The Age Atomic (14 page)

 

TWENTY-EIGHT

 

The night in Harlem was cold, the world frosted with ice, the air heavy with freezing mist.

The streets were empty, the buildings too: empty shells staring with empty black eyes out onto deserted streets. It seemed the very fabric of the place was rotting away, brick crumbling, concrete fracturing like wet chalk. If the Empire State was an imperfect copy of Manhattan island, then the Pocket universe's Harlem was where the data degradation was worst. The cold wasn't helping, nor the tremors. The whole world shook as it fell apart; here in Harlem, the quakes loosened mortar and pushed stones, making cracks, weakening everything.

The people stayed inside, huddled in small communities that gathered around fires to keep the dark away, to keep the creeping cold out. Some areas were better than others; here people could move around, try to continue some semblance of normal life, with shops and bars and businesses struggling onwards as the endless night drew on and the temperature dropped, and dropped again.

The area around 125th Street was not one of the good places. Here the night was stained a violent green when the lamp atop the tower at the back of the King's theater was lit. Other times the shadows were deep, the darkness a perfect place to hide. Nobody walked these streets, not anymore, because the King had gathered his faithful from all over the city to this one spot, and here he kept them in darkness until they were needed.

So they waited, in small groups and sometimes ones larger. Their numbers fluctuated as the King took them inside his operating theater, where they were saved.

He was a great man, they said. A great man, blessed with miraculous skills. He would save them all, return them to their old lives, the ones they had before they marched willingly into the robot yards downtown, before answering their conscription papers, or, for some, before they were snatched in the dead of night and woke to find themselves in the middle of a slaughterhouse, waiting their turn for their limbs to be separated from their bodies and their hearts removed and replaced with rubber pumps to push machine oil around their internal mechanisms.

Tonight, the green lantern flicked on, bathing 125th Street and the surrounds of the theater in a deep, sickly haze.

It was necessary. The King said so himself. The green light kept enemies away, kept them safe. And it would not be long now; the King had said so, many times. When the green light came on, when the pain started and the robots scurried to the shadows to escape its hellish glare, the King and his servant would appear, on the veranda that jutted out from the front of the theater, out over the main entrance. They would stand on this platform, this stage, and the King would tell them that everything would be fine, that everything was going to plan, that soon they would be saved, all of them, from their torment. Just a little while longer, just a little more time, and then they would be ready.

Because, he said each and every time, the city
owed
them. The Empire State had taken their lives away, stolen them. It had treated them like machines, like just more tiny cogs in great wheels, sending them off into the fog, never to return. Feeding them to the Enemy, to keep it complacent, satiated.

And when the time was right, when the work was complete, the King would lead them back downtown, where they would liberate the Empire State from itself, and take back what the Empire State had stolen from them.

Then, after he had spoken, the green light would turn red, and the relief would be a blessing. The robots could come out and bathe in the light, the light that healed, energized, the light that gave pleasure, not pain. And then the King would be on the street, within reach of the pawing hands and claws and clamp and servo units. And with the help of his servant, he would administer the nourishment, the magical green elixir that kept them alive while they waited to be called into the theater.

But tonight was different. The green light had come on, but there was no appearance, no speech. Robbie and the others hid in the shadow of a stairwell close to the entrance; it was a good spot, and his group had fought hard to claim it, and every night defended it as best they could. It was difficult, dangerous, and soon Robbie's gang had been reduced to the strongest – Robbie, with his telescopic arms and domed head filled with stained glass; Ratings 112363 and 112463, two soldiers nearly intact; and a small man who refused to give his name, who appeared to be more human than robot but when he moved – and move he did, so very quickly – there were flashes of silver beneath the ragged blankets he wrapped himself in.

The green light had come on, and they'd waited, but there was nothing. Robbie sat with his back against the stairs, facing away from the theater. He waited, ignoring the rambling conversation of the two Ratings, each repeating the words of the other, not quite in time, over and over until it became too much for Robbie's ambient microphone to bear and he turned the input volume down. With his telescopic arms wrapped around his legs, he sat and rocked his curved carapace against the cement of the stair block.

