Slivers: Chapter 6

When I awoke, the sense of vibration remained. As if the very air had become magnetized, and all the surfaces of the world were now lightly charged. I breathed deeply, reenergized.

I knew this sensation. It was the feeling that usually accompanies one of my "episodes."

Leary had been right about one thing, anyway. I was overdue for my medication.

I sat up.

The storage room door was ajar, and a puddle of pale fluorescent green had sicked up from the hall. I noticed that the blood was gone from the floor.

If it had ever really been there at all.

The door swung slowly open.

Bill studied me for a moment from the hallway, then stepped carefully into the room. He was no longer brandishing a firearm, but I had no doubt that he was armed.

"Get up."

I swung my legs over the edge of the cot. My shoes were lined up next to me on the floor. They had been re-laced. I slipped them on.

"How long was I out?"

"Twenty-four hours. Almost exactly."

I rubbed my eyes.

"Feels about right.

"So what's happening, then? Did you finally get permission to kill me?"

"Are you dead, yet?"

I smiled, despite myself.

"Leary's throwing a party, and you're the guest of honor."

"Not sure how I should take that."

"Take everything I say at face value."

"Yes… I do believe I can do that, Bill.

"Can I call you 'Bill?'"

"No."

"Well, what should I--?"

"'Lieutenant.' You need to address me, you address me as Lieutenant.

"But don't address me. Just get moving."

"Yes, sir. Wouldn't want to be late for my own party – Lieutenant."

Lieutenant Bill sighed and responded, despite himself.

"Leary throws an… eventful party. A couple hundred overworked crusaders lit to-the-tits on the good doctor's electric Kool-Aid. And Leary, himself, sermonizing until all the oxygen is sucked from the room. Then, inevitably, some poor bastard unloads a clip into his dead father's ghost spying down on him from somewhere around the ceiling.

"You'll fit right in."

"Hallucinogens and firearms are a potent cocktail. Definitely not for amateurs."

"Like I said – you'll fit right in."

"I don't do drugs."

"Sure you do. Just not the ones you think."

What?

Lieutenant Bill rolled his eyes at my obvious confusion. Apparently, he had little patience with ignorance, either.

"You still don't get it, do you? I thought you were supposed to be bright.

"Back in the 50's. Leary wasn't treating schizophrenics – he was creating them. His 'patients' – hundreds of young, dumb enlisted men, like yourself… incipient schizophrenics; or with genetic predispositions to mental illness; or just plain weak – you were all slipped massive doses of hallucinogens, then hospitalized when you went mad. Under Leary's personal care, of course."

My God!

"But… Why?"

"What do you mean, 'Why?' You said it yourself: Mind control experiments. Leary figured if he could control the initial conditions of your early episodes, he could literally rewire your brains. Make you believe anything he wanted. Do anything he wanted."

"Did it work?"

"You tell me."

III

We walked on down the hall.

Only to me, it was more like tunneling through a cloud of mirrors. And every reflection was a little bit off.

The walls bled a honeydew nectar of raw time, infinite moments glistening like star fields in the flickering light.

And the air welled thick with portent, as if laden with some miraculous dry humidity. Our futures clung to us like stains. I watched the ripples of our progress announcing us as we waded through all of the possible pathways spilling into the hall.

"You don't actually work for Leary, do you?"

"Never mind who I work for."

"Well, you're obviously not a party flack. You don't seem to believe in anything. So I guess that makes you the local syndicate rep."

"You think that would be a good thing for you?"

"I'm just trying to understand why you put up with Leary's shenanigans. He's obviously a huge risk to the operation, whether you're convinced that he's still working for the government, or not."

"Our association with Leary has been very profitable over the years. The second that changes, we'll renegotiate his contract.

"You, on the other hand, have been nothing but trouble—"

Lieutenant Bill stopped.

I looked back, and simultaneously saw:

Lieutenant Bill pulled a gun from inside his jacket and almost casually shot me—

Lieutenant Bill patted a bulge in his jacket, said, "—so don't make me tell you to shut up twice."—

Lieutenant Bill patted a bulge in his jacket, shot me an unmistakable warning glance, then walked on…

The diverging futures hit me square in the chest, then broke like waves as Lieutenant Bill started up again without drawing his weapon. The shock immobilized me for a moment as Lieutenant Bill approached, then I jerked into motion again, silent and sick with adrenaline.

We walked on down the hall.

Somewhere behind me, I lay dying on the dingy, gray linoleum, watching myself walk away.

"Coward."

We arrived at the cafeteria, and the scene was pretty much as Lieutenant Bill had described it. Only the party was just getting started and I was seeing double. To say the least.

Somewhere, Jagger was singing "Time Is On My Side." Maybe in my head.

