Adam Link, Robot Read online

  Jack laughed too, when I told the story. “You took them for a ride.” Then he sobered, grinding his teeth. “Harvey Brigg, of all people. Unimpeachable character—in daily life. Lives in a swell home in a respectable neighborhood. But Adam, we’re stumped now. You couldn’t get anything on him in a year’s trying, much less a few days.”

  “I’ll wring a confession out of him,” I returned harshly. My hands were working.

  “Adam!” It was Kay’s voice. She was peering at me in a shocked way.

  I understood immediately. In her eyes—the disguise aside—I was a man, a human—a big strong man, but gentle in nature. It was not like me to speak of brutal methods, no matter what the circumstances.

  “Sorry, Kay. Don’t fear that I’ve changed. It’s just that my blood boils, like that of any decent man’s, thinking of Harvey Brigg.” I spent a few seconds thinking. “A dictaphone. Jack, get me a dictaphone.”

  “Wire it into his house?” Jack snorted. “My God, man, do you think you’re a wizard?”

  “Wires? I won’t need wires. Get me the dictaphone and then drive me to my mountain laboratory.”

  In the laboratory, I worked all the next day over the dictaphone Jack procured. It was simple, in a way, to eliminate the need of wires. In some basic mechanical principles, you human technicians are backward. Many things lie just before your nose. My creator Dr. Link—I mean no irreverence—spent years devising my body. In six months after I had come to life, I had improved my body four-fold.

  Jack and Kay also patched up my torn chest with new plastic, remodeled a nose, and touched up my disguise in general. A new suit of clothes replaced the rags.

  The next night I was behind the hedges of Harvey Brigg’s large home, with a black satchel. After some study, I climbed the roof of a back porch, careful so that I came up with barely a slither of my shoes. I forced the lock of an attic window. By leaning my weight slowly and steadily in the strategic spot, the latch clinked apart like nothing more than a snapping stick.

  Inside, I wound my way past dust-covered old furniture and trunks. Wherever a board under my feet threatened to creak, I let my weight down with measured slowness, changing the sharp sound to a soft rubbing of wood. At certain places I kneeled, with my head touching the floor. Sounds from below, conducted through the walls, vibrated into my mechanical tympanums. The attic, to human ears, would have been as silent as a tomb, I suppose.

  I will not detail the hours I snooped in this way, gradually learning, by sound alone, what rooms were below and who was in them. Three servants had retired. A fourth stood in a hall and later let in a late caller. He was led to a room that I knew to be Harvey Brigg’s private office or den.

  The door closed, down below. The two men were alone.

  “Well, Shane?” asked a cultured voice. “How did the job go?”

  I hated the voice the moment I heard it. The voice of Harvey Brigg. Oily, smug, with hard overtones. The voice of a man whose heart was harder than the metal parts of my distributor “heart.”

  Quickly, I rigged up my dictaphone system. I laid its pickup device for sound on the floor. Like my ears, it was sensitive to the faint vibrations working through. If needed I could have made it sensitive to the chirping of a cricket in the basement.

  I had already connected the battery from my satchel. I tripped the on-stud. Five miles away, in Jack’s apartment, I knew the tape-recorder was taking down what the pick-up mike sent out as electronic impulses. At the same time, I leaned down on the floor, listening for myself.

  “It went okay, Boss,” the visitor, Shane, said. “But a gumshoe dick was on the trail. Horned in on the boys at the warehouse. They couldn’t make him talk so they plugged him, and set fire to the joint. Morning paper told how the fire was put out after burning half the stuff in there. But nobody was mentioned so the body must have burned to ashes. Good work, eh, Boss?”

  I could picture them grinning at one another triumphantly. But I was grinning—in my mind—more than they, and for better reason.

  “Wonder if that Adam Link put him on the job?” mused Harvey Brigg’s voice. “Adam Link is supposed to be a mental wizard, robot or not—” There was just a shade of apprehension in his tone.

  “But he don’t compare with you, Boss,” Shane responded. “You’ve got twice the brains he has.”

