The Toyminator

by Robert Rankin

Rather surprised chicken cackles crackled through the remaining Eddie’s headphones. There had been no previous briefings regarding any nukings.

  ‘I know, ladies, I know. But let’s face it – Toy City is something of a dump. The clean-sweep approach is probably for the best. Negotiating with the humans there will be such a long-winded process that I feel we should simply take the lot of them out in one fell swoop and have done with it. What say you?’

  Chicken voices cackled in the affirmative.

  ‘Splendid, splendid. My call sign will be Great Mother-Henship and this operation, as you know, is Operation Take Out Toy City. So, gangways up, hatchways sealed and then we’ll run through the safety procedures. I want everyone to be certain that they know how to inflate their life jackets and use their little whistles. These things matter.’

  Although it might appear to be a somewhat tenuous link, it did have to be said that certain things were at present really mattering to Samuel J. Maggott of the LAPD.

  Staying alive in the face of a mad robot’s onslaught being foremost amongst these.

  Sam pumped bullets at the robot’s head, but the thing was moving so swiftly about that he mostly missed and shot up the coffee machine.

  ‘You’ve broken that for good this time,’ said the engineer who had come to fix it. Ducking as he did so to avoid being struck by the troubled young detective as the robot Jack flung him through the glass of Sam’s partition door.

  Sam ducked down behind his desk as an officer flew over his head and left via a window, taking much of the faulty air-conditioning unit with him.

  ‘Eat lead, you son of a bitch!’ cried the feisty young female officer, bringing out her own special weapon, the one that was not police issue, and blasting away like a good’n.

  The robot Jack, impervious even to such superior fire-power due to the nature of his hyper-alloy combat chassis,* flung officers to every side, stormed straight through the partition door, causing much distress to the coffee-machine engineer, then stormed through the outer office and through the outer wall.

  ‘After it!’ bawled Sam to those who still remained conscious. ‘Get that motherfu—’

  But none seemed too keen to oblige.

  Sam snatched up what was left of his telephone receiver and shouted words into it. ‘Is my helicopter still on the roof?’ he shouted. ‘Right, then rev the son of a gun up,’ he further shouted. ‘And call every car, call everything – there’s a robot on the loose.’

  There was a moment’s pause. As well there would be.

  ‘Yeah, you heard me right!’ shouted Sam. ‘I said robot! No, I didn’t say Robert. Yes, I have been taking my tablets. Get the … what? Oh, you can see it now, can you? It just burst out through the front of the building. Right. Then get everything you can get – we’re going after it.’

  ‘Generally speaking,’ said Wellington Bellis to Amelie as he accepted two more free drinks from Tinto, a triple for Amelie, a diet swodge* for himself, ‘on the surface, as it were, police work might seem mundane and everyday – petty theft, toys pulling bits off each other, that kind of thing. But once in a while something really big happens. And that is when I get personally involved. I’m a special policeman, you see. Supercriminals fear my name. Is that drink all right, my dear?’

  Amelie hiccuped prettily. ‘Do you have your own car and a special expense account?’ she asked.

  ‘Oh yes, I’m well taken care of. Don’t be put off by all these perished bits, by the way. I’ve booked in for a make-over with the kindly, lovable white-haired old Toymaker.’

  ‘I’ll bet you’re not perished all over,’ purred Amelie.

  ‘Excruciating,’ said Tinto.

  ‘Quiet, you,’ ordered Bellis. ‘I’m only postponing your arrest for crimes against toyanity until closing time because I am so enjoying my conversation with this fascinating young dolly here.’

  ‘Fascinating?’ purred Amelie. ‘Jack never said that to me.’ And what of Jack, Amelie wondered.

  What of Jack, indeed.

  The other Jack, or perhaps he should now be referred to as the remaining Jack, was making good progress through the streets of Los Angeles. He was doing all the things one might reasonably expect, in fact, unreasonably demand, of such a robot in such a situation. He was thrusting innocent passers-by aside, some, with inclinations to seek positions as Hollywood stuntmen, through plate-glass windows, and others of a frailer disposition into those piles of cardboard boxes that always seem to be there to conveniently cushion one’s fall in such situations. Should such situations occur.

  And then there was the lifting up and overturning of automobiles that got in his way. There’s always a lot of mileage to be had from that kind of thing.

