Tales of the Red Panda: The Android Assassins (2 page)

The early summer evening brought a slight chill to the air.
Not enough to make one wish for the warmer days to come, but just enough to
blanket the downtown in a thick fog billowing in off the lake. Through the
mists of those low, rolling clouds, it would just have been possible for eyes
that were cast upwards to catch a fleeting glimpse of a lithe, athletic form
soaring high among the skyscrapers. Few would have braved such a gesture, for
the same fog that hid the mysterious shape made excellent cover for the
denizens of the night, and in Toronto there were still terrors in the gaslight.

But had a pair of eyes held on that narrow patch of sky between
the towers, they would have beheld a sight as remarkable as any they could hope
to see. Unmistakably female in form, the shape held herself aloft like a
hunting hawk might, soaring on thermal waves of air, holding her place in the
sky as only one with long practice and a love of danger might ever hope to do.
Kit Baxter had both in spades.

A year and a half earlier, she had been a city taxi driver
without much hope of ever being more. She worked hard, took care of her mother
and tried to hide her disappointment at her lot in life as best she could.
After all, there was no use in complaining when so many had things much worse.
The city teemed with those whose lives had been taken apart by the darkness of
those days, and Kit Baxter had been grateful that she was not yet one of them.
Adventure and excitement were the stuff of magazine stories, and not meant for
her.

And then, as if by fate, she had crossed paths with a
certain wealthy young gad-about named August Fenwick. Even with her natural
disdain for the wealthy, she could not help but know who he was as he owned
almost half the city, his fortune untouched by the Depression that had
destroyed so many lives. To Kit he had seemed arrogant and worthless until she
realized that this was exactly what he wanted her to think.
Her
and all the world.
For by a stroke of fortune, it became clear to Kit
Baxter that this young wastrel was in reality the masked man of mystery known
only as the Red Panda. In his brief career to that point he had already turned
the predators of the city into his prey, and become the honest citizens'
greatest friend. His identity hidden by a bright red domino mask, he handed out
fistfuls of justice to those that would oppress the men and women of Toronto,
and gave hope to all who had once feared that no one had the strength to take
up their fight.

It seemed a whirlwind to her now as she arched her back and
swooped through the clouds of nothingness once again. She had become his
driver, playing ignorant of his dual identity while helping him in his fight
all that she could. And finally when the act had become impossible to maintain,
he had given her a chance to join him in a life of adventure that few young
women might have longed for, but to Kit Baxter meant
all the
world. He had trained her, given her powerful tools like the retractable
gliding membranes she now used to course through the cool night air, and today
she fought at his side as the Flying Squirrel. She was driver, partner,
confidant,
side-kick
and friend to the most remarkable
man she had ever known. If there were some part of her that wished for more,
Kit Baxter tried very hard to keep it to herself.

She felt the sudden proximity of the tower to her left, its
hulking mass of steel and concrete like an iceberg in the sea. She tightened
the position of her hands within her steel-grey gauntlets in a gesture almost
invisible to those who did not know to look for it. Suddenly the controls
concealed in her costume fired the astonishing Static Shoes she wore. Their
power repelled her away from the wall gently, and she began to allow herself to
circle down slowly through the thickening wall of fog below her, towards a
rooftop that she never doubted was there.

As she approached, she pulled her feet forward and arched
her neck and shoulders back in a heart-stopping gesture that caused the rush of
air to billow in the gliders like a pair of sails, slowing her descent. She
fired the Static Shoes again and lowered herself gently and silently onto the
flat, stone-covered rooftop as the gliders pulled back into her costume with
the barest whisper. She landed and immediately lowered herself into a low
crouch like a cat.
There was someone else on this rooftop
,
she could feel it
. The fact that she could not yet
place them meant that it was almost certainly
him
, but
that was all the more reason not to be taken by surprise.

She kept in the tight crouch for ten seconds. Twenty. She
almost held her breath, but she knew that he was stubborn and would wait for
the slight gasp she could not help but make if she denied herself air for long
with her heart still racing from her flight. At last she decided to concede the
battle of wills, but only with her characteristic display of poor
sportsmanship.

“Are you just the most stubborn man in the world,” she
sassed, “or are you undressing me with your eyes again?”

