by Don Wilcox
“Because he’s so like a child. He always does exactly what you tell him not to do. It was just a quirk in his nature to be contrary. Oh, if I had only left, him alone he might never have come. But I saw the secret letter they wrote, promising him fabulous wealth if he’d just, allow himself to be used in experiments. I pleaded with him not to do anything foolish. And then, before I knew it, he was gone—I didn’t know where. It took me days to trace him to this address.”
“And so you got a job here as receptionist?”
“That was my one chance to find my way into their confidence. There was so much secrecy, I knew it was something dangerous. I knew that if I made one false step, my chance would be gone. But now I’m here.”
“Here, yes. And the guards are all around us.”
“But the way is open.”
“You mean over the roof in all that moonlight? We’ll be shot.”
“Not the roof, the spiral slide.”
“The way I came in?” Melvin glanced about through the shadowy objects of the room, wondering just where he had come in. It was off somewhere across this large central room. He remembered the big spheres of colored liquids that seemed to be spinning around his head when he first landed on the floor.
“If we can find John, we can get out, the three of us,” Dorothy whispered confidently. “That spiral goes all the way down.”
“To the ground floor?”
“Yes, to aft galley. Persons have been brought up here in a drunken stupor from drugs. They’ve been used here for experiments, and dumped—afterward—still in a stupor.”
“They slide all the way down into the alley?”
“Yes. I’ve heard the attendants talk of it—men have been seen stumbling away without ever knowing what happened to them.”
“Of all the damnable rackets!”
“But this I’m sure of, Melvin. Some men don’t get away. That’s why I couldn’t sleep for thinking of you. And what I had done to you, bringing you here. Now do you believe me? You do, don’t you?”
He drew her into his arms. She yielded so naturally to his embrace that he drew her face close, and kissed her once.
“I’m thanking you,” he breathed. “You’re forgiving me, aren’t you,” she whispered.
A shadow passed across her moonlit face. Two shadows were moving across the floor, shadows that came from the glass promenade high above them. Dorothy’s startled face, looked. Melvin saw, too, at that same instant. The silhouettes of two men were moving along up there in the moonlight. One of them, Melvin knew, was Dr. Pibbering.
“Quick!” Dorothy said, catching Melvin’s hand. “We’ve got to find John!”
The awful part of it was that neither one of them knew which way to took. There were other cells down the row from Melvin’s. They started in that direction. They found two cells empty. There was no time to look in a third, for the footsteps and low voices could now be heard on the stairway leading down from the roof balcony. On tiptoe they hurried across to the oval room where they might hide.
“John probably isn’t in a cell: anyway,” Melvin whispered. “They seem to give him the run of the place, like a doctor.”
“I haven’t even heard His voice since I’ve been here.”
“You might not know him. He’s pale. They’ve used him badly. You mustn’t be shocked.”
“If we can just find him and get out, that’s all.” Her voice was quivering.
Melvin thought she was crying. “Here. Back in these shadows.”
They hid themselves in a little alcove where uniforms, laboratory aprons and coats hung from hooks and clothes trees. As the footsteps of Dr. Pibbering and his guest came down into the big room, they waited breathlessly, listening. Melvin felt the girl’s trembling hand against his own. He slipped his arm around her quivering body and his hand tightened over her fingers.
The footsteps of a guard approached from another direction. A light snapped on. The guard called across to Dr. Pibbering to make sure everything was all right. Then he snapped the light off and retreated to another part of the building. The low voices of Pibbering and his guest were too far away to be understood.
“They’re away from the stairs now.” Melvin whispered. “If we had John—”
“No, they might turn on a light. They’re moving this way. We’ll have to wait.”
“Who is with Pibbering?”
“I’m riot sure. I thought it might be John. If they come closer—”
“They’ve turned off.”
In silence they waited. The moon shadows were shifting. From the far side of the big room a triangle of jets cast their baleful orange-colored light over the massive pieces of laboratory equipment. Lines of colored light flickered through rows of test tubes. A tongue of blue flame wavered back and forth, under a gleaming crucible; its rhythm making long lines of shadow-like giant spider legs creep; back and forth across the floor.
