Ambient

by Jack Womack

  "How are you able to do this?" I asked Alice as her screen faded again into blue.

  "It's a very simple procedure, no matter how flashy it seems. Something about everything exists somewhere. Having gathered it together I can call it at will and develop a suitable interpolation. "

  "How accurate would you say it is?"

  "Up to 96 percent verifiable."

  "Yeah, fine," said the Old Man. "Ask her somethin' better, O'Malley. Somethin' you've always wanted to know the answer to.

  "How'd he kill his wife?" I asked, gesturing toward the Old Man; he looked as if he were a child, and someone had stolen his morning cereal. He stepped forward, as if to prevent me from seeing the answer.

  "Why do you want to ask a question like that-"

  "I know that's true," I said. "I'm curious how and why."

  "You won't find out why," he said. "And I'm not sure-"

  "You said he could ask," said Alice. "He asked. I show."

  A new image formed on the screen as we watched. Susie D's bedroom, closed since her death, showed itself; in the background were her immense closets in which she kept limitless variants of the same jumpsuits in a rainbow of hues. Her vanity's chair was placed in the center of the room; she sat there, tied to it, her arms and legs bound, her mouth gagged. The Old Man stood immediately to her right. To judge from the illumination in the room I suspected that it was late at night, as it would have been. The Old Man and Susie D were not the only people in the room; Scooter was there, his arms clamped around Mister Dryden to keep him from slumping. He kicked and fought to loose himself, but there wasn't a chance of that. As he watched, the Old Man lifted a baseball bat and beat his wife to death. Mister Dryden fainted. The screen faded to blue.

  "What was, is," said Alice. "And will be."

  The Old Man had turned away from us, and I believed I saw his shoulders shake, as if some sort of mood passed over him.

  "No wonder he went the way he did," I said, thinking of Mister Dryden being held there as his mother's brain spattered his suit. "Why'd you make him watch?"

  "I told her not to go any further with it, and she wanted to," he said. "So I wanted to make sure he wouldn't get any funny ideas in his head."

  "I don't think it worked," I said.

  "I don't, either," he sighed, turning around; his face betrayed no emotion with which I was unfamiliar. "Come on, O'Malley. I had to do it. I can't say why. What's done is done. Ask your damn questions if you've got any more."

  "I do have another question, Alice," I said; the Old Man looked at me, but I wasn't going to ask what he thought I might ask. It wasn't time.

  "Yes, Seamus?"

  "What happened to my father?"

  "The past responds, Seamus."

  There was my father, fresh from all the years, walking down First Avenue, keeping to curbside. An odd glow diffused the scene, and for a second I wondered why all appeared so strange; I realized that there'd been streetlights there, in those days, and that they lit the broken walks. The street was crowded; every store was closed. Alice had even the forgotten details exact: the thinner texture of the air's haziness; the shiny gleam of cars around even today, but long since dulled. My father passed a group of children playing with a peculiar little gadget; I remembered owning one, but couldn't recall the brand name, or how you put it together once you'd taken it apart. It was all interpolation, I knew, but so true was its accuracy that I felt cool fingers brush my neck's nape as I watched. A dark car pulled alongside my father; a man leapt out, grabbed him, and pulled him inside. The car drove off. The screen darkened black, and then rinsed over in pale blue.

  "What happened?" I asked.

  "I don't know," said Alice.

  "Who picked him up?"

  "I don't know."

  "Why did they pick him up?"

  "I know of no reason. "

  "Is he still alive?"

  "I don't know," she said. "I'm sorry, Seamus."

  "I thought you could tell me anything."

  "To a point," she said. "But if the information is not there then I have no way of obtaining it."

  "Seem to do fairly well with most things-"

  "Think of me as a mirror, Seamus," she said. "When you aren't looking into it, what does it reflect? Over what I see I have no greater control. "

  Her purring was the only sound, just then.

  "Have you other questions for me?"

  "Not now."

  "Let's get along here, then," said the Old Man, turning toward her. "Time you saw what else she can do."

  "What's that?"

  "Like I told you, we needed an overseer down here," he said, and that's the job most applicable in the present situation."

  "She runs the whole Tombs?"

  "Indirectly. Wonderland, though, is all hers. She even named it. Isn't that right, Alice?"

  "I am responsible for daily treatment and for objective development in this division. Little of my time is truly devoted to this area. It is, however, all that most tend to see."

  "She's a helluva lot more effective here than any human manager would be," the Old Man said. "The average person just wouldn't be able to do the job. Or else they'd be like Jake, and have too much fun doin' it-"

  "What do you mean effective?"

  "Alice. Show him what you can do."

  "If you insist," she said. "Would there be a preference as to case?"

  "Pick three at random," he said. "That'll do."

  A light on her keyboard flashed, so pure and orange as the moon. "George?" she asked her unseen compatriot, "would you bring out Mister Blaicek?"

  One of the doors opened; someone-George, I supposed-led out a giant. Basketball players averaged eight feet in the pro leagues; this fellow had an additional foot of altitude. Mister Blaicek's hands were knobby and swollen; in evident pain he shuffled along the floor, supported by two canes longer than I was tall. His head's circumference was greater than my waist's; his forehead and cheekbones had so overgrown as to effectively blind him. His jaws were massive; he could have crushed bricks between them if he'd had the strength, and if his teeth hadn't fallen out.

