The Almost Complete Short Fiction

by Don Wilcox

  During the last hateful echo Laubmann hastily whispered to Handy, “Take him in hand and keep the show going. I’ll take the mike.”

  The men slipped back to the broadcasting room. The next moment Laubmann was shouting glibly into the dead microphone to his imaginary brothers of the secret science club, while Handy was loading the perspiring Steinbock down with handshakes and laudatory whispers.

  Bill Taylor’s heart thumped boldly. He clambered up the narrow stairs as swiftly and silently as he could. The steps were cushioned with dust, and dust fell on the back of Taylor’s hand as he turned the knob at the head of the stairs. Obviously this ascent was not often used.

  At first the upstairs room seemed solid black, and Taylor groped against obstructions on every hand. The place was packed with old furniture and junk. A faint gleam of light urged him on. There was no way around, under or through. Taylor padded over the tops of things like a cat.

  “Maurine!” he called in a hoarse whisper.

  No one answered. He blundered on. The storeroom proved to be L-shaped. When he got past the corner he could see to the opening beyond. Thirty feet or more ahead, beyond the scantily curtained archway, was a spacious green-lighted room. The sight that he glimpsed in that room made him catch his breath.

  He was not sure what the sight was—only that it was something wonderful and gleaming and mysterious, scientific apparatus of incredible complexity. That much he could tell at a glance, and there was no time for more than a glance. He must find the girl and get her out of here before the rest moved upstairs.

  “Maurine!” he called again in a penetrating whisper.

  “Bill?” came a faint answer from somewhere ahead. “Bill—”

  Bill Taylor crashed recklessly over a heap of chairs, vaulted a barrier of bookcases and dressers. Then, within ten feet of the curtained arch that led into the big green room, he stopped and called again.

  “Maurine!”

  “Here I am.” The dim whisper seemed somewhere back of him.

  “Where?”

  “Here. Locked in a supply closet.”

  The whisper seemed to come from the wall. It was too dark to see ventilator shafts or speaking tubes, if there were any; but Taylor made certain that the door on which the girl was now rapping could not be reached from this room.

  He scrambled forward toward the curtained arch, but suddenly the green room blazed up with dazzling white ceiling lights.

  “Careful,” came the girl’s faint whisper. “Don’t take any chances.”

  Wherever she was, thought Bill, she must have seen those lights go on. She was evidently hidden somewhere within view of the big green-walled science room. Again he started for the archway, but the sound of footsteps bounding up a stairs forestalled him.

  The footsteps were Handy’s. Taylor couldn’t see him, but the man’s voice carried through the rooms.

  “Cut out that rapping!” he growled. “We’re bringing Steinbock up, and it won’t be healthy for him to know you’re here.”

  “Let me out!” the girl demanded. “Got a formula for us?”

  “No.”

  “Then pipe down.”

  “You can’t get away with this!”

  “Can’t, huh? You don’t know me and Laubmann. One of you has got what we want—either you or Steinbock, and we’ve got a machine that’ll reach right into your brains and get it. So take it easy!”

  “I don’t believe you! You sound insane.”

  “Quiet!”

  “Let me out!” the girl demanded. “You don’t want Steinbock to know you’re here, do you?” Handy threatened. Maurine White didn’t answer.

  “You’re afraid of him,” Handy taunted. The girl remained silent. “Okay. Just remember whatever he’s got on you, we can get on you too, with this machine.”

  Handy’s threats hissed into silence. The boisterous voices and footsteps of the other two men were already near the top of the stairs that the erstwhile taxi driver had ascended a moment earlier.

  Bill Taylor dropped flat on the dust-covered surface of a library table. He held back a cough, but the chills that played through his spine wouldn’t be suppressed. Those chills weren’t fear for himself. They were anxiety for the unknown turn that this strange affair might take in the midst of these scientific instruments—anxiety for Maurine White, waiting in terror behind some locked door that led off from this big science room.

