The Love Machine & Other Contraptions (8 page)

“Hello—” started the device, but Galileo interrupted it: “Just to prove a point,” he said, “I am going to retrieve the information without your help. Observe.” He hooked the empathizer up to a mighty battery of weird-looking diagnostic equipment.

“You can’t,” said the electric shrink, and it was right.

~

Two hours later the empathizer surrendered to the intense examinations and burned out.

“Told you so,” said the electric shrink. “Hello. Call me Alice...”

Fury took hold of Galileo. It was not the mere anger of mortal men, the causes of which are trivial, as are, mostly, its consequences. It was a flaming, focused, controlled fury. World wars had erupted over less than this.

But Galileo was, after all, a Backyard Scientist. He threw something heavy at the babbling shrink, which immediately gibbered into a silence filled with electronic background noises, then opened a drawer, pulled out some strings and transistors...

“
I have got you
...” whispered the shrink to itself.

... got a few dozen one-KiloFarad-per-unit capacitors and a microprocessor out from under his bed...

“... under my skin...”

... took apart a bicycle he found in the shed, rummaged through the remains of the empathizer...

“I have got you...”

... turned the entire house upside down until he found some electrodes in the refrigerator...

“... deep in the heart of me...”

... and in precisely twenty minutes he had built a love machine. Such was his rage.

“So deep in my heart, you’re nearly a part of me...”

A flying hammer found the electric shrink and silenced it.

“
Underrr my skiiinnnn
...” slurred the contraption, and then naught else.

Galileo went to sleep.

~

The next morning the sun, amazingly, came up. Johnny was just finishing up spray-painting a street sign he had come upon at the back of one of the fancy hair salons in Da Vinci Street. He stood, admiring his work, namely:

When all of the sudden Galileo appeared, hair wild, lab coat stained even more than usual, pushing a rusty, noisy shopping cart.

“There you are,” he panted. “Look at this: suppose
and
(when
), which means
, ergo...”

“
?!” finished Johnny in amazement. “But you hate math! What happened?”

“I have to find out what stage you’re at,” said the misomathematist in determination and lifted an iron chain out of the shopping cart. “Put it on!”

“I... what?”

“Put this on,” said Galileo. “I’ll explain later.”

~

There’s no point in recounting the rest of the conversation. Suffice it to say that it included the mentioning of such names as Planck, Maxwell, Pascal, at least one Byron, a hint of Hawking and a leg of Lennon. The chain Johnny was made to wear was, naturally, the first half of the love machine, which, according to Galileo, made use of principles of induction, relativity and data compression in order to achieve a “superposition” or something or other.

“So,” said Johnny, deep in thought, “this thing is supposed to analyze my brain waves and then—”

“No, no,” said Galileo. “There’s no such thing as ‘brain waves.’ ‘Waves’ are nothing but a simplistic representation of something far more complex. From a Newtonian point of view—”

“No brain waves, then,” said Johnny. “Whatever. So, this thing analyzes
something
in my brain in whatever manner—”

“Induction. Heightened sensitivity. I’ve already explained that. It’s like Pavlov’s cat: you don’t know whether it’s alive or drooling until you’ve opened the box. This device opens the box—to use a very simplistic metaphor—and—”

“Yeah,” said Johnny. “Great. So this thing analyzes
something
in my brain,
somehow
, and then sends it to you, right?”

“Precisely,” said Galileo, and took the second half of the love machine out of the cart.

“Couldn’t you have built something a little more... aesthetic? It looks like a bicycle chain.”

“That’s exactly the kind of chain I used as a model.”

Johnny had known Galileo for many years now, and knew that attempting to inquire why a chain of all things would result in nothing but a headache. Therefore he decided to return to his previous line of questioning, which seemed to him to be slightly safer.

“So,” he said. “You’ve analyzed and received. What’d you get out of it?”

“My piece does a superposition of the signals originating at your end over the electromagnetic activity, sort of, of my own brain. Not constantly, of course; single pulses. What happens then, according to the Schrödingerian Principle of Reaction—you’re heard of Schrödinger’s Dogs, right?”

“Never mind,” said Johnny, accepting, not for the first time, that he would never understand what his friend was trying to accomplish, any more than Galileo could grasp the meaning behind his whimsi-mathematical rhymes. “For you, my dear, I am all ears—and if my rear—”

“Excellent,” said Galileo, and put on his own chain. “If you’ll just let me turn on the machine—”

“Go ahead.”

Galileo pulled a switch out of his pocket and flipped it.

Nothing happened, of course.

~

“Perhaps,” said Galileo after some time has passed, “this needs a bit more work. Just don’t take the chain off, okay?”

“Okay,” said Johnny.

“Not even in the shower,” said Galileo.

“Fine.”

“Not even if she and you... well... you know...”

“What?”

“Well, er...”

“
Are you mental?
Having sex while wearing a bicycle chain? What do I look like to you?”

“Look,” said Galileo. “It’s a scientific experiment. You can’t be allowed to bias the results!”

Johnny mulled it over. “You’re right,” he said eventually. “Okay. I can’t promise anything, but if that happens...”

“I owe you,” said Galileo.

“It’s okay,” said Johnny. “I know you’d do the same for me.”

~

Ada was making another espresso in the poorly lit club kitchen, when suddenly she felt someone watching her.

“You!” she said. “You ain’t tryin’ to sneak in again, are ya?”

“Just to look at you!” said the redheaded semi-geek peeking out from behind the stove.

“Getouttahere, ya freak! I dunno why I let you into the club yesterday, but it ain’t gonna happen today. Out!”

“But why?”

“Why? Whaddahelldayamean, ‘why’? You following me around all the time, distoibing clients, screwing up oiders, and you’re asking me why?!”

She’s so cute when she’s thermal, thought Johnny.

~

Meanwhile, a tiny thermostat broke down and silently turned off the air conditioner in Galileo’s apartment. In the basement, Galileo felt pleasant warmth spreading through his body. “It’s working!” he said aloud, wrongfully. “At last!” He hurried outside. With a little luck, he’d fall in love with the first girl he’ll meet. Or so he thought.

~

“—and you have no idea how my boss flipped after that,” said Ada, who, in spite of everything, enjoyed the attention. “Believe me, I’d love to woik in hi-tech instedda this stinkin’ club—”

~

On the stairs, Galileo met a downstairs neighbor whom he had always ignored, stepping out of her apartment.

“Good evening,” he said politely. “How do you do?”

The neighbor, who was thin and somewhat mousy, though not uncomely, stared at him suspiciously.

“All right...” she said cautiously.

She’s cute
, thought Galileo,
it’s working!
—and politely introduced himself: “I’m Galileo, from upstairs. Are you new in the building?”

“I’ve been living here for two years,” said the neighbor, offended.

“Oh,” said Galileo. “How is it then that we’ve never met before?”

The neighbor had no polite answer to this question, and so remained quiet.

“Well then,” said Galileo. “So... I’m Galileo, and you are...” he glanced at the sign on her door, “... M. Curie?”

“Mariah,” said the neighbor reluctantly.

“Pleased to meet you!” said Galileo, who had every intention of expanding further on the subject, but just then remembered that he had to tell Johnny about his success. “Well, I must be going, so... I’ll meet you... you can come over for... uh... if you need any sugar or something... I live upstairs.” Then he left hurriedly.