
Transcriber’s note:
[p135]By CHARLES V. DE VET - monkey on his back
A nameless figure darts through an endless, glass‑walled corridor, pursued by a squad of relentless men. The chase leads him into a gleaming terminal where he slips a briefcase into a locker, then decides to feign surrender, buying a moment of uneasy calm. As the strangers close in, the tension pivots from physical danger to a psychological standoff.
Later, the man sits across from the cold, meticulous psychoanalyst Milton Bergstrom, who offers a mysterious serum designed to strip away mental barriers. The drug transforms the room, turning the floor into a spongy tide and pulling the patient into a stark, dimensionless plain where only a single, elegant weapon lies in his hand. In this surreal limbo, questions of identity and purpose surface, hinting at deeper layers of a reality that may be far more fragile than it appears.
Language
en
Duration
~28 minutes (27K characters)
Publisher of text edition
Project Gutenberg
Credits
Produced by Greg Weeks, David Wilson and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
Release date
2008-09-10
Rights
Public domain in the USA.

1911–1997
A steady, imaginative voice from mid-century science fiction, this American writer published more than 50 stories in the pulp and digest magazines and later returned to fiction after a long break. His work is often remembered for brisk ideas, space-age adventure, and a knack for keeping stories moving.
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