The Rooftops Are Lined With Greenhouses

Liz Boysha

Published by Liz Boysha, 2025.

This is a work of fiction. Similarities to real people, places, or events are entirely coincidental.

THE ROOFTOPS ARE LINED WITH GREENHOUSES

First edition. January 21, 2025.

Copyright © 2025 Liz Boysha.

ISBN: 979-8227488435

Written by Liz Boysha.

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

1

Elliot is attempting to purchase drugs (opioids specifically (from a dealer in an alley near the corner of 21st and California)) when he accidentally lets slip: “This’ll be enough for an overdose, right?” He wonders why he is saying it as the words tumble out of his mouth. Self-sabotage, he will later conclude.

The dealer, who may be Hispanic (Elliot isn't sure, his facial recognition is abysmal (and why does it matter anyway?)), snaps his hand back, still clutching the stash. “Naw, man,” he says, “What's your angle here? I ain't interested in whatever you got planned man, no way.” Then: “fucking narc!" when the cop shows up behind them, across the street, blue lights flashing. The dealer bolts, leaving Elliot standing there, green bills clutched in one hand, the other curled up against his chest.

“Is this really what you wanted to do with your life?” he wonders aloud as the cop recites his rights, not clear exactly whom he is asking. Then, he clarifies, "Do you get your rocks off to harassing the hopeless and destitute?" The cop is muttering and grumbling about cooperation because Elliot is not cooperating; he is jumpy and twitchy and argumentative and the cop has concluded, erroneously, that he is already on drugs. “Don't you have somewhere, anywhere you'd rather be right now? Fuckin. Bahamas? Fiji? The moon?” He is feeling oddly chatty, at this late (or is it early?) hour, freezing with his teeth chattering and his toes and fingers stiff and burning or so sweetly numb.

The cop ignores him, pulling his wrists roughly (a sensation of pain, one that should be overwhelming but is too distant, too muffled to acknowledge) to cuff his hands behind his back but recoiling, shouting, “What the fuck?” and shaking out his hand as though covered in shit. No, not shit but blood, shockingly red, goopy and congealing, wet and clotted and icy cold. Elliot’s wrist, the right one, clad in a thin (too thin for this cold) long-sleeved t-shirt and soaking, sticky wet from the disappointingly too shallow cut running vertically up his wrist. His sleeve pushed up to expose it, the gruesome gash oozes scarlet in weak pulses. Not deep enough to die (not by itself) (especially not with the cold cutting off blood flow to his extremities to preserve his core body temperature). Those fingers, curled and aching and numb, could not hold onto the razor blade tight enough to do much damage to the other wrist (though not for lack of trying).

"I'm gonna need a medic here," the cop is saying (but to whom?). Elliot takes advantage of the distraction, the blood on his hands, to flee. In truth, he is hoping that the so-called peace officer will shoot him, but for whatever reason (likely to do with the shade of his skin (white)), he is spared and escapes unscathed, no more than a shout echoing past his ears. He feels light headed as he runs and runs, steps falling heavy on ice-slick concrete, his chest growing tighter with each rasping breath. He wants to jump in front of a truck, but even at this hour the traffic is too thick, moving too slowly (viscously) through the streets. He stops to take a gasping wheezing breath. The sky's tint turns a deep, hollow blue, then begins to lighten with dawn. A patrol drone buzzes past and shouts at him in a mechanical tone: "No Loitering!" He takes off again, away from the machine and its omniscient eye.

He stops at a fire escape, lowered and beckoning, rattling and creaking with each step, what feels like hundreds of flights up and up and up straight to the roof.

Elliot is expecting to be alone at the top of the building but there is a person (a stranger); a shadow standing with their back to him in the doorway of a glass structure cloaked in thick curtains of green. Plants, he realizes: entangled vines and leaves and bright colorful bursts of flowers highlighted by the golden glow of an only just rising sun. Elliot freezes abruptly, and time pauses long enough to allow him to consider his options (duck and hide; turn and jump; advance and inquire) but not long enough for him to choose one. The person turns and he is caught, trapped, rooted to the spot by the eerily black glass orb staring out at him from their right eye socket, their left eye a clouded, milky blue.

Black spots swim through Elliot's vision; an odd swishing sound fills his ears, and his legs crumple beneath him. He is unconscious before he hits the ground.

2

Elliot used to spend a lot of time at the library as a kid, so much time that he was eventually given jobs (sorting, shelving, scanning), conscripted to providing free labor at the ripe old age of (pre-teen) (his actual age has always been a bit of a mystery). He holds no resentment over this (not a lot, anyway), but he mourns the time when books were made of paper and ink and could be borrowed from libraries and read and reread until the pages crumpled to dust. The sweet, musky smell of an old encyclopedia volume, pages open to diagrams unfit for innocent eyes. Not that Elliot was ever innocent, not even as a child: motherless, fatherless, homeless, hopeless, desperate and destitute. From birth he relied on charity and good will; or (when those were lacking) on sneaking and thieving and twenty dollar blowjobs in the park.

Slowly, slowly, Elliot's childhood library closed down; hours reduced to three, then two, then one day a week, a couple hours a month. Looters (rioters (government censors)) broke the glass windows and burned some of the greatest books in a giant bonfire, the plume of smoke visible miles away from Elliot's dorm room. By then he was a sophomore, insulated, reasonably well-fed, his college library a digital facsimile with none of the comforts of the real thing.

Shelves tower over him as he wakes groggily, confusingly, headachingly, his vision blurred until he blinks and blinks again, and realizes the dimness in his sight has nothing to do with them and everything to do with the single flickering candle that is the only source of light in this strange, murky room. If there are windows they are hidden, tucked away behind

Bookshelves.

Dozens of bookshelves towering above him, packed floor to ceiling with real (paper) books. Texts lined neatly on the shelves in rows then stacked chaotically over top, packed in wherever they fit, arranged inexplicably by color.

Elliot's inner-child-librarian cringes. Then he actually cringes, from the stabbing throbbing burning pain coming from his right arm; it is trapped in the vice grip of the stranger from the roof. They are pressing gauze onto his wrist, the wound coming back to life with agonizing flames. He involuntarily pulls away but the stranger's fingers tighten even more. Their face is unreadable, the mysterious glass orb like a black hole for candlelight.

"I can call an ambulance," they suggest, "or we can fix this here." Their voice is thick and husky.

No need, Elliot thinks but does not say. He does not have the energy, the air, the will to form the words and expel them. He pulls at his arm again, half-heartedly, unsuccessfully.

"I figure," the stranger continues, ignoring the response (or lack thereof), "you'll want this taken care of here. People who can afford the hospital don't often do things like this to themselves."

Elliot shrugs, but they are correct; he could not afford the initial deposit for the ambulance ride, let alone triage at the emergency room. The stranger eases the pressure on his wrist and peels back the woven cotton gauze, soaked bright scarlet, peering at the gore underneath. He can only assume they are peering; it is impossible to tell where the cold black eye is focused. The other eye stares blankly off to his side. Elliot tilts his head and continues staring at them in an openly curious way; rude, but then again so is bleeding all over a stranger's couch. He turns his gaze away to study the rows and rows of books, trying not to wince with the sting of antiseptic, sharp and astringent. The stranger carefully tugs a needle and thick black thread through his mangled flesh, pulling the clean edges smoothly together. Though he kicks his feet and squirms in discomfort, not even an anguished moan manages to escape his throat.

"My name is Izzy," the stranger offers as they work. "That rattling you hear from the kitchen is Jim. She carried you down here like a little baby."

Elliot had not noticed the rattling from the kitchen, but once it is pointed out it is impossible to ignore. The kitchen is a rectangle of yellow light poorly concealed by a curtain of heavy looking strands of large wooden beads. It sounds, vaguely, as though someone is being destroyed in there with a sledgehammer; wet, meaty thunks muffled by crashes and clatters. It does not distract him from his resolute examination of the visible book spines, which are the only thing that matter so long as needle and thread keep squeaking through his tender skin. He does not answer when the stranger, Izzy, asks for his name. His own voice resonating through his skull would make his head explode.

When the stitches are finished Elliot turns back to stare at the creepy glass eye; it feels like it is staring right back at him.

"Yeah, that's how real eyes work, too," Izzy scoffs, as though reading his mind. They tape clean gauze over the hacked together wound. "A real doctor would have checked to make sure you didn't damage any nerves or tendons or whatever, but I'm not one. Hope it doesn't get infected."

When his arm is finally released, Elliot tries to stand, finding his legs trembling weak beneath him and his head swimming with vertigo. Izzy quickly gets to their feet to steady him. They are several inches shorter than he is.

"Bad idea. You lost a lot of blood." Most of it is soaking and congealed on Elliot's sleeve, dark red invisible against stiffened black fabric. "Jim's throwing together a concoction to help your body replace it. You should sit until it's ready." They carefully ease him back onto the couch, which he now notices is patterned with tiny insects, lime green on pink fabric. He needs to pee, which shouldn't be a concern of his because he should be dead, but here he is. He shivers suddenly, violently, bones rattling, then jolts as Izzy carefully tucks a scratchy grey blanket over his shoulders.

"Here we are!" they announce as an enormous woman (both in height and in build) clatters through the bead curtain from the kitchen, carrying a waiter's serving tray as though it were a dinner plate. "Friend, this is Jim." Izzy's hands move as they speak in an incomprehensible blur. "Jimmy is the best cook you will ever meet."

Jim crosses the long, narrow room in one and a half rumbling steps, delicately placing the serving tray (stacked with a steaming bowl of soup, crackers, and a glass of orange juice) onto the coffee table in front of the couch. She gestures, enormous hands moving quickly and fluidly, and Izzy responds in kind. Sign language, Elliot realizes, but even if he could understand them the idea of talking with his hands feels just as impossible as spitting out words.

Jim gestures towards him then jabs her fingers towards her mouth. "Eat," Izzy instructs, translating. Elliot wonders if they are meant to be lovers or just roommates. Standing together, the two look like they belong in an old comedy troupe. Izzy is small and wiry, figure concealed by layers beneath a worn old lumberjack shirt, light brown skin with dark hair cropped close to their scalp. Jim's hair is blond and long, flowing in loose waves down her back. Her pale skin glows under candlelight and muscles bulge through the sleek, form fitting body suit she is wearing. She signs again. Eat. She looks like she could kill Elliot with one finger.

"Jim could kill you a hundred different ways with her bare hands," Izzy confirms, "but she's soft as a bunny, don't worry." Elliot tilts his head curiously at them, and they shrug. "It's got, like, a mind reader app,” they explain, tapping on their glass eye. “It's AI, not magic. You just happen to have an extraordinarily expressive face." They gesture again towards the bowl of soup. "Eat."

Elliot leans forward, head spinning, and wearily eyes the soup, golden broth with bits of vegetables and chicken (or something like it) floating throughout. He doesn't want to lift his right arm to reach for the bowl (just the thought of the effort is overwhelming), discover his fingers still curled and frozen and useless. He uses his left, tipping steaming hot broth over his knuckles, and hisses. Jim adopts a sad expression as she towers over him, watching his struggle, and signs something.

"It's not just soup, it's ambrosia," Izzy replies, aloud and with their hands. "He'll be fine."

3

Fine, perhaps, is subjective, but Elliot runs no risk of dying from blood loss, particularly not after the rich, vivifying soup; for all its simplicity it is the best meal Elliot has ever eaten, not that there is much competition. As a child, his nourishment came from (stolen) plastic wrapped shelf stable ultra processed food stuffs; the cafeteria at his old university was legendary both for its flavorless dishes and its tendency to serve up food poisoning. Compared to that, this soup really was meant for the gods.

Fine, though (meaning alive), puts Elliot in a precarious place, one he is not meant to be in (certainly not again): hopeless, homeless, desperate and destitute.

When he has finished eating he is led down a dark hallway to a bathroom, where he is presented with a towel and clean smelling clothing that will invariably be either too small or much too big. "No offense, but you kinda stink," Izzy says merrily. "Don't get that wet." They gesture towards his white bandaged wrist.

Elliot is not offended; it is the first hot (well, warm) shower he has had in weeks (plenty of frigid ones). Izzy did not turn on the lights but when they are gone he tries the switch, eyes burning with the sudden illumination. Pipes creak when he turns the faucet, the overhead spray icy cold at first so he sits down on the toilet to pee; he lacks the equipment to do it standing. There is a diploma pinned to the wall in front of him, yellowing and curling at the edges. Isabel Dawson: M.S. Cybersecurity and Information Assurance; from the same university Elliot had attended.

Had. Past tense. He presses his thumb against the gauze on his wrist, dull ache growing until pain is all he knows and he stops thinking about it.

It provides about twenty seconds of relief.

He sits in the shower as well, his legs still weak and his heart still fluttering, and scrubs away weeks worth of filth and grime (awkwardly, with his left hand (the other held outside the spray)) with a bar of soap that smells like summer. It is the dead of winter here, but a waning summer in the southern hemisphere from which Elliot has only recently returned. The midnight sun burns hot and bright in his nightmares.

He scrubs himself, twice, then reluctantly exits the warm shower for the cool, drafty bathroom. He ignores his reflection in the mirror, obscured as it is by steam anyway, and digs through the cabinets (just in case) that have evidently been cleared of medication and anything sharp, if they were ever stocked in the first place. Not even shaving razors. Not even some acetaminophen to offer the chance of a slow, excruciating death by liver failure. Just toilet paper, several toothbrushes (still in their wrapping), toothpaste, tampons and pads. Elliot hasn't had his period since he signed up to be a practice dummy for some med student to remove his ovaries when he was twenty.

Cleaned, dried, and dressed, he exits the bathroom, down the dark hallway towards the room lined with books, clutching his bloody and stinking clothes to his chest like a security blanket. Jim is sitting on the couch, reading by light of an overhead lamp. He gets her attention by waving his arms, the motion producing a delicious dull ache in his wrist. She looks up and he gestures towards where he thinks the exit might be, through the kitchen which is now dark beyond the beaded curtain. Jim smiles and shakes her head. I should go, Elliot tries to say, his arms gesturing wildly. She signs something, hand moving down like she is telling a dog to sit, pinky finger and thumb extended. He shrugs. She places the book down on the side table and stands, pulling him into a tight hug. His head squishes into her (ample) boobs (she is just so tall) and though a part of him thinks to resist it quickly melts with the rest of him into the embrace.

He wants to cry.

He wants to die.

He does neither, wrapped up in the bulky arms of a giantess named Jim with a chest like soft vanilla-scented pillows; he just sighs and lifts one hand to pat her awkwardly on the back, the other clutching his grungy clothes between them. I should go, he wants to say, as if he could say anything at all.

As if he had anywhere to go at all.

Jim lets go of him and promptly sits down, returning to her book as though she had never been interrupted and leaving Elliot standing there feeling unbalanced and oddly cold. He examines the nearest bookshelf, each cover a different shade of green. Some of the volumes are thicker than usual, their spines labeled with tiny bumps instead of printed text. He runs his left pointer finger over one of them; the fingers on his right hand still feel numb, tingling like distant static. The arrangement of bumps are as incomprehensible to him as Jim's signs. He moves on to yellow, orange, then red: scarlet, crimson, ruby, bloody volumes, hardbacks and paperbacks, leatherbound, fleshbound pages. He tries to flex his fingers; his wrist aches with the effort.

In Antarctica there is a waterfall fed by a subglacial pool that is tainted by rust; it looks like a river of blood pouring out of the dying glacier. The water in the pool is too cold, too salty, too dark for most life but it is still home to bacteria; extremophiles who thrive in hostile environments. Life always finds a way to adapt.

Elliot wishes he could take comfort in this knowledge. He wishes he didn't have to think about Antarctica.

Izzy passes through the swinging bead curtain from the kitchen, startling him. "April?" they say (a question) and he jerks, then stiffens, pretending not to react. He is not a great actor. "Facial recognition," they explain, tapping the glass eye with a fingernail. Elliot can hear the tiny click click. He is holding his breath, his heart racing. "It took a while to find a match. You're wise to avoid social media."

Elliot groans internally, but not a sound escapes. He didn't want his face plastered all over social media. He definitely doesn't want it in whatever database Izzy's implant is rapidly filling. He shakes his head quickly, subtly, denying the name.

"April Galloway," Izzy insists. "You were a student at Tech, couple years ago." Elliot was a career student, but after his freshman year he was enrolled under his new name. Izzy must have found an old picture; he made a point to avoid filling out the bios after that first year. They peer at his face in the darkness, scrutinizing. "Unless you have an identical twin." Somewhere in the background, an AI is no doubt draining a lake just to analyze his emotions. Izzy's face softens. "I'm deadnaming you," they realize. "I'm so sorry. I'm non-binary, I should've known better."

Elliot shrugs. An awkward silence lingers.

"Do you have another name I could call you?" He shrugs again. "You could write it down?"

He grins and shakes his head. He tries to push past them, towards the kitchen or beyond where he is assuming there is an exit.

"Hold up," Izzy holds out a hand to stop him. They are non-threatening but Jim, suddenly on her feet and standing ominously behind him, might be. Then again, if she can kill him a hundred different ways with her bare hands, she'd just be finishing the job for him. The thought makes him grin wider, and Izzy hesitates; perhaps the AI can see the mania growing in his chest. "It's just," they continue, hands moving independently as though they are holding two conversations at once, "I'm not sure you should be alone right now. Is there anyone I can call for you?"

Elliot shakes his head once again. He glances behind him, and Jim offers a sweet, non-intimidating smile. He turns back to Izzy, their eerie black eye.

"Do you have anywhere safe to go?" Another head shake. "I think you should stay here, then," they say, and Elliot frowns. "At least for one day. You need some rest." As soon as they say it he feels a wave of exhaustion, and a small part of him wants to pretend to pass out, just so Jim can carry him to bed like a baby.

4

Elliot is disoriented when he finally awakens in the evening, nearly twelve hours later (according to the red digital display next to him), in a strange bed in a strange room with his right hand and wrist in absolute agony, like ants are crawling under his skin. He wants to scream, but it is locked up somewhere deep inside.

The room is simple, nondescript; the bed the most comfortable he has ever slept in. Or, rather, the softest, which he will eventually learn is not the same thing at all. The beds in his dorms were always identical plastic coated spring mattresses, metal springs inevitably stabbing out in the middle of the night. He's slept in hammocks, sleeping bags, park benches, caves. Shoddy motels and homeless shelters with their beds of nails and bedbugs. In Antarctica he slept on a cot that might as well have been made of ice, like the cold concrete bed of his childhood in the streets.

Fuck Antarctica, he thinks. Fuck the penguins.

He pulls up the comforter and rolls over, intending to go back to sleep (or at least try (preferably forever)), but Izzy is at the door, knocking incessantly, and he can't even tell them to come in. He has to roll off the mattress, trudge across scratchy carpet, and open it himself.

"How do you feel about wrestling?" they ask.

Elliot has no strong feelings about wrestling, beyond a sense that it was an activity enjoyed by Others, as in people who are not him. He is utterly unsurprised to learn that Jim is a wrestler; known as Brunhilde in the ring, blond hair braided back like a Viking's and wearing (flimsy and revealing) costume armor. The building is a hot, musty, deafening cavern, spectators swallowed in darkness as the hot spotlights focus on the women writhing together in the center. Hot, in so many ways. Elliot feels detached, invisible; he keeps bumping into sweaty, stinking bodies. He is starving, the soup from so long ago a distant memory and still weary from blood loss. Izzy shoves a soft pretzel into his hands, greasy and gritty with a thick coating of salt, and he inhales it without tasting it as he watches Jim pin another woman to the ground. The ringing bells are accompanied by flashing lights that pulse with Elliot's growing headache.

The crowd roars, but not all of them are cheers; a handful of boos are inexplicably spread throughout.

Eventually: "We can go now!" Izzy has to shout into his ear to make themselves heard. They tug at his arm, holding on as they tumble through the maze of crowds and finally reach the exit. A freezing rain hits Elliot's face, refreshing and sharp at the same time. The sky overhead is a sickly brownish orange. A single protester with a sign that reads "God Hates Trannys" stands on the corner, and Izzy pulls him the opposite direction. "Jim is cis," they mutter as explanation, "but that won't stop them from trying to spread their hate. You should see her parents. Her mom makes her look short."

Elliot gets uncomfortable whenever grown adults even older than him start talking about their parents. Their attachment is too foreign to him. He doesn't have parents. He doesn't even know why he doesn't have parents; his last name is the name of the street he was found wandering as a toddler, his first name (his deadname) the month on his social services intake form. For as long as he can remember, Elliot has always been alone. His connections to others are as flimsy and tenuous as the veins in his inner wrist.

He follows Izzy into a cafe, sits by a fireplace with a fake fire (electric and not particularly convincing) and wolfs down a late night breakfast sandwich. The cafe is stifling but he doesn't take off his coat (borrowed from Jim, so he is swimming in it) because he never really feels warm anymore. Izzy is wearing sunglasses (indoors (at night)) so it's not like he's the weirdest person in the room.

A deep voice pops up from behind Elliot, startling him. "What're you doing here, Izzy? Shouldn't you be watching your girlfriend demolish some chick in a ring right now?" The words slur slightly, as though the owner of the voice has been drinking.

"Demolition's over," they respond lightly. "Please, join us," they add, as someone has already made himself comfortable in the chair between them.

"Who's your new friend?" the newcomer asks, staring so intently at Elliot that he has to glance away.

"That's a real good question," Izzy answers. "I wish I could tell you."

If the stranger finds their response odd, he doesn't show it. "Well, I'm Ben," he says instead. "It's nice to meet you, I'm sure."

