Ambient (2 page)

FOR KABI, MY DARLING ■ 12/5/85

"Later we speak, O'Malley," Mister Dryden confided to me, climbing into the car that morning; I
sat shotgun next to Jimmy, the driver. "I've a
plan. "

Jimmy loved Fifth Avenue, the safest route
downtown. We rode a Castrolite, twenty-three long, eight across,
quite maneuverable when the squeeze drew. We were secure, to
a degree; we were used to it. Dad always said that so long as you
had no choice, you could get used to anything that didn't kill
you. He was dead.

"Move," said Mister Dryden.

The car's computer-a number six-awared Jimmy of internal
troubles, gently chiding him if bad tidings sounded. Armor lined
the car frame. A wire skirt ran beneath; no mollies could be rolled
under by any seeking sport. The electroshield buzzed at button's
press, frying miscreants wishing to lodge grievances. If warranted, less passive options effected. When all failed, my hands
guarded; there were never safer hands than mine.

"Where?" asked Jimmy.

Mister Dryden, like his father, loved E. "Don't Be Cruel"
played on the lasereo as we rolled. He had everything he needed
back there: a liquor cabinet, a TVC, a drug compartment topfull
with reckers, a Home Army shortwave, two working phones, an IBM XL9000, a Xerox, and a bidet. The bidet was for Avalon;
Avalon was for Mister Dryden.

"Bookstore me," he said.

Avalon loved little; she sat beside Mister Dryden. The TVC
on her side was tuned, as always, to Vidiac. I couldn't see the
screen; could only hear (by listening with care, for Mister Dryden's music played always at top) the sound of tech, chill and
remote. Modern music, all tonalities and modulations and flurps
and burps and wheeps, never attracted me, and the sharp abandon
of Ambient groups-whose music never appeared on Vidiac-
overfrenzies my skull. I prefer the music of the dead longaway.

"Rapido," he added.

I loved Avalon; I watched her dress. Her own hair was closecut, inch-deep topside; she pulled on a curly blond shoulder-length
wig. She wore only her wig, that minute; her dishabille was never
fully appealing until she slipped in her choppers. Proxies-such
as Avalon-were required by law to have their teeth extracted by
the Health Service so that they couldn't relieve frustration in an
untoward manner. She'd latched Mister Dryden after serving as
a lala for the usual period; she was twenty and had been with us
for two years. I'd been his chief guard and unofficial business
confidant for twelve; she was so happy with her job as I was with
mine.

"Ta raas," sighed Jimmy.

Avalon smiled at me, spreading her legs as if to admit the sun.
To see her face reshone morning's light, however low dropped
the sky's gray wrap. That morning was overcast; most were.

"How's by you, O'Malley?" she asked.

"By the by," I replied.

We stopped at the Eighty-sixth Street light. More than I burned;
five raw youth had kindled a homebody near the park wall and
watched him toast nut-brown. Home Army boys stood on constant guard around the park, and held secure the concrete veldt
surrounding the Met; chest-high rolls of razorwire further strengthened those perimeters. Even so, early that morning, innumerable boozhies queued at the Met's entrance, standing
snakelined in tankmuzzle's shadow, waiting to be refused admittance into a major exhibition of Aboriginal art, about which they
could later quack as if they'd truly gawked.

Park boys and Army boys-none older than sixteen-stared at
our car. Avalon leaned forward, pressing her breasts against the
window. She knew that they couldn't see her through the smoked
glass, but she didn't mind-nor did Mister Dryden, who ignored
her.

"Jah!" shouted Jimmy, swerving. A cab-TAILGATE AND
DIE scratched into the trunk lid-pulled out, bumping us. The
hack screamed at Jimmy and then proceeded up our lane. Using
the plow masking our own car's face, Jimmy speeded up, ramming the cab, pushing it onto the curb before we reached Seventy-ninth. The hack's door opened and he fell into the gutter.
Jimmy pressed one of the defense buttons, steaming him raw as
we passed. He flopped like a fresh-caught fish.

"Quashie won't rax us now," laughed Jimmy, shaking the
dreads from his face.

"I shouldn't think so," I said. Urchins hurtled over the park
wall and tenderized the cabbie. One smashed the windows of the
cab; unfulfilled, he smashed the windows of other passing vehicles. The Army boys laughed; inspired, ever eager for entertainment, they fired into buses inching past. Passengers sprang high,
dropping from the sides.

Avalon donned her shopping ensemble: a black leather maillot,
cut high over the hips, with open lacing from neck's nape, between her legs, and back to her chin. The ties knotted over her
crotch; above the knot was a tattoo of tiny male artillery, with a
bloody knife in lieu of the peacemaker. She zipped her thighhigh black boots; tipped the bill of her Death's-Head SS officer's
cap below one eye.

"How do I look?" she asked Mister Dryden, who chose Ava lon's public wear; his sense of couture had grown rather stylized.

"Yummy," he mumbled, accessing his mail, studying the
monitor. He one-handed the keys; with the other hand he scratched
away, digging and probing and pulling at his skin, trying to catch
the creepies that he perceived to be crawling beneath.

