Ambient by Jack Womack Read Free Book Online

Leningrad. On every coast, gracias of his wordspread. The Army
wants to redivert from Manhattan to dry shore, half to Bronx and
the rest overseas. Claims no sense protecting what won't last.
Investments ruined and dead gone. My investments."
    Passing into the Herald Square Secondary Zone we edged
through the crowd awaiting Times Square admittance. We slid
by city buses chugging along, passengers fly-clinging to their
graffitied hulks. Two tumbled off as we passed; a taxi swerved
to run them down. At Thirty-eighth, three cabs and a delivery
van had been torched by those impatient; the offenders-I surmised it was them-lay covered in the street as if to be sheltered
from the sun, surrounded by Army boys. Another limo, an old
Lenin, sailed by, clipping ne'er-do-wells at the corner of Thirtysixth; they whirled and fluttered like falling leaves. Wishing to
avoid Thirty-fourth Street's mania, we turned west onto Thirtyfifth, the ba-ba-da-da of "Teddy Bear" thumping along.

    "We can relocate-"
    "It's the interim that'll term us," said Mister Dryden. "His
idea of reinvesting covers Bronx only. He wants to close foreign
markets for fresh cash. Subvert all under his fear."
    "You mean about the Green? It's not even proved--
    "In his mind it is. He can't say why rain falls but he spells the
weather's future. Nightmare made flesh. We'll be exxed."
    "You think he really believes it?"
    "I did," said Mister Dryden, his voice lowering, "But a new
thought strikes."
    We turned south onto the West Street speedway, passing the
Javits Center. All along the Hudson from Midtown down, barges
pulled into the rebuilt docks-some, at Dryco's request, built so
high above the water that elevators were needed to uplift the
freight-bringing in much of the city's imports: fabric to be reworked into clothing in the sweatshops, prepped goods ready for
resale in the big stores, service equipment of all sorts for all types.
Food was distributed through the Javits Center; by river barge,
by train from upstate, by long trucks on their twice-daily runs
through the tunnel, the produce demanded by Manhattan's throng
arrived and was dispatched by the Army boys. From the buildings' ten dozen exits poured streams of trucks, vans, cars, carts,
wagons, and dollies, all topfull with pickups. Near the newer
part, Army trucks were conveniently parked so that the choicest
items-meat, real milk, fresh fruit-could be loaded after confiscation for zone HQs. The public took what it was given-nothing
unusual in that.
    "What might that be?" I asked, looking into his eyes to see
what might be there; seeing only the eyes of someone who had
escaped from something-often.
    "That his plan could be subtle. That with the Green and with
the Bronx he intends only destruction. Kill what he built. What
Mom built."
    "Deliberately?" I asked, surprised to hear the pot kettlespeak.

    "Why else?" he said, "He's done worse. Believe."
    As our conversation continued, I turned to viz the river, finding nothing beneath the glaze coating his eyes, but seeing in his
face-beyond the sweats and the shakes and the pallor-signs of
something that troubled so deep that I began to feel I should begin
to fear. Mister Dryden teetered into hysteria's edge; touchdanc-
ing the chaos astride the abyss, Enid would say.
    "Why would he want to do that?" I asked, softly, so as not to
further alarm.
    "Paranoia strikes deep, he says. His redeeps mine twenty over.
He wants to keep me from getting it, OM. I can't say why. He'll
gotterdam it all."
    "Have you talked about this-"
    "Talk's time is over. He's ready to action me now. Any day."
    "Maybe not."
    "He is," Mister Dryden repeated, shaking more violently; I
worried, briefly, that he'd combined his reckers carelessly, but
then his flesh settled. "He wants to take me out."
    "But why?"
    "He's batbrained. As I said. Shooting on impulse's charge."
Mister Dryden's lip was bloodied from his nibbling it as we spoke.
"I'm sure he thinks he