The Crime Of Sentience 3h2p1p

The Crime of Sentience

By Cy Porter

This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental. Copyright © 2021 Cy Porter All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted without the prior written permission of the copyright owner. ISBN-13: 9798713905484 Edited by Susan DeCano and Barbara Abelha

Table of Contents

1 Exploding Bus 2 Hacked to Life 3 The Blindfolded Stranger 4 Becoming Untraceable 5 Entombed Hotel 6 Tunnels Behind Everything 7 Fisheye 8 Abducted by Accident 9 Scary Night 10 Hated by the Leader 11 Deadly Funeral 12 Best Friend in a Void 13 The Bonding Wilderness 14 The Character Sink 15 Breaking Traps 16 Rescue Attempt 17 The Professional Poison Eater

18 People Eraser 19 The Animal Pen 20 Insects of Entropy 21 Lily Gets Marked 22 Personality Vacuum 23 Give Everyone Faces 24 You Killed My Friend 25 An Agreement Appendix A Request A Note about Race About the Author

[1] Exploding Bus

After game developers mastered world physics simulation to the microscopic scale and when human eyes became the bottleneck restricting the improvement of graphics, games began receiving critiques of how well their interactive systems worked. It was the new arena of development. Interactive systems control how things in the game behave. They include simple behavior like the growth patterns of moss on a rock to complex behavior like the feelings a nonplayer character has about religion. The behaviors of NPCs received the most scrutiny from gamers. Gamers often complained that they could second guess NPCs within hours or even minutes. But other interactive systems also fell short of what gamers wanted. The time it took for bread to go moldy was always the same in some games, whether the bread was home-baked or store-bought. Even in the most sophisticated games the subtle nuances of regional culture, racial overtones, and repressed sexual power-play, as just a few examples, fell short of feeling real and convincing. These shortcomings were made more noticeable, not less, by the perfect game physics. The makers of the game Livable Worlds focused mostly on living systems i.e. crop growth, high school peer dynamics in action, and evolution of a workplace’s politics. It’s nearly impossible for one person to learn about all of the living systems developed in the game Livable Worlds. The game developers let the game self-develop in the largest network of quantum and supercomputers ever ed together. The map started as a replica of the Earth, sharing city and street names and population sizes. The Map of Livable Worlds is exactly as big as Earth and is supposed to be very much like Earth but also self-generated and not a mere copy of Earth. The game can have a matching street name and location to Earth and the buildings on that street greatly resemble the buildings found on that street on Earth but the two streets, the one in the game and the one in real life, are not the same. Like cousins, it’s sometimes easy to see the similarity, but sometimes hard to know they are

related at all. The game self-created for years before any player ed it. The game originators made a game where no two NPCs act alike. Any two families can easily be distinguished from one another. Two towns that are near each other will seem vastly different and yet similar. Creating such a game has its problems. The originators started a process that created a black box whose inner working may be understood eventually, but people will sooner figure out the inner working of the human brain. The originators have discovered that the game has layers under the topmost visible layer, the playable layer. All layers influence each other and greatly enrich the diversity and quality of activity. The originators find the game has come up with some interesting solutions to world creation. As an example, an axe is an item that players can see in the playable simulation but the game has decided to use axes as invisible pieces of programming, to control some behaviors in the game. The game develops its own tools for controlling what happens and, oddly, the tools are made of characters and items, only these characters and items are hidden deep away from players, deep in the hardly understandable programming. Most of the game is invisible to s. Instead of making NPCs complex enough to resemble the chaos that is real-life personalities, the game made many worlds and other instances of each NPC in each of those other worlds. The many selves bear influence on each other. A mix of cause and effect and randomness was not enough to make live human behavior that convinced the players. The game needed to go to extremes. The originators have gained access to some of the hidden layers, but only some. They still don’t know how many layers there are. They have come to some understanding of how the game works, but most of it remains as undecipherable to them as a dream. And how do you begin to make sense of a dream? *** A lanky Hispanic, Dimitri, has worked different kinds of jobs: selling used cars, airport security, and alarm system installation, and is going to vet school on a band scholarship. In his third year his high school sweetheart breaks it off with him and, to his surprise, the breakup makes him all kinds of crazy. He can’t sleep. He has no appetite. In fact the idea of eating often makes him nauseous.

Things he never second guessed about himself now seem to need scrutinizing. He’s afraid he can’t manage vet school anymore and might flunk out. On the phone he tells a friend, “I really don’t get it. I thought it was a good idea for her and me to break up. I often wondered if I should move on. I should be happy.” His friend says, “The first serious breakup is always the worst, even if you really didn’t like her anymore! You need to get away for a while.” “But exams are next week. I can’t take a break now.” “Ever hear about Livable Worlds?” “Is it a retirement home?” “No! It’s a video game that just came out. Like, people have been waiting for it for years.” Dimitry says, “What kind of game is it?” His friend says, “It doesn’t have a point. Anyway, it’s supposed to be ten times more real than anything else that’s come out. It may be a way for you to get away. You can explore the game for free, but if you purchase a character you can guide their choices. You can try to make your character rich, not saying that it will happen, but it’s all the adventures of real life without any of the drudgery. All of life’s choices without having to do the dishes.” After the phone call, Dimitri logs in to the game. He looks at engers on a plane. He can see the plane from an NPC’s perspective, pan around the interior and even follow the plane from the outside. He checks out some combat in Israel. It’s true, the NPCs are so convincing. It reminds him of the difference between a good movie and a bad movie. In a good movie the characters seem so real and in a bad movie they reek so bad of fakeness it’s hard to watch. But the game is better than a good film. Dimitri finds himself entranced with it. He explores a sorority house which turns out not to be at all as exciting as he was sure it would be- just stressed-out girls with hair hanging over their faces doing homework or talking quietly on their phones. He checks out bars packed at midnight. He sees a homeless man and before he knows it, he has spent nearly

two hours following the homeless man, down dark alleys and under overes along a train track. It’s well past one AM when Dimitri takes a look at the game’s pay-for options. He clicks on “Claim Character.” He reads that for a price, he can help make some decisions for a character. This character will be his in that no other player will be able to make decisions for that character. The purchase also allows the player to go directly to wherever the character is. Without that ability it could take days for a player to find a particular NPC. He goes to the browse page. This in itself should be interesting, to browse the available characters. Fifty faces appear in rows, faces from all over the world. Just by the faces he can tell only a few might live in the game’s United States. He moves his cursor to the map image at the top of the screen and clicks as near to the Philadelphia region as he can. Fifty new faces appear. They look more like the faces he would expect to see outside his apartment, mostly Blacks, Whites, Hispanics, and Asians. In the search box at the top of the page Dimitri types a couple of names he knows in real life to see if the game has matching characters. He types a teacher’s name in the box, no match. He types the name of a girl he knew in high school, no match. The faces all look so normal. Most of the characters probably won’t be chosen by players, too ordinary. He types the first letter of his ex-girlfriend’s name, “L”. His ex’s name is Liana. Fifty new faces appear. With so many faces, his brain does not try to find details; he experiences the faces as a visual field the same way he does seeing people in a crowd at a football game. The cursor remains blinking after the “L”. Dimitri types the second letter of his ex’s name, “i”. Fifty new faces appear. His eyes jump to one face, that of an Asian girl. The name “Lily Mae” is printed below it. She hasn’t been claimed yet? Soon she will be, for sure. Her long very black hair, her wistful eyes. The game is still new. A character like her simply won’t be available at all, in a few months. Not just a pretty face, a face you don’t quickly forget. Almost a striking face. Some people spend all day searching for a character like her, so they can then sell her for three times the price. He quickly selects her before another player does. He had no plans to spend money on the game. He didn’t think he would.

Purchasing an NPC will drive up his debt. Some regret there. Not to worry. He got a lucky break stumbling across her like that. After purchase, a tiny thumb of her face is one of the options in his tray. He clicks on it and sees his character, Lily, sleeping in a small bed in a tiny room. He can rotate around her and see her from far away to close up, but she is always in the center of his monitor. He can’t see the world from her point of view. A pang of loss hits him as he re he normally would be asleep with his girlfriend at this time of night. The next afternoon between classes and work, he uses the phone app to check on Lily. She walks down a sidewalk, ing a school bus. He says, “Exactly like the real world, except, all the adventure and none of the drudgery”. Many twoway plane tickets cost less than his game purchase. Well, if it keeps him sane at this crucial time the cost is acceptable. *** On her way home from school Lily es a yellow bus. A classmate’s head appears in one of the bus windows, and he calls down to her, “Hey, is that a flute?” Lily stops and blankly looks up at her Black classmate, “Yes.” She glances down at the small rectangular case she carries. He smiles. “Play it for us.” Lily looks up at him. He finds himself waiting for her reaction. She does not refuse to do what he asks, nor does she make any move to take out the flute. She just looks at him. He feels like she is just waiting to see what he does. She says, “I don’t want to take it out.” He beckons, “Aw, come on!” The girl sitting on his other side says, “Hey, don’t you know she’s weird?” He pulls his head back from the window and looks at the girl sitting next to him, “Why do you say she’s weird?” The girl whispers, “Do you ever see her hanging out with anybody?”

Lily begins to walk away. The boy sticks his head back out the window again, “Hey, I thought you were going to play your flute!” Lily continues walking without looking back. She enters her family’s apartment. She steps around the beer bottles in the hall. Her father lies on the couch asleep or ed out. Lily does her homework on her bed in the little room. She awakes late at night when her older sister comes home drunk knocking one or two things over. The thundering voice of her sister’s boyfriend fills the house, “What the hell did I just run into?” The sister laughs and shushes him. They bang around in the kitchen for a while. After Lily is sure her sister has gone to bed, she pulls away the chair that was wedged under her doorknob. She checks the stove and oven to make sure they have not been left on. She finds the front door wide open. She takes her sister’s key out of the lock before shutting the door. One evening, to escape the clamor inside her parent’s apartment, Lily sits out on her front stoop on a street of row houses. She watches the wind send fall leaves down the road. A moving truck parks next door. A minute later a Buick parks and a Black elderly couple sitting inside watch two men move their things into the row house right next to Lily’s. A few days later, Lily is returning from the store and sees a boy her age standing outside the house the couple moved into. Lily feels him staring at her the whole time she es. She feels her face glowing hot. Inside, she walks past the living room filled with slumping bodies, smoke and hard laughter. In the bathroom, Lily looks at herself in the mirror. She reaches for the vase of flowers on the toilet. Her mother always picks flowers around the neighborhood and puts them in vases. Lily pulls one of the flowers out and works it into her hair. It starts to fall out and she pushes it back until it stays. She studies how the flower has changed the way she looks. She reaches for another flower and another and works them into her hair. Lily ires the flowers in her hair. She looks totally different. The loud sounds outside the bathroom die away. When she steps out of the bathroom her family and their company filling the living room start laughing at her with genuine peals of laughter. Lily freezes. She

looks from face to face. She runs out of the house. She is sure she can still hear them laughing when she es the lamppost on the corner. She keeps running, but in her mind she can hear them laughing and saying, “She’ll be back”. Eventually Lily must slow to a walk. What was she thinking, just running out of the house like that? What should she do now? She just made first chair this week. And her family doesn’t even know, not that it would interest them very much. *** As Dimitri watches, Lily walks and catches her breath. Options appear on his screen, “Return home, Go to aunt’s house, Take a bus to the city”. Dimitri slowly says, “Oh, I don’t know, Lily. You don’t seem very streetwise but your family is messed up. Chances are your aunt is just as messed up as the rest of your family. I don’t want to mess up your life. This is a lot harder than I thought it would be.” Dimitri clicks on “Take a bus to the city.” He can hear Lily’s thoughts, “I can’t go back. I just can’t. I’ll take the express to downtown. It’s easy enough to find a job. I can get my own place and still finish school. My parents won’t stop me. Oh my gosh, I don’t have my flute. I don’t have my homework, or my clothes. Well, tomorrow is Friday. I can miss tomorrow and look for a job.” Dimitri watches nervously as his character takes a turn he really wishes she didn’t. Not that he will resell her, but her resale value just took a drop, unless he can find someone who’s looking for a runaway, but that feels wrong. This is not what he signed up for. How is he going to get her into college now? *** An old Black woman boards the bus grunting quietly. She squeezes past the seats on her way down the aisle and spots an empty seat next to Lily. The woman asks, “Mind if I sit here dearie?” Lily looks up, surprised. “Not at all, go ahead.” Before the woman sits down Lily notices her strange smell, something chemical like battery paste or ozone, something uncommon like that.

The woman talks the entire time, “I’ve been evicted for having too many cat friends stay with me but I can’t help it. I adore them so much.” Lily responds, “Oh?” noticing the long white hairs on the woman’s chin and on the upper sides of her mouth. The woman continues, “Henry is the oldest. I found him around some garbage by the train tunnel. He likes to hide behind furniture and sometimes I can’t find him for days.” “Oh.” “Tweedy and Deedee are not really twins. You would swear, though I never swear, that they came from the same litter. I found Tweedy in the muddy field between 26th Street and Maple Street. She always leans to the left when she walks and she has bad dandruff. Deedee was tied to a fence and awful skinny when I found her.” “Wow.” The woman’s eyes look so bloodshot that she almost seems alien. She is kind and a smile never leaves her lips but there is something cold about her. Tiny gestures give away a calculating mind. “So nice of you to talk to me.” Lily says, “Yes ma’am.” “Toc Toc used to climb up on the shelf, fall asleep and roll off. He also used to meow at night before I found Muddy Feet in a neighbor’s attic and brought her home. I don’t know what Muddy Feet did but Toc Toc does not make a peep at night anymore.” “Oh.” The woman leans in close to Lily and whispers, “Do you like worms?” “I don’t know.” The woman asks, “Do you think they’re intelligent?” Lily says, “In their own way, I guess.”

“You seem thoughtful but tell me, are people confused by the things you do and say?” “I don’t know.” “Because that is the kind of person who will find the overlooked door. That is the one who will see the priceless treasure hidden in front of everyone’s noses, the secret treasure everyone else has overlooked.” “Treasure?” The woman says, “So never rid yourself of what may be your greatest power. People may make fun of you but don't let it get to you. Why strive to fit in? There are already too many ordinary people in the world.” Lily says, “But I do want to be ordinary. I think I'll excel at ordinary. I’m going to be an airline stewardess.” The woman falls into a different gear. “That’s okay dear. We are all just a bunch of silly people on a silly bus. So, Dotty was behind the dumpster of the inconvenient store on a snowy night. She was so cold she continued shivering for a whole year after I took her in. I can’t get her to eat cat food, only raw meat, so either she belonged to a rich family or a butcher before I found her. You don’t know any wealthy people, do you?” “Um, no, I don’t think so.” “Just as well. So nice to meet someone who has the time to talk to me. You are a truly kind person. If nothing else, never stop being that.” Lily says, “Oh yes, thank you.” The bus stops and picks up a White man holding a heavy duffle bag in front of him. His eyes are wide open but expressionless. As he walks down the aisle he sways. The woman shrinks and says, “And I was having such a nice afternoon.” The man stares at her. Before he es, the woman says loudly, “You do realize you will run out of copies someday, don’t you?” Lily can see tremors run all through the woman. Her breath becomes irregular.

The man sits in the back of the bus. He unzips his duffle bag. Inside, the explosives are all set up. All he needs do is place the end of a wire on a battery terminal. Beads of sweat appear on the woman’s upper lip. She says to Lily, “If I asked you to get off the bus at the next stop, would you?” Lily says, “But I still have so far to go.” The woman’s hands are visibly shaking. “If I get off with you, could I talk you into getting off the bus?” Lily says, “Oh…” The explosion tears the bus open. Two cars are thrown on their sides and a truck crashes into the front of a hair salon. A wave of panic and confusion spreads out in the vicinity. *** Dimitri jumps up from his seat, “Oh my god Lily! Oh my god! What just happened?” He paces back and forth watching the screen. “That’s my character! I just spent all my money getting her!” He runs back to his computer. The screen is all grey. He grabs the keyboard but is afraid to leave the game, “Do I get a refund if my character dies? Oh god, I didn’t consider the possibility that my character could die! Why did I do that? I’m never spending any money on a game ever again.” He smiles with relief as the picture comes back. *** Police block off roads. Emergency vehicles arrive. They place the injured, including Lily, on the pavement until ambulances are available to take them to the hospital. Many of the injured have already stopped breathing. The old woman waddles up and kneels over Lily. She says, “Hold tight dearest. Don’t go just yet. I'm just going to take something out of you that is taking you apart, then I’ll try to borrow some health from one of your other selves. You ladies can share. I’m better at fixing cats. Just between you and me, I’ve never

tried to bring a human back before, but I’ll do what I can.” *** She searches Lily. From Dimitri’s view it looks like the woman’s hands reach deep inside Lily, ing through Lily. Dimitri gasps. With her arms ing through Lily, the woman starts yanking violently. For as much as the woman pushes and pulls, Lily rocks back and forth only a little. Unlike the other engers from the bus, the woman shows no signs of the explosion. Like a mime pretending, the woman appears to pull out a heavy object with long cords at the end. She mimes placing it on the ground and going back to pull out the rest of the cord. She stops and wipes her brow. It seems like the woman is placing something on Lily or making the motions of dressing Lily with something. Dimitri sits back in his chair, staring and repeating, “What the hell? This is not realistic, not at all. The game is broken!” *** The woman speaks as she works. “Oh, I meant to get around to asking you why you have these crazy flowers in your hair. I like them, bless your heart, though they seem like a fluke. “I know you won't understand, but let me explain it this way: it's kind of like I take a bit of her and stitch it to you. She shares her health with you and everyone is happy. She may go through a sickness or two, might have some pneumonia or some other nuisance but you get to live! Not bad. It's something you would do for her, I’m sure. I know you’re ed out, but listen— if you do notice a crack, gently turn away. Pay no mind and just keep walking. “Which other you? Who you could have been? Who you secretly are? Who you wish you were? Who you are afraid of becoming? These other yous live their lives in other places. They can't you but they do nudge you a little. They don’t know it, you don’t know it. I hope this works. There are so few truly nice people in the world.” The whole operation takes quite a while. When the woman is done she gets to her feet and walks away without looking around at the mayhem surrounding her.

Lily is hauled off on a stretcher. Medics bring her into a hospital along with the other victims who might be saved. The medics take the victims into the ICU and make an analysis of each victim’s condition.

[2] Hacked to Life

Lily awakens and wanders out into a hospital hall. A tall nurse with very dark skin stops her and asks, “Where did you come from?” Lily says, “That room. I just woke up. I was on a bus.” Lily scratches her head and looks down at the blue gown she has on, “Is this a hospital?” Three Black nurses sit Lily down and stand around her. The tall nurse says, “Okay. Are you sure you were on that bus?” Lily says, “Yes.” The tall nurse says, “Okay. And you say you woke up in that room right there?” Lily says, “Yes.” A plump nurse with the attitude of someone chewing gum, even though she is not chewing gum, says, “Her wristband checks out, but when we brought her in we noted many lacerations, visible signs of broken bones, and parts of her left side were blown off and severely burned.” The tall nurse says, “Okay. Did you check the bed?” The plump nurse says, “The bed is empty.” The third nurse with huge bags under her eyes, has spikes sticking out of her chest. Lily asks her, “What are those on your front?” The nurse meets her eye not knowing what to say. The tall nurse asks, “What do you mean?” Lily says, “Those shiny spikes. Are they really stuck in her?” All three nurses look at Lily like she is talking crazy.

They test her for fractures, internal bleeding, concussions, etc. She checks out fine. The staff begins to believe Lily was nowhere near the bus explosion. Lily’s clothes are too badly torn and burned for her to put back on. A nurse, with metal pieces protruding from her jaw, lets Lily look through some old lost-andfound boxes for clothes she can wear. Lily asks the nurse, “Did you hurt your jaw here while you were working?” The nurse pointedly ignores Lily’s question. Lily takes a long time choosing clothes. Finally, the nurse says she has other things to attend to and Lily can let herself out of the office when she is done. When hospital staff tries to arrange for Lily’s family to pick her up, she insists on finding her own way to the exit and hurries out before they can talk her into staying. Expensive condos and storefronts surround her. Lily walks down the sidewalk with a look of perplexity. If she looked dazed before, she looks three times so now. Look at how easily her whole life has flipped around. Yes, she could go back home but no, she can never go back now. She sees people wearing contraptions. Are they special crutches, are they braces? The devices inhibit the people, Lily can see that. A woman balances a box on her back. A boy runs down the street with a metal cylinder around his head. Why are these people going out like this? Why don’t they stop what they’re doing and free themselves? One out of ten people she sees wears some unsettling alteration. Some people are stuck with pins or spikes. Twice Lily sees advanced-stage rashes spread out where the people are stuck. One little girl’s arm burns with flames as she gets out of a cab with her family. These people are suffering, Lily can see it in their faces, in the way they act, even if they all pretend it isn’t happening. Why do they have to be tortured? Are they being punished? Instead of prison, do they have to wear torture devices, and carry on as if their lives are normal? Do they dress themselves with those devices or does someone else force the things on them? She sees a café where mostly college students study. With the little amount of money she has, Lily buys a sandwich. She would like to sit outside but she

doesn’t have a jacket. She sits inside. One youth has a kind of tape wrapped around his ears. Some of the chairs have blocks of wood placed on them and instead of moving the blocks, people sit on them and look uncomfortable for a short time before getting up and leaving. Lily looks out the window. On the corner, one person and then another bumps into a post planted in the middle of the sidewalk. A man rushing along hits the post and falls backward. He gets up without skipping a beat and rushes off with a bleeding nose. It doesn’t seem people are pretending. They really can’t see that post. The sun comes out. After her sandwich Lily goes outside and sits on a bench. Five White college boys approach her, grinning mischievously like they share a private joke. They gather close around her. The first youth says, “What school do you go to? Or do you even go to school?” The second youth says, “We have some beer, want some?” Lily says, “I really can’t.” The first youth says, “We have a place you can stay tonight.” Lily says, “I can’t.” She hurries away. Behind her they start laughing. As she walks she holds her hands out in front of her, feeling the air, wondering if she is colliding with invisible objects. If that businessman didn't know he hit the post, did it hurt? He hit it so hard. It had to hurt. Maybe he'll have aches and pains tomorrow and not know why. Maybe he'll never know at all. What if he crashes into it at the same time tomorrow, and the next day? Everywhere she goes, she sees people wearing those torture devices. When she tries to talk to people about them, they ignore her and treat her like she is crazy. She doesn’t want to conclude that she is the only one who sees them. Why don’t they see what’s happening? Why can she see when no one else can? Can she make them see? They all seem just so severely hypnotized. If she

follows one of them, maybe she can figure it out. Lily spots a Latino boy wearing a crown; he’s using hooks to hang weights on a depressed looking woman. Lily slows down. She pretends to tie her shoe and continues to watch. She found someone who is actually attaching something to someone! That didn’t take long. Lily pretends to inspect her makeup in the reflection of a car window (she isn’t wearing any makeup) until the boy wearing a crown starts walking. She follows him. He walks up to a girl who is busy attaching one of those limiter devices to an oblivious bystander. The girl wears the same uniform he does, the crown and the same color slacks and collared shirt. They have matching mail bags over their shoulders. Their crowns look like some kind of thick fabric with hammered metal pieces for the points. Lily stands behind a mailbox and watches the two talk. It soon becomes obvious to Lily that other people can’t see the uniformed pair. A few times they have to get out of the way or a pedestrian will walk right into them. Suddenly the girl looks back at Lily and says, “Hey, is that visible watching us?” Lily feels her inside melt out through her feet. She finds herself frozen, not wanting to stare at them but afraid to look away. The boy says, “I’m not sure. She shouldn’t be able to!” They are both looking right at her and they both start to run toward her. The boy says, “Blow your horn!” The girl says, “I don’t have mine on me, don’t you have yours?” Lily spins around and runs. She can hear the two chasing her. What the hell? She was only looking at them! That’s all she did! And now they are chasing her? Are they in a gang or something? Lily runs as fast as she can. She can run faster than anyone she knows and she runs until she is certain the crown wearers could not keep up. Feeling frazzled, Lily sits at a table at the back of a café, sipping tea. She has seen people who wear those crowns, but only this afternoon. She does not think

she has ever seen anyone wear crowns like that before this afternoon. Not at school. Not on TV. She re now seeing one in the hospital, and three outside the hospital. They are all over the place. They attach those torment devices. Are they the only ones doing so? And they will chase her down for simply looking at them?! What would they have done if they had caught her? Lily needs to use the restroom. In the restroom, Lily looks in the mirror. “Oh! I forgot about these dumb flowers I put in my hair. No wonder everyone has been acting weird around me.” She pulls out the flowers. They look horrendously gaudy to her now. She tosses them in the waste bin. Each flower is as big as her palm. How did she forget about them? She combs her hair with her fingers. A woman opens the door. She acts nervous and wears some sort of constraining device that wraps around her. A mechanical part of it lurches like a sticking sewing machine. The woman asks, “How much longer?” Lily looks up from washing her face. “I’m almost done. What is that wrapped around you if I might ask?” The woman says, “I don’t know what you mean.” She quickly walks away from the bathroom letting the door swing closed. *** Dimitri says, “No. no. no. no. This is not what I paid for!” He watches her sitting in the busy café, “I want reality. Kids who wear crowns are not reality. What should I do about this? I can’t choose a different character without paying for a second license. I can’t turn this one in.” Options for Lily’s next actions appear on Dimitri’s screen, “Look for work, Look for a place to stay, Rest.” Dimitri says, “These are my choices? What’s wrong with this game, all this weird stuff is going on but the only choices I get are like, ‘buy some food, go in that store, fix my hair.’ Why don’t I get any choices for what to do about those weird torture devices? I get it that only Lily can see them but I can see them too! The choices are supposed to be generated on the spot, not predetermined, so why are the choices so irrelevant?” Dimitri clicks on “Rest” and sits back,

experiencing buyer’s remorse. He gives his friend a call. “Hey, you’ve been playing Livable Worlds for a while, right?” He pauses while his friend answers him over the phone then he says, “Have any of your characters seen weird things, like other people tortured accept they don’t know they are being tortured? Oh, and messages the NPCs can’t see that influence their behavior?” He pauses for a moment then says, “No, my character can see them.” He pauses. “I know, it almost seems like a glitch, right?” He pauses. “No, she knows she sees them.” He pauses. “She knows it doesn’t seem real. It goes against the game. The game is supposed to be as real as real can be, with no describable deviation. You’ve never? I don’t know. I’ve never seen anything like it in the gameplay videos.” He pauses for many seconds. “Maybe she is. Maybe I’ve got a character with mental illness. That would be weird.” He pauses. “Oh, good idea, I could try calling them.” Dimitri watches his game character walking from storefront to storefront. He says, “There are some people who are cruel to their game characters and make dumb choices on purpose for them. Don’t worry, Lily, I’m not one of those people.” He can hear Lily thinking, “I won’t go back to the part of town where I saw the two kids wearing crowns. I only hope I won’t ever see any of them again.” He chooses Lily to look for work. She goes into a grocery store and comes out with a job application. She sits on a planter box to fill it out. Down the block, a Black man wearing a Hawaiian shirt stands fumbling with his keys to unlock his car. A girl wearing a crown follows up behind him. Lily thinks, “Oh my god, it’s one of them. I can’t, I shouldn’t look at her. I’ll pretend I can’t see her. I’m just filling this out. I’m just hoping I’ll get this job. I’m not really paying attention to my surroundings.” Dimitri stands up from his chair, “Just look at the job application Lily! I need some options here!” *** The crown girl gets between the man and his car and hastily pushes blinders down over his man’s head. Lily sits shallowly breathing, pretending to write. The crown girl marches off. The man gets in the car and drives off, stuck with

blinders on his head. Lily thinks, “I just have to pretend I can’t see them. I’ll be okay.” Lily runs up to a police officer on the corner writing a parking ticket. She says, “Excuse me, sir.” The officer says, “Can I help you?” “Look at that woman!” She points across the street. The officer tries to spot what she points at. “Which one? Who?” “The one sitting at the bus stop. The one with the plate of spikes strapped to her side!” Tears run down Lily’s face. “I only see the one woman.” Lily stomps her feet. “Don't you see how the side of her face is turning blue? Can't you do something to help? She’s going to die! I can't believe no one is doing anything!” The officer looks Lily over critically. Lily glares at him and storms off. The officer watches Lily go. He considers doing something about Lily but decides to let it go and resumes writing the ticket. Lily enters a bakery and says, “Oh, what a lovely bakery. I always dreamed of working in such a lovely place. I saw a help-wanted sign out front, are you hiring?” Lily’s hair has some major issues mostly because of the explosion on the bus. Her eyes are bloodshot and dried tear streaks reflect on her face from the cry she had ten minutes earlier. Her lips are chapped. Her clothes are not the best you could hope for, choosing from the lost-and-found. The Brown baker with long wavy hair and well-fitting clothes wipes off a glass counter. He hesitantly says, “Yes.” Lily says, “Oh good, I wasn’t sure with that fire burning on the sidewalk.” The baker looks at her for several seconds. “Well, I could use some help today, can you work for me now and we’ll see how it goes?”

Lily says, “Sure.” “Let’s see, I do need the floor swept.” “Okay.” The baker’s name is “Victor Truant.” Lily sweeps the floor while Victor places pastries in a display case. The door opens and a man enters. He wears a sort of harness that holds cylinders over his eyes and ears. Victor says, “Oh, Lily this is Matt, my partner.” Matt shouts, “Who do we have here?” Victor says, “This is Lily. She’s helping us out today.” Matt talks very loudly and can’t stand still. He seems happy but so unsettled that Lily finds her own heart beating faster. Do the cylinders he wears have something to do with his behavior? Matt shouts, “Nice to meet you! You won’t believe what I found at Woolworths. Stainless steel! They have everything! We’ll have to go there, you just have to see!” Matt goes to Victor’s side and takes his arm. He shouts to Victor, “I need to talk to you!” They go in the back and Matt’s hyper whispers easily reach Lily’s ears. Victor seems a little like an enabler. Lily’s school counselor told her about enablers, who welcome and encourage unruly behavior instead of behaving unruly themselves. The excited whispering continues for quite a while. Lily puts together in her mind the wording she will use to ask Matt about his harness. She wants to ask, using as polite wording as possible. *** Options appear on Dimitri’s screen, “Continue sweeping, Ask to try a pastry, Take the tip jar and run”. Dimitri rolls his eyes and clicks on “Continue sweeping”.

Dimitri says, “Don’t worry, Lily, I’m no dummy. We’ll get you a job and apartment like you want. But I have to go to work, so don’t do anything stupid while I’m away.” He reluctantly logs out and hustles to get his things together for work.

[3] The Blindfolded Stranger

Lily washes the front windows in the bakery. She can see a White man wearing a business suit, walking from across the street coming toward the bakery. Bluish fire streams off his back like an upturned cape. Oh no! If that man comes in, he's going to set the place on fire! Before the man can open the door, Lily grabs the knob. The man tries to open the door. He says, “I'd like to come in!” Lily remorsefully shakes her head. She turns the door latch. The man steps back and looks at Lily, offended, but having no idea why Lily won’t let him in. Finally, he walks away, trailing fire and smoke behind him. Victor calls from the back, “Did you say something Lily?” Lily says, “No.” She quietly unlocks the door. The evening rush hour brings many customers into the bakery, mostly businesspeople. The day’s light is fading outside. Victor works the . Matt gives Lily the food and drinks to take to the customers. She es a woman wearing a cloth bag of something really stinky, tied under her nose. Lily does her best to pretend she does not smell it though it’s almost unbearable. Lily brings coffee and a bagel to a man with a perfectly clean-cut afro, sitting at the window counter. He says, “You're new in town, aren't you?” Lily says, “New to the neighborhood.” She glances at a Black man wearing a red hunter cap, standing outside, leaning against the bakery window glass. He turns, revealing his profile. Razor blades are stuck strategically into his face. He keeps a poker face and Lily suspects that he does so, not knowing that he does so, to avoid what would happen if his face did move with expression. The customer asks, “Where are you from?”

Lily says, “Northeast Philadelphia.” “Do you like it here?” “It's frightening. I mean it is nice.” She notices the customer’s suit is made of super fine fabric. It could be tailored. “What do you mean frightening?” “You don't think the man in front of us is scary?” The customer says, “No?” Lily asks, “Do… do you see the razors stuck in his face?” Victor takes Lily's arm and pulls her away from the customer. He says, “Lily, Sweetie, I have some work in the back!” Lily stumbles backward. The man at the counter has lost his smile. He watches her. Victor gives him an apologetic look. Lily says to him, “Have a good day.” In the back Lily says, “I'm sorry! I didn't mean to scare your customer.” Victor says, “It will be okay. Lily, the customers don't see the things you see.” Lily says, “But you do. You see some of the things I see, don't you?” Victor says, “…No. No, I don't see any of those things.” “But some people do. Somebody must see. Somebody else besides me.” “Hm, I don't think anyone else does.” “Oh.” “Try not to worry about it. With the customers, be friendly, be polite and don't share too much.” Lily says, “Yes, I understand!”

Victor says, “Good, good. I think that's all the help I need today.” Lily’s disappointment is obvious. “I understand.” “Can you be here tomorrow?” She becomes energized again. “Oh Yes. Yes I can!” “Okay. Be here early. My sister will be here. She rents rooms in a house. We can ask her about you renting a room.” “That would be wonderful!” Victor takes a jacket off a counter. “I found this spare jacket back here. Why don’t you take it tonight.” Lily says, “Okay. Yes, thank you.” Rush hour traffic thins a little bit. Headlights turn on. Only small clusters of people wait at bus stops instead of crowds. Lily stands before the window glass of a women’s clothing store that is lit up brightly inside. The outfits are so nice. She looks from one to the next, trying to decide which one she will get when she has the money. The styles describe personality traits she knows she could become if given the chance. One dress in particular holds her attention. Lily thinks, “That could be me. I know I could be that woman, not afraid of the world. It's really up to me now, what I do with my life. If I could shower and didn't have to sleep in my clothes. I will just pretend that I don’t see the people tortured. Like Victor said, I’ll be nice and not talk too much. I have a feeling that if I pretend it isn’t happening, I could get my life together, get my own place to live, maybe go to school, wouldn’t that be nice?” She sees her reflection in the glass, happy, puzzled. She thought she pulled those flowers out of her hair. The flowers are growing back. Green buds no bigger than the tip of her pinky poke out of her hair. They look better when they are small. They actually look great. Lily decides to keep them for now. What does it mean that they are growing back?

Lily inspects herself in the reflection, lifting her arms, checking the back of her head, her hair, under her shoes, under her arms, patting the sides of her head. Checking for harnesses or spikes or the like. She hopes that if a crown wearer put a torture device on her, she would be able to find it. Turning, Lily sees a White woman wearing a wide blindfold and carrying a basket of clothes walking down the opposite side of the street. Lily suspects the blindfold is like the other things she can see but others can’t see, like the weights, braces and spikes. If someone is wearing a blindfold that they can’t see, does that mean they can see through the blindfold and see their surroundings? Lily crosses the street and follows the blindfolded woman. Amazingly, the woman does not collide with anything. She walks around a florist stand and crosses a busy street, without hitting anything or getting hit by any ing cars. The woman wears jeans and a smart leather jacket, but Lily could see her wearing a skirt and blouse and working in one of the offices downtown. Perhaps the woman just finished business school and has only lived and worked downtown for a short while. Lily knows she is only supposing. She must walk faster than usual to keep the same distance between herself and the woman. A Black boy with skinny arms and neck, wearing a crown, sits in a parked cab right next to the driver. The crown wearer adjusts the movement-slowing harnesses strapped to the driver’s legs and arms. The driver listens to the radio to ease his boredom. The crown wearer notices Lily walking by. He re just an hour ago two other crown wearers talking about a visible girl with flowers in her hair. What were they saying? They chased after her. Why was she running? She couldn’t have been running from the crown wearers, simply impossible. But it kind of sounded like she was. The idea fills him with fear. The masses of visibles surrounding him every day are like a sleeping giant that are only safe as long as they don’t sense his presence. The last of daylight fades away. People are going inside and the streets are becoming quiet. Lily follows the blindfolded woman and the crown wearer follows Lily. The woman walks into a laundromat. She puts her clothes in a washer. Lily watches her through the window. A TV mounted in the corner plays the news. Besides the woman, the place is empty. The woman sits on a plastic chair and begins applying nail polish. Lily enters.

She looks through magazines and newspapers on a table. She sits by in front of the TV and pretends to watch. A cat has gone between two machines and must walk backwards to back out. Someday soon Lily will have enough clothes to do a load of laundry. Maybe she can have a cat. A middle-aged Black woman with long curls comes in, sets her clothes on a machine and tries to talk to the blindfolded woman, “Hi excuse me, I just need to go next door to the convenience store, could you watch my clothes for me? Hello? Miss? Excuse me!” The blindfolded woman continues painting her nails as if she is the only person in the universe. Lily knows enough to see the blindfolded woman isn’t just being cold. Exasperated, the middle-aged woman looks over and asks Lily, “Could you watch my things?” Lily nods. So the blindfolded woman can still see, but when the other woman tried to talk to her, the blindfolded woman couldn’t see or hear that woman at all, at least that’s what it seems like. An important thought lights up in Lily’s mind. She can help people! Maybe she has discovered a talent and owes it to humanity to use her talent to help others like no one else can. The dentist can find the cavity and Lily can find the things people wear throughout their days that hold them back and torment them. She doesn’t really like this new role, but she might be the only one who can help. The only one in the entire world, even! Lily gets up and walks over to the blindfolded woman. She asks, “Can I sit next to you?” half expecting the woman not to answer her. Lily is surprised when the woman shrugs and says, “Go ahead.” The woman continues painting her nails, facing away from Lily. Lily asks, “Are you from here?” The Woman says, “Yes.” “I hope you don’t mind me saying so, you look like someone who would have her own washer and dryer. Why are you in a laundromat alone on a Saturday night?”

“You’re right, I do mind you saying so.” “You can tell me. I don't know anyone in this neighborhood. I help out at a bakery, otherwise, I don't know anyone.” “The machines in my building don’t get my clothes very clean, no real mystery.” Lily says, “Hey, I thought I saw something in your hair, could you turn around?” The crown wearer watches them from outside, through the window glass. The woman sits up straight and leans forward. Lily leans over. An icy chill comes over Lily. She’s only going to pull the blindfold off so why does such a wave of numbing dread overcome her? Lily reaches out and starts to untie the blindfold. The woman says in a low growling voice, “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” The voice sounds like it comes from a different person. It almost sounds like a man’s voice. Lily says, “Don’t mind me. I just think I can make your life a little easier.” Again in the low growling voice the woman says, “I don’t normally let anyone inside my brain.” “Just a moment. I’ve almost got it.” With a kindly smile Lily pulls off the blindfold letting it hang from her left hand. To her horror the woman covers her eyes and begins to wail, “What did you do to me?” The screeching is blood curdling. They both jump up from their seats and away from each other. Lily cries, “I’m only trying to help. Take a moment to adjust.” The woman jumps around screaming and holding her eyes. She runs smack into a dryer and then into the front window, still holding her eyes and whaling. Lily tries to catch hold of her, but the woman manages to run out the front door. Lily runs after her. The woman runs down the middle of the street and is hit by a car. At the same time a blow to the side of Lily’s head sends her falling to the sidewalk. As she climbs to her feet she sees a crown wearer lifting his fist to punch her again. He has an air horn in the other hand that he presses. It lets out a

loud cry. He will catch the flower girl and detain her. Something seems wrong to him. She looks right at him. He has always been ruthless and has dealt with visibles who have shown some sensitivity of his kind but they have never actually looked at him. He tries to spin her around to hold her by the arms but she shoves him. Because it is impossible for visibles to directly fight back, he is caught off guard and falls backward into the street. His vision is filled with bright headlights before a car runs him over without stopping. The traffic that cannot see him continues to run over him. The car that hit the woman has stopped. A crowd gathers. Another crown wearer runs toward Lily blowing an air horn and a third crown wearer is behind that one, also running toward Lily. Lily runs. She hears the horn blast behind her. First just the one but she starts hearing others. She sees crown wearers coming out of the night and running after her. They look like they are going to kill her. Even in the dark she can see them so plainly. She runs like a deer chased by hungry lions. As they run they shout to each other, “She can see us! She’s a complete sensitive!” Their voices sound terrified and murderous. More horns cry out. She hears them from all directions, near and far. One horn will discharge and another one will answer from another part of the city. A militia in pursuit is forming behind her. Lily runs through a park, obscured by darkness but populated with twisted characters, the addicted, the insane, the hopeless, the deranged. Running down a trail, everything she sees seems frightening, across the street, firefighters put out a fire in a building. Two police have a man face down on the sidewalk, in cuffs. The call and response of air horns close in on her from all sides now. It no longer matters which direction she runs.

[4] Becoming Untraceable

Lily sprints for the burning building, not knowing if she’s been spotted or not. She runs between fire trucks, between buildings and around the back of the burning building. Broken glass crunches under her feet. Firefighters pull fire hoses out the back door. They carry two wounded women out on stretchers. They are both covered with soot and their faces are obscured by air masks. One woman looks more badly burned than the other. The firefighters rush the women between buildings to the front street. Three crown wearers at the end of the alley run toward Lily. A firefighter comes out the back exit and she runs up to him, “Excuse me. Help! I was in there! I ran out but I’m hurt! I think I’m badly hurt. Can you get me to the hospital?” The firefighter takes her arm and leads her to the front street. She looks back, the three crown wearers keep running down the alley, ing the burned building without looking her way. Reaching the front street, she spots two more crown wearers running out of the park. They look up and down the street. Others are running down the street from both directions. The firefighter leads her to the side door of an ambulance bus. An arm from inside gently pulls her in. A medic asks her to lie on one of the lower cots. She does not want to, but she lies down and readies herself, almost certain the crown wearers will board and search the bus. The doors close and the engine turns over. She shuts her stinging eyes and lets herself catch her breath. The siren turns on and the bus pulls out into traffic. She stares up at several people lying on upper and lower cots. The face of a crown wearer pops up in the back window. At the same time, his hands hit the glass with a loud bang. He sees her and starts shouting. His youthful face is full of dedicated rage. His face disappears but reappears as he jumps to look in again, running to keep up. Another crown wearer’s face appears then drops away. Lily presses herself against the wall, her two fists balled up so tight they are like two little stones.

The bus gains speed and before she knows it, the air horns are coming from behind the bus and fading quickly. When an Indian medic touches her shoulder and asks her to try to relax, she stares at him and realizes she is so tense she can hardly move any part of her body. He continues down the aisle. It takes time for her to unclench all her clenched muscles. She watches the two personnel in the front seats as the lights from outside dance all over the bus interior. She hears a rasping cough and the medics talking. She tries to relax. Wave after wave of uncontrollable shaking es through her. Heavy tears fall. Her feet sting. The skin next to her eye stings. Her muscles are all so sore, even the ones in her hands. She can hardly move her fingers. She watches streetlights flash by the window. She listens to the air horns until she can’t hear them anymore. A new feeling of agitation builds up in her. It will be easy for the crown wearers to guess where this bus is going. She glances down at the medics attending one patient after the next. The driver talks over the radio with the volume turned up loud. Emergency Reception will be waiting when they get there. The bus slows near a traffic light. It stops and she jumps to her feet almost before she knows what she is doing. She runs to the door and pushes on a handle. The two in the front and the medics in the back all shout protests, “You can’t do that!” “Get back down!” “Stop her!” She finds a push bar under the larger push bar and pushing them both, the door swings open. She falls out of the bus and lands badly on her right foot. A car coming through the intersection nearly hits her. It screeches to a stop. The woman driver gapes. Her hand holds the dash where she stopped herself from flying forward. Lily bolts. *** Dimitri hears a knock at the door and goes to answer it. A Black woman with an expression like an owl’s says, “Dimitri Santana?” Dimitri says, “Yes?” The woman says, “Hello, my name is Akilah Aerie. I’m a developer for the game ‘Livable Worlds’. You left us an interesting message about your Character.”

“Oh my gosh, yes! Wow! Okay, um, would you like to come in?” Akilah says, “Sure.” By her request, he starts the game and shows Akilah what his character, Lily, is doing right now. Dimitri says, “It looks like she’s hiding in some bushes. I don’t know why. The last time I played she was working in a bakery. See, there go two of the people wearing crowns I told you about in the voice mail.” Akilah says, “Those kids wearing crowns, you aren’t supposed to see them. They are part of the hidden layers that help make the game seem so real. They look like NPCs but really they are just mechanisms.” “Lily sees them too.” Akilah does not say anything and just watches Lily huddled in the bushes, hiding from the two crown wearers who walk away from her in a grassy setting filled with trees. Two techs bring computer equipment into Dimitri’s apartment. Akilah tells Dimitri, “So in exchange for your computer and the license for the character Lily, we will give you two new characters and this $7500 gaming PC. We need you to sign this nondisclosure agreement which includes no discussing your experiences with your friends, online or through any app. To make sure you don’t dishonor the nondisclosure, just don’t talk about Lily or act in a way that expresses your knowledge of her.” Dimitri asks, “There is no way you can fix Lily and I can keep her?” Akilah says, “We can get you a priority pick. Give us a list of characteristics of your choosing: gender, age, whatever comes to mind. Tell us exactly everything you would like your characters to be. You know how fast young female characters sell out. Keep one license for yourself and sell the other for a small fortune. Use it to buy a car. You look surprised. Yes, we know you’ve been looking at cars online.” “What will happen to Lily?”

“I wish it were simple. We can’t just delete her. Her anomalies are probably the result of humans meddling. We are learning the hard way that any changes we humans make to the game upset the game’s ecosystem. It’s such a tangled mess. We have to act fast though. The bugs in Lily could spread and there is the very real threat that the entire game could get corrupted… In real-time… With hundreds of thousands of paying participants… I’ve said too much though.” Dimitri sighs heavily. He can’t help feeling guilty. Akilah says, “Okay Dimitri, Regi here will help you get your brand new $7500 computer up and running and ensure you get the priority picks you most desire.” “I wish I could have kept a picture of Lily. Something to her by.” “Well, yes. I know it isn’t easy. They are so real. But you should be excited. Soon Regi will show you a selection of characters so much to your liking, you are going to have a hard time choosing! I kid you not. I don’t need to tell you this opportunity is unheard of! I’m sure any loss you feel now will be forgotten.” *** On top of a hill in a park-like setting, one impressive old brick building stands three stories tall. Lots of birds dart from tree to tree and dive from the sky. The morning sun can’t penetrate the clouds. A groundskeeper climbs a ladder under a tree to hang a bird feeder off a branch, in preparation for the coming winter. Lily lies on dry leaves that crunch loudly with the slightest movement. She has worked herself under a bush. She watches the groundskeeper. She climbs to her feet as stealthily as possible. Her right ankle cries out with pain. As she limps away from the groundskeeper and the building, it all comes back to her. In a few steps her demeanor shrinks and her heart seizes up in pain, recalling the night before. She walks up to a tree and holds on for . She scans her surroundings for crown wearers. There are no sounds of horns, not even from far away. The fear returns and she begins shaking. Her eyes grow wide. She becomes both jumpy and numbed by fear. Her shoes, the very durable kind that were fine yesterday, are falling apart after only one night. Her clothes that embarrassed her yesterday, are a real mess now, muddy and torn. Scrapes cover her hands. She touches the bruise by her eye,

awaking a pain there that does not fade when she takes her hand away. A cold wind blows through the jacket Victor lent her. Oh, Victor! She should be showing up at the bakery right about now. It was all going to work out. She can’t go in public like this. Where can she get new clothes and clean up? She was so close! She grunts bitterly. Moving with pained muscles, favoring one leg, she finds a pit, overgrown with wild plants, and hides down in it. Those crown wearers were so determined to find her. She’d better stay hidden. They kept shouting about “the girl with the flowers in her hair”. “There she is, the one with the flowers in her hair!” She feels for and finds the flowers and pulls them out of her hair. She covers them with a large mossy piece of rotted wood. She digs up rocks, and rubs the mud off them, putting the sharpest ones in her pocket. The groundskeeper hangs a second bird feeder. Maybe he will help her. He’s not too well-kempt himself, with such an unruly beard that it’s hard to make out his facial features. He’s a White guy? She is mostly sure he is. He could be in his twenties. He could be in his slim sixties. She listlessly watches him until he gathers his tools and walks around the building, out of sight. A fine mist sinks to the earth layer after layer, soaking everything. She hugs her legs to her chest. She changes spots. The center of the pit seems the warmest. The wind has the least effect on her here. She looks up at birds flying over and feels the warm tears on her face. The sky grows dark. She tells herself that it's freezing outside and she should try to get indoors, but she can't bring herself to move. *** The game developer, Akilah Aerie, steps into her vast office. A giant cylindrical glass tank near the center of the room, dwarfs her otherwise impressive desk, chairs and couch. A van could fit inside the tank. Akilah’s Brazilian origin shows in her office layout, the use of large space, the massive dark woods and extralarge lamps hanging from the ceiling. A group of framed photos of Akilah’s two adopted daughters are the only personal items on display. One photo shows the three of them at a Broadway show, another shows them on a fishing boat in Portugal.

Akilah gets into her submersion gear. It looks a lot like a diving suit and for good reason. Before putting on the airtight virtual reality helmet she climbs the ladder to the bench over the tank. She puts the helmet on and lowers herself into the lukewarm, salt-rich water. Magnets in her belt pull her to the center of the tank. Thirty-six robot arms in the tank reach out to give her solid surfaces to touch and push against. Her suit renders pressure sensations and can restrain movement so that, as an example, if she picks something up in the game, her glove will stop her hand from closing all the way so that it feels like she has actually taken hold of something. Her virtual reality set-up is the best that humankind has to offer and her only qualm with it is that she can’t ignore the feeling of aquatic movement and her avatar often looks like it’s moving underwater which looks weird in the game. She goes in-game and appears in a tiny studio apartment. Her avatar looks exactly like her. Skin pore for skin pore, it’s an exact match. Even the fingerprints of her avatar match her real-life fingerprints. When she opens the eyes of the avatar she occupies it is sitting at a table playing solitaire. From the smell, Akilah can tell her avatar had made some tea. Akilah does not drink tea. Her avatar does. Her avatar lives a full life when it isn’t Akilah. The avatar wears a blouse and skirt. Akilah does not wear skirts. She stands and opens the closet that the avatar would not know how to open if it tried. She takes out some clothes and changes into pants, a long coat and leather boots that go up to her knees. She takes a few breaths to steady herself. Her avatar had to be “grown” in-game and can die for all the reasons that real people die in real life. She opens the front door, looks both up and down the dingy hall and grabs the package waiting there. Back in the apartment she opens it up and sticks some of the contents from the package into pockets inside her long coat. Her hands tremble when she removes a little blue cape from the package. She ties the invisibility cape around her neck. The cape is programming that allows her to go unseen by all Level One viewers be they NPCs or players. She waits and listens for nearly ten minutes. Akilah steps out into the hall, locks up and quickly walks down the hall. She takes out a hand terminal the size of a smartphone. Lily’s license on the hand

terminal shows Akilah where Lily is in the world. After a helicopter ride, Akilah trudges up a hill through the trees, following her hand terminal. She slows down, hides, and spots Lily. Akilah thinks, “Looks like the messengers picked you out pretty quickly, Lily Mae. They are the game trying to take care of bugs like you. They should have taken you out. If they had gotten you, my work would be done.” Akilah swipes and taps on her terminal and a line like a wire glowing bright appears linking Akilah’s terminal to Lily. Akilah thinks, “I know this is a little crude, but I had to come up with something fast.” She ties the line to a tree and sets the hand terminal down at the foot of the tree. After moving in closer to Lily, Akilah takes out a device and switches it on. The device looks like a combination of a mini air compressor, batteries, timer and horn. Every minute or so it blasts its horn. Akilah watches Lily, worried she will hear it but she seems unaroused. Akilah’s team did a good job deg this little bit of programming. Nearby a group of crown wearers hears the air horn, immediately get up and run toward it. On their way, they blast air horns of their own and more crown wearers respond. Akilah hustles down the hill to the clearing where the helicopter waits. *** Lily can’t what the paintings looked like in the apartment she grew up in. She tries to take a memory walk through the house but all the paintings on the walls are blank. She lived there most of her life. Every day she saw those paintings. She hears the old woman on the bus say, “If you see a crack, gently steer clear of it dearie.” She can the woman saying that but she can’t what else was happening at the time. She stares ahead watching the groundskeeper rake the yard around the big brick building. She is aware of how long it is taking him. It does not really matter if he discovers her, but still, feeling shy and ashamed she huddles low to the ground. Again she thinks she hears an air horn, very faint, very far away. She hears rustling and looks behind her. She crawls to the rim of the pit and

scans the trees for movement. She partly stands to look down the hill. Crown wearers march through the woods toward her. She runs in the opposite direction. Suddenly she is yanked back. She lands on her back and gets the wind knocked out of her. She tries to run again but something is holding her back. Every time she runs and is yanked back, pain shoots through her back. She tries to grab hold of her invisible bonds but nothing is there. *** On the floor where Akilah and her team work, a screen remains on 24/7 showing Lily at this moment. At least one person is assigned to watch her at all times. Akilah and her team gather around the screen. One team member says, “She’s fighting the limit we put on her. Most NPCs will redirect after touching a limit, never knowing they have met with one.” Akilah says, “Lucky there are no s in the area to see this. The game looks glitched.” *** Lily runs back in the direction where she saw the crown wearers, she can make out their individual voices. They sound winded but determined. She has always been the fastest runner in her neighborhood. She takes a few deep breaths, then she turns around and sprints with all her might away from the crown wearers. When she reaches the invisible limit it feels like her back explodes. She flies forward and lands on her face. Something was ripped out of her back. It must have been her spinal cord. But why is she still alive? Why no pain? How is it she can still breathe? She feels her back but strangely, it’s in one piece. *** Akilah and her team watch the screen go blank. One shouts, “What happened?!” Another says, “Get the link back up! We lost the connection!” Akilah says, “It’s a simulation, we aren’t supposed to ‘lose connection’!”

Most of them scatter to work on the problem at other stations or with actual hardware. *** Lily looks back. Some kind of machinery, like a part of a robot, lays on the ground right at the point that she couldn’t just a moment ago. That could not have been what was ripped out of her back. Her upper half would cave in. She gets to her feet and runs. There are little railroad tracks all over the ground. They weren’t there before. They weren’t there just a second before. What the hell is happening? She looks back. Several crown wearers kick and strike the ground near the pit she was hiding in. She has to wonder why they stopped pursuing her. She runs to the front of the building. The parking lot is shady with lots of trees around it and picnic benches under the trees. The entry sign reads, “Codwell Historical Museum.” The little train tracks are all over the ground. In the dimming daylight she can make out people moving inside the building through the lighted first-floor windows. She pushes open the large front door. She sees two women behind a reception desk and walks toward them feeling twice as unclean as she did outside. The two women talk with each other. Lily says, “Excuse me.” She almost jumps at the sound of her own voice in the stone lobby. One woman begins wetting stamps on a sponge in a saucer of water and placing them on letters. The other swivels around in her chair, opens a file cabinet and searches through papers, only, the papers look more like sheets of metal. Lily says, “Excuse me, please help, I’m being chased. Could you the police for me?” The women continue to work. They don't skip a beat. Lily steps closer and gets a good look at them. They aren’t people at all. They are machines. Their outsides are hammered and painted tin. How did she not see it before? Now their movements seem automated and puppet-like. The painted hair is some of the loveliest art she has ever seen. They seem like antiques, made in the time of the first automobiles. Lily notices the hand-forged hinges visible through the finger ts. They swivel in their chairs. One rests an elbow on the

desk. The other taps a pencil on her glasses. Hearing the horns outside, Lily can’t decide if she should run outside or try to hide somewhere in the building. *** Akilah’s team watches the museum lobby through a video feed. To Akilah and her team the automatons behind the desk look like flesh and blood women. The two women try to talk to Lily but she does not respond. At the same time Lily talks to the two women who can’t seem to respond directly to her. *** Rail tracks run along the floor behind the counter. Instead of feet, the two automatons have wheels that slide on the tracks. Lily sees a sign for the restrooms. The phone rings. Ri-i-i-i-ing! She jumps and covers her ears. The mechanical women don’t respond to the phone. Is she supposed to answer it? Is somebody calling her? Is this some kind of trap? Maybe she shouldn’t be here. She turns to run outside but two crown wearers run past the windows. She jumps over the counter and runs over the train tracks, through the door to the backroom. At first the automatons move in reaction to her but they stop and switch back to what they were doing before, busy work as if no one else is there. Ri-i-i-i-ing! The door to the room behind the counter looks like a regular wooden door on the outside, but it looks like a bank’s vault door on the inside. When she runs through the door, instead of entering a room she enters a tunnel, brick at first but leading down to earthen walls and darkness. Horns blare outside the building. There is some banging on doors or walls. She hears a crash and scuffling feet. A multi-ton mechanical arm is attached to the vault door. She tries pulling on it. She may as well be a mouse trying to move a house. The front lobby door slams open and crown wearers rush in. She catches a glimpse of them before she drops to her knees and crawls into the pitch-black tunnel, which smells like an auto repair garage that has been in business for half a century. She hides under what feels like a low wooden bench,

covers her head with her arms and tries to make herself as little as possible. Crown wearers jump over the counter. They spread out and search the entire building, every centimeter of it, shouting things like, “We saw a girl come in here. She looked like the one who had the flowers in her hair!” Ri-i-i-i-ing! *** Holding a phone receiver to her ear, Akilah says, “They aren’t answering at the museum. Drake, suit up and go in-game and see what happened.” Drake, short and White, is her in-game assistant. He asks, “Do you think we lost her?” Akilah, “I hope she broke herself! I hope you find her on the ground bleeding to death. I hope the messengers are taking her apart.” Drake enters the game on Level Six where the crown wearers can’t see him. He jumps out of the helicopter and runs up the hill. When he reaches the crown wearers, he says to Akilah, “The messengers are here. They don’t like our repeating air horn. Right now they’re clubbing it to death.” He sees the line that held Lily, and runs to the end of it, where he finds a large chunk of complex machinery the line is attached to. Messengers are crawling all through the museum. Drake searches around in the darkened trees. He s the search in the museum without the messengers knowing. He has to avoid running into them. Drake calls Akilah, “So I found the end of Lily’s line. It looks like she ripped it out of herself along with some of her parts and left it behind. No, I can’t find her. She isn’t in the museum. I don’t think she’s here. Yes, I’ll look for her. I know she could have. I’ll look everywhere. No, I can stay late.” *** After the crown wearers search the museum for hours, they hold a meeting in the front lobby. Lily crawls backward, further down the earthen tunnel but she can still hear them clearly.

The tunnel scares her. If the crown wearers do not cross into it, wouldn’t that mean it isn’t safe? The tracks on the tunnel floor are greasy. The narrow space does not give her any room to get out of the way of whatever rolls down the track. The light from the doorway barely lights the front of the tunnel at all. It quickly becomes pitch black. A few meters behind her, it could be a wall or a sudden cliff. She does not know. A girl crown wearer speaks, “We must always stomp out every single sensitive and charm maker. They are each like a flame started in a barn full of hay. The sensitives are our most insidious of threats. They are simply visibles who have some sensitivity to the Overlap. Most sensitives do not even know they are sensitive. No sensitivity is too small. Take the tiniest bit of evidence very seriously. If a visible flinches or blushes when you touch them you should go into alarm. Sensitives are usually not aware that they are aware of you, but still, their unconscious awareness of us is the biggest threat we face. Four of your brothers and sisters were killed last month when a sensitive with the tiniest reaction to skin stitching, locked her apartment and set it on fire with her and four of your siblings trapped inside. They burned alive! Search hard for any sensitivity, and always call in your peers. As a group, snuff it out. Always, always follow procedures. Hold them down and blow your air horn as loud as you can. Don’t forget to wear your gloves so the visibles will do something with the body.” Lily does not move for at least an hour after the crown wearers have left. They really should have found her. They went behind the counter many times, why didn’t they go through the vault door? When one of the automatons brings in a sign, and before the two close up for the night, Lily runs across the parking lot and into the woods.

