The League Extraordinaire
part 11
by DarkMark
As many things that Bond had fought against in his lifetime, he had never faced robots. Now, he was facing three of them.
He felt a twinge of atavistic fear, looking on the three humanoids miming men with their hats and overcoats, their arms swinging like deadly cleavers in karate-like motion. But he disregarded it just as quickly. Like all problems, this one simply was wanting for a solution.
The only thing was that there were only seconds before the Cybernauts reached him and Flint, and he didn't have a solution just now.
Flint made a motion that drew Bond's attention for a second. The American drew back his arm like a baseball pitcher, then threw the object he had in his hand. From the subdued glint of what light was available on its metal surface, Bond didn't have to wonder what it was. Flint hit the floor and dragged Bond down with him.
Flint's cigarette lighter struck the leftmost of the Cybernaut trio and exploded.
The blast took out the head and a good part of the upper torso of the robot that had been struck, and incapacitated the middle of the three robots. The middleman fell upon its fallen mate, hit it a few strokes which dented its surface and tore at its exposed circuitry guts, took a blow from its flailing left arm, and was still.
"That's the last trick I have up my sleeve, Bond," rapped Flint. "You'd better have one of your own."
Bond weighed his options, sprang up, faced the final Cybernaut lumbering towards them, and unbuckled his belt. Flint started to get up. Bond pushed him down with a foot on his shoulder. "Stay there!"
Silently, Flint obeyed, but he watched the scenario.
The belt was in Bond's right hand, held by the leather end. He danced in towards the Cybernaut, taking good note of its scythe-like arms. "Toro! Hah! Toro!" he yelled, and snapped the belt buckle at the robot's face. It glanced off without so much as striking a spark. But the robot did reach up for the belt, and failed to snag it.
James Bond stepped quickly across the room, striking the Cybernaut with his belt buckle, yelling at it. The robot turned in his direction. Its motions were humanlike, but failed to flow as neatly as those of a true human. Point, Bond thought, for the home team, and likely the only one he'd get.
Excepting the fact that the robot was probably far dumber than a human being, as well.
Bond backed towards the window, still shouting at his metallic foe. The Cybernaut missed a sideways blow and smashed in part of the wall with its deadly hand. The hands themselves, Bond noted, seemed to be cast with fingers frozen together in the chopping mode. The robot did have an opposable thumb, and there might have been a hint of joints in the hands themselves. Whether or not it could pick something up, he had no idea. But they hadn't been designed for that, after all.
Emma Peel intimated that the things were designed only for killing, and he believed her.
The helicopter was still whup-whup-whupping not far from the window. That, at least, Bond could be thankful for. The robot was still coming on, and it had picked up the pace. It stepped past the part of the floor Flint was holding onto, without stopping. Another point on the side of the angels. Now, to see if this thing was as dumb as he hoped.
Bond stood in the windowspace he and Flint had opened up. He was facing the Cybernaut, who wasn't chopping anymore. Instead, it was holding out both its metal hands, seeking to grasp. He had no doubt as to what it would do to any object thus grasped. "James," warned Flint, beginning to get up from the floor.
The British agent yelled and whipped the robot with his belt again. It came for him.
Bond turned, gauged the distance again, and leapt for the helicopter.
He had time enough to complain internally that this was getting to be too much of a habit as his hands grasped the bottom of the cockpit doorway. Bond took time for a breath before swinging himself up into the cockpit, barely noting the two Si Fan bodies therein.
An instant later, the helicopter lurched.
Bond looked out and down.
A pair of metallic hands were grasping one of the landing gear.
Time for improvisation.
With an air of deliberation, Bond jammed the lift control on the machine and sprang out from the door towards the broken window, again. The hand of the Cybernaut reached up, and almost caught his left foot.
Almost.
Flint was in the window, yelling something. Bond reached out with both hands, trying to accomplish the death-defying spring again, but one objective condition had changed. In jamming the controls so that the helicopter was sent downward, his calculations were thrown off, despite his trying to compensate for them.
He suddenly realized that, as he neared the window, he was beginning to dip.
Flint was reaching out, reaching further, reaching...any further and the man himself would tumble out of the window. Bond brought up his right hand...