  “I think you’re right, Shane,” Harvey Brigg agreed readily. “Four days from now his partner robot goes to trial. A little planning to pin it on the robot, and three men I had on the Black List were rubbed out. And who gets blamed? Who will take the rap? Not Joe and Lefty.”

  There was loud laughter for a moment. Then Brigg’s voice came again. “Eve Link, the Frankenstein robot, takes the rap. Read that book sometime, Shane. You’ll know why then, at the trial, the jury will slap a guilty verdict on the robot faster than greased lightning. Evidence pro or con won’t matter. It’ll be just that they’ll be ready to believe the robot did it. I had that all figured out, you see.”

  I had listened with riveted attention. Two things were clear: Harvey Brigg was a megalomaniac and second, he was dead right about the trial—or had been. I don’t know which burned in me stronger at that moment. Anger at his cold, deadly plan in involving. Eve. Or singing triumph that his own voice on tape would betray him.

  The master-mind who had twice the brains of Adam Link spoke again. “Shane, you’re a smart boy yourself. But now about the kidnapping. Give me all the details.”

  Shane went into a recital of the kidnapping. It had been an efficient, cold-blooded job. Taking a young woman away from her well-to-do husband. Then their discussion went into other channels—store robbery, protection fees, even the sale of drugs. Shane, I gathered as I listened, was the sole go-between for Brigg and his widespread “gang.” Brigg outlined certain methods of procedure, with a calm efficiency.

  As the minutes slipped by, I was amazed at the ramifications of his ring. I began to doubt he could be a human being. He must be a frightful monster, human in name only.

  The visitor left after two hours. I heard Brigg get into bed. I sat thinking. My mission was over. Eve was safe. But I thought of more than Eve. I thought of a city of humans preyed upon by this spider and his minions.

  There were four days left before the trial. I stayed for three in the attic of Harvey Brigg’s home. I did not need food or water. I did not get cramped muscles, sitting for long hours. I signaled Eve once and told her to tell Kay of my decision to stay, so they wouldn’t worry about me.

  No one disturbed me—except once. A servant was suddenly climbing the attic stairs. I had no chance to run for any item of furniture large enough to hide me. I was exposed to plain view, twenty feet from the stairwell. What could I do? I sat utterly still.

  It was a woman. She came up and glanced around, looking for something. Her face turned my way. I froze into complete immobility. Her eyes flicked past me, safely.

  I can offer a non-miraculous explanation. The light was dim. My absolute stillness must have deceived her into taking me for an inanimate object—perhaps a bundle of rags. No human being could have escaped. For no human can duplicate the rigidity of something non-living and non-breathing, as I can.

  As for not hearing me—my internal hum and jingling seemed loud in the confined attic—I knew she was hard of hearing. Brigg had revealed once, in the course of his conversations, that he picked his servants for their poor hearing, thus safeguarding himself from any eavesdropping by them.

  She went to a trunk, rummaged within, and left. I began to breathe again—no, sometimes I forget I am not human. I felt relieved, however.

  No other disturbance came, and I went on with my recording. During the day, Brigg was out much of the time. But often he was in, and would closet himself with Shane, discussing their sinister activities in business-like tones. All of this poured into the super-ear of my instrument, and from that device invisibly to the tape-recorder in Jack’s apartment. I had enough, in three days, to damn Brigg in the eyes of any
court.

  On the third night, something significant came from below.

  Shane was there again. It was near midnight. They were discussing the kidnapping.

  “But he claims, Boss,” Shane was saying, “that he can’t raise more than $40,000 by midnight. He wants more time.” Harvey Brigg’s voice was adamant. “Fifty thousand dollars by midnight was our stipulation. Since he can’t, or won’t pay, his wife dies at midnight. Go to the shack now, Shane. At midnight sharp—unless our contact man comes with the money—tell the boys to bash in her skull with the metal bar.”

  I could sense that even Shane shuddered at Brigg’s utterly merciless tone. “But hell, Boss—”

  “That’s an order, you fool. Don’t you understand? This kidnapping doesn’t count so much. The killing will be pinned on Adam Link, the robot. When we pull other kidnappings, they’ll pay up promptly, thinking it’s the cold-blooded, ruthless robot from whom they can expect no mercy.”

