When the bells rang they would arise....
"Hello," Marquis said. The man shivered, then opened dull eyes and looked up at Marquis. "I just got in. Name's Charles Marquis."
The man blinked. "I'm—I'm—No. 4901." He looked down at his chest, repeated the number. His fingers shook a little as he touched his lips.
Marquis said. "What's this indoctrination?"
"You—learn. The bells ring—you forget—and learn—"
"There's absolutely no chance of escaping?" Marquis whispered, more to himself than to 4901.
"Only by dying," 4901 shivered. His eyes rolled crazily, then he turned over and buried his face in his arms.
The situation had twisted all the old accepted values squarely around. Preferring death over life. But not because of any anti-life attitude, or pessimism, or defeatism. None of those negative attitudes that would have made the will-to-die abnormal under conditions in which there would have been hope and some faint chance of a bearable future. Here to keep on living was a final form of de-humanized indignity, of humiliation, of ignominy, of the worst thing of all—loss of one's-self—of one's individuality. To die as a human being was much more preferable over continuing to live as something else—something neither human or machine, but something of both, with none of the dignity of either.