Farewell Horizontal

didn’t seem to have done much good. His arms ached down into the sides of his fists, as though he’d been punching them into the wall all night long.

Another surprise, a new thing, when he’d finally managed to pry his eyes all the way open. A package wrapped up in gray paper and crisscrossed with twine. Somebody, something – had managed to sneak up on him while he’d been unconscious, and leave it, tied onto one of the pithons with the same rough cord.

He reached over and prodded it with a finger. Nothing happened; his fingertip poked into something soft under the paper.

“I’ll be damned.” Awake enough now to catch the faint smell, an aroma trace that jerked his stomach into a knot rattling against his spine. He pulled the package loose – the twine’s knots slipped free with his tug – and held it against himself, tearing the paper loose.

Some kind of bread, two flat rounds; they wobbled up and down in his hands. Also a plastic pouch filled with water, or something equally clear. Axxter eyed everything with caution. Lahft wouldn’t have come round and left him something like this – who’d ever seen angels carrying things? What other friends did he have over on this side?

“Well, shit -” He tore off a piece of the spongy bread and stuffed it in his mouth. He’d be just as dead, eventually, if he didn’t eat it. He chewed and swallowed, then tore off the corner of the pouch and drank, tilting his head back.

He left half the water, knotting the top of the pouch to keep it from leaking, and a handful of the bread, rolled up and tucked inside his shirt. It might be awhile until more presents showed up. He supposed it was connected to whatever he’d seen before, moving around in the distance. Fattening me up, probably. A full gut only took the edge off his worrying.

When Brevis called, it jerked him awake; the happy working of his gut had lulled him out. He nearly pulled his finger out of the plug-in jack, breaking the connection.

“Ny – hey, man, how you doing?” Brevis’s voice burbled in his ear. “How’s things out there?”

Axxter’s heart sank. He knew the range of his agent’s tones by now. Rattling excitement meant he had a deal cooking; that bright chirpy hello meant shit.

“I’m fine. Couldn’t be better.” Axxter shaded his eyes. The sun had just come over the top of the building. “So. What’s happening?”

Brevis’s voice went soft and apologetic. “Well, it doesn’t look too good right now, Ny. I wasn’t able to sell the rights for you.”

“Why not?” He jabbed his finger harder into the jack. “What the fuck do they want?”

“Hey – don’t jump down my throat, man. I was on the phone for hours, right up to the top buyers at Ask & Receive. Both the research and the entertainment divisions came down against the package. They just weren’t interested.”

He couldn’t believe it. “For Christ’s sake, why? This is a hot idea – when would they ever have another opportunity for something like this again -”

“Ny – what it is, is that they just don’t think you’re gonna make it. If it was just that you were going to make it back around to the morningside, I could’ve worked the tragic odyssey angle harder, gone for the sob appeal. But they don’t think you’re going to make it very far at all; at least not enough to build up some kind of audience. They think your ass is grass, right where you’re sitting.”

He felt the sweat chill between his shoulderblades, a cold wind across the empty wall. “All right.” Carefully, slowly. “What’s the deal? What’s happening that makes them so sure I won’t make it?”

Brevis was silent for a moment. “It really doesn’t look too good, Ny. You’re really in the middle of nowhere; you’re a long ways from either one of the Linear Fairs.”

“So I got a hike in front of me. Big deal. No, I want to know what else there is. Come on, lay it on me.”

“I didn’t want to make it any rougher on you, Ny, but if you really gotta know – you’re still in deep shit with the Havoc Mass. Somehow the word got around to them that you’re still alive. I figure once I started negotiating with Ask & Receive, they contacted the Mass to see what they had to say about the whole thing. And it wasn’t good. That Havoc bunch is still major pissed at you. They’ve already sent some hit teams out to the Linear Fairs, plus put an open bounty out on your head. You come waltzing into either Fair, trying to cross through it to the morningside – if you make it that far – and any little thug can just nail you and collect a nice bit of change. The Ask & Receive people didn’t figure there was much entertainment value in seeing some fool walk into a slaughterhouse with his name on it. I mean, there’s no suspense. Let’s face it, Ny – you’re a dead man right now.”

“All right. Fine.” Those fuckers – his anger purged every other emotion; he could feel the blood pumping up into his face, stinging across the bridge of his nose. “They think they got me nailed – fine. They think they can leave me hanging out here to dry? I got news for ’em.” The words seethed through his teeth. “If I can’t make it back by going around the building, I’ll get there another way.”

“Ny -” Sad. “There isn’t any other way.”

“Oh? Is that right? Well, how’s this, then – I won’t come around the building. I’ll go through it.”

Silence, the seconds ticking by, adding up to a full minute before Brevis replied. “What – what’re you talking about?”

“You heard me.” Axxter had heard himself, the words still turning and shining inside his head. Now that he’d cooled off a bit, he could admire the idea in all its simplicity. Why screw around? You just head in the straightest line possible to where you want to go. “I’ll go through Cylinder, right through the middle. I won’t have to dink around crawling all over the surface, and I won’t have to worry about a bunch of hardcases waiting for me at Linear Fair. I’ll just head straight from here over to the morningside; all I gotta do is find some entry around here and get onto the horizontal levels inside. Hey, if nothing else, I’ll save myself a lot of time and traveling. And screw the Havoc Mass – I can work it so I pop up on the other side in some sector controlled by the Grievous Amalgam. They’ll think I’m a fucking hero for making the Mass look like a bunch of idiots. Those guys think that tape they sold to Ask & Receive was funny? Wait till this little stunt gets broadcast.” That was a pleasant thought: Har har har on you, turkeys.

“Jeez, Ny – I gotta hand it to you.” Brevis was probably shaking his head in amazement. “That’s a hell of an idea you got there. It’s not a very good idea, but you get points for the concept, you really do.”

“What’s not good about it?”

“Ny – you’re talking about going through the center of the building. Not just right under the wall, in some cozy little horizontal sectors. We’re talking right smack in the middle of Cylinder. You know, there are reasons why people don’t just go for little Sunday strolls in there.” Under the joking edge in Brevis’s voice something darker showed through. “Bad reasons, Ny. I mean, good reasons, but bad shit. You know what I’m talking about?”

“I know.” Words neither one of them wanted to say aloud, yet they sat there on the line between them like a lead weight. The Dead Centers. The thought of them screwed with his brain more than they ever could with Brevis’s; he’d seen – in real time, not just off some tape replay – what the dark skulkers could do. He’d already walked around in their cold footsteps – if feet was what they had; the unbidden image of giant snail trails, smearing ashes, and slobbered bones crawled inside his head. The smell of the burned-out horizontal sector he’d stumbled on was always there, ready to come bubbling up at any spooky moment.

“Brevis – I know all that stuff.” Voice level, down to the fundamental rock. “But I don’t have any other choice. Do I? And what do I have to lose, anyway? Like you said, right where I’m sitting now, I’m a dead man.”

The agent took a moment to think it over. “I suppose you’re right. You know, it’s wild enough, maybe they’d go for it. Let me run it past ’em. Can you hang tight for about an hour?”

“I’m not going anywhere.”

It was half an hour. Brevis’s voice jumped out over the wire.

“They went for it, Ny. We got a deal. Ask & Receive is cutting the transfer of funds right now. They went apeshit for the bit about going straight through the building. I mean, the odds are even worse on your making it all the way, but they figure they’ll recoup their upfront money to you and go into profits just on the research data you’ll generate. The entertainment value of seeing just how far you go before you get snuffed, that’s just gravy.”

“How nice for them.” Axxter’s thoughts started ticking over again. All the stuff he’d need; whatever maps, data,