: Remember the 4th! by Loomis Noel M - Science fiction; Short stories; Private investigators Fiction; Inventions Fiction; Trials (Divorce) Fiction

@FreeBooksThu 08 Jun, 2023

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Remember the 4th!

Slim Coleman's brain-finder worked all too well!

If, as has often been contended, the brain contains a complete record of all events the individual has experienced, consciously or otherwise, then a mechanical means of exploring someone's past might be found. It would show the discrepancies between the most reliable memories of events, and actual sense-impressions received at the time, for example. But few people would like such a device, and those few might like it much too much!

This was a warm day in August--a very warm day. Slim Coleman, my partner in detection work, says the sun is ninety million miles away, but this day it must have sneaked up pretty close. You could even see the heat waves coming up off the sidewalk. You can't fry an egg on the pavement in Fort Worth, though, because you can't stay out in the sun that long.

I mopped my brow, slung the water off my fingertips, and went into the lobby of the National Bank Building. The washed air made it cool and nice in there, and I slowed down to enjoy it. But one of the elevators came down, the door slid open, and the first man to get off was Swanberg, the building manager--our landlord--all dressed up in striped trousers and a fancy vest and wearing a high wing collar and a genuine cravat. He looked impeccable, immaculate--and cool.

I wheeled and marched back outside into the sun. Slim and I were three months behind with the rent, and I figured the only reason Swanberg hadn't ordered us out was that he just hadn't gotten around to it. I didn't want to run into him. If we could have paid our rent I wouldn't have been carrying ham sandwiches and a bottle of coffee in my coat-pockets up to Slim Coleman while he worked on the Brain-Finder.

The heat almost smothered me after the coolness of the lobby. Damn that guy Swanberg, anyway. He was always so perfect, so completely unaffected by the weather, so supercilious and so cold, so mechanical. You knew he'd never had any trouble and never would have, because he would never be swayed by anything but cold logic. It's only we humans with sentiments who get in trouble.

It was his untouchableness that griped me. He was so inhumanly perfect he always made me feel rough and uncouth. You know how it is. If I could just get something on him to throw off that complex, I'd be happy even if we did have to vacate. I guess I spent my time day-dreaming about Swanberg--Swanberg wearing an old-fashioned night-cap, Swanberg slurping his coffee, Swanberg sleeping with his socks on--anything human.

What wouldn't I have given to have a picture of him in the roller coaster the way I had been the night of July the Fourth, with a perfectly strange, perfectly gorgeous, slim blonde throwing her arms around his neck the way that one had around mine. I was willing to bet he had a big, hefty wife at home who made him step.

I shivered whenever I thought about that blonde. She was the kind I would have liked to marry, only one like that was way out of my reach. I didn't have much education and I didn't always know what to do around a real high-class female. That's why I had been riding the roller coaster alone.

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