K Jeter: Farewell Horizontal

“Oh, some new order will emerge. Eventually. That’s how things always go. The only thing that’s certain is that it won’t be either the Grievous Amalgam or the Havoc Mass calling the shots up here. They’ve already gone through mass defections, all their ranks scrambling around for position with somebody else. If they can; a lot of old grudges are going to get settled at their expense.”

Cripplemaker would probably do all right, sneaky shit that he was. But the general’s fate wasn’t of any concern to Axxter. “Well… whatever comes down, money’s always going to come in handy. Right? Now that I made it on through, it’s time to rake it in. What’s the payoff come to?”

Brevis’s smile disappeared. He looked sadly at Axxter. “There isn’t any payoff, Ny.”

His heart went cold. “What do you mean?”

“No payoff. No money, no nothing. That was the other effect of your broadcast. Remember? Your evidence completely indicted Ask & Receive, too. They’re bankrupt, washed up, kaput. They were completely liable for the validity of the info they had been supplying, so now everybody’s got a suit against them. Fat lot of good it’ll do, though, since they’ve already rolled over.”

“But – my money -”

“Ny – you sold the rights to Ask & Receive. I’ve been telling you: they’re bankrupt. Those rights you sold them are part of the assets that the vultures are picking clean. When they get done – if they ever get done; a mess like this takes years to clear up – you’ll be lucky if you realize enough out of it to buy a sandwich.”

Inside his head, some cool lobe, separate from the rest, admired the rigorous efficiency: to get back here, to collect the money for getting back here, he’d had to destroy the thing that would pay him the money. That’s marvelous . Perfect in its way.

He got up out of the chair.

“Hey – where you going?”

The noise outside rushed over him as he pushed open the door. “I’m going for a little walk. I’ll see you later.”

† † †

There was no answer. He pushed the button beside Ree’s door again, and got only silence in return. Plenty of silence down in the horizontal sectors, far removed from the uproar at the toplevel. Things always stayed the same on the horizontal.

“She’s not there, man.”

Axxter turned around and saw a woman standing behind him in the corridor. Dark-haired, almost pretty; he’d never seen her before. “Do you know where she went?”

The woman smiled. “I think she’s gone for good, fella. She got married.”

“Oh.” Somehow he’d never expected that.

“Ny -” The woman leaned against the corridor wall, regarding him. “Don’t you know who this is? Who I am?”

She’d known his name. That, plus her voice, lower in pitch but with the same laughing inflection in the words. “Felony…?”

She nodded. “You got it. Inside here, at least. This is the body I keep around these parts.”

“I didn’t know if I’d see you again -”

“I asked around, decided to look you up; figured you’d come around here. Your neighbors where you used to live told me where. I just wanted to see what kind of shape you were in, after all that.”

Axxter returned her smile. “What kind of shape am I in?”

She shrugged. “Same as before, I guess. By the way, Sai told me to say hello. He’s a little dinged up, but basically all right.”

“Glad to hear it.”

Felony pointed her thumb toward the door. “Your girlfriend’s run out on you?”

He nodded. “I guess she had somebody else on the line and decided to go with that when she found out I wasn’t going to be getting the big bucks.”

“Well… I did a little checking around on my own; just public record stuff. Here, take a look.” She dug out a folded sheet of paper and handed it to him. “That’s a printout from the registry office.”

He found himself looking at the date of Ree’s marriage. It took him a moment to figure it out. “Oh. That was while I was still over there. On the eveningside.”

“That’s right. Before she knew whether you were going to make it back, alive or not. Nice, huh?”

He crumpled up the paper and threw it away. All along the corridor the doors were shut, silent. “I guess that makes sense. She’s just that kind of person.”

“Hey – so no loss, huh?” Felony pushed herself away from the wall. “I gotta run; things to do. You take care of yourself, okay?”

“Sure.” He watched her striding away, not looking back at him.

† † †

He walked and walked, until there wasn’t any place to walk. Until he was outside again. On the vertical.

Smoke and flame, and distant shouting from far above, as he climbed out the small exit site. It was the first one he’d come to.

His boot-pithons sang out and locked onto the wall’s surface as he stood up. Straight out, perpendicular to the building’s steel skin, tilting his head back to look across the sky and the cloud barrier below. His hand touched his belt, but then drew away, leaving the pithons at his waist still coiled inside their little nests. He didn’t need them now.

He stood on the wall, the old fear and nausea gone. He stood and gazed down, over the curved empty territory of the vertical world. A bright, cold wind surged against his face, stinging his throat and lungs as he drank it in. The clouds boiled silver, tearing his eyes.

His arms spread wide, hands gathering in even more air.

A long time to get there, but now he was home.