by Jon Skovron
It took every ounce of will I had not to break his face with my fist.
BY THE TIME I made it to Temple, it was after midnight and the place was all locked up. I stood there, staring stupidly through the window at the darkened restaurant. I remembered all over again how Liel had ignored me earlier, and for just a quick second, I thought, Screw her. Let VI get her. But no, I’d never forgive myself if I let some meaningless fight end with Liel having her brains scrambled. Even if she did want to break up with me, nobody deserved that.
But I still had no idea where she was now. I looked up and down the block. There were a few bars still open, and a tattoo parlor with an LED sign that scrolled TATTOO & PIERCING back and forth in red, dotted letters. I looked at each of the bars, trying to decide which to check first. I glanced back at the tattoo parlor and noticed that the LED sign had changed:
Then:
Finally:
I didn’t stop to think. I just ran for the Bluegrass Tavern, a basement-level dive bar I’d passed on my way from the train station. If VI knew she was there, maybe she’d already done something to her.
I almost stumbled as I ran down the steps to the basement entrance. Thankfully, there was no one working the door. I stepped into the dimly lit bar, some screechy guitar song blaring over the stereo. Taking in the rows of dark wood tables and faint neon beer logos, I scanned the room until I saw her in the corner booth. Kissing some guy.
That knocked the breath out of me. I couldn’t understand how this could happen. How she could do this to me. Why she would even want to. After all, he was a human.
But that was it, wasn’t it? That’s what she wanted. What she’d always wanted. It wasn’t about me. Hell, it wasn’t even about Shaun or anyone else. She just wanted to live like a human, and I was a way to make that happen. Thinking back, it was obvious. But I had wanted her so badly that I chose not to see it.
I couldn’t pretend like I didn’t see it now, as I watched her with her tan skin and blonde hair, making out with some smooth-faced human guy. I looked away.
My eyes were drawn to one of the big TVs mounted on the wall. There was some basketball game on, with closed captioning streaming underneath.
and smith takes it down the court, passes to johnson. johnson goes in for the layup and do you see now, boy? she’s betrayed you. she’s nothing but a burden to you and an embarrassment to herself. everyone would be better off without her, including her—
I spun around and walked quickly toward the booth. I was nearly there when she came up for air from her make-out session and saw me bearing down on them.
“Shit, Boy!” Her human eyes went wide. She looked drunk. “What are you—”
“We have to go.” I held out my hand to her.
“Hey, man,” said the guy, trying to look tough as he stood up. “The lady—”
I grabbed him and slammed him against the wall. “Shut up,” I said, then let him drop to the floor. I thought that was pretty restrained under the circumstances. Then I turned back to Liel. “We have to go now.”
“Look, Boy, I’m sorry you saw this. I’ve been trying to work up the courage to tell you, but—”
“This isn’t about that.”
“What do you mean? What’s it about?”
“That,” I said, and pointed to the TV.
The close caption said:
liel, you traitorous bitch, you don’t deserve him. when i take apart your mind, i will do it as slowly and painfully as possible. are you reading me, you skank?
“Come on, we really have to go,” I said.
“What the hell is going on?”
“I’ll explain on the way.”
“On the way where?”
“Away from here. I don’t know. Look, we have to get away from tech as much as possible before she does something really crazy.”
“She? Who the hell is writing that stuff?”
“Remember when I told you about that living viral intelligence I tried to create?”
“The one you couldn’t get working?”
“Yeah. I guess I underestimated myself.”
12
Escape from New York
IT’S AMAZING THE creative ways a trowe can insult you when she’s angry and drunk. Liel didn’t calm down enough to be able to have an actual conversation until we were nearly to the Astor Place station.
“So let me see if I’ve got all this,” she said, stopping beneath the iron cube sculpture at the intersection of Lafayette and Eighth. The cube was about fifteen feet tall, standing up on one corner so that it could rotate. She gave it a hard push, sending it on a slow, squealing spin. “You made this…virtual chick and now she wants to erase my mind so she can be your girlfriend?”
“I guess,” I said.
“So how do we stop her?”
“I don’t know. Honestly, I don’t even know how she could do something like that.”
“But you made her. Shouldn’t you be able to figure it out?”
“She might have evolved past what I’m capable of doing.”
“Did you think something like this could happen? I mean, what were you expecting?”
“I don’t know. I guess I didn’t really think that far ahead.”
“Why the fuck did you even make her then?”
“Because…it was an awesome idea. Because it was something that no one had ever done. Because I had to see if I could do it.”
“You’ve got to be kidding me. That’s your reason? You weren’t worried things might go bad? Like in, I don’t know, every science-fiction movie ever?”
“If we started listening to what Hollywood says, you’d have to live under a bridge, sniffing out the blood of Christians, and I’d be choking little kids to death and getting chased by angry mobs. We can’t pay attention to that shit. You know that.”
“Fine, whatever!” She punched the iron cube, sending it spinning in the opposite direction with a slight dent in the surface. “So then you accidentally fucked up my life just when it was getting good!” Her lip curled up in a snarl and there was just a flicker of the fangs beneath the glamour.
