Delos 2 - Futureworld

by John Ryder Hall

  Tracy stared, her lips trembling, horrified. But Chuck, limping and holding his side painfully, shuffled over and picked up a pair of ice tongs from the bar; returning, he bent down over Duffy’s body. Tracy’s eyes widened in even greater horror as she saw him jab the tongs into the side of Duffy’s face. He thrust them deep, making a terrible rip, then seized the skin and gave a mighty rip. His shoulders jerked and he almost fell over backward from his squat.

  Tracy screamed. The skin had been torn raggedly from Duffy’s face.

  Where his face had been was a complex package of circuits, molecular blocks, wiring, and the printed circuitry that packed a robot’s skull.

  Chuck sat back and looked up at Tracy. “They’re all robots. All of them—except the ‘clones’ and the guests. Somehow . . . these human ‘machines’ have developed themselves—we might even say evolved—on their own, each generation of robots improving, passing on the improvements to the next generation—swiftly, as fast as they could build them. Duffy was a robot, programmed to promote and protect Delos; I doubt that he had any real human feelings. Probably most of the ‘clones’ are out in the world at large, except for those still being produced here. As for Schneider . . . well, I don’t know what he is . . .”

  Tracy gulped. “What do we do now?”

  “We can’t stay here till the plane leaves.”

  Tracy blinked, then gestured to the outside. “What about Westworld? That’s deserted. They probably don’t even have monitors there.”

  Chuck stood up, throwing the ragged piece of “flesh” he held to the floor, where it seeped into the carpet. “You’re right. I’ll take you there, then go get Harry. Maybe we can hole up until Holcombe tries to reach us or the flight departs.” He lurched painfully toward the door to the suite. “Come on.”

  As they shut the door behind them, Duffy continued to seep silvery fluid into the beige carpet.

  • • •

  Clark carried a pile of shirts over to Harry, who took them and stuffed them into a battered valise. Squinting at the faceless robot, he spoke apologetically. “Listen, you know I’d like to take you with me, but it just wouldn’ work out. People on the outside, they just wouldn’ understand how it is with us . . .”

  Harry stood awkwardly, darting a look at the robot. Finally, he walked over to an old carton to pick up Clark’s faceplate. Hefting it in his hand, he walked back to the robot and fastened it in place on his head. He ran the sealing tool around the edges as he talked to Clark in a low voice.

  “I guess if I’d’ve fixed your voice box, you would have told me what was going on around here.” He ran his thumb over the sealed edge. “There.” He grinned through his bristly beard. “You look real good, y’know?”

  Harry put his tools back in his belt kit, then unfastened the kit and dropped it on the table. “Listen,” he said nervously, “when we get this mess straightened out, I’ll be back for you. Don’t worry about that. Stay hid down here meanwhile, y’hear?”

  The blue-clad worker then hoisted his valise, started to say something, then instead walked silently over to the tunnel. Stopping to look back, he gulped and blinked, trying to get some words out, but gave up and started out into the tunnel. Stopping determinedly, he sighed, then pulled back inside and, without facing the robot, said: “You been a good pal to me. I’m . . . I’m sure gonna miss ya.” He paused. “And you watch out for that bad circuit in your arm, y’hear? You gotta be careful now.” Harry gave the silent robot a fast look over his shoulder. “Well . . . uh . . . so long, ya bag of bolts. We’ll see ya!”

  Harry ducked into the tunnel. Clark did not move.

  When the sounds of the workman’s echoing passage had faded, Clark slowly, slowly turned away and covered his face with his hands.

  • • •

  Chuck and Tracy had climbed up the rungs of the “gopher hole” and the tall reporter shoved up on the warped trapdoor. It fell back with a rattling crash and instinctively they ducked and remained motionless. After the dust had settled, Chuck carefully looked over the edge of this unorthodox entrance to one of Westworld’s hotel. It seemed just as he had seen it last: burnt and dusty, ruined and silent.

