Fall; or, Dodge in Hell - Neal Stephenson Page 0,62

of the cab. Their patriarch waddled over to the family vehicle, a beige Suburban that they’d left in the parking lot. He contemplated it for a while, as if looking for bubbled paint, melted tires, or other evidence of its having survived a nuclear detonation. Maeve had strapped her legs back on as they entered town and now stood up in the back of the truck to toss luggage down to the other Joneses. An internal family schism developed as to whether a bucket brigade should be established to move all of the bags to the Suburban, or individuals should just carry the bags a few at a time. Corvallis, an only child, found the spectacle inexplicably depressing. He cadged a key from Maeve, then vaulted out and went into the office. His careful attention to the all-important matter of rehydration, combined with the bouncing of the truck, had left him needing to take a vicious piss. The better to enjoy it, he locked himself in the restroom, pulled his tunic up around his waist, and sat down on the toilet. Stand-up peeing in a long flowing garment could lead to various mishaps.

When he was done he stood in front of the sink for a few moments splashing water on his head and neck and arms, just to get the dust off. It occurred to him that he had now finally reached a location in which it would be convenient to change into his normal-person clothes, so he went out in search of his duffel bag. The Joneses’ Suburban was long gone. Bob and Maeve had entered the office and were sitting in its little waiting area drinking beverages from the office fridge and watching television coverage. A nurse from a burn unit in some unidentified hospital was being interviewed. Journalists had pounced on her when she had gone out on a Starbucks run. She was looking suitably traumatized, but not so much that she couldn’t deliver an eloquent and moving description of the suffering being endured by children who had been standing in the open when the flash of the bomb had burned all the skin on one side of their body. For according to the story these patients had been rescued from some kind of camp on the outskirts of town. Maeve and Bob were agreeing with each other that no such camp existed, and wanted Corvallis to know it too. But he’d long since come to terms with the sophistication and sheer ballsiness of the hoax.

Corvallis went out to Bob’s truck and looked in the back, which was empty. Then he checked the cab.

He went back inside. “Did you by any chance give the Joneses a blue duffel bag about yay long?” he asked Maeve, holding his hands out in front of him.

“More than one, probably,” she answered. “Why?”

“Never mind. Is there a place on Main Street where I could buy some clothes?”

“Yeah. If they’re open.”

“Belay that. I just remembered. My wallet was in the duffel bag.”

She gazed at him sidelong while tipping a beer bottle into her mouth. “C’mon back,” she said.

Bob sat up alertly. “I could go try to track ’em down if you like.”

“Do you know which way they’re going?”

“Not really.”

“Sounds like Maeve is going to set me up with something,” Corvallis said. “Thanks though.”

Bob was now perhaps sensing a change in the emotional tone, akin to the plunge in barometric pressure preceding a cloudburst, which was not directly measurable by any of the five human senses but which could be detected, in some people’s arthritic joints, as a certain kind of discomfort. And perhaps you could make the case that people who suffered from the sort of emotional arthritis that was endemic among those of Northern European descent who lived on farms and ranches felt that discomfort more acutely, and were therefore the most sensitive barometers. “I do believe I’ll be on my way anyhow,” he said, “unless you need me for anything?”

“Well, at some point I’ll need to go back out and collect my plane,” Corvallis said, “but . . .” And he glanced at Maeve, who nodded.

“I can give you a ride out there,” she said. “Have to go collect Tom and the rafts anyway.”

So Bob said his goodbyes and went out to his truck. Maeve unlocked a door behind the front desk and beckoned Corvallis back.

Things tended to be spacious in Moab, and this building was no exception—it was an older commercial property that showed signs of having served, in