A Song for a New Day

by Sarah Pinsker

  Someone called, “Hey!” from the darkness ahead, where a streetlight had shattered, the glass strewn on the asphalt below it. She looked up, assuming the voice was Sadie’s. In the moment she registered it was a stranger, someone else hit her from behind.

  * * *

  —

  It wasn’t a hard shove, but she wasn’t expecting it, and it knocked her off her feet. She put her hands out to catch herself, jamming her left pinkie hard against the cement, a white flash of pain. She scrambled to stand, clutching her hand, but someone pushed on her head, so she sat.

  “Stay down.” She couldn’t see the second guy’s face. He had his right hand in the pocket of an ancient jacket, denim with white leather sleeves, unless they were yellow. Hard to tell in the dark beneath the shattered streetlight. He had a logo over his heart, a jumble of letters she didn’t recognize. Her brain started untangling them because it didn’t want to think about the gun that he did or did not have.

  “Cash, Hoodie, phone,” he said, as if placing an order.

  “I don’t want any trouble,” she said, like someone out of her parents’ movies.

  She dug in her pocket for the bills she’d wadded there in case she needed to pay to get into the show, and handed the money to him. He accepted with his left hand, the right still in his pocket. His hand was white, with short, dirty nails. She disentangled her Hoodie and passed that over as well. “I left my phone at home. I’m sorry.”

  I’m sorry. Who said “I’m sorry” to a mugger? She sounded ridiculous to her own ears, and fought down the urge to apologize for the apology.

  For a moment she worried he didn’t believe her, but then he shoved her to the pavement again and took off running in the direction she’d been heading. She sat watching until he was out of sight, then a little while longer. She had no idea how long. She didn’t see any sign of the first guy, either, the one who’d said “Hey.”

  What were you supposed to do after a robbery? Nobody else was around, which meant nobody else had chosen this route. She hadn’t bothered to check the crime maps for this particular jaunt, after all her wanderings. She’d gotten cocky, or careless, or overconfident. Lucky, too, she supposed. He hadn’t shot her, or even taken her keys or wallet. No, he couldn’t have taken the wallet; she’d left it in the apartment. He’d only asked for the stuff he could wipe clean and use, or wipe clean and sell. Her Hoodie would reset if someone else put it on, so she didn’t have to worry he’d track her. Best possible mugging.

  She didn’t want to walk down the same street they’d taken anymore, even if it led back to her room, so she took the next right, then a left to parallel the road she’d been walking. She wished she’d brought a jacket; her teeth were chattering for some reason.

  Temporary noncomm. For this minute, putting one foot after the other, heading more or less in the correct direction to get herself back to her room, she was alone in the world. No way to call anybody. No way to check the safety maps if she wanted to, now, or summon a ride, or call the police. Joni’s way made more sense, carrying an emergency phone, but if she’d had an emergency phone they would have taken that, too.

  A brightly lit diner sat at the next intersection, ten or twelve people inside despite the late hour. She swung the door open, searched faces for her mugger, or at least his jacket, and when she didn’t spot him, slid into the nearest open isolation booth and locked the door.

  The menu was embedded into the tabletop. She expected offerings like Heatwave’s, but it was basically the same as a Micky’s. She ordered a grilled cheese sandwich, tomato soup, and hot chocolate, then pressed the panic button.

  The response came quickly. “Do you have an emergency, Table Four?”

  Was it an emergency? “I think I was robbed. I mean, I was robbed.”

  “In your booth?”

  “No. Sorry.” Apologies again. “On the next block over, before I came in. They took my Hoodie.”

  “And your first thought was to order soup and a sandwich?”

  It had seemed like a good idea. She didn’t speak.

  The voice disappeared, then returned a moment later. “I’ve called the police for you. They’ll be here in five minutes. Is there anything you need, um, other than soup, sandwich, hot chocolate?”

  “Nothing I can think of, thank you.”

  She hugged herself for warmth and studied the menu. It felt strange not to have a phone or Hoodie to pass the time. How did noncomm people do it? Joni had carried a book. Maybe she should start carrying a book.

  The hot chocolate arrived with so much whipped cream that the top sheared off in the pass-through. The server lingered longer than necessary. Gawking, probably, at the woman stupid enough to get mugged because she’d stopped paying attention to her surroundings.

  The police officer arrived at the same time as the food—“Officer Selsor” and “They” read their badge and a pronoun pin—prompting an awkward moment as they squeezed into the booth opposite her, then turned and took the food from the staring server, putting it on the table in front of her. The officer was middle height, middle weight, acorn brown, with a shaved head and kind eyes of the exact same shade as their skin.

  “You reported a robbery?” The officer wore a Hoodie but didn’t raise it, instead placing an old-fashioned tablet on the table to take notes. Less intimidating, she guessed. They had a smooth Southern accent.

  “Yes.”

  “Did they do that to you?” The officer pointed at her left hand.

  Her pinkie looked like a swollen sausage, the skin tight and angry. Now that they mentioned it, pain came rushing in. She nodded.

