Fanfic--"Osamu Tezuka's Inspector Gadget"

[nix]

Well...I'll just let you read it for yourself.

CHAPTER ONE: A CLAW IS BORN

Late one night, an imposing black helicopter landed on a seemingly uninhabited Polynesian island.

“Hey, boss, what makes you think there’s anything here?” the powerful-looking, dark-skinned pilot demanded. Sikes was the well-paid personal bodyguard of Sanford Scolex, whose corporation was America’s leading producer of computer chips, electronics, and robotics. But this and other details didn’t concern him. His father was in the earliest stages of stomach cancer, and Sikes knew that Scolex’s paychecks were very good. Besides that, college was expensive, too. He wished he’d started sooner, but the family hardware store came first.

“It’s on the radar, isn’t it?” the other voice shot back. Scolex can be so rude, Sikes thought, but instead said, “You know how radar can pick up things you can’t see. What are we looking for, anyway?” And then it hit Scolex. “Mr. Sikes, use the rotors to kick up some sand. I think I know why we can’t see it.”

The helicopter started up again and hurled sand in front of it. The sand hit what should have been empty air, but instead took on the shape of a square, manmade structure. “Holographic camouflage! I should have known.”

“Huh.” Sikes was amazed that the technology existed on such a grand scale. He may not have concerned himself with Scolex Industries’ day-to-day operations, but he had a pretty good idea of the company’s products. “Y’know, I remember you and Tenma came up with some kind of EMP thing a month ago. Are we shielded against it?”

“What, for the charges?” Scolex replied. “Ah, nothing to worry about, Mr. Sikes. Did you know that this very helicopter survived the Severnaya incident? Oh, that’s right, you don’t work for MAD.”
“MAD? What the hell are you involved in? Tell me, or I’m taking us out of here.”

“There’s no need for that, Mr. Sikes. Very few people know about MAD. It’s sort of an open secret, but one that’ll blow open any minute now. Do you know why? Because my boss, the extraordinary Dr. Claw, is dying. He sent me to kill him. I’m the last one.”

“You’re telling me that others were sent to do that? And died? What the hell makes you so sure you’re going to survive?”

Scolex just grinned devilishly, showing the faintest hint of teeth. He opened the sliding side door and jumped out.

A tall, handsome (handsome insofar as his profile looked exactly like that of a cockatoo) man in his early forties, Sanford Scolex was also fearsomely intelligent and had the cutthroat personality traits necessary to succeed in business…and in war. His company produced consumer electronics, yes, but much of his R&D went into guidance systems for planes, missiles, and attack drones. He half-expected to see some of his own stuff being used in this castle…mini-tanks equipped with armor-piercing rounds; laser tripwires attached to poison-gas canisters; automated grenade-launchers, and other fun stuff guaranteed to break the ice at your next fundraising event or your money back. He didn’t exactly come from wealth—he used his unique knack for electronics and business throughout his time at Harvard, where he met the love of his life, Ms. Brenda Bradford. Or so he thought. It didn’t quite pan out in exactly the way he wanted: she rejected him for some reason.

Her rejection affected him: His company, Scolex Industries (then a small, garage-based startup), was in danger of going under and leaving Sanford and his close friend Dr. Tenma nearly bankrupt. And then, like Clarence coming to George Bailey’s aid, someone from MAD came to Sanford’s door and offered him untold wealth in exchange for the technology he developed. He knew full well that his discoveries could be used for weapons of war…and signed on with aplomb.

Over time, he came to learn much about MAD and the people in it. He especially admired the confectionery tycoon Arthur Slugworth, whose company dealt in sweets and delights legal and illegal (chiefly, guns and drugs). Yes, he owed no small debt to MAD and its mysterious leader, the feared Dr. Claw. In fact, Sanford didn’t remember ever seeing the man’s face, only hearing his electronically-distorted voice through telephones and computer speakers. The man reportedly never left his secluded castle deep in the Polynesian wilderness, like some kind of Dr. Moreau. So concerned for privacy was Dr. Claw that he referred to his agents only by codenames: Slugworth was “Acetylene Torch”; Scolex himself was “Duke Red.”

Enough reminiscing, Sanford decided. Time to focus on the mission at hand. He planted the EMP charge at the base of the building, stepped back, and detonated. In a brilliant flash, the hologram generator lost power, and the castle appeared as if out of thin air. It was an impressive structure, somewhere between the Gothic and the Fascist/Brutalist periods. The whole thing gave off a foreboding air, with its gargoyles and spires coexisting (somewhat uneasily, Sanford thought) with very machinelike ornamentation. Indeed, it looked just like a gigantic machine or factory of some kind.

But, its uninvited guest wondered, to what end? And…were those gargoyles actually watching him? He certainly had that feeling of being watched. In a way, he compared himself to Sir Lancelot going into the Lady of Shalott’s castle, or to Childe Roland scaling the Dark Tower. He felt as if he were on a heroic quest, but one with a few really nasty surprises at the end.
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As it turned out, Sanford Scolex could not have been more right. He was being watched. The gargoyles not only directed rainwater away from the castle’s foundations and provided excellent scary décor, but their eye-sockets were also fitted with small fiber-optic cameras. Their heads could move imperceptibly as the cameras followed their prey and transmitted the images directly to the highest tower, where Dr. Claw monitored things.

The dying man’s control room was a dark, sparsely-furnished room, consisting of a high-backed, almost monolithic chair with computer keyboards attached to its arms, and a concave wall of nine computer screens. These screens flickered with near-constant activity. Tonight was a special night. Tonight, Dr. Claw would oversee what he knew would be his final crime. Tonight, he would die, but not before giving his killer a good scare in the process.

He pressed a button, and the image on the top left-hand screen filled to all nine of the screens.

“ROCK, HOW IS YOUR SQUADRON DOING?”

A young man wearing sunglasses responded. “We’re fine, Doctor. We’ve just reached the building where the Bradfords and their cronies are giving their spiel.”

“EXCELLENT. WHEN I GIVE THE COMMAND, GO FORTH AND SAY ‘HELLO’ TO ARTEMUS BRADFORD FOR ME. OH, AND, USE THE ROBOTS DUKE RED DESIGNED FOR ME.”

“You got it. The agents are armed and ready for the signal. All we need is the police to give us a hard time, and we’ll be ready for ‘em.” The image returned to the top left-hand screen.

“SUCH A PITY ABOUT DR. BRADFORD,” the criminal mastermind sighed with just the slightest hint of…regret? Remorse? It was hard to tell. “HIS INTELLECT COULD HAVE BEEN REWARDED. BUT HIS CONSCIENCE GOT THE BETTER OF HIM.” But something else caught his attention. His top agent, Scolex, was prowling around inside the castle. The sadness was soon replaced with an arrogant glee.

“HMM, IT SEEMS MY EXTERMINATING ANGEL IS ON HIS WAY,” he said wryly. He pressed another button, and the nine screens filled with the image of the Elite MAD Guard’s commander.
“Yes, Dr. Claw?” the woman said.

“SANFORD SCOLEX HAS ARRIVED. I THOUGHT YOU SHOULD KNOW.”
“What are your orders?”
“LET HIM GET THROUGH…BUT LET’S NOT MAKE IT TOO EASY FOR HIM, SHALL WE? AT THE VERY LEAST, MAKE IT LOOK CONVINCING. USE LIVE AMMUNITION FOR YOURSELF, IF YOU WISH. BUT FOR THE REST OF YOUR MEN, I WOULD RECOMMEND RUBBER BULLETS AND BLANKS.”
“Getting soft in your dying days, Doctor?” she asked with a smirk on her face.
“NONE OF IT!” he roared. “I MEAN…AHEH…THAT I MYSELF HAVE A FEW TRICKS UP MY SLEEVES. WHEN HE GETS UP HERE, HE’LL LET HIS GUARD DOWN.”

“Oh, the element of surprise, I see…Well, we’ll give him a nice, warm welcome.”

As soon as Scolex set foot inside the castle, red lights started flashing and a warning siren blared. Well, that’s torn it, he thought. Going immediately into “battle” mode, Scolex didn’t stop to take full stock of his surroundings. Of course, the room was almost completely dark, with only a few red floodlights illuminating the room. Dr. Claw wanted it like this at the moment—all the better to confuse his would-be killer.

Scolex heard gunfire and took cover behind a boxy control console. The first wave consisted of heavily-armed tailor’s mannequins emblazoned with the MAD logo (a red circle with a stylized black cat’s face inside) and on a four-wheeled, motorized platform. He didn’t recall designing them, but he figured that he must be their father in some way or another. Even so, he reflected, it was high time he offed the offspring. He pulled out a handheld device called an Electro-Tool, took aim, and fired at the attack droids. Each sparked and fell to the ground.

Satisfied, he went to work on one of them, removing its ammunition belt and machine gun. Good, that evens the odds, he thought. “Mr. Sikes,” he called on his radio earpiece, “can you tell me something about this room? A light switch would be helpful.”

“Okay, boss, it looks like that console you were hiding behind just a few seconds ago should have something for the lights,” the earpiece squawked. “That is, if those robots didn’t completely turn it into Swiss cheese.”

“Gouda!” Scolex said, grinning at his own little joke. “Doesn’t seem to be too badly damaged. Knowing Dr. Claw, everything here is pretty well armored.” He flicked a few switches, pressed some buttons, and brought up a touch-screen control. “Okay, Mr. Sikes, here we are. There are no controls for the cameras, alarms, or tripwires. That sounds like him. But… aha, here’s the control for the lights.” He switched the lights to the “ON” position, and the huge room came into greater detail. There were huge generators, coolant pipes, and other big machines all over the place.

“It looks like I’m in the generator room,” he reflected. “It seems to be the least important place, which is odd, given that it’s where the main door goes through.” “I guess this guy didn’t take very kindly to uninvited guests,” Sikes mused. “Yes, that’s true,” Scolex said, “but then again, all this looks like it was done after the fact. Like the main room was built first, and then all this equipment came much later. I wonder what it’s for…Is there some kind of a way up? An elevator, say, or stairs?”

“Check the other end of the hall. It looks like there’s a metal spiral staircase somewhere around there.” And so Scolex went in search of the spiral staircase. He took the first step on the grated, purpose-built structure, and a bullet whizzed by his head, barely missing his cockatoo-like hair. Snipers! Sure enough, he was right. There, on the balcony, was a man in a black bowling-shirt with red trim and a MAD insignia on the left breast pocket. He wore a red beret and held aloft what looked like a Dragunov sniper rifle. Scolex didn’t think he’d get a clear shot, so he risked ascending the staircase in a zigzag pattern, and ventilated the grunt when he reached the top. This level was a bit more ornate. “Hey, boss,” the radio blared, “there’s an armory in this hallway. Should be down the hall and to the left. Oh, but watch out for the cameras. Don’t want to get any more guns on your tail, do you?”

Sure enough, there were cameras dotting the hallway on either side. The Electro-Tool made short work of them as Scolex dashed toward the armory. He reached the room and marveled. Here, suits of armor from the Middle Ages stood side-by-side with heavy powered armor and gleaming MAD prototypes…he wasn’t sure if any of them had ever seen production. His eye caught something that looked like a grenade launcher and some kind of mechanism at its side. “What’s this?” he asked himself. “A prototype rappelling line and launcher, designed by R. Laughton of Alliance Weaponry R&D. I like him already!” And, off to the corner, there was a castoff prototype jetpack, also constructed by Alliance but based on schematics stolen from a company called Secord Avionics Enterprises. It was a gleaming backpack with a Kevlar harness and control rods mounted onto handlebars. It looked easy enough to get into and out of. He examined the pack itself and noted the highly-advanced miniature jet engine sandwiched between two compact cylinders, which he figured must contain the fuel necessary to run it. Amazingly, the gauges still read “FULL.” He paused for a moment, wondering if the fuel inside had caused corrosion, but everything seemed all right. The tanks must be double-walled, he thought.

There was a muffled explosion outside. It sounded like a demolition charge. Scolex figured that someone must have destroyed the next staircase as he strapped on the jetpack and took arms. “That explosion sounded like it came from the art gallery,” Sikes reported. “Watch out, boss. I think some of them have rocket launchers.” “Relax,” Scolex said. “I’m wearing a jetpack. Could be dangerous, I know, but I don’t feel like using up any more bullets for a while.” He ran to the middle of the hall, where he was before, and looked up as the halls above stretched nearly to infinity.

Up in the main room, Dr. Claw watched as his predator switched on the jetpack and rocketed up, up, up. “YES, THAT’S IT,” he crooned. “COME TO MY LAIR. THERE’S NO DANGER HERE; THERE’S NOTHING TO FEAR…SAID THE SPIDER TO THE FLY.”

Scolex saw the doorway leading to the control chamber: armored and circular, no doubt rigged with explosives. But the doorway also had a relief of the MAD insignia engraved on its surface, and along the outer rim were the words “Nemo me impune lacessit.” “No-one insults me with impunity,” Scolex translated. “Good to see he’s been catching up on his Poe.” He noticed the circular 10-digit keypad in the middle of the door. “It’s another touchscreen. I wonder if my digital manipulator would…” He produced a small, tubular gadget from his belt. It seemed to be machined from aluminum, with two large caps at either end. On the business end was a kind of “eye” that could send and receive data, and in the middle was a long activation pad. He pointed it at the keypad and pressed the button. Immediately the keypad’s display frazzled and flickered. All the keys went dark until four lit up in sequence: 2-5-2-9. “It reads ‘Claw.’ I should have guessed…but then, nobody comes up here.” He punched in the digits and watched as the door slid open.

There, in the fairly-small central tower, was Dr. Claw himself. Or, rather, what was left of him. The central chair did not move, except for the swiveling upper part. Two “shoulders” on the chair transitioned to a pair of robotic arms clad in black leather, terminating in a pair of gauntlets reminiscent of a knight’s armor. Inside the chair sat the pitiful, emaciated husk of a man…if one could say that about Dr. Claw, for he was more machine than man. The room was filled with the sounds of life-support equipment—the steady beep of an EKG, the induced breathing of a ventilator, and other sounds. Scolex took aim with the machine gun he still carried, and fired at the equipment. Alarms sounded and lights blared. Ignoring the resulting smoke, he ran to a panel savagely and ripped out wires and circuit boards, destroying whatever he could see. He also ignored the camera above him and to his right. That proved fatal, for it also boasted a high-powered laser cutter. It fired, and he howled as it sliced his right arm at the elbow joint. A hidden panel on the ceiling launched small, acid-laced flechettes at his face. He tried to shield his face, but he was too late.

The castle shook. Apparently Claw’s death triggered a self-destruct mechanism. Sensible, really, for he didn’t want his secrets to be revealed after his death. Blind in one eye, and nearly crippled with pain, Scolex staggered to his feet and made his escape as the wall of monitors exploded, revealing the outside world. He switched on the jetpack and flew out to the helicopter. The door slid open, allowing the injured man to get in, and the helicopter took off just as the castle crumbled to pieces.

His mission complete, Sanford Scolex collapsed. “Requiescat in pace,” he moaned.
“Don’t worry, Mr. Scolex,” Sikes said almost to himself. “We get you fixed up in Metro City, and you’ll be all right.”

[nix]

CHAPTER TWO: SECRET CONFERENCE
SATURDAY—ABOUT 3:00 PM
METRO CITY, WISCONSIN

While Sanford Scolex was making his own fun halfway across the globe, INTERPOL was hosting a scientific conference in the heart of Metro City. As it happened, the Hyatt Regency hotel and convention center had a large gathering that weekend, and it made perfect sense to conceal the Bradford meeting inside the larger framework. This conference, headed by robotics expert Prof. Artemus Bradford; his daughter, Brenda Bradford, and bionics specialist Dr. Baxter von Slickstein, signaled the end of the INTERPOL-funded “Gadget Project,” an effort to create a kind of super-policeman equipped with the latest in high-tech detection equipment.

INTERPOL contacted Prof. Bradford and his team a few years ago with the briefing, mostly because he was already renowned for the firefighting robots that won a battle with a blaze at a nuclear power-plant many years ago. But they also went to him because of his humanitarian streak. The Bradford family had for generations contributed much of its fortune to public aid projects around the world and in what is now known as Metro City. For one thing, Artemus personally donated money to develop the robotics research wing at the city’s School of Engineering.

“Ladies, gentlemen, members of the press, good evening,” Prof. Bradford began. He was an odd-looking little man (5’) in his mid-sixties. He had a bald, spherical head framed by clouds of curly white hair and an absurdly large nose. Indeed, he remembered that the scientists he worked with for the past three years on Project Gadget had taken to calling him “Prof. Elefun” as a joke. Of course, the professor himself had a wicked sense of humor and took the jokes in stride. But nobody dared to make fun of his intellect or his imagination, for without these the project would have lacked its unique touches.

