Authors: Michael Grant
Nijinsky drove from New York down to DC. Down the Jersey Turnpike. Night traffic, cars zooming past the rented van, his eyes bleary,
attention fading, eyes peeled for a Starbucks because he needed a
serious jolt of caffeine.
A triple cappuccino. Yeah. That would get him most of the way.
He was fantasizing about it. Imagining the foam, the bitterness
underneath it . . .
There was a loud bang. Not the first, but still startling. The madman shackled in the backseat kicked at the seat and growled.
Strange, Nijinsky thought mordantly. He would have pegged
Vincent as a quiet sort of crazy. Not a kicker. Not a growler.
Anya Violet was beside Vincent, occasionally laying a soothing
hand on his arm, saying little.
Wilkes rode shotgun. She seemed nervous.
“I don’t like going through Maryland,” she muttered.
“It’s not a very big state,” Nijinsky said.
“Big enough,” Wilkes said. “This is where I come from. Where I
had my …you know.”
“Ah,” Nijinsky said. “I forgot it was in Maryland.”
“What was in Maryland?” Anya asked.
Nijinsky shot a look at her in the rearview mirror. “Not your concern, Doctor.”
“Arson and attempted murder,” Wilkes said with relish. “Arson.
True. Attempted murder? Not true. I had a sort of disagreement with
the football team at my school.”
“Disagreement?” Anya asked. She was bored, ready for a story.
“They thought they could rape me and I couldn’t do anything
because I was just the freaky chick and who would believe me? They
were right that no one would believe me. But they overlooked the fact
that I could set the bleachers in their gym on fire. And also their
locker room.” She smiled a dangerous smile. “Yeah, that was our disagreement.”
Anya asked from the dark backseat, “Did you get them?” There
was a hard edge to her voice.
“I wasn’t out to kill anyone. Like I said: the attempted murder
charge on me is crap. Arson, sure. Molotov cocktails. You know …
Hey, you would, right? Weren’t they a Russian invention? Then you
probably know: you get wine bottles and fill them with gasoline and
stuff a rag in.”
No one said anything. So Wilkes added, “The trick is you have to
break the bottle after you light the rag. That was the hard part, actually. It’s easy to get them burning, but it’s not like in the movies where
stuff just blows up. They’ll just burn like a candle unless you throw
them and smash them.”
“Yeah,” Nijinsky said, because he couldn’t think of what else to
say. He was fully awake now. That was good.
“I kind of had to side-arm them up against the metal bleacher
support poles. Easier in the locker room because they had barbells.
Those broke the hell out of the bottles.”
“Good for you” Anya said, garbling the r sound with her Russian
accent. “Take back what is yours: pride.”
Nijinsky glanced up in the rearview mirror and saw her smiling.
Was he the only sane one in the van?
“Anyway, I’m not popular in Glen Burnie, Maryland,” Wilkes
said.
Which was the point when Nijinsky’s phone lit up with the text
from Keats and Plath. “Read this to me,” he told Wilkes, and handed
her the phone. Then added, “Please.”
“Have taken AFGC guy possible name Burnofsky. Instructions?”
Wilkes read him the text and burst out again with her weird, hehheh-heh laugh. “Go Keats. Capturing some bad guys. I’d do Keats in
a heartbeat. What about you, Jin? You hot for our English friend?”
Nijinsky veered toward an exit that suddenly presented itself.
They parked at the far, dark end of a Hardee’s parking lot. Nijinsky
sent a text to Lear.
“Can’t make that decision yourself, Jin?” Wilkes asked.
He sent a text back to Keats. Hold him. Awaiting instructions.
He decided against answering Wilkes’s barbed remark because he
was asking himself the same thing. Would Vincent have handled that
himself? Was this an example of Nijinsky being the wrong person?
He glanced at the navigation system as Vincent once more yanked
on his chains and said something like, “Hurrrr!” Forty minutes to go,
and that was if there was no traffic.
