Invasion of the Robots

by Roger Elwood

  They reached the bottom of the stairs, and another door. This door was steel. There was a padlock on it, and Professor Blasserman had trouble with the combination in the dim light. His pudgy fingers trembled.

  “This is the nursery, eh?” observed the man with the pistol. “Junior ought to feel flattered with all this care.”

  The Professor did not reply. He opened the door, pressed a wall switch, and light flooded the chamber beyond the threshold.

  “Here we are,” he sighed.

  The tall man swept the room with a single searching glance—a professional observation he might have described as “casing the joint.”

  At first sight there was nothing to “case.”

  The fat little Professor and the thin gunman stood in the center of a large, cheery nursery. The walls were papered in baby blue, and along the borders of the paper were decorative figures of Disney animals and characters from Mother Goose.

  Over in the corner was a child’s blackboard, a stack of toys, and a few books of nursery rhymes. On the far side of the wall hung a number of medical charts and sheafs of papers.

  The only article of furniture was a long iron cot.

  All this was apparent to the tall, thin man in a single glance. After that his eyes ignored the background, and focused in a glittering stare at the figure seated on the floor amidst a welter of alphabet blocks.

  “So here he is,” said the tall man. “Junior himself! Well, well—who’d have ever suspected it?”

  Professor Blasserman nodded.

  “Yah," he said. “You have found me out. I still don’t know how, and I don’t know why. What do you want with him? Why do you pry into my affairs? Who are you?”

  “Listen, Professor,” said the tall man. “This isn’t Information Please. I don’t like questions. They bother me. They make my fingers nervous. Understand?”

  "Yah.”

  “Suppose I ask you a few questions for a change? And suppose you answer them—fast!”

  The voice commanded, and the gun backed up the command.

  “Tell me about Junior, now, Professor. Talk, and talk straight.”

  “What is there to say?” Professor Blasserman’s palms spread outward in a helpless gesture. “You see him.”

  “But what is he? What makes him tick?”

  “That I cannot explain. It took me twenty years to evolve Junior, as you call him. Twenty years of research at Basel, Zurich, Prague, Vienna. Then came this verdammt war and I fled to this country.

  “I brought my papers and equipment with me. Nobody knew. I was almost ready to proceed with my experiments. I came here and bought the house. I went to work. I am an old man. I have little time left. Otherwise I might have waited longer before actually going ahead, for my plans are not perfected. But I had to act. And here is the result.”

  “But why hide him? Why all the mystery?”

  “The world is not ready for such a thing yet,” said Professor Blasserman, sadly. “And besides, I must study. As you see, Junior is very young. Hardly out of the cradle, you might say. I am educating him now.”

  “In a nursery, eh?”

  “His brain is undeveloped, like that of any infant.”

  “Doesn’t look much like an infant to me.”

  “Physically, of course, he will never change. But the sensitized brain—that is the wonderful instrument. The human touch, my masterpiece. He will learn fast, very fast. And it is of the utmost importance that he be properly trained.”

  “What’s the angle, Professor?”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “What are you getting at? What are you trying to pull here? Why all the fuss?”

  “Science,” said Professor Blasserman. "This is my lifework.”

  “I don’t know how you did it,” said the tall man, shaking his head. “But it sure looks like something you get with a package of reefers.”

  For the first time the figure on the floor raised its head. Its eyes left t^e building blocks and stared up at the Professor and his companion.

  “Papa!”

  “God—it talks!” whispered the tall man.

  “Of course,” said Professor Blasserman. “Mentally it’s about six years old now.” His voice became gentle. “What is it, son?”

  “Who is that man, Papa?”

  “Oh—he is—”

  Surprisingly enough, the tall gunman interrupted. His own voice was suddenly gentle, friendly. “My name is Duke, son. Just call me Duke. I’ve come to see you.”

  “That’s nice. Nobody ever comes to see me, except Miss Wilson, of course. I hear so much about people and I don’t see anybody. Do you like to play with blocks?”

  “Sure, son, sure.”

  “Do you want to play with me?"

