At 10:57 PM 29/05/96 EDT, Her Furryousness, Foxtrot wrote:
:>Ignoring the slightly injured man, the Prodinator walked quickly to a
nearby phone-booth and began to scan the phonebook for an address. A
leather-gloved finger moved down the index page for the Beijing Zoo until
the tip rested underneath the listing for "Panda Pen". Staring at the
page >>for a moment, the cyborg bounty-hunter exited the phone-booth, and
disappeared down a dark alleyway...
The phone rang, urgently.
"Well?"
"He got away, Mistress."
"Damn!" That one work exploded from her mouth. "You've been relieved."
"But..."
She hung up the phone quickly. "Who can I trust? Who can I call?" The
obvious answer was.. well, obvious. She knew that she had asked for others
to join in the hunt, but she could only trust her own agents, ones she hand
picked.
She dialed the number.
*********
The blue and white panda glanced nervously across the street. After the
Prodinator had nearly tracked him to his safe home where he had gone to
get some much needed supplies, he couldn't take any chances. On top of
that, he also had to get another disguise and they were running out of
panda colors. Gaunt and shaky, he crossed the street.
Suddenly, the hairs on his psuedo flesh stood upright. Something wasn't
right. He glanced down first the right half of the street, then the left.
Everything appeared normal. He scanned the people he saw. Everything >was
normal. "Stop it, Panda," he said to himself, "you're scaring yourself.
There's no way she could track me here." He walked across the street.
The figure at the end of the street snickered slightly. Boy was *he* wrong.
Panda rubbed his furry butt where the dart had struck him, and continued
across the street to his apartment. It seemed that he evaded the Prodinator
thus far, but the bamboo eater was sure that the dart attack meant that
others were after him. After all, Her Furryousness was no ordinary Task
Mistress. She was the Taskmistress from Hell, with many many means at her
disposal. And hell hath no fury like a Task Mistress scorned...
Panda looked at his apartment entrance from behind a parked van. Looking up
and down the street for vehicles whose occupants might be staking him out,
he could still not shake the sensation that something wan't quite right.
Other than the van he was hiding behind there were no other cars in sight.
So why did he still feel something was wrong?
After waiting for a few more minutes, he proceeded to cross the street and
head for the rear of the apartment complex. While his estate at the Beijing
Zoo was his year-round home, he had rented the comfortable one bedroom
apartment as an occasional retreat from the metal bars and scheduled
feedings. Life was easy at the zoo, but also relentlessly dull.
The rear of the apartment complex was devoid of activity, save for the
curious scroungings of a scruffy alley-cat. The disguised giant panda looked
around for any suspicious characters and then entered the building. He
proceeded to his apartment via the stairs, and soon arrived at a door marked
305. Before he inserted his key into the lock, he removed a palm-sized
computer keypad, and entered several strings of digits. After a few seconds,
an electronically synthesized feminine voice offered, "Alarm deactivated.
All systems functioning within specified parameters. No unauthorized
attempts to enter to report. You may enter Panda."
Smiling as he always did when he heard the "welcome" message, Panda then
pushed gently on the door and stood in the doorway. The door closed quietly
behind him as he stood waiting. "Bio-Scan shows a foreign substance in your
blood stream. . . . Substance identified. Recommend immediate eradication
and plasma scour. Shall I proceed?"
"Yes Nene, you may." Panda broke from his statue-like stance and made his
way to the bathroom to check his disguise. Somehow the orange and white
lesser panda disguise had changed to blue and white just before he had
arrived. Hmmm, possibly the effect of the dart injection?
After removing the extra lining of fur, Panda showered quickly, then
gathered some essential items for his extended "retreat". As he placed the
last item
in his cari-sak, "Nene's" electronic voice issued, "Eradication and plasma
scour complete. Subsequent Bio-Scan reports panda systems all functioning
within specified parameters."
"Thank-you Nene," Panda replied, knowing the computer would not reply. "I
will be leaving for a short while. All security systems are to be engaged
upon my departure. Confirm instructions?"
"Acknowledged. Good-bye Panda."
"Good-bye Nene."
Panda strode swiftly to the window and peeked out past the blinds into the
street below. Strangely the street appeared as before, quiet, and unusually
lacking in automotive thoroughfare. "Hmmm..."
Panda grabbed his cari-sak and opened the door. With one last quick look
around, the giant panda left his apartment. As he walked down the stairs, he
reached with his right hand to a keypad strapped to his left forearm. After
tapping on a few keys, there was a momentary flash of bright blue light, then
the clicking of high heels on the tiled stairs as a beautiful raven-haired
woman descended to the main floor, marked by a whisp of snow-white hair
running the length of her locks.
Exiting the stairwell, the woman paused in the lobby to appraise her
appearance in the mirrored walls, stopping only long enough to run her long
and delicate fingers through her hair. Satisfied with her adjustment, the
woman passed by two stunned teenage boys headed for the elevator, both
turning to regard her as she pushed on the glass doors leading out.
"Did you see her...???"
"Yah... I saw."
"Man!" the younger boy remarked, "I haven't seem her around here before."
The older boy took the cue and slyly retorted, "That's probably because she
doesn't live around here."
The younger boy turned to his companion, who now stood with his arms folded
across his chest in a matter-of-fact fashion. "Whaddya mean? How do you know
anything about it?"
"I just know." the older boy volleyed. "I know all about her."
The younger boy looked at his friend with a distrusting gaze. "Oh yeah?!
Like what?"
"Like she's a friend of my mother's."
"What???!!! You're full of shit!"
The older boy merely smiled a knowing grin and remained silent.
"Aw c'moff it! Yer trying to tell me your mother and *that* woman are
friends???"
"Yep. And she even asked my mother if she knew of any younger men
around our building."
The younger boy's eyes widened, and all he could utter was, "Really???"
"Psyche."
The younger boy stood for a moment with his jaw slack, then proceeded to
pummel the older boy amid his companion's mocking laughter and cries of
"Alright, I'm sorry! I'm sorry!"
The raven-haired woman stepped into the moist outside air, and hesitated
in the grey-shadowed doorway. After a quick check of his belongings, and
another brief appraisal of his new disguise, Panda walked out to the street
and crossed it, still feeling that strange sensation that something was not
right about this setting. Glancing over his shoulders occasionally, he made
his way,
awkwardly at first, towards the bus station a few blocks away. It had been a
while since he'd had to wear heels for a disguise, but like riding a bicycle
the technique came back fairly quickly.
********
The figure at the end of the street left its hiding spot in the murky shade of
a tree to follow the raven-haired woman at a distance. "Nice try Panda. Have
to do better than that though. And soon."
Panda
-----------------------------------
"Bubblegum Cross"
"The Dark Traveler"
"The Dragon's Tower"
askuse@execulink.com
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