Nica of the New Yorks

by Sue Perry

  "What the hell is a Lobotomist?" I asked Kelly Joe.

  His warm chuckle pissed me off. It was his isn't–that–a–funny–way–to–say–it reaction. "Which part did I say wrong?" I demanded.

  He swallowed his chuckle. "Here now, say it after me. Lob–"

  "Lob–"

  "–otoh–"

  "–otoh–," I repeated carefully.

  Maybe that noise really was a cough like he pretended. "–mist."

  "–mist," I said pessimistically. "Lob–otoh–mist. Lob–otoh–mist. Bleeding hell. Let it out so you don't choke." He didn't chuckle this time, he hooted and ha'arred. Nothing was funnier than my pronunciation. "I say it exactly like you do. Lob–otoh–mist."

  He doubled over. I'd never seen him give in to a laugh before.

  Call me sadist. "Lob–otoh–mist. Lob–otoh–mist."

  Anya and Anwyl turned, saw Kelly Joe bent over with me draped across his back, trying to pull his fists from his ears while I cackled, "Lob–otoh–mist." I was laughing, too. There is no pleasure quite like laughing with a sad person.

  "We're getting ready to fight the Cysts," I assured them. Anya smiled, Anwyl removed a Metro card from his tunic. Which set me howling. In fact, no matter how dire our situation, it makes me smile when Anwyl enters a subway turnstile like any John Doe. Although I've never seen him add money to his Metro card. Hmm.

  The subway platform was crowded. Apparently a train had failed to arrive. Anwyl and Anya got separated from us by a clump of tweeners carrying backpacks that seemed to be empty. No grown–up can understand the fads of the young.

  Laughing had released tension from my encounter with Sam and the seven mental dwarfs, but I dreaded telling Lilah what happened to her twin. Not that I understood it.

  I followed Kelly Joe to the railing. "What does it mean? The L word."

  He stared across the street and into the cemetery, which was dark except for lights that lined the roads and an occasional swank mausoleum. "A Lobotomist is a being that sacrifices free will in exchange for something it wants, usually money or celebrity or sex. Lobotomists have a craving that makes them willing to do anything. In the war, Lobotomists will be the first to die."

  Poor Lilah. And poor detective who had to report to Lilah. "Can the Lobotomizing be reversed?"

  "Sometimes it can, if a stronger craving arises. Or if the manager dies. Lobotomists have a manager that controls the group's thinking."

  "Are these things always around? No one has mentioned them before."

  "You'll only see them in wartime. They want tending that's not worthwhile, except during war. As fighters they're relentless, but it takes time to train them. The ones tonight were trainees. Warty Sebaceous Cysts are surely training thousands." He unpocketed his harmonica while he talked but put it away again, unplayed.

  "We need to stop them before they get trained."

  "Only one way to stop the Lobotomists. Stop the manager. The manager's identity will be hidden, but it will be someone close to Warty Sebaceous Cysts, someone they trust to build an army." He said this last to himself, as though trying to solve a riddle, while he threaded us toward Anya and Anwyl through a crowd that was all silhouettes in the light of an approaching train.

  "You talk like war is certain. Won't the fighting peter out when we stop Maelstrom from escaping?"

  "War is coming. Maelstrom will be free," Anya interrupted.

  The train arrived with the screech of a thousand vultures. WTF. Why were we trying if we knew we would fail? "I thought we were trying to keep Maelstrom in prison."

  How could it be a fact that Maelstrom would get free? I shook my head to deny that prospect. Then Anya took my hand and my hopelessness morphed to resolve as she said, "We must stop Maelstrom. It is up to us, not his prison, to stop him."

  Anwyl added, "Or all shall perish in the attempt." Mr. Bright Side.

  Our train jerked into motion and I clutched a strap to stay in balance. Anwyl stood next to me as though glued in place. Clearly, a big change was a–comin', because he volunteered information. "Since last we met, Anya has worked to fulfill her vow to overthrow the Framekeeps." He sounded proud, and no wonder.