...and his right arm was almost jerked out of its socket.
Bond smacked the front of his body against the division between floors and the window below, shattering part of it with his legs. He swore. But, somehow, he did not let go.
He had forgotten that he was still holding the end of his belt. Derek Flint was holding the other end.
"James," grated Flint, "has M ever spoken to you about your weight?"
Rallying, Bond extricated both legs from the window below, got his elbow up on the division, and did what he could to help Flint haul him up. "In your honor, Flint, I'll begin a diet as soon as I get back to the flat."
"You—"
There was a tremendous blast from below.
Afterward, Bond couldn't testify either that his rapid entry into the office room was from his own reflexes or Flint's surge of adrenaline. All he knew was that both of them were back in the office space again, taking cover as a few bits of glass and metal popped in from the helicopter crash many stories below.
A few seconds later, Flint remarked, "Solves one problem, anyway."
"Two," responded Bond. "You're forgetting the robot."
"Good idea. Let's both forget the robot. We have a bomb on the premises. Remember?"
"Noted, Flint." He looked at the belt, still in his hand, and dropped it to the floor. Then he drew his gun from its shoulder holster. "Sorry about your weapon."
"I'll make another one once this is done," said Flint. He already had his own gun out. A nod towards the door, and both of them went for it.
-L-
Down below, the UNCLE quartet and the two British agents had their work cut out for them. More specifically, their work was trying to cut them out.
Phansigars, Dacoits, possible Hashashin, and regular agents, all of them armed, all of them deadly. They struck with knives, with throwing weapons, with the deadly nooses and nunchucks, even, in one case, with sprayed acid that ate away at the fabric of Steed's umbrella. But mostly they struck with guns.
They'd played the scene before recently, but these troops were new, and the sextet of spies had been in battle after battle. Never a good idea to send worn troops against fresh troops, especially troops that outnumbered you.
Still, the members of the League were, Steed reckoned, each worth at least a half-dozen Si-Fan. Better yet, he'd been able to come up with weaponry and defensive devices that helped even the odds more. Each one of the League had a hand-held, collapsible, transparent plastic shield, an improvement over the ones riot cops were using, and they were proof against bullet strikes...up to a point. Hit them hard enough, repeatedly, and the things would fracture and shatter. Several of their shields were showing signs of that, now.
Emma Peel was taking out her share of the enemy. Steed knew she was a crack shot with the pistol, but she used martial arts so often in her work that he'd almost forgotten how good she was with it. Solo and Illya had fixed rifle-like extensions to the UNCLE specials and were mowing down whatever had the bad sense to infiltrate their cross-hairs. Mark Slate, though less impressive than the others, was killing his share.
Miss Dancer was going at it with less enthusiasm, more reluctance coupled with determination to get the thing over and done with. He could tell she didn't like what she was having to do. Luckily, she was going ahead and doing it.
He reflected that Mrs. Peel wouldn't like his observation, but most women, in his opinion, weren't suited for things like that, and April Dancer was a lot more like most women. Emma wasn't.
However, there was something tingling at the back of his mind. Steed recalled what Mike Fat Lee had told him, that there was only so much you could hide in Chinatown without the edges sticking out. The League had already killed a significant amount of Fu Manchu's men. Even supposing he had sleeper agents in place before he came, Fu Manchu would only have a finite amount of operatives he could place here on short notice. This place wasn't Limehouse, after all, nor was he the local branch of THRUSH.
Things clicked together.
"All of you," Steed barked. "Get to the doors. Get outside. Fight your way back. Now!"
Mark Slate looked at Steed, questioningly, but didn't say a word. Luckily, all of them were within earshot, and the sounds of gunfire in the cordite-scented lobby hadn't drowned him out. Quickly, Solo, April, Slate, Illya, and Emma began to obey. There were a few Si-Fan behind them, but not many. In a few seconds, that number dropped to zero.
Fu Manchu's troops began to surge forward from the direction of the stairway.
They weren't quick enough to avoid the burst of gas that came forth, surprising them all.
