The Age Atomic

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 naive 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.