“Fine,” Remo said. “Forget I brought it up. Keep acting weird. It’s kind of a novelty, you know, having a slightly new kind of weird. Not that’s it is better than your old weird. Just different. Sort of a lateral change in the quality of your weirdness. I’ll just keep talking like this all the way to the mine because I’ve got nobody else to talk to, and if I don’t talk then I start thinking about sweet, luscious, beautiful yellow corn.”
But Remo couldn’t keep it up and the filibuster faded to an uncomfortable silence until the iBlogger was turned off again.
“Remo,” Chiun said, “I am sorry.”
“For what?”
“For the incident in the city of the puppet President.”
“What incident? You mean when I got knocked out?”
“Yes.”
“No biggie.”
Chiun turned his head and Remo glanced over, seeing a concerned expression. “What?”
“It was a biggie,” Chiun said solemnly.
Remo and Chiun had been patrolling the White House grounds when the attack came, as expected. It was Ironhand, a mechanical man that was more than a hundred years old and now upgraded with the best military automation and stealth technology the U.S. had devised. Under the remote control of the German engineer Jacob Fastbinder, Ironhand had already stolen extensive military technology, worth millions on the open market.
His bold and successful operations caused panic among the research labs in the U.S. military infrastructure. The most highly prized research projects were moved to new locations—except for the highly autonomous, obscenely expensive miniature robotic defensive units deployed on the grounds of the White House.
The President had expected the FEMbots to use their own capabilities to not be stolen. CURE knew better. The FEMbots were just overpriced toys. They were no more dangerous than a radio-controlled poodle to the Masters of Sinanju.
Ironhand, when he came to take the FEMbots, was another story.
Hidden inside Ironhand and his companion, a ridiculous vintage-TV-show robot named Clockwork, were devices intended to spin up the robot’s internal generator turbines. Unknown to Fastbinder, the proton emitters were deadly to the Masters of Sinanju. Remo had ripped the device out of Ironhand, and the act of actually touching the emitter had sucked his senses dry, leaving him in a state of deep unconsciousness for many long minutes as Chiun spirited him away from the White House grounds—also bringing the copper robot Clockwork. Chiun intended to present the spherical robot to Dr. Smith, to have it dismantled and analyzed, to identify how it affected the enhanced senses of a Sinanju Master while another human being felt nothing.
In a Washington, D.C., alley a few blocks from the White House, Remo regained consciousness, only to find himself in the presence of Clockwork, who fired up his generator turbines again and sent Remo into a deep sensory deprivation spiral—but not before Remo saved Chiun from the danger.
Afterward, Remo couldn’t be revived.
“But I snapped out of it,” Remo said as the Hyundai strained to keep going at highway speed on an shallow grade.
“You did not snap out of it, Remo. You were gone for many days.”
Remo shrugged. What was Chiun getting so morbid about? “But I’m all better now. See? Eyes open, jaws flappin’.”
Chiun looked more worried than ever. “Remo, you were beyond my ability to reach or to save. You were beyond the Void.”
“Huh? How can anything be beyond the Void?”
“There is a place of nothingness…”
“That’s what the Void is.”
“In the Void there is darkness, and the voices of the Masters Who Came Before,” Chiun said impatiently. “I believe that you went to where there was no sound. Nothing to see.”
“Chiun—” Remo felt suddenly ill, physically ill.
“Nothingness beyond darkness and silence.”
“Chiun!” Remo croaked, and he was there again.
The Hyundai sat next to the small corrugated metal office alongside the mine entrance.
“I’m okay.”
“It was not my intention—”
“Let’s not talk about it.” Remo hastily got out of the car. He felt the sun on his flesh and allowed his skin to grow too hot, just to feel it.
Whatever had happened to him, it came on him fast. One second he was driving, talking to Chiun, and the next he was nowhere.
If there was a hell, a hell especially made for Remo Williams, Master of Sinanju, it was the place where all his senses sought input and found nothing.
It was over in seconds, and Remo found himself still behind the wheel of the car at the side of the road, shaking uncontrollably.
He had blocked it out after it happened, but talking about it brought it all crashing in on him. Remo had ignored Chiun’s concern and started driving again, hoping the memory would stay in the little brain box where he put it. Now, at the mine facility, he was determined to get down to business. He didn’t want to even think about it anymore, because thinking about it—
“Can I help you?” There was a silver-haired woman at one of the utility desks inside the metal building. Remo was standing there daydreaming.
