The Intruder (9 page)

"Some," she said. "What do you want to know?"

"Well," he looked up at her eagerly, but kept his voice low, "how would you know if you had seen one?"

He steeled himself for the inevitable laughter, but it didn't come. Instead, Hanna wore a thoughtful expression and looked away for a minute. "I've never really thought about that," she said. "From everything I've read, angels look like regular people. Sometimes they look like huge regular people, like when David saw the angel that was attacking Jerusalem, but most of the time they are just taken to be men."

If you believe that stuff,
Jeremy thought, and found it somewhat odd that she hadn't questioned his interest.

"I was studying this question last night, and I came to the same conclusion. They just look like regular people most of the time." She didn't reply, and there was a minute of silence as he pondered what to say next. "What do you know about ghosts?"

Hanna suppressed a laugh. "Far less than I know about angels, I promise you. I would say that I don't believe in ghosts, but frankly I'm not dogmatic on that one. I don't think there are ghosts, but I wouldn't rule out the possibility."

Jeremy nodded, and his respect for Hanna shot up a few notches. It was one thing to believe that angels were real if you thought there was sufficient evidence. It was a completely different matter to believe that ghosts were not, and it seemed that she knew the difference.

"Aren't you dying to know why I'm asking these questions?" he finally said.

The edges of her mouth curled in a conspiratorial smile. "I figured you'd get around to it if you wanted to. And besides, I have other ways of finding out about you."

MacKenzie.

He shuffled in his seat a bit, scratched the back of his head and looked around. 

"I have a lot of things I'd like to talk to you about. Can we go for a walk?"

Hanna raised her eyebrows in surprise, put her half-eaten breakfast on Jeremy's tray, and they left together.

*
             
*
             
*

At the 10:00 sociology lab, Jeremy asked for another round of introductions and was careful to associate names and faces, especially MacKenzie's. She was modestly dressed, unlike some of the people in the class who wore elaborate hairstyles and fantastic clothing. Her brown hair was neat, but not overdone. She was pleasant-looking, but not beautiful, and she looked thin, although her clothes made it hard to tell. He smiled and nodded at her when her turn came, and she winked back.

The class went on much as it had the day before. Most of the questions focused on the socialization of children in the Community. This was the seminar topic for the semester, and the students asked about some things Jeremy had never even considered before. Was there an average age for weaning and potty training? Were boys encouraged to be more athletic than girls? Did fathers prefer their boys, or mothers their girls?

It was a much harder interview than he expected. Jeremy had to stop and think before almost every answer, and he was surprised how much he didn't know.

When class was over, Jeremy had one piece of business to attend to.

"Hey MacKenzie," he said before she could get away. "What are you doing for lunch?"

*
             
*
             
*

"Double duty today," Dr. Berry said to Jeremy as he grabbed a cup of coffee at the psychology lab later that afternoon. The room was much larger than the intimate settings of the sociology class -- which Dr. Berry had missed that morning -- and there was a correspondingly larger audience.

"Yes, but it's been very helpful," he said. "I've learned a lot about Society. I've even learned some things about the Community. I'm a little more worried about these guys, though." He pointed to the assembled crew of nine psychology teachers and 15 students.

"You'll do fine," Dr. Berry said. "But if things get difficult, or you feel uncomfortable, remember that you don't have to answer the questions. And one other thing. Doctor business this time. I need to see you for a follow-up visit. You can come to the office, or I can just meet you somewhere."

"How's this evening in the lobby of my hotel?" he said, uncomfortable with the idea of going back to her office, unless he had to.

"Sure. How's seven?"

*
             
*
             
*

A moment later there was an exchange of pleasantries and introductions, but the teacher of this psychology lab came from a different mold than Phyllis.

"First of all, Jeremy," he said as he began the interview, "we should tell you that we've read the transcript of your conversations with the sociology class." Jeremy didn't know there was a transcript. "You've given us some very useful information about the Community, but I believe our approach will be slightly different, and perhaps our analysis will be a little deeper."

He smiled self-assuredly and glanced around the room. A few of the other professors returned his arrogant smirk while others rolled their eyes.

As the professor's voice droned on in the background, Jeremy received a message over his implant.

From Doctor Berry. Chat mode requested.

"Thank you, professor," he said aloud.
Accepted,
he sent.

Be careful with this guy. He likes to impress his class by being tough on people,
Dr. Berry's voice said through his implant. It was the first time she had sent him a message during one of these sessions, and the first time Jeremy had used chat mode.

Thanks for the warning.

"I'd like to start the questions myself, if you don't mind," the professor began. He liked to be called "professor," while most of the other teachers went by their first names.

Jeremy nodded.

"There is one striking omission from your anecdotal accounts of life in the Community," the professor began. "You explain that you grew up believing Society to be oppressive and invasive of personal liberties, and that you've found that not to be the case." He said this with the condescending tone of a teacher who has exposed and corrected a foolish error. "But you never mentioned why, if you felt that way, you left the Community."

Jeremy swallowed hard and tried not to show the sudden panic he fought to suppress. Did the professor know the real reason?

You don't have to answer,
Dr. Berry's voice told him after his delay was becoming obvious. He nodded, almost imperceptibly, to Dr. Berry and turned to look at the professor.

"It was a difficult decision, of course, and not one I wish to review right now for complete strangers."

The professor didn't react, but it was clear that he was not used to being spoken to in that tone of voice. He made another attempt.

