Gregg Hurwitz - The Program

She let out a terse little laugh, then stared bitterly at the dash. "When they make you smile all the time, you know what? You start to believe it."

Wet gusts buffeted the windshield. Tim turned right into the circular driveway. Up ahead, a familiar, disproportionate form cut a block from the gray downpour. As the Hummer crept near, ducked valets scurrying alongside it, Randall appeared – the large head, the swollen arms, the jagged mouth with spaced, glinting teeth, so much like a child's sketch.

He raised an arm in silent greeting, and they stepped out into the deluge.

Through the welcoming fanfare, through the full-body hugs and Skate's rooting in their pockets and bags, through the ceaseless kettledrum, the age regressions to abysmal childhoods, the group breathing, the weepy confessionals, Tim and Leah kept close, their shoulders brushing when they stood, their heads pressed together during floor-squirming exercises, Leah panting and sweating and pressing her nails into the soft underskin of her arm, Tim's voice staying slow and steady beneath the wails and shrieks and the low-resolution rumbling of the storm outside. In fine form, TD strode the stage, his voice a teasing build of outrage that roused the crowd to spurts of chanting, until all at once the spotlight plucked Tom Altman from the profusion of bodies writhing and twisting in orgiastic frenzy. Sean, Esq., bore the documents to him, overlapped on a silver tray like a spread of hardwood-smoked delicacies, and as Tim bent to press the tip of the fountain pen to paper, the crowd climaxed into riotous applause.

When the sweaty burden of continual embrace at last lifted and the fluorescents flickered on, Tim stood stunned and blinking, his clothes gripping him like a cowl of seaweed, Leah going pale at his side as if she were barely holding on.

She laced her hands behind his neck, doing a drunken girl's slump into his arms so he bore most of her weight. Her mouth found his ear, whispering between pants, though he couldn't make out all the words.

"…couldn't…without you…don't know…hold out long…"

At once Janie was by her side, prying her off, sliding her neck beneath her arm. "You two are mighty close now – great Gro-Par bond. Someone taught you well."

Tim met Janie's silent-comedy wink with a weak smile. When he turned, he nearly collided with Randall's chest. Skate slid around to his other side.

"TD wants you in DevRoom A," Randall said.

Leah looked panicked at the prospect of his leaving, but he tore his eyes away and followed the Protectors.

Neither touched him, but they trapped him in the space between their bodies as they escorted him from the auditorium. They threaded through several paired Pros exuberantly rehearsing their recruitment tactics for the Next Generation Colloquium.

"I bet you never got anywhere by turning down new opportunities!" an East Asian girl implored her role-playing opposite.

At the far wall, Stanley John berated a muster of Pros for being brainwashed idiots – desensitization training to make them impervious to future persecution.

Skate led them down the hall. When he pulled the door open, Tim stepped inside, unsure what to expect now that Tom Altman had ostensibly signed away control of his holdings. TD awaited him, his armchair pulled in to a card table, a deck in his hands.

Always a shtick.

The door eased shut behind him. The Protectors had gone.

"Please." TD shuffled the deck, cut it one-handed, then shuffled again. "Sit." His hands blurred, and the first two floors of a house of cards appeared. "You're now a true member of the Inner Circle. A founding father."

Tim did his best to plaster a pleased smile across his face.

"Let me tell you what you have here." Even as he turned his gaze to Tim, his hands moved swiftly, confidently – within seconds eight more cards held firm in a tilted lean. "Endless possibility. Zero boundaries. Success – you know as well as I do – is a house of cards." As TD spoke, he pointed to each level in turn. "Belief is on the bottom. Then actions. Then emotions. Then thought. And finally…the result. But" – his finger snapped upright – "the minute you have a doubt…" His eyes staying on Tim, he flicked a bottom card, and the impressive structure tumbled. TD's pupils were like obsidian – compressed darkness, sleek and impenetrable. Tim felt them probing his brain, and he broke eye contact, though the heat of TD's glare didn't subside.

"That will happen to The Program if we flinch. It would have happened to your company if you showed weakness. It could have happened at any point during your negotiations to sell, right?" He looked to Tom for an answer but continued talking. "The Program is reaching critical mass. It can grow five times, ten times faster if you and I run the business aspect of it together."

He directed his attention back to the cards, which drew themselves into his hands like metal shavings before a magnet. "Give it some thought."

Though the storm had quieted, the sky stayed murky, like churned-up water. Leah followed Randall down the curving trail, her adrenaline quickening.

Every step brought her closer to TD's bed.

Her mind was clear, but her body had shown itself willing to betray her. In the Growth Hall, her breath had moved through her as if directed by another entity. She'd grown sweaty and languorous, desirous of dissolution. Swept off by the rising trumpets, she'd almost surrendered to the thunderous chants, the lulling monotone. The stronger she'd fought, the more painful it had felt, like flailing offshore with a cramped leg.

After dinner she'd managed only a few minutes alone with Tom in their room before Randall's summoning knock.

Walking down the corridor of brush, she willed herself under control.

The Teacher's cottage drew into view. Across the clearing, the usual smoke twisted up from the stovepipe of the shed. Through the open door, she saw the soles of Skate's feet, bare and stained, pointing up from the cot. The dogs arose with ferocious snarling, startling Skate back to life. Leah froze, but Randall's hand grasped the back of her neck, squeezing gently as he steered her forward. Wearing a stretched pair of underwear, Skate hunched over the dogs in the shed, ordering them into submission. They yelped and snatched at each other.

Randall delivered her to the front room of the cottage and left her with trembling legs. She heard TD's raised voice above the deafening blast of the four-nozzle shower, dictating orders to Stanley John. Lorraine was probably in there with them, either extracting hair from the soap between latherings or on her knees beneath the spray, prepping him for Leah.

In its place beside the door sat the white plastic bucket, U.S. POSTAL SERVICE emblazoned on it sides. She raised the top envelope from the stack, reading the return address: Office of the U.S. Marshal. 312 N. Spring St., G-23. The envelope was a Day-Glo, yellow – hard to miss.

She ran to the door and called for Skate across the clearing, not too loudly. Putting the dogs on a sit-stay, he came grudgingly, buttoning a pair of tattered jeans on his way. The Dobermans snarled at her, rising on their haunches. Skate paused before the porch, his face blank.

"The mail's here." She held out the tub, praying the next step would be self-evident.

Skate tugged his underwear out of his ass. "I know. I just brought it."

Whatever response she'd been expecting, it wasn't that. "Uh, TD just told me to tell you."

"He done sorting it?"

Behind her she heard the shower go off, and her stomach turned to ice. "Yes."

With a grunt he lifted the crate from her hands and headed back across the clearing.

Her heart racing, she watched to see where he was going. She recalled that the mod had a paper shredder.