PROWL JUST IN TIME
  Next evening I went to Wednesbury to take some machinery to Bangor in North
Wales, travelling after the evening rush hour to avoid traffic congestion.
Huffer went to Wolverhampton to take a container to Liverpool Docks. Wheeljack
and Jazz were still at the factory building repair, a job that looked like
lasting for a good while yet. Ratchet answered an emergency call to a multiple
pile-up on the M5 northbound near Wychbold junction. Hoist followed him to help
clear the wreckage, and Laserbeak rode on Hoist's roof in case he had to fetch
blood urgently. James went to bed, alone except for his dog and his cat. "Nobody
in, unless I dream again of riding in Bluestreak or Jetfire. Dreams don't count.
I can't even connect my brain to a video recorder like Autobots can, as I sleep,
to see my dreams again. The road's quiet tonight.", he thought, and went to
sleep.
  [61] The two men had waited outside in a van for most of the day. They had
codenamed each other `X' and `Y', so I will follow suit. Neither had cause to
love James Wernicke. X, coming back to an air raid shelter to recover something
from under a loose slab of its floor, had found the place crushed flat and
buried, and after he had waited 23 years for a chance to recover the stuff, one
of Wernicke's robots found it and handed it to the police [see 51]. Y was not
pleased that James and his robots had turned Y's three men over to the police
instead of coming to the agreement requested by them [see 30]. Y, coming from
the USA to Droitwich to do what he could about it, had met X while looking for
local help. A chance meeting: so things sometimes start. They drove to
Wernicke's and waited, irritated to find the best parking space there occupied
by a car, which had been painted like a police car. ("Pity he chose US cop car
colours in Britain, else he might have had us worried. Soon `Big W''ll be the
one with something to worry about.", Y thought.) They both wore thick overalls,
helmets with visors, walkietalkies, transparent riotshields, and pickaxe handles
hanging from belts. On Y's order they also wore gags: the reasons for this
precaution became apparent later. Each also had slung across his back what
looked like a large handheld power tool with a thick cylindrical body with
attached handgrips and an underslung battery and equipment box with several
controls on its side. The small rivets and screws on their plating gave them an
impression of industrially efficient power and no concession to appearance. "2
trucks, 2 cars, ambulance, towtruck, bird. That's all 7 of his performing
talking vehicles gone." Y thought as Hoist left, "They'll be gone a good while.
Lucky I cracked their radio scramble code. Him sending my three men to the fuzz
instead of `playing ball'. Thinks the sea and a frontier'll keep him safe. We've
words to have with him, or `Emperor Ming' has." Y thought. They quickly ran out,
and in under James's outer automatic door before it shut.
  They climbed a drainpipe. A perching owl started to call "Eewee-wip" in alarm
repeatedly as they got near. X kept thinking that it was an intruder alarm, and,
irritated at fears of it waking someone, could not help swearing at it, but his
gag prevented it. "Lucky I made him wear a gag on his undisciplined foul mouth,"
Y thought in relief, "else the first moment of stress and he wakes the dead and
brings the whole area on us.". The owl shut up or flew away. A bat flew about:
this was merely a bit creepily annoying. They knew what to do if James's dog
challenged them, and after watching the building knew roughly what was where.
They reached an upstairs window. Y, who was in front, looked with distaste at a
large cluster of birds roosting on a branch pipe and the window's sill, and the
smelly mess the birds had made. As Y reached for the window sill, the birds rose
with a noisy clatter of wings and alarm cries that sounded like pandemonium to
their ears as they tried to be completely silent. The birds flew away, but,
deeper and more ominous, from inside started the steady barking of Timmy,
James's Alsatian. Then started the howling of next door's two Alsatians, woken
by Timmy and noticing the nearly-full moon which reactivated primaeval instincts
to summon a hunting pack. The two men bit their gags to suppress the impulse to
swear, and waited for the din to stop, and for James, if woken, to curse all
noisy dogs and go back to sleep; for they had gone too far to be very willing to
pull out now. Y opened the window; as his boots and the end of his trailing
pickaxe handle disappeared over the sill, X followed him in.
  They were in a corridor. [62] They unslung their power tools and held them at
the ready. They entered James's bedroom - and found it empty, and the bedclothes
disordered by sudden waking and running. Y gestured, and they went downstairs. X
kept a few yards behind Y and covered him so one man or dog could not rush them
both before either could react. Tabbins said "mreow" and ran away. Holding their
bulky but fairly light power tools at the ready, they entered a room. "Stores
and nobody. This stuff can wait, this time." Y thought. They searched, wondering
where the dog was, and listening for any sound of someone phoning for help. As
they neared the office, its door opened slightly and a helmeted head looked out.