  And then there was the kind of thing that we all really like. In fact, if it didn’t come to pass, we’d all be bitterly disappointed.

  And that is, of course, the climbing into the cab of a great big truck, flinging the driver out of the door, settling down behind the wheel and taking-and-driving-away.

  Oh, and it needs to be a truck with a significant bit-on-the-end sort of jobbie, a great long canister on the ‘bed’ containing twenty tonnes of liquid oxygen, or highly volatile solvents, or toxic waste, or even nuclear nasties.

  Or something.

  Joe-Bob, the driver of the Sulphuric Acid Truck, made loud his protests as the robot Jack hurled him out through the windscreen and took the steering wheel.

  Now in his helicopter, Police Chief Sam heard the call-in from the traffic cop who had witnessed the taking-and-driving-away. Witnessed it while parked on his bike beside a Golden Chicken Diner, munching upon a Golden Chicken burger family meal and admiring the little clockwork giveaway cymbal-playing monkey toy that he intended to take home for his daughter. There was something really special about that monkey.

  ‘Westbound on Route Sixty-Six,’ Sam told the pilot. ‘I’ll bet the S-O-B is heading back to Area Fifty-Two. After him.’ And Sam thrust on headphones of his own with the little microphone attachment and shouted orders to all and sundry. Adding for good measure, ‘And call up the Air Force, just to be sure.’

  Call up the Air Force, just to be sure! Well, why not? You always have to call up the Air Force sooner or later. And there’s always this troubled young pilot, who might well be black and want to be a space pilot, but keeps getting kicked back and is looking to prove himself and …

  ‘Calling all craft,’ went the remaining Eddie through his little fitted microphone. ‘Follow my lead. Open outer launch doors.’

  Up, up on the desert floor, great doors slid aside.

  ‘And away we go!’ And the remaining Eddie pawed the ignition, brrmmed the engines, put the saucer into gear and with a hum and a whiz and a whoosh and a swoosh, the saucer did its liftings off and dramatic sweepings away.

  ‘Tally ho!’ shouted the remaining Eddie. ‘Onward, follow me.’

  And up they went, those saucers all, off up the underground runway.

  It was night-time now and the Californian sky was sprinkled over with stars. Were there worlds up there, one might wonder, with folk like us looking out at our sun and wondering, just wondering, were there folk like them down here? Well, perhaps, or then, perhaps not. Perhaps the Universe is nothing more than a great construction kit, given by God to his offspring and awaiting the day when his offspring will grow tired of it just sitting there and pack it up and put it back into its box.

  Or is there really no Universe at all? Is it just an illusion, a dream, which, when the dreamer awakes, will cease to be?

  Or perhaps the world is just an apple turning silently in space. Or a great big onion. Or a melting pot. Or perhaps, as has been mooted in many a public drinking house, some time after the ten-o’clock watershed, the real truth is that …

  ‘Weeeeeee!’ went the remaining Eddie as his lead craft shot up through the opening in the desert floor and into the star-speckled sky. ‘Now this is a rush!’

  And up came the other craft one by one, up into that
sky.

  ‘Full speed ahead,’ cried the remaining Eddie. ‘Make me proud of you, ladies.’

  And aboard all the craft, the chicken crews did cluckings and cacklings and such.

  ‘And such a night,’ said Wellington Bellis, standing in the doorway of Tinto’s and looking up at the dark and star-sprinkled sky. ‘Hardly the night for an Apocalypse, I think you will agree, my dear.’ And his perished rubber arm strayed about the waist of Amelie. And laughing policemen peering out from the bar counter nudged each other, did lewd winkings and made suggestive remarks.

  ‘Now, I just want to make this clear,’ said Tinto, ‘in case any of you lot are thinking of truncheoning me senseless, I am not a supercriminal. I am a barman. And to prove this, I propose that I waive normal licensing hours on this occasion and continue to serve you fellows until all of you are too drunk to do any arresting at all. In fact, until you all agree that you are my bestest friends. What say you to this?’

  The laughing policemen laughed some more and ordered further drinks.

  ‘I don’t suppose you have any drink in the glove compartment?’ Police Chief Sam asked the helicopter pilot. ‘Because, by God, I could use some.’

