Tubular Android Superheroes

by Mel Gilden

  Three women were in the room. One of them was Darken Stormy, looking like a disco goddess in a tight blue dress that sparkled when she moved. The shoulders of the dress had come off a Queen of Outer Space costume and the front was cut in a deep V from here to a location just north of her navel. Most of the men and at least one of the women had trouble not staring. Her shoes matched her dress but the buttons in her ears were flaming red, matching her lips and the highlights in her hair. She gave everybody her prizewinning smile as she offered drinks and round bits of food no larger than quarters.

  One of the other women was a blond bimbo newscaster I'd seen on TV. She was dressed for success in a dark suit and an incandescent white blouse. When she glanced at Darken she kind of sniffed, as if just being in the same room offended her. The other woman was much older and could have been a sister of the brunette down in the cell. In her severely cut suit and clunky brown shoes she looked like the principal at the school where the Little Rascals went.

  She was too busy being one of the boys to worry about Darken's cleavage.

  Everybody but Darken was on Mr. Will's exclusive list, and none of them had yet earned their checkmarks. Each of them would be useful in his or her own way as a puppet through which Los Angeles could be run.

  Mr. Will was making the rounds, glad-handing people, buying them drinks, winking at Darken Stormy as if they shared some secret. Only it wasn't really Mr. Will. Mr. Will was on his way to room twenty-eight at the Shady Pines Motel. He had his tie off and anybody who wanted to could get a good look at his neck. Not like this Mr. Will here in the conference room, a Mr. Will wearing his tie knotted tight up under his chin to hide the blue plastic collar.

  That was one of the things I didn't yet understand. If Mr. Will was behind all this, why had he replaced himself? If he wasn't, who was? And how had they gotten in so tight with Superhero Androids?

  On the tick of ten-thirty the android Mr. Will marched to the head of the table and stood there with his fingertips on it. He called the meeting to order and everybody but Darken sat down. She hovered, filling glasses, taking away empty plates.

  The android Mr. Will smiled. He did good work, but having recently seen the smile the real Mr. Will used, this one looked like a cartoon parody. He said, "Thank you all for coming. I think you will find that you have not wasted your time."

  Polite interest from everyone but Em Shannon, who said, "I like a modest man." He got a dirty look from the bimbo newscaster and no applause. He frowned and sank into his seat like a clenching fist.

  The android Mr. Will said, "As a matter of fact, Mr. Shannon, I am being modest. My offer will both astonish and excite you. You may turn me down, but if you do you will always wonder if you did the right thing." He waited for Em Shannon to make another clever comment. When he didn't the android Mr. Will went on. "Before I go any further, I must ask all of you, whatever your decisions, to swear never to reveal the subject of this meeting to anyone."

  "Why?" a bald man asked. I think it was Anderson Charles, who owned a bank that owned half the city.

  "Too many people would want what I am offering," the android Mr. Will said, "and I could not accommodate them. Besides, the government would probably want to regulate my activities, and that would be—" Mr. Will smiled with all the charm of a plaster flower, "—inconvenient. You will understand in a moment. Do you all agree?"

  After a buildup like that, rocks would agree. Even Em Shannon nodded solemnly, as if being sworn in as an honorary deputy sheriff. I couldn't keep myself from nodding too.

  Pleased at the impression he had made, the android Mr. Will spoke further. "Superhero Androids has recently made a breakthrough. No longer will their androids go stale like so many loaves of bread. No longer will SA androids need to be periodically replaced. No longer will they be less than mortal." That smile again. "It is this breakthrough that allows me to offer you—" He paused like a magician enjoying the moment before he pulls the rabbit from the hat, "immortality." The android Mr. Will had everybody's attention. We had almost forgotten to breathe. I was leaving finger-shaped grooves in the ladder.

  The android Mr. Will said, "I am not speaking metaphorically. For a fee that may seem exorbitant until you consider what you are getting, SA scientists will install your consciousness in the body of a vat-grown android, guaranteed to be immortal."

