Nica of Los Angeles

by Sue Perry

  "She is healing," Anya said, "and now you will join her. The healers are here and it is safe for you to succumb to your weakness."

  Anwyl laid me out next to Zasu. The dirt was better than sharp rocks, was my initial reaction, but before long I was so glad to be there. I could feel the toxins flowing from my body, everywhere it touched the soil. Gradually, I shifted to burrow deeper, so that the soil touched me in more places. The dirt felt cool when I got too hot, and warm when a breeze chilled me. In the dirt I felt nourished and protected.

  First, I shed my Frame Travel sickness. While I lay there, I learned that this degree of sickness was a one-time malady. I could still become ill Traveling to new Frames, but not as quickly; and return Travel to today's Frames would more mildly affect me.

  I learned this from a tiny shaman with a burbling high-pitched voice like a toddler speaking through a kazoo. Shamans, plural. They inhabit many organisms, although they share births and deaths, joys and sorrows, knowledge and experience as though they are one organism. Each newborn shaman inherits the wisdom and memory of all who came before. The shamans in the soil were the creatures we call earthworms. They are the greatest healers in all the Frames. This was my first introduction to their powers and someday I hope to visit them when no life is at stake, simply to learn from them. I could feel them undulating through the soil beneath me. They never touched me, rather their passage generated gentle electrical currents that massaged and revitalized me.

  The colors in this sky moved from aqua to cornflower to cobalt to aqua. Every once in a while, Anwyl or Anya would appear at the side of the truck, consider Zasu and me for a time, then step away. At other times, I heard the murmurs of their voices, surrounding Shastina's sharp blasts of opinion.

  "Obvious is not proof."

  "Their words versus yours."

  "They have no honor but many allies."

  "Life is a privilege. Death is a right."

  At one point, the ground rumbled and cracked, releasing puffs of steam all around. Earthquake, I thought, then revised to Shastina laughing when I heard Anwyl's amused bark and Anya's chime of a laugh.

  I don't know how long we went on like that. Minutes spread into hours, perhaps hours stretched to days. Then Zasu sat up with a sleepy grin and the moment she did, Dizzy jumped into the truck and onto Zasu's lap. Dizzy purred, Zasu cooed loving nothings; I enjoyed their happy reunion.

  Zasu looked at me and screamed, "Nica! No!" She reached out to touch me then pulled back, uncertain.

  I thought I watched Zasu and Dizzy fondly, with a faint smile playing across my lips. Zasu later explained that my eyes were open and rolled back in my head, my skin was gray, and my lips twitched as with seizure.

  Anwyl and Anya appeared and whispered to Zasu that she was recovered from her excess of Frame Travel, while I had injuries still to heal. Anya held Dizzy as Anwyl helped Zasu climb out of the truck, then they all slipped from my view.

  31. I Never Met A Volcano Before

  I felt much better than I had and yet, whenever I thought about sitting up, it didn't happen. So I lay there watching the sky. Eventually, a kazoo voice instructed me, "It is time to remove your shield. Only you may do this."

  "Okay," I said, and lay there watching the sky. The activity underneath me changed and I got a mental image of Anya's lanyard. "Oh," I said, and now I did manage to sit up. The lanyard was so stretchy and flexible, I could slide it out from under my clothes without removing any of them. Sitting up, the parts of my body that no longer touched the dirt felt deprived. I flopped down again and now the real pain hit, from my shoulder across my torso to the opposite hip. I hadn't realized how much the lanyard had shielded me. Rushes of pain washed in wave after wave, blasting, burning. I imagined I had a sink and held my hand in the garbage disposal, because imagining lesser pain helped to take my mind off the Cobra's actual pain.

  My healers undulated more slowly than they had before, chanting syllables that were mostly vowels. I must have fainted, but when I came to, I felt less terrible. Now I got dizzy, which led to another blackout. When I came to, the dizziness was gone but I had the chills. I went through several more cycles of blackout and restoration, each time regaining consciousness with new symptoms but feeling better overall.

