Empire State

by Adam Christopher

  "Asleep?"

  Carson shrugged. "In a manner of speaking."

  Rad indicated the blood-stained wreckage of the robots behind him with a jerk of his thumb. "I thought the crew were machines?"

  The Captain coughed and looked at the floor. He met Kane's eyes, then looked away.

  Rad felt Kane's hand on his shoulder and his friend's quiet voice in his ear. "So we've been told. But this is the evidence I've been looking for. We've been lied to about the war and about the ironclads we send off each year. The robots are only half machine."

  "And the other half?"

  Rad still had his back to the remains of the crew. Kane turned to stand in front of him, his eyes glancing around the room as he spoke.

  "The robots are sailors. Real men. Volunteers, we think. Nobody knows anything about any conscription programme. We do know that people disappear into the naval dockyard and aren't seen again."

  Rad tasted something hot and sharp in the back of his throat, and swallowed. He didn't want to turn around, but he knew he'd have to. He took a breath. The air was thick and stale this deep in the ship.

  "What do they do it for?"

  "Strength," said the Captain. "Stamina, intellect. A machine is harder to kill than a man. A machine is also better at killing. A sailor that is half machine, half man requires less food, less water, and less air." He looked away and fingered the straps hanging from one of the empty ceiling frames. "Makes sense really. Very efficient."

  Rad almost swore, but when he opened his mouth he tasted bile again. He blew out, long and hard, and turned around. The nine dead half-robots hung grotesquely from their frames.

  Kane stepped forward to take a better look. "Exposing the lies of Wartime is my next investigation." He laughed and looked back at Rad. "My ultimate investigation."

  Rad frowned. He wasn't in the mood for jokes. "You know 'ultimate' means final, right? The Empire State will never let you print anything about this. Dammit, we'll be lucky if we're not collected in the middle of the night with black bags over our heads after this."

  Kane seemed to pause, his eyes flicking over Rad's shoulder to Carson, then back to Rad. Then he relaxed. "You're right, Rad. But look, here's the proof connecting the ironclad to your murder."

  Rad raised an eyebrow, and followed to where Kane was pointing. One more frame, making a set of ten in total, but this one was empty. More importantly, the frame was bent outwards, as if the robot in it had forced the frame off as it struggled to get free.

  Rad wasn't convinced. "One robot missing? It went haywire, got free, taking out the others, and then... what? Swam to shore?"

  "It's possible." The Captain moved past the pair of them and experimentally tugged on the bent empty frame. It rattled and rocked on its hinges, but stayed in shape. "The naval robots are equipped for aquatic warfare. It could have walked to the shore, just as we walked to the boat."

  "And then," continued Rad. "Still haywire, killed Sam Saturn? Which means..."

  "Which means," said Kane, "It's still in the city."

  In the passageway outside there was a clomping of metal on metal. Carson spun around and jogged to the door, then called out to his servant.

  "Byron, stay in the passageway, please."

  Byron said, "Very good, sir. But port authorities are approaching the ship, sir. We should depart."

  Rad swore, for real this time. "I told you we made too much sound. You done here, Kane?"

  Kane nodded. "Back to the suits. Can you lead the way, Captain?"

  Carson nodded first at Kane, then at Byron, who turned to move off down the corridor.

  "Very good, sir. This way, please." Byron walked ahead, the Captain close behind with Kane following.

  Rad took a final look around the locker. They were in way, way over their heads. Maybe he should call it quits. His murder would be unsolvable and he'd have a disappointed client, but at least he'd still be alive. Kane's path was not one he wished to follow. If only he could convince his friend of this. Kane listened to Captain Carson, perhaps Rad should talk to him first.

  "Rad, come on!" Kane reappeared at the hatch, and Rad nodded and followed.

  THIRTEEN

  EARLIER THAT NIGHT.

  When Rex came to, his head was wet and there was a buzzing in his ears. No, not his ears, the sound was all around him, all over him. He blinked and coughed and wiped his chin, and discovered he was wet all over.

  He sat up on an elbow, and the alleyway swam, so he closed his eyes again. He felt like his head was stuffed with cotton wool – he'd never really known what that expression meant, but this seemed a fair approximation. It was still raining, and a wet city makes a fair amount of sound, but it was muffled, like it was all coming through a crack in a closed door. He screwed his eyes tighter before opening them again, and the world came into focus.

  Rex was lying against the side of the alleyway, and it was still night. He raised himself up again. He couldn't have been there too long, as he wasn't that wet and although the rain was no more than a misty drizzle, it was exactly the kind of misty drizzle that got you soaked to the skin in less time than you'd think.

  His head ached. He must have hit it on the way down. Rex sat up, ignoring the uncomfortable tug of his trousers on his crotch as he shuffled his behind on the hard ground. He gingerly fingered the back of his bald head, and when the expected spike of pain didn't arrive, he ran his hands over his scalp. Damp and prickly and needing a shave, but nothing, no cuts, no sore spots, no bumps.

