Split Second Solution

by Denny Taylor

  “And the package?” Death asked, taking on her Bat persona and hanging from the mantle.

  “It’s not there,” Word said, shaking her head. She gave Et a worried look. “But it’s close by.”

  Death did a sort of somersault and landed in the hearth on her feet in her glittery red strappy shoes. She spread her bat wings. “I think I’ll go and have a look –”

  “No!” Et said. “We’re too close to the end –”

  “Could the end be a new beginning?” Word asked, thinking of a story she’d read in which this question is asked.

  “Possibly,” Et said. “If Death doesn’t have a meltdown at an inopportune moment.”

  “I love you too,” Death said to Et, still caught up with Word’s love story.

  “I know,” Et said. “And if love was an emotion I experienced I would do my best to love you, even though you are a neurotic after-life apparition who feels too much.”

  “Could we fast forward and not worry about what happened after Newark?” Word asked, still thinking about the destruction of the camp in the Field.

  “No,” Et said decisively. “X-it was right. We can’t change the ending unless we know the whole story. When we leave this split second there will be no turning back. There can be no ‘I forgot to tell you’ or ‘I thought you knew.’”

  “Or, ‘Where did you hide that package?’” Bat said, spreading her wings, which were sparkling with silver glitter that accentuated the glitter on her red strappy shoes.

  “She’ll tell you where it is when you need to know,” Et said, sharply. “We have to become a thought-collective inhabiting each other’s minds –”

  “Your mind?” Word said, distracted by Bat. “Is that possible? And if it is possible, do you think X-it could –”

  “The Four Corners will come with us,” Et said. “We’ll need them anyway and they’ll only reveal the part of me that is – hypothetically – a metaphor for human consciousness,” Et explained, as if that made sense. “For a short time it will seem as if I have a human mind – which I do not,” she added, being careful not to sound disparaging. “X-it will be fine. We’ll communicate telepathically and have to be vigilant that no A-I penetrates our collective. Death can you handle that?”

  “I’m hurt,” Bat said, losing her sparkle. “Hurt. You’ve wounded me.”

  “Nonsense,” Et said. “I’m putting you in charge of repelling hackers.”

  “Oh, got it,” Bat said, jumping up on Et and landing in her feline form on her lap.

  “Newark. A quick update.” Et said, stroking Cat. “Just the headlines. What happened between 2008 and 2022?”

  “What didn’t?” Word said. “I’ll stick to what happened to X-it and me but you should get him to tell you about his analysis of existential risk before we leave here. It’s easy to forget his father was an astrophysicist who for the last ten years of his life studied the possibilities of a cataclysmic or combination of cataclysmic disasters annihilating our species.”

  “Your species,” Cat said. “It’s the reason I’m so nervous.”

  “We’ll have that conversation,” Et said, “just before we leave the split second.”

  “Thank you,” Word said, “X-it is super intelligent, he’s just not always super smart.”

  “The headlines,” Et said.

  “A car picked us up in Newark and we traveled north on local roads avoiding the New Jersey Turnpike,” Word said. “Grann came with us. In Nyack we went into a fast food place –”

  “Headlines,” Et said.

  “I know, but it was delicious,” Word said, “and I’m getting back into the story. There were other kids in the place and we sat down with them. Grann bought huge tubs of fried chicken and lemonade and we all ate together. Grann told the kids we were their cousins from Massachusetts. She told them a convoluted story involving cousins they knew and by the time she finished we were family.

  “We all left together,” Word said. “Greasy and loaded with sugar, we climbed into a minivan with Massachusetts’ plates that was waiting in the parking lot. All the kids had backpacks and they were piled at the back. Mine included. There were also some balloons and a box with the remains of a birthday cake.”

  Et smiled at Word.

  “I know, skip the details,” Word said, “but getting back into the city was carefully planned. All traffic on the Tappan Zee Bridge was at a standstill and the police were checking every vehicle with kids.

