Tubular Android Superheroes

by Mel Gilden

Willville was a big place and Zamp and the surfers could be anywhere. I didn't know how smart to get. Would Mr. Will hide them in the most obvious place or in the least obvious? In plain sight? I'd outsmarted myself before. Maybe Mr. Will was counting on my doing it now.

  I started out checking every hut, but after the first few I lost my taste for plastic shields, rubber spears, arrows with suction-cup tips, and candy in the shape of armored knights—especially armored knights with blue plastic collars. I also did not want a Crusader Cola or a Friar Tuck Burger. I stood outside a hut that sold good-luck charms and watched a cart full of smiling, waving tourists being pulled along by a horse that was in no particular hurry. The horse and the driver each wore a blue plastic collar.

  A few times I tried one of the doors between huts that said no admittance. The first time, I was caught by an android dressed as a soldier in chain mail and a shiny metal hat in the shape of a bullet. Gently but firmly he insisted that I return to the public part of the park. Once I actually got through one of those doors and found more security, this time in the form of a woman wearing a gray uniform that made her look lumpy and mannish. She was more suspicious than the guy in the chain mail but just as firm.

  I could see now that stumbling around Willville would be pointless. I might find what I was looking for, but more likely I would grow old trying. I needed a clue. It was the one thing not for sale in any of those huts.

  Near me, surrounded by a crowd, was an android dressed for the period in dull green tights and a brick red jerkin. His shoes matched his jerkin and curled up at the toes. A jaunty green hat had a long, ridiculous feather in it. At the moment he was playing some kind of pregnant guitar and singing a song about hunting Robin Hood in the forest green-o. When he was done he took off his hat and bowed low to the tourists' applause.

  As the guy strolled away strumming his ax, I sidled up to him and said, "I'm looking for the Will Industries Labs."

  He gave me a smile that was several centuries out of date and said, "Peradventure, good sirrah, it is yonder, in Victorian London." He pointed up the street with the neck of his instrument. I thanked him and he bowed to me, almost taking my eye out with his feather.

  Bill and I walked up the street to a square surrounded by a high box hedge. A sign let down on a chain told me the hedge was the outside wall of the Louis XIV Maze. Shrieks and laughter came from the inside. Bill wanted to go in, but I didn't have time to get lost just for fun. I was confused enough already just doing my job.

  Through a gateway of fluted columns was the world of the ancient Greeks and Romans. Opposite, through an arch made by the crossed necks of two rugged dragons hacked from tree trunks, was the world of the Vikings. Over Bill's protests I kept walking and on the far side of the maze came to a wrought-iron gate big enough to let in a chorus line of guys on stilts. In front of it people were just climbing down from one of the carts. The android driver turned a metal wheel not much bigger than a doughnut and leapt from the cart as it began to fizz and evaporate like one of the Melt-O-Mobiles. He rode away on the horse.

  On the other side of the iron gate was a brick street lined with gray stone buildings. I don't know how the designers managed it, but the air seemed to be darker and cooler here. Maybe it was just because the buildings seemed to be a little dirty. Horse-drawn cabs bustled by. A crowd of laughing tourists followed a guy dressed like Sherlock Holmes as he ran down the street peering at everything through a large magnifying glass.

  "Are we having a good time?" I said to Bill.

  "Later?" Bill asked.

  "You're right," I said. "It has to get better."

  At the far end of the street was a long gray building covered with frozen fountains of fancy carving. A sign told me it was a scaled-down replica of the Houses of Parliament. Evidently Mr. Parliament, whoever he was, liked a little elbow room when he went inside.

  The lobby of the replica had nothing to do with Victorian London. It held wide expanses of chrome and glass, which must have saved Mr. Will a bundle on paint. One wall was a montage of photographs, some of them fuzzy with age and having suffered through enlargement. They showed hotels, restaurants, radio and TV stations, a lot full of old business signs, big industrial complexes, big boats, big airplanes. Mr. Will was evidently very big on big. Over it all was a sign that said the will industries family of companies.

