The Program

TD.

As far as Tim could glean, TD had built an impressive intel system – sixty-eight informants, sixty-eight willing confessors. Even negative thoughts had to be reported to Gro-Pars. And thoughts about having negative thoughts.

Throughout the day Tim played scout, mentally filing data on the maintenance sheds, the network of trails, the layout of the ranch and the land beyond its chalked perimeters. He searched for infractions of any kind – fire hazards, wetlands destruction, disposal of hazardous waste – but to no avail.

When mealtime did arrive – he guessed six o'clock by the sun's weary adherence to the western horizon – Leah informed him that retreatees were beneficiaries of a "purging diet." His questions as to what that entailed were met with customary vagueness.

A cafeteria abutted the Growth Hall. Under Leah's tyrannical direction, he helped wash the dishes left over from breakfast. The kitchen functioned with the monotony – but not the efficiency – of an assembly line. Tom's duty was to shake each wet plate exactly twice over the sink, then dry it with a clockwise rotation of the towel, starting in the center and spiraling outward. After drying the bottom in similar fashion, he was to wipe the rim all the way around in a single motion. After every five plates, he was to wash his hands and change towels. TD's monastic set of utensils was stored and washed separately by male Pros; the Teacher couldn't eat from anything touched by another's saliva. Or by a woman's hands.

Tim did a series of tests to see whether Leah and his fellow workers actually paid attention. Did they ever. He was admonished for drying counterclockwise, for interrupting his stroke around the plate rim, for neglecting to wash his hands. His errors were reported without fail, mealymouthed flunkies scurrying to Leah and deprecating him in Programspeak. It dawned on him that petty acts of defiance weren't going to win him Leah's – or the other Programmites' -trust. If he wanted to in-filtrate, he'd better Get with The Program. He had a little chat with his alter personality, and Tom returned to plate drying with newfound vigor.

After places had been set, Tim sat with the others, hands in his lap, boiled cauliflower wadded on his plate. Fifteen minutes passed, sixty-eight Pros and five initiates waiting immobile and mute, eyes fixed on the food before them. Finally the clank of the door's push handle announced TD's arrival. He took his seat before a bowl of soup, bent his head to his first mouthful, and issued an almost satisfied tilt of the head.

TD's disciples began their meal.

Tim and Leah sat Indian style about two feet apart on his bed, facing each other. His bag rested bedside, zippered not as he'd left it, but snugly shut; he'd been right to remove the contraband.

The other Pros had scampered off to their jobs loading boxes, stuffing direct-mail envelopes – Houston's Personality System Upgrade! – keeping TD's empire running at full steam. Tim and Leah were alone in the cottage; Tom Altman and his $90 million in assets evidently required around-the-clock companionship. Tim had taken the opportunity to demand question-and-answer time. The broom he'd leaned against the inside of the front door would sound a crude alarm in case of interruption.

Leah was vehemently defending her experience on Victim Row. "I learned to accept my body. My rash went away, didn't it?"

"How about the others who got yelled at? Did they all deserve it?"

"The Program is about rejecting pity. Everyone dreams their own weaknesses into being. They need to be knocked out of their complacency. The Teacher only yells at people who let him yell at them."

"And Joanne? Remember everyone screaming at her? Calling her an ugly pig? How did she dream her facial features into being?"

Leah bit her lip and glanced away – the first crack in her assurance. "There's a reason the Teacher chose to confront her on that. Maybe for her to learn something else."

"But you don't know what?"

"I don't need to know – Joanne does. It's her face, not mine."

"You don't know the reason, but you're willing to dedicate your entire life to the doctrine?"

She regarded him as a veterinarian might a stubborn mare requiring worming. "Are you for real? How's that make me different from any Catholic? I know the reasons TD gets me to criticize myself. That's good enough for me." She started to mumble some kind of dictum.

"What's that? What are you saying?"

"Your doubts are the last vestiges of your Old Programming. Your doubts -"

"TD must be pretty defensive about The Program if he won't even let you think about it yourself."

She glared at him. "The Teacher's not scared of anything. And I hold my own opinions."

"You say you hate being lied to. How about if I show you that TD lied to you? Would that make you change your opinion?"

Leah's eyes darted hatefully around Tim's face.

"TD told you he's a doctor, right? That he has a Ph. D.?" Tim produced a document from its hiding place in a pamphlet and unfolded it.

"You agreed not to bring any outside stuff up here."

"Because TD doesn't want free information here. And you'll see why." He held up a copy of TD's mail-order certificate. She looked away, eyes on the dark window, her face sullen.

"Look at it. Answer me. That's our deal. We shook on it."

She studied the sheet for a moment. "So he has a certificate. They're just labels anyway."

"I don't give a shit if he took a first from the Canyon View Training Ranch for Dogs. I'm just asking why he lied to you."

"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 rose 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.