He was in a van with a crazy girl, a raving lunatic, and a woman
who probably wanted to kill him. In the parking lot of a Hardees. In
the middle of God knew where in the dark. Waiting for instructions
from a man or woman or for all he knew computer program to tell
him to live or die, kill or be killed.
People were pulling into the drive-thru, getting burgers and fries
and shakes. Normal people with normal lives. A family, two fathers
and their two girls sat in a Subaru wagon, pointing at the neon menu,
and Nijinsky thought for a moment that in another universe that
could be him.
How in hell had he ended up here, doing this, with these people?
He had wanted a little adventure, a sense of doing something mysterious and important. He wasn’t even a gamer; he had come to BZRK
because of a chance meeting with Grey McLure at some stupid society
party where Nijinsky had been invited as eye candy.
Somehow he had fallen into conversation with McLure, and
before he knew it he was telling McLure his life story.
“You’re too smart to just walk around looking good in a tux,”
McLure had said.
“Maybe, sir, but that’s my skill set.” At the time he’d halfway
thought McLure was hitting on him. He wouldn’t be the first straight
guy to consider a little experimentation.
But no, that wasn’t it. McLure had found something genuinely
interesting in Shane Hwang, underwear model and party tux-wearer.
Finally he’d asked McLure straight out why he was paying attention
to him.
McLure tilted his head, looked at him and said, “You have no
family, you have no connections, really, you have no direction. You
strike me as a gentle person, but not weak, very intelligent but unfocused.”
Nijinsky had frowned. “Is this a job interview?”
“I know someone who may need a young man like you, Mr
Hwang. This person needs a sort of, well, I don’t quite know the word
for it. He needs someone to be a right hand to a young man who is
very talented and in a leadership position but is not good at handling
people.”
“Like a personal assistant?” The idea had disappointed him.
“No. Like a brother in arms. Like a balance. Yin to his yang.”
“It doesn’t sound like—”
“Your life would be in danger. Your sanity would be at risk. You
would see things, and do things …unimaginable to you now.” McLure
had smiled. “You would have purpose. You would be doing very, very
important work . . .”
Nijinsky saw that the Subaru family had finally gotten their order
straight. He sighed.
The yin to his yang, or was it the other way around, he could never
remember, was chained in the seat behind him. Kerouac was mad.
Renfield was dead. Ophelia was dead. And unasked for, Nijinsky was
in charge. He had never wanted it, not for so much as a millisecond.
He’d been a good second in command to Vincent.
But he had never—
An app opened on his phone, unbidden.
Suddenly he was looking at a night-vision shot of the common
room in the New York safe house, taken from one of the security
cameras.
Men in Kevlar vests and helmets were in the room, swinging
their weapons left, right, looking for opponents.
“They’re hitting the New York safe house,” Nijinsky said, then
regretted it because Wilkes was all over him in a flash, wanting to
see.
“Goddamn!” Wilkes said, twisting his hand so she could see the
phone better. “They missed us by what, three hours?”
“They’re going macro on us. They hit DC. Now they’re hitting us
in New York.”
Her chin was on his bicep as she looked in fascination at the
gray-scale video. The cameras switched from room to room in steady
rotation. There were armed men in every room now.
“You’ve got to do it, Jin,” Wilkes said.
Nijinsky said nothing. The phone trembled in his hand.
“Jin, you have to do it. If you won’t do it I will.”
“What are you two talking about?” Anya asked.
“Blowing up the New York place.” Wilkes tried to sound casual,
but Nijinsky could tell that even she, even hard little Wilkes was
shaken by the idea.
He punched in a twelve-character code to get access to the Kill
button. It was a green button.
Cheerful.
“I have to check with Lear,” Nijinsky said.
“There’s no time for that, Jin,” Wilkes snapped, her voice as
ragged as his own. “It can take hours for Lear to respond. You know
there’s instructions for all this. Everyone’s biots are outta there, we’re
outta there, you know what we’re supposed to do.”
“I don’t think—”
“It’s what they did at the UN, what they did to their own people
to hide evidence, and they burned Ophelia’s legs off!”
“So we do what they do?” he demanded, wanting somehow to
blame her.
“There are fingerprints, hair samples, personal stuff, clues. Evidence. Whatever the hell. Jin. Jin!”
“I’m the wrong person for this,” Nijinsky said quietly.
“Give it to me,” Wilkes said. “If you don’t do it you’re putting all
of us and our families at—” She stopped. Because Nijinsky’s thumb
had pressed down on the button.
The video feed went blank.
They sat there, silent, until Nijinsky said, “Anya, would you mind
driving for a while?”
The instant Nijinsky, Anya, Wilkes, and a heavily drugged Vincent
arrived at the church, Nijinsky held up his phone for Keats and Plath
to read a text. It was from Lear.
Karl Burnofsky: inventor of the nanobot. Murdered daughter on
orders of Twins. Hold at all cost. Kill before you allow escape.
Keats read it twice just to be sure.
Burnofsky saw all this. He sighed. “I assume that’s about me. Am
I a dead man?”
No one answered.
“Anya, would you help Vincent to a room?” Nijinsky asked.
There was something wrong with Nijinsky, it was obvious to
anyone, something that was not just about a long drive on the turnpikes and freeways. He looked old. He looked as if he could be his
own father. His voice was a whisper. He was carrying a paper bag
from the liquor store where he had stopped off en route.
Keats took the bag from an unprotesting Nijinsky and set it on
one of the pews. He drew out a bottle of vodka. He crumpled the
bag noisily, making sure to draw Burnofsky’s attention to the bottle.
Burnofsky licked his lips, and for a few seconds an expression of
terrible desire ruled his face.
Keats saw and understood. He’d been right about Burnofsky. An
addict.
“So there he is in the flesh,” Burnofsky said, deliberately looking
away from Keats and the bottle. “The great Vincent. Look what you
fools have done to him.”
“We didn’t start this,” Plath snapped.
“Of course you started it, your half of it,” Burnofsky said. “We
started our part, but no one made you take the other side. Did they?
Your father was a friend of mine, you know.” He glanced at the bottle.
“We used to drink together, Grey and I. He worked for me at one
point. Did you know that? Used to enjoy a drink together.”
Plath, despite herself, was drawn to listen. She was hungry for
anything that made her father real again.
“What a brilliant man, your dad. And a good father, too. Better
than I was to my daughter.”
“You have a daughter?” Plath asked, keeping her voice neutral.
Information was power, and there was nothing to be gained by telling
Burnofsky what they knew.
“Had,” Burnofsky said. “Had. Had a daughter. Had. Just like you
had a father and a brother. And of course your mother, oh God, I’d
have traded my soul for her.” He smiled wistfully. “Beautiful woman.
Nothing like you,” he added cruelly.
Plath showed him nothing.
Wilkes lifted a loose brick off the scaffold, stepped close, and
calmly smashed it into Burnofsky’s mouth.
Blood erupted from his lips and gums.
She put the brick, smeared red, back in place just as it had been,
as if it was an heirloom resting on the mantel.
“Beat a helpless old man?” Burnofsky cried as he spit blood. “It’s
like that is it? Fucking little bitch!”
Wilkes made a “Who, me?” face.
Plath waited for Nijinsky to call Wilkes out, to order her to stop.
Nothing. So she said, “Maybe not, huh, Wilkes?”
“She’s the nice one,” Wilkes said, helpfully pointing to Plath. “I’m
the other one.”
Billy the Kid watched it all from beneath lowered brows.
“So who the hell are you?” Wilkes asked Billy, not unfriendly, just
sounding like Wilkes.
“Billy.”
She stuck out her hand to shake his. “Having fun so far?”
“Burnofsky here’s got a nanobot controller in his bag,” Keats said.