  At last, I felt good and sat up; looked around and gasped. The sky was the cobalt that was night here. The heavens shone above and all around us, blazing bright stars outshining the glittering lights of the city that stretched from the base of the mountain to the horizon. Fucking beautiful. I started to cry. I rubbed my shoulder, which was a mass of thick scar tissue.

  "Is my shoulder healed now?"

  "Your pain is set aside, but it is not concluded," my healers informed me. They taught me how to concentrate on a flow of energy through my body that mimicked the flow they had created. "This will help you from day to day. The pain again may grow. If it overpowers you, return to us. Over time it may lessen, and one day it may be gone. Time as always reveals all."

  Now that was a silver lining. If the pain returns, I get to see the healers again! I thanked them for helping me, then I fixated on one small unpleasant fact. How could I return to the healers? "The Cysts took my Guide."

  They didn't understand my concern. "That is their way," the Healers said.

  Anya and Anwyl appeared. "The Cysts took my Guide," I greeted them.

  "I will make you another," she smiled.

  "They studied it to see what Frames you gave me access to."

  "The Guide will tell them nothing of value, but this near destroyed us." Anwyl grabbed my ankle with one millionth of the anger he felt. Ow. "This device drew Warty Sebaceous Cysts to us."

  "I should have told you about it. I didn't think it mattered and with everything else that was going on. Hernandez and I figured it would be like my cell phone and have no signal in other Frames. We thought it only mattered to me." I described in detail how I had acquired the GPS anklet. I could not explain how the Cysts knew about it or used it.

  "For the final stage of healing you must remove the manacle from your ankle," the healers said.

  I usually make snap decisions and let the consequences worry about themselves, but my brain was mighty foggy. I couldn't decide whether to remove the anklet. I hemmed. I hawed. I waffled. I shuffled. On the one hand, to remove the GPS device, I would have to cut it and for that I would go to jail. On the other hand, when I got home I could bring my missing person to meet the cops, and surely Anya's reappearance would get my case dismissed. On yet another hand, unlawful removal of the GPS device might earn me additional charges. But the anklet gave the Cysts knowledge of my whereabouts - although I was no longer in hiding, so ... I came up with an octopus' worth of conflicting response before I agreed with the healers. It had to come off.

  Making the decision proved easy compared to the removal. In fact, it wouldn't remove. Anwyl, Anya, and the healers all tried, with tools and powers. Finally, the healers decreed that we must stop trying, because each attempt to remove it injected me with poisonous energy.

  Anwyl frowned and stalked back to the summit peak, where he debated the anklet's implications with Shastina. After a time, Anya joined them. I could tell by their tones of voice that they reached no conclusions.

  The healers did some refresher healing to counteract the effects of efforts to remove the device, then I was decreed ready to leave the healing site. Anya helped me climb out of the truck bed and walk the ten feet up the slope to the summit. We joined Anwyl and Zasu, perched on rocks overlooking the city that extended to all horizons.

  Zasu jumped up to hug me. Anwyl handed me a water flask. Anya shared blackberries that were plump and warm, overripe yet delicious. She pulled them from a bag I recognized. These were the berries I had gathered in Halcyon, then forgotten in Hernandez' truck.

  They resumed discussing Zasu's stay on the summit.

  "We have audience with the Framekeeps within one fortnight," Anya said.

  "That's a long time to sit here!" I sa
id.

  Zasu did not share my concern. She was inherently so positive that negatives touched her fleetingly, if at all. "Here, I am safe and I will learn healing arts, the healers have agreed to instruct me. Also, I have many thoughts to think."

  "My point exactly! Nobody needs that much time to think." Me, I kept as busy as possible to avoid such opportunities.

  "Also, I must develop my plans. I intend to search for other survivors of my people."

  "That is a worthy goal," Anya said gently, after our long silence.

  Zasu nodded sagely. "That all have perished is not a certainty. The Gumby people are resilient."

  "Wait, did you just say 'the Gumby people'?"

  "Yes, that is how we are known."

  "Ha. I called you that when I first saw you, because in my Frame there is a toy named Gumby that can bend in all directions. That is the weirdest coincidence. Ever."

