Empire State (45 page)

  The Chairman wanted peace. The Pastor wanted destruction. With neither in full control, stalemate, for nineteen years. Until Kane took the Skyguard's suit and Rex arrived. Kane, working for the Chairman, finally providing the power he needed to take action. Rex, working for the Pastor, providing the impetus to eliminate any opposition.

  Two sides of the same person, both working for and against each other. Rad blinked. It was impressive, remarkable, and batshit crazy.

  "Don't give me that crap!" Spittle flew from Rex's mouth. He waved the gun between Kane and the Pastor, gesticulating with every word. "The preacher and I had a plan. He explained it all to me. Every action has an equal and opposite reaction, ain't that right? That's how it works. He told me. There's only one way back. I gotta do the opposite, cancel it out." Rex moved the gun to settle on Rad, and thumbed back the revolver's hammer.

  The light changed. The blue flared to white, then altered, still blue, but darker, and tinged with orange. The same orange perpetually reflected in the clouds which surrounded the Empire State on all sides.

  Rad spun around as quickly as he could while sitting on hard concrete with his hands tied. Rex turned as well. Kane took the advantage and kicked forward, knocking the gun clean out of Rex's hand and felling the man with a punch to the jaw. Rad saw it out of the corner of his eye, but his attention was on the Fissure.

  Lisa Saturn walked backwards, away from the Fissure. With both hands, she was holding a dark cable as thick as her forearm and capped with a pronged metal ring. She kept backing away, letting the cable drop from her hands.

  The Fissure had changed colour. It hadn't changed in size or shape, at least as far as Rad could tell. The pointed ellipse, perpendicular to the ground, still rippled and fizzed, the edges curling and glowing blue. But perhaps it was rippling a little more than it had been a moment ago. The orange light was weird, artificial, but not as alien as the electric blue. It was a colour that belonged to the Empire State and to the Pocket itself. Whatever the Science Pirate and Carson had done, the Fissure was turning inside out, destabilising, just a little.

  The Pastor's laugh died, replaced by a scream that Rad could only think of as blood curdling. The scream of a madman.

  "What have you done?!" he cried.

  The Captain clapped his hands, and turned to smile at the assembled crowd. He and the Science Pirate exchanged a look. She was smiling too.

  "Well, hasn't this been a jolly outing? My friend and I will be leaving now. See you in New York!" Carson paused, and put a finger to his lips as if he'd just thought of something. "Oh, actually, no – I won't." He drew the finger away from his mouth and pointed at Kane, and then back over his shoulder at the Fissure. Kane nodded and jogged over. When he reached the Captain, Kane held his wrist out.

  The old man bent over the armoured gauntlet for a moment. Kane's back blocked Rad's view, but after a couple of seconds a beeping started, before Carson clapped a hand on Kane's shoulder and stood to one side. Kane nodded again and skipped up onto the platform and stood before the Fissure, arms extended outwards. On his left wrist, Rad could see an open panel and a blue light winking in time with the beeping. Unless it was his imagination, the beep's tempo was steadily increasing, the tone of it heading slowly up the musical scale.

  Rad shuffled on the ground, making a desperate attempt to free his hands. But it was no good, the knot was too tight. He rocked on his behind and managed to get himself standing without falling on his face.

  "What are you doing? Destroy the Fissure, you destroy everything! Kane?"

  Kane turned. As he did, tendrils of energy curled out from the lip of the Fissure, attracted to the suit like lightning to a conductor. The fingers of power were smoke-like but bright. Kane stumbled slightly, and took a step backwards. When he spoke, it was with some effort and through a grimace of pain.

  "You're wrong, Rad." Kane shook his head slowly, eyes narrowing in discomfort. "We can all go back to where we belong."

  Rad took a hesitant step forward, but the movement sent a static shock up his leg. He stopped and became aware of a peculiar sensation, like walking face-first into hot cotton candy. Whatever was happening to the Fissure, it didn't feel healthy.

  "We don't belong there, Kane," said Rad. He stood tall against the pressure wave pushed out by the Fissure. "We belong here. The Empire State is our home."

  Kane stepped back again. The energy tendrils flared an angry red and seemed to wrap around his outstretched arms like a neon octopus. Kane's head snapped back and he was pulled back further, until he stood across the Fissure's horizon itself. The Skyguard's cloak was yanked violently backward, sucked into the void behind him by an alien wind. When he managed to pull his head back, his face was plastered with a vicious grin. He pulled an arm out of the Fissure's fluctuating corona like it had been stuck there with molasses, and pointed. Kane laughed.

