The Running Man

by Richard Bachman

Books were regarded with suspicion at best, especially when carried by someone from south of the Canal. Pervert Mags were safer.

So you moved on to the next corner, which was just like the last corner, and were moved along again. You could try to get mad about it, but mostly your feet hurt too much.

He understood well enough how a man with a choice between pride and responsibility will almost always choose pride—if responsibility robs him of his manhood.

He threw himself into his work wholly, with grinning intensity, getting overtime when he could. The wages were bad, there was no chance of advancement, and inflation was running wild—but they were in love. They remained in love, and why not?

He was vaguely aware that nerve gas was being used in the Mideast. But none of it affected him. Protest did not work. Violence did not work. The world was what it was, and Ben Richards moved through it like a thin scythe, asking for nothing, looking for work.

Let the guillotine fall. And fall. And fall. Yet there was no way to get them. They towered above all of them dimly, like the Games Building itself.

Hopelessness filled him like cold water. There was no base of communication with these beautiful chosen ones. They existed up where the air was rare.

“You’re crazy,” McCone said. “They’ll blow us apart.” “With you and five other innocent people on board? This honorable country?” “It will be a mistake,” McCone said harshly. “A mistake on purpose.” “Don’t you watch The National Report?” Richards asked, still smiling. “We don’t make mistakes. We haven’t made a mistake since 1950.”

No ties now, and certainly no morality. How could morality be an issue to a man cut loose and drifting?