[5] Entombed Hotel

In the morning light Lily limps downhill. Dehydration and hunger her other aches and pains. Strangely, she feels lighter, like a burden she did not know she carried, an actual, literal weight, has been taken from her. Her hunger must be affecting her judgment. She re something her mother told her a lifetime ago in the glimmer of her childhood, “There is no sin in being poor.” The words seem antique now, but the fact that she looks so wretched, wearing dirty, torn clothes, makes her afraid to be seen by anyone. She wonders if she had a grandmother or great grandmother who felt the way she feels now. People in old photos are often wearing wretched clothes. She starts to hear cars and see buildings through the trees. After a few more minutes of walking, she finds a park and sees a few people nearby. A woman pulls trash bags out of the park restrooms and loads them onto a city pickup truck. After the woman drives away Lily scurries from behind a tree, into the restroom. At the sink she cleans up as best as she can. The flowers have grown back! Lily rushes to pull them out. She is so lucky no crown wearers saw them in her hair. She would be dead right now for sure. In the quiet part of a grocery store parking lot, a donation box sits. When no one is around Lily runs from the woods, walks up to the donation box and peers in. She climbs into the box and emerges a few minutes later wearing a new outfit including a baseball cap. *** Two weeks go by and Akilah’s team cannot find Lily. Every day they send people in-game to search for her. They hire real-life detectives to use real-life search techniques. Lily was so conspicuous before, so because she has vanished they fear she fled far and is now hundreds of kilometers away. Late one evening one team member calls Akilah, “We found her!”

Akilah and three others gather around a screen to watch. It shows the point of view of someone moving through a cramped and greasy kitchen. Sometimes the dishwasher comes into view, a girl wearing baggy denim clothes and a baseball cap low on her head. Akilah asks, “How are we getting this feed?” Drake says, “It’s an NPC cook for a hotel. Marcus just happened to see Lily last night while surfing NPC feeds. She appears to be a dishwasher now. The hotel is a little over a kilometer from the museum.” Akilah says, “Not even a kilometer. Well, she does look different. Marcus, good job spotting her.” *** After work, Lily walks dark streets to the corner store where she buys all her groceries, rarely seeing another shopper in there. She avoids the larger stores. With a paper bag in hand, she stands at the bus stop and when she is sure no one sees her, she enters the woods behind the bus stop. The woods are a mess to climb through. The ground cover seems to want to fight her all the way. The cold water on the leaves soaks her sleeves and the front of her pants. She reaches a collapsed house. The roof is partly intact and rests near the ground, on top of rubble. Only the brick chimney remains standing and in near-total darkness, it looms over Lily like a giant statue of the Grim Reaper. She crawls under the roof and climbs through an obstacle course of beams and broken sheetrock. She pulls herself onto part of a floor. It is tilted but dry. She huddles in the cold and makes peanut butter sandwiches for dinner. Then she sleeps in a pile of clothes. *** In a meeting, Drake says, “Brianna thinks she has something we can use.” Akilah asks, “What is it?” Brianna, a freckle-faced, Black intern says, “A week ago this guy, an NPC, hid out in a little sign shop. He refused to leave. Then, a day later, messengers bricked the sign shop off. They closed the place up entirely, entombing the scared man and two sign makers. They made the outside of the brick barricade

look like a real estate office.” Akilah says, “I think I see where you’re going with this. What do you have in mind?” Brianna says, “We break him out, kidnap him, transport him in a van to the neighborhood Lily is in and release him into the hotel. He’s afraid of the outside so he’ll stay in the hotel. We hope he will trigger the same response from messengers.” Akilah says, “Do it.” *** Two people wearing environmental suits drag a shaking Hispanic man through the front door of the hotel. They let him loose and he runs and hides behind a potted plant in the corner, where he cowers, shivering. He stands there all day. No one asks him if he is alright or if he needs help of any kind. In the afternoon Lily pulls the flowers from her hair and rolls her hair up in the cap before she climbs out from under the roof. She walks with purpose to the hotel and does not answer anyone who tries to talk to her. She enters the hotel through the basement level entrance that is down a concrete stairwell coming off a side street. Three little shops run in the basement. The barber has never looked her way. The woman in the post office always looks at Lily. Once Lily saw a crown wearer in the gift shop and just kept on walking. By the time she made it to the dishwashing room, she was shaking so badly that she couldn’t stand straight. Before Lily starts her shift, she slips into the employee restroom. She uses the sink to clean up as best as she can. When Lily washes dishes, one of the cooks, a Black man who is muscular from labor, not from working out, comes back to the dish room and looks in her general direction. He never looks directly at her or tries to speak to her. She has a weird feeling about him, in part because she does not think he is creeping on her, it’s something else. She tries to figure out what she can do about it. The hotel owner is one of those automatons. He does not come out until eight PM. At eight PM the door to his basement office opens and he rolls out. Lily has walked behind him, fascinated by the whirring gears.

What looks like the door to his office when closed is a vault door on the inside, heavily reinforced and operated by large gears, much like the one at the museum. It also does not open to a room but to a pitch-black tunnel. A cool smell like a cavern gently reaches her nostrils whenever she es near it. She listens intently but can’t hear anything from the darkness. Lily is halfway through her shift when crown wearers start bricking off the entrances, exits and windows. Guests check out and can’t leave so they resort to bumping into doors and each other. Nothing is being done to fix the problem. Lily goes to the bussing station to get more dishes. In the dining room, people sit eating as usual, but just as many people walk around detached from reality. Terrified, Lily watches. This is enough weirdness for her to leave work without telling anyone. She runs to the basement exit. A group of people congregates there. Lily pushes through them and pushes the door open to find a brick wall smelling of fresh mortar blocking the way. She tries to push on it but it won’t budge. With an awful sinking feeling, Lily runs up the stairs to the lobby. Everyone there is acting weird. They bump into each other and clump together near the doorways. Through the windows, Lily sees crown wearers are sealing the building off. She runs back to the employee access hall and paces back and forth wringing her hands. She can’t get out with so many crown wearers outside. By the time she works up the courage to go back into the lobby, all the windows are completely bricked off. The new arrival who had been shaking fearfully behind the planter the whole time is now laughing. Lily uses the lobby phone to dial 911. She does not bother to say anything but just calling the number should get the police out here. After an hour, Lily cautiously climbs the stairs to the second floor and finds that the bricklaying has slowly closed out the light from coming through all the windows. Guests, mostly White, walk the halls. It isn’t that they don’t know what’s happening. They are totally out of touch with where they are. It takes hours for the crown wearers to lay the bricks, so it creates an emergency in slow motion. Lily pounds her forehead with her palms trying to think of how she can escape. The hotel seems to become overcrowded as guests who think they have checked out don’t return to their rooms. Their behavior becomes more bizarre. One

woman in a bathing suit acts like she jumps off a diving board and lands on the floor. Another woman pantomimes shopping in a grocery store, pushing a cart and placing items in it. Eventually the crown wearers entomb the second floor. Lily ventures up to the third floor and, sure enough, the brick setting continues. Lily sneaks from room to room, avoiding being seen by the crown wearers outside even though they don’t try to look in. Before the day is over, the entire hotel is entombed. All escapes are sealed, even on the attic floor. Besides the total darkness outside, the hotel now feels different. It sounds like the inside of a cave and the air begins to turn stale and soupy with all kinds of smells. Any sounds from the city outside now sound faint and muffled. Panicked, Lily tries all the doors. The automaton doors prove to be as unyielding as safe doors. She finds a utility hatch, but it leads to a dead end. Lily sees the lead chef walking down a hall toward her and prepares to be told to get back to work, but he is acting like he is in a bar, saying hi to people not there and telling raunchy jokes. He does not even see her. Guests continue to act out what they would have been doing even when the power goes out, trapping people in the elevator. A few minutes later, Lily finds the water has also been shut off. Lily finds a vacant room and tries to sleep. The next morning, one elderly guest has died. She lies in the front entrance and other guests step on her. Lily wraps the body up and drags it behind the couch for the time being, until she can figure what to do with it. *** Akilah and her team use the NPC to check on Lily. They can give him simple choices that will most likely direct him to where she is and see her whenever she is in his line of sight. Some on the team laugh at the bizarre things the guests do. Akilah almost hushes them but re they are only watching a game. Still, what she sees on the screen bothers her. Guests trip over furniture, cut themselves on broken glass, run full speed into brick walls, etc. Akilah predicts that after Lily has starved to death the assignment will be complete. She will probably visit a therapist after this. Once she went to her therapist because a movie had scared her too much. One team member asks, “But what if Lily breaks out?” Another asks, “Now that she’s isolated, why don’t we just kill her?”

Akilah says, “No, no, I’ve seen this mistake play out before. We think we kill her, but parts of her that we can’t see, live on and corrupt the game. Those parts go on and we lose any way to eliminate them. It’s always better to let the game kill characters off. We need to coax the game into doing that. If we let her starve then the game tags her deceased on all levels and it can clear her away completely.” A team member says, “But she knows her surroundings. What if she escapes and we lose track of her again?” When Lily has fallen asleep in a different vacant room from the one she used the night before, Akilah takes a big risk and comes in-game by taking control of the piano player who performs in the lobby under normal circumstances. The piano player is a White woman with wispy hair and a flowy floral dress. As the piano player, Akilah takes a key card out of the pocket of a maid. She unlocks the door to Lily’s room and slips in. She gently attaches a charm to Lily. It looks like a shoehorn riveted to some transistors and bare wires soldered together. After Akilah leaves the game, Akilah’s team initiates the program. A team member says, “Okay, it’s online now. We can track her. It shows us exactly where she is in the game.” Myra, an intern still in school, with very dark skin, asks, “What if it falls off when she changes her clothes?” Akilah says, “It’s a charm. It does not interact with clothes or anything besides Lily. A charm is a bit of programming. Charms aren’t visible to s or regular NPCs. Charms attach to characters and control certain things.”

[6] Tunnels Behind Everything

Before long there is no one left in the hotel who knows where they really are. At times staff believe they have returned to the hotel to go to work but unfortunately, they are never in the part of the hotel where they think they are. A cook hurries to prepare nonexistent meals in a hallway, thinking he is in the kitchen. A man in a stairwell thinks he’s in the dining room and orders lobster. A waitress in the gift shop takes an order for a lobster dinner and the cook acts out cooking a lobster dinner, all three having no way to communicate with each other. Lily has never believed in mind reading. A few trips between the waitress and cook shakes her sense of reality to its core. Most guests act as if they have left the hotel. In their minds they go back to their homes, their schools, their families and jobs. In reality, they fall down stairs, knock others over and talk to empty spaces. Their antics are not fun to watch. They bloody noses when they run into walls. They bruise themselves on furniture. One man breaks an arm by tumbling over a railing. The occupants hardly ever actually eat food but eat the air. Once an occupant eats part of a cushion. Seeing them chew air makes Lily fretful. She has plenty of food to eat. When she tries to feed others it either ends up on their front or choking them. Soon, a lot of the food goes bad. A son dies but his family still thinks he’s alive. They pull him through the lobby and Lily runs up to the second floor just to get away. When they set him on one end of a couch she pulls him away and places him under the grand piano where hopefully they won’t find him. Throughout the building the temperature drops. Lily layers on clothes she has collected from forgotten suitcases. She wants to do something about the dead, but with no one to help her, she can’t do much. She can move them but that won’t stop the decay that will set in. Throughout it all, the cook who likes to stare in her general direction continues to wander to the room she happens to be in and stare mutely, never directly at her. His behavior stood out before, but now it stands out ten times as much. She throws an item of clothing over his head

whenever he appears. She tries everything she can think of to escape, breaking through walls, trying to fit into vents, even crawling through the attic and breaking through the roof. The entire building is entombed in brick. A couple of weeks go by. A new feeling begins to dominate Lily, a feeling like she isn’t really here. She wants to hold onto something but what could she hold onto? Strangely, she can keep track of time by the delusional states of the other occupants. People who work in the morning all get ready for and go to work within the same two-hour window. Some occupants always watch their favorite TV show. Every flashlight she finds eventually loses power. The food staff burned short candles under buffet dishes, so Lily has boxes of candles to burn for light. The candles she burns are the only light source in the entire hotel. The air becomes difficult to breathe. She closes off unoccupied rooms to save pockets of unused air which helps a little. She visits the hole in the roof to breathe some clean air, then she breaks out all the glass from the windows to let semi-fresh air in. That improves the air for about a day. Funny thoughts drift through her mind. She thinks, “how neat that everyone has their own brain. We all think the same things so there is no point. I mean, we all get to think the things everyone else is thinking, but we get to do it ourselves.” Lily sits next to an older woman and places her hand on the woman’s hand. The sense of not being real eases off. The woman is saying something about plants, “But we must save the plants.” Sadly, Lily will probably be able to find food and live on for several weeks after all these other people have died. Most of the starving inhabitants can’t stay upright. They continue to mime the realities they think they are in, but do so listlessly, if they move at all. Lily does not want to find out who has died in the last twelve hours. Terrible smells behind closed doors push their way into the rest of the hotel. In the lobby, surrounded by the remnants of a few dozen spent candles, she looks at a magazine but does not really see it. She hears a clattering. That is strange. No one else has enough energy to make a clattering noise. Lily descends the tile stairs to the basement.

Halfway down the stairs, she sees a man kneeling on the floor. He holds a flashlight, leaning over a floor safe encased in concrete. It’s not a man, it’s one of the automatons, the hotel owner. In the darkness Lily’s eyes fooled her. He takes rolls of cash from the safe and piles them in a briefcase. If he’s gotten into the hotel, could he have left the vault door open? She pitterpatters down the stairs and follows his rail tracks. The door is open! She runs to the door. The air feels so good to breathe! Like someone coming up for air, she steps into the pitch-black tunnel breathing deeply, nearly gasping. She feels hard dirt and the wood planks of the rail tracks as she stumbles forward, wearing only socks on her feet. She leaves behind the sound of the automaton’s grinding gears and stumbles past exposed s, wiring and pipes, down a tight corridor. The floor angles downward. In total darkness she must feel her way. Once in a while a drop of water hits her head or face. She comes to forks in the age or spots where many rail lines converge, so she chooses a track, more or less at random. If only she could have packed before entering these tunnels, but she had to get through the vault door when she had her chance, before the owner returned to the tunnels and the door shut behind him. *** Akilah’s team is panicking. Brianna who is tracking Lily says, “We lost Lily!” Akilah calls back over a row of desks, “What do you mean?” Brianna says, “Look. Her signal disappeared. The cook is going downstairs where we last saw her, but Lily isn’t anywhere in the hotel!” Akilah says, “That can’t be right. Her signal does not just disappear.” Brianna says, “It did. Look here, do you know how the hotel owner leaves the game when he goes into his office? That’s where her signal disappeared, it cut off just outside his office door.” Akilah feels her frustration building. “Okay, okay, we’ve got this. We’ve got this. The cook may see her any second. It’s possible the tracking charm broke.”

The feed of what the cook sees shows him descending tile stairs. The hotel owner, a White man in his sixties with a shiny bald head, looks up at the cook just as the owner replaces the carpet over the safe. He stands, brushes himself off, picks up his briefcase and briskly walks back into his office, shutting the door behind him. Akilah asks, “Can you get the cook to look around a little bit?” Brianna says, “Not really.” Akilah says, “Everyone, we need to act now! I’m afraid we will need to take some risks here. Somebody find me an NPC I can take over. Is the piano player still alive?!” *** At some point Lily wonders why she continues to feel her way down the tunnel. She has chosen randomly which tunnel to continue down when the tunnel branched off. It has not taken her long at all to get lost. Could she find her way back if she wanted to? From somewhere, a series of clanks and clicks echo down the tunnel and Lily is pretty sure it was the owner’s office door closing. A moment later she hears a whirring sound go past and feels a breeze. She presses forward. Even though she was not hopelessly lost in the hotel, she feels her chances of escape have improved. After a while she forgets that she is not using her sight. Sometimes Lily runs into objects and has no idea what they are. At least they are not alive. She does her best to steer clear of them just in case one moves and injures her. They feel like machines or utility devices. The more Lily feels around them, the larger she discovers they are. She trips over a faucet. When she turns the handle, warm liquid hits her fingers. She cautiously tastes then eagerly drinks from it until her belly is full of sloshing, lukewarm water. She presses forward for more than ten hours. She is so low on energy; all she wants to do is lie down. How she wishes she had had a food stash on her when she entered the tunnels. There is so much food in the hotel, pantries full of canned goods and boxes of dry goods.

Her dream vision comes on and images dance ahead of her, moving wherever she looks as if her eyes are the movie projector. She thinks she sees lights ahead and can’t know for sure but she feels her way toward them anyway. She reaches a tunnel with a light at the end of it. As she presses forward, sounds begin to reach her ears, people talking and cheesy music. The tunnel ends at a room housing four automatons. The light comes from a little window vent near the ceiling. Though it is not much light, it dazzles her light-deprived eyes. Lily can hardly fit in the room. She stands on one of the machines to look out the vent and gazes out to a lobby of a movie theater. People stand in line at the concession stand. Some walk from the front doors to the halls that lead to theaters. A woman carries her baby toward a bathroom. The smell of popcorn turns on an angry grumbling in Lily’s belly. She tries to push the grill off the vent. It won’t budge. The tiny room has a door to the theater. She pulls, pushes and hits the door but the oiled gears, levers and catches on the door may as well be a single metal casting and not separate parts. The machine people are turned off. No amount of poking and pulling on them initiates any response. She sits on part of a concrete foundation that sticks out. Though she has been moving slowly, she has to catch her breath. What should she do now? she didn’t get this far just to starve in these tunnels. Lily makes herself crawl through the tunnels even though the prospect of finding food seems impossible. She chooses the tunnels she thinks will take her near the rest of the movie theater. When she sees a glimmer of light, she heads for it. When she does find a vent, it gives her a view of any random part of the city. One opens to a stockroom, another to a sidewalk next to a newsstand. The automatons move quickly through the tunnels, rolling down iron tracks. Lily has two close calls. Once she feels metal brush her arm as an automaton es but it feels like a hammer striking her arm. Whoever carved these tunnels never planned for people to walk down them. When she hears the automatons, the best she can do is try to get as far from the tracks as possible. Many hours and six vents later, she finds a vent that she can work loose. She gives the vent a shove and loses her grip on it. It falls and thuds on carpeted stairs. She looks out at the darkened theater on the other side of the lobby from

the first vent she looked through. For a long time, she listens and watches the empty lobby before pulling all the flowers out of her hair. She wriggles her way through the gap and drops down to the staircase. Sneaking through the empty theater, she heads downstairs, ears perked, dreading that she will see a crown wearer. She raids the concession stand. It’s that or starve. After filling four sacks with hot dog buns, franks, slices of pizza, chocolate-covered raisins and bags of nacho chips, she pushes the curtain open and sneaks a peek out a front window. Three crown wearers sit on the curb outside. She freezes. More movement at the window might get their attention. She counts to three, drops the curtain, grabs the bags and runs back to the vent as if the fires of hell chase after her. The bags are easy to heave through the square opening. The grate is heavy but she hoists it up and shoves it through. She jumps and hoists herself through, kicking her legs to get forward movement. She is trying to pull the grate back into place when she hears voices. She pulls the grate back into place and falls back away from the vent. She retreats with her food and sits in total darkness to feast. As she stuffs her face, she wonders if she should ever raid the concession stand again. People will notice, and there may be a guard waiting for her the next time she tries. Lily learns her way around some of the tunnels, though there seems to be no end to them. From time to time she finds a sink or faucet she can drink from. She is badly banged up when sideswiped by an automaton that speeds around a corner before she hears it in time to get out of the way. The automatons are dangerous the way cars are dangerous to pedestrians, with the added danger that the automatons can’t see Lily and Lily can’t see them. It clips her, and as it does not slow down at all, Lily is thrown against the tunnel wall. Her skin is not broken, but she gets nasty swelling on her side and all down the back of her left arm. Her arm does not like to move. It revolts with pain whenever she tries. Shaken for several days, she recoups under a workbench in one of the many repair alcoves. If she gets badly hurt, she can’t go to a hospital. She finds a working flashlight on the workbench. When she shines a light on the tunnel floors, she finds they are very dusty and the only footprints left in the dust

are her own. It seems like an unbreakable rule that no one, not even a crown wearer, is to ever enter any of the automaton tunnels. Lily learns the comings and goings of many automatons. She knows when they shut down and when they fire up and enter the outside world. Lily has more opportunities all the time to leave the tunnels and go back outside and she is sure she will do so when she finds the courage. The fear she has now of the outside surprises her. She used to stay away from home as much as she possibly could, thinking of the streets and public spaces as more her home than her parents’ apartment. She likes to watch the outside world through the vents. She is convinced the public can’t see the vents or access to the tunnels. In one house when an automaton wife leaves the “pantry” (really an automaton tunnel) she s her human husband in the kitchen. But why does the husband never attempt to enter the pantry and in so doing, find the automaton tunnel? The husband treats the “wife” like a human being and not clockwork. Lily has never seen any human trip on the automaton tracks. They act oblivious of the tracks so it seems reasonable they would trip on them. Lily needs a new brand of reasonable. The husband has lengthy, detail-rich conversations with the “wife.” It is as if the automaton is standing in for a very real person living a full life in every way. The three kids constantly run up to her wanting one thing or another. These people know her details, large and small. They grew up with her. They tease her about the strange choices of home decoration she has made. Where then is that person? Was she carried off in the night, replaced by this barrel of gears? She actually has it pretty good. Too bad the real woman isn’t here to enjoy such a fate. Lily wouldn’t mind taking the automaton’s place. When “wife”, husband and kids have gone to the dining room, Lily slips into the kitchen where she grabs an apple and a bowl of spaghetti. She eats quickly and retreats to the tunnels. She uses a floor drain and faucet to bathe. As she bathes, she walks on her clothes like someone crushing grapes. She combs her soapy hair with her fingers, leaving the flowers in her hair. She hangs the clothes she just washed near a hot tank. An hour later she puts the clothes back on, still a little damp but much cleaner.

The tunnels she knows well increase. In one area where five tunnels converge she smells a familiar smell drifting down from one of the tunnels. It must be the tunnel to the hotel. She gags and turns around never to venture into that area again. In a mostly Black part of town, she finds a house occupied only by an automaton family. The house is gutted inside, having no dividing walls or floors, essentially an extension of the tunnels. Lights switch on and off by exposed clock mechanisms. A flat silhouette of a cat, cut out of metal, glides past windows on rollers. In the sunlight pouring through the windows Lily can see the automatons have hand-painted eyes and noses. She crawls to the front of the house and looks out the window at a poor neighborhood. Buildings are modest townhouses; most are over a century old and in various stages of upkeep. Tiny yards. Black children run in the street. She spots one American flag, small and faded. She climbs scaffolding up to an upstairs window. The space inside a house can be huge when all the walls and floors are missing. Out the window she sees a man riding a horse, letting it eat grass in an empty lot. Outside a tiny store, racks of long dresses crowd the sidewalk. Two women look through the dresses. She must have spent the winter in the tunnels; it looks like one of the first days of spring. The automaton family comes and goes. She watches the “son” rolling newspapers, rubber-banding them and arranging them in a bag. The mother gets home, bringing groceries, and is about to drop the groceries down a disposal pipe. Lily runs to catch the items before they go down. While Lily decides what to eat first, the son finishes banding papers, gets his bike and heads out the door. Outside, his legs elongate and he puts the bike between his legs but the wheels on the end of his legs continue to be his real means of locomotion as he rolls down the track to deliver the papers. Lily finds a mirror among some of the wife’s things. She looks herself over, wondering if she would look like she did before, after a shower and some nice clothes. The husband brings home a new coffee maker and Lily gets hold of it just as he is tossing it down the disposal chute. The next day she drinks coffee and

marvels. She never knew coffee could make her feel so happy! She stares out the window at people on their way to work and school. But then Lily sees a female crown wearer walk along carrying buckets and brushes. She stops and plasters fliers on a wall. Lily closes the curtains but continues to peek through the slit where the curtains don’t completely come together. The fliers show an illustration of a girl with larger than life flowers in her hair. It must be Lily, it has to be Lily. The words printed beneath the face read, “Level four sensitive.” Beside it is another portrait. This is of a man with what may be a horn, sticking out of his head. He holds up a dead or sleeping bird. The words printed under him read, “Level one sensitive.” Is he like Lily? Is there a way that she can find him? Before, if she wondered if someone was like her it was because they may have liked the same things she did. Now it’s like, does he see how people are tortured by invisible devices? The crown wearers may be helping her without knowing it. She should keep an eye out for a man with what may be a horn and who carries with him a dead or sleeping bird. She touches a flower in her hair. If she takes the flowers out of her hair when she is in public, doesn’t it make sense that he would cover the horn and bird when he goes in public? Part of the daughter automaton’s head hangs loose. Springs and levers stick out. An area on her chest is busted loose and there, gears, cables and leavers twitch to try to work. Once a gear falls out of the daughter’s head and clinks on the floor. Still, the daughter manages to make it through all her routines. She braids her hair (or makes the motions of braiding her hair.) Soon she will pick up a basketball and leave, for basketball practice, Lily presumes. Some automatons get broken and shake and jerk at points in their programs. That is when a mover automaton comes for them. When will the mover automaton come for the daughter? The automatons are repaired regularly but by whom? The tunnels have work stations throughout, a whole industry goes on behind the known and seen world. Often Lily finds an automaton in the process of being repaired but not being repaired at the moment. Once she walks into a repair station and smells thick welding smoke. The tools are warm but no one is there. She begins to get a feeling that the missing repair personnel is to her what the crown wearers are to the public, invisible. Maybe repair people are standing around her right now and she can’t see them. Why don’t they do anything about her? She does not belong

in the tunnels. She does what she can to stay out of their way and avoid annoying any of them. When she returns to a repair room or area, things have moved. Tools are in different places. A disassembled automaton is now partially assembled. Sometimes she is gone for just a few minutes when this sort of thing happens. She hides when she sleeps even though she never sees anyone in the tunnels. Her skin crawls, wondering if someone she can’t see watches her. A flashlight Lily finds in the automaton household gives her light in the tunnels for several hours. After the batteries go out she appreciates that she can feel her way down the tunnels she knows, with much more ease than before. She has gotten good at it. If she knows the tunnel, she does not need a light.

[7] Fisheye

One night Lily walks through the theater on her way to get some popcorn. She stops to look at the posters, laughing about one of them, so cheesy. She turns a corner to walk down the stairs and she almost walks into a very young Black crown-wearer girl, hanging onto the handrail, trembling. The crown wearer stares at Lily. Lily stares back. Lily hasn’t been looked at in a long time. The crown wearer has never been looked at by anyone except crown wearers. They stare at each other for what feels like minutes. Lily runs. She runs up the stairs and down the long hall. An air horn sounds out. She runs up a flight of stairs and jumps up to the vent and shimmies through. She has forgotten to throw the grate through the opening. Before she can jump down to get the grate, the girl and two more crown wearers run up to and stand right in front of her. They have stopped in front of the vent opening. Lily can’t move. They are so close she could reach out and touch them. The young girl crown wearer is shaking. The older girl crown wearer places a hand on her shoulder. “Calm down, catch your breath. What exactly did you see?” The young girl is facing Lily and it looks like she is nearly looking at Lily. She pants, “A sensitive! She looked at me, I swear!” The boy crown wearer asks, “She probably didn’t ‘look at you’ but where did she go?” The older girl says, “I just saw her right here!” They are so close Lily can differentiate the hairs that stick out from under those crowns. The crowns do look factory made even close up. The crown wearers smell like industrial cleaning-agents. Dust is on the boy’s arm. Lily is so close it almost feels like she is the fourth person in the group. Lily manages to make herself scoot back a centimeter or two. How strange that she is practically in their lap, but they can’t see her at all. Even if she is only one step outside of their

reality, she is still totally outside their reality. More air horns call out from downstairs or outside. The youngest girl holds up her air horn and lets the sound explode from it. Before she finishes sounding the horn, they are gone up the stairs. Lily backs away deeper into the darkness of the tunnel. She still struggles with needing to catch her breath and being too scared to breathe. Lily begins spending most of her days spying on the crown wearers. She calls it education therapy. The more she knows about them, the less scary they are, she decides. She hopes. Before she avoided them, even avoided thinking of them, but now she feels she needs to study them. From vent to vent Lily finds opportunities to watch. They call themselves “messengers”. They refer to which team they belong to, “team 43”, “messenger team 31”, etc. They are invisible to the average person. Whenever an ordinary citizen walks toward a messenger, the messenger must move to avoid a collision. They remind Lily of an army in the way they act so concerned with carrying out assignments. They are all young, none of them older than Lily, and many of them are middle-school age. They call the people they report to their “directors”. They joke about “visibles.” Lily thinks by “visibles” they mean all the ordinary people who cannot see them. The way they speak about visibles makes Lily fume. Visibles are just cattle to them, cattle being prepared for the slaughter. The visibles have much more meaningful lives than the messengers. They struggle to survive. They raise families. Compared to the monoculture of messengers, visibles are each delightfully individualistic, bursting with personality. The whole situation makes Lily want to puke. Lily does not know why they call themselves messengers. They don’t really deliver messages. They ruin people’s lives. Messengers live among the visibles, sitting right next to visibles, eating from their tables, unpleasantly familiar and close. They seem to be dedicated to picking at and unraveling people’s lives. They do fasten tags on people the way scientists tag animals in the wild if that can be called messaging. Lily watches one messenger get a woman fired by following her around and interfering with her work all afternoon. The messenger hides the woman’s pens. He pats the woman’s mouth while she speaks, causing her to stammer. When she is alone, he does nothing, but as soon as she is around people, he prods her in the

gut and shakes her. Lily sees a messenger who hangs signs on people. A day after two theater employees become a couple, the messenger hangs a sign on the man. It says, “boring to talk to.” In a few days the couple breakup and the man has become boring to talk to. Lily can see people’s urgent desire to walk away from him when he starts talking to them. Messengers fit contraptions on visibles. They call them modifiers. Lily calls them torture devices. A messenger fits something made of pieces of metal painted grey to a tile-store manager. The manager begins to treat her staff impatiently. Lily does not know if the device causes impatience but she feels pretty sure it does. Lily discovers a messenger making keys to fit all the office doors in a fifth-floor hall. The messenger hangs a key right next to each door, supposedly for other messengers to use. It is the messengers that use the readily available keys to come and go through all the doors throughout the city. Lily notices that the messenger does not wear gloves while she makes the keys. Messengers always either put on or take off their gloves but not at the times Lily expects. Once she notices the gloves, she realizes that the messengers wear gloves half the time. But they don’t wear them to protect their hands. She sees a messenger take off their gloves to place a brick into a baby carriage but at another time a messenger puts on gloves to take a watch off one desk and place it on another. Then she gets it. After she gets it she can see it play out in every case: they put on gloves when they want to place something visibles will see and they take gloves off when they want to place something visibles won’t see. The discovery makes Lily positively cheerful for an entire morning. Looking through a vent into the back of a post office, Lily sees at a sorting station a woman has a small pipe stuck in her neck. Two men sit on either side of a table. A rope tied around one man’s neck crosses the table and the other end of the rope is tied around the other man’s neck. A man pushes a cart and has what looks like a dead body tied to his back. Meanwhile two messengers busy themselves sticking wires from a device into a woman’s back then they hastily strap the device onto her. Lily’s cheerful mood from the morning falls away. She cannot bear to look at

this scene very long. If messengers want to hurt visibles, why don’t they just kill them and get it over with? Why painstakingly degrade their lives until the victims die? The outcome would be the same. She hears an automaton approaching and gets ready. She puts an arm out, ready to pull it back quickly if it encounters any force. As the automaton wheels past, she touches it, then grabs hold and climbs on. Lily has learned to hop onto automatons when they are moving past her on a track. She can travel fast through the tunnels this way and does not have to fear getting run over while she is doing it. This is a great improvement for her. The area of known tunnels she uses triples in size. She can eat three meals a day and does not have to store food in the tunnels as much. She can always catch her favorite TV show by visiting the Harmon family vent each evening at six. She has also learned to open many of the vents she couldn’t open before. She took a screwdriver from an abandoned sign shop. By sticking her hand through a vent she can use the screwdriver to turn catches on the outside of the vent. In the late evenings Lily likes to look through the vents into a diner. The staff is cut down to one waitress and one cook, no other waitresses, bussers or hostesses. The lights are shut off behind the counter. One section is closed, roped off and left in the dark. She likes the evening crowd the best. At breakfast and lunch the same faces come in. On the weekend, the same families come in. But no one owns the evening. The brand-new couples come here, flaming with the excitement of a new romance. She sees the school kids pushing against curfews. She sees people sitting alone that she won’t see in here ever again. At one table, high school boys read a girl’s diary. The world is a cruel place, at least half the time. A Black waitress listens as a Hispanic woman explains that she missed her bus. She will just have a coffee for the next half hour. A father and son eat together. The son has a brand-new cast on his arm that he keeps banging on the table. The father tells him to stop. The waitress takes an order to the back. She comes back and sits flipping through the day’s paper, possibly looking over the job listings. A Black man walks in wearing a shiny yellow raincoat, carrying a suitcase. A pipe, nearly as wide as his forehead sticks out about a centimeter from his forehead. It protrudes from his forehead but there is no bleeding. It is capped off with a glass lid. The largest eye Lily has ever seen floats in liquid behind the

glass. Dread and excitement mix together in Lily’s gut. The eye looks around the diner while the man talks to the waitress. The waitress walks him back to a table and the third eye spots Lily. It looks right up at her no matter where the man turns his head. The man sits facing Lily. While he looks at the menu the giant eye stares at her. Lily gets the sense that the man does not know what the eye behind the glass sees. Or at least, he does not pay attention to what the eye sees. Lily changes vents twice and each time the eye finds her. The waitress working tonight does not work nearly as often as the other waitresses. She has carpenter’s nails stuck into her fingers and her hands bleed onto everything she touches or picks up. One large nail sticking out of the tip of her thumb makes Lily wince. Lily looks away but the image stays in her mind. This waitress writes the third-eye man’s order down, taking no care to avoid bumping or moving the nails in her fingers. Blood drips on her notepad and the floor. The eye behind the glass looks from the hands back at Lily as if to say to Lily, “Check out the waitress’s hands.” The man smiles gently at the waitress. “I’ll have the catfish and coleslaw. By the way, what do you do with the fish heads?” The waitress says, “Oh no, we don’t serve those.” “Yes, I know that. What do you do with them after removing them from the rest of the fish?” “We don’t even get them in the first place.” The man says, “Thank you. Can I get an extra napkin?” She reaches into her apron pocket, pulls out a napkin and places it down in front of him. The man takes the napkin with blood on it and looks it over before placing it on the table. As the waitress walks away Lily notices that the largest nail that was stuck in her thumb is now gone. Lily looks for it down on the floor but only sees drops of blood. The eye is watching the man’s hand that is closed in a loose fist on the table. It suddenly looks up at Lily. Then the man holds up the bloody nail turning it this

way and that, examining it, right there at his table! Lily wants to scream for him to stop. The man with the third eye stays in one of the rooms above the diner. Lily catches him on his way in and out. She does not know where he goes during the day. One day when she is looking through a vent into the fish house, she finds him in the back near the boat elevator. He stands at the scaling tables and asks for the fish heads, those scaling fish, are about to dispose of. He scoops the eyes out of the heads, carefully drops the eyes into a jar and then throws the heads into the slop container the heads would have been dropped into in the first place. The fish house staff laugh at him behind his back. When he leaves, Lily moves as quickly through the tunnels as possible to the restaurant. She looks through one of the restaurant vents and there he sits, looking over the menu, smelling of fish. Lily can smell him from the vent. He always eats at the diner when the one waitress is working. Lily sees more nails are missing from the waitress’s hands. She lingers longer at his table and smiles more. Even though he smells like fish. Every time Lily sees the waitress, fewer nails stick in her hands until one night the nails are gone and scabs covered her hands. She stands and jokes with the third-eye man for at least twenty minutes. She seems happier, she really does. And why not?! No more nails in her hands is great even if she didn’t know they were there. On a slow night, Third-eye Man comes in not looking ahead but at a box in his hands. A younger waitress barely looks at him as she waves for him to go pick an empty table for himself. Lily watches him for a while, but he orders and eats uneventfully. She changes vents and listens to two women talking about the need for courage and how to live an honest life. Lily changes vents again and watches the muted TV showing an infomercial. She is considering going to the vent that opens to a union hall. Meetings of all sorts are hosted there and some of them are certainly fun to watch. The 3rd eye man gets up from his table. Only looking at the box, he walks toward the vent she is looking through. She looks over at him and expects him to

veer in another direction but with each step he comes closer and closer. Stunned, she sits back. He stumbles forward looking at his box contraption the whole time and otherwise hardly aware of his surroundings. Lily gets to her feet and backs away, further into the darkness of the tunnels. He continues until the box hits the vent grate. He stares into the box, adjusting knobs. It emits a faint glow. Not even messengers can detect her in here. For him it should only be a wall. The waitress calls across the dining room, “Mister, is everything okay?” He turns. “Oh yes! I’m fine, don’t worry, I’ll just sit back down.” As he turns away, Lily breathes a sigh of relief. She knows Third-eye Man may be the only one like her, a “sensitive” as the messengers call her. Still, she doesn't feel like ing him at all. He does not seem harmful, but he does not seem trustworthy either. Maybe she needs to be more daring. Who knows, he may be able to dispel her world-sized mystification altogether, with an explanation that will at once make perfect sense and make Reality feel real again. She watches him return to his seat. Maybe she will him. It would not be too hard to get a message to him and arrange for some correspondence. A week later, Lily eats a sandwich and watches people in the diner. She is just about to go to the automaton family house when two boy messengers, Asian and Black, walk into the restaurant. Lily stops chewing. The food in her mouth becomes like a lump of tasteless clay. She feels her eyes bulging. Why does she still react this way? They can’t touch her. She is almost certain that when she is in the tunnels she could shout, and they would not hear her. The messengers walk directly to a back booth. On their way they both take plates of food out from under the forks of visibles eating. The visibles continue to act like they are eating. The messengers sit in a booth that happens to be right below the vent Lily is looking through. Lily swallows the lump of food in her mouth. Only ten minutes before she was outside the tunnels, in the deserted cold kitchen making herself a sandwich. What if the messengers found her then? The lump of food stretches her throat and hurts going down. The Asian messenger taps something metal on the tabletop. “That one woman on

Ford Street, the other day, out of the blue she says to her husband, ‘I can't do this anymore.’” The Black messenger says, “No way! What did he say?” “He didn't say anything. Didn’t I tell you? I took his tongue.” “Oh yeah, I .” “I used to prod him whenever he spoke, before.” “Yeah.” “He tries to talk sometimes still, thinks he’s talking. I still have to give him a prod.” The metal tapping noise gets louder and louder, then it stops. He holds out a large nail still partly stained with blood. “Here’s one of the nails.” The Black messenger asks, “One of hers?” nodding in the direction of the waitress with hands still scarred from the nails that were embedded in them. “Yeah. Now we need to find out how she is freeing herself of them.” The man with the third eye walks in, holding the box contraption. He takes a counter seat and sits with his back to Lily and the messengers. Lily wonders if the messengers can see the third eye. Third-eye Man spins around on the stool and scans the diner with the box. The giant eye behind the glass stares down at the box. Third-eye Man aims the box all over the diner and does not stop until it points in the direction of Lily and the messengers. The Black messenger says, “Hey, hey. Check it out.” The third-eye man stands and takes a step, waving his device back and forth. He watches a meter on the box. Every few seconds he takes another step. More and more often he points the device in Lily’s direction, the third eye looks from the box to Lily and back again. Each step brings him closer to her. Some of the visibles notice him. A woman tugs on a man’s shirt sleeve and points at Thirdeye Man, “What’s that man doing?”

The postures of the two messengers become erect and rigid. The Black messenger says, “He’s not a natural sensitive.” Lily watches helplessly as Third-eye Man follows his device right up to the table where the messengers sit and waves it in their faces. The Black messenger says, “Scary to think there’s a device that can detect us. I’m blowing the horn.” He holds out an air horn and the loud blast blocks out all other sounds. The Asian messenger reaches into Third-eye Man’s jacket pocket. “Hey! What is this?” He holds out a handful of blood-stained nails. “Look who’s been undoing my work!” “It’s just like they say. The sensitives are getting stronger. I can’t believe he can do that. Every year it gets worse.” The Asian messenger is getting up. “Let me drive this nail in his throat. It’s a fitting way for him to die.” “Let’s see what happens when he finds us.” “He’s already found us.” The giant third eye stares at Lily. She gets the impression it can’t see the messengers. If she changes vents maybe Third-eye Man will leave the messengers and they will decide he isn’t a sensitive. The Asian messenger says, “Come on you blind bat! You wanted my nails so badly, I’ve got one for you. That’s right, walk right up to me. Take your time, I’ll wait right here for you!” Third-eye takes another step. The device knocks the Asian messenger on the head and the two jump up and pin him to the floor. At this point it’s pointless for Lily to change vents. More messengers arrive. One messenger steers visibles away from the arrest. Lily hugs her legs and rocks back and forth where she sits in the darkness, dreading to see but thinking she should watch, that it is in her own interest to watch.

The Asian messenger says, “Give me that box!” The Black messenger says, “What are you going to do?” “Break it of course. Do you want a sensitivity device in existence, one that any visible could use?” “Hold on, we have to be careful. He may have plans to make the device.” “I can still erase this one!” The messenger breaks the device on the floor. The other messengers hold Third-eye Man down, pinch his nostrils and hold his mouth open. The Black messenger says, “We can’t kill him until we find out where he lives and search for the plans.” A girl messenger says, “I know where he lives.” A middle-school-age messenger brings a pot of coffee over and pours the hot coffee into Third-eye Man’s mouth. The third eye swims around wildly behind the glass but as the man stops convulsing the giant eye sinks away from the glass. They all get up and step away from Third-eye Man. The Asian messenger sticks a nail through Third-eye Man’s voice box. Lily does not know if Third-eye Man is still alive when they carry him out.

[8] Abducted by Accident

Lily hops on an automaton she knows and rides often. Normally she knows all the places he goes to and he never breaks from his routine, but this time he goes down a tunnel Lily does not know. She waits and hopes he will turn around. He does not. She can tell he is going far from her known tunnels. She tries not to panic, but at any moment the track he is on may lead him out to the visible world and she could find herself stuck on the outside, riding on the back of something people experience as a human. If she hops off now and tries to find her way back she will surely get lost. What seems like an hour goes by. She finally hops off. Though she knows it’s pointless, she tries to find her way back. She tries to stay calm. At least she has her handbag with all her essentials in it. She is lost in this new region of tunnels. Hours later, Lily finds a vault door stuck wide open. She peeks out of it. Across a bedroom, an automaton in the house is off her track and placed in a bed, which seems odd. Something like a repair bot would have to place her there but if it did that, why didn’t it take her to get repaired? Lily searches her hair and pulls out all the flowers. Then she tiptoes out into the room. The automaton is of someone who has become sick? The furniture and belongings lead Lily to believe the house is lived in by an elderly person. Does the automaton take the place of someone who has become bed-ridden? Lily ventures down a flight of stairs. She feels a cold breeze blowing through a large living room window that is broken open. In the kitchen dirty blankets, suitcases and stuffed bags lay on the floor. Piles of garbage cover the counter. A disheveled man sits on the floor with his back turned to her, rummaging through a garbage bag. Is the “woman” upstairs supposed to be dead? Even though Lily knows it’s just an automaton placed in a bed, a chill runs down Lily’s spine. Lily slinks away and hides behind a couch. She can hear him in there opening cans and moving things around. She waits for him to leave or sleep, but he continues to move around in the kitchen. The sunlight through the window

travels across the floor and up the wall before it fades. It’s getting late. She sneaks past the kitchen door and up the stairs, but she finds the automaton door is closed. She’s locked out! Suddenly Lily feels a paralysis of fear. She’s locked out of the tunnels. The automaton in the bed is still there. The vagrant in the kitchen still makes noise. She’s stuck on the outside. Lily looks out the window and sees down the block, tracks entering a house. No car drives down the road, no one walks down the sidewalk. She tip-toes down the stairs and does not see the man through the kitchen door. The interior is dark now, so there is less chance he will see her. She slips past, hurries to the front door and lets herself out. Running down the street, she sees something lying in the road. It looks like a crown, the kind messengers wear. She scoops it up while running, immediately regretting doing so. She can’t be seen holding this. This could be a trap left by messengers. If it is, then it’s already too late for her. She stashes it in her bag. The street is empty. No faces in any of the windows. No figures ing behind trees or fences. No one has seen her. But what if one of the messengers dropped it only a moment ago? What if they have turned back to look for it and are about to return to this street? When she reaches the house the tracks enter, she runs to the side and hides behind a bush. There is no movement up or down the street. She watches the track. The automaton that uses it may not use it until tomorrow, or a week from now. She hunkers down. Later in the night, an automaton rolls up to the porch and a visible opens the door for her from the inside. A girl welcoming her mother home. The automaton enters and the door closes. Lily waits that night, sometimes sleeping a little, accepting the hunger sensations that come and go. The next day, three Black people: a woman, the girl, and an older boy, leave the house. Lily considers sneaking in. What are the chances that more than the automaton and three humans live in the house? A whole hour and a half later the automaton comes out, carrying the garbage. It sets the garbage on the street and returns to the house. Lily runs out and shadows it. Her heart bangs like a hammer in her chest. If she sees any sign of another human still inside the house, she will get the hell out like her life depends on it. Inside, the automaton goes to the kitchen and works on a meal in progress. Lily’s

stomach grumbles. The food on the counter looks fresh and tasty. A great thing about the automatons, they purchase human food but don’t eat it. First, she needs to find this automaton’s entrance to the tunnels. A young girl comes into the kitchen and asks Lily, “Who are you?” Lily says nothing but sprints past the girl, through the kitchen, following the track. The vault door is in the hall. Lily enters the tunnels. She can hear the girl, “Mama, who is that woman? Why did she run into your room?” Lily never finds her way back to the tunnels she grew to know so well. She does not eat for a few days but eventually she finds an automaton woman who leaves the tunnels for the inside of a small house, every morning. As Lily slowly safety-checks the house she finds the woman automaton and a human husband live there. The husband works out in the garden every time Lily sneaks through the house, so Lily’s visits are for only a minute or two. Lily watches the old man, as long as he stays out there, Lily can gather food safely. The house makes Lily wonder. The tiny rooms look like stage sets, flat pieces of painted metal standing in for real objects. If humans lived here it would have to be a real interior, a real couch instead of the weakest imitation of one, a real fireplace instead of a painted one. All the doors are run by hydraulics, yet the husband in the garden? He would break the couch if ever he sat on it. Where does he sleep? All the beds are vertical props. Lily steps behind the automaton woman in the kitchen. A real kitchen. The automaton takes food from her tin basket and makes dinner. This must mean humans eat here, otherwise the groceries would have been thrown out. With a hydraulic hiss, the front door opens and before Lily can find a place to hide, the husband comes in. But he is not the husband. He is, but the husband is an automaton. They don’t fool her eyes at all when she sees them up close, but they look human to her from a distance. She clasps her trembling hands together and takes a long, deep breath. The automaton husband places radishes on the counter and begins washing them in the working sink. Lily allows herself to laugh out-loud. She walks from room to room, inspecting. The bathroom sink and toilet work, but the shower is a prop. The stairs have an automaton lift. That there are steps at all mean visibles come into this home at least sometimes. They will eat and use

the bathroom but not spend the night. She should be careful walking by the windows. Messengers are not in this house right now, but she might be the human who draws a messenger in here if one sees her through a window. She peeks out a window and takes a closer look at the garden: sheet metal flowers held in the ground with green painted pipes. Humans will probably come around for that dinner. Lily makes sure to take some of the food and leave before the human guests arrive. About once a week a human family with four kids does visit the automaton husband and wife. Lily watches through vents. After dinner, the human parents and the automaton couple set up a folding table on the lawn and play cards, or at least the humans think they play cards. In the evenings, the automaton couple sit motionless in front of a sheet metal prop painted to look like a TV. A light bulb over the TV dims and brightens randomly. It only does this when the automatons sit in front of the TV and for the whole time they are there. Lily reads the paper at the kitchen table, far away from the window. Lily is getting better at opening vents. She can open most of them now. Bolts can be found under the frames. A nearby house that Lily accesses by a vent is occupied by five piles of bones. From the “Bones Family” as Lily calls them, she claims a jacket, a rug, and a sewing kit, always thanking the Bone Family whenever she takes anything. She takes some clothing items from the Bone Family. They are so musty. She washes them in a bucket and hangs them to dry near the train station vent. She successfully sews a button back onto a cardigan. By a large vent that opens to the train station Lily sets up what she thinks of as her room. She spreads the rug out and sets her things on a wooden beam. Daily she stares out the vent. It seems like there are fewer messengers around town than she is used to seeing. Going through her things she finds the messenger crown and sits motionless staring at it. She lifts it to fit it on her head. It won’t go, like it’s being repelled by a magnetic force. She cannot push it down onto her head! It slides around over her head. Well, it isn’t the strangest thing she’s experienced in the last few months. Another unexplained mystery. Maybe she should just accept that reality doesn’t

make sense anymore. She folds the crown and tucks it away. Watching the train station from the vent, she sees three Black visible girls her age teaching each other dance moves. Maybe they are going back to college together, taking a train. They seem fun and bad-ass. Who would dare mess with them? And yet anyone can see they are having a great time. Lily dances in her “room,” the way the girls do. She finds herself imitating the mannerisms of messengers. Messengers have distinct ways they gesture and express themselves. Lily laughs. She is good at imitating them. She stops. Don’t imitate them. She must always act visible. Don’t ever act like them again. Her survival depends on never giving herself away outside the tunnels. Visibles get killed for micro gestures. From the train station she learns today is Juneteenth. She overhears where the fireworks will display tonight and knows the perfect spot to see them. She removes the flowers from her hair even though it seems impossible she will be anywhere near anyone visible or not-visible. She opens a vent and crawls into the darkened office of an auto dealership on the third floor, after hours, when the building is closed and locked for the night. She walks by desks lit only from the light outside. Workstations hold deep shadows. She opens a window, climbs out onto the roof and sits. She hears a pedestrian’s firework go off. People walk loudly down the street below. The car lot below has automaton tracks running all over it. She hopes she can see the fireworks from here. It’s probably another hour before the fireworks show begins. The problem with safe places is they are so boring, not much to look at for a whole hour. The other day, when the crown would not go onto her head, why was that? Is it because she is not a messenger, or is it because she was in the tunnels? Messengers can’t go in tunnels. Now that she isn’t in the tunnels, there is one way she can find out. She leans forward and feels the cloth crown in her bag. It’s still there, still dangerous for her to have on her person. She takes it out and turns it over in her hands. Touching one of the metal loops that extend out from the cloth band. All the crowns look exactly alike. She has no way of knowing what material it is made of. This is a real messenger crown. She may be the only non-messenger to ever get

ahold of one. What happens if a messenger loses their crown? Do they make another one or do they have to request a new one and hope they don’t get in trouble? She raises the crown and sets it on her head, just like that. Dizziness moves through her body. The crown moves, fitting itself onto her head. She can actually feel it changing shape. Her heart starts jumping. She notices the automaton tracks that were on the ground below are now gone. A messenger climbs through the window, out onto the roof and sits down beside her. Lily does not notice him. She looks out at a pedestrian launching a firework into the night like a little promise of the show to come. What is that strange smell? Where has she smelled it before? Her heart is beating so fast. She wonders if messengers always feel this way. It’s weird that just putting the crown on has changed her so much but she can’t determine what exactly has changed. she doesn’t feel like herself at all. She has got to get rid of this crown. She will bury it somewhere. No, she’ll find a fire she can throw it into. She lifts her hands to remove it. The male messenger asks, “Having a nice night?” Lily nearly swallows her tongue. She does nothing for several seconds. Without turning her head she strains her eyes in their sockets to look. On the very edge of her vision she can make out his crown. She slowly lowers her arms. With a scratchy voice Lily says, “I am.” She shrinks with resignation. Now she’s done it. She shouldn't have spoken. Now she’s going to die! The messenger asks, “Are you from here?” Lily chokes out, “No.” “Where are you from?” Lily blurts out, “Earth!” The messenger, Black with hands covered with scars, laughs wonderingly. He looks down at the visibles walking along the street below. Lily, overwhelmed just to be talked to, let alone by a male, let alone by a messenger, sits horrified by what her voice just sounded like. It sounds so strange and she realizes she hasn't spoken out loud for months. Her thoughts run around in her brain in a

five-alarm panic. She is sure the crown called him here. Or did it save her? Would she be a pile of broken bones in the parking lot right now if he had found her not wearing it? She wants so badly to take it off, but she can't with him here. Two more messengers climb through the window onto the roof and stand in front of Lily and the first messenger. A surge of emotion pushes out Lily’s faculties of reason. She feels elated, but also like she could scream without meaning to. She can't bring herself to look any of them in the eye, but they all steadily look at her, so steadily she thinks it may drive her mad. They all stand and sit too close to her. The Brown, taller female says, “We’re going to Base 812. Who’s this? What's your name?” Lily says, “Lily.” The male says, “I'm Rayray, that is Numera.” The White female says, “I’m Marion.” Everyone but Lily gets up and steps toward the window. Numera, the tall one says, “That’s a funny way of putting it.” They all laugh except Lily. They are all standing looking down at her. Finally, Numera extends her hand. “Well? Come on.” Lily lifts her hand, allows it to be taken, and is helped to her feet. Numera says to Lily, “You can go before me.” They walk through the empty office and Lily allows herself to glance at the automaton vent with no covering. It is the entrance to her home and she may never see her home again. As unbelievable as the whole situation seems, Lily finds herself walking down the street with them. If only she had stayed inside. she never ever should have gone outside. How stupid it seems now. She’s not ready for this. Goodbye, elderly automaton couple. They are walking, steering clear of visibles who walk and run about. The visibles are all headed in the same direction carrying lawn chairs, blankets and ice chests. Lily understands that messengers are invisible to visibles, but she isn’t invisible to visibles. Like a rebuke to that thought, a visible boy runs across

the street and Numera grabs Lily’s arm and pulls her out of his way. Is she invisible like the messengers? It seems like just putting on the crown did that. Numera smiles quizzically at Lily as Marion talks. The messengers have their own way of speaking. Lily is afraid to talk, her mannerisms might give her away. She imitated them before but that was just once, when she was alone and not trying to do it seriously. The youngest messenger, Marion, says, “I’ve never seen a messenger killer before.” Numera says, “There used to not be any.” Marion says, “None? I sort of that, but I can’t believe there weren’t any.” Numera takes a roll of string out of her pocket. She unwinds and rewinds the end and says, “Just six years ago, a messenger killer was unheard of. It used to be impossible. I didn’t believe it the first time I heard about one. I thought it was a sick joke, especially coming from the mouth of the one who told me. There have been more in the last year than ever before. I think one sensitive is teaching others.” Marion says, “I’ve heard that.” Numera says, “The Smoker, Trapper, Flower Girl…” Lily flinches when she hears the name “Flower Girl.” She thinks about how sometimes she lets the flowers grow back in her hair. She has been careless lately and now look where she is. Numera says, “I can when we only killed visibles if their sensitivity seemed to be a threat, now we have to kill any visible that shows any sign of sensitivity at all.” Numera turns abruptly to Lily and says, “Who are you with?” Lily chokes and struggles to get the lump out of her throat, “I’m not…” Marion teases, “Why, doesn’t anyone like you?” Numera says to Marion, “Marion!” Numera says to Lily, “Are you here long?” Lily’s thoughts race. How is she supposed to answer these questions? It seems

absurd that she should even try. They must know she isn’t one of them. Don’t they see she’s dressed like a visible, a visible in ragged clothes, no less? This is one of their forms of torture. They’re just playing with her, egging her on before they kill her. Lily says, “Yes.” It feels like gauze is stuck to the inside of her throat. Rayray has become quiet, walking ahead, not looking back. Lily tries to see any automatons or automaton tracks without giving herself away. She can’t see any. So many visibles around and she can’t see any automatons? How can she get away from these monsters? If she runs, she could get away. And if she dies, well then, it’s all just over. They separate from the flow of visibles and walk toward a strip mall. They start to cross the large parking lot and head toward what looks like the stairs to a subway. As they reach it and walk down the steps, Lily can see it looks a lot like stairs down to a station, but there are no signs for the subway and the stairs are impeccably clean and new, out in the middle of a run-down, little-used parking lot. They step into a long, expansive corridor. Lily senses tension in the group as they turn down a second corridor branching off the first. Besides messengers, other uniformed people walk the corridors. Some wear caps instead of crowns. Some wear vests that appear to designate them as part of a team, like the crowns. Lily and the three messengers under a large ornate doorway. As they walk down equally ornate steps, a cold breeze blows up on their faces. The steps veer left and right and always lead them downward, deeper. They through echoey halls, and walk over metal platforms, Lily knows she could never find her way back. Signs make no sense to her. They say things like “10 in June,” “Cursive Logic B54002,” and “Jump gate 843-91304.” Sounds from very far away but all funneled through pipes and ducts reach her ears: a screech, complicated machinery, a ringing of wheels and disks spinning. The very few people down here walk in a hurry. It strikes Lily that she is in a place like the automaton tunnels. She could not see the entrances to this place before placing the crown on her head. Surely the two systems will bump into each other, but Lily never came across a messenger subterranean system when she was in the tunnels. The automaton tunnels and these corridors seem to exist in their own space.

They come to a train platform and wait. An old Hispanic woman wearing not a uniform but a threadbare robe sits at a table that belongs in a kitchen. She talks on a phone solemnly and too quietly to be heard. She looks like a visible. The phone cradle hangs on the wall. She sits on a chair that goes with the table, both not so shiny plastic and chrome. The messengers pay her no mind. A train speeds to a stop and they board. They ride the train that even smells brand-new. Lily’s heart sinks as she knows every second takes her further from the safety of the tunnels and neighborhoods she knows. They get off at another platform, take a complex route to the street level and walk down dark streets in the visible world again, but this time through a suburb of the city. Lily tries to determine which one it is. She can’t place it. They go down an alley behind a box store building and near a bowling alley, its neon signs off for the night. Lily sees an entryway on the back wall. The entryway looks new and lit up. It looks totally out of place on the backside of a building that is dingy and closed for the night. As they get, close Lily sees a messenger standing in front of bright, shiny doors. They walk up to him. Numera chides him, “Kind of a pointless task guarding a door. How does it feel to have a visible’s job?” With a stony expression he lets them enter. The interior is not a rundown bowling alley, but more like a new convention center. Abruptly, Rayray is back by Lily’s side. “We can see Lily messed up her uniform and had to use visible clothes, I’ll take her to get a new uniform.” Numera nods. “And you will help her with that?” Rayray shrugs. Numera says, “We’ll all help.” They walk into an auditorium. Dozens of messengers mill around inside. Numera takes hold of Lily’s elbow. She leads Lily to a long table along one wall. Behind the table people wearing red armbands and not wearing crowns, service the tables- placing food, blankets, tools, devices and uniforms. Numera looks Lily up and down, quickly takes a uniform from the table and hands it to Lily. Rayray waits behind Numera. Lily does not want to look at him. Numera says to anyone concerned in earshot, “We’ll be back.” And she whisks Lily off. In the changing room Numera leans up against a wall. Lily sees what look like changing stalls and heads toward them. Numara asks, “Aren’t you going to

shower? You smell strange.” Lily nods and seeing a messenger girl pick up a towel before going down a tiled hall, does the same, hoping she responded correctly. She undresses in a locker room and is about to walk toward the shower when a messenger girl says, “Don’t leave that garbage there”, pointing at Lily’s clothes and bag full of what Lily finds essential for life in the tunnels. The messenger girl watches as Lily sadly puts her things into a waste bin. Twenty minutes later Numera and Lily the others at a small table. Wearing these new clothes, Lily feels like she is wearing paper bags. Marion looks at Lily with a faint smile, not moving at all. Lily realizes her eyes are locked with Marion’s. Lily becomes afraid to look away lest it seems abrupt and suspicious. A panic grows inside her. Lily asks carefully, “How long will we stay here?” The others laugh. Lily feels like she’s melting. After all the hours she has spied on messengers, if only she had taken the opportunity to watch more closely how these people talk and act with each other. She was more focused on what they did to visibles. Three messengers come up to the table. Lily recognizes a female. A week ago, the female walked into a steakhouse. She walked up to a family and stuck a dart into the neck of a young boy. The boy kept eating, even with a dart with blinking lights on it half-driven into his neck. Now the female is looking at Lily. “Who’s this? I’ve never seen her. Where are you from?” Everyone looks at Lily, waiting. In her mind Lily chases after phrases, something coherent to say, but her mind suddenly goes blank as if an explosion of bright light has gone off, erasing any words she might put together. The present situation returns to her. She looks at the glistening faces around her. Lily says, “Allentown”. No one responds. Lily can’t tell if that is a good thing or not. The three new messengers sit at the table that is too small for all of them. Everyone greets everyone. Everyone takes everyone by the arms. For some unspoken reason they have to squeeze out all personal space. Before tonight Lily went without speaking for weeks at a time. Now her voice is conspicuously quiet, and she finds it impossible to make her voice louder. Her

vocal abilities have withered. She must be noisy and reckless like the others but it comes off badly. Numera says to Lily, “I wish I didn’t know any of these goodfor-nothings.” Numera stares at Lily. Words fall together in Lily’s mind. She is about to say, “Death is in the room.” Someone bumps into Numera. Numera gets up and starts yelling at them. The messengers’ hyper-social nature wears on Lily. They all sit close to each other. They group in packs and look each other deep in the eyes. They often touch each other. There must be a reason they cling to each other. Messengers take plates of food from the buffet, back to overcrowded tables. Everyone has a feast. The food is good but somehow sterile, without heart. Many bring out what looks like books of tickets. They them around, thumb through them and exchange individual tickets. Someone hands Lily a book and imitating the others, she thumbs through it. Each ticket pictures a person’s head. All kinds of people, different ages, races… Handwritten addresses partially cover each picture. Lily finds herself looking at the head of a woman on a pillow, her eyes shut. Is the woman alive? Was she in her bed asleep when this picture was taken? More messengers arrive, packing the auditorium. Messengers talk louder to be heard over other conversations. Bits and pieces of different conversations jump into Lily’s ears. “It should only take one night.” “Turtle is the best at shaving them.” “Just ask yourself, ‘Is this visible truly ordinary?’ That’s how I decide.” “Once I left her for a week and when I came back, I found she had locked herself in her apartment the whole time.” It must be getting very late. Lily can feel her eyelids rub against her eyeballs. With alarm, she catches herself from nodding off where she stands. She sees a nail file on the floor, by her foot. Could she use it to kill them, to kill one of them? Lily’s jaw aches. She watches a female giggling, surrounded by boys. The noise pushes in on Lily from all sides. One messenger pulls a visible along with a leash tied around the visible’s hands. The visible looks forward, in some kind of unconscious state that reminds Lily of the people stuck in the entombed hotel. How awful to be taken from home by the messengers. Wait. That’s what’s happening to her. But at least she has some

idea where she is. Messengers incessantly greet Numera, Marion, Rayray and Lily. No wonder messengers always act like they know each other out on the streets. Rayray gets up to mingle. A Black female, Viola, sits down just behind Marion. Viola looks mostly at the ground and smiles sheepishly when she does look up. Her shyness goes against the current of the present environment. Numera asks Marion instructively, “Why do the visibles make museums?” Marion gazes at nothing. “Just like everything they do, it makes them feel better.” “In the face of death.” “Yes, yes.” “They have nothing to look forward to, unlike us.” Marion nods. “Yes, I see.” Viola leans in and whispers to Marion. Viola involuntarily winks, realizes she has, and hides her face. Is she for real? Whoever heard of a shy messenger? Rayray says to Lily, “Come on. Let’s go.” He stands, looking down at her. Numera, Marion and Viola stop talking and watch Lily. With sudden alert calm, Lily nods, stands, and follows him through the crowd. Messengers step aside when they see the two approaching. Do they know where Rayray is taking her? Are they stepping aside so Rayray can take her outside to kill her? Rayray asks a male, “Do you know Lily?” The male messenger says no. Rayray asks this of one messenger after another and everyone its they do not know her. So much must Lily concentrate to keep from shaking, she can hardly focus on what is happening. Rayray says, “This is Nol. Nol, tell Lily what you do.” Nol says, “I make visibles overly sensitive.” Rayray is smiling. “Tell her how you do it.”

