Pulp Fiction | The Invisibility Affair by Thomas Stratton Read online

"Because its practicability was obviously negated by ..." She laughed suddenly and shook her head. Napoleon noticed that her hair whirled enticingly, not at all the way a technical writer's hair should act. "I mean, it just couldn't work. He said he had discovered a way to make thing invisible! Did you ever hear of anything so fantastic?"

  The agents exchanged glances. "I'm afraid we have," Napoleon said. "What happened to the proposal? Did he submit it?"

  "I assume that he did, although that assumption may not be one hundred percent reliable. I completed my assignment and he said he would submit the total package within a few days. That was in April."

  "That would explain how Thrush found out about it," Illya commented. "We know they have a few people infiltrated into the government who report on any unusual proposals or patent applications."

  "Yes," agreed Napoleon. "I have positive assurance that the U.S. Patent Office is riddled with card-carrying Thrushes. Incidentally"—he turned to Kerry—"how did Dr. Morthley get in touch with you? Did he advertise for a technical writer, or what?"

  "Oh, didn't I tell you? I'm his niece. He helped pay my college expenses—in the hope, I think, that I'd take all science courses and end up as his assistant. After I switched to writing, I helped him several times with his proposals. This was just the latest one."

  "Do you recall any of the details of the proposal?" Napoleon asked.

  "No, but I can show it to you; my part, at least." She rose and started down the hallway. "I keep a complete file of all my work—except classified jobs, of course. I'll get it for you."

  Napoleon followed close on her heels. The door at the far end of the hall opened on a small office with a desk, filing cabinet, and an electric typewriter. She opened the top drawer of the cabinet, and searched briefly through the folders before she withdrew one and handed it to Solo.

  "Even if Uncle Willard did have a practical invisibility machine, I doubt that this would tell you much," she said. "It's primarily a description of the device intended for laymen. The technical details and formulae were contained in a separate section which he supplied and which I never personally observed."

  Napoleon opened the folder and glanced at the first page. "Yes, I see. I think Illya had better look at this." He led the way from the office to the living room and handed the folder to Illya. "What do you make of this?"

  Illya scanned the title page, reading aloud. "Proposal for the Further Development and Refinement of the Omnidirectional Total Spectrum Molecular Interpenetration Device." He looked at the first page. "The basic function of the Omnidirectional Total Spectrum Molecular Interpenetration Device (OTSMID) is to establish an energy field, by means of which all matter within its range is caused to become possessed of certain qualities which make it possible for the entire spectrum of electromagnetic radiation to pass totally unimpeded through that matter. The precise manner in which this is accomplished is, at present, largely conjectural; however, it is to be assumed that some warping of the space-time continuum is involved. Experimental evidence produced to date would seem to support the theory that the field, in some still-to-be-defined but probably random manner minutely shifts the phase relationship between the matter within the field and the matter external to the field. Gross phenomena, such as molecular vibrations in the sonic ranges are, insofar as our experiments have shown, unaffected by..." Illya broke off, nodding his head.

  "It's a government proposal, all right," he said.

  "I'm glad to hear it," Napoleon said, "but what does it say?"

  Illya quickly skimmed through the first few pages, then looked up. "As Miss Griffin said earlier, it's a machine that makes things invisible. It apparently does this by setting up a field which renders everything within that field totally transparent."

  Napoleon's eyebrows went up. "Hold it! I've read my share of science fiction. If someone is made totally transparent, he is also totally blind; the light rays pass right through his eyeballs instead of being picked up by them."

  Illya winced slightly. "Well, that's a rough description, yes. Dr. Morthley admits there are a few bugs to be ironed out. In fact, that is the primary reason for this proposal. He had the basic formula worked out for some sort of nullifier which would enable anyone inside the field to see other thins inside the field though still unable to see out. But he needed money to build one."

  "It still seems to leave something to be desired," Napoleon said. "It strikes me that it would be difficult to sneak up on someone if you have to feel your way all the time."

