The Program (24 page)

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.

TD drifted back a few steps, keeping just within earshot.

"Jesus," Stanley John weighed in. "Great job. You can learn a lot by exploring your identification with your daughter's killer."

Staring at the genuine awe etched into Stanley John's face, Tim felt his hand twitch. He repeated to himself, I am Tom Altman, to help check his natural instinct, which was to ram his fist through that all-American jaw. Far more disturbing, he felt his mind open slightly to Stanley John's ugly suggestion.

"Now let's see you stand up to this guy. Tom? Come on, now. Your daughter's killer has spoken. Now respond to him."

Tim thought for a moment but came up with nothing except a feeling of sickness. "I have no response to him. He killed a random girl who happened to be my daughter. Telling him off would be like explaining to a rabid dog why biting is bad. He's just an animal. There is no answer."

Stanley John leaned in close. "The Program's going to give you that answer."

The ballroom fell abruptly into darkness. Trumpets vibrated the partition walls -- 2001: A Space Odyssey redux.

Mad, sightless movement as the crowd stampeded back to Hearspace. Tim used the confusion to sneak beyond the horseshoe, keeping Leah in sight. When she ducked through the curtain, he hid behind an amp nearby.

For once TD wasn't pacing; he sat on the edge of the dais, Stanley John and Janie perched on either side of him. His voice came low and smooth. "I'd like everybody to lie down flat on the floor for the first Guy-Med. Close your eyes. Make sure no body part is crossed over any other body part." A deliberate pause after each phrase. "Go still. Clear your mind. You're here for you. This is your moment. Now think about your breathing. Listen to yourself breathing. Feel the oxygen going into your body. Feel all your contamination leave you as you breathe out. Now concentrate on your toes. Take a deep, cleansing breath. Send the clean, pure, oxygenated blood to your toes."

TD moved soporifically up the body, repeating each command three times in rich surround sound. The lights waned until they held only the feeblest presence in the room. Most of the participants stayed eerily still, their brains autopiloting across a sea of alpha waves. The room went black. Crouching behind the amp, Tim felt his own eyelids relax, and he dug a thumb into a pressure point in his hand.

TD continued languidly, "You're six years old, standing outside your childhood door. You're going to follow me. Let me lead you. Let's open the door, you and me."

Tim pulled off his jacket and unzipped the heavy lining bit by bit, bunching the fabric over the teeth to cut the sound.

"Go inside. I'm going to leave you here. Don't be scared."

Tim freed the coat lining, tucked it under his arm, and belly-crawled the few feet to the curtain. When TD's voice changed intonation, Tim froze. He waited a few moments as the commands resumed, then continued.

"There are your favorite childhood toys. A beloved teddy bear -- discarded. Your blankie -- ragged and torn. Lie down on your little bed. Hold up a mirror, see what you look like. Look how sad you are. Look how lonely you are. Confused. Insecure. Ugly."

Childhood images flew at Tim from the darkness, unleashed bats. His mother's bare drafting table. His father's entrusting him to a girlfriend's aunt when he left for a "business trip" -- the woman hadn't gotten out of bed the entire three weeks except to empty her ashtrays and reheat frozen dinners.

"Why are you weeping alone in your bed? What made you a victim? Daddy forgetting to play with you? Mommy not kissing you good night? They're still there, those broken promises, tearing at you, controlling you."

Tim reached the curtain, blinking against the stream of light. Leah faced away from him, engrossed in the sound board. As hoped, she was alone.

He slithered into Prospace, rose silently, and unfolded the coat lining on the floor; it expanded into an olive-drab duffel. Another Pete Krindon perk -- creative clothing design. He bent over, tugging up his pant leg and pulling the thin, handkerchief-wrapped flask from the top of his left boot. Presized strips of duct tape adorned the rise of the boot; using TD's sonorous voice for cover, he peeled them off and stuck them dangling from his arm. He slid the flask from its handkerchief. Using a rolling wardrobe as partial cover, he crept up behind Leah, holding his breath and dousing the paisley fabric.

He pictured it perfectly -- one arm wrapping her torso, the press of the handkerchief to her mouth, the firming of the arm-sleeve gag. Working swiftly, he'd ease her unconscious body to the floor, crossing her ankles and weaving the duct tape through them. The thin strips he'd wrap around her thumbs so she wouldn't wind up with bruised wrists. He'd lay her in the duffel, hoist it over a shoulder, and shoot down the fire escape to the back lot before TD noticed a hiccup in his sound engineering. The Hummer held down a VIP space around front. The getaway key pressed against Tim's thigh through the thin pocket.

He moved forward, ether dripping on the carpet. Visible just over Leah's hunched shoulder, the EMERGENCY EXIT sign beckoned. He took a final silent step; he could have reached out and stroked the frayed edges of her hair.

TD's amplified voice continued its deadening cadence. "Look -- there's your mother, full of life and mistakes. There's your father, with all his shortcomings. See him for what he really is. Why does he have a need to turn you into a victim?"

Tim lowered the handkerchief.

Leah spun and covered her gasp with a hand, unable to prevent a pleased smile.

"Oh," she said in a hoarse whisper. "It's you."

Her features transformed as she took note of the rag in his hand, the lengths of tape dripping from his forearm, the open duffel on the floor behind him.

One shout would bring a stampede of blue-shirts.

"You're here to kidnap me." She spoke with a sharp, wounded anger.

Tim stuffed the wet handkerchief into his pocket. "Not anymore."

"You lied. Like everyone else." Her face trembled, on the verge of tears. She edged toward the curtain, and he let her. She sucked in a breath, turning to scream, but then stopped and faced him. "Your dead daughter. You make her up, too?"

"No."

They stared at each other, the sound board humming beside them and throwing off heat. Tim barely had time to register the sudden silence when a burst of radio static issued from outside the curtain, followed by TD's unmiked growl.

"-- what happened to my rear sound?"

Leah scampered back to the forgotten sound board. "Oh, shit. Oh, shit."

Tim dove behind the clothes rack, skidding on his stomach. He disappeared behind a veil of dry cleaning as Skate blew through the curtain with a flourish of his thick arm, radio pressed to his face. Peeking from the waistband of his sweatshirt was the gun-blued hilt of a knife -- an odd tool for a hotel seminar.

He took note of the open duffel on the floor and, with a single expert movement, swept the knife from its sheath. He held the ten-inch bowie upside down, the blade out and pointed toward his elbow. "What's up?"

The ballroom, filled with hundreds of entranced Neos awaiting their next command, gave off a deafening silence. "Nothing," Leah finally said.

Skate toed the duffel. "The fuck is this?"

"It stores the mike cables."

Tim watched the exchange breathlessly through a screen of cellophane.

TD's voice spit again from Skate's radio. "-- there some issue back there?"

Leah pursed her lips, stared at Skate's gleaming blade. "I...just zoned out. I got swept up in the Guy-Med."

Skate eyed her, probably picking up the slight tremble in her voice. Finally, he keyed the radio, sliding his knife back into its sheath. "She screwed up."

"Please explain to Leah that if she doesn't fix the rear distortion, I'm going to lose the entire group."

Head bent over the graphic equalizer, Leah fussed with the frequency levers. Skate stared at her for a long time, then withdrew.

"Get the hell out of here before the lights come back up," Leah said. "If Skate catches you, we're both in deep shit."

Tim found his feet. He hesitated, facing her.