Afterworlds

Of course, making calls while driving was illegal. Darcy placed her phone on the passenger seat and stared straight ahead—the model driver.

Then she realized that the traffic light had turned green. How many seconds ago had that happened?

Darcy eased the tiny rental forward. The police car followed.

“Okay, going a little faster now,” she murmured. Her grip tightened on the steering wheel as she increased her speed to twenty-five. What was the speed limit in the city, anyway? She’d never seen any signs. Did everyone just know?

The police car was still behind her. Not passing, not turning off.

Imogen hadn’t foreseen this little problem with driving around in the middle of the night—there were no other cars. Darcy was a lonely and obvious target for law enforcement.

“Crap, crap crap,” she muttered.

A thump shook the car. It had come from inside. . . .

“What is it?” she yelled.

No answer. Darcy’s eyes darted down to her phone. Nothing.

“Are you okay?” she screamed as loudly as she could. “For f**k’s sake, call me!”

But she didn’t dare stop. The police car was right behind her, lurking and watching, and the wide lanes of Delancey Street were looming ahead. Darcy turned right, because right was easier.

The police car followed.

“Fuck!” she screamed, banging on the steering wheel. Another bump from behind the backseat came in answer. Why was Imogen signaling?

With a massive effort of will, Darcy pulled one white-knuckled hand from the wheel and grabbed her phone. She held it low, touching Imogen’s name and turning on the speaker, then dropped it into her lap.

“Dude!” Imogen’s voice answered. “It’s called a lid.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I just googled that thing that goes over a trunk. It’s called a trunk lid. Pretty stupid, right?”

“Why are you bumping the backseat?” Darcy screamed.

“Research! I wanted to know if you could hear me over the engine.”

“I thought you were dying!”

“Seriously? Relax.”

“There’s a cop car right behind me!” But as Darcy cried out the words, a presence loomed on her left. The police car had pulled up beside her, and the officer in the passenger seat was watching her yelling to herself.

Darcy stared back at him, wide-eyed and terrified.

Imogen’s laughter filled the car. “Awesome.”

“Shut up!” Darcy hissed through her teeth.

The officer gave her a slight roll of his eyes, and the car pulled ahead. Darcy kept the steering wheel in a death grip, driving straight until the police car turned off an endless mile later, disappearing back toward Chinatown.

A sigh escaped her. “Okay, they’re gone.”

“Good. I think this is all the research I can stand for one night.”

“Great. Except . . .” Darcy stared ahead. Rising up before her was the Williamsburg Bridge, massive and inescapable, thanks to a row of orange traffic barrels to her right. “I think we’re going to Brooklyn.”

“Very funny.”

“No, not really.”

The tiny car was already climbing the slope of the bridge, and Darcy saw a pair of headlights approaching fast from behind. She accelerated, trying to match their pace. She was up to fifty miles an hour when the other car shot past.

“Dude,” came Imogen’s voice. “This feels like serious speed. Would you not?”

“No choice!” Darcy cried. “Matching traffic!”

The bridge was carrying her up, lofting her as high as the towers of Brooklyn ahead. The car that had passed sped off into the distance, and the sky flickered around her through a grid of suspension cables. For a moment Darcy found herself alone at the bridge’s midway point, suspended above the glistening river.

It was really quite beautiful.

“I’m sorry your book isn’t selling,” she said softly.

She wasn’t certain if Imogen had heard, but then a sigh came through the phone. “I know, right?”

“Why Paradox is freaking out already? It’s only been two months.”

“Because if this book doesn’t sell, stores won’t order my next one. Which still doesn’t have a decent title.”

For the millionth time, Darcy racked her brain for a better name than Cat-o-mancer. She wanted so much to help. “I’m sorry I stole your scene.”

“Don’t worry,” Imogen said with a laugh. “It’s way more interesting back here than in a closet.”

Darcy allowed herself to smile. Maybe she had managed to help a little, and at least she hadn’t killed Imogen tonight.

“We’re almost across. I’ll pull over the first place I see.”

“Thanks for doing this.”

“You’re thanking me?” Darcy asked. “Like you didn’t make me do it?”

“Did I put a gun to your head?”

“You threatened to use some random stranger! That’s emotional blackmail!”

“I was kidding.”

“Yeah, right.” At last an exit had appeared, and Darcy slowed and drifted into the exit lane. A moment later, she was on a quiet street with wide sidewalks and shop fronts covered with roller doors. She brought the car to a halt and turned off the engine, then took a moment to flex the sore muscles of her hands, breathing deep and slow. Her whole body was a snarl of anxious tendons.

“Feel free to let me out anytime,” announced her phone. “It’s cold back here.”

“Coming!” Darcy got out and went around to the back of the car. She scanned the pictograms on the key remote, then squeezed.

The trunk popped open.

“Fuck a duck,” Imogen said, kicking the lid up with a booted foot. She uncurled herself and sat there for a moment, cracking her neck.

“You okay?” Darcy asked.

“It’s just a crick. You didn’t kill me.”

