The Age Atomic

THIRTY-ONE



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.

Hall didn’t move; he just watched her. After a moment, some of his staff appeared to come to their senses.

“Sir?” The corporal again, his eyes fixed on the Director.

The General nodded, and tried to swallow, but his throat was parched.

The corporal spun on his heel and made a circular motion in the air with his index finger. At once, the assembled team sprang to life, sitting at desks, manning binoculars and telescopes, while several sat themselves behind a large bank of high-powered radio equipment and began murmuring into close-fitting headsets.

A PA squawked.

“T-minus six, zero-six, to test commencement.”



“What exactly am I looking at here?”

Someone had produced coffee out here in the middle of nowhere; General Hall had drained three paper cups of the stuff already, but his throat felt drier than ever.

And worse than that was the fear – it was cold, something deep at the heart of his very being. It came, he knew, from standing next to her. Her, the impossible, the magical, the powerful, the terrifying. Her, the dead woman, the one who didn’t belong here, the one who, Hall had felt deep down – the same place where that heart of ice was threatening to creep up and swallow his whole soul – didn’t want to be here. Hall gulped again, and wondered if maybe the test had something to do with that.

War, she’d said.

T-minus two minutes.

Everything was going as planned, every eye on the rig a mile away, protective goggles ready to be pulled down at the very last second.

All except her. She stood – floated – next to the General, unprotected. Hall wondered if she could even wear the goggles, if she could touch anything at all. She hadn’t yet, she just… hovered, dressed for a busy afternoon trawling Manhattan’s famous stores seven years before.

Hall found himself looking at her again. He couldn’t help it; she was magnetic, powerful, even though Hall knew it was somehow dangerous to be next to her. It was the feeling of incompatibility, the feeling that she didn’t belong, not to here and not to now, and if you got too close to the shimmering blue event horizon that surrounded her you would be dragged down with her, out into the nothing where she really existed.

She turned and met Hall’s eye. He felt ill.

She said, “War is coming,” and Hall barked the order for the countdown to be paused.

He hadn’t read the briefing properly, disregarding as he always did the bullshit that came out of Atoms for Peace. But now she was here and Hall regretted every thought, every rash decision, every casual dismissal he’d made. She was real, and more important, so were the stories about her.

The United States government had a goddess working for them, and suddenly General Hall felt his own work, his job, were insignificant, unimportant.

“What are we testing?” he said, his voice a whisper so low only she could have heard it.

“It’s a… device,” she said, turning back to Swinburne Island. Hall watched her face; it was like she was looking at something else, the way her eyes were unfocused, the way her mouth was open, her lips just a hair apart, like she was watching fireworks on the Fourth of July or admiring a priceless work of art.

“It’s the Russians, isn’t it?” Hall knew it. “The Reds are coming, finally.”

And suddenly he felt… better. Those Communist bastards. This was it. War… the curtain was going up on World War Three, and the United States of America, God bless her, had a goddess on her payroll.

Hot dog.

Now he understood. This was a threat, a very real one, the logical culmination of world events since 1945. And… OK, the Director of Atoms for Peace was a goddess with powers to match, but dammit, she was American, and she was here, asking for his help, here to show him the magic tricks her team had been working on.

“Are you feeling all right, General Hall?”

Hall blinked. She was smiling at him. He straightened his back, and raised his chin.

“Never better, ma’am.” He fought the urge to salute; his hand twitched by his side, and his vision went fuzzy at the edges.

God bless America.

“Now, Madam Director, we’re all eager to watch this demonstration of the… device. Can you fill us in on the specifics?”

The Director’s smile didn’t falter, and after a beat she turned and looked back towards the test rig. Hall followed her gaze, squinting into the bright morning. Then he raised his binoculars again. The device glinted in the sunlight, hardly anything more than a shining star in Hall’s vision.

“It is called a fusor, General,” the Director said. “It’s a portable nuclear fusion reactor, which operates by direct injection of ions into the containment field. The power output approaches maximum when the ion velocity–”

“OK,” said the General, waving a hand. “I’ve got it. You’re here to test a nuclear reactor.”

