The Mindwarpers Read online

  Burleston!

  I am Richard Bransome, a highly-qualified metallurgist in government employ. I have the confidence of my superiors, the friendship of my colleagues and neighbors, the love of my wife and two kids and a pup. Before I was assigned to top secret work my background was thoroughly investigated by those trained to make a one hundred percent job of it. My record is clean, my past is spotless. There are no skeletons in my cupboard.

  No skeletons?

  Oh, God, why do the dead have to arise from their graves and point a finger into the present time? Why can’t they lie in peace forever and let the living continue to live in similar peace?

  He stood dazedly, with unseeing eyes, while his train rumbled in without his being fully aware of its arrival. Conditioned legs carried him into his usual car much as they might have taken a blind man. He fumbled around uncertainly, found his seat, sat in it and hardly knew what he was doing.

  Why did I kill Arline?

  The coach was fairly full, as always. He had the same faces opposite and all around. They had greeted his entry with the customary nods and made ready for the customary idle chat.

  The man facing him, Farmiloe, folded an evening paper, gave his preliminary cough and commented, “Been a good day though I say it myself. Trade’s picking up quite a piece. High time we had an uprise to compensate for—” His voice broke off, came back on a slightly higher note. “You feeling ill, Bransome?”

  “Me?” Bransome gave a visible jerk. “No, I’m all right.”

  “You don’t look it,” Farmiloe informed. “You’re white enough to have had a shower.” He leaned side-wise, gave a fat chuckle as he nudged Connelly, the man next to him. “Hear what I just said? I said Bransome’s white enough to have had a shower.”

  “He doesn’t look so good at that,” said Connelly, refusing to be overwhelmed by the other’s wit. Eyeing Bransome warily, he moved his knees away. “Don’t you be sick in my lap.”

  “I’m okay. There’s nothing wrong with me.” The words came out as if he were using somebody else’s voice.

  Why did I kill Arline?

  Farmiloe let the subject drop and switched to yammering about rises and falls of business. All the time he gazed at Bransome with big white eyes, slightly protruding. He appeared to be half-expecting an unpleasant something that he did not want to happen. For that matter, so did Connelly, though in a less obvious way. They had the air of men hoping to escape a minor crisis, such as being called upon to give first aid to somebody rolling in agony upon the floor.

  The train thundered onward while conversation petered out and the three sat uncomfortably in an atmosphere of suspense. None of them had another word to say. Eventually a string of lights slid past the windows, slowed, came to a halt. Voices sounded in the misty darkness outside. Somebody started trundling a squeaky hand-truck up near the front of the train. Connelly and Farmiloe looked expectantly at Bransome who sat absent-eyed, unconscious of their attention.

  After a few seconds Farmiloe leaned forward and tapped Bransome’s knee. “Unless you’ve moved your home since yesterday, this is your station.”

  “Is it?” Bransome looked incredulous. He rubbed condensation from the window and peered through. “So it is!” Grabbing his leather briefcase, he forced a false smile onto his face, hastened toward the exit. “Must have been daydreaming.”

  As he went through the door he heard Connelly say, “Nightmaring would be more accurate.”

  Then he found himself standing on the concrete watching the train pull out. Its brilliantly lit cars rolled past him one by one, gathering speed as they went. He could see row after row of passengers chatting, reading papers or lolling back half asleep. None of these had anything to worry about, not really. Their minds were occupied with matters comparatively trivial. Wonder what’s for dinner tonight? Feel like a nice quiet evening watching television: will Mabel want to go out or will she be content to stay in? Will Old Soandso sign those papers tomorrow without quibbling? They were lazy and complacent just as he had been on his homeward journeys—until today.

  But now the hunt was up and he, Bransome, was the quarry. Of all that passing trainload he alone knew the fear of the pursued. It was not the adventurous thrill that some claimed it to be. It was heart-knocking and mind-disturbing, a psychological upheaval the like of which he had never known. At the end of the trail, quite possibly, stood the prize awarded to long-distance runners: the electric chair, the scientific monstrosity that the criminal fraternity called the hot squat. He could picture it in his mind’s eye and the vision did nothing to encourage tranquillity.

