The Last Book in the Universe

by Rodman Philbrick

  That’s what I tell him, but inside I’m not so sure. Replacing the latchboss was a good idea, but it’s not like he’s actually taken control. It’ll be a while before the Monkey Boys get used to the idea.

  “How did you know about Mongo?” I ask Ryter.

  He shrugs. “An educated guess. From the evidence I assumed he was no longer in charge. I didn’t know until we actually saw him.”

  Which kind of amazes me, because he seemed so sure at the time. I’m also thinking how different he’s turned out, nothing like the pathetic old gummy who was willing to let me rob him rather than fight back. Except, of course, that I didn’t end up stealing the only thing he really cares about. So I guess he was bluffing me, too, and I fell for it, just like the tek boss.

  The takvee we’re riding in is dark and cool inside, with soft black upholstery programmed to mold itself around you. Everything is padded and reinforced and armored. What looks like windows are really vidscreen images of the outside, because even armored windows can be broken, with the right weapon. If you listen you can hear the faint hum of the cyber-brain that monitors the weapon systems, and stays wide-eyed for danger. They say a really good tactical urban vehicle can think for itself, almost, protecting the riders.

  I’m thinking it must be cool to be a latchboss, always cruising around in a new takvee, with all those teks ready to die for me, and then I flash on the thing on the bed-throne. Until I saw what happened to Mongo, I thought that getting canceled was the worst thing that could happen. Wrong. Being dead and not knowing it is much, much worse.

  We pass into the shadows of the tall steel bones of buildings high against the sky, and for a while it’s as dark as night. There could be things in the shadows. Lurking, almost invisible things that want us dead, but I can’t be sure. For some reason that makes me think of Bean. Is that how the blood sickness makes her feel, like something is waiting in the shadows to take her away? Is she angry that it’s happening to her and not someone else? Is she afraid? What?

  I can’t stand to think about it or I’ll start screaming, so I concentrate on joking around with Little Face so he won’t be scared.

  “When we get where we’re going, there’ll be plenty of choxbars,” I tell him. “Choxbars stacked as high as those old buildings over there. Do you believe me? Huh?”

  I have to prod him, but Little Face finally bobs his head and almost smiles, and a few minutes later we’re back at the Pipe. The teks more or less dump us out of the takvee and take off before we can even thank them. They’re worried about the mob of wild Monkey Boys catching up, and so are we.

  “I was hoping for stairs,” Ryter says, looking at where the Pipe looms above us. “Or at least a ladder of some kind.”

  We have to make do with climbing the rubble around the pylon. Little Face seems to be his old self now that our escape is in sight. He finds a path and leads us up the chunks of rubble. Ryter and me are both panting by the time we make it to the top, but Little Face, he’s not even winded. He waits until we’re almost there, gives us a big grin, and then jumps inside the open end of the Pipe. He claps his hands and chirps out, “Chox!” to let us know everything is okay.

  I never thought that stupid word would sound so good.

  This may sound fried, but the Pipe feels like home. We know the place, and what to expect, more or less. Even the rats are familiar, and not the least bit scary, compared to what we’re leaving behind. The rats keep scurrying ahead of us, until their red eyes fade into the dimness.

  “Lead on,” Ryter says to me with a grand gesture. “‘We’ve miles to go before we sleep. And promises to keep.’” After a moment, to let that sink in, he says, “That’s from a poem.”

  I’m too numbed to ask what a poem is, but as usual the old gummy seems to know what I’m thinking.

  “The man who wrote the poem was called Robert Frost. He lived in the twentieth century,” he says. “All that’s survived of his poetry is that one line. But even one line is a kind of literary immortality.”

  “Lit-er-ary im-mortality,” I say, mimicking his know-it-all voice. “What’s that?”

  “It means part of you lives forever,” he explains. “The part of you that writes down words.”

  “Yeah? And what if nobody cares about the words?”

  “Someday they will,” he insists, and you can tell he believes that more than anything.

  I don’t know about words that make you live forever, but he’s right about one thing. We’ve got miles to go, slogging along through the Pipe. Being careful to avoid the rusty holes and the clunky stuff that snags our feet.

