The Mack Reynolds Megapack

by Mack Reynolds

  “Ha!” Patricia snorted. “Our engagement is off, you Peeping Tom.”

  “Children, children,” Braun chuckled. “I’ll admit, though, I think Ross is correct. Don’s done little we three didn’t when first given the robe of invisibility. We experimented, largely playfully, even childishly.”

  Patricia bit out, “This experiment is ridiculous, anyway, and I don’t know why I ever agreed to it. Scientific? Nonsense. Where are our controls? For it to make any sense we’d have to work with scores of subjects. Suppose we do agree that the manner in which Don Crowley has reacted is quite harmless. Does that mean we can release this discovery to the world? Certainly not.”

  Ross said sullenly, “But you agreed that we’d go by the results of this.…”

  “I agreed to no such thing, Rossie Wooley, you overgrown lug. All I agreed to do was consider the results. I was, and am, of the opinion that if the person our politicians so lovingly call the Common Man was released of the restrictions inhibiting him, he’d go hog wild and destroy both society and himself. What is to prevent murder, robbery, rape and a score of other crimes, given invisibility for anyone who has a couple of dollars with which to go into a drugstore and purchase our serum?”

  Her fiancé sighed deeply, jamming tobacco fiercely into the bowl of his briar. He growled, “Look, you seem to think that the only thing that restricts man is the fear of being punished. There are other things, you know.”

  “Good heavens,” she said sarcastically. “Name one.”

  “There is the ethical code in which he was raised, based on religion or otherwise. There is the fact that man is fundamentally good, to use a trite term, given the opportunity.”

  “My education has evidently been neglected,” Patricia said, still argumentatively. “I’ve never seen evidence to support your claim.”

  “I’m not saying individuals don’t react negatively, given opportunity to be antisocial,” he all but snarled. “I’m just saying people in general, common, little people, trend toward decency, desire the right thing.”

  “Individuals my…my neck,” Patricia snapped back. “Did you ever hear of Rome and the games? Here a whole people, millions of them, were given the opportunity to indulge in sadistic spectacles to their heart’s desire. How many of them stayed home from the games?” She laughed in ridicule.

  Ross flushed. “Some of them did, confound it.”

  Dr. Braun had been taking in their debate, uncomfortably. As though in spite of himself, he said now, “Very few, I am afraid.”

  “Religious ethic,” Patricia pursued, relentlessly. “The greatest of the commandments is Thou Shalt Not Kill, but comes along a war in which killing becomes not only permissible but an absolute virtue and all our good Christians, Jews, Mohammedans and even Buddhists, who supposedly are not even allowed to kill mosquitoes, wade in with sheer happiness.”

  “War releases abnormal passions,” Ross said grudgingly.

  “You don’t need a war. Look at the Germans, supposedly one of our most highly civilized people. When the Nazi government released all restraints on persecution of the Jews, gypsies and others, you know what happened. This began in peace time, not in war.”

  Dr. Braun shifted in his chair. He said, his voice low, “We needn’t look beyond our own borders. The manner in which our people conducted themselves against the Amerinds from the very beginning of the white occupation of North America was quite shocking.”

  Ross said to him, “I thought you were on my side. The Indian wars were a long time ago. We’re more advanced now.”

  Dr. Braun said softly, “My father fought against Geronimo in Arizona. It wasn’t so long ago as all that.”

  Ross Wooley felt the argument going against him and lashed back. “We’ve been over and over this, what’s your point?”

  Patricia said doggedly, “The same point I tried to make from the beginning. This discovery must not be generally released. We’ll simply have to suppress it.”

  * * * *

  The door opened behind them. They turned. Nothing was there. Ross, scowling, lumbered to his feet to walk over and close it.

  “Hey, take it easy,” a voice laughed. “Don’t walk right into a guy.”

  Ross stopped, startled.

  Dr. Braun and Patricia stood up and stared, too.

