by Don Wilcox
He whisked about and started off.
“Wait a minute!” the big belligerent man roared, starting after him with many heavy fists. “That stuff don’t go with me! You can’t tell me I missed the mark, steppin’ that machine up a notch on me every day! I’d like to see you—”
Ben Gleed turned, fists on his hips, and approached the big man with such a dynamic front that the challenger stopped, shrank back.
“You’d like to see me run that machine!” The King of Speed smiled. “I wish I had the time—I’d show you how it’s done. You and everyone else like you. There’s not a job in this city that I couldn’t take over and run faster than it’s run today. Why? Because I’ve trained myself in the science of speed! That’s why I’m where I am. Think it over, my good friend.”
Ben Gleed strode out like proud dynamite that knew exactly where it was going. A minute later he walked into a surprise explosion.
Lucille saw him enter the directors’ room, heard President Birch address him, felt the thunderbolt strike. It struck hard. Then came the rebound. Ben Gleed struck back with every ounce of his ego.
“You say I’m through. I carried speed too far. I burn out the workers too fast! All right, I’m through! But you’re all wet, and I’ll prove it! I’ll register for a common job—any job in Super City—and I’ll bet my reputation I can outspeed the job! I’ll work my way back to the top in no time!”
The proposition evoked puzzled mumblings, “It’s customary to deport persons who have been discharged,” said one of the directors.
“You’ve no right to deport me!” Gleed declared. “That disgrace is for those that can’t keep pace!”
“Very well,” said Birch. “If you wish to stay in Super City and face the embarrassment—”
“Embarrassment, hell!” Gleed sputtered. “Nothing can embarrass me. I may not be the city manager but I’m still the King of Speed, and I’ll have the sweet satisfaction of proving it on the fastest jobs in the world.”
The directors filed out. Ben Gleed stood alone. He had hurdled the explosion, but the shock left him dizzy. He gazed from the window without seeing the silent smokeless factories that lay before him.
He was only half conscious that a pretty girl crept close to his side, said kind words to him, almost kissed him in her forgetful sympathy—all to the accompaniment of familiar echoes from her deserted typewriter—the automatic voice that rattled, “Don’t waste time! . . . Don’t waste time!”
CHAPTER II
SX333 Goes to Work
Glowing with determination, Ben Gleed registered at the employment office. “Find me a good stiff job, Blasco! I’m going to show the boys how it’s done!”
Blasco’s eyebrows jumped but he didn’t quibble. The signed order from the board of directors was plain: the King of Speed was out on his own.
“Here’s your card,” said Blasco. “Henceforth you are simply SX333 to us. There’s temporary work with a paint squad until I find you a permanent location. No need for me to explain our work regulations,” the official grinned, “since you made them yourself.”
The painter’s scaffold was an Efficio product. It raised and lowered at the touch of a lever, and the paint gun was mounted on it. The old fashioned ladder, bucket, and brush were unknown in Super City.
News cameras clicked as the King of Speed stepped aboard, touched the lever, lifted to the top of the wall, turned the paint gun on the surfaces. Reporters cried questions up at him, but he played deaf. The way to get the best news story was to demonstrate speed, not talk.
For five days he maintained such a killing pace that every technician on the squad writhed under the pressure. Then the regular paint gun operator returned. Ben was through. Blasco sent him notice that soon his regular job would be ready.
The metropolitan newspapers gloated. The fastest city in the world had tossed Ben Gleed overboard on some unknown pretext, and what a comeback! The self-styled King of Speed was obviously out to show the world that personal efficiency knows no limits.
Employees of Efficio, Incorporated snorted. As if it wasn’t enough for Gleed to force his program on them, the speed demon would terrorize them with his personal competition.
However, Blasco and the directors took Gleed’s victory on the scaffold with a grain of salt. They knew that this particular paint squad was the slowest work unit in the city. The test of Ben Gleed’s self-assumed title was yet to come.
