WEiRd voices for your head

The Individual Orwell

Note: This story takes place before the time in Minding Your
Manners Is A Flimsy Alibi.

          Orwell fidgeted with the buttons on his shirt.

          "Stop that.  NOW."  said the Commander.  His own
buttons were mirror bright and standing at attention.  He glared
at the young Warrant, squinting at him with his beady, shark-like
eyes.  He straightened up momentarily, and sat down, fixing his
gaze on Orwell in front of him.  "I think everything is in order,
Warrant 345A.  We'll arrange your final interrogation and then
you can start with the final group of Warrants in the C Class."

          Orwell could feel his cheek twitch uncontrollably with
a smile.  He gritted his teeth, fighting back the emotion.

          "Thank you, Commander,"  Orwell said, extending his
right hand, "I'm sure you'll be very pleased with my work."

          "Yes, I hope so, Warrant."  said the Commander,
refusing Orwell's hand.  "For your sake, I hope so."

          He rose from his chair, and stared at Orwell again.

          I can feel them drilling into me, Orwell thought, his
eyes are ripping right into me. . .

          "Salute."  said the Commander, raising his right arm to
his left shoulder, freezing it in the air for a moment, and then
bringing it down.

          Orwell, stunned, hesitated for a moment and then goose
stepped forward, raising his right arm forward, bringing it down
again, like someone chopping up a freshly roasted chicken.

          "Salute."  Orwell replied.

          "Interrogation chamber F, Warrant.  Dismissed."

          Orwell turned around and marched out of the small
office.

          I can see it in his eyes, the Commander thought, those
sinister, liquid, mercury eyes.  He's trouble.  Evil.  He is
evil.

--/-

          Orwell marched past seven doors before he reached
Interrogation chamber F.  He could feel a bead of sweat merge
with his eyebrow.  He quickly brushed it off and pushed the red
button on the door.

          "Warrant 345A, Classification Orwell here."  said
Orwell, talking to the door.  "Awaiting final interrogation."

          Orwell could hear someone inside, breathing heavily,
wheezing, coughing up his lungs.

          HIS LUNGS?  Orwell thought.  Mustard gas?

          "Warrant 345A will wait."  replied the door.

          Orwell waited.  He could hear more coughing, more
mottled breathing, more squish, squish sounds, things plopping on
the floor.

          Oh no, he's been corrected, Orwell thought.

          At that instant, the door whooshed open and a man, much
older than Orwell, staggered out.  He was wearing a tight shirt
that exposed his large, hairy belly, and a large gauze bandage on
his head.  But what was most surprising was that he was smiling,
smiling quite broadly.

          "'ave fun," the man called, as he walked down the hall.
Over, and over he repeated it, until he was out of earshot.
Orwell stared at him disbelievingly.

          "Warrant 345A, you may enter now."  the door said.

          Orwell, too stunned to disobey, strode into the chalk
white room.

--/-

          "Have you ever been interrogated before?"  asked the
Doctor, swabbing some sticky goo on Orwell's temples.

          Yuck, Orwell thought.  I wonder if I'll get that off.

          "What is that you're putting on me?"

          The Doctor never missed a beat.  He taped an electrode
to each of Orwell's temples, on top of the sticky goo.

          "Conductant."

          "Conductant."  echoed Orwell, fidgeting with his shirt
buttons.  What the hell was conductant?

          "Warrant, answer the question please," said the Doctor,
flipping some switches on a complex looking machine.  "Have you
ever been interrogated before?"

          He already knows.

          "Only twice before," said Orwell, slicking his lips
with a fresh coat of saliva.  "once before my initial entry and
once more before my entry exam."


          The Doctor scribbled something onto a notepad.

          "Father," said the Doctor, flipping a red switch, "do
you know who Father is?"

          Papa?  It couldn't be.  But he knows already.  He means
Alch Neima.

          "Alch Neima," Orwell blurted, "Alch Neima, Captain of
Cohorts."

          "Good, very good Warrant." the Doctor scribbled
something else onto his notepad.  "Who are the Cohorts?"

          Fine bunch of people.  Destroyers of fact and gospel.