“It is with much pride that I can demonstrate for you the fruits of our work. This is the culmination of our efforts…the Gadget Project. But for now, I’d like my daughter, Brenda, to take the stage. I tend to go off on incomprehensible tangents, and she’s been my ‘translator.’” There was much polite laughter in the audience.

The auburn-haired woman of twenty-eight years took the stage. Years of watching her mother and father living together and talking to each other had taught her how to balance scientific language and plain, everyday English.

“All right. Now…your first question is, ‘how does all of this work?’” She punctuated the question with a click of her remote pointer. The screen in front of her displayed a computer-generated android encased in bulky-looking armor.

“In the beginning, we planned for an android. Cheap, reliable, easy to make copies of—you could buy parts from suppliers and put them together like an Erector set. But we hit a snag along the way: how on Earth could we hope for a machine to understand human justice?” Murmurs swept across the crowd. “Besides that, our proposed AI would have bankrupted you. So we scrapped that, but just couldn’t throw away the parts. Baxter hit upon the idea of creating a cyborg—a human with machine parts grafted on.”

Click! Parts of the robot vanished, replaced by a CG-rendered human with the mechanical limbs attached. “How would you have it move?” someone asked. “Aren’t normal prosthetics slow and clunky?”

“Good question,” Brenda replied. “In fact, we asked that of ourselves. That was another of Baxter’s ideas: he suggested, totally out of left field, that we try fake nerve-tissue.” Click!

The “camera” zoomed in on the mechanical arm. The “appendage” exploded to show the layers of technology: micro-hydraulics, gas cartridges, electronics, wires, and artificial nerve tissue.

“It took us a few months of false starts before we got something that worked. Now…all of this is able to move thanks to a microchip called the Neuron Synapse Amplifier.”

The screen zoomed into the human’s head and displayed a CAT-scan-like cross-section of the head.

“The NSA chip goes directly into his brainstem and allows him to move the new machinery just like it was an ordinary, flesh-and-blood arm. Without it, the prosthetics wouldn’t respond nearly as well. It’s only about as big as a dime, and integrates with the organic matter like a clownfish to a sea anemone.” Click! A still from Finding Nemo appeared. “Sorry, that one was mine,” she added with a blush. “Yes? What was your question?” she asked of a raised hand. A female voice said, “We looked into one of your recent progress reports and found a passage about something called ‘shape-changing metal.’ Would you share that with us?”

He took the remote from Brenda and clicked. An image of the periodic table filled the screen, and selected elements flashed brightly as he narrated. “We got samples of platinum, gold, silver, titanium, aluminum, copper, zinc, and other metals. Then, we pounded them down to the molecular level until only a very fine dust remained—had to wear special respirators for that one in case someone breathed it in.

Finally, we combined each sample and infused them with nanotechnology. A specialist came in for that one. Working with the NSA chip, we found that the resultant alloy eagerly responded to human brainwaves. For example, if you thought of baking a cake, you’d get an egg-whisk shape. But for some reason the stuff didn’t want to take the shape of a hand. It simply reasserts itself into a paste.” An accompanying video demonstrated this in action.

“I was disappointed for quite some time. I liked my handy hand. But, we thought, we’re working for INTERPOL. They want a policeman, or some form of detective. Detectives wear trench coats and fedora hats. Thus, it became blindingly obvious that we should put this stuff into the hat. Oh, also, before I forget—it recharges with solar energy. The brim of the hat’s got solar panels in it.”

A diagram of the hat appeared on the screen. It pointed out: the inner nanotech lining, the brim’s solar panel, a hatband made with Organic Light-Emitting Diodes in its black cloth, and a special “scope” concealed on the underside of the brim. “This last bit came from something Baxter saw in Popular Mechanics. It’s a pair of glasses with transparent video screens in its visor. He can’t be here tonight, because he had jury duty.” A few faint groans came from those who knew how painful that could be. “Anyway, this visor slides out from inside the hat and acts as binoculars, magnifying glass, and can also allow our cyborg to see in night-vision, thermographic vision, and something very similar to X-ray vision. Yes, what’s your question?”

Someone else said, “How’s he going to hold himself together?” “We plan to reinforce the skeleton with a metal called Adamantium,” Brenda said. “We tested it on a lab rat. Mousetraps had no effect from that point on.”

Things were as peaceful outside the hotel as within. A laundry truck pulled into the delivery area, the same as almost every other night. But this truck was not carrying laundry. Instead, it carried twelve MAD agents (all wearing identical black, red-trimmed bowling shirts and red berets) and their leader, the fearsome Rock Holmes. The truck also carried smoke and gas grenades, MP-5Ks, and other weapons, as well as three one-wheeled pod-cycles. Lightweight and agile, they could outrun and outmaneuver even a NASCAR driver…or a cop in hot pursuit.

Rock addressed his men. “Okay, guys, Claw wants you lowlifes to shake up the Bradford conference. Mr. Grout, the owner, is in with the Big C, and he told us about it. So, you’re going to use satchel charges and smoke grenades to cause a ruckus. You guys go in and steal whatever files Artemus has. When you’re done, I kill him. Are we clear?” The agents grunted like a bunch of Marines. “Good! Now go in there! And remember, you’re KnightHawk employees. Anyone who dies and you’re not supposed to kill comes out of your paychecks.”

Someone took notice of the truck’s license plate and checked the day’s log. Surprise, surprise—no deliveries were scheduled for that day. The employee ran off and called the police just as the agents streamed out of the truck. Two of them placed the satchel charges against the wall facing the main foyer and set them to blow in 10 seconds.

KA-BOOM! The blast ripped a hole through the wall, sending smoke and chunks of drywall everywhere. The twelve agents ran like madmen, taking hostages, shooting in the air, and wreaking general havoc. Rock took three of them with him to the Bradford conference, enlisting three more as a precautionary backup. The remaining six he instructed to watch for the cops.

At the main door, Rock produced two grenades: one a flash-bang, the other a concussion grenade. He threw both into the room, where the “thud” of the concussion and the flash stirred up a panic among the INTERPOL agents and the scientists. Before he and his men could strike, there was a cry of “POLICE!” at the door. “Right! I need four of you to give ‘em hell,” Rock said. “Two of you, in with me.”

While Rock’s four agents distracted the cops with a firefight, he and the other two went into the room. One had a gun aimed at the agents, and the other had Prof. Bradford at gunpoint. Rock was busy at the laptop stealing and deleting the Gadget files. When he finished, he told the two MAD agents to take the pod-cycles out with the laptop. He took one look at Artemus and pulled out his Desert Eagle. “Hey, Artie,” he taunted. “I got a message for you: Dr. Claw and Sanford Scolex want to say ‘hi.’” He shot the old man in the chest and ran off.

Det. John Brown heard the shot and ran to the room where it came from. He found Brenda weeping over her father. “Oh, God,” he whispered. “Whoever you are, I promise you, I will bring justice upon the people who killed this man.” “Wait!” she called out. “Before you go…I’m Brenda Bradford. They stole a laptop. Can you get it back?” “I’ll do my best,” he replied as he headed to leave the room. “No, wait!” she called out again. “I heard their leader say something about pod-cycles. They’re wearing black shirts and red berets.” “Thanks,” John said. “Come down to the station and tell me everything you know later.” With that, he headed out of the room.

As he left, Brenda noticed the back of his head, and how his hair protruded out in four conical spikes. That’s an unusual hairstyle, she thought.

[nix]

CHAPTER THREE: OFFICER DOWN

“Dispatch, this is Det. John Brown. Suspects are wearing black shirts and red berets. They’re on something called ‘pod-cycles.’ What’s a pod-cycle? Over.” The radio squawked. “Hey, John,” the voice said. “This is Takahashi. I’m in pursuit after two guys on…one wheeled motorbikes, it looks like. That must be the pod-cycle you were talking about.”
“Where are you?” John asked. “I’m at the intersection of State and Old World. Looks like they’re heading northeast.” “All right, I’m coming to give you backup. Over and out.” John started the car and gave chase.
Ah, Metro City, that shining city of the Midwest. John couldn’t remember when he’d last seen anything like this. He occasionally had to deal with the odd break-in, or a group of high-schoolers (or frat-boys) making mischief for a laugh, but as far as he knew, this was the first time he’d ever had to deal with a murder. He was also taking on a high-speed chase for the first time, too. Up until now, he and his niece Penny had led charmed lives in the rarest of American cities: one that had its stuff together and was determined to put on its best face for the world.

His reflections were interrupted by the sudden blare of the alarm on his car’s computer system. A few of the other cars had the bikers on GPS and were in pursuit. The bikers were represented by red dots, while the squad cars were (of course) blue dots. They just turned right on West Pleasant, left on East Vine, right on East Reservoir…where are they headed? He couldn’t think about that right now. He decided that he should head them off at the pass.

“I need units on North Water, North Cass, and…East Lyon,” he commanded. “I’m on the corner of State and Van Buren.” He switched on the sirens and raced down Van Buren, hoping that there’d be some traffic to slow his prey. Then, on the intersection of Water, Holton, and Brady, he found them ten feet ahead. They saw him and drew their MP5Ks. John saw the dull grey metal glint off the setting sun and jerked the wheel hard to the right as soon as he saw Humboldt Avenue. “Brown here!” he declared on his radio. “I’m on Humboldt and they’re on Brady…I’ll make them chase me on Prospect. Be ready to back me up—they have automatics.”

He found them as he turned right on Ogden and Prospect. They didn’t have their guns drawn. “This is my chance,” John muttered. “Just get these two, come back alive, and I’ll be Inspector John Brown in a few days.”
He didn’t see the small object in the hands of the leftmost agent. A small, circular device not unlike a hockey puck, made of some kind of plastic, and with a raised “X” of stainless steel intersecting in the center. Directly in the middle was a flashing red light. The agent tossed it behind him and sped off. The thing attached to John’s car with a dull “clunk!” right where he couldn’t see it.

Passersby on North Lincoln Memorial Drive saw the explosion lift the car a foot-and-a-half into the air, and watched as it rolled roof over chassis on the road. Miraculously, John was thrown from the explosion, but it left him with many broken bones and a lot of other damage.

Wham! Wham! Wham! The crash-cart jolted through a seemingly endless hall of doorways.

“Vital signs fading! His blood pressure and heart rate are dropping!” And then there was another voice he couldn’t hear. “Stay with me. Dad told me I’d know when the right man came along. You’re that man.” There, dressed in surgeon’s clothing, were Brenda and her friend Baxter, a tall, portly man with black hair, a big nose, and wearing black, thick-rimmed glasses. She had called him to meet her at the hospital as soon as she heard the news about the fallen policeman. She also let INTERPOL’s top brass know that the Gadget Project was a go, and that they needed the city hospital’s cooperation. The doctors and surgeons were briefed on the Bradfords’ work and progress.

“So, doctor, what are we looking at here?” one of the surgeons asked. “Well, judging from what I can see, his body’s intact for the most part, but his heart and lungs are badly damaged and may need replacing. The nerves in his left arm and his lower legs are almost unsalvageable. His ribcage is fractured, and that’s jeopardizing everything else. I’m sorry, but we’ll need a miracle if we’re to save this man. Look at him! He’s already close enough to death as it is!”

Both Brenda and Baxter were in the operating theater. They were soon joined by an army of men and women in identical black suits wheeling in suitcases and trunks of ballistic metal. These trunks, which had “PROPERTY OF THE BRADFORD INSTITUTE FOR TECHNOLOGICAL RESEARCH” engraved on them, contained an unfathomable amount of components, tools, electronics, chemicals, raw materials, and other ephemera.

“It’s a good thing we came to change our focus to a bionic policeman,” Baxter reflected. “I was worried that most of my ideas would never get beyond the concept stage.”

With John Brown on life support, and with the parts all gathered into one place, the surgeons and scientists set to work on putting together Professor Bradford’s crowning achievement…the greatest hero ever assembled.

First, the damaged lungs were replaced with new biomechanical constructs. The heart was replaced with Baxter’s ‘Narvik 7’ artificial heart, which he had designed and built with a team from Narvik, Norway. It was named after the place because none of them could agree on naming rights, and also because it literally “flowed off the tongue” and was instantly memorable. Baxter hoped that further improvements would make it a cost-effective emergency replacement for an ordinary human heart, but it was prohibitively expensive at the moment. Micro-thin tubing replaced damaged vessels.

“Okay,” a surgeon said. “Get the plastic blood pumping.” The hospital had a ready supply of artificial blood as a way of keeping people who had lost a lot of blood alive. (The term “plastic,” dear readers, implies that this substitute blood conforms to a patient’s blood-type; the stuff itself isn’t made of polymers.)

“Vitals stabilizing. Heart-rate good,” Brenda said. “We have to introduce the NSA system into John’s brain before we do anything else. Are there any neurosurgeons among us?”

“I’ll help,” a voice said. The sliding doors opened, revealing a tall man with black and white hair. An ugly scar ran across his face, and he was dressed exactly like the Phantom of the Opera. (Someone noted that he looked a lot like Gerard Butler, which only cemented the comparison.)

“My name is Black Jack. INTERPOL hired me in the event of…complications.” The officious head surgeon stormed in front of him. “Excuse me, but who told you that you could just barge in here and take over? This is medicine we’re talking about here!”

“MEDICINE?” Black Jack bellowed. “THIS! IS! SURGERY! Now please get out of my way! No, not you, Dr. Bradford. I need your help.” Brenda asked what he needed. “I just need you to hand me the NSA chip when I ask for it.” He noted the anger that briefly flashed in her eyes and said, “And no, that’s not sexist. I’m a more-than-slightly-mad genius surgeon. It’s what I do. First, help me turn him over so we can work.”

Together, they turned him on his back, leaving his head and neck exposed. Black Jack prepped the area and asked for a scalpel. He cut the back of John’s neck open, careful not to hit any of the blood vessels around the brain. Within a minute, he was looking at the man’s brainstem. “I need your help in keeping the muscle walls separated,” he said. “I also need a pair of tweezers and the microchip.” Brenda dutifully held the partition open while the master surgeon swiftly inserted the Neuron Synapse Amplifier chip into the brainstem. The fragment of artificial nerve tissue inside the chip immediately bonded to the organic material. Black Jack sewed him up with the skilled hands of a tailor. “He’ll only have a small scar back there. It’ll go away in time. It seems my work here has come to an end, ladies and gentlemen.” He quietly exited, leaving everyone slightly confused.

Brenda shook her head, attempting to regain composure. “The next step is to remove the left arm and the lower legs, and reinforce the skeleton. I don’t think we’ll need the ‘Phantom of the Operating Theater’ to help us with something as simple as that.” The surgeons made short work of the limbs.

Two of the INTERPOL agents set to work on a strange-looking machine with two nasty-looking probes attached to a support arm. Brenda opened a suitcase and pulled out a stasis cylinder of metal and tempered glass. Inside it, there was a thick, grayish substance not unlike mercury. “This is refined Adamantium,” she said. “We’re going to electroplate his bones with it from that machine.” She inserted the cylinder into the socket on its base, plugged it into the mains, switched on, and set to work on a pair of joysticks and a viewscreen. One arm swung around and sprayed a fine mist onto John’s ribcage, clavicle, and scapula. The monitor showed the liquid coursing through the rest of his bones. “This formula has a natural affinity for calcium,” she explained. “It’s moving faster than I expected.” 92%...93%...94%...Soon the entire skeleton was completely covered.

“And now, we shall attach the prosthetic arm and legs before permanently bonding the Adamantium to the bone,” Baxter said. He reached into a trunk and brought out the prosthetic arm and hand. The whole thing was covered by an outer housing made of some impossibly lightweight yet super-strong plastic. The same went for the shins, which attached at the knee joint. The machine sprayed some metal onto the shoulder and knee joints.

“Now to cure it,” Brenda said almost to herself. She turned a knob and the sprayer probe rotated on the arm’s circular track. In its place was a longer, telescopic section with a conical metal probe attached. She pressed the button and high-voltage electricity coursed through John’s body. In seconds, the metallic putty took on the sheen of stainless steel. “This is unbreakable now,” she said. “To prove it, I’ll need one of our agents to help us. Baxter, would you go get someone? Make sure he’s well-trained in judo and other martial arts.”

Baxter returned with a black-clad agent. “My karate-trained assistant will attempt to break these metallic bones,” Brenda said. The agent did some dramatic breathing exercises, did some flashy poses, and brought his hand down onto the bone. Hand met bone with a colossal vibration, and the agent doubled over, clutching his hand in pain. “Tada!” Brenda declared. “That well-trained man just broke his hand. Nothing less than an atomic bomb can make a dent. Baxter, we’re almost finished. We only need to install the chest plate and graft some bio-flesh onto him. Then we get to install some of his gadgets.” Baxter brought out the chest plate, a lightweight piece of metal with a flexible midsection. He put on a welder’s mask and bonded the piece to the skeleton with a laser-welder. He screwed two power cables into the ports on the plate, followed by cables in the shoulder and elbow joints of the arm, and in the knee joints of the legs. “He’s running off the mains,” Baxter declared. “It’ll keep him alive while we finish off the last few details before turning it up full-blast.”

