by Jack Womack
"Many find it preferable," said Leverett. "Our company's long tramped the live-and-let-live path."
A six-meter-high wall borderlined along 110th Street's midst, separating zones no longer, in theory, existing. No guards stopped us to ID as they once would have; razorwire loosened by weather and years dangled down over the ingress, fingernailing our car roof as we scraped below their rusted tangles. The driver, eyeing blockage ahead, wheeled us onto the right sidewalk, steering our car between treestumps alongsiding the curb and the park's unclipped foliage. Part of Mt. Sinai's older facade had collapsed streetways, cluttering the lanes. As we returned to the road our driver braked, and we idled. Leverett neckcraned, and eyed forward.
"What is it?" E asked, opening his window, thrusting his ski-masked head outside. He drew it in as quickly. Gazing windowways, looking past the driver, I saw rats cascading in a writhing stream, flowing out of the park as if pipered, their pack bearing eastward down 100th; aiming river-ways, as if they intended to lemming. Their chirp was so loud as a birdflock; several minutes passed before all had cleared. "They can't do nothin' 'bout rats?"
"They're needed here," Leverett said; gansered as he continued. "People have to eat."
Central Park's overgrowth cloaked the sidewalk below 96th; a frosting of wet trash overlay the deadleaved bushes, branchbreaking beneath the weight. Across, on our left, rainscarred apartments cliffsided the avenue: from some of their dead eyes curtains fluttered flaglike as they breezed; behind the lids of others light yet flickered, evidencing those yet huddling against morning's dark.
"People still live in these places?" E asked.
"Elderlies, mostly," said Leverett. "They bedmade years ago, and choose to lie there still. They're secured, to a degree."
"They got cops or somethin' watchin' out for 'em?"
"Of a sort. Here, you'll see what's meant. Good thing traffic's light," Leverett said; ours was the only car visible above 72nd Street. "Are we shielded, driver?"
"Tripleplated," the driver said.
"We'll be able to birdseye. Elvis, see that boy? No evidence of deliveries, and it's apparent he's not tenanting there. A miscreant, undoubted. Watch."
The youngster showed no more than teenage years as he skulked along the gutters of 88th Street. After ascertaining we possessed no direct authority he laid a bare foot upon the curb. The ground windows of the nearest building opened; E and I instincted, tossing ourselves floorways when their guns began to fire. Bullets rang as hail against our car, pattering so harmlessly as the soot-soaked rain. Rearising once all quieted again, we spied through our rear window; saw the boy's remains, a reddened bag appearing to have been dropped from a jet.
"Residents code in at distance," Leverett said. "Years ago these protectives rendered guards as such superfluous, here. The ur-regooding, as it were."
"What happens if you're just passin' by and get shot?" E asked.
"You die, generally," said Leverett.
I reached across and patted E's hand; he pulled it away so quickly as my husband might have. We passed the old Met, emptied since its Bronx megalith opened the year before. Ailanthus greensprouted between the steps, ivy overgrew the marble walls; by decade's end the park would reclaim all acreage once stolen for art.
"Why'd everbody leave?" E asked. "What happened?"
"There were problematic times," said Leverett. "Rough weather, fore and aft. The troubles onwent for so long down as to too well adjust the survivors to a nonregoodable mindset. The physical plant, too, was rotting. The subways are flooded, the bridges falling down. Eye for yourself the look of the roads. Mister Dryden commanded that we relocate north before building afresh. Many thought him mad."
"He was mad-" I started to say.
"You lip, but Madam speaks," Leverett said. "Source consider, Isabel. I knew him. Many times we talked. Mister Dryden saw his world unblinkered, and acted accordingly to make of it as he would. Few so capabled as he in recreating existence to suit his dreams."
The old 59th Street wall was gone; the Plaza Hotel, onetime Home Army Midtown HQ, appeared moldstreaked as its green wash peeled away from the brick. A dry fountain stood before its boarded entrance; a dozen lay sleeping in the bowl, blanketed by rain. The buildings passed facaded thirty years of blasts' pockmarks; hundreds camped beneath their scars, some boxed as if for storage. Smoke rising from their fires thickened the clouded air, and as we bore south our vehicle might have appeared as a vision to them, as if while driving we'd Alekhined, or else chanced into a spot where time folded in on itself, moebiusing our car into their present.
