Stephen King – The Waste Lands

That’s how it’s communicating with the computer banks under the city, he thought. If we

could break that antenna off, somehow . . .

“But you do intend to kill yourself, no matter where the real you is, don’t you?” Eddie persisted.

No answer—but there was something cagey in that silence. In it Eddie sensed Blaine

watching . . . and waiting.

“Were you awake when we found you?” Susannah asked. “You weren’t, were you?”

“I WAS RUNNING WHAT THE PUBES CALLED THE GOD-DRUMS ON BEHALF

OF THE GRAYS, BUT THAT WAS ALL. YOU WOULD SAY I WAS DOZING.”

“Then why don’t you just take us to the end of the line and go back to sleep?”

“Because he’s a pain,” Jake repeated in a low voice.

“BECAUSE THERE ARE DREAMS,” Blaine said at exactly the same time, and in a

voice that was eerily like Little Blaine’s.

“Why didn’t you end it all when Patricia destroyed herself?” Eddie asked. “For that matter, if your brain and her brain are both part of the same computer, how come you both didn’t

step out together?”

“PATRICIA WENT MAD,” Blaine said patiently, speaking as if he himself had not just

admitted the same thing was happening to him. “IN HER CASE, THE PROBLEM

INVOLVED EQUIPMENT MAL- FUNCTION AS WELL AS SPIRITUAL MALAISE.

SUCH MAL- FUNCTIONS ARE SUPPOSED TO BE IMPOSSIBLE WITH SLO-TRANS

TECHNOLOGY, BUT OF COURSE THE WORLD HAS MOVED ON … HAS IT NOT,

ROLAND OF GILEAD?”

“Yes,” Roland said. “There is some deep sickness at the Dark Tower, which is the heart of everything. It’s spreading. The lands below us are only one more sign of that sickness.”

“I CANNOT VOUCH FOR THE TRUTH OR FALSITY OF THAT STATEMENT; MY

MONITORING EQUIPMENT IN END-WORLD, WHERE THE DARK TOWER

STANDS, HAS BEEN DOWN FOR OVER EIGHT HUNDRED YEARS. AS A RESULT,

I CANNOT READILY DIFFERENTIATE FACT FROM SUPERSTITION. IN FACT,

THERE SEEMS TO BE VERY LITTLE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE TWO AT THE

PRESENT TIME. IT IS VERY SILLY THAT IT SHOULD BE SO—NOT TO

MENTION RUDE—AND I AM SURE IT HAS CONTRIBUTED TO MY OWN

SPIRITUAL MALAISE.”

This statement reminded Eddie of something Roland had said not so long ago. What might

that have been? He groped for it, but could find nothing . . . only a vague memory of the

gunslinger speaking in an irritated way which was very unlike his usual manner.

“PATRICIA BEGAN SOBBING CONSTANTLY, A STATE I FOUND BOTH RUDE

AND UNPLEASANT. I BELIEVE SHE WAS LONELY AS WELL AS MAD.

ALTHOUGH THE ELECTRICAL FIRE WHICH CAUSED THE ORIGINAL

PROBLEM WAS QUICKLY EXTINGUISHED, LOGIC-FAULTS CONTINUED TO

SPREAD AS CIRCUITS OVERLOADED AND SUB-BANKS FAILED. I

CONSIDERED ALLOWING THE MALFUNCTIONS TO BECOME SYSTEM-WIDE

AND DECIDED TO ISOLATE THE PROBLEM AREA INSTEAD. I HAD HEARD

RUMORS, YOU SEE, THAT A GUNSLINGER WAS ONCE MORE ABROAD IN THE

EARTH. I COULD SCARCELY CREDIT SUCH STORIES, AND YET I NOW SEE I

WAS WISE TO WAIT.”

Roland stirred in his chair. “What rumors did you hear, Blaine? And who did you hear

them from?”

But Blaine chose not to answer this question.

“I EVENTUALLY BECAME SO DISTURBED BY HER BLAT-TING THAT I

ERASED THE CIRCUITS CONTROLLING HER NON-VOLUNTARIES. I

EMANCIPATED HER, YOU MIGHT SAY. SHE RESPONDED BY THROWING

HERSELF IN THE RIVER. SEE YOU LATER, PATRICIA-GATOR.”

Got lonely, couldn’t stop crying, drowned herself, and all this crazy mechanical asshole

can do is joke about it, Susannah thought. She felt almost sick with rage. If Blaine had been

a real person instead of just a bunch of circuits buried somewhere under a city which was

now far behind them, she would have tried to put some new marks on his face to remember

Patricia by. You want interesting, motherfucker? I’d like to show you interesting, so I

would.

