Empire State Read online

  "Too late, Mr Bradley, we are away. Quickly, come up the ladder."

  When Rad returned to the cockpit passageway Grieves was standing, leaning against the grilled wall as he rubbed the back of his neck. He looked up at Rad as the detective approached. Rad saw the agent blink behind his mask.

  "You OK?" Rad asked.

  "Apart from feeling a damn fool, sure."

  Rad patted Grieves on the back. If he was honest, Rad was happier not having Crater on board. The man was unhinged and very dangerous. He might have been the key to the whole mess, but the Enemy airship took top priority.

  "Come on," said Rad, heading towards the cockpit. Grieves followed.

  The Nimrod's bridge was a large compartment, although the only seats were the two positioned in front of the main window for the requisite crew. Byron's expansive frame nearly took up both positions, leaving Carson to lean on the back of the second chair and peer out of the window. Rad followed his gaze.

  "Son of a bitch," he said.

  The breach in the side of the boardroom wall dwarfed the stick-like figure of Crater. He stood on the very lip of the opening, buffeted by the wind.

  Carson and Byron muttered to each other and the airship began to swing in closer, the pair clearly trying to negotiate the craft back in to collect their ex-prisoner. But then the figure was gone. Everyone in the cabin jerked forward for a better view out of the window, but there was nothing to see, no movement, no falling, spinning dot, no body carried on the wind as Crater apparently plunged to the Earth.

  Rad grabbed for Carson's shoulder.

  "Come on, leave him. There's not going to be much left of him to scrape from the sidewalk if he fell."

  Carson looked at him silently. Rad tried to read his face but he'd already learned that the Captain was pretty good at keeping his feelings hidden.

  To Rad, it was obvious. The Fissure was going to close, very soon, and not by any natural means. It hadn't happened yet, hadn't even started to happen, but in the Origin, Nimrod had seen it. The Fissure vibrated space and time in all directions on this side and on the other, and whatever fancy gadgetry Carson's doppelganger had set up, he'd been able to... Rad struggled with the concept. Predict? No, it was not a prediction, it was a certainty. Foreseen? Nimrod, the Science Prophet? No, it wasn't mysticism, even if it was, essentially, looking into the future. Measured. That was it. Nimrod had measured the closing of the Fissure, hours before it had even begun.

  "Airship at five miles, closing. Altitude decreasing, descent accelerating." Byron shifted in the pilot's chair. There was an urgency in his tinny voice that made Rad imagine a furrowed brow, and a mouth downturned with concern inside the helmet. Hell, for all he knew, perhaps that's exactly what was behind the smoked glass.

  Carson met his servant's unseen gaze, then nodded. He sprang up, galvanised into action.

  "Very good. Set course for intercept. We must catch our prey before their speed is too great." He turned to Jones, who was squeezed under a bulkhead at the back of the bridge, the conscious but unhappy-looking Rex firmly in his grasp.

  Rad tried to keep his distance from his double, but it was difficult in the cramped space. Rex made him feel... strange. The thought that Rex was somehow more real than him was nauseating. Rex was violent and cowardly, two aspects of his own character that Rad knew full well he possessed, but that he kept in check, utilising them only for self-preservation in the line of work.

  Huh. His work. His years of experience as a private detective – Rad now knew that the reason he couldn't remember his first case was that he hadn't had a first case. He'd sprung into existence, fully formed, agency in tow, when the reflection of New York had crystallised in the Pocket.

  Rad felt hot bile rise in his throat. He swallowed, and grimaced, and turned his attention to the window. Outside, the city spun as Byron corrected their course. The cloud deck was close by, at this range a deep, powerful orange ceiling just above them. Rad wondered if it was just the reflection of the city lights, or whether the cloud, fog, mist, whatever, possessed orange light of its own.

  Carson said, "Gentlemen, take your prisoner and secure him aft. You should find a suitable compartment, all can be locked from the outside. Return quickly, we will need to be ready." He paused, looking the pair up and down. Grieves seemed to have recovered from Crater's violent escape, although it was hard to tell behind the mask.

  "Are you both armed?" Carson asked.

  Jones flexed his wrist to indicate the fat-barrelled gun, which he had trained on Rex's kidneys. Grieves nodded and patted his left side, under his arm.

  Captain Carson clapped his hands, his moustache bristling over his grin.

  "Capital, gentlemen, capital! Now, quickly. Byron will bring the Nimrod around."

  Jones jabbed Rex in the guts with the gun, but if he was hoping to get a reaction, he was disappointed. Rex moved without any persuasion, ducking under the support girders that laced the ceiling at irregular intervals, and disappeared through the oblong hatchway that led to the main body of the ship. Grieves followed close behind.

  With more room to manoeuvre in the cramped bridge, Byron shifted over in his seat, allowing Carson to slip in beside him into the co-pilot's chair. Rad moved between the two seats and leaned down on his elbows to get a good view out of the window. His leg smarted like all hell when he knocked it against a lever protruding from the floor, but the wound itself had settled into a steady, dull throb. Carson mentioned action, and Rad knew he'd hold up, but – if he survived, if they survived, if the Empire State survived – he'd be sore tomorrow. His breath wheezed a little from his damaged rib. He ignored it. He'd had worse.

