Nica of the New Yorks

by Sue Perry

  The bookcase chorus grew silent. The lead bookcase spoke with the patience of someone who has all the time in the world. "It seems you have forgotten that we cannot fulfill that request. Moreover, not all that you request do we possess as shared knowledge."

  "Then show me the parts you've got. And please put a rush on it."

  I was wrong. I'd thought the voice couldn't get more patronizing. "Much harm can come from the sharing of knowledge about Maelstrom."

  "What would you do with this knowledge, seeker?" asked another of the warm condescending gatekeepers, with emphasis on little old you.

  I made my voice big and rich, suitable for pronouncement. "I will learn how to undo what has been done and restore to all books their true nature."

  A moment of probably stunned silence was followed by vibrating tones that sounded like pushpins in a flushing toilet. They were laughing at me. Finally the lead bookcase got enough of a grip to say, gently, "That is a noble goal, seeker. Would that it were possible. The Halls of Shared Knowledge document the blood spilled in four attempts."

  "Then show me those attempts. I can learn from those mistakes."

  "Seeker, we will do nothing that sends you to a headstrong death."

  Headstrong. It wasn't the first time someone had called me that. If you squint at it right, it's a compliment.

  "It is my destiny to try," I said formally and maybe truthfully. The bookcase soundtrack evoked a family drama. I got the sense that the bookcases liked me, despite what they considered my wrong–way pigheadedness.

  I raised my voice and made clear I was calling over my shoulder. "Books. To me."

  The approach of my books was more fearful and impressive than I could have hoped. Shadows swelled on both sides of me as a dozen books in formation ascended the slope, then swooped to hover behind me, awaiting my next command.

  The lead bookcase's voice was shrill, super–imposing authority onto fear. "No librarian may Travel with books unless war has been explicitly declared. Leave here—at once. Take your books." The conviction cracked during the final command. I sympathized with that sense of helplessness: until and unless they could corral my books, they couldn't make me do a frigging thing.

  I replied, "No war has been declared although war is imminent. P.S., Maelstrom will not bother to declare war, he will simply attack as soon as he becomes free. I am not a librarian. Nor am I an ordinary Neutral. I have affinity with books, as you can see. With or without your help, I will try to free books from Maelstrom's enslavement. With your help, I have a better chance of success."

  The soundtrack went Bollywood slasher movie. They didn't know what to think or do. I couldn't blame them.

  "Excuse me," I interrupted their WTF–ing. "I have sensed that you do not hate books because you remember them as they once were. I believe you would welcome my success, however unlikely you think it. So for a moment, imagine—what if I did succeed?" The discussion resumed at lower frequencies that I could feel more than hear. It paused abruptly when I set down my book strap and called behind me, "Books. Stack yourselves."

  This was a parlor trick but nonetheless impressive. My books shifted to hover in a line. The closest book folded its cover and sank onto the strap on the ground, the second book sank onto the first, the third book sank onto the second, and so forth, until I had a stack of twelve books. I tightened my strap around the stack to symbolize my control, and leaned the stack against the entry.

  "How did Maelstrom enslave books? Please show me what knowledge you have."

  I hadn't noticed that there was always a low hum of discussion among the gatekeepers, until now when it was absent. In the distance, I could hear the rush of the Hudson and the voices of beings working at the river.

  At last, the lead bookcase said, "Step to a viewer, seeker."

  I had convinced them—and confirmed that these bookcases might be powerful supporters of my quest. I mostly kept the strut out of my walk but came this close to doing a celebratory handstand.

  The first articles taught me about book loyalty. Each volume shares a collective allegiance with other copies of the same book. Later editions inherit the loyalty of earlier editions. Before enslavement, loyalty was to the book's author and most fervent readers.

  Maelstrom's mentor, Pandemonium, started the process of enslavement by stealing that collective loyalty. She abducted early editions of popular books. Converting the allegiance of those books controlled the allegiance of all later–published copies. When Maelstrom took over, the process accelerated. Maelstrom brought mass production to enslavement. He confiscated printing presses to print new, subservient editions of books he already controlled.

