"Just an interface, Father. You don't use the parallel port anyway, and I can put it back afterward."
"The Atari and the hard disk aren't even compatible."
"I know," said Joe.
But in the end there really couldn't be much argument. Joe knew computers better than Alvin did, and they both knew that what Joe took apart, Joe could put together. It took days of tinkering with hardware and plinking at the program. During that time Joe did nothing else. In the beginning he tried to distract himself. At lunch he told Mother about books they ought to read; at dinner he spoke to Father about Newton and Einstein until Alvin had to remind him that he was a biologist, not a mathematician. No one was fooled by these attempts at breaking the obsession. The tarot program drew Joe back after every meal, after every interruption, until at last he began to refuse meals and ignore the interruptions entirely.
"You have to eat. You can't die for this silly game," said Mother.
Joe said nothing. She set a sandwich by him, and he ate some of it.
"Joe, this had gone far enough. Get yourself under control," said Father.
Joe didn't look up. "I'm under control," he said, and he went on working.
After six days Alvin came and stood between Joe and the television set. "This nonsense will end now," Alvin said. "You are behaving like a boy with serious problems. The most obvious cure is to disconnect the computer, which I will do if you do not stop working on this absurd program at once. We try to give you freedom, Joe, but when you do this to us and to yourself, then--"
"That's all right," said Joe. "I've mostly finished it anyway." He got up and went to bed and slept for fourteen hours.
Alvin was relieved. "I thought he was losing his mind."
Connie was more worried than ever. "What do you think he'll do if it doesn't work?"
"Work? How could it work? Work at what? Cross my palm with silver and I'll tell your future."
"Haven't you been listening to him?"
"He hasn't said a word in days."
"He believes in what he's doing. He thinks his program will tell the truth."
Alvin laughed. "Maybe your doctor, what's-his-name, maybe he was right. Maybe there was brain damage after all."
Connie looked at him in horror. "God, Alvin."
"A joke, for Christ's sake."
"It wasn't funny."
They didn't talk about it, but in the middle of the night, at different times, each of them got up and went into Joe's room to look at him in his sleep.
Who are you? Connie asked silently. What are you going to do if this project of yours is a failure? What are you going to do if it succeeds?
Alvin, however, just nodded. He refused to be worried. Phases and stages of life. Children go through times of madness as they grow.
Be a lunatic thirteen-year-old, Joe, if you must. You'll return to reality soon enough. You're my son, and I know that you'll prefer reality in the long run.
The next evening Joe insisted that his father help him test the program. "It won't work on me," Alvin said. "I don't believe in it. It's like faith healing and taking vitamin C for colds. It never works on skeptics."
Connie stood small near the refrigerator. Alvin noticed the way she seemed to retreat from the conversation.
"Did you try it?" Alvin asked her.
She nodded.
"Mom did it four times for me," Joe said gravely.
"Couldn't get it right the first time?" Father asked. It was a joke.
"Got it right every time," Joe said.
Alvin looked at Connie. She met his gaze at first, but then looked away in -- what? Fear? Shame? Embarrassment? Alvin couldn't tell. But he sensed that something painful had happened while he was at work. "Should I do it?" Alvin asked her.
"No," Connie whispered.
"Please," Joe said. "How can I test it if you won't help? I can't tell if it's right or wrong unless I know the people doing it."
"What kind of fortuneteller are you?" Alvin asked. "You're supposed to be able to tell the future of strangers."
"I don't tell the future," Joe said. "The program just tells the truth."
"Ah, truth!" said Alvin. "Truth about what?"
"Who you really are."
"Am I in disguise?"
"It tells your names. It tells your story. Ask Mother if it doesn't."
"Joe," Alvin said, "I'll play this little game with you. But don't expect me to regard it as true. I'll do almost anything for you, Joe, but I won't lie for you."
"I know."
"Just so you understand."
"I understand."
Alvin sat down at the keyboard. From the kitchen came a sound like the whine a cringing hound makes, back in its throat. It was Connie, and she was terrified. Her fear, whatever caused it, Was contagious. Alvin shuddered and then ridiculed himself for letting this upset him. He was in control, and it was absurd to be afraid. He wouldn't be snowed by his own son.
"What do I do?"
"Just type things in."
"What things?"
"Whatever comes to mind."
"Words? Numbers? How do I know what to write if you don't tell me?"
"It doesn't matter what you write. Just so you write whatever you feel like writing."
I don't feel like writing anything, Alvin thought. I don't feel like humoring this nonsense another moment. But he could not say so, not to Joe; he had to be the patient father, giving this absurdity a fair chance. He began to come up with numbers, with words. But after a few moments there was no randomness, no free association in his choice. It was not in Alvin's nature to let chance guide his choices. Instead he began reciting on the keyboard the long strings of genetic-code information on his most recent bacterial subjects, fragments of names, fragments of numeric data, progressing in order through the DNA. He knew as he did it that he was cheating his son, that Joe wanted something of himself. But he told himself, What could be more a part of me than something I made?
"Enough?" he asked Joe.
Joe shrugged. "Do you think it is?"
"I could have done five words and you would have been satisfied?"
"If you think you're through, you're through," Joe said quietly.
"Oh, you're very good at this," Alvin said. "Even the hocus-pocus."
"You're through then?"
"Yes."
Joe started the program running. He leaned back and waited. He could sense his father's impatience, and he found himself relishing the wait. The whining and clicking of the disk drive. And then the cards began appearing on the screen. This is you. This covers you. This crosses you. This is above you, below you, before you, behind you. Your foundation and your house, your death and your name. Joe waited for what had come before, what had come so predictably, the stories that had flooded in upon him when he read for his mother and for himself a dozentimes before. But the stories did not come. Because the cards were the same. Over and over again, the King of Swords.
Joe looked at it and understood at once. Father had lied. Father had consciously controlled his input, had ordered it in some way that told the cards that they were being forced. The program had not failed. Father simply would not be read. The King of Swords, by himself, was power, as all the Kings were power. The King of Pentacles was the power of money, the power of the bribe. The King of Wands was the power of life, the power to make new. The King of Cups was the power of negation and obliteration, the power of murder and sleep. And the King of Swords was the power of words that others would believe. Swords could say, "I will kill you," and be believed, and so be obeyed. Swords could say, "I love you," and be believed, and so be adored. Swords could lie. And all his father had given him was lies. What Alvin didn't know was that even the choice of lies told the truth.
"Edmund," said Joe. Edmund was the lying bastard in King Lear.
"What?" asked Father.
"We are only what nature makes us. And nothing more."
"You're getting this from the cards?"