All these doors...
And they aren't all the same. Some look like heavy riveted metal, die type you might find leading to a loft apartment, while others have a rich wood finish, much like the doors at Oakwood.
They remind you of that line from Aldous Huxley: "The doors of perception lead everywhere."
How much perception can you handle?
Each door begs to be opened. Which to choose? You pick randomly: a dark wood door. You click the glove on it and it opens.
A black corridor stretches before you as a tremendous gust of wind propels you over the threshold, down the black corridor, into...
A great public garden.
Sam looks angry. Liam turns away.
"I told you, Sammi, I'll not hear any of that damn crap from you. You just have to accept who I am, how I live."
But Sam doesn't let him get off that easily. She circles around to his front. She ignores the French mothers strolling with their children in the early October morning. She and Liam have been up all night, making love, drinking wine.... This stroll was her idea.
And in the brilliant Paris sunlight, she decides to dig deep under the skin of Liam O'Donnell.
"I know what my uncle says about you."
"And what would that rich old fool be knowing?"
"He's no fool. He told me that you're a wanted man, a terrorist. He said you're wanted for arson."
Sam watches Liam turn slowly toward her. She felt safe accusing him here, in the sunlight with all the children and their mothers around. But now his dark eyes, his tight lips, vaporize that security.
"He knows nothing. And there's only one thing you need to know, my little crazy artist—"
"Don't call me crazy!"
The beginnings of a smile vanish.
"No? It wasn't you who asked me to break into your uncle's house, eh? Now what would he be saying if 1 told him that?"
Sam grabs Liam's arm. "You wouldn't."
Now Liam allows the grin to reclaim his face. And Sam feels the loss of her advantage.
"Sure an' I wouldn't do that. No more than you would tell anyone about me. We all need our secrets, eh love?"
Sam looks to the left, and sees a boy holding a balloon, a bright red balloon. Of course ... a giant red balloon. Do they make any other kind here?
As she watches it she hears Liam's voice, his lips close to her ear.
"You need know only one thing... I love you, Sammi. Love you to bits, I do. And I want to—"
The balloon ... growing, brighter red. Impossibly big, swelling... except the boy... the boy is not a boy.
The balloon explodes, sending red everywhere over the scene, filling—
This black corridor is now red, a broad, painted red bar on the Mondrian canvas. A giant red corridor.
The bastard! a part of you shouts. Liam did this. God, it's so clear!
But another part of you believes Liam loves Sam.
You turn around and you're back in the big room, the room of doors with all its many faceless, clueless choices. It's Monty Hall to the tenth power. You move to a battered white door set in a far wall. It's not the entrance to a cheery home ... more like something from an institution or—
You click on the door.
This time it opens slowly, and you see another black corridor beyond the threshold.
You enter, and half a minute later you come upon yourself sitting cross-legged on the basement floor behind the furnace ... striking matches. You always loved to play with matches. Not that fire itself fascinated you. It was research. Daddy was always telling you you were too young for a chemistry set, so you had to improvise. You were only five, but you'd learned how to strike a match without burning yourself, and that allowed you to set up your own experiments, seeing what caught fire and what didn't, what burned quickly and what burned slowiy. You're careful. You always close the cover before striking.
You leave yourself behind and enter another room. And then the brilliant lights stab your eyes.
The man stands at a long lab table, papers spread out behind him. Important papers. Never touch Daddy's important Papers, Sammi.
And little Samantha wonders: How could paper be that important?
She holds her mommy's hand. Tight. Mommy doesn't have papers. No important ones, anyhow.
Sammi's not crying anymore.
"Nathan..."
The man in the white coat turns, and you see Daddy. His eyes have that funny look, as though he's looking so far away, way past the room, looking out to forever. He rubs his chin.
"I told you that I was working." Daddy's voice gets louder. "I told you never ever disturb me when I'm—"
Mommy takes a step into the room, and she pulls you behind her. You have no choice: Even though you don't want to disturb Daddy and his important papers, she pulls you in. You don't want Daddy mad. You love Daddy. You want him to love you.
"Nathan, you must stop this."
Did Daddy smile?
"Stop what?"
"What you're doing to the girls. You've scared Samantha ... showing her all those paintings...."
Another tug, and Mommy makes Sam go closer to him, to the shiny table and the papers. You look up to her. Doesn't she know that Daddy shouldn't be... shouldn't be—what's the word?
Disturbed.
And he seems disturbed now.
"I'm teaching them, exposing them to the ranges of their possibilities—"
"Give up these crazy ideas, Nathan. No one's interested. If they were you'd have landed at least one grant."
"Money? Is that all you care about?"
Money is important. Like the papers. They yell about money. A lot.
Daddy takes a step closer. His hands are clenched, balled up into fists.
"You're scaring the children," Mommy says.
Nathan stops. He stands there, his fists tight, like a little kid ready to start a fight.
"I want to maximize their potential, Lucy. Is that so awful?
They've got talents, enormous talents. To consider wasting them—"
"They need to be children!" Mommy says. "They need to have fun!"