“We were just going to get it out. He placed a sort of pod of nanobots
on Plath’s neck. Hard to count, but maybe a dozen.”
Keats picked up the vodka bottle, twisted the lid off, and carried
it to Burnofsky. He dragged an empty plastic paint bucket over and
set the bottle on the can, just a few feet from the older man.
“What are you doing?” Nijinsky asked dully.
“He’s a drunk or a junkie or maybe both,” Keats said.
“Fuck all of you, you deserve what’s coming,” Burnofsky said,
and spit blood at Plath.
“Oh, but we’ll be best of friends once we’re absorbed into the hive
mind and spouting Nexus Humanus nonsense, won’t we?” This from
Wilkes. Plath was surprised to see her take the lead. Nijinsky barely
seemed to be in the room. “You’ll forgive us then, right? I think I’ll
smack you again.”
“Yes, what you have now is so much better, isn’t it?” Burnofsky
snarled. “So much better. A hundred thousand years of violence,
starvation, torture, betrayal, brutality, rape, and murder. So much
to be admired in Homo sapiens, eh? Not an inch of this planet that
hasn’t been drenched in blood.” As he spoke blood bubbled on his
lips. “Yes, what a lovely world it is that brings you young thugs
together to beat up an old man tied to a ladder. Yes, that’s worth
fighting for, right?”
“It works for me,” Wilkes said.
“We’re fighting for the right to go on being human,” Nijinsky said
quietly. “We’re fighting for freedom.” He frowned, as if he was hearing this for the first time and not sure if he found it convincing.
Burnofsky barked a laugh and a piece of tooth went flying. “Of
course you are. Freedom. The freedom to do what, exactly? Don’t
worry, Mr Hwang, you’ll still be able to pleasure strangers in bathroom stalls after the great change.”
Nijinsky went paler still. Plath carefully avoided making eye contact with him.
“Shane Hwang,” Burnofsky said grandly. “Nijinsky. Of course we
know who you are, you’re on posters all over Manhattan, although
you do look different with clothing on. Your father disowned you
after he found you bent over his kitchen counter …entertaining …the
cable installer. Oh, we know all about you, Nijinsky. We could have
taken you out at any time, but why bother, eh?”
Wilkes sighed theatrically and picked up the brick.
“Go ahead! Beat me! Show me your moral superiority; show me
what you’re fighting for.”
Wilkes hesitated.
Nijinsky, his voice straining to remain calm, said, “He doesn’t
know who you are, Wilkes. Or Keats. Doesn’t know Billy, I’m guessing. He’s bluffing. Pretending to know more than he does.”
“I know what they are,” Burnofsky shot back. “The losers. The
damaged. The victims. Life’s little rejects, all except Sadie McLure
of course, no, she’s the rich daughter of privilege out for revenge.”
He shook his head. “Every war in history was fought by the cannon
fodder. All for the benefit of someone who stayed safe and above it
all. They get you into the fight with high-flown rhetoric, and then
they blood you, don’t they? They make sure you’ve seen a friend’s
blood and drawn blood from an enemy. You’re pushed into their
fight but now you’ve lost people, so now it’s personal. Now it’s too
late to get out because you’ve done things …unimaginable things.”
Nijinsky jerked almost violently.
Burnofsky didn’t seem to notice. He was on a roll. “You’ve been
hurt, so now, by God, it’s your fight. Yours. Oldest game in history:
idealists and patriots turned into vengeful killers. Somewhere, Lear
is laughing.”
As if on cue a terrible moan came from Vincent, whom Anya had
drawn away into a far corner of the church. It was a moan that rose
higher and higher before suddenly falling off a cliff and tumbling
down in manic laughter.
“Your friend’s meds are wearing off,” Burnofsky said.
Keats picked up the vodka bottle and held it close to Burnofsky’s
ruined mouth. As if he was going to pour. A ragged need transformed
Burnofsky’s face.
“I believe your meds are wearing off as well,” Keats said, and set
the bottle back down again.