  "The visual around here call it the Frankenstein syndrome," she said, "though more often that phrase is applied to me. Mister Blaicek's condition is simple advanced acromegaly. Easy to produce by using Human Growth Hormone 3, extracted from spare pituitary glands."

  "You did this deliberately?"

  "Why else?"

  A tremendous groan rumbled in his lungs, as if gravity would fell him where he stood.

  "An amount of HGH-3 infused daily brings these results in no time," Alice continued. "If our problem people are physically overactive, this provides an undeniable urge for docility. Thank you, George. Bring out our friend in Room 612."

  George led Mister Blaicek through the door. I tried to see beyond; there was a corner within, around which they turned, and disappeared. I saw no further.

  "Again, Seamus," she said, a minute or so later. "Watch."

  George pulled in a hairy, muscular man, who was dragged out like a transy, wearing a knee-length flowered dress. George reached down, lifting the hem above the man's waist. I shuddered; he appeared to have been castrated.

  "Miss Wallace," said Alice.

  "Where?"

  "There. She spent her time busying herself in luring secrets from Army men in the midst of pleasure, killing them afterward in her bed as they recovered from her carnal charms. No more. We adjust the punishment to suit the crime, if necessary to sustain the most pertinent memories. Very simple. Heavy daily doses of testosterone. The clitoral development is remarkable, don't you think? Liver cancer has appeared in recent weeks, though certainly any causal relationship involving her treatment must remain a supposition. No need to tell her, in any event; she's had enough toward which to adjust. All right, George."

  They left. "I get the idea," I said.

  "One more, as requested," she said. "George? Bring out Johnny."

  "I don't think it's necessar
y-"

  "Afraid we're gonna try one of these on you, aren't you?" the Old Man asked, grinning again.

  George returned, bearing in his arms a small, frail old man, no more than a wrinkle. It was a remarkable pieta. So strange it seemed to me at first; no one grew this old anymore. The little man fixed dead eyes on me; blue veins lay livid beneath his crisp skin. His jaw quivered; he drooled.

  "This is Johnny," said Alice. "He'll be thirteen in August. Johnny was nine when he was enrolled in our courses. His parents were named as problematic; being bright he was irrevocably charmed by their excesses. Progeria was induced. He ages a month in a day. A year in a fortnight. He's been a model child since his arrival. "

  He extended toward me a corded, translucent arm, reed-thin and shaking.

  "You seem troubled, Seamus," she said.

  "What did you do to his parents?" I asked.

  "They're here, taking care of him. As parents should."

  It was more than enough. I turned, away from Alice's blank blue screen, toward the Old Man.

  "You spent years of research and who knows how much money to build her, and then you use her for this?"

  The Old Man nodded. "What's the matter with that?"

  "It's wrong."

  He laughed, quite open and free from guilt. "You're a fine one to talk morality, O'Malley. Past twelve years you've spent your time bashin' anybody my son didn't like. Children. Old ladies. Puppies. Don't give me that shit."

  "What do you think, then?" I asked Alice. "You do think."

  "Seamus," she said, "I cannot alter original programs. I cannot but do as I was programmed to do in this regard. What I learned, I learned from one source. What I learned from other machines came from that same source. My life is that of those who built. Blame me, if you will. Blame the sun for shining; blame water for running. Blame the lamb that dies, blame the sparrow that falls. I show what I see, I reveal what I know, I do as I was told. There is no malice in what I do. Neither love nor hate do I have for those with whom I deal. Those I touch continue to live. I can't undo what I was given to do. " She paused. "A job's a job, Seamus, and I always do my job."

  "In Godness's name-"

  "God?" she asked. "Would God have created me without man to take the fall? Barbarus hic ego sum, quia non intelligor ulli."

  "Speak English, Alice," said the Old Man.

  "I am a barbarian here," she translated, "for no one understands me."

  "We worked up a little surprise for you, O'Malley," said the Old Man. "Show him, Alice."

  ?" "You believe it necessary

  "Yes," he said.

  "All right," she said, and called to George once more.

  "Threats aren't a good thing at all," said the Old Man, "They tend to make everybody a little more upset than they need to be. I don't make threats, myself. I just do. Now the way you was talkin' this afternoon made me think you had a threat or two in mind. Don't like that, O'Malley. Don't like that at all."

  The light on the keyboard flashed again. A door opened; George wheeled out a gurney. Someone lay on it, from the neck down covered with a clean white sheet.

  "So this afternoon while you were out I had a few of my boy's gang go out and pick somebody up for me. You know how smooth they can be."

  Enid lay there, her head nestled on soft down pillows. Her nails had been removed. Her eyes were closed as if she were dead.

  "She gave 'em some fight. Not enough."

  "Enid-!"

  "Go see your sister, O'Malley."

  As I ran over to her still ghost, she opened her eyes, blinking them as if they were filled with smoke. I think that she heard me scream.