The men were loose, but not yet stoned. Two carts of small paper cups were wheeled around the room. Or was there just one cart? Every man took a cup, but no one drank, yet.

Time is on my side (yes it is). Time is on my side (yes it is).

Lieutenant Bill led me up to the stage and sat me down at one of the long tables there, but not with Leary, as I'd expected.

"Wait here."

Lieutenant Bill made his way back down to the floor, collected a cup of Leary's special 'electric Kool-Aid,' and brought it back to the table for me.

"Wait for the toast."

He left me there to take his seat at the head table next to Leary.

So much for a party in my honor. Leary tipped a nod in my direction, but that was it. Apparently, Lieutenant Bill wasn't above a joke at my expense, after all.

I couldn't drink the Kool-Aid, of course. I was already sick and half-mad and dancing blindly around the edges of the fiery pit. I would need whatever meager wits I had left to keep myself from leaping right in. Or being pushed.

Plus, I never could stand Kool-Aid.

But I didn't get the impression that I could safely refuse, either. This whole event smacked of dark and ancient ritual.

And then it came to me: the men were taking communion. Take. Eat. Leary's poison blood will set you free.

VII

Leary stood.

I looked around, panicked. There was an overflowing ashtray on the end of the table to my immediate right. Just within reach. It would have to do.

"Gentlemen!"

The room slowly quieted.

"Gentlemen.

"Before we drink, I would like to take this occasion to welcome an old friend, in whose honor we are gathered here, tonight.

"Johnny?"

Leary gestured for me to rise.

"This is Johnny. He has traveled long and far to be with us, here. A short trip down the road, I suppose – but a long, dark journey through the years. It is my sincerest hope that with a proper welcome, he might be persuaded to join us on a more permanent basis. Johnny? Welcome!"

You'll come running back; you'll come running back; you'll come running back – to mee-ee-ee…

There was a smattering of polite applause.

So this was my party. And I'll cry if I want to. Apparently, Lieutenant Bill had no sense of humor, after all. My sense of order in the world was restored by a tick.

"Well, then… Shall we toast?"

That brought a cheer.

The men stood and raised their cups.

In the flurry of activity, I quickly tipped the contents of my paper cup into the ashtray next to me, then raised the empty cup with the others.

I risked a glance around the table. No one seemed to have noticed.

At the head table, I saw that Lieutenant Bill was staring my way, intently. Had he seen?

"Peace."

"PEACE!!!"

I shivered.

Rising in unison from the parched throats of a couple hundred well-armed men, the word had a decidedly martial ring to it.

The men tossed back their drinks, then crumpled and discarded their cups with a flourish. I pretended to do the same.

We cheered.

We sat.

Leary caught my eye and smiled.

"Now, then—Let's talk a little about Peace…"

The sermon had begun.

VIII

"The road to peace must sometimes pass through sorrow. Where all involved truly desire peace, the peacemakers are irrelevant. But how rarely that is the case! We are not by our natures a peaceful species, so it is those with the most to lose who determine the character of any given conflict.

"And remember that peace is not an object; it is not an achievable goal. It is a state – a delicate balance between conflicting needs and desires. And that balance is never fixed, never steady, but requires constant vigilance and care. And most especially, it requires the continuing dedication of all that might see it fall. Peace is an act of will in defiance of self-interest. For the case can always be made for violence, while the only case for peace is peace, itself.

"But those who would eschew violence in all its forms, under any circumstances, would do well to remember that they continue to survive only at the suffrage of those who do not. And it is not enough to hide cowardice behind a willingness to die for the cause of peace. If life is so cheap as to throw it away without a fight, then how are the lives of those who would fight for survival not equally worth offering? Unless you will also risk your soul, then you risk nothing of consequence. A martyr is nothing but a loser scavenged by the living to beat the drums of cause. Better a single victor than an army of martyrs.

"No. Those who believe that violence only begets violence have been mislead by those without the stomach for the cost of staking a claim among the living. Energy is never created, only stolen. Violence may often spiral into self-perpetuating disease, but it needs no carrier, no root cause. Because violence is the natural state; it is the wind, the waves, the tides, the movements of the earth, the jostling for space and food and shelter. To live in peace is to take up temporary residence in the eye of the storm, for peace is but a fleeting imposition of stillness on the chaos of an ever-changing world.

"All change is violence, and change is as inevitable as the passage of time. There are billions of men, women, and children on this planet, and every single one of them will die, if not by the violence of man, then by the violence of God or nature. Death, then, is neither to be feared nor avoided, but it is only the quality of the life that matters, only the legacy of the death.

"This is not an argument, however, for the indiscriminate use of force. Quite the contrary. If life is violence, and violence is the natural order, then how great the effort must be to dam the floodwaters; to turn shelter into home; to find a quiet moment or two for making love; to live a small life!

