Chapter 25 chapter 2
The poets of the ancient peoples who lived in the basin told stories about the wind.
Matt Xie sits in his cubicle in the concrete building.The concrete building was the size of a basketball court, somewhere beneath the plaster hills of southern New Mexico.
The name of this operation is Garment Bag.
Some people aren't sure if they're making weapons or not.They are doing developmental research without knowing exactly what will happen to what they have discovered, simulated, seen or predicted.Although all work is interconnected at some level, geographically far from the researcher's desk exploration and experimental planning, ignorance of the overall outcome is one of the underlying themes of systematic research.
Matt has worked in consequences analysis, calculating the dire consequences of a nuclear accident or a small nuclear exchange.He bases his research on data from actual events. In 1957, a B-36 bomber made a mistake -- there's no one who doesn't make mistakes, you know? — dropped a huge thermonuclear bomb and then landed in the city of Albuquerque in central New Mexico, where that bomb also landed.Conventional explosives exploded, but nuclear devices did not.To this day, seventeen years later, that accident remains a secret from the public.Matt sat in his cubicle, looking at a camping guidebook.
He'd been working on the Pouch Project for five months, and it must have been weapons research, but indirectly.He is in front of the computer screen all day, mainly researching security structures.He wasn't sure what his views on the work were.He hopes to study weapons, to engage in cutting-edge things, to clarify the nature of his work, to make achievements, and to have a better understanding of himself.However, all he knows is that this is a secret facility in the desert.
They called that project the coat bag, after an animal called the bag mouse.Clothes rats are frantically digging tunnels under the plowed mounds to live in.
There are sand dunes, salt flats, and a piece of white.There was once an ancient seabed, and lines outlined by white smoke appeared in the distance.In a cave near the city of White, the mummified baby was found 6,000 years ago.Then there are those animals that, over tens of millions of years of evolution, have whitened themselves—a mouse that once had brown fur turned white to adapt to the color of the plaster deposits and escape The gaze of the hunter.
Winds blowing up from the mountains of Oregon, up to fifty miles an hour, rearranged the dune fields and turned the sky a strange, dangerous gray that looked like a crazy white.
Most of the staff working in the Clothes Bag Project are men, and only a small number are married with their albino children.They live in those small two-family bungalows on the edge of the missile test range, listening to the howling sound of the strong wind.The philosophers of the ancient nation have described the gale in a philosophical way with vivid language.It blows non-stop, sometimes for days, constantly changing the face of the dune plain.
Do you study sound waves?Has the impact of the shock wave on the carrier aircraft been calculated?Are you working on physical design while thinking about a girl in Georgia? —she put her hand in your pants while you were driving around the swamp.Are you eager to see a fireball, to see a real thermonuclear experiment?Of course, such tests—atmospheric thermonuclear tests—are now outlawed.Still, you wish you'd seen the horrific experiment of seeing atolls evaporate in a flash.
In the underground cafeteria, he had lunch with Eric Deming.Deming, a tall, casual man in his early thirties, two years younger than Matt, was one of the warhead developers here.
Eric, with drooping shoulders and baggy clothes, tends to eat with both hands—french fries for sure, but also lettuce, beets, rice, corn kernels, anything he can hold and eat. Grab everything you pick up with your hands.
"When is Janet coming?"
"Soon. We're working on the details," Matt said.
"Can you show us her? We've never seen a woman from the outside world."
"You've been around"
"This isn't the outside world. You'd have to walk a thousand miles to figure it out. You know that. It's not outside this state, Matt."
"She won't come here."
"Okay, do you know what percentage of people in this state pass security? Isn't that why we like it?"
"We met somewhere west of here and we went camping. Far, far, far away. I'd talk her into coming here if I could. She doesn't really want to come here, I said It's Janet."
Eric works in an experimental area that Matt does not have access to.He used to handle radioactive materials in a sealed glove box.He wears protective gloves with insulating sleeves on his sleeves, work clothes made of multiple layers of treated cloth, and equipped with several film-type radiation meters and radiation detectors.He developed bomb components—neutron detonators, detonators, subcritical matter, and other things that go inside nuclear warheads.
He's working on something else now, and Matt doesn't know what exactly.He wears a Q-rated badge with a yellow border and spreads shocking claims.
Those warhead developers hang out with the megakill guys, they love their jobs, but they're not necessarily supporters of the bomb.They are a bunch of fanatical detail lovers, awed by the inherent charm of nuclear bomb technology.Matt observes them, attends their parties, and learns their language.They have the fiery aftertaste of the 1960s, willing to dedicate themselves to a cause no matter what. They believed that Matt was in the running for a transfer and was ready to be one of them, wearing a coded badge.This Q-level designation allows him to enter the final gate, enter the tunnel leading to the nuclear bomb design area, and access sensitive information. But Matt's eyes were stalking the outdoor sports magazines, the camping pockets, the yurt.He needs time, to get out of here, to think alone. He was skeptical, wondering if it was right for him to do so. At the exit of Passage 70, near the sign of the missile test range, there is an area that is blank on the map.That's where those protesters stood.Seven or eight of them, sometimes just two or three, both men and women, carried a banner held up by two upright sticks, and World War III began.The base personnel sometimes taunted them, sometimes just smirked at them, sometimes felt that they were flattered by the banner, and sometimes felt sorry for them when they saw them facing the strong wind and no one cared about them. Matt enjoyed seeing them, even looked forward to seeing them in a sense.It started to mean a lot to him, knowing they were there, four, five or six, usually more women.Sometimes, two people hold the wooden stick supporting the banner with serious expressions.Without saying a word, they watched military vehicles pass by.Some flatbed trucks were loaded with covered things, and some were filled with base non-military personnel and construction workers, pointing at them with strange expressions on their faces. Areas not shown on the map include the air force base, the army base, the missile test range, the vast area to the northwest known as the Jornada del Muerto (Journal of the Dead), and the salt flats between the dune plains.Those salt flats are not marked on the map, but in reality they are all white.There are low, fenced buildings that house propane tanks that serve the underground works of the Garment Bag program, which designs weapons. They work according to a strict time schedule, and each task must be completed on time.Those warhead developers are quite critical of this.They are quick-witted, rationally controlled, unaffected by ambiguous morals, unaffected by emotional nonsense about consequences and pain.They understand the fundamentals of conflict and dislike the pressure exerted by bureaucrats on the ground. However, there are always deadlines and every task must be completed on time.There is no war, but there is the urgency of war. Eric asked: "Have you heard the latest secret news?" Reflecting the afterglow of the setting sun, the two of them walked to the outskirts of the small bungalows, and there were only the two of them on the vast sandy plain.Eric kept looking around to see if anyone was eavesdropping.Of course, that action was hilarious.He curled up the corner of his mouth and hummed in a low voice, such an action would make it difficult for those studying the monitor screen to perform lip reading skills. "It's an old story that's just surfacing," he said. "It's surfacing in the form of trivial rumours." "Whose past?" "Staff at the Nevada Test Facility during the ground trials." "What about them?" "Those who live downwind. Incidentally, those people have a name which, in a general way, defines their existence." "What name?" "Underwind," Eric said. The two strolled lightly, past clumps of low, salt-tolerant plants growing in alkaline soil, toward the grid. "What's wrong with them?" Matt asked. "Nobody should know about it. However, it's also somewhat public." "What was revealed?" "Secret. Nobody mentions it, keeps it secret." "What secret?" Matt asked. "There's someone with multiple myeloma, someone with kidney failure, someone who wakes up one morning and finds they're three inches shorter." "You mean exposure to fallout." "There are people who start vomiting one day and vomit every day for up to seven or eight weeks." "However, isn't that what we should expect to send out? Occasional miscalculations. It's dangerous work, you know." Eric seemed to like the idea.No, he seemed to have anticipated the statement and found it encouraging.The two walked across a vast sand dune field, the air seemed to form an insurmountable barrier, and the heat made it difficult for them to walk. "And the small farming community downwind of the experiment, where the kids almost all wear wigs," Eric whispered. "Chemotherapy?" "Yes, every now and then a baby is born deformed. A healthy woman tries to wash her hair, and it falls out when touched. You know, she's black one minute, and she's completely bald the next. " "Where does this happen?" "Mainly in southern Utah. I've heard it's because it's downwind, but it happens in other areas as well. Some people have adenocarcinoma and they've got those big subcutaneous abscesses that the Old Testament says , as well as spots and rashes, he vomited a lot of blood after coughing, and blood flowed from his hands covering his mouth, which was caused by radiation." The two walked along the grid and saw a warning sign.It was scribbled surreptitiously by a protester or some defector involved in the bag project. "Do you think these claims are true?" "No." Eric said. "Then why do you spread the word?" "Of course, because of their tone." "Because they speak strongly." "Fierce, provocative, with an existential burn." Father was out buying cigarettes when Matt was six. Eight days passed, and my father didn't come back, neither called nor asked a friend to send a message.Matt accepted the changes in the apartment and started walking. He had walked in this direction before, had never passed the elevated train on Third Avenue alone, but today he was walking in this direction.Later he crossed Main Street, where the trains from the suburbs passed through the long passage under the street on their way to Grand Central.It was here that Nicky would one day throw rocks, stand behind the railing and throw rocks at the passing trains in