The Map of Stars, page 5
If more people in this world were like her father, Merry thought, they wouldn’t whine so much. They’d pull themselves up by their own bootstraps, work hard, and save up for the things they wanted. How difficult was living within your means? If you could afford a yacht, you bought a yacht. If you could afford rice and beans, you ate rice and beans. It was dollars and cents! Or rather, sense.
People were so illogical, so self-defeating.
But then, that’s what made the game so much fun.
Merry walked from the living room up the grand staircase to her father’s suite. She knocked on the door.
“Come in!”
She put her hand on the handle, but before she could turn it, the door opened. A Morningstarr Lancelot stood staring at her. If a full suit of armor with no discernible eyes could be said to be staring.
“Father, please,” Merry said. “Call off your soldier, will you?”
“His name is Bertrand.”
“I am not calling an empty suit of armor ‘Bertrand,’” said Merry.
“That’s his name. And you’re going to hurt his feelings.”
“Father, Bertrand has no feelings.”
“Thank you for using his name.”
Merry rolled her eyes, but tried to hide the gesture by smoothing her already smooth brows. Her father’s study was painted a rich teal. Bookcases lined three walls, and on the fourth was a marble fireplace. Hanging overhead was a Morningstarr dragonfly, wings gently flapping, creating a soft breeze. An ancient Roller stood on its hind legs in the corner, looming like a small bear. Mechanical spiders giggled in the bank of plants underneath the windows. Her father sat in a chair by the fireplace, a blanket over his lap. On top of the blanket sat a robot in the shape of a small dog, if a dog were shaped more like a pillow than an animal. Wonderful, thought Merry, a new metal monstrosity to clomp and clank around her house. Its “breathing” was loud enough to shame entire hives of bees.
Her father lifted the doggy bot. “Say hello to Winnifred.”
“I do not want to say hello to Winnifred,” said Merry, unable to keep the irritation out of her voice. It was fine that her father wanted to collect Morningstarr Machines. They were still worth some money on the collector’s market, and they certainly made for compelling conversation pieces at Merry’s lavish parties and events. But her father tended to get attached to the things, as if the things were alive. And then he started tinkering with robotics himself. He took apart some of the Morningstarr Machines, recombined them, added his own particular flair. (If you could call it flair.) He’d designed half the robots lurching and lurking around his rooms like . . . well. She didn’t know what. Ghosts. Monsters. Toasters with legs.
“Woof,” cried Winnifred the doggy bot, segmented tail wagging. “Wo-OOOF.”
Merry winced.
“Say hello!” commanded Merry’s father.
“Hello, Winnifred,” she said.
“Wooooooof,” said Winnifred, settling back down on Merry’s father’s lap. How had her father programmed the thing? Never mind, Merry really didn’t want to know.
“Are you ready for the party, Father?”
“Party?”
“Yes, Father, the party. You’ve known about it for months.”
“I don’t like parties,” he said. “I’d rather stay here with my pets.”
Pets.
“Father, we’re playing the game, remember? Don’t you want to play the game?”
“I’m having a guest over for tea.”
“What guest?”
“No one you know.”
“Father, please.”
“Eh,” said her father. Merry wondered at what age one started believing noises like “Eh” or “Meh” or “Whaaaa?” were good substitutes for actual speech. She resisted the urge to bark, “Use your words!”
“Father, my guests will expect you to be there. Promise me that you will at least make an appearance.”
Father grumbled. The doggy buzzed.
“Father!”
“Yes, yes,” he said, waving her off. “I’ll make an appearance. Just for you, my dear Merry.”
“Thank you, Father.” She stood there, watching him pet his new . . . pet, and then turned, stalked from the room, closed the door behind her.
Briefly, Merry rested her forehead against the door. Good thing she had power of attorney. Otherwise, she might really be concerned.
Downstairs, the first knock sounded. The butler’s mellow voice said, “Welcome. Allow me to show you to the great room.”
