The Program tr-2 Page 26

  Question 1: As a child, I experienced my father as (a) controlling (b) manipulative (c) jealous.

  Question 8: I was abandoned in childhood by (a) divorce (b) death of a parent (c) neglect.

  Lorraine came back with the tea and waited until Tim took a sip and feigned immense enjoyment. For about fifteen minutes, she sat on Leah's bed and watched him grow. Adjusting his glasses from time to time, he made a show of furrowing his brow, tapping the pen to his lips, studying the ceiling for inspiration – it was almost fun.

  Through the window he saw Skate's squat outline pass at the edge of visibility, dogs padding beside him. On patrol. A silver key, pressed tight against the flesh of his throat, echoed the soft light of the moon.

  Lorraine distracted herself by stretching her swanlike arms over her head, remembrance of ballet lessons past. Tim stole a glance at the watch face – 9:48. He flipped to Question 2148 and underlined it, then went back to circling answers indiscriminately.

  The rain had finally slowed, though the breeze threw an erratic splatter against the pane. The air of the poorly insulated room seemed dense, aspiring to ice. Finally the others began trickling back to the cottage. Doors opened and closed up the hall.

  "Okay, Tom," Lorraine said, "just keep on working like you are -you're doing great. Stay in your room and focus. It's really important you devote this time to yourself." She rose. "Mind if I borrow your sweatshirt? It's in the thirties out there."

  "No problem."

  Directing a grateful grin at him, she departed. He poured his tea through a crack in the floorboards at the back of the closet, then ate a protein bar and waited for Skate's next loop around Cottage Circle – 10:25. Tim underlined Question 2225, then sneaked to the door. The minute he opened it, a bucktoothed Pro popped up from a recline on the facing common-room couch down the hall. "Hey, Tom. Can I help you with something?"

  "No. I just have to go to the bathroom."

  "Well, hurry up. If you cheat your GrowthWork time, you're -"

  "Cheating myself. So right." Tim brushed his teeth before a mirror-less rise of wall and returned to his cell.

  Randall took a spin past the cottage at 10:47 – Tim underlined Question 2247 – and Skate reappeared on question 2313. The timing of the patrols seemed arbitrary, driven by the whims of the Protectors, and so a log probably wouldn't serve Tim well. Skate paused outside on the gone-to-mud path rimming the circular lawn and stared through the window at Tim, probably assuming that the interior light prevented him from seeing out. The Dobermans heeled, plumes of hot breath issuing from jagged mouths, and Tim was struck anew by the Pros' capacity for selective blindness. How could they not take note of a prison patrol on their jolly ranch? Tim's father and TD were right about one thing: The human willingness to surrender critical thought was staggering.

  When Tim glanced back up, Skate and the dogs had evaporated in the rain-slatted darkness. He dug for his sweatshirt in his bag before realizing he'd loaned it to Lorraine. Yet another shrewd ploy; borrowing it would permit the cold to intrude on his sleepiness and discourage unsupervised wandering in the night. He wound himself in the thin sheet, keeping an eye on the window. For an hour he watched the spattering puddles, but there was no sign of the Protectors.

  For the first time since he arrived, he allowed his thoughts to pull to Dray. She was lying in their bed right now, her hand resting on her belly, monitoring the life within. She was probably reading something moronically escapist to ward off Ginny's ghost and her apprehension about Tim. Leah's photo, nestled lovingly in Will's billfold, came to mind. Tim reflected on the agony of relinquishing a child to the world and watching it batter her. And then, as he'd been taught during a bone-crushing week in the Fort Bragg barracks, he buried all that was personal.

  He redirected his attention on his strategy. He was out of his element; he was dealing not with criminals per se but exceptional manipulators. Bankrolling Tom Altman to the tune of $90 million might have been a mistake – it was increasingly clear that he'd garnered more of the group's focus than Tim had intended – but it also offered him unique access to TD. Tom's parsing out of his woeful tale had set the stage for even more interface. It was essentially a flirtation; TD's attentions would persist if Tom Altman proved malleable but not easy. Tim had his own share of remorse to add to Tom's fictional reserve over the botched murder – for – hire, a benefit when confronting TD's uncanny aptitude for scenting susceptibility. But he'd sensed already TD's ability to reach through Tom Altman and rattle the emotions caged in Tim's own chest. Tom was no longer merely a cash cow; his was the head TD wanted on his wall. As TD continued to leverage Tom's points of vulnerability, Tim would find TD's.

