Brave New Worlds

The one who had crushed his lifelogger passed his palms over Lawrence's chest, arms and legs, holding them a few millimeters away from him. Lawrence's pan went nuts, intrusion detection sensors reporting multiple hostile reads of his identifiers, millimeter-wave radar scans, HERF attacks, and assorted shenanigans. All his feedback systems went to full alert, going from itchy, back-of-theneck liminal sensations into high intensity pinches, prods and buzzes. It was a deeply alarming sensation, like his internal organs were under attack.

He choked out an incoherent syllable, and the Securitat man who was handwanding him raised a warning finger, holding it so close to his nose he went cross-eyed. He fell silent while the man continued to wand him, twitching a little to let his pan know that it was all OK.

'From the cult, then, are you?' the Securitat man said, after he'd kicked Lawrence's ankles apart and spread his hands on the side of the truck.

'That's right,' Lawrence said. 'From the Order. ' He jerked his head toward the gates, just a few tantalizing meters away. 'I'm out—'

'You people are really something, you know that? You could have been killed. Let me tell you a few things about how the world works: when you are approached by the Securitat, you stand still with your hands stretched straight out to either side. You do not raise unidentified devices and point them at the officers. Not unless you're trying to commit suicide by cop. Is that what you're trying to do?'

'No,' Lawrence said. 'No, of course not. I was just taking a picture for—'

'And you do not photograph or log our security procedures. There's a war on, you know. ' the man's forehead bunched together. 'Oh, for shit's sake. We should take you in now, you know it? Tie up a dozen people's day, just to process you through the system. You could end up in a cell for, oh, I don't know, a month. You want that?'

'Of course not,' Lawrence said. 'I didn't realize—'

'You didn't, but you should have. If you're going to come walking around here where the real people are, you have to learn how to behave like a real person in the real world. '

The other man, who had been impassively holding Lawrence's wrists in a crushing grip, eased up. 'Let him go?' he said.

The first officer shook his head. 'If I were you, I would turn right around, walk through those gates, and never come out again. Do I make myself clear?'

Lawrence wasn't clear at all. Was the cop ordering him to go back? Or just giving him advice? Would he be arrested if he didn't go back in? It had been a long time since Lawrence had dealt with authority and the feeling wasn't a good one. His chest heaved, and sweat ran down the his back, pooling around his ass, then moving in rivulets down the backs of his legs.

'I understand,' he said. Thinking: I understand that asking questions now would not be a good idea.

The subway was more or less as he remembered it, though the long line of people waiting to get through the turnstiles turned out to be a line to go through a security checkpoint, complete with bag-search and X-ray. But the New Yorkers were the same — no one made eye contact with anyone else, but if they did, everyone shared a kind of bitter shrug, as if to say, Ain't it the fuckin' truth?

But the smell was the same — oil and damp and bleach and the indefinable, human smell of a place where millions had passed for decades, where millions would pass for decades to come. He found himself standing before a subway map, looking at it, comparing it to the one in his memory to find the changes, the new stations that must have sprung up during his hiatus from reality.

But there weren't new stations. In fact, it seemed to him that there were a lot fewer stations — hadn't there been one at Bleecker Street, and another at Cathedral Parkway? Yes, there had been — but look now, they were gone, and. and there were stickers, white stickers over the places where the stations had been. He reached up and touched the one over Bleecker Street.

'I still can't get used to it, either,' said a voice at his side. 'I used to change for the F Train there every day when I was a kid. ' It was a woman, about the same age as Gerta, but more beaten down by the years, deeper creases in her face, a stoop in her stance. But her face was kind, her eyes soft.

'What happened to it?'

She took a half-step back from him. 'Bleecker Street,' she said. 'You know, Bleecker Street? Like 9/11? Bleecker Street?' Like the name of the station was an incantation.

It rang a bell. It wasn't like he didn't ever read the news, but it had a way of sliding off of you when you were on campus, as though it was some historical event in a book, not something happening right there, on the other side of the wall.

'I'm sorry,' he said. 'I've been away. Bleecker Street, yes, of course. '

She gave him a squinty stare. 'You must have been very far away. '

He tried out a sheepish grin. 'I'm a monk,' he said. 'From the Order of Reflective Analytics. I've been out of the world for sixteen years. Until today, in fact. My name is Lawrence. ' He stuck his hand out and she shook it like it was made of china.

'A monk,' she said. 'that's very interesting. Well, you enjoy your little vacation. ' She turned on her heel and walked quickly down the platform. He watched her for a moment, then turned back to the map, counting the missing stations.

When the train ground to a halt in the tunnel between 42nd and 50th street, the entire car let out a collective groan. When the lights flickered and went out, they groaned louder. The emergency lights came on in sickly green and an incomprehensible announcement played over the loudspeakers. Evidently, it was an order to evacuate, because the press of people began to struggle through the door at the front of the car, then further and further. Lawrence let the press of bodies move him too.

Once they reached the front of the train, they stepped down onto the tracks, each passenger turning silently to help the next, again with that Ain't it the fuckin' truth? look. Lawrence turned to help the person behind him and saw that it was the woman who'd spoken to him on the platform. She smiled a little smile at him and turned with practiced ease to help the person behind her.

They walked single file on a narrow walkway beside the railings. Securitat officers were strung out at regular intervals, wearing night scopes and high, rubberized boots. They played flashlights over the walkers as they evacuated.

'Does this happen often?' Lawrence said over his shoulder. His words were absorbed by the dead subterranean air and he thought that she might not have heard him but then she sighed.

'Only every time there's an anomaly in the head-count — when the system says there's too many or too few people in the trains. Maybe once a week. ' He could feel her staring at the back of his head. He looked back at her and saw her shaking her head. He stumbled and went down on one knee, clanging his head against the stone walls made soft by a fur of condensed train exhaust, cobwebs and dust.

She helped him to his feet. 'You don't seem like a snitch, Lawrence. But you're a monk. Are you going to turn me in for being suspicious?'

He took a second to parse this out. 'I don't work for the Securitat,' he said. It seemed like the best way to answer.

She snorted. 'that's not what we hear. Come on, they're going to start shouting at us if we don't move. '

They walked the rest of the way to an emergency staircase together, and emerged out of a sidewalk grating, blinking in the remains of the autumn sunlight, a bloody color on the glass of the highrises. She looked at him and made a face. 'You're filthy, Lawrence. ' She thumped at his sleeves and great dirty clouds rose off them. He looked down at the knees of his pants and saw that they were hung with boogers of dust.

The New Yorkers who streamed past them ducked to avoid the dirty clouds. 'Where can I clean up?' he said.

'Where are you staying?'

'I was thinking I'd see about getting a room at the Y or a backpacker's hostel, somewhere to stay until I'm done. '

'Done?'

'I'm on a complicated errand. Trying to locate someone who used to be in the Order. '

Her face grew hard again. 'No one gets out alive, huh?'