The Age Atomic

ADAM CHRISTOPHER

THE AGE ATOMIC

 

ALSO BY ADAM CHRISTOPHER
 

 

Empire State

Seven Wonders

 

For Sandra, always.
 

To Mur, for getting me into this,
and to Stacia, for getting me out.
 

 

PART ONE

THE GIRL WHO FELL

 

 

“I don't want anyone in or out of my family to see any part of me. Could you destroy my body by cremation? I beg of you and my family – don't have any service for me or remembrance for me. My fiancé asked me to marry him in June. I don't think I would make a good wife for anybody. He is much better off without me. Tell my father, I have too many of my mother's tendencies.”

 

–
The suicide note, May 1st, 1947

 

ONE

 

At 10.30 am, there is hardly a line at all. The day is bright but cold, and aside from hardy tourists from warmer climes, ten gallon and fur in place and all, today most decide the view can wait for another time.

I'm no good for him.
 

The man inside the ticket booth is old and nice, he smells of roses and the lick of hair around the edge of his cap is a frozen map of parallel lines drawn by his comb just a few hours before. Behind him the golden wall behind towers, over her, over everyone in the lobby. Her eyes linger over Art Deco rays of sun, as straight as the Ticketmaster's hair. The rays stretch out across the wall, touching all corners of a map rendered in shining gold and bronze.

Welcome to the Empire State.

I'm no good for anyone.
 

Eighty-six floors in two elevators: one large, one small. There are more people here, having penetrated the first line of defense, now ready for the final assault on the summit. With the fingers of one gloved hand she traces the band of maroon marble that bisects the passageways at near shoulder height. With the other hand she clutches at her throat, at the pearls he gave her.

Please tell him…
 

The elevator rises and her heart soars. She feels drunk, as though the air is becoming impossibly thin with every foot in altitude gained. She watches the back of the elevator operator's head. She can't see his face but he might be the Ticketmaster's twin. His hat is also straight and the hair on the nape of his neck likewise damp and regulated into perfect lines.

It's windy at the top, and cold, but the morning is glorious. Her grip tightens on her pearls and she looks into the sun directly. Her retinas burn but she doesn't flinch. She wants,
needs,
to feel it, to feel alive, if just for a short while.

She takes off her coat. It is grey and heavy, but somehow she feels no colder without it. She folds it as though to stow it in an airing cupboard for a winter to come, a winter she knows she will never see. She places it on the ledge, her bag on top. The fingers of her left hand tug at the necklace, counting the pearls like a rosary.

Ten gallon and fur collar walk by, their faces alive. The view, my God, the view. You can see all the way to New England on a day like today. Say, do you think you can see all the way to Texas?

She turns away and walks around, counting, counting in her head, like suddenly she's working to the master plan, the secret mission, the divine destiny. The numbers loom large in her mind.

It's cold. She takes a breath and feels it, now. Cold, like the cold if you were dead.

The breath just taken is held, and she turns on her heel, and…

Eighty-six floors and you can see all the way to Texas.

I… maybe…
 

Seventy.

Maybe I can fly. I can fly, I can fly.
 

She holds the pearls and her silk scarf cuts her neck as first it is pulled tight and then it is pulled off.

Forty.

Maybe the Skyguard will catch me. The Skyguard will save me.
 

Manhattan spins, pirouettes, dances around her as she stays perfectly still.

There is no Skyguard, not anymore.
 

He can't save me.
 

Tell him I lo–
 

Then her body hits the car and Evelyn McHale leaves the world.

 

He sees it first, a white something caught in the wind, drifting left and right and left again as it rides the cold morning air. It twists like a snake, like something alive. The cop frowns and squints against the bright sky.

That someone's scarf?
 

If you divide by five the number of seconds between the flash of lightning and the roll of thunder, you can work out how many miles away danger is.

One Mississippi. Two Mississippi.
 

The thunderclap is heavy and wet. The cop jumps at the sound, hearing the glass shatter and salt the sidewalk, hearing the metal twist and bend, hearing the cries of onlookers and passersby and regular folk who never wanted to be near anything like this, not today, not any day.

He rounds the corner and sees commotion, furor. Some people are running away, but some are running
toward
. Some have stopped to stare; some have stopped to look away.

She lies in the broken V that used to be the roof of a limousine. The cop sees the tiny flag waving on the hood. An official car.