broad daylight. Afterwards he climbed a long flight of steps towards the street near Grand Place.He used to climb the long flight of steps with his mother to the movies and buy a sundae at the nearby ice cream parlor.Now, alone, he climbed the steps to the Rue Grande-Place.There's a movie theater there called Love's Paradise.There are about sixty or seventy steps, and the houses are built on iron pillars, completely resembling a scene from another country. In this remote white desert, he saw himself standing across the street, looking up at the Italianate facade of Cinema Paradise. He saw himself gazing at the great clock, the balustrade and the ornamental stone dome. He saw that he was buying a movie ticket, and he could barely reach the small hole in the ticket window.He slipped the coin in and saw the woman who sold the ticket press something, and the movie ticket popped out of the slot. He walked into the hall and felt the heat rising from the carpet and spreading around him like a petted dog, content and quiet.Goldfish are fed in marble sinks.He looked up at the chandelier of etched glass.Several prominent boxes hung paintings in gilt frames.He felt that the sense of sanctity here was a thousand times greater than that of the church. Sitting in his squat bungalow near the missile test range, he saw himself going up the carpeted stairs, hoping to sit higher up, near the ceiling of the movie theater. He saw the usher standing there with a flashlight pinned to his waist, braid on his shoulders, and a row of brass buttons on his chest.The usher kept pressing the torch switch, listening to it click and click.Matt thought the usher would say he couldn't sit in the box because that's where the grown-ups sit, the smoking area, the young men and women who want to put their arms around their necks and kiss.But the usher pressed the flashlight switch and stood there without speaking as Matt walked past him. He went up the stairs to the seat near the ceiling.There the stars twinkle across the sky.The whole sky floated across the ceiling, stars, constellations, and hazy blue clouds.His mother wanted him to be an altar when he grew up, but the movie theater was much nicer than the church. He saw it all through the eyes of an adult—a grown man who had never smoked, barely driven a car, stopped playing chess, and fell in love with a nurse who worked in Boston. He saw that he was standing in the box of Paradise Cinema.As the scene in the film changes, the screen is bright and dark.His gaze flicked to the wall next to him, and then to the other wall.The lights flickered and danced, and he saw the whole beautiful picture: arches, doorways, statues, flower pots, marble busts, vines on balustrades, heroes with swords on pedestals, pillars made into human figures.The anatomical structure of the human body is painted on these two walls, which is extremely beautiful. At the top of the gable stands an angel with a halo above his head.He sat there, waiting for his father to appear, or his ghost or spirit to appear. He takes off his glasses, he puts them on.He took it off again and wiped it with a light-colored cotton cloth, then sat in front of the computer, looked at the displayed data, and blinked.Those data are used in the arming system of the weapon, in the control system of the weapon, to issue commands to the ignition system, to implement activation, protection or re-protection.He heard a faint boom somewhere in the desert, the shock wave of a supersonic plane, and it made him shudder and move him.No matter how often he heard it, no matter how far away from it, he always felt that way.Sometimes planes fly over his head early in the morning, waking him out of his dreams; other times, he stands outside the dormitory before nightfall, looking at the trail clouds left by a formation of a dozen planes in the sky. .The planes have long since disappeared, but the sound waves they left behind have been heard for a long time, making him fearful and moved.At this time, a huge echo came from the mountain, as if those planes opened a crack in the world. Here, some people don't know the final result of their work, don't know where it can be applied, and don't know how the numbers and symbols they arrange enter into nature.This is likely to have an effect in the blink of an eye. All factors are connected at some undisclosed point, connected in related systems.Naturally, this idea evokes a certain unease. But, in a sense, it's a wonderfully mysterious thing, something that one wants to know: How can someone tentatively put a simple equation into a computer and it can change so much? How can the trajectory of a person's life make a woman's blood surge on a tram thousands of miles away?How should this relationship be defined? Matt doesn't like driving.He has only been driving for six months and knows that driving will definitely make him feel uncomfortable.All he was able to do was mimic the driving behavior.He borrowed a four-wheel-drive vehicle from a warhead developer and carried the driver's manual on his lap as a reference while driving.The road, the signs, the other vehicles, it made him nervous and exposed his poor driving skills. However, he had to practice a bit so he could drive out and go camping with Janet.He goes out to practice driving when he's not at work.On the road, he saw signs for "Emergency Ramp for Runaway Trucks" and "Dangerous Crosswinds." He also saw signs that read "Jesus is God" and saw white smoke in the distance.He knew now that it was the sandy bottom of the sea.He saw the "NO DRIVING ON FLOODED WAY" sign, the endless row of power line pylons stretching toward Texas, their crossbars casting slatted shadows across the salt flats. One day, when he was returning from practice, he saw the protesters.They were stationed in the wrong place, as usual.They were supposed to stand outside Gate 3 of the Air Force Base, the unmarked gate through which the scientists involved in the Pocket Bag project entered and exited the base.He almost went up to tell the protesters: Move down the road. Matt looked a little Jewish, maybe a little Spanish or Mexican.He practiced weightlifting when he was eighteen or nineteen, hoping to make his weak body strong and no longer an appendage of that bright head.People in the Bronx once said that his appearance was multi-ethnic, including Mexican, Italian, and even Japanese—and the friendliest smile might resemble a deliberate grimace.A police sketch is based on seven different descriptions.That's Matt's facial features. In the 1950s, he was studying at the City College of New York, working hard, short-sighted, quick-witted, poor, and took the subway to class.Afterwards, he has maintained the appearance of that time.
In the cafeteria, he sat down with Eric Deming to eat.Eric rolled up a bunch of spaghetti with his fingers, stuffed it slowly into his mouth, and swallowed it whole, his throat wriggling in the way a snake eats. Matt said: "That's right. Those are the factors that we have to anticipate. We are not naive, and mistakes are part of the process. Sometimes the wind changes suddenly and the fallout is blown in an unplanned direction. Sometimes the shock waves and blast vibrations can be so powerful that they're beyond anyone's predictions." "The 1950s were peaceful, everyone dressed according to the same style and talked the same way. All people cared about was the kitchen, the car and the television. Mom, where's the toothpaste? Fresh in your memory, right?" "You know, I don't know," Matt said. "You've been through it, we've both been through it." "You did, I was somewhere else." "The hallway between the buildings was covered, and Dad was washing the car. At that time, in this remote place, the government deployed troops in the trenches, ready to play nuclear war games. Fireballs blazed above their heads, screaming Hurring sound." "You mean they got too close to the weapons being tested." "That's what I've heard. If they look at their arm, their eyes can see through it. Basically, their arm becomes an X-ray image and their eyes can see through the fabric of the uniform. and skin. The light from the explosion was so intense that they could see blood, bones, and other things in the body. However, that's not the end. Actually, if they closed their eyes, they could see all of these things without opening them at all Eyes. They can see through their eyelids, lol." "Well, is that officially recognized?" "One day a few years later, they woke up like a dream, and found that all their internal organs were mixed together and turned into a big jelly." "However, have those people been compensated?" "I don't know," Eric said. "You relay the rumour, it's not your concern." Eric sticks a finger into Matt's creamed spinach, picks out a small piece, and pops it into his mouth. "What's the point of a rumor if it's full of bureaucratic details? The point is," he said, "that it happened in broad daylight and yet remains a big secret to this day. Anyway, the rumor is That said. I don't believe it at all. They sometimes do big nuclear tests on towers, sometimes they drop explosive devices from planes. They send military personnel very close to the shock wave, and they send radioactive fallout to Utah. There babies are born with the bladder in the opposite position." Matt liked Eric from the bottom of his heart.The guy was very smart, kind, and charming, though he had an unnatural expression, and he was too tall.But there is an inherent bewilderment in his smile that sometimes blinds observers to his motives.When someone saw his non-moving mouth, they would often wonder in their hearts: Did they fall into his trap? "You know the school not far from here. This is not a rumor, but a fact in front of you. I have been there and saw it with my own eyes. It is called the Abo Elementary School Fallout Shelter, a real place, deep underground." "Just like us." "We're not real," Eric said. "It's full of kids. Small schools. They still have a chance to be real. I was sent there to give lectures to them." "As a warhead researcher?" "As a young member with a strong attitude in the military industrial research organization, casually chatting after work, talking about unimportant things." "What did you tell them?" "On the edge of town, there's a water tank with fresh paint that says 'State Champion.' Miss it. There are some prefab buildings and two or three basketball courts. Finally, you will see an entrance. Open the steel gate and go down the stairs, surrounded by cast iron and concrete. The light is a bit dark, let It's creepy. There are classrooms, bedding and canned goods, and a reference room. There are no window openings in the walls, which is a characteristic of the place. Of course, because there are no windows. But, what I want to say is. Matt , what do I mean?" "I don't know, just tell me." “Are they doing it to protect their children from a nuclear bomb launched by the Soviet Union, or from our own nuclear bomb and fallout?” "I don't know. Guard against both. What did you tell those kids?" "I was vague," Eric said, "and wanted them to think for themselves. I was standing in an underground classroom, on the northern edge of a great desert, with air filtration to keep out the fallout. There There's also a well-appointed reference room with pastel drawings of pigs and cows pasted on blackboards. By the way..." "what?" "I have a chess set in my room. How about playing a game?"