  Crowley laughed. “You all look like you’re seeing a ghost.”

  Ross rumbled a grudging chuckle. “It’d be all right if we saw the ghost, it’s not seeing you that’s disconcerting.”

  The air began to shimmer, somewhat like heat on the desert’s face.

  Crowley said, “Hey, the stuff’s wearing off. Where’re my clothes?”

  “Where you left them. There in that bedroom,” Ross said. “We’ll wait for you.” He went back and rejoined his associates. The door to the bedroom opened, there was a shimmering, more obvious now, and then the door closed behind it.

  “He rejoined us just in time,” Dr. Braun murmured. “Another ten minutes and he would have…umah…materialized down on the street.”

  Ross hadn’t finished the discussion. He said, his face in all but pout, “What you don’t realize, Pat, is the world has gone beyond the point where scientific discoveries can be suppressed. If we try to keep the lid on this today, the Russians or Chinese, or somebody, will hit on it tomorrow.”

  Patricia said impatiently, “Good heavens, let’s don’t bring the Cold War into it.”

  Ross opened his mouth to snap something back at her, closed it again and shrugged his bulky shoulders angrily.

  In a matter of less than ten minutes the bedroom door reopened and this time a grinning Crowley emerged, fully dressed. He said, “Man, that was a devil of an experience!”

  They saw him to a chair and had him talk it all through. He was candid enough, bubbling over with it all.

  In the some eleven and a half hours he’d been on his own, he had covered quite an area of Manhattan.

  Evidently the first hour had been spent in becoming used to the startling situation. He couldn’t even see himself, which, to his surprise affected walking and even use of his hands. You had to get used to it. Then there was the fact that he was nude and felt nude and hence uncomfortable walking about in mixed pedestrian traffic. But that phase passed. Early in the game he found that there was small percentage in getting into crowds. It led to all sorts of complications, including the starting of minor rows, one person thinking another was pushing when it was simply a matter of Crowley trying to get out from underfoot.

  Then he went through a period of the wonder of it all. Being able to walk anywhere and observe people who had no suspicion that they were being observed. It was during that phase that he had sought out the hotel in which he had read the chesty French movie actress Brigette Loren was in residence. Evidently, he’d hit the nail right on the head. Brigette was at her toilette when he arrived on scene. In telling about this, Crowley leered amusedly at Patricia from the side of his eyes. She ignored him.

  Then he’d gone through a period when the full realization of his immunity had hit him.

  At this point he turned to Braun, “Hey, Doc, you ever eaten any caviar? You know, that Russian stuff. Supposed to be the most expensive food in the world.”

  The doctor cleared his throat. “Small amounts in hors d’oeuvres at cocktail parties.”

  “Well, maybe I’m just a country boy but the stuff tastes like fish eggs to me. Anyway, to get back to the story.…”

  He’d gone into Tiffany’s and into some of the other swank shops. And then into a bank or two, and stared at the treasures of Manhattan.

  At this point he looked at Ross. “You know, just being invisible don’t mean all that. How you going to pick up a wad of thousand dollar bills and just walk out the front door with them? Everybody’d see the dough just kind of floating through the air.”

  “I came to the same conclusion myself, when I experimented,” Ross said wryly.

  He had ridden on the subways…free. He had eaten variou
s food in various swank restaurants. He had even had drinks in name bars, sampling everything from Metaxa to vintage champagne. He was of the opinion that even though he remained invisible for the rest of his years, he’d still stick to bourbon and beer.

  * * * *

  He had gone down to Wall Street and into the offices of the top brokerage firms and into the sanctum sanctorums of the wealthiest of mucky-mucks but had been too impatient to stick around long enough to possibly hear something that might be profitable. He admitted, grudgingly, that he wouldn’t have known what to listen for anyway. Frustrated there, he had gone back uptown and finally located the hangout of one of the more renown sports promoters who was rumored to have gangster connections and was currently under bail due to a boxing scandal. He had stayed about that worthy’s office for an hour, gleaning nothing more than several dirty jokes he’d never heard before.

