The Age Atomic (4 page)

The barman sniffed. “You don't know what's out there,” he said. Then he stood back and folded his arms. Rad watched as he chewed, and he saw that the man's saliva wasn't black, it was green. He thought back to the antifreeze in Cliff's hip flask. Suddenly a reason why the barman was interested in the metal rod came to mind. Rad gasped.

“You a robot?” he asked.

The barman's thin lips split into a lizard grin and he slurped a mouthful of green saliva before leaning back in across the bar. “What, are you crazy? I'm as real as you are.”

Rad retreated from the bar, transfixed by the man's chewing. The man wasn't as big as Cliff, and while he wasn't exactly a perfect human specimen there was a certain handsomeness hidden behind the grime and grease.

“What are you eating?” Rad asked, peering at the barman's ever-moving mouth. “You chewing a battery or something?”

The barman stopped chewing and sniggered. “Trust me, you don't want any of the green.”

Rad's eyebrow went up. Green? “I guess not”, he said. Then he lifted his hat. It was time to go. “Sir, it's been a pleasure. I'll be sure to pass my regards on to the, ah, King.”

He turned and made his way to the door, the barman not saying anything but chewing, chewing, chewing.

When the door closed behind Rad, he thought he heard the barman say “good luck” or “go home”, but he wasn't sure which.

 

SEVEN

 

Harlem was quiet and sharp, the sound of Rad's shoes on the ice-clad pavement the only noise as he walked onward. The street was lit in a dull orange from the clouds above, and ahead Rad could see the black conglomeration of buildings merge into something much larger, a squat skyscraper of the sort more common to downtown, the shouldered setbacks outlined against the dull sky behind. There was no light, green or otherwise, but the building
had
to be it. He was on 123rd already. Maybe the King of 125th Street was watching his progress, and would put the light on when he was nearer.

Rad stopped. He hadn't seen anyone since leaving the tavern, and the trailing footsteps hadn't reappeared.

Except… there they were. But they sounded different now: not just one set of footsteps but several. They shuffled rather than stepped, a group moving slowly and far away, at least at the moment. Rad thought again that the King might have invited him into an ambush.

Rad ducked into an alleyway that was just a tiny gap between two buildings. The brickwork was rough and layered with ice perfectly clear and perfectly smooth. Rad slid his back along it until he was in the shadows, then ducked down and moved forward to peer around the corner, his hand already reaching for the gun in his pocket.

“They're following us.”

Rad jumped at the whisper in his ear, turning his head sharply to find a face-full of fur. He spluttered and tried to brush it away, before realizing it was Jennifer Jones's hat. Rad hissed, and Jennifer shushed him.

“What in the hell are you doing here?”

Jennifer raised an eyebrow. In his fright, Rad had pulled the gun from his pocket and was pointing it right at her. Jennifer moved the barrel to one side with a finger, then raised her other hand. In it she held a gun, something large and silver that shone in the night, looking more like a hair dryer than a weapon.

Jennifer smiled. “Your little pea-shooter isn't going to be much good around here, detective.”

Rad sighed and hunched his shoulders, allowing the upturned collar of his trench coat to touch the rim of his hat. His breath plumed in front of him as he spoke. “You been following me too?”

“All the way from your office,” said Jennifer. Then she laughed. “Don't look so surprised, Mr Bradley. You're not the only detective in the city.”

Rad looked Jennifer up and down. She was wearing the heavy overcoat, this time topped with the fur-trimmed hat.

“You're not made of metal too, are you?” asked Rad, not sure if he was serious or not.

Jennifer smiled again. “I'm as real as you are.”

Rad opened his mouth in surprise, but Jennifer looked up sharply, her free hand waving Rad to keep quiet.

She leaned across Rad to see out into the street. Rad raised himself up to see over her hat.

The black buildings around them looked like theater flats, the streetlight casting a circular pool of dull yellow light.

Something appeared in that light. Rad held his breath and shrank back, but Jennifer edged forward.

