Get Smart 1 - Get Smart! (2 page)

Rising, Max eyed the door malevolently. “Whose side are you on?” he snarled.

The door remained mute.

Max proceeded along the passageway until he reached an unmarked doorway. He rapped out the tune of “Yankee Doodle” on the door. There was no reply. He looked thoughtful for a second, then tried “Over the Waves.” Still there was no response.

Max turned the knob and opened the door. Seated at a large desk in a panelled, lavishly furnished office was a graying, dignified-looking man.

“Chief, what’s the code tune for today?” Max said.

“ ‘Yankee Doodle,’ ” the Chief replied.

“I tried that.”

“Which time—first time or second time?”

“First.”

“That sounded like ‘Anchors Aweigh,’ ” the Chief said.

“You know my tin ear, Chief. Will you accept ‘Anchors Aweigh’ for ‘Yankee Doodle’?”

The Chief sighed. “All right . . . since it’s an emergency.”

Max closed the door behind him, tried “Anchors Aweigh,” and got “Yankee Doodle.”

“Come in,” the Chief called.

Max stepped in, closed the door, inserted his card in the time clock, rang it up, then moved on to the Chief’s desk. “Sorry I’m late, Chief,” he said, “but that officer’s mother was bawling him out for forgetting his gun. He left it on the bureau.”

“Never mind that,” the Chief said crankily. As Max seated himself, the Chief leaned forward at his desk and said, “Max, this is the biggest case the department has ever been asked to handle. The fate of the whole civilized world may depend on its outcome. You couldn’t even guess what it concerns.”

Max frowned. “Sounds to me as if the Beatles are involved.”

“Something even more bizarre than that,” the Chief said. “Max, this concerns an electronic computer. The most sophisticated computer ever developed. The entire knowledge of civilized man has been fed into this computer. Ask it any question and you get back the correct answer in seconds. Imagine what that means! Ask it, for instance, how to make an explosive that would make the Atom Bomb look like a firecracker, and, peep-a-dotta, poop-a-dotta, dippa-dotta-boop, it would hand you the answer!”

Max squinted at him. “Peep-a-dotta, poop-a-dotta, dippa-dotta-boop?”

“That’s the sound it makes when it’s thinking.”

“Oh.”

“Max, the country that controls Fred controls the world!”

“Fred?”

“That’s its name.”

Max brightened. “Oh, yes, I see. Familiar as I am with Fechner’s Law—which states that, within limits, the intensity of a sensation increases as the logarithm of the stimulus—I can guess that FRED stands for Fechnerized Radiological Electronic Decoder. Right?”

“As a matter of fact, no,” the Chief replied. “FRED stands for Fred. The developer named the computer after her cocker spaniel . . . Fred.”

“Oh . . .” Max said disappointedly. Then, “Her? Fred’s inventor is a woman?”

“That’s right,” the Chief said. “Fred was constructed by a Miss Blossom Rose. You’ll meet her in a second. She’s going to accompany you on this case. Our hope is that Miss Rose will be able to talk some sense into this computer . . . that is, if and when you find him.”

“You mean he’s missing?”

“Unfortunately, yes. He left a note saying that, equipped as he was to provide the knowledge that would give one nation control over all others, he knew he wouldn’t have one peaceful moment. So he skipped. He said he hoped to find tranquility in obscurity.”

“A computer? Let’s face it, Chief—where could a computer go so he wouldn’t be noticed?”

“That’s your problem, Max. Your job is to find Fred and bring him back. Convince him that we’re his true and only friends. If possible, try to do it without violence. But, of course, if he won’t listen to reason, then the only alternative will be to destroy—” The Chief sighed. “Well, we’ll cross that alternative when we come to it.” He rose. “Right now, I want you to meet your companion on this case. She’s waiting in the other office.”

The Chief pressed one of the wall panels. It opened, revealing a small room where three off-duty agents were seated at a table playing poker.

“Oops . . . sorry,” the Chief said. He closed the panel.

“That makes the third continuous year for that poker game,” Max said. “When is it due to end?”

“Not soon,” the Chief said. “Harry is the heavy winner—he’s fifty-four thousand, two-hundred and seven dollars ahead—and the others won’t let him quit until they have a chance to get even.” He pressed another panel. It opened, he said, “Ah, yes,” then stepped back. “Miss Rose, would you come in here, please . . .”

A stunning blonde emerged. She blinked her large blue eyes demurely as Max rose to offer her his chair.

