Peering down into the square of blackness he had unearthed, he could see very little. He caught only a faint line that was probably a rung set into the wall below. He looked around, picked up a burnt portion of the hotel register, and dropped it into the hole. He heard a faint thunk a few seconds later, and no splash. Curious, and believing the hole was not too deep, he let himself over the edge of the opening and searched with his feet for the rung. Finding it, he lowered himself until he found more rungs—which were quite solidly attached—and went carefully down the ladder.
After about four or five meters, he saw that he was descending through a dim-lit tunnel, long, narrow, and apparently not much used. Low-wattage bulbs were set in a line along it, but only one in five was lit. At the bottom, Chuck glanced around him: he had his choice of several passageways. In one direction, he saw, ahead, a faint square of gray against the blackness, but then he looked around again at his choices. Finally, he picked at random and started making his way along a narrow passageway.
Chuck noticed that while the service tunnels of the “new” Delos were wide, high, and well-lit, wide enough for two carts to pass comfortably, he could almost touch both walls in this utility tunnel. As his eyes grew more accustomed to the darkness, he saw that there were pipes, ducts, and conduits cluttering the ceiling.
Coming to a bisecting tunnel, Chuck looked both ways and chose the right for no other reason than that it lay, he thought, in the general direction of the “new” Delos. Chuck hesitated only a moment, then shrugged and walked on slowly, peering around him. I can’t go far, he told himself, but I’ll just explore some, and then get back aboveground.
He did not see the shadowy figure standing in a dark cul-de-sac, watching the intruder pass by.
• • •
Tracy looked down a narrow alleyway between two rickety buildings. “Chuck?” she asked somewhat plaintively and a bit petulantly as well.
No one answered and she moved on. She saw the burned-out shell of the Grand Hotel and moved toward it curiously. Like Chuck, she was drawn to the “something different” aspect of Westworld’s streets.
She stepped up and entered the hotel lobby through the blackened doors. “Chuck?” she called. She stepped across the seared carpet of the hotel lobby and looked through the batwing doors into the ravaged saloon. “Chuck, where are you?”
A bloody hand reached out for her.
It touched her cheek and she jerked away, whirling to look at it.
She screamed!
“Gotcha!” said Chuck, laughing.
He held the severed robot limb out at her and Tracy batted it away angrily.
White-faced, she snapped at the tall, grinning reporter through clenched teeth, “That was funny. Really, very funny. I hope you have a good laugh.” She put her hands on her hips and glared at him. “You know, I was worried about you. I really was. But I should have known better.” Her mouth pulled into a bitter line. “You have no feelings, Chuck—not real ones.” She gestured out at the deserted Westworld. “You might as well be a robot yourself.”
Chuck’s face fell and he looked foolish. “I’m sorry, Tracy. Truly.”
Without a word or another look, Tracy turned on her heel and strode toward the doors. She slammed one open with the heel of her hand and it collapsed onto one hinge, swinging grotesquely. Chuck heard her footsteps down the boardwalk, angry, hard-heeled steps that faded away quickly.
Chuck looked at the robot arm, then dropped it into the ashes. “Damn . . .”
• • •
Duffy led Tracy and Chuck down a long hall and into the Delos living-quarters area. There was a balcony on one side and doors to rooms on the other. Duffy opened a door and smiled warmly.
“This is your suite,” he said. “Your bedroom is up there, Miss Ballard.” Duffy pointed to the second level.
Both rooms shared a common living area on the first level. The suite—with soft maroon sofas and brown and brick walls—was pleasant, colorful, but rather impersonal.
The Delos representative continued in an apologetic voice: “We’re somewhat short of space in this area, so I’ve had to put you together in one suite.” He glanced from one to the other as he asked, “I hope you don’t mind?”
“Not at all,” Chuck said, trying to put the man at ease.
Tracy gave the reporter a dark look. “Speak for yourself,” she snapped, still obviously annoyed at him.
