Before Tomorrowland by Jeff Jensen

ROTWANG WATCHED the last bits of the HS1's synthetic flesh burn away. The purifying fire left behind a clean, streamlined, nickel-plated automaton, the smooth contours interrupted by an occasional set of perforations for exhaust or ball bearings for joints. He remembered when he'd first conceived of the machine. He had been in New York for a conference on Cartesian dualism, and during a respite, he went to a gallery and saw a bronze cast of Brâncuşi's L'Oiseau dans l'espace. It was a sculpture of a bird that described not its body, but its movement. It was a sleek, light stroke of pure energy made manifest, liberated of flesh and bone, feathers and face. Rotwang thought birds were ugly creatures. But this was beautiful. Beholding the HS1's shell, stripped of its fabricated skin, Rotwang realized he liked it better this way, and he decided that was how he would live the rest of his endless days, once he put his mind into it.

It nearly saddened him that the chase was over. After he and Duquesne had dealt with Lohman and returned to the Dunkelstar, Rotwang had pinpointed the HS1's location at the World's Fair. What havoc it had wrought upon Plus Ultra! He delighted in that. Then came his gamble. As soon as the HS1 arrived at Wardenclyffe, Rotwang had ordered the Dunkelstar to Long Island and radioed the Nazi base on Newfoundland to fly in reinforcements. By the time the HS1 had arrived in Faustus's receiving room, the Dunkelstar was within ten miles of the hangar, hidden in a megastructure fifty miles off the coast of New Jersey, invisible to radar and disguised by a hologram to appear as a monolith rock. It matched the blueprints Duquesne had leaked to him months ago. They never would have found it without being able to track the HS1.