"You make people live like this?" E asked. "We wouldn't treat-" Before saying what I was sure he would he paused, so as not to blurt. "We wouldn't treat nobody this bad."
"Evidence infers that you did," Leverett said. "Unmat- tered. They live like this. We let them live. That's a subtle but clear distinction."
We righted at 50th, swinging wide to avoid fallen streetlights and a van overturned several months earlier. Dryco's old block remained secured as before, although our company guards were supplanted by unregoodable Army boys. I boiled, seeing their fat swaggers with eyes at once thirty years younger; I felt myself swept into another timefold, and again I was one of Washington Heights' myriad smaller targets, fearful of moving between doorway and street while the greenasses marched by. Lengths of printout tum- bleweeded across our feet as we sidewalked ourselves and approached the entranceway.
"It's emptied, I thought," I said to Leverett as he slid his card through the entry-slot, unlocking the doors.
"Not entirely."
Our steps rang as multitudes' upon the lobby's unwaxed floor as we moved toward the elevator. Neither AC nor dehumidifier were on; the building stood dead, devoid of circulatory rumbles, awaiting a delayed autopsy. Mildew etched the lobby's murals with fresh, unexpected patterns. Boarding, we ascended thirty-three flights; emerged, and hailed ourselves into a long passageway, strolling between rows of stacked desks.
"Yesterday I considered what you said," Leverett began, unclarifying whether he worded us individually or as one. "Informed opinions require a hear-out. Yours, sadly, lacks."
"Don't condescend, Leverett-"
"Forbid, forbid. What's meant is that your confusion's understandable. How can decisions be reached, sans data?" He shrugged. "Badly, or not at all. So enlightenment necessitates before threat becomes action."
"Detail," I said.
"No action altruistics," Leverett said. "Years past I've muted timeover, facing disagreement, if I saw a greater purpose served by cat-tonguing. Greater, that is, in being either larger than oneself, or else most useful to oneself. As the intent splits between selfishness and concern, so they shortly curve round to meet at endturn. So when I hear your plaints I empathize. Still, the wise realize that when subjugation's moment comes, it shouldn't be missed."
"Where's this leading, Leverett-?"
"Dryco readies to lead society horizonways," he said. "A bright future awaits. You're part of that future if you choose. This project essentials for our future in that it enables us to harness materiel previously untapped; it will enable us, I should say, once the presentation is made. This project is more than Dryco sole, Isabel, Elvis. My soul lifes it."
"Understood-"
"All hitherto has only been prep. The moment oncomes-
"You're rambling, Leverett," I said. "Concise it."
"Demands suit their place, Isabel," he said, proceeding; we paced him. "As told, we were aware predeparture that your return wasn't assured. We improved your odds there, however little our efforts were appreciated. Certainly there always existed the chance that you'd not find Elvis there, once across." Leverett slapped E's back, almost unbalancing him. "We readied a backup in event Plan A problematicked."
"What manner of backup?" I asked.
"The best available."
We reached the end of the hallway. Leverett fingertapped the righthand wall; it opened before us, exposing an unfurnished room, its window
s sealed against the world without as if assuring the purity of those within. The room contained a single, centerpieced holding. E took my arm as he saw it; I didn't note the bruises he'd left until that evening. "Close in. He won't bite." A freezeframed E garbed in a white jumpsuit greeted us, its hair and skin semblancing a greater genuineness than E's, its look so mirroring that it shocked me not to see the thing breathing. The eyes resembled marbles in need of dusting. "Touch him, Elvis."
"No," E said, backing away from his dupe, examining himself as if to compare. "You stole me."
"Stole your predecessor," said Leverett. "Plan B, courtesy of WDI. Art personified and readily programmable. So approximate a perfection as can be presently done."
"If you got this," E said, "what do you need me for?"
Leverett twisted the cylinder-end he held. The Elvisoid's eyes enlivened; its chest gently heaved, and it took two stifflegged steps forward. When it worded its lips matched the phrases sounded; simulated facial muscles motioned unerringly. "Good morning, Everett," it played, its voice evidencing no more life than a toaster's. Leverett eyerolled, but made no move to correct its error.