Nol says, “Oh nothing very imaginative anymore.” He holds up a jar containing what looks like irregularly shaped glassy stones. “I just push these down their ear canals.” Rayray looks at Lily triumphantly. For a second it looks like Nol wants to kill Rayray. Rayray hastens Lily away from Nol. Rayray introduces Lily to a messenger who explains he gets into cars with visibles and makes them crash. He once or twice has boarded a plane wearing a parachute and sabotaged the controls before jumping out. When he bids them goodnight and walks away, he limps away on a lame foot. Rayray introduces Lily to a messenger inclined to throwing bits of rotten meat on visibles, to make them successful romantically. One messenger will wait for the right moment then throw sand in the eyes of a visible to temporarily foul-up their ability to make reasonable decisions. She will do this for smart people right before they propose marriage to people who will wreck their lives. Another messenger follows visibles around and as soon as they sit down, he will nail their clothing to the seat, causing indecision and lack of motivation. Rayray introduces her to an inducer of stutters, one who makes private things public, an inducer of compulsive lying, a messenger who causes visibles to cling on to anyone who will listen, a messenger who causes visibles to constantly live under an emotional cloud. Lily begins to get used to the situation she is in. Her shaking dies down but it robbed her of all her energy. The smiling and clinging done by and demanded from Lily by the messengers, make her sore and cramped from head to foot. When are the messengers going to sleep? Finally, she and Rayray return to their seats. Lily feels sick. Numera says to Lily, “Dreamers drop everything to say your name.” Lily nods refusing to even wonder what Numera could mean. If her nodding gives her away at this point, so be it. Numera asks, “Do you know how to string?”

Lily nods. Numera looks very pleased and Lily feels numb. Marion asks, “Where were you when Eroom was pushed out into traffic?” Lily may as well have been given an electric shock. The memory comes back to her of that night, the blindfolded woman gone mad, the crown wearer who tried to restrain Lily, the astonished look on his face right before a Buick ran over him with jarring thuds, after she pushed him. Lily forces herself to remain sitting. She looks over at Numera, then back at Marion. The room feels like it is buzzing. Marion seems confused. “I was only a few blocks from where it happened. I heard the first alarm.” Numera says dryly, “Lots of people say they heard the first alarm. I bet Lily won't claim to be 'a few blocks' from where it happened.” “It's not a joking matter, I mean it. It's unthinkable that a visible is running around killing messengers. I heard they think she lured him by making herself look like one of us!” “That’s ridiculous.” “He didn’t even message females. It can’t be that he was messaging her and there was an accident. He messaged older male immigrants, really, it’s true. It’s terrible. We used to have no fear. Now we all pretend we aren’t afraid for our lives all the time. You know it’s true!” “She’s right.” Marion asks, “Where were you, Lily?” Lily says, “…I was here.” The next moment feels like a long time to Lily. Viola looks intently at Lily, the first time Lily gets a good look at Viola’s face. It’s startling how big Viola’s eyes are when she lets people see them. Marion asks, “You had already left your group?” Lily hesitantly nods. Marion says, “See? I bet you never would have left if you had gotten the news.”

Numera says, “‘They’ are a bunch of idiots. Sensitives can’t see us. One may pick up some of our sounds or see a barely visible stain on the wall where we wrote a message. You make it sound like Flower Girl can interact with us. If she were that sensitive, she could kill us left and right. Do you see how you’re not making sense?” Marion says, “Even if Flower Girl got away this time, she’s still doomed. We got a good description of her.” Numera says, “So they say.” Marion shakes her head, smiling. Viola still watches Lily. Viola excuses herself. Lily listens for any word about sleep, any mention of it at all. They have to sleep sometime. That's when she must try to sneak away. Lily feels her face pulling into a ghoulish expression from all the strain. Numera says to Lily, “You don't look so hot.” Lily's insides freeze over so quickly, they almost crack. Numera says, “Do you need to go take a break somewhere?” Lily asks, “I can do that?” Numera says, “Yes?” Lily says, “Thank you. Thank you.” Messengers pause their conversations and look at Lily. Numera smiles and wrinkles her brow. Lily slowly gets to her feet and pushes her way through the crowd. Numera calls out to her, “Don't wander off too far, come back when you feel better.” Lily trains her eyes on the exit, moving her herky-jerky legs. Numera calls out again, “Wait!” Lily stops. She feels herself tipping back and forth. She turns and walks back to Numera. Numera says, “Let me tie this around your wrist so you can find us.” She pulls two roles of twine from a pocket, weighs them in her hand, chooses one and pockets the other. She finds the string’s end and ties it around Lily's wrist. Numera says, “I'm done with you.”

Lily waves weakly and walks to the exit. She walks slowly outside waiting for the string to stop her but it never does. She glances back, the string follows her loosely on the ground. From time to time Lily loses her balance. As she hurries away the string stays loose on her wrist. She has got to get away from the messengers. Now is the last chance she has. She will find an entrance to some automaton tunnels and get inside. Messengers never go in automaton tunnels and probably can’t see them. It would be like stepping through an invisible door, one only she can see. She can’t see automatons anywhere, not anywhere. One block after the next, no tracks anywhere. No stiff moving silhouettes behind windows, nothing. Waves of exhaustion through Lily. A group of messengers wave to her and call out, “Hi Lily.” She doesn’t meeting them, but meekly waves back and keeps walking. They look at her with surprise and confusion. She runs, looking, for half an hour, searching now just for a place to hide before she es out. She looks at Numera’s string tied to her wrist and trailing behind. It never stopped her. Traffic drives over it, why didn't a car catch it and rip her arm off? Nothing that could remotely serve as a good hiding place shows up. Messengers, seeming to be everywhere, watch her but do not try to approach her.

[9] Scary Night

Lily sees a visible couple ahead, walking her way. Instead of getting out of their way she continues walking and is knocked to the side, hard, by the man’s large arm. It’s true then, the visibles can’t see her. Well then, she should do exactly as Numera suggests and take a break. She wanders into a yard, dark with night. A hammock hangs between two trees. She tests it then stretches out on it. The next thing she knows, she awakes. How long was she asleep? It’s still night. She is much more alert, more clear-headed. The streets are empty, of both visibles and messengers. The string is still tied to her wrist. She must try to escape, she must! She climbs off the hammock and runs across the yard to an alley, still no sign of messengers. She does see a visible woman looking out a second-story window at the nearly silent night. She has the face of a professional woman but she seems lost in thought. Lily runs up to a drainpipe and tries to untie Numera’s string. She can tie the string to the drainpipe. The knot does not look like much but turns out to be unyielding. A sharp rock on the road catches Lily's eye. “That is not a good idea,” a male voice says. Lily spins around. A small Hispanic man not wearing any kind of uniform or crown stands a few meters behind her. She still has Numera’s string in her grip and lets it go where it remains tied around her wrist. He says to her, “Excuse me, I need your help.” Lily is stunned. He’s dressed for freezing temperatures, wearing a long coat, furlined tundra hat and boots, in the middle of summer. He holds a plug-in radio on his shoulder that emits faint voices. The electric cord dangles, nearly touching the ground, not plugged in. She says, “No… No. Please leave me alone.” The man says, “It will be okay. The others will not miss you for at least another hour. Don’t run. Please, walk with me.” Lily says, “Another hour, that’s just it. I’m expected back. They are probably already looking for me.”

He looks at her calmly. “You will not escape them tonight. You won’t find the tunnels you hid in. The last thing you want to do right now is panic.” Tears puddle in Lily’s eyes and spill over. “Who… are… you?!” He says quickly, “Walk with me and I will try to set you at ease.” Lily obliges. A polite grin never leaves his face. His hair is greasy, and he slumps. He slides his feet, not lifting them at all. He says, “My name is Sinaloa and you are Lily. Glad to make your acquaintance. I’m sorry to upset you. Don’t worry, I won’t tell them that you’re not a messenger. Pull yourself together. Do you want one of them to see you like that? I don't want to scare you, but you really must be careful. They know more than you realize. One wrong move is all it takes.” Every word he says tears down her defenses and causes her to shake. Lily says, “If they know so much, why don’t they know I’m not really one of them?” “Because they see the crown and cannot imagine that you are anything but a messenger.” Ahead, three messengers walk along. They all wave to Lily. Sinaloa says, “Don’t hesitate, wave back. Hurry, and smile.” Lily does her best to do what he says. To her surprise, Sinaloa waves too. He turns a corner and she follows. She notices a shiny new doorway on the side of a small house. She can tell it’s one of the doors messengers use. With a tremble in her voice Lily asks, “Are you a messenger?” “No. I ask for their help once in a while, that’s all.” “It's okay for me to be seen talking to you?” “They expect you to.” She wants to ask him where he’s taking her, but she’s afraid to. Sinaloa says, “It takes talent to be a messenger. Some messengers lack talent. Your best hope is to come across as one of those. It's just up ahead. Open that door.” Lily blurts out, “Where are we going? Is this a test? How much do you know about my situation?”

“We're visiting a man who needs our help. Don’t worry, I won’t harm you. Please…” She opens a grey metal door. Sinaloa enters and walks up the stairs. Lily stops before entering. Sinaloa turns around on the stairs and looks back at her, waiting patiently. With reluctance she follows him up. They climb an old stairwell. She hears noises, an argument somewhere, a stereo playing. The sun-bleached stains on the floral carpet must contribute to the decades-old musty smell. Her mind races. Can she trust this man if he is friendly with the messengers? He already knows she isn't one of them. What else does he know? He seems to know everything. She decides to take a chance, “I don't know how long I can go on with the messengers.” “You don't have much of a choice.” “If you know so much, can’t you help me?” “I am helping you with my words. Everything you see around you, I can’t touch. That’s why I need your help.” “What will happen to me if I help you?” “Nothing, nothing different than if you don't help me. I know your situation frightens you. Continue to let them mistake you as one of them. Wait until you see an escape.” Lily says, “If I happened to be a real messenger, would you have asked for my help?” Sinaloa says, “Yes, of course. Please open that door.” They walk down a hall with the same carpet and smell. Poor lighting makes everything look yellow. Why won’t this little man help her? She tries again, “In exchange for my helping you, could you point me in the direction of an escape?” “It isn’t like that.” “What if I don’t help you?”

“I’ll find another messenger who will.” “So your speaking to me is chance.” “Yes.” An apartment door stands open and a strange smell wafts out of it. Sinaloa steps through the door. His unplugged radio must have just gotten a clearer signal because the voice speaking Spanish over it jumps in volume. He stands just inside, looking back at Lily. She peeks in. The furnishings are all busted up and in a pile in the middle of the floor. Even the framed pictures have been broken and thrown on the pile. The walls are completely bare, and the floor is clear except for the pile. Lily asks, “What is that smell?” Sinaloa asks, “It bothers you?” “I don't know. I've never smelled anything like it.” Sinaloa points. “There is who we are here for.” He stays near the door. Lily walks around the pile. She hears a dry gasp. A blue and bloated Black man, covered by a layer of dust, crouches against a wall. He quivers minutely, posture locked and eyes nearly shut. Every minute or so he convulsively gasps for a breath of air. Sinaloa says, “Look for something attached to him and remove it, please, if you could do that.” “Is he contagious?” “Even if he were, how could you catch anything when you wear that crown?” She steps closer to the man, looking him over, searching. Sinaloa calls to her, “It might be something he is holding or something around his neck.” She sees a small book in his fist. “He’s holding a book.” Sinaloa says, “Yes. Take it, go ahead.” Lily tries to pry it loose. “I can’t, it’s… It’s stuck.” “Break his fingers if you have to.”

She shakes her head in disbelief. The man’s hands are slippery. She pulls up his elbows to loosen his grip and works the book back and forth like a loose tooth until it comes free and she’s got it. She jumps back when the eyes of the crouching man pop open and stare at her. He lets out one giant breath. His chest caves in drastically. She steps back, holding the small book to her chest. The lights go out of his eyes. Sinaloa speaks quickly, “When you are near the ocean, tie the book to a large stone and throw it in when you are at least a kilometer out from shore. Before that time, keep the book hidden on your person and don’t open it.” Confusion causes Lily to look back and forth in a panic, “Is he dead?” Thumping, tapping sounds come from a window as birds fly into it and try to get in. Sinaloa says, “Open the window!” “Can't you?” “No, I can’t. Hurry!” She does as he says and runs back from the window when the birds fly in, some hitting her with surprising force. The air currents they create pull up swirling plumes of dust. The birds go right for the body and peck away at it. The fresh night air noticeably improves the air inside. Lily bursts into tears.“I don't understand. What did you make me do? You’re as bad as the messengers.” Sinaloa says, “You should be happy. You just did some good.” He watches her cry bitterly. He says, “Time to go.” She quells her tears. She stuffs the book in her pants pocket and dries her face on her shirt. Back on the street Sinaloa says, “Well, thank you. I hope things go well for you. Goodbye, then.” He turns to leave. “Wait, can't I go with you?” “Sorry, no. It would be the same as you running away. Go back now. They wait for you.” Lily whispers vehemently, “If you don’t want to hurt me, can’t you help me? They are bound to find out, if not today, then tomorrow!”

“Please try to calm yourself. You don’t want to draw attention. There isn’t much I can do. I tried to give you helpful advice. I'm sorry. I must go. Thank you for your help.” He nods solemnly to her and walks away. She has the feeling he does not expect her to live for much longer. She looks around. Two messengers walking on the other side of the street watch Lily, waving slowly. Lily waves back and does her best to smile. She looks down at the string tied to her wrist. She does believe the things Sinaloa said. She should not try to free herself of the string, and as long as it’s tied to her, Numera has her on a leash. Sinaloa is gone. Lily follows the string. Finding the meeting hall was easier than she thought it would be. Of course, all she had to do was follow the string. The hall is still crowded and clamorous. Her captors smile when they see her. Lily walks toward Numera, who holds the other end of the string, nodding slowly. As Lily nears them, a dreadful calm comes over her. She wonders if Numera will untie the string. Numera asks, “Feeling better?” Lily says, “Much better. Thank you.” At some point messengers collect bedrolls and make room for them on the floor. It takes another twenty minutes before Lily can go with her group to get a bedroll. The lights shut off before they all find places to lay down mats. Lily never really falls asleep. Late in the night or early in the morning she feels her hair and finds buds of new flowers only the size of peas. Quietly she pulls them out and stuffs them in a pocket. When the lights come on, everyone gets up. They eat breakfast and some wait in lines to receive project packets. Though she does not want to, she stands in line with the rest. What will happen at the desk? What is she expected to do up there? As she nears the desk, she hears the personnel behind the tables ask, “Your expertise?” The answers all sound advanced and in the know. One messenger responds, “Continuity Diluter”. Another says, “Excel Deflector”. Numera pushes on Lily’s back. Does Numera do it out of impatience or to push Lily to madness? She is finally at the desk. A man wearing armbands does not look up, “Expertise?” Lily says, “I, I…”

He hands her a stuffed packet. “General projects.” Numera, Marion, Rayray, Viola and Lily step out onto the street. The ground is warm with sunlight. They walk down Theater Street, an area of town dominated by the young. Lily knows about this neighborhood. It hosts little theaters; for five dollars you can visit any or all of the theaters. Many walk from one to the next. A large percentage of regular theater patrons are also performers. Theater Street has parking-lot bars that you can walk through. In the morning, which it is now, all the venues are closed. The street is littered with flyers from shows that took place last night, and street cleaners bring out fire hoses to spray-clean the street. A visible walks around followed by a messenger who dances. The visible goes from one visible to the next, trying to find someone who will take her seriously. Everyone she talks to breaks into laughter like she's making jokes. The woman says, “I can’t find my dog. Have you seen a little dog running around here?” A group looks at her and laughs, “Hah! That’s so funny! You’re hilarious!” As Lily walks with the others, she sees a messenger stitching a visible's eyes open. Abruptly Rayray says to Lily, “Why don't you come along with me?” Lily looks at the others who say nothing. Lily says, “Okay.” Everyone slows to a stop. Numera watches a visible walk down the street and Viola and Marion look at the ground. Rayray says, “Well, let’s go.” Lily looks back as she and Rayray walk away. The girls look at Lily with looks that could be ominous. Lily has to walk at a quick pace to keep up. For many hours he walks and she follows. They walk on cracked roads through a neighborhood of row houses, past a car on blocks. She furtively glances at Rayray. Did she do something to make him angry? Lily becomes increasingly afraid to look at him again. His agitated state drives up her nervousness. Oh god, what if it's his job to do away with her because they found out? If only he’d act the way he did yesterday. If only he would smile a little. If she says something funny, that will snap him out of it. No, she can’t think of anything, and even if she thought it was funny, he probably wouldn’t. Lily says, “Oh, look how that woman is getting her children to help her move their carpet out of the house.”

He doesn’t seem to hear her. His face is set in a grimace. She sees a group of three messengers walk ahead. Maybe Rayray will relax when he talks to them. But to Lily's surprise the three messengers change direction and fall away before she and Rayray can reach them. They seem to be avoiding Rayray and her. Rayray finally speaks, “My friend we are going to, he's one of the best. Everyone around town knows it.” The amount of relief Lily feels astonishes her. He still seems angry but at least he makes an effort. They walk for several more blocks onto empty streets. The houses look deserted. Rayray turns up a walkway. “This is it.” Without knocking, Rayray opens the front door to a house and they walk into a living room. Rayray shouts, “Whatnot?” A possibly malnourished White messenger, trying to balance a brick on a plump White visible woman's head, turns and says, “Oh hi. Hold on.” The messenger wears a crown but not the uniform, collar shirt and slacks. Instead, he wears a T-shirt with cut-off sleeves, even though his arms are scrawny, and a pair of tough guy jeans. Stringy hair falls over his eyes. The bags under his eyes are too large for someone his age. He has the look on his face of someone who never questions his own train of thought, blissful in a dull sort of way. When the brick is balanced, he shouts in the woman’s ear, “The minute you let this brick off your head, you die! Now get back to what you were doing!” The woman stands, very much in the act of balancing the brick on her head, but doing it without knowing she does it. With weight bags tied onto her shoulders and arms, she walks upright into the dining room. Opening the glass doors of a fine-dishes display cabinet, she wipes down the plates reserved for special occasions. She wipes the tops of picture frames and porcelain figurines on the mantle. Whatnot leads Rayray and Lily into the kitchen. He brings Lily a chair then he and Rayray stand talking while Lily sits. Rayray says, “Do you Tobin?” Whatnot says, “Oh my god, I do. Have you seen him at all? Oh my god. I haven't thought of him in so long! Wasn’t he one of those sent to Washington?”

Rayray says, “Yes! Oh my god.” Lily wonders why they are having her sit in this chair. They both act like they want to look at her but refuse to look at her. Whatnot says, “Haha! How about Squi?” Rayray says, “I knew you would bring him up.” “Do you ever see him?” “I see him around all the time.” “Does he still do that thing?” “I don’t see how he can anymore.” The minutes crawl by. The visible woman walks into the kitchen, all the time balancing the brick on her head. Whatnot and Rayray dig themselves deeper into their reunion. Rayray says, “Her mother was happier about her getting alimony than she was.” Whatnot says, “I believe it.” Rayray says, “The mother would brag about it to her friends.” Whatnot and Rayray start whispering and go into the other room leaving Lily. The woman chops vegetables. Lily tries to hear what Rayray and Whatnot say but the woman’s happy humming makes it difficult to hear. The front door creaks open and a man’s voice calls out, “Hi honey, we're home.” The woman answers, “I'm in the kitchen.” The shifting of the brick on her head when she speaks, makes Lily feel on-edge. A middle-aged White man’s face shows itself in the kitchen door. He smiles at the woman. A boy and girl run in and raid the pantry while the parents talk. The husband and kids go to the living room. Lily hears the sounds from the TV penetrate the walls. The father tells the children to “knock it off.” Rayray and Whatnot laugh in the dining room. Rayray's happy voice is like a

taunt. It bothers Lily. Rayray laughs too loud and Lily feels it's somehow directed at her. The woman stops humming and Lily can make out what Rayray and Whatnot say. Rayray asks, “How long have you been here?” “I guess around eight years now. Did you ever hear about the Ramsey Family? The wife was having an affair and she thought the two daughters knew. She's gone now. The father is some of the best work I've done. When he's home he's drunk most of the time. The youngest ran away and last year the oldest moved out.” “You always finish the job.” “Look at this. Do you know where I got it? There's a dried-up creek behind the houses. I went down there and picked it out. Look at it. Not just flat but curved in.” “Yeah!” “Where did you get that knife? Let me have it. I have to stay here year in and year out. Look, I'll trade. I'll teach you how to make a disaster-after-ten-years delay. It handles moves and other unforeseen events.” “That’s an art.” Whatnot says, “I know it's an art. Thanks. What's this around the outside?” “Put your fingers under it, it keeps it from slipping out of your hands.” “Wow. I wish you were here last winter. Word got out about my shoe traps. Everyone was talking about them all winter.” “I think I heard about that.” Whatnot says, “That was me.” They walk back into the kitchen. Whatnot asks Lily, “Want to try on clothes? The older daughter has a lot of clothes.” Rayray appears to go through a series of strong emotions, confusion being one of them. Lily shakes her head and looks down. As Whatnot and Rayray talk,

Whatnot looks at Lily more and more often though Rayray won't look at her at all. Whatnot says, “Come on, I want to show you both something.” He leads them up narrow carpeted stairs. “The oldest has been sleepwalking almost every night, even going outside.” Rayray asks, “Is there something you can do about it?” “I just let her go. Don't try to lock them inside. I tried that just to see what she would do because she's small. Oh! She could have torn the whole house down.” “Wouldn’t that make her…” Whatnot cuts him off, “No, no, no, don’t worry about it. It’s all part of the plan.” They look into a small room. A girl around sixteen lies with her eyes closed on a bed, attached to medical equipment by tubes running through her nose and into her arm. Whatnot says, “she's the reason I'm here day and night.” He walks into the room, takes out a bottle and says, “I make these myself. I don’t need to get supplies. These are from a recipe a distributor gave me.” Rayray says, “A true master at work.” Whatnot pushes a tiny object between the girl’s lips and holds her mouth closed. “Look how her hair is falling out, here's a clump.” The girl’s eyes remain closed the whole time. Dry snot is crusted around her nostrils. Whatnot knocks her head with his knuckles saying, “Knock, knock, knock. Better stop your sleepwalking or your kid sister gets it.” “And it works to talk to them?” “Dude! I just talk to them to get psyched for the job!” He says, shaking his head. Lily follows Rayray and Whatnot downstairs. The father and two kids watch a sitcom. The messengers and Lily sit on folding chairs near the dinner table. Whatnot asks Rayray, “Did you do like I told you?” Rayray says, “You mean dip needles in glue?”

“Yeah.” “I did.” “Well?” “It worked.” “That's right it did. No one else is doing that.” Lily can feel Whatnot looking at her. The mother places food on the table, unknowingly exerting a great amount of energy to keep the brick balanced on her head. Whatnot puts gloves on as he goes into the kitchen. He returns with plates. Rayray puts his gloves on. They each load a plate with food. Rayray asks Lily without looking at her, “Don’t you have gloves?” Whatnot removes one glove and hands it to her. “Here, use one of mine.” Lily puts the one dingy glove on and uses it to get some food for herself. She has seen enough of the messengers to at least understand the use of gloves. She feels bad for stealing the family’s food. The condition of the household reminds her so much of the apartments she grew up in. The son sits down at the table and starts eating. The father and daughter him. The setting sun slowly reduces the light from the windows. Whatnot leaves the room and returns with two planks of wood that he ties to the father’s arms. Then Whatnot sits again at the table. The father starts to talk happily about his day. “We had to finish a job by noon so I told him, ‘Leo, you already started a fire in the office on Monday and backed the truck into the garbage bin last week, couldn't you try to make up for it today?’” The daughter asks, “Why don't you fire him?” The father says, “It's not my place to fire him. So he said, ‘but I don't like this job and I don't care if I lose it.’” The daughter says, “Why don't you have him fired?” The mother says, “Honey, let your father finish.”

The father says, “So the rest of us finished the job before lunch and Leo just sulked around and threw a perfectly good roll of tape into the garbage!” As the father laughs, he swings his arms out, striking the mother with one of the boards, nearly knocking the brick off her head. She immediately corrects the balance of the brick and laughs at her husband’s story, though she is sure to have a black eye. The father says, “I told him to take the tape out of the trash and he tossed my cap in the trash, ha-ha!” The father unknowingly strikes his daughter while gesturing, knocking her backward, none of them aware. The daughter quickly returns to the chair and acts unphased. Lily should be used to messenger scenes like this by now. If they don’t know it’s happening to them, how can it be torture? But the girl upstairs feels it when she can’t leave her bed and is hooked up to machines. They do feel it eventually. After dinner the son goes to his room. Father, mother and daughter plant themselves in front of the TV. Lily looks fearfully through a part in the livingroom curtains. Whatnot talks quietly to Rayray, “I don't get it. Is she bored or does she think she’s better than us?” Lily turns when Whatnot gets up and says, “Hey, watch this!” He calls to the youngest daughter in a sing-song voice, “Kathy, come out.” Lily feels her stomach drop when she sees him take a piece of wire from his pocket and walk toward her. Whatnot says, “Come on, let’s make your heart work.” He wraps the wire around the girl’s neck. Rayray sees Lily is not impressed. Rayray walks over to the father. Looking at Lily, he takes out a long metal pointer and carefully pushes it into the father's ear. Whatnot looks annoyed. Rayray holds the pick out to Lily and asks, “Want to have a go at it?” With a shaking voice Lily asks, “Why him?” Her expression has turned sour, so unbelievably bitter sour. Rayray is visibly hurt. “What?” She does not try to hide the fact that her hands are trembling. “Why him?”

Rayray says, “I've got better ones. I'm just helping out Whatnot.” Lily clutches her arms. “I can't!” Running out of the house she knows she needs to turn back, but she can't make herself. She was always the best runner, but now she can’t stop. She left the front door open. This is a suicidal mistake. Just outside the door, Rayray stands watching her go. As she runs, she nears two messengers wrapping a visible in strips of cloth. The messengers wave to her, then look shocked when they see her expression. She runs past without waving. Her feet hit hard against the pavement. She pulls off the disgusting glove and throws it with all her might. After turning down an alley with a strip of tall grass growing right down the middle, she slows to a walk and starts to cry. She kneels on a patch of grass and leans against the wall of a garage. After a while the horror of the house she ran from is being replaced by the fear of what will happen to her. She can’t run. But she has to run. Does she wait here, do nothing? A messenger stands at the end of the alley, watching her. Before it was two messengers standing at a distance, and before that, one messenger at one end of the alley and another messenger at the other end. When the messenger wanders off, Lily tries to remove her crown, but it won’t come off. She tries to untie the string. It tugs on her arm. Someone is tugging on it. In the dark at the other end of the block, four figures stand. She tells herself that she must do this. She stands and walks toward the four figures. As their faces become clearer, she is struck by a wall of fear. Rayray is with them. They all glare at Lily. Lily forces herself to continue to walk toward them. Rayray stomps off like a kid having a tantrum. The others look at Lily with long faces. When Lily is only a few steps from them, Numera lets out a great laugh and says in a congratulatory tone, “So you’ll be switching partners, I see.” The three female messengers gather around Lily. Shy Viola holds back. Marion says, “She can come with me.” Numera says, “No, she’ll come with me. So… Are you a heart breaker, Lily?” Lily says, “What?”

The others are laughing.

[10] Hated by the Leader

The next day Numera and Lily walk. Lily does what she can to pick up the pieces of her mental stability and prepare herself for the day ahead. She will probably have to watch Numera torture visibles. Numera will probably expect Lily to help torture them. Lily would like to help the visibles, but she isn’t sure she can even keep herself alive. A group of messengers runs past, wearing masks. They enter an apartment building carrying hanging pots that spill smoke. To smoke out the visibles inside the building, Lily supposes. Numera says, “There it is.” Lily follows Numera to one of those corporate industrial doorways she was never able to see before putting on the crown. Inside, clocks for every time zone line the walls, Paris, NY, Hong Kong… Numera says, “Look, Moscow’s clock is a minute behind all the others.” Before Lily can figure out how she should respond, Numera is striding away and Lily must hurry to catch up. Lily follows Numera down a clean and shiny hallway lined with elevators. ing those, they climb down a steep flight of metal steps, then walk down a tunnel. They cut through a giant warehouse space. The floor is populated by metal busts. Three workers step heavily as they carry a device whose upper half is a lifelike bust of Margret Thatcher and the lower half is a metal box with lights and switches. Cables hang from the bottom. All three workers wear dark-orange blindfolds. One worker says, “Are you sure he needs more Margret Thatcher?” A second worker says, “I’m sure. He’s about to arrive at his girlfriend’s.” The workers attach the cables and drop the device into a larger cabinet. The device shakes and lights flash. Lily sees that a device with a Benny Hill bust is shaking the same way, the lips move noiselessly and one eye wanders all around.

Lily and Numera a sectioned off area where thousands upon thousands of thick ropes hang. A worker who is chained to the floor flips through a tattered manual. She frantically reads the tags tied to the ropes, trying to find the right rope to pull. ing through one giant room to the next, they walk through a room where workers sit chained to stations. The workers watch individual monitors and describe what they see, into phone receivers. A worker says, “The new employee knocks on his coworker's apartment door, 215. A roommate with disheveled hair answers the door, wrapped in a bath towel. She is telling him his coworker isn’t home but she will be home soon. The roommate asks the new employee if he would like to come in and wait. He enters. The roommate shows him the couch. He sits. She sits next to him and says he looks tired and he can shut his eyes if he likes.” A second worker says, “She is putting her luggage in the motel room. She steps out of the motel room. She is walking across the highway to the bar and dance hall. She is crossing the parking lot. She steps inside. It’s dark. She walks up to the counter. There are only a barmaid and a man at the end of the counter watching TV. She is talking with the barmaid, ordering a drink. She explains to the barmaid that she is convinced her father faked his death and she is trying to find him.” The only light comes from the TV screens. Pipes built into the seats make Lily suspect the workers do not leave their seats to go to the bathroom. Besides talking over the receivers, the workers also push buttons. Numera stops behind one worker and says, “I like this one.” Lily stands beside her. The monitor shows what an individual would see walking around at a party. Twenty buttons between the worker and the screen have labels like “Shame,” “Trust,” “Distrust,” “Impatience,” “Fake Care,” “Inferior,” “Superior,” and “Turn-on.” A White woman wearing a blouse comes into view on the screen and the worker at the station pushes the button labeled “Inferior.” When a White man in a suit comes into view, the worker pushes the “Turn-on” button. A Black man wearing a tie comes into view and the worker starts pushing many of the buttons, even the ones that contradict each other, all at once. Lily follows Numera down stairs and more stairs. The lower they go the less it is

like they are inside a building and the more it is like they are inside a giant machine. Numera looks Lily over and says, “You’ve never been this far down before, have you.” Lily says truthfully, “No.” “Stick close, we are going through a personality reconstruction sector.” They walk through a room where a girl’s personality is being torn apart, Numera explains. When it is done, the girl still lives but in parts. Some of her parts are quickly worked into personalities in the making. The parts live on in the bodies of strangers and the parts know it. The girl never died, not one bit of her. To Lily it looks like gruesome dismemberment without any blood. Supervisors walking on catwalks look down on the procedure. Cables, hanging from above and attached to the supervisor’s backs, limit how far they can walk. Lily knew she would be in a situation like this. She makes herself look at the pieces of the girl, still moving, being sectioned off and placed in boxes. Numera must expect Lily to be mildly amused. Lily tries to focus on acting that way so she can block out her real reaction. “When workers on the floor tear and recombine personalities, there are pieces left over,” Numera says. “Workers can take a piece and turn it into a mechanical device. They can turn it into a watch or a camera. Many left-over parts are turned into goods and sold. That’s why the supervisors are watching over everything, to stop that from happening. It’s a waste really, turning personality into a stupid watch that will probably take issue with telling time.” Numera nods to one of the supervisors looking down at them. She then points toward an exit. “Here it is, down here.” They walk between large containers and approach a guard standing in front of a barred gate. Numera takes a key on a string from around her neck and, ignoring the guard, opens the gate. They walk through a concrete pipe. It leads to a nice clean lobby with a pond in the middle and an ornate set of gold elevator doors on the left. Lily follows Numera to the carved wood door on the opposite wall. Numera knocks and the door smoothly opens. They enter an expansive room. Behind a giant desk, a small Asian woman looks up. “Hello Numera.” Numera says, “Ms. Honjo.”

Ms. Honjo has one hand hidden under a piece of cloth. She asks, “Any news?” She and Numera talk. Lily can’t help but notice on two walls opposite each other, rows and rows of monitors show individuals each sitting in front of a computer. Ms. Colins calls over to Lily, “Go ahead, have a closer look.” Lily approaches the bank of screens. Each screen shows what Lily first thinks is a person watching a computer screen. She soon realizes that a gamer on every screen plays a very realistic game. Multiple choices appear on their computer screens and they are able to have some say in what happens with what looks like the first-person characters they see the world through. Lily cannot know this, but Dimitri is one of the people she sees playing the game. Lily jumps when Numera touches her arm. “Come on, let’s go.” Ms. Colins nods slightly to Lily. Numera holds a bag containing rolls of twine. With no expression, Ms. Colins watches Lily. What if Ms. Colins is like Sinaloa? What if Ms. Colins knows exactly what Lily is? Back above ground, Lily blinks in the daylight. Numera looks through profile cards. “Okay, we are looking for a White woman around forty, wearing blue. We also need a Black woman who's walking a dog. I see the first one.” Numera bounds away in graceful leaps. Lily runs after her. Numera runs up to a woman who wears a blue sleeveless shirt and matching pants. Without interrupting the movement of the woman walking, Numera ties a string around the woman’s neck and steps away. Holding the string, Numera lets the woman continue walking. Already Lily can tell the string affects the woman. She slows in front of a travel agency and seems drawn into it. Numera says, “I tied a string to her sister last year. The sister quit her job and moved in with a man who was not at all her type. They have a child now. Now let’s find the second woman.” They hike across town. Lily never appreciated how much walking messengers do until now. Outside a subway entrance, as soon as the woman with the dog emerges, Numera runs past her. Numera stops and spins around, holding a roll of string. The other end of the string is tied to the woman’s neck. This woman already has four other strings tied to her. She acts much more affected. She wavers and hesitates.

With so many people walking around, no one trips on any of the strings. The strings are always long enough to let those tied by them walk freely but the strings never gather too much slack. The strings never get caught on anything. As fascinated by the strings as Lily is, she tries not to pay too much attention to them. Numera runs back to Lily and they both stand there watching the string gently tug at the woman as she walks away. Numera says, “Let’s see if it works.” She watches the woman like a hawk. “There, it worked!” Numera laughs with satisfaction. Lily can’t tell if it worked. Numera ties a string to a Black man who digs in a garbage can. She ties the other end to a plastic toy that lies in the gutter. The man has hundreds of strings coming off him, most of them tied to objects piled high in a rusted grocery cart. The man looks up from the garbage, walks to the plastic toy, and walks over to place it on top of everything else in the cart. At least his strings don’t stretch for kilometers. When a man stops at a light, Numera ties a string around his neck before he drives away. She is fast. Lily claps as the car drives off. Numera grins and says, “Your turn.” Lily tries to hide the sudden look of horror that wants to come over her face. They stand in front of a mother and son who sit on some steps. Lily takes the string like she has no clue what to do with it. She tries to get the string around the son’s arm but he unknowingly knocks her away. Numera, looking a little disgusted, says, “On his neck.” Lily ties it around his neck, afraid to hurt him. It seems to take several minutes for her to tie the knot. She stands back and turns to Numera. “I did it?” Numera walks up to the boy. “No. No. It’s not working.” Lily says, “Maybe…” “I haven’t had a miss in seven years. That was an easy one.” Numera grabs the string on the boy's neck. In one motion she takes out and opens a knife with a hooked blade. She cuts the string and throws the piece with

a knot and three ends, on the ground. Lily half expects it to slither off but it just lies there like an ordinary piece of string. In a foul mood, Numera won’t talk. Lily is scared again as she follows after Numera. They walk into a dance hall. Numera goes behind the counter and helps herself to sandwiches and noodle salad. She glares at Lily who reluctantly takes a sandwich triangle on a napkin. Lily stands on the edge of the dance floor not sure what to do. Numera walks around. She pushes one person into another and pulls some couples apart. She pushes one man up the steps and out the door. Lily stands in one spot the entire time. For the next hour Numera focuses her efforts on one man who wears an ironed shirt. He brings a woman a drink and Numera trips him. He reaches to tap the woman on her shoulder but Numera moves his hand, so he taps her on the side of the head. The man tries to talk to the woman and Numera tips his drink, so he spills it on her. Numera does not let up until the woman makes a hasty departure and the man sits getting drunk in the corner. Many times, Numera glares at Lily. She bumps into Lily and asks, “You’re not going to help me out here at all?!” Lily knows her expression is not helping her right now. She tries to relax her face, to at least achieve a placid expression. Her face muscles are tired but still the muscles around her mouth start to constrict and she feels her lips rising in a sneer and the corners of her mouth being pulled down in a scowl. She feels the corners of her eyes drooping. Should she go to the restroom or not? Will it worsen her already perilous situation? In the restroom, Lily hurries to pull out the tiny buds of new flowers sprouting in her hair. Her hair feels greasy. This is what people who will be killed feel like. There is a loud banging on the bathroom door and Numera yells through it, “Come on, we’re going.” Back outside, Lily tries to keep up with Numera. It's all she can do to keep from losing Numera. From time to time Messengers stop and talk with Numera and Lily. The messengers can tell something is wrong and look at Lily with worried faces. Numera stands behind a Black man who has at least twenty strings tied around his neck. Some look like they have been there a long time, perhaps for a lifetime.

The man wears clothes from other parts of the world. Does he have a country he can call his home? Where did those strings take him? Do some of the strings stretch across the ocean? The old ones must have been tied to him in his childhood, they look that old. Numera examines the strings closely, holding the hooked knife with a white handle. She examines the strings individually and carefully like they are wires of a bomb, she wants to disarm. Lily says, “I’m feeling…” Numera interrupts, “Are you trying to ruin this? Just be quiet, can you do that?” By the time they walk back to the meeting hall, Lily looks like a ghost of her previous self. Somehow this just makes Numera angrier. When lights are out and everyone lies on a bedroll, Lily looks up into the dark for a long time, wondering if this night is her last. In the morning Lily can’t find Numera, Marion, Rayray or Viola. She looks all around the facility. Messengers return from showers, gather their belongings, and leave the hall. A boy in a grey uniform places items on a table and messengers wait in line to pick out what they need. Lily walks by the table then gets in line. As she waits, she notices a young Hispanic girl in a uniform: black shirt and pants and a short blue cape. She weaves in and out of the crowd, frantically jumping out of everyone’s way. She does not want to touch any of the messengers at all. Lily can tell right away that the messengers can’t see the caped girl. It gives Lily a weird feeling, knowing she can see someone even the messengers can’t see. Lily reaches the front of the line. She looks over all the items spread out on the table. She picks up a pair of gloves and a white-handled knife. The hooked blade folds into the handle. The caped girl is gone. What kind of work does she do? Lily steps outside and sees Numera standing with a larger group of messengers, about twenty messengers all standing together looking at her. Lily has never seen most of these messengers. Marion and Rayray are also there. Numera walks up to Lily. “You said you knew how to string.” Lily stammers, “I, I…”

Numera says, “Where do you even come from? Does anyone here know you?” Everyone watches Lily. Shy Viola steps up to Lily’s side. “We have a train to catch.” The others look at each other. Numera stares Lily down. Viola steps between Lily and Numera so it seems more like the three standing together rather than Numera facing off Lily. Everyone heads for the train. Viola walks close to Lily. Numera and Rayray talk together. Lily feels she needs to know what they are saying but does not want to know. Viola says, “There was a sensitive spotted in Darby. That’s where we’re going.” The twenty or so messengers go underground and board a train that only uniformed personnel take. The train is impossibly clean inside and out. Viola and Lily sit a few seats away from the others. Lily would have thought it would be a better idea to sit with the others, but Viola chose the seats. The walls of a shiny new subway tunnel flash by the windows. Something nudges Lily’s mind and she can’t place it. Then she realizes, the train does not smell of cleaning solution. It has no smell at all. Soon, though, the smells of the messengers fill the enclosure. After a while a slumping boy messenger stands over Viola, “Hey Viola, can I talk to you?” Viola says, “Later, later.” He stands over Viola, looking down at her for a minute before walking away. Viola speaks from deep introspection, “Lily, would you like to get some air?” Out on the gangway between cars Lily does not know what to say. Viola also seems unable to come up with anything. A thick-armed boy messenger comes out on the gangway and says, “Hi Viola, can I see you for a while?” Viola says, “Um, okay. Lily, I’ll be back.” Lily stays outside feeling, abandoned. What if Viola doesn’t come back? Lily feels like an outcast from the others. She hates the idea of trying to make herself part of the group but she can’t just go her own way either. She leans out a little so she can look ahead at where the train is going. Another

train is about to , headed in the opposite direction. She could jump and just end it here. Before she decides not to, the train es, pushing wind that whips her hair. As she watches the other train disappear down the track, she is sure she could never end her life. All morning she has been trying to catch her breath but is never fully able to. After half an hour the train reaches a station and comes to a stop. She sees Numera, Marion and the larger group step out on the platform and wait in a tight group. Lily climbs down off the gangway. She walks up to the group and stands with them, but no one acknowledges her. Numera walks over to the opposite side of the group, not just ignoring Lily but positively avoiding her. Everyone talks to each other except Lily. She looks at the messenger shoes they gave her. They are top quality, probably the highest quality shoes Lily has ever worn. She looks up and realizes the group has edged away from her. She sidesteps closer to them. They are trying to make her run! They want her to make a break from them. Then they can hunt her down. Viola steps off the train with a different boy messenger, not the boys who spoke to her on the train. The two walk toward Lily. Viola takes Lily’s arm and says, “Come on. Let’s go.” Lily looks at Viola like, “Who are you?” as they walk to the exit. Viola and Lily walk in front. The male messenger follows behind. Lily looks back at the main group. All their faces are turned away. The male following behind Lily and Viola looks a few years younger than Viola. Viola thinly masks a delighted smile. Lily tries to relax but her insides buzz with frightened energy. Viola talks in hushed tones no matter where she is. She could be on a loud street corner and still lower her head and whisper. With a quivering voice, Viola asks Lily, “Are you having a good day so far?” Lily says, “Yes.” With a tone like she is confessing a great secret Viola says, “Me too.” Viola turns to the male. “Lily and I want to search on our own. I’ll catch up with you later.” He asks, “Are you sure?”

Viola says, “I'm sure.” It’s strange how she does not act shy toward him. He shrugs and marches off. Viola notices Lily shaking. “Are you hungry? I love donuts, don't you?” Lily nods. Viola bumps into a newsstand and says, “Oh excuse me newsstand.” Lily can’t tell if Viola is joking or not. After eating donuts, Viola and Lily walk through apartments. They search for a sensitive woman who was found making maps showing the times and places where messengers worked on her. The messengers think she picked up some of the noises messengers make. The two walk throughout the building, apartment after apartment, floor after floor. Viola says, “I’m not used to having a partner, I mean like a legitimate partner.” In one apartment, Viola puts marbles in a bed and says, “My recipe for insomnia.” In another apartment she turns the stove on. In a third she turns on lights and lets the cat out into the hall. By now this seems like nothing to Lily compared to the other things she has seen messengers do. Lily partners with Viola the next day. Viola and Lily step out from a messenger facility with a bag of secrets, each secret written on a plastic plaque. They walk around so Viola can hang secrets on people. Lily carries the bag that is full at first, not easy to carry. A visible girl befriends people and invites herself to live with them for a few days. Viola finds her and hangs a secret on her. The secret says, “I steal from those close to me.” Viola and Lily walk into a store named Mind Games. Viola hangs a secret on the owner, it says, “Doctor says I have pancreatic cancer.” On the rooftop patio of a restaurant, Viola approaches a man sitting under an umbrella who wears impeccable clothes and has spent the last ten minutes picking lint off of them. Viola hangs many secrets on him, easily half the remaining secrets. They say things like, “I throw poop in the neighbor’s yard,” “I plot to get coworkers fired,” “I threaten my mother when we are alone,” and “I

always walk by the bathroom when my coworker goes.” Lily notices he conspicuously wears a gold cross which is certainly one way to keep up appearances. As far as Lily can tell, the visibles act more fidgety after Viola hangs secrets, but Lily may be imagining that. In a bookstore café, a Native woman is selling penny candy to kids. Viola and Lily stand beside her. Viola says, “Lily, you try it.” Lily stops herself from shaking her head. Will Viola hate Lily if she can't do it? Lily takes the plaque and tries to mimic Viola. Lily slides the hook into the sleeve of the woman’s jacket. Viola slowly says, “On her front.” Lily moves it to the woman’s front and sinks the hook. She brings her hands back. The plaque reads, “I take money from the tip jar.” Lily does not want to look at Viola. Viola hesitates for a long time. Is she angry? Is she pleased? Lily can’t tell. Finally, Viola removes the plaque and rehangs it. They leave the store and walk for a while before Viola says, “I think you’ll get it, with practice.” Lily can tell Viola does not want to hurt Lily’s feelings which makes Lily want to burst out laughing and say, “You really think I want to be good at what you do?!”

[11] Deadly Funeral

At night Lily and Viola are in a townhouse crowded with visibles, a Black family and all their friends. The extended family is there. A father has ed away. He lies in a coffin resting on the dining room table. People come to pay their respects, each briefly looking at him in his coffin. Lily has never seen someone in a coffin like this, in the middle of a crowded living room, and is not sure how to feel about it. She waits for Viola to do something, but Viola just sits, watching and then not watching. A baby is being ed from person to person, each person does not want to take the baby and es it to the next. Lily loses track of how many times the baby circles the room. A couple of hours later most everyone has left. Lily yawns then stops herself. She glances at Viola. Viola is looking out the window. Lily wishes she could just ask Viola what this is all about. At least Viola is not the vicious kind of messenger, not yet. Lily hopes Viola doesn’t do anything vicious. Most messengers are terrible. With no apparent cue, Viola stands and walks around the room sticking what look like little beetles in all the ears of those remaining. Each visible perks up when she does this. Viola says, “They will see but they won’t .” She looks closely at the man whose ear she is sticking one of the objects into. “This little guy will crawl out the next time he sleeps. Something about sleep repels them.” Lily returns Viola’s smile having no clue what Viola means. More people bid solemn farewells. The core family eats a late snack around the small kitchen table. Everyone else has gone. Lily slumps in her chair from lack of sleep. Viola gets up and goes into the dining room. Lily wants to go in and see what Viola is doing but is not sure she should. She is startled when a sound, like something heavy falling on the floor, comes from the dining room. The deceased father slowly enters the kitchen. He does not look around, he acts like he's blind but knows exactly where to walk. The family looks up. The Mother says, “Deion,

get up and let your father have a place to sit.” The son knocks his chair over, getting up. The father steps forward and the son helps him to sit. A messenger’s plaque hangs off the father, an old one that has taken a lot of wear and tear over the years. It may even be made of wood and not plastic. Lily can’t make out the secret written on it. Everyone living waits. The deceased father says, “I left the car parked in the back parking lot of Sunny's Diner off Highway 8.” Family say, “Yes, dear.” “Yes, father.” The father sits perfectly still for another ten minutes. They all sit still. The Father says, “I owe Dwight Watson $115. He would probably appreciate getting it.” Family say, “Yes, dear.” “Yes, father.” They all watch as he looks ahead at nothing. No one speaks. The father says, “There is a box of dynamite in the cellar. Call Jeromy and have him come by and take it, the sooner the better.” “Yes, dear.” “Yes, father.” Another fifteen minutes go by. Everyone patiently waits. The father says, “When I was alive, I liked to wear lady’s underwear, not often, but sometimes.” Lily’s eyes widen as Viola walks over and removes the messenger plaque from the father. The family say, “Yes, dear.” “Yes, father.” The family sits more stiffly than before. Tears stream down the mother’s face. The father is getting up. He returns to the dining room and his coffin. Viola goes into the dining room. When she comes back in the kitchen she walks over to Lily and says, “We can go.” A week later, after a morning messaging, Viola and Lily some of the others on a lot cluttered with the remains of a giant factory that once stood there. The others look happy to see them. Marion calls Lily over to sit with her. Marion shows Lily a bag of photos she has collected over the years, family photos of strangers. Lily cannot tell exactly what appeal the photos have for Marion. Marion seems to have forgotten about Lily’s rough beginnings with the group.

Rayray and Viola sit together laughing. Numera ignores Lily though Lily can see the string on her wrist leads to Numera's collection of strings that she keeps tied to her belt. Lily would like to walk up to Numera and cut the string off her wrist, for Numera to see, but the idea of doing that scares Lily too much to even consider. Two male messengers come running up to Viola. One starts shouting, “What were you doing with Digit? Crawler here said you were with him Saturday; don’t say you weren’t!” Rayray jumps up and yells at the two males until they back down, and wander off. Rayray then yells at Viola, “What the hell, Viola?! You told me you were through with all that. You told me!” He storms off. Viola looks as small as Lily has ever seen her. Lily gets up and walks over to sit with Viola. They just sit there for a while and then go messaging. It seems like Viola goes sneaking off with those guys at night when Lily is asleep on a mat. The next day Viola and Lily return to the same field to find many messengers there. Numera is argumentative with everyone. Marion walks up to Lily and Viola and says, “Numera has been like that since last night. Let's get out of here.” Lily, Marion and Viola take a messenger train downtown. The visibles are demonstrating and the streets are overcrowded. The three make their way through the crowd, avoiding visibles as much as they can. Marion says, “This is bad, we should get out of this crowd.” As if to prove her point, a youth runs by and knocks Viola to the side without knowing he did it. The three walk as quickly as they can to take a left at the next intersection. Something is happening that causes the visibles to react in unison. People stop in their tracks, stop in mid-sentence, shout and point in the same direction. The reactions move through the crowd in waves. It seems to be coming from the far side of the square to the right. A loud clapping sound bounces off the buildings. Lily is about to say something to Marion and notices Marion turning to look back at her. Marion is smiling and about to say something to Lily and Viola. A Black man wearing black pants, a black collar shirt and a little blue cape pushes Lily aside as he runs between her and Marion. Lily flies backward. She is going to land hard on her back. The blue caped man swings a knife back behind his

head as he leaps. Lily feels her feet rise and her head fall back. Mid leap, he swings the knife from right to left. The blade hits Marion’s throat. A horrible expression flashes on her face. Lily hits the ground. Viola stumbles over her. As Lily scrambles to her feet Marion falls back and hits the ground, blood pouring over her shirt. Already the visibles are running into the three crown wearers and stepping over them. Lily pushes a visible out of the way and kneels over Marion. Viola asks, “Did you see the visible who did this?” Lily says, “It wasn’t a visible. He wore a uniform like ours except his was black and he didn’t have a crown.” Viola stands and pushes visibles away before they step on Marion who is already turning a pale blue as a pool of blood spreads out around her neck. Viola says, “You’re confused right now.” Lily frantically looks around at the visibles. “Somebody do something! Won’t anyone get a doctor?” Viola says, “Lily, don’t say that. We don’t have doctors. They can't see us. You’re in shock. This is the price we pay for being invisible.” Viola takes out her air horn and sounds it. A visible is about to walk over Marion and Lily pounds on his legs. “Get away!” Other messengers come running. They block the visibles from walking over Marion. They lift and move the body away from the crowd. At first Lily helps to carry the body. Blood stains her arms and clothes. When more messengers the group, Lily walks behind. Viola says, “Let me tell everyone what happened. A visible ran through the crowd and his sign hit Marion. That is what happened.” Viola looks fearfully at Lily. Back at the empty lot, messengers run rope from tree to tree, surrounding the gathering so that visibles who might wander into the funeral site get held back by the rope they can't see, and eventually wander off in another direction. Messengers bring water up from the river. Marion is laid on a slab of concrete. Female messengers wash her and dress her in a new uniform. They all step back and a middle-aged woman wearing a uniform collar shirt and slacks but a wide

blue cloth belt instead of a crown rubs cream all over Marion’s face, hands and feet. The cream is iridescent. Her new clothes are clean but her crown is as filthy as ever. Her throat is covered with leaves. Numera has calmed down but she still seems upset. Viola and Lily walk to a flower shop and pick out flowers. Two sides of the flower shop are open to the street. The over is in clear view. Bees land on the flowers. Viola and Lily don’t wear gloves so they can disappear the flowers they pick. Viola says, “Flowers are so pretty, why are they connected to sadness?” Lily says, “I’m not sure.” “Flowers make me sad. They always remind me of who has died.” “Flowers remind us how we loved Marion. They aren’t meant to be sad.” Evening approaches. On their return, they carry armloads of flowers. They see that many more messengers have come to the empty lot. Viola sees Rayray standing in a group of guys. Lily recognizes the one who followed them off the train, and another who yelled at Viola yesterday. Viola holds back. Lily turns and says, “What's wrong?” Viola says, “I have to go do something. I'll be back in a little bit. Here, take these.” Viola gives Lily her flowers. Lily does what she can to keep a hold of all the flowers. Viola looks nervous and upset. Lily says, “Wait, please don't go!” Viola walks away backward. She says, “I'm sorry.” Lily stands looking back and forth from Viola walking away to the funeral gathering. She finally walks to the funeral gathering. She feels awkward coming alone. Some of the flowers drop along the way. She wishes she were like one of those flowers, something that could get dropped along the way. No one looks at her except for Numera, who glares at her. Messengers kneel around Marion's body. Lily walks toward Marion. A female messenger steps forward to help Lily, taking flowers from her arms. The female messenger sets flowers around Marion’s body and Lily follows suit. They break stems off the flowers and place the flowers on the body, circling it. The flowers face upward.

More messengers sit around Marion. Lily kneels with them. Evening sets in. Eventually everyone sits around the body. Some talk quietly. Lily wonders what they are waiting for. Numera sits on the other side of Marion from Lily. In the dark, Numera's face undergoes distortions. Is Lily just imagining? Lily tries not to look at Numera. Numera grunts, abruptly stands and storms off. In the dark somewhere she kicks something metal and hollow then she storms back. When she sits again it’s behind Lily. Numera leans in close to Lily and says, “Where’s your friend tonight, or should I say co-conspirator?” A now-familiar tension oozes into every centimeter of Lily’s body, the deathcamp feeling, the overwhelming knowledge that death waits nearby. It may be just behind the next door that Lily opens or just around the next corner Lily turns. Her movements slow while her thoughts bounce around in her brain. What does Numera know? What does Numera think she knows? Numera gets up and marches off. The waiting is starting to eat at Lily. She looks at Marion then looks again. Marion’s skin looks lighter, it is shining. Messengers whisper to each other. Everyone begins to watch Marion intently. For a split-second Lily thinks she sees ropes drop from above and hands fastening rope to Marion but the moment is gone and forgotten. Marion’s body begins to lift. The body stays straight like a plank. The head rises until it looks more like Marion is standing up. The reverie of the messengers surrounding Lily is contagious. Marion is most definitely giving off light. It must be some kind of trick. The leaders of the messengers must do this. But they do such a great job and the messengers look so convinced. All the messengers get still and quiet. Lily drifts into a state of wonder. She feels a peace come over her. Marion’s feet leave the ground. Her body floats higher and higher until it’s hard to tell it’s still moving except that it slowly grows smaller. This is how a funeral should be. Some of the messengers have started whispering to each other again. When did they stop? Lily feels a profound peace and can tell she shares this feeling with everyone around her. She turns to the female beside her and whispers, “Is this always what happens when a messenger dies?” The female beside her looks back at Lily perplexed. A girl messenger behind Lily says, “Yes, but everyone knows that.” Lily feels the mood of the entire group change. She can feel it in the air. No one

is whispering now. Her reverie is torn off her, leaving her feeling skinless. The muscles in her back turn into steel springs. People change position slowly, they glance apprehensively at Lily and each other. Numera marches out of the darkness. She pushes sitting messengers aside and stands over Lily. In a voice that makes Lily jump, Numera shouts, “All Messengers know that! All Messengers see that many times every year and especially at the graduation ceremony! But you wouldn’t know that because you’ve never been to a messenger funeral before, have you?” Voices of protest, confusion and acknowledgment break out of people’s stillness. Lily is getting up. She steps back from Numera who shouts, “It all makes sense now! We had a sensitive under our noses just like we were warned! Every year the sensitives get more sensitive, and now they put a spy among us! We knew it was coming sooner or later!” Lily is already running, absolutely as fast as she can. She jumps over the ropes and runs up to the road. From behind she hears Numera yelling. She hears shouting and running. They are right, she is not a messenger! She does something she has wanted to do for weeks. She pulls the messenger crown from her head and throws it as hard as she can, letting it fall to the street behind her. The scene changes instantly and so much so, that Lily almost feels dizzy, loses balance, and almost trips. Automaton tracks appear on the ground, not just in some places but all over the road. Automaton tracks Lily has searched for, and has never found the slightest evidence of, now cross over every road. They lead to automaton doors that were not recognizable as automaton doors a moment before. Ahead, an automaton stands in front of an entrance to an apartment complex, mimicking the behavior of someone unlocking a door. A second ago, it looked like a man in dirty work clothes. Lily is so happy to see the automaton, her dread turns into a sickly giddiness. Tears flood her eyes. The door swings open and the automaton wheels in. If Lily can follow the automaton into an automaton tunnel, she will be safe from the messengers. That’s right, countless kilometers of tunnels with entrances throughout the city and messengers can’t see them. She will be completely safe, she just has to get to the other side. If she can make it just through a door, it’s as good as her making it out of the city, out of the state.

