THE SURFACE—NORTHAM
MANHATTAN/CENTRAL PARK ZOO OUTLIER TOURIST REGION
Frankie landed on her butt on Drow Whiting’s chest, and for a second, she wondered if he’d died. Then he gasped, letting out many really bad words, and let her help him to his feet. They shuffled down the hall, together, with the dog between them. Drow had both hands in its fur.
He was muttering, almost subvocalizing. A stutter of words got through: fascists, martyrfucker, hoarding, cannibal.
They wrestled a fire door, finding a pitch-black stairwell. Frankie hesitated, but Drow shrieked, as if there was someone behind them, and dragged her inside. It closed, locking them in darkness.
“Come on, kid.”
Her heart was pounding. “I can’t see.”
“Right, right, no implants. Mad leading the blind. What a glorious fucking crusade this is turning out to be.” A dry hand closed over hers, gentle grip, guiding her to a handrail.
“Going up?”
“Tragically for my crepit patellas, yeah.”
The stairwell smelled of old cement and wet newspaper. Sour fear wafted off Drow. Their words echoed in the black.
“Upsa daisy, nice and slow.”
She didn’t argue, just began to feel for the stairs. The dog kept pace.
Drow made a little huffing noise with every step. “Nobody here, nobody here,” he whispered. “We’re okay, we better be okay. Nobody here.”
“I’m here.”
“You don’t count.”
The steps become a landing. Frankie scowled into the dark as she traced her way around its perimeter. If she told Drow he was full of effing bollocks, would Mada ever find the transcript in the Haystack?
“I don’t mean … Look, kid—”
Her shoe found the next staircase. Drow was already climbing. “I’ve spent half my life essentially bonkers, you know that, right? ’Course you do. Famously bonkers.”
“Okay.”
“It’s not like you see in the flows. I know my #brand managers make me out as some lovable old geezer strumming his guitar, emitting musicflows and artstorm like, I dunno, owl pellets and saying wacky things … Saints, go away, you’re not here, get your goddamned claws off—”
Wacky things.
From his voice, he was fighting not to cry. “Strumming guitars and letting out kernels of sage wisdom, nuts in the ice cream of whimsical babble—”
Another landing. Frankie had been counting: there were thirteen steps per flight.
A thump, within the building infrastructure, made Robin shiver.
“You’re better now,” Frankie reminded him. “You got fixed. You treat people yourself.”
“Fixed. Some days just being hurts so goddamned much, and you can’t hold it together just because you want to. You don’t get to say, Hey, this is crucial and your kid’s depending on you and Martyrfuck, man, why you laying this bullshit trip on her, she’s fourteen. You see yourself acting nuts and you can’t stop. Anyway, we’re here, that’s over, this isn’t Guelph and she’s, you’re nine…”
Another landing. More puffing. Did old people still have heart attacks?
“I gotta catch my breath,” Frankie lied, breaking his upward momentum. And then, to distract him: “Why are we going up?”
“Get you to the top. Penthouse accommodations. Roof gardens. Transcripting in the clear.”
Transcripting what?
“They’ll expect us to go down. I have a bad feeling about down. Move, will you—my hip’s seizing. Did you hear that?”
“Your hip?”
“Hold on.” Clink of glass and some weird noises, like he was … straining. “Ghhhhhhhh!”
“Drow!”
“It’s nothing. Nothing at all. Oh, fuck. There’s a sensation.”
“Tell me!”
He bent, whispering, “Just adding a little Superhoomin to my personal drug cocktail.”
He was going to explode in the actual stairwell.
“Hip’s better, kid—let’s move.”
She nudged Robin and stepped. “What do you want to get onto the record?”
“You seeing Allure tooning in to conspire with @ChamberofHorrors? That seems newsworthy.”
“Not tooned in,” Frankie said.
“Huh?”
“How many times do I have to tell you? I ditched my wearables.” Eleven steps, twelve, thirteen. Glide to the next staircase. How high was the building? Eight floors?
A clink, a smash. “What was that?”
“Broken glass,” Drow said. “I dropped the vial. I may’ve developed a slight case of the shakes—”
She felt him shoving Robin to one side as her shoe poked through a collection of rubble.
“There’s a chunk stuck in your—wait.”
She had already reached. A ping in the bed of her thumb as she pulled it free.
“No harm done,” she said, putting the thumb in her mouth, tasting copper.
“I have a bad feeling about down.” Glass scraped on concrete. “How could Allure be there if she wasn’t tooned in? I’m the one who hallucinates.”
This is why we need a whole government department of making adults listen.