          "They protect us."

          A single dial turned to the MAXIMUM indicator.

          "Are you one of them?"

          Orwell grinned.

          "Of course not, I obey."

          "Whom do you obey?"

          "The words.  The signs."

          "Who made those signs?"

          "Secrets.  I don't know."

          Two more dials turned to the MAXIMUM indicator.

          "Who made these signs?"

          "I don't know," Orwell laughed, "I don't know."

          "Tell me who did it, Warrant."

          "Nobody did anything, I swear."

          "Who has disobeyed?"


          "Nobody," Orwell cried, tears welling in his eyes.
"Nobody disobeyed."

          Orwell could feel the electrical impulses in his brain
jump and cry out as they were forced to a higher level.  His head
felt heavy, very heavy.

          "Who disobeyed, Warrant 345A?" said the Doctor, his
voice mild, but commanding.

          "Nobody."

          "Do not fill my book with lies, Warrant.  Who
disobeyed?  Tell me."  The Doctor held something up to Orwell's
face.  He could barely make it out through the haze of tears in
his eyes.  It was a sign.  A picture of a woman, beheaded.

          Orwell blinked, trying to clear his eyes to read the
caption.

          "Who disobeyed?"

          "Two-Forty-Three, Nine-Nineteen, all of them."

          Orwell blinked once more.

          "Who else?"

          "I don't know."

          He could read the first word.

          KILL, it read.

          "Who?"

          He blinked again.

          Dry saliva filled his mouth.  He could see the caption,
and horribly, he believed.

          KILL THE HOMELAND, DESTROY SIGNS, read the photograph.

          "All of them, two-hundred to two-seventy, all of them!"
cried Orwell, his spittle flying haphazardly into the air.

          The impulses in his brain were jumping too quickly.
Orwell could feel them whine, and then choke as they became
overloaded.

          "Very good, Warrant," said the Doctor, scribbling the
numbers onto his notepad.  "Very good.  We'll take care of them
for you."

          Orwell didn't hear.  He was already screaming and
running down the hallway.

--/-

          It rained for two days, 54 hours straight, and during
most of that time, Orwell sat huddled in the corner of his
cubicle, panting and praising the Homeland.

--/-

          During that same 54 hour period, a total of nine
hundred and seventy two signs were made and posted.  Twenty two
were torn down by three small school children.  They were
reprimanded with stonings a few minutes later.

          Another thirty were ripped up by a gang of teenage
hooligans, drunk and too happy for their own good.  They were
immediately caught and hung.

          Two were destroyed by a lunatic who escaped from the
local prison.  He had attempted to eat one, while defecating on
the other.  He was shot by an off-duty police officer, while
having coffee.  He was on the 24 hour news, and his picture was
on the front page of the newspaper.

          PATROLMAN STOPS LUNATIC, the top headline read.

          NEVER GOT UP FROM SEAT, the second one read.

          The other nine hundred and eighteen signs were read by
the general populace and treated respectfully, and obeyed.

--/-

          "Warrant 345A, Classification Orwell, you have been
designated as cerebrally pollution-free and subject to the
discretion of the Commander in matters of assignment." chimed the
letter.  Orwell had not checked his mail in the past two days and
saw that he had received this letter yesterday.  Small icicles of
fright crept into his bones.

          The Commander, he thought.  Well at most I'll get a
correction.

          Orwell smiled confidently.

          I hope.

--/-

          "Warrant 345A, you are LATE." said the Commander.  He
glared at Orwell and his liquid eyes.  Those eyes, he thought.
Those eyes are trouble.
          Orwell wanted to fidget with his buttons.

          "I'm sorry Commander, but there was some difficulty
with my final interrogation, it was

          (DEADLY)

          inconclusive."

          The Commander folded his hands carefully on his desk.

          "I see, Warrant." he narrowed his eyes at Orwell.
"Your file here says you divulged some soothsayers.  Very good,
Warrant."

          "Thank you, Commander."

          The Commander tapped the cream coloured folder on his
desk.  His finger drummed slowly, up and down, up and down,
hitting the 345A stamped on its cover.

          "You wish assignment, do you not?"

