Spares - Michael Marshall Smith [82]
“What the hell are you doing here?” said a voice.
I’d been wrong, of course; there was something more frightening, and being addressed out of darkness in a place no living human even knew about certainly fitted the bill. I shrieked in a very uncool manner and tried to run away, but my legs had apparently turned into columns of rice, loosely packed together. They gave out dryly and deposited me on the floor, and I just waited for whatever was going to happen, while fighting off flying nuns which even I could tell weren’t really there.
The first thing that happened was more of the pink sounds. Then they stopped, and I turned to see something sitting in front of me. It was about three feet tall, and made of metal. A large number of complex arms jutted out of various parts of its main body, all of which ended in manipulating extensions. The body itself was battered and heavily patched, as if it had been repaired time and time again. At the top of the whole affair was a headlike structure which was glaring at me.
“Er, hi,” I said.
“I’m working as fast as I can!” the thing shouted. The voice, as well as looking very deep blue, sounded a little strange. Mechanical, not very human at all, though it was certainly a beautiful color. “I don’t have the firmware!”
“Bummer,” I said, trying to be helpful without getting involved in a long conversation. I could feel the beginnings of the second Rapt rush lumbering toward me, and wanted to be a long way from here when it hit.
“Actually, I don’t even think it’s “ware at all,” the machine said, confidentially. “Just processing power. I’m by myself, you know, completely and utterly by myself.”
“I see,” I said, though I didn’t.
“No, you don’t!” the machine shouted, seeing through me instantly. “You don’t see at all. You’ve just been sent to spy on me!”
“I haven’t,” I said plaintively. The big rush was now definitely on the way. “Honestly. I’m just lost.”
“Lost my ass, you bastard.”
“Please, I’ll leave you to get on with whatever the hell it is you’re doing if you’ll just tell me how to get up a level.”
“Turn around, go 46.23 meters, turn left, 21.11 meters, right 7.89 meters, climb up the panel with the ladder on it,” said the machine, almost too fast for me to make out. “Now piss off and let me get on with my work.”
And then the second rush came, like a sudden fall of night. Moving with all the verve of a potato I followed the machine’s instructions as closely as I could, though possibly not to the second decimal place. By then I’d realized that the machine hadn’t existed anywhere outside my head, but I reasoned that it was possibly a mechanism for my subconscious to tell me how the hell to get out. I was impressed with my subconscious for even attempting such a thing, and decided I should follow its instructions. I felt I owed it to myself, and that if I turned out to be right I probably deserved a prize. Like a little more Rapt.
I eventually seemed to find myself out of the exhaust and up a level, and from there I floundered my way into the service corridor and thus out toward my standard exit. The guys at the door bade me a cheery hello, but I couldn’t even see them by then. Everything was pressed in too hard, and everything was very black. I stumbled down cobbled streets which seemed to have turned into tunnels, aware that the world had shrunk because I could clearly see the curvature of the Earth, indeed had to walk carefully to avoid falling over because of it. Naturally, it was raining, and the clouds ahead were so full and dark it felt like early evening. The walls of the tunnel were punctuated at intervals by doors which periodically opened, releasing the sound of people eating and drinking in noodle bars. The sounds turned into little rabid noise creatures, which scuttled down the tunnel like mechanical rats. Then the door would shut again, leaving me in a world where sound had never existed except in the form of the light green spattering sound of falling rain.
I managed to distinguish Mal’s