The City We Became

Bronca dislikes the other boroughs immediately. She bristles at Brooklyn’s perceived superiority, Manhattan’s suspicious charm, and Queens’s innocence, which she assumes must be a ruse. Bronca’s defensiveness is the chip the Bronx carries on its shoulder, the feeling of being left out in the cold to fend for itself. Overwhelmed by anger and fear, she throws them out of her office. Then, Veneza reminds Bronca why New Yorkers love their city so passionately and why it’s worth fighting for, and Bronca reluctantly agrees to give the other boroughs an hour of her time.

As the borough with the most history, Bronca has a more comprehensive understanding of events than the others, including how to use and how not to use their powers. The first order of business, she says, is to find Staten Island and the sixth avatar, New York City. Together, they discuss the two realities they find themselves in and are struggling to adapt to. Bronca explains that new dimensions are created by human decisions and desires, but our minds are not wired to perceive these new dimensions. All these dimensions are layered, one atop another, and when a city is born, “the birth process kind of smashes through them” (302). If a city cannot be midwifed successfully into existence by its avatar, it dies like Pompeii or Atlantis and becomes myth rather than a part of history. They must find the sixth and primary avatar, for they cannot fight this battle without him. Bronca then explains that when a city is born thousands of other universes must die to facilitate that birth, a hard moral pill for the others to swallow. That, however, is the natural order of things.

They decide their top priority is to locate the primary avatar, and they focus their collective energy on that task. Entering the alternate realm, they perceive Staten Island as “so different, so reluctant” (312). They reach out to her, but she pulls away. Now, they shift their perception to searching for New York City. Drifting through a strange dreamscape of multiverses, they see myriad points of light which represent cities being born. They finally locate New York City, fragile and still sleeping on a pile of newspapers. They briefly catch a glimpse of subway tiles before they begin to lose their focus, but not before the primary avatar opens his eyes and communicates to them: “Getting warmer” (315).

Hours later, the four boroughs awaken from their vision quest in the arts center when a fiftyish Asian man abruptly walks in carrying an unconscious Paulo over his shoulder. He introduces himself as Hong, the avatar of Hong Kong. He says Paulo needs the air of his own city to recover and chastises the others for not taking his injury more seriously. He tells them that this kind of damage can only be inflicted by another city; in this case, one of the avatars of New York. It must be Staten Island, they conclude, the borough that has always resisted being part of New York. Veneza, who has been rooting around in the staff room freezer, suddenly emerges with a tray of brigadeiro, a Brazilian truffle. She holds it to Paulo’s lips, and he stirs, the color returning to his face. He sits up, fully awake now, and Hong shows them all a picture on his phone: an aerial shot of New York—all five boroughs—brightly lit except for a swath of darkness where Staten Island should be. The danger, Hong claims, is that, for the first time, the actions of a city in “cityspace” are visible to the denizens of “peoplespace.” The Enemy, Paulo says, is “too active, active in ways it has never been—” (325).

Suddenly, Bronca remembers something from their collective vision—a tile pattern in the subway station. After a brief internet search, they determine the location of the primary avatar: a decommissioned subway station at Old City Hall. As Brooklyn tries to find a way into the closed station, Hong tells them that New York City will gain his full strength only from consuming the other boroughs.