"After a while, yeah, it did. I explained that to the machine, and we worked it out. Once we figured out how to make more microwave sterilizers, he was going to give me the franchise. I was going to have free car washes all over the world."
"Wonderful," said Anna Chutesov, throwing up her hands. "Capitalism at work."
"Don't knock it if you ain't tried it, honey," Earl Armalide said.
"Who was in the booth?" asked Remo.
"The machine, I guess. He could turn into anything. I guess he turned a part of the car wash into a mechanical man. I never saw him clearly, though. He never came out of that booth. But I was glad about that. I got tired of air ducts talking to me and eyeballs staring from walls. It was creepy."
"So where is Gordons now?" asked Remo.
"He got spooked. He said he picked this area because he knew his enemies-that's you guys-were near here, and he figured if he waited around long enough you'd drive through, and zap-he'd sterilize you both. Only the Oriental came through alone and he panicked when you were knocked out, mister."
"I am not a mister, I am a Master," said Chiun, his face full of repressed rage. He slapped Earl Armalide's head and the man, paralyzed in a fetal position, tipped over like a tenpin.
Remo set him up again.
"Sorry, Master," Armalide said. "When it happened, he figured it was time to split because he was worried you'd probably investigate what happened to your friend. He didn't want a fight. So he had me steal a garbage truck for him so he could get away. I was to wait until you people showed up. You know what happened after that."
"He's driving a garbage truck?" Smith asked.
"No, he is the garbage truck. It was the only thing I could hijack that was big enough to carry the satellite so no one'd notice it."
"Where did he go?"
"He didn't say. But I figure he's out there doing his thing, sterilizing people. He wants to clear the planet of meat machines. You know, people."
"That's insane," said Anna.
"No, ma'am, it's survivalism in its purest form. You get rid of the people and you got no problem. No more wars, no more racism or nuclear fears, and plenty of food to go around. It was going to be just him and me."
"It would take, minimum, about eighty years for the last living adult to die off," Smith pointed out.
"We had it figured at fifty," said Earl Armalide. "In fifty years, the only ones on their feet would be so old we could shoot most of them. Can you guys make my arms and legs work again? I'm ready to go to jail now."
"No chance," said Remo.
"Okay, I'll go to jail like this."
"That wasn't what I meant," Remo said meaningfully.
Chiun looked at Smith. "Emperor?"
"We're done with him," Smith said. "Make it look like an accident."
"Would you prefer heart attack or perhaps sudden lung collapse?" asked Chiun, fluttering his fingernails over Earl Armalide's close-cropped head.
"Hey, you can't do this. It's against the Geneva Convention. Besides, I ain't killed no one. I just sterilized a few. Show me a law against that. Specifically."
"You are forgetting the IRS agents and the others," Smith reminded him.
"Hell, that was different. That was war."
Those were the last words that Earl Armalide ever spoke because Anna Chutesov, her face like something extracted from a granite cliff, stepped up to the squatting survivalist and shot him in the face.
Earl Armalide rocked back on his heels and tipped over onto his back.
"What did you do that for?" asked Remo. "Now we're going to have to bury him so there won't be an investigation."
"You do not understand, do you?" Anna Chutesov said furiously. "Idiot! You are so immersed in your own stupid self that you overlook the obvious."
"Give me a hint."
"I, too, have been sterilized."
"Is that why you've been so upset?" Remo asked.
"Of course. What did you think?"
"Never mind," said Remo, who was suddenly disappointed to learn that Anna Chutesov wasn't carrying a torch for him, after all.
Chapter 14
"Who is this criminal, Gordons?" demanded Anna Chutesov.
They had returned to Smith's Folcroft office. Outside the big picture window with a view of Long Island Sound, night had fallen. There was no moon. The only illumination came from the weak fluorescent lights, fluttering out their last hours. The office looked danker than it did by day, and Anna Chutesov noticed the dust in the corners that was not apparent in sunlight. Of course, she thought to herself, Smith probably cleans it himself. It was, after all, a high-security office. And Smith had a mania for attending to details himself.
Upon entering the room, Smith immediately took his customary position behind the desk and brought up the CURE terminal. It glided up from the solid oak desktop like a genie answering a summons. Smith went to work. Anna turned to Remo and Chiun.
"Will one of you kindly answer my question?" she asked.
"Anna wants to know about Gordons, Little Father," Remo said.
"Pah! Do not speak that thing's name to me," Chiun spat.
"Anna's not a thing," Remo said. "And I don't think you should blame her for what happened to you. She got a burst of microwaves too."
"I did not mean the female," said Chiun. "I was referring to the machine man."
"Oh, Gordons. Right."
"Will someone answer me?" Anna said tartly.
"Gordons is an android," Remo said. "Do you know what an android is?"
"Yes," answered Anna Chutesov.
"Good," said Remo. "Why don't you explain it to me? I never got it straight." He took a lotus position on a bare space on the floor. Chiun had settled onto a hardwood chair. Anna thought to herself that they had their positions reversed. It should have been Remo on the chair and Chiun on the floor.
"An android is an artificial human being," said Dr. Smith absently, keying commands into his terminal. "It's a quantum leap above a robot. An android can be made to look like a human being with artificial skin and prosthetic devices."
"Thank you," said Anna Chutesov. She regarded Remo as if he were a bug.
Remo, stung by the look, sat up straighter.
"We first encountered Gordons years ago," he said seriously. "His full name is Mr. Gordons. He was named after a brand of gin. Gordons was part of some crazy space program-an artificial thinking machine designed to pilot spacecraft on long-range missions, where it was impossible to send a man. He was programmed to survive, no matter what. I guess that program was a good one because he's still around. We thought we killed him at least three times."
"I wish we had," snapped Chiun.
"Go on," said Anna Chutesov.
"Anyway," Remo continued, "Gordons was just an experiment. Before him there was Mr. Smirnoff, Mr. Seagrams, and others. The NASA scientist who created him liked to drink. A lot. That was the inspiration for naming him. Then the government cut off funding for the project and Gordons overheard. He understood that money was important, and must have figured he'd be deactivated or something, so he fabricated a new look to pass himself off as a person and escaped."
"How could a machine replicate a person?" Anna asked.
"He usually tears the skin off and starts from there." Anna, in spite of herself, shivered.
"A monster," she said. "When will you males stop creating such monsters? When?"
"Actually," Remo said, "the NASA scientist was a woman. What was her name, Chiun? Wasn't it Vanessa Something?"
"Yes, you are correct," Chiun said disinterestedly. "Vanessa Something was her name."
From his console station, Dr. Smith broke in. "A records search indicates that the city currently owns the car wash. It went bankrupt in 1984 and was seized by the state for taxes."
"How did this Gordons take control of the Gagarin, in the first place?" Anna asked.
"Smitty, what can I tell her about that?" Remo asked. "Whatever you want. After what we've heard about the microwav
e satellite, she's hardly in a position to complain. "
"Complain about what?"
"Gordons had everything he needed to survive," Remo went on. "He was as strong as a derrick and could transform himself into anything. He might even be that chair you're sitting on."
Anna Chutesov jumped up and looked at the chair. It looked ordinary, a simple wooden chair. Then it moved. Anna recoiled.
"It's him! Gordons," she screeched.
"Look at her, Remo," said the Master of Sinanju.
"She is afraid of a chair." And he stamped his sandaled foot against the floor a second time, causing the wood chair to skitter to one side. Chiun cackled.
Anna Chutesov gave the Master of Sinanju a bilious stare. But when she sat down, she availed herself of another chair.
"Gordons was missing one critical element," Remo went on. "Creativity. He didn't have any. He could reason in a simple way, but he was unable to think original thoughts-kind of like a Hollywood producer. It drove him crazy. He kept trying to figure out ways to become creative. One time, he killed a bunch of artists and scooped out their brains for study. It didn't work. The last time we saw Gordons, he had assimilated a NASA artificial intelligence computer. And, bingo, instant creativity."
"But he was still stupid," said Chiun.
"Slow, anyway," Remo amended. "But he was still dangerous, and we had to chase him all the way to Moscow to recover the computer."
