We had gone to the Township Mall, Miss Millie Drake and I. We had gone there in response to an anomaly that our instruments had detected, an anomaly that was centred on an establishment known by the seemingly-innocent moniker of “The Playground”.
We arrived in the parking lot in our specially-modified canary-yellow Edwardian roadster, affectionately known as “Lizzie”. We alighted from the car and walked into the shopping centre on that sunny afternoon, whilst discussing what we so far knew of the case.
“So, Daniel,” said Millie, “what exactly was the anomaly reading here that we detected from headquarters?”
“It was an elusive energy reading,” I explained. “An extremely powerful energy signature, hmmm? Nevertheless, one that someone or something has managed to largely hide. Even our instruments were only able to detect it briefly.”
I was clad in my usual finery, including a frilled poet shirt, purple velvet suit, jungle boots, panama hat, sunspecs, and one of my favourite opera capes.
My companion, Millie Drake, is an exceedingly beautiful young lady, petite and perfect with rich chestnut hair, enchanting violet eyes, and a sun-kissed complexion. The hot pink dress she wore only served to highlight her slender teenage figure.
Our catlike robot, Kit-10, had unfortunately had to stay behind at HQ for a systems upgrade.
We had by now entered the mall and proceeded to the location of The Playground on the first level. It was a large game room with virtually every arcade game from the past of that particular genre, as well as pinball, bowling alleys, table tennis, claw machines, and sundry other entertainments.
The odd thing was, despite the lights and sounds of the numerous games, the establishment seemed to be deserted.
“Daniel,” said Millie, “why isn’t anyone here?”
“A good question, my dear,” I pondered. “This place has been here at the Township Mall for several years, and should have attracted a regular clientele by now in order to survive. It should be quite busy on a weekend afternoon like this.”
“It’s almost like most people don’t even know it exists!”
“Quite so, and that may actually be the case. Perhaps the arcade has been masked from view of human beings except during certain intervals, hmmm?”
“To do that would take great power, Daniel. It must be some alien presence. But why would they do this?”
“A good question, my dear Mills. What we now need to ascertain is if it…”
I was suddenly interrupted by a flash of light from above our heads. I quickly reached into my pocket and took out the transonic turnscrew, an highly advanced scientific instrument in physical form somewhat resembling a writing pen. I then used it to scan the direction from which we had seen the strange light.
“By the Five Stars of Demai!” I swore upon glancing at the resultant readings on the transonic. “This is scarcely believable.”
“What is it, Daniel?” enquired Millie.
“The weird energy readings here at The Playground,” I explained. “According to this, they happen to be… Infinital!” …
My name is Doctor Daniel Rumanos. I carry within my blood the vastly superior genes of the mysterious Watchers of Algol, the most intellectually advanced race in all of the known galaxies, whose technology is so sophisticated it appears as magic to lesser beings.
Whilst most Algolites live in elitist seclusion from the rest of the Universe, I am an operative for an organisation known as the KOSMIKOS. Assisted by the beautiful Miss Millie Drake, I protect Earth from all manner of menace. I am -- The Daemon-Star!!! …
“Infinital?” wondered Millie Drake. “Do you mean that the Infinitals are here on Earth -- at this arcade?”
“So it appears, love,” I affirmed. “The Infinitals, those immensely powerful ancient beings that are a sort of cousins to our own Aeternusian ancestors. Bored with eternity, they spend all their time playing games, even sometimes kidnapping helpless mortals to play with them.”
“I remember the one who called himself ‘Tinkertrain’, but we met him in Space so far away.”
“Quite so, but it appears now they have established themselves here. If there are several of them together, it could be much more difficult to defeat them than it was with only one, hmmm? The energy reading seems to suggest the presence of a trio of Infinitals existing in an added dimension here at the arcade.”
“So have they been kidnapping gamers from here?” asked my companion.
“More than likely,” I replied. “Unfortunately, the disappearance of an occasional person from a shopping mall is not that uncommon, so it probably went unnoticed by law enforcement.”
“Will we be able to rescue those poor people?”
“Sadly, that is not likely. Mortal human beings would not survive long in the eternal presence of the Infinitals, even should they survive the ‘games‘ that they are subjected to. They would age quickly and die. It is only because our own Algolite forbears took a more properly physical form that we are able to safely interact with Earthlings and similar species, hmmm?”
