A Rage for Revenge

8 Live or Die?

They held me down while I screamed at them.

I raged and roared and struggled to break free. I wasn't going to let it happen again. Never again! I cursed at them until I was incoherent. An elephant was sitting on my chest, two grizzly bears were holding my arms. Godzilla was cracking my legs like a wishbone. I broke free one arm and punched at one at the bears. It said "Ooff." and fell back. I clawed at the elephant, and I was trying to reach Godzilla when the mountain collapsed on top of me again. I still didn't stop struggling.

"I'm not going to be brainwashed again! I'm not going through that another time!" I clawed my way upward. "I'll kill you! I'll kill you all, you mindsuckers!"

The rage turned red and I disappeared, screaming into it . . .

. . . and came out the other side, gasping for breath, too weak to move, tears streaming down my cheeks, crying in failure.

"That's good, Jim. Bring it all up."

"Fuck you."

"Good. Keep bringing that up too. All that anger. Get it all out."

For some reason that enraged me even more. I called him everything I could think of-in three different languages. I couldn't get him angry. He just stared at me impassively and waited. I gasped and croaked and gave up. I was defeated. Again. Too limp to move.

The mountain got off of me. Godzilla and the bears let go of my arms. The elephant got off my chest. They knew they didn't have to worry any more. I didn't have enough energy left to hate them. They'd won again. What would they turn me into this time?

I looked up and there was Foreman, kneeling over me. I couldn't read his face.

His expression was neutral, but his eyes were sharp and penetrating. Like Jason Delandro's had been. Foreman waved away the assistants who stood gathered and waiting around me. He said softly, "What's the matter, Jim."

"I'm not going to be brainwashed again!"

"Why do you think this is brainwashing?"

"Because-I've been brainwashed!"

"And that makes you an expert?"

"No-Yes! I don't know! But I know what's going on inside my own head! And I don't want to be here any more."

"The door's not locked," said Foreman.

"I can go?" I sat up and looked.

"Any time." His expression was unreadable. "Except you gave your word that you'd complete the course."

"I gave my word to Delandro, too-and I know how that turned out. "

"Yes, I know all about that. May I work with you for a moment?"

I wiped my nose with the back of my hand. I looked to the doors. I knew this trap. "You're going to anyway, no matter what I say. That's how this works."

"Was that a yes or a no, Jim? I need your permission."

"I don't want to be worked with," I said.

"All right." Foreman stepped back away from me.

"Huh? Is that it? I can go?"

Foreman nodded. "All I want to do is ask you some questions, Jim, questions that might help you see what's going on here. But if you don't want to, then you shouldn't be here."

I thought about it for a moment. This was very confusing. Part of me wanted to head straight for the door. And a part of me wanted an answer.

"Can I leave when we're through?"

"If you still want to," Foreman said, "you can leave." I decided to go for the answer.

"All right," I said. "Yes."

"Thank you. Would you come sit up on the dais?" He offered me his hand. I didn't take it. He didn't seem to notice the slight. He just pointed toward the high director's chair and patted my shoulder. "Just go on up there and sit down. Do you need a tissue?" He handed me a box of tissues, then turned to whisper something into the ear of the Course Manager who was waiting quietly to one side. I took the box with me up to the dais and sat down in his tall director's chair.

Five hundred people stared at me. I ignored them and wiped my eyes. They were a distant wall of faces.

Foreman came up to the dais and stood beside me. He took the box of tissues off my lap and put it on the podium.

"How do you feel?"

"Limp," I said. Then I added, "I'm fine. Just a little . . . weak. "

"Do you want some water?" I nodded.

Foreman turned to the podium and reached inside it for a pitcher and a plastic cup. I took the water and drank it thirstily. I handed it back. "Thank you."

"All right, Jim," he began. "What we're going to do here is demonstrate something. I'm going to ask you some questions, and all I want you to do is answer them truthfully. All right?"

"Yes, fine."

"Now you said that you don't want to be brainwashed again, right?"

"That's right."

"Where were you brainwashed before?"

"You know where. I was captured by renegades last year."