She lies on her back, eyes closed, one hand clutching her pearls, her feet bare, her stockings torn. The cop thinks that somehow she's asleep. For a second he thinks to go and wake her, before the shock hits and he realizes what has happened. He looks up, in case there are any more people raining down, but all he sees is the Empire State Building, silent, impossibly tall, immobile. The cop's world spins a little as vertigo strikes, so he looks back to the body.

There are more people now. The cop scans the crowd, looking for more of his kind, but sees none.

To his left, a young man raises a camera and presses the button.

 

PART TWO

WINTER'S TALE

 

 

“I feel impelled to speak today in a language that in a sense is new… That new language is the language of atomic warfare.

 

“To the making of these fateful decisions, the United States pledges before you – and therefore before the world – its determination to help solve the fearful atomic dilemma – to devote its entire heart and mind to find the way by which the miraculous inventiveness of man shall not be dedicated to his death, but consecrated to his life.

 

“But the dread secret and the fearful engines of atomic might are not ours alone.”

 

–
“Atoms for Peace”

US President Dwight D. Eisenhower to the UN General Assembly, December 8th, 1953

 

TWO

 

She was pretty and her name was Jennifer and she was going nowhere, not tied to the chair like she was. She had long brown hair with a wave in it and was wearing a blouse with ruffles down the front that Rad thought looked nice but which meant she must have been freezing.

The man standing next to the chair was less pretty. His name was Cliff and he had a face to match, and he was holding a gun that was pointed at Rad in a way that made the detective nervous. The thug was wearing a trench coat, and beneath the coat were muscles, hard, solid; muscles that spoke of bar room brawls and violence in the small hours. Rad Bradley was a detective now and had been a boxer before, but Cliff's frame made him decide that, when it came down to it, he didn't want to go one-on-one with Cliff, even if he could get that damn gun out of the way. But, then again, a job like his on a night like this, punching someone you didn't want to was likely to be in the cards.

The gun in Cliff's giant fist was a revolver, and the hammer was back.

The back of Rad's throat tickled. He needed a drink, and soon, assuming his stomach wasn't going to be perforated in the next few minutes.

The lopsided slit that was Cliff's mouth twitched into a smile.

Jennifer's wide eyes flicked between Rad and her captor. Her lips quivered along with the ruffles on the front of her blouse. Rad thought she might burst into tears but then he decided she was more likely composing a particularly choice string of abuse. She was shaking not because of fear but because of the cold.

Cliff jutted his chin out to cut the air between them like an Ironclad steaming out of the harbor.

“Don't tell me,” said Cliff in a voice made for radio, which was lucky given his face. “You're too old for this kind of thing?”

“No,” said Rad, with more than a little hurt pride. What, crooks thought he looked old now? He squared his shoulders, which helped suck his gut in a little. Cliff's smile opened with a wet click at the corner.

“What I was gonna say,” Rad continued, “was that it's too cold for this. The city starts to freeze and now and again it gives a shake or two, and everyone's in a panic. This makes my job a little more difficult than I would normally like, you see.”

Cliff nodded, his eyes flicking back and forth between Rad and Jennifer. He adjusted the grip on his revolver.

“The cold is good for business,” he said. “Good guys stay indoors, leaving the city to us. And sure, it's cold out, but a job's a job. I thought you'd understand that, detective. The way things is.”

Rad nodded. “The way things is,” he repeated. Then he laughed.

“Something funny?” Cliff snapped the gun up. With practiced ease the thug slipped his free hand inside his coat and pulled out a silver hip flask.

“Oh, I was just thinking,” said Rad, his eyes on the flask. “Reminds me of something everyone used to say, not that long ago. ‘Wartime'. Remember Wartime?”

Now Cliff laughed, and the laugh turned into a cough. It came from deep in his chest, and sounded like rocks banging together underwater. Rad wondered how many you'd have to burn through in a day to get a sound like that in the six months since Prohibition had been lifted.

“I do remember Wartime,” said Cliff, uncapping the flask with his teeth and taking a swig. “I fought in it. Even got me a medal.”

“That a fact?” asked Rad, knowing full well that it wasn't. Cliff couldn't have fought in the War, because only robots had fought in the War and only one had come back from beyond the fog and it wasn't Cliff. The cold was messing with the goon's head.

Cliff smiled and took another swig. “Sure. But you're right about the cold. They say it's going to get worse too, that it's never going to end.”

