Farewell Horizontal by K. W. Jeter Read Free Book Online

darkness that drops away into a hole parallel to his spine. The reflected light falls into it, with only a few glimmers as echoes. “ That we know – something about!”
     
    “We know!”
     
    (Sleeps and draws a bead, but all the grinning things outside the dream stay prudently quiet.)
     
    Skull, Guyer’s voice: “Something we don’t want to know! Something inside  – where it’s dark!”
     
    “Dark! Dark! You too! Dark!”
     
    (Twitches and mumbles, sweating.)
     
    Dream-Axxter stares at the hole revealed in the mirror, the darkness running down inside him, the hollow core.
     
    The lecture goes on. “ Something  – it’s where they are! The –”
     
    He shouts at the voice, just a grin behind the glare of the lights, warning it to shut up. But it doesn’t, he knows with dream-certainty that it won’t. It’s going to say the name .
     
    Chorus: “You too! You too!”
     
    “ . . . the  –”
     
    Then the gun is right there in the dream – you’re never completely naked with one – and he squeezes it with both hands as the white face screams in triumph.
     
    “ – the Dead Centers! ”
     
    In the corridor of ruins the gunshot slapped against the wall and bounced back into Axxter’s ears. He jerked awake, the gun in his hand scraping across the floor as he scrambled upright, just in time to hear the bullet’s clanging echo against the wall.
     
    “Shit!” He ducked instinctively, head down between shoulders. “God- damn .” The bullet clattered into silence somewhere along the corridor. Gun warmth seeped into his palm; he dropped it with a start, as if seeing the weapon for the first time. Looking down, he saw a burn mark across the front of his jacket. Prodding his ribs, he found nothing amiss. A mutter, as he shook his head: “Fuckin’ dreams.” Could’ve killed myself. What I get for falling asleep, down here, of all places. His hand still shook as he reached for the terminal jack he’d found when first looking about the place.
     
    As soon as he waggled his finger in the socket, the words zipped into his vision.
     
    WHERE YOU BEEN? GOT ASK & RECEIVE HOT FOR YOU.
     
    “Oh – yeah. Right.” He blinked away a bit more sleep muddle. Dark enough in the corridor, the exterior visible through the torn-open wall already fallen into deepshade, that he didn’t need the deadfilm. From the time readout in the corner of his gaze, he made a quick calculation: he’d only been asleep and locked into the dream for a couple of minutes or so. He’d called Brevis – no way of avoiding him, since the info value of the find depended on giving the ruined zone’s location – and Brevis must have called, as a good agent should, the numero-uno toplevel data agency. And sold it for a lot of money, Axxter hoped. “Put ’em through.”
     
    Ask & Receive’s animated logo – hand with mouth in palm, then eye, then mouth again – came up on the terminal. Followed by a softly modulated female voice: “Please send location coordinates. Will credit to your account the sum of –” A male voice broke in, clipped and bored: “Two hundred dollars.”
     
    “What?” Axxter stared at the mouth, eye, mouth pattern.
     
    The words looped in repeat. “Two hundred dollars.”
     
    “You must be joking.”
     
    The male voice came again, a real-time override. “The price was worked out by your agent, fella. You want to check with him –”
     
    “You bet your ass I’m checking with him. Hold this sucker,” Axxter instructed the line. “And get me Brevis.”
     
    His agent’s face came up, one pacifying hand already stroking the air. “I know, I know  –”
     
    “Two hundred  – what are you doing to me, for Christ’s sake?”
     
    Brevis’s other hand rose, warding his client away from his throat. “That’s all they’ll pay, Ny. Believe me. They don’t even want your tape, man. Somebody beat you to it.”
     
    “Somebody what?”
     
    “Somebody else already got