The Human Blend - Alan Dean Foster [57]
True, Righteous had assured him that both the physicians whose names the street surge and musician had provided came highly recommended through the regional box. But a recommendation was not a guarantee, and yesterday’s ally could easily turn into tomorrow’s turncoat. Whispr shook his head mournfully. What certified doctor with a legitimate public practice would risk treating a multiple wound that had patently been inflicted by a branch of officialdom? Suddenly next in line to enter the first stage of Security, he took a deep breath and stepped forward, to find himself enveloped in a softly purring green halo.
He was about to find out.
THE MONSTER THAT WAS chasing her wasn’t there.
That was because it was entangled, of course. And now it had entangled her. It was silvery and shapeless, tiny and enormous, heavy as a sun and light as a feather. In and out of reality it burst, one moment threatening to crush her to a pulp, the next to envelop her in an alien embrace that was hot, was cold, was freezing, was burning up. Ingrid Seastrom screamed but made no sound. It did not matter because there were none around to hear.
The forest was filled with splinters. Underfoot as she ran was a surface composed of sequoias three centimeters high while around her blades of sharp glass hundreds of meters tall thrust skyward. Everything was the reverse of what it should be, oppositionally ornery, mary mary quite contrary how does your cosmos grow? As she fled in terror from the horror that was implacably closing in on her, from a dreadfulness she could not resolve, she felt little pieces of her mind sloughing off; memories rendered as dandruff. Felt her self remorselessly disintegrating, each fragment floating free on the sweltering humid air only to be swallowed up and digested by the indistinct ogre she was unable to elude.
Hot clammy fingers adhesive with moisture reached for her. She could not escape them because she was entangled with them. Once she had been absorbed by her shadowy pursuer she would cease to exist. Or would it be the monster that would cease to exist? With quantum entanglement one could never be sure which would be destroyed and which would survive, which was the original and which the copy.
It was upon her now; sultry, steaming, smothering. When she opened her mouth to scream again, it slithered down her throat and began to choke her. Perspiration stung her eyes like a hundred minuscule bees. She couldn’t breathe.
With a gasp she sat up in bed, her heart pounding, sweat cascading down her body in salty runnels, and knew instantly the cause.
Hormones.
Damn it, she told herself. This has got to stop. Sliding unclothed out of the bed, her progress lubricated by the same perspiration that had contributed to her awakening, she stumbled into the bathroom and cursed at the shower. As soon as she entered, water of a preprogrammed temperature materialized all around to strike her body from every direction. Inhaling deeply of the warm, soothing wetness, she let out a long exhausted breath and began to relax. The shower was the personal luxury of which she was the most fond. It was also the most expensive. As a respected and successful physician, she could afford it. She owned little in the way of jewelry save for one flashy sphene bracelet, did not take expensive vacations, and the typical social expenses of an attractive woman her age were generally picked up by the men who asked her out. She felt no guilt over the sophisticated shower.
Especially right now.
As the water was whisked away to be recycled by the building, she stood with her arms held away from her sides while the facility gently dried and scented her. One step beyond the utility’s one-way glass wall, the ground fell eighty-five floors straight away to the ground. She could see out and no one could see in, but it was no shower for an acrophobe.
More than anything, she was angry at herself for continuing to suffer from such nightmares and not doing anything about them. She was a doctor,