by Gregg Taylor
“Very good,” Wentworth James smiled. “Please relax, gentlemen. You are all in for an interesting show, but I'm afraid it is an exclusive affair. Your presence was necessary to complete the illusion, but we did have to ensure that you all were what you seemed to be.”
“Mister James,” Jack Peters called, “what's this all about? Where is this thingamajig anyway?”
“The drive system?” James asked. “Alas, that was destroyed with the plant. The real question, sir, is not what aren't you seeing, but how many people didn't bring it to you.”
“Say that again in my good ear?” asked Peters to a general laugh amongst the assembly.
“Did any of you eagle-eyed chroniclers of the public good happen to notice how many men in lab coats walked through the door in back a moment ago?” Wentworth James was relaxed and enjoying himself now, as only someone accustomed to being the smartest person in any room he happened to be in possibly could.
“There were twelve,” said a pimply voice that Peters recognized. He turned and spotted the kid from the Telegraph, to his deep chagrin.
“And now?” James asked, sounding for all the world like an amiable professor who was going to be forced to give you a D anyway.
Jack Peters did a quick count and shouted out his question before the kid from the Telegraph could give the idiot's answer that there were only eleven.
“All right, Mister James,” he said, “so where's the other one?”
“That is a question that I am certain he is asking himself just now,” Wentworth James smiled. “Or rather, it is asking its self. You see, gentlemen, one of those lab-coated figures was more technology than technician.” James seemed very pleased with himself at this, but there was no reaction from the crowd, so he continued. “The twelfth man was not a man at all, but another destructive android sent by Captain Clockwork to destroy my drive system!”
There was a loud buzz in the room at this. Jack Peters shouted above the din. “But you said the drive thingy was destroyed already!”
“And so it was,” James smiled, “and the only people in the world who might have thought differently were the seven men my father called last night. And dear old Papa himself, I'm afraid. He won't be very pleased with me at the deception, especially if this doesn't work out as planned. But since only a small collection of the very richest men in town had the impression that the drive system was intact, and Captain Clockwork has suddenly sent an machine to destroy it…”
Jack Peters could see where this was going. “You've blown my scoop for the evening edition!” he wailed. “Captain Clockwork is some rich bird trying to take over the city!”
Wentworth James raised his hands. “You may yet get your exclusive, sir. Remember, I cannot allow any of you gentlemen to leave and risk the operation currently under way. But it should certainly warrant an extra this evening, n'est ce pas?”
“Mister James,” the kid from the Telegraph called, “exactly what is happening to that man… or machine… right now?”
“I'm glad you asked!” James said with a clap of his hands. “I was contacted yesterday and asked if there were any way I could think of to perpetually confuse a fairly intelligent, thinking machine. To befuddle its programmed mission and make it continually require small inputs from a master system located some distance away.”
“Why?” the kid asked.
“So they can trace the signal, dummy!” Jack snapped to the laughter of the other reporters. “Who put you up to this, James?”
“I am not at liberty to discuss all of the details,” James said with a wave of his hands. “Don't ask me for the facts and figures that Police Chief O'Mally will hopefully have for you quite soon. You'll miss the really clever bit of the story, which is of course, my part.” He smiled. “The bait was a simple matter, as was arranging matters with my father. But how to confuse a robot and keep him confused for a half hour or more? I suddenly thought of a project of mine from my old school days. A sort of macro experiment in human behavior that I conceived of one spring term. I turned the entire rugby pitch into a constantly changing maze into which I put my schoolmates to study their reactions for an extended period. Quite a clever mechanical cheat, really. My lab partner and I almost got expelled over it. Of course it all seems like child's play now, and since I have a large and energetic staff at my disposal and an enormous open space at my beck and call, I was able to recreate my old science experiment in a single night.”
Jack Peters blinked. “Are you telling us you've got the mechanical man in a maze? Like some kind of lab rat?”