  He climbed out and helped Tracy up and they moved cautiously through the blackened lobby and looked out into the empty and still dark Western street. The ruts in the street were dry and old, tufts of grass growing in some of them; a tumbleweed had caught on a discarded pitchfork across from Chuck and Tracy. A second saloon sat directly across the street, and Chuck could make out in the moonlight the faded lettering on the clapboard false front: BURBEE’S. Smaller signs advertised: “Golden Beer” and “Ladies Welcome.”

  Chuck pushed out onto the worn boardwalk and looked around him. A ragged poster for a cockfight flapped in the wind against the hotel wall. The false-fronted stores made sharp-edged shadows in the street. Nothing alive moved.

  Chuck motioned Tracy out, then pointed. “Wait up there at the corner, by the jail. I’ll get Harry and be right back!”

  She put her hand on his arm. “Be careful!”

  “Right.” He grinned reassuringly, then bent down and kissed her. She threw her arms around him and extended the kiss, but he pulled free and patted her side.

  Tracy started up the street and an instant later looked back. Chuck had already disappeared into the burned-out hotel, to roam back down through the maze of tunnels.

  • • •

  The power plant hummed industriously, its vibrations shaking the floor. Harry loitered in the shadows, even though, as usual, the robot working saw nothing but what they were programmed to see. Nevertheless just to make certain that a seven hundred didn’t enter the plant and see him, Harry kept hidden.

  He impatiently checked the time and squinted suspiciously at the bustle of the robots tending the furnaces. Stepping out, clutching his valise, he slid along the wall, ducking behind as many pipes and boilers as he could. Eventually he found a vantage point and squatted, watching the utility-tunnel entrance with nervous eyes.

  Finally he looked at his watch again, and started to go back, then made a face and squatted down again. He watched the tunnel entrance but it was empty. Sinking back on his heels, he muttered soundlessly to himself.

  “Harry!”

  He jerked with surprise and glanced up. Chuck was on some iron stairs above him. The reporter ran quickly down and over to Harry.

  “Where’s Tracy?” the workman asked, looking beyond the reporter.

  “She’s safe. C’mon, let’s go!”

  “Okay,” the bearded repairman agreed, and they started toward the tunnels.

  Chuck let Harry lead as they crossed the power-plant floor. Then, suddenly and shockingly, the newspaperman jumped ahead to throw a choke hold around Harry’s neck.

  “Gawk!” the maintenance man croaked, dropping his valise and tugging at the arm encircling his neck.

  In an instant, Chuck yanked Harry backward, pulling a knife from under his coat. His hand went high, then plunged the blade into Harry’s chest.

  Again and again the bloody blade rose and fell, until Harry’s shirt was a gushing mass of blood. Chuck then let the body drop, and knelt to roll him over and pluck the blood-flecked gun from the workman’s belt.

  Chuck ran out of the utility-tunnel entrance and saw himself bending over the limp, crimsoned body of Harry Croft. The murderer looked up, straight into Chuck’s eyes. The reporter blinked in surprise and shock, but his eyes widened in alarm as he watched the murderer raise Harry’s gun to fire.

  Chuck threw himself back, bouncing off the tunnel wall as the rocket propellant sizzled across the room and splashed fire down the tunnel floor. Without waiting for a second shot, he whirled and raced down the tunnel.

  “A clone—a cloned me!” he gasped as he ran.

  The clone-Chuck rose and followed his original into the tunnel at a leisurely pace, grinning slightly.

  The reporter could hear the footsteps behind him as he scurried through the dimly lit utility p
assage. He passed one branching-off tunnel, and almost ran beyond the next, but he braked himself with his hands on the damp wall and backtracked quickly to race down the side-tunnel.

  Pausing moments later and breathing heavily, he listened for the pursuit. What he heard was the echoing shout of his clone.

  “Don’t worry, Chuck. I can always find you!”

  He gulped. It was his own voice, the slightly mocking, sometimes snobbish voice he used to deliberately irritate people—as when he wanted to prod them into revealing hidden bits of news or background material. Shoving himself away from the wall he dashed down the tunnel in frantic haste, passing under the scattered dim bulbs.

  Seconds later, Chuck’s clone appeared, trotting easily, seemingly unhurried, not at all rumpled or sweating. His lengthy strides took him swiftly into the darkness beyond.

