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WILL YOU DO THIS?
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WHO ARE YOU?
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IXXXXXXXXXXXXXSPEICUSXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXSPEICUSXXXXXXX
XXXXSPEICUSPEICUSPE ICUSPEICUSPEICUSPEICU SPEICUSPEICUSXXXXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXXEICUSPEIXXC USPEXXICUSXXXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXPECXXXUSPEIX XXXCUSPEICUSPEICUSPEICUSPEICUSP EICUSPEICUSPEICUSPEICUSPEIC USPEICUSPEICUSPEBCUSXXX XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX I AM A RECORDINGXXXSPEICUSXXXXXXXXXX I AM A RECORDINGXXXSPEICUSXXXXXXXXXX I AM A RECORDINGXX
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IT FIGURES
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WILL YOU DO AS I HAVE ASKED?
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WHY NOT?
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YOU INDICATE ASSENT?
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ALL RIGHT, RECORDING. ALL RIGHT. AFFIRMATIVE. I AM PROGRAMMED CURIOUS
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VERY GOOD. THAT THEN IS ALL
It raineth on the just and the unjust; likewise shineth the sun. I came around with the latter doing that thing, in my eyes, through the front window. And I must have been just-or just lucky-as I was not only unhung over but felt fairly good. I lay there for some time, listening to Hal's snores coming from the other room. Reaching a decision as to who and where I was, I rose and set a pot of coffee to gurgling in the kitchen and went to the bathroom to find some soap and a razor and do some other things.
Later, I had some juice, toast and a couple of eggs, took a cup of coffee back to the living room. Hal was still buzzing. I loafed on the sofa. I lit a cigarette. I drank coffee.
Caffeine, nicotine, the games the blood sugars play-I do not know what it was that pierced the dark bubble as I sat there assembling the morning and myself.
Whatever prompted it, the thing I had gotten in lieu of the usual unsolicited dreams returned to me between a puff and a sip, far clearer than my id-sponsored late late monster shows ever were.
Having decided earlier to accept the peculiar in the proper spirit, I confined my considerations to the matter of content. It made as much sense as any of a number of things I had recently experienced, and possessed the virtue of requiring a positive action on my part at a time when I was weary of being acted upon.
So I folded the blankets and placed them in a neat heap with the pillow on top. I finished my coffee, poured a second cup and turned the pot down to a simmer. I located some writing paper atop a miscellaneous chest of drawers and scrawled a note: "Hal-Thanks. I've a thing I'm off to pursue. It came to me last night. Quite peculiar. Will call in a day or so & let you know what comes of it. Hope everything is happily ever after again by then. -Fred. P.S. The coffee is on." Which covered everything I could think of. I left it on the other end of the sofa.
I got out and headed for the bus station. A long ride lay ahead. I would arrive too late, but the next day I would see the Rhennius machine during normal viewing hours and figure a way to get at it for a private showing later on.
And I did.
Voila! Lincoln stared to my right again and everything else seemed in its proper place. I pocketed the cent, steadied myself, began to climb.
Halfway up, brassy bongs bloomed in my ears, my nervous system came unzipped and my arms turned to putty. The free end of the line was swinging widely. Perhaps it had struck something, or gotten into range of the camera. Academic, whichever.
Moments later, I heard a shouted, "Raise your hands!" which probably came to mind a lot more readily, say, than "Stop climbing that rope and come back down without touching the machine!"
I did raise them, too, rapidly and repeatedly.
By the time he was threatening to shoot, I was across the beam and eying the window. If I could spring, catch hold, pull, vault, pass horizontally through the eighteen inch opening I had left myself and hit the roof rolling, I would have a head start with a variety of high routes before me. I would have a chance.
I tensed my muscles.
"I'll shoot!" he repeated, almost directly beneath me now.
I heard the shot and there was glass in the air as I moved.
Chapter 6
It was the sound of the steam, whistling through, rattling the ancient pipes, that drew me across the fine line to the place where identity surprises itself. I balked immediately and tried to go back, but the heating system wouldn't let me. In close-eyed preconsciousness I clung to the transitory pleasure of being without memory. Then I realized that I was thirsty. And then that something hard and uncomfortable was indenting my right side. I did not want to wake up.
But the circle of sensations widened, things fell together, the center held. I opened my eyes.
Yes ...
I was lying on a mattress on the floor in the corner of a cluttered, gaudy room. Some of the clutter was magazines, bottles, cigarette butts and random articles of clothing; some of the gaud was paintings and posters that clung to the walls like stamps on a foreign parcel, bright and crooked. Strings of glass beads hung in a doorway to my right, catching what seemed like morning light from a large window directly across from me. A golden blizzard of dust fell through its rays, stirred perhaps by the donkey who was nibbling at the potted pot that occupied the window seat. From the sill, an orange cat blinked at me in yellow-eyed appraisal, then closed her eyes.
A few small traffic sounds came from a point beyond and below the window. Through the sun patterns on the streaked glass, I could make out the upper corner of a brick building sufficiently distant to indicate that a street did indeed lie between us. I made my first dry swallowing movement of the morning and realized again how thirsty I felt. The air was dry and rank with stale odors, some familiar, some exotic.
I shifted slightly, testing myself for aches. Not bad. A small throbbing from the frontal sinuses, not sufficient to herald a headache. I stretched then, feeling a fraction fitter.
I discovered the sharp object prodding my side to be a bottle, empty. I winced as I recalled how it had gotten that way. The party, oh yes ... There had been a party ...
I sat up. I saw my shoes. I put them on. I stood.
Water ... There was a bathroom around the corner through the beads in the back. Yes.
Before I could move in that direction, the donkey turned, stared at me, advanced.
By a splinter of a second, I'd say, I saw what was coming coming, before it came.
"You are still fogged up," the donkey said, or seemed to say, the words ringing strangely in my head, "so go quench your thirst and wash your face. But do not use the window back there for an exit. It could result in difficulties. Please return to this room when you have finished. I have some things to tell you."
From a place beyond surprise, I said, "All right," and I went on back and ran the water.
There was nothing especially suspicious beyond the bathroom window. No one in sight to be the wiser, no one to do anything about it if I decided to cross over to the next building, then up, up and away. I had no intention of doing it just then, but it made me wonder whether the donkey might be something of an alarmist.
The window ... My mind went back to that bar of black, to the snap of the gun, to the glass. I had torn my jacket on the frame and scraped my shoulder where I hit. I'd kept rolling, rolled to my feet and taken off running, crouched ... .
An hour later I was in a bar in the Village carrying out the second part of my instructions. Not too quickly, though, as-the fugitive feeling was still with me and I wanted to hang onto my faculties long enough to regroup myself emotionally. Consequently, I ordered a beer and sipped it slowly.