“Ah!” said James nostalgically. “Just the allusion that was made at our expulsion hearing. Yes, the creature is in a maze, but not a maze that it can ever solve, as the walls keep shifting. When we're all done here I'll take you back and show you the mechanisms. It really is quite clever, if oversized and appallingly expensive.”
The kid from the Telegraph raised his hand again. Wentworth James looked surprised, but indulged him.
“Yes?” he said politely.
“If this machine gets confused,” the kid began nervously, “is there a chance that it could just… you know… blow up?”
“Well,” said James, “I don't believe that it will play out quite like that, but yes, I suppose there is.” He smiled brightly. “Are there any other questions?”
Thirty-One
Andy Parker cradled his service revolver in his hands and watched for Chief O'Mally's order. It came almost instantly, just a nod of the big man's head, and Parker put his foot through the space the door had been occupying and held his pistol high to cover the two officers who burst into the office before him, crouched low and barking orders for everyone in the room to freeze. As Parker followed them into the large, plush office, he could see that there was only one man present behind a large, ornate desk.
“Marcus Bennett,” Chief O'Mally said sternly, “I arrest you in the name of the law.”
“Chief O'Mally,” the aviation magnate said with an eerie calm. “What is the meaning of this outrage?”
O'Mally shook his head in wonder. “The moment the tracker lead us to Bennett Aviation, I knew it had to be you,” O'Mally said, “and yet I still can't believe it.”
“Tracker?” Bennett was perfectly even-tempered. “What ever are you talking about, O'Mally?”
“This,” O'Mally said, indicating the tracking device the Red Panda had given him. “It tracks the signals between your mechanical monsters and that equipment behind you.”
“This?” Bennett sounded almost amused. “My dear O'Mally, you have clearly had some kind of breakdown. Of course I have radio-sending equipment. I must remain in communication with our craft, the weather offices. I am a hands-on manager, Chief, there are people's lives in my hands.”
“Very nice,” O'Mally growled, “but it won't save you.”
“I think that Gilbert MacKinnon is right,” Bennett said, standing. “It is high time Toronto had a new Chief of Police. First you smear the name of young Mister Fenwick, and now this tomfoolery. You point to that contraption as though it proves a thing. Tell me then, Chief O'Mally… what is it exactly? How does it work? You'll swear in court that you understand its function, will you?”
O'Mally sputtered slightly, and Marcus Bennett burst into peals of laughter. “Of course you won't,” he said, stepping from around his desk and ignoring the officers who had drawn weapons pointed right at him, walking slowly towards the Chief of Police. “There has only ever been one man who could have constructed such a device. Where is he, O'Mally?”
“Here I am, Captain Clockwork,” said voice from a corner that Parker would have sworn was empty a second ago.
“The Red Panda!” Bennett cackled. “Working with the police? Dear me, how cozy. But your testimony is meaningless. A man in a mask, an outlaw himself? You are the only person who can truly explain the chain of circumstance that brought poor, misguided Chief O'Mally to commit this dreadful mistake. And since no judge in the country would allow you t
o deliver evidence from behind a mask, I will thank you all to get out of my office. Now.”
“Like most secrets, Bennett,” the Red Panda said sternly, “yours seems fairly obvious once it is known. The Viper broke his silence when he threatened your company. The telephone call that got you off the New York Special before it was destroyed was cleverly staged. It meant that a dozen witnesses listening in could swear that Marcus Bennett and the Viper could not be the same person. But once it was known for certain that the Viper was simply a new nom de plume for a villain who could replicate anyone's face, much less their voice, with his automatons, that seems like less of an impediment to your guilt than it might once have.”
Bennett smiled coldly. “That is hardly proof, Red Panda.”
