Empire State

by Adam Christopher

  Then Nimrod rested a hand on Rad's shoulder. Rad flinched, but didn't take his face from the window. "I'm sorry, my boy," whispered Nimrod. "I was forgetting."

  Rad's head shook, the loose ends of the mask straps clacking their metal-capped tips together as he did so.

  "What do you want me for?"

  Nimrod shuffled back around on the narrow bench seat so he could see out of the front windshield again. "Although we can trace people, follow and watch them, in a way, intervention is more difficult. For my agents to be in the Pocket is a great risk, one which I must limit whenever possible. Far easier would be to have someone from the Pocket act on our behalf."

  Rad swung back, the respirator knocking Nimrod's nose. The old man raised a hand to protect his face from any further contact.

  "What do you mean?"

  "Jones and Grieves have been very busy on your side of the Fissure. We have been following the Skyguard – the new Skyguard – for some time. He is going to destroy the Battery – your side of the Fissure. He must be stopped. I would presume he thinks that by destroying the Battery, it will cause the Fissure to collapse and return everyone to New York City."

  "But... the Empire State is not New York? We don't come from New York. We never did."

  "Top of the class, Mr Bradley. Destroy the Battery on your side and certainly the Pocket will collapse. It'll be the end of the Empire State, and everything and everyone in it. Skyguard included."

  "Aha."

  Nimrod ran the edge of his index finger along the underside of his moustache. "Am I right in thinking you may know the identity of the new Skyguard?"

  Rad drew a breath, making the respirator whistle.

  "You think right. You don't know? You said you were following him."

  Nimrod shrugged tightly in the small space of the back seat. "Not constantly, and whoever is wearing the suit now is covering his tracks very well. In all honesty his actual identity is probably not that important to us."

  Nimrod squared up to Rad as they squashed together in the back seat. "I'm hoping, detective, that this little visit would be enough to remove any last remaining doubts from your mind. The Empire State is in great danger, Mr Bradley, but the stakes are higher. The two cities, yours and mine, the Pocket and the Origin, are tethered together by the Fissure. Instability in one destabilises the other. The connection cannot be broken. Therefore, if anything should happen to the Fissure on your side..."

  Rad held up a hand. "Got it. Lights out for everyone. I'm with you. What's the plan?"

  "That," said Nimrod, "is your department. Stop the Skyguard. Do what you must."

  "OK."

  "OK it is."

  The car slowed and turned, then stopped. A small ceiling light flicked on in the front seat and Grieves's thin face appeared like a spectre in the reflection on the inside of the windshield. Nimrod, Rad and Jones were shadows in the background, but the light caught the goggles of Rad's mask, picking them out in the reflection in front of him. Rad shuddered.

  Time to save the world. Rad stopped and considered. Two worlds.

  Nimrod tapped Rad's knee like a friendly uncle. "We're here, Mr Bradley."

  Rad nodded. "Show time. Shazam."

  Battery Park in New York City did not differ significantly from the Battery in the Empire State. The signs came first, warning the public that the area ahead was restricted. Then the streetlights were replaced by large white floodlights, illuminating the high fence ahead of the limo. The fence was divided by a manually operated boom painted in yellow, with a giant warning sign covered in tiny print hanging from it, offering a selection of imprisonment options for the discerning trespasser. A small hut on either side was manned by a pair of soldiers each, their white helmets etched with "MP" in heavy black letters in sharp contrast to their regulation khaki from the neck down. Their guns were large but thankfully slung over their shoulders, barrels skyward. As the limo slowed, Grieves wound down a window and offered one of the approaching MPs a pass. The barrier was raised and the car waved through without even having to come to a complete halt.

