nodded. "I think so, professor." He needed to swallow, wouldn't give Agostini the satisfaction of seeing how intimidated he made his staff. "Thanks for holding the fort."
Agostini grunted. Holder went to the cot praying the egotistical bastard wasn't going to stand there reviewing him like a board of inquiry. As he stooped over the girl, he glanced backwards beneath his arm. Agostini had gone. Holder gulped.
Following a cursory examination, he mumbled to himself: "Why do they do it?"
The two nurses pulled faces at each other. One of them said: "Do what, Doctor?"
"Ride motor bikes without helmets." He was annoyed having to explain what to him was obvious.
The nurse shrugged. "It isn't cool."
Holder gazed down at the face on the cot. She was pretty, beautiful even. "Neither is life as a vegetable," he growled. He stood upright, gave the nurse a patronising stare. "Let's try our best to beat the odds on this one, shall we?"
4
Finding his way through the light was exciting, wicked. Like a trip. Was he on one? It felt that way.
Emotions were confused: on the one hand welcoming the danger of the unknown; on the other, praying for a return to convention and predictability. Even his identity was an enigma. What he could see and touch was the body of a man, but inside he felt like a woman. Even faint recollections were particularly feminine.
He continued to wander in amazement. Never had he seen so much light, so much nothingness. This was the trip of all trips. What kind of hit could produce this? Not smack or crack, no designer drug he'd - she'd - ever tried. Nothing she'd ever done before.
These were thoughts from another time, another person. The man he was now - or had become - would never take drugs, despised them. The woman inside was at home with them and he loathed her for it.
When he found the wall he stuck close, regarding it as a tangible security blanket within the Void. Next, there was someone up ahead and he started towards them. They had gone in a flash. Imagination - it must have been. Unlike the stream of negativity which came from nowhere, sucked him in and began drawing him along like a rip-tide! What now? He snatched a breath, held it, head spinning. Maybe he was coming down. Maybe the hit was wearing off. She didn't want it to, needed to experience more; but he was relieved.
The wall and the sensual attraction seemed allied, so he didn't struggle. Just floated in the hopes they would lead him to somewhere or something he could readily identify with. Maybe the person he thought he'd seen.
The negativity increased. Not just on the outside, but drawing something from deep within him. From the past maybe. An exorcism. Would it be too much to ask that he was losing this vile female which haunted him?
The experience continued, was almost erotic verging on orgastic. Definitely irresistible now. Drifting along in the flow became that ultimate fulfilment he couldn't have denied himself if he'd wanted to. It provided all he needed, would ever need: complexity and bare simplicity. Alpha and omega.
Then the speed of the current picked up and he was moving faster than he could think. A man should try to break free so that he could weigh the odds before finally committing himself. But it wasn't the kind of option you could select then turn off if it didn't suit. This trip was for the duration, no rain-checks considered.
The rip-tide looped him out from the wall briefly. Then he was turning, streaming towards it. He saw the lesion coming at him, a large tear in a plastic curtain. As the energy dragged him through he grabbed at the flapping sides, could find nothing to hook his fingers around. Another second and he was being consumed.
Here was pain, an agony like nothing he had ever felt before. Crying out was futile because his screams weren't as loud as the pain. But he cried anyway.
He was still screaming, even after the pain had stopped. And he knew it had because he could hear himself. God, that was terrible, he thought. Yet part of him felt exhilarated. A decidedly female part.
He lay where he had fallen, stones pressing into his naked flesh, tasting grit. The light was now a soft peach glow, the surrounding air warm. Without even questioning how he knew, he thought: I'm through. I'm in the Canal.
Canal? A strange word. Why had it come to mind?
Rolling, he pushed up onto an elbow, peered at his new environment to find himself confronted by desolation - nothing but sand and stones. Behind him lay cool oblivion in the trip of a lifetime; here was warmth in a canal without water. Stark reality after the dream-like Void.
He was in a crater ringed by dunes. From the top of any he cared to choose he would be able to view the Canal and see that it was all the same. This kind of knowledge had nothing to do with memory. This was in-bred, instinctive.
Memories he'd had in the light were to do with civilisation - wild rages, heavy trips, screwing. Or at least being screwed: he couldn't recall ever screwing a woman, only being screwed as one! Despite being obnoxious to the man he had become, these thoughts were, nevertheless, memories of ordinary things, real people and places. But this barren wilderness....? He'd never been here before, or any desert come to that, so how did he know what it was like, what to expect? How could he know what was beyond the dunes? He couldn't know. But he did!
Struggling to his feet, his legs felt weak and trembling. The altitude produced nausea. Sweat prickled his body. He tottered, fell, attempted to right himself again. Then, he quit trying and crawled. He worked his way up the closest dune nursing a monster thirst, finally collapsed on the top, chest heaving.
Recovering sufficiently to raise his head, he looked out across the plain. More sand, acres of it. Then more dunes. No sign of water.
But there were people!
He saw three, walking alone as if unaware of the others. It seemed stupid: people were social animals, they needed companionship. They should be banding together, co-operating to find a way out of this bad trip.
If that was what this weird scenario was, he'd be only too glad to swear off drugs completely. He didn't need them. What he needed was someone to talk to. Someone to share his confusion, his fear.
Was he really afraid? You bet your sweet life he was! Especially since he'd just realised something. He'd just figured out why this trip was so different, so intense: the silly bitch, the person he used to be, must have OD'd.
She was most likely DEAD and she'd taken him with her!
5
Almost out of the Canal now, the woman whose memories were those of a man was wishing she could remember her name. It seemed important, as if she was about to meet someone: an insane notion, considering where she was - at the end of an empty pass gazing into.... the rest of it!
Ridiculous, but it was what she felt - the end of a pass! If she was at the end, there wouldn't be any more of it. There would be plains, or.... something else, anyway. But there was more. More pass and more dunes lining it on either side. So, in effect, she was in the middle.
In which case, why did she believe she was almost through? And where was the reception committee she somehow knew would be waiting? She couldn't see them. The entire area was deserted, but she