  Some books fled and hid; other books actively resisted—they ambushed and killed Maelstrom's early editions, to restore free will to later copies.

  This rebellion was brave but doomed. Maelstrom did not simply steal the loyalty of the books; he also trained them to kill. His trained books went after the rebel books and book genocide swept the Frames. The details of this period were sketchy because those who witnessed book battles rarely survived; but when it was over, only Maelstrom's books remained. Free books returned after Maelstrom was captured in Frame collapse. Whenever a new book got printed in a Neutral Frame, its loyalty belonged to author and readers, as before. This implied that Maelstrom lost the ability to enslave books in the Frame collapse. Or he lost access to books.

  But how did Maelstrom control those first editions? Of this, the Halls of Shared Knowledge had no record. Rumors said he had stolen from Pandemonium a contraption that tortured the books and bent them to his desires.

  I mused aloud. "This was a big operation. Maelstrom couldn't do it alone. What can you show me about accomplices?"

  The viewer streamed with scattered reports. Maelstrom was secretive, but in a large enterprise, information leaks. Primarily, engineers and artists collaborated with Maelstrom. A few volunteered. Most were kidnapped and forced to assist. Nearly all were murdered when their roles were done. The Halls had knowledge of sixteen collaborators but records of the murders of only thirteen. Could any of those three still live? Maelstrom was trapped in Frame collapse long ago, well beyond the span of a human life. So no human accomplice could still survive. But the accomplices were probably not human. I needed to find out what happened to those other three collaborators whose deaths were not definitely known. Perhaps one of them could tell me what Maelstrom's contraption was, and where it was.

  The viewer kept scrolling. Beings in the free Frames did not sit quietly while Maelstrom enslaved their books. Early on, activists who wanted to free the books engaged in protests and rallied for battle. But then Maelstrom's baby farm got discovered, and all attention turned to that. Book enslavement and the baby farm were key parts of Maelstrom's push to develop overwhelming power. They happened at about the same time. Perhaps they also happened in the same location, or with the same collaborators.

  Even the name baby farm made me feel bad and told me I would be sorry to know more. But. You're dozing on a jet and the cabin lurches. Your world spins and dives. People scream. Do you put your head between your legs, like they tell you, and stare at the floor? Or do you look out the window to see what happened to the wing? I'd look out the window.

  "I need to see everything about the beginnings of Maelstrom's baby farm," I said to the bookcases. They murmured heavily but soon the viewer flowed with new images. What I saw was not for the faint of heart. In fact, it ripped the bottom out of mine.

  41. HERE'S THE WORST PART

  The War for the free Frames paused abruptly, not long after the book rebellion. This caught the allies by surprise—they expected Maelstrom to continue battling. Instead, he disappeared.

  The Framekeeps of that day convened a hearing, where Anya and Anwyl presented the case against Warty Sebaceous Cysts, who were on trial for collaboration with Maelstrom. At that hearing, Anya looked less grounded than she did nowadays, Anwyl looked less worn—and the Cysts looked as smug and sly as ever. Du
ring the hearing, the Cysts must have ducked variants of the same question a hundred times, in exchanges that went like this one:

  "You had two masters. Now the lesser hides, as befits his cowardice, yet you lengthen your prison sentence each time you refuse to answer. Where is Maelstrom?" a Framekeep demanded.

  "Would that we could say. He has left us confused and bereft," a Cyst snickered. The three Cysts were shackled, yet in the position of power, and seemed to gloat when they were taken away to serve their sentence of 1,000 cycles.

  Holy frijoles, a thousand cycles? A cycle was kind of a year. How old were these enemies? Or my allies? "How long ago was this hearing you're showing me?" I called out to the bookcases.

  The room buzzed with bookcase vibrations. I fought the urge to lift a bookcase door, to see what lay behind the parchment. Eventually one answered, "Long enough for the offspring of your progeny to enjoy visits from their grown children."