  "What's the plan, Captain? Any clue on how to stop the other boat?" Rad lifted his hat and scratched his scalp.

  The Captain tutted, and kept his eyes fixed out the window as he spoke.

  "The airship is the Enemy's equivalent of an ironclad. I assume Kane can't actually fly it, not if it operates on the same symbiotic control as our fleet. The robots are plugged directly into the system, becoming the ironclad in a way. But I suspect it would not be difficult to crash, if he had the know-how. Byron's calculations here show it en route for the Battery."

  Rad whistled low. "A crash landing? That would do the trick. If it's as big as an ironclad. And I think I may know who is giving him the technical help."

  The pair glanced sideways at each other and Carson's eyes flashed. "The Science Pirate," he said with a chuckle. "Nimrod provided a description. Oh, most interesting. Quite the cunning plan. The tools and the expertise."

  "So what are we going to do? Can the police shoot it down?" Rad straightened and looked around the bridge. "Can we shoot it down?"

  "This is not a military or police vessel, Mr Bradley. The Nimrod is an explorer, nothing more. Our only weapon was perhaps the emergency rocket flares, but they were spent creating the hole in the Empire State Building. However, we may have the advantage on the other ship. We are fast, agile. And I suspect the Skyguard will not wish to deviate from his collision course."

  Rad frowned, then clicked his fingers.

  "You mean...?"

  Carson grinned, his wet eyes glinting.

  "Exactly. Prepare to board the Enemy, Mr Bradley! I propose a little aeronautical piracy!"

  THIRTY-EIGHT

  THE AIR WAS COLD and at their speed it was snatched away before he got a chance to take a breath. The shallow, quick gasps he did manage were enough, but they made him giddy. The cold air also stung his eyes, so he had to squint, but that didn't stop them from tearing.

  Crater, AKA the Chairman of the City Commissioners, AKA the Pastor of Lost Souls, lay in the Skyguard's arms, his ears filled with the sound of the rocket boots and his nostrils filled, despite their slipstream, with the thick tang of kerosene. Unable to communicate with his saviour, he looked up at the Skyguard's chin, which jutted outwards like the prow of a ship.

  Crater looked down. The river and dockside spun underneath them, a blur of lights and
reflections, and he could feel the contents of his stomach sloshing to the left and right as the Skyguard sped towards a suitable landing spot. A moment later the rockets roared as the Skyguard braked. When Crater finally managed to open his eyes and scratch away the dried tear tracks, he found they were standing together on an empty street under yellow lights, the Skyguard striking a suitable heroic pose, hands on hips, legs apart. Then again, thought Crater, with all that armour and equipment, perhaps that was just comfortable. He giggled. At the strange, shrill sound the Skyguard tilted his head and gazed at Crater with his shining white eyes.

  "Are our plans affected?"

  Crater's laugh settled into a grin, which he kept for a while as he looked at the Skyguard. Then he seemed to snap out of his reverie, his cheeks dropping the smile in a second.

  "No," he said. "I thank you for the intervention, but I had acquired the necessary information from the returned robot." He held up the push-button signal box, a slightly fatter version of the one on Kane's belt, and flicked the large switch to the "off" position. A faint beeping, inaudible to Crater during their flight but now present at the edge of his hearing, ceased from somewhere inside the Skyguard's helmet. Crater looked up at the night sky. He glanced at the orange-tinted clouds, here and there. The Skyguard followed his gaze, but said nothing.

  "Is the ship ready?" asked Crater.

  The Skyguard lowered his head to look at his employer.

  "Yes. The Science Pirate has locked the controls. I need to return, there are still tasks to perform."

  Crater nodded, slowly at first, then faster and faster until his cheeks and lips flapped with the motion.

  "Good... good. I need to move the final pieces to the board." He glanced around and caught sight of a street sign. They were on the corner of Broadway and Soma. Crater smiled.

  The Skyguard's boots clattered on the sidewalk as he prepared for take-off. But he hesitated. Crater tutted.

  "You have something to say, Mr Fortuna?"

  Kane stepped closer. He'd been working with the Chairman for months, ever since he first made contact with the Skyguard – the real Skyguard – in prison. It was thanks to Crater's efforts that he was allowed such free access to the Empire State's most notorious criminal, and thanks to him that he was able to take the Skyguard's suit from the police vault.

  But standing here, in the warm street at night, as their grand plan unfolded, for the first time the Skyguard wasn't sure about his master. What had happened in the boardroom with the robot? And with Rad and his cronies from the Origin? Their interference was endangering everything.

  Kane decided to start small.

  "Did the robot complete its mission?"

  Crater looked at the Skyguard again, his eyes distant, as if he hadn't been listening – although they were the only two people in the silent street.

  "Oh yes. It is as we suspected. The Enemy is moving to us. They will take the Battery first, and with the Fissure secure, will then take the Empire State. There will be no escape for us if that happens."

