The Age Atomic (24 page)

Rad wondered how long it would take for the collapsing structure of the Pocket to start damaging the Origin. Maybe it would take a long time, given the difference in size between the two dimensions. Or perhaps it would happen all at once, catastrophically, both dimensions vanishing down an eternal plughole.

If the robot war didn't destroy both dimensions first, of course.

A series of footfalls sounded outside his cell, then kept going. Rad stood, and a moment later Jennifer was returned to the cell next door. Rad was on the bench, his face to the grill, almost immediately.

“What happened?”

Jennifer stood in her cell, stretching out what must have been a leg made stiff by sitting in the uncomfortable chair in the interrogation room. She glanced at Rad, and then continued to rub the top of her thigh.

“Nothing much. They asked a lot of questions, and I answered all of them. They didn't seem that interested, just noted it all down.”

“Huh,” said Rad. “You were lucky. I got the wise guys. They didn't believe a word I said.”

“Why are they holding us here, anyway?”

“Well,” said Rad, and then he paused. Jennifer had a point. The questioning was a lot of bother for two people who were supposedly just drunks causing a scene.

“They haven't said anything about charges.”

“No,” said Rad. “They haven't. They're holding us for something, though.”

“For what?”

Nimrod? Rad didn't dare hope. “They took down everything you said?”

Jennifer nodded.

“And you told them about being an agent in the Empire State, and about the robots and all that jazz?”

“And all that jazz, yes. The never-ending winter and the falling buildings and all.”

“And they didn't say anything?”

“Only to ask more questions. Maybe they were distracted by this.” Jennifer tapped a knuckle against a golden cheek.

Rad tugged at his bottom lip. “If only we could convince them to get hold of Nimrod. He'd get us out.”

On cue, there was a sound at Rad's door. Rad heard Jennifer hopping up onto her bed to see into his cell as he stepped down from his bench and faced the door.

The cell was opened by a uniformed officer, not one Rad had seen before. He held the door open for a man in a brown suit and hat. The newcomer was built like a football quarterback with a thick, almost non-existent neck.

The man glanced at the policemen, then at Rad. “So, you coming or what?”

Rad smiled. “Agent Grieves, are you a sight for sore eyes.”

Mr Grieves raised an eyebrow, a tiny smile flickering over his small mouth before vanishing without a trace.

“Yeah, swell to see you.” He glanced at the cop again, then cleared his throat. He waved at Rad. “Now hurry up. We ain't got all day.”

 

Detective Steven Sachs took the second-to-last cigarette from the pack, then stared at the solitary remaining smoke before squeezing the pack in his fist.

“Shit,” he muttered, his fingers automatically fumbling for the box of matches in his jacket pocket. Box retrieved, he lit his cigarette and then waved the match out with his characteristic flourish.

Bryson pushed his chair out from his desk and turned it around to face his partner. He leaned back, placed his hands behind his head, and sniffed loudly. “One of those days, right?”

Sachs nodded, not looking up from the paperwork on his desk. “You got that right.”

“Lot of paper for those two drunks?”

Sachs sucked his cigarette and shook his head. “They're being transferred. Look at this.” He held up one of the sheets of paper. It was onionskin, a carbon copy, and when Bryson took it it nearly tore. Sachs watched as Bryson's eyes flicked over it before settling on the symbol at the top of the paper.

“Holy
shit
, this is from–”

“Yep,” said Sachs, snatching the delicate document back again without much care.

“So that stuff about the government?”

“Yep,” said Sachs. He pulled the typewriter on his desk towards him, adjusted the paper he'd carefully loaded just moments before, and selected a single key on the keyboard. There was a clack, and he leaned forward. “Ah, shit,” he said, adjusting the paper again.

“Detective Sachs?”

“The one and only.” Sachs didn't move, but when Bryson sat up straight in his chair with a clatter, he sighed, sucked on his cigarette, and turned around.

Three men were in the office, dressed in black suits and black ties. They were young, clean-shaved, and each wore a black hat. Sachs thought they looked like a trio of advertising copywriters from Madison Avenue. He looked them up and down and sighed.

“Can I help you?”

The first man in black smiled. “We're here to collect the fugitives.”

Sachs sniffed. “Bradley Bradley and the girl with the party mask she refuses to take off? Be my guest, buddy.”

The man's smile tightened a little. “Thank you.”

“You're too well dressed to be FBI,” said Sachs. “You CIA or NSA?”

“No,” said the first man. “Now, if you would be so kind?”

Sachs and Bryson stood. The agents looked at Bryson, who smiled self-consciously and straightened his tie. Sachs coughed, long and hard, and pulled his jacket from the back of his chair.

“OK,” he said. “Follow me.”

Sachs slipped into his jacket as they walked. After a few steps he saw the desk sergeant walking towards them.

