“But that wasn’t enough. I couldn’t be in the room where it was going to happen, cursed again by my gender, but I could be in the room where something else happened.”

I’m sure there was another way I could have done it. The best games programmed multiple solutions to the same problems and the real world was no different.

I could have accidentally spilled some water on her. That would have been much simpler. Or I could have ripped the bandage off and memorized the numbers quickly before she decked me. But my crazy plan had gotten me this far and my brain was already completely fried from the night before and the insane workout I had just finished, so I used the tools immediately available to me, and somehow, it had worked.

“I’m so so sorry!” I said, wiping the remnants of the vomit from my mouth. “Don’t move, I’ll go get something to clean you up.”

Frankie turned around and stared at me with a look of disgust and helplessness, but didn’t say anything. That was a surprise. I had expected that she would at least start screaming and I was prepared to deal with anyone who ventured out of the locker room to see what was going on. But her silence made things much simpler, I’d admit.

I ran to the front and started pulling wet wipes out over and over from the dispenser, until I had enough to clean an elephant, then hurried back over to Frankie, who was now crouched down on her knees for some reason.

I began wiping around the edges of the bandage, and I debated whether to first tell Frankie that I was going to take it off, or just give it a good ol’ yank and apologize later. I decided on the latter, and after patting the bandage with several wipes, it actually slid off nicely. Finally, the tattoo would be mine.

It was bigger than I expected, with ornate ivy forming a ring around a set of cursive numbers. What a weird idea for a tattoo. But then again, maybe it hadn’t been Frankie’s idea in the first place. She was just a pawn in some unknown game, a piece being moved across the board without her even knowing it. But then again, so was I.

If Frankie realized what was going on, she didn’t say and so I initiated the final phase of my plan: the collection.

I whipped out my phone, opened up a blank email, and typed in the numbers from the tattoo:

404442735627

It was harder than I thought, not just because of the archaic script but also because I seemed not to be able to remember each number long enough for my brain to tell my finger which key to press on the phone. Probably a side effect of the hangover. After another minute, during which Frankie still didn’t say anything, I finally got all the numbers down and hit send. My eyes hurt from the exercise for some reason, so I decided to get a backup just in case I accidentally transposed a digit.

“Shoot, your tank top is just completely ruined, let me take a pic so I can buy you a new one, OK?”

Frankie nodded in silence and with several clicks, I got the goods.

I stood back from the crouching Frankie to bask in my accomplishment, only to snap out of it. I was still behind enemy lines and needed an extraction plan. Of course I could just run away, leaving Frankie there alone on the floor. It would be pretty simple - she didn’t know my name, this spin studio didn’t know my name - it would be like I’d never been here.

I couldn’t though. I had been horrible enough for 24 hours and the least I could do was help her into the locker room. And that wasn’t saying much.

“You want some help getting up?” I asked, walking around in front of her.

“F-fine,” Frankie stammered, her ability to speak finally coming back to her. I reached out my hand and she reluctantly took, but refused to look me in the eye. It was a struggle pulling her up, as she had almost a foot on me, but somehow I managed it. Back on her feet, Frankie started walking to the locker room and I trailed behind her.

“I think I have an extra shirt in my-”

“Stop!” she cried.

“OK, but I just wanted to hel-”

“You’ve done enough. Just get the hell out of my sight.”

I don’t know why, but her words hurt more than they should have. After all, I was the one using her, stealing something from her, why should I care if she was angry at me?

“Oh-h, OK. But your tank top…”

“Forget it, just forget this whole thing.”

The locker room was empty except the two of us, the next group having yet to arrive, so I quickly changed out of the stupid yellow jersey and green shoes, and threw them along with Jane’s locker room card into an empty locker.

I glanced over at Frankie, who began taking off her vomit-stained tank top. As she pulled it up over her head, she ran her hand over the now-exposed tattoo and winced from the pain. I froze and as she turned her head towards me, I could feel the venom in her eyes as she realized what I had done. I’m sure she would have done something terrible to me, but a moment later I regained my senses and bolted out the door.

