Alternating Currents (26 page)

‘Dead ?’ cried Burckhardt; it was almost a scream.

The blue eyes looked at him unwinkingly and he knew that it was no lie. He swallowed, marvelling at the intricate mechanisms that let him swallow, and sweat, and eat.

He said: ‘Oh. The explosion in my dream.’

‘It was no dream. You are right - the explosion. That was real and this plant was the cause of it. The storage tanks let go and what the blast didn’t get, the fumes killed a little later. But almost everyone died in the blast, twenty-one thousand persons. You died with them and that was Dorchin’s chance.’

‘The damned ghoul!’ said Burckhardt.

The twisted shoulders shrugged with an odd grace. ‘Why? You were gone. And you and all the others were what Dorchin wanted - a whole town, a perfect slice of America. It’s as easy to transfer a pattern from a dead brain as a living one. Easier - the dead can’t say no. Oh, it took work and money - the town was a wreck - but it was possible to rebuild it entirely, especially because it wasn’t necessary to have all the details exact.

‘There were the homes where even the brain had been utterly destroyed, and those are empty inside, and the cellars that needn’t be too perfect, and the streets that hardly matter. And anyway, it only has to last for one day. The same day - June 15th - over and over again; and if someone finds something a little wrong, somehow, the discovery won’t have time to snowball, wreck the validity of the tests, because all errors are cancelled out at midnight.’

The face tried to smile. ‘That’s the dream, Mr Burckhardt, that day of June 15th, because you never really lived it. It’s a present from Mr Dorchin, a dream that he gives you and then takes back at the end of the day, when he has all his figures on how many of you respond to what variation of which appeal, and the maintenance crews go down the tunnel to go through the whole city, washing out the new dream with their little electronic drains, and then the dream starts all over again. On June 15th.

‘Always June 15th, because June 14th is the last day any of you can remember alive. Sometimes the crews miss someone - as they missed you, because you were under your boat. But it doesn’t matter. The ones who are missed give themselves away if they show it - and if they don’t, it doesn’t affect the test. But they don’t drain us, the ones of us who work for Dorchin. We sleep when the power is turned off, just as you do. When we wake up, though, we remember.’ The face contorted wildly. ‘If I could only forget!’

Burckhardt said unbelievingly, ‘All this to sell merchandise! It must have cost millions!’

The robot called April Horn said, ‘It did. But it has made millions for Dorchin, too. And that’s not the end of it. Once he finds the master words that make people act, do you suppose he will stop with that ? Do you suppose -’

The door opened, interrupting her. Burckhardt whirled. Belatedly remembering Dorchin’s flight, he ran for the gun.

‘Don’t shoot,’ ordered the voice calmly. It was not Dorchin; it was another robot, this one not disguised with the clever plastics and cosmetics, but shining plain. It said metallically, ‘Forget it, Burckhardt. You’re not accomplishing anything. Give me that gun before you do any more damage. Give it to me
now.’

Burckhardt bellowed angrily. The gleam of this robot torso was steel; Burckhardt was not at all sure that his bullets would pierce it, or do much harm if they did. He would have put it to the test -

But from behind him came a whimpering, scurrying whirlwind: its name was Swanson, hysterical with fear. He catapulted into Burckhardt and sent him sprawling, the gun flying free.

‘Please!’ begged Swanson incoherently, prostrate before the steel robot. ‘He would have shot you - please don’t hurt me! Let me work for you, like that girl. I’ll do anything, anything you tell me -’

The robot voice said, ’We don’t need your help.’ It took two precise steps and stood over the gun - and spurned it, left it lying on the floor.

The wrecked blonde robot said, without emotion, ‘I doubt that I can hold out much longer, Mr Dorchin.’

‘Disconnect if you have to,’ replied the steel robot.

Burckhardt blinked. ‘But you’re not Dorchin!’

The steel robot turned deep eyes on him. ‘I am,’ it said. ‘Not in the flesh - but this is the body I am using at the moment. I doubt that you can damage this one with the gun. The other robot body was more vulnerable. Now will you stop this nonsense ? I don’t want to have to damage you; you’re too expensive for that. Will you just sit down and let the maintenance crews adjust you ?’