It was a man, a big man, walking with a limp so bad he was dragging his left leg behind him. In fact his whole body was stiff, the arms locked straight, the man's back so rigid it was like he was made of…

Rad ground his molars together. The man's torso was flat and shone in the streetlight, a seamless, rounded thing of metal. His arms were metal too, but the boxy forearms ended in human hands. The bad leg was human, except for the foot, which was nothing more than a rectangular shape from which rigid pipes sprang, traveling up the entire limb in parallel before turning at a right angle and connecting to the man's pelvis. The other leg was entirely mechanical, as artificial as the arms and torso.

The man didn't have a head. There was a short metal stem, a neck, with thinner pipes waving about six inches out from the end of it as the creature moved.

Rad recognized enough of the creature to feel the adrenaline pump through his body, making him dizzy and nauseous.

It was a robot sailor, one of the human-machine hybrids manufactured from the citizens of the Empire State to crew the Ironclads that sailed off to war. The thing was incomplete, the human and mechanical parts badly mixed, the whole thing fragile and broken and twisted.

Rad felt his mouth fill with a sour taste. He glanced down at Jennifer, but before he could speak she pulled back into the alley and raised her hand for silence. Rad gulped and risked another look out to the street.

The broken machine was just the first. As it limped forward, others followed, each a twisted mix of human and robot, none complete, all moving with difficultly and perhaps, Rad thought with a growing sense of unease, pain. They were silent, the only sound the shambling, shuffling of their problematic movement.

Rad counted an even dozen, exactly the crew complement of one of the great Ironclad warships. The last Fleet Day had been two years ago, six months before everything changed. Rad knew the naval shipyards down near the Battery were still in existence, but he also knew that they were empty, abandoned by the navy once Wartime ended. They didn't make Ironclads anymore, nor did they make any more crews.

The group on the street was not an ordered rank of robots. They looked like a collection of spare parts, both mechanical and human. Rad suddenly wondered what had happened to all of the crews that must have been prepared for the last great sailing, the one that had been close to happening before Wartime ended.

He had a feeling he was looking at it, and his stomach churned.

“What are they?” he asked. He knew the answer but he wanted to hear it from someone else. The robot gang had stopped under the streetlight, and a couple of them – one with a big square metal box for a head, attached to a very human neck and chest, and another that was the exact opposite, the human head looking ridiculously small on top of the wide rectangular body – seemed to scan their surroundings.

Looking for them.

“I'm hoping your friend will be able to tell us,” said Jennifer. She pulled back into the shadow of the alleyway and pointed with her gun towards the north, towards the vast black building that loomed over the whole area.

Rad followed her gaze. “You think the King has something to do with this?”

Jennifer glanced sideways at Rad, then her eyes were back on the street. “That what he calls himself?”

“So I've been told. King of 125th Street.”

“Which matches the directions you were given.” Jennifer nodded. “It's all connected – our friend Cliff and the army of robots; these poor creatures in Harlem. Something big is about to go down.”

“So what's your plan? Follow me to this King character?”

“You bet. You got an invite.”

Rad pursed his lips. “Guess you tapped my phone?”

“You guessed right.”

Rad sighed. “I'm not sure the invite came with a plus one. And I was planning on bringing you any information I found.”

Jennifer shrugged. “Thought I'd save you the effort.”

Rad frowned and glanced back around the lip of the alley. “Damn,” he said.

Jennifer peered around his shoulder.

The robots – those with heads – were looking right at them. The sound of twelve semi-mechanical bodies jerking into motion was loud in the otherwise silent night.

Rad realized Jennifer's appraisal of his handgun was accurate. He'd bought the thing to shoot people, not machines, and only if he was really in a squeeze. He glanced at Jennifer's gun, the giant silver thing she still had raised up, balancing its weight like she couldn't really lift it.

“You gonna point that thing at them or what?” Rad asked, not bothering to lower his voice.

Jennifer hissed through her teeth. “Last resort only.” She glanced towards the north, to the big building. It was hard to tell, but to Rad it looked at least three blocks away.

“We're gonna have to run,” said Jennifer. “On three.”

The robots were slow but closing. They didn't appear to be armed, so Rad imagined the general idea was to tear them limb from limb.

Rad and Jennifer locked eyes. Then she nodded.

“Three!”

