Rog Phillips

“ But by that time Orville Snyder would be no more.
I knew the plan now. The river had less than fifty miles to go to the ocean. More than one person had committed suicide by leaping from a bridge, without their body ever being found. Once one of the bodies had washed ashore five hundred miles down the coast.
I was going to stop on a bridge and leave my coat, with the gun in it, and with my wallet in it, to serve as proof that I had jumped.
But it wasn't I. It was Fred Martin. I was fighting to destroy the illusion of his surface thoughts being mine, of my being Fred Martin. ”

“ A million things clicked together in one final synthesis of the problem of my identity.
"I think you might have something there," I heard myself say. "Uh, don't touch any of those computers in the storeroom. Try some unused dialectric mix and start from scratch. Get to work on it right away."
I waited until he had gone back to his bench—the one I had considered mine when I was so sure I was Fred Martin. I was trembling in every muscle as I stood up, even though I knew that outwardly I appeared to be a bored and indifferent lab boss. ”

“ But I was Fred Martin and it was something to cling to, to hold to forever. It was better to be Fred Martin than to be nothing.
In the glove compartment was a gun, a small size thirty-eight automatic. It belonged to Orville Snyder. I took it out and put it in my pocket. Then I backed my car out of the garage and turned it into the driveway. As I edged across the sidewalk I looked up the street. Police cars were there with their ogling red eyes. And an ambulance. Fear clutched at me. ”

“ Then I asked myself, if it isn't suited to computers, what is it good for? It's no good for computers because it doesn't discharge completely. Or rather, it does and it doesn't. Its structure is altered by the saturation charge and subsequent discharge in the computation processes. But random and not-so-random charges build up again for some reason, and interfere with computations after the machine has been used a few times. I puzzled over this. It was too much like true memory. I think what we have in this computer setup is more like a non-living thinking brain than a simple computer. ”

“ I looked at the concrete streetlight standards on the curb. I was travelling fast. Forty-five. If I could twist the wheel and crash into a light standard....
I fought for control of my arms. Beads of perspiration formed on my face. I didn't want to kill myself. Why did I think of such an absurd thing?
But it wasn't I who didn't want to kill myself. It was Fred.
With that realization I jerked the steering wheel, feeling myself lurch against the door as the car headed for the curb. ”

“ The only thing a psychiatrist might sink his teeth into was Orville's impossible marital situation. The psychiatrist might say the situation was so intolerable that Orville Snyder was becoming a schizo, and retreating into an identity called Fred Martin.
But that was absurd. Such an identity would be fictitious. It wouldn't hold up under critical examination.
"To hell with the work I was going to do," I said. I snapped off the lights over my bench and returned the magnifying glass to the desk, switching off that light, and left the lab.
Outside, I found my car where I had left it. ”

“ We either get a dialectric that discharges instead of holding, or we get one that holds and never lets go completely. We get a computer that doesn't work, or one that jams with random stuff after it's been in use."
"Keep trying," I said vaguely.
"I will," he said. He grinned. "That's what I get paid for."
I looked up at him speculatively. I had the impulse to try something. I snapped my fingers suddenly and sat up, as though just remembering something. "Fred Martin!" I said.
"Who's he?" Mintner asked, and I could tell he had never heard the name before. ”

“ In several dozen were computers, all constructed in this lab, all identical, and all unusable because they held random charges that produced errors in mathematical calculations.
It was like a tomb here in the storeroom. Quiet. The computers rested in their niches like bodies in a morgue. ”

“ None of the pieces fit together. You begin to wonder if it is a puzzle, or just nonsense pieces. Then you find two that fit together. The edge of one fits into the edge of the other.
I was Fred Martin. That certainty persisted. Right now it was my only certainty. But I had been Orville Snyder who worked in the lab at Rexlo Research, although I had never heard of him before. ”

“ At the next corner I turned right. Two blocks later I turned right again. A third time, and ahead of me in the next block a crowd had collected around something at the curb. A man's body.
I turned into the driveway and slid the car into my garage stall.
The left headlight was broken. I thanked my lucky stars for being the cautious type. I always carried a spare. I got it, and tools, from the trunk of the car. Ten minutes later the job was done.
Now I had one more job to do. I'd put it off long enough. I realized that now. Thordsen's discovery of my secret identity had precipitated things. ”

“ And in my hand was a wallet with identifications for Orville Snyder. One of them—I turned to it and studied it again—said he was an employee of Rexlo Research Corporation with the classification of scientist.
But I was an employee of Rexlo Research with the classification of scientist—and there were only two others with that classification. Thordsen and Mintner. We three worked in this lab. No one else. Certainly no one by the name of Orville Snyder. Unless—I smiled uneasily—unless I were Orville Snyder. ”

“ If we change the bleeder leaks to the control grids—or maybe even cut them out altogether so that the basic charge doesn't dissipate, and feed in something other than figures and equations we can find out. Another thing, we'll have to shield the charge circuits. I've been looking at those completed computers in the back room. The charge circuits have unshielded sections that can act like untuned radar antennae—a little too short in wavelength for radar, but there's all kinds of unknown infra-reds bouncing around. ”

“ Somewhere down the block a woman was calling someone named Johnny. Across the street a man was going up the walk to the house from his car. Next door a skinny man with a large Adam's apple was mowing the lawn. ”

“ It was getting a little stuffy in the storeroom. I set the panel down carefully and opened the lab door and a window. Then I placed the rubber shield on the wires.
I picked up the aluminum shield plates and started to cover the rubber shielding with them. Instead, I laid them down again. I would go across the street to the cafe and have something to eat before going ahead.
I entered the lab. It was dark. A storm must be coming up for it to get dark so soon and so suddenly. ”