The Creature from Cleveland Depths | Page 3

Curfew! 'By, Gus. 'By,
Daze."
Two minutes later, living room lights out, they watched Fay's
foreshortened antlike figure scurrying across the balding ill-lit park
toward the nearest escalator.
Gusterson said, "Weird to think of that big bright space-poor glamor
basement stretching around everywhere underneath. Did you remind
Smitty to put a new bulb in the elevator?"

"The Smiths moved out this morning," Daisy said tonelessly. "They
went underneath."
"Like cockroaches," Gusterson said. "Cockroaches leavin' a sinkin'
apartment building. Next the ghosts'll be retreatin' to the shelters."
"Anyhow, from now on we're our own janitors," Daisy said.
He nodded. "Just leaves three families besides us loyal to this glass
death trap. Not countin' ghosts." He sighed. Then, "You like to move
below, Daisy?" he asked softly, putting his arm lightly across her
shoulders. "Get a woozy eyeful of the bright lights and all for a change?
Be a rat for a while? Maybe we're getting too old to be bats. I could
scrounge me a company job and have a thinking closet all to myself
and two secretaries with stainless steel breasts. Life'd be easier for you
and a lot cleaner. And you'd sleep safer."
"That's true," she answered and paused. She ran her fingertip slowly
across the murky glass, its violet tint barely perceptible against a cold
dim light across the park. "But somehow," she said, snaking her arm
around his waist, "I don't think I'd sleep happier--or one bit excited."

II
Three weeks later Fay, dropping in again, handed to Daisy the larger of
the two rather small packages he was carrying.
"It's a so-called beauty mask," he told her, "complete with wig,
eyelashes, and wettable velvet lips. It even breathes--pinholed
elastiskin with a static adherence-charge. But Micro Systems had
nothing to do with it, thank God. Beauty Trix put it on the market ten
days ago and it's already started a teen-age craze. Some boys are
wearing them too, and the police are yipping at Trix for encouraging
transvestism with psychic repercussions."
"Didn't I hear somewhere that Trix is a secret subsidiary of Micro?"
Gusterson demanded, rearing up from his ancient electric typewriter.

"No, you're not stopping me writing, Fay--it's the gut of evening. If I do
any more I won't have any juice to start with tomorrow. I got another of
my insanity thrillers moving. A real id-teaser. In this one not only all
the characters are crazy but the robot psychiatrist too."
"The vending machines are jumping with insanity novels," Fay
commented. "Odd they're so popular."
Gusterson chortled. "The only way you outer-directed moles will
accept individuality any more even in a fictional character, without
your superegos getting seasick, is for them to be crazy. Hey, Daisy!
Lemme see that beauty mask!"
But his wife, backing out of the room, hugged the package to her
bosom and solemnly shook her head.
"A hell of a thing," Gusterson complained, "not even to be able to see
what my stolen ideas look like."
"I got a present for you too," Fay said. "Something you might think of
as a royalty on all the inventions someone thought of a little ahead of
you. Fifty dollars by your own evaluation." He held out the smaller
package. "Your tickler."
"My what?" Gusterson demanded suspiciously.
"Your tickler. The mech reminder you wanted. It turns out that the file
a secretary keeps to remind her boss to do certain things at certain times
is called a tickler file. So we named this a tickler. Here."
Gusterson still didn't touch the package. "You mean you actually put
your invention team to work on that nonsense?"
"Well, what do you think? Don't be scared of it. Here, I'll show you."
As he unwrapped the package, Fay said, "It hasn't been decided yet
whether we'll manufacture it commercially. If we do, I'll put through a
voucher for you--for 'development consultation' or something like that.

Sorry no royalty's possible. Davidson's squad had started to work up
the identical idea three years ago, but it got shelved. I found it on a
snoop through the closets. There! Looks rich, doesn't it?"
* * * * *
On the scarred black tabletop was a dully gleaming silvery object about
the size and shape of a cupped hand with fingers merging. A tiny pellet
on a short near-invisible wire led off from it. On the back was a
punctured area suggesting the face of a microphone; there was also a
window with a date and time in hours and minutes showing through
and next to that four little buttons in a row. The concave underside of
the silvery "hand" was smooth except for a central area where what
looked like two little rollers came through.
"It goes on your shoulder under your shirt," Fay explained, "and you
tuck the pellet in your