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Table of Contents
Editoral
Tim Gallagher................................2
Writer Biographies...........................5
A Head For This Sort Of Thing.
Bill Cunningham............................7
Mrs H’s Knitting Circle
Mark Caldwell..............................11
Out Of The Fog
Matthew P. Mayo...........................17
The Dame Wore A Tesseract
Geoffrey Thorne...........................24
The Great Magnetic Train Caper
D.A. Madigan................................37
The Predator From The Past
Christian Dabnor..........................50
The Undressed Widow
Roger Alford.................................56
The Yellow Star
Michael Patrick Sullivan...............65
Cover “Scarlett Fatale”
John Donald Carlucci
Issue #3
Publisher
John Donald Carlucci
EditorJDC@Gmail.com
Editor-in-Chief
Timothy Gallagher
EditorTimGallagher@Gmail.com
Editor
Katherine Tomlinson
AAMDragonlady@Gmail.com
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License. To view a copy of this
license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/ or send a letter to Creative
Commons, 171 Second Street, Suite 300, San
Francisco, California, 94105, USA.
All right belong to the original artists and writers for their
contributed works. May 1st, 2008
2
ASTONISHING ADVENTURES MAGAZINE
Editorial
By Editor-in-Chief
Tim Gallagher
G
reetings, pulp monkeys, and welcome
to the third issue of ASTONISHING
ADVENTURES MAGAZINE! I know that it’s
been a while since issue #2, and I apologize. But
thanks to the tireless efforts of our own primate
publisher, JDC, issue #2 is now finally available
through Amazon.com. Just type “Astonishing
Adventures Magazine” into the Amazon search
engine and you’ll be one step closer to owning our
little piece of pulp heaven.
Quite a bit has happened since our last
issue. Editor JDC became Publisher JDC. Our
lovely Dragon Lady, Katherine, became editor.
Yours truly was promoted out of the monkey
cage and chained to the Editor-in-Chief ’s desk.
Jackie Chan and Jet Li finally made a movie
together. Pulp icon Doc Savage celebrated his
75th anniversary. And the pulp world lost a
good friend when Dave Stevens, creator of The
DOC SAVAGE, still going strong after 75 years.
THE ROCKETEER by Dave Stevens
copyright Conde Nast Publications
copyright Dave Stevens
Editorial
Rocketeer, passed away at the age of 52.
I fondly remember reading The Rocketeer
when it was first published by Pacific Comics
waaaaay back in the early 1980s, and then
following it’s rather erratic publishing schedule
as the magazine jumped to Eclipse Comics,
Comico, and then Dark Horse. Dave had a
wonderful art style, a genuine love and feel for
the 1930s pulp era, and was the catalyst for the
resurgence of all things Betty Page (he modeled
the female lead of the series on Miss Page).
Although there weren’t many stories, the ones
that did see print were action packed and even
managed to in-clude Doc Savage (and his friends
Monk and Ham) and The Shadow as guest stars.
They couldn’t be identified as such for legal
reasons, but those of us in the know were just
that much more thrilled by their appearance.
Dave Stevens, we hardly knew ya, but rest
A pen-and-ink sketch of THE ROCKETEER by
Dave Stevens
copyright Dave Stevens
3
well, friend.
Getting back to the issue at (and in)
hand, you’ll notice that this issue is a wee bit
smaller than our previous efforts. There are a
number of factors responsible for this, none of
which are very interesting so I won’t bore you
with them. Nevertheless, those factors left us
with a severely truncated production window,
and a few changes had to be made in order to get
this bit of pulp goodness out to you.
Therefore, what you hold in your hand is
the very first all-story issue of ASTONISHING
ADVENTURES MAGAZINE! That’s right,
cover-to-cover rip-snorting tales formulated to
snap you out of the doldrums of your everyday
life. We’ve got old friends returning this issue,
like Michael Patrick Sullivan with another
installment of the Auslander; Roger Alford and
his undead avenger The Black Spectre; D.A.
Madigan and the intrepid Doc Nebula; “Mrs.
H’s Knitting Cir-cle” by Mark Caldwell; “The
Dame Wore a Tesseract,” by Geoffrey Thorne;
and “The Predator from the Past’” by Christian
Dabnor.
But wait, there’s more (he said in his best
Ronco announcer voice)! We have new friends
joining us as well this time out. There’s Scott
Harper and the creepy “What Lurks in Twilight
Hollow?”; Matthew Mayo and “Out of the Fog;”
and finally we’ve got, after much hounding,
pleading, and a gun to the head, a story from the
Mad Pulp Bastard himself, Bill Cunningham, “A
Head for this Sort of Thing.”
Quite the line-up, and one I’m sure you’ll
enjoy. I want to take this opportunity to thank
each and every writer who submitted a story (or,
in some cases, stories) for our third issue. The
re-sponse was overwhelming, and I am saddened
that we weren’t able to print them all. The good
news is, we’ve already got stories for issue #4.
Speaking of issue #4, that puppy will
be in your little monkey paws in just two short
months. We’re doing our darndest, now that the
Amazon problem has been licked, to get back
4
ASTONISHING ADVENTURES MAGAZINE
on our quarterly publishing schedule. We’ll
have plenty of great pulp stories for you, along
with our usual articles and interviews. Check
the website regularly, because there will be
previews of the articles and interviews there, and
an occasional surprise or two, just to whet your
appetite for the next issue.
Finally, wish a hearty and Happy
Birthday to our publisher, JDC. The cranky old
cuss is lay-ing this issue out on his birthday in
order satisfy your pulp cravings, so be nice to
him. Send him a nice e-mail. Or a present. Or
money. Or a redhead.
Okay, enough ramblings from me. Put
the soundtrack to Sky Captain and the World of
To-morrow on your iPod. Sit back, relax, and
prepare to enjoy.
‘Til next time, pulp monkeys!
Tim, Lord of the Monkeys
Writer Biographies
5
Writer Biographies
M
atthew Mayo is a magazine and book editor
and author of three Black Horse Westerns:
Winters’ War, Wrong Town, and the forthcoming
Hot Lead, Cold Heart. He also edited the recent
anthology, Where Legends Ride: New Tales of
the Old West, for Express Westerns. He lives
in downeast Maine with his wife, Jennifer, a
documentary photographer, and two happy dogs,
Guinness and Nessie, in an old farmhouse. When
he’s not editing or writing poetry and novels, he
is kayaking with his wife, shoveling snow, or
mowing the lawn. Drop in for a cup of joe at
www.matthewmayo.com. This is Matthew’s first
story in AAM.
Scott Zicree (The Twilight Zone Companion)
said was “great fun” and “genuinely plays like [an]
episode” )evidenced by the number of YouTubers
who think it’s real). His screenplay, Blood in the
Water (aka Storm Tide) is recommended by Script
PIMP and was named a 2nd-round finalist in a
Script Magazine Open Door Contest. Additional
screenplays were named as quarterfinalists in
the Screenwrit-ing Expo Competition, and he’s
hoping for great things with his latest opus, Gangland Hollywood (shameless plug). His work has
been discussed in the New York Times, Wall Street
Journal, US NEws & World Report, The Dennis
Miller Show (radio) and Inside Edition. This is
Roger’s (and The Black Spectre’s) third appeart an early age Christian Dabnor was captured ance in AAM. His websites are: hollywoodnoir.
by the Steam Pirate Captain Ron-son. He blogspot.com, and www.lightningbugfilms.com.
was made to perform various musical numbers for
.A. Madigan is currently husband and
the Captain’s amuse-ment until the Captain was
stepfather to (respectively) the most wonkilled in a boiler accident. Scared that he might
be blamed for the accident, he decided to make derful woman and the three most wonderful girls
himself as obscure as possible by working in IT in the entire universe, which is all that matters,
in Cannock, England, land of trees, opticians, really. When he isn’t sitting around boggling
and murder. Should you wish to contact him, his with slack-jawed awe at just how unbelievably
email is skidiot@btinternet.com. Christian chalks lucky he is, he writes deeply weird and even
outright de-ranged stuff, which eventually gets
up his second story in AAM with this issue.
published somewhere on the Internet. He blogs
oger Alford (roger@lightningbugfilms.com) extensively at Miserable Annals of the Earth
is a writer and filmmaker, as well as the Layout (www.miserableannalsoftheearth.blogspot.com)
Lemur for this very magazine. His produced and A Brown Eyed Handsome Man (www.
plays include two staged “radio dramas,” The City abehm.blogspot.com). He has written seven sciBurns at Night and The Sheik of Hollywood. fi/fantasy novels and one military memoir, and
He created the popular Internet mash-up video someday he hopes to be paid for at least some of
Twilight Zone: Planet of the Apes, which Marc
A
D
R
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ASTONISHING ADVENTURES MAGAZINE
that foolishness, too. This is D.A.’s third story in for Val-kyrie Quarterly and Ragnarok. One day
AAM. He can be reached at docnebula@gmail. he may finish a novel. He is looking for a short
com.
anecdote for his biography. It should be witty,
self-deprecating, thirty-four words long, and make
eoffrey Thorne (geoffrey.thorne@gmail.com) him sound less like a professional geek. Including
is the prize-winning author of mul-tiple short a beauti-ful woman would be a bonus. Mark is
stories, including the critically acclaimed The Soft really uncomfortable writing about himself in the
Room (Simon & Schuster). He has written sci- Third Person like this. This Mark’s third story
fi shorts and novellas for Simon & Schuster and appearing in AAM.
Phobos Books, and was a finalist in the prestigious
cott Harper (AuthorScott@hotmail.com)
Writers of the Future contest. He has written
has had 16 short stories published, has selfcomics for Bench Press Comics, Hometown
Ink, NE Graphix, and is currently publishing published three novels, and is working on his
The Red Line through Ludovico Technique. His fourth. He was recently hired by the independent
short story, Eshu & The Anthropic Principle film company James Tucker Productions, which
was included in the Triangulation: End of Time is based in Pasa-dena, California, to write scripts
anthology (Parsec Inc.). He is the lead writer and for two direct-to-DVD films. In early October,
executive producer of the criti-cally acclaimed, 2007, Scott began working loosely with the local
original Web-based TV series, Geoffrey Thorne’s film production company 11th Dimension Films
The Dark (the darklines.blogspot.com). He lives as a writer. 11th Dimension Films is currently
in Los Angeles, but is hoping for a pardon any day working on pre-production of a short film he
wrote for them. He can be found at the following
now. This is Geoffrey’s second story in AAM.
sites: www.lulu.com/sjhlhjh, www.myspace.com/
hen evil is afoot, Michael Patrick Sullivan scott_harper_author, and www.authorsden.com/
is a fuzzy slipper. At other times, he’s an scottharper. This is Scott’s first story for AAM.
award-winning writer of stuff in which someone
or those of you just meeting Bill Cunningham,
invariably gets shot. He embarked on a career as
the self-proclaimed Mad Pulp Bas-tard, for
a writer after learning at an early age that being
The Rid-dler was not a viable career choice. He’s the first time here, he is a screenwriter, producer,
starting to feel he may have been misled about that. and marketer of movies, as well as the author of
Michael can be contacted at m@redrighthand. short pulp fiction and other media. He also is
net. This issue marks the third appearance of his the master and proprietor of the great website
Pulp 2.0 (d2dvd.blogspot.com), a daily must-see
character, The Auslander.
destination for any pulp aficionado. This story
ark Caldwell (impworks@gmail.com) is is Bill’s first at AAM, but he’s been promoting
the second British author appearing in the magazine to his large audience since our very
this issue of AAM. Born in the 1970s, Mark humble begin-ning, for which we thank him
grew up in Nottingham and War-wickshire. He profusely.
studied building engineering at the University
of Liverpool, and then a postgraduate course in
software technology. A job taking the Internet
around libraries and making virtual reality models
followed. Ten years on he has worked on a variety
of websites. He has written and illustrated articles
G
S
W
F
M
“A Head For This Sort of Thing”
7
“A Head For This Sort
of Thing”
By Bill Cunningham
T
he first thing he felt was the light, that
near-blinding, blue-cold beam penetrating
his eyes, made extraordinarily sensitive by his
internment. He wanted to raise his arm to shield
his corneas from the piercing glow, but he found
his arms restrained somehow. “Hmm”, thought
the Doctor, “they must have me in some sort of
magnetic restraints. Interesting. Whoever they
are, they aren’t stupid.”
The restraints were indeed thoughtful as the
Doctor’s reputation had preceded his presence
in the echoing chamber. When he was in his
prime, not too long ago he told himself, he had
killed a man with his index finger. The man,
his defense lawyer, had deigned to think he
could win his case by having his client declared
insane. This was not to say that the Doctor was
a powerful physical presence. Average height
and a shade on the thin side, the Doctor wasn’t a
specimen that one would immediately consider
formida-ble but rather a being of intense focus
and resolve. His victims could attest to his ability
to strike swiftly to the heart (or knee or groin) of
a problem. That’s what the Doctor considered
himself - a problem solver. His mother had
always told him he had a “head” for that problem-solving.
He stood beside his droning barrister and
grinned. He immediately took the man’s measure
and calculated exactly how he would get the legal
monkey to shut the hell up. “Problem solved,”
he thought as his arm lashed out and drove his
bony finger straight through the man’s eye. In
an instant the Doctor felt his way around the
man’s eye socket to the cluster of blood vessels
networking the area. He gave his sharp fingernail
a twist and sud-denly a fountain of blood
erupted from the man‘s socket.
As the Bailiff caught the lawyer, the Doctor
quickly took his chair and pa-tiently folded his
hands in his lap, oblivious to the screaming and
blood that filled the air. But this was just one,
near insignificant item in a long list of offences
committed by the mad genius the authorities
had dubbed “Doctor Lucifer.”
Now, the Doctor took measure of his
surroundings. High, grey walls of concrete came
into his limited view. Whatever was holding him
in place was powerful enough to prevent him
from lifting even his chin. He would have to rely
on his eyes and ears to provide him with enough
data to concoct a solu-tion for his escape. The
Doctor fought against his own insecurity in this
re-gard - he had a nearly pathological abhorrence
of confinement - and brought the rest of his
mental prowess under control. “Listen, learn
and interpret,” his brain told him, “focus on the
problem at hand.”
“So, how can I help you?”
A simple voice echoed back to him.
“Welcome, Doctor. We have a few questions for
you.”
“Most certainly. Could I trouble you for a
cigarette?”
8
ASTONISHING ADVENTURES MAGAZINE
“No, I’m sorry, Doctor. That won’t be
possible.”
“But I do have an addiction to nicotine…”
Suddenly, the blue light shining into his eyes
shifted spectra and be-came a blaze of crimson.
“Now, Doctor why would you want to lie
to us? We are, after all, here to ask a few simple
questions. Then if the answers we receive are
satisfac-tory, you will be allowed to leave your
confinement. There is no deception here - at least
not on our part.”
The Doctor wanted to smile at the voice,
but held himself in check. Better now to shift
tactics, be cooperative and follow his own advice
to learn.
“Okay then. I suppose you have the upper
hand. Might I ask a simple question?”
“That is a very big admission for you
Doctor,” intoned the Voice, “and the year is
2321 by your calendar.”
The Doctor let them think he was letting the
information sink in, but in reality he had already
surmised that he was somehow out of time. It
wasn’t unreasonable in that Doctor Lucifer made
arrangements upon his “death” to be secretly
placed in cryogenic suspension by a corporation
that wasn’t even aware of its client‘s true identity.
A shadow corporation Lucifer had created with
monies from his “activities” - illegal enhancile
drugs, corporate technol-ogy theft, espionage,
organ theft and marketing - had made all the
arrange-ments. What was worrisome was the fact
that these future-men had pierced his identity
even though Lucifer had taken great pains to
erase his data shadow. Curiouser and curiouser.
“Now that is interesting…and what would
persons of that year want with me? I am after all,
just a simple Doctor.”
The light turned red again. Lucifer had
successfully confirmed his the-ory - the lamp
was some sort of lie detector. He would have to
be careful. Tell the truth, but only in answer to
direct questions. Nothing more, nothing less.
Think ten steps ahead as always. Turn these
future men into pawns, playing his sort of chess
game.
“We want to know how you killed The
Pistoleer.”
The Pistoleer was at first a rumor amongst
the denizens of the Metroplex’s downtown.
Where crime had once run rampant, the
mysterious gunfighter came out of nowhere,
vowing to rid the city’s lower levels of crime.
Some had posited the theory that the hooded
hero with two blazing chrome guns was a cyborg.
Others said he was a ghost from the past with
supernatural pistols which never failed to hit
their mark. Both theories had their elements of
truth - whatever The Pistoleer aimed at, he hit,
and he moved with such precision and rapidity
that to the naked eye it appeared he never had to
reload. He appeared out of nowhere launching
an unholy bar-rage of bullets on crime.
“The Pistoleer was a putz…”
Lucifer was disappointed. These unknown
future-men had gone to all of this trouble to
resurrect him, and they only wanted to know
how he killed a second-rate , gallivanting
adversary like The Pistoleer.
“Interesting. Tell us more.”
Lucifer was instantly bored. The Pistoleer
had been an easy problem, one that had been so
simple and so apparent to even the simplest of
intel-lects that Lucifer was disgusted with himself
over how easy it had been.
“How do you destroy a man who can hit
anything he aims at?”
Lucifer waited for a moment to allow the
problem to sink in. When no answer or question
was forthcoming he was doubly bored.
“You simply take away any targets.”
Lucifer allowed a smile to escape his lips.
Good. There might be some challenge from this
voice after all.
“A Head For This Sort of Thing”
“I lured him into a trap where he couldn’t
use his guns. He could fire away to his heart’s
content, but the bullets would ricochet back at
the direct angle from which it was fired. I could
get into the physics involved, but…”
“A simple angular, kinetic force field… but
how did you lure him into the trap?”
“That was even simpler. I made him think
he was rescuing that kid partner of his, Ballistic.
The pervert.”
“What makes you say that?”
“You don’t crawl around the shadows of the
city with a kid dressed in tights without tongues
wagging. The Pistoleer had problems that he
didn’t want the world at large to know about.”
“And so, you trapped him and Ballistic in
a room encompassed by an angular force field
generator.”
“Well not quite. Say, could you loosen these
bonds? It’s a bit stuffy in here.”
“What do you mean when you say not
quite?”
“You don’t want to know about that, do
you?” the Doctor teased. He tried shifting a bit,
but found he couldn’t.
“Tell us, Doctor. Tell us and we‘ll free you.”
“No, I don’t think so. A player doesn’t
show his moves to his opponent. Not without
knowing what his opponent is thinking.” He
smiled toward the glimmering blue light. “I
think I’ll hold onto this bit of information.”
“Then you’re never going to be free.”
“Says you. Whoever you are.”
“What are you afraid of Doctor? The
information is purely that - infor-mation. The
statute of limitations have expired on any and all
of your activi-ties. Besides, The Pistoleer, even
with the good that he accomplished, was in fact
a wanted criminal in the eyes of the law. It is a
new world, sir.”
“ALL RIGHT. SHUT IT ALL DOWN!”
The powerful new voice cut through the
tension and squashed any random sound as silent
as a grave. Suddenly the blue light widened,
9
and for the first time Lucifer could clearly see his
surroundings…
Long twisted cables spider-webbed the room
as men in tight-fitting lab coats, more like lab
skins, surrounded him. Each man had a tablet
in front of him staring at digital readouts of
Lucifer’s responses.
Lucifer’s eyes followed the cables as one of
the lab techs called out, “Would Control please
go to auto on the articulating arm?”
Suddenly, Lucifer felt his head move. Not
exactly what he was used to as his head pitched
with the movement of his eyes. It took him a
moment to focus and he looked down… and it
horrified him.
He was a head - a disembodied cranium
perched on a robotic arm. Flu-ids ran through
micro-fibre tubules into his cortex. The cyberarm rotated around letting Lucifer get a good
look.
“How?”
A technician dressed in a form-fitting work
sheath watched the read-outs on his Stat board.
“Welcome to the Museum of Supernatural
History, Doctor. You are, in fact the 43rd display
we have imagineered since we opened.”
“Museum of Supernatural.. Forty-three you
say? Might I ask where the hell is my body?”
“Sorry, Doctor. Cryogenics of your era,
were… well, screwed to put it mildly. It took
all of the nannites we had on hand just to
reconstruct your brain patterns.”
Lucifer let it all sink in, and as it did a small
tear formed on his cheek. All his plans, fouled
by technology…or perhaps just a lack thereof.
Hmmmm…
“What do you want?”
“Well, I should think that would be quite
obvious by now Doctor -- we want information.
We have a display opening up on The Pistoleer
that His-torical Research is fighting us on. Now
what did you mean by “not quite?”
“So, I’m not alive?”
“Yes, and no Doctor. As long as you stay
10
ASTONISHING ADVENTURES MAGAZINE
hooked up to these tubes, you’ll be fine. You can
think and breathe, after a fashion anyway, and
talk to the public.”
“Public?”
“Yes we have a wonderful display for you.
You’re going to be the hit of the museum. People
from all over the known worlds will come and
look at you, and ask you questions. It will be
wonderful. You will be wonderful.”
“Display?” The word wasn’t so much a
question as a deep seated fear come home to
roost.
The Technician leaned forward and
whispered, “Well of course, that is unless you
fail to cooperate. We wanted to keep your
personality profile in-tact. You are quite the
character you know, and you could make this
mu-seum very unique.”
“Intact… I see,” said the Doctor. He looked
around at all the eager faces waiting on his
every word. He was trapped. After all those
heroes he killed, all those banks looted, all
those giant mutant gorillas he built to ter-rorize
the populace into recognizing his genius. The
infamous Doctor Lucifer was trapped.
Or was he?
“ I killed Ballistic, but of course I had my
fun with him first,” smiled the Doctor. The
Techs’ faces lit up. They consulted their tablets.
“He was a skinny little prick, er kid, and I really
hated that stupid grin on his face. Al-ways
smiling like it’s the happiest thing in the world
to run around in tights and shoot people who are
trying to kill you then go home to play ward to
a retired playboy. Tell me those two weren’t mad
for each other. Of course my intellect was head
and shoulders above them.”
The Doctor let out what may have passed
for a laugh, but ended up sounding more like an
old-style modem connection. The techs frowned
and made notes on their boards. They would
have to fix that.
The Director walked forward and smiled.
“Very good, Doctor. Just the sort of facts to get
the public through the doors.”
“I thought as much. So you must show me
my display case. Only the finest for Doctor
Lucifer and all that…”
“Yes Doctor. I think we could do that.”
Doctor Lucifer thought about it. This
wouldn’t be bad at all. Here it was - the future
- and he had just the head for dealing with it.
Now all he needed were his other appendages.
But all in good time.
“Do you think you could make me a pair
of arms? I present much bet-ter when I make
gestures.”
“Now now, Doctor…don’t go getting any
ideas.”
“You wound me, sir.”
“Mrs H’s Knitting Circle”
11
“Mrs H’s Knitting Circle”
By Mark Caldwell
“
Is that a problem?” The sap felt good in my
hand. It felt good as it connected with the
back of his head.
