Paul Theroux - O-Zone

He buzzed Hooper. "I'm out — prowling around," he was going to say.

Hooper did not respond.

Fisher sensed that the city noise was hammering him small. He wondered now where he had ever got the courage to go out before, and he felt a retrospective fear — anxiety at what he had done a week: ago, alone.

He tried Hooper's number again. "How about prowling together?" he practiced saying.

But Hooper was off the air.

We're going hot at oh-four-hundred. Want to watch a video while we wait for Murdick and the others? Hey, mister, I'm talking to you."

The big man with the cartridge belt over his shoulder was talking to Hooper by helmet phone, though the two men were only a meter apart in the new-model assault rotor. Hooper thought of it as a gunship; the man called it a "Whoopee." The man's helmet and mask had the Godseye insignia of a sunburst, and the local unit's name—"Snake-Eaters."

His name was Meesle. He was tall, with a full gut and narrow shoulders. Hooper could see that he was proud of his big belly — the way he clapped his hands on it and measured it with satisfaction and seemed to steer himself forward with it. He was not fat overall but he was an assertive shape. He had met Hooper just after midnight and led him blindfolded to this spot. All the while Hooper was thinking: I'm a wealthy man and I let them blindfold me!

Now the blindfold was off, but the rotor's windows were dark. This gunship, Hooper guessed from its size, was probably parked on a tower top way uptown. He could hear the air traffic clearly here.

"This video," Hooper said, "is it something special?"

He suspected that it was a porno disc, for passing the time — or possibly a violent murder. It had always been whispered that some of these squads made tapes of their executions; and now Hooper knew how. He's going to show me a burn, Hooper thought. That's how they get into the mood, all these trigger-happy executives and Owners, these millionaire vigilantes. Yet there was something rather vulgar and scruffy about Mr. Meesle, who probably had a title like Colonel or Commander.

Hooper had come here out of curiosity, but already he regretted it. He was afraid it would all be too much for him, and what was the point? Why had he browbeaten and blackmailed Murdick into getting him a candidate's pass? Because Godseye was only a name, because he knew so little about them. But now that he was here he suspected why he had so far always stayed away from this bunch.

"We had this flick made for us," Meesle said. There was a wink in his voice that Hooper hated. "Special."

That made it sound as if it might be worse than murder.

"What do you think's keeping Murdick?" Hooper said.

He was stalling. He did not want to watch a videotape with this man Meesle. It was too cozy, the pair of them side by side in the parked gunship. Hooper did not want to be near enough to be nudged by this eager man. His distrust of the man had become resentment, and he was angry with Murdick. After that invitation, now he had the nerve to be late! Perhaps that was the little creep's way of getting even.

"That might be him," Meesle said.

Careful, rung-creaking feet rose up the metal ladder that led to the belly of the gunship.

"Murdick."

But the door opened and it was Sluter — so his name badge said — the pilot. He was a slow, suspicious man with sniper's eyes, who in a deliberate way said nothing to Hooper, and when Hooper smiled Sluter stared at his mouth — at the space between his front teeth.

To Meesle, Sluter said, "There's some artillery shells on the pier. Who left them there?"

"That would be Cleary, from Ammo."

"It's no place to leave them."

"Not much we can do about it."

Sluter said, "There's a lot we can do to Cleary."

He was speaking to Meesle but staring crookedly at Hooper.

"We can burn his car and kill his dog."

It came out quickly in a monotone. Hooper thought: He's crazy, he's dangerous.

Sluter's jaws had bony hinges protruding from the back of his cheeks, and his teeth were clamped together. Hooper wondered whether this sense of danger was merely an expression of his own resentment and unfamiliarity here — a first-time feeling, and something cruel in the man's face.

Meesle said, "I'll get him to winch them aboard."

"Artillery shells?" Hooper asked Sluter, and at once he knew the man was antagonized by questions.

Sluter turned his back to them and stuck his elbows out. He was nodding — probably angry; he seemed to be counting.

"Simulated artillery shells," Meesle said. "Noisemakers." He spoke in a friendly way, using his big hands for emphasis. "They startle and disable. We've got real ones, too, but we don't normally use them inside the city limits."

It was after three o'clock in the morning, and even Meesle's friendly voice seemed harsh; time was slow-moving, and the lights too bright. Hooper felt inattentive and fragile because of the hour. He hated missing sleep, not because it made him tired but because he became stupidly wakeful— extreme fatigue gave him insomnia. He was risking that just to have a look at Godseye!

Abruptly, breaking the silence, Sluter said, "We might have a surprise inspection tonight. They'd want to see everyone's pass."

Hooper understood what he was driving at. Who is this stranger? Sluter was thinking. Doesn't he know this is a secret organization? What right does an outsider have to be here on a hunt? And is he really an Owner? Hooper had always believed the typical Godseye trooper to be someone like Sluter — a man whose feverish suspicions misled him and kept him from knowing anyone well.

"You're responsible, Meesle."

"I've got a pass," Hooper said. "It's signed by Murdick."

"Murdick says he's a snake-eater."

"I've seen some of Murdick's snake-eaters," Sluter said.

"Listen, this is the guy who was with him in O-Zone when Murdick wasted those aliens."

It seemed to Hooper just as well that Murdick had told them the lie, because he did not trust himself at this moment to sound convincing on Murdick's behalf.

"He saw Murdick burn them all down!"

Sluter did not hear any of this — chose not to hear it. He had walked over to a porthole and cranked it open.

"Those artillery shells are still sitting out there," he said.

Meesle didn't react. Hooper now admired the way Meesle could be both friendly and stubborn.

"Well, it so happens that we're planning to watch a video. You're welcome to join us, Skipper. We'd love to have you. And after that we can worry about the artillery shells."

He placed his hands on his belly and spread his fingers to contain it in a good grip.. He seemed very contented that way, holding himself like a man dangling in deep water with a flotation device.

But Sluter was gone. He had the sulky person's way of suddenly disappearing — eclipsed by his own shadow and muttering as it happened, the mutters becoming part of the incoherent background, like another eclipse, the sound equivalent of shadow. There was something about his bad temper that made him seem insubstantial: he easily vanished. Meesle did not mind. He looked happy in the fishbowl front of his black helmet. He pressed a switch on the video machine and lit the screen. He said, "Are we nice and comfortable?"

"Let's get this over with," Hooper said, rotating his chair toward the screen.

The word "INTRUDER" solidified on the screen, and then melted into the shape of an actual man entering a darkened house through a window. Finding his way with a flashlight, he opened a desk and removed a small tray of rings, and then rifled some drawers for papers, and moved quickly through a room, snatching small pretty figures of glass and silver from shelves and pocketing them.