Out Like a Light by Randall Garrett and Laurence M. Janifer (best ereader for epub .txt) đź“•
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But it was a lovely question:
Where does that leave Kenneth J. Malone?
And, possibly even more important:
Where was Miguel Fueyo?
It was obvious that he'd vanished on purpose. And it hadn't just been something he'd recently discovered. He had known all along that he could pull the trick; if he hadn't known that, he wouldn't have done what he had done beforehand. No seventeen-year-old boy, no matter what he was, would give the FBI the raspberry unless he were pretty sure he could get away with it.
Malone remembered the raspberry and winced slightly. The cab driver called back: "Anything wrong, buddy?"
"Everything," Malone said. "But don't worry about it."
The cab driver shrugged and turned back to the wheel. Malone went back to Mike Fueyo.
The kid could make himself vanish at will.
Invisibility?
Malone thought about that for a while. The fact that it was impossible didn't decide him against it. Everything was impossible; that much was clear. But he didn't think Mike Fueyo had just become invisible. No. There had been the sense of a presence actually leaving the room. If Mike had become invisible and stayed, Malone was sure he wouldn't have felt the boy leave.
Mike had not just become invisible. (And what do I mean, "just"? Malone asked himself unhappily.) He had gone—elsewhere.
This brought him back full circle to his original question: where was the boy now? But he ignored it for a minute or two as another, even more difficult query presented itself.[Pg 50]
Never mind where, Malone told himself. How?
Something was bothering him. Malone realized that it had been bothering him for a long time. At last he managed to locate it and hold it up to the light for inspection.
Dr. O'Connor, the psionics expert at Westinghouse, had mentioned something during Malone's last conversation with him. Dr. O'Connor, who'd invented a telepathy detector, had been discussing further reaches in his field.
"After all," he'd said, "if thoughts can bridge any distance whatever, regardless of other barriers, there is no reason why matter could not do likewise."
"How do you know?" Malone had asked him, "it doesn't. Or, anyhow, it hasn't so far."
"There's no way to be sure of that." Dr. O'Connor had said sternly. "After all, we have no reports of it—but that means little. Our search has only begun."
"Oh," Malone said. "Sure."
"Matter, controlled by thought, might bridge distances instantaneously," Dr. O'Connor had said.
And he'd referred to something, some word....
Teleportation.
That was it. Malone sat back. All you had to do, he reflected, was to think yourself somewhere else, and—bing!—you were there. If Malone had been able to do it, it would not only save him a lot of time and trouble, but also such things as cab fare and train fare and ... oh, a lot of different things.
But he couldn't. And Dr. O'Connor hadn't found anyone else who could, either. As far as Malone knew, nobody could teleport.
Except Mike Fueyo.
The cab stopped in front of FBI Headquarters. "You some kind of secret agent?" the cabbie said.
"Of course not," Malone said pleasantly. "I'm a foreign spy."
"Oh," the cabbie said. "Sure." He took his money with a somewhat puzzled air, while Malone crossed the sidewalk and went into the building.
Everyone was active. Malone pushed his way through arguing knots of men until he reached the small office which he and Boyd had been assigned. He had already decided not to tell Boyd about the disappearing boy. That would only confuse him—and matters were confused enough as they stood. Malone had no proof; he had only his word and the word of a few baffled policemen, all of whom were probably thoroughly confused by now.
Boyd had a job to do, and Malone had decided to let him go on doing it. That, as a matter of fact, was what he was doing when Malone entered the room.
He was sitting at his desk, talking on the telephone. Malone couldn't see the face on the screen, but Boyd was scowling at it fiercely. "Sure," he said. "So some guy makes a fuss. That's what you're for."[Pg 51]
"But he wants to sue the city," a voice said tinnily. "Or somebody."
"Let him sue," Boyd said. "We've got authority. Just get that car."
"Look," the voice said. "I—"
"I don't care how," Boyd snapped. "Get it. Then hand it over to the pickup-squad and say: 'Mr. Malone wants this car—immediately.' They'll know what to do. Got that?"
"Sure, Mr. Boyd," the voice said. "But I don't—"
"Never mind," Boyd said. "Go ahead and get the job done. The United States of America is depending on you." With one last scowl, he hung up and swung around to face Malone. "You gave me a great job," he said. "I really love it, you know that?"
"It's got to be done," Malone said in a noncommittal voice. "How's it going so far?"
Boyd closed his eyes for a second. "Twenty-three red 1972 Cadillacs to date—which isn't bad, I suppose," he said. "And six calls like the one you just heard. All from agents with problems. What am I supposed to do when a guy catches a couple necking in a 1972 red Cadillac?"
"At this time of day?" Malone said.
"New York," Boyd said, and shrugged. "Things are funny here."
Malone nodded. "What did you do about them?" he said.
"Told the agent to take the car and give 'em a pass to a movie," Boyd said.
"Good," Malone said. "Keep that sort of thing in the dark where it belongs." For some reason, this reminded him of Dorothy. He still had to get tickets for a show. But that could wait. "How about the assembly line?" he said.
"Disassembly," Boyd said. "Leibowitz has started it going. He borrowed the use of a big auto repair shop over in Jersey City, and they'll be doing a faster job than we thought." He paused. "But it's been a wonderful day," he said. "One to remember as long as I live. Possibly even until tomorrow. And how have you been doing?"
"Well," Malone said, "I'm not absolutely sure yet."
"That's a nice, helpful answer," Boyd said. "In the best traditions of the FBI."
"I can't help it," Malone said. "It's true."
"Well, what have you been doing?" Boyd said. "Drinking? Living it up while I sit here and talk to people about Cadillacs?"
