Cat And Mouse Games!

   Number 2 must have been losing his touch by suggesting that Number 6 was just the sort of candidate they needed to stand for election. Number 6 didn’t exactly jump at the chance, he said he might as well while he was waiting. Waiting for what, the opportunity for escape?! There was such an opportunity, but for what it was worth Number 6 might as well have saved himself the time and effort!

   Number 6’s opening speech was all his own, “I am not a number, I am a person!” He went on to tell it like it is. That in some place, at some time, all the citizens and citizeness held positions of a secret nature. That they had knowledge which was invaluable to an enemy. That like him they are in The Village to have that knowledge protected or extracted. And that unlike Number 6 they have accepted the situation of their imprisonment, and will die in The Village like rotten cabbages! The others have gone over to the side of their keepers. And Number 6 was going to discover them, who are the prisoners, and who the warders. The rest of Number 6’s election speeches are induced, the words put into the candidates mouth. At times he sounds like Number 2 who is standing for election to keep his seat! At other times he making promises to the electorate which he will be unable to keep!

   Is Number 6 really a man of the people? Can he be trusted? Oh his promises ring richly in the ears of the electorate, but he lacks the administrative ability to be able to manipulate such a community as The Village! But then Number 6 has ulterior motives for standing for election. That if elected to public office he intends to organise a mass breakout, and escape during the confusion. What’s more the Labour Exchange manager knows it, Number 2 knows it, and Number 6 must know that they know. But nevertheless they are happy to give Number 6 his head. As for Number 6 it not so clear that he could stop even if he wanted to, not the way he was being drugged, his mind conditioned just enough so as not to damage the tissue.
    Drugged, not drunk! Was Number 6 merely play acting when he appeared to be in an inebriated state while at the Cat and Mouse nightclub? After all it couldn’t have been the drink, "No alcohol here sir," the waitress informed him, "gin, whisky, vodka, looks the same tastes the same." And so there being absolutely no chance of Number 6 getting tiddly. Mind you if there had been, the chemist could still have made the drug to exact proportions to carry him right through the election, and administered by the bartender into Number 6’s drink. Then there would have been no need for the Therapy Zone! And yet the Therapy Zone was part of the cat and mouse game, to make Number 6 think that it was a place where Number 6 could get drunk in quiet isolation!

   The day of the election finally arrived. And Number 6 achieved a landslide victory. He had been elected as the new Number 2, even if he didn’t hold the position for more than five minutes! But they still let Number 6 have his head, in attempting to organise a mass breakout of The Village, knowing full well that no-one would take the least bit of notice of him. Then tissue was bruised a bit when Number 58 slapped him around the face in order to bring him to his senses! It was further bruised when the two motor mechanics took out their revenge on Number 6 for his attacking them aboard the jet boat.

   As for Number 58, she no longer existed. There she stood the new Number 2, a cat who has the mouse at her feet! But Number 6 isn’t ready to talk. “This is just the beginning” Number 2 tells him, which suggests that ‘Free For All’ could have been the second episode in the series, or if not the second then the third. That they have many ways and means, but they do not wish to damage him permanently, was confirmed earlier during this episode by the previous Number 2, who was instructed not to damage the tissue! As Number 2 previously said during ‘The Chimes of Big Ben’ “I don’t want a man of fragments! Later to be confirmed that Number 6 has a future with The Village. Perhaps bearing in mind Number 6’s previous form of employment, they could put Number 6 in charge of security, seeing as he’s always testing it!

    "The security of the citizens will be my primary objective - be seeing you."

Be seeing you