Free Total Recall by Piers Anthony Page B

wedding!” he said.
    “It was implanted by the Agency,” she said flatly.
    “And falling in love?” Though now he realized that he did not truly love her. He remembered loving her, but somehow he had a truer feeling for the woman of Mars. Oh, Lori was a lot of fun in bed, but that wasn’t the same. This preposterous notion was beginning to make sense!
    “Implanted.”
    “Our friends, my job, eight years together. I suppose the Agency implanted that too?
    “The job’s real,” she said evenly. “But the Agency set it up.”
    “Bullshit.” Quaid pushed Lori away, but kept the gun trained on her. He tried to remain skeptical, but his certainty was beginning to erode. This explanation resolved too many little—and big—mysteries. Her disparagement of his dream of Mars—because he was supposed to be kept away from Mars? Harry’s effort to steer him clear of Rekall—because he wasn’t even supposed to remember Mars? There was a whole lot here that he still didn’t understand, but at least this gave him some ideas to work with. He had been distracted by the life he thought he had—a wife like Lori, a friend like Harry—so that he wouldn’t recall the life he might really have. It was as if the old structures had to be torn down before new and more solid ones could be built. Lori spoke, confirming some of his suspicions.
    “They erased your identity and implanted a new one. I was written in as your wife so I could watch you, make sure the erasure took. Sorry, Quaid,” she said, her tone belying any regret. “Your whole life is just a dream.”
    He slumped against the wall. The fact that it was starting to make sense didn’t make it any easier to take. Before it had been only a dream that bothered him; now his whole life had become a dream. “If I’m not Doug Quaid, who am I?”
    She shrugged. “Beats me. I just work here.”
    How callous could she be? Yet her attitude supported her statement. Her love for him had been the pretense; this was the reality.
    Quaid pulled himself up from the floor to sit in a chair. He rubbed his forehead, trying to decide how to react. The realization that his memory-life was only a pretense did not restore his real life; that remained blank. He had no idea where to go or what to do. His foundations had been knocked out from under, and he was still falling. What kind of a landing would it be?
    Lori suddenly became much friendlier. Her face softened, and her figure lost its indifference. She became more like the woman he had known.
    “I’m gonna miss you, Quaid,” she said. “You were the best assignment I ever had. Really.”
    “I’m honored,” he said, distrusting this. She had shown him convincingly enough how little she truly cared for him; what was she up to now?
    He took her by the elbow and pulled her with him, the gun still at her head, as he looked out the window. He was alert for any false move on her part; she would not knock aside the gun the way he had knocked Harry’s gun. He didn’t even need to watch her directly; he could sense her motion. Where were the others? He was sure they were out there, somewhere. Though he could not remember any details, he knew the nature of these things: operatives did not work alone. They always had interlocking networks, the one covering the back of the other. He might have set them back momentarily by killing four, and by nullifying Lori, but that was no victory, only a foiling of two of their ploys.
    “You sure you don’t wanna . . . ?” she asked. “For old time’s sake?” She reached out to him affectionately.
    His gut twisted with the irony of her words. If what Lori was telling him was true—and he was beginning to believe it was—then he and his whole world were strangers. If he had no past, how could he have a present? Quaid wasn’t a man given to deep reflection; he was a man of action. When the Mars dream had surfaced, he’d gone to Rekall to do something about it, or tried to, at least. But what could