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THE MIND GAME |
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Chapter Nine Owen Karel had been on the set for at least half an hour now, and although Weller knew that the Monitor had other things to watch on this shoot, he felt the continual pressure of those cold hard eyes on the back of his neck, For he knew they were extensions of Gomez; in their last session Gomez had made it clear that the verbal fencing was only half of the life-analysis process. "Not to make you paranoid, Weller," he had said, "but you do realize that trying to con me would be futile? I get actual life-situation reports on you from Karel, and by the time this is over, I'll have integrated what you do with what you say. What's significant is not absolute consistency -- no one expects that -- but what the patterns of inconsistency reveal. Patterns of patterns, and you have to be really Transformed to read that. So there's no point in you trying to figure out what I'm looking for and putting on a little act." So Weller knew that he was being watched like a bug under a microscope, and every time he saw Karel, he pictured the Monitor representative writing mental notes on him in a phantom dossier. But he couldn't figure out how Karel could learm anything significant from watching him stand quietly behind a camera. He wondered if the paranoia cut both ways, if the Monitor's cold eyes read significance into the way he stood, the expression on his face, the clothes he wore. This commercial, now, seemed to be a straightforward pitch for Transformationalism itself. The set was a typical suburban living room, and four actors played a typical suburban family. Dad in a dark business suit. Mom in women's lib fatigues. Sonny in long-haired hippie gear. Sis in a Jesus Freak persona with an unsubtle wooden cross around her neck. According to the shooting script they preached their respective ideologies at each other in the first twenty seconds. Then a voice-over made a twenty-second pitch for Transformationalism as the bridge which transcended conflicting life-styles. Cut to the same family, now discoursing sweetly together, all harmony and light. In Transformationalist jargon, of course, Georgie Prinz had shot the final sequence yesterday, and except for the inevitable technical foul-ups, it had gone pretty smoothly, since the actors were all dedicated to the cause and therefore had little trouble spouting Transformationalism at each other with total conviction. But this morning Georgie was trying to get the opening sequence on tape, and in take after take he just couldn't find the handle. The problem was partly technical. Shooting a scene in which four characters gibber at each other all at once at cross- purposes was very hard to do realistically under the best of circumstances. The director had to get the actors to cross- interrupt each other in a way that sounded realistic. It helped if the actors were professionally competent, which these were not, and it helped if the director knew enough to keep them from reacting to each other's lines as cues. Neither being the case, poor Georgie just kept trying the same thing over and over again and kept getting stuff that even he could see was totally stilted and dead. Weller wondered if the presence of Karel was exacerbating the situation. Georgie kept glancing surreptitiously at the Monitor, as if he realized he was fucking up and believed that Karel knew it too. Weller also wondered if Karel was knowledgeable enough to recognize incompetent directing when he saw it, or whether he just liked to make people nervous. "Okay, let's try it one more time, and then we'll break for lunch." Georgie said, returning to his position beside the camera. "Please, people, ah ... try to be spontaneous ... er ... stay inside your own heads. Let me hear you all at once." He paused, cocked an inquisitive eyebrow at Weller. Weller nodded back indicating that he was ready. Oh boy, was he ready! Lights ... roll 'em ..." "Transformationalism is the Bridge, scene two, take twelve." "Speed." Georgie hesitated, and Weller peering through his viewfinder, could imagine him nibbling his lower lip and sneaking a look at Owen Karel. "Action!" "-- grow up and think about a real job --" "-- getting fed up with your chauvinist attitude --" "-- don't know why I stay around this uptight house --" "-- accept the love of Christ as the answer to --" Pure blind awful! Weller thought. They were still spouting bits of dialogue sequentially, straight from the script, politely cuing each other. Instead of sounding like a babbling argument, it sounded like the silliest sort of chopped-up stage dialogue. "Cut!" Georgie shouted. Weller turned off the camera and stared at him. Georgie gave a nervous little shrug and finally seemed about to ask Weller something when he was stopped short by something he saw across the sound stage. Weller turned to look. Karel had quietly disappeared, which he had a habit of doing, and Sara English, enticing in a short red dress, was walking across the sound stage