“True,” the masked man smiled. “But a Crown Attorney would make much of your early patents, Bennett. The ones you mortgaged to start this airline. They were really quite clever. You eventually realized that it might be better for you to keep your brains to yourself, I'm sure, but those patents are a matter of public record. I feel certain that Chief O'Mally's experts will find the hidden sources of wealth you used to finance your campaign of terror, and the network of trusts and corporations you were using to buy up stock in the companies you were savaging. You murdered dozens of people in cold-blood, Marcus Bennett, and the system will never let you get away with it.”
Bennett smiled and shook his head. “You have no idea what the system will allow to a man of power and influence,” he said. “I will never serve a day.”
“You are wrong about that, Clockwork,” the Red Panda said, “just as you are wrong about me being the only man who could track your killing machines back to you. If need be, the scientist who isolated the frequency utilized by your automatons and used it to design that tracker for Chief O'Mally will step forward to testify against you.”
“Well, then,” Bennett smiled again, “there is really only one thing left to say, isn't there?” He paused for effect. “Kill them!” he ordered.
Suddenly two hidden panels in the walls beside Bennett's desk flew open and a large, silver-skinned machine burst forward from each, red eyes glowing with a terrible fire. There was a hail of gunfire from the revolvers of the police officers present, but they were hopelessly overmatched. Parker began to fall back towards the door as one of his brother officers was sent hurtling into the wall beside him, when suddenly he heard a familiar cry. One of the mechanical men was screaming in agony, flailing its electric whips in the air as destructive power tore apart its mechanical mind. It fell to the carpet, smoke pouring from every part of it and for an instant the room was silent as every pair of eyes, human and machine alike, turned to focus on the girl in the grey catsuit who stood behind the monster. She flipped her hair and blew the smoke from the electric knuckles on her right hand.
“Hi,” she said.
And with that she threw herself into the air, over the fallen form of the destroyed robot and towards its brother. Sparks flew from the soles of her feet as she arched her back to carry herself high in the air between the savage whips of the remaining machine, and turned from the hips to right herself as she thrust her entire form, fist-first into the body of the second attack android. Moments later the great metal beast fell with a terrible crash.
She turned with a wild grin towards the Red Panda, ignoring the Chief and his men completely. “Aw,” she pouted, “I didn't save any for you.”
He smiled. “Yes, you did,” he said.
“Where?” she said, flipping head-over-heels to face the room again and landing in a Squirrel-Fu stance with such a burst of speed that one of the other uniformed policemen raised his pistol at her in fright. Andy Parker frowned and shook his head at the rookie, who lowered his weapon again, shame-faced.
“You think you're awful funny, dontcha?” she said crossly.
“I do,” the Red Panda said, “but not in this instance.”
“So where's the robot?” the Flying Squirrel asked, confused.
“Right here,” he said, suddenly bringing his leg up in a roundhouse kick that caught Marcus Bennett in the mid-section just above the belt buckle. Bennett shuddered and seemed to collapse, as if he were a puppet whose strings had been cut.
“Good gravy!” Chief O'Mally thundered. “What in blazes did you do to Bennett?”
The Red Panda shook his head at the twitching form that lay at his feet. “That was not Marcus Bennett,” he said, and held his hand up for silence. The strange assembly could just hear the sound of a small aircraft receding in the distance. “That is.”
“That is what?” O'Mally barked.
“You should get your men to the control tower, O'Mally,” the Red Panda said seriously. “Unless I miss my guess, a few minutes ago a light aircraft made an unscheduled and hasty takeoff, carrying Marcus Bennett to parts unknown.”
“But…,” O'Mally was flustered.
“He must have known you were on the way,” the Red Panda grinned. “Get after him, man. Bring that plane down and you have all the evidence you could ever need, without even bringing us into it.”
“Yes… well…,” O'Mally hesitated.
“Don't get sentimental, Peaches,” the Flying Squirrel said. “Go.” O'Mally seemed to snap to attention at this and bellowed orders to his crew. Kit resisted the urge to wink at Andy Parker as the police raced from the room after their quarry, but he had the good grace to blush anyway.
