Lisa, seated behind a desk, greeted him. "We've got sun this morning,
Brant. Have a good time last night?"
"Had a ball, doll! You look great this morning." Brant said. "Benton in
yet?"
"Waiting for you," Lisa replied. "Told me to send you right in."
Brant turned and entered the inner office of Axel Benton, Director of
Sensory Communications for Dreamtown.
Benton looked up and frowned as Brant entered. "The show on the
Council has to go on two weeks earlier," he fairly shouted at Brant.
"The Minister of Entertainment called this morning and he's hot! Says
the Council is having a fit about the increase in activity among the
Rebels; and rumors have been leaking out that they're planning to
destroy Dreamtown. So they want the show on sooner. Also, they want a
half hour show instead of twenty minutes."
"Nobody cares what the Rebels are doing and it's crazy to think they
could destroy the city. So what's all the rush about?" Brant asked
angrily.
"I figured you'd talk that way so I arranged a little session for you
this morning that may bring you to your senses, bright boy Brant,"
Benton retorted. He barked into the intercom on the desk.
"Call downstairs and have them send up Jennings, Lisa," Benton ordered.
A few minutes later the door slid open and Jennings was led in by two
of the Watchers. He was a middle aged man who wore spectacles instead
of the contact lenses which nearly everyone in Dreamtown wore when they
needed glasses. The two Watchers stepped aside. They were young men,
neither looked more than twenty five, with eyes as brittle as glass.
Their black leather pants and jackets fitted tightly and steel cleats
on their heavy boots grated wickedly on the floor with each step they
took. Their hands, in black leather gloves, rested casually on their
hips close to the hypno ray guns fastened to their belts.
"Jennings," Benton began, "was found to be in possession of a book
titled 'Principles of Human Knowledge' by George Berkeley. And
Jennings, as you know, Brant, was in a strategic control position here
in the Center. He was in charge of show censorship for the whole Com
center.
"What do you mean, _was_ in charge?" Brant asked.
"Just that! He is no longer in charge. In fact, he is being taken now
by these Watchers to the psych lab but I wanted you to realize the
seriousness of this thing, Brant, so I had him brought here first."
"He's going to be psychwashed?" Brant asked.
"Of course, you fool!"
"But why? Couldn't you just burn the book and throw him out?" Brant
asked.
"I wouldn't expect you to understand," Benton sneered. "The book he had
is one of the most dangerous books ever written. It is against every
principle on which Dreamtown is founded and if Lisa hadn't found it in
his office--."
"Lisa found it?" Brant asked.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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