Hell's Gate

the aware part of his mind back into the far reaches of his brain. He turned, positioned himself before the middle of the three trunks where, he somehow knew, an 810-40.04 computer was housed.
        “Victor Salsbury,” the computer said. “Remember.”
        And he did. He was Victor Salsbury. Twenty-eight years old. Both parents dead, killed in car crash when he was in sixth grade. Hometown: Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. He was an artist-commercial trying to make it as creative. He was moving to Oak Grove to find a place to rent and make a studio. Thousands of major and minor memories poured into his consciousness. Memories of childhood, of life in the orphanage, of his art schooling, his association with a Harrisburg agency. Now, he had an identity. Somehow, the aware part of him felt, it was not genuine. As if he had been told his past, rather than having experienced it himself.
        “Do not fight the programming,” the computer said to the tiny part of his mind that held emotions.
         But I have killed a man!
        “He would have died a month later anyway,” the computer explained in its authoritative tones. “And his death would have been much more horrible than anything you could possibly have done to him two weeks ago.”
         How do you know that?
        But the 810-40.04 ignored the second question. On the top of the trunk, two squares of the burnished metal began to glow softly, a sweet yellow. Without understanding how he knew to do this, Victor Salsbury reached out and placed one palm flat one each of the glowing spots. Instantly, the next step of the operation was flashed into his brain and printed there for eternity. When the squares ceased to shine, he rose, went to the farthest trunk just as it popped open at a command from the computer. He took out a suit of conventional clothes, dressed, and left the cave. He had orders to follow.

CHAPTER 3
        
        He spent most of that morning up the street from the Oak Grove Greyhound Station-a ponderous aluminum and glass and concrete structure whose architecture suggested modern gothic-waiting for the bus from Harris-burg so that, when he walked into Wilmar Realty to proceed with the plan, he could say it was by this means he had arrived. He was kept company by a drunk, a small boy with fire red hair, and three persistent pigeons who were absolutely positive he must be concealing some delightful morsel in his suit pockets. He ignored them all, answered the boy or the drunk with clipped, terse replies when silence could no longer be excused. They soon grew wary of him, his isolation, his even, hard eyes. Even the pigeons seemed to start avoiding him.
        When the bus arrived, dispersed its passengers, and circled the block, heading back for Harrisburg, he got up, moving like a cat, and walked down the street toward the Wilmar Realty Agency.
        He stepped through the plate glass door which shut behind, and relished the cool breath of air-conditioning. Outside, the heat had been nearly intolerable. The place was one huge room almost large enough to hold go-cart races in. It had been partitioned along the rear into five office cubicles, each without a ceiling or door so that one got the ludicrous impression of looking into the toilet stalls in a low class men's gymnasium. The greatest part of the room was an unpartitioned lounge with ashtrays and display boards of Wilmar properties. A receptionist was set before the five cubicles, servicing each. The moment he stepped in, she smiled a plastic smile. “Can I help you?”
        “I'd like to inquire about a house,” he said.
        “Renting or buying?”
        “It depends on what I like.” But that was a lie, of course. He knew exactly which house. He had, after all, killed to obtain it.
        “Why don't you look around?” she said. “Someone will be with you in a moment.” Glittering plastic teeth shone so brightly that they almost made him squint.
        He scanned several display boards, found the Jacobi house on the third. He had never seen it from the front (all actions on that night two weeks ago had been initiated from the rear), but he knew it immediately. His mind kept wanting to return to Harold Jacobi, the man he had killed. He had learned the name from the hypnotic briefing with the computer. But the iron programmed part of him forced down any such foolishness.
        “Is that something like what you had in mind?” a gentle voice next to his