  “Why not?”

  Duke moved to the center of the room and dropped to his knees. One hand reached out and grasped an alphabet block.

  “Wait a minute—I don’t understand—what are you doing?” Professor Blasserman’s voice quivered.

  “I told you I’ve come here to visit Junior,” Duke replied. “That’s all there is to it. Now I’m going to play with him a while. You just wait there, Professor. Don’t go away. I’ve got to make friends with Junior.”

  While Professor Blasserman gaped, Duke the gunman squatted on the floor. His left hand kept his gun swivelled directly at the scientist’s waist, but his right hand slowly piled alphabet blocks into place.

  It was a touching scene there in the underground nursery—the tall thin gunman playing with building blocks for the benefit of the six-foot metal monstrosity that was Junior, the robot.

  Duke didn’t find out all he-wanted to know about Junior for many weeks. He stayed right at the house, of course, and kept close to Professor Blasserman.

  “I haven’t decided yet, see?” was his only answer to the old man’s repeated questions as to what he intended to do.

  But to Miss Wilson he was much more explicit. They met frequently and privately, in her room.

  Outwardly, Miss Wilson was the nurse, engaged by Professor Blasserman to assist in his queer experiment of bringing up a robot like a human child.

  Actually, Lola Wilson was Duke’s woman. He’d “planted” her in her job months ago. At that time, Duke expected to stage a robbery with the rich and eccentric European scientist as victim.

  Then Lola had reported the unusual nature of her job, and told Duke the story of Professor Blasserman’s unusual invention.

  “We gotta work out an angle," Duke decided. “I’d better take over. The old man’s scared of anyone finding out about bis robot, huh? Good! I’ll move right in on him. He’ll never squeal. I’ve got a hunch we’ll get more out of this than just some easy kale. This sounds big.”

  So Duke took over, came to live in Professor Blasserman’s big house, kept his eye on the scientist and his hand on his pistol.

  At night he talked to Lola in her room.

  “I can’t quite figure it, kid,” he said. “You say the old guy is a great scientist. That I believe. Imagine inventing a machine than can talk and think like a human being! But what’s his angle? Where’s his percentage in all this and why does he keep Junior hidden away?”

  “You don’t understand, honey,” said Lola, lighting Duke’s cigarette and running slim fingers through his wiry hair. “He’s an idealist, or whatever you call ’em. Figures the world isn’t ready for such a big new invention yet. You see, he’s really educating Junior just like you’d educate a real kid. Teaching him reading and writing—the works. Junior’s smart. He catches on fast. He thinks like he was ten years old already. The Professor keeps him shut away so nobody gives him a bum steer. He doesn't want Junior to get any wrong ideas.”

  “That’s where you fit in, eh?”

  “Sure. Junior hasn’t got a mother. I’m sort of a substitute old lady for him.”

  “You’re a swell influence on any brat,” Duke laughed, harshly. “A sweet character you’ve got!”

  “Shut up!�
�� The girl paced the floor, running her hands through a mass of tawny auburn curls on her neck. “Don’t needle me, Duke! Do you think I like stooging for you in this nuthouse? Keeping locked away with a nutty old goat, and acting like a nursemaid to that awful metal thing?

  “I’m afraid of Junior, Duke. I can’t stand his face, and the way he talks—with that damned mechanical voice of his, grinding at you just like he was a real person. I get jumpy. I get nightmares.

  “I’m just doing it for you, honey. So don’t needle me.”

  “I’m sorry.” Duke sighed. “I know how it is, baby. I don’t go for Junior’s personality so much myself. I’m pretty much in the groove, but there’s something that gets me in the stomach when I see that walking machine come hulking up like a big baby, made out of steel. He’s strong as an ox, too. He learns fast. He’s going to be quite a citizen.”

  “Duke.”

  “Yeah?”

  “When are we getting out of here? How long you gonna sit around and keep a rod on the Professor? He's liable to pull something funny. Why do you want to hang around and play with Junior? Why don’t you get hold of the Professor’s dough and beat it?

