I wait, wondering how much she knows.
She says, “Because that does seem to be his communication, doesn’t it?”
“Quit screwing around.”
“I can send over these urgent items myself if you like. And I’ll let him know you have been inquiring about his whereabouts when I speak to him next.”
“When will that be?” I ask, hating to crawl to Sophia like this. “When did you speak to him last?”
“I’m sorry, but I cannot reveal my communications with the mayor.”
I do a mean little sniff-laugh, like she’s pathetic, and all this is maddeningly inconvenient, nothing more. “So you’re not going to tell me.”
“I’m busy,” she says into her computer screen. “Why don’t you run along and pour your wretchedness into one of your victims?” She looks up. “I believe this interview is over.”
My steps sound crisp down the marble hallway. I punch the elevator button. Of course she’ll tell Otto I was trying to find his hotel. Like a stalker. Otto’s too much of a gentleman to tell her what happened, but she’ll smell blood all the same.
Chapter
Fifteen
I’M NOT IN THE IDEAL STATE of mind for visiting Ez, but it’s not like I can take the night off, being that I only have until Monday to get her rolling. As I touch the descrambler bracelet, I imagine, as I have so many times lately, unclasping it from my wrist and handing it over to her, and the joy on her face.
Just to be safe, I take it off and fasten it around my ankle; as long as it’s on your person, it works. It’s only a matter of time until Simon gets his hands on one. It’s probably only a matter of time until he tells Ez what we are. If he hasn’t already.
Ez looks relieved to see me, so Simon hasn’t told yet. Good. Ez is freaking about nanocites and obsessed with a zone of aliveness under her right rib. We discuss that, and she asks to see the descrambler bracelet again. I tell her I can’t show it, and ask her about the Cellini book, which she has of course read. My fear is still in her; there’s this uncanny way that I can sense it running through her veins like poison.
At one point she fixes me with her burning gaze and asks the strangest question: does Packard pull lots of night shifts at the hospital? She seems almost angry about it. Why? Does she think he was up all night?
Was he?
I run my finger around the edge of the ledge. Packard told me it wouldn’t work for us to sleep in shifts. The dream link is extratemporal, he’d said. It doesn’t matter when we sleep, only that we sleep.
I inform her that I don’t know his schedule.
Did he stop sleeping? No, with all that’s going on, that would be madness. Though he’ll do anything to stay free.
“Let’s get a pulse,” I say. She gives me her hand.
As I build up to my zing, I start feeling more disgusted with myself. I tell myself I just have to do it. I have no choice now. I press my thumb to her vein and watch the clock.
Packard sometimes asks me when I can ever forgive him. That’s not something I’m ready to do. But ironically, it’s the times I feel most trapped that I come closest to forgiving him. He was a prisoner just like me. He wanted freedom, just as I do.
I’m stoking, readying to zing her, pretending to find the vein, when I look into Ez’s eyes. They’re full of worry, and trust.
“What is it, Justine?” she asks.
And then it hits me: Ez is a prisoner, too. I’m a prisoner hurting another prisoner. She never had a trial and she’s maybe innocent, and she trusts me and I’m secretly attacking her. I feel queasy. Again I tell myself I don’t have a choice, but I’m tired of that.
I do have a choice.
I drop her hand, stare at her dumbly. “I have to go.”
“What? Don’t leave!” she says. “You’re not done taking my pulse.”
“I can’t.” I turn and walk—it’s all I can do not to run for the exit sign.
“Come back!” she calls.
I push out the door into the night. The fear I stoked up boils uncomfortably at the surface of my energy dimension. It’ll settle some if I give it time. Outside, I brace my hands against the cold brick wall, pulse pounding in my ears. I do have a choice, and my choice is to stop being a minion of Packard.
People have been telling me I am like Packard. I am—I’ll do anything to be free.
Including risking becoming a Jarvis.
Everything feels so still—my heart, the stars, the icy air. Even the snow has stopped. I pull my hands from the rough wall.
I’m done. I’m making my own decisions from now on.
