Unpopular Science

“Remo!” Chiun’s voice sounded like the scratched, plaintive cry of a squeeze toy to Remo, as if he was dying on his feet, and his mind rallied with fear for Chiun and he tried to make his eyes work to find the old man. This was like being disgustingly, sickeningly drunk, from what he remembered, but not as fun. Not fun at all.

He twisted his head and spotted a colorful blur, a blur that was lowering slowly to the floor.

“Chiun!” Remo leaned and staggered at Chiun. He felt the tiny body of the old Master, encased in the silk kimono, come into his arms. Remo felt a pang of worry about how frail and slack the old Korean felt, but it was weight enough to nearly pull him down.

“Stand, Chiun!” Remo slurred instead of shouted. “We go down, we’ll never get up.”

Chiun moved, seemed to look up at Remo, and maybe it was his own altered vision or maybe Chiun stared at him with the eyes of man descending into the void.

“Chiun! Walk! This way!”

Remo steered himself and Chiun away from the source of the weakness. Whatever it was, it was behind them, no longer in the ballroom, but coming from the front part of the house. They had gone through there and not seen anything.

Remo felt Chiun’s legs working, and that gave him strength. He steered them both toward the dancing brown square of the rear double doors until the door jumped out at them, slamming into them. Remo’s skull vibrated, but the pain stimulated him. His hands flopped when he tried to make the latch work, and then the door opened on its own.

“Evening, suhs.” It was Cote’s butler. “Departing so soon? I must insist you enjoy more of our hospitality.” The butler insisted with an AK-47, which he held as though he knew what to do with it.

“Help us out of here,” Remo said. “I’ll make it worth your while.”

“I am afraid that is out of the question, suhs.”

Remo did what he had to do. He released Chiun and pushed himself, with all his energy, into the partially open door. The butler took a step back and watched the men fall. First the lifeless old Asian slumped down, then the white man collapsed.

But the white man kept going, rolling, taking Jenkins by surprise when he collided with his shins. Jenkins felt himself going over and swore at himself. Bloody fool! Oddjob would never have allowed himself to be bested like this! This was the kind of performance you’d expect from a second-rate supervillain—think Herve Villechaize as Nick Nack. Jenkins refused to lose the rifle but pushed out one hand to cushion his fall. The man who knocked him down now began rolling, scrambling, clawing on top of him, grabbing Jenkins’s clothing and using it to drag himself forward, heaving with every effort. Jenkins battered the man with the AK.

The man collapsed on Jenkins’s chest but reached for his throat. Jenkins butted the rifle into his jaw, and the fingers closed on Jenkins’s throat with only a feather touch.

Then Jenkins experienced pain so undignified and excruciating he sat up barking like a wild dog. His attacker flopped onto the floor, and Jenkins found himself looking at the little Asian man, who seemed on the verge of simply kicking the bucket from old age. Still, he had an iron grip on Jenkins’s gentleman parts, and it made Jenkins see stars.

Jenkins kicked the Asian man, who crawled away like a crippled, miserable beggar, and Jenkins held on to his most impolite region with two hands, riding out the agony.

He got to his feet to find his attackers were fleeing down the rear corridor where the old section of the home adjoined the new wings, and they were gone before he could gun them down. But they weren’t healthy. They must have been tagged by one of the poisons.

Allessandro Cote seemed to be begging for his life. Now, what was that all about?

“Good gracious!” Jenkins exclaimed.

Only half of Mr. Cote’s collection of automatons had been wiped out in the ballroom. Now, somehow, the other automatons stored in the hidden cubicles in the front of the house had been activated. That was odd, since only Mr. Cote had the pass codes.

These units had come to the ballroom, and they were, so to speak, on the hunt. But surely they should not be hunting Mr. Cote! Jenkins knew for a fact that they were programmed to never, ever put Mr. Cote at risk. What Jenkins didn’t know, what Allessandro Cote didn’t know, was that Fastbinder and his son had executed the KTA routine.

The KTA routine was the surest way of eradicating their enemies, because the KTA routine called for eradicating everybody.

If you Kill Them All, you’re bound to kill the right ones.