Dean Koontz - False Memory

Succinctly, he instructed Cedric to drive the El Camino to the nearest Goodwill collection station and deposit the bundle of sand-filled clothes. From there, Cedric would top off the fuel tank and cruise directly to Tijuana, Mexico, just across the border from San Diego. In one of Tijuana’s more dangerous neighborhoods, if the valuable vehicle were not first stolen out from under him, he would park it with the doors unlocked and the keys in the ignition to ensure its disappearance. He would walk to the nearest major hotel, arrange for a rental car, and drive back to Newport Beach well before morning. (As it was not yet 8:00 P.M., the doctor estimated that Cedric should be able to return by 3:00 A.M.) In Orange County once more, he would turn the rental car in at the airport and hire a cab to bring him home. Thereupon, he would go to bed, sleep two hours, and wake rested, with no recollection of having gone anywhere.

Some of these arrangements would be tricky, considering the late hour when he would arrive in Mexico, but with five thousand dollars packed in a money belt — which Ahriman provided — he should be able to get done what was necessary. And cash left less of a trail.

“I understand,” Cedric said.

“I hope I see you alive again, Cedric.”

“Thank you, sir.”

After Cedric departed, the doctor phoned downstairs to Nella Hawthorne and asked her to come at once to the master-suite sitting room from which her husband had just been dispatched on a Mexican adventure.

‘When Nella arrived, Ahriman accessed her with the name of the scheming head housekeeper of Manderley, the mansion in Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca. He instructed her to sweep the garage clear of every trace of sand, to dig a deep hole in one of the backyard planting beds, and to bury the sweeper bag therein. When these tasks were completed, she was to forget that she had performed them.

“Then return to your quarters and await further instructions,” Ahriman directed.

“I understand.”

With Cedric on his way to Mexico and with Nella busily occupied, the doctor went down one floor to his lacewood-paneled office. His computer required only seven seconds to rise out of the desktop on its electric lift, but he tapped his fingers impatiently as he waited for it to lock into place and switch on.

Networked with his office computer, he was able to access his patient records and call up the Keanuphobe’s telephone number. She had given two: home and mobile.

Less than forty minutes had passed since her hasty exit from the beach parking lot.

Although he regretted having to call her from his home phone, time was of the essence — as well as the fire in which we burn — and he couldn’t worry about leaving an evidence trail. He tried the mobile number.

He recognized her voice when she answered on the fourth ring:

“Hello?”

Apparently, as he suspected, she was in a state of paranoid perplexion, driving around aimlessly as she tried to decide what to do about what she’d witnessed.

Oh, how he wished she were programmed.

This would be a delicate conversation. While instructing the Hawthornes and dealing with sundry other matters, he’d been thinking furiously about how best to approach her. As far as he could see, there was but a single strategy that might work.

“Hello?” she repeated.

“You know who this is,” he said.

She didn’t reply, because she recognized his voice. “Have you spoken to anyone about… the incident?”

“Not yet.”

“Good.”

“But I will. Don’t you think I won’t.”

Remaining calm, the doctor asked: “Did you see The Matrix?”

The question was unnecessary, as he already knew that she had seen every Keanu Reeves film at least twenty times in the privacy of her forty-seat home theater.

“Of course, I saw it,” she said. “How could you even ask the question if you were listening to me in the office? But you were probably woolgathering, as usual.”

“It’s not just a movie.”

“Then what is it?”

“Reality,” the doctor said, imbuing that single word with as much ominousness as his considerable acting talent made possible.

She was silent.

“As in the movie, this is not the beginning of a new millennium, as you think. It’s actually the year 2300… and humanity has been enslaved for centuries.”

Although she said nothing, she was drawing shallower, faster breaths, a reliable physiological indicator of paranoid fantasizing.

“And, as in the movie,” he continued, “this world you think is real — is not real. It’s nothing but an illusion, a deception, a virtual reality, a stunningly detailed matrix created by an evil computer to keep you docile.”

Her silence seemed thoughtful rather than hostile, and her soft rapid breathing continued to encourage the doctor.

“In truth, you and billions of other human beings, all but a few rebels, are kept in pods, fed intravenously, wired to the computer to provide it with your bioelectric power, and fed the fantasy of this matrix.”

She said nothing.

He waited.

She outwaited him.

Finally he said, “Those two that you saw… on the beach tonight. They weren’t men. They were machines, policing the matrix, just like in the movie.”

“You must think I’m insane,” she said.

“Precisely the opposite. We’ve identified you as one of those in the pods who have begun to question the validity of this virtual reality. A potential rebel. And we want to help set you free.”

Though she said not a word, she was panting softly, like a toy poodle or some other little rag mop of a dog contemplating a mental image of a biscuit treat.

If she was already a functional paranoid, as he suspected, this scenario the doctor had laid out for her would have enormous appeal. The world must suddenly seem less confusing to her. Previously she had sensed enemies on all sides, with numerous, often inexplicable, and frequently conflicting motives, whereas now she had one enemy to focus upon: the giant, evil, world-dominating computer and its drone machines. Her obsession with Keanu — first based on love, then based on fear — had often baffled and distressed her, because it seemed so bizarre to vest so much importance in someone who was only an actor; but now she might come to understand that he wasn’t just a movie star but also The One, the chosen who would save humanity from machines, the hero of heroes, and therefore worthy of her intense interest. As a paranoid, she was convinced that reality as the mass of humanity accepted it was a sham, that the truth was stranger and more fearsome than the false reality that most people accepted, and now the doctor was confirming her suspicions. He was offering paranoia with a logical format and a comforting sense of order, which ought to be irresistible.

Finally she said, “Your implication seems to be that K-K-Keanu is my friend, my ally. But I know now he’s… dangerous.”

“You once loved him.”

“Yes, well, then I saw the truth.”

“No,” the doctor assured her. “Your original feelings toward The One were perceptive. Your instinctive sense that he is special and worthy of adoration is true and right. Your subsequent fear of him was implanted in you by the evil computer, which wants to keep you productive in your battery pod.”

Listening to himself, to the compassion and the sincerity in his voice, the doctor was beginning to feel like a raving lunatic.

She retreated into silence once more. But she didn’t hang up.

Ahriman gave her all the time she needed to brood. He must not appear to be selling this concept to her.

While he waited, he thought about what he would like for dinner. About ordering a new Ermenegildo Zegna suit. About clever uses for the bag of poop. About the thrill of pulling the trigger. About Capone’s surprising triumph at the Alamo.