"It is the burden of civilized man to know justice from vengeance, to know mercy from pity, to know duty from slavery, and then to do what is necessary.

"And sadly, today, it is necessary for you to die."

The first body hit the ground at "All change is violence." Within seconds, nearly everyone was struggling for air, slumping over tables or dropping to the floor. I slipped quietly beneath my table, and began collecting guns and ammunition from the fallen.

The music stopped. My visions faded. I was left once again with a clarity so severe that I ached with it.

The silence greeting Leary's speech was deafening. The word "die" seemed to echo endlessly through the hall.

I was in a state of shock, I suppose. I had seen many things, but the casual murder of hundreds of men was beyond me. But it was a strange sort of shock. In a sense I was more aware, more grounded in the moment than at any other time in my life.

And it was all about time, wasn't it? Each second stretched on endlessly, and I felt as though I could have run a mile in the space of a heartbeat.

Maybe Jagger was right. Maybe time really was on my side.

By the time Leary was finished, there were only three of us left: Leary, Lieutenant Bill, and myself.

And all of us armed.

Leary broke the silence with a forced, hollow laugh.

"You never did like taking your medication, Johnny."

"You were right, Bill. I should have just let you kill him. But my curiosity got the better of me. It was hubris, I suppose. Or pride in craftsmanship, really…

"I wanted to see how you'd turned out, Johnny. What kind of a man you'd become. I thought I could control the situation for a while longer. Maybe even bring you in. But you managed to plant a seed of doubt in the men. Poison the well, so to speak…

"Oh, don't worry, Johnny. None of this is really your fault. You just hastened the inevitable. True believers make excellent cheap labor, but sooner or later, even the most pie-eyed innocent grows a little cynical. And there's nothing more dangerous than a disillusioned idealist.

"But they make pretty good fertilizer, eh, Bill?"

"So does bullshit!

"Funny you didn't bother to warn me this time that you'd decided to spike the refreshments, again."

That was when I realized that neither man was pointing his gun directly at me. We were standing roughly in a triangular formation, and both men were fudging their aim a little, allowing themselves a shot at multiple targets.

There was obviously a lot of love in the room.

"You never drink with the men, Bill. It was a last minute decision. It didn't seem like a risk."

"Sounds like maybe the good doctor decided to renegotiate your contract, Lieutenant."

"Shut up."

"That's right! Don't listen to the lunatic, Bill. Think: Why would I want you dead, with government assassins on my tail? I need my syndicate and cartel friends to protect me. Hurting you would be suicide!"

"Your lies are catching up with you, Doctor. You said he wasn't an assassin."

Lieutenant Bill may not have been an intellectual, but he clearly had a genius for survival. And for once, Leary was left speechless.

I took my shot.

"If you shoot him, Lieutenant, I'll hold my fire. I don't care about you."

"Unfortunately, I can't take that chance. If you are who you say you are – and I'm beginning to get the idea that's the case – then you've already calculated the risks and determined that I'm the bigger threat. You might be able to take us both out, but only if you shoot me first. And of course, I've got to shoot you first, too."

"I'm flattered. But it's worse than that, Lieutenant. Odds are that the Doc figures he can still control me, or at least that I'm the safer bet. So when the shooting starts, we'll both be gunning for you."

"You have an alternative?"

"I do:

"Leave. Just go. Keep your gun, cover yourself; but back away. Take a jeep. Go home. Let our little drama play itself out.

"Tomorrow you come back with a small army and a handful of new recruits, and it's business as usual.

"You find my body when you get back, or you find Leary's. Doesn't matter. Either way, you live; Leary's a marked man, or dead; and the operation doesn't lose a day."

Being a man of action, Lieutenant Bill weighed his options quickly, then picked a slow retreat through the corpses in the hall.

He left without another word. He never did have much use for either one of us.

When we heard the jeep start up and drive away, Leary and I turned to face each other.

XII

"Listen, Johnny—"

"Shut it! You're the father, all right – the Father of Lies. So you stay out of my head, maybe you'll get to keep yours. But one more word earns you a bullet in the brain.

"Nod once if you understand."

He nodded.

"Okay. If you want to have any chance at living through this, put the gun down – very slowly – on the ground."

He did.

"Good. Now kick it away."

He did.

"Good.

"Now then. You see the Zippo on the table over there? With the Camels? Pick it up and come with me. No, leave the smokes. We're going to have us a little barbeque."

XIII

We razed the whole operation to the ground.

I mean we burned it all: the factory, the warehouses, the outbuildings, the trucks. The bodies. We even torched the fields. We filled the sky with black smoke, and night came early to the Mojave.