  Darken was still smiling, a little smugly I thought. She had probably heard this spiel before. But the other faces had expressions mixed like vegetables in a bag of succotash. Mostly they looked dubious, as if they were not yet certain that someone in the room had not washed.

  The old dame sat ramrod straight now, as if she'd been slapped and was trying not to give the slapper the satisfaction of seeing her react. The eyes of the bimbo newscaster opened wide enough to show red veins not normally seen on TV, then squinted as if studying out something in her head. Her hands shuffled phantom news copy. Em Shannon pretended to be bored, but when he reached for the glass of cola in front of him he almost missed it. He got his hands around it at last and threw the liquid back so fast he choked on it and began to cough. For a long time Em Shannon's coughing and Darken Stormy's motherly cooing were the only sounds in the room.

  I don't know what expression was on my face, but the android Mr. Will had surprised me only a little. He had to offer something like that, of course. He couldn't expect people with good grips on their lives to let go just for his convenience. He would have to offer them something, and immortality was as good an exchange as any.

  "No aging?" the bimbo newscaster said as if she were checking on the mileage of a used car.

  "None," said the android Mr. Will.

  The woman in the practical shoes stood up and gave the android Mr. Will a glare that should have set his hair on fire. Reining in her shaking voice, the woman said, "What you propose is at the very least immoral. It is probably unethical. It is certainly against the law."

  "To live forever?" the android Mr. Will said, and laughed like an insurance agent.

  "The old must give way to the young."

  "Garbage. The weak must give way to the strong."

  The others in the room watched the two go at it, surprisingly calm, trying to decide which side they were on. Em Shannon smiled in the way he must have when confronted with a new software problem.

  The woman marched to the door. Only the android Mr. Will watched her. The others were busy with their own thoughts. Brows were wrinkled. Drinks were sipped. Pads were tapped with the tips of pencils. Before the woman could touch the doorknob, the android Mr. Will said, "Ms. Fergusson."

  She stopped but she didn't turn around.

  "I'd like to show you something."

  She turned around and crossed her arms. Her eyebrows went up like the two halves of a drawbridge.

  The android Mr. Will came around to the side of the table and reached between Mr. Charles and the blond newscaster to the model of the Melt-O-Mobile. His move was no more theatrical than the move a ditchdigger might make reaching for his shovel. It was economical and quick. It needed to get done and he didn't want anybody to question him about it.

  The customers watched in fascination as the roof of the model began to fizz. Soon the unclean smell of credulity gas socked me, completely covering the smell of furniture polish and of everything else. I was not sick, but I was not happy either.

  After a while the car was gone. Nobody but the android Mr. Will moved, and he only walked back to the head of the table. He looked around and nodded, enjoying the waxworks. Ms. Fergusson's eyebrows lowered.

  The android Mr. Will said, "How do you feel, Ms. Fergusson?"

  "I feel like a prisoner," she said angrily.

  "I don't think so, Ms. Fergusson. You are delighted to be here. How do you feel now, Ms. Fergusson?"

  "Delighted, I'm sure." Smiling, she made a lot of new wrinkles.

  "All of you believe it would be a wonderful idea to have your minds installed into SA androids."

  They all agreed with
him. Everything he said was obvious. The sky was blue. Even Darken Stormy chimed in.

  "You all feel in your bones that helping me run Los Angeles my way is the best way to spend the rest of your lives."

  More nodding. More enthusiastic words of agreement.

  The truth was, I had not been certain before that this Mr. Will was an android. Such things as evil twin brothers existed even when no one mentions them. But now I had evidence. Darken Stormy's neck was visible nearly to her belly button. No blue plastic collar. If, any of the guests had been androids I don't think this Mr. Will would have bothered to invite them to his party. Yet credulity gas had been created. A Melt-O-Mobile couldn't create the gas alone, not even with smog present. Android cooties were necessary too. The cooties could have come from only one place. But why? How?

  That wasn't nearly as important as what I was going to do next.

  The android Mr. Will made up my mind for me. He said, "Darken, will you please take us down?"

