"Huh? Thanks for what? I didn't do anything."
* * * * *
When Joe reached the street, he hurried toward the nearest subway. As a
child, he had been frightened of the dark. As a man, he wasn't afraid
of the dark itself, but the darkened city always made him feel ill
at ease. The uneasiness was, more than anything else, caused by his
own imagination. He hated the CPA and at night he couldn't shrug the
feeling that the CPA lurked in every shadow, watching him, waiting for
him to make a mistake.
Imagination or not, the CPA was almost everywhere a person went.
Twenty-four hours a day, millions of microphones hidden in taverns,
alleys, restaurants, subways and every other place imaginable waited
for someone to say the wrong thing. Everything the microphones picked
up was routed to the CPA Brain, a monster electronic calculator.
If the words "Let's see a movie" were received in the Brain, they
were discarded. But if the words "Let's roll this guy" were received,
the message was traced and a police helicopter would be at the scene
in two minutes. And scattered all over the city were not only hidden
microphones, but hidden television cameras that relayed visual messages
to the Brain, and hidden machines that could detect a knife or a gun in
someone's pocket at forty yards.
Every place of business from the largest bank to the smallest grocery
store was absolutely impenetrable. No one had even tried to rob a place
of business for years.
Arson was next to impossible because of the heat-detectors--devices
placed in every building that could detect, radarlike, any intensity of
heat above that caused by a cigarette lighter. Chemical research had
made poisoning someone an impossibility. There were no drugs containing
poison, and while an ant-poison might kill ants, no concentrated amount
of it would kill a human.
The FBI had always been a powerful organization, but under the
supervision of the CPA, it was a scientific colossus and to think
of kidnapping someone or to contemplate the use of narcotics was
pointless. A counterfeiter's career was always short-lived: every place
of business and millions of individuals had small counterfeit-detectors
that could spot a fake and report it directly to the Brain.
And the percentage of crimes had dwindled even more with the appearance
of the robot police officers. Many a criminal in the past had gambled
that he could outshoot a pursuing policeman. But the robots were
different: they weren't flesh and blood. Bullets bounced off them and
their aim was infallible.
* * * * *
It was like a fantastic dream come true. Only the dream wasn't
fantastic any more. With the huge atomic power plants scattered across
the country and supplying endless electrical power at ridiculously
low prices, no endeavor that required power was fantastic. The power
required to operate the CPA devices cost each taxpayer an average of
four dollars a year, and the invention, development and manufacture of
the devices had cost even less.
And the CPA had attacked crime through society itself, striking at
the individual. In every city there were neon signs that blinked
subliminally with the statement, CRIME IS FILTH. Listening to a radio
or watching television, if a person heard station identification, he
invariably heard or saw just below perception the words CRIME IS FILTH.
If he went for a walk or a ride, he saw the endless subliminal posters
declaring CRIME IS FILTH, and if he read a magazine or newspaper he
always found, in those little dead spaces where an editor couldn't fit
anything else, the below-perception words CRIME IS FILTH.
It was monotonous and, after a while, a person looked at the words and
heard them without thinking about them. And they were imprinted on his
subconscious over and over, year after year, until he knew that crime
was the same as filth and that criminals were filthy things.
Except men like Joe Harper. No system is perfect. Along with thousands
of other DCTs, Joe refused to believe it, and when he reached apartment
204 at 2141 Orange Street, he felt as if he'd inherited a gold mine.
The hall was dimly lit, but when he stood before the door numbered 204,
he could see that the wall on either side of it was _new_. That is,
instead of being covered with dust, dirt and stains as the other walls
were, it was clean. The building was an old one, the hall was wide, and
the owner had obviously constructed a wall across the hall, creating
another room. If the owner had reported the new room as required by
law, it would have been wired with CPA burglarproof devices, but
evidently he didn't want to pay for installation.
When Joe entered the cubbyhole, he had to stand to one side in order to
close the door behind him. The place was barely large enough for the
bed, chair and bureau; it was a place where a man could fall down at
night and sleep, but where no normal man could live day after day.
Fearing that someone might detect him before he actually committed the
crime, Joe hurried to the bureau and searched it.
* * * * *
He broke out in a sweat when he found nothing but underwear and old
magazines. If he stole underwear and magazines, it would still be a
crime, but the newspapers would splash satirical headlines. Instead of
being respected as a successful criminal, he would be ridiculed.
He stopped sweating when he found a watch under a pile of underwear.
The crystal was broken, one hand was missing and it wouldn't run,
but--perfection itself--engraved on the back was the inscription, _To
John with Love_. His trial would be a clean-cut one: it would be easy
for the CPA to prove ownership and that a crime had been committed.
Chuckling with joy, he opened the window and shouted, "_Thief! Police!
Help!_"
He waited a few seconds and then ran. When he reached the street, a
police helicopter landed next to him. Strong metal arms seized him;
cameras clicked and recorded the damning evidence.
When Joe was securely handcuffed to a seat inside the helicopter, the
metal police officers rang doorbells. There was a reward for anyone who
reported a crime, but no one admitted shouting the warning.
* * * * *