We Can Build You

I’m not familiar with it to that extent,’ Horstowski admitted.

‘They’re asking whether a Heavenly Father exists, and then very high up they answer, yes, above the realm of stars. That part – if you could find the correspondence in terms of pharmacology, I might benefit enormously.’

Doctor Horstowski got out a massive loose-leaf binder and began to thumb through it. ‘I’m afraid I can’t locate a pill corresponding to that. You might consult with the Hammerstein engineers, however.’

‘Good idea,’ I said.

Now, as to your dealings with Pris. I think you’re a little strong in your view of her as a menace. After all, you are free not to associate with her at all, aren’t you?’ He eyed me slyly.

‘I guess so.’

‘Pris has challenged you. She’s a provocative personality … most people who know her, I’d imagine, get to feeling as you do. That’s Pris’ way of stirring them up, making them react. It is probably allied to her scientific bent … it’s a form of curiosity; she wants to see what makes people tick.’ He smiled.

in this case,’ I said, ‘she almost killed the specimen while trying to investigate it.’

‘Pardon?’ He cupped his ear. ‘Yes, a specimen. She perceives other people sometimes in that aspect. But I wouldn’t let that throw me. We live in a society where detachment is almost essential.’

While he was saying this, Doctor Horstowski was writing in his appointment book.

‘What do you think of,’ he murmured, ‘when you think of Pris.’

‘Milk,’ I said.

‘Milk!’ His eyes opened wide, interesting. Milk ...’

‘I’m not coming back here,’ I told him. ‘It’s no use giving me that card.’ However, I accepted the appointment card. ‘Our time is up for today, is it?’

‘Regrettably,’ Doctor Horstowski said, ‘it is.’

‘I was not kidding when I told you I’m one of Pris’ simulacra. There used to be a Louis Rosen, but no more. Now there’s only me. And if anything happens to me, Pris and Maury have the instructional tapes to create another. Pris makes the body out of bathroom tile. It’s pretty good, isn’t it? It fooled you and my brother Chester and almost my father. That’s the actual reason he’s so unhappy; he guessed the truth.’ Having said that I nodded goodbye and walked from the office, along the hall and through the waiting room, to the street.

But you, I said to myself. You’ll never guess, Doctor Horstowski, not in a million years. I’m good enough to fool you and all the rest of them like you.

Getting into my Chevrolet Magic Fire, I drove slowly back to the office.

6 (#ulink_f23569d5-123c-5ecf-b30c-754be4b2d6d1)

After having told Doctor Horstowski that I was a simulacrum I could not get the idea out of my mind. Once there had been a real Louis Rosen but now he was gone and I stood in this spot, fooling almost everyone, including myself.

This idea persisted for the next week, growing a little dimmer each day but not quite fading out.

And yet on another level I knew it was a preposterous idea, just a lot of drivel I had come up with because of my resentment toward Doctor Horstowski.

The immediate effect of the idea was to cause me to look up the Edwin M. Stanton simulacrum; when I got back to the office from my visit to the doctor I asked Maury where the thing could be found.

‘Bundy’s feeding a new tape to it,’ Maury said. ‘Pris came across a biography of Stanton that had some new material.’ He returned to his letter-reading.

I found Bundy in the shop with the Stanton; having finished, he was putting it back together. Now he was asking it questions.

‘Andrew Johnson betrayed the Union by his inability to conceive the rebellious states as –’ Seeing me, Bundy broke off. ‘Hi, Rosen.’

‘I want to talk to the thing. Okay?’

Bundy departed, leaving me alone with the Stanton. It was seated in a brown, cloth-covered armchair, with a book open on its lap; it regarded me sternly.

‘Sir,’ I said, ‘do you recall me?’

‘Yes sir, I do. You are Mr Louis Rosen of Boise, Idaho. I recall a pleasant overnight stay with your father. Is he well?’

‘Not as well as I wish he was.’

‘A pity.’

‘Sir, I’d like to ask you a question. Doesn’t it seem odd to you that although you were born around 1800 you are still alive in 1982? And doesn’t it seem odd to you to be shut off every now and then? And what about your being made out of transistors and relays? You didn’t used to be, because in 1800 they didn’t have transistors and relays.’ I paused, waiting.

‘Yes,’ the Stanton agreed, ‘those are oddities. I have here a volume –’ He held up his book. ‘Which deals with the new science of cybernetics and this science has shed light on my perplexity.’

That excited me. ‘Your perplexity!’

‘Yes sir. During my stay with your father I discussed puzzling matters of this nature with him. When I consider the brief span of my life, swallowed up in the eternity before and behind it, the small space that I fill, or even see, engulfed in the infinite immensity of spaces which I know not, and which know not me, I am afraid.’

‘I should think so,’ I said.

‘I am afraid, sir, and wonder to see myself here rather than there. For there is no reason why I should be here rather than there, now rather than then.’

‘Did you come to any conclusion?’

The Stanton cleared its throat, then got out a folded linen handkerchief and carefully blew its nose,‘it seems to me that time must move in strange jumps, passing over intervening epochs. But why it would do that, or even how, I do not know. At a certain point the mind cannot fathom anything further.’

‘You want to hear my theory?’

‘Yes sir.’

‘I claim there is no Edwin M. Stanton or Louis Rosen anymore. There was once, but they’re dead. We’re machines.’

The Stanton regarded me, its round, wrinkled face twisted up. ‘There may be some truth in that,’ it said finally.

‘And,’ I said, ‘Maury Rock and Pris Frauenzimmer designed us and Bob Bundy built us. And right now they’re working on an Abe Lincoln simulacrum.’

The round, wrinkled face darkened. ‘Mr Lincoln is dead.’

‘I know.’

‘You mean they are going to bring him back?’

‘Yes,’ I said.

‘Why?’