Gregg Hurwitz - The Program

From the back of the room rose a plaintive keening. Almost inaudible, but others picked it up. Some Pros writhed; others froze on their sides, hands clasped over their ears. Shrieks echoed around the bare auditorium, thrown back from the corners.

"There is no one here with you." TD was almost consoling. "There is no one in the entire world that you aren't afraid of. You are completely alone in the world."

Leah's downturned, sentient face had gone a sickly hue.

I've realized that you were always an awful brother to me." Shanna sat spotlit onstage, clutching to her ear the cordless phone Randall had presented in the Growth Hall like a parchment bearing a royal decree. Somewhere hidden away was the base unit. The Pros sat in perfect silence, attending Shanna's every word. "I no longer have any use for you."

Tim sat with the other initiates in the row of folding chairs. At his feet lay the shoe box filled with his confiscated belongings. At TD's behest he'd donned the Cartier. TD looked on encouragingly from the shadows.

"I never want to see you again." Shanna's voice warbled slightly. "Good-bye."

When she hung up, there was a moment of breath-held silence, during which her tortured swallow was audible to the first few rows. Then TD edged into the light beside her and raised his hands, striking them together once, the lights eased up over the audience, and thunderous applause burst forth.

A smile twitched on Shanna's face. She rose and gave a joking curtsy.

TD strode before the others. The clapping ceased immediately at his voice. "You're unfulfilled because you're mired in the past. Innovators look forward. They break free of convention. Drop your baggage – whatever's weighing you down."

The lights faded until only a new glowing circle remained, this time encasing Jason.

He peered down at the shoe box before him. The crowd seethed with mute anticipation. He reached in hesitantly and withdrew his wallet, the jangle of his shifting keys amplified in the silence. He pulled out a wad of twenties, ripped them up, and threw the pieces. They dispersed in a green cloud.

The audience, hidden in darkness, went nuts.

He pulled a family picture from the wallet and held it up. "This is my wife, Courtney, and my two kids, Sage and Dana. I love them very much." No reaction from the crowd. "But guess what? Sometimes I get claustrophobic. Soccer practice and nannies and the baby's got another sore throat – sometimes I lose sight of myself in all of it. Sometimes I wonder how the hell I wound up here, where, between work and home, I don't have a single minute in my day that's my own." He shook his head, lips rolled over his teeth, lank ponytail swaying. "Well, at this retreat I'm here for me." He ripped the photo in half, and the room erupted. School photos of Sage and Dana followed, scraps flung from the stage glittering in the beam of light.

Lights up. Cue applause. Thunderous affirmation. People were jumping and screaming euphorically. Jason continued to shout avowals, a widemouthed exorcism.

The rapture was cut short with a stern flash of TD's hand. "Good progress, Jason." He prowled the stage now, dispensing hard-won wisdom. "A partial commitment to The Program gets you nowhere. You're either with The Program or you're Off Program. There is no in-between. That's being halfway cured of cancer or climbing halfway up Mount Everest. The Program requires dedication. Dedication is absolute. The Program is paramount above everything in your life. Paramount above children, parents, spouses, work, money, fame, ego. And why shouldn't it be? It's your life. It's your future. What's anything else worth when you don't have control of that?"

The faces remained unlined and inscrutable, a sea of catatonia.

TD moved toward Tim, and the spotlight came up on them. Tim could feel the heat coming off TD, mingling with the burn of the stage lights. A hand dropped onto his shoulder, gave it a little squeeze. "Tom, are you committed to The Program?"

At once nothing existed but the beam of light, lowered over him like a cage. Even the pressure of TD's hand had vanished. Tim squinted and sweated. Dust drifted like white sand swirled underwater; a moth made jagged upward progress toward the lighting grid. "Yes."

"I'd think a businessman like you would be tied to material possessions. To stuff. You're not gonna try to drag a yacht through the eye of the needle, are you, Tom?"

Tom Altman emitted a sharp little laugh. "No."

"Are you sure? A guy like you has got some options. Why search for strength when you can go buy a Humvee? A Humvee could make you feel like a real man. Don't you think?" TD drifted back into view, his eyes blazing into Tim's. "In fact, why face your problems at all when you can pay someone else to deal with them for you?"

The silence was overpowering. Tim could see only darkness beyond the tight scope of his spotlight. "I have everything I could want," he said. "But it doesn't mean much to me. Numbers in an account, that's all. The Fed raises interest rates, your assets drop. The Fed lowers rates, your assets rise. I've gotten so far away from what I set out to do. From what I thought I wanted." Tim felt himself getting surprisingly worked up over the burdens of imaginary affluence. He took a rattling breath, which reverberated around the Growth Hall. For all he knew, the Pros had cleared out, leaving him sitting on a stage in an empty auditorium. "I've been arrogant. I've assumed power I shouldn't have had. I've made some mistakes I wasn't entitled to make. And, even worse, I've gotten away with them. Living my life tied to that…it's no way to be."

TD stepped into the shaft of light, joining Tim. "Why don't you do something to liberate yourself from it? Break away."

"I'm ready to."

TD continued staring, lips tensed, waiting to dispense approval.

"What?" Tim's voice cracked with genuine emotion. "What can I do?"

"Only you can answer that. It has to be what's right for you." TD's eyes flicked to the eighteen-karat watch on Tim's wrist, resplendent in the glare.

Tim removed the thirty-thousand-dollar timepiece and let it dangle from a finger. TD held his hand out, and Tim leaned forward, dropped the watch into TD's cupped hand.

The lights came up, and Tom Altman was back in the world, his spirit one Cartier wristwatch lighter.

Exhausted and drained, the Pros milled around the Growth Hall, group leaders directing them to various workstations. No mention was made of breakfast.

The calling out of assignments impressed upon Tim the daunting scope of the organization. Nathan – Literature, DevRoom C. Spectacular job on the glossy four-color trifold. Shelly, Andrea, Dahlia – Accounting, LabSpace 1. Let's finish those second-quarter estimates! Ted – Expansion, DevRoom B. The Maui proposal is lagging, and the Houston projections slipped 3 percent.

And on it went, a never-ending situating of spokes in wheels. The manpower-to-cost ratio was staggering – sixty-eight affluent, educated people working themselves to exhaustion for a dollar a year.

"Tom." TD had glided up behind him. He placed an arm across Tim's shoulders, drawing him away from the others. "After seeing how well you fit in here, I might be so confident as to say that an ambassadorship has your name on it. Pick a city, and we'll go in." His hand shot up from his pocket, the Cartier hanging from the wall of his four fingers. He extended his arm.

Tim feigned astonishment. "That was my Renunciate. It's not mine anymore."

TD ran his tongue along the inside of his lip, making his patch of beard undulate. "It's a gimmick, a set of psychological training wheels for the rest of them." He nodded at the Pros, still clamoring around the group leaders. "You and I know they require it and you don't. You and I, we know what's underneath."