“Sergeant Ross,” he said, the sergeant touching the brim of his hat and coming to a halt, expectant. Sachs indicated the three agents with him. “Those two in the cells, from Grand Central. We're handing them over to…” He frowned as he glanced at the first agent.

The first agent smiled and gave a small nod.

“…these guys,” Sachs concluded.

“Sir?” The Sergeant switched the clipboard he was holding from one hand to another.

“We're handing them over to another authority. They ready to move?”

The sergeant looked at Sachs and pursed his lips. He glanced at the trio of agents, and peeled the top sheet on the clipboard back and folded it over.

“Something wrong, Sergeant?”

“They've already gone,” said Ross, turning the clipboard around to show his superior. Sachs grabbed it and starting flipping through pages like he was a doctor surveying the chart of a dying man. “They were collected just fifteen minutes ago. An agent signed for them already.”

The men in black crowded Sachs; he could feel their breath, smell their aftershave. He continued to scramble through the paperwork until the clipboard was snatched out of his hand by the first agent. The detective didn't protest, but in the silence that followed as the agent read the sheet he fixed Sergeant Ross with an angry glare.

“A Federal agent signed for it?” said the agent, turning the clipboard around, his finger next to the signature line on the release form.

Sergeant Ross peered closer, the color draining from his face as Sachs watched.

Sachs grabbed the clipboard back and read the line. “Agent…” he peered closer, deciphering the spider scrawl. “Shit. Agent ‘Kissmyass'? What are you, a moron?”

He slapped the clipboard against the Sergeant's chest. Then he turned to Bryson, who was standing with his hands in his pockets, looking at the floor. “And don't think you can squeeze out of this either. They only left fifteen minutes ago, we gotta be able to–”

A hand was on his chest, the fingertips only brushing his shirt but somehow there was strength and purpose there. Sachs looked up and the first agent shook his head.

“We'll handle this,” he said. He nodded to his colleagues, already drawing guns from holsters beneath their jackets. The first agent looked at Sergeant Ross. “Take my agents to the cells. Follow their directions. Move.
Now.
”

The sergeant turned on his heel, the two agents on his tail.

Sachs sighed.

“Who would have come in to take them?” asked Bryson.

“Enemy operatives,” said the first agent. “Don't worry, detective, you will be fully exonerated. I need a phone.”

Sachs led the way back to his own desk, then stood smartly to one side as the agent lifted the black phone off it. He tried to see what the agent was dialing, but he lost track of the turns. It didn't seem to be any kind of regular phone number.

“Enemy agents?” asked Sachs. He shook his head. “What, like… Communists? Spies?”

“Morrison,” said the agent into the receiver. “Cloud Club.”

Sachs raised an eyebrow. Wasn't that an old nightclub at the top of the Chrysler Building? Perhaps it was a code.

“Morrison,” said the agent again, and then he nodded as he listened to something. “Nimrod is out?” A pause. “Understood.” he said.

Sachs clicked his tongue. Nimrod? The name mentioned by the black guy. So, who were they, really? Spies? Communists? Secret agents from the government? This was exciting. And the agent – Morrison? – had already said that no blame would fall on Sachs.

Sachs puffed his chest out a little. Here he was, in the middle of a spy thriller like the kind he was so fond of reading.

“Confirmed,” said Morrison. He replaced the receiver and lowered the phone back to the desk.

Sachs was on tenterhooks.

“The fugitives who escaped are the two most wanted criminals in the United States of America,” said Morrison.

Sachs couldn't help but gulp.

“We need to put out an APB, and inform the FBI that there are felons loose in Manhattan. Armed and dangerous. They are spies who are acting against the government of the Western Hemisphere. Do you understand me, detective?”

Sachs nodded. He now understood that the statement Bradley had given him and Bryson – and the one taken by Mortimer and Zapf from the girl – were all part of a cover-up, a clever disinformation plan to confuse the police, to buy time to let someone else – an inside man – come and get them. Sachs's brow knitted as he tried to untangle it all inside his own mind. “They're really that dangerous?”

Morrison's expression was firm. “And as of right now,” he said, “Rad Bradley and Jennifer Jones are both public enemy number one.”

 

FORTY-THREE

 

They kept coming, and coming. Wave after wave, the King's hidden army now fully active, pouring from their hiding places around the city, following a single order: reclaim the Fissure, reclaim Kane.

Kane had another thing on his mind. It was likely that only Carson could solve the problem of the Empire State's impending demise, and it was up to Kane to protect him, buy him time.

He knew that now, as he hovered in front of the colonnades of Grand Central. He was powerful – he
was
the Fissure now – but the power had its limits. He'd felt it already, a small tug at the base of his spine – hardly anything at first but getting stronger the more he worked, and occasionally giving a real wrench, sending a cascade of blue-hot pain right down the center of his back. It did that when he opened up the tank, letting the Fissure's power leak out of the gaps he'd made in his suit at the wrists.