  “Grann did an encore of her Louisiana bus routine,” Word said, laughing. “She fussed and swore and the kids whose blood sugar was so high from all that lemonade could have flown across the river. We were waved on and once safely across the river we headed into the Bronx and Grann took us all in a convenience store where the kids bought lots of candy and sodas and got back in the minivan and drove off while we walked down the Grand Concourse with Grann eating Twizzlers.”

  Twenty-Three

  “My mother’s obituary was published in The New York Times,” Word said. “There was a photograph included of her holding me in her arms when I was two or three years old – more baby than little girl. Certainly not recognizable. The obituary stated we had both been killed in the hurricane. My name was given as Parola – the Italian for Word. There was a lot about her scholarship and her university work in Milan. It stated we had no living relatives.”

  “Questa è la Parola,” Cat said.

  “I’ve always had a sense that people I didn’t know were watching over me and that they were watching over X-it too,” Word said, stroking Cat and smiling, glad she’d given up her appearance as a glittery bat.

  “You think?” Cat said, looking across the room at Et.

  “Just being here with you –” Word said “– I’m so grateful.”

  “Any black cats cross your path?” Et asked.

  “Better not go there,” Cat said, for once advising Et. “Go on,” she said to Word, quietly, already knowing what had happened next.

  “We lived for the next three years in the Bronx with Grann right out in the open,” Word said, remembering black cats. “There were still a few dilapidated houses along the Grand Concourse, which was more like a highway than a city street, and we lived in one of them. Grann knew everyone in the house and nobody came in or went out without her knowing.

  “We didn’t go to school,” Word said. “Grann used to laugh and say if we ever stepped into a school the teachers would know something was up. Somehow she managed to keep us in books. At first she gave us children’s books with lots of wonderful pictures and great stories. I’d never had any before and loved them. I’d read one then recite it cover-to-cover, over-and-over.

  “‘Give me that book,’ Grann said one day, taking a book from me not really thinking I was reciting. ‘Go on,’ she said, opening the book to the title page, ‘I’m listening.’ And I recited the story word for word and included detailed descriptions of the illustrations on each page. ‘Well I’m damned,’ Grann said.

  “Shortly after that, on a sunny afternoon, a truck arrived with some huge crates filled with what I can only describe as an ancient library. Some of books I recognized as texts my mother studied and they might even have been her books, but Grann said it was best I didn’t know where they had come from. X-it found some old books on mathematics and astrology in one of the crates so he was as happy as I was with this unexpected –”

  “We’re running out of time,” Et said.

  “We left the Bronx when Grann was killed,” Word said, as if it wouldn’t hurt so much if she said it quickly, but also signaling to Et not to rush her so much.

  “We were walking along the Grand Concourse with Grann,” Word said quietly. “About two blocks farther down the street we saw the man who lived in the third floor apartment in Grann’s house. I was just about to wave to him when he lit a cigarette. He didn’t smoke. It was a signal that there was a security breach.”

  “Spies,” Cat said, repeating her earlier comment. “They’re all louts.”


  “Super-Recognizers,” Word said. “Sick-Reapers.”

  “We watched as two men dodging traffic crossed the Grand Concourse and walked quickly towards him,” Word said. “My arm stopped in mid-air. I couldn’t put it up or down.

  “‘Don’t look,’ Grann said, the fear in her voice audible, as she took hold of my hand and brought my arm down. But it was too late. One of the men had a long steel blade that caught the sunlight then turned red as he stabbed the man who was one of our protectors.

  “‘Git!’ Grann said before the knife entered his heart for the second time. ‘Not home. Stay together. Hide. Keep it safe.’

  “We’d practiced. We knew we had to get away,” Word said. “The light was green. Traffic was moving fast when Grann stepped off the curb and walked out onto the Grand Concourse. X-it had hold of me stopping me from running after her to pull her back and the screeching of brakes drowned my scream. A truck hit Grann and ended up sideways across the road. There was another screeching of brakes as two cars crashed into the side of the truck. Then more screeching brakes as other cars tried to avoid the collision. People were screaming. Running towards the crash and running away from the crash, hiding their eyes and crying. The drivers in the first two cars were badly injured, and there were drivers and passengers in the cars behind them in the pile-up who were also hurt.