  They stopped in a large parking lot half occupied with green trucks with canvas-covered beds. Nimrod helped Rad from the car, and the pair followed Grieves and Jones ahead, the agents already negotiating passage through a second barrier ahead with a single guard hut, leading to a floodlit path cut through a stand of tall trees. The remains of the public Battery Park, thought Rad. There were more signs ahead, also in the infuriatingly small and precise military lettering. Grieves and Jones waited for Nimrod and Rad to catch up, then Nimrod skipped to the head of the party and led them off into the woods.

  The Fissure was close. Maybe it was because he was charged with a mission. Maybe he was getting acclimatised to the new universe, but Rad felt full of energy and had to stop himself walking ahead of his host. Maybe the Fissure fed him energy or something airy-fairy, mystical-magical from the Pocket, Rad drawing current like a lightning conductor. Rad eyed a few of the signs as he walked. NYCF Secure Area Alpha. Rad allowed himself a small smile. Here be the Fissure. Come one, come all, step right up, ten cents a peek. Keep off the grass and please don't touch.

  After a few paces along the wide path Rad felt that the mask was a hindrance. He wouldn't need it back home, anyway. So he stopped, took it off, and as he did so realised his hat was back at Nimrod's office. Nimrod stopped and turned, waiting patiently while Rad first rubbed his scalp, then scratched his chin, then examined the mask in his hands. All the while, he was aware of his chest rising and falling with each breath, aware of the movement, the arching of his ribs and contraction of intercostals, aware that it no longer required conscious thought to control his breathing. He looked up at Nimrod. The old man smiled, the hard floodlights bleaching his already pale features to chalky whiteness.

  "Come," he said, and turned and walked briskly down the path.

  The New York night was different to the Empire State night in more ways than one. No fog made the air clear, invisible, but also cold. The chill was unfamiliar to Rad, who was used to the cloying humidity and warmth of Empire night, not to mention the perpetual orange glow of the fog lit by the city lights. As he walked, Rad tried to imagine this city in the daylight. Would it be hot? And how far could he see? If he went to the top of the tallest building – the Empire State Building, he assumed, if they even called it that here – how far would he see? If Jersey City was on the other side of the Hudson, as Nimrod had called the body of water, what was on the other side of Jersey City? And what about the east side of the island?

  Rad walked on, not paying attention to his surroundings, lost in a newfound wanderlust. He had to come back, had to. He gripped the mask hanging by its straps from his left hand. He'd take it home with him. It would be needed for return trips.

  Because he had to come back.

  The white light of the path began to change, becoming steadily overwhelmed by a blue glow from up ahead. The blue light shone through the trees around them, casting long shadows back along the path. Rad jogged ahead to match Nimrod's pace, and when he caught up with the old man Nimrod smiled and winked.

  The path turned, and the trees vanished. They were in an open clearing now, a large circular zone of poured concrete perhaps one hundred yards across. Armed MPs crawled the perimeter; three stationed closest to the end of the path approached the group and Grieves revealed his pass again. The MPs nodded briskly, saluted and stood aside to let them pass.

  Rad's eyes fell on the object at the centre of the disc, and he slowed his pace a little, letting Nimrod get ahead again. The thing was metallic, individual plates fashioned into curved, overlapping slats to create a giant egg perhaps twenty feet high. Despite the bright floodlights that ringed the clearing, the whole area was lit in a flickering electric blue, escaping from the seams of the egg-like structure. As Rad got closer, he shielded his eyes from the brightest emanation and as the contrast dropped, he could see the thing was painted in a dark matte green, just like everything else owned by
the military. The structure was mounted on a four-tiered pedestal, surrounded on three sides by army crates in wood and metal with lids ajar. Cables of various thicknesses spooled around the crates and the steps of the pedestal, the thickest pair disappearing into a large black multi-port box inset into its base, their opposite ends snaking away to the periphery of the disc on the opposite side, where a prefabricated cabin with one long, wide window looked out onto the clearing.

