Levels: The Host by Peter Emshwiller

Author:Peter Emshwiller [Emshwiller, Peter]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi, azw3
Tags: Bantam Books, Post-Apocalyptic, Class Warfare, Manhattan, The Host, Science Fiction, Levels, Adventure, Thriller, Novel, sci-fi, Dystopian, Emshwiller, Wrong Man, Near-Future, Action, skiffy, Futuristic, Stoney Emshwiller, Body Swapping, Bantam Spectra, New York, Cyberpunk, Technology, SF, Peter R. Emshwiller
Publisher: The Art of Persuasion
Published: 2014-07-13T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 21

Well, ain’t life grand, and all, Watly thought. This is really something to tell the kids about someday. Make a delightful after-dinner anecdote.

Watly kept hanging there outside Alysess’s apartment window for quite some time. He stared at his primitive tools—the pipe cutter and the belt. What good were they? His arms and legs were ready to give out. He was convinced the only reason he wasn’t at that very moment sprawled on the street below was that his hands had locked and frozen in a closed position on the cable. Another clamp snapped. Watly tried to raise himself up to the same level as before and he got a horrible cramp on the arch of each foot. The pain was excruciating. He pointed and flexed his toes as far as possible to ease the stabbing sensations. The only thing stopping Watly from giving up entirely was the thought of Alysess. Unless he could get away from her apartment he’d be burying her with him when he was caught. He couldn’t live with that. Go up, she’d written. Watly leaned out and looked upward. He couldn’t very well scale up the sheer side of the building. There was nothing to hold on to—no hand- or footholds. The cable ran sideways—not up and down. He couldn’t very well climb sideways.

Watly looked to the left. About fifteen feet from him was the corner of the building. Its edge was decorated with heavy inlaid quoins all the way up the side, one above the other. From a distance they looked like they stuck out a good two inches from the surface. That looked climbable. Unfortunately it also looked impossible to get to. Even if Watly had the strength to climb the cable hand over hand across the side of the building and even if the cable could hold his weight through all that without snapping any more clamps—even then he’d fall short. The cable stopped a good five feet from the rusticated edge of the building. Its left end went into a small hole in the facing. He was at an impasse. Total dead end.

“Hello there. Is your name... Akral?”

It was Alysess’s voice rising up from the street below him. Good old Alysess. She was creating a diversion. A diversion for what? What good is a diversion if you can think of nothing to do with it?

“I thought you might be thirsty so I brought down some water,” she said.

“That’s very kind of you, ma’am.”

Watly looked at the pipe cutter again. It was a strong one. Heavy-duty. It looked like it could cut through a thick pipe with hardly a squeeze. Or a cable. A cable. Watly looked up. A cable. Cut the cable. Hold on to the left cut piece. Yes. Cut the cable and swing. This was an idea. It was awful, but it was an idea. Finally a plan.

“This really hits the spot. I appreciate it.” Akral’s thick voice was loud and unrefined. Watly liked the sound of it. It was like a voice from his past life.

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