The hero of speed took a week’s vacation, then returned to Super City to find two surprises awaiting him at his new living quarters: his appointment from Blasco, and a visitor—his father.
Earlier in the afternoon John Gleed had arrived for his first glimpse of the world famed city. He blinked through his spectacles at the towering metallic buildings, the swift flowing blue buses, the profusion of work uniforms.
He sought out the city offices and found Lucille.
“I’m looking for my boy—Bennie Gleed—you see, I’m his dad,” he explained. He adjusted his spectacles and twinkled at the girl. “Gollies, you work here all the time?”
“Certainly, why?” the girl asked, charmed by his genial, rustic manner.
“Glad to know it. You see, Bennie never paid much attention to girls. Always too busy. But maybe with a perty thing like you around, he’s changed.”
“I’m afraid not, Mr. Gleed, that is—” the girl reddened. “If you’re looking for Ben I advise you not to wait. He won’t be in.”
“Out fer all day?”
“Yes—yes—all day.”
John Gleed was less handsome than his son; his nose was a trifle sharper, his jaw less set, his eyes more appreciative.
He caught a note in Lucille’s voice that the younger Gleed would have missed. “Look here, girlie, what’s happened here? You’re worried. I never took too much stock in this newspaper talk, but I’m after the facts. Ain’t things goin’ so smooth with Ben?”
The girl’s eyes suddenly grew moist.
“Hm-m-m. I’ve got a hunch,” said the elderly man, “that maybe you—and him—” He stopped as the girl shook her head.
“He doesn’t even know I exist,” she said.
“Then what’s gone wrong, Miss? Let’s trust each other and talk this thing over . . . His manner won her confidence and she poured out her fears that Ben had leaped into an abyss.
“He’s so headstrong and reckless,” she sobbed. “He doesn’t see where this speed mania has taken him. He thinks he can jump into the fastest jobs, where men are being thrown out and the machines are going faster every day. He’s simply walking into his own speed trap—blind I And no one can stop him!”
That evening John Gleed and his surprised son visited over the dinner table. There was an undercurrent of tension.
“You’re a big man now, Ben.” Constraint rather than pride was in the father’s tone. “I knew you’d make the world sit up and take notice some day. But what about this rap your directors gave you?”
“That’s their hard luck, not mine. They thought I was moving things too fast.”
“Maybe you was, son.” The elder Gleed took a clipping from his pocket, a paragraph from a minority journal, which read: “Ben Gleed is inhumane, inhuman, a machine; his slave-driving pace in Super City cannot last; his house is built on sand.”
“That’s why I came here, Ben,” said the father. “I was worried about you.”
“Foolishness!” The irritated young man cast the clipping aside. “Whoever started that poison theory that workers must be pampered? I claim no human ever worked to his full capacity, and I’m going to prove it. Tomorrow the fireworks begin. I’ve been appointed to the advertising division, and I’ll show the boys some speed!”
Early the next morning: “Bling! . . . bling! . . . bling! . . . bling! The King of Speed whirled out of bed and choked off the alarm, then pressed the red button marked “Register.”
“What the hell—?” shouted the sleep-shocked John Gleed.
“Electric alarm system,” explain
ed the vigorous young man as he jumped under the shower. “All the employees’ homes have them. I touched the button so the bureau of records would know what time I got up. Automatic register. Very effective idea, don’t you think?” John Gleed groaned. He was in no condition to appreciate ideas at this hour of the morning. However, he insisted he would accompany his son downtown. “Do I have time for a shoe shine?”
“Get it on the bus,” said the master of speed. “Our buses and trains are equipped to serve breakfasts, shine shoes, and shave your face on the way to work.”
Downtown they alighted from the bus and stepped onto a moving sidewalk that glided along a busy pedestrian thoroughfare.