The Director inclined her head with a smile. “Not exactly, General.”

“A portable reactor, you say? Is it intended as a civilian or military power source?”

“Neither,” said the Director. “The fusor is powerful energy source. But it has another application, one I am here to show you. Recommence the countdown.”

Hall turned to the technicians at the desk behind him, but they were shaking their heads. At the back of the marquee, Hall saw the countdown clock resume even as the technician was giving the directions to his colleagues.

“Sir,” said the technician, “the countdown has recommenced of its own accord. Recommend we–”

Hall held up his hand, and the man stopped. He looked at the Director, but her attention was fixed on the test rig. “Sir?”

“Stand-down. We’re good to go,” said Hall. “I think the Director has this under control.”

“Sir. T-Minus fifty – five-oh – seconds and counting. Goggles down.”

The General and his staff donned their protective eyewear. Through the dark smoky glass it seemed to Hall that Evelyn shone even brighter, her blue glow electric in his eyes. He could see the pulse on her neck quicken as the countdown neared its end.

Hall glanced down at the folder of briefing papers in front of him. He flipped it open and, leafing through, found a summary of the fusor’s blueprints. It was a cylinder, and not a very big one either, about the size of a small artillery shell, no more. The General didn’t know the expected yield of the device, but he had to assume they – and the good people of New York – were far enough away from ground zero.

“Ten… nine… eight…”

Then Hall looked at Evelyn, and she turned to look at him. She stared into his eyes, and he felt the cold spread. Through his goggles her eyes were aflame, glowing, smoking coals, tendrils of energy drifting out of the featureless sockets. Her lips parted as she smiled, and Hall saw she was glowing inside, smoke wafting out of her mouth.

Hall’s chest felt tight. He couldn’t breathe… he couldn’t think… she was beautiful and she was dead and she was… she was incompatible, and she was not here, not really. These thoughts crashed through Hall’s mind. He didn’t know anything about her, but he could feel it, feel her presence like waking up in the middle of the night to find the covers being pulled off and a dead, cold weight sitting on the middle of your chest. The eyes under the bed, the something evil in the closet, the creaking floor downstairs.

Hall wanted to run, to grab a boat and get to Swinburne Island, where he could go up with the test, end it all, his very existence unendurable misery. And still he looked at her, and still she smiled, and Hall remembered the fear and remembered the dark when he’d got lost in the wood when he was four years old.

“Three…two…”

She turned back to watch. Hall felt the tears pooling inside his goggles.

“One!”

There was nothing for a second, and then the test rig – Swinburne Island itself – vanished into a featureless white light. The staff around Hall flinched, some even looking away as others, despite the goggles, raised their arms in front of their faces to shield themselves from the brilliant intensity. Hall’s eyes were wide, as was his jaw, as he watched. He’d seen atomic tests – most people under the marquee had – so he knew what to expect: the flash, the roar, the pressure wave, the heat, and then the spectacle of the expanding spherical cloud that would evaporate in seconds as the famous mushroom cloud of death slowly rolled skywards.

This… this was different. The flash of light was brighter, but the explosion was quieter, the pressure wave not so intense. Standing in the light, the Director was suddenly a person, her skin pale but alive, her clothes no longer monochrome but blue and green, her scarf white. She was wearing make-up: the lipstick a bright red, matching the nail polish on her hands. The blue halo was gone, and for a second it looked like she was standing on the ground, not floating above it.

Hall turned back to the test. The white light faded, replaced by rolling oranges and reds as the explosion cloud collapsed and a column of smoke rose directly upwards. As Hall watched, he saw lightning flicker within the column, arcs shooting both up and down. Of the other artificial island in Lower New York Bay, there was no sign.

Through his goggles he could see the blue glow of the Director beside him; she was as she was before – not a woman, but a ghost and a god.

Then the pressure wave arrived, and Hall didn’t see anything else for a while.