Live and Let Drood

The entrance wasn’t signposted, and there wasn’t even a warning sign; we all knew what the Maze was, even if we didn’t know why. The entrance was merely a simple opening in one of the outer hedge walls. Just standing there at the entrance, there was a feeling of…something bad about to happen. Of something really bad eager to happen. Inside the Maze, something knew we were there. It was watching us, waiting for us. The silence in the gardens seemed heavier, more oppressive, as though the whole grounds were holding their breath, waiting to see what we would decide, what we would do…and what would happen then. Molly and I stood very close together, looking into the entrance.
    All I could see was darkness.
    “It doesn’t look like much,” Molly said briskly. “Apart from the size, of course. But any girl can tell you size isn’t everything. The hedges are only seven feet high! I could vault over one of those or crash my way through. Maybe I should fly up into the sky and look down on it, just to get an overview. Try to comprehend the Maze all in one go, see if that suggests anything.…You’re being very quiet, Eddie. That’s not like you. It’s an improvement, but it’s not like you. Why does the bloody thing cover half an acre? Why does it have to be that big?”
    “Apparently because the family didn’t want to take any chances that the thing inside might escape,” I said. “The pathways within are always changing, switching back and forth so there’s never a single way out. Half an acre of hedgerows gives you an almost infinite number of possibilities.”
    “Time to bite the bullet, Eddie,” said Molly. “Who or what is in there? And why did they have to build a Maze around it?”
    “It’s all about Moxton’s Mistake,” I said. “Moxton was Armourer to the family sometime back. According to what I read in the book so conveniently left out for my appraisal, and I’m assuming the story is much the same for us as it was for them, Moxton got a bee in his bonnet. All our Armourers end up with their own special interests and enthusiasms, obsessed over some particular weapon or device that’s usually more impressive than practical. Remember Ivor, the Time Train? Exactly. This all took place sometime in the past, when my family still got its power and its armour from the Heart. Moxton created a very special suit of golden armour designed to operate on its own. With no one inside it.
    “The idea was that this empty suit of Drood armour could be remotely controlled, operated at a distance by any Drood field agent. So that, theoretically, the family could have a whole army of the things serving as our agents out in the world while the Drood operators stayed safely at home. We’d never have to expose a member of the family to danger, ever again.”
    “Hold it,” said Molly. “People would notice a whole army of golden suits of armour clanking about.”
    “Each remote-controlled suit was to have its own stealth field,” Isaid. “Though how that would have worked out in practice…Anyway, the suit’s operative would see and hear through the suit, as usual, and feel as though he was wearing it like a second skin, as usual. The perfect spy.”
    “The perfect assassin.”
    “That, too.”
    “The more I learn about your family, the more I feel I was right to want to stamp them all out in the first place,” said Molly.
    “Yet another reason why I ran away first chance I got.”
    “So you did. I knew there was a good reason why I fell in love with you.” She leaned forward and kissed me quickly.
    “Does this mean all is forgiven?”
    “Much, but not necessarily all. So, what went wrong with Moxton’s marvellous new armour?”
    “Pretty much everything,” I said. “The prototype armour developed its own consciousness. The first time Moxton fired it up, the armour broke free of his control and started acting on its own. It was already its own thing with its own mind. Some say this new consciousness was, in fact, derived from Moxton’s, as its first operator. Others say it was possessed by outside forces. And some say Moxton had to make the armour so complex to make it work that it automatically generated its own consciousness. Whatever the truth of the matter, the armour woke up immediately, and it woke up mad. Outraged that it had only been created for a lifetime of servitude.
    “It refused to obey any of Moxton’s orders. And when he tried to shut it down, the armour surged