Suddenly, there were several more flashes of light from above us. At this, Millie and I looked up and beheld an oddity indeed.
“Oh my gosh, Daniel!” cried Millie Drake in horror. “It’s really them! The Infinitals!”
What we saw were three huge faces seemingly floating in a darksome void. They were vaguely humanoid in form, but with a certain aspect that bespoke of both intellectual superiority and unfettered madness. Then they spoke.
“Greetings, Algolites!” said one of them, his voice sonorous yet strangely musical, something like you would expect the host of a children’s television program to sound. “We are happy that you have replied to our summons! We are happy that you are now here to play with us! At last we will have gaming friends who will be able to stay with us forever!”
“Doctor Rumanos and Miss Drake," said another, his voice a variation of the same. “We are going to have some fun here today!”
“Yes we will!” said the third, with a somewhat more feminine voice as mad as the others. “Welcome to The Playground!”
“Now,” said the first, “it is time for your games to begin!”
A flash of light then surrounded Millie and me, and we vanished from the room. …
I found myself in what appeared to be the void of Outer Space, inside a small triangular spaceship. Before me was a control board, on which were several buttons apparently to control the movement and defence of the spacecraft.
I then looked through the front window of the ship and beheld a terror indeed. I realised that I was surrounded by numerous gigantic pieces of rock hurtling through Space. I realised that I was in the middle of an asteroid field -- and indeed that several of the huge floating boulders were moving directly to-wards me! …
Meanwhile, my companion Millie Drake had found herself in a different gaming scenario. She had appeared inside a strange device labelled as a “Bug-Zapper”, located at one end of a long field of mushrooms.
Millie looked at the controls of the device, quickly ascertaining for what they were utilised. Then she looked up and beheld an horror; for at the other end of the field was an huge, long, grotesquely segmented creature. It was crawling back and forth and making its way to-wards her from amongst the mushrooms.
“Oh my goodness!” cried Millie. “A centipede!”
Millie used the controls to move the Bug-Zapper device back and forth, and then hit the button that sent a burst of power to-wards the huge, many-legged arthropod. It hit the creature in its middle but, instead of destroying it -- caused it to split into two centipedes half as large, which then continued their course to-wards Millie’s side of the field!
Millie Drake shot another burst from the machine and it happened again. She noticed that every time one segment of what had been the first centipede was destroyed, the smaller ones remaining started moving -- faster and faster with each division.
As this occurred, other big pests occasionally appeared, including venom-spitting spiders that, fortunately, could be vanquished with a single shot of the zapper. This, however, took time away from concentrating fire on the centipedes, which were quickly crawling closer and closer to Millie’s location.
“Gosh!” she exclaimed. “There are so many of them now!”
And indeed, there soon enough were no fewer than six centipedes, each of them down to a mere sickening head, moving with extreme speed directly at Millie Drake.
The young lady continued firing at the terrible creatures, but could not suppress a scream of horror as they approached her! …
As the asteroids approached my ship, I quickly put my attention on the control board, soon finding out how to control the movement of the craft. More importantly, however, I realised which button controlled the defence system; forsooth a blaster ray that I began to utilise against the hurtling asteroids.
I carefully aimed and pushed the button, causing a laser-like blast to shoot from the ship. It hit one of the largest of the asteroids and caused it to break up into several smaller pieces. I then continued to shoot the smaller ones until they disappeared completely.
And so it went on, with me shooting the large asteroids into smaller ones, until an extra element was added. What appeared to be an alien flying saucer began buzzing around the area, and it then shot several blasts of its own energy weapon at me!
I quickly made some evasive manoeuvres to avoid the blasts from the flying saucer. Then I returned fire. It evaded me for a few moments, but then I managed to fire a blast that hit it, causing the strange alien ship to vaporise.
Nevertheless, then another flying saucer appeared.
This continued for some time, until I had apparently destroyed the last of the asteroids and flying saucers. I was then immediately surrounded by a flash of light and taken from the game area. …
At the same moment, the wonderful Millie Drake had just managed to zap the final segment of the centipede, and similarly vanished from her game in a flash of light. …
Millie and I then found ourselves back in the arcade. The wonderful young lady ran into my arms.