It’s so crazy, yet so simple. Packard doesn’t get to boss me anymore. Maybe I’ll zing Ez again if I decide she’s actually guilty, but it will be my choice.
And if I refuse, I have a little under a month until I turn into a Jarvis. Or I turn into a sleepwalking cannibal first. Or both.
“Fuck it,” I say aloud, and I stroll down the sidewalk. I’m free. My own person. Nobody can make me do anything I don’t believe in anymore. I smile. Laugh. It feels incredible.
And terrifying. The decision I’ve made is serious and dangerous, and completely the right thing. I don’t know whether Packard gave me that ultimatum as a way of helping me or controlling me, but it doesn’t matter. I’m ultimatum-free now.
My first act as a fully free person is to head over to Lenny’s and order three orders of French fries. Lenny is still there. He sinks them into the fryer and we have a jokey little exchange about whether I’ll be able to eat them all. Yeah, I’ll eat them all.
I read Dear Aggie while I wait, and when the fries come, I drown them in ketchup and cover the ketchup with salt. They’re just a little bit crispy. Delicious.
As soon as Lenny gets busy with another customer, I call Simon. “So guess what I did tonight,” I say, unable to keep the smile off my face.
“What?”
“Declared my independence.” I lower my voice. “I’m so done with being a minion.”
“What? Just like that?”
“I’m a woman of action, my friend.”
He whistles out a breath.
I pop a fry into my mouth.
“Are you going to zing random people or what?”
“I don’t know. I haven’t thought it through.”
“You’re just stopping?”
“I’ll make my own choices from now on.”
“But listen, you’re not just going to …” He doesn’t finish. He’s thinking Jarvis, and so am I.
“Let the chips fall where they may.”
“That’s my line,” Simon says.
“I know.” It’s all a bit dizzying, like I’m way up high on a tightrope. Will I be laughing as the weeks go on? Defiantly, I stuff another fry into my mouth, determined to enjoy this moment. The fry is delicious. The decision was right.
There’s a long silence. “Maybe we’ll figure something out,” he says. “Kick around some ideas. I figured out spelunking. Packard figured out how to get free of Mongolian Delites. If we come up with something, then I’ll jump ship.”
Simon’s not craving risk. He must have just zinged.
“I don’t mind the odds,” he explains, “but there’s no upside to quitting this instant. I’m with you in spirit, and we’ll see about the rest. And, oh, man, Packard’s going to freak. If we figure something out and disillusionists start quitting, you know Otto’ll stick him back in the restaurant.”
“I don’t want that,” I whisper.
“And what about Otto and his imploding head?”
“I know, I know. I don’t want Packard sealed back up, and I don’t want Otto’s condition to worsen, and I don’t want to be a sleepwalker for Ez. There are a million reasons on every side of this thing. But Simon, in my heart, I had to stop. I mean, what about me needing to be free to follow my conscience?” I eat a double fry.
“You don’t have to worry about Ez. She’s harmless.”
“I feel like you’re right, but I need you t
o prove it,” I say.
“I’m almost there. And just think—Packard’s out of your life. You never have to see him ever again.”
I feel hollow as the truth of this hits me. “Well, I’m definitely going to tell him I quit. I’ve been looking forward to it,” I inform Simon. I haven’t actually thought beyond telling him, and his reaction. Is telling him I quit the same as saying good-bye? The fry tastes like sawdust in my mouth.
“Justine, do something for me.”
“What?”
“Wait to tell Packard. He might throw Vesuvius on Ez. Just give me a few more days.”
“Fine.”
We get off the phone and I finish my fries and read more Dear Aggie. Relationship problems. Those were the days.
After bidding Lenny good night, I make my way back to my car, feeling like a giant blob, thanks to all that grease. But a free blob. I sit for a long time in the driver’s seat, not starting up. I’m tired, and I crave sleep, but I’m wary of it, because sleep makes me vulnerable to Ez’s control. She wants that descrambler. What if I bring it to her, and she breaks out and starts running cannibals again? It’s not like it’s one hundred percent impossible that Simon’s wrong.
