my years as warden.

Suddenly, Coleman's words hit me in the back of the neck. If I got through the next twenty-four hours. This had to be some kind of test.

But a test for what?

Had I been deliberately told that I was living only a Dream to see if my ethics would hold up even when I thought I wasn't dealing with reality?

Or if this was only a Dream, was it a test to see if I was morally ready to return to the real, the earnest world?

But if it was a test to see if I was ready for reality, did I want to pass it? My life was nerve-racking and mind-wrecking, but I liked the challenge—it was the only life I knew or could believe in.

What was I going to do?

The only thing I knew was that I couldn't tune in tomorrow and find out.

The time was now.

Horbit motioned the gun to my desk set. "Sign that paper."

I reached out and took hold of his wrist. I squeezed.

Horbit's screams brought in the guards.

I picked up the gun from where he had dropped it and handed it to Captain Keller, my head guard, a tough old bird who wore his uniform like armor.

"Trying to force his way back to the sleep tanks," I told Keller.

He nodded. "Happened before. Back when old man Preston lost his grip."

Preston had been my predecessor. He had lost his hold on reality like all the others before him who had served long as warden of Dreamland. A few had quit while they were still ahead and spent the rest of their lives recuperating. Our society didn't produce individuals tough enough to stand the strain of putting their fellow human beings to sleep for long.

One of Keller's men had stabbed Horbit's arm with a hypospray to blanket the pain from his broken wrist, and the man was quieter.

"I couldn't have done it, Warden," Horbit mumbled drowsily. "I couldn't kill anybody. Unless it was like that other 

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