The City We Became

by N. K. Jemisin

  “Like what?” Queens asks, before Bronca can mom-look her silent. Bronca reaches up to check Veneza’s forehead and press the back of her hand against Veneza’s cheeks. She’s chilled rather than warm, and shaking with more than the chill. Her voice skirls higher and louder when she answers.

  “Like things that shouldn’t exist, damn it! All skewy, and…” She scrunches her eyes shut. She’s trembling so hard that it shakes her voice. “The angles were fucked up, Old B. They were all wrong.”

  If she had delivered this in her usual snarky tone, Bronca still would’ve been unnerved. That Veneza instead drops it in a high-pitched stage whisper makes every little hair on Bronca’s skin stand on end.

  “Oh-kay, no,” she says, taking hold of Veneza’s shoulders and shaking her, gently, until she lowers her hands and stares at Bronca. “Stop thinking about that shit,” she says. “Some thoughts are poison. You can think them, but only when you’ve got the strength—or therapy, whichever floats your boat. ’Til then? Right now? Close it off. Focus on right here and now.”

  “I, I don’t…” But Veneza swallows and takes a deep breath. “Okay. I’m going to try.” Abruptly she grimaces, looking around. “Why the fuck am I sitting on the ground? Gross. And—” She sniffs at herself, then makes a horrified face.

  “Yeah, you’re very rank,” Queens says, though she’s grinning, relieved to see Veneza’s all right. “When this is all over, I’ll go home and get you some of that good incense. My aunty will probably send you a million idlis, too, once I tell her you ate all of mine.” Veneza giggles, and Bronca feels her relax.

  But then it’s Queens’ turn for a haunted look, as she blinks and sobers. “But it is all over. Isn’t it? Without Staten Island…”

  “I can’t believe she did that.” Brooklyn’s frowning as she extends a hand to help each of them to their feet. To her shame, Bronca actually needs the help. She’s exhausted, and her hip hurts, and her back has twinged something awful. “I don’t even know what she did. Like, that was Star Trek shit. We didn’t go fast like when Manny carried us out of the Center, we just went. She didn’t even put us on the ferry. Straight-up teleportation.”

  Bronca rubs at the small of her back. “Well, now we know what her super-special power is, I guess: magic xenophobia.” She looks around, then looks around again. Her stomach clenches. “Hong.”

  They all look. Hong is nowhere to be seen.

  “Maybe he’s gone back to his city?” Queens grimaces. “He did keep saying that he wanted to. Maybe he recovered first and…”

  “I’m going to hope so,” Brooklyn says grimly. “I’m actually going to hope he’s just that much of an asshole, abandoning us while we were out of it.”

  Because the alternative is that the strange, impossible, and instantaneous transit from Staten Island somehow left Hong… elsewhere. In limbo, maybe. Or nowhere at all.

  That’s too much for Bronca to contemplate, so she doesn’t, focusing instead on practical matters. “And where’s my fucking—oh.” Her old Jeep, none the worse for having been teleported across New York Harbor, is sitting next to the bull. There’s already a parking ticket stuck under one of the wipers. Well, at least it wasn’t towed. She sighs. “Come on, then. I’ll drive us to City Hall.”

  She starts forward, then stops as Queens grabs her arm. “You’re not listening to me,” Queens snaps. “This is pointless. We can’t wake up the primary, not without the fifth borough. What are we going to do, go there and let him eat us for nothing?”

  “Yes,” Brooklyn says, glaring at her and moving around them to go to the car. “Either that or we go back to Staten Island to knock that little dumb-ass in the head and bring her along anyway. But that’ll probably take another hour, and somehow I don’t feel like we’ve got that much time left anymore. Going to see the primary is the next best thing.” She slaps at her clothing, finds her phone in a back pocket of the skirt, and then grimaces. “I don’t have Manhattan’s number. Why the hell didn’t we exchange numbers?”

  “He’s underground, anyway, so reception would be iffy,” Bronca replies. She finds her key fob and unlocks the doors.

  “Do you just want to die, then?” Queens, not following them, looks from one to the other in disbelief. “Are all of you crazy?”

