Burridge Unbound Read Online Free PDF Page B

suspected in the attack but so far has claimed no responsibility.
    Further down the screen is an unsigned editorial that would have brought troops into the newspaper office if it had been published while Minitzh was alive.
WHILE THE RATS FLEE
    There is something at once appalling and fascinating about watching the
lumito’s
desperate scramble to escape their native land now that their friend and protector has been killed. To see them in their Pierre Cardin suits and Versace dresses herding fat, spoiled, scared children down the long, jammed corridors of Minitzh Freedom and Prosperity International Airport, tugging at overstuffed luggage, fighting with others over trolleys and bench space, waving now near-worthless 100,000 loros notes at anyone who might be of help.
    No law, decree, or regulation has been passed, yet somehow the soldiers guarding the checkpoints along the Airport Driveway know to turn away anyone not in a private limousine, anyone not abandoning a Seaside Heights property or significant business holdings – in short, anyone who wasnot a personal friend or relative of the dear departed leader.
    Officially all flights have been suspended, no tickets are being issued, and yet now and again, according to no known or published schedule, a plane does lift off for Hong Kong, Manila, or Bangkok. Who is authorizing these flights? Who decides who gets on? What price has been paid?
    And where is Vice-President Barios? Why hasn’t he stepped into the breach to assume his duties? The leadership vacuum has spawned so many rumours – that Barios has left on his private yacht, is drinking himself to death in the bowels of the Pink Palace, has already fled to Geneva to oversee the millions siphoned into secret accounts.
    Another rumour was confirmed by a close relative of Minitzh: that the important “meeting” the president was headed for before his fateful encounter was actually a tryst with his favourite prostitute Gloriala, who can now be seen wailing in the VIP lounge of Freedom and Prosperity International. She looks a mess, and so do we all.
    I read through every story, download, catalogue, check for new articles. Late in the afternoon Joanne drags me from the computer and we walk slowly along the shore of the Ottawa River, past the Rideau Canal locks to the bottom of Parliament Hill. It’s a strange place of near-solitude beneath the seat of power – from a certain perspective the river looks as wild and fresh as it must have appeared to Champlain when he first poked his canoe past this point.
    Joanne holds my arm and I feel like an eighty-year-old invalid. How many regular programs have I started? Weights, treadmill, rowing machine, bike, martial arts, swimming. A long walk every morning. I understand now why old people give up. To be this feeble, to know you can’t push very hard. IfI hadn’t been in such good shape before my abduction, I never would have survived. I would’ve checked out early and saved myself a lot of grief and pain.
    Slowly walking, these quiet non-conversations.
    “I think you should go see Wu,” she says. Pleasantly. A policeman rides by on a bicycle and strains his head back to look at her, so radiant in plain jeans and an oversized T-shirt. She has too much life. That’s it. I have too little, so just being with her I’m soaking some of it in. But not enough. I know in my head that Joanne is extraordinary; my body feels nothing. Me and my limp dead rat. What could be sadder? My batteries were drained close to zero and even now the lights are on but the engine won’t turn over.
    Wu is another with too much life. If I could, I’d hire him to treat just me. But he won’t give up his practice. Good for him. I’ve turned into such a greedy bastard. I meant to go see him more often. But somehow the work took over.
    “Yes,” I say. “Maybe tomorrow.”
    “Maybe right now,” Joanne says.
    “I should check the news.”
    “The news will be there when you get back.”
    “Yes,