"We had this readied before we even approached you, Isabel. An approximate perfection, as said. But art demands the human touch. Televised, it would pass. The construction is such that its emanations read as flesh once broadcast. The look tubes well. But personal appearances are essentialled, and it'll never stand for those. There's naught of emotion in it, leaving its words unimpacted. So here you are, Elvis. You're multiblessed with the real feel. It's you we needed."
E drew further away from the Elvisoid; as I read him I perceived an understandable fear, that were he to come too close to it he might find himself subsumed into its form without realizing it. "It's all science fiction. You can't do this-"
"It's a recent improvement on a classic process," said Leverett. "As told, it's you we prefer. If our point's grasped, unconcern yourself. He'll be employed only if you fail us."
"What point're you talkin' about-?"
"You're here to serve as savior, Elvis," Leverett said. "So serve. You're needed. You're wanted. All that we're doing, we're doing for you. Had we left you where you were found, where would you be now?" E turned; walked away from both of us, holding his hands against his ears. "Swinging, rather than singing, I'd suspect. Tennessee would capitalize for murder, surely. That's not the case here, you've seen. We backscratch, you bellyroll. Simply put, simply planned. Your requirements are nil. Your benefits, unsurpassed. Think of us as Dero if you wish, but whatever's seen in our cave, we've preserved you to see it. Now preserve us."
"Who'd you say thinks I'm God?" E asked. "Them or you?"
Leverett deafened, and readied the knife. "Your decision, Elvis. If you trouble the project into impossibility, you'll be made redundant. It's not as wished, but it will be done. Keep minded, too, that as your overseer Isabel shall be considered, if it so events, to have failed along with you."
"What would you do to us?" E asked. "Send me back home?"
"Impossible, Elvis," said Leverett. "This is your home. Allow me correction. If you choose not to assist us as we require, we've a new home for you. We drove through it, coming down."
E wide-eyed as if he'd been charged. "That's not right-"
"All obsolesces," Leverett said. "Timing's all. You've a choice. What's decided?"
E stared at me, as if I could answer for him; seeing I readied no annotation he slumped, and headhung as if he'd been sentenced long before. Leverett handclasped, seeming to pray.
"Any picture suits once the right frame's found," he said, sighing, countenancing unspeakable satisfaction. "Isabel, henceforth you'll word me sole, incompany. If I didn't trust you as I do I'd suspect you must be passing your observa tions along to Madam. Her perceptions, unaided, have rarely been so keen of late."
"Leverett-"
"Your husband departed last night?" he asked. "You wouldn't be awaiting his return, would you?" I shook my head. "The project demands that both of you fully attend to its needs at all times, sans comment or complaint. That's understood, now?"
E and I nodded, staring at Leverett. We were exitless, then; he would hereafter command me and there was naught to be done but do. There was no regooding this; all I could do was wait unto bitterend, and meantime take silence as my given; interning all emotion, blanking all thought, allowing myself no more life than the Elvisoid possessed, save enough to keep my baby kicking. Having allowed Leverett to sketch his own structure around me while I dismantled my husband's, I'd enabled my new overseer to build a more secure prison on foundations already laid.
"Shock's recognition worldround, yes?" he said, taking our hands in his, squeezing mine until he hurt me. "Settled, then. Questions?"
"What's scheduled next?" I asked.
"Close your eyes," he said. "Think of England."
"Fuck off, you fat bastard!" my host, Malloy, shouted through our cab's open window as we scraped the red tripledeckers alongsiding. "These burkes'll sarnie us if they keep playing hogs of the road." Leaning forward until I could glimpse the silver barette in skull's shape clasping his pony, he directed our hack, voicing loud through the netting separating our compartments. "Up, up, up. Loft us, Henry, sail us away."
Henry engaged a yellow lever beneath the wheel; Malloy and I were thrown against our seats as our cab converted into hovermode, lifting over the gridlock ahead. The resultant airblast blew Harrod's bags from passersby's arms, impaled children on Green Park's fence, flipped mopeds beneath buses. As we parabolaed by the Ritz's bougainvillea siding I felt anew the nausea known as the plane lowered into Heathrow, stonefalling through London's overhead mud.
