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Tema: Kevin J. Anderson ~ Kevin Dž. Anderson  (Pročitano 19036 puta)
08. Jul 2005, 04:15:27
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Sky Captain & the World of Tomorrow



episode 1 "MECHANICAL MONSTERS"

     A Frightened Passenger
     A Winged Skull
     A Sinister Observer

     In the gathering dusk, a snowstorm settled around the huge streamlined shape that eased through the cold fog.
     As he stared out at the New York City skyline through the zeppelin's glass observation-windows, Dr. Jorge Vargas felt as if he were trapped within an enormous snow globe, the toy of a monstrous giant.
     The trapped feeling was not his imagination. And he was certainly familiar with monsters...
     A cold breeze rattled the panes, and he withdrew from the window, leaving a mist of condensation from his heavy, panicked breathing. From up high, the skyscrapers of Manhattan looked like a diorama in a museum display sparkling with driving white flakes.
     Around him in the opulent observation lounge, other passengers sipped wine or champagne, ate expensive cheeses, chatted. One potbellied man laughed too loudly, while his companions puffed earnestly on cigars, filling the lounge with a tobacco fog nearly as thick as the blizzard outside. A band played mellow music: a clarinet, a violin, a saxophone.
     The businessmen had neatly pomaded hair and immaculate tuxedos. Women showed off their pearls and jewelry; colorful cocktail dresses clung to their hips and legs, flowing like liquid fabric down to high-heeled shoes, while leaving alabaster arms and shoulders bare.
     Everyone in the lounge flaunted their wealth and social status. An event of such grandeur would earn its place in history. In soirees and cocktail parties for years to come, the passengers would brag about being aboard the Hindenburg III on its maiden voyage from Berlin to New York City.
     Dr. Vargas didn't want to be seen, however. He was simply trying to escape Germany - before it was too late.
     Throughout the deceptively gentle flight over Europe and then across the wintry Atlantic, the zeppelin's chefs had astounded the wealthy passengers with exotic meals, pates and caviar, incredible desserts and sugary confections. Vargas, though, had little appetite. He had spent most of the time in his interior cabin, hiding, dreading. The lullaby hum of great propellers reminded him of more sinister machinery...
     A crewman stepped through the observation lounge on his way to the bridge. He wore a white uniform, a smartlooking cap, gold epaulets, and a mannequin smile on his clean-shaven face. He nodded to some passengers.
     "Excuse me, Captain," a rail-thin woman interrupted him. She had short graying hair done up in a tight style more than a decade out-of-date, as if she had never passed beyond her days as a young flapper.
     The crewman's smile barely changed. "I'm just the copilot, madam."
     "Will the snowstorm delay us? Is there anything to worry about? Those buildings look very high -"
     The flurry of white flakes and the gusting breezes did not seem to bother the huge dirigible. Thanks to the constant knot in his stomach, Vargas could feel any increase in the swaying motion. After the horrific explosion of the first Hindenburg in Lakehurst, New Jersey, two years before, everyone had good reason to be skittish.
     Vargas had seen photographs of that other airship's fiery destruction after atmospheric electricity ignited a gas leak in the dirigible. (Some said the explosion was caused by anti-Nazi saboteurs.) He had seen images of the charred skeleton of the great zeppelin lying on the burned ground like the bones of a prehistoric monster. Oh, the humanity!
     But that disaster was nothing compared to what terrors lay in store for the human race... if Vargas could not get away.
     The copilot gave the old flapper a reassuring smile. "Not at all, madam. The Hindenburg III has none of the potential hazards of its predecessors. For us, even a blizzard is nothing more than frosting on the cake."
     At the snow-speckled window, the woman's husband said, "Looks like frosting on the whole city down there."
     The copilot was obviously well-versed in public relations. "And I think you'll agree that the amenities, the speed, and the comfort of a transatlantic voyage via zeppelin are far superior to even the finest luxury ocean liners. You mark my words, giant liners like the Titanic will soon be a thing of the past." Tipping his cap, the crewman walked past the couple to the polished wooden doorway that led to the bridge. "We'll be docking - safely - with the Empire State Building in under an hour."
     The band continued playing. Bartenders served another round of drinks. Vargas stared out the window, clutching his dark satchel with a death grip. He carried the satchel with him everywhere he went, not daring to leave it in his cabin, even with the door locked.
     Dr. Vargas was a thin, nervous man with salt-and-pepper hair, an aquiline nose, and a graying goatee. His unremarkable brown tweed suit was beginning to show too much wear. He hadn't had much chance to pack spare clothes when he'd fled Berlin.
     But it wouldn't be long now. Ahead of them, spotlights crisscrossed the skyline as the zeppelin lumbered forward. The Hindenburg III would tie up to the world's tallest skyscraper. A brass band would welcome the passengers on the rooftop, with another one on the streets below.
     Vargas would disembark with the crowd and then intentionally lose himself in the flurry of photographers and reporters. He would disappear into a city where no one knew him, where the pursuers would not guess to look for him.
     Safe. For a short time at least.

     The Hindenburg III seemed to take forever in its final approach. Passengers, many of them tipsy from too much celebrating, lined the windows of the observation lounge to gaze out at the spectacular metropolis.
     When they jostled the doctor's shoulders, making him feel threatened and claustrophobic, he moved toward the back of the compartment, still clutching his satchel. At the rearmost window, the view was blocked by guy cables and the sweep of the dirigible's nearest fin. The seal of vulcanized rubber did not fit perfectly around the pane of glass, allowing a chill draft. Vargas huddled in his tweed suit, glad for the brief solitude, anxious to be off the zeppelin.
     Fidgeting, he swiped a handkerchief across his brow as he discreetly eyed the room. When he was sure none of the passengers were paying any attention to him, Vargas reached into his pocket and withdrew two small test tubes.
     Swallowing hard, thinking of all the work and all the dark memories that had thrown him into this dangerous situation, he let his gaze linger on the twin vials before he wrapped them in the soft folds of his handkerchief. He snapped open his satchel and placed them protectively inside.
     The loudspeaker system crackled, and the captain's voice boomed out in deep, rolling German. Vargas flinched in instinctive terror, remembering other harsh commands delivered over blaring intercoms.
     But the man was simply announcing the Hindenburg lII's imminent arrival. "All passengers please take your seats and prepare for the docking procedure. We may encounter some slight turbulence due to the snowstorm as we dock to the Empire State Building."
     Outside, louder than the thrumming of the zeppelin's impressive motors, came the drone of airplane engines. Six swift fighter aircraft, each one painted with intimidating insignia - tiger stripes, leopard spots, or a red mouth of snarling fangs - roared past the gliding Hindenburg.
     Vargas quailed, but the other passengers whistled and cheered. The six aircraft sped past, tilting their wings in friendly acknowledgment. The captain came back over the loudspeaker. "Ladies and gentlemen, we are fortunate to receive a ceremonial escort from the famous Flying Legion! If any of you had doubts that we would arrive safely, I trust they are now put to rest?"
     Vargas knew the heroics of the mercenary Flying Legion. The daredevil fliers had saved the world from numerous threats, whether it was deadly comet dust or mad scientists with super weapons or bank robbers with machines that tunneled through the Earth's crust. He let out a brief sigh of relief.
     Two eager boys ran playfully past the old man, bounding to the only uncrowded window. Adults formed an impenetrable barricade at each of the prime observation spots.
     "Let me see! Let me see!"
     "Is Sky Captain with them?"
     As Vargas drew back, the boys bumped him and knocked his satchel to the deck. Since he hadn't clicked the clasp shut, the case broke open, spilling papers. The doctor snapped at the boys, "Please, please! You must be careful!"
     But the youngsters were too eager to watch the daring maneuvers of the Flying Legion planes to pay much attention to the old man. As Vargas frantically scooped up his scattered papers, he doubted any casual observer would see significance in all the documents. But to him the schematics and diagrams of complex mechanical components held dire significance for the future of the world.
     Each paper bore a prominent, ominous emblem stamped in the upper right corner - a grinning skull framed by iron-feathered wings. He grabbed the documents, covering the winged skull before anyone could see it.
     At the bottom of the pile lay a grisly autopsy photo. Vargas froze, remembering the victim's pitiful cries, the awful experiment. He feared he might vomit right there in the observation lounge (which the other passengers would no doubt attribute to airsickness). Then he glanced up to see one of the boys staring at the photograph, horrified. Before the boy could call out to his companion, Vargas stuffed the autopsy photograph in the satchel and fled. He couldn't get off the zeppelin soon enough.

     As the passengers gathered their belongings, talked to stewards, and waited for the final docking, Vargas moved down the Hindenburg's passageways, looking right and left. Close to his chest so no one could see, he held a pencil and a scrap of paper, on which he hastily scribbled a note. He glanced at the bustling porters assisting with baggage; he was searching for one in particular. He finally spotted the familiar man with blond hair, a rough complexion, and an easy smile.
     When Vargas caught the porter's eye, the other man nodded. "Yes, Dr. Vargas?"
     The doctor kept his voice low, pressing the satchel into the porter's callused hands. "This parcel must be delivered the moment we reach port. I... won't be able to do it myself." Passengers milled around them, and Vargas swallowed hard. He clasped his own hands around the porter's, forcing him to grip the case's handle. "A man will be waiting at this address - Dr. Walter Jennings. You must see that the satchel is placed in his hands. Personally. There can be no mistake."
     "Yes, Doctor. Right away." The porter lifted his jaw to show his determination.
     During the long journey, the porter had been cordial, not overinquisitive or solicitous, but he had sensed this passenger's deep anxiety. Perhaps it was desperation, perhaps it was foolhardiness, but Dr. Vargas had decided to trust the man. Vargas had no allies, no other choice - and the risk was too great to count on achieving everything alone. He needed assistance, and that porter had no connection whatsoever with Unit Eleven or their diabolical creations. He had taken the chance.
     The poor porter knew only the vaguest details of what he'd gotten into. Vargas felt sorry for endangering the man, but he had no choice. It was a long time since he'd been accustomed to dealing with innocent people.
     Taking the satchel casually, as if it were just another piece of luggage, the porter walked away, leaving Vargas standing by the window, feigning nonchalance. Finally, when he was far enough away, the porter glanced at the slip of paper Dr. Vargas had curled around the handle of the small bag.

     HE KNOWS I'M HERE. YOU MUST PROTECT THEM. GOOD-BYE, MY FRIEND.

     The porter blinked with concern. He hadn't believed how serious the scientist's spy games were. He turned back to where the old man had been staring forlornly out the window.
     Dr. Vargas had vanished into the crowd of passengers.