Those who work on the bag project form a group, completely isolated from the outside world.It's a place where the work that is done by the individual is valued, and the relationships are good, so the little world is very human and keeps people interested.This place is self-contained, self-referential, where everyone works together in a language that outsiders cannot understand. Janet Urbaniac is Matt's girlfriend, a registered nurse.The relationship between the two is sometimes hot and cold, most of the time they keep the heat, and they often lose patience when getting along, but they always have a heart-to-heart. He called Janet when she wasn't at work, and she told him where she'd been, what she'd seen or bought, who she'd been with, and how long.He listened attentively, making comments from time to time, and asking for details. She works in the trauma unit.She told him about her night shift, but he said nothing about his job.Of course, she understood this, so she never inquired. Janet calls Matt's mother twice a week to find out how she is doing.She then called Matt to report what she had learned.Matt called his mother, sometimes to confirm, sometimes to get the specifics of an ailment.He loved the phone conversations, the calls he made, and the calls he heard—they gave him the opportunity to learn about life outside of the pocketbook. He drove past protesters who stood alone in a borrowed Jeep.Against the dry wind on the salt flats, the woman struggled to hold the wooden pole to keep the placard upright.He would have stopped and talked to her, shook her hand, and talked.He wanted to express his tolerance for her views, to allow himself to accept some of her arguments, to offer his own sound points.Then he took her to the drab room where she was lodging on the outskirts of some small town.To make love to her in a tender, groaning, forgiving way, in her untidy bed, with the surrounding mountain views.However, he only slowed down slightly as he passed. He was later told that the protesters were living in a scrapped school bus parked in the Sacramento hills.Matt kind of likes this approach: throwing everything about himself and sticking to an idea.He remembered hearing Sister Edgar talk about the Desert Sage in sixth grade.They are the pillar saints - saints who penanced on high pillars.Dressed in a nun's attire, she sits high on a desk with her legs crossed, resembling a saint seated cross-legged on a pillar in Sinai.She narrated to the class, mixing Latin and Hebrew words as she spoke.Matt liked them and liked to see the outcasts of fanatical convictions here, who haunted the missile test ranges and silos of the West. This is one of the primary reasons why he decided to come here in the first place—to answer the questions and doubts in his heart, to gain self-knowledge in the process of confirming the limits of will in a more difficult life. Did you write your dissertation on solar energy?Have you ever written an article on the excitation principle of nuclear fission?Do you go to the dentist every six months to have your teeth cleaned?Are you a physicist resentful of your mother?Are you a systems engineer secretly masturbating while your wife watches reruns of "The Honeymoon"?Do you want to see towers filmed with special effects?Ever longed to see the sun rise from the opposite direction and the shadows cast by the trees are all wrong?Curious to see the spectacle of non-material atom formation?Want to see condensation clouds lined up in a very short time and presented in a concentrated way?Do you really want to see the scene mentioned in the Bible: the visible shock wave is slowly approaching, and the strong wind blows up sage, sand, hats, cats, car parts, condoms, and poisonous snakes, flying in the desert dawn? Eric always wanted to play chess with him.However, he neither wants to play chess nor to talk about it.His chess playing experience is a difficult old story, the past of an unknown person who is obsessed with chess, which makes him unbearable to look back.Janet knew a thing or two about it; besides, perhaps, his mother, his brother, and Don Bronzini. "You don't understand me," Eric said in the jeep. "You're spreading rumors you don't believe in yourself. That's what it means," Matt said. "Clouds of radioactive fallout drifted toward populated areas, and they had to set up barricades. There were people with neuroblastoma, burns from beta rays, sheep with two heads. There were herds of livestock. Die violently in the wild. Some people wake up in the morning and find that their teeth have begun to fall out, without pain or bleeding." For example, two or three teeth are missing.Slimy and barely audible, it fell down, Eric said.The man wrapped the fallen teeth in cold, wet gauze, hopped in the car, and drove to the dentist, sure that the dentist would be able to put them back in.Aren't doctors capable of amazing things when it comes to replanting severed limbs?Maybe, the doctor couldn't fit the tooth.Doctors send them to laboratories at the newly built medical center.There is very advanced equipment there, and a diagnosis can be made in a very short time.It is impossible for you to live for a thousand years to do such a thing. However, at the first red light, the man took out the gauze from his pocket, opened it carefully, and wanted to take a look. Eric said that there was nothing in it, only a small pile of powder—his teeth Totally rotten.Human teeth have a strong structure and are very durable. They were originally used for biting and chewing meat, and such things still grow in the mouths of prehistoric people.In the skulls of those prehistoric people who have been excavated and studied, the teeth will not break down after a million years.However, those teeth in his pocket were reduced to ashes within six minutes. He called Janet and chatted, talking and listening.The more trivial things to talk about, the better he feels.He wanted to hear the details of her life that day, and even the little things that meant nothing comforted him in his lonely thoughts and became something worth cherishing. Sometimes, she would talk about her work, what she saw when she worked the late night shift in the trauma unit.She recounts without emotion, for example, the sound of footsteps clattering on the floor of a hallway that has just been mopped, as relatives and friends drag a knife victim over.Sometimes, the patient is brought in by the doctor on duty. One of the patient's uncle and mother is holding the head, the other is holding the legs, and four children are holding the patient's two arms, two on each side. She described scenes like paintings by European masters—those of holy places and wars. In the process of dealing with these things, she showed strength and made her think she was beautiful to him.She was petite, neither of them tall, and Janet was thinner.He liked to imagine her in a surgical gown, reaching into a patient's chest to extract a bullet or a chicken bone.She looks shy, but this does not conceal her eloquence, which is not lacking in courage and will.He has seen and heard this often.In order to express her point of view, she will go on and on. He felt that they were very honest with each other.Both want to start a family, both need each other, yet are often plagued by complexities of existing careers, life plans, opportunities, separate cities, the idea of getting married and having children, and innovation Look for job variables.It's so hard to get everything covered, sometimes they agree, sometimes they bargain, sometimes they fight, sometimes they make plans and try to make it happen. He looked at pictures taken from Landsat, from space a year or two ago.The photographs are composite color images showing signs of erosion, the state of broken ground, and more than a hundred other activities and features.They show stress, drift, and industrial catastrophe, and gigabytes of data have been transformed to create these images. He sees how remote sensors get their cryptic meaning from Earth, how expanses of bright color and innumerable computer-generated dot graphics show changes in water temperature and where dwindling grizzly bears feed and mate. .He saw the slender sandy beaches rendered in bone white, the gigantic cities rendered in computer graphics, the black lakes within the range of the test range, the potholes formed by moraine. He couldn't help it, and continued to watch. Those aerial photo mosaics seem to reveal a second kind of beauty in the world.Normally invisible, it combines precision and comfort in a hallucinatory way.Each striking color evokes in him complex emotions that can neither be pinpointed nor described. 