Empire State (30 page)

  Nimrod laughed as he clasped Rad by the forearm and shook his free hand vigorously.

  "Good luck, old man. Until we meet again."

  Rad winked, and held his breath, and ran towards the blue inferno before them.

 

There was a cracking sound like a peal of thunder underwater, and Nimrod was alone on the platform.

 
 

 

 
 

IT WAS AMAZING HOW DIFFERENT the city was at night, how a city so familiar, a city you had been born in, grown up in, could suddenly become so different, so strange and weird. So foreign.

  New York City. Population: nearly seven million. Area: almost three hundred square miles. Population density: over twenty-three thousand per square mile.

  The Skyguard considered this as he took another wrong turn, into another blind, vacant lot sandwiched between office blocks.

  The edges of his vision clouded with mist again and he tilted the front of his helmet up, wiping the condensation off the inside of the mask. His suit's systems had gone down when the Science Pirate had ploughed them both into the ground, but it was too risky to remove the helmet. New York City was a busy place, even late at night, and he had a secret identity to maintain. And with no rocket boots to jet into the sky, he was stuck with travelling on foot. He couldn't ditch the suit completely and come back for it later either, it was too valuable to stash in a trash can for later collection. God knew what the damage was. The Skyguard hoped he could put it back together again. He had contacts, friends with the necessary skills. He could do it, given time. He presumed the Science Pirate had been the lucky one, as there had been no sign of her when he climbed out of the crater.

  In fact, he hadn't really seen that many people at all. With no power in his suit, he didn't actually know the time, but it was still night and it was still raining. How long he'd lain unconscious at the bottom of the smoking hole he could only guess. Maybe a couple of hours, maximum, but then all those people and all those police wouldn't just have left him there, would they? Or did the Science Pirate scare them off? Or worse?

  The Skyguard shook his head, and his helmet rattled. The drizzle had passed, but a thick fog had rolled in. Even out in the open streets it was hard to get a bearing, as all major landmarks – the Chrysler Building, the half-finished Empire State Building – were obscured. Several times he thought he'd seen something he knew and picked the right direction, but then a building loomed in the wrong place, and a street turned where it never had before. It was disconcerting and frightening.

  Bingo. Concussion. That was it. The Skyguard wobbled his head and listened to the rattle in the helmet again. Something was loose, and while he felt OK – sore, bruised perhaps, a headache like a jackhammer – he must have taken quite a punch. Concussion and shock, leading to confusion and fuzzy vision and getting lost in the city of his birth that he'd sworn to protect for the last ten years.

  The Skyguard leaned on a lamppost, and after a few seconds noticed a vibration. It was nothing, just traffic... except he hadn't seen or heard any of that either. No one was around, so he flipped the hinged mask on the front of his helmet back up again to get a breath of fresh air.

  With no power in his suit, his helmet had been muffling the sound of the outside world. He'd been walking around almost deaf without realising it, and as soon as the mask was up a roaring filled his ears. He let go of the lamppost, but by now the ground itself was shaking.

  There was a
clunch
as a searchlight was switched on, travelling for just a second over the ground before pinpointing the Skyguard. Startled, he instinctively turned to look up at the source, shielding his face. Behind him, his torn cloak billowed like a sail as the small lot was filled with what felt like a mini tornado.

  He couldn't see properly. He swung the visor back down, but the blaze of the searchlight just turned his vision almost completely opaque as it illuminated the condensation inside. Streaming behind him, his cloak tugged strongly on his neck, and he overbalanced and toppled backwards. As he impacted the ground, he used the momentum of his fall to help slide his helmet off. This was no time to worry about disguises.

  Something had flown into the lot. Something elliptical, a little larger than a city bus, but looking like an upside-down boat with curved hull stretching upwards with the cabin hanging from the underside, two searchlights mounted at the front. As the Skyguard moved his arm around to screen out the light, he could see a long, curved window in the front of the hull, lit a dull red from inside. There were two figures in the cabin, nothing more than black cut-outs.

  The PA barked, "Gardner Gray."

  The Skyguard felt the adrenaline punch a hole in his chest. He crawled backwards a little, almost instinctively, on his armoured elbows, but the heel of one boot got caught on the trailing edge of his cloak and his neck jerked backwards painfully.

  A hundred thoughts crowded his mind, chief among them was how they –
anyone
– could possibly have known his name.

  "Gardner Gray," the PA barked again. "Stand down!"

  The voice reverberated around the hard stone borders of the empty lot, amplified beyond the roar of the engines of the thing, and the rush of air that whirled around the Skyguard. Four large jet nozzles attached to the rear of the cabin and also higher up, on the sides of the boat hull above, were angled downwards, blasting hot air into the lot. It was some kind of airship, a dirigible or something. The Skyguard knew well what they looked like – German Zeppelin were frequent visitors to New York – but he'd never seen anything like this machine. It was small and agile, nothing like the giant hulks he was familiar with.

  Gardner Gray, the Skyguard, managed to scramble up, and detached the cloak from his neck, pulling the clasps that held it across the top of his shoulders. Freed from the awkward helmet and cloak, he bounced on the balls of his feet, ready for action, ready to fight for his life. The suit was unpowered and very heavy, but was otherwise undamaged, articulated joints moving smoothly and easily. He could put up a defence, for a time. He checked the available exits. There was just one, directly behind him.