Y aimed his power tool and pressed a button. Inside the tool, powerful
electromagnet coils silently accelerated a 4-inch nail to nearly rifle bullet
speed, point first and spinning for accuracy. The flying nail went easily
through the middle of the helmet and its contents as Y felt with satisfaction
the kick of the tool's metal bulk against his shoulder. The tool made a slight
click as it reloaded itself. They carefully approached the door.
  [63] In the office, James, in riotsquad gear over pyjamas and having managed
to order Timmy to silence, looked badly alarmed at the holes shot in a spare
helmet which he had held out in his hand through the door. An old trick, but it
worked. He quickly wondered what the cause might be. No gun bang. Unlikely to be
a laser gun with real world laser technology as it was. It was his third lot of
intruders in a few months [see 26 & 30], and this time all his Transformers were
far away. He pressed the radio alarm button and hoped that whoever it was hadn't
interfered with the phone. As he dropped the holed helmet and put his
transparent polycarbonate shield in front of himself, before he could shut the
door, Y's gun's muzzle wedged the door open and fired at his shield. X started
to fire through the wood of the door at him. Riotshield polycarbonate is strong,
but there is a limit to what it will take indefinitely. Timmy growled behind
him. James jumped for a corner of the office, where he knelt behind his shield.
Lucky he had taken his big shield. Timmy crouched with him. The men entered.
James saw their kit and nailguns, and faces gagged inside helmets and visors as
if to tell him that he had had his time to agree to things but it was too late
to restart discussions now. X shot out the phone and anything that looked like a
two-way radio. As both men steadily pumped nails at his shield to hole it,
silently except for the slight click on auto-reloading, James realized that with
no gunshot noise nobody would ring 999 to raise an alarm. He suspected correctly
that the guns had been brought openly through Customs, declared as ordinary
power tools.
  "Look, if you're anything to do with those three that weren't from Silicon
Valley, let me tell you that ..." James started to say, hoping to sting them
into replying and thus distract their anger into a long delaying angry argument
until help came. Y, angered by the words, tried to reply, but his gag prevented
it, and sent his mind back to the plan. "Mfff mbbgb" he said, switching his gun
to maximum power and the side of the magazine that had 6-inch nails in. He bit
his gag and fired. That setting was a risk to the coils and kicked like a mule,
but the nail [64] went through James's shield and into his chest muscle, but
with most of its speed lost. X then slung his gun at his back and jumped at
James's shield, enduring James's stick jabbing at him as he wrenched the shield
outwards away from the walls, exposing his right side. "Optimus Prime who I
made, and your followers!" James thought, despairing of anything more except a
volley of four-inch nails pumped into him silently by Y breaking up his heart
and lungs, and a fast end to consciousness, "I hope the law accepts you as
persons able to own and run this place after me! Describe me to Bluestreak and
Hound and all the others of your people who you may make real in times to
come!". Y positioned himself and aimed.
  With a loud breaking of glass and laths two bricks flew in fast through an
upper window. One hit X's left shoulder, sending him staggering back. The other
broke Y's right arm, and his gun flew forwards. James caught it. James, whose
only experience before with guns was ordinary shotguns occasionally at public
clay pigeon shoots, let his shield fall and desperately fumbled with the
unfamiliar bulky contraption and managed to fire two nails into X's right
shoulder, only a second soon enough. If X had slung his gun in front of his
chest instead of behind his back, James's story would have ended here. Timmy ran
out and grabbed Y's left wrist. X still tried to shoot, but James shot his other
shoulder, shouting angrily "It's only your shoulder. Back off to the window and
take all that kit off. Again people think I'd be a pushover by myself.". The two
had to obey. A tall steel form walked in and grabbed them, one in each hand.
James called Timmy off.
  [65] It was Prowl, my second in command in the earlier stories, who transforms
from a white and black USA police car. Only a day soon enough had I brought him
to life by programming his mind into his brain with the `Creation Matrix'
computer program. He had had to climb in over James's back wall, and then find
which window to go to. "Welcome to England! Thanks!" James exclaimed. Prowl
radioed for the police. James connected Prowl to a lineprinter so that Prowl
could print out his and James's statements. The two men looked less impersonally
efficient and impressive without their action kit. James had learned that being
easy on villains is of no use; he handcuffed them behind their backs while Prowl
held them. X, with nails in his shoulders, offered no resistance, but Y fought
back with his legs and his good arm and James had work for his pickaxe handle.
