The Program

by Gregg Hurwitz

  “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.

  “You’ve done enough already, okay. Just go. Now.”

  “Mommy,” a woman shrieked in a little girl voice. “Moooommy!”

  Within seconds the ballroom reverberated with the screams of regressed voices, a chilling, insane-asylum chorus.

  Tim crept over and gave a peek under the curtain. Skate had retreated to his post, but a few of the Pros were up, wandering the shadowy horseshoe perimeter, contributing malicious echoes. “Mommy. Daddy. Where are you?”

  Stanley John and Janie patrolled the interior, leaning over the sprawled, mewling bodies, pouring it on. “We never wanted you!” Sweat dripped from Janie’s forehead as she bent over a sobbing man. “You’re worthless.”

  Tim watched the movement of the blue-shirts, then crawled out and rolled swiftly across the open carpet. He made it a few yards inside the horseshoe before Stanley John’s voice rained down on him—”What are you doing over here?”

  “Mom,” Tim bleated, fluttering closed eyelids. “Where’s my mom?”

  “She doesn’t care about you. She left you.” Stanley John moved on to harangue someone else.

  An overpowering voice cut through the commotion. “TD is here with you now. You’re safe. Your guide is here.” The clamor gradually settled, until only scattered sniffling persisted. “Now let me lead you out of your childhood room. Turn and say good-bye to me, your guide. I’m leaving right now, but I’ll always be here, right inside you. Always. When the room grows bright, you’ll come to, and you won’t remember anything that you’ve experienced.”

  The lights came up, and they all stirred, then found their feet, battlefield dead coming to life. As the Neos groggily located their seats, TD pressed on as if nothing had happened.

  “In The Program there isn’t anything we despise more than a victim. I don’t know about you, but I’m tired of living in a victim society. You can sue cigarette companies because you chose to smoke for thirty years. You can sue a TV show if your stupid kid lights himself on fire. Hell, you can sue McDonald’s because you turned yourself into a fat-ass. Better not pat a female colleague on the arm, or you might be victimizing her. Don’t say ‘Jesus Christ’ in front of a Bible-thumper or you’ll be victimizing him.

  “In The Program we’re accountable for our choices. We’re not excuse makers. But some of you”—an Uncle Sam point of the finger—”still are, and your mind-set is contaminating. You need to negate Victimhood. Nothing is more useless than actions to please, actions to gratify, actions to ingratiate. They are the epitome of powerlessness. Your behavior should be for you. Don’t laugh courteously. Don’t call Mom because you feel obligated. Those actions have no place in The Program. Here we exalt strength—” He fanned a hand at the audience.

  “Not comfort!”

  “Comfort will make you weak. Only strength will set you free. We strive for fulfillment—”

  “Not happiness!”

  Tim mentally filed these additions to The Program Code.

  “You don’t want to be happy. Happiness is for idiots. You want to be decisive. You want to be fulfilled. Sometimes that involves suffering. Sometimes that involves working hard. Are you ready to work hard?”

  “Yes!”

  “I want each group to select their biggest victim to come up here and take a seat on Victim Row.” TD rested his hands on the backs of two chairs in the line being assembled by diligent Pros on the dais. “Think of it as intense therapy.” His voice dropped, taking on an edge of menace. “One Pro will be joining us onstage. You already know who you are.” Leah emerged, head bent, and trudged to the dais. TD helped her up, eyes smoldering charitably above his tight smile.

  Hearspace filled with the sounds of Neos fighting. A few Pros with trays strapped to them like vendors at a baseball game threaded through the bickering groups, tossing Cliff Bars and handing out Mountain Dews. People tore at the wrappers with their mouths, gulping and slurping, gulag prisoners in Levi’s Dockers. Tim could almost hear the rising sugar hum. It took his last ounce of willpower to refrain. A woman screamed out that her bladder was going to explode; she was told to visualize it empty.

  Back in Tim’s group, Joanne, the leading contender for Victim Row, suffered a battery of buzz-phrase accusations. Her inability to stand up for herself only proved the charges against her. When Victim Row convened, she was seated beside Leah.

  TD paced in front of the chosen ones. He laid into a nursing student first, working on her skillfully until she admitted she’d created her own diabetes when she was a little girl to get her daddy’s attention. The prematurely bald teenager next to her divulged that he’d smoked pot twice and wrestled in high school; within minutes TD had him convinced he was a violent drug offender who’d never taken responsibility for himself.

  Moving down the row, TD grew increasingly personal. The crowd contributed to the abuse during riotous interludes. After Joanne floundered on a few of his questions, TD produced a mirror and handed it to her. “Look at yourself.” He spoke with an icy calm. “You’re obese. You’re disgusting. Why would anyone want to be with you? What? What, Joanne? Why are you blubbering? How am I making you feel?”

  “You’re making me feel inferior.”

  “Wrong. You feel inferior. Don’t try to say it’s my fault. Tell me I’m stupid. Go ahead, tell me.”