Of course she’d gain control of me before Packard. As a highcap, Packard’s mentally stronger, even in sleep. Tipping my head back, I close my eyes, wondering if I should go to an all-night movie or something. Just sitting with my eyes closed feels good, and I start to doze off with the pleasant sensation that I’m porous, like gossamer, as though it would be nothing for air or light or Ez’s thoughts to flow clear through me. I wake up with a start.
Am I in danger of sleepwalking at her command as soon as tonight? Or am I just obsessing about it?
I decide to take precautions. I run a few errands, and an hour later I’m parking in the weedy parking lot on the side of Shelby’s building.
I get out to the roar and exhaust fumes of the tangle; its overlapping masses of highway curlicues rise out of a sea of rubble and garbage on gargantuan concrete legs. Beneath is the dark, wild terrain of tanglelands—a dank, extensive network of highway underbellies and concrete caverns where dangerous people and dead bodies are said to dwell. As a rich disillusionist, she could live anywhere. It makes me love her that she chooses the building nearest the tangle.
She’s going to fight me on my decision to quit, but I’m ready.
As usual, the door to the building is propped open. I head in and run up the scuffed staircase and knock. No answer. I’d thought she was going to be home tonight; she seemed rather intense about it, that she was doing nothing tonight. She stressed it. Nothing.
Another knock. No answer. When I call her, I hear the ring inside, which alarms me, but then she flings open the door, looking flustered. “Justine!”
“Were you asleep or something?” I ask.
“Sort of.”
I breeze in past her. “You shouldn’t nap this close to bedtime.” I look around and fix on a heating pipe that goes from her floor to her ceiling. “Mmmm.” I test it for stability. “This should hold.” I pull my handcuffs out of my bag and turn to her.
She widens her eyes.
I smile. “That’s right, Ez has deepened her hold, and this is what things have come to. I’m like fifty percent sure I’m going to be a sleepwalking zombie tonight unless you lock me up. And no way am I going to Packard on this.” My gaze slides over her cluttered apartment—pillows, soda bottles, chunky black work boots. It’ll be nice to spend some girl time with her. “I’m thinking you can slide your pullout over here, and maybe if I had one hand cuffed to the pole. It’s gonna suck, but …”
She’s looking at me strangely.
“I have this weird feeling sometimes that I want to help Ez. Nothing conscious, but deep down, almost preverbal, and I no longer trust myself in sleep. Are you hungry? Maybe we can order a pizza.” I flop down on her couch. Pizza, wine, and then I’ll tell her my decision. “Christ, I was just in my car almost dozing off, and I could almost feel her.”
She lowers her voice. “She has deepened her hold?”
“I don’t know if she’s deepened it or if I just feel super-vulnerable in general, like how things are with Otto. I might be obsessing. I know that’s possible, being that this is sort of a brain thing. And what if her invasion activity exerts some sort of pull on the vascular structure of my brain? Like a kind of tidal pull? Shit, I wasn’t thinking about that …” For the first time since I’ve arrived, I actually focus on her. “Is this okay? Is something wrong?”
“You cannot sleep over.”
“What?”
She shrugs suddenly, seeming resigned to something. “You cannot.”
“Why?” I look at her coffee table. Two bottles of soda. Chunky black work boots on the floor underneath. Chunky black work boots. My jaw drops. I scan the room. “Where is he?”
She blinks prettily at me. Then, “Fire escape.”
I look at the window. Closed. He can’t hear us, at least. “This is so out of bounds. Oh my God.” I don’t know whether to laugh or scold. In my frazzled state, it would probably be a little bit of both. I take a deep breath. “What are you doing?”
“Getting rid of you so that he can come back in.”
“You know what I mean.”
“I am not hurting our Dorks investigation.”
“Jesus!”
“I am not hurting it. I give you my word.”
“I can’t believe you have him here.”
“I kissed him.”
I bite back my smile. I know this is not jubilation time.
She sees it anyway and says, “I will kiss him again when you leave.”
“Oh my God.”
