The Program tr-2

by Gregg Hurwitz

  The second and third commandments.

  Beside Tim, Joanne fumbled out an inhaler and sucked twice on it. Her eyes glimmered with unshed tears. Tim glanced down the row -blank, neutral expressions, slack jaws, retarded blink and swallow reflexes.

  "The Program works for everyone who's ever committed to it. Every single person. So unless you think you know better than everyone in this entire room, you'd better commit like you've never committed before. If it feels like it isn't working, it's only because you're not working hard enough. If you start having doubts, that's just your Old Programming talking. Maximize your growth by minimizing your negativity."

  The Program Code was up to four tenets.

  "The world around us has changed. Terrorists fly airplanes full of people into buildings. The news informs us daily as to what our level of terror should be. We march into war constantly. Al Qaeda, Afghanistan. Iraq. Pension funds suddenly evaporate. Everywhere we turn there's a new problem. SARS. Global warming. Anthrax. We're scared. We're confused. Well, no more. Say it with me."

  "No more!" The chant filled the ballroom. Tim's eyeballs felt as though they were vibrating in his skull.

  "Will we allow ourselves to feel shitty? No way!"

  "No way!"

  "Forget common sense. Do you know what common sense is? An excuse for not thinking. This is the new way to think. We're doing it right here in this room. The more you follow The Program, the more you are free."

  People were nodding along as if the doors to life's deepest meaning were flying open.

  "It's time for our next activity. It's Going to a Party, and it lasts ten minutes. Your job is simply to get up and talk to one another. Do you think you can manage that?"

  Happy-go-lucky smiles plastered on their faces, the Pros bounced up and began introducing themselves to Neos from other groups. Slowly the Neos joined in, mimicking the shiny smiles.

  Onstage, TD let out a little laugh. "Who says The Program's all hard work? We have fun here, too." He pulled off his mike and hopped down from the dais, conferring with Stanley John and Janie, then laying the word on a couple of awed Neos. The others milled around, talking and laughing as cold air blew down on them. Tim passed unnoticed by Julie, who perkily badgered a shy girl, "Everyone else is having fun."

  He sneaked a glance at his watch, timing the event. A guy with narrow features and a ponytail approached, sticking out his hand and jutting out his chest so Tim could read his name tag. "Hey there. I'm Jason Struthers of Struthers Auto Mall."

  "Tom Altman. Unemployed entrepreneur."

  "Huh? Isn't that an oxymoron?"

  Tim sidled toward Prospace. "My company was bought out in January."

  Jason fidgeted with his wedding band. "What kind of stuff did you do?"

  "I can't really talk about it. Defense work. Nondisclosure agreements, classified projects. You know."

  The guy nodded as if he enountered similar security protocol on the auto-mall circuit.

  A redhead with bulging eyes and an excited smile stole Jason's attention, and Tim took advantage of the distraction to get away. Turning an occasional eye to Skate and Randall, he moved toward the partition gap through bunches of people chattering idiotically.

  He peered through the curtain into Prospace. A computer monitor threw enough light to reveal five workers, Leah not among them.

  He turned, and she was standing right beside him. "Hi." She extended her hand with mock formality. "I'm Leah."

  Up close it was all the more clear that none of Will's hefty genes were in the mix. She'd yet to grow into her shoulders. Her tank top revealed the edge of a hidden rash. Her angled front tooth barely split her closed lips, lending them the faintest suggestion of a pout.

  Her hand felt soft and fragile. She wore her hair pulled back in a clip, but it spilled from the sides, arcing forward in brown strokes around a slender neck. Her eyes dipped to his name tag. "You having a good time, Tom?"

  She seemed kind and engaging; Tim had to remind himself that these were the traits she'd been conditioned to exhibit. "It's pretty fun. A little out there, though."

  The sincerity vanished from her eyes and with it her allure. "I was put off, too, at first, but I learned to keep an open mind. Constant questioning will only take you out of your process. Don't be afraid to let go."

  "I'm doing my best."