toward them, accompanied by Shano Moore, dressed in his inevitable jeans and army shirt. How much had she seen? Was Georgie going to get a chewing out? Might there soon be a crying need for a new director on this turkey ...? But Georgie didn't seem worried. ''Take an hour for lunch," he called out. And sure enough Sara didn't even mention what was going on on the set. "Come have lunch with us, Georgie," she said. She turned to Weller and gave him a long, hot smile. "Why don't you come along too, Jack?" she said casually. But she was looking straight into his eyes, pouring out the vibes, and Weller imagined he had heard something carefully casual in her voice. Did she want to get to know him personally, was he reading the vibes right? On the other hand, she was inviting him to lunch with two directors. Was there something significant in that? A signal of some subtle alteration in his status, foreshadowing an imminent change? Or is it just wishful thinking and horniness? Weller wondered nervously. Am I starting to read significance into everything? That was as good a definition of paranoia as any. *** The significant lunch with Sara English and the two directors turned out to be nothing more ceremonious than hamburgers at a nearby coffee shop. Weller sat on one side of the booth with Shano Moore, Georgie and Sara on the other. Sara still hadn't said anything to Georgie about this morning's futile work by the time they had ordered, and Weller toyed with the idea of saying something himself. But he damn well knew how he would have reacted to some friendly little tips on directing from his cameraman, and he didn't know how Sara would react to his pulling rank and credits, so he held his peace. He had the uneasy conviction that not even Sara had any idea of how lousy the whole operation was, and that she would take any negative criticism as an attack on Transformationalism and report it to Gomez through Karel. Gomez seemed to have no illusions about what was going on, but he was judging Weller according to unknown parameters, and anything might be some kind of hidden life analysis test. "Georgie tells me you've done a lot of directing, Jack," Shano said as their orders arrived. "How come you're just doing camera work?" Weller nodded at Sara, tossing the question to her. "Jack has to wait for Monitor clearance," she said. "He hasn't reached a high enough level yet." Shano nodded. "I can dig it," he said. "A guy needs a lot of processing to get his talent behind serving the movement, especially when his trip is as authoritarian as directing." A lobotomy would help, Weller thought sourly. "What do you mean by that?" he said instead. "Man, I come from the same place," Shano said. "I mean, a director is like a general, right, and the crew and actors are his army, and he gives like orders. He gets to feeling like whatever he's shooting is his thing." "Ah, a believer in the auteur theory," Weller said lightly. Shano looked at him blankly. Apparently he had never heard of the auteur theory, and neither had Sara or Georgie. "That's not where I'm coming from," Georgie said. "We're all soldiers of Transformationalism, like doing our optimum thing for the movement." "For sure!" Shano said. ''That's the transformation you've got to go through. Same thing in the old Revolution. Guys who were into creating their own stuff had to get a lot of bullshit about art out of their heads before they could get behind the idea that they were serving the cause, not their own egos, before they could get behind taking political direction. You wouldn't believe the shit that went on! That's what I dig about Transformationalism -- we transform consciousness first, before we put someone in that position. Otherwise you get all kinds of crap from creative people whose egos keep them from really serving the movement." "You sound like Mao Tse-tung," Weller said dryly. "You dig Mao?" Shano asked brightly. "I haven't read the book, but I've seen the movie," Weller drawled. There was a moment of silence during which Sara leaned forward on her elbows and seemed to be studying Weller intently over her cheeseburger. Have I put my foot in my mouth? be wondered. Do I lose brownie points for being a smartass? But it was Shano who seemed to have said the wrong thing. "You've still got some of that political programming in your head, Shano," Sara said, all the while looking at Weller as if this was for his benefit. "We don't want people suppressing their creativity for the sake of the movement; we want our people in a state of eptified creative consciousness while they're working on getting the message across. Otherwise the product is low-level stuff with no life to it." She gave Weller a stunning smile that went straight to his crotch, and under the table her foot brushed accidentally against his calf. "What do you think, Jack?" she said. I think this is an awful lot of highfalutin' bullshit over a bunch of crummy commercials, Weller thought. But be smiled back at her, and said, "Transformationalism optimizes consciousness, so you can hardly expect the product to get