FORTY-SIX
The Nimrod bucked like a rodeo bronco, bouncing Carson on the pilot’s seat and throwing both their stowaway and Byron to the floor. The ship slid sideways through the air, out of control, the tilt too steep, the speed too fast. Through the smashed front windows the lights of the city were bright, brighter than anything Carson could remember. The view, and the buzz-saw vibration that wanted to pop his eyeballs, told him what had happened. He had done it. The device, fashioned from Jennifer Jones’s gun, had worked; the impact with the Empire State Building had provided the energy needed to kick-start the transfer of so large an object as the airship.
They were in New York.
Carson pulled at the yoke and the ship responded. It seemed his theory about the overlapping geographies of Manhattan and the Empire State was correct: not everything was exactly aligned. It had been a risk, but a calculated one: if the Empire State Building had been in the same place in both cities, the Nimrod would have simply continued the collision that started in one universe in the other, and their journey would have ended very quickly indeed.
Carson grinned and ground his teeth as he pulled on the yoke with all his weight, trying to get the ship back level. They were flying down the middle of a great canyon formed by the skyscrapers lining an avenue in the heart of the city, but the Nimrod was drifting right. Carson leaned to the left as he willed the craft to turn, but a second later the armored side of the craft clipped an office building, dragging a trench along the structure. The ship juddered, then pitched violently to the left as it ran out of building and the controls suddenly responded.
Ahead towered another skyscraper. Carson hadn’t seen it before, but it was impressive and elaborate, even more decorative than the city’s tallest skyscraper. The top of the building was steel and glass, seven narrowing arches of stylized sun rays tapering to a spire; at the base of the remarkable cap were protrusions, also metal: lions, shining in the night, leaping from the building, frozen in sculpture.
And they were heading straight for it. Carson pulled back yet again, and the ship responded, sailing higher despite the protesting engines. The building was narrow, the decorative upper stories forming a neat cone even easier to pass safely, Carson thought. He took a breath at last and found it was painful and raspy. Incompatibility sickness.
Two arms wrapped around his chest and pulled. Carson gasped, the rhythm of his careful breathing interrupted as the robot King of 125th Street used the pilot’s seat to pull himself up. Carson felt something heavy and cold on his left cheek. He recoiled and turned to see the silver sculpted face nearly pressed against his as James stared out of the crumpled nose of the Nimrod.
The mechanical man hissed and pushed Carson aside, reaching for the yoke. His new robot form was strong and Carson was thrown bodily from the pilot’s seat. As he fell he saw the yoke spin of its own volition as James, once more mesmerized by the view ahead of them, froze at the controls.
Carson pushed against the decking with both hands, but his chest burned, every breath hot flame against his throat, and he collapsed back onto the floor. He was old, aged beyond his years as he travelled the universes in his ship, looking for Byron. He tried to rise again, but the ship lurched and a warning bell sounded as James, released from his reverie, grabbed the yoke and pulled with one hand while hammering the console with the other. Carson rolled on the floor, coming to rest against the wall of the flight deck.
Booted feet stomped the metal decking by Carson’s face: Byron, controlling the Skyguard’s suit with Kane’s body still inside, raced forward on the sloping, bouncing floor and launched himself at the stowaway. James pushed him off, releasing his hold on the yoke and causing the ship to tilt again, sending Byron tumbling against the opposite wall.
Byron regained his footing and threw himself at James, grabbing him around the neck. The robot rammed back an elbow and it connected, but Byron hardly seemed to register the blow. With a roar, metallic and terrible that could be heard above the engines, James turned and threw a left hook at Byron, who ducked and planted a fist in the robot’s abdomen. There was a solid, echoing clang, but James seemed almost unaware of the attack. Byron threw more gut punches, left and right, left and right, but all this did was give James more time to prepare, pushing Byron back, moving his hands up to the Skyguard’s altered helmet in an attempt to rip it off.
The two men grappled. Another alarm went off, then a third. Carson reached for the console, now a bank of red lights flashing and dials spinning. The steel and glass crown of the remarkable building filled the flight deck’s entire view, the triangles of the Art Deco sunrise sharp and angry. The ship dipped, and a lion, all steel majesty and power, tore through the nose’s remaining glass as the Nimrod hit the building at an angle.
The control room was turned upside down. Carson saw Byron and the robot King of 125th Street go flying as the floor became the ceiling. The last thing he saw was the wheel of the main hatch approaching his face at high velocity.
The noise was colossal, impossible. It stopped cars; it stopped people. The major telephone exchanges feeding New York City froze as the system was overloaded with calls, and the police and fire departments went into high alert, cars and appliances racing out into the streets without a clue where they should be heading.
