Read Online Only Forward by Michael Marshall Smith - Free Book Online
Authors: Michael Marshall Smith
Tags: Fiction, Science-Fiction
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it's always fresh. A cat sits on the counter and watches you. You go in, choose what you need, and leave.
Nobody knows how they do this. There are no humans living in the Neighbourhood, absolutely none. I know, I've looked. There are just a hell of a lot of cats. Some live there all year round, some just for a few months. They chase things, roll around in the sun, sleep on top of things and underneath things and generally have a fantastic time. And the lights work, and the plumbing works, and the place is immaculately clean.
I walked down the steps from the mono portal and towards the main gate. A huge iron affair, it opens eerily as you approach, and then shuts silently after you. On the other side lies the Path, a wide cobbled street that leads into the heart of the Neighbourhood. The Path has streetlights all along-it, old-fashioned lantern types that spread pools of yellow light along the way.
Cat Neighbourhood is a perfectly peaceful place, particularly at night, and I was in no hurry as I walked slowly between the tall old buildings. All around everything was quiet, everything was calm, like a living snapshot from a time long past.
For a while the street was deserted, and then in the distance I saw a pale cat walking casually towards me. We drew closer and closer, and when we were a few yards apart the cat sat down, and then rolled over to have his stomach rubbed.
'Hello, Spangle' I said, sitting down to give him a serious tickling. 'How did you know? How do you guys always know?'
Next morning I was on the mono at 7.00 a.m., hotwired on coffee and feeling tired but alert. I was carrying my gun, a few tricks of the trade and nothing else.
We'd got back to the apartment around midnight, and Spangle had a brilliant time poking around the upturned furniture and bits and pieces while I sorted through my messages. Most were from the contacts I'd phoned that morning, all saying they hadn't heard anything. There was also a photo of most of someone's brain, transfaxed by Ji and Snedd, doubtless stoned out of their minds. Then with the aid of a lot of coffee I'd worked through the notes I had on Stable, trying not so much to memorise it as assimilate it, make it a part of me. I got to bed about three o'clock.
I made it to the far side of Red at nine-thirty, and clambered gratefully off the mono. There'd been six fatalities during the Red section of the journey, and the prostitutes had been doing heavy trade in a variety of far from straightforward positions. One of their pimps started to give me a pretty hard time for no very good reason, but I showed him my gun, which has Ji's mark on it. That did the trick, so much so that he offered me a freebie instead. Which I declined, I'll have you know.
The far portal in Red is always deserted: the next Neighbourhood is empty, and there's no reason for anyone to get off there. I ran a quick mental check, making sure there was nothing I'd forgotten, and then climbed over the barricade.
When I poked my head out the other side, I saw that the sun was shining steadily and that the day was going to be rather nice. Not that the Stablents would ever know that, of course: all they'd ever see was the everlasting swirl of fake radioactive dust. I stepped out onto the metal balcony and stared across the Neighbourhood at the wall I was going to have to get past.
The wall round Stable is very, very high. Between it and me was a network of metal walkways and bridges which interconnected clusters of metal buildings. The whole of the bottom of this narrow Neighbourhood is filled with water, and today it was sluggishly stirring in the light breeze. A long time ago Royle Neighbourhood was very popular, a rather bijou town-on-water affair. Unfortunately Red, Stable and Fnaph Neighbourhoods all started pumping their waste into the water via pipes in their Neighbourhood walls, and it wasn't long before the area was uninhabitable and abandoned. One thing I was going to be very careful to do in the
Nobody knows how they do this. There are no humans living in the Neighbourhood, absolutely none. I know, I've looked. There are just a hell of a lot of cats. Some live there all year round, some just for a few months. They chase things, roll around in the sun, sleep on top of things and underneath things and generally have a fantastic time. And the lights work, and the plumbing works, and the place is immaculately clean.
I walked down the steps from the mono portal and towards the main gate. A huge iron affair, it opens eerily as you approach, and then shuts silently after you. On the other side lies the Path, a wide cobbled street that leads into the heart of the Neighbourhood. The Path has streetlights all along-it, old-fashioned lantern types that spread pools of yellow light along the way.
Cat Neighbourhood is a perfectly peaceful place, particularly at night, and I was in no hurry as I walked slowly between the tall old buildings. All around everything was quiet, everything was calm, like a living snapshot from a time long past.
For a while the street was deserted, and then in the distance I saw a pale cat walking casually towards me. We drew closer and closer, and when we were a few yards apart the cat sat down, and then rolled over to have his stomach rubbed.
'Hello, Spangle' I said, sitting down to give him a serious tickling. 'How did you know? How do you guys always know?'
Next morning I was on the mono at 7.00 a.m., hotwired on coffee and feeling tired but alert. I was carrying my gun, a few tricks of the trade and nothing else.
We'd got back to the apartment around midnight, and Spangle had a brilliant time poking around the upturned furniture and bits and pieces while I sorted through my messages. Most were from the contacts I'd phoned that morning, all saying they hadn't heard anything. There was also a photo of most of someone's brain, transfaxed by Ji and Snedd, doubtless stoned out of their minds. Then with the aid of a lot of coffee I'd worked through the notes I had on Stable, trying not so much to memorise it as assimilate it, make it a part of me. I got to bed about three o'clock.
I made it to the far side of Red at nine-thirty, and clambered gratefully off the mono. There'd been six fatalities during the Red section of the journey, and the prostitutes had been doing heavy trade in a variety of far from straightforward positions. One of their pimps started to give me a pretty hard time for no very good reason, but I showed him my gun, which has Ji's mark on it. That did the trick, so much so that he offered me a freebie instead. Which I declined, I'll have you know.
The far portal in Red is always deserted: the next Neighbourhood is empty, and there's no reason for anyone to get off there. I ran a quick mental check, making sure there was nothing I'd forgotten, and then climbed over the barricade.
When I poked my head out the other side, I saw that the sun was shining steadily and that the day was going to be rather nice. Not that the Stablents would ever know that, of course: all they'd ever see was the everlasting swirl of fake radioactive dust. I stepped out onto the metal balcony and stared across the Neighbourhood at the wall I was going to have to get past.
The wall round Stable is very, very high. Between it and me was a network of metal walkways and bridges which interconnected clusters of metal buildings. The whole of the bottom of this narrow Neighbourhood is filled with water, and today it was sluggishly stirring in the light breeze. A long time ago Royle Neighbourhood was very popular, a rather bijou town-on-water affair. Unfortunately Red, Stable and Fnaph Neighbourhoods all started pumping their waste into the water via pipes in their Neighbourhood walls, and it wasn't long before the area was uninhabitable and abandoned. One thing I was going to be very careful to do in the
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