The Age Atomic

THREE

Rad sat in his chair behind his desk. He was turned around, not facing the office door and the grandfather clock in the corner, but the large square window immediately behind his desk. The blinds were up, and it was night, the light in the office turning the window into a big mirror.

Funny how things had come full circle. It hadn’t worked out with Claudia, although they’d tried their darnedest, but the truth was their marriage was an echo of something which had never happened, not in this dimension. That was the worst part, knowing what the Empire State was and what it had done to them. It had worried at Rad and it had worried at Claudia, and eventually it had pushed them apart. But maybe that was for the best. Rad didn’t like change, although he knew that might have been the Empire State pushing him again. He liked his job and his liked his office. He had looked around for better, of course, but none had that window and the view, so Rad had stayed put and the little room next to the office was still his home.

Rad watched his reflection, and he watched the corners of the room behind him. Then he sighed and took a sip of his coffee and sighed again. The coffee was good. Real coffee, from the other side, from New York. He had Mr Jones to thank for that. Except now the Fissure was gone and the city had begun to freeze, and while the coffee was warming Rad knew he needed to keep an eye on his supply because suddenly it was a limited resource again.

Huh. Jones. Rad wondered if Nimrod’s agent from New York and Carson’s agent from the Empire State were connected, or even the same person, in a way.

Rad had secured the lock-ups and they’d hidden Cliff’s body in an empty crate in the warehouse. He’d be found eventually. Rad wasn’t sure if that meant the clock was ticking or not, but he had the feeling that time was most certainly running out. Hundreds — thousands — of robots hidden in warehouses all over the city meant something big was on the cards, something well beyond even the organized gang crime that Rad had been investigating. Something calamitous. Jennifer knew much more than she had let on, but had left without so much as a goodbye. As Rad slinked back to his office he hoped she knew what she was doing.

The chair creaked as Rad shifted his weight. The Fissure was gone and the city was freezing, getting colder every day, but that didn’t stop Rad watching the reflections in his office. Reflections — mirrors — were one way the Empire State and New York were connected, at least if you knew the trick. And Rad knew that even with Carson gone on his side, there would be people working on it on the other. The problem of the Fissure would be affecting New York, Rad knew that — New York was the Origin, the template, and it led to a whole wide world, a universe beyond. The Empire State was the Pocket, an imperfect duplicate of New York, reflected through a hole in space-time thanks to the fight between the Science Pirate and the Skyguard, the two former protectors of New York.

But the Fissure did more than connect the cities; it tied them together. One could not exist without the other anymore. Which meant if the Fissure was gone and the Empire State was freezing up, then Rad knew New York would be in trouble too. He only hoped that Captain Nimrod, Carson’s “original”, hadn’t taken a little walk as well. Nimrod had a whole damn government department dedicated to the Fissure. Nimrod was working on it, Rad knew that. He had to be.

Which is why Rad sat in front of the window in his office most nights. Watching and waiting. The mirror-like quality of the window at night would let Nimrod see into the Empire State. And with Carson gone, Rad was one of the few people left in the Pocket dimension who had any clue how the world worked, so it would make sense for Nimrod to get in touch with him first.

So the theory went.

Rad sat in front of the window and the grandfather clock ticked time away in the corner, and he sipped his coffee and flexed the fingers of his sore hand. After a while Rad turned around on his chair to look at the item on the desk.

It was the small rod, the one he’d pocketed. It looked a little like a fuse, and Rad thought that maybe it had fallen out of Cliff’s head, loosened by Rad’s punch, the reason the robot had gone over so easily. He’d meant to ask Jennifer about it but he’d clean forgotten. He could show it to her next time they met, if there was going to be a next time.

He rolled the little cylinder on the desk, picked it up and looked at it closely, like he would suddenly recognize it for what it was. He put it back on the desk.

“Huh,” said Rad to himself. “The age atomic.”

Rad jerked his head up at the sound. It was still night outside, and Rad could see himself reflected in the window. The office behind him was still and empty.

The phone was ringing. Rad blinked, then spun around on his chair and grabbed at the stem, pushing the earpiece against the side of his head.

At last, the call.

“Nimrod?” he said. He squinted into the emptiness of his office, like that would improve his hearing.

“I think you have something of mine,” said the voice on the other end of the line.

The line was crystal clear and the voice was loud, and more important it didn’t belong to Nimrod, didn’t have that strange clipped accent he shared with Carson and which Rad had learned was “British.” The voice on the phone was a local call.

“Who is this?”

The man on the end of the phone clicked his tongue. It echoed strangely, although Rad wasn’t sure if that was the phone or… something else. Maybe a gas mask worn by someone from New York acclimatizing to the Empire State’s different environment. There was something else too, in the background. Music. Jazz music; the phone line stripped the bass out but Rad could hear a bright piano and drum beat.

“Where are you from?” Rad asked, before the man on the phone had a chance to say anything else.

“Oh, patience, detective, patience. You have something of mine. You picked it up at the warehouse. I’d like it back.”

“Uh-huh,” said Rad. He glanced at the clock in the corner. It was three in the morning. He’d dozed off, which explained the crick in his neck. “Must be pretty important for you to call at this hour.”

There was a dull scraping on the other end of the phone. “Oh, it’s late. I’m sorry. You tend to lose track of time, job like mine.”

Another hint, another clue. Rad smiled. “Lot of fancy stuff in that warehouse. Specialized equipment. Not to mention the toys you’ve got in cold storage. Quite an operation you have running.”

Too much information? Rad winced and sucked in his cheeks. He needed some sleep and possibly not any more coffee.

The man on the phone laughed. It was just a quiet chuckle, slow, steady. Rad listened, but there was nothing else on the line except the man laughing and the faint music.

“Something funny, pal?” Rad sniffed. “Nothing funny about tying ladies to chairs and waving guns around.”

“Oh yeah, I heard about that,” said the man on the phone, while in the background the jazz reached a crescendo and then stopped. “That’s a shame. Tell you what, friend, come up and see me. Bring my property. We can have a drink, and we can have a little chitchat.”

“I’ll look forward to that.” Rad reached for a pen and had it ready, poised over the jotter on his desk. He felt like he’d just made a breakthrough in a case he knew nothing about. “What’s the address?”

The man on the phone just laughed again. Rad thought he’d pushed it a little far with a criminal mastermind — well, he assumed the guy was a criminal mastermind, who else rang in the small hours just to laugh at a detective?

The scraping sound came again, like the man on the phone was distracted and turning away from the mouthpiece. Rad pressed the phone into his ear and closed his eyes. The office vanished, and he was lost in the faint buzz of the phone line. The jazz started up again, another number, slower this time.

There. There was something else. The buzz was moving; not interference, but something in the background. Somebody talking, too far away for Rad to know if it was a man or a woman.

The scraping sound came back loud, and Rad opened his eyes.

“There’s someone here who wants to see you.”

Rad sucked in a breath and leaned forward on his desk. Eyes wide, just one thought entered his mind.

“Carson’s there? Can you put him on?”

The laugh again. “Last I heard the Chairman went out over the ice and into the fog,” said the man. Rad could almost hear the smile in the man’s voice and he didn’t like it one bit.

“Quit playin’ around. Look, I-”

“Come north. 125th street. You can’t miss it. Look for the green light.”

“What?” Rad squeezed the pen. “What’s the address?”

“You’ll find me. 125th Street. Tomorrow. Come at night — it’s not safe during the day. Drive to 110th, then walk.”

“Look, pal, whoever is there-”

“He says his name is Kane Fortuna. I think he wants to talk to you pretty bad.”