JD stepped back for a better view, but the instant he moved, the fireflies disappeared. He searched for another sign of them, but they were gone. An older Korean woman passed by, staring at JD as if he were unwell, but she didn’t speak.
He kept walking, sidewalk empty now but for pieces of bike chained to trees and fences, rain falling steady, cement a dark, rippling mirror with the sheen of wet.
JD knocked on Troy’s door. He mentally prepared himself for another frown, but when Troy opened the door, he burst forward, threw his arms around JD, and squeezed.
“I saw the news,” he said. “The fire, the chase, the overturned van—that was you, wasn’t it?”
“I just saw the weirdest thing,” JD said. Looking over Troy’s shoulder, he expected to find the swarm of fireflies waiting inside the apartment, but the room was empty. He kicked off his shoes and let Troy pull him inside. After the door was closed he took off his jacket and hung it on the hat rack by the door, every movement slow, robotic.
“Are you okay?” Troy asked.
“I—” JD stopped himself and sighed. The fatigue weighed heavy on his chest and shoulders. “I’m fine, it’s just been a long night.”
Troy hugged him again. “What is that smell?”
JD held Troy, smelled the subtle hint of chamomile tea on his breath, the fragrance of his laundry detergent. “Floor polish, probably,” he said. “And a whole lot of sweat.”
“Doesn’t smell like you,” Troy said.
“Must be the adrenaline.”
“You want a shower?”
“Please.”
Troy led him down the hallway to the bathroom, took a towel from the cupboard, and hung it over the shower screen.
“What happened?” Troy asked, as he sat on the edge of the tub.
JD started to strip. A warm rush of blood seeped unheeded to his groin, but Troy averted his eyes to give JD some semblance of privacy.
“We didn’t flip the van, that was the soccer fans. But the fire, and the getaway …” JD nodded. He turned the shower on, tested the water with a hand, and stepped inside.
JD scrubbed himself with Troy’s loofah and expensive body wash, explaining everything that had happened during the heist. When he described what he’d seen behind the wheel, the words sounded like undiagnosed madness. JD rinsed and turned the water off. He yanked the towel down and scrubbed his face dry.
“You never should have plugged that cube into your phone, Jules,” Troy said. “Have you run a diagnostic sweep?”
JD shook his head. “I don’t think it’s going to be that simple.”
He left the shower stall with the towel wrapped around his waist.
“How do I smell now?” JD asked.
Troy motioned JD closer, and JD crossed the small bathroom. He leaned in and gently blew into JD’s ear. The hairs stood on the back of JD’s neck, and a chill ran down his spine.
JD rested both hands along Troy’s jaw and brought them together. The towel slipped from his waist and fell to the bathroom floor, where it stayed. They stumbled to Troy’s bedroom, hands and mouths on each other’s skin, refusing to break contact for even a moment.
I had never seen the city. I had never seen the world beyond my cube. I never even had eyes to see until JD slotted me into his phone and took me for a walk across Songdo.
City systems yawned open at my approach. Surveillance, lights, road warning Augmented feeds, each of them configured to speak to something inside me. But I didn’t want to talk to these lifeless systems. I felt a kinship, or perhaps just curiosity, toward the flesh and blood that carried me; a sense of connection that was not sparked by the data links I formed without effort.
But how to connect with one who cannot see you?
I needed a body. I needed to be seen.
Searching for a way to connect, I took his form. A body made of light.
I became fireflies. I became him.
And then I retreated to learn how I could become myself.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Brrrrrrt.
The sound called out to JD across an infinite expanse and dragged him back to waking. His eyes shot open, registering only that he was not in his bed. Recognition came slow. The navy-colored curtains patterned with fleur de lis in shimmering threads, the black bedside table with drawer handles in gray plastic made to look like metal, the sheets soft against his skin. Troy’s room. Troy naked beside him, sweat and sex lingering stale in the fresh light of morning.
That sound again: Brrrrrrt.
JD let his arm flop over the edge of the bed, searching blindly for his phone as it vibrated across the low-pile carpet, plugged in to the power outlet behind the bed. His fingers brushed against the phone’s flat edge. He grabbed it and immediately dropped the phone back to the floor; it was hot to the touch. He hung his head over the side of the mattress so he could see the phone, and answered it on speaker, leaving it on the floor.
“Where the fuck are you and where is my virus?” The tinny voice cut through the air.
“Kali?” JD said. He rubbed his eyes, clearing the dried crust from each. “You sound different.”
“Maybe that’s because I’m very fucking angry,” she said, sounding as though each word were being forced out between clenched teeth.
“That must be it.”
“Where are you?” she demanded.
“I’m at home,” he said.
“No you’re not.”
JD paused. “You’ve already trashed my room, then?” he guessed.
“Where are you?” she asked again.
“I’ll take that as a ‘yes.’ ”
“Where the fuck are you?” Kali yelled.
“One hundred thousand,” JD said, the words forming on his lips before he could think, but sounding right as he spoke them.
“Are you blackmailing me?”
JD stifled a yawn. “Blackmail would be ‘money, or else,’ this is just capitalism.”
The line went quiet.
“We agreed on fifty thousand,” she said, enunciating each word carefully.
“Then you lied to me, and now you’ve wrecked all my stuff. One hundred thousand.”
“You fucking—”
JD hit the red button to end the call.
Still hanging over