  Taylor considered himself well hidden. Though he could see through the flimsy curtain, the light against it would prevent their seeing him; besides, there were obstructions of furniture that cast him in shadow.

  Nevertheless, he was almost close enough to the archway to swing a club at anyone who came too near the curtain—and, to his surprise, there was a club in his hand! It was a detached table leg, about the size of a baseball bat, which he had picked up involuntarily sometime during his encounter with the furniture. He lay crouched, tense, desperate.

  Handy closed the door after the other two men had entered, and quietly locked it. He followed after them with his phony servant’s dignity, not forgetting to keep one hand at his gun pocket.

  Laubmann at once conducted the scowling Steinbock on a tour of the room. He launched into a sketchy explanation of the scientific apparatus—an explanation that Taylor knew must be faked, for Laubmann and his make-believe servant frequently exchanged cynical winks behind their guest’s back.

  Steinbock played the bored listener and tilted his goatee contemptuously. Nevertheless, he was impressed when Laubmann told him that the club members employed “this elaborate instrument, which is a cross between a stereoscope, a stethoscope and a telescope to register the temperamental biographies of our famous visitors.”

  Bill Taylor whispered to himself, “Horse feathers!” But the more Laubmann talked of the thing’s wonders, the more curious the young pharmacist became.

  “And if you will be so kind, Mr. Steinbock, the club would be pleased to have you register a brief temperamental biography.”

  Laubmann’s sugar-coated manner was dangerously overdone, but the famous Steinbock was habitually blinded by his own conceit. He took the chair that was built into the lower end of the instrument, and allowed Laubmann to strap his arms, shoulders and head into position.

  The artist’s eyes were carefully fitted into the stereoscopelike eyepiece. After a few minor adjustments were made, Laubmann pressed a lever slowly. Chair, eyepiece and the whole lower section of the instrument tilted downward.

  “Comfortable?” Laubmann asked.

  “I’m never comfortable in the presence of bourgeoisie or scientists,” the artist growled, which was his way of answering in the affirmative. He was resting on his elbows, his head was bent downward as if he were asleep over a desk.

  “What do you see?” Laubmann asked.

  “Blackness. Umber. Ebony. What am I supposed to see?”

  “Nothing,” Laubmann soothed. “Relax, sir, arid let your mind wander. We’re about to begin.”

  Laubmann hastily snatched up some papers that had been left lying on the instrument, handed them to Handy, and motioned for him to get them out of sight. Handy brought them over to the archway, drew back the flimsy curtain, and gave them a toss. Taylor tightened his grip on his club, but the next instant the curtain fell back in place and the unsuspecting Handy was again strolling about the room with his hand at his coat pocket.

  Taylor glanced down at the papers. They were typewritten notes of a scientific nature; doubtless something Professor Tannenbaum had once written, for the paper bore his letterhead. The single phrase that caught Taylor’s interest was THE IMAGE PROJECTOR. Wherever that phrase occurred, it was capitalized.

  Pwoof! The airy, puffy sound caught the pharmacist’s attention. He stared at the upper end of the long instrument, or rather series of instruments that were pieced together through the length of the room.

  What he saw was Laubmann standing on a chair, pouring the package of familiar soap and metal powders into a spherical
receptacle at the top of a standard. The air fogged with a puff of silvery dust as the last of the package was emptied.

  Then Handy snapped off the white lights, and only the dim green glow of the indirect lighting system illuminated the room. Laubmann touched a switch; and a motor somewhere below the silvery receptacle clicked on and settled into an almost inaudible hum.

  At once strange things began to happen. Taylor’s eyes widened, he relaxed his grip on the club, his gaze swept back and forth from one end of the room to the other, as he tried to catch all that was taking place.

  The powders from the silvery receptacle began to sift down through a series of crystal blowers, and their fine sprays shot through an hour-glass shaped vessel, where they were lost from view by surrounding mechanisms. At the same time a tiny bubble appeared from an opening in a long straight tube that extended along the floor.