He’d have surprised me if I’d not smelt the
foreign smoke hanging from his lower lip. I
caught him and lowered him to the floor. I
could hear my mother’s cry echoing from the
past: “Clubbing security guards isn’t lady-like
G! Now go to your room.” Sorry dear Mama,
but Gina is still a tomboy. Now though I’m a
tomboy for the Government. Well - sort of the
Government; I work in the FBI bookkeeping
pool. That became more hazardous when Mrs
H. invited me to her knitting circle.
The gramophone played in the background,
its trumpet covering the bug behind the
painting. The chatter of ladies gossiping and the
rhythmic clatter of needles came from it. Mrs
H. had no intention of her husband finding out
what really went on at her get-togethers with
some of the ladies from his office.
“So G., how are our finances?” asked Mrs H.
“We’re up four percent on last month,
Dorothy. We’ve siphoned more out of the
special projects budget and I’d predict a similar
increase next month, so long as no one goes on a
spree for purses.”
A laugh ran round the group. None of us
were the type to go on a spree for purses or shoes
for that matter. I doubt most of us owned more
than two purses - three at most.
“Excellent. What progress have you made
with the Énigme’s electrician friend?”
“He’s a push over. I flashed Mr Theodore
Sparks an ankle and a smile. He talked. A bit of
a Jekyll-and-Hyde personality. One day he was
a sweet dear, the next he’s acting like a syndicate
tough and two days later he’s in hospital all
banged up like he went the distance with a
heavyweight.”
“Anyone else got any pieces for this jigsaw?”
“I might have something Dorothy,” piped
up Dot, a skinny young thing from archiving.
“The night your friend wound up in hospital
they pulled a group of the usual suspects out of
a car downtown. All of them dead on account
of hitting a brick wall while their car was
upside down and doing an unhealthy turn of
speed. The car belonged to one Dale Hoover,
no relation to your husband, small time hood
known to the MPD. He’s the other man G. saw
with Sparks at The Dark Horse. I slipped him
onto the watched list. He flew down to Mexico
with an unknown blonde. Énigme flew down to
Mexico two days later.”
“28” was what it said by the light of the
flash. My hunch had better be right. With the
guard unconscious I’d not get a second chance.
They’d move everything or tighten security in
hours. I flipped the Wood’s glass filter over the
flash. The number glowed with a strange blue
light: “23”. Bingo! Here was the misplaced
Federal Secure Storage Facility Number Twentythree hiding in plain sight. The door was locked
12
ASTONISHING ADVENTURES MAGAZINE
and the lock looked like it would take a while to
pick and all I’d get from applying brute force was
a bruised shoulder. I checked the guard’s pocket:
bus tickets, a match-book and a pack of Turkish
smokes; change, a revolver, handcuffs and keys.
Trying to be quiet I slipped them one
at a time in the lock. By the third a line of
perspiration formed on my brow. The fourth
one clicked loudly but turned. I opened the
door just enough to slip inside and have a look.
Row upon row of shelves filled the warehouse
from floor to ceiling. Nothing stirred inside,
not even a rat. I dragged the guard inside,
propped him against the wall and thanked my
lucky star he was a scrawny lightweight and not
an eighteen-stone bruiser. I wasn’t taking any
chances though; I handcuffed his wrists together
round a column, locked the door then leant a
fire extinguisher against it.
Keeping to the shadows, I crept along the
shelving till I came to stack Q. Now all I had
to do was find lot three-six-one and get the hell
out of Dodge. I worked my way past lot one
hundred, past a case Dot thought held the Ark
of the Covenant, past two hundred to three
hundred, past three hundred and sixty - a glass
jar holding a gremlin preserved in greening
alcohol still chewing on the length of high
voltage cable. Here was the prize - three hundred
and sixty-one - a small wooden box. It should
hold the jade statue. I lifted it. It felt heavy
enough to be a statue. A small lock held the box
shut; none of the keys on the key ring would fit
it. I pulled a hairpin from my hair and went to
work. Two of the tumblers had moved when I
heard the crash of the fire extinguisher tumbling.
Men’s voices and feet running echoed around.
Looks like G. may be in trouble Mama.
We’d been back and forth over it for almost
three whole discs on the gramophone when Mrs
H. asserted her authority and drew things to a
close.
“Ladies, we’ve been at this from every angle.
We need to know if Énigme got his hands on
the figurine. We need to know if he used it to
hypnotise everyone at the President’s daughter’s
party at the East Room in the White House. We
need to know if he gave something he obtained
to Dale Hoover or if Hoover stole it from him
and that’s why he went after him to Mexico.
Dot, you need to get the records of where that
piece was being kept and anything else that
might help her. Pass them to Tanya through the
usual drop. Tanya, you’re going to check if the
figurine is missing. If it’s not we’re barking up
the wrong alley and we need to find a new alley
to bark up. Now I think we should do some
knitting for appearances’ sake. Tea anyone?”
The feet were almost at the end of stack Q. I
squeezed deep into the shelf between the gremlin
and the wooden cases. Black really is this year’s
new black for cat burglars. I bet I could get Mr
Sparks sparking in this outfit. In the cramped
space I worked at the lock till all five tumblers
gave. I heard feet and voices working through
the warehouse systematically - now some from
my left, some from my right. I flipped the
box open and pulled the packing out. A big,
shapeless, lump of concrete. No figurine. Bingo
Mama!
Now to get out of here. I uncurled. My foot
caught on something. A crash of breaking glass
on the floor. The gremlin-in-a-jar ruined one
last plan. Giving up my attempt to slip quietly
into the night I uncoiled and dropped into the
spreading pool of alcohol on the floor. Men
appeared at the ends of the row. Only one way I
could go – up. I felt cold liquid soaking through
my gym shoes as I climbed. The wet rubber
sole slipped out from under me and I dropped,
catching myself as a bullet cut the air I’d left
empty.
I’d have shot back, but neither Mrs H. nor
Mama would have approved. So I did the only
thing I could: I kept going up. From the top of
the stack I jumped across onto P then N then M.
“Mrs H’s Knitting Circle”
If Dot’s plans were right there would be skylights
above M. I ran along till I saw the moon above
me. The footsteps were close below me. I
jumped up, grabbed a beam and pulled myself
up. I smashed the glass with my flashlight. I
was out onto the roof and running.
There’s a ladder at the North end of the roof,
so I went South. Someone could come up as
easily as I could go down. The roof went up and
down in a series of inverted Ws. At the crest of
each rise I checked over my shoulder. I was on
the final crest when I saw someone behind me.
Seconds later I heard a gun fire twice. I ran on.
No going back. I rushed forward and down. A
foot on the brick parapet, I pushed hard and
leapt for the next roof, eight feet away, praying
no one was waiting to shoot me from below.
My foot made contact. I rolled forward.
Then I was up and off again, leaving my pursuers
behind in the night.
We were idling in the cane chairs in Mrs H.’s
conservatory enjoying the late afternoon sun.
Penelope Kerns from records had been ferreting
away for a week while I’d been busy confirming
the figurine was missing.
“I’ve been running some routine efficiency
tests through the indexing at the INS. It was
easy to slip Dale and his companion in. Dale
stayed in Mexico two weeks then crossed the
border in El Paso on a forged passport. He
vanished but word on the street is that the
syndicate has a contract out on him for unpaid
debts.”
“How about Énigme?” asked Mrs H.
“Not a trace of Énigme since he flew South.”
“And Dale’s companion?”
“The blonde didn’t come back with him.
She was a lot harder to dig out of the system.
So far I’ve got this much. She was going by the
name of Roxie Ryan, working as a singer at a
speakeasy near DC when she hooked up with
Dale. Before that job there are no records of
Roxie. However there was an Angelica French
13
involved in the theft of a bullion shipment from
Johannesburg to London; a Lauren Rollins who
was seen going around with a noted Swedish
chemist for a month and vanished leaving an
open safe, the plans for a secret, metal-refining
process missing and the chemist’s body with a
knife through the heart; a Della Molina who
temped for a shipping firm in San Francisco and
who accidentally directed a large consignment
of specialist mining equipment to China where
it vanished; an Adele Molina who worked for a
shipping company in Liverpool, England, and
misplaced a consignment of munitions on their
way to the British army in Singapore. All of
them match Roxie’s description. There are more
possible candidates in the file - each with a crime
to go with it.”
“This young lady has been systematically
stealing a shopping list from around the world
for at least four years. Why, we don’t know, but
I think we can all see she must be stopped. We
need to know how Énigme fits in. Is it his or her
scheme or are they in it together? Think on that
ladies for next time and while you’re thinking
I’m going to take a trip down to Texas to do
some fact finding for a charity report. Don’t
know which charity yet and I’m going to borrow
Gina from my husband. I’m sure he won’t mind
you coming along to take notes for me. I really
shouldn’t travel alone.”
We’d been down here two days when we got
the tip off we’d been waiting for. A freelance
hood turned up dead in a car out in the
Chihuahuan desert. K. couriered us a copy of
the report: it wasn’t the stuff of pleasant bedtime
reading. He’d been out there a couple of days in
the trunk of his car-turned-coffin-turned-oven.
He’d been shot from behind at close range with
a forty-five. The car was hidden in a gulley
three hundred yards off Route Fifty-Four near
Carrizozo. Footprints led back to the asphalt.
It took a couple of hours flashing the stiff’s mug
shot around and a fifty dollar portrait of the
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ASTONISHING ADVENTURES MAGAZINE
president to a motel manager to track down
where he’d been staying. He’d booked in on the
Sunday, paid for a week in advance but they’d
not seen him since Tuesday.
There wasn’t much of interest in his room.
A case packed with cheap suits, a part read dime
novel, a half-drunk bottle of whiskey, and an
eight-by-ten mug shot of Dale Hoover. On the
back were printed a few pertinent details: height,
weight, age, eye colour, hair colour, known
associates, known hang-outs and the value of the
contract, payable on elimination: five thousand
dollars.
The manager hadn’t seen Dale. We were
almost done for the day when we showed his
picture to a waitress. She’d not seen him but a
trucker wanted a look. He’d picked Dale up a
few miles out of town and dropped him at the
city limits. Dale said his car had broken down
though the trucker didn’t remember passing
any abandoned automobiles on the side of the
highway. That’s when it had gone wrong for our
new friend. Smoke had belched from his rig’s
engine. He’d nursed it to the only mechanic in
Chihuahuans before it gave up the ghost. Less
than an hour later he’d seen Dale driving out of
town heading South fast. He swore blind it was
Dale behind the wheel.
We asked around some more the next day
and found the two-room flop he’d rented. There
the trail went cold again. We went back and
forth at it for a while. Why go South? If he
knew they were close enough on his tail that
a two bit hood got the drop on him he’d be
driving straight into a hotbed of cheap guns
for hire looking for a big pay day. We called
Penelope but he’d not slipped across the border,
at least not legitimately. That left only one
conclusion: going South had been a ruse. We
went North.
Corona, Vaughn, Santa Rosa, Edgewood,
Moriarty and Estancia were dead ends. We’d
got a day left before we’d be catching a flight
back to DC. Our luck changed in Mountainair.
We had breakfast in a diner across from the
railroad station when I saw him walking down
the sidewalk like he didn’t have a care in the
world. We paid for our unfinished breakfasts
and headed outside. He bought a paper from
the stand then went into the ticket office. We
walked in close on his heels. He was buying a
one way ticket to Albuquerque. Mrs H. went to
get us two. I followed him onto the platform. I
was planning on keeping my distance but as I
stepped from the darkness into the harsh New
Mexico sun he was standing right in front of me
looking me straight in the eye.
“What’s your game sister?” he asked, as he
looked me up and down. I went blank. My
mouth went dry. “Come on sister, I ain’t got all
day and I know you and your friend ain’t no pair
of nuns spreading the word of the good Lord.”
I could hear the tracks humming with the
train running in fast in the distance as I paused
too long fumbling for an excuse. “We’re just
getting the train to Albuquerque. Not that it’s
any of your business.”
“Oh it’s my business, babe. It’s been my
business since the pair of you started asking
questions about me in three states. What - you
didn’t think people would tell me? A pair of
high society broads splashing lettuce around
and asking questions about a low life like Mr D.
Hoover by name?”
“I really don’t know what you’re talking
about, Mr Hoover. I’ve never heard of you
before this minute.”
“Well you won’t have a problem with me
watching you and your friend get on that train
then while I stay right here will you? In case you
try anything funny Mr Forty-Five Caliber here is
pointing straight at your sweet self.”
I glanced down, he was holding his paper
in an odd way. It wasn’t worth gambling it was
hiding an automatic. Me and Mrs H. were
getting on that train and there was nothing we
could do about it. It galled me we’d gotten so
close to him and he was going to slip through
“Mrs H’s Knitting Circle”
our fingers. Mama G’s not as smart as she
thought.
I decided playing dumb wasn’t working so I
might as well change tack and see what I could
get out of him.
“So why’d you come back up from Mexico,
Dale?”
“So you know who I am now.”
“Yes and so do a lot of people.”
Rhythmic clickety-clacks joined the hum
from the track.
“You working with the Syndicate?”
“No I’m with the FBI.”
“The FBI using G-Women now?”
“Not officially, but this place is crawling with
law enforcement. So’s the train. I came out here
to see if you’d give yourself up quietly. We know
the syndicate has a price on your head. We’ll
offer you protection if you’ll tell us everything.”
“You think I buy that?”
“Start by telling me what’s happened to the
blonde and Énigme.”
“You really don’t know when to give up, do
you?”
“I’d say the same about you. We found the
body in the car. The lab boys will match the
bullet from his body to your gun. Then it’s a
murder rap for you. So tell me about the blonde
and Énigme and tell me how you shot the guy in
self-defence when he came for you.”
I felt the train pulling in behind me. Doors
opening.
“I already told you, I ain’t telling nobody
nothing.”
That’s when he dropped the paper and
pushed me to one side.
I hit the platform and rolled to one side
losing my purse.
Mr Forty-Five Caliber spoke twice. A guy in
a sharp suit that had big city written all over its
cut crumpled.
Someone behind him stepped back into
the shadows of the carriage. Moments later a
canvas bag smashed through one of the carriage
15
windows. Somewhere nearby a woman was
screaming.
Hoover fired into the train. Maybe he could
see something I couldn’t.
Staying down I tried to see where my purse
was. Everything had happened so fast that my
piece was still in it. It lay at Hoover’s feet. I
decided to raid our funds if I got out of this.
The knitting circle needed shoulder holsters.
A volley of shots came from the carriage.
None of them found their mark but they set
Dale’s feet moving and he started backing down
the platform.
Keeping low I scrambled for my bag.
The clasp jammed. Mama would be having
conniption at my unladylike behaviour.
Another big city hoodlum with a hawkish
nose leant round the door leading with his
revolver. Dale dropped to one knee and fired
three times as the revolver’s rounds went over his
head. The hoodlum fell but he’d drawn Dale’s
attention back to the carriage.
A man shaped more like a great ape emerged
round the front of the locomotive. He’d an ugly
looking lupara in his hand. There was no way
Dale could see him. He was rising to his feet as
the lupara belched two barrels of fire catching
him in the right shoulder.
I felt the catch on my purse snap open.
Blindly I reached inside feeling for my gun’s butt.
Instead I found my compact.
Dale’s right arm hung useless at his side.
He’d dropped Mr Forty-Five Caliber. The
Syndicate’s man put the lupara casually on the
platform and hoisted himself up using his simian
arms.
My fingers closed on something. My
hairbrush.
The suited hominid bent down and picked
up the lupara. Dale sagged to his knees facing
me as the ape walked down the platform. He
was casual, his gun wasn’t even loaded.
I wriggled round in to a classic prone firing
position. Just like my daddy taught me, much to
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ASTONISHING ADVENTURES MAGAZINE
Mama’s consternation when she found out.
Blood was pooling on the platform, his face
turning white as the blood poured from his
wounds.
The ape flipped open the gun’s breach and
reached into his pocket. He pulled two shells
from his pocket and slipped them into the gun.
My fingers found something else. I prayed it
wasn’t my lipstick as I pulled it from the purse.
He was loading the other barrel now.
Theatrically he flipped the gun closed and
pointed it at the back of Dale’s head as he knelt
on the platform in a pool of his own blood.
“Any last words I should pass on to Mr
Cesar, scum?”
I didn’t waste my breath on a quotable line.
Dale was rasping - didn’t look like he had a dying
breath left. I flipped the safety off my point twotwo Caliber and fired.
I didn’t take any chances. I put four in the
ape’s chest and followed up with two more to the
head. He toppled over backwards like a felled
tree with a wooden expression on his face.
No two ways about it, Mama’s going to look
like she’s sucking on a lemon when she finds out
about this.
“OUT OF THE FOG”
17
A Tale of Flench and the Freebooter
“OUT OF THE FOG”
By Matthew P. Mayo
I
:
mucker at the town stables. But that was a long
“What a morning,” Flench grumbled.
time ago. Twenty years and more. He squinted
“Can’t tell a cat from a dog, the fog is that thick.” into the fog. Never had he seen a horse such
No one was yet on the street. With each pulling
as this. Covered though it was with layers of
step, the thick ooze of the narrow lane wormed
creaking, rattling leather and bronze armor, the
between his toes through the holes in his wraps.
hide rippled damp and silver in the close fog of
Surely, no one would begrudge a beggar respite
this already thick day. A war horse? Here?
from the mud at so early an hour. He angled
Despite his fear, he hurried along the walk
toward the higher cobbled walk under the eaves
to keep abreast of it, then when he was afraid he
of the street’s shops.
would lose sight of it where the lane and walk
From just behind, a coughing snort and a
diverged, he stepped from the cobbles and into
gout of warm air slapped Flench’s neck like a
the thick mud of the street once again.
sopping rag. Something stuck, then slid down
The morning mist swirled and parted in
his bony spine. A bloated-carcass stink clouded
gusts like attendant clouds as the horse stopped.
his nostrils. Eyes watering, he crouched and
A massive fist came to rest on the thigh nearest
scrambled for the cobbles.
him. Above it, a battered leather brace, and
As he slapped at the sliding gob of phlegm
above that, a scarred, corded forearm. At with
with his good arm, he gritted his remaining teeth the man’s knee rose the knurled hilt of a sword
and snarled, “By all that’s—”
from beneath layers of leather armor, well within
From what he could see of the beast as it
grasp.
sauntered past, it stood half-again taller than any
Flench’s perpetual gray squint sagged. As he
horse from the village, or indeed from any of the looked up the fog parted to reveal a nearly bare
domains bordering Carana. And the man upon
torso broader than a royal guard’s battle shield.
it, though Flench saw only a lower leg, bared but A large, sheathed dagger dangled from a leather
for mid boots of worn, thick leather and ringed
thong about the man’s neck, and a short cloak of
with protruding nubs of jagged metalwork, must spotted white furs hung from his shoulders. The
surely stand a full two heads taller and half-aman’s head still wasn’t visible, but such a body
man wider than anyone Flench had seen in his
sitting atop the high-cantle saddle was enough to
fifty-two years. The only other man he could
freeze the little man where he stood.
recall of such size was Chancellor Regent Greigle,
“What.”
who at one time had been big and rugged like
The voice seemed to echo off the close
this character, but had since gone big and fat.
buildings. Flench knew it was directed at him
In his youth Flench had spent several years as but he did not know what to say. He looked
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ASTONISHING ADVENTURES MAGAZINE
to the left, to where the horse’s head was still
hidden in the thick mist. Indeed he could barely
see the full height of the animal’s withers. How
big could it be? The hooves, fringed with dark,
mud-matted hair, were like tree stumps sunk in
the ooze of the street.
Flench wanted to scamper from the sopping
lane, but found he could not move. The rank
stink of stale musk, that of a great beast worked
hard and left unwashed, rolled and broke over
him, so strong he could almost see it, taste it,
and he fought the urge to gag.
The horse snorted. The saddle creaked and
popped under the man. “What is this place.”
Again, it was not posed as a question but
a statement. Yet Flench knew it required an
answer. And from him.
He opened his mouth to speak, but it was so
dry. He closed it, swallowed, licked his lips, and
finally said, “This be Carana. Sir.”
After a few seconds, the man sighed and said,
“Then I am not where I want to be.”
The voice, despite its initial tone, was not
unfriendly. Just big. Flench swallowed again and
said, “I expect we none of us are, come to think
on it.”
A grunt greeted the remark. Then, “One
place is as another. I require drink. And meat.”
Flench waited for more but the fist on the
thigh remained immobile. This big fellow had
a way about him that was both interesting and
irritating. Acts like he’s of more value than
he ought, considering he’s a stranger and all,
thought Flench, straightening somewhat. The
horse stepped in place, its flank twitched, its tail
switched. Something about the beast was always
in motion. It occurred to Flench that the man
was waiting for him to respond.
“You’ll want the Brimmin’ Flagon. End of
this street. Tasty brew, they serve there. It’s been
a time since I’ve quaffed it myself, of course.”
He looked down, frowning as if a rat had just
crossed his foot. The man made no response.
Flench brightened and said, “Just beyond is the
village stables. Good place. I used to work there.”
“I’ll see you at this Flagon, then.” The man
heeled the big horse and they walked on, still in
no hurry. Soon they were lost from Flench’s sight
in the thickening mist, the receding sound of the
massive hooves squelching muck the only sign
they had been there.
Flench sighed and said, “Well, if this one
don’t act like lord and master. And we already
have one of those, thank you. Who needs
another?”
He walked on, thinking of the man’s few
words, then stopped and rasped a calloused
hand across his stubbled chin. “Now Flenchy,”
he said in a whisper. “Another one—no, no. But
a different one. … ” Flenchy laughed, working
his bony shoulders higher, and closed his
flapping coat with his good hand. He straggled
through the mud toward the Flagon and soon
disappeared in a swirl of fog.
II:
By the time Flench reached the tavern the
big man had long been dismounted and gone
inside. The giant war horse stood in the street,
one ear twitching, and jets of steam billowing
from its flexing black nostrils. Flench recognized
the stink of its breath. The horse groaned low as
he approached. Flench stopped.
The beast’s ears had slowly flattened back
against its skull. Flench knew it was set to
menace should he venture one step closer. He
did not. He looked about him to warn others,
but what little of the street he could see was
empty. He doubted anyone would dare creep
near the horse, and he was glad its eyes were
shrouded in great cups of black leather, halfconvinced was he that they would gleam red if
looked upon.
A shudder rippled up his back and shook
his thready cloak. He tugged the heavy door
open and stepped inside. As the door thunked
into place he let his eyes adjust to the dark room
before him. It had been a month or more since
“OUT OF THE FOG”
he’d had enough coin to be allowed in. And even
then Shale, the owner and barman, had booted
him out once Flench’s last drop was drained,
offering nothing but a scowl the entire visit.
To think they were once friends. Times had
changed. Still, smiled the old beggar, the stranger
had offered, in a manner of speaking, to buy him
a round. Or two, perhaps.
Given the man’s bulk, it would not be
difficult to spot the stranger, even if the tavern
was not otherwise empty. Flench hadn’t seen
much more of him than his boots, and yet when
he looked on the man, seated aside the cold
hearth with his back to the door, Flench found
the sight of him almost familiar.
The stranger, wide of shoulder and with a
head of straight black hair that covered his neck
and obscured the near side of his face, must have
guessed it was Flench at the door. A burly arm
beckoned the frail man once, then dropped back
to the table, to the bowed handle of a chipped
stoneware flagon.
