Adam Christopher - The Age Atomic

“Hey, Corsair,” said Kane, a million miles away. “You got something that belongs to me.”

Hoffman Island, Lower New York Bay. Eleven acres of not much at all: an artificial island, created from landfill back in 1800 and who cares.

General Fulton Hall liked Hoffman Island. He liked the regularity of it, the way it looked like a near-perfect trapezoid on the big map one of his staffers had got out back at base. He also liked the fact that it was artificial, a product of engineering and effort, a symbol, in a small way, of man’s mastery over nature.

General Hall liked that a lot. It was like his job, overseeing military research into the secrets of the atom in the continuing effort to find the biggest bang of them all, the ultimate weapon, the one the Russians would never see coming before it wiped them off the face of the planet. That, too, was man’s mastery of nature. With the power of the atom at their beck and call, Hall knew he was helping keep the United States the most powerful nation of them all.

Hoffman Island, one mile out from South Beach, Staten Island. New York City lay directly behind Hall and his retinue, shivering under the tarpaulin marquee that had been erected in front of the crumbling ruins of the old quarantine station. Hall didn’t think it would have been any warmer inside the concrete shell, and besides, there was a small but not insignificant risk of collapse if the test on Swinburne Island went wrong. The Quonset huts on the other side of the island would have been better, but they didn’t have such a good view.

Hall adjusted his binoculars, fixing them on the smaller but equally artificial island a hair under a mile south of Hoffman. He could see the test rig clearly: a steel pylon looking something like an oil derrick, with an arm coming out at ninety degrees from the top. At the end of the arm, something small, silver; a teardrop shining in the cold New York air. The test device.

He frowned. Conducting an atomic test so close to populated areas — Staten Island, Manhattan just further north — was a damn strange thing, but he’d been assured it was all under control. The whole harbor was cordoned off by warships, all shipping and transport temporarily halted for a “training exercise.” And, well, Swinburne Island wasn’t worth jack shit to anyone and had been left to the birds for years. Nobody was going to miss it.

Everyone was nervous, everyone except Hall, although when he licked his lips and tried to swallow he found his mouth was dry, and the hand that scratched at his cheek shook a little. But that was normal. What was that old saying? If you’re not nervous, you’re doing it wrong? Hall’s frowned turned to a smirk as he lowered the binoculars. This was a test, just like any other, a little demonstration by an associated department of the US military. That’s what the job was all about: pushing the limits, pushing the might of the United States. It was the only way forward, the only way to keep ahead of the game. And boy, the way the world was these days, the United States was the only damn thing between life and death, freedom and liberty or total extinction.

But today was different. Hall wasn’t entirely sure what the demonstration hoped to achieve. Truth was he hadn’t really read the briefing properly, he’d just skimmed it over a cigarette and coffee in bed this morning. Not his bed, either.

Hall grinned to himself and glanced to his left. In front of him, Captain Mary Poole stared out at the rig a mile distant, her brown hair shining as a sliver of light caught it. Hall sniffed, remembering the smell of her hair and wondered whether he could make up another excuse to his wife to stay, as they say, late at the office.

“Sir, ten minutes until test commencement.”

Hall nodded at the adjunct providing the report, but the staffer just nodded in return and didn’t walk away. He kept his eyes on the general, even though Hall was trying to ignore him. The man didn’t move but his lips were quivering.

Hall sighed and wished he had a cigarette. “Spit it out, corporal.”

“Ah, sir,” the man began. “It’s… well…”

“Corporal, you’ll be on duties as yet unimagined by the time we get back to base if you don’t let go of your dick and tell me what the damn problem is.”

At this the corporal came to attention. Hall’s lip curled at the corner. That was better.

“Sir, our guests have yet to arrive. Base reports they haven’t arrived there yet, either. Team needs an A-OK to continue without the VIP.”

Well, wasn’t that typical. A test order arrives with hardly any notice at all from the Department of Defense, with a whole lot of nonsense about a liaison from Atoms for Peace, and then the VIP in question hadn’t even turned up on time.

“Maybe she stopped off at the Statue of Liberty,” said the General.

“Sir?”

Hall shook his head. “The VIP doesn’t arrive at T-minus zero-six we’re closing this circus down. I’ve got better things to do than freeze my fanny in the Lower Bay.”

“Sir,” said the corporal. He slinked away.

Hall glanced around, towards the transport choppers sitting on the other side of the island. He presumed the VIP was coming by helicopter too, but the air was silent. There was no way she was going to arrive in time. He would have a word with the Secretary about this. There was work to be done, important, scare-the-Soviet-shitless work. He didn’t have time for this.

And as for the VIP, well, he wasn’t impressed by the so-called Director of Atoms for Peace. He’d never met her, but she sounded like a right PITA. In all the communications he’d seen that mentioned her, it was always in a strange, almost abstract way, like someone was hiding something. Probably embarrassed some civilian pencil-pusher had managed to land the top job, and a woman at that. If the work of this Atoms for Peace was so important, it should have had some brass in charge, someone from the Pentagon, a man who knew what he was doing. Even the name didn’t gel. Atoms for Peace? Some Commie-appeasing BS from Eisenhower… to think that man had led the US to victory in both Europe and the Pacific less than ten years before, too. Jesus.

Hall went to spit into the grass, but his mouth was dry again. He was going to meet Evelyn McHale and… and he felt nervous. He didn’t like it and he tried to ignore the growing anxiety in his chest. But truth was, he’d heard other things about the Director. Rumors, mostly, tall stories he’d dismissed without a second thought.

Until now.

He coughed and checked his watch.

“OK, show’s over. Pack it up. We can go bird watching some other time.”

“General Fulton Hall?”

The General sucked in a breath and turned. Standing behind him, under the marquee, was a woman in a smart dress suit, hat and veil, like she’d just stepped off Fifth Avenue. Fifth Avenue, 1947, that is.

She was also blue, monochrome behind a glowing aura that made Hall’s eyes vibrate like he was drilling concrete. A glowing blue woman floating six inches from the ground.

Hall remembered the whispers, the stories, and at the back of his mind something broke. His ears were filled with the roaring of the ocean and the memory of his mother.

He coughed again. Around him, his staff were staring at the woman who had not been there and was then there.

“Ma’am?” General Hall’s voice was a dry croak.

The woman glided around the trestle table at the back of the marquee and looked out across the water, oblivious to the reaction of those around her. There, Swinburne Island was a silhouette, the test rig a dark outline against the pale sky.

“Commence countdown,” she said, her voice full of something that made Hall want to cry and leap off a tall building.