"Funds saved riding black cabs pay for endless dinners, later on," Malloy said. "Cuts assurance costs as well." A cab several carlengths upstreet collided with one of the tall palms lining Piccadilly as it went skied; the topknot dropped, blocking Fortnum and Mason's entrance, crushing haggis-laden shoppers as they emerged. Malloy tapped a cigarette free of its pack and fired. The pack's warning outsized the brandname, but said only Let's Not Smoke So Much.
"Smoking's allowable here, Gog-?" I asked; the fume, unexpectedly, made the air more breathable.
"Isn't drinking?" he gansered. "Malloy's the preferred moniker, Isabel, as I specked." His name, uncondensed, was Gogmagog St. John Bramhall Malloy; he oversaw Dryco's London office, having worked there for years.
"Why'd your parents peg you so?" I asked.
"New Agers," he said. "Tossed out of the Theosophists for heresy. Wanted to be harmonic convergers but never found the right key. They foresaw my drawing strength from the raw earth, so dubbed, as if I were a hillside figure. Never made a move without consulting entrails. My sister's name is Cropcircle, she doesn't tell everyone."
Our cab ascended several meters more as it entered Piccadilly Circus, circling toward Shaftesbury Avenue. A sculpture I'd not seen before replaced Eros, rising from the old fountain's site; an ebon-hued stonework taller than the surrounding palms and eucalyptus, guised as a gargantuan arm. Its hand's heavenstretched forefinger appeared to admonish Godness for having slacked during Creation. Unrobed citizens cleansed themselves in the nearby reflecting pool.
"What is it?" I asked, blinking as if the horror might vanish at second sight, nodding with lag; the flight from New York took two hours, the drive in from Heathrow, three.
"The Thatcher Monument," Malloy said. Our cab sideswiped a palm at Shaftesbury's corner; rats were thrown from its fronds into the throng below. "The punishment suits the crime."
"Thatcher?" I replayed; imagined I saw a rat clinging to the cab's hood.
"Not Thatcher Dryden. Mrs.," he said. "Indistinguishable, I'll grant you."
As we entered Frith Street, bearing toward Soho Square, our cab regrounded, halting before Hazlitt's Hotel, where I'd been booked. There wasn't room enough to allow the planting of palms, baobabs or even olive trees along these sidewalks. Flat metal squares affixed to uprights no thicker than vacuum
-hoses were inset at intervals along the pedway; London plane trees trellised to the uprights had their limbs snipped to fit within the boundaried squares. En masse, they appeared as a display of green spatulas. I stepped out of the cab, losing my breath as the air's oven blasted me; the afternoon temp, as airported, was thirty degrees centigrade. Malloy exited; he stood a half meter higher than I did, and wore a kneelong black duster. As he outstretched his arms, retrieving my bags, he semblanced the look of the Tower's oldest, largest rook.
"Such trees-" I said, onceovering the street while he carded the driver.
"Topiary's overfashioned of late," Malloy said. "Flora's forever being remastered around here to suit climate shifts. Most's antipodean, generally. Tizzies the fauna. Forgive this November summer."
"There's AC within?"
Malloy frowned; his eyes bugged as he twohanded my bags. "Packed your pig iron collection, did you? AC, ah, sorry. Historical Accuracy Laws forbid." All small-paned windows in the rambling Georgian house were open; its aqua-painted bricks coordinated so well as to be expected with the pink trim. Periwinkle and banana trees gardened the ground floor. Across the street was a restaurant whose menu ribboned unceasingly along a metal strip above the ingress. A neon pizza hung over the eatery next door, issuing bubbles from its pepperoni dots. "Hazlitt died here, you know. I fear the room of demise was previously reserved. Let's check you in. Ready yourself to strip if they ask. Need for that lately, you know."
His warning went for naught; we transversed the entry, neither alarming the detectors nor needing to denude. Stenciled on the side of the fluoroscope through which my bags were shot was the command, DO NOT PUT LIVE ANIMALS OR BODY PARTS IN THIS MACHINE. Malloy gathered my belongings as they dropped from the chute.
"You'll bypass this hereout unless you're carrying," he said. "Once you're keyed, that'll suffice the guards, the layabouts."