他想到，镶嵌图上的那些街道是从太空拍摄，那些住宅里的人过着什么样的生活呢？ 他觉得，这是传感器下一步将要发现的东西——住在房间里的人没有表达出来的情感。 这时，他不禁想到了尼克。 他多次都想给哥哥打电话，告诉他自己正在从事的工作。他可以让尼克了解这里的基本情况，让他知道弟弟正在做着重要的工作，让他知道这项工作让弟弟不时心生烦恼。 一天，他可能发现自己制定出一个物理研究方案，一个核装置的爆炸元件。这是忠实可靠的弹头研发人员的专业领域。 马特无法确定自己是否能够独自处理好这件事情。如果必要，他有可能做到。珍妮特可能伸出援手，她对此持明确态度，可以帮助他打消疑虑。然而，他希望和尼克谈一谈，希望在电话里听到哥哥的声音，听到那种稍微带有倾向性的强调言辞，听到哥哥饱含人生智慧的意见。 尼克说话时态度严肃，这一点在某个意义上是欧洲人的特征。他说话有条不紊，思路明确，首先可能给人尚未考虑清楚的感觉，接着经过重新思考，最后形成明确观点。他有时严肃，克制，并不轻易表达自己的看法。不过，他可能从这种工作涉及的道德和伦理的角度，给弟弟提供见解。马特最希望听到的是他对此有兴趣。这一点非常重要，超过了直率的意见、建议或者判断。当然，马特也需要听到哥哥以他特有的口气提出的判断。 他不知道哥哥可能说些什么。也许，哥哥会说，这种方式让你成为行为严谨的人，认真权衡棘手问题，在令人痛苦的过程中做出选择。如果坚持不懈，你最后就会变得更加坚强。也许，他会说，傻瓜，如果你像我这样担当父亲的角色，这将给你的灵魂打上什么样的烙印呢？在这样的世界上生儿育女，把自己的才华浪费在这种事情上，你想它值不值呢？这时，哥哥会轻言细语地说话。哥哥，有谁比我更了解武器具有的不稳定特性呢？ 大风从山上刮来，让沙丘原改变模样。假如你没有在衣囊计划中供职，此时你会坐在家里享用啤酒和小吃。你会看到，自家后院里绳子上晒的衣服全被吹了起来。床单、手帕、拳击短裤和睡衣在风中啪啪作响，仿佛是形形色色的人物在翩翩起舞，让自己的灵魂飞向石膏山岭。 “那不是问题所在，”埃里克说，“你总是不、不、不得要领。” 山里正在下雨。 埃里克故作口吃，利用它来增加谈话的质感。尽管听话的人和说话人都不是结巴，他却时而用它来讽刺自己，时而用它来讽刺对方。也许，他在模仿夜总会或者电视节目中的某个滑稽角色。马特并不清楚他这样做的具体原因。 马特从埃里克的小平房窗户向外望去。大雨形成了一道雾墙，挂在石灰峭壁上，微微闪亮。埃里克坐在一张没有拆去塑料包装的沙发上，四周散落着科学期刊、UFO月报、超市买来的小报，还有几本《花花公子》和丢弃的食物。 “尽管大片地区受到影响，大量人群接触了放射物质，直至今日，它仍旧是一个大秘密。” “高度保密，然而它可能不是真的。” “你相信真有其事？” “我相信有人犯了错误。” 埃里克喜欢这样的谈话。他躺着，伸开四肢，脸上露出了若隐若现的笑容。它时隐时现，仿佛是他内心深处正在进行的对话，伴随着用语言表达出来的意思，是一种飘乎不定的东西。 “不过，这个问题清楚，简单。” “什么问题，埃里克？” 埃里克顺手拿起一本杂志，漫无目的地翻阅，说话的口气稍显焦躁，随着问题的出现，逐渐露出了疲惫和厌倦的神情。 “是蓄意而为的错误，”他说，“他们明明知道试验并不安全，然而却继续搞下去。核爆炸之后，他们把部队派到零点位置上去，而且派人驾驶飞机穿过辐射云层。他们还给人体注射钚元素，以便追踪它在人体中产生作用的情况。这些事情是有意干的，没有告诉参与试验的人将会面临什么样的危险。他们让军人暴露在原子弹爆炸产生的闪光下，有的军人配备了保护性眼镜，有的却什么也没有。他们还用小孩、婴儿、胎儿和精神病人做实验。他们没有告诉在铀矿里工作的那些纳瓦霍人那里究竟存在什么危险。后来的结果证明，危险相当大。他们割掉囚徒的精囊，直接抓住睾丸，在X光机下迅速割掉。这是我听说的，你相信吗？” “太可怕了，我真不知道该怎么说。” “当然，这让人难以置信，所以我不相信，”埃里克说，“根本不相信。” 大雨慢慢靠近，覆盖了盐碱滩，风也越来越大。那些沙漠民族的诗人们讲述关于大风的故事。大风变形，旋动，有时让人站立不稳，有时把人刮倒在地。可是，它也用轻柔的声音诉说，那样的声音只有人的内心精神才能听见。这就是人纠正自己行为的方式。 埃里克说：“他们从来不告诉那些实验对象他们是实、实、实、实——” “实验对象。” “我不相信这是真的，”埃里克说，“可是，你可能有不同的感觉。” 马特不知道自己感觉如何。可是，他觉得这并不完全是胡编乱造。他毕竟在越南当过兵，那里发生的事情他当时要么不相信，要么没有想象出来，后来却证明全是真的。 后来有一天，他停下来，和那个女人——就是那个独自立着抗议横幅的女人——交谈。他把车停靠在公路的另外一侧，走了过去。她两手抱着一根木棍，八英尺高，另外一根埋在土里，周围用石块垒起来。那横幅是用床单做的，文字喷涂在上面，挂在两根木棍之间，被大风吹得呜呜作响。 他站在那里，开始说话，口气通情达理，稍带一点强迫意味，仿佛是一个在单身酒吧里初次露面的人。他发现，她的一只手腕是锁在木棍上的。他以前没有注意到这一点，也许，这种戏剧化的做法有点自我渲染的意味，也许有点狂热、非理性、希望成为受害者的意味。在他说话的过程中，她注视了他片刻。他打了招呼，然后说明做好准备的必要性，认为对敌方意图持不甚了了的态度是愚蠢的。 他没有使用美国或者苏联这样的字眼，由于众所周知的原因，它们可能会引起争论。他也没有使用北约、欧洲、东方集团、柏林墙这样的名称。两人很快显得非常熟悉，似乎相识很久了。 她仅仅瞟了他一眼，那目光不带敌意，非常短暂。他上下打量她一番，她的模样给人饱经风霜的感觉，显示出一种远离正常生活的决心。他觉得，她身上带着乡村穷人的附加标记。 他告诉她，我方拥有的武器数量必须可与敌方抗衡，即使该数量显得不合理也在所不惜。这看来是对抗敌方攻击的唯一可靠的预防措施。 她皮肤白皙，皱纹明显，头发很长，梳成辫子。他觉得，她虔诚，高傲，难以靠近。 两人站在一段笔直的公路上，周围景色美丽，给人孤独的感觉。他心里说，如果你要干这种事情，难道真有必要采用这样的狂热方式？第三次世界大战在此发端。这难道不正是他希望从这些人那里看到的东西？这难道不正是一种狂热的见证？ 他告诉她，他很想听听她的观点。可是，她不愿和他说话，站在那里，一只手腕锁在木棍上，目光注视着公路远处的某个地方。他不能鄙视她的傲慢做法，因为她并不傲慢。她并不比他更聪明，更理智，带有更少的内疚感。他说，对方武装起来了，所以我们也得武装起来。她抓着直立的木棍，两眼望着公路，那双蓝色眼睛带着一种天生的畏缩。他返身回到车里，驾车离开。 埃里克的衣服被大风刮起，在绳子上跳跃，接着变得僵直。 “我想起自己使用手套式操作箱工作的那些日子，”他说，“和危险的钚材料打交道的日子。即便在箱子的非常狭小的密封空间里，也会出现操作失误的情况。你最好相信这一点。尽管有安全步骤、数据表、监督人员，人们还是可能犯下惊人的错误。我戴手套时，心里不知怎么地想到了我妈妈。她是一位很有理性的女人，常常戴着橡胶手套洗碗。那时光景太平，我们轰炸着自己人。” “我明天离开。”马特说。 “你走时，把那上衣留给我吧。” 马特身上穿着一件轻薄的小牛皮上衣，皮子柔软，贴身舒适。埃里克经常说，尽管他们两人穿衣的尺码不同，他也希望得到那件衣服。 “我觉得，我应该随身带着它，路途上有些文雅场合用得着。” “根据下风者的说法，那里的生活给人金属感。你打开房门，走到外面去，取回骑车报童扔在门廊里的报纸，觉得空气中有一种金属样的砂砾。那种盐粒仿佛是用金属刨花做的。今晚来参加我们的聚会吗？” “不会错过的。”马特说。 “那些孩子生下来时，眼睛全白，分不清瞳孔和虹膜，只有一个白色眼球。如果运气好，长着两个眼球。” 埃里克拿起放在沙发上的那本《花花公子》，横向拿着，让插在杂志中间的折页完全打开，这样便可看到全月的目录。 他问：“你究竟要到哪儿去？” “某个偏远的地方。” “比这里还要偏远吗？” “我一直在看地图。” “不过，比这里还要偏远吗？” “这些道路的尽头。” “你可是城市青年噢，马特。” “也许，我看到的是亚利桑那州的西南部。” “如果你死了，我想要你那件上衣。” 参加那些弹头研发人员举行的聚会，你无法期望进入自己熟知的世界。马特驾车向西，上了10号州际公路，途中经过了一个名叫戴明的小镇，前一天晚上发生的事情就像覆盖在地面上。当然，戴明是埃里克的姓氏。偶然之手显得如此冷漠，面孔、地方、引起争论的说法，这些东西在他的脑海里一一浮现出来。 他吸入的什么东西让他不能动弹。然而，并不仅仅是不能动弹。马特并不使用毒品，偶尔在聚会上小试时也浅尝即止。在那些场合，他会随从大流，使用长嘴烟斗，上面的黏土小杯里装着草状物质。可是，他前一天夜里吸食的既不是劣等印度大麻制剂，也不是掺有某种可以引起精神异常的物质的常见毒品。有个人坐在他的面前，靠近他的脸讲话，带着滑稽的电影腔调，显然是在模仿普鲁士人。 “绝对不能低估国家实施其庞大幻想的意愿。” 这自然是埃里克在说话。不过，即使马特理解这一点，他也无法将它放在弹头研发人员所玩游戏的调侃性语境之中——其实，他无法正常地思考。他被敌人包围，哦，不是敌人，而是联系，是事物和人构成的网状结构。严格说来，他所面对的不是人，而是形象——他完全无法了解的事物、形象和知识层次。 国家的意愿。 绝对不能低估国家的意愿。 埃里克用愚蠢的声音接着说，谈到了问题箱，谈到了极小极大解，谈到了他在研究生院学习的带有军棋游戏性质的理论，包括博弈论、冲突模式，还有正面我赢、反面你输这种说法。马特坐在那里，呆若木鸡，一动不动。 他被锁在椅子上，心灵被锁，不能动弹，心里明白自己所处状态的性质，但是却无能为力。他被房间的影像控制，对这里的人和事物持怀疑态度。偏执狂。这时，他知道了这个词语的意思，知道它非常容易被人四处传播。他觉得，联系正在自己身边建立起来，这样的联系由那些物体、人影和知识层次组成——严格说来不是知识，而是阴险的意图。然而，这些东西也不是意图，而是某种更深层次的意义，那种意义存在的目的就是要阻止他认识它的真相。 在巨大的幻想中采取行动。 埃里克仍然在说话，同时伸出一根手指，搅动杯里的酒。马特次日早上开车经过戴明这个小镇时才明白，埃里克说话的口音不该是普鲁士语，而是匈牙利语。埃里克当时藉此向最早来此的弹头研发人员致敬。那些流亡者全都来自中欧，眉毛浓密，眼神悲伤，一个个穿着皱巴巴的宽大裤子。他们在第二次世界大战期间来到新墨西哥州，从事科学研究。这里一夜之间冒出了一排排活动房屋和临时营房。那时，他们吃本地食物，每周玩一次扑克，星期六到广场去跳舞。他们研究没有名称的东西，那种炸弹将会对人类的感知限度和恐惧限度进行重新定义。 他坐在椅子上，仔细看着某个人的鞋子。 他知道，他并未处于人们自称偏执狂时显示的那种表面状态。这不是间接的，而是实在的，深层的，真实的。这是英语中所有那些单音节词表达的意思：我们不是在开玩笑。而且，在某种奇特的古老意义上，它也是自己熟悉的，是保留在人类早期经验的原始认知中的一种东西。 他仔细观察附近某个人脚上穿的鞋子。那是大地牌鞋子，平跟，并不性感，带有斯堪的纳维亚风格的时尚元素，具有功能性和实用性。它其貌不扬，男女适宜，带有反文化特征，不会给环境和生物带来威胁。他心里纳闷，为什么它看上去显得非常不祥呢？ 这时，埃里克结结巴巴地说话。 他不知道穿鞋的人是谁。把这鞋子与它的主人联系起来，这个想法需要付出巨大努力。他觉得负担沉重，问题复杂，只能低下自己的脑袋。也许，那鞋子显得不祥的原因在于，它的意义、联系和轮廓全都超过了马特的认知能力。 也许，它显得不祥的原因在于，它是左边的鞋子，穿在左脚上的。这自然是不祥这个词语的意思——倒霉、不吉利、在左边。这个词语通过某人的鞋子这个媒介，强调了它的不幸根部，即可食用的块茎和梗茎。 埃里克还在那里，用正常的语气说话，不时被口吃打断。他——埃里克——似乎处于另外一个时间框架之内，他使用的字眼受到剪辑和编排，以断断续续的结构排列出来，他的观点随着背景不断改变。 这时，马特向西行驶，深入地图上的空白部分，他将在那里找到理解自己的未来的线索。埃里克的姓氏——戴明这两个字——从温柔的晨曦中飘浮出来，再次出现在路牌上。
Notes:
Those warhead developers hang out with the megakill guys, they love their jobs, but they're not necessarily supporters of the bomb.They are a bunch of fanatical detail lovers, awed by the inherent charm of nuclear bomb technology.Matt observes them, attends their parties, and learns their language.They have the fiery aftertaste of the 1960s, willing to dedicate themselves to a cause no matter what. They believed that Matt was in the running for a transfer and was ready to be one of them, wearing a coded badge.This Q-level designation allows him to enter the final gate, enter the tunnel leading to the nuclear bomb design area, and access sensitive information. But Matt's eyes were stalking the outdoor sports magazines, the camping pockets, the yurt.He needs time, to get out of here, to think alone. He was skeptical, wondering if it was right for him to do so. At the exit of Passage 70, near the sign of the missile test range, there is an area that is blank on the map.That's where those protesters stood.Seven or eight of them, sometimes just two or three, both men and women, carried a banner held up by two upright sticks, and World War III began.The base personnel sometimes taunted them, sometimes just smirked at them, sometimes felt that they were flattered by the banner, and sometimes felt sorry for them when they saw them facing the strong wind and no one cared about them. Matt enjoyed seeing them, even looked forward to seeing them in a sense.It started to mean a lot to him, knowing they were there, four, five or six, usually more women.Sometimes, two people hold the wooden stick supporting the banner with serious expressions.Without saying a word, they watched military vehicles pass by.Some flatbed trucks were loaded with covered things, and some were filled with base non-military personnel and construction workers, pointing at them with strange expressions on their faces. Areas not shown on the map include the air force base, the army base, the missile test range, the vast area