Tales of the Red Panda: The Android Assassins

by Gregg Taylor

  “What is this?” Brody said, getting to his feet.

  Parker ignored him. “All I did,” he said, “is do a little checking. Turns out that you first gave your story about the cop with the tommy-gun about three hours before the other bodies were actually discovered. Not your statement, but your original claims at the scene. The timing's all wrong.”

  “Yeah?” Brody was lost.

  “Which means there were only two ways you could know about that. If you were actually in on the crimes, which doesn't fit with anyone's version of how you acted at the scene, or if you were telling the truth.” Parker smiled for the first time, just a little.

  Brody was quiet for a moment. “So that's when you apologize and drop the charges, not when you lose my file and open up the cage so I can slip away,” he said suspiciously.

  “That's not exactly what's going on here either,” Parker said. “You're getting an offer, Brody. An offer that is going to change everything about your life and put it in dead certain risk too. If you decide you'd rather take your chances on the criminal justice system, it's not like I'm gonna leave you to rot. You go back on the books and I make sure the prosecutor and your lawyer know everything that I know, within reason.”

  “Or?”

  “Or you do what seems to come naturally to you, help people in trouble,” Parker said. “But you get a lot more organized about it, and you get a lot more done.”

  Brody's eyes widened. “I knew it,” he said. “I knew you worked for him.”

  “Did you now?” It was difficult to know how Parker felt about that.

  “I knew there was something I liked about you, Parker,” Brody grinned, “you ain't a cop at all, you work for the Red Panda!”

  “I'm a cop all right,” Parker bristled slightly, “and I'm a good one too. I'm sorry that you've met the other kind somewhere, and I'm sorry that it only seems to take one bad cop to make people forget every good one that they've ever met in their lives, but that seems to be the way it is. But I'm also more than just a policeman, Tank. And this is your chance to be more than you are too.”

  “Yeah?” the big man said with pride shining in his eyes.

  “Yeah,” Parker nodded. “See, that was the second promise to a friend. I confirmed a theory for her, that there were killing machines out there disguised like real people. And I told her that I knew where there was a man that had stopped one with his bare hands. She asked me to bring you in, if I could.”

  “Bring me in?” Brody asked.

  “It's bad out there, Brody,” Parker said, “and it's going to get a lot worse. But we're all through taking it, and we're all through waiting. Now it's war. She says there's a place for you, if you're willing.”

  “She?” Brody asked. “That girl?”

  “The Flying Squirrel,” Parker said sternly.

  “But… but what about–?”

  “I don't know where the Chief is,” Parker interrupted. “Maybe somebody does, maybe no one does. Right now the Squirrel is calling the shots and you'd better jump when she says, Mister.”

  Brody was serious. “Is he hurt? Is he dead? What do you mean you don't know?”

  “Morris Brody,” Andy Parker said, “if you walk out that door with me, you'll always have more questions than answers, I can promise you that. It's a chance to do more good than most people get to do in a lifetime. I've never regretted it a single day. But I can tell you this: your life will never be the same.”

  Parker saw Tank Brody smile for the first time, a wide, infectious smile that seemed to light the room. He turned his head to the left and spat on the floor and turned back to face Parker.

  “Thank goodness,” he said. “Let's get going.”

  Fourteen

  When August Fenwick opened his eyes, he wondered for a moment if he had, or if the strange vision before him was not just some sort of nightmare. He was restrained by the hands and suspended about a foot above the floor by the long arms of two silver robots, possibly the same two who had ripped him from the safety of his club who knows how long before. They stood within a vast chamber surrounded on every side by scaffolds, each of which connected to a different tunnel leading away from the chamber. Across every platform, striding purposefully like an army of ants, were hundreds of mechanical men. Many were the unfinished-looking raw metal of Fenwick's captors, some wore the colorful tin-soldier paint of Captain Clockwork's first generation of monsters, and still more appeared in every way to be human, apart from the cold, almost unseeing manner in which they moved as a part of this monstrous swarm. Clearly this chamber was the nexus of this fiendish hive, but where was the villain at the heart of it all?

  “Ah, Mister Fenwick,” a harsh, metallic voice rang out as if on cue, “thank you so much for joining us.”

  The Red Panda was unaccustomed to playing the role of his weakling alter ego in moments of danger, but for the moment he feigned fright at the entrance of a man in long, crimson robes with a hood over his face. The voice gave the illusion that he was himself a machine, but the Red Panda recognized the swagger within his host's walk as being a product of human arrogance. His captor had taken no chances on being recognized. He must be wearing some sort of device that altered his voice.

  “Who are you?” Fenwick said, struggling weakly with the tendrils that bound his arms. “What do you want with me?”

  “Who am I?” the electronic voice box cackled. “Not even you can be that dim. Surely my reputation has preceded me, to say nothing of my children here.”

  “You– you're Captain Clockwork!” Fenwick cried, tiring already of the act, but hoping to draw his enemy out.

  “Am I indeed?” the villain seemed almost amused by this. “I think you must be mistaken. By now the police of this city will be quite certain that the villain known as Captain Clockwork is none other than August Fenwick.”

