Delos 2 - Futureworld

by John Ryder Hall

  Duffy came up behind Chuck and asked, “Is something wrong?”

  “No,” Chuck said quickly. “It’s okay. I guess I made a mistake.” He turned and started to walk away.

  “To err is human . . .” Duffy suggested with a smile.

  The reporter threw a look over his shoulder at the bartender, who was gazing after him with a bland face. “That must be it,” he said.

  The bartender’s eyes glittered momentarily; then he resumed his polishing of the glasses. When the reporter had crossed the room, the bartender carefully picked up Chuck’s glass, the sides of which were wet with both the beverage and the man’s sweat. Holding the glass by its top lip, the bartender surreptitiously cached it in a tiny tray in the refrigerator behind the bar; then he pushed a button that rang somewhere . . .

  Somewhere, below, in the Red Room.

  Chuck rejoined Tracy and they followed Duffy to an airlock-type door. A sign on it read danger: ZERO GRAVITY CHAMBER. Chuck noticed that this door, too, was secured with a very special lock of the type he had seen all over Delos. It was of steel, but had a slot instead of a keyhole or combination. Duffy took out a ring upon which hung several stiff plastic cards in different colors and with certain symbols embossed on them. Chuck remembered he had seen others of the Delos personnel using them.

  Duffy stuck a card into the slot on the lock and there was a faint hum and a light came on; then Chuck heard a metallic click. Duffy swung the door open.

  It was pitch black beyond. “Watch your step. We don’t use this very often,” the Delos representative warned.

  They all stepped gingerly into the darkness and Duffy took a flashlight from a clip inside the door, turned it on, then closed the heavy door behind them. The lock hummed and clicked and the tiny light went out. Duffy swung the flashlight ahead of them. “This way,” he said.

  They moved forward, finding it a little difficult to keep their balance, for although the floor was quite solid beneath their feet, it was as black as the space around them. This was very disorienting, although Duffy moved confidently ahead.

  “it’s hard to believe we never left the ground,” Tracy told him. “I was convinced we were really in orbit.”

  Duffy chuckled indulgently. (And politely, thought Chuck.) Then his flashlight glittered off the hatch of another airlock-type door. A plastic-strip key opened the door and they stepped out into a bright chamber. Blinking from the sudden light, they squinted and looked around as Duffy swung the door closed and locked it.

  They were in a large, long workshop, dominated by lathes and other pieces of heavy construction equipment. Nearby, a section of space-shuttle mockup lay open and prop-like. All around were rectangular wheeled carts, which acted as mobile bins for all sorts of things. As Duffy lead them along, they passed carts of swords, and of spears, armor, spacesuits, bubble helmets, maces and morning stars, tall lances, medieval armor, vividly colored costumes, chain mail, Martian skis, a bin of broken lances, and so on.

  “This is our shop for sets and props,” Duffy explained. “Naturally they all have to be made to order, and maintained.”

  Tracy nodded, running her fingers along a cart full of battered medieval armor. “Now I know why it costs twelve hundred dollars a day!”

  Duffy nodded in agreement. “Yes, it’s very expensive, although since all our workers are model four-fifties, it’s not quite as bad as it seems.” He turned to smile back at them. “Robots don’t get raises and there are no unions.”

  “Do they ever get a rest?” Chuck inquired.

  “Oh, we’re not heartless,” Duffy said cheerfully. “We shut down six hours a night for repair and maintenance. And, of course, our supervisors are human, and we have to consider them.”

  Chuck nodded, looking around at the immensity of the workshop. He compared its size to the model domes they had seen in the reception area and realized that much of Delos was hidden underground. In fact, there seemed to be much more hidden about Delos than what was visible to the public.

  Tracy, Chuck, and Duffy had changed from their Space Safari jump suits into clean uniforms: white smocks, white boots, and a white hoods that covered everything but their eyes. “These are ‘clean room’ uniforms,” Duffy explained, gesturing them on, “and you will soon see why.”

  They stepped through another airlock-type door into a very large white room, with an aluminum grid for a floor. Tracy gasped aloud. Standing stolidly nearby was an armored knight, burly and muscular. He was methodically swinging his right arm, repeating a motion over and over again, while a technician—also dressed in white—peered at the knight’s movement critically.

