Short Fiction Complete

by Fred Saberhagen

  Lorraine, though her desk had been preempted, attempted to resume some of her normal duties about the office. She also coordinated the efforts of the maintenance engineer who had at last arrived to sweep up the debris of the accident, and who on the completion of my written request arranged temporary coverings for the holes.

  Scarcely a minute after she had passed some object to him, Antonelli hurried over to me. “Sir, here are the reports you need.” He gave the impression of a man almost strangling with relief. “If there’s anything else, I’ll be back as soon as I can.” He bolted from the office, and an instant later I heard the heavy, soft treads of the robot moving away.

  With a heavy heart, I slid the film Antonelli had given me into my viewer. To my amazement, it held what appeared to be a sequence of seventeen genuine accident reports, each differing from the others in detail, all of them acceptably filled out. Each described the accident as it had taken place—including the serial numbers of the equipment involved; the contractors and all subcontractors for both the robot and the building; and, where necessary, such appropriate background material as Antonelli’s family history, etc.

  For a minute or two, I sat staring into the viewer. Of course the film could not have been honestly produced in twenty minutes. I looked toward Lorraine, but she was avoiding my eye. Sadly, I allowed myself to be almost completely convinced that she was implicated in the loathsome crime of computerized forgery, evidently involving some totally unauthorized tap-in on, and time-theft from, some computer of awesome capability.

  How could I have imagined then that the truth involved an evil even more monstrous—one that might threaten the foundations of our civilization?

  Even though the true horror of the situation had not yet dawned upon me, still, as Lorraine’s superior, I naturally felt some concern and responsibility toward her. Damning as the evidence of computer crime appeared to me to be, I still wanted to give her every benefit of the doubt before initiating a formal investigation. It was this concern that caused me to take measures to overhear her conversation that evening with Antonelli in the local dining room.

  That evening I went alone as usual to dine. Looking about the large room before choosing a table, I noticed my secretary and the technician in animated conversation at a somewhat isolated table located beside an artificial waterfall and its decorative shrubbery. Making a circuitous approach so they would remain unaware of my nearness, I chose for myself a table separated from theirs only by the dense foliage of the shrubs. The waterfall masked other sounds. I drew from my pocket my small listening aid, a valuable tool I carried for the purpose of evaluation of subordinates in the office, and unobtrusively focused it in their direction.

  To my surprise, Lorraine was questioning the would-be scientist about evolution, mutation, and related subjects. I recorded much of the conversation and replayed it alone in my study later that night, so it is fixed quite firmly in my memory.

  Antonelli, in the expansive manner of a fool in the advanced stages of infatuation, was eager to display his knowledge by giving extensive answers to Lorraine’s questions. Her particular interest seemed to be in what I understand is now called punctuationalism, the field of knowledge concerning sudden evolutionary change.

  Antonelli spoke to her of the bat and of the whale, both appearing suddenly in early Tertiary times, both in their earliest known forms already fully adapted for their highly specialized modes of life. He mentioned Arsinoitherium, the strange ungulate of Oligocene Egypt that seems to be totally without immediate ancestors or descendants of any kind. He waxed excited over the peppered moth, a species saved from extinction by a black mutation coming at just the right time to preserve its camouflage, when the surfaces of its city environment were being darkened by the fumes of the Industrial Revolution.

  I recall now with special clarity one other sentence from his lecture: “The theory seems to be firmly established now, that since the arrival of Homo sapiens on the scene, evolutionary pressure has dropped off in the other species. The torch seems to be ours to bear.”

  “Ahh,” breathed Lorraine, leaning back in her chair, so that now I could glimpse her face between branches of shrubbery. Antonelli’s last remark seemed to have struck her with peculiar force.

  He soon began a clumsy attempt to woo her. She, who had evaded my own least attempts at friendliness, did not laugh at the technician, or coldly rebuff him at once, as a day earlier I should have thought inevitable. Instead, a thoughtful silence ensued, followed by these words in Lorraine’s voice: “Tony, before I can let myself get serious about any man, I have to be very sure about him. I’m in a special situation, with Marty. You can’t understand it yet.”

