by Robin Furth
V:37–38, V:41, V:52, V:55, V:68, V:94, V:95, V:98, V:99, V:108, V:111, V:117, V:119, V:130, V:141, V:142, V:164, V:165, V:166–67, V:169, V:175, V:179, V:201, V:215, V:232, V:257, V:284 (Nineteenth Street), V:302, (Route 19), V:315, V:350 (Directive Nineteen), V:357 (Jamie Jaffords), V:360, V:367, V:423, V:428 (room), V:443, V:447 (Nineteenth Nervous Breakdown), V:449, V:451 (and Callahan’s death), V:459, V:525, V:532, V:565, V:573, V:585, V:606, V:620, V:643, V:648, V:678, V:685, V:695, V:707, VI:48 (time), VI:53 (time), VI:84, VI:93, VI:95, VI:96, VI:118, VI:178, VI:184, VI:223, VI:225, VI:230, VI:270, VI:288, VI:325, VI:326, VI:328, VI:336 (8+8+3 = 19), VI:338, VII:7 (plates), VII:36, VII:130, VII:156 (ka-tet of), VII:302 (ka of), VII:303, VII:305, VII:399, VII:405, VII:418, VII:434, VII:436, VII:444, VII:453, VII:505, VII:551, VII:555, VII:556, VII:645, VII:665, VII:689, VII:761, VII:764, VII:821, VII:822, VII:825, VII:827, W:148, W:220, W:222, W:223, W:229, W:234 (and Daria), W:237
NINETEEN NINETY-NINE (KEYSTONE YEAR IN THE KEYSTONE WORLD)
The year 1999 is considered the Keystone Year in the Keystone World. In it, the number NINETEEN (the ka of our world) joins with NINETY-NINE (the ka of Roland’s world). It is a year of transformation, either for good or dis. On our level of the TOWER, it is the year that sai KING is hit by a Dodge minivan. It is also the year that JAKE CHAMBERS passes into the clearing while trying to save him. It is to 1999 NEW YORK that MIA, the bodyjacking mommy-bitch, takes SUSANNAH DEAN so that the two of them can give birth to MORDRED DESCHAIN, Roland’s half-son and nemesis.
The fates of both the Dark Tower and the Dark Tower series depend upon what our tet can accomplish in this year. If they can save Stephen King and destroy Mordred, both Towers will survive. If they fail, then the multiverse will blink out of existence.
On the following pages, action takes place in the year 1999: V:648, V:695, VI:47–75, VI:66, VI:67, VI:72, VI:79–98, VI:86, VI:97, VI:119–25, VI:210, VI:219–34, VI:224, VI:256–61, VI:269, VI:307–85, VI:328, VI:333, VII:302, VII:303, VII:304, VII:305, VII:307, VII:405, VII:406, VII:418, VII:476, VII:485
NINETY-NINE (KA-TET OF NINETY-NINE)
Ninety-nine is another mystery number that continues to pop up throughout Wolves of the Calla. When he introduces himself to the folken of CALLA BRYN STURGIS, JAKE CHAMBERS claims to be of the ka-tet of ninety and nine. ANDY, the Calla’s Messenger Robot (many other functions), will not disclose any information about his nasty programming until EDDIE DEAN recites his password, which is 1999. On the fence surrounding NEW YORK’s Vacant LOT, our TODASH ka-tet sees a poem which reads, “Oh SUSANNAH-MIO, divided girl of mine, Done parked her RIG in the DIXIE PIG, in the year of ’99.”
Ninety-nine’s true significance lies in that it is the ka of Roland’s world, and of END-WORLD. It is also one-half of 1999, the KEYSTONE YEAR in the KEYSTONE WORLD, where the life of our ka-tet’s facilitator—STEPHEN KING—is in grave danger. It is also the year that Roland’s nemesis MORDRED DESCHAIN is born.
V:215, V:565, V:567, V:570, V:643, V:648, V:654, V:677, V:695, VI:73, VI:289, VII:302 (ka of Mid-World), VII:303, VII:473, VII:485
NIS
See GODS OF MID-WORLD
NORDITES
The blond people of Northern IN-WORLD are known as Nordites. Rumor has it that their chief sports are incest and reindeer fucking.
IV:422, IV:583
NORT
See TULL CHARACTERS; see also CALLAHAN, FATHER DONALD FRANK: CALLAHAN AND THE HITLER BROTHERS
**NORTH CENTRAL POSITRONICS
North Central Positronics was one of the nasty companies set up by the arrogant GREAT OLD ONES. This company and its affiliates created the technology that eventually destroyed MID-WORLD. They were responsible for the highly complex computers which controlled entire cities (as well as their stockpiles of weapons and poisons), and the cyborg GUARDIANS which guarded the PORTALS in and out of Mid-World. It seems highly likely that, through North Central Positronics, the Great Old Ones merged technology and magic. It seems even likelier that these arrogant ancestors believed that they could re-create the fabric of the multiverse and bend it to suit their fancy.
