The City We Became Summary

In a New York City café, Paolo is explaining to a homeless young Black graffiti artist (New York City’s avatar) that cities sometimes come alive and select one of their human residents to be their avatar. During a city’s birth, the avatar must protect their city from a great Enemy (the Woman in White). Later, the Enemy attacks, but the avatar defeats her using the city’s power. Then he faints and vanishes.

Meanwhile, a young Black man (Manny) exits the train at Penn Station and realizes he has amnesia—he can’t remember his own name. He sees “Manhattan” on a sign and decides to be “Manny.” Manny senses the city is in danger. He pays a cab driver to take him to FDR Drive, where a massive growth of white tendrils is erupting. Manny mounts the cab, tells the driver to speed toward the growth, and summons an energy blanket around himself, incinerating the tendrils.

Later, a white woman with a tendril on her neck accuses Manny of being a drug dealer. The woman transforms into the Woman in White. She disappears before Manny can figure out what she wants. An elegant Black woman (Brooklyn Thomason) approaches Manny and asks him if he knows what’s going on. She tells him she’s been seeing tendrils everywhere, and she senses he’s Manhattan. When Manny eventually guesses whose avatar the woman is, she tells him her name really is Brooklyn—which shows Manny not all avatars have amnesia. Manny tells Brooklyn about the Woman in White, whom he suspects controls the tendrils. They sense another borough’s avatar manifest and go to Queens to find it.

On Staten Island, Aislyn Houlihan is trying to board the ferry to Manhattan when a Black person accidentally touches her breast. Aislyn runs screaming from the terminal. Outside, the Woman in White approaches her and tells her she’s Staten Island’s avatar. Though Aislyn thinks the Woman is crazy, they end up bonding over racist humor. The Woman offers to protect Aislyn from New York City’s avatar. She tells Aislyn she can use the white tendrils to summon her. Elsewhere, Paolo, sensing the enemy, texts an international number for help.

Bronca Siwanoy is in the bathroom of the Bronx Art Center, where she works, when the Woman in White threatens her from a closed stall. Bronca transform into the Bronx and kicks in the stall door, but it’s empty. Bronca receives historical knowledge about living cities and their Enemy, as if the knowledge has been downloaded into her brain.

Manny searches online for strange events in Queens and sees a picture of a woman (Padmini Prakash) whom he and Brooklyn sense is Queens’s avatar. Brooklyn gets a text of a mural signed “Da Bronca,” a.k.a. Bronca Siwanoy, and she and Manny sense that Bronca is the Bronx’s avatar.

At the Center, Bronca reviews racist paintings by a group called the Alt Artistes. When she tells them she won’t exhibit their art, they unveil a painting of ominous paint-creatures that come alive and attack her. The Center’s receptionist Veneza grabs Bronca, and the painting reverts to just a painting. Bronca spots a tendril on one of the Alt Artiste’s ankles and asks him who he works for. He tells her his boss will confront Bronca soon. After the Alt Artistes leave, Bronca drives Veneza home to Jersey City and tells her that creatures from another dimension are trying to kill New York City.

Manny and Brooklyn arrive at Padmini’s apartment. They explain the situation to her and her relative Aishwarya. Manny realizes Padmini’s building is invulnerable to the Woman in White because it’s quintessentially Queens. Brooklyn suggests they rest at her place for the night, which should also be safe. Suddenly, Manny has a vision of New York City’s avatar asleep in an abandoned subway station and feels, intensely, that he and New York City’s avatar belong to each other. When he comes to, he realizes Brooklyn and Padmini have had the same vision. They speculate that if all five boroughs’ avatars gather, they’ll be able to locate New York City’s avatar. Manny, Brooklyn, and Padmini take a Lyft to Bedford Stuyvesant, where Brooklyn owns two brownstones. After they leave, Paolo finds Padmini’s apartment building and talks to Aishwarya. When he tells her he’s “São Paolo,” she realizes he’s another city’s avatar and tells him Padmini, Brooklyn, and Manny will find Bronx’s avatar in the morning. Paolo decides to find Staten Island’s avatar.

At the Center, Bronca encounters the Woman in White, who introduces herself as Dr. White from the Better New York Foundation and offers the Center a $23 million dollar donation to exhibit the Alt Artistes’ work. After the Woman leaves, Veneza tells Bronca the Alt Artistes have published her home address online. Bronca and Veneza decide to sleep at the Center. That night, Bronca wakes up to strange noises and runs to the gallery. She hears the Woman in White’s voice sobbing and calling herself a “good creation.” In the gallery, the Woman appears and offers to prolong Bronca’s life if Bronca helps her find New York City’s avatar. When Bronca refuses, the Woman vanishes. The next morning, Manny, Brooklyn, and Padmini arrive at the Center.

