Tales of the Red Panda: The Crime Cabal (15 page)

Deep within the hidden sanctum of the Crime Cabal, a door opened softly
and quietly. A head popped around the corner sheepishly, and Case Bermel peered
into the inner office, his hat in his hand.

He squinted slightly. The office was in semi-darkness, and a single
lamp on the desk was turned towards the door, causing him to blink in
discomfort, but he was fairly certain that the form behind the desk was the man
he had come to see.

“Mister… Mister Malcolm… is that you, sir?” Case said nervously.

“Yes,” came the reply, calm and even.

“Mister Malcolm, it’s Case. Case Bermel.”

“Yes, Case?” the man behind the desk said.

“Mister Malcolm, I don’t wanna… I mean… I know there were some hard
feelings there for a couple of days, and I didn’t want to… Well,” he sighed, “I
just want you to know I respect you and what you’ve done, settin’ up this new
organization and all. I just didn’t want you to think otherwise, sir. An’ I
know the other boys, they feel the same as me.”

“Thank you, Case.”

Bermel strained to listen for any other meaning in the reply. To hear
if Malcolm was still angry, or worse, under duress.

“I mean, these… uh- new partners… I think it’s swell the crazy things
they’ve come up with. To give us the upper hand, I mean, but… you know… honor
among thieves, right?” He laughed a little. There was no reply from the man
behind the desk. Malcolm was not famed for his sense of humor, but still…

Bermel crept a little closer, cautiously. Malcolm was still behind his
desk, his elbows resting on the desktop, his fingers touching lightly in front
of his lips.

“Was there something more?” the man behind the desk asked, lifting his
head, just a little. The shadows fell away from his face, and Bermel could now
see clearly that it was indeed Malcolm, his face reserved and serious, but the
man had never been known for his warmth. Bermel breathed a sigh of relief.

“Sure, sure,” Bermel said hurriedly. “I just… I just wanted to make
sure… well, Kid Chaos ran the new plan past me and… well, I just wanted to be
sure that you’d signed off on it, sir. I don’t want to cause no trouble.”

“That’s all right, Case. You did the right thing.” Malcolm nodded
coolly, “I approved the plan.”

Bermel smiled in relief. “I’m sure glad to hear it, Mister Malcolm. I
mean, it sounds like a good enough plan… that is… it sounds great,” he
corrected himself hastily. “The only face the Red Panda might’ve recognized up
to now is Satchel Braun. An’ me and Mitch Palmer are the only mugs left from
the Ryder mob. It makes sense to dangle us out there… kinda like bait.”

He laughed nervously and too loud. Malcolm’s expression did not change.
Bermel’s laughter died away in discomfort.

“Er… anyway… I just wanted to make sure that… well, that everything was
okay. At the top… you know.” Bermel was backing away now, crushing his hat in
his hands as he did so.

“It’s all right, Case,” Malcolm said again. “I approved the plan.”

Bermel paused just a moment. “Right. Sure thing. Thanks, Mister
Malcolm. Thanks for everything.”

The door clicked shut behind him.

“Thank you, Case,” Malcolm said again, his eyes unmoved. “Thank you.”

Two figures moved forward from the shadows, beaming smiles of
self-satisfaction.

“Well,” Kid Chaos said, sitting on the corner of Malcolm’s desk, “that
went pretty well. I don’t think Bermel suspected a thing.”

“Bermel is an idiot,” Professor Zombie said sternly, leaning in to
examine Malcolm’s pupils for signs of change. “And he betrayed our interests.
If we had not subdued Malcolm yet, he would be working against us at this very
moment.”

“If we had not subdued Malcolm yet,” Chaos beamed at her, “we would be
dead by now, and deservedly so. And as for Bermel, don’t worry your beautiful
head about it, my dear Professor. Between our henchmen and my bombs–”

“Our bombs,” she corrected with a wry smile.

“Our bombs.” He forced a smile. “At any rate, neither of them have the
slightest chance of surviving the trap either. Even once the Panda and Squirrel
have been blown to a fine powdery ash, they won’t be the only ones on the trail
of Braun’s ex-confederates. We can’t have them traced back to us.”

“I suppose,” Professor Zombie said, “their brothers in arms won’t care
much for that.” She glanced to Kid Chaos to see if he was at all concerned. She
was not disappointed by his smile, which neatly straddled the line between
serene and insane.