to the northwest known as the Jornada del Muerto (Journal of the Dead), and the salt flats between the dune plains.Those salt flats are not marked on the map, but in reality they are all white.There are low, fenced buildings that house propane tanks that serve the underground works of the Garment Bag program, which designs weapons. They work according to a strict time schedule, and each task must be completed on time.Those warhead developers are quite critical of this.They are quick-witted, rationally controlled, unaffected by ambiguous morals, unaffected by emotional nonsense about consequences and pain.They understand the fundamentals of conflict and dislike the pressure exerted by bureaucrats on the ground. However, there are always deadlines and every task must be completed on time.There is no war, but there is the urgency of war. Eric asked: "Have you heard the latest secret news?" Reflecting the afterglow of the setting sun, the two of them walked to the outskirts of the small bungalows, and there were only the two of them on the vast sandy plain.Eric kept looking around to see if anyone was eavesdropping.Of course, that action was hilarious.He curled up the corner of his mouth and hummed in a low voice, such an action would make it difficult for those studying the monitor screen to perform lip reading skills. "It's an old story that's just surfacing," he said. "It's surfacing in the form of trivial rumours." "Whose past?" "Staff at the Nevada Test Facility during the ground trials." "What about them?" "Those who live downwind. Incidentally, those people have a name which, in a general way, defines their existence." "What name?" "Underwind," Eric said. The two strolled lightly, past clumps of low, salt-tolerant plants growing in alkaline soil, toward the grid. "What's wrong with them?" Matt asked. "Nobody should know about it. However, it's also somewhat public." "What was revealed?" "Secret. Nobody mentions it, keeps it secret." "What secret?" Matt asked. "There's someone with multiple myeloma, someone with kidney failure, someone who wakes up one morning and finds they're three inches shorter." "You mean exposure to fallout." "There are people who start vomiting one day and vomit every day for up to seven or eight weeks." "However, isn't that what we should expect to send out? Occasional miscalculations. It's dangerous work, you know." Eric seemed to like the idea.No, he seemed to have anticipated the statement and found it encouraging.The two walked across a vast sand dune field, the air seemed to form an insurmountable barrier, and the heat made it difficult for them to walk. "And the small farming community downwind of the experiment, where the kids almost all wear wigs," Eric whispered. "Chemotherapy?" "Yes, every now and then a baby is born deformed. A healthy woman tries to wash her hair, and it falls out when touched. You know, she's black one minute, and she's completely bald the next. " "Where does this happen?" "Mainly in southern Utah. I've heard it's because it's downwind, but it happens in other areas as well. Some people have adenocarcinoma and they've got those big subcutaneous abscesses that the Old Testament says , as well as spots and rashes, he vomited a lot of blood after coughing, and blood flowed from his hands covering his mouth, which was caused by radiation." The two walked along the grid and saw a warning sign.It was scribbled surreptitiously by a protester or some defector involved in the bag project. "Do you think these claims are true?" "No." Eric said. "Then why do you spread the word?" "Of course, because of their tone." "Because they speak strongly." "Fierce, provocative, with an existential burn." Father was out buying cigarettes when Matt was six. Eight days passed, and my father didn't come back, neither called nor asked a friend to send a message.Matt accepted the changes in the apartment and started walking. He had walked in this direction before, had never passed the elevated train on Third Avenue alone, but today he was walking in this direction.Later he crossed Main Street, where the trains from the suburbs passed through the long passage under the street on their way to Grand Central.It was here that Nicky would one day throw rocks, stand behind the railing and throw rocks at the passing trains in broad daylight. Afterwards he climbed a long flight of steps towards the street near Grand Place.He used to climb the long flight of steps with his mother to the movies and buy a sundae at the nearby ice cream parlor.Now, alone, he climbed the steps to the Rue Grande-Place.There's a movie theater there called Love's Paradise.There are about sixty or seventy steps, and the houses are built on iron pillars, completely resembling a scene from another country. In this remote white desert, he saw himself standing across the street, looking up at the Italianate facade of Cinema Paradise. He saw himself gazing at the great clock, the balustrade and the ornamental stone dome. He saw that he was buying a movie ticket, and he could barely reach the small hole in the ticket window.He slipped the coin in and saw the woman who sold the ticket press something, and the movie ticket popped out of the slot. He walked into the hall and felt the heat rising from the carpet and spreading around him like a petted dog, content and quiet.Goldfish are fed in marble sinks.He looked up at the chandelier of etched glass.Several prominent boxes hung paintings in gilt frames.He felt that the sense of sanctity here was a thousand times greater than that of the church. Sitting in his squat bungalow near the missile test range, he saw himself going up the carpeted stairs, hoping to sit higher up, near the ceiling of the movie theater. He saw the usher standing there with a flashlight pinned to his waist, braid on his shoulders, and a row of brass buttons on his chest.The usher kept pressing the torch switch, listening to it click and click.Matt thought the usher would say he couldn't sit in the box because that's where the grown-ups sit, the smoking area, the young men and women who want to put their arms around their necks and kiss.But the usher pressed the flashlight switch and stood there without speaking as Matt walked past him. He went up the stairs to the seat near the ceiling.There the stars twinkle across the sky.The whole sky floated across the ceiling, stars, constellations, and hazy blue clouds.His mother wanted him to be an altar when he grew up, but the movie theater was much nicer than the church. He saw it all through the eyes of an adult—a grown man who had never smoked, barely driven a car, stopped playing chess, and fell in love with a nurse who worked in Boston. He saw that he was standing in the box of Paradise Cinema.As the scene in the film changes, the screen is bright and dark.His gaze flicked to the wall next to him, and then to the other wall.The lights flickered and danced, and he saw the whole beautiful picture: arches, doorways, statues, flower pots, marble busts, vines on balustrades, heroes with swords on pedestals, pillars made into human figures.The anatomical structure of the human body is painted on these two walls, which is extremely beautiful. At the top of the gable stands an angel with a halo above his head.He sat there, waiting for his father to appear, or his ghost or spirit to appear. He takes off his glasses, he puts them on.He took it off again and wiped it with a light-colored cotton cloth, then sat in front of the computer, looked at the displayed data, and blinked.Those data are used in the arming system of the weapon, in the control system of the weapon, to issue commands to the ignition system, to implement activation, protection or re-protection.He heard a faint boom somewhere in the desert, the shock wave of a supersonic plane, and it made him shudder and move him.No matter how often he heard it, no