     Spotlights blazed against the zeppelin as it cruised above Manhattan and approached its destination. Continually falling snow reflected the bright beams of light, sparkling around the Hindenburg's smooth exterior. From the skyscraper's rooftop, newspaper reporters took flash photographs. In the streets below, crowds looked up to point at the massive dirigible coming to dock at the world's tallest structure.
     A team of men standing at the zenith of the Empire State Building gathered the towing lines suspended below the zeppelin's belly. Straining with the snow-wet ropes, they ushered the lighter-than-air ship to the sheltered dock.
     When the vessel had settled into position one hundred stories above New York City, a gangplank was lowered into place, then anchored for stability. Passengers, pleased to be among the first to disembark on the craft's maiden voyage, moved down the suspended bridge. Though the wide walkway was guarded with grip ropes, the plank spanned a dizzying height between the Hindenburg III and the building. Most of the passengers could not stop themselves from looking down...
     Far below, at the base of the skyscraper, a dark figure watched the activity above. Standing on the corner of Thirty-fourth Street and Fifth Avenue, the stranger stared upward with all the other people, but this person remained silent and isolated. Though other pedestrians shivered in the cold from the falling snow, the shrouded figure was impervious to the weather.
     Eventually, a black-gloved hand produced a small notebook from within a heavy jacket. Seven names were written in the notebook in precise block letters, every line even. There were no other notes, no markings. Five of the names had lines drawn through them.
     The dark figure raised a quill and methodically crossed out the sixth name on the list: DOKTOR JORGE VARGAS. Then the notebook was snapped shut and tucked away into the jacket.
     Only one name remained.
« Poslednja izmena: 02. Avg 2005, 16:59:26 od Anea »
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2

     An Intrepid Reporter
     A String of Disappearances
     A Mysterious Package

     Hot off the presses!
     At her desk in the Chronicle offices, Polly Perkins lifted her fresh copy of the early edition, scanning the front page. She loved the feel of crisp newspaper, the oily smell of black ink, the sound of rustling pages as she shuffled through the sections. Each copy carried the heady excitement of news. Sometimes she even went to the cavernous printing factories and stood in front of the rumbling newspaper presses just so she could snatch one of the first copies to come down the line.
     Especially if the edition contained an article or a photograph she had contributed. Like today's.
     New York's tall buildings filled the window behind her, but she leaned closer to the yellow glow of her desk lamp. The lamp's body was an illuminated frosted-glass globe of Earth. She had never been able to decide if it was an innovative art deco design or pure kitsch. Either way, the lamp served its purpose.
     Polly unfolded the front page of the newspaper, engrossed. The headline in bold seventy-point type, heavy block letters, shouted triumphantly:

                       HINDENBURG III DOCKED WITH EMPIRE
                           MAIDEN VOYAGE OF AIRSHIP

     A photograph - made grainy either by the snow flurries or poor reproduction - showed the prominent zeppelin tethered to the top of the skyscraper, like a plaything for Willis O'Brien's King Kong. Another photo, taken by a hardy amateur journalist who had stood out in the blizzard, showed the Hindenburg III from a distance framed by the towers and suspension cables of the Brooklyn Bridge.
     Polly ignored the huge headline, though, and considered a small article on the bottom of the page, which was much more important to her. She turned the newspaper over, leaning close and smiling as she scanned the words, alert for typographical errors.

                          POLICE SEEK MISSING SCIENTIST
                                by Polly Perkins

     Her blue eyes lingered on the byline before turning to the rest of the article. Accompanying the text was another grainy photograph, at least ten years old, but it was the best she could find in all the Chronicle's archives. Dr. Jorge Vargas had apparently disappeared as soon as the zeppelin docked, and she hoped readers might be able to identify the man, even if the picture was out-of-date.
     It would be quite a scoop if she could find him herself.
     Demure and unflappable, Polly was the Chronicle's crack investigative reporter - at least she considered herself to be. Her editor, Morris Paley, suggested she still needed a few more credentials. As soon as he'd said that, his baggy eyes suddenly lit up in alarm. "Now, Polly, that doesn't mean I want you to get yourself in trouble!"
     "I don't want to get in trouble, Mr. Paley. I want to get the news. Sometimes you have to do one to accomplish the other." She had smiled and shooed him away so she could get back to her typing on a well-used black Royal typewriter. Editor Paley had lingered at the office doorway, paternally worried about her, but Polly had ignored him. With her icy coolness, she would one day convince him that she could take care of herself...
     Now, turning back to her typewriter, she became lost in her own thought, her fingers pounding the keys furiously. Dr. Vargas was just the latest in a disturbing string of disappearances of prominent scientists who had worked in Germany for decades. She had noticed the connection and tracked down five other incidents where researchers had inexplicably vanished. Polly had written several articles, and Editor Paley had printed them, sometimes prominently and other times at the back of the section.
     So far, she hadn't managed to create much of a hue and cry. Nobody else believed the seriousness of the situation, but someone out there must have been reading and wondering. This latest disappearance seemed even more suspicious than the other five. With all the details she'd pieced together, it was plain to her that Dr. Vargas had been attempting to flee something...
     The intercom on Polly's desk buzzed, and she stopped typing to flip the switch.
     "There's a package for you, Miss Perkins."
     "Thanks, Isabel. I'll be right there."
     Down in the Chronicle lobby, Polly rapped her fingers impatiently on the front desk. Her wavy golden hair was neat and perfect, partially pinned up with barrettes, but she did not waste her time with complicated and fashionable new styles. She wore a smart business dress and black shoes with sensible low heels that would allow her to run after a story (or run from one, if the circumstances turned out badly). Polly had a catlike mouth with full red lips, a delicately pointed nose, and a calm, strong beauty that set her apart from the wilting, giggling lovelies who spent their days trying to snag the attentions of men.
     The lobby receptionist, on the other hand, walked like a wiggling duck in her tight red dress and high heels as she returned from the storeroom with a small brown package. "Here you are, Miss Perkins."
     Polly took the package with a curious frown. "I'm not expecting anything, Isabel. Do you know who -"
     "They didn't leave a name. Said it was important." As Polly hefted the package, then tore the paper away to reveal an old hardcover book, Isabel leaned over her counter. "Is that one of those new bestseller novels?"
     Polly glanced at the title stamped in gold foil on a leatherette cover. Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy by Sir Isaac Newton.
     "I don't think so, Isabel. Something a bit more classic."
     In truth, she had no idea what it could mean. Curious, she flipped open the front cover to find a loose movie theater ticket for an evening showing of The Wizard of Oz. A note had been hastily scribbled on the inside jacket in thin, spidery letters:

     I know who's next. Meet me tonight at 6:00. Come alone!
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3

     The Editor and the Gun
     A Clandestine Meeting
     A Missed Opportunity

     Reporters were good at protecting sources and keeping secrets. Working for the Chronicle was a tough business, and Polly had learned how to avoid obstacles or knock them aside. Not long after she received her mysterious message, she crept into her dimly lighted office and moved toward a row of filing cabinets. In the dim illumination, the beehive of Manhattan's lights began to glow through the window behind her. Although the newspaper offices were quiet after the close of business, Polly moved with unnecessary furtiveness. She slid open the top drawer of the filing cabinet and reached inside as far as her arm would go to rummage behind the file folders. From the back she withdrew a gilded oak box and brought it to her desk, where she moved pencils and notepads aside. With the fingernail of her index finger, she popped open the catch and lifted the lid of the case.
     "I've got a job for you tonight - I hope," she said to the small camera that rested neatly inside the padding. Polly gingerly lifted the camera out of the box, expertly checked the mechanism, loaded fresh film, clicked the shutter, and adjusted the lens cap. Satisfied, she slung the leather camera strap over her shoulder. The camera was a vital tool of the trade, her secret weapon to be used only for the most important stories. And if this strange message in Newton's book had anything to do with the missing scientists, she didn't want to take any chances...
     With the Leica ready to go, Polly dug even deeper in the back of the filing cabinet and pulled out a .45 caliber Colt service revolver and a small box of bullets. She suspected there might be some shooting tonight - either with the camera or the revolver.
     She swung open the revolver's cylinder and casually spun it. She had loaded two of the six empty chambers when someone suddenly flipped on the lights. Momentarily blinded but moving with swift reflexes, Polly spun around, holding the revolver ready.
     Standing in the doorway was a gray-haired man in his late sixties. Completely undisturbed by the gun pointed at him, Editor Paley let out a long, slow sigh and shook his head. "Polly, why do you do this to me? Where did I go wrong as your editor?"
     Nonchalantly, Polly continued to feed bullets into the revolver. "This?" She raised the heavy gun. "Colt New Service M1917. It's just a toy. My grandma gave it to me."
     "I'm sending one of the boys with you. I don't like this business you're getting yourself into." He gestured to the revolver. "And that stays here. No arguments."
     Polly didn't have any intention of arguing... or listening. "I'll be fine, Mr. Paley. You know what a careful girl I am." She spun the cylinder shut and stuffed the Colt into her shoulder bag.
     "My mouth moves, words come out, and you don't hear them."
     "Oh, I hear them." She caught a glimpse of the big clock on the wall, then grabbed her bag and headed for the door. "I'm late for a movie. The Wizard of Oz - have you seen it?"
     "I hear it's good, but I doubt it can compete with Gone with the Wind. My wife liked that one." Editor Paley had three grown daughters, none of whom had ever given him any trouble; Polly, though, wasn't anything like them. When she flashed a smile that made him flinch, he said, "Polly, I don't like it when you smile at me."
     "You don't like my smile?" She smiled again, brighter this time.
     "I don't like what's behind it." He stopped her at the door, but he knew he couldn't block her way when she was determined. As a last resort, he tried to be reasonable. "Six scientists are missing, Polly - probably dead. Someone out there means business, and I don't want you in the middle of it. It's time you leave the detective work to the police."
     "I'm only going to a movie, Mr. Paley. Munchkins, cowardly lions, tin woodsmen -"
     "Uh-huh. With a gun and a camera."
     "A girl can't be too careful these days. You don't have to worry about me."
     "I'm worried for me. If you get yourself killed, there's a lot of paperwork involved. And then I have to start from scratch training your replacement." He rubbed his heavy cheeks, pensive. "Of course, maybe somebody else would be a bit less intractable..."
     Polly flippantly moved past him. "I'll bring you back some popcorn."
     As she went by, the editor insisted on giving her a reassuring hug, barely more than a pat, and Polly indulged him. His hand brushed her leather bag.
     After she had gone, Morris Paley's expression showed no defeat. "You've still got a lot of tricks to learn about this business, kid." In his right hand, he smugly twirled the Colt, which he had easily lifted from her bag. "I hope you live long enough to master them all."

