#3 Tom Swift
The Book Cage Episode #Doubtful Tom Swift #3: Cyborg Kickboxer
For those of you who don't know, I'm in central Florida which is a bit Hurricane-y right now. I haven't really had a chance to think about what to read next. If by some miracle I retain power throughout, the plan is to read the book about the TASER boy kickboxing a robot. So, get your disk-hardened muscles into stand-by, maybe, possibly 5pm Eastern Friday.
Under an hour until Tom Swift #3: Cyborg Kickboxer. Here is your preview of our hero killing a man
Wait, did he just kill a jazz musician?
To be clear, this fucking guy's name is Duke Wellington?
Like, https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Wellesley,_1st_Duke_of_Wellington
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duke_Ellington
Time to begin
Victor's family was named for having loads of apples
We start with Tom Swift getting hit in the head
He suspected this by getting his ass handed to him
Perhaps all the punches to face gave it away.
A vicious punch to a vulnerable solar plexus is how Double Dragon also starts.
This genius inventor seems like kind of an idiot
Oh hes doing an Enter the Dragon thing? Is Jim Kelly there?
Way to bury the lede about fighting in a house of mirrors
This isn't even an official fight. He just pissed off a carny
Wait like wizard in Conan?
Camera pulls back to reveal its a man-ape wearing boxing gloves kicking his ass.
I wish.
Rick Cantwell
Camera pulls further back to show the horrified zoo patrons
Tom Swift and Rick Cantwell
Rick Cantwell, the Bad Boy of East Dothan, AL
Bootleg Johnny Quests.
I assume Rick's family is on city water
Tom sociopathically considers how a human might read emotions
Rick's face has subtitles
"Tom then licked his own eyeball, because Tom is a lizard."
Rick looks into Tom's unfeeling eyes and knows he would not be shown the same mercy.
Written by someone who clearly understands both karate and quarterbacking
Time management is magic
They learned kickboxing from the bird aliens from Metroid?
Master Choso teaches such esoteric arts as Morph Ball and where to find extra missiles.
You really have to work hard to learn the Screw Attack.
And sign a waiver
You graduate when you earn your Varia Suit.
I thought it said Master Chorizo, who makes delicious pork sausages.
Rick got kicked off the football team after incinerating the opposing team with the plasma beam
Tom will make Master Choso bend to his technological will
Master Choso's Dojo And Discount Pork Emporium, off I95 at the Pasadena Omniplex.
Master Choso hated nerds
Tom was very hurt by Master Choso literally hating everything he did and believed in.
The shouldercaps are instrumental in karate technology
Good use for Zipdisks
he's wearing a fishnet shirt?
nice
"The disks pass a low voltage electric current thru my nipples, thus giving me the strength of a kickboxing bear."
fishnet under scale mail
The AC doesn't stack, Tom
The solenoids are what make the karate go good
"it's called kinesio tape!"
The shirt is designed to measure how much the wearer gets beat up
This dude got ripped off hard.
That sentence tells me that this author doesn't know what a solenoid is.
"Whats that wire?" "Oh that one goes to the vibrating pleasure bullet in my ass. That one's for me, not for kickboxing."
"Ignore the part where I called them mirrors and punched them"
If he goes through a metal detector, he's shot on sight
Speaking of getting his ass kicked, maybe if Tom spent less time designing electric nipple shirts and more time practicing, Rick wouldnt be punching him in the head so often.
wow this guy has made the karate-good shirt fucking lame as hell already
Tom, where do you get your funding?
Why can't you just use regular cameras, tom? you made the gym look like a fuck cave
Kinky
Daddy
"I funded it by teaching Childrens Dim Mak 301 courses at the community college!"
Oh wait, his dad runs a company. Tom is Lil Tony Stark
Did he basically just invent motion capture?
But like, under clothing?
Tom I hate you so fucking much already
I learn best while my muscles are involuntarily twitching due to electric shocks
It's more like Ratatoullie but with a computer instead of a rat, and muscle-spasm inducing electric shocks instead of hair pulling
And daddy got if from building components for some nice Germans.
Tom, do you know what a sledgehammer is? Because it costs a fraction of all this bullshit
"You see, I then interpreted the electrical signals and knew immediately what move you were going to do." "So you spent like six months building this and accomplished as much as you would have if you just practiced? No wonder Master Choso wont teach you how to make his famous Chorizo Queso Burrito."
Anyway, I can't see anything going wrong with Tom turning himself into an AI meat puppet
If the point was to be weirdly superior and not really earn it? It was a success.
I must humble him
Tom. Fuck you. Electrodes on your nipples does not a cyborg make.
You stupid bastard.
okay Tom you had me when it was about reflex improvement and muscle memory enhancement but that that camera shit is reaching levels of "why not just bring a gun"
"Hey, old man. I'm gonna embody what it's like for you to login to your email."