  The officer rapped on the wall of the booth. “Can you grab a bag of ice and a towel?”

  The server, who’d lingered by the table, disappeared in the direction of the kitchen, and returned a moment later. Rosemary accepted the ice and towel through the pass, and held it against her finger.

  Officer Selsor started with the basics. Rosemary gave her local address, hoping to avoid questions about why she’d come to town.

  “Okay, now, can you tell me what happened?”

  She recounted the moment. The details felt useless now—a young white guy she’d barely seen, an attacker she could only describe by his clothing and his left hand.

  “What about when he ran away? Did you get a sense of his height? His hair?”

  She shook her head. “Baseball cap, red maybe. Short hair, I guess, since I didn’t see it? The jacket was bulky so I don’t know his build. Hard to tell how tall he was because he was standing over me. Five-eight, maybe?”

  “And the other guy? Any other details?”

  “I barely glimpsed him. I don’t even know if he was trying to help me or working with the second guy.”

  “Working with,” said Officer Selsor. “We’ve heard similar from a few people over the last couple weeks. What were you doing out this late? It’s close to curfew.”

  “Close to curfew isn’t past curfew. I had the right to be out.”

  “Of course. I was just curious what you were doing on that street.”

  Rosemary had no reason to withhold any information from the officer, but the question reminded her of her last encounter with the police, when they’d chased everyone out of the 2020. “I was walking. I like to walk at night.”

  Officer Selsor opened their mouth, closed it, paused like they were trying to decide what to ask next. “Can I take you to the hospital for your finger?”

  “No, thank you. I’ll ice it.” Change of subject worked for her.

  “Look, maybe it’s only jammed, or maybe it’s broken. That’s way easier to fix earlier than later.” They lifted their left hand. The middle finger bent back at a bizarre angle before joining the other fingers again, taking the long way when the rest had gone direct.

  “No hospital. It’s not that bad. I can go to a clinic tomorrow if it
’s still swollen.”

  They shrugged. “Your choice. Can I give you a ride back to your apartment?”

  Rosemary considered the blocks between the diner and her room. “Thanks, yeah. And, um, I forgot my cash had been stolen when I ordered this food. What should I do?”

  “I’ll talk to the manager. I’m sure they’d be fine if you sent them money when you got home.”

  The officer left the booth, and returned a minute later with a takeaway box. “It’s on the house. Manager said come back sometime and buy a sandwich under better circumstances.”

  The handful of people still in the diner all watched Rosemary go. She followed Officer Selsor out to their patrol car, where they opened the back door. “Sorry, protocol. I can’t have you in the front seat.”

  She didn’t really care. She watched out her window, examining the shadows for people.

  Her street was dark and quiet. She groped for the door handle and realized there were none; she was in the seat where suspects rode. She waited for Officer Selsor to let her out.

  “You’re okay? Do you need to call anyone to stay with you?”

  “No, Officer. Thank you for your help.”

  The muggers hadn’t taken her keys. Really, they’d caused her as few problems as a mugger could. She didn’t have to apply for a new ID or deal with reaching her landlord to say the keys were gone. She didn’t have to worry that they’d followed her home or knew where she lived.

  She poured herself a glass of water, drank it, filled another, then flopped onto the bed. Her energy drained away, leaving only her throbbing finger. She reached for her phone to report her stolen Hoodie to SHL, then realized that if Management looked at its location, it would say she’d been in her room all night. Crap.

  All she wanted was to sleep. Instead, she rummaged in her bag for a pen and paper and wrote out the phone numbers for SHL Emergency, Logistics, and Management from her phone. Checked the time: 12:40 a.m. Twenty minutes until Asheville’s curfew, an hour later than Baltimore’s. She filled a pot with water, grabbed a tissue, and headed back downstairs one more time. Looked both ways, but the street was deserted. She probably made a strange picture, wandering the street with a pot of water and a finger like a sausage. Somebody could do her a favor and steal the phone now, too, but nobody came along. She was oddly calm. Impervious.

  She walked three blocks, to a restaurant where she’d had tacos two days before, and ducked around the back to the dumpster. She removed the data chip first and put it in the pot, then took it out and snapped it in two. She used the tissue to wipe her own fingerprints off her own phone.

  The screen spiderwebbed as it hit the ground. Her heel did more significant damage, grinding it into the pavement, which was strangely satisfying. When she picked it up with the tissue and tossed the pieces in the dumpster, she knew she had finished it off.

  Now she was noncomm for real, at least for the night. She made it back to her room a minute before curfew. Iced her finger, took two anti-inflammatories, and passed out.

  31

  ROSEMARY

  Career Suicide

  The usual combination of violin and sunlight woke Rosemary. She pulled the pillow over her head, a movement that brought the events of the previous night back to her with finger-screaming clarity. She raised her hand to her face: still swollen, but maybe a little less? Maybe.

  She iced it while she rummaged through the kitchen drawers, eventually finding a roll of masking tape, which had enough adhesive left for her to bind the pinkie to its neighbor. Good enough.

