Chapter Text
This document was found in a file among the personal effects of Dr. Niles Caulder in 1968, when his home in Midway City – then also being used as the home base of the short-lived “Doom Patrol” – was being cleared after the Patrol were killed on Highbourn Cay in the Bahama islands. Other evidence found with it establishes that the events described took place in December 1958.
It had been a truly astonishing evening, I thought, and a breakthrough that I wouldn’t have thought possible again quite so soon.
I’d been in Metropolis for a conference, and went up into the hill country west of the city to visit an old friend, Emmett Vale. We hadn’t seen all that much of each other since I’d studied under him at Northwestern, but we’d been in intermittent contact over the years since. This had developed lately into a degree of collaboration as we shared opinions on cybernetic systems and possible control thereof by the human brain.
In his last letter, Vale had described some successes which he’d had on animals. He had come into possession of the laboratory journals of Robert Crane from the 1940s – apparently Crane had been a relative on his mother’s side. Anyone in America with an interest in robotics knows of Crane’s regrettable death, and how he survived it by the transplantation of his brain into a robotic body. A scientific miracle for the time – and, indeed, a legal precedent in 1943. The case of Crane v State of New York had reasserted human status to the organic brain in that steel shell.
After an excellent dinner – Vale has a fine housekeeper who sets a good table – we repaired into Vale’s laboratory to discuss the work in more depth, with a possible view to a formal collaboration with a view to joint publishing of our developments. I had extrapolated some concerns over Crane’s techniques, particularly as regards the psychological effects of transplantation, and the maintaining of a nutrient to the human brain, and explained my solutions. Vale’s use of uranium as a power-source for the robot form was intriguing, but he admitted that it was a stopgap. A small amount would last only a few weeks before a replacement was needed. Uranium – difficult as it is to source – is at least natural; Vale theorised that synthesised transuranics may be better options, and that the remarkable mineral kryptonite – that bane of Metropolis’ great guardian, Superman – may be, although perhaps rarer than the alternatives, an optimum solution. He felt it likely that a robot with a kryptonite power source could function almost indefinitely.
It was quite late when we concluded. Vale offered to put me up overnight, but I had an early appointment in the city and I didn’t wish to impose. Instead, we set off in his car to return to Metropolis. The roads leading up to Vale’s place aren’t necessarily the best, and I expressed some concerns as rain that evening had left the road somewhat slick, but he didn’t expect much traffic.
And indeed, there wasn’t – but what there was proved horrific. A car coming the other way had drifted too far into the wrong lane on a curve; the driver overcorrected as he saw us, and sent it over the edge into a gully. It was a hard smash; we stopped to get him out, if we could. It was hideous. The poor fellow was torn up like a rag doll. As I looked at Vale, it was as if a light snapped on behind his eyes. If we took the man back to his house, between us we could recreate the Crane surgery using our own modifications and the robot form which Vale had built. It would be a vast leap, he admitted – his experimental tests had been conducted on monkeys – but this man would be dead if we did not at least try.
Any ethical concerns flew from my head against the greater pressure of saving the man. It took care – and blood spilling everywhere – just to make the short journey; but we made it work. Over the next six hours we carefully excised his brain, and Vale adroitly connected it to the robotic systems.
I glanced at the wall clock as Vale closed up. 4:30 AM; I felt like I’d been swimming underwater for a mile. We left him to rest while we slept ourselves.
I have to admit that I slept very soundly; the late hour and the end of the adrenaline rush probably ensured that I dropped off the moment that my head hit the pillow. When I awoke the next morning, I looked in on our patient – one John Corben, according to his driver’s licence. Vale had done wonders. The metallic body was covered with a synthetic skin of his own devising – from what I could recall, it actually mimicked Corben’s original features, and I couldn’t guess how he achieved that.
After I had made a phone call to reschedule my appointment that morning, Vale and I discussed the prognosis over breakfast. Vale expected Corben to remain sleeping and unconscious for a few days, and he promised to let me know about the eventual outcome. I left to return to the city later that morning with a feeling of contentment, and proof of concept of Vale’s – and some of my own – theories in the most dramatic way in which they could have been achieved.
I could not have imagined then how optimistic that was.
Five days later, I received a distraught phone call from a woman calling herself Edith Walters – she was Vale’s housekeeper. Although she stumbled over a lot of it, I got the gist of later events. Corben had emerged from his coma unsettled and a little erratic, I seemed, but Vale had explained his new condition and how it had been achieved, but the recent storms had weakened land around Vale’s property, triggering an immense landslide.
The rocks blockaded the road leading to the house and the shock was such that Vale suffered a mild stroke, enough to fell him – but mercifully, not enough to kill him. Mrs. Walters found him when she arrived at the house. Although there were still rocks on the road, a path had been cleared through them. By my guess, Corben must have done that, either in derangement or panic – his robot body would have been more than strong enough.
I thanked Mrs. Walters for letting me know about Vale, and advised her to speak to the police about Corben. I may have startled the poor woman more in explaining that Corben may not be wholly in a sane mind and may be dangerous to himself and to others.
I replaced the receiver with a mild sense of dread. We had had to act in an emergency, and we obeyed the tenets of our consciences. The consequences that that decision would have were out of my control, but they would weigh on me nonetheless.