The Wicked Cyborg Read Free

knees.
    But someone had done more than simply abandon the robot. The control panel in his wide chest had been roughly ripped open and his complex inner workings smashed with an automallet of some sort. Tiny wires, twists of plaztubing, slivers of neoglass, mangled bits of printed circuitry dribbled out of the gape.
    This has got to be Cousin Cosmo’s robot, Tad realized while running his fingers carefully over the surface of the seemingly defunct mechanism. The only one of its kind, the reverend had said. Tad was fairly familiar with the various types of robots and servos manufactured by Rhymer Industries. This slumped giant was nothing that was offered in any of the RI catalogs and brochures.
    Straightening, Tad moved back and stood over Electro. “Who did this to you?” he asked. “I guess I’ll never find out unless. . . .”
    Tad knelt again, felt at the robot’s head until he located the concealed skull lock. He applied pressure, there was a mild popping and a small section of the chrome-plated skull swung open.
    Turning on his heel, Tad sprinted back to a cabinet where he’d noticed an assortment of lightrods. He had to twist the handles of five before he found one which still gave off light.
    Back with Electro, Tad sent the thin beam of light into the opening in the robot’s head. “All there, all intact,” he said grinning. There had been no damage to the machine’s brain, his function center or his memory system. Everything seemed unharmed. “So he could tell me what happened to him. . . . And maybe a lot of other things, too, if ..... Yeah, if.”
    If Tad could fix the enormous robot. If he could repair all the damage done to the control and power center.
    Very slowly Tad shut the skull. “I can do it,” he said. “Going to take time, a lot of work and patience. But I can make this robot work again.”

Chapter 3
    Hohl went someplace nights, most nights anyway.
    Tad first found that out while ducked behind the row of ugly prickly shrubs which lined the central pathway of the estate. It was a few minutes short of midnight, Tad was long since supposed to have been asleep in his room on the second floor of the mansion. Not tonight, though, because tonight he was going to pay his second visit to the underground lab and begin workings on the damaged robot.
    He’d managed to get free of his room, down a back stairway and out into the foggy night undetected. While he was cutting across the damp grass he heard Hohl shouting behind him.
    “What kind of hoptoad mount is this, you tin-whistle nerf?” the estate manager was hollering someplace off in the mist.
    Tad relaxed some, his breathing coming more regularly. The big man didn’t seem to be discussing him.
    “Am I supposed to go about my clandestine business on a lop-eared nork of a nag?”
    “One is extremely sorry, sir.”
    That was Biernat, the head butler robot. A headless, tank-shape mechanism.
    “Sorry, my dangling booper! This frapping grout is one step from the burger grill! Bring me a better one or I’ll put your toke in a sling!”
    “One will attempt to do better on one’s second try, sir.”
    “Goodness me, Biernat. Have I been bullyragging you again? Bless me, it’s my annoying fog allergy which makes me so cussed all the time. Allow me to take some medication while you fetch a new mount.”
    “One hastens to fulfill one’s mission, sir.”
    Bong! Kapong!
    Biernat fell over onto the walkway. The fog also affected him, making him now and then top-heavy.
    “Why don’t you watch where you put your frapping feet, you knock-kneed billyweed? I ought. . . . Oops! There I went, ranting again.”
    “One learns to accept such verbal abuse.”
    Spang!
    Hohl had apparently dealt the metal butler a goodnatured pat on the back.
    “You’re a darn good sport, Biernat, putting up with my moods night after night.”
    Head low, Tad continued on his way through the misty grounds. The voices of Hohl and the robot and the hooffalls of the grout all