Merry hurried to arrange herself in the center of said great room, a cocktail in one slim hand. “Hello, darling,” she said as her first guest, a hedge fund manager, entered. Merry air-kissed Mr. Hedge Fund on the cheek so she didn’t mess up her lipstick and then pointed him toward the bar. After Mr. Hedge Fund came Mr. Internet Billionaire—not nearly as rich and successful as Merry’s father, but successful enough. Then the owner of a pharmaceutical company, the owner of a baseball team, the owner of a corporation that made rocket ships so that eventually people would be able to vacation on the moon, the owner of a media conglomerate, several more hedge fund managers—they tended to move in herds—some venture capitalists, a few skulking political operatives with questionable hygiene, a smattering of supermodels, a couple of TV commentators, a boating magnate, and one actual duke.
The guests mingled, sampling appetizers offered by tuxedo-wearing servers. They clinked glasses, tossed back amber liquid. Their laughter grew louder. After a long and sumptuous dinner under the Tiffany chandelier, Merry led her guests back to the great room. By then, the sky was streaked pink and purple, and the lights from the buildings shone in the distance. The guests took their places around each gaming table.
Merry stood in the middle of the room, in the middle of the city. She said, “Now it’s time for this evening’s entertainment. A game I invented with my dear father, Hunter Roberts.”
At the mention of his name, her father appeared in the wide doorway, blinking as if he hadn’t seen this many people in ages. Which he hadn’t. Hunter Roberts didn’t say a word. He nodded at the assembled guests and then fidgeted like a small, distracted boy. Then he turned and walked back to his office.
The hedge fund managers and venture capitalists and billionaires murmured and eyed one another over the tops of their cocktails. But they wouldn’t dare say anything untoward about Merry or her father. Hunter Roberts still had more money and more power than all these people put together.
Which meant that Merry did, too.
“As most of you already know,” she said, “the game is called Megalopolis. Last month’s theme was ‘War.’ This month’s theme is ‘Power.’”
Merry took a stack of leather dossiers from a nearby servant and walked around the room, from hedge fund manager to hedge fund manager, tycoon to tycoon, passing them out. “Each of you will receive a new identity to play, and a certain amount of cash and some other incentives to advance the personal and political interests of your character. Everything is listed in the dossier. Game boards and dice are on the tables. We’ll play three twenty-minute rounds with breaks in between.”
One of the hedge fund managers opened his dossier and said, “Waitress? No way.” He tried hand back the dossier.
Merry snapped, “You know the rules. No trading! And no complaining! Just like in the real world, you must accept the hand you’re dealt. Next!”
The magnates and tycoons and CEOs alternately grumbled and celebrated as they were assigned characters like “truck driver,” “doctor,” “army captain,” “city councilmember,” “hairdresser,” “entrepreneur,” “college student,” and “homeless teenager.”
“I don’t see why I have to play a homeless teenager,” a tycoon whined.
“Luck of the draw,” Merry said cheerfully.
“My goals are finding food! And a house! But I don’t have any money!” said the tycoon. “How is this fair?”
“I’m the CEO of a corporation,” said the CEO of a corporation. “My goals are increasing value for my shareholders and finding more tax loopholes. This is too easy. I’m going to clean up, Merry.”
“We’ll see,” said Merry.
“You need to give me a job,” said the tycoon to the CEO.
“You’re homeless. You don’t even own a suit,” the CEO said. “Why would I give you a job?”
“I’m playing . . . Hunter Roberts,” said one of political operatives, scratching at his greasy scalp. “I have five hundred million dollars to push my policy interests, which are mass deportation, freedom of discrimination in hiring and health care, and the institution of a national religion.”
“Oh,” said a supermodel. “That sounds super fun! But I think my identity is better. I’m Theo Morningstarr!”
“How is that better?” said a nearby magnate. “He had nothing when he came here.”
