The Age Atomic (28 page)

 

FIFTY

 

The inside of the Chrysler Building looked perfectly intact to Rad, though the lighting was low and yellowish, some kind of emergency back-up after the main power was knocked out by the airship crash. The interior was similar to that of the Empire State Building, but if anything even more ornate – all marble and glass, Art Deco motifs decorating the walls. Looking up, Rad stared at an image of the silver-crowned building itself that took up nearly the entire ceiling, and wondered why there was no equivalent structure in the Empire State. Not everything was reflected, it seemed.

“It's quiet,” said Jennifer, wandering the lobby, looking up at the magnificently decorated ceiling.

Rad nodded. “Quiet as a grave.”

He turned his eyes to the floor. The marble was lighter than the walls, the blocks streaked with darker veins and laid out to make geometric patterns. In the dim light it was difficult to see if any of the markings were robot blood or not.

Byron stepped forward slowly, turning his head from side to side.

“What you got? You hear something?” asked Rad.

“There is an energy signature,” said Byron.

Jennifer stepped forward. “Energy?”

Byron gave a slow half-bow, reminding Rad of late-night conversations in an old house in another universe.

“The signature is unmistakable,” said Byron. “Unique.” He paused, then took a step forward. “There. The trail continues.”

Byron walked to the corner of the lobby, which lay in opaque shadow. “This way,” he said, and he vanished into the dark.

 

They'd been walking for what felt like hours. It was the unfamiliarity of the surroundings, the total lack of knowledge of where the corridors went, when they turned, what lurked behind each door. In Rad's line of work it wasn't an uncommon sensation.

Except now they were in the dark, traveling by the beam of a flashlight Grieves had found in the security guard's desk in the lobby, being led by the ghost of Byron piloting Kane's body in the Skyguard's old suit.

It made Rad's head spin, so he tried not to think about it. He also tried not to think about what they were going to do to stop the agents from Atoms for Peace, down here in the dark. They were just four people with a flashlight and a couple of guns, walking into the lion's den.

“So,” he said, like he was trying to break the ice at a party. In front of him was Byron's back; behind him Grieves and the others were so close he could feel Jennifer's coat lapping at the backs of his legs. Underneath their feet the trail was unmistakable, now that he could see it gleam in the light. There was a surprising amount of oil. Too much.

Jennifer's voice echoed in the corridor as they walked. “I'm fine,” she said. “Keep walking.”

“What are we going to do when we find him?”

“He needs help,” said Jennifer.

Grieves stopped and turned around, spotlighting her face with his light. The beam was split into a dozen more by the contours of her mask, golden light thrown around the corridor.

“He needs to be arrested, is what,” said Grieves. “From what you've said, he's involved with all this.”

Jennifer stepped forward, bringing her golden face an inch from Mr Grieves.

“He's injured, agent. And he was protecting the Empire State from an attack from
this
place. If anyone needs to be arrested, it's
your
people.”

“Oh yeah?” said Grieves, rolling his shoulders. “For what, exactly?”

“For doing nothing! For letting this Atoms for Peace walk all over you. For letting them plan a war right under your nose.”

Rad sighed and pushed between the pair.

“Quit it,” he said. “We don't know what we're going to find down here.” He looked Grieves in the eye. “Carson sent me and Jennifer to New York to stop whatever it is that's going on from destroying the universe.
Universes.
” He turned to Jennifer. “And that might just mean your brother does have something to do with it. He wasn't exactly altogether there in the Empire State, right?” Rad tapped his temple. “He was building his own army and keeping them doped up to keep them under control. That doesn't sound too savory.”

Jennifer sighed behind her mask. “Let's just find him,” she said quietly.

 

FIFTY-ONE

 

James Jones – formerly the Corsair, the
real
King of 125th Street – staggered down the corridor, reeling. He came to rest against the wall and leaned back, one hand pressed firmly to his side where it was soft and pliable. He grimaced, or at least he thought he did, the phantom memory of his flesh-and-blood face twisting in agony as he stopped for breath. It took him a moment to remember he didn't need to breathe, not anymore.