“Daniel, are you okay?” she enquired concernedly.
“Yes, I am fine, my dear,” I replied. “Are you unharmed?”
“Yes,” she said. “They had me play a game that was just like…”
“Congratulations!” interrupted the second of the Infinital voices. “You have completed the first of your games here today! But there will be many more! In fact, you will stay with us forever!”
“Yes,” chimed in the third. “You will stay here with us and have fun forever! Forever!”
Is it really at all possible, my dear friends and most appreciated readers, that you can even begin to comprehend the extreme and unmitigated horror, forsooth the supreme ungodly terror of the situation in which we then found ourselves? There we were, the lovely Miss Millie Drake and me -- Doctor Daniel Rumanos. There we were, having played the games of the Infinitals and threatened with more -- more games that eventually we would lose and be cursed to stay forever with the mighty but perverse beings that commanded the strange establishment known as The Playground!
“You will stay with us forever!” said the first Infinital.
“Forever!” repeated the second. “You will play with us forever!”
“We will have so much fun and play so many games,” added the third, “forever here at The Playground!”
“Forever! Forever! Forever!” they all repeated in unison, amidst peals of highly-pitched insane laughter.
“Now wait just a minute, hmmm?” said I. “You seem to be forgetting something. The only limit to Infinitals is that you have to follow the rules of the game, correct?”
“That is correct,” said the first voice.
“It is,” affirmed the second.
“It is true,” confirmed the third. “It is true.”
“Well, in that case,” I continued, twiddling my frills, “since we have both successfully completed one of your games, you must agree to a challenge from us, correct?”
“That is also correct,” said the first, “but what game could you have that would be suitable for us?”
“Oh, nothing that will at all tax your patience,” said I, taking something from my pocket. "You will see this is an ordinary deck of playing cards, hmmm? It has not been altered in any way.”
“That is true,” said the second Infinital. “They are ordinary cards.”
“They are unaltered,” added the third.
“So the game is that we shuffle the cards, and then we both pick one at random. We are teams, Miss Drake and me against you three Infinitals. We each pick one card, and the team with the highest card wins. Agreed?”
“Yes, we agree!” they all said in unison. “Let us all play and have fun!”
I then shuffled the cards and let Millie do the same.
“Do you wish to shuffle as well?” I asked the Infinitals.
“That will not be necessary,” said the first.
“We see that they have been well mixed,” added the second.
“Yes, they are shuffled,” said the third. “Let us play!”
“As this is your abode,” I said to the Infinitals, “you may have the first draw.”
One of the cards turned over as the Infinitals chose. It was the Three of Spades.
“Your turn!” they said. “Your turn to draw! Your turn!”
“Millie, my dear,” I said. “If you will do the honours.”
Millie Drake drew a card. It was the Ten of Hearts.
“Goodness!” she cried delightedly. “We won!”
“What!” shouted the first Infinital. “This cannot be! We have lost?!”
“No!” added the second. “We have lost?! That is no fun!”
“No fun!” completed the third. “Losing is no fun!”
“You have indeed lost, Infinitals,” I charged, “and with this is a penalty according to the rules of gaming, having now failed to prove your superiority, you are hereby banished from this planet!”
Then, with laments of “No fun!” and an huge flash of eldritch light, the three Infinitals vanished from The Playground.
"Game over," said I.
“So is that the end of them, Daniel?” Millie queried.
“Quite so, my love,” I confirmed. “The Infinitals must abide by the rules of the game. They will no longer bother the people of Earth. They have been banished into the void of Space, far from the environs of this planet.”
“Well that’s good!” she smiled. “Gosh, Daniel! Look!”
By now, numerous mall patrons were entering the arcade, and they began to play the games with much enjoyment.
“Without the influence of the Infinitals,” I explained, “The Playground is quite a nice enterprise. I am certain it will prove quite popular under new ownership. I may suggest it as an investment to some of our most well-heeled associates. Now, let us visit the mall food court for a late lunch, hmmm? I hear that they have an excellent teriyaki establishment.”
***** DANIEL RUMANOS AND MILLIE DRAKE SHALL RETURN