  I avoided the line for what the advertising called "a fascinating tour through the Superhero Android plant" and talked to the android guarding the business entrance. She was a comfortable brunette who wore massive amounts of clothing that gave the impression of being a uniform. Her smile was friendly but not ostentatious and was no more a part of her than the badge that said her name was Irma. I told her why I was there. She glanced at Bill, then got on a telephone and had a short whispered conversation. When she finished she used up another smile and told me to take the elevator behind her to the third floor.

  The doors opened as we approached, and when we got inside they closed. The third floor button was already lit. The car went up. Mr. Will had me in his pocket now. Yes he did.

  Chapter 12

  Ur-Clues

  WHIPPER was wearing his oldest, most faded pair of shorts and a shirt with a pattern so garish, it was less a pattern than a shock treatment. He met Bill and me in a wide, clean corridor that seemed to be made entirely from chrome. Everywhere I looked I saw my own distorted reflection. Eager men and women hurried by wearing clothes that were rather gray and unimaginative next to Whipper's. Many of them wore lab coats or carried clipboards. The really good ones were able to do both at once. A few of them nodded curtly at Whipper as they passed but didn't seem to notice he wasn't wearing the uniform.

  That all came to me later. What I noticed first when I stepped from the elevator was the lack of credulity gas in the air. I'd been fighting to ignore the smell for so long, when it wasn't there anymore I almost fell over. The terrible smell had been replaced by cold air that had the flat chemical odor of the inside of a medicine chest.

  "What's shakin', dude?" Will said. We shook hands in the secret surfer way. It's easier to learn than it is to describe, especially if you're drunk enough.

  "Not much," I said. "I'm still short one grandfather and any number of surfers. What's shaking with you?"

  "Getting Dad's stuff wired is all," he said gayly as he led Bill and me down the hall. We went into an office that was half laboratory. One wall was all windows. A couple of cars could have parked in there, still leaving enough room to hold a tea dance. Bill was fascinated by the glassware set up in long frames. Some liquid dripped and some of it bubbled. Bill didn't know where to look first.

  I told him not to touch anything and went to sit on the visitor's side of Whipper's desk—a prairielike expanse now covered with papers. Resting on the computer was a stack of paper plates, the top one of which held a half-gnawed bagel.

  "Can we talk?" I said.

  Whipper put a finger to his lips and turned on a tape player. The Beach Boys began to sing a song in praise of the surfing life.

  Whipper said, "I don't think the room is bugged, but it's a big room." His face lost that eager look and hardened into grim contemplation. "You haven't found them."

  "If I had a small army and a couple of weeks I could probably check out Willville. Without the help I'm just fishing without bait."

  "Clues?"

  "Not that I've noticed. Will you show me around? Something may leap out at me."

  Whipper rolled away from his desk and, carrying the tape player, led me and Bill back into the hallway. He slunk along, snapping his fingers to the music. Nobody told him not to. He took me from lab to lab. On the far side of some of them were big windows through which I saw darkness and the vague shapes of tourists, like ghosts watching from another dimension.

  Most of the work was done at the cellular level, so all I saw were very serious men and women bent over microscopes. In one room we watched an android with electrodes taped all over his body, even to places where
having electrodes might seem a little uncomfortable. A woman turned a dial and the android's body shook, once, twice. I couldn't watch. The android continued to twitch as we left the room.

  I stood in the hallway with Whipper and Bill, wishing I had a cigarette. I don't smoke, of course, but if I did this would be the time to do it. Whipper said, "We have to test them."

  "Sure you do."

  "I passed a test once," Bill said.

  I studied Bill just to have something to look at. I'd learned a lot about androids, but was no closer to finding Zamp and Bingo or anybody else than I had been when I'd walked in the gate. I said, "Do you have anything else to show me?"

  I must have sounded a little cross because Whipper said, "Look, Zoot, I'm not hiding anything." He snapped his fingers and I could almost see the light bulb go on over his head. He said, "There is something else."

