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eBook Category: Science Fiction
eBook Description: This story came out of a question: "Is blindly conforming better than rebelling against authority?" Forrest J Ackerman, in his Introduction to the pocketbook Images of Tomorrow (1969), said that this was "a satire on regimentation in offices and factories and everywhere else in life where there are Rules Rules Rules to which human being are required to mechanically conform. One thinks, perhaps, of Dr. Keller's 'White Collars, Francis Flagg's 'The Metanicals'." Universal Utopia can be a damnation into hell for some people. Carl Johns, as revealed below, was willing to risk sanity in order to escape...

eBook Publisher: Fictionwise.com, Published: 1969
Fictionwise Release Date: April 2005

3 Reader Ratings: Great Good OK Poor

Available eBook Formats [MultiFormat - What's this?]: Adobe Acrobat (PDF) [307 KB], eReader (PDB) [48 KB], Palm Doc (PDB) [22 KB], Rocket/REB1100 (RB) [21 KB], Microsoft Reader (LIT) [123 KB] - PocketPC 1.0+ Compatible, Franklin eBookMan (FUB) [91 KB], hiebook (KML) [143 KB], Sony Reader (LRF) [106 KB], iSilo (PDB) [19 KB], Mobipocket (PRC) [24 KB], Kindle Compatible (MOBI) [95 KB], OEBFF Format (IMP) [34 KB]
Words: 6855
Reading time: 19-27 min.
Microsoft Reader (LIT) Format: Printing DISABLED, Read-Aloud ENABLED
Adobe Acrobat (PDF) Format:  Printing DISABLED, Read-Aloud ENABLED
All Other formats: Printing DISABLED, Read-aloud DISABLED

He was aware of screaming but no sound came from his lips. The electronic straps held him securely to the cold hard table as the distant voice of WOMB purred softly in the darkness.

Where was he? Who?

He tried to remember as another fiery bolt of anguish tore his nerves back with crushing pressure. As the pain subsided, memory ebbed into existence.

First came remembrance of a book. But why was that important?

Something invisible and cold probed his mind like icy electric fingers, touching nerve centers, sending waves of fire through the passages of his dimly awakening memory. And suddenly he knew:

This was Reconditioning Center.

His name: Carl Johns.

Pain erupted, then subsided as nerves and muscles tensed against the raw fire.

The visual picture of Gordon Gordon James III focused in his mind. It was a harsh, stone-like image of icy eyes that tried to appear friendly and protective as they narrowed coldly in grim contempt.

Sudden hate swelled up like a ball inside Carl Johns' body, so intense that the next slashing electro-probe of torture was numbed almost out of existence.

Consciousness spun like an insane top. All awareness compressed into the last hour he had spent in Gordon Gordon James' office.