"Yes, I do know. But I want everybody else to hear this too. There's a point to be made here, Jim, so you need to tell the absolute truth about everything. Understand?"

I nodded.

Foreman paused to phrase his next question carefully. "Is this course the same as the Tribe training you had with the renegades?"

"Uh-parts of it are."

"What parts?" "Well-the gun in Colonel Irving's mouth. And the choice."

"What choice?"

"You offered her a choice. Didn't you . . . ?"

"No, I didn't. Think back. What did I do?"

I thought back. I replayed the moment in my head. I started to tremble again. "You . . . asked her if she could keep her word about being here on time."

"Right. But I never told her that I would kill her. The point of that whole demonstration was to find out if she was physically able to keep her word. Not if she would, just if she could. And we found out that she can. If her survival was at stake, she could be here on time. She said so. That was all we wanted to know. Did you follow that?"

"Yes."

"So there wasn't any 'choice' in the matter at all, was there?"

"No, there wasn't."

"Good. You're doing fine. Now what was the choice you were given by the renegades?"

"Live or die."

"Live or die?"

"Uh-huh."

"Nothing more."

"No."

"So there was survival involved in it, wasn't there?"

"Yes."

"In fact, there was nothing but survival involved in it, right?"

"That's right."

"And you chose to live?"

"Yes."

"There was 'choice' there-and survival was connected to that choice-and you chose to survive, right?"

"Right. Yes."

"And thereby demonstrated that you would do anything that was necessary to guarantee your survival, right?"

"Uh . . . right."

"So you gave them control over you, didn't you?"

"They already had control over me. They had the gun."

"You could have chosen death. That would have put you beyond their control, wouldn't it?"

I shrugged. "It, uh . . . didn't occur to me."

There was mild amusement in the room. Smiles. Chuckles. The wall of faces shifted and became a roomful of people for a moment, then they retreated again.

"Of course not; you were in survival mode." Foreman said, quietly. "But you did give them control over you, didn't you?"

"Uh . . . " I didn't want to admit it.

"Tell the truth, Jim," he prompted.

"Yes."

"Thank you. That's very good: Honest." He turned away for a moment, poured himself a glass of water and drank it. I had a moment to look out at the room. The faces weren't hostile. They were. ..with me. This was their question too. I was them. I realized I wasn't as scared as I had been before.

Foreman replaced his water glass and came back to me again. "So now I want you to look and see, Jim. That choice you were given-was that the same as the demonstration I did up here a while ago?"

"It looked like it."

"Yes, it looked like it. Wasn't it the same?"

"It looked the same . . ." I started to say, ". . . but no, it wasn't." I was clear about that.

"Thank you. Now, was Jason's 'training' the same as this?"

"I don't know."

"Look and see, Jim. What's the same? What's different?"

I was remembering the taste of Jason's gun in my mouth and I felt angry. The words came haltingly at first. "Jason cheated . . . because he didn't explain it-at least, not until afterward." I had to stop for a moment, there were tears welling up in my eyes and I didn't know why. My throat hurt. "What Jason said was this: there's no point in explaining the choice between life or death when you're trapped inside your survival programming, because you can't see it. So-so . . . " My voice brake then and I couldn't continue. I wiped at my eyes.

Foreman handed me a glass of water and I drank it quickly. "It's all right," he said quietly. "You're doing fine."

I handed him back the glass; I wanted to go on. I wanted to get it said and out of my head. "He lied! It wasn't the choice he said it was! The choice that Jason was really giving me . . . " I could see it clearly now; I felt so lightheaded I was almost giddy. "He was asking me if I wanted to survive so much I would let myself be reprogrammed. Only, he didn't ask it clearly!"

"Of course not," said Foreman. "You'd have rather died than been reprogrammed-and he wanted you alive."

"Yes, I see that now." I rubbed my hands across my forehead, all over my face. "But it was still dishonest." I looked up at Foreman. "Wasn't it?"

"Not by their rules," remarked Foreman. "By their rules, only the 'awakened' are capable of understanding real choice; 'guests' need to be handled-that is, manipulated. You stepped into a philosophical bear trap there, Jim. But that's another discussion, for another time. How are you feeling now?"