As Imogen stood, Darcy stepped into her arms, needing the realness of her, the softness and the muscle beneath the leather jacket. “No, but I missed you.”

When they pulled apart, Darcy realized that the street wasn’t completely empty. Two guys in fedoras sat on a stoop nearby, and a young woman was skateboarding past. All three were staring.

“Never seen anyone get out of a trunk before?” Imogen muttered.

Darcy just giggled and handed her the keys.

* * *

They drove the car back to the same parking space, and Imogen did phone magic to return it to communal use. Then she announced something wonderful. . . .

There really was a new twenty-four-hour ramen place nearby.

She led Darcy around a corner, down an alley, and up a half flight of stairs. This late, the restaurant’s rough wooden tables were empty except for a Japanese-speaking foursome on a very giggly double date. In the corner was a plastic good-luck cat as tall as a parking meter, tirelessly waving its paw.

Darcy ordered pork ramen with boiled eggs and bamboo shoots, and a beer to calm her frazzled nerves.

“Thanks for tonight,” Imogen said when the waiter had left.

“It was fun, I guess. Once it was over.”

“For me, too. Maybe I’ll finally nail this scene.”

“So what was it like back there?”

Imogen thought a moment. “It smells like a car, but greasier. And it’s really uncomfortable. I guess we’ve spent a hundred years engineering car seats, and they soak up all that momentum pretty well. Trunks, less so.”

“Lucky I didn’t crash, then.” Darcy spun the coaster in front of her, wishing she had a beer to put on it. “But Clarabella wouldn’t be worried about comfort. She’s just been kidnapped.”

“Yeah, but being back there makes you feel like luggage. Scared luggage. You can’t see out, so you’re just tossed around without any warning.”

“Sorry.”

“Don’t be silly. I forced you to kidnap me at emotional gunpoint.”

Darcy smiled. “At last a confession. Did you get carsick?”

“Too much adrenaline.” Imogen rubbed her neck. “And there was a draft in there—all that cold night air hitting me in the face. I could hear the tires against the road, and feel how the asphalt changed texture on the bridge.”

As the beers arrived, Darcy considered these details. They had a realness that was missing in Imogen’s current draft.

“To research,” she toasted.

“Research!” Imogen drank and pulled out her phone, grinning as she tapped notes to herself.

Darcy took a long first drink, wondering what research her own draft was missing. Should she lock herself in a closet? Visit the dunes of White Sands? Go to an airport at midnight and wander the empty corridors? Or a gun range where people were firing automatics?

She looked around the ramen place, noticing the jar of pickled eggs on the counter, the pale blue Christmas lights strung along the ceiling beams. The world always had more details than you could remember, more than you could even see, and a thousand times more than you could ever write down. You were always deleting and forgetting far more than you could express in words.

It was that moment that she remembered what Imogen had told her tonight, which her mind still rejected as unreal. It seemed impossible that Pyromancer was tanking. Surely it had sold millions of copies, and this was all some accounting mistake that would be cleared up by morning.

As Darcy watched Imogen tapping at her phone, she mulled her outrage and disbelief, and also felt a small, formless fear growing inside her. It was the merest piece of something larger, a tentacle creeping beneath the door.

What would happen when her own book came out?

Nisha had texted today: 323 days till publication! Nervous yet?

Imogen looked up and saw Darcy’s expression. “I bummed you out, didn’t I?”

“No. I’m just angry at the world for being stupid. And . . .” A shuddery breath. “This might sound kind of selfish, but I’m also scared. If your book can’t find an audience, what’s going to happen to Afterworlds?”

Imogen put her phone down and reached across the table. “Who knows? It’s just random sometimes, I guess. Or maybe it is my superobvious flame-red cover, or the girls kissing, or the dread mention of cigarettes.”

“Ariel doesn’t even smoke!”

“But she hangs out in the smokers’ den, as I foolishly mention on page one. But you don’t have any red flags to worry about.” When Darcy sighed at this, Imogen added, “And not because Afterworlds isn’t gritty and real! It’s just that you stayed away from the obvious hitches.”

“Except an unhappy ending?”

“You’re going to nail your ending, happy or not.”

Darcy put down her beer. “This is crazy. I should be comforting you.”

“I don’t need comforting,” Imogen said. “I need a killer opening scene. And a decent title for book two.”

“Fucking Cat-o-mancer,” Darcy said, casting an accusing glance at the giant plastic creature in the corner. The little engine inside was still making its arm wave, beckoning good luck, or prosperity, or whatever plastic cats were supposed to bring. “What’s Japanese for ‘cat’?”

Imogen thought a second, then shrugged and tapped at her phone.

“Neko,” she said a moment later.

“Neko-mancer?”

Imogen laughed. “Manga fans might get it, but Paradox’s marketing department?”

They tried other languages—Gatomancer, Chatomancer, Katzemancer, Maomancer—which produced amusement, but nothing useful, title-wise.

Two bowls of noodles arrived, steaming and fragrant. Darcy warmed her hands against her bowl as Imogen snapped apart both sets of chopsticks.