The Program

by Gregg Hurwitz

“Hurry,” Randall said.

  She scurried down the hall. After brushing her teeth, she smoothed water into her hair but couldn’t make her cowlick lie down. It wasn’t until she sat shivering on the cold toilet with the stall door closed that she withdrew the spoon. She stared at her blurred, forbidden reflection in the curved metal, the first time she’d encountered it in weeks save for the fugitive peek she’d stolen from a mirrored wall at the Radisson. The poorness of the image helped her justify her right to it.

  Her mind returned to Tom Altman. His handshake—cool and assured. What lies his attractiveness had concealed. His betrayal. Producer Henning at work behind the scenes.

  But another thought loitered at the edge of her perception: That a man like Tom would come after her meant—possibly—that she’d done something to warrant concern. He seemed to have integrity. And yet how could he be so misguided about The Program as to want to kidnap her from it?

  That she carried the secret of him through a place where even thoughts were prohibited felt like intimacy.

  She jumped when the door banged open, and then Randall’s wide boots appeared in the space beneath the stall. “What’s taking so long?” She set the spoon on the tile behind the pipes and flushed the toilet. “I’m ready.”

  Randall watched her closely when she exited, his eyes dropping to her nipples, visible beneath her thin cotton T-shirt. He pushed her sweater against her roughly. “Let’s go.”

  “What about breakfast?”

  “You’re not eating breakfast today.”

  Outside, Cottage Circle sat dormant. A red-tailed hawk circled lazily overhead. As usual, Randall walked ahead of her down the trail. Flecks of lint from her sweater clung to his forearm hair.

  TD was crouching near one of the wagon wheels lining his walk. He rose and stood motionless and alert, awaiting her, one hand turned inward as if cupping a drink. “My, you do like your sleep, don’t you? Lorraine has been up for nearly two hours already. She cleaned the entire cottage.”

  Leah’s rash felt dry and cracked in the cool air. “I’m sorry. I’m...”

  “You’re what? Tired?” He wore one of his hand-tailored oxfords, a midnight blue, the yellow stitching of his initials visible on a cuff. The unbuttoned shirt rippled in the breeze, revealing the slender plates of muscle that formed the oval of his stomach.

  She nodded, face reddening. It occurred to her that she’d never seen TD so much as yawn.

  The edge of something dark and shiny poked up above TD’s hand, then withdrew. His eyes stayed on her. “You approach life from weakness, Leah. The Program can only do so much for you if you’re not willing to work.”

  “I’m trying so hard. It seems like I go to bed late and get up early, but I’m not making headway. My body still feels weak.”

  Randall tapped a hand against his bald dome, and it made a faint slapping noise.

  “This chronic-fatigue routine”—TD gestured with his cupped hand—”sounds like something you might have picked up in your Pepperdine days. Limitations you observed in others and took on unconsciously as your own.” A scorpion scuttled into view, cresting the wall of his fingers. TD extended his hand as if presenting a ladybug, and Leah skipped back, startled.

  TD’s laughter assailed her. “The perceived world is just an illusion. Phenomena filtered through your five weak senses. The true world couldn’t be perceived even if you had twenty senses. Or fifty. If you think you know how your body feels, if you think you know whether you’re tired, if you think you know anything, that’s just your ego succumbing to society’s deceptions. You can’t know anything. There’s no such thing as anything. You are what you think. You fear what you decide to fear.”

  He twisted his hand sharply and clenched. His expression didn’t alter. Not a trace of concern flickered through his eyes.

  She finally averted her gaze. She struggled to make sense of what he’d been saying. “I guess I still don’t have the control I want.”

  “This constant thinking about yourself, it must get exhausting. Maybe if you focused less on narcissistic you and more on your tasks, you’d find your Old Programming dissipating at a faster rate. It seems to work for other people.”

  Her face burned with shame. She’d been working protracted shifts every day for the Luddites in Expansion, troubleshooting the IBM relics that had been left behind in the adolescent facility’s computer lab. She kept the network up and running so the team could continue cranking out business plans, white papers, valuation models. That she couldn’t handle more was a sure sign of her glaring inadequacies.

