Tales of the Hidden World Read online

  The Armourer didn’t mind giving up being a field agent. Not really. There was excitement and glamour, out in the field. A sense of being right at the heart of things, doing something that mattered . . . but there was also blood and horror and death. Far too much death. Jack never enjoyed the work, the way James did. The Gray Fox was born to do fieldwork. Born to break into hidden bases, steal the secret plans, seduce the villain’s mistress, and walk away with a smile on his face. Jack did that, too, sometimes, but he couldn’t seem to separate the heady moments of triumph from all the dark and nasty stuff that went with it. The innocents betrayed and the people left behind, the bodies left slumped in alleyways and the lives of families ruined. James never looked back, but Jack couldn’t seem to look away from all the collateral damage that went with his successes.

  He didn’t like most of the people he had to deal with, out in the field, and he really didn’t like some of the things he had to do to keep the world safe. The villains who cried before he shot them in the face; the women who cried when they discovered they’d been used by both sides, just for what they knew; the allies you betrayed to get the information you needed and the politicians the family wouldn’t let him touch, even though it was clearly the only sane and reasonable thing to do. Our atrocities were acceptable, because theirs were so much worse. Was it Churchill who said that? The Armourer had believed that for a long time. He had no problem with killing people who needed killing. But the old certainties of World War II were quickly eroded by the increasing ambiguities of Cold War politics. When today’s enemy could be tomorrow’s friend, or at least ally. And, far too often, vice versa.

  The Armourer closed his eyes to rest them, just for a moment. He felt awfully tired. It seemed like he always felt tired, these days. The work never ended, no matter how much you put into it. Even if you worked every hour God sent, and then some, trying to keep up with the family’s demands. Knowing a good man could die, out in the field, if you didn’t get just the right weapon or gadget to him, in time. The Armourer had considered retiring now and again. But it wasn’t like there was anybody ready to step up and replace him. No one he’d trust to be up to the job, and its responsibilities. No one who could protect all the good men and women out in the field, the way he did. And besides, if he did retire, what would he do with himself?

  He forced his eyes open and sat up straight in his chair, grunting loudly at the effort involved. He rummaged through his desk drawers, until he found a fresh packet of Chocolate Hobnobs. Best cookies in the world. He cut open the package with a handy switchblade, scattered half a dozen Hobnobs across his desktop, and then picked one up and dunked it carefully in his tea mug. He stirred the cookie around a few times. A mug that provided you with tea at always just the right temperature was definitely one of his better inventions. Now, if he could only create a packet of Hobnobs that was constantly refilling itself . . . Put it on the To Do list. The Armourer bit carefully into the tea-soaked cookie. Marvelous. One of the life’s more important little pleasures.

  His computer made a loud self-important noise to let him know he had an important message coming in. The Armourer glared at the machine till it shut up.

  “Well?” he said.

  The computer monitor turned itself on and presented him with an urgent e-mail from the Matriarch. Who had clearly decided it would be more diplomatic, and probably safer, to address him from a distance. The e-mail wanted to know why he was so behind on so many important projects. Including the much awaited and anticipated Boojum Projector. The e-mail then reminded the Armourer that he had promised the family the following important items (there followed a depressingly long list) that should have been ready for field testing by now. That Matriarch wanted him to know she was very disappointed in him. The Matriarch didn’t want to have to take responsibilities away from him, and she really didn’t want to have to. . . . The Armourer got bored with the message, even while he was reading it, and deleted the e-mail, before he got to the barely veiled threats he knew would be coming at the end. The monitor screen shut itself down. The Armourer smiled briefly. It wasn’t like he hadn’t heard it all before. It would all be ready when it was ready, and not before. The Matriarch should know that. He’d told her often enough. But that was mothers for you; they always believed their sons could do anything.

  He went back to looking around the Armory. Packed full of lab assistants, eagerly risking their lives and sanity in the pursuit of knowledge and things that went bang. So many young men and women . . . half of whom he didn’t recognize, or remember. Hell, he didn’t even know what half of them were working on. It was a big place, there was a lot going on . . . But there was a time he would have known. When he would have known all their names and faces, and what they were up to. It was just . . . there had been so many lab assistants, down the years. So many come and gone, risen to greatness or sent to an early grave. He was getting used to middle-aged men coming up to him in the hall, greeting him with loud voices and hearty handshakes, expecting him to remember them from when they’d briefly worked for him, during their time in the Armory. Before leaving, to do something more important for the family. The Armourer always smiled and nodded, and assured them that of course he remembered, but mostly he didn’t. The trouble was . . . lab assistants tended to blend into one another. They arrived, they did good work, and they moved on. Which was how it should be. Only he stayed and grew older while the lab assistants seemed to grow younger every year. They moved on because they had ambition, and the Armourer thought he could remember a time when he did, too.