  The Red Panda did his best to seem stunned by this. “This is why your monsters grabbed me when the police were questioning me. To make it look like I was escaping. To make it seem like I was Captain Clockwork!”

  The voice-box under the hood did not deal with a cackling laugh well, but the Red Panda got the general idea. “Yes, you fool!” the villain said. “And you are quite welcome to the title. Never let the press invent your nom de plume.”

  “This is preposterous!” Fenwick cried. “You can't imagine that I would be found guilty of your crimes based upon such evidence.”

  “You are making the rather large assumption that I intend to let you live to face some sort of charges,” Clockwork hissed. “Rather large and very wrong. There will be an investigation of course. After all, the recent crimes of Captain Clockwork have been hideous abominations, have they not? The unmotivated slaughter of innocents? When it is clear that the crisis is past, the police will wish to close the books on this. Their investigation will not be much more accepting of circumstantial evidence than a trial would. You continue to draw breath for no other reason than to provide me with a corpse of the correct vintage when the time comes for your reign of terror to be brought to an end.”

  “You can't have gone to all of this trouble just to frame me,” the Red Panda's anger was showing through his facade, but his enemy seemed too pleased with himself to notice. “Captain Clockwork vanished after his first crime spree, he was free and clear. Why would you go to all this risk and expense just to free yourself of that identity? Why destroy hundreds of lives? What could you possibly have to gain?” Fenwick's arms strained against the metallic arms that held him.

  The man in the crimson hood began to laugh again, loud and long. “What could I have to gain? Why Mister Fenwick, only the entire city and everything in it!”

  “How can this senseless terror provide you with control over anything?” Fenwick practically spat. “This is chaos!”

  “Indeed it is,” the villain hissed. “And under cover of that chaos, a new order shall rise. One order… my order!” And again the metallic laughter rang throughout the chamber. “Oh, my dear Mister Fenw
ick. Still you do not see. Still you do not comprehend how total is your failure. I will try and break things down into concepts simple enough for your limited brain.”

  There was a swish of the long crimson robes as Captain Clockwork turned and ascended a half dozen stairs to a central platform banked with control panels on each side. “If mankind has learned one thing from this Depression, it is that economics, not politics or military might, truly rules the world. After seeing how deeply the wounds strike into the heart of our society when the wealth of our richest companies is affected, do you think that governments will ever again allow them to suffer? To harm one another through senseless competition? This crisis will pass, and those who have seized the moment to emerge from the darkness on top of the ladder will rule for all time.” The villain spread his robed arms wide to encompass the vast complex around them. “I had thought once that I might buy my way to the promised land. Steal enough with my android army to invest in the industries of tomorrow. But then that self-appointed do-gooder in a circus mask put an end to that.”

  The third-party reference to the Red Panda was not lost on August Fenwick. Certainly maintaining his secret identity seemed like the least of his problems today, but Fenwick liked to know where he stood.

  “And so, even as I improved my designs beyond what even I dreamed might be possible, I conceived of this, my master plan. You have noticed, I am sure, the men in coveralls that walk amongst my army. Would it surprise you very much to learn that they are no more flesh and blood than the creatures who restrain you now?”

  Fenwick was not in the least surprised, but he said nothing.

  “Not only can my creations pass for human beings, but they can be crafted to resemble specific men. Not only in appearance, but in voice, in basic manner. And if they should take the place of a man with a particular function, say a worker in a sensitive position, the test driver of an armored transport or the co-pilot of the New York Special…” Captain Clockwork's voice trailed away in amusement as his captive's eyes grew wide in wonder. “Ah! Now you begin to see!”

  “You… Clockwork… you're the Viper!” Fenwick said in astonishment.

  “A much more dignified identity, don't you think?” the supervillain cackled. “And quite true. And with this senseless killing spree of Captain Clockwork to distract the authorities, the Viper is free to pursue a much more subtle game. You see, each of the industries that drives the city still exists in a weakened state. The family fortunes that built them are depleted or gone, the banks cannot afford to take risks on any venture that might fail. Separately, they cannot stand. But brought together under a single leadership, they can weather the storm of these difficult times and emerge stronger than ever.”

  “But you couldn't possibly acquire control of them honestly, so you are forced into this coward's game!” Clockwork hissed at this, but Fenwick continued. “You mean to force honest businesses into near bankruptcy and then take them over yourself!”

  “Yes,” the villain purred. “It is almost exactly what they feared you might do, with your offer to help them through further investment. Do not look so surprised, I have here within my master control the means to observe many strategy sessions thought to be quite private. Just one of the many privileges that comes with genius.” Captain Clockwork caressed the control bank before him, and Fenwick could just see a flat ebony panel surrounded by dials. The villain ignored Fenwick's interest and resumed his tirade. “The Fenwick fortune was too vast, too varied, too well-protected to be brought down by the economic crash. And your companies continue to succeed in spite of your idleness. You are an anachronism, a last bastion of the world that was, propping up the old order and thwarting me in the process. But I was prepared for you from the first.”