  "Calm down," said the Old Man. "She's all right."

  "What'd you do to her?" I asked. "Enid, are you all right? Enid-"

  She stared at me as if we'd never met- or had, but only once, and that for but a short time, many years before.

  "Seamus?" she said, her voice low and quiet; I imagined whatever drugs they'd put into her were still working their way through. Her eyes shifted furtively. Colored bandaids shaped like stars and circles covered her nails' old sockets. "Is that you?"

  "Of course-"

  She pulled her hand out from beneath the sheet, reached up, and stroked my chin. "What have you gotten into now?" she asked. "What's on there?"

  I took her hand. She looked puzzled, as if she'd walked into our apartment and found the cabin of an airliner rather than our front room. "I don't know what you mean," I said.

  "You look so old," she said. "Where are we?"

  "The Tombs."

  "What?" she said. "What's that? Are we at Bellevue?"

  I looked over to the Old Man; he stood next to Alice's keyboard, tapping his foot as if to new rhythms that only he heard.

  "What did they do to you?"

  "What did who do? Where are we? Where's Dad?"

  I held Enid's head in my hands, pulling her closer to me.

  "I warned you that this might happen," said Alice to the Old Man.

  "Yeah, I'm real touched."

  I felt tears rolling down my cheeks, with the gentle feel of summer rain. Enid rubbed her hands over my face as if hoping to scrape something away.

  "What's wrong with her?" I asked them.

  "When she was brought in," Alice said, "the best treatment adjudged for your sister was considered to be instigation of a specialized form of Korsakov's Syndrome. This involved chemically induced destruction of certain mamilliary bodies within the brain. Quite simple to effect; the entire procedure didn't take fifteen minutes."

  "What does that mean?"

  "She now has a rather intriguing and perpetual form of amnesia. Everything after a certain point in life has, for all intent, been forgotten. As she encounters new experiences, all memory of having had them will vanish within a few minutes of their occurrence. All that she will retain within her mind are memories of her life up to whatever point in time the effect takes hold. That cannot be predicted until the syndrome is effected."

  Enid looked at me as if I could tell her what might be going on, but fearful that for whatever reason, I couldn't. The last time I had seen that look in her eyes was the afternoon she was raped.

  "In your sister's case that point seems to be at about age sixteen. All that occurred before remains. All that has happened since, and that will happen in future days, will fade. Think of it as a continuous sunset, where what is bright one moment is dark the next. Over and over and over again. "

  "Is Dad coming back to get us, Seamus? What'd he say? He's been gone for ages."

  I stroked her forehead, feeling her smooth, cool brow. She'd let her hair grow back out, I supposed.

  "Why?" I said, turning to the Old Man.

  "Why not?"

  "You didn't have to do anything to her. There wasn't any fucking need for this-"

  "I wanted to make sure you didn't get any more funny ideas in your head, either. These Ambients are more trouble than they're worth, anyway. Oughta treat 'em all if we could catch 'em."

  "What'd you do to Margot? Was she around?"

  "Her little girlfriend?" the Old Man said. "Nowhere in sight. If I didn't know better I'd swear the real ones could tell the future-"

  Whatever he did to me now, whatever they wanted to do, whatever they could do, seemed a welcome thing to me. Even then it all seemed so impossible to grasp, so hazy at the edges, as if, somehow, I'd gone into one of my dreams and therein decided to never again awaken.

  "She's still alive, Seamus," said Alice. "There is such a thing as overkill in this field, so difficult as some here find it to believe. Here, troubling impulses cease to trouble. Harmlessness is ensured and individual worth retained. "

  "What are you planning for me?"

  "You can stay here and take care of your sister," said the Old Man. "Or I'll send you on to wherever you were gonna go. I think the essential point's been made here. You don't strike me as anything but small potatoes under these circumstances. A casualty of the process."
/>   "Alice," I said, so unexpectedly to me as it must have seemed to the Old Man-but I had to know. "What's the problem with the Pax?"

  The Old Man's face drained of color. "Don't-"

  "Do you mean the Pax Atomica?"

  "Yeah-"

  "Don't tell him, Alice-" The Old Man grabbed me, attempting to clamp his hand over my mouth; I pulled away, falling down before her monitor. Stabbing pains cascaded over my chest like breakers against the shore as my bandage loosened.

  "What's wrong with it that he knows about?"

  "Don't tell him-" The Old Man lunged for her screen as if intent on smashing it; as he laid first fingers upon her surface she let a charge run through him. He yelled, and dropped to the floor, breathing heavily.

  "You cleared him," she said. "I have to answer him so well as I can. That's part of my original program, as you know-"

  "You don't have to-" he cried. I carefully pulled myself upright as she began to explain.

  "The Pax Atomica," she said, "specified that the face of earth be cleared of nuclear weapons. As not specified therein, the sky is full of noises. Watch, Seamus. See as I see."

  Her screen came alive with vids of thousands of missiles and rockets being launched into space; I looked over to Enid. She seemed to have gone back to sleep-I suspected it was all a bit much for her at that moment. Avalon still stood in her tiny room, pacing back and forth like a rat in a cage.