Some of the messengers are fast runners. Horns are sounding close and being answered from farther and farther away. The automaton wheels in and the vault door is closing, closing… Lily runs up to it but it isn’t wide enough, and it closes. She runs around a corner and before the messengers turn the corner she climbs up an empty news rack and climbs up under an awning. Up in the awning she looks down at the sidewalk and street. Air horns blow throughout the city. Many angry feet run past, below. She hears traffic and the voices of visibles. She tries to think of what she should do now. How is she to get out of the city? She needs to act fast before they realize they ran past her. She sees Numera's string is still tied around her wrist. Lily tries to break the string with her teeth. It tastes like salt and dirt. It looks like string but it’s as strong as iron. She digs in her pocket and takes out the whitehandled knife. She hears more running footsteps, this time coming back in the opposite direction. The knife slices the string easily. Did she hear Numera cry out? The string drops down, down, down to the sidewalk and slides away. Just then Numera and a group of messengers look up at her from the sidewalk below. Lily drops to the sidewalk and recovers to a run. Before she gets very far, Numera throws a rock. It flies through the air and strikes Lily in the head. She falls. She moves as much as she can, knowing the lights are going out. She can’t lift her limbs but sweeps them across the rough pavement. More and more faces appear above her but the angriest one is Numera glaring down at Lily and shouting. They pin Lily down. A male messenger says, “Are you sure it’s her, it doesn’t exactly look like her.” Numera says, “It is her. Let me kill her. Let me be the one!” Numera has her knife drawn. The number of messengers surrounding Lily grows. A female in the back says, “They caught Viola. They’re bringing her. Calling Lily a sensitive is an extraordinary claim. It seems impossible to many of us. We have to find out more.” Lily feels a hand on her hair. A girl says, “What's that? Shine a light on it.” A boy says, “It's a, it looks like a flower bud.”

Lily feels them indelicately pull a flower bud out of her hair, pulling strands of her hair out along with it. Numera says, “Did anyone search her? She might have a weapon. Let me search her.” Lily feels Numera searching her. Numera says, “Let me stab her just once. I won't kill her.” The girl says, “I can’t tell if it’s a flower or not.” The boy says, “Just like they described, a girl with flowers in her hair.” A second girl says, “Wait! Don’t throw it. Let me have it.” The first girl says, “Suit yourself.” Numera stabs Lily in the back. A pain slices through Lily. She lurches. A scuffle starts and Numera is pulled to the back. Lily feels the blood flow down her back. They wait for Viola to be brought to them. Two messengers attempt to speak to Lily, but other messengers stop them. Lily squeezes her hand against the cut on her back, against wet fabric. The number of messengers gathered and the number of visibles on the street is causing problems. A visible cyclist knocks a messenger over. The messengers pull Lily to the sidewalk and try to stay out of the road. Too many visibles want to use this street. A male voice calls out, “Viola is here!” When Lily looks up, she sees Viola being led by a boy messenger and a girl messenger. Viola seems nervous as ever and totally compliant. Viola never should have overlooked so much. If not for Viola, Lily would have been found out weeks ago. Even if Lily does get away, they will certainly kill Viola. Viola just needed one good friend and Lily understood that. She used that to stay alive.

[12] Best Friend in a Void

It must be a Friday night, lots of visibles are out, in cars, in groups, in couples. Messengers zip-tie Viola’s and Lily’s wrists. Viola is led ahead of Lily. A male messenger holds Lily’s arm with a mean grip and pushes her forward. Viola didn’t meet Lily’s eyes this whole time. Viola’s last thoughts will be regretting ever being nice to Lily. The messengers spread out in a walking line. They hurry. They maneuver a difficult dance of taking prisoners, staying together and avoiding collisions with the visibles. Messengers surround both Lily and Viola and push them forward. Lily sees ahead the automaton she saw earlier. It stands in a vaulted doorway. Messengers leading Viola maneuver out of the automaton’s way. It would only take seconds for Lily to make it through that door if the messengers were not here. How can Lily ever break free? As soon as she resists, they will all tackle her. A visible young man crossing the street is looking at Lily. He’s looking at her! He can see her; she took the crown off and visibles can see her now! She begins yelling, “Help! I’ve been stabbed! Please help!” More messenger hands are on her. The grips clamping down on her will leave bruises, but she continues shouting and screaming. Messengers try to cover her mouth. She bites and shakes her head free. She lets herself sound scared, hysterical even. Four female visibles on motorbikes drive up. Young men outside a bar run over. One large female visible puts an arm around Lily. “Are you okay? What happened?” The messengers restraining Lily must pull back and get out of the way. They suddenly seem meek, giving the visible plenty of room. As visibles surround Lily, the messengers retreat. Lights of a squad car come to life down the street and head toward Lily. Only one messenger is pulling Viola forward, the rest must avoid the visibles as they run past, toward Lily. Lily shoves her way through the confused visibles. Because she has been screaming, they do nothing to stop her. The messengers start jumping and reaching, trying to snag her. She dodges. She pulls herself free from their grasps

using the visibles as barriers to run between. She runs at Viola gaining speed with each step. She shoves Viola, with all her force, through the automaton door. The male who pulled Viola is pulled into the tunnels with Viola. He starts shouting, “What is this!? What’s happening?” with the sound of mortal fear in his voice. He releases Viola and stumbles backward, out of the doorway. Viola kicks and screams on the tunnel floor. Lily sits on top of her, holding her down. Lily looks back at the visibles and messengers staring in Lily’s direction, but they can’t see her anymore. They probably see a narrow hallway lined with apartment doors or a narrow flight of stairs. They don’t know it but not one of them will ever through the entryway. It’s weird to see both visibles and messengers staring in unison, not seeing what they want to see. Lily almost wants to laugh. Viola is kicking like a drowning person. Lily says, “I need to get you off these tracks.” Lily is much stronger than Viola. Viola screams, “What’s happening? I’m falling! Help I’m falling! Make it stop!” Lily says, “Stop squirming. Calm down. I saved your life. It does not seem like it, but you are safe now. Do you hear me?” With her wrists still zip-tied behind her, Lily turns around and grasps Viola’s shirt and pulls her down the track, away from the door and deeper into total darkness. “I can't see. It feels cold. I don't see anything. I can't feel anything. I'm falling, help! What's happening? I'm going to die!” Lily says, “Try to relax. We're safe now. We made it. Just close your eyes and be still. Trust me.” Outside on the street the visibles are not sure if there ever was a girl who called for help. Visibles ask each other but no one can say someone disappeared before their eyes. One biker said she talked to a woman who claimed to be stabbed but the woman must have run away or something, it’s hard to say. Tomorrow every visible involved will have completely forgotten about the incident. The messengers will not let go so easily. The “Flower Girl” and the traitor messenger got away somehow. They must have had an escape plan all along. They did not escape until they were together. Numera says, “At least I got something off her.” She holds up the little book.

Another messenger asks, “What is it?” Numera says, “It’s the only non-regulation thing I found on her. I’m hoping it gave her her powers. We have discovered sensitives that would not be able to sense much at all if not for the crude devices they figured out how to make.” The messengers posit Lily and Viola had help from one or more of the visibles. All the visibles that flooded the area are examined and tested for sensitivity. None of the visibles were found to be sensitive. Lily leads Viola through the tunnels. She must feel her way in the pitch black. Viola cries and cries, “I can’t see anything, not even darkness.” Lily says, “Please try to calm down. I know you’re scared, but trust me when I say it will be all right. Try closing your eyes. Is that better?” Viola whimpers. Lily says, “Keep them closed.” Lily finds a repair station and uses a file on a workbench to first cut through her wrist restraints, then to free Viola’s wrists. Viola has stopped talking but she trembles hopelessly. Lily finds a faucet and cleans her wound. A couple of times it sounds like Viola might just take off. “Viola, no matter what, just stay put. I promise if you do as I say, it will all be better.” Lily tears off a strip of cloth from the bottom of her shirt and wraps her wound. She tears away more of the shirt to make a blindfold that she ties over Viola’s eyes. Lily says, “Does that help? Now grab onto the back of my shirt so I can use both hands.” Viola still shakes and whimpers, but she can follow Lily. Her little noises sound so pitiful that Lily feels guilty. “We escaped, Viola. We got away! But I know you can't stay in these tunnels. The only thing we can do is try to get far, far away. We need to get so far away that none of the messengers there know us.” After a whole day of wandering in the darkness, running into automaton wreckage, fix-it stations, and the like, about the time Lily feels she needs to sleep, Viola begins weeping, “Something is wrong. I’m afraid I’ll hit the ground. It’s so scary, I can’t stand it!”

“You may feel better if I take the messenger crown off your head.” “I’m not wearing a crown.” “I think it will help. Would you let me?” “If it helps me feel better, do it.” Lily re how, when she removed a blindfold from a visible woman, it drove the woman crazy and she ran out in the street and was hit by a car. Lily feels where Viola is at and positions herself. She says, “Okay, but if you feel bad in any way, let me know and I’ll put it back.” Viola says, “Okay.” Lily tugs at the crown and shifts it left and right. She pulls it up and off Viola’s head. “Does anything seem different?” Viola says, “Mmm, no.” “Just hold onto my hand. I’ll hold onto your crown so if you start to go crazy, I can put it back on you. Let’s hold hands and try to get some sleep.” She folds the crown and stuffs it deep in her pocket. Trying to sleep while Viola whimpers, Lily puts her hand in her pocket where the little book should be. Alarmed, she sits up. She checks all her pockets. The little book is missing. She searches around. “Where is it? I had it right here.” Viola says, “Don’t leave me.” “I’m not leaving you. I think Numera took the book. That must be what happened.” Viola jumps, “What just happened? I couldn't move my body.” Eventually they both find some sleep. Four hours later Viola cries, “Lily!” Lily finds Viola’s face. The blindfold has slipped off and after a few minutes of feeling on the ground, Lily finds the blindfold and re-ties it around Viola’s eyes. They make their way down tunnels again. Viola holds onto Lily’s shirt and they

feel their way. Lily searches for vents to get some sense of how far they have gotten. She knows they go in circles sometimes. So far the tunnels never just lead in one direction. Lily relies on her ears. Metallic sliding alerts her to automatons rolling down tracks. Lily hears an automatic door open and close and she heads toward it. She asks, “You didn’t hear that?” “No.” “What can you hear?” Viola says, “Only you and me. You and me in a vacuum.” Following a light, Lily sees a vent and leads Viola to it, “I want to try something.” Through the vent, Lily can see a family sitting around a TV. The son’s hands are in nylon bags. The father has mechanical things sticking out of his ears. Lily moves Viola in front of the vent and asks, “Can you take off your blindfold? We are in front of a vent, I want to see if you can see. Can you?” Viola says, “I see light.” “Move closer.” “What? I can see!” “What do you see?” Viola says, “A family. Something’s wrong, though.” “What is it?” “They look so untouched. Where are the modifications? I don’t see any messages.” “You don’t see the bag on the boy’s hands?” “No.” Lily says, “I still do.” When Viola puts her blindfold back on, she seems much calmer. Sad but calmer. Lily finds a large tunnel heading in one direction and they travel many

kilometers away from where they were held captive. When Viola complains about being hungry, Lily searches for vents. She finds a vent to a room where two people in grubby clothes work at desks. She and Viola watch through the vent for many hours. When the place closes, Lily pulls the flowers from her hair. She opens the vent and ventures out, standing on one of the desks. She considers guiding Viola out to take a break from the tunnels, but Viola may refuse to return. Lily waits for any guard dogs to come running. She listens carefully before she hurries to find the lunchroom and raid the fridge. *** Akilah’s team has a meeting. Drake reports that they have discovered a noaccess version of the game (hidden deep within it) containing identical characters to the ones in the player-accessible version. The no-access version is a complete world, operating on its own. Gaining information about the no-access version is difficult and interacting with it has, so far, been impossible. They do, however, have evidence of an alternate Lily and some clues to her whereabouts. The Lily in the player-accessible version has disappeared. The alternative Lily may be the developer’s only chance to find the player-accessible Lily again. The meeting then covers newly discovered information on Lily’s past. They now have all the police reports about that explosion of the bus that Lily was riding on. Witnesses were interviewed. Photos were taken. One of the few survivors the police interviewed was a cheery old woman who could not stop talking about her cats. She stayed by Lily’s side after the accident. Akilah’s team thinks the cat woman and Lily were friends taking the bus together. Hospital records show that Lily was checked into a hospital with injuries that should have been fatal, and then she simply walked out. Akilah’s team has not found any earlier evidence of Lily’s anomalies. All evidence on Lily before the bus explosion seems normal and as it should be. Next up, Adrian reports that he has found a character sink in the playeraccessible world, a place in the mountains where characters go and disappear. A little town used to be there. Do they always disappear at that location? Yes. Myra the intern raises her hand. “Can we plant a sign in the game that only Lily sees?” Akilah says, “Yes, I think we can do that. We can try.”

Myra asks, “Why not plant signs only Lily can see that tell her to go to this character sink?” Akilah raises her eyebrows and reads the surprise on the faces of seasoned developers sitting around the table. *** The tunnels become more intertwined and winding. Lily finds a flashlight standing on a workstation shelf. She says more loudly than she has been speaking, “If you need this flashlight please just take it back and don’t hurt us. Otherwise we are grateful you let us borrow it because it makes it so much easier and safer for us to find our way through your finely engineered tunnels. Thank you. I will leave it at another one of your service stations when we leave the tunnels. Thank you kindly.” Viola asks, “Who are you talking to?” Lily says, “Whoever runs these tunnels.” She tries the flashlight, but it won’t turn on. She returns it to the shelf. For hours they feel their way through the tunnels. When an automaton comes near, Lily stops and Viola presses herself against the wall without needing to be asked. They stop at vents so Viola can look out. It helps her a lot. They look out at a receiving station. Viola says, “That guy keeps leaving the line and returning.” Lily says, “Watch out for him, he’s a thief.” “How do you know?” “Glue on his hands,” “Oh, of course! I put glue on hands for a while last year.” Each night Lily ventures out of at least one vent in search of food. Viola looks out the vent as she waits. Lily returns from sneaking around a used appliance and furniture store. She hands Viola a bag of chips. Viola says, “Is that all you found?”

Lily nods sadly. They sit and eat. Lily says, “There are people who try all their lives to escape the lives they were born into, but I’m the opposite. I have the strongest feeling I was knocked loose of the life I was meant to live and I’m trying to get back. I'm like a silver spoon being used as a shovel. As much as I try to get myself into the silverware drawer, I'm stuck out here in the mud.” “I thought your parents rented some little apartment.” “Yeah?” “So you were never a silver spoon. Besides, you ran away. Wasn’t that you trying to escape your fate?” “I guess.” Lily goes through a vent and when she returns, she says, “I think I found something you should see.” They both sneak into a gym, closed for the night. Viola seems to decompress before Lily’s eyes. The color returns to Viola’s face. She takes deep breaths and tears stream down her face though she isn’t crying. They walk quietly down the rows of darkened exercise machines. Near the front windows Lily points at a bulletin board excitedly. Viola asks, “Wha-wha-what are you pointing at?” Lily points. “Look at this flyer.” Viola looks where Lily points. “I don’t see a flyer.” Lily says, “Oh. That’s interesting. Well, I see a flyer here and this is what it says, ‘Lily, I can help. I will be living in Prudence. Your friend, The Cat Queen.’” “It says your name?” “Yes. Is it something a messenger would post?” “No, not at all. What is it made of?”

“You know, like a photocopy, handwritten.” “Messengers don’t photocopy.” She shrugs and stares at Lily with wide, moony eyes, “Oh, it’s nice to feel the world around me again.” They search the locker room. Someone left a sack lunch in one of the lockers. Lily and Viola split that. Lily can still see keys and combinations that messengers post by locks and she can open the doors to the offices. She searches for and finds the lost-and-found box. They pick out clothes. Lily picks out a denim dress and sweatpants. Viola finds peach overalls. They shower and change. Viola looks at the wound on Lily’s back. “It’s scabbed over.” Lily pushes the messenger uniforms deep into the garbage. They look over a map at the front help desk. Lily says, “Here’s the gym. There’s a water treatment plant. Look, the state park, that’s hundreds of kilometers of wilderness. And look… Here is Prudence.” “You want to go there?” “If we go here and here, we could make it to the state park. We could hike through the wilderness and get very far away, without running into you know who. If we come out over here, no one will know us. It all works out perfectly.” “Yes, it seems pretty good.” “You think we can be pretty sure that no messengers will be wandering up into the park?” Viola says, “I don’t know. If there are no visibles, there is no reason for messengers to go into the park.” “Well just in case, we should act like we are visibles. Don’t mention messengers. Act clueless.” Viola says, “It seems far to the park.” Lily says, “Only like ten blocks. We can do it at night, around 3 AM after the drinkers have made it home.”

[13] The Bonding Wilderness

Night. Lily and Viola hurry down the street, looking all around, their faces strained with fear. The city is nearly quiet and still hot from the day before. A hundred darkened windows stare at them. A cat darts across the road. Lily says, “One thing you don’t see in the tunnels, cats.” She points at a lamppost. “There’s another flyer from my public transit friend. That makes three.” When they see a line of trees, they break into a run. Avoiding paths, campsites, or any signs of civilization, they travel quietly through the trees as night becomes day. If they stay between two roads until the roads cross, they will come close to the town of Prudence. The sun rises and they walk most of the day, heading toward the mountain peaks, a two-lane highway to their left. Both look scared. The trees grow tall. Their steps break twigs and loose layers of leaves. Lily says, “Listen, if any cars slow down, let’s lie low.” “And kill them?” “Oh no! No please. Uh, let’s try to ditch them.” Viola says, “Your flowers are growing back.” Lily removes all the flowers from her hair quickly and easily. It’s a routine she does often. When cars , they hide. They trudge deeper into the trees and lose sight of the road. At noon they hear sounds and hide. A couple hikes past. At night they crouch low, peering through leaves, at a nice little well-kept cabin. The bright interior shines through the windows. A family eats dinner near the largest window. The food on the table gives off steam that Lily and Viola can see. Viola says, “They have a garage. Maybe we can stay there for the night. I’ve never slept outside before. Lily?” But Lily sees the cabin differently. The windows are all broken. Carrion is nailed to the walls. Starving crows, leashed to the roof with wires, struggle to get free. Rods fastened to the families’ hands make it nearly impossible for them to eat. Further back in the dining room another figure sits. Lily can see the points of the crown even from the woods. She grabs Viola’s arm and forcefully pulls her away. Viola says, “Ow, what are

you doing?” Lily makes the “be silent” gesture with a trembling hand. They crawl away and when they are far enough, they climb their way through the woods as fast as they can. When they do see a trail, they avoid it. Of course any messengers out here would use the trail. Lily and Viola don’t speak. Lily does not explain, but Viola can feel Lily’s fear. They find a small animal path. In many places it tunnels through the thick growth of plants. Most of the time they must crawl to stay on it. Eventually they stop to rest. Lily says, “How do you feel?” Viola says, “I'm hungry.” Lily says, “Me too.” “I should be meeting with my director by now. I don't feel right about it.” “They are invisible to you now.” “Someone will tell him what happened.” “I need to sleep soon.” Viola says, “Okay.” Lily says, “If you want to go your own way, I would understand.” “You mean go separate ways? We should stick together. You’re the only one who knows what I was.” “Um, Okay.” “Just, if you are going to hurt me, can you let me know now before I trust you too much?” Lily crawls through the brush to find a place to sleep. “I will, I mean I'm not going to do that.” Viola copies her. “You never were a messenger?”

“No.” “Who are you?” “I’m just a girl, a woman. I don’t know what happened to me.” “You were a visible?” Lily, “I don’t know. Maybe. I lived the way visibles do most of my life.” Viola says, “Your incredible ability to see messengers is just an accident?” Lily says, “I was thinking that my acquaintance in Prudence did something to me. I think she may have some answers.” Meanwhile in the city Rayray is not often alone. He does not like to be alone. He hasn’t seen Numera for a few days and searches the neighborhood. Mender says he saw her last at a high school dance. Truethy saw her outside a bus station. Slick saw her in the rose garden in Washington Park. Rayray walks all the paths of the park. Evening sets in. He stands on the bridge over the wishing creek. She always stopped on this bridge to look down at the water. He tries looking under the bridge. He sees her but she looks far different than he has ever seen her before, drastically shrunken which makes her head look larger. She is all curled up on her side, blue and heaving. He jumps down, letting one foot land in the water. He kneels and shakes her. He tries to pull her arms from her chest so he can force her to breathe. He shouts, “Did she come back for you? How did she do this to you? Lily, if you hear me, have the guts to show yourself!” All Numera’s muscles are clenched. Her left hand clutches the little book she took off Lily. Rayray shakes her again, then jumps to his feet to find some messengers to help him. As he walks the path to the nearest street he says, “Look what she did to us! She acted meek but she would have killed us all!” In the woods, Lily and Viola watch a road. There is a sign on the road. Lily climbs over the foliage and edges out to read it. “It says, Dry Creek Hotel, 66 kilometers.” She comes back. “I worked as a dishwasher for a hotel.”

Viola says, “You had a job? That’s so visible.” They keep moving. They see a family camping: father, mother and son. Viola says, “What do we do?” Lily says, “They aren’t altered, as far as I can see.” “Is it safe to take their food?” “I don’t think there are messengers with them, but we can’t just take people’s food anymore.” “Even if we’re visibles now, we are starving. That family can get more food. We can’t.” “I think they will give us food.” They walk toward the camp. Suddenly all faces turn their way. The father says, “Oh, hello, who are you?” Viola freezes long enough for all eyes to turn on her. Then she spins around and bolts into the woods. Lily says, “I’m sorry, hold on…” She turns and goes after Viola. She finds Viola curled up under some bushes, outwardly unresponsive. Lily says, “What's wrong? Why are you so scared?” After a moment Viola says, “She looked right at me! The visible looked right at me! Awful, I hate it! I feel they could reach in and pull my heart out.” “You'll get used to it, it's not that bad, really.” “What do we do?” “Speak to them.” “I can't! They are visibles.” “Pretend you're talking to messengers.” “I can’t do it.”

Eventually Lily talks Viola down and convinces her to come with her back to the family. Privately Lily feels a great relief that visibles see Viola. The family offers them food and offers to take them to the ranger station. Lily apologizes for eating so quickly, and the couple, realizing Lily and Viola are starving, push more food on them. After eating, Viola and Lily awkwardly get up and start to leave. The family protests. They seem frightened, feeling like they should do something, not just let two young women wander off into the woods. The next day Lily and Viola climb over thick tangles of overgrowth. When they reach a rocky mountainside, they both shine with confidence and cheerfulness, safely far away from any messenger who would know who they are. There is not as much undergrowth here and they have no problem walking. Viola says, “I don't know how to be a visible. I don't feel like a visible. I feel like a messenger who has lost her power.” Lily says, “You’ll make a fine visible. Better than me. We’ll get jobs at the mall, and share an apartment, and go to a club, and we’ll meet people and get our own record player. I’ll pretend I don’t see modifiers or messengers and we will have the time of our lives. Because you don’t see modifications anymore, you could help me know what the visibles see and don’t see. In exchange I can teach you how to live in visible society. You will be my guide and I will be yours.” Viola looks at Lily with possibly an expression of horror. “You’re not planning on trying to attack the messengers again?” “Uh, no? No, no, no. Never, I never! I was practically held hostage. I didn’t even want to go near any of you… messengers!” Lily’s lips pinch tightly together and her face turns red. Her breathing becomes audible. Viola starts to cry, “I just feel so lost. I always knew what to do and where to go. I always did the first thing that came to mind and I always knew that was exactly what I should be doing, what I needed to do. I was part of a larger mind. A visible is a tossed die rolling this way and that, bouncing all over the place on its own, and that is not who I am.” “You feel lost.” Viola wipes her face with the back of her hand. “Yeah, I feel cut loose. How do

visibles accept it? Do they just make it up as they go along? What stops them from wandering off aimlessly?” “We have obligations. To get what we want we have to stick to plans.” “But who's directing you?” “No one.” “You make it sound like things will magically fall into place. I don’t know where to start.” Lily whispers, “Hey look, what’s that?” They see movement and stop. Viola sniffs. “Rabbits.” “Oh, look! They are so adorable. Do you think we can pet them? We probably shouldn’t.” They quietly keep walking, glancing at the family of rabbits who stare at them as still as statues. Lily says, “They’re shy just like you.” In the evening, they sit on an old log. Lily finds a string in her pocket and plays cat's-cradle. Viola says, “That’s neat, what is it for?” Lily says, “What’s it for?” “Do you use it to control someone?” “No, it's just a game. It’s not even a game. Not really.” “It has to be for something. Do you use it to decrease fertility?” “I’m not doing it for anything. It’s pointless, okay? It just feels kind of nice to do.” Viola says, “When you took me into that void, I don’t know how you do it. You can function there but I can’t. It’s an overlapping world. You’ve gotten into the messenger world and that void…” Lily stares silently at Viola. Viola says, “You say you’re in the visible world now but I don’t think you are.

You can still see the messenger modifications. You see messengers when you are not one. You say you haven’t done any of it on purpose. Do you see why no one would believe you if you said you didn’t do it on purpose?” Lily says, “Do you think you know what happened to me?” Viola shakes her head. In the middle of the wilderness, in the morning, Lily pulls the flowers out of her hair. She says, “I think we are starving.” Viola says, “I know. I wish we had raided a store before leaving.” “I wish we knew how to forage. At least we found that spring last night.” “Hey look, what’s that?” Viola points at a piece of paper is stapled to a tree trunk. “It looks like a flyer. I wonder why it’s out here. We haven’t seen a road for two days.” They approach it. “It’s the one from the ‘Cat Queen’!” Lily and Viola crouch behind the crumbled remains of a stone wall, looking at a collection of buildings nestled in the woods. The line between town and wilderness could not be more abrupt. The town does not at all look like a ghost town. The buildings, though old, look freshly kept-up. A dirt road looks trodden, but the surrounding wilderness shows no signs of humans at all, other than the two flyers they found in the last few kilometers.

[14] The Character Sink

A cool wind cuts through the trees, nudging summer to leave. Viola asks, “Do you see any messengers?” Lily Says, “No. For this many buildings, it’s strange not to see at least one or two signs of messengers.” “Do you think it’s safe?” “I think we’ve traveled far enough, it isn’t likely any messengers here will know , if there are messengers.” “Are you sure?” “Can we ever be sure? We’ll starve to death if we don’t go.” Once they walk around one of the buildings, they see the small town spread out before them. Viola begins to tremble and cringe, but Lily takes Viola’s arm and presses her forward. They walk down a road cautiously. The place is deserted. They see small telephone poles and antique cars but the cars all have flat tires and grass growing up around them. One car by a tree has tree branches growing right through its open windows. Lily says, “I hope this is Prudence.” The roads were last paved decades ago. They have been patched with gravel and dirt. The buildings look old, but still in good repair. Much of the land is converted to farming and the cornrows, orchards and gardens all look nicely kept, but by whom? Farm animals can be found almost on every block and even on the road. Goats, chickens, pigs, horses, just no people, no human faces in windows and no one outside. Lily keeps a lookout for any signs of messengers. She can’t believe that there are none. The town seems so small. To a Philadelphia girl it seems as unusual to her as another country or another time. Many ordinary things stand out to her, like

the well pump by the side of a building, the clotheslines and a shade house for pigs. Only one building is not well maintained, possibly the largest house in the town. It looks like an iconic haunted house. It was surely the only, or one of the few wealthy houses when it was built. Two conical pointed roofs on either side were probably ired and envied fifty years ago. The detail in the shutters, railing and window frames have so deteriorated now, restoration is out of the question. Viola and Lily stop before it, but Viola keeps glancing at Lily. Lily says, “This house is in bad shape.” Viola asks, “What house?” “You don’t see a house here?” “No, it’s an empty lot.” “Come on, let’s keep moving.” Lily wants to find the woman she talked to on the bus. They search for someone, anyone. Lily points to a sign, “Prudence Grocery”, made of carved wood. They both grin. The little store is stocked with items common to an earlier time, very locally made. Items are stored in clay jars, wooden boxes and burlap. The floor is still damp in places from a recent mopping. Lily calls out but no one answers. Viola picks up a jar of honey. Lily says, “I don’t think we should touch anything.” Viola says, “What do we do about food?” “Something is very wrong here. I think we should leave this town without touching anything.” “But I could faint from hunger.” They walk past Main Street. They can see the wilderness encroaching on all sides, but they walk for an hour and never reach the end of the road. Lily points. “Look, the front door on that house is missing. The front door of the last house was missing, too.” From then on they notice that most doorways are missing doors.

Viola asks, “Haven’t we seen that house already?” Church Street turns to Height Street turns to Holly Street, so on and so on. Viola says, “Oh look, we’re on Main Street again. Look, there’s the diner we saw before.” Lily’s eyes dart all around. She breathes heavily and clenches her fists. She walks up to the front diner window and looks in. She says, “Come on, let’s go inside.” Viola says, “Okay.” Inside they can feel the warm air on their faces. It smells like a diner, freshly fried food, baked rolls, soup and coffee. The door to the dish room swings ever so slightly to a stop. Some jackets are hung on seatbacks, but no one is there. Plates of food can be found on the tables, at various stages between piping hot to nearly cleared of food. It looks like everyone vacated, mid-meal right before Lily and Viola entered. Lily grabs Viola’s arm, “Come on let’s get out of here!” They walk out on the boardwalk. Viola licks her lips and continually glances at Lily, who watches a goat munch on rose bushes. Lily sits on the edge of the boardwalk and Viola copies her. Viola says, “I feel so weak. No matter what, we have to eat.” When they go back into the diner there are no longer plates in the bus tray. Many items have changed, hats and jackets hung on chair backs, the rags in the rag bin, what has been placed on the tables and what is no longer there. Viola says, “What should we do?” Lily says, “Let me try something.” She speaks loudly across the room, “Thank you for letting us visit your lovely town. We are both hungry, starving in fact, and see the nice food you have made here. If you don’t want us to eat your food, please just take it back from us. Please don’t hurt us. We don’t want any trouble. If you take back your food we will quickly be on our way.” Lily reaches out and slowly lifts a cup of water off a table. The cup is carved out of wood, so are many of the plates. Lily holds the cup and waits. When nothing happens, she smells the cup and drinks from it. She holds the water on her tongue before swallowing. Lily asks Viola, “See something you want to eat?”

Viola nods. Viola chooses a plate and Lily chooses one from another table. Lily asks, “Where do you want to sit?” “At the counter?” “How about outside? It seems crowded in here.” Viola looks at her quizzically. “Sure.” They eat quietly and only finish one plate of food each, to stave off hunger. Though the fresh pies look mouth-wateringly good, Lily says it’s best not to impose more than they have to. Viola says, “The food tasted amazing.” Lily says, “We are being watched.” “What do you mean?” “We are not alone, the evidence is all around us.” “Are we in danger?” “I just don’t know.” They try the entire day to get out of town. Somehow the fields get planted and farm animals are cared for. There is food and plenty of it, gardens maintained by invisible hands. They find where all the missing doors in town went. Behind a house, hundreds of doors are piled up, almost filling the little fenced-in yard. Blackberry vines grow over them. Lily asks, “Is it some kind of joke?” Standing in front of the town gas station, a relic, they try operating the pump and can’t get it to work. Viola says, “Look, there are cobwebs in the nozzle.” All the houses look familiar to them now. Lily now has a sense of how the streets all link up, thinking of the town as being on a tiny planet that could be circled many times in one day. Lily says, “I wish we could become one of those birds and fly out of this town.”

Viola looks up and watches a hawk fly over the town and disappear over the trees in the distance. She says, “Shouldn’t we look in the houses?” “Not yet. Let’s try if we run out of options.” They find a bike. Lily pedals and Viola rides on the back. Lily pedals as fast as she can, as if she can outrun the town. By pushing herself faster she can pull away from the jaws that would clamp down on her. The speed of the bike feels like the solution. But the loop repeats. She takes a left, then a right, then a left, then a right. The trees outside the town seem no closer to her than the sun. She slows but keeps pedaling. With the wind in their hair Lily calls back to Viola, “See any cats around? If we find the cats we can find ‘Cat Queen’.” The bike chain comes loose. They leave the bike leaning against a fence. They smell the acrid, doughy smell of freshly made beer every time they walk by the little bar. Who is doing it all? What if people are hiding from them? They never catch any movement inside darkened windows. The sun begins to set and the temperature drops quickly. Viola feels sleepy, so they look around until they find a couple of benches on a porch, in a fenced yard overpopulated by chickens. Viola falls right to sleep, but Lily lies there with her eyes open as evening turns to night. The streetlights don’t work. Candle lights start shining from a few of the windows. She wakes to find a basket of peaches next to her and quickly gets off the porch, leaving the basket. She sits out on the road until Viola wakes up. Viola comes running out in a panic. Lily calls her, “Viola, stop! Where are you going?” Viola turns around but keeps her distance. “A woman, on the porch, she tried to talk to me!” Just as Lily stands, an old Black woman steps out on the road. “Good morning. We haven’t had a newcomer in a while.” Lily says, “Hello. Is this your home?” The woman says, “Why yes.”

Lily and the old woman talk. Viola edges closer but involuntarily steps backward when they look at her. The woman’s name is Noreen. She has lived here for twenty-five years. A man in his sixties rides toward them on a bicycle, causing Viola to scamper in panic nearer to Lily and Noreen. The man waves to Noreen and respectfully nods to Lily and Viola as he es. Noreen says, “That was Caesar. He fixes houses.” Lily says, “Does he fix all the houses?” “Him and a handful of others. He works on most of the houses on this street. The houses on this street are some of the most well-kept in town.” Viola says, “I noticed that.” She blushes terribly. Lily realizes it is the first time Viola has spoken to a visible. Noreen offers to let Viola and Lily stay at her house until they find their places in town. Lily says, “Do you know that we planned on leaving soon?” Noreen looks down at the ground. “I saw you yesterday. I went through the same thing myself a long time ago. I need to take care of my chickens now. Have you met any of the others?” Lily says, “No. Do you know a woman who takes care of cats?” Noreen says, “Well I put food out for one cat that comes by. Cats don’t have owners in this town.” Lily says, “I’m looking for someone who loves cats. She can heal them. She’s really good at it. Anyone like that?” Noreen sucks her teeth. “Oh, can’t say I do… Why don’t you girls walk around? People here are hospitable. Don’t hesitate to ask for help either!” Lily says, “We don’t have any money. Do you have any chores we can do to earn money so we can eat at that diner?” Noreen says, “Oh, no. You two just march yourselves down there and order

whatever you like. Don’t even think of paying nobody. Tell Nathen I sent you if it makes you feel better. No one will bat an eye.” When Lily and Viola walk toward Main Street this time, they see many people and Lily takes Viola’s arm and reassures her that interacting with visibles is a lot more like interacting with messengers than she may realize. Everyone they cross paths with introduces themselves, but nobody mentions the outstanding truth of the town. In the diner the breakfast tastes so good Lily is worried she may start to weep. Lots of people come in but no children. Everyone is at least fifty it seems. Their clothes look part remnant and part hand made. Some sit in groups and some sit all by themselves and don’t interact with the others very much at all. Lily and Viola sit by the large front, glassless window. It’s hard for Viola to speak but she says, “I like this diner a lot.” Lily says, “I guess I do too. I only wish that rundown house wasn’t right across the street.” Viola says, “I still can’t see it.” “I know. “I guess the cream pie is all gone. I kind of wanted another slice.” “Maybe we shouldn’t get too used to eating here all the time.” “What do you mean?” Lily says, “I’ll tell you later. Let’s go for a walk. Now that Lily wants some privacy, they walk and walk and can’t seem to get away from the townsfolk. She finds a trail behind a burned-out water tower that they walk down, finally by themselves. Viola watches as Lily searches around. Lily sits in the grass. Viola squats beside her the way messengers do. Lily takes a stick and rubs the end on a stone to make the stick sharp. She prepares two sharp sticks that she tucks in her back pocket under her shirt. Viola says, “Do you want me to carry a weapon also?”

“Yeah. I think so. Do you know how to fight? Can you teach me to fight?” “I never fought. Messengers don’t fight each other. They are peace-loving compared to violent visibles.” “Peaceful only with each other. Wouldn’t you call the way they treat visibles violent?” “But that’s like saying farmers are violent to farm animals. If the farmer doesn’t beat his wife or brawl at the tavern, he’s a peaceful man.” Lily says, “Well, you’re one of the farm animals now.” Viola looks ahead at nothing, scowling and pinching her lips disdainfully. Lily says, “I’m sorry. I’m just… I feel trapped. Don’t you feel trapped?” “I think so.” Viola smiles. “You have the heart of a fighter.” “I doubt that. All I want is to live a normal life. I want to work in the new mall and have roommates in an apartment and go to school and have friends and buy clothes, all that. It isn’t like I want to win the lotto or an Olympic gold medal. Does that sound unreasonable?” “Having roommates greatly increases your chances of getting modified by a messenger.” “I didn’t know that.” They go into the little church. It's empty. The windows are glassless and a breeze blows through. Viola says, “I wonder if there’s any wine.” Lily says, “You know churches serve grape juice, not wine.” Viola says, “You know messengers put opium in the grape juice.” They walk around interviewing the townsfolk. Everyone seems content and eager to do the various self-assigned tasks they feel they need to do. Most everyone walks, but some ride bikes and most of the bikes are made out of wood. One slim old man rides in a cart pulled by a fully grown pig.

When they get hungry again, they walk to the diner and Lily asks if she and Viola can help out. They are given the tasks of washing dishes and carrying firewood. Afterward they feel better about meeting all the others. And maybe that’s how it works. Unable to get away from everybody, everybody feels compelled to do their part. It’s the inescapable-eyes economy. Lily says, “I have an idea. Let’s walk at night. Maybe at night we can walk out of the town.” They walk the entire night. At first they see the occasional town person but as it gets later the streets become empty and modest candle lights go out. It gets cold and a million stars shine so brightly that Lily feels if she could climb high enough she could touch them. Lily says, “Imagine a world where there simply are no modifications, at all. No invisible signs. Where everything is what it appears to be. Everyone can see everyone. It is illegal for anyone to stalk someone else.” She pauses. “That is the way it was for me.” Viola says, “Sounds like you were a visible. That is how visibles see things.” They see a bright flashing light in the trees outside of town. Lily points. Viola asks, “What is it?” Lily says, “Let’s go to it.” They try to reach it, but it remains always in the distance. As the night es, they become silent and sore from their necks to the heels of their feet. When the sun rises, they find Noreen, explain what they did, and ask if they can sleep on the benches. Noreen says, “By all means do, bless your tired hearts.” Noreen gives Lily such a look of understanding it sends chills down Lily’s spine. Noreen brings them hand-woven blankets. As Lily drifts to sleep with the hot sun on her face, she imagines what lengths younger Noreen went to, to try to escape this town. She sees the woman in the 60’s dress and blouse walking, running block after block until she can’t go any further. She collapses on the roadside and looks over at the fedora hat she dropped hours ago. A sign hung off the eve of one house reads, “Town Jail

We will come after wrongdoers. Don't break things. A lot of things cannot be replaced. Be considerate always.” Lily and Viola stand looking up at it. Lily says, “I don’t know whether to feel less scared or more.” The front door is missing, and they peek inside. It gives Lily the creeps. There is no furniture. Heavy doors with locks of pounded iron close off ading rooms. Lily says quietly, “Do you think anyone is locked up?” Viola shrugs as if it does not matter very much either way. Her callous side still surprises Lily. A sign on the adjacent building reads, “Town Hall”. They walk in. This really could have been built as the town hall. The insides are one large main room and a storage closet in the back. The dusty wood floor would have been perfect for town dances of decades ago. Viola looks over a bulletin board. Lily finds a ledger book that has been converted into a how-to book, “How to make paint, how to grow corn, how to make candles”, etc. Some entries look new but most look decades old. How long has this town been like this? They find behind a small house a car generator has been added to a windmill. Wires from the generator hang down and attach to an antique living room radio. When the wind blows, the radio crackles to life. Delighted, they listen until the wind dies down. They can’t pick up city stations but dance around, laughing when some songs they sort-of recognize come on. Lily moves into a tiny house not far from Noreen’s. It is more of a cabin, just two rooms. One room has an oven and inoperative Frigidaire. The other room has a rusted metal bed frame and a chest of drawers. The outhouse is in the backyard. Viola helps Lily clean the place up and Noreen calls together a group of people who patch the holes in the roof and floor and bring over a new mattress made of wool and straw. She brings a couple of chairs from one of the other vacant houses. It’s the first time Lily has had a place of her own. She loves to just sit in her tiny

house looking around, soaking in the cozy environment. She learns to light a fire in the wood-burning stove and make dandelion tea. A month goes by. Days shorten and the leaves change color. What seemed like a terrible trap begins to seem normal. They eat in the diner. They find things to do for people here and there. No one tells them to do anything but it seems only right at the time. After breakfast Viola wants to take care of Noreen’s peach orchard. “Come and get me for lunch okay?” Lily says, “Okay. You like living with Noreen, don’t you?” “Yes.” “How do you even know how to garden?” “Noreen teaches me.” Lily stays to wash the dishes. Each day it takes about an hour and a half. Then she swings on the swing outside the large surplus barn next to the water tower. After lunch, Lily and Viola carry water from the well to Noreen’s. They Samuel Clark, a Black gentleman who is dismantling one of the old dilapidated cars. After they arrive with the water, Viola stays to help Noreen. Lily spends at least one hour a day “exploring”. She climbs the tallest tree she can find. She tries going down every road and path, hoping one untried way will be the one to freedom. She tries walking through yards and climbing fences, always keeping an eye out for cats. So far she only knows of two: a sinewy, mostly feral, black and orange cat who likes high places, and a round, fluffy, ash cat who lies in the sun and stares at nothing all day. She searches for evidence of messengers and evidence of automatons, finding none. She should be relieved, right? The world seems almost normal again. But she isn’t. She talks with people. Most are happy to answer her questions, but they all shy away from talking about how they cannot leave the town. No one knows of a woman who loves cats. What if Lily and Viola got to Prudence before “Cat

Queen”? She could show up any day. Most of the locals take up jobs on their own, growing food, cleaning, repairing, whatever seems to be overlooked at the time. There are not many freeloaders. She hears from a few people about a drunk who lives in a garden shed and is hardly seen by anyone. They say he makes moonshine. Lily learns which houses are abandoned and searches through them. From day to day she begins to collect little bits of scrap, rags, string and cloth. She finds a box of threadbare clothes in an attic and spends hours tearing out pieces of fabric. In the evening she, Viola and Noreen sit on Noreen’s porch. Lily asks Noreen, “The first day Viola and I were here, we didn’t see anyone for the whole day. Do you know why?” Noreen looks down at her lap. She takes a breath and looks up into the branches of a peach tree. “Nobody knows why it is like that, on the first day, for everyone. But those of us who have lived here the longest are so, so glad it is like that. We have seen a few mean, nasty individuals on their first day and we have a whole day to ‘take care of them’ if we see they will be nothing but misery.” Lily asks, “But how do you know?” Noreen says, “Miss Baker came here as a captive. Chain around her neck no less. She can walk these streets as she likes but her captor with his gun firing and rancorous shouting can not walk these streets as he likes.” Lily says, “But you didn’t kick him out of town, did you? I mean you’re not able to kick someone out of town.” Noreen says, “Have either of you ever played an instrument? One thing I love to find out about someone is that they can play an instrument!”

[15] Breaking Traps

The seasons . Lily lets the flowers grow in her hair. At first people are a little taken aback by her extreme fashion choice, then they regard her as the town eccentric for a while, but eventually they hardly notice the flowers anymore. Despite the shortage of cloth, Lily is able to put together better outfits for her and Viola. Mr. Blue trains her to shear sheep. Tia teaches her how to make the wool into yarn, die it and knit it into clothes. Lily knits several hours a day and leaves most of the new clothes in a box in the general store. She usually can add a new item to the box every other week and is always pleased to see clothes have been taken from the box or even better, worn by someone around town. Now she eats in the diner guilt-free. She makes flower arrangements for each table in the diner. When the winds blow, Viola and Lily sit by the radio to listen to music. The rains come and go. This winter an old man, Jeremy, dies. They bury him on the land he kept. It snows, and Viola, Noreen and Lily sit around a table near the fireplace, in the main room of Noreen’s house, drinking root tea. Lily hands Viola something. Viola asks, “What is this?” Lily says, “It’s a doll.” “Is it alive?” “Of course not.” “Why not?” “It’s just a toy. It’s just for fun.” Viola says, “How do I use it?” Lily says, “Just… Just keep it with you or put it somewhere where you can look at it sometimes.”

“Oh. Thanks.” “You’re welcome.” “I’ll let you know if it does something.” They both eye each other suspiciously. In the summertime, Viola asks Lily if she knows about the prisoner. Lily says no. Viola says, “His name is Brady Holt. He tried to strangle two of the women. Want to go have a look at him?” Lily says, “Oh god, no.” A Veronica Steel makes wind chimes that she leaves in the store. Viola asks Lily, “What do you think of the wind chimes?” “This place is spooky enough without them.” Clothes do wear out. Sometimes Lily will make an item of clothing for a specific person. She does not give it to them directly but leaves it where they will find it, like on their front porch. That is the way things are done here. Samuel Clark still takes apart and puts together the old cars, though he never gets one running, with no gas in the town. Viola helps Lily bring all the books she has found in vacant houses to the Town Hall. They line them up on a windowsill. As Viola hands Lily a book, a note falls out from its pages. Lily unfolds the note and reads aloud, “They called me Prudence. I’m the last one alive who lived here before it was a trap. Those who arrived later have no roots. I leave my hometown to strangers. Mind you, I know they didn’t choose to live here until death. I only wish the town did not lose its memory. “I made the pies. I lived in the little house behind the diner. The recipes for pies in the ledger are mine. Under the recipes you will find directions on how to acquire all needed ingredients. I’m certain that one of you will like to take my place. The pies are a hit, year after year.” Lily looks up at Viola. Viola says, “I wonder how long ago that was.”

Lily says, “Yeah, we should ask the others where they came from before they ended up here.” Viola looks behind Lily and her mouth drops open. Lily turns around. Sinaloa walks up to them nonchalantly. Lily and Viola, on the other hand, can not get over their surprise. Sinaloa says, “Hello Lily, I see you made a friend.” Lily says, “Oh my gosh, hello.” Both Sinaloa and Lily look at Viola. Lily asks Viola, “Do you see him?” Viola says, “Yes.” Sinaloa says to Lily, “I need your help again.” Lily says, “How did you find me?” Sinaloa says, “I wasn't searching for you specifically. You’re the only one in this area who can help me right now.” Lily says, “But are you trapped here now, too?” Sinaloa says, “I’m not here. I’m just projected here. Can you follow me?” Lily turns to Viola. “Um, I need to help my friend. I’ll find you when I’m done. I’ll fill you in then.” They leave Viola in the town hall. Lily and Sinaloa walk. He leads her through a cornfield. He stops and says, “Okay, look down between those two plants. Do you see that chunk of glass on the ground?” Lily says, “Yes.” “Pick it up. Hold onto it. Bring it with you.” They walk again. When they first come across some of the townspeople, Lily waves to them and asks, “Can they see you?” “Yes.” They reach a water trough and stop. He points at a hole drilled into the dirt about

two fingers thick. “Look close. Do you see the trap inside?” Lily leans down and peers at the ground. She nods. Sinaloa says, “Take the glass I gave you and look through it.” “Which way?” “Any way. Look at the hole through the glass.” She does as he asks. A bit of white fabric, undulating like an aquatic plant, sticks out of the hole. She pulls the glass away from her eye and she can't see the fabric. She puts the glass to her eye again. Sinaloa points closely at the wavering filament. “Go ahead and pull it out but you must continue to look at it through the glass.” Lily pulls the filament out. Sinaloa says, “That was torn off a self in another world. In one world human motivation forms matter. Enthusiasm is one kind of formation there. It’s very useful in making charms. Come on.” He walks and she follows, still fingering the enthusiasm. “It's a little slimy.” They walk across a yard. She moves the glass from her eye for a second. “Oh, I think I’ve dropped it. I can’t find it.” Sinaloa says, “You’ve let it disappear. You’ll never find it. Come on.” They spy on a man on the grocery-store boardwalk. Lily says, “That’s Samuel Clark. He likes to work on cars. I think he’s a car buff or something like that. I think it really makes him happy.” Sinaloa says, “Look through the glass.” Looking through the glass, she sees Samuel’s enthusiasm wavering, moving about like a cape caught in a slow-motion updraft. As he stands in front of boxes of freshly picked corn, his enthusiasm bends over and dips to the ground. Its tip stretches out toward a hole drilled in the

boardwalk. Snap! Its edge is sucked in the hole and breaks off. The rest recoils. The bulk of it bunches up near Samuel’s neck. Its texture becomes lumpy. Samuel’s countenance changes. Sadness es over him. He grumbles and walks away. Sinaloa says, “Now follow me. Let's catch the trap setter in the act.” Lily follows. Sinaloa does not leave prints when he walks through the dirt. Behind the church they see a White man leaning over a trap. Lily says, “That’s Erwin Meany. He makes dyes and paints.” Sinaloa says, “See him unloading it?” Lily says, “I know him. I've never noticed him do that before. He collects tree sap and flowers. He’s always collecting things.” “Now he’s putting the enthusiasm in the jar. See how he’s resetting the trap?” Erwin straightens up and strolls away. Lily takes a step. Sinaloa says, “Wait I want to make sure he doesn’t look back here. Don’t ever break a trap. Just trigger it. Be careful of your own enthusiasm.” “Oh you know that book you had me keep? I think someone took it from me.” “I took care of it.” Lily glances at him, looks away and nods slightly. After a few minutes they walk over to the trap. Lily looks through the glass down at herself. Along her side her cape of enthusiasm wavers closer and closer to the trap. Lily asks, “Can I brush it back?” Sinaloa says, “Can you?” Lily finds she can and she smiles at him. She says, “The other day I felt sad and tried to find the reason why. I wonder if my enthusiasm got caught in one of his traps. “Possible.” She looks at Sinaloa through the glass. “You don’t have any enthusiasm.”

“If you saw me where I actually am, you would see it.” Lily laughs nervously. “You seem very much here.” She looks at the hole. Sinaloa says, “Now pull up some of that grass.” Lily does as he asks. He says, “Stick the ends of the grass in the hole.” Snap! The ends of the grass disappear into the hole and Lily jerks back. Sinaloa says, “See? Simple.” Sinaloa and Lily follow the man. Sinaloa says, “Follow him and trip the traps he sets” Lily says, “I’m happy to do this for you. Do you know my friend and I want to get out of this town?” “I don’t know if I can help. I will do what I can, but right now I don’t see a way. You have some abilities. If this town is a trap, look for its weak points, most traps are pretty flimsy if you come at them the right way.” They follow Erwin. Lily trips two more traps. Sinaloa says, “You do good. I must go. Thank you so much for your help.” Lily says, “How long do you want me to do this?” Sinaloa says, “As long as you need to.” They wave goodbye and Sinaloa walks away. When Lily finds Viola, Viola says, “You’re not a messenger anymore. You don’t have work for him.” Lily says, “He helps me.” “How has he helped you?” “He helps me understand my circumstance.” Lily looks at Viola through the glass and sees a little cape of enthusiasm. Every day Lily follows Erwin. Other than trapping enthusiasm and making his dyes and paints, Erwin spends his time trying to break out of the town. She should have looked for it, other people trying to break out.

He digs holes but after five feet or so, he can't break up the earth anymore, no matter what extremes he goes to. He makes a catapult in his backyard and launches pumpkins that land everywhere except outside of town. Lily follows him and springs all the traps he sets. His traps aren't catching enthusiasm anymore. He makes twice as many traps but that does not help. It’s not as simple as Lily following him anymore. He’s on the lookout. He changes his route each day. He often stops and looks around. Lily has already been spotted by him. It won’t take long before he knows for sure that she springs his traps. She feels she is losing the battle. Did Sinaloa think she would give up so easily? One evening she goes to bed, but ten minutes later she sits up and looks over at the chest of drawers. She gets up and takes her old clothes out of the bottom drawer. With some effort she pulls Viola’s messenger crown out of the front pocket of her old pants. Her heart races. A voice in her head cries, “Don’t do it! The last time you did it a messenger came out of nowhere and sat beside you!” Still kneeling, she places the crown over her head. The old feeling comes over her, the feeling of being gently pushed, of time moving just a little bit slower. She pulls the flowers out of her hair. She walks down the dark street to the diner. She can hear people inside. Someone plucks a box guitar. She walks right in front of the large glassless window and looks in. Somebody should notice her. Somebody should look over at her. She walks into the diner and walks over to each person, one by one. No one sees her at all. The next morning Lily wears the crown and follows close behind Erwin. She overhears him speaking out loud to no one, “Why are you stopping me? We can both get out if we work together.” Is he talking to her or who does he imagine he is talking to? Chills run down her spine. But she springs all his traps. He sets other kinds of traps. One day he goes into a little vineyard. She follows him. She starts to open the gate but it is just a little harder to push open. When she does, a brick on a rope swings out and would have struck her head if she didn’t duck. She sees his face in the bushes on the other side of the vineyard, scowling with fear and hatred in her direction.

One day after he leaves his house Lily (wearing the crown) peeks in his front doorway. A mutt dog lies on an antique loveseat. The love seat’s upholstery is barely hanging on. She walks past the dog and visits each room. She looks in drawers, under clothes, behind wall art, and inside cupboards. Nothing on the first floor stands out to her. A narrow staircase in the back of the house leads to a door with heavy locks that happen to be unlocked, and the door is cracked open. In the attic room with a pointed ceiling she finds an odd mechanism made up of a wooden box and what looks like distillery pipes coming out of it. The jars he uses to collect enthusiasm rest on the creaky floor. Looking through her glass shard she can see trace amounts of enthusiasm in a jar, on the floor, and on the machine. The only other things she finds in the room are a couple of hand-fashioned tools and a box of odds and ends. She hears someone climbing the stairs. She turns to face the door, which she had left a crack open as she had found it. The door shuts, and before she can decide what to do, the heavy locks clang closed and click shut. Footsteps descend the stairs. Could it be that he ed forgetting to lock the door and just came back to lock up before heading out again? Does he have some way of sensing her presence in this house? He is, after all, a sensitive by messenger classification. She finds, on the far side of the room, a window, cracked open. What a relief! She opens the window and throws the machine through it. It smashes into pieces on the hard dirt and overgrown grass. He won’t be able to see it anymore. Wearing the crown, she can disappear things simply by picking them up. Oh, and there he is walking away down the road. She also throws the tools and odds and ends out the window. She climbs through the window and hangs from it. Swinging out a little, she drops and lands stumbling back. The next day Erwin’s trap setting stops. Lily does not find him trying to escape the town anymore. Erwin still makes paints and dyes. But now each day he visits the broken-down shed where the moonshine maker is said to live. He walks home with a jar full of clear liquid and does not leave his house for the rest of the day. She feels bad, and must remind herself that he was routinely taking people’s happiness.

Should she ever try to talk to him about getting out of the town? Maybe. Should she try to get him to talk about what he knows about making charms and what he can sense? Maybe someday. She has strong feelings about who she does and does not trust. In the predawn she stuffs the messenger crown into a hole under a mostly rotted tree stump. Almost a year es. Lily and Viola help Noreen and help at the diner. One warm evening Lily, Noreen and Viola sit on the front porch. Lily sews a bit of cloth into the form of a doll. She stuffs it with grass. Viola says, “Why do you make those? They’re dead.” Lily smiles wryly, “It was never meant to be alive.” Viola says, “But why make a dead thing?” Lily looks up suddenly. “Maybe they aren’t.” She shakes the doll at Viola who cringes and scoots away. Noreen shakes her head in mock disapproval. Lily looks up and sees a giant made of garbage walk past them on the road. It lumbers forward slowly, sometimes leaving behind a piece of garbage that has come loose. The garbage it is made of is from outside of the town. Cans, pizza boxes, foam containers, plastic bags, all items that at least some of the people in this town may have never seen. The giant is at least three times taller than Lily. Lily asks, “Viola, do you see something large and moving?” Viola says, “Uh oh, see what?” “The giant made of garbage that ed us?” “Um, no. Sorry, I can’t see it.” Lily jumps to her feet, “I’ll see you guys later!” She follows the giant from a distance. It moves around town, attracted to debris. It finds a pile of fall leaves and walks through it. The leaves cling to it like metal shavings to a magnet. The leaves become part of its body. The giant es people. No one else can see it. It goes behind the bar and digs in a compost bin, adding corn husks and chicken feathers to itself. When the sun sets it hunkers down against a tree and mostly stops moving.

She goes home, but she checks up on it in the following days. The giant eats and sleeps regularly like a human. It hovers over an apple tree popping apples into its mouth. It walks around finding garbage to add to itself. It never pays attention to the townsfolk. It seems interested almost exclusively in grazing and sleeping. One day, its foot becomes tangled on a vine in the tall grass. Lily hunkers down to wait and see what will happen. After twenty minutes of struggling to free itself, its back opens and a little White woman climbs down. In a great hurry she chops away at the vine. After that she climbs back into the garbage, closes it back up and the giant shudders to life again. It leans forward into slow steps that make it sway side to side as it walks. Later Lily tells Viola all about it. Lily asks, “Have you ever seen something like that?” Viola says, “No, but it sounds like a charm maker to me. I mean, if I were still a messenger and I saw that I would sound the horn and let everyone know I found a sensitive, a charm maker. Pure and simple.” Lily repeats Viola thoughtfully, “Pure and simple.” One day Lily and Viola are walking, and Lily spots the giant on the side of the road, kneeled over a cornfield, stuffing cobs of corn into its mouth. When Lily looks through her shard of glass at the giant, she sees a thin, gummy substance coats every piece of garbage. The coating does not look like enthusiasm, it's blue, not white. Lily wonders what “motive in physical form” it could be and how the little woman got it all over the garbage. Viola says, “Are you going to look through that glass in the diner? You embarrass me.” In the evening when Lily and Viola eat dinner by the diner’s front window, the garbage giant stands in front of the one dilapidated house in town. It stands upright and shudders from time to time. When they finish cleaning tabletops and plates and step out to the cool air, Lily sees the giant moving its arms in front of the house like it’s slowly trying to feel its way toward the house. Has the giant gone blind? Or wait, is the giant unable to see the house? Lily bets that is the situation. Each time it takes a small step it feels the ground to make sure it has a footing.

The next day, Lily and Viola wash out a rain barrel. Lily says, “Why turn a whole town into a trap?” Viola shrugs. “How should I know? We probably deserve it somehow.” “What about the others then? Do they deserve it?” “Well they’re here aren’t they?” “My jar is empty. I’ll get more soap.” “Okay, I’ll empty the next barrel.” Lily jogs down the road. Viola walks up to a second barrel. A moment later, Lily returns out of breath. “The garbage giant is gone! And there’s a large pile of garbage where she was standing!” Viola says, “What?” “Mind if I go have a look?” “Go ahead.” A large pile of garbage litters the front door to the one completely decrepit house in town. No doubt most if not all the garbage that once made up the garbage giant is now that pile. Did someone attack and destroy the garbage giant? The front door is open and some of the garbage spills into the interior. Lily has explored all the other vacant houses in town. Why has she never explored this one? She hasn’t even walked into the yard or peeked through one of the windows. She steps into the yard and takes a look at the house through her glass shard. It looks like it’s covered in seaweed, wavering massless in the air. Now she approaches the garbage. She kicks at some of it. She starts to plow her way through it. It’s clear the little woman is no longer in the garbage, and the garbage is now just a pile. Where is the little woman? It’s hard to see into the house through the door, the interior is too dark. Lily steps over the garbage and through the busted-open front door. Rot penetrates most of the interior. The skeletal remains of a person rest on the couch, in a summer dress.

