To Anton, in his dream, came the engineer, declaring that he had a new automatic hopper and chuck for Anton’s hands and mouth. They were of shining steel with many rods and wheels moving with assurance through a complicated pattern. And now, though the sandwich was made of pins, of hard steel pins, Anton’s new chuck was equal to it, He grasped the sandwich of pins with no difficulty at all. His new steel teeth bit into the pins, ground them, chewed them and spat them out again with vehemence. Faster and faster came the pins, and faster and faster the chuck seized them in its perfectly occluding steel dogs, played with them, toyed with them, crunched them, munched them . . .

  A heavy spell of coughing shook Anton awake. For a moment he had a sensation as though he must cough up steel pins, but nothing appeared save for the usual phlegm and slime.

  “We must get rid of this noise and vibration before we can adjust any self-regulating device,” said the engineer. “Now this, for example, see? It doesn’t move correctly. Hear it click and scrape. That’s bad.”

  Anton stood by, and the engineer and his assistant went to work. From their labors came forth a sleek mechanism that purred gently as it worked. Scarcely a creak issued from its many moving parts, and a tiny snort was all the sound that could be heard when the cutting edge came to grips with a pin.

  “Can’t hear her cough and sputter and creak now’, can you?” said the engineer to the director. “And the floor is quiet. Yes, I’m beginning to be proud of that machine, and now I think we can set up an adjustable cam here to make the whole operation automatic.

  “Every machine should be completely automatic. A machine that needs an operator,” he declared oratorically, “is an invalid.”

  In a short time the cams were affixed and the carriage with the cutting tool traveled back and forth of itself, never failing to strike the pin at the correct angle and at the correct speed of rotation.

  All Anton had to do was to stop the machine in case of a hitch. But soon even that task was unnecessary. No hitches were ever to occur again. Electronic tubes at several points operated mechanisms designed to eject faulty pins either before they entered the hopper or after they emerged from the lathe.

  Anton stood by and watched. That was all he had to do, for the machine performed all the operations that he used to do. In went the unfinished pins and out they came, each one perfectly drilled. Anton’s purblind eyes could scarcely follow the separate pins of the stream that flowed into the machine. Now and then a pin was pushed remorselessly out of line and plumped sadly into a bucket. Cast out! Anton stooped laboriously and retrieved the pin. “That could have been used,” he thought.

  “Krr-click, krr-click,” went the feeder, while the spindle and the drill went zzz-sntt, zzz-sntt, zzz-sntt, and the belt that brought the pins from a chattering machine beyond, rolled softly over the idlers with a noise like a breeze in a sail. Already the machine had finished ten good pins while Anton was examining a single bad one.

  Late in the afternoon there appeared a number of important men. They surrounded the machine, examined it and admired it.

  “That’s a beauty,” they declared.

  Now the meeting took on a more official character. There were several short addresses. Then an imposing man took from a small leather box a golden crescent.

  “The Crescent Manufacturing Company,” he said, “takes pride and pleasure in awarding this automatic lathe a gold crescent.” A place on the side of the machine had been prepared for the affixing of this distinction.

  Now the engineer was called upon to speak. “Gentlemen,” he said fiercely, “I understand that formerly the Crescent Company awarded its gold crescent only to workmen who had given fifty years of service to the firm. In giving a gold crescent to a machine, your President has perhaps unconsciously acknowledged a new era . . .” While the engineer developed his thesis, the director leaned over to his assistant and whispered, “Did you ever hear of why the sea is salt?”

  “Why the sea is salt?” whispered back the assistant. “What do you mean?”

  The director continued: “When I was a little kid, I heard the story of ‘Why the sea is salt’ many times, but I never thought it important until just a moment ago. It’s something like this: Formerly the sea was fresh water and salt was rare and expensive. A miller received from a wizard a wonderful machine that just ground salt out of itself all day long. At first the miller thought himself the most fortunate man in the world, but soon all the villages had salt to last them for centuries and still the machine kept on grinding more salt. The miller had to move out of his house, he had to move off his acres. At last he determined that he would sink the machine in the sea and be rid of it. But the mill ground so fast that boat and miller and machine were sunk together, and down below, the mill still went on grinding and that’s why the sea is salt.”