Elliot does not answer. Though it is hidden behind dark sunglasses, he can feel Izzy's eye staring into him as well, dual gazes burning his skin. He is wondering, suddenly, what he is doing here; why is he even here at all? He was meant to be dead, splattered on the asphalt beneath a towering apartment building. Bleeding out in the park. Overdosing in a public bathroom. A strange feeling crosses his chest, his stomach squirming. He watches the fire, fake flames flickering. If it were real he would dive into it. His cheeks are wet and he realizes he is crying, alone in a strange, mostly empty cafe; except for the two complete strangers just. fucking. staring. at him.

"Uhm," Ben is saying. "Should I go?"

Izzy sighs. "Can you make sure Jim doesn't get harassed too bad when she gets out? I don't wanna have to bail her out of jail again." They are standing now, hovering over a frozen Elliot, tugging at his arm, and if Ben responds he misses it. "Let's go," Izzy insists, pulling incessantly. "I'll tell you all about my eye. I know you've been dying to ask."

5

Once upon a time (a few years ago), a startup called DataLess Inc. inserted itself into the private lives of every American overnight by flooding the market with cheap "smart" goods - AI-linked smartphones, speakers, TVs, refrigerators, dishwashers, showerheads, etc. No one bothered to ask why their showerheads might need an AI chip. It didn't matter; it was cheaper than the other options.

Within a few years the company had crashed and burned: products falling apart and catching fire; hidden back doors and secret foreign connections; labor violations and sex trafficking allegations. The company declared bankruptcy and the owner (some white woman (Izzy can't remember her name)) walked away slightly less grotesquely rich.

"One of the lesser known subsidiaries of DataLess was a division making enhanced prosthetics. Augments, they called us. We were guinea pigs, actually, but it paid well enough." Izzy is leading Elliot seemingly at random through the city streets; it is freezing and snowing, wet slushy flakes sticking to the fuzz on their scalp. He has tucked his arms into his oversized coat, partly to conserve body heat and partly because his wrist is aching throbbing burning distracting. The homebrew stitches itch beneath the bandage.

"When DataLess went under, all the augmentations were recalled. I mean, every single one of the company's products had to be recalled, because it was a security nightmare, right? China could listen to every conversation, in any room, ever. God knows how many data centers were dedicated to just that. We augments were supposed to turn in the devices, even the ones that were surgically implanted." Izzy's voice drops, but only for show; they enjoy telling this story. "Me and Jim had to go on the run. I wasn't about to give up my eye, and Jim ripped out her implant herself only a few weeks after getting it. She couldn't stand the hallucinations."

Hallucinations? Elliot wants to ask, but doesn't; and their mind reader (whatever (bullshit) that is) doesn't seem to pick up on his curiosity, either, because they do not elaborate.

"She pawned it, so it's not like she had anything to return," they continue. "But this guy was a whole thing." They tap on the black glass eye, and he shudders. "I had to take it apart to disable and completely rework the tracking device, and basically built up the firmware from scratch. Good thing DataLess paid for me to study hacking while they used me as a guinea pig. BUG's a lot smarter than the OG AI was, for sure, and it uses a helluva lot less power."

They are losing Elliot, who had to drop out of the computer science program after a couple semesters because he couldn't afford a new (refurbished) laptop. He remembers, now, where he recognizes the name DataLess: a coffee maker at the research station he had lived in, worked in.

No.

Elliot doesn't want to think about Antarctica. What is the opposite of an isolated, icebound research station on the edge of a bleeding (dying (dead)) glacier?

"Hey," Izzy is waving a hand in front of his face; he has stopped walking, frozen and forgotten. He is staring blankly at a rickety old tree planted next to the sidewalk, leafless and lifeless in the dead of winter. "You wanna see my greenhouse? It's warm." Their apartment building is just down the street; so their wandering wasn't so random after all. An empty lobby, lights out except for a single fluorescent fixture blinking overhead the elevator. An elevator, faster and easier than a rickety metal fire escape; twenty floors gone in an instant. Another flight of stairs, a heavy metal door. Izzy keeps their hand on Elliot's back as they guide him across the gravel rooftop, as though suddenly wary he is going to run off and jump.

He should run off and jump.

Except

that

greenhouse. The glass structure is too alluring, the promise of sweet fresh verdant life inside.

Two places you don't expect a lot of vegetation: Antarctica (moss growing in place of forgotten ancient glaciers), and a rooftop in the middle of a city in the dead of winter. Encased in thick glass panels, the greenhouse is not just warm but hot and humid, even as the landscape outside gets coated in white snowflakes. Izzy's plants are growing hydroponically: leafy heads of lettuce, stalks of chard, spinach, tomatoes, peppers, strawberries, all lined up neatly along wide plastic pipes, the constant hum and murmur of pumps and the overhead lights.

Elliot wonders how long this greenhouse has been here; how many others there may be. Once, when he was eight, he had been arrested for trespassing after plucking an apple from a tree in someone's yard. That was the first strike of three that would eventually get him kicked out of that particular group home.

Izzy interrupts his thoughts with a question: "You studied biology, right?"

Elliot looks at them and nods carefully. He studied biology, physics, chemistry, geology. At one point he wavered between psychology and early childhood education, but he couldn't cut it with the people in either case. Lucky he was smart; he'd gotten in with a GED and enough scholarships (just an application, an essay, an assistantship away) to keep him coasting from major to major indefinitely. Theoretically. It kept him housed and fed, but no matter how much he tried to stuff his head with facts, he was never satisfied.

Knowledge is an addiction. It is a monster that gets hungrier the more it is fed.

"Pretty much everything up here is automated," Izzy explains, tapping a grey metallic box with "BUG" scrawled on the top with a black marker. "Lights, pumps, nutrients. Solar powered, too."

Of course plants are solar powered, Elliot wants to say. This all seems terribly high tech for growing plants, but he can't deny it's effective. Fresh tomatoes and peppers in January: the miracle of modern technology.

He shivers. Despite the warmth of the greenhouse, his bones still feel chilled. How long does it take to replace a liter of blood, he wonders. It's a fact he must have learned once; he's donated blood before. Plasma for cash.

"These things are illegal, technically. Code violations, water reclamation, some of the seeds are actually patented. Oh, and that's weed." Izzy points to a plant growing alone in the corner and grins. "If you're secretly a fed, I'm really fucked."

6

Of all the illegal things in Izzy's possession, the most incriminating is (perhaps) the library; ever since paper books were banned, both in effort to boost the e-book market (in a greenwashing campaign) and to put ultimate control over censorship in the hands of corporate government lackeys.

Not that books are illegal, per se, but it's illegal to print them (waste of paper resources), and illegal to keep more than a handful of them in any one place at a time (fire hazards).

And there's probably a weight limit, here on the 17th floor (of twenty) towering above a city street, which is probably (definitely) exceeded by the mass of dozens of towering bookshelves packed with paper.

Elliot doesn't care. He is reading on the plush pink and green couch underneath a cozy reading lamp; a spot previously occupied by Jim. He has (silently) successfully convinced Izzy that he is no longer at imminent risk of yet another mental breakdown, of sending himself flying through the kitchen window with one of the shining knives (currently magneted to the wall) stuck through his chest. He isn't (really), mainly because he's reading a rather enjoyable book about a very short person who lives in a hole, and he is deeply invested in a dinner party the protagonist had been roped into throwing when he is interrupted by the arrival of very exhausted looking Jim, accompanied by the man from the cafe earlier.

"Hey-o," Ben exclaims, too loud for the hour (Izzy has already gone to bed), and Elliot seems to shrink into the couch. "Izzy's friend!"

Jim signs something to Ben, who waves her off then flops onto the other end of the couch. "Yeah, yeah, g'night," he says. As he says it his hand moves: from his mouth to his other hand, held in front of his chest. Jim repeats the sign to Elliot, who only manages a wave. Has communication always required so much effort?

In the cafe, Elliot had been studiously focused on the electric fireplace and had paid little attention to the interloper. Now Ben is shadowed in darkness, features hidden, while he feels spotlighted by the once cozy reading lamp.

"You can keep reading," Ben assures, "I, uh, I'm gonna crash on this couch. But I stay up late, and I wouldn't mind company." He's definitely been drinking, Elliot thinks, by the way he stumbles through his words. He wonders what Jim or Izzy told him about their silent new guest. He carefully places a bookmark in his book and sets it on the side table. He moves to stand up, but Ben interrupts. "You don't want to go to bed just yet. Trust me. Jim's always horny after a match." Elliot sits back down, face growing warm. "Deaf girls can be real loud," he adds, winking, and Elliot's blush deepens.

It occurs to him, after an invitation to watch a movie, that Ben might have been conscripted to keep him company ("I don't think you should be alone," Izzy had said), and he wonders just how much was revealed. Does he know what lurks and throbs beneath Elliot's (borrowed) sweater sleeve?

The movie has to be played from a laptop sitting on the coffee table. "They don't believe in television," Ben scoffs as he sets it up. "Since you won't tell me what you want to watch, I'm going to have to choose. You're about to learn that I am a huge nerd." He puts on an old Star Trek movie, ostensibly something with whales in it, and turns the volume up to max. Elliot sits stiffly and awkwardly across from him in the darkness. A moment ticks by (unnoticed, unannounced) that marks a full 24 hours since he first tried to slit his wrists. Nothing has changed since then, and he still wishes he'd been better at it; but he survived, and he supposes he is meant to appreciate that. In a more responsible society, he could seek mental health care (ha!).

Would Ben (could he?) try to stop him if he went back up to the roof now? Perhaps he could go under the guise of visiting the greenhouse again; if he could communicate enough to lie at all.

Despite his assurances that he stays up late, by the time the whales finally show up in the movie Ben has fallen asleep (passed out) against his armrest, feet sprawled out in front of him. Elliot feels like he should go, if nothing else then to make room for the sleeping stranger, but something in him makes him stay. He sits and waits, still as a statue, at least until the movie ends; he feels a pressing need to watch the whales get saved. Then he quietly gets up and retreats to his oversized, overplush bed in the guest room.

7

In the morning, Elliot carefully dresses in his old clothes (clean now, but (grungy) threadbare), his wrist aching. He tracks down Izzy in their library and presses the last of his cash (some of the bills bloodstained) into their hands. It was enough to buy a (probably) lethal dose of fentanyl on the streets but wouldn't make a dent in the rent of an apartment in the middle of downtown, he's sure, not even for a night. No worries; he's leaving now.

"That's okay," they say, pushing the cash back at him. "Cost us nothing to help." Elliot drops the cash onto the coffee table and tries to get past them. "Wait," Izzy says, placing a gentle hand on his arm. "Where're you headed after this?"

He shrugs them off and continues towards the kitchen, which is crowded with the scent of bacon and eggs and pancakes and coffee. Jim is cooking breakfast, heaving iron pans and metal spatulas clashing and clanging; Ben sits hunched at the counter, nursing a steaming mug. He sits up straighter when Elliot clatters in through the beaded curtain.

"Breakfast?" Ben asks, and he hesitates, his initial inclination to leave waning as his stomach grumbles irritably. "You haven't lived until you've tried Jim's pancakes." Elliot grins (despite himself) at the phrasing, and his stomach growls again. He finds himself sitting at the counter next to Ben, getting a good look at him for the first time since the night before. A scattering of some of the most cliche tattoos (a knife through a heart on one bicep; a snake; an anchor on his wrist) decorate his tanned arms. Shaggy hair, scruff on his face, sparkling blue eyes underlined with the faintest shadow of exhaustion. Well, everyone Elliot knows is exhausted. Himself included.

"I drank too much last night," Ben whines into his coffee.

"Oh, no," Izzy says, sounding completely unconcerned. "Whatever made you decide to do that." It is a rhetorical question, like this may be a common complaint from him, especially since Ben doesn't answer. He just rolls his eyes and busies himself with an enormous stack of pancakes Jim has placed in front of him. Izzy waits until his mouth is full before asking, "How's that job search going?"

"Gmmbnnmmllbb," he replies irritably, and they don't press, just give him a look that Elliot can't read. He watches the exchange distantly, feeling intrusive. He tries to make sense of some of Ben's tattoos (a bird, a cartoon alien, a bicycle). None of them are particularly good, and there is no theme he can discern.

Ben catches him staring. "I used to date a tattoo artist," he says, laughing. "I let him and his friends use me as a practice canvas. My pain tolerance is phenomenal." He winks, and Elliot looks away, blushing. If only his pain tolerance had been higher, he thinks. Then he wouldn't fucking be here.

"Since you're still gainfully unemployed," Izzy interrupts, "I could use your help today." Ben groans lightly. "You, too," they add, directing this towards Elliot. "If we split up it'll take half as long."

The task the Izzy has consigned them to involves trudging through wet, dirty slush with a cargo wagon loaded with crates to a number of addresses scrawled on a hot pink index card. "Take less than half, and if anyone asks, just tell them you're with An Extra Hand," they instruct before heading off in the opposite direction with Jim. Each address is the location of another greenhouse, hidden on rooftops or tucked away in backyards or (once) indoors, a shining purple-pink room that makes Elliot feel queasy. He and Ben pick and pack crates full of produce, the wagon increasingly heavy with each stop. When it is full they return to Izzy's apartment building to unload it into the back of a rusted green truck before heading back out again. It takes all morning, mostly spent walking back and forth, back and forth. Crates rub at the bandage under Elliot's sleeve and his arms ache with the effort of carrying them.

The elevator is out at their last stop (a (mostly) empty office building towering forty stories overhead) and they have to trudge up thousands (millions (billions)) of steps to get to the roof. The upper floors are completely dark, the staircase an echoing cavern, and Ben holds his phone out as a flashlight.

"Seriously, though, what the fuck," he says, mostly to himself. He has spent most of the day talking to himself and pretending Elliot would respond in anything more than a shake of the head. "All this empty space."

Elliot has spent many nights in empty buildings such as this. When he was very, very small he would crawl in through vents or tiny basement windows. As he got older he would just break the windows; if he got caught, it meant a warm bed and a few hot meals in juvie before he was forgotten about again. That got too dangerous, though - the getting caught, and the juvie. Eventually he learned how to pick locks using the springy wires left behind by streetsweepers. Subtlety is key.

At the top of forty flights of stairs, they find the door marked "Rooftop Access", locked shut with a shiny metal padlock.

"Fuck!" Ben yells, jiggling the doorknob roughly.

Elliot looks around the hallway in vain; even if it weren't pitch dark, there's no chance of streetsweepers getting up here. He puts down the empty crates and gestures for the light. Ben follows him as he searches through the abandoned top-floor office space, rifling through emptied (looted) desk drawers until he finds a stray paperclip. Perfect. He bends it into a zig-zagged rake and easily pops open the cheap padlock.

"Damn," Ben says, sounding actually impressed. "Cute and clever. Izzy knows how to find them."

Elliot ducks his head awkwardly to hide his warming face and pulls the door open, hissing as cold light pours into the small space.

"What's that?" Ben looks at him curiously (no response), then shakes his head, bracing himself for the cold outside. Elliot starts to follow but gets distracted, veering from the path to the greenhouse towards the edge, trudging through ankle deep snow until he can see the city below. He is aware of Ben cursing, scrambling through the snow behind him, grabbing his coat (confirming his suspicions that he knows), saying... something. He ignores it. He just wants to see.

The rooftops below: a handful that they have visited, many they haven't. Bright green oases in a desert of concrete and snow. He looks back at Ben, whose eyes are wide with panic, and tries to silently reassure him, pointing towards the last rooftop they visited.

He understands. "Great view, yeah?" Ben is trying to sound light, but his voice is strained, and he breathes a sigh of relief when Elliot retreats from the edge, feeling ashamed.

The greenhouse up here is the size of a basketball court and lined not with hydroponics but variously sized pots and planters packed with actual dirt. There are blueberry and raspberry bushes, and Elliot wonders how they are pollinated. In China, he's heard, they pay people to pollinate flowers by hand with a paintbrush. He digs up carrots and potatoes from deep tubs of rich earth and picks long green beans from vines.

"I definitely think this method is superior to Izzy's hydroponics," Ben says, breaking the silence. He drops a potato into the crate and inspects his hands, his dirt-caked fingernails. "Smells better."

Elliot nods in agreement. The hydroponic swill that fertilizes Izzy's plants smells vaguely like sewage, but others have a distinctly chemical odor. He wonders what they use to fertilize these gardens. He finds an earthworm (wiggling and pink) all the way up here in the sky.

Crates packed, Ben sits down on the dirty tiled floor, leaning back against a cabinet, and says, "Let's take a break, yeah? We're going to have to carry that all the way down." He reaches into a crate and pulls out a juicy red raspberry, popping it into his mouth and grinning. He watches Elliot sit down across from him then asks, "So, have you always been this quiet, or is this, like, a new thing?"

Elliot frowns, then shrugs.

"You should learn sign language. Or maybe you secretly already know?" Ben signs something vaguely suggestive, laughing when he doesn't respond. "Hablas español?" Elliot glares, and his smile drops. "I'm sorry. I'm not making fun of you. I'd actually really like to get to know you." Silence. "Okie dokie." He pops another raspberry in his mouth and Elliot (definitely) doesn't linger on his soft, full lips.

8

Elliot's arms and legs feel absolutely dead by the time he has descended forty flights of stairs with two stacked crates full of produce, Ben clomping along beside him, barely huffing. Elliot is jealous of his strength; he's jealous of all men who seem to have masculinity handed to them (which is most of them (because they do)). He is barely passing; people tend to make their assumptions based on his clothes. A tight sports bra keeps his chest out of the way and with loose enough clothing and short enough hair he looks like a kind of stunted, kind of fat, vaguely effeminate guy.

Certainly not cute, whatever Ben had suggested upstairs. Elliot wonders if he knows or suspects anything (of course he does). If he was gay, there's a good chance (in Elliot's experience) the flirting would stop as soon as he found out that he is trans. He considers Ben's tattoos (now hidden away under coat sleeves); the sheer number of them suggests he was either with the tattoo artist boyfriend for a long time, or else had a lot of friends. Maybe both. Imagine being so invested in a relationship you'd let them indelibly mark themselves all over you, Elliot thinks. Imagine being invested in a relationship, at all.

As they exit the building they are accosted by a cop, who looks much too familiar to Elliot but is fortunately busy interrogating Ben about the crates they are holding. "What's with all the vegetables?"

"We're with An Extra Hand," Ben says vaguely, and the cop nods (masking a look of confusion), then turns his attention to Elliot.

"I know you," he accuses, "You were out looking for drugs the other night." Elliot shakes his head quickly, the crates pulling at his arms. "What's the matter, cat got your tongue?" the cop asks. "You had plenty to say to me two nights ago. Called me a pig."

"Sir, you must have him mistaken for someone else," Ben interrupts, "Guy here is with me all night, every night, if you know what I mean." He winks, and (with a groan in disgust) the cop actually lets them go. Elliot follows a few steps behind Ben, stunned.

Their wagon is missing (stolen), and they resign themselves to carrying the crates back to the truck. Elliot's wrist throbs. He tries to shift the weight of the crates but he has been carrying them for too long, and a sharp, stabbing pain shoots up his arm. He stumbles and almost drops the boxes, has to stop and kneel to set them down, wet slush soaking into his knee. He cradles his wrist to his chest.

"You okay?" Ben hovers over him, his own arms full. "I could probably take another one, if you stack it on top."

Elliot shakes his head and tries to rub feeling back into his palm, his fingers, which have been half dead since he slit his wrist anyway. Probably the nerve damage Izzy had warned him of. Probably he'll be in pain the rest of his life. Certainly, if he runs back to that building and up all those stairs again and over and down. He sits back on the sidewalk so his butt gets soaked too. Pedestrians swarm around him and ignore him. He's used to being ignored like this; not to being stared at by someone like Ben, something like concern in his eyes. He sets his own crates down and crouches next to him, not dumb enough to sit in wet snow. A patrol drone spins by and yells, “No Loitering!”

"Hey." No response; he grabs Elliot's shoulder, shaking it gently. "I'll call Izzy and have them come pick us up." A quick nod. "But you can't just sit there getting all wet. You'll freeze your butt off. Literally." He pulls him up to his feet, leads him over to a bench down the road then makes the trip twice again for the crates. The people walking around them (always in such a rush to get to where they're going) ignore the produce entirely, like it isn't a miracle of life in the dead of winter. If he'd been a kid, Elliot would have grabbed one of the boxes and ran.

He watches the traffic pass by, the Doppler whir of engines. Ben sits down next to him, resting his arm on the back of the bench, brushing his shoulder, hesitating. "Look," he says finally, "Izzy told me," he hesitates again, "how they met you. It's obvious something is really troubling you." Silence. "It might help to actually talk about it." Nothing. His eyes scan up and down Elliot's face, but he remains frozen, impassive. "Okay," he says, shifting away from him.

Elliot is not trying to be difficult; it's just that talking feels too much like unraveling. If he starts pulling at a string, the entire thing might fall apart. He clenches his molars through his cheek (chest swarming and buzzing) as he scans the incoming traffic for an ancient green truck. He can taste blood: hot, metallic, salty. He doesn't want to be like this; he's so tired of wanting to die.

Ben is staring at his phone, giving him space or ignoring him entirely. He gestures towards the device and it takes a moment for him to realize what he wants. He opens a notepad app and hands it over. Elliot quickly types his name and passes it back before he can undo it.

"Elliot," Ben reads aloud. "Okay. It's a start." He's smiling, though. "I don't suppose you have a phone?"

Elliot shakes his head. He chucked his phone into the Ross Sea weeks ago.

"Izzy can fix that, if you want." Shrug. "Do you want me to tell them your name, or keep that to myself?" Another shrug. "That's not an answer." The stern tone in his voice makes him look up. Ben's eyes are piercing. "Do you want me to tell them?" he asks again, softer now.

Elliot nods.