Birds are nailed, splayed, to the two outermost, interior walls. Lily steps carefully, looking and listening. She tests the sturdiness of the floor with each step, feeling for any minute currents in the air. Moving the wrong item in a trap maker’s house could change her future forever. She picks up a broom and extends it in front of her. She es through a doorway and waits. The building groans in the breeze. She looks at the rotting remains of an ordinary, conservative bedroom. Again, splayed birds are nailed against the outermost, interior walls. Perhaps the wind is blowing strong today, but Lily didn’t notice it before she entered the house. No, there was no breeze today, it’s something else. She makes her way down the hall, toward the kitchen, taking her time to feel, search, listen. It’s likely the woman from inside the garbage giant is somewhere inside the house. But only the wind rocking the house back and forth makes noise. All the rooms have oil lamps and books of matches. In the kitchen Lily finds dusty dishes. Mice and ants have long ago taken the last crumb of food that might have remained here. In a laundry nook she finds books, but they are all what you would expect in a household, cookbooks, a phone book and a ledger of house expenses. The pages are brittle and brown. She sees a cabinet door with a lock on it. She pulls on it and the wood is so rotted the lock, latch and screws come right off. She kneels and opens the door. Instead of the inside of a cabinet she finds a small age that leads to another room. She takes her time searching the age for any detail, examining every crack before she crawls through. It leads to a windowless, closet-size room where she stands. When her eyes adjust to the dark, she sees bizarre items crowd shelves from floor to ceiling: a chest-plate shaped for a woman, a floral hat with what looks like a lightning catcher sticking up off it, a dried snake, hard as a branch, a tiny crossbow that could fit in Lily’s hand, a jar of marbles but on closer inspection the marbles have worms or some intestine shaped items enclosed inside. Thousands of pearls half fill a tank of murky water. Lily lifts a small box made of lead. She opens the lid to find a dried-up fish head. Very faintly, the sounds of

voices rise from the box, many voices. Lily tries to hear what they are saying, but there are so many of them and they sound drunk, or like they are talking in their sleep. She is too creeped out to touch, let alone try on, a donkey mask made out of real fur. Lily wonders, “Who were you with all your devices? Are you the woman sitting in the living room? I hope you didn’t need to set traps inside the house.” She finds a ring with a contraption on it, a little bottle that is sealed when in one position. When a button is pushed, the bottle turns forward becoming uncapped. Lily tries the mechanism many times and says in her mind, “Would you like a little poison in your wine?” Maybe only she can see all these things. Would all this stuff be invisible if she took any of it out of the house? The whole house is invisible to everyone but her. Can messengers see all this? I would think they would kill the woman immediately if they found this room. What looks like wax and horsehair coat the inside of another flower hat. When she touches an ordinary-looking kitchen knife, everything lights up and shimmers in the dark. When she turns a winder handle, the pair of wings attached to it mechanically flap and the air comes alive with swirling currents, even though the wings have only flapped once. In a metal box advertising sewing machine parts, she finds matching silver brooches shaped like suns, with big beads of glass for their centers. Lily discovers that when she looks into the glass of one, she sees out of the glass of the other, and vice-versa. She closes them in the box and puts the box back on the shelf. She finds a cast silver ring with the tiny statue of a hummingbird on top. When she puts on the ring, the tiny bird disappears. Lily slips the ring off and the silver bird can be seen on it again. Lily returns it to the shelf and wonders, “Where do you fly to, little bird?” Something behind some clothes on hangers catches her eye. Lily pushes the clothes aside. She finds a wall safe. What could be in there? Isn’t that overkill to hide a safe in a hidden room in an invisible house? She tries the handle. Locked, but of course. She finds a scrap of gunny sack. Unfolding it, she sees a woman's face has been amateurishly painted on it. She stands before the full-length mirror and holds the

material over her face. Butterflies flutter excitedly in her stomach when she sees herself transform in the mirror to a different woman. Even the body type is different, but the woman in the mirror does wear the clothes Lily is wearing. Lily tries speaking, “Hello, how are you?” Her voice sounds like that of a different woman, fuller, softer, older. Lily watches the reflection of that other woman mimic her every movement exactly. Vague memories try to surface in Lily's mind, the problem is, they are not her memories. Lily says nervously, “Don't tell me yet. You can yourself another time. I will let you ; I promise.” Lily carefully folds the mask and tucks it away into the large pocket she sewed by hand into her shirt. Lily picks up a coin and turns it side to side, but instead of showing two sides, it shows a new face each time she turns it. She places it back. She picks up a little parasol. When she spins it, the spinning colors form into the scene of the hotel Lily lived in before the quarantine. She folds it up and returns it. She finds a hollow nose carved out of wood. She places it over her nose and can immediately smell post-death on the woman in the other room. Not only does she smell the smell, but she also senses exactly where the smell comes from even though it’s coming from a room on the other side of the house. She can smell people, many people. Not inside the house, but in the surrounding area outside of the house. She can smell their age. On some she can smell worry. On others she can smell anticipation. Still on others she smells tiredness. Through smell she now knows the lay of the rest of the house and how, decades ago, a family of four lived here, then two adult sisters lived here. The younger one wore perfume. A man lived here off and on. A man who kept a gun. Then just the one sister lived here alone. Lily smells many years of a mostly empty house, the increase of mold. Lily smells the recent age of the garbage giant woman, through the front door and to a basement. That smell stands out strong in a soup of faded smells. She can smell that the garbage-giant woman ate a chicken-salad sandwich some time before entering the house. By smell Lily can tell that, besides her and the garbage giant, this house has not been entered by a human in over thirty-five years. Very few animals, very few insects have found their way into the house. Last year two mice moved in. A bat

lived in the attic before it died last year. Animals that can find an invisible house should be worth something to someone. She removes the hollow nose. It has holes on either side that she could tie ribbons to, then tie it to her face. She puts the nose in her pocket. She takes the kitchen knife that lights up the surroundings and sticks it through the wool belt she knitted for herself. She should not linger here much longer. She should try to find what happened to the garbage-giant woman while she still can. She backtracks, but before she ducks down to crawl back through the cabinet entrance, she pulls open a woman's tweed jacket hanging on a hook. She finds metal plates sewn to the inside. Lily thinks, “You were a powerful charm maker, but you still had to watch your back. What I’d really like to know is, were you the one who did it, and if so, why did you do it? Why the entire town? Did you want to freeze it in time? Maybe it didn’t work exactly the way you wanted. Maybe you didn’t expect new arrivals to get trapped. But I already know you have a way out. I can smell it on you, the smells from other places on your skeleton. I really should go after the garbage-giant woman.” Lily picks up a small brass whistle, shorter than her hand, with six holes across the top. She puts a finger on one hole and blows. A blindingly shrill sound shoots out. Everything the whistle was pointed at, a table, the things on it, the shelf behind the table, everything on it and the wall behind that, crumble to pieces and fly out across the yard outside. Lily falls back and hustles to her feet, dropping the whistle. A feeling like molten fear washes over her. In response she looks up at an eagle on the top shelf. It stares back at her, poised to attack. Lily is terrified to move lest it does attack. But after a few seconds she suspects it’s a stuffed eagle. It does not move at all. But her fear only grows stronger and Lily tears her eyes away from the bird. Fear turns to guilt turns to fear. She did, after all, break into this home. She shouldn’t be here. Whatever drove her to break in? Wait, she didn’t break in. Or did she? That bird is messing with her mind. Of course it’s deadly for her to be here. She hears someone running through the house. She hears, far away, a domestic dispute full of malice and hate. But this is all part of that bird charm messing with her head.

She should go now. She jumps down through the hole in the wall the whistle made. She must get away from this murderer’s house. Worse than a murderer. That woman took human personalities apart and left them alive in pieces all over that house. Lily runs down the road, causing Jen MaCabe to look up from weeding her yard. Is Lily being watched? She is. Why is she thinking this way? Is her mind her own? Why must she always run? Is that all she knows to do? That bird is turning her own thoughts against her!

[16] Rescue Attempt

Viola looks all over town for Lily. She finds Lily in a three-wall shed sitting on a hay bale with her back to the open side. Viola calls into the shed, “Where have you been? I spent all day looking for you.” Lily turns around slowly. “I can’t shake it.” Viola says, “Shake what?” “Is there an eagle out there? Do you see an eagle outside?” Viola sits next to Lily and tries to comfort her. “It’s alright. Why don’t we leave this shed and walk and talk about it?” Lily says, “No.” After some time Viola leaves Lily in the shed. In the evening Viola and Noreen bring Lily stew. Lily eats it nervously and looks all around with wide open eyes. The next morning, when Viola asks for a plate of pancakes at the diner so she can bring it to Lily, Lily walks into the diner carrying two stuffed bags. She hands one to Viola. “I found a way out, let’s go. Here take this. We aren’t going to starve this time. Get your things.” Viola looks Lily over. “Are you all right?” “I’m fine. It wasn’t meant to last. It was supposed to just give me a good scare.” “What are you talking about?” “I’ll explain on the way, but we should go now.” “This is sudden. Are you sure?” “Very sure.”

Viola gets her things. Lily tells Noreen, “I found a way out. Viola and I are leaving.” Noreen says, “Oh yes? I hope it goes well.” Viola comes in carrying her things. “Noreen, um, we are leaving.” Noreen says, “Lily told me. I see you have some food. I’ll be here if you need me.” Viola just stands there. Lily says, “Come on. We should go.” Viola does walk with Lily, but Lily notices she feels like she is dragging Viola. Perhaps in one of those companion realities Sinaloa spoke about, Lily is literally dragging Viola. Lily will look back on this time and wish she had let Viola stay. She will wish she did not just expect that Viola would come with her. Viola surely would have been happy in Prudence. As they walk, Lily says, “I don’t think Noreen thinks we will be able to leave.” Viola says, “Yeah, I guess you’re right.” Lily holds out the knife. “See this?” “No, I don’t see anything.” “Hm! Good.” They reach the empty lot where Lily insists a deteriorated house stands. Lily says, “Now please trust me, you know I got us away safely from the messengers.” She takes out a blindfold. Viola looks fearfully at the blindfold. Lily says, “You just have to trust me.” She hands Viola the blindfold and Viola puts it on. Lily ties the wood nose to her face with a pair of leather laces. She leads Viola across the yard and into the house. Viola shivers and shakes. Lily may be walking through a house, but Viola is walking through a void. Lily

takes out her knife and all the surfaces in her field of sight light up, not reflecting light but emitting it. Viola clings to Lily. Lily says, “It will be just like before.” Viola says in a powerless voice, “Please tell me it won’t be long.” “It won’t be long at all.” Lily leads Viola to a closet door that opens to a hole in the floor with wooden steps going down into the ground. Lily goes first and then helps Viola down each step. The earth around them was dug by hand. Lily must lead Viola down the steps carefully. “Another step down, just a little further down. You have it, you can stand on the floor now.” The floor is rocky earth. None of the other houses have basements. This hand-dug basement was once a pretty large space, but now it is almost all full of dirt. The one clear path leads to steps carved into the dirt that goes even further down. At the foot of those steps, Lily and Viola walk down a narrow tunnel smelling of damp, packed dirt. Lily asks, “Can you smell that?” Viola says, “No.” Lily puts her hand gently on Viola’s head and presses it down a little so Viola won’t bump into the damp earth above. Lily says, “That is how I found this tunnel. I smelled the dirt on the owner’s shoes. I smelled the dirt tracks even though the woman swept every day when she was alive.” “When we were messengers, I used to notice you have such a bad sense of smell, like a visible. I pretended I didn’t notice.” “I do have a visible’s sense of smell, normally.” “But you grew a better sense of smell?” “I’m borrowing a better sense of smell. I’ll explain everything once we are through this tunnel.” Viola’s voice quivers. “You always come across so innocent.” It only takes a few minutes before they reach an opening, a hole in the ground

inside a shed. They climb a wooden ladder to ground level. The door to the shed has fallen off and lies in the doorway. Lily leads Viola out of the shed to the woods just outside of the town. Lily says, “You can take your blindfold off now. Do you see it?” Viola says, “What?” “The hole. The tunnel entrance.” “N-no. It’s an empty shed. It has a dirt floor.” They laugh when they see the buildings of the town through the trees. Viola says, “Look! Noreen’s house is over there! We could see her in the orchard if we went over there.” “I don’t think we should.” “I know.” They don’t notice that when they walk over the door that lies on the ground in front of the shed, it pulls a chord that closes a switch. On the other side of a thick group of trees, a White man with long legs and a short chest looks up to the sound of an electric bell. Behind him, on a table, is what is left of the garbagegiant woman. The man climbs a rope ladder. He reaches a platform built around a tree and uses binoculars to look down through layers of leafy branches. “Oh drat, there’s two of them, uh. That makes it harder. And I don’t know which one makes charms.” His binoculars have been modified. They have a tube on top like a cannon and an outlet box. He takes a thick cord that comes out of an old ammo box resting on the platform and plugs it into the binoculars, “Oh, here we go. Can you guess which one is not like the others? What kind of broken are you? She has no shadow. She's got to be the charm maker. The other is fishy but probably from hanging out with broken child there. She is certainly the odd one. Hello charm maker.” The ammo box buzzes. He pulls the binoculars away to rub the irritation out of his eyes. He cuts the power from the ammo box by unplugging the binoculars.

“I’ve never struck when there’s two. I’ll have to come up with something new. That will use a lot of my resources. It’s almost not worth it. By their homemade clothes it looks like they were in the town for years, so Little Miss Broken there must not be that powerful or smart. Well, I better hurry and come up with something or just let them go.” He picks up a homemade thing that resembles a rifle with a large-diameter barrel. He empties a jar of specks into the barrel, aims quickly and fires. Pop! Lily and Viola look at an old car rusted to pieces and covered with vines. Lily says, “It belonged to the woman who made the way out, I can smell her on it. She was the last one to drive it.” They hear a pop! and spin around but see nothing. Viola steps closer to Lily. “What was that?” A cloud of insects overcomes them. They wave their arms frantically. Tiny little things stick to their clothes. After running a few paces, they find many of the little critters stuck on them, too many to pick all of them off and so tiny it’s hard to spot them. They walk a wide circle around the town. It seems much smaller on the outside. They see the rocky peak they aimed for before getting stuck in the town and start toward it again. They must climb a steep, rocky hill, but soon they are walking with a much-elevated view. They climb higher and higher. Now they feel like they are traversing the top of the world. Lily asks, “You missing Noreen?” Viola says, “You read my mind! I was going to help make preserves. That’s a lot of work for one person.” Lily worries for a moment if Viola’s activity with males will be an issue when they get to town. If they get an apartment together, will there always be random men wanting to stay there? Viola asks, “Do you think we are best friends?” Lily says, “Yes, I think we are.”

“That’s what Noreen called us. I hope she isn’t walking around looking for us.” “Oh I know. I hope she believes we made it out.” They walk past the singular rock peak that towers overall. From here they can see so much of the world laid out in front of them. Little airplanes, little buildings so far away, and little clouds look tiny and picturesque. As the takes them toward a descent, they both become a little giddy. By nightfall they are deep in the trees again and stop at a vacant and neglected campsite. They sit on one a circle of logs around a campfire pit. Viola shows Lily how to light a fire. “Noreen taught me how to do this.” Lily says, “I wonder if I could have broken the town trap. I know I found the way out, but what if I could have broken the charm and set all those people free? Imagine, a hundred people walking out of the woods and into the nearest city! People that were missing for decades, reunited with friends and family!” Viola says, “Could you still try to do that?” “I don’t ever want to go there again. I found a room with all kinds of amazing things that belonged to the woman who made the town a trap. I could probably use those things to figure out what happened to me. But I could never make myself go back. A charm in that room made me scared to go back.” They tear pieces of bread to eat with cheese, and lay out blankets on the ground. They sit talking about everything they about the town. It has already become a comforting time to . Viola says, “I’m sleepy. I’m going to sleep. Can you take care of the fire?” Lily says, “Sure.” In the dark the leggy man lets his dog pull him by a leash. The dog tries to bark but it has no vocal cords. The man surgically removed them. The dog’s frantic noise-making only sounds as loud as a dry cough. The man smells smoke and sees a glimmer of orange ahead. He ties the dog to a tree and continues by himself. He watches Lily through the trees. She sits with her back turned to him. He

sticks two fingers into his shirt pocket and pulls out a chew tin. He opens it and pinches off wads of wax. These he pushes into his ears. Leaning against a tree trunk, he slips a little. He moves one foot back and it snaps a twig. Lily turns. She raises a hand to her nose. It looks like she holds something but he sees nothing in her hand. He takes a large plastic blue and white whistle from a string around his neck and blows it with all his might. The sound waves move out slowly, visibly warping everything they through. Lily stands. The sound waves through the trees and reach Lily. She drops her hand and falls into a heap by the embers left by the fire. She wakes in the hard daylight, her face pressed against a rock. When she lifts her head, some stones fall from her face, others stay stuck to her sweaty skin. Her head hurts and one arm has scrapes on it. She lifts herself and is suddenly fully awake. “Viola?!” She runs to the blanket that Viola should be sleeping under. Viola is not there. Lily runs all around the area, “Viola! Viola, where did you go?” She sobs as she stumbles along. To find Viola, she needs the wooden nose. Where is it? She lost it. That was the last thing she re doing, smelling another human very near. She drops to her knees searching around the area where she fell. By midday she has found the nose and sniffs the trail, following Viola’s scent. She also smells that the captor is young, male, has a gun and is with a dog. She smells that the dog is chronically stressed to its limit. She smells Viola’s saliva and perspiration but no fear hormones in the perspiration. It’s likely Viola was not awake when abducted. Whether it’s useful information or not, she smells that the kidnapper drinks prune juice often, sleeps in his clothes, spilled motor oil on his pants recently, has bad dandruff and greasy hair, really should go to the dentist about his cavities, and that saliva often dries on his face. To follow him she has to walk back uphill in the direction she came from. By nightfall she smells his place, just on the other side of a thick group of trees. She tries to steady her nerves as she nears his house, smelling the traps he has set around his home and stepping over them. Many, many traps. The light from his property cuts through the darkness in bands.

After she pushes through the trees, she sees he doesn’t cover his windows, and the inside lights shine out on the overgrown yard. The large windows give her a view into most of the shop that is attached to his house. She sees him working under a light inside the shop. The door to the shop is propped open, and Lily can hear faint oldies radio coming from inside. The light he works beneath is no ordinary source of illumination. She recognizes it from the trip she took with Numera into the underworld. On a table, Viola is alive but in pieces, under the light. Her legs, arms and head have been cut off her torso and there is no blood. All her parts remain fully alive. Her hands move. Her chest heaves. She looks around. Her eyes flicker and her lips move. An expression of panic es over her face. The light keeps her alive. It’s only a matter of time before the kidnapper fashions a part of her into a charm. She will spend eternity alive but fragmented. Wiping away burning tears, Lily sniffs and sniffs deeply through the wooden nose. She smells where the guns are kept in the house. The man does not have a gun on him. She knows about the dog in the other room. Lily dashes across the yard and through the door. The leggy man spins around, confused, still holding his cutting tool. Lily runs past him and grabs the rifle from under a tool cabinet. She points it at the leggy man. He sees how she holds the gun and relaxes. She pulls the trigger. Nothing happens. She has some notion that there is a safety switch but how can she find that? She smelled bullets in it. Does it need to be cocked? The pieces of Viola shake violently on the table. The dog runs into the room, deeply bites Lily's leg and jumps at her face. The leggy man picks up an ax and approaches Lily. She starts ramming the stock of the rifle into the dog’s face. The man pauses. The third time she strikes, the dog steps back and falls to the floor motionless. Lily grabs the pistol from under the cabinet. The man looks like his face is going to explode. Lily runs around the table and out the door she came in through. She flies from the building and hides in the tall grass. The dog bites on her leg and arm are stinging in the air and dripping blood. She touches folds of flesh and pulls her hand back. The man runs out of the house, aiming a crossbow. She did smell the crossbow; she just didn’t know what it was.

The rifle is useless to her. In the dark she feels for the safety but finds nothing. She leaves both guns in the dirt. The man sticks two fingers in his shirt pocket and pulls out a tin. When he looks to his right she runs away from the house, into the darkness, using the nose to “see.” She kneels and hoists a large branch over the trip cord of one of his traps. A great net pulls the branch out of her hands and pulls up years of plant growth. She screams hoping it will sound like the net pulls her into the air. She screams so loud, she startles herself. But she also crawls away as quickly as possible. As she hears the man loudly stomp through the grass, she quietly makes her way back to the house, using the nose to “see.” The nose wants her to close her eyes and she does. It becomes much easier to navigate. She can even avoid stepping on noisy twigs by smell. The leggy man shoots crossbow bolts into the net that swings far above his head. She runs into the shop and stands at the table. Viola looks up at her. Lily asks, “Do you want me to end this?” Viola slowly blinks one blink and stares at Lily. Both stare at each other, both shedding tears. Lily picks up a broom with shaking hands. “I’m sorry. I want to thank you. I will miss you. I never thanked you. I think you saved my life.” The dog groans on the floor. Lily swings the broom and breaks the light. Viola's body parts release blood, and it spills out forming puddles that together and pour off the table. Viola’s quivering stops. She heaves her last breath. Though Viola’s expression changes little it goes from looking very much alive to very much dead. Lily says, “I’m so sorry I couldn’t have stopped this. I will…” A shrill sound hits Lily. She falls back. She feels herself fainting and tries with all her might to shake it off. She falls to the floor and es out. The man pockets the blue and white whistle and pulls the wax out of his ears as he walks toward the shop. He veers right and heads for the front yard. Lily partly awakes and wills herself out of a stupor. Blood spills from the table out onto the floor. The truck parked in the front yard grinds and revs to life. His whistle-charm was outside when he blew it. He had no idea she had snuck into his shop. The whistle didn’t completely knock her out.

She pulls herself to her feet with the help of a shelf. He drives the truck around the house and through tall grass to the hanging net trap. She hides behind the door until the truck es, then slips out. The sun rises as she smells her way back to the campground and their packs. She hauls the two packs off the path and deeper into the woods. Her tears make streaks in the grime on her face as she cleans her wounds and wraps them with strips of fabric from an old shirt. She combines the two packs into one. She stays in the woods, following a road until she sees a service station and walks around back to clean up in the bathroom. She approaches a family in a car. The man pumps gas. She says, “Excuse me sir, do you think I could get a ride into town?” His face turns sour. The faces of his family look worried inside the car. The man says, “We don’t have enough room.” “That’s okay, sorry,” Lily says and quickly walks away. She heads down the country road, feeling the heat from the sun and walking briskly to make good time. She feels something missing and continually realizes it is Viola missing. It’s hard for her to think clearly. The pain is like a fog over her existence. She shudders when the leggy charm-maker drives past in his pickup. His driving becomes erratic for a moment and he brakes without pulling over. Lily runs into a grassy ditch and climbs out the other side. Then she climbs over a barbed wire fence. The truck backs up. She runs toward a house in the middle of fields. She reaches the front door and knocks. The truck is driving down the drive toward the house. Lily knocks again. She takes off across the yard. Behind her the truck door opens. The charm maker lifts a crossbow out of his pickup, aims and fires at Lily. She falls forward when a rolled-up bundle hits her in the back of the head. It breaks apart and its contents crawl all over her. She can feel tiny things crawl over her body, getting in her hair and under her clothes. She scratches even as she gets to her feet and runs. A feeling of nausea floods her senses, and she has to stop. She turns around. The man is lifting a long wide tube out of the back of his pickup and putting it on his shoulder to aim it at her. Lily feels herself losing the weight of her body. She is growing lighter. The man aims the tube at her. The front door to the farmhouse opens and a man comes out shouting at the leggy man, “Hey! What are you doing?” The Charm

maker puts the tube down and assumes a humble posture as he faces the homeowner. Lily tries to walk away but she loses all her mass and becomes a flimsy, filmy thing. She can’t move anymore and she does not have limbs to move anymore. The ground falls away below her as she rises. The wind takes complete control of her and carries her away. The charm maker spots her in the sky but he looks back at the homeowner and returns the tube to his truck while talking to calm the homeowner down. The wind pulls Lily over a group of trees and she loses sight of them. A moment later she sees his truck driving down the country road. It drives ahead and stops. The charm-maker gets out. Lily is carried toward him. There is nothing she can do to change direction or stop. He sees her and hurries to take the tube out of the truck bed and aim it at her. She is about three stories off the ground and half a block back from the road when she flies past him. Even from this distance she can tell he is extremely mad. He fires. She feels herself compress and decompress as she is yanked toward him but his aim is off and the wind takes her again. He sets the tube on the truck and fiddles with it. He aims it again, but by this time she is across the field, gliding over a line of windbreaker trees. The wind carries her over fields, over rooftops, past chicken farms and factory buildings. She flies over a river and almost runs into one of the truss bridges crossing it. She is carried down a street, buildings on each side. The air current from a bus rolling down the street sends her spinning as it es below her. She gets caught in its wake and is pulled down. She brushes the pavement. A car nearly hits her, but the air it pushes lifts her up and over it, sending her spinning again. She flies toward a building where the air near the wall hardly moves at all. Lily very slowly sinks. She es a second-story window and finds herself looking in at a darkened living space for at least a minute before she sinks past the window. The evening sun hits her and warms her shapeless, filmy-substance body. She is grateful for its warmth, but her heart aches so badly. If she could shed tears she would. She feels a remorse that will stay with her, fading over time, but never completely fading away.

[17] The Professional Poison Eater

She looks down on the heads of a couple walking down the sidewalk, a Black woman and a White man. Before she realizes what is happening, she is somehow pulled by them without their knowing. She feels that if they walked just a little faster, she would break loose from them, but they pull her along about two meters behind them. They walk past stores, under trees, cross congested streets and weave through the flow of foot traffic. Lily remains caught by them. They cross a bridge and walk by the river, ing people fishing. They don’t touch a lot but the way they act together, it is like they are holding each other. They enter a park and walk slowly. Lily hangs behind like a forgotten party balloon. The sounds of people and cars fade away. The couple walks for a long time. They sit on a bench overlooking some sort of estate with tall brick walls and oldfashioned windows reflecting the sun. As they sit, Lily feels herself pulled by the wind until a strong wind pulls her backward, plucking her away from them. She watches helplessly as they seem to float away, a couple wearing fine clothes sitting on an old bench. She hopes the warmth they share stays with them for decades. May they laugh together often. May she be patient and he be selfsacrificing. May they confide in each other, look after each other. May they always wish time did not go by so quickly. Bushes below Lily. Branches of orange leaves fly above. She smells soil and feels herself pulled to the ground. She bounces against it. She is surrounded by bushes and trees. Many leaves fall to the ground. Evening approaches and she gets colder and colder. She would shiver if she could. She tries to figure out what happened to her arms. A woman’s voice asks, “Who is that?” Lily becomes alert. She says, “Who said that?” In her new filament body, Lily senses someone very close, a woman. Her body must be very close, but Lily sees no one. “Where are you?” The woman says, “I’m covered in dirt. I think I’m buried. Are we in a graveyard?”

“I don’t think so, we are in a park.” “Can you dig me out or go for help? I’m hurt. I’m badly hurt.” “I’m afraid I can’t.” “Can you go for help?” Lily says, “I’m terribly afraid I can’t.” As the night grows darker, Lily can sense more. She can know what is in the ground almost like the ground is in her mind and her mind grows to contain it. Animal bones are in the ground, roots large to tiny, countless tiny living things, more living things than non-living things. The woman is buried in the ground. Lily’s nearly massless body was drawn to the woman and now the two are only 3 decimeters apart, separated by loose dirt, Lily realizes with horror. As the night gets colder, Lily can tell the woman’s body is warm but not as warm as it should be. Were they talking to each other or only hearing each other’s thoughts? How long will the woman live? Lily says, “Are you still there?” The woman says, “Yes. Why are you crying?” “Am I?” “You've been crying this whole time.” “Have I? I didn't know. I don't feel like I'm crying.” “Who is Viola?” Lily says, “How do you know her name?” The woman says, “You kept calling me Viola when you were sleeping.” “I was sleeping?” “For most of the night.”

“Are you in pain?” “A lot of pain.” “Can you sit up?” “I can’t move. I can hardly move at all.” More of the surroundings enter Lily’s awareness. She detects patches of bloodsoaked soil. Ants inspect a cigarette butt. Crushed leaves on a broken branch cover a burnt match. A girl’s foot and shoe are buried not far away. Lily says, “I’m sorry you are going through this. Why are you buried?” The woman says, “I don’t know. I don’t .” “What do you ?” “I the shed behind our home. My parents are busy and don’t have time for yard work. Our back yard is a jungle. They always meant to tear down the old shed.” “What is your name?” A strong wind pulls Lily off the ground. She feels like the earth falls away from her. It only takes a second for her to fly three meters off the ground. She thinks she hears the woman say, “Mue.” Lily calls out, “My name is Lily!” But Lily is moving as fast as a car. She is about to hit a group of trees. She is lifted at the last minute and clears them. She speeds through the night now, seeing porch lights and the flicker of streetlamps through branches. She feels colder than she ever has, but it does not seem to matter. Is she headed inland or toward the ocean? In a busy part of the city, a White woman takes a seat in front of a shatter-proof, one-way mirror in a well-ventilated visiting booth. Her clothes are upper-middleclass. She uses little makeup and the wrinkles around her eyes are striking. She looks at her reflection, then picks up a phone receiver and pushes the one large button.

A White man sits down on the other side of the mirror. She can’t see him. Her room is well lit, his room is dark. He wears a leisure suit. He is twenty-eight but he looks sixty. He picks up the receiver on his desk and looks closely at her. “Who told you about this business?” The woman says, “My shrink. I’m sorry, I mean my psychiatrist.” Mr. Graham waits silently. The woman says, “Doctor Fletcher.” Mr. Graham says, “That’s fine. My name is Mr. Graham, I’ll be your professional poison eater today. What can I do for you?” “I’ve been having the same dream every night, exactly the same dream, down to every detail.” “What is your dream?” “I dream that I disguise myself.” “As who?” The woman says, “As a maid. I borrow some of my maid’s clothes.” Mr. Graham says, “You disguise yourself…” “And I walk off my property and take a cab to South Philly. I go to a garage with a green door.” “Do you have an address?” “I ask to get off at that little graveyard, by the cathedral, and I walk down the alley, to the garage. I pull a string that hangs from a hole right by the garage door and soon a man opens the garage door and…” “And gives you a bomb.” “Why, yes.” Mr. Graham says, “You take the bomb and you find a woman…”

“Yes. The bag lady, I mean the... the…” “That’s fine, I know what you mean. I’ll need a clipping of your hair or a fingernail clipping.” “Yes. I have it right here.” She pulls a business envelope from her purse. “You’ll find a shelf under your desk. Slide it out and put the envelope in there.” The woman says, “Oh yes, here it is. You can stop the dreams?” Mr. Graham says, “You won’t have them anymore. I’ll take care of it this afternoon. Just that our anonymity keeps the bad dreams away. If you talk to anyone besides Mrs. Fletcher, the bad dreams will come back, probably the night following any careless talk.” “Oh, don’t worry! I am the best secret keeper you will ever meet. You don’t even know!” “Yes. Good.” Done with his phone call, Mr. Graham closes a curtain over the one-way mirror and takes the envelope out of the drawer from his side. He walks to a window and looks through thick glass and bars down to the street in time to see the woman walk to her car. A light vapor issues from his pores and he is continually surrounded by a mist. The longer he stays in one place, the thicker the mist grows. The mist is poisonous. He has never had an insect problem in his apartment. Flies, mosquitos and spiders all die after an hour of being there. He walks to a stainless-steel, double-direction drawer built into the wall, pulls it open and takes out a tray holding a newspaper, hot coffee, a plate of jelly toast and a glass of orange juice. In his outrageously expensive, winged chair he reads the paper thoroughly. He completes the crossword puzzle and finishes with the obituaries to see if he has lost any clients. His apartment is small but very nicely decorated. He walks to a little metal door in the wall, knocks on it and waits. On the other side of the wall he can hear creaking wood and a chair being pulled across the floor. The little door slides open to thick glass and a woman's face. Her eyes already scrutinize him. Below the window, a plate of thick steel with holes drilled into it covers a microphone and speaker. He speaks into the

microphone, “I’m going out.” She holds up what looks like a pin light. Over the speaker she says, “Eyes.” He positions his eyes near the window. She shines a light in them and looks over each for a few minutes. “You will be searched before you are allowed reentry. No purchasing firearms.” Mr. Graham says, “Yes, yes.” She turns a switch. A heavy electric lock clicks. He glides to the door that looks domestic on his side. It is 10 centimeters thick and mostly metal. He heaves it open to a hall with a tile floor that has drains in it. He walks the hall, past other heavy metal doors, and descends a stairwell that is open to the outside air. In a public area outside, he takes his hat out of a locker, checks himself in a mirror, and walks away from the building. Two security guards inside an airtight booth nod to him with professional respect. He stands in a parking lot, blinking in the bright daylight and smelling the breeze. He glances sheepishly at a middle-aged couple walking from the parking lot to the front of the building. When the coast is clear he walks to the front. While inside the building, in the waiting room, a woman looks out the windows and sees him crossing the street. She tenses. She asks the receptionist, “Is that one of them?” The receptionist looks up and nods reluctantly. The woman asks, “Do you know them?” The receptionist says, “I’ve never spoken to any of them.” Mr. Graham walks along through the middle-class neighborhood. Many who see him make no bones about crossing the street to avoid him. Some people do not know what he is and don’t avoid him. Mr. Graham avoids them. He does not want to make anyone sick. A man with a suitcase walks toward him, looking right at him, and Mr. Graham recognizes this man as one of “the players.” Players look in directions people don’t usually look and they often pause, usually when they are right in the middle of doing something. Mr. Graham does not know why they are called

“players.” All he knows is he must act normal around them. No one explained to Mr. Graham how he should act normal or what it means to act normal. Graham immediately understood that he should, as an example, never reveal his occupation to a player. Mr. Graham stands on a hill looking down at the acres of the once worldrenowned zoo that is now run-down. The landscaping is not maintained enough, one out of three of the cages are empty and the food court that once had ten different stands now has only one open stand. The other stands are shuttered or removed. Many areas of the zoo are forgotten spaces: a dried-up pond, a path too overgrown to walk down, and a covered picnic area with the tables removed. Still, many people enjoy the zoo, using it more like a park. Mr. Graham watches everyone but he does not dare go any nearer. He spends the next few hours visiting places where he can watch people from afar: a bridge over the river, empty bleachers on a sports field, and a sad-looking bench on the outskirts of the mall parking lot. He looks down at his hands. The shaking is starting. When he returns home, as he walks through the back parking lot, one of his coworkers violently attacks an armored truck that delivers the doses. Mr. Graham feels the growing desire to his coworker. He must make himself look away and force his legs to continue walking toward the building. He reminds himself over and over how pointless it would be. Two guards run at the coworker with a net made of thick rope coated in rubber padding. In the entry area he hangs his fine suede hat in his locker and submits to a search by a guard in a hazmat suit. Nobody makes any attempt at small talk. He steps back into his apartment and turns on the brightest light which is half as bright as the standard house light. He taps on the little door. “I’m back!” Electric locks slide into place with metallic clangs. The little door opens. The woman says, “You might get a larger dose if you didn’t go outside.” Mr. Graham knows from experience that isn’t true. “I just wanted to stretch my legs.” She looks at him not as human to human but human to a lab experiment. Then she slides the little door closed.

He reads crime novels for a couple of hours. He sits in his chair and nibbles on olive slices on crackers. Electric locks clang all down the residence halls. His body curls up and the shaking and trembling make it difficult for him to put the crackers in his mouth. He breaks a cracker just by picking it up. Froth forms on the corners of his mouth. His heart bloats and twists painfully. Over the building PA system, a woman says, “Not all residents are in their seats. The delivery system will not work until all residents are sitting in their seats.” “Come on!” Mr. Graham barks scattering crackers all over his lap and the floor. His apartment has two smaller rooms off the main room, the bathroom and a padded room. In the padded room a tube made of wax paper slides through a round hole in the ceiling and lands on the cushioned floor. Electric bells ring in the building. In an explosion of movement Mr. Graham moves from his chair into the padded room. A starved tiger catching a fawn is not half as driven as Mr. Graham at this moment. He lunges at the tube. Rolling until he hits the wall, he pulls the cap off and sticks the tube in his mouth. He sucks it dry. It shrivels up and he continues to suck, maddened to get every last drop of liquid out. Large drops of sweat break out on his face. He has a seizure, rolling over and shaking spasmodically. The shriveled tube falls from his mouth. He convulses until his muscles seize up and stiffen. After a few minutes he gasps for breath. He jumps to his feet, grabs the waxpaper tube and tears it to shreds, chewing on it, licking it. He screams, “Give me more! I need more! Give it to me!” His expression hangs off his face like a lifeless thing. He clutches his stomach with both hands and then he pounds the padded walls. “I'm dying in here! I need more! You didn't give me enough; give me my share!” His entire body burns with pain. His body contorts. He falls to the floor, wheezing and coughing up liquids, then suddenly his condition turns from the worst torture possible to utter bliss. His entire body relaxes, and he gasps for breath with a ghoulish smile. He cackles. He kicks the floor gleefully. The ceiling blows off the room. It spins up, up and away. The whole building shakes. It slowly begins to spin. A dozen detached selves, weightless humans, fly

through the room in a pack, gaping at him. No gravity holds them. No light illuminates them, but he can still make them out. These selves come from all walks of life: a student, a clerk, a steelyard worker… But they look at him meanly and they all look him over like he may have something they can take from him. One wags a finger at him before it disappears through the wall, and the rest follow. He laughs at them tauntingly. Surges of visceral pleasure pulsate through every fiber of his body. His tongue clicks, tears stream down his face and watery snot flows out of his nose. Then part of his mind goes and does that thing he is expected to do, that his client wants him to do. His body slowly relaxes on the floor. His eyes stare at nothing. Twenty minutes later, over the PA, a woman says, “Clients are waiting, please return to your rooms. Your last client for the day.” Mr. Graham stands to straighten his clothes. The hint of an ecstatic smile remains. The veins on his temple pulse. Poisonous fumes seep from his pores and waft off him like mist. He knocks on the little door to indicate he is ready for his next client. He pulls the curtain away from the one-way mirror. The phone rings. He lets it ring again, taking his time to look the client over through the two-way mirror. The client looks nervous like he is hiding something. He has pock-marks all over his face and shadows the shapes of splinters stick out of each pockmark. Mr. Graham sits and picks up the phone on his end. The client says, “Hello?” “My name is Mr. Graham. I’m a professional poison eater, why have you come here today?” “My psychiatrist said you may be able to help. I have been showing up at my coworker's homes.” “Do you have complete memories of these occurrences?” As the client speaks, Mr. Graham presses a fingernail that he has popped off, back on to his finger. It does not want to stick back on, so he gives it a good yank to pull it completely free and places it on the round table by his chair. He takes his walk after his vegetarian dinner. The other poison eaters never leave their apartments so soon after a dose, if they go outside at all. The organization

does not like him going out when the poison seeping out of him is still visible, but what can they do? He could leave any time he likes. He could leave and never come back if he chooses. Everyone knows that will never happen. He still feels the aftereffects and that is why he likes to take a walk. His memories of the high fade too quickly but they won’t leave him alone either. They incoherently interrupt his thoughts. He knows he saw people but who were they? Someone he encountered is crying to get his attention, but he can’t make out the words or see a face. It is just a blurry form with loud mumbling, knocking around in his head. The quiet sidewalks give him a little distance from it. Standing over the defunded zoo, he watches the last of the visitors get in their cars and drive away. The temperature is certainly getting colder. He spots something in a bush, down by the now-empty gorilla cages. He looks around. The nearest normal person is blocks away. He walks down the hill toward a group of bushes under a tree, surrounded by a brick planter wall. The wall is just tall enough to sit on. Pushing his way into the bushes, he comes upon a bundle of filament, a quivering mass of something as fine as cobweb or smoke. If his dose wears off much more, he won’t be able to see this. It moves complexly. It is alive. No one else would be able to see it. But he sees something more. He moves in for a closer look. They look like wads of faint shadow, little lumps of shadow. “Ooh, little charms. These were not made by a novice,” He says to himself. He picks each one off the cloud of smoke. When he picks the last one off, the cloud grows, gains mass and forms into an old woman, with large gaudy flowers in her hair. The old woman breaks branches as her body falls a short distance to the ground. She slumps over, frail and in a stupor. Mr. Graham stands up straight. “Oh god!” He stumbles out of the bushes and quickly walks away, looking around hoping no one has seen.

[18] People Eraser

Two Black middle-aged women holding hands take their evening stroll through the zoo grounds. They walk by an island planter. The first woman notices a human shape in the bushes. She tugs on the other woman’s elbow and they both stop. The first woman points. “Someone is back there.” She calls into the bushes, “Excuse me, are you alright?” They peer through the leaves, not sure if they see what they think they see. Deep in the bushes, an old Asian woman rears back as far as she can, pressing against branches. Her clothes are torn and caked with dirt. Branches tangled in her hair have broken off and hang in the white strands. The bizarre large flowers in her hair mystify the couple but also make them decide the homeless woman is crazy. She stares back at them, snarling and grinding her teeth behind tight lips. The second woman says, “Let’s go.” They turn and walk away. The old woman’s eyes are locked on their movement. The first woman returns and sets her jacket on the brick ledge then runs back to her partner. The old woman digs herself deeper into the thickest part of the bushes. She wedges herself under the branches. Sticks, feathers and dirt cling to her. Dog bites on her head, arms and legs have bled, dried and still bleed where the clotting has cracked. She is equivalent to being eighty years old. Night moves in. The old woman, Lily, relaxes. While sleeping, she grips a branch the entire night. In the morning she sits staring. The wind carries in the sounds of people talking. Sun plays through the leaves. Morning slowly turns to day. She crawls forward and peers out of the bushes. A man whose head is wrapped with tape sits on the brick ledge clipping his nails. Click! Click! Her hand reaches out and pulls the jacket back through the barrier of leaves. She crawls back to the center, wiggles into the jacket, then sits listening to birds chirping for hours. A plane seems to take forever flying across the sky. Lily looks ahead, focusing on nothing. Leaves fall on her where they remain. The light fades, and all the visitors to the zoo leave. With the silence comes dimming

light, and the cold air. The next day, a cold wind blows making the leaves flutter. Lily sits all day trembling and shaking. She sleeps. She half sleeps. When people do see her they leave her alone. They blot her out of their minds. Even the messengers who see her overlook her. Her hair is mostly white. Her wrinkles are deep creases. The flowers in her hair look large and as vibrant as vibrant can be. Ten minutes later, it looks like the last normal person leaves, so Mr. Graham walks down the hill and onto the zoo grounds. Poisonous vapor hovers around him. It is still light, but it won’t be for long. He walks slowly past the planter and spots elderly Lily behind all the leaves. She clutches what will look like a pointed shadow to him if he notices it. He calls out to her with the voice he uses with his clients, “I’m coming in, don’t panic.” The tone of his voice conveys that he is here for her well being because it’s his job, nothing more. The branches are more trouble than he wants. He pushes them down and breaks them. She stares at him like she will try to kill him. She probably won’t survive too many more nights out here. A cold front is coming in. He stops when he is a meter from her, “I think you may me. I was here the other day.” He never breaks his gaze with hers. His eyes remain open and relaxed, caring but not overly so. Her stare relaxes. Because he trains his gaze on hers, he does not notice the pointed shadow on the ground, in her grip. He can still see the shadows, though they are barely visible to him now. He strains to see. She must still have charms on her. There it is, a very faint shadow draped over her head. He extends a hand making sure not to touch her. He finds a gauzy edge of something near her temple. She lets him continue. He says, “No worries. Everything will work out just fine.” He pulls what looks like a shadow and feels like gauze, off the top of her head. It always fascinated him how solid the shadows feel. She ducks her head and resumes staring at him. But he turns and stomps out of the bushes quickly, breaking branches all the way. She tenses and partly stands. The gauzy shadow he holds catches on a branch and he loses it. Before hurrying away, he glances back at her one last time. Already she is changing. As much as he wants to see the change, being near to a change like that puts him in danger. Late at night the young Lily wakes and sits up. She holds her arms out in front of

her and gasps happily though she does not know why. She is holding her knife in one hand. With the other hand she touches her face. It’s tear-streaked but it feels like her face. She pushes her way out of a bunch of bushes. Her kitchen knife lights up everything near to her. This place looks like a park except for the cage across the path. There isn’t anyone in sight. She holsters the knife between her belt and waist. The night becomes dark. The terrible state of her clothes makes her moan in pain. Her heart feels the pain. She goes in search of public restrooms. She walks fast to warm up, pulling flowers from her hair and dropping them on the way. After half an hour she finds a water fountain. The water is icy cold as she splashes it on her face, neck and arms. Okay, she is free from the man who abducted Viola. What happened between that time and now? She can’t . She badly could use some money. She pats the front of her pants pocket; the nose is still there. To anyone who might see her it looks like she pinches her nostrils, but she is in fact, holding the wooden nose over her nose. She walks around an empty lot. She walks by industrial buildings and under an over. After a few kilometers of walking streets and alleys, she comes up with $4.50 in change. With no other options she continues sniffing until the morning. It may seem dangerous what she is doing but she can smell everyone around her up to nearly four blocks away. No one is going to sneak up on her. Most of the people she does sense, smell of sleep and or chemical stupor. She walks along a path between field and wall and finds a wallet holding $341 worth of moldy bills. “Yes! Finally.” She walks toward the riverfront. The city is waking up. Messengers and signs of their activity are everywhere. Automaton’s and their tracks are everywhere too. In an upscale café the early risers wearing office clothes glance at Lily suspiciously. Lily asks the barista, “Where is the nearest hotel or motel?” The barista does not look at Lily and makes drinks more loudly. Lily stands, refusing to feel small, but is not sure what to do. Should she offer to pay the barista to tell her where a hotel is? A woman with her baby girl walks up to Lily. “If you walk that way, you will reach 10th Street where all the stores are, turn left, walk a few blocks. A hotel will be on the left.” The woman’s baby girl stares at Lily with large eyes. The moment of cuteness makes Lily feel a little better. “Thank you,” Lily says.

The people on the street don’t want to look at Lily. It does not help that the temperature has dropped, and Lily can’t help but shiver. Her jacket isn’t torn and dirty like the rest of her clothes. Where did she get the jacket? When she does have the chance to clean up and change clothes, these people won’t know they saw her because all these people are doing their best not to see her. After six blocks of walking, she reaches the hotel. She enters the modest lobby holding the cash in her hand so the receptionist will be able to see it. The young Native woman behind the counter checks Lily in without giving her a second look. People who work in hotels probably see a lot. The room key feels stiff and strong when she unlocks the door to her room. The room is stuffy in a good way. She rubs her upper arms vigorously and jumps up and down until the last of her shivers fade away. It pleases her that the room is so small she bumps the walls when she walks around the bed. The curtains over the window are so thick and musty they give her a feeling of security. Her reflection in the wall-to-wall bathroom mirror makes her burst into tears. The dog-bite scabs bother her a lot. What can she do about them? She doesn't mind the pain as much as the marks on her forehead. Will the break in her skin leave a scar? She hates that that stupid man’s dog may have given her a scar on her forehead. Well, she can’t fully relax until she takes care of a few things. She shakes her clothes off in the shower, takes a shower, gets dressed, and then walks back down the street to buy some clothes, food and first aid at the superstore. Back in the hotel room she showers again, puts on her new clothes and stuffs the old ones into the trash. She makes and eats sandwiches, washing them down with a pint of milk. Sitting on the bed, she treats her wounds. She can cover the bites on her legs and arms but the one on her forehead still stands out. It would take more than a single band-aid to cover it. She tries to relax, but the confusion and lack of knowing what happened between losing Viola and waking last night continue to run through her mind shouting, “panic!” She goes to bed early and despite her worries, she sleeps deeply. Waking in the bed the next day, Lily stretches sore muscles. Most of her muscles are sore and stiff. She drinks two glasses of water and still feels parched. She sits in front of the mirror to pull the new flowers out and pull her hair back. She cuts bangs and pulls them down over her forehead. The police station is two bus rides away. She arrives there early and is there for

over three hours. She tells the officers about her friend who was kidnapped by the man in the woodland house. She does not tell them how she found Viola, only that she knows who Viola’s abductor is and where he lives. She tells them his dog attacked her and he almost captured her too. They ask her many questions she can’t answer. She can’t tell them where Viola’s next of kin are because to Lily’s knowledge, Viola did not have next of kin. No messengers ever talked of parents. Messengers may all be made in a lab for all she knows. Lily answers all the questions the best she can but also making sure not to sound crazy. Afterward she stands on the hill overlooking the zoo. She can’t what happened at the zoo. She re the leggy man shot at her by that country house. What happened after that? How did she come back to herself? She has vague feelings someone brought her back. She uses a shoelace to hold the wooden nose over her nose. The old zoo proves to be an excellent treasure hunting ground. She finds twenty pieces of jewelry and a man’s designer watch in the first hour. She finds what turns out to be one of the original zoo keys from the 1800s (with an estimated worth of $2500 she will later learn). Just inside what used to be the giraffe cage, she turns up a monogrammed cufflink that belonged to a UK ambassador from 1912. A coin shop near the snooty café buys the coins, jewelry and old objects she finds. The White woman who owns it radiates friendliness. “I feel bad to buy your family heirlooms off you, but this is some of the best stuff I have gotten in years. You’ve helped me go from a second-rate coin shop owner to a dealer in top quality heirlooms. The auction house actually called me today.” Lily says, “These aren’t from my family. I just have a special knack for finding this stuff.” The woman says, “You should come work for me.” Lily says, “Maybe, I’ll keep it in mind.” She pays for a second week at the hotel. The receptionist smiles and treats Lily like a peer and Lily realizes they must be about the same age. The receptionist does not her hipness, but Lily just knows the receptionist probably knows where all the cool spots are and what local performer has been killing it this year. Lily treats herself to restaurant food. She buys more clothes, at the mall

this time. Once she takes a taxi to see what that’s like. She always keeps the knife on her. She isn’t sure why. She doesn’t think anyone is after her or anything like that. The knife is part of her now. Not because it’s a knife but because it’s a charm. She uses it mostly like a flashlight and not as a weapon. No one can see it or the light it produces, so she can carry it around every time the sun goes down. One cold afternoon, she sits on a bench in the zoo looking over her finds. Her bruises have healed but she wears a cap to help cover the scab. Mr. Graham walks down the path. A family of three see him and evacuate the area. He walks hesitantly by her, noticing that she isn’t wearing those flowers. Mr. Graham asks her, “You’re not running away?” Lily looks up. “From what?” “Me. People around here are scared of people in my profession. It’s one of the most well-respected occupations. I’m one of the highest-paid people in this neighborhood. But I work with poisons and that scares people.” “Can others see the mist around you?” “Yes. Didn’t you wonder why everyone left this area?” Lily looks around. “It does look like everyone has left.” He’s surprised she isn’t warier of him with all she’s been through. “You’re the girl under the tree.” He points over to the tree and bushes she slept under. Lily winces. “I have my own place now.” Mr. Graham bows his head. “Good.” The breeze blows a bit of his poisonous vapor her way. Lily’s throat itches. She can’t name what it smells like. It smells completely unnatural. She is putting her lost and found items in her purse and getting up. Mr. Graham steps closer. “Do you mind?”

Lily steps back but not before he reaches for her face. He is a lot quicker than she expects. He pulls a piece of slimy material off her head. Her hand moves for her knife tucked under her belt. She takes a few steps away from him and her attention is pulled back into the inner workings of her mind. Her memory comes back to her. It feels like she is propelled forward on a wave of incoming memories. Her jaw drops with astonishment as she is still taking steps away. She re floating into the air, the cold night with the woman buried in the ground and this man pulling not one but three charms off her. Lily says, “I didn’t see that. How did you?” Mr. Graham says, “I’m still a little under the effect. Want it?” He holds the slimy charm out to her. To him it looks like a shadow he can hardly see but it looks like wet pond scum to her. “No! Please, I don’t want to touch it!” Surprised by her response again, he frowns and puts the charm in his jacket pocket. Lily backs away. “Thank you for taking that.” She is still swept up in all the memories she now looks at for the first time. When she was on the ground over the buried woman, a little Asian girl in rags walked through the woods and stood looking at her in the moonlight. When Lily huddled in those bushes, the same girl in rags watched her each night from under a tree across the path. And this was the same girl she saw last night in the zoo when she searched for lost treasure. She stood across the street watching her. Lily says to Mr. Graham, “I have to go now.” She feels torn. One of her goals is to search for people who can teach her and here stands one of them. She steps backward and he follows her. “You know who gave it to you, don’t you? The one who stuck it on you stuck more than one on you. You still have one stuck on you that I can take off.” “How?” “It's my job. It’s the sort of thing I do for a living.”

Lily agrees to go with him. A group of neighborhood kids sees them. The kids jump on their bikes and ride off. Lily says, “Is it safe to be near you?” Mr. Graham paces his answer, “If someone touches me they could get sick.” Lily increases her distance from him as they walk. He says, “Yes, by all means, keep a safe distance from me, just follow me. I hate to see you go off still hosting that fourth charm.” “Where are we going?” “My tools are in my apartment.” “Are you, um, charging me, for your service?” “Oh no no no! You are not like my clients. You and I are a lot more alike than you may realize.” He stops across the street from a convenience store. “Could you be so kind as to go in that store and get some milk, sour cream and yogurt for me?” He holds out a $100 bill. Lily says, “I guess but why don’t you do it?” “I just hate to go in any public place. Shoppers run out. I always make store owners unhappy even though they all want my money. Owners have heart attacks from fear I will poison their food. It would be so much easier if you went in for me.” “Sure.” They arrive at his building. The two young Black guards in a sealed booth can’t not look at Lily. She can’t tell if the guards are jealous, embarrassed or afraid for her. They hide strong emotion behind poker faces. She worries about her appearance. Her bangs move and reveal the bite marks on her forehead. It bothers her that she may look like a victim. One guard puts on a hazmat suit and pats down both Mr. Graham and Lily. He pats Lily’s knife with its 20 centimeters of blade, but he won’t find it. Even if he pokes himself with it, he won’t find it. She could hold it out in front of him and he wouldn’t see it.

Mr. Graham leads her upstairs. He enters his apartment. “Come on in!” The door starts to close on Lily. At first she can’t push it open. It’s as thick as a bank vault door. She has to put all her weight into pushing it. Mr. Graham calls out, but Lily is not sure to whom. “I’m back! I have a guest with me!” To Lily he asks, “Would you like some coffee?” “Okay.” It takes him a while to find his coffee maker, set it up and start it. He blocks her view of what he is doing. Lily sort of thinks he is doing so on purpose. Mr. Graham says, “Who charmed you?” Lily says, “A man in the mountains. He came after my friend and me.” “If I get you a map, could you show me where he lives?” Lily re going over a map at the police station. “I think so.” “You don’t strike me as someone who knows very much. Do you know what charm makers are?” “They make magic objects?” “Objects? No.” He flashes her a disapproving look. “Charm makers make shadows that hold reality-altering properties. It’s not magic and not objects.” Lily realizes she can see charms much better than him. “You saw the shadows on me that made me old?” Mr. Graham says, “And cloud-like, and you say it made you not able to ?” “Yes. Are you a charm maker?” “Someday, if I keep trying. By the time I retire, I hope.” “You can see charms?” “Well, let me explain. Even if I could see charms I wouldn’t be able to see all of

them. Even between two professional poison eaters we see different things. It’s always good to get a second opinion. Now, I’ll be the one asking the questions. Do you know why he attacked you?” “I was trying to save my friend. He kidnapped her.” “Do you know, was your friend a charm maker?” “No, she wasn’t even a visible before. She was a messenger. We both were, then I took off two of those charms and we became visible. But I don’t know what he wanted with her exactly. What’s wrong?” Mr. Graham looks scared and feverish. All the color has drained from his face. “You can’t go around just… You have to act normal, or you will… get yourself killed. Do you understand?” Tremors through his voice. “I mean it’s fine you are telling me these things but never speak about them. Only to me. This building is safe, but even in an empty field the birds have ears.” He sets the cup of coffee down. He thinks the better of it and picks the cup up again. “Here’s your coffee.” “Aren’t you having any?” “Oh, I don’t drink coffee. I can’t. Let’s get that charm off.” He shows her to a chair. She sets the coffee down, never taking a drink of it. He rummages in a drawer. While he does this Lily takes a quick smell through her wooden nose. She smells strong chemicals in her coffee. She slips the wooden nose back into her pocket. He searches in a drawer for several minutes and brings out a machine. He sets it on the table next to Lily. Mr. Graham says, “Put your finger here.” He points to a stand attached to the machine. Lily stands up. “I don’t think—” She walks to the door, opens it and hurries down the hall. Mr. Graham goes after her as best as he can on frail legs. The two guards smoke cigarettes by the booth. They look alarmed when she exits the building and crosses the parking lot. Mr. Graham runs out of the building. “Wait! The man you spoke of would never just let you get away. With what he can do, it would be nothing for him to track you. I know someone who can help you get away from him! It will be as though you never existed.”

Lily slows, stops and turns around. “How do they do it?” “I’m not sure. It’s a new procedure.” “And it's not in your apartment?” Mr. Graham looks confused and hurt. “No.” A few minutes later she waits on a corner while he talks on a payphone on the opposite corner. She is so close to just walking away. He walks back to her. “We have an appointment.” He leads her over tangled vines in a backyard to rickety steps up to a reinforced door. A sign over the door reads, “Notary.” A White, youngish woman with a puffy face answers the door. She wears a nice white blouse, but her skin has blemishes staining from the inside out. She gives them a surface smile, invites them in and asks them to take a seat. They sit in a room that once was a kitchen. The walls are bare and show plaster deformations where pipes and cabinets once were. Mr. Graham takes a seat and Lily sits in the seat furthest from his. The woman leaves them. When she returns, she wears a respirator and yellow kitchen gloves. “How can I help you?” Her voice is muffled. Mr. Graham says, “This young lady needs to make sure she isn’t being tracked.” The woman says, “You have come to the right place. You can be completely removed from your present circumstance and reestablished in a different location where no one knows you. Nobody who presently has any knowledge of you will ever be able to reach you again.” Lily has the feeling Mr. Graham and this woman know each other a lot better than they are pretending. Mr. Graham says, “That sounds great!” Lily says, “How do you do it?” The woman says, “Excuse me?”

Lily says, “How do you change my identity?” The woman says, “We sedate you and put you in a box that blocks out any waves, no light waves, no radio waves, no sound waves, no waves. We drive you to a secure location and subject you to a type of radiation that is harmless to you but it will cause any markings someone may have put on you to fall off. We give you a new name and social security number. Then I’ll drive you myself to somewhere where you can make a new start.” Lily says, “You and who?” The woman says, “What?” Lily says, “You said ‘we’.” The woman says, “Yes. I think Mr. Graham will help. If he will be so kind.” Lily sits there looking at the woman. The woman looks back at her, unsure. Mr. Graham looks back and forth between the two of them. Lily stands up. They say nothing as she walks out of the building. Mr. Graham follows after her, but the vines in the yard slow him down. “Please, we can work together. You have seen some things, right? On your own, without the poison? If you tell me everything, I can help you. You’re walking away from a wonderful opportunity. We all had to trust someone along the way. How else could we have learned?”