  The craft dropped, coming to around ten feet from the ground. At close range, the searchlights had to pivot to their maximum angle to keep the spots on Gardner, but they were not very manoeuvrable and he sidestepped the beams easily. Keeping out of the main beams, Gardner got a better look at the mystery machine.

  It was an airship of sorts, certainly, but Gardner could only marvel at the design. It drifted to a halt at a slight angle, allowing Gardner to see the huge, six-foot-high letters stencilled in white on the lead-grey hull:

 

 

  Gardner gasped. Since when did the police fly airships – of any kind – around the city? Since when did the police know who he was?

  He smelled conspiracy, betrayal even. The Science Pirate. It had to be her. Ten years of crime-fighting partnership, ten years of happy marriage. Now this, sold out to the authorities.

  The Skyguard knew the law. Resisting arrest or trying to fight would, in the short term, just provide more dirt in the conspiracy or plot against him. But in the long term, if the Science Pirate had arranged something, organised some master plan to pitch the very city which the Skyguard had sworn to protect against him, then he had to fight from the
outside.

  With more mechanical grinding, a door on the side of the airship's cabin slid open and two steel rope ladders were flung over the side. The cavalry was coming to take him down.

  The Skyguard lunged backwards, pushing off with his toes to get maximum speed and spinning in mid-air as he sprinted for the lot's exit. Behind him he could hear nothing but the roar of the engines and the wind. Ahead, the alleyway was an inky black void.

  And then, at the other end a light clicked on, as powerful as the searchlights behind him, enveloping him in endless white. The light swayed a little, revealing the bottom of a second small airship as it dropped into view, its front searchlights swinging around as they locked onto their target.

  The Skyguard slid to a halt, nearly tripping. Escape route blocked, no rocket boots. He was trapped.

  He turned back, but they were on him already. Six officers, clad in helmets and heavy body armour, each carrying a nightstick that was too long and flared at the end like no weapon the NYPD ever carried. He raised one armoured forearm to protect his face, but the first blow nearly broke his ulna. The second hit ricocheted off the edge of his shoulder, the head of the nightstick rebounding to clip him on the back of the head. The Skyguard dropped like a stone to his knees and then onto his stomach. Lips sucking on the flagstones, he dragged in a difficult breath that tasted of water and dirt and machine oil and blood.

  "Gardner Gray, also known as the Skyguard."

  Gardner Gray – also known as the Skyguard – craned his neck upwards. The searchlight was on him and he couldn't see anything except the black shoulders of the police around him. The PA burst into life again with scarcely a crackle.

  "You are hereby ordered to stand down and surrender yourself to the City Commissioners. It has been hereby decreed that you are a felon and an outlaw and are due to face justice at the Chairman's leisure. So it has been proclaimed in the first year of the Empire State."

  Gardner Gray closed his eyes as the booted feet of the riot police, or whoever they were, closed in around him. He felt an armoured knee grind into the small of his back as his hands were yanked backwards and cuffed, and then gloved hands caught him under the arms and he was on his feet.

  He blinked. Pain zigzagged up the back of his skull with every heavy heartbeat. He saw the airship and the police, silhouettes in the light, swimming in front of him, before his knees gave way. Before he blacked out, his mind swam with images of New York and bewilderment that he could have got lost – in a city he knew like the back of his hand.

  But in the first year of the Empire State, Gardner Gray, also known as the Skyguard, felon and outlaw, wasn't in New York City anymore.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
 

 

 
 

THE PASTOR OF LOST SOULS made the final adjustments, then stood back. The hood nodded, and he walked back to his desk.

  Rex fingered the lapels of the suit. It was hideous, chocolate brown with a heavy cream pinstripe, double-breasted. The shoes were OK, black shiny leather, and at least the white spats were a touch of class. The ensemble was finished with a fedora in white felt and, using the closed window as a mirror, Rex experimented with a few different angles until he thought he looked more or less passable. He opened the window again like he was told and turned, walking stiffly back to the Pastor's desk, limbs straight like he was soaking wet. The hooded man laughed.

  "You'll never make an actor, Rex."

  Rex frowned. He really wasn't sure about this. "I thought there wouldn't be any acting required?"

  "Of course there won't. You just need to look the part, enough to get in, get close. Once the target is eliminated and there is no danger of mistake, you can go back to how you were."

  "You're damn right I will." Rex sat, wincing as the uncomfortable suit fabric creased under his knees. He reached forward and picked up the photograph of Rad Bradley from the desk. It was remarkable. Dressed in a more-or-less approximation of the detective's favourite outfit, Rex was identical. He adjusted the hat a little to match the photograph. Bingo. Then Rex snapped his fingers.

  "Hey, I've seen this guy. I remember the hat. He was walking downtown."

  The Pastor ignored him. He reached down and slid a drawer on the right side of his desk open, reached inside, then dropped something small and heavy in front of Rex. The Pastor withdrew his hand, then reached forward with the other and pushed the snub-nosed pistol towards his guest. Rex looked at it for a moment, then covered it with a meaty hand and dropped it into a pocket of the ill-fitting suit jacket. Even sitting down, the weight of the gun pulled the jacket down on one side. Rex felt immensely stupid in this get-up, but he glanced at the photo again. It was perfect. Rad looked immensely stupid as well.

  Rex took the hat off. A white fedora? What was this guy thinking? He shook his head at the Pastor, who inclined his white hood to the left, as if inviting Rex to spill his thoughts.