She repeated the story of coming from Florida, in the orange crate tagged for delivery outside the zoo. She’d felt exposed in it, uneasy for no reason she could really name. So, she switched out, and found the nanoboards on her crate were marked with a big pink painted F.
When the train paused in the Bronx, at the larger zoo facility, she had tossed the novel—Black Beauty—out of the train car.
“I don’t think it had a tracker in it, but…”
“No, it was canny. Good move.”
After that, she’d found an unmarked box of tequila gels and hidden herself within them. Zoo animals wouldn’t be drinking tequila, would they? And sure enough, these had gone directly to the mall, and from there up to the boardroom.
“There were servers,” she said. “They all had weird, dented skulls. They were putting out juice and drinks and muffins for people.”
“Or worse,” Drow muttered.
Frankie had scrambled out of the tequila crate, concealing herself behind a cubicle wall leaning at the edge of the boardroom as the servers made themselves scarce and the people they’d been setting up for came in.
There had been eleven of them at the meeting, all older than Drow, with unmistakable signs of life extension—arm pumps, exaggerated musculature. The eldest had been in a pod the size of a rhinoceros.
Eleven, plus Allure.
She looked just as she had in Sensorium: sleek of skin, abundant of hair, dimpled and plumper than the norm. “She did a little dance thing. Pirouette,” Frankie said. “And told them it was #proofofconcept.”
“#Proof—”
“They flushed Tigger—the baby tiger—out of the experimental Project Rewild crèche.” Frankie fisted and unfisted her hands. “And they clapped about it.”
“Mmmm.”
“Drow? Are you listening?”
“I get it, okay, Allure killed the cat. Sucks, okay? Big feels. Hey, we’re at the top.”
Frankie felt the steel door. “No knob.”
“Exit only, no entry,” Drow said. “Hold on.”
“We’ll have to go back down.”
“We go down, they’ll never find our bodies.”
Frankie froze, goose pimples breaking over her skin.
“Sorry. That might have been the crazy talking.”
I want to go home, Frankie thought.
“We can hope it was the crazy, anyway.”
“You’re not comforting me.”
“You wanted to be comfortable, you shouldn’t have run away. Saints, you think I’m comfortable?”
She fought a sudden rush of tears. “No.”
“Blood pressure rocketing, pulse in the—Fuck! Sorry, sorry. Saints, kid, so sorry.”
How long had they been in blackness? Her eyes felt dry, exhausted, as if they’d been staring out in search of nothing for hours. She made herself close them. “What now?”
“Well, I could suck up more meathead meds and try ripping the door off its hinges…”
“No!”
“Shhh!”
She put her hand on his arm, letting the tremors in his body rattle her, hoping he’d feel it, too. “You shouldn’t be t-taking that stuff if you’re on—”
“Other stuff?”
“Please? Please, Drow, find another way.”
“Yeah. Work smarter, right? Well … Luce Pox and I are pals. Maybe we can bring him ’round to sharing our vested interest in fucking Allure up the—”
The door popped open. Gleaming, blue-tinted fluorescent light illuminated the dog, Robin, and Drow. The latter was bobbing up and down on his toes, turning a long shard of glass over and over in his trembly grip. Something was happening to the hexagonal scars on his temples—they were flushed with blood.
“You’re one to talk about obscenity,” he said to someone who wasn’t there. Luce, she assumed. And then: “I apologize for my potty mouth, Barnes.”
“Eff you,” she said tiredly, peeking into the hall, eyes watering as her sight adjusted. The corridor smelled of flowers and chemicals—of hospital. She thought about Dada Rollsy, refusing to let her watch him die.
It’s not like on the flows, Drow had said.
How awful must it be, cancer treatment, to make Sang run off to Florida?
Sang’s not a closer.
Drow made the shard of glass disappear. “Luce, we gotta get Catgirl and Robin safely beyond the jammers. I’m thinking the roof. Where’s her parent, anyway?”
A wall-mounted hand sanitizer answered, “In-game.”
“Who fucks around killing toons with their kid missing?”
“She’s not missing; she’s with you.”
“Since when am I a responsible adult?”
“You raised one small female. What’s the difference?”
“Is that a serious question? Get her parent here.”
Luce said, “Allure and Headmistress blackmailed Gimlet. Play the game and—”
“Blackmail?” Frankie demanded.
The door swung open, blinding her. “Ah, Mer Barnes. At last!”
Allure.
Drow tottered around her, positioning himself between Frankie and the dog. As protection? Allure could easily snap him in half.
