A Werewolf Among Us

by Dean R. Koontz

  "But," Jubal said, "what about the TDX-4, the drug he used on you? He could destroy all of this when he had finished with all of us — but the house computer would keep a record of the drug purchase. The police, if they were clever enough, could figure him out on the basis of that — and find out who illegally programmed him to kill."

  "Except that Teddy didn't buy the hallucinogenic drug. It was already here, in the house."

  "Where?" the patriarch asked. "No one in this house uses hallucinogens." He spoke with smug authority.

  "I use them," Alicia said. She said so little, spoke so seldom, that when she did say anything her gentle voice cut like a knife.

  "You?" her husband asked, uncomprehending.

  No one else spoke.

  Alicia said, "There are times — times when I simply can't stand it any more — when I need some escape."

  "Can't stand what?" he asked.

  Reluctantly, sadly, but beyond tears now, she said, "This house, my family, the coldness, the way we seldom speak to one another, the fact that we barely know each other…"

  Jubal was speechless. This was a time of changes, large changes, or at least a time of intimations of changes, and he was going to have to make a great many adjustments, examine a long list of his cherished attitudes. None of it would be easy.

  "Have you noticed that you're missing any TDX?" the cyberdetective asked the lonely woman.

  "I haven't noticed."

  "We'll look later," St. Cyr said. "But I'm certain that your supply has been reduced."

  "Okay, okay," Jubal said, suddenly impatient, trying to wipe out his hurt and confusion with feigned anger. "The proof is conclusive. But who got to Teddy? Who re-programmed him with all these directives to kill?"

  "May I try to answer that?" Hirschel asked. He was grinning, his hands swinging at his sides, like a high school kid meeting his first date.

  "Go on," St. Cyr said.

  "Teddy was never re-programmed," Hirschel said.

  "Right," the detective said.

  "The illegal directives were worked into his program in the factory," Hirschel said. "From the moment that he came here, he was prepared to kill everyone in the house."

  "Once he had made the proper impression, generated trust, and got the necessary tools together," St. Cyr added.

  Hirschel smiled and said, "And the man who programmed him was Walter Dannery."

  "The man I fired?" Jubal asked.

  "The same," Hirschel said. "Right?"

  "I believe so," St. Cyr said.

  "But that's insane!" Jubal said.

  "I have no certain proof of it yet," the cyberdetective said. "But I probably will have in the morning — at least a bit of circumstantial evidence. Consider that Reiss Master Units are produced on Ionus, the same world to which Dannery went after he lost his job here. Also consider that he was one of your chief roboticists, as you've told me, and would very likely be a candidate for executive-level employment with Reiss."

  Jubal looked as if he had been caught on the back of the head by a boomerang just after stating flatly that such toys didn't work.

  St. Cyr got down from the table and began to put the evidence into the paper sack again. He said, "Did you have any proof — anything admissible in a court of law — that it was Walter Dannery who embezzled those funds?"

  "He was in charge of that section and the only human authorized to handle the books. And computer tapes had been altered, rather crudely in fact. We couldn't flatly prove that it was Dannery — but we knew that it couldn't be anyone else." He sounded defensive, without reason.

  "Therefore," the detective said, twisting the top on the bag, "no charge was leveled against him with Darmanian authorities."

  "None," Jubal said.

  "And without a mark on his work record, Reiss would have no reason to pass up his application for a job."

  Jubal still could not accept the devious resurrection of the past. He said, "But the man embezzled the money. He knows he did. Knowing he was guilty, wouldn't he be relieved at getting off so lightly? When he'd had time to think it over, would he feed his hatred until he was willing to commit murder?"

  "People have killed for less," St. Cyr said. "And it may just be possible that he was not lying to you when he told you that sob story about dependent children and a sick wife. If you'll excuse my saying so, you are not a proper judge of human emotions, not sensitive enough to such things to distinguish between a lie and the truth."

  Jubal apparently was willing to accept the judgment. He said nothing more, but he looked at Alicia and took her hands and held her beside him, close.