Flench licked his lips and smiled. A good
start to a poor day. He clumped across the room,
not daring to meet Shale’s gaze. His gimpy leg
dragged a bit as he swung it forward with each
step. He was sure he was leaving mud on the
flagged floor. Good.
He rounded the table and sat across from
the stranger. And got his first look at the man’s
face. It was younger than he expected, and not
unkind. The eyes were dark and the nose scarred
in the middle. He was clean-shaven and there
were small scars low on one cheek. Here was a
brawler. But for all that, the man was young.
Surely he could have seen no more than twenty,
twenty-five years.
“You irritated my steed.”
“You heard that?” said Flench, eyes wide.
“But how? He only grumbled a bit.”
The man, chin down and head bent forward,
looked hard at Flench. A mouth full of even
teeth aligned perfectly behind thin lips, spread
wide in a smile. The action changed his dour
19
appearance like sunlight kills night. “I only
guessed. He is foul most of the time. And since
you are something of a horse man, you would be
curious enough to step close. But not too close.”
Flench relaxed, sawed a hand across his chin,
and stared at the man’s drink. “He is one to
watch.”
The man grunted in agreement and wagged
his hand at the tavern owner, then gestured a
lazy finger toward his new companion. For the
first time, Flench noticed that the man carried
with him not a little of the horse’s strong odor.
He shrugged, knowing how ripe his own smells
must be.
In short order a flagon appeared, but the
tavern owner stared at Flench, distaste sneering
his mouth. A few quiet moments passed, then
the stranger said, “Serve the man.” And that was
all it took.
When the barman had stalked off Flench
thanked his new friend and swallowed fully half
of his drink. He set down the vessel and wiped
his mouth on his sleeve. He should have felt
embarrassed, but he lost that useless trait years
before.
If the stranger noticed Flench’s thirst, he
made no show of it.
“How do you know I know my horses?”
The man upended his drink, gulped, and
belched through nearly closed lips. “Your
curiosity didn’t get the better of you.” He set the
vessel down. “That horse has killed the curious.”
“Was a time I knew my animals. And could
tend them, too. But now. . . . ” He held up
the brittle stick that was his left arm, the hand
clawed and curled into a useless fist. “I’m not fit
for such work. Not for a long time since.”
The man said nothing, offered no indication
that he had heard Flench. Only when a second
flagon for each had been set before them did he
speak.
“How?” He flicked a finger at Flench’s
cradled limb.
The little man regarded him for a moment,
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ASTONISHING ADVENTURES MAGAZINE
then said, “Twenty years or more now, a man as
big as yourself—maybe bigger—came to us. No
one knew from where. Alone he was.” Flench
leaned forward and lowered his voice. “Bold as
day, he rode right up that hill,” he jerked his
head toward the stone wall behind the bar man,
who watched them from the gloom of his corner,
“and killed the old Chancellor Regent.”
Flench sipped his ale. “And he’s been up
there on the hill since. Comes down to tax us,
threaten us, beat us, kill us, steal from us—our
food, our beasts, our children … anything worth
money elsewhere. What he doesn’t use he sends
off on caravans in the night. …” Flench leaned
back and looked at the crippled hand in his lap.
“He beat you.”
Flench barely nodded.
“Did you earn it?”
The old man’s head snapped upward and
for the first time he stared straight into those
dark eyes. “If you think trying to stop him from
stealing my wife is enough to earn me this,” he
held up his arm again. “Or this,” he smacked
his gimpy leg with his good hand, “then yes. I
earned it every time they beat me.” He sank back
into himself. “Finally, I ran out of strength to go
back there.”
“You’re a tough bird. Or they aren’t so very
good at clubbings.” The man smiled again.
“Barman, bring us meat. And bread and cheese.”
He smacked a hand on the table top and the
drinks jumped. So did Flench.
“Where is this woman of yours now?”
“She’s up there. One of his servants.”
“How do you know she’s not long dead?
Twenty years is a long time.”
The little man’s jaw muscles worked and his
face looked as if he just tasted rancid meat. “No.
She’s alive.”
“You aren’t as old as your body tells.”
Flench almost smiled. “The same could be
said of you.”
The food arrived and they both ate without
speaking. Finally the big man angled his bench
and leaned back against the stones of the cold
fireplace.
“She was pretty. This woman of yours.”
Flench nodded. “My friends told me not
to marry a pretty girl. That it would only bring
trouble.”
“Friends are useless.”
Flench could think of nothing to say to this.
He saw the barman watching him and the liquor
emboldened him enough to sneer at the plump
fool.
III:
Chancellor Greigle wagged a hand toward
the sideboard on which rested the steaming pot.
When after a few seconds there was no response
he looked up from the stack of scrolls in front
of him and squinted at the large, thick woman
clearing the table of refuse from the previous
evening’s festivities, when his friends, chief
among them, Olleck, had visited.
“You have grown nearly useless to me. But
you know that, don’t you?”
The woman looked up at him with wide,
angry eyes, at the long, flabbed arm outstretched
from the silk robes, dangling the wagging cup by
its ring. “More kalfa,” he said again, bouncing
the cup off his knuckles as one would a child on
a knee. The plates clattered to the table as she
moved to refill his cup.
“My god, woman, the way you bull through
my home, one would think you owned the place
and its many treasures.”
He whipped his arms upward and yawned
long and loud, pushing back from the table. He
sat watching the woman, his robe having slipped
open. He glanced down at the mass of successive
rolls of hairless bronze flesh jutting from him
and almost touching the table’s edge. He pulled
in with long-buried muscles, hardly noticing the
shifting of the ample flesh. It had been a long
time since he’d seen his own knees. He sighed,
no matter. He still had his height and his virility.
Which proved that just because you couldn’t
“OUT OF THE FOG”
see a thing did not mean it did not exist. He
chuckled and rubbed his face.
He was cool this morning, the fog had not
yet turned sticky. The faintest wisp of violet
and rosewater tickled his nose and he smiled.
It had been a fine bath last evening with two of
the young ones from the village, barely aware
of themselves. They were so new. But oh, such
pleasures he would soon experience from them.
He yawned again and rubbed his palms
against his naked apron of flesh. She stood
by him with the cup, not looking at him. He
wagged his hand toward the table and she
reached across him to set the cup there.
Grinning, nostrils wide as if he’d smelled
something rank, he grabbed her wrist and pulled
her to him. She grunted and pushed against
him with her wrists, as if touching him with her
fingers was repugnant to her. He let her struggle
for a few moments, then pulled her back to him,
keeping her off balance. With her face close, he
nudged her black-gray hair aside and shouted
into her ear. “Do you hear a thing I say?” He
released her and laughed, shaking and slapping
his girth.
“Useless, I tell you.” He sipped the hot brew
and watched her over the rim of the cup. She
piled dishes on others, her ragged hair hanging
nearly to the table.
“You should have done that last night,” he
said, leaning back again. “I don’t know why I
keep you. With every year you grow less helpful.
Less appealing. You aren’t so much use in the bed
any longer, either.”
She brushed scraps of bread and fruit rinds
to the floor, not looking at him.
“Do you know, my friends warned me
against keeping any servant about the place too
long. They get to know you too well, they said.
Learn things about you, they said. But still I
kept you on.” His face brightened and he leaned
forward. “Do you know what Olleck said?”
She ignored him, her raw, red hands moving
nimbly amidst the mess of the tabletop.
21
“ ‘Never trust something you have struck,’ he
said. I find that curious. ‘Dog, child, horse—no
matter. It will always turn on you,’ he said. ‘Of
course,’ I told him. But a woman? I wonder.” He
sipped his kalfa, watching her through narrowed
eyes.
IV:
“How far from here is Aldona? It’s a market
town.” The big man was looking at him now, his
massive arms folded across his chest. The skin
cloak across his shoulders had no doubt looked
better. It hung in tatters and fur was worn away
in patches. Still, Flench hadn’t seen such muscled
arms in a long time.
“I’m not sure I’ve ever heard of the place.
It must be far if I’ve never heard of it.” After a
moment of silence, Flench said, “Why do you
ask?”
The stranger looked as though he wanted to
punch Flench, then his features softened. “A man
there owes me money.”
Flench was quiet a moment, his lips pursed,
then he leaned over the table and said, “A
fortune?”
The man snorted a burst of laughter, big
and full. He rumbled with it. The tavern keeper
looked up briefly from doing nothing.
“You are an irritating little man. But I like
you.” The stranger breathed in deep through his
nose. “No, not a fortune. But enough to keep
me from starving until I find a way to steal a
fortune.”
“You are a freebooter. I knew it.” Flench felt
stronger somehow. His jaw stuck out and he
smacked the gouged wood of the tabletop with
an open hand. He felt more like a man than he
had for quite some time. “That big bastard up
there in the keep on the hill is sitting on lots of
money.” He squinted at the stranger. “More than
a fortune.”
The stranger returned the look, not
moving. Flench leaned in over the table and
said, “And nobody likes him. He’s robbed us
22
ASTONISHING ADVENTURES MAGAZINE
all. We have nothing left. The same for all the
villages hereabouts. Oh, this is bountiful land,
but our labors only benefit Chancellor Regent
Greigle. For miles and miles there is nothing but
poverty.” He spat the words, then leaned back
himself, comfortable in his rage.
It must have been the grog, for after a few
minutes of silence, Flench couldn’t help himself.
“You know,” he said, leaning forward again.
But the big man no longer seemed interested in
Flench. He looked around the dim room, but
the little man knew he was listening.
“You look familiar to me,” continued Flench.
He swallowed and steeled himself. “You look like
you could be the son of the Chancellor Regent.
The heir to a mighty fortune. … ”
A low, menacing noise, like that of the
horse, rose from the man’s throat. Then his face
softened and he said, “What is it you want to
believe, old man?”
“I want. … ”
The big man laughed again. It was a loud,
rolling noise, and he leaned forward, poking a
thick finger at Flench’s face. His voice was low,
even, like steel grinding against smooth stone.
“You want your past returned to you, old man,
and that cannot be given. Except by madness.
Or perhaps death.” He smiled and drummed his
massive scarred hands against the rippled muscles
of his bronze stomach. The sheath knife hanging
from a thong about his neck jiggled in place, and
the leather braces on his forearms creaked in the
gloom of the dim tavern.
Flench felt the ember deep in his gut
grow faint, then cold. What a fool he’d been.
Once again. He nodded, almost as if he were
agreeing with some private thought. His mouth
slipped back to its accustomed frown. He didn’t
even look up when the man stood, the bench
squawking against the worn flags of the floor.
“Come now, old man. You clearly wish
I were someone I am not. And I wish I was
someone rich.”
Flench stared at the withered hand in his lap.
He heard clinking, then two coins dropped
to the table and settled amid the crumbs and
drops of sloshed ale. The stranger stood there
and sighed, then big hands squashed flat against
the worn wood and he leaned toward Flench,
close enough that Flench could smell the man’s
own odor mingle with the grog fumes on his
breath. After a moment the man spoke, low and
even. “Come outside.”
Flench looked up, but the stranger was
halfway to the door.
Not daring to meet the glare of the barman,
Flench rose, stuffed into his coat pocket what
crusts, cheese rind, and drying scraps of meat
and fruit remained on the platter, then shuffled
to the door. By the time he made it out there,
the stranger was settled in the massive wood and
leather saddle. He nudged the horse and its great
hooves squished and squelched in the muck of
the street as it backed up even with Flench. They
stood a moment like this, then the stranger said,
“Point the way.”
Flench stood still, unsure if he heard
correctly. Then he raised his good arm and
extended a finger past the horse’s long head, up
the rising cobbled road leading out of town. “Up
there. At the top of the hill. You can’t miss it.”
The stranger nodded, staring ahead, not
moving.
“If only I had known you then. … ” said
Flench.
The big man laughed and shook his head. “I
am here now.”
Flench watched for a long while as the
massive man and horse, together as if one
creature, walked slowly up the hill that led to
the fortified home high atop. It was only when
he lost sight of the stranger in the distance
that Flench noticed the fog lifting and the sun
burning through. Surely, such a morning held
promise.
“OUT OF THE FOG”
V:
“There was a time when you weren’t so
hideous. There was a time when thoughts of
your body kept me from my work.” Greigle grew
silent then, his eyes staring at something beyond
the fog that drifted in from the open balcony, the
gauzy orange curtains lifting and falling with the
lightest of breezes.
He grunted and his face resumed its lined
scowl. “Now look at you,” he said. “Useless.”
“Do I not always take care of your
problems?” she said, not looking up.
“Ahh, today she dares speak to me.” He
watched her jawline harden, her hands swat at
the wood surface of the table, batting crusts out
of the way, clunking glasses, tossing cutlery in
a pile. She was an angry thing today. “So that is
what this is about. Another ‘problem’ has arisen?
Need I remind you they are not my concern.
They are the little girls’ problems. Happily, they
eventually prove profitable.” He sighed. “At least
the little boys don’t have such problems.”
“No. But they grow up to make them.” Her
voice was hard, cold.
He leaned back, his chair creaking, the rolls
of flesh thickening about his neck. “Can I help
it if I, once a mighty warrior, am now a fine
gardener, too?” His sudden laughter was deep
and rolling, a full belly shaker.
She faced him, anger marking her lined face,
her jaw muscles hardened. The wet rag hung
dripping from her clenched hand. She looked as
though she might speak, but turned away.
“Sometimes problems never really go away,
do they?” he said. “If allowed, they linger …
for ten, twenty, even twenty-two years!” He
extended his large pink hands toward her as if
presenting her to a crowd.
“But most of them just go away,” she said
in a whisper, stepping toward the open window.
She craned her head forward, almost ignoring
him. “But sometimes they come back.”
“What do you see?” He shifted in his chair.
He didn’t really want to rise just yet.
23
After a moment she turned back to him
and said, “Nothing I have not seen before.” She
looked in his eyes and smiled—smiled!—for the
first time in a long, long time. And in that smile
he almost saw the young, beautiful thing she had
once been. The one he had plucked from the
muck of the village and brought to live here with
him so long ago. Those were grand times. Until
her own problem had made itself known. And
afterward, still he kept her about the place. Yes,
he was a good man, all in all.
She left the dirty dishes on the table and
hurried from the room, her laughter—she
laughed!—the perfume of her youth, trailed
behind like soft water over smooth stones.
He looked after her, puzzled, and decided
he would never understand her. Perhaps Olleck
was right. It was time to let her go. She had been
with him far too long. She herself had become a
problem. A fully grown problem.
He grunted and closed his robe. Tomorrow,
he decided. Tomorrow she goes. He sipped his
kalfa and opened another tax scroll. The figures
were most impressive. Richer than ever, he
noted, smiling. It was proving to be a decent
morning, after all. Full of promise.
The slow clatter of a horse’s hooves on
cobbles rose to him from the courtyard below.
And from somewhere deep in his great house
echoed the fruity sound of a woman’s laughter.
24
ASTONISHING ADVENTURES MAGAZINE
An Alt.World Story
“The Dame Wore a
Tesseract”
By Geoffrey Thorne
G
ray didn’t like guns. They were heavy, oily,
clunky things that tended to put holes in
people he cared about.
He wasn’t sure he actually cared about the
red draped dame currently clutching his arm
in terror but he was dead sure he didn’t want
anybody airing her out before he found out what
her deal was.
“I think someone’s trying to kill me,” she’d
said in that hot breathy thing she called a voice.
Then she’d turned her head to hide a tear while
at the same time affording him a view of her
ample cleavage that would have made a seeingeye dog walk through a plate glass window.
Gray just smiled.
She looked like a high-end little number,
the talk of the society pages, but there was some
grit under those cherry colored nails if Harris
Gray was any judge. And she was familiar too,
now that he thought of it. It was like they had
some kind of history together that he couldn’t
remember.
She was good, whoever she was, that was the
point. Even though there was obviously more
going on with her than she wanted to spill,
Gray had the feeling that getting to the heart of
her matter would dig up the goods on his own
situation.
That situation got a little less murky with
each passing second. He was from someplace
else. Another country? Another city? He wasn’t
sure yet but it wasn’t here. As familiar as these
environs were, he could feel in his bones
that they weren’t exactly his. He was a cop or
something in that other place. He had a partner,
a woman, he thought, who went from place to
place with him setting right what somebody had
put wrong. There was definitely more to it but
that was the gist.
“Well,” he said in the kind of low rumble
that made girls knees weak and guys make way.
“We can’t have that, can we?”
He was just about to get down to brass
tacks with her when the gunsels and, more
importantly, the widowmakers they toted, came
pounding up the stairs to his office.
“Let’s get you out of here,” he told the Dame
as the two silhouettes appeared in the smoky
glass window of his office door.
In the second it took him to grab her and his
trench coat, he realized she’d never make it down
the fire escape in stilettos that high. The only
other option was the closet.
She let out a little squeak as he whipped
the door open and shoved her in with the dusty
moose bust and the golf clubs he never used.
“Quiet,” he hissed as he shut her in. “Let me
handle this.”
He shut off her protest with the click of the
door just as two of the biggest gorillas he’d ever
seen kicked their way into his digs. The gats
looked like toys in their big meaty hands but
Gray knew they meant business.
“You Gray?” said the one who looked
more like an orangutan than a gorilla.
“Who wants to know,” said Gray, making
“The Dame Wore a Tesseract”
a show of hanging his trench back on the ancient
coat rack.
Suddenly there was a ring of cold steel
pressed hard into his throat– the nozzle of a very
competently made Tommie gun. Gray froze,
letting the trench flap in his hand.
“Crack wise with us, flatfoot, and you’ll
be whistling out the side of your neck,” said the
one that looked more like a gorilla. “Get it?”
“Got it,” said Gray.
“Good.”
The gat receded slightly but the apes
closed in.
“We got a message for you, Gray,” said the
first one.
“Something simple, I bet,” said Gray.
Ape Number Two cracked him across the
jaw hard enough to let him know that a break
was in his future if he kept up the smart guy act.
“The Boss wants to see you,” said Ape
Number One.
“And the Boss is…?”
“Maxie Sparks,” said the ape.
“Never heard of him,” said Gray. It was a
lie. He knew the name and felt he should know
more, considering the little chill it sent through
him. He just couldn’t match the handle with a
face or a rep. Not yet.
“Yeah, well, he’s heard of you,” said Ape
Number Two. “He wants to see you.”
“Guess I want to be seen then, don’t I?”
“Believe it, smart guy,” said Ape Number
One. “Two o’clock at the Chateau Noir. You
know it?”
“I read the papers,” said Gray.
The Noir was a gin mill masquerading as
a short order restaurant just on the edge of the
city’s bowery. It was the kind of place the lowlifes
went to get a taste of the highlife and the society
set stepped down to get some mud on their
spats. It was also the sort of joint where you
could catch a bullet if you didn’t stay sharp.
“Don’t be late,” said Ape Number One,
moving out of the little office.
25
“Yeah,” said his partner, following.
“’Cause if you’re late, you will be late. As in The
Late Halo Gray.”
“That’s Harris,” said Gray, irritated, but
he wasn’t quick enough. The gorillas were already
halfway down the stairs, well out of earshot.
“Guess you don’t have time for me
anymore,” said a voice that made Gray think of
purring cats.
He turned to find the dame peeling
herself out of his closet and, it seemed to him,
nearly out of the too-tight skirt she wore.
The hem was caught on the rusty hinge
of the closet door, dragging it a little down
and exposing just a hint of the porcelain flesh
beneath.
Red garters, thought Gray. Nice.
“Nix,” he said aloud, deftly flicking the
hem free of its entanglement. “For a doll like
you, I always make time.”
She wouldn’t give her name– apparently
answering to Doll or Babe was jake with her–
but she was quick with directions to what she
considered a safer place for them to talk.
“You seem to attract a lot of attention,”
she said as he escorted her to his car.
“No problem,” he said. “It’s your dime.”
She had him take her out somewhere
along the coast, up into those hills the lower
classes always thought of as mere backdrops
for their day-to-day dramas but which were in
fact home to the authors of not a little of their
misery.
The Rich clustered in the hills above the
city like fat self-satisfied dragons, crouched on
their ill-gotten hoards of gold.
On the way she told him a little of her
troubles– that she’d been followed by men in
dark suits and automobiles, that she’d received
mysterious phone messages threatening her if she
didn’t accede to the caller’s demands.
“What do they want?” said Gray, now
actually interested beyond the desire to cash the
26
ASTONISHING ADVENTURES MAGAZINE
check she’d be giving him for the time spent.
“I better let the doctor tell you.”
“And who’s the doctor,” said Gray.
“He’s my boss,” she said as if that was the
only answer he needed.
After that there was silence between them,
which was okay with Gray. He was fine taking in
the scenery both inside the car and out. It wasn’t
every day you chauffeured a bombshell like this
right past an honest-to-gosh castle complete with
moat. That was the hills for you: a hotbed of
eccentricity fueled by cash.
Judging by the ease of her “turn here’s” and
“it’s just a little farther’s” Gray could tell the
Dame was right at home.
Good, he thought. At least I’ll get paid.
He also began to feel a need to make a
phone call that he couldn’t explain.
The house was not what he expected.
It wasn’t as big as the others they’d passed, nor
nearly as posh. It was made mostly of bricks that
were the same color as the Dame’s ensemble.
There was a row of tall windows in the front,
blocked by drapes of similar hue. There was a
thick oak door with a big brass knocker in the
center and a bigger handle on the right.
Instead of the sturdy brick and iron
constructions favored by the surrounding estates
these grounds were ringed around by a massive
but otherwise commonplace hedge.
No gate, thought Gray as the car passed
through the only break in the greenery. Trusting
souls.
The road leading up to the front door
wasn’t even paved– just a dirt thing of the kind
farmers might prefer but which the rich would
never cotton.
“This place has been in the family for
generations,” said the Dame as if guessing his
thoughts. “The Doctor likes it this way.”
“What kind of doctor is he, anyway?”
said Gray. “Tell me that at least.”
“Not the going-to kind, if that’s what
you mean,” she said as the car came to a stop.
“He does experiments.”
“Yeah,” said Gray as he watched the
Dame shimmy out of her seat. “I’ll bet he does.”
“Doctor?” she said as the door opened
into the shadowy house. Gray’s hand was on the
steel in his coat pocket as soon as she saw that
her key hadn’t been necessary. The door was
already slightly ajar.
“Easy, sister,” he said, moving past her.
“I’ll take it from here.”
He might not like guns but he wasn’t
stupid enough to think you could get by in this
town without one.
He slid into the house like a ghost,
moving silently from room to room, ready to put
at least six holes in anything that wasn’t on the
up and up.
“Okay,” he said after a time. “Looks clear
in here.”
The Dame followed in his footsteps with
saucer-wide eyes, taking in the wreck that had
clearly once been a really choice set of digs.
“There’s been a break-in,” she said in a
near whisper.
“Yeah,” said Gray, sliding the gun back
into his pocket. “What was your first clue?”
In fact somebody had done a hell of a lot
more than just rob the place. From the smashed
furniture and the craters in the walls, you’d think
a war had been fought inside the house.
Somebody had come here looking for
something, hadn’t found it, and had taken out
their displeasure on the heirlooms. Gray said as
much and asked what the hell was going on.
“You think I know?” said the Dame,
aghast.