  Tim curled up to maintain body heat and imagined he was standing ankle deep in a sizzling pool. He let the water climb, warmth claiming his calves, his knees. He was asleep before it hit his waist.

  Tim felt a tug at his belt, then a cool hand slide beneath the band of his boxers. For an instant he was certain he was still dreaming, but then he caught Leah's slender wrist, yanked her arm away, and sat up. She reached for him, and again he repelled her.

  "Leah. What are you doing?"

  "What's wrong?"

  "Hang on. Just stop."

  "Look, I'm only trying to help you past the divorce. TD thinks you're a little hung up."

  She kept moving toward him, so he gripped her forearms. "I don't want this kind of help."

  "Then you'll probably need some time in the Growth Room."

  "That's fine."

  "Well, not with me. I'll get sent there, too."

  "So say we had sex. Tell him whatever you need to."

  "He'll know."

  "Then tell him I couldn't get it up."

  At last she stopped, stunned. "Really?" In the refracted light of the moon, she looked about fifteen years old. She was shivering violently. "He'll take you apart for that. Humiliate you."

  "If it were true, it might upset me."

  She drew a deep, shaky breath. "What's wrong with me? I'm too ugly?" She was trying to goad him into it first with insults, then by appealing to pity. Right on Program.

  "No. I don't have sex with whoever TD tells me to. That's my own choice."

  "Fine. You'll deserve what you get, then. It's not my problem."

  "I never said it was."

  Some of the anger left her face. "Did you just get divorced?"

  "No." Tim pulled his sheet across her shoulders, then retrieved the one from her bed and wrapped it around her as well. He rubbed her arms through the thin fabric. "What's the Growth Room?"

  She described it, trembling with the memory and the cold, her hands instinctively sliding over to cradle the backs of her arms.

  Tim said, "And you think that's intended to help you grow?"

  "TD doesn't like putting me in there any more than I like being in there. But he's strong enough to do it anyways. You break down muscle to rebuild it, right? Like the Source Code says – exalt strength, not comfort."

  "The Source Code is bullshit, Leah. It's decorative."

  "Decorative? It's the whole basis of The Program."

  "The basis of The Program is implanting self-loathing and anxiety."

  She laughed sharply. "Yeah. Sure. I'd love to see The Program you're talking about."

  "Then I'll show it to you."

  His pledge seemed to intimidate her. "You can't grow without suffering."

  "Maybe not. But that doesn't mean that all suffering leads to growth."

  "But this does. It puts me in control."

  "Nothing can put you in control. You have to put yourself in control."

  "Oh, sure. Like you want to do that. TD warned us about people like you. You probably want to turn me Catholic again, like my mom."

  "I don't care what you think, as long as you think for yourself."

  Moonlight cut her face down the center, leaving it half in shadow. "And how will you know I'm doing that?"

  "When other ideas no longer threaten you."
>
  One of her hands curled in the other, a nesting fist. "I wasn't supposed to see my parents that time. I took a huge risk in going. When Janie found out I went, I got put on Victim Row for a week straight, every day." She sank back against the wall. "And for what? To get yelled at by Will and my mom? Slapped? Told how worthless and stupid I am? If I did have any doubts about moving up here…well, they pretty much vanished that night."

  "Sounds shitty."

  "Shitty, but nothing new. They've never cared about me. Will made me skip my junior prom just so he could pull me up onstage with him when he won Producer of the Year, then he left the stupid Beverly Hills Hotel after in his limo and forgot me. They make me go to Uncle Mike's every Thanksgiving, and I end up getting a rash because I'm allergic to cats."