"Gordons was in Russia?" Anna Chutesov said.
"Do you remember the Volga missile?" Remo asked her.
Anna Chutesov said nothing. She realized her mouth was gaping, and she clicked her teeth shut.
"That is one of the greatest secrets of my government. How did you know about it? How could you know?"
"Your people had a doozy of an idea. They couldn't land a man on the moon, even after the U.S. showed them how. And they were afraid that we'd claim the moon for America one day. So they created a deadly germ that could breed in space and infiltrate spaceships and spacesuits, and then loaded it aboard a moon rocket called the Volga. The idea was to poison the moon so no one could claim it."
"I know the plan," said Anna Chutesov hotly. "It was insane. But it was a previous regime. The current leadership had nothing to do with it."
Remo shrugged as if that were a minor detail. "Chiun and I followed Gordons to Moscow. The Russians had captured him because in order to launch the Volga, they needed the artificial intelligence computer he had absorbed. We made a truce with Gordons, and convinced him to ride the Volga into outer space and send it off course. The moon was saved and Gordons was out of our lives. A happy ending, we thought. Until today."
"There were strange rumors surrounding the Volga's fate," Anna Chutesov said slowly. "The men in charge of the project were blamed for the failure and executed."
"That's the biz, sweetheart," Remo said.
"I do not understand how this Gordons could attach himself to the Yuri Gagarin. The Volga was lost in deep space."
"That part I can't explain," admitted Remo.
Smith suddenly looked up from his terminal. "Oh, my God," he whispered.
"Smitty?" said Remo.
"Gordons knew where to find us."
"Yeah, he's creative now. He probably looked us up in the Yellow Pages."
"No. That isn't it." Smith turned in his chair to face the others. "Even lost in space, Gordons wasn't entirely helpless. He probably fabricated some kind of propulsion system from the Volga's parts. It would be easy for him. But finding earth would be next to impossible without specific navigational programming. Unless Gordons had a signal to home in on."
"What's so hard about that? There's plenty of earth radio transmissions he could have locked in on," said Remo.
"Not from Rye, New York. Not from Folcroft."
"From where, then?" asked Remo.
"Do you remember the transmitter Gordons planted on you that last time?"
The memory made Remo absently scratch his back. "Yeah, he stuck a little thing into my back no bigger than a bee sting. I didn't even feel it, but it threw my body out of whack. I couldn't stop hopping like a jack-in-the-box until Chiun pulled it out."
"You never could sit still," Chiun said unkindly.
"I took possession of the device after you returned from Moscow," Smith said. "It later disappeared. I can remember thinking it must have fallen off my desk and I had accidentally swept it up during a cleaning."
Anna Chutesov came to her feet.
"If this Gordons homed in on this office, it would explain why he landed in this area," she said.
"Yes, it would," Smith agreed.
"Then the transmitter must still be here. Where did you see it last?"
Smith considered. "Right ... here," he said, placing a finger on a packet of printouts. "I placed it on a set of computer forms. I always put my printouts on this quadrant of the desk."
"Believe him," said Remo. "At home, he's probably got individual compartments in his sock drawer."
"Then the transmitter is still here," said Anna. Everyone got down on the floor and looked for the transmitter, except the Master of Sinanju, who muttered something about closing the barn door after the horse. Only he didn't say "horse," he said "ox."
After several minutes, Remo got to his feet and said, "I don't see anything."
"Nor I," admitted Smith.
"It does not seem to be here," said Anna Chutesov. And remembering that Remo had called it a bee sting, she ran her hands along the floorboards. She was rewarded by a tiny stinging sensation in the ball of her thumb.
"Ouch!" she said deliberately.
"You all right?" asked Remo solicitously.
"A splinter," Anna said, getting to her feet. "Here, let me . . ."
"I am fully capable of extracting a splinter from my own hand," she said sternly. Turning to Smith, she asked, "Is there a washroom where I can clean the wound?"
Smith handed her a brass key. "Use my private washroom," he said. "It's out in the hall."
"Thank you," said Anna Chutesov.
