The Wrong Stuff

During a Popocatepetl test, NASA’s Virgil probe encounters an unidentified silver orb, loses contact, and returns altered. The probe identifies itself as Mr. Gordons, an artificial survival machine whose story about being trapped in the volcano since 1896 is not independently verified. On his own initiative, Remo kills acquitted celebrity Barrabas Orrin Anson, prompting CURE to worry about publicity and security. Smith sends Remo and Chiun to investigate reports of a giant spider linked to robberies and deaths. The creature is Gordons: after robbing a Florida liquor store as reported by its owner, it kills four men during a cocaine exchange at the Roadkill Tavern, where Elizu Roote temporarily disables it with electrical arcs.

Stewart McQueen rescues Gordons and takes it to Maine, where Gordons assimilates electronics and turns McQueen’s house systems into traps. Remo and Chiun escape; Gordons flees through a tunnel, but NASA’s Space Cadets retrieve it after a fight at McQueen’s house. Gordons later accepts help from Codwin, who uses it to finance NASA and plans to use its abilities against Remo and Chiun. At Kennedy Space Center, Codwin deploys a blade-wing drone and a hypervelocity launcher; Remo and Chiun survive, but the projectile kills Beemer. Codwin then ignites shuttle boosters submerged beneath a service structure. Chiun kills Codwin and Graham, while Remo survives the burning water, damages Gordons, and pushes it into the rocket flames.

A damaged Virgil probe surfaces with a wire trailing into the water and a speaker using Gordons’s voice. Chiun cuts the wire and sends the probe back underwater; Remo later says Gordons escaped, so its final fate remains unresolved. While severely burned, Remo sees what the narration identifies as Chiun’s deceased son Song, though Remo briefly wonders whether the vision is real or delirium; he takes it as confirmation that he should assume the Reigning Master title. Three days later at Folcroft, Remo declares himself ready, and Chiun affirms that the decision is his. In the Epilogue, McQueen’s renewed success and his statement that he has “initiated repairs” echo Gordons’s language, but do not establish that Gordons inhabits or reached him.