Rad pushed at the ice-covered brick of the alley wall as he sprinted forward, away from the robots. He instinctively reached one hand behind him to grab onto Jennifer, but his hand met empty air. He half-turned and saw the robots stagger as they caught proper sight of their targets and adjusted their own course. He turned around and saw Jennifer had a good ten yards on him, the shiny leather of her knee-high black boots flashing in the low streetlight from beneath the flapping edge of her coat.

“Hey!”

Rad clenched his jaw and stepped up the pace. Jennifer Jones wasn't going to slow for him, not at all.

He checked over his shoulder. The robots were gaining, their ramshackle, almost random movements making Rad feel ill. He turned again, focusing on outpacing the robots without slipping and breaking his neck on the icy street.

A new street appeared, ahead on the left. Rad saw a shadow move in that direction: Jennifer. He huffed and sprinted towards the corner, then almost collided with the agent's back, only just sliding out of her way and grabbing onto her shoulder to stop himself from tripping.

Jennifer's shoulders rose and fell as she caught her breath. Rad looked ahead, following the aim of her big gun – pointed at a large group of robots blocking the street. There were thirty, fifty, maybe more, the sound of their engines and motors and boilers and clockwork hearts and electric insides buzzing and fizzing and ticking and hissing in the night.

The robots didn't move. Rad turned at a sound behind them. The other robots had caught up. They were boxed in, trapped on either side by a long block of brownstones, with robots between them and the intersections in front and behind.

The group of robots in front parted to let one of their own kind walk forward. It was intact, perfect, two arms and two legs and a head, the whole thing standing near to seven feet tall. It was entirely silver, like Cliff and the robots in the warehouse, its polished surfaces catching the weak streetlight well. Another upgraded model, although this one without the human disguise on top.

Jennifer trained the gun on the silver machine. The robot had a face, complete with nose and metal eyebrows. The thing's jaw was a separate piece, square with a sharp edge. Rad's knuckles ached in sympathy as he remembered punching a jaw not entirely dissimilar just a night ago. Only this time there was a cigarette hanging from the corner of the robot's mouth.

“Oh, you're in the wrong place, lady,” said the robot, slowing walking towards them, cigarette flapping as it spoke. Its voice was male and perfectly nuanced, although it echoed like it was coming out of an old radio set.

Jennifer was still, unmoving, the gun pointed at the robot. Standing at her shoulder, Rad watched a gentle ripple in the fur of her hat as it caught the air.

“Don't come any further,” she said, and the robot stopped. It held up its arms like anyone would when someone was pointing a gun at them. Rad could have sworn the expressionless jaw was smiling.

Jennifer nodded at the robot. “You the King of 125th Street?”

The robot laughed. Rad found it unnerving.

 

EIGHT

 

Rad raised his gun, his finger tightening on the trigger. This was it. They'd had it.

“I hope you got a plan,” he said from the corner of his mouth.

“Plan stays the same, detective,” said Jennifer. She spoke in a loud, clear voice. At her words, Elektro lowered its arms and tilted its head. Then it took the cigarette from its mouth and flicked ash to the ground.

“Ms Jones,” said Rad, “I have no doubt of your abilities, but we seem to be surrounded by robots.” Rad waved his gun, like he was showing Jennifer around a yard of used cars. “It's been nice working with you, if you want to call it that, but I pretty much believe our tickets are punched.”

Jennifer lowered an eye to the top of her gun. “Get ready,” she said. “I'll clear a path. On three…”

Rad frowned, but he found himself tensing his leg muscles, ready for action. Maybe the big silver gun really was going to get them out of this.

“Funny,” said Elektro, replacing the cigarette before taking a step back and to the side. He turned his silver head to the robots crowding the street. “Time to teach these two a lesson, friends.”

The robots surged forward, so quickly a few fell and were trampled by the more able-bodied behind them. Those that still had human heads or faces leered horribly, while the metallic faceplates of those more complete machines made Rad think of the robotic sailor that had made its way from the ground to the top of the Empire State building just eighteen months ago, leaving nothing but destruction in its wake.

That's when Jennifer pulled the trigger.

Her arm jerked up with the recoil that followed the
whump
the gun made, like a rocket being launched. Rad felt his ears pop and his mouth filled with the taste of lemon, and there was a pressure behind his eyeballs, the kind of buzzing he'd felt when he'd visited New York. He blinked, and saw Elektro twist as the air buckled in front of it. There was no flash or explosion, but it hurt to watch, like staring into the midday sun.

