waits for Brooklyn to make her point.
“When did you start remembering?”
“I don’t. Not really.” Some of that, however, is because he does not want to remember. His real name is on his ID, for example, but he has kept himself from looking closely at it. There are contacts in his phone that he isn’t interested in calling, texts he does not mean to answer. These are choices, he understands, as meaningful as his choice to remain in the city rather than fleeing on the next train to God knows where. He can be who he was if he wants to be, but only up to a point. Something about the old him is incompatible with the new identity that the city wants him to have. So he has chosen to be Manhattan, whatever that might cost.
“Hmm,” Brooklyn says. Noncommittal. Leaving him space.
Manny’s tired. It’s been a long day.
“I used to hurt people,” he says, sitting back against the stairwell wall and gazing into the middle distance between them. “That’s what you want to know, isn’t it? I don’t remember everything. I don’t remember why, but I remember that much. Sometimes I did it physically. More often, I just scared them into doing what I needed them to do. But for a threat to have any teeth, sometimes… I followed through. I was good at it. Efficient.” Then he sighs, closing his eyes for a moment. “But I’d made the choice not to be that person anymore. I remember that, in particular. That’s why most people leave their old lives and come to the big city, right? New start. New self. It’s just turning out to be a little more literal for me than for most people.”
“Mmm,” she says, taking a deep breath. “Serial killer?”
“No.” He doesn’t remember feeling pleasure in the things he did. But he does remember that causing pain and fear was as easy for him as terrorizing Martha Blemins had been, in the park. Meaningless. He’s not sure that’s any better than being a serial killer. “It was… a job, I think. I did it for power, and maybe money.”
But somewhere along the way, he’d chosen to stop. He clings to this proof of his humanity as if it is the only thing that matters. Because it is.
“Well, that’s pretty damn fitting, for Manhattan.” He can feel the weight of her gaze. “You’ve got some weird feelings about that young man.”
Manny sighs a little. He’d been hoping she hadn’t gotten that, too. Some things should remain private, for God’s sake.
“Sorry,” she says. “I wasn’t exactly expecting to get yanked into, I don’t know, a Vulcan mind-meld or whatever, so I didn’t think to, uh, not look. Hope you didn’t get any of me.”
“I don’t think so.”
“Good.” She folds her arms and leans on her knees. Her legs are primly aligned, her skirt not at all rucked up; she is the picture of elegance in this ugly, wood-paneled old stairway. But that’s worry on her elegant face. “So, between us, I’m getting a bad feeling about what happens if and when all six of us finally get together. If that was a taste of it… I don’t think I want five other people in my head.”
Manny shrugs. He doesn’t, either, but it’s becoming increasingly clear that they must find one another, or die. “Maybe it won’t be so bad when we find the—the New York. Maybe he’ll… regulate it. Or something.”
“You’re very optimistic for a possible serial killer. I like that about you.”
It makes him laugh, which he apparently needed, because he feels much better. “How are you doing with all this, apart from existential dread?”
She shrugs, but he’s good at reading people. It must have been a professional skill for him once. She’s terrified, in her quietly elegant way. “I’d think about leaving—not that I want to, of course. New York is my home. Fought for this city all my life. But just to keep my father and my daughter out of the line of fire, you know? I’m doing this instead, for now, because seeing this through offers a possibility for both: help the city and keep my family safe. But if things get too tight…” She shrugs eloquently. “Not sure I love New York enough to die for it. Definitely don’t love it enough to sacrifice my family for it.”
“You said your daughter was fourteen.”
“Yep. Can’t nobody tell her nothing.” Brooklyn relaxes visibly with the change of subject, and smiles with fond exasperation. “Dad says