Light Years

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Light Years Page 6

by Emily Ziff Griffin


  Ben shakes his head. “This is not right.”

  “It’s up to the Front Line stakeholders to vote now,” Phoebe replies. “It’s not just my decision. But I do appreciate your conviction.”

  “And I appreciate yours, even if you’re wrong,” Ben says. A flicker of something passes between them. It’s like the force of their opposing views combusts into a single charge moving from one to the other and back again before burning out like a dead shooting star.

  “I have to get back to work,” she says. “Good luck, and thank you for your input. Seriously. It means a lot.” She opens the door and struts away like a plane taking off. I want to hate her for being all the things I worry I’m not, but I can’t. She’s too nice and too smart.

  In the hall, a curvy woman with two long braids comes by with a tray of granola bars. Kamal grabs one. “I always imagined my last meal would be a cheeseburger. But I guess this’ll do.”

  “Uh, pretty grim to be imagining your last meal,” I tease.

  “Also, don’t bury me,” he says.

  “I know, ’cause what if you’re actually still alive?”

  “Exactly.”

  “Totally.” We stand there like idiots.

  “Can we go now?” interrupts Ben.

  “We’re gonna see each other again, right?” Kamal asks.

  “No doubt,” Ben replies. “This whole thing will blow over. Trust me.” Kamal’s eyes settle on me like the double barrel of a shotgun. I freeze.

  “Be safe,” he says.

  “I will.”

  “I’m serious.”

  “I know,” I say, still immobilized.

  “Let’s go.” Ben heads for the stairs and I force my legs to follow him. We get back in the car and I enter ARNS into my database of sensations. Touch: rolling stomach. Sight: red light. Ben pulls off his mask and gloves. I don’t.

  I watch the old industrial buildings along Flushing Avenue flicker by as we drive. The darkness makes them look like melting candles dripping into the street.

  “That Phoebe is … I don’t even know what to call it,” my brother says as we shoot up Washington. “Maddening,” he adds.

  “I like her,” I say. We drive in silence, block after deserted block. “I can’t get that boy’s face out of my head,” I mutter after a while.

  “You shouldn’t have encouraged them to use it. It’s irresponsible and it’s going to needlessly torment his family and everyone who sees it. People don’t need help panicking; the news is already doing a great job of making sure they do.” He’s probably right.

  I pull up the Front Line ARNS site on my phone. They haven’t put it up yet. Maybe it won’t pass the vote. I scroll through the thousands of videos, all the faces and titles, then re-sort the pages by number of views.

  The most popular by a lot is called “Thorny Rose” by someone named Evans B. in Redlands, California. I click on it and an older woman springs into frame. Her eyes are haunting and translucent like a wolf’s. Her skin is paper-white. She’s so close, I can see the fine hairs inside her nose. I could swear I’ve seen her somewhere before.

  “This is the information they don’t want you to have,” she says, conspiring with the camera. Her eyes are manic, but her voice has the steady authority of a teacher and it smells faintly like woodfire. “The more people die, the better. That’s what they think. They act confounded, but it’s basic. It’s simple science. And they don’t want you to find that out.” She holds up a hospital ID bracelet. “Two days ago, I was locked up like a monkey. They left me for dead. Then I got free and I cured myself. You won’t see me on the news, but this is the truth. I can help you.”

  “What the fuck is that?” Ben barks. “Some crackpot?”

  “Yeah, I guess.” I shuttle back and freeze on the bracelet. It’s got her name underneath the Redlands Community Hospital insignia, the date—day before yesterday. And four letters printed on the corner: A.R.N.S.

  We stop at a red light and I look up. The electric orb glows intensely overhead, as though it is calling, stop: danger, do not pass. It unsettles me, that red. Crimson is now a synonym for ARNS. The light turns green and Ben hesitates.

  “Go,” I snap.

  “Dude. Chill,” he replies.

  “Sorry.”

  We pull up to our house. The parking spot we left earlier is still empty. I turn so I can see Ben’s eyes. “Do you think we’re all going to die?” I ask. He backs the car into place.

