Paul Theroux - O-Zone

He ran the video again, scanning it for the girl with bright hair — freezing it when she smiled, freezing it again when energy stiffened her long strides, freezing it and zooming on her face and figure. She was not glamorous; she had the look of a fox; her hair was burned — streaky and short; she had a small head, her feet were large, she had long legs. She was exactly what she seemed: young, pretty, bright-eyed, strong, very fast. She had to be intelligent to have survived there.

"How do you know she's fifteen?" Hooper had asked Fisher.

"I analyzed her bones," the boy had said.

"Her bones!"

"And her teeth."

Her skin was smooth and unmarked. In several shots she was a boy with breasts. She had probably lived her whole life in O-Zone. She had that look. There was a simplicity in her clothes; in her face. Hooper saw this as her strength. She might never have heard of New York, might never have seen another city, apart from the collapsed cities and city-stains of O-Zpne.

Still Hooper worked the video, all the time watching for her. He let her expression change in close-up. She was fresh; and was it innocence or bravery that made her seem so fearless? Hooper felt that for her this city would be magic. And he could bear to live here, if she were with him. You could look anywhere in New York and not see a face so fresh — so eager and happy.

She would want everything she saw. Hooper, who had had all he had ever wanted, had forgotten what desire was like until he had seen her face on the video. He had not even noticed her in the flesh.

"DECODE UPDATE" appeared on her face. The urgent message had found him on a classified emergency circuit, from where it had been re-routed. Obviously it was something needing immediate attention.

Hooper tapped in his security code and released the update.

The girl's face still showed on the screen, but just at the level of her eyes and passing over her brushed-back hair there was a message on a ribbon: "HOUSTON ALLBRIGHT SHIPPING FACILITY AND WAREHOUSE RAIDED AND PARTLY DESTROYED BY FIRE EARLY THIS MORNING. SEE DATE AND TIME ABOVE. SUSPECT ORGANIZED GANG ARSON ATTACK. REQUEST OWNER'S PERMISSION TO CARRY OUT SURVEY OF DAMAGE AND LOSS- FURTHER REQUEST URGENT FUNDING FOR POLICE ACTION AS IN SOUTH FLORIDA STRIKE-FORCE MISSION ON BEHALF OF MIAMI ALLBRIGHT."

The message continued, lengthening and reminding him of last year's terror in Florida — the roundup he had financed. He severed the ribbon and keyed in his orders.

"PERMISSION DENIED," he typed on the screen. "FUNDING DENIED. TAKE NO ACTION." He frowned: he was happy.

Once, a worker had written in one of the anonymous criticisms that he encouraged: "The Owner, Hooper Allbright, is conspicuously absent, and in communications he has an abrupt and arrogant manner that does not inspire loyalty."

He thought of that criticism now. He added to his orders: "THANK YOU ALL FOR YOUR PROMPT ATTENTION," and keyed in his Owner's code. Then entered it and sent it down the wire and concentrated again.

She was running. All exertion was revealing, but hers was particularly so. It was not only her simple strength he found attractive — he had seen enough athletes; it was her enthusiasm, an energy that hinted at happiness. She was probably fierce, too, and as different from any woman he had known as a wolf from a dog.

She was an alien, always hiding, always hunted, totally temporary, with no education, no rights, no legal existence, no individual identity — no disc. All this made her more attractive still to Hooper. She was like a flower in the forest— so new she had no name yet. And he had found her. She was, finally, wild, and Hooper knew that bringing her out of that Prohibited Area might make her wilder still. The idea excited him. She deserved to live.

All this time, while he watched and froze the video — enlarged the image, looked closely at the girl — he saw lights accumulating on the panel of his console. He had activated his receiver for Allbright messages. What was it? Probably warehouse inventories, weekly reports from the depots, losses and gains. Perhaps another raid. He had come to hate the business.

He left the girl on the screen and, watching her, pressed the print button. Out the stuff came — pages of it from the glowing chattering printer, all of it requiring his attention and comment. He reached into the basket and drew out a report, began sorting through it, then dropped it and switched off the printer. He diverted the remainder of the messages to his committee. But the printer was finishing a report. It was programmed to complete a task before it went cold, and with a mind of its own it chattered and pages kept coming.

Hooper shouted at the thing and clawed the pages out of the basket. He was infuriated by this particular report. The raid in Houston had pleased him, and "TAKE NO ACTION" exactly suited his mood. He had asked for a defeat. But this spat-out report was of year-end profits, Christmas sales, cash input, dividends — ten-digit numbers, like new words, like phrases, figures so large they were like whole sentences.

Infuriated — ripping mad — because an outsider would always say how hard it was to make money like this, how easy to find a friend. The girl still leapt on the video screen. If a man could make that much money in the mail-order business he could certainly persuade that girl to join him.

But, no, it might not be easy at all; he was afraid it might be impossible. He would need the best plane he could get — a gunship like Murdick's that could fly backward and sideways and vertically and scan the ground the whole time. He needed a stock of equipment — not the standard.gear from his catalog, but sophisticated weapons, like the stunner he had taken from Murdick (but a stunner that worked properly). He needed navigational devices, like Murdick's; and a bubble-shelter, like Murdick's; he needed help — but he did not need Murdick.

He imagined the tight spot — a strange noise, a shadow, a threat. And Murdick sweating inside his mask and stumbling in new boots. "These are authorized for lunar locomotion!" And perhaps an encounter and unnecessary violence. "I had a spasm!" And perhaps a death. "Aw, rats." Then a hurried flight out and the girl lying wounded or else startled and fleeing. He did not need Murdick at all. It was not that Murdick was wealthy, though that was certainly an important disadvantage — Hooper had begun to see that the rich greatly resembled the aliens, but being more powerful, were a greater threat to everyone. Murdick's special danger was that he was almost certainly impotent, like so many fortyish men whom Hooper knew — like Hardy perhaps; and that limpness, that unwillingness, that lack of response, with his money and his anger, made him a killer.

But Hooper could not navigate, did not have a flight program, and — most crucial of all — did not have an Access Pass, And he knew that even if the miracle happened, giving him solutions to these problems, he was still alone, and if something went wrong in O-Zone he would probably die.

He puzzled and hungered for a week: his desire was a thrilling insufficiency, always leaving him unsatisfied. The New Year's trip to O-Zone had just about wrecked him, and the Godseye mission had done the rest. He had discovered the one thing on earth that he could not have!

Afterward he laughed, because he was thinking just these thoughts — cursing at finding no connections, frustrated that money didn't help, teased and weakened by desire, and sensing that at last he had no control over his life — and he was maddened by his inability to plan a mission to O-Zone. He laughed later and remembered all this pressure, for in the middle of it, perplexed by another imagined difficulty — what if the aliens were armed and attacked his plane? — he heard a call sign.