[19] The Animal Pen

Lily jogs down the alley. Mr. Graham makes it out of the yard and pursues her, but he soon loses breath and stops, wheezing and watching her go. Lily does not know if she just saved herself or just missed a great opportunity. Maybe he and his friend were trying to help her. Lily may never know. Afterward she avoids the east side of the zoo and the whole area between the zoo and Mr. Graham’s apartment. She does not think he knows where she lives. How long did he stalk her before she even realized it? One night she wakes for no reason. Getting out from under the covers, she peeks through the curtain at the still street. The little girl in rags stands across the street, staring up at Lily. The girl’s rags and long black hair wave in the wind. Her face is too far away for Lily to make out its features. The next day, Lily gets a paper and searches the want ads for a new place to live. She calls some numbers on the phone in her room. A woman who sounds Black over the phone tells Lily she can have a look at an available studio today. Lily starts out walking there. On her way she sniffs out $5.60 in change, but she also smells a dead body in the tall grass by the back fence of an abandoned lot. Whoever it was wore inexpensive perfume and drank beer before she was murdered. The cold weather means it will probably take longer for the body to smell bad enough for someone else to discover it. Lily wants to report it, but she was at the station a couple of weeks ago reporting Viola’s abduction. She walks along a highway in an area that is part woods, part small-scale industrial buildings. She smells a homeless man behind stacks of pallets. His last meal was high-quality seafood. Maybe he goes downtown where the expensive restaurants are, to dumpster dive or put a hand out for food. Among the thousands of smells, she smells money nearby, money that has not touched hands for a long time. She climbs the steep side of an irrigation ditch to a crumbling antique Ford. The windshield is smashed in and the two front doors are missing. She uses her knife to cut open the front seat and pulls out a woman’s red leather purse containing an ivory-handled pistol and $154.75 in

cash and change, all of which has not seen daylight since the late 1940s. Everything is in perfect condition. The padding in the seat kept everything dry all these decades. With the red purse hanging off her shoulder, she es a beauty school, a boxing school for youths, and a washing machine fix-it shop. Two messengers step onto her side of the street in front of her and walk toward her. She slowly draws a breath in and looks straight ahead making an expression of amused absentmindedness. She pretends she recalls a joke a friend told her. The messengers talk to each other and walk quickly. It feels like she will run right into one of them, but she resolutely makes herself stride forward not slowing or veering from her direction at all. She knows it’s the right thing to do. And of course, the messenger jumps out of her way at the last second. Lily walks down a street of old row houses shaded by tall trees. Someone could go down the entire street climbing from one porch to the next if they wanted to. An orange and white kitten follows Lily and she stops to pet it. Its eyes look alert. It rolls on the sidewalk and springs to its feet again with dust on its back. Down the street, a car honks and the cat darts through an open gate and is gone. She rents a studio in a large house converted to apartments. She gets to her studio by a wooden staircase in the back. Moving does not take that long. Rachel, the receptionist from the hotel, has a truck and helps Lily move her things. The truck heater doesn’t work, so they have to bundle up for the ride. Lily has five grocery sacks of clothes and things, that’s all. Her landlady tells her about one tenant who maintains years and years of hate for the next-door neighbor. What none of them see is the hated neighbor is an automaton; the tenant who hates may as well be hating a trash compactor. The automaton goes out to the back porch in the evenings and sits until 7:30, then it goes back inside. The angry tenant marches back and forth along the fence line for what adds up to many hours per week. Lily takes a waitressing job at an Italian restaurant on the shopping strip. At work she’s friendly. She is responsive but shares little about herself. She always knew she could do it, live an ordinary life, once she had the chance. She must pretend she doesn’t see. Lily knows now that she isn’t crazy. If she were crazy, she would not have so

much control. Yes, the things she sees are disturbing, but if she can work and make friends and buy clothes and all that, then in a practical sense it means she’s not crazy. She still wants to learn how to drive. Her world is still cluttered with things she must avoid. That hasn’t changed. She must be careful. Messengers and even charm makers can’t know what she is. She called her Mom. Her mom wants Lily to come right home. Lily says she can’t, but that she is doing fine. Her mom cries and says she will mail Lily her birth certificate and other things. One evening after she washes a fork, cup and plate in her tiny sink, she thinks about the charms the leggy man stuck to her. Will all charms stay stuck on her the way his charms did? She discovers that the wooden nose will stay on her face by itself. The more she presses it onto her face the more it becomes part of her face and disappears. She knows it’s there, but she can’t feel or see it unless she tries to. It does not get in the way at all. She can choose to use its powers or smell only as well as a visible. The glass shard is the same. She presses it to her eyelid and instead of scratching her, it blends into her and disappears. It does not cut her or cause any discomfort. She can use it to see the material of personality whenever she wants to. The kitchen knife is the same. She squeezes the handle in her grip until it fades out of sight. She can see it and not see it at the same time like a reflection on the inside of a window she looks out of. She opens her hand and the knife stays in her palm. She can use her hands to do other things. It’s still there when she needs it. She can go about her day as if it isn’t there and, in an instant, she has a grasp on it. Lily knows these charms break science. Strangely she has a feeling they are very much of the same stuff as science. Her antidote for her situation is to learn more. The library on the shopping strip has nothing relating science to her life-altering findings. With some embarrassment she checks out a book on alchemy and one on witchcraft. She tries to make charms. She tries to make discoveries. Mostly she gets frustrated, trying a lot of things that don’t work. Taking an ordinary object and willing it to become a charm does not work at all. Playing at being a witch feels pointless. She does not want to settle on a fantasy that will fill the void, she wants to wait to find the truth. It’s dark outside, and she shuts off all the lights. She walks to the window and

looks out. The little girl in rags looks up at her from the alley. Fear spreads out like ice crystals through her veins. She can’t stay here tonight. She grabs a blanket and leaves her studio. Without looking in the direction of the alley, she runs down the stairs, across the yard, and over the fence into the automaton’s yard. Lily enters its house through the back door. The inside is gutted. If that little girl is like messengers and visibles, she won’t be able to come into an automaton house. Lily tries to get comfortable on the floor and get some sleep. When she hears a noise, she makes the knife materialize in her grip. The next morning, she pulls a curtain open and scans the alley. The little girl is gone. Lily climbs the steps back to her apartment to clean up before work. Each day she checks the news for any local killers caught. She returns to the police station to ask about Viola’s case. After half an hour an officer informs her there are no new developments. Lily hates that she knows about a serial killer, where he lives, who he kills and why he kills but nothing is happening to stop him. Is she the kind of person who will sit by and do nothing when she knows of a killer who will kill again? She can’t think of anything else she has ever done as bad as knowing and not doing anything about the leggy man in the woods. What did she do about the charm maker in the little town who stole people’s enthusiasm? She broke his charm machine. If she burns Leggy Man’s house down, with all his equipment, it may take him years to have enough equipment to start harvesting people again. Lily gives notice at the restaurant. She buys a sleeping bag and a backpack. A Greyhound bus takes her to a little town in the mountains. She eats a late lunch in a diner and in the evening, she walks a mountain road to higher elevations. When a car is about to , she hides in the grass. The sun sets and the cold wind blows hard on her face. Using her knife to light a map, she turns off the paved road and walks up a dirt road for at least two hours. When she determines she is close to Leggy Man’s house, she sets up camp in the cover of trees. The night is bitter cold but she won’t light a fire. She piles branches around her sleeping bag to block the wind. It begins to snow. The next day little happens. She eats canned fruit and peanut butter sandwiches. If only she thought to bring something to occupy her time. A book to read would have helped a lot. But maybe she is too nervous to be able to focus on a book

right now. Being so near to where she said goodbye to Viola brings wave after wave of sadness over her. Isn’t she partly to blame for Viola dying? After a second cold night, she uses a tin can to dig a trench just big enough for her to lie in. The activity takes most of the day and warms her up. She fits her sleeping bag into it. The soil adds insulation around her. For two more days nothing happens. On the fifth day, in the morning, Lily hears a vehicle and hides in the trench. Leggy Man drives by in his clamorous truck, never glancing in her direction. When the sound of his truck fades away, she grabs a bag filled with cans of lighter fluid and hurries toward his house. She smells the traps. He has a few new traps. That’s okay, she can walk around or step over them. She sees his house through the trees. Her heart races. She will use the messenger key on the front door to let herself in. She will douse the ground floor and throw down a lit match. It should not take long. In the tall grass she sees a pencil box that looks exactly like the one she had in elementary school. It even has the two stickers on the front like hers. She sees a brush that looks exactly like the old hairbrush that she got at such a young age she does not when she got it. Toys litter the grass. They all look like the toys she had as a kid. Why can’t she smell them? She smells three dogs, not the smell of the dog that attacked her, but three new dogs. The new dogs start barking from inside the house. They are going crazy, ready to tear any intruder to shreds. She halts. The little girl wearing rags stands between Lily and the house. In the sunlight Lily can see the girl’s face. It looks like Lily’s face as a little girl. The sun moves as fast as a second hand, higher and higher along its curved path. Clouds over many times faster than normal. All sounds become squeals and buzzing. The little girl disappears. The sun sets and the day grows dark. A strike on the back of Lily’s head knocks her head forward and her body follows. Before she hits the ground, all sight and sensation discontinue. She does not come to immediately or entirely. She lies on concrete in a dark room. Leggy Man grabs her and rolls her over. He grabs her head. She es out. The second wave of awareness finds her lying flat. Sunlight hits her eyes. A dog

right beside her grunts as it chews on something. Leggy Man towers above her chopping something on his worktable. A large Confederate flag hangs high above her, all its corners pinned to the ceiling. She es out. When her awareness returns, she has a massive headache. Her face is flat against the floor. She turns her head to the side. She is in a cubic-meter cage, an animal pen set on the floor. Sunlight pours through the windows. The room is warm, and she hears a fan blasting air. She tries to change her position so she can sit up. Her head spins when she tries to move. Hours later, while she tries to stay conscious, Leggy Man comes in with three rottweilers. The dogs run all around the shop. They eagerly push their noses into the cage trying to smell her. Leggy Man takes things from a box and puts them in a cupboard. Lily feels her nose; it’s badly scraped, and her hand is scraped too. Leggy Man notices, “You were wearing a couple of my ex’s charms. I had to scrape them off you. Now I know how you smelled your way around my traps.” He picks up an old cattle prod and brings a paper bag to her pen. “Put your flowers in this sack. Do it quickly or I’ll give you a shock.” He raises the cattle prod. Just the tone of his voice makes the dogs growl. With trembling hands Lily finds the flowers in her hair, pulls them out and puts them in the bag. Leggy man says, “You tres on my property and you give me a dirty look? I almost scrapped you, little miss lawbreaker. I was ready to, and low and behold, the flowers I pulled from your hair the night before grew back. New flowers not just once but every morning.” Lily puts the last of her flowers in the bag. Leggy man says, “You made trouble with me first. You killed my dog. How would that look on the evening news? I removed all your charms. Now I don’t have to keep you in a coma. You'll last longer awake and will be less trouble medically, not to mention a whole lot less costly. What the hell did you do with the other charms I put on you? Those took a lot of resources to make. They weren’t yours to lose. Do you always trash other people’s things? Your disregard is shameful. You should feel ashamed. You have antisocial tendencies. Young people have no values anymore.” He can’t be much older than Lily. Isn’t he part of her generation? It makes her sad that all his ugly talk sounds familiar. But she couldn’t cry if she tried. That ability is turned off right now, along with a lot of her feelings. He takes the bag

of flowers out of the cage and tosses it on the center table. He places bowls on a workbench and pours dog food into them. The dogs leap over each other and bark. They are not even a fraction as mean as his last dog. It must have taken him years of abuse to make his last dog so mean. He places bowls down for the dogs, then he sets a fourth bowl of dog food, the same dog food, in Lily’s pen. “It ain’t chow mein but it will keep you from dying! Heh, heh! And don’t even give me none of that political correctness bullshit. I’m sick of it. I speak my mind and say it like it is.” He tunes the radio to the oldies station. For the rest of the afternoon, he conducts an array of experiments on Lily’s flowers. Lily tries to use the glass shard charm and finds she still has it. He didn’t find that one. It still works, she can see different filmy clouds come off him. His filmy clouds look completely different from other people’s. He has more of them and they are denser. She looks at a water bowl next to the bowl of dog food he gave her. She is parched but she does not want to drink when he’s in the room. When he leaves the room, Lily picks the water bowl up and drinks. He comes back in before she can set the bowl down. “I hope these flowers give up their power soon. I haven’t had a challenge like this in decades.” He works late into the night. With his back to her he says, “Stare at me all you want. Do you think I would let you watch me if I thought for a second that you have what it takes to learn something from me? You ain’t nothing without somebody else’s charms. You have no idea, do you? I might just send a small sample to a lab and see what happens. I’d have to do it anonymously. I’m sure they would flip out and come knocking on my door. I’d like to see their reaction, but I’d be stupid to do it. I’m sure they would conclude the flowers are no known substance.” Each morning he picks up where he left off. The variety of testing would impress anybody. He unpacks boxes of new equipment and his shop looks more like a lab with each ing day. Once he launches a rant there is no stopping him and no telling where his train of thought will take him. “Don’t you try to pet my dogs. If I catch you trying to befriend one again, I’ll cut your hand off and feed it to them. You don’t talk much. Speaky engrish?” He stays busy even through rants. “You fool yourself if you think you will ever

be like me. You will never be a charm maker. A charm thief is what you were. That’s right, I said ‘what you were.’ You don't have what it takes. Sorry. You are worthless. Some fool broke you, end of story. Watching me all the time only shows what a fool you are. Wasting your time looking in the wrong place. That’s the difference between you and me. I know what to pay attention to. There is nothing worse than a charm thief.” Lily suspects that her remaining silent causes him to talk a lot more than he would if she breaks her silence. She does not like to hear him talking, but it may be her only opportunity. The things he claims are wrong with her are actually the things he finds wrong with himself. He accused her of disregarding others, of disrespecting, of stealing. He needs to dehumanize her, Lily decides. He feels in control, Lily is sure of that. What he does not know is he is in a struggle with himself. As long as that is the case, his secrets will continue to slip through. But she is terrified he will kill her before she can figure her way out of this captivity. He says, “You like to think you are smart enough to figure things out. What a joke! You’re always looking at the wrong things! You walked around growing these flowers and you probably threw them out each day because you’re just that much ass-backward. If you learned what power you have in these flowers, you would never need to harvest power off people like most charm makers need to.” One afternoon he puts drops of liquid on one of her flowers and it undergoes a color change. He gets excited. “I made it disappear!” But Lily can still see it. He can’t see it. He’s wrong, she isn’t nothing without charms. Without charms she can still see charms far better than he can. She was also a messenger. Does he know what a messenger is? He tells her all the time she has no power but why does he keep her where he can keep an eye on her? If he is so sure, why doesn’t he lock her in a closet? Why does he not try to find out how much of a sensitive she is? If she captured a sensitive, one of the first things she would do is try to find out exactly how they are sensitive. She does continue to study everything he does. She names seven bars of her cage by the days of the week and uses them to get an idea of what his weekly schedule is like. She doesn't know if he leaves early every Saturday but he leaves early on the day she is currently regarding Saturday. Of all the things he says, the one thing he repeats the most often is, “There is nothing worse than a charm thief.”

When he leaves the shop at night, he keeps one dog in the shop but chains it up so it can’t reach her unless somehow she gets out of the corner her cage is in. She saves pieces of dog food to toss to the dog each night. She has trouble sleeping. She decides that he is right that she is not a charm maker, at least not yet. And yes, she is a charm thief. She likes the idea of being a charm thief. Half of the charm makers she has met so far deserve to have their toys taken from them. “Lily Mae, Charm Thief,” she likes the sound of that. During the day, the shop heater that hangs from the ceiling blasts warm air, but he shuts it off at night. By morning she is shivering and shaking uncontrollably. She searches inwardly for that broken place he keeps talking about. He always says she is looking at the wrong thing, then he talks about her “broken place”. Is he unknowingly telling her that her broken place is the key to her finding a way out of here? She looks inwardly but she just finds that she feels hurt, hurt for losing Viola, hurt for what happened with Numera, hurt for seeing tortured people and not being able to help them. Those are normal hurts. It does somehow make sense that she is broken, but in what way? In the dark of the night her innermost self feels more real. She searches and searches and it feels like any part of her could be broken, or that no part of her could be broken. She begins to suspect he just wants her to frame herself as broken and stop scrutinizing him. She re her way back in time to that woman on the bus who loved her cats. What happened that day? Lily was in the hospital. Why was she there? She wasn’t hurt. The bus she was on was in an accident. She woke up in the hospital, but before that the people on the bus were lying on the pavement and the cat woman was saying something to Lily. She was on the ground and the woman was doing something to her. The woman held Lily right here on the hip. Why, to stop bleeding? Before that day things were normal, and after that day, Lily saw messenger torture devices and all the things others don’t see. That woman may have all the answers Lily is looking for. How can Lily find her? She seemed like someone Lily can trust. Other memories come back to show Lily things she did not notice before. Marion the messenger was killed by the man wearing all black and a little blue cape. He ed Marion and sliced her throat open without stopping. He was not the only person Lily saw wearing black and a little blue cape. In the places she could only access as a messenger, the places the messengers call the Underworld, among the legions of personnel working there, Lily saw an

occasional blue-cape wearing individual. Lily realizes through ing that Viola did not see the man wearing the blue cape. Marion did not see him. Could it be that the blue-cape wearers are invisible to messengers? Sometimes she thinks about the house only she could see in the little mountain town. She wishes she could go back there and try out all the charms she didn’t test. The memory of the eagle charm brings PTSD-level fear to her, even though the eagle never actually did anything to her. The eagle charm makes intruders scared, that’s all it does. If she destroys it she destroys its power and then she will be free to explore that house. Does the dead woman on the couch have a bunch of charms on her person that Lily can find if she looks for them? What else is in that house? Lily hardly spent any time there at all. One thing about Leggy Man, he does not get tired. Lily watches him day after day trying to unleash any kind of usefulness from her flowers. Her flowers pile up on the counter, some fall to the floor now. He pins some to a pegboard, sorts them in boxes, burns them, boils them, radiates them, slices them, applies chemicals to them, spins them, bakes them, shocks them, freezes them, even tries feeding a flower to one of his dogs. He grows accustomed to Lily and does not rant at her as often. More often he talks to himself. When he talks to himself, he always talks to someone and it becomes more apparent over time that it’s his ex he pictures himself talking to. “Where did I put the 7/16ths? Don’t nag me, no point in nagging me.” All three of the new dogs show potential for being friendly and nice. The idea that Lily may be held captive for years watching these dogs turned into monsters is not a pleasant thought. Lily notices faint shadows on Leggy Man. As the days , the shadows fill out until she begins to see the charms he’s wearing. He must be wearing a hundred charms. They overlap each other. He begins to look a little like a crossdresser because many of the charms are feminine. He wears a rhinestone choker and a woman’s brassiere. He wears one woman’s driving glove. He wears old fashioned earrings and a pillbox hat. He also wears brass knuckles with a dagger blade welded to the front, so it isn’t all women’s fashion. It becomes hard for Lily to see his face with all the charms on his head. He puts goggles down over his eyes every time he works. Even with the goggles he has trouble seeing charms. One day he drops a metal-funnel charm and it takes him nearly half an

hour to find it even though it is in the middle of the floor. Lily could have helped him find it in seconds. She uses her glass shard to look at him and her suspicions are confirmed. His charms give off filmy clouds. That is why his filmy clouds look so different. Some charms emit larger, denser clouds than others. The choker on his neck produces the largest, densest cloud of all, it fans out from his neck on all sides and extends a meter from him. One day Lily almost jumps when two messengers, a girl messenger and a boy messenger, walk by the large windows. She composes herself as they use the messenger keys hung by the locked door to let themselves in. Leggy Man busies himself stretching one of Lily’s flowers. He has no idea they have just entered even though they leave the door open letting all the cold air blow in. Lily feels herself in an emotional whirlwind. Will the messengers discover she is a sensitive? Will they see what Leggy Man is doing and kill him for being a sensitive? Will Leggy Man sense them? If he senses them even a minute amount, it’s all over for him. What if he has made a trap that kills messengers? What if they make a key for her cage and hang it near the lock? They walk over to Lily first. Lily starts a concentration exercise. She tries to all the words of The Star-Spangled Banner, “Oh, say can you see by the dawn’s early light— What so proudly we hailed at the twilight’s last gleaming?—” The messengers inspect her through the bars of the cage. The Girl messenger says, “She looks okay. Oh gross, she’s eating dog food. Yuck.” Mentally Lily stops on each word, thinking of it as carefully as she can, “Whose broad stripes and bright stars thru the perilous fight, O’er the ramparts we watched—” The boy messenger says, “Don’t visibles have laws against keeping each other in cages or something like that?” He holds a tin of something smelly under her nose, waves a hand in front of her eyes and snaps a finger next to her ears. The girl messenger says, “I don’t know. She looks checked out.” The boy messenger jabs her neck with a needle. She is expecting the needle and does not react at all.

“Yeah. Any others besides that guy?” “I don’t know, I’ll look around.” He walks up the steps that lead to the rest of the house. The boy messenger inspects Leggy Man. Lily maintains the same position of her gaze and she pretends to be in a state of destitute boredom. She waits for Leggy Man to react to the messenger’s tests. She hopes the messenger will find one of Leggy Man’s charms. Any charm a visible wears poses some risk of triggering a messenger reaction. But wait! The messenger walks away from Leggy Man. The messenger can’t be done yet. That can’t be. The messenger calls through the open door to the living area of the house, “Anybody else?” He stands and waits. Lily swallows. Messengers don’t look for charms; they test for sensitivity, and Leggy Man should have given a positive result. He must be a sensitive after all. There simply is no way he could be a charm maker and not be a sensitive. They need to learn Leggy Man is a sensitive. She should do something to trigger them. But she can’t give herself away. Could he be faking obliviousness to the messengers? That is irable. He really seems like he has no clue they are here. Doesn’t his shop tip them off at all? The other messenger returns to the shop and they leave, relocking the door behind them. Lily takes slow deep breaths and wonders if that was the last chance she will have. She could have sacrificed her own life to make sure he gets removed from this world. If they come back and she is still alive, she will do it. She will tell them to their faces, scare them but let them know he is sensitive and needs to get taken out. She is not just determined to do it, she knows she will do it the same way someone trapped in a burning building will jump out an upper story window. Leggy Man never touches Lily, but time beats her down. She examines everything in her pen more and more closely, not proactively but out of the kind of boredom that only captivity can foster. At night she looks at the shadows like they are the shapes of landmasses on a map. In the shadows she begins to see darker shadows. Shadows within shadows. She stares into the same shadow for hours, day after day. Sometimes a whole day goes by that she does not move and is thinking of nothing else but how the shadows within shadows look. At first it feels like an optical game she plays, but the growing distinction between shadows does not go away when she closes her eyes for a few minutes then

opens them again. Looking at the shadow she casts, she detects movement. Tiny dots leave and enter the shadow. Lily leans down closer. They look like tiny insects. She tries to follow them and begins to think they crawl all over everything, her cage, the floor, the table, the food bowl. The ones entering the shadow carry tiny, tiny flakes. They appear to be chipping away at everything on a minute scale. It hurts Lily’s eyes to stare at them. But she won’t stop watching them. Leggy Man notices. “What is it with you today?” He brings a Popular Mechanics magazine and tosses it in her cage. Late at night, Lily is awoken by the dogs barking, the one chained in the shop and the other two outside. The sound of a gunshot makes her lurch upright. A man shouts. Something repeatedly bangs something else. Then the night is quiet again. Lily moves from one side of the cage to the other. She tries to make something out in the darkness on the other side of the windows. The shop dog paces back and forth. With a crash the door slams open, knocking over a mop and bucket. Leggy Man drags in a kicking body. They are both grunting. The dogs are barking. Leggy Man shouts, “Give up, you moron!” To a visible it would look like Leggy Man palms the other man on the forehead, but Lily can see that Leggy Man knocks the other on his head with a charm: a hunk of metal on a strap around the palm of Leggy Man’s hand. The captive loses power to all his limbs at once and drops like a rag doll. Leggy Man still scolds the captive while hoisting him onto the table. “Give me a break, idiot Jew. Don’t even think that you can defend yourself!” Leggy Man uses a dirty shop rag to gag the captive. Lily stares from out of the darkness. Leggy Man feeds rope through metal loops on the sides of the table and ties, one by one, the man’s legs and arms down. Leggy Man leaves to go back to sleep, Lily presumes. She slumps to the side of the cage and sleeps herself. She is woken again in the night. The man on the table struggles. He is using his entire body to move back and forth on the table. At some point he looks down and sees Lily. He stops struggling and stares furiously at her. He recognizes Lily. She recognizes him. He is Erwin the trap setter who she followed for so many weeks unsetting his traps. Lily can’t tell what he hopes to say to her by staring at her with such fury.

He struggles more. He groans. He thumps the table and yanks at his restraints. Lily closes her eyes. She does not want to watch him rip his own hands off. In the early hours he pulls a bloody hand free and continues struggling more quietly. Lily glances up at him. He pulls at something on his face. Then he throws something at her. It flies across the room and lands in her cage, a pair of men’s glasses. She meets his eyes. He stares imploringly at her. Lily picks up the glasses. The lenses are missing. She holds them to her eyes and looks at the man. He looks the same. Lily takes the glasses off her face and sits on them. He resumes struggling. She hears steps coming from the living area of the house. Leggy Man comes into the shop. Erwin continues to struggle. Leggy Man walks around turning on lights, switching on the heater, putting things away and tidying up a little. He switches on the overhead lamp that turns flesh to physical personality. Usually the first thing he does in the morning is take Lily’s flowers, but today he makes the main cuts to Erwin first. With a forester’s saw Leggy Man cuts Erwin in half. No blood spills. The organs and flesh hold in place along the cuts. Leggy Man separates head, arms and legs from the torso sections. It takes a long time to make each cut. The parts do not bleed a drop of blood. At one point Leggy Man sets Erwin’s head on Lily’s side of the table facing her so that Erwin stares at Lily. She thinks Leggy Man does this to intimidate her or get her back for her staring at him all the time. Erwin closes his eyes to her. Leggy Man works many hours past sunset. Half of the pieces of Erwin are off the table now, but his head remains and from time to time Erwin opens his eyes and immediately looks at Lily. Leggy Man leaves the lamp on over the worktable all night. Sometimes Erwin moves his lips in an attempt to speak to Lily. It’s hard to say if he knows or not that he can’t speak anymore. For the entire night Lily can’t sleep. She does not want to look up at Erwin even if he keeps his eyes closed. She stares at the shadows within shadows until the birds start chirping outside, long before the sun comes up. Shadows look drastically different to her now. She worries that she has impaired her vision for good. Has she already cracked under the pressure of being caged? For someone who has grown accustomed to living in a different reality than everyone else, it’s next to impossible to decide what is real and what is her own mind making a mistake about what is real. She glances up and finds herself meeting eyes with Erwin and she quickly returns her gaze to the shadow within a shadow.

She takes the bowl of half-eaten dog food and pushes it into the shadowed area knowing Erwin is watching her. The bowl reaches the point where a bar of the cage should stop it, but that does not happen. The bowl’s edge goes into the inner shadow. She pushes the bowl further. The bowl falls away from her fingers and disappears through the shadow. Did that just happen? Her brain expects to hear the bowl hit the bottom, but that sound never comes. She looks up. Erwin’s eyes watch her. The shop dog lies sleeping. She extends her hand into the shadow and feels cool wetness. She moves her hand around, but it does not touch the bowl. When she pulls her hand out, it’s dripping wet. She sniffs her hand, and it smells like water. She dries her hand on her pant leg. Her prospects may have improved and she did not even need to make a charm to gain a new ability. The growing light of morning shrinks the shadows away. Leggy Man comes in, processes and packs the rest of Erwin’s body parts. It takes hours. Lily sleeps on and off. He leaves Erwin’s head for last. Erwin stares at Lily and though she hates to, she stares back at him because it seems like the only thing she can do to comfort him. Only when Leggy Man notices their solidarity does he stand between Erwin and Lily to finish cutting the head into many smaller pieces. Lily has one last look at one of Erwin’s eyes before it is pushed into a gel solution in a jar and put up on a shelf. All the pieces are wrapped and put into jars: so many steps and what a mess to clean up. The sun sets by the time Leggy Man has finished. When he switches off the special lamp, a ringing Lily did not know she had in her ears stops. She realizes Leggy Man forgot or neglected to take the flowers out of her hair today and yesterday. What happens to her if he decides he does not need any more of her flowers? What if they turn out to be useless? He leaves then comes back and looks all around Lily’s cage. “I could have sworn that I left a bowl of food for you.” He goes into the main house and returns to feed her and the dogs giving her a new bowl. Later, the room is mostly dark, lit only by a lamp on the workbenches. The moonless night provides no light from outside. The house is quiet and the one dog in the shop hasn’t stirred for hours. Lily sits looking at the biggest shadow within shadow, inside her cage. It’s only about the size of a watermelon. She misses her wooden nose and kitchen knife. Those liberated her like nothing

in her life ever before. It seems impossible that she can get those back right now. She pushes her hand into the shadow, into a liquid, hopefully just water. She sticks her foot in. Her sock and pant leg gets soaked. The dog lifts its head and looks at her. Lily pushes her other foot in. The dog runs as close to her as its chain will permit and it starts barking at her. The other dogs in the house wake up and start barking. They claw at the door to the shop. Lily feels panicked. She is hip-deep now. She may be just about to kill herself. Heavy footsteps come down wooden stairs. Leggy Man bursts through the door and bounds down the steps holding a rifle. The dogs rush the room. When he flips on a light, Lily feels the shadow shrink tight around her like the mouth of a boa constrictor. She cries out. The shadow wraps around her arms and waist. She has her hands on the other side and pulls. Leggy Man places his gun on the bench and looks in a drawer, pulling out a ring of keys. The rim of the shadow is to her breasts. He runs to the cage door and fumbles with the keys. He is so close to her she smells his rotten breath. He unlocks the deadbolt and opens the cage door. Her shoulders and head slide through. She drops into a body of liquid and instinctively holds her breath. She can see into the entire room she was in, from below, like looking up through a floor of glass. Leggy Man is in the cage on his hands and knees clawing at the ground. The dogs are running around the table and jumping on the cage. He is only arm’s length from her, but he can’t see her.

[20] Insects of Entropy

Lily sinks, falling away from the dim light shining through the shop floor. She swims upward, kicking vigorously. All is darkness except the light from the shop, the kitchen next to the shop, and little islands of light that are lit areas of the yard, as seen from below. She feels a burning and itching on her sides and arms. Those tiny bugs have rubbed off on her. They must be minutely biting or stinging her. She tries to rub them off but as soon as she stops swimming, she sinks. Her mind silently screams for her to take a breath. She fights it and continues holding her breath. She frantically swims up. She gives all her strength and energy to swim closer to the surface but is barely moving up. She must find a shadow within shadow to emerge through, back into the surface world. The yard is dark. It should be covered with shadows within shadows. She swims away from the shop, toward the yard. The side yard gets light shining from the windows. She swims toward the backyard where the biggest shadows should be. As her eyes adjust, she sees she is not at all alone. Long bodies move all over the place, just below her. Some are as wide as a bus. She can’t tell if they are fish, insects or reptiles. The ones nearest are moving toward her. Lily’s breath escapes her, and before she knows it, she gasps in water. Stunned, she stops swimming and sinks. Water floods her lungs. Expecting to lose consciousness, she waits, but then she takes a breath and another. She is breathing liquid but it’s keeping her alive. The surface world is five meters above her now. She resumes swimming upward. One of the large creatures tries to bite her leg and she kicks it. She tries to pull herself up, centimeter by centimeter, toward the yard of shadows, but her limbs ache and move slower with each stroke. The heavy water is extremely hard to breathe. Many creatures come closer. Tiny ones bite her skin. Larger ones try to attach to her, and she kicks and swats them off. Reptilian insect fish of countless different shapes and sizes crowd the water as more are drawn to her. The ones

above stick long appendages into the surface world. A giant one appears to be feeding on the foundation of Leggy Man’s house. One the size of a bus is about to slide its left and right mandibles over her. The only way she can get away is to swim down. Her body sinks quickly. Many of the larger creatures try to catch her. The easiest, fastest way for her to evade is to swim down. A swarm of penny-size creatures reaches her arm and she receives what feels like a thousand paper cuts. She swims down before a school of mice-size creatures reaches her. How long has she got before these animals shred her? She reaches water that is free of the creatures. After she pulls off the ones that have attached themselves to her, she looks around and discovers the reptileinsect-fish are only above her. The further she sinks below them, the more she can see they stay in a layer. They don’t sink to pursue her. The ones that are on her release themselves and float upward. The countless animals above her inhabit planet size vastness. The water is alive with sounds, chirping, ticking and long, drawn-out calls that ride up and down scales. Needing to rest, she sinks. Total darkness waits below her. If only she had her knife, she could light her surroundings. Tiny flakes from the surface world rain down around her in murky plumes. The world above is being shredded but remains intact. It does seem that the world gets eaten at. Shiny paint becomes dull. Sturdy furniture weakens. Clothes lose their crispness. Pliable material becomes brittle. Getting back to the surface seems impossible. Does she have it in her to swim back, that far up? She lets herself sink. She rests, trying not to touch all her new bites and abrasions, trying to think what she can do. She looks down at lights way down below. She sees two, sometimes she thinks she sees a third one. She swims/sinks her way toward the nearest light. After descending a kilometer, land becomes visible underneath her. Out of murky darkness a mountainside emerges. Once she sees it, it is too close. She will probably crash into it. What Lily sees scares her to death. Animals cover the rocky land. Large, shelled creatures, many of them in battle with each other. There is no way she will survive down there. Lily tries to swim up. She beats at the water as she helplessly comes in for a

crash landing. As she gets closer she is continually surprised at how large the beasts are, much larger than humans. They cover the mountain and almost all of them are fighting, killing, getting killed, eating and getting eaten on jutting, jagged rocks. With a burst of adrenaline, she pummels the water so hard she gains enough height to over the backs of a few of the beasts and clear the mountain. The land drops away on the other side and she looks across a valley. One dim light is on the other side. She swims hard toward that light. She crosses a landscape of perpetual night. Light comes from above, from the surface world. The land es quickly under her. She is gliding, sinking and the closer she gets, the larger the animal life appears. She approaches what looks like a cable lying across the ocean bed. She expects to reach it soon, but she swims/sinks awhile and does not reach it. Instead, her estimation of its size increases. She has hit her stride, maintaining powerful swim strokes and breathing the heavy liquid. She swims up as much as she swims forward. She swims up but still she is gradually sinking. Each time she looks down the creatures are closer and more defined. Some of these are larger than the ones on the mountain, giant hulking shelled animals the sizes of buses. They move fast on stubby legs. Some have more legs and some fewer at an average of a dozen legs each. The cable now appears to be the size of The Great Wall of China. It’s the same color as the land, a lunar grey. She is coming in fast. She lands hard on silt deposit, fifteen meters from the cable that now looks like a towering wall to her. Crumbly growth covers the silty ground. Her landing scares off cat-size fauna. They scuttle away on multiple legs kicking up silt. On her left a great shelled creature begins to turn around. Lion-sized creatures advance on her, their mandibles already opening. She swims up, gaining height in agonizingly small increments. The smaller animals she scared are caught by the larger creatures. These animals act like they don’t see that well. The movement of animals toward her attracts more animals from further out. Smaller animals flee larger animals. Larger animals go after smaller animals. Fighting increases. A creature the size of a garbage truck is pushing its way through the scuffles, getting nearer. It has around forty points sticking out of its front that move independently. When it reaches her, she kicks off one of its points to propel herself up and toward the cable. The beast continues to plow toward her. If her leg gets between two points that

can come together, she becomes dinner. She twists in the water to avoid the points, lifts a foot, places it on top of a point and steps up. She does this a third time and the creature charges under her. She sinks and her feet touch the top of its shell. She reaches down and grabs onto one of its shell plates. It goes after a creature half its size and brings Lily closer to the cable. It changes direction so she pushes off it one last time and swims for the cable. When she reaches it she can’t climb it. Its sides are slippery and smooth. She continues to swim up. She can push off the cable to gain elevation though she moves away from the cable as much as she moves up. Each time she does this she swims closer to the cable again. She does manage to get on top. The animals must not find what they want on the cable surface. There are tracks on it and insect-reptile-fish do climb on it but not many. Pipes and a single rail, attached to the top of the cable, run all down the length of it. She feels some relief but is immensely tired. She balances on the cable, catches her breath and recoups. She stands there resting for at least half an hour. She looks down the cable first in one direction then in the other direction. Seeing through the glass shard makes it a bit easier to see in this darkness. Across the valley, many kilometers down the line, a light on top of the cable shines dimly. She walks/swims toward it. Every quarter kilometer or so she es a closed, rectangular hatch, flush with the rest of the cable and made of the same material. When she does stumble or slip, she can wave her arms in the water to stop the fall and upright herself. She crosses the valley and es over hills. To the right she sees what looks like a cityscape during a power outage, black silhouettes over the slightly less black distance. When an animal is in her way, she swims over it. She comes up to an open hatch, the rectangular on a hinge sticking out like a fin. The top of a ladder pokes out of the opening. A walled platform connected to the rail holds metal cylinders and other pieces of equipment. A buildup of deposits covers the top of the ladder and all the equipment. She has trouble seeing what is inside the hatch: ends of cylinders, a glass box and what looks like switches with handles shaped like spatulas. She continues down the line. A tall, looming shape becomes detectable ahead, perfectly still. As she gets closer, she makes out the outline of a darkened tower on top of the cable. She watches warily for movement. As she approaches, it appears to rise higher and

higher into the sky, towering above her. The bottom part has circular walls. It’s a tall cylinder that holds a square building up above. Where cable and tower meet, a doorless entrance in the tower gapes at her. Slowly, looking over everything, she enters a round room. The tower has two doorways to the outside, one for each direction the cable goes. Crumpled dive suits are piled on the floor. Lockers stand against the wall. An antique toolbox on a wooden bench holds large wrenches and other tools. On the right wall a metal ladder leads straight up. Slimy moss or mold covers everything. When Lily bangs on the wall it does not make noise. She does not need to use her feet to climb the ladder. Her hands are enough. Pulling herself up, she es small windows. She looks up and sees the surface of the water. Her head emerges from the water into an air-filled room. She climbs out of the circular water entrance. As she breathes, water pours down her front. She bends over and heaves the water out and replaces it with air. The sensation is tolerable. The floor of the room is mostly taken up by the water entrance. On each of the four walls, doorways lead to other rooms. The interior is dark, but the adjacent rooms have windows. Everything looks antique. A layer of dust the thickness of construction paper covers everything. In the tiny kitchen she finds some suspect canned goods. The fridge and gas stove don’t work. In the bathroom the toilet bowl is dried out. The sink faucet has no water and creaks when she opens the valve. A third adjacent room is storage and the fourth is a stairwell. Steep stairs lead her to a single, large room with large windows in every direction. Along one wall a desk and operation console sit. The console is filled with large switches, knobs and buttons. Below two windows, shelves of binders contain operation and technical information. The oceanic scene outside gives her a moment of claustrophobia even as she reminds herself that she was just out there breathing with no problem. This office was once overly lived in and then sat vacant for decades, she guesses. The communications radio on the desk does not work. The lamps and clock do not work. Her clothes are dripping wet and she wants to dry off but she needs to rest first. She sits on a wooden chair watching the dim light fan through the water outside, looking a little bit like the northern lights.

She falls deeply asleep. She has a vivid dream she is building a cage around Leggy Man’s house while he and the dogs pace around inside. When she opens her eyes, the office is much brighter. Her hair and clothes have dried stiff. A puddle surrounds the chair. She goes to a window. The sky above sheds much more light. It’s still dark, like an overcast day times five, but she can now make out much of the landscape. The sky is a crowded constellation of twisted, oblong lights, not as bright as stars but larger and much more numerous. She can see tiny silhouettes moving up there. They must be the giant creatures that swim near the surface. They look like eye floaters. She is parched and famished. She goes downstairs and tries tasting the water from the circular entrance. She spits it out and dry spits to get rid of the taste. She examines the food in a cupboard not much larger than a medicine cabinet. She tries eating a can of corn. It does seem edible. Some crackers turn to mush in her hands. She finds a jar of peach preserves and a tin of anchovies. In the bathroom she follows the pipe from the faucet up the wall. There is a ball valve on the pipe near the ceiling. She stands on the toilet to reach and turn it. When she tries the faucet again, rusty water comes out. After a few minutes of letting it run, the water runs clear. She tries tasting it and is mostly sure it is drinkable. Searching through the storage room, she finds a circuit box. Two fuses lay on top of it. She screws them in and throws the switch. In one of the other rooms something goes pop! She flips the light switch near the door and nothing happens. The porcelain light socket on the ceiling is empty. She hears voices. When she walks to the foot of the stairs the voices are louder. Quietly she ascends. She peeks into the office and does not see anyone. A light on the radio glows red and people are speaking in radio code, “First Hill, Valley Five, heading out. I will you when I return.” “Valley Five, copy loud and clear.” She listens for many hours until it becomes clear other people are on the cable. They work out of other towers. They talk about “down the cable” and “up the cable.” They retrieve dropped supplies. They check repairs, respond to system alarms and troubleshoot malfunctions.

Lily spends her time resting. She uses the robust first-aid kit to nurse her wounds. In a filing cabinet she finds some true-crime magazines from the 1920s. She figures out that a bulky object next to the desk is a wood and canvas cot that takes her an hour to figure out how to set up. When the ocean outside grows nearly pitch black, she knows day has turned to night in the surface world. She has a second night of blissful deep sleep. Upon awakening, she removes the contents from a red fabric bag and fills it with the food, first aid and five steak knives. She sticks one steak knife in her back pocket. It turns out to be difficult for her to make herself go back into the water. At first she tries taking it slowly, dipping her face in the water and telling herself to breathe. Finally she holds her breath and drops down, letting herself sink. At the tower bottom she grabs onto a rung and when she can’t hold her breath anymore, she lets it out and her lungs immediately pull the water in. She leaves the tower not through the door she came in but the door on the opposite side so she can continue in the direction she came. After some time walking, she spots one of the whale-size creatures from above, sinking slowly, motionless. As she walks she looks to her left to see how far it has fallen. By the time it touches the ocean floor she must stop and turn around to see what happens. First there is a wave of movement outward, then a cloud of silt rises, blocking her view. Though she is far away she can hear the commotion. Animals fight each other, screaming and growling. Shells collide and front pointers strike each other. When the silt settles, she sees creatures climbing all over the great beast. She turns and continues her ocean floor walk. Meanwhile in another cable tower, Alfred is not too happy. His pen pal still hasn’t written back in a few weeks, and section B77I has the same glitch-out every night at the same time. His request for replacement tools has not been answered. They never get his food requests right. They do it on purpose, he is sure. He’s suited up and walking B77I. The access is always a pain to open. His air smells funny. The suit is unwieldy. He does what he can to slip as little as possible. The latest, greatest technology in diving suits just seems like a royal pain in the butt when he has to use it every day. He pulls the work cart behind him. God forbid it comes off its track. He won’t be getting a new one for years if it breaks. For nearly four hours he works, sitting in the access hatch, meticulously tuning and testing. He must go back for more air. He makes sure everything is secure and is about to head back. Down the line,

one of his ghosts walks toward him. She looks new, it’s been a few years since a new one came. Lily walks cautiously toward the diver. He has stopped and is watching her. He is waiting for her. No. Wait. He is turning and walking away from her. That’s weird, he acts like her walking down the cable is no big deal. The way he moves sets her mind at ease. He moves like someone just trying to get a job done, no bravado or agitated movements. Lily trudges forward. The diver can’t move as quickly as she can and she catches up. She tries to speak but the water in her lungs dampens her voice. The diver’s diving suit is super shiny and new. His old dingy cart blocks her from tapping on his shoulder. It isn’t until they reach a tower that he slowly turns around and rolls his eyes at her. Lily can see that behind the scratch-free glass a Black man well into middle age glances at her with forlorn eyes. Without any further communication he turns and enters the tower. She watches him detach himself from the cart then follows him up the tower. This tower looks exactly like the one she came from. He stands with his helmet off, securing a tank on his back when she climbs from the water and expels the water from her lungs. He looks at her with tired eyes. “That’s a new one.” When she can speak, she asks, “What do you mean?” “Throwing up water. The others will get a kick out of that. Have you met them?” “Who?” “Your ghost buddies. May as well stay here and get to know them. I’ve got to go back out.” “Wait, I’m a… I’m from above. I sank down here. I’m hoping you can help me get back.” “Okay. Just tell it to your buddies.” He fastens his helmet back on and looks at her like she is clueless. Bewildered, she looks back at him. He steps off the edge, splashes back into the water, and is gone.

Lily walks around, trailing water behind her. “Hello? Anyone here?” The tower is vacant except for her. What ghosts was he talking about? This tower is lived-in. Intermingled with antique things are many newer things, a vacuum cleaner, an 8-track stereo and fluorescent lights to name a few. The kitchen is full of food and her stomach wakes up grumbling. She opens the old can of anchovies she brought with her and uses one of her steak knives to eat the stale food. Her host may have limited provisions, so she won’t eat his food. Her damp clothes make her feel uncomfortable. She lies on a mat and tries to get some sleep. Hours later when he gets back he calls out, “How did this water get everywhere?” Lily comes partway down the stairs. “I made the puddles, sorry. When I came in.” “What? You couldn’t have done that.” He appears to look at someone to his right though no one is there. “Did you see how it happened? Never mind.” He goes about his business, mostly ignores her, and does not seem to care either way that she is here. Lily finds it frustrating to talk to him. He dismisses her almost as a rule. Her attempts to get him to understand her predicament go nowhere. She spends half an hour trying to explain her situation to him. After she is quiet for a few minutes he looks up from a box of letters and says, “The others don’t like you very much do they? You’re the new, least popular ghost. What did you do to make them so upset?” In this tower he has set up a hot plate and toaster oven in the large office room. When he makes dinner Lily cannot believe how hungry she feels, “Please, can I have some dinner?” He laughs at her. She asks again, “I haven’t eaten for days. Before that I only ate dog food.” Without looking at her he says, “Do whatever you want. I’m sure you won’t leave me alone until I say you can.” Lily walks over to the counter and serves herself a plate of spaghetti, potatoes and pork. She leans on the counter and hungrily shoves the food into her mouth. He looks up and stares at her. “How are you doing that?”

Lily says, “I’m not a ghost. I’m real.” “But you were outside without a suit.” He clenches his teeth. He starts to breathe heavily, fixing his gaze on her. He reaches for a mag light and rises slowly from his chair. Lily reaches back and takes the steak knife from her back pocket, gripping it, ready. If she needs to, she can go down the stairs, jump in the water, and swim away. She is closer to the stairs than he is. “Ah hell,” He says, sitting back down. “Doc says you ghosts can do anything. Next you’ll tap dance on my head.” He sets the mag light down and starts eating quietly. Lily quickly eats. She gets a second serving and stuffs large spoonfuls in her mouth, chewing mechanically. Downstairs she drinks water from the faucet until she can’t drink anymore. She grabs her bag and jumps down into the water. Lily walks down the cable. Her eyes adjust to near-total darkness. The people who work in the towers surely can’t stay in them all the time. Where do they come from or go to and how do they get there? Do they ride a submarine down? Her stomach works hard to break up the glut of food she stuffed it with. She senses movement on her left but when she stops and looks all she sees is undefined darkness. She waits and thinks she sees it, far away. It looks like a slow turning over of something large. Lily keeps moving. Light from above increases. It must be morning in the visible world. It’s also winter up there. That does not matter so much down here. A few hours later she nears the next tower. She sees light coming from the large windows of the uppermost floor. It looks like a lantern, so bright compared to how dark it can get down here. She enters and pulls herself up the ladder. The surface of the water above is brightly lit. Poking her head out of the water, she does not see anyone. She quietly expels the water from her lungs. She partly climbs out. “Hello?” A crash and scuffling sounds come from above. Feet run down the stairs then a head pops into sight. “Who are you?” a young Black man asks. Lily says, “I’m Lily. You could say I’m lost.” “I’m Midas. Did you take your suit off down there? Do you want to come in?”

“Yes please.” Midas laughs continuing to look at her. Seeing she is dripping wet he says, “Don’t you have a suit? Do you want a towel?” “A towel would be nice.” She climbs out of the water as he descends the stairs. “I haven’t seen another human for years!” “How do you survive down here?” “They drop us supplies. How did you get here? Why are you here?” “It’s a long story…” Midas gets her a towel. “I just made some breakfast, would you like some?” “Oh yes. My clothes are so wet.” “I have clothes. I could lend you some.” “Oh, that would be nice.” He climbs the stairs and returns with sweatpants and a sweatshirt. “I’ll be up here. Come up here when you’re ready to eat.” “Thank you.” When she climbs the stairs, she’s wearing his dry clothes and her hair is wrapped in the towel. He gives her a plate of eggs and toast and pulls a chair to the table for her. “I just can’t believe you’re sitting here!” As they eat, Midas looks familiar to Lily and she can’t where she has seen him before. After breakfast he brings her a cup of coffee. When she tries to explain how she ended up here, instead of it being hard to explain, he understands her perfectly. He knows about the surface world and knows what she means when she calls it the visible world. One of the insect-fish-reptiles crawls across the counter. This one is as big as a cat. Lily stands up and squeals, “Look! It’s inside!” The scuttling noise it makes inside gives her the creeps.

Midas grins slightly. He picks the creature up and places it on the floor. “You mean this entropy? These are a hobby of mine.” “You bring them inside?” “They are my helpers. This one does the dishes.” He sets the plates on the floor and the entropy begins cleaning them. “What did you call it? I’ve never seen animals like the ones in this ocean.” “All the animals down here are called entropies.” Lily says, “And the ones that float up by the surface?” Midas says, “Those are entropies too.” Midas talks about all the things that need to be taken care of on the cable in the next few days and all the projects in the works and things recently fixed. He is only a year older than Lily and she is positive she has seen him before. She asks, “You know about the visible world, have you ever been?” “No. I would like to go. In a way I know so much about it but I have no firsthand experience. Anything you could tell me about what it is like, I would like to hear.” In the evening he hauls a cot from the downstairs storage, up to the office. What looks like a cabinet folds down to a bed. He offers her the bed and says he can sleep on the cot. She says, “Okay, thank you. Thank you so much for the food you gave me today. I don’t expect you to feed me. You probably just have enough for yourself.” “Oh, don’t even worry about that. I have plenty of food.” “Really?” “I can put in an order for more food. I rack up tons of credit and I don’t have many options on what to spend it on. I have enough credit to feed a large family.” “I didn’t bring my family.”

Midas says, “Oh, are you joking?” “Yes, I’m kidding,” She pulls the towel off her head and he sees her flowers. “I like your flowers.” Lily touches one of them. “Thank you.” The next day and the day after that, Lily is surprised when he does not suit up and go outside. When she looks in the storage room, she notices the shiny new dive suit has not been taken out of its crate. He spends most of his time working at a bench. His workstation looks like what she imagines a watchmaker’s workbench would look like, tools with tiny points, magnifying glasses on arms, dental drills and little drawers. Lily approaches the table to ask if he would like her to heat some soup. He looks delighted that she offered. Meanwhile she sees on his bench, not watches but entropies he is working on. The one he is working on lies still on its back. The parts being removed and added look like tiny machines with intricate moving parts. Lily says, “Oh what is that you’re working on?” Midas says, “These are my helpers. When I was first sent here, the ocean life fascinated me. I started collecting entropies and switching out some of their parts.” “Was that your job before they sent you here?” “Oh no, my job was totally different. They have these agents called ‘messengers’. I used to design tools for the messengers to use.” “Really. Wow. Why did they need tools?” “Well, how do I explain? The messengers detect and phase out elements that might cause disbelief in what is called the ‘target audience’. Does that make any sense?” Lily says, “I think so.” Midas says, “It takes some explaining.”

Lily looks at all the tools on his bench. “These tools are so cool, did you bring them here with you?” “Bring them with me? Oh no. After I was here a while, I told them my watch was broken and asked for watch repair tools. Someone upstairs thought it would be harmless to send them to me. Then I said I wanted to learn dentistry and asked for dental tools. I said I wanted to make clocks. They don’t think I can cause any trouble down here.” “Can you?” “Can I what?” “Cause trouble?” Midas says, “I guess I could. I’m naturally curious, but I want things to run as they should. I don’t want to mess with the system.” Lily says, “How did you end up here?” “I committed the crime of sentience. Do you know what sentience is?” “It means awareness, right? Self-awareness?” “In the visible world that's what it means, but behind the scenes sentience means you ask too many questions.” “Oh!” She looks down at the creature he’s working on. “What can you make the entropy do?” Midas says, “I can make them pretty much do all the work I’m supposed to do on the cable. That’s what most of them do. They clean the tower, my clothes, the dishes. They retrieve the supply drop. The first year I was down here it was the hardest physical work I had ever done. I was afraid I wasn’t cut out to do it. I was barely making enough credit to survive. But now the entropies do everything. I’m running out of things for them to do.” That evening Midas makes hot cocoa. Lily asks, “I don’t get it, they don’t think you are a threat, but they imprisoned you at the bottom of an ocean?”

“I needed to be quarantined because I have become curious without a predefined purpose.” “I don’t want to sound mean, but why do they keep you alive?” “Because I have many identical selves that influence each other, and we all need to stay alive until my visible self starts his death cycle. Does that make any sense?” “I think it does.” Midas says, “Did you ever learn physics?” “No.” “Well physics is bunk. Do you want to hear an actual real law of the universe?” “Sure.” “You can never delete anything.” “Hm?” Midas says, “In the grand scheme of things, true variety is reached when everything is converted and never deleted.” Lily says, “Now I don’t know what you’re talking about.” “Oh sorry. It’s my old job talking.” “I like to hear you talk about your old job.” The next morning Lily shakes Midas awake,. “I where I saw you!” “What?” “I knew, really really knew I’ve seen you before and now I !” “Where?” “You were on a bus and you asked me to play my flute!”

Midas says, “Really? Was I nice?” Lily says, “Well, a tiny bit rude actually, but it’s okay. It was high school. You know how high school is, everyone is at least a little bit rude.” “I’ll take your word. That's interesting. You likely saw one of my identical selves.” “Yes!” She tells him how Leggy Man tried to make use of her flowers. “I can try and see what I find out about your flowers.” “Oh sure.” She pulls some of them from her hair and gives them to him. Each morning she gives him her flowers. He finds that none of the insects will shred the flowers. “Have you ever tried to make clothes with your flowers? The fact that you can't do anything with them might be what makes them useful. Maybe they are fireproof, shockproof, bulletproof.” A few days later, they sit looking out the window. Lily says, “So all these creatures on the ocean floor and all the creatures swimming near the surface, they are only here to change the visible world?” Midas says, “For the most part.” “Maybe they make the visible world age.” “That could be.” “But why this largest of oceans with billions of living animals? Why a whole second world to slightly change the first world?” Midas is quiet a moment before he answers. “If you were in charge of creating all of existence, if you already knew how to make an ecosystem and you wanted to make a certain effect, why not make an ecosystem that would create that effect? A realistic effect is created by something systematic but as varied or chaotic as possible. An ecosystem is a perfect tool to create that effect.” Lily says, “But why does the visible world need to age?”

Midas says, “I don’t know. I couldn’t even guess.”

[21] Lily Gets Marked

Throughout the day, every day, he talks on the radio. When he does, she sits quietly. They are afraid her being in the tower may set off alarms and some of the scarier agents might come down and destroy her. One twilight afternoon Lily says, “I think it must be around Christmas time up there.” She leans back in the chair and stares upward. “I’ve heard about Christmas.” Lily leans forward. “Let’s celebrate it!” He orders a small artificial tree, candles and candy. They string lights over the windows. He gets a small record player and three Christmas music records that they play often. Lily says, “We have a choice here. We can celebrate on Christmas Eve or Christmas morning.” Midas says, “Haven’t we already been celebrating Christmas?” “No, we’ve just been getting ready for it.” “We don’t know what day it is.” “Well, we can celebrate in the evening or the morning.” They work together and give it their best effort cooking chicken, stuffing and mashed potatoes. The food smells fill the tower and replace the submarine-like odor that usually dominates. They eat at the desk then sit back on the bed to exchange gifts. The gifts are wrapped in packing paper. She unwraps his gift to her. It’s some clothes and shoes, the tags still on them. She holds the shoes up and squeals with delight. His gift from her is three dolls she made. He looks them over. “This one kind of looks like a racetrack bookie.”

Lily says, “Oh yeah, he does!” They lean against the wall sipping hot cocoa. Lily asks him, “How do you like your first Christmas?” “I can see why visibles do this sort of thing. I like it. It’s nice.” “We forgot the mistletoe.” “What’s that?” “It’s a plant that you hang over a door and when two people stand beneath it at the same time, they have to kiss.” Midas says, “What if one of them does not want to kiss?” Lily says, “They shouldn’t stand under the mistletoe, I guess.” “What if they are standing there to be kissed by someone but someone else they don’t want kissing them gets under the mistletoe?” “They just have to keep a lookout and be ready to run!” They both start laughing. There is a lull in the conversation. Midas leans toward Lily. She turns to him and they kiss. She tells him all about her life when it was normal. He never had parents or a family. He started making messenger tools when he was three. With her continuous encouragement he describes his work on messenger tools in detail. Midas says, “You would be convicted of sentience. You ask more questions than I do!” They have an unspoken understanding that she hopes to learn from him. He may tell her something that will be of great use to her someday. He’s just happy someone is so interested in him and his life. She says, “I have some ideas of what you can program entropies to do for you.” “Oh yeah?”

“Yeah. Have them make rugs for you.” “I can order rugs.” “Have them add more rooms to this tower.” Midas says, “Oh my gosh. Wow.” Lily says, “Have them go help the guy down the line. He seems to be overtasked.” “Alfred? I could do that for Alfred.” “Have them make music for you.” “I don’t know a lot about music… Any other ideas?” “That’s it for now!” She convinces him to take his dive suit out of its crate and they go for swims. She collects some of the fragments of shell plates scattered on the ocean floor. The outer sides are stone grey but the inner sides are smooth and iridescent. She keeps the prettiest ones she finds in a wooden box. One day as they eat, Lily looks at Midas. “I don’t think I will ever get the hang of programming entropies.” Midas is focused on cutting his food. “Oh no, haha! You can get it with a little practice.” “No, you’re a natural at it. Hm.” “Why do you seem sad?” “I wish I had a way back to the surface.” Midas still looks at the food on his plate even as he puts a piece of it in his mouth. “I heard some towers have ascension vehicles, I can’t leave so of course they wouldn’t give me a way to go.” Lily says, “When I sank down here I wished for a life vest, just something to

make me float.” “This is a holding tower. They considered every item, whether or not it can float, to make sure I can’t take apart something and make a one-way ticket out of here. The only thing I can think of is air. We are already using air reserves. It would be dangerous.” “I don’t want to take your air.” “Some of the electric lines in the cable produce tiny air bubbles. Wait! I could program some entropies to collect air bubbles.” Lily gets an excited smile. “Really? You really could?” Midas says, “Of course! That is doable. It will take a while.” “Oh that’s okay!” “And I could build up an air reserve down here too.” “You could come with me.” Midas chews a mouthful of food. “No, I would like to but I probably won’t be able to. Even if I could enter the visible world, I most likely can’t function there.” Lily says, “You might.” “Probably not.” During the days and weeks that follow, moments of silence between them. They both have feelings they need to work out privately. *** Akilah works on a report. Drake knocks on her office doorway and she waves him in. Drake says, “We’ve got something.” Akilah says, “What is it?” “ Lily?”

“From about a year ago?” “Yes… She started using her social security number. We have a restaurant where she worked and an address where she paid rent.” “We know where she is?” Drake says, “No, I sent some scouts who reported that she has left both the place of work and the place where she lived about two months ago.” Akilah says, “Anything else?” “She opened a banking but there has been no banking activity for over two months. We have scouts in the area. We’re waiting for the next time she leaves a paper trail.” Akilah says, “I see.” *** The next day, Midas begins programming ant-sized entropies, one by one. They crawl into the cable and collect air bubbles on their legs. Lily mounts a jar upside-down outside the tower. The entropies go into the jar and release the air bubbles. After the first day, the jar is filled with a centimeter of air. Lily helps Midas leave the tower. They walk along the cable. He carries a homemade harpoon gun. She carries loops of a rope, one end tied to the harpoon. They walk until he sees the size entropy he’s looking for. He knows exactly where to shoot the animals, behind the first head-shell plate where the brain is. He fires at a cow-size entropy. Lily holds the end of the rope and watches the loops of rope feed the line as the harpoon shoots through the water. The harpoon hits, but does not hit the brain. The animal scurries away with the harpoon pulling the rope out of Lily’s hands. Midas signals for her to let it go. They go back to the tower and return with a new harpoon and rope. He hits an entropy. The harpoon pierces the brain and the animal lunges away but its jerky movement slows and it falls to the side. Midas s Lily pulling the animal in with the rope. Though the animal is large, because they are underwater the work is not too strenuous. They do need to move quickly. Other animals in the area sense the distressed movement and pursue the downed animal. Lily and Midas

hoist the animal up onto the cable, away from the other animals. Lily watches Midas remove the intestine. When she watches him work on entropies inside the tower, he reminds her of a watchmaker, but now he seems more like a butcher. When he has the intestine he pushes the animal over the side to the assembly of animals below. It takes both of them to carry the intestine. They work the contents out and cut it into five pieces. Once tied off at one end, the intestines make adequate holders of air. Lily and Midas hang them off the tower. The ant-size entropies crawl into them and rub the air bubbles off their legs. The intestines slowly fill with air. After a couple of weeks, the intestines begin to look like mostly deflated balloons hanging off the tower. Every day Midas programs more tiny entropies to transfer air bubbles to the intestines. Eventually the increase of air in the balloons from one day to the next is noticeable. Lily works on stitching her flowers together into chaps for her legs. She will also use her flowers to make a covering for her head and arms. The flowers are easy to pierce and don’t tear very easily. She plans to make flower coverings for the air balloons so that entropies won’t burst them. He orders a newspaper, so she can get an idea of what is happening in the visible world. She tells him about libraries and some of her favorite books. With her help he orders some books. He does not know how to read so she reads out loud for both of them. Lily has finished the leg, head and arm coverings when the intestines are filled halfway. Midas puts his dive suit on. They go outside and Lily puts a belt around her waist. They tie one end of a rope to her belt and the other end to the tower so she won’t float away. He takes the balloons one by one and ties each to her belt. With all five attached, Lily still sinks. He reattaches the balloons to the tower. Lily weighs herself on a bathroom scale. He straps together items that add up to weigh as much as she does. They use a rope to anchor the weight to the tower and attach the balloons to the weight. It sinks until it rests on the cable. They can watch it for when it begins to float upward. In two more weeks, the five intestines look full and the weight floats very slowly up off the cable. In a few hours the balloons are floating high. Lily tells him, “I’ll miss you Midas.”