  As she continued reciting the injustices she'd suffered over the years, Tim recalled his own upbringing with dark amusement. When he was ten, his father had shaved his head and taken photos of him to submit with doctored medical reports to children's charities.

  "Could be worse," he said when Leah paused between bullet points. "No matter how you've been made to feel about it, getting left behind at the Beverly Hills Hotel hardly constitutes abuse. Not by my standards or The Program's."

  "So if I complain, then I'm under mind control, and if I say I'm fulfilled, then I'm under mind control. Neat little trick you came up with."

  She hopped off the bed, flung his sheet back at him, and retreated to her mattress.

  Tim heard her teeth chattering. "You want my sheet?"

  "No." More shivering. Then she added, "Thank you." Rain tapped gently on the window; if the room weren't so frigid, it might have been soothing. Just as Tim recaptured drowsiness, Leah asked in a tiny voice, "What was Jenny like?" Then, a moment later, "I've answered your questions. You said you'd answer mine."

  The crisp air made the back of his throat tingle. "Her name wasn't Jenny."

  Leah made a gentle noise in her throat – his risk noted. "What was your daughter like?"

  "She was the kind of kid you loved so much that you didn't want her to change. But you wanted her to grow up, too, because you couldn't wait to see who she'd become."

  "Your answer's all about you. Jesus, do all parents think the world revolves around them? What was she like?"

  "Remembering's not easy, Leah." His mouth cottoned, and he ran his tongue across his dry lips. "Her death made me afraid to go to sleep because I couldn't stand remembering when I woke up. Those first few seconds in the morning, when you think everything's like it should be…" He watched a raindrop streak down the black sheet of the pane. "Sometimes I still forget."

  "You can't answer the question, can you? You can't answer without talking about you and your suffering. I mean, your little girl died…"

  Leah's breathing became barely audible. She was crying as silently as she could. He wondered whether the tears were for herself, whether she knew the difference.

  Ginny Rackley, Our Lady of Projection.

  "Maybe you're right," Tim said. "In which case you might want to recast your tragic interactions with Uncle Mike's cats."

  "First honest thing you've said tonight." Her voice was bitter. "I guess we're both victims."

  More rain, more quiet.

  "What happened to her? Your daughter."

  "What I said at the colloquium."

  She shifted in bed; he could sense her eyes trying to penetrate the darkness. "I'm sorry," she whispered.

  Tim lay for a while, listening for her breathing to steady. Then he crossed the cold floor and draped his sheet over her thin frame.

  Chapter thirty

  Along with the light-headedness, his exhaustion helped lower Tim's inhibitions. Last night he and Leah had been awakened every hour by a different Pro clanking around outside their window in a professed effort to repair a faulty water pipe. The early-morning battery of workshops made the colloquium seem like a week at Club Med. Weirdly, even though he knew his success depended on his participation in Program activities, an instinctive resistance – his Old Programming? – was hard to shake.

  As Tim played possum among the cadaverous Pros, TD's speaker-enhanced voice began its narcotic susurration – Guy-Med, round one.

  The Pros bent over their knees, foreheads pressed to the cool floorboards, yoga on Quaaludes. He peeked at Leah; she hadn't gone under yet.

  Skate walked the aisles like a whip-wielding boss man. Tim waited for his footsteps to recede, then reached over and dug his thumb into Leah's Achilles tendon. She yelped and jerked. Skate pivoted, but Tim had withdrawn his hand. Skate walked back toward them, his footsteps vibrating the floor beneath Tim's forehead. Tim watched Skate's frozen shadow, the hump of Leah's body. He could see her eyes blink, confusion giving way to anger. He'd stopped breathing.

  She rustled but stayed in position. Finally Skate moved on. Leah waited until it was safe, then shot Tim a glare. He winked at her, seeking to infuriate her further. Flustered, she turned her face back to the floor, but he could tell he'd successfully distracted her from the Guy-Med.

  TD's voice stayed mellifluous and soothing even as the words began to take on menace. "You're afraid of the person next to you. To them, you don't exist. Think of the person on your other side. They terrify you. If you were bleeding to death, you'd be too afraid to call out. And even if you did, they wouldn't stop to spit on you." His breath whistled across the mike. "Everyone around you hates you. Everyone in this room scares you. You are completely alone. You are completely isolated." He intoned the words like a bedtime story.