The two of them set to work on the Gadget Arm. The hand hadn’t been installed yet, and with good reason: the prosthetic needed to be installed first. Only then could the other gadgets follow.
Baxter popped the shoulder-joint and the bicep’s outer housing open. Inserting a tube into the outermost part of the shoulder, he injected what had been described as a “self-regenerating blue goo.” The innermost part of the bicep, from shoulder to elbow, contained a long, 1 ½”-thick pipe. This was the main reservoir. The elbow carried compressed CO2 gas in its outermost section. Nobody wondered why a cybernetic policeman would need to carry self-regenerating blue goo, but it was decided that the stuff might be useful for something. That was the cake. Next came the “frosting” of solid-state circuitry, micro-hydraulics, and artificial nerve tissue. Satisfied, Baxter put the housing back on.

Next was the forearm. Brenda popped its outer housing open and set to work on the Extendo-Arm. A miniature version of the Maglev propulsion system launched part of the forearm along a Hoberman-designed double spring that would keep its shape even after it was extended. When Dad showed her the initial designs, she thought of a paper yo-yo shooting out and being retracted.

Finally, they both set to work on the Hand. Baxter was somehow able to design a gas-powered hand that could work independently of the arm—“handy” when reaching for something with the Extendo-Arm. The palm of the hand contained a small electromagnet that could grab metal objects or erect a somewhat-powerful force-field. The fingers contained: a laser-cutter, a lock-pick, and a small metal “pincer” for holding small objects. The thumb and pinkie were reserved for a cell-phone receiver and microphone.

They stretched a pebbled, rubberlike material over the fingers and palm. It allowed John to feel sensations in his fingertips as well as he would with a normal hand. The material on the palm also had OLEDs in it for the Gadget Phone’s keypad.

“Oh, I’m bushed,” Baxter moaned. “You’ll be able to hibernate for the winter when we’re finished here,” Brenda said as she fixed the material into place once and for all. Baxter looked at her as she worked. “You know, you’re really devoted to this guy,” he commented. “I know it’s your father’s work and all, but you’re going at it like a mother to an injured child. How can you care so deeply when you don’t even know his name?”

“I can because he risked his life for our work. He went after the men who stole the laptop with the files on it. I know he’s the right man for this, and I want to make sure we get it right the first time.” She paused as she realized the truth. “Oh, of course, of course,” she said. “I get it now. You’re jealous, aren’t you?” Baxter sheepishly admitted that he was. “Well, don’t worry about it. We’re only friends and co-workers anyway. Besides, you’re right—I’d love this man as a son, but I don’t know about anything beyond that.” She attached the hand to the wrist joint, gave a final twist of the Allen wrench, and soon that was finished.

“We’re almost finished. All we need to do is power him up and graft the bio-flesh over his chest.” Baxter attached his cables to the huge socket at the end of a thick, insulated cord. This cord was 75 meters long, and would plug into the hospital’s main and backup generators. Brenda made sure everything was in working order and sent him to the generator room, giving him a small walkie-talkie before he left. He huffed and he puffed as he lugged the heavy, wheeled spool down the halls.

She made sure everything was securely attached as the minutes ticked by. Baxter radioed in after ten minutes. “All set?” he asked. “All set,” she replied. “Give my creation life.”
All of the hospital’s power surged into John Brown’s enhanced body for twenty seconds. When the lights came back on, Brenda plugged a handheld readout into the chest plate. “STATUS: FULLY CHARGED AND 100% OPERATIONAL,” it read.

“Come on back to the operating room, Baxter,” she said. “After we put the bio-flesh over his chest, Detective John Brown will get a second chance.”

[nix]

CHAPTER FOUR: GO-GO-GADGET!

John woke up in a hospital recovery room on Sunday morning. When he opened his eyes, he saw that woman from the hotel…B-something, her name was. Brittany? Bethany? No, that couldn’t be right. Brenda! Yes, that was it! And across from her were Penny, his niece, and Anatole Quimby, the police chief. A wave of adrenalin coursed through his head as he lurched upright. The short, balding chief sprang forward. “Now, don’t do things too fast, John. You’ve been in traction for five days. Don’t worry; the station’s been getting along fine.” “Ugh…” John groaned. “My head feels so heavy…THE HECK?!” He looked at his left arm in shock and no small degree of horror. It was no longer flesh and blood, but metal and plastic.

He reached up to touch the fingers and accidentally pressed the index-finger knuckle. The fingertip popped off on a hinge, revealing a red lens set in a metal barrel. A ruby-red laser beam fired from the finger and seared a long, thin scar in the ceiling. Surprised, Brenda reached into her pocket and pressed a button. The laser stopped firing and the fingertip retracted into place.

“I…I’m hallucinating. I must be!” he screamed. “No,” Brenda said. “You’re not hallucinating. This is real. I don’t know how else to say it, but five days ago, after you met me in the hotel—after my father died—your car was attacked. There was an explosion. By some miracle, you survived, but you lost your arm and legs and suffered a lot of internal damage. What I’m trying to say is, you have crossed the boundary between man and machine. You are now a Cyborg, codenamed Gadget.”
“Wowzers,” John moaned as he collapsed from the shock of it all.
--------------------------------------------

“NOT BAD, TENMA,” he said. Sanford Scolex was also out of commission for a while—officially, he had been in a car crash while racing his Maybach Exelero. Only he, Sikes, and Dr. Tenma knew the truth. He came out mostly all right, but his face was horribly disfigured on one side. He had lost his left eye, which was replaced with a large, constantly-roving blue sphere. He had a large, nasty scar and a lot of burn damage on the left side of his face too. And his right arm was lost at the forearm. In its place was a fearsome, three-pointed claw with pincers of chrome. His once-silky tones were now much rougher since he’d breathed in all that smoke and ash in the destruction of the first Claw’s castle.

“NOT BAD AT ALL. IN FACT, I’D SAY IT’S WHAT CAPTAIN HOOK WOULD USE IF HE WERE ALIVE TODAY. IT’S VERY DIABOLICAL, DON’T YOU AGREE, MR. SIKES?” Sikes nodded in approval, even though he didn’t really approve at all. “YES…IT SEEMS FITTING FOR A NAME LIKE ‘DR. CLAW.’” Tenma looked at him, utterly confused.

“HAVEN’T YOU HEARD?” he chuckled. “I NOW CONDUCT THE BIGGEST CONSPIRACY SINCE THE ILLUMINATI. GOVERNMENT, ORGANIZED CRIME, MAJOR CORPORATIONS…I HAVE IT ALL AND MORE AT THE TIPS OF MY CLAW.” He subtly flexed his pincers for emphasis. Then, in one movement, he fully extended all three and pulled them back with a satisfying “clank!” as the base of the claw spun like a drill. “YES, THE REACH OF MAD IS ENOUGH TO SEND THE FORCES OF GOOD COWERING IN FEAR. OF COURSE, I’LL STILL TAKE CONTROL OF SCOLEX INDUSTRIES…BY THE WAY, HAVE YOU TAKEN A LOOK AT THAT LAPTOP MY MEN STOLE?”

“Not yet, ‘Dr. Claw,’ or whatever you call yourself,” Tenma said. “You’ve been out for a few days. We flew some surgeons in to try to reconstruct your face, but…well, you may not like what you see.” Dr. Tenma’s fear was well-placed. As brilliant as he was with robotics and cybernetics, he was definitely not a plastic surgeon. When Sikes brought Sanford back to corporate headquarters in such a dismal state, Tenma knew that his friend and employer could not necessarily be seen at a hospital. A doctor’s report on his injuries would almost certainly contradict the “official” explanation of the car crash.

Instead, Tenma had Sikes bring in supplies from the hospital, buying the staff’s silence when necessary, and he himself converted the boardroom into a makeshift operating table similar to the one aboard Air Force One (and, coincidentally, aboard the Scolex corporate jet). There, Sanford’s condition was stabilized and his claw and eye installed. Cosmetic surgery would just have to wait.

Scolex purposefully strode over to a mirror and looked into it. “HMM,” he mused. “BELIEVE IT OR NOT, I DO LIKE WHAT I SEE. IF NOTHING ELSE, THE OUTSIDE MATCHES THE INSIDE. NOW BRING ON THE LAPTOP. I CAN’T WAIT TO SEE WHAT ARTEMUS WAS WORKING ON.”

Amazed at how well his friend adjusted, Tenma opened up the laptop and hooked it up to a projector. After a few minutes of tinkering and manic typing, he was able to get past the myriad codes and passwords set up to protect the precious research. He, Claw, and Sikes watched as streams of data and images flashed upon the screen: the initial “android” designs, the secondary “cyborg” concept, the “gadget” database that detailed almost every single gadget conceived of by the team, information on the Neuron Synapse Amplifier chip, and the words “PROJECT GADGET—FOR ‘INTERPOL.’”

“We may have to put in some overtime, Claw,” Tenma observed. “This may have some bearing on the prototype android R&D came up with.”

“YES, THE ‘HITMAN’ MODEL,” the scarred man said. “I REMEMBER THAT WE NEVER COULD GET IT TO WORK. WHAT ON EARTH COULD BRENDA BRADFORD KNOW THAT I DON’T? AND MORE IMPORTANTLY, WHAT IF SHE ACTUALLY PUTS HER FATHER’S WORK INTO PRACTICE?”

“It’s a mad scientist’s dream at the moment,” Sikes chimed in. “I know about Bradford, sure, but he was harmless—he just built robotic arms. I don’t believe for one minute that he could actually do any of this. All I’m saying is to wait and see what happens.”

Dr. Claw realized that his bodyguard was absolutely right. After all, MAD had never dealt with anything like this before. Besides, he needed to take an active role in the organization’s day-to-day activities…and maybe look into getting some work done on his Exelero. And then he remembered the NSA chip, which gave him an idea. Since he was no longer Sanford Scolex, the company now needed a human face—or an android face. Yes, that’s a good idea, he thought. That way, I can move more easily and have a ready alibi. His thoughts were interrupted by a high-pitched miaow at his feet. There was his beloved Birman, which he’d called “Sniffy” in years past. But maybe it was time for the furball to receive a new name.

“AH, SNIFFY…OR SHOULD I SAY…‘MAD-CAT’…HAVE YOU BEEN GOOD WHILE I WAS AWAY?” The cat looked at him for a second, totally confused. Then its ears folded down and an angry expression descended upon its face. It hissed, showing a row of crooked teeth with one upper tooth missing. “OH, WHAT’S WRONG, MY PET?” he said in as sweet a voice as he could manage. He caught his reflection in a computer monitor. “YES, THAT’S RIGHT. I’D FORGOTTEN. WELL, WHAT CAN I SAY? WE’LL BOTH HAVE TO GET USED TO MY NEW VISAGE.” With a smile, he stroked the cat’s head and set him down on the floor. “NOW, WHY DON’T YOU RUN ALONG AND FIND SOME MICE TO CATCH? DADDY’S GOT SOME THINGS TO TAKE CARE OF.”

He opened the built-in computer on his desk and connected the laptop to it. As he scanned the Gadget files, he found that there was a whole swath of information missing. This pincer won't make typing any easier, he reflected, as he made a note to get himself a chorded keyboard. He looked at his screen in frustration as a warning told him that the information was elsewhere, and it wasn’t telling him exactly where. I must think like him. Where would I store such data? I'd store it in physical form, somewhere secure...He checked the original Dr. Claw’s master list of agents and contacts, searching for banks and post offices in Metro City. He found the contact at the central post office. It was time for a new MAD to strike.

[nix]

CHAPTER FIVE: TRAINING DAY

Two days after the surgery, John was finally declared well enough to go home. Brenda decided that now would be a good time to walk him through the changes he was about to face, and the best place to do this was at his house. The best thing she could do—for her own sake as well as his—was to encourage him to regard himself as human.

She also remembered that there was one other team member, a young Vietnamese man who answered to the name “Data.” He was still hard at work, fine-tuning the gadgets that Gadget would have to wear on his person. So she gave him a call to ask how things were progressing, and also to invite him over. It would do him good to get out of that university lab where he set up his workshop.
“I’m almost done,” he said. “Sorry if I seem a recluse, but this stuff’s way too much fun.” Brenda chuckled. I guess we’re all kindred spirits in that way, she thought. We’re a bunch of geeks brought together by our love for gadgets. But Data’s something else entirely: he’s an artist and a scientist. “Okay, but just be sure to bring the Gadget Suit with you,” she said as she hung up.

John was taken home in a beautiful black INTERPOL briefing car. This streamlined, ovoid car had a rounded backseat for face-to-face conversations. That’s where Chief Quimby was, much to John’s surprise. “What are you doing here, Chief? Doesn’t the station need you?” he asked as he got in.
“All in good time, John,” he said. “Bradford and von Slickstein want me to be there too. They couldn’t join us for the ride to your house, by the way. She went to pick up her laptop, and he went to get one of their friends.”
"If you really want to know, I want to come along and ask questions.” He sighed heavily as he closed his eyes. “Just between you and me…I hate burying good officers. When I heard the news, I was afraid. I didn’t want you to be the first eulogy I’d have to give in Metro City. And before your promotion to Inspector, too.”

“You mean you had to do that before?”

“I started out in Miami. Worked my way through the ranks, and watched a lot of good men and women fall while on duty. Watched husbands, wives, children…whatever…cry at the funerals. But I didn’t come to see you in the hospital right away. Do you know where I went?”

“No.”

“I went to see Penny. You’re all she has now.”
“I know,” John said. “She lost her mom and her dad last year. Her mom was my sister. We were always close, up until a few years ago. They were…travel journalists, I think. I don’t really know; she never said just what they did. I only know that they died in a mountain-climbing accident.”

“Hm. Well, I went there, talked to her, made sure she didn’t cut class. My kids are all grown up, so I do know how to raise ‘em. I said to her, ‘Even though he’s hurt, he’d still want you to go to school.’”

“She’s been in trouble a few times. Mostly she’s been hacking the computers at school. It’s weird, but it’s like she can talk to computers. I’d punish her, but every time I look at her I see my sister in her, and it reminds me that she’s still having a hard time dealing with it.”

“So what would you do?” the chief asked.

“I want to see her use it for good. Mom and Dad didn’t need to worry about punishments. They just said, ‘Don’t do anything we wouldn’t be proud of. It’s up to you to decide that.’ I wonder what they’d think of me now.”

“They’d probably be glad you’re alive. Well, looks like we’re here already.” Brenda’s vintage green Beetle was already there.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------

“John, welcome home!” Brenda said excitedly. “We’ve got so much to tell you, now that you’re on your feet. And Chief Quimby, too. Come on into the living room; Penny and Data are waiting.”
“‘Data?’” John asked.

“He’s our designer,” Baxter said. “Art and I came up with the science behind your gadgets, and he made them look good. He also came up with many other gadgets we hadn’t thought of. As for his name, he just prefers his nickname for some reason. Now, then, time for you to meet him.”

“Oh, my god,” Data said. “It’s you.” “Well, yes, it’s me. Detective John Brown.” “No, I mean—it’s you. There’s so much you need to know. Hang on, Brenda’s starting up her computer. That means she’s going to start talking.”

“So,” Brenda said as Penny came with cups of coffee, “this is Project Gadget. When you came in to see me at the hotel, John, Dad and I were talking to INTERPOL about this.”

“Huh. You mean my best officer now has international jurisdiction?” Chief Quimby observed. “Not yet,” Brenda said. “Well, what I mean is, he will eventually be able to travel the world, but he’ll remain in Metro City for now. They won’t have him until he’s fully ready.”

“Excuse me,” John interrupted, “but I’m right here. Tell me what I am. Am I a tin soldier?”

“No, nothing like that. You see, INTERPOL has lost so many good men.” “I know the feeling,” the Chief muttered. “And they came to us and requested a super-policeman for extraordinary cases. Trust me, John, it could have been worse. They could have gone to Scolex Industries.”

“What’s that?” Penny asked. “I hear about it on the news sometimes.”

“I went to Harvard with its CEO, Sanford Scolex. Whereas my father cared about humanity, and did things for the best of reasons, Sanford had a far more…pragmatic approach. He performs humanitarian gestures only for the tax breaks. We dated for a while, but we didn’t see eye to eye on things. I’d rather not go into it.”

“I think I’d better take over,” Baxter said. “A-hem…This, everyone, is the microchip that makes John’s life easier. It’s called the Neuron Synapse Amplifier, and it’s right inside Gadget’s brainstem.”

