Paul Theroux: O-Zone

She came down among some hills that were textured like oatmeal. There were no live trees standing — it was like everywhere else on the fringes, the trees had been torn down and stolen for fuel. The government did nothing to stop tree theft, and some security agencies actively encouraged it, because with open fields and bald mountains and wide roads it was hard for aliens to hide. They exposed themselves by tearing down the trees.

"Got any weapons on board?"

The rotorport equipment handler was shoving on greasy gloves. Bugbee was stitched on a name badge over the breast pocket of his stained suit.

"No weapons," Moura said. "No offensive systems."

Bugbee dragged a heavy chain through the body grommet on the rotor's shaft.

"We've had thefts," he said, panting.

She wondered whether he was explaining the chain or the question about weapons.

"You must be on your way somewhere."

Moura did not say.

"Because no one comes here to stay," Bugbee said.

That made it sound perfect to her in her present frame of mind. She had started to walk toward the terminal building. It said "LA PLATA TERMINAL- but it was only the bones of one.

"Santa Barbara's real nice."

Now Moura turned and stared at this old man.

"What's wrong with staying here?"

Bugbee, to avoid her stare, was clamping a lock into the chain that held Moura's rented rotor.

"This has been a hole, ever since we lost our water," he said, keeping his head down. "We're just fighting for our lives here."

He was not challenging her — he was sad, he had dropped his voice. He was ashamed and bony, like the place. His chest was caved in and he labored for breath.

"You could go to Santa Barbara — someplace like that," he said. "This is trouble."

She didn't say anything. Bugbee glanced up with a twitch of hope on his face,

"You could go home," he said.

The hotel was bad, but they made no apologies and even implied that she should be grateful. She had a room at short notice, a view of the valley, her own bathroom. "We're the only ones here with real plumbing," the manager said. Moura didn't argue. She did not say that the room was dirty, that the view of the valley and its brown bushes and livid dust oppressed her. They probably wondered: What is this woman looking for? She hated the conspicuousness of being alone, and nothing seemed to her so melancholy as having to return each day to an empty hotel room — one with streaks on the wall and filthy windows. She didn't dare to sit out on the cracked balcony.

She began seeing him again — on the street, in the stores, even in the hotel. It was a glary haunted place — too bright, too empty, the floors stinging with the hot day, and water for specified hours. The men she saw all looked like Boy: that same eager taunting posture, the familiar aura. It did not matter to her that she had never seen his face. She thought: I would know him anywhere.

A second glance at these young men told her she was wrong, but she knew she had come very near, and each time she saw someone like him she felt she was getting closer. She had become a huntress, full of superstitions and hunches.

She spoke to one of these men on her third day. He was tall, rangy, the right build, with an intelligent face and pretty hands; and he had Fizzy's perforating gaze.

She said, "Do I know you?"

His smile told her she had the wrong person. Besides, he was not more than thirty.

"You're a stranger here," he said, and before she could explain he added, "You've got that look."

She faced him to make him doubt himself.

Without malice — with amusement even — he said, "Money."

Moura was the more embarrassed because he was not bitter. The man seemed to relax when he saw she was flustered and didn't have an answer — didn't even deny it.

"We're all burned here," he said.

It was true — literally so. He was darkly tanned, the backs of his hands were pinky brown and blotched. Lines were cut into his face where he squinted, and there was a whitish scaliness on his arms, and a deep tan underneath. He had swollen peeling lips.

"Everyone wears uniforms around here," Moura said.

His was green — a shirt, a metal patch, a visored helmet, sturdy buckled boots, a weapon she had never seen before.

"Most of us are security, most of us are private. I'm a state trooper. We've got a post here."

She was staring at him, wondering whether she had chosen him for his resemblance to Fizzy.

He said, "We're holding them back."

"Aliens?"

"I don't use that word," he said. "They're illegals. I think of them as throwaways."

"Throwaway" described how she felt herself and she liked the man for giving her the word.

"How do you manage to hold them back?"

"You really are a stranger, if you don't know."

When Moura told him that she was an Owner, from New York, and showed him her ID, he said, "Allbright's — like the mail-order cable sales?" and invited her to his post. He was very proud of the fenced-in compound. He said, "They claim we don't do anything," and showed Moura his data base and his display units. He talked about his storage capacity and his data-gathering.

He did look like Fizzy, and he had Fizzy's enthusiasm for technology.

"We've got a satellite feed for an hour, twice a day," he said. "We go on rotor patrol every night and make tapes and analyze them on this machine" — he had seated himself at the console. "This is really elegant. This is so sophisticated we don't have to fight."

She could hear Fizzy saying that.

"We're not gunslingers like these other squads and militias. Ever hear of the Black Cars? It's a local squad that goes around blasting people. Sometimes they drop poison and wipe out whole settlements. They use screamers on anyone who looks suspicious."

"In New York there's a squad called Godseye."

"They love giving themselves names."

She thought: Having the right name is like wearing a mask. She said, "Don't you have a name?"

"Officer Pratchett. Unit Forty. State security." He was looking up at a monitor — two ragged women towing a tin sled heaped with wood. It was somewhere in the hills.

"If they want to live like prehistoric people, they're welcome to it. As long as they stay out of here, I leave them alone. I'm not like some cops. I don't go hunting."

Moura was looking at another monitor. A man had come into view.

"We know who's out there," Pratchett said. He was watching Moura now, the way she was held by the screen.

"Their movements?" she said tentatively.

"Mrs. Allbright," he said — Fizzy again, expansive among the complex monitoring equipment—"we know who they are and where they are and where they go. We know their ages, their sexes, their sizes, and what racial group they are. We know when they're born and when they die. There's no such thing as an unknown alien. We know the color of their eyes. We can hear them chew their food."

He was smiling at her as though he knew how keenly she was listening to what he said.

"In most cases, we know their names."

She said, "I have a name for you."

"Sure you do."

She said nothing.

"I knew you were looking over the wire," he said. "Into the Zone."

That man Protchett warned her, and the hotel manager warned her, and unchaining the rotor, Bugbee warned her too.

They were so often cowardly or fearful, the people who issued warnings and said Don't.

She told Bugbee, "I'm trying to find someone," and remembered Hooper's saying, It's usually a mistake to find what you're looking for.

"You'd find someone in Santa Barbara.'*

Moura was climbing into her rotor.

"Especially if you don't have a whole lot of time."

She could never tell when old men were mocking her.