by Gregg Taylor
“They're frightened,” he said gravely. “They distrust everything but each other.”
“Bad mistake,” she said. “If we have to fight 'em the tin man could blow any time! Got any ideas?”
“Just one,” the Red Panda said. “Be ready.”
“For what?” she snapped.
“Sleep,” the Red Panda ordered in a quiet voice that rolled like thunder through the subconscious mind of every man in the crowd. In near perfect unison they dropped to the deck like sacks of wet cement. All but one of them.
“Nice!” she said.
“Taxing, but nice,” he gasped in agreement, recovering his footing after the exertion of his mass mental attack.
“What did you do?” the last man standing asked. He looked to be about twenty, though both heroes knew that he wasn't.
“Don't move, Tin Man!” the Squirrel ordered.
“What are you talking about?” The man seemed genuinely afraid. “What is this?”
“Squirrel,” the Red Panda was astounded, “I don't think that he knows.”
“Knows what? What is this?” The man was clutching a crowbar and backing away, seemingly unaware that he could have bent the thick steel bar in his bare hands if he wished to.
“Take it easy, son,” the Red Panda said calmly. “We need you to come with us now. You're perfectly safe, but we need to leave the shipyards at once.”
The man seemed to freeze. “I can't leave this place,” he said. “I have to get below decks.”
“Sorry, Sparky,” the Flying Squirrel said sternly. “If that's where you need to go, we ain't gonna let you get there, and that's a fact.”
“But I… I… I…” The natural movements of the young man's face stopped and faded into expressionlessness as his entire body went rigid.
“What's he doing?” the Squirrel called.
“Fascinating,” the Red Panda said. “Unable to complete his task, he must be calling for new instructions.”
“And we've got a pretty good idea what those will be,” said the Squirrel, slipping her electric knuckles on to her right hand. The new model was self-powered and less cumbersome, and she was glad to have a chance to try them out.
“Squirrel, wait!” the Red Panda called, but it was too late. Power coursed through the android and he dropped to the deck, harmless.
“Problem?” she asked sweetly.
“I thought you just might set off the bomb doing that,” he said with an air of calm that neither of them really believed.
She shrugged. “It was goin' off anyway, yes?”
“Very likely,” he admitted reluctantly. “We should get our mechanical friend out of here.”
She looked around at a dearth of tall buildings to fire a grapple gun at. “Any thoughts on how exactly we're supposed to do that?”
“None,” he sighed. “I hate to leave this one for O'Mally, but perhaps we should try and have a quiet word with the foreman.”
“Keep these other fellas from getting fired for sleeping on the job, too,” she offered.
“There is that,” he said as they walked towards the stern.
“Why do you look so glum?” she smiled. “We brought down the baddie and you didn't even dust up your lily-white knuckles.”
“Just thinking, Squirrel,” he said seriously. “When the android couldn't complete its task, it signaled for new orders.”
“Is that good?” she asked.
He shook his head. “It may be the answer to everything, Squirrel. Or it may be nothing at all. I only wish I had more time to figure out which.”
“Wish I could help you there, bright boy,” she chirped, “but if Captain Clockwork sticks to his pattern, he'll have something brewin' to shove the explosion we just stopped right off the front page. Which means we've got no kind of time at all!”
Twenty-Seven
The moon overhead seemed impossibly close that night, hanging in the clear summer sky as the heat of the day slipped beneath the horizon and let the black carpet of night roll over the city.
Andy Parker gripped the wheel of the delivery van he was driving hard as he roared through the nearly empty streets. He tried to keep the speed down to avoid attracting the attention of the traffic cops, but his adrenaline was racing and it made his foot heavy.
“Are we headed somewhere in particular,” Tank Brody asked from the passenger seat, “or are we just in a hurry to get no place?”
