Glimmering

by Elizabeth Hand

  Still, the library didn’t look closed. A small group of people stood on the grand front steps, talking excitedly. They seemed to be about Trip’s age, wearing long patchwork coats—it must be a fashion—over the kind of slashed finery and jangling carpenter’s belts he associated with front-row seating at his shows; or conversely, dressed in very conservative, dumpy-looking men’s suits with plain white shirts and somber ties. No masks, no protective implants or headgear; shaved heads for boys and girls alike, or else long ostentatiously uncombed knotted hair streaked with garish colors. Plastic tubes around their necks that could hold water, or booze, God knows what. Club kids, Lucius used to call them, derisively; and now Trip thought of what the man had said earlier—Marquee Moon, the Chancery. Club names. He stared up at the library steps until a girl with torn red leggings and tunic looked down and smiled at him lazily. He started to smile back, had an anxious instant when he thought, She knows who I am! Imagining the devouring rush of fans, hands pulling at him—

  But no, she was just smiling, already she had turned back to the others. He saw that the pattern on her tunic was repeated on her flesh. The cloth had been torn so that one braless breast was completely exposed. Trip looked away and hurried on.

  He crossed the street and entered the park. The wind tore at his anorak, bringing with it the garbage-dump scent of the river. The sky had deepened from violet to indigo. Rents of glittering silver and crimson showed in it, as though some unimaginable brilliance lay beyond. He remembered the planetarium show he had seen with the blond girl, her voice in the false night. The stars so firmly fixed in the sky, how immovable they had seemed, how lovely and bright and true. There were no stars now. There had been no stars for years. He stared up into a sky that seemed to turn slowly, clockwise, like a weather image of a hurricane, its central eye a deeper darkness that revealed nothing. He squinted, trying to remember another kind of sky; but not.

  And he could not remember the stars; when he tried to picture them all that came to mind was the girl’s white face and burning eyes, and behind her a shining banner.

  WHEN THE WHEEL OF TIME SHALL HAVE

  COME TO THE SEVENTH MILLENNIUM,

  THERE WILL BEGIN THE GAMES OF DEATH.

  From the street came a roar, an answering chorus of shouts. Trip whirled to glimpse a car hurtling past, and then a second. From the shadow of a building children darted. They took off running, purposeful as birds in flight, shot down an alley, and disappeared.

  For the children of the kingdom shall be cast out into outer darkness.

  The Biblical words were remote as his memories of the stars. They had lost all meaning for him. Without the world he had known to frame them—without John Drinkwater, without his music, without the night sky over Moody’s Island or the sound of voices in a dilapidated clapboard church, without the girl—without these things, Trip saw with a clarity that left him breathless, God and the stars could not exist.

  He had always thought it was the other way around.

  Something cold brushed his cheek. He blinked and saw a few stray snowflakes spinning down, not white but pink. He wondered what time it was. Late, probably; night—New Year’s Eve, the man had said, could that be true?—and he was alone in the city. Echoing voices and the sound of breaking glass came from a block of shabby apartment buildings. He turned and walked quickly back the way he’d come.

  At the edge of the park a bunch of children had gathered between two benches, sweeping back and forth on Rollerblades and skateboards, sometimes in tandem, playing an elaborate game that seemed to involve knocking down their friends. He was a little shocked to hear the way they cursed; none of them could be more than eleven years old. As he drew nearer they began to look over at him with the same bright hunger he had seen in the eyes of feral dogs.

  Too late he realized his mistake. Something came whipping past him, a blur of yellow and green, and pounded him in the stomach. He caught himself before he hit the ground, turned, and saw a mass of bodies rocketing through the twilight.

  Trip tried to run, staggering behind a bench. A few yards before him was the open street, but there were more figures there, jumping the curb and landing with such force that the wheels of their blades struck sparks from the gravel. Trip flung out his knapsack to sidearm a figure that grabbed his elbow.

  A voice yelped, jubilant. Trip looked down to see a pale grinning girl with scabbed cheeks yanking at him. Her grin became a snarl as she twisted his arm viciously, then savagely bit him.

