Lev Rosen - Depth

She led the way, flashing her gun when any of the MouthFoamers glanced up at them. Caroline walked just behind her, eyes straight ahead, fearless. They wove around poorly finished bridges and, at one point, climbed up to the top of a building to get to a bridge that was higher up. The building they finally came to was gray stone, one of the Glassteel test cases. It was covered with the stuff so thickly it actually looked laminated, cheap and tacky, like a building made of wax paper. The door was open, so they walked in and up a few flights. Danny had homed in on this location from server and cloud usage, but he couldn’t find an apartment number; the closest he could get was that she was probably in the top northwest corner of the building.

The stairwells were metal things, crusted with salt and smelling of plastic and decay. Simone knocked on a few doors as she approached the northwest part of the top floor. No one answered any of them until they reached apartment G. There, the door flew open as though someone was expecting them.

The woman who opened the door was young and wore only a blue dressing gown tied loosely around her. She didn’t even look at Simone and Caroline but walked away from the door as soon as she’d opened it. The apartment was a large flat, empty of all furniture save an unmade bed, a dresser, an old leather sofa that was also being used as a bed, and a wooden chair in front of a small table. An easel stood by one of the large frosted windows that let in a cold, gray light. A few other windows were open, and wind blew around the room, wet with the ocean. The woman sat down on the wooden chair and crossed her legs, apparently waiting for Simone and Caroline. Simone saw nowhere else to sit, so she stood across from the small table, eyeing the woman. The woman stared directly ahead of her, not looking up. She was pale, and her skin seemed loose on her pointed features. Her hair was ash blonde and fell in long, frizzy waves in all directions. Her lips were dry, and the cracks in them were white—she was clearly a longtime MouthFoamer. She reached forward, took a pack of cigarettes and a lighter off the table, and lit one. The smoke from the cigarette floated around her, blending with her hair, fanning out around her like a nebula. Her eyes were the palest blue and didn’t seem to see anything.

“You’re Misty?” Simone asked. Caroline hung back as Simone walked forward. The woman looked up at Simone’s face as though she were trying to remember it. Suddenly, her eyes focused for a moment, and she saw Simone. Finding nothing familiar there, she just sighed and let her head drop back down, her eyes unfocused.

“Yeah,” she said after a moment. “Do you know where Mom is?”

“Mom?” Caroline asked in a whisper, the question directed at Simone, not Misty. Simone frowned. The hair and eyes were different, but she could see it now, around the jaw and cheekbones. She looked around the room again, not wanting to look at Misty. She could guess what had happened.

“Your mom brings you the Foam?” Simone asked. Misty didn’t move for a moment, then nodded. “Since you were little?” Again, a long pause, then a nod. Caroline stepped closer to Simone.

“Sometimes,” Misty said suddenly, as though she were in the middle of a conversation already, “I wanted to do other things. But Mom always said I was too good at painting. I had to paint.” She gestured sleepily with the hand that held the cigarette, then dropped it.

“So she brought you the Foam,” Simone said sadly, “and you got more when you painted.” Misty didn’t say anything but looked up again and, for a moment, seemed to see Simone and Caroline.

“So where’s my Foam? I finished the paintings.” Her eyes unfocused again, and her vision dropped back to the nothingness in front of her. Simone stepped around her and headed towards the table. Caroline followed her.

“Whose daughter is she?” Caroline asked.

“Linnea’s,” Simone said. She didn’t want to think about that now, though. She headed for the easel. It was covered. Behind it, in the shadows, leaning against the walls, was a stack of at least two dozen canvases, also covered. Simone heard a sudden scraping of a chair being pushed back and turned. Misty was looking around the room as though she’d just woken up there, taken from her bed. She was afraid.

“Where’s my mommy?” she yelled. “Mommy?” Caroline looked at Simone, clearly unsure of what to do and uncomfortable with being unsure about anything. Simone walked back over to Misty and pinned her arms at her sides. She was frail and went limp quickly, but she kept staring at Simone, her eyes huge and terrified.

“Your mom isn’t coming,” Simone said. “But that’s okay.” Better than okay, she thought, considering what Linnea had done. “This lady here is going to make a call, and some people are going to come and keep you safe and get you better.” She turned back around to Caroline, who was already dialing on her wristpiece. “Why don’t you sit back down?” She placed Misty back in the chair, where she shook like a sick dog. Simone hovered behind her, waiting for the shaking to subside, but it didn’t. She walked back over to Caroline, who was hanging up the phone.

“I called in a favor. I got a friend at the hospital to put her in their rehab program. Ambulance-boat will be here in a few.” She paused and looked over Simone’s shoulder at Misty, then back at Simone. “Her mother was her dealer?”

Simone nodded. “Used it to get her to focus on painting. A lot of artists use Foam for clarity. Linnea used it to make her daughter into a little forging machine. That’s probably how she made all her money back in Europe.”

Caroline took a deep breath and shook her head. “Sometimes I feel like we never really survived the flood, y’know? Like we’re all underwater.”

“Like we’re all drowning.”

“Yeah.”

“Yeah.” Simone put her hand on Caroline’s shoulder for a moment, then walked back to the covered easel. In the distance was the sound of the ambulance-boat’s sirens. Simone pulled the cloth off the easel and stared at the painting—the one people had killed and died for, the one that would “save” New York, if that was even possible. It wasn’t much, she thought. Just lines and colors. It didn’t resonate in her soul, give her an experience, bring a tear to her eye, the way Circe had. But it did tell her who had killed Henry.

OUTSIDE, THE DARK CLOUDS had reached the city, and a light rain began to patter on the windows. Caroline walked around the room, shutting the open windows. Then she came back to Simone. Simone ignored her and the EMTs who were trying to give Misty a shot of tranquilizer before taking her back to the hospital.

“You keep staring at that thing like you understand it. If you want to know where it marks, we have to find an old map and compare it to the new map to see where it is now.”

“No we don’t.”

“Why not?”

It was a painting of a smiling young couple looking at each other lovingly. The woman proudly held out a key. Her hair spun out around her and turned into streets. His jacket did the same. Parts of their bodies were missing, replaced by map, but their expression was clear, as was the loading dock in the background with the shipping crate on it—the box clearly marked with the C-Rail logo. It wasn’t a lot to go on, but, with the water at their feet, Simone could see how people could think of this painting as a treasure map. There was one other thing that was perfectly clear: his boots—old-fashioned rain boots, bright blue, with little ducks on them.

Behind her, Simone could hear Misty murmuring, “Nononononono.”

She called Danny. He didn’t pick up, but she left a message: “Can you find me the address for Louise Freth? ASAP. Thanks.” She hung up and turned around. Caroline was glaring. Behind her, Misty was backing away from an EMT with a jet injector. Simone knew she should help them—help Misty—but her body felt too heavy, almost soggy with sadness. She hadn’t expected much from Linnea, but it was a lot more than this. She had liked Lou, too. Maybe thought that when she was older, grayer—if she even lived that long—she’d be like her. Sad, maybe, but tough, and smoking real tobacco cigarettes.