  We had not taken more than a step when Darken Stormy came out of an office, leaving male laughter behind her. She looked fairly terrific, dressed in a dark blue suit that did nothing to hide the fact she was female. Miles of legs in sheer stockings that might have been the same shade of blue ended in spike-heeled pumps that ticked on the floor as she walked over to us, lighting her way with a smile. Her lips didn't really need the red paint, but the color made them astonishing instead of merely luscious.

  "Whipper," she said as if she were greeting him at her front door. She took one of his hands in both of hers, cradled it as if it were a fresh egg, and pulled him close. Her nails matched her lips, as they would. Her smile hardened for the moment she glanced at me and said, "Hello."

  The smile warmed up when she looked back at Whipper. If eyes can have stars in them, she had stars in hers. Or maybe it was just the fluorescent lighting. Whipper plastered a goofy smile on his face and said, "Yo, dudette!"

  Darken's smile bent a little, but it was still a nice smile. She said, "I'm so pleased you decided to come back to work for your father."

  "It was, like, you know, a gnarly wipeout."

  She nodded as if she knew what that meant, and performed her wind chime laugh. "Oh, Whipper, I love it when you talk like that." She rubbed her front against his, maybe trying to make a fire, and said, "We could meet for a drink after work."

  Whipper was doing his best not to react as if he enjoyed being that close to her. I could tell it was a strain. From what I knew about humans it would be a strain for any man who had a full complement of hormones. Still, Darken rubbing against your body was probably better than being stung to death by hornets.

  "Not tonight, Darken. I'm really, like, stoked about my research, you know? I'm gonna do some slashing and bashing tonight."

  I didn't think it was possible, but Darken made a mistake then. She said, "Don't worry. I won't tell Bingo."

  Whipper dropped his composure, but he made a good recovery. He leaned into Darken and, as if he were asking where a good pizza joint might be, said, "You know where Bingo is?"

  "Why, no," she said softly. "Don't you?"

  He extricated his hand from her grip and said, "Come on, Zoot. I had something to show you."

  I tipped my fedora at Darken. Bill wanted to shake her hand, and woodenly, she let him. I pulled him away. She looked after us, stunned as if Whipper had struck her between the eyes with a mallet. I could feel her glaring at us as we walked down the hallway, her glare poking three feet out through my chest.

  We rounded a corner and Whipper let out a breath. He said, "Do you think she knows?"

  "Do you think it matters?"

  He looked at me sharply. Then his face relaxed and he shook his head. "She wouldn't tell if she knew. And I'm not much into torturing women till they talk."

  "Still," I said, musing out loud, "it's interesting that she's here, isn't it? She must be more than just a pretty face hired to decorate a trade show."

  "How much more?"

  I shrugged, a trick I'd learned on Earth. It was possible Mr. Will had hired her, hoping she could convince Whipper to come back to work. It was possible he'd suggested it, and she'd thought it was a good idea. It was even possible that she'd had the idea all on her own and Mr. Will showing up fifteen minutes later was a coincidence. Yes, and it was a coincidence that my great-aunt Hattie ate three pounds of chocolate-covered coffee beans a day and had the same fragile figure as the backside of an elephant. "I don't know," I said. "Guessing might be fun."

  "You're talking about my father."

  "I'm talking about the man who probably kidnapped your girlfriend, your best bros and my grampa Zamp."

  The anger drained out of his face and his mind went somewhere else. I thought maybe he'd forgotten where we were till he turned in at another door. This one was thick and heavy and closed with a shush behind us. Beyond was the biggest room I'd seen yet. The walls, the floor, and even the ceiling were concrete. Pipes of various sizes ran from wall to wall and from floor to ceiling. The room was filled with heat and the hiss of steam. In the center of the room was a round metal vat big enough for water polo. Over the vat, catwalks hung from the ceiling just beneath the pipes. A heavy machine arched over the vat in the pose of a cat investigating a fishbowl. The machine was growling.

  As he strolled across the floor, Whipper said, "Not many outside people know this place exists. Fewer have ever been in here."