Swanson grovelled. ‘You - you won’t punish us ?’

The steel robot had no expression, but its voice was almost surprised. ‘Punish you ?’ it repeated on a rising note. ‘How ?’

Swanson quivered as though the word had been a whip; but Burckhardt flared: ‘Adjust
him,
if he’ll let you - but not me! You’re going to have to do me a lot of damage, Dorchin. I don’t care what I cost or how much trouble it’s going to be to put me back together again. But I’m going out of that door! If you want to stop me, you’ll have to kill me. You won’t stop me any other way!’

The steel robot took a half-step towards him, and Burckhardt involuntarily checked his stride. He stood poised and shaking, ready for death, ready for attack, ready for anything that might happen.

Ready for anything except what did happen. For Dorchin’s steel body merely stepped aside, between Burckhardt and the gun, but leaving the door free.

‘Go ahead,’ invited the steel robot. ’Nobody’s stopping you.’

~ * ~

Outside the door, Burckhardt brought up sharp. It was insane of Dorchin to let him go! Robot or flesh, victim or beneficiary, there was nothing to stop him from going to the F.B.I, or whatever law he could find away from Dorchin’s sympathetic empire, and telling his story. Surely the corporations who paid Dorchin for test results had no notion of the ghoul’s technique he used; Dorchin would have to keep it from them, for the breath of publicity would put a stop to it. Walking out meant death, perhaps, but at that moment in his pseudo-life, death was no terror for Burckhardt.

There was no one in the corridor. He found a window and stared out of it. There was Tylerton - an ersatz city, but looking so real and familiar that Burckhardt almost imagined the whole episode a dream. It was no dream, though. He was certain of that in his heart and equally certain that nothing in Tylerton could help him now.

It had to be the other direction.

It took him a quarter of an hour to find a way, but he found it - skulking through the corridors, dodging the suspicion of footsteps, knowing for certain that his hiding was in vain, for Dorchin was undoubtedly aware of every move he made. But no one stopped him, and he found another door.

It was a simple enough door from the inside. But when he opened it and stepped out, it was like nothing he had ever seen.

First there was light - brilliant, incredible, blinding light. Burckhardt blinked upward, unbelieving and afraid.

He was standing on a ledge of smooth, finished metal. Not a dozen yards from his feet, the ledge dropped sharply away; he hardly dared approach the brink, but even from where he stood he could see no bottom to the chasm before him. And the gulf extended out of sight into the glare on either side of him.

No wonder Dorchin could so easily give him his freedom! From the factory there was nowhere to go. But how incredible this fantastic gulf, how impossible the hundred white and blinding suns that hung above!

A voice by his side said inquiringly, ‘Burckhardt?’ And thunder rolled the name, mutteringly soft, back and forth in the abyss before him.

Burckhardt wet his lips. ‘Y-yes?’ he croaked.

‘This is Dorchin. Not a robot this time, but Dorchin in the flesh, talking to you on a hand mike. Now you have seen, Burckhardt. Now will you be reasonable and let the maintenance crews take over?’

Burckhardt stood paralysed. One of the moving mountains in the blinding glare came towards him.

It towered hundreds of feet over his head; he stared up at its top, squinting helplessly into the light.

It looked like -

Impossible!

The voice in the loudspeaker at the door said, ‘Burckhardt?’ But he was unable to answer.

A heavy rumbling sigh. ‘I see,’ said the voice. ‘You finally understand. There’s no place to go. You know it now. I could have told you, but you might not have believed me, so it was better for you to see it yourself. And after all, Burckhardt, why would I reconstruct a city just the way it was before ? I’m a businessman; I count costs. If a thing has to be full-scale, I build it that way. But there wasn’t any need to in this case.’

From the mountain before him, Burckhardt helplessly saw a lesser cliff descend carefully towards him. It was long and dark, and at the end of it was whiteness, five-fingered whiteness ...

‘Poor little Burckhardt,’ crooned the loudspeaker, while the echoes rumbled through the enormous chasm that was only a workshop. ‘It must have been quite a shock for you to find out you were living in a town built on a table top.’