  “You built your mechanical monsters with technology from Fenwick Industries. You knew that I would never allow the city to fall into despair with the collapse of so much industry.” Fenwick was quietly amazed at the foresight of his foe.

  “I was guided more by the mercenary ways of your late father than your weak civic-mindedness,” Clockwork chuckled. “But in any case, I was more than prepared. With August Fenwick under the suspicion of the law, his companies will be in no position to intercede to prevent the collapse of the city's industry. Through a network of holding companies and trusts, I will acquire them as they fall, consolidate my rule over time, and continue to crush all opposition with accidents caused by my android doubles. And by the time the police or the Red Panda are through chasing August Fenwick and his army of killer robots, it will be far too late to prevent the rise of… the Viper!”

  The movement of the machines across the catwalks above suddenly ceased and in a single motion, every last mechanical man turned in to face the central platform.

  “All hail the Viper!” they said in one voice.

  As the flat, mechanical laughter of his captor tore through the great underground chamber, August Fenwick was forced to admit that his enemy might be right, though for very different reasons. With the Red Panda under lock and key, and the rest of the city unaware that the two menaces Toronto faced were in reality one master fiend, there might very well already be no way to save the city!

  Fifteen

  Tires squealed furiously as a sleek, black roadster burst through a hidden panel and into the warehouse. The car came to a sudden halt and the door opened to reveal the driver, a girl clad in a form-fitting grey catsuit and goggles. The Flying Squirrel regarded the dozens of faces turned towards her with grim determination. This many agents in the same place at the same time broke just about every rule in the book, and Kit Baxter couldn't have cared much less.

  “What are you ladies lookin' at?” she called to the startled assembly.

  “Lay off, Squirrel,” a voice called. “You just drove a car through a solid-lookin' wall, you want we should pretend nothin' happened?”

  “I want you to collectively look a little less like you just had an accident, boys,” she said, striding across the open space towards the main doors of the vast, hanger-like room. “We're in for bad business here. If you could try a little harder to make me feel like it isn't a bunch of parish schoolgirls that have my back, that would be real nice.”

  Around the room there was much embarrassed shuffling as the men returned to their preparations. They were men of action, all. The hand-picked cream of the Red Panda's army of field agents, and there wasn't a single one of them that was tougher than this small red-haired dynamo, and every one of them knew it. And if each of them dug a little deeper tonight to prove their hardiness because of their embarrassment, well, that worked for Kit Baxter as well.

  Around the room there were a dozen vehicles, each appearing to the casual observer to be nothing more than an ordinary car. Taxis, delivery trucks, emergency vehicles - all shapes and sizes of automobiles, and under each hood was an engine nearly as powerful as the experimental racing-car motor that powered the roadster in which the Flying Squirrel had made her entrance. This was one of the Red Panda's emergency garages, and for the moment it was the marshaling ground for a counter-attack in his name.

  The underground lair was still not the safest venue to work out of, Kit had reasoned. The police were now quite convinced that the Boss was really Captain Clockwork and O'Mally was fighting tooth and nail for warrants to raid the Fenwick mansion looking for little things like hidden tunnels and man-sized pneumatic tubes that lead to secret complexes, all of which the mansion had in abundance. The tubes were still disabled, but Kit was taking no chances. If their cover wasn't blown already, there was a good chance that it soon would be.

  Her rapid exit from the grounds of the Club Macaw had not gone unnoticed by the law, and every radio report on the escape of August Fenwick from police questioning made sure to mention that information leading to the capture of Fenwick's lady driver would also be appreciated by police. Between the villains and the law, she was rapidly running out of places to hide. It took only one look at the determined gleam within those deep br
own eyes to know that hiding was nowhere on Kit Baxter's to-do list.

  The trouble they'd had so far was that Clockwork's attacks were random. They held no apparent objective, no purpose. It had seemed to her that the only way to defend against attacks that could come anywhere at any time was to be everywhere at once. Every spotter and runner in their network was on the streets, every contact man was wired directly to Mother Hen, and every vehicle in this garage had a radio receiver hook-up to relay any news to the fleet that would soon be roaming the streets, waiting to punch back.

  That punch was the only part of the equation that they were not yet ready to deliver, and Kit had fixed that as well. She reached the doors and began to pull the long chain that ran to the rafters high above, and the great metal gateway to the garage began to swing open in response.

  “You got the goodies, boss-lady?” said a nearby voice that she recognized without looking as Andy Parker.

  “They're right behind me, Constable,” she said seriously. “The truck can come in the front door, but the Pandamobile attracts a little too much attention.” The door was almost fully open now, and she began to close it again, quickly and without looking. Parker stuck his head around the rapidly closing barrier and gave her a concerned look. “Three, two, one…” was all she had time to say before a large green truck roared through the doors, barely clearing the remaining opening before they swung shut behind it.

  The truck thundered to a halt and the driver clambered out the window and into the open back, pulling a large tarpaulin off the vehicle's cargo. The passenger door opened and Doctor Chronopolis almost fell out, looking more than a little worse for wear after his rapid journey across town. The agents began to gather around the truck to help unload the crates from the back, stacking them beside the vehicle, barely able to resist the urge to examine the contents.