SCENE-T/Ref@5444

Inside the Corridor dust lay deep on everything. As they walked north, Thatcher again used his device to redistribute the dust layer electronically. Their footprints vanished behind them.

The Corridor was vast, as broad as a boulevard in Springfield, perhaps a hundred meters wide and ten high. Thin lines engraved in the floor where the dust slumped indicated the now abandoned maglev traces. For thirty years this had been one of the main freight channels crossing North America North to South. Now there was only one ancient fuel-cell truck abandoned in the dust. Their hand lights threw confusing sprays of illumination as they marched through the gloom.

It was now late at night; they had been on the run for most of the day and fatigue was beginning to tell on them. They climbed into the old truck gratefully. Thatcher went up to the cab, where a man was sleeping behind the guidance bar. He woke him, and the man nodded without speaking. He adjusted the valves and current built up. Thatcher and Peter climbed into the truckbed. They started off. Soon they were all asleep, slumped against one another. The only sound came from the gentle wind of their passage down the long deserted Corridor.

Keywords: dust, north, their, thatcher, corridor, abandoned, slumped, man, where, truck, climbed

All text © 1986 Rob Swigart. "Portal : A Dataspace Retrieval" is available courtesy of the Author's Guild Backprint Programme. ISBN: 0595197841

Updated: Tue Dec 4 2001