  "I suppose the CID or forensic ballistics 'll want to look round." said James
to one of the police that came, "These two odd guns of theirs. Silent, except a
slight reloading click. `Emperor Ming' written on them, I suppose it's initials
for something like `Electro Magnetic Powered Modified Industrial Nail Gun'. Tell
Customs or security it's an ordinary power tool, and they believe it. Aluminium
casing. Reload from a hardware store, recharge from the electricity mains. No
need for cartridges that need a licence to buy.".
  (The `real' Emperor Ming, titled `The Merciless', is a character in the Flash
Gordon space stories.)
  "Ach-ssss!" the policeman exclaimed in alarm, "Several times some clever
character has designed something like this and tried to patent it, and the
patent office, as it is allowed to, suppressed the patent for security reasons
which you now know why! Most industrial nailguns are powered by special blank
cartridges, a few by compressed air, wildly inaccurate except point blank. But
these things are far different. Judging by these controls, it can be set to
automatic or semiautomatic or manual load; muzzle velocity can be set to
anywhere from zero to like a high-powered rifle; spin or do not spin the
projectile; select between two compartments of the magazine. I hoped I'd never
see or hear of one of these! Not just as plans and a prototype sent in hopefully
by some clever inventor, but a production model which has been used in action!
Heaven knows where copies of the plans of them have got to, or where they're
being made, or who else has them. How we relied on something that was so always
true that we took for it granted without having to mention it, that guns go
`bang'! Now it's not always so! Cartoons that I've seen of `tough guy' comic
characters nailing wood by spitting nails from their mouths: all of a sudden
they're no longer funny! Well, I better take your statement, and Prowl's. At
least <your> inventions are help and not harm to men.".
  "This is the third time!" James replied, "First lot were just thieves [see
26], and Jazz helped me catch them. Second lot wanted me to deal expensively
through them instead of directly, and got rough when I refused [see 30]. Then
these two. Lucky Timmy barked at the roosting birds they disturbed! Silent guns
that don't look like guns: even if the plans are found and suppressed, other
people'll design and make them, now they've been shown to be practical.
Law-abiding people are that bit less safe.".
  "I've seen my quota of home-made guns." said the policeman, "Crude makeshifts
of a length of pipe. Those badly-made chrome plated pistols that turn up
sometimes. These are different. Obviously a professional engineering design job.
I hope they don't start turning up all over the place.".
  "I'll have to get a new shield." said James, "This one's withstood those two
characters, but it's taken all it can in the process.".
  "<Have> you got any firearms?" the policeman asked.
  "No." said James, "At clay pigeon shoots odd times, I used a gun that they
keep there. Wheeljack (he was always fond of inventing) made a compressed air
powered gun that fires a weight that trails a line, like lifeboatmen use. He
used it once, when a boy got stuck up scaffolding [see 47-50]. People who know
the fictional Transformers keep asking the real ones where their guns are. Some
people need a lot of telling to accept that ray guns are impossible. Sorry to
keep wearing this CRS-style riotsquad gear, but I've sure needed it! Anyway,
you'd better see if you can loosen those two's tongues a bit.".
  "Right." the policeman ordered, "Mr.Wernicke's getting tired of this sort of
thing.".
  "Donald Duck. I'm staying with Quackers while my pond's being dredged." X
replied.
  "Mickey Mouse. I'm staying with Jerry while Minnie Mouse redecorates my hole."
Y replied.
  The policeman pretended to accept those names as true, for it did not matter
what the two were called as long as the law had custody of them, and the two
would soon get tired of having to answer to those names in court and prison. He
took James's fingerprints, so that forensic could eliminate them when examining
the fingerprints on the men's kit, for James had handled one of the nailguns.
  [66] "So it seems that, having finally got away from the Decepticons, my first
real job is to face two humans who are acting Decepticon, while the other seven
of my people who have come here before here are all busy away. I suppose I
better justify the badges on my doors, while I am here." said Prowl, offering
his services to take the two to the police station; the other policemen drove
away, for they have many calls. For only the second time in reality, Prowl
transformed, although he remembered transforming many times in his synthesized
past of Cybertron and Oregon and easy faster than light space travel which he
was exiled from without hope of return. He went on all fours. His head folded
inside. He folded his arms, and they became his front suspension and steering
gear. His legs folded up and became his rear end. His passenger compartment
unfolded and its doors opened.
  "Does this car drive like ordinary cars?' the policeman asked, getting in
Prowl.
  "No need, I can drive myself." said Prowl.