"I'm fine," I said. "I really am."

"Good." Foreman looked satisfied. His white hair floated in a halo around his head. "You're doing fine. We're almost to the end now. Just keep telling the truth."

"I will," I said.

"So: are you clear that what we're up to here is not the same?"

"I don't know." I looked to Foreman, confused. "Jason had a vision too. And he was just as passionate about it as-as you are about this core group. And he talked about commitment and responsibility too."

"Mm-hm," Foreman nodded. "What you're seeing, Jim-what you're realizing-is that the technology to produce results can be used for good as well as for bad. And that the judgment of good or bad is very often nothing more than the amount of agreement people can create for a specific position. Jason said he was creating a partnership with the worms. You saw how that worked out. We're not looking for a partnership with the invaders here. A few years ago, I interviewed you about another choice-do you remember? I asked you what you wanted to do. Do you remember what you told me?"

"I said I wanted to kill worms."

"Right. Is that still true?"

"Yes. Now more than ever."

"Good. Very good." Foreman put a hand on my shoulder and leaned close. When he spoke again, his tone was calm and straight forward. "Now, listen to me. It doesn't matter if this training is the same as Jason's. It may very well be. I don't know what he did, and I really don't care. And ultimately, it's irrelevant-because this isn't about the training at all; it's about what you're going to do with it after we're done. So, here's the real question: Is the purpose the same? Is our purpose here the same as Jason Delandro's?"

"No."

"It's not the same. You're clear about that?"

"Yes."

"Absolutely clear?"

"Yes. "

"Then why did you react as if it were?"

"Huh-?"

Foreman's voice pressed in hard. "THEN WHY DID YOU REACT AS IF IT WERE THE SAME?"

"I . . . I . . ." I could feel my throat constricting painfully. There was pressure in my chest. I couldn't breathe

"It's all right," said Foreman. He touched my shoulder with his hand. "Tell me what you're feeling."

"I can't breathe. It hurts."

"Where does it hurt?"

"In my--chest." I touched my breastbone. "There's pressure."

"Like you're being squashed?"

"Yes."

"Mm-hm. I want you to notice something, Jim. I asked you a question-and instead of answering it, you came up with a lot of strong physical feelings. There's something going on here that you're not yet telling the truth about, but it's still trying to communicate itself. You're trying to hold it in and it's trying to get out, so it's being expressed as a physical pressure. So this time, when I ask the question, I want you to let the answer out, all right?"

I gulped and nodded.

"Why did you react as if this training were the same as the other one?"

"Because it looked the same and I was afraid I would end up the same way-" I blurted it out so fast, the words stumbled over each other. It was easier to say than I thought. "I was scared. I don't want to give up control of my mind again."

"I have bad news for you," Foreman stage-whispered in my ear. "You can't."

"Huh?"

"It's your mind. Can anyone else but you be responsible for what it does?"

"Uh, no. Are you telling me I was never brainwashed?"

"I'm not telling you anything. I'm just standing here asking questions."

"You're saying there's no such thing as brainwashing, aren't you?" I could feel my panic rising again. I was on a roller coaster. I felt trapped. "I know what you're suggesting. You're going to tell me that I'm copping out-that my saying I was brainwashed is how I avoid being responsible for what I did, isn't it?"

"Is it?"

"That's what you're saying!" I was shouting now. "At least, you're implying it! But I was there and I know what happened! And I didn't know how else it could be worked out! All I know is what happened last time. This looked the same! And I got scared!"

"That's perfect," said Foreman. "That's absolutely perfect."

"Huh?" I was suddenly confused. "What is?"

"What you just said. Say it again."

"It looked the same and I got scared."

"Right." Foreman seized on it. "It looked the same to you-so you reacted as if it were the same situation, even when it wasn't. Do you see that?"

"Oh, yes."

"It was all automatic, wasn't it? Your button got pushed and your machinery went off, didn't it?"

"Uhh . . ." I sagged in the chair. "Oof." I put my hands over my eyes.

"What's on that tape, Jim?"