  There was no escape from this predicament, or none that he could think up right now. The shock was too recent for him to be capable of cool, logical thought. Walking away from the station he turned the corner of an avenue without any real consciousness of where he was going. An auto-pilot created in his mind by long conditioning was steering him homeward. He saw the illuminated windows of neighbor’s houses, a spectacle he had always regarded as evidence of life, but now he viewed them as no more than mere lights—because his thoughts were of death.

  Bones under the roots of a tree that could and should have shadowed them for another century. Bones that could and should have remained there unsuspeaed and untouched until events had drifted too far into the past for any man to trace into the present. There seemed to be some sort of devilish perversity in the so-called laws of chance, a gross distortion of the probability-factor to the detriment of the guilty. So out of this world’s multi-million trees one especial tree must topple, thereby starting the manhunt.

  Young Jimmy Lindstrom passed him, towing a red-painted toy truck at the end of a cord, and sang out, “Hi, Mr. Bransome!”

  “Hi!” he responded mechanically, forgetting to add, “Jimmy.” He moved onward with robotic gait.

  A couple of months before he had filled in a quiet hour on a journey by reading one of those lurid crime magazines. Somebody had left it on an adjacent seat and he’d picked it up and looked at it out of idle curiosity. One true story therein had told how a dog had unearthed a skeletal hand wearing a plain gold ring, no more than that. From there onward, step by relentless step, tedious lines had been followed, pertinent questions asked, difficult clues developed until eventually the web of entrapment became complete. Sheriffs and their deputies, county attorneys and city detectives scattered right across a continent had picked up jigsaw pieces here and there over a couple of years. Suddenly the total picture had become visible in all its brutal ghastliness—and a man had gone to the electric chair for a crime fourteen years old.

  Now there was this. Somewhere within the broad land a scientific bloodhound would be determining the cause of death, the approximate date of the crime, the sex, height, weight and age of the victim plus numerous other details such as only a forensic specialist can extract. The weaving of the web had begun, its completion only a matter of time.

  His pulse leaped at the thought of it. How would the end come? At work, at home or perhaps on the way from one to the other? Maybe at home, where he’d hate it most. In a mind stimulated by crisis he could readily imagine the scene. Dorothy would answer the doorbell to admit a couple of burly, grim-faced men and stand wide-eyed while one of them spoke.

  “Richard Bransome? We are police officers. We have here a warrant for your arrest and it is our duty to warn you that—”

  A scream from Dorothy. The children howling their hearts out and trying to drag him indoors. The pup whining in sympathy and seeking someplace to hide. And the police would take him away, one on each side so that he couldn’t run for it. Away from Dorothy, the children, the pup, the home, from everything that he held dear, for ever and ever and ever.

  He was perspiring in the coldness of the night when he discovered that he had walked fifty yards past his own house. Swiveling on one heel, he retraced his steps, went up to the front door, and fumbled like a drunk as he sought for his key.

  The moment he entered the kids came at h
im screaming with excitement and trying to climb up his front. Each yell seemed tormentingly shrill, tearing at his nerves in a way never previously experienced. The pup squirmed and wriggled between his feet, making him stumble. He had to put forth a tremendous effort to control himself, blanking his ears to the noises and fixing a thin smile on his face. He scratched two tousled heads, patted two cheeks, stepped carefully over the pup and hung his hat and coat in the hall.

  That peculiar perceptiveness of children made them realize that all was not well. They became silent, backing away and regarding him gravely, knowing that he was troubled. He put on a jovial act, but it did not deceive them. In turn, their attitude did nothing to help soothe him inwardly. The very way they looked at him made it seem as if somehow they knew that he was of the doomed.

  Dorothy’s voice came from the kitchen. “That you, darling? What sort of a day have you had?”

