Exit Kingdom Read Online Free PDF Page B

does not thank the harlequin, for such a gift is beyond the formalities of words. Instead, he accepts it in silence.
    Then the little man is digging around again in the chest and comes up with a smaller object – a cigar box. He places the box on the workbench near by, lifts the lid and sifts through the
objects until he findswhat he’s looking for. This he hands to Abraham.
    What is it? Abraham asks. He holds the thing up to the light. Moses recognizes the object, dimly. He has never been one for computers, neither in the new world nor in the old, but this thing he
recognizes as a something you plug into a computer port. It looks like nothing to speak of – a rectangle of plastic, smaller than a matchbox, witha sliver of metal poking out of it.
    It’s magic, ain’t it? the harlequin says in response to Abraham’s question. Here there ain’t no grid, no spark, no electric. So it ain’t no use to me. But find you
a working machine to plug that doohickey into, and it’ll journey you whole new places, won’t it?
    Uh-huh, Abraham says, unenthused. Hey, you don’t happen to have another of them killer swords,do you?
    This strikes the harlequin as funny, and he laughs his cackling laugh, shaking his head and waving his finger in the air as though to indicate that he needs a moment.
    Killer swords, he says under his breath, smiling.
    Hey, buddy, Abraham says, slipping the plastic object into his pocket, you’re all right, you know that? What’s your proper name anyway?
    The harlequin straightensup and puffs out his chest, announcing himself with military seriousness.
    My name is Albert Wilson Jacks, ain’t it?
    Moses observes the expression on his brother’s face collapse.
    Albert? Abraham says. Albert? Your name’s Albert?
    Albert Wilson Jacks, the little man repeats.
    I guessed that name. Albert – that’s one of the goddamn names I guessed back there.
    Is it? says AlbertWilson Jacks with a bashful smile.
    It goddamn well is, Abraham confirms.
    That’s a lesson to you, ain’t it? Justice and hearts – they’re naught but busted machines.
    *
    So Moses and Abraham Todd leave Albert Wilson Jacks the harlequin there in his solitary fortress – and when they will think of him in the future, they will think of his
hands that never stop tinkering andof his words that are spoken only to himself and to the myriad crevices of madness that mark any lost space.
    Back outside in the desert sun they cross the vast runways between the rusted corpses of the massive airplanes. If technology has a life, and from what they’ve seen of the
harlequin’s workshop the brothers believe now that it has, then this is a place of lost souls. A graveyard ofmachine corpses. Their stillness is a beautiful betrayal.
    They arrive at the car and climb in. They roll down the windows to release the hot air baked stale and stifling by the sun. But Moses does not turn the key in the ignition. He keeps his hands,
unmoving, on the wheel.
    What is it? Abraham asks.
    Where are we goin?
    What do you mean? We’re goin west.
    That ain’t what I meant.

    What’d you mean then?
    I mean what are we doin just wanderin hither and thither across the globe?
    We’re surviving. We’re warrioring our way through life. We’re doin the best we can. Doin better than most if you ask me.
    It ain’t enough, Moses says and looks grimly through the windshield. In front of them is a road that leads only two directions: the nowhere they came from and thenowhere they
haven’t yet been.
    Well, what’re you lookin for then? Abraham asks his brother.
    I don’t know. How bout a direction? A destination. How bout a purpose? It ain’t quite livin without a purpose to shape the action. Even the slugs’ve got that.
    Abraham considers for a moment. He is fifteen years Moses’ junior. An accidental birth given way to an accidental life. Five yearsold when everything went to hell, he only barely
remembers the time before. He grew wrong somehow – Moses