The Telenizer Part 1

The Telenizer.

by Don Thompson.

[Sidenote: Langston had technicolor delusions; inanimate objects came alive in his hands; THEY were persecuting him, out to get him ... what a relief it was to know he wasn't going insane!]

When I saw the blood dripping from the tap in the bathtub, I knew that someone had a telenosis beam on me, and I breathed a very audible sigh of relief.

During the past few days, I had begun to wonder if I was really cracking up.

When you start seeing visions of a bearded gent with a halo, or having vague but wonderful dreams about some sort of perfect world, feeling intense loyalties to undefined ideals, and experiencing sudden impulses, sometimes cruel and sometimes kind--you know that something's wrong.

At least I do.

If he--whoever he was--had just kept up the slow, subtle pace he'd maintained for the past two or three days, he would have had me in a little while. For whatever he wanted.

But now, he'd overplayed his hand. I knew, at least, what was going on.

Who was doing it, or why, I still didn't know--nor whether I could stand it, even knowing.

The thick, bright red blood dripping steadily from the water tap in the bath tub wasn't so bad.

I stood before the mirror, with my softly humming razor in my hand, and I watched the blood ooze from the tap, quiver as it grew heavy and pregnant, then pull itself free and fall with a dull _plonk_ to the enamel as another drop began to form.

That wasn't so bad. But my sigh of relief became a gurgle of almost hysterical apprehension as I braced myself for what might come, with the telenizer knowing that I was aware.

There was something I could do--should do--but my mind refused to focus.

It bogged down in a muck of unreasoning terror and could only scream _Why? Why? Why?_

The drops of blood from the water tap increased both in size and rapidity, as I watched. Heavy, red, marble-sized tears followed one another from the tap, _plonk, plonk, plonk_, splas.h.i.+ng in the tub and on the floor. Faster and faster, and then the drip became a flow, a gush, as though the vein of some giant creature had been slashed.

The tub filled rapidly, and blood flowed like a crimson waterfall over the edge and across the floor toward me.

I heard a tiny howling, and looked down.

I screamed and threw the soft, brown, fuzzy, squirming puppy-thing that had been a razor into the advancing tide of blood.

The fuzzy thing shattered when it hit the blood, and each of the thousand pieces became another tiny puppy-thing that grew and grew, yapping and swimming in the blood. The tide was now rising about my shoes.

I backed away from the mirror, trembling violently. I forced myself to slosh through the thick blood into the bedroom, groping for a bottle of whisky on the bureau.

"What the h.e.l.l are you doing here?" the boss asked when I opened his office door and peeked in. "You're supposed to be in Palm Beach. Well, d.a.m.n it, come on in!"

I clung to the door firmly as I maneuvered myself through the opening.

And when I closed the door, I leaned back against it heavily.

I could see the boss--Carson Newell, managing editor of Intergalaxy News Service--half rising from behind his big desk across the room; but he was pretty dim and I couldn't get him to stay in one place. His voice was clear enough, though:

"Must be mighty important to bring you back from.... d.a.m.n it, Langston, are you drunk?"

I grinned then, and said, "Carshon. Carton. Old boy. Do you know that telenosis therapy is no sonofab.i.t.c.hin' good on alcoholics?"

Carson Newell sat back down, frowning.

I stumbled to a chair by the corner of his desk and gripped the arms tightly.

"Telenosis therapy," I repeated, "is just no--"

"Snap out of it," Newell barked. "It's no good on dumb animals, either, and you're probably out of range by now, anyway."

He took a small bottle from his desk and tossed a yellow Anti-Alch pill across the desk to me. I popped it into my mouth.

It didn't take long to work. A few minutes later, still weak and a little trembly, I said, "Would have thought of that myself, if I hadn't been so d.a.m.n drunk."

The boss grunted. "Now what's this business about telenosis?"

"Somebody's been using it on me," I said. "Maliciously. d.a.m.n near drowned in a lake of blood from a water faucet."

"Couldn't have been DTs?"

"I'm serious. It's been going on for three or four days now. Not the blood. That's what gave it away. But other things."

"You've been working pretty hard lately," Newell reminded me.

"Which is why I'm on vacation and all nice and relaxed. Or at least, I _was_. No, it's not that. Listen, Carson, I admit that I'm no technical expert on telenosis. But a long time ago--seven or eight years ago, I guess--I did a feature series on it. I learned a little bit. Enough to save my life this time."

Newell shrugged. "Okay. You probably know more about it than I do. I just know it's d.a.m.ned restricted stuff." He paused thoughtfully. "Any missing telenizer equipment would cause a h.e.l.luva fuss, and there hasn't been any fuss."

"No machines in Palm Beach or vicinity that somebody on the inside could be using illegally?" And then I answered that question myself: "No ... I doubt it. The machines are used only in the larger hospitals."

"Don't suppose you have any hunches?"

I shook my head slowly, frowning. "You couldn't really call it a hunch.

Just a bare possibility. But I noticed on a news report the other day that Isaac Grogan--you know, 'the Millionaire Mayor of Memphis,'

released about a month ago, bribery and corruption sentence--anyway, he's taken up temporary residence in Palm Beach."

The boss rubbed his chin. "As I recall, you did an expose series on him four or five years ago. Corroborated by official investigation, and Grogan was later sentenced. You thinks he's after revenge?"

I raised a hand warningly. "Now, hold on--I said it was a bare possibility. All I know is that Grogan hates my guts--or might think he has some reason to. I know that Grogan is in Palm Beach, and that I've been under telenosis attack. There's no necessary connection at all."

"No," Newell said. "But it's something to start on." He looked at his wrist watch. "Tell you what. It's nearly noon now. Let's go out for lunch, and while I'm thinking, you can tell me all you remember about telenosis."