There was a large hole in his side. He reached in, not looking, and felt something thin and slippery move. Somewhere, buried in his mind, he felt nausea and pain and he felt dizzy. But it was distant, abstract. He wondered how much of him was left inside, how far the processing had gone before his blind servant had released him from the machine. Not every part of the process was automated; his complete conversion needed someone else to finish the job.

James pushed off the wall, leaving a rectangular smudge of black, thick fluid. He caught sight of it out of the corner of his optics and turned, surprised at how much of the substance he was leaking. He was leaving a trail easy enough for anyone to follow, he knew that, but it wouldn't matter, not now. He turned back around, the memory of a smile playing across his frozen metal face.

He recognized the place. He was home, in his underground lair, the network of tunnels and basements built underneath Harlem, the subterranean train system that had lain dormant underneath the Empire State since the beginning of time.

His brothers, his
family,
were near. He knew it. He could feel it in his lubricant oil and in the coolant that bathed his rubber-sided heart. The army that he had built would be waiting for their creator, and he could lead them and they would march to victory against the evil ones who had been sent through the fog to wage terrible war against the Empire State. And their victory would be glorious.

Logic gates tripping madly, feeding the artificial part of James's mind false data, he fell over. The ground met his face with surprising speed, the collision at just the right angle to crack the remains of the nasal septum that existed behind the metal mask. He registered the sensation, the sliding of bone, but again the pain was somewhere else, academic. He reached down and tried to push himself upright, like a solider doing pushups, only after a thousand hours (or was it more? Or maybe it was less?) he found he was still on the floor, his hands sliding hopelessly on the polished cement in something that was thick and warm and red and black and smelled of old coins and gasoline.

“James!”

There were people here, in his domain: there was big man in a hat and a thin man in a hat and someone else who looked familiar and a woman with a green coat and a golden face. She was on the floor with him, her fingers trailing over his face and coming away sticky with oil. James smiled, or thought he did, as he strained and scraped along the floor, trying to get up.

The big man was standing over him now. His skin was dark, and when he took his hat off James could see he was bald. The thin man kept his hat on and he said something but James couldn't hear it over the music that filled the air, music he could see and touch, the air pulsing, shimmering to the beat. He knew this number. It was one of his favorites.

James found his voice, and new strength. He grabbed the woman's arm and pulled her close. The big man shouted and pulled on her shoulders but she shrugged him off.

“It's OK,” she was saying. “It's fine, it's fine,” and her long brown hair fell around her face and tickled James.

“We're home,” said James, his voice the hiss of a punctured tire. “Where are my brothers, my family?”

“I'm here,” said the woman with the golden face but that didn't make any sense at all. James shook his head, hitting it on the wall behind him.

The big man was rolling his hat between his hands and then James's vision went grey and fuzzy and tore at the edges.

“It's OK,” said the woman again, and then she kept saying, “It's fine, it's fine, it's fine,” like that meant something, but James could hardly hear it over the music.

“What's he saying?” asked the thin man who was standing away, arms folded, in the electric fog that seemed to fill the corridor.

The big man sighed. “Something about jazz.”

“Sounds like he's bought the farm.”

The woman with the golden mask pulled back, oil on the front of her green coat, black and thick and shining. “He can be fixed.”

“Jennifer, look…” said the big man, but she was shaking her head.

“He's a machine, Rad. He can't die. He can be fixed.”

The thin man tapped his foot. “There's going to be nothing to fix if we don't get moving.”

The big man nodded and pulled at the woman's arm again. This time she didn't resist, and she stood.

“Then go. End this,” she said. “And then we can fix my brother. I'll wait with him.” And she knelt on the floor again, her metal face looming large in James's crumbling vision.

The last thing James Jones heard was the big man's voice, nearly buried under the jazz. He was asking where Kane was, and the others didn't look like they had a clue, but then the corridor broke up into static and all James knew was the music and the darkness.

