by Dave Eggers
Four checked each gun for damage and found them to be in working condition. Of the three knives, the first was a large hunting knife, intended for hand-to-hand combat but also useful in dressing any animal he might need to kill for food. The second blade was smaller, and its handle shaped to fit around the knuckles. The third knife was simply a sturdy ceramic switchblade and could, like the plastic handgun, be easily concealed and was undetectable by the metal scanners used in the region.
Four left the largest and smallest knives in his tool roll and set the roll in a corner of the tent. The knuckled knife he put under his pillow. Likewise he hid the two guns; as was company policy, he set one of the handguns inside his sleeping bag.
It was rare for any of the company’s workers to need to use any weapon, but it was important that the locals be aware that the employees were armed. Only on one occasion had Four reached for any weapon at all, and even then it was only to show his handgun to a would-be thief. This was three years prior, and the display of destructive power had had the desired effect.
By the time Four was finished arranging the interior of his tent, it was early evening. He was not hungry, but knew he should eat now, while there was light and while Nine was away. He returned to the RS-80 and set the water tank to boil. He went to his tent, retrieved a half-liter cup and filled it with hot water from the vehicle. He poured a packet of freeze-dried beef into the cup, and stirred it with his spoon. As it cooled, he installed his earphones and pressed play.
“Hey!” Nine’s head appeared inside the tent, his hair covering his face. Four startled. “Sorry,” Nine said, pushing back his hair to reveal his mirthful eyes. “Didn’t mean to scare you.” His smile retreated and he seemed unsure of which of his many tones and postures to adopt. Four looked at him, impassive. Nine cleared his throat. “So I checked the next pod. Looked good. That is, it appeared satisfactory.”
This was all said in what seemed to be Nine’s most professional way. “You see all that crazy shit today? I assume you saw the cargo plane basically broken in half beside the road?”
Four had seen it.
“And the tank with the top of it just disappeared? You saw that fucking horse with the military, like, dressing on it, walking alone like some kind of tribute to a fallen hero? And you saw the electrical poles all along the road, and the crew setting them all up? I guess they’ll be getting electricity down here the same time as they get a road.”
Four had seen all of these things. He had seen the slanting smoke from distant rubber fires. The circling carrion birds. The stray dogs, the dead dogs. The pyramid of rusted bedframes. A shopping cart full of shattered mirrors. A pink bathrobe laid out carefully in the gravel. The ashes that had been homes. The schoolchildren in spotless yellow shirts walking to a school in a blue tent.
“And what’s with all the black garbage bags?” Nine said. “There were hundreds of them by the road, in piles, right? It’s like they’re cleaning up and waiting for some kind of sanitation truck to come after us and pick it all up.”
Seeing that Four had a bowl in his hand, Nine looked into it and winced. “What’s that?” he asked, but didn’t wait for the answer. “I can’t eat that slop. Listen, I saw a place up ahead a ways. One of these micro-restaurants. Just a couple women cooking over an open fire, but it smelled spectacular. I can take us there.”
Four swallowed a mouthful of his soupy mix. “We both need to stay here,” he said. “Eating local food is strongly discouraged. You know this. It’s in your contract.”
“Can we at least eat outside?” Nine asked. “It’s hot as fuck in here.”
Four didn’t move. He knew it was hot inside, but it was protocol to eat in one’s tent. It eliminated potential curiosity or solicitations from locals. Four had no difficulty managing any heat or cold. He had worked in high winds, in sleet and snow and grisly heat. It was a matter of preparation and patience, given that all conditions were temporary. After each assignment, no matter what suffering he’d endured for a day or a week, he had gone home on time.
Nine’s face retreated from the tent and he stood. Four could see that Nine seemed to be deciding what to do. Now Nine crouched, his face visible in the tent door again and his eyes bright behind the dangling vines of his hair.
