Twenty minutes’ driving finds them traveling along another woodland road, a little denser and slightly darker than any encountered previously, despite the sun at high noon. With no reason to stop they continue on, passing by an unseen track leading into the woods.
The distinctive gurgle of an American V8 precedes the emergence of a Ford Mustang, just as the Aston Martin rounds a bend to disappear out of sight. The muscle car creeps out onto the road to follow—a model from the twenty-tens made as new, finished in a metallic bronze livery.
* * *
The woodland becomes parkland, the road winding through it in a pronounced manner. Specimen trees and shrubs adorn expanses of neatly mown grass dotted with benches and rocky outcrops. A place made for people, without people. It might be a beautiful spring day in a deserted—
“Bloody hell!” Robert brings the car to an abrupt halt, his wide eyes transfixed on the city now revealed before them, the Empire State Building being the most prominent feature from their current perspective.
“A replica of Manhattan?” Lucy asks.
“More like The Emerald City,” muses Robert.
* * *
What is undoubtedly Fifth Avenue is in a better state of repair than the traffic-worn original. Like everything in the dome it is made new. Despite the lack of vehicles and people the traffic lights and crosswalk signals are operational, and all set to permit passage. Shops have window displays and merchandise, and office lobbies have furniture. Robert finds himself reassessing the likelihood of Ril and Ramani’s shopping trip.
He brings the car to a stop so that they can take it all in. For him it is another mind-boggling sight, for Lucy it is just another day.
“Do you suppose it to be a completely accurate replica?” she asks.
“Well, it isn’t current, that’s for sure,” Robert observes. “Looks like some old, some new, putting aside the fact it was all built ten years or more ago.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
“Oh—good question. Wait here.”
Robert is unbuckled and away from the car in an instant, leaving Lucy to dutifully await his return, and with nothing to do, the curse of her newly acquired corporeal existence being unable to retreat into a simulation of her choosing. She has already scanned and stored everything there is in line of sight, assessing it all for subjects worthy of immediate investigation, of which she deems there to be none. Besides, she’s seen New York City before, though the fact that this one was built by extraterrestrials inside a giant dome on the planet Mars is entirely lost on her.
All she has to amuse herself is to trill her lips, a vocal exercise as she understands it, so determined from her library of articles and other such publications collated on all matters pertaining to the human condition. To the returning Robert the sight would normally be interpreted as that of a profoundly bored teenager, but today is not any normal day.
A take-out tray holding two coffees is thrust at Lucy, which she takes as Robert clambers back in to the driver’s seat.
“It’s pretty accurate,” he says.
“You were served these?”
“The coffee machine was up and running. I’ll bet that in every coffee shop across the city it’s the same.”
Robert grabs one of the cups, taking a sip through its lid. Lucy observes and does likewise with the remaining cup, before noticing that hers is marked.
“Decaf?” she enquires.
“Probably best.”
“Yours isn’t decaf,” she observes.
Lucy’s indignant response is swept aside by the presentation of a paper bag, whipped into view and snapped open with a single motion.
“You’ll like them.”
Lucy peers in with big eyes, the bag being then quickly snatched from Robert’s light grasp and the two profiteroles within stuffed into her mouth. It’s all Robert can do to look at the churning mess of cream and chocolate framed by her broadest grin yet.
“We’d better make a move,” Robert says, starting the car.
“Can I finish my coffee? It’s nice.”
“Check this out,” he says, tapping the dashboard.
Two cup holders slide out from invisible recesses.
“That’s really neat!!!”
An elegant solution to a pressing problem never fails to delight Lucy.
* * *
Times Square is unsurprisingly empty, Robert being reminded of a certain movie scene as he looks all about, having wandered a little distance from the car, and with Lucy instructed to remain. Their journey from Fifth Avenue had yielded no additional insight into the purpose of the city. Thus far it was a true depiction of Manhattan, with the same block layout and the more established structures being present—those that had stood the test of time, iconic or not, were here, while those that had not were absent, among them the Cantor Satori tower, the center of Robert’s empire and nowhere to be seen.
The route, not being direct, had taken them past the Chrysler Building, the Empire State and Grand Central Station. Lucy had been keen to enter those taller buildings offering potential vantage points from which to survey the greater metropolitan area, but a lengthy debate around relying on elevators in a deserted city had kept the notion repressed for the time being.
“Robert—look!”
He follows her pointing arm to look up at the central building—One, Times Square. All the usual neon-soaked digital billboards around the square were lifeless, but high up on that slender façade one display was now active, streaming a live video feed—a perspective looking back down to show Robert and Lucy looking back up.
“How about that.” An Englishman in New York. It wasn’t the first time Robert’s image had been on display in this place.
* * *
Adjusting spatial position in the lower dimensions was a most tiresome prospect—everything was such a muddle. Nevertheless this particular area afforded as many vantage points as the Nexus tunnels when it came to direct observation, with brothers and sisters having taken up stations all around.
