False Memory

‘When Nella arrived, Ahriman accessed her with the name of the scheming head housekeeper of Manderley, the mansion in Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca. He instructed her to sweep the garage clear of every trace of sand, to dig a deep hole in one of the backyard planting beds, and to bury the sweeper bag therein. When these tasks were completed, she was to forget that she had performed them.

“Then return to your quarters and await further instructions,” Ahriman directed.

“I understand.”

With Cedric on his way to Mexico and with Nella busily occupied, the doctor went down one floor to his lacewood-paneled office. His computer required only seven seconds to rise out of the desktop on its electric lift, but he tapped his fingers impatiently as he waited for it to lock into place and switch on.

Networked with his office computer, he was able to access his patient records and call up the Keanuphobe’s telephone number. She had given two: home and mobile.

Less than forty minutes had passed since her hasty exit from the beach parking lot.

Although he regretted having to call her from his home phone, time was of the essence — as well as the fire in which we burn — and he couldn’t worry about leaving an evidence trail. He tried the mobile number.

He recognized her voice when she answered on the fourth ring:

“Hello?”

Apparently, as he suspected, she was in a state of paranoid perplexion, driving around aimlessly as she tried to decide what to do about what she’d witnessed.

Oh, how he wished she were programmed.

This would be a delicate conversation. While instructing the Hawthornes and dealing with sundry other matters, he’d been thinking furiously about how best to approach her. As far as he could see, there was but a single strategy that might work.

“Hello?” she repeated.

“You know who this is,” he said.

She didn’t reply, because she recognized his voice. “Have you spoken to anyone about… the incident?”

“Not yet.”

“Good.”

“But I will. Don’t you think I won’t.”

Remaining calm, the doctor asked: “Did you see The Matrix?”

The question was unnecessary, as he already knew that she had seen every Keanu Reeves film at least twenty times in the privacy of her forty-seat home theater.

“Of course, I saw it,” she said. “How could you even ask the question if you were listening to me in the office? But you were probably woolgathering, as usual.”

“It’s not just a movie.”

“Then what is it?”

“Reality,” the doctor said, imbuing that single word with as much ominousness as his considerable acting talent made possible.

She was silent.

“As in the movie, this is not the beginning of a new millennium, as you think. It’s actually the year 2300… and humanity has been enslaved for centuries.”

Although she said nothing, she was drawing shallower, faster breaths, a reliable physiological indicator of paranoid fantasizing.

“And, as in the movie,” he continued, “this world you think is real — is not real. It’s nothing but an illusion, a deception, a virtual reality, a stunningly detailed matrix created by an evil computer to keep you docile.”

Her silence seemed thoughtful rather than hostile, and her soft rapid breathing continued to encourage the doctor.

“In truth, you and billions of other human beings, all but a few rebels, are kept in pods, fed intravenously, wired to the computer to provide it with your bioelectric power, and fed the fantasy of this matrix.”

She said nothing.

He waited.

She outwaited him.

Finally he said, “Those two that you saw… on the beach tonight. They weren’t men. They were machines, policing the matrix, just like in the movie.”

“You must think I’m insane,” she said.

“Precisely the opposite. We’ve identified you as one of those in the pods who have begun to question the validity of this virtual reality. A potential rebel. And we want to help set you free.”

Though she said not a word, she was panting softly, like a toy poodle or some other little rag mop of a dog contemplating a mental image of a biscuit treat.