“I need to talk to you—about Mr. Hauser.”
Quaid had used neither name at this hotel. He was registered under the name of Brubaker. That meant that this was no routine caller. The voice seemed familiar, though, and Quaid squinted with the effort of trying to place it. It was no good.
He couldn’t take a chance. He got out his gun and cocked it. The first thing he had done, once he got private, was to assemble it from the various segments stashed in his pockets, which had in turn been assembled from the various items of apparel that its components seemed to be. He approached the door very carefully, from the side. “Who are you?” he demanded.
“Dr. Edgemar,” the muffled voice came. “I work for Rekall, Incorporated.
“It’s difficult to explain,” Edgemar said after a pause. “Could you open the door, please? I’m not armed.”
Quaid opened the door, carefully, ready to shoot.
An unthreatening intellectual in a tweed jacket stood there. Seeing him, Quaid finally knew where he had heard the voice before. It was the narrator from the Rekall commercial he’d seen on the subway, back on Earth. The commercial that had triggered this whole chain of events.
Quaid trained the gun on the man and glanced down the hall.
“Don’t worry,” Edgemar said. “I’m alone. May I come in?”
Quaid pulled the man roughly into the hotel room and closed the door. He frisked Edgemar, but found no weapon.
“This is going to be very difficult for you to accept, Mr. Quaid.”
“I’m listening,” Quaid said tersely.
“I’m afraid you’re not really standing here right now.”
Quaid could not repress a chuckle, though he was tense. “You know, Doc, you could have fooled me.” Which might be exactly what the man was doing! So far he had mentioned neither Cohaagen nor Melina—and Quaid would not be able to trust him anyway. He could claim to be from Melina, to lull Quaid and get him to go along peaceably into the trap Cohaagen had set. But this ploy was interesting, even in this nervous situation. What could Cohaagen stand to gain by convincing Quaid that he was somewhere else? It would be easier to send him somewhere else—such as to hell, riding on a bullet through the brain.
“As I was saying, you’re not really here,” the man insisted. “And neither am I.”
Some delusion, if the doctor shared it with the patient! Quaid squeezed Edgemar’s shoulder with his free hand, verifying its solidity. “Amazing. Where are we?”
“At Rekall.”
Quaid’s cockiness wavered. Could this be making sense? He had gone to Rekall, and suffered severe disorientation. In fact, his world had collapsed, making him a hunted fugitive.
“You’re strapped into an implant chair,” Edgemar continued. “And I’m monitoring you at a psycho-probe console.”
“I get it—I’m dreaming!” Quaid said sarcastically. “And this is all part of that delightful vacation your company sold me.” Only no prepackaged dream would have included that scene with Melina, where instead of fulfillment he had received a painful setback. Only reality did that kind of thing to a man!
“Not exactly,” Edgemar said, not bothered by Quaid’s attitude. Doctors learned early not to be moved by their patients’ reactions. “What you’re experiencing is a free-form delusion based on our memory tapes. But you’re inventing it yourself.”
That made Quaid pause. Suppose the tape had Melina scheduled as a joyful reunion, but his cynical mind was not able to settle for that? So his suspicion became her suspicion, in the dream, and she rejected him? He had heard that a person’s mind could do that; it was called transference, or something. He could have ruined it himself!
Still, he didn’t buy it. “Well, if this is my delusion, who invited you?”
“I’ve been artificially implanted as an emergency measure,” Edgemar said without hesitation. Then, gravely: “I’m sorry to tell you this, Mr. Quaid, but you’re experiencing a schizoid embolism. We can’t snap you out of your fantasy. I’ve been sent in to try to talk you down to reality.”
“And ‘reality’ is that I’m not really here?” Quaid asked.
“Think about it, Mr. Quaid. Your dream started in the middle of the implant procedure. Everything after that—the fights, the trip to Mars in a first-class cabin, your suite at the Hilton—these are all part of your Rekall package.”
“Complete and utter bullshit!” Quaid said, beginning to fear that it was not.
“What about that girl?” Edgemar asked evenly. “Brunette, buxom, wanton and demure, just as you specified. Is that ‘bullshit’?”
“She’s real,” Quaid said. “I dreamed about her before I ever went to Rekall.”
“Mr. Quaid, can you hear yourself?” Edgemar asked persuasively. “She’s real because you dreamed her?”
“That’s right.” And indeed, he believed it, not expecting the doctor to understand.
Edgemar sighed, discouraged. “Perhaps this will convince you. Would you mind opening the door?”
Quaid jabbed his gun into Edgemar’s ribs. “You open it.”
“No need to be rude.” The man straightened his shoulders and walked to the door. Quaid shadowed him, ready for anything as the man opened the door.
Anything except what he saw.
Lori stood on the threshold!
Quaid did his best to absorb this extra shock. Lori was beautiful, in exactly the kind of wanton and demure outfit he liked, showing more breast than she seemed to be conscious of, her face evincing a trace of color where he had hit her with the gun, by the eye. He was abruptly sorry about that; he had never hit her before.
Lori put on a brave face, almost like holding back tears in front of a sick child. There was not the slightest indication that she had ever been anything other than Quaid’s adoring wife. “Sweetheart…”
But she had blasted away at him with the gun! She had tried to knock him out, and to kill him with a kitchen knife. His scratches from those slices were still healing. She had become seductive only to distract him while she watched Richter and Helm approach on the monitor. She had told him how their entire relationship had been implanted, except for the past six weeks. Sweetheart?
God help him, he wanted to believe her! If this was a dream, then her attack on him had never occurred, and she really was his adoring woman.
“Please come in, Mrs. Quaid,” Edgemar said.
Hesitantly, Lori entered the room. Her hips still moved in that way that used to drive him crazy. And still did. He might not love her, but he sure as hell didn’t hate her either!
Then why would he have cast her as such a villain in his dream? To make a pretext to get rid of her so he could go after his Mars woman? That made ugly sense. A crazed mind—he could not afford to do that in reality!
Neither could he afford to trust her! Quaid pulled Lori to him and roughly frisked her. Even in this he hurt, because his traveling hands verified just how good her body was. He had caressed that body so many times, and had had such delight in it. How could he doubt her now?
“I suppose you’re not here either,” he said gruffly. He was coming across to himself as boorish, but what choice did he have? One mistake meant disaster.
“I’m here at Rekall,” she said.
Quaid laughed and pushed her away. But he was hurting inside. If only she would break, and curse him, and say she hated him! Then he would feel justified in treating her like this, whether this scene was dream or real.
“Doug, I love you,” Lori said, her large eyes moist.
“Right. That’s why you tried to kill me!” He had to maintain the pose, covering his awful doubt.