  • • •

  Tracy waited anxiously near the jail, pressed against its rough bricks in deep shadow. She could see a part of the main street and a corner of the rusty sign above the jailhouse door said MARSHAL. Moving to the corner of the building, she once again took a survey of the side-street. Nothing much had changed. The tumbleweed had torn loose from the pitchfork and had blown along to be caught between two empty barrels near the Emporium. On the wall next to her a bulletin board, covered with ragged and torn pieces of paper, mottled by rain and sun, was still readable enough for Tracy to see that it held “wanted” posters, the announcement of an auction of “prime cattle,” and another for someone to “ride shotgun” on the Tucson stage.

  But the street remained empty.

  Tracy moved back into the shade—then started, upright, as she heard footsteps on the boardwalk.

  She stepped out cautiously and looked down the narrow street. “Chuck?” Her hand touched the gun at her belt.

  She saw a shadowy movement under the projecting porch that sheltered the boardwalk and took a step in that direction.

  She stopped.

  A figure stepped out into the sun and the figure was herself.

  “Hello, Tracy,” the clone said.

  “You can’t be . . .” Tracy gasped. Seeing the clone at a distance in the odd-shaped anechoic chamber was one thing, and there always was the possibility of a mistake. But seeing her duplicate a few yards away from her now was unnerving in the extreme.

  “But I am,” the duplicate said. She seemed calm, confident, and Tracy recognized the mannerisms. It was herself when she was boring in on a story: armed with facts, sure of herself, and eager to go.

  “What . . . are you?” she asked the duplicate.

  “You!” the smiling Tracy said to the unsmiling one.

  Tracy bit at her lip as she studied the figure which was walking toward her slowly. She remembered how people had often said you don’t recognize yourself. All the times when people had told her and some other woman—usually quite cattily—“Darling, you could be sisters!” came back to Tracy, as did all the times she had seen those “other women” and did not think they looked much like her. Staring at the strange yet familiar face, Tracy had a number of peculiar things pop into her head: meeting one of those look-alikes and discussing with her that they had more dissimilarities than similarities; seeing not the familiar and comfortable “mirror image,” but seeing “herself”—the way others saw her. And the other “her” was wearing a gun, too!

  Tracy had a moment of panic. She started to turn, but stopped when the other “her” said sharply, “Don’t run there!”

  Tracy stared back at the still-advancing duplicate, frowning. How had she known—?

  The duplicate Tracy told her. “You were going to run to the saloon across the street, hide in the gap between the floorboards and the ground.”

  Tracy blinked. “How can you know that?” She had been going to do that very thing!

  The clone-Tracy shrugged and made the little hand gesture that Tracy knew was one of her own trademarks. The clone spoke easily as she continued to walk toward her, slowly but not reluctantly. “Because I have your mind; and what you think, I think . . . what you know, I know.”

  The duplicate halted a few paces away. Her hand hung near her gun. “And now, of course, it’s too late for you to run, because we are both well within accurate range of these guns, inaccurate shots as we are.”

  Tracy bit at the inside of her cheek, then stopped—she knew it was also one of her movements of indecision, and she saw the other Tracy smile faintly. “Yes, I thought of that . . .”

  The clone-Tracy widened her smile a trifle. “Yes, I know you did. It’s a good thing Father taught us at least to shoot, though, isn’t it?”

  “Yes,” Tracy nodded, knowing just how “expert” she was and wondering if this duplicate’s ability was better because of her programmed background—or less, due to a sort of carbon-copy effect. This is just like a scene right out of High Noon, Tracy realized. And the whole scene—me facing me—is so unreal like, “only in the movies!”

  “I don’t think we should have worried so much about whether Father loved us,” the duplicate interjected, continuing the reminiscence.

  “No. He was just busy, I guess . . .” Tracy replied.

  “Yes,” the duplicate continued, “but remember our trip to Hawaii when the waves were high and he . . .”

  “. . . dove into the water with all his clothes on to make sure I—we—wouldn’t drown.”