  He used to know, and care about, every assistant and every project in his Armory. He took a pride in it. He was always striding up and down, peering over shoulders, offering a helping hand, handing out useful criticism and the occasional commendation. But these days he just didn’t seem to have the energy. And, if he was honest with himself, he just didn’t care as much as he used to. It was hard to get excited about a new gun, or gadget, when he’d seen so many before. When an Armourer stops caring about the work . . . then maybe it was time for him to step down. But he wasn’t ready just yet . . . to give it all up and spend the rest of his life in the dayroom, watching television with all the other old fossils. He still had ideas. Still came up with things new enough and important enough to get his blood racing. He still had it.

  He finished his cookie, took a long drink of hot tea, and sank back in his special chair. And the sights before him drifted away, replaced by older visions from another Time. He looked back over his long life; trying to decide, needing to know . . . Whether he did more good for the family, and the world, during his time as a secret agent out in the field, or afterward, as the family Armourer, creating things to keep field agents alive, and kill people who needed killing . . . It suddenly seemed very important to him, to be able to understand his life, if only on that level. Such a long life . . . so many things achieved . . . But did any of them really matter?

  Why did he give so much of his life to his work? Because that’s what he had.

  His work mattered. He was convinced of that, at least. People were alive today because of what he’d done. He’d been involved in saving Humanity, and the entire world, on many occasions. Even quite recently, with the Hunger Gods War, and the invasion of the Hall grounds by the army of Accelerated Men. He could still put on the family armor and fight the good fight. All through his life, he’d always been ready to put his life on the line, for others. That had to mean something. . . . But what did it mean? If he hadn’t done the work, if he hadn’t gone out to fight, somebody else would have. What might his life have been like if he had never given up being a field agent? Had made himself a legend, like his brother, James? What if he’d never taken on the burden of the Armory and buried himself underground? What if . . . he’d found the strength to turn his back on the family, and his work, and his damned duty, and just walked away? No . . . No, he could never have done that. He believed in the family, and what it stood
for. Sometimes in spite of himself and the family.

  Eddie had been the only one to successfully tell the family to go to Hell, and make it stick. His nephew, Edwin, son of his sister, Emily and her husband, Charles. Good people, all of them. And even Eddie kept coming back, to be the family’s conscience and take on the missions no one else could. Eddie even ran the family for a while, when the old system grew corrupt, and then he gave it all up to go back into the field, where he belonged. He left, but he kept coming back, because he knew he was needed.

  The same mistake Jack made.

  The Armourer wondered just how many deaths he was responsible for, throughout his long career as the Armourer. Far more than he ever killed personally, as an agent out in the world. As a field agent, he’d dispatched his fair share, but as Armourer, his deadly touch had spread across the whole world. Every time a Drood agent killed an enemy, it was because the Armourer had made it possible. If all the ghosts of his slaughtered dead came looking for him, would they fill the Armory? Or the hall? Would even the massive grounds outside Drood Hall be big enough to contain them all? And if he walked up and down the rows of ghosts on parade, looking into their dead reproachful faces, would he still believe they’d all needed killing?

  It had all seemed so much simpler when he was younger, running wild in a world full of people who wanted him dead. Like his first job, not long after World War II, when he was sent chasing after missing Nazi gold, in Bavaria, at Lake Walchensee. A huge lake set right in the middle of the Bavarian mountains. Martin Bormann had been sent there with tons of gold bullion, to fund a Fourth Reich. The idea had apparently been that Bormann would seize and occupy the mountains, as a base for the Nazis to relaunch themselves. Instead, he ran away and disappeared. Supposedly, he dumped the tons and tons of gold bullion into Lake Walchensee first, because it would just have slowed him down. He probably meant to come back for it later, with a new face and a new identity, when he no longer had the world snapping at his heels. But that never happened.

  The family sent Jack Drood to Bavaria, and to the lake, to see if the gold was there. Not because they needed it, they just didn’t want anyone else to have it. Because a lot of gold can buy a lot of trouble.

  Surrounded on all sides by jagged gray mountains without a hint of personality, Lake Walchensee’s waters shimmered like living silver, under the light of a full moon. Jack Drood stood at the edge of the shore, looking out over the waters. A young man, full of vim and vigor, determined to do well and make his family proud of him. His hand went to the golden collar around his throat, the family torque. He muttered the right activating Words, and just like that, golden armor spilled out of the torque and covered him completely from head to toe. The greatest, most secret weapon of the Droods—the marvelous living armor that made them stronger, faster, and completely untouchable. Jack Drood stood for a while, thinking, like a golden statue, his face a featureless mask, a living symbol of implacable duty. And then he strode slowly forward into the shimmering waters, making quiet splashing sounds that didn’t carry any distance at all. Jack knew the waters were icy cold, deadly cold on that still wintry night, but he didn’t feel the cold at all. The armor saw to that. He strode on until the waters closed over his head, and he disappeared beneath the surface of the lake.

  He descended steadily, following the curved bank beneath his armored feet, until finally he was walking along the bottom of Lake Walchensee. He’d left the light from above behind long ago, and now he moved through dark, still waters. He made his armor glow brightly, to give him some light to move in, but even so he was lucky to see more than ten feet in any direction. The bottom of the lake was scattered with objects, none of them particularly unusual or important, and he couldn’t see a scrap of gold anywhere. His heavy armored feet sank deep into the muddy bottom, every step disturbing dirt and sediment, sending it rising up into the dark water, before falling slowly back again.

