“Eddie?” went the other Eddie, shaking Eddie Bear. “Eddie, wake up now. We can’t have you dying on us just yet. We haven’t kept you alive all this time, when we could simply have killed you, for no purpose. There are things we need to know from you. Eddie, wake up. Eddie?”
But Eddie Bear would not wake up.
Eddie Bear could not wake up.
His head rolled forward, his shoulders sank.
Eddie Bear was dead.
25
“That is most inconvenient.” The other Eddie called out to the chicken crew who had now returned to their duties tinkering with electronic doodads and ticking things off on clipboards. “Toss him out of the hatchway, will you? No, on second thoughts, dump him in the hold. We’ll deliver him home, toss him out when we make our first pass over Toy City.”
The chickens cackled with laughter, the way chickens will, and two of their number hauled the lifeless Eddie from the pilot’s chair and carried him away to the hold.
“Right then,” said the other Eddie, seating himself in the pilot’s chair and strapping himself in for good measure. Because you should never pilot a flying saucer without following all safety procedures, which include wearing your seat belt, putting your beer into the little holder on the arm of your chair, extinguishing your cigarette, of course, switching off your mobile phone and knowing where the exit doors are in case of a crash. Oh, and that business regarding the inflatable life jacket with the little whistle attachment, although no one ever really pays any attention to that because everyone knows full well that when whatever means of flying transportation you happen to be travelling in falls from the sky and hits either the ground or the sea, there really aren’t going to be any survivors to inflate their life belts or blow their little whistles.
“Calling all craft,” said the other Eddie, slipping a pair of bear-stylie headphones over his ears. The ones with the little face-mic attachment. “Calling all craft.”
Headphone speakers crackled, chicken voices cackled.
“Oh goody,” said the other, well, now the remaining Eddie. “All present and correct, splendid. Well, ladies, you have all been briefed for this mission. It is of the utmost importance, in order to put overall plans for the domination of this world and our imminent expansion into the world of Toy City into action, that this mission goes without a hitch. I want this done by the numbers, ladies, smooth formation following my lead. Through The Second Big O of the Hollywood sign, full speed ahead to Toy City, then on with the evil soul-sucking death rays, hoover up the population. And then nuke Toy City.”
Rather surprised chicken cackles crackled through the remaining Eddie’s headphones. There had been no previous briefings regarding any nukings.
“I know, ladies, I know. But let’s face it – Toy City is something of a dump. The clean-sweep approach is probably for the best. Negotiating with the humans there will be such a long-winded process that I feel we should simply take the lot of them out in one fell swoop and have done with it. What say you?”
Chicken voices cackled in the affirmative.
“Splendid, splendid. My call sign will be Great Mother-Henship and this operation, as you know, is Operation Take Out Toy City. So, gangways up, hatchways sealed and then we’ll run through the safety procedures. I want everyone to be certain that they know how to inflate their life jackets and use their little whistles. These things matter.”
Although it might appear to be a somewhat tenuous link, it did have to be said that certain things were at present really mattering to Samuel J. Maggott of the LAPD.
Staying alive in the face of a mad robot’s onslaught being foremost amongst these.
Sam pumped bullets at the robot’s head, but the thing was moving so swiftly about that he mostly missed and shot up the coffee machine.
“You’ve broken that for good this time,” said the engineer who had come to fix it. Ducking as he did so to avoid being struck by the troubled young detective as the robot Jack flung him through the glass of Sam’s partition door.
Sam ducked down behind his desk as an officer flew over his head and left via a window, taking much of the faulty air-conditioning unit with him.
“Eat lead, you son of a bitch!” cried the feisty young female officer, bringing out her own special weapon, the one that was not police issue, and blasting away like a good’n.
The robot Jack, impervious even to such superior firepower due to the nature of his hyper-alloy combat chassis[45], flung officers to every side, stormed straight through the partition door, causing much distress to the coffee-machine engineer, then stormed through the outer office and through the outer wall.
“After it!” bawled Sam to those who still remained conscious. “Get that motherfu –”
But none seemed too keen to oblige.
Sam snatched up what was left of his telephone receiver and shouted words into it. “Is my helicopter still on the roof?” he shouted. “Right, then rev the son of a gun up,” he further shouted. “And call every car, call everything – there’s a robot on the loose.”
There was a moment’s pause. As well there would be.
“Yeah, you heard me right!” shouted Sam. “I said robot! No, I didn’t say Robert. Yes, I have been taking my tablets. Get the … what? Oh, you can see it now, can you? It just burst out through the front of the building. Right. Then get everything you can get – we’re going after it.”
“Generally speaking,” said Wellington Bellis to Amelie as he accepted two more free drinks from Tinto, a triple for Amelie, a diet swodge[46] for himself, “on the surface, as it were, police work might seem mundane and everyday – petty theft, toys pulling bits off each other, that kind of thing. But once in a while something really big happens. And that is when I get personally involved. I’m a special policeman, you see. Supercriminals fear my name. Is that drink all right, my dear?”
Amelie hiccuped prettily. “Do you have your own car and a special expense account?” she asked.
“Oh yes, I’m well taken care of. Don’t be put off by all these perished bits, by the way. I’ve booked in for a makeover with the kindly, lovable white-haired old Toymaker.”
“I’ll bet you’re not perished all over,” purred Amelie.
“Excruciating,” said Tinto.
“Quiet, you,” ordered Bellis. “I’m only postponing your arrest for crimes against toyanity until closing time because I am so enjoying my conversation with this fascinating young dolly here.”
“Fascinating?” purred Amelie. “Jack never said that to me.” And what of Jack, Amelie wondered.
What of Jack, indeed.
The other Jack, or perhaps he should now be referred to as the remaining Jack, was making good progress through the streets of Los Angeles. He was doing all the things one might reasonably expect, in fact, unreasonably demand, of such a robot in such a situation. He was thrusting innocent passers-by aside, some, with inclinations to seek positions as Hollywood stuntmen, through plate-glass windows, and others of a frailer disposition into those piles of cardboard boxes that always seem to be there to conveniently cushion one’s fall in such situations. Should such situations occur.
And then there was the lifting up and overturning of automobiles that got in his way. There’s always a lot of mileage to be had from that kind of thing.
And then there was the kind of thing that we all really like. In fact, if it didn’t come to pass, we’d all be bitterly disappointed.
And that is, of course, the climbing into the cab of a great big truck, flinging the driver out of the door, settling down behind the wheel and taking-and-driving-away.
45
It might well be asked why, if the other Jack was in fact an armoured robot, he didn’t simply do away with the officers when they arrested him at Area 52. It might well be asked, but it’s as sure as sure that it won’t be answered. Surely he was ordered not to cause a commotion near the launch site, and at all until the launch time was up and he was sure that the operation was under way! It’s possible, so let’s stick with that.