Ben breathes a sigh of relief. "Okay, good," he says. "Izzy'd never say it, but it's really weird inviting a stranger to stay over when you don't even know their name." At Elliot's frown, he adds, "Isn't it? I mean, don't get me wrong, I'm another one of Izzy's lost causes. But at least they knew who I was."

One of Izzy's lost causes. Elliot continues chewing on the tender flesh in his cheek as he the phrasing repeats over and over in his head. The state considered him a lost cause as a child, dropping him off at foster home after foster home and never looking back to see if he was being beaten or starved or raped. He would run away soon afterwards (the streets are cold, but they are familiar), kick around on his own for a few months before being picked up again for truancy, shoplifting, loitering. Rinse and repeat. He never went to high school, but he spent a lot of time in the library. He studied hard for his GED (not that he needed it (it was far easier than anticipated)), thinking college would save him, but it only made him more depressed. It wasn't about unlocking the universe or expanding the mind; college seemed to exist just to churn out workers for the next generation. Bright minds turned to corporate lackeys, scientists selling their souls for funding. Good ideas ignored in favor of bad actors generating profit. Every degree path Elliot went down inevitably became tainted with greed. He'd had a physics professor who worked on the side for fossil fuel bigwigs; a professor of entomology whose entire lab was funded by a pesticide company. Students built climate models to graduate and went on to make financial forecast models for lithium mines. Just the research vessel that carried Elliot to Antarctica emitted more carbon that he would ever save by measuring its vanishing sheets of ice.

Early explorers to the frigid wasteland that is the South Pole were well acquainted with the notion of a lost cause. The Terra Nova expedition was a team of five men (led by Captain Robert Falcon Scott) set out to cross the Ross Ice Shelf and became the second humans to arrive at the South Pole (having arrived to discover they were too late to be the first). The return journey was marred by catastrophic weather and unbearable cold. One man (by the name of Lawrence "Titus" Oates) recognized he was dying (from frostbite, gangrene, hypothermia) and that he was a burden on the rest of the team. As they made camp one night, Titus Oates went for a walk in a blizzard and never returned, but his sacrifice wasn't enough to save the rest. Their bodies and research were recovered the following spring, but Oates was never found.

9

An old, rusted green truck pulls up in front of him, tearing Elliot from his thoughts. Ben wordlessly stacks the new crates into the back while Izzy climbs out of the passenger side, folding their seat forward so he can climb into the back. Elliot remains sitting on the bench, lingering, Antarctica weighing him down like a neutron star.

"Elliot," Ben calls from the truck's doorway. "Let's go." Elliot stands and straightens stiffly; he obediently climbs into the truck's cab. The space is narrow, jump seats folded down from the sides, his knees bumping into Ben’s. Jim drives carefully through potholed city streets, past familiar landmarks (Elliot’s old dorm; a park he’s slept in; a Mexican grocer whose dumpsters are fairly reliable) and beyond, into areas of the city he has rarely visited but still look familiar. Every part of this sprawling metropolitan hellscape looks the same: the buildings (steel and concrete), the landscapes (stunted trees and yellow grass), the people (flesh and blood and occasionally other bits (an omniscient glass orb in place of an eye)). Streets like tarry, diseased veins; parking lots like awful scars.

Jim parks the truck next to a slate-grey, nondescript warehouse and they all pile out onto the cracked sidewalk and start removing the crates full of produce. A handful of volunteers emerge from a side door in the building and help them carry the crates inside, where they are sorted and stacked alongside growing piles of cans, bags, and boxes. Once the crates are emptied, Ben and Jim each grab one and start to refill them with goods they actually need: flour, peanut butter, rice. Elliot would help but he is dragged to the other side of the building by Izzy to stare at racks of clothing (disheveled and worn). It was a free closet like this one that led Elliot to the realization that he was trans; gravitating towards the looser, bulkier clothing not just for comfort and warmth and to blend in (being a girl on the streets is so much more dangerous than being a guy) but because it was actually (truly) who he was.

Elliot's entire wardrobe (everything he'd managed to accumulate over the years) was misplaced (misdirected (lost)) on its way to Antarctica; he'd had to borrow everything (shirts, socks, underwear) from his bunkmate, his advisor, his coworkers. It was humiliating, the whole trip doomed before he even got there, but it was not the first (or probably the last) time that he has lost everything like that. When everything you own fits in a backpack, it's really easy for it all to get taken away from you.

He grinds his teeth together and stares at the donated clothing. At Izzy's insistence, he plucks a couple (long sleeved) shirts off the rack at random. A sweater, another pair of pants, socks. There are no winter coats, but they assure him he can keep the one he is borrowing from Jim. "It's too small for her anyway." No underwear; he'll have to buy some. He folds the clothing and carries the stack clutched to his chest. He'll need to find a backpack, too.

"You're welcome to keep staying with us," Izzy says as they leave, "but is there somewhere else you want to go?" They have evidently decided Elliot is safe to be alone. He shakes his head, wondering if that's true.

Ben is sitting on the wall of the truck bed (signing to Jim, who is leaning against the passenger door) when they exit the warehouse. His fingers move awkwardly and clumsily compared to Jim's fluid gestures. His face is grim until he spots them (sees him); then it lights up. "Elliot!" he says, "Do you want to learn how to finger spell your name?"

Opposite him in the backseats of the truck, he shows Elliot how to curl his fingers up in an "E", extend his finger and thumb for an "L", his pinky for an "I". "O" is obvious but "T" is a fist, thumb tucked between his index and middle fingers. Elliot uses his left hand, trying to ignore the pain in his right.

"But no one ever spells their whole name like that casually. You'd be, like, Elliot, or something." As Ben says his name, he makes the letter E, then brushes his chin with two fingers and grins. "Jim just calls me Bastard," he taps his nose with his bent thumb, fingers straight, "not to be confused with Daddy." He makes nearly the same gesture but higher up, against his forehead, and winks.

"Hey, daddy," Izzy says from the front, and Ben's smirk drops, oddly chagrined. "Are we dropping you off at your place?"

"Yeah, thanks," he says. "I've got Oliver this weekend."

Elliot gives him a curious look, but he doesn't answer it. Oliver sounds like the name of a pet, but they don't generally get weekends at dad's house. Ben seems young to have both a former tattooist boyfriend and custody agreements, but Elliot can't judge; he got knocked up at sixteen. He'd gone to a clinic, endured a cold ultrasound wand up the cunt, waited the mandated 24 hours, taken the pills, cramped out a ton of blood, and moved on with his life. It had seemed like such an ordeal at the time, but (compared to the alternative) trivial now.

Or maybe Oliver really is just a cat. But cats also don't usually play with tricycles, like the one tipped on its side on the scraggly patch of snow covered grass in front of Ben's house. Elliot has to climb out of the truck to let him out, and before climbing back in he is stopped with a hand on his arm.

"Hey," Ben says, "Send me a text, when Izzy hooks you up with a phone." If they hook him up with a phone (if he decides to touch it). "I dunno, an emoji or something," he adds, and Elliot forces himself to nod.

His legs feel like lead weights when they get back to the apartment, and he is grateful for an elevator. Forty stories, he decides, is way too much to climb in one day. The buildings of this city seem like they're constantly getting taller, denser, more prohibitively expensive to even look at. He wonders what Izzy does to be able to afford a decent place downtown; he is assuming it is Izzy (based on the degree in the bathroom), or do semi-pro wrestlers make bank? Regardless, they still made use of An Extra Hand's food bank; he helps Jim put away the vegetables and rice and a carton of eggs. Maybe everything goes to rent.

Drained, Elliot declines lunch and retrieves his book before retiring to his (guest) room. He intends to read it (at least a little) before taking a nap, but ends up passing out nearly as soon as his head hits the pillow.

10

Elliot dreams of blood: pouring out of a glacier, out of his wrists, flooding the streets. He wakes up gasping, sweating, terrified and discombobulated. Where is he? A strange room, a stranger's apartment. He is soaked in sweat and takes a shower, quick because the water never heats up. No, it's icy cold, like snowmelt itself. Elliot shaved his head in Antarctica before a polar plunge: jumping through a hole in the ice into below-freezing saltwater (just for fun). That cold.

He can't find Izzy or Jim in the apartment; he knocks on the door to their bedroom, but no response. The elevator is out and Elliot groans, the sound echoing through the silent hallway, fluorescent lights flickering overhead. He finds the stairwell and begins his descent; never mind, his legs must be ripped by now.

Down

Down

Downstairs, through an empty lobby, out to eerily empty streets. No traffic, no pedestrians, not a rat or heroin needle in sight. No drones in the air, no pollution spewing smokestacks. The sky is the grey of snow, but no flakes fall. He trudges through the streets, which do not take him where he expects (or anywhere at all), just wind endlessly in loops around identical soulless buildings.

He is completely alone.

He returns to the apartment building but finds the lobby door locked, has to climb onto the fire escape from the lid of a dumpster. He climbs

and climbs

and climbs

and climbs

and climbs

and climbs

Eventually reaching the greenhouse on the roof.

It is on fire.

Elliot whirls around; plumes of smoke rise up from nearly every building, as though every one has a burning greenhouse beacon on top.

He walks to the edge of the roof. He's still dreaming, of course; Elliot may feel alone, but he's not this alone. Where are the cars? The birds? Izzy and Jim? He leans over the edge, looking down at the pavement twenty stories below. He is going to jump, but he is interrupted by a sound: sharp, piercing scream, shrill and filled with terror.

Coming from the greenhouse.

Elliot is standing in the entrance before he realizes it (skin burning) trying to see through a hot wall of orange flames and smoke. A child is screaming inside. He reaches in and his flesh instantly sears, boiling cooking charring pain. I thought you can't feel pain in dreams, he thinks. The screaming grows, echoing, filling the air as though it is pouring out of the sky itself. He takes a step inside, then another. The flames feel thick, viscous, like walking through lava. He is dying, he thinks. Finally. He finds the source of the screams near the back of the greenhouse, crouched on top of the box marked "BUG": a toddler, covered in blood.

11

Elliot wakes up to blue eyes, sparkling above him; a sharp pinch inside his left arm. He groans and tries to move away but his arms are dead weights beside him. Something extraordinarily dense sits on his chest. He looks back at the eyes. Ben's eyes, his concerned face hovering over him, his hand on Elliot's forehead.

"Hey," he says. "You've got a fever, an infection. Don't worry, I was a nurse. You'll be okay."

Elliot blinks at him. Was? Ben holds up an IV bag that is attached to a long tube, ending in his arm. "Look at this. Fluids and antibiotics. Hospitals are experiencing shortages of this shit. Izzy's underground network is amazing."

If hospitals need it, they should take it, Elliot thinks. He wants to pull out the needle in his arm, but his other hand is dead, rotting, decayed, bone peeking through gangrenous flesh.

No.

He lifts it with tremendous effort and stares at the wiry black threads holding his wrist together. It's a little red and swollen, oozing translucent yellow pus. His fingers are limp, but fleshy and alive.

"You're okay," Ben says again, gently pushing his arm back down onto the bed. Out of sight, it burns in agony. "I taught Izzy how to do those," he says, grinning, "I would've done a better job."

Elliot's eyes roll over to the doorway, where a child is standing, wide-eyed, (not) covered in blood. He makes a sound like a yelp, deep in his throat. Ben looks behind him, says, "Go on, Ollie, I'll be right out." Turning back to Elliot, he says once again, "You're okay." Who is he trying to convince?, Elliot wonders. "You should rest."

He closes his eyes and when he opens them again he is alone. His mouth is dry, his throat raw like sandpaper. There is a glass of water next to his bed and he reaches for it clumsily, arm still bound by a flexible plastic tube. He takes a sip then some more; the water soothes his throat but sends his stomach churning. He lays back against the pillows and lifts his wrist to look at it; it's been re-bandaged, not rotting or decaying at all. A wave of nausea flows over him and he makes himself sit up, afraid he's about to puke.

Jim walks in, looking surprised to see him. She pulls out a screen and quickly types, "How are you feeling?"

Elliot shrugs, his stomach clenching. He pushes the blanket back and swings his feet around so he is sitting on the edge of the bed and sighs. He looks at the needle in his arm and tries to peel up the corner of the taping holding it down. Jim places one enormous hand on his, shakes her head. "Izzy will take that out" she types. The bag it is attached to is mostly deflated and Elliot has to pee out at least a liter of saline. The sharp ache in his bladder might be contributing to his nausea. He tries to stand but spots swim in his vision, his head light, and he sits back down with a fwomp.

Jim gives him a concerned look and he tries to remember the letters. T, O, I - by the time he stumbles through the L, Jim is nodding, making a sign that must (hopefully) mean toilet. She helps him stand, keeps him balanced through his first few stumbling steps until he remembers how to walk. He carries the nearly empty IV bag with him to the bathroom and wishes he could take a shower. The pain in his stomach eases and he manages not to puke. His hands are trembling and his brain feels foggy but at least he's not thinking about fucking Antarctic.

Jim is still standing in the hallway as he emerges. She holds out her phone: "how do you feel about ice cream?"

She can't know this, but Elliot loved ice cream. There had been an ice cream truck in the neighborhood at one of the foster homes Elliot had lived in, very early on. The driver had been a grizzled old man with a bear tattoo on his forearm and a rainbow flag pinned to his jean jacket. He would always give Elliot a free ice cream when the other kids got treats but he was left out. Eventually the truck was replaced by a vending machine that had to be broken to be persuaded to be charitable. It was worth the risk; he really loved ice cream.

Loved. Ice cream was pretty much the only thing Elliot ate in Antarctica; the research station was packed full of it. His appetite for it has since diminished. He is sitting in his bed, quietly examining a spoonful of the stuff (Neapolitan) when Izzy comes in.

"You're up!" they say chipperly. Their glass eye scans over him, analyzing. He can't see it or anything, he just knows. "You're looking a thousand times better than you were yesterday." Elliot shrugs. His eyes slide over to the clock next to his bed. Its the afternoon; how long was he out? "You had a rockin' fever. Ben was worried about sepsis. You'll be on antibiotics for a few more days, but you'll be fine." He takes a bite of ice cream to avoid answering. "You want that out?" Izzy gestures towards the IV line and Elliot nods, extending his arm out. "You were talking yesterday," they remark as they work and he tenses, needle pinching more as it slides from his skin. "Nothing coherent. Something about ice and blood and not going back. But, like, cat's out of the bag now. We know you can talk." They peer at him, looking for a response that doesn't come, and sigh. "I've been looking into you. It was really easy once I had your name. You're, like, the most secretly decorated student at Tech." E. Galloway is listed as (co-)author of at least a dozen different research papers in nearly as many different departments, but he still doesn't (technically) have a degree.

Elliot takes another bite of ice cream, ignoring them.

"I could get into your student records," they suggest. "Figure out who your advisor was, contact them." Their words carry the weight of a threat but it is not their intention. He forces himself not to react. "I'm not going to," they conclude. "I think I've already violated your privacy enough. I just think you're interesting. Here," they pull out a cell phone, "It's jailbreaked. No tracking, no Big Brother network." Elliot eyes the blank screen warily. "Ben's requested you send him a 'thumbs up' when you're feeling better."

A text is one thing, but the device is so much more than a phone; Elliot has been avoiding the news like a dead thing. He wants to live in a quiet little bubble where nothing happens and nothing changes. He also wants to send a text to Ben, whose gentle touch he only distantly remembers, like a dream. What would he say? Thanks for saving my life. Could've asked first.

No.

He puts aside the half eaten ice cream and leans back against the bed. He does not understand why it is so hard to make himself talk. Isn't that supposed to be a fundamental aspect of humanity; a desire to be communicate, to be social? The semester he studied child development, he watched trial after trial of tiny international preschoolers working together despite language barriers to solve puzzles for rewards. When he was studying biology, he watched rats do roughly the same thing. Ants, too; any semi-social animal is going to find a way to work together with its peers.

Even Elliot. He finds Ben's name already in the contacts and sends him a thumbs up emoji. He uninstalls the news app, while he's at it; doing so eases the weight on his chest, and he pulls the bowl of ice cream back to his lap, ravenous.

Ben's response comes within a few minutes. He sends texts one sentence at a time, making the phone buzz rapidfire on repeat.

Oh good

I was worried

I had to take my kid home but I was gonna come back tonight to check on u

I still can, if u want?

The flood of texts is mentally exhausting. Elliot just responds with another thumbs up.

12

It is hard not to feel like he is being babysat when Ben arrives as Izzy and Jim are readying to go out. "It's karaoke night at Charlie's," Izzy explains (not elaborating on who or what Charlie is). "Ben needs to drink less and you need to rest. Do you even have an ID?" Elliot shakes his head and shrugs. "We can fix that. I know a guy." Something stirs behind him and their face lights up. Jim has emerged from their room; she is dressed up like a gothic queen (dark makeup and long black dress), glowing and absolutely gorgeous.

Karaoke, Elliot muses. He wonders how Jim even enjoys it. He almost regrets missing out on it.

Almost, but not really, because Elliot doesn't want to go out. Ever? Something suddenly sounds terribly appealing about the idea of staying in that bed forever and ever. If he can't die, he can stop talking, stop moving, stop breathing.

Except that Ben is here, pulling up a movie on his laptop. The first of a trilogy of films based on the novel (green cover) Elliot has recently finished reading; however they managed to stretch the short book out into three whole movies. A bowl of popcorn sits between them. Ben has a tattoo of an insect on his right forearm, some sort of rainbow beetle with a long horn that Elliot tries to identify based on glimpses caught when he extends his arm into the bowl. It is one of the better pieces exhibited; the artist definitely improved over the years. Assuming it's the same person.

He sends Ben a string of emojis: a rainbow, a pile of poop, a beetle. The notification makes him jump, and he stares at the text for too long, a look of complete confusion. Then he laughs and twists his arm to look at the tattoo. "You're right," Ben says, "Rainbow dung beetle." He extends his arm out so Elliot can see the others. He really did consent to being a human doodle pad. Stars, an ace of spades, a grinning hotdog, a green olive with a red pit. Elliot brushes his finger against this last one, crammed on top of the wrist.

"My kid's name is Oliver," Ben explains, "so that one's kind of obvious."

Elliot spreads out four fingers, his guess for the age of the kid he is only relatively certain he didn't hallucinate in the doorway.

"No, Jesus, I only have the one." Ben laughs at Elliot's confused face, then adds, "He's five, but he's tiny, so that's a good guess."

Elliot knows plenty about five year olds (academically speaking) but in practice they are chaotic and loud and often smelly. He never wanted any; he got sterilized at twenty. He certainly wouldn't know how to parent one, having no real positive (or negative) role model to emulate. He doesn't have anything against kids; he just doesn't have a lot to say to them.

Or to adults, apparently. Ben retracts his colorfully inked arm and focuses more intently on the dwarf shenanigans on the screen in front of them. Elliot tries to focus as well but his brain is sluggish and drowsy and weary, body depleted from infection. This time he is the one who doesn't make it to the end of the movie, sleeping straight through the credits. He wakes to Izzy and Jim's inebriated return, exuberant conversations coming from the kitchen turning lowered and tense. He uncurls, pushing the blanket (Ben must have draped it on him) to the couch, and stretches.

"Shit, did we wake you?" Izzy asks when Elliot appears in the doorway. Jim is leaning against the counter, her arms wrapped around them, while Ben sits opposite looking glum. "We were supposed to quietly sneak to bed," they add while signing. Jim smirks and signs something in response.

"Please, feel free to stay up longer and continue berating me," Ben grumbles. "At least I know Elliot won't join in."

"I'm just trying to help."

"Okie dokie."

Izzy sighs and leans up to kiss Jim. "Alright, bed. Goodnight guys."

Elliot watches Ben as they leave (brushing past him, stumbling, giggling). He holds up his left hand, finger and thumb in a ring, the other fingers splayed. The universal sign for "okay"; a question or a statement.

"I'm fine," Ben answers, trying to smile. "Izzy's just super fond of hard truths late at night." His eyes are rimmed red, as though he had been crying.

Elliot glances at the green LED display on the stove; it's after midnight. His sleep schedule is all sorts of fucked up. This has been true since the solstice, that midnight sun that refused to rest. The silence stretches between them.

"You going to bed too?" he finally asks. Elliot shakes his head. "You want to head to the roof?" A nod. Ben's face grows wary. "Promise not to go near the edge?"

Few stars make it through the thick smog of light and light scattering pollution. When he studied physics he'd gone to an observatory high on top a mountain to take pictures of the sky without all the interference of city lights. It can take hours of exposure to get a visible photograph of a distant galaxy, long enough that its position will have moved through the sky and the telescope has to rotate to follow it. It all made Elliot realize how unfathomably far away everything is. Like him, Earth is surrounded by stars, but increasingly alone. Everything in the universe is expanding, those distant galaxies falling away from him at breakneck speeds.

Next to him, Ben is gazing around at the city lights. No, he's watching Elliot, their eyes meeting when he glances over. He smiles, eyes twinkling like the snow. Red and blue lights behind him distract Elliot and his focus switches to the distant highway. He remembers the interaction with a cop (his near arrest) like a long ago memory, though it has only been a few days. How different would things be if he had successfully been arrested?

"I'd appreciate it if you didn't tell anyone about my moonlighting activities," Ben says suddenly, randomly. "Practicing medicine underground is a good way to lose your license."

Elliot frowns and shakes his head. Who would he even tell?

"I got fired a couple weeks ago," he admits, "I, uh, punched a cop." Elliot's face involuntarily splits into a wide grin, and Ben laughs. "He thought planting evidence on a patient was more important than treatment," he continues, "so he deserved it. But my prospects for future employment are kind of grim."

A frown, a nod. Elliot feels inadequate for this discussion, even if he could respond in any meaningful way. He recently walked away from a full scholarship (food, housing, tuition) on his own free will.

