Evelyn floated away from the mural, towards the windows opposite.
“Change is coming, Nimrod. Neither you nor I can stop this. A moment is approaching, one in which we will both have roles to play.”
Nimrod brushed his mustache with a thick index finger as he considered.
“I’m not sure I understand.”
Evelyn turned in the air so they were facing each other. The smile was back.
“War is coming, Nimrod. You must be prepared. We all must.”
Nimrod felt the color drain from his face. “War? With whom?”
Evelyn laughed, the light of the Fissure sparking in her eyes and making Nimrod’s jaw hurt. Her blue aura grew, and Nimrod stumbled backwards, each blink of his eyes casting a fiery negative image of McHale inside his lids.
“The Empire State, Captain. Soon we will be at war with the Empire State.”
Nimrod felt dizzy. He rubbed at his forehead and tried to blink away the afterimage of McHale’s glow, but it was no use. He felt ill. Suddenly the world made no sense.
He stumbled forward and grabbed the top of the nearest armchair.
But at least it seemed the Empire State still existed on the other side of the Fissure. The disconnection was temporary.
“What-”
There was a knock at the door, and one of the black-suited agents entered. Nimrod tried to focus on him, on the faint red line on his forehead from where his hat had so recently sat, but his vision was obscured by the echo of Evelyn’s aura.
“Director,” said the agent, “it is time for your briefing with the doctor.”
McHale floated towards her agent, and Nimrod saw the man shift slightly on his feet.
McHale nodded. “Please show Captain Nimrod back to the world.”
The agent held out his hand, gesturing towards the main doors. Nimrod turned back towards Evelyn, but she was gone. The pair were alone in the Cloud Club.
Nimrod frowned, and turned to the agent.
“Do you ever get used to that?”
The agent smiled but shook his head. He gestured to the door again. “This way, sir.”
TEN
Rad turned away from the window. He was standing in the lobby of a disused theater, and all he could see outside was the outline of a street and buildings, empty of cars and people — and robots, thank goodness — all bathed in a deep emerald light. He rubbed his eyes, and green spots danced in his vision.
“What’s with the green light?” he asked.
Their rescuer, the driver of the remarkable car, was silent, standing between Rad and Jennifer. The giant fur coat was gone, revealing a chauffeur's uniform, complete with knee-high boots and jodhpurs. The only thing missing was a hat, but considering the driver’s rounded metal face and two goggle eyes, even Rad thought that might look a little silly.
The driver was another robot — built to drive the car, it seemed, not for conversation.
“Talkative, isn’t he?” said Jennifer. She looked the driver up and down, but the robot ignored her. Rad wondered if it had been switched off.
The car had brought them up to the theater, which sat in front of the tall building Rad and Jennifer had assumed was the King’s Harlem fortress. The awning was in still in place over the entrance, but the signage above was old and mostly missing, only three letters — an “A”, and then after a gap two “L”s together — visible above the empty marquee.
The driver had led them inside to the theater’s lobby, where they now stood. Ahead of them was the remains of a concession stand or ticket counter, and on the left and right shallow, elegant stairs wound their way up and around, vanishing into the darkness of the upper level.
“Anyone home?” Rad’s voice echoed.
“Rad!”
Rad turned and saw Jennifer facing the stairs on the right. She pointed as a figure broke away from the shadows.
“Detective, detective,” said the man trotting to meet them. He grabbed Rad’s hand with both of his own and pumped the detective’s arm up and down with some vigor. “Why, you made it! Safe and sound, safe and sound. I’m so pleased to see you!”
Rad sniffed, and put on a smile, at least until he figured out what the hell was going on. The newcomer was perhaps in his early sixties, his grey hair cut so short that it stood on end, with a neat beard trimmed into a triangle so precise it looked lethal. He was wearing a suit of dark blue velvet, double-breasted, with a brown shirt underneath and an orange handkerchief in the pocket that matched the color of his tie.
The man was smiling from ear to ear. Rad scratched his chin.
“Ah, yeah, hi there,” he said. He nodded at Jennifer. “I don’t think you’ve met my friend.”
The man’s eyes lit up and his smile grew wider, stretching into an almost open-mouthed expression of delight. He placed one arm behind his back, executed a theatrical bow, and took one of Jennifer’s hands in his own, gently drawing it to his lips.
“M’lady,” he said, breathlessly. “Charmed, I’m sure, Miss…?”
Jennifer pulled her hand carefully away from the man’s grip.
“Special Agent Jennifer Jones,” she said. The man’s eyes widened.
“Oh, splendid, splendid,” he said. Rad didn’t like the way he wouldn’t take his eyes off Jennifer. He cleared his throat.
“Would you be the, ah, King of 125th Street?”
The man turned and clicked his heels together. “I have the pleasure of holding such high office, Detective Bradley.” He clasped his hands behind his back and looked between Rad and Jennifer, his face split with a grin. “I’m so glad you could make it. Really, I am.”
Jennifer shook her head. “We’re here on official business, sir.”
The man’s smile didn’t falter. He looked Jennifer up and down and then winked at Rad without trying to hide it. Rad raised an eyebrow.
