511 South Forest
Find a way to please yourself.
The card was thick, the corners sharp. No information was on the back except for thick, random lines, like the printer had made a mistake. It contrasted with the minimalist design, everything so orderly and planned.
The white door opened.
A woman closed it quietly and carefully. Like the card contrasting with the room’s décor, the woman’s black skin was sharply displayed against her ivory white dress. Lips painted red as her nails, she approached with long, even steps.
“Do you have an appointment?” she said with an accent.
Sunny cleared her throat. “Micah,” she whispered.
The woman didn’t answer, didn’t step away. She only cocked her head with a silent question. Sunny took her hand, the fingers long and slick with lotion, and pushed the damp wad of paper into it.
“Are you Micah?”
The woman didn’t respond.
“I need help.” Sunny’s whisper bounced around the room. “Someone told me... he said Micah could help me.”
The woman slowly opened the paper, staring for several seconds before folding it four times and placing the tight square in Sunny’s hand.
“Is he here?” Sunny asked.
A smile haunted the woman’s painted lips.
“What do you... do you want something?” Sunny stepped closer and leaned in. “I have an eighteen-year-old son that’s in trouble. He has taken a, uh, a punch to play a... play the game.”
The woman twitched.
“Can you help me?”
There was no response. No rejection. Barely a recognition of what she was saying. Sunny dug into her pocket.
“He said it would cost me. I don’t have money right now, but I can get it. I do have these though.”
She pried open the lid. Holo lenses floated in clear solution. They belonged to her employer—circuited contact lenses that enhanced her vision and retrieved information. If someone else put them in their eyes, such as non-coded personnel outside the company, they would shut off and a signal would be sent to her superiors. She would be fired. They weren’t cheap and the right people could recode them.
“Use this as a down payment, please. I just need to talk to someone. My son needs help.”
The woman cupped her hand, snapped the lid closed and pushed the offering back. Her eyes were severely lined. She turned with the same even stride and walked back to the white door.
Sunny continued to drip.
She waited for her to return as the cold soaked past her flesh and into her bones. The shivers turned into shakes. Traffic silently passed outside, puddles swelling on the sidewalks. She turned around when the sound of an opening door echoed in the open room, but the door was still closed. No one had returned to help.
When she turned back toward traffic, the ghostly image of an old homeless woman looked at her, a plastic chrysanthemum tucked in her hat. She was desperate for help, begging for attention, as if she had something to say and just needed to be heard. Please listen.
Sunny Grimm was looking at her reflection.
She was lifeless. A haunted ghost trying to escape the present, running from a damaged past that rattled like tin cans. Her history was a long train of railroad containers following her to the end, each day getting longer and heavier. If she could just pull the lynchpin and leave them behind, start a new life, lay a set of tracks in another direction, one that wasn’t heading for a cliff.
She would never look back.
Was that what Grey felt? Did he feel the weight of his family inheritance, the genetic disposition that brought so many of her relatives to their knees? Her father ate a bullet. The father before that used a rope.
Is that why he took the punch? Is he trying to unhitch the past and lay new tracks?
Maybe he wasn’t in the Maze, just using the punch to change his life. There were transformative therapies that reorganized thought patterns and turned off self-destructive genes. They were known to be invasive and effective, but none that came in a do-it-yourself kit.
But the symbol...
She dialed a number. The call ticked over to Donny’s voicemail. He would be crashed on the couch by now. It was well past bedtime.
Sunny walked to the white door and quietly turned the handle. It wouldn’t open. When another ten minutes passed, she knocked. Politely, at first.
“I need help,” she called. “I need to see Micah.”
The thick door absorbed her blows. She kicked it.
“Help me, someone. He’s all alone. He doesn’t have much time and I need help. He’s in the Maze. Someone told me you can help my son. I need to know if—”
The door pushed back.
The woman stepped out forcefully, a long cool breeze exhaling from behind her like that of a concrete warehouse. It was pungent, clawing at her sinuses, stinging her throat. Sunny’s eyes itched and she was suddenly nauseous.
It seems so familiar.
“I’m sorry, you’ve been misinformed.” Her accent was thick, South African maybe. “There is no Micah for you to see. We have no affiliation with black-market wares. We are a federally licensed retailer of sensory augments.”
“He said you could—”
“If what you say is true, you need to go directly to the police. Go there now because this is very serious. Your son will need help as soon as possible.”
“He’ll be in trouble.”
“There’s more at risk than legal trouble, ma’am.”
Sunny backed away. It was suddenly clear how stupid she was. Why would she listen to a stranger like Ax, let him fill her head with conspiracy and urban legend, wasting precious time on secret societies?
Sunny backed into the pedestal. Stiff white cards sprayed over the bamboo floor, some sticking in small puddles. Random black lines bled across the backs of them. She ran onto the sidewalk before the South African woman insisted she clean them up.
The rain soaked her once again.
Sunny dialed as she ran down the sidewalk. First for a car to pick her up, then Donny. When he didn’t answer, she called the police. She would take them to the apartment; she would show them her son and the punch.
