the Program (2004)

by Gregg - Rackley 02 Hurwitz

  "Maybe he got his Ph.D. after his certificate."

  "This is what he did after his certificate." Tim held up TD's rap sheet.

  She resisted looking for a moment, but her eyes were drawn to it. "No way. You doctored that."

  "And I doctored the time stamp on the upper-right-hand corner? And the official seal from the U.S. Department of Justice?"

  The broom handle clattered against the wood floor. Tim jammed the papers back into the pamphlet. Leah scrambled across the room, retrieved a stuffed binder labeled GROWTHWORK from beneath her bed, and tossed it into Tim's lap just as the door opened and Randall leaned through the gap.

  "It's gotta all be done by morning. You'll get more for tomorrow night, so make sure you complete it." Leah looked up and did a good job feigning surprise at Randall's presence -- Tim was pleased to have enlisted her as an accomplice.

  "What's with the broom?" Randall asked.

  "We did some cleanup before GrowthWork," Leah said.

  Randall's mouth compressed to a tight little seam in his shiny face. The door creaked open farther, and he entered the room. He looked at Tim. "You're wanted in DevRoom A."

  Leah glanced at Tim. "I need to do some work down in the mod. I'll be back with you later tonight."

  "I look forward to it."

  She covered her irritation nicely with a toothy smile.

  Randall led the way up the hill. The treatment wing was unlit and empty. A swat of his hand brought up a river of fluorescents overhead, blinking on in sequence. No opportunity to theatricalize was missed. The halls intersecting the main corridor terminated in abrupt darkness.

  Randall deposited Tim in one of the rooms. The triangular throw of light from the open door illuminated a plush recliner and a flimsy metal folding chair with its back to the door. On the floor in the corner was a phone with no cord. Randall said, "Sit."

  As Tim approached the chairs, the door shut behind him, leaving him in total darkness. He'd taken note of the knob on his way in -- a single-cylinder handle-turn, keyway on the outside. He felt his way over and gently jiggled it. Locked, as he'd suspected. Maybe he'd been discovered. He'd neglected to search his and Leah's room for a digital transmitter -- TD could have listened in on their illicit exchange.

  A single set of footsteps on the corridor tile. His executioner? Skate come to turn him into dog food?

  Tim felt his way back and sat on the folding chair. He angled it slightly so he could see the door out of the corner of his eye without having to look over his shoulder. Key found lock with a metallic clink, then the door opened. TD's wiry frame cut a dark outline from the block of light against which Tim blinked.

  TD clicked the light switch. "What are you doing sitting here in the dark?"

  A crude test to gauge Tom Altman's compliance, as the chair-selection task had been. "Randall put me in here."

  "I'm sure he didn't intend for you to wait in the dark." TD sank into his recliner and studied Tim until he grew uncomfortable under the gaze. "You're pretty ripped for a CEO."

  "A lot of tennis. The gym beats the boardroom. And until lately it beat home, too."

  TD squinted at him, his freckle-flecked mouth tensing, the postage-stamp beard bobbing on the swell of his lower lip. He settled back, his hands smoothed flat on the recliner arms. Like Tim's father, he exhibited a despotic control over his hands, limbs, facial expressions -- every movement seemed calculated and form-perfect. "Why do you think all the great human-potential movements start in California, Tom? What makes this glorious strip of coast and desert such fertile ground for personal growth?"

  "An excess of sunshine and THC?"

  TD laughed, but his smooth cheeks didn't crinkle. His eyes, an unlikely cobalt blue, were truly striking. "This is the frontier. The continent's edge. Manifest destiny still sings its siren song to pug-nosed blondes primping in Ohio mirrors and strong-backed boys stargazing in Maine. They come west like those before them, searching for they know not what. When they arrive at this brink of the world, there's nowhere left to explore, so they turn inward, explore themselves. And they find: the same old shit. I set out to create The Program partially in response to the crap being marketed as enlightenment."

