Unpopular Science

“Sorry, old chap.” Remo smirked. “You’re nothing but a Dr. No and away you go.”

Remo charged.

But he attacked Cote as Cote had never been attacked before. Instead of running him down in a flurry of flying legs, Remo Annoying seemed to slip and slither and glide across the ballroom with more grace than any dancer had ever moved, and faster than any human being was capable of moving.

Cote had been told to expect extraordinary skills and speed, but this was inhuman. He stabbed at the nearest control, a fat orange plastic square, and across the room one of the automatons shot into motion. Mr. U. was already activated and it rotated quickly, its body quivering as if it had a bad case of nerves, but it was actually the minute and precise maneuverings of the aiming mechanism—and yet Mr. U. failed to lock on to its target.

Remo Williams slipped around the room in sporadic fits, but he closed in on Cote fast. The man yelped in astonishment when something clamped on to his neck and he became a statue, frozen in his seat. He could only watch what happened around him.

Remo circled the laughably huge computer and zipped out the other side to find Mr. U. bearing down on him. He felt the pressure waves of the next igniting rocket even as it shot from the barrel in Mr. U.’s palm.

It was a different projectile, slightly stubbier, and as he moved out of its path, it moved to intercept him. He stopped, watched it burn the air directly at him, then nodded his head forward when it was just inches from crashing into him.

There was a powerful scream from the second robot, an eight-legged spider of jointed brass legs, and for a moment Remo had an ugly flashback.

But this wasn’t that mechanical spider, just a bunch of hollow tubes for legs, pneumatic cylinders for muscles and tiny discs positioned on every square inch, spinning fast, creating a drone like the buzzing of steel bees. This spider specialized in wasted motion but it still came fast, clattering on the wood, and the sharpness of its tiny rotary saws was made evident by the cloud of sawdust it raised.

The little rocket managed to recover itself before crashing into the walls or floor, spinning wildly in the upper air of the ballroom, then veering into a dive. Remo ran at the spider robot, which turned to catch him by reaching out with four front legs. Remo faked it out by going low, then jumped over the whizzing tubular limbs, and the spider reared up in a vain attempt to tag him.

Remo hit the ground and glided back the way he’d come, under the raised spider legs and around the rear of the spider, moving too fast for the spider to match— but not too fast for the motion-sending rocket, which homed in on Remo without knowing or caring what was in its way. The spider was still balanced on its rear end when the tiny rocket slammed into it as Remo fell and rolled. The explosion was an intense pressure burst, and Remo exhaled fully and let it roll over him.

When he got to his feet he was pleased to see that the spider had been splatted and another nearby automaton was damaged, the pair of round cylinders that made up its body shifting on positioning motors while its wheeled feet adjusted like a circus clown on a ball, trying to get balanced.

Remo stepped up and gave the thing a nudge with his foot, and the two-tank robot raced across the room at Mr. U., who was lining up to fire again. Mr. U.’s grin became less cheerful when it swung away fast to avoid the impact.

It wasn’t fast enough and the twin-tanked robot broadsided Mr. U., toppled on its side and spritzed a yellow liquid out of its mangled barrels. A stream of it tinkled on Mr. U., enough to start smoking.

Whatever was in those tanks was dangerous stuff. Another nearby honeycomb rack of blinking, smallwinged robots was coated with it. They and their metal rack began to collapse in on themselves.

Mr. U. ignored its ruined plating and spun on Remo, only to find Remo gone. It spun left, then right, then did a complete circle before its sensors located the movement that had to be its target.

Allessandro Cote was as miserable as he could have ever been. To fail was despicable; to fail like this, paralyzed and helpless, was disgraceful.

“Please, I can’t move!”

“Here you go,” Remo said. He took Cote by the hand and squeezed his fingers around the tiny joystick on the chair. Then he fiddled with Cote’s neck, looking for the correct nerve combination.

Cote twitched, face and body and fingers, which sent the track-mounted chair flying backward while spinning fast. The chair reached the end of the track and halted abruptly, then Cote’s body twitched again, violently, and he found himself flying the other way.

“Hey, Mr. U., let’s see what you’ve got!” Remo shouted.