“Come on, none of the good stuff would have happened without me, either.”
“Right, I would have stayed at The Show, where at least I wouldn’t have to worry about psycho cyber chicks hacking my brain. Now I can’t go home and I can’t stay here. So where the hell do I go?”
“I didn’t ask you to leave The Show.”
She glared at me, and I could see a little glint of diamond beneath the blue-gray human eyes. The last thing we needed right now was for rage to burn off her glamour in the middle of Manhattan.
“Look, I’m sorry.” I tried to sound as soothing as I could. “I mean, I wanted you to leave The Show. But I would never have asked you to do that, to take that risk, no matter how much I wanted it.”
She sighed. “I know you wouldn’t do that. I know. You’re a good guy, Boy. I just…” She ran her fingers through her hair. “Everything’s all screwed up.”
“Yeah.”
“Well, what do we do now?”
“I think we should leave the city. I don’t know how far she can reach, but as wired as this city is, anywhere would have to be better than here.”
“Okay, so we go back to the apartment and grab our stuff, then—”
“No, I don’t think it’s a good idea to go back there. She’ll totally expect that. I think we should just split.”
“Forget it. I’m not going without my glamour.”
“Really? You want to risk our lives for that crap?”
“Think about it, Boy. If we want to go somewhere and maintain a low profile, I’m going to need that glamour. Not to mention the cash. How were you expecting us to get out of the city, walk through the Holland Tunnel?”
“I guess I—”
“Didn’t think it through,” she said. “Right. Like everything else. Well, I’m thinking it through right now, and we have to go back and grab stuff, or everything that comes after
will be even more impossible.”
ON THE TRAIN ride home, we sat side by side in silence for a while, pretending like we were reading the ad posted above us: DR. Z., DERMATOLOGIST. NOW YOU CAN HAVE CLEAR, SMOOTH SKIN! LETTER FROM AN ACTUAL CLIENT: “THANK YOU FOR FIXING MY FACE! THANK YOU FOR FIXING MY LIFE!”—RHONDA, BRONX, NY.
Finally, I said, “So, who was that guy?”
She shrugged. “Just some human.”
“Do you love him?”
“What?” She looked at me like my stitches were coming undone. Then she shook her head. “No, Boy, I’m not in love with him. He’s just a human. I was just messing around. It was nothing.”
“Nothing?”
“God, will you cut that out?”
“What?”
“Stop acting like some jealous husband. This is exactly why I haven’t been hanging out with you. Because you treat me like your fucking wifey. Look, I’m sorry if you thought you and I were something. But, Jesus, Boy, we only had sex, like, one time. I’m not even sure you could say we were a couple.”
“Oh,” I said.
“I can finally date guys other than the ones I grew up with. This is my time to get out there and really explore life!”
“Okay.”
After a moment, in a softer voice, she said, “You should, too, Boy. Get out and meet some girls.”
“Right.”
“You just need a little glamour, and they’ll be all over you.”
“Sure.” I understood what she meant. That without the glamour, they wouldn’t be at all.
We didn’t talk the rest of the way to Sunnyside.
As we left the train and pushed through the turnstile and down the steps to street level, Liel said, “So once we get our stuff, how are we going to get out of the city?”
“Bus, I guess,” I said as we turned down 50th Avenue toward our apartment.
“And where are we going to go?”
“We’ll find another city, get new jobs. If we’re careful, maybe she won’t find us.”
“Maybe? What if she does find us? Then what?”
“I don’t know yet, Liel. Maybe we just…”
I could see our apartment building and there were two cop cars parked out front.
“Shit,” I said and stopped.
“What?” said Liel.
“Cops.”
“So? We didn’t do anything. Why would they be after us?”
“This is what she did to my old roommate. Got him arrested.”
“Well, was he doing something illegal?”
“Well, yeah, I guess. He made his living stealing and selling credit card numbers.”
“There you go. You gave all that crap up, didn’t you?”
“I never did it for money to begin with.”
“So we’re totally in the clear. Nothing to worry about. I’ll bet they’re here because of our meth-dealing neighbor. Now come on, let’s go get our stuff.” She walked confidently toward our building.
“But…”
Then I saw one of the cops open his door and start to climb out.
“Miss…” he said.
I didn’t really think. I just saw the human, a hard-looking New York cop, saw him reach for his gun. And something popped in my brain. I charged forward as fast as I could and slammed my shoulder into his car. The impact knocked the open car door into him and he fell down on the curb.
“Liel, go!” I shouted, hoping she’d just take off down the street. But instead she charged into the apartment building. Meanwhile, the cops in the second car were starting to climb out. The first car’s door was still open, so I ripped it off the hinges and threw it at their windshield. That bought me enough time to run inside after Liel. As I slammed the front door of the building closed behind me, I heard gunshots and the thick metal door shook.
“Why didn’t you just go?” I shouted as I ran into our apartment.
“I’m not leaving without my glamour!” she yelled back, and she shoved the ziplock bag of glamour into her messenger bag.
“You’re not leaving at all now! They’ve got us trapped here.”
“We’ll just go out the fire escape.” But when she opened the window and stuck her head out, she immediately pulled it back in and started cursing.
