Paul Theroux - O-Zone

Murdick clutched his weapon and put his horror-helmet against the porthole of the banking rotor. Meesle stuck his face against the ground-screen.

"Let me know if you see anything," Murdick said. He was already in a firing posture — excited again.

"Don't you worry."

But they were both fearful too, Hooper thought. This could be dangerous, crossing into a no-go area of Brooklyn at four-thirty on a black winter morning, out of the range of skylights. They had dropped south in the course of their several chases. They now passed over two sealed and lighted bridges. Hooper recognized the Navy Yard in a pool of light, and then the gunship banked and brought them southeast over low dark rooftops. They spotted a figure on the ground, and as the gunship descended the figure moved, began to run.

"That one's definitely from out of town," Meesle said.

There was a kind of silly humor — never funny — that always was a part of violence, and Hooper regarded murderers now as terrible clowns.

"Bring us down," Murdick was saying. "Give me a clear shot and watch him melt." He turned his demon face on Hooper and said gloatingly, "Liquid!"

Meesle said, "Why not chase him a little bit?"

And they did, with teasing hesitation, letting the man get away, and then piling over him and turning on the howlers and driving him into a different direction.

"He looks guilty as heck," Meesle said of the stumbling man.

Hooper was touched by the murderous man using the word "heck."

The man on the ground seemed confused — cornered, panicky; and once again Hooper was reminded of how anyone chased by a gunship like this looked and behaved like an alien.

"Easy," Murdick said, taking aim.

"The way I look at it, that clam's dead already," Meesle said, and sounded disgusted. He was addressing Hooper, who had stayed in his safety clamp because of the gunship's jolting. "The ideal thing is to find a hot one. Home in on a crime. A swarm, say, or a mugging, or someone jogging home with loot in his hand. Then we go howling in and scorch him."

Hooper noticed for the first time that certain details on Meesle's skull mask were luminescent. These features glowed at him from above the ground-screen. This childishness made Meesle seem more dangerous.

"Sometimes we drop someone down as bait or a decoy. Some Roach we've had in the jug. Or one of those moldy guys they call worms, that turn up in the subway." Now the man's real eyes looked as hideous as the painted features on the mask, and they widened in the greeny glow of the sockets. "As soon as they wet their teeth on him, we scorch. That can be beautiful. With a woman or a couple of kids as bait it's" — and he paused, savoring the pleasure of it—"hey, you can make movies?"

"Watch," Murdick said.

"But winter in Brooklyn," Meesle said. "Perimeter Redhook. It's too cold. They don't run. It's just scabs like him—"

The man was cornered, averting his eyes from the lights.

"Listen to how quiet this beast is," Murdick said.

He was speaking of his weapon. There was no sound. There was no light. There was only the tock of the start button. The man simply collapsed on the ground and remained there, flopped over his twisted legs.

"Now he's pliable," Murdick said. "Now he's open to suggestions."

"And now you can pick him up and drop him in O-Zone," Hooper said, "so he can get nosebleeds and raise a family of Roaches."

"We don't do things like that," Meesle said. "We just run them out of here."

"Ever think maybe they belong here?" Hooper said, throwing his body clamp off and facing Meesle.

But all Meesle said was, "I never think that," and to Murdick, "Your friend's getting excited."

"It's crime prevention, Hooper."

Flatty's voice came from the wall: "We just did a scan on him. He's not carrying anything. What shall we do with him?"

"I don't want that garbage on board," Sluter said.

The gunship hovered in the uprush of steadying air.

"Burn him down," Meesle said.

"Don't!" Hooper said.

But Murdick had already fired. The crumpled man moved under a dart of light from another of Murdick's weapons; and then the corpse shimmered and seemed to rise, and went black. It was then only a smear of gray ashes.

"I used a flechette," Murdick said.

"I took his picture," Meesle said. "He was smiling."

The gunship had risen, they were spinning. Hooper moved away from the two men for relief, and he watched at the porthole, wishing he were elsewhere. Across the river, New York was bright and tall, lovely under its skylights, a narrow island of turrets and towers. There were glistening pinpoints of frost in the winter air, and the flashing blips of other rotors moving among the buildings. Here the streets were dark; only in the distance were there stripes of light — the corridors and access routes through ruined and unsecured areas. They were passing over these ruins now, staying low and keeping silent on reduced power, moving like a heavy insect toward Greenpoint.

At the ground-screen, Meesle said, "I've got a clear image of something upright."

"A woman," Murdick said, studying the image. He was excited. "Don't let her see us. She's just walking."

Hooper sensed the gunship lift and pause, but the figure on the ground-screen kept moving, still tracking slowly — a gray shadow crowded by darkness. What was she doing at this hour on a Brooklyn back street?

"It's like I said — ideal." Meesle was peering at the screen. "She's like bait. She's certain to attract an outlaw. She's probably a scab herself."

Hooper said, "From this altitude, doesn't everyone look like a scab?"

"That sounds hostile," Meesle said, and then he murmured, "Stay high and get a clear image of her."

They did so, and the shadow on the screen was replaced by a red point of light.

"Here comes Skelly. What did I tell you?"

Another pinprick on the screen moved toward the first one.

Murdick said, "Shuffle, shuffle."

Meesle said, "Let it happen."

The two glowing.points of light came together and made one red bud.

"We're dropping," Sluter called from the cockpit.

But before he had finished speaking they had dropped the whole distance, an accelerated fall that was checked just above the couple on the street. Murdick was at the firing valve, fussing with the lighted numbers on his sonic stunner, bumping his gloves and saying, "Aw, rats."

"I think it's a rape — she's fighting back."

"Throw something at him!"

Murdick raised his weapon and took aim. This time there was a sound that accompanied that of the start button — of liquid sluiced down a plughole, the suck of rapid water and air — and both figures dropped flat.

"You got the two of them, T-Bone."

"It wasn't me!" Murdick said, and smacked his weapon in disgust. "It's a design fault." He looked again at the victims. "They were too close together."

The bodies lay on the ground, arms and legs all the wrong way, and their hands looking very small and helpless. The gunship's spotlight was so strong it took the color from them,

"Someone's got to go down there," Sluter announced. "They might be carrying IDs."

He was brisk, he was at the controls, he would not have to go down himself.

They feared the ground — especially here, especially at this time of night, in winter-dark Brooklyn. But the ground, anywhere, always held the prospect of danger. Hooper believed that it was partly superstition, because they lived in high towers and usually traveled in rotors. Now no one spoke up. There was no movement in the gunship. Rushing air in the stabilizers was the only sound — that, and the gulp of the rotors. Even the expressions on the horror-helmets seemed peculiarly blank — the dumb things gaping at Hooper. There was silence from the loudspeaker, too, so Sluter and Flatty were holding their breath.