Paul Theroux: O-Zone

"But this is O-Zone."

"All the more reason!"

The rest of them worked in their masks, saying very little, taking orders from Hooper, who had not stopped talking.

"Let's give ourselves a big area," he said. "It'll take longer but it'll be worth it. We'll have some space to scratch in. And we can go for a hike afterward — on foot. You like hikes and outings, don't you, Fizzy?"

"Less than four hours of sunlight left," Fisher said. He was still agitated from the flight; the computer work had not soothed him. "Sunset is at seventeen-twenty-nine."

"Afraid of the dark?" Hooper said.

"Porker!" Fisher cried. "Herbert!"

The Murdicks and the Eubanks carried equipment, looking up from time to time to marvel at the place — at their good luck in having been granted permission to come here.

"Did you see the birds? Woodpeckers and mourning doves. And Willis says there's wild turkeys around. Isn't this something special?"

"Rinka saw some butterflies. We haven't seen butterflies in ages."

"Wouldn't you just love to pick some of those flowers? Only it's forbidden." This was Holly Murdick speaking. She made a face, "They could make you real sick. They could cripple you. You could grow a hump."

"Listen. Everything's got a different noise here — even the trees."

The whispers continued — the travelers were both nervous and grateful. One of the traits they shared was an alertness for the slightest sound, because a noise so often meant danger. It did not matter that they had been told that no other human beings existed here. Their suspicion and fear had given them an unsleeping habit of stealth. They were like certain timid animals in the watchful way they pricked up their ears and prepared their site; and even after it was wired and the whole of the exterior secured, they did not relax. Beneath their most easygoing expression was a twitch of attention. They listened as if with cats' whiskers, and in their soundest sleep was a monitoring throb that kept them awake to danger. They felt stupid rather than vulnerable, for they knew how dependent they were on their electronic equipment — their systems and devices were capable of spotting things they could never see.

This was proved only minutes after the circuit was complete. They heard a bleep and at the same time the snap of the light switch and a brief camera whine just beyond the area where the rotors were parked.

"Get down!" Hardy said.

They dropped to their knees, then forward onto their hands and elbows, turning their masks sideways to see.

"I knew this whole trip was a mistake," Barry Eubank said. "We didn't have to come all this way to get hurt."

"Be quiet, Dad," his wife whispered, embarrassed by the man's whimpering. "It's probably nothing."

"I've got irons," Willis Murdick said. "I'll burn down the first thing that moves."

"Don't burn me, Murdick — I'm moving," Hooper said, and hurried toward the activated eye. He kept his head down and his weapon forward.

Fisher lay against the stone surface of the plaza shelf. He was squinting and speechless with fear.

Hooper then trotted heavily back, grinning through his faceplate. He tonged a dead thing out of a bag and spread it on the stone surface. It lay like soft gray fruit with bad flesh and dark bruises. Moura's hands were over her faceplate and she had gone off the air.

"You know she hates rats," Hardy said. "Why are you such a fool, Hoop?"

"Squirrel," Hooper said. "And not any old squirrel."

Fisher raised his mask and angled it so that he could see. It was not large—"Eighteen centimeters," he said — and it had been burned on the beam: the singe mark was printed on its spine. It was still whole. It was skinny and strangely deformed. It had a stumpy tail, and its brain lay outside its skull, encased in a sac of membrane.

"It's a mutant," Fisher said.

"Ain't that good news?" Hooper said, and squeezed the thing with his tongs, making its eyes bulge.

"He means," Fisher said, "we won't find any people here. Not even Roaches or Trolls. They wouldn't have lived through the heavy doses of rads."

"Or their brains might have burst out of their heads," Holly Murdick said.

"They couldn't survive with undeveloped crania," Fisher said. "So that's a stupid thing to say."

"It's a joke, sweetie," Holly said quietly, and kissed her faceplate at him.

"I don't think jokes are funny." Fisher stared at her with cold eyes, then pushed the squirrel into Hooper's bag and sealed it. He said, "I'm keeping this specimen, to study."

There was only one job remaining before they could move in: the sealing of their rooms. Hooper had chosen the units from the lower floors of the second Firehills tower, and each group was responsible for sealing and decontaminating its own unit. It was not a matter of radioactivity — they had measured that before even cracking the canopies of their rotors and they had made sure that the level was safe. "Low-level mutagens," Fisher said, and traipsed up and down with a scanner, poking the others in the leg.

But there was dust everywhere and there was always the possibility of danger from whatever new viruses or strains of bacteria had emerged here. This was the reason they kept their masks and suits on, and wore gloves and boots. The units had to be made safe before they could be used as living quarters; before the cushions could be brought in and inflated or any of the provisions unpacked; or any of the hardware set up — the monitors, the phones, the lights, the insulated pods they called sleep capsules.

Hardy was filling the cracks in one of his rooms. His apparatus was bulky — a sort of plump fire extinguisher which he carried in a backpack. He was working the nozzle over a deep crack when he looked up and saw Hooper enter.

"I was just thinking," Hooper said dreamily, showing the gap in his teeth.

Hardy switched off his machine and shifted its weight so that he could stand straight and face his brother. "You look like you're enjoying yourself," he said.

"Why does that surprise you?"

"You have a rather frightening habit of saying, 'I've tried everything.' You're hard to impress." "This is different," Hooper said, and began pacing. "Wouldn't Dad have loved this condo? It's not that old, but this is the old world."

Hardy said, "There are probably thousands of them in O-Zone, all empty."

"It's real brick, you know. This stone wasn't poured. There's even wood in some of the rooms. I mean, actual lumber — not this superior sawdust we get in New York. The Murdicks don't like it! They're putting up a bubble outside. Nice and new. You know Willis. And he claims he's got some special food for us."

Hooper was walking around the room — stepping over Fisher as he did so — and rapping on the walls and windows, testing their strength in an admiring way.

"When I dream about buildings, I dream about things like this — old empty towers in a green wilderness. A big sky and no wires."

But Hardy was puzzled by his brother's sour tone of voice. "Why do you sound so resentful?"

"Because of the trouble it took us to get here, and it isn't even far," Hooper said. "And we've only got a forty-eight-hour pass, and then it's back to Coldharbor. That's not fair."

"I'll never get another permit if we break the rules."

Hooper glanced at Fisher, who was injecting the squirrel through the transparent bag, and then showing his teeth at the dead thing as if he had been contradicted.

"Besides," Hardy said, "it's probably not even safe here."

"That's good news. Mutagens, right, Fizz? That'll keep this place in shape."

He started to leave, then paused and returned.

"It's amazing what happens to a place if you leave it alone," Hooper said. "It just goes its own way. It stays alive. It grows. It gets better!" He smiled and looked wildly around and said, "There must be people like that. Do you suppose there are? That were left alone? Innocent friendly little forest people? I'd like to see one with her face pressed against the window, I'd be grateful for her, she'd be grateful for me— that's love, Fizzy."