  Rad turned his head quickly. The light streaming out of the unstable Fissure threw shadows long behind him, the high contrast making it difficult to see. But something had changed. The Pastor stood at the edge of the concrete disc, illuminated in blue, alone. His followers were gone.

  Rad looked, tracing the edge of the disc. There was nothing around them but a total blackness. And then the blackness lightened, greying up and then turning a dirty orange over the course of a few seconds. It was the fog, the damned, cold, perpetual fog. The borders of the Empire State had collapsed onto the circle, surrounding them.

  Crater fell to his knees and screamed. The sound was primal, animalistic, and powerful enough for Rad to feel sick.

  Someone called out. Too late, Rad saw Rex roll on the ground. Rex scrabbled on the concrete, scraping nails against the rough surface, until the dropped gun was within his grasp. He then tore forwards on all fours, slipping and striking his knees, even his chest, against the ground as he crawled towards the Pastor.

  Rad felt a tugging on the bindings that held his wrists behind his back. He moved to turn his head, but someone breathed against his ear.

  "When I say run, run. No questions."

  Rad nodded, not turning, mind racing as the Captain lightly patted his back. Rad pulled on his wrists, and the bindings unraveled the last few threads. With the pressure relieved and his wrists free, Rad slowly flexed his fingers, getting the feeling back into them.

  Crater knelt on the ground, unmoving. He had both arms outstretched, and his hood was pointed up at the orange, cloudy ceiling. Rex crawled closer and pawed at his jacket. Crater didn't move, but his eyes, wide through the holes the hood, moved to look at Rex.

  Saliva dribbled down Rex's chin. "You promised me. You said we could go home, that all I had to do was kill the detective. You lied, didn't you? You were going to go home, but not me, right? Am I right?"

  Crater moved his head slowly from side to side, but Rex also shook his head at the same speed. He pushed off the ground and stood in front of the Pastor. Rex raised the gun up and pressed the barrel against the white cloth-covered forehead. The hammer was pulled back again.

  "Aren't you going to stop this, Kane?" yelled Rad. "Aren't you the Skyguard, the protector of the city?"

  Rad turned around, back to the Fissure. Kane was still stuck like a fly in jam, a Vitruvian Man in a superhero costume and cape. Rad gasped in desperation. He turned to Carson. The Captain was watching Crater and Rex, his face blank. Beside him, Lisa Saturn stood, arms folded. She was smirking, like she was enjoying a night at the theatre.

  "Captain Carson! What…"

  Rad was cut off as the air cracked. A second later Crater, the Pastor of Lost Souls, toppled backwards, his white hood no longer white. Rex stood where he was, shaking, the gun still smoking in the air before him.

  The Fissure crackled, and Kane shouted over it.

  "I can get you home, Rex. Come on. There's not much time."

  Rex let the gun drop with a clatter onto the concrete. He turned around on his heel, slowly, looking at his feet. He glanced at Rad, at Lisa, at Carson. Then he stepped forward and looked up at Kane.

  "You can get me home?"

  Kane nodded.

  Carson stepped forward. "We can all leave, Rex. Come with us."

  Rex looked at Kane. His eyes narrowed, and even in the weird orange-blue light, Rad could see his face darken. Rex's mouth curled into a scowl.

  "You sonovabitch, liar!" Rex yelled, his voice echoing off the hard ground. He pushed Carson to one side and ran at the Skyguard, bent down into a football tackle. Rex's right shoulder collided with Kane's chest, but Kane barely moved. Whether it was the Skyguard's armour or the energy from the Fissure keeping him upright, Rad couldn't tell.

  Rex was pushing at Kane, but Kane was in the way, blocking the portal. The beeping from his wrist had become almost a steady whine. Rex slid back, and brought his fists down on Kane's chest. Finally Kane pulled his arms down, and grabbed Rex by the neck. The Fissure protested, rippling with a thundercrack as the tendrils of light whipped around the pair.

  "What did you do, Carson?" yelled Rad over the cacophony. "What did you do?"

  It was the Science Pirate who answered. She'd taken a step or two back, and had unfolded her arms, holding them instead at her sides. The palms were facing back and her hands tilted slightly out, like she was ready to take off on her dead rockets.