"Izzy wants me to go private, for entirely self-serving purposes. Jim thinks I should work for a free clinic or something. The first is gross. I don't wanna treat, like, some rich housewife's STDs or Botox infections. The second wouldn't pay for the bus ticket there." Ben sniffs and looks up towards the musty sky. "I'm kind of jealous of you," he says. Looking back down, he finds Elliot watching him. "It must be nice to be able to just shut yourself off from the world."

A lead weight drops in Elliot's stomach, and he takes a step back. His offense must show on his face, because Ben scrambles to backtrack (poorly). "I mean, like, if I decided not to talk -"

Elliot turns and walks away, towards the roof exit. Shut himself off, indeed.

13

Elliot tries to talk in the shower, fans turned on high and the spray of water drowning out all sounds from the surrounding apartments. There are neighbors (surely), dozens, hundreds of people all living in this building whom Elliot has never met nor even seen. He tries to say, "Hi." He tries to hum. He tries to yell, to shout, to whisper. All sounds gets caught up in his throat. He signs, "toilet Elliot" with his left hand because his right doesn't want to do anything at the moment. He flips himself the bird and mouths the word "fuck." He considers the accusation that offended him so: shut off from the world. He had been trying to kill himself so maybe closed off is a reasonable compromise.

But why can't he fucking talk? He would rather vomit.

During breakfast (oatmeal (sweet and dotted with juicy berries)), he sits apart from the others, watching fat flakes of snow falling outside the window while Izzy describes a hallucination they had at the bar the night before.

"It was like a cat with the head of a toad. It was actually kind of cute, but it had, like, hundreds of tiny, razor sharp teeth." The creature had sat on the bar top near the register; when someone dropped a bill into the tip jar, it would bite invisibly at their hand.

"Could you feel it?" Ben asks. Aside from a text this morning (I'm sorry (such a rarity)), he has been vaguely distant since last night. Elliot ought to reply (with what, a thumbs up?), but he is not entirely sure what the apology is for (who apologizes for anything anymore?).

Izzy shrugs. "Tingling. I was probably imaging it."

Elliot tries, but fails, to not look bewildered at the exchange. Ben catches his eye, looking amused.

"Have you explained these hallucinations to Elliot?" he asks.

They shrug. "He never asked."

Elliot frowns. He remembers an offhand remark about Jim's implant causing hallucinations (she'd ripped it out), but nothing about Izzy's. Even if he was speaking, he'd have to know enough to know to ask.

"Officially, they're artifacts of the sensory processing algorithm," Izzy explains. "But I tore this thing apart and put it back together with paper clips and chewing gum and I'm still seeing them. Most people didn't get them at all. It depended a lot on the type of implant. Jim used to just hear screaming. I see monsters."

"Mine's a vicious crow with too many teeth," Ben chimes in cheerfully. "Not sure what that's supposed to mean. I feel like any amount of teeth is too many teeth for a crow."

Izzy nods carefully. "Pretty much everyone's got some monster or another haunting them."

Elliot places his hand on his chest, trying to convey the question (mine?), but they shake their head.

"They're meaningless," they insist strangely, "not even real."

Their evasiveness just makes Elliot wonder even more what haunts him. Probably a fucking penguin.

14

It is questions that are the downfall of Elliot's communications block, at least partially; endless questions from an endlessly curious person that pile up unanswered until they threaten to drown him. He carefully expands his vocabulary from smiley faces to individual words, like a baby developing social skills, until he is finally able to write out the sentence, "what haunts me". He sends the text to Izzy and they track him down to respond in person.

"Nothing," they explain, "There's nothing at all around you. It's actually kind of weird."

Over the next few weeks, Elliot carefully carves out a tenuous place for himself in the apartment that he feels vaguely like he is haunting. He learns Izzy owns the place outright after they refuse to take the last of his cash for the umpteenth time. "There's no rent and the food you're eating grows freely on the roof. What do you think you're paying for?"

Elliot is not accustomed to existing in places without demanding some sort of financial transaction. College was expensive, even if it was some organization that was paying for it. Most of his scholarships had come with employment requirements: he'd been a janitor, worked at the cafeteria, spent a year as an RA counseling homesick freshman through tears and apprehensions. He worked at the campus daycare and spent a summer mowing grass and trimming trees. He preferred the research fellowships: grunt work in a lab or field work under hostile conditions. He was really good at it.

Was.

Nothing he did then makes him particularly qualified to enter the workforce now. He helps Izzy and Jim with their abundance of mutual aid projects instead; as long as he keeps busy, he doesn't think too much about things. In addition to gathering produce, they make and distribute bagged lunches at the nearby park several days a week. Izzy hosts an electronics repair clinic twice a month; one weekend it's a sewing circle, mending the crap that gets thoughtlessly donated despite holes and stains and tatters. One day in February they mask up and spend a morning at a free vaccine clinic; Elliot silently directs the huffy, slow moving line one by one behind a curtain where Ben and other volunteers jab them with the latest flu shot.

"Happy Valentine's Day." Elliot winces as Ben pokes the thin needle into his bicep and presses the plunger. It is the end of the day and Elliot is exhausted. He is particularly tired of the sound of people coughing; everyone here is doomed, he thinks. Masks and vaccines be damned. Ben presses a band aid over the tiny spot of blood on his arm and continues, "Any hot dates tonight?"

A silent snort of laughter, hidden away by a mask. Elliot shakes his head and points. You?

"I'm taking Ollie ice skating this afternoon. You want to come with? You could actually meet him for real."

Elliot has met Oliver a handful of times already. Once, when he was feverish and delirious in his bed (dying of infection) and had hallucinated blood all over the child standing in the doorway. Another time Oliver had been asleep, passed out on the couch in Ben's house, when he and Jim stopped by to drop off groceries. Most recently he'd run across them by accident, out with an older couple, and Ben had looked so terribly uncomfortable that Elliot quickly shuffled past, barely acknowledging them.

Elliot nods (accepting the invitation), a sudden anxiety tightening in his chest. He pulls on his coat, struggling with the zipper; though his wrist has mostly healed (Ben removed the stitches weeks ago), his fingers are still awkward and clumsy. He's used to it (mostly), but sometimes he wakes up in the middle of the night with his hand on fire, hot red fire ants crawling under his skin. He could do without that.

He agrees to meet them at the skating pond; "Not that I have anything against you meeting my in-laws," Ben claims (it is only partially true), "I just highly recommend you... not." He has a tense relationship with his in-laws, who have full custody of his kid.

This is what Elliot knows from weeks of (mostly texted) single sided conversations: Ben's partner, the tattoo artist, was trans (does he have a type?). He died of the flu when Oliver was only two. They were too young to have a baby in the first place and his in-laws had a much better lawyer than Ben. He's got a black mark on his record (DUI) and a continuing problem with alcohol. He has to fight to spend time with his kid, but "Ollie's probably better off this way, right?"

Elliot doesn't have any strong opinions about the arrangement (he has no place to judge), but he can see it makes Ben miserable. And (despite everything) he does have feelings about Ben; confusing, heart wrenching ones made ever more complicated by his continuing inability to talk or even communicate more than three words at a time. By his ever lingering desire to just not exist anymore.

The ice skating rink is a frozen pond at a park near Ben's house. As a kid, he remembers loitering outside the fenced-off area, trying to look innocuous as he waited for a family to abandon half a bag of kettle corn, or for half a coffee (too bitter) to be left perched on the edge of a trash bin. He never went inside (the exorbitant skate rental fee too far out of reach). Now the pond is barely alive: the snack stand shut down, bring your own skates. The far edge of the pond is closed off (bright flashes of orange cones, yellow caution tape); the ice is too thin and melting. A scattering of people glide around beneath a cold blue sky.

A voice from behind him: "Elliot, hey!" Ben has arrived, two pairs of skates draped around his neck and a very small copy of himself in tow. Oliver has the same sky blue eyes, brown hair poking out under an orange and yellow winter hat, a miniature pair of skates in his hands. He regards Elliot solemnly when they are introduced ("my friend") then runs past him to a bench where he immediately pulls off his boots.

"I think these will fit you." Ben hands over the extra pair of skates, which are just half a size too big. "Do you know how to skate?"

Elliot shrugs. He'd learned a few weeks ago, in the world's greatest ice rink (for now). He wasn't great, but he probably wouldn't fall straight on his ass.

Ben helps Oliver tie his skates before sitting down to pull on his own, and Elliot watches the kid race onto the ice, cutting through it like a pro. "He's been doing this since before he could walk," he explains, chuckling at Elliot's (astonished) face. "He used to have this, like, tiny walker thing he would hold himself up and slide around with."

Elliot follows him out onto the pond, the cold shhk shhk sound of blade on ice. Oliver zooms past and Ben holds his hand out to get his attention. "Hey, don't go past halfway, okay?" He nods and races off, evidently no more inclined to speak than Elliot. They make slow, lazy circles in the ice, staying well away from the caution tape. Ben is better than he is and enjoys showing off, skating circles around Elliot.

"I have to admit," he says, "I was kind of hoping you would suck at this." He pushes ahead and turns around skating backwards in front of him. "I was gonna be like, 'no worries, I'll keep you on your feet,'" he winks, "'Just hold my hand.'"

Oliver zooms past and Elliot's skates choose that moment to find a gouge in the ice and send him sprawling.

Well, at least he didn't immediately fall on his ass. He stares at the sky for just a second, trying to catch his breath. Ben and his tiny identical clone stand over him, faces a mixture of bemused and concerned.

"Did you die?" Oliver asks, utterly serious.

Ben chuckles, reaching out to help him up. "You okay?" he asks.

Elliot nods, brushing flakes of shredded ice off his coat. His wrist twinges, but the already crappy one, so whatever. He holds it cradled up to his chest as he skates a few more circles (mostly to show the kid he is not, in fact, dead), then retires to a bench on the side of the pond near the caution tape. He watches Ben race his son; when he catches up, he picks Oliver up and twirls him (giggling) around in circles. He watches birds flitter between branches in a nearby tree. He watches soft, puffy clouds float past high above.

Elliot's attention is grabbed by a familiar, heart stopping sound: a deep, low crackling noise, the microscopic version of a noise that haunts his dreams. A group has gotten too close to the closed end, and the ice is crackling beneath them. Perhaps they don't even realize it; it's a subtle sound, one that could easily be ignored. The ice is not breaking (not yet), but weakening, tiny microfractures building in the thinning sheet. Maybe, possibly, hopefully even probably, the group is too small to break through accidentally. But Oliver, emboldened by their proximity to the yellow tape, is skating wider and wider circles, well over the halfway point designated by Ben.

More crackling. This time they must notice it; but the group is a bunch of teenagers. They don't care, they're trying to set it off. Ben is on the opposite side of the pond and Oliver keeps skating closer, possibly to investigate the laughter rising up from the teens. Elliot scrambles to intercept him as one of the teens' skates finally breaks through near the edge, soaking his foot and setting off the thousands of microfractures surrounding the initially shoe-sized hole. He reaches Oliver (frozen (confused (scared))) as the teens rush past them, pushing yelling and rough, and drags him away. A fissure is forming in the ice behind them, swallowing up more chunks of crumbling ice that was (until very recently) occupied by a five year old. The crackling grinding creaking shattering chaos echos through his ears as he drags the kid by his coat away from the growing collapse. Ben finally catches up with them and sweeps his kid up in his arms. "You're okay, it's okay," he says, because Oliver is crying. And: "thank you so much." This is directed to Elliot, who can only shrug.

15

Elliot burns his tongue on a hot mocha, watching from inside a warm coffee shop as Ben buckles a tired looking Oliver (face smeared from a chocolate cake pop) into the backseat of his in-laws car. He stands there for a while longer, listening to the other occupants of the car with a neutral look on his face which turns irritated when it drives away. It remains so as he returns inside, though he tries to hide it.

"I can't believe I try to take you on a date and you end up having to save my kid," Ben grumbles, thumping heavily down into the chair cross from him.

A date? Elliot grins. People are on dates all around them; it's Valentine's Day evening, the cafe packed full of flirting couples and hopeful faces. They have flowers and chocolates and condoms in their wallets.

"I'd ask for a second chance, take you somewhere more exciting, but I'm broke. I guess I could take you out to dinner at the food kitchen." That is where Izzy and Jim are spending their Valentine's Day: serving hot cooked meals to the homeless.

Elliot has never been on a date. He's never been the type. Getting laid is easy enough without it; especially in college (even in Antarctica). But Ben is obviously the type; he's the long-term commitment, white picket fence, wear your love on your sleeve type. The tragically widowed by twenty type. And Elliot (really) likes him, regardless.

Ben's phone dings, and he glances at the screen for a moment before groaning and swiping the notification away. "And now they just canceled my shift." Ben is recently employed through Nursr (what he calls "Uber for nurses"); an app that lets hospitals pluck from a pool of hungry and desperate medical workers to fill much needed gaps in their scheduling. Nurses like Ben have to bid for shifts, which are liable to get canceled at the last minute, and are subject to upvotes and downvotes from doctors and patients alike based on their performance.

It's not great.

He looks particularly distressed now, head resting heavily in his hands, propped up on the table. Elliot nudges his knee with his own and he looks up, meeting his eyes. He leans over the table and plants a gentle, chaste kiss on Ben's lips. It was a gamble, but his face relaxes and he smiles. "You wanna come to my place? I'm not as good a cook as Jim, but I'm not bad."

Ben's place is a squat, square box (surrounded by identical squat, square boxes) with two bedrooms and a large, open space in the front; combination kitchen, dining room, living space. It is neat and sterile and looks like the models used to sell new homes; Elliot used to sleep in one at night (the furniture was all fake (the bed a cardboard box) but at least it was warm).

Only the refrigerator shows signs of life, the doors decorated with crowded, overlapping child drawings. Some of the subjects are identifiable (most are not) but they are all prominently displayed regardless of quality. A single photograph of a toddler Oliver and his other parent sticks out near one corner. Facial hair (a thin mustache and whispy goatee) suggests he was a better trans-man than Elliot (where would he even get HRT?).

"Sam," Ben says, startling him. "We were high school sweethearts." He gently pushes past to open the fridge, pulling out a beer, which he offers to Elliot, then another for himself. He cracks them open while waiting for the water to boil; Ben is making pasta primavera while Elliot stands awkwardly in his way in the middle of the kitchen. He gestures towards the knife, offering to cut the vegetables, and there is a prolonged, uncomfortable stillness between them as Ben weighs his options. "Yeah, okay," he finally says, placing the knife on the cutting board and stepping back. "Thanks." He takes a deep drink from his beer and pretends not to be watching over Elliot's handling of the knife.

Ben's relationship with alcohol, he has learned over the weeks, is problematic: a habit picked up when his partner died which he has no real inclination to let go of, despite Izzy's attempts at intervention. It is a great shadow (a monster hanging over him (a crow with too many teeth)) that is absolutely fucking up his life. He lost custody of his son because of it (drunk driving with a kid in the backseat is probably the dumbest thing Elliot has ever heard (especially since most cars are automated now)). He is certainly wasting money he doesn't have on it. He should get help for it, in the same way that Elliot's continued suicidal ideation is something he should seek help for.

Should almost never means can, or will; at least not until it matters. Elliot finishes chopping the vegetables then grabs his own beer (mostly untouched) and dumps it down the sink. When he turns around, Ben is watching him, eyes narrowed.

"You could've just said no."

Elliot shrugs.

16

He ruined the night, but not enough to end it right there; not until later, after they've eaten and he helps Ben clean up and load the dishwasher. After they've kissed and touched and screwed around a bit on the couch, which makes it all so much worse. After Ben has pulled back and realized, "You're a really great guy, but..."

A crackling sound like breaking ice fills his head as Elliot sits cross legged on the couch, clenching and unclenching his fist because doing so sends a sharp shock of pain up his wrist. He listens to Ben rambling as he considers his options. A bus and train, probably; he doesn't want to have to text Jim, ruin hers and Izzy's night too.

"I feel like you know everything about me," Ben is saying, "I know, like, nothing about you." He's got a point; emojis and head shakes are hardly the foundation for a meaningful relationship. Elliot flexes the fingers on his good hand, watches the tendons swim under his skin. "Come on, man, don't be like this," Ben says.

Be like what?, Elliot wonders. He stands walks out the front door.

"Stop, Elliot. Fuck!" Ben says behind him. He grabs at his arm and Elliot stares at his hand blankly. "Just, let me call Izzy, okay?"

He shakes his head and offers a look that hopefully conveys the absurdity of the suggestion. It's Valentine's Day, for fuck's sake. He pulls his arm away and continues walking down the path. Ben is delayed (has to put in his shoes and grab his coat) and has to run to catch up with him. He tries to pass over the coat Elliot opted to leave behind, but he ignores it. The frigid air bites at his skin and his mouth tastes like blood. It reminds him of Antarctica.

Because Ben is following him, he takes the right bus, the right train, the right stop. He walks along the right streets and enters the right building. They ride in uncomfortable silence up to the seventeenth floor, arrive to an empty apartment. Elliot ignores Ben lingering indecisively at the door and walks straight to his room, crawls into his bed, and wishes he were dead. He decides, he already is dead. He bled to death weeks ago on the rooftop. Now he's just waiting to catch up.

Ben tries to talk to him.

Izzy tries to talk to him.

Jim comes in and gestures at him.

Izzy tries to talk to him again. They open the curtains in his room, even though they hate light as much as he does right now. They leave and come back. Leave and come back. Time marches ever forward but with Elliot to observe it the numbers are all meaningless.

Finally, Jim comes in and scoops him out of his bed like a little baby, carries him to the bathroom, and drops him into the running shower, clothes and all. The water is icy cold like an Arctic blast, like a punch in the chest. His clothes stick to his skin and hang heavy and laden from his body as he steps out of the shower, sloshing massive puddles all over the floor. He wants to go outside but Jim is standing guard outside the open bathroom door.

"What the fuck," he says (out loud!), and she doesn't respond because she can't hear him. For some reason he finds this inordinately funny, and he collapses to the linoleum floor in a fit of gut cramping laughter which rapidly turns into sobs.

17

On the solstice, the longest (endless) day of the year in Antarctica, Elliot could only watch in helpless horror as the massive glacier he'd been studying started calving - the technical term for when a glacier gives birth (or dies), shedding millions of tons of crumbling ice at all at once. For well over an hour, several miles of glacier poured into the Southern Ocean from one of the last remaining ice shelves on the continent. This would have been devastating by itself (an inevitability predicted by decades of climate research); but the event triggered a tsunami days later that ravaged a coastal town in New Zealand, killing thousands. The tsunami caused a landslide that went ahead and killed a couple thousand more.

After his world collapsed in front of his eyes, Elliot had walked back into the research station where his advisor was joking and laughing about it, the ground still rumbling beneath their feet.

"Guess you probably want in on that Chevron deal after all, huh?" Dr. Smithers had mocked. He and Elliot had long clashed over their ethical differences, and accepting fossil fuel funds under the guise of research was a line Elliot had no intention of going near. He decked his advisor instead; a sucker punch straight to the nose. He’d earned a (weak, confused) punch to the mouth in return and spent most of his last weeks in Antarctica in the brig, because every time they tried to let him out he would break something. He went home and decided to kill himself and failed. Now he's laying in a puddle on someone's bathroom floor half sobbing, half laughing hysterically.

"Do you always take breakups this poorly?" Izzy asks condescendingly. They tower over him on the floor, a unique change in perspective.

"Fuck off," he mutters. His voice sounds weird after all this time locked in his head.

"At least now you're talking, I -"

"Shut up, for fuck's sake," Elliot interrupts. "You think people actually like hearing your voice half as much as you do?"

They offer a wry smile but say nothing more, watching him as he scrambles to his feet, pushing past them and into his room. He changes into dry clothes and pulls on his shoes under Izzy's watchful eye. There is the matter of getting past Jim (towering in the library), who could kill him in a hundred different ways with her bare hands but won't, because that would be counterproductive. "What, are you holding me hostage now?"

Izzy shrugs and steps aside. "Don't forget your phone."

Elliot was going to leave it; he has no need for it at all. But on their advice he picks up the device and drops it in his pocket. He will pawn it later.

"Where are you headed?" they try asking, following him into the library.

"None of your fucking business."

"You can stay here -"

"Fuck off!" Elliot shouts; his body shouts. He feels like a detached observer, watching himself burn yet another bridge. "You think you're fucking helping here? All this fucking mutual aid and you think you're actually making a difference? Go touch the homeless for a couple hours and wait until you can get back home to your nice all-expenses paid high rise before patting yourself on the back for all the good, hard work you've done. Make sure you wash your fucking hands first." He swipes at a nearby shelf full of books; he doesn't expect the entire bookshelf to topple over in an enormous clatter, but it does, the sound echoing through his skull like ice. Never mind; he has to keep going. "Congrats, you can feed like five whole people with that greenhouse up there! How many people are there in this building alone who don't know when their next fucking meal is going to be?" He stops, abruptly, because Izzy looks like they might actually have an answer to that. He steps over the ruined bookshelf, papers sprawled and broken. Neither they, nor Jim, nor Ben (who has evidently been watching the whole time (Elliot hadn't even noticed he was here)) make any move to stop him when he leaves.

. . .

Elliot doesn't mind being homeless. He's been homeless for most of his life; he's used to it. He doesn't mind being hungry or cold (though he fucking hates the snow). He doesn't mind the pain in his wrist or the fact that he stinks, the same clothes he was wearing when he left Izzy's apartment clinging to him with sweat and grime.

But now, he is invisible, and something about that is almost unbearable.

What changed? He used to wield his invisibility like a superpower. Now it just feels pathetic.

