Ambient 06 - Going, Going, Gone

take my arm as my blood started to simmer again, and without feeling my feet in the swamp we started moving toward the ballroom’s closed doors. The doors started to breathe in and out; then started to shout.
    »Chlo,« I heard Eulie say, »activate.«
    She lifted one of her silver-toed boots, followed by the other. Looked as if she were levitating, five feet off the ground, it was the old rope trick. The doors splintered and opened as soon as her heels hit the knobs. It looked to me that she turned at least two somersaults before coming down boots-first on gents who had the look of house dicks about them. Others – bellboys, desk clerks, the concierge – ran towards us, pouring up the marble stairs. Chlo lifted her arms until they were perpendicular and jerked her body; something shot out of her from the front – couldn’t tell what, but every single guy trying to make it up the stairs took a tumble before they were halfway. Once they were all down Chlo ran, kicking them out of our way as Eulie and I followed. At the foot of the stairs Chlo grabbed the bust of Doctor Oscar and we bore left. I wondered why she’d wanted it until she threw it at the man blocking the back exit. He caught the bust and leapt backwards through the door. Breaking glass chimed like chandeliers in the wind.
    »Chlo, pause,« Eulie shouted as we stepped into Schubert Alley. It was intermission, and dozens of playboys and girls were out there stretching their legs, getting quick smokes, making with the wry eye. On the wall directly in front of us were posters for My Darlin’ Aida and Cole Porter’s Out of This World. The colours were Kodak sharp. Eulie fumbled in her bag until she found something the size of a transistor radio. »Tighten grouping. Hold Walter –«
    » Freeze!«
    A sudden rush of blood to my head, and reality lurched briefly into view. Running down the alley at us at top speed were two boys of Killarney. One had the old reliable Smith & Winchester .44, and the other held tight onto a twelve-gauge. Chlo stepped in front of us and started walking towards them. Sound of gunshots and of hail on a tin roof, fortissimo shouts and murmurs in the background molto presto, playboys skedaddling, Chlo not breaking step as the cop fired his gun. Then a cannon-blast as his partner unloaded both barrels. Chloe’s right arm took leave of her body. The metal part, no doubt; erector set sticking out of her elbow. Didn’t faze her. With her left arm she swung forward, hitting the cop’s neck with the side of her hand while plunging the sharp stump of her right arm into the shotgun cop’s breadbasket. He fired again, directly into her midsection. A butcher shop, the display counters full of schnitzel and weisswurst.
    » Chlo!«
    As the big one fell backwards Eulie gave her neck a fast one-hand clamp while with the mitt she ran her digits down the sides of her little black radio. There were more cops coming down the alley, a lot more cops. But I didn’t hear them saving anything, which seemed surprising. Suddenly I saw the cops still running towards us, but now as if from far down a country road, seen through the shimmering orgone as it rises off asphalt in the heat. Chlo and Eulie stood in front of me, and the three of us looked solid, but they didn’t move and I couldn’t either. Schubert Alley was hit by a blizzard; everything around us whited out; but there was no movement, no wind, and I thought I’d even stopped breathing. There was an absence of air movement. I hardly felt I could breathe, but I was. Then my ghost appeared, now solo, without his friend. Old see-through wasn’t a ghost any more. His suit might have looked white once. He had brown hair and pale skin, and ran towards us, never seeming to get any closer, never falling any further back. Seemed like we could do this for hours, but then my internal organs felt as if they’d been filled with hydrogen and getting ready to take the zeppelin route. Closed my eyes as I doubled over, the blood leaving my head like the tide. Saw nothing but millions of multicolour flashes, Pi-addled phosgenes. Then I felt breeze on my face; heard background sounds – low humming, the rustle of traffic, distant sotto voce dialogues.
    »Walter,« I heard Eulie say. »Walter.«
    Eased open my eyes, not sure what I was going to see. A world of colours once again, though I couldn’t tell how real these were. I faced a big yellow circle. Two dots and a curve glowed red from within. Then I