by Earl
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 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.
Two weeks were left. Two weeks while Eve lay patiently in a stone cell, with the thoughts of a city of humans rising in a tide against her. The papers had been editorializing in fuming denunciations, demanding that once and for all the robot “menace” be wiped out. The jury at the trial wouldn’t give Eve a ghost of a chance.
I contacted Eve as I drove toward the city on my errand. The radio-beam control was in my chest-space, connected to my battery for power, with button controls wired into my trouser belt.
“Eve! I’m starting out now to find the murderers who hope to see you atone 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 natural 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, kidnapers— 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.
CHAPTER III
My First Clue
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 appalled. 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 photoelectric 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 corner, 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.
I felt at that moment that not one person in the place was as much a human being as I was. It made me feel good. And it made me feel sad. Poor people, they had less chance than I of ever being worthy of the name man. They too, had a precarious place in society.
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 must not press her lips against my artificial ones and perhaps get a real shock. 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 all 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.
I LEFT the place hours later. I had no 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.
“Buck up,” Jack kept saying. “You’ll get a lead. And you knew how long a chance this was, with nothing to go by.”
“How is Eve?” I asked Kay so often I tried her patience. Kay visited her faithfully, every day. I couldn’t myself without risking exposure of my secret sleuthing.
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 near-human disguise. 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 other four 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 DIDN’T 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.
“Who’s on the job?” asked the other man.
“You in, Pete?”—the card game again—“How many cards?”
I tossed in a chip and threw one card away. I had four sevens.
Names were mentioned, in a guarded whisper fifty feet away that no human ear could have heard from five feet. “They’re meetin’ at the warehouse, near Larkin’s, tomorrow night. But we don’t go, the Boss says. We—”
“Two to stay in, Pete. You raise two? Raise you two! You’re bluffing this time. You drew one to a full-house, but I’ve got aces up. Two to you!”
“—lay low. Let the metal dame burn for you and me, first.”
“Okay. I’m going; get some shuteye.”
“Me, too.”
“What you got, Pete? Fours! Damn it, you ain’t human!”
Instead of gathering in the pot, I shoved all my winnings away. “Divide it up, boys,” I said, rising. My eye was on the two men weaving their way to the door. The two murderers in whose place Eve was to be sentenced to the electric chair.
I moved too fast, however, in my eagerness. I bumped against a heavy-set man just passing our table. He staggered back, then straightened, glaring at me.
“Watch who you’re bumping, you clumsy bum!” he roared. “I’ll teach you—”
“It’s Slug O’Leary!” gasped a voice. “He’ll kill the poor guy—” Meaning me.
He came at me with swinging arms, obviously short-tempered. He was a giant of a man, solidly built, with arms thick as posts. His fist came straight for my head. He met nothing. I had dodged, with a swiftness given me by reflexes triggered with speedy electrons. Recovering his balance, bellowing in rage, he swung three more times in split-seconds. Unfulfilled blows that would have knocked any human out. Or would have broken his arm if they had touched me. My head weaved aside, easily avoiding the haymakers.
The semi-circle of watchers who had quickly bunched around us stared in disbelief. They had never seen anyone dodge that fast. Also they grinned. Humiliated, Slug O’Leary came at me with new tactics, extending his great arms for a bear-hug. He tugged, expecting to lift me off the floor and fling me down bodily. I wonder what he thought as my 300 pounds remained glued to the floor.
He tugged again, mightily, his face red with strain and fury. I felt a little of my plastic, in back, give way. To break his hold before further damage, I hugged him in turn. I squeezed slightly. His breath went out in a gust. One of his ribs cracked a little. I let loose then and he staggered back, amazed.
AMAZED, but not beaten. I was forced to admire his courage as he caught his breath, growled like a wounded bear, and plunged at me again. I could not risk another encounter. He might tear away part of my disguise. I had to get rid of him and follow my quarry.
I would have to hit him . . .
Perhaps you who read wonder why I delayed so long in this decision. Why I allowed this senseless physical battle to keep me from immediately following the two men so important to my mission. Let me explain. I had never, in my two years of life, struck a person before. Had never used my machine-given strength against fragile humans. For one thing it was dangerous—I didn’t know my own strength. But most important, it had been my steadfast resolve never to use brute power to gain my ends, and thus label the intelligent robot as a monster to be feared.
But I had to now, for the sake of Eve.
