Paul Theroux - O-Zone

He saw the land rising up before his eyes, the long swards and knobs and rough escarpments and tumbling woods, and the vast empty spaces that filled his dreams as a weather-maker.

Now the trees were clumped and denser, and in between the clumps were chutes of grass; up ahead, protrusions of original forest showed as great smudges. This new view was from the ground, in a semidarkness highlighted with heat impressions. The land was iron-blue and dusty on the film, with smear marks of leafy boughs and above them naked branches lying across the sky like cracks. It softened to pale blue, but still there was no movement, only the black branches in the foreground, the frothy wall of trees at the far side of the watery-looking meadow, and the long slashes of new light— dawn rising.

"I was just thinking about that," Hardy said, holding the door open. "That's O-Zone."

"What are you doing in here, you dong!" Fisher said. "This is a private room. You didn't buzz."

"That was not O-Zone," Hooper said, and killed the picture.

"I recognized it!" Hardy said. He was still looking at the blank screen, where the meadow had been. Now he turned to face the two seated people. "Hooper! In Fizzy's room!"

"The kid and I were just kicking a problem around," Hooper said, hating himself for sounding adulterous and apologetic.

"Why did you switch off the screen?"

"Out of politeness."

"Go away," Fisher said. "Why are you bothering us?"

"You're wearing a mask!"

Fisher looked like a louse, or a sucking insect. He said, "Hay fever!" and stood up.

Hardy was surprised by the boy's bad posture — the way he hunched his shoulders made his long arms seem even longer. And what huge feet! His hands were red and very damp, and his wrists newly hairy. He had grown up in this room, and so he had the strange shape and habits, and even the same lowered head and bumping motion, of an animal in a cage. His appearance and the way he moved — the noises he made, the yawns, the squawks — always caused Hardy to forget the boy's intelligence.

"You didn't buzz! You didn't signal! You just burst in— and now you're not going away!"

"I was looking for Moura."

But the boy was right. Hardy knew he was lingering here because he had just had a new glimpse of what he was sure was O-Zone. Was it the tape they had made on the shoot they had mounted with Murdick?

"Moura's not here. Obviously."

Hardy pointed to the blank screen. "Those trees and fields — that's O-Zone."

Hooper said, "That was the tape of the trip out. We got it on macro. That was the Ohio valley. You interested in the Ohio valley? Got plans for it?"

Hardy shook his head — he didn't want to encourage any of Hooper's talk about Asfalt's plans, especially in front of Fizzy.

"Do you want to discuss something?"

Hardy said nothing: he was annoyed that they were now asking the questions. It was an unlikely pair, Hooper and Fizzy, but he saw them as formidable and possibly a threat. They had all the right combinations, and they had apparently made peace. Hardy felt especially uncomfortable, and almost envious, seeing Hooper succeeding with Fizzy where he had failed.

"Why don't you go away?" Fisher said. He was not being aggressive, only showing incomprehension that he wasn't being obeyed. He poked toward Hardy with the snout of his mask and let his long arms dangle.

Hardy said, "I have no interest at all in O-Zone. And I don't want to watch your tape. Don't forget, I've got one of my own." But as he shrugged and turned away, he glanced at the video screen: the quality of their tape had been noticeably better than his — it was ground-focus, close-up, high-definition. He wondered, was it Murdick's? "I'm just surprised to see you two in here, looking so guilty."

"Don't be such a dong," Fisher said. He seemed suddenly bored, and began sniffing in impatience, sucking air noisily through his snout. "Now get out!"

Hardy went, but hated being sent away like this.

Fisher locked the door and said to Hooper, "My parents are insecure. They don't know what to do with me. They're not as intelligent as I am, so they can't tell me anything. See, the trouble is, they don't have any authority. All they could really do is bully me or report me to my session team leader. But they're afraid to. They know I could double up and really wreck things for them — I could file against them. I could be taken away from them and sent to a guardian."

He plucked his mask off and yawned. It was one of his loud slow yawns. He didn't cover his mouth. Hooper had to turn away — his immediate reaction was an urge to slap the boy for yawning like that.

"I know all about Hardy's work-everything he does!"

"It's supposed to be classified," Hooper said.

"I hacked it."

"And you know all about your mother?"

"No," the boy said — so logical he could never be untruthful. "Moura only thinks things. She never stores them. It's all in her head."

He yawned again, another gravelly roar, and showed Hooper his scummy tongue.

"They really have problems!" Fisher said.

Hooper was staring — too fascinated to smile.

"That's why I have to be careful not to criticize them," Fisher said, growling through another yawn. "They'd freak if I did."

Hooper said, "Let's roll this thing," and pointed the mouse in his hand and squeezed.

The screen deepened with an image: daybreak over that meadow in O-Zone, as the two troopers peered through the basketwork of branches. Murdick's helmet was visible, and the upper bulge of Fizzy's, as the camera panned slowly back and forth. Human murmurs drowned the birdsong on the soundtrack. There was a dragging racket of what seemed like scraping.

— Your yawning drives me crazy,

In the blurred imaging the meadow had a frozen look.

— I hate the dark.

— You've got irons. What are you so nervous about?

— We could be sitting in poison.

— This isn't an iron. It's a camera. Right, Willis?

— That piece is regulation Godseye. It's got thermal imaging.

The mike was bumped, and then: —looks like a particle beam to me, shit-wit,

The dusty blue of the set of woods behind the field turned to a pinker, grayer powder, and was stirred and liquefied into paler light. Yellow seeped in at one edge and soaked the foreground, making it a tufty green. It was dawn on the meadow.

— I don't have a college education, because I don't need one. Listen, I'm not a freak. I didn't come out of a test tube.

"Fucking Murdick," Fisher said, and whirred the tape forward. "He is such a fucking truncheon."

When, the tape resumed, the images rose and fell, and the nodding motion continued in the long tracking shot through the yellow woods. Hooper was photographing the running figures of the aliens, who were chasing the lame deer. The accompanying sounds were of tramping feet — the troopers' big boots — and of branches being punched, and They don't look like mutants to me — and the aliens' laughter.

Hooper had remembered the slant of morning light striking through the leaves, and the surprising speed of the aliens as they high-stepped through the ferns and low hollies that grew beneath the hickories. But he had forgotten all those unusual sounds — the muttering birds, the screeching insects, the aliens' delighted yells.

The men had raced ahead and were circling in order to maneuver the deer into the clearing, where they could use their nets. As they changed direction, the young woman crossed over, and there was a clear shot of her turning just in front of a curtain of sunlight.

Hooper pointed the mouse at her and froze her.

He caught her in a hurdler's posture, her legs fully extended front and back — she was leaping a fallen tree. Her face was bright with effort and strength, and she was barefoot. She wore a loose shirt and thin green trousers. Her shirtfront had jumped and he could see her smooth stomach and the curved undersides of her bare breasts. Her hair, sunburnt in patches, whitened and blond, was cut short, except for a single braid at the back of her neck. Her hair was shorter than that of the men who ran ahead, and for a moment she had seemed like a beautiful boy among dark witches and hags. She was well off the ground — a good healthy bounce — and she was young. Sixteen, Hooper thought, because he did not dare tell himself less.