Paul Theroux - O-Zone

"Anything else?" Hardy asked. He hated this inconclusive conversation and wanted to hang up.

"My ticket's expired," Hooper said, sticking to the agreed words.

"I'll try to get you a new one."

"It's been over three weeks without a signal!"

Hardy said, "The package is well-wrapped."

"The package might be coming apart by now," Hooper said. "Its ass might be hanging out. Holes in its boots. A dent in its head."

"I'm getting static," Hardy said. It was the code signal to change the subject. Hardy was nervous about Hooper's obvious language — anyone would know!

"It was a pretty flaky package—"

"Hooper!"

"And it sort of vanished furiously off the screen," Hooper said. "I wish we had some strategy."

"We need more data on the real estate," Hardy said.

"I've got some elevations," Hooper said, ignoring the code. "Some scattered temperatures and wind speeds. But I can't work the program alone. You know who I need."

"I'm getting more static," Hardy said. Why was Hooper going on in this agitated way? "But thanks for news of developments."

"There are no developments," Hooper said, breathing hard.

A message came up on Hardy's monitor. Weathermaker, it said. Hardy said to his brother, "I have to go to a meeting."

But Hooper held on. "What does Moura think?"

"Moura doesn't know. She is a little preoccupied at the moment."

"She's bound to ask," Hooper said, and Hardy guessed that what his brother was really asking was to be excused for this and given an alibi, as if he'd guiltily lost the boy.

But Fizzy was not lost, Hardy felt. Fizzy was stronger than any of them — that was one of his problems. Moura was the one who needed help.

"I think she needs a vacation," Hardy said. "The Murdicks are still looking for people to go to Africa with them."

"Africa." Hooper said the word in a wondering and appreciative way. "What would Moura say to that?"

"Who knows? You ask her how she is and she bursts into tears."

"I have an idea," Hooper said with gusto.

But the words alarmed Hardy. "More static," he said, and this time he hung up.

He had told Hooper he had a meeting, but it was more like a summons; and what was even more surprising was that it was with an unnamed member of the Asfalt board. The key name Control said everything, though: it was one of the budget people.

That too was surprising. Hardy was confident that he had unlimited time and money to gather the data he needed for his thermal mountain in O-Zone. Fizzy, unexpectedly, had become essential to the data search. Who would have thought this difficult child would have a practical use? But he had proven himself, and he had opened up new areas of study: he asked the right questions.

Hooper had felt Hardy was being cold toward the boy— Hardy sensed the criticism in his voice, and he knew his brother was impatient. But he missed Fizzy much more than he had suggested. It was not sentiment, or even stepfather's duty. It was a much greater urgency — it was business. Hardy missed Fizzy deeply, because — apparently — only Fizzy was equipped to find the necessary project data in O-Zone.

"It's awful," Hooper had said in the rotor during their conference. "Fizzy is the only person who could find Fizzy."

"Then he's not lost," Hardy said.

"Where is he?" Hooper said.

"He knows where he is," Hardy said, "We're the ones who are lost."

Now they knew that Fizzy had mastered all the moves. They had doubted him, because he had never left his room. But he had proven to be the best navigator — he had guided them to Firehills; he had the most versatile grasp of the equipment; he could locate aliens, he could complete the survey and program it, put it in code, and enable Hardy to present his project to the board. But the boy had been missing for almost three weeks. Until he turned up, Hardy's job was impossible, and O-Zone remained a distant and featureless island. That was Hardy's lament.

But he was sure that Fizzy would show himself, and when he did he would be more useful than ever, having spent time on the ground. He would have examined the surface of O-Zone, and being Fizzy, he would have kept a log of what he saw — not only temperatures and elevations, but the pattern of variation and the whole geomorphology of the area. He didn't need a wire. He would remember everything: his memory was perfect.

In Hardy's view it was not a tragedy that Fizzy had disappeared. In a crucial sense it could be the answer to the project. The boy would undoubtedly return with the data, and the longer he stayed away, the more he would collect about this unknown area. Hooper had said that the boy might have been abducted; but what proof was there of that?

Once more Fizzy was there, driving the computer synthesizer and squawking. Hooper had taken a walk and returned to find the boy gone — so he had said. No message. Some provisions missing. A weapon gone. Fizzy in his survival suit, waddling away, squawk-squawk. The likeliest explanation was that Fizzy had deliberately dropped to the ground, as he had that January day in New York; and for the same reason — to test his nerve. He had lived in his Coldharbor room for fifteen years! Hardy was certain the boy would be brave. He was equipment-conscious. He had food. He had a weapon. And he had a radio.

"No aliens," Hooper had said. "Fizzy's the only alien in O-Zone."

"Then he's all right," Hardy said.

If I had thought he were in any danger, Hardy explained carefully to himself, I definitely would tell Moura.

Hardy could see the boy fleeing the jet-rotor and hurrying away, daring himself as he went; he saw him sniffing and blinking — making camp, peering out of his helmet, collecting data. He was a strange boy, practically unknowable, a sort of human O-Zone; but with his sixteenth birthday coming up, not really a boy any longer. He may have dropped to the ground for any number of motives. The aspects of his character that made him indispensable also made him unfathomable. He was highly intelligent, he was selfish, he was scientific, he was unpredictable, he was a brat, he was immature, he was perhaps even crazy: he had reasons.

And Hardy felt he had stronger proof that the boy would return. He cynically believed that Fizzy would be back, not because he needed him but because he didn't like the boy. Of course he'd be back — squawk-squawk; and that horrible yawn, and that honking laugh. And Hardy did need him— very badly.

Weathermaker — the message had appeared on the monitor of Hardy's office computer in the middle of his phone call with Hooper — be on the roof prepared to fly at 1430 hours. It was signed simply Control.

He was being summoned to attend a rotor conference. It had been just such a confidential meeting that had given him the idea for his briefings with Hooper, in his own gyrating rotor: their first discussion about Fizzy's disappearance. Hooper had hated this way of conferring. The tight holding pattern and the turbulence upset his stomach, he complained. It was a noisy and distracting way of having a meeting. Hardy said that the beauty of it was that no one at all could monitor them, and the Fizzy problem had to be kept secret.

Looking down into the Hudson River, Hooper had groaned, "I get the feeling that at any moment I'm going to give the wrong answer and be ejected sideways out of the hatch."

"It's not like you to worry about things like that."

Then Hooper had said with real feeling, "I've got a lot to live for, brother."

Now it was Hardy's turn; but he was not discouraged— indeed, he was glad for a chance to discuss his project in confidence. He had not been able to say anything to Hooper, and that was maddening. He was proud of his idea, and he imagined the results being celebrated: Hardy Allbright, weathermaker, reclaiming this portion of America for Asfalt! And not only opening it to settlement and industry but giving it a new weather pattern — giving it more clouds and rain— and creating a garden where there had been luminous radioactivity, and city-stains, and the footprints of roads and broken houses, and caverns glowing with contamination. He would be bringing O-Zone to life.