But she might not come.
He checked the time. It was after three o'clock. With a sense of
urgency he rose and left the theater.
3
There was something unusual about the Historical Museum, oddly
unsettling, and it was awhile before Hendley realized what it was.
The place was almost empty. Here and there a few individuals or
small groups of people shuffled slowly before the exhibits. A guide
was pompously discoursing before a model of one of the old, exposed
cities wiped out more than a hundred years before in the short war
that scoured and blackened half the earth. His voice seemed loud only
because the museum itself was so strangely silent in contrast with the
hubbub and confusion outside in the streets.
Hendley had made a quick survey of the main floor of the museum, his
eyes alert for the red coverall ABC-331 had worn. She was not there.
It was well past four. He stared blankly at an exhibit of old weapons,
trying to dull his mind against his bitter disillusionment.
The weapons were from another world beyond understanding--a world of
great weapons of destruction, and of small, frightening individual
weapons, from knives to clubs to firearms. That had been a time of
personal achievement and personal crime. Now the only real crime was
against the Organization and its rules--rules which demanded obedience
to the Organization, its directives and its officers; forbade sexual
relations between partners not Assigned or otherwise designated by
the Organization; made unlawful the theft of Organization property
for personal use, or the taking of the life of any person indebted
to the Organization. Few would break these or the many refinements
of the Organization's rules of order (including, Hendley thought,
reporting for scheduled work days). Crime carried within itself its
own punishment: it cut one off from ultimate freedom and the joys of
pure recreation. Detection in an all-seeing, all-controlling, almost
completely automated Organization was too certain, the penalty too
great.
Hendley smiled wryly. He had joined a select group in his act of
rebellion. And if the girl named Ann had come, he had been prepared
to....
"Hello."
Hendley spun around. He gaped in astonishment into the warm,
green-flecked eyes of ABC-331, and then at the blue coverall she wore,
matching his own.
"I didn't think you'd come," she said.
"And I didn't think you would."
Suddenly they were smiling at each other. Hendley turned abruptly
toward the weapons exhibit, staring without seeing. The girl moved
close to his side. His mind was full of questions, but he didn't ask
them. There would be time for that later. "Stay close to me," he
murmured, not looking at her. "Just follow what I do."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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