  The buzzing kept up and his ears felt hot and gunked. An experimental pinkie in one ear brought a loud squelching. Rex sat up a bit more. It felt like he'd been lying in a hot bath for too long, but when he examined his little finger he found the tip a dark red almost to the first knuckle. It was too dark to see clearly, so he sniffed. The unmistakable aroma of earwax mixed with a cold familiar tang. Blood. He patted his cheeks and swore as his fingers traced the ooze of blood out of his ears and along the line of his jaw. What the hell happened?

  The broad. Rex spun on his backside, twisting left and right with sudden urgency. He saw an arm, bare and thin, poking out from behind a yellow dumpster. Rex got up carefully and took a look behind the bin.

  There she was. Unlike Rex, she wasn't getting up again. He coughed, five short dry bursts that made the fuzz in his head and the buzz in his ears pulsate. He rubbed the heels of his hands into his forehead, then stopped, realising that he was covering his face with his own blood. He looked down, suddenly aware that he was covered in the stuff, but that it surely couldn't all have been his.

  Rex looked around. The alley was damp and dark, but he was standing in regular rain water, thin and slightly slicked with the grease of the city. Other than that, the ground was clean.

  Rex was confused. No blood. But then, he'd only strangled her anyway. So what the hell was he covered in? He bent down to take a closer look at his victim.

  She was... bent. The body wasn't just lying there, it was curled over like a gymnast warming up for a routine. Arms and legs at not quite the right angle, same with the neck. The girl's head was exactly horizontal in a way that no vertebrae would ever allow.

  Rex blinked. He remembered punching the girl, then clamping her face when she screamed, and then dragging her backwards in a neck-lock and squeezing, squeezing, squeezing. He hadn't injured her, he didn't think. Maybe something popped? He didn't really know what happened when you strangled someone to death. And he was a very large man and she was a very small girl. Perhaps he was stronger than he'd thought.

  Rex rubbed his eyes, but the buzzing was beginning to smart, like his eyeballs were too big for their sockets and their every movement stung like Christ. He stopped rubbing and blinked again and again, trying to clear them. He'd never been that strong. He strangled her... OK, maybe he did the neck. But not the rest. And the blood! So much blood. His hands were covered in it, but the alley was clear and there was only a small amount beginning to pool out from underneath the body. The alley
was wet from recent rain, and as Rex ducked down to a puddle to clean up, he glanced back at the body.

  Holy shit. What did you do next, after you murdered somebody? He didn't do this kind of thing himself. Bootlegging was dangerous but it didn't usually run to killing the opposition. Rex stood motionless for a moment. There was nobody around, not a sound except for the gentle noise of the light rain. His hearing was still woolly and there was that buzzing driving him mad, but looking down the end of the alley, the main street was dead. He squinted, and rubbed his eyes again. The streetlights were an odd colour, too yellow. He shook his head and ignored it. He needed to clean up and then drink a lot of strong alcohol.

  Was it murder? He looked down at the body. Squeezed behind the bin in a puddle of water and blood, the girl looked tiny, like a toy doll. How could someone so small and fragile be the world's greatest criminal mastermind?

  Rex held his breath and gripped the girl's fine chin between finger and thumb. He tilted the head slightly, but with no neck support the shifting weight caused it to loll horribly. Rex recoiled, withdrawing his hand quickly. He stood up and looked at the girl's face, now pointing to the sky.

  It was her. No doubt. The Science Pirate, the girl who had taken her mask off and revealed her identity to the world in some weird tantrum.

  So it wasn't murder, it was execution. He felt dizzy and laughed. A New York gangster performing his civic duty. He was pretty sure the authorities had wanted the Science Pirate alive or dead. Dead it would be.

  Rex released the breath he'd been holding for too long, and the horizon of the world flipped. He staggered up, supporting himself against the alley wall with one outstretched arm. The goddamn buzzing was murder. Stress, and excitement, and a bang on the head. Holy mackerel, did he need a drink.

  The body. He couldn't carry it, he could barely stay upright. It was well hidden, although he didn't remember hiding it. But OK. Leave it. Come back later.

  Rex pushed off the wall, but a headache the size of the Earth hit him like a rubber mallet and he stumbled, groping for the dumpster. The sharp rusted surface dug into his palms as he thudded into it, and it was twenty seconds before the buzzing died down enough for him to open his eyes.

  The dumpster was on wheels, and had rocked when Rex fell against it. He glanced at the body. The arm still stuck out. He needed to do a better job, tidy her up.

  Rad sucked in a cold, wet breath, ignored the noise in his head, and ducked around the bin. He flipped the protruding arm up, trying to ignore the way it flopped like a fillet of beef. Limb folded back, he gripped the dumpster and pushed the body with one foot. It slid with relative ease, lubricated by rainwater and spilled fluids. She didn't seem to have any intact bones and was easier to pack in behind the bin than he'd expected.

  Rex tried shifting the dumpster, just to check, but could only rock it back and forth a few inches. No problem.

  Rex patted his pockets down. No smokes, but his wallet was fat and he was thirsty. A drink or two would help his head, of that he was sure. And cigarettes, and another drink, and then sleep, and then he'd go straight to city hall. And then some kind of civil ceremony where he would get his medal and pose for photographs with the mayor and the Skyguard.

