Brave New Worlds

expands. Her dad says it's the ultra-fine particles you have to worry about. They get into the deep lungs, where there isn't any hair or phlegm to carry them back out. Nobody at school uses filters. They're expensive. Ramesh steals them from the lab. There's about fifty hidden behind the false wall panel in her bedroom.
    As she walks, she remembers. She's not supposed to, but she can't help it. First came the cold table, and then the blinking eye. And then the slap against her cheek, and the echo of her voice as it was recorded. She puts her hand in her mouth and bites down until she draws blood, but it doesn't make her feel any better: her father. She told, and now he's gone.
    The main branch of the Committee for Ethical Media is at the old library near Bryant Park in Manhattan. A guard at the subway station orders her to spread her legs, because it looks like she's hiding a bomb up there. He loses interest when she tells him she's got antibiotic resistant syphilis. After an hour, the F train never shows, because the 59th Street Bridge is closed due to a bomb threat. She hikes it north over the Triborough, then grabs the 6 Train downtown. By the time she gets to the CEM it's night, but the city is lit up so bright it feels like day.
    She takes a number and waits. The woman sitting next to her is wearing a trash bag. This time, it's white and lemon scented, so slightly less offensive. She falls asleep for a while. When she wakes it's morning, and her number is three spots away. They call her name. She's up in a flash.
    "Ramesh Narayan?" she asks.
    A woman punches something into a computer. "Rammy Naran? Nope. Next!"
    "No, wait. You spelled it wrong. Here. " the woman enters the name again. Then she frowns. "Cremated or buried?"
    Trina tries not to hear this. She tries very hard. There is something bad on her tongue. Bile, maybe. "No. He was taken in for voluntary questioning. "
    "So it says. " then she leans over the counter. She is wheezing badly, and her backpack is hissing like a bum who got stabbed. "Heart attack during interrogation," she answers. "Cremation or burial?"
    Trina's tries to think, but the words don't make sense. She's not sure they're English. Her hand is in her mouth and she's biting hard. It tastes like salt. "I love my dad," she mumbles. "And he loves me. "
    "Which? Your insurance covers both," the woman says. Her backpack is gasping.
    Trina thinks about the cold bottle against her cheek. The bruise is still tender, and she touches it now, and pushes hard until it hurts. She'd like it to reverse heal. She'd like to wear the scar for the rest of her life. "It's a mistake," she says. "He was going to get us out. I made a mistake. "
    The woman shakes her head. "You're right. There was a mistake. "
    Trina's crying all of a sudden, from relief. "Yes! I knew! they only took him for questioning. " She's holding onto the counter, because otherwise she'll fall. "Daddy!" she shouts, "Daddy, where are you?" because maybe he'll hear her voice in one of the interrogation rooms, and know that she came all the way from Queens to rescue him. He'll know she's sorry.
    The woman grabs hold of Trina's wrist like a lobster catching prey. Her grip clamps tighter when Trina tries to shake her off. "We couldn't find next of kin. So the CEM already incinerated him. That's the mistake. He's still dead, kid. Now shut your mouth before the guards arrest you for making a racket. " then she lets go, and places a bar-coded ticket on the counter. "You can pick him up at that address. "
    "No," Trina says. "that's wrong. Ramesh Narayan. Before the war he gave lectures all over the country. He was an important man. "
    "The ticket," the woman says, only Trina sees that she's not mad, just tired. Her lips are almost blue from lack of oxygen. "Sure, maybe it's a mistake, but that's where you'll find out. "
    Trina looks down at her shoes. In her mind there is a bomb at her feet. When it explodes, a hole opens in the earth, and swallows her. The girl left standing in the CEM lobby is just a shell. Made of tubes and plastic surgery. A confection of the doctor. Sweet and stupid as cotton candy.

    She's panting and wet with sweat by the time she jogs the forty blocks downtown to the East Village. She'd keep running forever, if she could, but the building's name comes into view: City Morgue. She stands in front of it for a long while, catching her breath.
    Unlike Jackson Heights, a lot of people in Manhattan don't have mechanical lungs.