  Trip shouted in pain, kicked her as another child ran up. The air rang with shrieking wheels. Their hands were everywhere, their sharp knees digging into his ribs and blood trickling into his eye. One of them had his head in a hammerlock and was slamming it into the pavement—

  —and then there was an instant of shocked silence; followed by a deafening roar, a ping like rock striking metal. And Trip was on his hands and knees, coughing and weeping, and someone was beside him.

  “Whoa, buddy! Shit, they almost nailed you—”

  Trip swiveled his head painfully and saw the man he had followed earlier crouching beside him, a gun in his hand. His patchwork overcoat flapped open to reveal an intricate holster holding some kind of compact assault weapon, and what looked like dental equipment.

  “Whee doggy.” Then got to his feet. He looked around, the gun light as a toy in his big hand, and tipped his chin. “See there?”

  Trip stood groggily and looked. A small form lay on the ground at the far end of the park.

  “Nailed her,” the man said. “But she wasn’t on wheels. Not that she wouldn’t’ve taken you out,” he added. “Fuckin’ A. But they nailed you BT, buddy—”

  He slid the gun into the holster, flicked a catch, and let the overcoat fall across his chest, made a gun with his finger and cocked it at Trip’s forehead. “What’s your stats, pro?”

  “Huh?” Trip’s jaw ached. He swiped at his face and saw a smear of blood on his hand. “Aw shit—”

  “Your status, man,” the man went on. “You’re losing some bodily fluids there, don’t you got a bandanna or something?”

  “Oh—yeah, yeah—” Trip shoved his hand into the knapsack and pulled out a T-shirt, mopped his face with it. “It’s okay, it doesn’t really hurt—”

  “Fuck if it hurts, man! Are you fucking negative?”

  Trip looked at him through a fold of dark cloth. “Yeah, I’m fucking negative.”

  “Well, here—” The man tossed him a silvery object. Trip caught it, a little sani-pack of sterile gauze treated with Viconix.

  For Travel and Emergency Use. For When You NEED to Feel Safe, the label read, with smaller letters proclaiming, THERE IS NO KNOWN CURE FOR THE FOLLOWING VIRUSES. FOR PROPHYLACTIC USE ONLY, PLEASE CONSULT A HEALTH CARE PROFESSIONAL IF—

  Trip tore the packet open, took the damp towelette, and swabbed his forehead with it, wincing at the cloying smell of vanilla and antiseptic.

  “I’m taking your word on that, buddy,” the man said. He cocked his head and watched Trip, nodding agreeably. “Can’t suspect everyone, right? Plus it’s only a scratch”—he squinted at Trip’s forehead—“plus only a lily-white tourist’d be out here by himself on New Year’s Eve.”

  The man turned and spit, surveyed the encroaching shadows, and shook his head. “Fuck this shit. Let’s get outta here. Come on.”

  He stood expectantly. Trip wadded up the Viconix pad and threw it at a bench, looked at that small form motionless on the ground. He took a deep breath. His throat hurt, he felt winded and a little bruised but otherwise okay.

  “Thanks,” he said. “Thanks a lot.”

  The man shrugged. In the darkness, all coiling orange clouds and cobalt sky, the spiral tattoos on his cheeks glowed. “Hey, it happens. Listen, I found out where that place is. Walked right by it. You probably did too.”

  He headed for the street, coattails flapping, alligator boots clacking loudly on the asphalt. “My name’s Clovis Tyner,” the man said. “I come up from Ho
uston, and you know I ain’t gonna take no shit from some little fuckass kid like that—”

  He thrust his chin in the direction of the park. “Used to come here on business two-three times a year, before the shit came down. Commodities. Pissed away more money’n my ma made her whole life, not that she woulda known what to do with it, ’sides buy a thirty-aught-six. You ain’t even holdin’ a piece there, are you?” he asked, giving Trip a curious look. “Fuckin’ A. You’re here in this part of town—hell, you’re right here in this city, you must be the only little peckerwood here ain’t holding. My my.” He laughed. “You’re pretty fucking lucky I came along, huh? This must be your goddamn lucky day!”

  Trip managed a sickly grin. The man just kept on walking. Trip had to jog to keep up. They were across from the park now, heading back toward the abandoned library.

