The King shook his head. “It is for your own good, Mr Bradley. The robots will kill you for sure. You must remain here.”
The Corsair pulled Rad closer and shoved a handful of cotton wool in his face. Rad gasped as the unmistakable sickly sweet stench of chloroform assaulted his senses. He held his breath, but he knew that was no defense.
“Lock him up with Kane,” said the King, his voice a hundred thousand million miles away. Rad’s lungs were on fire. He released his breath, inhaled deeply, and the last thing he saw was the Corsair’s oddly familiar black metal face spinning in his vision.
SEVENTEEN
Nimrod watched the floor indicator lights as the elevator carried him up the spine of the Empire State Building. There was no polished walnut here, no mirrors or brushed Art Deco steel. The elevator was a service one, spare and functional. It did the same job.
He had walked the few blocks from the Chrysler Building to his own, enjoying a clear, if cold, day. The agents from Atoms for Peace who trailed him from the Chrysler Building didn’t make much of an effort at disguising their movements as they followed him from one block to the next.
Nimrod frowned. Atoms for Peace putting agents on his trail did not surprise him, but it did worry him. It wasn’t personal. No, it was the position, the job they were watching. He was a threat. He was protector of New York City in many ways and custodian of the Fissure. His position meant, in theory, he was the custodian of her, because she was part of it, an unliving, unbreathing embodiment of the Fissure itself.
Nimrod chuckled. That was a fudge, of course, something similar to what the President had been told. She was a quantum copy of a woman who had died long ago, who had somehow been caught in the gap between the universes by physics so far beyond the comprehension of mortal men.
Atoms for Peace. Nimrod felt uneasy. Evelyn McHale had appeared only a few short months ago, and the whole operation was so new but wielded such power with a certain branch of the establishment in Washington, the kind of people who worried Nimrod, those who thought that America was under attack not from the Soviets or Castro or China, but from within, by intellectuals and artists and people who liked to ask questions.
Nimrod certainly included himself in that last group. The country was still reeling from the televised hearings led by that Senator McCarthy, and while Nimrod suspected the Senator’s influence was on the decline, there was no doubt that people were still afraid of the Red Menace.
The elevator indicator continued its slow curve to the right.
The Red Menace. Maybe he’d be labeled as a Communist. That would make it easy for Atoms for Peace to move in and disestablish his department. He wondered what their Director thought, if she was even still capable of comprehending the politics of the situation. To her it would be like understanding the politics of a termite colony.
Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad. Maybe he could resign, pass the torch and they’d leave him alone.
Alone.
That was the real fear, wasn’t it? To be surplus to requirements, cast aside, to be alone.
Nimrod rolled his most recent conversation around in his mind. She had said they were preparing for war. War against the Empire State.
It was impossible, of course. Inconceivable.
And yet… the other side of the Fissure was closed. Something was happening in the Pocket universe. Clearly something bad. And, despite her vague suggestion that he would be involved, only Evelyn knew the truth. The future.
Nimrod had to know. He didn’t trust Evelyn — how could anyone? She wasn’t even human, not any more. And, as far as he was concerned, his own position was still pre-eminent: he was custodian of the Fissure, his department the overseers of the tether between the Origin and the Pocket. And, therefore, the first line of defense for both.
The elevator pinged and the doors rolled open. Nimrod exited, and quietly strolled through the lobby of his floor, past the little lounge and the agent stationed on duty who sat flipping through magazines, disguised as someone patiently waiting for an appointment. Nimrod knocked on the door of Tisiphone Realty, spoke the password, and was allowed entrance.
Nimrod paused, surveying the office before him. Agents and staffers were going about their usual business.
“Mr Grieves?”
At Nimrod’s call, the lead agent appeared from behind a pillar, drained his coffee, and marched towards his superior.
“Sir.”
Nimrod paused. Was this the right course of action? What was the threat, and where did it come from?
Was it from the Empire State? Or was it from the Chrysler Building?
Mr Grieves shifted his weight. “Sir?”
Nimrod brushed his mustache. The decision was made. “Call in all agents, Mr Grieves. This department is now on high alert. We must secure the Fissure at once.”
Mr Grieves nodded. He turned, then paused and turned back to Nimrod. “Have Atoms for Peace issued a warning, sir? What’s the threat?”
Nimrod sighed, and shook his head. “There was a warning, agent, yes. But I fear the threat comes from the Cloud Club itself.”
Grieves’s eyes went wide. Then he nodded and walked away, beginning to issue orders.
Nimrod watched his office spring to life, wondering again whether he was concerned about a threat to this world or the other, or for his own survival.
EIGHTEEN
Doctor X had not been let out of the laboratory complex in as long as he could remember. He had free run of the main lab and his cell-like quarters, and everything in between, which included storage rooms, a kitchen, bathroom, communal toilet, and a large common room, the latter two of which were really only used by him and Laura. But the corridor that led from the main lab to his quarters ended at a large green door with an arched top. It was locked, of course. He’d never seen it open, but he was aware of its presence, its potential. It was there in the morning, closed, solid, unmoving. It was there in the evening, in the same state. He’d begun to find it reassuring, strangely — maybe it was the fact it was green, as green as the grass that he hadn’t seen for months. It was a doorway to another world.
He’d asked Laura about other places; she came from somewhere called California. But the distance, the scale she had described, made his mind spin, made the buzz saw vibration behind his eyes return. He had acclimated to the Origin universe, but occasionally the world around him liked to remind the good doctor that he was a visitor here.
In fact, he was a prisoner — and a dangerous man, according to the President. Doctor X had even met him once, when he came to open the facility. The ceremony had been secret; only the President and a dozen uniformed men even knew that there was more to Atoms for Peace than just a speech given to the United Nations General Assembly. The President, introduced to Doctor X as Dwight D. Eisenhower, had been one of those uniformed men too, once. That explained it, in a way; it explained Atoms for Peace, the way the President had looked at the equipment, the way he held himself when the Director glided around, explaining their set-up, the reason why he had employed the extraordinary for his secret purpose. He’d kept a distance like Doctor X was electric, like he was dangerous.
But it wasn’t him that was dangerous. It was the machine, the Project, the thing in the cage that they needed to be worried about. He hoped they knew that, all of them. The Project was a wonderful and deadly thing.
“Well now, look who’s back!” said the voice from the cage. “So, you live to fight another day, eh, bud?”
Doctor X ignored the Project as he walked into the laboratory. It was late, and Laura had already left. Just today she’d made a minor alteration that allowed the latest test fusor reactor to run for nearly three minutes before the overload shut it down. A dramatic improvement, even if three minutes was of as much use as eighteen seconds. If he was honest with himself, it was Laura doing the heavy lifting now.