  He turned off the tape player and set it down at the foot of a metal stairway, which he began to climb. Bill and I followed him up and the three of us looked into the vat. At the end of the heavy machine the blades of a beater were sunk nearly to its shaft in grainy brown stuff, which it slowly mixed as it growled.

  "Oatmeal," Bill said.

  Whipper said, "Pretty close. This is the ur-medium. Everything you can order at a fast-food joint is made of this—shakes, burgers, fries, everything. A little food color, a little artificial flavor, a little sculpting, and whammo."

  "Whammo," Bill cried. "A Friar Tuck Burger."

  I said, "What's it doing here?"

  He looked at me and smiled in a secret way appropriate to that room. He was enjoying lifting the veils one at a time. He said, "It's also the stuff that androids are made of."

  After watching the beater work for a moment, I said, "Looks a little thin to be walking around."

  "We use a solvent to keep it that way. We wouldn't want this stuff, just as it is, to crawl out of the vat and go looking for adventure. When we want to make something we add a chemical that allows it to harden, inject the mixture into a mold, and pretty soon—"

  "Whammo," Bill said, pleased to contribute.

  Whipper plunged the fist of one hand into the palm of the other, and said "Whammo" again.

  "Why keep it a secret?"

  Whipper descended the metal stairs one rung at a time and picked up his tape player at the foot of it. He was halfway across the floor before he turned and said, "Will Industries doesn't think it would be good for business if people saw where androids actually come from."

  I nodded. "I was in a restaurant kitchen once," I said. "I had been happier before. Maybe Will Industries is right at that."

  When we were back in the hall Whipper turned on his music and began to act like a surfer again. We walked in the direction of his office. I said, "Any more places the public doesn't get to see?"

  "No clues yet?"

  "No even an ur-clue."

  "Hi-ya, dudes," Whipper said as a group of his scrubbed co-workers passed. Some of them waved, a little embarrassed.

  Instead of taking us back to his office Whipper took us to the elevator. While we waited, Whipper said, "Don't blame me for this."

  "Blame you for what?"

  "You'll see."

  When the elevator came we went to the top floor. Whipper had to punch in a code on the floor buttons before the doors would open.

  We came into a place that didn't even know the floors below existed.. It was a big room with a fireplace at one end and a picture window at the other. Near the fireplace and under a chandelier that looked like a countess's ea
rring was a wooden table polished to a high gloss and big enough for shuffleboard. The chairs had high narrow backs and were probably more stylish than comfortable. Scattered around the room were small round tables and overstuffed chairs. Wrought-iron candle holders holding candles smaller than harpoons were attached to the white stucco walls. Over the fireplace was a painting of Whipper in short hair and a gray suit; he was with Mr. Will and a woman I had never met. She was not quite beautiful, but her face showed an intelligence and a warmth that in the right circles would take her further than beauty.

  As if he'd accidentally stepped on my foot, Whipper said, "I'm sorry, dude."

  "Sorry for what?"

  He shook his head as he walked to a glass case. Inside was a crystal fishbowl with some crystal fish inside. Light collected there and threw it away. He said, "Look at all this stuff. What kind of person would spend this much money just for a place to live?"

  "Somebody who could afford it?" Bill said.

  Whipper nodded glumly as he sat in one of the uncomfortable chairs around the big table. "I'm sorry, dude."

  "While you're being sorry could you kind of tell me what this place is?"

  "Most of the time my father lives here."

  I waded across a maroon carpet and tried not to skid on the wide hardwood floor beyond. I leaned against an arched doorway and tried to imagine what might be down the hall. I said, "Can I look around?"

  "You think they're here?"

  "I think I don't know."

  Another voice, a hard voice without pleasure in it, said, "Unless you have a policeman with a search warrant in your pocket you will continue not to know."

  I looked in the direction from which the voice had come. Standing with one hand touching the arm of an overstuffed chair was Mr. Iron Will.

  Chapter 13

  Progress

  HE was wearing a suit and tie. In one hand he swirled a potbellied glass that had amber fluid in it. He wore the small potent smile of a man who'd had his suspicions confirmed. He said, "What, exactly, are you looking for?"