Before Tomorrowland, page 11
“This is all for fun, right? I mean, it’s gotta be,” said the boy, laughing nervously. Henry’s scan of his vital signs suggested a state of high anxiety. Was it due to his mother’s collapse at the convention yesterday? Perhaps. And irrelevant.
“Nope. It’s all true,” said Henry, looking Lee square in the face.
His mother elbowed him in the ribs. “He’s pretty good, isn’t he?” She pivoted back to Henry. “Seriously though, you must do work on stage here in New York, huh? Would I have to audition for something like you’re doing? It seems like it would be so much fun.”
Henry just kept quiet.
“I’m sorry,” she continued. “I don’t mean to break the spell. I just can’t help but wonder how it all comes together. Oh! Can I show you something?”
She dug into her purse and brought out a sketchbook. “When I see these amazing things you’ve made it just fires my imagination. I drew this one while we ate breakfast—it’s your post office tower. I was thinking, what if instead of a safari in the building, you had those teleports actually send people to Africa. Yeah?” She turned the page, anxious to show Henry more. The next illustration covered two pages. It was a cityscape of towers and interlacing arches and elevated pathways crowded with humans accompanied by dozens of robots, each boxy and overtly mechanistic but unique in design.
“You drew that during breakfast?” he asked.
“Yes, this would be a whole city of your buildings with these bridges. As for the robots, I think it would be interesting if—”
“We’re here!” Henry interrupted. Actually, they were still a floor away, but he really didn’t want to hear a single word of her robot philosophy. The elevator shuddered to a stop. The doors slid open. He modulated his voice for maximum politeness. “After you.”
Henry followed them down the hallway. He knocked out the ten surveillance cameras hidden in the walls. Room 3227 was on the right side, the numbers tacked to a double door. A quick X-ray told him the room was ninety-five hundred square feet. There were no personnel inside, no humans, no robots, but he did detect dozens of mechanical devices, many emitting digital signals. There was something familiar about their signatures, something he didn’t trust. He set his analytical systems to producing an escape plan and fight protocol.
He put his hand on the doorknob and pretended like he knew what was coming. “I think you’re going to like this,” he said. Mrs. Brackett raised her shoulders up to her ears and grinned back as he turned the knob and swung the doors wide. An array of interactive kiosks filled the salon, all flashing and spinning and chattering. He knew what this was, even before he saw the banner mocking him with six giant red words:
PLUS ULTRA’S SHOWROOM OF THE FUTURE!
There was even a butler with a serving tray fused to his hand. It was stationary and did not speak, but otherwise it was just like the one from his childhood. He flashed on the butler on Coney Island with the broken teeth, and how its face must have ripped apart from the bomb he’d planted. He wanted the same for this one, there and then. Every lurid flash and smiling metal face took him back to
/ HISTORY / PERSONAL / FATHER / SANTA_MONICA /
and once more, Henry’s childhood hopes for the future burned bitter inside his lifeless circuits.
He came out of his reverie to the sound of the woman gasping and clapping her hands. She was standing in front of a tall, rectangular obelisk in the center of the room. It was embedded with twelve video monitors, which, combined, presented a full-size image of Orson Welles dressed in a black suit, greeting them with his deep voice:
“Welcome, fellow visionaries, to our hall of wonders. Please enjoy the stations and move forward when the blue lights flash so that every visitor may have an opportunity to explore. Return to the guest book area at the nearest convenient quarter hour to learn your next destination, where the father of Plus Ultra himself awaits you—Mr. Nikola Tesla.”
The mother and son ventured into the exhibit, heading in different directions. She bolted with excitement. He was cautious and self-conscious. “What future shock awaits the hearts of men?! Only The Shadow knows!” the boy joked aloud to no one. “Incredible.”
