Near Enemy

by Adam Sternbergh

Simon leans back in his chair. Holding all the cards and knows it.

  Leans in again.

  So where’s the physical black room? The one out here?

  Times Square.

  Finally Mark chimes in. Or scribbles. Holds the handheld up.

  SHIT.

  I say to both of them.

  It’s okay. I’ll go.

  Even Simon’s surprised.

  You’d do that for Lesser? Go into Times Square?

  If it’s in Times Square, the security will be light. They won’t be expecting visitors. I’ll be in and out in an hour. What is it the mayor likes to say? No worse than a visit to the dentist, right?

  Simon smirks.

  Depends which dentist.

  And with that, I can tell that Simon is going to do it. He won’t say it. Won’t give me the satisfaction. But he’ll do it. He asks.

  What about Persephone? And the baby?

  They stay here.

  Under whose watch?

  Those cops are still outside.

  Those cops are useless. We’ve already established that.

  This will only take a couple of hours, tops. They’ll be fine.

  You’ve said that before, and you were wrong before.

  I know that, Simon. But we don’t have time to find someone to stay here, and I need both of you in there. They’ll be fine.

  Mark scribbles.

  WHO’S TAPPING US IN?

  Mark, you remember Mina, right? She’s running Rick’s old place now in Chinatown. Renamed it the Kakumu Lounge. She’ll set you up. Watch the sensors. Make sure you’re okay. Like I said, I have an inside man. He’s going to feed her the coordinates and access codes. Everything she needs.

  Mark scribbles again.

  WE NEED A NURSE.

  I know.

  Mark scribbles.

  MARGO?

  No. I’ve got someone else in mind.

  Now that everyone’s on board, we sit at the table and plot it, ironing out the last few details. As we do this, I think back over my week’s to-do list.

  Kill Lesser. Find Lesser. Save Lesser.

  Like I said. Strange week.

  But we’re almost home.

  I call the meeting to a close. Adjourn Simon, Mark, and me. Tap the table with my knuckle. Knuckle stands in for a gavel.

  Tell the two of them, as they rise, to get some rest. Big day tomorrow. With just one last thing to do.

  Simple.

  Let’s get Lesser.

  29.

  Next day.

  Daybreak.

  Skyline bakes under the sunrise.

  Mercury tickles triple digits.

  Sidewalks shimmer. Asphalt bubbles.

  Heat wave’s here.

  Start the day with the same simple thought I went to bed with.

  Save Lesser.

  Make like a champion.

  Then be done with it. All of it.

  Boonce, Bellarmine, Shaban, the whole lot of them.

  Get back to being who I really am.

  Just a bullet.

  I collect Simon and Mark, then we all head to the pier and board my boat, and I point the bow toward Manhattan. Boat’s nose bobs as we skirt the wake of passing barges. On the other side, I deliver Simon and Mark to Canal Street. Direct them toward Chinatown.

  Then rev the outboard again and steer myself north toward Times Square.

  Meanwhile in Battery Park City.

  On a piazza by the waterfront. A crew sets up a dais. Erects barriers. Hangs bunting. Fits steel bars into steel joints.

  Builds a stage.

  Big debate today.

  Bellarmine versus the mayor.

  Race now running neck-and-neck.

  Dead heat.

  Fresh Post screams from nearby newspaper boxes.

  TOP COP PROMISE: EXPECT A SURPRISE.

  Meanwhile in Chinatown.

  Simon and Mark arrive at the Kakumu Lounge.

  Mina’s been prepped. She opens early. Welcomes Simon and Mark at the door in a black kimono. Hair still shaved to the skull. Looks like a monk. In heavy eyeliner.

  Smiles for Mark. No smile for Simon.

  And no mention of the cross-shaped scar on her forehead that he left her with.

  I’d asked her nicely for this one favor. Promised her she’d never have to see Simon again after today.

  So she doesn’t ask them many questions, or say much of anything really. Just leads them in and readies their two beds.