When a cold snap hits and it gets too cold to even breathe the smog filled air, he finds an unnecessarily tall building and tells the security guard in the lobby he's with An Extra Hand. He climbs thousands (millions (billions)) of stairs to get to the roof, where a sturdy greenhouse stands insulated under a blanket of snow, real plants potted in real soil hundreds of feet in the sky.

Elliot eats a raw carrot, dirt gritting between his teeth. He recognizes that he is cheating now: in a not so roundabout way he is still living off Izzy's charity. As prolific as they are around here, there might be no hiding from it. He stays in the greenhouse because it is the furthest thing from a city, dead in the middle of it.

One morning, he hides inside a cabinet, holding his breath as Ben (alone) fills crates full of what Elliot has (illogically) come to mentally refer to as his food. It is obvious he has been here, even if he is not caught today; he has not made any effort to keep the greenhouse clean or organized. His coat is just sitting there next to the door. He'd knocked over a planter pot and spilled the whole thing on the floor so he could sit in the dirt.

When the cold snap (polar vortex (Arctic bomb)) finally subsides, Elliot decides, he'll pawn his phone and use the cash to buy a bus ticket to somewhere that doesn't get snow (or ice).

18

"You fucking asshole."

Elliot was waiting for a bus to take him to the station when someone (Ben) grabs his shoulder, spinning him around, and plants his fist into his left jawbone with an utterly astonishing cracking noise. Elliot stumbles backwards, vision blurring in pain, his mouth filling with blood. He lands in the snow, on the wrong hand so it feels like his wrist is splitting open again. He squints up at Ben (a face of rage); Jim stands behind him, hovering. Without her intervention, maybe he would be kicking the shit out of Elliot right now.

If only he knew why.

Elliot spits blood into the snow. "Did you hit your ex like that?" he asks. "Smack around your kid-" Jim must have been able to read his lips, because she lets Ben get a couple more kicks in before pulling him back, signing irritably with the other hand. Elliot lays back on the sidewalk, wet snow soaking into his back, and stares at the puke-orange brown evening sky, trying to catch his breath, ribs twinging. He laughs. He'd been holding out all this time for a painless death, but this isn't that bad. He could deal with this, especially if he knew it was terminal. "You going to finish the job?" he asks.

Ben glares down at him, face torn between angry and utterly flabbergasted. "You're fucking psychotic."

"Yeah." Elliot sits up (now his ribs are screaming) and wipes blood, snot, and spit off his face. "What do you want?"

It takes a while to get a clear answer, between Ben's anger and Jim's hopeless signing: Izzy is missing, and they are assuming Elliot has something to do with it. The whole time he knew them, everyone had assumed he had done something wrong. Something bad enough to drive him to suicide, his silence a consequence of shame, or fear, or self-disgust. He's a dick so he must have sold out Izzy and their eye implant to some black market dealer or to the child of DataLess itself (Ikarus, Inc).

"I haven't done anything," he insists for the thousandth time. "Who would I even talk to about it?"

Anyone. Everyone. No one ever knew who he was, because he never revealed anything about himself. He let them believe he was desperate and destitute when he'd actually given up fucking around in heated dorms and all-expenses paid research trips. "You could be a fed for all we know," Ben spits. "The only thing I know about you is, you're a liar."

Elliot tries to think if he has ever lied to him, except by omission. He sits on the pink and green couch in the apartment under a reading lamp that feels more like an interrogation light, but he also has an ice pack pressed to his face. His entire backside is soaked and soaking into the nice couch. He's surrounded by real (flammable) paper books; the furniture he knocked over has been repaired and restocked. The atmosphere is all mixed up and confused. "I'm not a fed," he scoffs, "I'm a fucking chronic student who kept switching majors and taking random classes because I knew I wouldn't cut it in the real world."

Jim hands over a phone. "Have you spoken to anyone at Tech? Old advisors?"

Elliot clenches his teeth and grins. "My old advisor has a restraining order against me."

Ben shakes his head incredulously. "You know, I actually thought you were a nice guy."

"Did you base this theory on the hundreds of deep, meaningful late night conversations we had?"

Ben rolls his eyes and consults with Jim for a bit. Elliot drops the ice pack and works his jaw around a bit, testing. It hurts, but nothing is broken. He looks around the room, the towering shelves of books, and wishes he was reading one of them.

"Izzy invites every homeless rat they meet into their life just so long as they look sad enough," he remarks. "Why do you assume it's me?"

"You disappeared."

"Yeah, weeks ago. How long has Izzy been gone?"

Ben translates the question for Jim, then translates her response. "This morning."

Elliot scoffs. "You think someone's missing and it hasn't even been 24 hours?"

"They're not answering their phone."

"Maybe they ran away. Maybe they got tired of playing Mother Theresa with shits like me." Jim watches him impassively and signs; Elliot thinks he recognizes the signs don't and know. "Yeah, I don't know where they are. I haven't even thought about this place since I left." He regrets adding this last part, which is an obvious lie.

"I liked you better when you didn't talk."

"Me too." Elliot wasn't always like this, either. He doesn't like having every stray thought that enters his head spew out like acid. He tries again. "Look, Izzy was smart, right? They probably have, like, a deadman's switch or something." Ben looks at him blankly. "If they don't log in or press a button or whatever every twenty four hours, it'll unlock a bunch of shit and probably send Jim an email or whatever, telling her how to find them."

"How do you know this?"

"We went to the same school. I studied computer science for a couple semesters." He knows some of the professors where Izzy almost certainly got their ideas, like the dots plastered to the greenhouses that make them invisible to the drones. "They have a stolen implant that had a tracking chip in it. If they didn't disable it entirely, they would've repurposed it." He remembers them talking about it, but not the specifics.

"Did we have a fucking spy in here with us the whole time?" Ben asks; Jim shrugs, signs something that makes him laugh.

They leave Elliot alone on the couch, retreating down the hallway in silent conversation. He looks around the room for a moment then hops to his feet, walks into the kitchen. Shiny stainless steel knives glint at him from a magnetic bar screwed to the wall over the countertop. He opens the fridge and pours himself a glass of orange juice, sipping as he stares at the row of sharp, glistening blades. He reaches out and touches the biggest one, pulls it off the wall. Tests its weight, the sharpness of the point.

"Don't be an idiot," Ben says from the doorway.

Elliot grins and whirls to face him, still holding the knife.

"I'm an ER nurse, you think I can't handle myself in a knife fight?"

"I hadn't considered it," he responds, returning the blade to its place with a soft shunk. "I was just thirsty." He picks up the glass of orange juice as proof.

"You needed a knife for juice?"

"Yep." He sips from the glass, watching Ben wearily. "Any news?"

"Yeah. We've decided to keep you here until we find Izzy." Elliot smirks at the phrasing; keep you here. "Your shit's all still in your room." Ben's nose wrinkles. "You need to take a shower. You reek."

Elliot nods, taking another drink, draining the glass. "How's your kid?"

Ben blinks, disarmed. "Ollie's fine."

"He's not afraid of the ice now?"

He shakes his head. "I started taking him to this indoor place. It's expensive, but..." He trails off as Elliot pushes past him to go take a shower.

19

The email comes sometime overnight, complete with instructions on tracking Izzy's implant; but the chip has to be enabled manually, and they either haven't or couldn't. The map is blank.

Ben manages to grab a last-minute shift at a nearby hospital, leaving Elliot and Jim alone to dig through whatever clues Izzy saw fit to leave behind in silence. Which, admittedly, isn't much; though they gain access to a laptop, it's not one with anything particularly important on it, and the others are locked down tight. Too bad Elliot never progressed past intro to Python; he's not really a computer person.

In their bedroom (Jim watching him warily) he digs through some of the papers and files on Izzy's desk. The drawers are locked with flimsy latches which he easily picks, revealing a lot of junk and a tightly packed stack of files. He pulls one out at random and she takes it from him before he can get a good look at the label, making a gesture that obviously means "shoo." He rolls back on Izzy's chair and spins around in circles as Jim looks through their things. He takes inventory of the things that interest her: a key, an ancient flip phone, a flash drive. She reads the labels of several files and puts all but one back, closing the drawer with a thunk.

A file full of cease and desists. For Izzy's greenhouses, their food distribution, their online activities, their electronics refurbishments. It looks like they had a fair number of enemies, but would any be willing to go so far as kidnapping? Murder? He doesn't want to bring that possibility out there, because Jim looks already distressed enough. She was up all night, pacing up and down the hallway. The neighbors downstairs must be furious.

"You sleep," Elliot suggests; or, at least, he hopes he's suggesting.

Jim shakes her head, frowning. He insists, gesturing towards the bed behind her. She refuses. He sighs and goes into the kitchen, finding chocolate mint ice cream in the freezer, and scoops out two bowls. They eat it on the couch with Jim's phone sitting between them, watching, waiting for it to light up with a notification that never comes.

. . .

Elliot is sitting at the kitchen counter with Izzy's laptop, scrolling through an email inbox that is clearly used as a dumpster (thousands and thousands of ads, spam, newsletters and very little useful information) when Ben returns, still wearing his purple scrubs (the tell-tale uniform of a Nursr temp).

"What're you doing?" he asks cautiously, "Where's Jim?"

"Sleeping on the couch. I'd ask you to be quiet, but."

"Deaf jokes. Original." Elliot ignores him, idly gazing over the emails again. "That's Izzy's?"

"It's a decoy machine, there's nothing interesting on it. They use it to play solitaire and do their taxes."

"Izzy pays taxes?"

Elliot neglects to respond. Ben does not want to know how much they earn as a self-employed cybersecurity consultant. On the other hand, they give away almost all of it. "How was work?" he asks instead.

"They're not at that hospital, or any in its network, as far as I could tell." It is an answer to a question he was not asking. "I'll try to get into another system tomorrow."

"Good idea." He stops scrolling, because it is a pointless distraction, and forces himself to look at Ben. Who knew scrubs could be so hot? "I've never seen such a tattooed nurse."

"Somehow you don't strike me as someone who has a lot of experience with nurses."

"I got an abortion when I was sixteen. The nurse there was really nice and also ancient. If she had any tattoos, they were hidden," Elliot recites blandly. "When I got surgery a few years ago, the nurse I woke up to was a year younger than me. She looked like she belonged in high school. It was really disconcerting. Are you hungry? It might be nice to cook for Jim for a change."

Ben gives him a curious look. "Sure, but I need to change first."

When they were making out on Ben's couch all those weeks ago (when Elliot was straddled on top of him (hands wandering (pulling at each other's clothes))), it was the discovery of the laproscopic scars that had proven to be such a turn off to Ben. Not their existence, per se, but how they highlighted the fact that he knew nothing about Elliot, and "I don't want to have to play twenty questions about everything."

So Elliot figures he'll try radical honesty. He already can't help spewing out everything he thinks; might as well try opening up once in a while. It's not like he has anything to lose.

. . .

Later, after food and a meaningless, circuitous discussion about Izzy's disappearance (they have so little to go by), after Jim starts crying and (thank god) Ben is there to console her, Elliot ducks off to clean the dishes. He takes his chance to sneak away, climbing up to the roof where he tells himself he is only going to the greenhouse but actually ends up sitting at the edge of the roof, feet dangling over the emptiness below. He watches the lines of traffic swarming below, spewing out the hot sludge that is poisoning them all and melting the ice caps. Varying shades of life peek through neighboring buildings: a TV flickering; a dog yipping; a distant argument rising from a balcony across the street. A normalcy unbefitting in a world that feels like it is falling apart around him. Collapsing, like a giant ice sheet crumpling into the ocean.

"This is unsustainable," Ben says from behind, startling him.

"Unsustainable?" Elliot repeats without moving. There is a long pause so he turns (away from the city (the drop (the void))) to face him. He is standing well away from the edge of the roof in a pool of orange light, looking irritated.

"You can't expect people to care about you if keep acting like this."

Elliot snorts a quick laugh. "I don't expect people to care about me." He spins around so his feet are planted firmly on the snowy graveled rooftop and wipes his sleeve over his face, grateful for the dark of night (when did he start crying?). "I can go if you want. I'm only here because you guys told me to stay."

"Do you even care about Izzy?"

Elliot considers the question. He wants to help find Izzy. He would probably feel bad if it turned out they were dead or kidnapped. It would be devastating for Jim.

His delay in answering is evidently all the answer Ben needs; his eyes narrow, his voice tinged with something like disgust as he asks, "Do you care about anybody but yourself?"

Elliot offers a grim smile. "You're making a lot of assumptions about me, based on what, exactly?" Ben hesitates, looking confused, and he continues, "I couldn’t talk and you decided it was my choice, somehow, like I wanted it. I threw a fit and ruined a bookcase and you decided I'm a fuckin snitch? You decked me. I've done nothing to you."

"I'm sorry." His eyes cast down, Ben actually looks remorseful. He steps out of the orange light and through the darkness towards Elliot, sitting down in the gravel next to him, leaning back against the ledge. "I'm really worried about Izzy. This is, like, a nightmare scenario. There's a legit bounty on their head for that tech."

"Isn't it more likely they were arrested?"

"Anyone else, maybe. But Izzy's too smart to get arrested. Plus, wouldn't they have gotten their phone call by now?"

"Wouldn't they have activated their tracker by now?" Elliot retorts.

Ben tilts his face up to glare at him, but then softens. "Were you crying?"

He sighs and shakes his head, scrubbing his eyes with his sleeve again. "Not about this." He drops his hand back in his lap and rubs at his sore wrist.

"That still bothering you?"

"Always. It's a reminder."

"Reminder of what?"

Elliot works his fingers around, flexing the aching tendons. "I did it to myself. I can't complain." It is not an answer.

Ben looks up at him, studying him in the darkness. He looks like he wants to ask why he did it. Maybe Elliot would even tell him, if he knew what to say. I watched a glacier die. It is inadequate to explain the enormity of the hopelessness he has felt since Antarctica, and likely Ben wouldn't be able to appreciate it anyway. Fortunately, he doesn't ask. He shivers and stands, reaching out to help Elliot to his feet.

He could've just as easily pushed.

20

"Where's your phone?" Jim holds out her own device, the question white text on black. It is the next day and Ben is pacing back and forth between the hallway and the library, grumbling irritably into his cell. He is trying to file a missing person report, and they are making it difficult because he has to speak on Jim's behalf.

"pawned it. Needed the cash."

She frowns. "Still have the ticket?"

Elliot nods, feeling guilty; he doesn't have the cash. He passes Ben in the library ("no, they're only one person. It's gender neutral. Izzy. Dawson.") and pulls the slip out of his old pants pocket, alongside a pale blue bus ticket (long missed) which he tosses into the trash. He sprawls on the couch idly as Ben works as intermediary between Jim and the tinny voice in the phone, flipping through a new book (from the indigo shelf). There is nothing to overhear, no eavesdropping to be done through the open kitchen doorway. Not that it matters; Ben is just trying to convince some cop that Izzy is actually missing, and not just incommunicado. A silent conversation continues for a while longer after the phone call is terminated, then a clatter as someone pushes through the beaded curtain.

"I'm supposed to take you to get your phone back. How far is the pawn shop?" Ben is distracted by his own screen, thumb tap tapping.

Elliot drops his book on the coffee table. "Back to babysitting me?"

He looks up from his phone, one eyebrow raised. "How much did you get for it?" Elliot extends an arm, ticket held between two fingers, and he takes it. "Do you have any of it left?"

"Nope."

"Then how do you plan on getting it back alone?"

Elliot could probably think of a few ways; Ben could hand over that wad of cash, for example. He's concerned about leaving Jim alone to fret and stare at a blank map alone, but she practically pushes them out the door. They walk through steaming streets; after last week's cold snap the temperatures have climbed, and it feels almost like summer already. The sun bakes the city roads and sublimates the dirty, crumbling piles of snow collected around street corners and piled against fences.

The guy behind the counter at the pawn shop glances over the receipt then grabs a plastic tub off the shelf behind him, filled with identical black rectangles. He rifles through them, plucking one out seemingly at random, and hands it over only after Ben pays. Elliot turns it on for the first time in weeks (battery at 5%) to verify it's the right one; it hasn't even been wiped yet. He breathes a (hopeful) sigh of relief. He'd had a lingering fear that his loss of the phone might be connected to Izzy's disappearance, but it doesn't look like it's been touched. He waits, but no messages from Izzy show up. Only a text from Ben, which he declines to read.

Ben's phone starts ringing as they are walking away from the shop (but (curiously) not back towards the apartment) and he looks at the screen eagerly then with some disappointment, groaning, "I have to take this." He walks away to pace back and forth on his cell, this time in a terse conversation with his in-laws.

"Everything okay?" Elliot asks when he returns.

Ben's face relaxes. "Yeah, totally," he says, "I get to pick up Ollie from school today."

The phrasing (get to (not, have to or need to)) tugs at Elliot's heart a little. He watches him scroll through the bus schedules on his phone, mumbling to himself. A patrol drone buzzes between them, shouts, "No Loitering!" They automatically start moving again.

"I think I'm gonna have to rent a ride," Ben finally concludes. "Why is public transportation so useless?"

Elliot shrugs. "I love the trains. When I was a kid I used to spend all day just riding them. I'd get kicked off at the end of the line and have to wait for the same exact train to turn around and pick me up again. I didn't care where they were going, as long as they were warm." His divulgence makes Ben blink and frown, so he adds, "They are useless, though. They don't even run after ten."

A slow nod. "Did you have any other exciting hobbies as a child?"

"I liked climbing trees. Like, those big pines at the park? I'd sleep in them where the branches were close enough together."

"Thrilling."

Elliot can't tell if he is being ironic or not. "'Exciting' was kind of a curse as a kid."

Ben had a relatively normal childhood, in a small mountain town where his relatively normal parents still live; he'd glossed over it early on, when he was still flirting with him. He wouldn't (couldn't) understand what it was like for Elliot: the cold, hunger, uncertainty. The precariousness of housing, knowing it could be (will be (inevitably)) ripped out from under him. He could trust nothing. Even his precious library was torn down. He could probably spend the rest of his life telling stories (little snapshots (tiny disparate tattoos)) and Ben would never get a complete picture. He feels drained just from the quip about trains. Who knew revealing yourself could be so exhausting?

They stop at a coffee shop (the one where they first met), sipping hot bitter brew (purchased solely to satisfy the patrol drone ("Customers Only!")) while Ben waits for his autotaxi to pick him up. Elliot finds himself scanning over the tattoos again, always finding new ones, like an archaeological dig. He asks, "Which one was your first?"

With a slight smirk, Ben pushes up his sleeve, revealing a colorful bicep. One of his largest (visible) tattoos (a blue dragon) circles around a tiny, awkward, crooked triangle with a jagged line cutting through the top. "It's a mountain," he explains.

"A mountain?" Elliot repeats. He tilts his head as though a change in angle would make it clearer, and Ben laughs.

"I forgive your skepticism. In Sam's defense, we were only fifteen."

"Fifteen!"

Ben grins, his eyes twinkling. "I was such a little rebel in high school."

"Clearly. Where does a fifteen year old get a tattoo gun in Small Town, America?"

He gives Elliot a strange look, like it should be obvious. "Internet."

"Is the dragon also courtesy of Sam?"

"Yeah. He wanted to cover it up, but I wouldn't let him."

"I'm glad to see he improved."

Ben's smile softens, slightly. "Me too." He glances down at his phone, which indicates the impending arrival of his ride. "Do you want to come with me?" he asks. "I'll only have Ollie for an hour and then we can take a bus back to Jim." Elliot's surprise at the invitation must show on his face, because he adds, "He's been asking about you."

"I think that's why you're not supposed to introduce your kids to new friends. At least until you've cleared that they're not psychotic."

Once again, his rambling must have gone too far; Ben's eyes narrow as he studies him. "I think the rule is don't put your kids in mortal danger so your new friend has to save their lives," he says finally. "But I'm not an expert. Clearly."

Elliot laughs, and when the autotaxi arrives he climbs into the back seat after him.

21

"What's your favorite animal?" Unlike their last meeting, during which both parties were reluctant to speak, today Oliver is energetic and loquacious (reeling from the excitement (surprise) of seeing Ben outside his classroom door). He is interrogating Elliot as they walk to the park. Most of the questions are fairly easy and in an apparently random order; he has already described his favorite color (green), his favorite insect (praying mantis), his favorite book (The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy), his favorite food (anything with baked apples), his favorite dinosaur (deinonychus), and countless other favorites, many of which he had to make up on the spot.

"Penguins."

"What kind of penguin?"

Elliot considers this for a second. "The fairy penguin. The Māori call it the kororā."

"What is may-or-ee?"

"Um. The indigenous people of New Zealand."

"Where's New Zealand?"

"An island. Kind of by Australia."

"It's where they filmed Lord of the Rings," Ben interrupts. "Ollie, honey, let's give Elliot a break please."

Oliver skips ahead a few steps, quiet for only a moment before turning around (walking backwards) and asking, "Have you seen Lord of the Rings?"

Ben sighs, and Elliot chuckles. "Nope. I watched The Hobbit a few weeks ago."

"What's your favorite movie?"

"Finding Nemo."

Oliver giggles, his freckled nose wrinkling. "That's a baby movie."

"Babies? Really?"

He nods vigorously, utterly serious for a five year old. "And it's sooo old."

"What's your favorite movie, then?"

"Sky Pigs!" He is about to launch into a very detailed (albeit stumbling) description of every single character and plot point in the animated movie but is interrupted by the sight of a colorful playground. Without another word Oliver darts away towards the structure already swarming with young children.

"Inquisitive kid," Elliot remarks wryly to Ben.

"I think he officially knows more about you than I do," he replies, just the slightest edge to his voice.

"You were listening, right? You got the same information."

