by Sue Perry
Behind us, the distal end of the book tent erupted in screeches and rushes of movement. Were books fighting? A crush of books hit the net on this end, as though trying to get out of the way. I peeked over my shoulder. Outside the barricade, most of the guards ran away from us, toward the source of the disturbance inside the book tent. Nice to lose the guards. But. My neck muscles added nine knots, one for each of my books out there, somewhere, in danger.
Five, four. Kelly Joe, Zasu and I made it back to our building.
Damn! Our strategy, timing, and positioning were perfect. Jenn and I exchanged grins as the mechanical hands detected intruders on the conveyer belt. Each hand grabbed a crazy–glue bundle and squeezed. Glue extruded, clamping fingers to other fingers. The hands flailed, spreading glue that jammed their wrist joints.
Three, two. That's when things went south.
"Betty," Jenn whispered. Betty was Jenn's cat, long ago. Betty got a paw stuck to a wad of duct tape, and in the few seconds before I threw myself on the cat to suppress her, she flailed around the room so wildly that Jenn's snow dome collection was a total loss.
Trapped by crazy–glue, the mechanical hands whipped and snapped, pummeling book crates, the imprinting press, each other. They screeched like opera divas imitating sirens. The Entourage who were on our side of the barricade, down at the far end watching the Connector, spun in our direction, saw the flailing hands. Half of them ran our way.
One. Flames shot from the incendiaries, the best fireworks display of my life. The Entourage who had stayed at the Connector broke into a run and shouted for reinforcements. Outside the barricade, guards flowed.
I can't separate out the rest of the chronology, the events are simultaneous in my memories.
In its wild flailing, one of the mechanical hands swept the top of the press and came away with plastic explosives stuck to its gluey mitt. Another mechanical hand smashed the side of the press, which extinguished one incendiary tube and stuck another to its glue wad. As the hand flopped and waved, that incendiary also went out. The third hand whacked the netting of the book tent, which sliced a gash in it.
While the hands went berserk, the fight inside the book tent had spread. Frightened books found the gash and widened it in their rush to escape.
Good news, bad news. The near end of the conveyor belt and the press were protected under text–proof netting, but the far end of the conveyor belt was not. Many escaping books flew that way. Frightened, untrained, they shed most of their text unintentionally. The conveyor belt and the Entourage who were inside the barricade were sliced to tiny bits. This eliminated our most immediate threat. However, books continued to pour through the gash in the tent. Some lost control and tumbled into the side of the netting around the imprinting press. One book hit an incendiary tube and burst into flames. Two others hit incendiary tubes and snuffed the flames.
Escaping books and flailing mechanical hands had removed most of our carefully placed explosives. Sure, we still had the grenades but could we get them close enough to the press? The way the hands whipped and snapped, they could be in a Cat–5 hurricane. And with each second that elapsed without lobbed grenades, we came closer to the moment when Maelstrom's guards would join us inside the barricade.
Until the future day when Maelstrom destroyed the Halls of Shared Knowledge, they would carry the story of how these allies almost and nearly destroyed Maelstrom's imprinting press.
Jenn grabbed my arms and yelled above the crashes of the mechanical hands and the squawks of the terrified books, "Thank you for showing me the Frames." She stretched up to kiss me, swiveled to Hernandez, grabbed his chin to pull his attention from the press, and yelled, "I love you."
His reply was a gargoyle's frown. Somewhere below consciousness he understood her intentions.
Jenn lunged to push the switch on his detonator. The plastic explosives, still glued to one mechanical hand, blew that hand into the barricade and tore an enormous new gap in the book tent. Immediately, Lobotomists shoved through the hole in the barricade, mindless of the blood and flesh they left on the razor wire. I think someone shouted to put out those fires.
Jenn grabbed my grenade and suddenly she was an athlete. She sprinted to the press and as she ran she pulled the pin, stuffed that grenade in her belt, then pulled the pin from her own grenade. Hernandez dived for her but she did a quarterback two–step and got past him. She dodged the frenzied whipping of two mechanical hands, made it to the maw of the imprinting press, clamped hands on the sides, and vaulted herself inside. I think the press squealed.