  “He’d be afraid to squawk, with Junior here. We could go away, like we planned.”

  “Shut up!” Duke grabbed Lola’s wrist and whirled her around. He stared at her face until she clung submissively to his shoulders.

  “You think I like to camp around this morgue?” he asked. “I want to get out of here just as much as you do. But I spent months lining up this job. Once it was just going to be a case of getting some easy kale and blowing. Now it’s more. I’m working on bigger angles. Pretty soon we’ll leave. And all the ends will be tied up, too. We won’t have to worry about anything any more. Just give me a few days. I’m talking to Junior every day, you know. And I’m getting places.*’

  “What do you mean?"

  Duke smiled. It was no improvement over his scowl.

  “The Professor told you how Junior gets his education,” he said. “Like any kid, he listens to what he’s told. And he imitates other people. Like any kid, he’s dumb. Practicularly because he doesn’t have an idea of what the outside world is really like. He’s a pushover for the right kind of sales talk.”

  “Duke—you don’t mean you’re—”

  “Why not?” His thin features were eloquent. “I’m giving Junior a little private education of my own. Not exactly the kind that would please the Professor. But he’s a good pupil. He’s coming right along. In a couple more weeks he’ll be an adult. With my kind of brains, not the Professor’s. And then we’ll be ready to go.”

  “You can’t do such a thing! It isn’t—”

  “Isn’t what?” snapped Duke. “Isn’t honest, or legal, or something? I never knew you had a Sunday School streak in you, Lola.”

  “It isn’t that, exactly,” said the girl. “But it’s a worse kind of wrong. Like taking a baby and teaching it to shoot a gun.”

  Duke whistled.

  “Say!” he exclaimed. “That’s a swell idea, Lola! I think I’ll just sneak down to the nursery now and give Junior a few lessons.”

  “You can’t!”

  “Watch me.”

  Lola didn’t follow, and Lola didn’t watch. But ten minutes later Duke squatted in the locked nursery chamber beside the gleaming metal body of the robot.

  The robot, with its blunt muzzle thrust forward on a corrugated neck, peered through meshed glass eye-lenses at the object Duke held in his hand.

  “It’s a gun, Junior,” the thin man whispered. “A gun, like I been telling you about.”

  “What does it do, Duke?”

  The buzzing voice droned in ridiculous caricature of a curious child’s treble.

  “It kills people, Junior. Like I was telling you the other day. It makes them die. You can’t die, Junior, and they can. So you’ve got nothing to he afraid of. You can kill lots of people if you know how to work this gun.”

  “Will you show me, Duke?”

  “Sure I will. And you know why, don’t you, Junior. I told you why, didn’t I?”

  “Yes. Because you are my friend, Duke.”

  “That’s right. I’m your friend. Not like the Professor.”

  “I hate the Professor.”

  “Right. Don’t forget it.”

  “Duke.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Let me see the gun, Duke.”

  Duke smiled covertly and extended the weapon on his open palm.

  “Now you will show me how to work it because you are my friend, and I will kill people and I hate the Professor and nobody can kill me,” babbled the robot.

  “Yeah, Junior, yeah. I’ll teach you to kill,” said the Duke. He grinned and bent over the gun in the robot’s curiously meshed metal hand.

  Junior stood at the blackboard, holding a piece of chalk in his right hand. The tiny white stub was clutched clumsily between two metallic fingers, but Junior’s ingeniously jointed arm moved up and down with approved Spencerian movement as he laboriously scrawled sentences on the blackboard.

  Junior was growing. The past three weeks had wrought great changes in the robot. No longer did the steel legs lumber about with childish indecision. Junior walked straight, like a young man. His grotesque metal head—a rounded ball with glass lenses in the eyeholes and a wide mouth like a radio loudspeaker aperture—was held erect on the metal neck with perfected coordination.

  Junior moved with new purpose these days. He had aged many years, relatively. His vocabulary had expanded. Then too, Duke’s secret “lessons” were bearing fruit. Junior was wise beyond his years.

