Adam Christopher - The Age Atomic

“You keeping us here forever?”

The robot released the tray and faced the detective, but made no sound.

“Tell the King I want to see him,” said Rad. The robot didn’t move but Rad ignored it, taking the pitcher of water from the tray and pouring himself a glass. The liquid was cool and refreshing, and just reminded Rad how hot it was in the underground workshop.

The Corsair jerked into life, taking one of the small vessels of green liquid and a long pipette from the tray. Filling the pipette, it moved to Kane. Rad backed away, clutching his own drink tightly.

“What is that stuff anyway?” Rad asked. The robot ignored him.

Kane opened his mouth and closed his eyes as the Corsair gently lowered the end of the pipette onto Kane’s tongue and squeezed the rubber bulb between two fingers. Kane seemed to stiffen as the medicine was dispensed, and Rad could smell the tang of battery acid.

“How’s it taste?” he asked Kane. Kane grimaced like he’d just taken a shot of something strong from under the counter of the cheapest dive in town.

“Pretty smooth,” he gasped. “Could do with a little more tonic.” He laughed, and quickly his laugh turned into a dry cough. He turned his head, and thick green saliva ran down his face from the corner of his mouth.

“You’re in a bad way, buddy,” said Rad. He looked at the tray, eyeing the second tiny bottle of green liquid. “Hey, Jeeves, you think I’m taking that and you’ve got another thing coming to you real quick.”

“Detective, you are indeed fighting fit, fighting it!”

Rad turned to find the King of 125th Street standing in the doorway of the workshop, hands deep in the pockets of his jacket.

“Your majesty,” said Rad, watching the King enter. “I got a feeling you’re starting to believe your own legend.”

The King smiled at Rad, but it was an expression devoid of any warmth or emotion; it was just his face making a shape. The Corsair stood to attention and the King nodded.

“That will be all. You may leave the tray.” The robot did not acknowledge the order, but left.

The King walked around the detective until he was at the head of Kane’s machine. He stood between Kane and the other machine, and looked between them. Rad glanced at the robot head that was sticking out of the other box, and starting thinking certain things about why the Corsair had brought two bottles of the green medicine.

Now was his chance, but Rad paused. Get out of here? How could they? Kane was injured or ill or both, and clearly in no shape to move either way. He needed to find Jennifer, and fast. Knocking the King over the head wasn’t going to help much.

“Mr Fortuna cannot leave here, Rad,” said the King, as though reading his mind. At this Kane craned his head to look at his captor. Then he looked at Rad, his big eyes wide and wet, his expression fearful. Rad wondered what the machine was hiding.

Rad sighed. “How bad is he? Can we get him out of this… this machine?” Rad waved his hand at it.

“Kane cannot sustain his own vital functions,” said the King. “When I picked him up out there, in a dark alley in Harlem, he was dying. I got him here just in time. I had these machines built in case I ever encountered refugees who needed a more complete life support than most as I operated on them, turning them from machine back to man. I hadn’t used them yet. Kane was my test case.”

Rad stepped forward, eying the long, green box. It looked like nothing more than a large coffin, the curved upper surface a series of plates, riveted together like the hull of an airship. Looking closely, he could see one horizontal seam was not sealed. The box had a lid.

“So Kane is stuck in this forever? Like someone with polio?”

The King nodded, then moved to the other machine. He took the robotic head and held it between his hands. “Close enough. In order for Kane to be released, I will have to reverse the procedure. My plan was to help the robots of the city become men again. For Kane, it will be the opposite — to survive, he needs replacement parts.”

Rad and Kane exchanged a look.

“Seems like you’ve been doing that already,” said Rad. The King smiled sweetly but his attention was on the robot in the other machine.

“Look, your majesty, we’ve got a problem here. You gotta see it from our point of view. You’ve locked us up, and one of us has gone missing. It all worries me just a little. You got robots outside, you got quite the setup in here, and all the while the Empire State — the whole damn city — is dying. Turning the Ironclad crews back into people is a fine endeavor, don’t get me wrong, and maybe if we can work this out then the Empire State can help you out with that. But all this isn’t going to mean a damn when we’re solid blocks of ice.”

The King looked up. Rad ran a finger around the collar of his shirt. The King must have been cooking inside his blue velvet suit, but the skin of his face was pale and dry.

“Unless,” said Rad, lowering himself back onto the stool, “you turn everyone into a robot. Then the cold won’t matter. I really hope I’ve got you wrong on that, your majesty.”

The King pursed his lips. He let go of the robot’s head and turned towards the other door, that one that was hot, the one that led deeper into the theater.

“It’s time to show you something, Mr Bradley. Come.”

Rad had braced himself for more heat, but the corridor beyond the green door was cooler than the workshop. Rad began to roll the sleeves of his shirt back down.

“I’m afraid to say that the winter of the Empire State is my doing,” said the King, without pausing in his march down the corridor. Rad stopped, one shirtsleeve rolled, the other halfway done. He stood, frozen in the corridor, thinking about the heat and about Kane and about the fact that he hadn’t been to the bathroom in a while and kinda needed to go, and whether or not the King had really said what he thought.

“Excuse me?”

The King stopped ahead, at another door — one in heavy blackish metal, reinforced with bars — and turned on his heel.

“Mr Fortuna is important, detective.”

“Ah, well, yeah, he is. I’m sorry, I-”

“No, detective. Kane is important to everything . To you, to me, to the city, to the Empire State, and to New York. He is integral .”

Rad sniffed. “That a fact?”

“It is a fact, yes,” said the King. “And to save him, I had to make a choice — the city, or the man. And it had to be the man, of course.”

“Of course.” Rad vaguely remembered the old saying that a madman should be humored, and he wondered whether this was actually wise advice. He was alone with the King, who was both older and smaller than him. The King’s robotic servant hadn’t followed them and, Rad thought, maybe there was a chance the workshop door was still open. So really, all he had to do was stick his fist in the King’s face and hightail it back down the corridor, flip the lid on Kane’s machine, and they’d be gone.

Assuming the King was lying about Kane, of course. Assuming Jennifer was still alive, somewhere. What Rad really hoped was that Special Agent Jones had gotten out and was heading back now, even as he and King walked down the underground passage, bringing with her that army of agents he knew the Empire State Building had at its disposal.

If only Carson were here.

Rad coughed. If only a lot of things.

“So to save Kane Fortuna, I created my masterpiece, my piece de resistance .”

The King extracted a set of keys on a large black ring from the pocket of his jacket and unlocked the door. Beyond was a light, white and blue, that waxed and waned and seemed to lick at the air like smoke and flame. A light that made Rad’s head hurt, that started up a buzzing, a vibration behind his eyeballs.