the message across if the people making it aren't turned on creatively." How's that for party-line bullshit? But he couldn't help throwing in a zinger. "Of course, just as talent is no substitute for dedication, dedication is no substitute for talent." "But processing releases the talent in everyone," Georgie insisted. "It can't release what isn't there." "That sounds like an elitist remark," Shano said self-righteously. "Aren't we an elite?" Weller replied, looking straight at Sara. "Can you set out to transform the world and not consider yourself an elite?" Sara's eyes flashed something at him. "I never thought of it that way," she said. "That's bullshit," Shano said. "Transformationalism is open to everyone. The whole idea is to transform the total consciousness of all the people." But Sara wasn't paying any attention to Shano. Something was vibrating in the air between her and Weller. An instant later he felt her calf against his and knew it was real. Was this a game, or was she really attracted to him? With her flesh touching his, at the moment he didn't give a damn. She was sucking up what he was saying, and she was giving him an unambiguous sexual signal, and it gave him a heightened sense of his own being much like what he felt when he was directing well, and he would bloody well ride it and let them cope with him for a change. "Transformationalism is no democracy," he said. "Any more than a shooting set is. If we believe we can improve the consciousness of the public, and we're trying to sell that to them, and being Machiavellian about it in the bargain, then we're functioning as an elite, whether we have the balls to admit it to ourselves or not." "I never thought of it that way before," Sara said, rubbing her leg against Weller's. "Maybe you should be a Monitor ...," Shano muttered. "What did you mean by that?" Sara snapped, suddenly removing her leg from contact with Weller's flesh. "I dunno," Shano mumbled. "It just came out." Abruptly Weller felt angered, frustrated, yet above it all. Perhaps it was the withdrawal of Sara's sexual attention, but now they all seemed like characters in a film he was directing. He knew their motivations and where their reactions were coming from, but he himself was the unmoved mover. Some perverse and perhaps cruel impulse made him want to push them just a wee bit further. He had been manipulated and evaluated for so long that it gave him a long-lost sense of power to play director, to keep things stirred up. "I can see where Shano's coming from" he said. "I mean, that is where the Monitors are at, isn't it? They do function as an elite, and they're not exactly shy about it. And they're functioning as an elite in relation to us, now aren't they?" Sara flushed. "The Monitors perform a necessary function," she said tightly. But her eyes did not exactly portray total conviction. Of course not! Weller thought. She's supposed to be the head honcho, and there's old Karel peering constantly over her shoulder and overruling her whenever he feels like it. "Exactly, Sara," Weller said evenly. "And their necessary function is to guide us with superior insight. They're Transformationalism's elite, the level above us." "I never thought of the Monitors as superior beings," Sara said indignantly. "Really?" Weller oozed. ''They're closer to John. He chooses them, trains them, and puts them in the position they're in. If you don't regard them as higher consciousnesses, why obey them? Just because you're afraid of them?" "I'm not afraid of Owen Karel," Sara insisted, with zero conviction. They were all looking at Weller very peculiarly now, and he wasn't quite sure just what it was he was doing. But whatever it was, it had sure hit a nerve! "Hey, man," Shano said nervously, "What kind of game are you playing? Why are you running this number?" ''I'm not running any number," Weller said sweetly. ''I'm just being sincere. I respect the superior consciousness of the Monitors." He paused, lowered his voice an octave. "What's the matter? Don't you?" "Maybe you should be a Monitor," Georgie said, and in his eyes was the clearly written thought, maybe you are. So that's it! Weller thought, laughing inwardly. They're seeing Monitors under their beds. I've really succeeded in making them paranoid! He gave a throaty, ambiguous chuckle. "Should I be called upon to serve ...," he said slyly. Sara looked sideways at Weller. What was that look in her eyes? Admiration? Lust? A new kind of respect? Or was it fear? Weller had a flash of insight into what it must be like to be a dedicated Transformationalist, an insider like Sara, wielding power over those below you but always looking over your shoulder and wondering. Fearing the Monitors, resenting them, but prevented by your very belief from even admitting it to yourself. "I think it's time to get back to work," Sara said uneasily. Weller wondered if she would dare report this little conversation to the Monitors. He wondered if she dared not to. *** Ceremoniously Sylvia unplugged the headband jack from the brainwave monitor, slowly took the electrode band