"Move!" shouted Steed. He didn't have to urge them hard. The sextet was out of the Pyramid's glass doors and slamming them shut as they left. Shots from Si-Fan guns knocked holes in the portals. The League members kept running until Steed gauged they were at a safe distance, less than a hundred yards from the door. They noticed that the cops had blocked off streets for blocks around them, and noticed even more urgently the sight of the crashed and burning helicopter not far distant.
They also noticed that the several Si-Fan who had gotten through the door had stumbled only a short distance, and collapsed. Dead.
"Very...lethal," said Napoleon Solo, breaking the silence.
"Definitely," said Mark Slate. "No way we can get back in there now. At least, not on that floor."
"All of them, dead," said April, almost hollowly. "He sacrificed all his men to try and get us."
"If Steed hadn't noticed it when he did, he would have gotten us," offered Illya Kuryakin. to your powers of observation, sir."
Steed looked at the Russian, soberly. "No observation, Mr. Kuryakin. Simply deduction. It would be much easier a course to lead us into a death trap, even if Fu Manchu had to kill his own agents to manage it."
"Which he did," said Emma, tersely.
"A finite amount of men, which we were cutting down steadily," said Steed, "a limited amount of time...it all pointed in one direction. A gas bomb."
"Nerve gas?" asked Slate. "Phosgene?"
Emma said, "If you wish to get a sample for analysis, Mr. Slate, no one here will stop you."
"Easy, Emma," said Solo. He reached in his vest, pulled out his pen, and adjuted its hidden antenna. "Open Channel D," he said.
Mark Slate went a few yards away with April. Illya gravitated towards Steed. "Napoleon's calling in our units," he said.
"I know, Mr. Kuryakin," said Steed. His eyes were trained on the building level many stories above, the one with a hole in it.
"So Fu Manchu triggered that by remote control, or with a timer," Illya continued. "That indicates we haven't that much time."
"We never did."
Illya didn't have to tell Steed the obvious. The UNCLE troops, the special units from the American government, the NEST team, they'd have a way of getting into the building above the lobby level, where the gas was. But it was doubtful they'd be in time to affect the outcome. He joined Steed in looking up.
"It's in their hands, now," he said.
"The best two pair of hands we have to offer, Mr. Kuryakin," pronounced Steed. "The best hands in the League, and perhaps in the Free World as well."
Both of them looked up at the hole in the Pyramid, and waited.
-L-
There could be any number of things waiting behind the door, or attached to it. Not the least of which, of course, was a bomb. Then again, they already knew there was a bomb within. That tended to trump any hesitations they had.
Bond and Flint had both reloaded their guns from the ammo in their backpacks. Steed had, thankfully, been liberal with the amount of bullets he'd supplied them with. Anyone in their kind of field operations would know that men in their position couldn't ever afford to pull the triggers of their guns and just hear a miserable click.
Flint sent a bullet through the door. No explosion, no whiff of gas (though, of course, there were lethal, odorless gases), no return fire. So far, heartening. Bond himself backed off, ran at the door, and smashed it off its lock with a powerful kick. His foot hurt. He was prepared to disregard that.
There were five black-clad figures inside, Si-Fan by the look of them, and a large device beyond them. The room beyond was not that large. The Si-Fan opened fire. Bond and Flint, reflexively, had already moved away from the door, to opposite sides. Each of them hit the floor. Then, almost simultaneously, they edged towards the doorway, stuck their guns through and enough of their heads for them to see, and shot back.
The men within were grey-skinned, an unnatural hue which Bond had never seen on a living person and couldn't recall quite seeing on a corpse. His and Flint's shots went true, penetrating the chest of one man and the head of another.
Both kept firing. So did the other three.
Bond and Flint withdrew. The Englishman noted that Flint's eyes were wide, his expression grim. No wisecracks this time.
"What the hell are they?" asked Bond, almost without volition. They'd played this scene before, when they were facing the Cybernauts. He expected that Flint would have the answer, and he wasn't disappointed.
"I've heard of them," said Flint. "Read up on Fu Manchu in the files, that night before we were bombed. I know what they are. He's used them once before. Those are Cold Men."
"What?"
"Zombies!"
To be continued...
Notes for part 11:
"Those are Cold Men." Zombies, reanimated scientifically by Fu Manchu. They appeared in Sax Rohmer's EMPEROR FU MANCHU.
part 11
by DarkMark
As many things that Bond had fought against in his lifetime, he had never faced robots. Now, he was facing three of them.
