Piers stumbled through Transport’s myriad alleys, side-turns, pavements marked fadingly in numbers. Trans vo. 170 wound east, back turn blind. He avoided it, intentional. He nearly tripped on Trans. za. 20.
None of them went the way he guessed; and he hated guessing uncertainties, guessing like the blind corners in dreams where reason turned and could no longer understand.
Bleak, he walked. His footsteps followed, snapped strident behind in grey streets bent on smothered still. Another turn and cement scrawled useless. Trans…zero--and trailed into dust. Towards Vostok? he asked himself; towards the end? The illusive dusk caught cracked glass on an industrial fronted windows, leering eyes in cinderblock and steel and flickered narrow face, taut shoulders distorted. He found his head shortened in periphery as he jerked into swifter pace; his eyes a metre apart.
Frustration in his throat, choked, he staggered on. Time wound tighter. The slate-scudded sky dimmed.
His toe snagged stepping off the next turn, uneven asphalt. And the street? He squinted, worn letters on concrete bleeding into dusk with shadow. Trans. vo. 200.
“Bloody Hell,” he hissed.
In a moment, upright, he stared, tense, from alley end to end--every uncertain flicker in glass crawling into his thought, back, tension. Too late? As if he’d seen Drev’s techs in empty alley corners and blurred, dusk obscure glass.
Or...
Piers stumbled through Transport's myriad back-alleys and turn-offs - too aimless for name among the decrepit flats - 'transport' scratched into curbs. Trans. 125 vo., Trans. 3 naprav., Trans...worn indecipherable by time time and filth. No sane directions would guide the lost through its ridiculous labyrinth. ...And he really didn't know it well enough.
The occasional cracked window flickered movement. Slate-skied twilight more than not reflected, illusive glances starting wariness; and the numbers faded as he walked. Now trans. 150 -- was it? -- melding into Tr...an 'O'...a zero? The next turn, inscrutable as to number, directed with fluent obscenity its reader to Hell. Cursing under his breath, Piers closed his eyes.
Hole in the wall place, Teller had remarked...foundation cinder-blocked--another grim contrivance to look innocuous. Obviously contrived, he ought to ought to notice. Ask for Vande.
It may just be ridiculously too late. But I can't write more than a word or two before I come back to this and try to work it more deftly.
(Saphirus, do kindly kill the inner editor. ^_~)
Thoughts?
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