Remember the 4th!
By Noel Loomis
(author of "The Lithium Mountain")
Slim Coleman's brain-finder worked all too well!
If, as has often been contended, the brain contains a complete recordof all events the individual has experienced, consciously or otherwise,then a mechanical means of exploring someone's past might be found.It would show the discrepancies between the most reliable memories ofevents, and actual sense-impressions received at the time, for example.But few people would like such a device, and those few might like itmuch too much!
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Future combined with Science Fiction Stories July 1951.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
This was a warm day in August—a very warm day. Slim Coleman, mypartner in detection work, says the sun is ninety million miles away,but this day it must have sneaked up pretty close. You could even seethe heat waves coming up off the sidewalk. You can't fry an egg on thepavement in Fort Worth, though, because you can't stay out in the sunthat long.
I mopped my brow, slung the water off my fingertips, and went intothe lobby of the National Bank Building. The washed air made it cooland nice in there, and I slowed down to enjoy it. But one of theelevators came down, the door slid open, and the first man to get offwas Swanberg, the building manager—our landlord—all dressed up instriped trousers and a fancy vest and wearing a high wing collar and agenuine cravat. He looked impeccable, immaculate—and cool.
I wheeled and marched back outside into the sun. Slim and I were threemonths behind with the rent, and I figured the only reason Swanberghadn't ordered us out was that he just hadn't gotten around to it.I didn't want to run into him. If we could have paid our rent Iwouldn't have been carrying ham sandwiches and a bottle of coffee in mycoat-pockets up to Slim Coleman while he worked on the Brain-Finder.
The heat almost smothered me after the coolness of the lobby. Damnthat guy Swanberg, anyway. He was always so perfect, so completelyunaffected by the weather, so supercilious and so cold, so mechanical.You knew he'd never had any trouble and never would have, because hewould never be swayed by anything but cold logic. It's only we humanswith sentiments who get in trouble.
It was his untouchableness that griped me. He was so inhumanly perfecthe always made me feel rough and uncouth. You know how it is. If Icould just get something on him to throw off that complex, I'd be happyeven if we did have to vacate. I guess I spent my time day-dreamingabout Swanberg—Swanberg wearing an old-fashioned night-cap, Swanbergslurping his coffee, Swanberg sleeping with his socks on—anythinghuman.
What wouldn't I have given to have a picture of him in the rollercoaster the way I had been the night of July the Fourth, with aperfectly strange, perfectly gorgeous, slim blonde throwing her armsaround his neck the way that one had around mine. I was willing to bethe had a big, hefty wife at home who made him step.
I shivered whenever I thought about that blonde. She was the kind Iwould have liked to marry, only one like that was way out of my reach.I didn't have much education and I didn't always know what to do arounda real high-class female. That's why I had been riding the rollercoaster alone.
Well, there was nothing for it now but the coal-chute. A truck wasbacked up to the sidewalk and two very black-faced men were pushingcoal down a steel chute through a manhole in the sidewalk. I duckedinto the alley, unrolle