off Weller's head, and placed it on the table between them. Weller could anticipate her words before she said them, for Garry Bailor had called the shot two days ago. "Congratulations, Jack, you've completed your meditative deconditioning." It had been the only positive thing about his last meeting with Bailor. "They're not making any money off you now," Bailor had said, "so they have no reason to prolong it. And from what you tell me about this life-analysis thing, it seems to be mainly a matter of trying to determine whether or not the programming has really taken hold." "So now what?" "Now you've got to get past this Gomez character," Bailor said. "How am I supposed to do that?" Weller asked. "He's ten times sharper than any of the other bozos I've had to deal with. He's getting reports on me from Karel, from Sara English, from God-knows-who-else, and I can't even figure out what the right answers are supposed to be." Bailor seemed to shrink backward across the couch away from him, coolly distancing himself from the whole damn situation. "I told you, I don't know a damn thing about what goes on at this level," he said. '"You're in deeper than anyone I've ever worked with." "That's a big fucking help!" Weller said angrily. Bailor shrugged. "Seems to me you're the expert at this point, not me. The number you ran on them in the restaurant, giving them a little paranoia about maybe you being a Monitor, was something I never would've thought of, and professionally speaking, I think it was probably brilliant. It should make whatever reports they turn in on you as bland and nonforthcoming as they can get away with. But dealing with Monitor interrogation techniques...." He seemed to cringe, and inch even further away from Weller, as if Weller had some loathsome disease. "I don't know anything about it, and I don't want to know anything about it. To tell you the truth, this is getting a little heavy for me." "Really?" Weller snarled. "And what about me?" ''You're the guy with the motivation, I'm just a hired gun," Bailor said coldly. "This is, your life, but to me it's just another job. I can't afford to get in too deep. I walk a thin line as it is." A cold fear insinuated itself into Weller's anger. "Are you saying you're going to bug out on me, Bailor?" he said. "You want to give me my fifteen hundred dollars back?" "I didn't say that," Bailor said quietly. "I just mean there's a line I won't cross. I'm not going to do anything to get the Monitors interested in me." He smiled falsely. "Look, this stage of the game is your trip, not mine. It's an acting problem. Gomez is your audience, and you know what part you have to play for him. You're the film director, you know this stuff. Maybe what you've got to use is, what do they call it, Method Acting. If you don't know enough to fool this guy by presenting the surfaces you think he wants to see, then internalize the part; don't act, be. "Thank you Lee Strasberg," Weller had muttered, and he had left soon thereafter; disappointed, pissed off, a little worried about the depth of Bailor's commitment and the real extent of his expertise. But now he had to admit that Bailor, for all his deficiencies and apparent cowardice, was basically right. What else was there to do? Hadn't that been what he had been doing since he went to work for Changes Productions? Hadn't his performance reached a certain peak in the coffee shop? He had played Jack-Weller-the-convert so well that he had gotten real converts to wondering if be might be a Monitor. And it hadn't been a piece of calculated surface acting; it had come bubbling up out of him unbidden. He had really synced into the part, operating at optimum consciousness. And somehow, at least temporarily, it had given him the power. Maybe I should ride with it, he thought, looking across the brainwave monitor at the smiling Sylvia. I seem to have convinced her and her damned machine. "Well, how about that," Weller said genially. ''I've made it." ''Well, of course, there are further levels, further processes," Sylvia said. "But now that you're in Monitor life analysis, they'll decide what you go on to next, when you're ready for it." "Tell me," Weller said with crafted spontaneity, "have you ever processed a Monitor?" "A Monitor?" Sylvia said, her face screwing up into an expression of uneasy surprise, almost of outraged propriety. "Sure. I mean, someone has to give the Monitors their meditative deconditioning, right?" Sylvia seemed to relax slightly. "Oh," she said, "you mean have I ever processed someone who later became a Monitor? Yes, a few times. But you surely don't suppose that actual Monitors receive processing on my level!" "Well, who does give Monitors the processing that makes them Monitors?" "Er ... ah ... the Monitors themselves, I suppose ... maybe even John ... I don't really know...." She seemed really shook. "Why are you asking me all these questions about the Monitors?" she said more sharply. Weller shrugged diffidently. "I guess because I think they're fascinating people," he said. He rose, suddenly took her hand, and