  “I’m going to give you an opportunity to help you out of your rut,” TD continued. “Now that Chris is no longer with us, you’ll take over the job of Webmaster. You’ll work on my computer.”

  She almost couldn’t believe it. “In the mod?”

  “I expect the site to be ready to launch by the Next Generation Colloquium.” She started to respond, but he held up his hand. “No excuses, just get it done. And remember, the mod is TD’s own private space. You’re a visitor there. Behave like a courteous one.”

  “Of course.” But TD had already disappeared, the cottage door clanging behind him.

  Randall and Leah crossed the small clearing. As they passed the shed, she heard the scrabbling of claws on wood, then Skate’s voice soothing his dogs. The door, skewed on its hinges, swayed with the breeze, revealing a sliver of interior. Skate sat naked on a sagging cot, both dogs bellied down before him, their tongues working across the tops of his toes.

  Randall busied himself with the myriad locks securing the modular. Finally he swung the door open, holding it for Leah. She entered the dusty room and let out a yelp. Wearing a sharp suit, TD stood inside, his arms crossed. She’d just realized that the figure was a life-size cardboard stand when the door closed swiftly behind her. She heard the scraping of keys as Randall locked her inside.

  She surveyed her surroundings, noting the tiny kitchen and bathroom door. Six file cabinets lined the far wall, each housing five drawers and sporting shiny locks. A Post-it affixed to a knee-high stack of papers read Randall, File by Monday. Pushpins dotted a wall-mounted map.

  A broad desk facing the window supported the computer system. A QuickCam was mounted atop the glowing monitor for video feed. Beside the mouse pad, files rose from a tray labeled To Be Scanned and Shredded. The unvented air smelled musky, like dried tea bags and standing water. A skylight brightened the room considerably.

  Lidless boxes of paraphernalia and workshop materials littered the floor: Get with The Program guidebooks, Living in the Now pamphlets, colloquium registration forms, stencil-labeled binders proclaiming THE AMBASSADOR’S USER MANUAL. Some of the materials she’d seen being generated in rough form up in the computer lab, but she was stunned by how slick and professional they’d returned from the printer.

  She sat in the desk chair. The entry password had already been typed, appearing as *****. She clicked “accept,” and a note popped up on the screen, providing a list of the new features to be added. Take photos of all materials to be offered for purchase. Import photos into online shop. Set up Web site colloquium registration. Name database should include Social Security numbers. Add hyperlinks for each new city.

  Leah found the desktop icon for the mock site—only when it was finished would they put it online. At the top of the screen, a clock ticked off the minutes, an added luxury. 6:23 A.M. She hardly remembered the last time she’d been able to ground herself in time.

  Seized by an impulse, she jumped up and ran to the tiny bathroom. Sure enough, a mirror. No window provided natural light; her shadowy outline stared back at her. Gathering her courage, she reached for the light switch, feeling it brush her fingertips. Finally she could get a real look at herself, not just a blurred glimpse in the back of a spoon. She froze, her corrective thinking clamping down fast and absolute. She skulked back to the desk and buried herself in her work.

  Though Chris had left the site in good order, there was a tremen
dous amount to be done before the launch date. After the first few minutes, Leah stopped glancing at the clock. She furiously wrote code, nibbling her fingers as she used to in college. That a combination of ones and zeros could engender a digital world never ceased to amaze her. First there was nothing, and then all of a sudden a berth existed in cyberspace, a resting place for weary Web travelers, an omnipresent oasis. From chaos, order.

  It wasn’t until she stood and nearly fainted from light-headedness that she realized it was past three o’clock.

  She went to the locked door and banged on it. Only the rush of wind and the scrape of a tree branch on the roof answered her. She banged harder, the thought of the mod’s isolation just beginning to creep under her skin when a key slid into the outside lock. Lorraine pulled the door open, adjusting a robe over her bare body. She did not look pleased. “What?”

  “I need to see TD.”

  Lorraine shot a sigh and headed across the clearing. Randall and Skate were nowhere in view, though one of the Dobermans lay on the porch, piercing them with its blue-black eyes. They scooted past it into TD’s cottage.

