third video was from the point of view of someone standing at a podium speaking to a room full of people. The fourth seemed to be nothing but a blank wall.
JoeyBo316: Like someone’s wearing a camera.
Farid disagreed but didn’t want to embarrass Joey. The aspect ratio was all wrong for any kind of camera. But he didn’t want to prejudice their opinions, better to let them see what they saw, and react.
It was the fifth video, more desk, only this time something happened.
JoeyBo316: Replay.
Farid replayed. He did it more than once. There was no getting around it: they were watching someone put on glasses. Not from outside, but from inside.
From inside the person putting on glasses.
86TheChickenSteak: Jesustitty. We’re looking out someone’s eyeballs.
It wasn’t until they had dredged through many, many more videos—walls, desks, something that was probably a pillow, lots and lots of images so jumbled and low-res they were indecipherable—that they reached one of the most recent videos, the one Farid had saved for the end.
It showed the recognizable face of Monte Morales, the first gentleman.
Recognizable at least until two hands, a woman’s hands, pushed that face under the water.
They did not have Vincent in restraints. The sedatives they’d obtained were working for now, and Nijinsky couldn’t bear having Vincent tied up.
Nijinsky stood looking down at Vincent as Vincent stared at the butcher-wrapped sandwich on the paper plate beside the snack pack of corn chips.
“You have to eat something,” Nijinsky said.
Vincent sat in a plastic chair. It was one of those molded things with spindly chrome legs. The chair was beside a bed in a narrow room that held little else unless you counted cockroaches.
Not a place to rescue your sanity, Nijinsky thought.
“Come on, Vincent, have a couple bites. The alternative is a feeding tube, and no one wants that.”
Vincent stuck out one finger. He slid it into the gash formed by cutting the sandwich in half. He stuck his finger into that gap and seemed to be feeling the edges of the ham and cheese and lettuce and tomato. It was almost obscene.
“Here, let me unwrap—” Nijinsky leaned forward to pull back the paper.
The growl from Vincent was like something that might come from a leopard defending its kill.
Nijinsky backed up.
For a moment regret found a way to show itself in Vincent’s eyes. He had serious eyes, Vincent, deeply shadowed by a thoughtful brow. He wasn’t a large guy—Nijinsky was taller—but Vincent always seemed older than his twentysomething years, more serious, more impressive. Vincent was a young man who tried hard to blend into the background but never would.
Nijinsky—his real name was Shane Hwang—was a completely different creature. He was Chinese American, elegant, manicured, model handsome—in fact, actually a successful model.
Vincent lost focus, blinked, looked back at the sandwich.
“Don’t go too far away,” Nijinsky said softly. “We need you. We are in trouble, Vincent. We need you. I sure as hell need you. Lear knows it, they all know it. You’re you. I’m not. And, so, listen, just try to eat.”
He didn’t say, but thought: And I don’t want to be you, Vincent.
He let himself out of the room and winced at the sound of the key as he locked the door behind him.
The others were waiting in the shabby, depressing common room that Nijinsky hated. They all looked up at him. Plath. Keats. Wilkes. All that was left for now of the New York cell of BZRK.
Forty-eight hours had passed since the disaster at the UN. Just two days since Vincent lost his mind and Ophelia lost her legs and BZRK lost, period.
Wilkes had gotten out with a concussion, one ear still ringing, and some superficial burns. She was an odd girl and wore her oddness defiantly. Her right eye bore a tattoo of dark flames pointed sharply down to reach the top of her cheek. A gauze bandage covered a vicious burn on one arm. With a red Sharpie she had written FUCK YEAH, IT HURTS on the bandage.
On her other arm was a tattoo of a QR code. If you scanned it, you went to a web page where a similarly defiant message waited.
Somewhere much more private was a second QR code. If you made it that far, you might learn more about Wilkes. About a high school where the football team had been accused of rape. Where the alleged victim had walked through the halls of that school one night tossing Molotov cocktails.
Wilkes. The name was taken from a Stephen King novel.
As for Plath and Keats, Nijinsky kept telling them they had behaved brilliantly, especially given their inexperience. But the question hung in the air, unspoken, unspeakable: Why hadn’t Plath killed the Armstrong Twins when she had the chance?
For God’s sake, Plath who is really Sadie McLure, why didn’t you just do it?
Too precious to kill, are you, little rich girl?
Then what the hell are you doing in BZRK?
Don’t you know it’s a war, Plath? Don’t you know this is a battle for the human soul?
Why didn’t you kill, Plath?
And did Plath have the answer? She was asking herself that same question. What was she, Gandhi? Who did she think she was? Jesus? Saint Sadie of Plath?
“Vincent’s not coming out of it,” Nijinsky said. “Who’s got the bottle?”
There was a bottle of vodka next to the sink in the grim little kitchenette. It was frosted. They kept it in the freezer, usually. Keats was closest to the sink. He leaned back in his chair, grabbed the bottle by its neck and snagged a glass of sketchy cleanliness and swept them over onto the coffee table.
Nijinsky took the bottle, poured himself about three fingers’ worth. He drank most of it in a gulp followed by a gasp, then a second gulp, and put the glass down with too much force.
Hair of the dog, as the saying went. A little drink in the a.m. to take the edge off the hangover you’d earned in the p.m.
You’re the wrong person for the job. Become the right person.
“My brother hasn’t got over it,” Keats said. “My brother’s still chained to a bed at The Brick.”
“Kerouac lost three biots,” Wilkes said. “And he was already half nuts.”
“Screw you,” Keats snapped. “My brother was as tough as any man alive.”
“He was,” Nijinsky agreed, and shot a dirty look at Wilkes, who retreated, sulking. “Kerouac was . . . is . . . the real thing.” He poured another drink, shorter this time, held it up and said, “To Kerouac, who is a fucking god and still ended up screaming in the dark.” He tossed the drink back.
There was violence in the hearts of those in the room. Nijinsky bitter and furious and insecure. Keats damaged, resentful and wary. Wilkes already a headcase who had now killed and seen killing and watched Ophelia’s legs burn like steak fat on a grill and was itching for a fight.
Plath saw it all. And she heard the unspoken accusations: Why didn’t you kill the Twins?
“Jin,” she said. Just that. And Nijinsky at the sound of his affectionate nickname sucked in a sobbing breath. He looked down at the glass