The Age Atomic

NINE



Nimrod stepped into the elevator, surrounded by expensive walnut panels and men in suits. He glanced up, as he always did when he entered the main elevator of the Chrysler Building, and admired the silver mirrored Art Deco sunburst design on the ceiling. He looked at his own reflection, twisted by the design of the mirror, and took a deep breath, trying to remove the fear, uncertainty, and doubt from his face.

It had been only a short walk from the Empire State Building, where his own Department was hidden on the middle levels behind a company nameplate that said Tisiphone Realty – apparently nothing more than a upmarket, private real estate firm that handled the kinds of accounts that came from countries rich in oil, with clients who liked to vacuum up little parcels of the United States without much fanfare. That the other department should be secreted in another famous New York landmark seemed appropriate, although their particular choice of office was unusual.

Atoms for Peace, founded by President Dwight D. Eisenhower. An olive branch offering of scientific cooperation and endeavor that stretched out across even the Iron Curtain. But in reality, a secret government department, an initiative to research technologies “acquired” from the Empire State, with the aim of building a defense against… well, Nimrod wasn’t entirely clear on that point and neither, it seemed, was Eisenhower. Granting Atoms for Peace carte blanche had only turned the new organization into the blackest of secret government agencies.

That they were tasked with handling research related to the Fissure and beyond was what bothered Nimrod. The Fissure was, well, it was his. He knew more about it than anyone else, in this dimension anyway.

He didn’t like Atoms for Peace, and he knew the feeling was mutual.

From the offices of Tisiphone Realty, Nimrod could see the Chrysler Building. He stood at the window often, watching. He wondered if the Director of Atoms for Peace, the remarkable Ms Evelyn McHale, did the same from the Cloud Club, the former cocktail lounge at the top of the Chrysler Building that Atoms for Peace had co-opted into their headquarters. He didn’t really think she did; from what he’d heard, Ms McHale had something of a phobia when it came to the Empire State Building. Perhaps that was part of the problem she had with him, and the Department.

Nimrod glanced at the men around him. There were five agents – two standing behind, one posted on his left and one on his right, and one in front. They each wore a black suit; each had a narrow black tie against a starched white shirt. Each wore a hat, black, of course. They were not Secret Service, but they did a fairly good impression. They were certainly better dressed than his own agents, but then his own agents had to melt into the general populace. Atoms for Peace were different. Their agents rarely made public appearances.

Nimrod wondered what his escort was for, exactly. The agents certainly weren’t for his protection (not inside their own headquarters) and they certainly weren’t for hers. The agents who stood around him in the elevator – and Nimrod, too – were nothing but insects to her, as was every other human who inhabited the city, inhabited the whole country.

Nimrod stroked his mustache in thought and the elevator glided to a halt, a bell announcing their arrival.

The doors slid apart, revealing an elegant lobby swathed in maroon carpet, the walls heavy with more of the walnut paneling. The lead agent stepped forward, Nimrod following and finding himself ankle-deep in the carpet pile. He heard the other agents’ feet swoosh as they walked behind him.

Opposite the elevator, across the lobby, was a large set of double doors, the bottom third of which were more of the beautiful walnut. The upper two thirds were frosted glass panels, acid-etched with sunburst rays and other geometric shapes. To a casual eye, they looked like just more of the Art Deco theme that filled the entire building. To Nimrod, the designs were a little off, a modern copy somehow altered.

Captain Nimrod glanced to the agent on his right, and saw the man was sweating inside his elegant suit. Nimrod smiled to himself. They were afraid. Nimrod was too – how could you not be, when you were about to have an audience with the ghost of a woman who had appeared as a glowing blue terror after the Fissure had almost been destroyed eighteen months ago, her phantom somehow expelled from the shadowlands between dimensions, granted with the appalling power to see and to interfere with the universe on a subatomic level.

Nimrod tapped his foot in the absurdly deep carpet as they waited. Finally, one of the double doors opened, and another man in a black suit nodded to the lead agent. He glanced at the party, and then looked Nimrod in the eye.

“The Director will see you now.”



The Cloud Club had been among the city’s finest, most exclusive establishments. In the early days, Nimrod himself had received numerous invitations to attend functions there, but he was never comfortable in social engagements, and besides, he preferred to drink his scotch at ground level. Over the years, as he worked at the Empire State Building just a few blocks away, probing the mystery of the Fissure and what lay beyond, the fortunes of the Cloud Club declined as the Great Depression and then the Second World War took their toll. The top of the Chrysler Building had been closed for several years by the time Atoms for Peace were brought into existence.

The main clubroom had been left untouched: a cavernous space interrupted at intervals by dark square marble pillars, with ceilings two floors high. One wall was nearly entirely glass. The wall opposite was covered with a continuous mural depicting the cityscape in minute detail. Nimrod had no doubt that club patrons had spent many an hour studying the illustrated city while behind them, through the glass, the real thing winked in the night.