  TD reclined on his bed, shirtless, his lips pursed around the base of a ripe strawberry. “Leah, dear. Have you eaten at all today?”

  “No.”

  “You’re such a strong worker. Been hacking away in the mod since morning. Amazing.” Pausing to suck at the strawberry, he rolled his head on his plush pillow, directing a languid gaze at Lorraine. “Maybe if one of my other Lilies worked as hard as you, she would have been awarded the Scottsdale ambassadorship.”

  Lorraine lowered her eyes. He pointed at the floor, and she went to her knees.

  “Now, Leah, what can I do for you?”

  “I need to get online to download an add-in for some Flash animation.”

  He dropped a lazy hand off the bed and stroked Lorraine’s hair. “Go locate Randall. He’s re-marking the boundary lines on the north edge of the ranch.”

  Lorraine vanished in an angry swirl of robe.

  TD slid off the bed. As he drew near, Leah dropped her gaze from his hypnotic eyes. Barefoot, he was about her height. She took in his scent, its hints of bark and iron. His head darted forward, mouth seizing her lower lip. She felt the gentle grind of his teeth, then the pluck of his lips as he pulled his face back off hers. He turned and headed to the kitchen.

  Readying her lunch with his own two hands, he lavished her with attention. As she ate, he stood behind her and stroked her shoulders, her arms.

  His hands ceased. “You made a special connection to one of the Neos at the colloquium. Tom Altman.”

  She felt her insides go slack. “I guess so.”

  “He asked you back to his group. And in the bus on the way home, you remarked to Winona that he seemed nice.”

  TD always knew everything.

  “He’s a very special new member of the Inner Circle. I’d like you to be his Gro-Par when he arrives.” He paused, but she was too shocked to respond. “There’s something upsetting in Tom’s past that’s holding him back, something about his daughter’s death. You could be helpful to him as his Gro-Par by helping him name what that thing is. He’ll share a room with you. See to his needs.”

  A great weight pressed down on her chest.

  He studied her face knowingly. “You’re upset that you’re losing Janie.” Before she could respond, a gust of wind announced Lorraine and Randall’s entrance. Bits of dead weed clung to Randall’s overalls. He looked supremely displeased that his work had been interrupted.

  “Leah needs a phone cord to log on to the Internet.”

  “I already put the phone cords to bed. The call sheets are done for today.”

  TD just looked at him.

  Randall gestured for Leah to follow and led her to the shed. Two narrow cots crowded the floor. Randall gripped one by its metal frame and lifted it, stained sheets spilling over his arms. He set it atop the other, then got down on all fours in the cleared space and blew on the floor. Dust swirled up, revealing a safe embedded in the concrete. A single dot of metal where the cot leg ordinarily rested shone cleanly through the grime. Randall bent down, tongue poking into his upper lip, and worked the dial. He swung the lid open.

  In the cavity lay a bundle of neatly wound phone cords.

  Randall removed one tenderly. They headed back to the mod, and Leah plugged it in to the wall and the modem port on the computer.

  Randall drew up a second chair. She logged on, found the appropriate site, and started the download. His elbow resting against hers, Randall kept his eyes trained unblinkingly on the screen.

  TWENTY-FOUR

  Weapons of influence.” Bederman settled into an outmoded armchair. “They’ve accompanied us into our most shameful hours. Witchhunts. Blacklists. Death camps. Between the pages of suicide-terrorist training manuals. Up a con man’s sleeve.”

  Tim set down his cup of now-cold tea, the cushioned wicker couch creaking with his movement. The country-decorated ranch house, located in the better section of Westwood just north of the university, could have been acquired from the producers of Mister Ed: checkerboard curtains, horsehair rugs, and a barn-red front door with white crosspieces. Save the bars on the windows, the lineup of dead bolts, and the occasional bleep of the security system, the place was old and homey and bizarre for a single man in his sixties. A cinnamon candle burned somewhere out of sight. Tim decided that Bederman was either a widower or he’d inherited his mother’s house; if he were gay, he’d surely have better taste.