"Fun? They've got their whole lives to have fun! It's now, when their minds are thirsty sponges, that they must establish patterns of behavior that will carry them through their lives!"
You blink. A flash, and—
Nathan freezes. And now he looks like a wax figure, a museum display. Sam is gone, Lucinda is gone. You hear something, a crackling noise, a hissing sound. The wax dummy doesn't move.
Then, from behind it, a tiny golden finger of fire, curling around the table. Another fiery finger leaps to the tabletop and, snakelike, begins ranging across the surface, touching each piece of paper, then moving on. Soon the stream of fire has left a trail of smoking, blackened curls in its wake.
It crawls down die table, joining the other finger. They move to die feet of the wax dummy, and travel up Nathan's pants leg.
He's not alive, you think. Otherwise he'd react. It's only a dummy....
The flames go straight up Nathan's chest, and then encircle his neck, corkscrewing up to the face.
You start as he speaks.
"I always loved you the best ..."
Who? Sam, or you?
The jaws move horribly as the flames envelop them like a mask. He has more to say but you can't hear anything because … because ...
Now the face is dripping, the waxy bits of flesh sliding off, railing to the ground, revealing something else just below the surface. What?
You look down and see a trail of flame snaking toward you. In fact, it's only a few feet away. Virtual flame in a virtual madhouse.
You don't move.
You know you must get out now. These flames aren't real, yet you feel their heat. And if you can feel the heat from this distance, what will happen if they catch you? Every instinct tells you to get out, but what about that melting face? It's teasing you, promising to reveal something important.
The jaw is moving up and
down. You try to make out the words.
I... yes you can make out that word. I... love . . . you.
But who's saying that? Nathan? Or Sam? Or somebody else?
The flames are closer. Time to go. Really. You know you should hit that Exit button. You notice the Window button blinking and beeping furiously, and you know who that is and what he's going to say: Get out, get out, get out!
You raise your virtual glove and back away. But your movement is stopped. The door is closed. All rules aren't suspended here. You still need to open and shut things. You bring the glove near the Exit button.
No. You feel linked to this scene, to this place, tied to your sister's memory. If you jump out now, it all may vanish.
You make a snap decision.
You bring your hand down from the Exit button, and—instead—open the door.
Back into the giant room of doors.
You spin around, fighting vertigo. The flame follows, slowly, patiently, as if it has all the time in the world.
Doors—which one did you come through?
You turn right and see a black door. Of course. That was the one. But will you be able to remember the turns coming in?
You move to the door. The steady hiss and crackle of the fire trails behind you, louder now, as if it's consuming this house of doors.
The black door flies open and you see the Stygian void beyond. You stumble through, and after the brilliant light of your father's lab, you might as well be blind.
You move along the corridor and come to a T. Which way do you go?
You could call Dr. S. and ask him to rewind the tape quickly, but you've no time for that. You look around—the fire is growing, the thin trickle is now a lava flow of flame, picking up speed, roaring toward you.
You turn right, and immediately sense that's wrong. You come to another turn, and it's anyone's guess. All you know is the fire is coming for you and you know it will hurt you.
But dammit, you can't quit yet. You know this maze has more to offer than what you've already seen. But those flames...
And then you remember those behavioral psychology courses from your undergrad days. How does the mouse get out of the maze? It picks one wall and follows it.
You pick the right wall and begin to take every turn offered.
Behind you, the roar grows louder.
What if the wall brings you full circle back to the flame?
That's when you'll hit the Exit button.
But then the roar fades, and you're making no decisions now, just gliding down the black corridors, flying, leaving the hungry fire behind.
Until another door looms before you and you barrel through—
To find yourself in an English pub. You spin around and see the drinkers at the bar, smell the sour tang of spilled beer and the pall of tobacco smoke in the air. You whirl to a stop before a table and see Liam and Sam. He's nursing a pint of bitter and she's sipping some white wine.
"I still don't know why you brought me with you," Sam says. "Especially to England. Aren't you the one who told me he 'won't be going to Merry Olde too soon?"
She's suspicious of Liam, who's been uncharacteristically tense and taciturn since their arrival. He's disappeared for hours at a time for "meetings" and now he's insisted they come here to this run-down Knightsbridge pub for a drink before dinner.
"It's business," Liam says. He glances at his watch. "And I wanted you along for company. I miss you when we're apart, Sammi."
She rolls her eyes. "It's just a short hop over to Ireland. Maybe you could kiss the Blarney stone again." Playfully, she slaps his hand as he steals another glance at his watch. He's been doing that since they left the hotel. "And what's with the clock-watching? It's not like we're going to miss a train or any—"
A teeth-rattling boom! shakes the glasses off the back of the bar. The patrons start shouting and, drinks in hand, crowd out onto the sidewalk. Liam and Sam follow.
"H'it's the bank!" someone shouts from the corner. "S'burnin' like it was tinder!"
