"No."
"It's not the same. You're clear about that?"
"Yes."
"Absolutely clear?"
"Yes. "
"Then why did you react as if it were?"
"Huh-?"
Foreman's voice pressed in hard. "THEN WHY DID YOU REACT AS IF IT WERE THE SAME?"
"I . . . I . . ." I could feel my throat constricting painfully. There was pressure in my chest. I couldn't breathe
"It's all right," said Foreman. He touched my shoulder with his hand. "Tell me what you're feeling."
"I can't breathe. It hurts."
"Where does it hurt?"
"In my--chest." I touched my breastbone. "There's pressure."
"Like you're being squashed?"
"Yes."
"Mm-hm. I want you to notice something, Jim. I asked you a question-and instead of answering it, you came up with a lot of strong physical feelings. There's something going on here that you're not yet telling the truth about, but it's still trying to communicate itself. You're trying to hold it in and it's trying to get out, so it's being expressed as a physical pressure. So this time, when I ask the question, I want you to let the answer out, all right?"
I gulped and nodded.
"Why did you react as if this training were the same as the other one?"
"Because it looked the same and I was afraid I would end up the same way-" I blurted it out so fast, the words stumbled over each other. It was easier to say than I thought. "I was scared. I don't want to give up control of my mind again."
"I have bad news for you," Foreman stage-whispered in my ear. "You can't."
"Huh?"
"It's your mind. Can anyone else but you be responsible for what it does?"
"Uh, no. Are you telling me I was never brainwashed?"
"I'm not telling you anything. I'm just standing here asking questions."
"You're saying there's no such thing as brainwashing, aren't you?" I could feel my panic rising again. I was on a roller coaster. I felt trapped. "I know what you're suggesting. You're going to tell me that I'm copping out-that my saying I was brainwashed is how I avoid being responsible for what I did, isn't it?"
"Is it?"
"That's what you're saying!" I was shouting now. "At least, you're implying it! But I was there and I know what happened! And I didn't know how else it could be worked out! All I know is what happened last time. This looked the same! And I got scared!"
"That's perfect," said Foreman. "That's absolutely perfect."
"Huh?" I was suddenly confused. "What is?"
"What you just said. Say it again."
"It looked the same and I got scared."
"Right." Foreman seized on it. "It looked the same to you-so you reacted as if it were the same situation, even when it wasn't. Do you see that?"
"Oh, yes."
"It was all automatic, wasn't it? Your button got pushed and your machinery went off, didn't it?"
"Uhh . . ." I sagged in the chair. "Oof." I put my hands over my eyes.
"What's on that tape, Jim?"
"Uh, anger . . . ?"
"Are you asking me or telling me?"
"Anger," I said. "I'm telling you."
"There's something else, Jim. That wasn't just anger. What else was there?"
I swallowed, lowered my hand and said quietly, "Rage. I mean-I wasn't human for a while, I was an animal. I wanted to kill. I would have killed then. If I could have."
"Uh-huh." Foreman nodded. "That rage came up very clearly. Can you see how automatic it was?"
"Yes," I admitted. He was right. I felt like I wanted to tremble and cry, but at the same time I was feeling lighter too.
"That's a very old tape, that one-you inherited it from your umpty-great grandfather-you know, the one who climbed down from the trees. It's called fight-or-flight. It's part of your operating system. It's always watching, judging, and burping up reactions. This time, it burped up the concept that your survival was threatened and it plugged in the appropriate response. You went into fight-or-flight mode, didn't you?"
"Yeah, I did." I felt embarrassed.
"How long have you been carrying that rage around?"
"Uh-at least a year."
"Oh, no; much longer than that. How about, most of your life . . . ? How old are you?"
"Twenty-five "
"Uh-huh. It takes a long time to build up that much rage. At least three billion years. That rage is your whole evolutionary history; you've been angry since the day you got kicked out of mommy's nice warm baby-maker. Only you just don't let yourself admit it. Do you let your rage out often?"
"Um, more now than I used to."
"Mm-hm. Does it work?"
"What do you mean?"
"When you go into fight-or-flight mode, you plug into your rage. Does it handle the situation that triggered the fight-or-flight mode?"
"Oh, I see." I had to think about this one. "No . . . not really. "
"Mm-hm-but you've kept on doing it, haven't you?"
"I . . . I didn't know what else to do."
"That's right. You didn't know what else to do. That rage was one of your primary operating modes. You shift into it very easily-because you don't know that there are any other modes available to you, do you? You'll spend your whole life trying to find the right operating mode; the one that can handle every situation you fall into. What's driving you crazy is that there isn't one.
"There isn't a right way, Jim. There's only appropriate and inappropriate. When the renegades captured you, what you did was appropriate. You surrendered. You shifted into another mode, another operating state, that's all. Your problem is that you don't like knowing that mode is part of your spectrum of operating modes. Right?" He fixed me on the point of his stare. "Right?"
I nodded. I swallowed hard and admitted it. "Right."
"Good," Foreman said quietly. He patted my shoulder again. "Thank you, Jim." He turned around to include the rest of the room again. "Listen up! This course is not about finding the right mode. It's about the person who makes up the operating modesit's about mastering the technology that operates the piece." He patted the top of his head to indicate what "piece" he was talking about. "So here's how it works. It's very simple. In this course, you are going to experience as many different operating modes as you can make up. We will keep doing that day after day after day after day. We'll do it for as long as is necessary-until you get the joke."
Foreman started to turn back to me, then caught himself. "Oh-one more thing. Jim raised some points here about brainwashing. Let me handle that right now." He completed his turn and looked me straight in the eye, again. "Jim, do you know the difference between brainwashing and training?"
I shook my head. "Obviously not."
"It's really very simple. You get to choose to be trained. You don't get to choose to be brainwashed." Foreman turned back to me and said, "Did you choose to be a part of Jason Delandro's tribe?"
"It looked like it-but no, not at first. Not at the beginning, I never did."
"Right. Did you choose to be here?"
I looked at the memory. "Yes, I did. I want this training. I signed up because I thought it would help me-get better."
"Yes, I know," said Foreman. "Now, then: you said you wanted to leave. Do you still want to?"
"Huh?"
"Remember? You were on the floor, screaming at me. You said you didn't want to do this any more."
"Oh," I said. "But I didn't mean it. I mean, I did-but I don't any more." I had to laugh. "That really was fight-or-flight, wasn't it? No, I want to stay."
There was loud laughter now. And applause. The wall of faces suddenly disintegrated. I wasn't alone any more. And this time, the tears in my eyes were tears of happiness.
I didn't know why, but I was happy. Again.