The Automated Goliath

by William F. Temple

I felt profoundly depressed. Oh, what a fall was there, my countrymen! Which way to St. Helena?

  It was horrible to lie there, seen but unseeing, afraid to move, desperately seeking a way out for all of us and knowing there was none. In the morning light we would be herded back to the cells or pinned on a rack of pain if we tried to make a break for it.

  I wished I’d never opened my big mouth. I’d only let them all down.

  The bitter night dragged on. There was continual whispering all around me. I heeded nothing until a hand tugged at my ankle. It was Peter Butler.

  “Charles, they want you to know they’re all still with you. They say sometime there’ll be another chance and we’ll do it properly next time.”

  I let that sink in. It was like a stiff peg of rum. A warm glow stole over me. I took heart again.

  “Thanks, Pete. We’ll get out of here yet. And I’m sorry for those cracks at you. Forget ‘em. I’m one fool of a loudmouth.”

  He chuckled. “Not a fool, anyhow.”

  We lay waiting for the dawn. I still kept trying to cook up some plan that might work when we could see what we were doing, but could think of nothing that stood any chance of success.

  “Look!” said Gerry Cross, suddenly.

  I started. I could see ±he dim shape of him, pointing. Somewhere in the sky out over the moors a greenish glow was growing. It was a familiar green, and I felt uneasiness stirring through the crowd. They were bracing themselves against the shock of pain. But although our nerves tingled and our muscles twitched, the source was too distant to affect us.

  We stared at it apprehensively. The glow was emanating from a number of faint pinpoints moving in the sky.

  We began to speculate. Then we gasped as a sheaf of dazzlingly bright rockets shot across the sky, coming from the west. The green pinpoints scattered, then began to fly before them. But the rockets were far faster. Like intelligent comets, they overtook and hunted down their prey.

  There came a rapid succession of eye-dazzling flashes. At each flash, a rocket and a green pinpoint died together, until only the stars remained. And they began to fade in the dawnlight as we all talked excitedly, trying to guess what had happened.

  It was generally agreed that the pinpoints had been flying saucers, belonging to the Makkees. Many people, I learned, had seen flying saucers of late. Then there was that one I had myself seen at Hampstead.

  But who had destroyed them?

  Somewhere there was somebody on our side—and a powerful somebody.

  Full daylight came. The Makkee and his zombies were still on the roof, but now they were crouching behind the parapet wall so that only their heads showed occasionally.

  Gerry watched them critically. Presently, he said, “That little horror can still see where we can’t see. He’s observing something that’s out there on the moor, which the boundary wall hides from us.”

  “Think you’re right,” I said.

  And then there was an almighty explosion at the main gate. A fountain of fragments whirred up through the air. At the foot of the fountain the massive gate itself collapsed gracefully into a pile of broken stone and twisted metal, a cloud of dust spreading from it.

  Pieces began to fall on us, clunking on the concrete, thudding into bodies. I disregarded them, for dim shapes were advancing through the cloud. The emerged into clear air.

  “Men!” I exclaimed. “Men—not zombies.” I yelled and waved both arms. “Go back, go back!” They hesitated. Then what I feared happened. The green beams, barely visible in daylight, shot down from the roof and caught them. They went down like skittles and rolled in agony.

  I swore and looked angrily up at the Makkee. He wasn’t even looking at the men; his attention was still on something distant. I strove to see through the settling dust cloud. It thinned, revealing a great gap in the wall.

  Miles away on the moor was a scattering of tents. It looked like a military camp. New hope and spirit came.

  I shouted, “It’s all right, folks. They’re all on our side out there. They’re going to get us out of here.”

  “Look out, the Makkee’s got his eye on you,” Gerry murmured.

  I shut up. No sense in asking to be put out of action again. But I wondered what we could do to help.

  The initiative was again taken by our unknown friends. From the distant camp a large vehicle headed towards us, straight across the grassland.

  “Isn’t that a—a tank?” asked Peter Butler hesitantly. He’d never seen one outside of a museum.

  “You’re right, you know,” I said. “Left over from the last war. Where on earth did they dig it up from?”

  “What good can it do?”

  “It can shell from a distance. Unfortunately, we’re too close to the target.”

  The tank made straight for the gap. I watched the Makkee watching it. He seemed unperturbed. But I became perturbed about the men who, still semiparalyzed, were trying to crawl away from the gap. They just made it, and took shelter behind the wall as the tank started to crunch across the rubble of the gate. Its turret hatch was shut, its long gun remained silent.

  The Makkee stood up and raised an arm. His zombie crew aimed their ray-emitters, and four faint beams converged on the tank. It trundled on, its engine roaring.

  My crowd parted like the Red Sea, leaving a path for it. The concentrated rays followed it like limelights on a star moving downstage. The tank plugged on sturdily. Just before it came abreast of me, it slowed, then deliberately turned a fraction to aim itself at the main door of the prison.

  That told me something; its occupants weren’t affected by the green rays.

  I took a gamble. As the tank, picking up speed, passed me, I dodged behind it. There was an empty equipment rack at the back of the thing, and I hauled myself into it. The rays playing on the front of the tank didn’t affect me. The gamble had come off; the rays couldn’t penetrate thick steel.

  A minute later came a crash and the tank jarred to a halt. It had bulldozed its way into the wide reception hall, carrying the doors before it. The rays couldn’t reach it now.

  I dismounted as the hatch clanged open. A sparely built man climbed out. He looked about sixty, seemed sad about it, and had tired blue eyes. He glanced at me disinterestedly, then called through the hatch, “All right, Junior, we’re in. Tell ‘em. And tell ‘em to send a hundred men in trucks with scaling ladders to surround the whole dump. They’re to set the ladders against the boundary wall. There are Makkees on the roof with ray guns. Our boys’ job is to snipe them from the tops of the ladders, using the wall as a shield. It should be thick enough to block the rays. They’re not to expose themselves. Just bob up, take a potshot, bob down. Meantime, we’ll see what we can do from the inside.”

  I heard a muffled voice inside the tank repeating the orders over a radio.

  The man turned to me. “I’m Major Brewster, commanding that bunch out there. What’s the setup here?”

  I told him concisely. He already knew about the paralyzing rays. “We had a bellyful of them ourselves during the night. But they’re only effective in the open. They haven’t much penetration power. A suit of armor could probably stop them.”

  Another oldish man climbed out of the tank. “This is Junior, otherwise Captain Madden, my understrapper,” said Brewster.

  “What a way to run an army,” I said.

  Brewster stiffened. “What d’you mean by that?”

  “That tank might have been knocked out. Immediately, your army becomes leaderless. No chief, no deputy. An army without leaders is a rabble. Napoleon wouldn’t have made that mistake. He wouldn’t have stuck his neck out. He might have sent one of his generals. Certainly not two.”

  Madden grinned, but Brewster said harshly, “I seem to recall that Napoleon singlehandedly rushed the bridge over the Alpone when his troops couldn’t get past the Austrians.”

  “Touché,” I said.

  Madden said, “One war at a time. Right now we’re fighting the Makkees.”

/>   “True,” I said. “But I think there’s only one Makkee here. Come on.” I started leading the way to the roof. I heard Brewster muttering, “Got to watch this chap or he’ll be running the show. Damn all fools with the Napoleon complex!”

  The next battle was brief, its end unexpected. We were at a disadvantage on the open roof; the Makkee could sweep it with the rays. We used chimney stacks as cover, making little rushes from one to another, trying to corner him. It kept his attention split between us and the long line of men behind the boundary wall. They kept popping up to snap a shot at him, and he was trying to keep their heads down with the rays.

  He was the sole target. Brewster yelled at his men not to shoot at the zombies, who knew not what^ they did. But the way the rifle bullets ricochetted about the roof, no one’s skin was safe.

  The end came suddenly. As we learned later, the Makkee was isolated in this area with no hope of help in time. He judged defeat inevitable. I suppose he did the logical thing from his point of view. He stepped onto the parapet and dived off. He hit the concrete yard and became a small, crumpled thing.

  The zombies just stood there, vacantly, waiting for orders that didn’t come. They still carried their ray-emitters, and that made me hesitant about approaching them. Major Brewster didn’t hesitate; he walked quietly up to them. He had a queer sort of pistol but didn’t threaten them with it. He applied it gently to the base of each zombie’s neck, in turn. There was no sound, but at its touch each zombie fell unconscious.

  Madden explained to me, “That’s a circuit breaker. It breaks the closed ring of hypnotic suggestion in their minds. Sort of shock treatment. Only knocks ‘em out pro tern. We’re banking heavily on this gadget in our scrap with the Makkees. In time, we hope to recover all the hypnotized stooges.”

  “You seem to know a lot more about the Makkees than I do, Captain Madden.” >

  “A damn sight more. Bill Brewster and I… well, we happened to get the inside story. And it’s a long one. I’ll wise you up, as you would say, soon as we get a breathing spell. You are an American, aren’t you?”

  “My mother was born in Kalamazoo. I didn’t realize it showed. My father was a famous British character.”

  Brewster came back. “That was thirsty work, Junior. Let’s get back to the camp and tap a barrel.”

  “Reckon my mob could use a real drink, Major,” I said. “They’ve been on bread and water long enough. Got any real grub in the camp, too?”

  Brewster looked at me gloomily, “your mob?”

  “Well, they kind of look to me—”

  “Plenty of trucks just outside. Tell ‘em to pile on,” said Brewster, impatiently. “Come on, Junior.” He strode off.

  “Bill gets edgy when he’s separated from his beer,” Madden chuckled. “He’s a different man with a tankard in his hand. You’ll see.”

  I saw when we got to the camp and had a council of war. Maybe I drank too much on that occasion, for I can remember little of it. Yet it was an important occasion. It was then we mapped out our plan of campaign against the Makkees and dealt with the logistics of the long march to London.

  And certainly I ate too much. I can still see that rough wooden table heaped with food, mostly from cans. Also the fat barrel of beer, presided over by Major Bill Brewster. He personally drew off each glassful with the concentration of a surgeon.

  I remember the sudden squall which swept across the bleak moor, the tent flaps cracking like whips, the rain drumming on the canvas, and the cosiness within. Yet, apart from Brewster, Madden, and jovial Gerry Cross, the faces of the company remain to me now as blank ovals. Butler and Watts may have been there.

  I know I gave an account of my visit to the London HQ of the Makkees, and I recall my attempt to show Sarah in a better light than the facts warranted.

  Captain Madden told me something of his and Brewster’s story, but my mind was drink-clouded and I never fully grasped it until the night after he was killed and I lay awake until dawn reading his private journal. I had kept a journal of sorts myself—a much more personal thing than Madden’s. I shouldn’t have wished anyone to read mine—although, later, someone did. But Madden’s was a far more objective account, obviously written for an audience.

  Madden was a writer thwarted by modern conditions from reaching his true public. His self-expression found its outlet in this journal, which he wrote until the day of his death. He was one of the most likable men I ever met. I always regretted that our friendship was so brief. He was English to the marrow, with an astringent, self-deprecatory humor.

  He and his old friend Brewster played a vital part in the war against the Makkees. Without it, my rabble-rousing activity wouldn’t have gotten far. For one thing, we should never have known of the existence of Prospero. Never have secured the circuit breaker. And never have learned to know our enemy, which is imperative for victory.

  We would have lost the war, and today the Makkees’ pet monster, Goliath, would stand in complete possession of the world.

  Madden’s and Brewster’s part joins onto mine in the general history. The following edited extract from Madden’s journal shows how. I was the editor. I cut and transplanted entries, and performed general literary joinery to form a continuous narrative.

  PART TWO

  Chapter 4

  Bill Brewster and I were demobilized from the Army in 1946. That was the year when Ford Executive Vice-President Delmar S. Harder coined a new word—automation. By it he meant only the automatic transfer of Ford car parts from one metal-working machine to the next.

  The night we were demobbed we crawled from bar to bar through London’s West End. In Piccadilly Circus at 2 a.m. we were howling the Harrow School anthem. We’d sung it together the day we left Harrow. It’s called “Forty Years On.”

  “We’ll meet here again, under Eros, forty years on, Junior,” said Bill, trying to give me a comradely pat on the back. He missed.

  “That’s a date, B-Bill.” Emotion and alcohol thickened my voice.

  But 1986 found us some 280 miles from Eros with little desire to see him again. In four decades, he and the Circus, London and most points of the compass, had been engulfed by Mr. Harder’s new word.

  We were at a point just about as far west as we could get without actually paddling in the Atlantic.

  The new word that drove us there had sounded in our lives from time to time even in the earliest years. It had a first cousin, cybernetics. It ate its cousin, and automation came to stand for the whole evil process.

  There was the day Bill and I got talking with an American Air Force brass hat at the Savoy American Bar. Discovering we were ex-artillery officers (Bill a Major, I a Captain) he sought to impress us. He told us he’d just seen a fighter plane manufactured and assembled without a human finger being laid on it.

  I was impressed, all right. I don’t know about Bill; he’s a tougher case.

  But maybe not so tough. For when it got so that I couldn’t take London any more, and decided to quit, I learned Bill had already quit. That was in the winter of 1980.

  I’d not seen him in months. I visaphoned his house. Instead of Bill’s lugubrious face, the visa-screen presented me with a scrawled note, “Gone west, young man. Shan’t be back.”

  When Bill, at Harrow, found he was a month older than me, he called me Junior. He still did. Now he was sixty-three, he called everyone else young man.

  I puzzled out the meaning of the cryptic note. Bill often said he’d like to retire to Merthavin, a small town on the coast of Cornwall. Now, it seemed, he’d retired there. I felt hurt he’d not informed me directly.

  I had no relatives who cared whether I was alive or dead. So I decided to go west, too. I went to my bank and wrote a check to myself for the whole of my deposit. As usual, I made a blot with the confounded magnetic ink.

  I slid the check into the slot labeled “Cashier,” and waited. There were no other customers and, of course, no staff. All banks were automatic. There might have been a mainten
ance engineer playing solitaire in a back office.

  Here in 1946 I’d banked my Army gratuity. Then the cashier had greeted me politely and remarked it was a warm day. On my way out the manager had nodded to me, a blonde typist smiled at me, and the doorman opened the door for me and called me sir.

  All very friendly, warm, human. They were pleased to look after my money for me.

  Now there was nobody to care a damn. Somewhere a magnetic pickup was scanning the check’s number, checking my signature, noting the amount. An electronic computer was searching the memory of its magnetic drum for my account, computing and passing information to a tape recorder, and the recorder was feeding its tape to a high-speed printer, and—

  Flop! A bundle of bank bills of high denomination dropped to the counter from the mouth of a compressed air tube. My bank statement, like a rudely protruding tongue, came sticking out at me from between the lips of a pair of rollers. I glanced at it, knowing there wasn’t a chance in hell of its showing a human-like error. Balance—nil.

  Correct. A multitude of tiny brains, knowing only 0 or 1, had gotten together to assure me of that.

  I picked up the notes—no need to check them, either—and screwed up the statement. Feeling sad, yet relieved, I walked to the door. The infrared ray my body broke didn’t call me “sir,” but it opened the door for me. I was through with automatic banks now—and with London.

  Traffic was thin and there weren’t many people about. Mostly people rode only for social calls. You needed to walk only for exercise.

  I blew my taxi whistle. The nearest taxi swerved in and stopped for me. The others drifted past disinterestedly; their radar scanners had noted the reaction of the nearest taxi to the point of origin of the sound waves, and it released them from obligation.

  The door opened for me. I relaxed inside and the door closed. The taxi awaited my directions.

  You decide; the machines will do the rest. That was the slogan of the age of automation.

  Well, I’d decided to get the hell out of the age of automation, and the machines could carry me a good part of the way.