“I have a microchip in my brain,” John said. Suddenly he was indignant about the whole thing. “I suppose you’ll be able to read my thoughts.” “Most certainly not!” Baxter huffed. “It’s in the part of the brain that handles motor skills and coordination. All right…in layman’s terms, it allows your cybernetic arms and legs to move and feel just like your organic arm. That’s how you’re able to walk without thinking, and how you know exactly how much pressure to exert on that coffee cup. We have no interest in reading your thoughts. Well, Brenda here might.”

“Hey!” Brenda exclaimed.

Baxter shot back, “I’m right, though, aren’t I? ‘Ooh, is he daydreaming about me in exciting underwear? I’ll just look in on him with my laptop!’” Poor Brenda cracked up totally, and she soon had the whole room laughing.

“I hope you haven’t given me X-ray vision, then,” John said as the laughter died down. Baxter glanced from side to side as the most priceless expression in the world came over his face. The laughter returned as quickly as it had died down.

“No, no, we haven’t touched your eyes,” Brenda said. “Amazingly, they were just about intact. Your heart and lungs were another story. They were badly damaged in the explosion, and we had to replace them. Your lungs are biomechanical constructs, and your heart is the experimental ‘Narvik 7.’ We were surprised at how little damage you sustained. We thought it would be a lot worse than it was.”
“An artificial heart,” John said. “Can it be broken?” Brenda began, “It’s designed to be indestructible, and it has a self-charging battery that…oh. You didn’t mean it like that. Well…yes, I’m afraid it can."

“That’s good,” John said. “It means I can still feel.”

“Listen to me, John Brown,” Brenda said. She went over to him and held his hand. “I know we’re making you feel like you’re just a lot of spare parts, but believe me, you are the heart and the soul behind it. That’s what this is all about: combining the latest in cutting-edge technology with a saving touch of humanity. Those men you were after stole Dad’s laptop. It had a copy of these files I’m sharing with you. When you jumped into your car and chased them without even asking my name—and when you died—I knew that you were the right man for the job.”

“I’m worried,” the chief said. “With all this talk about ‘cutting-edge technology,’ won’t it put my men out of work?”

“There are some limits to what he can do,” Baxter explained. “For one thing, his bionics can’t give him superhuman strength or intelligence. He has no more and no less than what he started out with. Also, John, you may notice some side effects from the NSA chip. There are a few bugs we couldn’t quite work out, so you may find yourself kind of easily distracted, a little absent-minded, maybe even accident-prone, but you know what? It’s Professor Bradford leaving his mark on you.”

“It’s something to overcome, I guess,” John mused. “I don’t want to be too perfect going in. The guys might think something was wrong with me.”

“That’s the spirit, Uncle John!” Penny said. Her beagle, Brain, barked in agreement from under a chair. “I think it’s time for the fun stuff, now that we’re done with the science,” Brenda said. “Data, would you bring on the Gadget Suit?”

“Of course,” Data said. He brought out a cylindrical sports bag with a stylized “G” symbol at each end. Opening the bag, he pulled out a pair of black, high-topped sneakers with unusual laces, followed by a neatly-folded trench coat and a light-gray fedora with a black band. On top of that he pulled out a wide black belt with a large, circular buckle of metallic blue. The belt held a number of unusual gizmos that John would have to see up close later. “Here, try the hat on,” Data said. He continued as John put the hat on. “Now, that chip has some other side effects. You can use it to do some pretty wild stuff with that hat.”

“Like what?” John asked. “Well, let’s say I’m a robber.” He imitated a pistol with his thumb and forefinger. “Your money or your life,” he snarled. “What do you do?”
John thought for a moment. Suddenly the crown of the hat opened at the top like a trash can with a mechanical lid, and an oversized cartoon mallet grew out of it. He looked up and noticed that it sat on a tall shaft with a ball-and-socket joint. Everyone looked on in surprise as it moved in front of Data. And something else happened. The front part of the mallet opened up and a boxing glove shot out on an accordion spring. Data ducked just in time, but the glove put a crack in the wall. Glove and mallet retracted into Gadget’s hat.

“Wow,” Penny said. “Did you just do that? Her uncle echoed, “‘Wow’ is right, Penny. This is amazing. Dr. Bradford, Dr. von Slickstein, Data…I don’t know how to thank you. All of you brought me back from death’s door and then some!”

“I have an idea about how you can thank us,” Chief Quimby growled. “The post office is under siege. I don’t know all the details, but they’re taking hostages. I sent men down to keep things from going nuts, but nobody’s gone in yet. Tell you what: If you can get in there and take these morons down before someone gets hurt, I’ll finally be convinced.”

“Okay, Chief, but I think the car we came in will draw too much attention, and I don’t want to wreck Brenda’s car. We don’t know what kind of weapons they have.”

“Hold everything,” Data said. “Put on your coat. Not only is it armored, but it’s got a few surprises inside it.” He helped the cyborg put on the shoes (“Power laces!” John gushed), a shirt, a tie, a tiepin with a long cable at one end, and the coat. “Now open up your left sleeve. Yes, the epaulet fastens that flap.”
John opened the flap and found a curved, touch-screen mini-computer underneath.

“Now, this thing doesn’t do too much right now, but we’ll work on that. Right now, we can send you messages in the field with it, and it’s also a complete instruction manual. Shows you each and every one of your gadgets, and—guess what!—it’s interactive! Which means you can get hints about what to do on the fly!”

“Your tiepin is a camera, too, John,” Brenda said. “That means we can monitor what you’re doing in real time. It’s just for your first day out on the field.”
“Yes, thank you, but how do I get there?!” John demanded.

“Try the Copter Hat!” Data said.
“Okay…Copter Hat, go!” No reply. “Copter Hat…fly!” Nothing. “Up, up and away!” Still nothing.

“Gah! I forgot!” Brenda moaned. “You have to say, ‘Go-Go-Gadget’ and whatever you need for some of your gadgets.”

“‘Go-Go-Gadget?’ What do you mean, ‘Go-Go-Gadget?’”

“It doesn’t matter!” Brenda sighed, rolling her eyes. “Just say it. Oh—you might want to step out of the house before you do.” John did as Brenda said, and everyone stood to watch him.
He closed his eyes and commanded, “Go-Go-Gadget Copter Hat!”

The hat opened up and sprouted three rotor blades and a pair of control handlebars. A light flashed on the right handlebar. John gave it a crank and set the blades turning. The left handlebar flashed, and when he gave it a few cranks, the blades spun faster and faster until he started going up, up, up into the air.

Things were pretty bad at the central post office. Three or four masked thieves had taken hostages on the first, second, and third floors, while a fourth was busy at a remote controller. Several others were tearing up the place and making it look like a terrorist act. Misdirection was the key to this assignment; the police were busy outside, trying to make sure nobody got hurt. The negotiator was on her way to reason with these guys.
RC watched intently on its screen as a smallish drone climbed up the side of the building and deposit a small bomb at a window on the sixth floor. The explosion was just big enough to break the glass, and the drone gained access. That floor held the enormous mainframe that directed the flow of letters, packages, and other mail through Metro City.

The robot extended a small probe from its back and hacked into the mainframes. Streams of data poured into its CPU, where the technician inside the van sorted through the data. A voice on his earpiece said, “IS EVERYTHING GOING ACCORDING TO PLAN?”

“Everything’s going smoothly, Dr. Claw. The Scolex drone is going through all this data, and I’ll hit the section on post boxes pretty soon.”

Gadget noticed the broken window and the van in the alley as he got closer to the post office. “Wowzers,” he said to himself. “I wonder who’s in that van? Maybe he needs a jump-start, or he’s got a flat tire.”
Inside the van, Dr. Claw said, “BE CAREFUL! SOMEONE’S LOOKING AT YOU FROM ABOVE!” The agent punched a key and looked at another screen. “It’s a guy in a coat, flying a helicopter on his hat. The hell?”

“THAT MUST BE PROF. BRADFORD’S TEST SUBJECT. ‘PROJECT GADGET.’”

The agent watched as Gadget seemingly ignored the van. “He must be worried about the guys inside. I’ll finish up here. Hey! I got it!” He pressed a button. “What we’re looking for is PO Box one-oh-five-three-eight.” He pulled up a schematic of the building. “Second floor.”

Gadget approached the police cordon. “Go-Go-Copter Stop!” he called out. The Copter stopped moving and retracted into his hat. As he fell the remaining twelve inches, his shoes lit up as the technology inside them slowed his descent.
“Good afternoon, officers. I’m Inspector Gadget. What seems to be the problem here?”

“We have terrorists in there. They have hostages…They’re threatening to blow the place up. I’m afraid we’re—hey, hold on, who are you? Do you have some kind of ID?”

“Why, yes, I do.” He pressed the top right button on his coat. A panel on the chest popped open, and a police badge on an accordion arm extended out. “Is that all right?”

“Sure, but they’ll kill you if you go in there.” “We shall see,” Gadget said as he went in.

He walked through the doors and was immediately set upon by two agents. They tackled him to the ground and started on him. And then something happened. Gadget’s shoulder-epaulets popped up, revealing two small bars of clear plastic. The bars suddenly flashed with a harsh, almost ultraviolet light and shrieked with a piercing noise like microphone feedback.

Now stunned, they let go of him, and Gadget’s computer opened. “Your other coat sleeve contains Gadget Cuffs,” it said, the screen displaying an image of a lightweight nylon cord with a slide fastener. “The fastener on these cuffs can only be opened at Metro City’s police department.” He opened the compartment, pulled out two pairs of cuffs, and slipped them onto his foes.

Satisfied, he went down to the sorting room. Reasoning that the elevators might firstly be out of order, and secondly too obvious, he took the stairs. He felt like something was drawing him downstairs, though not unwillingly. It was more like intuition, a feeling that something wasn’t right.

When he got there, he found his hunch correct. There, in the middle of the huge central pillar, was a large and quite obvious bomb with a timer reading 25 seconds. He called for the Gadget Phone and watched as the tip of his thumb extended up and the tip of his pinky extend out. The palm of his bionic hand lit up with a phone keypad, upon which he punched his home phone number.

“Hello?” Penny answered.
“Oh, Penny, good. You’re home,” he said. “Listen, can you put me on speaker? I need to talk to you and Brenda. Make sure she’s got her laptop on.” There was a long pause as Penny ran to get Brenda.

“Okay, girls, I’m sending you a picture.” Gadget squeezed the trigger mechanism in his coat pocket and was rewarded with the (digital) click and whirr of his Tiepin Camera.

“It’s a bomb,” Brenda gasped. “I know that, Dr. Bradford,” Gadget said, a note of panic creeping into his voice. “Penny, do you know how you got in trouble for hacking into the school’s computers?”

“Yes, but--”

“Hack! Hack like your life depends on it…and mine! See if you can get me schematics, renderings, anything that can help me defuse this bomb.” Penny started entering commands and executing programs like a mad pianist. In almost no time at all, she created a 3D version of the bomb and exploded it on the screen. There, before her eyes, was a complicated array of wires, batteries, and other parts, but no explosive.

“Uncle John, there’s no explosive,” she said.
“Maybe it’s inside the pillar,” he suggested. “Okay, what should I do first?”

“First, take the faceplate off. It’s a Philips-head screw,” Penny said. She heard him call for a Gadget Drill, followed by the familiar noise of a drill. “Right, that’s the faceplate,” Gadget said. “Now what? There are all these wires.”

Penny zoomed in on a few of them. “Remember your laser-finger from the hospital?” she asked. “Use it on the blue, green, and yellow wires.” “Want to run that by me again?” Gadget said. “Blue, green, and yellow,” Penny repeated. Gadget sliced those wires as the timer ticked down to zero. For a moment it seemed like he was too late in cutting the yellow wire. A mechanism clicked, and a card popped out of a slot. Gadget pulled out the card. It read, “KA-BOOM!”

Irritated, he ripped the fake bomb off the pillar and stuffed it into his coat pocket.

“Hey, what is this, someone’s idea of a joke?” he demanded of no-one in particular. “I’m going to have to give these idiots a good talking-to,” he muttered as he went back to the stairs.

I’m in a hurry, so I’d like to be able to climb these quickly. The Copter’s too big for the width of the staircase, so I’ll have to think of something else. There was a click, and a pair of high-tension spring coils jumped out of the soles of his shoes, propelling him (quite by surprise, I might add) back up to the main floor at high speed.

But he wasn’t fast enough. By the time he got back up to the lobby, he had just enough time to see a black-clad thief make a run for the front door. As Gadget panicked, he felt his left arm swing straight out in front of him. His hand popped out of its joint and flipped up, and the backs of his fingertips glowed red, orange, yellow, and green. As a deluge of blue goo sprayed from his arm, those lights faded out until only red and orange were visible. His hand and arm snapped back into position as the guy slipped on the goo and whacked his head on the door.

Gadget ran over to him and said, “Seven! Eight! Nine! Nine-and-a-half! Nine-and-three-quarters! Nine-and-seven-eighths! Ten! You are down and out for the count!” as he snapped the Gadget Cuffs onto the guy’s wrists.

As he triumphantly strode out the front doors, his foot caught a little bit of the blue goo. He went a** over appetite down the front steps, holding his quarry by the wrists all the way. Immediately a bunch of cameras swarmed over him, machine-gunning him with camera-flashes.
Inspector Gadget made the front pages, rubbing the top of his head in pain.
Unfortunately, he’d forgotten about the van, and he didn’t know about the radio-controlled robot.

[nix]

CHAPTER SIX: THE PERILS OF CELEBRITY

The local news ran a story on Gadget’s exploits, but it wasn’t until he saw himself mentioned on the next night’s episode of The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson that he knew he’d hit it big.

“It’s…a great day for America, everybody!” he said as the audience cheered and applauded. “It’s especially great for people in Metro City, Wisconsin, ‘cause they’ve got a new policeman. Apparently, he’s a man with machine parts on him, and he’s called Inspector Gadget.” He looked at the camera and grinned devilishly. “Well, I don’t know about you, Geoff, but he can come down here anytime.” He came up close to the camera, and put on a creepy, German-accented voice. “He can put me in handcuffs and inspect my gadget, too.”

“No kidding,” the host’s skeletal robot sidekick blurted.
“Tell me, Geoff, do you like having your gadget inspected?”

“Oh, sure, Craig. Every time it happens, I tingle all over. It feels really good.”

Host and sidekick went back and forth making smutty puns on the name “Inspector Gadget.” When Gadget himself watched the episode, he and Penny roared with laughter. “Penny, tell me: Why didn’t I think of that one?” he asked his niece. “I don’t know. But you’ll still be good old ‘Uncle John’ to me,” she said as she bade him good night.

But Gadget quickly learned that his newfound celebrity was not all sweetness and light. After the shout-out on Ferguson, his face soon appeared on countless news programs. He watched as MSNBC debated the ethics of a meta-human police officer and worried about the possibility of him becoming a vigilante as he adopted his own brand of justice; meanwhile, Fox News Channel’s pundits argued that he should do just that!

After a few days, he decided to appear on TV. He wanted to set the record straight and let people see him in person. The first show he appeared on, and the one he wanted to be on the most, was a program called Viewpoint with James Zogby.

“It’s good to have you on the show,” James began.

“Thank you, Mr. Zogby,” Gadget said. “May I say that I make a point of watching Viewpoint every Sunday morning?”

“Well, that’s quite an honor, and please call me Jim. May I call you John?”

“Sure. Sure, that’s fine, Jim. So…I imagine you and your callers had some questions about me? Who I am, what I can do…”
“Yes, I wanted to ask you, what’s it like being a bionic super-policeman? Do you get any negative feedback from your fellow officers?”

“No, not really, but it’s only been recent, and I haven’t been fully ‘back’ with them. Dr. Brenda Bradford, who gave me all these gadgets, now has me doing intense training and physical therapy. The goal, for her, is to get me as close to a normal human being as possible.”

“Ah, so you don’t feel like anybody’s looking at you funny, like they’re paranoid? Because I imagine they have good reason to feel like that.”
“What do you mean, Jim?”

“Now that you have—the best word I can think of is ‘superpowers’—aren’t you at all tempted to take things into your own hands? No offense to you, of course, John.”

“Some taken, but I joined the police force to help people. I only have these powers because they pulled me from a flaming wreck just in time, and Dr. Bradford and her colleagues got to me just in time. She lost her father, you know…and my niece, who lives with me, lost her parents. There’s a lot of senseless violence in the world, and I just want to make sure innocent people don’t have to suffer. At the same time, I also have to honor the rule of law, and that goes double for me now that I’m a ‘superhuman,’ as you said.”

“So what’s your plan? How do you intend to use your gifts in the most constructive manner possible?”
“I’ll just keep doing what I always did, I guess. But my plan for crime prevention is to appeal to the best in everyone, and to be seen as someone you can turn to when you need help.”