  ‘Certainly not,’ the pilot replied. ‘That would be most unprofessional. We pilots never drink on the job. We do a bit of Charlie, of course, but who doesn’t? Piloting a helicopter is a very stressful job, what with all those power lines you might crash into and everything. I always have a couple of lines before I go up.’

  ‘Got any left?’ Sam asked.

  ‘In the glovey, help yourself.’

  ‘Why, thank you … Oh my God, what is he doing now?’

  He, the robot Jack, was doing what one would expect of him. He was bothering other road users. The great big truck with its highly dangerous cargo swerved from lane to lane on the highway, swiping cars to left and right.

  ‘So,’ said Sydney Greenstreet to Marilyn Monroe, whom he was driving home after the meal they’d just had together, ‘my agent says that the producers are very pleased with my performance so far. They thought that the scene where we were taken hostage at the Golden Chicken Headquarters might well be the one that earns me an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor.’

  ‘Did he say anything about me?’ asked Marilyn.

  ‘He said you were okay.’

  ‘Okay?’

  ‘That’s a compliment coming from him, dear. Oh, and they’re changing the name of the movie now – did you hear that? They’re calling it The Toyminator, whatever that means. And we’re to do one last scene together. I have the revised script right here.’

  Sydney handed Marilyn the revised script.

  And she read it. ‘ “While driving home after a night out at the Golden Chicken Diner, where they enjoyed the Big Bird Munchie Special with extra fries on the side, the merits of which they are discussing whilst marveling at the special qualities of the giveaway clockwork pianist toy, they are run off the road by a speeding Sulphuric Acid Truck.” ’

  ‘I said no to that bit,’ said Sydney. ‘That’s work for a stunt double, I told my agent.’

  Marilyn perused the script. ‘There isn’t any actual dialogue,’ she said. ‘It simply reads, “They scream.” ’

  ‘I know – it’s outrageous, isn’t it?’

  And then Sydney and Marilyn were run off the road by a speeding Sulphuric Acid Truck.

  They screamed.

  And out into the desert went that truck. And after it in hot pursuit came many a black-and-white. And overhead now came Sam Maggott’s ’copter, all thrashing blades and bawling Sam.

  And so on and suchlike.

  And …

  ‘Whoa!’ went the helicopter pilot. ‘Would you take a look at that?’

  And Sam looked up and Sam looked out and Sam said, ‘What is that?’

  ‘That and those!’ The pilot made a troubled face. ‘They’re coming towards us … They’re flying saucers. Oh my God – and oh!’

  And the fleet of saucers swept over the helicopter, spinning it all around. And on the desert highway below the robot Jack saw the saucers, slammed on the brakes of the big truck and swung it around.

  ‘Going without me, eh?’ he went. ‘Well, that’s not fair for a start.’

  On-rushing police cars swerved and smote one another. The big truck ploughed through several of these, mashing them fiercely to this side and the other.

  ‘Get back after him,’ cried Sam. Hanging on for the dearest of life, as the helicopter clung to the air. ‘Get after him and get after those flying saucers.’

  ‘This really is a job for the Air Force now,’ said the helicopter pilot. ‘Although in all truth, I’m prepared to have a go at them myself. I’ve been applying to be a space pilot for years, but I keep getting kicked back. If I could take out a few flying saucers, I’ll just bet that NASA will give me a chance.’

  ‘You go for it,’ said Sam. ‘I’ve lost the plot good and proper now anyway. I didn’t even notice you were black – I thought you were from Arkansas.’

  ‘What is all this Arkansas business anyway?’ asked the pilot as he steered the helicopter around in pursuit of the departing truck and similarly departing saucers. ‘Some kind of lame running gag, do you think?’

  ‘Like all that stuff that weirdo Jack told us about following the American Dream? Before he turned into a robot, of course.’

  ‘Well, he did say he was from England. And as all we Americans know, the English have no sense of humour.’

  ‘Well, I’m glad we’ve got all that out of the way,’ said Sam. ‘On with the chase, if you will, Mister Pilot.’

  ‘Ten-four, Chief, ten-four.’