  “Betters has added some clever, malicious riffs to an age-old song.” Bederman polished his spectacles. “Vertical emotional dependence, directed deference to authority, a tightly controlled system of pseudologic, internal language walling up the insiders, dislocating newcomers. He’s married two cult models, the psychotherapeutic cult and the self-improvement cult—think the Sullivanians meet Lifespring. Tell me the Program Source Code again?”

  “Take sole responsibility for your life. Delete your Old Programming. Overwrite your Old Programming with your New Programming. Maximize your growth by minimizing your negativity. Negate Victimhood. Your behavior is for you. Exalt strength, not comfort. Strive for fulfillment, not happiness. Get with The Program.” Tim could almost hear the chants in his head as he named them.

  “And our dear friend Tom Altman wisely presented as a doer. I’m sure the Teacher sized you up as such—that’s the biggest type of fish to fry for this kind of cult. Believers are automatically out, thinkers get tangled up in the logic, and feelers are too easy—no challenge for a showman like TD. Doers are men and women of action, which means they’ve almost certainly made mistakes in the past for which they hold some measure of remorse that can be turned against them. They also tend to have financial resources and they make great subleaders. I’m not surprised you made the cut from the LGAT—”

  “LGAT?”

  “Large-group awareness training. Now you’re on to phase two—a Moonie-esque retreat. More Pros, fewer marks. All the better to crack you with, my dear.”

  “The Pros have this rosy-cheeked excitement about them. All the time.”

  “Nothing more than pinhead lesions from vitamin A deficiency, which—along with fatigue, disorientation, and vacillations in mental acuity—is one of the rewards of a carefully imbalanced diet.” Bederman set down his cup hard enough that it rang against the saucer. “Take a detrimental or frightening state and reinterpret it as growth. That’s the name of the game. That giddiness, that tingling, that high that you felt? Were you unlocking your true self? Experiencing the next stage of growth? No. It was the overbreathing, the chanting, the repetitive screaming, the arm thrusting, the standing and sitting—shortcuts to hyperventilation, no more. Did people faint?”

  “Yes. Quite a few.”

  Bederman’s voice kept a bitter edge. “All that heavy expelling of air produces a drop in the carbon dioxide level of the bloodstream—respiratory alkalosis, it’s called. It causes dizziness, light-headednes
s, a loss of critical thought and judgment. Well known in the old-time religions. Add sleep deprivation and a few spiked refreshments to the mix, you can make recruits actively participate in their own debasement. Once that happens, they’ll start believing they deserve it. Change someone’s behavior and his beliefs will follow.”

  “It’s like we’re taught in Special Forces—if you’re captured, only give up name, rank, and serial number. Anything more than that, they have a wedge to pry you open.”

  “With brainwashing at least you know you’re in the hands of the enemy. Mind control—what Leah’s up against—is more insidious.” He took off his spectacles, rubbed his eyes, put them back on. “These situations—especially with a sole leader like TD bent on absolute control— only go in one direction.”

  They sat quietly for a few moments, and then Bederman said, “Remember the Heaven’s Gate mass suicide down in San Diego? I was one of the first people through the house. Thirty-nine bodies, young and old. The smell... Jesus, the smell. You know that smell?”

  Tim studied his hands. “Yes.”

  “As you well know, you can’t get rid of them, those moments. I testified in a case early in my career where a six-year-old girl with Down’s syndrome was flayed to death in a church. Johanna Yarbough. There were fifty adults present, including her mother. They took turns as the other children sat in the pews and watched. They were exorcising evil spirits from the girl. I always wondered what she was thinking, Johanna, when it was happening. Looking out at all those faces. That’s what she knew of the world. That’s what the world looked like to her.”

  “You hate them, don’t you? The zealots?”

  “Sometimes.” Bederman’s face looked weary; his jowls sagged. “But sometimes the oppressors are only victims who’ve advanced in the ranks. Sometimes you lose perspective, start hating them all.”

  Tim glanced around the room. The antique churn in the corner. Bows of raffia around porcelain candlesticks. A spray of dried flowers deadening the mantel. It was like something painstakingly replicated from a magazine photo or a childhood memory, a stab at some notion of archetypal domesticity.