The Doctor and the Rough Rider (20 page)

R
OOSEVELT SPENT THE NEXT TWO DAYS IN THE
O
RIENTAL
. He ate his meals there, he slept there, he frequently cursed the fact that he couldn't
bathe there, and he waited there, surrounded by his Rough Riders and other friends
standing guard in rotation. Buntline had even sent over a reconditioned robotic prostitute,
which was now his cook and housemaid, to patrol the outside of the building.

“She can see in almost total darkness,” explained Buntline when he brought the robot
to the Oriental, “she can hear sounds that are even beyond a dog's ability to hear,
and since she has no emotions—I removed the more primitive ones that people paid for—I
guarantee neither War Bonnet nor anything else the medicine men can produce is going
to scare her.”

Roosevelt was picking at some fried eggs when the robot entered the saloon. He looked
up at her curiously.

“He wants you,” said the robot.

“He's finally got it built—whatever it is?” asked Roosevelt, getting to his feet.

“All I know is that he has sent for you.”

“I'm on my way,” said Roosevelt, grabbing his hat from where he'd hung it on the back
of the chair and heading for the swinging doors with the robot following him.

“Hey, honey, don't be in such a hurry to leave,” said Luke Sloan.

“My duties have ended,” replied the robot. “There is no reason to remain.”

“I could show you one or two,” said Sloan as Roosevelt walked out the door and hurried
down the street. A moment later he heard a crash and turned to see Sloan hurled through
the plate-glass window, landing past the raised sidewalk and into the dirt street
with a
thud
.

Roosevelt smiled but kept walking, and a few moments later came to Edison's house.
The door was open, and he walked right up to it.

“Is this thing working?” he called out, stopping a few feet short of it.

“It's working just fine,” said Edison's voice through a crude metal speaker that was
positioned above the door.

“It's wide open.”

“That's because it's been told to let you in. If you were anyone else, even Doc, it
would have slammed in your face. Now, are you going to stand out there in the sun
all day, or are you going to come in and see what we've got for you?”

Roosevelt entered the house, saw that the living room was empty, and made his way
to the office, where Edison and Buntline were waiting for him.

“From what I saw over at the Oriental, all I really need is one of those metal harlots
to protect me,” said Roosevelt. “She packs quite a wallop.”

“They should have left her alone,” said Buntline. “She's not programmed for that kind
of thing anymore.” He paused. “I assume someone laid lecherous hands on her?”

“All I saw was the aftermath,” replied Roosevelt. “A body flying
through the window into the street. You wouldn't know she was that strong to look
at her.”

“She has that in common with a lot of women,” said Edison with a smile.

“I need her to be that strong,” said Buntline. “She can lift an entire brass stagecoach
if she has to.”

“You make her sound like Kate Elder,” commented Roosevelt with a grin.

“Doc's Kate?” replied Buntline. “If this one had Kate's temper, she'd probably have
killed
both
sides by now—us and the Indians.”

“Hard to imagine her as a prostitute.”

“That is definitely
not
what she and the others were created for,” said Buntline heatedly. “Medical science
is making progress, but the War between the States left us a nation of cripples. If
you were shot in an arm or a leg, the odds were fifty-fifty that they were going to
have to amputate that limb if you were to live.”

“Ah!” said Roosevelt. “I'm starting to understand.”

“The first few successful experiments weren't robots like you saw, Theodore,” said
Edison. “We created them just to offset the costs, since the government was paying
me to learn how the Indians worked their magic and to combat it, not to find out how
to replace amputated limbs. Anyway, the first few were women with metal legs or arms.
Some of them wound up working for Kate Elder, who offered us a very healthy fee if
we could make one hundred percent robotic prostitutes for her brothel. Not only were
they a unique attraction, but they never got sick, they never asked for more money,
they were never bought away by rival establishments, they worked twenty-four hours
each and every day, they never had periods, they—”

“Stop, Tom,” interrupted Buntline. Edison turned to him questioningly. Buntline smiled.
“You were getting too enthused.”

Edison actually blushed. “Anyway,” he concluded, “it was quite a breakthrough. Once
we're back East, I plan to present papers and demonstrations at the leading medical
colleges—with Ned's assistance, of course.”

“That's fascinating,” said Roosevelt. “It truly is.”

“Thank you.”

“But I have a more pressing problem,” he continued. “I believe you summoned me here
to talk about it.”

“More than talk, Theodore,” said Edison. “As I said two days ago, there is no sense
going after War Bonnet's supernatural strengths, so we're going after his very human
weaknesses.” He turned to Buntline. “Ned? The clip-ons?”

“What's a clip-on?” asked Roosevelt.

“You'll see,” said Edison, as Buntline reached into a pocket and pulled out a pair
of dark, almost black lenses attached to a metal frame.

Edison took them from him, held them up to the light, and tried to peer through them.
“Good job,” he said approvingly, then turned to Roosevelt. “Theodore, the fact that
you wear glasses may actually prove to be a benefit in your coming confrontation.”

“That'll be a first,” said Roosevelt.

“Trust me, it'll buy you a couple of seconds, and you just may need those seconds
in a life-and-death battle with War Bonnet.”

“I need every advantage I can get when I go up against him,” said Roosevelt with conviction.
“As awesome as I made him sound, he's even more so in person.”

Edison walked over, lenses in hand, and reached out for Roosevelt's glasses. Roosevelt
instinctively pulled his head back.

“It's all right, Theodore,” said Edison. “I'm not going to hurt you.”

“I know that, Tom,” replied Roosevelt. “I just have this tendency
to protect my eyes.” He reached up to remove his glasses. “Here, you can have them.”

“No,” said Edison. “Leave them on—and believe me, I'm not about to poke your eye out.”

