wanted to smash the fat, grinning face, but the muscles in his arm froze before it moved it an inch.

And worse than that, a brief pain ripped through his skull. A pain so intense that, had it lasted a second longer, he would have screamed in agony. And above the pain, a voice whispered in his head, Unlawful to strike someone except in self-defense.

He opened his mouth to tell Hendricks exactly what he thought of him, the CPA, the whole world. But the words stayed in his throat, the pain returned, and the mental voice whispered, Unlawful to curse.

He had never heard how the treatment prevented an Ex from committing a crime. And now that he knew, it didn't seem fair. He decided to tell the whole story to the newspapers as soon as he could. And as soon as that decision formed in his mind, his body froze, the pain returned and the voice, Unlawful to divulge CPA procedure.

"See what I mean?" Hendricks asked. "A century ago, you would have been locked in a prison and taxpayers' money would have supported you until the day you died. With the CPA system, you're returned to society, a useful citizen, unable to commit the smallest crime. And you've got a big hand in your dirty little mind that's going to slap it every time you get the wrong kind of thought. It'll keep slapping you until you learn. It might take weeks, months or years, but you'll learn sooner or later to not even think about doing anything wrong."

He lit a cigarette and blew a smoke ring at the car's plush ceiling. "It's a great system, isn't it, Joe? A true democracy. Even a jerk like you is free to do what he wants, as long as it's legal."

"I think it's a lousy, filthy system." Joe's head was still tingling with pain and he felt suffocated. The CPA was everywhere, only now it was also inside his head, telling him he couldn't do this, couldn't do that. All his life it had been telling him he couldn't do things he wanted to do and now....

Hendricks laughed. "You'll change your opinion. We live in a clean, wonderful world, Joe. A world of happy, healthy people. Except for freaks like yourself, criminals are—"

"Let me out!" Joe grabbed at the door and was on the sidewalk, slamming the door behind him before the car stopped completely.

He stared at the car as it pulled away from the curb and glided into the stream of traffic again. He realized he was a prisoner ... a 

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