He woke from a falling dream that was especially vivid, since he’d really been falling.
He lay on his back, bewildered and sore, wondering what it was obstructing his limbs. He was tied down with a wire-thin material. Its vicious strands cut him when he struggled. So he lay still, gazing up at slim, artisanal buildings.
Some sort of life form moved nearby. Citizens or local fauna? He didn’t know. Two of them scampered away when he rolled his head left. He glimpsed pale green limbs, whip-like tails and furiously bobbing heads.
A couple more beings advanced, cautiously curious, on his right. Their scales were like brilliant mosaic abstracts. Their heads were topped with festive-looking crests. They looked no larger than chipmunks. If these were the city’s residents, then its buildings were smaller and closer than he’d thought.
He fretted morbidly over whether his landing had crushed buildings—or even worse, citizens. He seemed to be lying on tarmac, which felt undisturbed. Perhaps he’d been dragged there.
Several lizard folk congregated nearby, chittering in high, enervated voices. Their snoutish faces were set in anxious half-smiles. Their sensitive, slit-pupiled eyes were trained on one particular building. Their delicate, clawed digits pointed to the dark, monstrous thing climbing it.
He recognized the creature’s jointed segments, its leathery black carapace. In a flash of memory, he recalled it bolting through a hole in spacetime after Girl Zero (that stoned sadist in a lab coat, with her shiny scissors) chopped off one of its legs. It seemed to have grown four new limbs quite unlike its jointed arthropod legs. The new limbs were more like human arms.
It scaled the building, hand-over-hand, like a fearful cub. Then it froze, panicked at how high it had climbed.
Gawking reptiles made way for blocky-looking vehicles that resembled half-tracks. These fired with sharp reports, like cap pistols. Ordinance smacked the building. Scaly citizens fled falling debris.
Some rounds found their target, battering the creature. Frightened, it crept around the tower’s opposite side.
Thwarted, the tanks stopped shelling.
Moments later aircraft appeared, droning like model planes. They fired on the creature with sharp, repeating bursts. The creature clambered higher, in a pointless bid to escape.
The city’s air reeked of fear pheromones.
He strained at his bonds, frenzied by the smell. He yelped as the wires cut him.
“What do I do?” he queried short-breathed, hoping the nano-computer would answer. “How do I get out of—these?”
The nano-computer said nothing. Its silence felt pointed.
“Come on,” he pleaded. “You have to answer.”
In response, the nano-computer played back his recent, rather cruel statements about it.
“The thing that talks in my head?” said his own voice. “It’s useless.”
These words played over and over, inside his skull.
“Do it now,” said his recorded self, impatient for Girl Zero (that fucking strung-out scientist) to extract the nano-computer. “I hate that thing.”
“I didn’t mean that!” he pleaded. “I just—just…”
“Hate that thing. Hate that. Hate. Hate. Hate.”
“I’m sorry! I’m sorry!” he yelled, pained by the recording’s volume.
He threw himself against the wires with a beastly howl, driven mad by his torments. One of his arms broke free, then a leg. Artillery stung him as he staggered, roaring inanely, to his feet.
He kicked over one tank by accident, then another on purpose. Lizard folk scattered in all directions.
He halted by the tower’s base, dumbly furious.
“Hate, hate, hate,” blared his own voice.
“Just shut up! Shut up!” he bawled.
The building shuddered as he pounded it in frustration. Concrete chunks crashed down on his head.
A female voice broke in.
“Climb the building,” Girl Zero prompted.
“What? No!”
Hearing her made him furious.
“Listen to me…”
“Why should I listen to you? Why?”
Anxiety: Anxiety can cause a lot of other cheap cialis unica-web.com problems which lead to spoiling of sex life of males.
“I reset the nano-computer,” she said, cutting him off. “It won’t be angry now.”
“Are you going to reset me next? Make me forget you pushed me into this place—literally, physically pushed me?”
“I know I did. I had to.”
“Had to? Had to push me?”
He was incredulous.
“There was someone you needed not to meet. That would have been worse, believe me.”
“Worse? I’m being shot at. Ow! Ow!”
“Then climb the building. Get where the creature is.”
Having no ideas himself, he started climbing. Mortar crumbled under his fingers and booted toes, which at least gave him traction.
“They’re shooting at it up there,” he carped.
“I know.”
“After you cut its leg off.”
“I saved its life,” she protested.
“They’re trying to shoot it down.”
“Then get up there, to it.”
The building, though for tiny people, was still tall. He tried not to look down.
“I have a plan,” Girl Zero continued.
“Does it get us killed or just maimed?”
“You get out of here. Just trust me.”
“Are you fucking kidding?”
“Hate me if you want to. But trust me.”
He hove himself up uncertainly beside the creature. It seemed to have grown since he last saw it. Did it eat some of the lizard people, he wondered?
“Get ready, it’s opening.”
“Where? Where?”
An impossible hole in space opened and hung there before him. There was a dizzy drop between it and the building.
“Just step into it. creature will follow.”
The creature caught one of the planes, which crumpled like paper in its hand.
“I’m not sure.”
“Just do it!”
He stepped into mid-air, sick with vertigo.
Subway doors whooshed shut behind him. A deafening tri-tone sounded.
The creature collapsed on the floor, heavily, beside him.
The long car was full of empty seats, upholstered red. He sat down wearily in one of them and fell immediately to sleep.
