Atoms for Peace and Other Stories

This is a work of fiction. Similarities to real people, places, or events are entirely coincidental.

ATOMS FOR PEACE AND OTHER STORIES

First edition. July 31, 2018.

Copyright © 2018 Fraser Sherman.

Written by Fraser Sherman.

Cover by Zakaria Nada. Copyright © 2018 Fraser Sherman

THE STORY BEHIND THE STORIES

Around fifteen to twenty years ago, I had an inspiration: what if the SF films of the 1950s had really happened?

Not the ones where Earth was destroyed or that took place in the distant future, but everything else. A mad scientist turning himself into a Neanderthal Man. Klaatu and his robot telling the world to make peace or die. A Los Angeles mob boss unleashing The Creature With the Atom Brain.

By the end of the decade, the U.S.A. would be very different. The National Guard, instead of being weekend warriors would be combat-hardened veterans accustomed to tackling kaiju and hostile space ships. Scientific research would be rigidly controlled and monitored. Post-WW II radiation experiments on unwitting human guinea pigs (a real thing) could have had terrifying results. And perhaps, faced with a threat that transcended the Cold War, East and West would find common ground.

I liked it, and immediately set about writing the idea into a novel, The Brain From Outer Space. Maybe ten years ago, I had it close to final form. Then it occurred to me that while I worked on finishing it, why not send the first chapter out as a short story? I’d written it to ease readers into my world, and I could easily rework it into a standalone.

Eventually it sold. The Big Pulp website not only accepted it, they asked me to write a series of stories leading up to it, showing the backstory of my alt.1950s and my cast. How could I say no?

What follows are the nine prequel stories, the original short (Instruments of Science) and two stories that follow it. They were written to lead into The Brain From Outer Space but instead, they cut the legs out from under it. Lots of stuff important to the book no longer worked: characters I’d thought would be minor were now major, Dani’s personality changed radically and Claire’s relationship with Dani and Steve changed too. The book has yet to recover. Some of the elements in Atoms for Peace don’t wrap up in this volume because I still hope to resolve them in Brain.

Massive sales revenue from Atoms for Peace would, of course, go a long way to pushing Brain to the top of my writing to-do list. Just saying.

While this is an alt.1950s, it still has some of the baggage our 1950s did. Racial integration is an incendiary topic. Most people see homosexuality as either a moral failing or mental illness. Women are still seen as the weaker sex. Some of those attitudes are changing in my timeline, but not always for the better. My characters don’t embrace the era’s bigotry as much as they probably would in reality, but they’re not free of it.

All that being said, on with the show!

ATOMS FOR PEACE

New York: April 17, 1954

––––––––

Until the moment she saw the corpse under the streetlight, Gwendolyn Montgomery had been walking home lost in thought.

Thinking it was such a shame that the blocks of Greenwich Village apartment buildings destroyed in the Invasion would be replaced with luxury hotels.

Thinking that even so, she preferred New York to Atlanta.

Thinking it was ridiculous her new lover insisted on her leaving his apartment before dawn, so that none of the neighbors would know they'd had sex.

Then Gwen turned onto her street, saw the body face down in a pool of light and a puddle of blood, and all other thoughts vanished. Reflex propelled her into the shadowed doorway of the nearest brownstone, drawing her derringer out of her purse. She wished she had her Colt.

Clutching the gun in her gloved hands, she scanned the street. No sign of anyone else, no sounds except a milk truck a block away. She glanced at the body again; the lab coat and trousers suggested a man, and despite the blood, he might be alive.

Gwen ran as swiftly as she could in the confining girdle under her dress. Drawing close, she saw the savage wound that had torn through his clothes and his torso. It looked fatal, but she still knelt in the blood and put her hand to his neck. No pulse ... but what's that I feel? His skin was hard and cold, almost like armor; puzzled, she rolled him over.

Dear lord! She'd seen corpses before, but not like this.

His face, with its tidy Van Dyke beard and mustache, might have been dignified once. With almost half the skin covered with scales, a lidless eye and a forked tongue half out of the dead mouth, dignity had fled. The scales extended down the neck; his hand was scaly too, with tiny claws on his fingertips.

A man from outer space? A spy for another invasion? Impossible; there were spacemen who looked human, but surely no planet would evolve something half-man, half-lizard.

Gwen started rifling through his pockets, then reminded herself World War II and her OSS service were long over. Grimacing at the blood soaking through her nylons, she strode to the nearest phone booth.

#

When the police cars screeched to a stop, Gwen stood studying the body through the smoke of her cigarette. Some early risers stood further away, soaking up the details that would fuel the day's gossip.

A couple of uniforms jumped out of the first car, shooing the gawkers back, then she heard a familiar voice emerging from the second car. Gwen? Gwen Montgomery?

Nate? He was balding now, his burly body flabbier, but it was he. Nate Strawn as I live and breathe. What are you doing here?

Told you on VE Day I was gonna follow in Pop's footsteps. Taking the cigar from his mouth, he started to kiss her cheek. Then he got a good look at the corpse and stopped cold. Jesus. I know dispatch said—but—but—who the hell is this?

