“Maybe there’s another way,” Aislyn finds herself saying. She recalls a bumper sticker on Ms. Pappalardo’s car. “For all of us to… coexist?”
“No. It’s been tried.” Then the Woman sighs, a little sadly. “The thing is, I know you’re not evil. I was created to help the people back home understand you, after all—and I do, more than any of them ever could! But understanding doesn’t always help.”
Da-dump.
Aislyn, in the middle of making a turn, twitches the steering wheel a little late, distracted by both the conversation and that weird sound behind her. The car’s turning radius is off; she hits the curb and curses out loud, jerking the wheel sharply to correct. She overcorrects at first, and then has to slew the wheel in the other direction to keep from hitting an oncoming car. The whole car lurches from side to side, and once again it feels weirdly sluggish and heavy as she does so—
“What—Damn it, I told you to stay in the staging area,” the Woman snaps as Aislyn finally regains control of the car. “Now look what you did.”
Stung, Aislyn blurts, “Sorry! I just—There was a weird sound—”
“I didn’t mean you, Lyn dear, sorry.” Abruptly there is the sound of a door being firmly closed, and then the cold draft stops. The car lifts immediately, struts up-creaking in what Aislyn imagines is relief. She’s going to have to get those checked.
Pulling into the library’s parking lot, Aislyn picks a parking spot, shuts off the car, and lets out a little breath of relief at the close call. She’s going to have to have her front rims checked for dings, too, and her dad’s going to kill her if she’s damaged the car badly enough to need major repairs, but she’s glad it wasn’t worse.
When she glances at the rearview, it’s normal again: the parking lot, the street beyond where cars pass, a guy walking by while picking his nose. She turns around and finds the Woman in White turned around as well, glaring out the back window as if she is personally, deeply offended by nose-picking. It’s weird, but no weirder than usual, so Aislyn says, “So, do you need me to call you a Lyft or something?” She really doesn’t want the Woman in White following her into work.
“What? Oh. No, dear.” And the Woman smiles as she turns back. It is a kind, fond smile. “Always so thoughtful. I’m going to miss you.”
“Are you going somewhere?”
“No. Listen.” She reaches out to touch Aislyn’s hand where it is braced on the passenger seat. “You understand that I don’t hate you, yes? Belief matters in the multiverse, and I’m just enough like you to crave trust and connection and all that other nonsense. So… do you believe me? When I say that I care about you, and wish circumstances could be different?”
“Of course I do!” Aislyn has never had it in her to hold good intentions against people. And the Woman in White seems so sincere in her regret; Aislyn’s heart goes out to her. She cannot imagine a world where people who mean well can do any real harm. She cannot reconcile all these big, elaborate topics—multiverses and inevitable doom and life as a living city—with the simple reality of the Woman, who is a genuinely nice person. The world needs more nice people.
So she pats the Woman’s hand awkwardly, given their positions. “It will be all right. You’ll see.”
The Woman smiles. “You’re a good dimension-crushing abomination,” she says. “I’ll do everything I can to take care of you, for as long as I can.”
And then—if Aislyn hadn’t been looking right at her, she wouldn’t believe it—the Woman in White vanishes. There’s no puff of smoke or popping sound or magical door opening and closing. She’s just gone.
Aislyn sits there for a moment, stunned and confused and wondering why she smells a whiff of ocean brine. But she’s about to be late, so after a moment she just shakes her head, accepts the things she cannot understand, and hurries into work.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Beaux Arts, Bitches
It’s what happened with London,” explains the living embodiment of the city of Hong Kong, with barely concealed impatience. “There were well over a dozen avatars in that case. Then something happened and there was only one—but the city was safe from then on.”
Silence falls. After a moment of this, in which Manny and the others stare at Hong, speechless, he seems to grow even more irritated. He glares at Paulo. “You haven’t told them?”
Paulo, still leaning on Veneza, sighs loudly. “I haven’t met them, until now. And I would have explained it once they were ready, in a way they could understand, because I am not a blundering insensitive ass.”
“Consume us,” Manny says, speaking slowly to be sure he understands. “As in ‘eat.’”
“As in ‘cannibalism,’” Queens blurts, her eyes wide. “As in, ‘death’!”
“As in Sodom and Gomorrah,” Hong says, putting his hands on his hips. “Although I’m told the Enemy killed the former before the merger was complete—while they were in a transitional state akin to what you are, now. ‘Fire and brimstone’ consumed them then, the legends say; it was a volcanic eruption. The actual event destroyed four cities in the region, including two that weren’t even alive yet.”
Manny’s shocked to realize Sodom and Gomorrah were real places. No volcanoes here, at least, he thinks, in a kind of giddy, terrifying denial. New York is islands on the edge of a sea—and climate change looms. A flood is more likely.
“Something like that is what could happen here,” Hong continues, as if he has heard Manny’s speculation. He’s relentless. “If New York doesn’t hurry up and eat all of you, it will happen. Except, given the interconnectedness of this metropolitan region, we believe the resulting cataclysm will take out parts of New Jersey, Long Island, Pennsylvania, and Connecticut in the process. Possibly western Massachusetts, too. There is a significant fault line in this region.”
Okay. Maybe not flooding. Or maybe an earthquake and then flooding, followed by chunks of the East Coast falling into the sea. So many choices, really.
Everyone looks floored. Manny’s feeling it, too, but maybe the person he used to be has a lot of practice at reacting quickly to shocking, horrific news. “You’re lying,” he snaps. Hong’s jaw tightens, though he seems more disgusted than angry. “You’re trying to manipulate us. Scare us, into doing…”
Into doing what the city requires. Into sacrificing themselves, if that’s what it takes to keep the Woman in White from turning the Tri-state area into a crater.
“I’m telling you what has to be done,” Hong says. He says it slowly, in icy-crisp English, as if they are all bad students whom he’s been forced to teach. “I’m telling you what has happened, in every other case where a composite city—a city made of cities, like yours—has been born. There’s a primary avatar and one or more sub-avatars of the boroughs or exurbs or shantytowns or whatever they’re called. The birth is incomplete, and the city isn’t safe, until the primary devours the others.”
“If this is a story you’ve heard, ‘devour’ doesn’t have to be literal,” Bronca says. She’s speaking slowly, too, though Manny suspects this is a processing thing for her. Chewing the idea over, out loud. “It could be… I don’t know. Spiritual. Sexual, who knows.”