  She exhaled shakily. “I... I can’t.”

  “Can’t. My favorite word.” TD’s mouth became a dark slit. “Look in that mirror. Tell me what you see.”

  “I guess a woman who’s trying to—”

  “Trying to. Trying to? Let me tell you what I see.” His eyes bored through her. “I see three-point-five billion years of evolution, drawing you out of the primordial stew, straightening your stoop, granting you opposable thumbs. I see the trillions of other faulty models with slightly different physical traits, perceptive systems, cognitive skills, who died along the way so you can sit here today. I see a two-and-a-half-pound cerebrum. I see thousands of years of cultural advancement leading to the crops and farms that
produced the sustenance that’s gone into your cells. I see the sunshine that fed those plants, the universe that created that sun. I see life, time, and space distilled into human form, into this pinnacle of existence. And you can’t... what? Tell me I’m stupid?”

  She was wheezing so hard she barely got out the words. “You’re stupid.”

  “Guess what? I don’t feel stupid. You can’t make me feel anything. Do you know why, Joanne? Because I’m not a victim. And if you weren’t a victim, you’d be able to take an insult or two. If you weren’t a victim, you’d be able to endure a little criticism.”

  She fumbled for her inhaler.

  “Oh, there it is. Your sympathy crutch. Did someone develop asthma so people would feel sorry for her? Where’s your self-respect? Well, since you’re so concerned with what other people think...” He faced the horseshoe. “Let’s give it to her, folks.”

  The crowd exploded. Neos rose to their feet, shouting abuse at her.

  “Ugly pig!”

  A shovel-spade of a woman, a good fifty pounds up on Joanne, stood on her sagging chair, hands clutching her buttocks as she leaned forward like a fan baiting an umpire. “Fat fucking cow!”

  Joanne doubled over, head lurching. Janie stepped forward and produced an airsickness bag into which Joanne promptly barfed, eliciting another outburst of vilification from the audience. Her hairdo had collapsed like an angel cake.

  “That’s good,” TD said. “Purge your self-loathing.”

  The torrent of deprecations continued unabated as Joanne purged. At last TD raised his arms, and the crowd silenced instantly.

  TD massaged Joanne’s shoulders. “I’m proud of you, Joanne. By being able to sit through that, you’ve shown incredible growth. By the time you’re done with The Program, you’ll never have to feel that way again. Now, get up and take a bow.”

  Joanne’s knees buckled when she stood. The crowd picked up TD’s encouraging applause, drowning out her mumbled objections as she was guided off the dais.

  Leah sat alone in the row of chairs, her hair over her eyes. Her fingers wound convulsively in the fringe of her shirt. The crowd was breathing together, a slow, forceful rhythm.

  “Leah, do you still have your rash?”

  “Yes. I’ve chosen a rash because it’s a way to make myself a victim privately.”

  “You’re still learning to escape your cycle of victimization, aren’t you?”

  “Yes. I am.”

  TD swirled in a magician’s pivot. “Why don’t you show everyone here your victim rash?”

  She looked back at him with glassy eyes.

  “You’ve learned to hide your urge to be a victim, not eradicate it. Hiding your victimhood gives you comfort. So. Why don’t you show everyone here what a victim you are? In fact, why don’t you take off all your clothes? You’re not going to give these people the power over you to make you ashamed of your own body, are you?”

  The audience began to simmer.

  Leah mechanically began shedding her clothes. When she finished, her skin glistened with a fine perspiration.

  The crowd went rigid with a kind of dark ecstasy. Despite the cooling drafts from the overhead vents, Tim’s undershirt clung to him like a second skin. His stomach churned as he watched TD prompt Leah.

  She bit back an energized smile and shouted, “This is my body! And you can’t make me ashamed of it! I negate victimhood! I reject comfort! I exalt strength!”

  Uproarious applause. As Leah took up her clothes and stepped off the dais, TD said, “I wouldn’t be surprised if that somatic manifestation of victimhood cleared up soon.”

  The activities and Oraes and Guy-Meds continued, an endless, torturous cycle, grinding down Tim’s sanity until he longed to submit. But he fought every moment of the afternoon, evening, and night, upholding Tom Altman’s plausibility while focusing, meditating, doing anything to avoid being swept away in the rush of lunacy. Using pain to guard against the ceaseless kettledrum and soft-fluttering lights, he twisted one hand into the other as if boring a screw through an obstinate plank. His palm was developing a blister from his thumbnail’s grinding, a stigma he might have considered melodramatic had the discomfort allowed him room for amusement.

  A flurry of scenes marked the final hours, glimpsed as if in the sporadic flash of a strobe light. Joanne standing on a chair, screaming, “I take on anger! I permit myself to feel anger because I stand up for myself!”

  Shelly curled in the fetal position, sobbing, Stanley John leering over her like a barking drill sergeant. “Did Daddy molest you? Is that why you’re a slut?”

  Her nodding answer before slipping a thumb into her mouth. “I th-think so. In some ways.”

