The Wicked Cyborg Read online

  “Why didn’t he simply kill them, my father and Cousin Cosmo and his wife?”

  “Joshua apparently possesses a small sentimental streak, which prevents him from killing near relatives. Robots belonging to near relatives, as we’ve seen, he has no such qualms about.”

  “Is Cousin Alice on the plantation, too?”

  “In some sort of menial culinary capacity, yes.”

  “They’ve been there six years,” said Tad. “Six years while we thought they were dead and my mother died still thinking. . . .”

  Electro put a metal arm around the young man’s shoulders. “It’s an imperfect world, Tad, even with such highly efficient mechanisms as myself in it,” he said. “It’s been very frustrating for me, over these six years, lying here with my brain gathering all these dreadful facts about people I care for and being unable to do anything much in the way of helping them. But now we can take action at last.”

  “Yes, right.” Tad moved free of him. “We’ve got to contact the police, tell them what—”

  “Fat chance,” cut in the robot. “Your Cousin Joshua, now that he’s head of RI, had considerable influence with the local, national and international police-keeping bodies on this planet. You go to them and the odds are you’ll be the one who ends up in the jug.”

  “But that’s rotten.”

  “This is an imperfect world, to repeat myself.”

  “Okay, then we have to get to this plantation as fast as we can. We’ll get hold of some kind of skycar to—”

  “Whoa, halt. We can’t be anywhere near that direct,” said Electro. “Once we take our leave of Fog­hill, my boy, Joshua will loose a pack of his goons on our trail. If we avail ourselves of any of the obvious means of transport we’ll be picked off like that.”

  Ping!

  Electro’d snapped his metal fingers.

  “We have to travel some less obvious way, then,” said Tad. “But how?”

  “Leave that to my vaunted ingenuity.”

  “Whoever vaunted your ingenuity?”

  “They well would have, had I not been languishing here,” replied the robot. “I really am an exceptional person . . . exceptional product if you prefer. We’ll leave shortly, taking advantage of the fact Hohl and his cronies are down by the river.”

  “What river?”

  “The River Sneath. You’d best impress the name on your brain, since we’ll likely be using the Sneath on part of our journey.”

  “How far away is Blackwatch?”

  “Nearly five hundred miles.” With a barely a creak, the giant robot went striding toward the exit.

  “What exactly is Hohl up to? Do you know?”

  “Of course I know. Even before I returned to the living I was able to reconnoiter and—”

  “How do you do that while sitting down here covered with cobwebs?”

  “You are a bit flippant, exactly as predicted in your dossier,” said Electro over his bright shoulder. “My boy, with my searching mind I can contact computers, databanks, robots and androids and sundry other mechanisms in the vicinity and beyond. The result is facts pouring into my ample brain.” He shook his head briefly. “Unfortunately, while I was somewhat defunct, my searching mind worked at nowhere near capacity. But now . . . Ah!”

  “So what exactly is Hohl up to?”

  “He’s a smuggler.” The robot beckoned. “Let us travel upwards.”

  “Does that mean Reverend Dimchurch is a smuggler as well?”

  “It does indeed, yes.”

  “He seemed to me like. . . . I don’t know, an honest man.”

  “Many smugglers are.” They emerged on a foggy stretch of grass. Electro made inhaling sounds, tapping his chest. “The great outdoors and pure unprocessed air.”

  “Do you have lungs?”

  “I have all sorts of handy attachments. I can even play alto saxophone.” Electro nodded in the direction of the mansion, which was barely visible in the thick mist. “We’ll pack before commencing on our jour—”

  “I don’t want to waste time. I’ll travel with what I have on my back.”

  “An admirable and symbolic gesture, but screwy in this instance,” Electro told him. “You’ll need warmer clothes for some of the country we have to cross. We also need cash.”

  “Clothes I have, but hardly any money.”

  “Hohl has wads of it in his safe.”

  “Can you open his safe?”

  “There are, my boy, very few things I can’t do,” answered Electro. “When we have more time I’ll run you off a complete list.”

  Chapter 7

  Two men materialized, furtively carrying a microwave robot chef. They grunted and muttered and were eaten up by the thick fog.