"Surely there is something you can tell us about your reasons for leaving the Community. Or do you wish to leave a room full of psychologists to speculate?"

There were subdued chuckles.

"You can speculate all you like. It doesn't make a bit of difference to me what you think."

The professor shook his head and made an impatient gesture to one of the other faculty members to take over the questioning. He then immediately scribbled something on a pad of paper in his lap. Pads of paper had been rendered obsolete by the implants, and Jeremy expected the pad was some sort of affectation. Paper was usually reserved only for special correspondences.

Jeremy looked away from the professor and toward the rest of the assembled teachers and students, as if to say that he was dismissing the professor from further consideration. He noted that one of the other psychology professors discreetly gave him a thumbs up. He was the next one to speak.

"Jeremy, I don't know if you're aware of this, but the Communities came to differing decisions about how completely they should sever their ties with Society. Some continued to watch our television broadcasts, for example, or listen to the radio, back when we had such things. But yours was different. The Community you are from severed all contact from the very beginning. Why was that? What was so wrong with the radio? Were you afraid that Society ideas would undermine your Community?"

Jeremy laughed good naturedly. "Hardly. No, it wasn't the fear of the conspiracy theorist. The founders of our Community didn't listen to the radio because they were completely uninterested in anything anyone was saying, and because they had more pressing matters to attend to, like building a new culture, a new government and all that. Society ideas seemed both useless and sophomoric." He stopped himself at that, and then said, "no offense meant to the sophomores."

A young man in the back of the room said "none taken," and there were a few scattered chuckles.

"In fact, years later, part of our education was to listen to tapes of the broadcasts from that era," Jeremy continued. "Perhaps you never have?"

The questioner, Bob, as Jeremy remembered from introductions, said that he hadn't.

"You ought to. It's complete drivel; pure propaganda. Some of the shows complained about oppressive government tactics and some defended them. But it was just a lot of wind, and nobody seemed to get to the heart of the issue. People competed as if they were ideological enemies, but they didn't realize how much they had in common. In fact, it was some of their common assumptions that were the real root of Society's problems."

He paused and took a drink of water, discreetly surveying a few faces in the crowd before he continued.

"There were a few voices of reason from those days, but many of those were the very people who ended up founding the Communities, so we were left with the impression that the brain trust had left." He laughed at that. "And we were content to leave you folk to quarrel among yourselves. We had no idea that things had straightened out."

"Very interesting," Bob said, "but you also made no effort to check back with us. Why was that?"

"At the time we split, the government had its fingers into everything. We thought it was inevitable that they'd take over every institution and organ of power. We were just waiting for the government to come and close us down. We didn't expect you to reform, but in that hope we established the Advocate as a kind of ambassador, or legal counsel, for the Community. He was supposed to be let us know what was going on, but it turns out, in our case, at least, that our Advocate has been lying to us for decades, feeding us stories that the government was still knocking on the door, threatening to disband the Communities."

Heads around the room shook in disgust and anger, and there were a few murmured conversations. 

"But now I have a question," Jeremy said. "Didn't the other Communities have Advocates? That was the original model. Did they all lie, or were we the fortunate ones?"

"Sad to say, we know of at least three who did, but most of them told the truth," Bob explained. "Some of the Communities disbanded when they heard how things had changed in Society. Some stayed together, preferring their simpler lifestyle. In fact, some of the Communities grew as the people from Society emigrated. The new government restored the liberty of citizens in Society, but some people still longed for a simpler life. Yours is one of the few communities that remained completely isolated." 

Jeremy shook his head. "Amazing. And why didn't anyone try to let us know what was going on?"

Dr. Berry spoke for the first time. "Because you had stormed off into your room and closed the door, put up a 'do not disturb, go away' sign, and never came out again. Why should we have bothered you?" 

The room grew quiet and several heads turned sharply to glare at Dr.
Berry
, but Jeremy just smiled.

"I guess if I can accuse Society of being sophomoric, you can call the Communities temperamental adolescents. But these things happened two generations ago, and, for better or worse, I'm no longer a citizen of the Community. Maybe we should stop saying 'us' and 'you.'"

"Agreed," Bob said.

The allotted time passed quickly, but several people remained afterward and continued to question Jeremy about their pet theories regarding the communities. As he had discovered from the budding sociologists, he hadn't considered many of the questions very deeply.

After a while he said, "it may be that you know more about the psychology of the Community than I do. You've studied it and thought about it. I never really questioned it." To which they replied, "but you have thought Community thoughts. No matter how much we try, we're still aliens looking in."

*
             
*
             
*

Jeremy rested his head in his hand and rubbed his temple as the hovercar took him back to the hotel later than afternoon. Almost as soon as he left the university campus, all thoughts of his twin interrogations left him -- but the tension remained, as well as a kind of mental weariness. Would he see another of these ghosts, or angels, or whatever they were? Or was it all madness? Was this the kind of thing Dr.
Berry
had warned him of?

An hour later he was no closer to a sensible course of action. "The trouble with being deceived is that you don't know it," he said aloud as he lay on his bed, staring at the ceiling. It was a saying that was used in the Community to explain why people in Society had allowed themselves to be trapped and enslaved by their brutal, bureaucratic, meddling captors. Jeremy now knew that it was the Community that had it all wrong; that Society was nothing like they imagined. In fact, it was all quite ironic. It was the Community that was deceived, and didn't know it, after all.