The Passenger (The Passenger, #1)(86)

Is the big one coming?

What do you think?

Probably.

Yeah. Probably. Like probably the sun rose this morning. Jesus. I could be home in bed you know.

What is Base One?

Forget it. I’m not going into organizational structure with you. You wouldnt know what to do with it anyway. You’re a nosey guy I can tell already and you’ll think you can ferret out data about automorphics and replicates plus all the noncommutational stuff you get into when you start looking at four-dimensional lattices and then we’re back to the same dreary bullshit about what’s real and what aint and who gets to say. Some of this stuff is its own log by definition and pretty much the whole shebang is running at twenty-four seven culpability. So why dont we just move it along.

Okay.

Jesus. That was easy. Anyway, it’s just a way of speaking. Base One could be a paytoilet in the subway station at Twelfth and Broadway. Who gives a shit?

A phone rang.

Good, said the Kid. Saved by the bell. He dealt about him in his flapping clothes and dredged up a telephone and clapped it to his ear. Yeah, he said. Okay. Christ and his dripping disciples is there a full moon or what? Where does all this dingbatry hail from? Yeah sure. I dont give a solitary rhapsodic fart what he said. Tell fuckface I’m on sabbatical and I’ll be back when the winds change.

He stopped the better to listen. The wind wrapped his clothes about him. Western waited.

All right. Fine. He thinks the whole thing cant go up in flames? Good. He’s welcome to his incinerated opinions. Yeah. We downloaded all that. It’s been checked and rechecked. No. We’re in a thunderstorm here. Out on the beach. I’d send you the coordinates but I cant see my watch. It’s dark as the inside of a cow. Yeah. The guy’s sister. She offed herself a few years back. No. He doesnt have a fucking clue. Okay. Roger and out. Yeah yeah sure sure. They’re a pack of clamorous and gaping assholes and you can tell em I said so.

He rang off and shoved the phone into his clothes and set off down the beach again shaking his head. Never a respite from this bullshit. Well fuck it. One more passenger. Off to where? You yourself were seen boarding the last flight out with your canvas carrion bag and a sandwich. Or was that still to come? Probably getting ahead of myself. Still it’s odd how little folks benefit from learning what’s ahead. Dont they look at the ticket? Curious. Those shadows are actually shorebirds going downcoast in this crap. Where the fuck do they think they’re going?

What if I ask you a peculiar question?

Jesus, said the Kid. This’ll be rich. He’s strolling on the beach at midnight in a thunderstorm with his dead sister’s psyche and he wants to know if he can ask a peculiar question. You’re nothing if not fucking droll, are you? Sure. Fire away. I can hardly wait.

What do you know about me?

Well shit. I didnt think it would be that peculiar. What do you care? And why is this about you?

How about just a fact or two?

Sure. Fact one: He’s five feet eleven. Fact two: He weighs a hundred and fifty-two pounds.

You sure about that? I used to weigh more.

You used to eat more.

They trudged on. The wind was picking up. The Kid turned his shoulder to the blowing spume. Sand went seething down the beach in the dark.

I guess I’m not going to get to see any of your dog and pony shows.

No? What is this then?

I cant say it’s been all that entertaining. Could we stop for a minute?

Sure.

The Kid turned and faced him.

What you want me to believe, said Western, is that you came here to help her in some way.

Help her in what way? She’s dead.

When she was alive.

Jesus. How do I know? You see a figure drifting off the screen and you pick up the phone. How do you know that the call of the coletit from the bracken is not really the lamentations of the damned? The world’s a deceptive place. A lot of things that you see are not really there anymore. Just the after-image in the eye. So to speak.

What did she know?

She knew that in the end you really cant know. You cant get hold of the world. You can only draw a picture. Whether it’s a bull on the wall of a cave or a partial differential equation it’s all the same thing. Jesus. It’s come a fucking gale. Can we walk?

Okay. If you took a test what sort of test would it be?

You mean like the Minnesota Multiphasic to see if you are ker-aazy? He waggled his flippers and rolled his head about.

Is that the kind it would be?

There aint no test so there aint no kind it would be.

Did she have a specific name? As a project?

No. We never found a place to put her. We just tried to keep her alive. She wouldnt profile. The diodes would light up No Entry and you could try again but that was really pretty much it. There’s just a blank in the schema. Like an anomaly in a spectrograph. You could sort out a new template, but there’s nothing you can do with it. Things dont work out? Yeah, well. First trials prone to failure and all that. You make some corrections. Run the program again. A few home truths in the mix. Life is life. You share half your genes with a cantaloupe.

What about you?

What about me what?

Do you share half your genes with a cantaloupe?

No. I am a fucking cantaloupe. Can we move it along a bit?

Why didnt she fit any of the templates?

Because none of the templates fit.