  “So you gonna introduce yourself? I ain’t gonna jump your bones, if that’s what you’re thinking,” Clovis drawled. “Fuck no. You’re too skinny for one thing. For another, you got a dick!”

  He threw his head back and hooted. “Admit it! You thought I was playin’ for the pink team—well, fuck that! Yo, this is it—”

  Trip looked where he was pointing: the library. “This?”

  Clovis paid no attention. He was peering over the wrought-iron fence at the crowd on the front steps. Tie-dye and crinkly plastic clothing—pink, green, turquoise—glowed among the ubiquitous patchwork overcoats, sleek short hair, dreadlocks braided with strands of glass and metal, shaven heads and foreheads branded with arcane symbols and the names of bands: Commanche Baby Music, Diskomo, 334. The wind brought a haze of marijuana smoke, something that smelled like bug spray. Shrill galvanic music echoed from somewhere, drum machines and what sounded like distant traffic. More people were crossing the street now, animated groups all merging on the sidewalk. A few joined the crowd on the steps, but the rest jumped the fence and headed for the building’s perimeter, where the massive structure made its own night. At the end of the block four younger children on blades whizzed back and forth, yelping obscenities. Trip swallowed, a stab of the terror he had felt before; but the people around him seemed pumped up with more attitude than anger. They reminded him of the crowds that had shown up for Stand in the Temple: college kids, kids who still managed to have money, whether it came from parents or hustling drugs or rolling cars in the suburbs.

  “Hey, let us in!” someone yelled from the steps. A jar went whizzing past Trip’s head; he ducked as it crashed onto the pavement behind him, sending out a whiff of raw spirits.

  “Whoa, dude!” laughed Clovis. He grabbed the fence, gazed through twisted iron railings at the building’s facade. “C’mon, we better go, else we won’t get in at all.”

  With a grunt he hauled himself over, cursing as his coat snagged.

  “Here,” said Clovis, urging him to follow. “Give me your bag, you can climb over—”

  In your fucking dreams, thought Trip; though there was nothing of any value in the knapsack save Martin’s sextant. Still, he checked to make sure the catch was secure, hitched the bag tight onto his shoulder, and clambered the way Clovis had gone, gasping as his hurt knee scraped against a jagged edge.

  “Awright,” Clovis sang out as Trip jumped. He pounded Trip’s back so hard he staggered. “Here we are now, entertain us!”

  Clovis spun around and began to walk. Trip followed. Heavy shadows fell across the ground, broken by columns of pulsing pink and crimson where the night sky streamed down. Kids darted in and out of the light. Some of them wore luminous coils around their necks; others had patterns etched into their skin or scalps that shimmered eerily when they dipped back into shadow. Trip glanced at Clovis: the swirls on his face burned ultraviolet. He looked down at his own ripped white pants and old grey anorak.

  “Hold on,” he muttered. Clovis stopped and bounced restlessly on his bootheels. Trip pulled off the anorak and shoved it into the knapsack, stood shivering in his flannel shirt and the thick wool sweater Martin had given him. He ran a hand through his hair, traced the outline of the cross branded above his eyes—he must look like shit, no one would recognize him now. He shrugged the knapsack back onto his shoulder.

  The way in proved to be not via the library’s main entrance, which was blocked off with sheets of stainless steel and plywood, but through myriad service doors and windows that had been linked via a slapdash array of building materials—foam rubber, plastic bags, planks and Styrofoam insulation and hurricane fencing—to form an elaborate network of chutes and passageways, all leading into the basement. Dozens of solar panels leaned up against the building’s exterior walls. Like the makeshift entryways they had a haphazard look, but people seemed careful not to knock into them. And while the crowd had grown substantial—Trip guessed there might be a thousand people out there in the frigid wind, which seemed pretty good for an abandoned library in a city with no electric lights—once some secret signal had been given, and the doors and windows opened, everyone disappeared inside within minutes.

  “Once you’re in you can’t get out till morning,” explained Clovis. “Unless we get busted.” Trip wondered if someone would search him and find the guns in their hidden holster; but when it was their turn to crawl through a rusted culvert, he found no one on the other side inclined to do anything except shout at them to move.

