The Waste Lands (Page 143)

Jake opened his mouth to say something—he had no idea what— and then, incredibly, Roland’s voice was in his mind, filling it. Distract them, Jake—and if there’s a button that opens the door, get close to it.

The Tick-Tock Man was watching him closely. “Something just came into your mind, didn’t it, cully? I always know. So don’t keep it a secret; tell your old friend Ticky.”

Jake caught movement in the corner of his eye. Although he did not dare glance up at the ventilator panel—not with all the Tick-Tock Man’s notice bent upon him—he knew that Oy was back, peering down through the louvers. Distract them . . . and suddenly Jake knew just how to do that. “I did think of something,” he said, “but it wasn’t about computers. It was about my old pal Gasher. And his old pal, Hoots.” “Here! Here!” Gasher cried. “What are you talking about, boy?” “Why don’t you tell Tick-Tock who really gave you the password, Gasher? Then I can tell Tick-Tock where you keep it.”

The Tick-Tock Man’s puzzled gaze shifted from Jake to Gasher. “What’s he talking about?”

“Nothin!” Gasher said, but he could not forbear a quick glance at Hoots. “He’s just runnin his gob, tryin to get off the hot-seat by puttin me on it, Ticky. I told you he was pert! Didn’t I say—“

Take a look in his scarf, why don’t you?” Jake asked. “He’s got a scrap of paper with the word written on it. I had to read it to him because he couldn’t even do that.”

There was no sudden rage on Tick-Tock’s part this time; his face darkened gradually instead, like a summer sky before a terrible thunderstorm. “Let me see your scarf, Gasher,” he said in a soft, thick voice. “Let your old pal sneak a peek.”

“He’s lyin, I tell you!” Gasher cried, putting his hands on his scarf and taking two steps backward toward the wall. Directly above him, Oy’s gold-ringed eyes gleamed. “All you got to do is look in his face to see lyin’s what a pert little cull like him does best!”

The Tick-Tock Man shifted his gaze to Hoots, who looked sick with fear. “What about it?” Tick-Tock asked in his soft, terrible voice. “What about it, Hooterman? I know you and Gasher was butt-buddies of old, and I know you’ve the brains of a hung goose, but surely not even you could be stupid enough to write down a password to the inner chamber . . . could you? Could you?” “I … I oney thought . . .” Hoots began. “Shut up!” Gasher shouted. He shot Jake a look of pure, sick hate. “I’ll kill you for this, dearie—see if I don’t.”

“Take off your scarf, Gasher,” the Tick-Tock Man said. “I want a look inside it.”

Jake sidled a step closer to the podium with the burtons on it. “No!” Gasher’s hands returned to the scarf and pressed against it as if it might fly away of its own accord. “Be damned if I will!” “Brandon, grab him,” Tick-Tock said.

Brandon lunged for Gasher. Gasher’s move wasn’t as quick as Tick-Tock’s had been, but it was quick enough; he bent, yanked a knife from the top of his boot, and buried it in Brandon’s arm.

“Oh, you barstard!” Brandon shouted in surprise and pain as blood began to pour out of his arm.

“Lookit what you did!” Tilly screamed.

“Do I have to do everything around here myself?” Tick-Tock shouted, more exasperated than angry, it seemed, and rose to his feet. Gasher retreated from him, weaving the bloody knife back and forth in front of his face in mystic patterns. He kept his other hand planted firmly on top of his head. “Draw back,” he panted. “I loves you like a brother, Ticky, but if you don’t draw back, I’ll hide this blade in your guts—so I will.” “You? Not likely,” the Tick-Tock Man said with a laugh. He removed his own knife from its scabbard and held it delicately by the bone hilt. All eyes were on the two of them. Jake took two quick steps to the podium with its little cluster of buttons and reached for the one he thought the Tick-Took man had pushed. Gasher was backing along the curved wall, the tubes of light painting his mandrus-riddled face in a succession of sick colors: bile-green, fever-red, jaundice-yellow. Now it was the Tick-Tock Man standing below the ventilator grille where Oy was watching.

“Put it down, Gasher,” Tick-Tock said in a reasonable tone of voice. “You brought the boy as I asked; if anyone else gets pricked over this, it’ll be Hoots, not you. Just show me—“

Jake saw Oy crouching to spring and understood two things: what the humbler meant to do and who had put him up to it. “Oy, no!” he screamed.

All of them turned to look at him. At that moment Oy leaped, hitting the flimsy ventilator grille and knocking it free. The Tick-Tock Man wheeled toward die sound, and Oy fell onto his upturned face, biting and slashing.

ROLAND HEARD IT FAINTLY even through the twin doors—Oy, no!—and his heart sank. He waited for the valve-wheel to turn, but it did not. He closed his eyes and sent with all his might: The door, Jake! Open the door! He sensed no response, and the pictures were gone. His communica-tion line with Jake, flimsy to begin with, had now been severed.

THE TICK-TOCK MAN blundered backward, cursing and screaming and grabbing at the writhing, biting, digging thing on his face. He felt Oy’s claws punch into his left eye, popping it, and a horrible red pain sank into his head like a flaming torch thrown down a deep well. At that point, rage overwhelmed pain. He seized Oy, tore him off his face, and held him over his head, meaning to twist him like a rag.