I go, “Huh?” like, what are you, twisted? You want a bustdown? You want to get ripped? Are you mindsick or what? Except all I really say is “Huh?” because the rest is implied, which is a word I later got from the Ryter.
“I heard about the Bully Bangers giving me up,” he says, like it’s no big deal. “Bound to happen sooner or later. Help yourself, son. Everything of value is over there in the corner.”
He points out a gimme tote bag with a few crumball items inside. An old clock alarm vidscreen, a baseball mitt so old it isn’t molded plastic, a coffee machine with the cord all neat and coiled. It doesn’t amount to much, but there’s enough for a few credits at the pawn mart. Better than usual for the stacks.
“Go on,” he says. “Take it.”
Normally I would, but there’s something not normal about the whole situation. Like the way he coiled up the cord to the coffeemaker. You know you’re going to get ripped, and you do that? Is it some kind of trick or what?
It’s like he knows what I’m thinking, because the next thing he says is, “This isn’t my first bustdown. Just thought I’d make it easier for us both.”
“What else you got?” I say, closing in on the geez.
He smiles at me, which makes his old wrinkled face sort of glow, in a weird way. Like he wants an excuse to smile, no matter what happens. “What makes you think I’ve got anything else?” he asks, kind of craftylike.
That’s when I see there are stacks of paper under the crate, and he’s been sitting there in front of them, hoping I wouldn’t notice. “What’s this?” I go.
“Nothing of value,” he says. “Just a book, if you want to know.”
I scoff at him and snarl, “Liar! Books are in libraries. Or they used to be.”
He starts to say something and then he stops, like I’ve given him something important to think about. “Hmmm,” he goes. “You’re aware that books used to be in libraries. That was before you were born, so how did you know?”
I shrug and go, “I heard is all. When I was a little kid. About how things used to be before the badtimes.”
“And you remember everything you hear?”
“Pretty much,” I say. “Doesn’t everybody?”
The old geez chuckles. “Not hardly. Most of ’em, they’ve had their brains softened by probes and mindflicks, and they can’t really retain much. Long-term memory is a thing of the past, no pun intended. The only ones left who can remember are a few old geezers like me. And, apparently, you.”
Now that I think about it, I know what he’s talking about. I’ve always had a lot of old stuff in my head that everybody else seems to have forgotten.
“What else do you remember?” the geez asks.
“What do you care?” I say.
The geez gives me a look, like he wants to memorize me or something. “That’s what I do,” he says. “I remember and I write it down. I take other people’s memories, and I write those down, too. Of course, I change things to fit the story, but that’s all part of the process.”
“Process? You mean like a word processor?”
For some reason he finds that amusing. “Not exactly. Instead of using a computer to process the words, I do it directly. From my head to the page, writing down the words by hand, like they did in the backtimes. Of course, I used to use a voicewriter like everybody else, but it got ripped a couple of bustdowns ago. So now I do it this way,” he says, showing me the stacks of paper covered with pen scratching. “Primitive, but it works.”
“Yeah,” I go. “You’re doing it. But what are you doing?”
“Writing a book,” he says. “The story of my life. The story of everybody’s life, and the way things were when there used to be books.”
“Nobody reads books anymore,” I tell him.
He nods sadly. “I know. But someday that may change. And if and when it does, they’ll want to know what happened, and why. They’ll want stories that don’t come out of a mindprobe needle. They’ll want to read books again, someday.”
“They?” I go. “Who do you mean?”
“Those who will be alive at some future date,” he says.
Those who will be alive at some future date. I don’t know why, but the way he says it gives me a shiver. Because I’d never thought about the future. You want to be down with the Bully Bangers, you can’t think about the future. There’s only room for the right here and the want-it-now. The future is like the moon. You never expect to go there or think about what it might be like. What’s the point if you can’t touch it or steal it?
“What’s your story?” the geez asks, like he really wants to know.
I go, “I don’t have a story.”
Almost before I get the words out, he’s shaking his head, like he knew what I was going to say and can’t wait to disagree. “Everybody has a story,” he says. “There are things about your life that are specific only to you. Secrets you know.”
Finally the old geez is starting to make sense. And there’s something about him I sort of like — or anyhow something I don’t hate — so I sit there and listen to him jabber on about his book and all the stories and secrets he’s been writing down for years, since before his hair went white and he got old.
Anyhow, what happened is I left without taking anything, and when I came back the next day it was like the Ryter was expecting me.
“I’ve been thinking about you, Spaz. About how you can still remember things. Every writer needs a reader. I figured my reader wasn’t even born yet, but here you are.”
I figure he must be making fun of me. “You think I care about those scratches you make on paper? Is that what you think?”
It’s like there’s an angry thing inside me that wants to bust out and hurt something, and right now what it wants to hurt is the old geezer, for laughing at me.
But his voice isn’t laughing when he says, “I can teach you to read. That’s not a problem. I’d like to teach you, if you’ll let me. With a mind like yours — a mind that remembers — it won’t take that long. A year or so, that’s all. Maybe less.”
That’s when I go ahead and tell him the real secret, the one I didn’t want to tell him yesterday. “You haven’t got a year. The Bully Bangers are going to wheel you.”
“You’re sure about that?” he asks, looking worried. “I thought it was just another bustdown. I can handle getting ripped off, but I’ll never survive getting dragged behind a jetbike.”
Something makes me tell him, “You got to run away. Save yourself. Now, before it’s too late.”
The old geez sighs and looks at me with his soft eyes. “I’m too old to run. My running days are over.” He thinks about something for a while, and I’m waiting because I know whatever it is, it’s important. “I’ve got a better idea,” he says. “You finish my book. Make it your own book.”
He’s starting to tell me about the old voicewriter programs when all of a sudden the Bully Bangers come for him. I hadn’t expected them quite this soon, but here they are, swarming through the stacks like wild things. Shrieking and laughing and screaming all at the same time.
“Save my pages!” the old geez begs me as they come through the open door and grab him.
“Everybody has a story!” he chokes out as the rope gets tighter and the engines rev higher. “All you have to do is listen! You’re my hope for the future, son! You’re the only one left! You’re the last book in the universe!”
The Bangers finally get bored and decide to end it. They gun their engines hard and drag the life out of him until there’s nothing left. Nothing but silence, and the stink of jetbike fumes, and the bundle of rags and bones that used to be the Ryter.
I didn’t stay until the very end. When the Ryter finally stopped telling his stories I ran away. I ran to the river, but there were dead things floating there, so I ran to the tallest building in the projos and climbed out on the roof and watched the sky, hoping maybe I’d see the shiny things called stars.
I never did.
; Copyright © 1999 by Rodman Philbrick. Originally published in the anthology Tomorrowland: 10 Stories About the Future, edited by Michael Cart.
This book was originally published in hardcover by the Blue Sky Press in 2000.
Copyright © 2000 by Rodman Philbrick.
All rights reserved. Published by Scholastic Inc. SCHOLASTIC, THE BLUE SKY PRESS, and associated logos are trademarks and/or registered trademarks of Scholastic Inc.
Cover art by David Shannon
Designed by Kathleen Westray
e-ISBN 978-0-545-30387-3
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this publication may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher. For information regarding permission, write to Scholastic Inc., Attention: Permissions Department, 557 Broadway, New York, NY 10012.
The Last Book in the Universe Page 15