  Mark settles in. Relieved. It’s been nearly a week, which for him is too long. Mina coddles him. Makes sure he’s comfortable.

  Simon handles his own gear, tubes, needles, settings, gauges. He’s done plenty of solo tap-ins. Prefers it, actually. Just hopes this gizmo Mina has all the right codes and coordinates.

  And hopes she remembers that one maneuver he asked her beforehand to learn.

  Just one.

  Just in case.

  As for Pushbroom, Simon’s not too worried about Pushbroom. He expects they’ll run in to the Partners, but he’s grappled with Pushbroom plenty in the past, and he’s never come out hobbling. He has a particular history with one of the Partners, the one who calls himself Do-Good. The other Partners he’s keen to meet. Only knows them by reputation.

  Well, Simon thinks, I’ve got a reputation too.

  Slaps two fingers on his forearm.

  The nurse steps up to help him find the vein.

  Simon looks up.

  The nurse smiles.

  Let me help you with that.

  By this point, she’s introduced herself to everyone already. Got it out of the way when they first arrived.

  Simon, Mark, Mina—nice to meet you.

  When they asked her name, she told them simply.

  Nurse. Just Nurse is fine.

  Meanwhile in Hoboken.

  Persephone and Hannah, holed up again. Awake since five. The single mother. On her own. What else is new?

  Persephone’s bone weary. Hannah’s fussy. Wailed all night. Persephone soothes her now but it still doesn’t help, of course.

  Bounces her on her hip. Shushes her.

  Come on, baby. Come on, now.

  That doesn’t work either.

  So she whispers to Hannah.

  Don’t worry. We’ll go home soon. We’ll be home soon. We’re going home.

  And wonders to herself if she really means it.

  Meanwhile on the waterfront.

  Me.

  Making like a tourist.

  And like so many tourists before me.

  I’m heading for Times Square.

  30.

  No subways stop in Times Square anymore, so I dock my boat near Chelsea Piers and walk north.

  Chelsea Piers is a series of huge empty soccer fields on a reconverted pier on the river, laid out side by side under hangars and abandoned, so the green rectangles now look like farmers’ fields left to fallow, patches of plastic grass that will never fade, dusted in white chalk markings. There’s a big golf-ball-driving range up here too, under light towers that don’t light up anymore. People used to come here to thwack balls at all hours, with towering nets that rose on each side to catch the errant shots. Supposedly, once upon a time, you could take a trapeze lesson too.

  Hit a ball into a net. Run around on plastic grass. Swing on a rope over a sandpit.

  That’s what people in this city used to do for fun.

  Imagine what they did for work back then.

  Swap electronic money. Trade electronic gossip. Wrestle over ever-smaller scraps of real estate.

  New York City, in its heyday.

  Piers are empty now, of course. Long since left to ruin.

  You’ll have to learn how to trapeze somewhere else.

  Used to be art galleries around here once too.

  Used to be art.

  Among the fancy condo towers.

  And an elevated park. Built on an old railway track gone to seed. Then revived.

  Big ribbon cutting drew
all the politicians.

  Wore hard hats. And big smiles.

  Anyway, the railway track’s gone back to seed again.

  Nature’s version of its own reclamation project.

  Re-reclaimed.

  I walk under it.

  Head north.

  Walk up Ninth Avenue.

  Once you hit the Thirties, civilization starts to peel away in earnest. The Dirty Thirties, they call them. Former Hell’s Kitchen. Boonce’s childhood playground, so he told me. This is where, if I carried a Geiger counter, I’d start to hear the first faint click-click-click.

  But I don’t need one. Everyone knows the boundaries by now. The risky blocks. Which intersections you don’t go beyond.

  In the Dirty Thirties, ten blocks south of Times Square, it’s only half-toxic, so there’s still a few stubborn storefronts open. Still a few dollar stores and Army Navy outlets. One or two last tenacious Irish pubs. Still advertising happy hour, like there are any happy hours left.

  But these Hell’s Kitchen pubs survived the bad old days. Then the good old days. Then the really bad days.

