"Get out of there!" Steel was in no mood for games.
Deep in the matted hair of The Bear's chest, a small door started opening, slowly, mechanically. The whole thing was mechanical, arms, legs, head, everything operated electrically. The door—
The door was the last thing Steel remembered.
A slamming blow. The back of his head. Then blackness....
III
When the blackness vanished, as suddenly as it had come, Steel didn't open his eyes at first, figuring out what had happened. Mike had obviously came to and crept up behind him. Rabbit punch—Mike was a master at that.
When he got this figured out, he started to work on what to do about it. He lay there motionless, listening. Then he realized he wasn't lying on the stage floor. He was lying on a bed of some kind. Somewhere in the distance, he heard the muffled crackling of a video transmitter. They'd moved him! How long had he been out! His eyes snapped open.
"Well!" a familiar voice said. "Sleeping beauty awakes!" It was the tall thin-lipped fellow, his original captor. He stood beside the bunk on which Steel found himself lying. Across the fellow's thin cheek now was a taped bandage, the result of Steel's helmet-wielding. "I guess its time you knew my name," he said. "It's Dirk." And as he introduced himself, his right fist arced across the bunk, contacted Steel's jaw like a spark-gap and Steel's blackness returned once more....
This time however the blackness vanished in a deluge of ice water. Steel sat up on the bunk sputtering, shaking his head dazedly.