Read Online Total Recall by Piers Anthony - Free Book Online Page B

“It has something to do with Mars.”
    The magic word! Lori frowned. She was starting to question Quaid’s sanity. At this stage, he could hardly blame her. “Mars? You’ve never even been to Mars!”
    “I know. It’s crazy. I went to this Rekall place after work, and on the way home—”
    She was incredulous. “You went to those brain butchers?”
    “Let me finish!” But considering what had happened, he couldn’t deny that some sort of butchery had occurred. Before Rekall, his life had been normal, even dull, except for that dream of Mars. After Rekall, his life had been confused and just about over. Yet how could even the most realistic implanted memory account for Harry and the goons?
    “What did you have them do?” she demanded, worried. “Tell me!”
    “I got a trip to Mars.” That memory had settled into place somewhere during the drive home: not the Mars-memory itself, which seemed to be absent, but his agreement to have them implant it. Something must have gone wrong—but would that have been his death warrant?
    “Oh, God, Doug!” She must have thought she had gotten him off the Mars kick; she seemed appalled.
    “That’s not important. These men were about to shoot me . . .” He trailed off, realizing more clearly what had happened. “But I killed them !” It seemed impossible, yet he was sure that that memory was real. For one thing, there was the blood on his hands—and now smeared on Lori’s tennis outfit too.
    But Lori was beyond caring about that, at this stage. She forced herself to be calm. “Doug, listen to me. Nobody tried to kill you. You’re hallucinating.”
    “This is real, goddammit!” he exploded. He dashed to another window and looked out.
    Lori came after him and grabbed his shoulders. “Stop running around and listen to me!”
    Quaid kept still, glaring at her.
    “Those butchers at Rekall have fucked up your mind,” she told him earnestly. “And you’re having paranoid delusions.”
    He held up his bloodstained hands. “You call this a paranoid delusion?”
    She was stunned, evidently uncertain whether to be afraid for him—or afraid of him.
    It was pointless to try to argue with her. He was hardly that certain of the situation himself! He ran into the bathroom, ducking out of the line of sight of the windows. Their conapt was high up, but a good sniper could handle the range, especially if he fired from another building at this level.
    Lori waited until the bathroom door was closed and then walked quickly to the videophone. “Doug,” she shouted over her shoulder. “I’m calling a doctor!”
    His voice came back, muffled. “Don’t! Don’t call anybody.”
    A faint smile touched Lori’s lips as a man’s face appeared on the screen. “Richter,” she breathed. There was something predatory, something hard and cruel in the man’s face, but it softened as he heard her whisper his name. “Hello,” he said. She blew a silent kiss to him.
    In the bathroom, Quaid washed the blood from his hands. It had probably come from the goon whose nose he had smashed in—though how he had done a thing like that he still wasn’t certain. He knew how to fight, sure: stand up with two fists weaving before the face, and try to get past the other worker’s guard to tag him on the shoulder or head. But he had done this with his knee . And the others—he had twisted one head just about off, and smashed a larynx. There was no place in clean fighting for that sort of thing. Even if there was—where had he learned it? The sheer speed with which he had acted—instead of a clumsy shoving, he had struck four times, each strike so brutally efficient it appalled him in retrospect. He had been scared, sure, but this had been more like a killing machine.
    While he pondered, he finished washing the blood off his hands. He splashed cold water on his face, then glanced at himself in the mirror. He wasn’t even scratched! Now it was beginning to seem like a fantasy!
    But he knew it