  “Yeah, we are,” Bronca says with a single weary laugh. “We’re New York, remember; we’re all fucked in the head. Can’t talk too much shit about Manhattan, really.”

  “I’m not giving up,” Brooklyn says to Queens. She puts a hand on her hip; her expression is implacable. “Don’t you dare try to make it sound like that, young lady. Giving up is what you’re doing. So go on, run back to Jackson Heights and hide, and hope that woman and her monster things don’t get you. Or leave town, and we’ll all hope the next Queens steps up to try and save people—”

  At this, Queens flinches. “I want to save people! You think I don’t? But we don’t even know if this will work…” And then she trails off, wincing; her shoulders sag in defeat. “But… ah, shit.”

  Bronca has managed to get her hip to stop hurting, which feels like a victory. “What.”

  Veneza has peeled off the light sweater she had on—last night, a lifetime ago, she’d been complaining that the Center’s air-conditioning was too much. The sweater is now smeared with God knows what, so she leaves it on the ground under the bull’s nose. “Sniff that, capitalism.” Then she, too, heads for Bronca’s car.

  “I was just thinking that you’ve run the numbers.” Queens is looking at them sadly, and smiling. “I guess I should’ve run them, too, but all of this has been… too much. It’s there in the probabilities, though, right? Running means we have zero chance to save the city. Trying to talk sense into Staten Island, nonzero chance, but so small as to be meaningless. Trying to wake up the primary, even with just the four of us… is the best chance we have.” She shakes her head, then finally sighs and starts toward Bronca’s car. “I hate that there’s no ninetieth-percentile scenario, though.”

  “Yeah, sucks, don’t it?” Bronca claps Queens on the shoulder, and they all get in.

  Brooklyn’s phone is down to a sniff of power, but it warns that there’s been some kind of police incident at the Brooklyn Bridge/City Hall Station. She calls one of her magical aides and makes arrangements. “Someone from the Transit Museum’s going to meet us,” she says as she hangs up, then tosses her phone onto the floor. “They can let us into the old station.”

  “I do have a car charger,” Bronca says, pursing her lips at the dying phone.

  “Leave it,” Brooklyn says, turning to look out the window. “I’d only call my daughter again.”

  Bronca sighs and thinks, I really hope they don’t name my grandchild something corny.

  At City Hall, parking is a nightmare. It takes half an hour to get there, even though it’s not far; they might have walked faster, even if they’d stopped on every corner to watch the sunrise. The traffic has likely been caused by the weird white structures that seem to be sprouting all over the city now, at a rapidly accelerating rate. Bronca drives past a gnarled treelike thing with yawning distorted faces in lieu of boles, which has webbed up the little park between two financial services’ corporate headquarters. There’s another small one on the south lawn of City Hall Park, like a white humped frog without legs or eyes. Just a mouth and warts, rooted to the ground and shivering as if it’s cold.

  Worse than the structures are the people. More and more of the financial and political warriors Bronca sees have tendrils growing somewhere on them. Some have just one or two, but a few are covered in the things, like albino Sasquatches strolling along in Manolo Blahniks.

  “Getting worse,” Veneza says unnecessarily.

  “Yeah, noticed,” Bronca replies.

  She feels Veneza turn to stare at her. “You know she’s like you, right? A city. Just not from this world.”

  Bronca sighs, questing briefly for a parking spot before finally grabbing a narrow slot that’s very likely goi
ng to get her towed. Fuck it. “Yep. Noticed that, too.”

  “And you know she wants to come here? That’s what those white things all over the city are about. She called them ‘connector pylons.’” Veneza grimace-smiles. “She’s trying to connect herself to us. Bring her city here—right on top of New York.”

  “What? How?” asks Brooklyn. Bronca shuts the car off, so thrown that she forgets to put it in park first; the engine chugs to a halt with an aggrieved sound.

  “I don’t know how. But have you noticed the shadow?”

  Bronca stares at her. Brooklyn frowns—then abruptly gets out of the car, looking up at the sky. She swears. Bronca does the same, aware of Queens scrambling to follow.

