Gregg Hurwitz - The Program

Tim pushed open the window, eased himself out, and crouched at the base of the wall, mindful of the motion detector dangling from the roof's northwest corner. About forty yards away, one of the Dobies turned, ears perked, and looked directly at Tim. Forest green fleece pulled bandido style up over his mouth, Tim didn't move, didn't blink. The wind livened, whooshing in his ears. The dog stayed on point.

Skate snapped his fingers, and the Doberman reluctantly turned to trot beside his companion.

Tim pursued them, moving from cottage wall to tree trunk, not wanting to lose them in the darkness. Through the plastic bags, his feet left smudged, scentless indentations. When Skate banked around the lawn's far curve, Tim struck out swiftly for the trail leading down to TD's cottage. His jeans whistling at the inseam, his sheathed sneakers sliding on loose rock, he sprinted down the slope.

He reached the forbidden clearing and paused at a leaky pine, taking in the half-submerged wagon wheels, the grand porch, the candle flicker visible through the side window. Opera blared from TD's cottage. Across the way, Skate and Randall's shed nestled within a mass of brush. Orange light shimmered through the seams of the slatted wooden door. A silhouette crouched inside – Randall. Black smoke fumed from the pipe chimney, diffused by the rain cap. A blaze of fiery ash hiccupped out, then Tim heard the clank of an iron door. Judging from the gaps between the warped boards, the shed's frigidity outnumbed even that of the cottages; they probably kept the fire going all night.

Tim circled the clearing, ducking through bushes and rakelike branches. He passed behind the shed, close enough to peer through a rift in the wood. Randall relaxed shirtless on a cot, his flesh sleek with perspiration and jaundiced from the flames. He was reading a letter and chuckling maliciously.

The door to the mod confronted Tim with a rise of locks and a padlock dangling from a hasp staple. He plucked the meager bobby pin from his lips and twirled it between two fingers. Cold bit into him at the wrists and neck.

He humped his way up a nearby oak, bark scraping his cheek, then swung out along the branch. He absorbed the three-foot drop to the roof with a deep-knee bend, making barely a sound. Four screws secured the skylight pane in its housing, so he rebent the bobby pin to form a flat length and worked it until his fingers cramped. Once the top screws were loosened, he slid the pane out of its housing. He removed the trash bags and stuffed them in a pocket. Gripping the edge, he swung down into the mod, landing softly on his clean Nikes.

He pulled the flexible-rod flashlight from his back pocket and uncurled it. The confined tactical signature illuminated TD standing in the room, arms crossed confidently. Tim started at the cardboard display. A few moments' pause helped him level his breathing and stop smiling at himself. Then he moved systematically through the modular, searching through boxes and crates. He turned up a staggering array of propaganda and a locked Pelican case he presumed held ordnance; a barrel key in the bottom desk drawer fit the case, which opened to reveal a cache of fifteen handguns. Not wanting to pause to write down the registration numbers, he resecured the case, making a note to return to it if he had time. He couldn't risk a spin through the computer – his tech skills weren't good enough to justify the risk of a glowing monitor – but the bank of file cabinets beckoned.

Torturing the bobby pin further, he got through the crappy locks. He sat on the floor with the flashlight goosenecked between his teeth, flipping through file after file. All five drawers of the first cabinet housed prospective land purchases for TDB Corp. Various business models and proposals filled the next cabinet, many of them too complicated for Tim to assess.

The bottom drawers held social-science research. Table 1-9: Increasing Immediacy in Obedience-Inducing Force. Chart 4: Compliance as a Function of Demographic Group. Generating Socially Undesirable Behavior: A Reward-Cost Analysis.

TD had compiled his own database to underpin The Program.

Moving quickly, Tim evened documents' edges, realigned paper clips in their grooves, replaced folders in their hanging files. At the snap of a twig or the rattle of the wind, he'd click off the light and take a position of cover beneath the desk; the vigorous weather proved an impediment to swift progress.

He came upon lists of all sorts. A list of Decrees for TD's higher-ups – Do not make spontaneous eye contact with the Teacher; a list of Glitches – Touching the Teacher's skin when you are menstruating; a list of System Errors – Taking any action without your Gro-Par; even a list of Invisible Viruses – Having negative thoughts about The Program.

One file was stuffed with letters from TD bearing his signature stamp. Tim fanned the stack, eyeballing one in the middle – The Teacher forgives you for having an unflattering dream image of him last night. The adjacent file explained the mass-produced absolutions – letters to him from the Pros, begging forgiveness for everything from unauthorized masturbation to clandestine snacks.

The final two cabinets accommodated the most disturbing materials, dossiers on every Pro and initiate. Glancing through them recalled the eeriness Tim had felt perusing his own file in the midst of last year's mess.

The meticulous logging was mind-boggling. Sleep schedules. Weekly Gro-Par reports – Winona complained twice yesterday of missing her twins. Self-report forms – Name your complaints about The Program you least want to say out loud. Medical reports from the ranch physician, one Dr. Henderson, who seemed to double as a shrink – Chad complained of perianal itching; he believes it's stress-related. He's not yet fully sublimated into GrowthWork; he recalled weight-lifting fondly. A peek inside Dr. Henderson's file revealed him to be a podiatrist who'd had his license revoked for selling OxyContin, a juicy nugget rooted out by an outside PI, one Phil McCanley. TD had created a time-tested system for psychological leverage – trickle-down snitchonomics.

Tim found Leah's file and spent more time on it than was judicious. Primary trauma – father's death. Primary phobia – cancer. Primary victimization – enabling others in their victimhood. Point of leverage: stepdad. Below this the wrongdoings Will had ostensibly perpetrated upon Leah – the precise list she had regurgitated to Tim last night. Having scrutinized similar lists in countless other files helped put Will's allegedly abusive parenting in perspective. Dr. Henderson had much to report on Leah's rash. A pink bow fastened a bundle of love letters Leah had written to her new self. A note jotted on TD's letterhead made Tim's stomach churn: Latent feelings of unwantedness and minor instances of neglect serve as tenable areas of exploration. Guide Leah to recall physical and sexual abuse.

Tom Altman's file held exhaustive financial information regarding his phony portfolio. Not surprisingly, murdered daughter was Tom's key point of leverage; Tim felt another wave of shame at having exploited the trauma so cheaply. The file was updated to include TD's suspicion, then confirmation, of the murder-for-hire, as well as the fictional hit man's blunder. Tom's bout of impotence had already appeared, as well as his extensive dish-wiping miscues from yesterday's lunch. His divorce was noted as well. All in all, the file declared him an exceptional candidate.

A gray file in the back of the drawer caught his attention. The tab read Dead Link, and as Tim flipped through it, he realized it was different from the others he'd seen. No photo, just a name – Wayne Topping – a computer folder designation – c:/TD/docs/deadlink4/ -and a status entry – Missing. Tim went back through the other drawers and came upon several more Dead Link files hidden among the others. Each seemed to correspond to a person who'd left or been removed from The Program. Ernie Tramine's status at the Neuropsychiatric Institute was noted. A girl had killed herself at the Le Brea Tar Pits – Tim recalled the newspaper story from several weeks ago – and more suicides were reported, neatly closing out three more files. According to his folder, Reggie Rondell was checked into a psychiatric ward in Santa Barbara. Another girl's status was listed as Active.