  Buoyed by these thoughts, Rex turned and walked down the alley and into the main street. The buzzing in his head had settled to a low hum, and a drink would wash that away, easy.

  The rain abated to a fine mist, and smiling, Rex turned left, down Soma Street, under yellow streetlamps.

  FOURTEEN

  THE PLACE DIDN'T HAVE A NAME, or a sign, and Rex supposed it was just plain luck that led him there. God knew where he was. He'd lived in New York his whole life, but didn't recognise any of it, and now the buzzing was back. It was OK. Shock, probably. A drink and a smoke and then blissful sleep. If he could work out which direction home was.

  The place didn't have a name on the outside, but as soon as he hit the bottom of the stairs he imagined it had a name on the inside, one only the regulars knew. He'd walked for most of the night, or at least it felt like most of the night, and had found nothing but empty streets lit in weird, dead yellow light. No people, no cars, no lights on in any buildings except one house down a side street, a big old brownstone. But also no restaurants, cafes, clubs, milk bars, not even any stores where he could get some cigarettes. Rendered in an uncomfortable yellow monochrome, this was a part of downtown that Rex vowed never to return to after he'd shown the authorities where the body of the Science Pirate was tucked away. It just... it felt wrong. He didn't recognise the buildings, let alone the streets. He was near the Hudson and the ferries, of that he was sure, but every new street he turned down presented a fresh surprise.

  And then he found some people. Rex was nervous suddenly, so he hung back in a shadowed alcove for a while, watching. It wasn't many people, just a handful, walking back and forth across the street, coming up out of or heading down into a set of basement stairs hidden in pitch darkness. Some were casual. Some were trying to be casual, out for a night stroll but maybe swaying a little, or spending too much time trying to nonchalantly adjust a tie or do up a shoelace. There was no sound, no light from the black stairwell. But every so often, every now and again, there was a smell. Subtle but distinctive, a smell that dried Rex's throat out completely. He knew the signs all too well. At last, somewhere to get a drink.

  At the bottom of the stairs and through the door, the place looked more like a cafeteria than a bar. Reasonably dark, lit mostly by small table lamps with old orange shades. The weak light filled the room with shadows, casting what few customers were present into an array of long silhouettes. It was also quiet. No music, just hushed conversation. Exactly how he liked it.

  The man behind the bar had a blue towel slung over his shoulder, and regarded Rex with a fixed look, two fists clenched against the bar top.

  "Can't sleep again?"

  It took Rex a moment to realise the barman was talking to him. He smiled at him, but the barman's expression didn't flicker. Rex walked up and cast his eyes over the neat rows of teacups and saucers on the shelf behind. Right place, for sure.

  "The usual?"

  Rex rubbed his eyes, and nodded at the barman, who turned away before he could ask what the usual was. The seconds collected like peanuts in the bowl on the bar in front of him, and then the barman turned back around with a cup and saucer. Rex squinted down into it, but the cup looked empty. He turned it by the handle, and caught a rippled reflection. It wasn't empty and while he knew it wasn't going to be tea, the vapour coming off its surface was something much stronger than Rex was used to. He wondered who the supplier was and which gang's territory he'd accidentally crossed into.

  "Ah...?"

  The barman frowned again, then nodded. "OK, but I'll be calling it in at the end of the week."

  Rex closed his mouth, and listened to the buzzing in his head as he lifted the cup and looked around. The only other person sitting at the bar was a young man with rakish hair hooked around to the left to frame his face. He watched Rex, his big blue eyes glittering in the pale light. The young man nodded a greeting, and sipped from his own teacup.

  "Got a smoke?" asked Rex. "I'm out."

  The barman hissed between his teeth, but turned away. The young man didn't say anything, but set his cup down with a gentle clatter. Rex glanced around the room, at the dozen or so people at tables, all with cups and saucers in front of them. The air was stale and had the tang of alcohol in it, but was otherwise clear. Nobody was smoking.

  Rex turned back to the barman. "Hey, barman. Do you sell cigarettes?"

  The barman's shoulders seemed to tense up before he turned around.

  "Pal, you know better than that. Don't ask again." He turned back to his teacup polishing.

  "Huh," said Rex, to himself mainly. He looked to his left, and saw an empty stool where the young man had been sitting.

  He sighed, and took a sip of his drink. As soon as it came into contact with his tongue, his who
le mouth seemed to catch fire. Rex gasped at the sensation, then as the warmth spread over his whole body, he tipped the cup and drained the moonshine in a single gulp. It sure was strong stuff, more like Harlem hooch than downtown refined.

  "On my mother's grave," he swore, loudly, causing the people in the bar to pause their conversations for a second, before the background murmur returned. Rex ran his tongue along the back of his teeth, tasting the last stinging citrus of alcohol. He frowned. He didn't know anyone that peddled that kind of gut-rot. He'd have to look into it.

  The world swayed left, then right, and the orange globes that lit each table seemed to flare suddenly. And then the buzzing stopped, just for a moment, before creeping back in.

  The drink might have been industrial cleaner for all he knew, but it was doing the trick. Rex ordered another from the frowning barman, and drank until the buzzing faded and his eyes were filled with orange light.