“Should’ve listened better,” he said. “It’s me who’s delusional, not Frankie. You didn’t just flush the cat. You printed yourself a fucking body.”
Allure raised her arms, did the pirouette again. “Mer Barnes the elder is playing the final episode of the Bastille scenario. We have offered their failing spouse a new lease on life. As for Mer Barnes the younger…”
Frankie folded her arms and gave her best glower.
“Here as insurance?” Drow asked. “Spouse is the carrot, kid is the stick.”
Allure looked past him. “Do you understand, child? We are even now transferring Rollander Erwitz to a facility in Pretoria where he can undergo the poltering process—”
“And then upload to new meat?” Drow said.
“Fresh, fit, and ready to go.” She ignored him. “Your father will be fine, Mer Barnes. My existence proves it.”
“#Proofofconcept,” Frankie whispered.
“Exactly. The Pale offer so many advantages—”
Drow laughed. “Like raising all these rich-ass geezers. Perpetual immortality for the well-heeled?”
“You’re using me and Rollsy to make Gimlet do what you want,” Frankie said. It would work, too. Mada would do anything to protect the pack.
This was so unfair!
But she knew that one thing was true, in the real world or out. If you gave the Bedwedders of the world what they asked for, you didn’t get your happy ending.
Frankie was the child of a supervillain. She knew better than anyone that weaseling out of your promises wasn’t a bug. It was a standard bad-guy feature.
“Leave the girl alone. Deal with me.”
Think! Get Robin outside, Drow had said, beyond the jammers. Frankie looked left and right. A door, just beyond Allure, was open, just a crack.
She nudged Robin. “C’mon.”
But the dog was on alert, welded to Drow as if she was growing out of his leg, ears flattened.
Frankie ran a hand over her fur. Pick her up? She had to weigh two stone, even if she didn’t struggle …
… or bite …
… and that was before figuring the weight of whatever was in her helper-dog panniers.
Oh. Wearables.
Allure and Drow must have taken their debate subvocal. They were nose to nose. Beads of sweat dotted his forehead. She’d never seen someone’s eyes bug quite that big. His shakes were worse. The scars on his temples were scabbing up.
Frankie knelt, stroking Robin again, unlatching the catch across her back harness and then lifting, tentatively.
No give. There must be a belly strap, too.
She laid her head between the golden retriever’s shoulders, fumbling for the catch. “Who’s a googirl?”
Click, and the whole pannier slid. She lifted it straight off the dog.
Drow’s hand, behind his back, shifted: thumbs-up.
How much of the crazy was he faking? Frankie looked down to hide a smile.
Allure’s attention was fixed on Drow. “Let’s take a tour down Recollection Highway.”
“The idiom is Memory Lane.”
Acting for all the world as though she knew what she was doing, Frankie sauntered around Drow to the open door. Pushed it.
In. Through. The latch clicked behind her. There was a hard bolt; she threw it.
“Child!”
Beyond the door was …
… Was this real?
It was a classroom. Thirty kids of various ages and two teachers, arrayed in classic rows of desks in front of a real blackboard, turned to stare.
Even without her access to Sensorium records, Frankie tagged at least three of the faces. They were kids who’d gone lemming, who were #presumeddead, but whose bodies had never been found.
There was another open door behind the teachers.
“Department of Preadolescent Affairs,” she shouted. “You’re all under arrest!”
While their jaws were hanging, she burst into a run, making it to the far door and through, slamming it behind her. Now she was in a kids’ dormitory. She pelted past it and into another—one for boys, one for girls. Stupid binary, stupid kidnappers. She was panting as she hit that fourth room, a food hall from the looks of it, staffed by two giggers—one old, one young. Both servers had the strange, caved-in skulls. They barely seemed aware of her as she kept running, bolting for the kitchen.
Roof, roof, find the stairs to the roof.
Instead, her luck—or at least the series of interconnected doors—ran out. She darted down a dimly lit hall and into the strangest pop-in Frankie had ever seen.
The room was a bit as she imagined Rollsy’s hospital room must be. A life-support pod dominated the corner facing the window, overlooking the park. The rug was red, with a flowered pattern, as brightly colored as if she was viewing it through a helmet.
There was a massive private bathtub.
Shout outside. Frankie hadn’t eluded the adults, not really. By now someone had probably remembered she couldn’t arrest anyone for kidnapping if she couldn’t access Sensorium.
Panting, Frankie crossed to the window and leaned out, staring at the ledge and the five-story drop to the churned-up pavement below. Hot air lifted her hair. Central Park was about half a click away.