  One bad day in particular.

  Heard a bartender once talk about working that day.

  Bomb sounded over the din of the place like it had happened far away, like in a whole other city. But the blast was also close enough that it trembled the foam on the freshly poured beers on the bar.

  Someone had just bought a round for the house. Pint glasses laid out in a line, like soldiers awaiting inspection.

  Bar went quiet. After the explosion.

  Someone killed the jukebox.

  Dead silence.

  A long moment of collective breath-holding.

  No one knew what it was. But everyone knew it was bad.

  Then everyone in unison, all those seated at the bar, this band of merry regulars, so used to drinking all together, without a word, they each reached out and grabbed a beer, one by one, and drank it down, single gulp.

  Bartender too.

  Then he poured another round, this one on the house.

  Then he turned the jukebox back on and cranked up the music to drown out the wail of the arriving sirens.

  Pass that pub on Ninth.

  Still open.

  I’ll admit. I consider it.

  But I keep walking north.

  Past darkened windows with a neon shamrock, lit up 24/7.

  Door propped wide with a waste can stuffed full of spent butts and ashes.

  Just a handful of radioactive regulars inside at the bar.

  Head east to Eighth Avenue and Fortieth Street.

  Walk alongside the big vacant lot where Port Authority once stood.

  Spot two or three clickers, with their homemade hazmat suits and Geiger counters and surplus gas masks, lugging bulging garbage bags, like apocalyptic Santas. Still sifting and picking through the debris of Port Authority. Even at this early hour, even at this late date.

  Like there’s anything left in there to be salvaged. Maybe you’ll find a half-melted fridge magnet that says WELCOME TO NYC.

  You have to give it to clickers, though. Unlike the rest of us, they never give up hope.

  Port Authority. Once a bus station. Now it just looks like a burial ground for concrete blocks. Buses were still busy for maybe a year or so after Times Square, but only the ones headed outbound. Not too many people were arriving by bus, and those who were got rerouted to Grand Central. Port Authority stayed open for maybe another year, limping along, though a lot of workers wouldn’t even report to work, being that close to Times Square. Then the authorities claimed they’d caught wind of some alleged bus-bomb plot, some plan to pack a Greyhound with petroleum and dynamite and nails and whatever else and send it hurtling into Port Authority. It was just a bunch of online chatter really, lunatic ramblings overheard, but it gave them the excuse they needed.

  Let swing the wrecking ball.

  No one mourned. Save maybe bums.

  Did seem symbolic, though.

  The crumbling of Authority.

  Next stop on our tour.

  Northeast corner of Fortieth and Eighth.

  Across the street from the empty Port Authority lot stands an empty skyscraper.

  The old New York Times building.

  Not the old old Times building. It’s the new old building, the third one, the fancy skyscraper that looks like a needle stuck inside a ladder. This was the final home to the New York Times, at least back when it was still printed on paper, and back when it was still based in New York.

  It’s no longer available on paper, of course. Just an info feed now, piped into the limn, news of the world, rendered in roving pixels. The Times ditched paper long ago, no more newsboys and home delivery. Then the Times ditched these offices too, of course. Moved to Boston, I think.

  Kept the name though. Boston Times just doesn’t have the same ring.

  The skyscraper’s long since been abandoned. Squatters and clickers are the only reason the white Entry Forbidden tape got peeled away from the lobby doors.

  Left to flutter. Like a surrender flag.

  I’m headed to the Times building, by the way.

  That’s where they’re keeping Lesser.

  But not this Times building. And not the old Times building either.

  I’m headed to the first one. The original one.

  On Forty-Second Street.

  The one Times Square was named for in the first place.

  31.

  Simon and Mark arrive on a runaway subway, train swaying and racing, bullet-speed, through tunnels that flicker like an old silent movie, except the car is anything but silent.

  Track noise nearly deafening.

  Car jostles. They steady themselves.

  Mark Ray’s in his usual off-body getup. Shirtless. White raiment wrapped around his nethers. Gold sandals with straps tied up to the knees. Blond curls wild.

