Farewell Horizontal

by K. W. Jeter

  “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.

  “Um…” The clock’s manic stare unnerved him, almost as much as the female voice. They always know what you want; otherwise you wouldn’t have called them in the first place. Ignoble passions. “I guess I need… about an hour. That’s all.”

  “The second hour comes cheaper. By the time you get to the tenth hour, we’re practically giving it away.”

  I bet. Axxter shook his head, the motion translating as simple no over the terminal. Listening to voices like the clock’s was how you wound up with a zipped-out bank account. “Just an hour, please.”

  The voice stiffened, sensing cheapskate. “I don’t suppose you want full sensory, then.”

  Another shake. “Just the minimum… gravity orientation, optic, midband aural… you know.”

  “Right. Like your last order.” The person behind the clock face had pulled his number. “If that’s how you like it…”

  … how much fun can it be. Axxter weathered the sneer. “That’s how I like it.”

  “Guarded line?”

  He could tell what answer the voice expected. “No; bare line.” Screw it; didn’t have any trouble with it last time. Why would ghosts be interested in his comings and goings over the building’s wires? When the voice asked, he gave the horizontal sector he wanted.

  Another programmed wink from the clock face as his order went through.

  “Transmission set.” (Inside his head, he heard the bored voice say There you go, sport. Enjoy yourself, Diamond Jim.) “Signal when ready. Your hour starts at the other end.”

  The last bit was another comment on his spending habits. Axxter ignored it, settling into a comfortable position in the bivouac sling. Where, after lying for an hour without moving, he wouldn’t come back with a stiff spine and a tingling-numb leg. With a wadded-up shirt for a pillow under his head, he looked up; past the clock face, the Small Moon glowed silver. From the corner of his eye, he glanced over to the ruin zone’s jagged outline. What the fuck – too late to worry about it now. “Go,” he told the clock.

  Walking, and he didn’t feel cold. The exterior’s winds no longer seeped through his clothing. On his skin, no warmth or chill; he supposed, as he had in his other hollow times, that he’d have to hold flame or ice to his arm to feel any temperature at all. At this low-resolution, he couldn’t even feel his boots’ impact, hear the ring of each step on the familiar corridor’s floor. Back here on the horizontal; outside, somewhere far downwall on Cylinder’s stark vertical, his vacated body rocked in the bivouac sling. Waiting for me to finish all my little business. He – or the carrier-image HoloDays had given him – scanned the numbers on each door he passed. Optic input not too bad, fairly crisp with only a little filtered stair-stepping at the edges of shadows and where the walls met. At least they got me on the right level. Be there in a minute or two; he wondered what she’d say. The same as last time – more of the same, actually, just continued; he remembered now how he’d pulled the plug and zipped back to his real body out on the cold vertical, scourged there by the whip of her tongue. Maybe it’ll be different this time; Christ, I hope so. The numbers on the doors were mounting up to the one for which he was heading. She’s not always like that. Thank God.

  “You stupid shit.”

  “Christ, and ugly, too. Look at him.”

  The two voices, and the barking laughter that followed, sounded right at his ear, loud enough for him to flinch in reflex. The corridor bounced and wavered until the optic feed settled. Then he saw the grinning faces, edges sharper than the walls shimmering behind them.

  They looked like depraved children. As if – Axxter’s heart sank under their leering gaze – as if they’d gotten an early start on every adult vice and sin. And their baby faces had never grown up, but stayed vapid, silly, and knowing.

  “Boo-gitty boo.” One of the faces grinned wider, floating toward him. A wispy shadow, dwindled torso and arms, trailed behind. “Whereya going? Whatcha doing?”

  Shit. Axxter batted at the face. Should’ve asked for a guarded line. Pushing my luck – just because I got away without picking up any ghosts th
e last time… “Beat it.” The back of his hand sailed into the idiot smile. “Get out of here.”

  “Awww… don’t wanna play?” The ghost face, leprous freckles spattering the pug nose, had enveloped Axxter’s hand. A wet-flannel tongue rolled up his wrist. “Come on. Play with us.”

  “Jee-zuss.” He couldn’t shake the face off his carrier-image. He waved it back and forth, the round eyes rolling. “Get the fuck away from me.”