I've been cudgeling my brains since I saw him, but I can't imagine his face without—well, that!

A spaceman! Emerging from Nate's car, a young detective in a cheap suit and hat, quivering with excitement, raced around the other cops and over to the body. An older man smoking a bulldog pipe ambled after him. Come on, Nate, he's got to be with a kisser like that!

It's a capital mistake to theorize in advance of the facts, Gwen said, earning a stare from the younger man. Sherlock Holmes.

You know this broad—lady, Nate? The man's tone changed as his gaze ran over Gwen’s dark curls, her full lips, the pencil dress that showed off her figure. She raised an eyebrow, but let him look. Smiling, he adjusted his skinny tie, raised his hat to show crew-cut blond hair and held out his hand. Detective Louis Steele, ma'am. Homicide.

Gwendolyn Montgomery. She shook his hand as Nate uneasily frisked the body, coming up with a wallet and a small notebook. Anything?

Business card says Randall Keller, M.D. Nate grunted. Second business card says he’s working with the Atomic Energy Commission. Home address is the next building over. Okay Lou, get statements from everyone here, anyone who leaves the building, we'll go in and knock on doors in a few minutes. Nate turned to the older man. Doc, see if you can learn anything—

Thank you, detective, I so appreciate it when people tell me my job.

I meant about whether he's human. Nate turned and pointed at the four flatfeet. Spread out, see if you find a knife or anything else; Cobb, call HQ, find out if Dr. Keller's name rings any bells.

So, Miss Montgomery? Steele pulled out his notebook, Is that a Southern accent I—

Nate pointed at the gawkers. The others first, Romeo. Gwen, what's the story?

She gave him a statement, crisp and concise. My apologies for interfering with the body, but when I felt those scales—

About that— Nate turned back toward the coroner.  Anything?

Judging from the bruises and broken ribs, he had a nasty blow before he bled out—tentatively, I'd say thrown from a car. Might get more definite back in the morgue.

And his skin? Gwen ground the butt of her Lucky Strike underfoot.

Well, there you have me. He appears human, but—

"He reminds me—a little—of those Life photos of the kaijin after the war, Nate said. You remember them, right?"

The Hiroshima survivors? The doctor rolled his eyes. Did an A-bomb fall on Greenwich and nobody told me? The AEC has proven radiation is harmless unless—

I've read the Gannett Report, Gwen said, but what about Project New America? Stalin believed—

Stalin was hardly a scientific expert, was he? The doctor knocked out his pipe. Even if those Red spies hadn’t been caught, they couldn’t have dumped enough plutonium in the water to have any harmful effects. Without being exposed to an atomic bomb, Keller would have had to eat at least an ounce of plutonium to change him like this. Detective, please take your girlfriend off for a cup of coffee and leave me to my work.

She ain't my girl, and I've got an apartment building full of tenants to grill. Nate flung away his cigar and headed over there. Don't go far, Gwen, I may have more questions.

She watched him head off, vaguely disappointed. She wasn't a cop. It was no longer her business.

Yet when she stared down at Keller's corpse, she thought how dreadfully bored she'd been lately.

#

Gwen was in the middle of rereading The 42nd Parallel when she heard the knock on her door. Miss Montgomery? Are you in?

Just a moment. She opened the door and found two men in cheap dark suits and fedoras. Are you gentlemen— She couldn’t say why, but something set a warning bell wringing in her head; she let her Southern accent thicken. —policemen? Did Detective Strawn send you?

Do we look like the kind of mugs in that station? The right-hand guy smiled, but the words came out with a sneer as he tipped his hat. Mike Nelson, Atomic Energy Commission. My partner, Harry Thorn.

And what would the AEC want with little ol' me? Lose a bomb or something?

Bombs are military, ma'am, Thorn said, without a trace of humor. The Atomic Energy Commission researches the safe, peaceful uses of atomic energy to build a better world.

Good lord, I think he's memorized their slogans. I really don't know anything about nuclear physics, I'm sorry.

We understand you found the body, Nelson said. We'd like to come in and let you tell us about it

Why, I don't think my mama would approve of letting you in, but I'd be pleased to answer your questions. So was Mr. Strawn right? Dr. Keller was — She let a breathless note slip into her voice. —radioactive?

AEC nuclear research is conducted with complete laboratory security, Thorn said. Even if radiation poses some undiscovered risk, our staff are safe.

But a lot of people don't realize that, honey, Nelson's tone had turned patronizing, which meant he'd bought the act. There are crackpots out there who think atomic power is going to turn everyone into monsters; if you started gossiping at the hair salon about Keller, they'd try to get people stirred up, and you wouldn't want that, would you?

Why, no, of course not. But—what did happen to him?

Chemical burns, Thorn said. You overreacted and mistakenly blamed his burned skin on some strange mutation.

"I suppose that's possible. It was very dark, and nothing that exciting has ever happened to me before! Don't worry, she lied, I won't breathe a word."