  "Energy input," she said simply, and looked at Carson. Carson nodded.

  "Energy input." He turned to Rad and pointed at the struggling figures silhouetted against the transdimensional maelstrom. "There is more energy in the Skyguard's power cells than in the whole fuel tank of the Enemy airship. By overloading the suit on the threshold, the Fissure will absorb the leaking energy. A much more efficient solution."

  Rad pulled his hands free and stood. Lisa watched, her face twisting into a scowl as she saw their prisoner had been freed by someone, and it wasn't her.

  Rad grabbed Carson by the front of his tunic. As his fingers made contact with the fabric, he felt another static discharge, powerful enough to make his back molars sing in sympathy.

  "More efficient? You want the world – both worlds – destroyed?"

  Carson didn't struggle as Rad shook him around. Instead he met the detective's eye and smiled.

  "Not destroyed, no. Overloading the suit is far more controlled. The Fissure will feed off the energy and stabilise even further. The Empire State is quite safe, as is New York. In fact, the tether between the Pocket and the Origin will be stronger than ever."

  Rad relaxed his grip. He stared at the Captain's face, as if he was trying to read the old man's wrinkles like a street map. His mouth opened but his brain wasn't quite done processing the information, so he just stood there for a while, slack-jawed.

  "No!"

  Rad and Carson turned as one to Lisa Saturn. The Science Pirate was backing away, her mouth as open as Rad's in surprise. Her eyes were wide and wild.

  "Skyguard," she cried, "it's a fix. You've been tricked!"

  Kane and Rex were still wrestling, almost in slow motion in the rippling chasm. Tendrils of energy tore themselves off the portal, wrapping around the pair before shifting and evaporating. They were becoming more and more obscured by the light, apparently oblivious to anything happening down on the concrete disc.

  It wasn't quite the stalemate it looked like. Kane was held firm by his armour and by the power of the Fissure, but Rex was winning. Rex was a desperate man.

  Kane turned his head, and looked into the heart of the abyss behind him. The centre of the portal was black, and when Rad blinked, it flashed violet. Kane turned back, his eyes wide in fright. He pushed back against Rex, harder now, grunting with the effort as his arms locked onto Rex's shoulders. The two stood, balanced at the threshold between one universe and another.

  The Science Pirate was on them in a second, although as she ran closer to the Fissure her movement seemed to slow. Rad wondered whether this was an effect of the time dilation, as Carson and Nimrod had called it, spilling out from the Fissure as it reshaped and rebuilt itself from the Skyguard's energy. Rad almost made to ask, when he felt Carson's hand on his shoulder and his hot breath in his ear.

  "Do you remember your instructions, Mr Bradley?"

  Rad turned, his face half an inch from Carson's. It was like talking inside a tornado, he thought.

  "I surely do, Captain."

  "Then I suggest you act upon them as soon as it is practical for you to do so. At my estimation, I would say now would be most appropriate."

  "Anything you say."

  The Captain winked. "Run!"

  Rad turned to run, and saw Carson do likewise, before the both of them were knocked to the ground by a shock wave that pulsed from the Fissure as its border stretched and snapped back like tight elastic. Rad's shoulder hit the concrete and he shouted in surprise and pain. Ahead, he saw the orange fog convulse as the shock wave hit it and continued through into the nothingness that, apparently, now filled the Pocket. It seemed to Rad that the Empire State, the whole Pocket itself, was being eaten by the Fissure rather than strengthened. He hoped Carson had got his calculations correct.

  Rad shuffled backwards quickly, pushing the ground with his palms. The air vibrated, filled with a buzzing that drilled into his skull. He remembered the feeling well. It was the feeling of incompatibility he'd experienced in New York. The Origin was reabsorbing the Pocket. The Empire State was crumbling. Carson had got it wrong.

  Another shock wave, enough to push Rad and Carson down for a second time. Rad saw Kane and Rex framed in the Fissure, still wrestling, a third form clinging to Rex's back, arms locked around his neck, trying to pull him free of Kane. The Science Pirate's suit was unpowered but the weight of it on Rex's frame was just enough. The combined strength of Kane and Lisa were succeeding, and freed slightly from Rex's grip, Kane pulled his fist back, ready to launch an uppercut at his assailant, probably with enough power to kill.