  The life came back into her face. "I noticed you earlier."

  "I noticed you, too. You deal with the equipment back there, huh?" Tim used the question as an excuse to brush aside the curtain for a protracted look. In the far back corner, he detected a faint green EMERGENCY EXIT sign – the iron staircase that led to the rear parking lot. Five Pros were positioned between them and it; TD had clearly set up the colloquium to guard against the abduction of Pros. "Pretty mechanically savvy to run a show like this."

  She blushed a little, her head dipping. "Oh, I don't run the whole thing. I just handle lights and sound."

  "Still, I'd bet that takes some skill. Last time I touched a lighting panel was at a high-school buddy's garage concert. I electrocuted his cat."

  A giggle escaped her. "Oh, this is nothing. I used to -" She stopped, her features going blank.

  "What's wrong?"

  "Okay," TD boomed. "Our ten minutes are up. Now we're playing Going to a Zombie Party. You can talk all you want, but you can't use intonation. And you can't make any gestures with your hands, arms, or bodies. This activity will last ten minutes, too."

  Tim turned and peeked at his illicit watch. As he'd suspected, only five minutes had passed.

  The corners of Leah's mouth turned up ever so slightly. In a robotic voice, she said, "I had better go interact with others. You are monopolizing all my time at this festive occasion."

  "Over and out, earthling. Go in peace."

  A smile broke onto her face, which quickly turned into an uncomfortable scowl. She walked stiffly off toward the horseshoe, pausing once to look back at Tim.

  The others grew giddy from their attempts to restrain themselves. When someone lapsed, the Pros only scolded in monotone, which added to the carefree mood. Soon laughter filled the entire ballroom. Ray, arms at his sides, looked dead ahead at a circle of other frozen Neos. They were all howling with laughter.

  When TD called out that time was up, Tim confirmed that ten minutes had passed with a quick glance at the watch. The sweat trickling down his sides alerted him to another radical temperature shift. The lights dimmed a few watts, the change barely discernible.

  "Now we're Going to a Silent Party, and I think we can all guess those rules. You can only communicate through eyes and touch. If you have to, you can make noises, but no words."

  Enthusiastic silent shuffling. Two Pros mimed each other's movements perfectly. Shelly let her hand glide limply through the air, as if tracing something. Five Neos crowded around her, their entire bodies undulating with the movement. Joanne sat cross-legged on the floor, sobbing violently. A shoulder-massage train of twenty people -Neos interspersed with Pros – snaked around Hearspace before forming a ring. Other Neos looked agitated, darting frenetically like rats in a maze.

  Through all his years of training, combat, and street operating, Tim had never seen so many people knocked completely off their bases. Shanna approached and spread her arms wide as if to hug him but hovered an inch from his body. He searched for Leah – she was tucked into a ball, arms wrapped around her knees, face buried, shaking despite the heat. Only TD, Skate, and Randall remained tranquil in their poses, calmly waiting for the activity to end.

  But it didn't. It stretched on and on, the shrieks and laughter growing oppressive. His undershirt pasted to his body, Tim staggered through the swampy warmth, squinting in the dimness. People howled. Bodies fluttered on the floor. The last time he'd checked the watch, the session had been at twenty minutes. He saw flicks of static between blinks. He was about to sit down on the floor when the room flooded with Enya.

  Neos jostled and crawled back to their chairs. The
lights came up to reveal TD on the dais, grinning coldly. "That was excellent. You're my most advanced group yet! You folks aren't afraid to Get with The Program. Now, everyone stand up and take your neighbor's hand. That's it." He stepped down off the dais, extending inviting hands to either side as the two ends of the horseshoe closed around him. "Now, squeeze and release. Deep breath. Squeeze and release. We are all one. Can you feel it?" Propagating from TD, currents of hand clasping ran around the circle. "Can you feel the energy running through us? Running through each one of us? We are all going to be successful. We are all going to be strong. We are all going to be happy."