“ASK ME A RIDDLE,” Blaine invited.

“Not quite yet,” Eddie said. “You still haven’t answered my original question.” He gave Blaine a chance to respond, and when the computer voice didn’t do so, he went on. “When

it comes to suicide, I’m, like, pro-choice. But why do you want to take us with you? I mean,

what’s the point?”

“Because he wants to,” Little Blaine said in his horrified whisper.

“BECAUSE I WANT TO,” Blaine said. “THAT’S THE ONLY REASON I HAVE AND

THE ONLY ONE I NEED TO HAVE. NOW LET’S GET DOWN TO BUSINESS. I

WANT SOME RIDDLES AND I WANT THEM IMMEDIATELY. IF YOU REFUSE, I

WON’T WAIT UNTIL WE GET TO TOPEKA—I’LL DO US ALL RIGHT HERE AND

NOW.”

Eddie, Susannah, and Jake looked around at Roland, who still sat in his chair with his

hands folded in his lap, looking at the route-map at the front of the coach.

“Fuck you,” Roland said. He did not raise his voice. He might have told Blaine that a little Way-Gog would indeed be very nice.

There was a shocked, horrified gasp from the overhead speakers— Little Blaine.

“WHAT DO YOU SAY?” In its clear disbelief, the voice of Big Blaine had once again

become very close to the voice of his unsuspected twin.

“I said fuck you,” Roland said calmly, “but if that puzzles you, Blaine, I can make it clearer.

No. The answer is no.”

10

THERE WAS NO RESPONSE from either Blaine for a long, long time, and when Big

Blaine did reply, it was not with words. Instead, the walls, floor, and ceiling began to lose

their color and solidity again. In a space of ten seconds the Barony Coach had once more

ceased to exist. The mono was now flying through the mountain-range they had seen on the

horizon: iron-gray peaks rushed toward them at suicidal speed, then fell away to disclose

sterile valleys where gigantic beetles crawled about like landlocked turtles. Roland saw

something that looked like a huge snake suddenly uncoil from the mouth of a cave. It

seized one of the beetles and yanked it back into its lair. Roland had never in his life seen

such animals or countryside, and it made his skin want to crawl right off his flesh. It was

inimical, but that was not the problem. It was alien—that was the problem. Blaine might

have transported them to some other world.

“PERHAPS I SHOULD DERAIL US HERE,” Blaine said. His voice was meditative, but

beneath it the gunslinger heard a deep, pulsing rage.

“Perhaps you should,” the gunslinger said indifferently.

He did not feel indifferent, and he knew it was possible the computer might read his real

feelings in his voice—Blaine had told them he had such equipment, although he was sure

the computer could lie, Roland had no reason to doubt it in this case. If Blaine did read

certain stress-patterns in the gunslinger’s voice, the game was probably up. He was an

incredibly sophisticated machine . . . but still a machine, for all that. He might not be able to understand that human beings are often able to go through with a course of action even

when all their emotions rise up and proclaim against it. If he analyzed patterns in the

gunslinger’s voice which indicated fear, he would probably assume that Roland was

bluffing. Such a mistake could get them all killed.

“YOU ARE RUDE AND ARROGANT,” Blaine said. “THESE MAY SEEM LIKE

INTERESTING TRAITS TO YOU, BUT THEY ARE NOT TO ME.”

Eddie’s face was frantic. He mouthed the words What are you DOING ? Roland ignored him; he had his hands full with Blaine, and he knew perfectly well what he was doing.

“Oh, I can be much ruder than I have been.”

Roland of Gilead unfolded his hands and got slowly to his feet. He stood on what appeared

to be nothing, legs apart, his right hand on his hip and his left on the sandalwood grip of his

revolver. He stood as he had stood so many times before, in the dusty streets of a hundred

forgot- ten towns, in a score of rock-lined canyon killing-zones, in unnumbered dark

saloons with their smells of bitter beer and old fried meals. It was just another showdown in

another empty street. That was all, and that was enough. It was khef, ka, and ka-tet. That

the showdown always came was the central fact of his life and the axle upon which his own

ka revolved. That the battle would be fought with words instead of bullets this time made

no difference; it would be a battle to the death, just the same. The stench of killing in the air was as clear and definite as the stench of exploded carrion in a swamp. Then the battle-rage

descended, as it always did . . . and he was no longer really there to himself at all.

“I can call you a nonsensical, empty-headed, foolish, arrogant machine. I can call you a

stupid, unwise creature whose sense is no more than the sound of a winter wind in a hollow

tree.”

“STOP IT.”

Roland went on in the same serene tone, ignoring Blaine completely. “Unfortunately, I am