                                 *       *       *

     Pinkish-orange neon lights spelled out the letters of Radio City Music Hall. The usual throng of city dwellers passed by the theater going about their daily business. The streets were wet and sloppy with melting snow. Yellow cabs raced by, splashing slush as they stopped at the curb to let out theatergoers.
     Polly climbed out the back of a cab, bent into the window to pay the driver, then turned to face Radio City. She wore a black fedora over her long blond hair and a warm trench coat to hide her camera strap. She glanced at her watch again. She didn't want to be late. Polly walked purposefully toward the door, bypassing the ticket window. She didn't even notice as her cab raced away, splattering other pedestrians.
     In front of the theater, an elaborate display advertised the new film everyone was talking about, The Wizard of Oz. Polly had heard rave reviews, but hadn't found time to see the movie. Talking scarecrows and heartless tin men weren't really her style. But she was supposed to meet her contact here.
     An usher took the ticket Polly had found inside the Isaac Newton volume. As she entered the lobby of the theater, several men gave her appreciative looks, but none showed any special sign of recognition. The man who had left the brief, intriguing message inside the book must be there waiting. Suspicious of everyone, clearly trying to make contact with anybody who would meet her eyes, she moved slowly through the foyer.
     She settled into a place near the concession stand where she could scan the crowd, then reached into her handbag and withdrew the book. Maybe the man had only read Polly Perkins' byline and didn't know what she looked like. She held the book out in front of her careful to keep it prominently displayed by tilting it this way and that.
     Most of the patrons didn't even notice her, and those who did responded only with curious looks. A well-dressed man bumped Polly on his way to purchase popcorn. She held out the book for him to see, but when he read the title, he gave her a sour look and stepped to the concession stand. When he had turned away, Polly made a face at him.
     Sighing, she again glanced around the foyer - and this time noticed a man standing in the shadows of the balcony staircase. He was clutching a small satchel. She sensed something about him...
     Their eyes locked. The man turned and started up the stairway, apparently intending for her to follow. Trying not to be too obvious, Polly waited a moment, then trotted up the winding stairs after him.
     As if afraid to look at her again, the man did not turn around, but moved directly toward a row of empty seats at the front of the balcony. It was not a very good place to view the show, but the seats did provide a place for private conversation. The movie had already started, and as she followed the man down the empty aisle, she glanced up to observe Judy Garland clutching a small dog to her chest as she walked through a decidedly exotic locale. The actress told the dog that she didn't think they were in Kansas anymore, which seemed an astute observation, given the circumstances.
     She settled into the seat next to the man. He was thin and nervous, with gray hair and the face of an absentminded professor. In the flickering light from the movie screen, Polly saw that he had darting brown eyes behind gold-rimmed spectacles. They sat stiffly beside each other, silent but tense, like two teenagers on a first date.
     Finally, Polly held up the book. "You sent me this?"
     He glanced quickly around to make sure the nearby seats were all empty, then nodded.
     Emboldened and sensing a story, Polly asked, "Who are you? What's this all about, Mister...?"
     "Dr... Dr. Walter Jennings. But keep your voice down please." The man had a clear German accent.
     Polly obliged. "What kind of doctor are you? A surgeon?"
     "I'm a research chemist. I specialize in nucleic acid emissions. The bonding enzymes in proteus molecules which -"
     Now her suspicions were verified. "The missing scientists! You said you knew who was next."
     He hesitated. "Yes... I..."
     They sat a long time without saying another word. She could already tell he needed more incentive to spill everything he knew. Polly stood up and then turned to exit. "Doctor, you contacted me. I have a deadline to meet. If you don't intend to talk -"
     Jennings clutched the sleeve of her trench coat. "All right, listen to me. I was one of seven scientists chosen to serve in a secret facility stationed outside of Berlin before the beginning of the Great War. It was known only as Einheit Elf, Unit Eleven. We agreed never to discuss what went on behind those doors." His voice was distant. "The things we were made to do there... terrible things."
     Polly began to scribble notes on her pad. When the scientist saw what she was doing, he paused, frightened again. Behind his spectacles, tears glimmered in his eyes. "I... I really shouldn't have come..." He rose and bolted in the opposite direction, threading his way past the empty seats to reach the aisle, where he could scuttle out the back.
     After those tantalizing comments, Polly had no intention of letting the man get away. She caught up to the scientist and grabbed his arm. "Wait! In your note you said you knew who was next. Six scientists have already vanished."
     "Yes... I..." His expression fell. "Don't you see? There is only one left."
     "Who is it? Who?"
     "Me. He's coming for me!"
     Suddenly, with a din that penetrated even the noise of the movie, air-raid sirens began to blare from the surrounding rooftops. The piercing wail of New York's civil defense warnings ramped up and down with a warbling tone that struck fear into all men, women, and children. The film on the wide movie screen flickered, then stopped. The house lights came up as air-raid sirens transformed the theater into a riot scene.
     Terrified, Jennings struggled, but Polly would not let go of his arm. "Who, Doctor? Who's coming?" People in the audience began to scream louder than the sirens.
     Jennings' eyes lit in terror. "Totenkopf! It's Totenkopf!"
     Polly strained to remember the little bit of German she knew. Totenkopf. Dead Head? Death's Head?
     The scientist yanked his arm away so forcefully that he tore the outer seam of his jacket. "I have to get out of here! He has found me!"
     Panicked theatergoers streamed from the upper balcony and ran for the exits, crowding between Jennings and Polly. She could no longer reach him. The scientist glanced back at her, his gold-rimmed eyeglasses askew. Then he moved down the stairs, swept away with the crowd.
     Evacuation alarms continued to wail, but Polly had other concerns than an imminent bombardment from the skies. Turning back to where she'd been sitting she noticed something out of the corner of her eye. A folded sheet of paper had fallen from Dr. Jennings' satchel - by accident, or intentionally? - and lodged in the theater seat.
     Oblivious to the chaos around her as the balcony emptied, Polly picked up the paper. When she unfolded it, she stared at the schematic drawing of a strange machine. From the scale marks on the drawing, she was sure she must be interpreting the blueprint incorrectly. The size didn't seem possible.
     Perplexed, Polly turned back to the exit through which Jennings had just fled. Outside, she heard the menacing rumble of something huge approaching.

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Zodijak Pisces
Pol Žena
Poruke Odustao od brojanja
Zastava Unutrasnja strana vetra
mob
Apple iPhone SE 2020
4

     Robots from the Sky
     The Defense of Manhattan
     Polly Gets Her Scoop

     When Polly burst out of the movie theater into the street, she ran into a scene of complete mayhem. Cabs skidded into one another, scraping sparks and denting bumpers. Pedestrians ran headlong into the roadways, blindly seeking shelter.
     Though America was not at war with any nation, every year it seemed another mad scientist with another doomsday plan tried to destroy a major city. Polly remembered the flying Iron Sphere and its mind-control antennae, and then it was Lord Dynamo and his terrible lightning-rod zeppelin. By now the population of Manhattan had learned how to react in an emergency. Air-raid sirens pealed out, and New Yorkers raced for designated civil defense shelters.
     Called into position by spotters stationed atop the tallest skyscrapers, military and police battalions hurriedly set up defensive blockades. They prepared their weapons and set up cars and tanks as roadblocks. Piercing spotlights swept the darkening skies, searching for the oncoming threat.
     A droning, thunderous rumble echoed through the canyons of the city, sounds reflected by the tall buildings. Policemen and soldiers tilted the barrels of their guns high. Terrified people simply pointed their fingers and stared upward.
     Polly peered into the slice of sky visible between buildings and saw an aerial invasion force unlike any she had ever imagined. A swarm of strange flying machines cruised overhead, shaped not like aircraft, but metal humans with legs pressed together and arms outstretched as wings. The giant metal men cruised along under their own power, organized in a tight formation descending over New York.
     Polly ducked around the corner of a building as uniformed soldiers ran past, their boots clattering on the wet sidewalk. They held rifles and machine guns ready as if they were charging enemy trenches in the Great War. Fifth Avenue was fast becoming a battle zone.
     Moving with a reporter's automatic instincts, Polly had already removed her camera, installed the electronic flash, and snapped a quick photo of the mayhem. At least she had plenty of film. But she needed to see more - and she had to get her story off to the Chronicle before any other reporter got the scoop. By sheer dumb luck, because of her meeting with Dr. Jennings, Polly Perkins was right in the thick of things. Editor Paley would be proud... or angry.
     Like a flock of sinister migrating geese, the giant robots droned overhead higher than the skyscrapers, heading toward an unknown target. Wave after wave of them passed.
     As she considered her next move, Polly spotted a phone booth on the corner of Fifty-third Street and made a run for it. Tucking herself inside, she slid the folding glass door shut to block out most of the uproar of air-raid sirens and military preparations. She urgently produced a handful of change from her purse, deposited a coin into the phone's slot, then dialed.
     Polly pressed the receiver close to her ear as Editor Paley's phone rang. She knew the older man would still be there. In fact, in such an emergency, he was probably standing at his window along with a few other reporters, watching searchlights scan the heavens and trying to make sense of the ominous fleet of flying iron giants.
     On the third ring, Paley picked up the phone. "City desk!" In the background, she could hear that the newsroom was in a chaotic frenzy.
     "It's Polly, Mr. Paley! I'm your reporter on the scene. Right here, in the midst of it all."
     "Polly?" He didn't sound pleased at all. "Listen to me - you get out of there!"
     "That doesn't sound like a good decision, Mr. Paley. Don't you want to sell newspapers?"
     He grumbled. "Tell me what's going on. They're calling for Midtown to evacuate."
     With rapid-fire chatter, Polly explained while flipping through pages in her small notepad. "Listen, Mr. Paley, I don't have much time. I met with my contact in the theater and got some information. Everything ties together with the disappearances. I'm sure of it."
     "What ties together? What are you talking about, Polly?"
     Watching the military tanks pull into position, she wedged the phone between her shoulder and ear so she could scribble another note. "I need anything you can dig up for me on a Dr. Walter Jennings and someone named Totenkopf. A project named Unit Eleven. Get me a phone number, an address, anything you can find. It's important."
     "Totenkopf? Who is he?"
     "That's what I'm hoping you can tell me. A German researcher or something. I think he may be involved with the missing scientists. Meanwhile, I'll see what I can find out around here."
     "Uh, Polly - you do know they've set up a restricted perimeter? You're supposed to evacuate."
     "I'm supposed to get a scoop for the Chronicle, Mr. Paley, so don't ask me to leave now."
     On the phone, she heard him call to a copy boy and bark orders. "You there, dig up some information on this - fast as you can." His voice became louder as he spoke directly into the phone again. "Polly, listen to me. I'm your boss, and I want you out of there right now. Do you hear me? Hang up the phone, close your notebook, and just get out of there."
     Polly turned to look through the window of the phone booth. "Wait a minute... I see something." Her eyes widened. "It's coming into sight now above the Palisades! They're... they're huge! They're crossing Sixth Avenue. Fifth Avenue. A hundred... a hundred yards away."
     From inside the phone booth, Polly moved her eyes slowly upward, amazed at the massive size of the machines heading her way. They were taller than some of the buildings. Her voice dropped to a whisper. "My God..."
     Desperate gunfire erupted all around her.
     At the Chronicle's city desk, Morris Paley could hear the chaos through the telephone receiver. Out of his office window, he saw bright spotlights and the sparkling flicker of repeated gunfire from ground level. He clutched the phone. "Polly?" There was no answer. "Polly!"
     On the corner of Fifty-third Street, the receiver swung freely inside the empty phone booth. The editor's faint voice called after her through the dangling telephone. "Polly! Polly!"
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Zodijak Pisces
Pol Žena
Poruke Odustao od brojanja
Zastava Unutrasnja strana vetra
mob
Apple iPhone SE 2020
5

     March of the Giant Machines
     Calling Sky Captain!
     A Dangerous Photo Opportunity

     While the police hunkered down in formation behind their squad cars, preparing to open fire, Polly sprinted away from the phone booth. Her camera dangled on its strap, and she knew she had to get closer - but the police barricade was right in her way. Everyone else had already evacuated or found secure shelter.
     Her shadow cast a trim silhouette against the brick foundation of a tenement building as she ran down a narrow alleyway, sneaking around the squad cars.
     "Stop! Hey, lady - come back!" A police officer blew a whistle at her. "Aww, c'mon, lady! I can't go chasing after you - we got giant monsters coming this way!"
     Polly didn't answer as she caught her breath in the darkened alley, then checked her camera, ready for the best shot. She would do whatever it took to get the story or snap an award-winning photograph. Besides, she didn't see any of the male reporters from the New York Chronicle putting themselves in danger for the sake of a scoop.
     When the ground around her began to shake as something enormous moved past the narrow opening of the alleyway, she wondered if she might have made too brash a decision. She looked up - and up - at what was coming her way. "I should have brought my wide-angle lens."