“More than me,” said Gray. “So check
the place out, if you want. See if your boss is
hiding in some nook somewhere. But, when you
get back, you spill. Okay?”
She nodded and drifted off into the
house.
“The Dame Wore a Tesseract”
Gray found the only chair with all its legs
still intact, sat and checked his watch. He still
had a good hour and a half before the meeting
with Maxie Sparks, plenty of time to sniff
around the doctor’s place.
He cast around ground zero, once the
parlor or dining room, he guessed, before its
destruction. Now just a scrap yard.
He noticed a black cord running along
a nearby baseboard and smiled. There should be
a phone at one end and he still had that urge to
make a call.
He even had a number suddenly in his
mind.
“That you, Gray?” said a voice over a
hurricane of static. “What the hell’s going on?
Why are you on the failsafe line?”
“Who’s this?” said Gray, feeling he
should know. He gave the receiver a shake,
hoping it would clear the static. It didn’t.
“It’s Dyson,” said the voice. “Wipe those
cobwebs away, Agent. We have a situation on our
hands.”
Gray didn’t like this guy’s tone and
said so. What kind of screwball twist had he
wandered into anyway?
“Gray,” said Reinhardt. “I want you to
listen closely. We don’t have much time.”
“Less than you think, pal,” said Gray.
“Unless you start talking sense.”
“Gray,” said the voice. “What is the
sound of one hand clapping?”
When Harris Gray heard those words it
was as if someone had popped a cork somewhere
in his mind. Suddenly his life, his real life, came
rushing back to him like the hot sting at the end
of a right cross.
He was from somewhere else. He was
from somewhere so else it would make Oz and
Wonderland depressingly mundane. He was a
Cleaner for the Altworld Organization and he
was back on the clock.
“Sorry, Sub Director,” he said once he
27
was himself again. “Memories got scrambled
when I rezzed into my dupe.”
“This one’s a cop or something, right?”
Gray could tell from Dyson’s voice that the older
man was skimming the operation specs as they
spoke.
“He’s a private detective,” said Gray.
“You always get lucky that way, don’t
you, kid?”
Gray shrugged, knowing his superior
couldn’t see. Cleaners moved from reality
to reality by inhabiting the bodies of their
counterparts in the billion variations of the
planet Earth that made up this corner of the
multiverse. Was it his fault that on most of
those worlds his counterparts had a head for law
enforcement?
“Is Agent Maguane with you?”
Gray thought about the Dame, listened
to her knocking around in the recesses of the
house. He thought about all those curves, the
way she filled out that dress. Hard to believe
tough little Kat Maguane was somewhere in
there but it wasn’t unlikely.
You mixed your quanta with whatever body
was compatible from Alt to Alt. Sure, a lot of the
time, when you arrived in a new world, you did
take over your own counterpart’s body. Mostly
though you played the lottery. Hell, you were
lucky if you got to keep your original gender six
times out of ten.
The Dame could be Maguane. She was the
right size; she had the right stare but, all those
curves…
It wouldn’t do any good to just come out and
ask her. She was probably in the same boat he’d
occupied before making contact with Dysonscrambled marbles.
Sometimes borrowing an alternate body
jumbled the memories until they were like raw
eggs running through a sieve.
Gray’s mind was back to normal but
Maguane would need to hear her own code
phrase before pulling herself together.
28
ASTONISHING ADVENTURES MAGAZINE
“Possible,” he said. “I got somebody with
me who’s a good candidate.”
“Well, give her the trigger and get her
on the clock,” said Dyson. Even over the static
Gray could hear relief creeping into his superior’s
voice. “You’ve got to get this thing under control
fast.”
“Let’s hear it,” said Gray.
“You’re in a Null, Gray,” said Dyson.
“And that is…?” the fog, though thinning,
was still present in his mind, making it easy
to recall the things he should know but not to
actually dredge them up on his own.
“A null,” said Dyson, “is an Alt with nothing
in it that could possibly attract the Furies.”
A hodge-podge of ugly images flashed
through Gray’s mind– trans-dimensional
mechships, shatterballs, soul benders and billions
of other horribly lethal devices culled from a
trillion conquered realities– shape-shifting
agents using guile and brutality to grind those
Realities into submission– the Furies. Gray hated
them like the cancer they were.
“Someplace the Furies would never go?”
said Gray. “Sounds like heaven to me.”
“We use the nulls for safe houses and
arms dumps, Gray,” said Dyson. “We set up our
own people, undercover, to do research or make
exchanges we don’t want the Furies getting wind
of.”
“I’m not liking the direction this is
going,” said Gray. Somewhere above him the
sound of the Dame’s clunking around stopped.
“One of our people, Dr. Adam Belanoff,
was stationed in that Null because of some
sensitive research he was doing,” said Dyson. “If
his process is successful we might have a new
weapon to use against the Furies.”
“Powerful, I’m guessing,” said Gray,
suddenly distracted.
“How does being able to bring magical
weapons into thermodynamic realities sound to
you?”
“It sounds- it sounds.” Something
scraped against Gray’s left heel, drawing his
attention down. There was a small metallic
square wedged between him and the wall. Still
trying to wrap his mind around what Dyson had
said, he bent to pick up the offending object.
“We lost contact with Dr. Belanoff
yesterday,” said Dyson.
“Mm-hm,” said Gray, distracted. The metal square was a picture frame. The
glass had been smashed out but the photo itself–
that of a youngish, dark-haired man in glasses
with the beginnings of a puckish grin on his
face– was still intact.
Was that Dr. Belanoff?
“Gray,” said Dyson’s staticky voice.
“Damn it, man, stay focused.”
“You think the Furies pinched the Doc,”
said Gray, snapping to. “You want me and
Maguane to sniff out where they stashed him
and get him back.”
“Yeah, that’s the gist,” said Dyson. “But
there’s something else.”
“Who were you talking to down there?”
said the Dame when Gray found her. She was
on the second floor, in another of the destroyed
rooms, on her knees, leafing through the slew of
paper that covered the place like snow.
She looks like a Madonna, thought Gray,
taking her in. A smoking hot, blood-colored
Madonna.
It was weird seeing her that way,
knowing that, despite the curvy package, she
was really just his junior partner, Agent Katerin
Maguane. No wonder he’d found her so familiar
when she’d walked into his office.
“A friend,” said Gray coming close.
“Forgot I was supposed to call him earlier.”
“Nothing deadly, I hope,” said the Dame.
“Nah,” said Gray. “He wanted advice on
a gift for his wife. Perfume.”
“Sweet,” she said. “And he expects you to
help with that?”
“We’re close.”
“The Dame Wore a Tesseract”
“What did you tell him?” she said.
“I said I’d always been partial to Twilight
Time.”
Just as Gray had done when Dyson
spoke his code phrase, the Dame stiffened at the
sound of hers. Reality hopping could scramble
the brain and it helped for Cleaners to have a
post-hypnotic trigger or two to bring them back
to themselves.
The change in her demeanor was
dramatic. Where at first she had been little more
than a collection of curves and carnal promises
now she was all angles and hard edges. Hell, she
looked almost naked without a weapon in her
hand.
“You’ve got to be kidding me with these
heels,” she said finally.
“Welcome back, Maguane,” said Gray.
“That you, Gray?”
“In the flesh, kid.”
“Kid?” she said, gesturing expansively
at her hourglass figure that had to have been
poured into the red-on-red ensemble. “I don’t
think a kid should even be allowed to look at
something like this.”
“Roll with it, Maguane, we’re on the
clock,” he said.
“So we’re in deep again,” she said.
“You don’t know the half of it,” he said.
“Rogues?” she said as they gave the house
a final once-over. She’d suggested they collect the
Doctor’s scattered papers. The calculations and
formulae were gibberish to them but, maybe one
of the tech heads at HQ could make sense of
them. “What’s a Rogue?”
“Ex Cleaners,” he said and held up
another pair of heels. She frowned.
“Nothing over two inches, Gray,” she
said. “Come on.”
“Every once-in-awhile,” he continued,
“we lose one to the other side or, worse, they just
go into business for themselves.”
“How does something like that happen?”
29
“Cleaners get to see the multiverse,
Maguane. They get to go places and do things
most people can’t even dream about,” he said.
“It’s heady. Sometimes people give in to the
temptation to take something or kill someone
because none of it seems real anymore.”
“Or they get hooked on the rush,” she
said, finally settling on a pair of black pumps she
could live with.
“Exactly,” he said, clearly happy the
shoe excavation was done. “Dyson thinks we’re
dealing with a Rogue pack.”
“Why?” she said, sliding on the left shoe.
“Think about it,” he said. “This place is
invisible to the Furies. Something about it keeps
the people here from getting past some version
of the 1930’s. But somebody was tailing Dr.
Belanoff, somebody was threatening you– uh,
Belanoff’s assistant.”
He had to remind himself that Maguane
hadn’t lucked into having an analog for herself
in this reality. She had been forced to share her
quanta with a native: the Dame.
“And you think it’s these Rogues and not
Furies?”
“It’s the same thing,” he said. “In fact
it’s worse. The Furies are monsters but at least
they’re loyal to each other; they have a code.
Rogues only care about collecting wealth
for themselves and they don’t lose a wink if
somebody gets hurt on the way to a payday.”
She pulled on the right shoe and
stopped, giving him a strange appraising sort of
look.
“That sounded almost personal, Gray,”
she said. “Something you’re not telling me?”
“Yeah,” he said. “My ex-partner is one of
them.”
Every rookie Cleaner knew Chasis
Verdent’s resume- multiply decorated, crack shot,
tireless combatant, master tactician. Her rep was
nearly as impressive as Gray’s own. But, while
Gray was still in the field fighting the good fight
30
ASTONISHING ADVENTURES MAGAZINE
against the Furies, Verdent’s name was on the
Wall of Lost Agents.
Trainees got her story as a cautionary tale
about the costs of overconfidence. Everyone
assumed lost, in her context, meant Killed in the
line.
“Not killed,” said Gray, when the Dame–
Maguane, damn it¬– told him her version of
Verdent’s story. “But she’s dead to me.”
They sat quiet for a while then as the car
made its way out of the hills and back down to
the city.
Sundown Avenue was thick with people
coming and going from the shops and movie
theatres that lined either side. On one level the
whole thing was maddeningly familiar– The
Dynasty movie house here, Tipley’s Museum
of Unbelievable Events there– each building a
variation of the ones he knew from the Earth of
his home Alt world.
Only the color scheme was
disconcerting. While all the people were dressed
in the expected variations of hue usually found
on a busy city street, the street itself existed
only as permutations of gray. It was a strange
architectural quirk but not the weirdest one he’d
seen in his travels.
A soft buzzing intruded into his reverie and
he realized his partner was talking to him.
“Come again?” he said.
“The drill,” she said. “Where are we
going?”
“I’m going to my meeting with Maxie
Sparks,” said Gray. “You’re waiting in the car.”
“Gray,” she began to protest. He shot her
a dark look.
“By the book, Maguane,” he said. “We
go with the flow of the place we’re in. Sparks
wants to see me, not you. If I don’t come back,
you find Belanoff on your own and finish the
job.”
“By the book,” she said but it was clear
from her expression she’d rather write her own
edition.
“You’re on time, Gray,” said the
sharkskin-covered tub of guts at the end of the
bar. “I like that.”
Maxie Sparks, local mob boss and all around
square G had a taste for the good life that he
displayed at every possible moment. He drank
champagne when everybody else was slugging
beer, draped himself in Darby Street originals
when Made in Americana would do, even kept a
sweet little pearl handled .45 in the holster under
his left arm.
“You wanted to see me,” said Gray,
taking a seat at the bar’s far end.
Behind him, flanking the door and, in
theory, blocking any hasty retreats, stood the two
apes who’d delivered Maxie’s invite.
“Yeah,” said Maxie, snapping his fingers
and running a hand through his pomaded hair.
“We got business, whether you know it or not.”
“If you say so,” said Gray, looking as
non-committal as possible.
Maxie laughed. Somebody appeared
and handed him a tall thin flute of something
sparkly.
“I do say so,” said Maxie. Then, to the
Apes, “See that? That’s the right attitude for
business.” He took a languid sip form his glass,
stood and moved down to the stool beside Gray.
“Doctor B had a good business attitude too. Me
and him had an arrangement.”
“Doctor B?” said Gray. “Am I supposed
to know who that is?”
“Come on, Gray,” said Maxie. “I know
the Doc’s little lab rat came to see you. My boys
have been on her since the war started.”
“The war?” said Gray.
“Jeez, you don’t make it easy, do you?”
said Maxie. “The war between my outfit and
Cranzetti’s crew. It’s mostly a misunderstanding.”
“Wars usually are,” said Gray.
“The boys tailed her to your place where
they lost her,“ he shot the apes a poison look.
“The Dame Wore a Tesseract”
“But she could only have been there about
one thing. The Doc’s gone and she don’t know
where.”
“Let’s say he is,” said Gray. “What makes
you think this Cranzetti’s got anything to do
with it?”
“Cranzetti ain’t playing by the rules, see,”
said Maxie, suddenly dour. “He’s getting help
from some outside organization. Knocking over
pieces that ain’t in play.”
“Yeah,” said Gray. “I’m still waiting on
the part where this has something to do with
me.”
“The Doc, Gray,” said Maxie. “The Doc
was one of mine, okay. We had a deal where he
would whip me up some of them future-static
tinker-toys of his and I would keep not breaking
his legs.”
“Tinker-toys?” said Gray. “Future-static?”
Maxie smiled and pulled something out
of his vest about the same size and shape as a
pocket watch. Gray watched as he flipped up the
lid, tapped whatever was hidden inside and then
was suddenly sitting at a table on the far side of
the bar.
In the time it took Gray to notice the
shift, Maxie was suddenly sitting beside him
again, looking like a bear who’d just chowed
down on some unwary campers.
“Ain’t that a scream?” said Maxie.
“Bet you’re the life of the party,” said
Gray and, without thinking, reached out to
touch the weird device.
“Ah-ah. No touchee,” said Maxie,
snapping it shut quick and shoving it back into
his pocket. “That’s what you call me investing
in my future. Gotta think ahead, y’know.
Otherwise the sharks dig in.”
“Huh,” said Gray dryly. “Guess the Doc’s
got the same philosophy.”
“Hey,” said Maxie, seemingly wounded
by Gray’s disdain. “Did I beg the guy to lose all
that money in one of my joints? Did I tell him to
run up markers all over town?”
31
“So Belanoff’s in your pocket,” said Gray.
“Still not seeing how that links up with me.”
“The Cranzetti’s pinched him, Gray,” said
Maxie as he downed the last of his drink. “Them
and their out-of-town buddies. They know that’s
against the rules.”
“Look, Maxie,-“
“Mr. Sparks,” said Maxie. “You and me
ain’t close enough for Maxie, yet.”
“Mr. Sparks,“ said Gray, looking the
larger man directly in the eye. “Tell me what you
want from me or tell these monkeys of yours to
mess me up. All this winding around the point is
getting me dizzy.”
Maxie set the glass down on the bar and
sighed.
“Get the Doc back from the Cranzetti’s
for me and I’ll pay you twice your day rate,” he
said after a time.
“There,” said Gray. “Was that so hard?”
“You’re kidding,” said his partner when
he rejoined her in the car.
“Nope,” said Gray, starting the engine
and getting some distance between them and
The Chateau Noir. “Sparks and Belanoff are in
business.”
He then related Maxie’s little floorshow
with the “pocket watch,” eliciting a low whistle
from his partner.
“What do you think it is?” she said.
“Who knows?” said Gray. “Portable tesseract?
Trans D invector? I’m no techhead. Howcum
you didn’t tell me he’d been handing out A Level
tech like Halloween candy?”
“Hey, it’s not my fault,” she said testily.
“Sure, I knew he liked to gamble but I never
figured he’d break the Alt Organization’s canon
to make good on his debts.”
“All right, “ said Gray. “Let it drift. In a
way this actually helps us.”
“Oh, yeah,” she said. “How’s that?”
“Now we know where he is.”
32
ASTONISHING ADVENTURES MAGAZINE
The one upside of hopping around
the realities was, once the disorientation wore
off, Gray had access to any information his
counterpart or host might have known before
their quanta mingled.
Apparently this reality’s Gray had a
pretty good working knowledge of all the local
mobsters and their various hangouts.
In this case that meant Gray did know
exactly where to go to look up one Angelinico
“Gino” Cranzetti. He knew but he wasn’t happy
about it.
Florence Beach was well south and well
west of both the bowery and Sundown Ave.
Unlike Maxie Sparks, who, despite his personal
affectations, was content to have most of his
operation hidden well behind the scenes, Gino
Cranzetti was as up front as they came.
Florence Beach was more like a wellarmed slice of Old Sicilia, transplanted to the
Americanan West. It took Gray a good two
hours to get his car to Cranzetti central without
being tagged.
“Nice digs.”
“Yeah,” said Gray, looking up at the
expansive two-story hacienda. “Heaven on
Earth.”
“I think they call it Terra Firma in this
Alt.”
“They can call it Mud for as long as we’re
staying,” he said.
He leaned across her, flipped open the
glove box and withdrew what looked like a
few extra clips for his .38. In reality a disguised
quantum disrupter, standard issue Cleaner
ordnance.
“Ok,” he said, getting out of the car.
“When I get the Doc out–“
“Hey, wait just a minute,” she said.
“You’re not leaving me out here again.”
“Sure, I am,” said Gray absently scanning
the wall around the Cranzetti compound for a
quick way over.
“I don’t think so, Gray,” she said, joining
him in the alley. “You need me in there.”
“No,” he said. “If this goes south,
somebody’s got to get the Doctor’s notes to HQ.
That’s you.”
She looked like she wanted to protest.
Actually she looked like she might burst out of
her blouse at any second. Eventually, perhaps
seeing the wisdom of his plan, she nodded.
“You got anything I can put them
in?” she said. “A briefcase or a mail bag or
something?”
“Check the trunk.” He tossed her the
keys. “Keep the motor hot.”
He slipped easily past all six of the guards
on the compound’s west side and made a beeline for the main house. Through one of the
massive windows he set eyes on the object of his
search.
Dr. Belanoff, looking less like a kidnap
victim and more like a pissed off houseguest,
paced back and forth in the Spanish-styled living
room shouting and gesticulating wildly.
Gray couldn’t hear the words but one
thing was sure; Belanoff was not a prisoner.
“What the hell?” he said to himself just
before something smashed into his head and
everything went black.
Gray woke to the taste of his own blood
and the sound of voices raised in argument. He
was lying on something soft, a leather couch
maybe, and his arms were taped together at the
wrists.
“I told you this would get out of hand,”
said someone. ”I think we should just abort the
project altogether.”
“Not without the Step disk,” said
somebody with a deeper voice that Gray decided
instantly not to like. “The buyer was very
specific.”
“I don’t think that’s an option,” said the
first speaker. “Maxie’s got it hidden somewhere.”
“The Dame Wore a Tesseract”
“And whose fault is that?”
Careful not to move any other part of his
body, Gray slowly opened his eyes.
The skinny drink of water in the grey suit
he recognized as Dr. Adam Belanoff. The other
guy, the bald giant with the meat cleaver hands,
Gray’s compound memory told him was none
other than Gino Cranzetti.
“I’m not denying culpability,” said
Belanoff. “I’m simply saying we might have to
cut our losses.”
Gino, obviously unhappy with that, was
about to outline an alternative plan when he
noticed Gray watching.
“Hey,” he said, a thick, foreign-sounding
accent sliding into his voice. “Look who’s up.”
The two men closed in on Gray, with
Gino moving around behind to check the
bindings on his wrists. Still tight.
“You one of Maxie’s boys?” said Gino.
“Or a ringer?”
“I’m a PI,” said Gray with some difficulty
and then, fixing his gaze on Belanoff, “Somebody
thinks he’s in trouble.”
Belanoff reached into his jacket and
yanked out Gray’s wallet. “Harris Gray,” he said,
reading the ID. Then, looking a bit puzzled,
“You don’t think this is the same one?”
“Don’t matter,” said Gino, drawing an
ugly and completely alien looking firearm from
his jacket. “Whoever he is, he’s crashed his last
party.”
Gray had always assumed he’d die in
the line of duty. With a job like his, slowly
expiring in your own feather bed surrounded by
grandkids just wasn’t in the cards. Somehow he’d
always thought he’d go out, guns blazing, taking
not a few of his enemies with him.
Guess not, he thought as the alien
weapon leveled itself at his forehead.
He was just wondering if going to
Heaven would feel the same as hopping between
Alts when the a body smashed through one of
the bay windows on his left.
33
Gino got his ugly weapon up fast but not
quick enough to get off a shot. Instead he was
treated to the rippling wave of energy emitted by
a quantum disrupter.
The instant the wave hit, Gino tumbled
backwards over a nearby end table and lay still.
Belanoff, stunned motionless by the
sudden carnage, was easy pickings for the second
wave which sent him flying as well.
As Gray watched, a voluptuous figure in
red stepped over the broken window pane and
into the room.
“Thought I told you to stay in the car,”
he said as his partner moved to cut his bonds.
“You’re not the boss of me,” she said.
“And you’re welcome.”
Somehow the noise of the exploding
window failed to bring more guards. Gray
wondered about that but, as he had a standing
policy not to look too deeply down the throats
of any gift-bearing equines he might meet, he let
the problem drift.
While his partner tied up Cranzetti
and relieved him of his unusual weapon, Gray
slapped Belanoff awake.
“Stop,” the younger man sputtered.
“Stop that.”
Gray hauled him to his feet and nudged
him out the broken window with his own
retrieved weapon.
“Get the lead out, Maguane,” he said.
“We’re leaving.”
“You can’t take him back to Sparks,” she
said, amazed that he’d even suggested it.
“Have to,” said Gray. “It’s the only way
we can get close enough to retrieve that– what
did you call it, Doc?”
Sullen and bruised, Belanoff mumbled
something that the others couldn’t decipher.
“You’re already a parsec into my bad side,
Doc,” said Gray, glaring balefully at him in the
rearview. “Speak up.”
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ASTONISHING ADVENTURES MAGAZINE
“It’s a Step disk,” said Belanoff, sullen.
“It generates a field that allows magically charged
items to operate outside their home Realities.”
“And you gave something like that to
Maxie Sparks?!” said Gray. “What kind of moron
are you?”
“It wouldn’t have mattered,” said
Belanoff. “He only has the one magic jewel and
that’s only good for short teleports. It’s little
more than a party favor.”
“I don’t know what kind of parties you’ve
been going to, Doc,” said Gray. “But I guarantee
you won’t be attending any more.”
They rode the rest of the way in silence.
“Nice work, Gray,” said Maxie Sparks
when the odd trio returned. “And quick too. I
might have to put you on the pad, permanentlike.”
Gray let the comment drift and shoved
Belanoff into an empty chair.
“Thanks,” he said. “I’ll pass.”
Maxie rose from his traditional spot
by the bar and sauntered over to where Gray’s
partner had a gun on Belanoff.
“And who’s this piece of candy?” he said.
“This the kind of crew you partner up with,
Gray, I might have to switch rackets.”
“Don’t you teach your apes to talk?” said
Gray. “She’s Belanoff’s assistant.”
“No she ain’t,” said Ape number one.
“How’s that?” said Gray.
