Empire State (47 page)

  Grieves shook his head, the soup can wobbling.

  "We need to get back," said Jones. "The time dilation between here and New York is a problem and we gotta get her to Nimrod."

  The Captain nodded. "Indeed, that is something to discuss with Nimrod." He turned to Rad. "Come on. You can introduce me to your friend Jerry. I hear he runs quite a remarkable establishment."

 

 
 

 
 

RAD PULLED THE BLINDS BACK, and slumped into his office chair. The dawn cast a bright yellow shard of light across his desk like a giant slab of butter. He leaned back and closed his eyes, enjoying the warmth on his face. When he opened them again, the sun had risen a little more. Far out on the water, Rad watched the current ripple. If he squinted, he even thought he could see the other side. Perhaps.

  Something scratched by the office door. Rad swivelled in his chair in time to see a shadow duck away behind the frosted glass. Footsteps hammered quickly down the corridor.

  There was a brown envelope on the floor, slid under the door by the visitor. Rad eyed it for a moment, then stood and walked over wearily to collect it. He and Carson had had quite a few drinks, and as he bent down the room spun a little. At least he'd forgotten about his sore leg and sore head. And then no sooner did he think of them, than they throbbed back into painful memory. He hobbled back to his chair, clutching the letter.

  It was from Katherine Kopek. The envelope was stuffed full of notes, too much money for Rad to count properly. Her note was short. It just said thanks, and noted that Captain Carson had invited her to his hilltop mansion later that day. Rad's commission was over, and here was his fee. So, she'd survived the Pocket collapse. That was something. Maybe the city had been undamaged.

  Rad tossed the letter onto the desk and leaned back. The chair creaked in protest.

  He thought of Sam Saturn, lost in New York, killed by his counterpart.

  He thought of Katherine Kopek, who had lost the love of her life, only to be brainwashed by the Pastor, pulled into his evil little game, using the very death of her beloved as leverage to get Rad involved.

  He thought of Kane Fortuna, his friend. Had he really hated the Empire State that much? Or did he see it as his duty, trying to help the refugees from New York return home with Crater, no matter what the cost?

  He'd never know for sure, but maybe a sense of duty was no bad thing. He'd been tempted himself, of course. Bright lights, big city.

  As Rad drifted to sleep in his office chair, the morning sun streaming through the picture window, he dreamt of New York.

  And he dreamt of the Empire State, the city that was his home, that he had helped to save. A city that was as real as New York and just as important.

  No. More important.

  The Empire State was his home. A home he'd never want to leave.

  Rad's snooze was interrupted by the phone, jerking him rudely awake. He rocked his chair forward with a jolt, then grabbed the earpiece in one hand and the stem in the other. Leaning back into the warm sun, he closed his eyes.

  "Rad Bradley, private detective."

  A pause, then a voice, small.

  "Hello, detective."

  Rad's eyes flicked open. "Claudia?"

  "Hi."

  Rad returned his chair to the upright position.

  "What are you...?"

  Claudia breathed heavily down the phone. Rad's heart pounded.

  "You free for a drink tonight, Rad?" she asked.

  Rad gulped.

  "Ah... yes. Hell yes."

  "Jerry's OK?"

  Rad laughed and nodded. "Of course."

  "See you at eight."

  Rad paused. He could hear Claudia move the phone against her hair.

  "What about Declan?" he asked.

  Claudia laughed.

  "What about him?"

  The phone went dead with a tiny click.

  Rad replaced the phone on his desk. He leaned back again, allowing a smile to spread across his face. Suddenly the sun was all the warmer and perhaps the Empire State was not so small and grey after all.

 

 
 

 

 

 

 
 

 
 

IT'S BEEN SAID BEFORE, but I'll say it again: writing is a solitary exercise; creating a book is a group effort.
Empire State
is my debut novel and a lot of people helped get it into your hands. If I've left anyone out, I beg forgiveness, but believe me when I say it's not intentional.

  My thanks to Jennifer Williams, the best writing buddy anyone could hope for. We've known each other for years and she's the one person I can go to, day or night, when the writing is going well or (perhaps especially) when it isn't. Not only is she the perfect critic – honest, reliable, one who pulls no punches – but she's a natural talent and a truly great writer herself. Jen, I owe you one. You can find her online at
sennydreadful.com

  Jen was also one of my trusted team of early readers, and my thanks also go to Amanda Leena, Mark Nelson, Sharon Ring, Amanda Rutter, Kate Sherrod and Taylor B Wright. Authors live with their novels for so long that its easy to get lost in the fog, but these guys provided much needed guidance, encouragement and direction. See, I even resisted cracking a lighthouse joke there.

  The founding members of the Manchester Speculative Fiction Writing Group were of great help in critiquing the early chapters of
Empire State
. Specifically, I am indebted to Quint Bass, Saxon Bullock, Rob Cutforth, Kate Feld, Dave Hartley, Benjamin Judge and Craig Pay.

