Once Upon A Time
Profiles
Number 2
Male
Height…. 5 feet 8 inches {approx}
Weight…. 200 lbs {approx}
Hair…….. Black, receding hair line and goatee beard
Age…….. Middle aged
Nationality…. English speaking
Chief Administrator
Chairman of the Village
Attire single breasted black blazer, grey polo jersey, light grey flannel trousers, deck shoes
Wood effect narrow slit glasses, mortarboard and black gown, tortoiseshell framed glasses
Navy blue tracksuit, boxing pads and head protector
Fencing mask
Judges scarlet robes and wig
Flying helmet
He has been here before!
Speaks German.
This particular Number 2 has not been brought back for second term of office, but for a specific reason, Number 6.
Brought back yes, but brought back from where?
He probably isn’t very happy at being returned to the village, because he isn’t in the best of moods. Barking and shouting at the butler to remove his breakfast, then at number 1 to remove that membranic thing in his chair, he is not an inmate!
Is even Number 2 seen as an inmate by his superior?
He barks at his superior number 1, that last time he was using the wrong approach that he does it his way or he finds somebody else!
There is no laughter, no generous rapport with number 6.
This time Number 2 himself faces a much sterner test in his attempt to make number 6 talk, but is he himself ready?
But first he has a simple question for Number 6, he wants to know why he cares?
He tells number 1, that he is a good man, he was a good man, but that if he gets number 6 that he will be better and that there is no alternative, that he must risk either one of them.
Number 2 begins by examining Number 6’s progress report. Then once obtaining permission for ‘Decree Absolute’ he engages the assistance of the supervisor in the control room, not only to deepen the sleep of number 6 but also to implant into his mind the number 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5!
He puts the Supervisor under orders, leaving him in charge of the village for the period of one week, this instead of putting an interim Number 2 in his place.
Then going to the cottage of ‘6 Private’ Number 2 spends the whole night reciting nursery rhymes to the slumbering number 6. this to regress him back to his childhood.
One would have thought that going a whole night without sleep, would have put Number 2 at a disadvantage right at the very beginning of the forthcoming ordeal.
In the Embryo Room you can relive from the cradle to the grave, and it is where Number 2 takes the prisoner through the seven ages of man, or rather selected stages of the seven ages of his own life, this in a series of role playing acts.
All he has to do is;
A find missing link….. and when he has, he will refine it, tune it and he will play our game!
B put it together…….. and if he fails, then…..
C Bang!
To the prisoner, he is;
Father
Teacher
Coach and trainer
Potential employer/bank manager
Recruiting officer for the secret service
Judge and Inquisitor
Taken quickly from infancy to school, where the pupil graduates with honours, and it is at the graduation ceremony where number 2 shows his over eagerness for a quick result in first asking the pupil ‘why he resigned?’
Surely in asking such a question so soon in the prisoner’s life, Number 2 has jumped the gun somewhat, because as yet the pupil is only about to leave school and hasn’t resigned from anything!
One can be as subtle as one likes, in using psychology to a greater or lesser degree, but in the end Number 2 cannot help himself but to resort to the use brute force against the prisoner “Why why why did you resign?”
But even then Number 2 cannot help himself, from beginning to like the Prisoner.
Number 2 turns coach/trainer of the prisoner as a boxer, declaring him to be ‘The Champ!’ building him up, in order to be able to knock him down. But it is he who is knocked to the floor!
As the Prisoner’s fencing coach, he teaches him finesse and not to hit and run. As he stands with his back to the door, Number 2 tries to make the prisoner take that step over the threshold, to goad him into killing, to kill him in fact.
But putting his life on the line in such a way is dangerous to say the least, as Number 2 is faces the possibility of his own death.
Then as he is still alive, he accuses the prisoner of being afraid to prove that he is a man, he accuses the prisoner’s act of resignation as being one of cowardice!
Then a few moments later number 2 accuses the prisoner of being sorry for everybody, is that why he resigned?
The time period which Number, the Prisoner and the butler are ‘time locked’ in the embryo room is one week, Number 2 told Number 1 that that was not long enough, he doesn’t want to damage him!
