Ambient (5 page)

Another gentleman was admitted into the office, a portly chap
with neatly brushed white hair.

"Hi, Lope," said Avalon, looking up.

"Good morning, my dear," he said. "Good morning, Mister
O'Malley."

I nodded. He returned his attention to Avalon.

"So well you look this morning," he said to her. "New outfit?"

"It's for the conference."

He sighed. "Take care, my dear." The first three gentlemen
departed and Lope went in. Lope and his two brothers began
working with the Old Man early on, while they themselves yet
lived in Colombia. They assisted the Old Man in securing his
own trade routes following the death of his original partners. Over
the years, Lope provided great assistance to the Drydens in every
way, and so came by his own fortune-his brothers proved not
so efficient, or not overly so, and never made it quite so far.

"Want to rag it, Shameless?"

"Sure," I said; we exchanged papers. The lead headline of the
Times was MOM KILLS, EATS BABY; the leftovers were photoed on page two. Psychic Sex Secrets of the Senators, read the
second lead. The local news was nothing new. Two bombs blasted
at the Trade Towers; none of Dryco's floors suffered. The Statue
of Liberty's arm was blown off ; there was a photo of the amputee, rather resembling an Ambient in her newmade loss. The Dow
hit 500. The Army-estimated population of New York City-for
all intent, the island of Manhattan-was reported as approaching
four million; the National Census figure, three years earlier and
as accurate today, was 450,000. The Harlem River was on fire.
The Hackensack Ripper perpetrated his one thousandth outrage.
A cancerous young Bengali was brought to New York on Air
Force One by the First Lady; American medical care could work
clock-round to save a child who, once saved, would be shuttled
back to the motherland to starve.

There was national news. In Washington, vids to be released
by the FBI were said to show the president engaged in what was
judged a doubtful if unspecified action; the press secretary issued
a statement saying that the president could not be concerned with
minor domestic problems when the complexity of foreign relations demanded his full attention. SOVIETS SHOOTING
FRIENDLY SPACE VISITORS? an editorial wondered. And E,
who many-the Old Man among them-called this world's true king, was reported seen in Cleveland, risen again, wan but sturdy,
tramping uncertainly down Euclid Avenue. His followers rushed
to that city.

A figure toting a large parcel approached the waiting room
from the public hall and buzzed. Renaldo signaled Mister Dryden.

"Recon?" Renaldo asked.

"Si," Mister Dryden said. "Abiert, porfav. Momento."

Renaldo pressed the remote on his desk, opening the door. The
bookstore manager smiled, wearish beneath the weight of the load.
I stood and walked over to take delivery. Avalon got up and
rolled over to the info desk, looking for something else to read.
Mister Dryden stepped from his office, Lope following not far
behind.

"Deliver now or never," said Mister Dryden. "Other work
more import?"

"Our clerks are dreadfully slow, sir-"

I was reaching for the parcel when I noticed its ripped corner.
A blue wire protruded.

"Down!!" I screamed, shoving the manager into the public
hall, knocking the package from his hands, and further away.
"The door!"

Renaldo pressed the closure as he ducked beneath a chair. Mister Dryden and Lope leapt back and dropped behind the desk. I
threw myself onto Avalon; she wrapped her legs around me as if
to guard my lower half. Her daggers pricked me; I didn't mind,
and they wouldn't penetrate the Krylar vest I wore beneath my
shirt. The bomb blasted as the suite's metal door closed.

The glass wall surrounding the door held, thanks to the wire
embedded within; it webbed inward from floor to ceiling. Looking up, I saw a gaping hole in the floor outside; the hall walls
smoked and blistered. Renaldo opened the door and doused the
fire with an extinguisher.

"Was that the bookstore guy?" asked Avalon, squeezing me.
I had no desire to get up, leaving her grasp to risk being shattered
again, but knew I must.

"Was," I said.

"Damn," said Mister Dryden, rising, peering about as if there
might be more incoming. "Good work, OM. We'd termed if you
hadn't spotted. "

"Just what's expected," I said. When I stood it felt for a moment as if I had thrown my back out. This sort of thing, these
minor disturbances, happened about once a month, always had.
It should have seemed as if it would be only a matter of time
before they got us, but it never felt that way-it was simply part
of the job. Nonetheless, it did tend, I think, to keep us all a bit
overtuned to our surroundings, and perhaps keeping so eversharp
and toepoised made for some uncertainty we could have done
without.