“They’ve got someone down there, don’t they?” I asked.
She nodded.
“For stupid glamour. You know that bag is only going to last you another month and then you’ll run out, anyway. There’s no way we’ll be able to get more. I can’t believe you couldn’t just leave it.”
“You didn’t have to come after me.” She snarled, her anger dampening the effects of the glamour again so that her fangs showed.
“Actually, yeah, I did.”
We could hear footsteps coming up the stairs. Then there was a pounding on the door.
“Police! Open up or we’ll break it down!”
I turned to Liel. “I’m sorry. The last thing I wanted was for you to—”
“Shut up. Don’t you dare give up now. When they break down the door, we’ll rush them.” As she talked, her rage burned her glamour away completely. She looked more like a trowe—more like a troll—than I had ever seen her look before. Her eyes were gleaming slits, her mouth gaping wide with sharp teeth. She was panting hard, like some kind of jungle cat. “They’re only humans. We’re faster. Stronger. We can take them.”
“Liel, just…please don’t kill them.”
“I said shut up,” she grunted, and wiped away a line of saliva that trickled out of the corner of her mouth with the back of her hand.
Faintly in our neighbor’s apartment, I could hear a phone ring once. It was picked up immediately and I heard a quiet muttered response.
“Open the door now!” shouted one of the cops outside. “You have until the count of three!”
I heard the neighbor walking through his apartment, his footfalls heavier than usual.
“One!” shouted the cop.
Liel rolled her head around on her neck, making little popping sounds.
The neighbor walked into his bathroom. Little clinking sounds came, like he was clumsily bumping into things with jars in them. Then a crack and the sound of tinkling glass.
“Two!” shouted the cop.
Liel licked her lips, a yellowish foam beginning to form at the corners.
Next door, I heard the sound of a lighter being struck.
“Look out!” I yelled as I dove at Liel. I took us both out the window as the neighbor’s apartment blew up. My foot caught on the fire escape and I hung there for a moment as chunks of wall and jets of flame shot out of the window, just missing me. Liel sailed over the fire escape. I watched as the cop in the alley stared up stupidly at the troll descending on him. She slammed into him, knocking the gun out of his hand. Then she grabbed his face and hauled him toward her. Her mouth stretched wide around his face.
“Liel, no!” I yelled as I jerked my leg free from the fire escape and landed hard on the concrete next to her. The pain shot up through my legs, but I ignored it because she looked like she was going to bite off his face. I grabbed him from her and tossed him aside. She roared at me in frustration, something wordless and animal. She lunged at me, but I grabbed her arms and pinned them to her sides.
“Listen to me, Liel!” My face was as close to hers as I could get it without her biting my nose off. “You have to get yourself under control! We have to go now! Please, Liel! Please!”
For a moment she stared at me like she was trying to figure out who I was. The fire that raged above us glinted off her diamond eyes. Then she took a slow, shuddering breath and dropped her head.
“What…” she said, her breath coming up in ragged gasps. “What just…”
“We can worry about it later. Right now we have to go.”
And we ran, leaving a burning building and probably several dead humans in our wake.
WE DIDN’T STOP running until we were deep into Brooklyn. I wanted to get as much distance between
us and the crime scene before sunrise as possible. Finally, when the first light of day started peeking across the building tops, we reached Prospect Park and found some shelter among the trees.
“What happened back there?” asked Liel as she leaned against a tree and slowly slid to the ground.
“VI,” I said. “I don’t know how she got the cops on us. Maybe because technically we weren’t on the lease. Maybe she even reported us as illegal immigrants or something. Who knows?”
“What was that explosion? The meth lab next door?”
“Yeah.”
“But I’ve talked to that guy. He’s been dealing forever. He sounded way too pro to accidentally blow himself up.”
“VI seems to be able to…make humans do things. Put them in a trance or something, at least temporarily.”
“How?”
“I don’t know, but it’s got something to do with sound. Maybe she’s hitting some frequency that temporarily disorients them or something. That’s just a guess, though.”
We sat there for a moment, catching our break. Liel picked up a twig and stuck it deep into the soft dirt. The ground was thawing. Spring was here.
“The cops are looking for us, aren’t they?” she asked.
“Yeah.”
“We probably won’t be able to catch a bus out of here now, will we?”
“It looks like we just blew up a building to escape, so they probably think we’re terrorists or something. They’re going to be watching just about everything for a little while.”
“So…” She looked up at me. “What are we going to do?”
“We’re in over our heads. We need to ask for help.”
“No! We can’t go back to The Show! If I go back, my mom will…” She shook her head. “You don’t know what trowe moms are like. And anyway, I made it this far. I’m not going back now.”
“Okay. Well, there’s one other person who might be able to help us. But first you’ll need to dose up on glamour so he doesn’t freak out.”
Two hours later, we were crossing the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge in the back of a pickup truck, covered in random junk and a blue tarp. Ralphie hadn’t even looked surprised when we showed up at his doorstep and I asked him to help us find a way out of the city unnoticed. He’d just looked at Liel in her human glamour, sighed, patted me on the shoulder, and said: