“Then keep writing,” the bigger one says. “And don’t talk.”
It’s the power of the unlicensed, unconcerned about obtaining a license they know they can never possess. Free. The strong imprison the wise, but their time and energy is futilely spent attempting to steal the meaning of their captive’s creativity, believing that labeling equals knowledge. Waiting for words that will free the minds.
The little one, with his indifference — affected or real — has gotten more out of me than I want to tell. He is reading these words. “Write my name,” he says, “so the top-rankers who will read this will know. So far only third-rankers are studying your ravings — but they talk, and second- and first-rankers listen. And there are an awful lot of them. Time is up. Did you get my name written?”
The unlicensed, now an almost invisible network, either overestimate the power of their knowledge or underestimate evil. Either way, their mistake could be fatal unless immediate steps are taken...
Since writing the above, what once was considered a sin of the flesh but today is called merit reinforcement occurred. She has a second-class license in Nineteenth Century Far East mythical sensuality and says there is plenty of opportunity for advancement. She also says she knows that for writers there are only ten positions, but that number may be reduced because the bestseller standard of two thousand readers is today rarely met. She is one of the almost two thousand readers who made There Is More to Happiness Than Being Happy a bestseller. She is a Renaissance woman.
Both stop just outside my cell door. “Watch what you say,” the man says. “See, he’s already writing my words. He writes everything.”
She enters my cell first. “Sure. That’s why we fourth-class examiners were chosen for this assignment. No one cares what we say. Our words can be safely ignored.”
The man follows her inside. “If he had only tried to be sensible, not fixated and obsessed. He hasn’t really struggled against it. If he hadn’t been greedy during the merit-reinforcement therapy, he could have kept a good thing going. But he even blew that. And look at him writing. Why?”
They sit at the foot of the bare cot I’m on and continue to ignore me. It is, of course, part of the isolation therapy. “He is,” the woman says, “criminally insane. There’s no logical answer to why he writes. He just can’t help himself. That’s why the prescribed treatment is so subjective. He’s not receiving any monetary benefits from his writing, yet he writes like a dedicated first-ranker. Well, maybe this experimental writing therapy will be successful.”
“It should be — it was mandated from the top.”
“It was mandated from a third-class examiner. That’s all we have to know. And all we have to know about the treatment is that, hopefully, once the story that keeps working its way into his mimicking and mocking words is completed he will be cured. We just make sure he doesn’t escape and has enough paper and pencils — and, when he finishes the story, prevent him from beginning another. At that point in his treatment, we have permission to use force.”
She gets up to leave, but he sticks his face over my words. “How are we going to know when he finishes?” he asks her. “Is he going to Write ‘The End’? I’ve read some stories and if there isn’t a ‘The End,’ it’s hard to tell.”
She stops at the cell door, keeping her back to us. “We send his scribblings to the experts. They’ll see the end coming. They’ll let us know and we’ll be ready.”
He starts uncertainly toward the door. “I think we should just stop him from writing. We can do it in this contained environment. We’ve performed more difficult tasks — not that it’s ever gotten us a higher grade. Every time he writes a page, we should burn it in front of his eyes. That would do it. But even if it didn’t, there are lots of other ways. The top-rankers’ theory about curing him by letting him purge his own story doesn’t make a lot of sense unless — unless they think there’s something worthwhile in his story. Maybe that’s it.”
The woman abruptly turns and they almost collide. “You talk too much and he writes too much. Maybe you’re both psychotic and can’t help yourselves.” She stops and considers me. “Watch this. He’s been writing continuously and the paper is almost filled. He needs to stop, wants to stop, but—” She unfolds a clean sheet of paper from her jacket pocket. “Here you go. Nice new paper.” She tosses it on my cot. “And a nice new pencil.” It follows the paper onto the cot. I grab them both. “See? He can’t help himself.”
Actually, this new paper does help. It always does.
A clean start, like the clean start the State needs if it is serious about intercepting the secrets of the unlicensed and ultimately controlling the power. The unlicensed are a small minority and can never hope to continue to manipulate the majority as they are now quietly doing. There is effective action the State can take, but patience is the critical ingredient. Because the State lacks this vital quality, I can reveal the plan of action which would almost immediately debilitate this subversive network. It is so incredibly simple...
“He’s writing the story,” says the man, “not just copying our words and actions.”
“You shouldn’t have talked. Now he’s back to mimicking us.”
“I’d like nothing better than to rip that pencil from his fingers and use it as kindling for the fire that would burn his words. He’s got just about every grade-two info manager reading his scribblings, looking for clues. What a waste of time and money. He probably doesn’t have any idea how many grade-two info managers there are.”
I do. Over two thousand. And that isn’t enough to stop the unlicensed communication.
Detectiverse
Stealing Away
by E.E. Murphy
© 1988 by E.E. Murphy
Harmony’s Song
by Carl Wooton
© 1988 by Carl Wooton.
Harmony held the phone for a moment and tried to understand why Eric might have chosen The Fashion Spot as a place to meet. Weekend tourists looking for a singles scene in New Orleans thought it was a place to go, partly because it was in the area known as Fat City. Harmony knew it really was a meat locker, one of those bars filled with plastic-chic decor and where every woman who walked in was on display and thought of as probably for rent. She hated it, Eric knew it, and she was there. He was not.