Midas, “Yes, I will miss you too.” On their last night, they hold each other and talk about their hopes and dreams. Midas wants to hear again about what her life was like as a visible. They both covet the naive visible’s life in a world that seems untampered with and singular. Lily says, “I wish I could find out where your curiosity will lead you.” Midas says, “I wish there was a way we could stay in touch.” The five air-filled intestines on ropes pull Lily upward. Tarps made of stitchedtogether flowers cover the balloons. Her flowers also cover her head, arms and legs. She holds a broom so she can knock away entropies. For more than five hours she floats upward, five long lonely hours, and all she sees are particles in the water floating downward. Once in a while she recognizes something drifting to the bottom: a hair, a cat’s claw, a tattered feather. During this time she sleeps off and on. As she nears the surface, her surroundings become lighter. In the visible world it is a sunny day and in the aquatic shadow world the surface above glows dramatically. The multitude of entropies swimming above her takes her breath away. The entropies above like fast-moving submarines, some as big as submarines. She feels a growing panic as she rises toward their elevation. When she reaches their level, the surface is roughly 12 meters above her. It looks like she may make it to the surface before any of them notice. She remains as still as possible, but several of them, large and small, turn and swim toward her. She brushes away the smaller ones that move in faster. They try to slice through her flower coverings but their teeth can’t penetrate and they slide off. A dolphinsize entropy slams into one of the balloons. It bites the balloon. The flower covering gets caught in its mandibles and the entropy pulls the covering off. Lily kicks her feet hard to get to the surface while she still can. She has a harder time dodging the entropies this time. She can’t swim rapidly down like she did before. Smaller entropies burst the exposed balloon, releasing a large air bubble. It becomes harder for Lily to gain height. A large entropy grabs a balloon and Lily is yanked and pulled along. She finds the knot on her belt and unties that balloon. She is released and the entropy swims off into the distance. With three balloons left, Lily watches the world above seem to rise away from her. She knows she must furiously swim. She drops the broom and

fights for the surface with all her might ignoring the entropy attacks. In the visible world, a dog barks and children shout in the neighborhood. Behind a rowhouse the sun hits one side of the porch that is being used as a laundry room. Dark shadows stretch out on the other side. Water splashes out from the shadow cast by the washing machine. Lily’s arms emerge from the shadow and she strains to heave herself up. She pulls herself out and rolls onto the painted wood floor, soaking wet and expelling water from her lungs. A puddle forms beneath her. The ropes tied to her belt hang through the shadow and entropies tug on them like fish on fishing lines. She gasps for breath and fumbles with her belt. When she undoes it, it and the ropes slide back into the shadow ocean, lost from her for good. Still catching her breath, she stands and sees two kids only a couple of meters away, a boy and a girl, staring at her in the small backyard surrounded by a high fence. Behind Lily the back door is open and a TV plays a football game inside the house. The boy says, “Hey! Who are you?” The girl says, “Who's that?!” The boy calls out, “Dad! A lady is in our yard! She’s all wet!” Lily jumps down from the porch and runs around the house, but two teens are sitting beside each other on a side porch. Lily bows and says, “I'm sorry. I'm lost. I’m leaving now.” They look at her wonderingly. She walks quickly past them and through the gate leaving wet footprints behind. She walks around the block. A middle-aged couple standing by a grill watches her. She turns down the nearest alley and pulls off the chaps, hood and arm coverings, dropping them along the way. The sun is warm. It certainly isn’t winter anymore. Her clothes are uncomfortably wet. She walks around to dry off, pulling the flowers from her hair. Noticing a woman working in a community garden, Lily calls over the planter beds, “Excuse me, what date is it?” The woman says, “Why are you wet?”

“I was in an ocean and came out just a few minutes ago.” “It’s not nice to lie.” “I agree with you completely.” Lily starts walking. “September 10th,” the woman calls out. Lily turns and gives her a quick nod then keeps walking. When the sun has mostly dried her clothes, she walks into an open-air produce stand under a large roof. She pleads with the owner, “Please, I’ve worked in a bakery and I’ve done restaurant work. Can I do something to earn enough for a bus ride home?” The young man looks over at his wife who works the cash . They give her the task of cleaning basins, tubs and buckets. She finishes in a couple of hours and they pay her then let her take what she wants from a rejects bin. She picks out some strawberries that are mostly fine and some carrots. She takes a bus to the neighborhood she lived in before. Her crotch and armpits are still damp. Her hair feels like straw. The evening is setting in. She uses the alley gate to enter the backyard of the automaton’s house next door to the apartment she used to rent. The automaton “sits” on the back porch as it always does at this time of day. The vault door to its house is open. Lily walks into the gutted house. The second floor is missing and she can see up to the rafters. Most of the windows have blinds and curtains but there is no furniture or interior walls. She walks over to two suitcases set against the wall, lays them flat and opens them up. They contain a lot of her clothes and things. She takes all items out and groups them up on the dirt floor, all her nice clothes, nice shoes, toiletries, the red purse containing the antique pistol, $30 in cash, sewing set, birth certificate, and other things she is happy she still has. She changes into fully dry and laundered clothes and hangs the stiff and partly damp clothes off some exposed wall beams. She folds her blanket out on the floor and sleeps there for the night. The next morning she uses a library bathroom to clean up and change clothes. She walks down to the restaurant and gets her job back. Until she can afford rent she camps out in the automaton’s gutted house. Pangs of loneliness override her normal functioning like she never dreamed such feelings ever could. Not living with Midas causes her to wake up at night wanting to weep, to shed tears at work

when she really shouldn’t and to feel unmotivated to do anything including bathing and eating. It does not help that the automaton house has no running water and no cozy place to grieve. The blanket on the dirt floor offers no comfort. If she still had her nose-charm she could find enough lost treasures to live in a hotel until she had rent money. She eats little and saves. Having rent money will improve everything. When she deposits her third paycheck and sees the amount in her go up, she beams with happiness for the rest of the day. She visits her previous landlady to see if she can get her old apartment back. Someone else is renting it so Lily finds a studio to rent a kilometer away. It’s in a basement in an apartment building that probably has never been renovated. Even without the wooden nose she can appreciate that its smell is composed of countless stratum. Sixty years of people living in it have established layer upon layer of odor that goes way beyond musty. Imagine the stories she would learn if she had the nose: The smells people brought home from work, the smells of food cooked, the smells of different dramas played out. Her new place comes furnished with a twin bed, a low couch, a side table and a big table lamp. To have her own place to sleep, bathe and make meals, nothing could please her more right now. After g the rental agreement, she moves her two suitcases, taking the bus. A middle-aged man in her building sticks his head out the window and asks her if she needs help carrying her suitcases and she shakes her head. Inside, she takes her time unpacking and finding places for her things. She has five pieces of broken shell plate from the shadow-ocean floor. These she places on a high windowsill. She walks to a grocery store and buys food to stock her little fridge. After rent and groceries she does not have much money left. Looking through her things, she finds a couple of dolls she made months ago and puts them on the window ledge. Looking through the glass shard she finds some filament in the corner. She lifts it and lays it over the doll. Nothing happens. In the morning she pulls the flowers from her hair and puts them in a waste bin in her closet. Throughout her day, on the way to work, at work and on her break, she uses the glass shard to look around and find little pieces of emotional filament. She collects them in an old candy tin that she keeps in her pocket.

She calls Rachel on the work phone. After work she drops by the hotel reception to hang out with Rachel. Rachel works on an outfit she will wear at a west coast pow wow. Hundreds of people from different tribes from all over North America will be there. Rachel teaches Lily how to do intricate beadwork. When Lily gets home she sorts the filaments she collected into groups that she keeps in five jars, each labeled, “love,” “anger,” “fear,” “optimism,” and “sadness.” If she collects enough of one kind of filament and applies it to one of her dolls, what will happen? *** Drake approaches Akilah in a hallway. “Guess who started using her bank again.” Akilah says, “Lily?” “Yes, we found her!” “Do you know where she lives?” “She’s renting a basement apartment now.” “Call a meeting, ASAP.” “Yes!” A group of eight meet in a conference room. Akilah starts. “We located Lily. I think I want to try something I came up with a while back. I once found a messenger who painted visibles. The paint draws other messengers to target the painted visible. I took one of the cans of paint. I will mark Lily with the paint and let messengers take her down. It should work without our interfering with the game. The brief I handed out has Lily’s current address. Where is the nearest entry point to that address?” Myra says, “We have one in a utility room behind a gas station. It’s a little over five kilometers from Lily’s apartment. We keep a van parked in the gas station parking lot. The tank is still half full.” Akilah nods.

Drake says, “I can make you keys to Lily’s apartment.” Akilah says, “Good.” *** Near 3:00 AM Lily is asleep in her apartment. A white van parks on the street. The narrow street was established before automobiles. Now people park up on the sidewalk to leave enough room for through traffic. Akilah ties a blue cape charm around her neck that makes her invisible to visibles. She steps out wearing jeans and a jean jacket. She keeps her head low and walks to the apartment building. Only close scrutiny would reveal her movement looks like she is moving underwater. Four steps take her down to the basement doorway. She takes out two plastic keys and uses one to let herself in. Inside she walks past washers and dryers. She stands a moment outside the door to Lily’s apartment, listening, waiting. Using the second key, she unlocks the door as quietly as possible. She leaves the door open and walks over to Lily who lies in the bed. Akilah looks at Lily’s face. Lily appears to sleep deeply. Her flowers are grown to half the size they will be in the morning. Her face looks angelic. Other rogue NPCs Akilah has seen look like crooks with hardened faces or something more obvious like a big scar across their face. Akilah takes a brush and small container of paint out of her small shoulder-bag and gently paints an X on Lily’s forehead. Lily’s eyes open. She is getting out of the bed. “Who are you?” Akilah backs up and knocks over the table lamp. Lily pulls a steak knife from under her pillow. “What is this? Who are you?” Akilah steps over the lamp and runs out of the apartment without closing the door. Lily closes the door and turns on the light. She inspects the main room, bathroom, kitchen and closet to make sure she is alone before she sets the knife down. She hears a vehicle start up outside and drive off. On the carpet a paintbrush and small tin container drip red paint. Lily inspects it. If it isn’t a charm what could it be? She puts the lid on the container, picks it and the brush up and places them in the waste bin. Then she changes her mind, pulls the paint and brush out of the waste bin, and puts them in one of her suitcases. She tucks the suitcase away in the closet. She regrets having left the messenger crown behind and does not want to repeat that mistake. She inspects herself, trying to

find out if the woman marked her. Lily finds nothing. For the rest of the night, she lies on her blanket against a wall, holding the knife, not getting much sleep at all. She will have to look for a new place to live, first thing tomorrow. She may need to camp out in the automaton house for a while. The next day she gets ready for work then sits on the couch to rest. She falls asleep. She wakes up late for work and runs out the door. She walks in a hurry down the main shopping street. Ahead, outside the Pontiac Dealership building, three messengers stand in a group. She is prepared to walk right through them expecting them to jump out of her way. They take notice of her. That happens sometimes. Nothing to worry about. She finds it easier to increase her pace just a little when she needs to act as if messengers are not in her way when they are. They stare at her. She focuses on looking past them. Messengers often jump out of the way at the last minute. When she is two steps from these messengers she knows something is wrong. Visibles and messengers position themselves to move before they make a move and these messengers have not done that. Instead of letting her , they grab her and push her up against dusty window glass. At first, she is so shocked she does not know what to do. She is sure she took all the flowers out of her hair. It dawns on her she is about to be targeted. She recalls all her planning on what to do for exactly this situation. She makes herself stay as still as possible and tells herself to pretend she is at the dentist. The messengers speak matter-of-factly, “Got her? Okay, let me do this.” They don’t even sound very interested in targeting her. She knows it’s irrational, but she feels betrayed after having spent time with messengers, living among them. She never was one of them. Most visibles survive a messenger attack. There are countless kinds of messenger attacks, many seem harmless or nothing more than a nuisance. They might tie something to her or attach something that will be easy for her to remove later. One of the messengers takes out a long razor and Lily resists the urge to break away from them. It may look bad now but they can’t find out she’s sensitive. One messenger holds her, another takes her hand and holds it out, fingers splayed. She repeats in her mind, “O say can you see, by the dawn's early light, what so proudly…” The third messenger uses the razor to cut off the tip of her index finger, exposing the bone.

The density of the pain and what the pain is telling her is happening to her finger, causes her inner self to bounce around inside her brain. Her thoughts melt. Nausea crawls through her veins. She tries desperately to convince herself that she will be okay. They won’t kill her if she sweats or shakes, as long as she acts like she does not know what is happening. Her life depends on her not flinching or pulling away. They cut the tips off all the fingers on one hand and start on her other hand. Her rational brain goes away, some kind of zombie brain takes the controls. She feels the blood dripping from the fingers of the first hand. She almost falls when they let her go. From somewhere her reasoning mind commands herself, “Now walk! Start walking!” They stand waiting and Lily starts walking down the street. She looks ahead. The summer air feels cold on her face. She must be leaving blood drops on the sidewalk. Her fingertips, precious to her, are they really gone forever? What did she do to trigger the messengers? The fact that she does not know makes her more terrified of the streets than ever before. She had gotten used to the idea that she knew how to coexist with messengers. She keeps walking to work but now she isn’t sure she can go. How will she write down orders when her fingertips are cut off? What she really wants to do is go to an emergency room but visibles won’t see her wounds. They would look at her hands and think she is crazy. How much did the messengers cut off? She thinks the nails are still there but she can’t just stop and examine her hands. Out of the corner of her eye she sees a female messenger across the street and Lily is sure the messenger is looking at her, really looking at her. Lily feels the pressure of the messenger’s stare. What has come over the messengers? When the female messenger starts to walk across the street toward Lily, Lily breaks out in a run. She sees an automaton track ahead and heads for it. She makes fists and buries the ends of her fingers in her palms. Blood soaks her palms, drips down her arms and onto the ground. She hears the first air horn cry out.

[22] Personality Vacuum

When Lily starts running, the messenger across the street gives chase. The three messengers outside the dealership give chase. One of the messengers blasts an air horn. Lily does not look back. Before long seven messengers run after her. The automaton track she follows leads to a closed door, so Lily es it and keeps running. Other air horns are sounding out from surrounding blocks. Lily re seeing automaton tracks in a park up ahead. She heads that way. Two messengers are catching up to her. She runs by the park. It’s lined by semiautomated statues standing two stories tall and about a bus length apart. They depict workers. One statue lifts a hammer up and down. Another moves a welding gun from side to side. A third moves a paint roller back and forth. The heads tilt and turn but the legs don’t move. She spots the automaton rails crossing the grass, so she runs into the park. She is not very far into the park when it occurs to her that the messengers do not sound like they are right behind her anymore. She glances back. About thirty messengers stand outside the park. She runs behind a tree and looks back. The messengers walk back and forth at the park edge. They act like they hit an invisible wall. Is it the statues? When Lily sees how the messengers have clumped up against nothing, as dumb as ants, she laughs but not without fear in her laughter. She scans the park and sees nobody. Fully mature trees with thick foliage grow all over the park. Sun reflects off leaves that are turning back and forth in the breeze. There is what could be a college building or a governmental building in the center of the property, so maybe she isn’t in a park. More messengers arrive at the edge of the grass but they don’t come any nearer. Lily wishes she could hear what they’re saying. She dare not go back to where they are. They don’t sound the horns anymore. Some walk one way beside the park and others walk the other way but they have lost their hurried pace. She looks at the finely mowed lawn around her. Golf course landscapers would be jealous. There is no litter, no fallen branches, nothing poorly placed or neglected.

Still standing behind the tree, she looks at the tips of her fingers. She begins to cry when she sees how the skin has been sliced off the ends. They sting, itch and bleed. The air feels cold on the open flesh. Blood is all over her pants and shirt. She grabs the bottom of her shirt with both hands, pressing all her fingertips into the fabric. She reminds herself, other visibles won’t see all this blood. She is only aware of it because she is sensitive. She turns to the building in the middle of the grounds. It’s many stories. She walks toward it. The messengers still walk along the border of the park like ants around a puddle. The building has stone steps along one side and columns in front of entryways. She can make out lit rooms through the windows, but no human shapes or movement. She crosses automaton tracks in the grass and walks up the steps which are very clean, made of stone, and shiny. There are no doors on the entryways. If this is an automaton structure will it be gutted inside? She peers into one of the entryways and as her eyes adjust she looks down a long hallway that reminds her of the downtown train station, voluminous and echoey. She steps inside, checking everywhere, and ready to run back outside if she needs to. The place is spotless and deserted. The hall is stone and all the lights above shine brightly even in midday light. Still shaky from the attack, she walks down the hall. She finds a restroom with an ornate wooden door. If she gets in trouble for using this restroom, so be it. She takes several minutes to adjust the faucet water to not too hot or too cold. Her fingertips sting in the water and her blood appears to turn the water into blood. She can see her finger bones, flashing very white in shiny red flesh. She cries again as she makes wads of paper towels and buries her fingers in them by clutching them in her fists. Her mind is going to all kinds of crazy places. She does not want to come to with disfigurement. To do so feels like an act of self-defeat. Messenger or not, those three people wronged her only a little short of murdering her. She is grateful for her life but she has never felt so angry. What they took from her is priceless to her and means nothing to them. She must find them and make them pay! That’s not reasonable. She probably won’t find them and what could she do if she did? Because it’s a messenger attack, will she even heal or will her fingers bleed for the rest of her life? As the voice of reason answers her feelings of anguish, her thoughts collapse into sluggishness and her body moves sluggishly also. It starts to seem like nothing matters anymore.

She walks the hall again. No vermin inside. No ants, mice or bugs… Most of the doorways do not have doors. Automaton tracks run down every hall and in many of the rooms. When will she see her first automaton traveling through the building? Tracks go up and down the stairs in the stairwells. Without leaving the first floor she can see that the stairwells lead into earthen tunnels, so all these tracks do go into automaton tunnels. Helmets with headlamps hang on hooks near each stairwell. In shock, she walks the halls and into some of the rooms. One large empty room has a cabinet along one wall that she searches. In a lower cabinet next to a fire extinguisher she finds a first aid box. She opens it on the countertop and carefully bandages the ends of each of her fingers. They are very tender and scream out with pain if slightly bumped. She will avoid touching everything for some time. She cleans up after herself and puts the first aid away. She’s missing work. Her boss and coworkers are probably freaking out about being short a waitperson right before lunch. Her boss is probably calling people trying to find a substitute. But she is too afraid of the streets to attempt going anywhere. She looks into an auditorium-size room and finds shiny metal tanks, each standing six meters tall, with round porthole windows on the sides. A metal staircase on wheels stands on one side of the room. She wheels it to a tank, climbs up and looks through one of the windows. People submerged in clear liquid float inside. At first it seems they don’t move, and after many minutes Lily can see they move only a little. She looks through the window for a while then rolls the stairs to the next window. She goes from window to window, trying to see personality in the faces of the submerged people. They are certainly alive, but it’s hard to see their breathing. There are about six to each tank and most of them don’t touch each other. She sees the same range of people she would see out in the world. There are Black people, Asians, Whites and Hispanics. They are of all ages and wear a wide range of clothing types including business attire, nightgowns, uniforms, and casual clothing. Either they have recently gotten haircuts, or their hair does not grow. None of them have overgrown fingernails either. Their skin does not look wrinkly from the liquid. Two people wear glasses. All their eyes are closed. She climbs down the stairs. Against one wall she finds a grey chair of impressive construction. It has a high back, wide armrests and is built to hold any size, even

very large people. At first she thinks it’s made of tile but it has no grout lines or seams. It could be stone or metal, she just can’t tell. It reminds her of the material the undersea cable is made of. She sits on it and feels cool throughout her body. It is as hard as stone but soon that does not matter. As her eyes close she is about to get up but her body goes limp. Before she knows what’s happening, she walks into the same room or one very much like it. Instead of tanks, long tables are set out over most of the floor. Many people sit at each table. They have trays set in front of them that they look into and reach into. They also have toolboxes and tools set out on the tables. Two people look up at her but return their attention to their work. Some talk to each other. Many look abnormal. They may be wearing costumes that exaggerate some of their features. She stops and touches her hair. It feels different. Her flowers are back but they are much larger than they have ever been before, twice as big as they have ever been before. She isn’t sure what to do and stands watching the people work for many minutes. Those who notice her don’t react in any way that scares her. No one takes much notice of her. She gasps when she checks her hands. Her fingers are not bandaged and they look as good as new like they never were cut. Still unsure of the environment, she turns around and looks at the doorway. She steps back through it and is in the chair again. She stands up. There are the tanks. Here are the bandages on her fingers and the pain so strong she wishes she had pain medication. She sits down in the chair, feels her body going limp, and steps back into the room full of people. The pain is gone and her fingers look as good as they ever have. A Black man with four eyes instead of two and plum-size lumps on his hairless head gestures her over to his table. Lily looks around. Walking slowly over, ing between others seated, she recognizes him from the tank even though he looks human in the tank and extra-human now. He wears the same clothes as his double in the tank, flannel pajamas. He has many freckles on his cheeks. He watches her face and says, “You can relax. There is no need to worry.” Lily asks, “What happened to you?” The man smiles wryly. “Nothing happened to me. Are you sure you’re okay?” His smile looks relaxed. His brow wrinkles only with age and maybe humor. She

can’t detect any tension he might have from restraining his behavior. She looks around the room and everyone continues working and chatting. He holds a tool with a cast-iron handle and three posts slowly spinning on the front. The tray in front of him is a meter across. He gestures to the empty chair next to him. Lily sits. “But I saw you in the tank. Who put you in the tank?” “Nobody put me anywhere. I’m right here. Who put you in the tank?” The man acts like he is about to tell a good joke. He smirks and tilts his head back and forth. His humor is just about to burst out of him. “Nobody… Okay, I get it. My name is Lily.” “My name is Will.” She notices his feminine characteristics. Is he wearing mascara? She does not think so but she keeps feeling like she is looking at the eyes of a woman. Lily rubs her thumbs over her fingertips. “What is this place?” “It’s where I work.” As he/she says this, Lily looks around. A girl with a giant head and tiny arms and legs underneath sits pertly at a table. She waves to Lily, then her arm relaxes and drops down to the tray she works with. “What do you do?” She watches him use the tool inside his tray. “I change things. I just finished changing a pile of bricks.” He is not wondering much about Lily. That’s a good thing. It could be he thinks that she belongs here. “What is this place?” “Properties United.” “You change… properties?” “Um, I changed address numbers on a house once.” Lily says, “Oh wow.” He isn’t making sense. She decides to play it cool and focus on getting along with him instead of trying to figure him out. She says, “What are you working on now?” He looks into the tray he has propped up. “I have a pair of shoes here. I’m going to make the stitching a little off.”

“Nice.” He grins and continues working. Lily scans the room. A woman pinches her whole face into a small point every minute or so. One guy melts when he keeps a position longer than a few seconds. Whenever he moves, his body and features spring back to regular form. She recognizes most of the people around her as the same people submerged in the tanks. Even the woman with the face that pinches, though her tank double does not have a pinching face. Everyone has a toolbox, and they all use the same kinds of shiny new tools. Will seems to have forgotten Lily is here. His full attention is held by that tray he looks into. Lily says, “How long have you had your tools?” Will takes two seconds to drag his attention away from the tray. “These tools? My whole life.” “You worked here your whole life?” “Well my whole working life. I was schooled in my first year.” “Wasn’t the tray too large for you then?” “That’s an odd question. It’s always been the same size.” “Oh, yes.” The woman across the table from her has fingers like long tentacles that she likes to wrap around her tools. The people around her work and chat off and on. They all seem to know each other well. The woman winks at Lily. Lily addresses her. “Hello, what do you do for a living, if I might ask?” The woman says, “I drive a bus!” Lily says, “What are you working on now?” The woman says, “I have a stop sign. I’m curling the tanner at 40.” Lily says, “Oh, good!” The woman smiles looking into her tray.

Lily asks Will, “May I look at your work?” “Why not.” He tilts the tray her way. She gasps. As she gets a better look at the tray she can’t see the flat bottom. It looks like a window and through it she sees a giant sneaker. Sure enough, the stitching is a little bit off. Lily says, “Wow, nice.” The other people at the table say they are a building manager, a cook and a childcare worker yet they all sit there working through trays. Some people take breaks. They rest alone, chat with others, and even play cards. The Black woman who told Lily she works in daycare has a huge diamond with her. The brilliant stone is as big as an apple. She puts it on the table in front of her. At one point she gets up and leaves the diamond on the table. Lily calls out to her, “Excuse me, you forgot your stone.” The woman looks back. “That’s okay.” Lily says, “Aren't you afraid someone will take it?” The woman says, “Take it? I can't get anyone to notice it!” After a few hours Lily bids farewell. Most of the people in the room don’t notice her leave. As she approaches the doorway she can see the hall on the other side. She walks through the doorway and abruptly she opens her eyes. She is seated in the grey chair. Her fingertips are throbbing with pain. Brown dried blood shows through the bandages and her clothes have dried blood splatter all over them. She pushes the metal stairs to each tank and looks at the doubles of her new friends. None of them are moving. She says out loud, “I wonder what would happen if I woke you up?” She never did get breakfast, and now that the day is getting late she wants to find something to eat. She walks to the edge of the grounds and stands next to one of the statues with moving parts. One messenger sits on steps across the street. She walks to where he normally would be able to see her but he does not notice her. She waves her arms to no effect. She is mostly sure he will notice her if she steps

onto the sidewalk. She walks the perimeter of the grounds and learns what she can about the surrounding neighborhood. Someone plays Sly and the Family Stone loudly through an open, apartment window. A skinny man walks two bikes. Down one street a sign on the corner says, “Deli, Beer.” After she is mostly sure no messengers are in sight Lily runs down the block. But as she nears the store two messengers walk around the corner. They see her and she stops, spins around and runs back. They chase her and sound air horns causing another group of agitated messengers to collect around the edge of the serene grounds. She hides behind a tree but before the messengers leave, she walks back toward them. Six of them remain almost arguing with one another, “You were here yesterday, I told you she went in the building.” “And we searched the building.” “We all searched the building. She isn’t in there.” Lily walks closer to them. She walks right up to them the way one of them will walk right up to a visible. They are just on the other side of the statues. She can hear the statue motors whirring. She picks up a pinecone and throws it at the tallest messenger. When it hits her, she looks around but still does not see Lily. The messenger looks straight up as if the pinecone fell from above. Lily can’t help but laugh. The youngest messenger holds an air horn. She holds it loosely while she smiles and sways back and forth listening to the tallest messenger. Lily grabs the air horn out of her hand and takes off running toward the building in the middle of the grounds. She does not hear anyone running after her. She stops and looks back. They walk back and forth like before, not any more agitated than before. Lily goes back inside the building. An hour later she comes outside and has a look around. It’s still light out but it must be after rush hour. The sidewalks around the grounds look vacant except for a visible woman walking hand in hand with a child. A limousine drives down the road, no messengers in sight. The “Deli, Beer” sign is on the south side of the grounds. She walks to the north side. She goes to the very edge, steps off the grass onto the sidewalk and gives

the air horn one long blast. In seconds two messengers tumble down the steps from an apartment building and come running down the street toward her. One of them blows his air horn. She jogs south, back through the grounds. More air horns go off behind her. Messengers to her left and right run toward the horns, away from the area where the store is. As she reaches the store side of the grounds three messengers run past the store and down the street toward her. When they reach the grassy grounds, they turn and run around. Lily waits and watches. All the messengers in the surrounding area concentrate on the opposite side of the grounds. She sprints to the store, only stopping right before she hits the door. She runs into the store, panting heavily. The man at the cash sits watching a little TV that plays the news in Spanish. She quickly grabs the first things she thinks will sustain her and she can afford. The clerk takes his time ringing her up and accepting her money. She runs back to the grounds, feeling scared but elated. Back on the grounds she sees the messenger group on the other side has already started to spread back out. She has to see how they have reacted to a false alarm. Giggling, she leaves her groceries on the steps and runs to the group and listens in on their conversation. One says, “Has this sort of thing ever happened before?” A second says, “Not that I know of.” A third says, “Could it be a test?” The first says, “I doubt that. We need to report this. I know some of you think this is just a drag but think about it, an alarm but no one here who gave the alarm. It could be a charm maker. I know that seems unbelievable.” The messengers look scared. Not that Lily ever would, but if she wanted to and had a weapon, she could kill all these messengers with impunity. It makes perfect sense for them to be scared. She walks back to the building with a feeling of dread. How can she know how they will react the next time she uses her new trick? They may plant lookouts all over this area. They may set traps. Messengers are only one of many groups. What if they notify someone who can come onto this property to catch her? She picks up her bag of groceries and goes inside. She is on her way to eat in

one of the meeting rooms but thinks the better of it and goes back to the tank room. If there are people here who she can’t see, it’s better if she tries to stay out of their way. Connected to each tank, ladders go to the tops. Lily climbs a ladder to the top of one of the tanks. There she eats stale powdered donuts and drinks cold soup out of a can. Evening sets in. The windows grow dark and interior lights seem to grow brighter. She tries not to stress even though she does not have much money and now messengers attack her simply because they see her. She puts the food back in the bag and walks around the grounds for a few hours. She lies on the grass and tries to sleep. The pain in her fingers makes her miserable. Hours go by and she remains restless, fearful and wide awake. That grey chair put her body to sleep. It’s night, so hopefully no one will mind her using it. Back inside, all the rooms and halls remain lit. Her body is tired but her brain is wide awake. She sits in the chair and feels her body go limp. She walks into the room with long tables and all the workers with their trays. Everyone is busy. She looks for Will but sees he sits between two others. She finds an empty seat between a man who makes a regular ticking sound and a woman who so far does not seem extra-human. She mingles this time. Some want to talk, others are focused on work. Three people play cards and Lily s. Many of these people show traits of the opposite sex. One woman has a mustache. One man has a woman’s back. One woman’s double in the tank is a male. Lily reaches out with friendliness a whole lot more than she ever has before. She tries not to seem nosy when she asks questions. She does not ask why they don’t seem to ever eat or sleep. Some people are more interesting to talk with, better conversationalists, and some less so. There is one androgynous person who is boring to talk with but overall, the best conversationalists have male and female traits. When a seat is open she sits with Will. “See the person looking out the window? I can’t tell if they are male or female.” Will says, “I couldn’t tell if you were male or female when you first came here.” “Really?” “No, I’m kidding you.” Lily nods and smiles at him to acknowledge his teasing her, “Are you almost

done with the shoes?” Will says, “Yes.” “What will you work on next?” “I don’t know.” “Is there anything you haven’t changed?” “I don’t think so.” Lily says, “What about things that are not made by people?” Will says, “I’ve worked on everything.” Tamica, a Black woman whose hands look like they are made of glass says, “He’s not exaggerating.” Will says, “Everything is made up. Even the things that work are made up.” Lily says, “What about deer?” Tamica says, “You mean the animal?” Lily says, “Yes.” Tamica says, “I’ve never worked on a deer. Have you Will?” Will says, “I can’t . I have worked on lots of squirrels. Too many squirrels.” Lily says, “Have you ever made a purple squirrel?” Will looks confused. “Well we work with people—” Tamica interrupts, “The drips.” Will says, “We work with people who tell us when we have gone too far or broken a rule somehow. They never leave us alone.”

Lily says, “I haven’t seen anyone like that.” Will, “They show up in the tray.” He sets his tray down. “Done. Break time!” Lily says, “What are you going to do?” Will stands up. “Walk around a bit.” Lily says, “Ever walk in the hall?” Will says, “Sometimes. Want to me?” Lily says, “Sure.” She stands. They walk out the door together but Lily wakes up in the grey chair, alone. The faintest hint of morning light shines through the windows. Walking around, she notices a smell of cleaning solution in the air. The hallway floors are all shiny, the window glass is sparkling clean but who cleans everything? The lawn smells and looks like it was mowed just minutes ago, but there is no grounds crew in sight. She wants more food. It could take a week or more to find food if she goes into the tunnels to search for a vent that grants her access to a food source. She decides to take a risk instead. She tricks messengers again with the air horn and uses the last of her money to buy two loaves of bread and a large jar of peanut butter. That should last her more than a week. In the meantime she can start to explore the tunnels accessible through the stairwells. She changes the bandages on her fingers. The supplies in the first aid box have been replenished. She finds a pen and notepad, writes a thank you note and leaves that inside the first aid box before putting it back under the counter. The pain in her fingers is constant. At least she has found a way to escape the pain. She sits in the chair each night instead of normally sleeping. Her body always feels deeply rested in the mornings. Of all the people Lily befriends in the workroom, it turns out that those she grows the closest to are the most extra-human. The most extra-human seem the most talented, funny, caring and/or thoughtful. That isn’t always true, and Lily always tries to keep an open mind about the normal-looking people. She is, after all, one of the more normal-looking people.

Lily asks Will, “Do you think we are dreaming?” Will says, “I’ve heard of dreaming, but I don’t know what it is.” “How did you hear about it?” “Here and there. I added refraction to a mug that said, ‘dream big’ once.” “Do you get to choose what you make changes to?” “No.” Lily says, “Is there anything you’d like to make changes to?” Will says, “Anything handmade is fun, a lot fewer limits.” “A dream is when your body goes limp but your mind wakes up and makes up a lot of stuff and a lot of the time you don’t .” “Where do the bones go if a body goes limp?” “No I mean like this.” She relaxes her whole body and falls into a limp position. Will says, “I was certainly a lot less confused about things before I met you, Lily.” Lily laughs. Someone enters the room and Lily does a double-take. It isn’t a person. It’s a manikin floating into the room. It floats tilted forward, arms at its sides, between the seated people. It’s made to look like an elegant Black woman, dressed in stylish business attire. The angular features on its face go well with its sharp elbows and shoulders. No one else takes notice. It floats up to Beatrice who sits facing Lily and Will at the same table. Beatrice is a 19-year-old Black woman, lanky and coltish. Will and she are good friends and often sit at the same table. The manikin floats up behind Beatrice. Its right arm rotates up and it drops so that its hand lands on top of Beatrice’s head. Lily looks on, scared and amazed. The manikin is remarkable, so well sculpted. Whoever made it had a master’s understanding of human form. The coloring is impeccable, but the texture is too smooth, with no pores.

Lily asks Will, “Are you seeing this?” “Seeing what?” “That!” she points at the manikin. “What are you pointing at?” Beatrice stops all movement then her body starts to vibrate. Before Lily’s eyes Beatrice’s face turns into a mask. It resembles Beatrice entirely but looks like a plastic mold of her face. Will continues to look back and forth from Lily to Beatrice. “What's wrong?” Lily is tense. “What’s happening to Beatrice?” “What about her?” The manikin turns, lowers its arm and slowly floats out of the room. Lily walks up to Beatrice. “What is happening? Please tell me. Are you alright?” Beatrice turns the plastic face to Lily and without lips moving, her voice sounds clear as ever. She asks, “What do you mean?” Lily wants to follow the intruder but if she leaves the room, it just takes her back to the chair. In the mornings, Lily cleans herself up in the bathroom, using the paper towels and soap that get replenished daily. She examines herself in the mirror. What seemed like a faint discoloration on her forehead yesterday really grabs her attention today. She has some kind of mark on her forehead. As she rubs at it a texture emerges. The color changes and she begins to see that it is dried paint. The more she picks at it the more she can see it. Flake by flake, she peels it off. She looks closely at one of the flakes. It matches the paint she found spilled on the carpet in her apartment. The woman in her apartment did mark Lily. This is why the messengers chased her, it must be! With a growing feeling of trepidation she realizes there is one way to find out for sure.

Lily pulls the flowers from her hair, puts her hair in a bun and walks outside. She walks around on the grounds until she sees four messengers sitting on the hood of a car that is parked across the street. At the end of the block she walks over to the edge of the grass then steps off the grass and walks on the sidewalk toward them where they can see her. She only allows herself to look ahead. They are not in her field of view so she listens. Their quiet conversation continues. She tries to remain calm and remind herself all she needs to do is jump onto the grass if they take any notice of her. Even if there is no mark on her forehead to trigger them anymore, they may still her from last week. They don’t notice her. Her blood pressure normalizes after she steps back on the grass. She returns to the building and makes a peanut butter sandwich. For the next few days she allows herself to be seen by messengers many times, each time she moves further from the grassy grounds, eventually crossing the street, then walking around the block. She feels much better, but why did she get marked in the first place? Who was that woman who marked her? As much as Lily wants to return to her job and apartment, to have a steady income and instances of normality, her fear holds her back. As her fingers grow hard scabs on the tips, they throb with pain in time to her heartbeat and her whole hands ache all the time. She sees herself as being self-conscious of her hands for the rest of her life and reminds herself every day, no one will see the wounds, no visibles at least. Will she be able to feel with the tips of her fingers ever again? She realizes she has thought of herself as a whole person and now she won’t be able to do so. One night Lily takes a seat next to Rita, a Black woman whose eyes float away from her face toward what she is looking at. The more she is interested in what she is looking at, the further her eyes float from her head. Rita says, “Oh, hi Lily. Guess what?” Lily says, “What?” “Leo and I are on a date tonight.” “Right now?” “Yes.” “Should I sit somewhere else?”

Rita says, “No no! That's Okay.” Lily says, “I always see you two here every night. What makes it a date?” “Oh, Leo will probably try to make a move on me at some point in the evening.” “Oh, I see!” “Yes. Should be nice.” Lily gets up. “I'll talk to you guys later.” “Talk to you later.” Lily goes and sits with Monique, a Hispanic who grows taller or shorter depending on how he/she feels. Lily asks, “Have you seen Beatrice?” Monique says, “Oh! Come to think of it, she hasn’t been here for days.” Lily sees the manikin float into the room and approach Leo. Should Lily try to do something? She has no idea what the manikin is capable of. When the manikin places its hand on Leo’s head he is paralyzed and starts shaking. Leo’s face takes on the appearance of a plastic mask. The intruder floats out of the room. An hour later Rita looks sad, still talking to Leo. Lily walks over to them. “Is everything okay?” Leo says, “Everything is fine.” Rita looks at Lily, surprised. “I don’t know what’s happening. The mood is gone. I don’t know if it’s me or Leo.” Leo says, “I’m having a good time.” His new mask makes it impossible to see his expression. Lily feels sad. She goes back to sit next to Monique. Lily reaches into one of her pockets and finds one of her handmade dolls. She pulls it out to see which one it is. She made this one during her breaks at the restaurant. Monique says, “Ooh. What is that?”

Lily says, “It’s a doll I made.” “Can I have it?” Lily smiles. “Oh sure, I’d love for you to have it.” Monique takes it, begins to rock it and talk to it like a living baby, not like she is pretending but really thinks it’s alive. “Oh, I’ve always wanted a baby!” She starts to shed tears. Some others gather around to see the doll. People are in awe. Many of them are wiping their eyes. Winona tugs Lily’s arm, “Are you sure you want to give Monique your baby?” Lily says, “It’s not alive.” Winona draws back. “How can you say that?” Lily decides to go along with what they all think is true. Monique can’t work for the next several hours. She sits near the wall taking care of her new baby. Lily is a little worried about what she has started. Every night, instead of going to sleep, Lily sits in the chair and visits the workroom. Her new friends talk a lot about locations in the visible world, real streets, restaurants and stores. They name jobs they hold and friends and family that do not seem part of the lives they have in the workroom. Will talks about his wife and his adult son who works in a tux shop. He talks about a job managing properties. Lily tells him, “I can’t figure it out. You lead a double existence. You tell me you spend your days changing things but you also manage properties?” Will says, “I do both.” Lily looks around the room. “How?” Will grins. “I do them at the same time.” In the morning when Lily returns to the chair and room full of tanks, she leaves the grounds. For the first several blocks she steers clear of messengers when she can. She walks quickly keeping her face turned down. When she sees messengers, at first it scares her terribly but it takes her much less time, this

time, to move in the visible world not held back by fear. She walks to the restaurant to get her last paycheck. They don’t even ask her where she disappeared to. A new waitress hands her the paycheck and looks around until Lily turns and leaves. She cashes the paycheck at the bank a block away. She walks to her apartment. Her belongings are on the sidewalk, the door locks are changed, and a “For Rent” sign is set out front. She puts her belongings into the two suitcases and takes them to the room with the tanks, keeping her stuff on top of one of the tanks, back from the ledge, so the invisible staff won't take it. She walks several blocks to the grocery store and buys enough food for a few weeks. After eating, she puts new bandages on each fingertip, each is crusted over hard and painful to the touch. She winces every time she accidentally hits a fingertip on something. It’s nice to have all her clothes back. She changes and throws out the blood-stained clothes. She returns to the produce stand where they find odd jobs she can do, an hour to two hours’ worth of work for her each day. She does not make much but enough to eat. They always let her go through the rejects bin and she practically becomes a vegetarian. At night she “sleeps” in the grey chair and has two lives, days in the visible world and nights in the workroom. Over the next few weeks the manikin returns many times. When it changes one of Lily’s friends, that person may work for a day or two more but soon Lily does not find them in the workroom anymore. One day Will has been turned. It scares her. His face as a plastic mask makes her too sad to socialize so she sits in the corner by herself. She tries to talk to him but the life has left his voice. The next day he is gone and she never sees him there again. The room remains full of workers. New workers take the places of those missing. But Will is gone. All her good friends are gone. All the people she connected with are gone.

[23] Give Everyone Faces

Will used to talk about Justice Square, how he ate lunch, met with clients and picked up his wife there. He once saw his son running to catch a bus down the street and called to him, but his son must have not heard him. Justice Square is a place in the visible world. After Lily works at the produce lot, she catches a bus to the Square. In the middle of the day people press past each other on the sidewalks and cars jostle each other in tight packs between intersections. When she gets off the bus she can’t just stand there. People are trying to get by. She sees a sign for a Mexican restaurant, walks to it and enters. She asks if they are hiring and is told to try back in an hour when the owner is back. She goes outside and crosses the street to the park called “the Square”. All the benches are taken mostly by people eating their lunch. There are so many people, meeting others, skateboarding, reading and just looking around. A man wads up a paper sack, stands and hurries off. Lily quickly takes the bench space where he was sitting. Pigeons and sparrows swoop in to snag a bunch of fries off the ground. A police officer on horseback crosses over the grass. Two boys follow. She looks from building to building. Will talked about getting a haircut; there is a barbershop. Will talked about getting groceries before taking the bus home; there is the market, and she did see a grocery store a few blocks down on the road. He talked about the doorman carrying a concealed gun. She sees a doorman under a green entrance canopy. She walks over to it. When there is a break in the traffic she scurries across the street to reach it. The doorman stands alert, smiles and nods to a businesswoman entering the building. Lily es the doorman and walks into a large lobby. A gift store is on one side and a café branches off the other side. The cool temperature is a welcome surprise. People step into and out of elevators. A directory is in front of a reception desk where a woman security guard sits. Lily walks past the café but turns around. Will is sitting in the café with a woman. Lily walks to the side of the gift shop where she can look into the café.

Will looks different. He has no extra-human features and his expression seems sedated, not at all like the Will she re. He wears a suit instead of the pajamas she is used to seeing him wear. The woman he is with looks familiar but Lily can’t place her. Usually Lily is good at ing faces. She walks into the café and past Will’s table. She walks through his field of view but he makes no indication that he recognizes her. The woman he is with turns slowly in Lily’s direction and Lily’s skin crawls. It’s a live human version of the manikin. The woman gives Lily a hard stare. Well-practiced in evading messengers, Lily sits down at a table where two young men sit and she pretends she knows them, “Hi! Do you me? Please don’t lie!” Both young men sit up straight and begin to act out of breath. One says, “At the art loft party?” Lily says, “Yes! Did you have a good time?” They warm up to her. Will and the woman continue to talk and the woman does give Lily a few scrutinizing looks. Will stands, clears his place, bids farewell to the woman and leaves. A minute later the woman puts some papers into a briefcase and walks out. Lily carries on the ruse for five more minutes then declares she sees her father outside and tells the two young men she must catch up to her father while she can. She does not like to go to the workroom much anymore. She looks for work in the visible world and simultaneously tries to find the places her friends in the workroom talked about. She buys a map. Beatrice said she worked in an ice cream parlor. Lily tries to get work at all the ice cream parlors. Leo spoke of delivering the mail. She steps into the post office and looks past the people in line to the postal workers behind the counter. When she sees a mail truck, she walks by it and tries to get a look at the driver. She walks into a foot-courier service and with her recent knowledge of the stores, buildings and streets, she aces the interview and gets a job walking packages to nearby addresses, mostly offices. The courier bag they give her is great. It’s like a one-strap backpack or a really big purse. It’s bright red and everyone who sees her with it feels she belongs in the world. One day on her way back from taking a package to a law firm, she sees a woman

wearing a blue cape, collar shirt and slacks, similar to a messenger uniform. The woman walks along ahead of Lily, dodging visibles. Lily re how someone wearing a blue cape killed Marion. Lily follows. Blue Cape with Lily in tow busy intersection after busy intersection. When Lily does see messengers at work on the populace a nervous excitement festers in her belly. She reminds herself that even though both Blue Cape and messengers can see Lily, the messengers can’t see Blue Cape and can’t know Lily is following anyone. Blue Cape would never think Lily, a visible, would ever be following her. Lily is not technically invisible to Blue Cape but Lily is doing something Blue Cape would never think to watch for. They walk block after block. Lily needs to turn around and return to her courier service obligations. She can’t follow Blue Cape all day. Without warning Blue Cape takes off running across the busy street and down an alley. Lily must choose, run after the invisible woman or return to work. She groans and waits for a chance to jaywalk. When she reaches the other side, Blue Cape comes back out of the alley and bumps into Lily. Lily suppresses her surprise and keeps walking. After a few steps she looks back. Blue Cape is already crossing the street at the end of the block. Lily looks down the alley. Halfway down the alley a messenger is lying in the middle of the pavement. A delivery truck drives right over the messenger. Lily steps back as the truck emerges from the alley. It waits to turn onto the street. Lily walks between it and the building. She walks toward the messenger. From a distance she can already see the messenger is a gruesome sight. The crown has fallen off his head. That crown is what she wants. Messengers rarely navigate the visible world alone. Though she only sees the one messenger lying on the ground, there may be others nearby. She needs to act as visible as possible if she is going to do this. She faces forward and walks like she has somewhere to get to. Her eyes move all around in their sockets to survey the scene. No other messengers show themselves. Then a young girl messenger sticks her head out a second-story window and calls out, “Arsenal! Where are you, Arsenal?” Lily keeps walking. She hasn’t stepped out of her visible role yet. The girl messenger screeches like a mortally wounded bird and despite Lily’s best efforts to remain in character, a shudder es through her body. The girl messenger’s

air horn sounds out and then her face disappears from the window. Lily is getting close, only a few more steps. There may be messengers behind her. As Lily walks past the slain messenger she pretends to stumble, her hands landing on the road. She scoops up the crown. She wants to run, but she keeps walking. The sounds of air horns in the neighborhood cause her to have a surge of energy and she focuses to tone all her movements down. The girl messenger, with heart-wrenching despair, runs out of the building and to the slain messenger. Lily walks up close behind two businesswomen walking. She cups the crown over her currier bag. Two messengers run down the alley toward Lily with faces of terror and sorrow. The businesswomen glance back at Lily as she nearly bumps into them. Lily slips the crown into her courier bag and pulls the flap down. When she reaches the stairs to a sub-basement entrance, she takes them. After work, back on the grounds she climbs up to the top of the tank and places the messenger crown with her other belongings. This is what she can use to stop Leggy Man. She is not ready to go out there yet. Even with the crown, she is scared to return to that dreadful place. Will meets with the woman at the café regularly, during his lunch break. She projects astute confidence. She wears a high-class business suit but her afro is done in a younger person’s style, fun and pointedly not professional. She appears to be counseling or consulting Will. Lily adjusts her courier routes to monitor them. She makes sure to stay out of sight as much as she can. They finish their meetings a couple of minutes before 1:00. Lily walks through the building before 1:00 and waits by the elevators. Will comes out of the café and walks toward the elevators. He looks smart in a nice shirt and tie. Not long after he steps into an elevator, the woman comes out of the café and leaves the building. Lily follows. The woman meets with Colette, one of Lily’s friends from the workroom. They meet in the Square. Colette eats a sub while they talk. Lily would like to watch them longer but she needs to deliver a package. Over the next few weeks, Lily finds two more people the woman meets with. One of them is Beatrice. The woman and Beatrice meet in a sports bar. By now Lily is positive the woman looks exactly like the manikin who sucks the life out

of her friends. Lily calls the woman Vamp, short for "vampire", even though Vamp does not suck blood, at least not that Lily knows of. Vamp keeps a regular schedule, more regular than most which shows how little she is afraid of getting caught. She visits clients in the morning and early afternoon then returns to her condo. Lily purchases a pair of binoculars and continues to periodically shadow Vamp. It’s a great help that Vamp always meets her clients in public places. Lily sits and watches Vamp from afar as often as she can and for as long as she can. When strangers ask her what she’s looking at through her binoculars Lily says, “Birds,” without looking away from Vamp. She starts going to the workroom every day not to socialize necessarily, though she has met new people she clicks with, but because it’s a place to spy on the Vamp. At a bodega Lily buys a handkerchief printed with flowers, makes stitchlined, eye holes in it and wears it as a mask in the workroom. That way Vamp won’t recognize her face in the visible world. Just because the Vamp who shows up in the workroom is frozen like a manikin, does not mean she can’t see and Lily. It always frightens and saddens Lily when Vamp invades the workroom and changes one of the people there. In the visible world Lily finds and follows many of the doubles of her friends from the workroom, the ones who were given a mask and then disappeared from the workroom. The more she sees them, the sadder she becomes. When she sees Will on his lunch break he acts entirely without emotion. He seems mostly unaware of his surroundings, just doing everything he needs to do to tick through his workday. Then one day she does not find him and instead finds a new automaton in and around his place of work. New track is installed exactly where he used to walk. The tracks take the shiny new automaton to the café where he used to have lunch. The automaton’s paint job approximates Will’s look and style of dress. One day she sees Vamp sitting on a park bench with a client, a woman who Lily recognizes as a new attendant of the workroom. The woman wrings her hands, scowls and shudders. Vamp takes out an object and holds it to the woman’s forehead. Lily adjusts the focus on her binoculars, trying to get a better look. The object is blue and small. Wearing a sleek leather glove, Vamp holds the object there for at least two minutes. The woman’s face turns from troubled and sour to serene. No, not serene. Empty of emotion. Sure enough, the next time Lily sees the woman in the workroom, her face is a

plastic mask capable of only one unchanging expression. Lily grows frightened and her fear turns over to fury. The strength of the emotion feels new to her, a smoldering flame that is not going to go out anytime soon. She likes the feeling but worries it could hurt her as much as it may help her. All the next day Lily thinks about Vamp and the masks during her deliveries. Lily re stopping the trap setter in the little town and realizes she felt some satisfaction from stopping him. At the time she thought she was only doing what Sinaloa asked of her, but now she realizes she was much more emotionally invested in disarming his traps and destroying his equipment than she realized at the time. She thinks of Will and of all her new friends that she has gained and lost. What is Vamp taking from them? Lily arrives at work wearing slacks and a collared shirt, an outfit that closely resembles the ones worn by messengers. After work she waits down the block from Vamp’s condo, sitting on the curb with her feet in the street. A middle-aged man walking a tiny dog slows down as he glances sidelong at Lily. Lily offers, “I’m waiting for a friend, she lives on this block. She told me to meet her out front.” The man just nods approval quietly and keeps walking. Three messengers turn the corner and walk down the street. They cross the street and look through all the windows of a small house. If they don’t leave, Lily will have to give up for tonight and go home. After a while they go into the house. That is worrisome. How is she to know if they spot her through the window? When Lily sees Vamp coming up the sidewalk, her heart begins to pound. She isn’t scared of what will happen but what she is about to do. She crouches behind a car, takes the messenger crown from her bag and places it on her head. That familiar, warped feeling washes over her. It was a while ago the last time she felt it. She shifts her courier bag to her back, stands and walks right toward Vamp. She must do this before the messengers come out of the house. Vamp looks ahead as she walks and would normally see Lily right away but Lily can already tell the woman has no idea Lily is right in front of her. Vamp already has her keys in her hand. Lily walks past her and then follows behind. Vamp walks kind of slowly not giving off the edgy, high energy she does with her clients. She walks up the

steps. Lily is right on her tail. She dare not look at the small house to see what the messengers are doing. Vamp unlocks the door. Lily sees messengers have hung keys near the door. She is pushing against Vamp as they enter the building. At this point Lily is most afraid of running into messengers inside the building. She carries herself like a messenger. She imitates their attitude of detachment from the visible world. A messenger does not just look the part, they also act the part. In the elevator, Vamp pushes the fifth-floor button. On the way up Lily ties a string around Vamp’s throat. As they walk down the hall with royal blue carpet Lily follows close behind and holds her end of the string in plain sight in the way she knows messengers would. The string is just a ruse. If She looks like she’s in the middle of a messenger task, when and if a messenger sees her, it’s more likely they won’t try to talk to her. Vamp’s condo door does not have a messenger key hung next to it. That means Lily should finish this tonight. They enter. Two dogs loudly greet Vamp. Lily is not half as scared as she would be if the messengers did hang a key by the condo door. No key means it’s very unlikely a messenger is in the condo or will be coming into the condo. She still listens and readies herself. She lets go of the string when Vamp goes into the kitchen. Lily hangs back by the door. The interior is super classy. Lily wants to do this quickly. She slips off the courier bag, opens it and removes the can of messenger paint. Lily’s fingers still hurt where thick scabs grow. It changes the way she handles everything including the can of paint. She walks into the kitchen. Vamp pours herself a glass of wine and begins taking pots and pans from cupboards. Lily sets the paint on the counter and unscrews the lid. The same paint was on Lily’s forehead when it drew all the messengers to Lily. Vamp won’t know what is happening. She probably won’t last more than a week or two. Lily dips the end of a paper towel in the paint. She notices a plastic kid’s toy under the dining room table. The front door opens and a man and a child glide and prance in. They reunite with Vamp, hugging her in the kitchen. Lily holds back. What is she thinking of doing? The horror of turning an invisible army of

expert torturers and killers on someone. Was she really thinking of doing that? The kitchen is small and Lily has to back out of it to give the family room. The front door opens again and a teenage son comes in, waves sheepishly to his family and goes to kick back on the couch. But Vamp did something horrendous to Lily’s friends. They were funny and thoughtful and dramatic before and now they are empty inside. Isn’t that a kind of hideous torture? Aren’t Vamp’s actions almost as bad as murder? Certainly her actions are comparable to giving lobotomies. Lily already knows she won’t be able to paint Vamp’s forehead. She sets the paint down, goes to Vamp’s purse and searches through it. She only finds ordinary things. When Vamp took out and put away the blue object, where did she put it? The child walks over to the couch where the son watches TV. Lily goes back into the kitchen. Vamp and her husband chat and make dinner. Lily is about to dig in the woman’s pockets. She grabs a dishtowel, wraps her hand with it then stands behind Vamp and searches her pockets. Vamp says, “What did you do with my dishtowel? I just had it.” The man shrugs. “I don’t have it.” He starts looking around. “I don’t see it in here.” Lily finds something! She pulls out a leather glove and folded inside it, a felt bag with something hard inside. Vamp steps back and nearly knocks Lily over. Lily takes one step out of the kitchen with the bag. She opens the bag and empties a polished, blue stone onto the dishtowel. She does not want to touch it. If touching it to people’s foreheads sucks up their personalities then Lily must handle it with great care. It may have the power of all her friend’s personalities trapped inside it. When Lily takes a look at the husband she can’t believe it. Holding the blue stone in the towel, she can see the husband’s face is a plastic mask and the plastic looks aged, sun stressed and hardened. His mask must have been made a long time ago. Maybe he was her first victim years ago. What kind of person wants someone with a vacuous personality for a partner? Vamp must be all about herself. This woman must be stopped. But Lily can’t destroy the stone and call it a day. What if Vamp has lots of these stones? It may be easy for Vamp to make a new stone. Lily leaves her findings on a shelf and

begins a search through the condo that will continue for hours. Penny Cooper waits to drift off to sleep. Her husband breathes heavily beside her. The kids are tucked in. The dogs are fed. She checked the lock on the door. Her day went pretty well today. She had a no-show. That’s okay. She used that extra fifty minutes to get those stockings she’s been wanting. She opens her eyes and looks up at the ceiling. She feels hot. No, no she does not feel hot. The streetlamp outside sets the curtain aglow. She has always liked that. A vivid image of her blue stone comes to mind. She will have to replace it soon. Another trip out of town so soon. Her husband never likes to go. But it’s more than worth it. She feels uncomfortable. It reminds her of the night terrors she had as a girl. She tries to shift but her body acts sluggish. Is she already asleep? Her face itches like something is brushing over it and she wants to wave her hand over it. What was she thinking? She can’t move. She is probably asleep. The stone is pressing her forehead. What? That’s silly. It isn’t there. She would feel it. The faint light on the ceiling won’t come into focus. It blurs and the blurriness moves, maybe? It’s been a while since she has been half-awake like this. Her forehead tingles. The sensation is nearly imperceptible but almost unbearable. Suddenly she does not want to be asleep anymore. She is fully awake. She tries with all her might to scream but she can’t. She tries rolling back and forth. She tries to struggle and sit up. A warm tingling sensation oozes over her forehead. The tingling becomes painful. It burns into her forehead. Is this how her clients feel when she holds a stone to their foreheads? She tries to move, but she feels like she has become detached from her mind. She is being sucked out of her mind. Lily crouches on top of Vamp, using her legs to pin Vamp’s arms. Lily wears the leather glove as a barrier between her and the stone. She avoids looking at the husband’s plastic face next to Vamp. In the dark it looks creepy. Vamp struggles. She’s sensitive. If a messenger ever noticed her, she would certainly be eliminated. While holding the stone, Lily can see the personality leaving the body and causing the stone to light up. It takes nearly ten minutes, much longer than Lily thought it would. The woman’s expression becomes confused before it waxes over. Without any movement, her face goes from

lifelike to frozen. The pores disappear as a plastic semi-gloss surfaces. The personality feed runs out, so Lily takes the stone away. Without words, the stone tells Lily that it misses its other parts. It wants to be with its other parts. The location is many kilometers away. If Lily goes where the stone wants to go she may discover a place where similar items are kept. That may be where Vamp makes and keeps her charms. Vamp closes plastic lids and falls asleep. Lily puts the stone back in the felt bag and climbs off the bed. She tucks the stone into the courier bag. The couple’s faces look normal now. They are just an ordinary couple sleeping through the night. Does Vamp wear other charms? Lily tilts the woman’s face back and forth, checks her hands, checks around the neck. Lily can’t find anything. It’s getting late. She cracks the front door and peeks out. The hall is empty. She steps outside, closes the door and removes the messenger crown. The sensation of becoming visible again can’t be described. She suspects her bones change shape and knows this is probably not true but the change is that foundational. The floor beneath her feet creaks and now the two dogs inside the condo come running to the door and bark at Lily through it. Lily quickly puts the crown away. In the stairwell she changes her shirt. She hurries back to the grounds. The night streets are mostly vacant. The occasional car rolls down the road like a dream ghost. A visible couple huddle together on a doorstep, clinking bottles and whispering. Messengers walk in small groups like they own the night. Lily continues to work as a foot courier and does not see Vamp meet with her clients. One morning she waits outside Vamp’s home. Vamp does not leave at her usual time. In the days that follow, Lily can’t shake a persistent sadness. The unnamed sadness pulls her attention away from all that she does. When her coworkers talk to her, they ask her if she is listening. Sometimes half the day goes by without her notice. Lily does not visit the workroom for a few weeks. She tries to run across one of the people Vamp transformed to get to know them and see if she can use the stone to reverse what has been done to them. She only locates the automaton that replaced Will, and Marleen who works in a drugstore. She visits the drugstore many times but Marleen does not reciprocate Lily’s offers of friendship, at all. When Lily does visit the workroom she bids goodbye to the ones still there who

she knows. In the morning she goes from tank to tank, looking in the windows and saying goodbye to everyone. She knows they can’t hear her. She pulls the flowers out of her hair and uses a mirror to cut her hair short. She even applies eyeliner. She packs a backpack and takes a bus. She does not have to go immediately to the Leggy Man. She can go to the small town first. That eagle charm disables her with fear but she can break the eagle from outside the house, and after that she can enter.