But when you that the whole of that one teeny weenie week, is filled with nothing more than role playing. For example, when do they sleep, and how does one know when they are not role playing?
For such endurance, Number 2 must be physically strong as well mentally.
‘Decree Absolute’ is a recognised method, used psychoanalysis, the patient must come to trust his doctor, sometimes they change places, which it is essential in extreme cases, and is fine if the doctor himself does not have problems of his own, which Number 2 does admit to having.
At one point it does seem that Number 2 has a built in safety valve in Number 6, which might give Number 2 an edge. For when he faces Number 6 with a rest to count in alternate even numbers, 2 4 6 8, Number 6 cannot get past 5!
At the beginning Number 2 is strong and dominant, pitting his wits and strength against the prisoner, but each of the role playing acts takes their toll of Number 2, and as he begins to tire and weaken he does make one fundamental mistake. Number 2 does not listen when actually told the reason for the prisoner’s resignation; “For peace, for peace of mind, because too many people know too much!”
Number 2 has been told, this is what he was waiting to hear, but was not listening!
Yet having heard the reason, Number 2 still persists with his continual and persistent question of ‘why did you resign?’
It is as though the reason given is either not good enough, Number 2 believing there is more to it than that, or it is a simple case that he does not believe him.
He accuses the Prisoner first of being a ‘lone wolf’, then of being a fool, not to mention his killing in the war for fun.
Number 2 sees society of being a place where people exist together and that is civilisation. That the lone wolf belongs to the wilderness, and it is his sworn duty to see that Number 6 does not grow up to be a lone wolf, but to see that he does conform.
So Number 2 is a man of the establishment and by no means a rebel.
In the end Number 2 becomes afraid of the prisoner as they begin to change places. He rejects the fact that Number 6 knows him and that he says knows too much about him!
Once Number 2 and the prisoner have changed places, Number 2 explains to him about the workings of the ‘Embryo Room’.
But more importantly, in changing places Number 2 has become the Prisoner!
He panics when the time clock indicates only five minutes left. Panic indeed, for Number 2 sees himself on the point of failure for a second time.
He had hoped that the Prisoner would come to trust him.
That he would confide in him.
But it was all too late, he is scared, a fool himself.
He can no longer rely upon his manservant, he is no longer his master!
Once his ego let he see himself as being big, that he was the boss!
But now, he is the weaker man, the events in the embryo room have taken their toll upon him, and he struggles to understand, who, what?
But there may be still time, for him, as he pleads on bended knees with the prisoner. He even crawls, snivels and grovels. Even the word please, which seems to have a mild effect upon the prisoner, does him no good.
As the final seconds are counted down, Number 2 takes a final draught of the red wine in his glass, this which he assured the prisoner of having “no additives, of being 100 percent proof!”
If it is the wine that killed him, why then was the prisoner unaffected?
It could be that it was not the wine which contributed to the man’s death, but a heart attack brought on by all the worry and stress which he was under at the time, the pressure of virtually non stop role playing and not to mention the tiredness caused by the lack of sleep.
How many times had this recognised method been used before?
In the end it had to be either one of them, this time it was the prisoner. If only Number 2 had listened, he would have known he had succeeded.
Number 6
Male
Height…. 6 feet 3 inches {approx}
Weight….185 lbs {approx}
Hair…….. Light brown
Age…….. 40
Nationality…. English
Attire light blue pyjamas, dark blue stripped dressing gown
Piped blazer, dark blue turtle neck jersey, fawn trousers and deck shoes, straw boater
Dark track suit, boxing mits
Fencing mask
Flying helmet
Number 6 is again pacing the floor of his cottage, like some caged animal. A telephone call from number 2 sees him recognise the voice.
And when asked the question ‘why do you care?’ comes the stern reply ‘you’ll never know!’
Outside in the village, the prisoner carry’s on demonstrating his defiance of the village by accosting a villager by the free sea. He asks him his number, 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16, in other words he dares to enquire.
