Lying on his back, staring up at the ceiling television set, Lew suddenly began to shiver. He had not had the energy to put the sound plug in his ear, and the silent motion of the cartoon figures had suddenly become horrid. He turned the set off, and that didn't help either.
Bit by bit they would take him apart and store him away. He'd never seen an organ storage bank, but his uncle had owned a butcher-shop...
"Hey!" he yelled.
The kid's eyes came up, the only living part of him. The old man twisted round to look over his shoulder. At the end of the hall the guard looked up once, then went back to reading.
The fear was in Lew's belly; it pounded in his throat. "How can you stand it?"
The kid's eyes dropped to the floor. The old man said, "Stand what?"
"Don't you know what they're going to do to us?"
"Not to me. They won't take me apart like a hog."
Instantly Lew was at the bars. "Why not?"
The old man's voice had become very low. "Because there's a bomb where my right thighbone used to be. I'm gonna blow myself up. What they find, they'll never use."
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