matter how far away from it, he always felt that way.Sometimes planes fly over his head early in the morning, waking him out of his dreams; other times, he stands outside the dormitory before nightfall, looking at the trail clouds left by a formation of a dozen planes in the sky. .The planes have long since disappeared, but the sound waves they left behind have been heard for a long time, making him fearful and moved.At this time, a huge echo came from the mountain, as if those planes opened a crack in the world. Here, some people don't know the final result of their work, don't know where it can be applied, and don't know how the numbers and symbols they arrange enter into nature.This is likely to have an effect in the blink of an eye. All factors are connected at some undisclosed point, connected in related systems.Naturally, this idea evokes a certain unease. But, in a sense, it's a wonderfully mysterious thing, something that one wants to know: How can someone tentatively put a simple equation into a computer and it can change so much? How can the trajectory of a person's life make a woman's blood surge on a tram thousands of miles away?How should this relationship be defined? Matt doesn't like driving.He has only been driving for six months and knows that driving will definitely make him feel uncomfortable.All he was able to do was mimic the driving behavior.He borrowed a four-wheel-drive vehicle from a warhead developer and carried the driver's manual on his lap as a reference while driving.The road, the signs, the other vehicles, it made him nervous and exposed his poor driving skills. However, he had to practice a bit so he could drive out and go camping with Janet.He goes out to practice driving when he's not at work.On the road, he saw signs for "Emergency Ramp for Runaway Trucks" and "Dangerous Crosswinds." He also saw signs that read "Jesus is God" and saw white smoke in the distance.He knew now that it was the sandy bottom of the sea.He saw the "NO DRIVING ON FLOODED WAY" sign, the endless row of power line pylons stretching toward Texas, their crossbars casting slatted shadows across the salt flats. One day, when he was returning from practice, he saw the protesters.They were stationed in the wrong place, as usual.They were supposed to stand outside Gate 3 of the Air Force Base, the unmarked gate through which the scientists involved in the Pocket Bag project entered and exited the base.He almost went up to tell the protesters: Move down the road. Matt looked a little Jewish, maybe a little Spanish or Mexican.He practiced weightlifting when he was eighteen or nineteen, hoping to make his weak body strong and no longer an appendage of that bright head.People in the Bronx once said that his appearance was multi-ethnic, including Mexican, Italian, and even Japanese—and the friendliest smile might resemble a deliberate grimace.A police sketch is based on seven different descriptions.That's Matt's facial features. In the 1950s, he was studying at the City College of New York, working hard, short-sighted, quick-witted, poor, and took the subway to class.Afterwards, he has maintained the appearance of that time.
In the cafeteria, he sat down with Eric Deming to eat.Eric rolled up a bunch of spaghetti with his fingers, stuffed it slowly into his mouth, and swallowed it whole, his throat wriggling in the way a snake eats. Matt said: "That's right. Those are the factors that we have to anticipate. We are not naive, and mistakes are part of the process. Sometimes the wind changes suddenly and the fallout is blown in an unplanned direction. Sometimes the shock waves and blast vibrations can be so powerful that they're beyond anyone's predictions." "The 1950s were peaceful, everyone dressed according to the same style and talked the same way. All people cared about was the kitchen, the car and the television. Mom, where's the toothpaste? Fresh in your memory, right?" "You know, I don't know," Matt said. "You've been through it, we've both been through it." "You did, I was somewhere else." "The hallway between the buildings was covered, and Dad was washing the car. At that time, in this remote place, the government deployed troops in the trenches, ready to play nuclear war games. Fireballs blazed above their heads, screaming Hurring sound." "You mean they got too close to the weapons being tested." "That's what I've heard. If they look at their arm, their eyes can see through it. Basically, their arm becomes an X-ray image and their eyes can see through the fabric of the uniform. and skin. The light from the explosion was so intense that they could see blood, bones, and other things in the body. However, that's not the end. Actually, if they closed their eyes, they could see all of these things without opening them at all Eyes. They can see through their eyelids, lol." "Well, is that officially recognized?" "One day a few years later, they woke up like a dream, and found that all their internal organs were mixed together and turned into a big jelly." "However, have those people been compensated?" "I don't know," Eric said. "You relay the rumour, it's not your concern." Eric sticks a finger into Matt's creamed spinach, picks out a small piece, and pops it into his mouth. "What's the point of a rumor if it's full of bureaucratic details? The point is," he said, "that it happened in broad daylight and yet remains a big secret to this day. Anyway, the rumor is That said. I don't believe it at all. They sometimes do big nuclear tests on towers, sometimes they drop explosive devices from planes. They send military personnel very close to the shock wave, and they send radioactive fallout to Utah. There babies are born with the bladder in the opposite position." Matt liked Eric from the bottom of his heart.The guy was very smart, kind, and charming, though he had an unnatural expression, and he was too tall.But there is an inherent bewilderment in his smile that sometimes blinds observers to his motives.When someone saw his non-moving mouth, they would often wonder in their hearts: Did they fall into his trap? "You know the school not far from here. This is not a rumor, but a fact in front of you. I have been there and saw it with my own eyes. It is called the Abo Elementary School Fallout Shelter, a real place, deep underground." "Just like us." "We're not real," Eric said. "It's full of kids. Small schools. They still have a chance to be real. I was sent there to give lectures to them." "As a warhead researcher?" "As a young member with a strong attitude in the military industrial research organization, casually chatting after work, talking about unimportant things." "What did you tell them?" "On the edge of town, there's a water tank with fresh paint that says 'State Champion.' Miss it. There are some prefab buildings and two or three basketball courts. Finally, you will see an entrance. Open the steel gate and go down the stairs, surrounded by cast iron and concrete. The light is a bit dark, let It's creepy. There are classrooms, bedding and canned goods, and a reference room. There are no window openings in the walls, which is a characteristic of the place. Of course, because there are no windows. But, what I want to say is. Matt , what do I mean?" "I don't know, just tell me." “Are they doing it to protect their children from a nuclear bomb launched by the Soviet Union, or from our own nuclear bomb and fallout?” "I don't know. Guard against both. What did you tell those kids?" "I was vague," Eric said, "and wanted them to think for themselves. I was standing in an underground classroom, on the northern edge of a great desert, with air filtration to keep out the fallout. There There's also a well-appointed reference room with pastel drawings of pigs and cows pasted on blackboards. By the way..." "what?" "I have a chess set in my room. How about playing a game?"
