[Ambient 01] - Ambient (1987) by Jack Womack

Author:Jack Womack [Womack, Jack]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2014-10-07T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter 9

We lay like knives, blade to blade; care's nurse called and we answered. During the eve a new dream alit me: Avalon and I drifted into the sky through the hole in the roof, borne gracefully toward something like heaven; a copter buzzed near, rousting our apotheosis. I awoke; my eyes unglued. The Serena had come during the night. Waves of black water baptized us. I took the high ground; Avalon washed out with the tide.

"O'Malley!" she shouted, hitting the floor. She splashed to a gentle stop against the wall.

"Rise and shine," I said.

"Those guys still out there?" she asked.

"Fit and ready to play," I said, seeing from the window their dark car's rain-spattered gleam.

"How many are there?"

"Three," I said, stepping into my trousers.

"Recognize 'em?" she asked, pulling on her sweater.

"Internal security, maybe. Or Home Army. Down from Midtown, likely. It's a big car. "

"How big are they?"

`Very. , f

"Help me get my pants on, Shameless," she said, lying on 136 the floor, lifting her legs. It was but a few minutes before we had her jeans yanked up so far as her waist. "Gimme the pliers," she said, sucking in her breath. "In my bag." I passed them to her before she could turn bluer than her pants. Seizing the clasp with the pliers, she pulled her zipper shut. I knew that there were proxies who had the Health Service remove part of their small intestine during the required ovariotomies so that they might wear tighter pants, but Avalon had never been so diligent.

"What'll we do?" she asked as I helped her stand.

"Watch them."

"Watch?" she said, peering out. "Look."

I did; three got out of the car and started walking across the street, as if aiming for our building.

"Rent's due," I said, stepping back.

"Want to meet 'em here?"

"I'd prefer not to meet them at all. We can get out before they can get up. Come on." I tossed her one of Enid's more subtle jackets-one of bright magenta leatherette-and I pulled on my own Krylar model. "Put it on and let's go."

"Where are we going?"

"Out. Follow me. Don't worry."

We stepped into the hall; I heard Lester arguing downstairs. Suspecting that he and Ruben could detain them long enough, I locked up, turned and shoved in the door of the apartment across the hall. Dad had evicted the building's squatters when we moved in here. The tenants left, this apartment had been locked and had not been entered-no need-until the moment I broke in. The rooms were as they had been left when I was still young; only where some of the ceiling or the walls had caved in was anything disturbed. Dust and soot lay over the old furniture and on the floors, several inches deep; the spiderwebs were laced like spun cotton. The only light that came through the dust-opaqued windows-those left unblocked-was pale yellow-gray.

"Nobody lives in this whole place but you two?"

"Above the first floor," I said. "Ruben and Lester live behind the club."

"Why'd you pick this place?"

"We inherited the building from our father.

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