Suddenly, without a sound, the night seemed to coalesce into
solid form. A tall man in a long grey coat loomed out of the fog and stood
before her, his matching suit immaculate and
well-cut
.
His hands were sheathed in bright red gauntlets that matched his necktie, and
his grey fedora perched above a domino mask in the same crimson color. The eyes
within the mask were blank whites that revealed nothing of the orbs behind them
yet seemed to glow with a fire of their own, and Kit Baxter still caught
herself
gasping a little at the sight of them. But tonight,
even through the darkness and the fog, she was certain that she could just see
the flush of color in his cheeks. She had scored a hit.

“Kit Baxter,” he said, “
behave
yourself.”

“Yes, Boss,” she smiled, and relaxed a little in her crouch.

“I thought I told you to wait for me,” he said, trying to
sound stern.

“Am I still here?” the Flying Squirrel grinned, cocking her
head to the side.

He paused and looked away as if to keep himself from
smiling, a battle he did not entirely win. “From which I might infer that you
did, in fact, wait?” he asked casually.

“That's my Boss,” she said, rising to stand. “It takes him a
while, but he gets there in the end. You didn't expect me to sit on the rooftop
and knit, did you?”

“I suppose not,” the Red Panda agreed, “but Bert was even
more apoplectic than usual at the prospect of my paying him a visit. You might
have put him right over the edge.” Bert Molloy was an Assistant Coroner –
one of the most reluctant members of the fraternity of agents and informants
that made up the Red Panda's network. Bert was useful in that he was
well-placed
, but his nervous disposition meant that dealing
with him was always a dance.

“Did you get the dope on the plane crash like you wanted?”
she asked.

The masked man nodded grimly. “Bert was as good as his word.
He pulled a copy of the police file that was submitted for the inquest to go
along with his autopsy reports.”

“One stop shopping for the busy vigilante.” She grinned up
at him. She flushed slightly at the single eyebrow that
raised
above his mask at her joke.

“A number of people did die in that crash, Squirrel,” he
said.

“Yes,” she said. “Sorry. That is kind of a day at the office
for us, though. And if you're stern all the time, people will start to say that
the Red Panda is no fun.”

His brows knit. “I
am
no fun,” he said. “I am rather famously no fun at all.”

She leaned in closer to him, just close enough for her heart
to skip a beat, which was as close as she ever allowed herself to get. “And I'm
the one that knows different,
ain't
I?” she almost whispered. He seemed flustered again, which pleased her greatly.

“You're in a strange mood tonight,” he said with a shake of
his head.

“Why not? I've been
itchin
' for a
good fight,” Kit said, making for the edge of the rooftop. “A self-styled
supervillain
with a corny animal nickname is just what the
doctor ordered.”

“Perhaps,” he said simply, following her.

She stopped in her tracks. “Well, okay,” she asked. “Why
ain't
it?”

He seemed startled. “'Why
ain't
it' what?” he parroted.

“I love it when you try and talk rough,” she purred. “I know
you pretty well, Boss. You've got something in your teeth about this one. An'
we both know you're
gonna
tell me eventually, so why
not now?”

He smiled almost sheepishly. “I usually wait until I have a
general idea of exactly what it
is
that's bothering me,” he admitted. “If I did all my thinking aloud you'd
realize just how much time I spend being wrong.”

Something flipped in Kit Baxter's stomach. Every so often
the Boss let a tidbit slip that gave her the idea that he enjoyed impressing
her, and it always made her want to jump up and down a little. But she was
determined to keep her cool. “What makes you think I don't already know that?”
she asked with what she hoped was a detached air.

He paused a moment, as if he was lost in thought. “This
'Viper' gave the impression that he was behind a recent string of industrial
accidents,” he said at last.

“Page, Welles and Church?” she asked.

“Byron Page holds significant railway interests and runs a
line of lake freighters,” he began. “Arthur Welles' company is behind many
heavy manufacturing interests and Stanley Church is involved in almost every
construction project of any size in the city.”

“Boss!” Kit said with a start. “The Masterson Tower project,
the building that collapsed three weeks ago, wasn't Church the name of the
company on that one?”

The Red Panda nodded. “It was ruled an accident at the
time,” he said. “I wonder if Page and Welles have suffered similar setbacks.”

“They probably have,” the Flying Squirrel replied. “Why else
would this 'Viper' take credit for them?”

“Why do so at all?” the Red Panda asked. “Why break the
pattern of anonymity? Why announce his intention to strike Bennett Aviation?”

“Maybe he's full of hot air,” she suggested. “If he takes
credit for some legitimate accidents, he makes himself seem like a bigger
threat than he is.”

“I think the passengers of the New York Special would agree
the Viper is a big enough threat as he is,” the Red Panda said grimly. “But
why
? I'd just as soon not wait for him
to strike again to find out.”