Those who work on the bag project form a group, completely isolated from the outside world.It's a place where the work that is done by the individual is valued, and the relationships are good, so the little world is very human and keeps people interested.This place is self-contained, self-referential, where everyone works together in a language that outsiders cannot understand. Janet Urbaniac is Matt's girlfriend, a registered nurse.The relationship between the two is sometimes hot and cold, most of the time they keep the heat, and they often lose patience when getting along, but they always have a heart-to-heart. He called Janet when she wasn't at work, and she told him where she'd been, what she'd seen or bought, who she'd been with, and how long.He listened attentively, making comments from time to time, and asking for details. She works in the trauma unit.She told him about her night shift, but he said nothing about his job.Of course, she understood this, so she never inquired. Janet calls Matt's mother twice a week to find out how she is doing.She then called Matt to report what she had learned.Matt called his mother, sometimes to confirm, sometimes to get the specifics of an ailment.He loved the phone conversations, the calls he made, and the calls he heard—they gave him the opportunity to learn about life outside of the pocketbook. He drove past protesters who stood alone in a borrowed Jeep.Against the dry wind on the salt flats, the woman struggled to hold the wooden pole to keep the placard upright.He would have stopped and talked to her, shook her hand, and talked.He wanted to express his tolerance for her views, to allow himself to accept some of her arguments, to offer his own sound points.Then he took her to the drab room where she was lodging on the outskirts of some small town.To make love to her in a tender, groaning, forgiving way, in her untidy bed, with the surrounding mountain views.However, he only slowed down slightly as he passed. He was later told that the protesters were living in a scrapped school bus parked in the Sacramento hills.Matt kind of likes this approach: throwing everything about himself and sticking to an idea.He remembered hearing Sister Edgar talk about the Desert Sage in sixth grade.They are the pillar saints - saints who penanced on high pillars.Dressed in a nun's attire, she sits high on a desk with her legs crossed, resembling a saint seated cross-legged on a pillar in Sinai.She narrated to the class, mixing Latin and Hebrew words as she spoke.Matt liked them and liked to see the outcasts of fanatical convictions here, who haunted the missile test ranges and silos of the West. This is one of the primary reasons why he decided to come here in the first place—to answer the questions and doubts in his heart, to gain self-knowledge in the process of confirming the limits of will in a more difficult life. Did you write your dissertation on solar energy?Have you ever written an article on the excitation principle of nuclear fission?Do you go to the dentist every six months to have your teeth cleaned?Are you a physicist resentful of your mother?Are you a systems engineer secretly masturbating while your wife watches reruns of "The Honeymoon"?Do you want to see towers filmed with special effects?Ever longed to see the sun rise from the opposite direction and the shadows cast by the trees are all wrong?Curious to see the spectacle of non-material atom formation?Want to see condensation clouds lined up in a very short time and presented in a concentrated way?Do you really want to see the scene mentioned in the Bible: the visible shock wave is slowly approaching, and the strong wind blows up sage, sand, hats, cats, car parts, condoms, and poisonous snakes, flying in the desert dawn? Eric always wanted to play chess with him.However, he neither wants to play chess nor to talk about it.His chess playing experience is a difficult old story, the past of an unknown person who is obsessed with chess, which makes him unbearable to look back.Janet knew a thing or two about it; besides, perhaps, his mother, his brother, and Don Bronzini. "You don't understand me," Eric said in the jeep. "You're spreading rumors you don't believe in yourself. That's what it means," Matt said. "Clouds of radioactive fallout drifted toward populated areas, and they had to set up barricades. There were people with neuroblastoma, burns from beta rays, sheep with two heads. There were herds of livestock. Die violently in the wild. Some people wake up in the morning and find that their teeth have begun to fall out, without pain or bleeding." For example, two or three teeth are missing.Slimy and barely audible, it fell down, Eric said.The man wrapped the fallen teeth in cold, wet gauze, hopped in the car, and drove to the dentist, sure that the dentist would be able to put them back in.Aren't doctors capable of amazing things when it comes to replanting severed limbs?Maybe, the doctor couldn't fit the tooth.Doctors send them to laboratories at the newly built medical center.There is very advanced equipment there, and a diagnosis can be made in a very short time.It is impossible for you to live for a thousand years to do such a thing. However, at the first red light, the man took out the gauze from his pocket, opened it carefully, and wanted to take a look. Eric said that there was nothing in it, only a small pile of powder—his teeth Totally rotten.Human teeth have a strong structure and are very durable. They were originally used for biting and chewing meat, and such things still grow in the mouths of prehistoric people.In the skulls of those prehistoric people who have been excavated and studied, the teeth will not break down after a million years.However, those teeth in his pocket were reduced to ashes within six minutes. He called Janet and chatted, talking and listening.The more trivial things to talk about, the better he feels.He wanted to hear the details of her life that day, and even the little things that meant nothing comforted him in his lonely thoughts and became something worth cherishing. Sometimes, she would talk about her work, what she saw when she worked the late night shift in the trauma unit.She recounts without emotion, for example, the sound of footsteps clattering on the floor of a hallway that has just been mopped, as relatives and friends drag a knife victim over.Sometimes, the patient is brought in by the doctor on duty. One of the patient's uncle and mother is holding the head, the other is holding the legs, and four children are holding the patient's two arms, two on each side. She described scenes like paintings by European masters—those of holy places and wars. In the process of dealing with these things, she showed strength and made her think she was beautiful to him.She was petite, neither of them tall, and Janet was thinner.He liked to