“Thank you very much, John. And now, we’ll turn this over to our callers…”

He followed his appearance on Viewpoint with guest slots on CNN, MSNBC, and most other local news shows not called Fox News. (He reasoned that showing up on Fox would lead to his words being taken out of context and regular viewers getting entirely the wrong idea about him.) In all of his interviews, he assured audiences that despite his bionic implants, he was still very much a human, and would remain as committed to due process and the rule of law as he was before.

Once Gadget got the word about himself out, another unyielding force came knocking at his door: celebrity endorsements. Throughout his life, his parents made sure to instill a healthy sense of self in him. Valuable deals that came to his door every day tested that sense of self. Many of the offers were tempting, but he declined any that he didn’t feel “right” about doing. McDonald’s, for example, came to him with a deal for a line of Happy Meal toys. At first he wanted to show them the door, but they showed him the designs. He admitted that they were just too appealing to pass up, so he agreed under the condition that they be sold exclusively with “healthier-choice” options. He also wrote into his contracts that the Bradford Foundation should receive the proceeds.

One promotion came along, and he really liked it. Fiat wanted a foothold in America for its New Fiat-500 models. When he received the promotional packet in the mail, he wrote back to the company and told them that he could not pass up, but that Fiat would need to send representatives to Metro City because he could not miss duty at the station. He also sensed that his coworkers were getting jealous of his limelight, and he wanted them to be included in the ad campaign.

And yet, the newly-promoted inspector found he was wrong. There were one or two small pockets of jealousy, but for the most part he was greeted warmly when he went back to the station the day after he appeared on CNN. A few people told him he represented the city and the station well (there was a personal letter from Mayor Wilson herself on his desk), but many more were just relieved that he was still alive and well. He gathered everyone into the board room for a meeting, where he told them about the Fiat ad.

“…so Fiat sent me a proposal for an ad campaign about their New Fiat 500. I agreed to it, but I asked them to come to Metro City so that all of you can be in it with me. Limelight fades—look at MC Hammer—but at least we’ll all have it when it’s brightest.”

“Hey, Gadget,” a gruff male voice said. “I heard you got all these swanky deals with McDonald’s and stuff. Are you going to share any of that with us?”

“What money?” Gadget asked. “I didn’t get a penny of it. It’s all going through the Bradford Foundation, and it’ll end up going into the city itself. You’ll all get higher paychecks and lower taxes from it. A wealthy Metro City is a healthy Metro City.”

Officer Takahashi piped in with, “Hey, I like that. You should submit it to the mayor’s office. Guys, ladies, what are we complaining about? Mine was the last voice this man heard. I’m just glad they picked someone as humble as he is for the Gadget thing.”

In the end, the Fiat shoot went well. It took place at night, with barricades and a line of cops and squad cars against a backdrop of the skyline. In front of the police line was a special, custom 500c. It was white with gray bumpers and a blue convertible roof. The blue side doors had the word “POLICE” painted on in yellow and written in a geometric, Milton Glaser-designed typeface. The gas tank’s hatch was painted red and featured Data’s stylized “lightning-bolt G” motif. The city even commissioned a special license plate: “GADGET.”

The copy read: “The world’s most advanced detective. A classic car, upgraded. With the new Fiat 500, he’s always on duty.”

The driver’s side door was ajar, and Gadget was seen emerging from it, dressed in his hat and coat.

Fiat’s campaign was so successful that the company wrote a letter to Gadget. It said that they decided to give him a fourth of what was on the contract, but wanted him to have the car used in the ad. The letter read, “We are working with companies such as the Bradford Institute and Mifune Motors of Japan to give you a crime-fighting experience like you have never had before.” Penny picked up the letter and focused on that. “Mifune Motors?” she asked. “The Mifune Motors, that produces racing cars and parts? And they’re working with Brenda? Oh, this is too much. You have to take this car, Uncle John. You’ve been driving the same old Taurus for ages. It’s time for a new look.”
------------------------------------------------------------------
Gadget was turning heads all over the world. One of those heads was Dr. Claw’s. From his penthouse office in the Scolex Building, he regarded the headlines with no small amount of fear.

“I KNEW IT!” he hissed. MAD-cat shrank under his master’s desk. “EVER THE ‘DADDY’S GIRL’, BRENDA! WELL, THIS WILL REQUIRE A BRAND NEW PLAN.” He punched the intercom on his desk. “DR. TENMA,” he said. “I’M COMING DOWN TO THE LAB IMMEDIATELY. I HAVE AN IDEA FOR HOW WE’LL USE THAT ANDROID PROTOTYPE…AN IDEA THAT WILL DESTROY THIS ‘INSPECTOR GADGET’ CHARACTER.”

“So, what do you want to do with the ‘Hitman’?” Tenma asked.

“I WAS WRONG TO THINK WE COULD USE IT FOR DIRECTLY IMMORAL ACTIVITIES,” Claw sneered. “SO, WE’LL GIVE THE PEOPLE A PROPER LAW ENFORCER, ONE WHO DOESN’T SPOUT THIS ‘A WEALTHY METRO CITY IS A HEALTHY METRO CITY’ NONSENSE. NO…WE’LL GIVE THEM A NEW GADGET, ONE WHO WILL TOTALLY ERADICATE CRIME FROM METRO CITY.”

“Isn’t that counterproductive, Dr. Claw? I mean, MAD is supposed to be the number one crime organization.”

“THE KEY, TENMA, IS IN THE WORDS ‘ERADICATE CRIME FROM METRO CITY.’ ONCE THE STREETS ARE CLEAN, AND THE TRAINS RUN ON TIME, THE POLICE WILL BE REDUNDANT. THEN MAD WILL BE ABLE TO TAKE OVER THE ENTIRE CITY. AND WE, DOCTOR, WE WILL DISCREDIT GADGET FOREVER. OUR ROBOTIC DOPPELGANGER WILL DO EVERYTHING THE REAL GADGET VOWED NOT TO DO.
HE WILL USE LETHAL FORCE IN ALL SITUATIONS. HE WILL DISPENSE SWIFT, BRUTAL JUSTICE. HE WILL MAKE CRIMINALS AND LAW-ABIDING CITIZENS ALIKE TOO TERRIFIED TO STEP OUT OF LINE. BUT WE NEED THE REAL GADGET’S BRAINWAVES TO MAKE IT WORK.”

“I see,” Dr. Tenma said. “You want to give it Gadget’s sense of duty and devotion to the law, but remove the compassionate side…the human side…in the process.”

“AND THEN WE GIVE GADGET A CASE OF...‘PERMANENT BLUE-FLU.’ STILL, THERE’S ONE STEP WE MUST CONSIDER.”

Tenma raised one eyebrow. “And that is?”

“WE LURE THIS ‘INSPECTOR GADGET’ CHARACTER HERE.”

“I see,” Tenma said. “We give him a red-herring clue, except it actually works. What if he wises up? What if he doesn’t actually come here—to this building, I mean?”

“DON’T WORRY ABOUT THAT.” Claw’s pincer slowly and menacingly flexed as he explained the next stage of the plan. “THE IDEA IS TO GIVE HIM THE CLUES EASILY ENOUGH THAT HE DEVELOPS AN EGO...THE POST-OFFICE JOB TURNED OUT TO BE JUST THAT. THE FINAL STAGE WILL BE TO BURST HIS BUBBLE.”

[nix]

CHAPTER SEVEN: “WOWZERS! A CLUE!”

Penny was about to head out for school on Wednesday morning. She was surprised at herself when she woke up at 5:00, two hours before she normally got up. Her first surprise was that she didn’t feel like she did most days, when she got herself ready in a grudging manner. No, today she found herself looking forward to it.

Her second surprise was that she didn’t miss Mom and Dad so much anymore. Certainly, she still missed them, but seeing Uncle Gadget as happy as he was—happier than he’d ever been, really—rubbed off on her. He came home from work every day gushing about some new gadget he’d discovered, or some new way of applying what he already had. One day, he used his Gadget Arm to pull a cat out of a tree; the next day, he used his Extendo-Legs; the day after that, he used his hat's Handy Hand. It seemed like wasted potential to Penny, but she remembered that this was just practice. One day, the real cases would begin, and when that day came, she knew she’d be one step closer to finding out what happened to her parents.

She found a third surprise as she said goodbye to Brain (her uncle was about to take her to school and head on to work from there) and stepped out the door. There in the driveway was a brand-new Fiat 500c, just like the one in the Metro City ad. She ran back into the house, backpack still in hand.

“Uncle Gadget! Your new car’s here!”

They both ran out to look at it. In his excitement, Gadget caught a corner of his coat in the door as it closed. He pulled it free, but the sudden force sent him sprawling off the stoop and landing in a most undignified way on the concrete walk. “Don’t worry about me, Penny,” he coughed. “I’m just fine. Guess I am a little clumsier than I was.” He got up, dusted himself off, and went over to take a look at the car.

It was as beautiful on the inside as it was on the outside. Fiat did the seats in a rich royal blue upholstery, and the steering wheel and console were a dazzling and futuristic if slightly confusing array of controls and screens. On the driver’s seat he found a small parcel and an envelope. He opened the parcel and found a micro-SD card. He opened the envelope with the pocketknife he bought a while ago (16 functions, to make up for the lack of gadgets on his other hand), and found a note explaining what he should do.

“Greetings to you from Fiat,” it said. “We hope you enjoy your new car, the Gadgetmobile, but you must do three things before you begin. First, you must plug the micro SD card into the reader on your coat sleeve’s console. This will give you a portable copy of the User Manual.” He did this, and the screen on his forearm flashed with diagrams and words in the blink of an eye. A progress bar zoomed across it to indicate that the download was complete.

“Second, enter the car and familiarize yourself with the dashboard and controls—where the AutoStick is, where the parking brake is, etc.” He and Penny got in and took a quick scan of the car before he looked down at the letter again.
“Third—and you must not do this before completing the first two—say the following: ‘Go-Go-Gadgetmobile.’”

He looked at this phrase, puzzled. “‘Go-Go-Gadgetmobile?’”
The engine whirred to life (I say “whirred” because it’s a brand-new, whisper-quiet engine—none of your roaring to life like a Challenger) and a voice blared forth from the speakers. “Good morning, Metro City!” it declared. The voice, Gadget thought, sounded as if it should belong on the hip-hop station Penny sometimes listened to.

And then Penny noticed the screen. A small, super-deformed cartoon image that looked and sounded like talk-show host D.L. Hughley appeared on it. The character wore a futuristic, one-piece racing costume in the blue, white, and gray color scheme of the Gadgetmobile.

“Your fine folks at Fiat wanted me to say ‘hi’ to you for them,” he said. “Who—who are you?” Gadget asked. “Open your eyes, Inspector Clouseau!” the car shot back. “I’m G.M, and I speak for the Gadgetmobile! And shouldn’t your little lady be getting on to school? Wouldn’t want her to get detention, now, would we?” With that, the AutoStick pulled itself into reverse, and the car roared out of the driveway.

It hurtled through the streets, which just started to fill with cars. Gadget held on for dear life while Penny whooped and cheered. “Um, shouldn’t you be watching out for the speed limit?” he asked.

“Just FYI, man: Speed limits are for cars, not the Gadgetmobile. And, by the way, I see you’re not wearing seatbelts. My bad!” The avatar snapped his fingers, and an icon for “seatbelts” flashed on the screen. Two unusual, three-point seatbelts shot out from behind and under the seats. The buckles were made of steel and laser-cut in the shape of a cog with a stylized, lightning-bolt “G” in the middle. When the clips attached to the buckle, it lit up in blue.

“Okay, it’s all good under the hood from here!” The front-mounted camera picked up a boy on a bike—it was heading headlong for a nasty accident. “Uh-oh, it’s ‘irresistible-force-meets-fast-moving-car’ time. Gotta stretch them struts!” The car’s body suddenly jerked up as the wheels’ axles extended nearly six feet into the air, giving the boy enough clearance to pass through unharmed.

“And next time, look both ways first!” the avatar fumed at no-one in particular. In almost no time at all, the Gadgetmobile parked itself (yes, it parked itself) at the middle school where Penny attended. As soon as she got out, a mob of boys and girls set upon her, asking about that flashy new car. “That’s my uncle Gadget,” she said. First he gets on TV, then he gets a new car…I could get used to this!

Somehow, Gadget managed to get the car under his control as he drove the rest of the way to work. “Hey, you’re pretty good at this,” the voice said. “Thank you,” Gadget smiled. “I’m a little worried about the Bradford case,” he sighed. “I haven’t been able to do much of anything since I started back at work. Maybe my beat assignments will end today and I’ll get some real work done for once.”

"Just keep cool, G,” the voice said, but somehow the car’s advice wasn’t going to do him any good. This was the first he’d get to see of the Bradford case, and he wasn’t looking forward to the hours of poring over hotel surveillance footage and other clues. It wasn’t about the work itself, but the fear that it would trigger some unpleasant memories.

When he got to his desk, Gadget’s mind wandered back to the drama at the post office. Something about it bothered him. Something seemed off. The testimonies of the trio he brought in seemed almost pre-scripted as he listened to the tapes, as if they knew more about it than they were letting on. He went down to the evidence lab for a new slant.

The evidence technician, an Indian woman in her mid-thirties, gave him a rundown of what she and her cohorts had gathered. “This wasn’t an ordinary hostage situation,” she said with just the slightest hint of an accent. “How so?” Gadget asked. “Well, the bomb, as you said, is a fake. But then, it could be a real bomb. It wasn’t attached to any explosives, but the electronics are still there.” She indicated the dismantled remains on the table.

“My niece is pretty good with electronics,” Gadget offered. “May I take this stuff with me for a closer look?” “As long as you clear it with the Chief first,” she said. “Oh, I’m just taking it to my office. I need a distraction.” “What are you working on?” she asked. “The Bradford case,” he responded. “Oh, yes, Prof. Bradford,” she said. “I remember seeing him when I was at school. It’s a shame he’s gone.”

Gadget sat down to have a look at the mess of parts he’d taken with him. He pressed his middle knuckle and extended the mini-tweezers, which grabbed a tiny piece of a microchip that had broken off the receiver. “Go-Go-Gadget Magnifying Glass,” he commanded. One of his Gadget Lenses flipped down and out from his hat brim, settling in front of his left eye. There was something there on the microchip, some very tiny lettering. His lens wasn’t powerful enough to read it. “Increase magnification,” he ordered. The lens zoomed in a little more. Still not enough! “Increase magnification,” he said, frustrated. The lens zoomed in a lot more. Finally, he was able to read it. “S.I.,” he said. “I wonder what that stands for.” Putting the mini-tweezers and Gadget Lens away, he retracted his finger and called for his Gadget Phone. When the keypad came up on his palm, he dialed Evidence’s extension and waited for the reply, watching in amazement as the tip of his thumb extended up, and the tip of his pinky extend out. I can never get used to that, he thought.

“Evidence,” she said.

“Hi, this is Inspector Gadget. Listen, I found something interesting. There was a little microchip thing I picked up, and it said ‘S.I.’ on it. Does that mean anything to you?” The line went quiet for ten seconds or so. “I think it does, Inspector. I’ve been looking at your car—the one from the explosion—and there was something attached to it. It looks like the remains of a bomb—a real one. A button-cell inside it, or something the size of a button-cell, also has those letters stamped on. Do you think the two are connected?” “I don’t remember anything about that day, but I can’t rule anything out,” he said. “It would place at the post office those two guys who murdered Artie…it’s tenuous, but it’s something. I’ll call you back later when I have some new ideas.” He hung up and found himself taking a nap. It usually helped him in difficult times, when he needed his ideas and memories to flow as freely as possible.

He flashed on Brenda for a moment. The day she and Baxter came to his house. He remembered her voice as she casually mentioned “Scolex Industries.” Scolex…Industries…S.I.! Gadget woke up with a start and bolted out of the room. His new friend was working on something when he burst in. “I’ve got it!” he declared. “S.I. stands for ‘Scolex Industries!’”

“Scolex Industries?” she asked. “The company that makes a lot of our stuff possible?”

“Believe it or not, yes. Brenda, the woman who made me, brought it up in passing one day. She said that I was lucky not to have been built by him, or with his parts. I think she knows something we don’t…and so does he.” Gadget drifted off to sleep once again. This time, he started from the very beginning, when he met Brenda.

Shots fired…escaping suspect…Brenda, sobbing over her dead father…man in black shirt heading on Martin Luther King Drive…Scolex Industries on the bomb…Scolex Industries in the fake…what’s the connection? What’s the connection? There’s something missing. One last piece of the puzzle. Must find Brenda.

At the moment, Prof. Bradford’s daughter worked her day job at the repair shop she owned. Though she came from wealth, she had the place to keep herself busy, and also because it was good to take someone’s broken things and put them back together again. She was just about to close up and pick Penny up from school when the Gadgetmobile stopped by her door. Penny was already in the front seat and getting ready to move to the back where Brain was.