  But Tracy’s gasp had been prompted by the fact that where the knight’s face should have been was a mass of electronic circuitry . . .

  She and Chuck now saw a line of finished robots, both male and female, standing perfectly still, wrapped in red plastic, ready for pickup. Nearby was a horse, finished and ready, looking like a still photograph of a live equine. A little farther on, the two reporters saw a second horse—on its back, as stiff as death, its belly swinging open like a hatchback to reveal the complexities of its interior: gears, wiring, struts, silent electric motors, capacitors, and so on. Two white-suited men were bending into the open stomach, their hands busy. The horse suddenly neighed, then snorted. The two repairmen straightened, snapped the panel back, smoothed the horsehair over the seam; then one of them pressed a button on a tiny control box hanging from his belt. The horse kicked, rolled, and got to his feet. The groom in medieval garb who had been standing by came over, took the reins, and led the animal out.

  “This is the most perfect air you’ll ever breathe,” Duffy pointed out, taking in a deep breath. “We filter dust particles down to the five-micron level.”

  Chuck’s attention was caught, next, by a female robot lying on a worktable, her fanciful Magic Garden costume opened down the front, unlaced to show her entire torso. She looked just like a lovely, well-constructed woman in deshabille.

  Duffy smiled. “You’re free to look, but please don’t touch anything.”

  Chuck looked slightly embarrassed, but paused to watch another pair of studious repairmen come to her worktable, lift her stiffly onto her side, exposing a back that was a mass of intricate electronics. Making some adjustments, they then slapped on the back-plate. One of the repair men picked up a gray piece of machinery and ran it over the seam, which disappeared, leaving smooth, flawless, highly realistic skin. The woman sat up, started lacing up her bodice without the slightest hint of surprise or embarrassment. Tracy watched Chuck as the pretty girl finished fastening her clothing, then walked briskly away. Chuck shrugged and looked at Tracy, who made a grimace of sorrow.

  A few tables on, a headless male—totally nude and completely equipped—lay supine, a number of wires and tube extensions protruding from his neck like some sort of electronic arteries and bones. Chuck aimed his thumb at the robot and whispered to Tracy, “Just perfect for the liberated female—a sex symbol that won’t give you any argument.”

  She frowned at him and pointed at a nude female on another worktable; the woman’s throat had been opened and its interior was being studied by a serious-looking repairman. “And that’s your type, I suppose?”

  Chuck held up his hand in the Boy Scout salute. “Truce?”

  Tracy nodded, somewhat reluctantly, and they continued their tour. A fountain was under repair nearby, and beyond it, two sheep. A repairman was inserting a tape reel into the body of a tiger, who was placidly standing, blinking lazily, watching the insertion into his side. On another table was a pile of servomechanisms being gone over by two young workmen, who were tagging them studiously and making notes.

  Further on, a human figure stood erect on a small riser. It seemed perfect—except that it had no skin. Tracy shivered, for the figure was somehow a parody of the human condition. It was naked, not nude; harsh, not pretty; efficient, not human. Tracy hurried ahead, but Chuck hung back, and Duffy watched both Chuck and the wor
kmen. They activated the figure, which moved perfectly normally, turning its head, simulating walking, lifting its arms and so on, but with no skin whatever to hide the pneumatic tubes, the gearing, the blinking switches, the whirring servomechanisms, the braces, struts, and interior structure, the empty plastic bag that served as a food container for those robots that had to eat food in order to appear normal.

  “Ah, Dr. Frankenstein,” Chuck sighed, “where are you now?”

  Duffy frowned slightly. “We don’t like that sort of comparison, Mr. Browning, as I am certain you are aware. And, too, I think it is unfair. We are not attempting to construct living tissue, as the ficticious Baron Frankenstein tried, but robotronic replicas of various forms of life. And for, may I remind you, the pleasure of our guests.”

  The reporter nodded in agreement, but his eyes swiveled from the skinless creature to the Delos representative. “But . . . once . . . the comparison was not so distant, was it, Mr. Duffy?”

  Duffy smiled wryly and gestured ahead. “See, Miss Ballard is observing our aquatic constructions.”