XIV

"You think he'll come back? When he sees the smoke? That was a pretty dirty trick, Johnny – destroying everything. Poor Bill's going to have a lot to answer for."

It was the first time Leary had dared to speak since I told him not to. But it was time. We'd done our work, and there was nothing left before us but to settle things once and for all. We both new it. It was time.

"No. He won't be back. Not even for revenge. Not the Lieutenant. There's no percentage in it."

Leary laughed dryly, then made his play.

"You can't kill me, you know. Bennie won't let you."

"I wouldn't pin all my hopes on Bennie, if I were you." I gestured with the gun for effect. "I fragged the lizard back in Arizona."

Leary looked surprised, but continued.

"He'll be back. Don't worry. Bennie's a survivor.

"But it's okay, Johnny. Really. It wouldn't fulfill you, anyway. Life's not about the soul-killing goals that society sets for us… It's about the journey—"

"No. No, it isn't," I replied. "It isn't about the journey, at all, Doc. It's about the pieces. The slivers and the scraps."

I had the gun, so Leary let me talk.

"I've seen it. Seen how the bits overlap. How they fold together to create the illusion of a man. But every morning, we're reborn again. Every moment…"

"Every moment is a new creation, Doc, a new choice. A new chance at redemption. And we're responsible for each of those moments, each of those choices. As if they were the only ones we'll ever get…

"Because they are! Today will never come 'round again. Never. And the whole of existence is holding its breath to see what we will do."

But Leary wasn't listening. Didn't understand. He was just looking for a way out.

"Johnny—"

"I'm not going to kill you, Doc— unless you force me to."

Leary exhaled.

"But I'm not sparing you for Bennie, either, or for you. Not even for myself, really; though that would have been enough.

"I'm not going to kill you simply because I don't have to, now. Your operation is destroyed and your identity compromised. You have no more influence, anymore; no power…

"And probably very little time, actually. Because if I don't kill you, one of your former business partners surely will. Assuming you make it out of the desert."

"You're right, Johnny. You're absolutely right. Just because you can't bring yourself to kill me, that doesn't mean you've failed your mission. For a man like me, to be revealed is death. For a man like me…"

Leary paused. He had been babbling in agreement to keep himself alive, but suddenly he got what we were saying, and understood that it was real.

I watched him sag in resignation as the enormity of his certain future finally hit home. And all of the masks were finally stripped away—the enlightened civility, the arrogant benevolence, the intellectual shaman revolutionary angst, all gone. And hiding under all the pretense was the simple, dull hatred of a broken man.

"For a man like me…"

The loss of reputation. The ignobility. Forced to witness his own slow slide into obscurity…

"Can there be a fate worse than irrelevance?"

Irrelevance. It was the final lie. The lie of a desperately egocentric man witnessing the demise of his own myth. But ultimately, it was a lie I could live with. Because I knew that Leary believed it, himself. Believed it to his bones.

"What a pair we are, Johnny! You can trust no one. Nothing. Not even your own senses! And me: My entire life has been a lie! Now I have nothing left to believe in, either."

He laughed bitterly.

"But I do have one advantage, Johnny, don't I? I have this. I have now.

"Because by tomorrow, you won't even be sure if any of this ever happened.

"But I'll always have today to cling to. Precious memories! The endless, stinking certainty of this one merciless day.

"It's a Pyrrhic victory, I know, Johnny; but it's mine, and it suits me. And it's more than you'll ever have, so I can take some comfort in it."

And with that, he turned his back. Dismissing me forever.

I walked away, leaving him the shabby comfort of the last word.

By the time I reached the highway, Bennie had rejoined me.

"Hey! Good to see you, old boy!" I grinned. "You're looking dapper! Where the hell have you been? Nasty ol' cat got your tongue?"

Bennie was wearing a French Foreign Legion outfit and wrap-around shades. He bobbed his head, waggled his Pall Mall.

"We've been right here, Boss. Right here. Same as always."

Right here. Same as always. I laughed, delighted.

"Question is, Boss – where have you been?"

XVI

Where have you been?

I thought about it, and wondered. But not too hard. Not too long.

Because though I had been willing to accept Leary's last lie without argument, I did at least recognize the truth behind it: That Leary still had one final thing he truly believed in. That back there, somewhere behind me—a lone shadow in the desert, fading into the horizon like a mirage of his own design—in the end, Leary believed utterly and completely in the inevitable failure of the human spirit.

And that knowledge made me smile faintly, and pity him a little. But I was grateful, too. Because that last, perfect despair was finally the very watermark that I had been searching for—a single point of truth against which all fictions could be measured.

For though I can never know for certain whether Leary ever really existed at all, I do know that he was wrong.