  “I fucking hope not,” he snorts. We go inside. My dad is asleep on the couch with the television on. I watch him. One arm is slung up over his head like a shield. He reminds me of the images from history class of the ancient Romans fossilized by lava from Mount Vesuvius—anguish frozen on their faces for eternity.

  I listen to his shallow breath. How did he get here, to this moment, asleep on a couch in an old house in Brooklyn with his daughter staring down at him? My parents’ lives are like a mystery novel that’s missing half the pages.

  I go into the kitchen and pull the tinfoil off the banana bread. I cut a hunk and grab a small bowl of pasta from the fridge.

  I pass by my dad’s music room. I turn back and linger in the doorway. He left the light on over the piano. I go in. I look at the sheet of music paper he was holding earlier. It was nearly blank then. Now it’s filled with notes—his feelings translated into sounds by a language I can’t read.

  I go up to my room. I pull up FLN on my computer. The anchor is just introducing the video of the boy. The vote was a yes.

  I turn off the sound and look away while I wait for the comments to appear. The screen lights up within seconds. Already thousands of people are weighing in.

  I open LightYears and put the link to the video into the search bar. I watch. The response morphs along an undulating wave of popular opinion. There’s a crest as people question its origins. Who is this boy? Where did this come from? Then the collective view shifts: the hashtag hoax shoots to dominance, pushing Disbelief forward in the text cloud. The comments are all theories of a government conspiracy. They think the video’s a fake.

  But then, the hashtag hisnameishugo emerges. It steadily climbs toward a peak as somewhere, somehow the boy’s identity is revealed. The number of comments and posts grows from tens of thousands to millions. The video is becoming the most widely shared piece of content on the Internet.

  The boy was from a small town in Colorado; he had been walking home from the bus stop when he fell ill; he was found dead an hour later by a neighbor—all the details come to light and the curve shifts in real time as the world expresses its feelings.

  Different descriptors occupy the field of “pervasive sentiment” at different points until one word comes to represent the most widely felt emotion: Empathy. LightYears characterizes 33 percent of people’s posts as empathic. The next closest sentiment is Anger at 24 percent. Then Sadness, Disbelief, and Fear.

  I look at Hugo’s face, then back at my text cloud. So people care? So what? The usual comfort I feel from the words on the screen eludes me. Instead, the room seems to darken. My stomach aches. I crawl toward my bed under the weight of an invisible pressure.

  Maybe Bell was right. Maybe this thing I built actually has no value.

  I text Janine: U up?

  She replies: Y.

  U OK? I ask.

  Y. Sad. Did u see Hugo vid?

  The worst. Meet tmrw? Bike the bridge? I write, buoyed slightly by the thought of seeing her. There’s a long pause.

  OK. Meet at Jane’s at 10?

  Y. C U then, I write. I bury myself under my sheets. My watch buzzes with the voicemail from my mom I’d forgotten to listen to. I press play.

  “Hola, cariño. I spoke to your dad. I’m fine. Let’s talk tomorrow. Cuídate, okay?” she pauses and then says, her voice trembling slightly, “Te quiero, Luisa.” I can’t remember the last time she said my name, or that she loved me.

  “Yo también, mama,” I whisper to myself. And in this moment I do love her. I love
her and want her to wrap me up and carry me away in her green dress.

  CHAPTER 5

  Holy fucking shit. I wake up and there’s an e-mail from Joe.

  Dear Luisa,

  It is with great pleasure that I write to inform you that you have been chosen for the Avarshina Fellowship. Please do not share this news publicly (social media, etc.). Details will follow in the coming weeks.

  Congratulations,

  Joe

  I am in shock. I am in literal disbelief. I read the e-mail over and over. Joy pulses through me in orange waves. I dash out into the hallway looking for someone to tell. Janine is going to lose her mind. And then I freeze. My mother. The thought of her is like a boot in my gut.

  I go downstairs anyway. The living room is empty and the TV’s on. They’re reporting cases in Mexico, France, China, Germany, and Japan and the current death toll is unknown.

