A Rage for Revenge

7 Loolie

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."

"And you're going to awaken me?"

"No. You're going to awaken yourself. Or you won't." She chewed her apple thoughtfully. "Jason gave you the only choice you're capable of right now. Do you want to live or do you want to die? You said you want to live. That was your choice."

"And what if I'd said I'd rather die? What then? Would Jason have killed me?"

"James," she said patiently, "listen to yourself. If you were truly awake, survival would not be an issue for you. You flunked the test."

I thought about that. I said, "I'm sorry. I find that hard to believe."

Jessie shrugged noncommittally. In fact, she seemed emotionally detached from the whole conversation. "What you believe is irrelevant. "

"Not to me," I said. She didn't reply. "Okay. So, what happens next?"

"You'll be our guest. We'll give you the opportunity to contribute whatever you can. And after that, we'll give you the opportunity to be awakened. And after that, you'll have the opportunity to join the Tribe. Or not."

"And what happens if I fail somewhere along the way?"

"You fail."

"That's it?"

"Uh-huh. "

I was confused. "There's something you're not telling me, isn't there?"

"Nope. "

"Nope?"

Jessie stroked Loolie's long brown hair. She kissed the child affectionately. Then she looked up at me. "You see, you think failure means something. It doesn't. Failure isn't death. If you fail, we'll give you another chance to succeed. We'll give you as many chances as necessary. We want you to win."

"What about the threats on my life?"

"We haven't threatened your life at all, Jim. Nobody has. We asked you to give your word. You gave your word: Jason told you the consequences of breaking your word, so you gave your word. Since then-haven't you noticed?-nobody has held a gun on you, nobody is guarding you, nobody is threatening you at all. That's all in your mind."

"But if I tried to run away, you'd kill me, wouldn't you?"

"If you ran away, you'd be breaking your word, wouldn't you?"

"I wasn't given a choice-" I was starting to feel a little frustrated and annoyed.

"Yes, you were."

"But there was a gun at my head!"

"So it wasn't a real choice!"

"Yes, it was! The gun made it very real. And you're the one who chose-you chose to run your program. You're upset now because you think you didn't make that choice, but you did." There was no arguing with the woman. I shut up.

She continued. "The frustration you're feeling now is the very first step in your awakening. You're beginning to recognize the trap of being stuck in your own program. That's what that annoyance is."

She was wrong. I wasn't annoyed. I was positively hostile. I'd given my word, she said-but it had been under duress. And the law doesn't recognize contracts that are made under duress. All right, yes, it had been my "survival programming" speaking. So what? That still didn't give them the right to hold me prisoner. Except they weren't holding me prisoner, were they? I'd given my word I'd stay. I could just walk away, but that would be breaking my word-and the agreement was that if I broke my word, Jason could blow my brains out. So: if I followed my survival programming, I would have to stay. Or: if I chose to keep my word, I would have to stay.

I was confused. And I was angry. And I was lost in my own admiration of the neat little philosophical puzzle they had trapped my mind in. I could almost feel the circuits locking up in endless loops, hopelessly looking for a way out. Just like the spider.

And this time I knew that dirty limericks wouldn't work.