The inside of the coffee shop was packed as I waited for Beatrice. It was four days later and I was sipping a hot tea, still recovering from the Raid. The Raid I had single-handedly pulled off, no thanks to my employer. I didn’t know if she was even going to show up this morning, as her radio silence had continued.

“Wth is going on. Meet me at Bleecker St Grounds at 9 tomorrow so i can give you the info from the tattoo,” I had texted last night.

There was no way I was going to hand over the goods without at least an explanation of why she had ditched me, but that text hadn’t merited a response either. I had nothing else going on this weekend except catching up on work, with Duncan not due back until mid-next week anyway, so I decided to head over to the coffee shop on the small chance Beatrice decided to show her face.

The intervening days had not been pleasant. There was the lingering hangover, the rawness in my throat, and the weight of the guilt from toying with two women. Plus Lisa had made me call the airline every morning at 7:30 to try to get our seats upgraded for London, which had been an utter failure so far. I hadn’t heard from either Jane or Frankie since our encounters and the sense of relief I should have felt was just not there. It had all seemed like a good plan in the moment, and besides Frankie’s tank top, what lasting damage had I actually done? But I couldn’t dismiss things that easily and Beatrice’s prolonged absence wasn’t helping.

By 10 o’clock, Beatrice still hadn’t shown up and I felt nothing from the ring indicating she was getting closer, so I decided to call it. The snow from earlier in the week had mostly been plowed away, but the sidewalks were still covered in gray slush and I stood outside the coffee shop contemplating whether I should just head to the office to finish up the dialogue selection interface I had neglected earlier in the week. I kicked some slush in frustration and hit a passing car that thankfully kept going. I should have been learning more about alchemy, not wondering why I had been left to dither in the wind.

I was about to start the long walk to work when I saw something across the street that caught my eye.

A bulletin board.

Jumping over a huge slush puddle, I made my way over to it but was immediately disappointed to find it full of flyers about community events. But there was a perfectly good bulletin board stocked with Raids uptown. Maybe picking a new Raid would be exactly the kind of thing to get Beatrice to acknowledge my existence.

The yellow door was surprisingly unlocked again when I reached the school. I made my way without incident to the third floor and down that same hallway where I could see the Raid Board waiting for me at the end.

The Board was unattended and I took my time to read every single Raid before finding the one that was the most outlandish and difficult and that would freak Beatrice out if she thought I had taken it.

“There’s a signed Mickey Mantle baseball at Yankee Tavern behind the bar in a glass case. The key to the case is buried under the warning track in left field at the stadium. Bring me both for one silver token.”

I snapped a picture and texted it to Beatrice with a note:

“Here’s our next Raid. Can we meet soon to discuss???”

If that didn’t get her attention, then I was all out of ideas. Well, except for waiting for her outside her apartment. But I didn’t want to turn into a stalker. Besides, she needed me, or so she’d opined, so eventually she would seek me out.

“Hi,” said a voice behind me.

I froze before slowly turning around to find a young girl standing in the previously empty hallway. She looked to be about 16 and was wearing a jean jacket adorned with scores of pins. Her dark brown hair fell down to her shoulders and she sported a wry smile, the kind that said, “hey, I know you’re not supposed to be here.” Maybe there was a basketball game or something in the gym and she was here to cheer on her little brother.

“Umm, hello, sorry. Got turned around. What floor is the game on again?”

The girl’s smile vanished in an instant.

“There’s no game today. What are you doing here? I’m going to get the security guard!”

“I, umm, well, I went to this school when I-”

Her smile returned and she let out a laugh.

“Relax. I’m just messing with you. You were looking at the Raid Board. It’s not a crime.”

I breathed a sigh of relief, but only for a second. This girl reminded me too much of Polly, and that didn’t make me feel any better.

“Oh, haha. Yeah, just looking for a new Raid. It’s hard to choose.”

The girl walked up to the Board and stood beside me, considering the Post-it Notes.