  She was waiting at the coffee shop door when it opened.

  “Thanks for coming last night! You look like hell,” Sadie said. “And you’re not usually here this early. What’s up?”

  Rosemary told her about the mugging. “Can I use your phone to call my work and my parents so they don’t worry?”

  “Of course. God, I feel awful that happened on your way back from my show. I shouldn’t have let you leave alone.”

  “Did you leave alone?”

  “Yeah.”

  “See, it could’ve happened to you, too. Freak thing.” She’d walked down the wrong street at the wrong moment. For all her worry about strangers with guns and strangers with germs, she’d never even noticed how other people also added safety to a situation. Sure, it wouldn’t have happened if she hadn’t left Jory, but she couldn’t imagine not having left anymore.

  She called home and told her mother she’d smashed her phone (true!), and could she drone one to French Broads Coffee, Rosemary would send her the money when she got back to her room, and yes, she was fine and she’d talk for longer as soon as she had a phone again, sorry for the long silence. Management got a different story: She’d been heading out to a late show when she’d been mugged. She’d given a police report. She’d hurt a finger, but it was okay, and yes, she’d go to a clinic if she needed. They wanted to send an incident report immediately, but she pointed out she had no device with her. They promised to send a new Hoodie right away.

  It was the first time she’d ever been anywhere without both her devices, and now she had neither, at least for an hour or so. She ordered a latte and watched the others trickle into the café. She felt alert, present, disconnected, tired; an odd jumble. Not bored, though. Her mind was unknotting the problem she’d been thinking about since Baltimore, adding to it the muggers, the quick “Hey,” the distraction before she’d been hit, the GPS tracking.

  Her packages arrived in one delivery from Superwally an hour later. Our goals are speed and efficiency. She busied herself recovering info from hoodspace and setting up both devices with her preferred settings, then sent a quick thank-you to her mother and a quick “back in business” to Management.

  Most people working at French Broads kept their Hoodies in some percentage of clearview, to still be aware of their surroundings. She felt safe enough to go full for a few minutes. She paged through the StageHoloLive archives looking for the Patent Medicine concert she’d attended all those months ago.

  The recorded version started her off front and center, a perfect viewing location, but not the one she remembered. This time, she spawned after the band; she was the illusion here, not them. The same start to “The Crash”: three voices and two huge guitars, holding a note for ten seconds before the drums rolled in. It still hit her like a wave, but when she looked to the side to see if the others in the room had felt it, she found herself in a sea of bots. They bobbed their heads in time to the music, but none of them turned to exchange glances with her.

  The song ended, and Aran Randall’s ghost said, “Good to see you all. Good to be here.”

  They had edited out “at the Bloom Bar.” She knew now that he must have recorded the names of a whole list of SHL venues. His hair fell in his eyes again, and he brushed it aside again. “We’re going to go ahead and play some songs for you, yeah?”

  The gorgeous bassist opened her eyes again, but this time Rosemary wasn’t in the wink’s path. It had never been meant for her. The second song’s bass groove began, and Rosemary exited the concert.

  She pulled up her own recording of Luce’s band, that special night at the 2020. Flat video, not the immersion of the Patent Medicine show, but even seeing it brought her the physical memory of being there. The electricity, the immediacy, the thrill, the heat of the room. It was all there for her recollection.

  She searched another band, another song. The Iris Branches Band, “Come See Me for Real.” Audio only, the way she’d heard it in the diner bathroom. She didn’t care what Iris Branches looked like. She flipped back to clearview and closed her eyes. The song used to remind her of high school, but now it sounded like the bathroom at Heatwave, like her heart beating faster, like Joni’s lips pressed to her own.

  She almost had a plan. When she closed her eyes, she could see the result she wanted, the way she used to envision perfect code before looking
at the flawed version. She’d repaid Luce’s kindness by killing her venue, and Joni had said she couldn’t undo what she’d done in Baltimore, but maybe she knew a way to make a difference. This time, she’d tell Sadie, because it wasn’t a plan she could implement on her own, and it wasn’t a thing she wanted to do without permission. Plus, she needed bait.

  * * *

  —

  Rosemary met with Management a week later. A busy week, giving her a new respect for logistics. Event planning turned out to be hard work.

  This Management rep had chosen a different background. No breezy meadow here, and no replica of an office to intimidate her and make her small. They were both seated at a small table in a bare but cozy room, in identical chairs, a pleasant blue sky visible out a large window. She guessed she’d passed the point where they thought they needed to scare her into submission; this was meant to convey a meeting of colleagues.

  Generic Management—Female (2 of 5) was built on the same lines as Generic Management—Male (1 of 5). Slim, generic white person features, chestnut hair with a deliberate touch of gray, expensive-looking haircut and clothes. Rosemary wondered if the other three avatars were white as well. Most of her coworkers she’d met on campus were nonwhite, but every avatar she’d met in Management was white and thin and able-bodied. Superwally had played with age but otherwise left people as they were, as far as she knew. She tucked that information away for further pondering.