  His hands parted, then clasped. "I studied philosophers and priests, artists and scientists, and I discovered they were all selling more or less the same basic stuff, and it wasn't getting anyone anywhere. I questioned every idea I ever had, every belief that man ever held. The Program is a road map for others to do the same, to deconstruct society and history and rebuild themselves in this model. A model not of happiness. A model of fulfillment. A model of strength. Look at what I've done here at this ranch. Sixty-eight people. Sixty-eight masters of their fates. This will soon be a national movement. We have colloquia next month in Scottsdale and Cambridge -- already filled. Houston and Fort Lauderdale, still three months out, are almost half full. And that's on word of mouth and a few cheap flyers. No Web-site presence. Yet. No ambassadors on the ground. Yet. No books and audiotapes. Yet. No infomercials. Yet. It's all in the pipeline. They try to tear us down --"

  "Who?"

  "FBI, LAPD, IRS -- pick a team sweatshirt. But they can't. We're that successful."

  "Why are they trying to stop you?"

  A quiet knock on the door presaged Randall's entrance. He removed a phone cord from within his jacket, plugged it in to the phone and the jack. An instant later the phone rang. TD picked it up and said, "Okay. Okay. What are the comps? So buy it, then." He hung up.

  Randall removed the phone cord and left, and TD turned his focus back to Tim as if there'd been no interruption.

  "Why are they trying to stop me? Why did they stone the martyrs? Serve up Christians to the lions? Ridicule Freud? Ply Socrates with hemlock? Sue Bill Gates? Force Galileo at threat of torture to recant his Dialogo Dei Due Massimi Sistemi? I'm saying the earth moves around the sun. I'm saying that we shouldn't bend to our weaknesses but make our weaknesses bend to us. It's that simple. And there's no denying it. I've had Pros lose weight, stop smoking, leave abusive relationships. I've had girls who could hardly make eye contact get up and shout in front of hundreds of people."

  "Terror is a great and underutilized motivator."

  TD bounced forward in his chair, excited. "Precisely. I put fear into people so they can face and eradicate it. Some find that radical --"

  "No more radical than curing bacterial infections with mold. Or declaring the earth round. Or injecting children with polio to immunize them against it."

  "Yes. Yes. Yes. History is punctuated by great, radical ideas. The Program is the next step in mankind's evolution. Every Pro will beget ten more. It'll spread across the globe. Pity and shame will be obsolete. Guilt will be recognized for what it is -- a vice." His piercing eyes blazed with messianic conviction. "Do you believe that's what guilt is, Tom? A vice?"

  "The more I think about it, yes."

  "I Googled you after the colloquium, but the search came up curiously empty for a big executive like you."

  "My company did defense work. They like us to keep a low profile."

  "Good at keeping secrets, are you?"

  "Yes. I am."

  "A lot of the sheep in the colloquia, they want to be controlled. They can't hand over control fast enough. But not you. You have an intuitive grasp of The Program's underlying principles. You're a man of action. Events don't happen to you -- you happen to them."

  "I like to think so."

  "And your divorce didn't just happen to you. Something led to it."

  Tom Altman met TD's gaze head-on. "Yes."

  "You alone cause all outcomes in your life. You alone."

  Thunder rumbled through the floor, and Tim became aware that rain was beating down on the roof, that it had been doing so for some time now. A feeling of isolation descended. It was just him and the Teacher atop a hill, buried in the heart of a forsaken building, the windy night staved off only by graveyard-shift lighting and a feeble roof.

  Emotion ros
e to Tom's face. He looked away, wiped his nose with a knuckle. "I found out who killed Jenny."

  "You're a man of action. And resources."

  Tom Altman stood abruptly.

  "Sit down," TD said. "You can handle it."

  "No. I want to stand."

  TD rose from his armchair, confronting Tom face-to-face. "You solve your problems with money, Tom. Isn't that your Old Programming?"

  "Yes."

  TD's stare was sharp, unblinking. "You hired someone."

  Tom Altman's eyes welled.

  "Your wife couldn't handle the decision you made."

