by Sue Perry
The lanyard stopped stabbing me and tinny radio emissions indicated that security guards were converging at the subway trains. I headed back to the terminal, which was full of cops and news crews, plus scattered clumps of spectators uncertain whether it was safer to stay or go. The news crews surprised me—the crisis had evolved so quickly. Had the media been tipped that something would happen?
A cop tried to keep me from leaving. Soon the whole place would be locked down. I pretended to follow orders and stood against a wall with other bystanders, but kept inching toward the door as though trying to see more. My lanyard still prickled and I needed to be elsewhere. In the confusion of paramedic arrival, I slipped outside, where it was easy to run across 41st Street because cops held traffic at the corners.
I loitered beside a news truck to catch some of the feed from the live coverage, saw enough to give me the creeps, the shakes, and then warp speed away from there.
I no longer had time to go to Flushing before I met Lilah, so I found a bar with television and watched the story evolve from its initial disjointed confusion.
The anchors spoke with the breathiness of vicarious adrenaline rush. "Simultaneous protests erupted in Times Square Station and Grand Central Terminal this morning. Reports are sketchy but it appears as though protesters clashed with commuters, something caused a panic, and people ran. Authorities report at least three dozen injuries in the two locations. Four people are hospitalized in serious condition. At Grand Central there was one fatality, when an elderly woman went off the platform of the southbound 6 train and broke her neck in her fall."
A reporter on the scene interviewed a disheveled teen who was so eager to talk that she sprayed spit with each syllable. "I saw a guy push her. A short fat guy covered with zits or boils." The teen shuddered and so did I.
The teen's companion interjected, "He startled her on purpose then clapped his hands when she fell." I knew three beings who fit that description and behavior—any of the Warty Sebaceous Cysts.
When the news shows ran out of information they turned to talking head experts, who agreed that this was a tragically perfect example of mob psychology. None of the participants could say why they had run, no one knew why others were running.
Well, almost no one knew. I knew—or could surmise—because in news footage of the protesters, and cell phone videos from the mob, I saw the instigators. The protestors were the same group that had danced outside my apartment in a flash mob—the Entourage, acting out the impulses of their masters, Warty Sebaceous Cysts. It wasn't much of a jump to conclude that the Entourage had provoked panic that created the mob reaction.
Other talking head experts tried to understand the protest and speculate about the inexplicable phrases the protestors repeatedly shouted: Go Kelly Joe! ... We're here, Neaks ... We see you, Neaks. Or perhaps it was "nekes"—a play on "nukes"? Or possibly N.E.E.K.S. Was the message in code? Had a new terrorist group left a calling card today?
Well, kind of and maybe. It wasn't unreasonable to think of Warty Sebaceous Cysts and their Entourage as terrorists. I pondered as I walked to my rendezvous with Lilah. All I could figure was that the Cysts were muscle flexing, letting the allies know they were here and watching us. The Entourage could have abducted or hurt me today, had the Cysts wanted that.
I texted Lilah to adjust our meeting plans. The closures at Times Square and Grand Central meant we could no longer take the subway to Flushing in time for the Lobotomist meeting. A thought halted me, mid–step, until fellow pedestrians ploughed into my back and pushed me forward.
The Cysts and Entourage had obstructed my direct route to the meeting house. That had to be a coincidence, right, because how could they know what Lilah and I had planned? One possible answer chilled and energized me. Maybe I was about to do something that Warty Sebaceous Cysts had just tried to prevent.
38. A BEGINNERS' RECRUITMENT MEETING
"Yes, yes, we could die. You've mentioned that many times." Lilah rolled her eyes a lot when she was exasperated.
Lilah and I were traipsing the streets near the Lobotomist meeting house to let me get a better sense of the neighborhood and its escape routes. I wasn't convincing her to reconsider our mission and if I kept trying I'd drive a wedge between us. "We could die or worse. Did I mention the 'or worse'?"
