A Plague of Demons

I balanced carefully, like a man with springs tied to his shoes. 'I remember my lessons,' I said. 'Pain has a way of sticking in my mind.'

'It's the best method when you're in a hurry.'

'How did the test go?'

'Not badly at all. You held it to.07 microbel at 30,000 cycles. How was the vision?'

'About like shaving with a steamed mirror. I still get only blacks and whites.'

'You'll develop color discrimination after a while. Your optic center has been accustomed to just the usual six hues for thirty-odd years; it can't learn to differentiate in the ultraviolet range overnight.'

'And I can't adjust to the feeling that I weigh half an ounce, either, dammit! I dance around on my toes like a barefooted hairdresser on a hot pavement.'

Felix grinned as though I'd paid him a compliment. 'In point of fact, you now weigh three hundred and twenty-eight pounds. I've plated another five mills of chromalloy onto the skeletal grid. Your system's shown a nice tolerance for it. I'm pulling one more net of the number nine web over the trapezius, deltoids, and latissimi dorsi-'

'The tolerances of my metabolism are not to be taken as those of the management,' I cut in. 'These past six weeks have been a vivisectionist's nightmare. I've got more scars than a Shendy tribesman, and my nerves are standing on end, waving around like charmed snakes. I'm ready to call it a day, and try it as is.'

Felix nodded soberly. 'We're about finished with you. I know it's been difficult, but there's no point in taking anything less than our best to the fray, is there?'

'I don't know why I don't ache all over,' I grumbled. 'I've been sliced, chiseled, and sawed at like a side of beef in a butcher's college. I suppose you've got me doped to the eyebrows; along with all the other strange sensations, a little thing like a neocaine jag would pass unnoticed.'

'No-no dope; hypnotics, old boy.'

'Swell. Every day in every way I'm hurting less and less, eh?'

I took a breath, more from habit than need; the oxygen storage units installed under the lower edge of my rib-cage were more than half charged; I could go for another two hours if I had to. 'I know we're in a hell of a spot-and it's better to sail in with grins in place and all flags flying than sit around telling each other the crisis has arrived. But I'm ready for action.'

Felix was looking at papers, paying no attention at all.

'Surely, old man. Gripe all you like,' he said absently. 'Just don't get friendly and slap me on the back. I'm still made of normal flesh and blood. Now, I'd like another check on the strain gauges.'

I closed my mouth and went across to the Iron Man-a collection of cables and bars that looked like an explosion in a bicycle factory.

'The grip, first.'

I took the padded handle, settled my hand comfortably, squeezed lightly to get the feel of it, then put on the pressure. I heard a creak among the levers; then the metal collapsed like a cardboard in my hand.

I let go. 'Sorry, Felix-but what the hell, thin-gauge aluminum-'

'That's a special steel tubing, cold-extruded, two tenths of an inch thick,' Felix said, examining the wreckage. 'Try a lift now.'

I went over to a rig with a heavy horizontal beam. I bent my knees, settled my shoulders under it with a metal-to-wood clatter. I set myself, slowly straightened my legs. The pressure on my shoulders seemed modest-about like hefting a heavy suitcase. I came fully erect, then went up on my toes, pushing now against an almost immovable resistance.

'Slack off, John,' Felix called. 'I believe I'll consider you've passed your brute-strength test. Over twenty-nine hundred pounds-about what a runabout weighs-and I don't think you were flat out at that.'

'I could have edged a few ounces more.' I flexed my shoulders. 'The padding helped, but it wasn't quite thick enough.'

'The padding was two inches of oak.' He looked at me, pulling at his lower lip. 'Damned pity I can't take you along to the next Myoelectronics Congress; I could make a couple of blighters eat two-hour speeches saying it wasn't possible.'

I took a turn up and down the room, trying not to bounce at each step.

'Felix, you said another week, to let the incisions heal. Let's skip that; I'm ready to go now. You've been in town every day and haven't seen any signs of abnormal activity. The alarm's died down.'

'Died down too damned quickly to suit me,' he snapped. 'It's too quiet. At the least, I'd have expected someone out to check over the house. You'll recall that the former tenant, my alter ego, turned in a report on missing men and head wounds. But they haven't been near the place. There's been nothing in the papers since the first day or two-and I daresay it wouldn't have been mentioned then, except that a crowd of idlers saw you kill Julius.'

