Ambient 06 - Going, Going, Gone

–?« But it got louder every time I did.
    »Doublatar whilomit extronon whang –«
    »Eulie –«
    » Thinthin delavooz maximate coladwalpter –«
    »Eulie, what the hell –«
    » URGALL VOX MAGNAWAIL BLAP –«
    »EULIE –!!«
    She fixed her mouth on my ear like she was going to slip me some tongue. »Taxitalk impossibled, Walter,« she shouted. »Adspace precedents. Mute til we decab.«
    That made as much sense as whatever the taxi was saying, so I just lay back and gave a listen to some sexless goofball sputter out songs of the Pogo. I kept looking to my left, thinking Chlojo would still be there, but of course she wasn’t. All at once the cab stopped without braking; we slid forward a little on the seat and then slid back. Eulie pushed a little white card into the slot in the black barrier and something clicked. »Come, Walter.« I looked out over another plaza as she helped me out, this one wide as Washington Square. In the centre of this plaza, where broom-dry grass sprang up between the cracks in the terrazzo, was a statue of some husky boy in a plumbers’ suit and a high collar. He held a pipe up to his face as if thinking he’d see what clogged the drain.
    »Who he?« I asked.
    Eulie glanced over, muttered »E« and kept walking. In front of us was what looked like an upside-down golf tee. Piss-yellow, round at the bottom like the top half of a globe, the shaft getting narrower as it rose. I couldn’t see the top of the damned thing. Probably no one could. This plaza, unlike the other one, was populated; hundreds of people wandered about beneath the shadow of the plumber. Felt like August, but there’s never this many people around at that time of year in the city. Everyone had the look of a typically cheerful New Yorker but there was one big difference, the difference that gave the game away. The faces were different colours – au lait, milk chocolate, chopped liver, blutwurst, espresso. I’d never seen so many coloured folk in my life.
    »Eule,« I said, as my sometimes-slow mind started to click in. »We’re in the future?«
    »My present. Come.«
    Eulie pressed her hand against the side of the building when we reached it, and where there’d been a blank wall, a large door opened up. Two teamster-size characters in dark suits stood just inside the entranceway.
    »Tarcial,« Eulie told them. »Gamamye.«
    Something like that, anyway. Didn’t look like their suits were tailored to conceal weapons. Before I knew what was up, Vinny from Local 136 had my shoes half a foot off the floor as he held me up by the jaw. Rocco had pulled a bright green popgun out from under his jacket and looked set to let it fire, right between my peepers.
    »Aggro nya!!« Eulie said, intervening. »Approval met.«
    »Explitail!« he shouted back. English fell by the wayside and some odd combo of Hungarian and Urdu took over. This Buck Rogers business was the last thing I needed, just then. Couldn’t help wishing I’d been more of a futurian, might have been ready for anything under those circumstances. I thought of what you were supposed to do if you found yourself in the future – look to see how the market was doing, check out property values, tell Nixon to make sure he went to New Orleans, try not to kill your own grandfather – no, that was what you did if you found yourself in the past – so hard to tell the difference, sometimes.
    »Walter, come.«
    Having appeased the teamsters, Eulie guided me into the building’s lobby. I thought the walls were marble, at first; found out they weren’t when I ran my finger along the wainscotting and carved a line through it with a dull fingernail. Hanging from the ceiling, six storeys overhead, was a long chrome steel bar – seventy feet long, maybe – that slowly glided back and forth, barely missing the surface of another chrome steel bar that rose up out of the floor. Words were engraved into the sides of each bar. DO GOOD, read the bar that moved, FEEL REAL, read the one that was stationary. Looked around for anything that said OR ELSE, but no go. I supposed anyone they caught in this building without permission would wind up strapped onto the gliding surface of their choice of bars.
    »What is Dryco, anyway?« I asked as Eulie pressed her hand against a wall on the far side.
    »Dryco,« she said. I nodded, figuring there was no point in pressing the issue. An oval opening appeared in the wall. Eulie stepped forward and put her face against it. A quick blue