Adam Christopher - The Age Atomic

“I was aiming for the big group,” she said, and then: “Shit.”

The robots took a step forward. Maybe their timing was coincidental, or maybe they all spoke to one another by radio. Maybe there was a whole conversation, a debate, raging in the air around them.

Rad’s free hand found his coat pocket and he gripped the little metal rod. He wondered if it was valuable to the robots like it was valuable to the King.

Rad held his breath. The robots stepped forward again. Then there was a roar.

Rad felt his body brace itself. The robots in front of him were lit with a bright green light, and Rad’s and Jennifer’s shadows stretched out long before them. The roaring grew with the sound of screeching, the sound of fast wheels skidding on the slick road.

Rad leapt to one side, dragging Jennifer down with him. The air was filled with the hot smell of gasoline and rubber, and as Rad hit the deck and he slid on the ice, he got another face full of Jennifer’s fur hat.

Rad blinked, his ears ringing, and looked up.

The car was long and low, the chassis rounded like a teardrop. It was entirely black, polished to a grand piano’s mirror-like finish. Two tiny windows peered out from above the expansive hood, which curved gracefully down to two headlights, blazing green, mounted deep within the bodywork. The car shook as its engine revved, flames licking from the rear exhaust.

The suicide door opened wide, exposing both the front and rear seats. The driver sat, impassively, hands on the wheel. He turned to look at Rad with circular glass eyes set into a flat metal face. He was covered in a mass of black fur.

The driver pumped the accelerator and flicked the edge of his thick fur coat off the passenger seat next to him.

Jennifer pushed herself off Rad and Rad started to yell at her, tried to grab her arm, but she was too quick. She made for the car, the driver waving her in.

The man had driven the car straight through the crowd of robots, spilling them like skittles. They rolled on the street, unable to gain a foothold on the black ice. But the robots that had backed away from the thundering car and remained upright were now slowly creeping forward.

The man pumped the accelerator again. Jennifer had slid into the front and was pulling the door closed already. The robots started to move more quickly.

Rad dived headfirst into the car’s backseat, and rolled against the leather as the driver pushed the pedal to the floor.

The vehicle’s roar was even louder inside. Rad closed his eyes and pulled his feet in as the door swung back against its hinges.

The door slammed shut, and Rad opened his eyes. Jennifer was twisted around in the front seat, watching him. He gave a nod and she laughed and turned to their savior. From Rad’s position lying on the backseat, all he could see was a ridiculous amount of fur and the back of the man’s… mask? Helmet? Or was the driver yet another robot?

Rad righted himself in the back of the car.

The driver pointed ahead. They were driving fast but in a straight line, towards the giant black building. Rad heard Jennifer gasp and pulled himself forward to see out the tiny windows.

Almost on cue, a green light came on at the top of the building.

The driver changed gear, the car lurching as it sped up, throwing Rad against the leather. In the front he saw Jennifer lean forward to peer out of the narrow windshield, looking up at the building ahead of them.

“Welcome to 125th Street,” she said.

Nimrod stepped into the elevator, surrounded by expensive walnut panels and men in suits. He glanced up, as he always did when he entered the main elevator of the Chrysler Building, and admired the silver mirrored Art Deco sunburst design on the ceiling. He looked at his own reflection, twisted by the design of the mirror, and took a deep breath, trying to remove the fear, uncertainty, and doubt from his face.

It had been only a short walk from the Empire State Building, where his own Department was hidden on the middle levels behind a company nameplate that said Tisiphone Realty — apparently nothing more than a upmarket, private real estate firm that handled the kinds of accounts that came from countries rich in oil, with clients who liked to vacuum up little parcels of the United States without much fanfare. That the other department should be secreted in another famous New York landmark seemed appropriate, although their particular choice of office was unusual.

Atoms for Peace, founded by President Dwight D. Eisenhower. An olive branch offering of scientific cooperation and endeavor that stretched out across even the Iron Curtain. But in reality, a secret government department, an initiative to research technologies “acquired” from the Empire State, with the aim of building a defense against… well, Nimrod wasn’t entirely clear on that point and neither, it seemed, was Eisenhower. Granting Atoms for Peace carte blanche had only turned the new organization into the blackest of secret government agencies.

That they were tasked with handling research related to the Fissure and beyond was what bothered Nimrod. The Fissure was, well, it was his. He knew more about it than anyone else, in this dimension anyway.

He didn’t like Atoms for Peace, and he knew the feeling was mutual.

From the offices of Tisiphone Realty, Nimrod could see the Chrysler Building. He stood at the window often, watching. He wondered if the Director of Atoms for Peace, the remarkable Ms Evelyn McHale, did the same from the Cloud Club, the former cocktail lounge at the top of the Chrysler Building that Atoms for Peace had co-opted into their headquarters. He didn’t really think she did; from what he’d heard, Ms McHale had something of a phobia when it came to the Empire State Building. Perhaps that was part of the problem she had with him, and the Department.

Nimrod glanced at the men around him. There were five agents — two standing behind, one posted on his left and one on his right, and one in front. They each wore a black suit; each had a narrow black tie against a starched white shirt. Each wore a hat, black, of course. They were not Secret Service, but they did a fairly good impression. They were certainly better dressed than his own agents, but then his own agents had to melt into the general populace. Atoms for Peace were different. Their agents rarely made public appearances.

Nimrod wondered what his escort was for, exactly. The agents certainly weren’t for his protection (not inside their own headquarters) and they certainly weren’t for hers . The agents who stood around him in the elevator — and Nimrod, too — were nothing but insects to her, as was every other human who inhabited the city, inhabited the whole country.

Nimrod stroked his mustache in thought and the elevator glided to a halt, a bell announcing their arrival.

The doors slid apart, revealing an elegant lobby swathed in maroon carpet, the walls heavy with more of the walnut paneling. The lead agent stepped forward, Nimrod following and finding himself ankle-deep in the carpet pile. He heard the other agents’ feet swoosh as they walked behind him.

Opposite the elevator, across the lobby, was a large set of double doors, the bottom third of which were more of the beautiful walnut. The upper two thirds were frosted glass panels, acid-etched with sunburst rays and other geometric shapes. To a casual eye, they looked like just more of the Art Deco theme that filled the entire building. To Nimrod, the designs were a little off, a modern copy somehow altered.

Captain Nimrod glanced to the agent on his right, and saw the man was sweating inside his elegant suit. Nimrod smiled to himself. They were afraid. Nimrod was too — how could you not be, when you were about to have an audience with the ghost of a woman who had appeared as a glowing blue terror after the Fissure had almost been destroyed eighteen months ago, her phantom somehow expelled from the shadowlands between dimensions, granted with the appalling power to see and to interfere with the universe on a subatomic level.