Victor

Bryce Walton

Description

If you believe that the future's nothing but a happy wonderland of jetpacks and flying cars, think again. In Bryce Walton's chilling short story "The Victor," the powers that be have perfected the art of imprisonment, creating a hellish experience for the dissidents who have fallen into disfavor with the current regime.

Sujets

• Science fiction

Informations

• Publié par: The Floating Press
• Date de parution: 01 mai 2015
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781776590193
• Langue: English

Extrait

THE VICTOR
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BRYCE WALTON
 
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The Victor First published in 1953 Epub ISBN 978-1-77659-019-3 Also available: PDF ISBN 978-1-77659-020-9 © 2013 The Floating Press and its licensors. All rights reserved. While every effort has been used to ensure the accuracy and reliability of the information contained in The Floating Press edition of this book, The Floating Press does not assume liability or responsibility for any errors or omissions in this book. The Floating Press does not accept responsibility for loss suffered as a result of reliance upon the accuracy or currency of information contained in this book. Do not use while operating a motor vehicle or heavy equipment. Many suitcases look alike. Visit www.thefloatingpress.com
The Victor
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Under the new system of the Managerials, the fight was notfor life but for death! And great was the ingenuity of—The Victor.
Charles Marquis had a fraction of a minute in which to die. He droppedthrough the tubular beams of alloydem steel and hung there, fivethousand feet above the tiers and walkways below. At either end of thewalkway crossing between the two power-hung buildings, he saw theplainclothes security officers running in toward him.
He grinned and started to release his grip. He would think about them onthe way down. His fingers wouldn't work. He kicked and strained and toreat himself with his own weight, but his hands weren't his own any more.He might have anticipated that. Some paralysis beam freezing his handsinto the metal.
He sagged to limpness. His chin dropped. For an instant, then, the firein his heart almost went out, but not quite. It survived that oneterrible moment of defeat, then burned higher. And perhaps something inthat desperate resistance was the factor that kept it burning where itwas thought no flame could burn. He felt the rigidity of paralysisleaving his arms as he was lifted, helped along the walkway to asecurity car.
The car looked like any other car. The officers appeared like all theother people in the clockwork culture of the mechanized New System.Marquis sought the protection of personal darkness behind closed eyelidsas the monorail car moved faster and faster through the high clean air.Well—he'd worked with the Underground against the System for a longtime. He had known that eventually he would be caught. There were rumorsof what happened to men then, and even the vaguest, unsubstantiatedrumors were enough to indicate that death was preferable. That was theUnderground's philosophy—better to die standing up as a man with somedegree of personal integrity and freedom than to go on living as aconditioned slave of the state.
He'd missed—but he wasn't through yet though. In a hollow tooth was acapsule containing a very high-potency poison. A little of that would dothe trick too. But he would have to wait for the right time....
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The Manager was thin, his face angular, and he matched up with the harshsteel angles of the desk and the big room somewhere in the SecurityBuilding. His face had a kind of emotion—cold, detached, cynicallysuperior.
"We don't get many of your kind," he said. "Political prisoners arebecoming more scarce all the time. As your number indicates. From nowon, you'll be No.