ignoring the imps and ghouls he attacked the free-ranging machine subordinates , aiming blows at their vacuum nozzles and extendable claws , denting their glinting scoops and rearranging their remote control aerials , buckling their tyreless wheels , bending their hooked tails and destabilizing their spinning gyros before dumping them in the yawning bins to be churned out as different engines , frenzied and paranoid , spring-driven and steam-powered , in this hybrid state useless , mongrels of steel and plastic with a hunger their superiors had n't programmed , a frame of reference disorder which resulted in their imminent breakdown , thus engineering a window of opportunity our heroes had only to wade through ...