A Free Man
Crowley practically pranced through the aisles
Previously: Crowley renounces his vow; he and Astra part ways.
○ Opening Era: Spring, 2026, Brooklyn
Crowley was hungry. Yes, time for a bit of nosh. But not sardines. He’d had quite enough sardines while trapped in a basement with a daemon for months, thank you.
He glanced around the Brooklyn street corner. Ahead of him: tacos. He hated tacos. To his left: a bookstore cafe. No, he needed something more than a muffin, he was ravenous. Turning again: he saw his former ward’s fading blue hair amidst the chaos of the masked gang. So they had emerged. He would have no part in it. But behind them: ah, the market!
When was the last time he went to a fancy American supermarket, with its kaleidoscope of options – cashew milk and CBD gummies and all that? When was the last time he’d made any choice at all? It seemed like a fine way to celebrate his newfound freedom.
So he went back across the plaza and crept around the very edges, giving the chaotic scene with the masks a wide berth – he didn’t want Astra to see him. Nor did he want to be filled with whatever unhinged mania was flying through the air.
He made it to the automatic doors of the market. Just as they swooshed open, he saw something he didn’t like.
It was the two men in suits and sunglasses from earlier. They turned a street corner, spotted the masks, and sprinted toward them. Crowley forcibly turned his head. It was none of his business anymore. The girl – woman – could fend for herself, and then some.
So Crowley walked inside and went down the escalator. It was pleasantly air conditioned. He became giddy watching the many colors of the produce section growing closer. Meanwhile he held at bay the whole nasty business about how he’d mucked up the entire world–– Ooo! A pyramid of lemons! How delightful.
Crowley practically pranced through the aisles. Shall I buy some aloe vera juice? he wondered. Eat a protein bar full of adaptogens? Or how about some vegan meat with nutritional yeast? Why not?
He was staring at some chia pudding when he began to feel dizzy. How did people choose amongst all these options? Over the course of the Project, Astra had simply arranged to have food delivered to the lab or training site. And earlier, during his tenure at UC Berkeley, he’d just eaten whatever was available at the food hall, sitting alongside the students.
He remembered how Astra’s father had once roasted him in front of her mother over drinks: Poor Crowley. This one’s hopeless off his meds. Hopeless! Crowley, you’re hopeless, chum. No internal compass on this one. Crowley is prince of the scatterbrains. The king! But give him a direction and he’ll sprint until he’s reached the edge of the earth. Good thing he found me, don’t you think, my love? Wouldn’t you say, Crowley?
Crowley pushed the memory away while walking over to the frozen food section. Then he knocked into something, slipped, and fell. His pelvis crashed against the floor painfully.
Crowley winced. He tried to push off the ground but his hand squeaked across it. That’s when he saw the thing he’d knocked into and over: a yellow cone saying CAUTION: Wet Floor.
“Oh! Sir, are you all right?” A young man was looking down at him, earnest eyes framed by glasses. The chap stretched out a arm in his nebula-print jumper. Crowley took it and let himself be hefted to standing.
“Yes, thank you, I’m–– I’m all right. Thank you.”
The young man looked him up and down, then diverted his gaze. Crowley sensed that he was trying to be polite. Whatever about?
“Um, do you…need anything?” the young man asked.
“Like what?”
“Some food…or anything like that.” The lad straightened his glasses.
It was then that Crowley realized that he hadn’t showered for months. Or changed his clothing, which had become filthy and worn.
“I’m not a vagrant,” he asserted to the young man.
“Oh. Sorry for making assumptions. My name is Empty––uh––my name is Danny. Danny Zhu.”
“Danny, pleased to meet you. James Crowley. At your service.” Crowley felt Danny react with an inner jump to these words. The young man once again looked him up and down, seeming to put pieces together.
“Professor?”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Dr. C? From UC Berkeley?”
“Ha! No one’s called me that in quite some time. Wait a minute…” Crowley peered. “You do look familiar.”
“We crossed paths a few times.”
“Ah. What were the circumstances?”
“You were faculty advisor to the Effective Altruist club I was a part of. Also, later, I applied for your jhana meditation project.”
“Did you now.”
“Yes, unfortunately I was disqualified in the second set of trials. I couldn’t make it past the fourth jhana. I got nervous with that blue-haired woman watching. My friend got in though.”
“Well, consider yourself lucky. You wouldn’t have wanted to join our team.”
Danny looked at his phone and frowned.
“Everything all right?”
“I hope so. My friend got stuck in some kind of protest on the BQE. It sounds kind of crazy, hundreds of cars stopped. Do you know anything about it?”
“I’m afraid not. Is this your friend who passed our trials?”
“No, it’s a friend from upstate. The one who passed your trials was Nadia.”
Crowley’s lips parted. “Nadia Green?”
“That’s right. She joined your project.”