“Then we need to find out what the plane crash had in common
with the Masterson Building, and the other accidents, if there were any,” Kit
said with resolve. “Was there anything good in the files?”

“I didn't have time to do much more than glance at them,”
the Red Panda admitted. “But crashing at takeoff like that meant that the tanks
were full of fuel. There was very little left of the aircraft, and even less of
the passengers. Unless that in itself is a clue, I don't know what else we have
to work with.”

She looked at him through the gloom. He took it personally
when his city was threatened, and treated it as a failure on his part when he
could not protect its citizens from creatures like this “Viper”. She wished she
could pull a rabbit out of her cowl to put this case on the
fast-track
,
but it looked like they were going to have to start from scratch.

“Hey,” she brightened, “did I hear that there's a committee
being formed to look into this?”

“Hmm?” he said, snapping from some inner thought. “Yes, I
heard something about that.
Business leaders trying to work
together to protect their interests from the attacks of this 'Viper'.
A
room of stuffed shirts bullying Chief
O'Mally
to work
faster.”

“And maybe sharing useful information along the way?” she
offered. “Things they might not realize are important because they aren't
brilliant young mystery men?”

“I suppose…” He sounded suspicious.

“What a shame that we don't know any stuffed shirts of our
own that could get into that committee room to gather information for us.” She
batted her long eyelashes at him.

“Like August Fenwick?” he asked with some disgust.

“The very man,” she beamed.

“Oh, marvelous,” he sighed.

Andy Parker let his fist fly again, hard and fast in a right
jab, and then another. He ducked right and brought his left up in a strong hook
that jarred his foe a foot to the side. Feeling like the fight was his, he stepped
in close and put all of his body weight behind a series of lightning-fast
uppercuts that powered into his opponent just above waist level. Finally his
arms began to shake and he leaned forward, exhausted. After a moment he raised
his head and saw the grinning face of Mac Tully holding the heavy bag for him.

“You're
gonna
get an eight-count if you don't get out of that clinch,” Mac said, letting go
of the bag.

Parker puffed and rose, his forehead leaving a trail of
sweat on the punching bag as he did so. “Come on, Mac,” he tried to bluster,
“if this guy weren't chained to the rafters, there'd be no way he'd still be
standing.”

Mac nodded and spat. “Guess that's right,” he said, his grin
spreading still wider. “Of course, he's filled with sawdust and doesn't have
any legs, so I don't know what you expect.”

The two men laughed and stepped away from the bag to get
some water. Parker was tall and lean, with fair hair matted down with
perspiration and a jaw line that made him look almost as determined as he usually
was. He might not have been improving much as a boxer, but he had certainly put
some meat on his bones since he had begun working out at this gym. His partner
was shorter, but more barrel-chested. Mac Tully could take a lot of lumps
without falling down and it had stood him in good stead in more places than
just the boxing gym.

For Parker and Tully were soldiers in a secret army of
justice. Each man was an active field agent in the service of the city's
protector, the Red Panda. Secret soldiers in his army, they filled their roles
as the Red Panda saw fit: spotters, undercover operatives or men of action;
each was ready to do all he could and more to aid their remarkable chief in his
quest. They knew one another and a few more of their fellows besides, but they
knew for certain that there were many more whom they had never met, in every
part of Toronto.

The open, echoing space in which they stood was famous
throughout the city as a training gym for boxers, amateur and professional. It
was less well known as a hub from which many of the Red Panda's agents received
their orders, and yet it was that as well. The gym's owner, head trainer and
unofficial gargoyle was a thick-necked man of more than sixty, with a strong
Greek accent and a nose that had been broken more than a few times. Spiro
Pappas was his name, and he served as contact man for many of the most trusted
agents in the network. It was a second career the older man relished and
performed well, but he did not like to have the agents popping in and out of
his gymnasium at all hours without explanation. And so most of them, like Mac
and Andy, began taking lessons to stay on the old man's good side. Parker liked
the arrangement because it gave him an opportunity to associate with some of
the men who shared his double life, even if they rarely spoke of such things.
Tully just liked to be on hand if anything exciting happened, which it often
did.

The two said nothing for a moment, watching the activity in
the ring in the
centre
of the room. Spiro was hurling
instructions
excitably
which made his natural accent
even thicker, to the point that few in the room could have told you which of
the two boxers he was instructing. But in this case it was easy to see which
occupant of the ring had Spiro's attention. He was a giant of a man, perhaps
six-foot-six or six-seven, and without an ounce of extra padding on him. His
stripped arms looked not unlike a pair of tree trunks with boxing gloves shoved
on the ends of them, and he held them tentatively in front of his face as he
circled around the ring.