  And not knowing—the thought drummed in my brain—that it was the cold-blooded, ruthless Harvey Brigg from whom they could expect no mercy.

  “I get it, Boss. It’ll make the other kidnappings a cinch.”

  “Get going,” snapped Brigg. “At midnight, remember.”

  At midnight, a woman was to die. I was the only one who knew of it. I couldn’t let it happen particularly since I would be blamed. I left the attic, where I had been for three days and nights. I moved as swiftly and quietly as I could, leaped from the porch to soft grass, and scurried behind a hedge. Shane’s car backed out of the drive and roared away with a clash of gears.

  I followed, with an equal clash of gears. For the first time in my two weeks of sleuthing, I let out my full running powers. I passed one late pedestrian. The man stopped stock-still, whirled to watch me, and then staggered to the curb and sat down, apparently sick. I saw that briefly over my shoulder. I might have been amused, except that my mission was so grim.

  I pounded after Shane’s car as it left the outskirts of the town where Brigg lived. Traffic was sparse as he passed into the countryside. Shane hit up a good speed. I ran along the concrete road’s shoulder, about a block behind Shane’s car, so that he wouldn’t glimpse me in his rear-vision mirror. Auto headlights momentarily lit me up—a human figure racing at better than 70 miles an hour. I don’t think the oncoming cars realized my speed. But the two or three I passed, going my way, must have. I can only surmise, as you can, what the drivers thought as what seemed a man over-hauled and shot past them, though their motors were roaring.

  I felt a certain exhilaration, using my full machine powers, after the days in the attic. I suppose it is something like a confined man feeling glad when he gets out and uses his muscles for a change. I raced along after the tail-light of Shane’s car, my internal mechanisms humming smoothly. Yet I am glad the pace did not keep up long. I hadn’t oiled and checked myself over for two weeks.

  Twenty minutes later Shane’s car slowed and turned down a rutty road that presently wound into an isolated woods. Finally it went down what was little more than a weed-grown trail, barely wide enough for the car. It stopped near an old shack, before which another car was parked. I crouched behind the trunk of a tree.

  Figures came out with guns in hand, greeted Shane, and they went in. It was one minute to midnight. I did not look at my watch to tell that. I have a sense of absolute time. I know what time it is at any second of the day or night.

  In one minute, a woman was to die.

  I crept to the shack door, placing my head against the wood to hear. I heard their voices.

  “No word from Slick, our contact man?” Shane queried.

  “Nope. The $50,000 didn’t come. What’s the boss’s orders, Shane?”

  He must have made a silent signal, perhaps with a little spark of pity for the woman who must be awake and listening. I heard the men grunt a little, and one muttered, “Half a minute to midnight.”

  “Where’s my husband?” sounded a feminine voice, strained and half-hysterical. “You told me he’d be coming soon—”

  That was all I had been waiting for—the sound of her voice. Rather, its position. She was in the rear of the one-room shack. She should be safe from what would happen.

  Now was the moment.

  Within me, my distributor clicked over little automatic relays that released a flood of electricity through my steely frame. With one blow of my fist I splintered the door in half. I sprang into the room.

  Five startled men jerked around. One was in the corner, just picking up a metal angle-iron, ready to crash it down on the skull of the young woman lying bound on a rickety couch. Four pairs of eyes popped, for, with the exception of Shane, they had all seen me before. They were the four who had met at the warehouse.

  “God Almighty!” gasped one. “It’s the dick we pumped full of lead—”

  Their guns barked immediately. I walked straight into the hail of lead. I strode for the man with the bar, jerked it out of his hands, bent it into a loop. Somehow, I had to do that first. It was the instrument of murder which was to have pinned the deed on me.

  Then I grabbed the man’s gun. He had just fired pointblank at my chest. I crushed it in my hand and flung the pieces at the others. I went for them, but they had stopped firing. They stood like frozen images, faces dead white. The fear in their hearts shone from their blood shot eyes. Who was this man who could not be killed?

  I stood in the center of the room, defying them.