Keeping the robots at bay was hard work. They didn't carry weapons – they didn't need to. Their glowing eyes spat rays of energy, wide cones of heat and death crisscrossing in the air as they attempted to knock Kane out of the sky. It was hard work avoiding the rays, but at least it kept the robots occupied, the front ranks coming to a halt as they took aim at their target.

Kane had been lucky so far, but he knew his own energy was running out – the more he flew, the more energy he directed back at the robots, the weaker he got. He wasn't even sure whether the King needed him alive or just his dead body to plug back into the machine in Harlem.

Kane dodged another series of blasts that came from three different directions, converging on where he had just been in a brilliant red haze of energy. He paused in the air, reorienting himself, and heard a thunder-like rumble from the distance ahead. He looked up, saw lightning flash on the horizon, and saw black shapes moving. The distance was huge, the shapes enormous: two office blocks collapsing like wet cake as the city began to crumble, unable to tolerate any longer the lack of energy from the Fissure.

The energy he was rapidly using up.

The robots gathered, regrouping. Park Avenue surrounded Grand Central on all sides, but around the periphery were the numbered avenues, moving out like spokes from a hub. The machines crowded every street.

Kane couldn't win. The sheer force of their numbers would overwhelm him and the robotic horde would breach Grand Central, taking him and Carson and the others back to Harlem. He hoped Carson's plan, whatever it was, was going to work. And fast.

The robots surged forward, and Kane swept down. He brought his hand back, opening the gap in the Skyguard's suit, and the Fissure flowed out of him like water. Tendrils of blue energy floated away from him like eddies in a stream, and then came the tugging sensation, strong now and surprising. Kane wobbled in the air as the pain clouded his senses, his vision splitting into a kaleidoscope view before it snapped back into tunnel vision, and blue fire spat from within him. The beam connected with the street, carving another great trench, causing the robots to back away. Kane moved the beam onwards, catching the front row of robots. The machines exploded almost instantly, silver arms and legs and heads flying through the air as the power of the Fissure cut through them.

Kane gritted his teeth against the pain, and touched down on the street in front of Grand Central. Time was almost up.

“Carson,” he said to the air. Something in his ear clicked.

“A little longer, Mr Fortuna. We are not ready yet.”

Kane shook his head. “I can't keep this up. The power is running out.”

Carson clicked his tongue, the sound close and wet in Kane's ear. “I need a little more time.”

“Can you get us away from here? The tremors are getting worse. The city is falling apart.”

“Yes, we can hear it. How far away is the event horizon?”

“Six or seven miles uptown maybe. But the structure is getting a might thin here too. A block on the corner of 43rd fell as I flew past. I didn't even touch it.”

“Very well,” said Carson, and then there was a rustling noise. When he spoke next the tone was different, like he was facing away from the microphone. “Five minutes. Be ready to leave. Tunnel 17a. But wait for my signal.”

“OK, but Carson–”

“Hold them off, Kane. Listen for my signal.”

Kane nodded and clicked the radio off, forgetting Carson couldn't see him. But his mind was racing. He looked down at the street.

The robot army was stationary now, the rows and rows of glowing red eyes dimmer, like they were considering a new plan of attack.

Kane searched the army, but he couldn't see their leader, the real King of 125th Street. He hadn't seen the silver machine man at all.

The thunder rumbled again. This time Kane could feel the bass vibration shake the street, making him stumble. The army tottered, a thousand silver soldiers banging into each other as the tremor increased in strength. Further down Park Lane, a huge building sagged at the waist and telescoped downwards, throwing up dust and debris that swept over the robots like fog.

Kane flew higher to see. How much of the city was left standing? But as he flew up, the unpleasant tug at his spine increased. He hissed in surprise and pain, and then he dropped.

It took four seconds for him to hit the street, and when he did he bounced twice, then rolled over, gasping for breath, struggling for purchase. The fall had hurt like hell, but the pain faded almost immediately. Kane moved, pushing himself up, and felt pins and needles all over and the tug at the base of his spine once more. He understood – the power of the Fissure had saved him from the fall and healed him, but that had just used more of its energy.

If the Fissure died within him, was that the end of the Empire State? Carson was going to put the Fissure back where it was, wasn't he? Back in Battery Park, where it would burn bright and blue, reconnecting the Pocket universe to the Origin and restoring the energy balance. And the Empire State would be saved, and all would be well.

He had to buy Carson time. On his hands and knees, Kane shook his head.

“Looks like it's just you and me, pal.”

Kane looked up. James Jones, the real King of 125th Street, stepped forward in front of his army, his metal feet loud on the tarmac. Kane went to stand but James pushed him back with his foot. Kane fell backwards and immediately rolled to the side, but he couldn't stand. His body felt like it was made of lead. He craned his neck as James took a step forward and placed one foot on either side of Kane's body. He flexed his fingers, and Kane was sure the square metal jaw was grinning.

“Dead or alive,” said James, “you're coming with me.”