This strategy had aided him when he enlisted and was called upon to kill other men.
"These aren't people to be downstream from," Dray said. "They have as much concern for you as they did for the late Danny Katanga. All they want is someone to bring in their daughter. Keep their house looking tidy. If that goes wrong, they'll be looking for someone to blame."
"But my reputation leaves me beyond reproach."
She laughed. "You're doing your Wile E. Coyote creep off the cliff right now. All I'm saying is, make sure you pack a parachute."
Chapter fifteen
In the back of the Growth Hall, Stanley John was beating the kettledrum, which sent a low, anesthetizing vibration through Leah's bones. It made her job – unstacking folding chairs – easier. She moved through her work rhythmically, like a dancer. The backs of her arms were purpling with the bruises.
Lorraine and Winona scrambled around on all fours buffing the lacquered wood. A converted gymnasium from the adolescent facility, the Growth Hall featured a high-tech lighting system, basketball court lines, and a stage. Rewarded for his progress on the Web site, Chris wielded a measuring tape to calculate the space between seating.
TD paced the growing aisles, his usual preshow warm-up, his eyes riveted on the checklist in front of him. He barked his shin on an out-of-line folding chair.
Stanley John stopped beating the drum. The tape recoiled back into the metal square in Chris's puffy hand. The gym fell silent.
TD glanced down at the wayward chair and then at Chris, who did not rise from his knees.
Dots of sweat rose on Chris's forehead. "I'm sorry. I take ownership of my incompetence -"
TD spoke with a calm, honey-coated intensity. "Maybe you can't step up to this task. Maybe measuring the distance between two chairs is too much for you."
"I'm sorry. I'm just a little distracted. I was up all night fussing with the hyperlinks -"
"Well, that's a ready batch of answers. Looks like we've backslid into excuse making. What's our friend Chris need to do, folks?"
"Negate victimhood."
TD brushed Chris's hair out of his eyes. "I think we need to reset your preferences for humility. You can start by unclogging the methane bleeders at the septic tank tomorrow."
Chris's eyes clenched shut. "Thank you, Teacher."
"Where's your wife?"
"Over here, TD," Janie called out with a smile. Her dark, stiff jeans, tight around her firm behind, struck a contrast with her baggy pink sweater. She finished dumping another five-pound bag of sugar into the vat of punch while another helper stirred away.
"Come."
Janie walked over and stood obediently before him, arms at her sides.
"Does your husband default to victimhood, Janie?"
She looked from TD to Chris, then back to TD. "He has lapsed Off Program a little lately."
TD nodded severely. "On the other hand, in the past few weeks, you've closed on" – he turned a half circle and raised his voice -"more Neos than anyone else." His applause was picked up by the others. Still on his knees, Chris clapped along with them. "Not like Sean and Julie, whose numbers have been down." Dark looks from all directed at the laggards. "Chris, give your wife the tape measure. That's it."
Chris raised it to his wife's waiting hands. TD cupped his palm on the ridge of Janie's hip, just above the back pocket of her jeans. Chris's eyes were riveted to TD's gently squeezing fingers.
Janie smiled, basking in TD's glow.
"Others have found it easier to work without a bulky sweater on," TD said.
Her eyes fixed on his, Janie pulled the sweater off over her head, revealing a fitted undershirt through which her nipples showed slightly. TD nodded, pleased, and resumed his pacing. The hall fell back into motion.
Chris rose and sulked in a rear corner, his eyes beady and small above his too-wide cheeks. Leah was relieved TD didn't take note, for something had changed in Chris's eyes, and it was a change he would not have liked.
She pulled the next chair off the stack and handed it to a young graphic-design guru whose name she'd forgotten; he snapped it open and slid it down the assembly line.
TD strolled beatifically through the flurry of activity, his focus never leaving his notes.
"Teacher, do you want the cookies arranged on the trays flat or stacked?"
His eyes stayed on his checklist. "Flat."
Another worker – "I cut my finger pretty good. Can I get a ride to the ER so I can get it looked at?"
"No. You can visit Dr. Henderson in Cottage Three after the Orae."
"TD, I really want to have sex with my wife. It's been almost three weeks."
"Fine. After the Orae. Missionary. In her cottage. Fifteen minutes."
"Thank you. Thank you."
"My father died. The service -"
"Stop crying."
"I'm sorry. The service is twenty minutes away. Can I have money for a bus ride?"
"Leave the dead to bury the dead."
"Will you let me grow a beard, Teacher?"
"Enough, please. I'm trying to prepare."
All talking ceased, the silence broken only by the quiet rustling of the workers.
Leah snapped a chair open, pinching her thumb in a hinge. She bit her lip so she wouldn't cry out, her eyes watering. The pain pulled her from her working trance, and she stepped outside. To her right alongside the building, three pay-phone handsets nestled in their hooks, severed cords protruding stiffly beneath them.
Down the curved road, lights twinkled in the cottages. To her left beyond a fence and a strip of fire-retarding ice plant, a cliff fell away. In the night the abrupt drop was a void. The cold bit her through the thin cotton of her jersey. She thumbed the fabric. Will had brought her the shirt back from location somewhere, a gift without an occasion.
"Leah? What are you doing out here?" Janie's voice yanked her from her thoughts. "You know better than to skulk around alone. Hurry now, or you'll throw off TD's concentration for the Orae."
Leah mumbled an apology and followed her back inside, where the five-foot stacks of chairs waited.
All sixty-eight Pros, stoked with candy bars and punch, packed the seats, riding out a sugar high together. Everyone held hands, swayed, and babbled excitedly. Randall and Skate emerged from outside, Skate's hands glittering with dog slobber, and took up posts at the base of the stage. The drum started beating again. Leah went under its spell.
The overheads dimmed, the footlights came up, and plaintive trumpet notes announced the Orae's commencement. As the music resolved into the opening motif of 2001: A Space Odyssey, TD burst onto the stage, a Janet Jackson mike floating off his right cheek. The thunderous sforzando chords faded, and then there was just the slow, rumbling beat of the drum and the Teacher's words.
"Out there in the world are the Common-Censors. The human husks. The living dead. They're all stuck in the dead links of their Old Programming. They're like the three little monkeys – deaf, dumb, and blind." TD's eyes seemed to take in every face. "Now, some people may say I'm kind of crazy. Some people might call me a weirdo. But I like that label." His lips firmed in a wise little smirk. "They say we're a cult." He made spooky fingers in the light, his smile indicating this was of great amusement. A mocking rumble rose from the crowd.
Randall and Skate stood like Secret Service agents before the stage, hands clasped at their belt lines, all-knowing by proxy.
TD paced back and forth, never breaking stride, the heads of the Pros following his movement as if attached by invisible threads. "Anyone see any brainwashed cult members in here? Anyone see any animals ready for sacrifice? Anyone here against their will?"
Screams of repudiation. Scattered boos and derisive laughter. Protective cries of indignation.
"We're not brainwashed – they are. Obligation has been pounded into them, pounded into their cells since they were babies. They criticize The Program. Why? Because they can't believe we're this strong. That we're this fulfilled. They have to criticize us. In fact, their criticism is proof of how right The Program is."