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The Dome - Chapter Thirteen


StarMountainKid

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So I wandered around aimlessly for a while, thinking things over. What Zara said could be some of the answers I was looking for, but Dirth didn’t seem to think much of him. I didn’t want to get caught up in something that was phony, just a lot of gibberish. Zara was okay, but was he telling the truth or just jabbering about his imagination?

I wondered where Henry was. The dome was so big I didn’t think I’d just run into him someplace by accident, and looking for him was just as pointless. I was on my own and I had to figure out the best thing to do next. I thought about going back to see Dirth, then I thought about that engineer I’d met in that eating place. He kind of said we’d meet again. I wondered where the engineers were. I thought they, if anyone, would know the secrets of the dome.

So I turned around and headed back to that eating place, way over on the other side. As I walked, I kept looking around, hoping I’d see Henry wandering around, but like I said, I didn’t think I would.

Suddenly there was a commotion behind me. I looked back and I saw a group of men in brown suits pushing their way through the crowd toward me. I turned to the side and started to walk faste away from them, hoping they were not after me, but they turned also. The crowd of Paratekes was pretty thick where I was and I pushed my way through them as best I could. I glanced back, and the brown suits were pushing their way through, too, getting nearer.

I started to run, but the crowd was too thick. I stumbled and fell to the floor. Before I could get up they were on me. They surrounded me, and two of them reached down and roughly grabbed me and pulled me to me feet.

Let go of me!” I demanded. “What are you doing? Can’t you see I fell? What do you want?!”

One of them who pulled me up held me by my shoulders and said firmly, “You are to come with us. No nonsense, now. You are under arrest.”

“But, what have I done?!” I demanded.

“We have no authority to answer that question,” the brown suit said. “You are being detained. That function is all that is required of us. Others will continue the procedure.”

With that, the brown suits pulled me through the crowd. The paratakes didn’t seem to take any notice of this; they just went on with their stupid activity as if nothing out of the ordinary was happening.

I was pretty scared. I wondered how I was found out. Maybe Zara had something to do with this, I thought, after all his talk of peace and brotherhood. Or maybe it was that engineer. I wondered if there was anyone I could trust in this place. Just like in the village, I guessed not.

I was taken through the bustling crowd roughly; two guys had me by my collar on either side, shoving me along, the rest pushing our way through the crowd ahead. I was scared but disappointed, too. After all I’d gone through to try to understand the Dome and everything, now it was over. It was all for nothing, and I might loose my life, as well.

“Where are you guys taking me?” I shouted, but they didn’t answer or even pay attention, they just hauled me along. It was quite a ways across the Dome floor and I was getting tired of it. I thought I’d struggle some; maybe I could break free and run. But, run where? These guys wouldn’t give up, I figured. I thought if I could get back to Dirth, maybe he’d protect me, but then again I didn’t want to get him in trouble. So I just gave up and let them push me along.

After a while I could see ahead of me a wall of the Dome getting closer. It was a black area in the wall. As we got nearer, I could see there was a big black door there. I also noticed, as we approached, the crowd of Paratakes thinned out until near the door there was nobody. It was like no one wanted to be close to that part of the wall. This didn’t relax my nerves any.

One of the brown-clothed guys went ahead and pulled open the black door for the rest and me to enter. As I was jerked through it I took one last glance back at the Dome behind me. I wondered if I’d ever see it again. Probably not, I thought.

I was pushed through and into a bright, long hallway. The two that had ahold of me pulled me along, the others disappeared somewhere. I couldn’t see where. It was all white in the hallway, floor to ceiling. The light hurt my eyes. We passed some doors on the sides, then down some stairs through another long hallway. Pretty soon the two guys that held me pulled me to a stop.

“Here’s your new home,” one of them said, and pulled a door on the side of the hallway open and pushed me through into a bare room, only a cot coming out of one wall and a toilet. The door slammed loudly behind me.

I stood there for a minuet, then sat down on the cot. Well, I thought, this is the end of my adventure. I wondered what kind of execution I’d get. I wondered if they had caught Henry, too. I put my head in my hands. I wondered if Dirth had foreseen this. Maybe it was Dirth who set me up. Who was Dirth, anyway? A lot of thoughts were going through my head.

Then I heard footsteps outside on the metal floor. I looked up and the door opened and another man dressed in brown stood in the doorway. “You’re to come with me,” he said matter-of-factly without even really looking at me.

“Yeah,” I said, “well I want to know why did you bring me here, and who are you? You have no right to push me around like this. I don’t like being kidnapped, fella.”

The guy just repeated what he’d said and stood there looking at me with a blank expression on his face. I thought if I got into the hallway I could try to make a break for it, but I figured the outside door to the Dome was probably locked, so I stood up. “Where are you gonna take me?” I asked.

“You’re to come with me,” the guy said again. He didn’t look too tough, but if I clobbered him, that might get me in deeper with these guys. I thought maybe it was a good idea to see what was up, I might learn something, so I said, “Okay,” and followed him out into the hall. We walked together down the hallway a ways until we got to another door on the side. The guy opened it and motioned me to go in.

It was a bigger room, still all metal, with a two chairs around a table. On the chair at the far side sat another brown shirt. He looked up at me as I walked through the door and said, blandly, “Sit down.” So, I sat down facing him. “Well? I said.