  Jack carried a special device of his own invention, set into the armor of his left hand. He’d promised the family it would detect gold bullion at up to a hundred yards radius, but so far the damned thing wasn’t reacting at all. Jack shook his hand a few times, just on general principles, but it made no difference. He moved slowly, steadily forward, covering a grid of the lake bottom he’d memorized previously. Looking carefully about him and doing his best not to trip over things.

  He’d been underwater for more than an hour, supported and protected by his armor, not feeling the cold or any need for air, when he suddenly became aware that he wasn’t alone down there. He’d been getting glimpses of things moving, just on the edge of the light his armor radiated, but he only knew for sure he had company when a steel harpoon came flying at him out of nowhere at incredible speed. It ricocheted harmlessly off his armored chest and fell slowly away through the water. Jack concentrated, and his armor blazed up, spreading new golden light through the dark waters. And there they all were, suddenly revealed in the new light, standing huddled together in their little groups, surrounding him. Caught completely unaware.

  For a while they all just stood there, looking blankly at one another. Three different groups of half a dozen men each, wearing various kinds of underwater gear. Bubbles rose up in sudden bursts, as the divers talked to one another. And off on the very edge of the golden light; , a small yellow submersible. Probably the Americans; , they always had the budget to do things in style. Most of the divers were holding pressurized harpoon guns, and a few had over-sized guns adapted for underwater warfare. The various groups tried out every weapon they had on Jack, because they all knew they had to take out the Drood agent first, before they could turn on one another. Most agents would have had the sense to turn and run, rather than annoy a Drood, but the possible proximity of so much gold had turned their minds.

  Jack just stood where he was, at the bottom of Lake Walchensee, and let the harpoons and bullets bounce uselessly off him. He hoped they’d get the hint and just go away, once it became clear they couldn’t hurt him. He still believed in playing the game and doing the right thing. But even after the yellow submersible had fired an explosive rocket at him, and he’d had to catch the thing and hold it against his armored chest, to smother the explosion . . . When the waters calmed down again, and it was clear he hadn’t been forced back so much as a step . . . Even then, they wouldn’t give up. Duty, or greed, had got a hold of them.

  They came at him from all sides, with vicious knives in their hands. Big, heavy blades with serrated edges. They stabbed and cut at him and got nowhere, and Jack realized he had no choice but to deal with them. Because they weren’t going to go away and leave him alone, and abandon the gold. So he killed them all. He smashed in heads and ribs with his heavy golden fists. He punched holes in their scuba tanks, and ripped away their breathing tubes, and held them in place till they drowned. He grabbed the knives out of their hands and stabbed them through their black rubber diving suits. He had to chase after the last few when they finally turned to run. He caught them easily, his golden armor driving him through the dark waters at superhuman speed.

  Bodies floated everywhere, falling slowly to the lake bottom in awkward, spread-eagled poses. Blood rose up here and there in drifting streams.

  The yellow submersible tried to flee while he was occupied. He soon caught up with it, pulled himself up onto its roof, and punched great holes in its sides with his golden fists. Air bubbled out thickly. The motors strained to lift the small craft, even with Jack’s extra weight, until he ripped them away. The submersible sank slowly back through the dark waters to settle on the muddy bottom. Jack found the escape hatch and held it closed, until he was sure everyone inside was dead. He didn’t feel good about it. The family had warned him what being a field agent could mean, but he hadn’t realized it would feel like this. So . . . easy.

  He didn’t examine any of the bodies, or the submersible, to discover who they’d been working for. It didn’t matter. His orders had been clear. N
o one else could be trusted with that much gold. The other agents could have been CIA, KGB, or any of the many alphabet soup groups operating all over divided Europe, in those days. So many organizations, operating on either side of the Iron Curtain. Searching for treasure, or power, or just something they could turn to their advantage. Except . . . Jack spent hours, walking back and forth on the bottom of the lake, and he never found so much as a single gold coin. The only gold in those dark waters was the armor he was wearing.

  He left the dead behind and walked up out of the dark waters, and that was Jack Drood’s first mission as a field agent.

  East Berlin was the dark side of that separated city, and Jack Drood sent his car racing through the back streets, hitting the brakes at the very last minute so he could screech around corners. This was some years later, after he’d made a reputation, if not a legend, for himself. Nothing to match his brother, James, the Gray Fox, but enough that he could still rely on being given the more interesting missions.

  Jack glanced quickly at the rearview mirror. He was still being pursued by half a dozen official cars at speed. They swayed back and forth behind him as the gray anonymous men took it in turns to lean out the side windows and open fire on him. Jack grinned. They were having to go all out just to keep up over treacherously uneven roads, and even when they did manage to hit him, the bullets just bounced off his specially reinforced chassis. He felt so safe; he didn’t even bother to armor up. Just kept his head down, kept his foot down hard, and sent his car hammering through the narrow back streets and alleyways of East Berlin, heading for Checkpoint Charlie and safe passage back to civilization.