  “I don’t get you,” said the assistant.

  Throughout the speeches, Anton had remained seated on the floor, in a dark corner, where his back rested comfortably against the wall. It had begun to darken by the time the company left, but still Anton remained where he was, for the stone floor and wall had never felt quite so restful before. Then, with a great effort, he roused his unwilling frame, hobbled over to his machine and dragged forth the tarpaulin.

  Anton had paid little attention to the ceremony; it was, therefore, with surprise that he noticed the gold crescent on his machine. His weak eyes strained to pierce the twilight. He let his fingers play over the medal, and was aware of tears falling from his eyes, and could not divine the reason.

  The mystery wearied Anton. His worn and trembling body sought the inviting floor. He stretched out, and sighed, and that sigh was his last.

  When the daylight had completely faded, the machine began to hum softly. Zzz-sntt, zzz-sntt, it went, four times, and each time carefully detached a leg from the floor.

  Now it rose erect and stood beside the body of Anton. Then it bent down and covered Anton with the tarpaulin. Out of the hall it stalked on sturdy legs. Its electron eyes saw distinctly through the dark, its iron limbs responded instantly to its every need. No noise racked its interior, where its organs functioned smoothly and without a single tremor. To the watchman, who grunted his usual greeting without looking up, it answered not a word but strode on rapidly, confidently, through the windy streets of night—to Anton’s house.

  Anton’s wife lay waiting, half sleeping on the bed in the room where the light of the arc-light came through the stained-glass window. And it seemed to her that a marvel happened: her Anton come back to her free of coughs and creaks and tremors; her Anton come to her in all the pride and folly of his youth, his breath like wind soughing through treetops, the muscles of his arms like steel.

  I’m with You

  in Rockland

  Jack Dann

  In the following story, Dann writes of a reversible cyborg union, one in which the final fusion through myoelectric linkage has not taken place. Yet the strength augmenter he describes has homeostatic features in the sense that it has sophisticated feedback mechanisms. We spoke in the introduction of the sexual potency associated with the powerful machines. Here is the ultimate expression of this identification, a full machine augmentation carried to its logical sexual conclusion.

  I’m with you in Rockland

  where we wake up electrified out of the coma by

  our own soul’s airplanes

  I’m with you in Rockland

  in my dreams you walk dripping from the sea-

  journey on the highway across America in tears

  to the door of my cottage in the Western night

  —ALLEN GINSBERG, “Howl”

  Flaccus decreased the pressure on the accelerator pedal and the speedometer needle drifted back to 100 m.p.h. That’s better, he thought. The evening rain was making the road slippery. He glanced at the hitchhiker sitting beside him and pressed his back into the cushioned seat, his arm resting on his leg, the steering stick held loosely between his thumb and forefinger. His eyes were half-shut. He could feel the cement being sucked under the car, inches below his feet. He could almost feel his feet melting into the floor as he tried to merge himself with the car.

  Like this, he could drive his best. He didn’t need to look to the side to judge distance; he could feel it. He was walking with a new body and it was better and stronger than his own. But it was not enough. The car could not satisfy Flaccus; it could only remind him of a stronger, better body.

  Flaccus had worked up a good sweat piling up steel beams for the last two hours. He was wearing an exoskeletal harness, a light metal framework equipped with sensors that picked up his every movement and transmitted them to artificial muscles. With the harness, Flaccus could support 2,500 pounds in each hand.

  Flaccus moved smoothly through his work, dipping and pushing, lifting and pulling, his motions smooth and easy. He imagined that his muscles rippled as he swayed back and forth. He stretched out his arms. The harness felt good. It was all around him, thin, light strips of body armor, giving him all the power and security he needed. He was soft tissue surrounded by a steel and plastic carapace. Fifty feet away from him stood the new construction project, a jagged framework of plastic and steel.

