Antagonist - Childe Cycle 11 (103 page)

CHAPTER
34

It
was
just
after
two
in
the
morning
when
the
small
rivet
in
the
underside
of
Bleys'
wrist
control
pad
extended
itself
from
its
socket,
to press
against
his
skin.
It
began
to
vibrate
silently,
but
did
so
for
less than
three
seconds
before
Bleys'
right
hand
had
reached
across
to stop
it.

Before
the
rivet
had
retracted
itself
Bleys
was
moving
across
the bedroom
of
his
hotel
suite,
seeing
only
by
the
light
of
the
city's
sky-glow
beyond
the
windows.
He
snatched
up
a
small
cloth
bag
with twin
handles
as
he
moved
through
the
lounge
to
the
suite's
main door.

He
paused
before
the
door
only
long
enough
to
reach
up
and
depress
a
tiny
button
on
a
device
he
had
earlier
inserted
into
the socket
of
a
wall-mounted
light.
The
thin
line
of
light
at
the
bottom of
the
door
vanished;
and
when
he
silently
opened
that
door,
the hallway
was
pitch
black—not
even
the
emergency
lights
were
on.

He
already
knew
how
many
paces
would
take
him
to
the
corner to
his
right;
once
there
he
turned
and
then
opened
the
first
door, which
let
him
into
the
emergency
stairwell.
He
knew
that
the stairs
came
down
to
the
landing
on
one
side,
and
continued
downward
on
the
other,
but
he
wasn't
concerned
with
that,
but
stepped straight
forward,
cautious
in
the
darkness,
until
he
bumped
into the
railing
that
shielded
the
long
drop
down
the
central
part
of
the stairwell.

There
he
finally
stopped
long
enough
to
reach
into
the
bag
and pull
out,
and
don,
trousers
and
a
short-sleeved
shirt.
From
the
trouser pockets
he
pulled
out
gloves
and
slippers
made
of
an
unusual, plastic-feeling
material,
and
he
put
them
on
as
well.
Slipping
his
arms through
the
straps
of
the
cloth
bag,
so
that
he
wore
it
like
a
miniature

backpack,
he
reached
out
into
the
darkness
before
him
and
swept with
both
arms,
as
if
trying
to
pull
the
air
in
toward
his
chest.

He
was
immediately
rewarded
as
his
right
arm
brushed
something,
and
he
quickly
had
both
gloved
hands
on
a
light,
thin
cord that
was
dangling
down
the
stairwell.
He
could
not
feel
the
cord
itself
through
the
gloves,
but
they
reacted
to
the
cord's
touch
by
generating
a
sensation
like
a
hot
wire.

Bleys
pulled
the
cord
in
to
locate
the
hardened
loop
at
its
end. He
gripped
the
cord
with
his
left
hand
and
pulled
at
the
loop
with his
right,
but
he
found
no
hint
of
weakness.
He
pulled
down
on
the cord,
hard;
and
got
an
answering
tug.

Imagining
the
long,
invisible
drop
before
him,
he
refused
to
let himself
pause,
but
swung
his
right
leg
over
the
railing;
and
guided his
slippered
foot
into
the
loop,
so
that
he
was
standing
in
it
as
if
it were
a
stirrup.

Still
straddling
the
railing,
he
straightened
that
leg
while
reaching above
his
head
to
twine
the
still-loose
cord
about
his
gloved
right hand
and
through
his
fingers.
As
the
cord
took
his
weight,
he
lifted his
left
leg
over
the
railing;
and
in
a
moment
he
was
dangling
silently in
the
darkness.

He
reached
out
with
his
left
hand,
to
grasp
at
the
cord
at
a
place above
his
right
hand;
and
plucked
at
it
as
if
it
were
a
guitar
string. The
cord
vibrated,
and
he
felt
the
edge
of
fear;
but
he
clamped down
on
himself
harshly.

With
his
free
left
arm
he
reached
out
and
found
the
side
of
the stairs
that
came
down
from
above;
and
even
as
he
did
so,
the
stairs began
to
move
upward
under
his
fingers,
telling
him
that
the
cord had
begun
to
lower
him.
He
had
only
his
body's
sense
of
space
to
tell him
that
he
was
moving,
unless
perhaps
there
was
some
faint
passage
of
air
across
his
skin.

Up
to
now
he
had
been
in
constant
motion
since
his
abrupt
awakening;
but
now
he
had
nothing
to
do
but
hang
in
the
silent
darkness, and
he
found
himself
possessed
by
an
urge
to
sneeze,
to
cough, even
to
yell—anything
to
make
some
kind
of
impression
on
the dark
nothingness.

His
shoulder
brushed
against
something,
and
he
was
surprised by
the
depth
of
the
relief
that
rose
in
him,
at
this
fleeting
touch
of
solidity.
He
realized
he
must
be
rotating
as
he
dangled
on
the
cord, and
that
he
had
brushed
against
the
side
of
a
set
of
stairs—but
on which
side,
he
could
no
longer
tell.

He
was
not
sure
exactly
how
much
open
space
there
was
between
the
courses
of
stairs
that
made
their
way
to
ground
level;
but it
could
not
be
much.
He
raised
his
free
left
arm
again
before
his blind
face,
as
a
man
walking
in
a
dark
forest
at
night
will
instinctively
raise
an
arm
to
shield
his
eyes
from
unseen
branches;
and slowly
extended
it.

For
a
few
long
moments
he
felt
nothing,
and
he
had
to
force
himself
to
refrain
from
lunging
outward
in
an
effort
to
find
some
sort
of solid
surface.
But
after
a
few
more
seconds
his
hand
met
a
downward-sloping
piece
of
metal,
which
he
identified
as
the
railing
shielding
another
course
of
the
stairs.

How
far
had
he
come?
With
the
railing
to
touch,
he
could
gauge
his speed
as
fairly
fast:
already
the
rail
was
gone
into
the
darkness
above him,
and
his
hand
was
grasping
one
of
the
vertical
members
that
held it—there
was
a
word
for
those
things,
what
were
they
called?
But that,
too,
slipped
away
from
him
in
the
darkness,
and
his
hands bumped
the
edge
of
the
stair
before
sliding
down
its
side
and
finding nothing
more
to
touch
in
the
darkness.

He
reached
behind
himself,
somewhat
awkwardly,
and
found
an identical-feeling
stair
on
the
other
side,
this
one
slanting
in
the
opposite
direction,
but
at
the
same
time
slipping
silently
away
above him.
And
so
he
found
a
routine,
reaching
eagerly
for
each
new
set
of stairs
as
it
rose
to
meet
him;
and
losing
them
in
the
darkness,
only
to be
replaced.