He had dropped down into a circular courtyard in the middle of the museum complex, its high walls open to the cloudy sky. The pale statues stood on plinths, robed stone women with staring blank eyes. Arched windows loomed behind them. A curving ramp ran up around the walls.

And at the top stood the tall man.

The dark figure launched at him. Alex got to his feet and jumped—or tried. Something grabbed his leg, just for a second, but it was enough to pull him slamming back down onto the paving slabs.

Alex dragged himself behind a statue and risked a look from behind its legs. The tall man stood in the shadows on the other side of the circular arena.

“Please, now. Come out where I can see you. Let us stop this foolishness. We can talk, you and I, and avoid further unpleasantness. Please.”

Alex flinched back in confusion. This wasn’t the voice he had been expecting. But the soft, treacly tones were all too familiar.

He snuck another glance. The figure took one stiff, heavy step into the courtyard, peering in Alex’s direction. The man removed his large sunglasses to reveal round, wire-framed spectacles beneath. He wore a yellow-and-black spotted scarf around his throat. His long black coat hung open. Faint shapes moved strangely inside.

“I wish you no harm. Please.”

It took several seconds for Alex to process what he was seeing. This wasn’t the tall man at all. This was little Hans Beckman. Yet somehow he stood massively tall and broad. There was a look of intense satisfaction on his face.

Alex could just make out vague, horrible details. As far as he could tell, Beckman had hollowed out the body of a life-sizer robot, and attached himself hideously inside, wearing the machine’s colossal carcass like a mechanized suit of armor—an awful, powerful extension of his body.

Medical-looking tubes ran from grubby, bandaged spots around Beckman’s head and neck, disappearing inside the machine. The things Alex could see writhing softly within his coat were thin, coiled wire attachments, like Slinkys. They hung from Beckman’s robotic torso as ghastly extra arms, six in all. At the end of each bobbed a twitching, glove-like hand.

One of the hands suddenly came shooting out, the coiled wire stretching across the courtyard with a fast, stinging shish. As Alex stared at the padded white fist flying at him, he found himself thinking dumbly about the cheerful hands of Mickey Mouse, until he remembered to duck.

The wire wrapped around the statue above him. He heard a grating, slicing sound. Something fell crunching down beside him.

The marble head lay at his feet, shorn clean off.

“Apologies.” Beckman snickered. “This is only a rough prototype. I have yet to refine control. See?”

Another fist lashed out. This one a cartoonish boxing glove. Another stone head dropped heavily to the ground.