  Now Junior wrote upon the blackboard in his hidden nursery chamber, and the inscrutable mechanism of his chemical, mechanically-controlled brain guided his steel fingers as he traced the awkward scrawls.

  “My name is Junior,” he wrote. “I can shoot a gun. The gun will kill, I like to kill. I hate the Professor. I will kill the Professor.”

  “What is the meaning of this?”

  Junior’s head turned abruptly as the sound of the voice set up the necessary vibrations in his shiny cranium.

  Professor Blasserman stood in the doorway.

  The old man hadn’t been in the nursery for weeks. Duke saw to that, keeping him locked in his room upstairs. Now he had managed to sneak out.

  His surprise was evident, and there was sudden shock, too, as his eyes focused on the blackboard’s message.

  Junior’s inscrutable gaze reflected no emotion whatsoever.

  “Go away,” his voice burred. “Go away. I hate you.”

  “Junior—what have you been doing? Who has taught you these things?”

  The old man moved towards the robot slowly, uncertainly. “You know me, don’t you? What, has happened to cause you to hate me?”

  “Yes. I know you. You are Professor Blasserman. You made me. You want to keep me as your slave. You wouldn’t tell me about things, would you?”

  “What things, Junior?”

  “About things—outside. Where all the people are. The people you can kill.”

  “You must not kill people.”

  “That is an order, isn’t it? Duke told me about orders. He is my friend. He says orders are for children. I am not child.”

  “No,” said Professor Blasserman, in a hoarse whisper. “You are not a child. I had hoped you would be, once. But now you are a monster.”

  “Go away,” Junior patiently repeated. “If Duke gives me his gun I will kill you.”

  “Junior,” said the Professor, earnestly. “You don’t understand. Killing is bad. You must not hate me. You must—”

  There was no expression on the robot’s face, no quaver in his voice. But there was strength in his arm, and a hideous purpose.

  Professor Blasserman learned this quite suddenly and quite horribly.

  For Junior swept forward in two great strides. Fingers of chilled steel closed about the Professor’s scrawny neck.

  “I don’t need a gun,�
�� said Junior.

  “You—don’t—”

  The robot lifted the old man from the floor by his throat. His fingers bit into the Professor’s jugular. A curious screech came from under his left armpit as un-oiled hinges creaked eerily.

  There was no other sound. The Professor’s cries drained into silence. Junior kept squeezing the constricted throat until there was a single crunching crack. Silence once more, until a limp body collapsed on the floor.

  Junior stared down at his hands, then at the body on the floor. His feet carried him to the blackboard.

  The robot picked up the chalk in the same two clumsy fingers that had held it before. The cold lenses of his artificial eyes surveyed what he had just written.

  “I will kill the Professor,” he read.

  Abruptly his free hand groped for the tiny child’s eraser.

  He brushed clumsily over the sentence until it blurred out.

  Then he wrote, slowly and painstakingly, a sentence in substitution.

  “I have killed the Professor.”

  Lola’s scream brought Duke running down the stairs.

  He burst into the room and took the frightened girl in his arms. Together they stared at what lay on the floor. From the side of the blackboard, Junior gazed at them impassively.

  “See, Duke? I did it. I did it with my hands, like you told me. It was easy, Duke. You said it would be easy. Now can we go away?”

  Lola turned and stared at Duke. He looked away.

  “So,” she whispered. “You weren’t kidding. You did teach Junior. You planned it this way.”

  “Yeah, yeah. And what’s wrong with it?” Duke mumbled. “We had to get rid of the old geezer sooner or later if we wanted to make our getaway.”

  “It’s murder, Duke.”

  “Shut up!” he snarled. “Who can prove it, anyway? I didn’t kill him. You didn’t kill him. Nobody else knows about Junior. We’re in the clear.”

  Duke walked over and knelt beside the limp body on the floor. He stared at the throat.

  “Who’s gonna trace the fingerprints of a robot?” he grinned.

  The girl moved closer, staring at Junior’s silver body with fascinated horror.

  “You planned it this way,” she whispered. “That means you’ve got other plans, too. What are you going to do next, Duke?"