“My dear, do not underestimate these gangsters’ predisposition to
saving their own skins. Besides, Mister Malcolm performed beautifully.” He
patted the walking corpse’s shoulder in congratulations.

“We cannot make much further use of him though,” Zombie said testily.
“The reduced levels of Necronium allow this zombie greater powers of speech,
but it has left him with an unacceptably high level of brain function.”

“I thought he did fine,” Chaos protested.

“Within the narrow parameters of a conversation we were able to prepare
him for, yes. Under less controlled circumstances, he might become…
unpredictable.” She scowled at the thought.

“I see…” Chaos was momentarily serious.

“Besides,” she continued, “lowering the Necronium levels also reduces
the protection from decay. Malcolm will be literally falling apart within a
week or two. And he won’t be any nosegay in as little as three or four days.”

“Well, that is rather more serious,” Chaos smiled. “But I’m sure we’ll
get by. He’ll be able to deal with the fallout from Bermel and Palmer’s deaths,
and then we can arrange for a little… accident.”

“One that’s ever so slightly more subtle than your usual efforts, if
you please,” Professor Zombie practically purred. “Something that won’t make
people feel obliged to use the little ironic pause before they say ‘accident’.
Just for once.”

“Your wish is my command,” he smiled. “And while we’re speaking of
defying expectations…”

She turned to him and arched an eyebrow, silently. He unbuttoned
several buttons on his shirt to reveal a small apparatus fastened to his chest.

“Do you know what this is?” he smiled.

She smiled, almost warmly, “I can probably guess. You being you, I
assume it is some form of detonator.”

“Right first try,” he grinned.

“And me being me, I can only extrapolate that it is tied to the
continued beating of your heart.”

“Such a clever girl,” he beamed.

“And if your heart should unexpectedly cease
to beat–”

“–due, one might imagine, from sudden exposure to a Necronium cocktail–,”
he said happily.

“Then, what explodes, exactly?” she said politely.

“Everything,” he grinned. “Just so we understand each other.”

The night air hung over the city, heavy with a thick damp that clung to
everything it touched. It held every bit of smoke that flowed from every
chimney and wrapped it low over the streets and alleys like a vile fog of
grime. The night was cool and clammy and full of portent that promised no good
to anyone.

Kit Baxter could feel that portent hanging in the air. She would rarely
admit to such a thing, even to herself, and almost never when she wore the mask
of the Flying Squirrel. She still felt the adrenaline rushing through her
veins, coiling her muscles like finely tuned machines, ready to spring into action
at a moment’s notice. But something in the air this night carried the scent of
doom, and she couldn’t shake the feeling no matter what she did.

Her eyes never wavered from the doorway she watched, down the blind
alley, almost lost in shadows. But her right hand twitched slightly, as if it
itched. She played with her fingers a little. She didn’t want to seem nervous.
On the other hand, if he valued her instincts…

She raised her hand half the distance from the ledge on which it rested
to her eyes. Without looking away from the doorway below, she glanced at the
dull black ring she wore outside her glove. It lacked any sort of luster that
might reflect in the darkness which so often kept them safe. In place of any
sort of adornment, there was a small, flat plate in the same dull tone, and
within that round plate there was a series of red circles within circles. The
pattern looked almost hypnotic, though she knew it was the sending and
receiving antennae, built within the plate in the form of tiny micro-circuitry
that took the place of normal radio tubes. It was just one of the many things
the Red Panda had developed to aid them in their war on crime that could have
revolutionized technology around the world. He had sacrificed the fame and
fortune that such inventions might have brought him, wealth perhaps even
dwarfing that which he was born to, for the greater good of ridding his city of
crime.

“And apparently, so I’ll look
at him like he’s clever.”
She smiled at the thought. It probably wasn’t true, but it still gave her a
thrill that he’d thought to say so. She hesitated another moment. Suddenly, the
Radio Ring crackled softly to life before her.

“Red Panda to Flying
Squirrel…,”
a small, tinny
tone sang from the device,
“come in,
Squirrel…”

She grinned, and bit her lip a little, though there were no watching
eyes to hide her delight from.

“Squirrel here. What’s the rumpus, Boss?”

“All quiet on this end.”
The voice came through gentle static.

“Here, too,” she said. “I thought no news was good news.”

“Did I say that?”
he said, knowing full well that he had.

“You missed the melodious sound of my voice, didn’t you?” she teased.