“What do you hear?” Dorothy whispered.
At first it was only the sounds of the laboratory that Melvin distinguished. All along he had been aware of the slow incessant drip—drip—drip of liquids gliding down, drop by drop, through a. long, diagonal crystal cylinder. Intermittently the rhythm would, be disturbed by a low swoosh of liquids overflowing, then a barely audible tinkle of some unseen weighing apparatus; then again, the slow drip—drip—drip.
But now Melvin heard more—a rhythmic thump—thump—thump—thump.
Sometimes the beat coincided with, that of the dripping noise; again the patterns of rhythm crossed, so that he heard each, beat separately.
“It’s men marching!” the girl whispered. “It’s the slaves!”
“Slaves? What slaves? Where?”
“In another room somewhere. I’ve heard the men talk about them. I’m not supposed to know. They’d kill me if I ever told.”
Melvin crept out of his hiding place. Dorothy clung to his hand. They could see a rectangle of yellow light, far down, the corridor. Silhouetted against the light were the black figures of the two men—Dr. Pibbering and the other. The rectangle of light was the wide opening into a huge room beyond.
Thump—thump—thump. Men were marching in formation in that big empty room. Dr. Pibbering and his guest stood in the doorway like generals reviewing their troops.
Melvin and Dorothy moved along the shadowy wall toward the light. They took care to step with the rhythm of the march. Thump—thump—thump—thump.
They paused at an alcove, close enough to catch the full benefit of the view.
“They’re all in uniform,” Dorothy whispered. “There are over a hundred.”
“A hundred and twenty-eight—you can tell by the formations. They’re going round and round. But where have they been? Where did they come from? How did they get in?”
“They’ve been there,” the girl said. “They were here before I came, though this is the first time I’ve seen them. They’re Pibbering’s experiments.”
“Were they marched in here from some army?”
“They were lured in, one at a time. They’ve been doped into blind submission. They’re the product that Dr. Pibbering plans to turn out by the thousands. They’re slaves!”
“Slaves of what?”
“Slaves of that, man you see to the doorway with Dr. Pibbering.”
At that moment the men in the doorway turned, and Melvin saw plainly the animal-like features and maniacal eyes of the one and only Kozmack!
Kozmack and the doctor turned abruptly. The doctor pressed a button and the door slid closed. He switched on the amber-colored indirect lights that ran the length of the corridor. Then he and Kozmack moved leisurely down the way toward the big oval room. Now Melvin could hear what the aged doctor was saying.
“You can’t complain about results like that, Mr. Kozmack. I’m doing for you what no one else in the world can do.”
“And that’s why you’re being protected,” Kozmack said in a tone that was condescending in the extreme. “Protected and richly overpaid.
”
The doctor ignored the comment. “You saw for yourself how those men were marching. They’re machines, I tell you. I started them at twelve midnight. It’s now four in the morning. In. these four hours they haven’t missed a step. I can turn out thousands like that.”
“That’s what I’m paying you for.”
“If I don’t stop them they’ll march till they drop in their tracks. If I should order them to fight, they’d fight till they die fighting.”
“That’s what I’ve ordered. But how long are they good for on the march?”
“I’ve never let them go till they dropped. If you wish to know—”
“Find out for me. Let these men keep marching till they fall.”
“If you say so. It may cost a few lives—”
“Lives are cheap. The point is, we need to know their exact limits of endurance, so that when we convert a million men to the Kozmack Cause, we’ll know. From the very hour that we put them in red and yellow uniforms, we’ll know.”
Melvin and Dorothy huddled tight in the recessed doorway, and the two men, deep in their conversation, moved past them. The talk of slaves abruptly changed to talk of the inevitable resistance. The government, the police, the newspapers, the influential citizens were all growing openly hostile to the Kozmack movement, yet there was time to gain headway before the public became too much aroused.