“I was only expecting one, of course,” said the King. He clicked his tongue and glanced back at Jennifer. “But I’m not one to complain about such pleasant company.”
“Ah, yeah,” said Rad. “Pardon me for saying, sir, but you don’t look like much of a king.”
The King laughed. “Well, it takes all sorts, my man…” He looked down and seemed to study the carpet. Rad sighed and exchanged a look with Jennifer, but she seemed as bewildered as he was.
Rad said, “Hey, buddy?” In the pocket of his coat he could feel the rod from the warehouse. “Your majesty?”
At this, the King clapped his hands and threw his head back in a booming laugh. When he looked at Rad again his eyes were streaming tears, which glinted green in the light from outside.
“Look,” said Rad, “you wanted me to come here because you wanted something back, something that I picked up downtown. But more important, you said Kane Fortuna was here. So where is he?”
The King slapped his knee. “My, you do like to get right to business, don’t you detective?”
Rad ignored him. “Let’s cut to the chase. You take me to Kane and I might give you the component back. But I think Special Agent Jones here might have something to say about that. See, I don’t think she likes whatever racket it is you’re running, and I’m not sure I do either. But hey, there’s a lot in this city I’m not sure I like, and this little ice age we got going on is one of them. So let’s get moving before the ice outside gets any thicker and we all need to start sipping antifreeze like your friend at the bar down the street.”
The King had started laughing as Rad spoke, a mild case of the giggles turning into a full belly laugh. The detective shook his head in frustration. It figured. The man was a lunatic. What other kind of person would call himself the King of 125th Street and lock himself into a disused theater?
Jennifer stepped up to the King, who was leaning over, recovering from his fit of mirth.
“Look, sir,” she said. The King looked up at her and waved her to continue as he took deep breaths, coughing as his laughter threatened to return.
Jennifer glanced at Rad, then look
ed back at the King.
“There’s something going on in the city. I have a lot of questions I need to ask you. I’d appreciate your cooperation and I’d prefer it if we could do this in a civil manner, but we can do this in a more formal capacity downtown if required.”
The King of 125th Street finally stood. He sniffed and stuffed his hands into his pockets, then looked Jennifer up and down again before turning back to Rad.
“Come,” said the King, patting Rad on the forearm. “Let me give you the grand tour, so you can see how we run this joint.” He glanced over his shoulder at Jennifer. “Feel free to tag along, sweetheart. You sure do brighten the room.”
He laughed and headed towards the right-hand set of doors that led into the theater.
Jennifer sidled up to Rad. “He’s psychotic.”
“The man thinks he’s a king,” said Rad. He removed his hat and rubbed his scalp, then glanced at the driver. The machine was still standing, immobile, silent. “The king of what?”
“King of the robots?”
Rad drew breath to answer, but the King reappeared through the doors.
“Hey, friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your feet and walk this way!” He vanished back into the theater.
Jennifer looked at Rad and Rad gestured for her to lead the way. She sighed, gripped her silver gun, and headed for the doors.
Rad watched her back, and then as she went out of sight, turned to the driver. “Why do I get the feeling this is going to be a long night?”
The driver said nothing. Rad huffed, and followed Jennifer.
Alone in the lobby, the driver turned its head towards the double doors that were still swinging from Rad’s exit. Something flashed behind the driver’s round glass eyes, and there was a sound from behind the grating that formed the robot’s mouth. It was quiet, and low: the sound of chuckling.
The driver watched the doors for a second or two, then jerked into life, heading towards the nearest staircase and jogging up them two at a time.
There were things to be done.
ELEVEN
It was cold, and getting colder.
The man on the bridge frowned, his breath steaming in a huge cloud before him as he peered ahead. Behind him, the wall of fog was as dense and impenetrable as ever, but ahead the view was clear.
But… he wasn’t sure.
The night was quiet, like it wasn’t just the bridge and the water beneath it that was frozen solid. It was like the air itself was too cold even to allow sound to pass.
A moment later the ice beneath the bridge cracked, the sound like a muffled gunshot echoing around and around. The man shuffled, the knob of his wooden leg scraping the roadway, as the bridge shook, the tremor strong enough to knock him over. The man grabbed the rail next to him and clung on, pressing his chest against it, ignoring the way the cold of the metal cut through his thick jacket. The tremor stopped, but the man held on a moment longer, just to be sure. He glanced over the edge. The ice had cracked, a great zigzag fissure opening directly below the bridge.
The tremors worried him. They were getting stronger and more frequent, far more so than when he had left the city.
He straightened up. And how long ago had that been? How many years had he been traveling, lost in the fog? Too many, and somehow far more than had apparently passed here.
If this was the same place, the right place.
He had to admit, he wasn’t sure. The buildings on the other side of the bridge were dark and apparently empty. The sky was clear but completely black. The fog bank behind the man cast a dirty orange glow over the bridge.
The bridge was the problem. The city was alone, isolated, surrounded by a wall of fog. Beyond the fog was nothing but the lands of the Enemy.
Or so he had thought. He knew, now, that his knowledge of the universe was incomplete. There was plenty beyond the fog. The Pocket was larger than he had ever dreamed, stretching far beyond the reach of his instruments.
