Unpopular Science

Chapter 43

He was in horror and misery and it was the horror of blackness unending, where there was no vision or sound, no smell or touch, nothing. Eternal awareness of eternal emptiness.

The horror melted into the mundane, and with profound relief it was forgotten. Emptiness, after all, was easy to forget, once there was anything to erase it. In an instant his identity surged back into his thoughts. He knew who he was again. He knew his past again. His name was Remo.

Where was he?

He was in the desert, near the rez, and he was watching the most beautiful girl in the world.. Her name was Freya, his daughter, and she loved the rabbits, and she loved Remo.

“’Bye, Daddy,” she said as he left, but it wasn’t a sad leaving because she said “’Bye, Daddy.” So naturally did she let those words come from her lips that he knew it was true. Remo was Freya’s dad and there was nothing better than that.

He was drifting like a peaceful ghost through the village. “Remember when I introduced you to the Sun On Jo?” asked Remo’s father, Sunny Joe Roam.

Remo pictured Sunny Joe’s introduction of him to the Sun On Jo people. They had accused him of being a half-white. What else had Sunny Joe said? Brought to us by a vision. That would be Remo’s vision of the desiccated remains of Ko Jong Oh.

Then Sunny Joe Roam called Remo the next Sunny Joe.

Another tidbit that had been floating around unused in his head for years. Yes. Remo was the next symbolic leader of the Sun On Jo tribe. But the Sun On Jo were a pacifist people. They had hidden their great talents for generations—it was part and parcel with their origins. Ko Jong Oh had instilled in them secrecy lest they bring down the wrath of Sinanju, who could allow no other village of assassins to compete with them.

But how could Remo, the embodiment of Sinanju, the dynasty of great assassins, become the leader of these people with their philosophy of nonviolence?

Did he want to? If not now, would he want to someday? Would the Sun On Jo want him?

It would be a peaceful, quiet life on the rez. Didn’t he deserve some peace and quiet?

As he drifted through the village of Sun On Jo like a weightless cloud, Remo passed through people and a horse and a fence, but then he crashed into something that he couldn’t pass through. It was Mark Howard’s stupid rental car, still propped up against somebody’s house, and it fell over with the loudest, most annoying racket possible.

Something crashed. Something banged.

“Dammit all to hell!” He grabbed his throbbing head and staggered to his feet, then landed upright against the cabinets of the small kitchenette.

“Please. For the love of god. I am begging you. Stop banging the damn pots.”

“Ah, you have awakened finally. I thought you might sleep the day away.”

“Shove it, Chiun,” Remo said. “My head’s killing me. What time is it?”

“What time is it? You have been addled by too much sleep. Go purchase yourself a Swatch if you cannot know the time inside.” Chiun touched Remo’s forehead. Waves of pain radiated from the spot into Remo’s skull and he sat down hard, back against the wall. He looked around and found himself in the three-room suite that he and Chiun shared at Folcroft.

“Feel like I’ve been out for days. What happened?”

Chiun didn’t answer the question, guiding Remo back to his mat and fussing over him. There was a concern in his eyes that Remo didn’t miss.

“Did I really get whacked, or what?”

“I suppose so, my son.”

“Are you okay. Little Father?”

Chiun stopped fussing and descended into a cross-legged position, a look on his face that Remo, who knew him so well, could not read well.

“I must ask your forgiveness, my son. I led you into great danger.”

Remo scowled. “Come on, Chiun, what are you talking about?”

“In the alley, after we left the clapboard palace of the pretender to the American throne.”

“Yes? It was you who saved me, remember, Chiun? Ironhand turned my lights out.”

“But there was the other. The ball-shaped copper man.”

“Yeah? He fired up the sense-sucking death rays again, didn’t he? I told you he would.”

“Yes, you did.” Chiun lowered his eyes.

“So I got knocked out again. So call me Scarlet O’Hara for having fainting spells. What’s the gloomy look all about?”

“You were wounded more grievously than you may think.”

“I don’t want to think. It hurts when I think.”

“It has been four days.”

“Ouch.” Remo touched his head. “No wonder I feel crappy. What happened? I mean, what would knock a guy senseless for four days?”

“That is what the young prince is trying to find out. He now has the mechanical heart that you tore from the breast of the first monster. He is having it studied.”

“What about Clockwork? What happened to him. Did he hurt you?”

“Of course not,” Chiun said, regaining some composure. “After you laid down to rest, I dismantled him. His trainer came along to retrieve him and I knocked his plane into the sea.”

“Cool. Case closed then, eh?”

“According to the Emperor, the case remains open. As you have not yet stood up with confidence, I shall handle the preparation of the evening meal. It shall be haddock and jasmine tea.”

“I’d like some Advil in mine,” Remo said. “It’s evening?”

When they entered the office it was past midnight Mark Howard watched Remo from his own temporary desk. Smith gave Remo a careful appraisal. “Feeling better?”

“Better than when I was unconscious? No. Got any Excedrin?”

“Do not give him any.” Chiun warned.

“Joking,” Remo said. “See, I have my sense of humor back so I must be feeling better.”

Smith said nothing. Chiun was silent.

“Course, if humor matters, then you geezers are both minutes from the grave. Smitty, if you’re gonna chew me a new one for taking unscheduled coma time, then let’s get it over with.”

Smith tightened his mouth. “Remo, we have much to discuss, but it can wait. We know who’s behind all of this.”

Mark Howard pushed a color eight-by-ten photograph at them. “Jacob Fastbinder III.”

“He’s ugly, but what makes him guilty?”

“He’s got a very interesting history,” Howard said. “It goes back to World War One.”

“Oh, cripes.” Remo grabbed his head. “Do I really have to hear it? Especially now? Little Father, can’t you give me a mercy nerve pinch to make the throbbing stop?”

“I’ve tried. As I said, Remo, the hurt was deep….”

“Okay, let’s go get him.” Remo stood up. “Where we going?”

Mark gave him a brochure.

Fastbinder’s Museum Of Mechanical Marvels On Historic Route 66

In Scenic New Mexico!

“Oh, brother,” Remo said, and left the office without walking into the doorjamb, although it was a near miss.

Smith looked worriedly at Churn. “Should he be in the field, Master Chiun?”

“The time for concern is done. He will recover, Emperor, and perform his duties without fail. He is muddled now, still in the clutches of his extended slothfulness. I predict it will have passed before we arrive in the land of the Recently Annexed Mexico.”

Smith nodded. “Master Chiun, I’d have to say you don’t sound too certain of your own words.”

Chiun snapped out of his own lingering distraction, and his self-anger simmered like a pot of gruel that had been bubbling on the fire for too many hours.

“The Master of Sinanju is never uncertain, Emperor, as you well know.”

Then he followed Remo out the door. Quickly.