  She stood by a table upon which several types of perfectly normal-looking fish were lying writhing, wiggling, and weaving, as though swimming through the water. But there was no water. An attendant picked up a trout as Chuck sauntered along, pressed a hidden catch, and the fish broke into two, swinging open to reveal more electronic wiring. He then pressed a button within the body of the fish and the creature stopped dead. The repairman next unclipped a small wafer covered with imprinted wiring. Setting it down, he picked up a similar wafer from a small bin nearby and inserted it, punched the button, closed the fish, and released it to observe its different rate of swimming.

  An electric tractor came by, pulling little padded carts filled with various objects, including robots. The first cart had three armored knights leaning stiffly against its side. Chuck gave a start when he looked into the dark interior of the helmet, under the lifted visor, and saw a pair of quite human eyes staring at him; the eyes continued to watch him as the cart passed.

  The second little cart was filled with quite badly damaged bodies. A man in the uniform of a World War I doughboy had an explosion of wires and tubes that dripped colorless hydraulic liquid. Under him was a Roman centurion with a smashed face that was bloody, but with a plastic tube protruding from the mess. Next to them was a crumpled “Martian” with limp tentacles.

  The last cart of the small three-car train held a huge lion, who seemed quite alive, moving his head, and ears and eyes, very realistically . . . except that he repeated the cycle every four seconds.

  A Roman senator in a purple-edged toga strode along the aisle between the workbenches, a dagger sticking out of his back. A soldier in the resplendent uniform of Wellington’s Black Watch also walked along toward the proper repair bay, his head turned almost completely around. An enormous Cheshire cat, as big as a pony, walked behind on padded feet, its wide smile working only on one side.

  On another table a number of flowers were opening and closing their petals while a workman timed their workings with a stopwatch.

  Duffy said, “Not every object is a humanoid robot. We have devoted much time and money to detailing everything. Look at this, for example.” He pointed at the next table.

  Pooh Bear, Eeyore, Christopher Robin, and others from Alan Alexander Milne’s stories of Winnie-the-Pooh were in various stages of completion. Duffy indicated several more tables and testing areas in the cavernous Research and Development section. “You see, we’re planning a Storybook World,” he said with a modest smile. “We already have some of Lewis Carroll’s characters working in a subsection of Spa World which we call Wonderland World, but we’re going to expand.”

  “How delightful!” Tracy exclaimed, looking at a Queen of Hearts that was, indeed, paper-thin.

  “I’m glad you like it,” Duffy said. “We plan it for children, but we’re always happy when the adults respond, too.”

  “Look, isn’t that— Look, Chuck, Gandalf!”

  Several of the characters from The Lord of the Rings stood in a grouping, arguing to themselves, while the tall, dark-robed Gandalf stood in frozen immobility, his robes hiked up over his arm in an undignified manner while an attendant worked on his circuits.

  Duffy took the video reporter’s arm and led her around a partition. “Delos will never be finished, you know. Never. We’re planning an Eastworld, the Storybook World I mentioned, and a number of things I would just as soon keep quiet about now.” He smiled at Tracy. “I know you understand. Premature publicity . . .”

  She nodded. “Oh, of course I understand.” She looked back at the A.A. Milne characters and sighed. “Oh, where was Delos when I was a child!”

  “Perhaps this will amuse and interest you now,” Duffy said, indicating the worktables in the section before them, where a number of talking animals and plants were conversing with each other and a short, stubby, bland-looking man was talking back to them.

  “Dr. Doolittle,” a rose complained, “I do wish you’d allow me to have really sharp-thorns. It gives one a sense of protection, you know.”

  “Doctor, would you speak to the technicians, please?” a dog asked in a sharp, barking voice. “They keep giving me that puppy chow and I’m grown up now!”

  “I’ll speak to them both,” the doctor said, moving along to the next complainant.

  “Hugh Lofting’s creatures,” Duffy said. “And over here . . . Kipling’s Jungle Book.”

  Tawny, black-striped tigers . . . chittering monkeys . . . a sleepy hippo . . . a rusty-maned lion . . . a huge snake all coiled . . . sat, stood, or swung on the equipment and the testing platform while a pair of robot technicians ran an induction test on a black leopard with slanted yellow eyes.