  “The driver of the truck had got out of the cab and was walking around in a daze. I couldn’t see Grann. There couldn’t have been much left of her and what was left must have been under the truck. I stood there unable to move. X-it’s arms were still around me. When he let go he caught hold of my hand just as Grann had done a few minutes ago. ‘Come on,’ he said. ‘Grann told us to ‘Git!’

  “The man who lived upstairs was lying on the pavement and the two men were running towards us,” Word said. “X-it pulled me into the crowd and we went around the cars that had crashed and crossed Grand Concourse. All the traffic traveling in the opposite direction had stopped and people were getting out of their cars, some running towards the crash to do what they could for the drivers of the two badly smashed cars and the other people who were injured.

  “‘Don’t look back,’ X-it said. ‘For Grann’s sake we have got to get away. Otherwise she died for nothing.’

  “‘She might not be dead,’ I said.

  “‘She was hit head-on by a truck,’ X-it said. ‘She’s dead.’”

  Twenty-Four

  “Nothing was the same after Grann died,” Word said. “We constantly felt our lives were in danger and there were risks everywhere. There wasn’t a moment when we were not vigilant. So many people had died to keep me safe and I wasn’t safe. Neither was X-it.”

  “What about the package?” Cat asked. “Was the package safe?”

  “Actually it was in a safe,” Word said, picking up the thread of the story with an amused smile, and feeling a little less overwhelmed by this retelling of her story.

  “Grann and I agreed we needed to find a place that was unlikely to be discovered,” Word explained. “Grann had told us many times that we had to be careful because there were Sick-Reapers everywhere. We knew that if we were discovered the backpack had to be someplace else. We knew we’d have to leave the Bronx fast,” Word said. “So we worked out an exit strategy. But first we’d have to get the key.”

  “The key?” Cat asked her interest piqued.

  “To the safe,” Word said. “We knew what to do. Grann had said the password must be ‘kid friendly’ and so we’d settled on ‘Twizzlers.’

  “Might sound callous but in my mind ‘get the key’ replaced ‘Grann is dead.’ I’d done this before when my mother died. I had to ‘keep it safe’ and ‘stay alive.’ I would always be Grann’s kid but – and I know this sounds silly – I kept saying to myself ‘I’m the last Truth Keeper. The future of the world depends on me.’

  “We slipped through the crowd – I was in front and X-it about ten feet behind me – and we turned left onto a cross street to the Grand Concourse. Then we turned right and walked together a few blocks along on a street running parallel to the Concourse before doubling back to the Concourse right by the convenience store where we had bought Twizzlers when we first arrived in the Bronx.

  “There were customers in the store when we walked inside together. The owner of the store had always called me Dee-Dee but not that day.

  “‘Jacqueline!’ the owner said. ‘And Marco! Your grandmother said you’ve been a good girl Jacqueline and to give you some Twizzlers! You can have some too Marco.’

  “He gave X-it a bag of Twizzlers from the counter display and then he opened a drawer and gave me a bag of Twizzlers that to customers would have appeared the same as X-it’s.

  “‘Don’t eat them all at once,’ he said. ‘The key is to wait a while. The Twizzlers will last longer if you do.’

  “‘Thank you,’ I said. ‘I’ll eat them later.’

  “‘Good girl,’ he said. ‘I know your grandmother would be proud of you.’ I nodded. He smiled at me but his eyes were filled with sadness and I was sure he knew Grann was dead.”

  “What happened next?” Cat asked, with an eye on Et in case she tried to banish her into one of the Corners. “Where did you go?”

  “We walked along the street eating X-it’s Twizzlers. We headed towards the George Washington Bridge and the path along the Hudson River.

  “I should have mentioned,” Word said, “while I spent most of my time at Grann’s studying the ancient books she’d got for me, I also studied maps and books about New York City. Grann repeated often that if we left the Bronx we should make our way to the Upper West Side.