The troublesome familiars had been dealt with, and despite the pathetic attempt at intervention the two subjects had proceeded in the desired manner. Even so, the male and female would insist on moving about so, and doubtless the creatures will soon move yet again. But the normal remote sensory methods of observation were entirely inadequate for the discovery of a jewel—especially such a one as was suspected here—so the Veil engineers had little choice.
A sister suggests that they have arrived at a suitable moment.
The brothers concur.
* * *
Robert catches some movement in the corner of his eye, whirling round to seek it out. A car door slams shut out of sight, the location obscured by the buildings. Robert steps in the direction of his best guess. A V8 bursts into life. It’s not the Aston. A deafening squeal of rubber and the Mustang surges out of a side street, heading straight for him.
The Ford tears past, Robert giving chase on foot for a good twenty yards or so, but to no avail. As soon as he staggers to a halt the Aston pulls alongside, Lucy at the wheel. An instant and he’s in, Lucy flooring the accelerator.
The Ford has some distance on them, but the streets are holding it back. It powers around a turn into Sixth Avenue. Lucy guns the accelerator and whips the wheel round to power slide through the same turn—
A truck bears down on them, horn blaring.
“Jesus Christ!!”
Lucy just manages to dodge it, but now there are many more vehicles—cabs, cars, trucks—all heading up Sixth Avenue, forcing her to weave between them at high speed.
“Lucy! They’re not real. They’re just projections.”
The passenger side wing mirror is clipped off by an otherwise near miss.
“Oh shit.”
Ahead the Mustang is in the same situation, also dodging traffic, but not quite as fast. Lucy is gaining on it, vehicles flashing by, the Aston’s engine whining under the strain being placed upon it, her fingers flic
king away at the paddle shifts on the steering wheel. It’s all Robert can do to hang on as the twists and turns fling him about. A quick glance at Lucy reveals a placid face—no strain, no emotion.
The vehicles are joined by pedestrians, seemingly stepping out of the shadows. As the two cars race by, they look on without reaction—projection people. It’s all somehow real but not real.
“Get on the driver’s side,” Robert shouts over the noise.
Lucy swings to the right of the Ford.
“The other driver’s side.”
She swings over to the left side, the Ford abruptly dodging an oncoming cab, now heading straight for them, forcing Lucy to the far side of the carriage way—but a clear path. She edges alongside the Mustang.
Through the darkened glass an outline of the driver can be discerned. The figure tilts its head for a furtive glance in the wing mirror, before surging the Mustang forward once more, and immediately peeling off into another street. Lucy barely manages to follow it around.
No traffic, no pedestrians. Both cars have a clear run and Lucy has lost a lot of ground. She red-lines the engine to gain it back, the Aston leaving the road briefly as she crosses an intersection.
Another sharp turn and they are in a service street—a dead end, the Ford heading for an opening in a building at the far end. It’s straight in to a halt, shutters lowering behind it, Lucy breaking hard to stop them just short.
The shutters clunk shut.
Robert is out of the car and legging it to the entrance, slamming his palm down on a large green button to one side.
The shutters rise in their own time to reveal a parking garage within. It is empty, the floor now a featureless shaft.
“Looks like a Nexus elevator,” Robert says. “Must go down to the substructure.”
Lucy stands right at the very edge to peer down.
“No way down, no elevator controls,” she observes. “We’ve lost them.”
“Did you make out the driver?” Robert asks. “Didn’t look like Ril or Ramani.”
“I didn’t see.”
Robert sweeps his hand over his head to calm himself, stepping back out onto the street.
“Now what?” Lucy asks.
Robert looks up at the building’s façade.
* * *
Though not one of the tallest buildings, it does promise a view of sorts, with Robert and Lucy chancing the elevator to the top floor. They find an executive suite—boardroom, secretarial desks, and an office worthy of an up-and-coming CEO. Except that it’s all dated. No air screens here. No projectors. Just flat panels, keyboards, and desk phones.
Robert joins the dots.
The car, his house—they had just seemed like random choices plucked from his past. But with this office it all makes sense, and come to think of it, the coffee shop had seemed a bit retro. The city was from the late twenty-tens, when Robert was—
“—just a young man.”
“Were you in New York?” Lucy asks.
“No. No, I was not. I was somewhere altogether different.”
Robert tries the desk equipment—all in working order, but the network simply serves up a bland landing page announcing the service to be currently unavailable. It’s a similar story with the phones and TV. Even so, there is no way all this equipment could have been procured on Earth—such outdated models haven’t been manufactured for decades, and unlike ovens and potato peelers there is no current fashion for a retro look in the workplace. Unless, of course, this building is the only one so equipped—after all, they were led here.
Their view is of the city and a forest of tall buildings—there is not much to be seen from this vantage point, but walking further around gives them a different perspective over the East Side, looking north. It’s an arresting sight—what would have been the Hudson River is a deep canyon, far deeper than the real Hudson and seemingly dry of any water.
“Robert—look,” Lucy calls out—she has wandered further round to a more southerly side of the building.
“What do you see?” Robert answers back, as he follows on after her.
Coming to her side he is immediately stopped short by the scene before them.