     A line of military vehicles sped down Fifth Avenue in a hasty retreat, jeeps overloaded with anxious soldiers training their rifles behind them. Tanks clattered along the pavement, knocking parked cars aside as they fell back from the approaching menace.
     Booming impacts followed them, each footfall a slow and inexorable thunderclap. Even at their top speed, the tanks and jeeps could never get out of the way in time.
     With plodding movements, towering monstrosities stomped in lockstep through an abandoned intersection, looming as tall as the corner building. Hulking mechanical giants walked side by side down the streets of New York City, crushing everything in their path.
     These robot monsters had arms and legs thicker than the girders that formed the tallest skyscrapers. Round swiveling joints marked what would have been elbows and knees. Each disklike hand bore three curved metal claws, a garden rake large enough to rip a furrow down the side of a battleship. Square torsos studded with rivets as large as manhole covers contained the mechanical systems, engines, and power generators. Each armored chest bore the sinister emblem of an iron-winged skull.
     The heads of the robot monsters were shaped like heavy welding helmets. A single antenna rose from the right side of each helmet, and a broad bright panel of glowing glass served as the blazing wide eye of a cyclops.
     Hiding in side streets, police trained their machine guns on the robot monsters. They fired in vain, a constant barrage of bullets that did nothing more than sketch bright sparks across the metal. The iron giants strode down the deserted city street, not intimidated, not even slowed by the gunfire. One huge foot came down on a squad car, flattening it into scrap metal as a policeman flung himself to the side.
     Side by side, unstoppable, the robot monsters marched toward their unknown destination.
     Scrambling from his ruined squad car, the disheveled police sergeant raced for a call box, shouting into a two-piece handset. "They've broken through the perimeter. Send reinforcements. Send us everything you've got!"

     At command headquarters for New York City Defense Operations, a radio operator received the urgent call for help. At times such as these, the local military and the NYPD could not face the threat alone.
     A flashing red light on the wall added urgency. The radio operator opened a scarlet three-ring binder, flipped tabs, and reached the relevant section. He'd done this before. Taking a deep breath, he grabbed his desktop microphone and broadcast on the necessary frequency. "Emergency protocol 90206. Calling Sky Captain! Come in, Sky Captain! Repeat, calling Sky Captain and the Flying Legion. Come in, Sky Captain."
     Radio waves pulsed out from a special transmitting tower atop the Empire State Building. Amplifiers and booster stations received the signal and retransmitted it across the city, over the North American continent, the Atlantic Ocean, and across Europe. At the speed of light, the distress call crisscrossed the planet, summoning the brave aerial hero wherever he might be.
     As the robot monsters lumbered ahead, the radio operator's voice continued to echo through the sky.
     Then, from far out in the lower part of New York Bay, racing in from the Atlantic and through the Hudson River Narrows, a rumbling roar cut like a sword through the thick cloud base. Superfast engines drove the plane forward like an angry hornet, between Staten Island and Brooklyn, then over Manhattan.
     Bursting through the murk, a P-40 Warhawk swept in between the tall buildings, flying as if obstacles meant nothing. The ferocious fanged mouth of a snarling tiger was painted across the plane's nose behind the blurred circle of the furious propeller. A painted pair of glaring red eyes seemed to search for targets ahead. Three 20mm machine guns mounted in each wing extended forward, loaded and ready to fire upon the mechanical monsters.
     Sky Captain had arrived. Wedged into the cockpit of the battle-worn fighter, Captain Joe Sullivan worked the controls as if they were extensions of his fingertips. He felt his plane and sensed its movements with an uncanny instinct.
     The radio operator's static-laced voice came again through a tinny speaker in the headset: "Come in, Sky Captain..."
     With a gloved hand, Sky Captain raised his microphone and depressed the transmit key. The taciturn leader of the heroic Flying Legion was an aerial daredevil of unparalleled skill, and he radiated confidence as he roared toward the giant robot monsters. "This is Sky Captain. I'm on my way."
     His leather hood fit snug against his hair, and goggles sat in place over his eyes. He hunched into the fleece-lined collar of his leather bomber jacket, ready to go.
     The aluminum alloy propeller blades whirred like a buzz saw almost to invisibility. His P-40 did an arching loop as he rocketed toward the enormous robots menacing Manhattan.

                                 *       *       *

     Down in the chaotic streets, Polly was not about to let this story get past her. She skirted the abandoned police barricade and continued through the alleyway toward the other end. She dodged garbage cans and two empty boxes made of corrugated cardboard. Finally, she saw brighter light ahead, the last remnants of dusk. Automatic neon signs and streetlights began to glow as if it were any normal evening.
     She made a run for the cross street, racing down the alley and into the wider avenue - emerging directly into the path of the marching robots.
     In her sensible shoes, she slid to a stop in the middle of the street, craning her neck to stare. Her minuscule form was like a lone doll in front of the mammoth iron monsters crunching toward her down the street. She froze, knowing the robots must have seen her.
     As the huge machines loomed over her, blazing cyclopean eyes cast harsh illumination down the evacuated street, as if scanning for something. Polly realized that if she could take this photograph, there was a Pulitzer Prize in it for certain.
     In the middle of the street, Polly popped off the camera lens cap and determinedly advanced the film. Because her hands were trembling, she decided on a fast shutter speed, but with the fading daylight, maybe she did need a longer exposure. She raised the camera, pressed her eyelashes against the viewfinder, and lined the nearest robot monster in her sights. Steady... steady.
     Before she could snap the photo, an enormous blast hit the side of an adjacent building, smashed by one of the destructive robots. The explosion sprayed rubble in all directions, and the shock wave threw Polly to the ground. Knocked from her hand, the camera skittered across the street to disappear into a drain gutter.
     Polly jumped to her feet and raced for the gutter. The robots plodded forward, each massive footfall cracking the pavement. If she didn't hurry, she would either be squashed or lose her shot.
     She dropped to the curb, not caring about the mud, dirt, and garbage. Urgently squeezing her hand through the sewer grating, she stretched her arm to its full length.
     The ranks of giant robots marched ahead in lockstep. Their feet sounded like metal drumbeats shaking the ground. With her face close to the pavement, she stretched her arm down into the grate, and her fingers quested for the fallen camera. Her fingers tantalizingly touched the leather strap.
     A dark shadow fell over her, cast by the oncoming machines. Polly looked up in terror to see the robot juggernauts only a few giant steps from her.
     She tried to stay focused as her fingertips grazed the camera strap again, nudging it, until finally she touched the camera itself. She strained so hard she felt as if she were pulling her arm out of its socket. Then she slowly, carefully curled her pinky finger around the thin strap. Delicately, as if it were filled with nitroglycerine, she began to lift the camera out of the gutter.
     Grinning in triumph, Polly pulled it out of the drain and jumped to her feet. Now that the camera was safe, she needed to get out alive.
     She rushed toward the alley, but stopped short as the concussive force of the giant machines made the brick buildings shake and buckle. Chunks of concrete and mortar rained down on the street, blocking her way. Polly spun around, suddenly serious. She considered her options.
     Farther down the street, the police had reassembled at a second fallback barricade. With pistols, rifles, and machine guns, they opened fire on the machines, unaware of her presence. Hot bullets ricocheted off the robots' bodies, singing and sparking in all directions.
     Polly raced to the sidewalk, but buildings blocked her path on either side. She could dodge the hulking machines more easily than she could stay out of the way of the hail of bullets. Chunks of debris continued to crash around her, creating a dusty haze. She could never make it back to the barricade and the dubious protection of the police.
     Polly took a tentative step backward, her mind racing. Then, with a look of resolve, she reached down and ripped the side seam of her skirt, freeing her legs because she needed to run.
     "Desperate situations sometimes call for crazy solutions," she said aloud. Editor Paley had told her that when she'd been a new reporter doing nothing more dangerous than covering social gatherings and orchid shows. At the time, he had been giving her only theoretical advice so that he could sound wise. The older man had never expected her to be in a situation where she could actually put the idea into practice. "So here's my crazy solution."
     With only one way out, Polly took a deep breath - and then bolted directly toward the robots. The monstrosities were huge but slow, and she had plenty of room to move. It seemed like a workable idea, though she had to admit the situation looked worse and worse the closer she came to the machines. One giant foot came down with a thud.
     The best thing about brash actions was that, once she decided upon them, she couldn't change her mind. Like an insect about to be crushed, Polly dodged between giant legs. She ducked as an arm the size of a construction crane swung over her with a rake of crowbar-thick claws. Then she swerved to the side as an enormous metal foot as big as a taxicab landed in front of her. The force of the stomping step was so great the aftershock knocked her to her knees.
     She looked up at the upraised iron shoe descending only a few feet above her. Gasping, Polly rolled out of the way as the robot boot struck the pavement. Another foot crashed down next to her, followed by another and another, like mortar fire. Polly covered herself as the street was pounded on all sides.
     The deafening, whirring noise of robot gears made Polly roll, turning to look up into a shadow. The heel of a raised metal boot hovered over her body. Polly watched, helpless and unable to scramble out of the way as the robot's foot started downward.
     There was no escape. She was doomed.
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Zodijak Pisces
Pol Žena
Poruke Odustao od brojanja
Zastava Unutrasnja strana vetra
mob
Apple iPhone SE 2020
episode 2 "WINGED TERROR"

     After arriving in New York City aboard the Hindenburg III, Dr. Jorge Vargas has mysteriously vanished.
     With the city helpless and under attack by giant mechanical monsters, a distress call is sent out to Sky Captain and the Flying Legion.
     Meanwhile, Polly Perkins has fallen into the path of the hulking machines and is about to be crushed underfoot...