~ * ~

It was the morning of June 15th, and Guy Burckhardt woke up screaming out of a dream.

It had been a monstrous and incomprehensible dream, of explosions and shadowy figures that were not men and terror beyond words.

He shuddered and opened his eyes.

Outside his bedroom window, a hugely amplified voice was howling.

Burckhardt stumbled over to the window and stared outside. There was an out-of-season chill to the air, more like October than June; but the scene was normal enough - except for a sound-truck that squatted at curbside half-way down the block. Its speaker horns blared:

‘Are you a coward? Are you a fool? Are you going to let crooked politicians steal the country from you! no! Are you going to put up with four more years of graft and crime ? NO ! Are you going to vote straight Federal Party all up and down the ballot? yes!
You just bet you are!’

Sometimes he screams, sometimes he wheedles, threatens, begs, cajoles . . . but his voice goes on and on through one June 15th after another.

<>

~ * ~

What To Do Until the Analyst Comes

I just sent my secretary out for a container of coffee and she brought me back a lemon Coke.

I can’t even really blame her. Who in all the world do I have to blame, except myself? Hazel was a good secretary to me for fifteen years, fine at typing, terrific at brushing off people I didn’t want to see, and the queen of them all at pumping office gossip out of the ladies’ lounge. She’s a little fuzzy-brained most of the time now, sure. But after all!

I can say this for myself, I didn’t exactly know what I was getting into. No doubt you remember the - Well, let me start that sentence over again, because naturally there is a certain doubt. Perhaps, let’s say,
perhaps
you remember the two doctors and their headline report about cigarettes and lung cancer. It hit us pretty hard at VandenBlumer & Silk, because we’ve been eating off the Mason-Dixon Tobacco account for twenty years. Just figure what our fifteen per cent amounted to on better than ten million dollars net billing a year, and you’ll see that for yourself. What happened first was all to the good, because naturally the first thing that the client did was scream and reach for his chequebook and pour another couple million dollars into special promotions to counteract the bad press, but that couldn’t last. And we knew it. V.B. & S. is noted in the trade as an advertising agency that takes the long view; we saw at once that if the client was in danger, no temporary spurt of advertising was going to pull him out of it, and it was time for us to climb up on top of the old mountain and take a good long look at the countryside ahead.

The Chief called a special Plans meeting that morning and laid it on the line for us. ‘There goes the old fire bell, boys,’ he said, ‘and it’s up to us to put the fire out. I’m listening, so start talking.’

Baggott cleared his throat and said glumly, ‘It may only be the paper, Chief. Maybe if they make them without paper . . .’ He’s the a.e. for Mason-Dixon, so you couldn’t really blame him for taking the client’s view.

The Chief twinkled: ‘If they make them without paper they aren’t cigarettes any more, are they? Let’s not wander off into side issues, boys. I’m still listening.’

None of us wanted to wander off into side issues, so we all looked patronizingly at Baggott for a minute. Finally Ellen Silk held up her hand. ‘I don’t want you to think,’ she said, ‘that just because Daddy left me a little stock I’m going to push my way into things, Mr VandenBlumer, but - well, did you have in mind finding some, uh, angle to play on that would take the public’s mind off the report ?’

You have to admire the Chief. ‘Is that your recommendation, my dear?’ he inquired fondly, bouncing the ball right back to her.

She said weakly, ‘
I
don’t know. I’m confused.’

‘Naturally, my dear,’ he beamed. ‘So are we all. Let’s see if Charley here can straighten us out a little. Eh, Charley ?’

He was looking at me. I said at once, ‘I’m glad you asked me for an opinion, Chief. I’ve been doing a little thinking, and here’s what I’ve come up with.’ I ticked off the points on my fingers. ‘One, tobacco makes you cough. Two, liquor gives you a hangover. Three, reefers and the other stuff - well, let’s just say they’re against the law.’ I slapped the three fingers against the palm of my other hand. ‘So what’s left for us, Chief? That’s my question. Can we come up with something new, something different, something that, one, is not injurious to the health, two, does not give you a hangover, three, is not habit-forming and therefore against the law ?’