He needed it. Oh
boy,
did he need it. He could feel it, that aching deep within his alternator, a sensation, a tension, creeping out across his hydraulic system, a chill that cooled his valves until he thought their glass would crack. He licked the roof of his mouth – he still had a tongue, although his upper palate was a plate of copper, unfinished and corroding, like most of his torso. He rocked against the stairwell, leaving verdigris stain on the bricks.

The green light suddenly went off, and there it was – the red. He could feel the relief coursing through his circuits, even from here, hidden in the shadow. He looked ahead to the street, the icy ground bleached pink-red.

Oh
man
, all he had to do was stand up and walk out into the light, and he'd get the first part of the hit. He almost couldn't stand it, it was like the control gyros where his stomach used to be were shorting out, going haywire, creating a pins and needles sensation that swept across his framework, like being tickled with a feather back when he had skin. Perhaps that's all it was; maybe his motivation dampener was too cold and was accessing the memories of the man he used to be, memories that were supposed to be locked away, suppressed forever.

Robbie didn't like it. The King hadn't spoken, and while the green light had gone off and the red one had come on, something was up. If he stepped out into the red, and the King wasn't there to dispense the green, the hit, then the pain that followed would be too much to bear. It was better to stay here, unmoving, corroding into the brick and concrete than to suffer that pain. The relief of the red was intense, but temporary – to get the hit, you had to have the green too, not the light but the elixir, and that was dispensed by the King and the King alone.

“My brothers!”

Robbie's head rotated almost automatically at the sound, as the directional microphones mounted next to the primary optical unit behind the angled stained glass filters in his head kicked in. There was movement near the theater, near the main doors, not on the balcony. Something wasn't right, but the voice was crosschecked and identified: it was the Corsair, the King's servant.

“My brothers,” came the voice again, “the King has sent me to bring the green. Come and receive the green from your King, and rejoice in his majesty.”

Ratings 112363 and 112464 chattered excitedly, their shared words piling over each other and vanishing into a rush of static. Robbie could understand the feeling, the want, the
need
to get the hit, to get the
green.
 

Robbie retracted his arms and stood, his body rotating towards the theater. His optics adjusted to the red light and he saw the Corsair standing in the doorway of the castle, holding out one hand. Robbie zoomed in, and saw the small rectangle of something dark on the Corsair's upturned palm. Nearly a whole ounce of green. On the ground next to the King's servant was an open metal box, and within, stacked in neat piles, more wrapped hits, one for each robot, except the larger ones that needed two.

The absence of the King himself was unusual, but it didn't matter – his servant had brought the green instead. Already there was movement across the street as robots pulled themselves out of shadows and out of alleyways, from behind stairwells, up from basement entrances. The street was soon filled with moving machines, although perhaps fewer than the night before. More had succumbed to the cold, the low temperature sucking the life from their batteries. The green fixed that, or at least it made it feel like it did.

The nameless robot in the blanket behind Robbie didn't move. Another one gone.

The robots moved across the street, but Robbie was closest – that was why his group defended the stairwell with such desperation, because it was closest to the theater, which meant Robbie was first in line for the hit.

The Corsair turned towards him as Robbie approached. Robbie's rubber skirt slid on the ice, making it look like he was gliding if it wasn't for the slight bobbing up and down of his short steps. The Corsair held out his hand; Robbie paused, the red light flooding his sensors, the knowledge that the hit was just seconds away almost too much for his logic gates to handle. He heard them clicking inside his carapace, and gears moved inside his head as the optics zoomed in on the Corsair's gloved hand and the prize it held.

The other robots, knowing the hierarchy, fearing the might of Robbie and his Rating companions, fell into line behind him in silence. While most were happy to fight out territory elsewhere, there would be no skirmish here, not in the red light, in the presence of, if not their King, then his royal servant.

Robbie bowed his head, and gears whirred inside his head as his voice box came to life.

“GREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEENN.”

The Corsair nodded in return; his black metal face was expressionless, but switching spectra to penetrate the opaque glass of the Corsair's goggles, Robbie could see the eyes behind the mask. He wondered what kind of a man he had been, to be so strong to have resisted and overcome conversion in the Naval robot yards and to have sworn to help those less fortunate than he on their journey back to humanity.

