by R. A. Jones
Only the most powerful of defenses would be able to stop him, and there was no greater source of potential power than that locked within the atom. If that power could be unleashed, could be harnessed, the result could be a weapon so awful in magnitude as to render all others moot.
In theory, he thought no man should have such a device at his fingertips. The temptation to actually use it might prove too great.
In reality, though, the great scientist knew that one day soon someone would develop an atomic bomb.
And if it was built in the service of someone as insane as Adolf Hitler, the carnage and death that would most assuredly follow would be on a horrible, biblical scale.
He shivered at the very thought of it. He was even more resolved now in his belief that if such a weapon was inevitable, far better that the first one be placed in the hands of the democracies.
Einstein had spoken ever so briefly about the subject with President Roosevelt after the Opening Ceremonies of the World Fair, but he now felt even greater urgency. No words, he decided, should be considered too strong in making the argument that the United States should make the creation of a weapon powered by atomic energy its highest priority.
Pausing for a moment to collect his thoughts, he leaned back to rest his head on his plush office chair. Classical music playing softly on the radio served to further sooth him.
Leaning forward again, he ran his hand lightly across the cover of a book he had been reading (studying, actually), a history of this adoptive country he had grown to love and desired to protect.
He reached out and lovingly picked up the photograph that always sat on his desk. The soft features of his wife looked back at him. He would soon become an official citizen of the United States, and his only regret was that Elsa was no longer alive to share the privilege with him.
“She was a lovely woman.”
The sudden, unexpected voice behind him caused Einstein to lurch in his chair, his wife’s portrait slipping from his hand.
He spun in his chair to see a man standing in front of the open window that had doubtless been the intruder’s point of entry. The man’s face was covered by a red mask that fell below his jawline like a drape. A menacing .45 was held in one hand, pointed directly at the scientist.
“What do you want?” Einstein demanded.
“Only to talk, Herr Doktor,” the Clock replied.
The masked man walked slowly across the room until he was standing directly in front of the seated professor. He laid one hand, palm down, atop the table, next to Einstein’s own.
Einstein glanced down, and his eyes narrowed. He could now see that this uninvited guest was wearing an ornate steel ring – identical to the one Einstein himself was wearing. Seeing this, he relaxed somewhat.
But only somewhat.
“Anyone can wear a ring,” he said warily. “That doesn’t mean it’s his ring.”
“Quite right, doctor,” the Clock replied. “So why don’t you remove this one from my finger?”
The physicist accepted the challenge, reaching down and gripping both the steel circlet and the Clock’s wrist. He twisted and pulled as hard as he could, but the ring wouldn’t budge.
“If you don’t mind,” the Clock said at last, “that’s starting to hurt. Allow me.”
He reached down and laid a finger alongside either side of his ring. As he did, Einstein could see the metal band quickly expand. The Clock easily slipped it off and handed it to the scientist.
Einstein brought it closer to the light, closer to his eyes, studying the runes around it quickly. He then gave it back to the masked man, who slipped it back on his finger, whereupon it contracted to a snug fit.
“So,” said Einstein, “I have to repeat my question: What do you want … friend?”
The Clock smoothly holstered his gun, then seated himself on the edge of the desk.
“The Steel Ring has great need of your genius, doctor.”
“Then it shall have it,” Einstein agreed, smiling slightly. “When will it be needing my services?”
“Now. Tonight.”
Within minutes, the physicist found himself sitting in the back of a car racing at what he was sure was an unsafe speed for this time of night. The windows were darkened and a partition between the front and back seats further prevented him from seeing where he was being taken.
That being the case, and not knowing what labors might lie before him, Einstein sat back, folded his arms over his chest, and within minutes fell asleep.
It was a fitful sleep, however, filled with images that often visited him in the night.
As always, these dreams were really remembrances of his life, which began in a middle-class Jewish household in Ulm, Germany before the turn of the century.
Although his parents were mostly secular in their lifestyle, 12-year-old Albert had become deeply religious, going so far as to compose songs of praise to Yahweh and chanting other religious songs as he walked to school.
Such attitudes began to change when he began to study science. The textbooks from which he learned seemed to contradict, even refute the worldview religion had supplied him.
Some might say that he had merely exchanged one religion for another. Others might say he simply had a myriad of questions and would follow that which he felt was most likely to supply him with the more satisfying answers.
Usually, he chose to say nothing. His work spoke for itself.
Whatever he found in physics and mathematics, he seemed born to excel in these disciplines. He had earned his doctorate by the age of twenty-seven, and in 1921 had been the recipient of that year’s Nobel Prize for physics.
He had been born in Germany, taught in Germany, had wed and fathered children in Germany.
But he was quick to detect the changing political winds upon which rode the National Socialist Party, renounced his citizenship and fled to America in 1933.
As almost always, that was where the dream ended.
He was awakened by loud noises, specifically the clanging of metal on metal. The car had stopped moving, and the door nearest him was being jerked open. The Clock bent down to look in on him.
