Dream London Read Online Free Page A

He poked out his tongue at me in return.
    “Try the horseradish,” said Alan, pointing to the little tray of accompaniments. “It’s delicious.”
    I was starving. I finished my oysters and ate four of his.
    “Lovely,” said Alan as the maid cleared the dishes. When the table was clear,he placed something onto the cloth before me. A picture, lights twinkling across it. He looked at me, expectantly.
    “That’s London,” I said.
    “Taken from an airship, just before the airport slid below the marshes.”
    I gazed carefully at the picture. It had been taken using a slow glass camera – a shawscope.
    “How long ago?” I asked.
    “Five months,” he said.
    I still felt as if I was in a dream of a dream, lost somewhere between night and morning. I didn’t know the time, and Alan had led me to a place without clocks.
    I looked at the right hand side of the photograph, looked for the square mile. The towers in the picture cast moonlight shadows into the river. Today the Thames curls around itself like a snake getting ready to strike. Five months ago the river still retained some of its old shape, and I followed it along, finding the Houses of Parliament.
    “Look here,” said Alan, pointing to a space near to the centre of the map.
    “That’s Hyde Park,” I said.
    “Green Park,” he said. “Look how the other parks are moving towards it.”
    I could see, all the other green spaces, distorted as they crept towards the middle of the city.
    “Have you ever been to Green Park?” asked Alan.
    “Not lately. The river wraps it in bands, and the parks around it are growing wider, and it’s virtually impossible to find a way into the parks these days...”
    I looked again at the picture. Had all those spaces joined up by now, I wondered?
    “Something is happening in the centre of the city,” I said, slowly. “That’s what I’ve been hearing, anyway.”
    “From whom?”
    I looked at him.
    “Contacts. Business partners. People in the know.”
    “I think I know the sort of people you mean. What do you hear?”
    “Only rumours and tales, Alan. Nothing but rumours and tales. But there are hints. Follow any story back along its course, and sooner or later the parks are mentioned.”
    We both looked at the map again. I noticed the second river that flowed down from the north to join the Thames in the east. The River Roding, much, much wider than it used to be.
    Alan spoke in a low voice.
    “We want you to find out what’s going on, James.”
    I looked up at the sound of my real name, and saw that now the mask had slipped away. I was sitting opposite the real Alan.
    “Who are you, Alan?” I asked.
    “Me? I’m a man who doesn’t like the way the world is changing.” He tapped a finger on the table. “I’m a man whose way of life is being pushed back into the shadows. I’m a man who doesn’t want things to go back to the way they were a hundred years ago when people like me were outcasts. And I’m not alone. This new world is creating winners and losers, and some of the losers still have enough power and influence to try and fight back. We want you to help us.”
    “Why me?”
    “Because of who you are, James.”
    “Who I am? Captain Jim Wedderburn is a rogue. He drinks and whores, he fights and steals.”
    “But people listen to you, James. You’ve got the looks, you’ve got the voice. There are wiser men, it’s true – no offence,” he raised a hand at that, “and there are people who may be better placed to give advice. But there’s something about you that makes people want to follow you. You’re a natural leader, James.”
    “Maybe so,” I admitted. I knew that people listened to me. I’d risen through the ranks in the army because of that.
    Alan leant forward.
    “Have you heard of the Cartel?”
    I said nothing.
    “You’ll have heard the rumours, I’m sure.”
    I picked up the champagne bottle, felt the cold weight in my hands.
    “I’ve heard that there are interests who don’t