  "Get in. No, the back seat. This is the third time since Easter." said James
angrily, still in his riotsquad gear, using one of the nailguns to gunpoint the
two into obeying, "Why don't some of you try working for a living? I've more to
do than play at riotsquads while my customers are kept waiting.". The two had to
obey.
  "I've got your statement, on some compu ..." the policeman started, then broke
off as a voice over Prowl's radio said that three men were needed at a fight at
a nearby pub. "Sorry, I better go, another incident. `Oppit, cat!" he said.
  "Oh no, `pussy on the prowl'! Come on, Tabbins, find the warm patch above his
motor some other time." said James, slinging the nailgun on his back and picking
up his cat off Prowl's bonnet, leaving the shiny new white paint adorned with a
trail of muddy cat footprints going backwards from the right front corner.
  "I'll be back when I can. James." said Prowl quickly, and drove away.
  Prowl left the two at the police station, then took the policeman to the
affray at the pub.
  "You take some getting used to, electromechanical but alive with awareness and
emotions." he said.
  "The amount of time I spent checking his place out and keeping track of where
all his trick vehicles were. How was I to know that he'd just made another?" X
moaned.
  "Giant robots, giant robots, that great steel hand. I'm sure I've got a
cracked rib." Y moaned.
  James went in, carrying Tabbins. Timmy came to him, whining to be fed. A pile
of seven dead mice and three dead rats were evidence that Tabbins had meanwhile
had his own fight against intruders, another battle in a war that had started
when the council pulled down some vermin infested tenements nearby. He fed
Tabbins and Timmy, tried to collect his thoughts, and decided to go back to bed
for what was left of the night. He realized that he still had the nailgun slung
on his back. The police would have to come back for it, and for the rest of
those two's kit. He fell on his bed and went to sleep at once in full kit, still
wearing the nailgun.
  [67] In the morning he decided that `Emperor Ming' better be some use before
the police came to collect `him'. "This is sure quicker than hammering!" he
thought, using it to nail up a crate to deliver a computer to an unpronounceable
port in Poland (Szczeczin). Making crates took time with sawing and nailing, and
having crates made for him by outside firms was expensive. The power tool's
metal bulk made no sound except faint reloading clicks as its flat screwed-on
rear end plate thumped his shoulder in recoil, and the fired nails thudded their
full length into the wood six feet away with alarming power. No need for
cartridges that need a licence to get; nails and electricity can be got
anywhere. He thought of a silent firing squad armed with that sort of gun, and
shuddered.
  Next job was to mend his roof. By now some of the Transformers had returned.
Much of the nailing was in awkward corners, and the nailgun promised to be a
safer way than hammering through a 5-foot punch up a 30-foot ladder. He stuck an
axe in his belt and went to the wall below the affected part of the roof.
Wheeljack, who was in robot form, picked him up. "Now, hands up, as the gunman
said in the crime story." said James. Wheeljack obeyed; James, sitting on
Wheeljack's hands, was level with his roof where it had been leaking at the
eaves. The roof met the flat top of the wall in a 45 degrees angle, abominably
hard to hammer into, but his nailgun made it easy. While he was up there he
cleared away all the nests and mess left by pigeons before he bought the
building, and the cobwebs. Wheeljack walked along the wall. He found out why one
of his roof beams had broken in a gale: the grain in the wood made a dogleg
round a huge knot, but the sawmill had cut straight through it and the builders
had used it regardless. He couldn't replace the beam without dismantling part of
the roof, so he splinted the damage with thick long pieces of oak. Wheeljack put
him down while he got the wood from store and put the gun on recharge, while he
got the other nailgun and reloaded it with 8-inch nails. Like that, and set to
maximum power, it did the job, far easier than hammering upwards at an angle,
but the recoil gave its unpadded metal rear end a punch like a boxer's without
gloves against his chest and shoulders; but he endured it and carried on with
the job, rather than face the risk of the broken beam starting more damage in
each strong wind until the roof needed replacing. Wheeljack complained that he
had come home from mending one factory building to mend another, but realized
that the work had to be done before the police came to collect the two nailguns
with the rest of the two men's kit. "Couldn't Jazz lift you? I've got work to
do." said Wheeljack.
  He finished, and put the nailgun on recharge, somewhat wondering why he was
doing so. He wondered where the other nailgun was. He felt sleepy after his
interrupted night. He took the gun's magazine out in case the cat or the dog
pawed the controls, and sat on a chair by the battery charger and went to sleep.
When he woke, he found the other gun; Wheeljack had been examining its insides.
The police eventually came and collected the two intruders' kit.