  Tom choked out the words. "It wasn't just that." Tim felt lost under the spell -- he'd completely slipped into character. He eased himself back down into the chair, TD mirroring his descent precisely, the eyes never leaving Tom's face. Tim caught up to what Tom was going to say just as the words came out. "He...he killed the wrong guy." The confession was another piece of Tom Altman's narrative, and yet it wasn't just fiction; it connected to the trail of bodies Tim had left in the wake of his rampage last year.

  "I don't think so, Tom. He killed the right guy. You identified the wrong guy. Or your people did. But you were in a hurry, weren't you? And you had the money to make others hurry, too. Money killed the wrong guy. Right? Your money."

  And so now, Tom Altman thought, you'll do me a favor and help me rid myself of that $90 million burden.

  They sat together quietly, the storm raging outside, TD nodding as solemnly as a priest. He leaned forward, grasping Tim's knee with a surprisingly strong hand. "We're going to get you beyond this. You commit, and The Program will do the rest."

  TD rose, and Tom, no after-the-fact wallower, followed his cue. The sterile corridor amplified the sound of TD's thick-heeled boots thunking tile. Outside stood Lorraine, cloaked in a charcoal slicker, the hood cinched tight so the trembling white drop of her face seemed to float in suspended misery. Her whitened fingers clasped a closed umbrella and a pair of galoshes, which she shakily offered to TD.

  "Please go on ahead and prepare my bed. Then Tom will be awaiting you at his cottage for his Night-Prep." She stood expectantly. "That'll be all."

  She scampered off, reeling against the gusts of rain. TD ushered Tim back inside. The door scraped shut, reducing the din. TD leaned over to pluck at his laces, then tossed his shoes aside. "I'll send her back for these later. She's one of the good ones, Lorraine."

  Tom Altman nodded.

  "They're the most in need of being broken down and reprogrammed. Women. For the most part, on the great gender assembly line, victimhood is installed with the uterus. Women are constructed to nurture. So what do they do with their pain? With their anger? They adopt it, devour it, dissolve it into their exalted ovoid wombs, pump it through their veins and arteries until their entire bodies are suffused with it, until they're sclerosed, rigor mortis-ed with victimhood. They need to be taken down to the studs and reconstructed. It's the only thing that works for them."

  Thrusting his foot into a rubber boot, he flashed Tim an uncharacteristically rapacious grin -- the wolf snout peeking from Grandma's bonnet.

  "Ironically, women see men as gods because we destroy rather than create. And men have introduced virtually every groundbreaking idea that has advanced civilization. Only by razing do we reseed. Only by destroying can we innovate. Every great notion slays its predecessor. Video killed the radio star, my friend. Any bitch can whelp. The power to destroy is all that's ever bought a God respect. Yahweh was an Ugaritic figurine until he smote the Philistines, Allah a milquetoast before he sank Ubar into Arabian sand."

  "How about Buddha?"

  "Buddha has been consigned to taxi dashboards and faggot conversation pits." He patted Tim on the shoulder. "I'd lay your chips elsewhere."

  TD pushed out into the rain, and they were both instantly drenched. He pressed the umbrella to Tim's chest until Tim accepted it. TD winked, then strolled into the thunderstorm, arms swinging cheerfully, his pursed lips the sole evidence of a whistle.

  Chapter twenty-nine

  Despite the downpour, Tim loitered outside his cottage, noting the wire-caged motion detectors that hung from the corners of the eaves like wasps' nests. Though they appeared functional, the encasing mesh had long rusted; the units were likely vestigial security precautions from adolescent-rehab days. Bricks embedded in the dirt on either side of the front step demarcated mini-garden plots, though nothing had grown in them in years.

  Tim shoved on a brick with his heel, then pried at it until it rested loose in its muddy foundation, ready to be snatched and wielded in a jam.

  He stood dripping in the doorway, battered umbrella at his side, enjoying the silence. The culties were still dispatched, tending to important matters of state like clockwise dish wiping.

  The fire alarm was a low-grade blip - and - screech -- cracked plastic patties in each room, red eyes blinking heedfully. D batteries -- present. Wiring -- senescent but still live. Even a few valiant sprinkler heads. No code violations there. He was grasping at straws; a faulty fire-alarm system would hardly strike Winston Smith as a pretext for a federal raid.