“WHENWILLITBETIIIIIIIIIIIME?”

The Corsair chuckled behind his mask, and when he spoke it was a sibilant whisper.

“Soon, my brother, soon. Soon we will be ready to go downtown, and claim that which is rightfully ours.”

The Corsair's black fur coat moved in the wind as he began dispensing the green to the King's loyal subjects.

 

TWENTY-NINE

 

Rad retraced his steps at a run. He remembered a short journey from the underground workshop to the furnace room, but now it was confusing, with more doors and turns that he'd noticed coming the other way. All he could do was try not to think too much and hope his subconscious knew the way. He was too busy worrying about how long the locked door behind him would hold out against the King, however damaged the robot was.

Rad burst through the green door, into the workshop. He turned, but the corridor behind him was silent, with no indication the King had managed even to climb the stairs of the furnace room yet. Rad threw the door closed behind him.

“Kane, buddy, time to go.” Rad raced to Kane's side. The former reporter blinked and squinted at Rad, and began to shake his head. Rad waved his hand and turned to scan the workshop.

“Oh no,” said Rad. “No, no, we're going. That guy who calls himself a king? Turns out he's just the same as the Corsair, one of our metal friends. Aha–” He spied a long crowbar-like metal rod among the robot parts and grabbed it. Then he returned to Kane's machine and began trying to force the two seams of the machine apart.

“Rad, listen to me,” said Kane, his voice a dry, cracking croak. “We can't leave, not without–” His voice dissolved into a dry cough.

The metal rod slid against the smooth surface of the machine, Rad almost connecting his chin with it as he fell forward. He swore, readjusted his grip, and tried again. This time he got purchase and forced the end of the rod into the seam. There was a click, and a small gap formed, from which shone a bright light. Rad frowned, gripped his hands together, and tried to leverage his weight. He puffed his cheeks out as he worked.

“We ain't got much time,” said Rad, teeth clenched. “I did some damage to our robot friend and locked him in the other room, but he'll get out eventually.” He heaved again. “Although a robot with a robot servant, now, there's something. Seems like they're building some kind of society of their own.”

“Rad!” Kane said. “There's someone in the other machine!”

Rad paused, his eyes scanning the other machine. The robot's head was turned away from him, and at the base of the neck he could see brown hair bunched under the edge of the metal.

Rad yanked the rod from Kane's machine and it snapped shut again, cutting the light out. Rad felt the room spin a little but got to the other machine. The one holding Special Agent Jennifer Jones.

He carefully rolled her head so she was looking at the ceiling. What he'd thought was a robot head was actually a mask or helmet, hinged at the top, held together with simple pins. This close, he could see Jennifer's eyes through the holes in the mask. She sighed, and Rad could see her teeth through the slot mouth.

“OK, OK…” said Rad, his hands moving over the mask, locating the pins holding the mask in place. There were four, and they came out easily. After dropping them to the floor, he lifted Jennifer's head carefully and pulled at the front of the mask. It swung up, and the back panel loosened; within moments it was free. Rad tossed it to the floor, and then swore.

There was another mask, smaller, covering Jennifer's face from hairline to chin. Rad ran his fingers around the edge, which stopped just short of her ears, trying to find a strap, but there was nothing. The mask was brilliant gold, shining, the front an elegant Art Deco sculpt of a woman's face, with delicate eyebrows and full lips.

Rad pulled at the edge, but the mask didn't shift. He pulled again, harder this time, but the mask was firmly attached. Rad merely lifted her entire head, making her to moan in discomfort. Jennifer was alive, at least. He could worry about the golden mask later.

Kane coughed. “The Corsair isn't a robot… it's a man. I saw his eyes.”

Rad nodded, processing the new information. “OK, OK… so the King is a robot and his robot is a man. Great. Let's work out the why and the how and the who later. We've gotta get out of here, but it looks like I'm the only one up and moving.”

