He was sent back in just before the end of the half. Illegally, it is true—the enemy had already received credit for one wounded, and according to NAA rules he was supposed to be ineligible to continue playing. Blauman didn’t have any choice, however. The last drive of North’s had tom up his whole center and he didn’t have much left in the way of reserves.
As Alan trotted out toward the foxholes that marked his side’s last stand, he passed stretcher bearers bringing back the dead and injured from the last play. Most of them were wearing the green helmets of Marshall. The PA system announced the substitution and there was a feeble cheer from the Marshall side of the stadium.
Alan went up to the referee’s tank and threw a quick salute at the vision slit.
“Wetzel substituting for Mitchell.”
“Check,” said the bored voice of the official inside. “Fight clean and fight hard and may the best team win.” The formula came mechanically. Neither the referee nor anybody else had any doubt that the best team had won.
Alan was half way to the hastily dug trenches that marked his team’s position when a mortar shell exploded forty feet away and knocked him off his feet. There was a sudden outraged blast from the referee’s siren, and then the enemy captain bobbed out of his foxhole.
“Sorry, sir,” he yelled. “One of my mortar crews was sighting in and accidentally let off a round.”
The referee wasn’t impressed.
“That’ll cost you exactly twenty yards.” he said.
A yell came from the Marshall bleachers as the penalty for backfield illegally in motion was announced. The Marshall team was too tired to do any cheering. They just trudged forward and planted themselves in the defensive line they had been thrown out of five minutes before.
The North team was more careful this time. There wasn’t a quiver of motion from their side until the referee’s siren signaled the beginning of play. Then they opened up with everything they had. It seemed to Alan that every mortar North owned was zeroed in on his position and that every one of their grenade men was out to get him personally. Blast followed blast in such steady succession that the night air seemed one solid mass of jagged shrapnel. He’d had it bad before, but nothing like this. He flattened against the moist earth of his fox hole and waited numbly for the knife edges to rip him open. Then suddenly it stopped and without thinking he found himself rising into a defensive position. There was a savage spatter of victory yells from the other line and then they came swarming out of their positions, their bayonets gleaming wickedly in the overhead lights.
They were repeating the play that they had been using all evening, a hard punching thrust through center. The guidon-bearer came charging forward, his tommy-gunners fanned out in front of him in a protecting screen, their guns hosing the Marshall position with quick accurate bursts.
Alan forced himself to lift his head enough to sight accurately, and opened up on the flag bearer. He was a difficult target as he came dancing forward, bobbing and shifting at every step. Alan fired methodically, remembering not to jerk his trigger finger as he squeezed off his shots. And then his gun jammed. He got a moment’s breathing spell as Marshall’s two surviving mortars opened up to give him some covering fire, but the Northers didn’t stop altogether, they kept coming in short rushes.
Alan was singled out for their special attention. With him knocked out they could carry their flag right through the center of Marshall’s line. With a sudden yell, four of them threw themselves into a crouching run and came charging down on his position. Alan hammered at the clearing lever of his rifle but it was stuck fast. Throwing it angrily off to one side, he tore open the cover of his grenade case and fumbled inside until his fingers closed around the sphere with the roughly soldered edge. He waited until the Northers were almost on him and then threw it at the middle man as hard as he could.
There was a blast. A blast of harsh purple light that punched through the protecting ramparts of his foxhole as if they weren’t there. He felt a sudden wave of nausea, and then a stabbing tearing pain inside the back of his head as old neural channels were ripped out and new ones opened up. When he finally staggered to his feet he looked the same. Outside that is. Inside he wasn’t the same sort of a human any longer. Neither was any other consumer in the stadium.
When Alan got back to the house, everybody was still in the living room. Mr. Flugnet was somewhat drunk and all the pressure that had been built up inside him was hissing out in speech. Alan stood silently in the doorway and listened.
“…and then it was too late,” said Mr. Flugnet. “Somebody must have slipped up in shock therapy or else something went haywire with the reconditioning machinery. Whatever it was, Harris came out with the job only half done. He waited ten years for a chance to strike back for what had been done to him while he was still a consumer. When he was put to work on the development of the new concussion grenade, he had his chance and he made the most of it.”
“How?”
“He worked out a deconditioner that was so tiny it would fit into a grenade case and so powerful that it could blanket an area half a mile across.”
“Deconditioner?” said Alan’s uncle in a puzzled voice.
“You went through one while you were being changed. The old patterns have to be taken out before new ones can be put in.”
“All that I remember is sitting in a long room with a: silver helmet on my head that had a lot of wires attached to it. But I still don’t understand about that Harris fellow.”
“It’s simple enough. He came out remembering.”
“Remembering what?”
“Remembering what it was like to be a consumer,” said Mr. Flugnet grimly.
“But everybody remembers that.”
Mr. Flugnet shook his head. “You just think you do. Part of the reconditioning process is the introduction of a protective amnesia. Being a consumer isn’t nice, isn’t nice at all. The post natal blocks only operate on the conscious level. Underneath a tremendous pressure of anger and hatred and fear is built up over the years. The consumer pattern that has been conditioned in runs directly contrary to the instinct for self-preservation, or whatever you want to call it. That’s why the change to producer status takes so long. The accumulated charge has to be drained off slowly before the reconditioning can take place. But if the blocks were to be removed at once, if the youngsters were to suddenly wake up and see their world as it actually is…Mr. Flugnet’s voice shuddered to a stop.
“Do you mind if I have another drink? Just a short one?” Without waiting for an answer he went and helped himself. “Maybe they’d understand,” he muttered.
“Understand what?” said Alan’s uncle blankly. “Who?”
“The consumers. Maybe they’d understand that there wasn’t any other way to do it. The factories produce so fast that when everybody has all they want, they have to shut down—except the war plants, that is. That gets used up as fast as it’s made. But when there was nobody left to fight, when everybody else was dead, we had to keep producing. And if you produce, somebody has to consume. And…” His voice trailed off.
“I still don’t see what you’re so upset about,” said Alan’s uncle.
Alan stepped into the room. “I do,” he said in a strange flat voice.
Mr. Flugnet took one good look at him, made a funny little squawking sound, and huddled back in his chair.
“I almost got killed tonight,” said Alan.
His uncle shot him a surprised look. “That’s a funny remark for a consumer to make.”
“Yeah,” said Alan. “I guess it is.”
“Well, forget about it. If you’ve