Dean Koontz - False Memory

Martie and Dusty entered, appearing angry but more subdued than he expected. When he directed them to the two smaller chairs that faced his desk, they sat as instructed.

The door closed behind them.

“Doctor,” Martie said, “we don’t know what the hell’s going on, but we know it’s rotten, it stinks, it's sick, and we want answers.”

Ahriman had been consulting his computer screen as she talked. Judging by the absence of the low-level electronic field associated with a voice-activated transmitter, she was not wired.

“A moment, please,” he said, clicking a microphone icon.

“Listen,” Dusty said angrily, “we’re not going to just sit here while you —”

“Ssshhh,” the doctor admonished, finger to his lips. “Only for a moment, please, absolute silence. Absolute.”

They glanced at each other while Ahriman studied the report on the screen.

The doctor said, “Martie, there are highly sensitive microphones in this room that detect the precise, characteristic sound pattern of the rhythmically turning hubs in a cassette tape recorder. I see that you have left your purse open and are holding it tipped slightly toward me. Do you have such a device in your purse?”

Clearly shaken, she extracted the recorder.

“Put it on the desk, please.”

She leaned forward from her chair and surrendered the recorder.

Ahriman switched it off and extracted the minicassette.

“You’ve got that tape,” Martie said angrily. “All right, okay. But we’ve got a better one, you son of a bitch. We’ve got one of Susan Jagger —”

“Raymond Shaw,” said the doctor.

“I’m listening,” Martie responded, stiffening slightly in her chair as she was activated.

Immediately, as Dusty turned to frown at his wife, Ahriman said, “Viola Narvilly.”

“I’m listening,” Dusty replied, his attitude identical to that of his wife’s.

Accessing the two simultaneously would be tricky but doable. If more than six seconds passed between exchanges in their enabling haiku, they would revert to full consciousness. Therefore, he would have to switch back and forth between them, like a juggler spinning plates on top of sticks.

To Martie, he said, “Blown from the west —” “You are the west and the western wind.”

To Dusty, he said, “Lightning gleams —”

“You are the lightning.”

Now to Martie: “— fallen leaves gather —”

“The leaves are your instructions.”

And back to Dusty: “— and a night heron’s shriek —”

“The shrieks are your instructions.”

Ahriman finished with Martie: “— in the east.”

“I am the east.”

Finally to Dusty: “— travels into darkness.”

“I am the darkness.”

Martie sat with her head tipped slightly forward, her eyes on her hands, which were clutching her purse.

Beautiful bowed head. If told to blow out her brains… obeys her master.

Admittedly, this was not first-rate haiku, but the doctor found the sentiment charming.

Still turned toward his wife, head half cocked in an attitude of puzzlement, Dusty appeared to be focused on her.

Of course, she was not actually interested in her purse, and her husband was not truly aware of her, because both of them were waiting for one thing: instructions.

Perfect.

Astonished and delighted, Ahriman leaned back in his chair and marveled at how abruptly his fortunes had improved. The game, which he’d been restructuring this morning, could now be played out with much of his original strategy. All his problems were solved.

Well, except for the Keanuphobe. But now with the universe seeming to be considerate of the doctor’s every need, he expected that the issue of the hemi-billionaire bubblehead basket case would be resolved to his advantage before the day was out.

He was curious to know how this unlikely pair, the housepainter and the video-game designer, had survived New Mexico. Indeed, he had five hundred questions if he had one; he could have spent the entire day quizzing them about how they had puzzled out so much about him even with the few wild cards that had fallen in their favor.

As important as attention to detail was, however, one must also remember to keep one’s eye on the prize. The prize in this case was the successful completion of the most important game of the doctor’s career. Although originally he had intended to play with Martie for a while before using her and Dusty in Malibu, he was no longer willing to wait months, weeks, or even an extra hour for his final satisfaction.

Ultimately, in spite of their cleverness, Martie and Dusty were nothing but two plebs, two common little people desperately striving to rise above their social class, which is what all the plebs wanted even if they would never admit it, two earnest scrabblers with dreams far bigger than their ability to fulfill them. No doubt some of the details of their pathetic sleuthing would be amusing, but in the end, their escapades would be only slightly less witless than the doings of Detective Skeet and his nameless pal. They were interesting not for who they were but solely for how they could be controlled.

Before the Keanuphobe called or showed up to complicate matters, Ahriman needed to instruct Dusty and Martie, wind them up and send them off on the killing spree that would be the final inning of this game.

“Martie, Dusty, I am addressing both of you now. I will instruct you simultaneously to save time. Is this understood?”

“Is it understood?” Martie asked, even as Dusty asked, “Is it?”

“Tell me whether or not you understand what I’ve told you.”

“I understand,” they said simultaneously.

Leaning forward in his chair, savoring this moment, downright giddy with delight, not even regretting that now he would not have the chance to boff Martie a few times, the doctor said, “Later today you are going to take a drive out to Malibu —”

“Malibu… “Martie murmured.

“Yes, that’s right. Malibu. You know the address. The two of you are going out to visit Dusty’s mother, Claudette, and her husband — that greedy, grasping, self-aggrandizing little shit, Dr. Derek Lampton.”

“I understand,” Dusty said.

“Yes, I’m sure you do,” Ahriman said, amused, “since you had to live under the same roof with the reeking little pisspot. Now, when you get to Malibu, if either Claudette or Dickhead Derek is out somewhere on an errand, you must wait until both are home.”

The doctor realized that by heaping this ridicule on Lampton, he was indulging in adolescent name-calling. But, ah, what a sweet release it was.

With increasing excitement, he said, “You must wait, in fact, until their son is home, too, your venomous little half brother Derek junior — who is, by the way, as much of a suppurating pimple on the ass of humanity as his old man. Jackoff Junior will probably be there when you arrive, because he’s home-schooled, as you know. Your syphilitic stepfather has his own ass-wipe theories about education, some of which I suppose he shoved down your throat, too, and Skeet's. Anyway, they must all be present before you act. You will disable all of them but not kill them immediately. You will mutilate and dismember them in the following order: Claudette first, then Junior, then Derek shit-for-brains Lampton himself. He must be last, so he can watch everything you do to Claudette and Junior. Wednesday, Martie, I showed you a photograph of a girl whose dismembered body had been rearranged by her killer in a particularly clever fashion, and I asked you to focus particularly on that tableau. Once you’ve cut her apart, you and Dusty are going to rearrange Claudette in the same fashion, with but one variation, involving her eyes —”