     6

     To the Rescue
     A Crater in Manhattan
     A Worldwide Disaster

     Only seconds from being crushed underfoot, Polly knocked her camera out of the way. It skittered aside, rattling on the pavement. Maybe at least the photos would be saved. Then, in dismay, she realized she hadn't managed to take any good shots yet. The robot's foot descended, and Polly knew exactly what a bug must feel like.
     Suddenly, swooping down Fifth Avenue as if the tall skyscrapers created no obstacle at all, the P-40 Warhawk threw itself into the metal monster's path.
     A volley of machine gun fire from all six of Sky Captain's wing cannons knocked the towering machine backward. Already off-balance with one leg upraised, the robot tottered, allowing Polly sufficient time to escape. She rolled away, breathless, pausing just long enough to snag her camera. As she ran, Polly raised her hand to throw Sky Captain a mock salute while he roared past. Then she scrambled for cover behind a pair of hastily erected sawhorses blocking a narrow alley.
     The cheers of frightened policemen rang out from farther down Fifth Avenue, where another last-stand barricade had been erected. Sky Captain gained altitude above the tall buildings, banked his wings, and circled around for another pass against the robot giants.
     At an intersection ahead, four of the clanking warriors had converged from different streets. Anchoring their feet, they turned glowing eye visors toward the ground, then unleashed dazzling white rays. The energy beams, all focused on the same section of pavement, shot out from the robot heads, gathering intensity as they overlapped.
     Under the onslaught, the street began to bubble and crack. A fifth walking robot marched in beside the others and shot his own ray. Rubble exploded from the impact. The robots continued their eerie barrage, gouging a giant hole as if they were pirates with a treasure map and an "X" had been marked in the middle of Manhattan.
     Coming in from behind the giant walking machines, Sky Captain unleashed another flurry of bullets. The hot lead hammered the helmeted heads like rivets flying from a manic construction worker, but the bullets did not slow the robots from continuing relentlessly forward.
     The Warhawk sped between the ranks of machines, all of them sporting the winged-skull insignia. Sky Captain frowned, wondering what evil genius had created this army. Then he yanked the control stick, throwing his plane into a barrel roll to avoid an enormous slow-moving arm that swung across his path like the arm of a drunken giant who was swatting at a bee. The sharp banking maneuver knocked Sky Captain against the glass canopy of the cockpit, smacking his head hard. Sky Captain winced and pulled up, his engine howling. The robot's three hooked claws just missed his wing as he rocketed heavenward.
     Undaunted, Sky Captain maneuvered his airplane through a narrow alleyway, easily threading the obstacle course as he cruised low. He banked left, then left again as he circled the block. Anxious for another crack at the tin-can monstrosities, he found an alley that would take him back where he needed to go. He dove down the narrow street - and then saw the black cables from a telephone pole looping from one building to another at the far end, crossing the alley opening like a spiderweb.
     With no time to move, no room to dodge, Sky Captain took aim and fired a burst from his wing-mounted cannons. The spray of bullets riddled one of the telephone poles, splintering the thick wood like a wheat stalk severed by a scythe. As his Warhawk raced forward, the telephone poles tottered and fell forward, directly into the path of the lumbering robot giants.
     The lead robot's legs became tangled in the sparking wire, its gears straining. As it stumbled, the other foot stepped on the rolling telephone pole, and the enormous mechanical monster lost its balance. With painful grace, the robot giant slowly began to topple.
     The P-40 burst safely out of the alley and arced high. Sky Captain watched the huge walking monster fall.
     On an earlier mission against the Rocket Robbers - villains who launched explosive missiles against armored bank buildings and then swooped into the rubble with jetpacks to steal gold bullion - one of the Flying Legion's heavy planes had been damaged. The brave pilot had barely been able to bring the large aircraft to the ground. Sky Captain had circled overhead, radioing advice and instructions, knowing the impact would be terrible. Leaking fuel, the heavy plane had crashed in Central Park like a blacksmith slamming a sledge into an anvil, the worst accident Sky Captain had ever witnessed. But when the robot monster smashed headlong into Fifth Avenue, the impact was far more spectacular.
     The weight of the huge giant created a fissure that split open the pavement. The wide crack zigzagged up the street, directly between Polly's legs. She stood with her feet planted, her camera poised. As the action reached its crescendo, she clicked photo after photo, determined not to miss the shot this time. Then she stared directly in front of her, where the robot had collapsed only a few feet from her. Polly took a final picture, for good measure. One of them was sure to win a Pulitzer.
     Suddenly, in the streets around her, everything stopped. The robot army paused. Sky Captain's plane raced away for another run, but the police ceased firing their machine guns. A breathless moment passed.
     Strangest of all, the rows of giant robots stood frozen in the middle of the street. Beeping, chirping signals emanated from the antennae mounted to their blunt heads. The robots froze, as if listening to new instructions; then inexplicably, the mammoth walking army raised their metal arms in unison. With great blasts of rockets from their feet and the exhaust nozzles in their iron torsos, the huge machines lifted from the ground and flew skyward. From nearby streets, all the marching robots rose up like a flock of vultures taking wing.
     As Sky Captain sped forward, prepared to launch another attack, the ascending robots cut upward into his path, and he had to dodge before his plane was smashed. The iron giants continued to rise in waves, until they were finally swallowed in the clouds as quickly as they had appeared...

                                 *       *       *

     Cowed New Yorkers began to peep out of their air-raid shelters, venturing into the streets to stare in awe at the damage the mechanical monsters had caused. Crowds stood out in front of buildings, watching as Polly approached the fallen robot sprawled along Fifth Avenue. Curious onlookers pressed closer to the iron giant like Lilliputians encircling a sleeping Gulliver.
     Polly snapped another photograph. Maybe Editor Paley would give her a raise.
     Finally, the droning air-raid sirens fell silent. The squadrons of walking robots had departed. Emergency vehicles rolled into place: fire trucks, ambulances, police cars. But the focus of the outcry seemed even greater two blocks away, where the army of robots had been headed. Anxious to discover what could be more intriguing than the fallen mechanical monster, Polly hurried after the curiosity seekers.
     Now she saw - but didn't understand - what the robot force had been trying to do. The huge machines had torn open a gigantic crater in the ground, a gaping hole in Midtown Manhattan. Stripping away the street, the robot monsters had exposed New York City's massive underground electrical generators, the turbines and pumps that powered the entire metropolis. It reminded Polly of surgeons making an incision preparatory to the removal of a vital organ from a patient.
     "What were they doing?" she muttered aloud, but none of the pedestrians around her answered. Maybe the machines weren't finished yet.
     Lifting her camera, Polly snapped a photo of the crater just as Sky Captain reappeared. His P-40 soared overhead as he made sure everyone down on the ground was all right. Polly turned, a thoughtful expression on her face as she watched the aerial hero race away from her - as he so often did.

                                 *       *       *

     Finally, she got the headline story for the extra edition of the Chronicle. Ninety-point type, huge bold sans serif letters screamed out what everybody in New York already knew:

     MECHANICAL MONSTERS INVADE GOTHAM by Polly Perkins

     And there was one of her photographs, too. She had taken so many good pictures, Editor Paley devoted one entire interior page to a special photo insert. Though he had chastised her for risking her life so foolishly, as soon as she stepped out of his office and closed the door, she'd heard him yelling at the Chronicle's other reporters because they hadn't demonstrated the guts that she had. "You all missed the story of the century!"
     This was one time Polly went down to the plant and stood watching the printing presses. She lifted the first copy as it came down the line, scanned her byline to make sure nothing was misspelled, and strutted proudly back to her office.
     Radios tuned to different stations broadcast continuing updates of the recent disaster. The news reports overlapped, but the severity of the situation was already clear. Manhattan had not been the only target, but merely one step in an overall plan.
     "... further details of the attack continue to pour in..."
     "... central portion of the city is blacked out from radio communication due to damaged power lines and electrical failure..."
     "... cables received from English, French, and German news agencies now confirm the attack was not limited to New York City..."
     Assessing the scope of the robots' assaults, Polly brought a detailed world atlas to her desk, moving her glowing globe desk lamp so that she could spread open the large book. "Sky Captain" Joe Sullivan had tackled the enormous robots single-handedly over Manhattan, but the rest of the mercenary Flying Legion had responded to other emergencies across the world.
     Hulking mechanical men stalked through the streets of Paris, damaging the Eiffel Tower, stripping the skeletal structure of its steel girders. In London, ranks of the destructive robots plodded past Big Ben, smashing two bridges across the Thames. Even in Moscow, faced by new Soviet Army tanks constructed on orders from People's Chairman Molotov, the mechanical men smashed the Communist defenders and began to tear apart new industries, raiding them for raw materials and heavy equipment.
     Darting attack planes from the Flying Legion had met with minimal success. The robots, seeming to come from nowhere, performed their tasks and swatted aside all attempts to stop them. Then the iron giants departed, leaving only scars and mysteries.
     "... the BBC is reporting that a steel mill in Nuremberg was virtually excavated by what witnesses describe as a mechanized tornado..."
     "... news agencies in Paris and Madrid speak of strange burrowing machines rising from the ground, robbing entire communities of their coal and oil reserves..."
     The mad genius who had invented these things - perhaps the mysterious Totenkopf Dr. Jennings had warned her about - must have a detailed scheme in several phases. She hadn't been able to find Jennings after he'd fled Radio City Music Hall, and now Polly understood that he had good reason to fear for his life.
     And what had happened to Dr. Jorge Vargas, who had disappeared after the Hindenburg III had docked? It was all part of an overall scenario - she knew it. Resting her chin on one hand, she listened to the radio.
     "Meanwhile, the world can only wait in wonder as government officials join with the mercenary forces of Sky Captain and the Flying Legion to uncover the meaning of these mysterious events..."

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Apple iPhone SE 2020
7

     A Hidden Base
     Inspired by Scientifiction
     A Robotic Specimen

     Even if they hadn't exactly been defeated, the menace of the giant walking machines was gone from New York. Sky Captain left the city far behind, rocketing across water, across land, through splashes of cottony clouds. Finally, he sped toward a steep, mountainous rise in the distance.
     By now, the rest of the Flying Legion should be returning from their missions around the world. In all his years of adventuring, Joe Sullivan couldn't ever remember receiving so many widely separated distress calls coming in at once. A good day's work for the world's heroes. Whoever had built those terror machines was going to be a big problem.
     With engines purring along, the P-40 began to climb, following the contour of the mountains until a camouflaged valley came into view. Nestled inside a pocket of densely wooded hills, reachable only through a confusing maze of winding dirt roads - or of course from the air - lay a massive operation: the secret base of the famous Flying Legion.
     Awesome silvery zeppelins were anchored to mooring posts that rose high over the installation. A flat expanse of tarmac covered most of the valley floor. Runways extended in several directions toward the wooded mountains, offering options for takeoff and landing runs. Rows of war-rated aircraft were stationed on painted lines, ready for deployment in any emergency. A series of gargantuan hangars were spaced across the landscape, full of machinery, maintenance equipment, testing bays, and crew quarters.
     Sky Captain felt a shiver of pride each time he came home. The location of the base wasn't common knowledge, for security reasons - but he felt that if the crazed megalomaniacs could just see what they were up against, half of them wouldn't even bother trying to take over the world. That would certainly make his job easier...
     After a smooth landing, Sky Captain's Warhawk taxied down the airstrip, where he was met by his ground crew. Waving directions as they walked confidently backward, two crewmen guided his plane into one of the hangars. Inside the huge building, catwalks were strung like cobwebs from rafter to rafter. The maintenance team rushed forward to surround the Warhawk like a pit crew in a motorcar race.
     Letting the engine idle loudly, Sky Captain slid open the plane's canopy. He had to yell over the noise. "She needs refueling - and freshen up the ammo on the wing cannons." He climbed out onto the wing spouting orders, as if his support people didn't know what they were doing.
     "Right, Sky Captain."
     "And check all the hoses for nicks. Plug up any bullet holes on the fuselage. The usual."
     "Bullet holes? Did you get shot at, Cap? I thought you were up against giant robots -"
     "I did the shooting, Jimmy. But with all that ammunition flying around, a few ricochets might've gotten me."
     "We'll make her good as new, Cap."
     "You always do." With an easy jump, he dropped to the sealed concrete floor of the hangar. He drew a deep breath, comforted by the smells of airplane fuel, hot exhaust, and engine grease.
     "I want to get a look at the film from the forward cameras as soon as it's ready - those robot monsters were something else! And get me a duty log. I want all the Legion's squad leaders assembled in one hour. I'll brief them myself, and then I want to hear what they encountered out there." He wriggled out of his backpack. "Where's Dex?"
     The nearest mechanic grinned. "Where else would he be, Cap?"