Parker grinned and eased up on the throttle somewhat. With a number of agents still on the injured list, they were down to two-man teams, and he was still responsible for the big man he had brought in who was manning the radio in his truck, or would be if the signal ever came. The set-up was similar to the Squirrel's war plan of the other night, except that the watchers on the street had been replaced with a network of radio listening posts around the city. Andy Parker didn't know what they were listening for exactly, but he knew that he wanted to be on the scene when it was found.
“You'd prefer a nice drive in the country?” Parker asked.
“I rode across the prairies on top of a boxcar,” Brody said. “I seen all the scenery I ever need to see. I was just thinkin' that you don't know where we want to be, so why hurry to get anywhere, is all.”
“It's an interesting point,” Parker smiled. “So just how far west would I have to look to find a file that tells me what a rotten apple you are?”
Brody looked at Parker in surprise, but even in the semi-darkness, the expression on the young policeman's face told him that he had no intention of doing any such thing.
“Not sure that's any of your business,” Brody said quietly.
“Pretty sure it isn't,” Parker nodded.
“She tell you to ask?” the big man wondered aloud.
“Yep,” Parker nodded. “She probably thought I'd be more subtle about it, but that's a little out of a Constable's pay grade.”
“I imagine,” Brody nodded. “Listen, Andy, don't get the feeling that I'm changing the subject or anything…”
“I gotcha,” Parker said, “but I had to ask.”
“No, don't understand me so fast,” Brody said pointing out of his open window. “I was just gonna ask what in the hell that thing is?”
Andy slowed the van down and peered in the sky above the buildings to the south. Hanging there, suspended before the shining disc of the moon wrapped in silhouette, was a flying machine like nothing Tank Brody had ever seen before. It looked small for an aircraft, and had no wings that the men could see, but it seemed to hover in one place for an impossible length of time. Parker whooped and made a hard right with the van to bring him closer to the streets over which the strange shadow seemed to hang.
“What is it?” Brody shouted over the sound of the engine straining under the demands for speed that Parker's heavy foot was making.
“It's called an autogyro!” Parker shouted back. “And I only know of one guy who's got one!”
“The Red Panda?” Brody asked, hanging on to the frame of the door through his open window as the van made another gut-wrenching turn.
“You catch on quick, big fella,” Parker said. “He's got listening posts all over town, but if he's flying over there, my guess is that he's confirming what they've found from the air before calling for a mobile unit.”
“And you want it to be us?” Brody asked.
“Sure, don't you?” came the reply.
“I was just askin',” Brody said. “Thought you might have become all suicidal all of a sudden.”
“Ha!” Parker cried. “You should drive with the Flying Squirrel sometime!”
Suddenly the radio in the truck sprang to life with a hiss of static, followed by the even tones of a calm woman's voice, instructing the nearest available units to close on a position not two blocks from where they now were.
Tank fumbled with the radio. “It's us!” he called into the transmitter. “Unit six, in position, less than a minute out!”
More instructions followed, confirming what
the two men already knew. Brody acknowledged and signed off as the van screeched to a halt on the quiet street.
The two men hurried to open the back doors of the truck and began to unload equipment, each resisting the urge to look up at the aircraft that floated silently in the air above them, watching.
“Looks like the Chief was right about Clockwork using the sewers,” Parker said. “Get that manhole cover up, wouldya?”
“Got it,” Brody shouted, lifting the steel disc as if it were a toy and casting it aside. “Are the pipes here even big enough to walk through?”
“Not walk, Tank,”Andy said, pulling a length of heavy cable from the truck, “crawl or swim. Remember, these things aren't human. Clockwork lost his tunnels when the cops took his clubhouse, so the sewer pipes were his best bet for getting his troops into the city without them being traced back to him.”
Suddenly the two men heard a crash and clatter as another manhole was cast aside, just a half a block up the street. Brody ran past the truck and saw what he feared: a man-sized horror with silver skin crawling out from the sewer, ready to destroy lives and property for his master, with another immediately on his heels.
