She crosses the room and sits again. Not in the chair but on the couch, right beside me, so close our thighs and arms are touching. The murmur of voices in the background has faded.
“I’ve been closely following your progress, Jake. I know what happened to you at Fernley. I will not apologize for our use of consequences, but I will admit that your case was handled harshly. Far too harshly.”
“Do you know they put me through an hour of electric shock? That they just sat there and watched while I writhed on the floor in excruciating pain? I honestly believed I might die at Fernley.”
She winces. “I’m deeply sorry about that, Jake. You don’t know how sorry. The past few months, I’ve ceded too much control to a powerful few. Things slipped past my attention.”
“That’s no excuse.”
Orla closes her eyes, takes a soft breath. I realize that in this moment, she is in physical pain. When she opens her eyes, she looks at me directly, unflinching.
What an idiot I’ve been. The clipped hair, the sunken cheeks. Bruises traveling the length of her veins. This woman is dying. I feel so stupid for not having noticed it before.
“The board acted reprehensibly, Jake. We are instituting new regulations to ensure that enforcement officers can refuse to comply with unjust orders. As for leadership, there will be changes—”
“Where are they now?” I cut in. “Neil, Gordon, the members of the board? The judge who approved the interrogation techniques used against me? Whoever approved Alice’s kidnapping?”
“They’re undergoing reeducation. After that, we’ll have to decide if there is still a role for them in The Pact. There’s a lot of work to do, Jake. I am proud of The Pact, and despite this recent spot of unpleasantness, I receive new evidence daily that convinces me of its efficacy. The Pact is about marriage, yes, but it is so much bigger. There are nearly twelve thousand Friends around the world. The best of the best. The smartest, most talented people. Every one handpicked, rigorously vetted. But there will be more, mark my word. I have no clear vision of where The Pact might go, but I want it to grow and thrive. Marriage may not last forever. But as long as possible, I want to fight for it. As you point out, Jake, all marriages need to evolve. So does The Pact.”
She walks to the counter and fiddles with the controls. Music fills the house. “Has The Pact made mistakes? Have I made mistakes? Yes. A thousand times yes! Yet I am still proud of trying. Friend, perhaps we come at things from opposite sides, but we meet in the middle. We want the same thing. We do the best we can, and we either succeed or fail. Neither outcome is to be feared. Doing nothing, Jake, that is what terrifies me.”
I walk over and stand directly in front of her. I put my hands on her frail shoulders. I can feel her bones through the thin fabric of her sweater. My face is inches from hers. “All your theory,” I say, “all this talk. It means nothing to me. Are you so blind you can’t see that? Alice and I want out.”
She winces in pain, and I realize that I’m squeezing her shoulders tightly. I let go and she steps back, startled but unyielding.
A young woman in a gray linen dress appears, whispers something into Orla’s ear, hands her a green folder, then disappears. And that’s when I hear other voices in the back of the house, men’s voices, at least three of them. What do they plan to do with me?
“I know that you and Alice have been tested. It was necessary.”
I remain still, though my mind is racing.
“Some didn’t see you and Alice in the same way that Finnegan and I did,” Orla says, watching me carefully. “They didn’t understand your potential.”
“Potential for what?” I ask, confused. What game is she playing now?
“I have been a questioner all my life, Jake. I rarely take things at face value. It is a quality I admire in you too. Doubt is a useful tool, so much more desirable than blind belief. Your doubt has made your journey through The Pact infinitely more difficult, yes. But it has also made me respect you. Believe me when I say that you have enemies, but I am not one of them.”
“What enemies?”
I think back to the first party, in December in Hillsborough. Everyone was so friendly, so welcoming.
Orla stands there, studying me. Behind her, the vast and roiling sea. It is as if she is waiting for me to complete a complex math problem in my head, to see what she has seen all along.
“Perhaps it’s better if you just read the documents.” She hands me the green folder. The file is heavy. It has a faint smell of decay, as if it has been unearthed from a musty warehouse.
I look down and see that there is a name on the cover: JOANNE WEBB CHARLES.
Orla has left the room. I am alone with the file. For a long time, I don’t open it.
93
The first page contains a photo from many years ago. JoAnne as I knew her in college, relaxed, tan, and happy.
Page two is her résumé, both professional and personal—no unfinished degrees, no MBA, no job at Schwab. In no way does it resemble the story she told me that day in the food court. Instead, a PhD in cognitive psych, with honors, but then an abrupt end to a postdoc she was pursing at a prestigious university in Sweden, followed by marriage to Neil.
There’s a photo of Neil and JoAnne on their wedding day, holding hands against a brilliant desert background. On the following page is a photo of Neil with another woman. Below the photo, the typed words Neil Charles. Widowed. Pictured with first wife, Grace. Cause of death: accidental.
What the fuck? I read the caption three times, not wanting to believe it.
The next page contains a clipping from a Swedish newspaper, along with a translation. The article announces a seven-figure settlement in a lawsuit against JoAnne Webb and the Swedish university. The plaintiffs in the suit were volunteers from a psychological experiment that had gone horribly awry. Reading the details—so cruel yet so familiar—I feel sick to my stomach.
The following pages contain an unpublished draft of an academic article, co-authored by JoAnne, on the correlation between fear and desired behavioral changes. A footnote has been highlighted: Subjects who show little or no fear for their own safety can usually be persuaded to act in direct conflict with their own moral code when they witness a friend or loved one in danger of violence.
I flip through the file, shaking. The final sheaf of papers is stapled together with a red cover, the words Report on Subjects 4879 and 4880 scrawled across the front.
These pages are not typed. Instead, they are in JoAnne’s familiar handwriting. Met 4879 at the Hillsdale mall. Audio file attached. Responses to my questions and comments reveal disloyalty to The Pact.
I shudder and turn the page. Glass Cage Experiment, JoAnne has written at the top. 4879 shows continued disloyalty to The Pact while exhibiting strangely detached tendencies. Seemed to be horrified by my predicament but at the same time clearly took some pleasure from it.
I’m fighting the urge to vomit. JoAnne wasn’t the subject of the Glass Cage Experiment; I was.