“That ain’t the Doc’s gal,” he said. “I ain’t
never seen this chickie before.”
Before Gray could process what the Ape
was saying, the Dame’s gun swiveled away from
Belanoff and up under Maxie’s oversized chin.
“Everybody just say where they are,” she
said. Everyone did, most notably the two gunsels
whose hands had been drifting toward their own
weapons.
“Maguane!” he said. “What are you
doing?”
“That was always your trouble, Harris,”
she said. “You go through so many partners, you
can’t tell them apart.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Oh, please,” she said. “It hasn’t been
that long, has it? I mean you were just talking
about me an hour ago.”
Even as she said it, Gray’s mind spewed
out the answer.
“Chasis?” he said. “Chasis Verdant?”
“Bingo,” she said. “You get the big prize.”
“You can’t be,” he said.
“Sure, I can,” she said. “You said it; I
work for myself now. I’m a rogue.”
“And so am I,” said Belanoff, standing up
beside her.
“What did you do with my partner?”
said Gray, trying to squelch the rage he felt. He
had an urge to do something stupid like going
for her throat but that would get them all killed.
“I’m sure your little newbie is around
somewhere,” said Verdant. “God, you’re so
predictable. Keeping the same code phrase,
Twilight Time. Come on. You had to know
eventually I’d use something like that against
you.”
“Actually I hoped I’d seen the last of
you, Chasis,” he said through his teeth. He then
noticed the strange expression that washed over
Maxie Sparks’s face. Was that recognition he saw
in the dark blue eyes?
“Maybe we should go now,” said
Belanoff.
“You’re right,” she said. “This isn’t old
home week. Get the Step disk and I’ll get the
ship to boot us out.”
As Belanoff began to rummage around
behind the bar, Verdant motioned for the two
apes to drop their weapons and get their faces on
the floor. Then she backed Maxie up against the
nearest wall and tapped a button on her crimson
blouse.
“It’s Chasis,” she said when the button
began to glow. “Boot in one minute.”
“It’s not here,” said Belanoff from
“The Dame Wore a Tesseract”
somewhere behind the bar.
“What’s that?” said Verdant. “You said
you knew where he kept it.”
“I saw him put it here,” said Belanoff
rising. “It’s gone.”
“Too bad, Chasis,” said Gray. “Looks like
you’re out of luck.”
“Not at all,” she said. “I’ve still got the
Doc here and all his notes. If he doesn’t find the
disk before we boot, we’ll just have him build
another.”
“I don’t think that’s going to happen,”
said Gray.
“Please,” she said, getting hot again. It
was one of her problems, Gray remembered,
that temper. “You’ve been played. This whole
kidnapping thing was just a grift so we could
get the step disk back from Maxie. We knew
he’d never let the Doc near it under normal
conditions. We had to have Maxie so twisted
around he didn’t know which way was up.”
“You started the gang war.”
“Of course.”
“You faked the kidnapping.”
“Yes.”
“You killed your own partner,” he said.
“He knew the risks.”
“And using me?” he said. “What was
that?”
“Icing,” she said. “I try to screw up the
life of every Harris Gray I meet. It’s kind of a
hobby.”
“Find another one,” said Maxie Sparks,
and disappeared.
The expression on Verdant’s face would
have made Gray laugh if he’d had the time. He
didn’t. Instead he vaulted back over the bar,
taking hold of a very surprised Belanoff’s wrist.
There he found a modified retrieval device,
similar to ones used by the Cleaners.
“No!” said Verdant and fired her weapon
at them both.
Gray ducked and tried to pull Belanoff
down after him but failed. The blast caught him
35
square in the chest. Belanoff screamed as his
quantum cohesion was violently disrupted. In a
instant he dissolved into a haze of glowing specks
floating where his body had been.
“It doesn’t matter,” screamed Verdant,
firing as she backed towards the door. “I still
have the notes. The client will settle.”
“I don’t think so,” said Maxie Sparks,
suddenly by her side. With a puckish expression,
Maxie held up the Step Disk for Verdant to see.
“Looking for this?”
With an almost animal cry, Verdant
pivoted, intending to strike Maxie with the butt
of her gun. Using speed one would never guess
he possessed, Maxie ducked out of her way and
drew his own weapon, an undisguised quantum
pistol.
“Who,” said Verdant, nearly incoherent
with rage at that her mission lay in tatters around
her. “Who the hell are you?”
“The name’s Maguane, bitch,” said Maxie
as he fired at her. “Katerin Maguane.”
Verdant also screamed and faded
away as the disrupter’s beam hit her but there
was something odd about her disappearance.
Something less final.
“Nice to see you, Kat,” said Gray,
emerging from behind the bar.
“You too, partner,” said Maxie holding
up the satchel containing Belanoff’s notes. “You
think we can get out of here now? This guy’s
body totally chafes.”
“Yeah, kid,” said Gray as he tapped in the
code on his own retrieval device. “We’re done.”
Dyson seemed happy enough with their
report- step disk retrieved, Belanoff neutralized,
Verdant– well, that was dicey. Without a body
and without being able to track her shift vessel
between Alts there was no way to be sure if she’d
been killed or if she was recuperating somewhere,
mulling her next strike.
Gray wouldn’t discuss it and Maguane
knew better than to press. He was different after
36
ASTONISHING ADVENTURES MAGAZINE
that, though. It was subtle, maybe something
somebody who didn’t spend nearly every waking
hour with him wouldn’t notice, but the change
was definitely there.
There’s a shadow in him, she thought
more than once. And it’s shaped like Chasis
Verdant.
He was a colder on the job, less friendly to
the locals he encountered in the various Alts they
visited, quicker with a kill shot than he had ever
been. Darker. Darker Gray.
It scared her, seeing him like that. Not for
herself or even those people foolish enough
to cross him these days but, strangely, she was
frightened for Gray himself. She knew there was
only one cure for this thing in him now, only
one thing that would ever shine light on that
shadow inside. She knew it and so did he.
They would see Chasis Verdant again. She
knew it the way she knew the slow perfect curve
of her blaster’s grip.
They would meet. More than that, Kat
Maguane knew that whenever it was, wherever
it was, one way or the other it would be the last
time.
“THE GREAT MAGNETIC TRAIN CAPER”
37
DOC NEBULA and
“THE GREAT MAGNETIC
TRAIN CAPER”
By D.A. Madigan
G
rand Central Station was a terrific body slam
of people – packed to the rafters with every
conceivable configuration of shoving, shouting,
shrieking humanity, a motley mob of sprawling,
brawling, and occasionally, crawling human
beings, each individual member of which snarled,
barked, howled, or hurled vile imprecations as to
everyone else around them’s parentage, appearance,
personability, and/or personal hygiene, as he or she
prodded, pummeled and punched their individual
paths through the madding, jam-packed horde
towards whichever platform their designated
transport was departing from or arriving at.
to the joker, what with the glamour job he had
wrapped around his arm – flaming red curly hair
running like hot lava down past shapely shoulders
bared by some kind of filmy fashion that was no
doubt illegal in any state starting with a vowel; a
body that might have been put together by fallen
angels bent on man’s corruption, and a face that
could have launched every ship in the U.S. navy
with a wink and a smile. Who would ever notice
the nebbish riding drag, when you had all those
curves to ride your weary eyes around on?
“Sniffer” could. It was what the boss paid him
for, the same thing the editors at four different
“Sniffer” Carnegie, once one of the finest papers had ponied up top dollar for when he’d
investigative reporters the Big Apple had ever seen, still been on the beat – Sniffer’s uncanny ability
scanned the flocks shuffling in a surly manner to notice things that would ease on by the average
across the floor below him with a cynical sneer greasy eyeball.
pasted to his rat-like visage.
“That’s Leslie Ambrose Lawless,” the former
“Say,” he said, elbowing the near-Titan reporter opined, blinking rapidly. “M.D., Ph.D.
standing next to him on the observation deck, in about eighteen different rackets, including
“know who that jamoke is, ape?” Carnegie then astrophysics.” He paused for effect, then went on
defied all conventional decorum by pointing dramatically -- “Doc Nebula, as ever was!”
directly into the heart of the seething mob.
Sniffer was proud of the Doc Nebula tag,
Carnegie’s enormous companion bent a stony for he himself had invented it. When Lawless
glare downwards. “Sniffer” seemed to be indicating had first burst on the global scene a couple years
the male half of a couple moving adroitly through back, every paper in town had tried to hang
the milling masses below. The fellow himself was a sensationalistic nickname on him, mostly
nondescript; slim build, short hair, probably no consisting of tired, desperate attempts to work
more than average height although it wasn’t easy some twist on the joker’s odd last name – Outlaw,
to tell from so far above him. Well dressed in Lawman, The Law… none of it would fly. Then
a swell suit. It was tough to pay any attention that gasbag Kent over at the Planet had tried
38
ASTONISHING ADVENTURES MAGAZINE
calling the doc “Speed” Lawless, after he won the
first international mag-lev Grand Prix by a handy
three minutes, breaking every land-bound velocity
record in human history. That monicker might
have took, except that the day before the race,
Lawless had also published an article in Science
magazine detailing his theory that there were ‘dark
nebulas’ that made up the seemingly empty space
surrounding the more visible galaxies. Sniffer had
seen that and the phrase “Doc Nebula” had fairly
leapt into his mind. He’d called Lawless “Doc
Nebula” in his own write up of the race, and
damn if every other reporter in the world hadn’t
glommed onto it instantly. So “Doc Nebula” the
dude became, like it or don’t… and Kent at the
Planet could go suck eggs.
“Boss says stay here and keep observin’,” he noted.
“He’ll find out for hisself what mag-train the Doc
is gettin’ on.”
Sniffer’s companion whistled. “That dame
was some dish,” he allowed. “I’d do a tail job on
her any time.”
“Yeah, you giant monkey,” Sniffer sneered.
“An’ she might not pick you out of the crowd,
neither, if we assume Nebula found her on a street
corner sellin’ apples and pencils so’s she could feed
her seein’ eye dog.”
Below, on Platform 12, the ‘solar hot dame’
accompanying the object of Sniffer’s attention
whispered in Doc Nebula’s ear, “Do you know
The giant next to Sniffer, whose name was that dreadful little man who just reported on you,
not ‘Ape’ but who rather rejoiced in the sobriquet Cain?”
of “Molehill”, because somebody else in their
She was the only being in existence who would
mob was already called “Mountain”, scratched
ever
call Doc Nebula ‘Cain’ because she was the
his shelf-like brow in what passed with him for
thought. “No kiddin’,” he said. “You think he’d only one privy to his real name… or what his real
name had once been, anyway. And she was also
give me an awtergraph?”
the only entity in the world whose words could
Sniffer snorted. “What I think, ape,” he never be overheard, because she did not speak to
sneered, “is that this is the stuff the boss pays Nebula aloud, but rather, by directly stimulating
me to report on.” The former newshound flipped the sensory centers of his brain with a few precisely
open his q-phone and hit the buttons. A split directed microvolts of electricity.
second later, the line was picked up and someone
“Yes, Jasmine, I know him,” the man mostly
grunted a one syllable acknowledgement.
known these days as Doc Nebula replied, silently
“Carnegie here,” Sniffer barked into the phone. subvocalizing the words, understanding that his
“Thought somebody might wanna know… Doc companion could ‘hear’ them just as easily as he
‘heard’ her. “Of him, anyway. He used to be
Nebula just showed up at Grand Central.”
the best investigative reporter in New York City,
There was a pause while Sniffer listened. maybe on the whole Eastern seaboard. He’s gotten
“Yeah,” he said, “he’s got some dame with him… himself mixed up with some bad mobs, though.
redhead, solar hot. They’re heading over to the Funny thing… he’s the one who first came up with
mag-lev platforms… yeah, I wouldn’t expect the ‘Doc Nebula’ tag for me, back after I had you
the Doc to ride iron like the riffraff, neither… I whip up the Lawless identity and we made the big
push to get my new mug and name plastered all
dunno. Platform 12, looks like. Awright.”
over every TV set on the planet.”
Sniffer folded his phone and put it away.
“THE GREAT MAGNETIC TRAIN CAPER”
39
“The deception was necessary, Cain,” the databanks. “He’s among many whose personal
‘woman’ said compassionately. “When The Eight fortunes were protected from redistribution by
Legs of the Spider went after your family…”
Retrograde… obviously, a minion of TELOTS.”
“I know,” Nebula responded silently. “I know
it had to be done, and I’m grateful you were up to
it… purging my real name and history from every
data file in the world, and creating somebody
new for me to be out of whole cloth. But…” He
shrugged. “I miss ‘em, sometimes… I wish I’d
thought things through better before I gave you
your first commands.”
“That’s who I’d figure Sniffer to be working for
now,” Doc agreed. “He’s on my list, but I hadn’t
worked my way down to him as yet. There’s quite
a few in the Eight Legs I was giving more priority
to.”
“I think he may be… what is the expression?
Cutting ahead in line,” Jasmine said dryly. “I wish
I could confirm that it was he Mr. Carnegie was
The ‘woman’ shrugged prettily. “I myself could speaking to…”
not anticipate there would be another cybernetic
“Yeah,” Doc said. “Kind of foxed myself with
organism as formidable as myself existent in 2012,
these
Q-phones, didn’t I? I thought the idea of
Cain,” she said, “and I am a 43rd level self aware
Jacostic Algorithmic Simulations and Modeling completely private personal communications that
Inductive Network . If I myself could not deduce nobody, especially the Feds, could tap into was a
such a thing, how would you have been able to good one, but…” He made a rueful moue. “Buy
yourself a Q-phone and you can dial any number,
guess?”
any where, talk all you want, no additional charges
It was Nebula’s turn to shrug. “Dunno, Jazz,” at all… and if your party is also using a Q-phone,
he said. “But if I’m half the genius the news nobody can eavesdrop on the quantum link
channels keep calling me, I should have at least connection, either. I guess just about everyone
figured it for a possibility.”
has one now…”
“Perhaps,” his companion said. “Have you
“As with all the technological innovations you
‘figured a possibility’ for who Mr. Carnegie was have introduced, Cain,” the ‘woman’ said warmly,
speaking to?”
“your intention was to maximize individual
freedom and privacy. You yourself have noted
“Some middleweight,” Doc said, rubbing to me frequently that nothing is all good or all
his jaw, “Sniffer ain’t big enough to stooge for bad, but always some mixture… ‘you never get
anyone too far up the ladder. Offhand I’d say it’s something without giving up something’, I think
probably a heel named Jaegermeister… Henry is how you usually put it.”
Jaegermeister. Owns most of the meatpacking
businesses between here and Chicago, but that’s
“Yep,” Doc subvocalized. “You get what you
just the laundry where he washes all the cash he pay for, and you pay for what you get. Always.”
rakes in from drugs, prostitution, protection, the
“And don’t forget,” Jasmine went on, “your
nastier forms of porn, fixing elections, and murder
marketing of the Q-phones has released everyone
for hire.”
in the world from the constant financial drain of
“The one they call the Butcher,” Jasmine said, a monthly phone bill.”
after a microsecond searching her own extensive
“I know,” Doc said, absently. “I didn’t mind
40
ASTONISHING ADVENTURES MAGAZINE
putting those pirates out of business one little desk, no less than seventeen separate toy engines
bit.”
rolled through the enormously complex scale
model labyrinth, a bewildering series of computer
“And q-phone sales provide you with more controlled switches making certain they never
capital to invest in HELP INC.,” Jasmine added. collided.
“All around, I’d say they were very well worth it…
even if you cannot now eavesdrop on a criminal’s
If there was anything the Butcher loved more
conversation, except by using my own sensors to than food, more than money, more than power, it
actually overhear what he himself says out loud was his trains. He deliberately kept his office dark
on his end.”
and gloomy, so he could run the trains with their
lights on, and so he could see the thousands of
“Yes,” Doc affirmed. “All right. Well, they tiny, scale model signals along the tracks blinking
spotted us, sweetheart, even if it’s not quite as big to each other in idiot’s semaphore.
a fish as I was hoping to hook. So far, so good.
Now let’s move on to Phase 2.”
The Butcher looked like a prime candidate for
one of his own slaughterhouses, although to be
“As you wish,” the female voice in Doc’s head fair, he would have been a pretty fatty meal. 400
agreed. “Your stratagem seems to have gone as corpulent pounds on the hoof, he could get up out
planned so far. Do you anticipate difficulty?”
of his motorized chair if he had to – but he’d built
his whole day to day existence around avoiding
“Babe,” Doc sighed, “no battle plan ever such a necessity at all costs. The Butcher thought
survives contact with the enemy, and contact of himself with great satisfaction as being like
with the enemy is what we just had. So, yes, I Mahomet’s mountain… he didn’t go anywhere,
anticipate difficulty… hell, these days I could sleep everything came to him.
in and I’d still ‘anticipate difficulty’. But going
on the presumption that Sniffer just reported my
Regardless of his penalty weight, though, The
whereabouts to Jaegermeister… or somebody else Butcher’s brain was as agile as a squirrel in a tree.
in TELOTS… here’s what we should be doing You don’t build up an illicit fortune of 100 million
now…”
bucks and an association with the Eight Legs of
the Spider by making stupid plays, after all.
In a high priced penthouse 80 stories
above Manhattan Island, Henry “the Butcher”
So Doc Nebula was heading for Montreal –
Jaegermeister drummed fingers the size of sausages setting a good example for the riffraff by eschewing
on his solid teak desk. “Nebula,” he snarled. “That expensive private vehicles for mass transport,
punk.” The Butcher shifted his massive bulk, fat too. The rabble wouldn’t know, of course, that
rippling like a tidal wave of garden slugs beneath Nebula himself had invented the new mag-lev
the shiny facade of his expensively tailored silk technology and owned a controlling interest in all
suit.
the new mass transit companies that made use of
it. The Butcher wouldn’t have known that, either,
Across the Butcher’s vast office, the greatest before he’d accepted the invitation to join up with
set of scale model electric toy trains in the known TELOTS. But The Spider knew pretty much
universe sprawled like a mysterious lost city of everything worth knowing in the world. Do
clickety-clacking plastic and moving metal. Even gooders like Nebula could run, but they couldn’t
as the Butcher declaimed to himself behind his hide…
“THE GREAT MAGNETIC TRAIN CAPER”
The Butcher had only a vague notion as to the
actual details, but he was aware that Montreal –
McGill University, specifically – held one of The
Spider’s biggest operations – a secret subterranean
lab where the top secret global brainwashing
program known only as MONROEVILLE was
headquartered. The Butcher had only the sketchiest
idea of what went on in MONROEVILLE, but
he knew it was the kinda thing that a do gooder
like Nebula would do anything to smash.
Still, chances were, Nebula’s trip was pure
coincidence… but the Eight Legs of the Spider
hated Nebula anyway; whoever brought in his
head was eligible for a billion bucks, at least, in
reward money. A billion bucks added up to a lot
of power, and would give him a lot more influence
in TELOTS.
41
Their cabins are necessarily pressurized; to have a
hole blown in one while in mid journey is entirely
disastrous.
At 11:22, as the train to Montreal neared
apogee, catastrophe struck. An on-scene observer
might well have noted a cobalt blue finger of light
drawn for a fraction of a second between a central
car in the train and an invisible spot much higher
in the sky than the conveyance itself, striking from
outside Earth’s atmosphere. What happened next
would best be explained by a theoretical computer
model showing what would occur if a mag lev
train were to suddenly have its magnetic polarity
reversed in mid passage – it would literally tear
itself into tiny pieces within seconds.
Rendered into particles too small to be
much affected by gravity, the expanding cloud of
The Butcher licked his grubby, wormlike lips metal debris that had formerly been the 11:15 to
at the thought.
Montreal dispersed chaotically through the upper
atmosphere.
The hugely fat crime boss picked up his
q-phone again and dialed a number he had
With great satisfaction, the Butcher regarded
committed to memory. He had no operatives of the distant smear of light marking the destruction
his own actually on the train Nebula had boarded, of Doc Nebula high above Manhattan. It was the
but he’d be willing to bet that wouldn’t be a greatest disaster to hit a paying passenger service
problem for people higher up the TELOTS food since the Titanic went down, and within five
chain… The Spider’s web reached everywhere, minutes every news channel would be covering it
the Butcher had learned.
and every man, woman and child on the planet
would be glued to a tube watching it. Stock in
And just in case that failed, he’d put a back up the new mag lev companies would plummet, an
plan of his own in place, too…
additional blow to anyone who might want to
carry on for the now dead Nebula… and best of
The 11:15 to Montreal left from Gate 12 exactly all, disasters made people hungry. The Butcher
on the tick. Magnetic trains move in low orbital expected a spike in profits across the boards, from
arcs, jumping up from their point of departure, pork rinds to chicken nuggets… a little gravy, on
curving with a deceptive seeming laziness through top of the billion buck reward he could expect
the upper ionosphere, then gently realigning on from The Spider.
the positive poles at their receiving station. Their
velocities are only subsonic at the very beginning
A little gravy that would buy him a whole lot
and very end of their journeys, although the all of HO scale model train track. And a few new
but frictionless electromagnetic aura surrounding engines, too.
them in flight prevents disruptive sonic booms.
42
ASTONISHING ADVENTURES MAGAZINE
While a world of losers, dopes and natural
born suckers mourned the loss of their hero, Doc
Nebula, the winners that ruled that world would
rejoice that at long last, the biggest wild card ever
dealt was finally off the table.
moving to follow Nebula through the crowd.
Sniffer fingered the illegal rail-gun he had stowed
in a side pocket. All plastic parts except for the
half-inch slugs, which would show up on any scan
as simple, harmless staples. Still, it could fire a clip
of fifty such ‘staples’ at barely subsonic speeds in
Sniffer tapped Molehill on the elbow, which less than three seconds, and was lethally accurate
was about as high up on the walking mass of at any range out to 15 feet or so… and after
muscles as he could easily reach. “Down there,” fifteen feet, well, wave it around like a firehose
he said. “In the crowd. It’s Nebula.”
and you had good odds of getting lucky, since all
one of these babies had to do was wing ya to do
Molehill scowled. “He didn’t get onna an instant kill from sheer body shock.
train?”
“He’s goin’ inta the men’s room,” Sniffer said,
Sniffer explained as he would to a child. “He a second or so later. “Okay, ape. Get your gat
got on the train, you big dope, along with that out. We ain’t doin’ nothing fancy here; we go
fine piece of female footsie he had with ‘im, and in and spray everything sittin’, standin’ or layin’
you, like everybody else, didn’t pay attention to down. DNA will confirm the kill if we come out
anything but her. But Nebula’s smart, see? He with even a good sized piece of him.”
made the ol’ switcheroo. Turned his jacket inside
out, changed sunglasses, and left the dame on the
“I bet I could take him in a fair fight,” Molehill
train. But he can’t fool me. The frail’s on her way groused. Nonetheless, he unholstered his own
to Montreal, sure, but that’s Nebula, right down much more old fashioned Glock 9 as he said it.
there.”