 

FIFTY-TWO

 

Black and white and blue and white and her eyes burning blue they are blue her eyes are blue cold blue the light at the end of the
 

Kane shook his head and found himself standing by a door in a corridor of polished grey concrete. He was awake, although he had been dreaming again. Dreaming of the woman with the blue eyes, dreaming of his old friend Captain Carson, hunched over the controls of his mighty airship as it flew towards a tall building with a silver and steel cap, like the decoration on a fancy wedding cake. He remembered Byron, who had saved him… but Byron was gone now, just a thought, an echo ringing far away. And he remembered something else, something angry and silver and fast. Something strong.

Kane blinked. The corridor was gone. He was in a room, a vast space with a ceiling so high it was invisible. He was walking between two huge ranks of robots, silver, impassive, all facing the far wall of the room.

Kane stopped, but it took effort, like he wasn't in control of his body. He turned to the far wall and saw a street swathed in night, air as cold as a razor pouring out of it. He thought he recognized it, but perhaps he was dreaming. Soma Street was inside a room, a room full of robots, each of them facing the street, ready to…

“You.”

Kane looked up. There was a platform ahead, suspended over a huge red donut structure that pulsed with an internal light. Above the platform, a woman, floating in the air. She was blue and glowing, tethered to the image of Soma Street on the wall by tendrils of ethereal energy.

Blue and white and her eyes were blue they were blue they were blue
 

“I… I cannot see you,” said the woman with the burning blue eyes. “I can't see your time.”

Kane had no idea how he had got to where he was, or where his friends were. But he felt a pull towards this woman with the blue eyes, something magnetic, electric. It was comfortable; it felt right. He took a step forward, and the woman smiled.

“You're like me,” she said.

Kane nodded. He knew it was true. He knew that she was the woman from his dreams, that here was her army, ready to march into the Empire State, ready to end it all.

She floated down from the platform until she was almost on the floor of the chamber. This close, Kane felt alive, aware, his body sharp and real and powerful. In response, her aura flickered, growing larger, brighter, so close he could reach out and touch it.

“Come to me,” she said, holding out her arms. “Come to me and we will die together.”

 

FIFTY-THREE

 

They found first a corridor and then a door, following a roaring in the air, low and rhythmic, like an animal breathing. Through the door was a platform. Rad moved to the railing, and looked down into the largest room he'd ever seen – like a half dozen of the huge hangars the Empire State Police Department kept their blimps in. The vast space was lit in spinning red by a huge glowing ring at the center and, there, standing between rows and rows of robots, two figures flashing blue. The machines were all facing the impossibility that formed the entire left side of the space.

The wall there was missing; instead, Rad looked out into a street in a city at night, windswept and icy, the sky above tinged orange. The Empire State, cold and decaying, connected directly to this underground space in New York City.

Rad heard Mr Grieves swear quietly beside him as he took in the view.

This was it. The robot army Kane had seen in his dream, the one James Jones was preparing to fight. It started here, in this room, a nuclear holocaust that would unravel the universe itself.

Mr Grieves called out and Rad snapped his head around, too late. Two of the robots were on the platform with them, between them and the door. The machines towered over the pair of them; Rad knew at once that resistance was a waste of time. In one fluid movement, Rad's upper arm was enveloped by a huge silver hand, and he was pulled down the stairs, Mr Grieves and escort right behind. The robots dragged the pair across the factory floor below, towards the two shining blue figures. They stopped and Rad pulled at his captor; to his surprise, the robots released him – but there was nowhere to go.

“That's bad,” said Grieves next to him. Rad glanced at him and then squinted into the blue glow in front of them. Two people: a woman in a skirted suit wearing a hat; a man in a kind of black jumpsuit, the helmet missing, his hair waving in the energy aura like it was a summer's breeze.

Kane and Evelyn McHale. The woman from Kane's dream, the living echo of the Fissure that Nimrod had told them about. In his mind, Rad agreed with Grieves's summary of the situation. He thought perhaps Kane and Evelyn shouldn't get too close.

“Kane!” he called out, and Kane jumped like he'd had a fright. Evelyn turned with him to face the intruders.

Mr Grieves cleared his throat and raised his head. “Where's Captain Nimrod?”

The Director smiled and floated a foot into the air. Kane was still entangled in her blue halo but he moved backwards, away from her, his own blue glow diminishing with each step.