"You'll be extraed, weekend. Lope, you viabled?"

Lope arose-carefully-from behind the desk.

"I believe," he said, holding the desktop, pulling himself up
as if into a life raft, "if you station someone at the public elevator
to doublecheck no one could get this far. "

"Fortress life isn't mine," said Mister Dryden.

"Ask for trouble, Thatch, and you'll get it. Please take my
advice. On this, if on nothing else-"

"Needless. Ignorance was his, I reason." He looked irritated,
and not for having just avoided being blown up. "Avalon, you?
AO?"

Avalon rose, nodding. "Shameless, they're bent," she said to
me, pointing to her daggers. "Straighten them for me, will you?"

"So who behinded it?" Mister Dryden asked me, looking down
the hall. "Dred?"

"Too white," I said. "Not the turf." Her daggers scratched
my fingers as I twisted them into place. Throwing her shoulders back, Avalon lifted her breasts so that I might shape with greater
ease.

"A loco?"

"He'd have swallowed it, for sure. We'd be far, far away."

"Renaldo," he asked, turning. "Mariel?"

Renaldo frowned. "Fuckin' penejo. "

"As guessed," said Mister Dryden. "A store insider. Grudging." He reached for the phone, pressing out a number. He connected instantly; his lines were owners' lines, and always worked.
You could punch in the same number on a public phone thirty
times and get a different response each time, on those odd occasions you got through at all. Emergency lines were another thing;
those were always out of service.

"Captain?" he said. "Dryden here. DIA8782"-that was his
phone code. "The big bookstore on Fifth. Right. Hotbedded.
Attack tactic tacked. Neuter and buy. Snap it. AO." He hung up.

The Home Army always did Dryco's bidding: as did the Regular Army, the other forces, the Senate, the House, and the President. Of all magics practiced, the Drydens' was the most infallible. For years it puzzled me. Over time, by the retrieval of
dropped hint and tossed-away suspicion, it entered my head that
they had something: something picked up during the Ebb, something much more frightening in perception than it could ever have
been in use-so I thought.

"Hall?" asked Renaldo, gesturing toward the smoking floor
beyond the shattered wall.

"Call a maintenant."

"Cono. "

"No me hoda," Mister Dryden laughed. "Lope and I were
concluding."

"In a way-" Lope began, but didn't finish.

"Ready up, Avalon."

"Fuck this-"

"No danger foreseen. A ready suffices. AO?"

"Let me get my stuff," she said, rolling into his office.

Lope moved toward the public hall, as if attempting to leave
without notice.

"No exit there," said Mister Dryden.

"Where, then? Isn't the guard's stairway close?"

"That won't do. Neither OM nor Renaldo can stair you down
and with the boobies up you can't stair single. You'll have to
conference."

"Please, Thatcher-"

"It'll inspire. You'll brisk new blood. Viz. See."

"I won't watch. Thatch. Please-"

"Such a mari. Avalon, prep. We activate in ten."

Avalon rolled out of Mister Dryden's office, a thick pillow tied
over her bottom as if for a bustle.

"You can't move, pillowed," said Mister Dryden.

"I'll wear what I want to wear."

"It's unsexed-"

"You're not gonna get knocked on your ass. Let's go."

Avalon removed her choppers and her wig, giving them to me
for safekeeping. I checked her crasher to see that the full-face
visor moved smoothly and then pressed it down over her head.
She picked up her bat and wrapped a heavy chain around her
waist.

"Ya!" Mister Dryden yelled, shouting out an arcane victory
howl he'd developed in free moments. "Renaldo. Info to Jake.
AO to concept. Kap?"

Renaldo nodded. Mister Dryden caught my glance, and winked.
Something afooted. We left.

The conference room was on-was-the sixtieth floor. There
was high-gloss flooring; areas were fenced and bleachered at
each end for company reps and guests. Windows ran along each
wall.

Conferences had been held monthly during the past year; all top-position midmen participated. Conferences were only one of
several ideas of which he'd conceived since he began spiraling
down: ideas seemingly designed to bring financial ruin and personal opprobrium upon his own company; ideas that, by his own
design or by accident, had the opposite effect.

