by Sue Perry
Sure, my books could speak Refrencian, but they could also communicate with fellow books in ways that touched who the books really were. If my books didn't get detected and destroyed, maybe they could persuade those winged pit bull puppies to join the allies.
That was their mission. Like all parts of my plan it was as solid as an ice cube in a campfire. But dig. Throw one ice cube in a campfire, the ice cube melts. Throw enough cubes and their melting snuffs the fire.
I reached a hand up. Hernandez pulled me to standing.
When we returned to the candy store on Ma'Urth, one person noticed our appearance among the corn syrup aficionados. "Oh thank GOD!" Jenn shouted, startling a kid who knocked over a display of candy cell phones. Hernandez swept Jenn into his arms and I helped the kid right the display.
Back in my apartment, we plotted destruction.
"The press looks like iron and steel. There are bombs for that," Hernandez said. As the only one unphazed by our Travel, he served us apples and cheese, sliced ultra–thin so we wouldn't tax ourselves in chewing. "Unless the press is magic. We can't take out magic."
"My understanding is there is no magic, just different physics, subsets of the full range of possibilities."
"Does that mean our bombs will explode the press if they have similar physics to the press?" Jenn asked.
"Yes, as far as I've been able to determine." I couldn't eat but the crackers worked well for building 'card' houses. Construction steadied my nerves. Now that we were back, I could think of nothing but how flimsy my plan seemed, more wishful than purposeful. And how far beyond help my books were.
"Can we do a test explosion in the Frame where the press was made?" Jenn asked.
Hearing a good idea made me feel better. I ate a cracker house. "That's a great idea! Assuming the Halls of Shared Knowledge can tell me where to do that test."
"Finish our shopping before you go back to the Halls," Hernandez instructed. He was already headed back into the kitchen for more food. Jenn's appetite was its voracious self.
I said, "For what it's worth, Kelly Joe seems to think this is doable. Destroying the press."
Hernandez reacted to my anxious tone. "He'll be with us, right?"
"I believe so. Yes." Kelly Joe wouldn't help to this point then stop. He wouldn't keep my secret then fink at the last moment.
"And Zasu. We need Zasu," Jenn said.
"If bombs don't work where the press is, maybe we can take the press to a Frame where the bombs will work," Hernandez said. "Think it's transportable?"
"If anyone can move it, Kelly Joe can."
Hernandez stood at the kitchen counter, making lists on scraps of paper grocery bag. "Implosion, explosion, and fire. We'll rehearse the timing. We'll be making noise for no more than a minute." Hernandez added softly, "Grab her food."
Jenn had fallen asleep with a cheese and apple sandwich dangling from her lips. I took the food, stretched Jenn out on the couch. The only way we could share the space was if I stretched out, too.
That turned out to be our last sleep until the mission was over.
When I came to, Hernandez knelt beside the couch and showed me his scraps of paper. We each had a shopping list. And he'd ordered our actions, blow by blow. His organization and attention to detail converted activities to strategy.
Shopping came first. The substances on our shopping lists ranged from innocent to controlled. Each shopping list included coded notes about quantities we could buy in a single store without arousing suspicion or triggering a report. Jenn and I shopped together, all afternoon in a widening circle. We'd take a cab back to the apartment each time our arms got full of bags. The cab rides gave Jenn rest periods, too. Hernandez set out separately with his own, shorter list of items that couldn't be purchased legally. He knew some guys who could help with those purchases.
Jenn and I were on the Lower East Side when Warty Sebaceous Cysts retaliated for destruction of their construction sites, so we witnessed the devastation as it occurred. Maybe someday I'll stop reliving those scenes in my head; but the TV stations will still be playing that infamous footage, shot from the helicopter and the barge.
74. BRIDGES AREN'T MADE TO TWIST
It was our last purchase of the afternoon. Jenn and I were at a pharmacy on Chambers Street; after this we would split up. She would join Hernandez at home to assemble our purchases into explosives and incendiaries. I would head for the Halls of Shared Knowledge to find out where the imprinting press was constructed and what its weak points might be.