“I’ll see the city for myself while you’re at work,” John said, stepping off at a street corner. Ben moved on, with hundreds of others, into one of the great buildings. The father watched him disappear, stood in awe of the swift moving lines of people. On other levels they coasted by on electric roller skates. Above them signboards flashed Super
City propaganda. Every production curve on the rise. No unemployed. No poverty!
“The poverty follows,” thought John, blinking at the neons, “after they get kicked out and go back home wrung dry.”
“Don’t loaf! . . . Don’t loiter!” The loud whisper made him turn sharply. It was his son’s voice. “Six fifty-five! Don’t be late for work!”
The amplified whisper came out of the Efficio clock which hung over the street. Every five minutes the Efficio clocks hovering over every intersection spoke their recorded messages of hurry, hurry!
“Well, I’ll be damned,” John Gleed grunted. Already he felt guilty for every minute he squandered.
Ben Gleed presented his appointment notice to a secretary who looked at him and gasped, “My stars, you’re the King of—”
“I’m SX333!” Ben snapped. “Where do I work?”
He was placed at a desk and given an assignment to write advertising copy for the Efficio products which Super City produced for the world. Pie for him. He knew those products, from table salt to bath tubs to stereotyped sermons, from rat poison to tractors. He’d chill his competitors in no time. He glanced about, noted the strained look of the other writers, men as well as women, who pored over their desks.
Soon a tense whisper sounded through the speaker. “Five hundred words! If you don’t have five hundred, speed up!” A good speed-up device, he reflected proudly. And how it worked! Heads went down, pencils flew, typewriters hummed!
Ben glanced at his own efforts. A thrill of surprise took him. He had less than two hundred words. He buckled down, worked like fury.
“A thousand words!” came the great whisper. “Write faster. Don’t get behind!”
A cold sweat broke out over Ben’s body. His mind shot off on wild tangents. Then the ideas began to jump off his typewriter keys.
“Fifteenhundred! Faster! Faster!”
A tray of coffee came past. Ben snatched a cup, drank it black, wrote like a demon.
Lunch hour and midday check-up. “SX333, come into the wave room,” said a supervisor. “You need more stimulant than coffee.” In the designated room an absent-minded laboratory official made a test of Ben’s brain waves under concentration, explaining, “This is one of the Speed King’s Efficio devices for converting electrical energy into brain power.”
He fitted an instrument over SX333’s head. “Plug it in and work the rheostat to suit yourself. The electrical waves will synchronize with your own brain waves and reinforce them.”
Ben Gleed went back to work. Other copy writers wore similar instruments; nevertheless, one of them snorted, “Well, well, look who’s taking brain shots, would you!” Others laughed.
The afternoon flew by. Ben raced savagely. The instrument helped. When the day closed he breathed a victorious sigh. He had more than his quota of words.
However, the next morning there was a note from his copy editor: “SX333—Your work is not acceptable. Too much stress on speed of output. Customers are interested in quality . . . Your writing poorly organized. Try again today.”
The King of Speed clamped the electric stimulator over his head, turned the rheostat on full, and poured forth words and sweat. He choked down black coffee, did not stop for lunch, tried not to hear the whisper of “Faster! Faster!” But late in the afternoon when the speed-up whisper bore down and one of the women workers screamed out, “For God’s sakes, turn that thing off!” and then slumped over her desk in tears, he wasted five good minutes getting his mind back on his work. “Damn weaklings,” he muttered to himself. “They can’t take the pace! I’ll show them.”
As he arose for work the following morning, a special delivery note reached him, signed by the head copy editor: “SX333—Your work is unsatisfactory. Sorry. Your discharge has been reported to the employment office.”
The King of Speed was stunned. His father, laboring with a necktie, stopped and eyed him. “What’s up, Ben?”
“Day off,” he mumbled.
CHAPTER III
On a Toboggan
Afternoon found the elder Gleed restless. He couldn’t feel at ease in this world of speed. His son seemed too pent up about something to enjoy his day off, so the father sought his own diversion. He found a barber shop which, he thought, would be good for an idle hour.