  “Worrying,” he admitted. Going through to the kitchen, he kissed her and of course gave himself away. He held her a little too tightly and a fraction too long, as if determined never to be deprived of her.

  She stood off, studying him, her arched eyebrows crinkled into a frown. “Rich, is it anything serious?”

  “Is what serious?”

  “Whatever is on your mind.”

  “Nothing is bothering me particularly,” he lied. “Only one or two things at work. I have to go crazy over some problems. It’s what I’m paid for.”

  “Well,” she said doubtfully, “don’t let them get you down. And don’t bring them home with you, either. Home is the place for getting away from all that.”

  “I know. But worries can’t be dismissed that easily. Maybe some people can leave them behind the moment they walk out of the laboratory but I can’t. Even at home I need an hour or two to readjust.”

  “You’re not being paid overtime.”

  “I’m being paid plenty.”

  “And so you ought,” she said, positively. “The best brains deserve the best pay.”

  He pretended to ruffle her hair. “They get it, my lovely—but there are plenty of brains better than mine.”

  “Nonsense!” She put a bowl under the mixer and turned a switch. “You’re developing an inferiority complex. I’m surprised at you.”

  “Not so,” he contradicted. “A good brain is good enough to recognize a superior one. In the plant are some that must be known to be believed. Clever men, Dorothy, very clever men. I often wish I were as competent.”

  “Well, if you’re not you soon will be.”

  “I hope so.”

  He remained there, thinking it over. Will be, she had said. The future tense. It might have been valid yesterday. But not today. His future was being taken over by other hands, slowly, piece by piece, damning item after damning item, until someday far or near …

  “You’re unusually quiet this evening. Hungry?”

  “Not very.”

  “Dinner won’t be more than a few minutes.”

  “All right, honey. Just time to wash up.”

  In the bathroom, he stripped to the waist and washed as if trying to clear away his mental blackness. He was still a little muddle-minded, his brain doing a kind of jittery sideslip each time he bent low over the water.

  Dorothy came in hurriedly. “I forgot to tell you there’s a fresh towel on the … why, Rich, you’ve bruised your arm.”

  “Yes, I know.” Taking the towel from her, he mopped his face and chest, bent the arm to examine the blue-black patch around the elbow. It felt tender and sore. “Fell down the steps by Branigan’s this morning. Banged my elbow and bumped the back of my head.”

  She felt around his skull, her slim fingers probing his hair. “Yes, there’s quite a lump.”

  “You’re telling me. It hurts just to touch it.”

  “Oh, Rich, you might have broken your neck. Those steps are long, and steep. How on earth did it happen?”

  “Not quite sure.” He toweled a bit more, reached for his shirt. “I was going down the steps in exactly the same way that I’ve gone down them hundreds of times. Suddenly I took a dive. Don’t remember tripping or slipping. Don’t remember feeling ill or fainting or giving way at the knees. I just plunged face-first without warning. Two fellows were mounting the steps and about halfway up. They saw me topple. They jumped forward and grabbed me as I hit. They saved me from serious damage, I guess.”

  “And then?”

  “I must have knocked myself out because I next found myself sitting on the steps in a semi-daze with one of the fellows bending over me and slapping my face and saying, ‘Are you all right, mister?’ I got to my feet rather shakily, thanked him and went on my way. Needless to say, I felt darned silly.”

  “Did you see the doctor?”

  “No. There wasn’t enough reason for doing so. A couple of bumps, that’s all I’ve suffered. I don’t rush to the medic and scream for a lollipop every time I bruise myself.”

  Her gaze went over him with unconcealed anxiety. “But, Rich, if you fainted, as you may have done, it could mean there is something wrong and—”

  “There’s nothing wrong. I’m fit enough to fall down the Grand Canyon and bounce. Don’t get excited about a few bumps and lumps. The kids will be smothered with them before they’re through.” Finding his shirt, he started replacing it. “I must have been absent-minded or careless and missed my step or something like that. It’ll teach me to watch where I’m going. Let’s forget it, shall we?”