“Let me tell you at the outset that we know all about you, who you are, where you come from and why you are here. So, there is no use telling me lies about yourself or your purpose. You are an anomaly and must either be amended or eliminated. There are no other choices for you.”

I sat back in my chair and looked at the guy. He looked like everybody else in the Dome. They all looked alike to me, anyway. I wasn’t going to take no guff from him, though. I figured I was caught anyway, so why make it easy for him. “You mean you think you know everything,” I said. “You don’t know the half of it, buddy. There’s more to me than you can imagine in your dumb little world.”

“We know all about you,” he repeated. “You will tell me everything, you have no choice.”

“Well then, if you know everything, you tell me who I am,” I said.

“You are a member of the underground organization, a subversive. You are insane. You are here to destroy the sanity of the Dome because you are delusional in your psychosis. The Dome is a perfect society. Its citizens are perfect, the Paratakes, the Drones, the Engineers, even the Clerics and Nonconforants.

“Because of your insanity you are an anomaly, you yourself are imperfect, and imperfection cannot be tolerated. The collective mind is sanity, the individual mind is insanity. We cannot be allowed to control our own minds, that leads to madness, so our minds must be controlled by the collective. There is not one thought that the citizens of the Dome think that has not been thought before. This makes us perfect and therefore society perfect.

“You yourself control your own mind, like an untamed wild animal. You are insane, my friend. You must either be tamed or excluded. Self-discipline is not enough. Discipline in itself is useless. We cannot make you a sane citizen; you must become a sane citizen. You must conform or be eliminated. You are an anomaly.”

The man sat back in his chair and looked into my eyes. “Which do you choose? Submission to sanity or the insanity of individuality?”

I didn’t quite know what to make of what he’d said. All I knew was this guy wasn’t going to change me into no Paratake or have me eliminated. I leaned forward. “Listen, buddy,” I said. “I could easy knock you a good one and get out of here. I don’t like what you say or anything about you.”

“That is immaterial,” the man said. “Now, I want to know the names of your comrades in the underground and their location.”

Now I knew the guy didn’t really know who I was, so I said, “I don’t know anything about no underground, fella, so I don’t have no comrades in it. You think you’re some big guy around here, but you’re not. You got nothin’ on me, see, so why don’t you just be a good guy and I’ll go away.”

“That is impossible,” he said. “I have my duty to perform. Now, will you confess to being a member of the underground?”

“I don’t know nothin’ about no underground, I told you that. And listen to this, there’s something wrong with this whole Dome place. It’s not what I thought it was. It’s full of dead people as far as I can see.”

“What are the names of the other members of the underground,” the guy repeated.

“I told you, I don’t know and I don’t know anything about no underground.”

“You are required to tell me,” he said, sort of mechanically. “The sanity of the Dome demands you to tell me. Your imperfection cannot be tolerated. Your mind must be reconfirmed into the control of the perfection. You cannot discipline yourself, you are like an untamed animal, you must confess your irrationality and therefore become sane or you will be eliminated.”

“Okay then, how am I to become sane?” I asked.

“You are an anomaly, you must confess. Either you tell me what you know and conform or you will be eliminated,” he repeated.

“And how do you expect to eliminate me?” I asked.

“Your elimination will be carried out by the proper authorities.”

“Just who turned me in, can you answer that?”

“You have been observed and reported. The sanity of the Dome must be preserved. All anomalies must be discovered and reported. We know all about you, who you are, where you come from and why you are here. It is useless to tell lies. You are a member of the underground organization, a subversive. You are insane. You are here to destroy the sanity of the Dome. You are delusional in your irrationality. You are insane.

“You control your own mind, like an untamed wild animal. You must either be tamed or excluded. Self-discipline is not enough. Discipline in itself is useless. We cannot make you a sane citizen; you must become a sane citizen. You must confess and conform to perfection of the Dome or be eliminated.”

I thought about what this guy was saying and repeating himself, so I said, “You’re a Drone, aren’t you.”

The guy sat there for a while with no expression on his face. Finally, he said, “You must confess your digressions or be eliminated. It is your choice.”

I looked at him. He was waiting for a response he could understand, I guessed. “Well, I’m out of here,” I said. “You’ll let me go or I’ll knock you good. Those others outside will have a hard time with me if they get in my way.”

I stood up, walked around the table to the door and opened it. “You cannot leave!” the guy demanded, turning in his chair to look at me.

I just walked out into the hallway, retracing my steps. There was no one around. When I got to the stairs I looked back, but the guy was no where in sight, no even following me. I walked up the stairs into the other hallway. It was empty, too, so I headed for the outer door. When I got to it, I pushed on it, it was unlocked and swung open, so I went through and stepped onto into Dome floor.

That was too easy, I said to myself. That made me a little nervous. I walked a few feet looking back over my shoulder and bumped into someone. “Sorry,” I said as I turned my head around to see who it was, and there standing in front of me was the Engineer I’d met in the food place.

“Having an interesting time, are you?” He asked casually. I was surprised to see him, and I stepped back a little.

“I think now you’re ready to take a tour of the real Dome,” he said, smiling.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

 

  

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