“Hi, Brenda,” Gadget said. “Please step in. I need to talk to you and Penny.” She got in and the car took off, its retracted top letting the sun in. The sun’s light made Gadget’s handsome features look haggard to Brenda. Something’s wrong, she thought.

“So, Gadget, what’s on your mind?” she asked.

“Quite a lot. I was in Evidence today, and she showed me the bomb that blew up my squad car. Well, what was left of it anyway. I took it back to my desk and pulled a battery out of it. I saw the letters ‘S.I.’ on the battery. Does that mean anything to you?”

“Not really. There are a lot of companies with those initials in their names. Was there anything else you saw?”

“Remember when I flew to the post office?”

“Oh, yeah, I helped you defuse the bomb,” Penny said.
“It was a fake,” Gadget sighed. “Anyway, I took it back to the station with me that day, and Evidence just dismantled it. It had a tiny processor chip that also had ‘S.I.’ engraved on it.”
“This is bad,” Brenda concluded.

“Well, no, I got blown up,” Gadget said. “That’s bad enough. But if I’m right, then it means Sanford Scolex played a part in Artie’s death and my near-death. I don’t know how big a part, but it adds a whole ‘nother level of bad onto the first.”

“So, what are you going to do?” Penny asked. “Go to Scolex’s main headquarters and ask him?”

“Why not? It’s in Metro City. Oh, Brenda, don’t look at me like that. I don’t want revenge, for crying out loud. And don’t worry; I’ll get a warrant for it.”

“That’s not why I’m looking at you ‘like that,’ Gadget,” she said. “I just remembered that my car is still parked at the repair shop.”
“Hmm? Oh! That’s right!” He turned right and doubled back for the repair shop.
“What are we ever going to do with you, Gadget?” Penny and Brenda asked in unison.

[nix]

CHAPTER EIGHT: “WE TAKE ROBOTS SERIOUSLY”

“AN EXCELLENT QUESTION, MAD-CAT,” Dr. Claw said as he watched his foe take his friend back to her car. The hovering stealth-drone that had observed their conversation truly lived up to its name.

“JUST WHAT ARE WE GOING TO DO WITH INSPECTOR GADGET?” His pincers flexed as he considered his response. “WE ARE GOING TO WAIT FOR HIM TO SHOW UP TO OUR FRONT DOOR. THOUGH I HADN’T EXPECTED HIM TO CONNECT THE BOMB THAT NEARLY KILLED HIM BACK TO ME, WELL…IT’S JUST ANOTHER IN THE SERIES OF BREADCRUMBS I’VE LEFT FOR HIM.” He closed his desk-computer and headed for Dr. Tenma’s lab one floor below.

The good doctor was putting the last finishing touches on the body of the attack android, which he dubbed “RoboGadget.” Entirely machine, RoboGadget needed no human organs, which gave it room for grenades, mini-bombs, chemical weapon canisters, and belts of ammunition. Whereas the bionic Gadget was built for the good of humanity, the robotic one was built for terror.

Pictures of the inspector, taken by stealth-drones and disguised MAD agents, adorned the walls; each had him at different angles and with different expressions. Tenma used these to construct the incredibly complex “face” of the android, which needed hundreds of servo motors and hydraulic pumps to achieve the illusion. Over this he would lay the artificial flesh he created from the Bradford files picked up at the post office. (The original files on the laptop provided mostly generalities and common-knowledge specifics, but the “missing disk” featured a lot of proprietary and top-secret information, including program files for the NSA chip.) The head even had the four hair-spikes at the back.

“Oh, I didn’t see you come in, Doctor,” Dr. Tenma said as he put his mini-screwdriver and the android’s head down. Complex schematics and diagrams served as a tablecloth for the workbench, and Tenma had a staggering array of high-tech tools scattered around.

“YOU CAN BE QUITE A MESS, TENMA,” Dr. Claw chuckled. “I TRUST YOU WEREN’T THIS DISORGANIZED WHEN YOU RECEIVED ME.”
“Well, in your case, it wasn’t so formidable. The claw came from a factory robot, and all I had to do was modify it for a human arm. With this one, I have to build everything from scratch.”

“YOU’VE DONE AN ADMIRABLE JOB.” Claw picked up the head and took a good look at Tenma’s progress. “EVEN IN ITS UNFINISHED STATE, THE LIKENESS IS TRULY STRIKING. IS THE BIO-FLESH READY?”
“It took me a while, but I’ve just about found the right mixture for it.”

“GOOD. BUT THERE WAS ANOTHER THING TROUBLING ME.” He raised his claw. “THIS. IT’S TERRIFYING, AND SUITS MY PURPOSE WELL, BUT IT’S UNWIELDY. I’D APPRECIATE SOMETHING ALONG SIMILAR LINES, BUT IN A MORE HUMAN FORM. MORE FREDDY KRUEGER THAN ROBBY THE ROBOT, GET IT?” Dr. Tenma said that he understood and pulled out a sheet with a few sketches. They looked like a more modern take on a knight’s armored gauntlet, complete with segmented fingers. “Artemus’ work was more helpful than I thought.”

“INDEED. I HAVE A FEW SECRETS OF MY OWN, YOU KNOW.”

“Do tell.”
“FOR ONE THING, ROYALTON’S FINISHED THE MODIFICATIONS ON MY EXELERO.”

“Your what?”

“THE MAYBACH, TENMA, THE MAYBACH!” Dr. Claw shook his head, clearing the air. “I’LL BE ABLE TO DRIVE IT WITH A REMOTE CONTROL. COULD WE INTEGRATE A CONSOLE FOR THAT INTO YOUR DESIGNS?”

“You’re thinking of something like the old Power Glove, aren’t you?”

“PRECISELY, DOCTOR. ‘LOOK AT MY CLAW…IT’S SO BAD,’” he declared as he turned and left.
“Where are you going?” Tenma asked.
“I’M GOING TO MAKE A CALL TO THE POLICE STATION,” he said. “OUR CONTACT THERE WILL EXPEDITE GADGET’S WARRANT. HOW SOON UNTIL YOU COMPLETE ROBOGADGET?”
“Not much longer, Dr. Claw. Let me get something to eat, and have a rest for a few hours, and I can have it ready by tomorrow.”
“EXCELLENT. WHILE YOU TAKE CARE OF THAT, MR. SIKES AND I WILL LAY THE TRAP FOR INSPECTOR GADGET. MS. BRADFORD’S LAPTOP WILL BE THE BAIT.”
-------------------------------------------------------------------

“I don’t think it’s a good idea, that’s all,” Brenda protested in between bites of Gadget’s quite good Hamburger Helper casserole (she came over for dinner that night).

“It’s good that you have a warrant to search the Scolex Industries building, John, but...all I can say is, be careful.”
“I’ll be as careful as I can be, Brenda, but it’s the only way to get any answers.”

“What do you mean, Uncle Gadget?” Penny asked. Ever since the operation, the girl came to like the sound of “Uncle Gadget” better than that of “Uncle John.” She couldn’t explain why; it was just one of those things.

“What do I mean, Penny? What I mean is, this is all beyond me. It could all be a coincidence, in which case I’ll eat my hat. But if it isn’t, and if I’m right, then Sanford Scolex will have much to answer for.”

“Okay, let’s think about this for a minute,” Penny said as she closed her eyes to think. “All you have to connect him to Prof. Bradford’s murder is a tiny piece of a bomb with the name of his company etched on its surface. The post-office? A fake bomb with a battery that had Scolex’s name on it. You know I love you, Uncle, but I think you have a few loose screws in that head of yours.”

“Yes, I get that a lot, Penny, but think about it. Just put all those teenage distractions out of your head and think about it. The first piece of metal with ‘S.I.’ on it came from the Bradford murder. Whoever had that bomb also had the laptop. And whoever had the laptop was at the scene of the crime. See how it works?” Gadget's attempt at sarcasm rang hollow, even to him.

“But whatever you found is just a coincidence!”
“So was the post office. But I feel like I was meant to find that thing down in the sorting room. Why else would it be a fake? More than that, why would it give me a card with ‘KABOOM!’ written on it?”
“All right, fine. You’re the great Inspector Gadget,” she sighed. “But I do not want to lose you. Not like I lost Mom and Dad.”
“And I don’t want to lose John Brown again,” Brenda said. “I’m pretty sure Chief Quimby doesn’t want to lose you either.”

“Yes, yes, I forget myself. But my inner Magic 8-Ball tells me ‘all signs point to yes.’”

“Whoa, hang on,” Brenda exclaimed. “You used that thing?”
“Okay, this I have to see,” Penny said. Gadget unbuttoned his shirt, revealing the gleaming metal plate over his chest and torso. When he pressed one of the buttons on the plate, a door on his chest popped open and a small replica Magic 8-Ball on a thin metal chain fell out. “They don’t call me Inspector Gadget for nothing,” he declared. “Apparently I have a measuring tape in my belly-button, too.” He tugged at a small plastic tag in that spot and, sure enough, it pulled out to reveal a small fiberglass measuring tape.

“I have no idea how far it goes. Who knows what other gadgets I have? Maybe while I was on the operating table, someone put machine-guns in my butt!” The room went silent.
“Tell me you didn’t, Brenda. Tell me that you did not put machine-guns in my butt.”

“No, of course not, Gadget. I would have done that only if we needed to take the whole leg.”

“Aha! I got you there. You should have seen the look on your face, thinking I was serious.”
His creator saw the funny side of the whole thing and burst out laughing. Soon enough, he did too, and so did Penny.

THE NEXT DAY

Gadget stepped out of the Gadgetmobile and looked at the towering skyscraper before him. The gleaming black structure seemed to stay black even as it reflected the sunlight. It was made to look like a modern version of a medieval castle, complete with turrets and battlements.

“Careful, G; there could be snipers up there,” the car cautioned.

“That’s why I’m going to give them the element of surprise,” Gadget said, his Lenses emerging from his hat brim. “I couldn’t sleep last night, so I went through my manual. Check this out!” He reached into a holster on his weird belt and pulled out a stubby handheld mechanism. It looked like a gun, but it was in bright metallic blue, and didn’t look like any other gun on the market. There was a big bump in metallic purple on the top, and a metallic-orange handgrip/trigger on the bottom. Its orange barrel resembled the safety-plug one might find on a toy gun.

“Go-Go-Gadget Grappling Hook,” he said. As he pulled the slide back, a compact, foldable hook popped out of the barrel and unfolded its prongs. He turned a dial to compensate for distance and wind speed (a HUD on his Lenses gave him this data), aimed, and fired.

Poosh! The hook rocketed out of the gun as a puff of compressed nitrogen swirled from the barrel. It flew higher and higher into the air as Gadget marveled. The hook landed, and he received an alert that it was tightly fixed onto something. He pulled at a hinge and removed the circular spool from the launcher. Holstering the launcher, he expertly put the spool into the belt buckle and fixed the line to its anchor.

“I think you should go home, Gadgetmobile, in case anything happens to me. You can access my Gadget Camera for an official record.”
“No way, man. My warranty says not to leave you behind.”

“Just keep out of sight, then. Someone might come along and impound you.” He gave the spool a sharp rap with his hand. The line retracted, and Gadget hurtled up the side of the building at somewhere close to twenty miles an hour. “WOWZE-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-RS!” he screamed all the way up. He saw the hook. It was attached to one of the smaller turrets. That’s a relief, he thought. I must be close to the top. But his thoughts were far from reality. The facts indicated that he had badly misjudged the setting when he fired the hook.

He now found himself sailing high into the air, in danger of impaling himself on a turret or smacking face-down onto the roof. He thought quickly and called out, “Go-Go-Gadget Brella!” His hat popped open and a big, white golf umbrella with a red spiral on it leaped out. He coasted to the ground until the umbrella turned inside out. He only had a few feet to go, and he fell those few feet. “I have to learn to focus,” he grumbled. “I lose concentration, and it all goes to pieces.”

The detective got his wits about him and quickly scanned his surroundings. “There might be cameras,” he mused. “Go-Go-Gadget Electro-Vision.” His lenses whirled down and out, settling in front of his eyes. The world around him took on a deep, dark blue, and he found he could barely see. Forced to walk like an old man, he watched as he gingerly put one foot in front of the other.
This tactic gave him an important clue: He could see cameras and other electronics in the floors below—in other words, he could see right through the ground. “Wowzers,” he gasped. “As Dad said when he reminisced about meeting Mom at Woodstock, ‘that’s groovy’.” The lenses retracted, and Gadget saw a covered air-vent. It held potential as a way in, so he made short work of the cover with his Gadget Laser and slipped through.

Okay, I’m in, he thought. But what to do about those cameras? An electronic bleeping noise and a series of flashing lights directed Gadget’s attention to his coat sleeve. An online tutorial instructed him in the art of using the Gadget Repulsor, the reverse setting on his Electromagnetic Hand.

“All right, it’s worth a try. Go-Go-Gadget Repulsor.” His bionic hand split open along the flex-metal parts, and a small disk of chrome and plastic popped out of his palm. As instructed, he pressed the plastic center. His entire hand now seemed to glow with a white light. Cool! I’m like Mario after a Fire Flower! Strangely, the light felt heavy, as if it had mass. He was about to say “it’s impossible” to himself, but realized that all of his technology was impossible, so he wisely dropped the issue.

“Let’s combine it with Go-Go-Gadget Electro-Vision.” His lenses flipped down, enabling him to see the cameras and electronics. He found one fixed on the ceiling a foot in front of him. The manual told him to make a throwing motion, so he threw the glowing light. The camera confirmed a direct hit by sparking and burning out.

The screen in his coat sleeve changed again, displaying the word “Receiving gift from Penny.” It was a 3D floor plan of the Scolex Building. Gadget pressed a button and zoomed in. A blue “lightning-bolt G” represented his position on the topmost floor.

He strode down the hall, checking for cameras along the way, and everything went black. A blackjack-wielding Sikes stepped out of the shadows. He had a look of regret on his face as he said, “Sorry, Gadget, but my paycheck forces me to do this.”

[nix]

CHAPTER NINE: ROBOGADGET’S PRIME DIRECTIVES

“WAKEY-WAKEY, INSPECTOR,” a harsh voice said. Gadget’s eyes slowly fluttered open. Everything was blurry from his point of view. But when the world resolved itself into clear, three-dimensional relief, he wished it had stayed blurry. There, in front of him, was the horribly-scarred Dr. Claw, and the sight of him sent chills up Gadget’s spine. He tried to protest, but Claw put one of his talons over Gadget’s lips.

“DON’T SAY A WORD.”

He looked down. His hat, coat, and shirt had been removed, leaving his arms and metallic chest exposed. Heavy straps held him down. The air-conditioned room was incredibly cold; the inspector surmised that his captors were trying to make his fear worse.

“Who are you?” the cyborg demanded. “Why am I here? And why do you have me strapped down?”

“SILENCE!” Claw boomed. “BUT SINCE YOU’LL BE DEAD SOON ANYWAY, YOU DESERVE TO KNOW AS MUCH AS I WANT YOU TO KNOW. DO YOU BELIEVE IN THE PARANORMAL, INSPECTOR? RACE MEMORIES, PAST LIVES, ET CETERA?” Gadget looked at him blankly, unsure what to think.

“IT’S IRRELEVANT. IN A PAST LIFE, PEOPLE CALLED ME SANFORD SCOLEX. I WAS THE BILLIONAIRE CEO OF MY VERY OWN TECHNOLOGY COMPANY. BUT I AM NO LONGER THAT MAN. I AM NOW…DR. CLAW.” A TV monitor displayed CNN’s business and finance program. A group of top business leaders were debating Scolex’s decision to court an obscure company called TriOptimum for a potential merger. Meanwhile, Sikes and Tenma wheeled in a dolly with a sheet over it. When Claw pulled the sheet away, Gadget saw an android that looked exactly like him. A perfect duplicate, in fact.

“SAY ‘HI’ TO YOUR TWIN BROTHER. I CALL HIM ‘ROBOGADGET.’” Claw reached out to his workbench and grabbed a headpiece of steel and black plastic. As he clamped this to Gadget’s head, he said, “I HOPE YOU DON’T MIND, BUT OUR PLAN WON’T WORK WITHOUT YOUR BRAINWAVES.” Now working at Claw’s desk computer, Tenma punched in a command. The metal headpiece gave the captive cyborg a strange tingling feeling in his head. He didn’t know it, but the thing was paralyzing him while it recorded and reproduced the contents of his mind.

“I don’t get it, Claw…you have me, why don’t you just brainwash me or something? That’s what you want, isn’t it?”

“YES, I SUPPOSE YOU’RE RIGHT, INSPECTOR. HOWEVER, THAT PESKY ADAMANTIUM SKELETON MAKES YOU IMPERVIOUS TO MOST FORMS OF SUGGESTION. YOUR PROF. BRADFORD ONLY DISCOVERED THAT AS A SIDE EFFECT. SUGGESTION, UNFORTUNATELY, CAN ALSO WEAR OFF. THIS IS JUST A LITTLE MORE PERMANENT.”