"Yup. Your favorite animal is the green penguin." Ben finds a bench for them to sit on, one Elliot is pretty sure he's slept on before. He sits perched, watching his kid intently.

"They're blue, but close enough. What about you?"

"Me?"

"What's your favorite animal?" Elliot clarifies.

Ben breaks his gaze from the playground for just a second to look at him. "Elephants."

"Those are extinct."

"That's right," Ben agrees impassively, his eyes following Oliver's descent on a slide. His phone beeps; half a second later, Elliot's buzzes in his pocket.

"Oh, shit." The message is a picture of a computer screen from Jim. The tracking chip in Izzy's implant has been activated, but if it's accurate they're in New Mexico, hundreds of miles south of Denver. Elliot needs to know if it's moving, what buildings are around it. He starts tapping frantically at the tiny keyboard on his phone to respond to Jim's text with questions. Ben keeps looking anxiously between his phone and Oliver on the playground, torn between needs. "You should go play with him."

He chews on his lip. "We need to find Izzy."

"We will."

"You sure?"

Elliot nods, feigning a certainty he does not feel. "We'll just have to go for a road trip." It doesn't seem to cheer Ben very much, but playing with his kid sure does. Elliot keeps getting distracted, watching them, while he tries to investigate the area around where Izzy's implant triggered. Office buildings, apparently. Lawyers and engineers and therapists and an ultrasound clinic. A bakery nearby, a 24 hour gym. Almost all of it is marked "Closed Indefinitely."

Too soon, the allotted hour is over, indicated by the arrival of an SUV in the distant parking lot. The occupants don't even get out of their car, just sit there idling. An older woman glares through the passenger window as Ben walks his kid over. Oliver seems less than happy about ending his fun; Elliot can hear his whining even from here as they cross the lot towards the vehicle. He cannot hear the conversation that leaves Ben's face tense as he walks away from the parking lot, but he waves at a departing Oliver and gives the sour-faced passenger his sweetest smile. Given her response, it probably looks like he's about to murder someone, who knows.

"So, Albuquerque," Ben says as he returns. "How about that desert?"

Elliot grins, looking up from the map on his screen. "It turns out location information wasn't nearly as useful as I had anticipated," he admits. He describes what he has found so far (very, very little).

"So, they're secretly pregnant or they needed a therapist and the nearest availability was the next state over," Ben says grimly.

"Probably not pregnant, the ultrasound place is marked 'Closed.' Most of them are, actually, which just makes it weirder that Izzy would be lurking around down there."

Ben sighs. "How are we going to get down there?"

"Doesn't Jim have a truck?"

"The one they borrow for food drops? Maybe, but that thing burns through gas like nobody's business." He looks at his phone and sighs. Ben does a lot of looking at his phone and sighing; most people with phones do. Elliot used to, too, and he's pretty sure that throwing the thing into the Ross Sea was the best decision of his life. For weeks, he had no idea what was going on in the world; no notifications to jar his attention. Then Izzy came around and gave him a new one, because apparently you can't function in this world without one. Ben needs one for his continued employment; Jim needs one to communicate; Izzy needs one for all their illicit activities and a separate one for their legitimate work. Elliot thinks about the ancient flip phone in their desk; do they have any others? He types out some more questions for Jim then slips the phone into his pocket, relieved to not be staring at it anymore. He watches Ben for a while, neck bent over the screen he is furiously tapping. He looks up and catches Elliot watching him.

"Sorry," he says, grimacing. "I keep getting outbid for shifts. It's like people don't even have to eat anymore."

"They're probably sneaking doctor's leftovers from the dumpsters." The comment earns Elliot a curious look. He adds, "Assuming hospitals don't dowse their shit with bleach like Walmart."

Ben's voice sounds strange when he asks, "Do you know this from experience?" Elliot nods. "Did you learn how to dumpster dive before or after you studied computer science at Tech?"

"Before. I went to college for the free food."

"Free?"

"I mean, I was free for me." Ben stares at him blankly. "Scholarships?” A sad enough essay and plenty of charities and organizations were willing to throw money at him; later on he would apply for grants and fellowships to keep him going.

A bitter laugh. "I'm gonna be paying off student loans for the rest of my life."

"And you're out there actually trying to work for a living and I'm squatting in illegal greenhouses. Life's not fair, is it?"

Ben gives him a long look, jaw working like he is trying to decide something; probably whether or not to deck Elliot again. Finally, he says, "Let's go. We're gonna miss the bus."

22

Jim has a match this evening. Her spouse is missing (gone) and instead of moving mountains to find them she's going to have to wrestle another woman to the ground in front of thousands of yelling chanting shouting spectators to fulfill a pitiless contract. At least a handful of the audience inevitably wants her dead for competing in the first place. Even if Jim was trans (she refuses to (publicly) confirm or deny the accusations) she certainly wouldn't deserve the hate she gets for a sport that is more about appearances than actual combat. And there's no denying her sex appeal; the fact that she could kill you with one finger just adds to her charm.

"Come on, it's not actually fake," Ben insists. "It's not scripted so much as, like, guidelines."

"Do these guidelines inform you of who is going to win in advance?" Elliot asks pointedly.

"No idea. Jim refuses to say." Ben laughs and rubs his hands together and shivers. The unseasonable warmth from earlier has crashed with the sunset and he didn't bring a coat. They are outside, waiting in a surprisingly packed line to be admitted to the venue Jim has already disappeared into. Elliot shrugs off his (Jim's) coat and hands it over.

"Seriously?" Ben tries to wave away the offering.

"What?"

"I'm not taking your coat."

"You're cold?" Elliot says it like a question.

"I'm fine." He shivers again, punctuating his point.

"It's not even my coat, okay? It's Jim's. You can tell everyone you got it from the sexy Viking lady." He shoves the coat at Ben again, who takes it reluctantly.

"Aren't you cold?"

"Layers." He pushes his sweater sleeve up to reveal a long sleeved T-shirt beneath it. The scar on his wrist peeks out (red and stark) and he quickly pulls the sleeves back down to cover it. Summer is going to be a bitch, he realizes, if he still feels obligated to walk around with long sleeves then. If he's still alive then.

The line starts moving and he shakes his head to try to rid it of that last, lingering thought. They shuffle a few feet forward, then stop; a commotion at the entrance has delayed the ticket scanners. Two loud, angry protesters (their clothing adorned with slurs) are dragged out of the venue by bouncers who look like they could be stars of their own wrestling show.

"Assholes," Ben mutters, his eyes following the evicted pair as they cross the street to set up their protest anew. Disturbance abated, the line starts shuffling forward again. They pass by through the scanners and make their way straight to their seats; without Izzy here, there's no chance of affording the overpriced junk food sizzling from the stands. They hadn't had seats last time (Izzy dragged him right up to the ring), and Elliot isn't sure he is meant to be sitting (everyone around him (even Ben) remains on their feet), but he does so anyway.

He wants to enjoy this thing that clearly brings his friends such joy, he just can't get around

the noise

the smells

the flashing lights

the sweaty bodies all pressed up together, all breathing the same stale air.

His discomfort is too obvious and Ben sinks into his seat, signing, "You okay?"

"I'm fine." Elliot practically has to about to be heard above the roar of the crowd. A frown; so he adds, "I'm not a huge fan of crowds."

Ben looks around, nodding. He leans in closer and murmurs, "Do you want to go?" His breath tickles the back of Elliot's neck and he shakes his head. "How about after Jim's match? We can go get a beer." He looks embarrassed by the suggestion, then adds, "Or, uhm, a coffee." Elliot still has no ID, but more likely Ben is remembering how he had dumped the beer on Valentine's Day. He doesn't answer, but a cacophony of shouting and alarms indicates the show is about to start, and Ben jumps back up to his feet to watch.

Elliot squeezes his hand into a fist and relaxes, squeezes and relaxes, sparks of pain shooting through him. He looks at Ben's hand dangling in front of him and feels a terrible and complicated desire to hold it. His jaw is still sore from getting decked by it two nights ago but he also remembers those fingers trailing gently against his skin, wrapping around the back of his neck, pulling him in for a kiss.

No.

He pulls out his phone and checks the tracking chip again. A red dot blinks out at him from the same place; Izzy still has not moved, which feels like an increasingly bad omen. He turns off the screen and slides the phone back into his pocket as he stands to watch Jim pummel a woman inexplicably dressed as a sexy clown. He thinks about getting smothered by her. Getting smothered by hundreds of hot, sweating bodies all pressed entirely too close together. Of fires and stampedes and crumbling glaciers. How many people fit in this venue? he wonders. Would all the bodies swept away by the tsunami fit? The landslide? The hurricanes and wildfires and droughts and flash floods and heat waves and Arctic bombs that combined kill millions every year. He pictures the spacious building converted into a disaster camp, packed full of desperate and crying climate refugees.

A roaring fills his ears and he can hear nothing, make no sense of the sounds around him. He's not sure who wins the match (his awareness fading until he might as well be sleepwalking) but he assumes it is Jim. Ben grabs his coat and says something, gently pushes him past the tightly packed row of people, down stairs and through wide, airy corridors, exiting to the sight of the protesters and their damn signs. Vexation snaps Elliot out of his fugue and he grabs Ben's hand, parading it in front of them, relieved when he makes no effort to pull away even when they are out of sight.

Instead of a coffee shop, they go into a nearby hotel. "Be cool," he directs at Ben's bewildered look, leading him to the complimentary coffee stand sitting just past the front desk. The clerk eyes them warily but does not interfere as Elliot mixes himself coffee with a packet of hot chocolate (Ben drinks his coffee black). This hotel also offers cookies and he grabs two, pushing his luck.

"Whoops. Forgot my keycard," he mutters, dragging Ben back out through the spinning glass doors under the irritated glare of the front clerk.

"Who are you?" Ben asks, mystified, but his tone doesn't have the same bitter edge as before.

Elliot shrugs, burning his tongue on the coffee he sips instead of answering. It is cold but as long as they keep walking he can stay warm, and the patrol drones don't shout at them for loitering. They walk past brightly lit shop windows with shattered (plywood-covered (graffiti'd)) neighbors (long since closed and looted). They walk past partiers and diners and heroin addicts and silent, invisible children like Elliot was, once. He gives away his cookie and regrets not having more to offer, so he tells them about An Extra Hand. He listens to Ben talk to Oliver on the phone (an evidently nightly routine), eyes burning from the cold and not a (sad, strange) mix of loneliness and jealousy.

"Goodnight honey, I love you. Don't let the bedbugs bite." Oliver must hand the phone back to a grandparent, though, because Ben remains on the line for a while longer, going, "Mhm... Yea... No... I know... Yep... Sorry." The last one is directed to Elliot, who had started pretending to use an ATM so they wouldn't be harassed by a patrol drone while he was pacing back and forth in conversation. "She likes to go on."

Elliot assumes he is referring to the woman with the sour face in the SUV earlier. "What could she possibly have found to criticize you for in the last few hours?"

"My employment, my life choices, the usual."

"She doesn't seem terribly fond of you."

"Oh, yeah, she hates me. I stole her daughter away and turned him trans. It's whatever." He exhales (a cloud of steam in the super chilled air) and Elliot slips his arms inside the sleeves of his sweater, shivering. "Fuck," Ben says, "I still have your coat. I'm terrible." He moves to take it off, but Elliot bumps him with his shoulder to interrupt him.

"I'm fine, really." He wiggles his shoulders so the empty arms swing back and forth.

"No, look at your lips, they're turning blue."

"No they're not."

Ben slips out of the coat and drapes it over his shoulders. "Yeah, totally. See?" His hand moves up to cup Elliot's face, fingers tracing the bruise on his jaw before he leans in to kiss him.

A drone whizzes by. "No Loitering!"

23

They probably would have hooked up, later, in Elliot's (guest) room, if not for one giant fuck up (again). After getting Jim past the protesters with minimal incidence (sneers and shouts she cannot hear as they passed by); after taking her home to be alone and sad and worried about Izzy and then staying up later and later and later, plying her with beers and shots of whiskey. Evidently Jim does not have the same sort of concerns as her partner does regarding Ben's alcoholism, or perhaps she chooses not to care tonight, which is fair. She has to go to bed alone again.

Elliot explains he doesn't have anything against alcohol per se, but, "I drank myself sick a couple months ago and I just don't have the stomach for it anymore." Planting, once again, that seed of doubt: Who is this person? They could get past that. The big fuck up happens later, when they are pushing their way into Elliot's (guest) room, wrapping around each other, tongues exploring, hearts racing, and Ben glances into the mostly empty trash can and everything

fucking

freezes.

"What is that?" He reaches in and pulls out a pale blue bus ticket.

No.

He pulls out a tiny dime bag filled with tiny pale blue pills. "What the fuck is this?"

Elliot stares at them blankly for a moment before replying, "That was my ticket out of here." Then he is alone again.

. . .

That morning, Jim knocks on his door. He doesn't get up to open it, just lays there until she cracks the door open herself. She looks displeased with him, which is probably fair, but he will never know why. He watches her hands for a second then stares back at the ceiling. He ignores her phone when she tries to wave it in his face.

A few minutes later Ben shows up in the still open doorway. "I'm gonna go help Jim rent a car." He's not looking at Elliot. "You need to figure out what you're doing next."

Next?

Elliot was going to ride to Albuquerque with them, over the mountains and through the desert in a hopeless, helpless, wild goose hunt. He was going to jump off a roof or overdose on opiates or slit his wrists and bleed and bleed all over the ice. He was going to finally, finally graduate (geology?) and move on. He was going to jump in front of moving traffic. Maybe find a job. Plant a garden.

He goes into Izzy and Jim's room and digs through their personal things; everything, not just whatever Jim thought was important like last time. Clothes and toiletries and a drawer full of sex toys. So much junk (mostly electronics and probably enough cables to build a new car with the copper). A desk full of files, handwritten notes.

Elliot pauses his rifling at a folder marked, "e galloway." He pulls it out sits back on the floor, opening it to reveal fold up news articles (actual newspaper (from before printed newspapers were banned) soft and grey and thin) clipped to a small stack of copy-printed papers. Izzy lied; they did look into him further (probably after he left). His published research, his transcripts, social services paperwork, change of name notice. He fingers the clippings, crinkling the edges, unwilling to open them and see what they reveal. He straightens to look at the other files; dozens of names he doesn't recognize, and a couple he does. "b mason" will be Ben; Jim is, interestingly, just labeled "jim." A file marked "a mccarthy" is tempting (Elliot's (former) advisor), and he is reaching for it when something else catches his eye.

A business card, (just a corner) poking out from behind the desk as though it had been accidentally pushed off the back. Creamy white textured cardstock with shiny black embossed text.

"Dr Jonathon Curtis. Ikarus, Inc." A phone number, an email address, and (on the back) a black and white QR code.

"Shit," Elliot mutters. Ikarus is what remains of the company that built the augmentations; does this mean they found Izzy? They wouldn't be dumb enough to scan the strange code (he hopes) but maybe he is; its not like he's particularly attached to his phone. It just takes him to a website for Ikarus Southwest, offices located in sunny

Albuquerque.

"Fuck," he says, typing out a text to Jim. Maybe the worst possible reason for Izzy to be in New Mexico – any dealings with Ikarus would not be voluntary.

He glances over his file, those dreaded newspaper clips.

Yes, the news would surely report on a toddler found wandering alone barefoot through the streets in the middle of a freak spring snow storm. Maybe even a couple times, a follow-up report to assure readers that the toddler was okay, adopted out to a nice young family.

It probably wouldn't report that the nice young family rejected him a couple months later. And the next and the next and the next. The group homes, too. It probably didn't follow up eleven, twelve years later to find the tragic toddler grown into an awkward, lumpy, semi-adult-shaped child still wandering (occasionally still barefoot) through the streets. Or, a decade after that, a college dropout (half a dozen different degrees sitting half-formed under his belt) and failed suicide.

A slamming door. Are they back already? But (according to his watch) Elliot has been sitting here on the floor an hour in some sort of trance. He climbs stiffly to his feet, head swimming with confusion. He is certainly going to get caught snooping and quickly grabs the newspaper clips, folding them into his pocket. But something isn't right (crashing, clanging, shattering (ice)); someone is out there pulling over bookshelves. For a brief, absurd second, Elliot is concerned it is him, locked in two places at once.

He tries to quietly open the door, but there is a person (a stranger (a hulking shadow dressed as a cop)) standing there already. Something strikes him (a flash of white hot pain) on the side of the head, and Elliot is out cold.

24

"Jasmine. Jim. Jiiim. Come on Jim."

Elliot wakes up in a bleary, enclosed space. His head is throbbing and his wrist feels broken, twisted, on fire tied up behind his back. The earth is rumbling beneath them; no, he's in a car, moving at supernatural speeds past a bland yellow-brown landscape. Someone is tapping his face, gently at first, then harder; a slap. A man's face, twinkling blue eyes but not Ben's at all. Much too old (middle aged); grey hair and just the start of wrinkles.

"Where's your implant, Jim?" he demands, and Elliot

laughs.

25

Elliot wakes up again in a hospital bed, head smothered in a blanket of throbbing pain. Tight straps bind his wrists to the bed, but his feet are free, and he kicks around frantically, futilely.

"Good, you're awake." The same man from the car is standing over him, wearing a white coat. Someone (a nurse (wearing purple scrubs)) stands next to him, translating (presumably) his drawl into sign language and Elliot has to remind himself that it is not Ben. "Jasmine Dawson," the doctor says confidently, and Elliot smirks. "AKA Jim. You received a hearing implant that has since been recalled. Since you have repeatedly ignored notices to return the device, I am authorized to remove it on behalf of Ikarus, Incorporated." He glares. "Unfortunately, my technicians can't seem to find it, and your wife has made a mess of your medical records. Please rest assured, this delay is only temporary. The internal components will still be removed shortly." He grins, a wide, predatory smile. "We were going to let you keep them." No response. He sighs. "This will be easier with your cooperation."

Elliot tries to swallow (his mouth is so dry), looks back and forth between man and translator, and shrugs. The doctor scoffs and huffs out of the room, while the nurse proceeds to give Elliot an examination, shining a light into his eyes and listening to his heart. He leaves him with his arms still strapped to the rails along the side of the bed.

So, they have him confused with Jim. Naturally. Who wouldn't confuse a stunted, half-starved trans-man for a six foot seven Norse goddess? Presumably they'll figure out he has no implants, no surgical scars (at least not near the head), is not remotely the person they are looking for. What will they do with him then? And how much time does he have? Is Izzy here in the hospital somewhere?

Fuck.

Do they have their implant?

God how his head hurts. The strap (digging into his wrist) has his right hand entirely numb, like it's not even there. His jaw, his ribs still twinge from the hits he took the other day. He pulls and writhes and kicks and tries unsuccessfully to break free. He shakes the bed enough to clatter around but causes no real damage and his antics (if noticed) are ignored.

His stomach growls. He has to pee. Hours pass before a nurse (different person, same purple scrubs) comes in to check on him and he signs, "toilet." She doesn't understand so he points over to the bathroom. She offers a bedpan and he shakes his head violently. She threatens to give him a catheter and he pretends he can't hear her. He tries to look innocent and helpless and she sighs and loosens the straps, helps him woozily to his feet. His head is swarming and he sits down heavily on the porcelain toilet, resting his head on his hands, elbows on his knees. He uses his fingers to probe a massive, tender lump on the side of his head.

The nurse stands at the open doorway, her back to him. Elliot tries to consider his next steps, but his head is filled with thick sludge. Could he overpower her, in this state? He wouldn't get far; he is wearing a hospital gown, open in the back. Barefoot. He tries to stand, and spots fill his vision. He catches himself with the counter. His stomach churns and he retches, head throbbing. Okay.

"Hey," he says, and the nurse jumps, turns. He quickly continues before she can give anything away. "Wait, just, listen, please?" The words feel thick coming out of his mouth and he tries to clear his throat before speaking again. "I need your help."

It is easy to convince the nurse (Pam) that Elliot is not who they think he is; he is talking, can hear just fine, and (importantly) shows no (external) sign of having ever endured brain surgery. It is less easy to convince her not to immediately report this to the white coat with ice blue eyes. He tries to point out how incredibly unethical the whole situation is ("They are literally holding me hostage here. What do you think is going on?") but ultimately has to resort to extortion.

"Look, you're here through Nursr, right?" he asks. "I know how that crap works. It really sucks. I can give you upvotes, five stars, glowing reviews across the board, whatever you need to get a high score if you just help me find my friend."

Elliot holds the back of his gown closed with one hand has he stealthily crosses the hallway (walls adorned with framed ultrasound shots and photographs of cute, smiling babies) to a room mostly identical to his own, but with a haunting beep, beep, beep of a heartrate monitor.

"Izzy," Elliot says, rushing to the side of their bed. How is he so happy to see them? A bandage covers half their head. He's too late, the implant is gone.

"Who is that?" Izzy asks warily.

"Elliot. Remember? E. Galloway." There is a tinge of bitterness to his voice as he remembers the file, probably still laying on the floor by their bed.

"Pfft," Izzy scoffs. "You?"

"Yep. Sorry, couldn't do better."

"Your voice is a lot nicer when it's not screaming at me."

"Izzy."

"What?"

"How do you feel?"

"I just got brain surgery. Where's Jim?"

"They think I'm Jim."

"They think," Izzy repeats, "that YOU are Jim." They laugh and laugh and the machine's beeps grow more chaotic. Nurse Pam starts fretting behind them.

"Doctor Curtis could be back any time, you need to-"

“I’m leaving.” Elliot interrupts. "I'm taking them with me."

She looks confused. "Who?"

"Izzy."

"Nope." This comes from Izzy, laying on the hospital bed. "I'm not going home without my eye."

Elliot sighs, exhausted. "Your eye is gone," he insists, "They're not going to just give it back."

