Near Enemy (23 page)

Mark wipes his bloody blade on his raiment.

Everyone always conjures the guns. No one respects the sword.

Simon’s hand is paused on the handle of the door that leads them to the next car.

Says to Mark.

Well, don’t celebrate yet.

Big sticker on the door cautions:
DO NOT TRAVEL BETWEEN CARS WHILE TRAIN IS IN MOTION
.

Simon asks.

You ready for car number two?

I don’t know. Number one wasn’t so bad.

Two will be worse.

What’s in car number two?

I don’t know. But my guess—

What?

Do-Better.

Then Simon turns the knob and slides open the door.

Battery Park City.

Platform’s assembled.

Flags draped. Bunting hung.

Security sweeps the plaza. Dark suits, sunglasses, and earpieces. Men mutter into their lapels.

All clear.

Main suit signals.

Okay, you can let the cameras in.

TV trucks inch into the designated parking area. The beep-beep-beep of trucks in reverse.

Reporters and camerapeople disembark. Unload gear.

Talking heads check their hair in the side mirrors of their news vans.

Straighten skirts. Smooth out wrinkles with sweat-dampened palms.

Find their marks.

Test microphones.

Check check check.

Hoboken.

Hannah won’t take the bottle.

Persephone gives it one last try.

Coos.

Come on, Hannah.

No dice.

Persephone, perturbed. Decides to nurse her. Would prefer not to, since she’s alone. Needs to be vigilant. And nimble.

But then again, the cops are watching.

And Hannah’s hungry.

What else can she do?

Forty-Second Street and Broadway.

Picture me.

In Times Square.

Crossroads of the world.

They built the old
Times
building, the original one, at the turn of the nineteenth century, back when the intersection of Forty-Second Street and Broadway was nothing more than a muddy pit that the locals called Longacre Square. The millionaire who owned the paper persuaded the city to put in a subway stop. Then he convinced them to rechristen the muddy pit in honor of his paper.

Times Square.

Paper didn’t stay long, not in that first building, at least. A few years later it moved a few blocks over and then, eventually, to that sky needle across from where Port Authority once stood. In the meantime, Times Square got fancy. Then seedy. You’ve probably seen the old photos. Hookers and XXX. Peep shows and hustlers. Saturated with neon enticements. And it stayed like that for a long while, just filth and rot, before it became something else entirely.

Prettied up and Disneyfied. Reborn as the country’s favorite tourist attraction. Crossroads of the world, decked out in brand-new video billboards, neon ads as tall as the buildings, mandated to a minimum wattage. Each sign fighting to outshine the others. Looked like Vegas, but crammed into ten city blocks.

A million people a day, so they said. Population of a good-sized city, passing through Times Square, each and every day.

Why?

Because it’s Times Square.

It existed to be looked at, photographed, visited, checked off the bucket list. You went to Times Square to say you’d been to Times Square.

And, once a year, on New Year’s Eve, they dropped the ball.

Streets overflowed in all directions. So crammed you could barely stand. Stomp your feet to stave off the cold.

Count it down.

Ten.

Nine.

Eight.

Etcetera.

One.

Happy New Year.

The ball-drop happened each year at the top of One Times Square. This was the same building that was originally built to house the
Times
, way back when. The
Times
left but the building stayed, changed its name to One Times Square, got a facelift and a dozen more floors. Housed a lot of different businesses over the years, but eventually got recast as a prestige address for start-up tech companies. The office space was way too expensive and, frankly, too corny for any legacy business. After all, what local wants to work in tourist-choked Times Square?

But for a start-up firm looking to make a name? Imagine One Times Square on your business card.

Instant credibility.

So these small ventures came, and set up shop, and dreamed big, and mostly failed. The usual story.

Save one.

Small tech firm called Negative Creation.

Plucky start-up. Shilling software. In particular, a special service that let you run a business meeting online, using 3D avatars. Had to strap on clunky goggles, talk through headset mikes and listen through earpieces. And the virtual conference room you visited looked like an architect’s 3D rendering of a conference room.

But still.

Kind of cool.

Definitely had potential.

And eventually this company found a way to ditch the goggles and make the experience totally immersive, the conference room suddenly stunningly lifelike, assuming you were the kind of person who’d be stunned by a lifelike conference room. But they got all the details right, the little things, right down to the faint smell of lacquer from the boardroom table, or the springy give of the plush-pile rug under the stiff soles of your avatar’s leather business shoes. Or your Tevas, if your avatar was the type to wear Tevas.

Pick any shoe you liked. Any avatar, really.

That was the appeal of it.

And lifelike details like that made all the difference.

Soon the company, expanding, took over the entire building. Filled every available office in One Times Square.

Growing exponentially. Metastasizing. Like a tumor.

And that’s the end of the story of Times Square.

First came the tumor.

Then came the radiation.

One Times Square.

Front door’s unlocked.

Boonce told me not to expect too much security.

Maybe one or two guards on the way up, but really, who signs up for security duty in an empty building in toxic Times Square?

So there’s just one guard at the front desk. Dozing. Don’t blame him. It’s still early.

Not in a police uniform either. Or Pushbroom coveralls. Just standard tactical black. Must be one of Bellarmine’s private guard. Moonlighting. Which makes sense. If this is Bellarmine’s secret black room, no need to broadcast its location to the world. And no need to tie it back to the NYPD, which might just lead to awkward questions down the line.

