Empire State

by Adam Christopher

  Stepping out of the shadow, the man from under the hood straightened his hair, adjusted his tie, and headed north, towards the Empire State Building.

  THIRTY-ONE

  SPREAD OUT BENEATH THEIR FEET, the Empire State was a glittering jewel in the night, the perpetual misty haze blurring the city lights, turning the city into a black and grey canvas studded with a million multi-pointed stars.

  It was beautiful, peaceful, and even romantic, and before he'd even realised it, Kane had composed a poetic – if purple – chunk of copy perfect for an op-ed piece in the Sentinel. He shook his head. That was his past life. Kane Fortuna, star reporter, had ceased to exist.

  "Something wrong?"

  His companion's rockets flared as their burn was adjusted. The Science Pirate bounced a little in the air; Kane watched the blue jets flash orange momentarily as they stabilised.

  "No," said Kane. "Just nostalgia for a past life. How's the suit?"

  The Science Pirate bounced in the air again and made some further adjustments to a set of manual controls hidden under a cover on one gauntlet. After a moment the Science Pirate closed the cover, but it didn't quite sit flat. Something slightly too large blinked with a blue light underneath it.

  "Power flow is still erratic, but that might just be the new levels. I could tune it a little if we had time, but we're good to go." The Science Pirate flexed the gauntlet. "Thanks for the actuator. I could never have got the suit working again without it. Make it yourself?"

  Kane raised his own hand and flicked open a similar panel on his wrist. Another actuator, blue light glowing, was wired into the suit. It was inelegant, a cradle of wires that looked confused and fragile, but clearly a similar component.

  "No, that one I… acquired from a boat, shall we say. Electricity has slightly different properties here. I'm lucky I had a friend to help with my suit, otherwise it would have been as dead as yours. The actuators are a weak point for us now, but it's only a temporary fix. We won't need them where we are going."

  The Science Pirate looked down at the city far below. The wind picked up and tugged noisily at the huge cloak streaming out behind. Kane watched, impressed by the rocketeer next to him, also aware that from the ground, he would look exactly the same. He began to run more newspaper copy through his head, then wondered if he'd ever be able to kick the habit.

  "It's like a prison," said his companion.

  Kane opened his eyes, suddenly aware that he'd been lost in a dream. The Skyguard's helmet picked up the Science Pirate's words over the wind.

  "What is?" Kane asked.

  The Science Pirate pointed down at the city. "This. The Empire State. You're trapped in one city, that's all you have." The rocketeer paused, and the helmet shook slowly. "Poor bastards."

  Kane smiled. His ally was right. It was a prison. A tiny, inescapable world. The Empire State.

  "Your Empire State Building is pretty fancy." The Science Pirate pointed at the tall structure a mile away. It dominated the city. "Ours isn't finished yet."

  "I think it might be done by the time we get back. Don't forget time passes differently between here and there."

  "Yeah, you said. Thank Christ," said the Science Pirate. "Maybe I can make a home in a more enlightened time."

  The pair floated in the light breeze for a few minutes. Lights winked below, stars slowly rotating through the fine mist that clung to the concrete and glass and steel of the place.

  Finally Kane spoke: "A more enlightened time?"

  "Forget it," said the Science Pirate. "I'm just looking forward to going home."

  Kane folded his arms. As he raised the heavy gauntlets, he noted the tempo of the actuator's blinking indicator had slowed slightly. Suit power was down a notch, but no problem. They had plenty of time.

  "So what happened?" he asked.

  The Science Pirate drifted a few inches away from Kane and turned towards him. The Pirate's helmet tilted to the left slightly as the response was pondered. "I was hoping you could tell me."

  Kane clacked his tongue, the mask turning it into the sound of someone trying to open a particularly stubborn can of beans with a wrench. He shrugged.

  "I don't understand the how and the why. But I was just curious."

  The Science Pirate rotated back around slowly, and looked down at the Empire State.

  "Not much to tell. There was a… fight, with you. The Skyguard." The Science Pirate paused, and looked Kane up and down. "The real Skyguard. I thought I had him, but there was an explosion. Light and sound, and colours… weird colours, y'know? Anyway, when the fireworks stopped I was at the bottom of a hole, alone. There was no sign of him, and suddenly the place was crawling with cops. A real scene."

  The Science Pirate stopped, and Kane waited, but no more came. They hovered for a minute or two, then the Science Pirate shifted in the air and spoke again.

  "Maybe I did something stupid then, I don't know, but I panicked. It was some kind of trap, I was sure, so I took off. Up, up and away.

  "It must have been only a couple of seconds later. I was over the Brooklyn Bridge, and I lost everything. All power, all rocket burn. But it wasn't just running out of juice, or some system failure. It was like flying into a brick wall, or maybe flying straight into the heart of a tornado. Everything died and I fell – or, rather, was thrown – back to the ground. Ditched into the Hudson. I made it to the shore but it was nowhere I recognised. I thought maybe it was concussion, or perhaps I'd been thrown further than I thought and washed up in Hoboken or somewhere. Nothing worked, so I hid. A few days in empty warehouse. I worked on the suit, but it was dead. I couldn't even get out of it. But finally I got the emergency line on. God knows why that was the only thing that had any juice. Then I got your signal, loud and clear." The Science Pirate tapped the side of the flanged helmet. "And here we are."

