o come flying through the window.

Ned's reflexes were great. Which I suppose is what you should expect of
a robot.

"DROP YOUR GUNS, YOU ARE UNDER ARREST."

He must have had on full power or something, his voice blasted so loud
my ears hurt. The result was just what you might expect. Both torpedoes
let go at once and the air was filled with flying slugs. The show
windows went out with a crash and I went down on my stomach. From the
amount of noise I knew they both had recoilless .50's. You can't stop
one of those slugs. They go right through you and anything else that
happens to be in the way.

Except they didn't seem to be bothering Ned. The only notice he seemed
to take was to cover his eyes. A little shield with a thin slit popped
down over his eye lenses. Then he moved in on the first thug.

I knew he was fast, but not that fast. A couple of slugs jarred him as
he came across the room, but before the punk could change his aim Ned
had the gun in his hand. That was the end of that. He put on one of the
sweetest hammer locks I have ever seen and neatly grabbed the gun when
it dropped from the limp fingers. With the same motion that slipped the
gun into a pouch he whipped out a pair of handcuffs and snapped them on
the punk's wrists.

Holdupnik number two was heading for the door by then, and I was waiting
to give him a warm reception. There was never any need. He hadn't gone
halfway before Ned slid in front of him. There was a thud when they hit
that didn't even shake Ned, but gave the other a glazed look. He never
even knew it when Ned slipped the cuffs on him and dropped him down next
to his partner.

I went in, took their guns from Ned, and made the arrest official. That
was all Greenback saw when he crawled out from behind the counter and it
was all I wanted him to see. The place was a foot deep in broken glass
and smelled like the inside of a Jack Daniels bottle. Greenback began to
howl like a wolf over his lost stock. He didn't seem to know any more
about the phone call than I did, so I grabbed ahold of a pimply looking
kid who staggered out of the storeroom. He was the one who had made the
calls.

It turned out to be a matter of sheer stupidity. He had worked for
Greenback only a few days and didn't have enough brains to realize that
all holdups should be reported to the protection boys instead of the
police. I told Greenback to wise up his boy, as look at the trouble that
got caused. Then pushed the