The Chief introduced the two, then Max said, “I assume you’re an electronic engineer, Miss Rose.”

“Call me ‘Blossom,’ ” she replied. “And, no, I’m at the check-out counter at the A & P.”

It was Max’s turn to blink his large blue eyes. “But the Chief tells me that you’re the inventor of Fred.”

“Yes,” she smiled. “But it was sort of an accident. You see, I have this nephew. And, for his birthday, I bought him this sort of set. You were supposed to be able to build a computer out of it. Anyway, I opened it up—just to see what it looked like—and it looked very interesting . . . all those little tubes, and things that went ‘click-click,’ and things. So I wanted to see if it would be too complicated for a little boy of twenty-four months, and I started putting things together. I couldn’t make much sense of the instructions. There was all that rigamarole about connecting ‘this’ to ‘that’ and ‘that’ to ‘this,’ and I could never find the ‘this’ that went to ‘that.’ So I sort of made it up as I went along. And, one thing led to another, and then there was—”

“Fred,” Max nodded.

“Yes.”

“I understand you named him after your cocker spaniel. Wasn’t that a little confusing—having a dog and a computer around the house who both answered to the name of Fred?”

“My ex-dog,” Blossom explained. “About six months ago, my puppy Fred passed on to that great dog house in the sky.”

“I see.” Max began pacing. “One other question. The Chief tells me that Fred has taken it on the lam. I wonder . . . how did he do it? Did you build him on roller skates?”

“Oh, no,” Blossom answered. “He has legs. Just like a human being.” She lowered her eyes. “You see, I’m a single girl . . . and I guess I sort of had Rock Hudson on my mind while I was building him. Not that he looks like Rock Hudson. But . . . as close as I could come. He looks like a robot.”

Again, Max nodded. “There may possibly be a similarity there,” he said. He halted, looking thoughtful. “There’s one aspect of this case that bothers me,” he said. His questioning eyes zeroed in on Blossom Rose. “Miss Rose, may I ask a personal question?”

Blossom colored. “Well . . .”

“The question is: What did you finally get your nephew for his birthday?”

She brightened. “A motorcycle.”

“Good, good,” Max said. “I was afraid there for a second that you had broken his little heart by not getting him a gift.”

The Chief spoke up. “Miss Rose,” he said, “I think it might be helpful if you told Max exactly how Fred operates.”

“I already know that—he operates alone,” Max said.

“No . . . I mean how he functions.”

“Well,” Blossom said, “I didn’t want him to be dependent on me. You know, have a mother complex. So I built him so he could operate himself. What he does is, I gave him a nickel, and he drops it into his slot, and that turns him on. Then he pushes a lever at his side, and his eyes start revolving, then he goes ‘peep-a-dotta, poop-a-dotta, dippa-dotta-boop,’ and that means he’s thinking.”

“That’s the price of inflation,” Max said. “It used to be ‘a penny for your thoughts’—now it’s a nickel.” He scowled. “Doesn’t that run into money, a nickel every time he wants to think?”

“No,” Blossom said. “I built him so that when he drops the nickel into his slot it falls back into his pocket. He uses the same nickel over and over again. I guess I did that because of working at the A & P. We’re always running out of change at the check-out counter.”

Max turned back to the Chief. “Chief, I’d like to make a request. This looks like a tough caper to me—like looking for a robot in a haystack. I’ll need all the help I can get. I’d appreciate it if you’d also assign Agent K-13 to the case.”

Blossom looked disappointed. “Three’s a crowd,” she said.

Max spoke sternly to her. “I think we’d better get one thing straight,” he said. “When I’m on a case, I’m no longer Max Smart, wonderful human being and brilliant conversationalist—I’m Agent 86, dedicated secret operative. It’s all work and no play. My mind is fixed on the objective, like a foot stuck in the mud. Is that clear?”

Blossom shrugged. “If that’s the way you want it. But I don’t see what harm maybe a movie or a little dancing could do.”

The Chief intervened. “I’ll get K-13,” he said.

As Max and Blossom observed, the Chief got up and went to the wall. He pressed a panel near the floor. It opened, and a large shaggy dog romped out. The dog had the appearance of having first been dropped into a vat of glue, then into a barrel of feathers.

“Here, boy . . . here, Fang!” Max called.

The dog leaped on him, pawing him. They exchanged greetings.

“This is Agent K-13 . . . fondly known as ‘Fang,’ ” Max said to Blossom.