Doc Nebula hated violence, and especially
Sniffer was no genius, but he had a pretty hated guns, and avoided such whenever possible.
good idea that ‘the frail’ was never going to make But it wasn’t always possible.
it to Montreal; like everybody else on that train,
she was about to become collateral damage in a
Sniffer put a hand out to push the mens’ room
big hit aimed Nebula’s way… which was too bad door open. As he did, he heard a muted thump,
in her case, but hey, them’s the breaks.
a grunt, and a much heavier thud from behind
him. Had the ape tripped over his own feet? It
Even someone as low on the pecking order as wouldn’t be the first time – Sniffer glanced back
Sniffer had heard of the billion dollar reward on over his shoulder, preparing an acidic comment.
Nebula’s head. His boss had ordered him and the
ape to make sure Nebula got on board the train
“Whazzup, Sniffer?” Doc said, smiling
and report back on whether he did or didn’t… but pleasantly as he stood above Molehill’s unconscious
where was the angle in that? Sniffer and Molehill body. “The bigger they come, etcetera, etcetera…
could take out Nebula on their own, and a billion do you want to come along quietly, or do I have to
bucks would… hell, with a billion bucks, Sniffer demonstrate my mighty kung fu powers on you,
could hire the Butcher to be his personal towel too?”
boy.
Sniffer wasn’t the most courageous guy in
“Try to blend in, you gorilla,” Sniffer sneered, the world, but a billion bucks will make nearly
“THE GREAT MAGNETIC TRAIN CAPER”
43
any man brave… if he’s got a gat in his hand,
“Good,” Doc said. “I figured you must be
anyway. “Kung fu this, Lawless!” Sniffer rapped able to. Let’s see exactly where Sniffer’s calls have
out, wrenching his body all the way around and been going to…”
bringing the rail-gun up to fire.
The Butcher was starting to have a bad feeling
Abruptly, the gorgeous redhead Sniffer had about the whole thing.
been certain was on her way to certain destruction
Sniffer wasn’t answering his q-phone.
aboard the 11:15 was standing between Sniffer
and Lawless. “Please, Mr. Carnegie,” she said,
The Butcher was sure Nebula must have
“don’t shoot!”
been aboard the mag-lev train. Why wouldn’t he
Sniffer boggled – and Doc leapt through be? But the very nature of the explosion made
the redhead, kicking the rail gun out of Sniffer’s it almost impossible to confirm Nebula’s death.
astonished hand, then turning on his other heel to Even high flying NSA probes were having a hard
time getting enough biological remains together
drive a hard elbow into Sniffer’s solar plexus.
to run DNA on. In fact, so far they hadn’t found
“Awp,” Sniffer gasped, collapsing into a near any organic remains at all. It worried him. He
lotus position on the ground as his lungs emptied wished Sniffer would answer his phone.
themselves of air.
“Hog Butcher for the World, Tool Maker,
“I doubt he can tell you much of anything Stacker of Wheat,” the crime boss heard,
helpful,” Jasmine said.
emanating cheerfully from the shadows all around
the white circle of light cast by his desk’s reading
“Nope,” Doc replied cheerfully. “But I bet his lamp. “Player with Railroads and the Nation’s
q-phone can.” He bent to rifle Sniffer’s pockets. Freight Handler… eh? Eh?”
“And don’t forget to call the cops about this illegal
side arm,” he advised. “Remind me to unload it
“What the hell?” The Butcher was a much
before they get here, too.”
more erudite man than he appeared to be; he
recognized the lines from Sandberg’s immortal
“Whoever he works for will just get him poem, although he’d never connected them to
sprung on some technicality,” Jasmine opined as himself, as he was a Brooklyn boy, born and bred.
Doc continued going through Sniffer’s pockets.
“Who’s out there?” Even as he asked it of the
darkness, the Butcher had a tight feeling in this
“Whoever he works for will hopefully be in no throat and gut that he knew exactly who was out
position to do any such thing,” Doc said, standing there. But… how?
again with Sniffer’s Q-phone in his hand. “You
can see the numbers he’s dialed, right?” When
Doc Nebula stepped into the light, smiling
Jasmine confirmed that she could, Doc went pleasantly as he glanced around the Butcher’s vast
on, “And while I know no one can listen in on array of model trains. “It’s good to be the king,
a Q-link, you can at least trace where one went hm? Or should I say, chief conductor?”
to…?”
The Butcher’s face darkened. “Don’t you laugh
Jasmine cogitated on that for a long at my trains,” he said, shaking a warning finger at
millisecond… then confirmed that she could, Nebula. With his other hand, he was excavating
indeed, do exactly that.
in his central desk drawer. He had a gat in here
44
ASTONISHING ADVENTURES MAGAZINE
somewhere… but how had Nebula managed to
get past all his men?
Nebula rolled his eyes. “Jaegermeister, you
used an orbital particle cannon on one of MY
trains.” He spread empty hands. “You seriously
think I shouldn’t even laugh at yours?”
The Butcher hauled a very old fashioned .357
Magnum out of his desk drawer. “I seriously
think,” he growled, leveling it across his desk at
Nebula with both pudgy hands, “that unless you
can digest lead, I’m about to be a billion bucks
richer.” He squinted. “But how’d you get by my
guards? I got like thirty of them all over this floor.
You can’t turn invisible, can you?”
Nebula shrugged. Actually, with Jasmine’s
light projection capacities, he could turn
effectively invisible in certain environments,
although unusually observant people might see a
slight blurring where light bent around him… no
point advertising that, though. “I hacked your
security software and activated the knock out gas
grid,” Nebula said, cheerfully. “You know, you
wouldn’t need something like that if you could
actually trust the people on your own payroll.”
The Butcher said something unprintable.
“You and that goddam supercomputer of yours,”
he said. “Tell you what. You tell me where it is
and gimme the access codes, and maybe I’ll let
you live.”
Although it was still half an hour to noon in the
outside world, the Butcher did indeed like to keep
his office gloomy… but now, it had perceptibly
begun to brighten, even with the lights dimmed
and the heavy shades drawn.
“What are you…?” the Butcher squinted
towards the heavily screened window wall behind
his desk, trying to keep one wary eye on Nebula
as he did so.
“Don’t worry,” Nebula said reassuringly,
remaining perfectly still. “This building isn’t
a moving target, so the satellite’s optics can
take their time focusing. We’ve got maybe five
minutes before the light beam actually lazes. After
that…”
“You’re bluffing,” the Butcher said, a note of
doubt worming into his voice. “After you hijacked
all that money the first time, the Spider started
protecting all their assets with Retrogade. You
can’t possibly have hacked a military satellite.”
“Not just any military satellite,” Doc said
firmly. “The very same one that blew up my train.
I thought it was only fair.” He interlaced his
fingers in front of him and then flexed them over
his stomach in an exaggerated display of patience.
“Retrograde isn’t really such a much, Butcher.
The Spider is totally paranoid about unauthorized
intrusions into their personal finances these days,
and so they prioritize Retrograde’s protection to
their own private bank accounts. The coverage
in other places gets a little thin. And to be fair, I
think the Spider is currently under the impression
that I’m a leetle bit dead, so I don’t think they’re
taking all the precautions they could.”
Nebula grinned. He doubted very much the
Butcher would believe him if he told the exact
truth – that his supercomputer looked very much
like a plastic credit card, mirrored on both sides,
almost completely indestructible to anything 21st
Century technology could bring to bear… and it
The room had continued to brighten as Doc
was currently, as she nearly always was, riding in Nebula spoke. The Butcher’s face was wreathed in
his shirt pocket, just over his heart. “Nah. I have sweat now. “I don’t believe it,” the meat magnate
a better idea, Jaegermeister. You blew up my train finally said. “You’ll die with me, Nebula.”
from orbit, now I get to blow up yours.”
“THE GREAT MAGNETIC TRAIN CAPER”
Yeah, Doc Nebula thought, and Jasmine
might die, too, which is much, much worse.
She’d argued vociferously against Doc making a
personal appearance in the Butcher’s office, but
in the end, she’d had to agree it was the only way
to accomplish what needed to be done. At which
point, she’d insisted Doc take her with him…
when his plan had been to drop her off before
coming over here.
As long as the tiny interface that actually
contained Jasmine’s 23rd century central
processing unit and memory molecule chains
remained intact, Jasmine herself could continue
to function at optimal efficiency, tapping into
any surrounding electronic network via her own
internal q-link apparatus.
If that CPU and
attendant memory molecules were vaporized,
though, Jasmine would be just as dead as her
biologically living partner.
45
said impatiently. “There isn’t a court in the world
that would convict any member of The Spider
right now, Butcher, and you know it as well as I
do. I’m hoping to get that situation cleaned up in
another ten or twenty or thirty years, but for right
now, that’s just how it is. But… if you really want
to shut down the laser before we both fry… you
can do it. It’s easy.”
The Butcher’s fat face, greasy now with muck
sweat, squirmed with an uneasy mixture of hope
and suspicion. “How?”
Doc grinned. “Just type your password in to
your personal computer and transfer all the funds
in your personal private accounts into another
account I’ll provide you the number for,” he
said. “Retrograde isn’t going to keep a member of
TELOTS from doing a bank transfer, right?”
The Butcher went gray – or maybe it was the
Neither Jasmine nor Doc could be sure way the air in the office kept getting brighter.
that being hit by an orbital laser cannon would “You’re gonna take it all? Everything? Not leave
destroy her… but she was far from certain she’d me a thing?”
survive it, either. “Goddam stubborn bitch,” Doc
“I’m going to leave you with your life, which
subvocalized with affectionate irritation to his
is more than you would have left to the passengers
partner.
on board the 11:15 if I hadn’t had them all
“I love you too,” Jasmine responded primly. transferred to a later train,” Doc said implacably.
“Come on. You got maybe 90 seconds left and
“Now sell him the deal, would you, please?”
then it’s all moot.”
“Yep,” Doc said out loud. “This is your big
The air was perceptibly warmer now. The
chance, Jaegermeister. If you’re all noble and self
sacrificing, just sit there. We’ll die together, and office’s central AC had kicked into high gear and
The Spider… well, I’m sure they’re all honorable; you could hear the circuits laboring mightily
they’ll give that reward to your next of kin, I under the strain. The Butcher grimaced – pointed
the gun in his hand – then threw it down with a
guess.”
curse and started frantically typing at his desktop
“Shut it off,” the Butcher said, his voice gone keyboard.
suddenly weak. “I… look. I’ll turn myself in
Retrograde’s security systems were thorough
to the Feds. I’ll go State’s evidence against The
–
through
the keyboard itself, the TELOTS
Spider. Honest injun…”
supercomputer
confirmed
the
Butcher’s
“Don’t teach your grampa to steal sheep,” Doc fingerprints, did a DNA scan on his ample
46
ASTONISHING ADVENTURES MAGAZINE
perspiration, and after a standard password was
put in, Retrograde used the built in web cam for a
retinal scan. But it all took less than ten seconds.
Jasmine q-linked the number of the target account
over, and seconds later, the funds transfer was
complete. The Butcher was a pauper… and the
intense light filling the office had already begun
to wane.
“What am I supposed to do now?” the Butcher
asked dully, staring around at the ruins of his life.
“I got nothin’… the end of this billing cycle, the
repo guys are gonna take everything.” Like every
other elite member of the global ruling cabal,
the Butcher kept very little in actual hard wealth
on hand; every asset he had was leveraged to the
utmost to magnify his economic position. But
the funds transfer that he had just made was real
enough; while most of the currency moved had
been ‘virtual’ with nothing backing it up in the
real world, nonetheless, the Butcher’s accounts
were now empty, his credit rating maxed out,
his financial status zero. When the bills started
to come due – which they would, within days –
everything he ‘owned’ would go up on the auction
block.
in the world and draining many of them of all
funds. He had not done it blindly; the standards
he and Jasmine had agreed upon before launching
the attack were such that only those who had
inherited great wealth without ever working for
it, and who had done nothing worthwhile with
the money since, or those who had amassed
great wealth through predatory financial tactics,
would be targeted by Jasmine’s ‘redistribution
programs’.
Doc had envisioned a world where a nonproductive or actively predatory ruling class no
longer existed; where everyone everywhere would
have access to the wealth that they themselves
had justly earned through their own ethical
efforts… and no more than that. He and Jasmine
had been shocked to discover that the private
wealth of much of the globe was protected by
a sentient cybernetic system on the same level
of sophistication as Jasmine herself… and that
the people who ran that system had taken Doc’s
attempt to ‘hijack’ the contents of their personal,
secret bank accounts as a declaration of war.
And war it had been, ever since… a war Doc
and Jasmine could only hope to very slowly, very
Doc had seen it before; it was, in fact, his carefully wage, as their opponents were powerful
preferred method for dealing justice to those nearly to the point of omnipotence. But it was a
who were otherwise entirely above any human war that tonight, Doc Nebula had won one more
law. Doc had as little bloodlust in him as any victory in.
human being possibly could, but he got a great
“What am I supposed to do now?” the Butcher
deal of satisfaction from seeing men of vast ill
gotten gains, who had trampled all over others on repeated, staring at his heavy hands.
their way to a privileged position in the monetary
Doc reached into a coat pocket and then
stratosphere, reduced to the same poverty they
had condemned so many others to with their flipped a white rectangle of pasteboard onto
the Butcher’s desk. Printed on it was a toll free
rapacious financial tactics.
number that was already becoming famous around
This was what Doc had done that had earned the world. “Give them a call,” Doc said. “They’ll
him the original enmity of the world’s global fix you up with an honest job, see you have a roof
elite. Upon first obtaining Jasmine’s services, he over your head and 3 square meals a day while
had launched a cybernetic attack on the world’s you get your feet under you.” Doc paused, and
financial markets, hacking in to every account went on, more gently, “They can get you into a
“THE GREAT MAGNETIC TRAIN CAPER”
47
good exercise and diet program too, if you want. find you a job to do and give you a place to stay
You become a HELP INC client, you get access to while you get set up again. As long as you play
top notch health care.”
fair, you’ll do okay.”
The Butcher picked up the card. “HELP
INC,” he read off. He looked up at Doc Nebula
wonderingly. “This is you? I heard of these guys… I
thought they were some kinda white slavery racket
some of the big boys was running.” He scratched
one side of his head with a ham sized hand. “I
mean, I heard they give out jobs, help people buy
houses, even offer a cash stake… I couldn’t see
no sense to it unless it was tied to some kinda
unbreakable labor contract or something.”
“That’s how you would see it,” Doc said. “After
the big crash in ’09 there are a lotta people out
there who would sign up for anything if it meant
a cot and a mug of soup… but this isn’t a racket.
I set it up to help people, for real. That cash stake
you’re talking about… what HELP INC does is,
they sit down and calculate all the taxes anyone
has ever paid… income, sales, Social Security,
gasoline, whatever. They subtract the actual value
of the real services these people have gotten back
in return… usually, not much. The rest is what
gets provided… not a loan, but an actual refund
of monies extorted by force for which no value
was ever received.”
The Butcher looked miserable… but Doc felt
little sympathy. It was no more than he deserved,
and no worse than millions had it… millions
who had been condemned to lifelong poverty,
by rackets the Butcher, and his fellow economic
predators, had been running since mankind left
the caves.
“I don’t get it,” the Butcher said, finally.
“What do you get out of this? I mean, there’s
gotta be some angle for you… right?”
Doc shook his head. People like Jaegermeister,
whose whole life had been spent in pursuit of one
dishonest buck after another, couldn’t understand
true altruism. Doc could tell the Butcher that all
his life, he’d just wanted to make the world a better
place, and that’s all he was trying to do… but the
Butcher would never understand it. Well, not yet.
Maybe after a few years of honest work…
Doc stepped back into the darkness. As he
did, Jasmine used her light projection abilities
to draw even deeper shadows around him like a
cloak. He left the disconsolate former crime boss
to ponder his own future. Hopefully, without the
The Butcher looked horrified. “That’s crazy!” corruptions of his former power available, and
he said. “You can’t just refund people’s taxes like faced with the necessity of starting again from
that! Who do you think you are, the government scratch, he would make the right choices… but if
he made the wrong ones, well, Doc could always
or somethin’?”
pay him another visit.
“We’re all the government, Butcher,” Doc
“You got a good look at Retrograde’s security
said, patiently. “Of the people, by the people, for
procedures, right?” Doc subvocalized to Jasmine
the people, remember?”
as his stealth-shielded mag-lev hoverboat lifted
“But don’t get your hopes up on that score,” from the Butcher’s penthouse roof.
Doc went on. “Guys on your end tend not to
“I recorded everything,” Jasmine said. “There’s
qualify for the cash stake… you cheat on your
taxes your whole life through the rigged system, a very tricky algorithm built into the central
so you don’t get much back. But, still… they’ll password sequence, and the DNA scan will be
48
ASTONISHING ADVENTURES MAGAZINE
very hard to outsmart… but I have a few ideas. cigarette holder held nonchalantly between two
Let me think about them for a little while.”
black gloved fingers. A looker, if a little mannish
for his taste…
“Good,” Doc assented. That was the real
prize they’d set out to get… they’d wanted to get
“Nice desk,” the black clad woman purred, her
right next to an actual associate of The Spider voice smoky in the gloom. “Nice trains, too.”
and watch while that associate got into his or
“Who the hell…” The Butcher was annoyed,
her own private bank account, past Retrograde’s
advanced shields. Security procedures would vary but not afraid. Like many men of his age and
from one financial platform to another, of course, former economic stature, he was almost genetically
but standard cyber-protections were no concern; incapable of feeling fear for any woman. This one
what Doc and Jasmine needed insight into was wasn’t even armed. One good slap would put her
Retrograde’s specific protective tactics. And that in her place…
was what they’d gotten, tonight… that, and they’d
“Blackjack,” the woman said, her voice a
cleared another one of The Spider’s pawns off the
sibilant sigh.
board.
It would be a long war, but tonight, Doc had
renewed hope for its outcome.
The Butcher felt incredulous. He’d heard the
name Blackjack; a top notch bounty hunter who
worked almost exclusively for the Eight Legs of
the Spider, but still nominally an independent
operator. He would never in his life have figured
such a person could be a dame.
Behind them, in the gloomy penthouse office,
the Butcher had wheeled himself over to one wall
and opened a hidden panel there. He didn’t keep
much cash on hand, but what he had would
have to do. He tapped his fingers in a particular
sequence on a particular section of the paneling
and then, when a well hidden access hatch slid
open, placed his thumb against a scanner plate on
the heavy metal door thus revealed
“What do you want?” the Butcher demanded.
Hope dawned. Maybe the big shots were using
her as a courier. Maybe she’d brought his billion
dollar reward…
The Butcher was hauling the last of several
small chamois bags full of Krugerrands onto his
lap when he heard a light footstep behind him.
He swore. Nebula had doubled back on him, just
to make sure he was cleaned out…
The Butcher’s face went white as a sheet.
“But… I…” His hand went to the controls on his
chair. She still had no gun out. He could ram the
chair into her. His massive bulk would probably
squash her like a bug –
He wheeled his motorized chair around, to see
a woman he didn’t know leaning a hip against one
corner of his desk. Short black hair, good looking
face, black, loose clothing… smoke curling up
from a cigarette in an old fashioned, very long
Blackjack flicked the cigarette holder in her
hand, as if knocking ashes off her cigarette. A
line of bright red light shot from the tip, into The
Butcher’s left eye. There was a hiss and an odor of
scorched meat, like a brief bubble of flatulence.
“I don’t know if you heard,” Blackjack said,
smiling cruelly. “There’s a standing five hundred
thousand dollar bounty on anyone who betrays
The Spider.”
“THE GREAT MAGNETIC TRAIN CAPER”
The Butcher’s body sagged limply down in his
chair. The bags of Krugerrands jingled musically
as they fell to the carpeted floor.
“Little bonus,” Blackjack mused aloud,
walking over and bending lithely to recover the
bags of gold.
Of course, none of this could compare to
the billion bucks she planned to collect on Doc
Nebula’s head. Pity he’d been gone by the time
she’d gotten over here. If she’d been closer when
Retrograde raised the alarm over the weird funds
transfer… but never mind. Nebula’s luck couldn’t
last forever. Eventually, it would run out.
And when it did, she was going to be the last
thing he ever saw…
49
50
ASTONISHING ADVENTURES MAGAZINE
A Herbert Smythe Adventure
“The Predator From
The Past”
By Christian Dabnor
D
ear reader, let me regale you of the time I was
called upon by Her Majesty’s Government
to investigate a series of vile and bloody murders.
I was in my town house, working on my latest
invention, with the assistant of my manservant
Jarvis. It would be a most useful invention in my
area of interest, a pair of spectacles that would
allow me to see restless spirits. The lenses were
made of two layers of crystal, between which
‘Spirit Gas’, a formula of Haitian design, flowed.
He grunted slightly as he turned the valve.
There was the hiss of steam and a ghastly groan of
stressed metal, before the pump shuddered into
life. The vibrations of the pump were somewhat
uncomfortable, and the gas escaping around the
rims of the spectacle a little annoying, but they
seemed to be working. There would be no way of
knowing for sure until they were put into practical
use. I would need to find a decent graveyard or
somewhere similar to try them out.
Above the racket of the pump’s motor, I heard
a knock at the door. Jarvis nodded curtly and went
to answer it. He returned with Inspector Greaves
“Of course, sir,” responded he, in his somewhat of Scotland Yard and two of his Sergeants in tow.
monotone fashion.
They looked a little startled by my appearance.
“Jarvis, pass me the pliers and a piece of
chamois leather would you?”
I folded the leather over the frames and applied
“Good day, my dear Inspector. Jarvis, could
pressure with the pliers, forcing them into shape. you turn the pump off please?” My voice had
something of a vibrato sound to it, due to the
“There you go Jarvis, these should do the action of the pump.
trick.”
“Naturally, sir.”
“Very good, sir.”
The valve squealed as it was shut off.
I heaved the backpack with the pump and gas
canister onto my back, the weight causing me to
“Now, what can I do for you, Inspector?” I
stagger a little. I put the spectacles on.
asked
“Could you turn on the pump please Jarvis?”
Unfortunately, I was unable to reach around to
turn the device on.
“With pleasure, sir.”
He tucked his stovepipe hat under his arm
and bowed stiffly. “Mr. Smythe, it seems that
once more, Her Majesty’s Government is in need
of your,” he paused, “unique skills.”
“The Predator From The Past”
51
“Excellent, things have been somewhat dull shoulder where it attempted to gain purchase.”
of late,” I said, as I shrugged off the cumbersome
“I see. An ape, possibly?”
backpack, “haven’t they, Jarvis?”
“They have, sir.”
“Mr. Smythe, it appears that there is
an unknown horror stalking the streets of
London,” said the Inspector, his tone somewhat
melodramatic, “and it struck again last night.”
“Well take me to the scene my good man.
Jarvis, prepare my investigatory tools! We must
away to business!”
sir.”
“Nothing would give me greater pleasure,
“No, the jaws appear to be too long, and the
teeth are not of an ape-like fashion. No. This is
something unknown to me. Jarvis, pass me the
plaster of Paris.”
I set a wooden frame around the bite marks on
the front and poured in the plaster of Paris. Others
of a more religious persuasion often proclaimed
this to be a blasphemy and an affront to the dead,
but I was a man of science, not superstition.
Whilst this was setting, I looked around the place.
The only other thing of interest I found was the
impression of a foot in a flowerbed. It had three
taloned toes at the front, and a single one at the
back. I took a cast of this, also. It seemed a trip to
the Natural History Museum was in order.