  “Of course I love you,” Flaccus said as he stared out the window at the New York skyline. The recent temperature inversion had put an invisible lid on the city. The air, saturated with pollutants, would be difficult to breathe. And the media would play up the increase in deaths by asphyxiation and emphysema. The extreme humidity put Flaccus’s nerves on edge.

  “Well, you certainly don’t show it,” Clara replied, pulling her synthetic silk nightgown together.

  Flaccus continued staring out the window. He could see her reflection: she was wearing another frilly nightgown. He hated lacy, flowery nightgowns. And Clara had grown to be just the type of woman to wear them. He looked through the reflection of her face at a string of lights near the river. The heavy smog softened the city, merged the sharp interplay of shadow and light into a gray sea. Only the brightest lights were in sharp focus.

  “I just can’t. I can’t love you that way; that’s the way I am. I don’t mind if you get a lover. I realize you have needs, but I cannot satisfy them.”

  “But I don’t want a lover; I want you.” She put her arms around Flaccus’s waist. Flaccus ignored her, pretended that he couldn’t feel her hands massaging his stomach. He felt the city all around him. He could feel himself blending into the gray smog, drifting down to the cement below. The apartment was a prison, keeping him from the outside, forcing him to play games with this trapped stranger.

  “Could you put some heat on? I’m really freezing.”

  Flaccus turned off the Headway Control and passed two cars ahead of him. The luminescent road divider slithered back and forth and Flaccus tightened his grip on the stick. The thin metal bands on his hand reflected the road lights. Flaccus increased the air flow and turned the heat up a bit.

  Shouldn’t have picked up a hitch-hiker, he told himself. But what the hell; he was celebrating. He glanced at her: brown hair to her shoulders, tanned face, hook to her nose. Her blouse rippled as she allowed her body to find a more natural position. Knee touching dashboard, hand resting on her lap.

  Force yourself. Try to talk to her, you need to talk. You’ve got to talk. But he had forgotten her name, or maybe he had never asked. Well, you could ask her, he thought. You could say, “What’s your name again?” Then you could add, “I never can remember names,” and take it from there. Instead, he ignored her.

  Try a tree, he thought. That might be easier. If you could feel comfortable around a tree, that would be a start. He chuckled. The girl raised her eyebrows—obviously a studied habit—and huddled against the door.

  The trees formed a wall on each side of the highway. They appeared preternaturally green in the artificial light. Although he could see city exits every mile, Flaccus still felt he was in the wilds. He did not like being outside New York.

  Who the fuck cares, he thought. You don’t need New York. You need a vacation. A guideway exit sign blinked on and off above the highway. He took the next exit. Flaccus could not concentrate on his driving; he was too aware of the girl.

  He stopped at the check-in station, inserted his credit card in the roadside meter, and then followed the car ahead onto the access ramp. He stopped the car, cut the engine, and pushed a dashboard button to activate the guide arm.

  “Better on the guideway,” the girl said. “I mean I don’t care which way you take, just as long as we’re in the general direction.”

  Answer her. He thought of moving his hand to her lap, but lit a cigarette instead. She was too young; no, that’s not it, he thought. He thought of her breasts pushing into his face. Masturbation would be better.

  He watched the car ahead. A small retractable arm emerged from its side and clamped onto one of the guide way’s two side rails. Then the car accelerated and merged into the traffic on the main guideway.

  Flaccus remembered he was wearing the harness. He could feel it coiled tightly around his body, waiting for a signal to transmit to its own muscles. But for the last twenty minutes Flaccus had forgotten about it. It was his own strength that pushed and balanced the steel beams; it was his own firm, gentle touch that directed everything to its proper place—girders, huge plates of glass, heavy machinery. He did not need anything but himself. But he felt a claustrophobic fear of being swallowed when he thought of the harness wrapped around him. He shrugged it off and tried to get back into the rhythm of his work. For Flaccus, the harness had to be his freedom.