Master Choso dumps a bucket of water on Tom and watches him seize as all his discs short out
I see why Master Choso thinks Tom is a dingus.
Because he is.
I think Tom is working on teleportation later, Master Choso
"Guess how much time the bucket took to fill, asshole"
Speed and grace
"Well no, it will take another several years to............OOOOOHHHHHH right!"
All you Americans and your electric karate vests
"I'm American now, so I might as well embrace electric nipple foolishness."
I hope that Master Choso is secretly thinking "oh, this oughta be good"
"I will disregard centuries of technique to humor the rich little white boy"
Man this episode of Cobra Kai is going some weird places.
If this sounds like it comes out of nowhere, that's because it did.
DUKE WELLINGTON?!
Duke "Motherfucking" Wellington
Duke wellington had been waiting in that closet for hours
Straight to child murder
Owner\proprietor of Lord Wellingtons Beef Trapeze and Kung Fu Studio from the Pasadena Union Street Plaza!
Duke literally burst into a room and challenged a child to a fistfight
I love Duke already.
I'm seeing him as the duke of Wellington from Blackadder.
I'm not gonna be able to read Duke as anyone but Sycho Sid Vicious
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duke_Ellington
Quite the finger
just Tom's surprise
Wrong kid, Duke. Go kill the other one.
Duke always expects magic diverting fingers
Wet Willy of War
Gasp! Not 3D!
Rick breathes a sigh of relief, as he is one week from karate retirement.
Duke is 21 and ready to throw his life away to kill a nerd
Shit, Dangerous Danny DeVille! Owner of Dangerous Danny's Krav Maga and Used Car Lot!
Half the people who meet Tom make the same choice.
The most Dangerous Deals in Town!
Dangerous DeVille tried to soften his image by adopting the nickname "Danny"
At school they meet a Dan Coster
Dan has a closet of polo shirts. I know it.
"Tom had also met Dan's third great aunt, twice removed, Sherleen Coster."
And a gold chain for every day of the week.
The characters are coming fast and loose, get ready
I can feel Dans thick black arm hair thru the pages.
Girls take years to acquire clothing in new countries
Sure that's a thing people guess about.
And now, a list of proper nouns
God fuck your goddam relationships, get back to Duke Wellington fistmurdering Rick.
That Sandra, always arranging her placement in spaces
Word gets out fast
Yeah me too, Tina. Me too.
Aw, gawrsh
Mandy Coster, with her thick, glossy mane of arm hair.
"I haven't smashed her in a car compressor, if that's what you mean."
At the dojo, MORE CHARACTERS
Slow news day, I guess
Fuuuuuuuuuuck.
hey guys! Karate rave fashion show! CALL THE WHOLE GANG IN
To be fair, if some teen nerd was going to electrify his friends nipples and have him fight an MMA bigshot I would want to watch it on the news.
Tom must have gotten this tech crew together with psychic powers
"You readers are all rich children with limitless time and energy that everyone hates, right?"
"Well you see, my weird best friend done a weird science and now my karate teacher thinks I need to be dismembered for my temerity."
MORE
CHARACTERS
hahahaha
Swift Enterprises sounds like they make cleaning products.
Humanoids. That completely natural saying
Ham Anderson, Charles Cinco and Swan Frinkles the Third also enter.
Duke's Manager, the Weasel
Johnny Weisel, who will go on to found Weisels Schnitzles and Sambo Gym.
And of course, Ehrlenmeyer the Sign Language Sloth
"Give the humanoids a good show, but fuck the quadrupeds and lesser hominins, they can fuck off."
Sure, sending signals to space and back is faster than "wires"
Tom, you don't push paper through the wires. They use the same thing as-
you know what?
Fuck you
Hmmm, I don't like the children dressing each other in fishnets and mesh
This was definitely a spot that the editor called the author about
"Okay now hold still while I insert this electrified metal rod into your urethra......"
why microcameras? There's already an established regular camera
Off to a great start
"You will feel a slight.......pinch."
OH! Okay. Tom's a serial killer. Now it makes sense.
This is a very elaborate way to prank and then murder your friend.
Someone wrote out a point and click adventure game
A great system
"Okay now that I have erased Ricks higher motor functions with the wrath of Zeus, I just have to invent a way to download a lifetime of martial arts knowledge and skill off these floppy disks into his brain........."
Harlan: Never help a dying child when you can quip instead
What a unique and exciting sci-fi device
Let me test more homeade inventions on his unconscious form!
FUCK YOUR GODDAM SONIC SCREWDRIVER TOM!
Certainly not "borrowed" from any kind of long running television show
Next, Tom puts on his super long electron scarf
"Now, hold him down, I'm going to use these cameras to record it while I mess with his dick."
Tom stops bragging about his inventions long enough to notice the smell of charred flesh coming from Rick.
"Gonna draw a little face on it and send the pictures to my sister, who he is dating."
You electrocuted a robot?
"I programmed it to feel pain and fear, too!"
