The essence of the Guardian was the miniature black box, actually a tiny radio receiver, which was surgically inserted into the body of every prisoner. In the center of this prison compound was the Guardian transmitter, perpetually sending its message to these receivers. As long as a prisoner stayed within the hundred-and-fifty-yard range of that transmitter, ail was well. Should he move beyond that range, the black box inside his skin would begin to send messages of pain throughout his nervous system. This pain increased as the prisoner moved farther from the transmitter, until at its peak it was totally immobilizing.
“The prisoner can’t hide, you see.” Wordman explained. “Even if Revell had reached the woods, we’d have found him. His screams would have led us to him.”
The Guardian had been initially suggested by Wordman himself, at that time serving as assistant warden at a more ordinary penitentiary in the Federal system. Objections, mostly from sentimentalists, had delayed its acceptance for several years, but now at last this pilot project had been established, with a guaranteed five-year trial period, and Wordman had been placed in charge.
“If the results are as good as I’m sure they will be,” Wordman said, “all prisons in the Federal system will be converted to the Guardian method.”
The Guardian method had made jailbreaks impossible, riots easy to quell — by merely turning off the transmitter for a minute or two — and prisons simplicity to guard. “We have no guards here as such,” Wordman pointed out. “Service employees only are needed here, people for the mess hall, infirmary and so on.”
For the pilot project, prisoners were only those who had committed crimes against the State rather than against individuals. “You might say,” Wordman said, smiling, “that here are gathered the Disloyal Opposition.”
“You mean, political prisoners,” suggested the interviewer.
“We don’t like that phrase here,” Wordman said, his manner suddenly icy. “It sounds Commie.”
The interviewer apologized for his sloppy use of terminology, ended the interview shortly afterward, and Wordman, once again in a good mood, escorted him out of the building. “You see,” he said, gesturing. “No walls. No machine guns in towers. Here at last is the model prison.”
The interviewer thanked him again for his time, and went away to his car. Wordman watched him leave, then went over to the infirmary to see Revell. But he’d been given a shot, and was already asleep.
Revell lay flat on his back and stared at the ceiling. He kept thinking, over and over again, “I didn’t know it would be as bad as that. I didn’t know it would be as bad as that.” Mentally, he took a big brush of black paint and wrote the words on the spotless white ceiling: “I didn’t know it would be as bad as that.”
“Revell.”
He turned his head slightly and saw Wordman standing beside the bed. He watched Wordman, but made no sign.
Wordman said, “They told me you were awake.”
Revell waited.
“I tried to tell you when you first came,” Wordman reminded him. “I told you there was no point trying to get away.”
Revell opened his mouth and said, “It’s all right, don’t feel bad. You do what you have to do, I do what I have to do.”
“Don’t feel bad!” Wordman stared at him. “What have I got to feel bad about?”
Revell looked up at the ceiling, and the words he had painted there just a minute ago were gone already. He wished he had paper and pencil. Words were leaking out of him like water through a sieve. He needed paper and pencil to catch them in. He said, “May I have paper and pencil?”
“To write more obscenity? Of course not.”
“Of course not,” echoed Revell. He closed his eyes and watched the words leaking away. A man doesn’t have time both to invent and memorize, he has to choose, and long ago Revell had chosen invention. But now there was no way to put the inventions down on paper and they trickled through his mind like water and eroded away into the great outside world. “Twinkle, twinkle, little pain,” Revell said softly, “in my groin and in my brain, down so low and up so high, will you live or will I die?”
“The pain goes away,” said Wordman. “It’s been three days, it should be gone already.”
“It will come back,” Revell said. He opened his eyes and wrote the words on the ceiling. “It will come back.”
Wordman said, “Don‘t be silly. It’s gone for good, unless you run away again.”
Revell was silent.
Wordman waited, half-smiling, and then frowned. “You aren’t,” he said.
Revell looked at him in some surprise. “Of course I am,” he said. “Didn’t you know I would?”
“No one tries it twice.”
“I’ll never stop leaving. Don’t you know that? I’ll never stop leaving, I’ll never stop being. I’ll not stop believing I’m who I must be. You had to know that.”
Wordman stared at him. “You’ll go through it again?”
“Ever and ever,” Revell said.
“It’s a bluff.” Wordman pointed an angry finger at Revell, saying, “If you want to die, I’ll let you die. Do you know if we don’t bring you back you’ll die out there?”
“That’s escape, too,” Revell said.
“Is that what you want? All right. Go out there again, and I won’t send anyone after you, that’s a promise.”
“Then you lose,” Revell said. He looked at Wordman finally, seeing the blunt angry face. “They’re your rules,” Revell told him, “and by your own rules you’re going to lose. You say your black box will make me stay, and that means the black box will make me stop being me. I say you’re wrong. I say as long as I’m leaving you’re losing, and if the black box kills me you’ve lost forever.”
Spreading his arms, Wordman shouted, “Do you think this is a game?”
“Of course,” said Revell. “That’s why you invented it.”
“You’re insane,” Wordman said. He started for the door. “You shouldn’t be here, you should be in an asylum.”
“That’s losing, too,” Revell shouted after him, but Wordman had slammed the door and gone.
Revell lay back on the pillow. Alone again, he could dwell once more on his terrors. He was afraid of the black box, much more now that he knew what it could do to him, afraid to the point where his fear made him sick to his stomach. But he was afraid of losing himself, too, this a more abstract and intellectual fear but just as strong. No, it was even stronger, because it was driving him to go out again.
“But I didn’t know it would be as bad as that,” he whispered. He painted it once more on the ceiling, this time in red.
Wordman had been told when Revell would be released from the infirmary, and he made a point of being at the door when Revell came out. Revell seemed somewhat leaner, perhaps a little older. He shielded his eyes from the sun with his hand, looked at Wordman, and said, “Good-bye, Wordman.” He started walking east.
Wordman didn’t believe it. He said, “You’re bluffing, Revell.”
Revell kept walking.
Wordman couldn’t remember when he’d ever felt such anger. He wanted to run after Revell and kill him with his bare hands. He clenched his hands into fists and told himself he was a reasonable man. a rational man, a merciful man. As the Guardian was reasonable, was rational, was merciful. It required only obedience, and so did he. It punished only such purposeless defiance as Revell’s, and so did he. Revell was antisocial, self-destructive, he had to learn. For his own sake, as well as for the sake of society, Revell had to be taught.
Wordman shouted, “What are you trying to get out of this?” He glared at Revell’s moving back, listened to Revell’s silence. He shouted, “I won’t send anyone after you! You’ll crawl back yourself!”