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05 - Anthem - Ayn Rand · Science Fiction Books

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  Speaker 1: Chapter five. We made it, we created it, We brought
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  Speaker 1: it forth from the night of the ages. We alone,
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  Speaker 1: our hands, our mind ours alone, and only we know
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  Speaker 1: not what we are saying. Our head is reeling. We
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  Speaker 1: look upon the light which we had made. We shall
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  Speaker 1: be forgiven for anything we say to night to night.
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  Speaker 1: After more days in trials than we can count, we
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  Speaker 1: finished building a strange thing from the remains of the
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  Speaker 1: unmentionable times, a box of glass, devised to give forth
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  Speaker 1: the power of the sky, of greater strength than we
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  Speaker 1: had ever achieved before. And when we put our wires
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  Speaker 1: to this box, when we closed the current, the wire glowed,
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  Speaker 1: it came to life, It turned red, and a circle
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  Speaker 1: of light lay on the stone before us. We stood,
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  Speaker 1: and we held our head in our hands. We could
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  Speaker 1: not conceive of that which we had created. We had
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  Speaker 1: touched no flint, made no fire. Yet there was light,
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  Speaker 1: light that came from nowhere, light from the heart of metal.
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  Speaker 1: We blew out the candle. Darkness swallowed us, and there
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  Speaker 1: was nothing left around us, nothing save the night, and
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  Speaker 1: a thin thread of flame in it, as a crack
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  Speaker 1: in the wall of a prison. We stretched our hands
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  Speaker 1: to the wire, and we saw our fingers in the
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  Speaker 1: red glow. We could not see our body nor feel it.
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  Speaker 1: And in that moment nothing existed save our two hands
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  Speaker 1: over a wire, glowing in a black abyss. Then we
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  Speaker 1: thought of the meaning of that which lay before us.
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  Speaker 1: We can light our tunnel, and the city, and all
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  Speaker 1: the cities of the world with nothing save metal and wires.
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  Speaker 1: We can give our brothers a new light, cleaner and
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  Speaker 1: brighter than any they have ever known. The power of
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  Speaker 1: the sky can be made to do men's bidding. There
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  Speaker 1: are no limits to its secrets and its might, and
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  Speaker 1: it can be made to grant us anything. If we
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  Speaker 1: but choose to ask. Then we knew what we must do.
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  Speaker 1: Our discovery is too great for us to waste our
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  Speaker 1: time in sweeping streets. We must not keep our secret
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  Speaker 1: to ourselves, nor buried under the ground. We must bring
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  Speaker 1: it into the sight of all men. We need all
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  Speaker 1: our time. We need the workrooms of the Home of
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  Speaker 1: the Scholars. We want the help of our brother scholars
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  Speaker 1: and the wisdom joined to ours. There was so much
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  Speaker 1: work ahead for all of us, for all the scholars
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  Speaker 1: of the world. In a month, the World Council of
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  Speaker 1: Scholars is to meet in our city. It is a
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  Speaker 1: great council to which the wisest of all lands are elected,
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  Speaker 1: and it meets once year in the different cities of
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  Speaker 1: the earth. We shall go to this council, and we
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  Speaker 1: shall lay before them, as our gift, the glass box
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  Speaker 1: with the power of the sky. We shall confess everything
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  Speaker 1: to them. They will see, understand, and forgive, for our
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  Speaker 1: gift is greater than our transgression. They will explain it
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  Speaker 1: to the Council of Vocations, and we shall be assigned
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  Speaker 1: to the home of the Scholars. This has never been
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  Speaker 1: done before, but neither has a gift such as ours
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  Speaker 1: ever been offered to men. We must wait. We must
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  Speaker 1: guard our tunnel as we have never guarded it before.
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  Speaker 1: For should any men, save the Scholars, learn of our secret,
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  Speaker 1: they would not understand it, nor would they believe us.
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  Speaker 1: They would see nothing save our crime of working alone,
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  Speaker 1: and they would destroy us and our light. We care
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  Speaker 1: not about our body, but our light is yes, we
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  Speaker 1: do care. For the first time, we do care about
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  Speaker 1: our body, for this wire is a part of our body,
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  Speaker 1: as a vein torn from us, glowing with our blood.
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  Speaker 1: We are proud of this thread of metal, or of
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  Speaker 1: our hands which made it, or is there a line
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  Speaker 1: to divide these two. We stretch out our arms for
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  Speaker 1: the first time, do we know how strong our arms are?
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  Speaker 1: And a strange thought comes to us. We wonder, for
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  Speaker 1: the first time in our life, what we look like.
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  Speaker 1: Men never see their own faces and never ask their
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  Speaker 1: brothers about it, for it is evil to have concern
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  Speaker 1: for their own faces or bodies. But tonight, for a
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  Speaker 1: reason we cannot fathom, we wish it were possible to
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  Speaker 1: us to know the likeness of our own person. End
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  Speaker 1: of Chapter five