Paul Theroux - O-Zone

"The things I've seen!" he said. "And not just on those screens. I'm not talking about over the river, which is pretty terrible. Or beyond that, where it's hell. I'm talking about right here. The power failures, the inefficiency, the new so-called styles of clothes, some of which means no clothes whatsoever-supposedly decent people, Owners, pretending to be Starkies. And self-delusion. And old technology. And junk people."

Moura brought him into focus.

"New York," she said.

"The world, really."

And he frowned again at the monitors, this time importantly, as if to say I'm leaving.

"This planet is very backward," Captain Jennix said.

But Moura didn't believe in the salvation of space, and she certainly was not going to pay for a time-share in a rocket. You weren't supposed to call them "rockets"? The Pilgrims were so fervent and deluded, always glued to the launch channel, and pathetically thrilled when another vehicle was boosted into space with a colonist on board. What happened to them? Perhaps they were killed or else stranded; perhaps the few that went were opportunists — merely joyriding. They never advertised their disappointment, or their eager despair.

"When the last good person leaves," Captain Jennix said, scrutinizing her with shrewd pleasure, "we'll burn this planet."

"Don't burn me, captain."

"Join us and we won't have to."

It was wrong to argue with fanatics, or even simple believers — they always ended up by insulting you. Moura had wanted to go into New York, but had only made it to the park beneath Coldharbor, which was no distance at all. She was not consoled by that stupid man who kept telling her it was dangerous out there. If he was so brave, why was he double-locked in a checkpoint and dreaming of a trip to the moon?

Hardy was saying, "Aren't you ever going out again?"

This was at Coldharbor, in their unit high in the tower. He was talking to Fisher and waiting for Moura, who had said she might not be long.

Fisher yawned without covering his mouth, as if replying to Hardy — but a harsh reply of scouring breath.

"Why not go?"

What a change it would be to have Fizzy somewhere else on a Sunday, especially if Moura was coming back soon. He was hoping to persuade Moura to help him sleep. It was no fun sleeping alone, and it was terrible to be observed. He was grateful for her interest. It was what remained of their marriage, their willingness to sleep together — sleep in the recreational sense: the coma. For Hardy it was an important activity; but he always made a point of waking first — he wasn't a distance sleeper.

"There's nowhere to go," Fisher said, because the idea still frightened him. He became slightly nauseous and unsteady on his feet when he remembered that he had spent one whole day prowling New York. That was how his timid and tentative sniffing had seemed — like bold prowling, a kind of confident balancing act, the awkward boy imagining himself like an indestructible cat. But something else within him, a dull inarticulate instinct, held him, and this dumb memory of the danger had kept him indoors ever since. "And there's nothing to do out there."

Against his will, and in silence, like a shadow on the window, he saw the old Skell again — the blue bristly face, the risen veins, the white feet, the black rags. It dripped against the river wall and it whimpered. The creature possessed a dangerous hunger. Fisher hated his own irrationality — these were small cockroachy pests! And then he hated Hardy for rousing the feeling in him. Why was Hardy harping on that lately — about going out?

He had another favorite subject these days, and just then, to Fisher's annoyance, he reverted to it.

"Those pictures," he said, and as the boy began to yawn at him again he went on, "I wish I'd gotten pictures like that in O-Zone."

"They weren't taken in O-Zone."

"Even so" — but he didn't believe Fizzy at all—"they were extremely good. High definition, thermal imaging, overprinted with that data on elevations and distances. What sort of camera was it? It must have been Murdick's, right? I'd like to know where Willis gets his equipment."

Fisher wanted to say, "He's in Godseye." But that reminded him of Murdick's gibe: "If you don't know what Godseye is, you're not as smart as you think you are."

"That was the Ohio valley,"

"It doesn't matter," Hardy said. He knew that Fizzy was telling Hooper's lies. He only wanted him to listen: he needed the boy's help.

Pictures of that quality were what he needed for his Project O-Zone report. But it was not only necessary to have good pictures on the ground; he also needed willing scouts.

Asfalt had not confirmed that the project was secret, because it was more than secret: it was what the company called a ghost — it did not officially exist. Its sensitive nature meant that any research had to be Hardy's voluntary idea. All the responsibility was his, all the risk, all the blame. O-Zone was still classified as highly dangerous, a Prohibited Area. No project could be officially contemplated for such a place.

Yet Hardy had already decided what his next step must be. He was influenced by Fizzy's sudden decision to go out alone in New York — a whole day in the city, off the air! He had been such a coward before. And there was Hooper's new relationship with the boy. Perhaps Hooper had given him the encouragement to spend a day outside the garrison.

This was the answer. Those two could shoot the preliminary survey, the elevations, the aerial grid. They could distribute sensors for relaying wind data and carry out some fieldwork to complete the longitudinal survey.

If Hardy himself took the return trip he would have to keep a secret. With Hooper and Fizzy acting for him, shooting O-Zone for the hell of it — for the pleasure of having a unique Access Pass — no one would suspect him of having a secret. The ghost would be safely invisible. There was another bonus — they apparently had the right equipment and knew how to use it.

Hardy said, "And when I say out, I don't just mean New York. I mean wild places."

He was changing the subject again, and again Fisher saw Brooklyn, the view from the river, the bridges that had been secured against alien gangs, and the lights that could never reassure him, because all they illuminated were the scribbles and the greasy river water and the blackness on Brooklyn's walls.

When he looked up at Hardy, wild places was printed on Fisher's face. It showed in his eyes and on his mouth — doubt, uncertainty, shadows, strangeness.

Hardy said, "I was really impressed with you in O-Zone. The way you took charge and drove the mainframe. Keeping everyone calm. Locating those aliens. Gathering that data—"

Fisher seldom listened to Hardy. He looked at him but his mind was elsewhere, solving problems, usually a kind of baggy geometry of particle physics, like socks he slowly turned inside-out and tucked into matched pairs. In the streams of particles he tried to seize each speck and enlarge it and give it a name. Exodes. Squarks. Antigons. And lately he had become interested in the concept of "wabble," which he saw as the sideways movement of particles, something that had never been described, but crucial to his Theory of Subsequence. His mind was working that way now, but then something urgent in Hardy's voice made him begin to listen.

"Hard information and reliable maps," Hardy was saying. "The graphics could be very useful. In fact, the whole program—"

"It's not a program," Fisher said. He never allowed his work to be praised. He was a perfectionist, and he believed his mind was perfect, but a thing was blunted and coarsened as soon as it was made: pure thought could not be transformed into matter, and nothing could be brought to perfection. "It's just sketches."