          "Yessir."

          The Commander opened up Orwell's file.

          "Well, everything seems to be in order," said the
Commander, leafing through the sheets of paper in the folder.  He
stopped at a picture showing only Orwell's eyes.

          Liquid, thought the Commander.

          "Do you like to write, Warrant?" said the Commander.

          "Yessir, I love to write."

          "Good, good.  You may join the final group of Warrants
in C Class.  With the writers."  He stamped Orwell's folder with
a large rubber stamp.  The word WRITER was emblazoned upon the
folder in red ink.  "You may go now, Warrant.  Give the Machine
your folder, and he will take care of the rest."

          Orwell took his folder from the Commander's
outstretched hand.

          "Thank you sir."  Orwell again offered his hand.

          "That's all, Warrant.  Salute."

          Orwell retracted his hand and saluted.

          "Salute."

          "Go, Warrant 345A, and write the death of fact and
gospel.  Dismissed."

          Orwell nodded and left the room.  When he was out of
earshot, the Commander pressed a button on his desk.

          "Machine Head, I want you to stress Warrant 345A."

          "Yes Commander."

          We'll write the liquid out of him.

--/-

          Over the next three months, Orwell had the creed of the
Homeland drilled into his skull.

          "WE ARE GOOD!" screamed the Machine.

          "WE ARE GOOD!" Orwell bellowed.

          "THEY ARE EVIL!"

          "THEY ARE EVIL!"

          "DEATH TO FACT!"

          "DEATH TO FACT!"

          "DEATH TO GOSPEL!"

          "DEATH TO GOSPEL!"

          Orwell smiled.

--/-

          "Warrant 345A, what is your design?" asked the
Machine.

          Orwell held up his photograph.  It was a picture of a
rejected warrant cowering under police attack.

          "Read the caption, Warrant."

          "Serve Alch Neima, eliminate the rejected," chanted
Orwell.  "Join the Police Service, save the Homeland."

          "What does that mean, Warrant?"

          Orwell set his sign down.

          "Servitude, excellence, obedience."

          The Machine eyed the sign suspiciously.

          "Servitude, Warrant?"  The Machine tapped the sign with
his pointer.  "Servitude?  Warrant 154C, burn this heresy."

          Warrant 154C, a mouse of a man, picked up Orwell's sign
and tossed it in the incinerator.  Orwell stood motionless,
gritting his teeth.

          "Now, do it again Warrant."  The Machine tossed a fresh
piece of sign paper at Orwell.  "Get to it."

          Orwell suppressed his anger until the Machine was out
of sight.  He picked up his selector screen and scanned through
the multitude of photos.

          He stopped.

          Orwell smiled.

          He picked up his marker and wrote confidently.

--/-

          "Warrant, I hear you've been writing quite well."

          Orwell stood in the Commander's office.

          "Yessir, I've been writing very well."

          The Commander opened up Orwell's folder.  The
interrogation papers had been replaced with scale miniature
photographs of most of Orwell's sign work.  The Commander picked
up the first of the pile.

          "Write for the Homeland.  We want YOU to join the
Cohorts."

          He picked up another.

          "Fact and Gospel: the protocols of destruction."

          Another.

          The Commander read each one in turn.

          "I think another assignment is in order, Warrant." he
picked up the photos and dropped them into Orwell's folder.
"You're going to the Factory."

          "The Factory, sir?"

          "Yes, Warrant," said the Commander, smiling.  "the
Factory."
--/-

          Orwell scribbled his message quickly onto the sign
paper.  It whooshed past him, and was replaced by another.  He
scribbled another.  It was replaced by another.  And another.
Orwell worked 18 hours a day in the Factory, writing his
indoctrined creed onto the signs that would decorate a nation.

          All this time, Orwell worked on his sign.

          His own sign.

--/-

          During Orwell's 18 hours a day in the Factory, five
hundred and seventy signs were produced and posted.  Of the five
hundred and seventy, Orwell had written two hundred and sixty
three of them.

          Unknown to him, other signs, many more than the two
hundred and sixty three that Orwell had written, and even many,
many more than the five hundred and seventy produced by the
Factory were being written somewhere else.  And one of these
reached Orwell's cubicle that day.