“I met a woman on the road today,” he said, throwing his head back to free his eyes. “She waved to me and I stopped. Did you see any of the women? There’s some stunning talent here, even when they’re modestly dressed, right? Maybe especially that type, the supposedly demure and supplicating. They have a sexy way, right? There’s allure in the enigma—the riddle of the hidden body but then the audacious eyes. It’s like a sea at night, all black and unknown, but with a lighthouse screaming from above. Those eyes are always screaming I want, I want! You know what I mean. I know you do. And this one, she was really bold. She wanted to know when we’d be finished, and we talked about all the changes the road is bringing to the area. A lot’s happening already—she was effusive about it.”
Finished with his meal, Four wiped his bowl and utensils with a paper towel and set them back in his kit.
“You see how many businesses have already popped up?” Nine continued. “I counted a few hundred today already. You probably saw them. All those little restaurants and shops made with salvaged metal and plywood? Right now they’re no more than shacks selling a few things, but it’s microenterprise. It’s self-determination, growth. Did you see the beauty shop?”
Four assumed the question was rhetorical, and ignored it until the silence implied Nine wanted an answer.
“No,” Four said.
“The New World Beauty Emporium? With the hand-painted sign and all the headless mannequins out front?”
Four said nothing.
“These businesses,” Nine went on breathlessly, “they’re a way to ensure some kind of peace. The more people are invested in their own enterprise, the more they’re building something, are rooted and growing, the less likely they’ll be to accept war as a solution—to be taken in by one of these rebel opportunists. Not that they could do much anyway now. Apparently as part of the peace agreement, the rebels gave up all their heavy artillery, their few planes and tanks. It sounded like a one-sided arrangement if you ask me.”
Nine’s hair had dropped in front of his eyes, and Four knew it was time for Nine to throw it back again. He watched, fascinated by the predictability of Nine, his clownishness. But Nine mistook Four’s sociological curiosity for genuine interest in his blatherings, and grew more expansive.
“But I have to say, I feel so full here. The people’s optimism is like the birth of a star. It’s incandescent. My heart is full. Is your heart full?” Four said nothing and Nine seemed to take his silence for agreement. “Yeah,” he continued, “I don’t know if I’ve ever felt so immediately and profoundly connected. They know me. They look at me, they see me, they acknowledge me in a way no one ever has. At the same time, I know and they know that I am nothing but that I am listening. That I care. And so what we do here matters even though I don’t personally matter.”
Four checked his watch. It was seven o’clock. He needed to write a summary of the day’s work for the company, and that would take him to 7:40. Then he had to do a thorough check on the RS-80. That would take him to 8:10 or so. Then he needed to wind down before bed. He wanted to be asleep by 9:20 p.m. for a 6:00 a.m. start.
“You’re always looking at your watch,” Nine said. “Thus the name the Clock.”
“No one calls me the Clock.”
Nine blinked quickly, surprised to be corrected.
“I’m sorry. I actually thought it was a nickname you liked.”
“It’s not. No one’s ever called me that.”
Nine paused, as if formulating and discarding a half-dozen rejoinders. For a moment his face was tense with the sentences not said, and finally relaxed when he had forsaken
them all for silence. He took a deep breath and began again. “The road is a highway of life, don’t you see? Like a mighty tree. And all these homes and businesses opening alongside, they’re like roots extending from the tree, digging in, drawing life from the tree, creating opportunity and, from that, stability.”
Four looked at his shoes. If he had to endure this kind of chatter every night he would go mad.
“Don’t you ever stop and feel good about any of this?” Nine asked.
Four thought that perhaps he had made an error in preventing Nine from seeking his dinner elsewhere. With Nine gone, Four could eat and work in silence. Then again, if he allowed Nine to eat at some roadside shack, he was risking Nine getting sick, and that would mean delays and a compromised schedule.
“I have to write my report,” Four said. “Have a good dinner.” Four retrieved his log and began filling it out.
Four heard Nine walk for a time outside, his steps loud on the road’s gravel shoulder. There was nothing useful Nine could be doing out there. There was no reason to be tramping around so loudly. Finally Four zipped his tent closed.
