Adam Christopher - The Age Atomic

“Sir?”

The man jolted on the bunk, suddenly wide awake. He sat up too quickly, his hand pressing his forehead as the room spun. He waited a moment, then swallowed and glanced at the door to the flight deck. On the control panel in front of the pilot’s seat he could see one of the row of orange lights flashing in time with the tone.

A shadow moved around the flight deck.

“I have located the source,” said the voice.

“A signal? From the city?”

“I believe this is what you have been waiting for, sir.”

The man heart raced as he listened to the tone. He blinked. The signal was… wait, the signal was…

He looked back to the ceiling. “That’s not a regular transmission.”

The shadow moved, but the other voice said nothing.

The man swung himself from his bunk, the end of his wooden leg loud against the floor of the ship. He reached for his walking stick, and went to heave himself to a standing position, but then he paused, head cocked, looking at the floor and listening, listening.

“I recognize it. The signal, it’s-”

“I quite agree,” said the other voice.

The man pulled himself up and stumbled into the cockpit, using the pilot’s chair to kill his momentum as he dropped his walking stick and stared through the main window. Outside the fog was thinning; the lights of the city were faintly visible as a multicolored smudge of twinkling stars. The frame of the bridge was barely there, a smudge dissolving into the orangey-grey world.

The man gripped the top of the pilot’s seat and licked his lips. He was alone in the cockpit. He was alone in the entire ship.

He allowed himself a small smile.

“It’s him, isn’t it?”

There was a pause, and then a second voice sounded from somewhere behind him. “I believe so.”

“So, he found his way back.”

“As you once predicted, sir. The arc of his transit returned him to the Empire State.”

The man nodded. “Like a comet in orbit around the sun.” Then he laughed, and swung himself around into the pilot’s seat. He smoothed down his mustache and beard, and glanced across the controls with his one good eye. He frowned, and lifted the eye patch that covered the other, and squinted. Satisfied, he let the eye patch flip back into place, and he clapped his hands and rubbed them together.

“I do believe we shall be in time for tea. Byron?”

“Yes, Captain Carson?”

“Trace the signal, and get a lock on its position. We shall collect them en route to Grand Central.”

“Confirmed. Tether release in five seconds.”

Captain Carson clapped his hands again and laughed. After all this time, they were going home.

It was no good, and Rad knew it.

They’d charged the main group of robots in the car, and Rad was glad that Jennifer was driving because she was unwavering, fearless, as she accelerated and plowed straight into them. The robots had tried to part, to get out of the way as the car hurtled towards them, but there were a lot of them, and several went flying over the long hood of the car, some rolling up over the windshield before sliding down the side. Rad was amazed the car could stand the punishment, but looking down the length of the hood he saw it hadn’t even been scratched.

But the numbers were against them. Jennifer slowed, the car losing momentum and power. The robots still trying to get out of the green headlights that seemed to cause them so much pain were now pushed against the hood, rocking the car.

Jennifer threw the vehicle into reverse, turning to look out the back as she tried to find an exit. Rad turned as well. It didn’t look good.

“We need to head south,” said Kane, lying in the backseat. “Downtown!”

“Tell me something I don’t know,” said Jennifer, expertly threading the car backwards through the closing mass of robots behind them, then swinging back around as they returned to 125th Street. She shifted gears, and without hardly a pause at all, they shot off down the empty street. As they sped onwards, Rad noticed the cone of green light in front of them was off-center: one of the headlamps had been smashed. So, the car wasn’t indestructible after all.

“Dammit.”

Rad looked up. On their left, another group of robots came out of a side alley, another ragtag bunch of shapes and sizes and in varying stages of deconstruction. Jennifer dodged them as they stepped out into the road, but looking back Rad could see more coming out of a street opposite. Perhaps they were attracted to the sound of the car, knowing that it meant the King was out and about, saying hello to his loyal subjects, maybe choosing the lucky ones who would come back to the theater and be saved.

Kane righted himself in the back, and grabbed the top of Rad’s seat to pull himself forward. “They’re coming out of everywhere. How many are there?”

Jennifer kept her eyes on the road, but she shook her head as she drove. “Who knows how many the King had waiting. My guess is Harlem is full of them.”

Rad frowned. “And that’s not counting the warehouses downtown. The King has thousands of robots — a whole army — hidden across the city.”

Jennifer turned her golden face to him, and Rad raised an eyebrow. He could see her eyes through the slots in the mask.

Rad said, “The Harlem robots, they’re the refugees, gathering around the King of 125th Street, waiting for him to get to work, turning them back into people.”

“Yes,” said Jennifer. “Only he isn’t. He’s finishing the job, converting them fully into robots.”

“Then shipping them downtown, putting them in storage-”

“But keeping a few active, like Cliff, to look after them until they’re ready.”

Rad whistled. “And in the meantime, Cliff and the others like him, they’re organized, working to a plan. They pull crimes, stealing equipment, materials, that the King needs to keep working. The robot gangs. Now it makes sense.”

Kane shook his head. “Robot gangs? Sorry, I’ve been out of town.”

Rad grimaced. “Don’t sweat it. We just need to get out of here first.” He turned to Jennifer. “What happened to that gun of yours?”

She glanced over her shoulder, into the backseat. “Actually, it might be in here.”

Kane ducked down. “Bingo,” he said after a moment. Then he bobbed back up and passed the weapon to Rad.

Rad turned it over in his hands. “How do I check the ammo?”

“You don’t,” said Jennifer. “But it should be charged. It’s good for one shot and one shot only, remember?”

“OK,” said Rad, adjusting his grip on the gun, getting used to the awkward weight of it. “Last resort only.” He turned around to Kane. “You remember anything about your dreams?”

Kane sighed and sat back. “A little. There’s a woman, a woman with blue eyes. And movement, lots of movement.”

Jennifer glanced at Rad. “Dreams?”

Rad nodded. “As well as powering the King’s operation, seems the star reporter here can see the future. The King thinks Kane’s dream is about an army invading the Empire State from New York.”

“An army of what?”

“Guess,” said Rad.

Jennifer sighed. “So that’s why the King is building his own force?”

“Got it in one.”

Nobody in the car spoke for a while. The road ahead was clear.

“Agent Jones,” said Rad eventually, “what did the Corsair mean when he said you hadn’t told us?”

Jennifer didn’t say anything.

“You were on the trail of the robot gangs before you called me. What else were you looking for?”

Jennifer shook her head, and then said: “I’m looking for my brother.”

Rad whistled and drew breath to ask the next question when the car slid on the icy road as Jennifer yanked the wheel, hard.