Jogging athletically around the horseshoe, Stanley John counted off the participants. More blue-shirts materialized to take control of the smaller groups. Tim looked for Leah to emerge, but evidently her technical skills were needed backstage.
“All right,” Stanley John said breathily. “You twenty, come meet in Actspace.”
Slipping on his jacket, Tim shuffled through the partition gap with the others. His neighbor introduced herself as Joanne, pumping his hand moistly. The gruff guy in the jean jacket was in their group, along with an appealing girl in a sorority sweatshirt who reminded Tim of Leah’s college roommate. A gangly, thin-necked kid with comb marks gelled into his hair brought up the rear, his hands bunching the front of his Old Navy Swim Team shirt.
They formed a huddle of sorts, Stanley John in the middle, holding a plastic bin. “Let’s put our watches in here. Cell phones, too.”
Will’s $30,000 Cartier disappeared in the heap.
They sat in a circle like kindergartners at storytime, filling out name tags that they were asked to wear at all times. Next a stack of forms magically appeared in Stanley John’s hands. “These will help us keep track of your progress. Part of your job will be to look out for one another and provide feedback to me whenever you sense someone is getting Off Program.”
Ben smoothed his name tag onto his denim jacket. “Big Brother’s watching.”
His joke was punished with disapproving silence.
“I’ll do mine first.” Tongue poking a point in his cheek, Stanley John bent over his form. He spoke the words slowly as he wrote. “My Program is: I experience empowerment as I follow guidance leading me to strength. My Old Programming is: I’m afraid to get angry.” He looked up with a smile. “We want to stay On Program and reject our Old Programming. Get it? Now you guys go.”
After everyone finished jotting, they went around the circle and read from their forms, the answers closely parroting Stanley John’s examples. Blushing, Joanne read in a feeble voice, “My Program is: I experience fulfillment as I participate in my growth. My Old Programming is: I have a tough time standing up for myself.”
Ray, the lanky kid, confessed that his Old Programming was that he was a bit of a control freak. Ben’s was that he had a temper. Tom Altman confessed heavily that he often tried to solve his problems with money. The sorority girl, Shelly, admitted with obvious pride to using physicality to get a sense of self-worth.
“A consistent theme is an inability to express yourselves. Especially to express anger. We’re going to do the Atavistic Yell to loosen up.” Stanley John stood, the others following, and pointed at Joanne. “Go on. Yell at the top of your lungs.”
She glanced around hesitantly. “What? I... Can’t someone else go first?”
“Isn’t your Program that you experience fulfillment as you participate in your growth? Are you participating in your growth by refusing to do the activity? Is she, folks?”
Several others chimed in. “She’s Off Program.”
“I think she’s afraid to stand up for herself like she said!”
Her flushed cheeks quivered. She opened her mouth and emitted a tentative yelp.
“You call that a yell?” Stanley John was standing over her now, screaming. “Get out of your Old Programming. Let’s hear you yell. Let’s hear you stand up for yourself. “
She was shaking, eyes welling. The noise level rocketed around them as people in the other groups shouted and screamed.
“Look at you. A grown woman, you can’t even open your mouth and make a noise. How weak. You’re useless.”
The ploy—boot camp gone self-help—might have been offensive were it not so transparent.
Joanne tried to scream, but it came out a hoarse gasp.
“We’re all sitting around waiting for Joanne to scream so we can progress with our growth. Everyone waits for Joanne; is that how it is in your world? Everyone waits—”
Joanne leaned forward and screamed with all her might, arms shoved stiffly behind her. She sucked in air and bellowed again, screaming until she nearly hyperventilated. Stanley John was clapping, and the others joined in. Following his example, they administered the quaking woman full body hugs. Her top, now drenched with panic sweat, felt clammy beneath Tim’s arms.
Her shoulders sagged with relief. “I’ve never done anything like this before. This is amazing. I feel all tingly.”
“This is lame,” Ben said.
Shelly turned a smiling plea in his direction. “Don’t be so negative.” Stanley John chimed in with his beloved standby: “You’re interfering with Joanne’s experience. And everyone else’s.”
Ben looked away uncomfortably, no doubt weighing the costs of initiating his Old Programming. “I’m just saying this ain’t my cup of tea. Especially not for five hundred bucks.”
Janie, who’d been prowling the group perimeters, stepped in. “Group Seven is one man short. Anyone here who can go?”
“Seven’s a great group, Ben,” Stanley John said. “Why don’t you join them?”
Before Ben could answer, Janie whisked him off, threading herself around his arm like an adoring date. Tim watched them make their way back to Skate’s province near the door, where Janie introduced Ben to a cluster of other seemingly displeased customers—a dissenters quarantine. Skate nodded into the radio pressed to his ear, as if it picked up motion.
Becoming a behavior problem clearly wouldn’t buy Tim a backstage pass and get him near Leah; for the time being, acquiescence was the only option.
Now that Joanne had broken the ice, Shelly carried out the exercise with a minimum of resistance, and Ray followed suit. When his turn came, Tim allowed Tom Altman to be briefly berated for holding back. Stanley John poked a flat hand into his chest where it met the shoulder. “You don’t have your money to hide behind now, Tom. You have to yell just like everyone else.”
The others chimed in with impressive vigor, Joanne the most aggressive in her exhortation. “Reject your Old Programming. You’re being weak.”