There was a small pause. Just long enough for her to think he’d gone
back to radio silence.

“I have a feeling I can’t
shake,”
his voice came
again.

“Do tell…,” she smiled. “Maybe we should put some music on and talk
about it.”

There was another pause. Smaller this time.

“I walked right into that one,
didn’t I?”
he said at last.

“Yes, Boss. To tell the truth, I was kinda hoping you were callin’ to
say somethin’ encouraging.”

“You worried?”
he said.

“Yeah. Maybe a little.”

“Me too,”
came his voice.
“I can’t put my finger on it… but something feels wrong.”

“Think we’re missin’ something?”

“I’d be surprised if we
weren’t. But tracing Satchel Braun’s activities through his former allies might
be the only solid clue we have, since Professor Zombie has no known
associates.”
There was a low
buzz of static, as if a storm was blowing in but was still far-off, but he came
through loud and clear.
“Mostly due to
her nasty habit of draining them of life and making them her slaves.”

“That does tend to cut down on the second dates, yeah. So we have to
try somethin’, and we ain’t exactly overwhelmed by other notions. And I’m too
pretty to turn into a mushroom hanging around that lair.”

“So we go ahead?”

She blinked at the Radio Ring in surprise. Had he been thinking of
scrubbing the operation? At that moment, she saw movement down below.

“Boss?” she said, her former dread forgotten in the thrill of coming
action. “I’ve got something over here. Stand by.”

She leaned in towards the ledge. Low and lean, she blended in to the
shape and shadow of her surroundings. Few human eyes were trained enough to
spot the Flying Squirrel when she did not wish to be seen. She couldn’t be sure
who it was. She’d never liked the feeling of the night-vision lenses he’d
designed. She found them distracting, and sometimes disorienting during aerial
maneuvers. But she would have dearly loved a set right now.

There was a shape… a single form… creeping up the alley towards the
doorway she watched. The door itself was illuminated by a single bulb that
buzzed above the frame, but it was the only light of any kind down that
dead-end, and for all its lack of brilliance, it helped to make the shadows
seem deeper from more than five feet away.

The Radio Ring buzzed slightly.

“Squirrel? What is it?”
his whispered voice came.

“What part of ‘stand by’ was unclear, exactly?” she deadpanned quietly.

“Don’t make me come over
there.”

“Is that all it took?” she grinned. “I got motion… that’s all I can
see. Looks like only one.”

“That would be convenient,”
he said quietly.
“Is it Bermel or Palmer?”

“Right this second it’s a small black shape in the middle of a big
black shape,” she said. “I’ll keep you posted.”

The shape in the alleyway paused, about twenty feet from the door. Kit
couldn’t see what he was doing.

“Remember,”
the Red Panda prompted,
“if you see any of Professor Zombie’s creatures, don’t hold back.
They’re already dead. Mercy won’t help them and it might get you killed.”

“I’m the one that threw the grenades last time, remember? Or was that
when you were napping?”

The shape in the alleyway changed its position. It seemed to be behind
some cans, opposite the door. She still couldn’t really see what he was doing,
but she knew he couldn’t see her.

“How’s our friend?”
the Radio Ring hummed.

“Couldn’t say. He looks shy. He might be lookin’ for somethin’… a
hidden bell maybe, or a release for a secret door. Or I might be making this
more complicated than it needs to be.”

“I wouldn’t mind if it were
just a touch more complicated,”
he said.

“How’s that again?” she asked, only mildly distracted.

“Well, we’ve had our agents
looking out for any sign of Bermel or Palmer for days now, with ne’er a peep.”
There was another hum of mild static, and
this time she could see the lightning, miles away over the lake.
“And suddenly today, we get an address of
their hideout.”

She shrugged, although he could not see her. “That’s how it happens
sometimes,” she said.

“From three different sources,”
he deadpanned.

“Yeah. That does stink, doesn’t it?”

“And then some.”

The shape down below moved forward slowly towards the door.

“I can’t figure this guy out,” Kit said. “If this is his hideout,
he’s–”

And all at once, the Flying Squirrel realized what the shape in the
alleyway was doing.

He was doing exactly what she was doing.

“Boss!” she hissed into the Radio Ring. “It ain’t either of our
pigeons! It’s that cop, Parker!”

“What?”