The symbol that would betray them both.
She was ready for that, prepared to accept the consequences, fines that left her homeless or a stretch in jail. She’d take the police to her apartment, give herself up for her son. Only they wouldn’t find him when they got there.
There’s more to risk than legal trouble.
3
Sunny
After the Punch
THE BED WAS EMPTY.
The room was still the same—dirty clothes and tipped boxes, the desk buried beneath papers, the tin box where she left it. The pillow was fluffed, the corners tucked in as if no one had ever lain on it, no one had ever slept in it. No one had used a punch.
The second she walked in her apartment, she knew it. It felt different. Smelled odd. It was the same scent that had wafted out of the back room of 511, the nasty sting in her nose.
The kitchen was still a mess. The orange juice was on the counter, the empty box and velvet bag. She thought, for a moment, this was all a joke, that Grey had woken up to peel that thing off his head and together he and Donny went for breakfast. Maybe they’d left a message or sent a text she never received.
Donny still wasn’t answering the phone.
This is a dream. She propped herself in the doorway. A fucking nightmare. The seconds fell around her like radioactive snowflakes, stripped her of hope, and left her naked and exposed.
Grey’s phone was on the desk. His phone never left his pocket or his hand, and there it was on the desk, squared in the corner, screen black. She thought she’d left it in the kitchen. Maybe Donny put it there. It requested a passcode when she touched the screen.
How long have I been gone? Hours felt like days, even years. Already the memory of her son was fading, the details of his face dusty with time.
Sunny couldn’t even shake her head.
“You need to understand the severity of filing a false report—”
“It wasn’t false. He was here, in his bed. This is all...”
“Okay. We can still file a missing persons report, but you’ll have to come back to the station. Unfortunately, the rest of your story just doesn’t hold up. There’s no evidence your son was tampering with the Maze.”
Sunny scrambled to the bed. The computer beneath it was gone. No lights, no cable. No evidence.
“Maze activity is a felony. If your son was involved in any way, he can be prosecuted. You’ll be held accountable, too, Mrs. Grimm. This is your apartment.”
She leaned on the bed, unsure if she could stand.
“Mrs. Grimm?”
“I understand.”
Officer Blake looked at his partner then back again. “You want to file a missing persons report?”
“No. No, he might be at a friend’s house. I’m... I’m sorry. I panicked this morning. I work a lot of late shifts and...” She rubbed her face. “Maybe I wasn’t seeing things right.”
“You sure it wasn’t a VR headset?” the partner called from the kitchen.
“Yeah, maybe,” she said. “I don’t know.”
“We’ll have to include this in our report,” Officer Blake said.
“Of course.”
“Sunny Marie Jones?”
“What?”
“That’s your name.” His thumbs were poised over his phone.
“No, Jones is my maiden name... I gave all that information at the station.”
Officer Blake cleared his throat and nodded at his partner. He said something, maybe it was goodbye or his contact information. Sunny didn’t process anything but the front door closing. And the crushing silence.
The apartment spoke loud and clear.
She knew what she had seen that morning. She wasn’t dreaming, wasn’t hallucinating. She didn’t need a note to explain what had happened since she left that morning. The ominous warnings were clear. There’s more to risk than legal trouble.
And now Donny was involved.
She wouldn’t forgive herself if something happened to him. She didn’t know much about the Maze, just that it was a black-market sport that dealt with virtual realities that destroyed the losers and sometimes the winners, a virtual game of Russian roulette.
Grey’s phone vibrated. The screen lit up. It was a text.
You all right? It was his girlfriend, Rachel.
Sunny swiped the text. She didn’t need a passcode to reply, but her thumbs hovered in place. Where is he? Do you know about the Maze? Did you break up? Is he okay? What the hell is happening?
The phone went blank. The text vanished. Her opportunity to reply had passed. She didn’t know Rachel’s phone number, didn’t have it in her phone. And Rachel was his only friend.
That she knew of.
Sunny tried to grab her hair. It was why she had started shaving it, to keep from pulling it out on bad days. She began pacing. The floor rocked with turbulence, as if the building was hitting air pockets. She needed food. Needed sleep. Needed a moment.
There was no time for any of that.
The window was cold. The spatter of rain rattled in her head. The cops were still parked at the curb, standing at open car doors.
Grey’s phone vibrated again.
She ran to the bedroom, would answer Rachel this time, write all the questions in one long text and hit send. But it wasn’t from her. An unknown sender’s message was simple.
Leave the apartment now.
She almost dropped the phone. Who is this? she texted back. Before hitting send, she added, Where is my son?
Sunny waited for an answer. The logo suddenly appeared. The phone spontaneously shut off. She pushed the button, held it down, and shook it. It had plenty of charge a minute ago, but she plugged it in anyway.
It was dead.
She had to call Henk. She was an incompetent mother, a head case, an emotional plane crash. Fine. She just wanted her son back, wanted him safe. Even if her ex-husband claimed a victory, let him have it.
But her phone was dead, too. “What the hell?”