  "Of course, sir." She clicked to a wall on her spiky heels and pulled a painting away from it on hinges. Behind the painting were two buttons. She pushed the lower one. Suddenly the self-assured hum of heavy machinery kicked in. I didn't see any more in the room after that. I was too busy dropping down that ladder, trying not to be crushed to death.

  Chapter 26

  The Dinosaur Waltz

  AS the room descended on the silver hydraulic pillar a giant gear wheel rolled down after me, its teeth fitting one by one into the spaces between the rungs of the ladder. It came just fast enough, maybe a little faster than that. I was in such a hurry I kept tangling myself in the rungs.

  The floor was so far away it didn't seem to be getting any closer. I grabbed a rung with both hands and gripped the outside of the ladder's uprights with the insides of my feet. I slid, controlling my speed with my feet and my hands, more than once almost ripping my arms from their sockets. The big gear wheel stayed exactly three rungs above me all the way down. I dropped from four rungs up, hit the floor hard, and rolled out of the way. The floor of the conference room touched the floor of the laboratory with all the fuss of a pinfeather landing on a puddle. I backed around a bend in the wall and stood silently in a triangular shadow. It wasn't very dark, but if I kept still and nobody looked in my direction it might be enough.

  The meeting room door opened, allowing a cloud of credulity gas to escape. The crowd came out by ones and twos, with no more urgency than people leaving a movie theater. The android Mr. Will came last. He wasn't carrying a gun but his attitude said that he was a man in complete control.

  I could have yelled then, told the guests what a terrible guy the android Mr. Will was, told them I was there for the rescue. But after I was done the android Mr. Will could tell them whatever he wanted, as he had back at the Convention Center. Then I could yell again. The crowd would believe one thing and then the other. The winner would be the man who lost his voice last. The solution wasn't elegant. Yelling would ultimately get me nowhere.

  While I thought this Darken Stormy played nurse, helping the android Mr. Will take skin samples of each of them, put each sample into a round transparent dish, cover the dish, and put it into a refrigerator. The people joked a little, as people in line will. If I hadn't known they were under a sinister influence I would not have guessed.

  "Come on, folks," the android Mr. Will said. "You'll like it in this nice cell."

  They walked to the other side of the lab, where the android Mr. Will looked into the cells that had lately contained his other guests. With wide-open eyes and a half-open mouth he looked at what wasn't in them. Out loud he said, "Where are they?" His voice was a little strangled.

  Darken stepped forward and helped him look. In the end cell one of the failures began to snort. A pig would have sounded more cultured.

  The android Mr. Will glanced around quickly. His eyes swept over me but didn't stop. He hustled all his guests into one cell. Before he closed the door I stepped out of the shadow and said, "The jig is up. You'd better let them go." I had only the vaguest of plans and no gun, but I didn't think waiting longer would buy me anything. One of my hands was in a pocket. If I was lucky the android Mr. Will would make a wrong assumption about that.

  Darken and the android Mr. Will jumped as if I'd stuck them with a pickle fork. The guests looked at me with surprise. The smell of credulity gas was thinning; perhaps it was thin enough that these people would believe the truth if they heard it. There was no way to know by just looking at them. I said, "I'm Zoot Marlowe. I'm here to help." Mr. Will swung the cell door shut and the loud clang made the lab vibrate like a bell.

  Em Shannon and Ms. Fergusson and the others clumped up against the bars of the cell, all talking at once. The android Mr. Will told them to shut up and they did. "Let us out," Ms. Fergusson said.

  The android Mr. Will didn't say anything, but eyed me as if wondering where to begin carving. I said, "She's right. You're in big trouble, but it could still go easier for you if you let them leave."

  "Did you free the others?"

  I shrugged and said, "I don't know why you just didn't kill them. You had samples. You could grow all the androids you wanted to."

  The android Mr. Will went to stand behind a lab bench. He rested his fingertips on it the way he had on the glass table in the conference room. His hands looked like big pink spiders. Darken watched us while her lower lip twitched. She wanted to bite it again, but she had a lot of discipline. Nothing was more important than looking good.

