As one rode up the thousand-yard-long driveway leading to the main building, one could behold all the discrete strata of construction marking the epochs of the Center’s past, and, if one were imaginatively inclined, one might envision the old speculator placing phone calls from pool-side, the health fanatics toasting in the solaria, the youthful scholars elaborately fornicating on the lawn, all at once, while through the leafy glades wandered today’s candidates for personality rehabilitation, smiling blankly as voices out of earphones purred their past to them.
Macy saw none of these things today, not even the driveway. For, as he emerged from the tube station in downtown Greenwich and looked about for an autotaxi to take him up to the Center, he felt a sensation much like that of a hatchet landing between his shoulder blades, and toppled forward, dazed and retching, sprawling to the pavement. For some moments he lay half-conscious on the elegant blue and white terrazzo tiling of the station entrance. Then, recovering somewhat, he managed to scramble up until he crouched on hands and knees, like a tipsy sprinter awaiting the starter’s gun. More than that he could not do. Rising to a standing position was beyond him now. Flushed, sweating, stricken, he waited for his strength to return and hoped someone would help him up.
No one did. The commuters obligingly parted their ranks and flowed by him to either side. A boulder in a stream. No one offers to assist a boulder. Perhaps they have a lot of epileptics in Greenwich. Can’t let yourself get worked up over one of those. Damned troublemakers always flopping on their faces, chewing on their tongues: how’s a man going to get to work on time if he stops for them every morning?
Macy listened to time tolling in his head. One minute, two, three. What had happened? This was the second time in the last eighteen hours that he’d been clubbed down from within. Hamlin?
—You bet your ass.
What did you do to me?
—Gave you a leetle twitch in the autonomic nervous system. I’m sitting right here looking at it. A bunch of ropes and cords, the most complicated frigging mess you could imagine. I just reached out and went plink.
Another shaft of pain between the shoulder blades.
Stop it, Macy said. Jesus, why are you doing that?
—Self-preservation. Like you said a little while ago, self-preservation has to come before concern for others, right?
Can you hear all my thoughts?
—Enough of them. Enough to know when I’m being threatened.
Threatened?
—Sure. Where were you heading when I knocked you off your feet?
The Rehab Center, Macy admitted.
—That’s right. And what were you going to do there?
I was going for my weekly post-therapy therapy session.
—Like shit you were. You were going to tell the doctors that I had come back to life.
And if I was?
—Don’t try to play innocent. You were going to have them blot me out again, right? Right Macy?
Well—
—Admit it!
Macy, crouching on the shining tiles, attempted to call for help. A soft mewing sound came from him. The commuters continued to stream past A flotilla of attaché cases and portable terminals. Please. Please. Help me.
From Hamlin, a second time:
—Admit it!
Let me alone.
Macy felt a sudden explosion of agony behind his breastbone. As if a hand had clasped itself about his heart for a quick powerful squeeze. Setting the valves aflap, emptying the ventricles, pinching the aorta.
—I’m learning my way around in here, pal. I can do all kinds of things today that I couldn’t swing yesterday. Like tickling your heart. Isn’t that a lovely sensation? Now, suppose you tell me why you were in such a hurry to get to the Rehab Center, and it better be the right answer.
To have you obliterated again, Macy confessed miserably.
—Yes. Yes. The dirty truth will out! You were conspiring in my murder, weren’t you? I never murdered anybody in my life, you understand, I merely took a few liberties with my prick, and nevertheless the state was pleased to order my death—
Your rehabilitation, said Macy.
—My death, Hamlin shot back at him, giving him a tug on the right triceps by way of emphasis: They killed me and put somebody else in my body, only I came back to life, and you were going to have them kill me again. We don’t need to debate the semantics of the point. Stand up, Macy.
Macy cautiously tested his strength and found that his legs now would support him. He rose, very slowly, feeling immensely fragile. A few tottering steps. Knees shaking. Skin clammy. Dryness in the throat.
—Now, friend, we have to get something understood. You aren’t going to go to the Rehab Center today. You aren’t going to go there at all, ever again, because the Center is a dangerous place for me, and so in order to keep you away I’ll have to make it a dangerous place for you too. Let me give you just a taste of what will happen to you if you come within five miles of a Rehab Center. Just a taste.
Again, the hand tightening around his heart. But no mere squeeze this time. A fierce, gripping full-strength clench. It knocked Macy down once more. Gradually the inner grasp was relaxed, but it left him nauseated and feeble, and a terrible thunder reverberated in his chest. Cheek to the tile, he kicked his legs in a frenzy of pain. This time his anguish was too visible to be ignored, and he was seized by passersby and hoisted to his feet.
“You okay? Some kind of fit?”
“Please—if I could just sit down somewhere—”
“You need a doctor?”
“It’s only a little chest spasm—I’ve had them before—”
They took him inside. A bench in the waiting room. Advert globes floating in the air. Blinking their messages into his face. He was numb. Impossible even to think. A constant stream of people flowing by. Trains arriving, departing. Voices. Colors. After a while, his strength returned.
—If you try to go back for reconditioning, Macy, that’s what I’ll do to you, and not just a little squeeze. If necessary I’ll shut off your heart altogether. I can do it. I see where the nerve connections are now.
But then you’ll die too, Macy said.
—That’s true. If it’s necessary for me to interrupt the life processes of this body that we’re sharing, we’ll both die. So what? I don’t expect you to commit suicide for the sake of getting rid of me. But I’m perfectly prepared to commit suicide for the sake of keeping you from getting rid of me, because I’ve got no choice. I’m a dead man anyway if you get inside a Rehab Center. So I offer you the ultimate threat. Keep away, or else. It wouldn’t be smart of you to call my bluff. For both our sakes, don’t.