Gregg Hurwitz - The Program

TD reached to hand Tim the Cartier, and Tim stepped back, feeling a stab of agitation. "I don't want the fucking watch, all right?"

TD watched him, pleased. "That's commendable. But don't kid yourself. You killed a man not responsible for your daughter's death, and you think you're atoning by driving around in your Hummer and feeling bad? How do you think that person's family feels?" He examined Tim's face, his eyes. "Giving up a watch isn't renouncing your former self. It's renouncing an accessory of your former self. And you and I both know what you have to give up is a lot deeper than that."

He tilted his hand, letting the watch slide off into Tim's hands, and walked off.

As Tim and Leah passed along the rear of the cafeteria, she averted her eyes from the side of the walk-in freezer so as not to catch a prohibited glimpse of her reflection. She forged ahead of Tim, cresting the north rise of the ranch, her feet plopping through a stretch of weedy field steeped in rainwater. Indistinct clouds, the color of dirty ice, smudged the sky.

TD had lowered a digital camera on a lanyard around her neck -her task was to capture some inspiring shots of the ranch for the nascent Web site. She'd barely spoken to Tim since he'd harassed her during the Guy-Med, but Gro-Par convention meant they were stuck together. The Program required constant companionship, a weakness Tim hoped to spin to his advantage when it came time to extract her.

Leah traced the perimeter of the ranch, keeping dutifully south of the chalk line. She snapped a picture of the mist settling into the distant hills. "It's always better to upload digitals. The guy running the site before insisted on scanning prints, but that gives lower resolution."

Tim took up the proffered conversation. "You must be glad to be running it now."

"I am." A trace of girlish pride found its way into her smile. "I guarantee you I love programming more than anyone else up here."

"What about it do you love?"

"Its simplicity. There's an elegance to a good program. A finite number of keystrokes in a particular order yields a predictable result. When there's a malfunction, the code can be tested, diagnosed, repaired. It all works the same ways, abides by the same laws." She scowled. "Programs beat people that way."

"We have more glitches."

She looked at him sideways, wearing a half smile. "That's right."

Though Tim had only a vague idea what time it was, the gray sky suggested dusk was encroaching. They walked for a while in silence. "What you said last night. About my daughter. I think you're right. I spend too much time talking about her murder, her absence, and not enough time talking about her. I think when I get back to talking about her, I'll remember what it was like to be a parent, not just a victim-by-proxy." A thought of Dray stole through his defenses. "I need to do that."

A turkey vulture lazed in circles over the distant water tower, drawing Tim's attention. Leah inhaled sharply. One hand covered her mouth, the other pointed at his feet. Expecting a rattlesnake, he looked down. His foot had strayed over the chalked boundary.

"You crossed the boundary." Her tone wasn't scolding; it was shocked.

He stood still, one leg on either side of the divide. "What did you think would happen if someone stepped over?"

"I don't…I don't know." She drew near, studying his foot. "I never thought about it, I guess." Her voice hardened. "We don't leave the ranch. Not even a footstep."

"Do you think it'll damage you to step over?" He offered his hand to her.

She studied his face, then the chalked line, then his face again. The heel of her sneaker rose, but the toe stayed planted. She stared at his hand for a long time. Her cheeks were splotched from the wind.

She reached out, her fingers hesitant, and took his hand. She waited for him to pull her. When he didn't, she put one foot across. Her other hand came up to his chest, as if she were breaking a stumble, and they faced each other. Despite the cold, the tips of her hair had darkened with sweat.

Before her mood could turn, Tim stepped back across. She was shaking as they made their way back.

TD twisted the mike free from his headset and handed it to Shanna.

Assembled in the Growth Hall in an immense circle around them, the Pros stretched their limbs, blinking the grogginess from their eyes. Tim watched by Leah's side.

Shanna stared at the little black bulb of the mike, opened her mouth, then hesitated.

Stanley John began to stomp his foot on the floorboards, slowly, rhythmically. A few Pros joined in, then a handful more. Within seconds the auditorium thrummed with the beat. Tim watched the skin of Leah's face smooth until it was devoid of expression, cadaverous. Her cheeks vibrated as she slammed her foot down, paused, slammed again.

Shanna was breathing hard, hand resting on her chest. TD hovered with a placid grin. She whispered something to him. He spread his arms. The pounding ceased.

She leaned awkwardly over the mike rather than raising it to her mouth. "I've decided to break my ties with my old self."

The flare of noise startled her, her eyes widening as the Pros charged her. Ecstatic embraces. Sports-arena whistles. Julie and Lorraine held hands around her, leaping for joy. Confused at first, she joined in. Soon she wore a similar face-splitting smile.

Tim caught himself clapping like an idiot. He searched for the other initiates in the crowd – Jason was joining in, babbling about catharsis. Don wore a vicarious smile. Wendy alone looked troubled, standing at the fringe of the festivities. Chad found her immediately, pulling her into a spontaneous hug, the embrace of two fans brought together by the winning touchdown.

From the rear, Stanley John pressed forward, bearing a stack of legal-size documents.

Tim sat on the toilet and devoured a protein bar – his second to last. He licked the inside of the foil wrapper before ripping it up and flushing it. Shaving without a mirror proved a challenge, but he managed as he had on deployments. He used his free hand to help guide the razor around his goatee.

He knocked the blade against the lip of the sink and walked down the hall, his shoulders slumped with fatigue. The floor felt glacial through his socks. He pushed open the door to find Leah on her bed, facing the wall, her spine a pronounced stroke on the arc of her bare back. Bathed in the throw of light from the room's sole lamp, her shoulders heaved once, then stilled.

To Tim's surprise she didn't whip the sheet across herself or reach for her shirt, which lay puddled by her pillow. Instead she rolled over, revealing the profile of a modest breast and an angry red inflammation on her chest. Her face was slick with tears.

She sat up, collected her shirt, and stared at the rash. "It's your fault it hasn't gone away." Her voice was little more than a hoarse whisper. "Please don't tell them."

Before he could respond, she reached over and clicked off the light.

Arms crossed over his knees, Lorraine's bobby pin pinched between his pale lips, Tim sat up in bed, waiting for Skate and the dogs to make their next pass around Cottage Circle. He wore two T-shirts beneath the sweater he'd pinched from Leah's drawer and an extra pair of socks. Trash bags, procured from the bathroom, encased his legs to the knees; he'd used shoelaces from his hipster Skechers to cinch them in place. Minutes before, he'd crept down the hall and unplugged the alarm's adapter, laying it beneath the outlet on the kitchenette counter.

Across in the dark, Leah was breathing raggedly, having cried herself to sleep. She'd refused to talk to him, a backslide in rapport.

The leaves of the elm said the wind was blowing east at a good clip, a Santa Ana riptide mountain-funneled back across the plateau. Tim would have to stalk Skate downslope to avoid the Dobermans' scent cone. He stared at the desolate ring of grass until Skate appeared, shuffling heavily by, the dogs' paws plunking in puddles.