by Sue Perry
Nica of the New Yorks
(Frames, Book 2)
Copyright 2016 Sue Perry
Published by Sue Perry at Smashwords.
All rights reserved.
Cover photographs and collage by Sue Perry.
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DEDICATION
For Deborah
Table of Contents
0. Thunder Building a Storm
1. Don't Invite Psychoanalysis
2. New York Fool
3. Only Cross At Red Lights
4. I'm Your Musician
5. Tattoo On My Heart
6. A Place Of Great Power
7. A Deeper Mode
8. Again? Already?
9. Tell Me About The Brainwashing
10. Flannel Sheets On A Winter Night
11. Negative Power
12. A Wee Bit Of Resentment
13. When We Were Still Safe
14. I Knew That Flash Mob
15. Should Every Question Have An Answer?
16. Those Left Behind
17. The Basic State of Being
18. I Trust Your Instincts
19. Our Time Arrives
20. The First To Die
21. The Futility Of My Request
22. Books Don't Mean Bad
23. Your Steps Must Be Your Own
24. A Convention Of Middle–School Principals
25. Tantamount to Treason
26. All In Favor?
27. Scuffed By The Steps Of The Wicked
28. Your Nature Is Not A Flaw
29. Everybody Including Hernandez
30. I've Got Your Secret Answer
31. New York Rat Stories
32. Something Tickled My Memory
33. And It's Dangerous
34. T-E-X-T-C-O-M-E-S-B-A-C-K
35. Any Knowledge Will Help My Quest
36. I Don't Have To Believe You
37. The Impulses Of Their Masters
38. A Beginners' Recruitment Meeting
39. Personalized Trances
40. Affinity With Books
41. Here's the Worst Part
42. I Sense What Is Actual
43. Marzipan Stands Against Evil
44. You Brought Her Here
45. We Weren't In Bedlam
46. I Know About You Now
47. What Lesson Can You Learn From This?
48. You Don't Want To Be Seen With Me
49. Don't Feed Maelstrom
50. I Thought I Hated Them Before
51. The Time Of The Traitor
52. Yes, Dearie
53. Leave Alone
54. Must Be So Important
55. Like There Was A Wind, Except There Wasn't
56. Four Beings Survived
57. At Full Speed, Hold On
58. Everyone I Love Is At Risk
59. What Frame Are You From?
60. With Books We Win
61. The Trouble That Happens
62. His Mother Was A Hero
63. Pandemonium's Mechanic
64. Go There, Stop It
65. The Bipolar Roller Coaster
66. Separate To Survive
67. Simple Pleasures
68. Assassination Attempt?
69. Our Spirits Shall Not Be Broken
70. What Makes You Think I Have Cats?
71. Trust Is A Tether
72. We're Just A Bunch Of Neutrals
73. We Plotted Destruction
74. Bridges Aren't Made To Twist
75. When My Side Killed It Would Be Noble
76. What I'm Supposed To Do
77. Almost And Nearly
78. More Jenn Through The World
79. I Clutched It To My Heart
80. I Can't Go Back There
81. Nica's Army
82. The Evolution of Meanings
Acknowledgements
About Sue Perry
0. THUNDER BUILDING A STORM
Tonight marked the end of life as we know it, though few of us understood at the time. Tonight, Maelstrom got free.
The first explosion boomed from the northwest, way behind me, maybe back on the Columbia campus. I didn't remember jumping at the noise, but here I was jogging atop the seats of benches. I was already skittish before the blast startled me—I knew I had no business crossing Central Park alone after sunset, but I needed a run and had persuaded myself I could outpace trouble. I hopped back to the path, sheepish but unobserved—all attention was on the park's perimeters, where glorious fall foliage lined the cobalt horizon. Fall. I'd been in New York more than two months—had moved here to fight Maelstrom—and at the moment, my effort felt pretty much for frigging naught.
Another explosion bleached the sky, this time east of the park. Then north. Then south. Then west. Then west again. People called the blasts simultaneous, but actually they spanned about fifteen minutes. Simultaneous would have been easier to handle.
As I curved back into the city, I heard more echoes of blasts, near and distant, all over the island. With each boom, the air grew further pressurized, as though thunder was building a storm. South of Columbus Circle, the air pulsed in a series of rapid blasts, punctuated with the deep screams of grown men. Suddenly the building's top floor, under reconstruction, was in flames—and from the sounds of it, several workers were caught on the burning floor. I swerved to get out of the way of men, clinging and swinging on the scaffolding, becoming acrobats to reach the ground faster than was safe to move. But of course safe is relative.
By the time the last of them were down, the flames were out. The men began bickering about whose carelessness had caused the explosion—debate that terminated when a construction site across the street exploded in similar flames. I didn't have to see more; already, I could have told them that this was happening at remodeling sites around the city, to free Maelstrom, a being of legendary power and evil who had long been imprisoned.
I knew the exact moment when Maelstrom got free. The air pressure built and built, then with one more explosion, pffft, the pressure was gone. I was surprised when my next breath took in oxygen, because the air felt so empty. The explosions had made the ground rumble but now it settled with a groan just below detectible hearing, like the planet had expired.
I resumed running to flee feelings of impotence, failure. Maelstrom 's freedom was inevitable, that's why the allies focused on preparations for the warfare that would follow, as he moved to consolidate power and rule the Frames. We allies couldn't match the military forces of Maelstrom, but we had to prevail. Sure, Maelstrom and his minions, Warty Sebaceous Cysts, had the advantage. But history is full of the vanquishing of big strong bad guys. And not just in my Frame, as it turns out.
My two months working for the allies in New York were not pointless, as they felt at the moment of Maelstrom's escape. They were essential to the long–term goal: Maelstrom might not be contained but he had to be stopped. I gave myself this pep talk but tonight it didn't penetrate. I'd been much more confident about fighting Maelstrom when I was back in Los Angeles last summer, trying to explain the allies and the Frames to Jenn.
1. DON'T INVITE PSYCHOANALYSIS
When your best friend since third grade thinks you're crazy, it gives you pause. I was confident that I was sane, b
ut if I told Jenn how I'd spent my summer while she was away, she'd be crazy not to think I was. Crazy.
Correction. Not if I told her, when I told her. Jenn had been back in Los Angeles for two weeks and every day that I avoided telling her about my case, she got more distant. I had to tell her the truth, but whoever said honesty was the best policy didn't have to explain detective work in other dimensions or sentient lawn chairs.
I confess, my experiences sounded crazy to me, too, now that I was cut off, back in my own Frame, awaiting word about what my next move should be. I was already fighting fear that the word would never come—that my engagement in the Frames was over. I didn't need to add maybe I'm nuts to my list of things to never think about.
Jenn and I were having a last night together before she left town again, on another quest to improve her health through spiritual retreat. Two years ago, Jenn was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, and the doctors have been surprised at how rapidly hers has progressed. Never surprise your doctors.
She was draped across the futon in my office, her back to me at my desk. She was in the middle of a daily ritual: install a free phone app, try it, decree "Loser," delete it. Meanwhile, I watched the skylight for clouds that held messages, and checked internet travel deals to see if any resonated. Nope. None of the deals made me think yes, that is where I'm supposed to go next, to fight Maelstrom and reconnect with Anya and Anwyl.
When I closed the travel web site, Jenn didn't look up from her phone. "Loser," she murmured and made a few clicks.
If I had any interest in women, Jenn would be my main event. I love her luminescent skin and her eyes that are green enough to be cat–worthy. She has a well–formed opinion for every occasion. Also, she can out–curse a rapper.
But she hadn't cursed all evening, not even a measly damn. That's how uncomfortable I'd made her with my refusal to tell her about my detective work. I couldn't let her leave town with our friendship in this state.
She looked up again. "What's with the snort?"
"I was picturing you in a t–shirt that says 'Some of my best friends are crazy', one of those lame shirts with an arrow pointing to me."
She lowered her phone, I shut my laptop.
I started before I could change my mind. "As you know, while you were at your latest retreat, I became a private detective and, amazingly, I got clients. I was busy the whole time you were gone."
"I'm happy for you. You've been searching for a new direction. Do you think this is it?" Formal and polite. Not good.
"Yes, I believe it is." I withheld my doubts about when/if/whether my case would resume. "I haven't been comfortable talking about my work and as I've been all too aware, that makes you unhappy."
Jenn tapped fingers against lips in a fake yawn. Get on with it.
"Everything I'm about to tell you is confidential." This got full attention, as I knew it would. "My information will sound bogus and I can't prove it right now but I will—at some point." She frowned, perhaps reacting to my uncertainty. But she also curled her feet under her. Listening.
"My clients are other beings—people, maybe, humanoids, definitely. Never mind about that, it's a detail. My clients are named Anya and Anwyl, and they're not from this world. I wish you could meet them. She is—she's like a living sunrise. He is—scary, but in a good way."
"They're not from this world. Your clients are aliens."
"Not like spaceships and death rays. They're from another Frame, which as near as I can figure is another dimension. It turns out there are Frames all around us in all directions, with all kinds of life, all living simultaneously."
"Fascinating! How do we go to a new Frame? I want to see one."
I tilted my chair to look out the skylight. "I don't know how to go by myself. My clients would take me. We would walk through a tunnel between Frames called a Connector. Or they would just take my hand and bring me with them. They are beings of great power so they can do that."
"What's going on in all those other Frames? Magic? Space colonies?"
"Just—beings, living their lives. About half the beings know they're in Frames, the others are like us, in Neutral Frames. Neutrals don't know about other Frames, with a few exceptions."
"You're one of the exceptions. And now I am, too. We're special."
I could hardly begrudge her sarcasm. "Some of the Frames look like ours, but they're not like ours. And stuff can turn out to be alive. This building, for example, is sentient. Her name is Henrietta and she held the door shut one time when it was dangerous for me to enter."
"Someone else might think the door was stuck. I didn't know you had a cat."
I followed Jenn's gaze and saw the reason for her non–sequitur. Dizzy, the building's formerly stray cat, strolled in from my waiting room. "That's Dizzy. She lives here when she's in this Frame. I haven't seen her for days. She's probably been Traveling in other Frames."
Jenn made a noise like I cut her off on the freeway. "I'm not laughing."
"I'm not kidding. That cat saved my life once in another Frame."
Jenn sliced a finger across her throat. No more about the cat.
Maybe I should have stopped. But then Jenn was certain to conclude I had made up a ridiculous story to exclude her from my case. "Another thing about the Frames is that the Watts Towers are sentient. Anyway, the two tallest ones are. They're sentient and animate—they move around. They talk. They have rad powers, actually. One of them disappeared, though, on an espionage mission, and we think he's hurt."
"He disappeared? Nobody noticed that a ten–story tower disappeared?"
"The Neutral version of him didn't disappear in our Frame. Beings like the Watts Towers, who are not animate and sentient in every Frame, have different versions of themselves in different Frames. I'm not clear on how that works."
"Interesting that your favorite folk art sculpture would be so powerful and special. And a spy, too."
Talking about the Frames had energized me, but this snagged my balloon on a power line. "Of course you don't believe me yet, it would be weird if you just accepted all this. I'll skip a lot of the details, they'd take longer than we've got."
"You mean there's more? Can we order pizza first?"
She made the call, then I went out to fetch our pies from the pizza joint across the street. Dizzy walked ahead of me down the hall. I squeezed my eyes a couple times to clear them. Too much time on the internet, my vision was blurry. The threadbare paisley rug was bleeding into Dizzy's gray and white fur.
Correction. I could see the rug through the cat. Dizzy was becoming transparent. The cat did a gradual fade out and right before she vanished, flicked her tail. I felt honored—never before had Dizzy allowed me to see her change Frames. But why couldn't she do that in front of Jenn? That would have cut through Jenn's disbelief. Not for the first time, I had to wonder how much conversation the cat understood.
Every meal is Christmas morning for Jenn. While she compared pizza slices, I resumed my spiel, occasionally waving my slice of jalapeño with green olives.
"My clients, Anya and Anwyl, introduced me to the Frames. They have a prophecy that says I could help them. They're leading an effort to save the Frames."
"From evil, I assume." Jenn crammed pizza into her mouth but I caught the snicker and was grateful for its modesty. Situation reversed, I'd be at the guffaw stage. She chewed, she swallowed, her tone got serious. "Just a few months ago, you were feeling lost and pointless after Ick died. Now here you are with a new career and a job to save the universe."
Jenn knew, better than anybody, how rough it had been after the death of my fourth husband—she pulled me out of that tailspin. But still. "Thank you, Dr. Shrink. Please don't psychoanalyze me."
"Don't invite psychoanalysis."
She ate pizza. I played with my food.
Jenn broke first. "I'm sorry," she said, "tell me the rest."
"The rest won't be easier to believe. There's this super evil being named Maelstrom, who's in prison, but wants
to rule the universe like he did once before. We—Anya, Anwyl, the Watts Towers, all the allies including me—have to stop him."
"He can rule the universe from prison?"
"His henchmen are working to free him. There are three henchmen, they're called Warty Sebaceous Cysts, and they act like morons but they're cunning and cruel." Thinking about the Cysts iced my heart. They acted goofy while they orchestrated genocide, then hunted and murdered witnesses; while they ransacked my thoughts, then told their flying chainsaws to finish me off. I'd be dead if it weren't for a sentient volcano, who –
"Did you say 'warty sebaceous cysts'? Like the lumps on Sadie's stomach?" Sadie was Jenn's dear departed mutt.
"That's not the real name, that's just as close as I can get to saying it—a lot of the names are in languages I can't pronounce."
"Of course they are. Languages of other Frames."
"Someday I'll be able to prove this to you. But I can't right now, because we took Warty Sebaceous Cysts to court and we lost. The court is a special tribunal called the Framekeeps. The Framekeeps forbade Anya and Anwyl from associating with me because I'm a Neutral. But they said 'stay away from Nica of Los Angeles' so that gives us a loophole. I'm going to move, and then I won't be Nica of Los Angeles, I'll be Nica of Somewhere Else, and I can get back on the case."
"You're moving! Where? When?"
I dropped into a chair, refused to slump. "I don't know. Anya said 'you will know' but I don't—yet. I'm. Expecting to get that information. Any time now."
Jenn folded her plate and wiped her hands. Her staccato movements told me her attitude was unchanged. What had I expected? Not to be believed, certainly, but that she would see my sincerity, see that I believed, and wonder.
Jenn pulled her hair at right angles to her ears, her gesture of utmost frustration. Her hair was garnet underneath, burgundy where the sun kissed it. People think she dyes her hair because the colors are so rich. But there is nothing artificial about Jenn. "I thought you were going to talk straight." Her voice lost decibels. "I didn't know you were moving." She held out her pizza debris for me to dispose of. "Are you writing a screenplay, bitch? I know I make fun of wanna–bes but I wouldn't make fun of you. Hardly at all. You know that, right?"