Gregg Hurwitz - The Program

He sighed and ran his hands over his face. "I know it might appear cruel, but I have a responsibility here. I can't let someone like her infect the rest of you who are working so hard to grow past your physical and psychological limitations."

His indirect compliment warmed her, if only slightly.

"Before you go weepy for Nancy," he said, "why don't you reflect on the fact that this wake-up call is the best thing that could ever happen to her?"

Leah asked tentatively, "Do you think it was the best thing for Lisa Kander?"

She was worried TD might get angry, but he just laughed. "Now that you mention it, yes. She found life without The Program too much to bear. So she took her comfort in the soothing hiss of the tar pits. Beats living a lie. Beats being one of the walking dead. At least she took back some control in her death." He reached over and stroked Leah's head. "Good night. I need my sleep, and so do you." He smiled. "Big day tomorrow."

Wedged between a smoggy run of Sepulveda and perpetual traffic mainlining up Century Boulevard into LAX, the Radisson held its ground with a certain imperviousness and vanity, as if the recent renovation had fooled the establishment into thinking highly of itself. Tim pulled up and dropped a duplicate key in the palm of a youthful valet who all but Matrixed over getting an eyeful of the banana yellow ride.

"Keep it up front."

The valet nodded. "A-ight."

Standing erect amid streams of incoming attendees, Lorraine greeted Tim at the automatic glass doors, wearing a stewardess's polyester smile. "Nice wheels."

She took his arm, guiding him through the brochure-glossy lobby, leaving the others to progress unattended. Bill O'Reilly flapped about immigrants from a suspended TV in the bar area. A fountain nestled in the curving staircase's embrace burbled, the sound drifting with them up and around to a spacious second-floor landing. North-facing windows provided a view of a loading dock, a back parking lot, and an emergency exit.

A confusion of people sorted neatly into the International Ballroom through a set of double doors, the so-called Pros distinguishable by pressed blue polos and matching purposefulness. With a faint grin, Lorraine suddenly receded into the press of bodies, no doubt off to escort some other affluent convert.

Not only had event attendance grown exponentially since Reggie's day, but the target demographics had fanned out. The Neos, ranging from late teens to thirties, appeared to represent a variety of backgrounds. They hummed with nervous anticipation, picking up on the exuberance of the cult members. A few stragglers gathered near the back of the landing, staring longingly at a roped-off bank of pay phones guarded by an OFF-LIMITS! sign on a stout brass post. No one dared cross the velvet cord.

Tim scanned the crowd, looking for Leah's distinctive shaggy brown hair. The blue polos and flushed, youthful faces made the cult members easy to pick out as they darted to and fro completing their preparations, but there were too many for him to keep track. He barely had time to eyeball the ushers guarding the ballroom doors before a toothy young jock at a draped check-in table requested his name. Yes, Tom, there was a $500 fee. Wasn't his fulfillment worth spending a few bucks? No, they couldn't accept a personal check, but AmEx or Visa would be fine.

Another hand-off and he was whisked through the doors by a robust young woman in a shapeless dress. Two segmented partitions divided the fourteen-thousand square feet of ballroom. Another brass-post sign identified the empty first section as ACTSPACE. Led by hand, Tim passed through a gap in the partition into a second area with about three hundred chairs positioned in a giant horseshoe, the open end facing a dais. The sign there, predictably, read HEARSPACE. The woman deposited him in the rear at a banquet table and vanished. Enya oozed, bass-heavy and forlorn, from hidden speakers.

Tim accepted a glass of punch from a female Pro and surreptitiously gifted its contents to a fake ficus leaning from a peat pot. So he wouldn't stand out, he held on to the clear plastic cup, carrying traces of the punch. He avoided the snacks but crumpled a napkin in his hand. As he drifted effortlessly through the clots of people, he grudgingly recognized that he owed his father much of his ability to work undercover. The others chatted nervously, strained alertness tightening their faces. The 5:00 A.M. commencement meant a four o'clock wake-up for most participants, giving them a head start on exhaustion.

"I can't really afford this whole deal," a burly guy in a jean jacket was telling a few uninterested girls and a tattooed Marine, "but the owner said he'd only hire me if I went through this thing." He tapped a passing Pro, who turned glassy pupils and a disarming grin in his direction. "Hey, what are we gonna be doing anyway?"

"You don't want me to tell you anything about today's work before we get to it. It would undermine your experience."

Tim stood at the fringe of the group, his eyes picking over the enormous room. Numerous light panels and thermostats, carpeted metal partitions and cloth-dressed walls, hideously patterned rug, equally offensive chandeliers like dimpled breasts. A service elevator briefly came into view when a stressed-out blue-shirt swept through a rear waitstaff door – Tim's favored extraction route.

Tim craned his neck to see through the fifteen-foot gap in the second partition, but the far ballroom section, labeled PROSPACE, was dark. He edged nearer, wanting a peek at Oz's command center. Cult members continued to stream out like diligent ants; he guessed there were sixty in all.

Easing away from the crowd, he neared the dark portal to Prospace, his advance going unnoticed. He shouldered against the makeshift jamb near a pinned velvet curtain, ready to slip through. Scurrying figures were barely discernible beyond, shadows against shadows.

A small orb in the darkness was suddenly illuminated – the glowing red dials of a sound board firing up – and there stood Leah, knock-kneed and soft-faced and taller than he'd imagined, bent over the apparatus like a pianist. Her slim fingers punched buttons and adjusted dials. Her competence and apparent collectedness made clear that the abduction was not going to be as simple as he'd imagined -carting off a zoned-out cult zombie. She looked up, burgundy suffusing her hair at the tips, and their eyes met and held. She smiled, showing off an angled front tooth, and he had just an instant to take in the absolute sweetness of her expression before a block of shadow took form and collided with him, a forehead striking the side of his face.

He fell back into the light. A squat guy was standing over him, shoulders drawn back so his arms bowed wide. A sweatshirt with ripped-off sleeves was pulled tight across his broad chest. A necklace – copper wires threaded through earth-tone beads – was embedded in the V of chest hair visible beneath the shoelace stitching the ripped collar. He matched the description of the thug who'd assisted Leah with her move, bead necklace and all.

"Didn't see you," Tim said.

"Not allowed back here," the guy answered.

The thrill of finding Leah took the edge off the throbbing in Tim's cheek. A sharp pain pinched his hip where something hard and metal had struck him. A concealed weapon?

Tim pulled himself to his feet; no hand was offered. "Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't realize it was limited access. I'm Tom Altman."

The man stood motionless and unblinking. "You wanna be back over with the others."

The glow from the sound board had vanished, taking Leah with it.

"I didn't get your name." Tim smiled self-consciously. "I don't know anyone here."

"Skate Daniels. We're, uh, preparing back here."