that I have control of the Fissure, I can move it here, to the factory. My army will be taken as one through to the Empire State, and there each fusor reactor will be detonated. Each will yield twenty-five megatons. Multiply that a thousand-fold and the energy released will be enough to cause the Pocket universe to collapse.”
Nimrod hissed, and she resumed her walk around the circumference of the platform; with each step she rose a little higher in the air, until she was floating free again.
“Yes, Captain. The Pocket and the Origin cannot exist without each other, not anymore. They are tethered. The implosion will start a chain reaction, one that will continue, consuming the very fabric of this universe, accelerating exponentially until every universe, all the worlds beyond the fog, dissolve.”
Nimrod growled and forced his mouth open. His tongue was dry and his teeth hurt as the tendrils of energy from Evelyn swirled, looking for the quickest way to the Earth through his body.
“You would destroy everything?” Every word was a struggle, every syllable spat out against a tidal wave of pain. “That isn’t war, Evelyn. It’s not even madness. You would destroy all of creation.” He hissed a breath, and expelled one final question: “Why?”
The Director tilted her head at him and frowned. Perhaps it was madness, thought Nimrod. Perhaps that is what being brought back from the dead did to you.
“So I can be free,” she said. “The universes will be no longer, and I shall be free.”
“You would destroy everything, just to save yourself?”
“Enough!” The Director’s eyes flashed blue, and she turned away from Nimrod in the air. She floated to the edge of the platform and raised her arms out towards the far wall of the factory. “I control the Fissure. It is mine.”
Blue energy, smoke-like, ethereal, streamed out of Evelyn’s arms, towards the factory wall. Nimrod watched as a small spot appeared, black against the flat grey concrete, then increasing in size, the edge ragged and glowing blue. Within seconds, the blackness had swallowed half of the wall and was still growing, the blue energy pouring off Evelyn.
Then he felt it, the vibration, the pins-and-needles sensation behind his eyeballs, the same feeling he got when he was standing next to the Fissure down in Battery Park. The blackness on the factory wall seemed to flash blue, the edges still spreading as the Director of Atoms for Peace dissolved the barrier between the Origin and the Pocket.
A cold wind blew in from the blackness. It flashed again, and then Nimrod saw it: a street, buildings shrouded in darkness. As the factory wall vanished, he realized he was looking at a street in the New York night, empty and cold, frozen in winter.
No, not New York. The Empire State. Evelyn had moved the Fissure into the factory, ready for the invasion to commence.
Nimrod wanted to cry out, to scream in anguish and rage, but he was held firm in Evelyn’s grip. He ground his teeth.
“Stop,” he whispered. “You will destroy everything.”
She ignored him. The portal to the other universe opened, she lowered her arms, blue energy curling off and spinning towards the gateway like smoke on the wind.
“Elektro,” she said. “Activate.”
From directly below him, the main reactor ring spun into life, deep bass notes increasing in volume and pitch until they were howling like a tornado. With an almighty crunch, the robot army turned to face the interdimensional portal, the dark glass windows in their chests now spinning with bright red light. As Nimrod watched, they began to march, their synchronized steps vibrating the platform above the reactor as they walked slowly towards the Empire State.
Nimrod wanted to die. This was the end of all things, and he couldn’t guess why she was keeping him alive. She could see the future, and had spoken of it. Which meant it was going to happen. Her plan would work; the Empire State would die in a nuclear maelstrom, taking the rest of reality with it – not just one universe, one pocket dimension, but all of them.
The end of everything.
FIFTY
The inside of the Chrysler Building looked perfectly intact to Rad, though the lighting was low and yellowish, some kind of emergency back-up after the main power was knocked out by the airship crash. The interior was similar to that of the Empire State Building, but if anything even more ornate – all marble and glass, Art Deco motifs decorating the walls. Looking up, Rad stared at an