The police were in their car now. Turn signal on, they merged into traffic. Another car quickly filled the empty spot. A black umbrella emerged from an open door.
Sunny paced again, her breath coming in short stabs. The floor continued to sway, the swales deep and mysterious. She was going under a wave of panic, drowning in a sea of dreaded emotion. She just needed a moment to think, clear her head, see a direction. The police were no help. Micah and 511 weren’t either. And Donny. Where are you, Donny?
A soft rap on the door.
She stopped too suddenly and almost crumpled. There was silence and rain. Then another knock.
Sunny tiptoed to the door, she didn’t know why, and peeked through the eyehole. A short old woman was getting ready to knock again. She was hunched over from a lifetime of gravity, a floral silk scarf around her head and dark sunglasses the size of coasters.
Sunny looked around the chain lock. “Yes?”
“I’m sorry to bother you, dear, but you have a call.”
“What?”
“There’s someone on the phone.”
Sunny didn’t talk to her neighbors much. This wasn’t the sort of building where people mingled. But in all the time she’d lived there, the apartment across the hall was always quiet. She’d always thought, for some reason, it was empty.
The door was ajar. A Siamese cat watched from inside the dark apartment, a little bell around its neck.
“Did you see anything this morning? Did anyone come to the apartment while I was gone? Did you see anyone leave?”
The old woman’s cheeks turned a paler shade. “Um, no.”
She seemed unsure if the old woman understood the question or just didn’t hear it. She shuffled a stack of mail and dropped an envelope. It fluttered into the narrow slot of Sunny’s open door.
She picked it up. “You’re Mrs. Jones?”
“I am.”
“Have you seen anyone strange on the floor?”
“There’s someone on the phone, dear.”
“I’m sorry?”
“Someone called for you.”
Sunny swallowed a knot before it broke open. She opened the door and looked in both directions, placing the fallen envelope in Mrs. Jones’s knobby hands. “Someone called... for me?”
“They want to talk to you.”
Mrs. Jones tightened the scarf around her head and pulled it behind her dark glasses. Sunny held onto the door and looked down the empty hallway, half expecting it to shrink.
“Who is it?” Sunny asked. “A man or a boy?”
She was afraid to let go, afraid the door to her apartment would slam shut and never let her back in. Everything was about to change. Her life would be completely closed.
There’s nothing back there anyway.
That was what it felt like. Someone had turned her life inside out. She could move on now, start a new life.
If they just didn’t take my son.
Mrs. Jones scooped up the Siamese and waited. Sunny started across the hall, a sneeze greeting her inside the thick air. Heavy drapes blocked the sunlight. What little light seeped around the edges was diffuse.
Half a dozen lamps shed yellowish light on the clutter. Cat hair floated through the brightest spots. The couches were hidden beneath discarded magazines and old newspapers, boxes of empty tissues and piles of knitted scarves. Somewhere a vanilla-scented air freshener was battling a litter box.
“The phone is in the kitchen.” Mrs. Jones scratched the Siamese cat. “It doesn’t stretch in here.”
It was a phone as vintage as the old woman. The spiral cord was knotted worse than a ball of yarn. Sunny held her face near the receiver.
“Hello? Grey, is that you?”
The silence was final. “Hello? Who’s there?”
Only her voice answered back. She turned to Mrs. Jones and asked, “Was it a man that called?”
“It was someone.”
“Like my son?”
“It was sort of soft but short. I think you were calling from far away.”
You? Mrs. Jones was the cat lady they wrote about on postcards, the one with an endless selection of scarves to wrap around her head. A person that wasn’t quite in touch with the world outside.
“Far away?” Sunny said.
“The voice was small. It used to be that way when I was little, when someone called from across the country. Their voice was very small. I used to pretend it was someone calling from the future.”
The Siamese purred as she stroked her belly, the bell jingling on its collar. Two more cats entered the room, rubbing beneath the old woman’s robe. She told them to be patient, it wasn’t their turn.
There was a knock on the door.
Mrs. Jones didn’t hear it, her arthritic fingers crawling through the Siamese’s fur. Once again, Sunny walked on her tiptoes and stood near the door. The knock came again, but not on Mrs. Jones’s apartment. Looking through the spyhole, a man was at her apartment. His overcoat was black and beaded with rain. A hood was pulled over his head.
His shoulders were broad, the gloved hand thick; he rapped on apartment 300, Sunny’s apartment, where the door would swell in the summer and the bottom was scuffed from kicking it open.
She assumed it was a man.
Sunny’s hand rested on the doorknob. He might know something about Grey. Or maybe he took him and was here to offer a way to bring him back. She was about to open the door—
“They said to stay.” Mrs. Jones had fallen on the couch.
“What?”
“The one on the phone. They said to stay here.”
“Why didn’t you tell me that?” Sunny whispered.
Despite the claustrophobic apartment, Sunny’s mind had cleared. When she walked back to the door, the floor didn’t teeter. The man was gone. Two damp footsteps faded at the foot of the door.
Maze: The Waking of Grey Grimm Page 3