  At first Taylor thought the bubble indicated a leak in the system of connections between the two ends of the apparatus. But as the bubble continued to grow, he saw that Laubmann and Handy watched it with appreciative interest. They moved about cautiously, lest the current of air disturb it. It was now as large as a basket ball—and still growing.

  Steinbock, who could see nothing, grew impatient for something to happen.

  “I’m getting some questions ready for you,” Laubmann retorted, “and we’ll start right away.”

  Even when the giant soap bubble had grown as big as a beach ball, it had not yet reached its limit. Finally it filled the whole center of the room, reaching almost to the ceiling. Laubmann touched a switch then and everything became stationary.

  The giant bubble trembled slightly when Laubmann walked across to the lower end of the instrument where Steinbock sat suspended. It was silvery gray, and strangely it did not reflect the green of the lighted ceiling.

  What it did reflect was a series of rapidly changing pictures of persons and places, all of them spinning past so indistinctly that Bill Taylor was at first only bewildered. Where were the pictures coming from? No movie ever changed forms and faces that swiftly!

  “First,” said Laubmann, resuming his sugar-coated manner, “I am sure the club members would like to know about your recollections of your early home life, Professor Steinbock.”

  The flitting pictures on the side of the big silvery bubble suddenly clarified in a steadier scene: that of a low rambling house among trees. The house came closer and clearer, and the gray trees disappeared. Children dressed in somber colors were playing in the yard. One of them, a boy, was a bright clear-cut figure. Another moving object was simply a shadow.

  “No doubt you have pleasant memories,” Laubmann continued, “of those childhood days when the family would gather around the table for dinner.” The scene instantaneously changed. Now the bubble gave forth an interior scene of the house, with the family seated at the table. The personage which showed most distinctly was the bright-looking young boy. He bore a youthful resemblance to the present famous artist. But among the other figures, Taylor noticed there was a blank, occupying the chair next to the young boy. The outline of that blank figure was much like that of the boy himself, but no features were visible.

  All of the figures, including that of the blank shadowy outline, were continually in motion. Suddenly the bright young boy reached as if to slap the shadowy figure beside him—and for an instant the striking arm itself went blank.

  All of this series of pictures had come so suddenly and moved so quickly that Bill Tayior was aghast. But of one thing he was fully convinced. This was no artificial movie. It was an actual glimpse of the images passing through Steinbock’s mind!

  CHAPTER IV

  Mental Movies

  “Of course I had a childhood,” Steinbock barked angrily. “What about it?”

  With the first outbreak of his agitated voice, the picture on the bubble went blank. The blank arm of that swinging slap he—as a boy—had intended to make, magnified instantaneously to blot out the whole scene. A smear of violent purple flashed across the side of the bubble, then the illuminations grew vague and livid. A glimpse of Laubmann’s face shot past—a distorted caricature of the coldly squinting right eye and the huge ugly jaw.

  “What about it?” Steinbock sneered. “Do you want me to recite the story of my childhood for the benefit of your mysterious club?”

  “That won’t be necessary,” Laubmann replied. “It is sufficient for you to think about it. The machine is able to record some of your temperamental and emotional recollections.”

  “I think you’re cracked,” Steinbock muttered, and the caricature of the squint-eyed man again crossed the bubble. “All right, what next?”

  “Next I want you to recall . . .”

  For several minutes Laubmann struggled with his cautious questioning, trying hard to keep the irate artist in a reflective mood, working gradually toward the most important question that would lay bare the process of creating “fascinello,” the million-dollar color sensation.

  Taylor wasted no time on the details of Steinbock’s checkered life story. But with high excitement he pieced together the functions of the different parts of the machine. The papers which had fallen before his eyes gave the clues he needed. The lower end of the mechanism—the section in which Steinbock was so comfortably seated and strapped—was far enough from the silver bubble that the instruments of receptions and magnification, from the subject’s two eyes, imparted a perfect focus to the near side of the delicate sphere.