“Right this way, doctor.”
“Please, call me Albert,” the scientist said as he slid from the car. He paused to stretch and straighten his back, moaning softly as he did. He was not a young man, having just turned sixty, and he was no longer as limber as was once true. And it had been a rather long ride, he was sure.
As the Clock ushered him away from the car, Einstein took stock of his surroundings. They were in a large building, at least as big as an aeroplane hangar.
The corners of his mouth were tugged upward slightly as he studied the vast array of equipment to be seen all around. It reminded him of nothing so much as the laboratory set from the Boris Karloff movie he had let Elsa drag him to: the one about the Frankenstein monster.
Yet there were other parts of the facility that looked as if they would be more suitable for a steel mill or blacksmith’s shop.
Dozens of men scurried about the place, some in long white lab smocks, others in coveralls. Each was engaged in some sort of activity at one row of machines or another, and none paid the least attention to this new arrival.
As he walked past them, Einstein realized that some of them were known to him, if only slightly or by sight. Some he recognized as being experts in such fields as metallurgy and biomechanics. Several others he knew to be luminaries in mechanical engineering.
All these were noted for their work in the newly burgeoning discipline of robotics.
“I think you’ll find this particularly interesting, Albert,” the Clock said, taking him by the elbow and leading him off to one side.
The Clock directed his attention to a small chamber, no larger in its dimensions than a bedroom. The walls and ceiling were transparent, composed of thick glass.
Near the back end of the chamber, suspended from the ceiling by wires, was what appeared to be a handkerchief-sized sheet
of metal foil.
“Watch this,” the Clock said, stepping up to the clear wall on the opposite end of the chamber.
Reaching into his jacket, he pulled out one of his deadly pistols. Inserting its barrel into a small slot cut in the wall he faced, he triggered off two shots so rapidly that the sounds of their reports nearly blended together as one. As the echo and the smoke were still clearing, he returned the pistol to its shoulder holster.
“Step inside,” he said, pressing a nearly invisible stud that caused the outer wall to swivel open on a central axis and allow entry into the clear chamber.
“Look there,” he directed as they drew near to where the square of metal was suspended.
Einstein knelt and picked up two small pieces of lead, obviously the spent slugs from the Clock’s shots. Puzzled, the scientist stood and examined the metal sheet.
“I don’t understand,” he marveled. “These bullets must have hit the metal, but there isn’t a scratch on it.”
“No,” the Clock said. “There isn’t. But there’s more. Examine the metal more closely.”
The physicist tentatively touched the metallic surface, quickly pulling it back as if his fingers had burned at the touch. Amazingly, the metal seemed almost to flap as a result of the contact, like a piece of cloth.
“Go on,” the Clock urged. “It won’t hurt you.”
His mind already beginning to race with queries and possibilities, Einstein took hold of the square of metal on either side. It was indeed nearly as thin and flexible as cloth.
He lifted the bottom of the square up to examine it more closely. Only then did he notice that the metal sheet had been resting against a thin pane of glass behind it.
“How is this possible?” he asked, stunned by the implications. “Even if this metal could stop the passage of the bullets, their impact should have transferred through it and utterly shattered this glass!”
“Quite right,” the Clock concurred. “Yet as you can see, the glass – like the metal – has not so much as a scratch on it.”
“And again, how is that possible?”
“Honestly? I don’t know. Our scientists stumbled upon the process that created it quite by accident. As you’ve seen, it is very light, very thin, even malleable. Yet at the same time, as strong and durable as any metal.”
“The possibilities …,” Einstein whispered.
“Are somewhat limited at the moment, I’m afraid,” the Clock cautioned. “It is such a delicate, expensive and time consuming process to make it, the elements that give it its unique properties so rare, that a few yards of it may be all we’re ever able to manufacture.” He then turned and led the scientist out of the transparent chamber.
“We just have to make sure we put the little we have to the most efficient possible use.” He continued to talk as they walked toward another section of the facility.
“Everything you see here, Albert – every man, woman and machine – serves but one purpose. Everything we do is in the service of trying to stop a horrible darkness that, if left unchecked, could well swallow the entire world.”
Einstein sighed deeply.
“And you needn’t tell me the source of that darkness, Clock. It’s my own homeland, isn’t it?”
“It is.”
“It is so sad, my friend. To think that Germany, whose greatest minds have dared to question God Himself … now refuses to question its Fuhrer, even as he leads them into Hell.”
“Well, we’ll do what we can to spare them the fire,” Clock said, placing a solicitous hand on the scientist’s back. “And here’s where we begin.”
He next escorted Einstein to a small chamber attached to one wall. The outer walls of this windowless room were constructed of thick cinder blocks. The door leading into the chamber had no visible knob or hinges.
The Clock leaned forward when he reached it, placing his eyes against a slotted device attached to the door. A warm, red beam of light slid across the slot, reading the retinas of his eyes. With a hissing sound, the door slid sideways, granting them access to what lay within.