I followed the inspector to the scene of the
ghastly incident, him taking a Hansom Cab,
rather than accompany me in my steam carriage.
Before us lay the body of a streetwalker, her clothes
Professor Hoyle’s footsteps echoed down the
were in tatters, and her pale flesh rent by what
long
hallway as he came to greet us. He shook
seemed a savage animal attack. After inspecting
her wounds, I laid a sheet across her to afford her my hand in a friendly fashion, but merely gave
the Greaves a cold nod (my regular readers may
some modesty.
remember the unfortunate events in The Tale of
“It appears, my dear Inspector,” I proclaimed the Sleepwalking Assassin, which gave rise to his
with confidence, “that this poor girl was attacked dislike of the Inspector).
by a creature of approximately the height and
“Mr. Smythe! What a grand pleasure it is to
posture of a man.”
see you again! What fantastical adventure brings
The Inspector looked amazed. “How did you you here this time?”
deduce that?”
“Professor, you may be aware of a series of
gruesome
killings that have taken place around
“A simple, logical deduction. Do you see these
bite marks, here?” I pointed to her shoulder. “They the city of late,” I said as we walked towards his
appear on the front and back of her shoulder, as if offices. His offices had the odour of musty tomes
and pipe tobacco. We sat at a low table and he
the creature leaned forward to bite her.”
poured me a glass of port.
“Could it not have been a dog?” he asked.
“Yes, the Midnight Reaper, I believe the more
sensational
press is calling the killer. What of it?”
“It is a possibility, but one would expect there
to be light scratch marks down her breast and
52
ASTONISHING ADVENTURES MAGAZINE
“I have taken casts from the teeth of the killer,
“Or maybe you don’t trust me? Is that it?”
as well as one of its feet. Jarvis, the casts if you Hoyle retorted. A little harshly, I thought, but
would,” I said, motioning for my manservant. he’d been through a lot.
Hoyle cleared space on his desk.
“Now, now, gentlemen, let’s not bicker when
“With all expediency, sir.”
there’s work to be done. I agree with Inspector
Greaves, you are far too important to the academic
The Professor’s eyes lit up as he saw the casts. community to lose.”
“And you say that these are freshly taken?” He
withdrew a pair of pince-nez in order to examine
His chest puffed out at this flattery, as I knew
the casts more vigorously.
it would, but he didn’t change his mind.
“This very morning.”
“Remarkable. These seem to have come from
a deinonychus antirrhopus, a feathered dinosaur,
hitherto believed to be extinct! If you could
capture this beast, it would be most fortuitous.”
He was giddy, like a schoolboy. He immediately
stood and turned to a bookshelf, running his
finger along the spines of the leather-bound
books, before coming to what he was looking for.
He rapidly flicked through the pages (I winced, in
his haste, he was mistreating a book, something
that I generally found abhorrent), then displayed
an image to me, of a dinosaur. It was a bipedal
beast, with a vicious maw, and a tail which seemed
to counterbalance its body. It had wickedly claws
and looked of an entirely predatory nature. I
shuddered involuntarily.
“I’m coming with you, whether you like it or
not.”
The Inspector stood. “In that case, I shall
have to have you confined to your home. I can’t
risk having a civilian running around while we
tackle this beast. It’s dangerous for you and it’s
dangerous for my men.”
“I will be writing to your superiors about
this! You cannot imprison an innocent man, and
certainly not twice!” (Once more I direct readers
to The Tale of the Sleepwalking Assassin)
“I’m sorry Professor, it’s my last word on the
matter. Good day to you.” The Inspector stood,
doffed his cap and exited the room. I understood
his reasoning, but I also knew the anguish that
must be afflicting the Professor. I resolved to
“I will endeavour to do so, Professor, but capture the beast.
should it become a risk to the public, I will have to
“Professor, if you cannot go to the beast, then
put it to rest.” How could one set about capturing
I
will
bring the beast to you! Now, I must bid you
such a beast? “May I borrow this book, so that I
goodbye and make my preparations.”
may plan my tackling of this creature?”
The Professor, however, was being churlish
“Of course, of course. This may be the greatest
discovery of our lifetime! It would be entirely and only waved his hand briefly at me.
remiss of me not to assist you in any way possible.
Maybe I could even join you?”
Back at my townhouse, I sat, pondering how
“There’ll be no place for civilians on this,
to
entrap
this beast. I had numerous inventions,
Professor Hoyle ,” the Inspector said gruffly, “We
but what would prove most useful? And how
couldn’t guarantee your safety.”
“The Predator From The Past”
53
would I find it? There had to be a pattern to the
“Jarvis, I fear we must enter the sewer system.
fiend’s attacks. Armed with a large-scale map of I hope you don’t mind getting a little dirty.”
London, a list of the locations where bodies had
“It would be my pleasure to accompany you,
been found, and some coloured pins, I and Jarvis
sir.”
set about plotting the attacks.
Although they seemed to centre around a
midpoint, it was too wide to pinpoint anything
exactly. I started to read more about the creature.
With regards to it’s habitat, it was from the
cretaceous period, so was used to a cold, wet
climate. I surmised that it would be right at
home in London. This did not, as I’m sure you
will appreciate, help expedite my investigations.
There had to be some commonality amongst the
locations, but what was it? I paced my chambers,
but to no avail. It must be something not on the
maps.
“Jarvis, prepare my steam carriage. I feel we
must visit the locations. And bring my Electricity
Gun and Web Cannon.”
“Without hesitation, sir.”
I opened the trunk of the steam carriage and
retrieved my galoshes. I had learnt previously
that investigations could occasionally take one to
less than pleasant locales. Jarvis then helped me
to don the harness which carried the Electricity
Gun, and he carried the Web Cannon. The hunt
was to begin in earnest.
The arched sewer tunnel echoed with a
constant dripping sound, and the tramping of
our footsteps. My lantern cast eerie shadows as it
swung to and fro.
“Imagine if you will, Jarvis, the days when
this muck flowed in the streets of our city. What
rank odours must have assailed the nostrils then,”
I commented to my companion.
“Yes, sir. Fascinating, sir.” His voice was
muffled
slightly beneath the cloth he had tied
We arrived at the scene of the very first
murder - a priest of note and good reputation. around his face.
There was nothing out of the ordinary, even to my
“By my estimation, we need to proceed in a
trained eye; so, I took a photographic image of the
general area. The second was equally devoid of north-easterly direction, for approximately a mile,
inspiration. However, true to the age old adage, to find the epicentre of the attacks,” I said, looking
the third time was lucky. The cadaver had been down at my wrist-compass.
found on soft ground, and fortunately, the prints
It was then that I thought I heard something.
of the beast were still visible.
I held up a hand to both stop and silence Jarvis,
“Jarvis! Bring me the photographic images! I then pointed to the tunnel from whence I thought
the sound had issued. We hefted our weapons
do believe I have it!”
and proceeded as silently as possible. Every time
either of us made a noise, we froze, fearful that the
“Well done, sir.”
noise was, in fact, the beast. It wasn’t long before
It was as I suspected. A sewer grate could be I caught a glimpse of a shadow, as it disappeared
seen on all of the images.
down one of the many tributary tunnels. It was
that of a man!
54
ASTONISHING ADVENTURES MAGAZINE
“Jarvis, we must make all haste - either there is head, stunned.
a man in danger, or he has something to do with
“It seems our adversary is a little tougher than
these vile attacks.”
expected.”
“Yes, sir.”
“If you wouldn’t mind standing to one side,
Silence be damned, we ran down the corridor. sir,” asked Jarvis, “allow me to deal with the
The tunnels were labyrinthine, so at each junction, beast.”
we had to listen for the sound of fleeing footsteps
I did as he requested and he fired the Web
and pray that they were not merely echoes.
Cannon.
The thick ropes tangled around the
However, fortune was with us and we caught up
with the mystery figure, who was struggling to creature, and the hooks sank deep into the tunnel
wall.
unbolt a steel door.
“I should have known,” I said, pointing my
Electricity Gun at the figure, “Baron Kaspersky,
the Crime Tsar, agent of the perfidious Russian
underworld. Stay where you are.”
“Smythe. A not entirely unexpected pleasure.”
He turned to face me. I recoiled at the scar that
covered one side of his face. He obviously noticed
my horror. “Why so surprised Smythe? You are
the cause of my disfiguration, or had you forgotten
our last meeting?”
“Good show Jarvis!”
“Thank you, sir.” I think he may have smiled
slightly at that point, but I wasn’t quite certain.
“It seems we are not out of the woods yet,
though,” I exclaimed, pointing at the thrashing
predator. It was beginning to rip through the web,
which was somewhat remarkable, as it had been
used on elephants before now. “Follow me!”
We ran through the door from whence the
creature
had come. It snagged my topcoat with
“The Promethean Sphere. How could I?
You sought to drown our city in liquid fire. It one of it’s claws, but Jarvis pulled me, ripping
was somewhat ironic that you should be burnt my jacket slightly. We shoved the door closed
moments before the beast slammed into it.
yourself, was it not?”
Fortunately there was a thick iron bolt and we
“I have been living down here since, unable drove it home. There was an anguished cry and
to show my face up... there. You have turned me then a beating against the door. But that was not
into a pariah. I tried to fit in, but people shunned our only problem.
me. I had had my fill of women, but now they
“How is it your saying goes? Out of the frying
only turn in disgust,” he said wistfully, “but now I
am to have my revenge. I’m sure you’ve seen the pan and into the fire?”
handiwork of my pet. Allow me to introduce you
Kaspersky had a small, elegant pistol levelled
to him.”
at us. Behind him was a large device, like a huge
Unbeknownst to me, he had been working on hoop. Imagine, if you will, a clock. At 12 o’clock,
the bolt behind his back. The door burst open, 3 o’clock, 6 o’clock and 9 o’clock, there were softly
and the creature sprang forward in a flash of fang pulsating crystals. That was not the oddest thing
and claw. I fired my Electricity Cannon. The about the contraption though. Although we were
creature staggered back slightly, then shook it’s underground, it looked as if it led to a large, open
“The Predator From The Past”
plain, where rain lashed the ground. The Baron’s
hair and greatcoat were whipped by a wind that
issued from the tunnel.
55
“Sir?”
“I think we should retrieve the contents of this
room for further investigation. I have a feeling
“What do you think of my time tunnel, that these items may prove to be of interest in the
Smythe? Impressive is it not? You see, the future.”
creature you have seen is just the first of many.
“Definitely, Sir.”
Once I have fitted more of them with Pain Collars
to enrage them suitably, and starved them, I will
unleash them on the surface world en masse, so
that they may inflict mayhem and misery on those
that have shunned me,” he raised his arms aloft, as
if exalting the heavens.
“You’re mad, Kaspersky, simply mad. Those
creatures will turn on you as well,” I reasoned.
“That is not a problem. This device,” he held
up what appeared to be a small gramophone
“emits a sound that repels the beasts, whilst being
inaudible to man. Whilst I have this, I am entirely
safe. Now, Mr. Smythe, it seems we must part
company. For ever.”
It was at that point, to my good fortune, that
the door behind us splintered. Jarvis and I rolled
in different directions as the feathered thing burst
through. It seemed to try to stop itself, offended, as
it was, by Kaspersky’s device, but the momentum
it had built up was too great. It’s claws skittered at
the concrete floor before it fell and slid sideways
towards Kaspersky. His one good eye widened
with fear. As the beast hit him, he tried to fire his
pistol, but he was thrown of balance and the bullet
hit the crystal above him on the Time Tunnel. As
he and the creature tumbled backwards into the
tunnel, the vista behind him faded away. Then
the device collapsed in upon itself before seeming
to blink out of existence. The only mementos of
his being here were the small gramophone like
device that lay on the floor and the bullet-chipped
crystal.
“Jarvis?”
56
ASTONISHING ADVENTURES MAGAZINE
The Black Spectre in
“The Undressed Widow”
By Roger Alford
B
orn into a wealthy family, young Brent
Gregor’s life was shattered one fateful
Halloween night when an intruder’s bullets killed
his father, put his mother in an asylum, and left
him in a wheelchair. Young Brent became a
brooding recluse locked away, forever alone, in
his family mansion.
He was a small, soft-spoken, bespectacled man -the exact opposite of the kind that were featured
in the monthly “pulp” magazine for which he
worked. They’d just sent the latest issue to press
and it was time to take a well-deserved breather
before starting the next issue first thing Monday
morning.
When he reached adulthood, Gregor spent
much of his vast fortune searching the world in
vain for a cure. His far-reaching efforts led him
to an old gypsy woman who offered a fantastical
proposition: by joining with a mysterious entity
known as the Spirit Force, Gregor could summon
it when needed to not only walk again, but to
harness phantom-like abilities: superhuman
strength and agility, the power to hide unseen in
the shadows, move objects with his mind, and
easily pass through locked doors. In return, he
vowed to stand for the righteous, to fight evil, and
bring justice to those who have none.
The last place he wanted to go was home,
However. His wife, Ruth, would be there waiting,
though certainly not glad to see him. She had
been an innocent, pretty young girl when they
were married nearly twenty years Earlier. But the
truth was that they had little in common and
really didn’t much enjoy each other’s company.
Not that they ever did.
It was only a few Block’s walk to their
apartment on the South Side of Terminal City.
Albert took his time, enjoyed the night air, then
stopped off at O’Doule’s Bar for a hearty drink.
Now...like a ghost, he moves through the He’d only intended to stay for a short while, but
shadows of the night, bringing evil-doers to justice! the quiet solitude of the bar at that Late hour was
When criminals and lawbreakers are marked with too enticing. It was nearly two in the morning
his trademark “X,” they know there is no escape before the barkeep finally nudged him from his
stool and made him face the uninviting prospect
from...The Black Spectre!
of completing his walk home. It was a warm June
night And he found himself wishing that he had
a hammock and a back yard (with trees) in which
It had been a long day for Albert Johnson, but to string it.
he wasn’t The least bit anxious to get home from
his job as art editor for Thrilling Fables Magazine.
After he stumbled up the long staircase inside
“The Undressed Widow”
their brownstone building and stopped more than
once to Catch his breath and exhale a healthy
belch, Albert finally opened the door and walked
into the dim, modestly furnished apartment. It
was comfortable enough and, other than the back
yard, was all that he cared to have. He listened for
a moment, then quietly called out for Ruth. There
was no answer. Good, he thought, she’s already
gone to bed. He wouldn’t have to answer for his
late arrival.
57
the closet. He’d had suspicions about Ruth before,
but he’d always dismissed them. Not his Ruth. Of
course they had long been unhappy, but he was
convinced that she was too much of a lady to do
such a thing.
He only managed to take one step towards the
closet before he was bashed in the back of the head
with something heavy. Albert crumbled to the
creaky wooden floor and watched his blood spill
around his hands before the second blow made it
Not until morning, anyway.
impossible for him to react in any fashion. He lay
as limp as a rag doll with only enough feeling to
He stopped halfway to the bedroom to admire sense a string of wire loop around his neck from
the portrait of his beautiful Jessalyn that hung over behind. The only sensation he felt in those last
the fireplace. Even in the dim lamplight of the few moments was gasping for air as he choked to
room, her youthful, innocent beauty shone like death.
a beacon in the night. How he missed her. Ruth
had asked him many times to take the portrait
***
down, and had even done so herself on several
Auburn-haired reporter Vicky Rose arrived at
occasions, but Albert had always insisted that that
portrait remain. It was the one thing in his house the Johnson’s apartment only minutes after the
police did. Her editor, Frank Matson, had greased
on which he stood completely firm.
enough palms in City Hall to get the first scoop
He walked on to the bedroom and slowly on major stories and, better still, quick access to
nudged the door so as not to wake Ruth. The crime scenes. On this very early morning, it had
last thing he wanted was to spoil the continued paid off royally.
peacefulness. As he slowly creaked the door open,
She’d dashed out of her apartment right after
a dim shaft of light from the room behind him,
broken only by his own shadow, fell across the Frank’s call, putting on her make-up as she drove.
As determined as she was to equal any man on
bed.
the job, she was just as determined to never to let
It was empty and unmade.
them forget she was a woman.
“Ruth?” he asked again quietly. There was no
Vicky managed a good back-row seat as the
answer. This was most puzzling. Not at all what large, grizzled Detective Shayne consoled and
he expected.
questioned the victim’s wife. Mrs. Ruth Johnson
was a bundle of tears as she attempted to describe
“Ruth?” he asked once more, just a bit louder. the horrible situation. Vicky noticed that despite
In that moment, his puzzlement shifted to worry. her growing years and waistline, Mrs. Johnson
still maintained most of her youthful beauty.
As he stepped further through the doorway,
he noticed her clothing on the floor. Then his
This fact hadn’t escaped the police officers that
mind raced in a different direction. He looked at surrounded her, either.
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ASTONISHING ADVENTURES MAGAZINE
Nor did the fact that she was practically naked
Ruth tried to continue, “That’s when they...
in her tattered corset (a rather fancy one at that). they held me down and they...” She just couldn’t
get the words out. She broke down again.
“Please, Mrs. Johnson,” Detective Shayne
pleaded, “just take your time and tell me what
“It’s okay, Mrs. Johnson,” Det. Shayne
happened.”
consoled her. “You don’t have to go into that.”
“I came home late,” she sobbed, “Albert was
working late, so I went out with the girls, you see?
Anyway, I got home and saw that he still hadn’t
come home. So, I went into the bedroom to get
dressed for bed.”
Ruth Pleaded with them, “They took my
jewelry! All of it. Even my wedding ring!” Then
she fell into an inconsolable flood of tears.
Det. Shayne waited quietly as she sobbed
some more, then finally managed to interject,
Ruth broke down for another moment, then “Why don’t you put something on and we’ll go
gathered her composure. Vicky dutifully jotted down to the station.”
down every word as Ruth continued. “I heard
Ruth Johnson nodded in agreement, then
someone come in the back door, through the
kitchen. I just thought it was Albert, but couldn’t proceeded to get dressed right then and there, with
imagine why he would come in that way. I walked Det. Shayne and four Policemen still in the room.
into the Kitchen to check and as soon as I went During her entire encounter with the police,
through the door, this dark, muscular hand she never asked for any privacy. For a modest
covered my mouth. I tried to Scream, but he had housewife, she didn’t seem to have much shame.
me good. They drug me straight off to the spare This struck Vicky as being rather peculiar.
bedroom, and that’s where they tied me up.”
As Det. Shayne and the police officers hustled
She rubbed at the rope marks on her wrists as Ruth out the front door, Vicky grabbed the
opportunity to get a look at the other half of the
she choked up on the words.
Crime scene. Albert still lay on the bedroom floor
“Did you say it was two men?” Det. Shayne where he’d been bludgeoned and strangled just a
asked.
few hours Earlier, lying in a dark pool of his own
blood. His skin was ash-grey and his wide-open
She nodded, yes, unable to speak.
eyes bulged at the sockets. It was a gruesome sight,
but she’d seen worse and immediately snapped a
Vicky’s pencil hung in suspense over her pad. few pictures, even though she knew Frank would
never print Them.
“You said they were dark-skinned. Were they
negroes?” Det. Shayne asked further.
***
No, Ruth shook her head, then managed to
Vicky mulled the experience over in her mind
get out, “They looked Italian. Well-dressed.”
as she and her studious boyfriend Denny, who
worked in the newspaper’s archives, sat in the
This didn’t surprise anyone in the room. Least Carousel Ice Cream Parlor later that evening, long
of all Vicky, who perhaps knew more than anyone after the afternoon edition had hit the streets.
there about the Mob’s reach in Terminal City.
Denny could tell she was distracted by the way
“The Undressed Widow”
she pensively sipped at her usual double-chocolate
malt and just let the chocolate taste settle in her
mouth. Before he could ask what had distracted
her, she gave out the answer with a question of
her own.
59
Denny pleaded with her on the entire Drive
over to the Johnson’s apartment building, but he
knew it was futile. Vicky was determined and, as
irregular as it may have been, she was going back
for another look.
“Do I always assume the worst in people?”
He barely managed to keep up with her as
she asked. “Or do I just always see them at their she charged up the three flights of stairs to the
worst?”
Johnson’s apartment. When he breathlessly
reached the top, she was already Outside the
Denny only answered with a puzzled Johnson’s door, waiting for him, and motioned
expression. Before he could ask for clarification, for him to be quiet. He just nodded, too out of
she provided it.
breath to speak, as he stepped up to the door next
to her.
“I just wonder sometimes if this job is getting
to me. Take this Ruth Johnson story today. Here
Vicky reached quietly for the doorknob, then
this poor woman was tied up and who knows stopped short as a sudden thought struck her. She
what else, then her husband is murdered right in looked up at Denny, her eyes wide.
the next Room, and she’s left there all night until
the landlady found her this morning. And all I
“We may not be alone,” she told him.
can think about is if she’s not behind it in some
“What?” Denny asked, then immediately got
way.”
his answer as the door swung open -- they were
“How on earth could you think that?” Denny both pulled quickly inside and it closed straight
asked.
behind Them.
Vicky rolled her soft Eyes. “This is going to
sound loony, but the whole time she talked to
the police, she was...” Vicky stumbled for the
appropriate word. “Well, she wasn’t wearing
much. I know she was distraught, but if it had
been me, I still would have put something on.”
Denny tried to blurt something out, but
the black-gloved hand that covered his mouth
prevented him from making a sound. He was
unable to move as well. His entire body was held
firm by much more than the dark, enveloping
shadow of a figure that stood behind him. He
almost felt numb from the sensation.
Vicky’s gaze immediately shifted from
puzzlement to determination. Denny knew that
Suddenly thinking of Vicky, Denny looked
look well. Before he could even react, she grabbed up to see her standing in front of him, her arms
him by the hand and tugged him straight off the Crossed, her expression even more so.
barstool.
“Let him go,” she commanded their unseen
“Come on,” she told him, “I’ve got to have attacker. “Sorry, Denny, I was just about to warn
another look at that crime scene.”
you.”
***
“Only if he promises not to scream,” The
Black Spectre replied as he released his grip, both
60
ASTONISHING ADVENTURES MAGAZINE
physical and mental.
Denny jerked away and quickly swung his
gangly form around to get his very first look at
The Black Spectre. He also tried to catch his breath
without being noticed. Up until that moment,
Denny hadn’t really believed that The Spectre was
real, despite Vicky’s many encounters with him
in the past. He just had to see for himself to be
convinced.
“This is Denny, my boyfriend,” she said
emphatically.
“I know,” The Spectre replied.
The Spectre led them into to the bedroom.
Denny paused for a quick look at the portrait of
the lovely young girl that hung over the fireplace.
Something about that photo looked very familiar
to him. A quick tug from Vicky propelled him to
follow. He stopped short with a gasp as soon as he
The Spectre was exactly as Vicky had described saw the blood-stained chalk outline on the dark
him -- the flowing black cloak, the wide-brimmed wooden floor.
hat, the black mask that bore the glowing image
“I really don’t think we should be here,”
of a skull with dark recesses for eyes. And for some
strange reason, Denny suddenly felt that he’d Denny stuttered.
encountered The Spectre before.
“I don’t leave footprints,” The Spectre assured
“So, what are you doing here?” Vicky shot him as he floated gracefully over to the bed. With
back as Denny straightened up in an unsuccessful a wave of his hand, the corner of the Mattress
lifted just enough to reveal a small bundle tied in
attempt to look formidable.
a handkerchief.
