The Nervous System

by Nathan Larson

  I do up the top button on my overcoat, freezing up in here despite the tepid poison air currents, touch my welding goggles, who would’ve reckoned this late chill, what with the ground superheated, the rivers creeping in, shoreline shifting by the hour . . . ?

  Where’s my motherfucking ride? Suddenly I feel very much exposed.

  Nervy of me, having just dispatched a second-tier Cyna-corp officer. Nobody can know. The senator’s office would toss me to the dogs. The Corp would clip my balls without a moment’s hesitation, and gleefully so. Fuck knows they’ve been dying for a reasonable excuse to do just that, though my standing with the senator prevents this.

  Yeah, starting to feel a touch lonesome.

  And yet not alone. I see the soldier now, over yonder. Swaying solo, like myself, on the southeast corner of Barclay. Fellow been giving me the eye-fuck these last few minutes. Racial ID impossible at this range. Probably Chinese. Always a safe bet, especially downtown.

  Taking my measure. Dude brings his assault rifle around, I note it’s one of them M4 knockoffs—who says the Chinese can’t make a extremely high-quality product when motivated?—this soldier adopting a hard stance, an approximation of menace. Could be misreading the sitch, wouldn’t be the first time. Safety first. Street all but deserted save this character. Might as well be on the Pakistan/Afghan border, were it not for the construction.

  Peeping your narrator, what does a man see? Dark-chocolate flesh pulled tight, shrouded in a trim suit, coat, and hat, Auschwitz skinny, surgical gloves, procedure mask, etc., anywhere from thirty-five to fifty, age being nearly impossible to determine as we careen toward the end of this fucked-up epoch, we’re starved and insane, scrabbling at scorched earth, wrestling over tiny bones.

  Look deeper and you’d see my moms in there, that Filipino tinge, but to most—black is black is black.

  In this climate, human skin doesn’t heal like it used to, so this split upper lip I rock is the result of damage inflicted years ago, a loop of reinjury, always moist with fresh red tissue.

  This soldier—I’d tell you this individual there is admiring my tie, but I highly doubt he can see much detail beyond my flesh tone, and that’s just the raw. Black known to blind even the most observant creature.

  Hell. Thinking not for the first time about the wisdom of having a chauffeur at all if he can’t set his watch . . . yet another concession I make to the senator, against my better judgment. Where is my fucking ride? Get primed to bounce on my own juice, reckon I hoof it or, with my bad leg giving me subtle grief, catch the next domestic military detail headed uptown.

  Now shitbird figures he’ll step to me. Shuffling across the street, theatrically brandishing his submachine gun.

  Sigh.

  Means I gotta start paying attention, thus fucking up my monologue. Can’t believe I’m gonna have to expend energy on this sorry stray.

  Not hearing shit at first over the machines, then: “. . . stanning.” He’s addressing me from midway across the boulevard, young, high-pitched Chinglish. “No stanning, you walk . . .”

  For the sake of form I am lifting my hands, weary now, dangling my laminate, hearing myself switching to Mandarin, my cracked kisser croaking, “State Department, my brother. Thing to do is cool it down right about now.”

  Don’t dig that his arms are trembling if only cause this can lead to accidents. Must be a fresh import. I lower my face mask, all kindza as-yet-unnamed pathogens no doubt bum-rushing my body, new shit without even a Latin moniker. I shiver, but I suck it up.

  Brandish the plastic card, slow and deliberate. “See, pal. That’s me right there in the picture . . .”

  The gunman stumbles over his own kicks—what gives? Comes back at me in his native tongue. I’m hearing him. Yeah, that’s right, I’m fluent in Mandarin. And nearly every other language under the sun. An enhancement, your tax dollars at work. Controlled, I have come to believe, by the implant in my neck.

  “. . . State Department, yes, okay,” dude saying. “This area, People’s Republic, so, ah, you have no . . .”

  Open my yap to cut these tedious formalities short, and this is when the bells at St. Paul’s sound again, disproportionately loud, and I’d be lying if I said I don’t near soil myself. Cause it’s been an age since we’ve heard anything like this, the sound resonating so very wrong in this blasted expanse.