“It's them!” he shouted back to Parker. “Up the street, they're coming out! Get that cable in and fry 'em!”
“I don't have the generator running yet!” Parker called as he struggled to start the gasoline-powered engine in the back of the truck. “I need time!”
“Roger that!” Brody called, reaching into his pocket and pulling out the only special ordinance that had been issued for tonight's mission: a brand-new pair of the Red Panda's electric knuckles. He slipped them on his hands and ran towards the growing swarm of metal men emerging from the pipe with eyes as fearsome as the glowing red orbs of his opponents'.
Brody ducked under a lash from one of the shock tentacles of the monsters and buried his fist into the midsection of the first robot to crawl from the slime with an uppercut that sent a vibration all the way back through Brody's shoulder. The mechanical beast was lifted off its feet by the force of the blow and glowed briefly with the power that coursed through the remarkable device on Tank's hand. It fell to the ground, black smoke pouring from its seams.
From somewhere high overhead, Tank heard a whoop of fierce joy, followed by another as he fried a second tin man with a cross that nearly took its head off at the shoulders. He jabbed twice at a third, dodging a cruel-looking set of pincers as he did so before scoring the hit that destroyed the beast. The voice above really seemed to enjoy that, and Tank was now almost certain that it was the Flying Squirrel, cheering as if she were watching a championship prize fight. For the very first time Tank Brody felt the part as he mowed down two more mechanical monsters, leaving the street clear but for the open manhole. Another machine stuck its head out of the hole, a manlike model this time in a policeman's uniform, but if Brody was at all put off by the android's disguise, he certainly didn't show it as he sent the creature back down the escape ladder as a smoking piece of scrap.
“Brody!” Parker called from the truck. “Get clear!”
Tank ran back a dozen paces and stopped as he began to hear the sounds of the struggle from within the sewer pipe. Parker had dropped the cables into the pipe and electrified the water and waste through which the metal men traveled, turning the sewer into a deathtrap for the inhuman monsters. They thrashed about and screamed for almost a minute, and then at last all was still.
The autogyro passed overhead three more times, the Red Panda visible now in the pilot seat, the Squirrel still shouting incomprehensible encouragement from above as she swept the area with some kind of device. A moment later it seemed they were satisfied, and the autogyro turned on a dime mid-air and whisked away into the night.
Parker and Brody looked at each other and began to laugh. The radio was already buzzing with new instructions to other agents, those who would notify police, those who would work with the city crews sent to clean up the mess, and other instructions for more patrols to remain vigilant until given orders to stand down. But the two men in the delivery van knew the truth as they sped away from the scene. There would be no terror in the city tonight. Their enemy had been beaten and the people were safe. Just as the Red Panda had sworn it!
Twenty-Eight
Jack Peters was just leaning back in his chair, a cup of coffee in one hand and a flask of bourbon in the other wondering if it might not be an idea to skip the coffee altogether just to shake things up, when his door burst open with a loud clatter. Peters did not need to look up from his deliberations to know who it was.
“Morning, Chief,” he said, “is that the bulldog?”
“Of course it's the bulldog,” Pearly growled, nearly splitting the stem of his pipe with his clenched teeth as he did so. “Don't ask me stupid questions.”
“Something's under your saddle awful early this morning,” Jack smiled. “Care to join me in a nightcap before I retire?”
The morning edition of the Chronicle slapped down on Jack's desk. The headline blazed in bold print, “Red Panda Destroys Mechanical Men” above a large photograph of city workers extracting the remains of Captain Clockwork's army from the sewer pipe that had become their grave. Editor Pearly glowered. Jack Peters smiled and batted his eyelashes as appealingly as he could.
“It's real pretty, ain't it?” he asked, taking a drink.
“Confound it, Jack, where in thunder did you get this photo?” Pearly snapped.
“Photos,” Jack smiled. “Plural. Not much good unless they need to buy a paper to see the others.”
“I saw the others,” Pearly snapped.
