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

cause. “Christ, I hate it when you show up all fuzzy like this. You were bad enough before.”
     
    The ghost’s sawtooth voice came up his spine. “She can’t see me, turkey. I’m on your sensory feedback loop, not the output to real. Hee hee.”
     
    “Ny – look at me.” Ree leaned against the doorway, her broad shoulders blocking any possible entry by the carrier-image. “Where . . . are . . . you. Okay? Just tell me that. Where are you right now?”
     
    He had to think about it for a moment, to recall the exact coordinates. The ghost face goggled down at him as he ran his fingers through his indistinct hair, dimly sensed. “Uh – remember where I called from the last time? There’s that big exit site about fifty kilometers from the lefthand Linear Fair? You know? Anyway, first I was traveling straight downwall from there, then –”
     
    “Shut up, Ny. Jesus Christ.” Her coarse bronze hair tangled against the doorway as she shook her head, eyes closed. They opened to follow her hands rooting through the dangly pockets caught on the shelves of her hips, coming up with nothing but an empty cigarette pack, which she disgustedly threw into the corridor. It passed through Axxter’s midsection and landed behind. “You’re still out there on the fucking wall. That’s where you are.”
     
    “Well . . . sure. Where else?” From the angle of his arm, the ghost regarded him, its smile gone, interest caught.
     
    “Yeah, right. Where else.” The bitter voice tugged down the corners of her mouth. “That’s the whole problem with you, isn’t it?”
     
    “Hey! Tell this bitch where to go! Eat it, ya stupid broad!”
     
    Axxter clamped a hand over his forearm, the goggling eyes leaking around his knuckles. “Come on, Ree . . . you know  –”
     
    “Damn straight I know .” She turned straight toward him, her expanding anger filling the doorway’s frame. If the carrier-image had a tissue’s mass, Axxter knew, it would’ve been blown down the corridor by the pressure wave of her wrath. “We went through it all the last time you showed up like this.”
     
    He could hear, pitched over her voice, the line-ghost’s shrill Fuck you! Fuck you! , his own hand glowing mottled red as the face’s infantile passion seeped through. “Ree . . . please. Come on –”
     
    Then it struck him. His head filled with light. The insubstantial body grafted onto his thoughts seemed to float equidistant from every corridor surface. “Fuck this,” said Axxter. “And fuck you.” ( Yeah! Yeah! shouted the ghost.) For a moment the corridor, the door with Ree standing in it, all became insubstantial; he felt the narrow confines of the bivouac sling against his shoulders, his cramped muscles swelling with the pulse of his anger. Ree gaped at him as he continued to shout. “I spend all this money to come see you, and this is the crap you lay on me? Forget it. Just forget it. You – and all your goddamn fucking horizontal thought processes – you can just go fuck yourself.” ( Eeee! Yeah! ) He swung his gaze away from the door, a dizzying sweep across the square-edged vectors. Even before the perspective sightlines settled down, he was striding away, the impact of his boots now loud enough to cross the hearing threshold. “See you in the funny pages, bitch.” He shouted it ahead of himself, ahead of the carrier-image, and was gratified to see doorways all along the hallway snap fearfully shut.
     
    “Way to go, ace! Yah! Yah!” The line ghost babbled happily.
     
    “Shut up.” He gritted his teeth – or tried to; the carrier-image fed back no corresponding pressure inside the skull.
     
    The face swung in a short arc as Axxter strode on. “You really told her! It was great!” The rolling eyes filled with delight and admiration.
     
    “Yeah – great.” Never again. He shook the image’s head. Absolutely promise yourself – no more of this shit.
     
    “I can get her for you! Fix