Psychic ability -- Fiction; Science fiction; United States. Federal Bureau of Investigation -- Fiction
The sidewalk became a little harder, and Malone suddenly realized that
he was lying on it. Something terrible had happened; he knew that right
away. He opened his eyes to look for the girl, but the sunset had become
much brighter; his head began to pound with the slow regularity of a
dead-march and he closed his eyes again in a hurry.
The sidewalk swayed a little but he managed to keep his balance on it
somehow, and after a couple of minutes it was quiet again. His head
hurt. Maybe that was the terrible thing that had happened, but Malone
wasn't quite sure. As a matter of fact, he wasn't very sure about
anything, and he started to ask himself questions to make certain he was
all there.
He didn't feel all there. He felt as if several of his parts had been
replaced with second-or even third-hand experimental models, and
something had happened to the experiment. It was even hard to think of
any questions, but after a while he managed to come up with a few.
_What is your name?_
Kenneth Malone.
_Where do you live?_
Washington, D. C.
_What is your work?_
I work for the FBI.
_Then what are you doing on a sidewalk in New York in broad daylight?_
He tried to find an answer to that, but there didn't seem to be any, no
matter where he looked. The only thing he could think of was the red
Cadillac.
And if the red Cadillac had anything to do with anything, Malone didn't
know about it.
Very slowly and carefully, he opened his eyes again, one at a time. He
discovered that the light was not coming from the gorgeous Hollywood
sunset he had dreamed up. As a matter of fact, sunset was several hours
in the past, and it never looked very pretty in New York anyhow. It was
the middle of the night, and Malone was lying under a convenient street
lamp.
He closed his eyes again and waited patiently for his head to go away.
A few minutes passed. It was obvious that his head had settled down for
a long stay, and no matter how bad it felt, Malone told himself, it
_was_ his head, after all. He felt a certain responsibility for it. And
he couldn't just leave it lying around somewhere with its eyes closed.
He opened the head's eyes once more, and this time he kept them open.
For a long time he stared at the post of the street lamp, considering
it, and he finally decided that it looked sturdy enough to support a
hundred and sixty-five pounds of FBI man, even with the head added in.
He grabbed for the post with both hands and started to pull himself
upright, noticing vaguely that his legs had somehow managed to get
underneath him.
As soon as he was standing, he wished he'd stayed on the nice horizontal
sidewalk. His head was spinning dizzily and his mind was being sucked
down into the whirlpool. He held on to the post grimly and tried to stay
conscious.
* * * * *
A long time, possibly two or three seconds, passed. Malone hadn't moved
at all when the two cops came along.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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