  From the back of the room rose a plaintive keening. Almost inaudible, but others picked it up. Some Pros writhed; others froze on their sides, hands clasped over their ears. Shrieks echoed around the bare auditorium, thrown back from the corners.

  "There is no one here with you." TD was almost consoling. "There is no one in the entire world that you aren't afraid of. You are completely alone in the world."

  Leah's downturned, sentient face had gone a sickly hue.

  I've realized that you were always an awful brother to me." Shanna sat spotlit onstage, clutching to her ear the cordless phone Randall had presented in the Growth Hall like a parchment bearing a royal decree. Somewhere hidden away was the base unit. The Pros sat in perfect silence, attending Shanna's every word. "I no longer have any use for you."

  Tim sat with the other initiates in the row of folding chairs. At his feet lay the shoe box filled with his confiscated belongings. At TD's behest he'd donned the Cartier. TD looked on encouragingly from the shadows.

  "I never want to see you again." Shanna's voice warbled slightly. "Good-bye."

  When she hung up, there was a moment of breath-held silence, during which her tortured swallow was audible to the first few rows. Then TD edged into the light beside her and raised his hands, striking them together once, the lights eased up over the audience, and thunderous applause burst forth.

  A smile twitched on Shanna's face. She rose and gave a joking curtsy.

  TD strode before the others. The clapping ceased immediately at his voice. "You're unfulfilled because you're mired in the past. Innovators look forward. They break free of convention. Drop your baggage – whatever's weighing you down."

  The lights faded until only a new glowing circle remained, this time encasing Jason.

  He peered down at the shoe box before him. The crowd seethed with mute anticipation. He reached in hesitantly and withdrew his wallet, the jangle of his shifting keys amplified in the silence. He pulled out a wad of twenties, ripped them up, and threw the pieces. They dispersed in a green cloud.

  The audience, hidden in darkness, went nuts.

  He pulled a family picture from the wallet and held it up. "This is my wife, Courtney, and my two kids, Sage and Dana. I love them very much." No reaction from the crowd. "But guess what? Sometimes I get claustrophobic. Soccer practice and nannies and the baby's got another sore throat – sometimes I lose sight of myself in all of it. Sometimes I wonder how th
e hell I wound up here, where, between work and home, I don't have a single minute in my day that's my own." He shook his head, lips rolled over his teeth, lank ponytail swaying. "Well, at this retreat I'm here for me." He ripped the photo in half, and the room erupted. School photos of Sage and Dana followed, scraps flung from the stage glittering in the beam of light.

  Lights up. Cue applause. Thunderous affirmation. People were jumping and screaming euphorically. Jason continued to shout avowals, a widemouthed exorcism.

  The rapture was cut short with a stern flash of TD's hand. "Good progress, Jason." He prowled the stage now, dispensing hard-won wisdom. "A partial commitment to The Program gets you nowhere. You're either with The Program or you're Off Program. There is no in-between. That's being halfway cured of cancer or climbing halfway up Mount Everest. The Program requires dedication. Dedication is absolute. The Program is paramount above everything in your life. Paramount above children, parents, spouses, work, money, fame, ego. And why shouldn't it be? It's your life. It's your future. What's anything else worth when you don't have control of that?"

  The faces remained unlined and inscrutable, a sea of catatonia.

  TD moved toward Tim, and the spotlight came up on them. Tim could feel the heat coming off TD, mingling with the burn of the stage lights. A hand dropped onto his shoulder, gave it a little squeeze. "Tom, are you committed to The Program?"

  At once nothing existed but the beam of light, lowered over him like a cage. Even the pressure of TD's hand had vanished. Tim squinted and sweated. Dust drifted like white sand swirled underwater; a moth made jagged upward progress toward the lighting grid. "Yes."

  "I'd think a businessman like you would be tied to material possessions. To stuff. You're not gonna try to drag a yacht through the eye of the needle, are you, Tom?"