  “Your ass. Ass, ass, ass.” The other line-ghost, a face still on the wall, crossed its eyes and sneered. “Come on, let’s go. He’s no fun.” The image flickered, bands of nothing running across the fat cheeks.

  “No.” The smile gummed around Axxter’s wrist. “Not done.” Looking up delightedly at him. “Play. Play, play, play.”

  The corridor wall was blank, the second ghost having gone to look for other amusements elsewhere on the building’s wires. Axxter started walking again. “I’m not playing with you. I’m ignoring you.” That was all he could do, short of terminating the call. And I’ve already paid for the hollow time.

  “Yaah, sucks.” His hand reemerged as the ghost slithered upward. It wrapped into a cylinder around his forearm, substituting itself for that portion of the carrier-image. The elongated mouth opened, revealing the inside of his arm to be now full of glistening teeth. I should just unplug and go back out on the wall – foreboding seized him as to how the rest of the call would go.

  “Eeee!” shrilled the ghost face when he raised his hand to the door. Axxter hastily lowered the afflicted arm and knocked with his other hand.

  Maybe she’s not at home – then what’s the point, asshole? You jerk. He couldn’t help hoping, though. His heart sank as he heard steps approaching on the other side of the door.

  “Hello, Ree.” Forcing a smile. “It’s me.”

  The door opened wider. She leaned forward, peering at the carrier-image until the low-resolution came into focus for her. “Oh, Christ.” A sigh dragged her shoulders down. “Ny – what the hell are you doing here?”

  “Hey. I just came by to see you. That’s all.” He realized that he had spread his arms out, slack crucifix, and that the ghost was leering and rolling its eyes at Ree. “Sorry.” He tucked the arm and face back behind himself. “It glommed onto me on my way here.”

  “What did?” Her squint became even more pain-filled, his mere presence, even in this diminished form, the cause. “Christ, I hate it when you show up all fuzzy like this. You were bad enough before.”

  The ghost’s sawtooth voice came up his spine. “She can’t see me, turkey. I’m on your sensory feedback loop, not the output to real. Hee hee.”

  “Ny – look at me.” Ree leaned against the doorway, her broad shoulders blocking any possible entry by the carrier-image. “Where… are… you. Okay? Just tell me that. Where are you right now?”

  He had to think about it for a moment, to recall the exact coordinates. The ghost face goggled down at him as he ran his fingers through his indistinct hair, dimly sensed. “Uh – remember where I called from the last time? There’s that big exit site about fifty kilometers from the lefthand Linear Fair? You know? Anyway, first I was traveling straight downwall from there, then -”

  “Shut up, Ny. Jesus Christ.” Her coarse bronze hair tangled against the doorway as she shook her head, eyes closed. They opened to follow her hands rooting through the dangly pockets caught on the shelves of her hips, coming up with nothing but an empty cigarette pack, which she disgustedly threw into the corridor. It passed through Axxter’s midsection and landed behind. “You’re still out there on the fucking wall. That’s where you are.”

  “Well… sure. Where else?” From the angle of his arm, the ghost regarded him, its smile gone, interest caught.

  “Yeah, right. Where else.” The bitter voice tugged down the corners of her mouth. “That’s the whole problem with you, isn’t it?”

  “Hey! Tell this bitch where to go! Eat it, ya stupid broad!”

  Axxter clamped a hand over his forearm, the goggling eyes leaking around his knuckles. “Come on, Ree… you know -”

  “Damn straight I know.” She turned straight toward him, her expanding anger filling the doorway’s frame. If the carrier-image had a tissue’s mass, Axxter knew, it would’ve been blown down the corridor by the pressure wave of her wrath. “We went through it all the last time you showed up like this.”

  He could hear, pitched over her voice, the line-ghost’s shrill Fuck you! Fuck you!, his own hand glowing mottled red as the face’s infantile passion seeped through. “Ree… please. Come on -”

  Then it struck him. His head filled with light. The insubstantial body grafted onto his thoughts seemed to float equidistant from every corridor surface. “Fuck this,” said Axxter. “And fuck you.” (Yeah! Yeah! shouted the ghost.) For a moment the corridor, the door with Ree standing in it, all became insubstantial; he felt the narrow confines of the bivouac sling against his shoulders, his cramped muscles swelling with the pulse of his anger. Ree gaped at him as he continued to shout. “I spend all this money to come see you, and this is the crap you lay on me? Forget it. Just forget it. You – and all your goddamn fucking horizontal thought processes – you can just go fuck yourself.” (Eeee! Yeah!) He swung his gaze away from the door, a dizzying sweep across the square-edged vectors. Even before the perspective sightlines settled down, he was striding away, the impact of his boots now loud enough to cross the hearing threshold. “See you in the funny pages, bitch.” He shouted it ahead of himself, ahead of the carrier-image, and was gratified to see doorways all along the hallway snap fearfully shut.