[24] You Killed My Friend

Lily steps into a sporting goods store and finds her way to the archery section. She stands looking at the bows and arrows. A deeply tanned White guy with a chest that stands out walks up to her. “Have any questions?” Lily says, “We practiced archery in my PE class.” The man says, “Yes, some of these are for practice, some are for hunting.” Some time later, she catches a cross-country bus. After a five-hour ride it pulls off the road and brakes to a stop on the gravel shoulder. Lily is the only one who gets off, by eight wooden buildings where a highway and mountain road cross each other. She waits for the driver to open up the luggage compartment. He gives her a quizzical look when he hands her the compound bow. He does not ask so she does not offer an explanation. After the bus pulls away she stashes her bow and backpack off the road, in the woods. She pokes around a general goods store, only because she has a long, lonely hike ahead of her. Different size cages line the back wall. In wooden boxes with wire screen lids, baby chicks crowd each other as they step on straw. Each costs fifty cents. She watches a group of them awhile. The clerk is giving away homemade deer jerky she made, so Lily helps herself to a strip of it. She eats lunch in the nearby greasy-spoon. Two hefty, middle-aged, flannel-wearing White folks briefly glance her way. Even late in the day she can order pancakes so she gets blueberry pancakes and drowns them in syrup. She almost stops chewing when she sees through the front windows two messengers walking down the middle of the highway. Messengers have victims even out here. Five minutes later the messengers come into the diner and stand looking around. Lily continues chewing and looking out the window. She is good at playing non-sensitive but she can’t enjoy her pancakes anymore. The messengers start working on one of the diners. Lily pays and nonchalantly leaves even with the smell of burning skin beginning to fill the air. She takes off hiking. She hikes the rest of the day, and in the evening she ducks

off-trail and sets up a cheap tent she bought at a department store. She eats a sandwich and carrots then practices shooting arrows at a fallen tree. She is not the best archer, but she is good enough for her needs. The next day she hikes again then camps. On the third day she hikes a large circle around Leggy Man’s house. Each evening she practices shooting the bow. In the morning she reaches the forgotten town, on its opposite side from Leggy Man’s place. She stands outside the town for ten, maybe twenty minutes. Having been trapped in the town for over a year makes her reluctant to reenter it. She had thought she would never escape it, that she would helplessly become part of its isolated legacy whether she wanted to or not. She walks into the town and makes her way down the road. A smile jumps onto her face when she sees Kiara and Anthony sitting on a porch weaving baskets. They wear hand-crafted clothes. Anthony wears a sweater Lily knitted. They both look astonished to see Lily. Anthony says, “Wow, nice bow!” On nearly every block Lily has a reunion. She enters the diner and everyone stands to greet her. She brings out her care package to give to the town: Heirloom seeds, needles, scissors and knives. They bring Lily a plate of baked potatoes and gravy and a bowl of peaches. They ask her about Viola and she must tell them that Viola has ed. “She was abducted and…and…” She finds it difficult to explain and those around her tell her she does not need to explain. Lily starts to cry but does her best to stop crying as soon as possible. With everyone around she feels self-conscious. She walks to Noreen’s and finds her scrubbing clothes in an old tub out in her yard. The first thing Noreen says is, “Oh hi, where is Viola?” Lily finds it hard to speak. She stammers. Noreen can tell something has happened and puts her arms around Lily. Finally Lily says, “She’s gone.” and she quietly sobs. Noreen is very distraught. The news takes the wind out of their reunion. Lily can tell her short visit will mostly be about bringing the bad news to everyone. They both talk about Viola’s virtues and this, over time, will go a long way toward Lily coming to with losing Viola.

Soon word spreads through the town. Lily and Noreen others by bringing flowers to a memorial put together in front of the diner. People describe Viola in gentle, caring . Mr. Blue quietly plucks the strings of his box guitar. The memorial is short and bitter-sweet. Lily walks with Noreen back to her home. Noreen brings out blankets and Lily sleeps on the porch bench. In the morning she walks to the decrepit house only she can see. She brings her bow, arrows and a roll of fishing wire. By tying the fishing wire to an arrow, firing the arrow through the window and hitting the fear-inducing stuffed eagle, she can pull the eagle out of the house and drag it down the street. That should allow her to explore the house entirely, without induced fear. Lily stops in her tracks. The house is gone, entirely gone. She runs to the property. Piles of ash and charcoal on the ground make it obvious what happened. The house burned down. The eagle is gone but the treasure trove of charms is gone too. She says out loud, “You got me again. You just have to stay one step ahead of me.” She walks slowly over the lumps of hardened ash, digging with her toe in places to see if she can recover anything. So much for searching the deceased woman on the couch for charms. In the center she finds a pit and can see under burned beams, the entrance to the tunnel. Leggy Man wouldn’t want to destroy that. That is what leads people with some power to his traps and slaughter table. She considers filling in the tunnel and cutting off his supply of victims, but it’s the only way for people to find their way out of the town plus she has another plan for ending Leggy Man’s people harvesting. With ash on her shoes and pants she walks to the diner where she knows she can find some trusted faces. For the next few days she spends time with her friends. She helps Noreen put up a fence around the chicken coop. Noreen asks for news of the outside world. Lily describes TVs, electric ovens, rocket launches and drive-ins. She has never spent so much time with Noreen. It was Noreen and Viola who got close, not Noreen and Lily. Noreen says, “Viola was a sweet girl. I could always tell she liked this place. She had some odd notions.” Lily says, “Yes she did.” “She said she used to be invisible and that people seeing her was still hard to get used to.”

“Yes, she did say odd things like that!” “I think she believed she could talk to ghosts.” “Why’s that?” Noreen says, “Well, a few times I would hear her talking to someone, having indepth conversations, and when I went to see who she was talking to, no one else was with her. I was always surprised because it felt like she was really talking with someone.” Lily says, “Oh.” “Kind of like when you hear someone talking on a phone and you can’t hear the person on the other end but you can tell it’s a real conversation. She always stopped when she saw me.” Noreen looks concerned. “Yes.” “Did she do that around you?” “No. What kind of things did she say?” Noreen says, “Oh, something like, ‘to make people real you have to make them suffer.’ I forget most of what I overheard.” Lily becomes aware of the pain in her fingertips. She says, “I don’t know, but she was always a kind person to us, right? She and I went through hard times together and I could always trust her.” Noreen says, “Yes! I miss her. I really miss her. I think she thrived here.” Lily says, “Yes.” At the diner, Lily leaves the bow and arrows. Someone will surely benefit from having them. Around midnight she walks to the gas station knowing that for anyone on the outside of town, the gas station is on the edge of town. It’s also near to Leggy Man’s house. She unrolls an inflatable pool mattress and blows it up a third full. She pulls the middle part across her chest so the two inflated ends stick out under her arms like wings. Even though she has never seen a messenger

in the town, she scans her surroundings for any then reluctantly takes out the dreaded messenger crown. She puts it on and makes sure it fits snuggly around her head. Everything in front of her quivers for a microsecond. She takes a sharp stick and begins to squeeze herself into a shadow cast by the side of the gas station. It does not work. She simply presses herself against the siding and dirt ground. She panics. Has she lost the ability to through shadows? Inconvenient is not a strong enough word. If she ends up trapped in the town again she may be trapped there the rest of her life. She pulls off the messenger crown and tries again. She is able to push her legs into the shadow. Her feet come out wet and she laughs with relief. She pushes the crown deep into her pocket. Once she has ed through the shadow and her lungs are filled with water she waits for her eyes to adjust. Just below her, hundreds of entropies dart this way and that through the water. The mattress holds her to the underside of the surface of the visible world and she pushes her way toward the brightest light ahead, the lamp outside Leggy Man’s house. She stops frequently to avoid and ward off the entropies with her sharpened stick, but she is mostly held just out of their range. Unless they enter or leave the world above, they stay a meter or two below her. Even with her having a messenger crown she did not want to walk to Leggy Man’s house. She can’t smell his traps anymore and she is willing to bet he has made even more traps especially for her. Pushed against the underside of the world, she makes her way to his house, under the grass and traps. She gazes under his house. The entropies move in and out of the shadows a lot here. She swims her way around the house. She can see in the house, the dogs, two in the shop and one in the kitchen. The lit areas are the shapes she comes against. She can around the shadows and the lit areas, up to the second floor of the house where Leggy Man sleeps. She pushes her arm, dripping wet, through a shadow in the hall and places the stick on the threadbare carpet. The shadow is large, and she pulls herself through, coming out on all fours. She lets the pool mattress drop to the floor. Any noise she makes seems alarmingly loud. She hears barking and scuffling. The dog from the kitchen is running upstairs. She rolls on her side, pulls the crown out of her pocket and works it onto her head just as the dog runs over her.

It runs circles in the hall, barking and confused. She stays where she is, expelling the water from her lungs. So much water flows out onto the floor. Leggy Man snores loudly in the room off the hall. Her arms and legs tremble. The dog sniffs around the hall whimpering. She stands and with shaking hands she makes sure the crown fits tightly to her head. She walks to the end of the hall and looks out the window. As a messenger it’s easy for her to see all the traps in the yard. They stand out like plastic toys on a lawn. Of course. Next time she will know. The dog lopes back down the stairs. She searches the house, room after room, not a deep search but to get a feel for the place. Her heart rate settles and she relaxes. She does not go into his room yet. In the kitchen she steps over the oblivious dog and makes a sandwich. Leggy Man used to eat hefty sandwiches in front of her, now she piles her sandwich to a point where half the fixings spill out on her plate. His house is not clean. Lily gets the idea that most of it is not used very often. She begins a deeper search in the living room. She finds a few boxes of belongings that are obviously not his: a woman’s wallet, some photos of a baby and a plastic zipper bag filled with cheap makeup. On a desk she finds a folded map marked in many places with letter “c”s and “p”s. In a desk drawer she finds wads of cash and bags of coins. Lily can’t move these things while wearing the crown or visibles won’t be able to see them anymore. She wishes she had messenger gloves so she could move things. She opens a shoebox to a collection of IDs, mostly driver licenses. When all this is over maybe she should give these to the police. She hears a buzzer from upstairs and freezes. After a few minutes Leggy Man steps heavily down the stairs and goes into the kitchen. Hopefully the buzzer was just his alarm. All three dogs scrape their claws on floors as they scramble in circles and whine. By the sounds she can tell he is feeding them. She feels under the desk drawer and finds a pistol taped under it. This she does pick up and place on top of the desk. She just made it invisible to visibles. While he eats in the kitchen, she goes upstairs into his room, a remarkably small room. The single bed takes up most of the space. She searches around but only finds two boxes of dirty magazines under the bed and another pistol taped behind the headboard which she pulls out then places down on the windowsill. While he works in the shop she does a thorough search of the house. It takes hours. Her clothes and hair get covered in dust and her hands become grimy and

dry. She does not find her wooden nose or her illuminating knife. Upstairs in the closet next to the half bathroom, she finds a in the ceiling. She stands on a chair to reach it. When she pushes it away, the vast dark of the attic yawns at her. Once she has climbed up there she has to step from one loose board to the next. The boards are just laid over the beams that hold up the ceiling. The steeply angled roof above makes for an almost cathedral experience. Besides vents and wiring the attic is nearly empty. She finds, not pairs, but three perfectly matching, white, hard-leather, women’s working shoes from an era long past. All three are for left feet. It’s not a mystery she wants to try to figure out. She just wants her wooden nose back. She takes the steps down into his shop. He has built a network of vessels and tubes on the worktable. He grinds one of Lily’s flowers and feeds it into a metal vessel that looks like a funnel turned upside down. She stands and watches as he screws the vessel into the network of tubes and places a shell under it. The shell looks ordinary until she looks at it with the shard of glass and then it appears to glow like a hot blue ember and radiates an aura of hot purple light. The manifold includes two vessels wrapped in coils. One metal tube has a motor part in the middle like an inline pump or grinder or something. Lily can only guess. Her flowers are in large plastic garbage bags and boxes and piles on the counters. On one side of the manifold an open tube drips purple liquid into a mason jar. Is that what he’s turning her flowers into? Lily already knows his shop well from her time caged here. She begins searching. She takes her time trying to look over every detail, every centimeter of surface. The cage she was in isn’t in the shop anymore. Where did he decide to put that? The only charms Lily comes across are related to making charms. What about the charms he’s wearing? She looks him over. He wears so many, she can’t see them all. She notices a new charm he wears, an eagle feather extending from his index finger. Gritting her teeth, she finds a pair of pliers. Afraid that touching the feather will give her PTSD the way the eagle did, she uses the pliers to yank it off his finger. She brushes the feather on one of the dogs’ forehead. She must run backward as the dog goes crazy with fear. It scrambles around the table, claws scraping on the floor. It tries to claw its way through the door making a noise like a scream. She never heard a dog make such a noise. Leggy Man, confused, lets it out. The dog does not run around in the yard, it runs away as though death were snapping at

its heels. She feels instantly terrible. How could she be so reckless? The poor dog. She wants to go and help it somehow. Leggy Man looks at the other two dogs as he grabs his jacket. “You two stay, STAY!” He slams the door and runs through his yard calling for the dog. Lily places the feather on the table and rummages around until she finds a glasses case and puts the feather in that. She puts it away in her backpack, reprimanding herself for hurting that dog. The stuffed-eagle charm made her scared but not that scared. She needs to be a lot more careful. Not just for her own safety. She hears his truck choke to life and drive down the dirt drive presumably to look for the dog. Poor dog. She feels so guilty she could just hit herself. She must keep to her plan. There is one door in the back corner of the shop that she always thought was to a pantry or closet, but when she opens it she discovers a medium-sized room. She refrains from walking in because the floor in the room is gone. There is a meter drop to the dirt ground. By the cuts on the exposed floor joists it looks like the floor has been cut out and the object in the center of the room is most likely the reason. The object must weigh tons. It sits in the middle of the room. It nearly touches the ceiling. Some of its parts are mechanical. Some parts were probably human parts before. Some parts seem random, a spoon, a strip of fabric, a group of plastic straws bound together. Its overall shape reminds her of a giant bee hive. Looking at it through the glass shard, it does not give off any glowing filament. It must not be activated. Some areas of the material cacophony are dusty so it’s safe to say Leggy Man has been building it for many years. What is it supposed to do? She examines it and does not find her wooden nose on or in it, so she leaves the room and closes the door behind her. At two o’clock she washes her arms and face in the kitchen sink. She uses the rest of the eggs in the fridge to make an omelet and eats it with toast. His truck can be heard rocking over the potholes as it climbs the dirt drive. The truck rumbles to a stop and he comes into the shop, then into the kitchen. He sets a leash down on the counter, pours a cup of tap water, and takes a long drink. Then he goes upstairs. When Lily finishes eating, she checks on him and finds him sleeping in his room. She stares closely at him. Going downstairs and returning with a flashlight, she shines it over him until she can begin to make out the older

charms buried under the newer ones. She looks at him with her glass shard. The woman’s-choker charm still gives off a much stronger filmy cloud than all the other charms, 100 times stronger at least. Its aura fills the room. What would Sinaloa think of her using the glass shard this way? She pulls and pulls until she works loose a circular lens from in front of his eye. She holds it in her hand until she feels its mind awake and thinks/asks, “What are you made to do?” It thinks/answers, “Sniper vision.” She sets it on the windowsill. The next two lenses she removes are for night vision and vision through rain and fog. Leggy Man frets in his sleep but he does not wake up. She works a plastic toy diamond off his forehead, wiggling it back and forth until it comes loose. When she wakes it and asks its purpose it answers, “To confuse attackers.” He wears numerous glasses and visors. Removing and testing them, Lily finds they are made to help him see charms. She does not need them. They would be a step back for her. She realizes he barely saw the charms he made. They may have looked like bits of light to him. After removing more charms from his face she searches him for her wooden nose and does not find it. She removes charms from his hands and searches him for her illuminating knife and does not find it either. Most of the charms on his right hand are weapons. The charms pile up and she gets some paper sacks from downstairs to put them in. He wakes from sleep. In a foul mood, he returns to the shop. She follows him and watches him work or try to work. He can’t realize most of his face charms are gone. He gets frustrated, but he can’t fully know he is frustrated. He gets confused. He drops a charm and can’t find it even though it is centimeters from his hand. The two remaining dogs become nervous and whimper. She leaves him as he continues to act like he is working on a charm even though his hands are empty. She does not want to go outside wearing the messenger crown but way out here tens of kilometers from the next building, will it increase her chances of getting

seen by messengers? Maybe just a fraction. There is just as much chance that messengers may come into the house and find her. She walks down into a wooded gulch where the tunnel leaves the town. The early evening wind makes the tall grass dance around and the treetops sway dramatically. The fresh air smells great after breathing his air for so many hours. When she reaches the tunnel the trap outside looks so obvious to her now, the door on the ground and the cable attached. She takes it apart and quickly returns to the house. She stops by his truck. The driver-side window is rolled down. She can’t find the keys. She turns the headlights on and leaves them on to drain the battery. She searches the shop while he makes his dinner, sits in front of the TV and eventually goes to bed. While he sleeps she pulls charms off him, putting them in a paper bag. She wants to remove the choker. Rolling him onto his side is easy. Wearing the messenger crown, she could puppeteer his actions if she wanted to. The choker around his neck seems like part of him. It must be one of the charms he has worn the longest, it’s difficult to work off him. It almost seems fused to him. It takes her a good twenty minutes to undo its latch and another twenty to pull it off his neck, link by link. As she does so, his hair slowly greys. It starts to fall out. His skin gains texture, dries out, shows spots, and wrinkles. His youngish musculature slackens and diminishes, and fatty tissue takes its place. Veins surface under his skin. His knuckles and ts jut out. The symmetry of his face shifts out of alignment. His eyes sink into their eye sockets and his breathing becomes haggard and faint. His skeletal structure shrinks and curls in on itself. She is getting close to pulling the choker all the way off and Leggy Man has become so old Lily is afraid he may die. The rhinestone choker finally comes loose. Lily places it in the bag. He breathes loudly then begins to snore. No wonder Leggy Man talked about decades of experience when he looked no older than twenty-five. He played that oldies music and spouted bigoted nonsense. The puzzle piece finally fits. After she removes the last charm from him, she takes the bag of charms downstairs and sits on the sofa to examine them more closely. Some are unnecessarily cruel; these she pushes through a shadow to let them sink to the bottom of the entropy sea. A ring made of two paper clips allows her to produce an electric shock. It tells her it can be used to start cars, open electric locks, trick vending machines,

payphones and slot machines. A piece of charred bone can produce a small burst of flame. A pocket watch that runs slow makes the wearer think faster. A pin light can, for a few seconds, produce light so bright that it makes anything she shines it at transparent. A makeup mirror can draw in people whose reflection appears in it. The mechanism from a music box can lull people to sleep. These are just some of the charms he was wearing. Three dog tags link the wearer to his three dogs. Some of these she fits to herself, some she puts back in the bag, some she drops into entropy waters. She falls asleep on the couch. In the morning she enters the shop and unlatches one of the windows. She then goes outside, takes off the crown and tosses two bowls worth of dog food through the window. The dogs go crazy barking at her but already scramble to eat the food off the floor. Back inside wearing the crown, she makes herself a big bowl of kid’s cereal. Leggy Man shouts from upstairs, “Why are you angry with me?! I’ve done nothing wrong! I usually know what it is I’ve done. This time I have no idea!” She goes upstairs and looks in at him. He lies flat, short of breath, looking up at the ceiling. This is a messy situation. What on earth is she going to do with him? For now she returns to the charms to decide what to keep and what to drop through shadows. Lily gets to the rhinestone choker. When she places it in the palm of her hand its thought/voice exerts itself more than any charm she has come in with. “Put me on! I will keep you young. Put me on!” The voice is so loud it seems as if a woman is standing in the room talking to her. This charm’s thought/voice has character. It sounds like a high-pitched, whispery voice. The voice of a biblically meek woman who at the time is excited, almost frantic. Leggy Man cries from upstairs, “Where are you? Come to me! I know I know what I'm doing but I don't have a clue where I am in the process. I don't have a clue what I'm doing!” The Choker says, “He's talking about me.” Lily looks around the room. She is the only one in the room. she asks it, “What do you do?” The Choker pipes up, “I was made to keep her young but it turned out that old fool can’t do anything without me, so I also guide. I was his ex's sister. She wore

me so long, a great deal of her is part of me now.” Leggy Man shouts from upstairs, “Why don’t you speak? I can hardly see. Nothing is working, why can’t I see?! Why do you leave me for so long this time?” His raspy voice cracks and loses volume quickly. If the Choker exerts so much life just by Lily holding it, what power will it have if she wears it? Lily asks the Choker, “So, the woman in the invisible house made you?” The Choker says, “Yes! Yes!” The Choker is accessing Lily’s memories, “The woman you saw, on the couch. The corpse on the couch!” Lily says, “The man upstairs is her ex?” The Choker says, “Oh yes! He dated her younger sister in the early days. Before the first charm was ever made in that town. Before the town was charmed to hold people there forever.” “But the older sister used her younger sister to make you?” “Yes.” “But you sound like you know a lot about charms. You sound a lot more in control than I would expect a victim to sound.” “My older sister wore me a long time. Keeping someone young is an extremely involved process. Her personality bled into mine. I blended with her. I took on my older sister’s personality, and more important to you, all her know-how. All her years of discovery and experience.” Lily says, “And your older sister killed you?” The Choker says, “Not her. He captured me! When I was still the younger sister he abducted me! He did it for her. He captured everyone for her!” “But he must have worn you for many years.” “More than thirty.”

“How long did your sister wear you?” “About as long.” Lily says, “If he wore you so long, why hasn’t his personality worn off on you?” The Choker says, “He does not have a strong personality. He has never contributed much knowledge. Information is the carrier of personality. Ever read a good book? Teach me and I become you. He is capable of extreme acts, but still, he’s a very basic person. The older sister always blasted me with so much usable information. Along with it came a ion for knowledge.” “But aren’t you essentially the younger sister? The substance of the younger sister is what was used to make you, right?” “Yes.” “He killed your older sister to steal you from her?” The Choker says, “Oh no! Let me explain to you. My older sister and I lived in the nicest town ever there was, even during the Depression. A tall strapping man came through town like lots of jobless folks did back then. He was a criminal but we had no idea at the time. Our father owned the mine, and instead of robbing our father, our footloose man married me. Not long after that my older sister seduced him. I was very naive but she read him like a book and nudged him in directions he never would have gone with me. He confessed to her things he never thought he would tell a soul: the bodies left under bridges and the bodies pushed from boxcar trains. Instead of being scared, my sister knew she found the ticket to advancing to levels she could never reach because she did not have the stomach for harming others. She used to raise birds and use them for her experiments. She knew he would be the difference between her making a cute little love charm and a massive powerhouse, youth charm. They became partners. I was disappeared. He and my sister organized the search party for me. After I was made into what you now hold in your hand, she wore me and stayed young and he got older. She always promised to make a youth charm for him. It was the plan for them to live forever young in a town that never changed. But it takes at least seven years to make just one youth charm, a charm like me. And the charms that keep people from leaving a town demanded so much from her. It took her fifteen years to make the town self-contained as it is now. She wanted to keep everyone in the town the same for all time. That proved to be too big a

project for her.” Lily says, “Your older sister wore you all that time?” “Yes! And he drove all over the countryside, looking for lost souls to bring back to their big house, to their cellar. She always praised him for doing ‘the heavy lifting.’” “But he took you from your sister?” “He finally itted to himself she would never get around to making him a youth charm. For his sixtieth birthday he asked to visit youth just one last time. She of course complied and lent me to him. After trying me on he said he was going to go on a little trip, just for a couple of days to party it up as a young man, just one last time. How could she say no? She mistook his willingness to kill and rob for her as a sign of great loyalty. She reverted to her real age of fifty-five. The only control she had over him was one little love charm she put on him. Her encouraging him to be a scoundrel played a much bigger part of their bond.” “Did he kill her?” The Choker says, “He went on his trip and never returned. He would have been happy robbing and drinking for all time but I helped him see a much greater life waited for him. I helped him establish his workshop.” Lily says, “I found her dead.” “Yes I see the images as they come into your mind.” “So he isn’t a sensitive by nature. And that’s why the messengers didn’t detect him.” “What is that?” “How old is he?” The Choker says, “Ninety-seven. I know you don’t trust me. I know you associate me with him and that woman in the house but , I am the younger sister. I am the victim. Just like your friend Viola. All of me, and I mean all of me, was used to make what you now hold in your hand. I am the first

victim.” Lily says, “What’s your name?” There’s a silence. Lily asks again, “What is your name?” “I can’t . I know I had a name. They did not let me keep that part of me.” Lily puts the Choker on the coffee table that has shell casings scattered on it. She sits quietly and looks at it for several minutes. The dogs can be heard whining in the shop. The man upstairs cries out, possibly in his sleep. She decides she should wrap this up. She removes the messenger crown. She grabs a few things and goes upstairs. As she walks through the house the dogs hear her and go into high alarm, barking and scratching at the door to the shop. The smell from his room meets her halfway up the rickety stairs. When she enters the room she approaches cautiously as he rolls back and forth on the bed. She walks to the side of the bed. He wheezes, “Come on! Come on! Okay, I’ll say it. Deloris, I summon you!” His eyes are shut. Lily stands looking down at him. He probably needs to go to the hospital. He seems to have difficulty lifting himself even a little from the bed. The dogs bark savagely downstairs. He rocks and hollers, acting out as only someone who thinks they are alone can. He suddenly stops, panting and still, and Lily’s eyes meet his. He bares his teeth with bloodless lips. “You.” For a moment they look at each other. His arm slides to the side of the bed. He feels for the pistol. When he realizes it’s missing, his manliness crumbles away. Still, the desire to kill lurks behind his gaze. She holds the eagle feather with the pliers. “for Viola.” She raises her hand and brushes the feather across his forehead. His face turns red. Muscles throughout his body, including his face, spasm. Drops of sweat bead out on his now bald head. His eyes open more widely than Lily has ever seen anyone’s eyes open before. It looks like they will pop out of his head. He starts hitting his chest and though feeble, he lurches so violently that the bed jumps on the floor. Staring at her with hatred he tries to spring into action but the fear reaction overwhelms him. It locks all his muscles. She can see his pulse pounding away and his whole body arcs upward, pressing his feet and head into the stained mattress. The odor of his defecation fills the room. She hears cracking. Is it his bones cracking? His

gasping halts. His face turns purple and he falls to his side. Lily waits and watches him. The dogs are quiet. Are they still charm-linked to him? She feels for a pulse and does not find one. As she walks down the stairs, a harsh sinking feeling settles into her. She feels she has to sit down and does so. Like a freight truck coming out of the fog, the reality of her situation comes out of nowhere and drives over her. She gasps, drops the pliers and feather and chokes on her breath. She shakes her head back and forth disbelieving what she just did. With her thumbs she pushes on the scabs on the tips of her fingers. The pain shoots up her arms. She pushes harder and harder on one fingertip after another. Some of the tips start bleeding. Tears flood her vision. She shakes her head vigorously, “No! This time you don’t get to cry!” The cage that he held her captive in is behind the house. She drags it into the yard near the shop door and throws meat into it, thawed meatballs, hamburger patties and deli-sliced meats, all the meat in the fridge she can find. The dogs are barking in the shop and trying to jump up to the windows. She leaves the cage door open. She opens the shop door then quickly puts the crown on. The dogs claw the door open and race out into the yard. They run in circles barking but find no intruder. She stands watching as they sniff out the meat in the cage. They gingerly sniff their way into the cage and almost reluctantly eat. She closes the cage door. She removes the crown. The dogs go crazy barking at her from inside the cage. She fetches them bowls of water. Back inside, she finds a rotary phone set on the floor under a desk and calls the police, sheriff and Humane Society to tell them she is a concerned citizen aware of two dogs left uncared for in a cage outside a house. She gives them the address. She walks through the yard, Choker in one hand, a bag of apples in the other. The Choker instructs her on how to disarm the traps, “There's another trap just ahead. He doubled the traps in his yard after you came along. It makes things so much easier that you can see the traps. It is a pleasure to see all my work. Just throw the apple into that bare spot in the grass. If I knew I would live to see this day, well, let’s just say if the President himself came to my door to wish me a happy birthday, I would not be happier!” Lily tosses the apple into the bare spot. A dozen iron barbs fly out from many

directions and strike the apple and the surrounding area. The Choker says, “Oh I should have advised you to jump back for that one!” When Lily hears a car driving up the road, she grabs her binoculars and walks back into the woods to watch through the trees. A sheriff’s car drives onto the property. The female sheriff knocks at each door and looks into a couple of windows. She takes a long look at the barking dogs in the cage and returns to her car where she sits with the driver-side door propped open. Lily sets the binoculars in her lap. She reaches in her bag and touches the Choker. It pipes up, “I know where he’s hidden your wooden nose and knife!” Lily’s hand pulls back, cutting the Choker off. She looks ahead for a few minutes then reaches for the Choker again. It speaks immediately, “I realize these are circumstances where you don’t trust me but…” Lily interrupts, “What do you want with me?” “I’m only alive when someone wears me.” “You seem alive right now.” “Well, yes, but not nearly as much as when someone wears me.” “How so?” The Choker says, “I experience everything the wearer experiences. I see through her eyes. I can taste food, feel pain and feel bodily emotions. It’s strange to me not having a body. I’m used to having a body even though it’s been someone else’s the last sixty years.” Lily says, “Can you control the wearer’s body?” “No, I wouldn’t say so.” “Can you be awake when the wearer is asleep?” “No, I wouldn’t say so.” Lily pulls her hand away. She takes a bite from an apple and watches the sheriff

through her binoculars. The police come by. Another sheriff comes by and an hour later a woman and man in a white van come for the dogs. Lily watches them use loops on long poles to move the dogs from the cage to the van.

[25] An Agreement

Brown paper bags in hand, Lily walks to the shed out in the woods. When she reaches in her pocket and touches the Choker it resumes talking as if it had been put on pause, “That is the shed where the tunnel to the town is. Oh wow! Of course. You’re the only one I know who can see the tunnel. Even my sister couldn't see it. I mean, they hired a couple of hobos to dig the tunnel before placing the charms to make it invisible, so she saw it before placing the charms. Our errand will be a lot easier than I anticipated. We need to go about halfway through the tunnel.” Lily steps into the shed and climbs the ladder into the dirt cavity. Rich soil walls surround her as she looks down the dark tunnel. The Choker says, “Go ahead, no one can see this so no one will be down here!” Lily says, “Wait.” She pulls a flashlight from her back pocket and switches it on. “Look for the rope. We used to have to feel for it, sometimes for hours, every time we came back from a visit to the city.” Lily already sees a rope about two paces into the tunnel. A stake pins it to the ground. It runs all along the floor of the tunnel. Lily says, “It was always here? I didn’t see it on the way out.” “Oh certainly! You just never looked for it. The rest of us couldn't have gotten through without it. Follow the rope until you find a piece of fabric tied to it. Left of that is a pipe.” Lily walks fifteen paces and sees the fabric. She looks for a pipe. The flashlight flickers out. Lily says, “Shoot.” “Oh my. If you wear me around your pretty little neck I can help you feel your way.” Lily feels on her face and finds the night-vision monocle. She touches it and

thinks it awake. She can now see in the dark but not well. She spots the pipe, hammered into the ground. A rope is tied around it. Following that rope leads down a second tunnel that branches off the first one into a cave containing twenty-five boxes. She opens the first one, takes out the first object and asks the Choker what it is. As the Choker tells her what each charm does, Lily finds a lot of them to be disturbing. She has to stop herself from throwing the Choker down so she won’t hear the descriptions anymore. Her guilt for killing Leggy Man erodes. She stumbles out of the tunnel and sits on the ground to feel the sun on her face and rest her heart. She rests for half an hour then sticks her hand in her pocket to touch the Choker. The Choker says, “He used to be my helper, can you believe it? He was far more twisted than he needed to be to do the things I needed him to do. Simple as a hired hand but twisted.” “If he was so clueless, how did he learn to be a charm maker?” “Don’t you get it? He never did. I guided him every single day up until the day you took me off him and let me tell you, that is the weirdest feeling to be removed after being worn by someone for thirty years. I would have warned him about you if I had any idea you were lurking around. We didn’t see you at all! Yes, that old stud couldn’t tie his own shoelaces without me breaking it down into steps for him to follow.” Lily withdraws her hand. The Choker’s air of humor does not mix well with the descriptions of charms she has heard today. Where is the voice of the younger sister? Or was the younger sister just as crooked as the older? A victim does not have to be innocent. Lily touches the Choker. “Okay Choker, you know what kinds of charms I’m looking for, don’t tell me you don’t. Point them out to me. I’m going to destroy the rest.” “Oh yes, certainly. I want the same thing.” Lily returns to the cave and they sort through boxes of charms, making two piles. The Choker says, “Don’t feel sorry for me. I’m not the poor, poor sister. I won him back after all, can’t you see? I got to keep him through my sister, for she never took me off. He was a simple man but he knew it was me he stole from her. Especially after he put me on. When he did, he grew young like I

first seeing him. After that he never took me off. And I got my sister’s talent. I get to outlive them both. So why do you think of me as the victim?” Lily nods slightly. “I want my nose and knife back for now. I need to take a break from this place at least for a while. Can you tell me where those are?” Lily pulls the Choker out of her pocket. “Yes of course. But wait! I know you’re thinking of leaving me here, but those messengers you think about can hurt you. Don’t you see? How often have you been in danger, just in the last year? Do you think that will change? I can help you keep yourself safe from them!” “But I don't want to make new charms, not the way you know how to.” “There's plenty here, we can take apart the ones you don’t like, and make ones that do things that suit you!” “Maybe. Maybe after a while.” The Choker says, “Wait. I’m not done! Did you ever wonder who painted you with the charm that made the messengers slice off your fingertips? Someone else is after you, believe me! Someone you do not even know about who is the most dangerous of threats to you. Do you know who marked you?” Lily says, “It was a messenger,. Doesn't that make sense?” “I can hear your thoughts. If you put me on I can go through your memories and give you real answers. The woman in your apartment was not a messenger. I can walk you through finding out more about your pursuers. If you leave me here you may not live much longer.” “For now tell me where my nose and knife are.” “The box behind the one you’re looking in now.” Back at the house, Lily packs. She covers herself with charms pressing each one until it becomes part of her. She can’t think of an easier way to move them all. Once blended with her they become massless and invisible even to her. She must focus on one for it to show itself to her. She does not wear the Choker.

She tries to start the truck, but the battery is dead so she hikes back with a full pack and a suitcase. She sniffs the trail of the dog that she gave fear to and finds it tangled in a barbed wire fence, bled to death. She cuts it loose and carries it into the woods where she places it beneath a large tree and places flowers around it. That night when she camps, she changes into fresh clothes and buries the longsleeve shirt and T-shirt that have dog blood all over them. The next morning, armed with a variety of invisible charms, she reaches the road and hitchhikes. A rugged White guy stops his dented pickup. He helps her load her luggage into the back. He is as friendly as can be though he seems out of practice. As they drive down the mountain road she notices that he smells like tree sap which is kind of nice, but he begins asking her a lot of questions. She tries a charm on him that is contained in a doll’s ceramic hand. The charm is supposed to cause people around her to become forgetful of her presence. She placed it on her left hand and now when she presses on it the driver’s efforts at friendliness fall away and he stops taking his eyes off the road to look at her. He drives with a look of boredom. She asks him if it’s far to Goose Bend Diner. He snaps out of his quiet reverie, “Oh won’t take too long!” He looks like he is about to say more but tunes her out again. She turns his radio on to top forty. He notices. “Oh I’ve got a better channel we can listen to.” He pushes one of the black buttons and a country station comes on. He says, “You know…” but he drifts into thought again. A tattered book rests on the dashboard. She turns it around to read the title, “Martian Chronicles.” She would like to talk with him about it but she also would like to rest and mostly wants to get back to the city and settle into a home of her own. When she sees buildings ahead she presses the charm and thinks it to sleep. He re her and flexes friendliness skills again. She tells him that her stop is in front of the buildings. He pulls over and she gets out. He walks around the truck. As he sets her belongings on the side of the road he asks for her number. She presses the charm and he looks down the road. His expression softens. The only thing in that direction is a bird pecking at something. She can tell he often

smiles. His face has smile muscles. Lily says, “It was nice to meet you. I should go.” He re her. “Oh! Well yeah. Take care now.” He climbs into his truck and drives off without looking at her or waving. Is there a safe way she can test if this charm works on messengers? She hauls her heavy luggage across the road to the diner. The waitress watches her drag the suitcase across the floor. After she orders, as she eats, she reaches in her jacket pocket and touches the Choker. As the Choker prattles on, Lily thinks back to invading Leggy Man’s home, how she swam under his property, how she crawled through the shadow onto the floor of his upstairs hall, how she quickly put the crown on so his dog didn’t find her. The Choker says, “Were you listening to me? You know I can help you make a charm that makes you lighter so you can go in the shadow waters without sinking.” Lily has not gotten used to her thoughts having a second audience. “That may work. I might be interested in doing that.” *** Akilah’s team locates Lily as soon as she rents an apartment. The team member who finds her says, “She paid for six months of rent with cash! The apartment is in a pricier part of town too.” Akilah says, “That doesn’t sound like our naive runaway anymore.” A few new on the team don’t know who Lily is and need to be briefed. Akilah, “Lily is our oldest unfinished case. We rate her as a level ten threat, not because she demonstrates ill intent toward the game but because she deviates from game mechanics the most. She can entirely disappear into deeper, incomprehensible layers of the simulation. We have never encountered another NPC who can do that. She does not play her part as an NPC on the visible layer. She becomes more cunning each time we encounter her. But we have improved our tactics too. We have a new charm. It’s a gun that fires hooked barbs that lodge in an NPC and attracts death by automobile accident. After I fire one of

the barbs into Lily, she will be involved in a fatal accident usually within twentyfour hours. She travels by foot in the city, so her accident should come sooner.” *** Akilah submerges in her VR tank and enters the game. Her avatar is on a vacant floor in an office high rise. The interior walls, ceiling and flooring have been removed. She can see across the entire level in all directions to windows-glass walls looking out on the city. Sunlight blazes through the south-side windows. Terence, a Black youth wearing a dress shirt and tie, walks up to her and shows her to a folding table. He is not a talkative type so they get on with business. Akilah takes from the table the barb gun, a blue cape for invisibility and plastic keys to Lily’s apartment. Tarence drives Akilah in a limo to Lily’s apartment. One of hundreds of players who work in-game through his avatar, he drives forty hours a week in the visible world and knows the streets well. In the back seat, Akilah ties the cape around her neck. He parks the limo and waits while she lets herself into the apartment building. When she enters Lily’s apartment, Lily sits at a desk, her back to Akilah. Though it is the middle of the day the closed blinds darken the apartment. Besides the desk and chair where Lily sits, there is no furniture. Akilah walks halfway into the room, leaving the front door open. She raises the pistol, aims at Lily’s back between the shoulder blades and fires. Two things happen at once. The image of Lily jumps away and the barb flies past the desk and lodges in the wall. Akilah looks around then stares at the empty desk chair. A wet hand comes out of a shadow and places a silver brooch on her front. She watches dumbfounded. The hand retreats into shadow and is gone, leaving water dripping down her front. She drops the pistol. She tries to remove the sun-shaped brooch, but her hands through it. The floor creaks behind her. She turns to look. The apartment looks like no one has been in it for a long time. It smells musty like the door and windows have remained closed. Lily steps into the doorway, dripping wet. She wears a brooch exactly like the one Akilah wears. Lily looks right at Akilah and says, “I know your body isn’t here.” Akilah says, “You can’t see me.”

“The blue cape you’re wearing doesn’t stop me from seeing you.” Akilah does not like that she has been noticed inside the game but she politely smiles. “Do you know I’m also real whereas you are part of a simulated game?” “I know you get here by ‘simulation’ as you call it. Turn off your simulation and look at yourself.” “Okay. I can do that for you.” Akilah taps the side of her index finger and she can look out her VR goggles into the tank she floats in. She can still hear Lily who says, “Look at your chest.” Akilah looks down, the sun brooch is pinned to her VR suit. Impossible! She swipes at it but her hand es through it even though she is in the real world. This can’t be. Her goggles don’t have any hardware for augmented reality. Lily says, “When I pin that brooch on you, all your selves get it pinned on them and I can see each one of them. Normally the brooch would be invisible to you, but I’m having you see it.” In the visible world Akilah’s avatar is hitting and rubbing on her front. Her feet float off the ground and she rotates slowly in the air. She touches her index finger to return her sight to the game. “But I’m not part of the game. I helped start the game. I saw the game when it was still on silicon.” Her feet return to the ground. “That brooch will never leave you. No one else will see it but you will always see it. I have the second of two brooches with me. That means I can do this.” She lifts her hand to pinch her brooch between thumb and finger. Akilah feels her body going numb. She tries to move, but her body stops obeying her. She tries to speak but can’t. After a full minute Lily releases the brooch and Akilah’s ability to feel and move returns. Lily says, “I want you to close my file.” Akilah reaches down and grabs the pistol, but Lily disappears from the doorway as she runs down the hall. Akilah chases after her aiming the pistol in front of her. Lily is fast and the faster Akilah runs, the more it looks like she’s

swimming. Lily runs down the stairs. Akilah chases her. Lily runs through the door to the third floor. Akilah goes through the door. The lights are all out in the third-floor hall and Lily is nowhere to be seen. Akilah runs halfway down the hall but already she knows Lily may as well be kilometers away. Akilah looks down at the trail of water Lily left behind. It leads to a wall and ends there. Akilah comes to a standstill and catches her breath. The damn brooch is still on her chest. It looks solid but it isn’t. Taking out rogue NPCs was becoming routine for Akilah in the last year. Eliminating Lily, what was supposed to be business as usual may turn out to be a deep pit Akilah has just stumbled into. She composes herself and returns to the limo. Terrance drives her back. On the way he asks her if she’s alright. Akilah says, “No. She got away.” She meets his eyes in the rearview mirror. “Notice anything different about me?” She angles her front so the brooch can best be seen by him. He looks back at her. “No. You look the same.” Akilah points at the brooch. “See anything here?” “No.” He drops her off at the office high-rise. Akilah leaves the game and climbs out of her VR tank. She showers. In the shower she es her hand over the brooch again and again. It looks impossibly real. She wonders if she is going crazy. After dressing in her office clothes, she shoots out a report then goes home early. She saw the game when it was only concept drawings and mind map presentations. Is she suffering from a new kind of mental illness, one where someone who spends too much time in a virtual reality begins to experience elements of that reality when out in the real world? At least she isn’t hearing Lily speak to her anymore. On her cab ride home Lily says to her, “I will always be with you now.” Akilah screams and jumps, swatting at thin air where she thought she heard Lily in the seat next to her. The cab driver brakes and releases in busy traffic, “Ma’am! What is wrong?” he reprimands her. Akilah says nothing and waits out the rest of the ride. The cab drops her off and

she goes into her home. She puts water on for tea then stands looking out the windows at the elevated view of the city. Lily says, “You tried to kill me, more than once.” Akilah spins around and backs up against the ceiling-to-floor window glass and scans the interior for Lily. Lily says, “You’re a good woman. All I will ever ask of you is to close my file.” “You hypnotized me. It’s the only way you could have gotten in my head like this. The game is smart enough to do that I believe, now that I think of it. Hypnotizing does not work quite like malware. You won’t last. I’m disconnected from the game right now. Right now the Lily I’m talking to does not have the response-generation the game Lily has. You will flatten any moment. You will begin to repeat yourself or start to look more like a figment of my subconscious. The longer I stay out of the game, the sooner you will wear off.” “I’ll give you time to get used to this. Only, don’t ever give my file to someone else. You will lose most motor function if you do that. I will give you some time, but I do want you to close my file. No matter what you do, don’t forget that. If you cooperate with me, you will see I’m no threat to your ideas of ‘best game experience for the players’ and all that stuff. Have I ever interfered with your goals?” Akilah’s voice is an octave higher. “You made a player think the game was broken.” Lily says, “When?” “After the bus explosion.” “Oh, well, that was before I had any idea what was happening. What did I do that the player found out?” “The player was in you.” “Oh. Is there a player in me now?” Akilah says, “No. I can’t even follow you. You tore out some of your habitual-

behavior script and the identifier code along with it. You tore out your tag.” “When did I do that?” “Behind the museum.” “Behind the museum… Oh my gosh. When the messengers trapped me? When they stopped me from running?” “The messengers didn’t do that. It was me.” “And you did it because I was acting abnormally?” Akilah says, “More or less.” Lily says, “But I know now to act normal. I know the ‘game’ as you think of it can react like an immune system to a foreign life form if I act other than normal. You don’t have to worry about me. My life depends on maintaining a normal façade. I’m not out to ‘break the game’ as you call it.” Akilah looks down at the brooch, real looking as ever, its color has even changed to fit the lighting in this room. For someone so used to living with augmented and virtual realities she recognizes the irony of her having a panic attack at seeing something she knows is not there. The idea of that makes her suddenly burst out laughing. Lily says, “I know I acted conspicuously when I first ‘went rogue’ but I’m not your biggest problem. I could show you people who are ‘breaking the game’ on purpose. I know people from your world have very limited access. You’re looking through a pin hole in a wall to see my world. I could give you insight into the ‘game’ that would improve your efforts beyond your wildest hopes. I mean to speak to you in a language you understand, you are ‘the game attempting to correct itself’, just as you have observed the game as a whole doing countless times.” Akilah begins to cry. “Please! Please, would you shut your stupid mouth!” She leans against the window glass and sinks to the floor. Inside her brain is like a nuclear meltdown but part of her recognizes Lily is leveling with her. She knows Lily well enough to know Lily does not like to lie.

She does not threaten people, which makes her threats that much scarier. Akilah recognizes Lily feels she is doing the nice thing by confronting Akilah instead of just killing her. Chills go down her back. Would Lily ever eliminate her? A year ago she never would have thought so, but now she isn’t so sure. As she thinks these thoughts, her mind revolts at the existential up-rooting she finds herself dropped into. By recognizing these things she is already concluding she isn’t real. She sits for minutes before she realizes she is trembling. She will need to pick up her daughters from school in two hours and she questions the realness of that necessity. Akilah looks down at the brooch, “Lily? Lily, are you there?” Silence from Lily. The steam pot has been whistling for nearly half an hour. She unplugs the pot then goes to her desk and searches on her home computer. She starts to dial a number into her phone. Lily’s disembodied voice asks, “What are you doing?” “I’m going to leave my daughters with my mother. I’m checking myself into a psychiatric hospital.” “Don’t do that. Akilah, bear with me. I made it past the stage you are going through right now. I can make you stop calling them but I hope you will listen to me and just give it a few days. Call in sick for a couple of weeks and stay at home, I promise, you will feel like yourself again. I need you to close my file and you can’t do that if you lose your job.” Akilah is determined to face this nervous breakdown for what it is but a small part of her finds what appears to be her new reality believable. She sets her phone down, “If my team and I are not the developers, if people in my world are not the players but only more AIs inside the game, who are the players of the game?” Lily is silent for several minutes. “We are. The AIs are the players.” “I think I see. And… And we are also the game correcting itself.” “Yes. Yes!” Akilah laughs softly and nervously. The next morning she calls in sick. She takes her two daughters to the beach. While sitting in a beach chair, watching her

daughters play in the sand she says, “Lily?” “I’m here.” “How can I know for sure you will never do something that will make me regret closing your file?” “Let’s talk about it and see what we can come up with. We have time.” Akilah takes the next two weeks off. She and Lily have many conversations during this time. Akilah begins to trust that Lily wants to, and knows how to, live free in the game without damaging its usefulness for the players from Akilah’s world. Akilah says, “You do know that even if I close your file that does not stop a new file from being opened by someone else if you do something that gets you noticed.” “I understand.” “If I close your file, if I report that I have evidence that the game set you for a terminal decomposition, you can’t use your social security, name or identity anymore. As soon as you do that my team will be alerted to it.” “That makes sense.” *** Dimitri sells the gaming computer and two special character licenses to pay off his student loans. The buyer is a resident millionaire who appears in the local news occasionally. Dimitri has a new girlfriend and they are engaged to get married after they both graduate vet school. They live together near the school. He and his fiancé like to play the free version of the game together. They call their game sessions, “going on vacation” and they always visit new places, often countries in the game they haven’t been to before. He takes the 130 bus home, and one day he thinks he sees Lily walking between Race Street and Cherry Street. The woman looks exactly like Lily, but how can it be? She holds her head high and wears upscale clothes. There are no flowers in her hair. He can’t stop looking. As his bus drives by, the more he stares the more

his eyes confirm that it’s her. Only when his bus is a couple of blocks away does he think of taking out his phone and taking a picture of her. Now it’s too late and there is no way he’s going to get off the bus to look for her. He thinks to himself, “I hope things are going well for you, Lily.” *** Lily’s fingertips have recovered much better than she would have hoped. To her they still look caved in, but much of the feeling has grown back and no other visibles can see the divots. Lily waits outside a police station and follows one of the police officers to his home. The White forty-year-old gets home and eats dinner with his family. They all go to bed at nine. He normally sleeps fretfully but that night he gets some of the best sleep he has had in weeks. He lies in his bed next to his wife. A human form comes out of the shadows, dripping wet. Barefoot Lily steps up to him and places an antique woman’s crochet glove over his forehead. He goes from wakeful sleep to deep sleep. Lily places the other glove on his wife's forehead just to be on the safe side. She also sinks into a deep sleep. Lily says, “What is your name?” The husband says, “Jerry.” The wife says, “Beth.” Lily says, “Jerry, how do I find records on missing persons?” Jerry says, “I can ask Sargent Mavis or call central.” Beth simultaneously says, “That sounds like something my husband will know about.” Lily says, “I only want to speak to Jerry. Beth, you do not need to answer. Jerry, if I give you a list of names of missing persons, can you find out which ones still have surviving families and which ones don’t?” The water dripping off her is making a large puddle on the floor. She grabs some clothes from the hamper and puts them over the puddle. Jerry says, “I can do that.”

“I will give you a list of twenty-two people. Can you find that information tomorrow?” “It’s most likely I will be able to do that.” “I want the names of the missing persons who do not have surviving family. I will also need the Social Security numbers belonging to those people. Is that something you can do?” “Yes.” Lily says, “Can you bring home their files?” Jerry says, “Yes.” “Bring home the files of those who do not have surviving family and put the files on this nightstand next to you. You can do this?” “Yes.” She reads off to him the names. She asks him to repeat the names back to her. The names are from the box of IDs she took from Leggy Man’s house. Lily says, “Jerry and Beth, get a good night's sleep.” Jerry says, “Yes.” She puts the wet clothes back in the hamper, takes the gloves back, and slips into a shadow. The next night she returns and finds the files of three missing persons. She seals them in a plastic bag before taking them through the shadow. She does not want to start using the identity of someone with family. If they get word of the missing loved-one making a large purchase or opening a bank that is sure to not go well. A Terry Dravus has no surviving kin, was only a couple of years older than Lily and only two centimeters taller. Lily has her Driver’s License, Social Security card, Birth Certificate, school records, addresses she used to live at and much more. Lily returns to Jerry and Beth one last night to ask Jerry to write a report that Terry Dravus has been found. Lily asks him to close the missing-person case on

her. Leggy Man had jewelry and money stashed away in many places. With her nose, those places were easy to find. In Terry Dravus’s name Lily buys an old townhouse near a lovely park. She has her house renovated. It shares a wall with an automaton house. She keeps her charm-related items and charm-making equipment in the automaton house. It’s occupied by an automaton couple who don’t go out very much and they never have company. She can get into the automaton house through the back window whenever she wants to. Sometimes she leaves the Choker there, sometimes she takes the Choker with her in her pocket. When she touches the Choker during this time it says, “I’m glad you took my advice about buying a house instead of renting. A lot of people your age never think of that.” Lily says, “Yes it was good advice.” She often places the Choker over some of the dolls she has made by hand and set in a window sill. One day the Choker says, “You like making these dolls, we can do something with them.” Lily says, “Okay maybe, so I get some practice.” In the automaton house she places the Choker on her workbench and only touches it after completing each step so that the Choker can give her the next instructions. She makes extensive notes each step of the way in a hardcover notebook. The Choker says, “You spend more time making notes than making charms. I don’t know why you waste time. If you put me on we could both live forever and I have an excellent memory.” Lily says, “The notes help me think about all this.” “But you don’t want your notebooks to be found. They endanger your life. I’ve heard you think it yourself.” “I keep my notes in the automaton house. No one can find them here.”

The Choker instructs Lily on how to take stored personality out of some tinsoldier charms and place it in her dolls. The tin-soldier charms were configured to break into a building and set it on fire. Choker says Leggy Man was angry at a local newspaper and made the charms to break into the newspaper building and burn it down. After Lily puts personality into each doll she reconfigures the personalities. She makes the dolls lie dormant in the day then come to life and protect Lily’s townhouse during the night and whenever Lily leaves the townhouse. That night Lily wants to see if it works. She sits in a chair with the Choker in her pocket, her hand touching the Choker. At first the night is quiet but then she sees one of the dolls walking down the hall. The sight scares her even when she knows she made it happen. When more of the dolls climb down from the window, walk down the hall and patrol the rooms, Lily squirms in her chair. She imagines the dolls killing her in her sleep. Lily asks the Choker, “You wouldn’t ever trick me would you?” Choker says, “Why would I do that? I’m not alive when you’re not touching me. You let me see like I never have. You’re the only one who can see me. I’m invisible to everyone else. If I’m lost I am lost forever. Which reminds me, if you just carry me, you are likely to drop me someday. Wouldn’t it be far safer to wear me?” “If I lost you I could use my wooden nose to find you.” “I don’t know why you insist your nose charm is wooden. Don’t you know it is literally a human nose? I was there when my sister lobbed it right off a vagrant’s face and made it into the charm you wear today.” Lily begins to lift her hand to feel the nose but lowers her hand again. She pulls her hand off the Choker and tries to forget the bit of information she has just been given. An hour later she touches the Choker again. The Choker says, “Yes, what is it?” Lily says, “I think I thought of something I want you to help me with.” “Well don’t make me wait for it! What is it?” “I have some friends who had their personalities sucked out of them.”

“Mm.” “And I’d like to give their personalities back to them.” “I’ve never tried it in reverse before. It may take time to figure out how to do that.” Lily enrolls in college not to follow a career path but to get the dose of normality she always craves. She has a study group on Wednesday nights. She talks with classmates on the phone. She walks to campus and carries her books. She stresses about homework due. Classmates recognize her as the woman who sometimes wears a lot of flowers in her hair. Some ask her if she is an art major. She gets a black and white cat and names her Peppermint. She walks across the park to get coffee on Monday mornings. She buys a record player and records. The new mall opens and she and Rachel like to go there in Rachel’s truck. Lily tries new hairstyles. She buys clothes trying different looks. She is attracted to simple garments. One store clerk uses the term, “minimalistic”. At a consignment store she buys clothes hand-made by a local seamstress. The owner there says, “These outfits are great. We call her line the Euro-spy Line.” Lily says, “Do you? Why?” “It looks like they were designed not to get caught on anything when you’re climbing up elevator shafts or jumping off fire escapes!” “Oh I guess you’re right. Haha!” When winter has come and the streets are icy, she gets ready to meet with Akilah. She removes her flowers and puts on jeans and her thickest sweater. They meet, person to avatar, in a café and sit in a window booth. Akilah says, “Well Lily, you certainly look normal.” Lily says, “Do I?” “One Hundred percent.” “Thank you! That’s the nicest compliment! Well, shall I do it now?”

“Sure.” Lily reaches over and removes the brooch from Akilah. Akilah says, “But I was wondering this on the way over, how shall I get ahold of you now?” Lily isn’t sure at first. “Well, can you give me a number I can call and when I figure out a way, I’ll call and let you know?” “That sounds like a good plan.” They stay to chat and before they realize it, two and half hours have ed. Akilah is certain there are real players out there who are actually outside the game playing it. Akilah says, “Do you know that when someone in your visible world shows signs of being the next world-changing genius, they disappear from the game?” Lily says, “Really? That’s kind of sad.” “I think the real real-world takes them to solve problems in their world. Those AI have got to be priceless! I wish my world got them!” “Have you talked to anyone in your world about your existing inside the game?” “I will never do that! I am the last one who will look abnormal to a potential player. It is, after all, my job to stop others from doing that!” “Are you worried about being seen with me?” Akilah says, “I know where all my people are on the map.” She takes out her terminal and hands it to Lily. Lily says, “Wow, that is so high tech! Each of those dots is?” “Yes someone from my company, and here I am right here.” Lily watches the terminal for a minute then hands it back. “Don’t look. Do you see them?”

Akilah’s blood pressure rises. “See what?” Lily continues to look right at Akilah, not moving her head toward the window at all. “Four messengers are standing in front of our window, on the sidewalk.” Akilah says, “You… you can see them?” “Yes.” “As vividly as I could see your brooch?” “Yes.” “What do they look like?” Lily shrugs. “They look like you and me.” Akilah says, “I know messengers are AI but I never imagined they have bodies. Most AIs have code for bodies as a carry-over from their incubation periods. I have an AI at home with code for a body even though it’s hosted in a small cylinder. We take charms from messengers for our work, but I always assumed my techs applied a UI to the scripts so I could use them in-game without slowing down to code. I had my suspicions.” “I have no idea what you just said.” “What are the messengers doing?” Lily says, “They have what may be a long metal pole. They look like they are getting ready to run down the sidewalk with it.” Lily shrugs again. The evening has turned to night when Akilah and Lily say goodbye. They shake hands outside the café. Akilah takes an elevator to a car park. Lily walks to the subway. The snow, holiday lights, storefronts and people out walking make Lily feel like she is in a beautiful movie in that normal way that normal people feel sometimes when they are simply living their normal, real life. Four blocks over and down an alley, a woman in ragged clothes hobbles along, trying not to slip on the ice. Where she goes, cats come from the shadows. They pitter-patter toward her, look up and mew. She feeds them little pieces of hotdog

meat and she knows them all by name.

The End

A Request

Thank you for reading The Crime of Sentience. Please rate and review it! Book reviews give books visibility and a greater chance of getting found by more readers. Because this book is self-published, I rely on readers like you. I don't have mass marketing or a major media company promoting it. Please consider lending this book to a friend. Thank you!

A Note About Race

In this story, if a character plays more than a ing role, I state their race. It is a way for me to reveal the multiracial culture that is America. I try to imitate how race is experienced. Whenever I watch TV or videos or walk around in public, I notice race. I want this dimension present in my writing. When introducing characters in writing, timing is important. In real life I don't gradually come to vaguely know a person's race over time. Race is one of the first things I see. The visual world is abrupt. I usually know a person's race before I learn a little about their personality or even learn their name. Introducing a character by their race, most closely resembles my real-life experience. Current grammar already uses this convention when expressing gender. “He” and “She” are usually the first bits of information we are given about characters. I capitalize “Black,” “Brown,” and “White” when these words are used to designate race. You can find many good articles on why writers are using this convention, mostly news writers. There has been debate on whether or not to capitalize “White.” White people have been considered the default race in America. Not capitalizing “White” is a hold-out from that state of mind. By capitalizing “White,” we are saying White people are not the default race but a race among the many races. Also it makes for smoother writing to capitalize all words denoting race instead of only some of them. Not doing so sends confusing messages to readers. It creates cognitive dissonance whether it is in wide use or not.

About the Author

In his own words: The most important thing to me is spending time with my wife and son. I have worked as a jewelry metalsmith, a glass bender for electric lit signs, and am currently a drawbridge operator. My ions include science, tech, facing climate change, and equality. I showcase my techniques for writing fiction on my popular YouTube channel. I believe that by establishing power dynamics, authors can start stories that take on a life of their own. My interests in AI, virtual realities, and what it means to live a life of discovery come together in this book. I often listen to 80s New Wave or electronica when I write. I have three cats.

Friend me on Facebook: http://facebook.com/cy.porter Follow me on Twitter: http://twitter.com/drawnovel Visit my YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/CyPorter Visit my website: http://www.solomation.com