  There are parts of the Pipe that echo so much we sound like an army, and other parts where we can’t hear anything, not even the skittery rats. Ryter says that’s because of something he calls “acoostiks,” but I think the Pipe has moods like a living thing. Noisy moods, quiet moods, dark moods. Sometimes it feels real peaceful and soothing, like the Pipe wants us to feel safe. Other times I’m so scared it feels like my knees are coming unscrewed or something. But it doesn’t matter what we feel. The Pipe doesn’t care. The Pipe keeps us moving.

  I keep expecting Ryter to stop and rest because he’s old and worn out, but he just plods along, never complaining, and after a while I get this idea that inside he’s a lot stronger than he looks on the outside. Sometimes he’s as quiet as the Pipe; other times he runs off at the mouth about books and words and other stuff nobody cares about anymore.

  This one time he goes, “What’s in a name, Spaz? You of all people should know.”

  “A name is just a word,” I tell him. “It doesn’t matter.”

  “No? What about Odysseus?”

  “Who’s Oh-dis-he-us?”

  “Odysseus is many things. A name. A myth. A word.”

  “Yeah,” I go, “a word nobody knows.”

  “A word I know. And if you listen, you’ll know, too.”

  “Okay,” I say. “Have it your way. I’m listening.”

  Ryter grunts in satisfaction. “In the beginning, Odysseus was just a man like any man. But he went on a long, dangerous journey, much as we are doing, and people spoke of it for generations, until eventually he became a myth. Later his adventures were written down in a book, and his name became the word for ‘long, adventurous journey.’ Odyssey.”

  “That’s a stupid name,” I say.

  “Oh? Some would say that ‘Spaz’ is a stupid name.”

  That pulls me up short. I’m trying to see what his face says, but it’s too dark. “Are you trying to bork me off?” I ask him, shoving my finger into his scrawny chest.

  “No,” he says gently. “I’m trying to make you think.”

  “I don’t want to think!” I tell him. Actually, I’m shouting. “I just want to keep walking until we get there, okay? So forget about words and myths and all that gummy stuff you like to spew, and just keep walking!”

  After that, it’s quiet for a long time.

  WHEN WE FINALLY get to where the Pipe ends, the world is on fire.

  I can smell it from miles away. At first the scent of the fire is just a tickle inside my nose, but after a while I can taste it on the back of my tongue. Kind of gritty and bitter and hot. The closer we get, the more we feel it in the air. The smoke makes Ryter cough, and when he coughs he seems really geezy and weak, and I’m worried he’ll choke his withered old lungs out.

  “I’m fine,” he insists. “A little smoke can’t stop us.”

  Going back isn’t an option. If we go back we’ll never find Bean, and besides, everybody we left behind wants to cancel us. So we keep going even though the Pipe is starting to feel hot under our feet.

  We plod into the smoke for a long time. Nobody speaks much — it’s like the smoke has drained the talk right out of us. I’m getting worried we won’t make it, when Ryter coughs out, “We’re almost there.”

  The last section of the Pipe has come loose from the concrete pylons and it sags down, heading for ground level. The angle is so steep it�
��s all we can do not to slip and fall, but there’s one good thing: The smoke is a little thinner the lower we get.

  It turns out the ragged, open end of the Pipe has sunk partway into the ground. We have to duck and crawl for the last few yards to get free of it.

  The first thing we notice is the horizon on fire. It looks like the sun melted, and everything along the edge of the world went up in flames.

  “Look at that,” Ryter says, wheezing in amazement. “They’re burning the whole latch.”

  The smoke brings us horrible smells. The kind of stink that makes you more afraid of the people who set it than the fire itself. My stomach is flip-flopping, and not just because I haven’t eaten in a while. Everything’s on fire in this place: buildings, stackboxes, street hovels, people, even the dirt on the ground, all of it burning.

  The scared part of me wants to run back into the Pipe and hide until things get better, but my brain knows things aren’t going to get better anytime soon, if ever. We’re stuck, and if we’re not careful, we’ll go up in smoke, too.

