Castle War! by John Dechancie

Author:John Dechancie
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: ereads.com
Published: 1989-12-31T16:00:00+00:00

Light came through the lone window and made a trapezoid on the bare floor beside the bed. Lying on his side, he studied it. He liked its lambent geometry, its two-dimensional clarity.

“Are you awake?” she asked.

“Yes.” He rolled over to face her.

She asked him, “What are you thinking?”

“Of how to get out of this place.”

“This place? You mean the living complex?”

“I mean this world.”

“How can you get out of the world? That's silly.”

“No, it isn't. I know a way to get to a different world.”

“A different world,” she said dreamily. “Do you think there are worlds other than this one?”

“Yes, there are any number of them. And I can get you to a pretty nice one. It's just a matter of getting outside the city a little ways.”

“How would you do that?”

“I don't know. Walk, take a bus. Steal a vehicle. It doesn't matter. The main question in my mind is, can I do it without InnerVoice interfering?”

“You should be able to. You wouldn't be able to sleep with me if you still had InnerVoice.”

“How could you get pregnant if no one was able to sleep with you?”

“If they had an order, they could.”

“You need an order?”

“Sure. You didn't find the order to impregnate someone on your schedule, did you?”

“No.”

“Well, then. You wouldn't be able to sleep with me unless InnerVoice was dead inside you.”

“Then that means there's nothing preventing me from leaving.”

“Not if you actually have someplace to go. You say you do, but I don't understand how. InnerVoice is in control outside the city, too.”

“I can get to a place where no one ever heard of InnerVoice.”

“Is there such a place? There are stories, rumors.”

“Rumors of what?”

“That there are Outpersons who wage war against InnerVoice.”

“Where?”

“No one knows. It's rarely talked about. Just sometimes on the Information Specials they'll mention something about ‘socially irresponsible outside elements.’ That's how they phrase it, usually.”

“Rebels? An opposing military force of some kind?”

“Don't know.”

It suddenly struck him that he didn't even know this woman's name. Wait; she didn't have a name, only a nonsensical and dehumanizing jumble of letters and numbers. He really didn't want to know what her cognomen was, much less her omnicode.

“Alice.”

She said, “What did you say?”

“I just gave you a name. Alice. You look like one.”

“'Alice.’ That's pretty.”

“So are you.”

“That's unsocial. No one is better looking than anyone else.”

“That's a lie. Alice, listen. I'm going to leave here and I want to take you with me. Do you want to come?”

“Go with you?”

“Yes.”

“To this other place, this other world you talked about?”

“Yes. Do you want to come with me?”

She was silent for a long time.

Then she said: “You know, I was thinking about doing it tonight. Jumping into the river.”

“You wanted to kill yourself?”

“Yes.”

“Tonight?”

“Yes. But I think about it a lot. Just jumping in and letting the water carry me away.”

“Drowning.”

“Of course. Killing yourself is the most unsocial thing you can do, and I wanted to do it tonight. And then ... I met you. And now you want to take me away.

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