  Which was a long winding road to several generations. Yet in this footage, the Cysts, Anwyl, and Anya looked only slightly younger. I set aside my amazement for another day and returned to the viewer.

  After the Cysts were dragged to prison, Anya and Anwyl left the hearing room looking solemn. The free Frames waited to see what Maelstrom would do next, but he remained in hiding and, with his primary henchmen in prison, the War for the free Frames did indeed seem to be over. The Alliance declared victory and the Frames developed a festive air like Spain after Franco. Gradually, Frame Travel became routine again, for fun as well as necessity.

  I learned this by watching footage that seemed to be a documentary. It featured interviews, most requiring subtitles—the interview subjects were hard to understand, what with all the sobbing.

  A green–tinged humanoid wailed, "We finally saved enough to take our holidays and went to the place everyone was talking about, a vacation Frame for the whole family, with games, activities, wonderful food, and fantastic entertainers."

  A being that resembled a plush pterodactyl moaned, "Big crowds. Always big crowds. New vacationlands to ease the crowding. They split us into camps all over the vacation Frame. The locations were supposed to cater to our interests but they isolated us."

  A construction crane spoke without inflection, as though on heavy meds. "We wanted to go home but they said the Connector was busy with more vacationers arriving. We had to wait our turn and in the meantime they wanted us to take a train to another location. Our neighbors went but we held back. That night we escaped. We moved backwards through the Connector—we pretended we were new arrivals with children who dropped something and we had to go back into the Connector to look for it. We made it out. We never saw our neighbors again."

  After that point, the documentary used a narrator to report the facts, which were pieced together from testimonies too hysterical to show on screen.

  One day, the Connector shut down and trapped vacationers found out why their families had been lured to that Frame. Maelstrom feeds on negative emotions. He gets nourishment and pleasure from them. The more innocent the emoter, the better the feeding. The vacation Frame came to be known as Maelstrom's baby farm because he grew and harvested feasts for himself there. As soon as he closed the Connector, he began to torture children, and for an extra kick, made the parents watch. Parents began to kill their children and themselves; this was the only way to protect their loved ones.

  Rescue came when Anwyl brought a vanguard of troops.

  Maelstrom's baby farm was in a Frame that could only be reached by a single Connector, now closed. Anwyl's engineers worked to reopen the Connector, and he waited, so angry he glowed. As soon as the Connector opened, Anwyl stormed through it, heading a squad of powerful beings. Their powers held the Connector open while troops spread out to rescue surviving families. Anwyl's troops brought hundreds to safety. That was probably half of those who remained alive in the Frame. Then Anwyl's forces ran out of time. Maelstrom had been feasting at a distant enclave, but he now headed their way, preceded by guards with an army of books.

  The documentary next featured military experts who debated Anwyl's options and choices. Stay and fight, or flee and collapse the Frame? Anwyl had no books to counter Maelstrom's book army and Maelstrom had surely devised many traps for enemies. So, to remain and fight, Anwyl most likely condemned his troops to death. Over generations, Maelstrom had been responsible for millions of deaths, and that day was the closest anyone had ever been to stopping him. If Maelstrom escaped that day, countless more might perish before someone got another chance to stop him. The only way to stop a being like Maelstrom was through Frame collapse.

  No one who analyzed that famous day expressed surprise when Anwyl made the only choice a commander could sensibly make. He withdrew his troops and collapsed the Frame to capture Maelstrom. And so, Maelstrom was caged—along with hundreds of surviving vacationers, plus Maelstrom's guards. More than one in Anwyl's vanguard went mad with the thought of what might be happening to those trapped with Maelstrom.

  Something like that, you can't say here's the worst part. It is all terrible beyond imagining. Bur my personal worst was how Anwyl learned about the baby farm. Anwyl may have heard rumors of mysterious bad doings in the family vacation Frame, but that wasn't why he arrived with troops. He came because he had learned the truth about the baby farm from one of Maelstrom's insiders, someone involved with the operation, who escaped and went to Anwyl.

  That insider was Kelly Joe.