"Then I'll take it back." Despite their bravado, they make no effort to move.

He tries not to laugh. "How?"

"You will help me find it."

"And then what, Ben will just stick it back in?"

"I know people."

Elliot is growing impatient. His head is throbbing and he shouldn't even be here. Behind him, Nurse Pam continues fretting and talking about Dr. Curtis's impending return. "We're running out of time, Izzy."

"What are you going to do, walk me around the streets of downtown Albuquerque in a hospital gown? You need to plan this out more. Call Jim."

Elliot growls and whirls around, approaching the nurse. "Where are my clothes? When does your shift end?"

His clothes are neatly folded in a bag in the drawer next to his bed; he is relieved to find the folded up newspaper articles still in the jeans pocket. He pulls the hospital gown on over his clothing and slips his hands back in through the thick leather straps.

Shortly thereafter, Dr. Curtis comes in and passes him a bill for imaging services, a number that (almost) makes Elliot laugh. "THIS. IS. WHAT. YOU. WILL. BE. CHARGED. IF. YOU. DO. NOT. COMPLY." he shouts slowly.

Nurse Pam, hovering behind him, gives Elliot a sympathetic smile. "I need your phone," he demands, once the doctor leaves.

"Oh, no, I don't think that's a good idea."

"Seriously?" He pulls his hands out of the straps to make a point. "That's the line you want to draw?"

She looks offended. "I was explicitly told not to bring technology around the other patient."

"Were you explicitly told not to bring technology around me?"

Nurse Pam shakes her head. "But I don't have it. It's in my locker."

Elliot's patience is wearing thin. He grits his teeth and asks (as politely as possible), "Can you go get it? I need to call my friend."

26

Elliot listens to the ringing on the other end of the line, half convinced Ben will ignore the call entirely. What would he say, in a voice mail?

"This is Ben." His voice comes gruff and tired over the line.

"Ben. Hi. It's me."

A long pause. Nurse Pam hovers near the door (anxiety written all over her face), listening for footsteps.

"Are you fucking kidding me?" Ben sounds incredulous and very, very pissed. "What the fuck do you want from me now?"

"I'm with Izzy."

This time his response is immediate. "Let me talk to them."

"Not, like, with with them," Elliot stumbles, "We're at the ultrasound clinic, the one on the map?"

"No you're not."

"Come on, man, listen to me. They took Izzy's implant. They think I'm Jim."

"They think you are Jim," Ben repeats monotonously. "Fuck off, Elliot, I don't have time for this."

"Where are you?"

A long sigh. "The tracking signal moved around before we got here. We're outside this massive complex at, like, the edge of the city."

"The signal moved because the implant moved," Elliot tries to spell out. "We're still here."

"Shit," Ben says, finally realizing the implications of what he said.

Nurse Pam starts frantically gesturing towards him; someone is coming. "I have to go. You need to come to the clinic, now." He hangs up and quickly tucks the phone under his blanket, slipping his hands back through the restrains just as Dr. Curtis breezes into the room.

"Are we starting to feel more cooperative now, Jim?" The sneer on his voice with the name makes Elliot cringe, and he hopes it doesn't show on his face. The doctor thrusts a yellow notepad at him, blue ink scrawled: "where is your implant?"

He shrugs.

Dr. Curtis breathes a long-suffering sigh and turns to the nurse. "I have an anesthesiologist on the way. Prep her for surgery." Elliot tries not to jolt. Surgery? What about the x-rays promised earlier?

Nurse Pam looks flustered. "Um, sir, I thought-"

"Are you paid to think, here?" he yells. "Do you want a bad review in that app?"

She shakes her head, staring at the floor as Dr. Curtis pushes past her out the door. Elliot gets a peek of Izzy across the hall for a brief moment when he throws the door to their room across the hall open before his own has swung closed. The nurse keeps staring at the floor, eyes glistening with tears.

"Pam," Elliot says quietly, trying to get her attention without being overheard. "It's going to be okay."

"My rating," she whines.

"My friend over there is a hacker. They can make your rating top in the state if you help us get out." He has no idea if this is true, but it sounds promising.

"They?"

"Izzy. It's gender neutral." She looks confused, so he adds, "Don't worry about it. Will you help me? Please?"

. . .

Ben arrives just near the end of Nurse Pam’s shift, very loudly and (apparently) drunkenly making an appearance in the lobby waiting room of the clinic with (presumably) a silent Jim. Elliot can hear him from the hallway, where he is waiting for nurse Pam and Izzy.

"My wife is pregnant!" Ben's excitement makes his heart race. "I want to see my child!"

"Sir, this clinic is closed," Dr. Curtis's irritated voice feels too close, just barely out of sight. "We don't do -"

"What do you mean closed? The door was open, right, honey?" A strange giggle. "I want an ultrasound like that one. Look at all these babies! I bet ours is cuter."

Izzy comes shuffling out of the room, wearing a hospital gown and a pair of scrubs for pants. They are so, so very slow as Elliot leads them down the hallway, out the back door (which should be alarmed but isn't (thank you, Nurse Pam)). A tight fence encloses the scruffy, narrow back lot, gate closed by a simple padlock.

"Shit. Stay here," he instructs, then he runs (stupidly) back into the building, where he hears Ben shout ("She's Scandinavian!"). Nurse Pam catches sight of him and gives him a wide eyed head shake. He pulls a paperclip from a file in a plastic case mounted to the wall and steps quietly back out the door. Through the gate, around a corner, over cracked and crumbling pavement. He has to slow down and remind himself that Izzy is blind now, visually cut off from the world. Elliot guides them into the passenger seat as Ben and Jim come racing around the building, looking flustered. Jim jumps into the driver's seat, not even waiting for Elliot or Ben to buckle their seatbelts in the back before slamming down the accelerator and lurching them away from the clinic.

"Holy shit," Ben gasps. "It actually worked." There had not been a lot of time to come up with a plan; a couple instructional texts, and Elliot had to hope he would get the idea.

"You performed admirably," he says, and Ben grins, then falters. He looks like he wants to say something, or a million things. In front, Jim's eyes keep wandering from the road to look at Izzy, who is quiet and hunched (and crying) in the front seat. She reaches out and clasps their hand; they flinch away (just slightly (but enough for Elliot to notice from behind)) at the touch.

The silence feels empty around them.

He rubs at his throbbing head, wincing when his fingers brush against the swollen lump. Ben must notice, because he curses and leans over to examine it, pressing waves of pain through him. "I'm fine," Elliot murmurs. "Izzy had brain surgery."

"Seriously?"

Izzy is still silent and Elliot is uncomfortable talking about them in front of them, so he just nods (groaning at the movement) and leans his head against the glass window, watching buildings pass by anonymously. Even though he's in a different place, a different state entirely, all the buildings look the same as the ones he grew up with. Grey greying cracked crumbling dying decaying concrete hell; only the mountains are different. Cheap land meant the city exploded, then it cooked itself half to death when all the water ran out. Same as Denver, same as Phoenix and Las Vegas and literally every suburban sprawl in Texas.

Jim drives them to a hotel where she pays for (two) rooms with a card like it's nothing at all, and Elliot tries not to bristle. He trudges along behind them down soft plush carpeted halls that smell like paint and sprawls on a bed and stares at the ceiling while Ben (presumably) examines Izzy and makes sure they are not imminently dying from brain surgery some doors down the hall. He's starting to think maybe he'll have the room to himself for the night when the card reader beeps and Ben enters the room, looking concerned.

Elliot sits up. "Is Izzy okay?"

"Uh, physically, yeah," he answers distantly. He tosses a phone onto the mattress next to him. "Order yourself something for dinner."

Elliot's stomach growls loudly as he scrolls through the menu on the app. He is starving. "Are they paying for this?" he asks. Ben nods in the affirmative so he doesn't hold back, ordering a milkshake to go with his (veggie) burger and fries.

Such extravagance, for a (former) homeless kid.

"What happened?" Ben asks finally as he takes the phone back. He sits down cautiously on the bed opposite, eyeing Elliot warily. He doesn't respond right away and they have a sort of standoff (a staring contest). "We were both pretty sure that you'd lost your shit and destroyed the entire fucking library this time," he adds, shrugging. "So if you want me to keep believing that..."

Elliot smirks. "I lost my shit and destroyed the library and jumped off the roof and landed in fucking Albuquerque with nothing more than a concussion and a goose egg on my head."

"Sounds plausible."

He sighs and rubs his aching skull. "I was searching for something. Like, a clue we missed." He's having trouble putting the timeline together concisely with his head pounding like this.

"A clue? You were digging through Izzy's things."

"They're keeping files on all of us."

"I saw."

Elliot wonders how much he saw. Did Ben read into the file he must have left splayed across the floor? "I heard the crashing and I went to investigate, but he was there. He knocked me out."

"Who?"

"A cop? And there was a doctor. Uh. Doctor Curtis," the name comes to him slowly. "Jonathon Curtis. Did you see the business card?"

"From Ikarus, yeah."

"You didn't scan the code, right?"

"Of course not."

"Good." Elliot is pretty sure scanning the code was his ultimate downfall. Likely his phone downloaded some sort of virus, a tracker of some sort. "I. Um. Fuck. That nurse." He groans and drops his head in his hands, feeling vaguely ill.

"Shit, here, lay down." Ben is on his feet in front of him, looking intently at his eyes, his face, the bruises. He gently guides Elliot to a pillow, pulls the blanket over him. "I'll let you know when food's here, okay?"

Elliot nods into the darkness of unconsciousness that sounds like crackling ice around him.

27

"Hey, honey, grub's here." Ben's voice is soft (distant) and the only light in the room comes from a single lamp in the hallway, bleeding out in a yellow pool, so he can't pinpoint exactly where it's coming from.

Elliot sits up, grimacing, a wet bag of ice flopping onto his lap.

"Ice pack," Ben explains quietly. "How's your head?"

"Mm."

"You hungry, or do you want to go back to bed?"

"I'm starving. Then bed." Elliot dips French fries into his milkshake and crams them into his mouth and tries to remember the last time he ate. Remembering feels like digging through his brain for a splinter, so he stops trying. Ben watches on with a look of mild amusement as he packs down the veggie burger. "What?" he asks, feeling defensive.

"Nothing at all," he replies, grinning.

Elliot slows down, trying to look less desperate as he eats. He puts the burger down and wipes his mouth with the back of his hand, remembering too late the napkins in front of him. "You know how large predators, like lions or wolves, in the wild would gorge every time they landed a prey because they didn't know if their next kill would be days or weeks away?"

"Sure." The way Ben says it, he isn't sure whether he knows what Elliot is talking about or not.

"I'm like that."

"A large predator?"

"Scared. Hungry. Wary about the future." He shifts uncomfortably under Ben's pitying look and the newspapers crinkle quietly in his pocket. "I, um, I was hungry a lot, growing up."

"I gathered. You were homeless? Er, unhoused or whatever."

Elliot nods, sipping at his milkshake. "Off and on until I was thirteen, then pretty much permanently after that until I got into Tech."

"I think I figured it out when you took me into that hotel for coffee. I was like, how does he even know this is an option? Then I thought about what you said about trains, and how you could pick locks and went dumpster diving and shit. I felt really dumb when I put it all together." Ben gives a short, self-deprecating laugh, then asks, "Were you always alone?"

Another nod. Elliot pulls the thin newspapers out of his pocket and fidgets with them. His hands are shaking. "I was found wandering around alone when I was a toddler. I bounced around foster homes at first, then a couple of group homes. They named me after the month and the street I was on." Ben looks confused so he adds, "April. I changed it when I was eighteen. I mean, eighteen-ish. I don't really have a birthday."

Ben doesn't know what to say, but Elliot can't blame him for that. He stares for too long, his hand covering his mouth in a caricature of dumbfounded. He is saved from having to come up with something by his phone buzzing from his lap, startling them both. He looks at it, hesitating, and it almost looks like he's going to reject it. "It's bedtime," he says, "I'm so sorry."

"You're fine." Elliot fiddles with the newspapers as he listens to the conversations, the missives, the goodnights and I love yous. His appetite has gone and he carefully wraps up the uneaten food for later. He goes into the bathroom and takes a shower so hot it makes his skin burn red, but when he gets out he feels cold again. Ben is gone when he exits the bathroom (wearing the same (hospital smelling) clothes). He returns as Elliot is crawling back into his bed. A bottle of pills rattles like cicadas in his brain.

"Acetaminophen," Ben says, setting two pills and a plastic cup of water on the nightstand next to the still tightly folded newsprint.

Elliot props himself up on his elbow and swallows the bitter pills, laying back with a groan. "How is Izzy?"

A pause. "They're coping."

"How did you guys meet?"

It is a strange gap in his knowledge for someone who is usually such an open book. He's not sure Ben is going to answer the question, it takes so long for him to speak. "We met at Sam's funeral. He had been working on some ink for Jim when he got sick. Izzy gave me their number and said if I needed anything," he sighs. "A few months later they bailed my sad, drunk ass out of jail."

"Did you see all those files?"

Another pause. "Yeah. It looked like they keep notes on everyone they met."

"Even you."

"Even me." He gives Elliot a strange look and adds, "I had no desire to look at mine though."

"Maybe it really is better not to know."

"Do you actually believe that?"

Does he? The newspapers are burning a hole through his thoughts but he still hasn't looked at them. He doesn't want to open them up, find out something new and horrific about himself. Or worse, find out nothing new at all.

Elliot tries to sleep and does a very poor job of it. Though the painkillers dulled the raw ache in his head, it did not go away entirely, and every time he moves it sends waves of nauseating agony through him. He dreams of being kidnapped and waking up in the middle of brain surgery where a surgeon is laughing at him for not having a brain. He tosses and turns. He dreams of children covered in blood, drowning in it, oceans turned scarlet with it. He tries to sit outside in the narrow balcony, but the air smells wrong and the sounds are not quite right and he is not nearly high enough to jump. He chews on the now cold, stale french fries from earlier and they taste like cardboard. He feels restless and antsy, unfinished.

"Elliot?" He jumps and turns to face Ben, standing in the doorway, face full of concern. "You really gotta get some rest with a concussion like that."

"I can't sleep," Elliot mumbles tiredly.

"Come here," Ben says, pulling him to his feet, wrapping his arms around him and holding him there for a minute before guiding him back to bed. His body is warm, curled up against Elliot's under the thin hotel sheets.

28

Izzy wakes them in the morning by pounding on the door, likely waking up the rest of the floor in the process. They are angry (at Elliot specifically) for their rescue and demanding to go back. "I told you, I'm not leaving this place without my eye!"

Ben tries to get them to calm down, lay down, rest. "You just had brain surgery -" he tries but Izzy cuts him off.

"They took out a couple wires," they scoff, "under local anesthesia." They need to know where the implant is, what the tracker says. They are resolutely ignoring Jim, or rather her phone, the text-to-speech that chimes out from it. "Fuck off with that stupid robot voice," Izzy snaps, hands signing in front of them.

For some reason, everyone is a lot more understanding of their yelling (ranting (offloading)) than they were of Elliot's.

Whatever.

Elliot's head fucking hurts but he squints down at the too small screen (Ben's phone) in front of him, scrolling through a news release about the opening of the nearby Ikarus campus where Izzy's implant is still pinging. It is a massive, green paradise set in the cheap, drought-dead desert land just outside of Albuquerque. The article is adorned with photographs of happy, smiling tech employees on cheerful lawns next to glowing flower beds, enjoying coffee in one of a dozen cafes, working out at the company gym. Everything is solar powered and LEEDS certified and jam packed with lithium and cobalt mined by children in some impoverished country in Africa. On-campus employee housing, schools, greenhouses and subsidized grocers, a medical complex, and is that a fucking library? Everything walkable or, if you have to cross the miles wide campus for any reason, navigable by electric bike.

For employees only. Walled off, security guards at every gate, every corner. Biometric scanners and live AI driven video monitoring.

"Look, Izzy," Elliot says, ignoring the look of reproach his phrasing earns him. "We can't just up and break into this place." He is trying (unsuccessfully) to use the same logic they had used on him yesterday.

"Sure we can."

"We need to plan for this. What if you get caught again? What if they actually catch Jim?" Dr. Curtis was going to cut Elliot's head open without even an x-ray to verify there was anything in there. How desperate is this guy?

How desperate is Izzy? They are deliriously confident in their ability to break into Ikarus and recover their implant, all without seeing, with or without Elliot's help. He's not opposed to helping, necessarily. He is terrified of going back to Denver and being shown the door again. But he has no idea where to start, and almost all of Izzy's tech is there, not here.

"I know a guy," they assure him. They know lots of guys.

Ben keeps looking anxiously at his phone, so Elliot tries a different angle. "Ben needs to go home. He needs to hug his kid. He's got work."

They don't even hesitate. "Benjamin, I will personally pay your rent for the next thirteen years if you help me with this."

"Seriously?" Ben looks, if anything, irritated by the offer; possibly because it is so extravagant as to be absurd, or possibly because he doesn't believe it in the first place. "Don't be ridiculous. You don't even need the thing. What are you going to do, reimplant it yourself?"

"I know a guy," Izzy says.

And so on.

Their (successful) attempt at bribery reminds Elliot of his promise to Nurse Pam, which he has no idea how to follow through with. He wants to ask Ben about it but something feels off between them, like maybe he hadn't wanted to wake up this morning with Elliot in his arms (morning wood pressing into his thigh). Like he had already made it abundantly clear that sleeping with Elliot wasn't an option (every damn time they've tried) and doing so without sex attached was somehow even more a violation. Like he only did it out of some sad sense of obligation and regrets it now.

It is possible Elliot is reading too far into things.

He very badly wants to get out of the hotel, which feels stuffy and enclosed after being so warm and inviting last night (or was that just Ben?). He wants to get away from Izzy and their stubbornness, their cynicism, their intensity (all qualities they share with Elliot, but nobody likes him for it). It takes several attempts at making an excuse to get away ("does anyone want breakfast? Coffee?") before one finally lands (just go with honesty: "I need some fresh air").

Ben catches up with him as he is waiting for the elevator down. "They kicked me out too," he explains vaguely. "What's wrong, a couple flights of stairs too much for you?"

At first Elliot thinks the criticism is sincere; that's just the type of day he's having, apparently. Then he catches Ben's grin, the twinkle in his eyes. "I used up my allotment for stairs for the year getting to that damn greenhouse in the sky," he answers.

"Were you there last week? During the cold snap?" Elliot nods cautiously, and Ben continues, "I thought so. I was so relieved when I saw your coat. Whenever I was at work, I was convinced they'd bring you in as a popsicle. Didn't matter what hospital I was at, I was sure it was going to be mine."

"I'm sorry." Elliot is surprised to learn that Ben thought about him at all. He doesn't think that's the response he was looking for, especially since the conversation immediately drops as they step outside the hotel to a city that he only just realizes is unfamiliar. Left, or right? The roads are different, the store fronts, the people, even if it is all generically the same. Coffee is coffee, donuts are donuts, priceless colorful stones are shiny and meaningless no matter where they are sold. The only question is what direction they are located in.

Elliot's indecisiveness takes too long and a patrol drone whizzes past, telling, "No Loitering!" Its voice is just slightly different from the ones back home.

Home.

The word resonates through his sore skull like an angry bee and he has to laugh. He's never had a home before in his life.

"What's so funny?" Ben asks, a tone of concern.

"Life." It comes out too bitter, and Ben sighs. Elliot says, "You don't have to like me, you know."

"Excuse me?"

"You seem like you have to try really hard to like me. I don't know. Maybe you feel bad for me or something, but it's not necessary. You don't have to force it, I won't be offended."

"I don't think -"

"No, really," Elliot interrupts. "You're going to just keep building up expectations about me and I'm just going to keep disappointing you. I'm not a great guy. I haven't lived an exciting life and all I really want to do is kill myself. You deserve better than that."

"Okie dokie." Ben's agreement is abrupt and decisive and (despite Elliot's insistence) jarring. They walk along in silence for a while. The hotel seems to be nestled within a business district, and there is little to do beyond visiting dozens of overpriced coffee stands. A few of the buildings have lines outside them; well-dressed, anxious faces, clutching suitcases and resumes and grumbling at the pitiless drones ("No Loitering!"). They are the desperate and unemployed, waiting for job fairs and the promise of a paycheck.

Elliot recognizes a logo on a stand at the head of one of the largest lines: a pair of wings set atop a cartoonish sun. "That's Ikarus," he says. "I have an idea." He pulls a perplexed looking Ben (jaywalking) across the street. The line loops around the corner and he reaches the end as others arrive behind him. "I need a phone. Do you have Jim's card?" Ben nods. Elliot sighs and runs his hand through his hair (shaggy) and looks down at his clothes. "I also need a suit. And some more painkillers?"

"Um," Ben says.

"You're gonna need a suit too, if you want to come with me." The line moves forward half a step, and he adds, "You probably have, like, an hour?"

29

The line for the hiring fair is long, and no one seems to question when Elliot changes in the middle of it into a reasonable button-up and grey jacket. The first thing he does with his new phone is download the damn Nursr app and track down Nurse Pam so he can upvote her. Her score is low (in the red) and he can see she's been punished for helping him yesterday. He writes a glowing five star review ("very helpful and understanding"); he's limited to one upvote per day but he can ask Izzy to figure out a workaround when this is over.

The second thing he does is wish the damn thing would explode in his hands (halt and catch fire); this is the third phone he has owned in practically as many months. One, he spoiled the Southern Ocean with (what a dick). The other one is probably sitting in Izzy's apartment, useless.

He has to login to his student account for Tech which makes his stomach hurt; his status: "Temporarily on Hold." He downloads his transcripts and his CV and a digital copy of his student ID (hopefully that's enough) while Ben looks on with the curiosity of someone watching a lion dismantle a zebra in an old documentary.