“We can take advantage of American freedom up to a point,” Kozmack said. “When they begin to suppress us, that’s when we go underground. You and your laboratories all over the country will have to work, full staff, twenty-four hours a day. And this above all—you’ll have to find a serum to frustrate the leaders of the resistance.”
“I’m way ahead of you, Mr. Kozmack,” the old doctor said crustily.
“You’ll have to be able to convert our toughest enemies in a matter of hours. I don’t mean the weak ones like these slaves. I mean the brilliant, stubborn, steel-minded citizen who would die rather than see America slip. Convert that kind of man—convert him even for a moment—long enough to confuse the public—and our little revolution is a pushover.”
“I repeat,” the doctor stopped, placed his fists on his hips. “I’m way ahead of you. I have a specimen under observation right now. He’s your solid fighting citizen, and I’ll have him converted into a mechanized slave soon after daybreak.”
“Is that so?” The big-shouldered Kozmack tossed his head with an air of skepticism. “I think I’ll stay around and see this happen.”
“That’s your privilege.” The doctor motioned toward a cell door nearby. “If you want to take a look at the raw material, he’s rightin’ here.”
“He’s not one of my good friends, I assume.”
“Hardly. He heard you speaking in the park yesterday. If you’ll pardon the expression, he hates your guts. His life’s ambition is to ridicule you on every, stage and every television screen in America.”
“He should be a valuable guinea pig,” Kozmack said, “if I don’t happen to lose my temper and kill him by mistake.”
“Well, don’t. He’d be hard to replace. I wouldn’t lose him for a cold million.” The doctor switched on the cell light, peered in at the narrow window, and scowled. “I don’t see him. Careful.”
Kozmack drew a pistol. Melvin, watching from the alcove, felt Dorothy’s arms tighten nervously.
Dr. Pibbering unlocked the cell. The door moved open. The doctor, slow and shuffling and seemingly crippled, was suddenly moving with the quickness of an animal. He entered.
Melvin whispered. “Here comes our chance to make a break. If Kozmack follows him in.”
Kozmack started in. His elbows still showed at the cell doorway.
Melvin could hardly, wait to slip forward. If he could lock the two of them in, then there would be a swift moment for finding John and running for safety before the guards could answer the inevitable shouting.
“What are you going to do?” Dorothy whispered.
“Lock them in, maybe. If that damned Kozmack wasn’t so cautious—”
“Look!”
Out of the shadows came a naked figure, running noiselessly on bare feet straight toward the cell door. From, some hiding place a slave had evidently been watching the whole procedure. He too had foreseen the chance to thrust the two men into the cell and throw the lock. He was racing—
“It’s John! He’s going to make it!” the girl cried under her breath.
Kozmack suddenly whirled out of the doorway and fired the pistol. The weapon. flashed three times. Its thunder reverberated through the cavernous laboratory. John’s emaciated body went down in a heap.
The girl sprang out of Melvin’s grasp and ran toward him crying, “John, John. Oh John, it’s Dorothy, look at me . . .”
Melvin, rushing after her, thought he saw the faded eyes of John look up and recognize her before his head toppled over on his arm.
“He’s dead,” Dorothy cried in horror, drawing back. “He’s been shot—and he isn’t even bleeding!”
It was daylight—Melvin knew that before he even opened his eyes. He was not in his cell—he knew that, too, from the sounds of voices around him. He had been doped with the new drug, that he remembered plainly.
“He’ll wake up soon. In a few minutes we’ll know.” Dr. Pibbering’s voice oozed confidence.
Melvin kept his eyes closed. So they were, all around him waiting for him to wake up, were they? His eyelids tightened.
Time was precious. As long as they didn’t know he was awake, his time was his own, time to try to think things through. What were they going to do with him? Make short work of him, most likely, just as they had John.
Poor John! He’d taken a chance and lost. In half a second’s time the fates had turned against him.