  Nimrod stood with his hands clasped behind his back, looking at the green egg, peering at it until his nose was almost touching the surface. Rad gingerly trod the four steps to the base of the egg and raised an arm to knock, experimentally – but before his hand was halfway there, Nimrod grabbed his wrist in a lightning move. Rad didn't resist, but was still surprised at the strength hidden in the old man's biceps. There was a loud clatter from behind them as several MPs raised their rifles and jogged from the edge of the concrete disc to the central structure.

  "Have a care, Mr Bradley," murmured Nimrod.

  Rad lowered his arm and eventually Nimrod let go, his small dark eyes locked on the detective's. Rad frowned and turned his attention back to the egg.

  "This is the Fissure?"

  Nimrod nodded. "The Fissure itself is protected by this shielding, which in turn protects New York from the energy radiated by it."

  Rad raised his eyebrows in quiet admiration. He was right about the Fissure having power, then.

  Nimrod looked at him for a moment, and hrmmed. He then turned and waved at one of the MPs, who departed from his station on the concrete disc at a fast trot and headed towards the cabin.

  "The Fissure itself is a fragile space-time event. Like a tear in a piece of cloth, it can grow, change shape. And I needn't remind you of how important it is for both our cities that no change comes to it."

  Rad craned his neck up to look at the egg, the top of which curved away out of sight.

  "So, what, you open this thing up and I step through the magic door?" Rad patted his stomach. He was just over six feet, and was wearing a suit and shirt both somewhere comfortably in the region of extra-large.

  Nimrod's lips pulled together into a pout, then he chuckled. "Oh, you'll fit, don't worry. You might even lose a few pounds."

  Rad's eyes widened but Nimrod had turned around to face the cabin. Nimrod raised a hand and pointed a finger skywards, and moved them in a fast circle. A helmeted figure framed in the cabin window gave a thumbs-up and leaned over, and a few seconds later a series of dull thuds sounded from somewhere deep in the concrete foundations under Rad's feet. He felt Nimrod's hand on the bend of his elbow and allowed himself to be pulled back a few yards, down the steps and onto the concrete disc proper.

  The surface of the metal egg began to move. Rad saw that the whole pedestal was a rotating platform, itself made of concrete but a completely separate structure to the large disc. The egg appeared to turn an arbitrary number of degrees in the clockwise direction, slowly, then stopped. The ground vibrated again as more deep, unseen machinery was set into action, and the shell split in two, the twin halves moving out slightly in separation, then telescoping into themselves until they were just two stumps on either side of the Fissure itself.

  Rad hadn't known what to expect. He had imagined the Fissure as a sort of bright, fiery object, tall and thin, crackling at the edges with the magic of the universe, tendrils of energy curling from it like the perpetual fog of the Empire State. He expected light and sound; something dangerous, beyond the understanding of men. So he was a workaday private detective in a bad part of town. At least he had an imagination, he thought to himself.

  As it happened, Rad saw he was right. His mental image of a roaring red inferno was wrong only in that the Fissure was rendered in shades of blue, from dark indigo at the very edge to almost white at the centre. The Fissure was a pillar of flame like an out-of-control gas jet, ten feet tall, two feet wide, vaguely elliptical, although the corona spilling from it made it hard to focus exactly on its size and shape. Rad felt the buzzing behind his eyes again. His fist closed in a reflex movement on the straps of his borrowed mask.

  The Fissure wasn't hot. In fact, Rad couldn't feel any change of temperature at all. Looking up, he saw spiralling smoky fingers of light and energy spilling out, streaming from the centre and around the concrete clearing. They looked like fast moving clouds against the night sky. If he wanted to, Rad could have reached out and touched them, but he thought better of it and kept his hands to himself. He was about to get intimately acquainted with the Fissure anyway.

  Nimrod watched the flicker of the miraculous space-time event, his pale features now bleached baby blue by its light.

  "Magnificent, isn't it?" Nimrod had to shout. Rad realised that the buzzing sound wasn't just in his head, it was in the air, halfway between a hurricane and a swarm of bees. Nimrod pointed at the Fissure, as if it wasn't the most obvious and awe-inspiring sight that Rad had ever, ever, ever seen.