“Nice night out here,” Nine said from the other side of the nylon. He began whistling some tuneless dirge.
Four put his earphones in and pressed play. In half an hour he finished his report and was ready to do his check on the RS-80. He was about to leave the tent when Nine unzipped Four’s tent door and inserted his face yet again.
“I know I shouldn’t have, but I brought a little something.” He held aloft a flask. “Got it in the city before we left. Want some?”
“No,” Four said. “You shouldn’t have that.”
Nine forced his face into a faux-sheepish expression and tucked the flask into his jumpsuit.
“What are you listening to?” Nine asked.
Four said nothing. It was evident that Nine had already been drinking. It must have been some kind of bathtub moonshine; his medicinal breath filled the tent. Again Four instructed himself to keep his anger in check. In the thirty-six hours Nine had been in the city alone, this man had hired at least one prostitute and had found alcohol where it was strictly prohibited. Now he had reentered Four’s tent uninvited, having quickly brought himself to intoxication.
“Remember that woman you saw me with this morning? She was actually pretty. Her ass was like two basketballs, inflated just right. ‘Ever let the Fancy roam, / Pleasure never is at home.’ You know that one? My bastard father made us all recite poetry.”
Nine paused, as if expecting Four to ask him about this fascinating piece of Nine’s history, his being made to recite poetry by a bastard father. When Four made no inquiry, Nine seemed momentarily surprised but pressed on.
“That’s the thing about this part of the world—the prostitutes aren’t strung-out bags of pus. They’re fresh, unspoiled. ‘She will mix these pleasures up / Like three fit wines in a cup.’ You have to know that one! Same poem, actually.”
No man, Four thought, should have to endure another man quoting poetry and asking the listener to guess from what dead author it came.
“My lady had long hair, and it smelled like wool, but in other places she smelled so sweet.” Seeing no reaction from Four, he pushed on. “Her bush was delicious. I know most men won’t drink from a whore’s bush but I love it. I always love it. She was amazed I’d do it. She spread her legs and let me feast.”
“Get out of here,” Four said.
Nine seemed to think he was joking, that Four was enjoying his story. “I’m not one to mistake a whore’s kindness for love or even affection,” he continued, “but this lady was different. I think she was grateful for me paying her enough that she could sleep all night in one bed. We were both grateful. She was grateful, and that made her kind, and I was grateful for her kindness. When you knocked on the door we’d just finished another go, and it was genuinely tender—like we had a real understanding about the mutual benefit of giving each other pleasure. You ever feel that with a pro?”
Four briefly pictured beating Nine senseless with his fists.
“No,” Four said, and threw the tent flap closed.
V
THE HEAT HAD not let up during the night. At dawn Four woke up in a tight cocoon of sweat and dust.
He stood, stretched, opened his tent to a pearly sky and relieved himself on the side of the road. From the RS-80 he filled a jerrican with water and, standing on the new road, now paved and cooled, he cleaned himself. Afterward he could still smell his human stink, so he went to his tent, retrieved his supply bag, opened a packet of sanitizing towelettes and cleaned himself a second time. Eventually the smell faded.
He checked the time. Six thirty-seven. He turned on the RS-80’s computer and activated the first pod. It would take thirty minutes to heat, so they would need to begin moving in twenty. But Nine had not appeared from his tent.
“Twenty minutes,” Four said in the direction of Nine’s tent. He heard no response. He tapped the vinyl cover.
“Yes, who is it?” Nine said in a comic falsetto.
“Twenty minutes,” Four said.
Four unwrapped a nutrition bar and ate it while standing on the road. He looked back on the road he’d paved the day before. It was immaculate and black and its perfection gave him an inner click of satisfaction. He filled his thermos with clean water from the RS-80, drank half of it down, swallowed a handful of vitamins and began disassembling his tent. When he was finished and had stuffed the tent in the RS-80’s side compartment, Nine emerged from his tent.
“Good day, sir,” he said, and bowed.
“Twelve minutes,” Four said.
