Empire State Read online

  Chi McBride. Yes. Loved him all the way back in The Frighteners. Though I admittedly had Rad as a Ving Rhames-ian character, but these days Ving might be getting a little long in the tooth.

  Oh, Ving Rhames! He'd be great! I think he could still play it, too. See, this is the danger when you ask this kind of question. I most definitely "cast" my characters when I write, and I'm sure most readers do the same. But the beauty of fiction is that what I saw in my head while writing is completely and totally different to what you saw when reading. Every single person picking the book up will have a different experience and will conjure their own images (and cast) in their minds. But, hey, that's how it works… and it sure is fun to compare notes. If any casting director is reading this *cough*…

  So. The big question. The corker. Any chance of a sequel? Might there be other Pocket cities? Care to share what you feel might've happened to Rex and Kane there in the Fissure?

  Empire State has a definitive end, but that's not to say the story is over. Carson is now in charge and Rad appears to have come to terms with the rather small universe he inhabits, but how long will that last? Carson wants to explore the edges of his little world in his airship… will he be able to resist attempting a journey beyond the fog, to the lands of the Enemy? And what else is out there? Rex and Kane didn't appear back in New York, and they're not in the Empire State… so where are they? There's a story waiting to be told, I think!

  The Empire State is a reflection of New York created by a very specific, single event, so I don't think there are any more discrete pocket universes. However, the Empire State is an imperfect copy, a degraded, second-generation clone of the original. Beyond the Empire State is the lands of the Enemy, which is itself an even more damaged, degenerated reflection of the Empire State. And so on, and so forth – I think there are endless further reflections, each more broken and dangerous than the last, until finally you probably get nothing but realms of white noise as the signal from the Origin – New York – is finally worn out.

  But if the Enemy is out there, beyond the fog, what lies beyond the Enemy? And further, and further? How far does Carson want to take a look? And if Rex and Kane didn't make it back to either the Pocket or the Origin, did the unstable fissure throw them somewhere further away?

  And if the Pocket is a protrusion of sorts of our universe into another dimension, what was there before? Is there something outside the Pocket? Maybe something that resents the intrusion…

  I like the idea that the Enemy, while being this chaotic, discarnate force, itself a corrupted reflection of data from the Empire State, may develop some kind of intelligence of its own. Perhaps a distillation of the Chairman, the Pastor, the Skyguard, etc, further distorted, further reduced and compressed into something totally evil which leads to the birth of Enemy as a single, sentient figure. A Satanic supervillain in a Sauron-meets-Darth Vader sort of way. And what if the Enemy managed to escape and get out of the Pocket altogether, into New York?

  Huh. Ask me about that sequel again…

  Thanks, Adam, for submitting to this interview! You will, ahem, notice that I've holstered the photon cannon.

  Always a pleasure, Chuck! Now, if you could just untie my hands, there's a good fellow…

  Chuck Wendig is the author of BLACKBIRDS (Angry Robot, May 2012) and its sequel MOCKINGBIRD, as well as the "vampire-in-zombieland" book, DOUBLE DEAD, from Abaddon. You can find his thoughts on the writing life, including interviews with other writers (and another interview with Adam Christopher!) at terribleminds.com.

  THE EMPIRE STATE PLAYLIST

  THE FOLLOWING PLAYLIST is a selection of tracks that were constant companions for me during the writing and editing of Empire State.

  1-2. HANS ZIMMER – We Built Our Own World/Dream is Collapsing

  I suspect the Inception soundtrack is a popular choice for writers, as it goes so well with so many different genres. But if you need to ratchet the tension up, you can't go past the opening two tracks, which I'm going to cheat with and treat as a single piece of music.

  3. THE CURE – Burn

  The Cure are my favourite band and their contribution to 1996's The Crow soundtrack is perfect for Empire State. It's dark, and terribly atmospheric, and is all about standing around in the dark waiting for the world to end.

  4. LADYTRON – Mirage

  I had Ladytron's album Gravity the Seducer on almost constant loop while doing the copyedits. Like the Cure's track, Mirage fits perfectly, both musically and lyrically.

  5. PIXIES – Crackity Jones

  The first of three Pixies tracks. As with the Cure, I've been listening to these indie legends for more than 20 years now. One of Nimrod's agents takes his name from this song.