shook it. Sylvia's hand was limp and unresponsive, and she was eyeing him most peculiarly. "Don't you think they're fascinating people?" he said, with smarmy sincerity. "Don't you admire their heightened awareness?" Sylvia could find nothing to say to that. "Well, I've got to go to my life-analysis session now, Weller said breezily. '"It's been nice working with you." And he left her standing there, wooden-faced, having suddenly been dismissed by him, thinking God-knows-what. I've really found something that keeps these nerds off-balance, Weller thought buoyantly, as he took the elevator to the seventh floor of the Center. If only it could work on Gomez. But why couldn't it? Somehow fascination with the Monitors had become a piece of the part he was playing, one of those little schticks that appear from nowhere and give a performance unexpected depth. Why not keep it? Maybe even Gomez isn't immune to flattery. When he entered room 703, Gomez tracked him with his eyes as he walked to his chair with a very strange expression on his face, as if Weller were some exotic and rarely seen animal. He sat there studying Weller silently for long moments while Weller gave him the old Transformationalist Stare back. '"You're full of surprises. aren't you, Weller?" he finally said. "Am I?" "Come off it, Weller. What was that number you ran on Sara English and her flunkies?" "What number?" Weller asked innocently. Gomez shook his head sourly. "What number? You've got them half convinced you're a Monitor, and you ask me what number?" Weller shrugged. "I'm not responsible for what goes on in other people's heads," he said. "Cut this shit out!" Gomez snarled. "Stop jacking me off! I've got the reports. What was all that crap about the Monitors?" Weller shrugged. In for a dime, in for a dollar, he decided. "All I remember saying is that I thought the Monitors were an elite because they had a higher level of Transformational consciousness," he said blandly. Gomez pursed his lips and rolled his eyes briefly toward the ceiling. "You expressed an awful lot of enthusiasm for Monitor discipline," he said. "What's wrong with that?" "Motherfucker!" Gomez hissed under his breath. Then, in clipped, controlled tones: "You know damn well what the general attitude is toward the Monitors inside the movement. They're afraid of us. They resent us. Nobody accepts Monitor discipline with enthusiasm." "I do," Weller insisted. Gomez groaned. "All right," he said, "we'll play your little game. Suppose you explain your loving devotion to the Monitors." It seemed to Weller that Gomez really was off-balance, that he had never heard anything like this before, that he couldn't have gamed this one out beforehand. It seemed that he had at least temporarily gained the initiative, that he was finally confronting his interrogator on a more or less equal footing. You're sharp, he thought, but you're no superman, Gomez. "I'll be honest with you," Weller said, at least half truthfully. "Until I ran into you. there wasn't anyone in the movement who impressed me as a superior type, someone with as much or more on the ball as me. But I can't outthink you, and I can't figure out what you're thinking, and I've got to respect that. It fascinates me. It proves to me that my consciousness really can be improved by processing because frankly, I don't think you were born with a better brain than mine." "That's a fancy brand of manteca you've got there," Gomez said sardonically. But his voice had no real edge to it, and Weller sensed a certain fascination with what he was saying behind those hard eyes. How could Gomez not be intrigued? In his own mind he had to believe that what Weller was saying was true, yet it was also the grossest form of fawning flattery. Gomez knew both aspects, and the personal paradox had to make him feel pretty damn ambivalent. ''I'm a hard case," Weller said, boring in. "You've as much as admitted it yourself. When I lock horns with a harder case, I've got to be impressed. Or don't you think you're as good as I do?" "Cute, Weller, very cute," Gomez leaned back and drummed his fingers on the dossier in front of him. "'As long as we're whispering sweet nothings to each other, I've got to admit that you're a hard one to figure out too. Your motivations for joining Transformationalism were transparently hostile. Yet all the reports come out clean. A competent processor says you've successfully completed meditative deconditioning. You feed me all the right responses...." He shook his head ruefully. "But ...?, Weller said. "But I don't trust you, Weller. I don't trust you at all. I can't find any reason to declare you a regressive, but I can't certify you either." "Sounds like you don't have enough faith in what you're working for," Weller said. "Sounds like maybe you're not sure that Transformational processing works." "Oh, bullshit!" Gomez snapped irritably. Then suddenly he became more reflective; his eyes became more inward- directed, his voice softer. "I'll level with you," he said. 