Henry forced his two-hundred-pound legs to trudge forward, one after the other, into the spectacle. One display touted a transportation system called a “wire transfer:” IMAGINE PHONE BOOTHS IN EVERY MAJOR CITY, WHERE INSTEAD OF SENDING YOUR VOICE AROUND THE WORLD, YOU COULD SEND YOUR WHOLE PERSON! He tried to imagine it. He didn’t like it. He resolved to adjust his sensors to tune out the din when his attention was drawn to a small, simple video monitor tucked away in the southeast corner of the room. It was by far the most modest piece of technology in the salon, almost conspicuously so. But when Henry read the large yellow card taped to it, he understood it was the most important item there:
COMING SOON
THE REVEAL
DON’T FORGET YOUR GLASSES!
On the screen, Orson Welles gazed back with twinkly eyes and a small, mischievous curl to his lips. “For years, we have pursued safe, efficient means to share with the world our most exciting treasure, the wondrous resource that has served as our laboratory for developing the technology you see here.”
Safe and efficient. Henry clenched his jaw. Right.
“We tried many things over many years. Some worked better than others, but none of them met the criteria of safe and efficient, until now. We call it the Grid. Drawing upon extraordinary energies that can literally be described as ‘otherworldly,’ the Grid can warp time and space and send man into a land we call...The New Frontier. Let me show it to you now...”
Henry set his vision to RECORD as Welles began to narrate a cartoon. It depicted the Grid as a vast lattice of intersecting electrical coils located off the Eastern seaboard of the United States, and it ended with a quick succession of shots on futuristic megastructures in an exotic landscape. One of them included a gleaming factory churning out scores of humanoid robots. The presentation left many questions unanswered. But whatever the full story, Henry now knew one thing for sure: his target.
The mother laughed. He turned to see her swinging her arms in empty space as the sound of a baseball cracked and a simulated crowd cheered. A tinny announcer’s voice yelled, “Home run!” from the entertainment system. Mrs. Brackett raised her arms in victory, spinning to Henry. “Oh, mercy,” she cried, “I wish I could take this home for Lee! He has to see this. Have you tried it?” Henry gave an absent shake of his head. “You should! I never tried real baseball, but this hitting home runs is pretty good. Lee would love this, where is he? Lee?!”
Henry stepped closer to her, not wanting to give away his complete disinterest. He tried to think of something a normal person would say.
“Your son likes baseball?”
“Yes, he was very...” Her eyes had moved off Henry. She was looking across the room and her smile had faded. Henry turned to see what had captured her attention, and as he did, she stepped toward it.
The boy was standing in front of another screen that extended almost to the ceiling, topped by a sign: MEDICINE OF THE FUTURE. Henry could just hear the words of another life-size video figure, a doctor, speaking to Lee over the cacophony. Lee seemed to be working alongside the doctor as they treated an imaginary patient by running a small instrument around its torso. Mrs. Brackett stepped up behind her son and put a hand on his back, but the boy didn’t seem to notice. He was absorbed in the game.
“The patient sustained third-degree burns, but we’ve discovered that he is also suffering from several debilitating illnesses. Once, these ailments would have been terminal. In the future, we will be able to cure them all. Just imagine. Try applying your instrument here.” Lee followed the doctor’s directions. The burns healed instantaneously. The mother watched her boy at work. Her eyes shined. “Alzheimer’s. Hepatitis. Cancer. All the ailments we fear, made harmless through the marvel of science.”
The boy looked up at his mother then. Henry saw tears in their eyes.
“Wouldn’t that be something,” said Lee.
The mother wrapped her arm around her son’s chest and kissed his right shoulder, then rested her head there a moment. When her eyes drifted to Henry, she showed concern. “Are you all right, sir?”
“I’m fine,” he replied by default. He couldn’t maintain the ruse of courteous obsequiousness. He’d been frowning. Seething, actually. Oh, yes, they fixed me, too, and look what happened.
Mrs. Brackett gave Lee’s shoulder a last tender squeeze before letting him go. Of all the points of pain in the room, watching that touch was the hardest to take.
THE SUICIDE doors of Duquesne’s vehicle swung open and Rotwang stepped out, pulling his fedora down low over his eyes. Duquesne’s men from the other car immediately surrounded him. He didn’t know what Plus Ultra would do if they found him at their little coming out party, but he could imagine it would not end in success. He had to stay hidden.