  Electro swung out a cautionary hand. “Halt a moment, lad,” he advised in a whisper. “We appear to be in the midst of the smugglers.”

  Tad pressed against the bole of a huge dark tree, flattening his backpack somewhat. “What do you think Hohl will do if he—”

  “Try to disable me and lock you up.” Electro shook his head, which was faintly beaded with mist “We don’t want that to happen. Come along, we’ll shift to a Southerly direction for a spell.”

  They encountered only silence and fog for the next several minutes.

  “Congratulations! You’ve won two more free games of Worlds Collide!” boomed out a tinny voice.

  “Hush it up, cobber!”

  “How the blinking hell can I? It’s got a flapping mind of its own, cobber.”

  “Yes, because you achieved the incredible score of 46,000 points you win two more fun-filled and excitement-packed games of Worlds Collide, the interplanetary destruction game which is fun for the whole family, parental discretion advised!”

  “Kick the blinking thing!”

  “I did and busted me flapping paw.”

  “Well, drop it, then, and let’s whack it with a bleeding rock!”

  “Worlds Collide, the dynamic game which teaches you cosmology while you have fun!”

  “Next time we lug a servo and not one of these blinking recmecs.”

  Tad and Electro had stopped still at the first noise. Two of the smugglers, nearby but completely hidden by the swirling fog, were having trouble with a malfunctioning game machine.

  “Step right up, step right up! Play Worlds Collide!”

  “Hush, hush, won’t you?”

  “Step on it, jump on it!”

  “Oh, yes, and then bust it. Wouldn’t Hohl love that.”

  “He ain’t going to fancy all this bleeding hooroar, cobber.”

  “What is all this bleeding hooroar about!” screamed a new voice.

  “Hohl,” whispered Tad.

  “We was just talking about you, Hohl. Seems this flapping machine got bunged up whilst we was hefting it off the barge during our recent clandestine nocturnal activities and now it’s taken to shooting off its ruddy—”

  “I’ll shoot off your ruddy snout if you don’t silence it!” shouted the unseen estate manager.

  “Let’s push onward while they’re squabbling,” suggested Electro as he took hold of Tad’s arm.

  Tad hesitated. “I’d like to get a last look at Hohl,” he said. “Tell him how I’ve felt about all the—”

  “We don’t have time for settling scores right now,” the robot reminded. “Later, perhaps.” He tugged.

  “Okay, we’ll go. But . . .”

  In a few moments they were out of range of the squabble. All was fog and silence again.

  Until they tramped into a clearing in the mist and saw a circle of a dozen men. Catmen, lizard men, humans. Some carried illegal machines, but some carried blaster rifles and stunguns.

  “What have we here?” muttered a thickset catman He held a blaster pistol in his left paw. “A wee lad and his ‘bot nanny, is it?”

  “On the contrary,” said Electro while glancing fron weapon to weapon, “we’re part of the mob.”

  “The what?”

  “The mob, the gang,
the bunch,” amplified the robot. “We work for Hohl, same as you.”

  “We ain’t got any ‘bots on the team,” pointed out stooped lizard man. “We smuggle ‘bots, we don’t work with ‘em.”

  “No, we don’t rub shoulders and socialize with ‘bots,” added the catman with the pistol.

  “He’s an expensive-looking model,” said the lizard man, circling Electro. “Fetch a good price in the capital, wouldn’t he now?”

  “He happens to be mine,” said Tad, his voice shade unsteady. “And I happen to be Hohl’s boss . . . you might say I’m the mastermind behind this entire operation. So you guys had—”

  “Ha!” laughed the catman, scratching at his furry flickering ear with the tip of the blaster barrel. “A mooncalf claiming to be the mastermind what bosses Hohl.”

  “I’m tired of being called a mooncalf!” Tad took two steps forward.

  Electro caught him. “Diplomacy is what’s called for, my boy,” he said in a low voice. “Allow me to negotiate with these rogues and rascals. Now then, sir, if you’ll—”

  “By the blessed bones of St. Serpentine! What’s going on?” The Reverend Dimchurch came rolling out of the surrounding fog in his cart.

