Paul Theroux - O-Zone

The full force of it had probably hit them now that he was gone and the darkness was piled on them. They knew that they were lost.

He found a main road.

"We've got a security check up ahead," the bus driver said in a cautioning voice, looking Fisher up and down as he boarded.

They had big wheezing rubber-wheeled buses here!

"I figured," Fisher said. "It'd be pretty pointless to seal the city if they didn't have tight security."

"They sometimes do spot scans," the driver said. "I'm telling you for your own good." He spoke in a voice of gentle warning. A stunner was strapped to his leg. He spoke from inside the driving capsule. "They can be very thorough."

"Good!" Fisher said. It was a torn-off squawk, as he pushed to the back of the bus, where he found a seat. It was the first bus ride of his life: But after what I have been through, why should I worry about taking a bus?

The stares of the other passengers annoyed him so much he clapped his faceplate down and raised his antennae. The passengers watched the slender probes grow out of the top of his helmet. Fisher folded his arms across his muddied suit. He had mended the rips on his knees and his sleeves with sticky tape from Guthrie. He had used adhesive tiller on the gouges in his boots. His pale fingers showed through his split gloves.

He knew the bus passengers were interested in him — a bit too interested. They were commuters, probably not even Owners, just pass-holders and permit-people. They never went anywhere.

"Just back from a mission," he said.

The amplifier turned his voice into a series of wavering quacks and solemn chuckles. The defective accumulator had robbed his voice of authority.

"Cla-heep-ssified," he said, cursing the helmet and vowing to have it fixed.

At the security check — a gate, just before the bridge — a man in uniform boarded and looked down the crowded aisle. He examined the driver's ID, but did no more than that — no scan, no check of passengers' IDs, no photographs, no further questions.

"What a clam," Fisher said, as the big bus started across the bridge in the morning sunlight. "There could be a diseased alien riding on this vehicle! How do they know there isn't a weirdo illegal Roach on board just sitting here getting lockjaw and about to take a spasm?"

He enjoyed being watched like this: they were listening— you could tell.

"Maybe he's fungoid. Maybe he's got an iron. Maybe he's disguised as an Owner, wearing a lot of expensive gear, only underneath he's a stink-heep-ing wreck. Maybe he's got a forged ID. And he's going to be let loose in downtown Pittsburgh! What a great security check!"

Long before the bus pulled into the terminal, the passengers had begun drawing away from him and gathering at the doors. Fisher hated them for their rudeness. And they thought aliens were bad!

He attracted the same attention on the street. Was it this wonky helmet? It must have been — no one wore them here, no one wore masks. Yet he was happy. He liked these rising streets, and the bridges on three sides of the city, which bulked on the hilltop like a citadel, high above the empty steel mills.

Why had the bus been waved through the checkpoint? Mr. Blue could have come with him. Any alien could penetrate this city!

"Excuse me, sir."

He heard that as the faintest whisper, and kept walking, until he was seized by the arms. His helmet was twisted off his head. He yawned at the two state security men — black uniforms, black helmets, funnel guns, stunners, shiny boots.

"It's about time," Fisher said, biting his yawn — tearing the sound with his teeth.

"Would you mind showing us your ID, sir?"

He had startled the men, he could tell. He yawned in then-faces again, and handed over his ID. "Take a good look at the reference and the code number," he said. And he stood there gloating while the security men scanned him and phoned his ID through to the computer.

"You've got fabulous security here."

He snorted at them, seeing their bewildered reaction to his sarcasm. He wanted to go on ridiculing them with compliments, but they were not listening; they were looking closely at the taped patches on his suit.

"I'm afraid I can't tell you why this suit's in such tough shape," he said. "I've been on a mission."

The security men told him he could go: he was very pleased and felt powerful. This was more like it! Mr. Blue would have failed that security check. The alien would have been stuffed into a gunship and taken to a White Room for questioning. Plug him in.

"Correction!" Fisher said out loud. He had actually passed the security check! The computer had not caught his ID, even though he had been kidnapped in March. He was a hostage who had escaped and returned home to discover that he hadn't been missed. It was stupid, disgraceful, and inefficient. What if he had lost his memory and was stumbling around Pittsburgh this morning blinded with aphasia and loss of identity? The security goons would have let him go!

He found a telephone on a post and then saw it was outside a stand-up restaurant.

"Hardly worth using a credit card for that," the cashier said. She was black, her name badge was lettered Herma, and she was armed with a stunner. She frowned at the two jelly doughnuts and the vanilla milkshake on Fisher's tray.

"No cash," the boy said. "Too many weirdos around.

There are probably aliens right outside this city, sticking their noses through the fence and trying to break in."

"I don't know anything about it," the woman said quietly.

Fisher pushed the doughnuts into his mouth and took the milkshake to the telephone.

"Who is that?" Moura said, catching her breath.

"Batfish!"

"Fizzy, is that you? What's wrong — where are you?"

He had started to gag. "Milkshake," he said. "Can't get the stupid straw into my suckhole."

"Are you in New York?" Moura's voice was urgent.

"The herberts didn't even find me in the computer," Fisher said in his old snarling way. He hadn't spoken like this since the last time he spoke to Moura. He disliked becoming a child: it was the effect his mother's voice had on him. "Hey, that's what I call security! What if I'd blacked out?"

"Is Hardy with you?"

"I haven't seen the stiff," and then his anger overcame him. But there was pleasure in his anger, and strength, because he felt safe here. "Listen, did you report me missing?"

"Hooper didn't tell us you were missing until two weeks ago—"

"That willy!"

"Fizz, are you all right? Is someone listening to this? Because if they are, we'll pay them whatever they want."

She went on talking, sounding very worried. It calmed Fisher. His mother's nervousness gave him strength.

"Thanks!" he said. "You didn't report me missing!"

"Just tell me where you are — what's that noise?"

He was slurping the milkshake again through the suckhole in his helmet.

"On a mission," he said, and hung up.

He was still walking — it was so lovely on the sunny heights of this city. And he was less mocking about the security situation here, knowing that it had not been a computer error or a goofball or a police blip. They hadn't identified him, because he hadn't been reported missing. But why not? If Hooper hadn't told them, what had the fuck-wit been doing all this time?

He passed another telephone and punched Hooper's number and got his uncle's answering machine.

"You lost me and you didn't even say so! There's something seriously wrong with you, mister. You were responsible for my safety on that mission. I am very disappointed in you. This is Commander, Mission Westwind—"

He swung the phone from his ear, then thought again.

"Furthermore, you still haven't found me!"

He felt very happy after this. For once, he was not imploring these adults for help. He didn't need them. He had arrived here on his own — he had led the aliens here. He was not their prisoner but their leader. That knowledge, and the sunshine, and the sugary breakfast, gave him the lift he needed. It seemed official, it was confirmed. He thought: I'm a man.