“By what means are we to do that?”

The detective opened his mouth to continue, but before he could utter a further word, Swinburne leaped up, punched the air, and shouted, “We’re going to kidnap Queen Victoria! Hurrah!”

Sir Richard Francis Burton, Algernon Swinburne, Sadhvi Raghavendra and Herbert Wells were sitting in a medium-sized flier, a tubular craft with four flat disk-shaped wings. William Trounce was at the controls. They were in the air two miles west of Battersea Airfield on the other side of the now subterranean River Thames.

“Look down,” Swinburne said. He pointed out of the window. “Cheyne Walk. That’s where I lived in 1860.”

“I don’t recognise it at all,” Burton said.

The poet explained that London now existed on two distinct levels, thus Orpheus’s confusion. Walkways and platforms had melded together, been layered with soil, and planted with well-lit lawns and prettily landscaped gardens—all currently being coated with red snow. They separated slender towers of such height that the upper reaches of the city disappeared into the cloud cover and soared so far beyond it they came close to scraping the stratosphere. The overall effect was one of cleanliness and spaciousness, a luxurious environment unimaginable in Burton’s age.

Despite the thousands of towers, the upper level appeared to be sparsely populated. The king’s agent had never seen London so quiet. By comparison to what he was used to—and, especially, to what he’d witnessed during the journey to this time period—very few people were strolling around below, even taking into account the weather. Those he saw were wearing the same cloaks and voluminous hoods in which Trounce and Swinburne, and now he and his fellow chrononauts, were attired.

“You’re looking upon the city of the Uppers,” Swinburne said. “The elite. The privileged. Below it, there exists the second city, the overcrowded domain of the Lowlies.”

“The working classes, I presume,” Wells said.

“Yes, Bertie. They exist in dire poverty and are so terribly deformed by genetic manipulations that they barely qualify as human. The London Underground is a place of horror, and I’m afraid we have to go down there.”

“Why?” Burton asked. He could feel perspiration starting to bead his forehead.

Swinburne pointed to the northeast, where, at a high altitude, the edge of a platform—a third level—could be made out, its lights shining well above the upper city.

“That’s the New Buckingham Palace complex; what used to be Hyde Park, Green Park and Saint James Park. It’s inhabited by Queen Victoria and by government ministers and their staff and is exceedingly well guarded. However, water is pumped up to it from the River Tyburn, which flows beneath the lower lever. There are access conduits running parallel to the pipes that lead up from the depths to the heights.”

Burton groaned. “Please don’t say it.”

“I know, Richard. You hate enclosed spaces and you have bad memories of the Tyburn tunnel—but there’s no option. You have to go down there again.”

The flier veered northward, skirting around the western edge of the parks.

Trounce said, “In 2138, when the new palace was still being built, Lorena’s grandmother—the daughter of the Lorena Brabrooke you met in 2022—was able to access the architectural blueprints. We know from them that the conduits are connected by a lift to the upper pump room, which opens onto the palace roof where the palace greenhouses are located. They will be our point of entry.”

“I’m still confused,” Sadhvi said. “Queen Victoria?”

“Humph! I suppose it makes a crooked kind of sense that Oxford would re-create the monarch who lies at the heart of his madness,” Trounce answered.

“Is she a clone, too?”

“I very much doubt it. DNA doesn’t survive forever, and the original Victoria died three hundred and sixty-two years ago. Nor are there any descendants of the old monarchy who could convincingly claim the throne. No. I don’t know who she is or where she comes from, but, for certain, she is Spring Heeled Jack’s puppet, a figurehead enforced upon us to give a human face to his inhuman dictatorship.”

“So she has direct communication with him?” Burton asked. “She receives her instructions from the Turing Fulcrum?”

“I don’t see how she can perform her role otherwise.”

“But kidnapping?” The king’s agent shook his head. “It doesn’t sit well with me.”

“Nor me. If there was any other way—” Trounce fell silent.

He steered the flier between towers, and Swinburne marked off districts as they passed over them. “Earl’s Court. Kensington. Notting Hill.” The vessel veered to the east. “Bayswater. Edgware Road.”

Smoothly, they descended and landed in a long and narrow lamp-lit public garden. As they disembarked, Wells shivered and said, “This snow is extraordinary.”

“Blame my brother,” Trounce muttered. He raised his hood and gave a grunt of satisfaction as the others did likewise. “Even when we’re below, it’ll be best if we keep our faces covered, especially you, Richard.”

“Why me in particular?” the king’s agent asked.

Swinburne giggled. “You might scare the natives. Have you looked in a mirror lately?”

Burton glared at him, then his face softened and he muttered, “The same old Algy.”

Trounce pointed at the glowing glass frontage of a tall edifice. “Does the position of that tower ring any bells?”

“No,” Burton said. “Should it?”

“Its foundations are rooted in the spot once occupied by fourteen Montagu Place.”

“Home! By God!”

Swinburne grinned and nudged him with an elbow. “Good old Mother Angell, hey! Never fear, you’ll be back there soon enough.”

They fell silent as three “Uppers” walked by. Though the trio was enveloped in cloaks, sufficient of them was visible for Burton to see they were thin and willowy in stature.

Trounce waited until they’d passed then said to Burton, Wells and Raghavendra, “Hand over your guns. They’re rather too antique for our requirements.”

This was done, and he put them into a small compartment inside the vehicle, drawing from it five replacement pistols, which he distributed.

“The Underground is heavily patrolled by constables. They’re identical to the creatures that attacked you in 1860, Richard. You’ll remember how we fought them off with truncheons and revolvers. These pistols will make a better job of it.”

“How does it load?” Burton asked, examining his gun with interest. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”

“It’s a Penniforth Mark Two,” the detective inspector explained. “Invented by one of Monty’s descendants. The bullets are stored in compressed form inside the grip. There are five hundred. You’re unlikely to need more.”

“Five hundred? How is that possible?”

“Humph! A nanotech thing. Quite beyond me. All I know is that after each shot a fresh bullet is squirted into the chamber where it instantaneously expands to its full form.” Raising the weapon, he continued, “The gun has a small measure of intelligence. Watch.”

He aimed at the flier. A small red dot of light slid across the vehicle.

“That marks the target, and, as you can see, I can aim just like normal. However, I can also do this. Front end.”

The dot snapped across to the flier’s prow.

“Rear nearside window.”

In a blink, the dot moved to the vehicle’s rear window.

“Ground, ten inches in front of the middle of the flier.”

The point of illumination instantly snapped to the quoted position.

“If you need to shoot a weapon out of an opponent’s hand, just tell the pistol to do so and it will take care of the aiming.”

“Impressive!” Burton exclaimed.

“Better even than that,” Trounce said. “You can instruct the bullets to kill or to stun or to explode.”

Trounce pushed the weapon into his waistband and gestured toward an oddly shaped structure. “Our access point is over there. It leads down to the corner of Gloucester Place. Up here, we’re safe enough. Down there, we won’t be. Watch what you say and keep your faces shadowed by your hoods. Your BioProcs will work to divert attention away from you, but if you’re seen to do—or heard to say—anything suspicious, the constables will be on us before you can say Jack Robinson.” Trounce started, his eyebrows going up. “By Jove! I’ve not said ‘Jack Robinson’ for nigh on three and a half centuries! Funny how memory works when you’re a clone.”