'Look, Felix; I've got so damned much microtronics gear buried in my teeth I'm afraid to eat anything tougher than spaghetti; I've got enough servo-motors bolted to my insides to power an automatic kitchen. Let's skip the rest of the program and get going. I may have new stainless-steel knuckles, but it's the same old me inside. I'm getting the willies. I want to know what those hell-hounds are doing up there.'

'What time is it?' Felix asked suddenly.

I glanced at the black-and-white wall clock. 'Twenty-four minutes after nine,' I said.

Felix raised his hand and snapped his fingers I felt a slight twitch-as though everything in the room had jumped half an inch. Felix was looking at me with a quizzical smile.

'What time did you say it was?'

'Nine twenty-four.'

'Look at the clock.'

I glanced at it again. 'Why, is it-' I stopped. The hands stood at ten o'clock.

'Clock manipulation at a distance,' I said. 'How do you do it-and why?'

Felix shook his head, smiling. 'You've just had another half-hour session in deep hypnosis, John. I want another couple of days to reinforce that primary personality fraction I've split off, before I tie it in with a mnemonic cross-connection. We want your alter ego to be sure to swing into action at the first hint of outside mental influences.'

'Speaking of psychodynamics, how are you coming along with your own conditioning?'

'Pretty well, I think. I've been attempting to split off a personality fraction for myself. I'm not sure how effective my efforts have been. Frankly, autohypnosis was never my strong suit. Still, there are a few facts that I can't afford to expunge from my mind completely-but on the other hand, I can't afford to let the enemy have them. I've buried them in the alternate ego, and keyed them to a trigger word. The same word is tied to my heart action.'

'In other words-if anyone cues this information, it's suicide for you.'

'Correct,' Felix said cheerfully. 'I need the basic power of the survival instinct to cover this information. I've given you the key word under hypnosis. Your subconscious will know when to use it.'

'Pretty drastic, isn't it?'

'It's tricky business, trying to outguess a virtually unknown enemy; but from their interest in brains, it's a fair guess that they know a bit about the mechanics of the human mind. We can't rule out the possibility that they possess a technique for controlling human mental processes. I can't let them control mine. I've got too many secrets.'

I chewed that one over. 'You may be right. That tank driver didn't behave like a man who was running his own affairs. And whatever it was that hit him-and the major-'

'It could have been an amplified telepathic command-to stop breathing, perhaps-or shutting off the flow of blood through the carotid arteries. From the fact that it didn't affect you, we can assume that their technique is selective; it probably requires at least a visual fix on the object, for a start.'

'We're assuming a hell of a lot, Felix. We'd better do some more fieldwork before we reason ourselves right out onto the end of a long limb.'

Felix was looking thoughtful. 'It shouldn't be too difficult to arrange shielding around the personality center area; a platinum-gauge micro-grid with a filament spacing of about-'

'Oh-oh. This sounds like another expedition into the seat of what I once thought of as my intelligence.'

Felix clucked. 'I can handle it with a number 27 probe, like building a ship in a bottle. It could make a great difference-if it works.'

'There's too much guesswork here, Felix.'

'I know.' He nodded. 'But we've got to extract every possible ounce of intelligence on the enemy from the few fragments of data we have. I don't think we're going to have much in the way of a second chance.'

'We'll be doing well if we have a first one.'

'You are getting nervous.'

'You're damned right! If I don't get going soon, I may funk the whole act and retire to a small farm near Nairobi to write my memoirs.'

Felix cackled. 'Let's dial ourselves a nice little entrecфte avec champignons and a liter or two of a good burgundy, and forget business for an hour or two. Give me three more days, John; then we'll make our play-ready or not.'

***

The night air was cold and clean; gravel crunched under my feet with a crisp, live sound. Felix tossed our two small bags in the boot of the car, paused to sniff the breeze.

'A fine night for trouble,' he said briskly.

I looked up at the spread of fat, multicolored stars. 'It's good to be out, after fifty days of stale air and scalpels,' I said. 'Trouble or no trouble.' I slid into my seat, taking care not to bend any metal.

'We'll have to register you as a lethal weapon when this caper is over,' Felix said, watching me gingerly fasten my seat belt. 'Meantime, watch what you grab if I take a corner a trifle too fast.' He started up, pulled off down the drive, turned into the highway.

'It's not too late to change plans and take the Subsea Tube to Naples,' I said. 'I have a negative vibration when it comes to rocket flights; why not go underground, the way the Lord intended us to travel?'

'I won the deck-cut, old boy,' Felix said. 'For myself, I've had enough of the underground life; I want a fast transit to New York.'