#

Modern art, jeez. Scotch and soda in hand, Nate stared blankly at the Klimt print hanging over Gwen's bookshelves. So, living here ... your trust fund go belly up?

I like the Village. She placed a glass ashtray on top of the hi-fi before Nate could forget and drop ash on her carpet. Back home, my father and his friends have a hundred reasons why the Invasion proved we need to keep segregation in place. Here, I'm surrounded by artists, intellectuals, writers, burning to find some deeper meaning in the Martians’ attack.

Whatever happened to that CIA job?

Let’s just say their leaders are no match for Wild Bill Donovan, Gwen said, referring to the former leader of the Office of Strategic Services. "The current head, Dulles, he’ll jump at any harebrained scheme he thinks might shatter the Iron Curtain.

But I didn’t call you up to chat. She described her meeting with the two agents.

Thorn stopped by the station too, Nate said. Had a long talk with the captain about how terrible it would be if 'groundless allegations' about mutation got into the public record.

Groundless? Chemical burns can't give someone a snake's tongue.

But all the inquest's gonna focus on is the stabbing. And Lou and me are to keep our traps shut about the scales.

Has Keller's apartment been searched?

Nelson sealed it off until someone higher-up can make sure there's no classified documents lying around. So he says. Nate shook his head. Dr. Keller was a good guy, Gwen. Ran a free clinic in Spanish Harlem. He shouldn't be—

Any guards besides the two officers at the front door?

Two outside Keller's apartment door. He smiled. You still got the equipment to break in?

"Mama was right about one thing, Nate. Never throw away anything you might possibly need again."

#

Entering through the unlocked window, Gwen drew the curtains behind her and crossed the room silently, in sneakers. She laid dark velvet along the base of the door, enough to conceal any light in the room from the cops she heard outside.

Gwen turned on her pencil flashlight. Then she almost dropped her flashlight.

Half the one-room apartment had been converted into a laboratory. She saw Bunsen burners, centrifuges, electronic gadgets she didn't recognize, three test tubes with a residue of crystals and a cage full of dead green lizards. The carpet was burned and stained.

Why would he be experimenting here? AEC facilities are the best in the country. Then she shook her head. Search now, theorize later. It's no different from searching Hauser’s retreat or the embassy in Oslo.

A swift, thorough inspection found no notebooks or journals and the three file drawers were empty. She moved to the living-room area: 12-inch television/hi-fi in a walnut console, a couple of TV Guides, an ashtray filled with matches and pipe dottle, a bookshelf crammed with chemical and nuclear technical works, plus a dog-eared copy of The Fellowship of the Ring. Gwen checked behind the books, found nothing, moved on to the Murphy bed tucked up in the wall.

Remembering a certain night in Gdansk, she pulled the bed down as quietly as possible, felt around, but found nothing. Then she glanced at the small letter desk next to it. I couldn't possibly be that lucky.

She opened the desk, saw blotting paper, an ink bottle, envelopes and stamps—and buried under them, a journal. She flipped through a couple of pages and smiled.

Apparently I could.

She tucked one lizard into her pocket, took one test tube and turned off the flashlight. She plucked the black cloth from the door, then groped her way back to the window.

#

Nate said you'd served with him, but I figured you for an Army secretary, not a spy. Drowning his fried eggs in ketchup, Louis reached across the diner's Formica table, handing Nate the ketchup and Gwen the journal. What’s a nice girl like you doing in a job like that?

My father represented American companies interested in doing business in Germany before the war. And even after we declared war, but no need for you to know that. My family were on good terms with many important people there; the OSS asked if I’d be willing to capitalize on that. I was.

Wow. Louis collected himself and pointed at the journal. So they cleared out the files but left a diary?

My guess is, they were told to take his files, so they did. Gwen spoke between bites of pancakes. In the background the jukebox started up with Doris Day singing Secret Love. Nobody told them to search for anything else, so they didn’t. The journal implies he'd been doing research there six months. He loved it: No need to follow ‘niggling technicalities’ and safety procedures like the AEC labs, and he had a ready supply of guinea pigs for testing.

So he was what, building a Frankenstein lizard or something? Louis asked.

All I can tell is that his project was radioactive, risky, and that the tests were disappointing. The hand that had held the crystals kept itching, but Gwen was confident—reasonably—it was her imagination. And that some researcher named 'Crick' is completely wrong about genes and Keller was going to prove it.

But why would the AEC cover his experiments up? Louis said. If he was out on his own, it ain't their fault.

Yeah, Lou, Nate said, I’m sure he walked out of their lab with all that fancy equipment tucked under his arm. Nate turned to Gwen. We can take this to the captain. If he sees Thorn was selling him a bill of goods, he'll change his mind about the investigation.

If you wait until tomorrow, I may have more proof, Gwen tucked the journal back in her purse. I dropped off the crystals and the lizard with a scientist I know at NYU. This afternoon, I'm visiting Keller's clinic.

Why? Louis said blankly.

Wise up, kid, Nate said. "He