  Anwyl snorted, "Coincidence is a name for ignorance."

  "Rather and more likely, the one who named that toy was a Traveler of Frames." Anya explained.

  "Wow." My mind boggled over that one for quite some time.

  It was time for me to go home. On the journey south, Anya would ride in Tee with Dizzy and me. Anwyl would leave us for urgent business elsewhere.

  "Wait, I want to talk with Shastina before we go."

  "For what purpose?"

  "To - talk. I never met a volcano before."

  Anwyl and Anya exchanged an indecipherable look. "Very well."

  "Shastina. Are you there?"

  "I am always here." At the summit peak, the organ pipes of Shastina's voice had a higher pitch than they did downslope.

  "Thank you for saving my life."

  "The intentions of Warty Sebaceous Cysts toward your continued existence remain unknown."

  "May I ask you some questions?"

  "I control my answers, not your questions."

  "If I wanted to talk with you in my own Frame, could I?"

  "I do not speak in Neutral Frames."

  "Is there really not a single Frame in which you can move around?"

  “No. These answers are well-known."

  Anwyl took my arm to get me moving. Anya restrained him with a finger. She understood: I didn't care what got discussed, I just wanted to talk with Shastina. Sheepish but undaunted, "Can you see everywhere?"

  "Define everywhere."

  "All Frames?"

  "Yes, with effort in some."

  "Can you see all places in every Frame? Even the parts of the Frame that are far from you? Could you see me down in Los Angeles?"

  "If there were need."

  "Why did you want me to define 'everywhere'? Is there somewhere you cannot see?"

  The ground emitted puffs of steam that I decided to call a chuckle. "I cannot see above the sky or through the ocean." I felt petty vindication when Anwyl and Anya looked surprised to learn this. Ha! So my conversation wasn't completely pointless. Maybe.

  "Can you see inside the ground?"

  "Yes."

  "Thank you for answering my questions."

  "You squander my time."

  "That was not my intention. It has been a privilege to talk with you. I will remember this day forever."

  "I will not."

  I could accept that.

  Leaving Zasu was momentarily difficult, but it helped to know she was indisputably safe and unswervingly optimistic. Her mood darkened when she asked me to carry Edith a message, because she could find nothing to say that did not involve unhappy events. She brightened again when I suggested that, in similar situations, it helped me to take the long view. With this advice, she composed her message easily. "Tell Edith that I miss her and the next time I see her will be most enjoyable because we will be permitted to go out the doors together."

  I had thought the scares were over, but on the ride down Shastina's slope, Tee's tires repeatedly lost purchase and skidded on the loose rock that littered the steep dirt road. We started a few landslides that swept us along with them. The slides were brief, but the whole experience was way too much like a roller coaster, thanks.

  All of which gave credence to Tee's melodramatic insistence that the drive up to the summit had been dangerous and she had nearly flipped over twice. She had nothing but praise, however, for the lovely youngsters I had engaged to drive her up there. They washed her windshield, they never swerved, and before they left, they set her parking brake.

  By the time we reached the highway, we were in a Frame very much like mine, but not mine, so that Tee could drive legally. The return to Los Angeles was uneventful although disappointing in one way. Anya liked Dizzy no more than Anwyl did. Whenever the cat changed position on the seat between us, Anya tensed and drew away.

  The first time this happened, I thanked Dizzy for saving my ass and reminded Anya how Dizzy had clawed me when I was at risk of thinking thoughts that could have revealed our plans to the Cysts. I credited Dizzy with causing the confusion that allowed Anwyl and I to flee. Anya would only credit Dizzy with getting herself away from the clockwork dogs. Unlike Anwyl, Anya talked freely in front of the cat - and that made me uncomfortable, which meant I didn't fully trust Dizzy, either.

  The hours went by quickly as Anya and I shared what had transpired during our separation. She lamented the reality that the Cysts' inconceivable cruelty gave them an advantage. On her mission, she and her allies had discovered Warty Sebaceous Cysts' interest in Halcyon. Alas, neither she nor her allies anticipated that genocide would result, else they would have taken action to prevent it.