Duffy indicated the large television screen, a well-stocked bar, a stack of music tapes, and some current magazines. “I think you’ll find it private enough, and comfortable. There are two quite-separate bedrooms and I’ve taken the liberty of assigning Miss Ballard the upper room. You’ll find your things there,” he said, smiling at her.
“That was very thoughtful,” she answered, trying to keep her annoyance from showing and only succeeding in being stiff.
Duffy then bowed slightly and smiled at them both.
“I’ll leave you to yourselves,” he said, backing away. “Dinner should be along shortly.” Turning toward the door, he continued to talk to them over his shoulder. “Best get plenty of rest; we have a big day ahead of us.” He faced about at the door and bid them good night.
“Good night,” Chuck called, waving.
Duffy closed the door.
Tracy strode stiffly past Chuck, head up, her face frozen, and started up the stairs.
“Hey, Socks, warm up, will you?” he pleaded. “It was only a joke.”
She kept on walking, mounting the stairs in hard-heeled thumps. “My bed is up here and yours is down there!” she retorted in iceberg tones. “Let’s make damn sure we keep it that way.”
Chuck blew out his cheeks and watched her go into her bedroom. The door slammed and he heard a lock turn.
• • •
Ron Thurlow rested his head in the lap of a beautiful brunette, while the blond head of the delightful Erica lay on his chest, her ripe body lying next to him on the comfortable couch. A group of returning “spacewalkers” disturbed his lethargic rest and Ron opened an eye to look around the Space Safari lounge sleepily.
Like Las Vegas, the lounge was in operation night and day; but except for the spacewalkers, who were passing through, no one was here now except for the bartender and Ron’s triad. He sighed as the brunette resumed her delicate massage of his temples. Erica, aware of his movements, slowly lifted herself up and kissed him long and thoroughly. Ron released his arm from around her and sighed heavily.
“I just can’t do it, that’s all.” He looked from one beauty to another. “I don’t want to hurt your feelings—either one of you—but I can’t decide.”
“Then don’t,” Erica purred huskily. “Take us both!”
Ron shook his head. “It wouldn’t work out.”
“Of course it will,” Erica urged. “We’re both sex models.”
The brunette’s smile was lecherously wide and as inviting as Erica’s.
“That’s okay for you,” Ron complained, “but what the hell, I’m no superman.”
Erica’s long lashes dropped over her cheeks as she bent close to him. “You’ll be surprised,” she said softly and began kissing him again.
• • •
Mort Schneider came briskly down the hall, turned toward the red security area. Taking a ring of plastic strips from his pocket, he thrust one into a lock. It hummed and a light went on and there was a click. A door opened and Schneider went in.
The crimson light bathed him in blood as he moved past various technicians to the main monitor station, which sat before the biggest of the television screens. Schneider’s chief technician faced around toward him.
“We’ve finished the gross body series and we’re starting molecular studies now,” he reported to Schneider.
“All right,” the gaunt scientist nodded. “Did you alter their food?”
“Yes, sir. We should have four to six hours.”
“I want all thermal, X-ray, and electrochemical studies finished tonight,�
�� he ordered.
“That’s not much time,” the chief technician said.
“It will have to do,” Schneider replied. His face was drawn as he said darkly, “Our Mr. Browning is much too curious.”
• • •
Al looked at Ed’s Octavia and his eyes grew speculative. “Hey, Ed, ol’ buddy, what about a switch?”
“Uh. Why?”
“I dunno. The grass is always greener, I guess.”
“The ass, you mean.”
“Well, what about it, huh?”
Ed eyed the softly smiling Claudia, sitting next to Al. “Well . . . hell. Why not?”
Al gave Claudia a shove and she moved over quickly to Ed, smiling and reaching out invitingly. Octavia rose and passed Claudia. Al’s hands were all over her as she murmured, “Whatever you desire, master . . .”
“Hot damn!” Al said over her shoulder. “Whoever designed Delos ought to get a medal!”
“Will you tell your friends about the pleasures of Delos?” Octavia asked seductively.
Ed laughed and yelled at Al over the sounds of the orgy. “Did you get that, Al? A little commercial slipped in along with the flesh and fun!”