  Shane deliberately raised his gun and aimed for my head. I dodged the bullet, moving my head a split-second before his finger squeezed the trigger. A shot in my eyes would do damage. Shane shot again at my head. Again it thudded into the wall beyond. It was like an act in a strange drama. Shane shot at my chest, still with that slow, paralyzed incredulity. The slug spanked with a metallic clang. A dawning look came into his face.

  “Cripes,” he whispered. “It’s Adam Link.”

  With shrieks, they scrambled for the door, clawing at each other to get out. I let them get into their car, outside, then grasped the bumper and overturned it. They piled into Shane’s car and I overturned that, spilling them out. They ran for the woods.

  CHAPTER 14

  Human Monster

  I let them go. I had no wish to harm them. Poor misguided wretches, they were only pawns in the horrible game played by Harvey Brigg. He was the man my slow anger was directed against.

  I went into the shack. The woman, who had fainted during the battle, was just opening her eyes. She did not seem any too reassured now, though I had routed her abductors.

  “Who are you?” she quavered.

  “A detective,” I said. If I had said Adam Link, her already strained, haggard mind might have snapped completely. As it was, when I snapped her cords apart like flimsy cotton and picked her up with the ease of a little doll, she gasped. I carried her to Shane’s car, retrieved it from the ditch, and drove off.

  “Where do you live?” I asked, as I turned on the highway.

  She gave me the address. “You’ll be home safe in nineteen minutes,” I told her.

  She smiled then. Perhaps her feminine intuition told her I was a friend. A moment later I saw her head back against the cushion. She was sleeping as peacefully as a baby. Good thing, perhaps. I drove that nineteen-minute stretch to town at a wild pace that would have thrown her into hysteria again. Wild? My driving, at ninety an hour, is safer than that of any human at twenty.

  She was able to walk up the steps of her home, holding my arm. She fell into the arms of her husband, both choking in joy. I left. I wasn’t needed any more. In Shane’s car, I drove toward Jack’s apartment.

  Everything had turned out splendidly. I congratulated myself. Tomorrow was Eve’s trial. In Jack’s apartment was the evidence that would free Eve and convict Harvey Brigg. His treacherous ring would be broken.

  I called Eve on the radio-telepathy, telling her the wonderful news. I had not wanted to make any false promises till now, when I was sure
of myself. She interrupted me, excitedly.

  “Adam! Why haven’t you contacted me sooner? Jack and Tom have been hoping to get in touch with you, through me. Tom was just in my cell this evening again—”

  “What’s wrong?” I snapped. “Didn’t the recording come through?” It was the only thing I could think of. Yet it couldn’t be that. I had made thorough tests before taking the apparatus to Brigg’s home. But fool, I told myself, why couldn’t I at least have checked with Jack? At times, you see, I have quite human failings and lack of reasoning.

  “Yes, most of it,” Eve returned. “But the first part, three days ago, came through with lots of static. Tom says the voices are so distorted that it won’t hold in court.”

  “The first part?” I went a little cold. “That was the part where Brigg revealed his three murders pinned on you. Eve, what else did Tom say?”

  “Tom is worried. He says that although he has enough to indict Brigg on almost everything else, he won’t be able to clear me in time. Brigg will fight his case with powerful lawyers. In the meantime, my trial will have to go on and—well, Tom won’t say any more.”

  I was stunned. I knew what it meant. Eve tried, convicted, and executed long before Harvey Brigg’s legal defenses could be battered down. Without that vital bit of dictaphone evidence, destroyed by static, I had gotten nowhere.

  Her telepathy-voice came again. “Adam, I’m so lonesome for you. I want to come to you. There is no hope now anyway—”

  “Eve, no!” My thoughts crackled. “Eve, you must stay there. Don’t despair, darling. There is still a way—”

  I clicked off. I wrenched the car around in the street on two wheels for a U-turn. I arrived at Brigg’s home in a few minutes. I strode up the front steps to the door, rang the bell boldly.

  The servant who opened the door said, “Come in, Shane.” I had arrived in Shane’s car. But in the hall light, he started. “You’re not Shane. Who are you? What do you want?”