False Memory

indulging in adolescent name-calling. But, ah, what a sweet release it was.
    With increasing excitement, he said, “You must wait, in fact, until their son is home, too, your venomous little half brother Derek junior—who is, by the way, as much of a suppurating pimple on the ass of humanity as his old man. Jackoff Junior will probably be there when you arrive, because he’s home-schooled, as you know. Your syphilitic stepfather has his own ass-wipe theories about education, some of which I suppose he shoved down your throat, too, and Skeet's. Anyway, they must all be present before you act. You will disable all of them but not kill them immediately. You will mutilate and dismember them in the following order: Claudette first, then Junior, then Derek shit-for-brains Lampton himself. He must be last, so he can watch everything you do to Claudette and Junior. Wednesday, Martie, I showed you a photograph of a girl whose dismembered body had been rearranged by her killer in a particularly clever fashion, and I asked you to focus particularly on that tableau. Once you’ve cut her apart, you and Dusty are going to rearrange Claudette in the same fashion, with but one variation, involving her eyes—”
    He halted, realizing that in his excitement he had gotten ahead of himself. He paused to take a deep breath and then a long swallow of black cherry soda.
    “Excuse me. Sorry. I’ve got to back up a moment. Before you go to Malibu, you’ll stop at a self-storage unit in Anaheim to pick up a satchel full of surgical instruments. And an autopsy saw with spare blades—including a few excellent cranial blades that’ll open any skull, even one as dense as Derek’s. I’ve also left a pair of Glock machine pistols and spare magazines...
    Involving her eyes.
    Those three words from his instructions cycled back through the doctor’s mind, and for a moment he didn’t understand why.
    Involving her eyes.
    Abruptly he stood up from his chair, pushing it backward, out of his way. “Martie, look at me.”
    After a hesitation, the woman raised her bowed head and her downcast eyes.
    Swiveling to the husband, Ahriman said, “Dusty, why have you been looking at Martie all this time?”
    “Why have I been looking at Martie?” Dusty replied, correctly answering a question with a question, as he was required to do in this deep programmed state.
    “Dusty, look at me. Look directly at me.” Dusty turned his gaze from his wife to Ahriman. Martie was staring down at her hands once more. “Martie!” the doctor commanded. Obediently, she met his eyes again.
    Ahriman stared at Martie, studying her eyes, then turned to Dusty, turned from one to the other, one to the other, one to the other, until he said, more shakily than he would have liked, “No REM. No jiggle.”
    “No shit,” Dusty said, getting to his feet.
    Their attitude changed. Gone, the glazed expressions. Gone, the air of obedience.
    Rapid eye movement couldn’t be faked convincingly, so they hadn’t tried.
    Rising from her chair, Martie said, “What are you? What sort of disgusting, pathetic thing are you?”
    The doctor did not like the tone of her voice, did not like it at all. The loathing. The contempt. People did not speak to him in this fashion. Such disrespect was intolerable.
    He tried to reestablish control: “Raymond Shaw.”
    “Kiss my ass,” she said.
    Dusty began to circle the desk.
    Sensing a potential for violence, the doctor drew the .380 Beretta from his shoulder holster.
    The sight of the gun stopped them.
    “You can’t have been deprogrammed,” Ahriman insisted. “You can’t have been.”
    “Why?” Martie asked. “Because it’s never happened before?”
    “What do you have against Derek Lampton?” Dusty demanded.
    People didn’t demand things of the doctor. Not more than once, anyway. He wanted to shoot this stupid, stupid, cheaply dressed, nobody, nothing housepainter right between the eyes, blow his face off, blow his brains out.
    A shooting here, of course, would have unpleasant repercussions. Police with their endless questions. Reporters. Stains that might never come out of the Persian rug.
    For a moment he suspected treachery at the institute: “Who reprogrammed you?”
    “Martie did it for me,” Dusty claimed.
    “And Dusty freed me.”
    Ahriman shook his head. “You’re lying. This isn’t possible. You’re both lying.”
    The doctor heard a note of panic in his voice and was ashamed. He reminded himself that he was Mark Ahriman, only son of the great director, greater in his