Instead, just leave a burly Teutonic-looking gentleman at the front desk in all-black garb to scare off stray clickers and other random weirdos who happen to wander by. Just make sure your Teutonic security guard isn’t prone to catnaps.

Like this one.

His head bobs.

Like he’s dreaming about answering a string of boring questions in his sleep.

Poor guy.

I don’t bother with subterfuge, no phony hello-howdy-do, no ginned-up flower-delivery story or casual I’m-here-to-see-Mr-X, because no one ever comes to Times Square holding a bouquet or to see anyone. Instead I just walk straight toward him at a healthy clip. He startles, sits up, fumbles at his holster, and while he fumbles I grab his collar, punch him twice in the bridge of the nose, and he’s out.

Back to his catnap.

Most security guards, their first instinct, especially if they see you coming straight at them quickly, is to grab for the holster.

And do you know how long it takes you to unlatch a holster and get a service pistol free?

Not very long. Just long enough for me to make sure you won’t get a chance to use the pistol.

I rest his head lightly on the counter.

Feel bad.

He’s just doing his job.

And it’s a shitty job.

Day shift in Times Square.

Bank of elevators behind him.

Still functional.

I hit the Up button.

Head for the top floor.

Battery Park City.

Two motorcades.

Bellarmine’s is the first to arrive.

Three gleaming Escalades glide into the secure parking area cordoned off behind the dais.

First car’s full of security. Third car’s full of security.

Second car carries Bellarmine, his driver, and his two personal bodyguards.

Bellarmine in the backseat. Cocooned in black leather. Air-conditioning on high. Tinted windows sealed. Not a sound leaks in.

His brow’s furrowed.

Lips moving.

Flipping through the last few flash cards.

Debate prep written on index cards.

Getting ready to drop his bombshell.

His motorcade parked and unloaded, Bellarmine waits in a tent. Flash cards now stashed. Sits on a folding chair with a wisp of white paper tucked into his collar. Makeup woman applies the last few dabs of powder. For the cameras.

Bellarmine’s a big man. Not fat, but solid. Bulky. Broad-shouldered. Like an old-school cop.

Black brush cut. Thick mustache.

Chair sags under his weight.

Two muscular cops in shades and dress uniforms, one woman, one man, who don’t leave his side, sit on chairs beside him and silently scan the tent.

Outside.

Second motorcade arrives.

Four cars long. Extra car. Just because.

The mayor always likes to know he’s got the biggest motorcade.

On the runaway train.

Simon slides open the subway car door that leads to the tiny platform between the two cars.

Tunnel roars.

Simon turns back and tries to speak to Mark over the clamor, but all Mark can hear is clamor.

Door behind them slides shut.

And for a moment the two of them are squeezed together on the small swaying platform where the two cars connect.

Simon mouths the word.

Ready?

Mark nods.

Then Simon opens the second car’s door and they tumble inside. Slide that door closed behind them.

This car’s empty too.

In the respite from the track noise, Mark asks.

So who’s Do-Better?

Simon scowls.

There’s three of them. The Partners who run Pushbroom. Named after figures in some medieval parable. In the story, a pilgrim meets three virtuous men on the road. Do-Good. Do-Better. And Do-Best. Each one better than the last.

So what’s Do-Better like?

Don’t know. I’ve only ever tangled with Do-Good.

Then they turn and navigate slowly down the aisle of the train toward the door at the car’s far end. Walls and windows are splashed with garish spray paint. More subway graffiti, of the usual sort. Tags. Slogans. Bubble letters.

Mark reads it.

Okay.

Not exactly the usual graffiti.

It’s a record of something, it turns out. Graffiti reads like a transcription of the last few moments of a torture session. Of the moment right before the person breaks.

Oh God
.

I don’t know what you want
.

Dear God
.

Written in spray paint in big bubble letters and left as a warning for whoever comes next.

They inch forward.

Oh God
.

Please help me
.

Walls signed like a guest book.

Help me
.

Postcards from an Inquisition.

There’s no mercy
.

Mark and Simon inch forward.

Both waiting for the lights in the subway car to blink out. Waiting for the door at the far end to swing wide. Waiting for whoever’s waiting for them to finally show his face.

Lights go out.

Lights come up again.

At the far end of the car.

The whoever appears.

But not showing his face.

Showing hers.

One Times Square.

I’m in the elevator, going up.

Listening to Loverboy.

Working for the Weekend.

Muzak’s just like roaches.

Even a nuke can’t kill it off.

So the company that built the platform that hosted the fake conference tables figured out pretty quickly that, as long as you were building fake dream worlds, there’s a big market for realities far beyond a conference room.

Problem was, the bandwidth required was enormous. As in, break-the-Internet huge.

So they pulled up stakes.

Left the Internet.

Built their own Internet.

Called it the limnosphere.

As real as real.

The rest you probably know.

You’ve probably experienced it once or twice yourself. Maybe more than once or twice.

Virtual playground for humanity’s dark side.

Though it wasn’t like that at first.

At first, all the press releases promised New Life With No Limitations. The lame shall walk. The blind shall see. Every dream now becomes a reality.

The No Limitations part of their pitch was correct, but not in the way that they meant.

Limnosphere.

It’s bigger than all of us now.

And this building? This address?

One Times Square?

This is where they flipped the switch to turn it on.

Big ceremony.