Farewell Horizontal

sotto voce, then right out loud when everybody in the sector had been in on it. What had the Dead Centers said to them – the blandishments of things you’ve never seen, have only wondered about, moving in their secret ways in the great darkness at the building’s core and in your bad dreams. The whispering voices that had come through the thick, sealed walls way far inside; maybe a signal override on any Wire Syndicate transmissions coming in, just a crawl of words across the bottom of their terminals; maybe little rolled notes floating up in their toilet bowls, spidery handwriting, smeared sticky ink…

You’re so wise and good, dear people. The whispers through the wall. So clever and smart. Yet oppressed by those old lies, slanders against those who would befriend you. Let us come to you, and we’ll give you… everything… everything…

Everything, thought Axxter, looking down to where the scorched walls merged with the dark. What would that include? Who knows… all sorts of elaborate pre-War high-tech, no doubt. The Dead Centers were supposed to have inherited all of that stuff. Wonders upon wonders, hidden away in the building’s core. Maybe it had even been watching that old Opt Cooder tape, of the dead gas angel tangled in the exterior transit cable, that had worked away on the poor horizontal suckers’ imaginations. Common belief that the angels were the remnant of some military genetic technology, bred for some now-unfathomable strategic use. Forgotten the same as everything else connected with that ancient event. Maybe the Dead Centers themselves were what was left of one of the warring factions. Maybe the War itself… some effect of the other guys’ weapons, or their own… had changed them… left them crouching in the dark at the building’s core… whispering to those who could still stand the light…

Just let us come to you. Why should you let those ones above you push you around, cheat you of all you so richly deserve? We’ll help you… just let us come to you…

A shiver ran under Axxter’s skin. Fuckin’ spooked myself. The image came of the sector’s inhabitants, when they’d had flesh over their grins, drawing back the heavy bolts, cutting through the heavy steel plates, boring a hole through whatever stood between them and the darkness at Cylinder’s core… their minds made up after a unanimous vote at the sector meeting… or just made up, without a word spoken, silent greed flashing round from eye to eye -

They’d had a big surprise then. Wonder how long they had to think, Not such a great idea, after all. Not too cool.

At least they got to satisfy their curiosity. About what the Dead Centers even looked like. Toads with jewels in their foreheads, or nothing but shining rods of light, or small golden-haired children with dead eyes – the scary stories of childhood romped behind Axxter’s eyes. At least I listened to those tales; these poor suckers must not’ve. And look what they got.

Axxter’s gaze came back to the burnt zone, the smell in his nostrils. He turned toward the jagged edge of metal curling beside him, grasped it, and hoisted himself back out onto the vertical.

† † †

Deepshade to night. Axxter made camp as far away from the ruins zone as he could get before dark set in.

Even at a distance of several kilometers, the torn metal remained visible, a rim of jagged teeth biting at the stars.

Other than that, a peaceful scene, as he lay in the securely anchored bivouac, hands behind head, rehydrated food inching warm through his gut. The Norton grazed a few meters away, scraping up the wall’s vegetation with its extruded proboscis. My cup runneth over, or at least closer to the rim – Axxter scratched his stomach in deep meditation. Weird day; small profits, smaller than I deserved, but still – profits. A section of his lower intestine gurgled assent, echoing the noises from the motorcycle’s conversion tank.

Overhead, out from the wall, a circle of dark silver: the Small Moon rounding the building, catching only trace light from the toplevel and the thin ribbons of the Linear Fairs’ perpetual activity. He’d kept the transceiver on, angling his head to catch the weak bounce of a free-access station. Ancient music – the Liebeslieder Waltzes, somebody (-thing?) called Tampa Red’s “She Don’t Know My Mind, Part Two” – seeped up the wire to his finger and then inside to his ear. Interspersed with commercials – enlistment bonuses from the Havoc Mass (made him think of Guyer’s surprising faith), new stuff online to buy and watch (maybe the mating angels were already in the catalog) – all of which he ignored. Or tried to; the image of the figures in the bright sky kept seeping into his thoughts.

“Well, I looked in the window, and this is what I saw -”

Axxter ignored the barely human voice vibrating at the hinge of his jaw. He reached over and picked up the camera – after this morning’s lucky break, he had kept it handy – and cradled it against his chest. As if the image- data locked inside his archive were real blood and flesh. Magnified close enough to touch.

“- a man, on his hands and knees, doing… doing the cootie… cootie-cootie kuh- rawl.”

Well, shoot… made money today, didn’t I? Deserve some kind of treat for that. That’s how you program yourself for more of that kind of thing. That five-year-old kid at the center of your brain… Axxter didn’t know if he believed that sort of thing or not. Willing to let it slide, in the process of cajoling himself. Already knowing what he wanted. He shifted uncomfortably, the sling’s confines suddenly tight. Switched off the free-access, fearing something even worse than prehistoric Tampa Red.

The decision had been made by the raising of his bank account, intersected by the length of time he’d been out wandering on the wall. Two variables evoking a programmed response, his brain along for the ride. For a moment, the sheer predictability of his desires twinged disgust inside him. An idiot; he gazed at nothing, shaking his head. You’re an idiot. Why do you ding yourself around with her, anyway?

Axxter brought his vision back to medium focus, looking at the territory surrounding the bivouac. Seemed safe enough for a little indulgence in hollow time; at least in a certain fatalistic way, he supposed. There was no safecage for rent in the vicinity, the usual, advisable amenity for a disembodied spree. But then there wasn’t anyone else around in these sectors who might come across his body and do something weird with it. Unless Guyer had doubled back for some reason – an intriguing thought; he wondered what strange souvenir she might leave behind if she came across the sleeping, breathing meat part of him, his mind vacated elsewhere. Some pattern of bruises and muscles stretched into unusual postures, a trademark of hers written in the fatigue of tissues. Might be worth sticking around for, feigning being off in hollow time; I could dig it. If I knew it would happen that way. But it won’t. Guyer’s long gone, heading for toplevel inside rather than out of her own flesh. Pity.

Only the torn metal, black teeth against night, visible over the wall’s curve, worried him. Not enough to change his mind, though. A faint radiation, heat ebbing from inside the ruin zone, tinged the jagged limits. Whatever had done that wouldn’t be much fazed by a safecage with the tempting Axxter-morsel locked inside; it, or they would eat the whole goddamn thing, fry me up like a wienie on a spit. Of course, if they – the other two words had gone back down inside himself, not to be spoken – were going to come romping out, through the devastated stretch of their previous fun, to swarm out over the wall just to get him, it wouldn’t matter much if he was off in hollow time, or sitting up all night, eyes wide and gun on knee, waiting for the sun to break over the cloud barrier. So his reasoning, what was left of it after his internal cajoling, dissolved, fatalism giving the desired result. Might as well do what I want, without worrying about it.

He blinked on his terminal, the glowing words bright against the night sky.

YES?

“Get me HoloDays.”

YOU ARE THE VICTIM OF IGNOBLE PASSIONS.

“Jesus. Just do it, all right?” Fucker who programmed that… Shaking his head, Axxter leaned back against the building’s wall. The transceiver bounced a signal off the Small Moon’s metallic sheen, right to the toplevel.

The center of his vision brightened with the hollow-time agency’s logo. In one corner, the Small Moon Consortium nibbled away at his bank account, the call charges a shade less than the Wire Syndicate’s – for which Axxter was grateful.

A woman’s voice came, incongruous, from the smiling clock face. “What may we do for you?” One of the clock’s cartoon eyes winked cheerfully.