“Work with me? On what?”
“First you have to agree to help me. Let me stay with you.”
“And do what?”
“You don't understand,” he says. “This whole existence is temporal. The rest of us have no idea if we'll be here tomorrow, or in five minutes. You are the constant.”
I could keep asking him questions, but I have a feeling he would keep giving me vague answers. I get the idea he doesn't know any more than I do, that he's only trying to remain close to me because that's what he's programmed to do.
So to get rid of him, I'll have to lull him into a false sense of security and then run.
But run to where? They know where I live. They know where I used to work. They know I am married toâ¦
Oh, shit. They could already be following Gloria. I hadn't thought of that. What should I do? Go get her or stay far away from her? I have to figure out a way to make sure she's safe, but before that I have to get away from Runciter and Sherri and whoever else is following me.
I have an idea. Since Runciter surely knows where I live, I may as well take him there. If he thinks I've decided to trust him, maybe he'll lower his guard. I'll try to find Juliana's address and phone number somewhere. Grab a few things for myself, like clothes and whatever, in case I'm not able to return for a while. And then I'll figure out a way to get the hell out of there and leave Runciter behind.
What I'll do after that is anyone's guess.
“Okay,” I finally tell him. “I live pretty close by. We'll turn back east and then south on Yale. It's not far. Just follow me.”
Runciter smiles, a huge smile that seems to brighten the set, like the director has brought in a special bank of LEDs to make sure every shadow is filled, that nothing is left to chance.
“Thank you,” he says. “I'll tell you the rest when we get to your house. You won't be sorry.”
THIRTY-SEVEN
O
n the way to my house I think about Gloria, about her phone messages. I want to make sure she's okay, and let her know I'm okay, but I can't risk bringing attention to her. And even if I get away from Runciter, if I could see her or call her, what the hell would I say?
Runciter follows me to my house, which is only a few minutes away. As I turn into my driveway, I push a button to open the garage door, but at the last second I decide not to actually park in the garage. I don't want Runciter to park behind me and eliminate any chance for a quick escape. So I stop my car in the driveway, and Runciter pulls up next to me.
When we walk into the house, it seems cold, dissonant, and when I pass the first room (my study), I begin to understand why that is.
The two drawers of my desk have been pulled open, and debris is scattered all over the floor. Yellow and blue and green Post-it notes, batteries, USB cables, old pictures, old utility bills, golf tees, screenplay pages covered in Courier typeface. The computer itself has been rudely shoved aside, one of its panels pulled off. Okay, I did that, but who the hell went through my drawers?
The door to the closet is standing open, and when I look inside I find a similar battleground of paper, more bills, and financial documents that have been yanked out of a two-drawer file cabinet. Photo albums have been thrown from shelves, old clothes have been tossed onto the floor, boxes of CDs have been upended.
“What the hell happened in here?” asks Runciter from the hallway.
I walk past him, into my bedroom, where I find dresser drawers open and clothes strewn about. The three junk drawers in the kitchen have been defiled in the same way, but though the silverware drawer is open, it hasn't been disturbed. The bottle of Captain Morgan is still standing on the countertop where I left it, completely empty.
“Funny,” I say to Runciter, who has followed me into the kitchen. “I don't remember drinking the rest of this. When I left the house yesterday the bottle was still a quarter full at least.”
I'm making up the amount, I don't remember exactly how much it was, but I know it wasn't empty when I left my house yesterday morning, before I went to work and tried to retrieve the screenplay file.
“You think someone drank it?”
“Someone obviously broke into my house. I guess they were thirsty.”
Runciter just looks at me.
“What the hell were you people looking for?”
“What? We didn't do this.”
“Then who the hell did?”
“Maybe the FBI?”
“What on earth would they have been looking for?”
“What do you have that someone else would want?”
“You tell me!”
“Where's the front door?” Runciter asks, walking out of the kitchen, toward the main hallway. “This way?”
I follow him as he turns left and finds the entryway.
“It's locked,” he says. “No sign of forced entry. Let's check the windows.”
He walks into the living room, looking at the windows, checking their locks. Then into the dining room and its French doors, back into the kitchen where there are more windows. Then he heads for the bedrooms.
“Are you suggesting no one broke into my house?”
We walk into the master bedroom, into the master bath. Into the spare bedroom. We already were in the study. None of these windows are broken or unlocked.
“If someone broke in,” he says, “how did they do it?”
“Maybe the door from the garage. I never lock that one. They could have somehow pried the garage door open and come in that way.”
“Your garage door faces the street. You think anyone is going to come in that way when they could easily break a small window in your front door? Or better, the back door?”
“Maybe they wanted to make it look like there was no forced entry.”
“How would anyone know the door in the garage wouldn't be locked? Anyone besides you, I mean?”
Gloria couldn't have done this. Could she? And I certainly didn't.
Runciter is looking at me like I'm crazy. But I didn't break into my own house. I would remember something like that. Of course I would.
Right?
I am exhausted, like fatigue has settled all the way into the marrow of my bones. I came here to get Juliana's phone number and get rid of Runciter. I did not come here to find this. This morning I've been holding the exhaustion at bay, probably on pure adrenaline, and now it's rushing back with a vengeance. It's almost overwhelming.
“Thomas,” Runciter says. “There's something you need to know about Philip K. Dick.”
“You mean something Sherri and them didn't tell me? You goddamn liars. All of you.”
“His novels almost always involved the uncertain nature of reality.”
“I know that.”
