Manhattan Transfer

by John E. Stith

  Even the blowup after she had disobeyed his order hadn't shaken her feelings. She'd known immediately he was right, and somehow she knew that if their positions had been reversed he would have been just as accepting of criticism as she had been.

  The bright "sun" was still on as they walked to the opening they'd dug in the ground. Rudy's cord was still fixed to the metal disk stuck on the inside of the dome. Rudy sprayed a pocket aerosol tube on the edge of the disk, and moments later it slid down, then popped off the transparent bubble surface.

  The black door into the tunnel opened. Abby took another look through the bubble as Rudy dropped into the hole and disappeared. The gray plain could almost have been a huge stagnant lake, unrippled in dead calm, a congealed sargasso sea. From the roof, Manhattan had looked much the way it had looked from Staten Island Ferry, except for being a little farther away and a little clearer since the air between the domes was clean. Now Manhattan was gone again, hidden by another dome.

  When it was her turn to go down, she almost didn't want to enter the tunnel again, but she did. She put on her hardhat.

  Matt stayed on the surface, and she could hear him calling Manhattan on his walkie–talkie. Several seconds later he joined the rest of them in the tunnel, where he tried his walkie–talkie again. This time the speaker crackled with a reply.

  "Manhattan base. What do you need?"

  "I need a comm check. Can you count to fifty for me?"

  "You got it. One two three—"

  As Matt moved back up into the cutout in the dome, Abby heard, "four five six seven—" The "eight" faded, and she heard nothing more as Matt pulled the black door closed. Several seconds passed before Matt opened the door and came back into the tunnel. "…twenty–four twenty–five…"

  Matt clicked his walkie–talkie, but the other end counted all the way to fifty before they took a break to listen.

  Matt spoke into the walkie–talkie. "The clear bubble material cuts off your signal. Even with the squelch all the way down, I couldn't hear anything when I was inside the bubble. The black barrier material reduces the signal but doesn't stop it."

  "Understood, Rover."

  Matt gave the people back in Manhattan a summary of what they had learned so far, and what they suspected. A long silence ensued. When they finally acknowledged what Matt had said, he terminated the call, then helped as all four of them sealed the black barrier cutout back into place. Rudy stripped the protective layer off a length of supertape and carefully applied the material to the seam, giving the glue a few seconds to set.

  The tunnel felt downright gloomy with only the hardhat lights and the light from the cart.

  "What next?" Bobby Joe asked.

  Matt looked at Bobby Joe, then Rudy, then at Abby. His gaze still on her, he said, "We'd better start for the next dome."

  #

  "Those people are still out there!" Stuart Lund said. "Every day they spend on this foolish journey, the greater the risk that God will punish all of us." Stuart's voice was a little hoarse from trying too hard to project.

  On faces in his congregation, Stuart saw anger and fear. And that was good. These people should be as angry and as fearful as Stuart was, because only when they felt would they begin to act.

  "The Battery Tunnel no longer serves any purpose that benefits humankind," Stuart said in the deliberately understated style he'd adopted. So many pulpit–ravers had tried their vocal cords on the American public, Stuart was convinced that someone outside of the mold would be taken more seriously. "Once it led to Brooklyn, but Brooklyn is beyond our hearing, beyond our seeing, beyond our touching." Stuart continued to speak carefully, getting the crowd angry, preparing to divert that anger to where it would do the most good. A young boy perhaps ten years old sat between two adults, and the boy looked as angry as his parents did, which was a good sign that Stuart was really reaching them. He thanked God for preparing him with the techniques of persuasion.

  In the row just behind the young boy sat an expressionless man, a short man with a crew cut. Stuart's gaze caught the man, and for just an instant the short man's eyes widened. A diffuse warmth spread through Stuart's chest. These people would do anything he asked.

  "Now the Battery Tunnel leads to damnation. Now it points the way of the snake. We must stop this outrage against God."