  Kane nodded, understanding a little more. He reached down and pulled his flapping cloak aside to reveal a small, flat box attached to the belt above his right hip. He squeezed something and a light flicked on and started blinking.

  The Science Pirate made a huffing sound, which might have been a laugh, and nodded.

  "Receiving. So how do we get out of here, exactly?"

  Kane paused and turned off the signal box. He pointed at the Empire State Building.

  "You fell out of the sky in New York nineteen years ago. It might only have been yesterday for you, but it's nearly two decades for everyone else. You understand that, don't you?"

  The stony huffing sound came again. "Like I said," said the Science Pirate, "maybe it'll be a more enlightened time. So what's the secret?"

  Kane lowered his arm, then folded his arms again.

  "The Empire State is linked to New York by something called the Fissure. It's a gateway, like a corridor connecting our two worlds."

  The Science Pirate nodded. "OK. So we go through the gate. Easy."

  Kane shook his head. "Not that easy. You're not the only prisoner here. Down there, in the city, are others from New York. We have to return them all home."

  The Science Pirate's helmet turned to Kane. Kane wondered who was behind the sculpted mask.

  "And how do we do that?" his companion asked.

  "Collapse the Fissure. The Empire State folds up and takes everyone through to New York."

  "And how do we do that?"

  Kane laughed.

  "What?"

  "Oh, that's the easy part," said Kane. "I thought you were the scientist?"

  The Science Pirate turned away, but didn't say anything. Kane wondered if his companion was thinking or offended. He was about to continue when the Science Pirate spoke again. Thinking, then.

  "Energy input?"

  Kane wagged his gloved finger. "Got it in one."

  The Pirate said, "There's nothing in your tiny little world to provide it though."

  "Right again, but we've got something that's not from this world, exactly."

  "Explain?"

  Kane pumped his rocket bo
ots, lifting higher a little. He looked down at the Science Pirate, then beckoned with a hand.

  "Come with me. We've got exactly what we need, waiting above the clouds."

  Kane throttled his rockets and shot skyward, his blue and white jets fanning out over the Science Pirate as he vanished through the cloud deck.

  The Science Pirate watched him rise, then raised one arm straight up and followed.

  THIRTY-TWO

  THE EMPIRE STATE BUILDING, the seat of the city commissioners, was a fortress. At one hundred and two stories, over fourteen hundred feet high, it was the tallest building on the island, and sat at the heart of the city, a shining beacon that the citizenry were justly proud of. Scared of as well, for it was an inescapable reminder of the tight control the City Commissioners had over them. Keep yourself to yourself, do as you were told, and they'd leave you alone. Step out of line, and it was you versus the Empire State. And you weren't going to win.

  One hundred and two stories of reinforced, armour-clad stone and steel. Each level as secure as a prison, each of the hundred or more departments contained within protected not just by thick walls but by a whole platoon of heavily armed Empire State police. The Empire State Building was an impregnable citadel and a symbol. So long as the Empire State Building stood, the Empire State would prevail.

  At 4.05am, all contact was lost with the last police covering floors one through fifty. The building commander in the operations deck on the one hundredth floor ordered security sections from floors fifty-one through seventy-five to take positions on the fifty-second floor, with the remaining police to dig in at ninety-nine. Above the operations deck was the commissioners' boardroom, and above that the Chairman's private quarters. The Chairman needed to be protected at all costs. Nothing could get past floor one hundred.

  The attack, it seemed, had come from street level. The entire ground floor had gone black, but by the time the staff in the operations deck had worked out it wasn't a power cut or glitch in the system, word came from the second and then the third floor. Something was coming. More confusion, more hesitation followed. Security coverage of the building stretched several blocks in every direction, and nothing had been seen aside from the usual smattering of authorised early morning traffic. It was only when the emergency channel from the fourth floor finally sprang into life – relaying the screams of the dying to the Building Commander – that he fully realised the trouble they were in. The Empire State was under direct attack. For the first time the Enemy had struck home.

  By the time the building commander gave out what were to be his final orders, it was too late. Floors fell, one by one. Operators lost radio contact with section leaders while the building commander demanded to know why they hadn't seen the strike force coming. The police blimps on routine patrol all over the city were called, but they only confirmed what the building surveillance teams had already said. There was no strike force, no army. Not even a crack team of commandos or saboteurs. The blimps had seen nothing. The city was quiet.

  The navy was called at the waterside bunker. Peering out into the fog over the water, they kept a constant watch. Nothing. The perimeter was secure, and the ironclad in the harbour was under guard, so what the hell was going on in the Empire State Building?