“We called her Dreamer. Heh.”
“Wow, she told you her Twitter handle.”
“She called it her bodhisattva name,” chuckled Crowley.
Danny smiled. “Sounds like Dreamer.”
Crowley felt a strange sense of nostalgia emanating from Danny. He was afraid to ask his next question. “How is Dreamer these days?”
“Oh. She’s…” Danny looked down at the floor. “Dreamer, um, she’s in the hospital. In a coma.”
Crowley felt something like a stone plummet through his chest. “In a coma…” The sounds of the supermarket suddenly sounded very sharp: the clatter of shopping carts, a sneeze, a distant announcement on the PA. “How did––er, might I ask…?”
“It was a stroke. They, uh, found her a few weeks after the Opening in some kind of strange suit, covered in EM amplifiers. The theory I put together was that she got stuck in some sort of runaway feedback loop with the amplifiers. Do you know about sympathetic nervous system overload? Oh, of course you do, you’re––”
“Christ,” Crowley stared into emptiness. “She would have been like someone forced to run from a tiger for hours. Blood pressure to the moon. Ruptured arteries. A hemorrhagic stroke…”
“I’m sorry to be the one to tell you. I know she liked you a lot.”
“Yes, I quite liked her too.”
“The weird thing is that they found a bunch of other people like Dreamer around the same time, all across the world. All of them were wearing those weird suits. An engineer, an activist––oh the weird one was they found a Tibetan monk, what was his name? Nyoshul Rinpoche. And, um, I’m sorry to break the news, but a colleague of your too. Dr. Cassidy. Her students found her in Oxford.”
Crowley swallowed. “She’s, eh…she’s in a coma?”
“No. I’m sorry, Dr. C. She’s dead.”
“Fucking Alexei,” Crowley hissed under his breath.
“Sorry, who? Oh, Alexei Rakovsky? The CEO of Brainwave? Do you think he might have been connected to this?”
“No. Nevermind.”
Danny shifted awkwardly. “Um. Doctor, I have to ask––”
“Better you didn’t. I’ll be on my way. Good to see you.”
“Oh, all right. Happy Easter, I guess.”
Crowley stopped. Then he turned. “What did you say?”
“Happy Easter?”
Crowley let out a weary sigh. Easter was Astra’s birthday. Would he really break a decade of tradition after his and Astra’s little spat outside? He didn’t think he could bring himself to do that. Just because Astra was no longer his leader didn’t mean she wasn’t also still his…his what? Daughter figure? No. Not that either. Just someone important to him.
Crowley glanced around for the cake counter. “Danny, do you know where…?” That’s when he realized he had no phone or wallet to pay for a cake with. “Bollocks.”
“What’s up, Dr. C?”
“Danny, can I ask you for a favor?”
—
Crowley exited Whole Foods smiling, triple-layered strawberry cake in hand, candles and lighter in pocket. But Astra was nowhere to be seen. There were only the two suits from earlier and a ponytailed woman pushing themselves off the ground.
Immediately, Crowley cloaked himself by broadcasting inattentional blindness. People might still see him, but they (hopefully) wouldn’t notice him. Then he ducked to the side to watch as the cops pulled up to the curb.
Crowley was about to flee when he heard the woman say, “I’m getting a call from Alexei.”
Truly Crowley wanted out. Truly he did. But then he thought of Dreamer in a coma, Dr. Cassidy murdered. So he stayed to listen.
“Keep the police busy while I take this, show them your IPO badges.”
“Roger that, Miss Davis,” said one of the suits.
“Jen. It’s Jen.”
The men nodded and moved to greet the cops.
Meanwhile Jen raised a phone to her ear. “Lex, the target escaped...Yes, I’ll explain...An woman showed up. She did something to disable our headsets, I don’t know how...No she wasn’t one of them…Well first of all she wasn’t wearing a mask, but I also psi–ed her––…No, she wasn’t carrying any devices. She did it just with her brain, through psi…Yes, she did have tattoos, bright ones, how did you know?…No, there was no man with her…She ran away with the Heathens…Passed her second test? Uh, is this something you want to brief me on, Lex?”
Crowley’s face sunk, remembering what Astra had said. He’s testing us. It didn’t sound like this woman knew what that meant either.
“Got it, we’ll circle back,” she said into the phone. “The Brooklyn-Queens Expressway?…And you’re sure it’s the same gang on the BQE?…OK, so we’ll drive over to intercept––…Yes, I have a few other targets. Happy to pursue them, but then who’s going to––? You? I’m not sure that’s a good idea…OK, I’m listening…Call the Colonel…tell him to hold back the riot drones, got it…anything else?…”
Crowley almost dropped his cake as he dashed to the curb. He hopped in a cab. “Brooklyn-Queens Expressway please.”
Next release: A showdown on the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway