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Minutes from Session #47
The following transcript was recovered from a digital recording device found in the office of Dr. Eleanor Marsh, PhD. The quality is degraded in parts. Speaker identification has been attempted but cannot be guaranteed.
DR. MARSH: Let's begin our session. As always, what's said in this room stays in this room. I see everyone is present today—
VOICE 1 [identified as likely THOMAS]: Except Rebecca.
DR. MARSH: Rebecca is here, Thomas. She's sitting right next to you.
VOICE 2 [identified as likely REBECCA]: I've been here for twenty minutes. I even brought the biscuits everyone's eating.
THOMAS: [unintelligible] ...wasn't talking about that Rebecca.
DR. MARSH: Let's focus. We've been meeting for almost a year now, and I think we've made progress. Today I'd like to try something different. Instead of discussing your week, I want each of you to tell the group about the first time you remember consciously lying. Not a white lie,
Prologue
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The Empty Chair
Thomas arrived exactly seven minutes early to the session, as he always did. The community center's fluorescent lights hummed overhead, casting everyone in a sickly pallor that somehow felt appropriate. He selected his usual chair—third from the left, the one with a slight wobble that no one else wanted—and arranged his notebook and pen at precise right angles on his lap.
Diana was already there, of course. She practically lived in the building if her stories were to be believed, which they weren't. She nodded at him with that enigmatic half-smile that suggested she knew something he didn't.
"You're looking well," she said.
"No, I'm not," Thomas replied. It was their usual greeting. One of them lied, the other called it out. A small ritual among people who couldn't help themselves.
Michael shuffled in next, wearing what appeared to be a genuine NASA jacket despite the unseasonably warm March weather. His latest persona. Last month he'd been an ex-MI6 operative. The month bef
Chapter 1
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