  The Framekeeps are a tribunal of thirteen beings. They uphold laws and hear petitions. Last summer when we were in Los Angeles, Anya and Anwyl petitioned the Framekeeps to punish Warty Sebaceous Cysts for genocide. Had the Cysts been found guilty, they'd be back in prison, at least. The Cysts had just finished a long prison term—the most recent of many—so maybe their sentence would have been worse than prison; maybe they would have been trapped in a collapsed Frame. Warty Sebaceous Cysts were indeed guilty of the genocide, but Anya and Anwyl lost their petition, because Warty Sebaceous Cysts secretly controlled a majority of the Framekeeps. Sure, after the hearing, Anya vowed to overthrow the Framekeeps. But the Framekeeps seemed so powerful.

  Anwyl's voice was rich with admiration. "Anya has rallied support yet maintained secrecy and these things are not easily done."

  "I had no idea Anya was doing that," I said. I had no idea because I had been excluded from the Frames and nobody ever explained much to me, anyway. I didn't add that—I didn't want to remind Anwyl that he had never confided in me before.

  He gripped the rail as though it were a traitor's neck. "Anya visited the Frame of each traitor among the Framekeeps, met with those loyal to the free Frames, and selected a replacement for each traitor. One Frame yet remains to enlist. We go there now. Come." He reached a hand out— like Kelly Joe used to do—to help me Travel.

  "I can Travel on my own now. You start, I'll keep up."

  "As you wish." Anwyl retracted his hand.

  Across the train car, Kelly Joe and Anya changed Frames with us. I matched the Frame shifts easily and held my smile, although it went rigor on me as my wooziness and urge to barf escalated. Still, it was easier to Travel in sync with a group rather than a single other being.

  We reached a Frame where we were the only ones in the subway car and took seats facing Anya and Kelly Joe. "Your teacher has taught you well," Anwyl said to me but spoke to Kelly Joe.

  "She is a Traveler of the Frames now," Anya agreed, with a smile that made me feel like a double rainbow.

  The light strobed as our train came out of a tunnel. We shifted Frames one more time and my heartbeat did a drum solo. This must be the home Frame of the being who had kidnapped me. My kidnapper had looked like a human Cobra and he had a dozen close relations in this subway car, all between me and the door. But nobody menaced or noticed me, so my heart finished its solo.

  Around us were Cobra people with leathery skin and long necks that disappeared into flat jowls. In addition, on the train were improbably gorgeous male models, sculpted for come hither, plus a few jaunty grandmas whose eyes shone with experience and acceptance. With each train stop, our subway car grew more crowded and the pecking order more clear. The models would leap to stand whenever a Cobra person needed a seat, and everybody—including my companions—gave their seats to grandmas.

  On subsequent visits to this Frame, called Expletive Deleted, I learned there are three principal races. The Cobras are privileged and run things. The male models are an underclass, maintained for breeding, unskilled labor, and abuse. The grannies are revered spiritual leaders whose existence protects the male models from worse treatment, because every once in a while a model unpredictably transforms into one of the grannies.

  We changed Frames again as we took the stairs to the street and left the subway at Bleecker Street. The streets pulsed with building noise.

  A sidewalk pretzel cart swiveled as we passed. "Hey, you're Cat Shaver!"

  "I am."

  The cart swiveled to yell behind, "It is her and she talked to me." Soon we were trailed by a fresh juice wagon, a toffee nuts cart, and several identical pretzel carts who may have been related. "Cat Shaver, would you put a bite in one of my pretzels? Please?"

  I turned in surprise. The first cart squealed its brakes then dipped in a little bow t
o confirm I had heard right. I, Nica, was at a loss for words.

  Anya smiled and Anwyl prompted, "Your popularity aids our cause."

  Okay, here goes. I grabbed a pretzel, left a tooth impression for future archeologists to puzzle over, and dangled the bitten pretzel from the spokes of the cart's metal shade umbrella. This provoked huzzahs and spins from the food carts. Damn, I should run for office in the food carts' district.

  "Well done, Nica of—the New Yorks." A dimly familiar voice gave sly emphasis to my new affiliation. The owner of the voice clasped arms with Anya. It was Hari!–Ya, the Cobra woman I had last heard speak when she served as a Framekeep at our hearing against Warty Sebaceous Cysts. "All is ready for your—action," she told Anya and Anwyl. "We will talk in here." She led us into an urban park between buildings, which had brickwork, fountain, benches, and no greenery. In the park, the volume of building chatter was lower, but the fountain water crashed like Niagara Falls.

