Good God. He detached his hand, slipped out of bed and stood in the middle of the floor, found his nylon coverall and sandals, dressed silently, and opened the door to get out of Betty's apartment, but fast.
He glanced back, his face hot with bitterness and his mouth twisting with disgust. She moved slightly, and he knew she was awake and looking at him.
"Darling," she said thickly, "don't go."
She was awake but still drifting in the euphoria of Vat 69.
He felt both sad and very mean. Then he shut the door behind him, ran out into the desert night. The line of camouflaged barracks on one side, the grounds including the lab buildings, all loomed up darkly under the starlight. He took a deep breath.
Now, he asked himself, have you the guts to get out, tell them off, make the gesture? It won't do any good. Nobody else will care or understand. They're too numb and resigned. You'll never get past the fence. The Guards will haul you in to the Wards and work you over. They'll work over what's left until what's left won't be worth carrying over to the incinerator with the other garbage in the morning. You'll be brainwashed and cleared until you're on mental rock bottom and won't even know what direction up is, and you won't give a damn.
But don't you have the guts even to make the gesture, just for the sake of what's left of your integrity, before they dim down your futile brain cells to a faint glow of final and perpetual mediocrity?
Betty and he had clung to some integrity, had made a point of not getting too intimate, a kind of challenge, a hold-out against the decadence of the Project. What was left now of any self-respect?
A security Guard with his white helmet and his white leather harness and his stungun, sauntered by and Lewis ducked into the shadows beside the barracks. His heart skipped several thumps as the Guard paused, looked at the entrance to Betty's apartment. Maybe someone had reported his liaison with Betty.
Beautiful and desirable as she was, and as much as he wanted to marry her, he had not been able to marry Betty Seton. If the war ever ended, if the security curtain was ever lifted, if they were ever let out of compulsive Government employment, then they would get married. That was what they had kept telling one another during quick secret meetings.