There were eight of them headed into the lobby: Hagen, himself, and six of Duquesne’s agents, all young men and all disguised as a film crew laden with duffel bags and recording equipment. Duquesne and his “wife” had arrived at the hotel before them to make sure their path was clear of obstacles. Through the tall shoulders and the bags surrounding him, Rotwang glimpsed the woman at the front desk, chatting with a few men. One of them was a Faustus robot dressed as a bellhop. Rotwang suppressed a laugh. He spied Duquesne in the smoking lounge drinking brown liquor and carrying on his typical animated conversation with a man and a woman. Between them, the mole and the moll had all the human variables in the lobby engaged and distracted.
Just before their little faux film crew reached the elevator, a stout hotel clerk approached. “Can I be of any help to you gentlemen?”
One of Duquesne’s men, Carver, stepped forward. He wore glasses and held a clipboard. “We’re here to interview Ms. Joan Crawford. You know her room number?”
“Oh!” said the clerk, squishing his head back into the folds of his neck as he beamed at them. “We’re so very proud to be hosting Ms. Crawford. You’ll find her up on twenty-five. It’s the suite at the end of the hall. Would you like an escort?”
The agent shook his head and hit the elevator button. “Thanks, we got it. Much appreciated!” The doors slid open. Rotwang and company pressed into the elevator.
“Just call the front desk if you need any help—”
The closing doors cut the clerk off. As they rose, the Nazis let out a collective sigh, but Rotwang remained coiled with tension.
He hated this plan.
There was the easy way, and then there was the hard, and they had been forced to choose the latter. The easy way would have been to wait until the HS1 was alone and isolated and could be taken by surprise. But when Lohman learned of the existence of the other world from Hagen’s report, the easy way went out the window. He wanted the HS1 captured now. He wanted his mind transferred into the machine immediately. He wanted to fulfill his “heroic destiny” by leading a conquering charge into the other world and claiming its treasure as soon as humanly possible. (“Or inhumanly, at the case may be,” Lohman had said, trying to be funny.) What Lohman wanted threatened Rotwang in many ways, not the least of which was that he wanted the exact same thing: seizing the other world was the end game of his own plan for transcendence. When Rotwang tracked the HS1’s movements to the New Yorker Hotel, a soft target space with few exits and light security, Lohman ordered them to move. Rotwang had tried to object, had tried to appeal to common sense. “We left that realm a long time ago, Doctor Frankenstein,” Hagen had quipped. Once again, Rotwang had no choice but to go along with a plan that was not his, and to look for an opportunity to take control of his destiny once more.
Hagen stopped the lift on the second floor, where Duquesne had run up to meet them. “Always pays to do your homework, huh, Carver? Nice work. Everybody gear up.” His men threw down the duffel bags. Six hands dug into one sack for EMP shotguns while another agent unzipped the other and distributed particle grenades and gas masks. Rotwang put his mask on to test the fit, cinching it down tight over his aching jowls, then pulled it off. He hoped he wouldn’t have to wear it, but he was prepared to do so if he couldn’t bend the HS1 to his will. If he failed to make the machine listen, then they’d have to use more extreme measures.
“The room’s sixty feet across by forty feet deep,” said Rotwang, consulting the remote viewing device that allowed him to see through the HS1’s eyes. “We’re coming in dead-center. There’s no security, but there are civilians. Two of them. A woman and a teenage boy. Interesting. He seems to know them. Or he’s acting like it.”
“Do we take them out?” asked Duquesne.
“Not immediately. Let me see if I can use them to our advantage first. Remember to wait for my signal before going full tactical.”
Duquesne held up a grenade, spinning it. One of Rotwang’s own creations, the particle grenade created a cloud of ionized dust designed to obscure vision and subvert electrical systems. He’d designed it for use against robots, but it was still highly toxic to humans. “Use these near the exits, but don’t fog up the whole room so we can’t see to shoot. Hagen, Edgars, you hold up with Doctor Rotwang by the double doors and get him away if this turns into a real Western. Everyone clear?”
