All Men of Genius

All Men of Genius - By Lev AC Rosen


Author’s Note



THIS novel is a work of fiction. Even though it may contain characters eerily similar to historical figures, who also happen to share their names, it should in no way be read as an actual historical account, and most definitely should not be used for educational purposes.

Additionally, any or all depictions of, or suggestions about, science, or the way anything in the world works on a physical, chemical, biological, astronomical, or atomic level should not be analyzed for accuracy, as I’m sure it would be sorely lacking.

Furthermore, I don’t recommend emulating the behavior of any of the characters contained within. They’re all quite mad.

The truth is, I have no idea what I’m talking about.

Except about love. We all know a little about that. Or nothing at all. In any case, we’re all on equal footing.



PROLOGUE



THE two men sat silently in the carriage. The heat was stifling, but the windows were not open, and the carriage was not moving. The younger man shifted his feet anxiously and risked a glance upward. He could feel sweat dripping down his neck. “That was very kind, sir, what you did for my son.”

“It was a triviality,” the older man said. His hands clutched the knob of his cane, and he stared at the carriage window, though the curtains were drawn. “Something to distract him and your wife while I took you away for a short while. I haven’t used that key in years. It’s my fail-safe, in case I forget the others.” He looked down at the large bronze ring on his finger and twisted it. The younger man looked at his own hand, adorned with a matching ring. “Those locks have all been changed so many times, I’m not sure it even works any longer.”

“He’ll enjoy it anyway, sir, I’m sure.”

The older man sighed. “He’s a smart one. If things … It’s all ending, Volio. Bonne has returned to his island and vanished. Canterville is dead, probably at Rastail’s hands. Voukil hasn’t been heard from in years. And Knox…” The older man looked up at the drawn window again. “I had to kill Knox myself last night.”

“Sir?” Volio gasped.

“Poison in his tea. It looked like a heart attack. He was determined to enact that damned plan. Nothing was in place for it; none of us agreed on it. It would have failed, and failed spectacularly. It would have brought the Queen and her guard down on all of us, on all scientists, and on Illyria. I could not have that.”

“I … understand,” Volio said, looking down.

“It doesn’t matter if you understand or not,” the older man said. “It’s ending. There are just a handful of us left, and I’m nearly done for, anyway. I’ll be gone in a year or two—”

“Sir, no—”

The older man’s ferocity flared up. “Don’t interrupt.” He tapped his cane on the ground. For a moment, the air in the carriage seemed to stir.

“I’ll be gone in a year or two, and then my son will take over Illyria. He knows nothing of us. And I want it to remain that way. When I am done, so is our Society. You may attempt to keep together the rags of what is left. Teach your sons, if they’re hard enough.” The older man coughed, and then looked at his hands. “Mine isn’t. But keep it secret. Our goals … they are good goals, just, and right.” He stared at Volio. “But they must be carried out in secret. Our Society has failed. For now, anyway. Perhaps in the future, someone will get it right.”

Volio nodded.

“That is all I have come to say. Leave me now.”

Volio gratefully hopped out of the coach and into the warm, fresh air. He mopped the sweat from his brow with a handkerchief and turned to look at the coach. It was a great bronze thing, totally enclosed, with black curtains and tinted glass. On the back was the seal of Illyria: a shield with a gear inside it.

The coach was of the older man’s design. It required no horses, just a man in front who shoveled coal into a boiler and turned a wheel to direct the coach’s movements. He nodded once at the coal-man, who began shoveling, then drove the horseless carriage away amid vents of steam and the sound of aching metal. Volio sighed and went inside to enjoy his son’s birthday.

* * *



INSIDE the coach, the man with the cane sank back into the velvet-lined seats. Even though it was hot, he was old, and his bones were always chilly. The coach ran smoothly and quickly back to London, where it stopped in front of Illyria College. He used his cane to climb slowly out of the carriage, but instead of going through the front door, he turned toward the garden and opened a small hidden doorway in the wall of the school. It was a clever door, one he had installed himself to make his comings and goings harder to track. From the outside, the door looked like part of the wall, solid stone, a few ornamental carvings of gears and faces of great inventors. But a simple tug on the nose of the gargoyle with the face of Robert Barron caused the bricks to creak forward.

He crept down the shadowy stairs inside. He wound up in the basement, which smelled of chemicals, metal, and water. He walked the twisting passages without the aid of a torch and came at last to a great underground train station with a small train waiting at the platform. He had designed it all—the station, the train, the labrynthine basement, the college itself. And now he was dying, and there was no one left who knew it as well as he did. Instead, he had torn up his knowledge into a puzzle, giving each person only a piece of it. The assembled picture, he knew, was too much for any one person to handle without feeling like a god. And the time for such man-made gods was over. Aboveground, in the college proper, his son would rule when he passed on, but here, below, this train … he hoped his son would never need to know about it.

It was hard work for the old man, but he slowly began disabling the train. He locked the brakes in place so it would not move, and hid the locks. It took hours to finish, and by then, he was tired and dirty, covered in sweat and grease worn like warpaint. No one would be able to enter the tower now, not even members of the Society. That part of him was locked away and safe.

He headed back to the entrance to the basement, and from there, into the lift, which took him back up to the college. The lift was in a corner, out of sight from the rest of the college, but he was careful stepping out, making sure no one could see him. He walked through the bronze halls slowly. It was late by now, and he didn’t want to rouse people from their beds.

“Algernon?” came a voice as he headed toward his living quarters. “Algernon, you’re filthy.” The woman who came forward was younger than he, but not young. She had gray stripes through her dark hair.

“Ada,” he said.

“What have you been doing? Where have you been? You missed supper. Ernest and Cecily were frightened, so I made up a story about you working on something in your lab.…”

“I think,” Algernon said, “I think I need to go take a bath.”

“Well, you certainly do. You’re covered in dirt and you smell like oil. What have you been doing?”

“It’s not important now,” Algernon said. “Just let me take a bath, and leave me in peace.”

“Fine,” Ada said, crossing her arms, “I’ll walk you to your chambers. But you had best tell me everything you’ve been up to when you’re clean.”

“I don’t answer to you, woman,” he said, not kindly.

“No, I suppose you don’t. Which is part of your problem. Find your own way to your chambers, then.” She walked away from him, down the hall, stomping her feet angrily. He almost called after her, but didn’t. Instead, he slowly made his way to his quarters, and, once there, to his private bathroom. He was nearly done.