Whilst slumbering in the comfort of his bed, the prisoner is being conditioned. His sleep deepened, the pulstor lowered to just above his face, and number 2 reciting nursery rhymes to him all night long.
The prisoner has been conditioned and regressed back to his childhood.
A man of strong character and personality, who even as a child there is something in his brain that is a puzzlement.
In the ‘Embryo Room’ he relives some aspects of his life.
Taken by Number 2 through his early childhood to his school days and subsequent graduation, his headmaster asks him the question of “why did you resign?”
Of course the pupil has no idea of what the headmaster is talking about, and replies “From what sir?”
As a pupil he is perhaps a fool but he is certainly no rat, and however much coercion he is put under he will not rat on anybody.
He is seen as a lone wolf.
He must no grow up to be a lone wolf.
At school he had a rebellious spirit.
That rebellious spirit has been exercised though out his time in the village, and continues to be so during his final interrogation.
He is told that he must conform to the society in which he lives.
When told that he is to be given six of the best, he wishes it to be twelve, so that he can remember!
He is coached and trained as a boxer, and equally so in the art of fencing.
Number 2 tries to make him kill. But the prisoner will not kill, he will not step over the threshold and he is by no means a coward.
But later he does admit to having killed.
He may be very good, but he is no angel. Good at figures/mathematics, but due to his conditioning by Number 2, he cannot countdown alternating even numbers past five!
Five that’s me! He tells number 2.
As we have seen before Number 6 can both box {orthodox} and fence.
He went to public school.
He was good at mathematics.
Being good at figures he once worked in a bank.
He can work and he doesn’t care at what because it’s the way he’s made.
Not only that, but he will work any hours of the day.
Recruited into the secret service, he carries out secret, state secret confidential work which he describes as being above the law, even to the point when the lives of innocent human beings are put at risk.
Work which he cannot talk about, so he must surely have signed the official secrets act!
He had been recruited as a secret agent, working for the British and any hours of the day. He would travel the globe on secret assignments, encountering danger wherever he goes, not to mention the clearing up of other people’s mess!
Even at this point the prisoner maintains his rejection of the village, rejects the fact that he is a member of the village. Units are not for him, indeed he is not a member, not a unit of society.
The prisoner was rebelling against the figures….. NUMBER’S!
In appealing against unfair treatment, the same treatment as everybody else, the Prisoner sees himself better than everybody else.
The Prisoner was in a war, but which war? Certainly not the second world war, he would have been too young, so it would have had to have been the Korean war. But certainly he would not have encountered any Germans. But it was a war in which he killed for peace, and that was part of his reason for his resignation.
For in a quiet moment of their, say deliberations, the prisoner lets it be known that he resigned for peace!
“For peace of mind, because too many people know too much”
This then was the reason for the prisoner’s resignation, and he won’t tell Number 2 a second time, you’ve been told!
And it appears that the prisoner knows too much, he knows too much about Number 2, he is an enemy, a fool and an idiot!
He certainly knows about the recognised method of ‘Decree Absolute’, so how much more does he know?
The Prisoner is much the stronger man, both mentally and physically, because as the ordeal continues the prisoner begins to wear down his inquisitor and in the due course of the matter, the Prisoner changes places with Number 2, for this is an extreme case.
The point of exchange is arrived at when the prisoner offers the knife to Number 2, for him to kill the Prisoner. Much in the same way as Number 2 did, as the prisoner held the unprotected point of his epee at Number 2’s throat.
And having changed places, Number 6 has become the boss, but tells Number 2 that number 1 is the boss.
Taken through the seven ages of man, we see only the authority challenging aspects of his life, but what of the age of the lover? Well obviously with no female in the embryo room, it would be difficult to re enact this point in his life without it seeming perverse of one of homosexuality.
And for the same reason there being no female, there could be no involvement by his mother, like there was by his father.
But even here trapped in a time locked room, the prisoner sees the possibility for escape. The cage being both detachable and moveable, self contained with supplies for six months, you could go anywhere in it!
In the end the prisoner hammers home his advantage, in wanting to see Six die. Die Six, die, die!
But it is Number 2 who dies, not Number 6, or is it?
Had the prisoner and Number 2 changed places to even that extent?
It happens that it has to either one of them, but is Number 6 really the man the Village authorities are looking for?
He is a man who has fought, held fast, maintained, resisted coercion.
He has resisted and rebelled against the village
Once an unmutual, a man who has given the village and it’s authority nothing but trouble!
He has poked hi nose into business which was none of his concern.
Righted the wrongs of others
Come to the help of damsels in distress
Saved the village from the injustice of those who govern the village
A man of strength and determination, physically and mentally, who is ideally equipped to take the position of number 2, perhaps even that of number 1.
The Prisoner had faced the ultimate test {as we shall see later on} which he has survived intact, but it is somehow a hollow victory, there is anger in his face when told by the supervisor that they will need the body for evidence. He smashes his glass on the floor!
It appears that the prisoner regrets the death of Number 2, victory at any price does not seem a concept held by him.
And now his only desire is…….. Number 1.
The Butler
Male
Height….4 feet 3 inches {approx}
Weight….150 lbs {approx}
Hair…….. Black, balding
Age…….. Late thirties
Nationality…. Unknown
Attire Black tails, waistcoat, bow tie, gloves and shoes, white shirt
Wood effect narrow slit glasses
Policeman’s helmet
He has remained silent through out, serving his master without question. However from time to time, when he has become involved it has become plain that he knows far more than he was letting on and that includes the embryo room!
And so it is the case here, well it had to be hadn’t it, otherwise how could he possibly know of the Embryo Room’s existence? Remember I was the first person in it, and my master the Number 2 would be in need of my assistance, fetching and carrying, working the rape recorder, smoke machine, playing the organ and so on. And all carried out without instruction I’ll have you know, well I would wouldn’t I, having been in this situation before He has played his part when called upon to do so. Well you don’t imagine that this was the first operation of Decree Absolute did you?
Besides if he wasn’t there who would have looked after both his master and the prisoner, washing and clearing up after them. Who do you think cooked their meals for example?
Did the Butler
Gofer
Headmaster’s assistant
The champs second
Technical and special effects operator
Administer of force
Organist
Policeman
Assistant jailer
Observing, playing his part when required, he new instinctively when the prisoner and number 2 had changed places and who my master would be.
The period we had together was one teeny weenie week, you don’t imagine that all you saw was all that happened do you?
The butler shows no emotion, but in the end he knew that it had to be, it had to be one or the other of them. And so it was with some ease and without question, that he was able to accept his new master, well in the past he’d had a great deal of practice in doing so!
Anyway something good came out of it all, was he the only one to emerge from the embryo room completely unscathed. You could say that a came out, the way I went in, the only difference being his new master.
Supervisor –- Number 28
Male
Height…. 5 feet 10 inches {approx}
Weight….160 lbs {approx}
Hair…….. Balding
Age…….. Middle aged {approx}
Attire single breasted blazer, olive green polo neck jersey, grey trousers, deck shoes
He has been put under orders by Number 2 and left in charge of day to day running of the village for one week AS The New Number 2, an interim Number 2 if you prefer. Promotion in the filed I believe it’s called. There was no tome to bring in another Number 2, so it had to be the next person of any seniority, would be the supervisor. And in having the ability to take charge of the village for such a period, might bring into question his possible promotion to the position of Number 2.
At first he does not take his superiors word for the action of ‘Decree Absolute’, seeing it as an emergency, he wants to check, but is ordered to check nothing!
The Supervisor must be aware of what ‘Decree Absolute’ entails, feeling something for this particular Number 2 he tells him that ‘he would hate to see him go’.
Number’s 2 have come and gone, but the supervisor Number 28, has held on steadfastly to his position, only being replaced once but later reappointed, the error corrected.
Having waited for the time clock to release the door, the supervisor enters the embryo room not knowing what he will find. Offering his congratulations to Number 6 it is then his bounded duty to take Number 6 to Number 1, having first sealed the deceased number 2 inside his own personal tomb.
Next time Fall Out
Be seeing you
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