I think books outside the book tent squawked bookspeak that began to calm the stampede inside.
But all I heard during those seconds was Hernandez' wail, "Noooooooooo!"
"Get inside!" Kelly Joe yelled at Zasu and me, as he dived to cover Hernandez.
We were on the stairs to our reconnaissance room when the ground lurched and a brief gale flattened me into the stairs. I have no memory of the sound of the explosion but I did notice a clink on the stairs. A circuit board with chipped edges spun on the step above me. I shoved it in my carpenter belt and Zasu helped me stand.
Oily metal the size of a rioter's brick smashed the wall beside her cheek. Projectiles that might have been oily bolts splintered the wood of the door, leaving pockmarks shaped like a smiley face with a bullet through its forehead. I began to shiver.
"We must away." Zasu put an arm through mine. But she couldn't Travel me and she wouldn't leave me there.
And I wasn't budging. "Jenn."
Zasu walked up a few stairs then dug in her heels, wrapped her arms around my waist, and said, "Go, then. Quickly." Her torso stretched outside with me to look, but her legs stayed planted inside, ready to yank me upstairs when need be.
Outside, nothing was as it had been. A wind from above marked the flapping of thousands of escaped books. The air was black with their unintentional text drops. Silvery mush lined the ground where the razor wire barricade had stood, cut to infinitely small pieces by text shed in panic. Beyond the barricade, pools of beige and red mush filled open areas—most of the guards had met the same fate as the barricade. The survivors among Maelstrom's minions pressed against building exteriors, trapped until the books calmed or flew on.
Text–proof protective netting still covered the area directly over the imprinting press but that netting had no job to do.
The imprinting press was gone. A shallow hole in the asphalt marked where it had stood. One gluey mechanical hand lay beyond the hole, prone but still flailing. A piece of metal the shape of a V stuck in the concrete wall outside our doorway and X–shaped cracks in the wall testified to the force of impact. The metal looked familiar. That rusted weld had been a corner at the maw of the press.
The squawks of the books, the shouts of Lobotomist handlers. The clunk thud whack as scraps of rusted metal hit the street. The foe regrouped and remnants of the imprinting press rained on the scene of its crimes.
Kelly Joe and Hernandez were gone. No beige and red mush oozed where they had been, so I could assume that Kelly Joe had Traveled them out of Frame before explosions shoved shards of press in all directions. Try saying that ten times fast.
I was glad to be in shock. Otherwise I'd have to face my last observation before Zasu tugged me back to the stairs.
The press was gone because Jenn was gone.
78. MORE JENN THROUGH THE WORLD
Hernandez or me—hard to say who was worse at mourning. I had opportunity to compare our mourning styles because we were alone with our grief in Frivolous Bedlam. Anya needed everyone for some battle but we got left because we were liabilities in our current states of mind.
I wallowed in dark thoughts. No doubt Maelstrom had books at Anya's latest battle. We'd destroyed the press so he couldn't enslave more books, but he already had a vast army—trained killers who enjoyed their work. He could probably win the war with existing book soldiers. Why hadn't I thought of that before?
I could use some purr
therapy but I hadn't seen Leon or Dizzy for ages. Who knew what unfathomable dangers they'd encountered? They were tough but they weren't invincible. They could be dead.
Because of my effort to destroy the imprinting press, thousands of untrained, newly enslaved books fled in an aerial stampede that killed many. Maelstrom's books chased the survivors, so they might be dead now, too. My books would have perished with those other innocent tomes.
I couldn't wrap my head around any of that, but I tried, to protect myself from thinking about Jenn's last moments.
Which Hernandez couldn't stop thinking about. "I should've had a better plan. I should've been the one. I should've known. I could've stopped her. What she did. Inside that thing. I should've had a better plan." He'd run thoughts round a loop then pound a wall with hand or head. I tried to reason with him initially, but reason was not in his current repertoire. I tried to stop him when he punched holes in Julian's walls, until the building caught me in the foyer and said, "The damage is superficial, I repair while he sleeps. This process of destruction may help his healing, so I am happy to enable it."