  “All the same, I—” Her voice trailed off, she put on a startled expression. “My goodness, something’s burning!” She raced back to the kitchen.

  He studied himself in the mirror while carefully knotting his tie. Lean, ascetic features, thin lips, dark eyes, black eyebrows and hair. Small white scar on left temple. Clean-shaven, thirtyish, neat dresser in a slightly finicky way. How long before that description became circulated together with details of his fingerprints? How long before some cigar-chewing hack cashed in on him with a yarn entitled The Phantom Killer of Cooper’s Creek or something like that?

  It didn’t look like the face of a killer. Too thoughtful and bookish. But it might well fill the part with eyes straining at a police camera and with an identification number hung beneath. Full face and profile, that was the formula. Anyone could look a suitable candidate for the death-cell when photographed in those circumstances, especially when bleary-eyed and frowsy after a long, long night of intensive questioning.

  “Dinner’s ready.”

  “Coming!” he called.

  He didn’t really want a meal but would have to go through the motions of eating a hearty one. The alarm permeating his mind was matched by a sickness in his stomach. But abstinence would invite more awkward questions. He’d have to force down the unwanted food as best he could.

  “The condemned man ate a four-course breakfast.”

  Ridiculous!

  When facing his imminent end no man could do that.

  He passed the security guards shortly before nine in the morning, receiving a nod of recognition from each squad, suffering the usual tedious wait at three successive doors. In theory the guards were supposed to subject his official pass to minute examination each time he went in or came out, even though they had known him for years. This rule had been relaxed after the outspoken and irascible Cain had erupted when called upon for the seventeenth time to show his document to his own brother-in-law. Now the guards nodded at those well-known and pounced tigerishly upon anyone unrecognized.

  Inside, he put his coat and hat in a metal locker, donned a dark green lab-coat bearing a numbered disk and a radiation-tab, walked along a series of corridors, passed a couple of internal guards and went through a green-painted door. Beyond, he crossed a long, ornate laboratory and several large, imposing workshops, finally reaching a steel shed at the back. This place was the size of an airship hangar. Cain and Potter, both in green lab-coats, were already there, pencils stabbing at drawings scattered along a bench while they discussed
some aspect of the thing in the shed’s middle.

  The shiny, metallic object on the concrete resembled a cross between a huge automobile engine and a long-snouted antiaircraft gun. Its looks were not deceiving. Any competent ballistician could have diagnosed its purpose after brief examination. A small row of missiles standing by its base were a dead giveaway: proximity-fuzed shells without propulsive charges.

  The subject of the Cain-Potter discussion was an experimental model of a fully automatic high-angle gun made especially spiteful by use of a new liquid explosive. The latter could be pumped, carbureted, injected and fired electrically. On the drawing-board this gadget was capable of throwing six hundred heavy-caliber shells per minute to an altitude of seventy thousand feet. But on the test range it had proved a different story altogether: within eight seconds missiles had been wobbling wildly upward from a barrel worn and expanded by fractional heat.

  So they had tried various modifications that had gained them a mere four seconds of effective fire. The basic idea was first-class but in actual practice more full of bugs than a flea-trainer’s dog. If weeks or months of trial and error, argument and head-beating could create perfection they’d have had a gadget capable of tearing the skies apart.

  Right now they had reached the stage of eating their nails while seeking a solution to the problem of how to reduce the rate of fire without actually reducing the rate of fire. This was not as impossible as it might seem; at the last resort they could substitute a multi-barreled gun designed to fire in series. But they were not yet ready for the last resort.

  Cain ceased yabbering at Potter, turned to Bran-Si some and said, “Here’s another frustrated genius. For your information we have come to an unavoidable conclusion.”

  “And what is that?” asked Bransome.

  “Either the barrel lining or the shells must be made of frictionless alloy,” responded Cain, giving a lopsided grin. “As an allegedly expert metallurgist it’s your job to invent it. So go ahead and get busy.”