  “Way to go, ace! Yah! Yah!” The line ghost babbled happily.

  “Shut up.” He gritted his teeth – or tried to; the carrier-image fed back no corresponding pressure inside the skull.

  The face swung in a short arc as Axxter strode on. “You really told her! It was great!” The rolling eyes filled with delight and admiration.

  “Yeah – great.” Never again. He shook the image’s head. Absolutely promise yourself – no more of this shit.

  “I can get her for you! Fix her little red wagon but good!” The face on Axxter’s arm glowed, feverish in its excitement. “Come on – you and me – it’ll be a gas!”

  “Goddamn it. Get off me.” He scrabbled at the face with the fingernails of his other hand. A pain signal traveled up the carrier-image’s arm, triggered by the self-inflicted violation.

  “You’re no fun.” The face, sulky now, slid off and wavered in space. The grating voice called from behind him: “You stink, and your edges are all blurry… and… and…”

  Alone with his own thoughts at last, and the anger still simmering in his guts. Or whatever’s in that place when you’re on hollow time; nothing, I guess. Nothing at all. Here or back in the flesh.

  He looked up and saw himself.

  A mirror, he thought at first. Right in the middle of the goddamn corridor. But different, he realized; as if it were made of some finer glass that had drawn the fuzzy low-resolution image into sharper focus, the outline razor-edged where it stood facing him. As he stared at it, the image turned its head, leaning a three-quarter profile toward him. Smiling; the centers of its eyes dark, nothing behind.

  Ny – It lifted its hand toward him.

  I – He heard the echo at his ear. The corridor filled with cold, and he felt afraid. “Okay! HoloDays!” He tilted his face up to the ceiling and shouted, all the while aware of the mirror-image’s hand reaching on a line level with his chest. The odd notion struck him that the more solid image might be able to reach right inside his insubstantial one, to pluck out some luminous fiber that was his heart. “That’s it – terminate the call.”

  Don’t go -

  O - “Did you hear me?” An edge of panic filtered into his voice.

  The corridor disappeared. On his back, lying in the sling out on the wall, he looked up at the agency’s smiling clock centered in the terminal. He pulled himself upright, his spine unkinki
ng with little stabs at each vertebra.

  The clock face swam ahead of him, hanging in the dark night. A woman’s voice, a different one, sounded. “We hope you enjoyed your time with us. And that we may again be of service to you in meeting all your recreational needs. Remember: absence may make hearts grow fonder, but with HoloDays -”

  “Cut it.” Axxter rubbed his brow; the time spent walking around in the carrier-image had left him hung over, as it had the last time and every time before.

  Stiffly: “Will there be anything else?”

  He gazed at the totaled charges in the corner of the terminal, and beyond them to the Small Moon in the distance off the building, relaying the signal from the transceiver. Away from the spooky mirror-image – whatever the hell that had been; more line-ghost shit, he supposed; but genuinely spookier – and back out here in his cheerless bivouac, the fear had dissipated. But not the anger; that remained, a dull rock under his breastbone.

  That’s a fuck of a lot to pay for no fun at all. As he watched, the total went up another few cents, for keeping the HoloDays agency waiting on the line. A lot, just to have walked into more of that stupid Ree’s shit.

  He brooded a moment longer before speaking. “Yeah, there’s something more.” He rubbed his hands across his knees. “First off, I want a guarded line this time…”

  † † †

  Guyer looked up from the book in her hands when he appeared. “That’s sweet.” Smiling. “You came all this way.”

  HoloDays had put his image floating in space, a meter away from the wall. He reached out and grasped the edge of her sling. Somewhere farther away on the vertical metal, the gentle snuffling sounds of her grazing motorcycle came sharp and distinct to his synthed ear.