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Ambient 06 - Going, Going, Gone

Ambient 06 - Going, Going, Gone

Titel: Ambient 06 - Going, Going, Gone Kostenlos Bücher Online Lesen
Autoren: Jack Womack
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flash on our left and an elevator door opened. Inside, it looked like an elevator.
    »Eighty,« Eulie said, and the door disappeared. It seemed like we were going nowhere, until suddenly I felt my head attempting to slide down through my body, as if not feeling safe until it nestled at my feet. As I slumped against the wall of the elevator I looked at her; she was crying as she had back in the museum, just that afternoon, and I pulled myself forward until I could hold her. Then gravity got the better of me again, and I blacked out.
     

EIGHT
    By the time Eulie picked me up off the floor the elevator had stopped. This high up it took half a minute for the door to open – took time to depressurize, I assumed. Blood poured out of my nose until she put some more of that bubblegum against my face and I was once more dry as a bone. »Where now?«
    »Essentialled protectives,« said Eulie.
    »What kind?«
    »Med. This way.«
    In New York – my New York, that is – there’s probably a hundred sawbones happy to deal with the scurviest clientele – old geezers who’ll tear off scrip for reds or beauties or barbs if a three-year-old came in describing symptoms. Not many deal in my brand of esoterica though, so it was a rare thing for me to need their services. Croakers have their uses, but by and large I steer clear. This’d be the first physical I had since I was fourteen – wouldn’t hurt, I figured, to have one. Eulie led me down a white-walled hall to a small grey room with two red couches, a metal door and a low table covered with magazines.
    Eulie pointed to one of the couches, took something small and blue from her bag and tapped its surface. While she busied herself I picked up one of the magazines, thinking I might be able to figure out something more about where I was. Silly me. At first I thought somebody’d gone one better on Life and got rid of the articles, leaving only pictures; then I noticed that at some angles, if the light hit the pages right, words popped up out of the photos. Even so, the type was so small that you’d have needed a magnifying glass to read it. For the life of me, I couldn’t figure out what kind of magazine it was; there were photos of what looked like the insides of transistor radios, followed by photos of naked women – too skinny for my taste, and one was missing a leg – followed by landscapes that would have looked like Arizona if the sky hadn’t been pinkish-red. There were pictures of that plumber whose statue I’d seen outside, looking somewhat livelier (if fatter) and some other characters who didn’t appear to be the sort you’d trust alone with either your brother or your sister. There were several pages where I couldn’t tell what was even being photographed, that is to say if what I was looking at were photographs in the first place.
    »All’s prepped, Walter.«
    »You’ll read magazines?« I asked. »Are these magazines?«
    She shook her head. »I require treatment as well. Same procedure, different space. I’ll meet you here when I’m done.«
    I walked through the door. There was nothing in the room but a chrome table shiny as the bumper on an old Pontiac. I was admiring my profile in the reflection when I heard the lock behind me click.
    »Denude,« the ceiling said, speaking with the cab’s voice.
    »Come again?«
    »Denude and prone.«
    I was getting better at figuring out the lingo – I took off my clothes and got ready to lie down. » Beelzebub!!« I shouted, hopping on the slab and immediately flash-freezing my ass. Didn’t get much chance to complain, though. Without warning, the table had me in a full body-lock. Grey plastic bands came out of the table and wrapped around my wrists, something I couldn’t see came up under my back and my feet sailed into the air; two big chrome clamps popped up and locked them in place, leaving my toes wiggling hello at the ceiling. That was pleasant, compared to what happened next. Two steel octopi with beady red eyes rolled up on either side of me. Their tentacles were tipped with needles and thermometers and sanders, and without a word of warning they started drilling in. Felt like I was sealed inside a wasp’s nest, rolling downhill. »Mute,« the voice said, but I didn’t care to oblige. Goodbye a moment later to the metal monsters as the table rolled forward toward the wall. The wall opened up and I slid right into what looked like a white plastic sewer pipe not much wider than my shoulders. Thousands

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