  “We took the path along the river,” Word said, “and late in the afternoon we sat on bench overlooking the Hudson and New Jersey on the other side of the river and we opened the Twizzlers I’d been given.

  “The key was painted black and wrapped in plastic and taped to one of the sticks of liquorice.” Word said. “The teeth of the key were unlike any I’d seen before. X-it said it would have been difficult to make a copy. He was not sure of the metal. Titanium possibly. I wore it on a piece of string around my neck.”

  “How did you live?” Cat asked, so caught up in the story she didn’t care if Et was cross with her.

  “‘Trust no one,’ Grann used to say. ‘The world is overcome with treachery but there are good people living in New York City and you’ll always find someone willing to help you.’

  “Grann was right,” Word said. “We had to be constantly vigilant but we met so many wonderful people on the Upper West Side. Everyone looked shabby. Not like the snobby Upper East Side where I lived for the first eight years of my life. We were never hungry. Bought or begged. Fairways, Citerella, Zabar’s all fed the community. But all that changed when –”

  “Tell us about getting the package back,” Et said, keeping Word from jumping ahead.

  “We found the jewelry store on Amsterdam and 72nd Street where the safe was supposed to be without any difficulty,” Word said, not minding Et. “It was totally unremarkable, the size of a New York shoe repair shop, squeezed in between an ice cream parlor and a diner – it was possible to walk right by and not notice it.

  “For X-it and me – so intent on getting the package – it was the perfect spot. Multiple roads meeting – Amsterdam, Broadway, 71st, 72nd, 73rd, two blocks from Riverside Drive and the West Side Highway, Riverside Park and the Hudson River, and in the other direction, Columbus, Central Park West, and then Central Park.

  “Grann knew the owner of the jewelry store but she didn’t tell him what she wanted to hide in the special safe in his store,” Word said. “We’d sit on the benches by the entrance to the 72nd subway and from there we could watch the store. We knew Grann trusted the owner, but we were still not entirely convinced that he was legit. After agonizing for weeks X-it and I agreed we should retrieve the package.

  “We went into the store together. I told the owner, who was tall and bent with an unhealthy pall
or and a face of many wrinkles, that I had come to pick up my mother’s bracelet.” Word said. “He asked me to describe it. I said it was a charm bracelet and that there were four charms on it, each a letter of the alphabet. I said the letters were W-O-R-D. He said, ‘In the beginning was the word’ and I held out my left arm and turned my hand over so he could read the ancient birthmark on my wrist – In the beginning was the word. He lifted a flap in the counter and gestured for us to go through and join him.

  “‘Come with me,’ he said.

  “We climbed the narrow stairs and he unlocked a door to the room above the store. There was a table with some mugs and a coffee maker and two chairs, a battered old refrigerator, and two safes. ‘Your mother’s bracelet is in this safe,’ he said, indicating with his right hand the one that I had the key to open.

  “‘Please –’ I said, hesitating and trying to sound deferential, ‘I’d like the key to lock the door.’ I think it was such a straightforward request he was taken by surprise. He shrugged and gave me the key. He stood there for a moment and I realized he hadn’t understood that I expected him to leave. ‘Please wait downstairs,’ I said, and reluctantly with another shrug he left and I watched him go down the stairs before I closed the door and locked it.

  “X-it immediately started looking for an exit. There was none. The windows had bars on the outside. The only window without bars was in a bathroom at the back of the room with the two safes. The shower was decrepit and used to store stuff. The toilet was filthy and smelled foul.

  “‘I wouldn’t put my arse over that hole!’ X-it said, making me laugh, because I was frightened silly. He undid the catch and pushed the tiny window open. Standing on the toilet he looked down.

  “‘Child’s play,’ he said, grinning at me. ‘Get the backpack,’ he said. ‘We can do this.’ He lifted his sweatshirt and began unwinding the rope that he’d wound around his body. He looped the rope around the toilet bowl turning his head away as he wrapped it around the base of the cistern and tied it. Then he tossed the other end out of the window.