  I tried to keep up with the conversation via lip–reading as my companions finalized details for a visit to the Framekeeps, which was set to happen the next day. For my benefit, they summarized what would happen tomorrow. We all had a part in the plan.

  I enthused, "That is such a dope plan. Can't we start now?" It was a rhetorical question, unless the answer had been yes.

  21. THE FUTILITY OF MY REQUEST

  The plan required several final steps and we spent the evening making them. Rather, the others did. I got left in Frivolous Bedlam. I couldn't get anyone to tell me why I was in/out–of/in danger. But danger there seemed to be. When I made a visit to my apartment on Ma'Urth, the lanyard washed new–toothache pains through my body. It was like a weather forecast. Storm brewing. I would leave at the lanyard's first flash of lightning—I didn't want to test the limits of Julian's ability to protect me.

  I had returned to Ma'Urth to call Lilah and persuade her to stop seeking Sam. I practiced a few run–throughs of vague evasive messages that I could leave without faltering. I ran into Sam briefly. He's where he wants to be. Lilah would read between the lines and sense the evasion, but whatever negative she inferred would be better than the truth: Give up on your twin, he's a zombie for the Cysts because he traded his humanity for his vices.

  No such luck as voicemail. She picked up on first ring. "Do you have news?"

  "I ran into Sam. It's like you said, he's really hooked in with that club. But he seemed healthy and making his own choices and when I mentioned you were looking for him, he got pissed." I didn't add that his only emotions fell on the angry to hate–filled continuum.

  "Did you tell him I need to speak with him?"

  "He knows that you want to. I recommend that you –"

  "What are your next steps?"

  I sighed. "I plan to talk to the leaders of the club."

  "Good, I like that. Where did you run into Sam?"

  "I won't tell you that. The more involved you stay, the harder it gets for –"

  "You have no idea what harder is." She hung up on me and I was okay with that.

  I realized two things. I couldn't stop Lilah from searching for her brother—I hoped he stayed out of Frame; that might protect her from finding him. And I did want to talk to the social club leaders—they might be the Lobotomist managers.

  I grabbed a quick snack and got ready to Travel back to Bedlam. My plainwrap phone buzzed. I'd forgotten this was a night for Hernandez to call.

  "Anwyl there?" he greeted me.

  "A and A have stepped out. They're crossing t's and dotting i's for a big day tomorrow. I don't expect to see either of them before then."

  "Framekeeps tomorrow?"

  "Why are you so much better informed than I am?" My words were garbled—I shoveled yogurt into my mouth while we talked.

  "Tell Anwyl the main five are taken care of. He'll know." Hernandez sounded pumped.

  "Has he got you committing illegal acts? Don't answer that. How are you, anyway? How is L.A.? I miss everything about L.A. I love everything about being here, though, and I'll miss it when I leave. Am I confused or enlightened?"

  "What's your thinking on that?" he asked in a way that said he wasn't listening.

  "Have—ow!" I stubbed my toe. It was getting dark but I was reluctant to turn on a light, because the lanyard's pain was sharpening. "I've got to go soon."

  Which freed his hyenas. "Patti's ex– called her and she was just going to see what he wanted and then she just needed to finish her thoughts with him. Finish her thoughts."

  "She can't go back to him. He hit her. I didn't know cops could be that stupid about people."

  The silence grew. I pictured Hernandez hunched at his table in a house that was empty of daughters, squeezing a beer bottle until it caved and shattered from the inside.

  "Why are you still out there on the left coast? Everyone is here now."

  "Been wondering that myself. Have fun tomorrow."

  "And how!"

  I considered phoning that moron, Patti, but the last person you can save somebody from is herself. And the lanyard pain was jolting now. I shoved snacks into my backpack and was zipping up to depart when Hernandez' phone buzzed again.

  "Yo anew," I answered.

  "Neekster." I dropped my backpack and fruit scattered. The voice hit me like a penny. A penny from the top of the Empire State Building: a two–syllable sledge hammer. It was Ben and he was high.