Roosevelt held still while Edison reached out with the lenses, and clipped them onto
the top of the glasses’ frame.

“It works,” he said happily.

“I told you it would,” said Buntline. “Now flip them down.”

Edison lowered the darkened lenses on tiny hinges until they totally covered Roosevelt's
own lenses.

“Works perfectly,” announced Buntline.

“I don't want to disillusion you,” said Roosevelt. “But I can't see a damned thing,”

“Better now than later,” said Buntline.

“What the hell are you talking about?” demanded Roosevelt.

“I'll explain it in a moment,” said Edison. “Now, gently, so you don't break them
or detach them, flick the dark lenses up so that you're looking at me through your
regular glasses again.”

Roosevelt did as he was told.

“What do you think?” asked Edison.

“Perfect,” said Buntline. “If they didn't work, we'd have had to put them in real
frames, he couldn't have worn his own glasses, and who knows how blind he is without
them?”

“Follow me, Theodore,” said Edison, walking through his living room and out into his
front yard with Roosevelt and Buntline falling into step behind him.

“Just about high noon, wouldn't you say?” asked Edison.

“Give or take ten minutes,” agreed Roosevelt.

“Good. Look up into the sun.”

“Really?” said Roosevelt, frowning. “Why?”

“Just do it, please.”

Roosevelt looked up. Within ten seconds his eyes were watering, and in another five
he had to shut them and turn away.

“Thank you, Theodore.”

“What was
that
all about?” demanded Roosevelt.

“You'll see in a moment. Now fold those black lenses down over your glasses.”

“All right,” said Roosevelt.

“Can you see me?”

Roosevelt shook his head.

“And of course you couldn't see me in the house.”

“That's right.”

“Good. Now look up at the sun.”

Roosevelt looked straight overhead.

“Can you see it?” asked Edison.

“Just barely,” said Roosevelt. “As if it's three times as far away as usual on a very
foggy day.”

“Keep looking,” said Edison, staring at his watch.

“What's this all about, Tom?”

“Soon. Just keep looking.”

Roosevelt stood motionless, his head tilted back.

“Okay,” said Edison. “You're done. Take 'em off and let's go back into the house.”

Roosevelt followed Edison and Buntline back inside. This time they didn't go into
the office but seated themselves in the living room, and he followed suit.

“What do you think?” asked Edison.

“I think he'll be all right.”

“Well, that's the first half of it.”

“Would one of you mind telling me what you're talking about, and
what the purpose of my staring into the sun through those things was?”

“You want to get it, Ned?”

Buntline got up. “I'll be right back,” he said, heading off to the enclosed passageway
between the two houses.

“As I said, Theodore, there was no sense trying to find something that could pierce
War Bonnet's skin, or even give him some massive electric shock. You say he's invulnerable,
Geronimo says so, and based on my observations of Indian magic, I have no trouble
believing it. But based on everything you and Doc have told me from your separate
encounters with him, he can see.”

Roosevelt frowned. “Of course he can.”

“The eye is a very complex organ, but it functions pretty much the same in all living
things—men, horses, fish, dogs, birds, you name it.”

“All right,” said Roosevelt. “Eyes operate the same.”

“Then believe me when I tell you that no living thing can stare into the sun for much
longer than you did a few moments ago, at least not without the kind of protection
we created for your glasses.”

“You're not suggesting that you've found a way to make him stare into the sun,” said
Roosevelt.

“Almost,” said Edison with a smile as Buntline returned to the room, carrying a device
that was cylindrical, perhaps two feet long and six inches in diameter. There was
a trigger mechanism beneath it, and a cord emanating from the back.

“Looks heavy,” remarked Roosevelt.

“It has to be, for what it's got to do,” said Buntline. “And it's got an even heavier
battery. I hope you're in good shape, Theodore.”

Roosevelt took the weapon from Buntline, hefted it, spun around once with it. “I can
handle it,” he announced.

“Can you handle it with thirty or forty pounds strapped to your back?” asked Buntline.

“I suppose I'll have to.”

“Try holding it up, aimed right at me, with one hand.”

Roosevelt did so. “Now perhaps you'll tell me
why
I'll have to, which is to say, what does this weapon do?”

“Theodore,” explained Edison, “this mechanism produces a light that will affect the
eyes the way staring into the sun effected yours, and it'll do it within two seconds.
If War Bonnet saw you, and of course he did, if he avoided things that were in his
way, if he saw the rock that Doc says he lifted, then we have to assume his eyes will
react to light like anyone else's—and that means the three or four seconds after you
start firing this, he'll be blind, and stay blind for quite some time. You don't fire
time and again like a six-gun; you depress the trigger and hold it down. But
not
,” concluded Edison, “before you flip those black lenses down over your glasses. Even
from a position behind the gun, the world around you will get so bright so fast that
you will literally go blind in seconds, and since you're not a supernatural creature
whose eyes can be remade by your creators, you'll
stay
blind. So you
must
remember to flip those lenses down before you fire. The world will become so bright
in your immediate vicinity that you'll have no difficulty seeing through them. It
really won't look like a foggy night to you.”

Roosevelt handed the weapon back to Buntline.

“You look less than enthused,” noted Edison.

“Maybe you know something I don't know,” said Roosevelt, “but I agree with your statement
that he'll only be temporarily blind, and that Dull Knife and the others can fit him
out with a new pair of eyes easier and faster than you and Ned could fit a wound victim
out with a new arm or leg.”

Edison smiled.

“What's so funny?” demanded Roosevelt.

“You're right. We do know something you don't know.”

“Perhaps you'll enlighten me and then we'll all know it,” said Roosevelt irritably.