"Not exactly," Malone said. "I've been ... well, doing more or less what Burris told me to do. Nosing around. Keeping my eyes open."
The phone chimed. Boyd flipped up the mike and eyed the screen balefully. "Federal Bureau of Investigation," he said crisply. "Who are you?"
A voice on the other end said: "What?" before the image on the screen cleared.[Pg 52]
"Oh," a voice said. It was a very calm, quiet voice. "Hello, Boyd."
The image cleared. Boyd was facing the picture of a man in his middle thirties, a brown-haired man with large, gentle brown eyes and an expression that somehow managed to look both sad and confident. "Hello, Dr. Leibowitz," Boyd said.
"Is Mr. Malone in?" Leibowitz said. "I really wanted to talk to him."
"Sure," Boyd said. "Just a second."
He motioned to Malone, who came around and sat at Boyd's desk as Boyd got up. He nodded to Leibowitz, and the electronics engineer nodded back.
"How's everything coming, Dr. Leibowitz?" Malone said.
Leibowitz shrugged meaningfully. "All right," he said. "I called you to tell you about that, by the way. We've managed to cut the per-car time down somewhat."
"That's wonderful," Malone said.[Pg 53]
"It's now down to about four hours per car—and that means we may be able to do even better than running one off the line every fifteen minutes. At the moment, fifteen minutes is about standard, though, with sixteen cars in the line."
"Sure," Malone said. "But anything you can do to speed it up—"
"I understand," Leibowitz said. "Of course, I'll do anything that I can for you. I have got a small preliminary report, by the way."
"Yes?"
"The first car has just been turned off the assembly line," Leibowitz said. "And I'm afraid, Mr. Malone, that there's nothing odd about it at all."
"Well," Malone said, "we can't expect to hit the jackpot with our first try."
"Certainly not," Leibowitz said. "But the second should be off soon. And then the rest. I'm keeping my eye on every one, of course."
"Fine," Malone said, and meant it. Leibowitz was the kind of man who inspired instant, and complete trust. Malone was perfectly sure he'd do the job he had started to do. Then an idea struck him. "Has the first car been reassembled yet?" he asked.
"Of course," Leibowitz said. "We took that step into account in our timing. What would you like done with it—and with the other ones, as they come off?"
"Unless you can find something odd about a car, just return it to its owner," Malone said. "Or pass the problem on to the squad men—they'll take care of it." He paused. "If you do find something odd—"
"I'll call you at once, of course," Leibowitz said.
"Good," Malone said. "Incidentally, I did want to ask you something. I don't want you to think I'm doubting your work, or anything like that. Believe me."
"I'm sure you're not," Leibowitz said.
"But," Malone said, "why does it take so long? I'd think it would be fairly easy to spot a robotic or a semirobotic brain capable of controlling a car."
"It might have been, once." Leibowitz said. "But these days the problems are rather special. Oh, I don't mean we can't do it—we can and we will. But with subminiaturization, Mr. Malone, and semipsionic circuits, a pretty good brain can be hidden beneath a coat of paint."
For no reason at all, Malone suddenly thought of Dorothy again. "A coat of paint?" he said in a disturbed tone.
"Certainly," Leibowitz said, and smiled at him. It was a warm smile that had little or nothing to do with the problem they were talking about. But Malone liked it. It made him feel as if Leibowitz liked him, and approved of him. He grinned back.
"But a coat of paint isn't very much," Malone said.
"It doesn't have to be very much," Leibowitz said. "Not these days. I've often told Emily—that's my wife, Mr. Malone—that I could hide a TV[Pg 54] circuit under her lipstick. Not that there would be any use in it—but the techniques are there, Mr. Malone. And if your conjecture is correct, someone is using them."
"Oh," Malone said. "Sure. But you can find the circuits, if they're there?"
Leibowitz nodded slowly. "We can, Mr. Malone," he said. "They betray themselves. A microcircuit need not be more than a few microns thick, you see—as far as the conductors and insulators are concerned, at any rate. But the regulators—transistors and such—have to be as big as a pinhead."
"Enormous, huh?" Malone said.
"Well," Leibowitz said, and chuckled, "quite large enough to locate without trouble, at any rate. They're very hard to conceal. And the leads from the brain to the power controls are even easier to find—comparatively speaking, of course."
"Of course," Malone said.
"All the brain does, you see," Leibowitz said, "is control the mechanism that steers the car. But it takes real power to steer—a great deal more than it does to compute the steering."
"I see," Malone, who didn't, said desperately. "In other words, unless something radically new has been developed, you can find the circuits."
"Right," Leibowitz said, grinning. "It would have to be something very new indeed, Mr. Malone. We're up on most of the latest developments here; we've got to be. But I don't want the credit for this."
"No?" Malone said.
"Oh, no," Leibowitz said. "All I do is work out the general application to theory, as far as actual detection is concerned. It's my partner, Mr. Hardin, who takes care of all the engineering details."
Malone said: "Well, so long as one of you—"
"Sal's a real crackerjack," Leibowitz said enthusiastically. "He has an intuitive feel about these things. It's really amazing to watch him go to work."
"It must be," Malone said politely.
"Oh, it really is," Leibowitz said. "And it's because of Sal that I can make the guarantee I do make: that if there are any unusual circuits in those cars, we can find them."
"Thanks," Malone said. "I'm sure you'll do the job. And we need that information. Don't bother to send along a detailed report, though, unless you find something out of the ordinary."
"Of course, Mr. Malone," Leibowitz said. "I wouldn't have bothered you except for the production speed-up here."
"I understand," Malone said.
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