  Illya shrugged. "Presumably if a device for seeing inside the field could be built, eventually it would be possible to design something to enable one to see out of the field. More time and money involved. An equally serious problem seems to be that the field is generated in a spherical pattern; not only would the man inside have to feel his way around, but he would always be dragging a small pit around with him as the ground under his feet became transparent."

  "A pit? Remember Charlie Reed's description of the house? It had been replaced by a circular pit."

  "Yes," Illya agreed. "There doesn't seem to be any doubt that Dr. Morthley had a working model of his OTSMID, or that Thrush has it now. If they also have the formula for the nullifier they should have it built within a few days, although I admit I can't see any practical use for it once they get it built."

  Napoleon turned to the girl, who had been listening admiringly to Illya's translation of the first pages of the proposal. "We had better take this with us, Kerry. Are there any other copies that you know of?"

  "This is the fourth carbon. I left the original and the first three carbons with Dr. Morthley. That should be all of them."

  "Do you remember any details that might not be included in this, Miss Griffin?" asked Illya, holding up the proposal.

  She stood up and walked lithely to Illya's side. "Informal nomenclature, please." She smiled. "Just Kerry." She took the proposal from his hand and flipped through the pages. After a minute she handed it back.

  "Very little," she said. "I think he said it operated on dc. For his prototype, he mentioned using a number of auto storage batteries connected series-parallel."

  Illya nodded. "One advantage for us, at least. It doesn't seem to be very easily portable. Thrush will have to use a truck to transport it, and not a small one if those gouges in Dr. Morthley's floor are any indication. However, if they don't move it, we'll have a problem locating it." He turned to Brattner. "Do you have any idea of the location of Thrush's Milwaukee satrapy?"

  Brattner shook his head. "We did have. In fact, we had the place bugged so well that we knew as much about local Thrush activity as they did. But when they brought in these new men, McNulty and Forbes, they evidently located our equipment and abandoned the place. We haven't found their new one yet."

  Kerry had been looking at the U.N.C.L.E. agents in puzzlement. Finally she spoke up. "Tell me, Illya—just what is this Thrush that you're talking about?"

  Illya smiled. "It's another acronym. Just as U.N.C.L.E. stands for United Network Command for Law and Enforcement, Thrush stands for Technological Hierarchy for the Removal of Undesirables and the Subjugation of Humanity. Sound rather like another government proposal, doesn't it. In simple terms, it's an organization which wants to rule the world and isn't fussy about the means it uses to get in power. Currently, its means include kidnapping your uncle and stealing his invisibility machine."

  Napoleon nodded. "Tell me, Mess Griffin, would you be willing to help us recover your uncle and his machine? You would be in some danger, but then the mere fact that you are Dr. Morthley's niece place's you in danger."

  Kerry looked dubious. "It's hard to believe that I'm in danger, but I do owe a lot to Uncle Willard. What do you want me to do?"

  "Get captured." Napoleon smiled as Kerry's eyebrows rose. "You see, Thrush is already after you. We heard one of their agents giving orders to pick you up. Once they have you, they'll probably take you to their local headquarters, where they presumably have your unc
le and his machine. We'll be following you, and once we've located their headquarters it will be a fairly simple matter to rescue both you and Dr. Morthley. Actually, you won't be in any more danger that you are here. Less, really, since we'll be watching you all the time."

  Kerry shivered slightly. "I suppose I might as well. But what happens if they grab me when you're not looking, or you lose them while you're pursuing them?"

  "We have ways." Napoleon took a small pill bottle from his briefcase and held it up. 'you do have detectors for these?" he asked Brattner. When the latter nodded, he continued. "These look like ordinary aspirin, but they're not. After you're captured—or preferably just before you're captured, if you have time—swallow one of these. It's a tiny transmitter. It won't operate until it's swallowed and the normal acid in your stomach can act as an electrolyte for the battery. Then it will broadcast a single tone burst every few minutes; how often will depend on just how acid your stomach is. We'll leave a few of your Milwaukee agents outside; Thrush would get suspicious if we made your capture too easy. They should at least give you enough warning to enable you to take the pill, but if not you can develop a headache after you're captured. Keep the pill bottle on you at all times."