Reporters rushed to 405 Lexington Avenue, or as far as they could get before being stopped by the traffic or stuck in the mass of people who stood and stared and watched as a giant craft, something crossed between an old-fashioned zeppelin and a vast armored crab, crashed into the crown of the Chrysler Building. Some on the street fearfully recalled the Chicago airship crash of 1919. Others cried out that airships were full of hydrogen and the thing would blow, raining burning metal and debris from its skeleton like the Hindenburg had.
The Chrysler Building – the most famous building in New York, prettier than the Empire State Building although not as tall – shook, the vibration throwing people to the sidewalk and making cars jump on their suspensions. Those still standing gasped. From the street, the airship looked small, dwarfed by the Art Deco crown of the landmark, but the building was immense and the altitude great; everyone knew the horror that was unfolding before them.
The crown of the building buckled around the impact, throwing a huge cloud of smoke and flame, brilliant against the night sky. People screamed and the drone of car horns from the stationary traffic died as car doors were thrown open, the vehicles’ occupants desperate to escape.
And then they ran, everyone, running for their lives as the crown of the Chrysler Building shattered, steel, stone, and glass exploding like fireworks. The sunrise spire bent and then toppled, taking out a huge chunk of the building as it fell nearly directly downwards.
The first pieces of rubble hit the street, bouncing cars like toys, and people screamed and ran from the great billowing cloud of dust and smoke that enveloped the street like a sandstorm claiming a desert city.
The remains of the Nimrod continued to travel through the upper floors of the building, sheering the crown completely from the skyscraper. The crown flopped and folded like wet paper and fell on the opposite side, and the ship, powered by gravity, plowed into Grand Central Terminal in a second mushroom cloud of flame and smoke.
The Age Atomic
Adam Christopher's books
- Alanna The First Adventure
- Alone The Girl in the Box
- Asgoleth the Warrior
- Awakening the Fire
- Between the Lives
- Black Feathers
- Bless The Beauty
- By the Sword
- In the Arms of Stone Angels
- Knights The Eye of Divinity
- Knights The Hand of Tharnin
- Knights The Heart of Shadows
- Mind the Gap
- Omega The Girl in the Box
- On the Edge of Humanity
- The Alchemist in the Shadows
- Possessing the Grimstone
- The Steel Remains
- The 13th Horseman
- The Alchemaster's Apprentice
- The Alchemy of Stone
- The Ambassador's Mission
- The Anvil of the World
- The Apothecary
- The Art of Seducing a Naked Werewolf
- The Bible Repairman and Other Stories
- The Black Lung Captain
- The Black Prism
- The Blue Door
- The Bone House
- The Book of Doom
- The Breaking
- The Cadet of Tildor
- The Cavalier
- The Circle (Hammer)
- The Claws of Evil
- The Concrete Grove
- The Conduit The Gryphon Series
- The Cry of the Icemark
- The Dark
- The Dark Rider
- The Dark Thorn
- The Dead of Winter
- The Devil's Kiss
- The Devil's Looking-Glass
- The Devil's Pay (Dogs of War)
- The Door to Lost Pages
- The Dress
- The Emperor of All Things
- The Emperors Knife
- The End of the World
- The Eternal War
- The Executioness
- The Exiled Blade (The Assassini)
- The Fate of the Dwarves
- The Fate of the Muse
- The Frozen Moon
- The Garden of Stones
- The Gate Thief
- The Gates
- The Ghoul Next Door
- The Gilded Age
- The Godling Chronicles The Shadow of God
- The Guest & The Change
- The Guidance
- The High-Wizard's Hunt
- The Holders
- The Honey Witch
- The House of Yeel
- The Lies of Locke Lamora
- The Living Curse
- The Living End
- The Magic Shop
- The Magicians of Night
- The Magnolia League
- The Marenon Chronicles Collection
- The Marquis (The 13th Floor)
- The Mermaid's Mirror
- The Merman and the Moon Forgotten
- The Original Sin
- The Pearl of the Soul of the World
- The People's Will
- The Prophecy (The Guardians)
- The Reaping
- The Rebel Prince
- The Reunited
- The Rithmatist
- The_River_Kings_Road
- The Rush (The Siren Series)
- The Savage Blue
- The Scar-Crow Men
- The Science of Discworld IV Judgement Da
- The Scourge (A.G. Henley)
- The Sentinel Mage
- The Serpent in the Stone
- The Serpent Sea
- The Shadow Cats
- The Slither Sisters
- The Song of Andiene
- The Steele Wolf