The crowd hurries down the street, carrying Liam and Sam along. When they reach the corner she stops, arrested by the sight of the bright orange and yellow flames leaping into the sky, reaching for the high full moon. She feels an old terror rising within her.
Liam tugs on her arm. "C'mon, Sammi," he says, his eyes bright as the flames. "Let's take us a closer look."
She pulls free. No way she can take another step closer.
"You go. I'm not into burning buildings."
"Okay," he says. "I'll only be a minute."
She watches him wander up the street and mingle with the swelling crowd. He looks so casual, but she can't help wondering: Is he casual? Or is this professional interest?
Feeling suddenly weak, she sits on the curb and rests her head against her knees, breathing deeply. The flames ... she feels so strange. When she looks up again she sees Liam walking back to her, coming closer, silhouetted in the glow of the fire.
And she wants to scream....
And you want to scream too. You don't know why, but even as the scene fades and you're in an empty virtual hall again, the urge persists. It verges on panic. You want to run blindly through these empty halls, bouncing off the walls, but suddenly you're spinning, rising;—you're free, airborne, and flying away from the giant Mondrian-like structure.
As you leave it behind you see that a few of its lines and bars have been realigned. The overall shape makes no more sense to you than before, and yet...
I've learned something, you think.
But what? And what does it have to do with Sam?
You can't exit the program soon enough.
Twenty-Two
When people question the malleability of memory, I tell them about the "bam" experiment. Volunteers were shown a film of a car accident where one car putted out of an intersection and was hit by another. A week later, they were asked how fast they thought Car B was going when it passed the bam. 17% remembered the bam, and could give details about its shape and color.
There was no bam anywhere on the film.
—Random notes: Julia Gordon
1
Julie left the headset on and sat with her eyes closed. She could hear Eathan saying something, but it was muffled through the headphones. She wished she were alone. She didn’t want to face Eathan and Alma in this emotional state. She felt as if she were unraveling before their eyes.
A few deep breaths, a couple of rubs of her moist palms against her jeans, and she pulled herself free.
"—no question about it!" Eathan was saying.
Julie looked up at him as he paced back and forth in the tiny bit of open space remaining in Sam's room.
"Pardon?"
"O'Donnell! He did it! No question about it! Samantha connected him with the fire—she could place him in the city, on the scene. He had to silence her."
"The bank?" Julie said. "The one in the 'scape?"
"Yes. The Branham Bank's Knightsbridge branch was fire-bombed last month. Something to do with its dealings with Ulster, I think—I don't keep up on all these political squabbles. But I remember some radical group taking credit for it."
A wave of nausea hit her. She didn't want to believe that— after all, she'd hidden in Eathan's wall cabinet with the man— but she'd seen Liam and the fire with her own eyes... or rather, with Sam's.
"Was anybody hurt?"
Eathan shook his head. "I don't think so. The explosion was after hours."
Julie glanced over at Alma, who still sat white-faced before the monitor. "What do you think?"
"I don't know," she said softly. "I want to watch the tape a couple of times. I think it's clear this Liam O'Donnell is responsible for the Branham fire—or at least Sam believes so— but that's not the interesting part of this session." She shook her head sadly. "That poor girl. So many conflicts. I realize now that even with all my sessions with her, I barely scratched the surface."
"I just realized something myself," Eathan said. "Th
at bank explosion—it occurred a week before Sam was found unconscious. One week!"
"Perhaps we should show this tape to Scotland Yard," Alma said.
"No," Julie said. "This is not evidence against anyone. And I don't want this process made public. At least not yet, and not in such a sensational way."
"But if he's a terrorist—"
"No. I can't allow it."
Alma shrugged. "As you wish. The tape is yours. But I do wish to study it."
"Please ... study it all you want. But don't let it leave the house."
2
After dinner, Eathan stood in the second-floor hallway outside Julie's bedroom.
"Sure you don't want a cordial? It might relax you."
"The last thing I need is a drink. I'm pooped."
"Stress will do that to you. Your mind is calling for a timeout, a respite from the strain you've put yourself under. And the best respite is sleep."
They hadn't spoken about the rest of her experiences in the memoryscape today, what happened and what she saw.
She needed to mention it.
"I never knew they had a problem. My mother—"
"You don't know what you saw, Julia. It was memory, filtered through a very young girl. Who knows what layers of meaning Sam put on it through the years."
"And what about all those other doors?"
Eathan shook his head. "I'm sure they're burned down, consumed in the fire. You know—" He stood up. "Samantha never got over the fire ... not like you."
I don't know that I'm over it, Julie thought.
"I think I'm going to call it a day," she said. "But tomorrow I want to go back in ... see if any of those other doors remain."
Eathan walked in a small circle, staring at the hall rug.
Something's wrong, Julie thought.
"Julia, do you remember that time you went skating on the pond__ "
"We went skating a lot."
Yes, but this time you fell. Sammi came running up to the door, screaming about all the blood."
Julia laughed. "Yes, 1 think Sammi enjoyed that."
F Paul Wilson - Novel 05 Page 21
