Tales of the Red Panda: The Android Assassins (9 page)

The door to the holding cell opened with a clatter that
would have woken the dead, but Tank Brody did not look up from the hard bunk
where he lay.

“Company already?” he asked. “I was just getting used to
having the place to myself.”

“I could leave if you like,” a voice said, “but you'd sit
here an awful long time.”

There was something familiar in the voice that made Tank sit
up, fast. It was hard to see in the dim light with the comparative brightness
of the hallway behind his guest, but Brody knew at once who it was.

“You!” he said in astonishment. “You're that cop from
Spiro's place!”

“Andy Parker,” the man said quietly, “since you can't say
'cop' without looking like you want to spit.”

“Yeah, well,” Brody lay back down on the bunk, “maybe I got
reasons.”

“Maybe you do.” Parker stepped into the cell a few
feet,
just enough to see that Brody's face was still black
and blue in places. Given the number of officers it had reportedly taken to
bring the big man down, Parker thought he had made out all right.

“Why are you here, Parker?” Brody asked, looking at the
ceiling.

“Promise to a friend,” Parker answered. “A couple of them in
fact.”

Brody was quiet for a minute. “Spiro?” he asked.

“That's one,” Parker replied. “The other one would take some
explaining, and I'm not quite sold on it yet.”

“What's that supposed to mean?” Brody asked.

“Heard you slugged a cop, Brody,” Parker said seriously.

The big man sat up quickly, dropped his feet to the floor
and stood, just inches away from Andy Parker, towering above him. The young
officer never flinched, even when Brody made one of his great, ham-like hands
into a fist and held it before Parker's face. The knuckles carried more bruises
than Brody's face, and were still swollen besides.

“That wasn't no cop, Parker,” Brody said calmly. “Punching
that thing in the face did
this
to my
hand. It was like hitting a wall. And whatever it was, it was
gonna
gun down innocent women and children, and I don't
care if you believe me or not.”

“Nobody else does,” Parker said. “They figure you just heard
about the other folks that were killed that night and made up a story.”

“Somebody in that alley must've seen something,” Brody insisted.

“Nobody was close enough to tell what was happening,” Parker
shook his head, “except for one little girl, and her mother won't let her
testify.”

Brody snorted and sat down heavily on the bunk. “They saw,”
he said. “They're just too scared to call a cop a liar in front of a judge.”

“Maybe so,” Parker said flatly. “But it's a funny thing
about that.”

“What?”

“Nobody can find the cop you hit,” Parker said. “He just
disappeared.”

“I told you,” Brody said, “
it
wasn't no cop.”

“Leaving aside for the moment that I believe you,” Parker
sat down, “it leaves the law with a little problem. If you assaulted an
officer, they want you charged with that, not just resisting arrest. Petty
stuff like that nobody's got time for right now. So they want to find the guy.
From what I hear, a couple of uniforms have offered to step in and play the
part.”

Tank snorted again. “Cops look after cops,” he said.

“Maybe they do, Brody,” Parker said, “but if they do it's
'cause they spend every day surrounded by people that look at them the way you
looked at me when you found out I was a policeman.”

Brody had nothing to say to that.

“Why don't you like cops, Morris?” Parker asked.

“Nobody calls me Morris except my Ma,” Brody said.

“Answer the question,” Parker insisted.

“Or what?” Brody looked at Parker with a challenge in his
eye.

Parker said nothing for a moment,
then
he stood. “It may interest you to know that your file has been lost,” he said.

“What?” Brody asked.

“Not just here,” Parker continued. “In the prosecutor's
office, downtown, everywhere that it once existed, it now does not. That's why
you'd sit here a good, long time if I left. Officially, you don't actually
exist. Or at least you're not here, and you never were. And
don't
look at me like that
,
I didn't make it happen
.
Not directly.”

“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.”

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 Fenwick. 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!