  Nimrod smiled in the blue light. "Any chance I get, any excuse to see it with my own eyes."

  Rad licked his lips. "Very impressive." Keeping one eye on the Fissure, and one on his companion, he said: "You sure it's safe?"

  Nimrod nodded vigorously. Rad could see the whiskers of his moustache bristling in the invisible wind emanating from the crack in the universe.

  "It will be uncomfortable, so be prepared, but it will be safe. The influence of the Fissure actually spreads for many miles around, and we have other, more convenient methods of harnessing its properties and effecting a transfer between the Origin and the Pocket – travel via mirrors, as I said – but direct transit via the Fissure is possibly the easiest to understand. You go in here," he pointed at the Fissure again. "And you come out again there."

  Rad shook himself, and rolled his shoulders. He took a series of long, deep and easy breaths. Maybe when he came back he wouldn't need the mask. Maybe he'd acclimatised to the Origin. Then it occurred to him that if he had adjusted to New York, would that mean he was now incompatible with his own dimension? He dismissed the idea from his mind. Home was home.

  "Ready when you are, chief." Rad hopped up and down like a champion sprinter waiting for the call to get ready.

  Nimrod held his finger up like a school teacher. The smiles had gone, and his white eyebrows curved downwards to nearly meet in the middle as he frowned.

  "Find the Skyguard. Find the Science Pirate. Stop them. The Battery must not be shut down. One side of the Fissure depends upon the other. Close it and the Empire State goes." He clapped his hands to emphasise the point; the sharpness of the sound made Rad jump. "And New York goes with it."

  Rad looked over his shoulder. Grieves and Jones were loitering at the bottom of the stairs, idly chatting to an MP.

  "They not coming?"

  Nimrod shook his head. "As vital as your task is I have the upmost confidence in your ability. Unfortunately, as I said earlier, I cannot place my agents in the Pocket for the time required. But we will be watching, Mr Bradley, have no fear."

  Rad nodded smartly.

  "Captain Nimrod, always a pleasure." Rad made a casual salute.

  Nimrod laughed as he clasped Rad by the forearm and shook his free hand vigorously.

  "Good luck, old man. Until we meet again."

  Rad winked, and held his breath, and ran towards the blue inferno before them.

  There was a cracking sound like a peal of thunder underwater, and Nimrod was alone on the platform.

  ii

  9th AUGUST, YEAR 1

  IT WAS AMAZING HOW DIFFERENT the city was at night, how a city so familiar, a city you had been born in, grown up in, could suddenly become so different, so strange and weird. So foreign.

  New York City. Population: nearly seven million. Area: almost three hundred square miles. Population density: over twenty-three thousand per square mile.

  The Skyguard considered this as he took another wrong turn, into another blind, vacant lot sandwiched between office blocks.


  The edges of his vision clouded with mist again and he tilted the front of his helmet up, wiping the condensation off the inside of the mask. His suit's systems had gone down when the Science Pirate had ploughed them both into the ground, but it was too risky to remove the helmet. New York City was a busy place, even late at night, and he had a secret identity to maintain. And with no rocket boots to jet into the sky, he was stuck with travelling on foot. He couldn't ditch the suit completely and come back for it later either, it was too valuable to stash in a trash can for later collection. God knew what the damage was. The Skyguard hoped he could put it back together again. He had contacts, friends with the necessary skills. He could do it, given time. He presumed the Science Pirate had been the lucky one, as there had been no sign of her when he climbed out of the crater.

  In fact, he hadn't really seen that many people at all. With no power in his suit, he didn't actually know the time, but it was still night and it was still raining. How long he'd lain unconscious at the bottom of the smoking hole he could only guess. Maybe a couple of hours, maximum, but then all those people and all those police wouldn't just have left him there, would they? Or did the Science Pirate scare them off? Or worse?