by Sue Perry
"This building tried to get me killed. It told Mathead and Scabman where I was hiding."
"Mathead and Scabman," Hernandez stated, as though I'd swapped pieces on a puzzle he was trying to solve.
"You're talking like you believe her," Jenn would use that voice if she caught Hernandez spiking a baby's bottle with gin.
"They were here," I answered Hernandez. "They've probably left this Frame because I saw them. They turn out to be important to the Cysts. And to Maelstrom."
Jenn grew very still, in that way she does when she struggles to understand.
"No casualties," Hernandez decreed and he was slamming the door behind him.
"What's happening?" I demanded.
Jenn narrated, "He's talking to a delivery guy who doubleparked behind us. Hernandez has his wallet out and now they climbed in back of the delivery truck. I need you to dish, baby doll. Why is he listening to you when you're talking crazier than a—Hernandez is wearing the delivery guy's clothes. They're tight and they accent that adorable butt. He's carrying a clipboard and a box. I'm watching him in the side mirror now, he's walking into the building."
"No! He's going to see whether anybody's inside. We've got to stop him."
"But you said no one was in there."
"I know but maybe I'm wrong and anyway the building."
"Oh, right, the building," Jenn said in a voice like a padded room.
Hernandez could take care of himself, he wasn't Lilah. Or me. I kept telling myself that.
"What the fuck. It sounds like you're praying." Jenn's face appeared over the top of her seat.
"Don't look back here at me!"
"Oh, for fuck's sake." Her face disappeared.
In a way I was praying. I'd been trying to beam my thoughts through the Frames. Anwyl or Anya or Miles or Monk, man do I need you here. Kelly Joe, do you read me?
"He's back in the delivery truck," Jenn reported. After a moment, "He's a fast dresser."
The driver's door opened and our car started before Hernandez was fully seated. He circled the block, parked in front of the building. "Jenn, be ready to drive. Lock the car doors as soon as I'm out. Unlock them when I exit the building."
He popped the trunk, rummaged behind us. Jenn climbed over the gear shift to take the wheel. What followed was the longest 193 seconds of my life. Then the car doors unlocked like gunshots and the passenger door opened and slammed.
Jenn drove us around the far corner and pulled over with the car idling. Their faces appeared over the seat, looking out the back window, behind us, comfortable in these roles; this must be their getaway procedure after they sabotaged a Lantana construction site.
I stopped holding my breath and sat up to look out the back window, too. Behind us, the second floor meeting room window began to glow. When it became too bright to watch in the twilight gloom, Jenn pulled into traffic and headed west to Manhattan.
I felt good. Hurting that building in one Neutral Frame hardly mattered—and yet it did.
Hernandez said to Jenn, "I had no time so arson will be obvious. We need to put the real plates back on this car and put some miles on it."
Jenn nodded. "Let's use our alibi." She said for my benefit, "It was my idea. We asked the rental car guy to help us plan a trip north to look at autumn leaves. I didn't understand what he drew on the map so I got him to start over. It took forever. We tipped him. He'll still remember that, don't you think?" she concluded to Hernandez.
Hernandez said, "He'll remember you."
When we got back to the Julian, Hernandez and Jenn came inside long enough to pack for a couple days, then left me to do alibi building in Vermont. As it turned out, they needn't have bothered. No cop was going to investigate arson in an empty building, given the chaos of that night.
49. DON'T FEED MAELSTROM
That night, 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 desperately needed a run and I had persuaded myself I could outpace trouble. I hopped back to the path, sheepish but unobserved: all attention was on the park's perimeters.
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 toward the city, to the southwest edge of Central Park, more blasts echoed, near and distant, all over the island. With each boom, the air grew further pressurized, as though thunder was building a storm. With each boom, the demented cackling of the East River became more noticeable, except I couldn't—shouldn't—be hearing the river, because I was home on Ma'Urth, where the river was silent.
Already I wasn't thinking clearly—my first impulse was to head southwest to the Columbus Circle subway station. I couldn't get down the stairs, around the press of people streaming up and outside. Suddenly all the people looked like Lilah and I backed away, stunned that I could think—even for an instant—that I was back in those days when Lilah and I hung out at Columbus Circle station to hear Kelly Joe play.
Directly overhead, 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.
My next impulse was to find somewhere quiet so that I could focus on shifting Frames. But when something this big happens you want to be with your own kind. No one had to tell me. These construction site explosions were helping to free Maelstrom.
As if on cue, Hernandez texted me.
:: Digby bldgs on fire all over LA. On the news.
:: Same here with Lantana. You and Jenn ok?
:: Safe in motel upstate. Back at dawn. Wait on orders fr A n A.
Hernandez knew what this meant, too. Anya had explained how the altered construction would contribute to Maelstrom's release. When detonated in this Frame, each of the buildings directed energy to other Frames, where the energy was gathered and focused to Halcyon, a Frame the Cysts had stolen via genocide for this purpose. On Halcyon, the energy was further focused to shoot a narrow beam into the shield of collapsed Frames that imprisoned Maelstrom. It takes a lot more energy to cause an explosion in a Neutral Frame than elsewhere, so the net energy flow was enormous. Simultaneously, other altered buildings in other Neutral Frames fed energy to other stolen Frames in key locations. These directed their own energy beams into the Frame collapse, which created instabilities. A Frame collapse prison requires a balance of forces and the instabilities built an escalating imbalance. Anya understood the physics of it; all I knew was the result. Maelstrom's imprisonment was past tense.
I knew the exact moment when he 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 drew 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.
By then, traffic had stopped and the sidewalks were empty. People milled in the streets. It wasn't clear where might be safe. It seemed like no one wanted to be inside or exposed, so they stuck close to cars and buses, gaping skywards, darting fast glances while stepping in absent shuffles that kept them central to—away from the edges of—the pack. Every taxi was full of strangers who pressed together, eyes flicking from rooftop to rooftop, watching for the next explosion. The explosions are over, I didn't explain. Their work here was done.<
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My run became a sprint. I moved without destination. I discovered I was heading east. Why could I hear the East River in a Neutral Frame? At especially loud cackles, people would look around for the source of the sound. I looped and ran west. By now, people were returning to sidewalks. With the sidewalks filled, I had to run in gutters. The streets were still blocked with vehicles helter skelter at every intersection.
Near Rockefeller Center, I hurdled a Zip bike rack to avoid running into a woman who was collapsed, sobbing, "Not again. Why won't they leave us alone?" Her reaction was unfortunate—hysteria was a Maelstrom delicacy. Don't feed Maelstrom, I didn't say.
She had jumped to the obvious conclusion, a jump taken by millions all over the world. This had to be a terrorist attack. That was a reasonable guess, and the media ran with it. Bars and restaurants and hotel lobbies blasted television news that night. The explosions must be due to terrorists, the thinking went, in an incredibly polished, global attack. Near simultaneously, thousands of explosions hit hundreds of cities across six continents.
As the hours and the news broadcasts evolved, the reasoning grew less clear. No one stepped up to claim responsibility for the explosions and no additional attacks occurred. At each of the thousands of locations, damage had been relatively light, considering; and there were surprisingly few casualties. All of which left a puzzle, not a threat, and attention faded quickly. You know how it is for us. We need stories: villains and heroes and tragic bystanders. We got zip here—no motive, few consequences, zero explanation. But of course, by then no one was thinking clearly. Maelstrom was loose in the world.
When the explosions first occurred, I felt a bond with every person on the streets of Manhattan, but as my running exhausted me and the night wore on, those other people seemed stupid, foolish, menacing. Fortunately, it got easier to avoid them because the streets grew emptier. Maybe my reactions were shared. Maybe that was because Maelstrom was affecting us. That was my last moment of lucidity before I succumbed to Maelsthink, a distinctive hopelessness.
At some point I Traveled to Frivolous Bedlam. It took me a long time to get there because I calibrate my arrival based on noise level and the buildings were not their boisterous selves. They were alert and silent as though listening. I only knew I was in Bedlam when a food cart called out, "Cat Shaver is here and she is fine."
Did that mean others weren't fine? What were the chances I could pose questions to the buildings or carts and get answers I could understand? Should I go looking for the allies? The only thing I knew for sure was that here in Bedlam, the East River sounded more demented than usual—and frightened. With the buildings so quiet, the river's gibbering filled the air.
My indecision was profound. Now that zero people were around, I wanted to be near people, so I Traveled back to Ma'Urth. While I had been away, the atmosphere had grown more tense, and whenever I jogged past an open doorway, I'd hear a burst of argument or sharp words. Maybe I should go back to Bedlam, but I didn't think I could bear hearing the East River. On the other hand, my lanyard was prickling like poison ivy on a bee sting, and that was likewise growing unbearable.
I had so many fearful, half–finished thoughts that my head felt like my left calf, which had a humdinger of a cramp. I stopped to stretch and the cramp got worse. I set out again at a fast limp. I wanted to be home. Although what was the point, we were all screwed, maybe I should go for a swim in the East River.
"Nica." Anya's voice was alchemical—it turned my hysteria to hope. She walked toward me, more beautiful than ever I'd seen her; the darkness vibrated with her passage. She took my hands and her touch was more restorative than the warmth in her tone as she repeated, "Nica. Recognize these feelings as the mark of Maelstrom. He batters our minds and we must fortify. Let us walk and I will teach you."
We headed northwest toward the Julian. "The first step is to recognize his influence. The second step is to permit it to continue. The third step is to dismiss its power with a mantra. Each of us has a unique mantra and it may change over time. My mantra is 'these are not my thoughts, these are not my feelings, they shall not linger'. When Maelstrom is strong in my vicinity, I repeat this without pause."