  And on flew the flying saucers, low now over the outer suburbs of LA. The bits that tourists never see. Many gap-toothed fellows called Joe-Bob, who sat upon their verandas drinking from earthenware demijohns and smoking corncob pipes, viewed the saucers’ passing. And many shook their dandruffed heads and said things to the effect that they were not in the least surprised, as they’d been abducted so many times, but could find none to believe them.

  ‘Onward, onward!’ cried the remaining Eddie. ‘On through The Second Big O.’

  And as there had been no apparent response from the Air Force, which was a shame because a really decent UFO/Air Force battle outclasses ground-based explosions, shoot-outs and car chases (no matter how extreme and prolonged) any old day of the week (with the obvious exclusion of Tuesdays), Sam’s pilot said, ‘Check this out!’ and pressed certain buttons on his dashboard.

  ‘What do you have there?’ asked Sam.

  ‘A special something,’ said the pilot. ‘Fitted it myself. State of the art. It’s called an M134 General Electric Mini-gun. 7.62 mm. Full-clip capacity of 5,793 rounds per minute. 7.62 × 51 shells, 1.36 kg recoil adapters. Muzzle velocity of 869 m/s.’

  ‘Nice,’ said Sam. ‘Then open fire on those alien sons of bitches.’

  ‘Ten-four, Chief,’ said the pilot, and he opened fire.

  And down below and through the streets of Hollywood now roared that truck with the robot Jack at the wheel and all that dangerous acid on board. Along Hollywood Boulevard, past the Roosevelt Hotel, and Grauman’s Chinese Theatre and the Hollywood Wax Museum.

  And, ‘Rat-at-tat-at-tat-at-tat-at-tat,’ went the M134 General Electric Mini-gun. And Sam Maggott cheered as tracer bullets scoured the sky. And he bawled, ‘You’ve hit one. You’ve hit one.’

  And the pilot had.

  A saucer wobbled, spiralled, span. The chicken pilot squawked.

  And down and down the saucer went to strike the home of Sydney Greenstreet. Who was presently being loaded into an ambulance with many broken bones. Which really wasn’t fair. But there you go.

  ‘Well done,’ cried Sam, patting the pilot. ‘Oh no, one’s turning around.’

  And a single saucer was. The helicopter did nifty manoeuvrings. Hollywood residents looked up from their pool-side soirées, rubbed at their rectal probings and said, ‘I told you so.’<
br />
  ‘Whoa!’ went Sam, once more clinging on for the life of himself. ‘Shoot that mother, will you?’

  ‘Doing my best, Chief, doing my best.’

  And down below the robot Jack drove onward in his stolen truck. Up now and towards the Hollywood hills in pursuit of the saucers. And police cars screamed after him, all flashing lights and wailing sirens. And cars swerved and passers-by took to their heels.

  ‘Onward, ever onward,’ cried the Eddie in the Mother-Henship, ‘and engage the fiendishly clever miniaturisation units that will enable us to sweep through The Second Big O without touching the sides.’ And his paw pressed the special button and in other craft wing tips did likewise.

  ‘And did you see that?’ shouted Sam. ‘Did they just get smaller, or are they suddenly very far, far away?’

  ‘Bit of both, I think, Chief.’ The pilot rattled away with the M134 General Electric Mini-gun.

  The robot Jack’s truck bumped up the grasslands, but lost neither speed, nor size.

  ‘Onward!’ cried the remaining Eddie. ‘Onward, ladies. Onward into the future pages of chicken world history. God of All Chickens, I love this job.’

  And onward they swept towards the Hollywood sign.

  And onwards too swept the robot Jack, his truck bouncing all about, but roaring ever onward.

  And after him the black-and-whites, doing what black-and-whites always do in situations like these: crashing into one another, flying off cliffs in slow motion, having the occasional bit of comedy relief with blackened-faced officers staggering from wrecked police cars to the sound of incidental music going, ‘Wah-waaaah.’

  ‘They’re going through, Chief,’ cried the helicopter pilot. ‘They’re going through The Second Big O.’

  ‘Then pull up. We’ll get them on the other side.’

  The pilot yanked back on the joystick. ‘Oh my God!’ he shouted. ‘The controls are stuck. Oh my God! Oh my God!’

  ‘Don’t go without me, you rotters!’ And the robot Jack put his foot down harder.

  And then it all happened.

  As it always does.

  In slow motion, with some really great shots.

  Picture it if you can.