"I'm afraid we'll have to drop you back to a less responsible position."
"Of course."
The Superfather looked up quickly. "You accept this? No depression? No threat of suicide?... You are in bad shape." He handed a packet of cards to Twenty-three. "Put these in your dream machine tonight. Go to your new job tomorrow."
Twenty-three stood motionless, staring over the other man's shoulder.
The Superfather sat down. "Tell me about the dreams you have when you don't use the machine."
Twenty-three made a quick decision. He couldn't tell him he didn't use the standard dream cards anymore. And he certainly couldn't tell about the other dream cards he'd been getting from the little man he'd met on the street. He'd simply answer the factual truth to the question that had been asked.
"Well," he said, as though he were confessing a crime. "I dream I'm walking in the city. It's dark. I feel like I've got to find something. I don't know what. But the feeling's very strong. All of a sudden I notice the city's empty. There're just buildings and streets and a faint glow of light. And it comes to me that everybody's dead and buried. Then I know what I'm looking for. I've got to find something alive or I'll die too. So I start running around, in and out buildings, up and down streets. But there's nothing. I'm breathing so hard I think my heart's going to burst. Finally I fall down. I feel myself beginning to die. I try to get up but I can't! I try to yell! I've got no voice! I'm so afraid, I can't stand it! Then I wake up."
The Superfather frowned. "Incredible. Several other cases like yours have turned up in the last month. We're working on them. But yours is the worst yet. You had such high capabilities. Your tests showed, when you first began to work, ten years ago, that you were capable of going to the head of your production line. But you're not doing it. Also your normal dreams should correspond to the ones on the cards. And they don't.... Are you using the standard cards every other night?"
Twenty-three lied. "Yes."
"And the nights you don't use them, you have a dream like the one you just told me."