Back on Staten Island, Aislyn finds her father Matthew in their kitchen with a new houseguest, Conall McGuinness, who has a tendril on his neck. That night, Aislyn finds Conall sitting shirtless in her backyard. He has a swastika tattoo on his chest. Conall sexually harasses Aislyn. When she tries to leave, he grabs her. Aislyn uses her borough’s energy to subdue him, then she leaves her home. Paolo drives up and tells Aislyn to get in his car. The Woman in White appears and summons tendrils to protect Aislyn from Paolo. When Paolo asks the Woman why she’s attacking cities after their births, the Woman says that her people have suffered an “assault.” Hearing the word “assault” activates Aislyn’s racism toward non-white men like Paolo. She concludes Paolo must have hurt the Woman. She emits an energy wave, badly injuring Paolo.

At the Center, Bronca explains to Manny, Brooklyn, and Padmini that they need to find Staten Island’s and New York City’s avatars. They can try to locate New York City’s avatar by entering “cityspace” together. When Padmini asks about cityspace, Bronca explains that parallel dimensions are real and that cities, at their birth, puncture the walls between them. She also admits that cities’ births destroy nearby dimensions. Though Padmini is horrified, she and the other avatars agree they cannot let the Woman in White annihilate New York City. Entering cityspace, they have another vision of New York City’s avatar in an abandoned subway station. Bronca recognizes the tiles on the walls. When the avatars exit their vision, a man enters carrying an unconscious Paolo. The man introduces himself as Hong (a.k.a. Hong Kong), and claims that a borough’s avatar has attacked Paolo. Manny realizes Staten Island’s avatar is the culprit. Meanwhile, Bronca realizes the tiles she saw in the vision were Guastavino tiles, which exist in only a few places. Manny and Veneza conclude New York City’s avatar must be in the defunct Old City Hall Station.

Aislyn leaves for work and finds a white pillar in her yard. She sees a tendril and summons the Woman in White. The Woman appears, and Aislyn asks about the pillar. The Woman says it adapts her dimension to humanity’s. She explains that cities’ births destroy neighboring dimensions and that her reality’s inhabitants find cities “monstrous.”

At the Center, Hong explains that if New York City’s avatar doesn’t consume the boroughs’ avatars, the Woman in White may destroy the city. When Bronca, Manny, and Veneza go outside to investigate, they find an empty lot full of tendrils. A nearby poster informs them that the Better New York Foundation is going to build pricey condos on the lot. They research the Foundation online and realize the Woman in White is using nonprofits like the Foundation to weaken big cities prior to their births. Back at the Center, Manny explains this discovery to the others. Paolo urges the avatars to sacrifice themselves to save the city. Brooklyn points out their sacrifice might not work without Staten Island’s avatar, so they split into two teams to find Staten Island’s and New York City’s avatars. Veneza offers to help, but Bronca insists she leave the city. As Veneza drives away, she hears a noise in her backseat.

On Staten Island, Bronca, Brooklyn, Padmini, and Hong sense Staten Island’s avatar. They drive to Aislyn’s house and find the Woman in White in the yard. Thrown into cityspace, they see the Woman is a city from another dimension. The Woman tells them her name, “R’lyeh,” and says she’ll fight them rather than let them reach Aislyn. Meanwhile, Manny and Paolo find New York City’s avatar in Old City Hall Station. When Manny tries to touch the sleeping avatar, an invisible wall stops his hand.

Back on Staten Island, Aislyn runs into her front yard. Though she recognizes that Bronca, Brooklyn, and Padmini are other boroughs, she’s furious to see a “foreign” man, Hong, trampling her garden—so she emits an energy wave that throws them into the street. Aislyn tells the other avatars the Woman in White is her friend. Then the Woman opens a dimensional doorway, shows them Veneza unconscious in a monster’s mouth, and orders them to leave Aislyn alone. Aislyn, convinced the Woman in White is her sole ally, banishes the others with a massive energy wave. Having isolated Aislyn from the rest of the city, the Woman in White infects Aislyn with a tendril—and tendrils begin growing all over Staten Island.

Aislyn’s energy wave throws Bronca, Brooklyn, Padmini, and Veneza onto Wall Street. They look around for Hong but can’t find him, so they go to Old City Hall Station, where they try and fail to touch New York City’s avatar. Suddenly, Veneza transforms into the avatar of Jersey City. Manny asks the others: “Who are we?” New York City’s avatar opens his eyes and says: “We’re New York.” In cityspace, New York City’s power burns away the Woman in White’s infections everywhere except Staten Island.

Several weeks later, New York City’s avatar stands on the Coney Island boardwalk with Paolo and watches the boroughs’ avatars celebrate. When Manny senses New York City’s avatar watching him, he meets his eyes and then looks away. New York City’s avatar realizes that Manny is very attracted to him. Paolo tells New York City’s avatar that Hong has summoned all the living cities to a meeting in Paris, where they will discuss the Woman in White’s ongoing occupation of Staten Island. After Paolo leaves, New York City’s avatar joins the boroughs’ avatars.