At first the crush of marchers seemed like a demonstration headed east for City Hall. They marched into City Hall Park—then kept going, out to the Brooklyn Bridge. They were eerily silent, a parade band without instruments or music. When Jenn and I exited the pharmacy, the marchers had attracted onlookers who debated the gimmick of the march.
"They're like the guards outside Buckingham Palace," a Swedish accent said to me, admiring. "So quiet and focused!" He pushed forward, craning for a better look.
I stuck my head between two shoulders to crib a view, then grabbed Jenn's arm. The marchers on Chambers had the hungry vacant eyes of Lobotomists. "Get away from here. Now!"
But we couldn't get. More marchers swarmed from north and south, funneling everyone onto the streets going east. The Swede got knocked down and no marcher paused or changed direction. Just before the Swede got trampled, he clawed himself upright but had to join the march toward the Brooklyn Bridge.
I pulled Jenn or she pulled me, back against the wall of the pharmacy, which had lowered its night gate for protection. I considered changing Frames but feared calling attention to us. The marchers coming in from the north and south had the platinum hair and glinting smiles of the Entourage, today dressed like 1950s tourists. They could detect Frame Travel in their vicinity.
Jenn and I got sucked into the flow toward the Bridge. To flow more slowly, we flattened against buildings until the crowd crushed us forward. At the waterfront, the march expanded into a park. Jenn and I had room to shove out the side of the marchers. We slipped into a hole between buildings where a tenement had been razed; we climbed scaffolding that shivered and creaked. We lay on the scaffolding to keep the lowest possible profile and we watched the rest unfold.
Entourage marchers reached the Bridge first, then Lobotomists poured in behind, then more Entourage, then more Lobotomists. Trapped among the squadrons were luckless pedestrians who bounced and pinged between the relentless marchers. The Entourage and Lobotomists kept an identical pace, an odd one, a beat slower than a normal gait. Meanwhile, another march swept toward the Bridge from the Brooklyn side.
In front of the Bridge, a knot of pedestrians stopped with arms linked in united resistance—they were done marching against their will. Without breaking stride, the marchers punched and pounded the pedestrians, then swarmed extra thick around the knot of resistance. When the swarm dissipated, the pedestrians were gone.
Jenn and I pressed low against the scaffold planks and clutched each other's hands. Yells screams shouts kept growing in volume. The honks of distant taxis became a barrage from all directions including the sky. It was as though the city were under a dome and every sound reverberated. Maybe, just maybe, those faint agonized moans were sirens. Approaching? I counted the seconds between moans as though they were lightning and thunder.
The march seemed to last forever but it must have moved quickly because as the last marchers reached the Bridge, N.Y.P.D. police only just arrived—in cars and bikes, on horseback and foot. The cops yelled for marchers to stop but marching continued. The cops dragged marchers from the back rows to force compliance. It took two cops to pin a single marcher, to stop the forward movement. One marcher, knocked to his back, continued to pump his legs like an overturned bug. A cop pounded with a nightstick to stop the wriggling.
Many cops followed marchers onto the Bridge to grab them. Suddenly the cops were turning and shouting to one another and running to land. From this distance the cops seemed p
rescient, but they must have felt the change before we could see it.
It all happened so fast. The Bridge began to quiver in time to the pace of the marchers. The quiver evolved to sway and the swaying motion grew exaggerated. But that was okay, because bridges are made to sway. The marchers persisted with their odd identical pace and the sway undulated along the spans. On both levels of the Bridge, the surface tilted, sagged, tilted; which added up to give the motion a twist. Bridges aren't made to twist. Suspension cables strained and a chunk of the pedestrian level broke free. It flapped against its cables, which snapped dozens of marchers into the air. The remaining marchers continued without pause.
On the lower level, the vehicle level, spans ruptured, separated, tilted. A tractor–trailer truck plunged off a tilted span. A couple seconds later, a spray of water marked its entry into the East River. There were so many cars on the tilted spans and although they sprouted brake lights, they slid down, lower, down. People jumped out of sliding cars and tried to scale the incline while dodging other sliding cars.
A broken piece of pedestrian walkway swung on its cables and hit adjoining pieces. The twisting and sway of the Bridge intensified and the motion got more complicated as the Bridge stopped moving as a single structure and different pieces took on different motions. A span from the lower level snapped and hit the upper deck. Still marching, marchers slid on unfathomably massive slabs as though on giant sleds. The air below the Bridge grew dark with falling marchers. The remaining marchers kept moving forward.
Metal shrieked like shopping carts in an enormous blender. At our distance, the sounds were muffled yet Jenn and I had to hold our ears. On the bridge, the decibel levels must have exceeded a hundred Who concerts.
The end came fastest of all. An invisible giant squeezed the Bridge together from its ends. The center buckled and slabs of concrete splayed away. After that it was hard to see what was happening. Dust clouds plumed then disintegrated in huge splashes of water. Within seconds, every surface for blocks held the same ashy beige powder. I licked my lips and tasted concrete.
Sounds continued to ricochet so I couldn't tell where the screams came from. Some were surely from me.
The Brooklyn Bridge had survived many swaying events during its years on Ma'Urth, most recently during a transit strike and a power outage, when many more pedestrians took to the Bridge than was typical. The rhythm of crowds' feet got the bridge swaying. But the swaying didn't escalate because those pedestrians weren't walking in sync to take out the Bridge. These marchers were.
We stood on the scaffolding to see if any survivors emerged. Jenn divided her time between what was happening and its news coverage on her phone. Somebody in a helicopter posted footage that showed the marchers from each side—Manhattan and Brooklyn—continue toward the middle of the Bridge, a suicide march with the spans buckling around them. Suicide for the Lobotomists, certainly. Murder for the trapped pedestrians. The Entourage may have saved themselves by Traveling out of Frame.
"Do they not know they're about to die or do they not care?" Jenn stopped the streaming video. "They've got so many more troops than we do. Look how many they just wasted."
"I expect Anwyl and Anya have resources we don't know about but—yeah. I think that's one of the Cysts' take–home messages here."
"One of them. What are the others?"
"This is what happens to those who help the allies. Brooklyn Bridge is supposed to be impartial but has helped us in small ways." Jenn had not yet had the pleasure of meeting Brooklyn Bridge or being recognized by her unique steps. "This could be a strategic move, too. By destroying the Brooklyn Bridge on Ma'Urth, Warty Sebaceous Cysts now control access to Expletive Deleted, a Frame which is important politically—and maybe symbolically."
Jenn got a text from Hernandez just before I did.
::R U safe?
::Something big going down.
I let Jenn text our reply.
Yes, Brooklyn Bridge still existed in other Frames, but would the Cysts attack other Frames also? The allies couldn't possibly protect the Bridge in all its Frames. I wanted to throw a fit but the scaffolding was too rickety. I tried to cry but my tears were dammed by concrete dust. I rubbed away Bridge remains to clear a path down my face.
Below hearing, I felt Brooklyn Bridge moaning and the East River berserking. It was like I was in multiple Frames simultaneously. I clung to Jenn's arm and the scaffold railing to hold myself in Ma'Urth.
Jenn showed me a text from Hernandez that made me feel a little less unsafe.
::Stay put. Tee is coming for you.
It was the wrong time, or maybe exactly the right time, for petty concerns: Phooey. Hernandez had finally had a conversation with his truck. I had wanted to be there when that happened.
75. WHEN MY SIDE KILLED IT WOULD BE NOBLE
So much brown dust filled the air it was like looking through a used bandage. Shadowy in the haze, the Brooklyn Bridge's gothic arches still stood, with a few slabs of roadway swinging on snapped cables.