  “G’wan! Keep going, keep going! ”

  A hugely fat man in a caftan and surgical mask waved them on. He held a green lightstick, and waved it like a traffic cop’s baton. “Pay inside!” he bellowed. “Pay inside! Keep moving—”

  It was dark, and suffocatingly hot. A mechanical drumbeat throbbed relentlessly from upstairs, loud enough to make the room shake. Muscular men in white caftans elbowed through the mob. They wore money belts, and each had a third eye tattooed on his forehead.

  “Twenty dollars!” they shouted, breasting through a sea of rippling arms as people shoved money at them. “Twenty bucks, no barter!”

  Trip struggled to reach his wallet, managed to pull out two tens. The bills were snatched from him, he hoped by one of the bouncers; then the three men were gone. The crowd’s peristaltic motion carried him forward. Bass-heavy electronic music thundered directly overhead. Trip braced himself, praying that he wouldn’t fall.

  “Stay tight!” Clovis shouted. “Stay tight—”

  The room was black, save for the luminous tattoos and scarifications on the people pressing against him, the fat man’s baton and, stuck on the ceiling, a few plastic light boxes. The crush of bodies exuded a thick rank smell—sweat and marijuana smoke and Viconix and a bitter chemical odor Trip almost recognized. A smell that was more like a taste, something that nudged the back of his throat, something he could almost name—

  But then the crowd surged forward. Trip grabbed at Clovis to keep from being trampled underfoot.

  “We’re there, buddy, we’re there!” Clovis said.

  There turned out to be a broad ascending stairway. Deafening percussion raged down it like an avalanche. Trip bounded up behind Clovis.

  Clovis yelled over the thunderous music. “You ready?”

  Trip nodded, not ready at all. As he stumbled into a vast space rent with flickering lights and shadows, moving bodies, music.

  “That way—” Clovis forced his way through the crowd.

  Solar panels lined the perimeter of the room, flickering jade, cobalt, scarlet beneath banks of empty bookshelves. People stood or sat, talking, drinking, selling things—T-shirts, silvery crescents and discs, luminous drinking coils, fake tattoos…

  “Hey, man—acid? X? Ice?”

  A tattooed girl in ripped tunic and leggings stopped in front of him. Within her flat grey eyes the pupils had almost disappeared; the corners of her mouth were cracked and raw.

  “Ice, man?” Her voice rose a little desperately. Trip was unsure whether she was looking to buy or sell. He glanced down, saw her bare feet shuffling restlessly back and forth across the dirty floor. When he looked up again
she licked her lips and made as though to grab him, her hand twitching ineffectually a good six inches from his chest.

  “Eeeeyyesssss…” She coughed, then wiped her eyes. With a beseeching expression she raised her hand, so that Trip could see a greenish crust glinting on her fingertips.

  “Izzit?” the girl croaked, blinking. “Whadizzit?” Her hand flailed, trying to grasp him again, but Trip turned in disgust.

  He saw Clovis talking to a cluster of dreadlocked men in kilts and sleeveless flannel shirts. Clovis dug into his pocket, handed one of them a small object that sparkled; the man looked away from him, his eyes locking for a moment with Trip’s as he palmed something to Clovis. Trip hesitated, then began edging through the crowd toward them. Music flowed from unseen speakers, switching from techno to jackhammer to Japanese covers of antediluvian disco to enhanced versions of TV music—commercial jingles, theme songs—that Trip recalled from childhood. He edged past a jury-rigged DJ’s booth laid out across a long table, a tangle of power cords and speaker wire and equipment, some kind of video projector. In the middle of it sat a woman, headphones threaded into her shaven skull, fingers stabbing at a knee top. Her eyes glittered metallic red, her cheeks were pierced with dozens of long silver needles. He could smell her, patchouli and another smell—that weirdly familiar, corrosive scent he’d first noticed when he entered the library. Like hot metal or burning plastic or gunpowder.

  He frowned, trying to place it; and stumbled over a knot of electrical cords.

  “Watch it!” the red-eyed woman shouted.

  “Sorry,” he mumbled. He picked his way carefully back into the mob of dancers, his eyes fixed on the floor. When he looked up, Clovis was gone.