When Tom was finally able to let loose a satisfying yell, the praise was effusive. After being smashed in a sweaty group hug, Tim realized that the temperature had suddenly plummeted. The oscillation made him light-headed, and he felt his first flash of alarm—two hours’ sleep and an empty stomach might not have been the wisest preparation for what was proving to be a marathon.
The lights suddenly dimmed, Enya pouring through the speakers. At once everyone sprang into action, people scrambling back to Hearspace and finding their seats. With the synthetic arpeggios and blasts of refrigeration, the space had taken on a certain unreality.
Tim noticed Group Seven being ushered out during the distraction—so much for the “no leaving” rule. He detoured by the waitstaff entrance and picked up Janie’s calling the bald door guard “Randall.”
The Pros stalked the center of the horseshoe, physically steering stragglers to their seats and yelling for silence. The people in the group adjacent to Tim’s were talking and laughing. Stanley John pulled the leader aside. “If you keep choosing incompetence, you might need a visit to Victim Row.”
The Pro blanched, then turned and chastised her charges with renewed energy.
The lights went out completely. Pants and gasps filled the perfect darkness. Despite his weariness, Tim debated making a run for Prospace, but he knew that his chair would be glaringly empty when the lights came up. Even if he could locate Leah, he was no longer sure what to do with her.
Three trumpet blasts scaled octaves to form the opening bars of Thus Spake Zarathustra, signaling the next leg of the space odyssey. Diffuse yellow light bathed the dais. A slender man stood in the center, head bowed. A voice boomed through the speakers. “In The Program there are no victims.” He raised his head, the floating black egg of the mike visible just off his left cheek. A tiny rectangle of hair glistened high on his chin—his face was youthful and smooth, his age indeterminable. “There are no excuses. You create your own reality, and you live insi
de it. You can follow The Program and maximize... or you can stay mired in your Old Programming and be victimized. Those are the choices—the only choices.”
The chandeliers eased up a notch, the room taking on the dimmest edge of dusk. Tim peered at the digital watch face he’d hidden in his pocket—8:03. Reggie’s advice to mind the time had been crucial; with all the environmental manipulation in the ballroom, Tim needed to root himself in an external reality.
The participants gazed at the Teacher with adoration, all focus and veneration. Looking around, Tim couldn’t help but feel as though he’d stepped into a dream. The Teacher began pacing the stage, and the white ovals of the faces pivoted back and forth, radar dishes keying to the same frequency.
“My name is Terrance Donald Betters.”
The voices of the sixty or so Pros rose together. “Hi, TD.”
“I’ve spent years and years and literally hundreds of thousands of dollars developing The Program. I do not exaggerate when I tell you it’s going to change the world. It’s a revolution. And guess what? You’re ahead of the curve. You’re joining in already, gaining access to The Program’s Source Code. You’re here to change your lives. And that change begins now.” He stopped, breathing hard, looking out at the horseshoe’s embrace. “Take sole responsibility for your life. You alone cause all outcomes.”
Program Precept One was greeted by murmurs of wonderment. “Your experience is your reality. You control everything. If you feel hurt, it’s because you decided to feel hurt. If you feel violated, it’s because of how you chose to interpret an event. The world is up to you. Make of it what you will. No experience is bad in its own right. I dare any person in this room to name an experience that is objectively bad. Well?” He scanned the masses before him, Moses considering the Red Sea. “Come on, now. I won’t bite.”
“Rape,” a courageous effeminate male voice called from the back. TD leaned back, laughing, his knees bending. “Rape? That’s a good response.” Again he began his hypnotic pacing, the steady, powerful movement of a caged tiger. “But take away societal issues around sexuality. Rape involves coercion—like lots of things in life. Getting pulled over and being given a ticket for an expired registration, for example. Paying our taxes. Submitting to having our shoes examined by idiots at airport security checkpoints. And yet we don’t believe that those coercions are inherently evil. If you believe that rape involves some sort of objective, universal evil, you’ve been brainwashed. Society taught you rape was essentially evil. Society made you feel guilty if you entertained a rape fantasy. Society made rape fundamentally traumatic. And we bought it. Now, I’m not an uncaring guy. Nor a rapist. I’m not saying we don’t experience negative emotions. After all, who among us hasn’t felt sad? Who among us hasn’t felt depressed? Beat up? Kicked around? Put down? Violated? We all have, haven’t we?”
Shouts and exclamations. The lights dimmed until just TD remained illuminated. The heat was blowing again, mixing with the breath and perspiration of three hundred close-quarter adults to create a soupy humidity. Tim wiped the sweat fog from his fake glasses.
TD spread his arms. “You. Don’t. Have. To. Feel. That. Anymore.” Somewhere in the darkness, a woman actually sobbed.
“A human being is the most sophisticated thinking machine ever devised. You work like a computer, but you know what? You’re a lot better than a computer. You’re the only computer able to run itself. Able to unplug itself and move itself around. The question is: Are you going to run yourself, or are you going to let others run you? The Program’s not about how you feel. It’s about how you think. Your Old Programming unconsciously controls how you think. Your Old Programming is everything your family and society downloaded into you that you’ve never considered critically. Your Old Programming is the part of your past that’s holding you back. We’re gonna take that, trash it, and teach you something that sets you free. You don’t have to empty the trash. You can always recover lines of Old Programming code and use them again—they’re always there. But we’re gonna overwrite your Old Programming with The Program. And that, folks, is gonna set you free.”
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 encountered 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 pul
led 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.”
The Program Page 17