“You eat yet?” Nine asked. “Actually, I don’t want to know. The way you eat is so fucking depressing. They gave me some eggs last night. Want one?”
“Last night?” Four said. “Who gave you eggs?”
“Oh. Oh Jesus. How to explain? How. To. Explain? After you went to sleep, your belly full of your robot food, I went to that village we passed a ways back and I had real sustenance. The paver can boil water, right? Saved two for you.” He had two eggs in his hands, and walked to the RS-80. He found the water tank and set it to boil.
“That’s not for boiling eggs,” Four said, but he knew that Nine would not be dissuaded. “How did you get there?”
Nine leaned against the vehicle and scratched his groin. “So you were asleep at what, nine or ten? I didn’t want to wake you, so I didn’t start up the quad. I set out on foot, just going back on the road we already paved, and Jesus Christ, I’ve never seen so many stars. Incredible sky here. It’s so close, like you could jump up and wave your hands and gather the stars like sand. So I walked with my head thrown back, just astonished, and all along I would encounter people, and when they saw my jumpsuit they knew I was part of the road team. And they were so thankful. So grateful. I mean, they were walking on the surface barefoot, the asphalt still warm, just to see what it felt like! These people had never really seen a properly paved road.”
The water boiled, and Nine dropped the eggs in. “So I made it to the village, just following the road, right? And it was lit up, just strung with single bulbs, holiday lights. It was alive. We passed it during the day, and then it just looked like a series of shanties, right? But walking through it at night—god, it was so awake, so electric. People everywhere. They were surprised to see me, because there’s absolutely no one here like us, but after a while I was just another fact of their lives. There was music coming from tiny radios and boom boxes from another age, machines I hadn’t seen in twenty years. CDs, cassettes even! So much music. And the food!”
Nine offered Four a boiled egg he’d peeled.
“No,” Four said. “Two minutes till we leave.”
Nine ate the eggs in a rush of ravenous swallows. “Oh, these are so good. Laid just yesterday. This woman took them from the chicken’s roost. Grabbed t
hem right from under the hen’s ass. I watched her. Oh, Jesus. They taste like life.”
Nine ate with his eyes closed, swallowing the last of the embryos. His tent was still assembled. Four realized that it would take ten minutes for Nine to get his gear together. He wouldn’t be able to get it into the storage compartment before Four needed to get the RS-80 moving.
“You’ll have to carry your stuff on the quad,” Four said. “I’m leaving on time.”
“That’s fine,” Nine said. “I’ll catch up to you in a second, and maybe at lunch I can tell you about the special lady I met last night. It’s a sweet story, I promise, very chaste. But the way she danced—” He did a vague imitation of a woman’s swaying hips and lewdly ran his hands over his own waist.
Four checked his watch, knowing the RS-80 would thrum momentarily, which it did, indicating that the first pod was hot. “Be quick,” he told Nine. He stepped up into the RS-80 and closed the door.
VI
IT WAS TWENTY minutes before Nine appeared on his quad, waving as he shot by on the road’s shoulder in a tantrum of pink dust. He was not wearing his helmet, and his arms were exposed in a region known for malaria. His speed was excessive and his wake clouded the air with an unnecessary red fog. He had packed his tent haphazardly on the back of the quad. When he passed, Four could see little through the dust but Nine’s wide smile, the look of a teenager tearing down a beach on a borrowed machine.
Between this and the visit to the village last night, Four considered using the satellite phone to call headquarters to request a replacement for Nine. But he knew that would alert them to a problem. The company referred to such a problem, to any problem, as an anomaly, and anomalies reflected badly on everyone involved. The driver’s job was to mitigate anomalies and keep the schedule. On Four’s first assignment, thinking he was being thorough, he had reported a series of anomalies the first day, and was gently told that though his attention to detail was appreciated, the company did not need to know about ruts, divots, grooves or questions posed by local citizens. Four was expected to handle these issues and keep moving. Anomalies were to be solved, not reported.
