For the next forty or fifty minutes, the commotion around the smokestack took on the feel of a five-alarm fire. The quick-witted Inspector Nakamura called the local fire department. A fire engine arrived with a portable searchlight. Wired to a nearby power line, the brilliant beam of light lit up the top of the smokestack.
The Bronze Devil had not floated away but sat atop the chimney. Its metallic legs swinging back and forth, its arms extended menacingly toward the sky, it glared down at the world below and shouted at the watchers with its grinding, grating voice.
There was no practical way for the police to ascend the smokestack and apprehend the miscreant. The footholds were not secure and there was no telling how strong their opponent was. Inspector Nakamura asked the firemen to train their hoses on the creature. A blast of water should put it in a precarious enough position to entice it to come down.
The firemen started up the fire engine pump, took a hold of the nozzle, and braced themselves. A fierce flow of water gushed forth, enveloping the monster in a curtain of spray.
The pump was powerful enough to direct the stream right at the monster high atop the smokestack. If they knocked it off its perch and it fell to its death, the investigation would go right back to square one. So the firemen backed off on the pressure and tried to drive it to distraction by drenching its face with the spray.
The devil wasn’t distracted in the least. A mechanical man that didn’t have to breathe could withstand any amount of water.
The frustrated firemen steadily cranked up the flow. The outline of the monster wavered like a mirage. Any fiercer and the torrent would surely sweep it from the smokestack, a thought that left more than a few with sweaty palms.
Whether deliberately or due to the force of the water, the bronze frame leaned violently to the right and then to the left. And then it disappeared from the top of the smokestack. This was not another magical act. It didn’t evaporate like smoke. It fell. From high in the sky, the tiny figure grew into a black lump and plummeted like an arrow to the ground.
An inarticulate cry spontaneously rose from the mouths of the onlookers.
At that moment—exactly at that moment—something strange and inexplicable took place within the darkness covering the ground.
Yoshio was standing a good distance behind the cordon of police officers, staring up at the smokestack. Seeing the monster fall, he started running toward it. He took a single step and sensed something like a black cloud falling around his head. He couldn’t see a thing. He rose into the air, then fell down, as if sliding into a deep, dark hole.
All at once, he had no idea where he was or what was going on.
With the attention of everybody around him focused on the monster, nobody noticed what happened to him or heard anything he said from within the darkness. He might just as well have vanished off the face of the earth.
Meanwhile, the Bronze Devil hit the ground with a big crash. The police officers rushed toward the site of the impact. Their flashlights proving insufficient, the fire engine moved into a position where the headlights could illuminate the scene.
The impact left the monster in an atrocious state. It was very much dead, though what a strange death it was—the arms and legs twisted and bent, the abdomen torn open—and not a speck of blood anywhere. No viscera protruded from its stomach but gears and mechanisms of various shapes and sizes.
Ah, but of course, it was a machine through and through. A real humanoid robot. But powered by what? A coiled spring couldn’t possibly move such a large and heavy object. It was doubtful that a battery could store enough energy to drive an android of these dimensions. This was the product of some hitherto unknown invention. And if so, who did the inventing?
Inspector Nakamura stood next to the devil’s remains and jostled its shoulder with the toe of his shoe. Given such unexplained sorcery, there was no telling whether it was truly dead or not. The mechanical man lay there in an enervated heap of hardware and didn’t move. It was definitely dead.
“So this is the infamous Bronze Devil,” Inspector Nakamura grumbled to himself, glancing around at the scattered gears. He couldn’t help feeling the whole thing was some sort of bizarre practical joke at his expense. And yet considering the malevolent crimes this machine committed before vanishing like a puff of smoke sent an indescribable chill down his spine.
A crowd silently gathered around the curious remains. Overcome by the strangeness of it all, no one knew what to think, let alone what to say.
Detective Kogoro Akechi threaded his way through the throngs. Without a word, he squatted down next to mechanical corpse and scanned the surroundings.
“Hoh, what’s this?” he exclaimed under his breath.
He picked up the monster’s right hand. Upon closer inspection, he noted a scrap of white paper protruding from the fist formed by the tightly clenched, hinged bronze fingers. Detective Akechi carefully pulled the paper free without tearing it. He smoothed it flat against his knee and then held it up to the headlights of the fire engine.
“Ah, some sort of letter. Apparently, this chap wished to say something to say to us.”
Written in a scrawl of characters that could hardly be distinguished from stick figures was a single word: “Revenge.”
So the monster now threatened them with revenge. How a dead machine would accomplish such a thing was a mystery. Except this creature already demonstrated inexplicable abilities. Its “death” notwithstanding, perhaps its ghost lingered behind and was readying its sinister schemes.
After consulting with their superiors, the police transported the remains of the mechanical man to the crime lab for a more thorough examination. The police and the firefighters retrieved their equipment and left the scene. Only then did Detective Akechi notice that Yoshio was missing.
Bewildered by the shocking events they had witnessed, the Street Gang Irregulars huddled together and spoke in muffled tones. When Detective Akechi inquired about Yoshio, one of them stepped forward and made a curious observation.
“Yeah, it was strange. I don’t get it myself. He simply disappeared. One minute he was standing right next to me and the next he was gone. It was really dark and I could hardly see a thing. Like he just went poof.”
What he was saying didn’t make any kind of sense, but Yoshio was nowhere to be found. They split up and combed the area and still came up empty.
Yoshio hadn’t turned up by the next day either.
What in the world was going on? Had the Bronze Devil only pretended to die before their eyes while remaining very much alive? In any case, how could it have spirited Yoshio away? If this was the devil’s revenge, nothing could be more terrifying.
Where was Yoshio now? He couldn’t have vanished off the face of the earth. There must be a logical explanation, a startling reason that simply hadn’t occurred to anyone.