The Waste Lands (The Dark Tower #3)(144)

“But . . . but …” Jake couldn’t go on. His head was whirling with fear and confusion. He was aware, in some far-off fashion, that he was licking as much water as he could off his lips.

“There’s a thousand of those ever-f*cking dipolar computers right under the ever-f*cking city, maybe a HUNDRED thousand, and the only one that still works don’t do a thing except play Watch Me and run those drums! I want those computers! I want them working for ME!”

The Tick-Tock Man bolted forward on his throne, seized Jake, shook him back and forth, and then threw him to the floor. Jake struck one of the lamps, knocking it over, and the bulb blew with a hollow coughing sound. Tilly gave a little shriek and stepped backward, her eyes wide and frightened. Copperhead and Brandon looked at each other uneasily.

Tick-Tock leaned forward, elbows on his thighs, and screamed into Jake’s face: “I want them AND I MEAN TO HAVE THEM!”

Silence fell in the room, broken only by the soft whoosh of warm air pouring from the ventilators. Then the twisted rage on the Tick-Tock Man’s face disappeared so suddenly it might never have existed at all. It was replaced by another charming smile. He leaned further forward and helped Jake to his feet. “Sorry. I get thinking about the potential of this place and sometimes I get carried away. Please accept my apology, cully.” He picked up the overturned dipper and threw it at Tilly. “Fill this up, you useless bitch! What’s the matter with you?”

He turned his attention back to Jake, still smiling his TV game-show host smile. “All right; you’ve had your little joke and I’ve had mine. Now tell me everything you know about dipolar computers and transitive circuits. Then you can have a drink.”

Jake opened his mouth to say something—he had no idea what— and then, incredibly, Roland’s voice was in his mind, filling it. Distract them, Jake—and if there’s a button that opens the door, get close to it.

The Tick-Tock Man was watching him closely. “Something just came into your mind, didn’t it, cully? I always know. So don’t keep it a secret; tell your old friend Ticky.”

Jake caught movement in the corner of his eye. Although he did not dare glance up at the ventilator panel—not with all the Tick-Tock Man’s notice bent upon him—he knew that Oy was back, peering down through the louvers. Distract them . . . and suddenly Jake knew just how to do that. “I did think of something,” he said, “but it wasn’t about computers. It was about my old pal Gasher. And his old pal, Hoots.” “Here! Here!” Gasher cried. “What are you talking about, boy?” “Why don’t you tell Tick-Tock who really gave you the password, Gasher? Then I can tell Tick-Tock where you keep it.”

The Tick-Tock Man’s puzzled gaze shifted from Jake to Gasher. “What’s he talking about?”

“Nothin!” Gasher said, but he could not forbear a quick glance at Hoots. “He’s just runnin his gob, tryin to get off the hot-seat by puttin me on it, Ticky. I told you he was pert! Didn’t I say—“

Take a look in his scarf, why don’t you?” Jake asked. “He’s got a scrap of paper with the word written on it. I had to read it to him because he couldn’t even do that.”

There was no sudden rage on Tick-Tock’s part this time; his face darkened gradually instead, like a summer sky before a terrible thunderstorm. “Let me see your scarf, Gasher,” he said in a soft, thick voice. “Let your old pal sneak a peek.”

“He’s lyin, I tell you!” Gasher cried, putting his hands on his scarf and taking two steps backward toward the wall. Directly above him, Oy’s gold-ringed eyes gleamed. “All you got to do is look in his face to see lyin’s what a pert little cull like him does best!”

The Tick-Tock Man shifted his gaze to Hoots, who looked sick with fear. “What about it?” Tick-Tock asked in his soft, terrible voice. “What about it, Hooterman? I know you and Gasher was butt-buddies of old, and I know you’ve the brains of a hung goose, but surely not even you could be stupid enough to write down a password to the inner chamber . . . could you? Could you?” “I … I oney thought . . .” Hoots began. “Shut up!” Gasher shouted. He shot Jake a look of pure, sick hate. “I’ll kill you for this, dearie—see if I don’t.”

“Take off your scarf, Gasher,” the Tick-Tock Man said. “I want a look inside it.”

Jake sidled a step closer to the podium with the burtons on it. “No!” Gasher’s hands returned to the scarf and pressed against it as if it might fly away of its own accord. “Be damned if I will!” “Brandon, grab him,” Tick-Tock said.

Brandon lunged for Gasher. Gasher’s move wasn’t as quick as Tick-Tock’s had been, but it was quick enough; he bent, yanked a knife from the top of his boot, and buried it in Brandon’s arm.

“Oh, you barstard!” Brandon shouted in surprise and pain as blood began to pour out of his arm.

“Lookit what you did!” Tilly screamed.

“Do I have to do everything around here myself?” Tick-Tock shouted, more exasperated than angry, it seemed, and rose to his feet. Gasher retreated from him, weaving the bloody knife back and forth in front of his face in mystic patterns. He kept his other hand planted firmly on top of his head. “Draw back,” he panted. “I loves you like a brother, Ticky, but if you don’t draw back, I’ll hide this blade in your guts—so I will.” “You? Not likely,” the Tick-Tock Man said with a laugh. He removed his own knife from its scabbard and held it delicately by the bone hilt. All eyes were on the two of them. Jake took two quick steps to the podium with its little cluster of buttons and reached for the one he thought the Tick-Took man had pushed. Gasher was backing along the curved wall, the tubes of light painting his mandrus-riddled face in a succession of sick colors: bile-green, fever-red, jaundice-yellow. Now it was the Tick-Tock Man standing below the ventilator grille where Oy was watching.