  Chinese youngblood three-sixties off kilter, nearly throwing himself over, and though my focus is on the church, I notice one leg is shorter than the other on this specimen. A flood of empathy fills my chest, and I am annoyed at this knee-jerk weakness on my part.

  Bell tolls four times followed by the impression of silence, even against the incessant industrial rumblings. And this:

  There, near the church . . . through the haze I can make out a handful of human shapes, bearing . . . what? Flashlights? Flares? No. Candles. Actual candles. Battery-powered gear doesn’t convincingly flicker and shimmy like that.

  Pondering where the fuck a body would rustle up a for-real candle. The gimpy gunman is heading their way, yammering. Apparently I am forgotten, which suits me dandy, me thinking: What’s with the bells? Candles?

  Then it grabs me, and the scruff of my neck tickles as hairs stand on end.

  February 14. Today. Two years gone. Second anniversary of the gutting of the city of my birth, this, the City of New York. The “Valentine’s Occurrence.”

  First anniversary must’ve blown right past me. Forgive the oversight: a man has been crazy busy not getting dead.

  Bells go off again. Soldier now engaging the gathering, count six individuals, this time I can hear him yodeling in pidgin English about trespassing and whatnot.

  These are civilians. A rare sighting, this endangered species. Dogs are more common. But I’ll be goddamned if they’re not civilians. Fuck knows.

  Clock my timepiece, which is solar powered, not the best choice in a world without sun, but it looks expensive and works if you squint. The thing giving me an anemic reading: 5:21 p.m.

  Hearken back a couple years. 5:20. That very minute, coordinated demolition—not entirely successful but pretty fucking impressive nonetheless—of the Queensboro, Williamsburg, Manhattan, and Brooklyn bridges.

  My gut rotates: maybe it’s hunger. Maybe something else. Suddenly I wanna be over there lighting a candle myself, and I can’t sanction any rough handling these civies will inevitably be subjected to. Where this spasm of do-right comes from, Jah only knows.

  Draw my Heckler. Not wise on Chinese property but I do it.

  It’s just then the Escalade glides to a polite stop between the churchyard and me, the nonsound of a battery-powered engine, gangsta window tint, burgundy-wine shine even in this ocher haze. Government plates. My douche-chariot.

  A final squint at the church, yet more armed Chinese military kids slinking into the yard from the east, the six scrawny individuals on their knees now, the soldiers barking, weapons out and held high.

  And I’m loping across the boulevard, just on auto, my gun aloft, because we do not harm noncombatants. One of the codes by which I conduct this war.

  My spirit guide intervenes, snatches my collar, saying simmer down. Check lest you wreck yourself. Vibrate for a moment there between engage and retreat . . . then spin and pull open the rear door on the Esco. Slide on in.

  Dig those seats, gently worn leather, real leather.

  No, Decimal. These civies, not your concern. Turf stuff, local doings. I drift above such things, operating as I do on the macro.

  Thick divider separating me and the unseen driver, a white Secret Service agent named Chip. I am told Chip had his tongue removed. By whom is not clear, and this is the extent of what I know about the fellow.

  Opaque glass comprises up the divider. My reflection. Masked cadaver returns my hazy gaze. My near-dead peepers begging the question: how much longer can you stay standing, Decimal?

  Though I’d love nothing more than to just cozy up with some books, a scout like me is expe
cted to debrief in person to my handlers. So it’s:

  “The Ark, Chip . . .” I rattle at the mic on the ceiling, throat thick and tight. Getting the cap off my pill bottle. The Cadillac pulls out, northbound. Drop a blue one down my maw and flip the cap on my bottle of PurellTM.

  We move forth. I do not look back. Shouldn’t dwell, shouldn’t speculate, but amongst that gaggle of Gypsies I swear I saw a child.

  A child. Here in this hole.

  Blinking rapidly on speed shutter, get those pesky grains of sand out my eyes. Only explanation for tearing up like this. Sand in the eyes.

  Hands come away wet and clean—no sand. Again.

  Them peepers, my peepers, in the glass—jerking my coattails, them saying: Oh, you so hard, Decimal?

  Then what are you crying for?