She matched my neutral tone. "You ask for my help then try to talk me out of helping while leading the way to the place where I'll help."
"Mixed messages, you're thinking?" I let it go. If only I'd followed my instinct to flee.
Lilah sighed. "You've made it clear that we can fail, but I can't lose Sam without spending all the fight I've got in me. He would do the same for me. He would find a way to give more than his all."
"Not everyone has such high opinion of their siblings."
"They don't have Sam for a brother. He always wants everybody to have a chance. Thanks to him, Gary—my Sig O—and I are together. Gary isn't handsome and will never be rich, so I dismissed his attentions, until Sam showed me what a shallow fool I was."
Sam did sound like a good guy. Not for the first time, I wondered what deep yearnings had hooked him into the Lobotomists. "I hope we can get your Sam back."
"As do I, of course."
"Across the street there, the old building with the pink and black stone facade. That's our destination. It's okay for us to stare, we're wondering if we've arrived at the right address. From this step forward, we need to stay in character. No more talking or thinking like ourselves. And we stay in character no matter what happens."
"Understood."
"Let's walk to the far corner and circle back on the other side. That should give me enough time to feel disdain for my fellows."
"That was an idiotic thing to say but of course it would be. I tolerate you because you were the least stupid of the detectives I interviewed."
"You're a natural. But then you would be, your kind is born and bred for unearned arrogance."
We high–fived and resumed walking.
Getting in the mood for a Lobotomist meeting required a kind of meditation, with focus on a resentful life–denying mantra. But I suck at meditation. I have more thoughts than a street dog has fleas and I couldn't stick to my script. The best I could do was make the prescribed thoughts louder and clearer than the rest. When a real thought broke through, I adlibbed a rewrite of my thought script to try to incorporate it.
... wankers and losers and grabbers. Hernandez should check construction sites in Queens... How long until that freeloader found a job that got him off my couch, anyway?
It seemed to be a beginners' recruitment meeting. The recruits ranged from teen to mid life. There were more men than women, and most were white, but I heard many accents. Each attendee got a couple minutes to share their envies and resentments. Bosses, coworkers, boyfriends, ex–wives, children, parents, neighbors, strangers on the train. They'd done wrong. Soon they would pay.
Near the end of the meeting, newcomers were invited to speak and Lilah's hand shot up. She'd spent her whole life putting up with fools and lowlifes. Her brother had told her about the solution he'd found in another pod. She wanted that for herself, too—a pod of her own.
I winced. Nobody said pod here, they said group or team. When the word left her lips, the meeting handler looked at her intently. When I winced, he noticed me.
I winced because I hadn't told Lilah the full story about how we came to be here. I wasn't only here for her. When Lilah hired me to find her brother and I discovered this wonderful program, I tried to join Sam's pod, but they rejected me. Some b.s. about being done with training. People always said no to me. I would show them.
When the meeting handler noticed me, I worried that he would make me leave. I just needed a chance, I would do whatever it took to prove my worth.
I wanted to linger after the meeting but Lilah split right away, as always with a hint of sneer on her lips. I caught up with her halfway up the block. She tapped her wristwatch in greeting and I t
rotted behind her toward the subway station, falling into the subservient mutt role that somehow I always found. We went another block before she stopped to smooth her hair in a window reflection. Her body language changed and she no longer seemed pissed.
"This is far enough, isn't it? Can we drop these personas?"
"I think so but keep walking like you're in a hurry."
She did, and threw over her shoulder, "That was so awful."
"Agreed. A lot of sick puppies who think it's their time for a bone."
We pushed through the turnstiles to the Manhattan–bound 7 train.
"Do you truly believe that Sam has joined this group of sociopathic losers?"
"All my evidence says yes, sorry to say."
"Oh, Sam," she whispered, and then to me, "What time do you want to meet tomorrow?"
"I'm not sure. I'm reconsidering. It's so dangerous."
She followed me onto the train. "I didn't pick up on danger. What did I miss?"
"The handlers paid too much attention to us." The train took off with a bigger jerk than usual, jolting me into Lilah into the guy behind her.
I grabbed a rail and she smoothed herself out. "Perhaps I should go by myself from now on."
"No way will I let you do that."
I leaned closer to say more, but she ducked around me and took a solo seat between two strangers. "I didn't realize you could stop me."
That's the problem with strong–willed people. They're not good with obedience.
Of course, my own handlers could be saying worse about me.
39. PERSONALIZED TRANCES
As I headed up my block toward the Julian, Leon shot around the corner, chased by the devil's vacuum cleaner. He waited on the Julian's stoop until I reached to pet him, then shot away. I puzzled about what this might indicate until I reached my apartment door. Then I puzzled about why my apartment sounded like it had a house concert in progress.
The reason was that my apartment had a house concert in progress.
Kelly Joe sat at the far end of the front room, playing slide guitar. Dizzy sprawled on the floor near his feet but out of range of his stomping twisting leg. Anya was in the chair; she opened her eyes, shot me a smile like tropical moonlight, closed her eyes. Anwyl, prowling the kitchen, snapped the back of his hand in my direction: shut the door and come in.
I moved to the couch where I sat next to Hernandez. On his other side was—Jenn.
Now this was an interesting gathering.
Jenn leaned forward to see me across Hernandez, squeezed her eyes shut tight and long, a signal we had developed in high school. Honey, do we ever need to talk. Then she rested her head on the back of the couch and closed her eyes, too, looking carefree enough to levitate.
I felt an instant's twinge that Lilah was missing this. That day, Kelly Joe's music filled holes I didn't know I had. I looked around and felt so connected to everyone in the room. They each made me smile for such different reasons.
In a tremendous display of emotion, more intense than any I'd ever witnessed from Hernandez, he reached over and took Jenn's hand. She squeezed back.
Anya's face flickered, her expression inscrutable. Would I ever know her?
Anwyl's absent–minded prowling must be his equivalent of standing still. It reassured me to know a kindred restless nature.
Dizzy groomed herself as though no humans existed; as always, she was the ultimate in cool customers.
Then there was Kelly Joe. My teacher. My musician. That bleakness at his core. Didn't his own music affect him?
When Anya stood, I realized that Kelly Joe had stopped playing, and everyone was coming round from personalized trances. "Thank you, Kelly Joe," Anya said, and he looked up with the empty stare he had after playing. "In harsh times, it is important to keep our hearts open. Now that Nica has arrived, we will talk, all but Nica's friend Jenn, who must leave us for the non."
With Jenn, anything that smacks of direct order triggers rebellion. But she flashed a grin that on anyone else I would have labeled as shy. "I need to do some hand laundry. Is the bathroom far enough away?"
"Yes, that will suffice," Anya smiled, then resumed sitting like the Sphinx.
Anwyl helped Kelly Joe pack equipment, then clasped Kelly Joe's arm until the musician met his gaze. Anwyl studied Kelly Joe's eyes, then released his arm with a kindly pat. I so wanted to know what provoked this uncharacteristic empathy.
As soon as bathtub water rumbled behind the closed bathroom door, I said, "The Cysts caused a riot in the subway today. And they taunted me—us—on television." I thought my announcement would be big news but only Hernandez reacted, with a frown toward the bathroom door.
Anwyl nodded. "Expect such occurrences to continue. Warty Sebaceous Cysts seek to demoralize and intimidate."
"Why haven't they attacked me more directly? Or is that coming next?"
"Your death, like your actions, could hasten fulfillment of your prophecy. To kill all of us is their eventual goal, but for the non, they strive instead to dissuade you from taking action."
"They don't know me very well if they think that will work."
Anwyl chuckled and looked to Anya.
Anya said, "Time is short before Maelstrom's release. Warty Sebaceous Cysts attack our allies in many Frames." She turned to Hernandez. "In the days that crowd after this one, you and Kelly Joe must liberate buildings from the construction machinations of Warty Sebaceous Cysts. Such construction will aid in Maelstrom's release." She went into a long explanation about channeling energy to destabilize Maelstrom's prison. She concluded, "When we destroy construction sites we delay that inevitable, and we weaken their hold on this island. The allies need to control New York City on Ma'Urth."
"What time do we get started?" I asked.
Anya shook her head and told me, "This is not a night for you to join, as their actions require utmost stealth."
I flopped back onto the couch. "I get it, no leaky thoughts allowed." I pretended to be disappointed but I preferred to be excluded. I needed to be on my own and unsupervised for my secret projects. "If you don't have a job for me just now, I'd like to spend time with Jenn while she's here, and also I took a case before you got here. I'd like to finish my work for that client."
I sensed Hernandez' scrutiny. My story had tripped his bogus detector. The others didn't seem to think enough of my abilities to suspect me. They'd say my projects were too much for a Neutral. The only way I could persuade them that they were wrong was by showing them. Anya and Anwyl had never treated me like an equal so I don't know why I bothered to crave their respect. But I did.
"If you can't spare me the time, I understand," I added. "I just thought, maybe." Offering up what you want is sometimes the best way to keep it.
"Until next we meet, spend your time as you see fit," Anya ruled.
Anwyl added, "Our dangers grow when our numbers shrink. Stay together when possible."
The way things went down, I wasn't wrong, exactly. My projects were important. And a Neutral sort of, kind of, did handle them. Except for the unforeseen consequences.
As soon as fearless leaders departed, Hernandez tapped on the bathroom door. He and Jenn returned to the couch eventually. They kept stopping to smooch, as though their lips had to touch a certain number of times per minute. Dizzy rubbed around their legs, which reminded me that Leon had not showed up. I went out to the fire escape. Maybe the lawn chair knew why Leon was acting freaked when I saw him out front.
The lawn chair was gone. Its lock was gone, too. There was no sign of struggle—no scraped paint or broken pieces. Chair and lock were gone as though never there.
Had the Cysts taken the chair? Did they want to eliminate my watcher in the alley or did they want to spook me? Sorry guys, you only spooked my cat. Maybe they thought they could intimidate me. Instead, they compelled me to hurry with my projects.
Hernandez appeared at the bathroom window. "What happened to the chair?"
"I was going to ask you the same
thing."
After I climbed back inside the bathroom, Hernandez made sure the bars were fastened and the window locked. I think we agreed, without words, to discuss the chair when Jenn was not around.
She waited outside the apartment door. I sat down at my desk. "I'm going to skip dinner. I need to meet with the client whose case I want to wrap up."
"Text us when you're done and we'll reconnect," Hernandez instructed.
When I replied with a shrug–nod, he frowned. Before he could lecture me about safety in numbers, I said, "Yes. We'll reconnect. I heard Anwyl and I hear you. I won't wander off on my own."
As soon as Hernandez and Jenn left, I grabbed my books and headed for the Halls of Shared Knowledge.
40. AFFINITY WITH BOOKS
"Nica, I do not presume to guess your intentions but please reconsider your upcoming actions," Julian said.
I was standing on the building's front stoop in Monasterium and I had just removed the strap that bound my stack of books. I watched maternally as each book rose and flapped in the air before me, casting jagged shadows on the gleaming sands of knowledge.
"I always appreciate your advice, Julian, and will keep it in mind. Rest assured I have considered this course of action carefully. Books, follow me."
As I led the books toward the Halls of Shared Knowledge, I continued to give them instructions. I left them fluttering just downslope from the Halls and climbed to the entrance alone.
"Welcome back, seeker," the even tones of the bookcases greeted me. "What new knowledge quest spurs your return?"
"Same old, actually. I still need to know how Maelstrom enslaved books, before he gets free and does it again. What you showed me last time was important and helpful and I am grateful for that. But I need to know how he did it. Nuts and bolts. Details."