A long, high scream, in the hall—Drow.
She spun, almost smacking her head into the upper half of the window frame. Because I’m clumsy, too clumsy, not a real player, not a closer …
Taptaptap. “Frankie?”
“Is that you, Drow?”
“Listen, kid, I appreciate what you’re trying to—”
“How can I know that’s you?” The ledge outside was wide and surprisingly clean. Low-difficulty-level climb. In-game, she wouldn’t hesitate.
In-game, there’d be a safety mat hidden under the illusion of a lethal drop.
She scavenged a curtain pull from the edge of the window, tying it to Robin’s panniers. Maybe she could dangle the transmission rig outside.
A pneumatic hiss made her jump. The VR pod sighed, cracking open.
Bam of fist on door. “Kid, get out of there right now. Luce, get this door open.”
“Drow would say the effing door!”
The voice changed: Allure. “Child, what incentive do I have to save your cancerous parent if you won’t cooperate?”
The rising lid of the pod revealed a person who, honestly, didn’t look that old. Their skin was papery, their eyes bloodshot. They shook awake, clearly groggy, scanning the room.
“I don’t see—” Rheumy, gunk-crusted eyes fixed on her. “Yes, yes, here she is.”
Frankie didn’t wait for them to get out of bed. She scrambled up to the windowsill and from there, terrifyingly, eased onto the ledge.
“This,” she huffed, not because it was true exactly but because soapboxing made it possible to move, despite being scared out of her mind. “This is what the Department of Preadolescent Affairs is for. Keeping crepits from selling us kids out.”
“Wait. The girl’s DPA?” said the pod person.
“Whooz me!” Frankie shouted. “Check badge 773928 dash 32!”
What if there was nothing in these dog panniers?
Or she couldn’t get clear of the building jammers?
Too late. She was on the ledge now.
Frankie flattened herself against the wall and crept, one tiny step at a time, away from the window. Real ledge, real death. The gaunt apparition with the papery skin leaned out, gaping.
“We don’t need a bunch of aliens telling us to clean up our house!” she shouted.
“The Pale can help us.” The crepit put their hand outside the window, pulled it back in.
“Go after her!” Muffled Allure voice.
“No!” That was Headmistress. “We mustn’t risk dear Frances!”
Guess that meant the bad guys weren’t quite in sweet harmony with each other.
In-game, there was always somewhere to go when you ended up stuck outside a building a million floors up …
“Five,” Frankie said aloud. “Only five.”
High enough to die, Franks. She could almost hear Mada’s voice.
Mada had caught her last time, in sim. She choked back a scream.
“Frances.” Headmistress buzzed at her from a wall-mounted speaker, somewhere out of sight. “This is dangerous. I beg you, come back to us.”
“You said this would bring us back together!” Frankie yelled. “Sang and Mada would come to get me. They’d go back to Bella and Rollsy. But you just lured me here to leverage Gimlet…”
“Darling! I only want what’s best for you.”
Frankie edged to the farthest spot between the windows. The crepit was trying to get a foot out onto the ledge, moving with limited enthusiasm for the project. Allure leaned in from the other side.
“Don’t come out here!”
“Child, be reasonable.”
“Shut up!” A wink of light, from the park, caught her eye. Was that a drone? “We’re gonna revive and rewild without your help.”
Headmistress spoke again. “I think, dear Mer Frances, you may have misunderstood me earlier—”
“Your in-app purchase, Poppet, told me to run away! You told me—” she bellowed.
The winking light was a drone, a journo bot with a camera and a mic.
And … beyond it, at ground level, a wheeled …
What was that thing?
“Mer Barnes?” Whatever it was, the coming drone was so old, it had a speaker. “It’s Crane. Hold on. I’m coming.”
The weird vehicle had an extending arm, and at its end was a platform of sorts. An outdoor elevator? Could it get her out of this?
Frankie pressed herself against the back wall of the building, locking eyes on the bizarre contraption. All this sudden attention had to mean she was indeed transmitting.
Do it, then. Transmit.
“This is Frances Barnes from the Department of Preadolescent Affairs,” she said into the dog vest, fighting to keep her voice steady. “I’m at the @ChamberofHorrors in Manhattan and I’ve found a bunch of lemming survivors. Kidnapped kids, repeat, kidnapped lemming kids. The Chamber is coll—coll—” What was the word? “Colluding with Allure and they have Drow Whiting. I think … I think they’re hurting him. Please, please, please, somebody help us.”
Then, though she knew she really really shouldn’t, she thrust up her middle finger, brandishing it at Allure.