But the bridge, that was different. He hadn’t known about it before. But as the cold had gotten worse the fog had receded, exposing the structure at the very northern tip of the island. It provided the perfect watch point, the airship anchored to it quite securely, hidden just behind the fog bank. It wouldn’t pay to take any chances and leave themselves exposed, if the city was the wrong place.
And the bridge was the one thing that made him pause to consider whether this really was the right place.
He dared not go any further across it. Not yet. There were still tests to do and measurements to make. He stared ahead, trying to judge distance, to recognize any part of the cityscape before him.
There, perhaps, due south, where the air was a little misty, where the glow was captured, the lights of something big, the lights of civilizations, of something more substantial than the collection of empty shells that crowded the end of the island, on the other side of the bridge.
Perhaps it was the right place. Perhaps he had found home.
Perhaps.
The man on the bridge slapped his cheeks to get the feeling back into them, rubbed his thick mustache to get the ice out of it, and turned carefully on the frozen bridge. Looking down, he stepped forward slowly so as not to slide on the ice, and vanished into the fog.
The interior of the airship was silent until the man returned, his wooden leg tapping loudly on the floor as he made his way to the pilot’s seat on the flight deck. He fell into it, and began pulling his gloves off. In front of him, the windows of the craft were opaque with frost.
“Have you come to a decision?”
The man paused and looked up at the ceiling, then shook his head as he dropped his gloves onto the control board.
“No. I can’t be sure. We need something else.”
A shadow flickered in the room. “We could fly in and investigate.”
The man chuckled. “And look what happened last time,” he said, banging the end of his wooden leg against the floor. “No, we need to wait. We need to be sure.”
“We cannot wait here forever.”
That was true. The man sniffed and tugged at his beard. “If only there was a signal of some kind, something we could home in on.”
“You only found me because I activated the ship’s beacon. It is unlikely we will find such a signal out there.”
The man hrmmed, and scanned the controls. It was worth a try.
“A distress beacon, no,” he said, flicking a series of switches. On the control board a row of orange lights came on. “But maybe there will be something else. See if you can boost the output of the number two power cell. Perhaps we’ll be able to pick something up from the city — radio, perhaps, anything that might give us the information we need.”
The shadow moved again. “Very good, sir” said the voice, this time nearer the door.
The man sat back in the pilot’s seat, and looked at the frosted windows.
Perhaps it was the right place. Perhaps it was home.
But he had to be sure.
TWELVE
“We can do great things together, you and me.”
Doctor X ignored the voice, and focused instead on the clipboard an inch from his face. He ticked some more boxes and scrawled a note in a hand he knew he would not be able to decipher an hour from now. His handwriting was poor at the best of times, but today she was coming to the laboratory to visit. And she expected much, even though she didn’t perceive time the same way as everyone else. He glanced out of the corner of his eye and adjusted his round-framed glasses. She could appear from anywhere, which, if he were honest, scared the living crap out of him. And at such a delicate phase of the operation, he needed his wits about him.
“I know you’re listening, pal.”
The doctor held his breath and flicked a switch on the panel in front of him. The voice wasn’t doing much for his nerves either. It filled the space, echoing against the hard surfaces of the laboratory. It was a male voice, eerily calm and muffled slightly, like someone on the end of a long-di
stance telephone call.
Not that Doctor X knew much about that kind of thing. He’d only been introduced to the concept of “long-distance” in the last year. Imprisoned in the laboratory as he was, he still didn’t quite understand what it meant that there was more than just the city outside.
The doctor ticked another box.
“You know I’m speaking the truth,” said the voice.
The doctor shook his head, and put the clipboard down.
“I think we’re almost ready, Dr Richardson.” No response. Doctor X turned on his heel, but he was alone in the laboratory. Well, the Project was there, trying hard to get his attention.
“Laura?”
The thin plastic safety door at the back of the laboratory flapped open as the doctor’s assistant came in, wheeling a trolley covered with electronic equipment. She leaned forward on the trolley, picking up the pace.
“Sorry, doctor,” she said, bringing the new equipment to a halt by the laboratory’s main workbench. “The guys on the door were being jerks again.”
Doctor X nodded. “Well, the Director will be here shortly. No wonder they’re jumpy. The whole facility seems to be on alert.”
Laura began unpacking small trays of components, arranging them on the workspace. “You’d think she wouldn’t need to come in and see us. I mean, can’t she see the whole city at once?”
“I think she likes to visit in person. It makes her feel like she’s still one of us.”
“Creepy,” said Laura. She set down the last tray and pushed the trolley out of the way. Then she turned to the mesh cage. The door was open in preparation for the next phase of the operation, allowing access to the Project within.
The Project stood in the center of the cage, leaning back against an angled metal slab, around which was an elaborate framework of hinged struts, cables dangling.
The Project itself was huge, seven feet tall and made of polished silver. It’s head was a rectangular box, with a man’s face crudely constructed out of moving metal cut-outs: a nose, even eyebrows. Its jaw was a separate piece and it had two red lights for eyes, which lazily moved from the doctor to his assistant.
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