“I pulled myself up by my bootstraps!” said the supermodel, indignant.
Every New Year’s Eve, Merry threw a costume party. Last year’s theme had been “Heroes and Villains.” Quite a few people dressed up as Tess and Theo Morningstarr but had different opinions about whether they were heroes or villains. In Merry’s view, they were neither. They were simply fools who gave their mysterious, powerful tech away for free.
Behind Merry, the butler announced, “Mr. Darnell Slant.”
Everyone turned as a tall, well-dressed man appeared, surveying his surroundings like a king surveying his subjects. Slant then stalked into the room the way he stalked into every room: as if he owned it. He wore a summer-weight suit, a crisp white shirt, no tie. His dark hair was slicked back from his forehead and Merry was fairly sure his cheeks were rouged, as if for a photo shoot.
“Merry, darling,” Slant said. “Lovely to see you. Sorry I’m late.” He bussed her cheek and then found an empty seat. “Please don’t let me interrupt.”
She smiled without showing her teeth and handed him a dossier. He opened it. He turned the dossier around and showed her the picture inside.
“It seems I’m playing myself.”
Merry said, “The dossier doesn’t say ‘Darnell Slant,’ it says ‘Mayor of New York City.’”
“One and the same,” said Slant.
“You’re not the mayor.”
“Yet.”
“Hmmm,” said Merry. She’d heard rumors that he was planning a wider political run after winning his bid for mayor, but she’d thought it was just boasting. Seeing the gleam in his eye now, perhaps she’d been wrong. He was arrogant, impossible, imperious, and occasionally ridiculous, which made him the perfect candidate for national office. Merry wouldn’t tell anyone, but the character she was playing in tonight’s game was herself. And she had five hundred million real dollars to advance her interests. She could use a good front man.
She said, “I hope you’re playing to win.”
“If there’s one thing I know how to do,” said Darnell Slant, “it’s win.”
This time, Merry did flash her teeth. Then she sat down at the table nearest the bar and said, “Let the game begin.”
Darnell Slant laughed. “It already has.”
CHAPTER FIVE
Tess
After Jaime ran out of the Morans’ apartment, Tess nearly burst into tears. (The only reason she didn’t was because Nine started frantically licking her knees, and it tickled.) Tess and Theo said good-bye to the Morans and then went to track down the next clue without Jaime. The yellowing business card read:
TRENCH & SNOOK
ARCHITECTS
293 E. 10TH STREET
NEW YORK, NEW YORK
GRAND DESIGN FOR THE UNEXPECTED
The address led them to a deli on the corner of 10th Street and Avenue A, but no one in the deli knew anything about the building’s previous tenants.
“Trench? Snook?” said the man behind the deli counter. “Aren’t those mobsters?”
“Nah,” said the woman at the cash register. “Trench and Snook are characters in that movie. You know that movie.”
“Which movie?” said the man.
“You know!” said the woman.
“If I knew which movie, would I ask you which movie?” said the man.
“You always ask me which movie,” the woman said.
The man slammed a block of cheese onto his cutting board. “Because I don’t know which movie!”
The woman made a tsking sound and then asked Tess and Theo if they wanted sandwiches. The pastrami was very nice, very lean.
So, since the day seemed to be a bust, they ordered pastrami sandwiches. The woman gave them extra pickles and coleslaw. Everything was delicious, but Tess couldn’t eat much. It felt wrong to be investigating the Cipher when Jaime wasn’t there with them, wrong to be sitting there eating sandwiches without Jaime making jokes about Trench and Snook, without Jaime drawing mobsters and movie stars in his sketchbook.
Theo finished his sandwich and Tess wrapped hers for later, and after wandering despondently around Tompkins Square Park, they went back to Queens, tired and defeated. They’d been tired and defeated before. They’d been forced to go home at the end of the day without getting any closer to solving a clue. But this was different. Because they didn’t wake up the next morning ready to try again, despite what Darnell Slant had said in his interview, that they only had a few short weeks before they would be amazed. Or appalled. They sat in their room, sifting listlessly through the contents of the trunk they’d discovered in Green-Wood Cemetery, arguing even more listlessly about which piece of paper, which figurine or article, was the next clue, if the Trench & Snook card wasn’t.
