Paul Theroux - O-Zone

Bligh enjoyed these trips — the search-and-scan missions, these outings. She recognized the features of the land — she told Hooper their names. The word O-Zone meant nothing to her; she called the area "our quarter" and explained that there were also people living in the other three quarters of "the Territory." What people? Hooper wondered. O-Zone was officially empty, and it was certainly a Prohibited Area. Bligh claimed it was full of people. They had camps — some had houses! They had water! They farmed and hunted! And what they didn't have they found in all the abandoned houses in the empty towns. Deserted and radioactive O-Zone was a sort of thriving state of industrious aliens!

"The first time I saw it I thought it was paradise," Hooper said. "But that's because I thought there were no people in it."

"That's selfish," Bligh said.

Hooper was surprised by how quickly and easily she said it; and she was right, of course.

She said, "Don't you like people?"

"I like to think there are places in the world where there are no people," Hooper said. "Empty places, that will never change. I thought O-Zone was one. I guess I was wrong."

"We didn't change it," Bligh said. "We lived close to the ground, and I thought it was a pretty easy life, until you took me away." She was now looking out of the side porthole of the rotor. "Now I know how hard it was. And we've been very hungry lately. The hunting was bad. We ate our dogs."

Hooper asked for more, but she had fallen silent. She often fell silent and shook her head when trying to talk about the past. She resisted, pretending there was nothing to say. She was not superstitious; she was doubtful, watchful, wary.

"Was it there?" he asked, because she seemed to be looking at something.

He took her silence to mean no.

He said, "Fizzy would know," and felt helpless.

This third trip was the last reentry allowed on the Access Pass. Remembering that, Hooper radioed Hardy.

"Homeward-bound, brother," he said when he found Hardy's frequency.

"Leave a message," Hardy's line automatically replied. "We will find you."

Hardy had specifically said: No detailed messages on this subject, unless in an agreed code — so Hooper said nothing, He was becoming discouraged, and what was so frustrating was the thought that if he hadn't lost the boy this would all be perfect. He hated the thought that Fizzy was both a swap and a sacrifice, and he knew that it would be very hard to snatch him back. He hoped he was alive. He counted on the boy's indestructible intelligence. And they had all that food — those weapons, the suit and helmet. And yet Hooper went on punishing himself with the thought that Fizzy was living among wolves.

Bligh was still looking away. Hooper said, "See anything?"

She had a way of wincing that made her seem both innocent and incompetent: that wince meant no, too.

She probably thought of him as a wolf. He knew she was not yet sure of him. How could she be sure in such a short time? So he was careful, he didn't want to frighten her: no shocks, no surprises, nothing heavy. Anyway, New York was strange enough for now. After all the trouble he had taken to find her, he did not want to lose her.

He wanted to say: Through you I can understand the world. Everything looks different and better.

"Why are you smiling?" she said.

"Because I've just realized I want to go on living."

She shook her head, indicating that she did not understand. Did a fifteen-year-old ever doubt that you went on living? She said, "I love these straggling ravines. Those are all pines." She was narrating over the ground-screen, fascinated by the images. "The roads are just black stripes. A few roofs. Now I see why you didn't think there were any people here."

She moved her small stubby finger on the screen, and frowned at it — a strand of hair coming loose from her helmet and brushing her cheek as she turned her head. He was especially touched by her slight flaws. Every imperfection in her roused his love.

She saw him watching her that way — his eyes pleading and possessive.

"You could have had anyone," she said. His steady gaze seemed to make her uncomfortable. "Why did you choose me?"

Hooper laughed to think that she meant she was unimportant. She still did not realize how difficult she had been. She had seemed just about unattainable. She was practically a child, she was an alien, she was living in the most forbidden of Prohibited Areas.

"I almost killed myself trying to find you," Hooper said "And of course that was one of the attractions," he added, anticipating her next question. "The difficulty of it all" — but he was smiling—"the risk." Then, remembering, he said, "I lost my nephew!"

"They'll look after him. They're not killers."

"He's a strange boy. You don't know him."

"You didn't know me," she said. "You still don't."

"When I saw you I wanted you," he said. "That was enough."

She became silent within her helmet and looked out of the side porthole to think.

"And you didn't know me," he said. "That's another reason I love you. I don't trust the word of anyone who knows me."

He wanted to add, Everyone lies to the rich, but it sounded like a whimper, and nothing was more disgusting to him than the rich portraying themselves as victims — and it was one of their most common complaints, saying they were weak, and rather burdened and powerless, and often claiming to be poor. Once, he had whimpered. No more.

"It was dark that morning," she was saying.

She believed that was the only time he had seen her. Hooper did not say that he had watched her on tape, or that he had murdered the two net-men who had cornered Murdick. He was thankful that she never mentioned those deaths. Her fearlessness was her best characteristic; and he loved her most at her most animal. Animals never mourned,

"You say you wanted me," she said, her voice breathy and incredulous. She did not know how strong she was. "But I had nothing. Nothing."

He said, "Yes!"

She winced slightly at his enthusiasm.

"I loved that most of all," he said.

"That word," she said.

"What's wrong with saying 'love'?"

She shrugged. "It's such a waste of words."

But her wide-awake way of saying that made him love her. "I thought I had everything," he said. "And then I realized I didn't have you."

She pushed the faceplate of her helmet up, as if to see him better. The clear sky brightened her eyes, and they pierced him.

"And that you didn't have me," he said, "Maybe I shouldn't tell you these things."

"Maybe," she said. "I'd feel a lot sexier if you weren't so serious!"

She laughed. He now knew that laugh. It was not companionable, and it was not intended as encouragement. It was more like a warning that he had gone too far.

She did not say anything more for a while — for minutes, which was many clicks at ground speed. They were nearing the perimeter. She looked at the ground-screen and said — it was the kind of whisper that is like a vagrant thought—"I thought I was going to die there."

Not there below: by the time she got the words out the rotor was far beyond it, homeward-bound at high speed. Bligh had no idea of air distances, but that ignorance was in Hooper's favor. She believed the short flight meant that they were still very close to the camp she called home. She did not know — how could she? — that New York was fifteen hundred clicks from O-Zone.

A Federal attack rotor escorted by two chase planes drew level with Hooper.

"Reduce speed and identify yourself."

It was only then that Hooper realized he had entered the Red Zone of the perimeter. Fizzy would have given him plenty of warning.

"Hooper Allbright and passenger, en route to New York."

"Identify passenger and give Access Code."