  The duplicate Tracy nodded. “That’s good to remember whenever I doubt him . . . Well, it’s been good to see you, but, of course . . .” The words hung in the air.

  Tracy took a deep breath. She had realized how strangely comforting was the duplicate’s use of “we.” Knowing there was someone just like you, just like you, someone to talk to without need to explain, without fear of contradiction, was a nice feeling. Though, she told herself, isn’t it just like talking out loud to yourself? She shook her head in momentary confusion. Odd ideas kept popping into her head, unasked, unbidden. Maybe the duplicate was herself—really herself—caught in some kind of time-travel paradox, occupying the same space and time. Herself a few hours older, coming back to—

  To what?

  To kill.

  To become the only Tracy Ballard.

  The time-traveler idea disintegrated. You don’t go back in time to kill yourself. You couldn’t, could you? Time-travel paradoxes had always confused her and made her vaguely angry.

  Tracy looked hard at the duplicate. She—it—did look like her. But there were differences. The nose was a little misaligned, the hair was somehow a bit wrong. The jawline was different, the eyes weren’t quite . . .

  Tracy almost laughed. A lifetime of mirror images had trained her to see herself a certain way. Even all the television tape and film of herself had not eliminated that. When she’d watched herself it had been in a cold, professional manner: Was that hair style right for that sort of lighting? Were these questions sensible and did they progress toward a suitable goal? Did she listen, really listen, to the people she was interviewing? Were her thoughts concise and clear, easily understood to the casual watcher, yet not overly simple for the more sophisticated viewer? Did she use too many gestures? Did she seem too wooden? Not animated enough?

  Tracy nodded, finally. She accepted the image of herself as herself. And came to the logical conclusion.

  “There can only be one of us,” she said.

  The duplicate nodded. “Yes. Too bad, really. We could have had a lot of fun putting people on. Being in two places at once. Playing practical jokes on all those dumbheads who played them on us.” The clone laughed. “Wearing out our lovers!”

  “Trading clothes would be no trouble. We could do our job and spend half of the time on vacation,” Tracy said.

  “Or else do it twice as well,” the duplicate added softly.

  There was a pause.

  “Except that there can only be one of us,” the clone sighed. “We just can’t take any chances.”

  “I know,” Tracy responded, her body grown tense a
s steel.

  They watched each other, each aware of the trickery each could employ, each fearing the other—herself!

  Then the real Tracy suddenly realized something: no duplicate, no clone, no look-alike could possibly be as good as the original. By its very definition. Different, yes, but not better than the original . . .

  They both drew at the same time. Two guns thundered in the Western street.

  One of the figures was hit, the powerful projectile driving the body back like a giant fist. It sagged, lifeless, into the ruts of the dusty street.

  The other walked forward, bent over and looked down at the dead figure at her feet.

  • • •

  Nearly exhausted, Chuck Browning stumbled out of a tunnel into the area just beneath the big rocket chamber of Futureworld. Perspiration was streaming down his face and his breath came in great, hacking bursts. His running had by now devolved in to a staggering canter; he careened off walls and pipes and frequently almost tripped. Now he whipped his head around to look behind him, sucking air into his lungs in heaving gasps. Turning back again, he saw ahead of him an iron stairway leading upward and lurched toward it.

  A sudden thought prompted him to pull out his wallet and throw it on one of the lower steps; then he turned with a lurch and launched his exhausted body downward. Clattering down the steps with fast-weakening knees, he searched for a place to hide. Spying some bulky empty containers, he staggered over to collapse behind them. He took out his gun and leaned against the wall so that he could watch the staircase he had just come down. Then he attempted to quiet his heaving chest.

  • • •

  The duplicate Chuck sauntered into the area beneath the Futureworld rocket chamber; he looked fresh and casual. His hair was neat, his clothes unstained by sweat or rumpled by any frantic race. He had, in fact, the Chuck Browning Newsman trademark: casual arrogance.

  But he had business to do: the smile faded quickly from his face. He looked at the up staircase, then at the down staircase. Noticing something, he walked over and picked up the wallet and took a few steps upward.