  "Question?" Tina asked.

  "Yes?"

  "How could Walter Dannery have known the circumstances of daily life in this house? He would have had to be familiar with so much to have so minutely programmed Teddy. For instance, he would have to know about the wolf skins in storage, about Dane's superstitions—"

  "Not at all," St. Cyr interrupted. "All that Dannery needed to do was implant the prime directive: 'Kill everyone in the Alderban family, but protect yourself against discovery.' He would have needed a number of qualifying directives, of course: 'Choose an exotic means of murder; establish suspects outside of yourself; to all overt intents and purposes, perform according to the Three Laws of Robotics…" He may even have chosen the werewolf scheme, since he lived on Darma and may have known the legends. After that, however, it was up to Teddy to work out a viable plan for the extermination of the family. Remember that a master unit has a fantastic capacity for the storage of new data, while its logic circuits are four times as large and eight times better than those in the bio-computer that I wear. With the minimum of directives, Teddy could have worked out the rest of it."

  "Now what do we do?" Alicia asked.

  "We call Teddy in here and ask him to open his service panel for inspection. Unless I miss my guess, I believe he will obey. We simply shut him down."

  "Like pulling a plug," Hirschel said.

  St. Cyr crossed the room, opened the door and said, 'Teddy?"

  Teddy did not respond.

  St. Cyr stepped into the hall. "Teddy, come here, please."

  He received no answer.

  "Where is he?" Hirschel asked.

  "Gone," the cyberdetective said. "I seem to have guessed wrong. Apparently he was eavesdropping through the house computer."

  FOURTEEN: Confrontation with the Killer

  Hirschel maintained a small arsenal in his suite on the fifth level — pistols, rifles, revolvers, traps, and more insidious devices — and it was here that they armed themselves before making a thorough search of the mansion. Conventional weapons, for the most part, were useless against a robot, because the projectiles from few rifles — and from no handgun known — could be expected to pierce quarter-inch multi-pressed steel. In Hirschel's collection, however, were four vibra-beam weapons, guns that projected a powerful but rapidly dissipating beam of sound, carried and magnified in a high-intensity laser that moved on a line-of-sight between hunter and target. The light was visible as a quick flash, the sound beyond the range of the human ear. In close quarters, the weapon could kill a man and pretty well mangle the innards of a robot. Two of Hirschel's pieces were rifles, which he and St. Cyr chose, since they were more familiar with weaponry and would know how to use a rifle within the confines of a room, if the opportunity should come for that Tina and Dane took the pistols.

  "We'll stay together," St. Cyr said. "Dane and I will walk abreast, Jubal and Alicia behind us, Hirschel and Tina at the rear. Keep your eyes open; we won't hear him coming if he doesn't want us to."

  In the corridor, St. Cyr picked up the nearest phone link to the house computer and directed it to turn on and keep on every light in the mansion. Teddy had night vision. They didn't. He further ordered the house to shut down all but one elevator, which only they would be permitted to use. Without curiosity, the computer obeyed.

  "Can a master unit override the orders I just gave the house
?" the detective asked Jubal.

  "No." Tired. Confused. Rich, yes, but what did that matter now?

  "Perhaps, if he tampered with it—"

  Jubal shook his head fiercely. "The house computer is a perpetual care unit that repairs itself. It's housed in the rock strata under the mansion, sealed up tight. There is absolutely no way that Teddy could have gotten to it."

  "Good enough," St. Cyr said. He was beginning to feel as if it was all so much ritual from this point on, the obligatory chase before the inevitable ending. "We'll leave the bag of evidence in Hirschel's room. It contains Teddy's gun and claw, his two major weapons. That makes him less dangerous but not harmless, so watch your back while we're checking out the rest of these rooms." In fifteen minutes the fifth level was cleared. St. Cyr lifted the phone link to the house computer and said, "I want you to lock all the doors, patio doors and windows on the fifth level, inside and out I don't want you to unlock them except when you're told to do so by a human voice."