In the 2003 version of The Gunslinger, we learn more about North Central Positronics’s unsavory history. One hundred generations before the world moved on, humanity made enough technological advances to chip a few splinters from the great pillar of reality. The company at the forefront of these discoveries was (of course) North Central Positronics. But these so-called technological advances, wondrous as they seemed, were accompanied by little or no insight into the true nature of the universe. Instead, they were seen only in the flat but false light of science. This was where both the Old People and their glorious company fell short. They had no perspective, only an arrogant and dangerous drive toward what they labeled “progress.” The water pump in the WAY STATION may have been created by North Central Positronics, but so were the insane SHARDIK, the psychotic ANDY, and the murderous BLAINE, who liked to play evil god to the people of LUD.
Although North Central Positronics was founded by the Old Ones on Roland’s level of the TOWER, this company seems to exist in the MULTIPLE AMERICAS as well. (The brainy Positronics folks probably designed the MIND-TRAP, which almost kills JAKE under the DIXIE PIG.) The TASSENBAUMS have a North Central Positronics magnet on their refrigerator, and DINKY EARNSHAW, one of the DEVAR-TOI’s BREAKERS, originally worked for a Positronics subsidiary that hired psychic assassins. In conjunction with SOMBRA, North Central Positronics is also in the process of taking over the PLAZA–PARK HYATT, where SUSANNAH-MIO stays during her brief trip to 1999 NEW YORK.
No matter how beneficent the original NCP intended to be (after all, it seems likely that they were hired to redesign the Tower, BEAMS, and Guardians), under the directorship of the CAN-TOI, RICHARD P. SAYRE, it serves the purposes of the CRIMSON KING and the Outer Dark. Like the other subsidiaries of Sombra, they hope to destroy the ROSE and bring down the Dark Tower. Hence, it is little wonder that when EDDIE DEAN and Roland Deschain discuss the founding of the TET CORPORATION with JOHN CULLUM, they state that Tet must have three primary functions: save the Rose, protect STEPHEN KING, and sabotage both Sombra and North Central Positronics whenever possible. The future of all the worlds depends upon the destruction of this dangerous conglomerate.
III:34, III:54, III:75, V:5, V:72, V:132, V:564, V:702, VI:11, VI:72, VI:91–92, VI:109, VI:219, VI:235, VI:237, VI:238, VI:248, VI:269, VI:270, VI:336, VI:348, VI:377, VI:381, VII:37, VII:75, VII:87–88, VII:125, VII:126, VII:343 (not directly mentioned, but they probably made the booby-trapped robots), VII:470 (and Tassenbaums), VII:471, VII:498, VII:517, VII:664–65, W:12, W:220, W:221, W:226, W:235
ANDY: Andy is CALLA BRYN STURGIS’s seven-foot-tall Messenger Robot. To EDDIE DEAN, he looks like C3PO from the film Star Wars. However, unlike C3PO, Andy’s skinny legs and arms are made from a silvery material and his head is stainless steel. (Only his body is gold.) His eyes are described as electric blue.
Like SHARDIK, the marauding man-made BEAR GUARDIAN, Andy bears the North Central Positronics stamp. Located on his chest, it reads as follows:
NORTH CENTRAL POSITRONICS, LTD.
IN ASSOCIATION WITH LaMERK INDUSTRIES
PRESENTS
ANDY
Design: MESSENGER (Many Other Functions)
Serial # DNF 34821 V 63
Although he is the last robot for wheels around, Andy never leaves the Calla. He wanders here and there, spreading gossip, singing songs, and telling horoscopes. (Despite his amazing strength, he rarely helps with any manual task more strenuous than cookery.) On the whole, the Calla folken consider Andy a nuisance; however, he does serve one important function. Each generation, he accurately predicts the coming of the WOLVES. No one has ever been able to find out how Andy knows this, since whenever they question him about it, he responds that he cannot answer unless they know the appropriate password. The reason? Directive NINETEEN.
In actuality, Andy works for the minions of the CRIMSON KING in THUNDERCLAP. Each generation,
he finds a vulnerable adult who has parented only a single set of twins. Andy then infects one of the children with a deadly disease. (In the case of BENNY SLIGHTMAN’s twin sister, the disease was hot-lung.) Once the parent has only one child left, Andy begins his emotional blackmail. If the parent acts as a spy for the Wolves, then his or her remaining child will be kept safe. Until the arrival of Roland and his ka-tet, Andy’s ploy worked incredibly well. The people of the Callas felt powerless against the Greencloaks, since the child-snatchers seemed to predict their every act of resistance.