The room, once filled with tables, was occupied now by a single desk, standard government issue, at one end. Two Cloud Club armchairs sat in front of it.

Nimrod walked towards the desk, studying the mural behind it. This section was an enlargement, a stylized rendering of the Empire State Building that took up nearly the whole wall. Nimrod smiled and took a seat.

The room was empty, the agent who had opened the door having decided to wait with his colleagues in the lobby. Nimrod crossed his legs and let his eyes wander over the mural. He felt his back teeth begin to ache, and he held his breath.

“Captain Nimrod, so good of you to come.”

Nimrod’s smile was tight, his teeth clenched against the pain spreading along his jawline. He knew the pain would subside shortly. It was always like this.

She stepped out of the corner of the room on Nimrod’s left. There was no door there, just the two murals meeting in a slight shadow cast by the nearest marble column. One moment Nimrod was alone, the next he was not. No matter how many times he had an audience with the Director of Atoms for Peace, her sudden appearances unnerved him.

She glided forward an inch from the floor, glowing only slightly. Nimrod wondered if she was making an effort to fit in, though if so it was a token attempt. Her tweed suit was out of date, monochrome, like something from a film, as was the matching hat and lace veil. Nobody had dressed like that in years.

Nimrod’s fear melted, replaced by sadness. He felt sorry for her. She wasn’t alive, and yet here she was, doomed to an eternity of slavery to the Federal Government. It was no wonder she looked miserable behind her veil.

“Director, a pleasure as always,” said Nimrod, and it was a lie but he didn’t think she noticed. He didn’t think she ever did.

Evelyn glided closer to Nimrod, keeping her back to the Empire State Building mural. He found himself sitting up a little straighter, his heart beating a little faster. He couldn’t imagine what it must be like to work with her. It was bad enough just being in the same building. Although he really didn’t know where she spent most of her time.

Which reminded him…

“There have been reports of another sighting,” he said. Then he steepled his fingers and brought them to his lips. “The Ghost of Gotham, as I believe they call you. It is on the front page of both the New York Courier and The Record.”

Her mouth curled into a smile. Nimrod wasn’t sure he liked it when she smiled.

“I didn’t plan it to be quite so public,” she said. She turned in the air and floated over to the long wall. She reached out, her fingers trailing the line of the East River.

Nimrod frowned and stood, moving to join her at the wall. He drew breath to speak but she tapped the wall with her finger, making the mural go slightly out of focus around the contact point. Nimrod felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand up.

Evelyn jerked away from the wall and looked at the Captain. Nimrod blinked and shrank back; her eyes were bright and clear with an impossible and terrifying depth and lit with something fierce and blue. A light with which he was intimately familiar. The light of the Fissure.

“Our department operates with the upmost secrecy,” she said, her lips in a sly grin and her blue eyes unblinking, “but sometimes I need to… go out. See things for myself. Reconnect.”

Nimrod pursed his lips. Conversations with Ms McHale were frustratingly vague.

“You called me here, Director,” he said. “And while I am happy to oblige, I do have a department of my own to run. If we could perhaps progress to the matter in hand, whatever that may be?”

Evelyn floated away from the mural, towards the windows opposite.

“Change is coming, Nimrod. Neither you nor I can stop this. A moment is approaching, one in which we will both have roles to play.”

Nimrod brushed his mustache with a thick index finger as he considered.

“I’m not sure I understand.”

Evelyn turned in the air so they were facing each other. The smile was back.

“War is coming, Nimrod. You must be prepared. We all must.”

Nimrod felt the color drain from his face. “War? With whom?”

Evelyn laughed, the light of the Fissure sparking in her eyes and making Nimrod’s jaw hurt. Her blue aura grew, and Nimrod stumbled backwards, each blink of his eyes casting a fiery negative image of McHale inside his lids.

“The Empire State, Captain. Soon we will be at war with the Empire State.”

Nimrod felt dizzy. He rubbed at his forehead and tried to blink away the afterimage of McHale’s glow, but it was no use. He felt ill. Suddenly the world made no sense.

He stumbled forward and grabbed the top of the nearest armchair.

But at least it seemed the Empire State still existed on the other side of the Fissure. The disconnection was temporary.

“What–”

There was a knock at the door, and one of the black-suited agents entered. Nimrod tried to focus on him, on the faint red line on his forehead from where his hat had so recently sat, but his vision was obscured by the echo of Evelyn’s aura.

“Director,” said the agent, “it is time for your briefing with the doctor.”

McHale floated towards her agent, and Nimrod saw the man shift slightly on his feet.

McHale nodded. “Please show Captain Nimrod back to the world.”

The agent held out his hand, gesturing towards the main doors. Nimrod turned back towards Evelyn, but she was gone. The pair were alone in the Cloud Club.

Nimrod frowned, and turned to the agent.

“Do you ever get used to that?”

The agent smiled but shook his head. He gestured to the door again. “This way, sir.”