     A colored comic panel torn from the Sunday edition of the New York Chronicle showed Buck Rogers in his futuristic outfit. While an alien villain held Wilma Deering hostage, Buck showed his stuff, intimidating the evil mastermind by pointing a ray gun at a steel wall. A text balloon read, "My sonic atomizer can slice through metal like a knife through butter."
     The comic panel was taped to a drafting table with notes scribbled in the margin of the newsprint. Beside it, extensive blueprints showed detailed designs of a gadget that looked remarkably similar to Buck Rogers' sonic atomizer.
     His brown eyes glittering with anticipation, Dex Dearborn - Sky Captain's right-hand man and technical genius - pointed his strange-looking pistol at the other side of the room. The ray gun had an aiming fin, colorful buttons, and a curved handle that looked like it was designed for an alien hand.
     Dex wasn't sure if all the knobs and adjusting buttons were necessary, but he didn't want to second guess the revered comic artist. As soon as he proved that the sonic atomizer worked, he could probably add other functions to correspond with the ornamental controls.
     With the pink tip of his tongue protruding from the corner of his mouth, he aimed the nozzle of the ray gun at a thick vertical slab of steel inside a cement bunker. The ray gun felt tingly in his hand, as if anxious to prove itself. Glancing over his shoulder, Dex called to his assistants, "All clear!"
     Lab workers scurried from the thick-walled bunker to duck behind sheltered barricades. Dex pulled a pair of tinted safety goggles over his eyes, aimed the nozzle toward the center of the target plate, and squeezed the firing button.
     Concentric rings of light struck the metal slab. An impressive warbling crackle thrummed out of the gun. Pulse after pulse of light shimmered against the surface of the steel plate. In less than a second, the metal began to glow white-hot, vibrating as it melted.
     Releasing the firing button, Dex lowered the ray gun, impressed. "Excellent power output! And the gun mechanism isn't even hot." He set the ray gun on the table and hurried up to the metal slab as his assistants crept from behind the barricades, wiping sweat from their foreheads. Dex admired the results of the test: a huge melted hole in the center of three-inch steel.
     "That Buck Rogers knows his stuff!"
     Behind him, the giant doors of the research hangar rattled open to flood the interior with sunlight. Dex turned from the melted target plate, listening to the bass rumble of a powerful truck engine outside. Two of his assistants yelped in alarm and stepped away from the yawning doors as a massive semitrailer backed up.
     On the trailer bed rested a giant robot carcass, five stories tall. It was battered and scratched but intact. Its once-blazing eye plate was now dim; the cables and gears were frozen; the power generator stilled. Dex couldn't believe what he was seeing. His jaw dropped. "Shazam!" He absently rested his hand on the hot metal of the target plate, then snatched it away and sucked on his fingers.
     Silhouetted by the sunlight, Sky Captain strode into the hangar, his leather jacket halfway unzipped, his aviator goggles perched on his forehead. The semi driver shouted, sticking his head out the window and looking for directions as two Legion crewmen guided the flatbed backward. The prone robot was hauled slowly through the yawning doors. The iron monstrosity barely fit inside.
     "Hello, Dex. See what I tripped up in Manhattan? I thought you might like to tinker a bit."
     Dex put his hands on his hips jokingly. "I heard you describe it over the radio, Cap. I thought you said this thing was big?" But he couldn't maintain his nonchalance as he walked in a daze to the robot's giant welder-helmet head. He was dwarfed by the size of the mechanical behemoth. "Can I have it?"
     "You figure out where it came from, and I'll get you one for Christmas. Promise." If anybody could dismantle and understand the enormous machine, Dex could. As always, Sky Captain had complete faith in him.
     As a young and starry-eyed dreamer, Dex had worked in a malt shop often frequented by members of the Flying Legion. He'd done well in school, but spent most of his time reading comic strips and pulp magazines, watching movie serials, and listening to radio adventures. He loved to imagine the impossible while paying little attention to the practical. His parents had despaired of their Dexter ever making anything of himself.
     But he'd loved to jabber to Sky Captain and the heroic members of the Flying Legion. The most important question of his life was: What if?
     Captain Joe Sullivan had seen the genius behind the young man's enthusiasm. Dex truly believed in the possibilities and in himself - and so Sky Captain gave him a chance in the Flying Legion. He'd strutted into the malt shop one day, cocky and confident, and rested his elbows on the speckled counter. "If I give you all the resources and support you need, and you give me all your imagination and your best work, then I guess we'll be unstoppable. Right, Dex?"
     Dex drew most of his inspiration from the "scientifiction" magazines he loved so much: Amazing Stories, Wonder Stories, Astounding Science Fiction, Marvel Science Stories, Famous Fantastic Mysteries, Planet Stories, and so many others he could barely keep up with them all. His favorite authors gave him all the ideas he could possibly need: Jack Williamson, Edmund Hamilton, E. E. "Doc" Smith, even Edgar Rice Burroughs and H. G. Wells.
     Some of Dex's inventions had been rather spectacular failures, but more often than not an innovation of his had allowed the Flying Legion to save the world. The improvements he'd made to Sky Captain's P-40 Warhawk alone were tremendous. Overall, Dex was worth his weight in collectible pulp magazines.
     "So, Dex, while the rest of the Legion's been off fighting mechanical monsters, what have you been doing here in your cozy research hangar? Any breakthroughs for me?" Sky Captain looked meaningfully at the new ray gun and the melted hole in the steel target plate.
     Snapping out of his reverie, Dex gestured for him to follow. "That was a good test. The sonic atomizer shows a lot of potential. But there's something else you need to see."
     He led the pilot around the workbench toward an oscilloscope, where he flipped a switch. He tapped the curved glass surface of the cathode ray tube, tracing a jagged radio signal that appeared on the screen. "I recorded this signal just before the first machines appeared in New York, Moscow, Paris, Madrid, London. I didn't think anything of it until I played it back, while you were chasing giant robots."
     Dex twisted a dial on his console. A series of ominous, repeating tones came through a small speaker. It had a rhythm, almost a melody of electronic information. Sky Captain leaned closer to the oscilloscope as if it would help him concentrate on the tones. "Morse code?"
     "That's what I thought at first, but the syntax is more complex. There's a subcarrier hidden in the lower frequency. I think it's being used to control them - all the machines, from a central place."
     "If it shows up again can you track it?"
     "I can try."
     "Good boy, Dex." Pulling off his gloves, Sky Captain gestured to the enormous robot lying prone on the semitrailer. "In the meantime, see what you can do with that big lug. Find out what makes it tick." Sky Captain gave Dex a mischievous grin. "You don't mind, do you?"
     Dex tried to suppress his glee. "I don't mind."
     Sky Captain tossed his gloves onto the workbench as he moved toward an arching doorway. "I want to know where these robots came from, Dex. Who sent them here. I'll be in my office."
     He didn't slow his stride as he walked into the Flying Legion's center of operations. Inside, the showpiece was a giant detailed map of the globe spanning four stories and taking up three walls of the research hangar. Uniformed technicians walked overhead on catwalks, using pointers and wooden sticks to mark regions on the map. A booming loudspeaker relayed new coordinates as other members of the Flying Legion reported in.
     Sky Captain spared only a glance for the bustling activity, though. He nodded to the crewmen, but he was intent on a doorway on the opposite side of the map room. He headed for his private sanctuary, the place where he could think best. The name in stenciled letters on the door read, CAPTAIN H. JOSEPH SULLIVAN.
     Barely containing his sigh of relief, Sky Captain entered the dark office and closed the door behind him. After a brief pause, he turned his back and leaned wearily against the door. His posture changed, and he reached for his aching ribs, feeling with fingertips to discover just how badly he had been hurt. The battle against the robot monsters had taken its toll, but Sky Captain knew never to let the world, or even the rest of his crew, see him like this.
     He walked gingerly through the tiny office to a small wooden desk and sat down, exhausted. Still in shadow, he opened a side drawer, pulled out a shot glass, and set it on the desk after sweeping file folders and paperwork aside. Sky Captain reached back into the deep drawer and withdrew a bottle: milk of magnesia. He poured a full shot of the chalky white liquid, raised it in silent salute, and grimaced in preparation before touching the small glass to his lips.
     A woman's voice startled him. "Tummy ache?"
     Sky Captain spun around, drawing his pistol with a smooth speed that would have made a cobra jealous. He aimed at the dark corner of the room from which Polly Perkins stepped into the light, smiling at him.
     Though surprised, he recognized her instantly. At first he reacted with pleasure, but then his expression darkened. Old wounds started to surface.
     "How you been, Joe? Miss me?"
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Apple iPhone SE 2020
8

     A Blueprint from Totenkopf
     A Warehouse of Sinister Prototypes
     More Clues About Unit Eleven

     "Who let you in here?" Sky Captain was unable to keep the bitterness out of his voice. "Get out. Fat lot of good it does to have a hidden base if everybody, including annoying newspaper reporters, can just waltz in here."
     "Nice to see you, too, Joe." She demurely sat on the corner of his desk. "Dex said you might be in a mood."
     "Dex..." Gritting his teeth, he grabbed the black telephone receiver from his desk and dialed so roughly that he almost tore off the front of the phone. "Dex! Get in here!"
     Polly shook her head, nonplused. Her wavy golden hair was perfect. "It's been three years, Joe. Don't tell me you're still mad at me. I can't even remember what we were fighting about."
     Moving as if he was imagining a stranglehold, Sky Captain set the phone back in its cradle. He turned to Polly with a slow burn, speaking so distinctly he bit each word as it came out of his mouth. "You. Sabotaged. My. Plane!"
     "Right..." Polly said, her tone clearly saying the opposite. "Still suffering from delusions, I see."
     "I spent six months in a Manchurian slave camp because of you." He looked away as the harsh memories flooded back. "They were going to cut off my fingers -"
     Polly rolled her eyes; she'd heard this a million times before. "Joe, for the last time, I didn't sabotage your damn airplane."
     "And it was all so you could get a picture of Tojo Hideki in his bathrobe! Of all the ridiculous reasons -"
     She swung one leg over the other, relaxed. "You know, I'm starting to think you made up this whole 'sabotage' nonsense to cover up the fact you were cheating on me with your little mystery girl the whole time we were in Nanjing."
     "Never happened. All in your imagination."
     "Who was she, Joe? What was her name?"
     Still angry, he said, "All right, her name started with an F. Figment. Figment O'Your Imagination. Now who's having delusions?"
     Polly moved seductively toward Sky Captain at his desk, but he pulled back, raising his pistol again. "That's far enough."
     "What are you going to do? Shoot me?" Polly batted her eyelashes.
     The door swung open, and Dex hurried into the office. When he saw Sky Captain holding the gun on Polly, he grinned. "Great! You two made up. I knew you would."
     Sky Captain stood from his desk chair, leaving the shot glass of milk of magnesia untouched. "This was a pleasure, Polly. Let's do it again in ten years. Dex, escort Miss Perkins off the base. If she resists, shoot her. And don't forget to clean up your mess afterward."
     Dex looked at her shyly. "Hi, Polly."
     "Hi, Dex."
     The younger man's face flushed with embarrassment. "I... uh, I gotta..."
     "I know, hon. It's okay." Lifting her chin and showing no loss of dignity at all, Polly let Dex escort her out of the office. Sky Captain followed them to the exit and prepared to give the door a satisfying slam.
     Polly sniffed, then spoke loudly to Dex. "Just as well. I guess you wouldn't have been interested in this anyway." She dangled the strange schematic that Dr. Jennings had left in the theater.
     Even with just a glance, Sky Captain could see that the blueprint showed the detailed workings of the giant robots that had menaced Manhattan. He released his death grip on the door handle, seething. "Where did you get that?"
     Polly turned with a smug smile on her face. He reached for the blueprint, but she withdrew it. "Oh, there's more where this came from. A lot more."
     "I want that blueprint, Polly. Uh... Dex needs it."
     The younger man brightened. "Yeah, it would be useful."
     "You want the blueprint, and I want this story, Joe. And you're going to help me get it."
     Sky Captain took a deep breath. He would rather have been fighting any number of evil geniuses bent on exterminating humanity. Dex stood next to Polly, still grinning. "Hey, maybe we should show her, Cap. Maybe she can help."
     A quick look from Sky Captain shut him up, but Polly saw it.
     "Show me what?" She calmly folded the blueprint and stuffed it back in her bag, refusing to move farther from the office. "Show me what?"