  “Come on,” Clara said, “just sleep with me tonight. We don’t have to do anything, just be close together.” She pulled him away from the window and helped him into her bed. He was still thinking about the outside. The cool, recirculated air was giving him a headache. He wanted to sweat; he would much rather be at work.

  Clara pushed herself against him, resting her leg on his thigh. Her body had become flabby, soft where it was once hard. He let her touch him; it was better than listening to her cry for half the night. Flaccus tried to get an erection. Clara knew how to touch him, but he couldn’t respond. He tried thinking about other women. He imagined himself in a car with a brown-haired girl. She was begging him to stop, throwing her head back and moaning. But he was so strong, so hard. He often fancied himself in a car making love.

  Clara was beneath him; he supported his weight with his elbows. Was she pretending too? he asked himself. He had to do it now. He could do it. She positioned herself under him. If I can get in, he thought, I’ll be all right. He became soft. She said, “Come on, please . . .”

  Think about the harness, think about working on the buildings. You’re strong, powerful. You’ve got to do it. Think of the girl in the car, her breasts pushing against you. You’re enclosed in steel, crushing out her life.

  “God, it’s cold,” the hitch-hiker said. She had just awakened after sleeping fitfully for an hour. “Christ, you can see your own breath.” She raised the temperature without asking for permission.

  Flaccus turned the dashboard lights up and looked at the girl shivering beside him, her arms pulled close to her chest for warmth.

  “How can you stand it so cold?” she asked.

  It would be easier in the car, Flaccus told himself. Especially now. It would be much more erotic if he could just touch her, squeeze her breasts, without talking and playing seduction games.

  He reached over and touched her breast. She examined the thin metal bands on his hands, but didn’t stop him.

  “Did you hurt your arm in an accident?” she asked. Flaccus did not answer. She rested her head on the window and closed her eyes. “Why don’t you put the seats down?” she asked. She made no move to be near him when he reached over to fondle her other breast.

  Flaccus didn’t want her to move closer. He just wanted her to be still while he touched her. And he would not ask her name. She was just there; that’s how he wanted it.

  And she obliged. She waited a proper amount of time before she removed her blouse and began conversation. “You didn’t tell me why you put the temperature down so low. I think I’ve got pneumonia now.” She removed her pants.

  Flaccus cleared the windows and watched the shadows draw patterns on her face and chest. With his finger he followed the shafts of light that intermittently cut her into pieces. She touched herself, but did not try to touch him.

  It was almost quitting time. In five minutes some two thousand workers would be going home for dinner, but Flaccus would not be one of them. He waited around while the other harness workers discharged their equipment in the construction hut.

  Flaccus stayed out of sight long enough to make Tusser, the Keeper, properly impatient. When Flaccus finally entered the hut, Tusser was swearing and pacing back and forth. Flaccus told him that he would lock up. He knew the alarm system and had once served some time as a Keeper. When Tusser was hungry he did not mind bending rules for his friends.

  As soon as Tusser left, Flaccus turned off the alarm system. He took off his harness, lowered it over the support hooks where it hung from the wall like a skeleton in a dungeon. He did not remove its power package. Flaccus then took off his workclothes and slipped back into the harness. He felt strong and real again, and also clean, as if he had just washed and rested. He put on his street clothes. There were a few bulges, but they were not very obvious. The harness was now a part of his muscle and bone; it was as familiar as his skin. Flaccus would remember to keep his hand in his pockets when he left the hut.

  It was the weekend. Flaccus would have three days grace. The only people on the premises would be the night watchmen, and they would not notice that anything was wrong.

  Clara was asleep. Flaccus touched her, grew bolder, kissed her. She moaned and started to awaken. Flaccus got up and walked to the window to watch the city. The smog covered everything with a gray gel. Flaccus imagined his building was a steel stick wound round and round with gray cotton candy.