  All this activity had wearied him so he went to the Waldorf, located an empty suite in the tower and climbed into bed for a nap after coolly phoning room service to give him a call in two hours. That had almost led to disaster. Evidently, someone on room service had found the suite to be supposedly empty and had sent a boy up to investigate. However, when he had heard the door open, Crowley had merely rolled out of the bed and left, leaving a startled bellhop behind staring at rumpled bedclothes which had seemed to stir of their own accord.

  * * * *

  The rest of the day was little different from the first hours. He had gone about gawking in places he couldn’t have had he been visible. Into the dressing room of the Roxie, into the bars of swank private clubs, into the offices of the F.B.I. He would have liked to have walked in on a poker game with some real high rollers playing, such as Nick the Greek, but he didn’t have the time nor know-how to go about finding one.

  Crowley wound it all up with a gesture of both hands, palms upward. “I gotta admit, it was fun, but what the devil good is it?”

  They looked at him questioningly.

  Crowley said, “I mean, how’s it practical? How can you make a buck out of it, if you turn it over to the public, like? Everybody’d go around robbing everybody else and you’d all wind up equal.”

  Dr. Braun chuckled in deprecation. “There would be various profitable uses, Don. One priceless one would be scientific observation of wild life. For that matter there would be valid usage in everyday life. There are often personal reasons for not wishing to be observed. Celebrities, for instance, wishing to avoid crowds.”

  “Yeah,” Crowley laughed, “or a businessman out with his secretary.”

  Dr. Braun frowned. “Of course, there are many other aspects. It would mean the end of such things as the Iron Curtain. And also the end of such things as American immigration control. There are many, many ramifications, Don, some of which frighten us. The world would be never quite the same.”

  Crowley leaned forward confidentially. “Well, I’ll tell you. I was thinking it all out. What we got to do is turn it over to the Army and soak them plenty for it.”

  The others ignored his cutting himself a piece of the cake.

  Ross Wooley merely grunted bitterly.

  Patricia said impatiently, “We’ve thought most of these things through, Don. However, Dr. Braun happens to be quite a follower of Lord Russell.”

  Crowley looked at her blankly.

  “He’s a pacifist,” she explained.

  Braun pushed his glasses back more firmly on his nose and said, gently, “The military already have enough gadgets to destroy quite literally everything and I trust one set of them no more than the other. If both sides had our discovery, then, very well, each would go about attempting to find some manner of penetrating the invisibility, or taking various measures to protect their top secrets. But to give it to just one would be such an advantage that the other would have to embark immediately upon a desperate attack before the advantage could be fully realized. If we turn this over to the Pentagon, for exclusive use, the Soviets would have to begin a preventative war as soon as they learned of its existence.”

  “You a red?” Crowley said, scowling.

  The doctor shrugged hopelessly. “No,” he said.

  Crowley turned to the other two. “If you think it’s the patriotic thing to do, why don’t one of you sell it to the government?”

  Patricia said testily, “You don’t understand, Don. Even if we were so thoroughly in disagreement that we would act unilaterally, we couldn’t. You see, this is a three-way discovery. No one of us knows the complete process.”

  His face twisted. “Look, maybe some of this egghead stuff doesn’t get through to me but I’m not stupid, see? You got the stuff, haven’t you? You gave me that shot this morning.”

  Braun took over, saying reasonably, “Don, this discovery was hit upon by accident. The three of us are employed in the laboratories of a medical research organization. I am the department head. Patricia and Ross were doing some routine work on a minor problem when they separately stumbled upon some rather startling effects, practically at the same time. Each, separately, brought their discoveries to me, and, working you might say intuitively, I added some conclusions of my own, and…well, I repeat, the discovery was stumbled upon.”

  Crowley assimilated that. “None of you knows how to do it, make those injections like, by himself?”

