Fifty-ThreeHaving dropped off Machuzak, Slava drops out of sight. For several days Nathaniel attempts to contact him, nothing. Suddenly, at week’s end, his phone rings; Borisovich asks to meet at the West Mall of The University, the jammed gathering spot for every student and protest group in Austin. Attempting to trap him as he shoves through the crowds, Scientologists insist their “Thought-O-Meter” measures “thought energy fluxing from space through your mind,” and when Machuzak replies that the device is an ordinary electrical resistance meter, which as a physicist he uses all the time, they scowl, “What’s a physicist?” Of late the question has become a pointed one and he moves on, ignoring the reconquistas, passing the Internet stations for the homeless and refusing to confront Greenpe