'There's no question that in general, Transformatiomal processing does work. In general. But you're a so-called creative type, and we've found that most people like you have a very strong resistance to the idea of being processed. People who work with their minds are afraid of losing their talent if they let someone play with their heads. "Besides," he said more. sharply, "you're a director. You know acting. You're into creating fictions. In short, you're a professional bullshitter. And I get the feeling you're playing some kind of game with me right now." Jesus, have I outsmarted myself? Weller wondered. Have I gone too far? Or would he have the same suspicions about me no matter what I did? At least this way it's out in the open.... "But if I am sincere, I'd be saying the same things, wouldn't I?" he said, "The reports would read the same." "So they would," Gomez said slowly. "And you do have to reach a decision.... And Harry Lazlo is anxious for me to start directing...." "I don't have to answer to no Harry Lazlo!" Gomez snapped. "But you do have to answer to someone, you do have to decide," Weller said. "In a court of law I'd be innocent unless proven guilty.... " "This isn't a court of law, Weller," Gomez said. "No one passes a Monitor life analysis until we're certain. Period." My God, what have I done? Weller thought. He had a vision of being trapped in this room forever, chewing over the same material with Gomez again and again, locked in a permanent stalemated life analysis. "We've reached an impasse?" he said dully. Gomez laughed. His demeanor brightened, and once again he seemed impenetrable and on top of things. "Well, well, well," he said mockingly, "it's still possible for our little Monitor lover to underestimate us, is it? No, Weller, we haven't reached an impasse. We have our ways. We'll get at the truth, never fear." "I'm glad to hear that," Waller said, putting as much sincerity in his voice as the sudden sinking sensation in his stomach would allow. "Are you, Weller? Are you really?" "I know where I'm coming from, and I want to convince you. What do I have to be afraid of?" Gomez laughed again. "What indeed?" he said. "Well, we'll soon see. "What's going to happen now?" Gomez gave him the Transformationalist Stare, and this time Weller had neither the energy nor the will to resist. He found himself looking across the desk into those hard, unwavering eyes -- transfixed, and more than a little frightened. "We have several interesting alternatives," Gomez said. "The choice will have to be made on a higher policy level. You can consider that a compliment." "If you say so," Weller said. What have I gotten myself into now? he wondered nervously. How have I outsmarted myself this time? *** Weller had been waiting for the Monitors to drop the other shoe for three days, so when a gofer told him that Sara English wanted to see him in her office, he leaped immediately to the nonspecific paranoid conclusion. It was a pretext, Karel would be there, and he would ... what? As he made his way through the maze of plywood partitions toward Sara's office, Weller tried to imagine what the Monitors were going to spring on him and came up totally dry. Rubber hoses? Sodium pentothal? He couldn't even come up with a paranoid fantasy that would hold up as an image in his mind long enough to even focus his dread on a specific fear. And when he reached the office, Karel wasn't there and neither was Sara -- only Arlene Harris, Sara's pudgy assistant, shuffling some papers on the untidy desk and hanging up the phone. I must be really going nuts, Weller thought. I've got to stop jumping at shadows. "Where's Sara?" he asked. "I was told she wanted to see me." "Oh yes," Arlene said. "She said something about that. I think she's on Shano's set. I'll go get her; you wait here." She left, and Weller found himself sitting alone on a folding chair beside the desk, idly scrutinizing the office. It wasn't much -- just the desk, the two chairs, a small Xerox machine, and some plywood filing cabinets. On the desk were a phone, some reels of video tape, an old styrofoam coffee cup, assorted scripts, clipboards, and piles of paper. Nervously Weller found his fingers sorting randomly through the papers on the desk. Then something on one of the documents he was fingering happened to catch his eye. There were three sheets of paper held together with a paper clip, and what had caught his eye was the word "CONFIDENTIAL" stamped in red on the top oft he first sheet. Naturally he couldn't resist picking it up and reading it. Below the red "CONFIDENTIAL" the words "MASTER CONTACT SHEET" were typed in black capital letters. The rest of the sheets were covered with company names, phone numbers, and the names of people, arranged in corresponding columns. There must have been a hundred or more entries. Weller recognized the names of some of the companies Changes Productions was doing commercials for; in fact it looked like they were all there. But there were scores of other companies listed too -- two major studios, a very large hank, a supermarket chain, a local TV station, a chain of restaurants, a network office, two