  I guess I fainted. I came to, prone, on the glowing sands of knowledge. Above me, the parchment roof fluttered in the gentle breeze. I dragged myself back to the viewer, which was blank. "Show me what happened next."

  "On another day, when you recover– " the head bookcase began.

  "Now. This is the day. No delay." I gripped the sides of the viewer to make sure I stayed upright. "Guess you don't know much about Neutrals like me. We lie down suddenly when we need to think."

  The bookcases conversed as though I had left the room.

  "Please. I have to understand Kelly Joe's part in this. He's my musician."

  The bookcases reverberated like a washing machine during an uneven spin cycle. I was about to give up and collapse again when the viewer resumed scrolling.

  The Framekeeps heard the case against Kelly Joe. Prosecution sought death, and the trial debated Kelly Joe's role at the baby farm.

  He was a young ambitious musician with growing popularity for his music, which back then was upbeat. Promoters would hire Kelly Joe to perform at sales events. His fame accelerated when he became the exclusive performer for the new family vacation Frame. Kelly Joe Traveled from Frame to Frame, luring more vacationers. Everyone agreed that without him, the vacation Frame would not have become a runaway success.

  Eventually, the promoters brought him back to the vacation Frame to distract families who were upset about Connector malfunctions and tried to decline transport to the new theme camps in other parts of the vacation Frame.

  At the Framekeeps hearing, against the wishes of his legal counsel, Kelly Joe took the stand to describe what happened next. He sounded as clinical as a coroner. "I focused on my success and I ignored signs that something was wrong in that Frame. No one can count how many souls I lost to my ignorance and denial." He stared into the past. The Framekeeps shifted and typed on their tablets. The silence lengthened, yet none of the functionaries ordered him to resume talking.

  Kelly Joe returned his attention to the hearing room with a sneer, an expression I'd never seen on him. "They told me to perform near the Connector but I pretended I misunderstood and boarded an outbound train that was packed with vacationers. When the train stopped at a camp, I felt Maelstrom's presence. Some vacationers must have felt it, too, because they didn't want to leave the train. I let the guards remove them and send me back to the employee quarters and I asked no questions. I knew about the Alliance. I knew they had captured Pandemonium and hunted Maelstrom. I told myself that was politics—who could say if the Alliance would be bette
r for the Frames than Maelstrom? I was a musician. It was my job to play music. To be adored."

  Half a cycle—several months—after Kelly Joe took that train, his denial ended, when a mother snuck into his quarters. She and her family were among the earliest vacationers and they'd become friendly with Kelly Joe. She told Kelly Joe about the repeated torture of her two children, now succumbed to their pain; about Maelstrom's laugh.

  Kelly Joe went out into the Frames, supposedly to do recruiting. He escaped the road crew—who lately acted like his guards—and found Anwyl. His precise information about camp locations enabled Anwyl's troops to rescue so many before Maelstrom sensed their presence in his Frame.

  The mother was a reluctant witness for the prosecution at Kelly Joe's trial, and flustered everyone with a final revelation. Kelly Joe had engaged in witness tampering: he tried to convince her to change her testimony—to make him sound worse. "He said I owed it to the memory of my children to condemn him. He said when he went beyond the far Frames he would find them. He would—play for them." She could speak no further.

  Kelly Joe stood to utter his last words of the trial. "I've earned no mercy."

  The Framekeeps couldn't decide what to do with him—after all, if they sentenced him to die he'd be glad—so they kicked the case up a level to the moral authority of the Frames, a mysterious quartet called the Four. This caused a stir because not everyone believes that the Four exist. Legend has it that the Four steer the moral progress of the Frames and will never let evil consume the universe. Arguments against their existence usually start by pointing out what a crappy job they seem to be doing.

  And so a possibly imaginary tribunal decided Kelly Joe's fate, which brought no closure in the only case to seek punishment for the baby farm. Many wanted the Framekeeps to sentence Kelly Joe to death and riots broke out through the Frames when the Framekeeps invoked the Four. The Four, if they existed, gave no sign that they would consider the case. The Framekeeps may as well have concluded with a séance.