“What is a vestuhn?” asked Hagen.
Everyone stopped what they were doing. Duquesne raised his gas mask and squinted at Hagen. “Come again?”
“Western,” said Rotwang. “John Ford.”
Hagen shrugged as he lazily applied his gas mask. Rotwang got the feeling that the commander had been completely broken by his increasingly bizarre life. He had even ceded authority over tactical operations to Duquesne, a pretend Nazi and unseasoned warrior. “Our target is dangerous, but we are more so,” said the doctor with a calm voice. “We only need one clean shot to the head. You could do that with your eyes closed, couldn’t you, commander?”
“Every night in my dreams. Especially the past week.”
Rotwang knew he wasn’t speaking of the HS1.
The elevator dinged. The doors opened. “Here we go,” whispered Duquesnse. He held up a hand for silence and took a casual stride down the hall toward room 3227. The rest of them followed suit and took positions on either side of the door, leaving room for Rotwang. All eyes were on him. Rotwang put his hand on the doorknob, breathed slow to calm his beating heart, and prepared his best sympathetic smile. He remembered that he had been a great actor in his youth, and opened the door.
LEE SAW something frightening in Henry’s eyes as the hunched man spoke.
“Henry, my boy! Enjoying your holiday?”
Lee hadn’t seen the man come into the salon, but he was standing there between them and the double doors with a gas mask tucked under one arm. He was short and twisted, with a black eye and thin gray hair, a pitiable creature. He smiled at Henry like they were old friends, but Henry didn’t seem to share the sentiment.
“Step away from me,” Henry ordered Clara, not taking his eyes off the hunched man. When she didn’t obey right away, Henry pushed both her and Lee to the side with a strong sweep of his arm.
“I’m just here to talk, Henry. I don’t want to fight.”
“No, Rotwang, you don’t.”
The man called Rotwang took a step closer. “Henry, I do not know what you saw in my safe that made you want to run away. But I want you to consider the possibility that you may have come to the wrong conclusions about me.”
“I heard you and Lohman talking. I know you were planning to give him this body. I’m pretty sure I have the right idea about you and your Nazi friends.”
Nazis? Lee was lost. Was this part of the experience? What did all this have to do with the “world of the future?” Then Lee realized that Henry didn’t seem to be breathing. The big man stood absolutely motionless as he listened to his friend, or whoever he was.
“You don’t know the whole story. Yes, giving him your vessel was always part of my arrangement with him. But I have a new body for you, my boy. A better one. Real flesh and blood, cloned from your own cells. Henry, I can give you what you want most: I can make you human again.”
“I share your qualms about the Nazis,” said Rotwang, “but they are a means to very righteous end. They will win the war that is soon to engulf the planet, and when they do, they will abolish Plus Ultra once and for all. They will choose the next steps for mankind. You and I might help direct those steps. I swear on my life, I will not only let you build the future you want, I will help you build it.”
Henry finally responded. “Your heart’s beating pretty fast right now, Werner. Not quite as fast as the ones belonging to the men outside the door, but fast enough to be considered a liar. Why is that?”
The hunched man blinked nervously, then took his gas mask from under his arm, put it on, and cleared his throat. Lee jumped as a half dozen men in suits and gas masks stormed into the room with shotguns. Lee instinctively threw himself to the floor. Clicking filled his ears, triggers clicking, clicking, clicking, and then silence. When Lee raised his head, the gunmen were staring at Henry. “We have you surrounded!” said a tall man with blond hair and a German accent.
“Yes,” replied the big man, “and your guns don’t work.”
The armed men looked at each other, panic in their eyes. Lee glanced over at his mom. She was laying on her stomach with her chin propped up on one hand, enjoying the show like it was the best adventure movie of her life.
“Doctor Rotwang, you have forgotten how I eat,” said Henry, leaning against a display like he was a lecturing teacher. “While you were insulting my intelligence with your lies, I was wirelessly draining the batteries from your weapons. You lost this battle before it even began.”