  To his credit, if the building commander had known what he was dealing with, he might have been able to formulate a plan of defence. But there was no way he could ever have predicted in just what form the attack would come, and perhaps he didn't even believe what he was seeing with his own eyes when death came to take him while he was still sitting in his command chair. After the crew of the operations deck were massacred, the combined sections on the ninety-ninth floor held out for nearly ten minutes, but when they fell, there was nothing between the invaders and the commissioners.

  Two blimps launched from the roof, carrying the four deputy commissioners skyward. The craft drifted upwards, negotiating the ring of a dozen police ships that now orbited the building, called in by the emergency signals broadcast from the operations deck. As the blimps powered away into the clouds, the emergency signal went dead, and in the first blimp Deputy Commissioner Warren watched as the building's lights went out, turning the elegant, tapering tower into a featureless black shadow, a void in the heart of the Empire State. Warren's mind raced. They needed to regroup, quickly, and gather their forces. Perhaps the fleet could be called back, but they'd never been able to re-establish contact with it after it entered the fog. And who would be the Chairman now? The great and noble leader of the Empire State had ordered their evacuation, and armed only with a revolver, had decreed that he would hold the boardroom, the symbol of the city governance, by his own hand for as long as possible. He'd said it was his moral duty.

  On the one hundred-and-first floor, the Chairman stood by the vast, floor-to-ceiling, wall-to-wall plate glass window, watching the twin blimps sail upwards and vanish into the orangey clouds. Other shapes, other blinking lights swam around in the night sky, several of the police blimps breaking off from the cordon formed around the Empire State Building to escort the deputy commissioners safely away.

  The boardroom was cavernous and austere, its marble floor and columns designed to convey an atmosphere of solemn importance. The meeting table itself, a single slab of black marble, could have seated two dozen with room to spare, but looked tiny and isolated in the centre of the enormous room.

  Although the building's power had gone, the boardroom was suffused by the light of the city from the glass wall. But standing in the shadow of a marble column, the Chairman was practically invisible to anyone entering the room. When he heard the double doors of the chamber swish open and solid, echoing footsteps approach, he allowed himself a smile. The revolver hung loosely in his left hand, the hammer gently rocking back and forth, back and forth, under his thumb.

  "Welcome to the Empire State," he said, taking a step backwards from the window and turning on his heel to face the new arrival. He carefully placed the revolver on the tabletop with a clack, hammer safe, and sat down. Relaxed, he steepled his hands in front of his face.

  "Report, please. What did you find?"

  The intruder had stopped in the shadow of a pillar, but at the Chairman's invitation walked into the light, each hammeron-anvil footstep accompanied by a whirring of gears and the ticking of a clock.

  The Chairman watched as the robot walked towards him, taking smooth, oiled steps in a horrible parody of human movement. Its monotonous voice ground from somewhere within its metal chest.

  "Orders, sir."

  The Chairman tapped the table and stood, rubbing the tip of his nose as he walked back to the window. Behind him there was a click, and then another, and then the robot spoke again.

  "Orders, sir."

  But the Chairman wasn't listening. He looked down on the city, lost in thought.

  Seconds, minutes, or hours passed. The Chairman didn't know. The clock inside the robot ticked time away. It was... hypnotic. Comforting. The Chairman shook his head and sighed, and glanced at the machine.

  The robot had joined him at the window. When, the Chairman couldn't remember. If he didn't know better, he could have sworn that the thing was actually looking down at the city. Could it remember? Could any of them? Was there anything left inside the copper and pressed steel shell that could think independently, remember what had happened to it, how it had happened. Remember its past life? The machine was motionless, and silent except for the clock, tick-tock.

  The Chairman coughed, surprised at his own nervousness. It wasn't fear, not really, it was anxiety, that low grade of growing panic familiar to everyone at some point in their lives. Times of danger. The need for self-preservation. Fight or flight.

  The robot was taller than he was and it didn't move when the Chairman stepped closer. He wanted to touch it, to feel whether its machined surface, tarnished now after its fight up from the street, was hot or cold. Would the robot even feel it? He raised a hand, but before his fingertips even made contac
t, the Chairman jerked his arm back as if shocked. There was whirring again from the robot, but still it didn't move, although maybe its head had shifted slightly, imperceptibly. The Chairman couldn't really tell.

  The robot's clock continued to tick. Time. Not enough of it, and how much had been lost in a daydream the Chairman didn't know. People would be coming soon. Once they'd judged it safe enough to enter the building, lots of people with guns and armour of their own would come to rescue the Empire State's highest official. Time pressed on the Chairman's mind like a dead weight.

  Guilt, as well. There was no one left in the building, he knew that. The robot had killed them all. It had to, in order to reach him. Nobody could know of the plan, so there was no alternative. The Chairman regretted it and the regret blossomed into guilt, but he knew there was more to come, much, much more, and he knew he would regret that too. Untold destruction. Apocalypse. Holocaust. But it was worth it. It was all part of the plan. The ends justified the means.