Atmosphere (21 page)

Atmosphere.

His mind rolled in crazy circles, the word—the
word
—leaping out at him repeatedly like specters escaping a haunted house after years and years of haunting, atmosphere...atmosphere, over and over again in his mind. But what could it mean?
  

Still gripping the radio, his mind found a connection to the pulse, and he allowed the flow of the experience to consume him and take him to the plane of existence it had planned for him.

Now another memory. Something about the bed he was laying on. It held a secret. He concentrated as best as he could on the engram breaking through, a million tiny images coming together to form a single whole—a puzzle pieced together, revealing an answer.

Something about the bed. The bed...

Under the bed!

The voice yelled out at him, from within his head he thought, loud and clear. Not
his
voice, but the deep stirring assertion of someone—something—else. Familiar.

Still holding the radio, he sat up, knees off the edge of the bed. He gently slid down and crouched next to the bed, head to the oriental carpet, He peered underneath, the whole time careful not to unplug the radio. Amazed at his remarkable ability to see in the dark, the environment beneath his bed came into view. It was stark, nearly empty except for the carpet and a small plastic bag perched amidst its patterns, the end wrapped tightly around itself, looking like an insect turning its armor.

He flattened his body on the carpet and reached for the bag with his left hand. His fingers gently caressed a wrinkle in the plastic and locked on.

He pulled the bag from under the bed. Something was inside.

"Harbinger..."

The voice—
the voice
—called out to him again. But it did not stem from his head. It came from the radio in his right hand.

Suddenly Bobby felt his entire body swimming with an intense sensitivity, a rippling of pleasure racing from head to toe that turned his skin to gooseflesh. He held the radio to his cheek, opening his mouth to speak. Involuntary words whispered out: "Yes...yes
Giver
..."

"
The Outsider who stopped you. Do you remember him?"

Bobby forced his mind to recall the individual in question, thinking back to only moments earlier when he tried to recall his name. "The cop," he replied to the voice in the radio. "Ballaro." This time the name slipped from his tongue with ease.

"You were programmed to kill all intervening Outsiders, Harbinger. Recognize, failure."

In an instant tears sprang from Bobby's eyes, and he began to sob like a scolded child, his emotions uncontrollable. "I...I..." Once again he couldn't find any words to express himself.

"
You were programmed to kill yourself upon capture. Recognize, failure."

Bobby pressed the radio harder against his face. It felt warm against his tears, and with each pulse he felt a further bond with the Giver.

"
Harbinger, what is your purpose?"

Suddenly Bobby perceived an odd sensation in his head, as if a switch had been turned on to reveal the appropriate answer to the query. "To seek out Suppliers."

"Harbinger, what will you do if an Outsider discovers you?"

"Kill them."

"Harbinger, what will you do if an Outsider overcomes you, or escapes?"

"Kill myself."

"Harbinger, take the unit. Seek out new Suppliers."

"Yes Giver," he answered automatically, looking down at the black plastic bag in his hand.

The radio went dead, and Bobby nearly collapsed to the floor, utilizing his fists to avoid banging his head. It slip from his grip and tumbled next to the base of the dresser, static blaring from its speaker.

He kneeled up, still gripping the bag, adjusting his jarred sunglasses back to a firm fit. He looked around his room, at everything there: the furniture, mirror, lamps, bottles of cologne, stereo, CDs, tapes, television. Suddenly everything took on a different light, a realm of character that seemed just as it did during the missing time, which had now miraculously returned under the influence of the Giver.

Take the unit and seek out new suppliers...

His memory had indeed returned. All of it. He now remembered what happened when by chance Carrie found the Atmosphere under his bed. He remembered hearing her scream while making a sandwich in the upstairs kitchen, how he raced down two steps at a time into his room and found her sitting upright against the tub in his bathroom, holding the Atmosphere as it harvested from her. He remembered the appearance of her walkman headphones dangling loosely from her neck, the smile on her face bright and wide as if the pleasure of the experience could no way be equaled.

And of course, he remembered the blood, pooling out on the cold tiles.

As the memories of the experience finished surfacing, he could recall how he felt afterwards, his utter confusion at the whole scenario, wondering how it could be possible for Carrie to become a suitable candidate for supplying.

Now, with all these memories refreshed in his mind, he tried and tried, but still could not fathom an answer to this conundrum: all suppliers were male, and Carrie was a sixteen year-old girl.

Under the bed!

The voice returned. Bobby looked to the radio. It sat on its side, static still radiating from within. Perhaps the voice had actually come from his head? Again he laid it face-down on the carpet, peered under the bed.

A section of the carpet maybe two feet across was rising up and down very slightly, as if breathing, up...down...up...down, like the naked stomach of a sleeping man. He could hear a faraway noise, something machine-like, a steady syncopation similar to that of a functioning turbine in the bowels of a ship.

Under the bed!

Again the voice, this time definitely from his head, a memory planted within perhaps. With newfound energy, Bobby scrambled up, placed the black bag atop the bed and gripped the bed frame, pulling with all the strength he could muster. The bed moved jaggedly across the Oriental carpet, leaving uneven impressions in the fabric. He pulled it as far as he could until his back pressed against the wall. He then crawled over the mattress to the other side where the breathing section of carpet was exposed.

From upstairs, he heard the door to the stairs leading to his apartment opening. "Bobby, you all right down there?" His step-father.

Bobby felt a wave of panic consume him. "Outsider..." he muttered under his breath, gripping the edge of the carpet and pulling. The small section under the bed came free. He then gave the carpet a mighty yank, swinging it around like a bullfighter flashing his cape, tossing it across the room into the dresser, knocking over a few bottles of cologne and a candle holder.

