The Dark Tower

Bill Cullen is dead. Don Pardo is dead. Martin Luther King is dead, shot down in Memphis. Rule Discordia!

O Christ, those voices, would they never stop?

She opened her eyes and saw doors marked SHANGHAI/FEDIC and BOMBAY/FEDIC and one marked DALLAS (NOVEMBER 1963)/FEDIC. Others were written in runes that meant nothing to her. At last Nigel stopped in front of one she recognized.

NORTH CENTRAL POSITRONICS, LTD.

New York/Fedic

Maximum Security

All of this Susannah recognized from the other side, but below VERBAL ENTRY CODE REQUIRED was this message, flashing ominous red:

#9 FINAL DEFAULT

Seven

“What would you like to do next, madam?” Nigel asked.

“Set me down, sugarpie.”

She had time to wonder what her response would be if Nigel declined to do so, but he didn’t even hesitate. She walk-hopped-scuttled to the door in her old way and put her hands on it. Beneath them she felt a texture that was neither wood nor metal. She thought she could hear a very faint hum. She considered trying chassit—her version of Ali Baba’s Open, sesame—and didn’t bother. There wasn’t even a doorknob. One-way meant one-way, she reckoned; no kidding around.

(JAKE!)

She sent it with all her might.

No answer. Not even that faint (wimeweh) nonsense word. She waited a moment longer, then turned around and sat with her back propped against the door. She dropped the extra ammo clips between her spread knees and then held the Walther PPK up in her right hand. A good weapon to have with your back to a locked door, she reckoned; she liked the weight of it. Once upon a time, she and others had been trained in a protest technique called passive resistance. Lie down on the lunchroom floor, cover your soft middle and softer privates. Do not respond to those who strike you and revile you and curse your parents. Sing in your chains like the sea. What would her old friends make of what she had become?

Susannah said: “You know what? I don’t give shit one. Passive resistance is also dead.”

“Madam?”

“Nothing, Nigel.”

“Madam, may I ask—”

“What I’m doing?”

“Exactly, madam.”

“Waiting on a friend, Chumley. Just waiting on a friend.”

She thought that DNK 45932 would remind her that his name was Nigel, but he didn’t. Instead, he asked how long she would wait for her friend. Susannah told him until hell froze over. This elicited a long silence. Finally Nigel asked: “May I go, then, madam?”

“How will you see?”

“I have switched to infrared. It is less satisfying than three-X macrovision, but it will suffice to get me to the repair bays.”

“Is there anyone in the repair bays who can fix you?” Susannah asked with mild curiosity. She pushed the button that dropped the clip out of the Walther’s butt, then rammed it back in, taking a certain elemental pleasure in the oily, metallic SNACK! sound it made.

“I’m sure I can’t say, madam,” Nigel replied, “although the probability of such a thing is very low, certainly less than one per cent. If no one comes, then I, like you, will wait.”

She nodded, suddenly tired and very sure that this was where the grand quest ended — here, leaning against this door. But you didn’t give up, did you? Giving up was for cowards, not gunslingers.

“May ya do fine, Nigel — thanks for the piggyback. Long days and pleasant nights. Hope you get your eyes back. Sorry I shot em out, but I was in a bit of a tight and didn’t know whose side you were on.”

“And good wishes to you, madam.”

Susannah nodded. Nigel clumped off and then she was alone, leaning against the door to New York. Waiting for Jake. Listening for Jake.

All she heard was the rusty, dying wheeze of the machinery in the walls.

Chapter V: In the Jungle, the Mighty Jungle

One