Dreams in the Tower Part 3 by Andrew Vrana Read Free Book Online Page B

for where the guide ropes should have been as he took another step, but his hands fell through empty air. Standing still and breathing heavy, he waited until his equilibrium had returned enough to stop his swaying and then made for the door. In what felt like a few seconds he had made it through the heavy wooden portal and was out, down the hall and knocking on Diane Salpollo’s door.
    “Hey, you all right there, Torres?” A firm hand grasped his shoulder and a leg nudged the back of his knee just hard enough that Mike stumbled forward. He turned and saw the grinning face of Carl Bellowe, lit eerily by the hall’s nighttime safety lights. He looked so polite and friendly that Mike was positive he was being completely insincere.
    “You’ve been drinking again, huh, Mike?” Carl said lightly. He pushed down almost unnoticeably on Mike’s shoulder and Mike teetered, nearly falling. “Look at you,” Carl said. “We better get you inside.”
    The door opened slowly and Diane appeared, wearing only a white robe and a pair of wooly socks; she looked just as mock-cheerful as Carl. “Yes?” she said, showing perfect teeth. “What’s going on?”
    “Mike’s had a few too many,” Carl explained. “I think we’d be horrible neighbors to let him go back home like this. You know, his wife isn’t handling his little habit too well, I hear.”
    “Yes, yes, of course,” Diane said. “Come in.”
    Carl’s hand, still grasping his shoulder as though it were staunching up some horrific wound, steered him into the room past Diane. Mike’s eyes had to adjust to the brightness, and then he saw an apartment almost identical to his own, except that it wasn’t filled with the personal belongings they had brought over from his house. He saw right away that Diane was a very tidy person; actually the place seemed fairly barren of anything beyond the furniture and exceedingly subtle decorative items that had come with each apartment. He guessed this lack of clutter came with not having a family.
    “Oh, Mike, you big piss-drunk moron,” Carl said. When Mike turned to look at his two hosts he saw they were no longer showing their false smiles. In fact, their looks were purely hostile, their eyes four hollow, menacing holes.
    Without a hint of concern Diane said, “Give him a break, Carl. His life is just so hard.”
    “You came early,” Carl said. “Not to mention you’re completely wasted. What were you thinking? No, don’t answer. We know about your drinking problem. Hell, everyone at the office knows. Not so good for morale and unity, but that’s beside the point. The fact is, if you had come at 10 o’clock and sober this would have been a lot easier. We had a strict plan for keeping this secret, and hiding things from Leutz-and-Co isn’t getting any easier.”
    “Get to it already,” Diane said, annoyed. “Mike, we know all about your little meetings with Leutz. We know everything about your spying project.”
    “ Everything ,” Carl added.
    “We’ve talked about getting rid of you,” Diane said. “Not me and Carl, no. But people we know. With you being drunk more often than not lately it wouldn’t be hard to make it look like an accident—or suicide.”
    “Luckily neither of us is a sadistic maniac,” Carl said. “We had assurances from a close acquaintance that you weren’t a threat. That in fact you could become a friend.”
    They both paused and Mike felt like he was supposed to say something. But he couldn’t think; he had hardly been able to follow what the pair were saying to him. “How do you know about—about me and Leutz?” he asked stupidly.
    “Surely it won’t be a surprise,” Carl said, “to find out we are connected high up in the Anti-Corp—or what used to be the Anti-Corp. It’s just ‘the movement’ these days since all of the affiliate groups are infighting or selling out to Silte or disappearing altogether. Well, anyway, our friends know a lot—and I mean a lot . Scary.