In the final book of the Dark Tower series, we learn that robots like Andy are called ASIMOV ROBOTS. Logic faults are quite common in such intelligent mechanical beings. However, whatever happened to make Andy such a traitorous monster seems to have less to do with logic faults and more to do with plain old meanness. V:1–2, V:3–8, V:10, V:15, V:18, V:25, V:29, V:31, V:129, V:131, V:132–33, V:134, V:137–42, V:144, V:150, V:151, V:154, V:155, V:161 (indirect), V:168, V:207–8, V:211–34 (present; mentioned directly on 218, 220), V:293, V:318, V:321–24 (present with Jake and Benny), V:328, V:331, V:332, V:337, V:339, V:340, V:350–51, V:356, V:362, V:381, V:384–86, V:391, V:412, V:415, V:484, V:485, V:487, V:488, V:489–92, V:494–95, V:501, V:554, V:558, V:561, V:567–77, V:578, V:581, V:585, V:586–89, V:590, V:601–17 (present; mentioned directly on 602, 603, 608, 610, 611), V:629, V:630–35, V:641, V:644–50, V:652, V:655 (pard), V:656, V:658, V:659, V:660, V:678, V:702, V:704, VI:9, VI:67, VI:252, VII:65, VII:73, VII:146 (indirect), VII:156 (indirect), VII:157, VII:191, VII:708, VII:710, VII:722, W:16, W:17
ASIMOV ROBOTS: Intelligent robots created by North Central Positronics. They are prone to logic faults. In a working robot, such faults tend to be quarantined, like e-mail viruses that arrive on a computer protected by an antivirus program. However, as we see in the case of NIGEL, this quarantining process doesn’t always seem to work, especially in instances where a robot’s less stable emotional programming is involved. VII:156
BLAINE:
Now, although the unthinkable machinery which maintained the Beams had weakened, this insane and inhuman intelligence had awakened in the rooms of ruin and had begun once more, although as bodiless as any ghost, to stumble through the halls of the dead. (III:373)
Our ka-tet’s nasty adventure with Blaine the Insane Mono was prefigured by the story of CHARLIE THE CHOO-CHOO and also by JAKE CHAMBERS’s crazed English essay entitled “My Understanding of Truth.” This nasty, overly sophisticated train was created by the sinister North Central Positronics. He was therefore a distant cousin of SHARDIKand the other cyborg GUARDIANS.
Despite superficial appearances, Blaine was not just a train. He was in fact the GHOST IN THE MACHINES—LUD’s city-wide computer intelligence so feared by the PUBES and the GRAYS. This fear was not unfounded, since Blaine was completely psychotic. He suffered from a computerized form of split personality disorder (he was composed of nasty “Big Blaine” and terrified “Little Blaine”). While a horrified Little Blaine watched, Big Blaine committed terrible crimes such as destroying his companion mono PATRICIA (she was crying all the time) and gassing the residents of Lud. Big Blaine, whose logic and reasoning twisted long ago, agreed to take Roland and his friends southeast along the PATH OF THE BEAM to his termination point in TOPEKA. His price was a riddling contest. If the ka-tet won, Blaine would deliver them safely to their destination. If they lost, Blaine would kill them when he killed himself. Obviously, our ka-tet was at a severe disadvantage since Blaine had access to information on all levels of the DARK TOWER. However, EDDIE DEAN succeeded in defeating Blaine with the Eddie specialty—bad jokes. III:52, III:53, III:98, III:140, III:239, III:245–49 (Blaine/Patricia), III:254, III:255–56, III:263, III:267, III:286, III:288–89, III:303, III:309, III:322–25, III:332–34, III:340–50 (cradle), III:361–65, III:372–85 (373–82 voice in Cradle of the Grays with Roland and Jake), III:389, III:393–420, IV:3–10 (Roland refuses to riddle, so Blaine turns on “visual” mode; 3–6 Roland challenges, 6–9 Roland bargains), IV:13–42, IV:44–63 (45 transteel piers are yellow and black, like Portal of the Bear; 49 Eddie decides to piss off Blaine; 56 Blaine blows circuit; 58–59 crash; 61 leave Blaine; 62 standing on Blaine), IV:642–43, V:35, V:38, V:55, V:58, V:106, V:125, V:139, V:164 (mono), V:220, V:258 (indirect), V:291, V:478, V:508, V:565, V:567, V:572, V:573, V:639, VI:109, VI:117, VI:138, VI:244, VI:266, VI:269, VI:287, VI:358, VI:359, VI:404, VI:406, VII:19, VII:44, VII:160, VII:201, VII:407, VII:536, VII:645, VII:698, VII:808, VII:811, W:13, W:31
