Ambient 06 - Going, Going, Gone

of bright green flashbulbs went off and something began to hum. Felt at first like I was lying out in the sun copping rays, but as you might have figured this bunch couldn’t keep from going overboard, and I started to develop a crispy outside crust while staying moist and juicy on the inside. The hum turned into a hiss and something wet spritzed over me. Refreshing for a second or two, and then it started to sting, then burn. Just when I thought I was going to pass out yet again, I was shot out of the tube back into the room; the table tilted as the bands holding me disappeared, and I slid down onto the floor which – like the table – was freezing cold. »Clarified,« the voice said. »Regarb.«
     
    »Refreshed?« Eulie asked when I finally managed to stumble back into the waiting room. She sat on the couch, staring up at a tiny movie screen built into the wall. I couldn’t tell what it was; whatever was playing made as much sense as the magazines.
    »What is that?« I asked, but she turned it off.
    »Follow, Walter.«
    We walked back into the hall and she did the face thing against the wall again. Nothing happened. She tried it again, and again nothing. I looked down at my arms; my skin was lingerie-pink, as if the top layer had been sanded away. »We’ll take the service lift.« She pressed her hand against the opposite wall and it slid open. I followed her in, but before I could jump back out the door had disappeared. In the service elevator the walls, the roof and the floor were transparent. It was like stepping off a cliff. »One forty,« she said.
    »Ascending,« said the elevator. We reached one forty, five minutes ahead of my stomach, but my nose didn’t let me down this time. The door reappeared and we stepped into a hall that was much wider, with a shiny black floor and sky-blue walls that must have been twenty feet high.
    »Identify.« The hall spoke with a different voice, some gravel-throated yegg who sounded like the actor Larry Tierney.
    »Eulalia Bax with outland transient,« she said, not breaking stride, heading the end of the hall. Just when I thought she was going to lead us straight into the wall another door appeared, and we entered what I assumed was a reception area, uncluttered by receptionists. There were six king-size bruisers, orangutan-armed, all in black, tall as Chlojo and twice as wide. Only one had ears. They were all female.
    »As appointed?« the biggest asked, speaking with the voice of a Barnard grad. I started to think that City Hall in this New York must be headquartered down in the Duchess Club on Sheridan Square.
    »AO,« Eulie said. Big Bertha twisted her bracelet and yet another opening appeared in yet another wall. Doorknobs must have been as much use as buggywhips around here. Eulie led me through, and it didn’t make me unhappy that none of those Junior League linebackers followed. Now we were walking through another hall, one that seemed normal at first until it struck me that everything was just slightly larger than it really needed to be.
    »Where we going?« I whispered. Somehow, as in a museum, or church, it seemed like the thing to do.
    »Superior notification.«
    »Who’s superior? I thought you were the director.«
    »Of the Lucidity Institute, yes,« she said. »But this is Dryco.«
    »And now we’re in executive bathroom land, in other words.«
    No answer, but I didn’t expect one. At the end of this hall was a sight I could not have predicted – doors that looked like doors. Eulie stopped before going in, and knocked.
    »Madam,« she called out, and the door creaked open. I couldn’t help but think of Inner Sanctum, but there was no grisly-voiced host in sight; only a round space as wide as the plaza we’d first come out in. I wondered why we weren’t given sunglasses before going in; the floor was shiny as a ballroom and the walls were toothpaste white. At first I couldn’t tell where the light in the room was coming from, even though there were windows; the walls were nothing but windows, in fact, the closer I looked. Remembering that it had seemed like a cloudy day outside, near as I could tell, and recalling how high these buildings seemed to go, I could only imagine that we had to be somewhere up in the midst of the stratocumulus. Just as I was starting to get my bearing a thin white wall as wide as the room came up out of the floor. The wall glowed from within, and at any second I expected to hear the voice of W. C. Fields saying, I Am