Thirty-Two
“Explain one thing to me,” the Flying Squirrel said that night, as they stood on a rooftop across the street from a certain boxing gym.
“Name it,” he said, tearing his focus away from the door he had been quietly watching for twenty minutes and turning towards his partner. She was almost a foot shorter than him but somehow she never seemed small, even when they stood still and close like this, which wasn't often. The warm night breezes that blew gently through the streets below were more ambitious at this height, and her red bob of hair whipped behind her dramatically in the moonlight. “Better yet,” he said, “let me guess.”
Kit was surprised, but nodded her agreement. He didn't play games often and she couldn't bear to miss this.
“How did I know that it was Bennett in that airplane?” he said, raising an eyebrow as if he had been waiting to be asked for hours. “I didn't. It seemed logical, probable even. But I sent the police after the aircraft just in case. That way if Captain Clockwork had some other, much more clever and dangerous endgame in mind, we'd still be on hand to deal with it.” He smiled and shrugged. “Besides, as it turns out, O'Mally had no trouble getting the plane to turn around, and Marcus Bennett is in a holding cell awaiting trial. And since we stayed out of the big finish, at least as far as John Q. Public is concerned, I thought a certain Chief of Police just might start to come around on us.”
She snorted. “You really think so?”
He shrugged modestly. “Perhaps. It would make things a great deal easier, would it not? And some days I think I'd very much like to live through all this.”
“Oh really?”
“I'm not fanatical about it, you understand,” he grinned. “But yes. It might be nice.”
“Living through this suggests an ending,” she said.
“I hadn't thought of that.” His brow furrowed. He looked at the lights of his city spreading far and wide below and all around them. Miles and miles of souls that looked to the Red Panda for justice in the face of cruelty. For hope where there was none before. He could not imagine not answering that call one day. He shook his head. “No,” he said quietly, “I can't even think of such a thing. What about you? Do you suppose it'll ever end for you?”
She stared up at him with bright eyes, watching him gazing over the city they fought to protect. “God, I hope not,” she said.
He smiled and turned back to her. If he caught any hint of portent in her eyes, he certainly hid it well. “Good,” he said, holding out his red-gauntleted right hand to her.
They shook hands, each
quietly admonishing themselves for the racing of their hearts induced by a handshake, of all things.
“Now can I ask my actual question?” she said gently.
“You mean, that wasn't…”
She shook her head.
“About the plane?”
She shook her head again.
“No, of course not,” he said, “you probably guessed all of that.”
“Yes, Boss,” she said.
“Fine,” he said. She could tell he was embarrassed because he didn't quite seem to know what to do with his hands. Kit never ceased to wonder how someone could be the strongest, fastest, richest and cleverest person in any room he happened to be in and still come across as a big goof at times. She also never seemed to notice that it only happened when she was around. He cleared his throat. “And what was your actual question, Miss Baxter?”
She made a little curtsy at the formality. “It was about Wentworth James and the maze,” she said.
“The maze?” he said, as if he had quite forgotten.
“Yeah,” she was buying none of this, “the giant, robot-confusing maze that he built overnight. You seemed pretty sure that he would be able to come up with something.”
“Yes,” he admitted.
“And it had to work, or we were done,” she continued.
“Yes.” He was not making this easy.
“So how come you farmed out the inventing to James?”
“I didn't exactly,” he said sheepishly. “I knew precisely what Wentworth James would construct once the idea was planted in his head. I was the lab partner that built the original model with him back at school. I knew he'd have the plans somewhere, he always was a terrible pack-rat.”
“You nearly got expelled for that?” Her grin was so wide she seemed to show every tooth in her mouth.
“I nearly got expelled for lots of things,” he shrugged, “until the time came around for my father's annual contribution. Then all was forgiven, or at least forgotten. I knew that James would be so excited to be involved that he would keep all the credit for himself.”