  Our evidence for the Framekeeps was circumstantial but persuasive, and implicated the Cysts in the genocide. The bigger question remained. Why did the Cysts want Zasu's Frame? The answer had to involve an effort to free Maelstrom. Anya had visited other Frames that adjoin Maelstrom's collapsed Frame, and in these Frames had also found indications of unusual interest by the Cysts or other outsiders.

  An effort to free Maelstrom would be an unfathomably heinous crime. Anya and Anwyl were still undecided about whether to mention these suspicions to the Framekeeps. Unfounded accusations would damage their credibility. Such a terrible accusation needed more than hints and rumors for substantiation.

  Anwyl and Anya hoped that Hernandez had succeeded in his snooping and could tie the Cysts to Digby Construction. That Digby had added the Henrietta's dangerous roof a decade earlier indicated long-term plotting, as well as disregard for important laws that govern actions in Neutral Frames.

  If our presentation to the Framekeeps did not mention Maelstrom, would we have done enough to fight his escape? That was the other half of the dilemma. Proving the Cysts were behind the genocide would get them locked up again and that should lessen the threat of Maelstrom's escape. But it might not eliminate it. Anya had heard whispers that Maelstrom enlisted other allies, nearly as powerful as the Cysts. Anya would not speak those names, lest that compromise Miles' safety. It had fallen to Miles to confirm or deny those whispers. Anya shared my fear for Miles' wellbeing. When he first went on his mission, she received occasional word from allies who had sighted him, alive and well; but those reports had ceased.

  At the start of our drive home, I felt accomplishment and completion. We had protected our witness; we would get the bad guys locked up again. After talking with Anya, I realized we were in no way done.

  32. Visions Of A New World

  "I grabbed the drugs, threw Ben over my shoulder, and carried him out right before the ambulance and the cops arrived. In the carport off the alley, I found a minivan with its doors unlocked and we hid inside that for a couple hours, until the cops went away. Three squad cars parked in the alley and I could hear their radios. I heard when they stopped the search for vics and perps because the lab guys discovered that none of the blood inside was human blood. The cops we saw at the Largo were the first inside, but they only stayed a few minutes."

  "They wanted Ben. You got him out of there just in time."

  "I think that, too
. A few seconds later and we'd have a different story."

  Hernandez and I sprawled in his truck, catching up while we waited for Anwyl to prowl a construction site around the corner. I was glad Anwyl wanted us to park here, a block away. Here, had working street lights. At the construction site it was as dark as the Entourage's shades.

  While Anwyl and I had been out of Frame, Hernandez got nothing but runaround in his efforts to get hired by - and snoop at - Digby Construction Company. He did finally get a call-back interview, scheduled for tomorrow. Meanwhile, he did internet research and Digby stakeouts, which led to his following the Cobra on four occasions and identifying four construction sites where the Cobra delivered materials. Anwyl thought it important to investigate all four sites tonight. This was the fourth.

  Hernandez had a habit of pounding beats on his steering wheel and dashboard. Tonight, he would start to pound, then freeze and apologetically pat the wheel. Learning about Tee had non-plussed him. Turns out he is cute when he is non-plussed. He is cute other times, too, in a Rottweiler-in-a-bonnet kind of way.

  I had so wanted to introduce Hernandez to Tee, but Frame law prohibits her from revealing herself in a Neutral Frame without the permission of a higher being. Anwyl said permission was necessary on our road trip but was unjustified now. Always the killjoy. Someday, I will teach that guy how to have fun. Meantime, I will wait for him to leave and ask Anya for permission, instead. Anya and Anwyl were taking turns going in and out of Frame, so it was unlikely they would compare notes.

  The trip to Shastina had taken four days in this Frame's time. Hernandez saw Ben repeatedly during the first two days, then Ben vanished.

  "But when you last saw Ben he was fine. You're sure?"

  "His vitals were great and he could swear and crack jokes."

  I had to agree that sounded back to normal.

  "I don't think the Cysts got him. I think he's hiding from cops."

  "What makes you think that though?" My voice had a plea in it.