by Earl
“That shouldn’t stop us, after all else we’ve done,” returned Williams with a shrug.
l An hour later found them in the west suburbs of Boston, watching the sparse morning auto traffic and the occasional pedestrians. They stood under the shadow of trees whose leaves were autumn colored and ready to flutter downward at the next stiff wind. A cool breeze swept upon them from the open streets. They shivered, for they were dressed in clothing designed for wanner temperatures.
“It’s not so easy,” Terry was saying in pessimistic tones. “We can’t very well jump into a moving car without risking our necks. Those parked are sure to be either locked or without the ignition key. We haven’t the money to buy one—”
“Can’t we hire a taxi and then throw the driver out?”
“Taxi? Taxi? What is that?” After Williams explained in some surprise, Terry shook his head. “We don’t have such things in this day and age, Williams. People either use electro-car service, or own a private auto.”
“Je Bru il Bra!” exclaimed Williams perturbed at the outlook. “Well, we can’t go back to the downtown section, that’s sure. A horde of vultures in blue and red are scouring around for us there. And the longer we delay here, the worse it is. Once they find out that the Brain-control is poisoned, and later when they hear that all the Brain-controls in Unitaria have been tampered with, Unidum guards wilt be looking with suspicion at everybody, us included.”
After some silent thought, Williams moved away from the trees. “We’ve got to find an auto with keys. Perhaps if we walk along a few streets and look into all parked cars, we might find one waiting for us to jump into and go.”
An hour of such searching did no good. As if fate were spiteful, all the autos were either locked or useless in the absence of a key for the ignition. Williams began to grip the pistol in his pocket tightly and cast his eye at slow-moving autos passing them. Once they got in and held the pistol at the driver’s head. . . .
He felt his arm gripped by spasmodic fingers. It was Terry, his face paling, “Listen to that voice!”
They had come to one of the public News-markets, set off from the street and large enough to seat a hundred persons. It was open to the air and from the flared apertures of fan-grouped loudspeakers came the stentorian voice of the announcer.
“Boston Brain-control ruined!” blared the voice. “The brain in the globe has been poisoned! Two women found there at the time the inspection took place tearfully denied having anything to do with it They claim three men, one of them a negro, were leaving as they arrived. Search is now being instituted throughout Boston. It is feared the three culprits have escaped for they were accosted at electro-car Station Level Four No. Ten and fled after attacking three Unidum guards. The lock on the nutrition box—” The announcer went into detail while Terry and Williams looked at one another aghast. Already a swift crowd had jammed the News-market at the startling statements.
“Let’s get out of this vicinity!” muttered Terry rapidly. “Now we are in for it,” he continued as they turned a corner and walked away from the giant voice that was telling all the world about them and their deeds.
“And that means we must get busy,” supplemented Williams. “Do it or die, for there—”
“Wait; listen!” admonished Terry.
The stentorian voice, barely audible them now, was saying:
“—Reports from New York, Philadelphia, and Pittsburgh that the Brain-controls in those cities too have been poisoned! This seems to be the beginning of an anti-Unidum move—”
“Not to mention what they wilt find out when Professor Bromberg and Doctor Hagen will be broadcasting to Unitaria soon,” smiled Williams grimly. “But now for ourselves—Terry, follow me and don’t be afraid to use that pistol if you have to!”
Williams had seen an auto stop before a house a hundred feet away. Out of it stepped two men. It was the chance they had been waiting for!
The men looked in surprise, at running figures coming at them.
“We need your car,” said Williams without preamble.
“What is this?” spluttered one man with a scornful leer in his voice. He was tall and powerfully built.
“Hand over the key,” grated Williams. “We want your car and we’ll fight for it!”
The man looked around for police, and seeing none, swung a fist that missed the face it was aimed at. Then he backed away muttering at the sight of the pistol which Terry was aiming at him.
“It doesn’t pay to fool with us,” said Terry. “Your key!”
Reluctantly it was handed over. “I’ll have you jailed for this?”
“Better men than you have tried it!” sang out Williams as the auto hummed away from the curb a moment later.
Terry drove as swiftly as he dared, winding along the streets till he struck a feeder-line to the highways outside the city. At high noon, they reached Worcester and there took passage on an air-liner to San Francisco. At that city they contacted one of the Brotherhood’s undercover agents, and were driven by auto to the general headquarters. It was close to midnight when they finally entered the secret underground passages.
(Read the thrilling conclusion to this navel in the next issue.)
ENSLAVED BRAINS
l As this issue goes to press, we have already received scores of letters congratulating the magazine upon securing this thrilling, vivid, scientific novel.
After reading the story, you will reflect that not one illogical idea appears in it. Everything, no matter how fantastic, is a plausible outcome of things as they are today. It is as though the author actually had a vision of the future and set it on paper.
By now, Williams, M’bopo, Terry, and Hackworth have become figures to live long in the realms of science-fiction. They are fighting for the right of humanity—they are devoting their lives to saving civilization from a tyranny which is more degrading than barbarism. They are trying to lift the veil from the eyes of the people so that they may see the evils perpetrated by the Unidum, the so-called “Utopia” of 1973.