  “Reverend Dimchurch,” said Tad.

  The lizard priest brought his purple scarf up and dabbed at his dry lips. “I had hoped, and occasionally prayed, Tad, you’d never encounter me in this context,” he said sadly. “However, as St. Reptillicus reminds us in his 27th Epistle to the Greengrocer, ‘Some nights you can’t get a drink on the cuff anyplace.’ “

  “You know this mooncalf?” asked the catman.

  “He’s a close friend of mine.” The reverend’s eyes widened, then focused on Electro. “And this formidable metallic creation can be none other than—”

  “Incognito,” rushed in Electro. “I’d prefer to travel incognito.”

  “Ah, yes. I see. And where exactly are you traveling to, you and Tad?”

  Tad replied, “I’m leaving Fog­hill. I can’t explain why just now, though possibly you know.”

  “We all must wander some in our youth. Doesn’t St. Reptillicus, in his oft-quoted 19th Epistle to the Furniture Company, tell us, ‘If they won’t deliver, you’ve got to go out for the stuff’?” He made a mystical sign in the misty air. “May St. Serpentine be with you on your journey, no matter what its duration or ultimate destination.”

  “Thanks, reverend,” said Tad.

  The catman snarled. “You mean to let them go, rev?”

  “They are to continue unmolested, and no mention made of this incident to Hohl.”

  “How come?” demanded the angry smuggler. “How come, rev?”

  The lizard priest’s eyes rolled skyward. “It is the will of God, my friends.”

  “Okay,” said the catman, “we won’t argue with that.”

  Electro got hold of Tad’s arm again. “We’ll be on our way once more,” he told the group, moving away from them with Tad in tow. “Pleasant running into you again after all these years, reverend.”

  “Yes, yes,” said Dimchurch, waving a green hand. “Don’t forget the advice of St. Reptillicus. ‘Some towns have hardly any saloons at all.’ Good-bye.”

  Soon Tad and the robot were alone again, moving toward the river.

  Chapter 8

  Electro gestured with one glistening metal hand. “Below us lies Fetid Landing.”

  “They’re very literal with names hereabouts.” Tad halted beside the robot at the edge of the forest and looked down across the misty night hillside. “Fetid Landing, Fog­hill.”

  “What can you expect from people with organic brains?” He swung his arm leftwards, caught the back of Tad’s tunic as the young man was about to start downhill for the tumbledown river town.

  “Now what?”

  “Now, stripling, we must avail ourselves of more of my built-in cunning.”

  “You haven’t been especially cunning so far, Electro. You let us walk right smack into that band of smugglers. Then we didn’t even try to fight our way out.”

  “Wisdom comes either with years or superior technology,” the robot told him. “Trust me, therefore, until you develop sufficient wisdom of your own. Before we enter even a shabby town like Fetid Landing we must disguise ourselves.”

  Tad said, “You actually think Cousin Joshua will come hunting us?”

  “Joshua, Hohl, Cornelia and a multitude of goons,” Electro assured him. “After all, I know far too much and you are the rightful heir to the entire Rhymer Industries empire. We’re lucky Hohl is too preoccupied with his smuggling to have noticed our departure yet.”

  “Wait. Am I the heir? I didn’t know that.”

  “Naturally, since they didn’t want you to know.”

  “But my mother would have kno—”

  “She was flummoxed, same as you and your slack-witted attorney. But enough babbly on the subject of familial crookedness.” He fisted his left side, causing a small door to pop open.

  “I never noticed that when I was repairing you.”

  “See my earlier reference to wisdom.” From the opening Electro withdrew an oblong box marked DISGUISE KIT. “I happen to be a makeup wizard.” He delved into the kit, extracting a tube of something green. “While I’m doing this, reach into your rucksack, my boy, for that cloak I foresightedly snatched out of the wardrobe closet. No use greening up my entire body.”

  “You’re going to paint yourself green?” Tad slung off his knapsack, dug around until he located the plaid cloak.

  “I am converting myself into a lizard man.” Draping the cloak over a tree branch, Tad remarked, “This particular plaid won’t go with green.”

