The Age Atomic

TWENTY-THREE

Black and white and blue and white and her eyes burning blue they are blue her eyes are blue cold blue the light at the end of the

Marching. The machines are marching. Silver stiff as toys silver and tall like men. Marching marching marching the red light spins and spins. Counting down down the machines count down and then

She is there. She stands in the darkness, she is the darkness. She spreads her arms and her army marches through the fog through the blue light the blue light her eyes are blue they are cold and blue and she left the world and was dragged back from

She is looking. She is looking at me. She is looking at me but she can’t see me and she is falling falling falling falling falling falling

Run.

They are coming. They are marching. The atomic army marches.

Run.

Her.

She will destroy all to destroy herself.

It is written.

Run.

She is coming for me and

Kane woke with a start, his throat tight. He’d screamed; after who knew how many days and nights of this, he recognized the signs now — he couldn’t touch his face but his skin felt cold and wet, and his neck was sore, as were the muscles that bunched at the back of his jaw. When he licked his lips he tasted the residue of the medicine and something else, something metallic. Blood. He ran his tongue around the inside of his mouth and instantly found the wound in his cheek. He’d bitten it as he slept. He often did.

But his throat was dry. He tried to clear it, but it felt like two pieces of sandpaper rubbing together, and his larynx rattled and rasped. If he’d screamed, like he thought he had, it wouldn’t have been too loud.

He craned his neck, but the machine he was in was so large he couldn’t see much. There was no mirror, not like on an iron lung, so all he could do was look at the ceiling, or at a stretch of wall behind him, upside down. When he tried that he could feel himself moving inside the machine.

Kane flexed his fingers, and they seemed to work, although he wasn’t sure whether it was his imagination, a muscle memory echo of where he thought his hands should be. Maybe there was nothing left. Maybe he was just a head on a box. Maybe it would have been better if he’d fallen into the gap between universes and not returned.

Kane sniffed, and took a deep breath, then let it out. No, he was all there, he was sure of it. He could breathe, and breathe normally, under his own control. Whatever the machine was doing, it wasn’t controlling this basic function. Just to prove the point, he held his breath, held it until it became uncomfortable, then a little more. Then he released it, gulping air as his throat burned. But that was good. And if he could breathe and feel his lungs and feel the walls of his ribcage move, then maybe when he flexed his fingers, his toes, then maybe the rest of him was OK too.

Kane closed his eyes, and maybe he slept. The next thing he was aware of was a click. He opened his eyes and rolled his head to his right, where he saw the King’s robot manservant standing over the other machine. It was holding the head of the robot in the other machine — no, it was stroking the metal cheek of the other robot with one hand.

Kane licked his lips. He wasn’t sure whether he was awake or asleep. He wiggled his toes again, and tried to remember if he’d been able to do that before, and whether that meant anything at all.

“Rest easy.” The Corsair’s voice was quiet, a whisper. It was male, and very human, muffled slightly beneath the metal face.

Kane gulped, painfully. He’d never heard the Corsair speak before; he had assumed it didn’t.

The robot lying in the other machine twitched, and the head moved slightly as the leather-covered hands of the Corsair continued to stroke its face. And there was a sound, a sigh, an exhalation from the robot in the machine, from the horizontal slot that formed the mouth.

“Shhhhh,” said the Corsair. The robot’s head twitched again and there was something else, a voice, a whisper behind the metal that Kane couldn’t hear. The Corsair leaned over his charge, like it was listening carefully to the faint words. Then it stood straight, and hushed the robot again, and turned around.

Kane closed his eyes, hoping he was quick enough that the Corsair hadn’t seen him watching what he felt, strangely, was a private moment. He tried to remember how long the other machine had been occupied, and realized the robot lying within it had appeared soon after Rad arrived.

Kane felt the sweat trickle over his eyelids, and he felt his forehead twitch. There was a gentle sound of glass on glass, and Kane risked a peek. Between narrow lids he saw the Corsair preparing the second bottle of medicine, dipping the long pipette into the bottle, drawing it up, then turning back to the other robot. As Kane watched, it carefully inserted the narrow glass tube into the slot mouth, and squeezed, emptying the dropper.

The robot in the machine jerked once, twice, as it coughed and gasped. Its head turned, suddenly facing Kane.

Through the mouth slot, Kane saw human lips, delicate and dry, maybe female. They moved, and the tip of a tongue stained pale green poked out as it tried to moisten the lips.

Kane coughed in surprise. He rolled his head back to stare at the ceiling as the Corsair, apparently startled, moved to loom over him, bending down low so the flat metal face was right over his.

Kane fought against unconsciousness, but it was no use. And maybe he was asleep already, and this was all a dream, like the flexing of his fingers and the visit from his old friend Rad and the dead woman with the blue eyes. The green medicine.

Green, like the pair of human eyes staring into his own from behind the flipped-up goggles of the Corsair’s mask.

Kane cried out in surprise, and then the darkness claimed him once more.