  Kerry nodded. "Where will you be?"

  "We'll have to stay well out of sight, but we'll be in range of the transmitter. You can't follow a good agent too closely these days; there are too many ways of spotting followers. It's easier to let them think they're getting away with it. By the way, once you get to their headquarters, stick close to Dr. Morthley. We won't have any way of locating him independently, and we may be in a hurry when we get you out."

  Illya spoke to Brattner. "Leave about three agents around the house. Not your best men, incidentally."

  Brattner erupted. "I've only got four agents! Two on days and two on nights, and all of us have been logging overtime trying to locate the new Thrush base. I'll call in the two night men, and that's all I can afford. The two outside are the day men, and they have to sleep sometime. Ever since they transferred all my best men to that San Sebastian fracas, I've been short-handed."

  "All right." Napoleon spoke placatingly. "Make it two men. Instruct them to offer token resistance and then play dead, if possible. Thrush will be in too much of a hurry to inspect them closely—we hope. And I think the rest of us had better get a little rest. It isn't likely Thrush will strike tonight; they'll wait for us to drop our guard." He turned to Kerry. "It's been a pleasure meeting you, and I trust we'll meet again shortly, this time in company with your uncle."

  Kerry smiled. "I hope so, too. Incidentally, Illya, I couldn't help wondering, the way you read that proposal. Were you ever a technical writer? So many men are incompetent in these things."

  Illya looked enigmatic. "We Russians understand these things," he said.

  Napoleon raised his eyebrows but said nothing as he and Brattner followed Illya outside.

  Chapter 4

  "I Never Realized Thrush Was Civic Minded"

  Brattner took no chances on being tailed on the drive to Milwaukee U.N.C.L.E. headquarters. Napoleon noted with approval that the local agent had completely mastered the science of going through stoplights on the yellow "Caution" signal, leaving any followers with the choice of losing ground or conspicuously running a red light. Coupling this maneuver with occasional lightning swerves into alleys gave reasonable assurance that nobody was following them when Brattner turned the car into an alley just a few blocks from the downtown area. It was a dreary section, not far from one of the sprawling breweries that claimed to have made Milwaukee famous. The fronts of elderly stores in greater or lesser degrees of dilapidation lined one side of the street. On the other side, a number of freight cars sat in a rail terminal.

  Brattner parked the car in a small open area at the rear of the alley. "This way, gentlemen," he said, stepping out of the car and leading the way to a dimly-lit door with a rusty-looking padlock above the knob. He fitted a key to the lock, explaining, "During the day, we could get in through the front, but the shop closes at nine o'clock and it's less conspicuous to use the back entrance."

  The door creaked open. Stepping through, they found themselves in the rear of a long narrow shop. Light from the street filtered through the unwashed display window and revealed several shelves of records lining one wall. Near the front on the other side was a counter, and at the back, just to their right as they entered, were three listening booths.

  Brattner secured the door, then turned to the middle and largest booth. "Just follow me," he said as he pulled open the door and stepped inside. A small but comfortable-looking chair faced the turntable and a pair of bulky hi-fi earphones lay back of the tone arm. Brattner lowered the blind on the door and turned to the turntable controls. He set the turntable speed at 78 rpm, picked up the tone arm, tilted it up and back until something clicked, then gave the turntable a sharp spin backwards. The back wall of the booth slid smoothly up into the ceiling.

  Brattner reached around the corner and flipped on a light, revealing a small reception room with a desk, typewriter, and small filing cabinet. He motioned Illya and Napoleon in, then followed. A pushbutton located under the light switch returned the booth wall to its former position. Illya glanced around the room and his eyes halted at the filing cabinet. A dozen hefty record albums were stacked on top of it. Peering at them more closely, Illya said, "Somebody here must like Wagner. I see you have at least two complete recordings of the Ring Cycle."

