Modular Man had been attending Columbia University for two semesters now, taking courses in advanced physics, metallurgy, and chemistry. He had been hoping to learn ways of repairing himself. He got his tuition free in return for allowing the professors to examine him.
He had learned a lot — he could memorize the textbooks in a single sitting — but he hadn’t learned much that could help him. Travnicek was a wild card genius, and no one could duplicate his work.
And Modular Man himself, despite all the facts he memorized, didn’t seem able to duplicate the work either. It appeared that the android wasn’t very creative.
He was trying to rewrite his programming slightly, hoping it would improve his creativity. He hadn’t had much luck with that either.
Travnicek had told him to fix himself, then wait. Having finished his repair job, Modular Man went to Travnicek’s room and waited.
He was used to waiting. Usually, to help time pass, he called up pleasant memories from his past and relived them in great detail.
This time he watched as Travnicek watched some of his least pleasant memories on his television. Travnicek was playing the recordings from the android’s visit to the Rox. He watched both the video portion and the radar image.
The old Travnicek hadn’t known how to read the radar images, or if he did, simply wasn’t interested. This one did. Maybe it was similar to one of the ways in which he now apprehended the universe.
Travnicek came to the part of the recording where the merman appeared out of the air in front of the android. Stray alarm programs flickered through the android’s circuits at the sight. Travnicek slowed the recording, ran it through the collision, then reversed it. He halted it at the instant in which the merman appeared.
“Toaster,” he said. “Do you have the time at which this happened?”
“11:16:31:14 Eastern Daylight Time,” the android said.
“Hah.” One of Travnicek’s trumpet-flowers gave an unpleasant laugh from the base of his featureless head. “I remember this happening then,” he said. “I remember the feeling of that thing coming into being. I sensed it on a southwesterly bearing from the balcony. It was… extraordinary.” Another nasty laugh. “Very pleasurable. And then only a few seconds later it just came to bits. Annihilated. And that didn’t feel so bad either. I’ve been feeling things like that ever since that castle got built. And the castle itself” Two of his sense organs, facing Modular Man, came erect. The android had the feeling they were peering at him. “That feeling was immense. That must be why God creates things. It feels so good.” Another laugh. “And why He destroys.”
Travnicek rose from the bed and turned off the video and recorder. “Let’s go,” he said.
“Where?” the android asked.
Travnicek headed out of the room. “The Rox,” he said. “We’re joining them. I want to feel the place firsthand.”
“Sir.” The android followed, his self-preservation programming shattering hopelessly against the overriding hardwired command to obey his creator. “Sir. Do you think that’s wise?”
“Fuck you, Toaster.” Walking rapidly through the living room. “I’ll decide what’s wise around here.”
“Sir. They think I’m an enemy. They’ll probably open fire the second they see me. And if I’m carrying you, you’ll be in danger. You could be —” One of those thoughts he wasn’t allowed to think shot through his circuits, then slammed to a halt against hardwired circuits. “You could be killed,” he said.
“We’ll do some fast talking.”
“Sir. Ellis Island is coming under heavy assault if they don’t surrender. If I’m damaged, you’ll never get off. I don’t think this is…”
“If you’re damaged, I’ll fix you.” Breezily. “Do as I say.”
There was no point, the android knew, in reminding Travnicek that he’d lost his abilities to repair his creation. Travnicek was obstinate in claiming that his second dose of the wild card had enhanced rather than diminished his capabilities.
“And you’ve got that Zapper’s battle plan,” Travnicek added. “Bloat would give a lot for that, I betcha.”
“Zappa.” Hopelessly.
Travnicek stepped onto the balcony and raised his blue-skinned arms to the sun. “It’s a good day for flying,” he said.
Sometimes it pays to have a private office, however small. This was one of those times.
Ray sat down at his desk and took out the can of Glade — natural pine scent — that he kept in the upper right-hand drawer of his desk. He squirted the air, which was still contaminated by the smell of cigar smoke, burned flesh, and Bobby Joe Puckett. He wished the office had a window, but opening it would only have let in equally disgusting city odors. The air freshener smelled as much like real pine trees as anything from a test tube could, but it was hardly adequate.
He put the can away and flipped on his computer, asking it to search for the names “Bobby Joe Puckett” and “George G. Battle” among various law agency and newspaper files. He keyed in half a dozen databases, and then sat back to wait, memories of Puckett’s handshake rising unbidden in his mind.
If there was one thing Ray despised it was bullies. Puckett, Ray was sure, fit that category big time. He was begging for payback. Ray was just playing the opening sequences of such a confrontation in his mind when a line of words crawling across his computer screen brought him back to the here and now.
It was, he saw, the info he’d requested on Puckett. And it wasn’t good. Reading it first brought a sense of disbelief, then a frisson of fear. Something was wrong here. Definitely wrong.
FBI records listed a Bobby Joe Puckett born June 5, 1959, in Cross Plains, Texas. He was arrested for car theft at fourteen. The case was dropped due to lack of evidence, but he’d been before the judge three more times in the next two years for car theft, again, and B and E. He spent seven months in a juvvie home, and three weeks after being released was arrested for armed robbery and assault with a deadly weapon for pistol-whipping a 7-1l clerk. He’d spent the next three years in jail.
All of this was unremarkable and wouldn’t have deserved inclusion in a national data bank, except that it provided the backdrop for the next stage of Puckett’s career. He apparently drifted through the early 1980s, occasionally in trouble for more smalltime stuff, then the highlight of his life of crime came down in 1987.
Ray clenched his misshapen jaw as he read the details of a liquor-store robbery gone wrong. This time Puckett killed the clerk instead of only scarring her for life. The killing snapped something in Puckett and he took a deer rifle and .45 Magnum handgun to the top of a tower at the University of Texas in Austin and spent an afternoon sniping at passersby. He got twenty-six students and cops before the police charged his stronghold. To avoid capture he put his Magnum in his mouth and blew away the right side of his face. Shot himself as dead as any of his victims.
Only Puckett wasn’t dead. Ray had shaken hands with him just a few hours before and he could attest to the strength of the man’s grip. But, with a chill running down his spine, Ray remembered the odd, misshapen silhouette of the man’s face under his all-enveloping hood. Given the state of his own face, Ray hadn’t thought much about it then. But now
And the smell —
His file said Puckett was dead. Maybe, Ray thought, Puckett hadn’t really killed himself. Maybe, for some reason, he’d been brought into government service and the suicide story was leaked as cover. Ray could see why the government would want to recruit him. He was an ace, after all. But was he?
Ray stopped and reread the file. There was no indication that Puckett was anything other than another petty criminal whose stupidity had driven him to a horrible death.