Psychological fiction; Science fiction; Short stories
He crossed under the moveable sidewalks and boarded the one going back
into the heart of the city. Somewhere there, he hoped, he would find the
help he needed. Somewhere back in that city were men he had discovered
who were men and something more.
* * * * *
Frank Manelli carefully took the blood pressure of the sleeping figure
on the bed; then turned to the other man. "He'll be dead soon," he
snapped. "Another few minutes now is all it'll take. Just a few more."
"Absurd. There's nothing in these stimuli that can kill him." George
Webber sat tense, his eyes fixed on the pale fluctuating screen near the
head of the bed.
"His own mind can kill him! He's on the run now; you've broken him loose
from his nice safe paranoia. His mind is retreating, running back to
some other delusions. It's escaping to the safety his fantasy people can
afford him, these not-men he thinks about."
"Yes, yes," agreed Dr. Webber, his eyes eager. "Oh, he's on the run
now."
"But what will he do when he finds there aren't any 'not-men' to save
him? What will he do then?"
Webber looked up, frowning and grim. "Then we'll know what he found
behind the dark door that he opened, that's what."
"No, you're wrong! He'll die. He'll find nothing and the shock will
kill him. My God, Webber, you can't tamper with a man's mind like this
and hope to save his life! You're obsessed; you've always been obsessed
by this impossible search for something in our society, some
undiscovered factor to account for the mental illness, the divergent
minds, but you can't kill a man to trace it down!"
"It's too neat," said Webber. "He comes back to tell us the truth, and
we call him insane. We say he's paranoid, throw him in restraint, place
him in an asylum; and we never _know_ what he found. The truth is too
incredible; when we hear it, it must be insanity we're hearing."
The big doctor laughed, jabbing his thumb at the screen. "This isn't
insanity we're seeing. Oh, no, this is the answer we're following. I
won't stop now. I've waited too long for this show."
"Well, I say stop it while he's still alive."
Dr. Webber's eyes were deadly. "Get out, Frank," he said softly. "I'm
not stopping now."
His eyes returned to the screen, to the bobbing figure that the
psycho-integrator traced on the fluorescent background. Twenty years of
search had led him here, and now he knew the end was at hand.
5
It was a wild, nightmarish journey. At every step, Harry's senses
betrayed him: his wrist watch turned into a brilliant blue-green snake
that snapped at his wrist; the air was full of snarling creatures that
threatened him at every step. But he fought them off, knowing that they
would harm him far less than panic would. He had no idea where to hunt,
nor whom to try to reach, but he knew they were there in the New City,
and somehow he knew they would help him, if only he could find them.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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