As he entered the chamber, Einstein glanced about him. The interior walls were bare, but appeared to be coated with sheets of lead. The only thing in the room, located at its center, was a lead pedestal that stood about four feet high.
Atop the pedestal sat a small square box made of thick, leaded glass. Inside the box was nothing but what appeared to be a small glass vial. Squatting slightly, Einstein stared intently at the vial, which seemed to give off a pulsing light of its own and a soft hiss escaped his lips.
“Is that what I think it is?” he asked.
“If you think it’s a piece of enriched uranium,” the Clock replied, “then, yes.”
“What do you intend to do with it?”
“That’s where you come in, doctor. We know you’ve been contemplating the possible applications of nuclear power.”
“You want me to help you build a bomb?”
“No. Something more. We plan, with your help, to convert this piece of uranium not into a mere bomb – but into a compact energy source.”
“I see. An energy source designed to power … what?”
“To power this,” the Clock declared firmly. He stepped to the far wall of the chamber and pressed a recessed button. As he did, a lead panel set in the wall slid up and out of sight.
Einstein stepped up beside him and looked through the leaded glass that had lain behind the metal panel. The chamber into which he was now peering was sterile white and brightly lit.
It might best be described as looking like a mating of a hospital operating room and a foundry. Several men and women, dressed in spotless scrubs and surgical masks, moved about.
Many of them were intently monitored the dials and gauges of a large mechanical device from which snaked various tubes, hoses and electrical cords. All of these connected at various spots into a form lying atop a sort of surgical table in the center of the room.
Reclining on the table was a form Einstein took to be that of a man. It was hard to say for sure, for the “patient” was wrapped from head to toe with heavy gauze bandages, like some sort of modern day mummy.
“My God!” Einstein gasped, recoiling away from the window as if he had received a jolt of electricity. His eyes looked accusatory as he turned to glare at the Clock.
“You intend to put the uranium inside a man!”
“That’s exactly what we intend to do, doctor.”
“To what end?”
“To power the various … enhancements we mean to give him.”
“This is inconceivable,” Einstein muttered, turning away from the window. “Almost blasphemous.”
A new thought struck him, snapping him around so he was again looking at the figure on the operating table.
“Who is that poor devil?”
The Clock gazed silently at the gauzed figure for several long moments before answering.
“Do you know who Rex Wiley is, doctor?”
Einstein’s brow furrowed deeply as he searched his memory.
“Wasn’t he that actor fellow who was killed in that terrible fire in Australia?”
“Yes. Only … he didn’t die. Though, God only knows, I’m sure many a time since that day he’s wished that he had.”
“And you’ve kept him alive all this time?”
“If you can call it living, yes. Virtually every inch of his flesh was burned away. Special solutions in which his bandages are soaked help moisturize and preserve the exposed muscle and tissue.
“He’s fed intravenously, while antibiotics and pain killers are pumped into him continually. I’m afraid he will soon become resistant to both.”
“That metal sheet you showed me earlier. You plan to use it to take the place of his outer skin?”
“Exactly. But before we do that, various nerve endings will have to be severed, to reduce his ability to feel pain.”
“Reduce – but not eliminate?”
“No. To go fu
rther than we plan would be to reduce him to nothing more than a vegetable.”
“But there’s more, isn’t there?”
“Very perceptive, Albert. Various mechanical devices will need to be installed within his body. Some are essential, like tiny motors that will help him move and sustain the weight of his metal skin. Light as it is, it’s still heavier than real skin. All will be powered by the uranium.”
“And what are these other devices?”
“Think of them as … optional equipment.”
“Is such a thing possible?”
“I think it is. I think we can make it work – if we have the services of a certain Nobel laureate.”
Einstein chuckled lightly.
“Would you believe that, when I was a boy, I was once told by a school teacher that I would never amount to anything?”
“Let’s show him just how wrong he was, professor.”
“Your subject,” Einstein said, growing serious again. “Has he agreed to this radical procedure you are proposing?”
“He has. In fact, from the day I first broached the matter with him, he has practically insisted on going through with it.”
“Still … what you mean to do defies the very laws of Nature. Perhaps the laws of Heaven. Do we have the right?”
“You know what we’re up against, doctor. I’d say we have the duty.”
The Clock leaned closer to the glass, his eyes narrowing as he stared intently at Wiley’s prone form.
“He knows our current treatments can only slow the inevitable. This is probably the only thing at this point that can save his life.”
“But what kind of life will it be for the poor boy?”
“I asked him that very question, Albert. His answer: ‘A life that will make a difference, I hope.’”
“Still,” the physicist persisted, “think of the personal cost to him. I suspect he will still be subject to continual pain. And how will this handsome and admired idol of millions react the first time he looks in a mirror – and sees some hideous, frightening creature that is more machine than man staring back at him?”
“Only time will tell.”
“And time is not on Mr. Wiley’s side.”
