"You're not going to stop me," she said.
In reply, he pulled once more, and despite her best efforts hauled her even further from her target.
"Fuck you!" she yelled out loud, furious at his intervention.
He used her anger against her. As she burned energy in her outburst he pulled yet again, and this time succeeded in moving her almost all the way down the street to the other end of the town. There was nothing she could do to resist him. He was quite simply stronger than her, and the more furious she became the more his grip strengthened, until she was moving at some speed away from the town, prey to his summons the way she'd been the first time she'd come into the Loop.
She knew her anger was weakening her resistance, and calmly instructed herself to control it as the desert speeded by.
"Calm yourself, woman," she told herself. "He's just a bully. Nothing more. Nothing less. Chill out."
Her advice to herself worked. She felt self-determination beginning to swell in her again. She didn't allow herself the luxury of satisfaction. She simply exercised the power she'd claimed back to show herself once more. Kissoon didn't relinquish his claim, of course; she felt his fist in her gut pulling as hard as ever. It hurt. But she resisted, and went on resisting, until she had almost come to a dead stop.
He'd succeeded in one of his ambitions at least, however. The town was a speck on the horizon behind her. The trek back to it was presently beyond her. She was not certain, even if she began it, that she could resist his tugging for such a distance.
Again, she offered herself some silent advice: this time to stand still for a few moments and take stock of her situation. She'd lost the fight in the town, there was no two ways about that. But she'd gained a few sticky questions to ask Kissoon when she was finally face to face with him. One, what the source of the stench actually was, and two, why he was so afraid of her seeing it. But given the strength he clearly possessed, even at this distance, she knew she had to be careful. The greatest mistake she could make in these circumstances was to assume any government she had over herself was permanent. Her presence here was at Kissoon's behest, and whatever he'd told her about being a prisoner here himself he knew more about its rules than she did. She was prey every moment to his power, the limits of which she could only guess. She had to proceed with greater caution, or risk losing what little authority she had over her condition.
Turning her back on the town she began to move in the direction of the hut. The solidity she'd earned in the town had not been taken from her, but when she moved it was with a lightness of step utterly unlike anything she'd experienced hitherto. A moonwalk of a type: her strides long and easy, her speed impossible even for the fastest of sprinters. Sensing her approach Kissoon no longer hauled on her gut, though he maintained a presence there, as if to remind her of the strength he could use should he turn his will to it.
Ahead now she saw the second of the landmarks here: the tower. The wind whined in its tethering wires. Again she slowed her pace, so as to study the structure better. There was very little to see. It stood perhaps a hundred feet high, was made of steel, and had atop it a simple wood platform covered on three of its sides by sheets of corrugated iron. Its function defied her. As a viewing platform it seemed singularly useless, given that there was so little to view. Nor did it seem to be serving any technical purpose. Besides the corrugated iron up top—and some parcel hanging between—there was no sign of aerials or monitoring apparatus. She thought of Bunuel, of all people, and of her favorite of his films, Simon del Desierto, a satiric vision of St. Simon tempted by the Devil as he sat in penitence on the top of a pillar in the middle of nowhere. Perhaps the tower had been built for a similarly masochist saint. If so, he'd gone to dust, or Godhood.
There was nothing more to be seen here, she decided, and moved on past the tower, leaving it to its whining, enigmatic life. She could not yet see Kissoon's hut, but she knew it couldn't be far. There was no dust storm on the horizon to keep it from sight; the scene before her—the desert floor and the sky above—was exactly as she remembered it from her last trip here. The fact momentarily struck her as strange: that nothing whatsoever seemed to have changed. Maybe nothing ever changed here, she thought. Maybe it was forever, this place. Or like a movie, re-run and re-run, until the sprocket holes snapped or the picture burned up in the gate.
She'd no sooner imagined constancy than a rogue element she'd almost forgotten came into view. The woman.
Last time, with Kissoon drawing her to the hut, she'd had no chance to make contact with this other player on the desert stage. Indeed Kissoon had attempted to convince her that the woman had been a mirage; a projection of his erotic musings, and to be avoided. But now, with the woman close enough to call to, Tesla thought the explanation a likelier fantasy than the woman. However perverse Kissoon was, and she didn't doubt he'd had his moments, the figure before her was no masturbatory aid. True, she was close to naked, the shreds of clothing wrapped around her body pitifully inadequate. True, she had a face luminous with intelligence. But her long hair looked to have been torn out in several places, the blood dried to a dirty brown on her brow and cheeks. Her body was thin, and badly bruised, scratches on her thighs and arms only partially healed. There was a more profound wound, Tesla suspected, beneath the scraps of what might have once been a white dress. It was glued to the middle of her body, and she hugged herself there, almost bent double with pain. She was no pin-up; nor a mirage. She existed in the same plane of being as Tesla, and suffered here.
As she'd suspected Kissoon was aware that his warning had been ignored, and had begun to tug on Tesla once more. This time she was completely prepared for it. Instead of raging against his claim on her she stood quite still, preserving her calm. His mind-fingers fought for purchase, then began to slip through her innards. He snatched at them again; slipped again, and snatched. She didn't respond in any way, but simply kept her place, her eyes fixed on the woman all the time.
She'd stood upright, and was no longer holding her belly, but let her hands hang by her sides. Very slowly, Tesla began to walk towards her, preserving as best she could the calm that was denying Kissoon his hold. The woman made no move either to advance or retreat. With every step Tesla took she got a better impression of her. She was fifty, maybe, her eyes, though sunk in their sockets, the liveliest part of her; the rest was fatigue. Around her neck she wore a chain on which hung a simple cross. It was all that remained of the life she might once have had before she'd become lost in this wilderness.
Suddenly, she opened her mouth, a look of anguish crossing her face. She started to speak, but either her vocal cords weren't strong enough or her lungs large enough for the words to cover the space between them.
"Wait," Tesla told her, concerned the woman not exhaust what little energy she had. "Let me get closer."
If she understood, the woman ignored the instruction, and began to speak again, repeating something over and over.
"I can't hear you," Tesla shouted back, aware that her distress at the woman's distress was giving Kissoon a handle on her. "Wait, will you?" she said, picking up speed.
As she did so she realized that the look on the woman's face was not anguish at all, but fear. That her eyes were no longer looking at Tesla, but at something else. And that the word she was repeating was "Lix! Lix!"
In horror, she turned, to see the desert floor behind her alive with Lix: a dozen on first glance, twice that on second. They were all exactly the same, like snakes from which every distinguishing mark had been struck, reducing them to ten-foot lengths of writhing muscle, coming at her at full speed. She had thought the one she'd glimpsed previously, pulling open the door, mouthless. She'd been wrong. They had mouths, all right; black holes lined with black teeth, opened wide. She was readying herself for their attack when she realized (too late) they'd been summoned as a distraction. Kissoon clutched her gut and pulled. The desert slid away beneath her, the Lix dividing as she was hauled through their throng.