Super Sad True Love Story

CrisisNet: SIGNIFICANT SMALL ARMS COMBAT IN PROGRESS NEW YORK CITY, AREAS IMMEDIATELY UNDER NATIONAL GUARD QUARANTINE, CENTRAL PARK, RIVERSIDE PARK, TOMPKINS SQUARE PARK.

URGENT MESSAGE FROM AMERICAN RESTORATION AUTHORITY MID-ATLANTIC COMMAND (6:04 p.m., EST) Text follows-Insurgent attacks have been launched on the Borrower-Spender-Financial-Residential Complex in Lower Manhattan. Residents MUST report to primary residence for further instructions/relocation. By reading this message you are denying its existence and implying consent.

There were streams now. From the Media people living in the tenements around Tompkins Park, gingerly leaning their apparati out their windowsills. The rectangle of green was choked in smoke; even the sturdiest trees had been denuded by the scale of the artillery, their bare branches shuddering wordlessly in the helicopter wind. The LNWIs had been surrounded. Their leader, now listed by Media as David Lorring, two “r”s, one “n,” was badly wounded. Guardsmen were carrying him out of the park and toward an armored personnel carrier. I couldn’t see his face beyond the meaty red lump peering out from behind a hasty bandage, but he was still wearing his own jungle- green Venezuela-vintage uniform, one arm dangling off the stretcher at an inhuman angle, as if it had been torn away and reattached by psychotics. Through the smoke, I caught snatches of bodies too compromised to categorize, the outlines of men with guns at their side breaching further into the chaos, and everywhere the pop of exploding plastic water bottles. A sign bearing the surprising word “DIPHTHERIA” billowed right into the camera nozzle of someone’s apparat.

Eunice swiftly came up to me. “I want to go to Manhattan!” she said.

“We all want to go home,” I said, “but look at what’s happening.”

“I have to go to Tompkins Park. I know someone there.”

“Are you crazy? They’re killing people there.”

“A friend of mine’s in trouble.”

“A lot of people are in trouble.”

“Maybe my sister’s there too! She helps out in the park. Help me get to the ferry.”

“Eunice! We’re not going anywhere right now.”

The dead smile came on with such full force that I thought a part of her cheekbone had cracked. “That’s fine,” she said.

Grace and Vishnu, who were loading bags full of food for people who did not cook in their homes, predicting the siege-like situation to come with their forebears’ canniness. My apparat started to warble. I was being hit with a serious data package.

TO: Post-Human Services Shareholders and Executive Personnel

FROM: Joshie Goldmann

SUBJECT: Political situation.

BODY OF MESSAGE FOLLOWS: We are in the process of a profound change, but we urge all members of the Post-Human family to remain both calm and vigilant. The expected collapse of the Rubenstein/ARA/Bipartisan regime presents us with great possibilities. We at Staatling-Wapachung are reaching out to other nations’ sovereign wealth funds looking for investment and alliance. We anticipate social changes that will benefit all shareholders and top-level personnel. In the initial stages of the transformation our primary concern is the safety of all shareholders and co-workers. If you are currently located outside New York, please make haste to return to the city. Despite appearances of lawlessness and collapse in certain sections of downtown and midtown, your safety can be best guaranteed if you are in your own Triplexes, houses, or apartments within Manhattan and Brownstown Brooklyn. Wapachung Contingency personnel have been instructed to protect you from rioting Low Net Worth Individuals and rogue National Guard elements. Please contact Howard Shu at Life Lovers Outreach if you have any questions or require immediate assistance. If regular apparat transmissions cease for any reason, please look for Wapachung Contingency emergency scrolls and follow the directions given. An exciting time is about to begin for us and the creative economy. We are all fortunate, and, in an abstract sense, blessed. Onward!

