Unpopular Science

“Hey, buddy, you want to look at me when I’m talking to you?”

“It wasn’t a car.”

“Motorcycle?”

“Not a motorcycle,”, said the second cop. ‘You saw what happened to that Ford up the street.”

“Big Harley maybe,” said the first cop. “What was it, buddy?”

“Robot.”

“Hoo-kay, buddy, you want to step away from the edge there? We’ll have a little chat.”

Remo knew precisely where they were, so when he reached behind him with both hands he grabbed them exactly where he wanted to grab, not an inch too low.

The police officers found themselves hanging by the belt buckle over the edge of the big hillside along North High Street.

“Shut up or I drop you,” Remo informed them. “Now watch.” Remo tossed both of them into a 180-degree spin and grabbed them again, this time by the belt in back. They were now facedown.

“Look,” Remo said. “Tell me what you see.”

The cops craned their necks and went rigid when they saw the thing that walked out of the weeds. It was armless, head skewed as if its spine was broken, but it was huge, glimmering with sparks of electricity, and the metallic clomp of its footsteps was like barbells crashing in a noisy gym.

“See that?” Remo demanded.

“We see it!”

Remo replaced them on solid ground, never taking his eyes off the robot.

“Was it the Terminator?” one of them asked in a quaver.

“More or less,” Remo replied.

“Will he be back?”

Remo stopped and met Chiun’s eyes. The cops had never even seen the old man standing in the darkness. Chiun looked, what—sapped?

“Yeah,” Remo said, feeling tired, too. “He’ll be back.”

Then Remo saw Ironhand’s friend pushing through the undergrowth but didn’t quite believe what his eyes were telling him. “You gotta be effing kidding me.”

“What is it?”

Remo turned as if noticing the cops for the first time. “Hey, when you were kids did you guys get the Space Monkey Cartoon Roundup show out of Jersey?”

The first cop was suspicious about where this was headed, and being hung by the crotch was insulting to his dignity. “Yeah. So what?”

“I loved that show when I was a boy,” enthused the second cop.

“You remember the robot on that show?”

“Yeah,” said the second cop. “So?”

“I remember!” the other cop said. “He was big and round, right? With a round head?”

“And sorta faggy for a robot,” the first cop added.

“Would you know him again if you saw him? Because there he is.”

“Really? Let me see!” The enthusiastic cop squinted downhill. “Oh, Stan, it’s him! It’s Clockwork the Robot!”

“You’re nuts, Charlie.” Stan looked hard. “It c-can’t be!”

Remo said, “Sure looks like Clockwork to me.”

“But that was years and years ago,” Cop Stan said.

“Somebody just kept him around, Stan, and now he’s alive again!” Charlie answered excitedly.

Clockwork was indeed a big round ball of patina-aged copper, more than a yard in diameter. Its tubular metallic arms were set in ball joints at the shoulder and elbow. On a tubular neck perched another round ball, the size of a soccer ball but also made of copper, green with age, with bright spots where the patina was scratched. On its head was Clockwork’s signature tin bowler.

“His hat! His hat! He still has his hat!” Charlie exclaimed.

“But I never knew he had treads for feet,” Stan said. “On the Space Monkey Cartoon Roundup they never showed Clockwork below the waist.”

As the armless, limping form of Ironhand emerged from the weeds Clockwork rolled on steel treads to flank it, escorting it across the street.

“Is that other guy the robot from Destination: Earth?” Stan asked.

“Are you thinking of The Day the Earth Stood Still?” Charlie asked.

“Nah, that one was all smooth and shiny. This is kinda like a life-size battle bot.”

“Without the arms,” Charlie said.

“Yeah, well, whoever he is, he’s a lot less fruity than Clockwork. Remember Clockwork used to always get knocked over by that mean orange monkey and then he couldn’t get back up?”

That was when the headlights appeared. Ironhand continued across the street as Clockwork paused on its treads and rotated on the pedestal that attached them. Its arms raised defensively.

“He’s gonna get turtled by a Corolla!” Stan taunted. Remo didn’t think so. He thought he should get down there and help the occupants of the honking Corolla, but his knees were rubber.

The Corolla driver never really stopped. He slowed to a mile-per-hour roll and kept honking. Whatever he thought he was seeing, he didn’t believe it was really a big dopey spherical robot on treads.

When he came within five feet of Clockwork, the arms lowered just enough, then the fat-fingered hands dropped off the wrists on hinges and dangled. Each wrist expelled a flash of light and the sound followed a fraction of a second later.

“Guess Clockwork’s grown a thicker skin over the years,” Remo commented.