A mantra sounded too simple to work, and when I tried hers, it did zip for me. As the blocks slid past us, I tried slogans and catch phrases and wise thoughts. Nothing helped. I wanted to give up, but Anya held my hand and, connected to her, I kept trying. The breakthrough came when I sang a reworked Talking Heads chorus. This is not my beautiful thought. This is not my beautiful mind. That reminded me of another lyric, which reminded me of another. Singing—anything—made me feel better. I let song phrases wander out of my mouth and eventually, one snagged. Leave alone, you don't belong here. If Maelsthink was a tick's butt, then that Elliott Smith lyric was a flame. I remembered the gangly kid who sang that song with me, and hoped he would find a mantra, too, and soon.
The instant I found my mantra, Anya knew. She squeezed and released my hand.
We passed a row of brownstones. It was well past midnight but most of the windows glared with lights and few had drawn curtains or blinds. I imagined occupants huddled in hallways, wondering why they felt so bad. From an open window came two adult voices yelling over each other in a fight where both were spewing, neither listening; deeper inside was the sound of a baby wailing, hoarsely, as though long ignored.
"So this is what it's like with Maelstrom free."
"The effect will change. Maelstrom is near so the effect is acute. Yet Maelstrom is weak so the effect is muted. His influence will wax and wane with his strength, attention, and proximity. Now that he is free he has many to feed him, and I believe he will make feeding his first priority. He will likely disappear for some time, while he grows stronger. When he is strong, all beings in all Frames will know pain and confusion."
"The suicide rate is going to skyrocket." And the O.D. rate. I had to reach Ben. Somehow I had to convince him to find and use a mantra. Didn't I?
"Yes. Maelstrom is free. Go home, Nica, and dwell on all you love."
She intended to ditch me again. "When can I be around you again?"
"Not for the non. My effort lies in Frames where a Neutral would incite mistrust. But believe this: you can resist Maelstrom without me. When Hernandez returns, continue as you have been."
Interesting that she knew Hernandez had left town. "What's the point? The construction sites already freed Maelstrom and burned in the process. We thought we got them all but we didn't."
"Mantra," Anya replied.
I sang one round of it and I realized that we had destroyed most of the construction sites, as evidenced by news reports—there were a couple dozen explosions in Manhattan, but hundreds in every other explosion center. I continued to hum my mantra while Anya spoke, which kept the glass half full.
"You identified sites under current construction, but some have their work long completed, and hidden in them is equipment which gathers negative emotion, to strengthen Maelstrom all the faster. Destroy those. Goodbye for now, Nica."
She clasped my hands in hers and then she was gone. By the time she had walked out of Frame, I was planning my next moves. I'd let Hernandez and Jenn know that Anya wanted the sabotage to continue. Anya hadn't expressly told me to assist, which was good, because I needed to devote maximum time to my book enslavement investigation.
50. I THOUGHT I HATED THEM BEFORE
It was hard to fight Maelsthink in those last blocks as I stumbled home, exhausted and alone. Luckily, I gave up trying to plan my next day's investigation and my only thought was how it would feel to stretch out on my couch. The lanyard's prickling was giving me a whole–body toothache. I revved my mantra but couldn't get it started anymore. I wanted to run but was walking ever more slowly.
The lanyard jolted me and I noticed my surroundings. I had just overshot my door. But the lanyard wouldn't warn me about that. Something was wrong, very close to home. I knew what it was when I felt a distinctive rustling inside my skull,
like a rat nibbling there. I'd felt that before, when Warty Sebaceous Cysts read my outermost thoughts.
"Neeks," smarmed a greasy voice I was so sorry to hear again. It came from a short, dumpy, deadly Warty Sebaceous Cyst. The three Cysts were now beside and behind me. I ran up the steps of the Julian's front stoop, knowing I wouldn't be fast enough.
One of the Cysts tripped me and I went down. Another Cyst said, "Whoops."
I hit the steps hard with my shins and hands. My keys dug a hole in one palm. I found the energy to swivel and face them. I struggled to remember my mantra and as soon as I thought about it, they snatched it.
"Leave alone—Ouch! These steps are hard!" One of the Cysts faked a fall.
"You don't—take that, villain!" One Cyst slapped at the other two.
"Belong here. Oh, what a song! It makes me want to surrender to Anya."
"Not Anya, Anwyl!" the tall central Cyst wiggled his eyebrows obscenely, and laughed until his skin boils popped and oozed, which stained his chartreuse shirt.
They must have dressed to mock me, and to make clear they had been watching me. One wore a Lobotomist hoodie. One walked with the runway strut of a male model from Expletive Deleted. And one.
I thought I hated them before.
One wore a blond wig, stylish heels and a business suit in a Halloween rendering of Lilah.
"She wants to kill us, isn't that adorable?"
They were more absurd and more dangerous than I'd ever encountered them. Fortunately, their Entourage wasn't with them, I thought. The Cysts snickered and waved their arms. "Come forward, lads." Legs in sweat pants filled the street behind them. The legs belonged to a dozen Entourage, their silky platinum hair confined by runners' sweat bands.
Center Cyst said, "Get a good sniff, lads, this is the one," and the Entourage filed past me. Each leaned close to inhale, exhale; each was more intimidating and invasive than the previous.
Left Cyst advised, "Now, lads, don't hurt her too quickly because we want the fun to last and –"