  "Oh, Benny," and I started to bawl.

  "Wh's wrong?"

  "Just some stuff, not worth explaining." But he knew that I knew. If he was high, he'd be hating himself for this relapse and my negative feelings would help neither of us. That's the problem with knowing someone so long and so well. You get stuck being truthful whatever your intent.

  Because life can always get more complicated, the lanyard's warnings escalated to stabbing pains. But whatever wicked this way came, I couldn't hang up on Ben just now.

  "S'rry. I thought." Amazingly few syllables to transmit so much frustration and disgust.

  Suddenly this was the most important conversation of my life. "Benny, I need you to do something."

  "Wha'?"

  "Go to a meeting. As soon as we hang up."

  Electrons flowed through my phone. I considered the futility of my request. What happened to Ben was up to Ben, not me. I checked the screen to see if the call got dropped. No, we were still connected. I rubbed my chest where it was numb from the lanyard's shooting pains.

  "Good advice. Oops." And the call dropped.

  I knew from too much experience that I dare not let my worries rampage. They can demolish me without changing Ben's situation an iota. So I put him out of my mind, in much the same way that you might cease to think about swallowing a handful of rocks. That leaden discomfort persists under all else. I've had those rocks in my gut for years.

  From the fire escape came animal howls that would have inspired the term caterwaul if it didn't already exist. The lanyard seared my skin. I scooped my backpack from the floor and got out before I met the reason for those wails.

  I knew when I arrived in Bedlam because the lanyard stopped hurting. I collapsed on my couch, grateful for the absence of pain and danger—to me, anyway. One of those wails had sounded like Dizzy's voice. If I went back to Ma'Urth, could I help Dizzy? Doubtful. Did she need help? No clue. Maybe Julian knew what had happened out on his fire escape on Ma'Urth. I headed for the hall outside my door to ask him. Before I got there, Dizzy and Leon slunk in from the bathroom.

  Dizzy's fur was so puffed she looked like a fur balloon; Leon was puffed, too, but his shaved coat made him fuzzy as an Impressionist sketch. Leon had a fresh cut on one ear—any deeper and it would have split his ear. I took him to the kitchen sink and he let me mess with him long enough to clean the cut and staunch the bleeding. Then he did his cockroach thing and by the time I got back to the couch he and Dizzy were playfighting, ferocious as nurf balls. Watching them made me laugh, which made breathing possible once more.

  If only somebo
dy—cats, lanyard—could tell me what had almost? just? happened back on Ma'Urth. What the hell had been on the fire escape? Did the whatever injure Leon, or did the cat hurt himself in his haste to get away? What about the lawn chair? Was it in danger out on the fire escape? Could a visitor from the Frames sense that the chair was sentient?

  There was way too much I didn't know.

  22. BOOKS DON'T MEAN BAD

  When I'm stressed, indoors oppresses me. I left the cats to their playfighting and headed for the streets. As soon as I opened Julian's front door and put a toe on the front step, the buildings called hearty greetings to Cat Shaver. I waved and hiya'd my way west.

  "Hey! Cat Shaver! Slam–slam!" a building called, sing–song.

  "Who's there?" I played along.

  "That's just what I was wondering!" the building shrieked and other buildings snapped their awnings or slammed their doors. Food carts pirouetted and popped wheelies. I could spot the two truly sentient buildings on the block because they remained silent. Thinking deeper thoughts, no doubt, and waiting for meaningful conversation; but sometimes the sentient buildings do seem like their cement hardened too fast.

  It was quiet on the promenade by the Hudson River, which regularly emitted a vibrating throb like the last ring of a Chinese gong. Was the river chanting?

  How could a river be sentient? Where was the sentience? It couldn't be in the water because the water flowed away. Did the river think differently when it rained? Did all sentience require thinking? How peaceful to have thought–free existence. All my wondering about the river gave me an egg scrambler of a headache. That plus the effort to not worry about Ben.

  To escape my thoughts I concentrated on the all–around. The setting sun left a familiar glint on the water—was there only one sun for all the Frames? Damn, thinking again. The river's chants matched the rippling of currents that expanded to the banks, retreated, expanded downstream. The chants deepened as daylight waned.