  The elaborate projecting arrangement was topped by a small movie camera, whose busy lenses were constantly at work capturing the pattern of mental images on films. From the soft, high-pitched hum of that camera, Taylor suspected that it was specially constructed for high speed. Indeed, it would have to be if it were to photograph the swift subtleties of the dynamic mind’s-eye.

  “THE IMAGE PROJECTOR is the final answer to my lifetime of experiments.” Taylor read the typed words of the late Professor Tannenbaum with a respect that was almost awe. “I have long been convinced that the conscious mind operates through the whole body, not simply through the brain’s cortex . . .”

  What would the professor think, Taylor wondered, if he knew his wonderful invention had fallen into the hands of these criminals?

  “The visual images that are stored in the memory,” the notes continued, “can scarcely be confined to the brain exclusively. It is only natural that a mental image will stimulate a series of neural reverberations, which will race from the brain back over the paths through which they first entered the brain—back through the optic nerve to the eye itself.

  “I have at last proved that these infinitesimal retinal responses can be detected, magnified and projected. At last the mind’s picture can be literally seen.”

  There were two things about Steinbock’s mental images that began to excite Bill Taylor more and more, the further the experiment went.

  The first was that most of the artist’s images were in dull, dreary, leaden colors. Only when the famed man broke out in a burst of bad temper or recalled some experiences that had evidently unleashed his rage, did the images show any symptoms of brightness: deep reds and glaring purples.

  The other observation, which to Taylor was constantly amazing, though it appeared to excite no interest in Laubmann or his assistant, was the continual recurrence of the blank figure.

  The figure was always similar in size and shape to Steinbock’s memory of himself but was never any clearer than a blurry shadow. As Steinbock grew into a youth the shadow grew up with him. When Steinbock fought or quarrelled or showed jealousy, it was often the shadow that was his adversary. Usually such scenes would quickly turn black or purple and Steinbock’s sharp tongue would thrash out an insult or a note of impatience.

  Bill Taylor consulted his notes again.

  “Significant is the fact that many images are incomplete pictures, part being left blank in the conscious mind of the subject. I believe that the mental ‘censor’ continually strives to
submerge some memories so deep in the subconscious mind that the conscious mind is never allowed to see them. Hence, the recurrence of blanks or shadows, which are in many cases things that the subject does not want to see.”

  Suddenly the experiment took a swift and dangerous turn.

  “Now, Professor Steinbock, will you kindly recall your experience in creating the new pigment which has struck such an imparalleled sensation in the art world?”

  As Laubmann spoke, he nudged Handy gently. The two men stood shoulder to shoulder in breathless attention, their eyes glued on the spherical silver screen.

  Bill Taylor hoped that Maurine White, wherever she was, could see the swift flashes that shot through Steinbock’s mind in that instant. Paints, easels, purchasers of pictures, fifty-dollar bills falling upon fifty-dollar bills, more yellow-tinted pictures, heaps of letters, piles of coins and bills—back of all these flashes was a blurred but unmistakable picture of Maurine White working at an easel!

  The image of the girl’s face turned to stare, as if into Steinbock’s eyes, and her gaze was half in accusation, half in fear.

  In a twinkling the whole secret tableau had come out. In a blinding flash of dark red it all disappeared . . .

  “What the hell!” Steinbock was snarling. He jerked at the straps that held him in position. “I’ve had enough of this!”

  “One moment of concentration on the new color, please,” said Laubmann in a tense voice.

  Another flash of Maurine White came and went.

  “Let me out of here!”

  “Fascinello, the world’s newest, most wonderful color—”

  The girl appeared again, busily painting a scene in yellow hues. Her eyes turned and grew large, until there was nothing but those two accusing eyes filling all the space.

  “Stop, damn it!” Steinbock cried. “I tell you I’m through. I gave you my feelings on the color. I’ve given you enough feelings to explode your old machine. I think you’re crazy. You and your whole club!