Rad swore and shook his head. It was time to think of something big and great that was going to work. There was something he was forgetting, he was sure of it.

“The King said I can't leave the machine,” said Kane.

“The King said a lot of things.”

“Some of which were true.”

“Yeah,” said Rad, still holding Jennifer's head. “But some of which was a little less so. Like the fact he was a robot, for a start. So who knows what else he's been saying?”

“What reason would he have to lie about me? Why would he want to keep me here?”

“Ah, yeah, about that.”

Kane raised up his head. “About what?”

“Well,” said Rad, “seems the King wants to keep you around as his own personal power generator.”

Kane shook his head. “What?”

Rad shrugged. “Long story. You've got the Fissure inside you. Neat, right?”

“I… what?”

“Look,” said Rad, “we're on the clock here. So let's save it and work on this marvelous escape plan.”

“I'm glad you have one,” said Kane, resting his head back on the pillow.

“Ah, yeah, and it's marvelous, believe me.”

There was a bang from somewhere beyond the green door. The blind King had climbed the stairs, then.

Rad looked around the workshop. They had to leave, and it wasn't like he could wheel the two machines out. But the Corsair was absent, and the outer door was, as Rad had hoped, still open.

Jennifer coughed. Rad felt her pulse, under the edge of the mask. It felt fine, strong, and she was breathing normally and her eyes looked clear and were blinking as usual through the eyeholes.

“Rad?”

“We meet again, Special Agent. How do you feel? Can you move around inside this thing?”

Jennifer grunted with effort, and her head slid on her pillow as she struggled with something.

“I'm strapped down. I don't think I'm hurt. At least I can't feel any pain, and I can move my arms and legs.”

“OK,” said Rad, retrieving the metal rod from the floor. “Let's just hope they didn't have a chance to get started on you properly.” He felt along the seam of the machine, and began to work the rod into the gap.

Kane watched them from his table.

“What do you mean, get started?”

Rad huffed as he worked at the lid of Jennifer's machine.

“It's what we thought. The King isn't turning robots back into people. He's turning people into robots. This place is full of robot parts – new parts, not ones he's taken from the refugees. He's creating his own little machine army, and he's using power from the Fissure to do it.”

“The power that's inside me.”

Rad paused. His back was to Kane, and he was glad that Kane couldn't see the expression on his face. “Seems so. But first things first.”

The rod slid home, and Jennifer jerked as Rad opened a two-inch crack between the machine's lid and the base. No light flooded out, so Rad adjusted his grip and heaved. There was a loud crack, like he'd broken a catch, and then another, and then the rod moved easily, Rad levering the lid up.

Jennifer was held down to her slab with thick leather straps across her chest, her legs, each arm and ankle. Rad made short work of the buckles, and Jennifer only needed a little help to sit up. She stood, and Rad helped her step over the high lip of the machine and onto the floor. She looked down at herself and straightened her coat.

She seemed fine, just dandy, but Rad flinched when she looked up at him through the metal mask. She noticed, and laughed, her voice echoing behind the metal.

“It's strange, it doesn't feel like there's anything there.” Her fingers ran over the mask, tracing the seams, feeling the contours. “It has no weight. It's like it's a part of me.”

Rad nodded. “Then it won't slow you down. But Kane is the problem right now. We can't get him out of the machine, but we can't carry him out in it either.”

Rad clicked his fingers. Of course… he turned to Kane.

“When you landed, what happened to the suit?”

Kane coughed. “Landed?”

“Landed, crashed, fell on your ass, whatever,” said Rad. “When the great reporter fell from the sky, were you still dressed as the Skyguard?”

“Ah, yeah, I guess.”

“So what happened to the suit?”

Kane frowned. Then he looked around the workshop from his horizontal position.

“It must be here somewhere. I don't remember.”

“Maybe the suit is part of this all?” said Jennifer. “Maybe they reverse-engineered it for the technology, used it to help build the robots?”

Rad nodded. “Maybe,” he said, picking up his coat, hat, and scarf off the third, empty machine. He began putting them on and then paused, one arm in his coat. “You're one of Carson's Special Agents, right?”

Jennifer nodded, but Rad noticed a pause before she did so.

