Sitting in his loft on the edge of a neatly made guest bed, McQueen chewed his nails nervously. "What's happening?" the novelist asked his TV.
"I am attempting to ascertain that now," said a voice from the television's speaker.
Mr. Gordons had wormed his way like a virus through the electrical system all over the grounds. "Are they dead?" McQueen asked anxiously. "I thought you'd know if they were dead."
"Visual inspection has failed," Gordons explained. "Although I am possessed with the ability to detect things such as heartbeats, perspiration and human odors, this is a function of my primary assembly that is not easily rerouted."
"So you're saying that the house becomes an extension of you, but that your body stays separate?" McQueen suggested. "Like an isolated control unit."
"Essentially, yes," Gordons said.
"Well, that's just great!" McQueen snapped, jumping to his feet. "Those guys are probably running around loose right now, and you don't even know where. What kind of good-for-nothing assimilating android are you?"
"I am the kind of assimilating android who does not accept failure," Gordons replied coldly. "You were supposed to deliver my enemies to me, yet it is possible that you have done the opposite. I need to determine which is the case. Since I am unable to rely on your security cameras, I require your assistance. You will come back to the main house and conduct a visual search for their bodies."
McQueen's eyes sprang wide.
"Me?" he mocked. He shook his head violently. "No way, Jose. If you're afraid of those guys, there's nothing you can do to get me back in that house."
The bulbs in three lamps around the bedroom simultaneously exploded.
"On the other hand-" McQueen began.
The voice of Mr. Gordons interrupted. "Wait," the android instructed.
An image appeared on the television screen. It was warped into the bowl shape of a pinhole security camera's transmission. There was no sound to accompany the black-and-white image.
As curls of black smoke rose from the bedroom lamps, Stewart McQueen sat woodenly back on the edge of the bed, his eyes trained with sick fascination on the TV screen.
REMO BOUNDED down the main staircase in two massive strides. He was hopping over the broken chandelier when he heard a painful crash of wood. When he spun for the source, relief flooded his tension-filled face.
The Master of Sinanju was whirling up into the foyer amid the shattered remnants of the basement door.
"You are safe," the old man cried.
"That's open to debate," Remo replied tightly. "That spider isn't a spider after all. It's Mr. Gordons."
Chiun nodded sharply. "He has insinuated himself into this entire dwelling."
Remo still felt the powerful electrical hum all around them. It now seemed even more menacing. "I think I know how to put a stop to that," Remo said. "But we have to make ourselves a door first." They found the front door still sealed shut. It reacted to their experimental blows as did the walls in the upstairs passageway. The surface became adaptable, accepting their fists rather than surrendering to them.
But for Remo, two things were different than they had been upstairs. Now he knew who his opponent was, and more importantly, Chiun was at his side.
Working together, the two Masters of Sinanju synchronized their attack. They treated the door like a living thing, setting up a counter-rhythm to the steady vibrations the door and wall were giving off.
In a moment the door began to buzz. An instant later it began to shriek. Soon after that the thick steel sheet buried at the center of the reinforced door shattered like an echoing wineglass. The wood collapsed around it, and Remo and Chiun slipped through the new-formed opening.
They bounded down the front steps to the walk. They had no sooner reached ground than Remo heard rustling from the scruffy bushes beside the steps. He had barely time to turn to the sound when he saw two small black figures dart into view. They were two feet tall and hideously ugly. When he saw them, Remo didn't know whether he should run or laugh.
The two metal bats that had watched Remo and Chiun's arrival from the stone pillars above the main gates had been given a new purpose as makeshift watchdogs. Metal mouths open wide, they scurried from the underbrush.
They came trailing thin wires. Remo saw that the cords ran back down the walk and up into the gateposts, connecting the metal creatures with the house security system.
"Oh, this is just too weird," Remo groused as one of the little bats tried to bite his ankle.
"I have discovered the secret of vanquishing these beasts," Chiun intoned. He was skipping back and forth to avoid his own bat. "Promise me that we will buy a home in this province, and I will share it with you."
"No dice," Remo said. "Besides, it's Gordons I'm worried about, not his wind-up dolls."
Leaning, he braced his hand against his bat's head, holding it to the ground. As it snapped and bit fruitlessly at empty air, he grabbed one of its extended wings. With a pained wrench of metal, he tore it loose.
With the curved tip of the wing, he sliced the bat's wires. The creature fell silent.
Seeing that his pupil had found the secret on his own, Chiun frowned unhappily. With an angry exhale of air, he snapped the wires on his own bat. With a sharp sandal, he toe-kicked it back into the bushes.
Wing in hand, Remo struck off across the lawn. Tucking hands inside his kimono sleeves, Chiun trailed Remo as the younger man circled the house.
On the west side Remo found what he was looking for. Thick power cables were strung from a pole out on the street to the corner of the house.
Raising his bat's wing over his shoulder, Remo let it sail. The heavy metal wing sang through the air like a misshapen boomerang, slicing up through the cables. With a snap of rubber and a tiny popping spark it ripped through the wires, burying itself deep in the side of Stewart McQueen's suddenly silent haunted house.
With the power cut, Remo and Chiun circled back to the front walk.
The electrical hum no longer rang in their ears. The looming house now seemed more pathetic than menacing.
And somewhere inside that house, Mr. Gordons was even now in the process of disentangling himself from the elaborate electrical system.
Remo looked over at Chiun, his eyes level. "You hold him down while I pull off seven of his legs," he suggested in a tone flat with menace. "He can run in circles till his battery runs out once and for all."
Without another word, the two men marched back up the porch stairs. When they disappeared inside, the broken front door remained open and silent on the cold Maine evening.
"HELLO! You in there?"
Stewart McQueen desperately slammed a flat palm against the top of his TV. With the other hand he fiddled with the front control panel, flipping from channel to channel.
Nothing. The TV had gone dead.
He had seen the two men march through the foyer. Since the camera didn't angle downward, he lost sight of them when they headed for the door. He realized they had gotten free as soon as the screen switched to an exterior view. From the child's-eye view of his hidden gate bats, he had seen the two of them descend the stairs.
The picture had bounced crazily for a few seconds. That hadn't lasted long. It was a few moments after the bat cameras died that the power went out.
No matter how hard McQueen struck the TV, Mr. Gordons stubbornly refused to respond. He was winding up to give it one last mighty swat when he heard a sound out front.
Squealing tires. The noise was rapidly followed by the sounds of car doors slamming shut.
The TV was forgotten. Limping on his injured leg, McQueen hurried over to the bay window.