magazine publishers, dozens of really major companies, and dozens more entries that Weller didn't recognize. It looked like a random listing of important and not-so-important businesses with no discernible pattern. Companies, phone numbers, and, apparently, a key contact at each. Contact? Wait a minute! Master contact sheet? Confidential? Good God, Weller thought, can this be what I think it is? It had to be! A master list of Transformationalist contacts at over a hundred companies! Hadn't Sara or someone said that they had their people planted all over the place? Wasn't that how Changes Productions was able to get so many assignments despite the lousy product they churned out? Sure, someone would have to have a list of the Transformationalists at the companies the movement didn't control, and this had to he it.... But this.... This! This list was enormous! A network of over a hundred key people that the movement could call on in Los Angeles alone. Secret Transformationalist agents everywhere, throwing work to Changes Productions -- and what else? What else? Was this just a compilation of the movement's wishful thinking, or were all these people really under life directives to follow Transformationalist orders? Did Transformationalism really have this kind of power? A bubble of fear was beginning to form in Weller's gut. This was Mafia-level stuff, this was really major, this -- His heart skipped a beat as he heard footsteps approaching. Quickly he picked up a pile of scripts and slid the Master Contact Sheet under them. If they caught me looking at that thing..., he shuddered. That list was potential dynamite. If the information got out, all those people would lose their jobs. The movement would stand to lose millions, and there would be a major public scandal. He didn't want to think about how far they would go to protect its confidentiality. It might just be all the way. He wished he had never seen the damned thing, he wished be didn't even know about it.... Sara walked into the office, smiled at him warmly, and sat down behind the desk. "Congratulations," she said, positively beaming. "Huh?" "Haven't you been told yet?" ''Told what?" "Starting next Monday, I'm allowed to let you direct." "What?" Weller goggled at her, dumbfounded. After the last session with Gomez how the hell was that possible? No way I could've passed life analysis, he thought. What's going on here? What number are they running now? ''The word just came down from Owen Karel," Sara said, looking at Weller peculiarly. "What's the matter, Jack, aren't you pleased? You look really strange." "Uh ... yeah, well, I'm really surprised. I mean no one's told me that I've been passed by the Monitors, and in fact I don't see how I could have been...." Sara frowned. "Come to think of it, Karel didn't mention anything about that. That's weird. That's really weird." "It sure is," Weller said. "I mean, just between you and me, I've been led to believe that my Monitor is having a lot of trouble making up his mind about me. He even told me he was going to consult at higher policy levels. Do you think ...?" Could this have been the doing of Harry Lazlo? "Higher policy levels?" Sara said, eyeing Weller very narrowly. Was that fear in her eyes, or what? "That must mean Torrez," she said, almost hissing the name. "Only Torrez himself could overrule the policy against letting someone who hasn't passed life analysis direct." She leaned forward across the desk, and now she looked not only confused but ... turned on. "Look, Jack," she said uncertainly, "maybe this is as good a time as any ... I mean" ... She paused, seemed to be gathering resolution. "I'm attracted to you," she said, "I mean I'd really like to ball you. And now maybe there isn't any life directive against it ... do you know?" "What? WHAT?" Sara ran a point of pink tongue over her lips. "Does it really surprise you that much?" she said. "Yes ... no ... " Weller felt a surge of heat in his loins, but at the same time there was a twinge of loathing in his gut. "What are you talking about, a life directive against it?" "I've passed life analysis and you haven't," Sara said matter-of-factly. "So, of course, I'm under life directive not to go to bed with you. But I'm not sure whether this changes things or not. Can't you tell me?" "Can't I tell you?" Weller said weakly. Pow! Bam! Zam! It was all coming so quickly, They're letting me direct. Sara wants to ball me. There's a fucking life directive against it! And she wants me to tell her what's coming off? Sara looked at him with naked sexual hunger, but at the same time there was an edge of paranoia to it, a nervous look that gave Weller the feeling he had some kind of power over her. But for the life of him, he couldn't figure out how or why. "Look, Jack, I know I shouldn't be asking this," she said, "and I know you probably won't answer, but.... Oh hell, are you or aren't you?" Weller could not help coming out with the line. "Only my hairdresser knows for sure." "You're toying with me," Sara pouted. "I'm toying with you? Jesus Christ, what are you