  Ryter gathers me and Little Face close to him. “Our only chance is to stick together,” he says.

  The smoke is too thick to see very far, but we can hear the howling of the mob. The same kind of animal sound the Monkey Boys made, only worse. Even less human, like whatever happened in Mongo’s old latch happened here, too, only it’s been going on longer.

  Then a different sound comes through the howling. A girl shouts, “Keep your distance! I warn you! Leave me alone or suffer the consequences!”

  The girl’s voice sounds frightened but strong, somehow, like she doesn’t really believe anybody would dare hurt her, not even a mindless mob.

  The smoke clears and we see her. A slender, beautiful girl standing on top of a broken-down takvee. She’s not wearing body armor, just a flimsy, shimmering white gown and a silver headband. Howling attackers swarm around the takvee. They’ve snatched up packages of edibles, stuffing their dirty faces with food. Some of them are waving torches, reaching out their hands to grab her ankles.

  “I am Lanaya, child of Eden!” she shouts. “Touch me and you’ll die!”

  It’s the proov girl, the one from the Maximall, the one who asked my name. Billy Bizmo said if I ever saw her again I should run for my life, because contact between proovs and normals is forbidden. But if me and Ryter don’t do something, she’s going to be set afire or torn to pieces, or both.

  “You’re sure she’s the one?” Ryter asks when I tell him.

  “I’m sure.”

  “Doesn’t really matter who she is,” he says, his eyes lighting up. “Fair maidens must be rescued.”

  “What can we do?”

  Ryter thinks about it, his bleary old eyes flicking from the crazy mob swarming the takvee to the thick clouds of smoke that flow from the burning buildings.

  “Wait here until you hear my signal. Then do your best.”

  “What?” I say. “What are you talking about?”

  But Ryter has vanished into the smoke. I grab Little Face’s hand before he disappears, too. “Crazy old man,” I tell him. “What’s he thinking?”

  A moment later there’s shouting from inside the smoke. “Edibles! Get him, he’s got edibles!”

  The mob hears that and they forget all about snatching the proov girl. Howling and waving their torches, they race off into the smoke, smelling blood, following the sound of the chase. Their eyes look almost blind, like all they can see is what they want — in this case, edibles, food, something to eat.

  Me and Little Face run up to the takvee. The proov girl is staring into the smoke as if she can’t believe the mob has let her go.

  “Quick,” I tell her. “We’ve got to get out of here.”

  “You’re the strange boy!” she exclaims, recognizing me. “The one called Spaz.”

  “Hurry,” I say, offering my hand. “They’ll be back.”

  The proov girl takes my hand and jumps down. “Why did they run away?” she asks.

  “I’ll explain later,” I tell her. “How bad is your takvee? Will it still run?”

  “I don’t know,” she says. “They came out of nowhere and surrounded us. When they saw we couldn’t move, my teks ran away.”

  “Get inside,” I urge her, my eyes searching the smoke for signs of the returning mob.

  “Don’t order me about,” she says stiffly, like she’s queen of the world. “Do you know who I am?”

  “Yeah,” I say. “You’re a dead proov if you don’t shut up and get inside.”

  She gives me a look like I’m garbage, no different from the starving mob, but she ducks inside the takvee. Me and Little Face shove in beside her.

  “Can you drive this thing?” I ask her.

  “Close doors!” she says, and I’m looking around for the handle when the doors close on their own. Voice activated. Of course. Stands to reason a proov would have the latest model.

  “Forward!” she orders, and the takvee starts to move.

  The vidscreens show nothing but smoke and ruin. I’m glad to be back in a takvee, escaping from the howlers, but part of me feels sick about Ryter. He must have known what would happen when he shouted “Edibles!” to a starving mob. They’re probably tearing him to pieces right now, while we make our getaway, just like he planned.

  “What were you doing here?” I demand of the proov girl, convinced that whatever happened to Ryter is her fault.

  “Passing out food units,” she says with a sniff. “In case you didn’t notice, those people are hungry.”

  “I noticed,” I tell her. “Hungry enough to eat you.”

  “They wouldn’t dare.”

