doing harm to somebody, found a liquor store with a big Checks ‘Cashed sign, got the same rurdown inside, Running on nerve and anger, she Kept on til she reached che next supecarke, and this ue she was old to wai while somebody wen in back and ‘made a phone call Te was there, gazing down along aisle of frozen fod, ost past the checkout stands, and into the terminal black glow of the front windows, that she found herself entering 4 moment of Undeniable clairvoyance, rare in her life but recognized. She lunderstood that the Reaganomic ax blades were swinging every het, that she and Fash were no longer exempt, might easily be abandoned already tothe upper world and any unrished bus ‘ess init that might now esume sf they'd been kepe safe in some timesfree zone all thee years but now, a the unreadable ‘whim of something in power, mast reenter the clockwork of ‘use and effect. Someplace there would be areal a, oF some- hing jas there would be a eal a, or something just 2 pant Jason, blade-to-meat final ~ bata the distance she, Flash, and Justin had by now been brought fo, it would all be done with keys on alphanumeric keyboards chat stood for weighs, nv ie chains of eleronic presence or absence. If patterns of ones and zeros were ik’ pattens of human lve and death, every thing about an individual could be represented in a computer record by a long string of ones and zeros, then what kind of Greature would be represented by a long string of lives and deaths? Ie would have to be ap one level at least — an angel & nino god, something ina UFO, Te would take eight human lives tind death aot to form one character inthis beng’ name — ts complete dossier might take up a considerable. piece of the history ofthe world, Weare digit in God's computer, she mat so ‘much though as hummed to eeslf oa soe of standard gospel tne. And the ony thing we'e good for, to be dead or to be living is the only thing He secs. What we ey, what we contend for, in out world of oil and blood, alles beneath the novice of the hacker we call God The night manager came hack, holding the check 3 he might wed disposable diaper. "They topped payment on this” “The banks ate closed, how'd they do that?” He spent his work life here explaining realty tothe herds of computerilterate who crowded in and out ofthe store. The computer" he began gently, once agai never has to sleep, oF ven go tke a break slike i's open 24 hours a day... Bat in this, fr and away the most politically radial of Pynchon’s texts, and a belatedly 60s antauchortarian attack on the Reagan deca, one wonders Sometimes whether the stereotypical wing that Spee ware You Watanabe, Sky Boing 0.5 (TOR) 1971) i th dase Pynchon ner form ha not hen eves thatthe timc of ate deed om wt we say tok at Dike turd projecting fresh neath ohh unexperienced Strey ctpltnt eran comely ep a they may be eo hc isa gusion twill ave tobe posed again when We cone (Dalibe Pree Men the sacral demas, ten 02 sination a which echnolg cal ej are endowed wih bolic power by thi narratve com ‘Sean be eget oem abc whose very neon isl Sica im sucks nay tn aenton diver om he ial idcquny Tee Japenese apne igs comer He “ack tapes cn nn longer be ire int the ape Divert the mocvoe; bar the mei Blow Ou le Palag 198i) do nt merely wrt thet own check they rete the wold teat _“orat ett soma = ad esses many aerate Sonne tele nd te sans i shor cae exes cr pica wh thet or doumetrysowndack of 3 ral Sree can Seapine tal Boro lay so tw Tet org