"You think you're going to get a job at Ikarus?" he asks skeptically.

"I think I'll at least get an interview," Elliot mutters, distracted. "I'm kind of hot stuff."

"And you say you're not fascinating." Ben will also be able to get an interview, if his Nursr score is any indicator (if he doesn’t mention the incident with the cop). The company seems to be hiring every field imaginable (even grocers).

Elliot sells himself as a generalist researcher; his experience in a multitude of scientific fields makes him appealing as a jack of all trades. If, that is, he ever graduates. "I'm almost there," he admits. "I had to take a semester off for my mental health, but the last classes I need are online." He refrains from disclosing the incident with his advisor.

His gamble pays off; his AI interviewer is sympathetic to mental health issues (it is built into the code). Elliot meets up with Ben afterwards in the cafeteria; they have both been cleared for the next stage of interviews.

"I retract my earlier statement," Ben says, "I'm back in the camp of 'Elliot is secretly a spy.'"

"I just really like free food." Elliot drags him to the buffet (free for candidates who make it past the first couple screening rounds of (mostly automated) interviews). They have some time to kill before the bus arrives to take them to the Ikarus campus for a tour. They find a table in a quiet corner and Ben looks around in awe.

"I've never heard of an interview where they feed you," he remarks.

"It's a bait and switch," Elliot warns. "Did you see what they're paying nurses?"

"More than I make through the app." Elliot grimaces and he continues, "What's our next step?"

"Um. I don't know if you've noticed this, Ben, but I'm kind of making this up as we go along."

The bus ride is long and winding and Elliot's mind keeps threatening to wander back to the newspaper clippings. He downloads the tracker for Izzy's implant, watches as the bus takes them closer and closer to the blinking red dot, straight through the locked and guarded gates and past eerily green lawns, straight cut trees and bubbling fountains. His head is starting to throb and he pulls the rattling pill bottle out of his pocket and swallows them dry. Ben (in the seat next to him (their arms brushing)) passes over a bottle of water with the Ikarus logo stamped on it.

"Bad idea," he says, "it's a diuretic. You don't want dehydration on top of a concussion."

Elliot drinks turns the bottle around in his hands, looking for a tracking chip, before taking a drink. It's probably embedded in the plastic.

They disembark in front of an enormous, glass walled building, clearly meant to be the central focus of the campus. The Ikarus logo is planted in colorful flowers in the lawn in front. Several Ikarus employees (distinguished by their embroidered polos in various colors) work to sort the candidates by their field. A woman in yellow approaches them.

"Hi! My name is Susan! Welcome to Ikarus Southwest!" Everything she says ends in an exclamation point. "Where are we interviewing today?"

"R and D," Elliot says vaguely.

"Um," Ben stutters, rather less smoothly. "I'm a nurse."

Susan smiles brightly, looking between them. "Are you two a couple?"

Before Ben can interfere, Elliot nods enthusiastically. "Yep!" He grabs Ben's hand. "We just got engaged."

"Oh, congratulations! We just love families at Ikarus! Wait until you see our family neighborhoods! Perfect for a young couple such as yourselves!"

"Can't wait," Ben says distantly.

Susan advises they stay together for the tour, arranging them to split up afterwards for interviews. Elliot surreptitiously checks his phone as they tour through the many stunning amenities offered to Ikarus employees. A gym, smelling of sweat and machine oil, with a full sized Olympic lap pool and splash pool for kids. A cafe in every building. Central food court with five star international chefs. Playgrounds and schools and yes, even a library. It has no books, but computers and work space and unlimited access to the ever-growing Ikarus library (courtesy of the publishing division). Everything seems to be based on rank; Elliot, as a researcher, would have access to more benefits than Ben a nurse. "But it defaults to the highest level for families," the tour guide (a man in a blue shirt named Ted) assures them (and a handful of various other couples). "Once you're officially married, that is," he adds (to Ben and Elliot specifically). "You should've gotten hitched before the interviews. You two would be such a boon to our DEI goals."

Ben does not comment on their sudden engagement but holds Elliot's hand (in order to keep up the ploy), their fingers intertwined. When they reach the medical building, he stands by as Ted gives confused directions to the Research and Development building located clear across the campus.

"Are you sure you're fine with riding over there alone?" the tour guide asks, fretting. "Technically I'm not supposed to let you wander alone..." He has others to drop off as well, but their destinations are far more reasonable in distance.

"I won't be wandering. I have an interview," Elliot assures him. He has no intention of going anywhere; the blinking red tracking dot lights up the medical building.

Ben pulls him aside before they part, holding him close so Ted (looking mildly uncomfortable) starts towards the next building. His lips close enough to tickle Elliot's ear, he whispers, "I'll get away and meet you in the back."

Elliot rides away on a blue and yellow Ikarus branded electric scooter, abandoning it around the corner and walking the rest of the way to the back entrance of the med building. There is something like a rose garden back here, and he is grateful for the row of hedges he can duck behind when he spots Dr. Curtis sitting on a bench (smoking) near the door, his back thankfully to him. "Shit," he mutters, dialing Ben's phone.

"Hey, I'm almost there," his voice feels like it is booming over the tiny speaker.

"Not yet," Elliot warns, "Dr. Curtis is here." He peeks through the branches; the doctor puts out his cigarette and stands. He does not look behind him as he heads towards the door. "He's going in now."

"Give me a few more minutes."

When Ben arrives a few minutes later (as promised), he is wearing pink scrubs and a surgical mask. He has an identical set for Elliot, who changes into the clothing in a nearby bathroom as Ben stands watch. They are much too big for him and he has to roll the pants around the waist so they don't drag on the floor.

"Where did you get these from?"

"Locker room." The mask hides Ben's face as he emerges, but his eyes light up. "Have you ever considered a career in medicine?"

"No, actually. It all felt so cutthroat." Elliot has never been a competitive person. Like the people on Nursr, his success has always been in part due to being the lowest bidder. He got in on research with the things no one else likes (the things that paid too poorly to be appealing): physics, insects, small children. That he was a capable (quick) learner was just an added bonus.

They fold their (new but thrifted) suits and hide them in the ceiling tiles. Ben clears his throat. "Where to?"

The red dot can only be so specific, and there are twenty floors in this building. "Did they happen to give you a map?"

"There's a directory in the front," Ben says, eyes sparkling mischievously. "Bionics is on the seventh floor."

30

Some things Elliot has never thought he would see: real, live penguins. A dying glacier. Rooftop gardens. A drawer full of glass orbs (shiny black eyeballs), wires dangling (like nerves) like wormy little tails.

He tucks the paperclip he used to unlock the drawer into his shoe and stares blankly into the box. "Which one is Izzy's?" he asks.

"Does it matter?" Ben hovers anxiously by the door to the storage room, listening. The office of Doctor Jonathan Curtis is right across the hallway. "Just pick one."

"Of course it matters," Elliot retorts.

"Then take them all.”

Elliot looks over them again; Izzy made a ton of modifications to their implant, but these all look the same.

"We need to go across the hall."

"Seriously?" Ben hisses, "No way."

"It's not here. I think Dr. Curtis has it in his office."

The office is unlocked, the doctor's absence clearly meant to be only temporary. Ben stands guard outside the doorway while Elliot searches the office, not entirely sure what his plan is if someone shows up. He finds the implant near the back of the top drawer as though it had been hastily thrown in there and rolled around. The wires are more mangled, the outside glass scuffed and scratched.

"Let's go." Elliot watches on his screen as the red dot moves down the hallway with him; good, so he got the right one. They hurry away from Dr. Curtis's office to the elevator, which dings open to reveal

Dr. Curtis

standing on the platform. He looks confused to see them. "Are you two lost?"

"Yes, actually," Ben says casually, pushing Elliot into the elevator in front of him. "We're supposed to be in pediatrics."

"Seventeenth floor," Dr. Curtis says curtly. He remains standing in the elevator, watching them distrustfully.

Thank god for face masks.

"Thanks!" Ben reaches past to press the button which glows yellow. The doctor continues watching them until they reach the seventeenth floor; as they disembark he reaches over to press the button labeled "7."

The seventeenth floor is swarming with crying and coughing (thank god for face masks) small children, and Elliot has to weave around them as he follows Ben to the staircase; but before they make their escape he hears someone call out,

"Oh, hey, nurse!"

"Fuck." Ben curses softly under his breath and turns.

"I need some help with this kid," the young doctor's face looks harried, a kid screaming bloody murder in the room behind her.

"Yeah, of course," Ben says guardedly. He gestures for Elliot to go on and joins the pediatrician.

At the top of the staircase Elliot is greeted with a locked door, not a cheap padlock but something with slightly more commitment to security. Not necessarily unpickable, but not something he feels confident undoing with a paperclip. He rakes at the pins half heartedly but he needs something flat he can use as leverage to twist and apply tension on the lock. Izzy's eye with all its flimsy wires is in his pocket next to his phone and some flimsy newsprint. All are useless.

Elliot is going to have to backtrack; he's about to head down the stairs once again when Ben comes racing up the flights, grinning and clutching a set of keys. "I'll figure out a way to frame the kid," he says. "He deserves it. He kicked me in the balls."

The fourth key he tries unlocks the heavy metal door; he pushes it open to reveal a gravel rooftop and an apparently endless blue sky above. There is a stiff breeze and Elliot has a flash of getting blown off the roof like a kite. The sun glints off the roof and makes the bruise on his head pulse. There are no greenhouses up here, or even a helipad like a real hospital would have. There is a drone, small and dark and hovering stunningly still in the wind at roughly eye level. It is covered in Izzy's dots to make it invisible to cameras.

"How the hell did Izzy get a drone last minute?" Ben grumbles.

"They know a guy," Elliot replies, amused. He puts the eye in a little basket the drone is carrying; then, in a flash of paranoid inspiration, he demands Ben's phone and wallet, placing those and his own phone in the basket as well. He hesitates and drops the news articles in there too; he'll have to read them later. Hopefully it's not too heavy, now. He watches the little drone float smoothly away then stands there for a while longer, just looking around. From this perspective, the Ikarus campus looks like a bright green blemish (an infected wound) in the desert. The adjacent city looks sad and forgotten.

"Everything okay?" Ben is behind him, hovering like he's worried Elliot is going to jump. He wants to jump, in the same way he wants to be buried in ice or just crawl into bed and sleep forever. He's so tired of the temporary: housing, employment, stability. In school everything is impermanent; your classes change every semester, your dorm cleared out each summer and reassigned. Friendly faces graduate and disappear forever.

"Yeah," Elliot lies. "I'm just enjoying the view." He turns to leave but Ben doesn't move; arms crossed, he looks disappointed in the lie. "It's, um, all that inequality?" he tries. "They've got this sanctuary here that's clearly just chugging water. It's got everything you need. Housing and schools and everyone down there looks so happy it's like they're not even real."

"They're miserable," Ben agrees confidently. The interruption derails Elliot, so he adds, "That pediatrician down there? One woman responsible for every child in the complex. She was so relieved to think they were finally giving her a nurse, because otherwise it was just her and an office assistant. She almost started crying when I told her I was just interviewing." Perhaps Elliot still looks skeptical because he continues, "And yeah, medical workers are always shafted by the higher ups, but you can see it in everyone. There's this tragic desperation in everyone's eyes. Do you really think people like Ted and Susan are always that cheerful? It's such an obvious mask. They probably get their pay docked if they're ever caught without a smile."

Elliot looks beyond the verdant campus at the concrete jungle beyond. "Why do they get free housing and subsidized groceries then? Why can't everyone else?"

Ben smirks. "Not fair, is it?" His stance finally eases and he holds out a hand. "Let's go. We don't want to get caught up here."

31

They don't get caught on the roof, nor in the staircase where Ben randomly abandons the set of stolen keys, nor in the bathroom downstairs (near the back) where their clothes are still safely hidden in the ceiling. They don't get caught until after they have redressed and are exiting the bathroom (stolen scrubs dangling carelessly from Ben's arms) and are greeted by Dr. Jonathon Curtis and a pair of uniformed, armed security guards. The pink scrubs drop quietly to the floor.

"Jim?" Dr. Curtis asks, and Elliot can't help himself; he smirks. "I thought I recognized you two."

"I, uhm, think you have us confused with someone else," Elliot tries. He turns to a blank-faced Ben, asks, "Do you know any Jims?"

He had hoped that the revelation that he is not, in fact, deaf or mute would be enough throw off the doctor, but he is not so lucky. Dr. Curtis snaps and the guards jump into action. One (red hair and a wiry mustache) wrestles Elliot's arms behind his back (no bloody defense mechanism today); another (bald and Black) handles a furious looking Ben.

"You're under arrest," Dr. Curtis mutters.

"Are we?" Elliot interrupts. "Pretty sure doctors don’t get to make that decision. Are you even real cops?" he demands.

"For trespassing, theft, and fraud," the doctor continues without acknowledging the interruption. "We have some questions for you."

They are brought to a security office, lined with video screens that each show the same thing: The Ikarus logo, animated to look like it is on fire. Text at the bottom says, "Whoops! You flew too close to the sun!"

The red-headed cop (no, security guard) runs his hands over Elliot's arms and legs, digs through his pockets, even removes his shoes; Ben endures roughly the same treatment next to him.

"Where are your phones?" Dr. Curtis demands.

Elliot shrugs. He continues shrugging through each of the questions, even as the security guards threaten to rough him up a bit. One hit lands on the bruise on his head and the pain is so overwhelming he wishes the black spots would just take him. They pick him up and dig through his pockets again and threaten a cavity search if he doesn't give up his "contraband."

Elliot just shrugs. He has nothing at all on (or in) him. Ben's resolve, unfortunately, seems to be weakening the longer he is kept handcuffed to the chair next to him. He looks like he might be willing to tell them anything to get to see his son tonight.

"Do you know how much that implant is worth?" Dr. Curtis yells; his face is red, spit flying, and suddenly Elliot realizes why it was apart from the others. Why the doctor used an old ultrasound clinic and a temp from Nursr instead of his own facilities here at Ikarus. Why he, personally, wants it back so bad: he's selling it himself. The company has probably forgotten about them entirely, and Dr. Curtis thinks he can make a quick buck (or several million) off ruining the last few remaining augments’ lives

"Like I said," Elliot starts, as though he had actually spent the last half hour defending himself and not just shrugging. "We don't know what you're walking about. Is there someone else we could talk to? Someone higher up maybe? I'd like to speak to your manager." He directs this mostly to the guards, who look at each other uncomfortably.

"I need to call my lawyer." Ben finally chimes in.

All perfectly reasonable requests, but they seem to enrage Dr. Curtis, who huffs and sighs and growls at the guards as they follow him out of the room to discuss their next steps.

"What is all this?” Ben murmurs crossly, gesturing with his head towards the rows of screens and their burning logos.

"Courtesy of Izzy, I guess," Elliot replies lightly.

"Fuck this," he says. "Fuck Izzy. Free rent isn't worth getting arrested."

"We're not getting arrested," Elliot assures him.

"Seriously? We've already been arrested," Ben protests. He groans. "Hey, since we're trapped here, I've got something to say to you.

"Um."

"I think I finally figured out how to respond to what you said earlier. You can't just tell me I'm not allowed to like you and expect me to play along with it. You don’t get to decide how people feel about you. And I really do like you. I think you're sad, and confusing, and kind of weird, but I like you because of those things, not despite them. I think you've got some serious mental health issues that need addressing, but I don't think that's insurmountable. I mean, fuck, you've seen me most evenings. I can barely hold myself together sober long enough to spend a weekend with my son. Does that make me unworthy of love?" He (finally) looks over towards Elliot, and (exasperated) asks, "What the hell are you doing?"

As Ben was baring his soul, Elliot was busy twisting and squirming and wriggling until his stiff, aching right hand could reach his ankle, where a bent paperclip was still tucked away under his shoeless sock. His fingers barely managed to grab it, squeezing, in such a tenuous grip. Now he scootches his chair with a loud, squeaky grinding sound, then again, and again, tilting his back towards Ben's. "This'll be easier if I do you first," he explains.

"If you... do..." Ben repeats slowly, uncomprehending until Elliot jingles the cuffs loudly. He has to work fast, blindly jamming the end of the paperclip down the channel to disengage the locking mechanism with a click. Then he has to tell Ben how to do it for him, which takes substantially longer. Arms free, Elliot rubs his wrist and looks around the room, avoiding Ben's (bewildered) eyes. He spots a central fire alarm and moves to pull it.

"Don't you dare," Ben stops him. "Do you know how much of a pain in the ass fire alarms are for a hospital?"

"Seriously?" Elliot can't help but laugh. "Do you have a better idea?"

No.

The sound rings hot and heavy through Elliot's head as they leave the security room (no Dr. Curtis or his goons in sight) merging with the fleeing crowds until they get outside then departing, away from the building towards the center of the campus where a bus is waiting to take them back into town. It is delayed, slightly, by the chaos surrounding the medical building, and Elliot waves to a sour-faced doctor as they ride past, through the gates and towards the city beyond.

"Hey," he says, turning to Ben. "I like you too."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah." Elliot leans over and kisses him. He pulls back and Ben is smiling. He says, “I watched a glacier die” and the smile drops.

“You... watched a glacier-” Ben repeats.

“Die. You know that tsunami, just before Christmas?”

Ben frowns, remembering. “In New Zealand?”

“I was in Antarctica and the glacier I was studying just, like, poured into the ocean.”

“You were in Antarctica?”

“Mhm.”

“Was there anything you could’ve done to stop it?”

Elliot laughs. “No.”

“That sucks.”

“Yeah.”

They kiss again, just because.

32

Elliot has never been in love. He's never been told those three words before (not even by a parent), never had them spill out of his own mouth to anything more than a much needed cup of hot coffee. He's been alone his entire life and he probably doesn't even know what love is.

Ben knows what love is. He loves his kid, he loves a dead tattoo artist named Sam, he loves nursing and chocolate chip pancakes. He loves walking through parks and going ice skating and volunteering at free vaccine clinics because the flu was what ripped his first love away from him like a wrathful god. He could (maybe (possibly (potentially))) even love Elliot, if he just gives himself a chance (if he can just stop thinking about glaciers and tsunamis and children drowning in blood).

Elliot returns to the city that has always (ignored) embraced him, kept him (just) warm and fed (enough) to keep him going day after (drudging) day; but now, at least, he is not alone.

He helps Jim rebuild the broken bookshelves while Izzy sits hunched over a laptop on the pink couch, an earbud dangling out one ear. Their implant (wires stuck into a USB port) stares blindly out at them.

"Aha!" they exclaim suddenly, and Elliot jumps (Jim turns (belatedly)). "BUG, I am so glad to hear your voice." It wasn't the cameras or sensors they wanted, they had explained during the (so long) drive back to Denver. Izzy had needed their implant back for BUG, their homebrew AI and (apparently) constant companion. They're planning on converting the implant into an ASL-to-speech translator. "I'm so tired of those hallucinations, anyway."

Hallucinations, officially just an artifact of the visual (or auditory) processing algorithm; unofficially proof that Elliot is (always and forever) alone. He still hasn't gotten around to reading those news articles, and eventually he confronts Izzy about them.

"I just need to know if they're, like, bad."

"They're fucking terrible, Elliot," they respond bluntly. "There's a reason I didn't share them with you." They offer to summarize it for him, give him a hint that might turn him off forever, but he declines. "Just, don't read them alone, okay?"

No, not alone. He sits on Ben's couch and slowly unfolds the crinkling papers. He holds his breath and lets his eyes fall on the headline:

"Barefoot toddler leads police to gruesome crime scene."

He flips the paper forward to read the next one:

"Who is Baby Doe? Murder-suicide leaves more questions than answers."

The headlines are succinct and descriptive enough that (for now) Elliot feels no compulsion to read any further. He looks up at Ben, who is leaning against the kitchen counter, watching him carefully. "I think I should see a therapist."

Ben gives him a sad look. "That bad?" Elliot nods and he crosses the room, pulling him into his arms as he sits down on the couch next to him, holding him there (absolutely not crying) for as long as it takes to not feel like he is crumbling apart. He hands over the newspapers and maybe Ben scans the headlines; maybe he even reads the words below them. Maybe he studies the blurry newsprint photographs of the (unregistered) RV where the crime took place and Baby Doe's gaunt, tearstained cheeks. Elliot wouldn't know; he says nothing about it. Instead, he asks, "Hey, so, you know spring?”

“Spring?” The equinox is only a couple weeks away, Elliot realizes with a start.

“Ollie’s been begging me to start a garden in the front yard. I’m thinking, if I don’t have to worry about rent anymore, I might actually have enough free time to do it this year.”

“That sounds nice,” he replies vaguely. He thinks about stolen apples and carrots still gritty with dirt. “You should get an apple tree.”

“Yeah,” Ben agrees. “Will you help me?”

Snow clouds hang heavy over the city buildings (grey on grey on grey), but somewhere distant up above, the rooftops are lined with greenhouses. People are crowding into shelters (if they’re lucky) or hunkering down to wait out the snow on the streets, while office buildings stand empty and hollow. Children are starving but people like Izzy are feeding them. Underground libraries, free health clinics, electronics workshops, victory gardens; resources forever just out of reach for the people (like him) who need(ed) them most.

“Yeah,” Elliot replies, “Of course.”

Maybe they don't have to be; maybe kids don’t have to be arrested for picking an apple off a tree. Maybe it can start with one garden, right here in the middle of a grey, soulless city.

Also by Liz Boysha

Apis

Queen of the Bees

Wild Things

Roach

Where There's Smoke

Unloveables

So Here We Are

The Rooftops Are Lined With Greenhouses

Watch for more at Liz Boysha’s site.