     Out in the bright sunlight, Dex, Polly, and Sky Captain stood at the entrance of one of the Legion's warehouses. After fumbling in his pocket, Dex produced a ring heavy with jingling keys. Though he had dozens to choose from, the younger man selected the proper key without pause, opened a padlock securing the warehouse, and slid open the tall corrugated door.
     "Here we are, Polly. Wait till you see this." Dex flipped a switch, and the room lights shone down upon row after row of incredible scientific artifacts. "I always told Cap we should open a museum or something."
     The warehouse held a bizarre collection of mechanical oddities: giant burrowing machines with tractor treads and jagged conical prows, clunkier models similar to the robot giants that had just attacked New York City, coffin-sized glass cylinders holding electrical creatures that swirled about like lighting in a bottle, flying contraptions that defied description.
     Polly's jaw dropped. "My God, what is this? Where did they all come from? Dex, did you -"
     The younger man blushed. "Oh, no, Polly. Even I don't have enough imagination to create designs like these."
     She'd been following the exploits of Sky Captain and the Flying Legion for years now, and she knew most of the enemies they had fought. She remembered their battles with the Fossil: a man who, after injecting himself with Tyrannosaurus blood extracted from amber, was converted into an atavistic creature determined to bring back dinosaur rule. The Flying Legion had been severely damaged by the Fossil's pteranodon-style flying war vehicles.
     And then there was the Lensmaster, who had used meteorite glass in a viewing scope that let him see into another, sidewise universe. The Lensmaster could step around the fabric of space, past the tightest security, to assassinate world leaders. When Sky Captain had finally cornered him, the Lensmaster fled through his scope and stumbled into an impossible dimension where he remained lost to this day...
     None of the contraptions, though, looked familiar to Polly.
     "They started appearing three years ago - an invasion of innovative robotic designs, all of them obviously created by the same design team," Dex said. "We've managed to keep it secret until now."
     Sky Captain didn't have much to say as Polly followed the two men down the center aisle of the warehouse. Every step revealed something new and incredible.
     Dex continued. "These machines showed up without warning, took what they wanted, and disappeared without a trace. Just like the recent attacks." He sighed. "Three years, and we still can't explain what they want or who sent them here."
     He led Polly past a row of damaged machines, then stopped at a fearsome-looking mechanical crab. "We found this one outside Buenos Aires on May fourth." He gestured to a machine that looked like a manta-ray hovercraft with dangling steel cables, each of which ended in hooklike pincers. "This one crashed fifteen miles from Vienna on June thirteenth."
     "June thirteenth?" Polly's brow furrowed as thoughts began to click together.
     "And this one came down in -"
     "Hong Kong, right?" Polly was excited.
     Sky Captain stopped short. "That's right. What aren't you telling us, Polly?"
     "And it was July eighth," she said, "in the evening."
     "How do you know this?" Sky Captain demanded.
     Polly did her best to look down her nose at him. "If you'd read the Chronicle, Joe, you might have followed the stories I've written. Those are the same cities where the scientists disappeared, and on the same dates. It can't be a coincidence."
     Dex shook his head. "Shazam! Not a chance, Cap. Can't be a coincidence."
     Sky Captain leaned closer, tired of games. "What else do you know?"
     In answer, Polly approached one of the stored machines. "If I'm right..." With her hand, she brushed off a layer of grime and dust to reveal an ominous, familiar crest in the form of an iron skull with metal wings. Her tone grew serious. "Dr. Vargas was the sixth scientist to vanish mysteriously. Then a man - another scientist - sent me a message and arranged to meet me at Radio City Music Hall today. He was terrified, said someone was coming for him. I asked him who he was so afraid of, and he repeated one name. Totenkopf! He nearly went white when he said it."
     "Totenkopf? Who is he?" Dex peered closely at the malicious-looking skull.
     Polly withdrew a German newspaper article from her bag. "Apparently, he's the invisible man. I went through every record in the library twice, looking for anything. Called every contact I have from Paris to Bangkok. This was all I could dig up."
     She spread the article on a flat surface of the deactivated machine. A grainy old photograph showed a group of seven men in lab coats surrounded by complex but unrecognizable apparatus. "Herr Totenkopf ran some kind of secret sciences laboratory stationed in Berlin before the start of the Great War. Something called Einheit Elf or Unit Eleven."
     Despite his annoyance with her, Sky Captain looked closely at the article, scanning the young faces of the Unit Eleven scientists. None of them looked familiar to him. He didn't want to admit that he couldn't read the German text of the newspaper clipping.
     "Nobody really knows what Unit Eleven was doing," Polly explained, "but there were rumors that they were conducting inhuman surgical trials on prisoners, and the facility was ordered shut down. Totenkopf disappeared with his research. There's still an international warrant for his capture. It's been more than thirty years since anyone's spoken his name, until today."
     "After all that time, what makes you think it's him?" Sky Captain asked.
     She pointed to a small inset photograph in the newspaper. "Note the insignia he chose for the unit."
     He could barely make out an iron skull with metal wings. "The scientist who came to see you... where is he now?"
     Polly looked at Sky Captain, a coy smile on her face. She dangled her information in front of him like a carrot on a stick. "So we're in this together... right, Joe?"
     He stared her down, first scowling, then frowning in resignation as he knew she'd beaten him. "Polly, none of this gets published until I say so. You don't write a sentence or take a picture without asking me first. Understood?"
     She nodded with solemn agreement. "Understood."
     When he wasn't looking, Polly shifted the small camera under her arm. She stealthily snapped a picture of one of the giant machines in the museum warehouse.
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I reject your reality and substitute my own!

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Pol Žena
Poruke Odustao od brojanja
Zastava Unutrasnja strana vetra
mob
Apple iPhone SE 2020
9

     An Important Address
     An Intruder in the Laboratory
     A Dire Warning

     That afternoon, Polly's black Packard sped down a rain-soaked New York street, but it wasn't clear that she knew where she was going. Sky Captain sat sullenly next to her, staring straight ahead as she drove. He would have felt safer in the cockpit of his Warhawk, where at least he could have his hands on the controls.
     When he sensed Polly starting to smile at him, he grew annoyed. He refused to look anywhere but through the wet windshield at the street. Finally, exasperated with the waiting, he said, "What?"
     "I missed you, Joe." When he turned to look at her in surprise, she said, "Thanks for saving my life during the robot attack, by the way. If it wasn't for you, I would have ended up as a smear on the bottom of a big mechanical boot."
     "Oh? Were you down there?" Sky Captain turned to the side and concentrated on counting brownstone doorways, lampposts, traffic lights - anything to maintain his feigned uninterest. "I didn't notice."
     Polly continued to smile, not buying it. "I see you missed me, too. How nice."
     "Mind the road." He leaned closer to the rain-streaked windshield, trying to see where they were going.
     She slowed to a stop in front of a dark tenement building. "This is it, where Jennings is hiding - if my guess is right."
     Leaving the car parked at the curb, Polly and Sky Captain hurried down the sidewalk. The leather bomber jacket kept him dry, but the cold sleet quickly matted his short brown hair. Polly wore a tan trench coat and a black fedora pulled low. He remained close at her side, not wanting to appear to be following her lead, as they turned the corner into a darkened alley. They descended a set of leaf-strewn stairs, past a junk pile of debris at one corner of the landing, to the door of a basement shop. A small placard read: ALLIED CHEMICAL.
     After comparing the address to a scrap of paper in her hand, Polly knocked briskly at the door, but no answer came. "Hello? Dr. Jennings, it's Polly Perkins." She waited again, then knocked harder on the door. "Dr. Jennings?"
     She flashed Sky Captain a worried look, and he reached for the doorknob, rattling it. "It's locked." Looking around for another way in, he spied an open window above them on the second floor. "See that window - there...?"
     He began to concoct an elaborate plan to gain entry. In the junk pile on the landing, he found a length of old rope coiled around two sagging boxes and a broken chair. He untangled the muddy strand so he could tie a loop in one end. He pulled hard to test the strength of the rope, hoping the fibers weren't too rotted. "We might be able to get in through that window if I can attach a line."
     He heard a crash for his answer, and he looked to see Polly holding a rock in her hand. She smashed the door's window glass a second time, knocking the sharp splinters from the frame.
     She dropped the rock, reached inside, and unlocked the door. "Never mind, Joe. It's open."
     Sky Captain looked at Polly, his throat so full of conflicting words that he couldn't say any of them. Finally, he just brushed past her and pushed the door wide enough for them both to enter Dr. Jennings' lab. "I've seen my share of mad scientists and their laboratories. Usually they're better housekeepers than this."
     The small lab had been thoroughly ransacked. File cabinets were yanked open, drawers emptied. Papers lay strewn all over the floor and on the overturned furniture. Broken test tubes and glass beakers littered the ground in puddles of colored, foul-smelling liquids. An off-kilter lamp lay sprawled against a wall; a writing desk had been smashed.
     "We're too late," Polly said.
     The two moved deeper inside, crunching through the debris. In the yellowish light of the dim lamp, Polly spotted a heavy metal cabinet in a far corner. Because iron brackets anchored the cabinet to the wall and floor, the vandals had been unable to tip it over. The latch to the cabinet had been broken.
     Without telling Sky Captain what she intended to do, Polly strode directly to the cabinet and pulled open one of the loose doors. She blinked in disbelief, then raised her camera.
     The cabinet held shelf upon shelf of glass jars. Tiny skeletons floated in embalming fluid, showing alien body shapes she had never seen before. "Looks like the remnants of aborted experiments."
     Then she saw something move, barely more than a shadow at the bottom of the cabinet. On the lowest shelf, Polly found another glass container - that one holding a live specimen. She couldn't believe her eyes: a living, breathing elephant no larger than a bar of soap drank from a miniaturized trough. It lifted its trunk and let out a tinny bellow, like a child tooting a plastic whistle.
     Beside her, Sky Captain knelt to stare at the tiny creature. He turned to her as if she was somehow to blame. "All right, Polly - no more games. Tell me what the hell is going on."
     She shrugged. "I was hoping you could tell me. Dr. Jennings wasn't very talkative during our brief interview."
     As the miniature elephant paced inside its doll-sized cage, Polly's eyes moved upward, hungry for explanations. She screamed and immediately regretted having done it in front of Sky Captain.
     A man emerged from a hiding place among the ransacked furniture, staggering forward. He was much more haggard-looking than she had seen him in Radio City Music Hall. "It's Jennings!"
     The scientist had a dazed look on his face as he stumbled toward them, his hands outstretched in a wordless plea. Sky Captain reacted quickly as Jennings collapsed into his arms. "Got you!"
     He eased the scientist down to the cluttered floor, turning the other man's body to reveal a knife buried deep between his shoulder blades. Thick, fresh blood soaked the woolen fabric of his brown suit. His gold-rimmed glasses were askew on his pasty face.
     Dr. Jennings looked up, struggling to speak. With one hand, he clutched the zipper of the pilot's leather jacket. His voice was weak, barely audible. "You must stop him..."
     Sky Captain and Polly froze as they heard a stealthy noise in an upstairs room. Letting Polly support the dying scientist's head and shoulders, Sky Captain got back to his feet but remained in a wary crouch. "Stay here. Maybe we're not too late after all."
     Someone was moving quickly in the other room. He heard the sound of a window opening, the scrape of a wooden frame moving in the sash. He ran up the staircase and through the door into a smaller office. He arrived just in time to see the blur of a black-garbed figure climbing out the open window.
     "Stop!" Sky Captain lunged to grab the shadowy figure by the arm. With a vicious tug on the fabric sleeve, he spun the stranger around and found himself face-to-face with a stunning woman. Her face was perfect, her lips a dark ruby red. Her eyes were covered by large, round glasses with opaque lenses. It didn't seem possible that she could see through them.
     She wasn't what Sky Captain had expected at all. He loosed his grip, surprised. "Listen, I don't want to hurt you -"
     The dark woman moved with unbelievable speed, striking him with a backhand that had the force of a catapult. The blow knocked him against the wall, cracking plaster. Reeling, he slid to the floor, his legs turning into noodles. Sky Captain grabbed the back of his head and silently mouthed, "Owww."
     Before he could scramble to his feet, the strange and murderous woman leaped to the window again. Ignoring the hammers inside his skull, Sky Captain dove after her, managing to catch her wrist just as she jumped. His hand accidentally hit the window latch, which caused the window to drop with a thud. The pane of glass shattered, and he was forced to let go, ducking to avoid the flying shards. "Damn!"
     Anxious, he leaned through the empty frame. The black-swathed woman landed with uncanny grace in the alleyway below, bent her knees for the briefest pause, then sprinted with lightning speed around the corner. She was gone in a flash.
     With a disappointed sigh, Sky Captain withdrew from the window. "What the hell is going on?" He wondered what excuse he could tell Polly. His head still throbbed, and he could feel a few cuts on his face from the glass splinters.
     Before he left the office, he noticed a leather satchel lying on the floor, as if it had been tossed under a writing table. Curious, he picked it up. This could be something...