Herewith we present the conclusion of the novel and trust that the suspense has not been too trying on our readers.
PART THREE
Conclusion
WHAT HAS GONE BEFORE:
l Hackworth, an explorer in Africa in 1973, discovers his boyhood friend, Williams, who had been lost in the jungle for the past forty years and become a leader of a band of natives. Williams is brought back to civilization and is astounded at the tremendous changes that have taken place. There had been a terrific war shortly after he left America, much greater than the World War, after which a group of scientists seized the governments of America and Europe and set up Unitaria, a scientific organization which brought mankind to greater heights than he had ever before attained.
Hackworth learns that his daughter, who is in love with a young chemist named Terry Spath, is forced by the Unitaria to marry a scientist whom she had never seen before. She had rated so high in the government test that it was thought that her union with one of equal mentality would produce highly intelligent children. Hackworth, Williams, and Terry are horrified at this, never expecting that she would pass the test. Then Williams shows them a solution from an African plant that he had brought back with him. It was a drug that would put any living thing into suspended animation for an indefinite length of time. They would only awaken when commanded to do so by a designated person. This drug is administered to Lila, Hackworth’s daughter, in order to stall off the marriage until something further could be done. The scientists of Unitaria are puzzled at Lila’s peculiar affliction and put her in a hospital. She was told, by hypnotic influence, while going under the drug, to awaken only when Terry commanded her to.
Williams learns that machinery is controlled by brains taken from the skulls of dead people. Upon learning that his sister Helen’s brain is controlling machines in Boston, he becomes infuriated and attempts to destroy the brain and deliver his sister into her rightful peace after death. He is impriso
ned with Terry, who was with him, and sentenced to death, but M’bopo, the native he had brought with him from Africa, aids them to escape. They join an organization which intends to overthrow the Unidum, and Williams finally destroys the Boston Brain-control, but is being hunted by the authorities as part two ends. Now go on with the story:
CHAPTER XIV
The Mad Scientist
l The guide led them directly to Agarth who was looking over a sheaf of decoded messages which three men were constantly renewing from stacks of coded missives. He arose to greet them warmly.
“I had been wondering about you all day,” he confided. “When Stevenson phoned—secret radio-phone, you understand—from San Francisco an hour ago that you were on the way here, I was relieved. To tell the truth, I thought that luck had gone against you and that the Unidum had you in prison.”
“It was close at that,” returned Williams. Thereupon he recounted the adventures of the day. “But now tell us; how has it all turned out in general?”
“Splendidly!” cried Agarth, eyes aglow.
“Every brain-control in Unit aria except a possible three, is useless! Reports from Europe came in immediately after the zero hour, and have been coming in all day. And from all over America, our agents have come back alive and successful. Only three Brain-controls we know nothing about, for the operatives assigned to them have not arrived or phoned. Possibly they failed and were captured; or they might have been killed by guards in escaping. However, we can call the whole thing highly successful. Already the public news-casts have hinted that there is a gigantic revolution of some sort on hand. The Unidum as yet has made no official move.”
Agarth turned back to his work. “If you will excuse me, I am very busy. Get a good night’s rest. Tomorrow will see us all together for the open announcement of the Brotherhood.”
While waiting for the call to conference which was to take place in the afternoon, Terry and Williams, in wandering around the next morning, met Bromberg in a corridor. Preoccupied and care-worn though he looked, he recognized them instantly and stopped to greet them as warmly as Agarth had the night before.
“I heard about your safe arrival from Major Agarth,” said Bromberg. “Quite a little adventure you had! But you did your duty, and were proud of you, as we are of all the gallant operatives who yesterday initiated our first blow against Molier and his tyrannical tribe. Hah! Two thousand brains know a peace that has been denied them for five long years! If we accomplish nothing else, at least we have done that. Yet we will accomplish much more; I feel it, I know it! Already the whispers of unrest and social heaving have hissed throughout Unitaria. Quiet citizens who have long hated the Enslavement of the Brains in their hearts, but have never dared protest, are now awakening in courage. The Unidum will find the mob commending our first step and growling at any attempt to call it treason. This afternoon, praise be to God!—we will thunder it to all Unitaria!”
He was gone then and Terry and Williams looked at each other in mutual admiration for the eloquent Professor Bromberg and his ideals. Unless unforeseen circumstances thwarted him, he would most surely take the threat of tyranny from Unitaria. He would become the Martin Luther of 1973.
From that time on, Terry and Williams felt themselves caught up in a whirlwind of events that resulted from the first move of the Brotherhood against the Unidum. Perhaps no one, least of all they, knew what the immediate future was to bring. Bromberg and Hagen were almost stubbornly over-confident that the Unidum would stroke its collective chin and proceed to abolish the cankerous Brain-control Act and revise the Eugenics Law. Agarth and other officers expected some days or weeks of procrastination in the government reform with probably an attendant political revolution.
October 14th, 1973.