--/-

          Orwell read the sign.

          "Praw-pah-ghan-da."

          Orwell looked at the sign again.

          Propaganda, it stared back at him.

          Bewildered, he walked to the Commander's office.

--/-

          "Education?  Propaganda means education?" asked Orwell.
He didn't believe the Commander, but he wasn't about to question
him either.

          "Yes, Warrant.  Education." the Commander tossed the
sign into his incinerator.  "Now, go back to the Factory.  A
reprimand follows writings below quota, remember."

          Orwell stared back in horror.

          "Yessir."

          "Salute."

          "Salute," said Orwell, dejectedly.
--/-

          Orwell worked his 18 hours at the Factory that day, and
produced two hundred and ninety nine signs, thirty three above
quota.  With his understanding of a new word, Orwell was excited.
If propaganda meant education, the creed of the Homeland could be
expanded.

--/-

          The six hundred signs produced at the Factory that day
were distributed and posted.  Two hundred and ninety nine of them
were white, with a picture of the Commander, staring intently
into space.

          This is your dose of propaganda, read the sign.  Death
to fact and gospel.

--/-

          "Thank you," whispered the old man.  He held one of
Orwell's signs in his hands.  "Thank you, Warrant."

          The old man took the sign and motioned to his son, who
was driving.

          "Bring them, Jonas.  Take them to the Commander.  We've
started."

          Jonas roared the engine to life and shuttled down the
street.  His taillights hummed red as he signalled left down
Ivory Street.

--/-

          "Warrant, what is this?" questioned the Commander.  He
held one of Orwell's signs in his hands.  Orwell's latest sign.

          "This is your dose of propaganda," Orwell read, "Death
to fact and gospel."  He beamed confidently.

          "Do you know what that MEANS?"

          Orwell looked at the Commander questioningly.

          "You said yourself sir," said Orwell, "propaganda means
education.  This is your dose of education, death to fact and
gospel.  This sign means to educate people to eliminate fact and
gospel."

          "Why my picture!?!?!!!"

          "I saw fit only to include you, Commander." said
Orwell, slowly, surely, but without a hint of understanding.  "My
Commander is the power.  He epitomizes the creed of the
Homeland."

          The Commander pushed the red button on his desk.

          "Machine, get rid of this Warrant."

          Orwell was not listening.  The only thought in his mind
was one word.

          Interrogation.

--/-

          Unknown to anyone, Orwell missed his work at the
Factory.  His eighteen hours went unfilled, but at the end of the
day, one thousand, nine hundred, and seventy two signs were being
distributed among the populace.

          Jonas and the old man watched as the distribution
trucks drove from the Factory.

          The old man smiled.

--/-

          The distribution trucks were headed home by the time
Orwell's interrogation had begun.  By the time a few people had
read the signs, Orwell was already half-way into his correction,
or cerebral cortex sanitization, as some people call it.

          Others call it lobotomy.

          But by the time one thousand people had read, and more
importantly, believed the signs, Orwell's interrogation was
heading home.  The coughing had begun.

          Signs were being torn down all over the city.

          Three adult women, dressed in clown suits, were covered
with napalm as they turned the signs into confetti.

          Nine more children, kindergarten aged, were gunned down
as they coloured the signs every colour of the rainbow.

          The police had to mass a force ten thousand strong to
stop the six hundred or so students holding a mass burning of the
flag of the Homeland, and more importantly, over four hundred of
Orwell's signs.

          They were all crushed without comment.

          A few tanks had to be brought in to stop a convention
of bartenders when they went smashing windows and ripping up
signs.  One of the more efficient tanks managed to kill six
hundred beer bottle toting dissidents with one missile, an
unofficial record for a tank.

          The old man was still smiling.

          He smiled even when the bullet pierced his head.  And
as he breathed his last, in Interrogation chamber F, Orwell had
completed his correction.  He was smiling.  And he had forgotten
all about the sign, or anything else, for that matter.

          It is unfortunate that Orwell would never remember the
words that started him onto his true path.

          KILL THEM ALL. ..