imagine her in a surgical gown, reaching into a patient's chest to extract a bullet or a chicken bone.She looks shy, but this does not conceal her eloquence, which is not lacking in courage and will.He has seen and heard this often.In order to express her point of view, she will go on and on. He felt that they were very honest with each other.Both want to start a family, both need each other, yet are often plagued by complexities of existing careers, life plans, opportunities, separate cities, the idea of getting married and having children, and innovation Look for job variables.It's so hard to get everything covered, sometimes they agree, sometimes they bargain, sometimes they fight, sometimes they make plans and try to make it happen. He looked at pictures taken from Landsat, from space a year or two ago.The photographs are composite color images showing signs of erosion, the state of broken ground, and more than a hundred other activities and features.They show stress, drift, and industrial catastrophe, and gigabytes of data have been transformed to create these images. He sees how remote sensors get their cryptic meaning from Earth, how expanses of bright color and innumerable computer-generated dot graphics show changes in water temperature and where dwindling grizzly bears feed and mate. .He saw the slender sandy beaches rendered in bone white, the gigantic cities rendered in computer graphics, the black lakes within the range of the test range, the potholes formed by moraine. He couldn't help it, and continued to watch. Those aerial photo mosaics seem to reveal a second kind of beauty in the world.Normally invisible, it combines precision and comfort in a hallucinatory way.Each striking color evokes in him complex emotions that can neither be pinpointed nor described. 他想到，镶嵌图上的那些街道是从太空拍摄，那些住宅里的人过着什么样的生活呢？ 他觉得，这是传感器下一步将要发现的东西——住在房间里的人没有表达出来的情感。 这时，他不禁想到了尼克。 他多次都想给哥哥打电话，告诉他自己正在从事的工作。他可以让尼克了解这里的基本情况，让他知道弟弟正在做着重要的工作，让他知道这项工作让弟弟不时心生烦恼。 一天，他可能发现自己制定出一个物理研究方案，一个核装置的爆炸元件。这是忠实可靠的弹头研发人员的专业领域。 马特无法确定自己是否能够独自处理好这件事情。如果必要，他有可能做到。珍妮特可能伸出援手，她对此持明确态度，可以帮助他打消疑虑。然而，他希望和尼克谈一谈，希望在电话里听到哥哥的声音，听到那种稍微带有倾向性的强调言辞，听到哥哥饱含人生智慧的意见。 尼克说话时态度严肃，这一点在某个意义上是欧洲人的特征。他说话有条不紊，思路明确，首先可能给人尚未考虑清楚的感觉，接着经过重新思考，最后形成明确观点。他有时严肃，克制，并不轻易表达自己的看法。不过，他可能从这种工作涉及的道德和伦理的角度，给弟弟提供见解。马特最希望听到的是他对此有兴趣。这一点非常重要，超过了直率的意见、建议或者判断。当然，马特也需要听到哥哥以他特有的口气提出的判断。 他不知道哥哥可能说些什么。也许，哥哥会说，这种方式让你成为行为严谨的人，认真权衡棘手问题，在令人痛苦的过程中做出选择。如果坚持不懈，你最后就会变得更加坚强。也许，他会说，傻瓜，如果你像我这样担当父亲的角色，这将给你的灵魂打上什么样的烙印呢？在这样的世界上生儿育女，把自己的才华浪费在这种事情上，你想它值不值呢？这时，哥哥会轻言细语地说话。哥哥，有谁比我更了解武器具有的不稳定特性呢？ 大风从山上刮来，让沙丘原改变模样。假如你没有在衣囊计划中供职，此时你会坐在家里享用啤酒和小吃。你会看到，自家后院里绳子上晒的衣服全被吹了起来。床单、手帕、拳击短裤和睡衣在风中啪啪作响，仿佛是形形色色的人物在翩翩起舞，让自己的灵魂飞向石膏山岭。 “那不是问题所在，”埃里克说，“你总是不、不、不得要领。” 山里正在下雨。 埃里克故作口吃，利用它来增加谈话的质感。尽管听话的人和说话人都不是结巴，他却时而用它来讽刺自己，时而用它来讽刺对方。也许，他在模仿夜总会或者电视节目中的某个滑稽角色。马特并不清楚他这样做的具体原因。 马特从埃里克的小平房窗户向外望去。大雨形成了一道雾墙，挂在石灰峭壁上，微微闪亮。埃里克坐在一张没有拆去塑料包装的沙发上，四周散落着科学期刊、UFO月报、超市买来的小报，还有几本《花花公子》和丢弃的食物。 “尽管大片地区受到影响，大量人群接触了放射物质，直至今日，它仍旧是一个大秘密。” “高度保密，然而它可能不是真的。” “你相信真有其事？” “我相信有人犯了错误。” 埃里克喜欢这样的谈话。他躺着，伸开四肢，脸上露出了若隐若现的笑容。它时隐时现，仿佛是他内心深处正在进行的对话，伴随着用语言表达出来的意思，是一种飘乎不定的东西。 “不过，这个问题清楚，简单。” “什么问题，埃里克？” 埃里克顺手拿起一本杂志，漫无目的地翻阅，说话的口气稍显焦躁，随着问题的出现，逐渐露出了疲惫和厌倦的神情。 “是蓄意而为的错误，”他说，“他们明明知道试验并不安全，然而却继续搞下去。核爆炸之后，他们把部队派到零点位置上去，而且派人驾驶飞机穿过辐射云层。他们还给人体注射钚元素，以便追踪它在人体中产生作用的情况。这些事情是有意干的，没有告诉参与试验的人将会面临什么样的危险。他们让军人暴露在原子弹爆炸产生的闪光下，有的军人配备了保护性眼镜，有的却什么也没有。他们还用小孩、婴儿、胎儿和精神病人做实验。他们没有告诉在铀矿里工作的那些纳瓦霍人那里究竟存在什么危险。后来的结果证明，危险相当大。他们割掉囚徒的精囊，直接抓住睾丸，在X光机下迅速割掉。这是我听说的，你相信吗？” “太可怕了，我真不知道该怎么说。” “当然，这让人难以置信，所以我不相信，”埃里克说，“根本不相信。” 大雨慢慢靠近，覆盖了盐碱滩，风也越来越大。那些沙漠民族的诗人们讲述关于大风的故事。大风变形，旋动，有时让人站立不稳，有时把人刮倒在地。可是，它也用轻柔的声音诉说，那样的声音只有人的内心精神才能听见。这就是人纠正自己行为的方式。 埃里克说：“他们从来不告诉那些实验对象他们是实、实、实、实——” “实验对象。” “我不相信这是真的，”埃里克说，“可是，你可能有不同的感觉。” 马特不知道自己感觉如何。可是，他觉得这并不完全是胡编乱造。他毕竟在越南当过兵，那里发生的事情他当时要么不相信，要么没有想象出来，后来却证明全是真的。 后来有一天，他停下来，和那个女人——就是那个独自立着抗议横幅的女人——交谈。他把车停靠在公路的另外一侧，走了过去。她两手抱着一根木棍，八英尺高，另外一根埋在土里，周围用石块垒起来。那横幅是用床单做的，文字喷涂在上面，挂在两根木棍之间，被大风吹得呜呜作响。 他站在那里，开始说话，口气通情达理，稍带一点强迫意味，仿佛是一个在单身酒吧里初次露面的人。他发现，她的一只手腕是锁在木棍上的。他以前没有注意到这一点，也许，这种戏剧化的做法有点自我渲染的意味，也许有点狂热、非理性、希望成为受害者的意味。在他说话的过程中，她注视了他片刻。他打了招呼，然后说明做好准备的必要性，认为对敌方意图持不甚了了的态度是愚蠢的。 他没有使用美国或者苏联这样的字眼，由于众所周知的原因，它们可能会引起争论。他也没有使用北约、欧洲、东方集团、柏林墙这样的名称。两人很快显得非常熟悉，似乎相识很久了。 她仅仅瞟了他一眼，那目光不带敌意，非常短暂。他上下打量她一番，她的模样给人饱经风霜的感觉，显示出一种远离正常生活的决心。他觉得，她身上带着乡村穷人的附加标记。 他告诉她，我方拥有的武器数量必须可与敌方抗衡，即使该数量显得不合理也在所不惜。这看来是对抗敌方攻击的唯一可靠的预防措施。 她皮肤白皙，皱纹明显，头发很长，梳成辫子。他觉得，她虔诚，高傲，难以靠近。 两人站在一段笔直的公路上，周围景色美丽，给人孤独的感觉。他心里说，如果你要干这种事情，难道真有必要采用这样的狂热方式？第三次世界大战在此发端。这难道不正是他希望从这些人那里看到的东西？这难道不正是一种狂热的见证？ 他告诉她，他很想听听她的观点。可是，她不愿和他说话，站在那里，一只手腕锁在木棍上，目光注视着公路远处的某个地方。他不能鄙视她的傲慢做法，因为她并不傲慢。她并不比他更聪明，更理智，带有更少的内疚感。他说，对方武装起来了，所以我们也得武装起来。她抓着直立的木棍，两眼望着公路，那双蓝色眼睛带着一种天生的畏缩。他返身回到车里，驾车离开。 埃里克的衣服被大风刮起，在绳子上跳跃，接着变得僵直。 “我想起自己使用手套式操作箱工作的那些日子，”他说，“和危险的钚材料打交道的日子。即便在箱子的非常狭小的密封空间里，也会出现操作失误的情况。你最好相信这一点。尽管有安全步骤、数据表、监督人员，人们还是可能犯下惊人的错误。我戴手套时，心里不知怎么地想到了我妈妈。她是一位很有理性的女人，常常戴着橡胶手套洗碗。那时光景太平，我们轰炸着自己人。” “我明天离开。”马特说。 “你走时，把那上衣留给我吧。” 马特身上穿着一件轻薄的小牛皮上衣，皮子柔软，贴身舒适。埃里克经常说，尽管他们两人穿衣的尺码不同，他也希望得到那件衣服。 “我觉得，我应该随身带着它，路途上有些文雅场合用得着。” “根据下风者的说法，那里的生活给人金属感。你打开房门，走到外面去，取回骑车报童扔在门廊里的报纸，觉得空气中有一种金属样的砂砾。那种盐粒仿佛是用金属刨花做的。今晚来参加我们的聚会吗？” “不会错过的。”马特说。 “那些孩子生下来时，眼睛全白，分不清瞳孔和虹膜，只有一个白色眼球。如果运气好，长着两个眼球。” 埃里克拿起放在沙发上的那本《花花公子》，横向拿着，让插在杂志中间的折页完全打开，这样便可看到全月的目录。 他问：“你究竟要到哪儿去？” “某个偏远的地方。” “比这里还要偏远吗？” “我一直在看地图。” “不过，比这里还要偏远吗？” “这些道路的尽头。” “你可是城市青年噢，马特。” “也许，我看到的是亚利桑那州的西南部。” “如果你死了，我想要你那件上衣。” 参加那些弹头研发人员举行的聚会，你无法期望进入自己熟知的世界。马特驾车向西，上了10号州际公路，途中经过了一个名叫戴明的小镇，前一天晚上发生的事情就像覆盖在地面上。当然，戴明是埃里克的姓氏。偶然之手显得如此冷漠，面孔、地方、引起争论的说法，这些东西在他的脑海里一一浮现出来。 他吸入的什么东西让他不能动弹。然而，并不仅仅是不能动弹。马特并不使用毒品，偶尔在聚会上小试时也浅尝即止。在那些场合，他会随从大流，使用长嘴烟斗，上面的黏土小杯里装着草状物质。可是，他前一天夜里吸食的既不是劣等印度大麻制剂，也不是掺有某种可以引起精神异常的物质的常见毒品。有个人坐在他的面前，靠近他的脸讲话，带着滑稽的电影腔调，显然是在模仿普鲁士人。 “绝对不能低估国家实施其庞大幻想的意愿。” 这自然是埃里克在说话。不过，即使马特理解这一点，他也无法将它放在弹头研发人员所玩游戏的调侃性语境之中——其实，他无法正常地思考。他被敌人包围，哦，不是敌人，而是联系，是事物和人构成的网状结构。严格说来，他所面对的不是人，而是形象——他完全无法了解的事物、形象和知识层次。 国家的意愿。 绝对不能低估国家的意愿。 埃里克用愚蠢的声音接着说，谈到了问题箱，谈到了极小极大解，谈到了他在研究生院学习的带有军棋游戏性质的理论，包括博弈论、冲突模式，还有正面我赢、反面你输这种说法。马特坐在那里，呆若木鸡，一动不动。 他被锁在椅子上，心灵被锁，不能动弹，心里明白自己所处状态的性质，但是却无能为力。他被房间的影像控制，对这里的人和事物持怀疑态度。偏执狂。这时，他知道了这个词语的意思，知道它非常容易被人四处传播。他觉得，联系正在自己身边建立起来，这样的联系由那些物体、人影和知识层次组成——严格说来不是知识，而是阴险的意图。然而，这些东西也不是意图，而是某种更深层次的意义，那种意义存在的目的就是要阻止他认识它的真相。 在巨大的幻想中采取行动。 埃里克仍然在说话，同时伸出一根手指，搅动杯里的酒。马特次日早上开车经过戴明这个小镇时才明白，埃里克说话的口音不该是普鲁士语，而是匈牙利语。埃里克当时藉此向最早来此的弹头研发人员致敬。那些流亡者全都来自中欧，眉毛浓密，眼神悲伤，一个个穿着皱巴巴的宽大裤子。他们在第二次世界大战期间来到新墨西哥州，从事科学研究。这里一夜之间冒出了一排排活动房屋和临时营房。那时，他们吃本地食物，每周玩一次扑克，星期六到广场去跳舞。他们研究没有名称的东西，那种炸弹将会对人类的感知限度和恐惧限度进行重新定义。 他坐在椅子上，仔细看着某个人的鞋子。 他知道，他并未处于人们自称偏执狂时显示的那种表面状态。这不是间接的，而是实在的，深层的，真实的。这是英语中所有那些单音节词表达的意思：我们不是在开玩笑。而且，在某种奇特的古老意义上，它也是自己熟悉的，是保留在人类早期经验的原始认知中的一种东西。 他仔细观察附近某个人脚上穿的鞋子。那是大地牌鞋子，平跟，并不性感，带有斯堪的纳维亚风格的时尚元素，具有功能性和实用性。它其貌不扬，男女适宜，带有反文化特征，不会给环境和生物带来威胁。他心里纳闷，为什么它看上去显得非常不祥呢？ 这时，埃里克结结巴巴地说话。 他不知道穿鞋的人是谁。把这鞋子与它的主人联系起来，这个想法需要付出巨大努力。他觉得负担沉重，问题复杂，只能低下自己的脑袋。也许，那鞋子显得不祥的原因在于，它的意义、联系和轮廓全都超过了马特的认知能力。 也许，它显得不祥的原因在于，它是左边的鞋子，穿在左脚上的。这自然是不祥这个词语的意思——倒霉、不吉利、在左边。这个词语通过某人的鞋子这个媒介，强调了它的不幸根部，即可食用的块茎和梗茎。 埃里克还在那里，用正常的语气说话，不时被口吃打断。他——埃里克——似乎处于另外一个时间框架之内，他使用的字眼受到剪辑和编排，以断断续续的结构排列出来，他的观点随着背景不断改变。 这时，马特向西行驶，深入地图上的空白部分，他将在那里找到理解自己的未来的线索。埃里克的姓氏——戴明这两个字——从温柔的晨曦中飘浮出来，再次出现在路牌上。
Notes: