by Eando Binder
“You’re a mental wizard, Adam,” said one of the boys in disgust at being set four on what looked like a sure slam. “You ought to capitalize on it.”
And that night, Jack Hall, rather preoccupied, spoke to me more seriously than usual.
“Capitalize on it,” he echoed the statement. “Look, Adam, have you any plans for the future? You’ve got a long life ahead of you—” He looked at me in sudden startlement. “Say, just how long will you live?”
I smiled mentally. “Till my iridium-sponge brain oxidizes away—which may not be for centuries.” I went on very seriously. “Yes, Jack, that’s been my thought, too. I’ve been content in these past weeks to just learn something of life. But I must have a purpose in this world, a place. My kind can be useful to civilization.”
“You mean you’re thinking of having more robots built like you?”
I shook my head, a mannerism I had picked up quite naturally.
“No, not yet. First I, the Adam of all intelligent robots, must find out many things. I must adjust myself to useful life among humans, so that I—can later show the way to others of my kind. But just how best to serve mankind, I’m not quite sure. I—”
The phone rang. Jack answered, and then called me to it, explaining it was Dr. Poison.
“Adam Link?” the biologist said. “I was at your court trial. You were asked many scientific questions there, in the defense’s proof of your intelligence, and you answered them all. I remember particularly that when asked what hormone promotes growth, you not only gave the name but the formula. I’ve finally checked with that clue, and found you’re right. But good Heavens”—now the voice became excited—“how did you know a formula no other scientist on Earth knew?”
“I deduced the formula,” I answered truthfully, “from existing data.”
A strange sort of sigh came from the scientist. “I’m glad I helped save you from extinction, Adam Link. Come and work with us,” he begged. “You’re a genius.”
I pondered that for a long time, that is, long for me—several seconds. “No,” I returned, hanging up.
But when I faced Jack Hall again, it had clarified in my mind—what I wanted to do. “I will become a consultant, Jack. That is my place in life.” I went on, outlining what I meant.
“Fine,” agreed my friend. “That way you’ll make a living, not to mention money. I’ll set you up in an office—”
CHAPTER 6
Making a Living
And that was how I went into business, with an office on the 22nd floor of the Marie Building, downtown. On the office door were the gold-leaf letters: “Adam Link, Incorporated.” Jack’s idea, of course.
He also arranged my advertising, and gave me free publicity in his paper. And so, soon, I was “making a living” although that thought is rather incongruous to me. My purpose is not to do the best for myself, but to do my best for others.
Within a month, people flocked for my services. Chemists came to me with knotty reactions, on paper. I straightened them out, on paper. Often I failed. But more often I helped. Every industry in the city sought me out, on problems ranging anywhere from proper factory lighting to the intricacies of subatomic researches. I worked mainly with formulae, using the hammer of mathematics to straighten the bent implements of industry.
It is hard to explain my ability to do these things. To correct a chemical reaction, for instance, without ever seeing the ingredients, or coming within a mile of the laboratory. I had been reading steadily, having gone through every scientific and technical book in several libraries. I bought all the latest scientific and trade journals and books. I read each with my television eyes, in a few minutes. I remembered every word, every equation, with my indelible memory. And somehow, my iridium-sponge brain integrated all this knowledge, with the sureness of a machine.
I suppose it seems a sort of miraculous ability. You will have to take my word for it. Or else, I can show you the records of checks received for my services. Money began to pour in. I never set a fee. Checks came in unsolicited, from grateful business men.
And now I come to the more significant part of what I wish to set down. Almost, I feel it is no use to write of it—that I can never explain. But so much nonsense, some of it shamefully rude, has been written about this that I feel I must at least try to show how it came about. How, if not why.
Jack Hall had been dropping in regularly, helping me organize the consultant business, and handling my accounts. Banking my money one day, he came back whistling in surprise.
“Adam, old man,” he said, “you’re making money hand over fist. And your accounts are becoming involved. You need a secretary.” He snapped his fingers. “I know just the girl—good worker and a good looker—” He broke off. Sometimes it was hard for him to remember that I was a metal man, not flesh and blood. “She’s out of a job right now,” he continued. “She’s had dozens of them. They never last. Why? Because she’s pretty, and her various ex-bosses forgot she came just to work.”
I knew what he meant. Through Jack I have learned of that phase of human life which, I’m afraid, will never be quite clear to me.
Jack brought her in the next day.
She was pretty; in fact, beautiful. I can appreciate natural beauty. Jack had often taken me on drives, through woodland scenery. Though he does not know it, he is romantic by nature. I remember one view, from a high hill, overlooking sweeping fields and woods, with piled white clouds above. We stood together, drinking it in. One needs only a mind to appreciate those things. I have a mind.
Kay Temple was beautiful, I repeat. Pleasant, classical features, with hazel eyes that could smile or look faintly tragic. Her hair was dark, with a soft sheen to it in sunlight. When she walked, there was grace in every movement.
“How do you do, Mr. Link?” she said, coming forward a little hesitantly and extending her hand. Her voice was low, musical, to my sensitive mechanical tympanums, whereas so many human voices are strident.
Her soft little hand, resting in my cold, hard metallic substitute for one, was a new experience for me. Not physical, of course. It was just that the incongruous contrast suddenly made it clear to me that I was a man, in mind, not a woman. This is understandable, in that I had begun life, under Dr. Link, purely from the man’s viewpoint. That is, I had come to think of and see all things in that peculiar way human males do as distinguished from human females.
And Kay Temple’s presence suddenly made that clear to me. For I saw instantly that I couldn’t read her feelings, or her outlook, as quickly as I could all human men with whom I had come in contact. She was, from the first moment—mystery.
“Here you are, Kay,” said Jack bustlingly, sweeping a hand around. “Your new job. Up and coming business. Fine boss. Don’t say your Uncle Jack hasn’t done right by you.”
I smiled to myself. Solely by the strange inflection he gave the words, “Uncle Jack,” I knew he was hopelessly in love with her. How could I know that? How can I know even the meaning of the words “in love”—I, a robot of cold, senseless metal, with a heart consisting of an electrical distributor? You will see—later.
“Thanks much, Jack,” she said in a quiet, earnest way. I tried to read her attitude toward Jack, but failed utterly. She was again—mystery.
I thanked Jack myself, earnestly, a few days later. Kay Temple was a godsend to me in the business, which had begun to grow unwieldy. She was efficiency itself. She handled all appointments, calls, fees, recording. She made the suggestion one day that I set a minimum fee of a thousand dollars an hour, to limit my clientele. I was, after all, but one person. The fee was not too high. I often solved problems in minutes.
After business hours, the three of us would sometimes go out together. I joined them at dinners, though food does not pass my lips, of course. My “food” consists of electrical current, supplied by powerful batteries within the pelvic part of my frame. In my spare moments, I had devised a more compact and powerful battery so that I could “run” a week with
out change, instead of the forty-eight hours Dr. Link had originally started me with.
After dinner, we would go to a show or play, or some other entertainment. I enjoy them as much as anyone else. If they are good. If they aren’t I enjoy them as the ridiculous nonsense with which you humans so often attempt to entertain each other. I am afraid that in such cases, I laugh at, rather than with them. I am not taking a superior stand, though. I would warrant that a world of robots, like myself, would also plumb the depths of shallow absurdity to while away dull hours.
Yes, I know hours of dullness, too. I am not all steady industry, activity, the tirelessness of a machine. There are times when my brain sags, when a “blue” feeling steals over me, when things seem hollow, empty. And remember that I have twenty-four hours a day to fill. Sometimes I long to have the gift of sleep.
Perhaps you think I am merely trying to make myself out as near-human in my mental processes. I could know all those things simply by reading. I have no answer for that, except what happened later.
To get back to my companions and “night life,” I recall with mixed pleasure and pain one certain evening, in a cabaret. The master-of-ceremonies, picking out celebrities, finally turned the limelight on me.
“Adam Link, ladies and gentlemen!” he said. “The talking, walking, thinking robot. Be he man or be he beast, he’s got what it takes. His weekly income would make most of us turn bright green with envy. We all know of his heroism in the fire, and saving a child. Take a bow, Adam. You can see, folks, that he doesn’t do it with mirrors. Nor is he run by strings. He’s the real thing!”
I arose and bowed slightly, at Jack’s urging. I did not mind the master-of-ceremony’s bantering, for beneath it there had been respect. And the answering burst of applause was wholehearted. I felt a deep glow. Now, more than before, I realized I had been accepted in the world of man. Even the inevitable autograph-hunter boldly walked up, held out his book. I signed with my usual scrawl, since I do not have the fine control over my hands that you humans have.
“Wait!” said the master-of-ceremonies, as I was about to sit down. “Take a chair, there, Adam, and show us how you can crumple it up like matchwood with your hands. Go ahead—we’ll gladly stand the cost. He doesn’t know his own strength, folks. And yet, he’s gentle as a lamb. Okay, Adam—”
But this I did not want to do. I do not care to display my brute powers, when it is my mind that counts. Jack, quick to see this, hastily signaled negatively to the man.
“Sorry, Adam,” the master-of-ceremonies said smoothly. “No offense. So instead we’ll play a brand new ditty one of my boys composed. It’ll be a hit, or I’m a robot! Title—Who Do I Mean? Warble it, Honey!”
It is a hit. You’ve all heard it. “Honey,” the club’s singer, rendered it nicely. I listened, a bit bewildered.
“He has a heart of gold,
And nerves of steel,
He rattles like a dish pan,
And never eats a meal.
Who do I mean?
Why, Adam Link the r-O-O-bot!”
He has a silvery voice And an iron grip,
One thing he cannot do,
Is take an ocean dip.
Who do I mean?
Why, Adam Link the r-o-o-bot!”
Again there was applause, almost wild, and I was forced to take another bow. It had “brought down the house.”
And then it was that a voice rose from the next table.
“Aw, all this fuss over a junk-man,” growled a beefy man, with two empty bottles of champagne beside his elbow. “Haw, haw, that’s good—junk-man! Get it?” He was speaking to his lady companion, ostensibly, but really to the whole house. “Hey, Frankenstein!” He turned to me, looking me up and down appraisingly. “Let’s see—I’ll offer 95$ and not a penny more.” He guffawed coarsely.
A queer silence came over the room. Everybody looked around. It was an open insult. And everybody wondered, no doubt, if I had feelings that could be hurt. I did. But I said nothing. Jack started up, face livid, but I pulled him back.
The man’s companion had whispered to him. “Aw, I’m not afraid of him,” his drunken tongue boasted. He staggered erect to his feet and leered at me, and in his hand he held—a can-opener. For a split instant I half rose to my feet and felt the restraining hand of Kay on my metal arms. And then my tormentor spoke again. What he said made me subside immediately. “Want to make anything of it, Frankenstein?” he asked.
Frankenstein, again. Would it always hound me, all my life? I could see vague fears steal into people’s faces. No matter how calmly I was accepted, there was always that lurking distrust. The fear that at any moment I would show the beast in me. There must be a beast in me, of course. Maybe you humans think that way because you know of the beast within yourselves. But I do not mean to be bitter.
We left. There was nothing else to do. In a taxi on the way home I felt sunk in moodiness. Jack and Kay looked at me. Kay suddenly put her hand on my arm.
“I just want to say, Adam Link,” she said earnestly, “that you’re more man than many so-called men. You have—yes, character!” She said it in a sort of awed tone, as though it had suddenly struck her. “Please don’t think about what happened.”
And that is one of the memories I’ll carry with me to my grave, wherever and whenever it will be. Kay Temple that day made such things easier to bear.
