Tightrope (Burning Cove #3)(3)

A moment ago Pickwell had been lecturing the audience on the wonders of the future, when most labor would be done by robots. Now he was distinctly nervous.

He recovered quickly.

“Futuro, put down the suitcase and pick up the vase of flowers that is on the bench,” he commanded.

Amalie glanced at her aunt Hazel, who was sitting beside her. Hazel was watching the demonstration with rapt attention. She did not appear to have noticed anything strange about what was happening onstage. She was clearly captivated.

The robot was humanoid in shape, with a surprisingly sleek aluminum body. It did not look like one of the blocky, clunky images on the cover of Thrilling Wonder Stories or Popular Mechanics. The head resembled an ancient Egyptian pharaoh’s death mask.

Hidden motors whirred and hummed as Futuro obeyed Pickwell’s new orders. Flashlight-sized eyes glittering with an eerie blue light, the robot clomped across the stage and set the suitcase on the bench.

Futuro appeared to deliberate for a moment before it picked up the vase of flowers in two metal hands.

Dr. Pickwell seemed somewhat relieved but Amalie thought the inventor still looked uneasy.

“As you can see,” Pickwell said to the audience, “Futuro is capable of carrying out many of the tasks one expects of a well-trained butler. My invention is only the first of what I predict will be an unlimited number of mechanical men. In the future, robots will free humankind from the dangerous work now performed by humans in mines, shipyards, and factories.”

A man in the front row leaped to his feet. “You mean the damned machines will take our jobs. How is the average working man going to make a living if robots take over?”

A murmur of disapproval rippled across the theater. The Palace was a fashionable venue in the very fashionable town of Burning Cove. The audience was composed primarily of people who had purchased tickets because they wanted to be amazed and astonished and, above all, entertained. Most of the men wore evening jackets. The women were in glamorous cocktail dresses and heels. Amalie suspected that very few of those occupying the red velvet seats had ever worked in a mine or a shipyard or a factory.

Tickets for the demonstration of Futuro had been expensive and hard to come by. The only reason she and Hazel were there was because the inventor had graciously provided them with passes. Dr. Pickwell was staying at their newly opened bed-and-breakfast. Pickwell was, in fact, the first and, so far, the only guest at the Hidden Beach Inn.

Earlier, Amalie had been interested to see that a number of the town’s movers and shakers were in the audience, including Oliver Ward, the owner of Burning Cove’s biggest hotel. His wife, Irene, the crime beat reporter for the Burning Cove Herald, sat next to him. She had a notebook and pencil in hand. Oliver’s uncle, Chester Ward, said to be an inventor in his own right, had accompanied them. Chester, with his unkempt gray hair and spectacles, looked rather like a mad scientist in a horror movie. He was watching the demonstration with a mix of fascination and, Amalie sensed, deep suspicion.

Luther Pell, the owner of the town’s hottest nightclub, the Paradise, occupied a seat in the second row. Pell was not alone. Two people had accompanied him to the theater. Amalie assumed that the sophisticated woman in the stylish gown next to him was Raina Kirk, Burning Cove’s only private investigator. Word around town was that Miss Kirk and Luther Pell were romantically linked.

The man in the seat on the other side of Pell was a stranger. Amalie was not surprised that neither she nor Hazel recognized him. They were new in town themselves. There were a lot of people they did not know. But there had been enough curious and speculative glances from the crowd to indicate that the stranger was not one of the locals.

The fact that he appeared to be an acquaintance of Pell’s automatically made him interesting, and quite possibly dangerous. Luther Pell, after all, was rumored to have mob connections. If that was true, it was a good bet that any friend of his had links to the criminal underworld.

“There is no need to fear robots,” Dr. Pickwell declared. It was clear that the suggestion that robots would displace workers annoyed him. He raised his voice to be heard above the murmurs of the crowd. “I urge you to consider that these machines could take the place of soldiers. Wars of the future will be fought with robots, not human beings. Think of the lives that will be saved.”

“You’re mad,” someone else shouted. “You want to create robots that can kill? What if these machines of yours decide to turn on their creators and try to destroy us?”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Pickwell snapped. “Robots are nothing more than mechanical devices. Fundamentally, they are no different than the cars we drive or the radios that we use to get our news.”

“Futuro looks mighty dangerous to me,” the man in the front row called.

“Nonsense,” Pickwell said. “Allow me to demonstrate how useful Futuro can be. Futuro, what is the forecast for tomorrow?”

The robot answered in a scratchy, hollow voice. “There will be fog in the morning but by noon the day will turn warm and sunny. No rain is expected.”

Pickwell faced his audience. “Think about how useful it would be to have Futuro in your home at your beck and call. It won’t be long before there will be robots that can cook and clean and do the laundry.”

But the crowd was no longer paying any attention to Pickwell, because Futuro had once again lurched into motion.