In the washroom, she held her thumb up to the bare ceiling bulb. As she had hoped, the splinter was black, insectlike. It had penetrated at a shallow angle so that it was clearly visible under the translucency of her epidermis. The transmitter.
Anna washed a droplet of blood from the point of entry and, without removing the transmitter, she rejoined the others.
"Find it?" she asked brightly.
"No," said Smith.
"Uh-uh," seconded Remo. "I don't think it's here."
"I'll have the room swept electronically," Smith decided. "A bug is a bug. I'm certain it will be found. I should have thought of it before this."
"Don't be too hard on yourself, Smitty," Remo said. "Who would have thought Gordons would return?" But Smith wasn't listening. He was at his terminal again, tapping keys like some demented concert pianist. "What're you doing, Smitty?" Remo asked curiously. "I'm setting up a program to collect statistics on infertile couples. It will feed off the AMA computers and Health and Welfare files."
"You're going to track Gordons that way?"
"No, this is in case you and Chiun don't stop him before he succeeds in sterilizing more people. I can count on your help, can't I?" said Smith, thinking of Anna Chutesov's promise to influence Remo into solving the Gagarin mystery.
"Sure," said Remo. "I promised Chiun I'd pitch in on this one. And I have six months to kill before returning to Korea."
"This could take much longer to resolve than six months," Smith warned.
"How long?"
"Weeks, months, years," said Smith. "We don't know what form Gordons will take next. But based on the car-wash experience, he will probably assume the form of a commercial structure, something through which large numbers of people pass daily."
"Like an airliner?"
Smith shook his head. "Not efficient enough. Something stationary. A skyscraper, or possibly the Lincoln Tunnel. The World Trade Towers, perhaps."
&nb
sp; "You're talking about a needle in a haystack here," Remo protested. "Chiun and I can't just walk up to every big building on the continent, tip our hats, and ask, 'Pardon us, but are you Mr. Cordons, the sterilizing machine?' "
"When we find the transmitter, we should be able to track him through it," Smith said. "It's our only lead."
"Okay," Remo said, settling back onto the floor. "So we wait."
"Wait!" cried Anna Chutesov. "Thousands of people are being sterilized with each passing hour and you want to wait! Does he not understand what is happening?" she asked no one in particular.
"No, he does not," said the Master of Sinanju. "He cannot understand. He thinks it is some unfortunate minor ailment, like a hangnail."
"What'd I say?" said Remo plaintively.
"For every person who loses the ability to procreate," Smith said, "the world not only loses the 2.3 children most couples bear in their lifetimes, but also the grandchildren and great-grandchildren and so on who will never be. Future leaders, scientists, entertainers, and ordinary hardworking people will never be. The loss to our social and economic future is incalculable. If Gordons only partially succeeds, Americans may become scarce in the next century."
"Smith is right," said Anna Chutesov.
"I'm glad you said that, Ms. Chutesov," said Harold W. Smith, "because I would like some information from you. Please give me the specifications on the microwave satellite. I believe that Gordons' survivalist accomplice referred to it as the Sword of Damocles."
"I regret I cannot," said Anna Chutesov. "That is a state secret."
Smith nodded imperceptibly and returned to his computer.
"Do any of you know the Russian words for 'Sword of Damocles'?"
"Damoklov Mech," answered the Master of Sinanju. "Thank you," said Smith, keying the phrase into his computer. He waited, and in a matter of seconds he was reading an on-screen file.
"The Sword of Damocles is a phased-array microwave transmitter," he reported. "It's very powerful, capable of affecting a massive landmass during an approximately four-year orbital sweep. As you may know, microwave ovens heat by exciting water molecules in food. This satellite uses the same principle to raise the human body temperature just enough to neutralize the reproductive system. Slow but certain sterilization results. The transmitter is very powerful, but for it to accomplish its full task, the sterilizing of America, it must be placed in orbit. That part at least is good news. On the ground, Gordons can do limited damage. But we're still talking thousands of people each month, under optimum circumstances. And Gordons, being a machine, has no limitations on his lifespan. If not stopped, he could conceivably sterilize the entire earth."
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