     In the cluttered laboratory room, Polly knelt over Dr. Jennings, trying to comfort him, but she could see he was dying. He had lost too much blood already, and the knife wound was deep. With his failing strength, the scientist struggled to speak. "Miss Perkins..."
     "I'm here, Doctor. I tracked you down."
     "If Totenkopf finds them... nothing will be able to stop him. Nothing..."
     Polly leaned closer to hear his faint words. "Finds what?"
     Jennings squirmed to reach inside the pocket of his jacket with a bloodied hand, then removed two small test tubes. "Once he gets these... the countdown will start."
     "The countdown for what?"
     "This world... will end." Before he could say anything more, before Polly could grasp the magnitude of what he had said, the scientist wheezed out his last rattling breath and died.
     "Dr. Jennings!" She tried to revive him, but it was no use. Polly gently pried the two test tubes from the scientist's hand and held them up. "The end of the world? In here?" Dumbfounded, she glanced up as Sky Captain reentered and knelt down beside her. "He's dead." With sluggish movements, Polly covered the body with a jacket.
     "Well, the murderer got away... but I think I found something." Sky Captain held out the satchel.
     Polly recognized it immediately. "Dr. Jennings had that case with him at the theater yesterday, just before the robots attacked." She took the satchel from him eagerly, even as she discreetly pocketed the test tubes. She decided to keep them hidden. Sky Captain didn't need to know everything - not yet.
     As he watched, Polly unfastened the satchel's catch. Inside, she found a stack of papers. Her brows knitted as she leafed through them, understanding only snippets. "They're in German."
     "We can translate them. At least five members of the Flying Legion -"
     Suddenly the frightening wail of air-raid sirens filled the air for the second time in as many days. The bone-rattling tone echoed off houses and buildings. In the neighborhood, some residents frantically switched on lights, while others did exactly the opposite.
     "Not again!" Polly said as she and Sky Captain raced to the laboratory window, looking up as searchlights crisscrossed the cloudy sky. They could both hear an ominous droning sound in the distance. Something powerful was approaching fast.
     "I have to get back to the base," Sky Captain said.
     Forced to leave the dead scientist behind, Polly grabbed the satchel and stuffed the papers inside. "I'm coming with you, Joe."
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     The Fearful Flying Wings
     An Unwelcome Passenger
     A Signal Located

     Back at the Flying Legion's base in the distant hills, Polly's Packard roared onto the airstrip, covered with mud from skidding along the dirt roads. Before she screeched to a complete stop, Sky Captain had already jumped out of the car.
     Receiving the alert signal even before New York's air-raid sirens activated, his flight crew had prepped the P-40 Warhawk. They sprinted along with him to the waiting airplane. "Didn't have time to touch up the paint job on the nose, Cap. Sorry. Looks like one of the painted fangs is chipped."
     "At least tell me you fueled her up and reloaded the ammo."
     The crewman impatiently rolled his eyes. "Of course we did that, Cap!"
     On the airstrips, other planes thrummed, their props spinning, engines warming up. Several members of the Flying Legion had taken off and now patrolled the skies. The surveillance zeppelins lifted higher on their tethers.
     Sky Captain shouted questions as he ran, leaving Polly behind. He did not want to be at the tail end of the other mercenary fighters. "So what is it? What's happening up there?"
     "Reconnaissance picked up something on radar traveling at over five hundred knots - and coming straight for us."
     "How soon before it gets here?"
     Suddenly, in the sky above, a dozen shapes emerged from the sunset-tinged clouds. The crewman pointed upward. "Right about now, I'd say, Cap." Slanted daylight splashed across the sleek metal hulls of flying craft that looked like mechanical vultures.
     Obscured by a rippling haze of air distortion, the shapes took on the form of giant silver bats. Perfectly streamlined, as if made of quicksilver, the graceful yet deadly flyers flapped long and narrow wings like mechanized pterodactyls. They made a shrill whistling sound like a pipe sliding through a metal sleeve. The enemy Flying Wings dove forward, blunt noses marred by clusters of 50mm cannons. The black gun barrels extended, then began to spit fire.
     Sky Captain scrambled for his plane, stepping up onto the wing and sliding the cockpit canopy aside. "Time to get going! Remove the wheel blocks."
     The enemy wings swooped down like hawks upon the Legion's airfield. Crewmen ran for shelter into the hangars. Two of the Legion's warplanes screamed down runways and took off. Swooping along with mechanical grace, the fearful enemy flyers spat out heavy machine gun fire. The ammunition struck home in a searing hailstorm that blew up a row of unoccupied aircraft parked on the field. As the Flying Wings rose upward again with an eerie whistle, they left a firestorm in their wake. Row after row of Legion airplanes detonated after the strafing barrage.
     "Does everybody know where our secret base is?" Sky Captain muttered as he swung himself into the Warhawk's cockpit. He raced through the takeoff checklist, glancing at the dials and controls as he fastened his helmet and seated his goggles over his eyes.
     "Wait a minute, Joe."
     As the enemy Flying Wings raced past for another attack, engaging the Legion fighters already in the air, Sky Captain looked down in astonishment to see Polly climbing the narrow fuselage ladder up after him. "What are you doing?" He had to shout over the deafening roar of the P-40's engine.
     "I'm coming with you!" Another volley of explosions ripped through one of the supply hangars, igniting barrels of aircraft fuel.
     "Don't be stupid, Polly. Remember what happened the last time you flew with me?" The chaos and noise all around them made it impossible for him to manage a reasonable tone.
     "We had a deal!" She didn't even slow, but kept climbing.
     "This isn't a game, Polly. People are going to die! In fact, some of my best men probably already have."
     Determined and beautiful, Polly refused to let go of the rungs, even though the airfield was exploding around her. Howling alarms and roaring engines increased the racket during the bombardment. "You're not leaving without me, Joe! Not this time! It's my story."
     Sky Captain curled his gloved fist, anxious to go and considering just how much more time Polly could waste with her incessant arguing.
     Wings flapping briskly, the alien-looking machines circled around and struck again and again until they succeeded in blowing up the main hangar from which the P-40 had just emerged. Ducking from the backwash of the explosion, he shielded his head from the debris and shrapnel pelting all around them. The tiny impacts on his plane's fuselage sounded like a hailstorm on a metal roof.
     Like a swarm of alloy-plated bats, even more of the Flying Wings converged on the Legion's hidden base. Sky Captain gritted his teeth, fuming. No time to argue. "Get in!"
     Polly scrambled up behind him and threw herself into the cockpit's backseat. Sky Captain didn't waste even a second checking on her as he slid the canopy shut. The Warhawk's engine seemed to be screaming a challenge as he accelerated forward, taxiing down the nearest runway.

     In the sheltered map room, Dex sprinted toward a massive, blinking communications array. He pushed past several of the radio operators who were frantically trying to coordinate the defense of the base. Taking control, Dex began to flip a series of buttons, causing a jagged signal to appear on another oscilloscope display. He stared at the bouncing radio signal expectantly, adjusting dials to triangulate. An oddly melodic Morse code tone came through the small speaker, sounding similar to what he had heard earlier - only closer.
     "There you are!" Dex made a victory fist. "This'll do it!" He grabbed a headset microphone from one of the pasty-faced radio operators and hurriedly spoke into it. "Cap, do you read me?"
     The sounds of emergency sirens and explosions continued in the background. The lights dimmed briefly from the attack going on outside. It was only a matter of time before the Flying Wings leveled the control hangar - if Sky Captain didn't stop them first.
     The Warhawk streaked through the sky in fast pursuit of three Flying Wings. Like superfast metal vultures, the enemy aircraft flapped furiously, pumping with pistons and powerful whistling engines. They wheeled and evaded, reminding Sky Captain of crows on the wing.
     "Dodge all you want," he muttered, forgetting that Polly was sitting behind him, "but you can't outrun this." He lined up the nearest quicksilver machine in his crosshairs. His finger hovered over the trigger on his flight stick.
     A voice burst over the radio set. "Cap, this is Dex! Come in!"
     He lifted his microphone. "Hang on, Dex. I'm a little busy."
     Sky Captain locked his sights on one of the machines. His gloved finger flipped open the safety latch on his trigger, and with complete coolness he squeezed. A stream of machine gun fire embroidered with intermittent tracers stitched across the sky, intersecting the Flying Wing. Gunfire penetrated the smooth quicksilver hull, making the enemy craft explode in a massive fireball.
     With a satisfied sigh, Sky Captain lifted his microphone. "Go ahead, Dex."
     "Whatever you do, Cap, don't shoot!"
     Sky Captain frowned sheepishly at the expanding cloud of smoke and tumbling shrapnel that had been the Flying Wing. "Uh, okay."
     Dex sounded disappointed. "You shot it, didn't you?"
     "Yeah. I thought that was the point."
     "Listen, Cap, you asked me to track down the command signal, and I did. The signal is coming from one of those machines. It must be the leader. You've got to keep them in one piece, or I'll never be able to get to the bottom of this."
     Sky Captain groaned, but he had never found reason to disbelieve Dex. "You sure know how to make a job harder, Dex. Which machine is it?" Ahead of him and all around the smoldering Flying Legion base, dozens of the flapping aircraft swooped and dove, continuing their attack.
     Dex did not sound reassuring over the radio set. "No way of telling. It could be any one of them. Wait... I'm losing the signal." The younger man groaned. "Now it's getting fainter."
     Sky Captain saw that one of the Flying Wings had veered off from the others and headed back toward the New York skyline. The rest of the mechanical attackers concentrated their firepower on the hangars and runways below. "I think I found it, Dex. It's heading for the city."
     "Don't let him get away, Cap!"
     Sky Captain hated to leave the rest of the Legion to the greater battle, but he knew he needed to win the war against this sinister enemy. "You better be right, Dex."
     "Keep after it! I need you to bounce that signal back to me. If we lose it now, we may never get it back."
     With a heavy heart, Sky Captain raced after the primary Flying Wing. "Just let me know when you've got something, Dex. The very instant you have it."
     "I'll let you know. Out!"
     While Polly clutched her seat in the back of the cockpit, Sky Captain veered off in pursuit of the lone enemy craft racing back toward Manhattan.

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