by Eando Binder
“Come, Eve,” I said quietly. “We must deal with humans on their own footing.”
We were taken down the mountain road to the city in the two squad cars. The engines groaned with our separate weights of nearly a half-ton each. Jack, Kay and Tom followed in their car.
Before the indictment a few hours later, Tom managed to whisper to me.
“Don’t shield Eve, Adam. Let her go through the trial. She will then acquire human status, as you did in yours. I’m certain I can save her from the charges—but only with you as witness of Hillory’s evil control. You are a ‘person’ in court records. Therefore your testimony will be official.”
I nodded. Tom’s clear legal reasoning had foreseen all that. My thoughts leaped ahead. Eve exonerated, legally a “human”. Then both of us would apply for citizenship, as my creator, Dr. Link, had visioned from the first day of my “birth”. And even—my heart sang—a church wedding for Eve and me. Why not? Then we would be the moral equals of humans in the eyes of the world.
The words of the official reading the indictment crashed into my thoughts.
“Eve Link is hereby accused of the robbery of Midcity Bank, and of the murders of John Deering, Tony Pucelli, and Hans Unger, all of this city.”
Tom started. “What?” he demanded. “Why is Eve Link being accused of three murders?”
The official looked up with hard cynicism.
“Investigation reports just came in, before we drew up the final indictment. The next night, after the bank robbery’, those three men were murdered—Deering, Pucelli and Unger. In each case, clues pointed to a robot. Marks on their bodies could only have been made by a metal instrument. Even bits of metal filing were found.”
Jack groaned, at my side.
“I get it. You remember how the papers played up the robot angle immediately after the robbery. Everybody read it the next morning. Some clever criminal organization in the city, seeing that, promptly carried out three gang murders the next night. Using metal clubs and leaving metal filings as obvious clues, it all points to Eve as the culprit. She was framed.”
Tom groaned, too. “How clever. How dammably clever.”
The official shrugged. “You’ll have to prove your claims in court. The trial will be held in a month.”
Tom turned a pale face to me. He didn’t have to say it.
Eve was doomed.
Frankenstein! Frankenstein! Already I could hear the word shrieking through the city, in every newspaper and from every radio speaker. Eve had the noose around her neck.
Jack put a hand on my arm. I think I was trembling. When my thoughts are disorganized, my internal machinery is also.
“We’ll put detectives on the job,” Jack said. “We have a month’s time—” But he exchanged a hopeless glance with Tom.
Detectives. A month’s time. A clever criminal ring that had covered up its trail cunningly. A whole city aroused against the robots parading as humans, taking life in secret. It added up to zero—for Eve. My thoughts crashed to that conclusion in seconds.
I warned Tom and Jack to say no more. I turned to Eve.
“Go to your cell. They will lock you in. On no account must you try to leave.” I paused. “We must accept what comes. The case is hopeless, Do you understand, dear?”
Eve was shocked. I could detect that in the way her internal hum had missed a moment, exactly as a human heart may skip. She had been waiting for one word of hope from me. I gave her none. She was led away in a dead silence.
“I’ll visit her every day,” Kay said sympathetically. “Poor child, she’ll feel so frightened and alone.” She glanced at me almost contemptuously for my brutal dismissal.
“Drive to my mountain cabin-laboratory,” I directed, when we were outside.
“Out with it,” Jack demanded shrewdly. “Something’s seething in that brain of yours.”
“I thought you were a man, Adam Link,” Kay said furiously. “A man who would fight for one he loves. You could at least have said one word of encouragement. Why did you tell Eve that the case was hopeless?”
I winced a little under her scorn. But I spoke firmly. “For the benefit of the officials. And the reporters waiting for the least little rumor or report to play up. And most important, for the benefit, eventually, of the criminal ring dumping their murders in Eve’s lap. They’ll sit back now, confident that we won’t try a thing. They won’t know that a detective is on the case. A detective by the name of—Adam Link.”