Elektro screamed, the sound an echoing, electronic screech as the robot vanished, leaving nothing but a single silver arm to fall to the ground, smoking cigarette in situ between two metal fingers. The other robots came to a halt, some sliding on the ice, the circle around Rad and Jennifer now small and tight, unmoving.

Blue smoke curled from the end of Jennifer's gun as she held it aloft, barrel skywards. She was breathing hard. Rad glanced around, his own weapon seeming terribly small.

Jennifer didn't move. Rad looked at her, and saw her eyes glance left and right, her throat moving as she swallowed. Rad had a sinking feeling.

“You going to shoot some more robots?”

Jennifer didn't look at Rad. She adjusted her grip on the gun. “It needs time to recharge.”

Rad pursed his lips. “I guess that's a no then.” One of the robots had moved forward and was examining the single remaining limb of their leader. The machine pivoted awkwardly at the waist and picked up the arm, then rotated its square head in their direction. “I think you pissed them off.”

Jennifer lowered the gun and looked over her shoulder, like she was searching for a way out that wasn't there.

“I was aiming for the big group,” she said, and then: “Shit.”

The robots took a step forward. Maybe their timing was coincidental, or maybe they all spoke to one another by radio. Maybe there was a whole conversation, a debate, raging in the air around them.

Rad's free hand found his coat pocket and he gripped the little metal rod. He wondered if it was valuable to the robots like it was valuable to the King.

Rad held his breath. The robots stepped forward again. Then there was a roar.

Rad felt his body brace itself. The robots in front of him were lit with a bright green light, and Rad's and Jennifer's shadows stretched out long before them. The roaring grew with the sound of screeching, the sound of fast wheels skidding on the slick road.

Rad leapt to one side, dragging Jennifer down with him. The air was filled with the hot smell of gasoline and rubber, and as Rad hit the deck and he slid on the ice, he got another face full of Jennifer's fur hat.

Rad blinked, his ears ringing, and looked up.

The car was long and low, the chassis rounded like a teardrop. It was entirely black, polished to a grand piano's mirror-like finish. Two tiny windows peered out from above the expansive hood, which curved gracefully down to two headlights, blazing green, mounted deep within the bodywork. The car shook as its engine revved, flames licking from the rear exhaust.

The suicide door opened wide, exposing both the front and rear seats. The driver sat, impassively, hands on the wheel. He turned to look at Rad with circular glass eyes set into a flat metal face. He was covered in a mass of black fur.

The driver pumped the accelerator and flicked the edge of his thick fur coat off the passenger seat next to him.

Jennifer pushed herself off Rad and Rad started to yell at her, tried to grab her arm, but she was too quick. She made for the car, the driver waving her in.

The man had driven the car straight through the crowd of robots, spilling them like skittles. They rolled on the street, unable to gain a foothold on the black ice. But the robots that had backed away from the thundering car and remained upright were now slowly creeping forward.

The man pumped the accelerator again. Jennifer had slid into the front and was pulling the door closed already. The robots started to move more quickly.

Rad dived headfirst into the car's backseat, and rolled against the leather as the driver pushed the pedal to the floor.

The vehicle's roar was even louder inside. Rad closed his eyes and pulled his feet in as the door swung back against its hinges.

The door slammed shut, and Rad opened his eyes. Jennifer was twisted around in the front seat, watching him. He gave a nod and she laughed and turned to their savior. From Rad's position lying on the backseat, all he could see was a ridiculous amount of fur and the back of the man's… mask? Helmet? Or was the driver yet another robot?

Rad righted himself in the back of the car.

The driver pointed ahead. They were driving fast but in a straight line, towards the giant black building. Rad heard Jennifer gasp and pulled himself forward to see out the tiny windows.

Almost on cue, a green light came on at the top of the building.

The driver changed gear, the car lurching as it sped up, throwing Rad against the leather. In the front he saw Jennifer lean forward to peer out of the narrow windshield, looking up at the building ahead of them.

“Welcome to 125th Street,” she said.