Eunice had turned away from me and was crying intermittent but voluptuous tears that curled around her nose and beaded, gathering volume and strength. “Eunice,” I said. “Sweetheart. It’s going to be all right.” I put one arm around her, but she shook it off. The ground echoed nearby, and I picked up an entirely surreal sound beyond the unkempt hedges of Grace and Vishnu’s little palazzo-the sickening contralto of middle-class people screaming.

CrisisNet: UNIDENTIFIED SOURCES: VENEZUELAN NAVY MISSILE FRIGATES MARISCAL SUCRE amp; RAUL REYES PLUS SUPPORT SHIPS REPORTED 300 MILES OFF NORTH CAROLINA COAST. ST. VINCENT’S OTHER NEW YORK AREA HOSPITALS ON HIGH ALERT.

The few of us who were from Manhattan and Brownstone Brooklyn were lining up before Vishnu and Grace, trying to get a place to crash in their house; other Staten Islanders were offering fold-out cots and oven-warm spaces in their attics. The names and numbers of car service companies were bouncing around from apparat to apparat, and people were trying to figure out if the Verrazano Bridge was still passable.

My own apparat squealed again, and without warning Joshie’s voice, as urgent as I’ve ever heard it, filled my head. “Where are you, Len?” he said. “GlobalTrace is showing Staten Island.”

“St. George.”

“Is Eunice with you?”

“Yeah.”

“You’ve got to make sure she’s all right.”

“She’s all right. We’re going to bed down in Staten Island, wait for the worst to pass.”

“Bed down? You didn’t get the memo? You’ve got to get back to Manhattan.”

“I got it, but it doesn’t make any sense. Aren’t we safer here?”

“Lenny.” The voice paused, allowing my name to ring in my lower consciousness, as if it were God calling me to him. “These memos don’t come from nowhere. This is straight from Wapachung Contingency. Get off Staten Island now. Go home immediately. Take Eunice with you. Make sure she’s safe.”

I was still stoned. The windows to my soul were foggy and red. The transition from relative happiness to complete fear made no sense. Then I remembered the source of that relative happiness. “My friends,” I said. “Will they be okay if they stay on Staten Island?”

“It depends,” Joshie said.

“On what?”

“Their assets.”

I did not know how to respond to this. I wanted to cry. “Your friends Vishnu and Grace are going to be fine where they are,” Joshie said. How did he know the names of my friends? Had I told him? “Your main focus should be getting Eunice back to Manhattan.”

“What about my friends Noah and Amy?”

There was a pause. “I’ve never heard of them,” Joshie said.

It was time to move out. I kissed Vishnu on both cheeks, Nee-gro-slapped the others, and accepted a small container of kimchi and seaweed wrap from Grace, who begged us to stay.

“Lenny!” she cried. Then she whispered into my ear, careful not to let Eunice overhear: “I love you, sweetie. Take care of Eunice. Both of you take care.”

“Don’t say it like that,” I whispered back. “I’ll see you again. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

I found Noah and Amy streaming next to each other, him shouting, her crying, the air dense with panic and Media. I reached over and turned off Noah’s apparat. “You and Amy have to come with us to Manhattan.”

“Are you crazy?” he said. “There’s fighting downtown. The Venezuelans are on their way.”

“My boss says we’ve got to get to Manhattan. He said we’re safer there. He heard it from Wapachung Contingency.”

“Wapachung Contingency?” Noah shouted. “What, are you Bipartisan now?” And for once I wanted to smack the indignation out of my friend.

“We need to keep safe, asshole,” I said. “There’s a major riot on. I’m trying to save your life.”

“And what about Vishnu and Grace? If it’s not safe here, why don’t they come with us?”

“My boss told me they’d be okay here.”

“Why, because Vishnu’s collaborating?”

I grabbed his arm in a way that I never had, his thick flesh twisting in my strong grip, but also in a way that connoted that for once I was in charge between us. “Look,” I said. “I love you. You’re my friend. We’ve got to do this for Eunice and Amy. We’ve got to make sure they don’t get hurt.”