  A booming voice came over a partition and Chuck peeked around. A little man sat before an impractical-looking amplifying device, thundering out imprecations to a trembling little girl who stood before a curtain.

  “Frank Baum,” Duffy said in his ear and Chuck smiled.

  Toto barked. A tin man rattled. A lion roared, then clapped a paw over his muzzle. A scarecrow jumped behind the small girl and trembled.

  “See the Wizard?” the man boomed incredulously. “You want to see the Wizard!” He pressed a button and steam shot out into the test area beyond the curtain. His voice echoed loudly. “Shiver me timbers, what’s that noise?”

  Chuck looked around, and between a computer deck and a gray cabinet marked TRI-THOLENE GAMMA-DELTA 78-890-32 he saw a bristly-bearded pirate scowling at the Wizard of Oz.

  “No storybook world would be complete without some pirates,” Duffy interjected. Tracy joined them and they walked over to the huge, beady-eyed, ferocious brigand. He looked Tracy up and down lecherously, but Duffy spoke quietly. “He wouldn’t do that if there were children present.”

  “Aye,” the pirate agreed, brushing at his mustache with two fingers. “A trim ship she is, too.” He laughed in a great rumbling, coarse, fearsome bellow.

  “Come on, let’s get out of here,” Tracy said, forcing a chuckle into her voice. She took Chuck’s arm and whispered, “Some things get just a little too real around here!”

  They strolled past an uncompleted President Millard Fillmore and a reciting James Buchanan. Harry Truman was sawing the air with his hands and giving them hell.

  “You’d be surprised at how many guests want to either tell off a monarch or a world leader, tell him what he should have done, or”—Duffy laughed—“or have a picture taken with one!”

  A Napoleon was being operated on nearby, and next to him a Fidel Castro was being repaired.

  “Looks as if someone shot him,” Chuck remarked.

  Duffy nodded, smiling faintly. “People do work off some of their personal, religious, or political aggressions here,” he admitted.

  Genghis Khan stood brazen and hot-eyed, feet spread apart, his left arm lying on a repair bench. He watched, impassively, as they rewired his circuits.

  Duffy indi
cated the Mongol leader with a tilt of his head. “It’s curious, you know. You have people who want to come in here and save Joan of Arc from the stake—usually right at the last minute!”

  “And Kennedy?” Tracy asked.

  “Yes . . . but we’re not yet equipped for that. Someday, perhaps, we’ll have a reproduction of Dealy Plaza. In the meantime, they can have quite a nice chat with J.F.K. in the Oval Office.”

  “What about saving Christ from the Cross?” Tracy inquired.

  “We try to talk them out of that,” Duffy replied. “While we do cater to some . . . um . . . odd tastes.” He smiled at Tracy. “Off the record, of course, Miss Ballard.” She nodded. “But we try not to, um, tamper with known history too much. One more gunfight at the O.K. Corral, one more medieval joust, one more Roman orgy—these are not going to alter history.”

  “Unless the customer pays for it,” Chuck suggested.

  Duffy smiled diplomatically. “Perhaps. I’m afraid that will have to remain classified information. I’m certain you understand. If people came here to, well, live out some fantasy . . . they wouldn’t appreciate it being splashed all over the media.”

  Tracy nodded. “We understand, Mr. Duffy, but what about typical fantasies? Can you give us any clues as to what might be your most common request?”

  “Just what you’d expect, Miss Ballard,” he answered smoothly. “You might be surprised at how, uh, plebeian some of the requests for Special Events might be. For example, we have constructed a reasonable likeness of a certain gentleman’s mother-in-law. He comes here about once a month and—”

  “—bawls her out,” Chuck finished for him and Duffy nodded. “What about people requesting duplicates of famous actors and actresses?”

  Duffy’s smile changed. “I’m certain you will also understand that we could not legally offer duplicates of known and living personalities, Mr. Browning. There might be serious legal consequences.”

  “Even if you obtained a contract authorizing it?” Tracy asked. She named three famous actresses who would probably boast about the popularity of their robotic look-alikes.