I had to admire the thought behind the idea. Horbit was convinced that I was only a figment of his unfocused imagination, but he was playing the game with uncompromising logic, trusting that even madness had hard and tight rules behind it.
There was also something else I admired about the plan.
It could work.
Once he fed that document to the archives, I would be obligated to help him even without the gun. My word would probably be taken that I had been forced to do it at gunpoint, but there would always be doubts, enough to wreck my career when it came time for promotion.
Nothing like this had ever happened in my years as warden.
Suddenly, Coleman's words hit me in the back of the neck. If I got through the next twenty-four hours. This had to be some kind of test.
But a test for what?
Had I been deliberately told that I was living only a Dream to see if my ethics would hold up even when I thought I wasn't dealing with reality?
Or if this was only a Dream, was it a test to see if I was morally ready to return to the real, the earnest world?