He took Montag quickly into the bedroom and lifted a picture frame aside revealing a television screen the size of a postal card. "I always wanted something very small, something I could walk to, something I could blot out with the palm of my hand, if necessary, nothing that could shout me down, nothing monstrous big. So, you see." He snapped it on.
"Montag," the TV set said, and lit up. "M-O-N-T-A-G." The name was spelled out by a voice. "Guy Montag. Still running. Police helicopters are up. A new Mechanical Hound has been brought from another disctrict--"
Montag and Faber looked at each other.
"--Mechanical Hound never fails. Never since its first use in tracking quarry has this incredible invention made a mistake. Tonight, this network is proud to have the opportunity to follow the Hound by camera helicopter as it starts on its way to the target--"
Faber poured two glasses of whiskey. "We'll need these."
They drank.
"--nose so sensitive the Mechanical Hound can remember and identify ten thousand odor indexes on ten thousand men without resetting!"
Faber trembled the least bit and looked about at his house, at the walls, the door, the doorknob, and the chair where Montag now sat. Montag saw the look. They both looked quickly about the house and Montag felt his nostrils dilate and he knew that he was trying to track himself and his nose was suddenly good enough to sense the path he had made in the air of the room and the sweat of his hand hung from the doorknob, invisible but as numerous as the jewels of a small chandelier, he was everywhere, in and on and about everything, he was a luminous cloud, a ghost that made breathing once more impossible. He saw Faber stop up his own breath for fear of drawing that ghost into his own body, perhaps, being contaminated with the phantom exhalations and odors of a running man.
"The Mechanical Hound is now landing by helicopter at the site of the Burning!"
And there on the small screen was the burnt house, and the crowd and something with a sheet over it and out of the sky, fluttering, came the helicopter like a grotesque flower.
So they must have their game out, thought Montag. The circus must go on, even with war beginning within the hour. . . .
He watched the scene, fascinated, not wanting to move. It seemed so remote and no part of him; it was a play apart and separate, wondrous to watch, not without its strange pleasure. That's all for me, you thought, that's all taking place just for me, by God.
If he wished, he could linger here, in comfort, and follow the entire hunt on through its swift phases, down alleys, across streets, over empty running avenues, crossing lots and playgrounds, with pauses here or there for the necessary commercials, up other alleys to the burning house of Mr. and Mrs. Black, and so on finally to this house with Faber and himself seated, drinking while the Electric Hound snuffed down the last trail, silent as a drift of death itself, skidding to a halt outside that window there. Then, if he wished, Montag might rise, walk to the window, keep one eye on the TV screen, open the window, lean out, look back, and see himself dramatized, described, made over, standing there, limned in the bright small television screen from outside, a drama to be watched objectively, knowing that in other parlors he was large as life, in full color, dimensionally perfect! and if he kept his eye peeled quickly he would see himself, an instant before oblivion, being punctured for the benefit of how many civilian parlor-sitters who had been wakened from sleep a few minutes ago by the frantic sirening of their living room walls to come watch the big game, the hunt, the one-man carnival.
Would he have time for a speech? As the Hound seized him, in view of ten or twenty or thirty million people, mightn't he sum up his entire life in the last week in one single phrase or a word that would stay with them long after the Hound had turned, clenching him in its metal-plier jaws, and trotted off in darkness, while the camera remained stationary, watching the creature dwindle in the distance, a splendid fade-out! What could he say in a single word, a few words, that would sear all their faces and wake them up?
"There," whispered Faber.
Out of a helicopter glided something that was not machine, not animal, not dead, not alive, glowing with a pale-green luminosity. It stood near the smoking ruins of Montag's house and the men brought his discarded flame thrower to it and put it down under the muzzle of the Hound. There was a whirring, clicking, humming.
Montag shook his head and got up and drank the rest of his drink. "It's time. I'm sorry about this."
"About what? Me? My house? I deserve everything. Run, for God's sake. Perhaps I can delay them here--"
"Wait. There's no use you being discovered. When I leave, burn the spread of this bed that I touched. Burn the chair in the living room, in your wall incinerator. Wipe down the furniture with alcohol, wipe the doorknobs. Burn the throw-rug in the parlor. Turn the air-conditioning on full in all the rooms and spray with moth spray if you have it. Then, turn on your lawn sprinklers as high as they'll go and hose off the sidewalks. With any luck at all, we can kill the trail in here, anyway."
Faber shook his hand. "I'll tend to it. Good luck. If we're both in good health, next week, the week after, get in touch, General Delivery, St. Louis. I'm sorry there's no way I can go with you this time, by earphone. That was good for both of us. But my equipment was limited. You see, I never thought I would use it. What a silly old man. No thought there. Stupid, stupid. So I haven't another green bullet, the right kind, to put in your head. Go now!"
"One last thing. Quick. A suitcase, get it, fill it with your dirtiest clothes, an old suit, the dirtier the better, a shirt, some old sneakers and socks. . . ."
Faber was gone and back in a minute. They sealed the cardboard valise with clear tape. "To keep the ancient odor of Mr. Faber in, of course," said Faber, sweating at the job.
Montag doused the exterior of the valise with whiskey. "I don't want that Hound picking up two odors at once. May I take this whiskey? I'll need it later. Christ, I hope this works!"
They shook hands again and going out the door glanced at the TV. The Hound was on its way, followed by hovering helicopter cameras, silently, silently, sniffing the great night wind. It was running down the first alley.
"Goodbye!"
And Montag was out the back door lightly, running with the half-empty valise. Behind him he heard the lawn-sprinkling system jump up, filling the dark air with rain that fell gently and then with a steady pour all about, washing on the sidewalks and draining into the alley. He carried a few drops of this rain with him on his face. He thought he heard the old man call goodbye, but he wasn't certain.
He ran very fast away from the house, down toward the river.
Montag ran.
He could feel the Hound, like autumn, come cold and dry and swift, like a wind that didn't stir grass, that didn't jar windows or disturb leaf shadows on the white sidewalks as it passed. The Hound did not touch the world. It carried its silence with it, so you could feel the silence building up a pressure behind you all across town. Montag felt the pressure rising, and ran.
He stopped for breath, on his way to the river, to peer through dimly lit windows of wakened houses, and saw the silhouettes of people inside watching their parlor walls and there on the walls the Mechanical Hound, a breath of neon vapor, spidered along, here and gone, here and gone! Now at Elm Terrace, Lincoln, Oak, Park, and up the alley toward Faber's house!