The barber clamped a metal helmet over his head, adjusted the numerous buttons over its surface, turned an electric switch. The surprised customer felt a momentary suction over his head; the next instant the barber removed the helmet and behold, the job was done.
“I hope I didn’t detain you too long,” said the barber as the door automatically opened for John. He groaned and went. Then a thought struck him and he walked into the first open door, a drug store by chance.
“Say, friend, are there any movies in this city?”
The uniformed employee told him of the continuous educational feature depicting the industries of Super City and the uses of Efficio products. “However, if you want entertainment—”
“By gollies, yes!” said John Gleed.
“Then here’s a movie substitute that the King of Speed has recommended very highly to the people of Super City.” He held forth a small box of orange colored pills.
“Substitute? How the hell—?”
“His theory is that many people remember so little of what they see at the movie that they are as well satisfied by a chemically produced effect. Thus they save the time and cost—”
“You mean—?”
“Swallow a pill and you’ll see. For an hour you’ll feel a gathering tension throughout your body, with now and then a surprise laugh; then when your anxiety is up to a fever pitch, all at once every thing smooths out, and you get that pleasant tired feeling that always comes when the fellow finally kisses the girl . . . Or try one of these larger pills if you prefer double features.”
“No, thanks!” John Gleed shouted as he bounded out the door.
Alone in his apartment, the feverish young King of Speed paced, waited for his radio-facsimile receiver to bring the evening news. He was on a spot. By this time the nation’s press services doubtless knew of his stinging defeat.
The radio buzzed. Layer by layer, the headlines printed off.
“KING OF SPEED FIRED.
“Publicity Job Too Fast For Gleed.
“Super City, Oct. 4—While the directors of Efficio, Incorporated searched for a new city manager to modify Ben Gleed’s speed-up program, the dethroned speed king cracked up on his own speedway today. He was fired as slow and incompetent. . .
Ben’s eyes swam in rage. Dodging the reporters who swarmed his front door, he slipped out into the semi-darkness on his electric roller skates and swung down the thoroughfare, trying to throw off his furious energy.
Damned fickle newscasts! As if one discharge meant anything. His efficiency fight was just begun. Tomorrow he would take his new job and blast this incident to ether.
He skated on like a madman—and whom should he pass
but Lucille and his own father—foxy old cuss! They chattered by so merrily they didn’t even see him. His fever jumped. Frivolity always stung him.
His tortured mind clung to Lucille—her warm words when the directors rapped him—and before that, her admiring eyes on him as he stormed about the city offices. He blacked out the thoughts.
Early the next morning he punched a new time clock. He was a research man for Efficio Information Service— the world’s most efficient, most unique library. The research workers rode up and down among the walls of books and filing cabinets in lithe metal desk cars, like marbles chasing through an upright maze.
The eager King of Speed donned a brain stimulator, glanced at his assignments, mounted a car, sailed up the wall, and delved into the cases.
A fresh label on his desk disturbed his eye. Its red letters mocked him. “Research Workers Notice: The rising demand for Efficio Information Service necessitates a four week speed-up campaign, with higher standards for each worker as follows . . . (Ben remembered them. He had forced them upon the directors.) . . . Our nationwide customers, whose orders we deliver by facsimile, demand almost instantaneous service. Our new time schedules are now in effect: Professor’s lectures prepared, ready for reading, within an hour after call. Cases briefed for lawyers, 15 minutes each. Sermons, plain, 10 minutes; fancy, 20 minutes. Book reviews, 5 minutes. Translations on 24-hour notice . . . Etc.
Ben’s eye jumped to the final item, which he remembered as his magnanimous concession to workers under pressure: “Five minute rest period every two hours—with calisthenics.”
Before the day was half gone, he welcomed those five minute periods of “one-two—up-down!” Today he had a fighting chance to blot out his defeat. Tomorrow he would set a new mark.
