"Because, as tempting as that may be, that's not the way the process is done. First, there was denial; we've done that. Now, we're doing anger, and after anger. . . ."
After anger, came boredom.
I was bored with being angry. I was bored with Foreman. I was bored with Mode. And I was tired of having my life threatened. "Let's cut to the chase," I said, letting my annoyance show. "What do you really want of me?"
"Nothing, Jim. Nothing at all."
"No, maybe I didn't make myself clear, Dr. Foreman. There's something you want me to realize, something you want me to say
"No. However you do this process is up to you. The way you do The Survival Process is the way you do The Survival Process. You do it until you're through doing. The process continues . . . "
"-until I'm dead." I finished the sentence for him. "I got all that. But after all the other head games you've played on us, I'd be pretty stupid not to expect another one of your stupid tricks here."
"They aren't stupid tricks, Jim-they're exercises, designed to bring you through the experience of how your mind works. The purpose is to have you become conscious of the operating modes of the mind, so that you can move beyond your present condition of operating in an unconscious mode to one in which you can create truly appropriate operating modes."
"Huh"
"Let me say it again. The purpose of The Mode Training is to have you become conscious of the operating modes of the mind. That's all. You can't change the operating modes. The best you can hope for is to notice when you're in a mode. That, at least, allows you to own it-to be the source of it, to be responsible for it. "
"Okay, I got that."
"Good. Operating in the domain of ownership will allow you to create new modes, as necessary. Right now, you can only operate in your unconscious modes, all those modes you've been programming into your head for the last three billion years. Only when you start to become aware of the modus operandi of your mind can you start creating new modes. That's the mode that the training is about: the mode of no modes at all; the mode that allows you to create modes."
I thought about that for a while. Foreman waited patiently. "So, how do I do that if I'm dead? Wouldn't it make a lot more sense to keep me alive?"
Foreman turned to the rest of the trainees. "I thought so. We have now achieved a new state. Bargaining. Negotiation. 'Don't take me. Take my mother. She's old. She's useless. Take anyone but me. Take a lawyer."' Foreman gave me a look. "Sorry, but Hell has a full quota of lawyers already."
"This doesn't make sense. Why should I get enlightened if I'm only going to die?"
"Why not? Why die stupid?" Foreman laughed. "Why do anything at all if you know you're going to die? It doesn't matter, Jim. Bargain all you want. The Survival Process continues until you're dead."
Foreman sat down in his chair and stared at me. "Are you getting any of this yet?" he asked.
"No;" I admitted. "How much longer does this go on?"
"Until you're dead, Jim. Until you're dead."
28
Inferno and Brainstorm
"When you pass the buck, don't ask for change."
-SOLOMON SHORT
After a while, I got up. I walked down to the far end of the hangar and found a Jeep. I powered it up and began driving slowly up and down the aisles, loading it with supplies.
I issued myself a new uniform, new underwear, a new helmet. I gave myself a new torch, a set of grenades and a launcher, three AM-280's and a case of ammunition. I took three weeks' worth of food, a first-aid kit, three canteens, and two gallons of distilled water. It was Christmas. New binoculars.
New dog tags. New ID's. I stopped at the security console and invented six new identities. All the way from Lieutenant to General. I doubted I'd ever use the General, but it would be nice for clearances. I gave myself clearances. I wondered how much of this stuff would actually work. I made a new set of ID's for Duke, but with my picture. There were a lot of valuable things I'd learned in Special Forces.
I had to get out of here quickly. There would be a recon team dropping in here any minute.
I looked through the security cameras: There were no choppers around. No trucks. No worms.
I opened the ramp and drove like hell.
I drove in the opposite direction of Jason and his goddamned Revelationists, and the tears began streaming down my face.
I was confused, I didn't know what to believe and I hated the entire human race!
I wanted to be safe again. I wanted to go home. And there was no safe place, no place on the planet. I was dead. I might as well be.
I wanted my mind to stop chattering in my head. I wanted absolution.
Finally, I drove the Jeep into someone's living room, crashing through the picture window, taking out half a wall and crunching furniture on both sides.
I fell out of the Jeep onto the torn-up carpet and sobbed into the floor. Why was I so crazy? Why was I crying? Jason was right. Jason was wrong. I was crazy.
I pried open the medical kit and hypoed myself into insensitivity.
I did that for three days, I kept myself sedated and zombied. I hardly moved. I lay in my sleeping bag and shivered and wept and trembled in fear. I knew they had followed me. I knew they were looking for me. I knew they would find me. I knew I was dead.
I forced myself to eat. I turned on the radio and listened to the news. The election returns were coming in slow, but the president was going to be reelected. There'd been a satellite receiving station failure. No details. The army had wiped out a major infestation of renegades in California. The red sludge had reached the coast of Virginia. The puffball clouds in Texas were easing up, but local air traffic would not be resumed for at least a week. The Zimmerman child had been found alive.
I listened to music. Beethoven. The fifth symphony. The sixth. The seventh. Brahms. The first symphony. Mozart. A Little Night Music. Dvorak. The New World Symphony. Bach. Toccata and Fugue in D minor. All the familiar pieces that would bring me back. '
I tutned on the TV and watched I Love Lucy reruns. I remembered the episodes as if I'd never seen them before. "I know this one . . ." And then I'd watch to see how it turned out. I forced myself to wallow in the world I'd rejected.
I powered up the terminal. There were games here. Inferno and Brainstorm. I knew these games. My father had written them. You couldn't lose in Inferno-because you had already lost. The game started when you died and went to hell. You had to find your way out. It was filled with devilish traps.
Brainstorm took place inside the human brain. You had to find the room with the secrets of the mind. There was a key here; you could use it to unlock the monsters from the id. It had been a game filled with old jokes and startling surprises. My dad's games were usually very serious, but this one had been written for outright silliness. If you weren't careful in your choices, the program gave you a prefrontal lobotomy, and then all the judgment circuits switched off. The program wouldn't give you any help at all in your decision making.
I sat before the terminal, shaking.
Nobody would give me any help in my decision making any more.
Not my father, he was dead.
What was it Jason had said? Oh, yeah. Help diminishes a person. It rips them off of the opportunity to grow. You have to handle it yourself.
I was truly alone.
And here was the question that Jason had left me with: What was my life about?
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