He felt a twinge of atavistic fear, looking on the three humanoids miming men with their hats and overcoats, their arms swinging like deadly cleavers in karate-like motion. But he disregarded it just as quickly. Like all problems, this one simply was wanting for a solution.
The only thing was that there were only seconds before the Cybernauts reached him and Flint, and he didn't have a solution just now.
Flint made a motion that drew Bond's attention for a second. The American drew back his arm like a baseball pitcher, then threw the object he had in his hand. From the subdued glint of what light was available on its metal surface, Bond didn't have to wonder what it was. Flint hit the floor and dragged Bond down with him.
Flint's cigarette lighter struck the leftmost of the Cybernaut trio and exploded.
The blast took out the head and a good part of the upper torso of the robot that had been struck, and incapacitated the middle of the three robots. The middleman fell upon its fallen mate, hit it a few strokes which dented its surface and tore at its exposed circuitry guts, took a blow from its flailing left arm, and was still.
"That's the last trick I have up my sleeve, Bond," rapped Flint. "You'd better have one of your own."
Bond weighed his options, sprang up, faced the final Cybernaut lumbering towards them, and unbuckled his belt. Flint started to get up. Bond pushed him down with a foot on his shoulder. "Stay there!"
Silently, Flint obeyed, but he watched the scenario.
The belt was in Bond's right hand, held by the leather end. He danced in towards the Cybernaut, taking good note of its scythe-like arms. "Toro! Hah! Toro!" he yelled, and snapped the belt buckle at the robot's face. It glanced off without so much as striking a spark. But the robot did reach up for the belt, and failed to snag it.
James Bond stepped quickly across the room, striking the Cybernaut with his belt buckle, yelling at it. The robot turned in his direction. Its motions were humanlike, but failed to flow as neatly as those of a true human. Point, Bond thought, for the home team, and likely the only one he'd get.
Excepting the fact that the robot was probably far dumber than a human being, as well.
Bond backed towards the window, still shouting at his metallic foe. The Cybernaut missed a sideways blow and smashed in part of the wall with its deadly hand. The hands themselves, Bond noted, seemed to be cast with fingers frozen together in the chopping mode. The robot did have an opposable thumb, and there might have been a hint of joints in the hands themselves. Whether or not it could pick something up, he had no idea. But they hadn't been designed for that, after all.
Emma Peel intimated that the things were designed only for killing, and he believed her.
The helicopter was still whup-whup-whupping not far from the window. That, at least, Bond could be thankful for. The robot was still coming on, and it had picked up the pace. It stepped past the part of the floor Flint was holding onto, without stopping. Another point on the side of the angels. Now, to see if this thing was as dumb as he hoped.
Bond stood in the windowspace he and Flint had opened up. He was facing the Cybernaut, who wasn't chopping anymore. Instead, it was holding out both its metal hands, seeking to grasp. He had no doubt as to what it would do to any object thus grasped. "James," warned Flint, beginning to get up from the floor.
The British agent yelled and whipped the robot with his belt again. It came for him.
Bond turned, gauged the distance again, and leapt for the helicopter.
He had time enough to complain internally that this was getting to be too much of a habit as his hands grasped the bottom of the cockpit doorway. Bond took time for a breath before swinging himself up into the cockpit, barely noting the two Si Fan bodies therein.
An instant later, the helicopter lurched.
Bond looked out and down.
A pair of metallic hands were grasping one of the landing gear.
Time for improvisation.
With an air of deliberation, Bond jammed the lift control on the machine and sprang out from the door towards the broken window, again. The hand of the Cybernaut reached up, and almost caught his left foot.
Almost.
Flint was in the window, yelling something. Bond reached out with both hands, trying to accomplish the death-defying spring again, but one objective condition had changed. In jamming the controls so that the helicopter was sent downward, his calculations were thrown off, despite his trying to compensate for them.
He suddenly realized that, as he neared the window, he was beginning to dip.
Flint was reaching out, reaching further, reaching...any further and the man himself would tumble out of the window. Bond brought up his right hand...