  He laughed. "If you believe that crap, catch a magic bus back to the seventies. Affirmations like that are old-hat cult bullshit. Telling yourself something doesn't make it happen. Making it happen makes it happen. If you think you can talk yourself into who you want to be, you deserve est, and Ronnie Hubbard, and selling Amway toilet paper out of the trunk of a Corolla. We're not a religion. We're not tax-exempt. We're a practice.

  "Some people might identify us as a cult. Are we? Here's my answer: I don't care. What is a cult? A belief system that the person using the word 'cult' does not like. Is AA a cult? I don't care. They've helped people – I hope I help as many people in my lifetime. Is the Marine Corps a cult? I don't care. I care about effective. And since I know The Program is effective, you can call it a satanic coven of witches if you want. The Program Source Code applies effectively to living your life. Judge us by what we do for you, not by some useless term you found in your Old Programming user's manual." He threw his hands up, and everyone else followed, the circle flailing. "Now reconvene with your groups in Actspace. You can bring one Pro friend you met at the party."

  On his way back, Tim passed Leah, who was being admonished by Janie. "- should be back in Prospace. I think you might have to do some work on Victim Row."

  Leah seemed to crumble at the mention of this duty.

  Tim touched Janie lightly on the arm. "Excuse me. I met Leah during the party and invited her back to my group. I'm Tom Altman."

  Janie's features loosened – clearly, Tom Altman had been designated a VIP. A glance at Leah. "That true?"

  Leah paused, agitated, then gave a brief nod, her tufts of hair bobbing.

  Janie's pert smile bunched her pretty cheeks into sinewy circles. "Okay. You kids have fun."

  Leah trailed Tim back to the group, visibly upset by her conformity with Tim's lie. The others were crowded around Stanley John, an eager horde of informants providing "feedback."

  "Ray was totally Off Program during Going to a Zombie Party. He gestured a bunch."

  "I experienced Shelly as being her Old Programming. She was using her physicality to draw people in so she'd experience self-worth."

  "Joanne complained she was starving."

  After administering a round-robin of reprimands, Stanley John walked them through several invasive "sharing" exercises, culminating in the Blame Game. Everyone had to share the most horrific event in his or her life, then reexperience it from the perpetrator's perspective.

  Shelly, face stained with tears, was reliving a high-school rape. "I'm black. I'm poor. I don't have any money. I'm depressed. I live in a cardboard box, and a pretty young white girl walks by." Her chest started to heave, her words garbling. Tim noticed with a blend of pity and annoyance that she'd matched her hair clip to her socks. "I don't want to hurt her, I just want to feel good. She's wearing a low-cut dress and no underwear, and that makes it so easy."

  "It's okay," Stanley John said. "You're doing great. We're all in this experience together."

  They held hands in a ring, squeezing empathetically, and finally Shelly resumed her tale. "She's walking alone, she left a party on the Venice boardwalk alone, and is walking alone at three in the morning. I bet she wants it. Maybe she deserves it." She deteriorated into sobs, smearing her hair off her sticky face as the others clustered around to comfort her. Then Stanley John led her through confronting and telling off her rapist.

  Joanne's teary performance as a breast lump that turned out to be benign was less rousing.

  A woman nearby fainted, but a roving blue-shirt was waiting to break her fall. A group leader dragged an unconscious kid through the gap into Hearspace, probably to get him into cooler air – another procedure for processing the overwhelmed. Tim filed away this tidbit as a potential stratagem he could use later to move Leah's unconscious body from the building. Hot air kept gusting down; he added dehydration to his list of concerns.

  Stanley John gestured to Leah. "Your turn to blame."

  "Okay." Leah closed her eyes for a moment, as if gathering courage. "The last time I saw my stepdad was after I'd had a pretty tough run with him. My mom, too. I was going to see if maybe we could patch things up. You know when you do that? Try to talk to your parents as if they're actually going to listen this time?"

  Tom joined the murmur of accord, which Stanley John cut short. "Quit whining, Leah, and tell it as your stepdad."