  My fellow Angry Roboteers are an amazing community of writers and creators, and for support, encouragement, and late night conversations about zombie rock bands, my thanks to Aliette de Bodard, Lauren Beukes, Matt Forbeck, Dale Halvorsen, J Robert King, Mike Shevdon and Kaaron Warren. I couldn't have wished for a warmer welcome to your hallowed ranks. Also, my thanks to Chuck Wendig, who has been not only a valued friend I can rely on for a quick second opinion on everything from grammar and style to the anatomy of compact handguns, but also someone I owe an immense debt of thanks to for reasons we both know very well. And then he went and signed with Angry Robot himself, showing that our publisher really has the very best taste.

  My thanks to Chris Cawthorne and Diana Steinway, photographers extraordinaire who were responsible for my official mugshot. Never has sitting in the snow outside a railway tunnel in Levenshulme been a greater pleasure!

  To all the wonderful people who provided blurbs for
Empire State
, my heartfelt gratitude. As I'm sure any new writer knows, sending a book out into the wild unknown – to some of your literary heroes, no less – is a somewhat alarming prospect. But I'm glad
Empire State
was enjoyed by all, and knowing that I was able to give back at least a little of the entertainment they've provided me over the years was a surreal and wonderful experience.

  To Marc Gascoigne and Lee Harris, the Angry Robot Overlords themselves – thanks for giving
Empire State
a shot and for giving this author his break. And Mur Lafferty, who set me on the straight and narrow so many years ago, and who I now have the pleasure of counting as a friend and, with the WorldBuilder project, a colleague. The gin, oh mighty one, is on me.

  And to my agent, Stacia Decker, whose unbridled energy and enthusiasm is a
constant
delight. You make me feel like the luckiest author in the world.

  New York during the Prohibition is a fascinating slice of history, and for research I relied heavily on the excellent and very readable
Dry Manhattan
by Michael A Lerner (Harvard University Press, 2008). The quotations from
The New York World
and William Anderson that open Parts Two and Four, respectively, of
Empire State
, were sourced via Dr Lerner's superlative text.

  Finally, to my wife, Sandra, whose unending, unfaltering support and patience have made this all possible. I'm glad to have you with me on this adventure, and I cherish each and every moment.

  Now, what instrument does a lighthouse keeper play? A fog horn. Thank you, I'm here all night…

 

 

 

 

 

  Let's get to the interview, shall we?

 

The amount of awesome stuffed into the pages of thi snovel is jaw-dropping. Superheroes, detectives, robots blimps, threads of noir, alternate realities, weird science, Prohibition, and on and on. Where did the idea for all this come from?

 

Y'know, it's one of those things where a whole bunch of different ideas sort of accumulated over a long period of time, collecting and aggregating until they reached some kind of creative critical mass. There's three separate events I can remember well enough: a flight to San Francisco with a copy of
The Big Sleep
by Raymond Chandler, which I thought was the most amazing book ever and in that weird kind of haze of a long haul flight thought wouldn't it have been great if Chandler had written the Philip Marlowe books with robots in them; a misheard lyric from a song by British Sea Power, which I became convinced was about the mysterious (and non-existent) polar explorer Captain Carson – as it turned out they were singing about a type of bicycle, by as they'd written an ode to an Antarctic ice shelf it all made perfect sense in my mind; a mistyped query on Amazon that gave birth to a new pulp detective hero. Those were the main story seeds, each potentially a separate novel initially, none particularly connected to the other.

  The rest of it came from a few pet obsessions – the Prohibition, the Golden Age of comics, and the retro-science of something that wasn't quite steampunk but which meshed with the noir of pulp detectives to produce some vivid imagery – fedoras and gasmasks, superheroes powered by rockets.

  And of course parallel universes. I'm not sure why I'm drawn to them – maybe seeing the Third Doctor take his mind-bending journey sideways in time in
Inferno
made a strong impression on my seven-year-old brain when I first discovered
Doctor Who
in 1985, but I'd always loved the idea of other worlds, exactly like our own, existing concurrently in the same space and time but just… somewhere else. In
Supergods
, Grant Morrison talks about how he used to stand between two mirrors and try to peer into the infinite, thinking perhaps the far-distant reflections of himself were in fact his alter ego from another universe, looking back. I did exactly the same thing!

 

I get a bit of the Morrison vibe from this (though less freaky and drugged-out). It's clear you're a comics fan You've chosen a world with only two superheroes – surprisingly minimalist. Why only two? Why not go hogwild and create a world with a whole pantheon and rogue's gallery to complete the deal?

 

Oddly, I've never thought of
Empire State
being a superhero book – it's a science fiction detective story to me, first and foremost, which just happens to have a couple of superheroes in it. But even so, they're products of, and powered by, science and technology rather than mystical rings or the light of an alien sun. And there's certainly no spandex in sight!

  The Skyguard and Science Pirate are in the story because they were the characters I needed. But you're right, I'm a big comics fan and superhero comics in particular are a real passion. I actually wrote
Empire State
after
Seven Wonders
, although the books are coming out in reverse order.
Seven Wonders
is my big fat superhero book, which most certainly does feature a pantheon of heroes and their evil opposites (and LOTS of spandex). I suspect, having written something which you might look at as a homage to the Silver and Bronze Ages of comic books, that
Empire State
was then a natural progression, focusing on just a few particular aspects of superheroism while I told a completely different kind of story.