  Group claps. The loud throb of a recorded heartbeat. The numbing thump of a kettledrum.

  Not once did Leah reemerge from backstage.

  At long last, after the umpteenth rendition of Thus Spake Zarathustra, TD took a deep bow on the dais. “We’ll be contacting you soon to make additional colloquia available so you can continue your growth. But for now I want to say congratulations. You’re all on your way. I’m proud of you for having the strength to—”

  “Get with The Program!”

  After retrieving their cell phones and watches, the participants bustled to the exits, charged, exuberant, and babbling incessantly about how much they’d learned. Still competing for best in show.

  A rush of light-headedness hit Tim, and he used an arm to lower himself back into his chair. He hadn’t eaten or drunk anything since dinner two days before.

  Stanley John strolled up and leaned over him, hands on his knees.

  “Hey, buddy. Great work today. I have some exciting news. TD wants to invite you into Prospace for a minute.” Randall and Skate slid behind him, confirming for Tim that his cover had been blown. He was going to go the way of Danny Katanga, PI.

  They slipped through the curtain. In the midst of a jamboree of toiling Pros, TD relaxed in an armchair, a white towel around his neck— Elvis after the second show at the Sands. To his right, Leah was breaking down the sound board; she took one look at Tim and turned her back. He was certain she’d given him up. He noted with some amusement that she’d loaded his duffel bag with cables.

  “Tom, my friend, sit down.” TD patted a flimsy folding chair opposite him, and Tim gratefully sank into it. Only now could he see that TD had freckles, pale and plentiful, dominating his youthful features. After performing for twenty-four hours, he burned with evangelistic zeal.

  Skate circled behind Tim, and Tim kept an eye on his reflection in the side of a metal crate. He tensed, ready to fight or bolt with what strength he could muster. “It’s a real pleasure to meet you, sir.”

  “Please, please. Call me Teacher.” TD eased one leg over the other. “I find you very impressive.”

  Tim let out a shaky breath, which fortunately made it seem as if he were shocked and honored. His mouth had cottoned from dehydration.

  “It takes real strength to enter the mind of your daughter’s killer. I think you’ve made peace with the killer, and that’s why you have nothing to say to him. I think you haven’t made peace about something else. About how you dealt with your daughter’s death...?”

  The painful secret, TD’s hand whip of choice. Tim waited through the drawn-out silence, not wanting to commit Tom Altman to an unconsidered course of action. He resorted to understatement. “It was a difficult time.”

  TD’s head dipped in a slight nod—the response seemed to be what he’d been looking for. “I’d like to advance you to the next step.”

  Leah wouldn’t turn to meet Tim’s eyes.

  “Really? Like become a Pro?”

  “We’ve only asked a few people—the Neos we see as very capable— to come to our ranch Monday for a special three-day retreat.”

  Leah froze, her shoulders and neck tensing.

  “You see, this thing here today”—TD flared his hands—”this is only the beginning. A test model, no more. We’re really
optimizing—the Next Generation Colloquium we’ve been planning is new-platform software. Right now I’m interested in one thing and one thing only: selecting from the hundreds and hundreds of Neos the right few with the vision to take that next step with us. I’ll be honest—we had closed the first platform, but we’d love to have you included.”

  Evidently Tom Altman’s $90 million portfolio had checked out. The ingenious ploy—Inner Circle as bankroll for The Program’s expansion— allowed TD to sidestep the encumbrances of attaining funding, repaying loans, or answering to a board. Even the process of weeding out the pikers he’d made profitable. Three hundred people at five hundred a pop— Tim’s dad should have dreamed it up.

  TD bent his head sympathetically. “What’s wrong? I sense your hesitation. You can share it with me.”

  “I... well... I’ve just always believed in taking things slow,” Tom Altman stammered.

  Leah resumed wrapping a cable around her hand.

  “That Societal Programming is precisely what stands in your way.” TD’s eyes, piercing and relentless, seemed fixed on a spot three inches behind Tim’s head—a vintage technique for hypnotic induction. Tim relaxed his pupils, letting TD’s face blur. “If you want to be free, you have to overwrite it.”

  Tom Altman mused on that, squirming a bit in his chair. “It’s just a lot all at once, and I’m still a little hazy from my whole... experience. Can I give it some thought?”

  “I’m sorry, Tom. It’s a onetime opportunity. Things are moving really fast for us. And, hey, it’s just three days. We’re not asking you to sign over your house or anything.”

  Everyone laughed, and suddenly Tim was aware of their audience. Tom Altman joined in late and a touch eagerly. “There is more I want to find out”—Leah’s cable wrapping grew furious—”about myself, I mean.” Leah half turned, and Tim risked a glance at her profile.

  TD nodded at Skate, who slipped out through the curtain, then he turned his intense focus back to Tim. “Today you were introduced to this new practice. This new reality. You have a responsibility to yourself now. But”—he slapped his knee and leaned forward—”maybe you’re not ready after all.”