“Boss! It’s gotta be a trap! I’m goin’ in!” she cried as the shape down
below reached forward for the doorknob of the single door, the sole point of
illumination down a dead-end blind alleyway. They might as well have painted
TRAP on the wall in bright yellow paint, if only she had seen it before.

“Squirrel! Wait for me!”

There was no time. Even with his speed, by the time the Boss got here,
it would be far too late. She hurled herself off the ledge, spinning gently to
the right as she plummeted towards the ground at gut-wrenching speed. She
unfurled her gliders, but kept her arms close to her sides a little longer… no
time to waste… not a second.

At a point long after that which most people would have considered the
last possible second, she stretched her left arm away from her body just a
little… just enough to increase the drag and point her feet slightly towards
the wall.

She engaged her Static Shoes and felt them thrust her forward from the
wall at great speed as she fell. All at once she opened up both gliders and
turned the full force of her dive into forward momentum as she raced silently
through the blackness towards the form of Constable Andy Parker. He was
illuminated now, just visible as more than an eager, grey shape in the
blackness. His hand was almost on the doorknob…

The Flying Squirrel hit him dead on like a ton of bricks just as the
door exploded into a million fiery shards. Carried by the force of the
collision and startled by the blast, the two of them careened fifteen feet,
into the wall at the very end of the alleyway. Before he even knew what had hit
him, she was hauling him to his feet and pushing him past the smoking remains
of the doorway.

“Run, idiot!” she screamed, and he was still too startled to do
anything but obey. He looked up as they neared the doorway, and gasped to see
two giant men nearing the portal. They were like the others he had faced, but
with faces a sickly grey-green pallor.

He saw a small projectile whiz over his shoulder and into the doorway,
landing at the feet of the two monsters. She streaked past him like he was
standing still.

“Faster!” is all she had time to say before the grenade blew and freed
the two zombies from their undead shells.

They had not taken ten more steps into the blackness of the alleyway
before they heard a roar like thunder, only much, much closer than the storm
that gathered over the lake. From high above, along the tops of the two
buildings that created this urban canyon, there was a series of carefully timed
blasts, beginning at the far end of the alley and working towards them.

In an instant, the Squirrel realized what was happening and turned on
her heels, pushing Parker back towards the ruined doorway. The explosions
carried the destructive punch of a wrecking ball, and their effect was
immediate. From either side, the upper floors of the buildings crumbled inward,
filling the only exit to the alley like a cave-in. Seconds later it was all
over, and the last great boulders of bricks and mortar were piled high, just
inches from where the Flying Squirrel stood.

“Now what?” Parker asked as two more behemoths lumbered out of the
building, not registering the shattered bodies of their fellows beneath their
feet as they did so.

“Dunno, Pokey,” she said, breathlessly. “Can you climb walls?”

“Can I–? No,” he replied.

“Then you may have a little trouble here,” she cracked.

“All right, you two – hoist ‘em!” came a weasely voice. From
behind the two zombies Case Bermel and Mitch Palmer appeared, each with a Tommy
Gun and a smug expression.

“Well, well,” Palmer said. “Look, Case. We got us some company. You two
been a thorn in a lotta sides for a long time. But you didn’t have enough goods
to deal with the Crime Cabal!”

“The Crime Cabal?” Parker and the Flying Squirrel said at once.

“Catchy,” Kit muttered.

“Er… Mitch?” Bermel said uncomfortably.

“Shaddup, Case,” Palmer snapped. “I’m tryin’ to enjoy the moment here.
Now which one of you wants it first?”

“Mitch?” Bermel sounded a little more frantic.

“What is it?” Palmer hissed.

“If that’s the Red Panda, where’s his mask?” Bermel whimpered.

“How should I know?” his partner roared. “Maybe he–” He looked
around expansively, and something above him suddenly caught his eye. “Oh,
no–”

And before another word could be spoken, a tall, muscular form fell
from the blackness above, his long coat billowing behind him making a noise
like the wind in a sail. He took Mitch Palmer, feet first, right in the chest.
The man in the mask landed on his feet like a cat. Palmer’s landing was
considerably less graceful, as he lay on his back, gasping, his ribcage crushed
beneath the blow.

With a motion Case Bermel could barely see, the Red Panda swept his arm
around the gun arm of the terrified gangster, twisted it in a lightning-fast
ju-jitsu hold and snapped it like a dry twig. Bermel screamed in agony,
inadvertently squeezing the trigger of his Tommy Gun and riddling Palmer’s
helpless body with hot lead.