  6. THE BRIAN JONESTOWN MASSACRE – Golden-Frost

  There's an element of chaos to Empire State, with the corruption of data from the Origin to the Pocket, not to mention what must be going through Rad's mind as he learns about the nature of his home and of himself. Golden-Frost represents that well, being loose, urgent, with lyrics you can't even understand.

  7. PRINCE – Electric Chair

  My favourite track off the 1989 Batman soundtrack – how could I resist? A song about crime and punishment and internal struggle.

  8. PIXIES – Mr Grieves

  The second Pixies track, from which you will recognise Agent Grieves.

  9. BRITISH SEA POWER – No Lucifer

  Ah, the beauty of misheard lyrics. Captain Carson does not appear in this song. A Carlton Corsair bicycle does. I'll get me coat.

  10. THE DANDY WARHOLS – Good Morning

  Empire State happens mostly at night, in the rain – the brief moments of daylight that do appear seem to be a blessed relief for poor Rad. If the book was to be made into a film, this track from the Dandy's 1997 album Come Down would play over Rad climbing the hill behind Carson's house to enjoy the early morning view.

  11. PIXIES – Nimrod's Son

  The last Pixies song – this one has explicit lyrics, so have a care, as Captain Carson would say. Or should that be Captain Nimrod?

  12. BLACK REBEL MOTORCYLE CLUB – Salvation

  The Pastor of Lost Souls may be a villain, driven to insanity by… well, I'll have to make sure you've read the book before I tell you the answer to that one! But that doesn't necessarily make him evil. There are a lot of people in the Empire State looking for answers… perhaps they just fell in with the wrong man in their search.

  You can find links to the Empire State playlist on Spotify and iTunes at adamchristopher.co.uk

  INTRODUCING… WORLD BUILDER

  EMPIRE STATE IS A story of private detectives, of superheroics, of fringe science, of Prohibition, of two worlds' fight for survival. Are you a fan writer, or fan artist? Do you write prose, poetry, songs, plays or comic books? Do you sculpt, paint, draw, whittle or build? Do you create? We're inviting you to delve into the world of Empire State and create your own works to expand the universe of the book.

  Welcome to WorldBuilder.

  THE WORLDS OF EMPIRE STATE

  Empire State features four separate, but connected, "realms": Prohibition-era New York around 1930; the Empire State, a twisted reflection of the same that exists within a pocket universe; New York circa 1950; and the lands beyond the fog, the domain of the Enemy.

  New York, 1930

  The Great Depression has hit, and Prohibition still has another three years left to run. The world is pretty much as we know it, with all the gang warfare, corruption and bootlegging that existed in our own history. An age of pulp fiction, where private detectives creep the shadows in fedoras and trenchcoats. An age of jazz music and Art Deco.

  Except this New York is home to two superheroes, the Skyguard and the Science Pirate. Former independent – if officially sanctioned – protectors of New York, by the beginning of the new decade they had turned on each other, abandoning their duties as they fought their own personal battle.

  This is the end of the so-called "Golden
Age" of superheroes, as the last two left slug it out in the skies over Manhattan. Back in the day there were many like them, working individually and in teams all over the United States. Some, like the Skyguard and Science Pirate, were powered by science and technology. Some had strange powers gifted to them by magic and the occult. Some were just born different. Some were friends… and some enemies.

  The Empire State

  The Empire State is a twisted, degraded copy of Manhattan, projected into a pocket dimension through a hole in our universe torn open during the final great showdown between the Skyguard and the Science Pirate. The Empire State corresponds geographically to the island of Manhattan, and is filled with the same buildings, chief of which is the Empire State Building. This is the Empire State's seat of government, where the Chairman and his City Commissioners rule the city from their boardroom on the 101st floor.

  The city's population is smaller than that of Manhattan, and consists of people brought into being with the city itself, or those pulled across from the Origin. The hooded Pastor of Lost Souls seeks these people out – or those who feel there is something not quite right about their world – building his own private army of brainwashed zealots.

  The Empire State is surrounded by water, which is itself bounded by thick fog banks which never clear. Sometimes people hear things, or see lights out there, beyond the water, but you don't often see these people again. The city is a totalitarian state, with a curfew, a strict Prohibition which extends beyond alcohol to include tobacco as well, and food rationing. These measures are needed because the Empire State is at war with the Enemy.