It was a wonder that the infuriated Kozmack hadn’t turned his pistol on the rest of them while he was at it. It was a wonder he hadn’t shot Dorothy down in cold blood when she’d rushed up to her brother. But Dr. Pibbering had snarled, “You’re blasting your own cause, Kozmack. These are million-dollar specimens. Better put your gun away.”
And Kozmack, stinging from the rebuke, had pocketed his pistol. The guards had rushed up with whips, alarms had sounded, and the doors to all stairways had clanged shut.
“This is the one I was telling you about,” the old doctor had said, pointing Melvin out to Kozmack. “And this other,” he pointed to the dead form of John, “has been our source of certain hormones. We considered him as harmless and faithful as any slave.”
“Apparently he wasn’t so harmless,” Kozmack said. “Someone had let this man out of his cell.”
“I let him out!” Dorothy cried: “I was looking for my brother and I—”
“Pay no attention to her. In her present emotional state she might say anything.”
This remark had come from the bug-eyed Doctor Dean, who had strolled into the room back of the guards.
For a few minutes they had talked and argued, all of them giving respectful attention to any words from Kozmack.
“What’s done is done,” Kozmack said. “Get on with your experiment, Pibbering. Make your bluff good, that’s all. I ask.”
And with that they had all turned their attention to Melvin. They brought a needle and gave him a quick knockout. The blackness swept in on him again.
But now, with his eyes still closed, he was wide awake. He was sitting in an easy chair. When the voices around him quieted he could hear the steady drip—drip—drip—and occasionally the swoosh and faint clink of a measure of liquids passing automatically through a weighing machine. From another direction came the muffled thump—thump—thump—of the marching slaves. The big rectangular door to their room must be open.
He knew from the talk that sound cameras were ready for his awakening. He knew that Dorothy was there; that the youngish round-shouldered Dr. Dean was sitting near her, talking to her in a low voice, trying to console her over what had happened to her brother, and at the same time tr
ying to win her over to the cause of Kozmack.
Melvin felt keenly alert. He felt alive from his toes to his fingertips. He wanted to keep his eyes closed because they wanted him to wake up. Otherwise he was so full of weird impulses, he didn’t know what he wanted.
Someone slapped him hard across the cheek.
Pibbering’s voice said, “Dorothy, you shouldn’t have done that.”
Melvin’s eyes popped open. It was a trick, Dorothy was nowhere near. The doctor himself had delivered the slap. In his crusty old voice he said, “Awake? I. thought so. Would you like to get out of this place?” Melvin, narrowing his eyes against the light, looked about deliberately. Everyone—doctors, attendants, Pibbering, Dean, Kozmack and Dorothy “—was watching him. The cameras were busy. Dr. Pibbering drew his chair up close, his yellow eyes drilling Melvin.
“I asked you a question, young man. Would you like to get out of this place?”
“No,” Melvin said. His answer was crisp and it gave him a feeling of cockiness, a sense of confidence, a weird feeling of power.
“I suppose you’d like some breakfast served on a silver platter,” Pibbering said sarcastically.
“No.”
Pibbering changed his tone: “Well, I know what you would like. You’d like a chance to strike that attendant you fought with yesterday. “Here he is.” Pibbering beckoned to one of the attendants, who stepped forward cautiously. “Here, Melvin Bolt. Would you like to lambast him on the jaw?”
“No.”
“Well. Something’s happened to you. You don’t want to fight any more, do you?”
“I do want to fight,” Melvin snapped. “I just don’t want to fight him, that’s all”
“Well, something has happened to you, all right.”
“Nothing has happened. What makes you think anything has happened?”
“Because you don’t know whether you’re coming or going, that’s why,” Dr. Pibbering said savagely.
Kozmack was muttering unpleasantly to himself, showing signs of impatience.
“I know all right,” Melvin said stubbornly. “You don’t know whether I’m coming or going, but I know.”
At that moment Dorothy rushed over to him, just as she had rushed to her brother at the wrong time, unable to control her emotions. It was as if her grief over John had suddenly turned into love and compassion for Melvin.
