shook his head. “Kane, you fell through the Fissure eighteen months ago. It swallowed you up, and you didn’t end up in New York.”
“Huh,” said Kane. “Guess it’s the Fissure’s thing with time, right? Guess the Fissure threw me forward.”
The room shook, rattling the equipment. Rad looked at the ceiling and grabbed the edge of the machine to keep his balance on the stool. The tremor stopped after a long ten seconds, and Rad let out his breath.
“What was that?” Kane’s eyes were wide open. “An earthquake?”
Rad frowned, but Kane had already closed his eyes, his head resting back against the pillow. “Something like that,” said Rad. “You picked a crummy time to make your glorious return, buddy.”
But Kane was asleep already.
Kane slept for hours. Rad had been around the workshop several times. There was plenty he didn’t understand, lots of equipment and gadgets and junk that obviously were to do with the construction – or deconstruction – of robots. Rad wasn’t entirely sure what went on underneath the hood of a car let alone the inside of a robot, but the way the parts in the room were all shiny and new made Rad think the King hadn’t quite given him the full picture. Finding lost robots, bringing them back to the workshop, turning them back into men. It was a fine idea, a great one even, a real service, if it was possible. But with no more robots being made down at the dockyards, the King’s workshop should be filled with old parts, not new ones. Either the King was reclaiming new parts from the old robot factories at the bottom of the island, near the Battery, or he was making his own. Whichever it was, Rad didn’t much like it. But stuck in the workshop with the heat turned up to eleven, he didn’t see that there was much he could do.
The workshop had two doors. One was hot to the touch and presumably led further down into the bowels of the building, to a furnace or boiler room – unlikely to be the most useful route of escape.
Which left the other door. It was wood painted green, the wood itself ancient and as solid as iron, reinforced with black iron bands. It was locked with a bolt on the outside, and when Rad banged his fists on it it was like pounding on the brick wall that surrounded it, the door carrying no vibration, no movement at all.
No, Rad couldn’t open this door. He’d have to wait until the door was opened for him. Which, according to Kane, would be soon, because the “man in the suit” was going to deliver the medicine.
Rad turned and scratched his chin, surveying the workshop as he ran that particular piece of data around his brain.
Rad eyed the stack of apparently new robot head shells on a nearby bench, and shuddered. He might have been a little less in shape that he would have liked, but he was attached to his body and he didn’t feel like switching any part of it for something made of metal.
“They’re coming… marching. Them… the red… red lights. They’re coming…”
Rad darted back to Kane’s side. His friend’s face was slick with sweat, his hair damp across his forehead, as he twisted his head from side to side, his eyes screwed up in pain. Rad placed a hand on Kane’s forehead. He was burning up.
“Hey, Kane old buddy, hang in there,” said Rad.
“Machines… it’s her… it’s her… blue… her eyes are blue… her eyes are blue… cold and fire and cold and cold… machines… blue…”
Rad raised an eyebrow. Some kind of flashback to falling through the Fissure? Wouldn’t be a surprise. He’d been between universes twice himself, and that was shock enough.
But whatever Kane was dreaming about, Rad didn’t like the way he mentioned machines.
“Easy, buddy, easy,” said Rad, his voice a whisper, his eyes flicking up to the workshop door. Come on, you spooky son of a bitch, he thought. Come on with the damn green potion.
“Soon, soon, soon, soon…”
“Soon what?”
“Soon, soon…” Kane said, and said again, faster and faster.
Rad shook his head and looked up. Maybe Kane needed the green stuff after all. “Hey! Your majesty!” he yelled. “Get your ass in here with the medicine!”
“They’re marching… the machines are marching… she’s coming… no! No!” Kane shook his head violently. Rad grabbed Kane’s head between both hands and tried to keep it still, but Kane’s strength was surprising. Rad gritted his teeth, hoping