Blaine The Mono Quotes

Certainly there had been an intelligence left in the ancient computers below the city, a single living organism which had long ago ceased to exist sanely under conditions that, within its merciless dipolar circuits, could only be absolute reality. It held its increasingly alien logic within its banks of memory for eight hundred years and may have held them for eight hundred more, if not for the arrival of Roland and his friends; yet this mens non corpus had brooded and grown ever more insane with each passing year; even in its increasing periods of sleep it could be said to dream, and these dreams grew steadily more abnormal as the world moved on. Now, although the unthinkable machinery that maintained the Beams had weakened, this insane and inhuman intelligence had awakened in the rooms of ruin and had begun once more, although as bodiless as a ghost, to stumble through the hallways of the dead. In other words, Blaine the Mono was preparing to get out of Dodge.

Little Blaine: Don't get him mad. Please don't make him angry, fellows; he's already got the mono in the red, speedwise, and the track compensators can barely keep up. The trackage has degenerated terribly since the last time we came out this way.

Certainly there had been an intelligence left in the ancient computers below the city, a single living organism which had long ago ceased to exist sanely under conditions that, within its merciless dipolar circuits, could only be absolute reality. It had held its increasingly alien logic within its banks of memory for eight hundred years and might have held them for eight hundred more, if not for the arrival of Roland and his friends; yet this mens non corpus had brooded and grown ever more insane with each passing year; even in its increasing periods of sleep it could be said to dream, and these dreams grew steadily more abnormal as the world moved on. Now, although the unthinkable machinery which had maintained the Beams had weakened, this insane and inhuman intelligence had awakened in the rooms of ruin and had begun once more, although as bodiless as any ghost, to stumble through the halls of the dead. In other words, Blaine the Mono was preparing to get out of Dodge.

Eddie: Why do police lieutenants wear belts? The lights in the Barony coach began to flicker. An odd thing was happening to the walls, as well; they began to fade in and out of true, lunging toward transparency, perhaps, and then opaquing again. Seeing this phenomenon even out of the corner of his eye made Eddie feel a bit whoopsie. Eddie: Blaine? Answer. Roland: (agreeably) Answer. Answer, or I declare the contest at an end and hold you to your promise. Blaine: TO...TO HOLD UP THEIR PANTS? (repeating as a statement) TO HOLD UP THEIR PANTS. A RIDDLE BASED UPON THE EXAGGERATED SIMPLICITY OF-- Eddie: Right. Good one, Blaine, but never mind trying to kill time--it won't work. Next-- Blaine: I INSIST YOU STOP ASKING THESE SILLY-- Eddie: Then stop the mono. If you're that upset, stop right here, and I will. Blaine: NO. Eddie: Okay, then, on we go. What's Irish and stays out in back of the house, even in the rain? Blaine: (clicking his tongue deafeningly and gratingly; a long pause) PADDY O'FURNITURE.

We don't have much time. The mono travels just as fast toward its point of ending whether Blaine's with us or not." "You don't really believe he's gone, do you?" Eddie asked. "A slippery pup like him? Come on, get real. He's peeking, I guarantee you." "I doubt it very much," Roland said, and Susannah decided she agreed with him. For now, at least. "You could hear how excited he was at the idea of riddling again after all these years. And-" "And he's confident," Susannah said. "Doesn't expect to have much trouble with the likes of us." "Will he?" Jake asked the gunslinger. "Will he have trouble with us?" "I don't know," Roland said. "I don't have a Watch Me hidden up my sleeve, if that's what you're asking. It's a straight game ... but at least it's a game I've played before. We've all played it before, at least to some extent. And there's that." He nodded toward the book which Jake had taken back from Oy. "There are forces at work here, big ones, and not all of them are working to keep us away from the Tower." Susannah heard him, but it was Blaine she was thinking of-Blaine who had gone away and left them alone, like the kid who's been chosen "it" obediently covering his eyes while his playmates hide. And wasn't that what they were? Blaine's playmates? The thought was somehow worse than the image she'd had of trying the escape hatch and having her head torn off. "So what do we do?" Eddie asked. "You must have an idea, or you never would have sent him away." "His great intelligence-coupled with his long period of loneliness and forced inactivity-may have combined to make him more human than he knows. That's my hope, anyway. First, we must establish a kind of geography. We must tell, if we can, where he is weak and where he is strong, where he is sure of the game and where not so sure. Riddles are not just about the cleverness of the riddler, never think it. They are also about the blind spots of he who is riddled." "Does he have blind spots?" Eddie asked. "If he doesn't," Roland said calmly, "we're going to die on this train.