  "Yes, sir."

  He hung up and turned back to the others, grimaced and picked up the phone again.

  "Yes?" the house asked.

  "Can you distinguish between human voices and tapedeck constructions?"

  The house said that it could.

  He hung up again, "Let's go down a level," he said to the others.

  The fourth level was clean, the lights burning brightly, the rooms still and deserted.

  St. Cyr directed the house computer to lock all of the doors and windows as they left.

  "Yes, sir," it said.

  It sounded polite and obedient. He knew that no one could have gotten to it to make it behave otherwise. Yet… He supposed he would never fully trust another machine.

  Illogical.

  He was startled by the bio-computer's comment, chiefly because it was the first thing it had contributed since St. Cyr had begun to explain the nature of the crime to the family gathered in the kitchen.

  They went down to the third level.

  The library was clean.

  So was Jubal's den, and Alicia's music room.

  When they entered the main sitting room, where they had gathered to discuss the case on St. Cyr's first night in the mansion, Teddy drifted rapidly toward them, a dart gun affixed to the stump of his right arm. But that was impossible, St. Cyr thought. They had left the gun behind them, locked in Hirschel's room.

  Teddy fired.

  The dart stung St. Cyr's neck.

  He plucked it out, though he knew it was too late. Evidently Teddy had been prepared for any contingency: He had manufactured two dart pistols.

  Behind him, the others were hit too; they cried out and plucked the darts angrily from their chests and legs and arms, tossed them away. When he turned he saw that Teddy appeared to be a good marksman, for everyone was reacting as if he had been hit.

  A second dart bit the detective's thigh. He pulled it loose, wondering: poison this time?

  Hirschel went down on one knee, the rifle already up against his shoulder.

  Why didn't I react that fast? St. Cyr wondered. He dropped into the familiar firing position to make up for lost time.

  Hirschel pulled off a shot at point-blank range, worked it right into the center of the master unit's body trunk. As he fired, he let out a war whoop; obviously, even though he had been hit by a dart, he was happy to be embroiled in a fight.

  Even in the brightly-lighted room, the intense laser pulse was noticeable, like a quick, ghostly flicker of life in another dimension — or like the slit-mouth smile of a native Darmanian impressed upon the air.

  Dane fired too.

  And Tina.

  St. Cyr raised his rifle, sighted, felt the hallucinations hit him as his finger went around the trigger. A dozen Teddy master units appeared where only one had been a moment earlier. He did not think he should risk a shot now, for he could no longer be certain that there was no human between him and the robot.

  Teddy reeled backwards under the impact of the vibra-beams, then turned and fled toward the window in the far wall.

  "Dammit, he's getting away!" Hirschel shouted. He got up, stumbled towards the retreating machine, fell full length as he tripped over some imaginary obstacle.

  Teddy smashed through the huge picture window, sent shards of glass flying in all directions, and disappeared into the darkness.

  FIFTEEN: A Desperate Barricade

  In the sitting room, while the others fumbled drunkenly with pieces of furniture to make a crude barricade at the smashed window, St, Cyr held onto the telephone link of the house computer, held on with both hands, and said, "Hello? Hello?"

  The house did not reply.

  "I want you to lock every door and window in the lower three levels right now," he commanded it.

  The house did not acknowledge the order.

  "You there?" he asked.

  The house was not there.

  He hung up, leaned against the wall, shoved away when he felt himself sinking into it, the plaster closing around him like butter, greasy and warm. Carefully placing one foot before the other, he plodded to the door, where Jubal was sprawled across the entrance. The old man stared stupidly at the ceiling and mumbled something that St. Cyr could not hear, did not want to hear, and ignored. He stepped over the drugged patriarch arid was about to venture into the corridor when Alicia caught hold of his arm from behind.

  "Where you going?" she asked. She was accustomed to the drug, and far less affected by it than they were.

  This house computer have a manual programming board?" St. Cyr asked.