  “Sure I can. The kid needs a father.”

  “Oh, I know. But there’s more to it than that—in Marty’s case. There are strains. . . . Marty’s father was under great emotional stress when he died in that accident.”

  “Well, I’m sure that wasn’t your fault, and it wasn’t the kid’s. Now was it?”

  “No.”

  “So, the little guy flipped a switch on my machine. You got me out of trouble—I won’t ask how you managed to produce those films. But kids do things like that. It doesn’t mean he’s a monster or anything.”

  There was a silence. Lorraine had leaned forward again, and I could no longer see her face. Then Antonelli’s voice again: “What is it? What’s the matter?”

  “Nothing. I’m all right.”

  “Listen, Lorraine, whatever troubles you’ve got, I want you to know you can trust me and tell me about ’em.”

  “I want to believe that, Tony.”

  And there was silence again, lasting for a considerable time.

  As I sat there, I realized fully how extravagant were the fancies with which I had lately beguiled some of my leisure moments—daydreams that had involved Lorraine. Before the revelations of that day, I had sometimes even imagined the two of us obtaining and processing bethrothal and marriage contracts. I had envisioned her name beside mine in the spaces of those forms.

  I now saw clearly, I say, how foolish such fancies were. Yet there remained to me my duty as Lorraine’s superior to do what I could for her in the way of ethical and legal counseling. Concern for her son was also in my thoughts; I considered that forgery and loose romantic dalliance formed an unsuitable environment for a child’s proper development.

  I kept my own counsel until the close of office hours on the next day. Then I calmly stated to Lorraine that with her permission, I intended to call upon her in her home that evening. There were, I told her, certain matters of the greatest importance that I felt we must privately discuss without delay.

  An unmistakable expression of guilty fear appeared in her eyes. But she did not dare refuse so reasonable a request.

  When I presented myself that evening at the door of Lorraine’s apartment, she admitted me readily enough. She was attempting to conceal her guilty fear, but to my eyes it was still evident.

  “We are alone?” I asked.

  “Yes. I’ve sent Marty next door for a while. What is it that you want?”

  After giving her to understand that she lay under a cloud of the gravest suspicions of computerized forgery, I tried to discuss with her in a paternal way what course of action she might honorably take to extricate herself.

  She deliberately misunderstood my motives, and declaimed: “How could I ever have thought you were a friend?”

  “You had better allow me to be your friend, Lorraine. Considering your unfortunate situation at present, you would be wise to accept the counsel of a man of acknowledged judgment and influence. Particularly to salvage what chance there may still be for you to retain custody of your child.”

  She gasped, struggled to maintain her air of innocence, and continued deliberately to misunderstand. “I never imagined that you could stoop so low.”

  I placed my hand on her arm, intending only to reassure her that my intentions were entirely honorable. At this she physically atta
cked me, leaving scratches on my face and arms that subsequently required medical treatment. In endeavoring to protect myself, I may have unintentionally tripped her—1 am, of course, not accustomed to such encounters, and am ignorant of the precise degree of force needed to ward off the attack of a hysterical woman. Whatever bruises may have appeared later on her face must have been caused by her striking the floor, or some item of furniture, in her fall. (The same for her tom dress, etc.)

  The child, who had evidently been eavesdropping somewhere nearby, now ran in shrieking. In my understandable excitement, I may have made some move toward him that could momentarily have been interpreted as threatening. He screamed as if in terror and cowered away from me. His foolish mother flew to the howling boy at once, meanwhile berating me in terms that I prefer not to dignify in print.

  Maintaining my composure as best I could, with my own blood dripping from the wounds on my face, 1 proceeded calmly across the room to the communicator. It was clear to me at last that the woman had no intention of trying to save herself from her own folly; only one course of action remained open to me as a good citizen.