  ___________

  1. Never, ever be punked: a functioning AGHS by any other name is PurellTM, the OG, none other, now and forever. Be ye not deceived. If a so-called AGHS is even a single digit less than 62 percent solid alcohol, your body will in very short order become an overcrowded colony of microparasites and bacteria. Might as well be out snorting oven cleaner.

  _________________

  Some quick geography.

  Manhattan Island has been carved into fillets, the borders of which are continually shifting but can loosely be delineated as:

  Chinese control: Water Street all the way to West 3rd Street, and from the eastern edge of West Street to the western edge of the FDR Drive, and a patch of Midtown, roughly West 32nd and 31st streets from Madison west to 6th Avenue.

  The Drives East and West, as well as the waterfront area including of course the ports and landings, have complex ownership, very difficult to keep track of. A constant source of static, the shit is headache-inducing so we’ll leave it at that.

  The Russians control the stretch of land from West 4th Street all the way up to 30th Street, and the whole shebang between the Drives.

  The Coalition runs the grid stretching from 33rd Street (with the inclusion of the derelict Madison Square Garden), technically up to the northernmost tip of the island at Inwood Hill Park over to 9th Avenue . . . but in reality, they’re not active above 96th Street except for some token patrolling of the major throughways (116th, 125th, 135th, 145th, and so on). Also the small patch downtown from Worth to Ann Street, from Broadway to Gold, encompassing the old City Hall. And, of course—Wall Street, from Broadway to the river.

  And then there’s little old me.

  My little postage stamp, my little pied-à-terre. Running things between West 40th to West 42nd south to north, and the Avenue of the Americas and 5th Avenue west to east. This area, obviously, encloses the Main Branch of the New York Public Library—my crib—and the stretch of concrete formerly known as Bryant Park, which I got paved over six months back cause everybody seemed to get the feeling like they could burn their garbage in my backyard, and in this I include Russians, Chinese, and Coalition alike. The arrogance of that.

  The boroughs? Left in darkness to the various tribes, right along the lines which they had always been partitioned: Brooklyn to the Jews, Dominicans, Polish, and the blacks—the interior. The receding waterline, formerly Red Hook, Coney, Brighton, etc.—to the Russians.

  Staten Island has been entirely evacuated, as every possible inch of land surface now serves as a dump, a metastasization of Fresh Kills.

  Queens is a medieval fiefdom under strict Chinese supervision. That’s all the information I have on Queens.

  The Bronx, that blotch on the map which birthed me, now serves strictly as worker housing, again split neatly into quadrants representing the four major groups: the Chinese (under whose wing fall the Koreans, the Southeast Asians), the Russians (Ukrainians, white Eastern Europeans), the Dominicans (who would rather keep to themselves . . . this including all brown-skinned Latino groups, as well as black Americans), and the Coalition, who to their credit make no real distinction based on ethnicity, although naturally: the lighter your skin, the better off you’re gonna be.

  There is no conceivable need to go to these godforsaken places.

  I look west, through the darkened glass on the Escalade, out across the Hudson.

  What goes down in Jersey? That’s anybody’s guess. I’ve been there twice in my life, as far as I know: once as a young man to an away basketball game in Camden, and once to the airport. That’s it. Its dismal shoreline, never a pretty picture, is now barely visible through the soup.

  What goes down in Jersey? Who cares? Who knows? And we are no poorer for that fact. Are we?

  END OF EXCERPT

  More about The Immune System

  The final installment in the Dewey Decimal series

  ___________________

  The Immune System is available in paperback and e-book editions. Our print books are available from our website and in online and brick & mortar bookstores everywhere. The digital edition is available wherever e-books are sold.

  Larson’s antihero storms back in the explosive final installment in the Dewey Decimal hard-boiled, crime-fiction trilogy.