  She nodded. "But why don't you use the telephone link?"

  "I tried that," he explained patiently, though he found it difficult to be patient with a woman whose face constantly changed shape: now squashed and ugly, now flat like paper, now drawn thin and humorous. He said, "Teddy got to the in-house lines as well, sometime just before he jumped us."

  "And he had a second pistol," Alicia said, as if St. Cyr were to blame for not having located that weapon when he ransacked the cabinets and drawers in the workshop.

  Maybe he was to blame.

  He didn't want to think about that now. Indeed, he couldn't think about it, because he needed all his concentration to handle the single topic of the house computer.

  To a thin-faced, squinty Alicia, he said: "I want to get the electric locks thrown on the bottom three levels, before Teddy has a chance to come back into the house through another door."

  "He'll already have done that," she said.

  To a round-faced, porcine Alicia, he said: "Maybe; maybe not. The hits the others made with vibra-beams may have stunned him. They may even have damaged or erased memory banks."

  "I'll come with you," she said. "The keyboard is in the basement, behind the workshop."

  St. Cyr looked at the others, who were toiling mightily but accomplishing very little in the effort to block up the broken window. "You have to stay here, with them," he said. "Oversee the construction of the barricade. At least, then we'll have one secure room on this level."

  She looked dubious.

  "Don't look dubious," St. Cyr told her, patting her peaked head. "It isn't becoming to you."

  "You'll never make it all the way down to the basement, to the board," she said, her mouth abruptly widening until it stretched from ear to ear.

  "I'll make it," he said."I've got the computer shell to help me weed out the real from the unreal."

  "It didn't help you in the garden," she said.

  "I wasn't prepared for this then." He stepped backwards, moving away from her huge mouth, prepared to strike her if she attempted to take a bite of him.

  Hallucination.

  Something crashed behind Alicia, and she whirled to see what had happened. In the instant, she gained two feet in height, a hundred pounds in weight, ballooned out and up like a bespelled giant recovering from sorcery that had midgetized it.

  St. Cyr used the distraction to turn and stumble into the corridor, where the
floor was rippling gently in a soft warm breeze.

  When the elevator door opened for him, he saw that it was a wet, pink mouth waiting to swallow him, and he stepped backwards so fast that he fell.

  Hallucination.

  Of course, he thought. Hallucination. Still, it was difficult to step onto the wriggling tongue, turn and punch a button to make the thick lips close in front of him.

  He was swallowed…

  Then, with a jolt, he was regurgitated. He supposed it was because he contained too many sour memories to please the elevator's palate.

  He swayed forward into the garage on the lowest level of the mansion, went painfully to his knees, felt the floor go soft and attempt to suck him down. The tile was halfway up his thighs when he finally levered himself loose and regained his feet.

  A month later, he reached the far side of the garage and went through the archway into Teddy's workshop, half expecting to encounter the master unit again. The workshop, however, was deserted. He thought of getting down on his knees and giving thanks for that stroke of luck, then remembered that the floor would devour him if it were given an opportunity like that.

  Hallucination.

  Of course it was. He knew that. He did not believe in prayer, anyway. Most likely, he would have gotten down on his knees to pray while Teddy entered the room behind him and broke his neck. If there were any gods, they were the sort who loved to play tricks like that. He knew from experience. Just as the stalker knew, too…

  That thought sobered him, chiefly because he could not understand the sense behind it. What did that phantom figure from his nightmares have to do with any of this?

  He looked behind his back.

  Teddy was nowhere in sight.

  He crossed the workshop to a white door labeled with red letters: HOUSE COMPUTER, MANUAL PROGRAMMING. The door was locked.

  Well, of course it would be locked. He turned and braced himself against the work counter, walked until he reached the violated key cabinet, wrenched open the stubborn, twisted door and found the key to the programming room. Six months and several thousand weary miles later, he was back at the locked door, trying to fit the key to the slot. That should have been a simple task, except that the lock slot kept rising and falling, twisting left and right to get away from him.