"No actually you didnt really tell me much of anything about this at all."
"So........did you.......fix that problem?"
'That's some tool you've got there' Rick said to the robot while everyone looked on suspiciously.
"Not.......as such."
"Sure, works great on robots now"
Tom is a supervillain waiting for the accident that turns him evil
"So now that you reset my nervous system with a full body tasering and I shit my pants, I dont really feel like getting in a kickfight today."
"And that's how science wins!"
I'm thinking Tom is related to Professor Norbert
Oh he decided that, did he?
"Tom decided the feeling was eerie, and so it was time to test it out on his best friend."
Add "fiber-optic" to the list of things the author doesn't understand
"Better him than me.", Tom is clearly a student of the heroic era of science when you did science by shoving an electrified rod up a dead dogs ass.
I don't understand what the TV is for in the robot fighting scenario
"You know..........a classic martial arts pose. You get it, right reader?"
ugh, it's so boring making bots fight each other. Just watch an actual player on Twitch or Youtube
Tom really can't resist punching hard, reflective objects
Tom is a bird
And that was when Tom realized the Oculus Rift was a bad investment.
This is an elaborate suicide
The system was engorged. Turgid. At attention.
"OH MY HUBRIS! I forgot to program the robot to not murder me!"
That's quite the coincidence
I like the visual that it's approaching while apparently flailing like a windsock
I need other people to electrocute
That's how it starts
"Yes. I almost died during this test. What I need is someone else to take the risks. Like my buddy Rick, he's trusting and dumb."
Within a month, he'll be harvesting organs from the homeless
"It's so obvious that I missed it"
Yeah, biochemistry configuration is why there wasn't an "off" switch
"WHat? No don't be absurd, why should someone NOT want a crippling electric shock if their exoskeleton isnt calibrated correctly?"
"Design flaw shmeshine shmaw.
Rick decides to try again
"I also added these safety axes, for stability"
This is so much more complicated and dangerous than just learning karate
☑️ Redhead
Yeah. He decided the solution was "learn karate while wearing a glass suit"
Ignore all the laughing, they're giggling because you're such a warrior.
"And when I say, "real warrior" i mean I deliberately made you look like an asshole. Here's a colander with some wings I welded to it."
Holy shit, it's my Saints Row character
"Now put on these neon pantyhose."
Writer is very into Duke
"And these high heeled platform shoes with goldfish in them."
Also who SHAVES their hair into a widows peak?!
Who WANTS a receding hairline?!
Guys that want to look like a Dracula, maybe
now, now, hear him out - maybe his hairline is tragically low
"Widow's Peak is that style where they have long, flowing hair like Conan, right?"
Ginger Dracula impersonator.
They both have a vulnerability to sunlight
Thats the Widows Climax, its different.
I like that so far Wellington is just a mindless meat monster, I don't think he's done anything but snarl at people.
like when he has a full head of hair it looks like you maxed out the "head height" and "face height" sliders in opposite directions
Rick goes maverick, and it does not end well
hahaha, he made a suit with lane correction
The televised heavyweight champion vs. child match goes exactly as expected
"Huh it seems like maybe I should have mentioned to Rick it takes about two weeks to train with the electric shirt."
This all seems like stuff they should have discussed beforehand.
Also maybe Tom should be the one getting his ass reamed in combat?
Tina has decided that Rick is already dead
All that build-up and Rick gets destroyed. That is perfect
Tom is urging Rick to have faith in the machine spirit.
"FUCKING KARATE!" yelled everyone
Engage Lazarus Protocols
"I just wanted to make you look like an asshole, Tom, not kill Rick. Who could have thought making a teen boy fight a grown martial arts meat bulldozer would have serious consequences!?"
"FUCKING KARATE!" answered everyone
Rick is dead and the suit is puppeting him.
Tom's solution is always electrocution
I thought this book was going to be Tom trying to defeat a cyborg in karate, not him Real Steel-ing his idiot friend against Dolph Lundgren
This is some pretty mad sciencey shit.
"i... is that healthy?"
"Sorry, which one of us invented an Electric Rifle?"
Tom is coming across real detached
Fuck how much did I miss
fun fact: it was originally called the TFSER
"Come on, I've only passed out twice today!"
If this entire book is Tom making adjustments as Rick get beaten into soup, I will have a new favorite Book Cage book
"Rick," Tom said. "You've been dead for five or six minutes."
"Rick, he already gave you brain damage, and that was on top of the brain damage I gave you with my untested electric shirt."
"And that is why I think continuing is a great idea! Duke Wellington will never see it coming!"
Johnny Weisel, weasling around
"The human face can only be hit so many times before it collapses! OR SO DUKE THINKS!"
Tom invents the Electric Weasel.
Tom Swift: Genius
"Y.....yeah actually I do have Warcraft installed but that's neither here nor there, sir."
The sociopath is annoyed by the autistic
Well, I guess that's the end of the book