She smiled. “He reminds me of Fred—that is, Fred my cocker spaniel,” she said. “Except, of course, that he’s about ten times bigger and doesn’t look a thing like Fred.”

“One of our top agents,” the Chief said. “Absolutely fearless.”

“Better punch in, boy,” Max said to Fang.

The dog went to the open file where the time cards were kept, removed his card, using his teeth, and inserted it in the clock. He was unable to operate the mechanism, however.

Max punched the card for him. “Absolutely fearless, but a complete butterfingers when it comes to anything mechanical,” he explained to Blossom.

Fang barked a rejoinder, which was probably quite scathing.

“I think that’s about all,” the Chief said. “Max, are you clear on your mission?”

“Right, Chief! I’m to find Fred and bring him back—dead or alive!” He turned to Blossom. “Ready?”

“Do you have any ideas about where to look?” she said, rising.

“Absolutely none,” Max said confidently. “But, as somebody once said, ‘New York is really just a small town.’ So we’ll start out by just asking around.” He signalled to Fang. “Come on, boy!”

“Rorff!”

“Good luck,” the Chief said.

Max paused. “You can send that to the members of FLAG,” he said to the Chief. “They’re the ones who’ll need the luck.”

As Max, Blossom and Fang departed, Blossom asked, “Who is FLAG?”

“That stands for Free Lance Agents Amalgamated,” Max answered, leading the way down the corridor. “It’s the trade union of the espionage agents. It’s my guess that a number of the FLAG agents will also be hot on Fred’s trail. They’re the opposition, you might say.”

“Wouldn’t Free Lance Agents Amalgamated be FLAA?”

“They have a little spelling problem,” Max explained. “They’re absolutely fearless, each and every one of them, but they can’t spell worth a darn. Fang is the same way.”

“Rorfff!”

“See what I mean?” Max said to Blossom. “He put in an extra ‘f.’ ”

“These FLAG people,” Blossom said. “What country do they represent?”

“Any country that hires them,” he answered. “They’ve found the one preferable substitute for loyalty, fidelity and playing-the-game.”

“Good heavens, what’s that?”

“Money,” Max said tersely.

The three passed through the exit doors, ascended the steps, and got into Max’s car, with Fang settling in the rear seat. Max started the engine.

“May I put my purse in your glove compartment?” Blossom said.

“That’s not the glove compartment, that’s where I keep the shells for my 20 mm. cannon,” Max said. “You see, the lower headlight on the left side isn’t really a headlight—it’s the cannon. This car was specially built for me. The cannon was optional, but I took it because all the FLAG agents have cannons on their cars. Call it keeping-up-with-the-Joneses, if you want.”

“Well . . . I guess a cannon is practical, in your business,” Blossom said.

“It can be a drawback,” Max admitted. “Recoil, you know. I fired at a FLAG agent from 57th Street one day, and the recoil sent me all the way back to 42nd Street. I got fifteen tickets for driving backwards through fifteen stop lights.”

“I’ll just hold on to my purse,” Blossom said.

“Good idea. It might cause a misfire if I jammed it into the chamber without thinking.” He looked thoughtful for a moment, then said, “Instead of just asking around for Fred, I think it might be a better idea to go about this more methodically. Considering the answers I’ve got when I’ve asked my way on the subway, I don’t think asking strangers if they’ve seen a computer that was built with Rock Hudson in mind would get us very far. Rather, let’s ask ourselves a question. Namely: Where would we go if we were a computer trying to hide out?”

Blossom smiled hopefully. “A cozy French restaurant?”

“At this time of day? Don’t be ridiculous. There isn’t a French restaurant in town that opens before noon. No,” he said, “if Fred is as smart as you claim he is, he’d look for a place where he’d be inconspicuous. Now, all we have to figure out is, where could a robot go and not be noticed?”

“A movie?”

“Hardly.”

“Rorff.”

“I’m sorry, Fang, but that’s even more ridiculous than a French restaurant.”

“A movie in the balcony,” Blossom suggested.

“No. You’re forgetting the ushers and their flashlights.” Max suddenly brightened. “Of course! The perfect spot! The one place where a mechanical man could be mistaken for one of the bunch!”

“Where?”

“The United Nations,” Max said. “With all the new countries joining up, and old ones dropping out, who knows who’s who? He could pass himself off as the representative of some emerging nation.”

Blossom sank down into the seat. “Well . . . if
you
think so.”

Max gunned the car out into traffic. “That’s where we’ll find Fred!” he said exultantly. “Or my name isn’t 86!”