Richard Powers - The Echo Maker

Mark holds up his hands. Everybody just relax. Regroup. I know he was there because I remember him.

It’s like the moment in a thriller when the guy reaches underneath his chin and pulls off the latex face.

You remember? Who…? What are you saying?

All right: so Mark doesn’t remember the hitchhiker himself. But he remembers talking to him. As plain as this conversation. Must have picked him up a while earlier, because they were in the middle of some kind of interview guessing game. Questions the hitchhiker wasn’t directly answering, except with hints. Warmer, colder kind of thing. Guess the secret.

Rupp is upset, which doesn’t happen often. He’s all: Hang on. What exactly do you remember?

But the details aren’t worrying Mark right now. He’s after the full jigsaw. Which is exactly what everybody wants to keep him from seeing. Some kind of systematic cover-up, to keep him from finding out too much about what he’s stumbled into. Look at the facts: A few minutes after he picks up this angel hitchhiker in the middle of nowhere and starts in on this whole Twenty Questions thing, he has an accident. Then, in the hospital, something happens to him on the operating table. Something that conveniently erases his memory. And when he does come back to himself, they’ve swapped out his sister, who might help him remember, and replaced her with a fake who keeps him under 24/7 surveillance. That’s a lot to call coincidence. And then they set him up in a parallel Farview. A whole live-in experiment, with Mark as the lab monkey.

What about us? Duane wants to know. How come they didn’t swap us out? He sounds offended. Left out.

Isn’t that obvious? You two don’t know anything.

This pisses Duane off. But Mark doesn’t have time to make every little point. He’s got to get them to see how big this must be, in order for the government to throw around that kind of money, replacing a whole town.

Jesus, Duane says, starting to grasp the scale. What do you think they’re up to?

That’s just the thing. That must have been what the hitchhiker was hinting at. Warmer. Colder. They’re using this place for some project. Either they need some big old empty spot with nobody in it. Or there’s something specific they need — something special about life out here.

Rupp snorts. Something special ? About life out here ?

Mark pushes them. Think: something so close we don’t even see it anymore. Something we do that nobody else does.

Duane almost chokes on a bratwurst. Wheat. Meatpacking. Migrating birds.

Good Christ, Mark says. The birds . How could we have missed it? Don’t you two remember? When did I have my accident?

Nobody says anything, it’s so obvious. The few weeks of the year when their godforsaken nowhere becomes world famous.

And I haven’t even told you the key: when I was going door to door with the note? There was somebody…Somebody kept popping up, although never exactly…

It’s like Rupp isn’t even listening. Doesn’t even follow the logic. Just asks: How do you know it’s the government?

This is exactly what Mark is trying to tell him. He’s been followed around for weeks by someone who can only be Daniel Riegel. The Bird Man. Plus, the guy has conveniently gotten involved with the fake Karin. And you know exactly who he works for, don’t you?

Daniel? Danny Riegel? He doesn’t work for the government. He works for the damn Crane Refuge.

Which is a government…which gets most of its money from…

You know, I think it might actually be a government operation, Cain says. Come to think.

You are totally whacked. Rupp tries to laugh, but it comes out small-caliber.

Public outfit, anyway, Duane says. Public sanctuary.

It’s not public. It’s a foundation. A privately funded…

It’s definitely got some kind of state affiliation…

Everybody shut up for a second? You’re missing the point. Suppose this guy I picked up was a terrorist. Months after. Trying to strike at something really…American. And suppose the government…

You never picked anyone up, Rupp says. There was no hitchhiker.

How do you know? You told me you weren’t fucking there .

Maybe Mark Schluter yells a bit. Rupp and Cain, too. It’s a little distressing, truth be told. They all chill for a minute, just sit and watch the turkey vultures pick at the squirrel pile. But the picnic is basically over.

We should get back to your place, Rupp says. Check out that Guard letter.

Don’t do me any favors, Mark tells him.

But they pack up and pile into Rupp’s ’88 Chevy 454. Rupp drives, Duane rides shotgun, and Mark takes one of the jumps, like old times. Only he’s beginning to see there are no more old times, if there ever were any. Rupp has the new Cattle Call CD on the player, Hand Rolled . A song called “I’ve Had Amnesia for as Long as I Can Remember.” It sounds like gelded goslings, the same old crap CC has been singing since the band got paroled. But Duane gets all jumpy and Rupp punches the player to skip the track, like it embarrasses him. Which only makes Mark want to go back and listen closer.

They’re coming back Route 40, just before the Odessa turnoff, when a big buck breaks from a copse and leaps across the road in front of them. It’s dead for the truck, a missile aimed at the hood. Not even time to scream. But just as the creature reaches them, Rupp twists into a power skid that takes them over the center line and back twice. The deer stops, on the far shoulder, baffled. It so badly expected to be dead that it doesn’t know what to do with the changed itinerary. Only when the thing shakes itself and runs off into the trees do the three humans revive.

Jesus fuck .

Both friends look at Mark. Rupp grabs his knee, Duane his shoulder. You all right, man? Damn it, we were gone. Finished.

But nothing’s happened, really. The truck isn’t even scratched, and the deer will get over it. He’s not sure why they want him to be so upset.

God damn, Duane keeps jabbering, cranked. We were done. Life insurance payout time. How the hell did you do that? Turning before I even saw the thing.

Rupp is shaking. Duane and Mark try not to look, but there it is. Mr. Natural Guardsman, quivering like a Parkinson’s guy on stilts in an earthquake. Deer tried to kill us, he says. Faking his old self. But they see now, see him. I’m telling you, that maniac tried to jump through our windshield. The fucking video game saved our life. He looks at his hands, which are triggering. If I hadn’t played hundreds of hours of that video game, we’d all be toast.

Rupp restarts the truck and pulls back into the right lane. Cain howls like a coyote. He can’t believe he’s gotten lucky, for once in his life. He punches the air. Jesus, Jesus. What a trip. He punches the glove compartment, which pops open. He pulls out a little black communicator, something Mark’s seen before. Duane presses it up to his face, chewing into it like some kind of cop. Yo, there, Saint Peter, good buddy? Cancel those three reservations you were holding for this evening? Goat-head.

At the word, Mark is up out of the jump seat, grabbing at the communicator. Give me that. But he doesn’t really need to hold it. He’s held it before. Or one just like it.

Put it away, Rupp commands. Cain scrambles with the glove compartment, keeping the communicator from Mark. But there’s no putting it away again.

Mark’s finger swings between the two of them, a waving pistol. You? I was talking to you two? You two were the hitchhiker? I don’t get…how am I supposed to…?

Rupp lays into Cain. You stupid shit-for-brains. He’s driving with one hand, grabbing at the communicator with the other. In the scrimmage, he comes up with it. He chucks it out the driver’s-side window, like that’s the answer to all questions. He glares at Cain, ready to kill him. You pointless gamete. What were you thinking?