Read Online Magic Time: Ghostlands by Robert Charles Wilson, Marc Scott Zicree - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Robert Charles Wilson, Marc Scott Zicree
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if he said it was) vocabularies, nor did he ask for help in college or when he joined the workforce or even later, when the world became more tricky and so-called reality particularly elusive.
Nowadays, reality matched what he’d sensed its hidden nature had been all along, ages before anyone else saw it—those in his immediate circle, at least (well, and anyone not in the pay of the Source Project). It gave him some small satisfaction, knowing he’d been right, and evidence that at least on certain isolated occasions he could actually trust his instincts.
But be careful of that, Herman Goldman, he cautioned himself, because you know how you get. The ever-present danger of the bipolar personality, particularly in its manic phase, that blazing conviction that one had everything well in hand…just before taking a magnificent half-gainer off a ledge right into the abyss.
His eyes ran along the walls, cast in the cool radiance of the globes he’d placed along the periphery. The big dusty signs were like plastic tombstones: TACO HAVEN , A TASTE OF ITALY , BURGER STATION …junk food for a junk culture. So much had been disposable in the world gone by, discarded without a care. Now the most disposable thing was life itself, snuffed out in an instant.
Unbidden, the face came to him, delicate and glowing, with eyes like black opal….
Magritte .
Desolation surged up in him, fierce and remorseless, and Goldie knew if he didn’t force the image away he wouldstart screaming and not stop until the massive building came shuddering down around them, burying all thought and memory.
Enough. Peace.
The image of the flare faded and was gone. For now, only for now. Only until he did what he needed to do.
Sanity was a transient thing, as he himself had been transient, was transient still. But it could be held for the moment, summoned like a pale sphere of light.
Goldie helped Olifiers get a fire going, while a solid little bantam named Flo Speakman assembled a spit to cook the dressed fawn three of their band had felled with improvised bolos earlier that morning.
“We sucked at first,” Steve Altman, a diminutive and hyperkinetic Long Island native, confided pridefully. “But we’re making steady improvement. Hey, we actually hit something other than ourselves.”
“Consistency is a talent to foster,” Goldie murmured. And overconfidence can get you killed, he added silently to himself.
You, or someone infinitely more dear…
While Doc oversaw stationing lookouts from Olifiers’s contingent atop the roof of the mall, Cal and Colleen backtracked two miles in the beginnings of snowfall to cover their traces. Snow would blanket the land shortly, but that might not be enough to safeguard them.
“The more people we travel with, the more visible we become,” Colleen cautioned as she watched their back trail over one shoulder.
They rode abreast, both dragging heavy hunks of canvas that had once been part of a four-man tent they’d found in the remains of a camping goods store. Already the chill breeze was licking at the snowy ground in their wake, sending up little puffs of dusty snow, scattering it over their trail.
Colleen swung back around to look at him. “That’s just the way it is, Cal. And no amount of Good Samaritan, hail-fellow-well-met will change that fact. It makes us targets.”
“We’re already targets, Colleen.”
“Yeah, of course, like I don’t know that. It’s practically been our theme song since we crossed the Verrazano Narrows Bridge. What we’re talking here is how big we want the bull’s-eye.”
Cal nodded as he shook the nylon rope that tethered him to his chunk of ex-tent, smoothing out a large wrinkle in the stiff fabric. “I’m planning on cutting them loose, as soon as we find a good place to set them down…safely.”
“Now that’s a tune I can dance to.”
Cal hesitated, reluctant to say more of what he was thinking.
“What?” Colleen prompted. “C’mon, Griffin, I
Nowadays, reality matched what he’d sensed its hidden nature had been all along, ages before anyone else saw it—those in his immediate circle, at least (well, and anyone not in the pay of the Source Project). It gave him some small satisfaction, knowing he’d been right, and evidence that at least on certain isolated occasions he could actually trust his instincts.
But be careful of that, Herman Goldman, he cautioned himself, because you know how you get. The ever-present danger of the bipolar personality, particularly in its manic phase, that blazing conviction that one had everything well in hand…just before taking a magnificent half-gainer off a ledge right into the abyss.
His eyes ran along the walls, cast in the cool radiance of the globes he’d placed along the periphery. The big dusty signs were like plastic tombstones: TACO HAVEN , A TASTE OF ITALY , BURGER STATION …junk food for a junk culture. So much had been disposable in the world gone by, discarded without a care. Now the most disposable thing was life itself, snuffed out in an instant.
Unbidden, the face came to him, delicate and glowing, with eyes like black opal….
Magritte .
Desolation surged up in him, fierce and remorseless, and Goldie knew if he didn’t force the image away he wouldstart screaming and not stop until the massive building came shuddering down around them, burying all thought and memory.
Enough. Peace.
The image of the flare faded and was gone. For now, only for now. Only until he did what he needed to do.
Sanity was a transient thing, as he himself had been transient, was transient still. But it could be held for the moment, summoned like a pale sphere of light.
Goldie helped Olifiers get a fire going, while a solid little bantam named Flo Speakman assembled a spit to cook the dressed fawn three of their band had felled with improvised bolos earlier that morning.
“We sucked at first,” Steve Altman, a diminutive and hyperkinetic Long Island native, confided pridefully. “But we’re making steady improvement. Hey, we actually hit something other than ourselves.”
“Consistency is a talent to foster,” Goldie murmured. And overconfidence can get you killed, he added silently to himself.
You, or someone infinitely more dear…
While Doc oversaw stationing lookouts from Olifiers’s contingent atop the roof of the mall, Cal and Colleen backtracked two miles in the beginnings of snowfall to cover their traces. Snow would blanket the land shortly, but that might not be enough to safeguard them.
“The more people we travel with, the more visible we become,” Colleen cautioned as she watched their back trail over one shoulder.
They rode abreast, both dragging heavy hunks of canvas that had once been part of a four-man tent they’d found in the remains of a camping goods store. Already the chill breeze was licking at the snowy ground in their wake, sending up little puffs of dusty snow, scattering it over their trail.
Colleen swung back around to look at him. “That’s just the way it is, Cal. And no amount of Good Samaritan, hail-fellow-well-met will change that fact. It makes us targets.”
“We’re already targets, Colleen.”
“Yeah, of course, like I don’t know that. It’s practically been our theme song since we crossed the Verrazano Narrows Bridge. What we’re talking here is how big we want the bull’s-eye.”
Cal nodded as he shook the nylon rope that tethered him to his chunk of ex-tent, smoothing out a large wrinkle in the stiff fabric. “I’m planning on cutting them loose, as soon as we find a good place to set them down…safely.”
“Now that’s a tune I can dance to.”
Cal hesitated, reluctant to say more of what he was thinking.
“What?” Colleen prompted. “C’mon, Griffin, I
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