As Mister Dryden's proxy, Avalon joined in only if her assistance became essential. If called, she threw herself in with such
intensity that no one lasted, pitted against her.

"Ready?" Mister Dryden asked Avalon; she didn't answer.

No other companies wished to participate in his conferences,
but as they were Dryco conferences, they were unavoidable. They
also proved surprisingly popular among those owners, foreign
and American, not participating. Japanese, Chinese, and Russian
associates of Dryco filled the bleachers on our side, scorecards in
hand. Most wore round their necks the low-cost disposable cameras mass-produced in Switzerland, reliable enough to last a roll
or two; they loved to permanize what they saw. They always bet
as to whether Avalon's assistance would be required, and at what
point.

"How do you think we'll do?" I asked Mister Dryden.

"We'll kill 'em."

This month Dryco conferred with SatCom. Under the rules of
the game-as developed by Mister Dryden-the winner engulfed
the loser, gaining control of the loser's assets but none of its
debts. Dryco never lost; I knew that if anyone else ever happened
to fairly win, Mister Dryden could simply readjust the score and
victor anyway. No one would be left to deny it, afterward.

Lope sat by Mister Dryden, looking nauseated. Our tigers,
hopped and action-ready, rolled before our barrier. The camera
people readied their equipment in their reserved spot; Mister Dryden never lost his business sense, and so had leased the domestic
rights to the Violence Channel and sold the foreign rights for
theatrical release. I sat with Avalon by the gate, giving her water,
calming her so well as I could.

"I've offered to go out in your place," I said, keeping my arm
around her waist for support. "He says no."

"Good thing, too," she said, attempting to see whom SatCom
might have brought in as proxy. "Some of them bitches'd eat
you for breakfast. Stay clear, Shameless."

Mister Dryden rapped his gavel on the podium, saying:

"Meeting, order." He blew the whistle.

The aim of a conference was to destabilize all members of the
opposition so effortlessly as possible. Everyone wore skates, and
was armored, and outfitted. I believe Mister Dryden lifted the
concept from an old movie he'd once seen, undoubtedly while
kite-high. The whistle moved them; at command they tilted full
and bore.

The marketing manager of SatCom was first put in his place.
Our VP of adverts demonstrated an aspect of the problem under
review; the manager went spinning across the floor. Once he went
down, one of our executaries brought up a point with her machete
and ruled him out of order. The debate continued. A conference
such as this really got the adrenals spitting. The average time it
took for teams to agree was four minutes; then the proxies emerged,
if needed. This meeting was hard and had gone six minutes by
the time we led.

"Oh, fuck," said Avalon, staring ahead, pulling away from
me. "Goddamnit."

SatCom's proxy rolled onto the floor.

"Close me up, quick," she said. "She'll kill everybody in the
building if I don't move."

The new player-wearing skates-was more than six feet high.
Her upper armor consisted of black chain mail worn over a
breastplate. Long black leather leggies rose on high; her elbow
and knee guards bore sharp spikes. She was nude between her
navel and thighs. She carried a long mace and a broadax. Her
crasher was black, too, with great horns rising from the top; on
it was a grotesque face mask with eyeslits.

"You've met?" I asked.

"Yeah. "

"Who is it?"

"Crazy Lola. We grew up on the same block. She's fuckin'
psycho."

"How do you know it's her?"

"Look at her hair."

Crazy Lola's pubic hair was dyed blood-red and shaved into
the form of a heart.

"Anything for attention."

Avalon picked up her bat and loosened the chain at her waist
so that she might remove it more speedily; I'd taught her that
trick.

"Scoots, Shamey."

"Break a leg," I replied.

Crazy Lola hadn't run the ground twenty seconds before she'd
mated our sales manager. Our last regular player, the VP of de-
mographs, dispatched SatCom's last executary with his kendo
pole, only to skid into the path of Lola. Slipping her mace into
her holster and raising her broadax, she brought the latter down
onto his crasher and split his head to the chest.

Avalon shot out to great applause. The women circled warily
in opposite orbits, calling each other baleful names. Then Crazy
Lola charged, brandishing her mace. Avalon spun to her right
and cracked Lola in the faceplate with her bat. Lola fell on her
back, her crasher bent back against her head; she was on her feet
again in moments. Avalon made a leisurely circuit to the side and
then moved. I could barely look, but did; I knew she'd win.