  The Enemy lies beyond the fog, and the Empire State prides itself on taking the fight to them, sending great battleships called ironclads off into the fog twice a year, on Fleet Day. These are days of great celebration and tickertape parades, as the robotic crews of the ironclads march through the city to the docks, where they board their ships. And are never seen again.

  The technology of the Empire State is somewhat more advanced than that of the real world. In the nineteen years that have passed since the city blinked into existence, advances in robotics and cybernetic technology have allowed the City Commissioners to use their citizenry for the war effort, taking volunteers and converting them into cyborg warriors. Captain Carson, an eccentric old man who lives in a very large house in the Upper East Side, may have had something to do with these advances.

  New York, 1950

  Just like in our history, the US of the 1950s is enjoying the post-war boom. The space race is about to begin, while the country is gripped by McCarthyism and the threat of the Red Menace. In New York, Captain Nimrod runs his own mysterious agency within the US Department of State, charged with investigating and protecting the Fissure, the portal connecting the Origin (New York) to the Pocket (the Empire State). A former explorer and scientific genius, his work with the Fissure has enabled travel between the two dimensions via mirrors as well as via the Fissure itself, although both are expensive and the latter a little too dangerous.

  The Domain of the Enemy

  Beyond the fog lies an unknown land, where the city of the Enemy sits on an island, a further reflection of the Empire State. As the data flows from the Origin to the Pocket, so it degrades the further out it travels and the more it is reflected through an infinite series of portals. The land of the Enemy is therefore a dark, dangerous, primal construct where the laws of physics don't always apply. The city itself is possibly selfaware in a primitive gestalt way, populated by mindless automata. As the Enemy is a twisted reflection of the Empire State, everything that happens in the latter is duplicated, but in different ways – the Enemy prepares its own fleet of ironclads, matching one-for-one the fleets sent by the Empire State. But the Enemy ironclads sail, impossibly, through the air.

  The domain of the Enemy is not a place you'd want to visit, nor a place you would want to find yourself trapped in.

  And if the Enemy is a reflection of the Empire State, is the Enemy itself reflected again? What horrifying realm of dust and darkness exists beyond its borders?

  SOME BASIC RULES

  You can create works set in and around any (or all) of the different realms. There is scope for almost any kind of fiction you can imagine – science and speculative fiction (but not space opera), fantasy and magic (but not swords and sorcery), even detective noir and pulpy crime.

  You are welcome to use any of the characters that appear in Empire State itself, but don't use them in anything set concurrently with the novel, or set afterwards. The former will tangle the narrative of the book, and for the latter, well, I might want to write a sequel one day and I want to avoid being influenced by any work set after the end of the story. You are free to use your own characters within the world of Empire State in any time period – before, during or after.

  While the WorldBuilder is open to any kind of creative endeavour, there is one important exception: you may not create any direct narrative adaptation of the novel, or identifiable scenes within the novel. This means that, while you are free to create film, comics, etc, these should be your own stories, and not – for example – a filmed version of the book, or of scenes within the book. The same goes with audio – you can write your own stories and record them, but not simply read from the book or create an audio adaptation or performance of any part of Empire State. While we are authorising fan-created content to be created under a Creative Commons AttributionNonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License, Empire State the novel is copyrighted material, not public domain nor shared under any Creative Commons license or agreement.

  For more information on how to join the WorldBuilder and start adding to the Empire State universe, visit

  empirestate.cc

  worldbuilderonline.com

  ANGRY ROBOT

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  54-56 High Pavement,

  Nottingham,

  NG1 1HW, UK

  www.angryrobotbooks.com

  There's more than one of everything

  Copyright © Adam Christopher 2012

  Adam Christopher asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

  A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

  ISBN: 978-0-85766-192-0

  EBook ISBN: 978-0-85766-194-4

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers.

  This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the publisher's prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author's imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

  Table of Contents

  Cover Page

  Empire State

  AUTHOR'S NOTE

  PART ONE

  ONE

  TWO

  THREE

  PART TWO

  FOUR

  FIVE

  SIX

  SEVEN

  EIGHT

  NINE

  TEN

  ELEVEN

  TWELVE

  THIRTEEN

  FOURTEEN

  FIFTEEN

  SIXTEEN

  SEVENTEEN

  EIGHTEEN

  NINETEEN

  TWENTY

  TWENTY-ONE

  TWENTY-TWO

  TWENTY-THREE