“Nimrod?” said Evelyn. “You can have him. He is unnecessary.”

Nimrod's prone form appeared on the floor in front of Rad – there was no flash of light or slow fade-in; one second he wasn't there and then he was. He hit the deck and rolled, moaning in pain. Mr Grieves dropped to his side immediately, but Nimrod clambered to one elbow. He faced Evelyn and coughed.

“He's an anomaly, isn't he?” he asked, nodding at Kane. “You didn't see this.”

“Anomaly?” asked Rad.

Nimrod chuckled as Grieves helped him to his feet. He stood on his own with a slight stoop, one arm around his middle, but his voice was clear and strong as he addressed the Director of Atoms for Peace.

“An anomaly,” he said, pointing at Kane. “He is as much part of the Fissure as she is, but from the other side, from the Empire State. Kane doesn't exist in the same space and time as the rest of us. Which is why she couldn't see him.” Nimrod laughed. “Your plan has failed, Evelyn. The future is not as predetermined as you thought.”

Wind and freezing mist blew in from Soma Street. Rad grabbed his hat before it flew off.

“Whether she's a fortuneteller or not,” said Rad, his voice raised over the squall, “this robot army is still going to blow up my city.”

Nimrod leaned into Mr Grieves, as Rad turned his back to the portal to shield the old man from the wintery blast.

At the room's center, Kane took another step back and doubled over in pain. Blue energy licked his body, and he fell to one knee. Evelyn's image flickered like a frame of film with a torn sprocket. When she stabilized Rad saw her face clouded with doubt.

Nimrod laughed again. Rad didn't like the mood the Captain was in, no matter what the Ghost of Gotham had done to him.

Evelyn held out an arm to Kane, but Kane didn't move. Rad saw Evelyn stretch, strain to reach him, but she seemed fixed in the air. She flickered again, pain crossing her face as she closed her eyes.

“What's happening?” he asked.

“No,” said Evelyn, her eyes searching the room, like she couldn't see it. “I can't go. The world is moving away from me, faster, faster.”

“She's losing her grip on the world,” said Nimrod. “It's Kane. Together, they stabilized – both sides of the Fissure in the same place. But I'm afraid you interrupted them, unbalanced them. She's slipped, and without Kane's energy she will fall, forever.”

“No!” Evelyn screamed. “I will not fall. I have the power, here and now. Elektro!”

From behind her, under the main reactor torus, Elektro strode out. He stopped beside the Director's floating form and regarded Kane with hands on hips.

“He don't look so good, boss. Looks like he could use a little juicing.”

Evelyn ignored the machine as she flickered again. “Commence the countdown.”

“Anything you say, boss.”

There was a deafening bang, enough to shake the floor as the robot army turned on their heel to face the central reactor. Elektro gave a salute. “Wind ‘em up, gentlemen.”

On each of the robot's torsos, the spinning red disc of their fusor reactors flashed white as the machines entered their destruct sequences. The hum of the torus increased; above the reactor's control panel, the mechanical digital display flipped over with a clack.

The countdown began.

Rad blanched. Sixty seconds. Sixty seconds until the robot army detonated.

“She's going to destroy the world here?” Rad scanned the room. “I thought she needed to get her army into the Empire State.”

Nimrod's face fell. He walked towards Evelyn, stepping over Kane's prone form. “No, this is different. She is falling and needs the energy just to stay in the world.”

Forty seconds.

Nimrod turned back to his friends. Rad looked around at the robots, their spinning lights now flashing in time with the glow of the torus reactor, in time with the digits flipping down on the clock, marking time until the end of the world.

Thirty seconds.

“We need to get out of here,” said Rad, knowing even as he said it that it was a naïve thought. Nimrod shook his head.

Twenty-five seconds.

“Each robot has a reactor inside it. There are enough here to destroy the East Coast of the United States. There is nowhere to run.”

Fifteen seconds.

Rad looked at Mr Grieves, but all the agent did was take off his hat and shake his head, like he'd just lost a bet on his favorite baseball team.

Ten seconds.

Rad looked at Soma Street. It was dark and cold but it was home. Rad missed it.

Five seconds.