  There’s nothing to see, she thinks at first, except unoccluded blueness; it’s a typical June morning, with the sun almost seeming to leap above the horizon now that dawn has broken. Except… Bronca frowns around, noticing at last that the ground is shady. The trees and people cast shadows, but these are thin, almost blended in with the general lack of light. It’s a bright morning, or it should be. There isn’t a single cloud in the sky. The sun’s light should be saturating this area, turning all the shadows stark. It isn’t, though.

  And Bronca suddenly suspects that, if she could get up high, she would see the whole city shadowed. As if there is something floating above it—something vast and terrible, but thus far observable only via its effects on the world. Soon, though…

  Veneza has gotten out of the car. She’s resolutely not looking up, Bronca notices. Afraid of seeing something else that she shouldn’t. “Yeah, so,” she says, her voice tight. “You guys should do everything you can. Um, fast.”

  Yeah. Bronca’s getting that impression.

  They find the entrance to the old station, an unobtrusive green-painted thing incongruously labeled BROAD STREET SUBWAY, EXIT ONLY, and locked with a pull-down shutter. There’s a harried-looking young man waiting there. He’s barely pubescent to Bronca’s eyes, which makes her figure him for the summer intern. “Ah, Council Member Thomason,” he says as they arrive, smiling and stepping forward to shake her hand. “Thank you, we got your message. Will you be needing a tour guide? We don’t have any of our usual guides on hand, I’m afraid, but I can—”

  “There’s no need, Director,” Brooklyn says smoothly. “Thank you. I’ve been on the tour before, I can handle it. We didn’t bring a flashlight, however.”

  “Oh, take mine.” He—the director, to Bronca’s astonishment, damn children everywhere these days—hands Brooklyn his flashlight. It’s one of those survivalist dealies that needs to be cranked instead of having batteries, but this one’s fully charged. “And how long will you be?”

  “Not long. I’ll be sure to return the keys by tomorrow morning.” Brooklyn extends a hand.

  The director blinks. “You—I didn’t realize—” Now he looks around at the rest of them. Wondering, Bronca guesses, why a city council member has shown up with a bunch of raggedy, dirty, tired-looking people, to go exploring a defunct train station. “Um.”

  “I’ll make sure my friend on the Brooklyn Museum board knows how helpful and professional you are,” Brooklyn says, with a perfect shit-eating smile. Bronca almost admires her for it. And the director, who apparently wants a better job, is helpless against it. He sighs as he hands over the keys. They exchange a few more lines of friendly small talk, which are aggravating to hear while the city grows steadily dimmer. Now Bronca can’t tell her own shadow from the general gloom. Finally, though, the child-bureaucrat leaves, and Brooklyn starts wrestling with the shutter lock. After a moment, they’re inside. Down some steps and around a corner—and then they all stop, in shock.

  Strewn across the curving platform, beneath an arch lined with gorgeous Guastavino tilework, lies the scattered, twisted corpse of a biomechanoid monster. The bulk of it hangs off the subway platform—and as Bronca stares, she belatedly realizes that the back end of the thing is an unadulterated subway train, the last car of which still sits on its track. All the cars ahead of it, however, have jumped the track. The foremost cars have actually come up on the platform and transformed into something more like an annelid than an inanimate vehicle. It has tiny, stumpy legs, made of twisted engine parts. It’s also covered in white, glowing strands that have grown as thickly as dense fur… but all of the white strands are dead, Bronca sees with some relief, crumbling away to nothingness even as she watches. She gives the strands a wide berth anyway while they pick their way around the train’s remnants.

  In fact, Bronca sees that the thing hasn’t just died; it has been killed. Ripped apart, in fact. Part of the first car lies crumpled on the other side of the platform, flung against the wall by some incomprehensibly powerful force. The rest is jammed halfway up a side tunnel of the station. But just beyond the jammed-in bit, Bronca can hear someone panting.

  “Hello?” she calls.

  There’s a curse in Portuguese, and abruptly Paulo appears in the narrow gap of the torn-out conductor’s cab. “Thank God,” he says, his eyes widening with relief. “Is Staten Island with you?”

  They start climbing over the debris. Bronca’s ashamed to need a hand from Queens, but she makes it. “No,” Brooklyn says. “She didn’t like us any better than she did you. The Woman in White had already…”

  She trails off. Bronca gets through the torn-up piece of subway monster and follows her gaze to see Manny slumped against the wall. He’s the one who’s panting, plus visibly exhausted and bloodied all over. He’s also completely naked, although Paulo’s jacket covers his lap.

  “What,” Bronca says, dazed.

  “Train monster,” Manny replies.

  “Uh, yeah, what I mean is—”

  “Staten Island,” Paulo snaps. He’s shaking his head in disbelief. “You’re saying she’s thrown in with the Enemy? Completely? Does she understand—”

  “She understands.” Queens has gone over to help Manny up. On his feet, he looks like Bronca feels, bent over and holding himself gingerly against the pain of any possible movement. He’s clutching the jacket over his dangly bits, so Bronca figures Paulo’s not going to want that one back. “And then she threw us off the island. We, uh. We don’t know where Hong is, by the way.”

  Paulo stares at all of them, speechless in his horror. Manny sighs, then turns and stumbles toward something in an alcove beyond them. “We’ll have to do what we can, then.”

  “And if it isn’t enough?” That’s Brooklyn.

  “It’ll have to be enough.” Manny’s so obviously hurting that Bronca goes over to try to help him. Her back seizes up the instant she bends, though, and she has to quit. Veneza shakes her head and runs over to both of them, glaring at Bronca ’til she backs off. Veneza slides a shoulder under Manny’s arm.

  “Will we at least be able to protect our boroughs?” Brooklyn smiles in a pained sort of way that makes it clear she knows exactly how fucked up the question is. Bronca doesn’t blame her, though.

  “How should I know?” But then, so that she doesn’t sound completely heartless, Bronca adds, more softly, “Did they get out? Your father and your girl?”

  “I hope so.” Brooklyn turns away then, and heads toward the alcove, moving more briskly than is strictly necessary.

  Bronca limps into the alcove as well, to behold the primary just as the portrait depicted him: too slim, too young, and entirely too vulnerable here within the fading light of the city. “Doesn’t look big enough to eat more than a couple of mouthfuls of each of us,” Bronca quips. No one laughs.

  Paulo comes over and takes Veneza’s arm, pulling her back, much to Bronca’s relief.

  Then it’s just them and the primary. Four out of five stars, good but not great. Bronca takes a deep breath, waiting, trying not to be afraid. She finds herself watching Manny, though, who seems to get this part of it better than the rest of them.

  Manny, however, just looks troubled as he gazes down at the primary. “Nothing’s different,” he says. He reaches out towa
rd the shaved side of the primary’s head, but stops a few inches away, as if he is afraid to follow through on the gesture. His expression tightens in frustration, and Bronca abruptly sees the scene a different way. His hand has been stopped. By something that she cannot see.

  “What…” There’s only one way to know. Bronca steels herself. Let me die as Tundeewi Loosoxkweew, she thinks. As Fire Burns Woman, as Turtle Clan. As the warrior Chris always called me. And then she reaches for the boy’s head, too.

  Something stops her hand. It doesn’t feel like anything at first, just a progressive slowness, until her hand grows still and will go no farther. Queens starts, then stretches out a shaking hand. Hers stops, too. They all look at Brooklyn, whose expression has gone bleak. She knows it’s pointless. But because they need her to, she reaches out. Her hand stops on the same invisible barrier.

  Above them, through the skylight, the daylight fades more. It’s like an eclipse, Bronca recalls, thinking of that strange, eerie twilight she’s seen a handful of times over the course of her life. R’lyeh draws near, she thinks, and flinches at the welt this whips across her thoughts.

  “It’s coming,” Paulo says unnecessarily. He’s looking up. They’re all looking up. His expression is grim.

  “So she’s really going to do it,” Queens says, her voice now full of despair. “She’s going to—to put a city from that place, here. On top of this one. What does that even mean?”

  “That a lot of people are going to die,” Brooklyn says. “You heard her. Bringing that city here will somehow cause this whole universe to collapse.”

  “How can that be? I don’t understand any of this.” Queens groans, rubbing a hand over her hair.