  When she saw what I was doing, the woman’s bravado collapsed. “Whom are you calling?”

  “I’m afraid I must call the police.”

  The words struck terror to her guilty heart. She crossed the room to my side, cringing and pleading. I know, now, what monstrous thing she was concealing from the world; but then, though I had already initiated the call, the natural mercy of my heart was touched, and I hesitated.

  As I did so, my eyes were drawn to the child by the sudden cessation of his yells. He stood facing me, feet planted wide apart, fists clenched, a scowl of utter malevolence upon his face. I can only describe his attitude as that of a ruffian about to hurl a missile or fire a gun.

  Let me set down baldly what I next saw. From the vertical crease in the center of the boy’s forehead, there began to emerge the squared corners of a small and very thin object. I stood watching, completely stunned. I faintly recall some policeman’s voice coming from the communicator that I still held, but I was too stupefied to answer. I suppose I must have broken the connection.

  Lorraine had also fallen silent. The emergence of magnetic computer film from her son’s skull was no surprise to her—I could see that—but she was terrified that I should have seen it happen. She ran to the child, but her clutching fingers were too late to conceal the event. She was only in time to catch the square of film as it fell, fully extruded, from the center of the child’s forehead. Only this familiar permanent “frown” crease was left as a visible hint of abnormality.

  Before Lorraine’s hand closed on the film, I was able to see upon it the familiar pattern of tiny rectangles, showing that it bore a set of miniaturized documents. In a flash I realized that the police would find in this apartment no common computer pirate’s terminals or other electronic gear; and I understood Lorraine’s deep interest in evolution and mutation. I even understood, with horror, the monstrous child’s chewing on plastic toys—no doubt his metabolism requires some such bizarre nourishment to produce film by organic means.

  The knowledge that I had become privy to her hideous secret, and could be expected to inform the proper authorities at once, completely overwhelmed with dread the wretched woman’s heart.

  “Please,” she whined, “I’ll do anything you say. Only don’t tell. They’ll take my son and make a freak out of him. He’ll live like an animal in a cage for the rest of his life—please! He’s never made a film to harm anyone.”

  I recoiled with loathing from her clutching hands; had 1 wanted to reply to her absurd request, I could not have done so, being still dumb with shock. Only when the police, impelled to haste by the broken communication, burst into the apartment, did I regain the power of speech.

  I pointed, with a shaking finger. “There, officers. That film in the woman’s hand. Seize it and examine it, and then I will tell you where it came from.”

  The officer in charge took the film from Lorraine’s unresisting fingers. He inspected it for some moments with his pocket viewer, then raised his eyes to me. “And your name is I told him my name.

  He nodded briskly to his cohort, and in an instant my arms were brutally pinioned behind my back.

  “Careful with him, boys. These records from the nuthouse say he’s dangerous. Did he hurt you much, lady?”

  I struggled to explain the truth. Under the circumstances, is it strange that I was rather incoherent?

  “No, you don’t need to tell me where the records came from, mister. I’ve seen a thousand of ’em. March him out careful.”

  The truth of our lives is contained in our filmed and magnetized computer records. Or so we believe. With the flawless film before them, neither police nor doctors gave me more than a cursory examination, or heeded any of my protests. Judging from the size of the ward in which I find myself, the doctors whose signatures appear forged on my commitment record may well certify dozens of persons each month. Perhaps when they see me, they are surprised not to remember my case; perhaps they sometimes puzzle over the absence of relevant records in their own files—but no one doubts the single set of medical records that do exist.

  There is a theory that the direction of evolutionary change is determined by the psychology of the species concerned; that long teeth were grown by the first tigers because those animals possessed the “souls” of carnivores. What the Mandell boy possesses, or what possesses him, I do not know. I am perfectly sure that the printing, the magnetic codes, the microtyping, the signatures, all so perfectly simulated upon the perfect films that form inside his skull—all these can be no result of detailed, conscious thought or effort on his part. Some genetic response, instead, to the environment in which he lives. . . .