I record the following incident purely to show I was not a “hero” in any sense of the word as the newspapers insisted. I had gone to the bank, to deposit several checks in my account. As I stood at the wall counter, filling out the blank, I heard a rough voice say:
“This is a stick-up! Don’t move anybody!”
I turned, stood still. Three masked bandits were advancing, with submachine guns. The few depositors threw up their hands, white-faced. One bandit barked to the clerks behind the grill to hand out money, in a hurry. The other two stood on guard, eyes shifting around, ready to shoot. Outside, at the curb, I could see a big black car with motor running, waiting for the getaway.
I hadn’t made a move since turning around. I saw the nervous, watchful eyes of the guarding men flick over me impersonally. In their tense state, they didn’t see who I was. They probably took me, without thinking, as some metallic fixture of the place. I was in shadow.
I thought rapidly. Then I leaped for the bandit nearest the door, at the same time yelling “down!” at the other people. My leap was so instantaneous, so surprising, that I reached the man and wrenched his gun away before he even thought of shooting.
But the other bandit sprang into action. His submachine gun coughed harshly. Bullets rattled against my middle—they always shoot for the abdomen, I understand. And that was what made it simple for me. My middle body is sheathed with thick metal plates. Bullets cannot penetrate. But bullets higher, into my eyes, or face-piece, would have stopped me—even killed me.
I ran directly into the hail of bullets. Suddenly the bandit was aware of his target. His eyes opened wide, shocked. His gun dropped from nerveless fingers. He backed away with a shriek of utter terror, and then fainted.
Now I went for the third man. He had whirled, brought up his gun. Evidently a little harder to scare, and shrewder, he raked bullets at me. And he suddenly raised the muzzle, to shoot higher, at my head.
That was the only moment of danger. Instantly, I dove under his fire, clanked against the floor on my chest plates and slid across the tile toward him, like a metal baseball player stealing home. Before he could swing the gun down, I had grasped his ankle and jerked him off his feet. My grip also snapped his delicate ankle bones. He was through, too.
This had all happened in seconds.
The two men outside in the car, hearing the shots, came to the window to look, faces aghast, and then jumped back. I saw I had no time to run to the door to stop them. Instead, I ran straight for the big plate-glass window and crashed through in a shower of glass. The car was just starting to move.
I thought of grasp
ing the rear bumper, trying to hold the car back, or even overturning it. But I estimated, in lightning thought, it would be beyond even my powers, with the engine already in gear. The car’s weight alone would not have stopped me.
Secondly, I thought of jumping on the running-board, poking a hand through the window, and yanking the steering wheel away. But the runaway car might then smash up somewhere. I myself might end up crushed.
There was only one possibility left. I had not slowed one bit after crashing through the window. I overtook the car, just starting to zoom into second gear, and ran ahead of it. Then I turned, running backwards—still faster than the car—and just stared at the two bandits in the front seat.
I figured the psychological effect correctly. Instinctively, the driver jammed on his brakes, perhaps visioning 500 pounds of metal ramming through his windshield if he ran me down.
Then it was that I jumped on the running-board, wrenched the steering wheel off its post. Completely unnerved, the two bandits shrank back, babbling for mercy, thinking I was about to tear them apart too. And so, a few minutes later, the police had all five of them.
It was nothing “heroic” on my part—you humans have a strange “hero” complex—but simply use of my machine-given powers. I vision some day a police force of robots like myself…
But that will not be for a while. Not till I am sure others of my kind really belong in the world of man. Perhaps never. I say this, now, thinking back to what has happened.
My business went along smoothly, with Kay in charge of all details. But more and more I began to notice her watching me, surreptitiously, in a strange way. I seldom caught her at it. When I looked—I have to turn my whole head to look—she would be staring impersonally at her typewriter. But I could feel her eyes on me. Again I failed to reason out why she did that. She was, as I imagine women have always been to men—mystery.