Rothberg handed me a cigarette and the nurse lit it for me. I remembered that once I had liked cigarettes.
"So what's happened," I said. My voice was weak. My insides felt as though they were filled with grinding pieces of broken razor blades.
"You're in Zany-Ward No. 104," Dr. Rothberg said.
"I don't believe I quite understand," I said carefully.
"You will," Dr. Rothberg said. "Let's just say for a starter that when a man is bipped and brought here, we try to put him back together again. It's a long painful process. Sometimes he's not quite the same, but we've done pretty good work. We rebuild burned-out circuits. We have to know exactly what you were before you were bipped, and we try to duplicate the pattern. Regeneration is slow and rough. You'll be all right."
They shook hands with me and smiled down at me and went out. The pretty nurse gave me a pill and I lay back and thought about it. It was logical enough, and I started to laugh. During the months after that while the slow process of re-learning and regeneration continued, I learned more about the Zany-Wards. Serious as it was, and as much as there was yet to be done, it was always amusing.
As Eggheads were apprehended and confined, they were rehabilitated, put back together again, in a way you could say fissioned. The Eggheads are the inmates. They run the Zany-Wards which are used also as bases of operation in a continuing attempt to disrupt the Era of Normalcy. Great scientific labs are concealed underground.
When Security inspection committees appear on the scene, we all put on our acts. We dance, make faces, act like monkeys and giggle.
Doctor Rothberg told me yesterday that if our sabotage work doesn't soon cause people to rebel against the Era of Normalcy, it won't be long before we'll be the only sane people left in the world.