  "Those are our cover," Brattner explained. "While the shop is open, we give one of these to any agent who has to leave through the booth. If anyone wonders why he's been in there so long, the Wagner explains it." He pushed open a door and motioned them into a narrow hallway. "There's nobody here but us, the day shift went off duty at six. Now, you need detectors for those transmitter pills. We have one of the standard models, and I think we still have one of the wrist models that only indicates direction. We're supposed to have two of the wrist models, but George's kids got into one of them. George is a good, dependable agent, but he will leave equipment lying around the house, and those kids of his..."

  "I think we'll be all right," Napoleon said, opening his briefcase and rummaging through it. "The Chicago office provided the pills, so presumably they...hmm. Illya would you see if you have a detector in your briefcase?"

  Illya's search was equally fruitless. "It would seem," he announced, "that we are destined to get by with one standard and one wrist detector."

  "They're in the supply room," Bratner said, pushing open a door and pawing through the crowded metal shelves like a dog after a bone.

  "By the way," Napoleon said casually, "we heard from the Chicago office that you were having some unusual problems up here."

  Brattner stopped his search long enough to glance balefully over his shoulder, then returned to work. "I suppose you could call it that," he muttered. "If we don't watch out, Thrush may get us evicted for urban renewal this year."

  Napoleon and Illya exchanged glances. "I never realized that Thrush was civic minded," Napoleon commented.

  Brattner snorted. "These new boys, Forbes and McNulty are quite a pair. They know the general location of headquarters, but they've never been able to pinpoint the building. So McNulty came up with the bright idea of getting the whole area condemned for urban renewal. The new expressway is going to miss us by just a few blocks, a new civic center is being pushed for an area even closer, and urban renewal is cropping up everywhere. You saw what that street outside looked like; it wouldn't take much to get this block included. We kept ahead of them while we had their headquarters bugged, but recently their lobbying has begun to pay off." He backed out of the crowded supply room, holding what looked like a miniature oscilloscope with a three-inch screen. "Here's the big detector," he said, handing it to Illya. "Now to find the wrist model."

  "Would it really be such a big job to move?" Napoleon asked/ "It's rather a small operation, compared to, say, the Chicago office."


  Brattner snorted as he returned to his rummaging. "Do you realize what the telephone company charges to install all this special equipment? And you know what Mr. Waverly is like when it comes to the budget; why do you think we're in this low-rent area to begin with? Oh, sure, we could move if we had to. But it would cause a lot of problems. Besides, how would it look on my service record? Who's going to promote an agent who got run out of his won headquarters by urban renewal? Somehow we've—ah, here it is!" He emerged from the room with a wristwatch-sized device which he handed to Napoleon as he kicked the door shut.

  "Shall we check them out?" asked Illya, wiping a layer of dust from the larger detector's screen.

  Brattner nodded and led the way down the hall. "Certainly. I think they're in good shape, but we haven't been able to keep up our periodic checks lately, the way we're undermanned." He pushed open the last door on the left. "Here's our lab."

  Illya walked over to the bench full of electronic equipment that lined one wall. He pulled what looked like a small, complicated signal generator to the front of the bench, flipped a switch on its front panel, and expertly plugged a pair of angling leads into the back of the detector. After waiting a few seconds for the transistorized circuits in the tester to stabilize, he began setting the controls. When he was finished, he pressed a final button and watched the detector screen closely.

  A second later, a sharp beep sounded and a bright green dot appeared on the crosshatched screen. "Very good," Illya murmured. "It's as close as we can expect with a screen this size." The dot slowly faded until it was barely visible. "Did the wrist model pick it up, too?" he asked, turning to Napoleon.

  "The needle flickered," Solo replied, "but it didn't get a chance to home in."

  Illya nodded. "I didn't think it would. There isn't much leakage radiation from these testers." He unplugged the larger detector from the tester and held the leads in front of him while he pressed the button on the tester again.