GHOSTS IN THE MACHINES: Every time the PUBES of LUD heard the god-drums, they drew lots to see who among them should be sacrificed. The Pubes believed that there were ghosts living in the machines under the city. If these ghosts were not appeased, they would take over the bodies of the dead, rise up, and eat those left alive. As JEEVES of the Pubes said, “There are a great many machines under Lud, and there are ghosts in all of them—demonous spirits which bear only ill will to mortal men and women. These demon-ghosts are very capable of raising the dead . . . and in Lud, there are a great many dead to raise” (III:322). Although the Grays ran the god-drum machines that incited the Pube’s frenzied sacrifice, they also believed that the city’s computers were haunted by demonic spirits. When you think about it, they were right. III:322–23, III:336, III:347, III:364, III:373, III:400
IMPERIUM: III:398
LITTLE BLAINE: III:347–49, III:361, III:363, III:364, III:377 (voice), III:398, III:409, III:413, IV:35, IV:52, IV:54, IV:55
PASSENGER KILLINGTON: While he and SUSANNAH are in the CRADLE OF LUD, EDDIE DEAN imagines the station as it must once have been. He even imagines he hears a loudspeaker calling for this particular passenger. III:342
DARIA (NORTH CENTRAL POSITRONICS PORTABLE GUIDANCE MODULE DARIA, NCP-1436345-AN): In The Wind Through the Keyhole, the mutant MUDMEN of the FAGONARD swamp gave TIM ROSS this speaking guidance module to help him find his way through the ENDLESS FOREST and to the home of the magician MAERLYN. Unlike so many of the wicked technological objects created by the Old People, Daria had a kind and gentle mechanical heart and eventually became Tim’s friend.
When Tim first saw Daria, he mistook her for a small purse of smooth leather with a metal seam running across her center. It was only when the Mudmen’s HELMSMAN pulled a tab attached to this seam that the purse opened and Tim saw the brushed metal disc inside which was the size and thickness of a small dinner plate. Although Tim couldn’t read the writing on top of the device, below the writing were three buttons. Pushing one of these buttons made the disk emit a low whining sound and forced a short metal stick to emerge from the plate. Pushing a second button made the disk beep and a red light come on. Once the stick was out and the red light was on, the guidance mechanism was ready to use. The person holding the mechanism had to then turn in a circle until the device beeped again and the light turned green, indicating the correct direction of travel.
Throughout his trip from the Fagonard to the NORTH FOREST KINNOCK DOGAN, where the enchanted magician MAERLYN waited in the form of a hungry TYGER, Daria proved to be a dependable guide and protector. Not only could she read the location and magical state of the magnetic BEAM which Tim followed, but upon request, she could supply a bright light. (The light made Tim think of burning phosphorus.) Throughout Tim’s journey, Daria helped him avoid dangers, such as the poisonous GIANT YELLOW MUSHROOMS that Tim would otherwise have eaten and the TENTACLED DEMON that would have eaten Tim, if it had gotten the chance.
Although DIRECTIVE NINETEEN officially restricted the amount of information that she could give to Tim, Daria purposefully disobeyed it in order to help her young traveler. As a result, she was permanently shut down.
W:210–32 (216 talks), W:232–35 (dies because of directive 19), W:237, W:239, W:256
DELICIOUS RAIN: Delicious Rain and the other D-line trains run south from the DEVAR-TOI to the poisoned DISCORDIA. VII:411
DEVAR-TOI ROBOTS (UNNAMED):
SIX-ARMED ROBOT: This robot has six
pincer-like arms, which he waves about as he tours the DEVAR-TOI. VII:343, VII:351–52
DOBBIE: Dobbie is a type of domestic robot known as a house elf. She does much of TAMMY KELLY’s work in the DEVAR-TOI Master’s house. VII:354
FEDIC ROBOTS AND UNNAMED FEDIC DOGAN ROBOTS:
CLASS A CONDUCTOR ROBOT (FEDIC STATION): VII:201
DEAD ROBOT: VI:235
HUCKSTER ROBOT: This robot travels up and down FEDIC’s main street advertising humie and cybie girls, even though all of the potential customers are dead. Although we don’t see the North Central Positronics stamp on this electronic pimp’s body, we can be fairly certain that he was made by them. VI:235, VI:244, VII:536
HUNTER-KILLER ROBOTS IN DOGAN: VII:159–60
MAINTENANCE DRONE: DINKY EARNSHAW places this fried maintenance drone near the FEDIC/THUNDERCLAP STATION door to disguise our ka-tet’s entrance into END-WORLD. VII:203, VII:222
PLAYER PIANO: VI:235
ROBOT THAT LOOKS LIKE ANDY: This robot is rusting in front of the FEDIC CAFÉ. VI:252
STEEL BALL ON LEGS: SUSANNAH DEAN spots this mechanical foreman while the ASIMOV ROBOT NIGEL carries her through the FEDIC DOGAN. The foreman fried his boards eight hundred years earlier and all he can manage to say when they pass is “Howp! Howp!” VII:75