  “A gentleman of style can wear anything. I set trends, lad, I don’t follow them.”

  “For somebody who usually goes around unclothed you claim—”

  “My brain is a storehouse of fashion lore. Here, hold this mirror while I produce the scale effect.”

  Tad held the small oval at eye level. “You sure you can be a convincing lizard man?”

  Electro stooped slightly, went about creating scales on the green substance he’d applied to his chrome face. “What does it take to be a lizard? One of the dullest types in the known universe. Snooze in the sun, catch flies with your tongue, shed your skin now and then.”

  “Reverend Dimchurch was much more versatile than—”

  “Oh, right, he was also a smuggler.” Electro paused to inspect his progress. “Seems fairly convincing in this rather mucky moonlight. What do you think?”

  “Yep, you’re starting to look like a lizard.”

  “When we encounter anyone I’ll not only look like a lizard man, I’ll act like one.”

  “Cousin Cosmo built an awful lot of talents into you.”

  “Yes,” agreed Electro, wagging his now lizard-like head. “Ill do the hands next, possibly the arms up to the elbows. Then we’ll tackle you.”

  Tad protested, “You’re not going to turn me into a lizard.”

  “You couldn’t bring it off,” said Electro. “All we need do with you is lighten your hair and give you a smattering of beard. Joshua’s scouts will be seeking news of a dark lad and an imposing robot. They’ll ignore gossip and rumors about a blond young fellow traveling with an overweight lizard man.”

  “I suppose so.”

  “You don’t sound terrifically confident.” The robot applied artificial lizard skin to his metal hands.

  “It’s only that, well, Electro, you’ve been in that underground lab for six years,” said Tad. “Out here the world is different, this theatrical bluffing may not work.”

  “You haven’t led that worldly a life yourself so far. At least according to your dossier.”

  “I lived at home, went to a fairly private school, didn’t travel much,” Tad admitted. “There never seemed to be enough money for anything beyond the essentials. My mother kept me close to her, maybe because she didn’t want any accidents to happen to me.”

  “Ver
y well then,” said the robot. “We’re both in need of practical experience. Let us, therefore, proceed to gather some.”

  “First we better change the color of my hair,” said Tad.

  Chapter 9

  The building hung out over the dark waters of the river, supported by bowlegged stilts. It was pocked with round windows of multicolored glaz, had roofs of slanting slate. The large wooden sign over the doorway proclaimed it as the Belles Lettres Cafe & Boarding House. Noise, smoke and harsh fumes were spilling out of the open window ovals. And as Tad and Electro approached the entrance the double doors popped open to allow two husky catmen waiters to heave a protesting owlman out into the foggy night.

  “We don’t go for no fanatic existential humanists in here, bud!” growled one of the waiters while the flung owlman was rolling over on the slippery flagstones.

  “Perhaps I didn’t make myself clear,” said the moderately intoxicated customer. “My stand is not the traditional philosophic pose of—”

  “Ar, stuff it in your feathery nork, mate!” suggested the other waiter, making a threatening gesture with one fisted paw.

  His associate was eyeing Tad. “You ain’t planning to start some kind of tasteless debate, are you?”

  “Not at all, sir,” answered Electro for him. “We merely seek shelter and a warm meal.”

  The waiter grunted, stood aside so they might enter. “Go on in, cobbers, but keep your blinking noses clean,” he advised. “Don’t refute the boss too much, he’s in a fair foul mood this blinking night.”

  “We appreciate your advice,” said Electro, urging Tad into the crowded main room of the cafe.

  “This seems like a place where we’re going to get trouble, not help.” Tad stood surveying the blurred room.

  There were fifteen or so round tables on the raw wood floor. The light, dim and fuzzy, came from floating amber globes up near the low, beamed ceiling. A bar covered one wall and standing behind it, swaying from left to right, was a lanky lizard man in the purple robes of a bishop of the Church of Aggressive Beatitude.

  “The wavering gent would be the proprietor,” explained Electro out of the side of his now-green mouth. “Defrocked cleric who calls himself Bish. Fancies himself a man of letters, hence the name of this bistro and the frequent philosophical and literary skirmishes which take place herein.”