  Leah took a deep breath and held it before exhaling. "You're always in need of attention. You get yourself into messes and expect me to clean them up for you, then you complain I'm too controlling. You're jealous of our new family, and you interfere with our happiness constantly. Then you complain you don't belong here. You indulge your fantasies of your dead father, reminding your mother of the pain of that past life – your very existence causes her suffering. It wasn't until you went to college that we could finally celebrate our new freedom by having a child – our own child. And just when we think you're out of our hair, you turn up again with another mess. I don't care if you're afraid you might have made a mistake. I don't even have to listen to you, because it's the same story every time. You deserved" – she pressed her lips together until they stilled – "you deserved for me to slap you across the face in front of your mother and your baby sister."

  "Great," Stanley John said. "Now, what do you have to say back to them?"

  She took a moment to gather herself. "You punish me by taking a hostile disinterest in my life and friends and hobbies. You're cold and withholding, like you have to protect yourselves from me and what I represent, but that's nothing more than you stewing in your victimhood. Even though I love my baby sister, even though I think she's beautiful and precious, you've done your best to make me feel small by pouring your hearts and souls into her while reminding me every chance you get in some small, petty way how much you resent me. You want me to submit to your control, but I won't. Not anymore. It may drive you insane, but I'm finally learning to think for myself. And you know what I figured out? I don't need you anymore."

  Whoops and applause. Joanne wiped her cheeks, shaking her head with amazement and envy. Tim blinked hard, seating himself back in character – he'd been drawn into her performance.

  Leah's smoky green-gray eyes found Tim. "How about you? What's the worst thing that ever happened to you?"

  "My daughter was murdered," Tim heard himself say.

  Her mouth parted, but no sound came out. Stanley John stepped forward, shouting something above the deafening din and shattering the trance into which Tim had been lulled. At once he was back in the thrice-split ballroom at the Radisson with people sobbing and fainting all around him.

  TD drifted to the periphery of the group, observing paternalistically.

  A panic tingle ran across Tim's lower back as he fought for composure. He could practically smell the faint odor of baby powder and melted Jolly Rancher stored in the carpet of Ginny's empty room.

  He started tentatively, "It happened about a year ago. Jenny was walking home from school. She never…never got there. They found her body that night." He was veering dangerously close to the truth. He wiped his nose, which had started to run, and became Tom Altman. "Even though I've had some financial success" – from Stanley John's expression, this wasn't news to him – "it's been a hard year. My wife and I split up."

  "Tell it from the perpetrator's point of view," Stanley John
said.

  Tim sensed TD's eyes fasten on him. His mouth had gone dry. Sweat stung his eyes. He thought of Kindell's elongated forehead. The short, dense hair, so much like fur. "I, uh…"

  "Go ahead, buddy," Stanley John urged. "This is about strength, not comfort."

  Excavating a trick he'd learned in Ranger training, Tim imagined detaching from his body. He turned and watched himself, an interested observer.

  Tom Altman faced the group, talking from the perspective of his dead daughter's killer. Tom Altman imitated the fictional killer, saying that he watched the girl walk home after school, but then suddenly Tim was back within his flesh, a seashell rush filling his ears. "One day she splits off from her friends and walks alone. I drive slowly behind her. I call her name. When she turns, I snatch her into my truck. I get tape over her mouth. I take her back to my place where I can have" – his body felt incredibly weighty, sagging on his bones – "privacy. I pin her arms down. I slice through her green overalls with a box cutter. She's very small and pale. She doesn't move. I don't think she knows what's happening. I don't want her to be frightened. But she is, and she gets even more scared when I cut through her underpants. They have different sizes of snowflakes on them. Later I'm scared when I cut her up with a hacksaw. I don't know how to dispose of what's left, so I dump the parts of her by a creek."

  A clod of grief rose from his gut, lodging itself in the back of his throat. He coughed. The others' eyes were tearing up. Leah fixed him with a gaze that moved right through him. He kept his eyes on hers even as the others thumped his back and hugged him.