Williams took in the scene with sparkling interest. It was a large rock-bound chamber far below the ground level, one used decades before for massing and instructing troops which were to sally forth against the besieging enemy. Near one wall on a wooden dais were the two Generals; Hagen was seated quietly in deep thought, Bromberg pacing up and down with a short, rapid stride, nervous hands clenched behind his back. On a table near him was a microphone, its red signal dark. Grouped about the dais in a half-circle were all the officers of the Brotherhood then in America, grim-faced, conversing in whispers. An air of tenseness overhung the assemblage.
After moving among the men with a word or phrase here and there, Agarth came to the side of Williams and Terry.
“We’re waiting now for connection to the Universal Broadcast system,” he confided. “It will carry Bromberg’s speech to every corner of Unitaria. What better way to announce the Brotherhood than to present it to the citizens en masse? Official documents will go to the Unidum after the broadcast.”
“Isn’t it rather dangerous doing that?” asked Williams. “Suppose the Unidum traces the wave and decides to crush the Brotherhood in one stroke! If these men”—he waved a hand about the room—“were taken from the organization, there would be nothing left!”
“But they can’t trace the wave,” informed Agarth. “We have not gone ahead blunderingly. From here Bromberg’s voice will be carried by wire to an amateur ‘ham’s’ broadcasting antennae far to the east. From there it will connect to some sub-station of the Universal Broadcast system. At any moment now, one of our many Brothers who are radio staff men will complete the connection.”
“Are these underground strongholds all unknown to the masses at large?”
“In the main, yes. Most of these military hide-outs are totally camouflaged and located in places untilled and unused—barren spots. The original Japanese blue-prints and maps were destroyed long ago. The Unidum will find itself threatened by forces invisible and practically undetectable. It will not be able to ignore us because our very existence means the seed of revolution. And—”
Agarth stopped as a sudden silence fell over the room. The red signal light on the microphone was flashing brightly. Every eye turned to General Bromberg, who ceased his nervous pacing and eagerly took a position before the instrument.
His aide stepped to the dais. “Silence, officers of the Brotherhood, while General Bromberg speaks!” he cried.
A little man whose dark eyes gleamed brightly in a care-worn face, Bromberg rang out the words that were to change history.
“Citizens of Unitaria! A crisis is upon us! Forty years ago our ultra-nation came in existence, under the instigation and leadership of a scientific government which came to be known as the Unidum. ‘Uni’ from unity, and ‘dum’ from duma or power—the power of unity! And so it has proven. United in common interests and privileges, Europe and America have tremendously advanced along the paths of civilization. With petty national animosity wiped away like a deceiving fog; with a standard tongue replacing the confusion that was occasioned by dozens of languages; with every state working hand in hand toward the common good, and with a central governing power both strong and sagacious, Unitaria stands unquestionably the best and greatest community of human beings of all time.
“But a crisis is upon us! The citizens must now decide between passive acceptance of governmental mistakes, or active resistance to them. Foremost among such mistakes is the Brain-control act. I, Professor Bromberg, and my colleague, Doctor Hagen—exiled three years ago by the Unidum—declare to all the world that the Brain-control Act is more hideous and heinous than the Spanish Inquisition of past history! Every unfortunate brain used to run machinery like a mechanized robot, although dead medically, lives an after-life of perpetual, agonizing hell! Memories of life, sub-conscious impressions of their slavery, and a desire for release, torture those brains every minute of every day. The Unidum will deny it, but it is true.
“The Unidum will tell you that the use of dead brains, which can do no good rotting in underground coffins, will make life for the living easier and pleasanter, as the machines are gradually equipped with Brain-controls. They will increase leisure time, shorten working hours, and make life pleasan
t and free and happy.
“Yes, but think once, citizens of Unitaria! Think of a future in which Brain-controls run all machinery. Think of a happy, care-free, leisurely life—and then think of a purgatory after that life in which your enslaved brain, remembering that previous heaven, labors second after second, hour after hour for years! You would then pray for death—and it would be denied you. What good to live a life of ease and plenty when its price is a horrible nightmare from which there is no release till the very nerves of your brain burn out from torment? What good to live like a god when the death that comes eventually is merely a door to a more dreadful Hell than even Dante could have described? Ask yourselves, each one of you, if the accounts would be squared at such a price!
“The answer can only be—NO! Yet the Brain-control Act is an official statute. The Unidum, having once adopted it, has defended it tenaciously even though its inhumanness has been demonstrated, despite the efforts of certain unselfish men who have tried to fight it. Accordingly, it was foreseen years ago that there must be organized opposition. Doctor Hagen and myself are the heads of an organization that is pledged to end the enslavement of the brains! We appeal to you, the citizen masses, to uphold our principles and bring the Unidum to realize its terrible mistake.
“We, the Brothers of Humanity, have already taken the first step. Yesterday, as doubtless all Unitaria knows by now, our operatives poisoned every brain in every Brain-control in our land. They are useless, ruined. And they must never be used again! That is the task we place before all of you. The Unidum must be made to realize, by petitions, notices, mass opinions, that no longer can we tolerate such a potential doom of evil as the use of brains in machinery. It is up to you, citizenry of Unitaria, to complete what we have begun. Go! And do not shirk or hesitate in fear; remember that no government, however powerful, can outface a massed public opinion.