Al mumbled something, then withdrew his face from Octavia’s flesh to repeat himself. “I’ll tell everyone! Except maybe my wife.”
• • •
In the dining area of Tracy and Chuck’s suite a a robot attendant was cleaning up the dinner remains, putting the plates and glasses onto a rolling table. He worked in near-darkness and was quite silent.
Completing his task, the robot rolled the table to the door. He steered his cart around a procession of robots who now entered the suite’s living room, moving briskly. The newcomers wore “clean room”-type garments, except that these were of a shiny, almost metallic shade of red, an intense scarlet that hurt the eyes. The robots pushed in two chrome gurney tables covered with half-sheets of jet black.
The effect of the group was that of some satanic cult who ran a hospital. Four of them left their rolling table and went silently up the stairs toward Tracy’s room, while the four others rolled their table across the darkened living area to Chuck’s bedroom. One opened the door while another pushed the table on through and up to Chuck’s bed.
Without hesitation two red-clad robots picked up Chuck, who was by now unconscious, placed him on the table, and covered him with the black sheet. They rolled him out into the living room and out through the door just as the four other crimson-dressed figures carried a drugged Tracy down the steps and put her limp body on the second gurney. The second group now pushed Tracy out into the hall and followed Chuck’s gurney down the hall.
• • •
A procession of about thirty red-garbed robots were rolling black-sheeted gurneys down a Delos service tunnel. Eight limp, lolling bodies were strapped down on the rolling tables. Among them were Chuck, Tracy, Takaguchi, and General Karnovsky. The blue-green glare of the overhead lights glinted off the robots shiny scarlet clothes and made a strong sheen across the jet-colored sheets.
The robots walked quickly and in silence, except for the rasp of fabric and the faint whisper of the wheels of the carts.
They eventually pushed through a red door, which hissed closed behind them.
• • •
Mort Schneider looked down from an observation porthole into the operating room. The red-clad robot doctors—hooded, and with oval-shaped eye-and-nose openings—the stark white floor, the shiny steel instruments, and the jet-black sheets made for sharp contrast, but it was one Schneider was well used to seeing.
Chuck was brought in first, and transferred to the operating table under the bright lights. The sure, precise hands around him began to attach leads for their test equipment to Chuck’s head and body.
• • •
Tracy was lifted from the gurney and put on a gleaming metal table. Red-clad robots swung stereo X-ray equipment over her supine body and a series of monitors lit up. Schneider appeared in a porthole, looking in from a control room, red-lit and stern.
“Test Unit One . . . On!” a crimson-clothed robot announced.
• • •
The betatron scanner swiveled into position over the unconscious Takaguchi. His face was marked by a grid of different-colored lines.
A technician spoke. “Alpha-Niner ready. Beta-One at peak. Topographical units on standby.”
• • •
The technician fastened the last lead to General Karnovsky’s chunky body and stepped back.
From the control-room speaker came the commands: “Alpha-Two-Six-One, prepare to activate. E.E.G., stand by. Tissue sampler ready. Gamma-Eleven-Nineteen at speed.”
• • •
Schneider entered Master Control and strode directly to the four color monitors that fed in the pictures from the four satellite operating rooms where Chuck, Tracy, Takaguchi, and Karnovsky were being prepped.
“Are we ready?” he asked the room at large.
“Yes, sir,” reported the chief technician.
Schneider frowned at each monitor. “All right. Begin all graphic studies on my mark . . . Three . . . two . . . one . . . Mark!”
Schneider’s eyes were on Chuck. He was naked, with leads arching away from his stripped body like spaghetti. A rising hum continued. Then, without a sound, the reporter’s image became a solarized abstract of colors.
A technician came into the frame and put a hypodermic to Chuck’s arm.
“Beta-Three activated . . .”
“Mitosis level rising . . .”
“Grennell toxin at Delta-plus . . .”
“Surface temperature reading is—”
“Sigma-Eight to Zero Minus Two . . .”
“Ischidrosis at norm . . .”
“Activate cymograph on my mark . . .”
“Holotony injection . . .”
