The Outcast Ones Read Online Free PDF Page B

He’s a guard. He protects us.”
    Now she’s shaking her head, throwing her arms up in the air, hopelessly. “Are you just playing dumb or is it for real? You like him more than other people, get it?”
    My eyes go wide with horror. What she is trying to hint at...is absolutely not permitted. We all know about emotional lives on the Old Earth. People had “relationships”, as they were called. It happened especially often between a man and a woman. But it only caused problems. They cheated each other, shouted at each other, beat each other, and even committed murder out of jealousy. Interpersonal relationships are troublesome factors and thus for us were discontinued and also prohibited. We are all the same, so we don’t have stronger feelings for anyone. Everyone is just as friendly or unfriendly to us. In any case, that’s how it should be.
    “D523, you should really let a doctor look at you. Someday you’ll do yourself harm with claims like that,” I answered her formally, earning a frown in answer. But it doesn’t matter, she should leave me alone. She’s always whispering things in my ear that I don’t want to hear, things I don’t even want to think about. It’s like she’s pouring water on a seed inside me, so that it will grow to a big strong plant. Bad enough that there’s even a sprout there, but I must know how to stop this tiny bud from growing into a weed.
    The Arena is full. Every seat is taken. In the middle, projectors have been set up to create the images in 3D. We have often seen presentations of this kind. Every time it’s like being there yourself.
    The lights go out and the brief Legion melody sounds. Before our eyes, the first images are coming together. We see the tops of trees in a forest. They look so real that some of the teenagers stretch out their hands, thinking they could really touch them. But their hands slip empty through the air.
    The camera zooms closer and now we recognise a group of men, probably soldiers, standing in a row. Their eyes are wide, their lips pressed together. They are trembling all over and sweat pours from their foreheads. We look into the eyes of a young man. He isn’t even old enough to be assigned a job, maybe just fifteen. His eyes aren’t like ours. Not pale blue, but rather a sort of grey, like the walls of the shared corridors, but far more lively. Specks of anthracite colour make them sparkle and remind me of the waves of the sea. But suddenly, all the life in his eyes goes out. A bullet hits him right in the forehead and tears it apart.
    A gasp escapes from D523 beside me. I look at her and see that she has thrown her hands over her eyes from fear, while in the centre of the arena, one man after another is shot. After ten deaths the scene ends and shows hundreds of naked bodies stacked up in the same forest. They are all dead. Shot down like targets.
    A woman runs through the streets of a desolate city. These are not the impressive skyscrapers from the pictures we see in the Atrium, but little houses whose plaster has begun to fall from the walls onto the cobblestones. Again and again the woman looks back, panicking. She cries out for help, but nobody comes. Finally she stumbles in a hole in the asphalt and falls full-length on the ground. She forces herself up again immediately, but it’s already too late. A man in uniform stands before her. His face is like stone. He presses a gun to her skull and forces her to take her clothes off. When she is naked and crying in front of him, she begs for her life. But the man unbuttons his grey military trousers and presses the woman up against the wall. I can’t stand to see what he does to her, and look away again.
    D523 has turned completely pale. She presses a hand to her breast, breathes deeply in and out, looking everywhere except the centre of the arena. The woman’s tortured screams echo in my ears and I’m sure I’ll never be able to forget.
    When the soldier is finished with her, he kills her