"That's all?" she asked; it was. She looked at me and rolled
her eyes. She was a dream printed and punched; the woman you
brought home to mother, if mother was home. Mine was dead.
To be so evernear while everfar set my feelings on hair trigger;
were I a moth I would have freely sizzled in her light.

Two copters buzzed over Midtown, seven hundred feet up,
whipping between the buildings. Young pilots in the Home Army
did reckers and then took their machines aloft, playing tag among
the towers. Dozens were shot down every year, to lessen the
damage.

The entrance to the Midtown Control Zone was at Fifty-ninth.
There were signs of a recent blast at the pedway: the barricade
wall bedizened with red; a greater disarray than might be explained by overuse. On the wall was stencilled the Army's most
enforceable antiterror edict:

Speak English Or Dont Speak.

You could wander through any Manhattan zone and not hear
English spoken for weeks.

Having IA plates, we zazzed down our lane while regular-
laned trucks, taxis, and buses were stopped, searched, and turned
away; it was after rush and traffic was tied for only forty blocks.
Flags hung from the facade of Midtown Army Executive HQ, the
old Plaza Hotel, long daubed over in dull Army drab. Machine
guns and launchers were mounted on the roof, trained on the
park. A fountain outside shot scarlet-dyed water into the air,
symbolizing the overseas' battlefields' unceasing torrents. Children stood on line outside the Recirculation Center at Fifty-eighth, carted in by the vanload so that they could volunteer their own
flow; the Army preferred the blood of the fresh and unspoiled.
Army boys kept the detainees amused, shooting pigeons off roofs;
those wishing other fare watched Vidiac, broadcast over the street
monitors. At Schwartz, across the street, owner's children, guided
by tutors and nannies, glutted themselves on their own market's
bounty. We passed Bergdorf Tower at Fifty-seventh, Gucci's
World at Fifty-third, Cartico at Fifty-second, Saint Paddy's Con-
doplex at Fiftieth, Saks-Mart at Forty-ninth.

"Any parking places?" I asked. Limos blackwalled the curbs.

"Soon enough, man," said Jimmy. "Soon enough."

A postal van was parked before the bookstore; even the driver
appeared covered in graffiti. In Control Zones, mail deliveries
were made once a day; in other zones the mail arrived weekly, if
at all. As we pulled behind the truck, the driver lurched it away
before we might make merry. There were, as ever, few cars in
the zone proper; only limos, some taxis, delivery trucks allowed
through on their daily runs. Buses were forbidden to enter Control Zones, for they could too handily truck in the ill-mannered.
The wind whistled round the buildings as if through a graveyard.
I opened my door slowly, getting out; I'd injured my shoulder
earlier in the week. A blue and white, sirens wailing, sped by.

" Showtime, " said Jimmy.

They were slow; further down Fifth a storefront sneezed fire.

"Nipponbank again," said Mister Dryden, looking up, shaking his head. "Stay, Jimmy."

There were always blasts in Midtown. Responsibility was divvied by the Dreds, or by Mariel; by the Nation of Aztlan, the
Black Flag Order, Crimson and Clover, Nouveaux Maroon, Black
Wicca Women, the Sons of the Pioneers, or by any of the other
lesser, more transitory groups, all toiling daily at their works of
disconcertion. Those commanding precautioned. Any vehicle
parked in a Control Zone had to have one person near at all times,
or it would be blasted. Vehicle searches proved effective; singles entering the pedways were strip-searched, as at museums (for
that the Army developed cunning equipment-an Army boy once
showed me his inspection glove, like a falconers', with a roofshingle texture). Some groups levied inside support; some kami-
kazied. One of the more inventive groups developed an explosive
that could be safely swallowed; only later would tum acids grant
one last heartburn. X-rays triggered the blast and were of little
help. All at play had their ways and reasons.

Army trucks raced down the avenue. "Look at 'em dash,"
laughed Jimmy, his gold teeth gleaming as if he'd had them buffed.
"Won't find 'em now with a sieve."

Jimmy claimed his full name to be Man Jimmy Too Bad; he
was a Dred until Mister Dryden retained him as his chauffeur,
using traditional tactics to gain his access, luring new sharks with
warmer blood. Jimmy still professed belief in Ras Tafari, keeping a picture of Selassie over the dash and the Holy Piby in his
pocket. A drawer beneath the steering column held his chillumpipe and his wisdomweed. He was an excellent driver; we'd never
had an accident he hadn't planned.

"Ready?"

Mister Dryden seemed especially 'underweathered that morning, and mayhap my concern showed overmuch; he looked sharply
at me, as if I'd disturbed his slumber, and I quickly drained my
face of care. His hand shook as he fumbled to close the car door.
I met Mister Dryden the first time I left New York; after I was
graduated from the Bronx High School of Management, a friend
of my father's got me a job as a guard at Yale. Mister Dryden
hired me while he was a sophomore, and I'd worked for him
since, big with joy and gratitude. By working so directly for an
owner-more particularly, for Dryco-I was excused from Army
service. It seemed for so long that my life was made for what I
did, and it was certainly preserved. Half my grad class became
business midmen and half joined the Army. As of that morning,
I was probably the only survivor.

There was no one for whom I'd have rather worked than Mister
Dryden; then the change came clear, dimming his eyes, drawing
the mindshades down.