Since then, during waking hours I let Hernandez have the apartment. I sat on the front stoop so that building chatter could stupefy me.
Inside, above and behind me, Hernandez' rants were punctuated with soothing murmurs. That meant Zasu had stopped by. Soon the rants—and wall pounding—would cease. That would mean that Zasu had gotten Hernandez to fall asleep and she would then come out to check on me.
I didn't want soothing so I considered going for a walk before Zasu got downstairs, but food carts were parked at both ends of the block, silent and watching. Their concern was harder to take than Zasu's.
I couldn't remember Jenn. I tried but no memories came—like I never knew her, she never existed, we didn't share most of our lives. This evil soul–freeze was always my first reaction when someone I love died. Once in it, I was aware that I needed to get out but I could never figure out how. Previously, the way I escaped was that Jenn would lead me out.
The sun was bright but not warm. My shadow wavered on the step below me. The door opened behind me and I felt trapped in the open.
Zasu said, "Good morning, Nica. Today's sky is so blue, we could be in Halcyon."
I feigned compassion. "Homesick must be especially hard when your home is gone."
She joined me on the stoop. "I have my memories and my knowledge that Halcyon persists, although empty. One day will come my time to return."
"I need my memories," I muttered. I stared at the pavement and tuned in to building chatter. They'd converted the song London Bridge into a knock–knock joke. Building nonsense often started as sense. Maybe this joke started as more bad news about Brooklyn Bridge.
Just when you think your back muscles can't clench any tighter.
Zasu hugged me, her arms molding to my body contours. I didn't hug back but couldn't deny the value. If you want comfort, get a Gumby to hug you. Or rather, the Gumby; the others were dead. If I had feelings, they'd be much improved from the hug. Each day Zasu visited, each day with infinite patience and cheer while I mostly ignored her. Saint Zasu. I said that ten times fast but my success didn't count because I only talked inside my head.
"And so here we are," Zasu released me from today's hug. "We did not survive to only grieve." She kissed my head and then she was gone.
The sun stretched my shadow down the steps.
She was right.
"Bite your mother's ass." Quoting Jenn, I replied, hours after Zasu left. And then I screamed, because I could hear Jenn saying it.
Inside my apartment, Hernandez slept on the couch. Once I forgot to put water in a pan and cooked it over a high flame. His forehead looked like that pan—pocked with welts, discolored by bruises. His knuckles were raw and pink. The plastered walls and the hardwood countertop showed signs of battering.
I kicked the couch below his head. I couldn't tell whether he opened his eyes because the circles around them had become so dark and the sockets so prominent. When his breathing changed, I said, "It was bad luck, not poor planning, dumbass. The mechanical hands went nuts and what Jenn did was the only way to save the mission and she moved fast to beat us to it. Only a shit–for–brains would blame himself." I lacked Jenn's flare for foul language and he winced at her name but held his position in the gloom.
"Are you talking to me or to yourself?" he replied.
"I don't know. But get the fuck up. We need to go home and spread more Jenn through the world."
He got up. I could barely budge Hernandez out of Frame. It was like he'd packed himself with dirt since the last time I transported him. Or maybe that was me.
When we arrived in my apartment on Ma'Urth, Hernandez pulled his modest collection of clothes out of his duffel bag and strewed pieces around the floor as he searched for tonight's perfect outfit.
"Which one do you like?" He held up two identical t–shirts. Without waiting for an answer, he dropped both t–shirts and grabbed a third.
I planted my phone in its speakers and attempted a musical homage to Jenn, but—not for the first time—I marveled that such abominable taste in music could coexist with so many remarkable qualities. My homage lasted for most of Jenn's favorite song, until death in hypothermic water became preferable. I removed my phone from the speakers when Celine started the heartbreaking soaring conclusion. Hernandez looked relieved.
"I need to take a shower," I said, "Back in a few." I took the longest shower I've ever taken, thirteen hours if timed in a Frame where their minutes equal our hours. Not long enough. Jenn only had a shower that short when the water heater went out. I left the water running while I dressed, brushed my teeth, and read all the labels in the bathroom. My toothpaste is 3 per cent baking soda. Seventeen minutes.