“OK,” he said, “I'm going to ask about your significant pauses and whatever it is you're not telling me later, but listen, if you worked for Carson, that means you know at least a little about the Fissure.”

“Yes, of course.”

Rad shrugged his coat on properly. He began pacing the workshop, casting his eyes over the shelves, tables, cabinets and stacks of equipment. There were enough robot parts in the room to build a dozen walking machines, but he couldn't see what he was looking for.

“The Skyguard's suit is really a machine, like a robot,” he said. “Last time I saw it, it was doing a pretty good job of channeling or absorbing the energy of the Fissure itself.” Rad turned to Kane. “That was the whole point of the plan, right?”

Kane nodded. “The Science Pirate made some changes to the suit so it could absorb ambient energy. The plan was to drain energy from the Fissure, and then feed it back by overloading the suit's batteries.”

Rad held a hand up. “Stop right there,” he said. “Drain energy from the Fissure, right?”

“Right.”

Jennifer nodded. “I get it.”

“Exactly,” said Rad. “This machine Kane is in is containing the power, channeling it into a contraption in the other room.”

As if to emphasize the point, a distant bang sounded again as the King pounded on the furnace room door.

“So, find the suit,” said Rad, “and maybe we can get Kane out of the machine and into it before he blows the place sky-high.”

“If the suit is still in one piece,” said Kane. “Might've been wrecked when I came back.”

“Or maybe the King pulled it to pieces,” said Rad. “But have you got a better idea?”

He glanced around the workshop. “We have to find that suit before the Corsair comes back, even if we have to turn this place upside down.”

 

They'd been searching for what felt like hours. At first, fearful the Corsair would make a surprise return, Rad and Jennifer had stuck together – first turning over the downstairs workshop, and then cautiously moving out to examine the rest of the King's domain. But when there was still no sign of it – of
him
– Rad suggested they split up to widen the search.

Jennifer headed up, telling Rad she was going to start at the top and work her way down. The former theater was huge, and the green light was mounted at the top of the building. The King was bound to be using rooms above the theater as well.

Jennifer paused in a dark corridor three levels up. The floorboards creaked and the place smelled musty and old, and aside from the rustling of her long coat and the odd echo of her breath inside the mask, the place was silent. The corridor in which she had stopped was short, no more than a stairwell landing before continuing up to the next level.

She moved forward, the floor creaking again. It was lighter here, thanks to a long, low window with an arched top. It was frosted with ice on the outside, which diffused the streetlight, bathing the landing in an eerie glow.

Jennifer moved to the window; it was set low, more like a decorative alcove on the landing than a window. It had a wide sill, and she sat and pressed her face against the glass to try to see out. She recoiled at the sharp tap her new metal face made as it came into contact with the glass, but then carefully rested it against the window. She could feel the cold through the glass, not just through her gloves as she rested her palms against the window but through the metal mask itself, like it was a part of her.

Strangely, that didn't bother her, and she wondered whether that in itself should be a worry. But the thin metal mask was weightless, not so much comfortable as feeling like it wasn't there at all. It didn't impede her vision. She had no trouble breathing, or speaking. She hadn't eaten yet, and she wondered what would happen then given there was no articulated jaw, just a narrow metal slot though which she could only poke the very tip of her tongue.

She pulled back and looked at her reflection in the glass. The mask – the metal face – was beautiful, not just a functional part of… what, a robot? Not like any robot she'd ever seen. Maybe the King was an artist, too, creating not just an army of robots but an army of machines formed to his exact specifications. Perhaps he was not only building soldiers but machine people too.

There was movement outside, breaking her reverie. She leaned forward and again touched her metal forehead to the glass.

The street outside was lit in a pinkish-red glow that seemed to hang in the ice-laden air like sugar syrup. There was plenty of movement too: there were robots, lots of them, huddled together at the far end of the street, the group getting narrower as it approached the building until Jennifer could see a queue of them, single-file. At the head of the line, almost directly beneath the window, stood the Corsair. He was facing the line of robots, and as each machine approached he handed something out like a priest at Sunday mass.