I know only “yes” means “yes,” but it was a robot hand in my apartment and it’s not like I had invited it over.
I reached out to it, to feel it, and it let me. I touched it. It felt different now. Not like touching Carl, that weird way it left all the heat in my hand. It just felt hard and very, very slightly warm. Carl also had always been completely immobile, but the hand was so clearly alive. Even when it wasn’t moving, it had movement in it. It had life to it. Compared to the immobile statue that was Carl, it felt so much more complex and carefully crafted. Every joint as supple and nimble as my own hands.
We don’t generally look down at a human hand sliding over a keyboard or stroking a pet or punching buttons on a remote control and think, What a marvel! but it truly is. Humans have yet to create something so delicate and intricate as our own hands. But Carl’s hand was every bit as careful and nimble as my own, and a great deal stronger, it would seem.
I pulled my phone from my pocket and Carl skittered away again.
“I’m just calling Andy,” I said. “You know Andy, right?”
So I punched him, number two on my speed dial after Robin these days. The phone rang once before noise exploded in my ears. I threw my phone across the room, screaming. Once it wasn’t right up against my ear, I could hear it clearly.
. . . ship on my way to Mars, on a collision course. I am a satellite, I’m out of control. I am a sex machine ready to reload like an atom bomb about to oh oh oh oh oh explode . . .
Queen, “Don’t Stop Me Now.”
“You’re blocking me!” I accused the hand, panting from my freak-out.
Nothing.
“Look, I don’t know what you want and I’m not going to know unless you tell me.”
Nothing.
I grabbed my computer off the coffee table and sat on the floor with it a foot away from where the hand had taken residence. The Wi-Fi signal was strong, but every website timed out.
“Well, what am I supposed to do then!”
As you might have expected by this point, nothing.
“Can I tell anybody?”
Two taps.
“Was that an actual response?”
One tap.
“THIS IS REALLY HAPPENING!”
Nothing.
“Are you from outer space?”
Nothing.
“Have you heard about the Carls in St. Petersburg and S?o Paulo?”
Nothing.
“Can I tell anyone you’re here?”
Two taps.
“Can I tell anyone you saved me?”
Two taps.
“Can I at least tell Robin?”
Two taps.
“Would you stop me if I tried to tell someone?”
Nothing.
I must have asked the hand a thousand questions and the only information I got out of it was that I was not, under any circumstances, to share that it had visited me. No one could know; no one could see it. I felt, of course, tremendously obliged to keep this promise because if the Carls did have some kind of massive plan, I sure didn’t want to mess it up—also because I had built a whole life around believing the Carls were good—also because of the whole life-debt thing.
But that also meant not telling anyone that I had been shot at. This line of inquiry, of course, led to no response. The hand did not appear to be concerned about my safety. Possibly, it thought it could guarantee it. How was I supposed to tell anyone that I’d been shot at without breaking this promise?
Also, what was I going to say to the superintendent about the blown-out doors in my bedroom? And how was I supposed to clean up the rest of the glass without getting shot at again? That is not a normal thought, but it was a thought I had. Maybe there were bigger concerns.
As time somehow kept moving, the various sizes of various concerns were starting to seem less relevant. All my worries, from terrorist attacks to almost dying to whether I should clean the glass on my floor, somehow all seemed the same size. I realized I was crashing down from my high. My body had been in fight-or-flight mode for at least an hour, and exhaustion was kicking in hard. I reached out to the hand and wrapped my hand around its massive index finger.
“Why did you save me?” I asked the hand.
It didn’t do anything.
“OK, I won’t tell anyone.” It looked to me as if maybe, just a tiny bit, it relaxed. Without thinking, I scooched toward the hand and curled myself around it, and it settled a bit into my embrace. I was asleep in seconds.
* * *
—
I don’t want to have real dreams, so I just wander the city all night. The whole world is waiting for the key, searching fruitlessly even though I’m the only one who can get it. But I still haven’t let Miranda or Maya share what we know. We’re lying to the whole world. My fear and my mood have followed me into the Dream. I walk into an arcade, like from the eighties. There are tons of stand-up video games and pinball machines.
The puzzle sequence in here must be delicious. I spot a quarter on one of the machines—that’s probably where the sequence begins—but I don’t play. I go to the girls’ bathroom. It’s dirty and there are local band posters all over the wall, but none of them make any sense. My brain can’t turn the letters into words. This tends to be the case when you get off track. It’s a sign that you aren’t in an important part of the puzzle. It’s like the Carls couldn’t be bothered to create the detail of every little spot.
I go into the dirty stall and sit on the toilet and cry until I wake up.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
I woke to distant shouts.
Reality crashed into me. Someone bombed Carls all over the world. Someone tried to kill me. They looked into the scope of their rifle, saw me, and pulled the trigger. And Carl’s hand, it was here, and it saved me. And where was it? I shot up off the floor and searched every inch of my living room and kitchen. Then I stood outside of my bedroom door, but I couldn’t make myself go in. I gave up. I never went into either of the bedrooms again. In my heart, I think I knew the hand had departed as sneakily as it arrived.
I was still in my pajamas, which was fine, but my feet were cold. Some clothes were in the dryer and I grabbed the first socks I could make a pair out of. I remember very specifically that they were Purrletariat merch, Maya’s comic. Soon, each of my ankles sported an adorably illustrated cat saying, “Eat the Rich, Steve.”
I could hear people shouting in the street below, but again, I couldn’t go look out the window, so I turned on the news.
The news media is almost always in a bizarre frantic resting state. During these rests it tries to make distant and vague threats seem up close and menacing in order to give you some reason to watch their advertisements. Here’s a hint: It’s not really “news” until they stop running ads. There were no ads this morning. The July 13 attacks were real news and everyone knew it. The fact that America was spared (though you, unlike anyone back then, now know that there was a planned attack, it was simply thwarted—well, I guess not simply thwarted) created excellent opportunities for rampant, useless, baseless speculation.