Hernandez and I staged a rolling wake that evening, Jenning around Manhattan.
I stopped to applaud the fuchsia jacket and red slacks of a woman waiting for a light to change. "Love that color combo."
On the subway, we sat across from an arguing couple. The young woman reminded me of Lilah, which threw me out of character and into a funk. Fortunately, as we debarked the train, Hernandez leaned in to the young woman's ear, to advise, "He's a dick. You can do better."
I got back in the game when we passed a food truck that sold smoothies and I patted the sign: Add the face melter, $2. "Fuckin' A, we've got to try that!" so we did.
A bus shut its doors as we ran up to it. I yanked my top to give the driver a quick flash of breast. The doors opened.
As we took our seats, Hernandez asked, "She did that?"
"Not since high school."
He shrugged, "High school counts."
On the bus, I struck up conversation with an elderly gentleman reading a pamphlet in another language. "Is that Greek?" and it was. Before he left the bus, I learned a few handy phrases.
By evening's end, I faced dueling overwhelms. I had lost Jenn and regained my memories of her. She came back to me when I tuned in to life around me. The evening seemed to help Hernandez, too. Traveling back to Frivolous Bedlam was much easier than when we'd left—we were no longer packed with dirt.
79. I CLUTCHED IT TO MY HEART
We slept better than we had since Jenn's death. We made it past dawn, then Julian woke us with repeated slams of my front door. I rubbed my face. "What's up, Julian?"
In reply, the building opened my street–facing window.
The window view was filled with cement columns studded with pottery shards. The Watts Towers were outside. "Monk and Miles are here!" I yelled to Hernandez and ran down the stairs so fast that I became airborne on the front stoop. I launched myself onto the nearer Tower, who turned out to be Miles.
"Our bird knows how to fly," he said and my skin buzzed with the static electricity that meant the Towers were laughing.
Hernandez stepped outside Julian's front door, his eyes black with misery.
"Go ahead and hit us if you need to," Miles offered.
&nb
sp; Hernandez flexed his battered hands and said, "I'm good, thanks." He climbed Monk, hand over hand to the Tower's peak.
From below came a scrape and a squeak, "Oh! Sorry!" A food cart—no doubt popping wheelies—had run into Monk's base. The carts had kept their distance lately but my vibe had to be more welcoming this morning and anyway they seemed drawn to Monk and Miles. In fact, my entire block was now packed with food carts and trucks, tilted onto back wheels to see the tops of the Towers. When the cart hit Monk, the others gave a collective gasp and backed away like giant magnets had tugged them.
Monk replied, "Apology without wrong is a fruit without seed."
"My brother means, no harm done." But the carts seemed unconvinced, until Miles added, with a playful yell, "Watch this!"
Suddenly we were flying—somehow, the hundred foot sculpture that was Miles jumped to the far side of the carts. I shared their whirs of astonishment. A smoothie truck with pink and orange striped awning swiveled to keep Miles in view and he leaned over her.
"Love that awning, girlie, you are ready for sun and now you got me ready, too!"
Miles can make anyone giggle. Ice broken with the carts, he jumped back beside Monk. The food carts cheered and I laughed, which made me cough. My laughter was rusty.
A bit of wonder glimmered in Hernandez' eyes.
Miles turned serious. "Trashing Maelstrom's imprinting press, that's a game changer. Nica, Hernandez, you done good and you need to give yourselves credit."
Monk added gently, "Love may be gone but never departs."
"Maelstrom and the Cysts are barking mad now and that shows how hard you hit 'em," Miles continued.
"The proof is in the fury," Monk agreed.
My head iced over. Last time we upset our foes, we lost Brooklyn Bridge. What did they do for revenge this time? Did it affect Anya's current battle? "How did they retaliate? Is everyone okay?"
"We were ready for 'em and all's well. But you ringleaders need extra protection until we give them something new to be mad about. Nica, you've got protection but we're taking Hernandez with us, we got a set–up to keep him safe in Los Angeles." Miles said my hometown's name with flawless Spanish pronunciation.