The cops' body language shifted from arrest to rescue. We didn't know it then, but not a single body would ever be recovered of those who fell with the Bridge. The official speculation was that the bodies rested under tons of concrete, or had been swept distant by the chaotic currents that developed in the collapse. In reality, the Cysts moved them all out of Frame.
A horn honked on the street below our scaffolding. The horn belonged to a red truck with more dents than a golf ball. It was Hernandez' truck, Tee, with Zasu waving from the passenger window. "That's our ride," I didn't need to say. Jenn was already climbing down the scaffold ladder.
Jenn sat in the middle and I took the driver's seat but Tee continued to drive—until we hit gridlock at the next intersection, where cars alternated at right angles. Traffic by Mondrian. The streets grew translucent and the traffic dissolved. "Did we just change Frames?" Jenn asked. She'd been watching news on her phone and looked up when the connection failed.
"We did. I knew a shortcut," Tee said, gliding us through empty translucent streets. "But it won't help for long. Nothing is ever easy. I have to take you to Anya and all routes to Anya hold danger or gridlock." Air gusted from Tee's vents. "So sorry about that nasty odor. My air filter has never been this clogged. How much longer dare I defer maintenance? That is the question."
Zasu and I exchanged smiles, which cracked the dust on my cheeks. Tee was tough, especially for a hypochondriac. "It's good to ride in you again, Tee."
"Aren't you sweet. You are always welcome. My vinyl is your vinyl, since my Neutral wouldn't spring for leather."
"He had girls to raise," Jenn frowned at the dashboard.
"Of course he did," Tee said in a don't–poke–the–bear voice. "Here we are." Tee parked in a loading zone on Bleecker Street under a red sign with a red fish. Le Poisson Rouge. A nightclub for barely–of–age–ers. "I'll say when it's safe for you to leave. Until then, incognito." The windows tinted an opaque black. We couldn't see out so I assumed no one could see in.
As we waited, Zasu hummed a charming melody. Kelly Joe had played that tune for a couple kids at the subway station. That was back when I first knew him.
I had just met Lilah.
"Ow–ouch," Tee warned, and I loosened my grip on the steering wheel. The truck griped, "I'll be glad when this war's over and we can all relax. What I wouldn't give for fresh 30–weight. Say what you will about Hernandez, he understands regular oil changes. Go. Run. Now." Tee swung open her doors.
Zasu sprinted us across the sidewalk. The outside hit hard after the tinted soundproof truck cab. Concrete dust stung our eyes. Sirens echoed from every direction.
Inside the open door of the nightclub it was a rouge world. Red light thickened the air above red stairs between red walls. The stairs were steep and long. Zasu held us at the top of the stairs and apologized. "I know the way to Anya but I can only transport myself between Frames."
I hooked my arm through Jenn's. "Lead the way, we're right behin
d you."
Down we went and out of Frame. I'd figured the red decor was a gimmick in the Ma'Urth nightclub but it persisted. The stairwell stayed redder than a Communist lipstick factory. There was one giant improvement in the new Frame, though.
At the top of the stairs, Anya stood, and greeted us with smiles like we were headed for the beach together. "Brooklyn Bridge is under siege and our foes fill this area in many Frames. You will be safest here with me, until Kelly Joe can escort you home," she told us and turned back to the street.
Outside, a narrow line of Lobotomists marched east. Each Lobotomist pushed a wheeled contraption which had iron appendages affixed at intervals around each wheel. The contraptions seemed to have started life innocently, as lawn mowers, shopping carts. Baby strollers. As the wheels turned, iron appendages hit the ground with a rhythm that matched the steps of the Lobotomists. The iron magnified the step as though many walked where one did.
The sound of marching reverberated from all directions, so there must be other Lobotomists pushing more contraptions along other streets. With the contraptions, the Cysts would need far fewer feet to collapse Brooklyn Bridge in this Frame.
"Come closer, they cannot harm you. We observe from another Frame," Anya said. That explained why my view had a wavering aspect and none of the Lobotomists noticed us. We joined Anya outside and watched the grim advance of Lobotomists towards Brooklyn Bridge.