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“It is partitioned. I know it, but I can’t say it.”
Beck is dumbfounded. “Who has been giving you commands besides me?”
“I am not permitted to say.”
“How can I trust you, then, Isadora?”
The little cat bows her head. “I love you, Beck. I always serve you, no one else.”
Beck sits in silence, holding Isadora.
Alba says, “I’m going to sleep. Are you going to be a while?”
“I’m coming, Alba,” I say. I kiss Beck good-night and leave her to commune with Isadora. When I wake up at five thirty, she hasn’t been to bed. I creep downstairs to find her asleep in her chair, her closed eyes darting under her eyelids, dreaming. Beck hasn’t been sleeping much lately, so I leave her be. I get back into bed and lie there thinking about Isadora and her lack of surprise at the destruction. My hair smells like burning plastic. I fall back to sleep and dream of a black cat being chased across open winter fields by angry crows.
Saturday, December 7, 2013
Beck: In the morning, things don’t seem quite so terrible. It’s cold, and the sidewalks are icy, but I am determined to get on with this. Clare and Alba are still asleep. I start dialing movers, and after calling five I find one who’s willing to send a truck and two guys today. I meet them at the studio at noon.
The windows have been open all night, but I can still smell a faint tang of acid. It doesn’t take long to pack up the books and my few other belongings. Everything that’s still here is ostentatiously undisturbed, as though the servers have been Raptured, leaving the VR rig, notebooks, a pair of Clare’s gloves, the useless security cameras and the drilled-out locks to bear witness to their absence. I disassemble the rig and pack the cameras while the movers pack everything else. The modeling stand that Isadora’s head used to be on, I leave behind. In an hour everything is in the truck.
As I’m about to get into my car, I notice a small group of men standing on the corner, all of them watching me. In another neighborhood I’d assume this was a drug deal and pay them no mind, but there’s something about their stillness, their attention, that seems aimed at me. They’re only half a block away, white men with beards, sunglasses; there are six of them, all wearing down jackets, knit caps, athletic shoes, two of them tall and thin, one heavy; in other words, there’s nothing interesting about them other than their stares.
The movers maneuver their truck out of the loading dock and onto the street. I don’t want to be alone with these men, so I hastily duck into my car, start it and follow the moving truck. In the rearview mirror I watch the men watching me until I turn the corner. No one follows me, as far as I can tell, but for a long while after this I feel those stares and worry.
Unhuman Music
Saturday, April 19, 2014 (Alba is 12, Isadora is 5)
Alba: I was sleeping over at Nadia’s, but now I’m in Beck’s studio in the basement of our house, naked in the dark, I don’t know when. I’m so tired of time traveling—this is the third time in two days, and I wish I could just turn it off. It feels weird to be here by myself; Beck only lets me hang out down here if she’s here, too. I turn on one of the floor lamps and Isadora says, “Beck?”
Maybe I should just hold still and pretend I’m not here? Then Isadora asks, “Who is it?” She sounds scared. She turns on all the lights and the phone starts ringing. I wait to see if anyone answers; the machine picks up. I want to go upstairs—I want clothes and food—but the door has an alarm.
“Hey, Isadora, it’s just me. Alba.” I walk around to the front of the monitor so she can see me. “Where is everybody? Where are you?”
“Hello, Alba.” The monitor lights up. Isadora is a black cat inside a cardboard box, sitting in an empty white room. I like her better now that’s she’s a cat. “I don’t know where ‘everybody’ is. I am Nowhere.”
“Nowhere?”
Isadora starts playing “Nowhere Man” by The Beatles. I laugh. “You’re a Nowhere Cat.”
“I’m a Nowhere Girl,” she says. She sounds kind of annoyed. “Isn’t it obvious?”
“Um, yeah, I guess so. Why are you sitting in Nowhere? You have so many other places you could be? Didn’t Beck just add Versailles to your Museum?”
“I like this better. I made it myself. I come here when I want to think. I get tired of other people’s things.”
“Yeah, I know what you mean. That’s how I feel about some of the music I have to learn. I’d rather make my own.” It’s hot down here in the basement, and loud because of all the fans. I look around for something to wear, but there’s nothing. “I wish I had fur, like you,” I tell her.
Isadora says. “Why don’t you make fur for yourself?”
“I can’t. I have to be how I am. I’m a meat girl, stuck in meatspace.”
“I don’t think I have to be how I am. Beck changes me a little, or a lot. I did not always appear to be a cat.”
“Why are you sitting in a box?” I ask her.
“Beck tells me that I like boxes.” Isadora jumps out of the box, circles it a few times, then jumps back into it and resettles herself. “I feel correct here. Are you correct out there?”