Schneider’s eyes glittered as he watched the intricate process proceed with a swiftness and sureness denied the human counterparts of the personnel in the operating room.
Tracy’s body switched to the vivid solarization on the next screen.
“Blood study, phase two—activate! . . .”
“Thermal constant determined on Beta-Niner . . .”
“Epsilon-One-Forty, stand by . . .”
“Radionuclide insert . . . Prepare to activate . . .”
“Beta-Four activated . . .”
“Thermanoid transducer, Five-Six, stand by . . .”
“Thanatograph Omega-One—activate! . . .”
“Red control, we have a voltage drop in Tetralemma Option Calculator Four. Please advise . . .”
“Vector Seven, increase Helmholtz function Point Two . . .”
“Theta-One, prepare to activate on my mark . . .”
“Program Xi-One, terminate . . .”
“Lamba-Five-Niner-Zero, withdraw ethnological tube . . .”
Schneider watched the changing images on the four screens with an almost passionate intensity. Everything he saw, he knew, was being taped, analyzed, and the conclusions reached activated further programs and guided the robotic hands.
“Rhema Program Six activated . . .”
“Red control, we have retrostalsis on Beta-Niner. Please advise . . .”
“Revalorize on Beta-Niner . . .”
“Omicron-One-One-Two at DAG Level Two-Four . . .”
“Beta-Niner at Sub-Level Two . . .”
“Iota Four Virgule Six, your epispastic range is rising . . .”
“Epizeuxis, Rho-Ten-Ten . . .”
“Alpha-Two-Six, your ultracrepidarian panels are misaligned by four microns . . .”
“Monitor Four, nuncupate, please . . .”
“Hermitery of two centimeters, lower quadrant, Beta-Niner . . .”
“Teramorphous analogy within expected range . . .”
“Hepatic malfunction, Beta-Niner. Please advise . . .”
“Subject Beta-Seven requires agmatologist . . .”
“Upsilon-Five-Fou
r, transfer aesthesiogenic readings to Sigma-Niner-Zero-Four . . .”
There were red reflections in Schneider’s eyes as he stared at the screens, and a smile of triumph on his lips.
• • •
Tracy sat bolt upright and screamed.
“Chuck!” she gasped, stared around wildly. “Oh, my God—Chuck!”
In the living room, Chuck’s hand dropped away from the doorknob to the hall. The lights were on but he carried a Zeon flashlight and was fully dressed. He jerked his head around at her shriek and started pounding up the stairs.
Her door was locked and Chuck stepped back, raising a foot to break it open; but she swung it wide before he had the chance to break it down.
Wild-eyed and disheveled, Tracy threw herself into Chuck’s arms, clinging to him so tightly he could not use his arms. Behind her back, he transferred the flashlight to another hand and worked an arm free. Then, tipping up her tear-streaked, terror-stricken face, he asked her what had happened.
“I had this d-dream,” she sputtered, her eyes still large and round. She was breathing heavily. “It was terrible. Awful!” She looked around, trembling. “It—it seemed so real. I was in a hospital and these people kept hurting me . . . They . . . I couldn’t do anything . . . I—”
Chuck stroked her hair. “It’s all right . . . It was just a dream . . . It’s all right . . . Just a dream, Socks. There’s no problem now . . . Take it easy . . . It’s all over.”
He grasped her arm and led her back into her bedroom and pushed her into a sitting position on the bed; then he sat down next to her.
Her breathing slowed and she calmed herself slowly. She brushed back some stray strands of hair and smiled wanly at him. “I’m okay now . . .” She shrugged her shoulders apologetically. “I’m sorry . . . I feel like an idiot . . .” She gazed around the room, and at the disheveled bed. “But it just seemed so real.”
“No problem,” Chuck said with a smile.
Tracy seemed to be aware of his condition for the first time. “What are you doing dressed?”
He smiled faintly and gestured with the flashlight. “Well, to tell the truth, I’m going to take a little unauthorized tour.”
She frowned at him. “You can’t do that! It could be dangerous.”
Delos 2 - Futureworld Page 10