The Bone Clocks

Meanwhile Holly’s being half coaxed, half herded into the squad car. She’s trying to ask more questions, but she’s had a mind-bending morning and is scared into passivity. Perhaps she’s being suasioned, too. In an agony of indecision, I watch the door slam shut and the vehicle pull off into the traffic, surging over the intersection just before the lights turn red. The windows are blacked out so I can’t see who or what numbers we’re dealing with. The sign says WALK and the pedestrians begin to cross. Sixty seconds was all it took to drop and smash our Second Mission.

ФSHIMA LEADS ME over the crossing. “I’ll do the transversing.”

“No, Фshima, it was my error of judgment so—”

“Strap on your horsehair shirt later. I’m the better transverser, and I’m just nastier. You know I am.” There’s no time to argue. We step over the low wall of the park by the Hunt Monument, where we sit on a damp bench. He grips one arm of the bench with one hand, and my hand with the other. Cord yourself into my stream, Фshima subsuggests. I’ll need your advice, like as not.

“Whatever that’s worth. But I’ll be with you.”

He squeezes my hand, shuts his eyes, and his body slumps a little as his soul egresses through his chakra-eye. Even to psychosoterics, the soul is on the edge of what’s visible, like a clear glass marble in a jar of water, and Фshima’s soul is lost in a second as it transverses upwards between the dripping twigs and the weather-stained old monument. I pull Фshima’s hat down to hide his face and shield both of us under my umbrella. A vacated body looks like a medical emergency, and at various points across my metalife I’ve ingressed myself only to find smelling salts up my nose, an artery being bled, or a stranger with halitosis administering inept CPR. Moreover, as I sync up our hand-chakras, Фshima and I resemble a pair of lovers. Even by New York’s laissez-faire standards, we would be worth a gawp.

I connect with Фshima’s cord …

… and images from Фshima’s soul stream directly into my mind. He’s gliding through a Cubist kaleidoscope of brake lights, roof racks, the tops of cars, branches, and budding leaves. Down we swoop, passing through the rear door of a van, between pig carcasses swinging on hooks, through the driver’s tarry lung, then out through the windscreen, arcing over a United Parcels van, and still higher, scaring a collared pigeon off its streetlight perch. Фshima hangs for a moment, searching for the squad car: Are you with me, Marinus?

I’m here, I subreply.

Can you see the squad car?

No. A garbage truck edges forward and I see the yellow of the school bus: Try near that school bus.

Фshima flies down, through the back window of the bus, along the aisle, between forty children arguing, talking, clustered round a 3D slate, staring into space, and out past the driver and …

… the klaxon and lights of the police car, shunting along slowly. Фshima enters through the rear windscreen and hovers for a moment, circling, to stream me a view of what we’re dealing with. To Holly’s left sits the female cop—or alleged cop. The driver is the burly male who helped hustle Holly into the car. Sitting on Holly’s right is a man wearing a suit and a Samsung wraparound that half hides his face, but we know him. Drummond Brzycki, substates Фshima.

An odd choice. Brzycki’s the newest and weakest Anchorite.

Maybe they’re not expecting trouble,guesses Фshima.

Maybe he’s a canary in a coal mine, I subreply.

I’ll ingress the woman, subsays Фshima, and see if I can find out her orders. He enters the female officer’s chakra-eye and I now have access to her sensory input. “All we know, honey,” she’s telling Holly, “is what I already told ya. If I knew more I’d tell ya. I’m achin’ for ya, honey, I am. I’m a mom too. Two little ones.”

“But is Aoife’s spine okay? How—how serious is the—”

“Don’t distress yourself, Ms. Sykes.” Drummond Brzycki flips up his wraparounds. Brzycki has Mediterranean-goalkeeper good looks, lush black hair, and a nasal voice, like a wasp trapped in a wineglass. “The consul’s out of his meeting at ten. We’ll device him direct, so whatever facts he has, you’ll get from the horse’s mouth. Okay?”

The squad car stops at a red light, and pedestrians stream across. “Maybe I can find the hospital’s number,” Holly says, getting her device from her handbag. “Athens isn’t such a big—”

“If you speak Greek,” says Brzycki, “go ahead, and good luck. Otherwise I’d keep your device free for incoming news. Don’t jump to the bleakest conclusions. We’ll use the emergency lane to get you on the eleven forty-five flight to Athens. You’ll be with Aoife soon.”