...and his right arm was almost jerked out of its socket.
Bond smacked the front of his body against the division between floors and the window below, shattering part of it with his legs. He swore. But, somehow, he did not let go.
He had forgotten that he was still holding the end of his belt. Derek Flint was holding the other end.
"James," grated Flint, "has M ever spoken to you about your weight?"
Rallying, Bond extricated both legs from the window below, got his elbow up on the division, and did what he could to help Flint haul him up. "In your honor, Flint, I'll begin a diet as soon as I get back to the flat."
"You—"
There was a tremendous blast from below.
Afterward, Bond couldn't testify either that his rapid entry into the office room was from his own reflexes or Flint's surge of adrenaline. All he knew was that both of them were back in the office space again, taking cover as a few bits of glass and metal popped in from the helicopter crash many stories below.
A few seconds later, Flint remarked, "Solves one problem, anyway."
"Two," responded Bond. "You're forgetting the robot."
"Good idea. Let's both forget the robot. We have a bomb on the premises. Remember?"
"Noted, Flint." He looked at the belt, still in his hand, and dropped it to the floor. Then he drew his gun from its shoulder holster. "Sorry about your weapon."
"I'll make another one once this is done," said Flint. He already had his own gun out. A nod towards the door, and both of them went for it.
-L-
Down below, the UNCLE quartet and the two British agents had their work cut out for them. More specifically, their work was trying to cut them out.
Phansigars, Dacoits, possible Hashashin, and regular agents, all of them armed, all of them deadly. They struck with knives, with throwing weapons, with the deadly nooses and nunchucks, even, in one case, with sprayed acid that ate away at the fabric of Steed's umbrella. But mostly they struck with guns.
They'd played the scene before recently, but these troops were new, and the sextet of spies had been in battle after battle. Never a good idea to send worn troops against fresh troops, especially troops that outnumbered you.
Still, the members of the League were, Steed reckoned, each worth at least a half-dozen Si-Fan. Better yet, he'd been able to come up with weaponry and defensive devices that helped even the odds more. Each one of the League had a hand-held, collapsible, transparent plastic shield, an improvement over the ones riot cops were using, and they were proof against bullet strikes...up to a point. Hit them hard enough, repeatedly, and the things would fracture and shatter. Several of their shields were showing signs of that, now.
Emma Peel was taking out her share of the enemy. Steed knew she was a crack shot with the pistol, but she used martial arts so often in her work that he'd almost forgotten how good she was with it. Solo and Illya had fixed rifle-like extensions to the UNCLE specials and were mowing down whatever had the bad sense to infiltrate their cross-hairs. Mark Slate, though less impressive than the others, was killing his share.
Miss Dancer was going at it with less enthusiasm, more reluctance coupled with determination to get the thing over and done with. He could tell she didn't like what she was having to do. Luckily, she was going ahead and doing it.
He reflected that Mrs. Peel wouldn't like his observation, but most women, in his opinion, weren't suited for things like that, and April Dancer was a lot more like most women. Emma wasn't.
However, there was something tingling at the back of his mind. Steed recalled what Mike Fat Lee had told him, that there was only so much you could hide in Chinatown without the edges sticking out. The League had already killed a significant amount of Fu Manchu's men. Even supposing he had sleeper agents in place before he came, Fu Manchu would only have a finite amount of operatives he could place here on short notice. This place wasn't Limehouse, after all, nor was he the local branch of THRUSH.
Things clicked together.
"All of you," Steed barked. "Get to the doors. Get outside. Fight your way back. Now!"
Mark Slate looked at Steed, questioningly, but didn't say a word. Luckily, all of them were within earshot, and the sounds of gunfire in the cordite-scented lobby hadn't drowned him out. Quickly, Solo, April, Slate, Illya, and Emma began to obey. There were a few Si-Fan behind them, but not many. In a few seconds, that number dropped to zero.
Fu Manchu's troops began to surge forward from the direction of the stairway.
They weren't quick enough to avoid the burst of gas that came forth, surprising them all.