“That a fact?” asked Rad, this time with a tang of anxiety. He didn't like to dwell much on the problem of the Empire State's never-ending winter, but Cliff was clearly reading the newspaper too.

Cliff shrugged. “The hell do I know? Maybe you're all going to turn to ice like the water. Maybe they'll figure out a way of stopping it. But what I do know is that in the meantime, I've got work to do.”

“Uh-huh,” said Rad. “Funny way of putting it.”

“What is?”

Rad scratched a cheek and pointed at Cliff. “
We're
going to turn to ice, or
you're
going to turn to ice?”

Another swig, another smile.

Rad ran his tongue along his bottom teeth. His mouth was dry and the flask sure did look good. But his night wasn't going to plan and it occurred to him that this was now often the case. “Crooks like you got thick skin, then?”

“Yeah. Pretty thick,” said Cliff, recapping the flask and slipping it back into his coat.

“Gentlemen!”

Rad blinked. Jennifer's teeth were clenched against the cold, but she was looking at him with narrow eyes. Even Cliff lowered the gun just a bit.

Jennifer looked up at her captor.

“Look,” she said. “Tell me what you know. Help me, and I'll help you.”

Cliff chuckled quietly. “Lady, you got the wrong guy.”

“Of course I haven't,” she said. At this Cliff raised an eyebrow. “We're both looking for something. I think we both know that time is running out, so let's cut out the macho and get down to it. Right?”

“Hey,” said Rad. “You never said you were looking for something.”

Jennifer looked at Rad with something close to disdain. “You don't know the half of it,” she said.

“You called me,” he said, gesticulating in the cold air. “Said to come down to an address, which turns out to be an old warehouse in a quiet part of town. Said you needed my help taking down one of the new gangsters who've moved in downtown – which is handy, since I've been on the trail of Cliff too. Said that maybe you were onto something else, something big. Only when I get here I find you need my help more than I'd guessed. So maybe you should be grateful I'm here, considering you're the one tied up with the gun pointed at you.”

Cliff twitched his wrist. “The gun is pointing at you too, pal.”

“Cliff, look,” said Rad, “give it up. You and your cronies have attracted the attention of not just people like me but people like Jennifer, and she works for the city. It's only a matter of time before you're out of business.”

Cliff's thin lips formed something like a smile. “That so, friend?”

Jennifer shifted in the chair. “Tell you what, Cliff, let's cut a deal.” She jerked her head in Rad's direction. “Ignore him. Let's talk. Let's work it out. Because you and I both know the whole city is in danger, right, and when times are tough you can't pick your friends, right?”

Cliff seemed to consider this while Jennifer shivered in the chair. Rad saw her coat lying on the floor in the shadows nearby, a big overcoat in dark green that matched her pencil skirt. Cliff must have dragged it off her so she couldn't slide out from the bonds holding her to the chair. Rad was cold himself
–
freezing, in fact
–
but Cliff didn't seem too bothered, even though his trench coat and hat, and suit underneath, were more or less the same as Rad's. Rad thought again about the hip flask. He promised himself to get sorted in that department in the morning, assuming he and Jennifer made it out of the warehouse.

Cliff had picked a good spot too. Since the citywide curfew had been canceled six months ago and the once-regular police blimp patrols halted, crooks had been able to spread out across the city, finding a goldmine of disused, empty buildings that nobody else came near and that the police would never find. The city had become a crime-ridden rabbit warren and there was no shortage of work for Rad
,
although at times it felt like he was one man against a multitude. The gangs were organized, running under the tight leadership of thugs like Cliff, one of the city's most wanted men, someone Rad had been trying to get a tail on for weeks now. Rad was out of his depth, he knew that; chasing organized crime was liable to earn him a pair of concrete boots instead of a paycheck. Which was why the unexpected call from Jennifer Jones had been something of a relief.

Jennifer Jones. Rad reminded himself once they were home and dry to ask her about what exactly she did, and how exactly she'd gotten his number to ask for his help by name.

The warehouse was the size of a blimp hangar, lined with individual lock-ups, each with a roller door like a one-car garage. The floor space itself was filled with crates that Rad had no clue about at all other than whatever was inside them was packed around with straw. Lots of straw. The stuff was everywhere, all around them on the floor… which meant, Rad thought, that the warehouse was still in use. Perhaps Jennifer had found Cliff's own little hidey-hole, the place used by his gang to hide illicit goods. Rad was just thankful it was only Cliff who appeared to be home at the moment.