She narrows her eyes. “I know. I do not know what is into me.”
“How about you getting the customer list? Any chance of that getting into you?”
“No, I could not.”
“Why? If he falls asleep? It would be nothing to pull that little flash drive off his key chain and copy it. Little eensy beensy flash.”
“No, I could not.”
“He’d never know.”
“I am not the kind to—” Abruptly she stops; then, “I would not.” As if that’s all she’d meant.
“You’re not the kind to fuck a target to complete a mission? Like your friend Justine did? You’re not the kind to lie to a man you’ve come to trust and adore? Or manage and manipulate him? Make him sorry he ever knew you?” Like I did with Otto.
She looks at the fire escape.
“I don’t want you to, Shelby.”
“You don’t?”
“No. You know what? If it doesn’t feel right to you, then you can’t do it. Screw it all.”
She puts her hand over my forehead as if to check my temperature.
“Stop it,” I laugh. “We’ll get the stuff without you. Just don’t hurt us tonight.”
“I will not hurt you. I will not hurt investigation, Justine. But what about …” She motions at my handcuffs.
“Okay, here’s what I’ll do. I’m going to go home and handcuff myself to my bed, and I’m going to throw the key across the room. Okay?”
“Oh, Justine, this seems quite dangerous.”
“No, it can work, but you have to come over at six-thirty to unlock me. Can you do that?”
“Of course.”
“Or, if I call in the middle of the night, like there’s a fire or I have to pee, you’ll come over and release me?”
“No, this is quite dangerous.”
“It’s fine. Six-thirty, got it? Unless I call.”
She purses her lips.
“But if I call you, like, in my sleep, you’ll know, right?” I say. “You have to make sure I’m fully awake before releasing me.”
She nods. “I understand.”
“Consider me gotten rid of.”
Chapter
Sixteen
I WALK INTO Mongolian Delites so confused, so lost, and he’s there. He looks at me with that sof
tness in his eyes, and he sighs. I can feel the sigh inside me.
I go to him.
He takes my hand and pulls me into his arms with this steady force that’s intensely satisfying, and we kiss—hard and long. I melt into him, lost and found all at the same time. A warm glow flows through me—relief, heat. I want to kiss him and taste him everywhere.
Don’t be mad. Just for a little while, just for this moment, Packard pleads, pulling me closer. I’m going to make things work out, he whispers.
Warm lips on my neck, my ear. He whispers my name. I grab his hair, pull him to me.
Frenzied breaths, harder now, shoulder blades thunk against the wall. I love him and I love his happiness—I feel it as strong as I feel my own heartbeat, and I let his happiness overwhelm me, along with his kisses. I push my hands in under his clothes. I have to find his skin, his warmth, touch him everywhere. He’s pulling off my shirt, kissing my little bra strap bulge, an area of fatness I hate, but he kisses it and loves it. He loves me. I want to be with him, but I’m so far away from him—I can’t get to him. I pull and pull, but I can’t get free.
Crash. Glass shattering. My arm is trapped—it hurts. Something’s got my arm!
I jerk awake, heart racing, screaming pain shooting through my wrist. Cuffed to the bed. A yell from the street. Was there a car crash down there?
The red numbers on my clock say 4:07 a.m.
I lay back, ragged and bone-weary, feeling like my mind has been trashed, emotions flung from drawers. It was just a dream memory, I tell myself. Ez pulling out bits and pieces of my life. I take a deep breath, shoving everything back. It’s winter, and I’m here in my apartment, cuffed to my bed frame.
I sit up, shoulder burning. I contort far enough over to flip on my light, and grab my book about a Victorian lady sleuth. Just as I’m getting into it, I hear the bleep bleep bleep of a siren on quiet mode. Red flashes illuminate the trees outside my window. Something’s happening.
I pull as far forward as I can, but I can’t see down to the street. Is it the police? Could there be a fire? I wait, listening. If there was a fire, somebody would’ve put on the alarm. I don’t hear doors slamming, either. An accident out there, I decide. That would make sense, given the crashing sound.
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