  The android Mr. Will actually smiled when he said, "You don't know much about androids, Mr. Marlowe. You can't grow an android from just one cell. You should be able to, but you can't. In order to grow replacement androids I needed more samples from the originals. Samples taken from androids don't work." The pink spiders did push-ups. "Of course, now that Whipper has fabricated an immortal android I don't need originals anymore."

  Ms. Fergusson and the others looked horrified. Nobody had to tell them that if this guy didn't need them, they wouldn't be around long.

  "Where are they?" the android Mr. Will said.

  I said, "In a safe place," hoping I was right.

  "No matter. I'll have to replace them again, but that's a minor annoyance. Unlike yourself." He strolled along the locked cells as he spoke. "You are not an annoyance at all." He glanced into the cell full of failed experiments, clucked like a chicken, and walked on.

  Just killing time before it killed me, I said, "You don't seem like the kind of android Mr. Will would grow on purpose."

  He was standing in front of the wall-mounted wooden box in which I had found the key to the cells. It fascinated him. He tore his eyes away and glanced at me, puzzled as if I had spoken to him in Gomkrix, the language we'd all spoken before English became so popular on T'toom. Then the smile broke out on his face like a rash. He said, "All this talk about androids has softened your brain, Marlowe. I am Iron Will, Whipper Will's father and the chief executive officer of Will Industries."

  "Who was that guy in the cell? Your long-lost brother?"

  It was his turn to shrug. He said, "Why not?" The idea appealed to him.

  "Then you wouldn't mind removing your tie."

  "What?"

  "Look," I said. "I'll make this easy for you. When you pushed the button on that Melt-O-Mobile model you made credulity gas that you used to get those folks down here and into the cell. The Melt-O-Mobile can't make credulity gas by itself. It needs to fizz in the presence of smog and an android. Smog was in the conference room, probably piped in from outside. But Darken Stormy is obviously not an android. Your guests are not androids. You must be the android."

  He nodded. We were two reasonable guys. He said, "Let's say I am. Then what?" The smile was a little stiff now, but it remained attached.

  "Actually, I was hoping you would tell me. I understand why you kept hostages. Until Whipper Will developed the immortal android you would need to keep them around for their cells. You'd need to grow new android acco
mplices every so often, not to mention growing your own occasional new body from the real Mr. Will's cells. What I don't understand is why Mr. Will grew you in the first place. He wouldn't need your help taking over Los Angeles."

  The android Mr. Will laughed at that. It was a loud unpleasant sound, like a tin can going down a garbage disposal. It went on for a long time. We all stared at him: me, kind of whimsically; the gang behind bars, with barely suppressed horror; Darken, as if he'd used the wrong fork.

  "You know, Marlowe, you're not very bright. I can only assume it was luck that led you here. Because you came without reinforcements, without weapons, armed only with a smart mouth and a matched set of wild theories."

  "Not so wild," I said, knowing he was right about the rest of it. He spoke too casually now. Even if he really thought I was stupid I had figured out or guessed too much to be just left lying around. If he had been carrying a gun he'd have already used it. No gun, then. Nothing so clean and fast.

  He unhooked the box from the wall and revealed a lever. Without saying another word or looking at me again, he pulled it.

  A grating noise began and a section of the wall opened like a garage door. Even before the wall came all the way up I could smell the odor of the reptile house.

  A creature came from behind the wall, so light on its feet that it nearly pranced. I had seen Disney's Fantasia, various versions of The Lost World, and a lot of other pictures that featured dinosaurs. The surfers liked monsters. This monster was small as such things went, barely larger than a horse. Its skin was a dull green with brighter highlights over the muscles. It walked on two legs and held before it hands that seemed ridiculously tiny and delicate. Its eyes had never heard of mercy, and its teeth were made for death. It was a vest-pocket tyrannosaurus rex and I was terrified.

  The rex stopped next to the android Mr. Will, who reached up to slap one solid shoulder affectionately. A forked tongue lashed out from the mouth of death and went away. The android Mr. Will said, "This is a tyrannosaurus rex, the king of the dinosaurs." The android Mr. Will smiled. "We call him Elvis."