Chapter 19 August Fenwick dragged the crippled android back into his cell.

It wasn't going to be a perfect match, but he couldn't afford to wait.

Clarkworks Army was on the move, and that meant the Red Panda would be needed and soon.

But if it was at all possible to emerge from this encounter with his secret identity intact,

and preferably not under arrest for multiple homicides, there would be need for a little subterfuge on his part.

He had got enough of a good look at the schematics on the wall of the command chamber to see one weak point in the new design for the mechanical men.

At the waist, the multiple servos that allowed

for a full range of motion did not adequately protect the central power relay. It took both

precision and power to exploit such a small target in combat. Clockwork could never have realized

how much his guest possessed both traits in abundance. Slipping out of his restraints had been nothing

to him, and working the lock of the steel door of the cage was child's play. Fenwick had trained

with some of the greatest escape artists in the world in his youth, and it had been time well spent.

A single kick to the precise target in the robot guards midsection had been enough to send it

into a kind of palsy as the power relay shorted out, and it still twitched as it lay on the ground.

The Red Panda stripped the coveralls off the mechanical man and dressed it hastily in his own jacket and pants after donning the blue uniform himself.

The creature's twitching was becoming more subtle, as if some of the actuators were

burning out from the uneven power flow. He hoped it didn't actually catch fire, but he didn't

really have time to care. He hoisted the robot's feet up into the bunk in his cell, then hurried to

the other end to lift the head and shoulders and roll the creature's body into bed.

It was devilishly heavy, but in the end it settled down and continued to shake from within.

The Red Panda looked down, not entirely displeased.

The hair wasn't quite the right colour, but if one didn't look too closely,

...