"Move!" shouted Steed. He didn't have to urge them hard. The sextet was out of the Pyramid's glass doors and slamming them shut as they left. Shots from Si-Fan guns knocked holes in the portals. The League members kept running until Steed gauged they were at a safe distance, less than a hundred yards from the door. They noticed that the cops had blocked off streets for blocks around them, and noticed even more urgently the sight of the crashed and burning helicopter not far distant.
They also noticed that the several Si-Fan who had gotten through the door had stumbled only a short distance, and collapsed. Dead.
"Very...lethal," said Napoleon Solo, breaking the silence.
"Definitely," said Mark Slate. "No way we can get back in there now. At least, not on that floor."
"All of them, dead," said April, almost hollowly. "He sacrificed all his men to try and get us."
"If Steed hadn't noticed it when he did, he would have gotten us," offered Illya Kuryakin. to your powers of observation, sir."
Steed looked at the Russian, soberly. "No observation, Mr. Kuryakin. Simply deduction. It would be much easier a course to lead us into a death trap, even if Fu Manchu had to kill his own agents to manage it."
"Which he did," said Emma, tersely.
"A finite amount of men, which we were cutting down steadily," said Steed, "a limited amount of time...it all pointed in one direction. A gas bomb."
"Nerve gas?" asked Slate. "Phosgene?"
Emma said, "If you wish to get a sample for analysis, Mr. Slate, no one here will stop you."
"Easy, Emma," said Solo. He reached in his vest, pulled out his pen, and adjuted its hidden antenna. "Open Channel D," he said.
Mark Slate went a few yards away with April. Illya gravitated towards Steed. "Napoleon's calling in our units," he said.
"I know, Mr. Kuryakin," said Steed. His eyes were trained on the building level many stories above, the one with a hole in it.
"So Fu Manchu triggered that by remote control, or with a timer," Illya continued. "That indicates we haven't that much time."
"We never did."
Illya didn't have to tell Steed the obvious. The UNCLE troops, the special units from the American government, the NEST team, they'd have a way of getting into the building above the lobby level, where the gas was. But it was doubtful they'd be in time to affect the outcome. He joined Steed in looking up.
"It's in their hands, now," he said.
"The best two pair of hands we have to offer, Mr. Kuryakin," pronounced Steed. "The best hands in the League, and perhaps in the Free World as well."
Both of them looked up at the hole in the Pyramid, and waited.
-L-
There could be any number of things waiting behind the door, or attached to it. Not the least of which, of course, was a bomb. Then again, they already knew there was a bomb within. That tended to trump any hesitations they had.
Bond and Flint had both reloaded their guns from the ammo in their backpacks. Steed had, thankfully, been liberal with the amount of bullets he'd supplied them with. Anyone in their kind of field operations would know that men in their position couldn't ever afford to pull the triggers of their guns and just hear a miserable click.
Flint sent a bullet through the door. No explosion, no whiff of gas (though, of course, there were lethal, odorless gases), no return fire. So far, heartening. Bond himself backed off, ran at the door, and smashed it off its lock with a powerful kick. His foot hurt. He was prepared to disregard that.
There were five black-clad figures inside, Si-Fan by the look of them, and a large device beyond them. The room beyond was not that large. The Si-Fan opened fire. Bond and Flint, reflexively, had already moved away from the door, to opposite sides. Each of them hit the floor. Then, almost simultaneously, they edged towards the doorway, stuck their guns through and enough of their heads for them to see, and shot back.
The men within were grey-skinned, an unnatural hue which Bond had never seen on a living person and couldn't recall quite seeing on a corpse. His and Flint's shots went true, penetrating the chest of one man and the head of another.
Both kept firing. So did the other three.
Bond and Flint withdrew. The Englishman noted that Flint's eyes were wide, his expression grim. No wisecracks this time.
"What the hell are they?" asked Bond, almost without volition. They'd played this scene before, when they were facing the Cybernauts. He expected that Flint would have the answer, and he wasn't disappointed.
"I've heard of them," said Flint. "Read up on Fu Manchu in the files, that night before we were bombed. I know what they are. He's used them once before. Those are Cold Men."
"What?"
"Zombies!"
To be continued...
Notes for part 11:
"Those are Cold Men." Zombies, reanimated scientifically by Fu Manchu. They appeared in Sax Rohmer's EMPEROR FU MANCHU.