  “That is correct. Each knows just one phase of the process. Each must combine with the other two.”

  Patricia said impatiently, “And thus far we wish to keep it that way. Rossie believes the discovery should be simultaneously revealed on a world-wide basis, and let man adapt to it as best he can. I think it should be suppressed until man has grown up a little—if he ever does. The doctor vacillates between the two positions. What he would truly like to see, is the method kept only for the use of qualified scientists, but even our good doctor realizes what a dream that is.”

  Crowley took them all in, one at a time. “Well, what the devil are you going to do?”

  “That’s a good question,” Ross said unhappily.

  “This experiment was a farce,” Patricia said irritably. “After all our trouble locating Don, our Common Man, we have found out nothing that we didn’t know before. His reactions were evidently largely similar to our own and.…” She broke it off and frowned thoughtfully. The other three looked at her questioningly.

  Patricia said, “You know, we simply haven’t seen this thing through as yet.”

  “What do you mean, Pat?” Ross growled.

  She turned to him. “We haven’t given Don the chance to prove which one of us is right. One day is insufficient. Half the things he wished to do, such as sneaking around picking up stock tips in Wall Street and inside information on sporting events.…”

  “Hey, take it easy,” Crowley protested. “I was just, like, curious.”

  Ross said heatedly, “That’s not fair. I’ll admit, I, too, thought of exactly the same possibilities. But thinking about them and going through with them are different things. Haven’t you ever thought about what you’d do if given the chance to be world-wide supreme dictator? But, truly, if the job was offered, would you take it?”

  “Good heavens,” Patricia said disgustedly, “remind me to break off our engagement if I haven’t already done it. I hate overpowering men. All I’m saying is that we’ll have to give Don at least a week. One day isn’t enough.”

  Dr. Braun cocked his head to one side and said uncomfortably, “I’m not sure but that in a week’s time our friend Don might be able.… See here, Don, do you mind going on down to the hotel’s bar while we three talk this through?”

  Crowley obviously took umbrage at that, but there was nothing to be done. Frowning peevishly, he left.

  The doctor looked from one to the other of his associates. “By Caesar, do you realize the damage friend Don could accomplish in a week’s time?”

  Patricia laughed at him. “That’s what I keep telling the two of you. Do you realize the damage any person could do with invisibility? Not
to speak of giving it to every Tom, Dick and Harry in the world.”

  Ross said, “We’ve started this, lets go through with it. I back Pat’s suggestion, that we give Don sufficient serum to give him twelve hours of invisibility a day for a full week. However, we will ration it out to him day by day, so that if things get out of hand we can cut his supply.”

  “That’s an idea,” Patricia said. “And I suspect that within half the period we’ll all be convinced that the process will have to be suppressed.”

  Ross leaned forward. “Good. I suggest we three keep this suite and get Don a room elsewhere, so he won’t be inhibited by our continual presence. Once a day we’ll give him enough serum for one shot and he can take it any time he wishes to.” He ran his beefy hand back through his red crew cut in a gesture of satisfaction. “If he seems to get out of hand, we’ll call it all off.”

  Dr. Braun cleared his throat unhappily. “I have premonitions of disaster, but I suppose if we’ve come this far we should see the experiment through.”

  Patricia said ungraciously, “At least the lout will be limited in his accomplishments by his lack of imagination. Imagine going into that French girl’s dressing room.”

  “Yeah,” Ross said ludicrously trying to make his big open face look dreamy.

  “You wretch,” Patricia laughed. “The wedding is off!”

  * * * *

  But Crowley was no lout. He was full of the folk wisdom of his people.

  God helps those who help themselves.

  It’s each man for himself and the devil take the hindmost.

  Not to speak of.

  Never give a sucker an even break.

  If I didn’t do it, somebody else would.

  Had he been somewhat more of a student he might also have run into that nugget of the ancient Greek. Morals are the invention of the weak to protect themselves from the strong.