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“They manifest that way, but I doubt they’re what they look like to me,” Malik added.
“Then what are they?” Dekka demanded.
Malik shrugged. “Wi-Fi?”
“Wi-Fi?” Dekka echoed skeptically.
“I just mean they have some kind of connection that probably isn’t cables or wires but looks that way to a 3-D mind. I tried interrupting one but couldn’t touch anything.”
“You’re thinking the cables are the Dark Watchers,” Dekka said, and both Shade and Malik nodded. “And the cables only appeared once Shade was morphed. Okay. So, you two are the big brains: What does that tell us?”
Malik sighed and sat down in a lawn chair. He shook his head slowly, side to side, and almost pleading, said, “Shade?”
But Shade’s face was just as bleak.
“What?” Dekka demanded.
“Look,” Malik said, “you have to bear in mind my limitations Over There. Don’t assume I’m right; all I have is a theory.”
“I’ll take a theory,” Dekka shot back, irritated now.
“Well, let’s just say that the possibility that we are living in a simulation, basically a computer program, a manufactured reality, is not just a possibility. It’s now a probability.”
CHAPTER 16
Superhero Chores, Part 1
DEALING WITH THE rhinoceros mutant was easier than either Armo or Cruz had imagined. They took a cab uptown and got out a few blocks away from the scene of the craziness. Not that they wanted to get out several blocks away, but the cab driver said, “I escape war in Syria. Too much bomb and killing peoples. No more war, me.”
Which was hard to argue with.
Armo and Cruz trotted the several blocks to 116th Street and Frederick Douglass Boulevard and were recognized more than once.
“Hey, that’s that trans girl! The one from Vegas!”
“Is that Berserker Bear with her?”
“Change into Beyoncé!”
“Hey! Yo! Turn into a bear!”
They both waved and kept moving, but then a gaggle of people started following them and crowding around them and generally getting in the way and slowing their pace.
Cruz’s natural shyness made all the attention very unpleasant, though no one meant to be annoying. Probably. So she took the opportunity to morph into an elderly black woman she happened to spot. The crowd cheered, all but one who said, “Damn, Bey has let herself go!” But after a bit more milling they lost track of Cruz and focused on Armo, who ended up signing autographs until he finally could no longer move forward.
At that point Cruz became a police officer she’d previously added to her repertoire. It happened “he” was a California Highway Patrolman, but an authoritative “Back up there folks, let the man do his work” was enough to free Armo.
As they hustled away, Armo whispered, “Some woman back there offered me a thousand dollars if I would, you know . . .”
“No,” Cruz said, deliberately playing dumb. “I don’t know.”
“You know,” Armo insisted. “Do it.”
“It?”
At that point Armo realized she was playing with him. “Oh, fine, you can just turn into someone else and get away from these people.”
“Poor you, Armo, you’re stuck just being gorgeous.” Cruz had meant it as a tease, but Armo looked pained. “What?”
