12. Normal takes a bus ride II
The Cheese was on the move again and he was now headed in Normal's direction in earnest. He had a look in his eyes that Normal didn't like. Normal now wished that he hadn't wished that he wanted to find out what was going on. There were times when one should be perfectly happy with ignorance. Normal considered his options and running didn't seem to be in the list. There was nowhere to run to anyway.
Maybe he could brazen it out. Maybe this was just routine for the Cheese ... "Yeah, right!" said his pessimistic inner-self. He began praying to the Kabul City deities again, promising them double what he'd promised earlier if the Cheese would just leave him alone. Maybe I just look like an easy mark - better an easy mark than a marked man, he thought.
The cop loomed over him like his Aunt Petunia when she'd caught him sneaking a peek at the girl next door through his bedroom window. "What's your name, buddy?" the cop rasped out.
"N-N-Normal, Normal Kint, sir" he said.
The Cheese took his notebook out, looking all official. He even licked his pencil stub as if about to write something down[1]. Normal let out the breath he'd been holding - this had the familiar routine of a shakedown.
"How do you spell it? Normal as in formal or is it more like in thermal?"
Normal heaved an internal sigh of relief. Yep, the Cheese was just looking for a bit of graft. All he had to do now was not do anything stupid which might arouse the guy's suspicion. He tried to answer with as casual a tone as he could muster.
"It's Normal just the way I said it."
"Strange to have a guy named Normal" the cop grinned, amused at his own cleverness. Normal grimaced inwards - why him? Why'd he always get the comedians?
"Blame it on my parents. My brother's got it worse, they named him Verbal and he hardly speaks a couple of words a day. Apparently, we're named after a great uncle of ours."
"So your uncle was Normal, too?" The cop smirked again, perhaps imagining how he'd use this routine at his next Comedy Night appearance.
"No. Funnily enough, he was called Kaizer Soze. Go figure! My parents never explained how that was supposed to work. You'd think if you were named after somebody, you'd actually have their name. But, oh no, not my parents! They're just weird like that."
The cop clucked in sympathy. "Yeah, I hear you. Take my name for instance. My grandpappy used to say that his boss would always say 'If I had my druthers, I'd always take old Carruthers.' His boss apparently found that amusing, though I've never seen anything amusing about being named John Carruthers myself." The Cheese seemed to realize that he'd been getting too chummy with Normal and so reverted back to his official persona, the one where the police treated every victim[2] to their patented stare - the one a python gives a rabbit just before it swallowed its mesmerised victim.
"Where are you bound today and what's your business there?" he growled.
"I'm just on my way to Donagar - got some friends there ..."
"These friends of yours, have they got a name? Have you known them long?"
Normal had had enough of the cop's questioning. It was obvious that the Cheese was not suspicious of him. So, it was time to get a little tough, time to show him that he wasn't a complete pushover. "Look, officer, is there a reason for this questioning? Can't a guy even take a bus ride anymore without getting hassled?"
"Okay, fella, no need to go all emelkay[3] on me! I'm just doing my duty as an officer of the law!" He looked as if he was about to turn away towards another passenger but then hesitated and turned back towards Normal. "Let me see your ID tag. Normal Kint sounds way too much like a name that you'd picked off the top of your head - and speaking of heads, you need a haircut!"
Normal reached into his tunic and pulled out his ID tag. Bomb those aliens and all this new technology that they'd been introducing since they got here. Not that he was against all new technology - god knows he wasn't a Torvoldite. It's just that there were too many ways to be hassled these days - ID tags, credit cards, vidphone marketing, android riots. Life used to be so bombed simple in the good old days.
The Cheese scrutinized the ID tag carefully, even turning it over as if he expected to discover something hiding away at the back. He grimaced, wrote something down on his notepad and then handed it back without a word.
Yeah, no soap for you today, Cheese - at least not from me! thought Normal, with an inward grin. The Cheese had been expecting to find something so that he could pull Normal up on some minor technicality. Then Normal would have had to get out of it with a little greasing of palms - par for the course. Ah well, he'll find another patsy soon enough, thought Normal as the Cheese turned and made his way towards the front of the bus.
Normal's spirits rose with the hoverbus as it resumed its journey a few minutes later. His exuberance was short-lived however. He remembered that the Cheese had written down his ID number. Surely he'd include the details in his report, wouldn't he? And what if Kathryn had reported him missing? Even if she hadn't done that yet, she was bound to go to the Cheese sooner or later and if this cop's report was to be cross-linked to their search for him, they'd know he was bound for Donagar. He'd just have to trust in the inefficiency of the Kabul City Cheese, he decided. After all, they did the least possible work they could and finding a missing person wasn't likely to bring in any credits.
But the fear continued to niggle away, hiding in the dark and not-often-dusted corners of his mind. I'll just lay low in Donagar till Kathryn calms down and then maybe I'll call her. Or send her one of those CCs as a gift before I vidphone her ... Those CCs act just like real dogs without the microbes, dirt, or fleas. They say that they're real smart too. What could be better? thought Normal, trying to drown out his fears by thinking as hard as he could about other matters ... and failing miserably.
[1] The Kabul City Cheese didn't believe in splurging on all the new technology such as handheld computers. They figured that graphite had been good enough for their ancestors and it was good enough for them - it had the added advantage of being cheaper, too. Besides, licking your computer wasn't as satisfying as licking a pencil stub.
[2] The Cheese called them citizens under their protective care, but a victim is always a victim, whatever name they are given.
[3] Nobody knew what this meant but it was something which had survived from the ages past. Some said that maybe it was somebody's initials since it sounded like letters but everybody else scoffed at these misguided few, obviously, they were words of power or some mantra, they said.
