of a makeshift cart being pulled by a joker. He was at least eleven feet tall, almost all of his height in his legs. It was weird as hell being dragged through NYC by daddy longlegs. I wondered where he got his pants tailored. At the Big and Tall Men's Shop?
Traffic was almost nonexistent. But we still had to navigate around cars that had been abandoned by their owners. Bikes shot around us, the riders whooping at us as they went by. The buses were running, as there had been an executive order to keep them operating.
Things had been bad when I'd left, but they seemed worse now. There were boarded-up shops on almost every street. And the places that were open, mostly bodegas, had signs out with shocking prices on them.
The joker pulled over to the curb in front of my building and I paid in cash. Between the Committee stipend and the endorsement work I'd had over the last year, I was doing okay. Who knew letting a Volvo hit you could be so lucrative? And with commercials, I didn't have to wonder if the rest of the people involved were going to be alive the next day.
I walked up to the fourth floor. Good for the muscles, I thought.
When I absorbed energy, I didn't just get fat. My muscles got bigger, too. That much I'd figured out by myself. So I'd started training to give myself as much muscle as I could pack onto my frame. I was certainly more buff now, but my body type didn't bulk up. I wanted to be more agile when I was fat. The muscles helped with that, too.
The air was stale in my apartment. I cranked open all the windows and turned on the ceiling fans. My mail was piled up on the table. Only in Stuyvesant Town would I have trusted a neighbor with the key to my apartment.
I pawed through the mail, pulling out the bills and fan mail, trashing the junk. Then I booted up my computer. There was a ridiculous amount of useless e-mail and one or two from Ink:
From: [email protected]
I know we talked this morning, but I miss you already. When you finally get done at BICC, we need to have a long, long conversation about your mouth and my clit. Or vice versa.
Honestly, a girl can only masturbate so much. . . .
Come home soon!
Your ever-changing girl toy,
Juliet
There were more e-mails from her, but you get the idea. And there was also one from Niobe.
From: [email protected]
Dear Michelle,
It was wonderful to finally meet you in person. I wish we'd had more time together, but I was so happy for the time you spared.
And I wanted to especially thank you for meeting the children. It meant the world to them. Xerxes thought you were funny and Jenny thought you were "very cool about the whole unswallowing thing." (Her words, not mine.)
I hope we will stay in touch. Your friendship means a lot to me.
Yours,
Niobe
At least Niobe's e-mail made me feel better. I missed Ink, but not as much as I thought I should. And it made me feel like a lousy girlfriend. But I was feeling disconnected from a lot of things these days.
My cell phone began to buzz. I picked it up and saw a text message from John Fortune asking me to come to his office at the UN. Crap. I really didn't want to go down there. I left the rest of my e-mails and turned off the computer.
"Look, you know I hate to ask this," I said.
Fortune sighed and put his head in his hands. Oh, great, I thought. The guilt trip. Passengers boarding now for the nonstop . . . stop that! "I just need a rest," I said. "It's been over a year and I've done too many missions."
"But that's why we need you," he said, lifting his head from his hands. "You've done mission lead. You were in Egypt. You were at Behatu Camp. How many people can say they stopped genocide in the Balkans?"
I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. When I opened them again, Fortune was staring off into space. I knew that Sekhmet was talking to him. And, boy, did that give me the willies. I mean, who would want a massive scarab living under the flesh of your forehead, attached to your skull, and communicating with you via God-only-knows-what? Ew. I didn't know how he did it - living with someone