“You have to ask?” The Black Spectre replied
“What’s that?” Vicky asked, though her
as he moved around her like smoke in a soft
breeze. As always, he was thankful for the mask suspicions already told her the answer.
that hid the joy in his eyes upon seeing her,
“Ruth Johnson’s missing jewels,” the Spectre
especially under such circumstances. What gave
replied.
“I wonder how Albert was set up for
him more satisfaction than the task of solving the
crime at hand was the knowledge that she, too, insurance.”
would return to the scene to investigate further.
“She murdered him?” Denny exclaimed,
She’d barely mentioned the undressed state of
much
too loud.
Mrs. Johnson in her article, but the doubt of
Ruth’s innocence was clear in her few, well-chosen
Vicky quickly shushed him to be quiet and
words. Their minds clearly thought alike and he
Denny just as quickly apologized.
treasured the time he had with her.
“But she was found tied up in the other room,”
A similar thought had occurred to Vicky, as
Vicky
countered. “She must have had help.”
well, Only she didn’t find it nearly as comforting.
I do assume the worst, she mused to herself. Just
“Exactly,” The Spectre agreed as he moved
like The Black Spectre.
silently over to the wardrobe and with another
“Come here,” The Spectre continued, “I want slight gesture, opened it up to reveal Ruth’s lingerie
to show you something.” He reached out a gloved and several new, expensive corsets.
hand for hers, but she took Denny’s instead.
“The Undressed Widow”
“I really don’t think we should be in there,”
Denny stammered emphatically.
61
smiled back.
“Ran across that one back when we were
Vicky stepped forward for a closer look. “Lot looking for that Thomas Gregor story,” Denny
of expensive corsets for a middle-class housewife. explained. “That name just kind of sticks with
Wonder where she got these?”
you.”
“That, I believe, is the question,” The Spectre
That was when she and Denny first met.
replied as he produced a business card just like a Vicky’s smile grew just a bit wider. His did, too.
magician reveals a playing card for his audience.
The Black Spectre was glad that his mask hid
“Judd Gormon, Corset Salesman.”
the pain that was surely visible on his face at that
Vicky quickly took the card from him and moment.
found a handwritten phone number and the name
Vicky pondered another thought. “Wait a
of a hotel scrawled at the bottom.
minute, the police found a monogrammed pin on
“I think this part is for me,” she told him.
the floor, with the initials ‘J.G.’; Judd Gormon or
Jessalyn Guilfoyle?”
“There’s just one thing that still puzzles me,”
The Spectre stated as he moved back through the
“I’d say it’s time we found out,” chimed
doorway and into the living room. Vicky and Denny, as his confidence got the better of him.
Denny quickly followed close behind. He stopped
“Poor Ruth,” Vicky shook her head, looking
in front of the portrait that had moments earlier
back
at the portrait as they left. “No wonder she
caught Denny’s attention.
killed him.”
“Who is this girl?” The Spectre asked. “Why
***
put her photo in a place of such prominence? The
only picture of Ruth is in that small frame over on
Judd Gormon quickly packed his suitcase and
the lamp table.”
practically jumped out of his skin when there was
“I don’t know,” Vicky replied. “The police a light knock at the door of his hotel room. He’d
been waiting all day for a call and had become
were wondering about that, too.”
completely unnerved by that time. He quickly
“Jessalyn Guilfoyle!” Denny blurted out. Both rushed to the door and leaned against it. He
Vicky and The Spectre quickly turned around in wondered if he should even answer, but the knock
surprise. Denny scratched the back of his head as had been too soft to be the police.
he struggled to pull the thoughts out.
He quickly bent down to the floor and looked
“It was, gosh... had to be fifteen years ago through the thin gap between the door and the
almost,” Denny added. “They were engaged, then threshold. He could just make out a slender pair
she got sick and poor thing died before they were of women’s high-heeled shoes.
married.”
Certainly not the police.
Vicky smiled at Denny, very impressed. He
62
ASTONISHING ADVENTURES MAGAZINE
“Yes?” he asked nervously, hoping to hear
Ruth’s voice on the other side. But it wasn’t
Ruth.
man, with sinewy hands that seemed to defy his
profession. He was certainly strong enough to kill
a man like Albert Johnson. And a woman like her
all too easily. As soon as Vicky looked away from
“Mr. Gormon,” a lovely female voice answered, studying his form, she spied the open suitcase on
“I’m so sorry to bother you at this late hour, but the bed.
I was really hoping to catch you before you left
town again.”
“Well, my heavens, it looks like I’ve come just
in time,” she remarked.
“Excuse me?” Judd asked and swallowed
hard.
“Yes, you just managed to catch me,” Judd
confirmed as he went over to a large travel case in
“This is Judd Gormon, the corset salesman, which he kept his sales models. Vicky fanned her
isn’t it?” the friendly young woman asked.
face with embarrassment.
“Why yes, yes it is,” Judd answered as he
collected his nerves, unlocked the door, and
opened it just far enough to peer out. Through
the crack he could see the shining, smiling face
of a lovely auburn-haired young woman. What
he couldn’t see was the lanky young man that
watched from the far end of the hall.
“Mercy!” Vicky exclaimed. “I never thought I’d
see the day when I was alone with a man in a strange
hotel room looking at ladies’ undergarments.”
“Please,” Judd reassured her with a calm voice
as his gaze traveled the length of her slender waist,
“don’t be embarrassed. Though I can’t imagine
why you would need a corset.”
“Oh, thank you!” she exclaimed. “I was afraid
I had gotten the wrong room. Forgive me for
“I wanted to get something special for my
being rude to barge in like this. I’m Mrs. Vicky husband, you understand,” she lied convincingly.
Morris. Would it be possible for me to come in “It’s our anniversary this week.”
and see your selection?”
As Judd’s gaze made its way down her legs,
“Why, yes, please do,” Judd answered, Vicky noted two small holes in the center of his
relieved, and opened the door wider. He could tie. Just the size of a monogrammed pin. She
have sworn he felt a light breeze as she walked then gave a quick glance through the bathroom
smartly into his hotel room, as if something had doorway. She couldn’t see The Spectre, but she
brushed past him. He wasted no time in locking knew he was there.
the door behind her.
The Black Spectre listened to their conversation
As Judd got a better look at Vicky, he was as he searched the bathroom. He carefully scanned
surprised he didn’t recognize her as a prospect. As the edges of the sink and tub. Sure enough, there
a traveling salesman, he gave out so many cards were traces of blood along the edge of the sink
it was hard to keep track, but thought surely he basin. Then he checked the garbage pail where he
would have remembered her.
found a bus ticket that was stamped at 3:12 a.m.
the previous night, just a short time after Albert
As always, Vicky immediately took in the Johnson was murdered.
details of her quarry. He was a large strapping
“The Undressed Widow”
63
Vicky gave another glance through the
“Who are you people?” Judd asked. “Where’s
bathroom doorway as Judd showed her the last of Ruth? Tell me!” he demanded, shaking his gun for
his corsets. It wasn’t quite quick enough, however, emphasis.
because Judd noticed and paranoia quickly got
“The police have her,” Vicky answered
the best of him.
nervously. “We found the jewels under the
“What’s going on here?” he asked. “Why do mattress. We’re with the Daily Crusader. The
you keep looking in there?”
police are on their way here, right now.”
Vicky smiled back at him reassuringly, “No
“Well, they aren’t here yet, are they?” Judd
reason. Like I said before, I’m just a little nervous asked as he moved quickly to the door, his eyes
about being in a strange hotel room with a man still locked on her.
I’ve just met. It’s not proper, you know.”
“You, out in the hall!” He shouted to Denny
Judd grunted in acknowledgement as he again, “get down on the floor with your hands on
casually moved towards his suitcase. His eyes were your head if you want her to live.”
locked on hers, and hers on him. She knew The
“You’re not going anywhere,” came a voice
Spectre would protect her, but she didn’t know
about Judd. He’d clubbed and strangled his lover’s behind him.
husband just a few hours earlier. Most likely,
“Who’s that?” Judd asked, whisking around to
he’d be willing to do most anything to escape the
face the bathroom door. “I knew someone was in
chair.
there!”
Vicky’s instincts were correct. As soon as Judd
The Black Spectre stood before him, one of his
reached his suitcase, he quickly reached inside
gleaming
.45s drawn and aimed straight at Judd.
and grabbed a small pistol from under his shirts.
Vicky let out a loud shriek that was immediately
Judd shook his head in confusion, not
followed by Denny calling her name from out in
the hall. Vicky knew right then and there that her believing what he was seeing. “I never thought
life was in the hands of two men: Judd Gormon you were real!” he stammered.
and The Black Spectre.
It’s about time, Vicky thought, as she frantically
Judd aimed his pistol straight at Vicky and looked for a place to duck. Behind the bed was
shouted to the door as Denny tried unsuccessfully the best that she could do. She finally let herself
to break it down. “Stop it right now, or the dame breathe just a small sigh of relief at the sight of
him. And then just one more when she heard the
gets it!”
sound of sirens approach in the distance.
“Okay! Okay!” Denny shouted from outside
“So, the dame wasn’t lying, was she?” Judd
and immediately ceased his attempts to enter.
chuckled as he raised the gun to his own head.
Vicky watched nervously as Judd snapped his The Spectre thrust out his empty hand just as
suitcase shut and never took his eyes off her. If Judd pulled the trigger. Judd suddenly felt his arm
The Spectre were going to act, she thought, this move up involuntarily and the shot fired into the
ceiling. The blast echoed through the room with
would be a good time.
64
ASTONISHING ADVENTURES MAGAZINE
Vicky’s accompanying scream.
him as he handed it to the formidable Detective.
It was a Judd Gormon’s card, with the name of the
It was only a brief moment before Judd felt hotel and a phone number hand-written at the
himself being knocked face-first to the floor by an bottom. Det. Shayne then flipped it over to find
unseen force, his arms and hands held down by something else on the reverse.
invisible weights. Then something equally unseen
struck him across the back of the head. He had
It was an “X.”
one last thought just before he blacked out: he
was glad that he wasn’t being choked.
“So, you found him just like this?” Det.
Shayne asked as he stood with Vicky and Denny
and examined the scene before him. Judd Gormon
was sprawled out on the floor in much the same
fashion as Albert Johnson had been, only he was
unconscious and with a pistol in his hand.
As Det. Shayne looked over Judd, his officers
searched the hotel room. In Judd’s suitcase, they
found a bundle of love letters from Ruth. Love
letters that spelled out their sordid plans and
waxed rhapsodic about how much better their
lives would be once Albert was out of the picture
and they had collected his insurance.
“So,” Det. Shayne asked, “how’d you manage
to put this all together?”
Vicky gave him a knowing smile as she took
Denny’s arm and headed for the door.
“Sorry, Detective,” she told him, “you’ll just
have to read all about it in tomorrow morning’s
edition.”
Moments later, as Det. Shayne stood at the
window and watched Vicky and Denny get in
their car on the street below, another of his men
found an important clue that had fallen under the
bed.
“Sir, I found something else,” the officer told
“The Yellow Star”
65
The Auslander in
“The Yellow Star”
By Michael Patrick Sullivan
W
ith each smattering of blood on his fist,
The Auslander forced himself to take solace
in the fact that each of these men, for whatever
broken bones or bruises they might have, will still
be alive after he leaves the thirty-story building on
47th Street. Had these men met him six months
ago, the same would not likely be true.
They were protecting that which was behind
the last door that the foreigner with the shock
white hair and deep black trench coat needed
to open. He had passed through many doors
already, most them over the prone bodies of
security guards that weren’t much better than a
4H, though each door was more difficult than
the last. Until he reached the door behind which
was The Yellow Star of Antwerp.
It was an image that came to him in a dream.
It was one of those dreams that had periodically
been haunting him since the day he woke up in a
hotel room with an array of false ID cards, each
with a different name. None of those names, he
knew, were his own, though he had no proof of
it as he had no memory of it…or anything else.
All he knew for certain is that his German
was better than his English, and with the Second
World War raging, that tended to be problematic
as roamed the states, following cryptic clues that
come to him and dreams. Each journey leads to
some kind of Nazi plot,. The pieces aren’t hard
to put together, Each plot, he fears, he likely had
a hand in. Each plot also brings back some piece
of his fractured mind as well as the dread that
when the final piece falls into place, he will once
again be more monster than man.
His most recent dream led him to New York
City’s Diamond District and, instinctively several
stories into the tallest building on the block. One
the locals simply called “The Tower.” Within
its secure walls were enough diamonds to get
engaged to every woman, single or not, in the
tri-state area. The Auslander was only interested
in one such gem.
The man of black and white dreamt of
a super-weapon, a beam weapon uniquely
focused by a specially cut gem. A cut so special,
so specific that it would lead Nazi agents deep
within The Tower, populated almost exclusively
by those they would exterminate with glee.
The same Nazi agents for whom he was, now,
clearing a path. Nazi agents just two floors
behind him. Each guard, each jeweler, each
innocent who met with the cracking force of
The Auslander’s knuckles was another person the
Germans behind him would not have to kill to
get to their goal. “The Yellow Star of Antwerp.”
The Auslander surmised that to be the name of
the deadly stone in question.
His blood-soaked hands work feverishly
to pick the locks of the final door as the
unconscious men in the traditional black suits
66
ASTONISHING ADVENTURES MAGAZINE
of Orthodox Jews lie heaped around him,
sparking a faint memory he’s reasonably certain
he doesn’t want to recall. He can hear the sounds
of doorknobs breaking plaster as his pursuers
violently kick open doors. It’s that sound that
nearly masks the clicking of the last tumbler in
the lock.
locate the Star and then, somehow, devise a plan
for keeping out of German hands.
The shock-haired man, slips through the
opened door, using the doorknob to anchor a
rapid turn, throwing his weight back into the
door, shutting it. He secures the lock, pulls
a nearby chair to brace the door and starts
scanning for heavy furniture when he finally
gets a look at the room he’s entered. Cabinets
surround the room, each with dozens of small,
flat drawers, and each likely filled with precious
jewels enough to buy the building they’re in a
hundred times over.
The Auslander turned to him. “Pardon?”
“Which one contains the Yellow Star?” he
thought to himself.
Fortunately, the Auslander had an
opportunity to get the answer from the only
other human being he found in that room.
Directly in the center of the room sat a bearded
Hassidic man at a work bench. His eyes, huge in
the lenses of his magnifying glasses, stare at him,
more offended than fearful or even surprised.
‘You are not allowed in here,” said the hirsute
cutter. “Didn’t Herschel tell you that? Where is
he?” He called out “Herschel?”
“You didn’t hear what was happening?” The
Auslander’s Austrian accent put the fear in the
cutter’s eyes that had not been there before.
“I hear nothing when I’m working,” uttered
the bearded man.
The Auslander busied himself once again
with securing the door, buying enough time to
“I need to find the Yellow Star.”
“My name is Menahem,” said the stone
worker.
“My name is Menahem, I said.” He took
off his work glasses. “You can’t kill a man if you
know his name.” It was something he very much
believed until that moment. He knew that proof
would soon overtake faith.
“I’m not here to kill you.”
“You say that now.”
“I’m not here to kill you, but right behind
me are men that will do so without remorse.”
“Who? Who are these men?”
“German agents.”
“I came here to get away from those goons,
and now they follow me here?” he uttered to
himself. He looked to the stranger that just burst
into his workroom. “If they are German agents,
then who are you?
It was the question he hated. The question
he always got. The question for which had only
one answer. The answer that said all and nothing.
The answer that marked him as an outsider, not
just in the foreign lands he now travels, but even
among his own people, especially the well-armed
one that were closing the gap. He had only one
answer.
“Ich bin ein Auslander.”
“The Yellow Star”
Menahem wasn’t entirely sure what he meant
by that. He knew the words. He spoke German,
but it was such an odd thing to say. It was the
way the black-clad stranger said it that spoke
volumes to him. He would trust the stranger.
The foreigner moved a large cabinet in front
of the door to block the path of the Nazi’s he
could now hear entering the room outside. It
was heavy and the moving up it would have
sapped his energy entirely were he not running
on pure adrenaline. The fact that he could move
it was of comfort at first, that he was able to
get the piece into position. Then there was the
less comfortable truth that if he could move it,
then the five intruders behind him would not be
stalled by it for too long.
Menahem asked “What do they want?”
The Auslander answered as he scanned the
room for escape roots, of which another door
was not going to be one. “They seek to build a
weapon of terrible force. A beam weapon.”
“A death ray? Like the one that Tesla fell used
to talk about. You know he died this year. Near
here.”
The stranger was not one for conversation
and certainly not for small talk. “Yes, a death
ray” The Auslander said. “And a vital component
for the focusing of this death ray is a specially cut
stone. It’s in this room. We need to find it. The
Yellow Star?”
Menahem searched his memory but came
up blank. “I know of no stone called the Yellow
Star.” The only Yellow Stars he knew of were not
highly prized at all.
The black and white stranger didn’t need
to hear that. “It must be. My dream—my
intelligence puts it in this room. The most secure
67
room in the entire building.”
“Not secure enough, apparently.”
The Auslander didn’t bother to tell him
that he found the security uncommonly good
and that the security was up against someone
uncommonly better. “We need to identify that
stone,” he said. “And do whatever we must to
make sure—“
“Erschließen Sie!” The Auslander was
interrupted by the yelling of Nazi agents
pounding on the door. “Open up! We will not
kill you!”
Both the foreigner and the cutter were
disinclined to believe them.
“We can’t let them get the stone.” The
Auslander was resolute. He noted several air
vents. None would be large enough to escape
through, but perhaps one of them would
facilitate the “losing” of the gem once it was
found.
“I told you, I know of no Yellow Star.”
“That doesn’t mean it’s not here,” said The
Auslander. “What stones have an unusual or
one-of-a-kind cut? Of the stones in here, which
ones?”
Menahem knew the foreigner would not
like the answer. “There are many. I’m known for
my ability to manipulate the stones. My cuts are
highly sought after.
The sound of gunfire then rang out through
the room. Submachine guns began to obliterate
the door frame, rendering the lock bar nothing
more than a useless bit of steel. The Auslander
never bothered to lay so much as a finger on his
Luger, a prize he’d taken from another German
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ASTONISHING ADVENTURES MAGAZINE
agent whose plans he’d fouled and whose life
he’d taken. A simple Luger would do him no
good. He counted the actions of five machine
guns. Five men. In the confined space, he had no
tactical advantage and luck was no friend to him.
A low, ringing thud came from the door. The
German’s had found something to ram their way
in with. The blocking cabinet moved. Slightly,
but it did.
“We need to leave here, my friend.” The
cutter got to his feet and took hold of his cane. A
plain brown-lacquered wooden cane he brought
with him from Europe. “Or rather, you do. Save
yourself, boy.”
“I’m not about to leave you here. Beside that,
the only way out is through and I—“
Crash. The blocking cabinet moved again.
“You are mistaken.” Menahem pointed to a
cabinet with his cane. “Behind there. A window.”
“We’re ten stories up.”
“Somehow, I think it’s not a problem for
you.”
“For you, though,” responded the Avenging
Austrian.
“I am at peace with my maker. If it is my
time, then it is my time. Whether it’s at his
hands, or theirs.”
The Auslander admired Menahem’s tenacity
not in hanging on to life, but in his unwavering
willingness to let his go. He thought it was an
easy solution. Too easy. It was a road he would
not take so readily, but in the back of his mind,
he felt some consolation that there was a road
map available, should the destination not be
smartly found.
“It doesn’t matter.” The Auslander
disregarded the cabinet. The gem is what they’re
after and even if you don’t know which one it is,
I can’t let them find it.”
There was another ramming of the door. “We
don’t know who you are, but give is the old man
and we will let you live.”
The Auslander was momentarily puzzled.
He looked to Menahem and was met with equal
confusion. Then it occurred to him. “The Yellow
Star?” Where did you come from?”
“Now is no time for chit chat, boy.”
“Just tell me. You came here to escape the
Nazis. Where from?”
“Belgium.” Said the cutter. “Antwerp.”
The shock-haired foreigner muttered to
himself. “The Yellow Star of Antwerp.” The
realization unlocked a piece of memory. Yellow
Star was not the name of a gem, it was a code
name used to designate the only man in the
world who would be able to cut the death ray
diamond successfully. The same man with the
bum leg and trapped in a room 100 feet over the
streets of New York. “It’s you. You’re the Yellow
Star. They have the diamond they need, but they
don’t have the man to cut it. They’ve come for
you.”
The Auslander immediately rushed to move
the cabinet that Menahem indicated, revealing
the harsh blue light of an overcast day. “I will get
you out of here, somehow.”
Another push from the intruders and the
cabinet moves again, enough to reach a hand
though. One of the Germans does just that,
“The Yellow Star”
69
feeling for obstacles. Instantly, and without
“In fact,” Menahem, continued, “it seems my
thought, The Auslander drew his Luger and fired existence is a hazard to the world. A world that
into the gap. A telltale thud indicated the odds
still needs you.”
have changed, in the favor of the black and white
stranger.
Another hit at the door. One more is all they
would need.
“Astounding,” exclaimed the cutter.
“Save yourself. Save the world. If not for me
“That still leaves us outnumbered, and the
then for my people.”
remaining for will very angry indeed.” He fully
cleared the way to the window, and pulled up on
The last hit came and the intruders stormed
the pane with all his might, cracking the paint
the room, all dressed in black, like the Auslander,
that has sealed it shut for untold years.
but with dark or dirty blonde hair instead of his
distinctive colorless shock. They instinctively
“Boy, look at me. I’m old, I have no balance
ducked when a single shot rang out from The
to speak of and I’m fat. Even if I could get
Auslander’s Luger. They looked up to find
through that window, I wouldn’t fit on the ledge Menahem falling to the floor, bleeding from the
and I wouldn’t be able to move.” He hobbled
tiniest little dot in the center of his forehead.
toward the foreigner. “It’s clear you have a
They also found an empty open window.
mission here, and it’s a mitzvah. You know what
you need to do.”
A jump, a swing and a calculated drop got
The Auslander most of the way down. It was the
Another arm appeared though the gap in the last two stories down that gave him the limp as
door. This one bearing an MP38 submachine
he walked down 47th Street. The gun in his coat
gun.
pocket felt like an anchor.
“They won’t shoot,” The Auslander assured
Menahem. “They might hit you.” The cutter did
not appear even remotely relieved as the window
finally broke loose of its seal and slide up.
There was no dream that night. No clue as
to his next destination and the next Nazi plot
that he probably planned and would certainly
disrupt. There was no sleep at all. He lay in a
makeshift bed in the back of a boxcar bound for
The foreigner climbed into the window and
who-knows-where, staring at the rotted wood
held his hand out to the misshapen gem-handler. ceiling and replaying that last squeeze of the
“Come on, now.”
trigger. It dislodged something in his memory.
It was familiar to him. It was something he
The cutter sat down on his work stool. “I will had done before and he knew that he would,
get us both killed. The world does not need me.” eventually, have to pay for that.
One of the Germans shouldered into the
door, moving it nearly wide enough to put a
man through, but not wide enough that they
wouldn’t be at an extreme disadvantage trying to
cross through.