Gregg Hurwitz - The Program

"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."