by Gregg Taylor
“Flying Squirrel, this is the man I told you about,” Parker said, sensing that this might be his one opportunity to get her attention. She was grim and seemed focused on a point somewhere just beyond her field of vision. Parker was certain that she was visualizing what she was going to do to Captain Clockwork when she got her hands on him, and it made him fear again for the mysterious fate of the Red Panda. If he had been killed, the Flying Squirrel would not stop fighting until she had her revenge or she, too, could fight no more, and Andy Parker reckoned every man here was with her to the end, including the new recruit who stood beside him.
The Squirrel walked over to Brody. He towered above her, but if she noticed at all, there was no sign.
“I hear you box,” she said, matter of factly.
“Not really,” Tank said sheepishly. “Spiro thinks maybe it's a good idea.”
“What do you think?” the girl asked him.
Tank considered the Flying Squirrel for a moment. This person was clearly something he had not encountered in a very long time: something to believe in.
“I think it doesn't seem real important right now,” he said plainly.
The girl smiled a little, just for an instant. “I think so too,” she said. “All right Andy, you picked him, he's your problem.”
“Hot soup, coming through,” Mac Tully said, a heavy crate above his head. He brightened when he saw Tank. “Hey, you made it to the party!” he said jovially.
“Take Mac too,” the Flying Squirrel said to Parker. “See if you can wipe that smile off his face, 'cause it's gettin' on my nerves.” She grinned in spite of herself.
“Right, Boss,” Parker said with a nod.
“All right, you mooks, listen up!” the Squirrel's voice thundered through the hall. “Most of you have been through some rough stuff before. I don't think I'd be telling tales if I said that this was likely as bad as it's ever been.” Those agents who were still smiling and itching for a fight looked more serious at this. “I ain't much of one for speeches, but it's plain to see that the city's got its back up against the wall and the list of available help is limited to the faces you see in this room and the folks pointin' us in the right direction.”
“Squirrel?” a voice called from the crowd.
“Joey,” she said, “if you just let me do this it'll go quicker.”
There was a small pause. Joe cleared his throat. “Squirrel, what about the big guy?” he asked at last.
Every face in the room turned towards Kit, and she felt her cheeks grow hot under her cowl. She caught herself biting her lip and shook her head. “If you were planning your day around him swinging to rescue your fanny at the last possible moment, Joey, this is not gonna be a real good field trip for you. I ain't sayin' it ain't gonna happen, I'm just sayin' don't hold your breath, is all.”
The assembly grew very serious. Most of them knew that the Flying Squirrel's banter got more like a gangster from a B picture when things were bad. Some of them might have even figured out that she did it to hide her feelings, but most of them had never thought about her having any. She was tough as nails and every man there loved her for it in his own way. The silence hung another moment.
“Okay,” said Joe. “So how about the goodies?”
“Doc?” the Squirrel called.
“Yes, of course, my dear,” Doctor Chronopolis stepped forward nervously, adjusting his thick glasses as he peered at the assembly. “Good day, gentlemen. The Flying Squirrel has asked me here to brief you on the specifics of a number of armaments which the Red Panda had been developing for a rainy day, as well as a number of my own fanciful notions, and a handful of weapons taken from captured supervillians which I have been pleased to study.”
“Clockwork's monsters have lost the only weakness that we've ever found, boys,” the Squirrel said, “but that doesn't mean that they don't have others. We need to find them and fast.”
There was a general murmur of assent as the Doctor opened the first of the crates and held some ammunition clips aloft. “There are two varieties of special bullets here, both designed for use against heavy armor. One explodes upon impact, with a concussive force that should punch a grapefruit-sized hole in steel plate, if I'm reading the specifications correctly. The second is tipped with an alloy of my own devising that should pierce the steel skin of these beasts, flatten down in the process and rattle around inside the metal monsters, doing all sorts of damage.” There was an approving murmur from the crowd. “Yes,” Chronopolis beamed. “I'm quite excited by these. I can't wait to hear if they work,” he said to falling faces around the room.
Mac Tully had pried open the next crate and the Doctor peeked in. “Ah!” he cried in excitement. “Magnetic grenades! Considerable explosive force with a strong electromagnet mounted on the side, which activates when thrown. It should help the grenade to find the nearest metallic object and hold it there until the charge is released.”
“Which means we don't… what, boys?” the Squirrel asked rhetorically. There was an awkward pause. Tank Brody raised his hand.
“Um… throw them from the cars?” he offered.
“Full points for the new kid,” she said as an embarrassed laugh spread through the group.
“There are also a handful of devices the functionality of which I am far less certain of,” Chronopolis said, pulling a long-barreled weapon from one of the boxes. “Like this Heat Ray, for example. It was used in a series of bank robberies before the Red Panda captured it. I'm afraid I haven't had an opportunity to fully study it just yet… some of its inner working I can only speculate upon. This focusing generator, for example, is quite unlike anything I have encountered before. It seems to me that the beam–”
“Doc,” Kit said, “they don't need the technical specs. Just show them what it does.”