For the first time in months, Tess wondered what she would do with herself if she wasn’t searching for the solution to the Cipher. It had felt to her like the Cipher had been encouraging them since the moment they set out to solve it, responding to their every move as if it wanted them to get to the end, but maybe it was merely toying with them, sending them on wild-goose chases, only to disappoint and thwart them, only to break their hearts at every turn. Maybe the photograph—that impossible photograph that implied that Tess and Theo Biedermann were Theresa and Theodore Morningstarr—was just a joke the Cipher was playing on them. Maybe there had been other people just like Tess and Theo, whole crowds of people who had followed strange clues that seemed to lead somewhere but never did, and those people gave up or went mad or moved to Europe or Australia or Idaho, somewhere without mysterious twins or even more mysterious Ciphers designed to drive a person to distraction.
Their mom appeared in the doorway wearing her work suit, badge clipped to her hip, hands behind her back. “What are you two doing up here?”
Tess and Theo, sitting in piles of paper and junk, said, “Cleaning.”
“Cleaning? Are you two feeling all right?”
Tess and Theo: “No.”
“Right,” said Mrs. Biedermann. “Maybe I have something that might cheer you up?”
“A kitten?” said Tess.
“A robot?” said Theo.
Tess and Theo: “A robot kitten?”
“Nine is worth nine cats,” said Mrs. Biedermann. “And this whole city is crawling with robots. No, your dad and I were talking, and we decided that it was about time that you had these.” From behind her back she pulled two clear glass phones, the latest models, each with thin solar panels framing the screen. One had a picture of Nine on the back, and the other had a picture of the Tower of London built out of Legos. She handed the Nine phone to Tess and the Lego one to Theo.
Tess brushed a finger over the photo of Nine. It was an older photo that showed all of Nine’s spots and stripes. “Thanks, Mom.” She tried to put as much enthusiasm as she could into the words, but as she was saying them, it hit her: she really didn’t have anyone to call but Theo.
Theo said, “Thank you. These will be very useful. And convenient.”
“Useful and convenient,” said their mother. “I was hoping for a little bit more excitement, but I suppose I’ll have to take what I can get.”
“It’s great, Mom, really,” Tess said.
“There are some ground rules. We have limited data, so no streaming music videos or whatever you kids do.”
“No music videos. Darn,” said Theo.
“Funny. And I need you to call or text me when you’re wandering around on one of your excursions, okay? I want to know where you are.”
“Sure,” said Tess. It seemed that the only places she was going were a random deli with very nice, very lean pastrami, and Aunt Esther’s house in Queens, far away from the best friend she’d ever had.
Mrs. Biedermann left for work, leaving Tess and Theo with their new phones and the mess from the Junk Trunk all over the floor. Tess tried to focus, tried to at least pretend she was focusing. But, as usual, the what-ifs crowded her mind, piling up on one another, all of them shouting to be heard. What if they weren’t solving the Cipher at all? What if it was all just a dream that she and Theo had cooked up because they had been so scared of losing 354 W. 73rd Street, and so devastated when they’d lost it anyway? What if Darnell Slant was going to keep buying up historical buildings and turning them into giant cracker boxes because there was nobody powerful enough to stop him? What if the lesson of history was that rich and powerful people got to do whatever they wanted to do and everyone else had to learn to live with that? What if the most important thing the Cipher wanted to teach them was that trying to save the world was a losing proposition and would only drive you apart from the people you cared about most?
Tess got so upset at the train of her own thoughts that she crawled into bed with Nine and stayed there for twenty-four hours. Her mother and father were convinced she had some sort of stomach bug.
