Robot by Adam Wisniewski-Snerg

Author:Adam Wisniewski-Snerg [Wiśniewski-Snerg, Adam]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780141995359
Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd

The mysterious light I had seen in one of the windows intrigued me. I knew that despite the blackout the city was not immersed in total darkness; the incandescent sphere hanging over it illuminated it with its glow. Probably there was also some light from backup generators that I couldn’t see because of the shift in the spectrum. But the bluish rectangle of that one window that stood out in the surrounding darkness made me think there had to be some local source of gamma rays there.

I swam out of the manhole and headed directly towards the light. Its glow was much stronger than nine hours ago; the radiation must have increased.

Thrusting aside masses of inert air, I travelled high above the people on the streets. Although I moved my arms and legs as quickly as I could, it took me almost an hour to reach a nearby overpass. The source of light was momentarily blocked by it. I stopped to rest. Suspended over the pavement, I turned on my thrower and swept its beam around.

One side of the wide overpass was packed with long lines of cars. Directly below, on a four-lane street, traffic was lighter. Several skyscrapers loomed a bit farther on, almost out of the range of my thrower. At ground level, the space between them was taken up by low, flat structures, probably – judging by the complicated network of zigzag lines running up and down their facades – department stores with blacked out neon signs. Their terraces and the ramps joining them were swarming with tiny human figures, frozen as on a stereoscopic photograph. On the other side of the overpass a row of tall apartment buildings obscured a large segment of the sky.

While I was examining this view, a soft current of air slowly turned me around. Surrendering to it passively, I floated into an open space between two cars in the two outermost lanes and peered through one of the windows.

Four statues were inside. I looked at the face of a woman, five inches away from mine, who was gazing up at the sky. I stared at her for several minutes, amused by the whole situation. The car was rushing along the overpass while I was standing next to it, hardly able to notice the minute changes in its position. I wondered how long it would take the woman to see me.

Just as I was about to move forward and look at the other passengers, I realized I couldn’t breathe. I knew at once what had happened, but it was too late to escape. I was slowly, very slowly, being crushed between the two passing cars, unable to do anything about it. The door handle prevented me from escaping.

The overtaking car was moving at a speed of a few fractions of an inch per minute. The whirling masses of mercury air agitated by my movements tore the mouthpiece of the breathing apparatus from my mouth. The bearded driver of the slower car was turning the steering wheel to his right, but I knew this manoeuvre had nothing to do with me.

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