  Kane nodded. Crater had promised him a life in the Origin, in New York City. Crater had allowed him to see into the Fissure, just for a moment, just a glimpse of the unimaginably large world beyond, in the Origin. That had been enough. Kane wanted to leave the Empire State more than anything. And that meant destroying the Battery and collapsing the Fissure so he and Crater could enter the Origin and not be taken back.

  The Empire State wasn't real, anyway. It was just an illusion, fake.

  Kane decided to disregard the fact that, by the same logic, the same applied to himself.

  Crater patted Kane on an armoured elbow, then jerked his finger up towards the clouds.

  "Go back to the ship. Make sure all is ready. I will see you in New York, my friend." Head bowed, he walked away, towards Soma Street and the glowing white light at the end of it, just around the bend and out of sight.

  Kane, the Skyguard, watched him for a while, then fired his rockets and shot up into the night.

  Around the street corner, Crater stopped, one hand deep in a trouser pocket. He pulled out the white hood of the Pastor, which he'd managed to slip out of that fool Carson's hand, pulled it on, and headed to the House of Lost Souls.

  THIRTY-NINE

  CARSON HAD BEEN RIGHT, THOUGHT RAD. The other airship, the mysterious hulk from the Enemy, was exactly as he had surmised. It was the airborne equivalent of an Empire State ironclad. Long and rectangular, the vessel looked like it was upside down, with guns, rails, cabins and the equipment of war on the bottom of the thing, hanging downwards in a series of black lumps and bumps silhouetted against the clouds. The bulk of the vessel was the hull itself, which bulged outwards in a series of geometric planes, then tapered inwards, coming together in a sharp crest that ran the length of the airship.

  It was a remarkable sight, even without fine detail yet visible at their distance. Remarkable that something so massive and solid and heavy was able to fly.

  Rad pondered. Did physics have any part to play? If this was, literally, a twisted reflection of the ironclad still quarantined in the harbour below, did it have to be logical? Or did it merely 'exist' purely because it had to, float in the air because that was the opposite, apparently, of how the Empire State ironclads operated.

  As the Nimrod moved closer, Carson reached for the searchlight control and the twin beams were projected out into the night before them. Rad traced the wide, white beams as they lit the misty air up in front of them. A few seconds later the Nimrod was close enough to the Enemy ship for the lights to splash against its side. Carson leaned forward a little and pointed at something.

  "Look, gas lines."

  Rad squinted, but had no idea what the Captain was referring to.

  "Remarkable," Carson continued. "The entire hull must be filled with hydrogen. Although that can't be the only lift. It must have an up-thrust as well."

  That answered Rad's question and another he had been forming in his mind. The ship did obey the laws of physics, it just looked weird. It was not the kind of ship any sane designer would actually draw the blueprints for, or that any shipyard would actually weld together. But it worked. It flew.

  Hydrogen. Rad knew all about that. The gas balloons of the police blimps used to be filled with the light, highly flammable gas. It had only taken two minor disasters for the city to switch to the heavier, but safer, helium. Rad wondered how much of the two gasses even existed in their pocket dimension. Perhaps it didn't matter.

  But if the Enemy airship was filled with hydrogen, it would make quite a bang when it hit the Battery. The size and weight of the thing was enough, Rad had thought, not considering the possibility of giant gas tanks. The mass, plus ammunition, plus fuel, would have been enough to level half the city. Add to that the gigantic hydrogen tank, and nothing was going to survive the impact.

  The Nimrod's front window was wide but very narrow, and with nothing to get a fix on, their target looked like it was hanging motionless in the air. When Rad glanced down at the controls in front of Byron, he saw two dials spinning, one slowly, one so fast it was unreadable.

  "We going down?"

  Carson nodded, but it was the pilot who spoke. "If we are to force a dock we must match speed and course exactly," said Byron impassively, then added: "Projected impact in four minutes."

  Rad gasped, and he was sure he heard Carson suck in a breath of air with somewhat more effort as well.

  "Captain, please tell me you programmed Byron with a sense of humour?"

  Carson stood and swung out of the co-pilot's chair.

  "My friend, I didn't programme Byron with anything, he's as alive as you or I."

  Rad waved a hand impatiently. "Point taken. But I feel I should point out that we're about to hit something very big and very hard in the time it takes to make a sandwich. That thing being the Empire State. You might have heard of it."

  The Captain barked a laugh, just a single expulsion of sound, and clapped his hands. "Then I sugg
est you don't dawdle, detective. Byron?"

  The pilot operated several controls in a quick sequence, causing the Nimrod to shake to high heaven for a few moments before settling. Carson's companion extricated himself from the cramped pilot's position, and through the window Rad saw that the Enemy airship had vanished. He opened his mouth to ask the obvious, but the Captain called out to him even as Carson vanished through the inner hatch.

  "We're locked alongside. We'll cut in through their hull and board. Come on."

  Byron hurried after his master, Rad dashing behind. Each time his left foot made contact with the metal plating of the floor, his calf felt like someone in very heavy, steel-capped boots was giving him a kick, but as the adrenaline began to surge the sensation faded.