turned to look at the next tower, a hundred yards further away, and the next, and the next. The fence ran for as far as he could see, in what appeared to be a vast circle. It passed the end of the runway before it disappeared from view beyond a series of low rectangular buildings on the far side of the landing strip. He turned slowly, taking everything in.
Past the low buildings his view was obscured by the dome. Further to the right, a large building sat flush against the runway, its huge metal doors closed. Beyond it Jamie again picked up the path of the fence, the towers evenly distributed along its incredible length. He continued his turn, ignoring Frankenstein, who was looking at him with a certain amount of gentle bemusement. The road running along the inside of the fence continued until it met the tunnel again, then curved back to join the central road no more than twenty feet from where he was standing.
Beyond the inner fence was a wide strip of dirt, crisscrossed with hundreds of thousands of red laser beams; the complexity of the patterns would have made the world’s greatest jewel thief weep. This strip of no- man’s-land was bordered on the other side by a second fence, almost as high as the one by the road. Beyond it lay the woods, a wall of twisted branches and leaves, running a perfectly even distance from the outer fence. Every square inch of the space between them, a dirt run about fifteen feet wide, was illuminated by bright purple ultraviolet light, shining down from black boxes set at ten-feet intervals along the outer fence.
Excitement surged through Jamie as his eyes drank in the sheer strangeness of what he was seeing.
What is this place? Why are there so many fences and lights and towers? What are they keeping out?
As his eyes adjusted to the brilliant red and purple illumination before him, he saw that set in between the flickering laser grid was a series of giant spotlights, the wide round lenses pointing into the sky. He looked up, and his mouth fell open.
“Oh my God,” he whispered.
There were no visible beams rising from the spotlights, but their purpose was clear as soon as he tilted back his head. Above him, shimmering gently in the night air, an enormous canopy of trees hung in the sky, extending seamlessly from the edges of the woods and covering the whole of whatever this place was. From underneath the image was flat and faintly translucent, like a film of oil on a puddle of water, but he could see erratic shapes and uneven rises bristling the upper side. The effect was disorientating.
“What is it?” he asked, his voice full of wonder.
“It’s a hologram,” Frankenstein answered. “It keeps away prying eyes.”
He fought off the urge to ask who those eyes might belong to and instead asked how it worked.
“There’s a suspended field of reflective particles that lies over the whole base. The spotlights project a moving image on to it from underneath.”
“Like a big movie screen?”
Frankenstein laughed, a strange barking noise that did not sound as though it came naturally to him.
“Something like that,” he replied. “From above, all anyone sees is the forest. Have you seen enough?”
Jamie hadn’t-nowhere near enough-but he told his companion that he had, knowing it was what the giant man wanted to hear.
“Good,” Frankenstein said, not unkindly, and got back into the car. Jamie did the same, and they moved forward, toward the low gray dome.
In front of the building were several military vehicles, a heavy-looking truck with an open rear, a row of jeeps, and a surprising number of civilian cars. Between one of the jeeps and a 3-series BMW that had seen better days, a parking bay was stenciled on the tarmac in white paint. Frankenstein guided their car into it and pulled it to a halt. The giant man and Jamie stepped out of the car and walked back around to a flat indentation where the dome faced the road they had just driven along. Set into the gray material of the building was a door. It stood open, waiting for them.
Frankenstein motioned for Jamie to enter, then followed him in when he did so. They were standing in a white corridor, featureless except for a sculpted crest that looked down at them from high on the wall opposite them.
“What now?” asked Jamie.
“We wait,” replied Frankenstein.
Jamie studied the crest as he did so. A crown and portcullis sat above a wide circle, in which had been carved six flaming torches encircling a plain crucifix. Beneath the circle three words of Latin were etched into the wall. LUX E TENEBRIS
“What does that mean?” asked Jamie, pointing up at the crest.
“ Light out of darkness, ” translated Frankenstein. “It was the favorite phrase of a great man.”
“Who?”
The door closed behind them, sliding silently until it met the opposite wall, where it thudded into place with a loud clunk. There was a sound like spinning gears moving heavy machinery, then a quieter, yet somehow ominous second clunk. Instantly, the wall at the far end of the corridor slid aside to reveal a silver metal elevator.
“Not now,” said Frankenstein, and walked down the corridor. After a moment’s hesitation, Jamie followed him.
The elevator had no buttons, and as soon as they stepped inside, the door closed and they began to descend. It was such a familiar, mundane feeling, the shift in his stomach, the vibrations in his legs, that the mild hysteria Jamie realized he had been feeling ever since the thing in the gray coat had walked through the door of the house he shared with his mother threatened to pitch him into a fit of laughter. He steadied himself and waited for the door to reopen. As they settled to a halt and it began to slide open, his mind raced with the possibilities of what he might see next.
It was a dormitory.
A long, wide room, lined on both sides with thin beds covered in olive-green sheets and blankets. The beds were pristine, as though they had never been slept in, and the metal lockers that stood between them shone like new.
“What is this place?” he asked Frankenstein.
The monster opened his mouth to reply, but a deafening siren drowned out the words. Jamie pressed his hands to his ears, and when the siren paused, Frankenstein looked at him with a worried expression.
“You’re about to find out,” he said.
6
The Strand, London
June 3, 1892
The carriage clattered to a halt on Wellington Street, in front of the tall pillars of the Lyceum Theatre. A fine rain was falling, and the driver pulled his cloak tight around his shoulders as he waited for his passenger to disembark.
“Bring my bags, boy, both of them,” said the old man, impatiently. He stood in the cobbled road, the brim of his wide hat low over his face as he watched the sun descending toward Trafalgar Square.
“Yes, sir,” replied his valet, lifting a black leather surgeon’s bag and a tan briefcase down from the back of the carriage.
The aging black horse that had pulled them through London shifted as the weight was removed and took a step backward into the valet, sending the man down to one knee on the wet cobblestones and the tan briefcase to the ground. A sharpened wooden stake rolled out and settled at the feet of an overweight man in evening dress, who stooped down, grunting at the effort, and picked it up.
“You, boy,” he said, in a superior, goose-fed voice. “Have a care, would you? A man could go full-length with blasted logs rolling around his ankles.”
