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Stories from the Verse
Multiverser: The Thirteenth Story
Chapter 10: Beam 199
Table of Contents
Previous chapter: Brown 367
A bit stymied at the situation so far, Beam decided to try a new question.
“Can you tell me how to get outside?”
“Outside? You are outside.”
Beam felt his grip tighten on his rifle. Again he found himself dealing with primitively stupid people. Calm down, he said. Stupid people can’t help being stupid. Eventually someone will kill them, but you don’t have to do it right now.
“Maybe you don’t understand the word. Outside? Fresh air? Blue sky? Sunshine?”
The look of horror that crossed Old Ricky’s face was, Beam realized, reflected in the faces of many others present.
“We, we have,” Ricky stammered, “we have as much, as much, of those in here, here, as, as we need. Too much is deadly.”
It struck Beam that there were people back home who were very concerned that you not get too much sunshine, and that the country air was laced with such natural contaminants as pollen and smoke. Was it worse in this world, or was it only that what some of his conspiracy fiend friends called the ‘nanny state’ had managed to become so overprotective that it had deprived these people of the natural world because it was deemed too deadly?
Maybe he was overreacting. After all, he had met fewer than fifty people so far, and only a few had actually spoken to him. Reserve judgment, he thought. Every world has crazy people, and we might have landed in a looney bin. He was tempted to ask Old Ricky if he was crazy, but then, crazy people frequently didn’t know they were, and sane people sometimes wouldn’t want to tell them.
These people worked in a Styrofoam factory.
No, one of them said they worked in a Styrofoam factory. For all he knew, they might spend their days building things with the soft Styrofoam blocks and being told by their caregivers that they’re doing good work. If this were a nut house, that would explain a lot.
It would also make it more important that they find their way out.
“Thank you, Ricky. I’d say you’ve been very helpful, but I’m not sure yet whether you have or not. Do you care which door we use, or should we make our own exit?”
The old man pointed. “White handle over there, green over there, red over there.”
Beam decided not to ask what the colors meant.
There is a behind-the-writings look at the thoughts, influences, and ideas of this chapter, along with ten other sequential chapters of this novel, in mark Joseph "young" web log entry #538: New Adventures. Given a moment, this link should take you directly to the section relevant to this chapter. It may contain spoilers of upcoming chapters.
As to the old stories that have long been here:
