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The Victor
The Victor
Under the new system of the Managerials, the fight was not for life but for death! And great was the ingenuity of—The Victor.
Book Excerpt
leep. But he'd tried that. And he was still alive. He didn't know how much time had passed. He was sure of the poison's effects, but he wasn't dead. They had gotten to him in time.
Sweat exploded from his body. He tried to remember more. Pain. He lay down again. He writhed and perspired on the bed as his tortured mind built grotesque fantasies out of fragments of broken memory.
The routine of the unceasing bells went on. Bells, leap up. Bells, calisthenics. Bells, eat. Bells, march. Bells, work. He tried to shut out the bells. He tried to talk to 4901. 4901 covered up his ears and wouldn't listen. The girl wouldn't listen to him.
There were other ways. And he kept the poison hidden in the capsule in his hollow tooth. He had been counting the steps covering the length of the hall, then the twenty steps to the left, then to the right to where the narrow corridor led again to the left where he had seen the air-lock.
After the bells stopped ringing and the darkness was all around him,
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Oh Boy, don't be a captured political prisoner in this story. The immortal Managerials send you to the moon where you have to lead a totally conditioned life like Sisyphus in hell. How to get free. The prisoners all try suicide. But it doesn't work, because they have been made immortal too, and every time one kills himself, they reconstitute him. See what happens as this creative prisoner finds a way around the problem.
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