"There was a bus there, with a robot driver named Phil. 'My name's Phil, I'm over the hill, but the best news is that I never spill,' he said. He smelled like lightning and there were all sorts of discordant clicking sounds coming from deep in his guts. Old Phil's dead now, dumped in the train and robot graveyard with God alone knows how many others, but they've got enough mechanized help to finish what they've started, I'm sure.
"Dick fainted when we came out on Thunderclap-side, but by the time we could see the lights of the compound, he'd come around again. Tanya had his head in her lap, and I remember how gratefully he was looking up at her. It's funny what you remember, isn't it? They checked us in at the gate. Assigned us our dorms, assigned us our suites, saw that we were fed... and a damned fine meal it was. The first of many.
"The next day, we went to work. And, barring my little "vacation in Connecticut,' we've been working ever since."
Another pause. Then:
"God help us, we've been working ever since. And, God forgive us, most of us have been happy. Because the only thing talent wants is to be used."
NINE
He tells them of his first few shifts in The Study, and his realization-not gradual but almost immediate-that they are not here to search out spies or read the thoughts of Russian scientists, "or any of that spaceshot nonsense, "as Dinky would say (not that Dinky was there at first, although Sheemie was). No, what they are doing is breaking something.
He can feel it, not just in the sky above Algul Siento but everywhere around them, even under their feet.
Yet he is content enough. The food is good, and although his sexual appetites have subsided quite a bit over the years, he's not a bit averse to the odd bonk, just reminding himself every time that sim sex is really nothing but accessorized mast***ation. But then, he's had the odd bonk with the odd whore over the years, as many men living on the road have, and he could testify that that sort of sex is also not much different than mast***ation; you 're putting it to her just as hard as you can, the sweat pouring off you, and she's going "Baby-baby-baby," and all the time wondering if she ought to gas the car and trying to remember which day is double stamps at the Red amp; White. As with most things in life, you have to use your imagination, and Ted can do that, he's good at the old visualization thing, thank you oh so very much. He likes the roof over his head, he likes the company-the guards are guards, yeah, but he believes them when they say it's as much their job to keep bad stuff from getting in as it is to make sure the Breakers don't get out. He likes most of the inmates, too, and realizes after a year or huo that the inmates need him in some strange way. He's able to comfort them when they get the mean reds; he's able to assuage their crampy waves of homesickness with an hour or so of murmured conversation. And surely this is a good thing. Maybe it's all a good thing-certainly it feels like a good thing. To be homesick is human, but to Break is divine. He tries to explain to Roland and his tet, but the best he can do, the closest he can come, is to say it's like finally being able to scratch that out-of-reach place on your back that always drives you crazy with its mild but persistent itch. He likes to go to The Study, and so do all the others. He likes the feeling of sitting there, of smelling the good wood and good leather, of searching... searching... and then, suddenly, aahhh. There you are.
You 're hooked in, swinging like a monkey on a limb. You 're breaking, baby, and to break is divine.
Dinky once said that The Study was the only place in the world where he really felt in touch with himself, and that was why he wanted to see it shut down. Burned down, if possible. "Because I know the kind of shit I get up to when I'm in touch with myself, "he told Ted.
"When I, you know, really get in the groove. "And Ted knew exactly what he was talking about. Because The Study was always too good to be true. You sat down, maybe picked up a magazine, looked at pictures of models and margarine, movie stars and motor cars, and you felt your mind rise. The Beam was all around, it was like being in some vast corridor full of force, but your mind always rose to the roof and when it got there it found that big old sliding groove.
Maybe once, just after the Prim withdrew and Gan 's voice still echoed in the rooms of the macroverse, the Beams were smooth and polished, but those days are gone. Now the Way of the Bear and the Turtle is lumpy and eroded, full of coves and cols and bays and cracks, plenty of places to get your fingers in and take hold, and sometimes you drag at it and sometimes you can feel yourself worming your way into it like a drop of acid that can think. All these sensations are intensely pleasurable. Sexy.
And for Ted there's something else, as well, although he doesn't know he's the only one who's got it until Trampas tells him. Trampas never means to tell him anything, but he's got this lousy case of eczema, you see, and it changes everything. Hard to believe a flaky scalp might be responsible for saving the Dark Tower, but the idea's not entirely farfetched.
Not entirely farfetched at all.