  I insist that I am sane, and innocent. What I have recorded here is the truth. I beg anyone in authority who may read this document: Begin an investigation of the monstrous child at once. 1 plead not only for my own sake, but for our world’s survival. Investigate the child Martin Mandell at once, at once, before it is too late.

  1987

  THE GRAPHIC OF DORIAN GRAY

  The computer revolution has only begun; it will not be long before graphic systems similar to the one described in this story are quite feasible. As that happens, the question of what is real and what is not will become first a matter of philosophy and then of taste. Alas that some have such poor taste . . .

  Mutant palms, bearing rust-red flowers that smelled like roses, grew on the steep slopes leading up to the house, as did genegineered eucalyptus trees with real oranges growing on them. When the two men had climbed the stairs that led up from the private parking area to the terrace level, some of the treetops were at eye level, some even lower. Adjoining the terrace was the house itself. Like every other dwelling within sight of it, it was a big one, Spanish-looking, with white stucco walls and a lot of red tile, most of the doors and windows guarded with wrought iron bars that added decoration as well as offering some protection.

  From the top of the stairs the two men walked a few steps forward on the flagstone terrace and stopped. Lenses were swiveling to observe them, from several emplacements along the stucco walls.

  “Announce us, please,” the older man called to the house. He allowed his voice to sound tired when he was only talking to machines. “Basil Hallward and Henry Lord. Mr. Hallward is Dorian Gray’s graphics designer, and I am Henry Lord, his agent.” Or going to be his agent, maybe, he amended silently. If we both like what we see at our first meeting. He hoped the hometronics system of the house could handle all that he had just told it, if the owner himself wasn’t listening at the moment. Most of the new systems could.

  Some of the lenses turned away. One set, adjoining the open entry to the house from the terrace, continued looking at the visitors. But neither system nor human being said anything in reply.

  The two men continued to stand there, shifting their feet uneasily. This place was worth a bundle, Lord
thought. It was a while since he’d had a client who wasn’t hungry from the start. Not that you could be sure, of course, even with a place like this. For all Lord knew it might be burdened with a two-million-dollar mortgage that would be difficult to meet. According to what he’d heard, Dorian Gray had just bought the place with part of a recent large inheritance.

  “Make yourselves at home, gentlemen,” said the home systems voice at last, after what had felt like an unreasonable delay. It was a mechanical, subtly inhuman voice that sounded like one of the standard newer models. “Mr. Gray is expecting you and will be with you shortly.”

  “Thank you,” said Lord. He would just as soon talk to the machine as to most receptionists. He strolled over to the balustrade that rimmed the outer edge of the terrace, gazing out over the view. Actually he was wondering whether it would be a good move now to light up a cigar. Some people were impressed to encounter a man who still smoked and others were put off.

  Meanwhile, Hallward, as usual, was thinking about his art, his business. Just at the broad open doorway where terrace ended and house began, one of Gray’s hometronic system terminals was sitting accessibly on a table. Already Hallward had set down his sizable toolkit beside the table, pulled up a chair, and was looking for the best way to get into the terminal.

  Lord, continuing to size things up in his own way, told himself that it looked as if Mr. Dorian Gray might be still in the process of moving in. At the far end of the terrace was piled a collection of crates and boxes of various sizes, as if the stuff might just have been delivered. But at least part of the shipment must have been sitting here for a little while. One of the larger crates had already been opened, the plastic broken and peeled away from the contents it had protected. The contents consisted of a large painting, the full-length portrait of a man. It was an original oil, if Lord was not mistaken.

  Hallward by now was completely lost in his technology. He had already opened the terminal, and set up his own portable computer on the redwood table beside it. He had even brought out an alpha helmet, though he wasn’t wearing it yet. Somehow he was getting hooked into the house system. He was staring at the flat unfolded computer screen before him, and probing into the house terminal with a little plastic wand.