Cliff sniffed and waved the gun, his deliberation over.

“Yeah, I don't think so,” he said. “If it's all the same to you, I think we need to bring events to their climax. And you two are something of an obstacle.”

Jennifer gave Rad a look that asked very clearly for the detective to hurry up and do something already.

“I understand,” said Rad, looking at Jennifer.

“Understand what?” asked the thug. For the first time, Cliff moved his head, turning it to look down at his prisoner. It was enough.

Rad kicked out, catching a sheaf of straw on his shoe and tossing it toward the thug.

Cliff ducked instinctively and pulled the trigger, but Rad was already out of the line of fire, Jennifer throwing her chair sideways. Cliff turned at her movement and brought the gun to bear, his attention off Rad for a moment.

Rad's fist connected with Cliff's jaw and brilliant white pain exploded in the detective's knuckles. Rad, surprised at the force of his own punch, swore and staggered backward, but Cliff had gone over sideways. Rad blinked, but Cliff didn't move.

Rad shook his fist, and tried flexing his fingers. They hurt like all hell. Cliff had lived up to his name: it had been like punching a brick wall. Gritting his teeth, Rad slid down to his knees beside Jennifer's chair and with his good hand began to work on the rope holding her in place.

As soon as she was loose Jennifer scrambled for her discarded coat. Rad helped her into it and pulled her close to get her warm, the both of them still on their knees.

“Thank you,” she said into his ear with hot breath. She pulled back and looked down at her former captor, then glanced at Rad's hand. “You OK?”

Rad kept his fingers moving, teeth clenched against the pain. “Nothing a little ice won't fix. And we've got a lot of that in the city right about now.”

Jennifer laughed, but just as she went to stand the warehouse shook, the vibration rattling the roller doors that surrounded them. The pair waited a moment, crouched together on the floor. Then the tremor passed and Jennifer stood and pulled her coat tight.

“My imagination, or are those getting more frequent?”

Rad stood himself, and moved over to where Cliff lay.

“Yeah,” he said. “Stronger too.” He peered down at Cliff. The thug was out cold, his mouth slightly open. It didn't look like he was breathing, and there was something shiny on his chin where Rad's fist had landed.

Jennifer joined the detective. “Terrific,” she said, nodding at the body on the warehouse floor. “Out with a single punch? Not bad, Mr Bradley.”

“I used to box, or so I've been told. I've got a medal and everything.” He reached forward with his good hand and felt Cliff's neck, his heart racing a little. There was no pulse and more than that the skin was cold, apparently the same temperature as the frozen air of the warehouse.

“He's dead,” said Rad, not quite believing it himself. He looked at Jennifer.

“Depends on your definition of dead, I suppose,” she said.

Rad's jaw moved up and down but he couldn't find the right words to answer. He carefully lifted one lapel of Cliff's trench coat with his injured hand and reached inside with the other. Maybe there was some ID, or something else that would be useful. Instead, his fingers closed on the smooth metal of the hip flask. He pulled it out and looked at it.

Well, he needed a damn drink, and it didn't look like Cliff was going to mind much. He glanced back to the body and uncapped the flask to take a sip.

“Wait!”

Rad ignored Jennifer as his nostrils caught fire, reacting to the poisonous fumes from the flask. His throat closed in a reflex action and he choked – then coughed, hard. Through watering eyes he saw Jennifer move in front of him and he gasped as she knocked the flask out of his hand. The detective retched and bent over, and saw the flask on the warehouse floor, a thick liquid spilled from the open top.

“Sweet Jesus,” Rad said, his voice a rattling croak. He coughed again and stood. Jennifer scooped the flask up and held it away from her, looking at it like it was about to explode.

Rad's throat was raw. Jennifer tipped the flask upside down, letting the rest of the liquid escape. It was bright green and pooled on the cement floor like oil. The smell was sharp, like gasoline and coal smoke and lemon juice.

Rad managed to find his voice.

“What is that?” He peered closer, fascinated by the evil liquid on the ground. Jennifer crouched near to the floor to take a closer look.

She looked back up at the detective. “It's anti-freeze,” she said.

“He was drinking chemicals?”

Rad stroked his chin with his good hand, and looked down at the dead body in front of them. Dead? His punch hadn't been that heavy, unless maybe the guy had had a fractured skull to start with.