“Who's the new kid?” Parker asked, trying not to sound
impressed.

“Spiro's new pet project,” Tully replied with a shake of his
head. “Poor guy.”

Andy grinned in spite of himself. Spiro was determined to
have one last kick at the can as a professional manager, and every new protégée
he discovered eventually came to regret gaining the old man's confidence. It
was hard to argue with the choice this time though, except for one small
detail.

“Is he ever going to throw a punch?” Parker finally asked.

“Yeah,” Mac nodded, “apparently this is the problem. It's
driving Spiro a little bananas.”

“So I gathered,” Parker said. “I don't think he's speaking
English
or
Greek anymore. I wonder if
even he knows what he's saying.”

“I'm just glad he isn't saying it to me,” Mac said, and the
two men laughed again. “Just look at this guy. If he ever let loose and
connected, you think Jimmy could stand in there and spar with him?”

“I'm not sure I know anyone who could,” Parker said and then
caught himself.

“You just thought of somebody, didn't you?” Mac grinned.

“All right, we know one guy. But he'd need gas grenades and
a spunky sidekick to do it.”

“Again with the sidekick,” Tully said quietly.

“What does that mean?” Parker said, embarrassed.

“Not a thing, pal,” the smaller man said without looking
away from the ring. “But my old man always said that life's rough enough
without chasing something you can't ever catch. Like a girl whose face you've
never seen.”

Andy Parker shook his head and shrugged off his friend's
teasing. As far as he was concerned there wasn't a man in the network who
didn't carry some sort of torch for the reckless redhead who fought at the side
of the man in the mask. There wasn't anything that Parker could do about his
feelings, but he preferred them not to be generally known, so he did his best
not to react to that kind of kidding any more than any of the others would. It
wasn't always easy.

“So what's his name?” Parker said, as if the new fighter
were the only subject of interest to him.

“Brody,” Mac replied. “Tank Brody.”

“Tank?” Parker smiled. “What kind of name is Tank supposed
to be?”

“A more impressive one than 'Morris', or at least that's
what Spiro reckons.”

“
Geeze
.” Parker shook his head.
“People and their goofy nicknames.” There was a moment of silence from his
friend. Parker glanced over. “And what is 'Mac' short for again?”

“Eugene,” Mac replied, barely audible.

“That's funny,” Parker said. “My old man always said that
life was tough enough without naming your kid Eugene.”

Mac took a sudden swing at his friend's head, but there was
as little real intent as there was in any of Brody's sparring punches, and the
two men laughed again. Finally an old telephone rang behind the desk and Spiro
walked away, muttering vile oaths to any who could understand. The two men in
the ring exchanged a look and shrugged. The leaner man stepped through the
ropes and left and Brody looked around, unsure of what to do next.

“Come on,” Parker said, “let's go be sociable.”

A moment later they were standing by the ring as Brody
climbed down to floor level, pulling his gloves off as he did so. Parker wasn't
one for posturing, but he wasn't easily intimidated either. Even so, he could
not help but feel small and delicate next to the would-be boxer's giant form.

“Hey, Tank!” Mac called cheerfully.

Brody looked down and smiled warmly. “Oh, hello Mister
Tully,” he said in a voice that was deep but gentle.

Mac shook his head. “Pal, there is not one single soul in
all the world who calls me 'Mister Tully', and I'm not sure that you ought to
be the first. The butcher, the baker, the candlestick maker, the
newsie
at the end of the street, they all call me Mac.”

Parker smiled. Mac had a way about him, something that was
hard to define but helped him win people's trust quickly. He'd clearly met Tank
Brody once, and once was enough to win over the big man. Tank nodded happily as
if this were not the first time he had been admonished by Tully over this.

“All right, all right,” Brody said, raising his hands in
mock surrender. “'Mac' it is then.”

“How's the training going?” Mac asked with some sympathy in
his voice.

Brody shrugged. “I don't know,” he said. “I think Mister
Spiro might be sorry I ever walked in the joint.
Or into this
town at all.
First he wants to work on my footwork,
then
he gets mad that I'm not punching. Maybe this just
ain't
my line.” The big man seemed a little dejected.

“Patience, son,” Mac said. “Rome wasn't built in a day.
You've got the goods, and that's what you can teach to some scrawny kid.
Speaking of which, I'd like to introduce a friend of mine. This is Andy Parker.
Andy, meet Tank Brody.”