They gasped.
“You?” Jack snapped.
“Yes, why not? Without meaning to boast, I think quicker than any human. I have super-keen ears and eyes. I have strength and quickness and powers no human detective has. I can do more in a month than ten men.”
Jack shook his head sadly. “You’ve forgotten one thing, Adam. You’ve naturally come to think of yourself as human. But the whole meaning of the word detective is spying in secret. How can you do that—with your metal body?”
I left the question unanswered till we had reached my place. Then I stepped to my workbench arid brought back a bowl of sticky, rubbery plastic. “I was working on this before Hillory upset my plans. I was toying with the idea of—well, look—” I smeared some of the plastic over my frontal-plate with a spatula. It was opaque, hiding the metal. Its color was that of human flesh.
“My disguise,” I said. “Human disguise.”
The three of them stared at me, wonderingly. “You might just be able to work a miracle,” said Kay finally.
Yes, it would almost have to be a miracle at that. Tom might prove Hillory’s actual guilt in the case of mere robbery. But three human lives had also been allegedly taken, coldbloodedly, by the Frankenstein monster named Eve Link. That was what we were up against.
I turned to the thought-helmet, the one with which Hillory had diabolically controlled Eve. Now there would be at least one benefit from the hell we had been through. The thought-helmets were a godsend in this hour of need.
Switching on the power, I sent a radio-beam searching for Eve’s mind. My electrical thoughts modulated the beam, in a process akin to telepathy.
“Eve,” I called silently. “Can you hear me?”
“Adam!” came back almost instantly over the two-way conducting beam. “I’ve been so afraid—”
“Don’t be, darling,” I soothed. “And forgive me for leaving you so coldly. It was necessary. I’m going to save you, Eve. Fm going to save you. I promise.”
But it was not till two precious weeks later that I began.
I had had to work day and night, perfecting the plastic, giving it the rubbery consistency of human flesh. And also making it adhere firmly to metal. I think a human chemist would not have solved the problem in a year. But I was driven by a demon. Every tick of my internal electrical distributor counted off the hours with the noose tightening around Eve’s neck.
I used my former, smaller body, before adopting the giant one in my battle against Eve’s giant one. It stood five feet ten—human height. Covered with plastic, my torso was rather thick, giving me the appearance of a burly man. The legs and arms were easy, though it was a trick to pat the plastic into folds at my joints. I cut my flat feet-plates down, to the proportions of a human foot. Covered with clothes, the imperfections of my pseudo-human body weren’t glaring. The important thing was that my hard metal was covered with a softer medium.
Molding my face and hands took the most delicate labor. They would be exposed to constant sight. Jack and Kay were my faithful assistants. Tom was down in the city, delving into the case.
My hands came out as big hams, worthy of a prize-fighter. The fingers were rather stiff, because of the metal “bone” beneath. Jack carefully set human hair into the plastic, over the knuckles, in keeping with my general appearance as a big, brawny man. He molded my facial features with a master’s touch—outjutting chin, heavy straight lips, low forehead. He couldn’t resist giving me a slight pug nose and a cauliflower ear. Over my shiny skull he glue
d a wig of matty black hair. And a rather heavy mustache on my upper lip, to conceal the fact that it didn’t move when I talked.
The eyes were a problem. I made them myself, two little hemispheres of clear thin glass. My vision was somewhat distorted, and it was a blue world after Jack applied blue-stain for irises.
Kay did her part, rougeing the cheeks and lips cleverly, to take away the dead-flesh texture. Little touches of cosmetics ! around the eyes and nose blended the features properly.
“There!” Jack grunted finally, with his irrepressible sense of humor. “Didn’t know I was a master sculptor down underneath.”
They surveyed me critically, from top to toe. I wore a dark tweed suit and a cap pulled low. Suddenly, though they tried to resist, they burst out laughing. I could not blame them when I looked in a full-length mirror.
In the glare of electric light, I was perhaps the strangest looking being imaginable. A big, hulking-shouldered man with a dead “pan” and clumsy arms and legs. Jack stopped laughing and substituted a shaded lamplight for the overhead glare. And there, in the half-gloom with imperfections hidden, I suddenly came to life.
“You’ll do,” Jack nodded soberly. “You can work only at night, though. And keep out of bright lights. Outside of a certain stiffness in your carriage—which might come from being muscle-bound like any has-been fighter—you’re Pete Larch, the pug.”
They gave me lessons in walking and swinging my arms naturally. I learned to slouch a little, and take short strides instead of my long, ponderous ones. A rough job, all in all, but we only had two weeks. I would pass for a human to all but the most searching eyes in bright light.
“One thing, though,” Jack said worriedly. “That damned jingling noise you make inside.” He had the answer to that quickly. He drew out a large watch that made a loud ticking. “Put it in your vest pocket. Kay never liked it anyway. At strategic moments, take it out, so they think it’s just that turnip clattering away, and not your gear-and-cog innards. Well, Adam old boy—go out and get your man.”
He had tried to lighten the moment I left them with a flippant tone. But beneath it we were solemn. I had a big job ahead of me, with no inkling of how it would come out.
I contacted Eve as I drove toward the city on my errand. The ESP radio-beam oscillator was in my chest-space, connected to my battery for power, with push-button controls wired into my trouser belt.
“Eve! I’m starting out now to find the murderers who hope to see you pay for their crimes. Be patient, loved one.”
“I will, Adam. I trust you. I know you’ll save me.”
I parked the car in a downtown garage, then strode toward the criminal quarter of town. I chose the least frequented streets, where lamplights were dim. Whenever I approached another pedestrian, I watched him narrowly. Most humans unconsciously glance at someone passing. Their glances at me showed nothing of surprise or suspicion. Only at times, a slight repugnance. A wholly naturally reaction, in that I was no debonair fashion-plate, but a seedy, degenerate looking individual.
I was satisfied, as I went along. My human disguise, despite first misgivings, was adequate.
In the criminal quarter, I made my way toward one of the “dives” that were distributed in the neighborhood, frequented by hoodlums, gunmen and all specimens of the lower element. Jack had named three of the places as the most likely hangout for members of the ring we were after. The one victim, Pucelli, pinned the crimes on a certain organization that Jack knew about from his newspaper work.
“Probably the biggest, most powerful gang in the city,” Jack had said. “Racketeers, strong-arm men, kidnappers—they’ve had their hand in everything vicious. The rumor is that the brains, or Boss, of the outfit is a well-protected, solid citizen, known only to his organization. You can’t get at him. Just try to find out who did the actual killings, at his orders. Tom will do the rest.”
I paused, outside the dive. Adam Link, detective, took a breath—figuratively, at least. Pete Larch walked in.
The dive was noisy, smoke-filled, dim. Thankful for that, I slumped in a chair in a dark corner. A bartender came.
“Whiskey,” I ordered, in a low gruff voice, striving to hide its mechanical inflection.
“Chaser?”
“Soda.”
Jack had posted me on all these trivial, yet important details. The drink came and I tossed down the coins. The bartender gave me a searching glance. For a moment I was stunned. Did he suspect? Had I done something wrong, in my guise as a human? Then I realized that in a place such as this, every human was given an inspection. A once-over. He shrugged slightly, and from that I gathered that he had put me down as a common drifter.
To anyone observing me, I must have given the impression of a morose chap with nothing to do, here for a few drinks, unconcerned with anyone else. I was quite the contrary. My photo-electric eyes—my real vision behind the glass camouflage—took in every individual in the place. My sensitive tympanums, behind their plastic dummies, were listening to every conversation in the room. To every word whispered between men seated in a far comer, for instance. I have the capacity to select sounds, from behind a background of din.
Sixty feet away, with a tinny piano banging in between, I heard one man mutter to another: “So I says to him, I says, look here—”
Senseless, brainless mouthings. I began to wonder, as I listened all over the room, what life meant to these creatures. It was all so pitifully meaningless. Dr. Link, my creator, did not tell me that so much of humanity drinks the dregs of existence. That so many of his fellow beings were further removed from him, in mentality, than I could ever be.
It happened so quickly, I had no chance to think.
A soft form plumped into my lap. I looked around at one of the painted women whose shrill voices and hard laughter filled the room.
“All alone, big boy?” she said in false sweetness. “Come on, pep up. Have a little fun. You look like a funeral on two feet.” My plastic face, of course, could not smile.
Her arm slipped about my shoulders, where the plastic-padding was thin. “Mm, hard as nails, aren’t you? And you feel cold. You need some warming up—”
Her face came closer, lips puckered. I’m afraid my reaction was rather abrupt. She could not press her lips against my artificial ones! I pushed her off, almost violently.
“Say, you—” Fury blazed from her eyes, as she nearly fell to the floor. “I’ll have you know I’m a lady.”
“Sorry,” I muttered, aware she must be pacified. “I don’t feel well. Here, have my drink.”
I had been contemplating tossing it on the floor anyway. She downed it in a gulp, smiled, and edged back toward me.
“Get going,” I muttered, remembering a man had used that expression before to one of the girls he apparently didn’t like. “Okay, okay—” And she moved off, curling her lip.
The whole episode amused me, as I think it must you too.
CHAPTER 12
The Big Clue
I left the place hours later without the slightest clue of any sort. The other two places Jack had mentioned were similar. I haunted them night after night, desperately. In the daytime, I stayed at Jack’s apartment, not willing to risk my disguise against daylight. I began to despair. A precious week had slipped by.
I contacted Eve with radio-telepathy every day, too, but only for a few seconds. The current used up could not be spared too freely. I had a two-week battery within me, and could not replace it except by scraping away my chest-plastic. That would waste time.
Jack and Kay touched me up at times, keeping up my nearhuman diguise. They had plastic ready, at their place, in case some of mine came off.
One short week left . . .
And then one night my brain leaped.
I was in one of the pleasure-dives, playing poker with four men. I played for the reason that sitting night after night alone pointed a conspicuous finger at me. Also, I must confess, I had enjoyed the game when playing with Jack and his friends
at one time. Periodically I pulled out my loudly-ticking watch, so that they would mistake its noise for my internal sounds. I watched them closely. They never suspected.
The man across eyed my perfect “poker” face uncertainly, shuffling his hand. “You bluffing again?” he suggested. My reaction was a complete blank. “Nope,” he finally decided. “Ain’t worth five bucks to me. You got my straight beat or you wouldn’t have raised me twice.” He threw down his cards.
I quietly slipped my king-ten-seven-four-deuce into the deck and raked in the pot. More chips were stacked before me than the others had together.
“You play a mean game, Pete. You sit there like a mummy. You don’t even move your eyes. You really concentrate.”
I laughed within myself. If they had only known that little more than one-tenth of my brain was on this trivial game. All the while, my full mental powers were concentrated on scanning the room and tuning in methodically from conversation to conversation. I focused on two men hunched over a table, heads together, across the room.
“The orders from the Boss is to lay low, see?” one man murmured. “After that metal dame gets the works, we can go to town again.”
Senseless talk, like all the rest.
“Cut?” The game again, demanding one-tenth of my attention.
I cut with my big hand. I was about to eavesdrop elsewhere, in the meantime, when it leaped out at me—metal dame. I had caught on to some of the twisted slang in use, in the past week.
Metal dame meant Eve.
It was my first lead.
I dicing move. I didn’t give the slightest sign that I was straining to hear more. The two men were fifty feet away. Between was a confused babble and clinking of glasses. It was all my sharp, selective tympanums could do to separate their whispers from the extraneous noise.