"Something's up!" his step-father shouted from upstairs. "Bobby, what are you doing?"

Fearful of the Outsider's imminent approach, Bobby wanted to take action but couldn't move as the sight before him had him frozen in indecision, had him standing motionless for what seemed a long period of time, completely blown away.

There was a massive hole in the floor, running nearly four feet across, jagged splints of hardwood jutting out at the edges. Tendrils of white smoke seeped out from its murky depths, crawling across the floor around his ankles like stage fog at a rock concert. Bobby leaned forward and gazed into the darkness of the hole, looking for an answer but finding only cold bursts of air rising up from deep within.

"Bobby? What are you doing down there?" his mother called from above, sounding harried. They were afraid of him, and chose to keep their distance. "Get the police!" she yelled. "Right out front!"

"Outsiders..." again he muttered to himself, hearing the shuffling above. He needed to take action. He kneeled on one knee, grasping the homing device at his ankle. There were two small lights built into it. One was illuminated, green. The other a lifeless red.

He gripped on it and pulled. Nothing. Of course. He stood back up and spotted the black plastic bag perched atop the bed. He quickly snatched it, tore it open.

He smiled.

The Atmosphere.
   

From upstairs, commotion, the footsteps and shouts of additional Outsiders.

He held the Atmosphere close to his heart, gently rubbing its smooth ebony spines, listening closely for guidance.

Seek out new Suppliers! Flee the Outsiders!

Gripping the Atmosphere tightly, Bobby stepped forward into the hole.

L
ights abounded as Frank and Hector cruised into Times Square—on the streets, from cars and buildings—a sea of neon cascading over them in a deluge of illumination, as if a slice of Las Vegas' infamous strip had been cut out and fitted onto Broadway like a piece from a great jigsaw puzzle. Here the traffic was thick, and their progress slowed accordingly, but the flickering flamboyancy gave them a much needed distraction from the dark elements of the day, and made the slow going much more tolerable.

"I like the lights," Frank said. "Never get tired of looking at them." They passed by the
Newsday
building, where the famous 'ball' was dropped every New Years Eve. A stroboscopic burst of white light rose up the side of the building and exploded into a simulated fireworks display at the top, igniting every building within the cluster of streets as if a giant camera's flash had been set off.

"Gaudy, if you ask me." Apparently Hector's patience had taken a leave of absence along with his energy. Frank chose to ignore his statement.

Escaping Times Square, they cruised downtown into Greenwich Village.
The tribes are out,
Frank thought, getting an eyeful of the environment's trendsetters. Didn't matter what day of the week it was. Once night assumed its mask, its tawdry children would crawl out of the woodwork to shed their energy upon the entire collective—the stores, the street vendors, the bars, the galleries—known as Greenwich Village.
 

They turned left on Mulberry Street off Sixth Avenue and slid four blocks across town to Bleeker, where they made a right and 'borrowed' another spot in a parking garage.

"They always make faces," Frank said, reaching into the backseat and grabbing the yellow manila envelope containing the sketch of Harold Gross.

"Who?" They exited the car and walked a slow pace side by side from the garage.

"The parking attendants. They hate it when we take their spots."

Hector smiled. "They should thank us. No thief's gonna hit 'em up with a cruiser sitting a few feet away."

Just as Frank was about to express his agreement, he spotted the boutique. "Hey—look." He pointed across the street to a small storefront squeezed between an import record store and a magazine stand. A small banner was draped across the wind-up eave, its once white cloth now aged brown. Yellow letters ran lazily across the hanging drop-cloth like a happy birthday banner pinned to a basement wall:
Village Clothing
.

They shuffled across the street, brushing passed a group of heavily pierced youths who had just exited the record store. Their flamboyant androgyny gave Frank the creeps. "Do these kids have parents?" he thought aloud. Hector ignored him, his sights pinned on the clothing boutique.

"Well I'll be damned," Hector said, grinning and shaking his head in amusement as he stared at the shanty display in the front window. Within the barrier of dusty glass, a variety of trendy clothing was splayed haphazardly, as if the person choosing to don them needed to perform some preposterous gymnastic feat in order to deem themselves an appropriate wearer of such fashion. Hats, jeans, skirts, scarves, jackets, in every fabric imaginable it seemed: denim, leather, cotton, or lace.

Every article of clothing was black in color.

Frank smiled, sidled up next to Hector. "Shall we, boss?"

Hector peered at him from the corners of his eyes, his leer rife with as much sarcasm as Frank's drawn-out invitation. "Yes, we
shall
. And I'm not your boss, not anymore anyway." He held the door open for Frank. "I don't need the headache."

A dry odor hit Frank at once, the stale waft of dust and cigarette smoke assailing his nose in such a way that he at once felt a sneeze blooming within his sinuses. Tweaking his nose, he stepped further in and caught the aroma of incense burning from an unseen source, its stench competing with that of the cigarettes, making the environment barely fit for a human.

The inside of Village Clothing was much like any shop in Greenwich Village, cramped with fixtures and teeming with browsers, the latter all kids adorned with some parent's nightmare-like decoration—painted hair, tattooed skin, pierced extremities. Each and every one of them a sight to behold.

Funny then that they all turned and stared at Frank and Hector with the same open-mouthed looks of wonder that most of their non-supporters might furnish, as if Hector's uniform or Frank's khaki's and sweater were an unspeakably outlandish choice of fashion. Could have been the smatterings of Harold's blood on their clothes, but Frank figured it was most likely the appearance of the law.