  Like an angel.

  Mark’s got a persona he adopts when he taps in. Calls himself Uriel. Name borrowed from an actual angel in the Bible. Name means God Is My Light. Uriel was the angel charged with keeping Adam and Eve out of Eden, once they’d fallen.

  Mark finds that inspiring, somehow.

  Along with his knuckle tattoos, the ones that spell DAMN and ABLE, Mark has a tattoo spread across his shoulder blades. Reads I RULE in the real-time world. Rearranges to spell URIEL in the limn.

  And then there’s the wings, of course.

  Unfurl as needed.

  Right now, they’re tucked out of sight.

  Mark cracks his knuckles. Clears his throat. Says aloud.

  Man, it feels so good to be able to talk again.

  He shouts over the subway noise.

  Hello! Hello!

  Shout swallowed up by voracious track-rattle.

  Simon stands next to him, scouting the train car. Simon’s not in any particular off-body getup. Simon just looks like Simon. White turtleneck, stretched over the kind of physique that they don’t make normal clothes for. Black beard, now neatly trimmed. Facial expression of general disdain.

  Only allows himself one sartorial flourish in the limn.

  Bandoliers.

  Two stained leather gun belts slung across his chest in an X.

  He saw them in a movie once. As a kid. On a bandito. Always liked how they looked.

  Saves them for special occasions.

  And at each hip, holstered, Simon carries a silver handcannon. Repeating revolvers with eight-inch barrels. Two fistfuls of Dirty Harry macho overcompensation.

  Also reserved for special occasions.

  Normally Simon doesn’t work with munitions. Hands are more than plenty.

  But then again, this is a black room.

  Just like a wedding.

  There’s no such thing as overdressed.

  Simon unholsters a handcannon and holds the barrel to pursed lips. Shushes Mark. Steel wheels clatter over broken old track as the train hurtles forward.

  Subway car’s empty, sa
ve for these two. Simon can’t help but note that Mina dropped them in perfectly. It’s very tricky to tap someone into one of these moving subway-train constructs.

  Car’s covered in graffiti too. Like how they all used to look in New York.

  Car shakes again. Jostles. Mark nearly stumbles.

  Simon steadies him.

  Easy now.

  Then the lights go out, just like in a murder mystery.

  Two passengers on the Disorient Express.

  Lights come back up.

  Simon’s mid-explanation, shouting over subway noise.

  —so don’t worry. This is a common black-room scenario.

  A subway?

  Yes. Or some kind of train.

  Why?

  Because the programmers protect the black room from intruders by constantly moving its virtual location, hopping from server to server, all over the world. Train’s just a metaphor for that. A moving target.

  Lights go out again. More rattling. More jostling. Now in darkness. Tunnel lights flicker past.

  Lights come back up.

  Simon says.

  It’s just like any construct. Use your environment. Play to your strengths. Your whole angel-boy bit should come in handy in here.

  Sure. But that’s the problem.

  What’s that?

  Mark flexes, bare-chested. He’s not Simon, but he’s muscular.

  He grunts.

  Bends double.

  Sprouts wings.

  Stands straight.

  Tries to stretch his wings to their full expanse. To take flight.

  Can’t do it in the subway car.

  Says to Simon.

  Little cramped in here.

  That your only trick?

  No. I know a couple more.

  Okay then. Surprise me.

  Lights go out again. Brakes whine and outside the windows sparks rise from the track like a flock of fleeing birds.

  Car rattles loudly. Settles down.

  Lights come back up.

  Mark and Simon both notice at the same moment.

  Far end of the car.

  Company.

  Man in a cowboy hat. Tipped over to shade his eyes. Feet in cowboy boots, crossed at the ankle. Spurs on boots. Hands rest on twin holsters. Like he’s been waiting for them all day.

  Leaning back against the door at the far end of the train that connects to the next subway car. The door that’s between where Simon and Mark are and where Simon and Mark need to be.