“But what Sherri didn't get a chance to tell you is that Dick was fascinated with the idea, in part, because he was afraid he couldn't tell what was real and what wasn't. He suspected he was schizophrenic.”
“So?”
“In February of 1974, Dick saw that vision of pink light David told you about. He saw geometric patterns and lasers. He saw himself as Thomas in ancient Rome. And when these visions didn't go away, he grew increasingly disconnected with reality. He was paranoid. He thought he was being shadowed by the KGB and the FBI. He even thought they had burglarized his house.”
I try to process all this, but I am tired, so tired, and my brain isn't making the connection.
“He called these events â2-3-74' because they occurred over the months of February and March of 1974. And Dick was a very self-aware man, Thomas. He knew how unlikely it was for these things to be true. Eventually he realized he might have committed the burglary himself and forgotten about it.”
“You're saying I went through all my own stuff looking for something, or maybe just tried to make it look that way?”
“Look at your hand, Thomas. You wrote Gloria's number on it. What does it say?”
I look down at the number scribbled across my palm. It says: 555-2374. This has been Gloria's cell number since we got married.
My mind isn't sure how to process this. I don't know what it means. I only saw that guy in the bathroom three days ago, but this phone number predates that event by ten years.
“What I'm saying, Thomas, is your life is clearly linked to Philip K. Dick's. Especially with his work. You're named after one of his characters. So is your wife. So are all of us.”
“You are, too?”
“In the novel
Ubik
, there is a character named Glen Runciter. He owns a company that employs people who can block the powers of certain psychics.”
“Why are you telling me this? What do you think is going to happen?”
“I want to know what's going on as bad as you do.”
“But what do you
hope
will happen? Today? Tomorrow? A year from now?”
“I haven't thought that far ahead,” Runciter says. “All I know is if I let you go, I could cease to exist.”
“That is insane.”
Runciter chuckles gravely. “This is the world we live in. It's all we have.”
“You honestly believe we're living in a simulation and it all revolves around me.”
“Do you?”
“Everything I've seen over the past few days points to that. But then again, so would a paranoid delusion.”
“Which is exactly what Dick feared about himself.”
“Or you could be lying to me.”
“But what would I have to gain? No offense, but it's not like you have money or anything else I can steal. What possible motivation could I have except to remain close to you so my role in the simulation will continue?”
I can't think of one, but then again I am too tired to think of anything. The one thing I do know is I don't trust Runciter. I don't trust any of them. Any of you.
“And you're willing to betray your friends in the process?”
“Well, I lied about that. They know exactly what I'm telling you.”
“How did you end up in the police station?” I ask. “How did you know what cell I would be put in?”
“We
Â
have friends on the police force.”
“But how did you know I was taken in? By the time I was arrested you were already in the cell.”
“We knew you would end up at the police station as soon as you drove off the freeway. We've been following you since you left the church on Sunday. That's when it begins for us.”
“Begins?”
“I told you already,” Runciter says. “This isn't the first time it's happened. I've seen you before. I've gone through all this before.”
“But if the game is reset, isn't everything wiped clean? Where do your memories come from?”
“No one knows. The prevailing idea is that it's sort of like genetic memory. Or a mistake. Like in Windows, when you delete a program, sometimes traces of it are left in the Registry. I don't know, Thomas. I just know I've done all this before.”
“You just wake up and you're following me?”
“It begins for us when you exit the church. Once we're here, it feels like we've always been here.”
“What about Philip K. Dick? The guy in the bathroom? How did you manage that?”
“We didn't do that.”
“What?”
“We aren't running the game, Thomas. We're just a part of it. Whoever is running it would have done that.”
I keep forgetting, even though Runciter and the rest are following me, they aren't the cause of anything. They are part of the game.
“So you guys have been in constant contact with me every moment since it began?”
“There are times when we can't see you, of course. We can't follow you into every bathroom stall, every room in your house. We have to sleep just like you do. But someone is always outside your house, outside where you work, waiting for you wherever you go. We know you'll eventually return to your car or exit your house, so even though we can't always see you, we always have a reason to exist because we are waiting to see you.”
“But you know where I live. Why don't you just check on me every once in a while?”
“We don't have anything else to do, Thomas. This is it.”
“This is what everyone does?”
“Not everyone. Most people don't know they're in the game. Anyone you have contact with is live during that window of time. The people closest to you live the most normal lives of any character, because they're in almost constant contact with you. Your wife, for exampleâshe spends enough time with you that her existence may be similar to yours. Almost complete, in other words. But for those of us who have little or no contact with you, our lives are intermittent and in some cases almost nonexistent. Not many of us are aware of this, but for those who are, we obviously have a vested interest in keeping an eye on you.”
“How many know?”
“I'm not sure. A few hundred, maybe. More every day. The more people who know, the better chance we have to keep tabs on you.”
“Runciter, anyone who doesn't know is probably happily living in their world. Why ruin it for them?”
“Yeah, well what about us who know? Why should we be stuck living like this? We want what you have. We want normal lives, too. We didn't ask to be paper-thin characters, but that's what happened, so we're taking it upon ourselves to correct the situation. And if that means being in constant contact with you, that's what we're going to do.”
“Look, man. I understand what you're trying to do. But I don't want to be followed around for the rest of my life. And what kind of life would that be for you anyway?”
“I'm a human being with the will to survive. This is the only chance I have.”
“So what's going to happen now that you're changing the conditions of the game?”
“I've been thinking about that,” Runciter says. “With your wife gone, there's no reason why I couldn't stay here with you, right?”