She was just absorbing it as an interesting new thing. Men had always yearned to fly. Such things only existed in stories but there was no limit to the imagination. It wasn’t that strange that they would one day find a way to do it…
“The Fairish Lady said you were from the future…”
“About two hundred years in the future—at a rough guess.”
“To live in a world where such wonders are real.” Augusta’s grey eyes were wide with wonder. “I envy you.”
“Some things are better.” Tom leant back, arms folded. No point in keeping hold of the joystick—the thing was flying itself. “Life is much easier for most people. We can cure many diseases. Machines do much of the work for us and we can travel any distance. Speak to people on the other side of the world. Some things haven’t changed, though. We can’t cure every disease and we still have wars and fighting, and the weapons we’ve invented mean there’s killing on a scale you wouldn’t believe.”
Augusta nodded at the logic of that. Just as men have always wanted to fly, they’d always want to find more efficient ways to kill. Even so…
“I’d love to see it,” she said.
“Something tells me that your wish is about to be granted.”
The helicopter banked and changed its trajectory. The compass on the dashboard swung north-north-west. On the digital map, Tom could see the southern seaboard of the United States approaching. They were over the Gulf of Mexico. Tom could see ships beneath them, small as matchboxes, and oil rigs lit up like Christmas trees. They were crossing the coastal highway, following a necklace of lights. Then they were turning inland. In between the blackness of less populated areas, cities and towns showed in grids and starbursts connected by snaking strings of white and gold.
“What are those lights?” Augusta asked. “It’s like looking down on the stars.”
“Houses, roads, streets. Where people live.”
“How are they lit so bright?”
“Electricity.”
“Mr Faraday’s invention?”
“Yes, I guess. It kind of took off.”
Augusta fell silent, staring out of the window, fascinated by the carpet of sparks below her. They were flying over more and more darkness, the lights strung out and sporadic.
Tom was flying higher, faster, further—way beyond the capability of a craft like this. He wasn’t flying it at all—somebody else was, he knew that, but who that could be he had no idea.
The craft was rising, going over mountains. High mountains. There was snow on the peaks below them. Tom thought he knew where they were and where they might be heading.
He took a sideways look at Augusta. Her face was set and serious, grey eyes taking in everything. She looked different. Younger. Also more ordinary. Her beauty had lost that edge that made you catch your breath, but Tom preferred her like this. She looked real. Like a real girl.
“You’re not Augusta any more, are you?” Tom stared ahead.
“No,” she replied simply. “I’m Emily.”