“I don’t get it. What’s your great plan? You want to hold the city for ransom? People will catch on that that’s not me.”

“IDIOT!” Claw hissed as he gave the inspector a harsh slap across the face with his claw.
“MONEY HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH IT! I’M TRYING TO MAKE THE CITY SAFE FOR MAD’S EVENTUAL TAKEOVER. GET RID OF THE MAYOR, THE CHIEF OF POLICE…EVEN YOUR PRECIOUS DR. BRADFORD AND ALL HER FRIENDS. ANYTHING THAT STANDS IN MY WAY IS MY ENEMY.”

“The brainwave transfer is complete,” Tenma said.

“IT LOOKS LIKE OUR INSPECTOR HAS OUTLIVED HIS USEFULNESS. WELL, GADGET, ARRIVEDERCI, CIAO-CIAO.” His claw opened up fully, and the talons shot out a tremendous bolt of lightning. The electric attack was much more than Gadget could withstand, and he collapsed. He was almost dead.

Claw pressed the intercom button. “MR. SIKES, I SHALL NEED YOU TO TAKE INSPECTOR GADGET TO THE VAULT. LET HIM DIE ALONE.” He placed the headpiece onto RoboGadget. “TIME TO GO OUT THERE AND GIVE METRO CITY A NASTY SHOCK.”
LATER THAT EVENING…
Mayor Wilson was in the middle of a vapid speech at a gala dinner in Inspector Gadget’s honor. At her side were Brenda and a clearly uneasy Chief Quimby (he owed his discomfort half to Mayor Wilson, and half to the rubbery roast beef being offered). The crowd featured many of Metro City’s and the nation’s top political and business leaders…and Penny, sullen that she wasn’t invited up to the stage.

“Inspector, would you care to say a few words?” the mayor asked. RoboGadget took the stage, his left eye twitching slightly. Penny had the perfect vantage point to realize that something wasn’t right. She reached into a small evening purse and whipped out her cell phone/camera. Aiming right at the robot, she snapped a picture. I have to analyze this at home, she thought.

“Citizens of Metro City, members of the press, fellow Americans…good evening, and thank you for this evening’s honor. You have all eaten well, not only tonight, but every day, as you”--he shot an accusing glance at Mayor Wilson—“manage our fine city into destruction while innocent people die every day because your police force can’t tackle the real crime that occurs in the highest offices.”

“Inspector Gadget!” Chief Quimby exclaimed. “That’s enough!” He was truly shocked at his officer’s sudden change in attitude.

“No, Quimby, it’s not enough. It’s not enough that I have to watch while this town sinks further and further into its malaise. No…I have to cure it!” His fingertips flipped up, and he shot hundreds of rounds of ammunition at the ceiling. (He couldn’t kill anyone yet; Dr. Claw hadn’t told him to.)

“Dr. Bradford!” the mayor screamed. “Did you give him machine guns?!”
“No! I didn’t install weapons! This is totally unlike him!” She tried to get away, but RoboGadget’s coat sprouted super-strong restraints that locked onto the chief, the mayor, and Brenda herself. The android’s shoes sprouted jet engines, and he took to the air, his captives in tow.

“Penny!” the scientist called out. “Go home! I’ll catch you later!”
Now at home, Penny sat on her bed, shaking in terror. Her cell phone beeped, alerting her to a text message. It said, “Penny—Captive in Scolex Building. Not-Gadget in city. Come quick. B.B.”

She dressed herself for battle (all in black so as to avoid detection), taking along her school backpack. I need my laptop, she decided. Good thing Brenda and I worked on all those other extras. Now downstairs, she opened up a locked desk drawer and found her uncle’s police standard-issue handgun, which went into her backpack along with some extra ammo.

Penny Brown was, for all intents and purposes, just a regular girl in seventh grade whose uncle just happened to have a bunch of gadgets grafted onto him. Why, then, was she preparing herself for battle in this manner? She couldn’t quite figure out where the knowledge was coming from…some subconscious memory, or that show she watched on Saturday mornings…Kim Possible, that was it. Was she mirroring the heroine of that show? No, this came from something deeper within her.

The sight of the Gadgetmobile’s headlights coming up the driveway stopped her from thinking about it further. “Hey-hey! How you doing, Penny?” the car asked. “Not too good,” she replied. “Uncle Gadget--” “I know all about it,” the car said. “Want a ride to the Scolex Building?”

“Something’s wrong,” she said. “There’s another Gadget out on the streets. We need to find Uncle Gadget and stop this impostor. Brain! Brain, where are you?” Her brown-and-white beagle came out of the house and bounded towards the car.
“Amen to that, sister, but please don’t let that dog chew up my seats.”

Meanwhile, RoboGadget was having plenty of fun out on Metro City’s streets. He had a flamethrower instead of a goo gun in his left arm, and he was using it to leave Gadget’s lightning-bolt-G insignia on the sides of buildings that he’d “disinfected” of criminal activity. A store that had liquor among its other goods, for example, was reduced to rubble in Robo’s wake. He used his database to determine that an investment firm was laundering money; he brought the whole building down with one of his nanotech missiles.

He had all of Inspector Gadget’s morality, but none of the restraint or the understanding.

From his upper-level sanctum, Dr. Claw laughed as he watched the chaos from his panorama window, satisfied that he was able to destroy the Bradford name so quickly.

[nix]

CHAPTER TEN: A DARING RESCUE

The Gadgetmobile parked itself at the front doors of the building, just as it had done a few days ago. “You don’t think you’re just going to breeze in through the front doors, do you?” the character on the screen said. “As far as I can bet, there’s cameras up the wazoo in there, and I-don’t-know how many security guards!”

“Don’t worry, Gadgetmobile, I brought protection,” Penny said as she whipped out her uncle’s pistol.

“Jesus H. Caramba, girl!” GM blurted. “G-Man would be so not proud of his niece!” He grumbled for a moment, and, as if having second thoughts, opened the glove compartment. Inside was a stubby, cylindrical handgun with five chambers, along with three extra cylinders. “It’s a Korsakov K5 dart gun,” he explained. “Not only did Fiat make me, but they stuck to the whole ‘no killing’ thing. It’ll make whoever’s in there go bye-bye for at least five hours.”

“How fast is it?” the girl asked. “Hold on, let me check the manual…” GM reached behind him and pulled out a very big book. He frantically rifled through the pages. “Wiper blades…turbo boost…jump-jacks…wheel-shields…ejector seat…bingo! The darts do their stuff in two seconds flat!”

“And about those cameras,” Penny said. “It’s a good thing Brenda’s been helping me with an…‘extra-curricular project.’” She pulled out a book of her own, entitled On the Treachery of Images. Penny flipped to about halfway through and revealed a very sophisticated computer-terminal with a see-through monitor. Putting it back into her bag, she opened the car door, pausing to let Brain out and grab her pack.

As she closed the door and headed for the front door, the Gadgetmobile slowly drove up onto the pavement and parked beside the building. The car’s paint-job and cloth top shimmered—soon, the car’s exterior was indistinguishable from the building’s exterior. “Remind me to thank whoever gave me this ‘adaptive camouflage,’” GM sighed as he put the car in power-save mode.

Penny was about to enter when she thought better of it. She ducked behind the camouflaged car and opened her computer book. Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed Brain barking and scrabbling at the door. “No!” she hissed. “Brain, get back here!” The beagle turned his head, “got the message,” and sheepishly returned back to its owner.
As the highly-advanced micro-processor powered up, her screen filled with diagrams and graphical widgets. A dialog box in the middle of the screen read “SEARCHING FOR LOCAL WIRELESS NETWORK…” as a status bar filled up. When the computer book found the Scolex network, the screen flashed to black and gave her a 3D vector representation of the building. A small pink “B” at the top of the building represented Brenda; a small blue lightning-bolt “G” at the near-bottom represented Gadget. Suddenly, Gadget’s signal gave a warning. “Caution,” the detail read. “Vital signs at 25%. Urgent attention required.”

“Hang in there, Uncle John,” she whispered. “I’m coming to get you.” With a few keystrokes, she was able to get the camera and security system online. She noticed that a few of the cameras near the top of the building read as inoperable. With a long, complicated series of commands, she disabled (for the most part) the rest of the safeguards, as well as the lights in the main lobby. “Wowzers, he sure keeps things on a tight leash,” Penny said, unconsciously recalling an expression her uncle used.
The cameras, heat sensors, moisture sensors, listening devices, and other ephemera were deactivated, but she knew that there might still be guards. In fact, there might be more guards than usual precisely because of her tampering. Penny swallowed her pride, put the computer book away, cocked the Korsakov K5, and entered the building with Brain tagging along.

The main lobby was just as impressive and as oppressive as the exterior, especially with the red emergency floodlights. Its colors were predominantly obsidian black, chrome, transparent glass, slate gray, and steel. Behind the main desk, which had a futuristic touch-screen interface, there was a black-granite block with the corporate logo laser etched into it.

Its surface was wet; Penny surmised that it must also be one of those decorative waterfalls. Indeed, token attempts were made to give the lobby a more human touch by way of a Japanese garden, but these elements just looked out of place. Maybe it looks better in the day, without the emergency lighting, she thought.

Somewhere, a door opened with a metallic clang. Penny scooped up her beagle and hid in front of the desk. “Who’s out there?” a voice called. Sikes had come out to check the area. “I know I hear something. Come out quietly, ‘cause I really don’t feel like thrashing you.”

Penny drew the dart gun, dashed around the desk and behind Sikes. “Don’t turn around,” she demanded in as harsh a whisper as she could manage. She put the gun to the back of his head and pressed it firmly for emphasis. “You have a nice head,” she said. “Take me to see Dr. Brenda Bradford if you don’t want it to look like a badly-made lasagna.”

“‘A badly-made lasagna?’” Sikes asked incredulously. “Does that even make any sense?”

“You know,” Penny said, “all over the floor.” His eye flickered to get a good look at his captor. “Ah-ah! Don’t do it. Just…take me to her.” The towering Sikes reluctantly took her into an elevator.
Once the elevator started moving up to the upper floors (Penny pressed the button while Sikes wasn’t looking), the imposing bodyguard got a better look at whoever was pointing the gun at him. “A girl?” he moaned, rolling his eyes. “d**n, this’ll look really bad on my performance review.” He blinked. “Hey, shouldn’t you be at home?” he asked.

“Well, I think your boss has three people, who are very important to me, in his grasp,” she said. “Namely, my uncle and the scientists who helped him.”

“Isn’t your uncle that Gizmo guy? Last I know, he’s down in the vault.” She looked at him, horror and fury burning in her green eyes. “Hey! Hey! Calm down now. I may look like a bad guy, but Scolex zapped him. I just took him down there.” An awkward pause seemed to stretch on forever. “All right, that’s it. I did not put kidnapping and being an accessory to near-murder on my resume. I’m just trying to get an MBA and get rid of Dad’s stomach cancer. Oh, I’m Sikes, by the way.”

“I’m Penny.” The doors opened, and Penny found a hallway. The doors were all closed, and Penny guessed that it must be an office area. “This may be harder than you thought,” Sikes said. “True, but I have a secret weapon.” Brain jumped out of her arms and trotted down the hallway. He barked loudly when he approached one of the doors.

“They’re in here!” She approached the door and tested the handle. “It’s unlocked. Something’s not right.” A quick scan with the computer book revealed that an unlocked door is sometimes just an unlocked door. Penny opened it and found Brenda, Mayor Wilson, and Chief Quimby handcuffed to office chairs. Sikes approached them and unlocked the handcuffs with a key he had, and Brenda hugged the girl as soon as her hands were free. “I need your help,” Penny declared. “Uncle John’s in trouble.”
“What? Where is he?” Brenda asked. “And who is this?”
“Oh, this is Sikes,” Penny replied. “He showed me where you were.”
“Penny, listen!” the mayor exclaimed. “You have to go somewhere safe—your uncle’s gone berserk! He destroyed my gala event!”
“No,” Sikes corrected her. “Gadget’s down in the vault. What you saw is a robot Sanford made. Follow me down there.” He herded everyone into the elevator and put a key into the slot. When he turned it, the elevator descended.

The doors opened to the sight of a battered Inspector Gadget, his arm and legs splayed out, carelessly thrown down like so much garbage. He only wore his shirt, pants, and shoes; RoboGadget currently wore his hat and coat.

As Penny lunged forward to hug him, he wearily opened his eyes. “Penny…so good to see you,” he croaked. “I know, Uncle John,” she said. “I was worried about you. There’s something out there that looks just like you, but--” “—isn’t me,” Gadget interrupted. “Saw it myself. Does Brenda know?”

“I saw it too,” Brenda practically wept. “I was at the gala, and he kidnapped me, the mayor, and the chief. Said he wants to clean up Metro City for good. Oh, John, we have to get you working again. How did you get like this?”

“Don’t know. Elec…*cough*…electric shock. Said he wants me to die alone.”
“Who did?”
“S…Scolex. Not himself anymore. Been down here on…on standby—life-support mode.” He grabbed Brenda by the shoulders. “Remind me not to stick my fingers in the power outlet, huh?” he asked, smiling wanly.

Their brief moment was interrupted by a roaring engine and the sound of shattering glass. It was Sikes! He was behind the wheel of a big, imposing, company SUV. “Get him in here!” he barked. “We’re going to the hardware shop!”

“Why are you doing this for us?” Brenda asked. “Your b--”
“Sanford? I emailed him my resignation!” he chuckled wryly. As Penny, Brenda, and Sikes struggled with the slowly-fading cyborg, the Gadgetmobile pulled up beside them.

“Ms. Mayor? Chief Quimby? Would you care for a trip to the hardware store?”

“Oh, my God, it can talk!” the mayor gasped. “Let’s just get in,” the chief said. “I am not burying him tomorrow. Or any day after that. Do you hear me, Gadget? You are not going to die on me!”

[nix]

INSPECTOR GADGET, ALIVE, ALIVE-O

3:00 AM (THE NEXT MORNING)
A lead extended from Gadget’s bionic arm to Penny’s computer book, and another extended to outside the store and into the Gadgetmobile’s battery. “You know, that blast didn’t do too much internal damage,” Brenda concluded. The inspector was sitting on an improvised bench made from goods sold at the hardware store. “It looks like the Narvik 7 shorted out for a while…it’s a flat battery, that’s all.”

“Can you fix him?” the mayor asked. “Well, Ms. Mayor, I’m not sure if there’s anything to fix. Excuse me, I should call Baxter. He’s the one who built this thing.” “I have a pay phone,” Sikes said. “It’s funny, but I knew it would come in handy one day.” Brenda left Gadget’s side to call her fellow scientists while Sikes opened the register to get her two quarters.

“So, Penny tells me that you own this place and you’re trying to get a master’s in business. Is that right?”

“I don’t mean to ask any favors of you, Ms. Bradford,” he said. “Dad always taught me to stand on my own two feet and make my own way. That’s why I have this place, and that’s why I’ve been working for Scolex. Don’t judge me for that.”
Brenda got in front of him. “Listen, Sikes…you told me that your boss isn’t himself. What did he mean?”

Sikes closed his eyes. This wasn’t something he wanted to think about at the moment. “Okay. I’m not just a bodyguard, all right? I’m also a helicopter pilot. Few months ago, he asked me to take him to a remote island. We found a castle there…he wanted to kill his boss.”
He noted Brenda’s “I-know-how-that-feels” smile. “Yeah, I know. But the guy was dying, or so he said. He came back to the helicopter, scarred something nasty. You know what? I call him Scolex, you call him Scolex, but he doesn’t call himself Scolex. He calls himself ‘Dr. Claw’ now. He told me about something called MAD. It means nothing to me—I’m just on call for him. Pays well, but I’ve been saving my money. Dad’s in the hospital with stomach cancer.”

“He means everything to you, doesn’t he?” Brenda asked, almost about to cry. “I lost my father too.”

“I saw it on the news. Good man, Prof. Bradford. Is he--?”
“Who, Gadget? He was called John Brown before we called him Gadget. My father designed the project for INTERPOL, and John was the right donor.”
“Oh, here,” Sikes said, giving her the two quarters. “It’s on the house. Hurry. Get him fixed.”
Brenda picked up the receiver and dropped the two quarters into the slot. “Thank you,” she said as she dialed Baxter’s number.

“Domo arigato, Mr. Roboto—Domo arigato, Mr. Roboto--” Baxter’s phone sang.
“Hello? What is this?” Baxter asked groggily. “Do you know what time it is?”
“I wouldn’t call if it wasn’t important,” Brenda’s voice said.
“Brenda?”
“It’s Gadget. He needs your help, badly.”
“I’ll be right there. Where are you?”
Baxter opened the door and found Gadget sitting there. “My God,” he gasped. “What happened to you?”
“Dr. von Slickstein,” Chief Quimby said. “Always a pleasure.” “Same here, Chief. I was just about to…”
“Oh yes, Gadget. Well, look for yourself…we’re just lucky Penny found him.”

