Scarecrow Returns

IF ANYTHING could be said about Bertie, it was that he was a damned determined little robot.

After being blasted out of the cable car terminal earlier, he had plummeted 300 feet before landing in the freezing waters of the bay.

Of course, the landing hadn’t harmed him and he automatically inflated his buoyancy balloons and floated to the surface, bobbing there like a funny-looking mechanical duck.

Then his acquisition program kicked in: he searched for a buddy to follow.

His wheels spinning in the water, he made his way slowly but determinedly to the outer edge of the bay, where he saw to the west a point of access to Dragon Island: the abandoned whaling village.

It took him almost an hour to get there, but get there he did, and sure enough, shortly after he arrived, he saw his secondary buddy, Captain Shane M. Schofield, turn up with Veronique Champion.

When Schofield and Champion had been observed entering the whaling village, it had been Bertie doing the observing.

The little robot had hurried to catch up with Schofield, but Schofield had dashed away too quickly, to be outsmarted by Typhon at the roadblock and taken away.

Bertie could only watch in robotic dismay as this had happened.

But then, from out of nowhere, a woman’s voice had said to him, “Bonjour, little one.”

“Bertie must reacquire his secondary buddy, Captain Shane M. Schofield,” Bertie had said earnestly.

“Oui, he must. And when you find him, I want you to give him a few things from me,” Champion had said.

Getting past the roadblock had been a team effort: Champion had shot Schofield’s two smoke grenades—still lying near the roadblock, having been thrown to the ground by Typhon—and in the smoky haze that followed, Bertie had been brutal.

Guided by a thermal imager that could see through the smoke as if it wasn’t even there, his cannon had annihilated the roadblock team, ripped them to shreds, and within a minute, Bertie was whizzing up the steep road on his chunky little tires, heading doggedly into Dragon Island in search of his secondary buddy.

Champion, wounded and unable to be of any more help, watched him go.

But she had given him one more instruction: follow the fresh tire-tracks of the jeep that had taken Schofield away from the roadblock. By following them diligently, Bertie had come to the gasworks.

There he scurried in through a side door and arrived underneath the ramp just in time to see Schofield’s body land with a thud on the conveyor belt right in front of him.

Recognizing his secondary buddy, Bertie had whizzed forward and using his little robotic arms, pulled Schofield and the bed frame off the belt. A quick scan had revealed that Schofield had no pulse, so Bertie had unfolded his defibrillator and applied it according to his CPR programming.

Whack. Whack.

Schofield’s body jolted twice . . .

. . . before his eyes flew open and he gasped, sucking in deep rasping breaths to fill his lungs.

As Schofield recovered his breath, Bertie used his blowtorch to cut through his handcuffs and leg rope.

Thanks to the tough little robot, Schofield was alive and free again. Indeed, the only way for him to escape from Marius Calderon and the Army of Thieves had been to die.

He snatched Bertie’s first-aid pack, grabbed an AP-6 needle from it and jabbed himself with the painkiller/stimulant. His breathing evened out; he began to feel stronger.

It was then that he saw the three items sitting on Bertie’s back: Champion’s Steyr TMP, her SIG-Sauer P-226 pistol and a Magneteux.

He stood and nodded at Bertie. “Thanks, little buddy. You’re good to have around. Before we go, access your friend and foe memory bank, please.”

“Memory bank accessed,” Bertie said.

“Delete Lance Corporal Vittorio Puzo from friend list.”

“Entry deleted.”

“Good. Now, come with me. It’s time to do some fucking damage.”