talking about?" "All right, if you want to be that way about it.... They give me a real director, but they tell me I can't use him to direct because he hasn't passed life analysis. He turns me on, but I'm under life directives not to go to bed with him. Now they tell me you can direct, but they don't tell me whether you've passed life analysis, so I don't know whether we can get it on or not. They leave it deliberately vague." Sara sighed. "What am I supposed to think? You've already got me talking about things I shouldn't be talking about. I've put myself in your hands. Can't you tell me? Are you one or not?" Finally Weller realized what she was asking. Am I or am I not a Monitor? Good God! Part of him wanted to go on with the charade, part of him reveled in the sense of sinister power that her paranoia was giving him, and he understood all too well what kind of pleasure you got from really being a Monitor. His body told him that, yes, he wanted to go to bed with her, he had been without a woman too long, without sexual release or even desire, without the warmth of a body against his in the night. And beyond that, what she was saying now took courage, at least in her own head. It was a risk she was taking, and she was taking it for him. It was a moment of human honesty in an endless miasma of mind games. But yet another part of him was totally repelled by the thought of touching someone who would wait for permission from the Monitors before acting out her own feelings. He knew now that he would never ball Sara, not even with someone else's dick. There was too much pity in the way, and too much contempt. "No," he said, ''I'm not a Monitor." Sara studied him quietly for a long moment. Then she got up, bent over him, and then kissed him on the mouth, long, lingering, and tongue deep. Weller found his body responding like a man dying of thirst, but his heart was a solid block of ice, and his stomach writhed with disgust. They parted and looked at each other, eyeball to eyeball. "I believe you," she said. ''I'm going to ask Karel if it's all right. ... If that's okay with you." Weller was torn, and he felt trapped. He was horny as hell, and she was massively attractive. But the thought of having her now, after asking the permission of the Monitors, was totally loathsome to him. At the same time part of him wanted to grudge-fuck her brains out; he wanted to fuck her silly became they wouldn't let him, because he wasn't about to put up with that kind of shit. And beyond all that, there was the part he was supposed to be playing: that Jack Weller would ask permission like a good little boy. Weller could only nod foolishly. "Ask the bastards for their blessing," he muttered under his breath. "What?" He sensed that the moment of honest reality had long since passed. There was a part to play, and he had to do it. "I said I'd ask Gomez too," he said. "I'm seeing him tonight." Boy, will I ask the son of a bitch! She smiled at him, and once again he felt a small flash of human contact, sad and forlorn, "Doesn't this get to you, Sara?" he said, "Don't you feel a little silly having to ask permission?" He started to rise from his chair. "What do you say we just do it right here right now across this desk and to hell with life directives?" Sara jumped back about two feet. "I've got to get back to the set now,'" she said, making for the door. "Be patient, Jack, they know what they're doing...." Then she was gone, leaving him sitting limply on the chair, his body twanging with ultraviolet rage. Too fucking much! he thought, drumming his fingers nervously on the stack of scripts piled on the desk. What's going on? Why are they going to let me direct? A bright flash of paranoid poison went through his mind -- could Sara be part of it too? Could this whole number have been some test dreamed up by Gomez? The coincidence of the timing smelled awfully fishy. Could anything be mere coincidence around here? "Shit!" he snarled, picking up the stack of scripts and slamming them back down on the desk. Then his eyes fell on the Master Contact Sheet which he had accidentally uncovered. Oh really? He thought slowly. Oh really? He picked up the sheaf of papers, fingered them speculatively. He got up and peered out the doorway. No one in sight. Well, why the hell not? he thought. I've seen this damned thing. Whatever danger that puts me in, I'm in already. He went over to the Xerox machine, turned it on, then paused and thought again. This list was potential dynamite to the movement. It could be one hell of a weapon. What do I have to lose? he decided. If I don't have to use it, no one will ever know. But if I do have to use it, then for a change I'll have them by the balls! Quickly he copied the Master Contact Sheet, slipped the original back under the pile of scripts, folded the copies, and stuffed them into his pants pockets. They want to play Gestapo games, I'll give them Gestapo games! he thought. Push me too far, you motherfuckers, and you'll find out I can play the game like a Monitor too.
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