“Hmm. Yeah, I see what you mean. Not a good one in the batch.”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“Personally, my friends and I wouldn’t do one for anything less than 90 bronze. This one,” she pointed to the Raid requesting the stolen pocket watch that I had seen last time I was here, “looks OK, but pretty boring. Would have been better if it was asking for a particular 110-year old pocket. Just because something is old doesn’t mean it’s special.”

“Oh, yeah. I’m Jade, by the way.”

I held out my right hand, and the girl looked at me for a second, as if she was deciding whether to believe that Jade was my real name or if shaking hands was something only people over 35 did. But she eventually extended hers in return, which was decked out in various rings stacked on her fingers.

“Nice to meet you Jade. I’m Ty.”

The handshake lasted a second too long and I slowly pulled away before things got more awkward.

“I like your rings,” I said, trying to change the subject.

“Thanks! I like, umm, your locket.”

“Thank you," I said, rubbing it with my fingers, before tucking it under my sweater. “It was my mom’s.”

“Well, I’ll let you get back to your Raid selection,” Ty said. “You were here first, so it’s only polite, and my mom is always going on about etiquette.”

“No, no. I was waiting to hear back from my friend about something. You go ahead.”

“OK. Suit yourself. But don’t get mad at me if I take the one you wanted.”

She moved closer to the Board and I took a few steps back, not wanting to look over her shoulder, but I secretly wanted to know which one she was going to pick.

My phone buzzed and I pulled it out of my bag.

It was Beatrice. Finally.

“ru out of your mind,” the text read.

Well, mission accomplished.

“So u dont want that one? Should i get another while i’m here?”

This time, I didn’t have to wait a week for the next response.

“No. Come meet me at my apartment downtown in an hour.”

“But u live on the upper east side,” I wrote back.

“Not that apartment. the other one. 227 Bowery Apt 4a.”

It must have been nice having enough cash lying around to own two apartments in Manhattan. I barely had enough money to rent half of a crummy walk-up. But in any event, my plan had worked and I had finally gotten Beatrice’s attention. Now I just needed to extricate myself from this meeting of the Breakfast Club.

“Well, it was nice meeting you. Gotta head back downtown.”

“Bye,” she said without turning around.

Teenagers.

I knocked on the door of apartment 4a 90 minutes later, the D train deciding to stop between stations for no good reason. After a few seconds, the door creaked open, and there she was, with a sour look on her face.

“You’re late,” was all Beatrice said, before disappearing back into the apartment.

The tension from my ring felt like it was going to pull me through the door and I quickly followed her inside.

The apartment opened into a small foyer, with the kitchen and living room to the left and the bedroom straight ahead.

I froze.

I had been here too. In that same dream. The shards of the memory were slowly coalescing back into one piece and I remembered Beatrice fleeing her apartment, picking a random guy in her phone, and ending up here by the next morning. Had she smashed the mirror too or was that part of my own creation?

“So, you finished the Raid?” said Beatrice from the living room, where she had taken a seat on a small gray futon.

I walked past a large bookcase and sat down next to her.

“Yeah. What happened? I got the spot for you and you didn-”

“Life happened Jen. I can’t just drop everything at the drop of a hat and waltz into a spin class at 8 in the morning. That’s what you’re here for. And if you had gotten the spots in the class when you were supposed to, I could have made arrangements ahead of time. But it seems like my presence was not needed anyway, so why are you so upset?”

“Because I … because it was pure luck. And you abandoned me.”

“Oh please. You sound like I left you stranded in the Iraqi desert. If anything, you earned yourself major brownie points for improvising on the fly. I’m impressed. And, willing to let this attention-getting stunt of yours go.”

“OK,” I said, not buying her excuse but not really caring at this point what actually happened. “So now what?”

“Now it’s time for your alchemy lesson.”

Beatrice got up from the couch and walked over to the bookcase. She ran both her hands along the books before grabbing a different one with each hand and pulling. I stared in disbelief as Beatrice pushed the bookcase into the wall and then disappeared through the newly revealed opening, before popping her head back out a few seconds later.

“You coming?”