  Stuart kept working the crowd to a higher pitch of fear and anger. After the service, he was rewarded with a great honor; a group of about ten of the congregation members who talked among themselves at the back of the room came to him with ideas of how to discourage use of the Battery Tunnel. One of the ideas was just Biblical enough that it appealed to Stuart.

  #

  As the borer performed its slow–motion magic, Matt grew impatient. Fast cars and high–speed jets were more to his taste than this creeping assault on the gray goo. As a passenger, he'd once taken enough gees in an F–22 to drain a fair amount of blood from his brain before the automatic systems detected the same thing happening to the pilot and reduced the thrust. Here he was in danger only from accidentally falling asleep. Even the diet was tedious. The trailer behind the borer held a large supply of nothing but food pellets and water.

  "What brought you to New York?" he asked Abby, who walked just ahead of him in the dim light.

  "Feet."

  "Okay, you don't have to talk about it."

  "No, that's not what I meant," she said. "I went out for track when I was in school. I was already interested in languages and linguistics at that point, and my folks encouraged me to do something physical so I didn't stay cooped up with my studies all the time. Eventually it occurred to me that I could use running to meet more people from other countries if I was lucky enough to make the Olympic team."

  "And did you?"

  "No. I came close, but I just didn't spend enough time at it for one thing. You don't get on the team unless you're pretty single–minded about it and work a lot of long hard hours. But I did get to the point that I liked running a lot. Manhattan seemed like a place I could run, and at the same time I could meet a variety of people. The melting pot is still bubbling in Manhattan."

  Matt smiled.

  "Once I got here, I started to get bored just running the same course all the time. I wanted to run wherever I wanted to."

  "Could be a little dangerous, depending on where you wanted to run. A beautiful woman by herself in a deserted place."

  "Well, I'm not beautiful. And a lot of times it doesn't matter whether you're a man or a woman as long as you're a stranger. But that's why I took self–defense classes."

  Matt didn't respond to her inaccurate statement about beauty. "So that explains your skill when we were on the way back from the UN."

  "Yes. No one's going to tell me where I can run and where I can't."

  Matt could hear the smile in her voice even though her face was lost in the darkness ahead, and he smiled, too. Abby reminded him of a girl who had lived next door to him when he was growing up in Omaha. She hardly knew Matt existed, and at the time Matt had been gangling, constantly unsure of himself, while Tami had been poised, pretty, and popular. But what had been important was that Tami knew what she wanted to do, and she went out and did it. She was intelligent and funny and caring. She and Abby seemed to have a lot in common. After Matt's thoughts had strayed to the past and returned, he wondered how much damage is done because girls grow up faster than boys.

  "So, what did you do when you were growing up?" Abby asked.

  Matt hesitated. "I got into trouble a lot. I guess you'd say I was kind of wild."

  Abby was silent.

  Matt went on. "My dad was killed in an accident. He was on an Army training exercise when his helicopter crashed. I was eight. Mom idolized him. She didn't want anything to do with a 'replacement.'"

  "So you grew up without a father?"

  "Mostly. He was gone a lot even before that. But I'm not trying to blame my behavior on that. I don't really know why I did the things I did. Maybe I needed an o
utlet for my anger. Maybe I figured nothing mattered. Here a good man died in a senseless accident. I don't know."

  "What kinds of things did you do?"

  "'Crimes against property,' the police called them. I never hurt anyone, but there were a lot of busted mailboxes and broken windows in my neighborhood. Things like that."

  "But you grew up." It was a statement, not a question.

  "Yeah, I did, I think. Maybe there's hope for Bobby Joe, huh?"

  "What happened?"

  "It's funny. One day I was feeling particularly angry, I kicked over a big section of a fence a couple of blocks from my house. I started to leave and I looked up. I saw the man who lived in the house. He'd been watching me from a window. He looked, I don't know, just sad. I went home that night, waiting for the police, knowing they'd be there at any minute. I'd had enough trouble with them already that I was sure I'd be sent someplace for a few years. I considered running away. I lay there the whole night, trying to decide what I'd do when they came for me."

  "And?"

  "And they never came. The guy didn't call them. I walked past his house the next day, and he was out there fixing the fence. I went closer—I mean what could I lose? He looked up at me—he had a couple of nails in his mouth. I knew he recognized me, but he didn't say anything. I just stood there and watched. Finally he said, 'Something I can do for you?'"

  Matt took a deep breath. "I still don't really know what changed right then—whether I realized that people did pay a price even though I didn't hurt anyone directly—or if I realized that things do matter—that just because my dad died in an accident that didn't mean the whole world was senseless, maybe."

  "So?"

  "So I said, 'Can I help?' He looked up at me and considered that for a minute. Finally he said, 'You can put that new post in that hole and then pour cement around it.' So I did. I worked a couple of hours with him, and he didn't say a word. I came back the next day and we nailed up the boards and painted them. When the whole job was done, I finally got up the nerve to ask him why he hadn't called the cops.

  "He looked at the new fence, and he looked back at me. And then he said, 'Looks like I made the right decision, don't you think?'"

  Abby was silent as they continued walking.

  Matt cleared his throat. "I stayed real busy that summer. I patrolled the neighborhood, and whenever I saw anyone doing any work on their place, I stopped and asked if I could help. The first couple of people I asked turned me down, but pretty soon people understood that I wanted to do exactly what I said I wanted to do."

  "I think that must have taken a lot of courage," Abby said at last.

  Matt was trying to decide what to say when Rudy called from somewhere ahead of them in the tunnel. "Time for another air vent."

  "I can do it this time," Matt yelled back.

  "You got it."

  Rudy appeared in the glow from Abby's hardhat light and he handed her the bag of tools. She passed them back to Matt.

  "See you folks in a few minutes," Matt said as Rudy went back toward the cart.

  "Any problem with me helping?" Abby asked.

  "No problem at all. I don't need much help, but the company is nice."

  Matt set the bag on the tunnel floor and made a quick check to ensure everything he needed was there before he started drilling. It all looked good. He took out the drill and inserted the long bit.

  He reached up, aiming his hardhat light at the tunnel roof where the bit dug into it. Abby aimed her headlamp upward, too, and when Matt glanced at her, the reflected light spilled onto her face, and he could see that instead of looking at the drill bit she was watching him. It was so tempting to try to get closer to Abby, to help wipe away the pain from the way Nadine had left his life, but it wouldn't be fair to himself or to Abby. If he tried to use Abby to fill that gap, he wouldn't know if he was responding to her or to the situation. And it would just hurt Abby if it turned out he was reacting to the past instead of the present.

  Abby's expression changed, as though she were about to say something, and Matt realized he'd been staring at her for several seconds. She looked so appealing, even with the hardhat covering most of her hair. He looked back up at the drill bit, which was almost all the way through.

  "Abby," he said, unsure what he really wanted to say. "I'm glad you're on this—mission."

  Her lips parted, then closed again. Finally she said just, "So am I."

  The drill bit quit giving resistance as it broke through to the top. Matt switched off the drill and pulled out the bit as a small rain of flakes of goo swirled to the tunnel floor.

  Abby knelt and retrieved a new air tube from the bag, and as Matt took the bit out of the drill, she pushed the tube into the opening. The last tube had been for intake, so on this one they attached a flexible hose and taped it to the tunnel walls so it came near the floor. Matt attached a fan, and set it to exhaust. As it started to hum softly, he applied flame from the torch around the junction between pipe and the goo, sealing it against leaks.

  Abby held the bag as Matt put the torch back inside.

  "Thanks for the help," Matt said.

  "Any time," Abby said. "Any time at all."

  #

  Twenty blocks north of the drug center of Manhattan, on 138th Street, the Abyssinian Baptist Church was as crowded as every other church.

  Over fifty people waited in a room filled with memorabilia from the days of Adam Clayton Powell, Jr.