“I thought you might. The close-up on the card that says Courtesy of the Red Panda was my favorite,” Jack swung his feet off the desktop. “What was yours?”
“I thought we talked about this,” Pearly said sternly.
“About your irrational fear of beating the pants off of every paper in town? No, we never really got around to that one. Everybody's got this story, Tim, but we're the only ones with pictures, which means everybody in town buys a Chronicle today. A sane man buys me breakfast. Ham and eggs at least.”
“The pictures are the problem,” Pearly said. “They're today's tip of the iceberg. Everybody I've talked to swears up and down that there were no cameras and no reporters allowed within eight blocks of the scene. So how come you've got pictures?”
“Contacts, dear Mister Pearly, contacts,” Jack said as seriously as he could. “A little bird on the city works crew got them to me.”
“But how did he take them? The site was locked down!” Pearly sputtered.
Jack's brows furrowed. “Chief, when somebody hands me a golden goose, I don't ask a lot of questions. I've done some folks a good turn when I could over the years, and they tend to remember me. I'm a memorable guy,” Peters grinned.
“So someone just waltzed in and handed you these photos?”
“No,” Jack smiled, “he told me what they were and asked for fifty bucks. The night editor okayed the expense.”
“Oh,” the wind seemed to drop from Pearly's sails somewhat.
“Yeah, I thought you'd feel more comfortable once you knew there was larceny involved,” Jack said, knowing there was no way for his boss to guess the fifty was still in his pocket, destined to be dropped in the poor box on Peters' way home.
“And does this contact on the work crew have a name?” Pearly asked, knowing full well what the answer would be.
“He does,” Jack nodded. “One that he prefers to keep anonymous.”
“Of course,” Pearly said. “Why should this one be any different?”
“Oh, come on, Tim,” Jack said, raising his hands high in the air in frustration, “you can't expect the guy to lose his job for fifty bucks. He's probably spent half of it by now. He'll sleep it off and spend the other half tomorrow, and next time he's got the goodies, who do you think he's going to call?”
“It isn't just the pictures,” Pearly snapped, “and you know dar
n well it isn't. Yesterday you dragged this paper into your latest half-baked theory with two more anonymous sources. How far out on a limb can you take us before we hit the ground, hard?”
“Are you talking about the story that every other paper in town hopped on for the evening edition?” Jack said. “About these tin man attacks being the cover for a campaign against the city's big businesses?”
“You know darn well that I am,” Pearly growled. “I gave you an inch and you took a yard, as usual. And what was all that about more revelations still to come? If you know more, why not say so?”
“I was still getting my ducks in a row, Chief,” Peters protested, “and if you don't trust the sources, how about trusting the fact that nobody downtown will go on record denying that the story is true. If this was any other reporter you'd be having a parade.”
“I don't have any other reporters with this many rabbits in their hats!” Pearly almost shouted. “We may not be much to look at, we may just be another yellow hack rag, but I won't have this paper made a fool of, Jack Peters. You got more, you tell me right now or I'm benching you, you hear me?”
Peters chewed his lip and closed his flask. “There's another little story that I sat on tonight, Mister Pearly. I kept it quiet 'cause it was just the confirmation I was looking for on the big story, and I didn't want it shoved aside by the sewer full of dead robots. But a few hours before, out at the shipbuilding yards, the local masked do-gooders stopped another tin man from blowing the new MacKinnon boat to Kingdom Come.”
“What?” Pearly thundered. “Why didn't I hear any of this?”
“'Cause they did it fast and they did it quiet,” Peters said. “The thing was a walking bomb, disguised as one of the workers. O'Mally's boys came and took it away, but I got the foreman who knows the whole story. He's all ours and he don't mind talking on the record. Don't you see? Again, there was going to be a big distraction just after an act of industrial sabotage, but this time they both got stopped before they got started.”
“And you think all of this proves, what exactly?” Pearly asked, chewing on his pipe.