  “Dewey is an unlikely hero, a gimpy, smart-mouthed loner, obsessed with a brand-name hand sanitizer. His indomitable spirit and his distinctive ghetto-infused, educated patter give Larson’s series its unique and spicy character.” —Publishers Weekly

  "A sharp and satisfying conclusion to one of the most unique hard-boiled arcs in recent memory." —Kirkus Reviews

  The Immune System is the explosive final installment in the Dewey Decimal trilogy. Picking up months after the events of The Nervous System, Dewey finds himself running dirty operations for the crooked Senator Howard. When Dewey is tasked with disrupting unrest from a growing group of outcast civilians, and simultaneously given the assignment of protecting a pair of Saudi royals, he is forced to look within and make some impossible choices. Ultimately, this puts him at odds with his benefactor and the powers that be.;

  In the course of the novel, we learn the true nature of the 2/14 cataclysm that decimated New York City, and by the end of it, Dewey must choose whether or not to face his own past. He must also decide if he is to be part of the elite control system, or if he’s willing to commit himself to the unknown, without the protections he enjoys in the good favor of the landlords of the new New Order.

  Also Available:

  The Dewey Decimal System

  Book One in the Dewey Decimal series

  ___________________

  The Dewey Decimal System is available in paperback and e-book editions. Our print books are available from our website and in online and brick & mortar bookstores everywhere. The digital edition is available wherever e-books are sold.

  Selected by Ransom Notes: the Barnes & Noble Mystery Blog as one of the Best Series Debuts of 2011

  “A nameless investigator dogs New York streets made even meaner by a series of near-future calamities. [Larson’s] dystopia is bound to win fans . . .”—Kirkus Reviews

  “The Dewey Decimal System is a winningly tight, concise and high-impact book, a violent, exhilarating odyssey that pitches its protagonist through a gratuitously detailed future New York.”—New York Press

  “The Dewey Decimal System is proof positive that the private detective will remain a serious and seriously enjoyable literary archetype.”—PopMatters

  “Larson’s voice is note-perfect in this tour-de-force. When called for, his clipped, brisk prose expands to the lyrical, adeptly singing the praises of beautiful women, cockroaches, and rubble. Reading The Dewey Decimal System transports you to another world, and although that world is a grim one, you’ll be sorry to leave it. Let’s hope that this book isn’t a one-off, that poor damaged Dewey will return to lead us through the ruins on another near-future adventure.” —Mystery Scene Magazine

  “ The Dewey Decimal System is clever, inventive, lovingly satiric and easily one of the most notable debuts of the year.” —Bookgasm

  “Like Motherless Brooklyn dosed with Charlie Huston, Nathan Lar
son’s delirious and haunting The Dewey Decimal System tips its hat, smartly, to everything from Philip K. Dick’s dystopias to Chester Himes’s grand guignol Harlem novels, while also managing to be utterly fresh, inventive, and affecting all on its own.” — Megan Abbott, Edgar-winning author of The End of Everything

  After a flu pandemic, a large-scale terrorist attack, and the total collapse of Wall Street, New York City is reduced to a shadow of its former self. As the city struggles to dig itself out of the wreckage, a nameless, obsessive-compulsive veteran with a spotty memory, a love for literature, and a strong if complex moral code (that doesn’t preclude acts of extreme violence) has taken up residence at the main branch of the New York Public Library on 42nd Street.

  Dubbed “Dewey Decimal” for his desire to reorganize the library’s stock, our protagonist (who will reappear in the next novel in this series) gets by as bagman and muscle for New York City’s unscrupulous district attorney. Decimal takes no pleasure in this kind of civic dirty work. He’d be perfectly content alone amongst his books. But this is not in the cards, as the DA calls on Dewey for a seemingly straightforward union-busting job.

  What unfolds throws Dewey into a bloody tangle of violence, shifting allegiances, and old vendettas, forcing him to face the darkness of his own past, and the question of his buried identity.

  With its high body count and snarky dialogue, The Dewey Decimal System pays respects to Chandler, Hammett, and Jim Thompson. Healthy amounts of black humor and speculative tendencies will appeal to fans of Charlie Huston, Nick Tosches, Duane Swierczynski, and Jonathan Lethem.

  NATHAN LARSON is an award-winning film music composer, having created the scores for over thirty movies, including Boys Don’t Cry, Margin Call, and The Skeleton Twins. The Dewey Decimal System and The Nervous System are the highly acclaimed first two installments in his Dewey Decimal crime-fiction trilogy, and are followed by The Immune System. Larson lives in Harlem, New York City, with his wife and son.