  The door to my dad’s music room is closed again. I pause outside and listen. The piano booms through a series of slow, deep chords. They vibrate silver and caramel brown and they are so beautiful it almost hurts.

  I exhale a deep breath and walk away. It will be my secret for now. Mine and Janine’s. I will enjoy it for as long as I can.

  I put the gloves and mask I got at Front Line in my pocket and text my dad saying that I’m going out. I hop on my bike. I squint at the daggers of sunlight bouncing off parked cars. I forgot my shades, but I’m too excited to go back.

  The streets are less deserted than they were last night, but everyone is wearing some kind of protection—a mask, a scarf. They stare at me as I ride past barefaced. I stop and put on my mask.

  I get to Jane’s Carousel by the river just before ten. It’s closed. No sign of Janine, so I walk around to the side. I peer through the glass at the horses. I envision them rising and falling as they whirl around, happy children on their backs, tugging at the reins. I conjure the mechanical organ’s music—the walloping thump of the bass drum and the crash of cymbals. Boom! I jump back, startled by this imaginary sound.

  Janine rides up in a mask. I have to remind myself not to give her a hug.

  “You are not going to believe what I’m about to tell you.” I can hardly contain myself. She stares hard at me. Her eyes are hollow. I feel a tug inside my belly. “Wait,” I say. “What’s going on with you?”

  “I’m not feeling well,” she says softly.

  A bolt of red. “What do you mean?”

  “You know what I mean,” she replies. The tugging is more like a twisting now. I grip my handlebars. I study the skin around the sides of her mask, like it will tell me what’s true.

  “Wait, wait.” That’s the only word I can find.

  “Let’s just ride. Please,” she whispers. She starts off and I follow.

  I press my feet to the pedals and my mind spins with the whizzing of the wheels against the air. I gasp for breath in between bursts of red light. Is this really happening?

  I try to form thoughts, to grab on to thoughts that will anchor my heart as it rises into my throat. But I just keep hearing the word wait and feeling like I’m going to float away.

  We ride up the ramp onto the Brooklyn Bridge. It’s a steady climb to the first granite tower. We’ve done it a thousand times. I push through, counting my strokes. I reach the crest and look back. Janine is barely halfway. I ride down to meet her.

  “Stay back,” she warns. I freeze. It’s so confusing. The more I try to understand it, the more unreal it becomes.

  “This can’t be happening,” I mumble as I tap my foot on the ground.

  She notices. “Are you freaking out? I’m sorry.”

  “Jesus,” I bark. “Don’t worry about me.” Saying that helps a little—whatever I may be feeling is nothing compared to what’s going on with her.

  “I shouldn’t have come, but I had to see you,” she says. I eye the river below. The swift current makes the bridge seem to sway. “And I had to bike the bridge one last time.”

  “Don’t say ‘last.’ ” My voice cracks with desperation and her eyes crinkle into a smile. A beam of silver light like sun breaking through clouds. I love her.

  Then suddenly, she falls to the ground coughing. She rips off her mask. Her bike tips and my vision blurs red.

  “Fuck,” she says after a minute.

  “We should go,” I say, looking back at the river, hoping the current’s rhythm will settle my churning stomach. “You need to rest.”

  She stands up slowly.

  “You okay to ride?” I have no idea what I’ll do if she isn’t.

  She flashes a wicked grin. “It’s all downhill from here.” She puts her mask back on, picks up her bike, and starts pedaling down the path. I pull the gloves out of my pocket. My hands are shaking, but I put them on and ride. Janine’s long black hair flows behind her like a waving flag. I look down and count each time my knees straighten and bend.

  We come off the bridge and turn onto Tillary Street.

  “Let’s go to the park,” she calls from up ahead.

  I pull up next to her. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

  “I know. But let’s do it anyway. Unless … you shouldn’t be around me.”

  I adjust my mask. “I’ll be fine.” I want this to be true more than I believe it is.

  We ride to the park where we used to go as kids. We hop on a pair of swings. We pump our legs. Quickly we are flying above the bushes, glimpsing the Statue of Liberty in the distance. I’m still counting—each arc forward and back again as red, yellow, and brown swirl around me.

  “When did it start?” I ask.

  “Yesterday. I woke up and I just didn’t feel right. You know when you’re about to get sick and you have that thing in your throat? I started thinking about Clara and her coughing on me. I started to freak. So I went online to try and find out what the chances were I could’ve gotten it, you know, just from touching someone. And that just freaked me out more.” She coughs. My stomach flips. “There were all these stories of people and how they got it and people who think they have it and I was just bugging out. And that Hugo kid. That just fucking killed me.” She wipes her dripping nose on her sleeve. “I read that if you come into direct physical contact with someone who’s infected, you have a ninety-five percent chance of getting it.”

  I squeeze the swing’s chains, hard. “Where did you read that?”

  “I don’t know. I must’ve read a thousand posts and articles.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “I guess I didn’t want to scare you. By last night I started feeling really shitty and by this morning, I just knew.”

  “They don’t know that much about it yet,” I tell her, looking for a loophole, a way out. “Maybe you’ll be fine. I saw a video,” I say. “Some woman in California saying she had cured herself.”

  Janine lets her swing slow to a stop. “There are hundreds of people saying they have cures. None of it’s real.” She stands and braces against the chain. “I should get home. My parents don’t know I’m gone.” We avoid looking at each other.

  “I’ll ride with you,” I mumble. I can’t fathom saying good-bye yet. Or ever.

  “Okay.” Her voice pulls our years of friendship around us like a blanket.

  We start to ride. There’s a rattle underneath her breath. I whistle a steady note to drown it out.

  “Wait, you were going to tell me something,” she says.

  I stop whistling and pump the brakes a little. “It hardly seems to matter now. But … I got it,” I say. “The Fellowship.”

  “Oh my god.”

  “Yeah. I had to read the e-mail, like, ten times to believe it. I still don’t believe it actually.”

  “I believe it.”

  “I really thought he hated me.”

  “You always think that about people. And you’re always wrong.” I smile. Maybe I do do that. “It makes me want to cry I’m so fucking happy for you,” she says.

  “You’re the only person I
couldn’t wait to tell.” A swell of silver as we come out of the park and onto Atlantic Avenue.

  There’s an NYPD Emergency Services truck parked by the curb. Two officers in protective suits stand in front of it. We turn to avoid them, but the second we do, one of them calls out.

  “Hold it there!”

  We slow to a stop. “Shit,” I whisper.

  “Dismount your bikes, now! You shouldn’t be in the park,” he yells.

  “It’s public property,” Janine yells back as the officer approaches us.

  He looks carefully at Janine’s face. “Miss, are you sick?”

  “No. I’ve got a wicked hangover. I was up all night doing blow and binge drinking with my boyfriend.” Before the cop can say a word, Janine’s body erupts in convulsive coughs. She pulls the mask off and drops it as she falls to her knees, vomiting.

  I drop my bike to the ground. “Janine!”

  The cop steps back and reaches for his walkie. Janine crumples into a pile of her own puke.

  I look past her as the wind catches her mask and time slows down. I watch the thin paper shell skitter across the pavement. It seems to be taking everything I care about with it.

  “You guys are wearing suits,” I shout. “Help her!”

  “We are not authorized to touch the specimen,” the second cop says flatly from ten paces away.

  “ ‘The specimen?’ What the fuck are you talking about? She’s my friend.” I kneel down, still at a distance.

  Janine tries to climb to her feet, but she just slides back down. My stomach wrenches.

  “Janine, it’s me. You’re okay. Just breathe.”

  The scream of an approaching siren.

  My eyes meet hers. “What’s happening?” she whispers to me. “I can’t feel my feet.”

  “Just breathe,” I say again. She looks up at me like a child. “Help is coming,” I say, my own breath shallow as I press my hands against the pavement.

  The ambulance arrives and two EMTs in full HAZMAT suits descend on us.

  “Step back,” one barks. They lift Janine onto a gurney. They shoot her up with something.

 

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