“He’s just recharging,” Brenda said. “Scolex hit him with an electric shock and it drained his battery. I called you about the Narvik 7.”

“You’re worried that it might have sustained damage. Yes…I designed that thing to be indestructible even under the most extreme conditions. You couldn’t have had it in your files, I take it…we threw that in last-minute.”

“Dr. Bradford! Baxter! Chief!” Penny hollered. “Come quick! Something’s happening!”
Indeed, something was happening. Gadget’s arm and legs were slowly retracting into place, and his neck was twitching. Suddenly, he jolted up from the table, aware that Brain was licking the side of his face.

“Brain? Where am I?”

“Uncle John!” Penny cried as she ran up to him, tears streaming down her face. “You’re alive!”

“As alive as I could ever be,” he said flatly. “I need some help. There’s a big blank spot that stretches from three o’clock yesterday to now. What happened? No…no, don’t say a word. I remember something. I was on a table of some kind. There was a man in a suit. His face was scarred, and he had a false eye.”
“Scolex,” Brenda said. “His former bodyguard brought us here.” Sikes approached Gadget and proffered his hand. “Hi. I knocked you out at the building.”

“Oh, that was you?” Gadget said. “I was too focused on frying the cameras to notice. Assaulting an officer is a federal offense, you know, but I’ll write it off as a misunderstanding.” He caught a glimpse of himself in a pane of glass. “Hey, where’s my hat?” he asked.

“That’s the bad news,” Sikes said. “There’s an android who looks just like you terrorizing the streets. He took your hat and coat. I have no idea what he’s doing now, but I tell you what: Soon as you put that sick monkey down, I’m setting up the biggest sale you’ve ever seen. Metro City’s gonna need a lot of rebuilding.”

10:00 AM

RoboGadget was presently recharging in Dr. Tenma’s lab while Dr. Claw debriefed him. “YOU DID QUITE WELL FOR YOUR FIRST NIGHT,” he said. “UNFORTUNATELY, WHILE YOU WERE OUT PAINTING THE TOWN, AFTER A FASHION, YOUR ‘SUSPECTS’—DR. BRADFORD, MAYOR WILSON, AND CHIEF QUIMBY—SOMEHOW GOT OUT. IT SEEMS THAT WE ALSO HAVE A TURNCOAT IN OUR MIDST…I FOUND THIS ON MY EMAIL TODAY.” He held up a printed copy of Sikes’ resignation letter.

“HE TOOK INSPECTOR GADGET AND OUR GUESTS WITH HIM. THAT’S KIDNAPPING, ISN’T IT, ROBOGADGET?” Robo nodded eagerly. “AND KIDNAPPING’S A HEINOUS CRIME. SO WHAT I WANT YOU TO DO IS FIND SIKES AND BRING SWIFT, BRUTAL JUSTICE UPON HIM.”

“I’m always on duty!” the android said as he jumped out of the chair. “Jet Boots!” RoboGadget took off running towards the window, leaped up, and burst out of the window. He left two blue power-trails and a lot of broken glass behind him.
“AT LEAST USE THE ELEVATOR, YOU FOOL!”

Gadget and company were in the middle of planning their first attack when they heard the sound of shattering glass. RoboGadget punched his way through the door! “Where’s Sikes?” he demanded. “Dr. Claw wants him.”

“Is that so?” Gadget shot back. “Well, you’ll have to deal with me first. You are under arrest for impersonating a police officer, assaulting a public official, kidnapping, damage to public and private property, and flying without a license. You have the right to—urk!” RoboGadget grabbed Gadget by the throat and hurled him across the room. The inspector went flying into a pegboard display with wrenches hanging on the pegs. Robo beamed triumphantly, but Gadget got up and shook it off.

“The electric shock Dr. Claw gave me really hurt,” he coughed. “That was just a tickle. Go-Go-Gadget Bola Blob!” His hand and arm shifted up as if he were about to deploy the Goo Gun, but instead of spraying goo all over his foe, Gadget’s arm launcher instead shot the blue goo as a thick, sticky strand not unlike Spider-Man’s webs. The first “bola” wrapped itself three times around Robo’s feet, pinning him. Another bola pinned his hands. A third pinned him at the shoulders. Gadget blew on the Goo Gun’s barrel in perfect imitation of an old-fashioned gunslinger, and snapped his hand back into position.
But RoboGadget tore through his bindings as if they were nothing more than yarn. His fingers locked into position as he called out, “Machine Gun!”

“Uh…Go-Go-Gadget Repulsor!” Gadget held out his hand as if to stop the hail of bullets. Miraculously, the electromagnetic repulsor slowed the bullets!

“Buzzsaw!” Robo’s stolen hat sprouted a vicious buzzsaw on a stalk and made to hurl it at the inspector. “Go-Go-Gadget Arm!” Gadget’s arm shot out and grabbed a lead pipe. He was able to parry the android’s attack just in time. “Go-Go-Gadget Power Kick!” Gadget’s leg shot out at high speed and sent Robo flying through the glass window.

“I hope the Bradford Foundation can cover all this,” Gadget said to himself as he leaped out the window to take the fight outside.
Somehow, I have to get the Gadget Hat off of him. Robo came at him yet again. His hands sprouted a fearsome arsenal of whirling blades, corkscrews, and spikes. Gadget dodged one attack and called for his Gadget Laser in time for the next. As he dodged the next attack, Gadget aimed to slice the blades off Robo’s fingers but ended up hacking off the robotic hand instead. Dismayed, Robo looked at the sparking, smoking stump, and Gadget moved in with the Goo Gun. Robo fell as the sticky blue goo hit him right in the eyes. He clawed at his face to clear his vision, and Gadget moved in to retrieve the hat. He got his hands on the brim, but a gigantic baseball bat sprouted from the hat and sent him flying halfway across the city. (Meanwhile, Sikes led the others out of the store from a back route in an effort to get as far from RoboGadget as possible.)

He soared through the air from Cherry Street to West St. Paul Avenue. As he staggered to his feet and shook the impact off, he saw an imposing black car zoom past him. “Hey, no speeding on a busy intersection!” he yelled. “Go-Go-Gadget Power Skates!” Ports along the soles of his shoes glowed bright blue, and he floated a centimeter or two above the ground. The funny thing was, he could still feel his feet just about touching the asphalt below. John Brown was always pretty good at skating, but having no wheels below him proved a new challenge. Somewhat unsure of himself, he put one foot in front of the other, like a beginner. One foot…the other foot. Left, right, left, right. He realized that the fronts of the shoes were glowing, and that they must be some kind of a brake to keep him from yawing about.
Now determined, Gadget imagined a pair of Rollerblades and set off in a determined stride. He made better time than walking in this mode, and he caught up to the car just as RoboGadget got in. He was about to put his hands on the back bumper when the rear license plate slid down and a thick puff of sand shot him in the face. It wasn’t enough to hurt the inspector, but it broke his concentration. He spun out of control until he hit a streetlight.

He coughed, and said, “Okay, that’s it. Time for high-speed chase. Go-Go-Gadget Legs!” Upon Gadget’s command, three titanium pipes inside his shins extended to give him an extra three feet of height. Without thinking, he started running after the car. Moving was awkward at first, but he found a way to move without tripping over his metallic legs. Still, he had to admit that striding alongside cars and cyclists was just a little disconcerting. In any event, though, he was able to overtake the Exelero in no time. When he came up behind it, he called out “Go-Go-Gadget Coils!” Sproing! He soared high into the air, his legs retracting along the way, and got ready to land on the car’s roof. It would have worked, too, if the car hadn’t suddenly accelerated out of the way. He squeezed his eyes shut and prepared for the impact, but it didn’t come. Instead, Gadget landed safely into the driver’s seat of the Gadgetmobile, whose bodywork changed from looking like the space behind him to its regular paint job.

“Did someone put an APB out for a bad-guy car?” G.M. asked.

“Let’s go!” Gadget said. He glanced at the touch-screen panel and found the control for the sirens and lights. Two vents on the front of the car flipped open, revealing LED bars that flashed blue and red. Gadget looked down as a throttle just behind the AutoStick caught his eye. When he pressed the release and pulled the throttle back, panels on the sides of the car, just behind the doors, opened downwards. Two miniature turbo-thrusters emerged from these ports. He accelerated, and noticed a small, illuminated button on the steering wheel flashing red. Pressing this button, he found, activated the thrusters, and the car suddenly rocketed forward. As the Clawmobile came into view, Gadget let go of the button and retracted the thrusters. G.M. activated the Adaptive Camouflage, rendering the car invisible. Now Gadget’s car could pull up alongside Dr. Claw’s car undetected.

“Thanks, Gadgetmobile, but can you make the inside invisible as well?”
G.M. thought for a moment. “Aw, man!” he moaned. “I got nothing. It only works for the paint job.”
“I wouldn’t ask, but RoboGadget is wearing my hat. I need to get it back undetected.”

It was a moot point. Dr. Claw’s electronic eye caught sight of the cloaked Gadgetmobile. He activated a tire-slasher hidden in the right front wheel. G.M. noticed it and activated the Wheel Shields. The mini-drill was an inch away from the tire when a metallic umbrella shape burst forth from the Gadgetmobile’s hubcap. The drill-bit blunted and broke away on impact.

“Give me a flat tire, will you?!” G.M. fumed. “Here, cool down that road rage!” A flap on the Gadgetmobile’s hood opened and a small high-pressure water cannon emerged. The Clawmobile accelerated and turned right. The Gadgetmobile’s seltzer water fired, but it was too late.

“Hey, Gadget, force a right turn!” G.M. commanded. Gadget found the command-box on the touchscreen and pressed it. When he pushed a button on the right-hand side of the steering wheel, all four of the wheels locked right, allowing the car to follow its target. But…oh, no! Dr. Claw left a little surprise for his foe in the form of a thick oil slick! “Oh, you’re kidding me,” G.M. sighed, rolling his eyes. “Go-Go-Gadgetmobile Outriggers.” Two outriggers came out of the car just below the doors, and Gadget was able to drive across the oil slick without spinning out of control.

As the Clawmobile came into view once more, G.M. looked conspiratorially at Gadget. “Y’know, Gadget, I think we can give this guy a little surprise,” he whispered. “I just happen to have a bubble-gum launcher under this fine bodywork.” The front grille opened up and revealed two small barrels. A pair of bright pink blobs fired from the barrels and connected with the Clawmobile’s back tires. The car started to slow down, but Gadget noticed green flames shoot out from the rear wheels and burn away the bubble gum. The black car swerved right, leaving a wall of fire in its wake.

“Well, I didn’t know he had one of those!” Gadget muttered.

“It’s okay, I didn’t either,” G.M. said. “Watch this!”
The car’s body tilted up on its chassis, and the thrusters came out again. The burst of acceleration allowed the Gadgetmobile to lift itself into the air and clear the flames. The wheels extended out from the axles as the car landed.

Finally, they were able to get beside the Clawmobile. Gadget already had the window down and his Gadget Laser deployed, and he cut the passenger’s side window out with a single clean cut. Then, he fired a smokescreen pellet from the side mirror into the other car. Lastly, he extended his Gadget Arm and pulled the Gadget Hat free from RoboGadget’s head while he was distracted. As soon as the smoke cleared, Robo noticed that the hat was gone, and he leaped out of the car and onto the Gadgetmobile. He used his hand’s machine gun to clear the windshield away and climbed into the passenger’s seat. G.M. went to activate the ejector seat, but Robo thought fast, sliced through Gadget’s seat belt, and took hold of Gadget. Both of them were booted out of the car and fighting on the road as the Gadgetmobile drove on.

Robo had Gadget in a stranglehold, but Gadget figured out that his nemesis was holding back. Was he…enjoying this? If that was the case, it wasn’t something he’d expect of a robotic facsimile. As Gadget struggled for breath, he croaked out, “Go-Go-Gadget Electromagnet.” The device popped out of his palm and a blast of white energy sent Robo to his knees. He tried to attack Gadget again, but he was severely weakened. Gadget put his hand behind Robo’s head and found something sticking out. It felt like a pin of some kind. More than a little curious, Gadget gave the pin a sharp tug.

The android’s head fell off its robotic body. Both head and body collapsed.

“All that effort, and all I had to do was pull a pin,” Gadget sighed. His victory was anticlimactic, even a little disappointing. He took a closer look at the port where the pin came from. A small label reading “For Emergencies” was attached. As it dawned on him, he said, “Ah. Of course. If something goes wrong, the android has a manual failsafe. Pull it and the whole thing goes offline. Maybe Dr. Bradford will have some use for you, my friend.” He activated his Hand Phone and told Brenda he’d be coming home with a guest soon. The Gadgetmobile came back into view just as he hung up.

Gadget put the headless body in the front passenger’s seat and the head in the glove compartment. When G.M. gave him a puzzled look, Gadget smiled as he answered, “I’ll explain later. I might get a head of myself.” “Okay! New rule: no more bad puns,” G.M. groaned.

As Gadget drove past the Scolex building on his way home, something strange happened. The car’s main LCD screen flickered and buzzed, as if something or someone were overriding the transmission.
“What’s wrong, Gadgetmobile? Are you all right?”
“I’m fine, but someone’s taking control of me!” G.M.’s cartoon features were quickly replaced by Dr. Claw’s hideous face.

“CONGRATULATIONS, INSPECTOR. YOU SAVED THE DAY. BUT THAT WAS JUST ROUND ONE. I’LL GET YOU NEXT TIME, GADGET. NEXT TIME.”

The Gadgetmobile drove the rest of the way home. Its driver looked tired from the day’s events and more than a little chilled at the venom in that message. G.M. found a radio station that played light jazz, and that seemed to bring the man back to normal.

[nix]

CHAPTER TWELVE: THE GREATEST HERO EVER ASSEMBLED

Gadget came in to a hero’s welcome. Brenda, Baxter, Data, Sikes, and Penny were there, and Brain barked happily. Chief Quimby came by a while later to check on his best detective.

There was take-away Chinese food, cake, wine (soda for Penny and Gadget), and laughs all around. There was even a game of “pin the head on the Headless Wonder” involving RoboGadget’s body. Many jokes were made at the headless robot’s expense.

Finally, after hours of fun, Gadget said, “Thank you for all of this, everyone, but it’s not a total win. Dr. Claw’s still out there, and who knows what he’ll be up to next?”

The doorbell rang, and the Chief offered to get it. Gadget grimaced. He half-expected a mob of reporters to barge through the door and blind him with a hundred flash bulbs. But a tall, prim-looking woman in blue came to the door instead.

“Good evening, all of you. I’m Special Agent Tanaka from INTERPOL. I need to talk to all of you about Inspector Gadget.”
She and everyone else in the room sat down. “You see, Gadget, INTERPOL contracted the Gadget Program to Prof. Bradford and his colleagues. It means that your jurisdiction extends outside Metro City, Wisconsin. We’ve noted your good working relationship with him, Chief Quimby.”

“Why thank you, Ms. Tanaka,” the Chief said. “As a matter of fact,” she continued, “we would appreciate your help as an INTERPOL liaison.”

“What do I have to do?” he asked.
“It wouldn’t be very much outside of your regular duties,” she responded. “We would entrust you with top-secret documents and assignments for Inspector Gadget. In fact, Gadget, it’s through your work that we have learned of MAD’s existence.”
“MAD?” the Chief asked. “What’s MAD?”
“We don’t know what the name stands for. All we know is, it’s a super-secret organized crime outfit.”
“Their leader calls himself Dr. Claw,” Gadget said. “I met him a short time ago. He got away, and what’s more, his men killed Prof. Bradford.”
“Yes,” Tanaka said. “We ask you, Chief Quimby, because you have proven that we can trust you. When John was in the hospital, you came over to see Penny. When it seemed like he had gone rogue, you knew it wasn’t the real Gadget. We trust you, and it’s hard to trust people where MAD is concerned.”

“Why?” Penny asked.

Tanaka said, “Because MAD has people everywhere. Not everyone works for them, but anyone could. All of you have too great a commitment to justice and the rule of law. That is why we went with the Bradford Foundation and not Scolex Industries.” She paused for a moment.

“So, Inspector Gadget, what do you think?”

“This is quite a privilege,” Gadget said. He smiled and shook her hand, and he said,

“I’m on the case!”

That’s the end, at least for now.
The nefarious Dr. Claw will always be waiting in the shadows, ready with a new scheme to bring chaos upon the world, and the forces of MAD will always wait at his command.

And, wherever MAD goes, INTERPOL will be sure to send Inspector Gadget into the field. But for the moment, he’s enjoying a good rest while it lasts. He’ll need to be in top form if he ever hopes to bring the world’s largest organized-crime operation to its knees.