My arm came out. I pulled the punch as much as I could, knowing too well of the levered power behind it. It landed squarely on his chin, with a sharp crack. Slug O’Leary’s knees bent and he slumped to the floor without a sound.
“Knocked cold!” said an awed voice from the crowd. “First time I saw Slug get it!”
I stared down at the fallen man. Within me for a moment I was—well, sick. I had struck a human being! I wonder if you humans consider that as utterly repulsive and degrading as I did, using the methods of the beast. But I know enough of life to know that you humans have not yet eliminated that in your so-called “civilization.” I do not mean to moralize. Certain things are self-evident.
The ring of watchers cheered. Hero of the moment, they crowded around me, slapping my back. Stinging their hands, undoubtedly, and marveling at my hard “muscle.” I groaned within. Almost, I bellowed for them to get out of my way. I wanted nothing of their stupid acclaim. I wanted only to get out, after the two men. They were gone already. But I couldn’t get through that press of crowd without using rough methods. My plastic wouldn’t stand rough handling. And another display of my strength would brand me for what I was.
Something warned me not to risk it. Adam Link, detective, must not yet be exposed. I allowed my card-playing friends to hustle me to the bar, and a drink was placed before me.
“I really have to go—” I mumbled.
“Aw, you’ve got time for one drink at least,” one insisted. “Pete, old boy, you’re a grand guy. Look, he ain’t even breathing heavy! Grand guy—”
I basked in that for a moment. Somehow, it felt good to be treated like a human, even by these rough-cut creatures. Perhaps my first judgment of their kind was too harsh.
“Come on, drink up!” Glasses were raised—to me.
It was the only way. I tossed the liquid between my plastic lips. I felt it course past my metal larynx. Stupidly, I had not foreseen such a circumstance. And now I felt the liquid begin to drip down upon exposed wires.
Hastily I mumbled excuses and turned away. By their conventions I was now free to go. Slug O’Leary came toward me near the door. They had dashed water in his face, bringing him around, apparently none the worse for the blow. I tensed. Would I never get out?
He stuck out his hand, grinning. “Pal, you’re the first man has licked me in five years. Shake!”
CHAPTER IV
I Am “Taken for a Ride”
OUTSIDE the place at last, I felt a peculiar glow within me. But not only from that gesture. The drink had now trickled down on wires, creating a short. As I stepped down the street, I was weaving. It is amusing, even to me, to think that one drink has far more “kick” for me than for any human. The short had upset my electrical spirit-level system that keeps my balance.
“Drunk as a Lord!” commented a man to his companion as they passed.
It was a new sensation to me, vaguely pleasureable. But sharp warning clicked in my brain. I hurried.
I went down alleys wherever I could, breaking into a staggering run. I reached Jack’s apartment and collapsed on his doorstep.
“Quick!” I was barely able to mutter. “Disconnect me for an hour—”
When they reconnected me, the liquid had evaporated and I was myself. I told my story.
I pondered. “If I do, and trail them, will it lead to the man who gave them orders?” I asked.
“The Big Boss?” Jack shook his head. “No. He told them to lay low—which means to keep away from him. The best we can do is identify the two killers and let Tom fight it out in court.”
“I’ll prove in court,” said Tom, who was there, “that the metal filings weren’t from Eve’s body. Then I’ll indict the two killers.”
“But in the meantime,” I said slowly, “the man really responsible—the Big Boss—goes free?”
Jack pounded his fist into his other palm. “I just wish we could get him! He’s the mainspring of the most vicious, powerful crime ring in this city. But it’s out of the question—”
“Is it?” My thoughts were clashing, grinding. The actual killers caught; Eve freed, perhaps—but the brain who had played with them all as pawns would be untouched, unpunished.
“Where is that warehouse, near Larkin’s?” I said. “I’m going there tomorrow night.”
“Don’t be a fool,” Jack retorted. “Waste of precious time. No one can uncover that ring in one short week.”
“Not even Adam Link, detective?” I said.
THE next night, following Jack’s instructions, I was heading for the warehouse district, near the criminal quarter.
But before I got there, in a fairly respectable neighborhood, something happened.
I was passing a dark gangway in a deserted street.
“Stick up your hands!” came the gruff command.
I turned to face a threatening figure, cap pulled low. He held a gun against my side. I had heard of them, of course—petty hold-up men, lurking for the pocketbooks of unwary citizens. Sometimes I cannot understand these things. Why do you humans prey on one another, in this and so many other phases of life?