  I’m about to ask if her genetic improvement included brains — how could she be so stupid? — when someone runs out of the smoke in front of us.

  “Stop!” I shout, and the takvee stops so hard we get thrown forward before the restraints can tighten.

  “What are you doing?” the proov girl demands. “How dare you command my vehicle!”

  It’s Ryter. His raggedy clothes are torn even more, and there’s blood on his arms. He’s waving at us and grinning like he’s totally zoomed.

  “How do you open the door?” I ask the girl.

  “Why should I?” she shoots back, looking pleased with herself.

  “Because that old man just saved your life,” I tell her.

  She opens her mouth to make a wise remark, changes her mind, and says, “Door open!”

  The door retracts. I reach out, grab Ryter, and haul him inside. The starving mob boils out of the smoke behind him. “Go!” I shout. “Go! Go!”

  A moment later we’re traveling at top speed, bouncing over the ruined landscape, crashing through the remains of charred buildings until we find an open path. The proov girl settles behind the console and issues crisp orders to the takvee, making sure we escape intact.

  Beside me Ryter chuckles to himself. He holds up his arms, showing us the bite marks. “They wanted to eat me,” he explains, sounding astonished. “That’s how hungry they are. Hungry enough to eat a scrawny old gummy!”

  “So why are you laughing?” I ask him.

  “Am I? I didn’t realize. Relief, I suppose. I’m just glad to be alive.”

  I’m glad, too, but I can’t think of how to say it, so I reach over and squeeze his wrinkled hand.

  “Good,” I mutter. “That’s good.”

  With the helium-shocks engaged, the takvee can go two hundred miles an hour, which means we’re airborne about half the time. The nav systems keep us from colliding with obstructions like buildings hidden in the smoke, or roving mobs zoomed enough to throw themselves at a high-speed armored vehicle. The proov girl stays at the command console, watching the screens and indicators, but the takvee drives itself, obeying her verbal command to take us to a “safe place.”

  Three minutes later the takvee slows down and comes to a stop. The vidscreens show a gray, barren landscape. No people, no buildings, no rubble, no fire, no smoke
, no nothing.

  “We’ll be safe enough here for the moment,” the proov girl announces as the takvee winds down to idle.

  “What is this place?” Ryter asks.

  “Normals know it as ‘the Forbidden Zone.’ We just call it ‘the Zone,’” she says, standing up from the console.

  “Ah,” says Ryter with a nod. “Is it still mined?”

  The proov girl gives him a funny look, like, “How did he know?” and then nods. “Of course,” she says. “The mines are Eden’s first line of defense. This vehicle has the codes to disarm them. If not, we’d already be blown to particles.”

  “So we can’t get out and walk around?” he asks with a faint smile.

  “Not if you want to live,” she says. She hesitates, looking so regal and beautiful and perfect it makes me hurt inside. The usual reaction to being in the presence of a proov. Reminding me how pathetic it is to be born normal. “By the way,” she says to Ryter, “thank you for distracting the mob.”

  “You’re very welcome,” says Ryter graciously. “And thank you for saving our lives, too.”

  She gives him a sharp look, like he got it wrong. “Oh, they wouldn’t have dared harm me,” she tells him. “They may be filthy and ignorant and starving, but even so, they know better than to touch a proov.”

  Ryter’s old eyes look like he’s laughing inside, even though his voice sounds very serious. “Perhaps,” he says. “In any case, we filthy, ignorant normals are grateful for your help. For that matter, we have another favor to beg.”

  She raises her perfect eyebrows. “Oh?” she says, sounding very cool.

  “Lanaya — may I call you Lanaya?”

  Her response is somewhere between a nod and a shrug, as if she couldn’t care less what a wrinkled old gummy calls her.

  “Lanaya, my young friends and I are on a mission. We must fight our way to the next latch and locate a certain young girl before it’s too late.”

  “Too late?” Lanaya asks. “What do you mean by ‘too late’?”

  My throat finally decides to work. I tell her how a runner brought the message about Bean. How she’s sick in her blood and wants to see me before she dies. How we’ve been struggling to get to her.