“Oh!” the Doctor said. “Yes, of course, my dear. My apologies, gentlemen. It does this.” The Doctor pulled the trigger and a focused beam of intense heat shot thirty feet through the open space of the hangar and melted its way halfway thorough one of the iron support struts in the split second before Chronopolis released the trigger.
There was total silence among the astonished group of men, crouched in amazement at what they had just seen. For half a minute no one spoke.
“Um… Can I have that one?” Joe asked at last.
Sixteen
David Hagen had been a security guard at James Labs since the company had been formed from the ashes of James Manufacturing and Holdings. He had been a worker in the old plant and managed to keep a job even as the operation became more complicated than anything that Ian James' forebearers could have imagined. The new company was perhaps the foremost research and development laboratory in the country and was growing fast in spite of hard times. There was an optimism within these walls that was shared by few outfits in the city, and every worker knew that he was a part of a business of tomorrow.
Hagen sat up straight in his chair as young Wentworth James approached, looking preoccupied as he often did. The younger Mister James did not stand on ceremony the way his father did, he did not imagine that every man who drew a salary within his family's plant was some sort of indentured servant. Indeed, if Hagen had stood up as James' father would have expected, it would have drawn an embarrassed jibe from the younger man. But, like most who worked in James Labs, Hagen knew that it was Wentworth James' genius that had saved the company when so many others had been lost to difficult times. However much his father might downplay Wentworth's contribution, his son did not merely gather the deference that was due to the heir to the crown – he was given the respect men feel for their true leader.
“Evenin' Mister James,” Hagen said with a touch of his cap in spite of himself. “On the way to check the new power plant?”
James looked up, surprised, as if he had just noticed Hagen sitting there at the security checkpoint. “Oh, excuse me,” the young man said, slapping his pockets as if searching for his security credentials. “I must have left the
darn thing up in my lab,” he said, flustered.
Hagen laughed in spite of himself, and the sound seemed to give Wentworth James another start. He looked back at Hagen, puzzled.
“It's all right, Mister James,” Hagen said. “I reckon I know you well enough by now.”
Wentworth James smiled sheepishly. “Yes, of course,” he said. “Still, you can't be any too careful.”
“No, sir,” Hagen said as the young man breezed past him, distracted once again.
David Hagen watched him go and shook his head in wonder. The things that young man might be dreaming up even now. Why, they said that Wentworth James developed the new power plant at the heart of this complex almost single-handedly. Perhaps that was an exaggeration, and certainly you would never hear Wentworth James tell it that way, but it was hard not to admire a man with ideas. Not many folks born into money seemed to have them, and even fewer had any skills to make their ideas into reality, but Wentworth James did.
The ringing of the telephone jarred Hagen from his reverie and by the time fifteen minutes had gone past he had settled back into his newspaper. It was getting late, and there was not a lot of traffic in the labs at this hour. It was only the sound of footsteps coming towards him down the long hallway that brought him back to reality. The light at the other end of the hallway was too bright, and it turned the newcomer into a back-lit shadow as he appeared.
“Good evening, David,” a voice called cheerfully.
David Hagen was dumbfounded. He knew what he had heard, but it made no sense. The newcomer stepped into the chamber in which Hagen's desk stood and suddenly there could be no doubt. It was Wentworth James.
“Mister James,” Hagen said, astonished.
“Good grief, man,” James laughed, “you look quite as if you had seen a ghost.”
“I'm sorry, sir,” Hagen sputtered. “I just didn't see you come back through.”
Wentworth James was confused. “Yes, I'm… just getting back now. Spent the day dancing for the amusement of the Board of Directors.”
“No, sir, that's not it,” Hagen said. “You went in about… I'm sorry, sir. You must have come out another way.”
“David,” James said, “are you feeling quite well? You know there's only one way into the power complex. Work in the south corridor still isn't finished.”
“Mister James,” Hagen said, “I'm sorry if I sound like a fool, but you walked past this station fifteen, maybe twenty minutes ago and went in to check the power plant.”
“No, David,” James said, “that's what I'm doing now.”
“But… but it was you. I talked to you,” Hagen was getting angry. Someone was playing games with him.
“I promise you, David, it wasn't me. I am me,” James waggled the security pass that hung about his neck.
“He didn't have a pass,” Hagen's voice trailed away, his face growing white.
“How long ago was this?” James said, feeling for the first time that the guard was being serious and that something quite sinister was at work here.
“Fifteen minutes maybe,” Hagen said. “Longer now, maybe.”
Wentworth James looked down the corridor leading to his new power plant. With only one way in or out, there were too many lives at stake. “Sound the evacuation,” he said with sudden resolve.
“Sir?” Hagen said in horror.
“Do it!” James cried. Hagen fumbled with his keys and unlocked a panel beneath which was a large, red button. He held the switch down and a piercing alarm began to sound to all quarters.
James broke towards the door leading into the plant, but Hagen caught his arm and stopped him. “You'll never get through, sir,” he said. “With all the men coming up that way, you'll never get past in time!”
“Damn it, man, we've got to try!” James cried, but he could hear the first of the men on their way out and knew that it was true.