“Glad to know you,” Brody said with a sheepish smile. He
clearly wasn't used to being the center of attention and he wasn't sure that he
liked it just yet, but he seemed friendly enough. Parker shook his hand and
tried not to think about how easily Tank could have crushed his fingers if the
big man had a mind to.

“And you,” Parker said, lowering his voice half an octave
without really meaning to. “Mac is right, don't get discouraged. Spiro's a
funny sort but he's a good teacher, and you look to be a natural to me.”

Brody shook his head a little. “I'd like that right enough,
Mister Parker,” he said, “but I just don't seem to have a taste for it. Hurting
a man for no real reason, that is.”

“A winner's purse isn't a good reason?” Mac kidded.

“I guess it ought to be, Mac,” Brody said. “I could use the
dough, that's for sure.”

“Well, don't feel too bad about it, Tank,” Andy said. “I'd
like it just fine if more folks out there felt the way that you did.”

“Sure, but you'd be out of a job, wouldn't you, Andy?” Mac
grinned again and then turned to Brody to explain. “Andy's a police constable.”

Just for an instant there was a flash of something in Tank
Brody's eyes. Andy Parker had been a cop long enough to know it at twenty
paces. Most often you saw it when people got a look at the uniform.
A mixture of fear and hate, shown in flashes and quickly hidden.
It was why so many cops felt that the only men they could really trust were
their fellow officers. Brody backed away a step without meaning to and would
not meet Andy's gaze again, but Parker had already seen it. Brody didn't like
cops and Andy Parker wondered why.

There was to be no opportunity to follow up, though, as
Spiro whistled from behind his desk and gestured towards Parker and Tully with
a wave. The two men exchanged a look and moved quickly, with little more by way
of goodbye than a chuck on the shoulder as Mac passed Tank.

Brody watched them go, and then saw Spiro wave at several
others around the gym who followed Mac and Andy into the office. Tank looked
around. No one else seemed interested, but still, it struck him as odd.

Brody hurriedly changed into his street clothes, preferring
to end the training sessions for the day rather than wait for Spiro to be
finished. He appreciated the chance the trainer was taking on him, but Brody
wasn't a man who took failure easily and so far it was all he had been able to
summon for this cause.

As he dressed, Tully, Parker and the others from Spiro's
office burst forth in a great hurry and began to assemble their gear. Brody
tried not to draw attention to
himself
as he watched
them, but he almost jumped visibly when he saw Mac Tully pull a .38 revolver
from his bag and slip it into his coat pocket as he prepared to race out the
door.

Tank Brody froze a moment. None of this made sense. Mac
Tully didn't strike him as a criminal, and that policeman, Parker, was with
him. But still, he could not escape the feeling that something was wrong, and
that someone would need help before too much time had passed. He was uncertain
if he feared for his new friend Mac or just feared that he might have been
wrong about the man, but as the five men burst from the front doors of Spiro's gym
moments later, Tank Brody was moving swiftly but silently behind them.

He thought for a moment that his quest was over before it
began as the five men began to climb quickly into an old sedan that was parked
in the alley. But as Brody watched them tear away heading west, he could
suddenly hear something, just buried beneath the layers of sound that the city
cast in all directions. Screaming.
Lots of it, and coming
from just a few blocks west.
Could this be where Tully and Parker were
headed? Tank Brody never doubted it as he began to run in the direction the car
had gone.

The sounds grew louder as he ran down half a dozen blocks or
more towards the
centre
of the city. The screams
continued, joined by more warlike sounds as a variety of small-arms fire began
somewhere in the distance. Brody pressed on through the crowds running in the
opposite direction. One thing was certain, whatever lay ahead of him, he seemed
to be the only person interested in doing anything other than getting as far
away from it as possible.

Brody was still breathing easily in spite of the run he had
made as he closed the distance between himself and the fearful sounds ahead.
The chaos now seemed to be within a block or two, with small explosions now
joining the gunfire, together with a whirring, clanking sound unlike any
machine Brody had ever heard. For a moment the big man considered turning tail
and running. After all, he was unarmed and on the fringes of a situation not of
his making. Ahead he could see shattered shop windows and the prone forms of a
number of men and women who appeared to have been badly beaten by some unknown
force. That tore it. Whatever was going on here, Brody was willing to bet that
none of those people were to blame either. He began to drag the wounded to safety
one by one. It was only when he ventured into the middle of the street that he
could see the terror that had torn through
this neighborhood
just moments
ago.