"Uh, anger . . . ?"

"Are you asking me or telling me?"

"Anger," I said. "I'm telling you."

"There's something else, Jim. That wasn't just anger. What else was there?"

I swallowed, lowered my hand and said quietly, "Rage. I mean-I wasn't human for a while, I was an animal. I wanted to kill. I would have killed then. If I could have."

"Uh-huh." Foreman nodded. "That rage came up very clearly. Can you see how automatic it was?"

"Yes," I admitted. He was right. I felt like I wanted to tremble and cry, but at the same time I was feeling lighter too.

"That's a very old tape, that one-you inherited it from your umpty-great grandfather-you know, the one who climbed down from the trees. It's called fight-or-flight. It's part of your operating system. It's always watching, judging, and burping up reactions. This time, it burped up the concept that your survival was threatened and it plugged in the appropriate response. You went into fight-or-flight mode, didn't you?"

"Yeah, I did." I felt embarrassed.

"How long have you been carrying that rage around?"

"Uh-at least a year."

"Oh, no; much longer than that. How about, most of your life . . . ? How old are you?"

"Twenty-five "

"Uh-huh. It takes a long time to build up that much rage. At least three billion years. That rage is your whole evolutionary history; you've been angry since the day you got kicked out of mommy's nice warm baby-maker. Only you just don't let yourself admit it. Do you let your rage out often?"

"Um, more now than I used to."

"Mm-hm. Does it work?"

"What do you mean?"

"When you go into fight-or-flight mode, you plug into your rage. Does it handle the situation that triggered the fight-or-flight mode?"

"Oh, I see." I had to think about this one. "No . . . not really. "

"Mm-hm-but you've kept on doing it, haven't you?"

"I . . . I didn't know what else to do."

"That's right. You didn't know what else to do. That rage was one of your primary operating modes. You shift into it very easily-because you don't know that there are any other modes available to you, do you? You'll spend your whole life trying to find the right operating mode; the one that can handle every situation you fall into. What's driving you crazy is that there isn't one.

"There isn't a right way, Jim. There's only appropriate and inappropriate. When the renegades captured you, what you did was appropriate. You surrendered. You shifted into another mode, another operating state, that's all. Your problem is that you don't like knowing that mode is part of your spectrum of operating modes. Right?" He fixed me on the point of his stare. "Right?"

I nodded. I swallowed hard and admitted it. "Right."

"Good," Foreman said quietly. He patted my shoulder again. "Thank you, Jim." He turned around to include the rest of the room again. "Listen up! This course is not about finding the right mode. It's about the person who makes up the operating modesit's about mastering the technology that operates the piece." He patted the top of his head to indicate what "piece" he was talking about. "So here's how it works. It's very simple. In this course, you are going to experience as many different operating modes as you can make up. We will keep doing that day after day after day after day. We'll do it for as long as is necessary-until you get the joke."

Foreman started to turn back to me, then caught himself. "Oh-one more thing. Jim raised some points here about brainwashing. Let me handle that right now." He completed his turn and looked me straight in the eye, again. "Jim, do you know the difference between brainwashing and training?"

I shook my head. "Obviously not."

"It's really very simple. You get to choose to be trained. You don't get to choose to be brainwashed." Foreman turned back to me and said, "Did you choose to be a part of Jason Delandro's tribe?"

"It looked like it-but no, not at first. Not at the beginning, I never did."

"Right. Did you choose to be here?"

I looked at the memory. "Yes, I did. I want this training. I signed up because I thought it would help me-get better."

"Yes, I know," said Foreman. "Now, then: you said you wanted to leave. Do you still want to?"

"Huh?"

"Remember? You were on the floor, screaming at me. You said you didn't want to do this any more."

"Oh," I said. "But I didn't mean it. I mean, I did-but I don't any more." I had to laugh. "That really was fight-or-flight, wasn't it? No, I want to stay."

There was loud laughter now. And applause. The wall of faces suddenly disintegrated. I wasn't alone any more. And this time, the tears in my eyes were tears of happiness.

I didn't know why, but I was happy. Again.