crimes hidden here under the ground.

We remember the Home of the Infants where we lived till we were five
years old, together with all the children of the City who had been born
in the same year. The sleeping halls there were white and clean and bare
of all things save one hundred beds. We were just like all our brothers
then, save for the one transgression: we fought with our brothers. There
are few offenses blacker than to fight with our brothers, at any age and
for any cause whatsoever. The Council of the Home told us so, and of all
the children of that year, we were locked in the cellar most often.

When we were five years old, we were sent to the Home of the Students,
where there are ten wards, for our ten years of learning. Men must learn
till they reach their fifteenth year. Then they go to work. In the Home
of the Students we arose when the big bell rang in the tower and we went
to our beds when it rang again. Before we removed our garments, we stood
in the great sleeping hall, and we raised our right arms, and we said
all together with the three Teachers at the head:

"We are nothing. Mankind is all. By the grace of our brothers are we
allowed our lives. We exist through, by and for our brothers who are the
State. Amen."

Then we slept. The sleeping halls were white and clean and bare of all
things save one hundred beds.

We, Equality 7-2521, were not happy in those years in the Home of the
Students. It was not that the learning was too hard for us. It was that
the learning was too easy. This is a great sin, to be born with a head
which is too quick. It is not good to be different from our brothers,
but it is evil to be superior to them. The Teachers told us so, and they
frowned when they looked upon us.

So we fought against this curse. We tried to forget our lessons, but we
always remembered. We tried not to understand what the Teachers taught,
but we always understood it before the Teachers had spoken. We looked
upon Union 5-3992, who were a pale boy with only half a brain, and we
tried to say and do as they did, that we might be like them, like Union
5-3992, but somehow the Teachers knew that we were not. And we were
lashed more often than all the other children.

The Teachers were just, for they had been appointed by the Councils, and
the Councils are the voice of all justice, for they are the voice of all
men. And if sometimes, in the secret darkness of our heart, we regret
that which befell us on