Wentworth James turned back to Hagen to speak, but the only sound that either man could hear was the first of a thundering chorus of explosions that tore through the power plant below and rumbled on, getting closer and closer as the shock wave shattered men and machines alike as if it were a wall of pure force. The room shook, the lights went out suddenly, and David Hagen knew no more.
Seventeen
August Fenwick stood in the great central chamber with his arms bound behind his back, staring straight ahead as if transfixed. He had been brought here from his cell by one of the flesh-covered androids and walked up to the command platform where Captain Clockwork had stood the last time the supervillain had granted him an audience.
On the walk up from his cell, Fenwick had been mentally testing the reaction time of the man-like robots to see if they were markedly different than their simpler cousins by varying his own pace and movement. It had not been a perfect test, and Fenwick was not entirely certain how much useful data he had gathered, but he had recovered his full capabilities now and knew there was no more time to waste. He knew he would have to make his move soon.
However, all such thoughts vanished the moment the mechanical man brought him up to the empty platform. Suddenly Fenwick could see what he had missed entirely the first time he had been in this room, restrained as he had been: the high wall behind where he had stood, directly across from the platform, was hung with a vast, illuminated schematic of one of these fiendish clockwork men! It was clearly intended as a trophy, a celebration of one's own genius, the sort of gift that a megalomaniac with no one but robots to talk to might bestow upon himself. But whatever the purpose, the plans appeared to be complete in every detail, far more so than any analysis he and Doctor Chronopolis would have been able to make had they had a month to conduct it and nothing else to do.
August Fenwick stood and drank in every detail with his eyes. He did not know how much time had passed when he finally heard footsteps on one of the catwalks above. Irregularly paced, human footsteps. His host had made his entrance at last. Fenwick did not turn away from the precious plans.
“It is frustrating, is it not, Mister Fenwick?” Clockwork said, almost gleefully. “The answer must be there somewhere, mustn't it? Some hidden weakness, some flaw in my designs that could be exploited to stop me, if only you were not such an empty-headed fool.”
Fenwick said nothing, but cocked his head slightly to one side and stared quite intently at the schematics, as if he had seen something for the first time.
The footsteps were now coming down a set of metal stairs headed towards him. More time, he needed more time.
“Oh, give it up, Fenwick,” the villain scolded. “You are just what your father always feared that you would be: a prodigal. An empty suit. And even if you were not, even if you had the business acumen and Protestant work ethic that made the Fenwick fortune what it is, you could never possibly hope to unravel my secrets, even though they lie before you for the taking.”
Fenwick said nothing. He raised his left eyebrow sharply. Could it be? Could it really be that simple?
There was a flick of a switch on a control panel beside him and the illumination of the panels began to fade. Fenwick's gaze seemed to burn holes in the screens until there was nothing left to see. August Fenwick blinked at last and hung his head. Captain Clockwork enjoyed that, and his metallic laughter rang throughout the hall.
“Forgive me, my dear Mister Fenwick, but you were making it rather more convincing than I was comfortable with,” Clockwork said. “But even if there were a flaw to find, and even if you were capable of finding it, what could you possibly do about it? You are utterly in my power, guarded by my mechanical marvels and far below the city.”
“You just untie my hands, old man,” Fenwick said, trying to stay in character, “and we'll see what I can do about it.”
“Ah, the tough talk of the idle rich,” Clockwork sneered. “Is it to be Queensbury Rules, then? It is weaklings like you that have got the world into this state, August Fenwick. Got it to a state where the last of the old world must be pulled down by force before the n
ew world can rise.”
“Oh spare me,” Fenwick almost yawned, “you aren't an anarchist, Clockwork. You aren't a communist, or a fascist. You're a dyed-in-the-wool capitalist trying to dress up the ultimate hostile takeover as some sort of movement.”
The man in the crimson hood hissed at the unexpected strength of will of his guest. “My name is the Viper, little man,” he said.
“If it means that much to you, I shall be quite sure never to use it, Captain Clockwork,” Fenwick rolled the syllables of the name to make it sound as outlandish as possible, a suit of motley fit for a fool.
“You seem distressingly pleased with yourself, Fenwick,” Clockwork growled. “Perhaps I should show you what you've been missing while you've been away.”
Captain Clockwork moved towards the controls that had been just beyond August Fenwick's line of sight last time he had been in this chamber. “Do you know what this is, Fenwick?” he asked, waving his hand over a square, black panel of glass. It was curved, ever so slightly, and nestled amidst a series of dials and switches which the villain began to manipulate.
“It's a tele-vision setup,” Fenwick said with some contempt. “I've seen some of the early experiments. Probably never work and even if it does, probably never catch on.”
“You see?” Clockwork said. “No vision.”
“Oh, I invested a few million,” Fenwick stifled a yawn again. “Sometimes even the most obnoxious fad is good for a few dollars. If it ever works.”
Clockwork seemed to quake with rage. “A few million, invested on a whim. How easy life has been for you, Mister Fenwick. Would you like to see how much that is changing?” Clockwork passed his hand over the set again and grainy images began to resolve themselves, real moving pictures, in a space much smaller than any cinema screen.
“These are not recorded images, Mister Fenwick,” Clockwork said. “Real events, as they happen, and they are happening fast.”
