"Yes, of course," I said flippantly. "It's part of your survival programming, right?"
She looked surprised. "As a matter of fact, yes." And then she added intensely, "But the difference between us and you is that we're in control of our programming. That's Jason's gift. Real freedom. We're not trapped inside the false allegiances and inaccurate connections that you think are your life. You want to live, Jim? We'll teach you to live-and more than that: we'll give you a freedom that you've never experienced before! But the joke is this: everything that's going to happen to you-especially everything we do to destroy your inaccurate allegiances and false connections-is going to look like a threat to your survival. Do you understand what I'm telling you?"
I looked at her. "You're not just a chatty little mad lady, are you? You're the political indoctrination officer. Right?"
She didn't blink. "I asked you a question," she said. "Do you understand?"
"Oh, yes. I do understand." I could feel my hostility rising again. "Maybe more than you think."
"Bullshit," she said. "You don't understand anything. You're still part of the unawakened."
"Unawakened?"
"You're a zombie too," she said. "You're walking around in your own kind of trance. You think you're alive? You don't know what living is. Yet."
I looked away from her. I looked at the sky, the trees, the distant buildings. Anything but her. She waited patiently. Finally, I met her gaze again. "May I have a drink of water?"
She handed me her canteen. The water was warm. "Are you all right?" she asked.
"No," I said. "Did you expect me to be?"
"Are you scared?"
I took another drink. I looked at the ground. I shook my head. I wasn't answering her question, though she must have thought I was. No, I was thinking: Oh, Mamma McCarthy, what has your baby boy gotten himself into this time?
Without looking at her, I shoved the canteen back in her direction. She took it from my hand and said, "Don't worry. You'll get over it." And then she got up and walked away.
7
Loolie
"Paranoids tend to persecute free men."
-SOLOMON SHORT
They had three motorcycles, two canvas-topped army trucks, and a van. And, now, my Jeep.
"Do you want to ride in the van with us?" Jessie asked. "Or in the truck with Orrie?"
I thought about the choice. At least I knew what kind of a danger Orrie represented. "I think I'll ride in the van, thank you." I climbed into the back of the van. The little girl was sitting there, quietly working on a coloring book. She looked up as I climbed in. "Hi," she said. "Are you coming with us?"
"He's our guest, Loolie," said Jessie, climbing in after me. "Sit there," she pointed.
"Oh," said Loolie. "Would you like a sandwich? Would you like something to drink?"
"Uh, no thanks." Suddenly, I was feeling very very bad. I'd been stupid. Loolie was the decoy.
"I made the sandwiches myself," she said.
I gave her a weak smile. "No, thanks."
It wasn't her fault, I told myself. She's too young to realize. How old was she anyway? I couldn't tell. Never mind. That didn't matter. McCain was dead. She must have known. How could she have not known what she was doing? I forced myself to unclench my fists. I wanted to grab her and shake her as hard as I could. Till her eyes bulged and her tongue gagged and her bones broke
Goddammit! I flung myself back against my seat and stared forward, arms folded angrily across my chest. I was going crazy. No. I was already crazy. I was going crazier.
One of the men climbed into the front of the van to drive. The very thin girl with the dark brooding eyes climbed in beside him. She had my gun on her lap. I wondered if she still wanted to kill me. I realized why she looked so familiar.
I had to know. I swallowed my anger. I leaned over to Loolie and whispered, "Is her name Marcie?"
I pointed at the girl. "Uh-huh. "
"I thought so."
"Do you know her?"
"I did once."
Marcie had been in Denver three years ago. She'd lost her dog. Rangle. An unkempt-looking, shaggy, white dog-he'd whined and tried to escape; he screamed when the worm came down on him. She never knew. I never told her. Instead, I slept with her. Did she remember? Was that the source of her anger toward me?
Loolie was flattered by my attention. She asked, "Would you like to see my zoo?"
"You have a zoo?"
"Uh-huh! We got a porkly-pine, and a vampire, and a baby got p-„
"Loolie!" Jessie interrupted sternly. She was just climbing back to join us. "You know the rules about talking to guests."
"Yes, Jessie. I'm sorry." Loolie turned toward me and solemnly put a finger across her lips.
The driver started the van then and the convoy formed up. I turned to look out the window; maybe I could memorize where we were going.
Two of the cyclists took the lead; obviously, they were scouts. The truck with the two bigger worms followed, then the van, then the truck with Orrie and Delandro followed after. Frankenstein's monster followed with my Jeep, loaded with the loot from the camp, and Mr. President riding in the back. The naked-bunnydog thing was peering curiously into the wrong end of my binoculars. The third cyclist brought up the rear.
I looked at Jessie. "Can [ ask you some questions?"
Jessie was rummaging around in the cooler. She pulled out a fresh apple. "You can ask." She crunched into it. "I don't promise to answer."
"How did you-or Jason-tame three worms?"
"We didn't. There's no such thing as a tame worm."
"Uh, but . . ." I glanced back at the truck following us. "You've got three of them."
"Orrie did it. He enrolled the other two."
"Oh?"
She nodded proudly. "Orrie's very special. He's a young god."
"Well, how did Jason tame him?"
Jessie looked at me coldly. "You don't tame a god, James."
"Sorry."
"That's all right. That's your inexperience talking. I suppose it looks like he's been tamed, if you don't know any better. I could just as easily use your dog tags as evidence that you've been tamed."
I didn't answer. I didn't want to encourage her to explain. She went on anyway. "In order to tame something, Jim, you have to disrespect it-you have to see it as a thing or an animal; and that will diminish you even more than it, because it's one more denial of the god in all of us. But if you can learn how to look deeper, how to see the soul inside, then you can form a partnership with any soul on the planet-any piece of Godregardless of what kind of body it's living in. You don't tame a partner, Jim, you train a partnership."
"I'm sorry. I don't see the difference."
"You will," she said. "After you finish your training."
"My training?"
"Mm-hm." She said over a mouthful.
"Um . . . what if I don't want to be trained?"
"You've already made that choice," she said. "Or rather, your machine did."
"I'm sorry, I don't understand that either."
She reached over and tapped my forehead with one finger. "That's your machine. In there. You've been programming it since the day you were born. You didn't know you were programming, but you were. You've been making connections, decisions, judgments, analyses, and evaluations-and all without any regard for accuracy beyond the boundaries of your own skull. The only criterion you've ever used for the appropriateness of any connection was whether it hurt you or not. Up till now, all that programming has been unconscious-and unconscious programming is always about survival. You've already demonstrated it. But if you could be awakened, Jim, you could see how all that survival-based programming keeps you trapped."