  Shirlee Bathcomb fidgeted as she waited with her parents for the people ahead of them to clear the sanctuary so they could attend a service and the people behind them could follow. The sound of voices raised in song reached her as she stared at a picture of Powell shaking hands with an old mayor of New York. Shirlee felt better knowing the current mayor was black, but she wasn't sure if it made much difference when whoever brought them here wasn't talking to anyone.

  The idea that they had been brought here to be slaves had occurred to Shirlee, but she'd discarded the idea as being too horrible to contemplate.

  #

  Abby was getting really tired of the confines of the tunnel by the time they reached the next dome. Except for the fact that the smoothly bored hole was clean, the experience was like slowly traveling for kilometers through a sewer.

  They had arrived after a long day, and they decided to wait until the next morning to cut through the gray ceiling. After dreams of rats so large they almost blocked the way, and of flying above an immense field of grass, Abby felt moderately rested but highly impatient as Rudy cut the square opening to the surface just outside the dome they wanted to visit.

  The foursome got the slab of goo out of the way. When it was Abby's turn to look outside, she looked up and up and gasped.

  Right next to their camouflaged cutout was a dome that might have been only as big around as a big city block, but it soared into the sky far higher, she was sure, than the towers of the World Trade Center. On the other side of the bubble material was a trio of huge trees whose bases sat in an equilateral triangle. Large circular leaves all faced the "sun," a yellowish bright light like the one over Manhattan.

  Suspended by vines or ropes slung over stubby tree branches was a city with a far different texture than the previous one. Here and there in the web–work of ropes were woven structures vaguely like grass huts, but many of which were far larger. Figures moved high in the air, crossing on ropes, descending or ascending on larger, knotted ropes reaching from level to level, like ornamental strings used for decoration on the biggest tree in the universe.

  None of the beings were close enough to see clearly with unassisted vision, but she had the impression of thin–limbed people, rather than apes or similar primates. She put on her minivid viewer, then cranked up the telephoto.

  Centered in the jittery frame was a spindly alien tree dweller. As the alien's arms reached for a rope, light filtered through a fleshy web extending between the torso and the arm. Recording all she could see, Abby panned the minivid until she
was startled by the much–larger image in her viewfinder.

  She blinked, then started reducing the telephoto enlargement. One of the aliens had apparently noticed her. It was a child, judging by the smaller size compared to the other beings she'd seen.

  The alien came closer, watching intently as it jostled down a rope. It stopped and cocked its head in the familiar posture of a human getting a different perspective on something it doesn't see clearly or doesn't recognize.

  Abby directed her voice through the roof of the tunnel. "Someone's coming to investigate."

  "Does it look hostile?" Matt asked from below.

  Abby looked back to confirm her first impression. The approaching figure moved quickly toward her, not fast enough to be a predator on the run, not slow enough to be trying to sneak up. Nothing like a weapon was visible. In one hand the alien carried something vaguely like a whip, but it didn't seem to be using it as a weapon. The end of the cord seemed to want to naturally form a coil with several loops. Occasionally the alien would snap the cord toward a branch or rope just out of its range. The snapping motion would uncurl the end of the cord and it would wrap around the branch it had been aimed at. The alien would use the support provided by the weak connection to the branch, and when it had moved far enough that it no longer needed the support, it pulled the coiled section loose so it was ready to use again.

  "No, it doesn't," Abby said. "And there are more on the way."

  From higher up in the tree city another couple of the smaller versions of the aliens started down to look at Abby. Their bodies were all spindly, with taut skin over prominent bones. One alien from even farther up jumped from a limb, spread its arms, and glided about ten meters down to a grid of ropes strung between the trio of trees.

  As the first couple of curious tree dwellers reached the ground and approached, at least a dozen more were on their way down to investigate. Abby didn't notice any of them calling to others, but the group kept growing.

  Abby backed against the surface of the goo as Matt joined her. Within a few minutes at least a dozen short aliens and a couple of tall ones stood against the inside of the bubble, inspecting Abby and Matt, curiosity plain in their expressions, despite mottled skin that on a human would have probably denoted some terrible disease, and an emaciated look that for humans would mean death couldn't be far off.