K Jeter: Farewell Horizontal

Lahft reached out and touched Axxter on the shoulder. “When is now? Is now now?”

That took a moment to decipher. “Yeah – I want you to go there now.”

“Now good-bye.” She drifted away, still smiling Axxter watched her go, his heart leaden.

“You might as well start transmitting – that way, it’ll get bounced off as soon as she’s in position.”

Axxter nodded. He called up the file he’d prepared from his working archive and sent it out. On the display he flicked on REPEAT UNTIL INTERRUPT. Beyond the glowing words, the angel’s form dwindled slowly against the sky. “How long we gonna stay out here?”

Sai settled back against the wall. “As long as we can.”

† † †

The sun was setting, turning the cloud barrier red. Axxter watched the deepening color. The hours of inaction, latched to the wall while the transmission had gone beaming out, over and over, had seeped exhaustion into his muscles.

Sai’s hand on his shoulder jostled him out of a semi-doze. “You hear that?”

“Hear what?” Then he did: a low rumble vibrating through the building’s metal and into his flesh.

“You stay here. And keep transmitting.” Sai clambered toward the lip of the entry site. He was back in less than a minute. “Okay, show time’s over. Time to move.”

“It’s here? It’s found us?”

“It’s on its way. Come on, let’s go.”

He could smell it again, the choking odor of oil and hot metal, as they slipped inside the entry site. The megassassin was there, somewhere in the darkness inside the building. And coming closer, a straight line toward him; he had to resist the impulse to scramble back out onto the building’s surface.

Sai peeled back a panel from the tunnel wall, just wide enough to squeeze behind. He gestured for silence with a finger to his lips, then pushed Axxter through the opening. He turned and peered over Sai’s shoulder, out to the empty tunnel.

Empty for only a second; then a black shape, stooping under the tunnel’s ceiling, filled the space. It stopped, the pistons of its arms contracting, the shining hands opening and closing, fists clenching.

The massive head turned, and two red lights, small dots of blood, bored into Axxter’s gaze.

“Go!” Sai was shouting, pushing him ahead. Axxter stumbled, then got back onto his feet. “Move it!” Behind him, he heard the wall of the tunnel being ripped open.

When he reached the high-ceilinged space, he pitched forward onto his hands and knees. For a moment, all he could do was hang his head and pant for air. Past the throbbing of his own pulse, he heard Sai’s own laboring breath close at his ear as the other pulled him onto his feet.

“You gotta hit it, man. Get in the train and go.”

“How – how’s it work?” His mouth had dried; he couldn’t swallow.

Sai pushed him toward the machine. “It’s programmed – it’s only got one speed, and it’s only got one way it can go. Just punch the green button, and you’re outta – Where you going?”

He walked around the front of the train to the other side. In the space’s dim light, he found the motorcycle he’d spotted before.

“Jesus Christ – you don’t have time to screw around with that now -”

“I want it.” Axxter pulled the motorcycle off its center-stand and rolled it toward the train. “I’ve got to get something out of all this.” It was too heavy to push up the steps into the front cabin; he squeezed past the front wheel and climbed up. “Come on, give me a hand with this thing.”

“You’re out of your goddamn mind -” Despite his protests, Sai got behind the motorcycle and pushed. The two of them managed to wrestle it up into the small space behind the train’s control panel.

Panting with the effort, Sai stood outside the cabin, both hands gripping the sides of the door. “You happy now? Like I said, all you gotta do is -”

Then he was gone. A hand of dark metal, wide as his ribcage, knocked him aside, sending him sprawling across the floor. The megassassin’s bulk filled the doorway.

“Shit -” Axxter scrambled backward. The motorcycle toppled over and pinned him against the cabin’s wall. As the megassassin grinned and reached for him, Axxter’s hand fumbled about on the control panel. His fingers found something round that yielded to his pressing it.

A high-pitched whine vibrated the train. Beneath him, he could feel it gliding into motion as the megassassin snarled and lifted the motorcycle away from Axxter. The machine’s tank rose off his chest, then fell back as the train picked up speed, leaving the megassassin behind. A roar of frustration sounded, the megassassin’s metal fingers scrabbling at the side of the train.

The train’s speed increased, the whine of its engine singing in Axxter’s ears. The motorcycle toppled over, its wheels skidding on the cabin’s floor. Its weight slammed the back of his head against the wall. For a few seconds more, as the cabin tilted and went dark, he heard the megassassin screaming its rage in the distance.

† † †

A little red light flashing. He saw that out of the corner of his eye before he saw anything else, or even knew that he could see. The red pulse nibbled at the gray fog swimming around him

Axxter raised his head, feeling another pulse inside his skull. The rhythmic pain peeled back the fog in layers, until the front cabin of the train was revealed. The flashing red light was above him, up on the control panel. He pushed at the toppled motorcycle pinning him to the angle of the floor and the wall behind his shoulders; slowly, he managed to pull himself free of the machine’s weight.

He had to lean on the control panel with both hands to keep from falling over. The red light was a small rectangle with words printed in the center. END OF LINE. It went on flashing as he straightened up and stumbled to the door.

The side of the train was scarred, part of the metal sheathing torn loose where the megassassin had clawed it. Axxter looked around the space. It seemed tattered by neglect, with coils of wire and other debris scattered about. A smell of burnt things drifted in the air.

After some searching, he found what he was looking for, marked by the same concentric yellow rings. He wriggled his finger inside the plug-in jack to make contact.

He called up the Havoc Mass camp; when he ID’ed himself, he was put right through to General Cripplemaker.

“Axxter – good to hear from you!” The general’s voice in his ear sounded genuinely pleased.

“Did you get my message?” He leaned against the wall by the jack for support.

“Loud and clear! Clever of you – we didn’t know what the hell was going on at first. But when we saw what you were transmitting, with those tape excerpts you dug up and all – well, I can assure you that it certainly changed some minds around here. I owe you a personal apology, my boy.”

“Yeah, yeah, that’s great… wonderful… What I really want to know is whether I can come on through. To the outside. I mean, I made it this far, but I need to know whether it’s safe for me out there.”

Cripplemaker laughed. “You don’t have to worry about that anymore – what with the info you relayed to us, you’ve got yourself quite a hero’s status with us. We’ve got a welcoming reception all worked up for you.”

Axxter breathed out his relief, leaning his head against the wall. “Well, I might not be in shape for your kind of party right now; you might have to put it on hold for a little while. But I guess I’ll see you in a little while, then.”

He disconnected and pushed himself away from the jack. His legs were still weak beneath him as he walked back toward the train. Several meters ahead of the point where the bullet nose had come to rest, he found the torn metal of the barrier between the building’s interior and the horizontal sector beyond. He climbed up onto a mounded stack of rubble and looked. For a moment it was like a replay out of his own archive: the burnt-out sector, ashes and bones. Seen from a new angle, a long shot of destruction, the sharp edges rounded with the passing of time, decay setting into whatever soft bits had been left by the raiders. And in the distance, a patch of blue sky.