  A closer examination revealed security mag strikes on the bedroom windows. He sourced the wiring to a pitiful alarm panel in the kitchenette. Its adapter plug could simply be pulled free from the outlet to disable the system. It reminded him of something he'd read once, that one could park a docile elephant by pushpinning its leash to the dirt.

  He continued to snoop, cautious of Fraulein Lorraine's imminent arrival.

  The pantry held cases of Red Bull and high-energy teas loaded with ginseng, ginkgo, and mahuang. An attic hatch gave roof access, but the opening had been barred, another boon from the ranch's previous incarnation. From film director's retreat to juvie home to cult residence -- a consistently squalid tradition.

  He chanced on a forbidden TV in one of the common room's cabinets, but a spin through the channels revealed static and more static. A sabotaged cable line and missing antenna explained the lack of reception. A cassette protruded from the video slit beneath the screen. Tim pushed it in.

  TD standing on a mountain peak, one booted foot resting atop a boulder, an arm bent across his knee. At his back the sunset glowed theatrically, gold irradiating his fluffed-out hair and blurring his face. Tim found himself concentrating closely to bring TD's features into focus.

  TD's voice came as a soporific monotone. "This is your crossroads. You can turn off the tape right now. Go ahead. Go back to your life. And, hey, if everything's perfect there, that might be a good idea. But if it's not, you'd better keep listening. This very moment can be the doorway to your potential."

  Tim fast-forwarded a bit, watching TD's head waggle. When the camera pushed to close-up, Tim hit "play" and found himself in the midst of a kinder, gentler Guy-Med. The camera continued to drift and zoom, harmonizing with TD's murmurs. Tim studied the Guy-Med, noting his responses. Sharp, irregular pain seemed to prevent Tim from going under -- biting his cheek was just as effective as digging his nail into his palm, and less easily detected. After another few minutes, he eased himself down to the ground and sat. He stifled a yawn. TD's hand drifted up into the screen, and Tim sensed his arm start to rise to match the motion, as if buoyed by rising water. He watched it drift toward the ceiling, unsure if it was detached from him or he from it.

  The bang of the front door jarred him from his stupor. Lorraine plunged into the cottage, briskly sweeping water from her jacket sleeves. When she whisked off her hood, her bun came unfastened. She shook a finger at him. "You're supposed to be in your beddy-bye doing GrowthWork."

  Tim stood, blinking hard, astounded. He turned off the tape. "Just trying to check the score of the game."

  "There's no T V here. Only T D. I'm glad you saw the tape session, though. You liked it?"

  "It's captivating."

  She led him down the hall, chattering ahead of him. "What did you like best about the day?" He noticed a fallen bobby pin clinging to the ho
od of her slicker.

  He answered truthfully, "My talk with TD."

  "What was your favorite part?" She half turned, slowing, and he brushed against her, extracting the bobby pin from the wet lining of the hood. "How his mind works."

  "Well, he must like how your mind works, too. You know, TD's never met alone with someone so early on." They reached Tim's bedroom. "And he's never done this so early either." Lorraine swung the door open. "Ta-da!" A thin blue polo awaited him, neatly folded, on the bed. He dragged off his wet pullover and put it on, figuring he might as well endure house arrest in comfort. Admiring his Pro-wear, he was surprised to find that his pleased expression wasn't entirely feigned. He recalled his impulsive desire for his mother's drafting table, masterfully implanted in him by his father.

  "Look at this. You haven't even started your GrowthWork." She directed him onto the bed, then placed the hefty binder in his lap. "I'll go fix you a nice relaxing cup of tea."

  When she disappeared, he cracked the binder, revealing a page importantly titled "Connecting with Your Inner Source." About two hundred pages, top to bottom with small print -- 2500 questions in all. Adding high-caffeine tea to the work burden would encourage sleep-defying diligence, leaving him exhausted and malleable in the morning. He retrieved his watch face and wedged it between his mattress and the wall.

  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.