Cameras -- Fiction; Inventions -- Fiction; Science fiction; Short stories; Television programs -- Fiction
“And him?” growled one of Them tossing His head at Don.
“He is only Hartley!”
They shrugged--and left....
The city was not the city. The people were not the people. There were
no smiles, no joy. There were only flesh-and-blood robots with furtive
eyes and haunted looks.
And It was everywhere. Watching! He could feel it. Not the deepest
dungeon nor the farthest corner was safe. It was all over him. Like a
sticky, hot, unbearable beam, stabbing at his closed eyes, burning his
weary brain.
Don sat up with a start. The glaring sun stood overhead. What a fool
he’d been to doze off in the sun like that. He’d probably gotten
himself a nice burn. No wonder he’d had a nightmare.
He gathered himself up and began walking through the park. He felt
sweaty and tired--and disturbed. And he still had to make up his mind.
Where to go?
The Network?
Industrial Exploitation?
The Government?
And that had been twenty-four hours earlier.
A buzzer sounded on the little secretary’s desk. She was kind of cute
at that--for all of her curiosity.
“You may go in now, Mr. Hartley, she announced pleasantly.”
He walked towards the door. There was a black sign with white letters:
V. P. GENL. ENGINEERING W. BARNES.
He entered.
“Hello, Don,” said Barnes seriously, “sit down.”
Don leaned back in his chair and lit a cigarette.
“Now--what’s it all about?”
He had to say it fast, or he might not say it at all.
“I guess I lost my head.” He nearly tripped over the words. “I was
hooking up the matting amplifier for Mr. Kenmore on the ‘Planeteer’
show--and I dropped the worklight into it. I thought the whole thing
had blown up. I got scared, and--and I just ran out of there. I don’t
know what came over me. I have no excuse.”
He stopped. It was done. There could be no turning back.
Barnes looked at him for a moment. Then his stern face softened.
“Look, Don,” he said kindly. “We all have accidents. But we can’t
afford to panic after every one. Still, it took courage to come here
and face up to your mistake like this. I’m going to give you another
chance.”
He got up and put his hand on Don’s shoulder. “Just don’t lose your
head again,” he smiled. “And, Don, we’ll take you off ‘The Planeteers’
for a while. I guess they can get along with another vidiot!”
He slapped Don on the back good-naturedly. In the boy’s inside coat
pocket a bunch of papers crackled softly. A bunch of papers which held
the answer to an electronic device the boy had decided was too big. The
world was not ready for the _Hartleycam_. Not yet.
Not quite yet.
Transcriber’s Note:
This etext was produced from Fantastic Universe, March 1956 (Vol. 5,
No. 2.). Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S.
copyright on this publication was renewed.
Obvious errors have been silently corrected in this version.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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