The canyon continues out into the harbor, becoming a great basin. Not too distant away, where Liberty Island should be, is a mesa rising up from the canyon floor.
“No Statue of Liberty,” Lucy says.
A gleaming white skyscraper stands in its place.
“That’s the Cantor Satori tower, isn’t it?” Lucy says. “It’s not from the twenty-tens. And what’s it doing there?”
“We’re going to need the Mombasa.” says Robert.
EMPATHY
The Cantor Satori tower catches the afternoon sun. A gleaming white spire in a world where it does not belong. From their position on the edge of the Battery, Robert gazes out over the gulf between Manhattan and Liberty Island. A little over two and half kilometers. It might as well be a million given the canyon before them.
Lucy stands to one side, her expression distant, eyes glazed over. She has summoned the Mombasa, controlling its flight from its parking spot near the Pavilion to Battery Park using her synaptic connection. It rounds on them from the direction of the East River, its engines reverberating off the city buildings as she brings it to a perfect landing a little distance away.
She snaps to, the rear access ramp already lowering. Robert wastes no time in heading for it, Lucy trailing after him.
“We have forty-five minutes flight time remaining in this gravity,” Lucy informs him.
But Robert seems lost.
As they board he halts them both, a plan formulated. He knows she won’t like it, so best to curtail any debate.
“You will fly me over to the plaza and return here. We’ll use the Mombasa’s suit radios to communicate.”
“What? No! Robert—”
“Listen to me,” he says, trying to calm her with a gentle rest of his hands on her shoulders, Lucy giving him her fiercest angry-face. “Listen to me. I need you to do this. If anything happens to me, take the Mombasa and get back to the Afrika.”
Lucy shoves him away.
“I am not going to leave you!”
Robert takes a much firmer hold this time, as if to shake some sense into her. But he simply looks deep into her eyes.
“Whatever this is all about is in that building. I am certain of it. You must trust me.”
* * *
The top of the skyscraper graces the view ahead, but there is no suitable landing place on the roof given the service structures dotted about. Instead Lucy spirals them down to the plaza below so that they may survey what they can, but the tower yields no secrets from without, its one-way windows cloaking anything of interest within.
The plaza is a faithful reproduction, though ending abruptly at the mesa cliff, which falls away sharply—like some giant cookie cutter had sliced it out. Still, there is enough space to land comfortably; Robert is quick to disembark, a desperate Lucy lifting away as soon as he has done so.
Robert watches the Mombasa slide back across the canyon, before turning toward the main entrance. At least he shouldn’t have any difficulty in finding his way around.
The atrium foyer is pristine, finished to its contemporary design, every detail as it should be. Robert checks the reception desk. The desk equipment is bang up to date. The air screens are operational, as are the phones—but it’s the same old nobody-home messaging. So no details about the building’s occupancy.
He tries his radio—purloined from a flight suit.
“Lucy, do you read me?”
“Read you.”
“I’m going to take the elevator to the Sky Floor. We may lose signal for a bit.”
“Be careful!”
It’s a risk, but there is no way he is climbing one hundred fourteen flights of stairs, and if he gets stuck then Lucy’ll just have to come get him. But he already knows the elevators will work. Otherwise what would be the point?
; * * *
All Lucy can do is wait anxiously on board the Mombasa, now back at the Battery, having lost radio contact with Robert just after he’d said.
A flash of red catches her eye—the red Ferrari tearing along the harbor side toward the Mombasa. Lucy rushes out just as the Ferrari pulls up, Ril and Ramani leaping from the car. But their attention is not with her—they rushing to the harbor wall, where Lucy finds them transfixed on the tower, both wearing grave expressions.
* * *
Robert steps out of the elevator and into the lobby area of a vast contemporary apartment. This is not a replica of any residence he can recall, and the furnishings are as up to date as the building. Another anachronism in this world out of time.
“Hello?”
Met with only silence, he elects to explore, finding a well-appointed abode. Kitchen, spotlessly clean and stocked with fresh produce, work area, and a gymnasium occupy one quarter of the space, and what he supposes to be bedrooms, another. The remainder is given over to the main living area with breathtaking views back toward Manhattan through floor-to-ceiling windows.
“It’s an empathy test.” A female voice from behind him.
He turns to find a woman emerging from the bedrooms, tall and of athletic stature, her body youthful, her deportment mature. Despite the changed appearance, he recognizes her immediately, staggering back, unable to contain the shock.
“Monica.”
“All this,” she says gesturing at the world about her, “is an empathy test.”
* * *
Ramani has a white-knuckle grip on the harbor wall railing, and a look of great alarm on her face.
“What is in that building?” Lucy demands of her.
Ramani seems possessed by some horror, deaf to Lucy’s question.
“They took control. Kept us away.” Ril says, his face ashen.
“Who has taken control?”
“Those that built this place,” Ril says. “Veil engineers. They want to push things further. We’re not sure why.”
“Push what further?”
“The empathy test.”
“You said no tests! You said!”
“It’s not what you think, Lucy. All is not as it seems.”
The Veil Page 12
