One can indeed meet some unusual people in the hideously-debased town of Harpers Ferry, West Virginia -- but this was taking it to the extreme.
We were standing there in the training room of the so-called “Don’s Dojo”, a karate school that was actually a front for that horrid occult terrorist group known to eternal infamy as Spectral Paranormal. I -- Dr. Daniel Rumanos -- was dressed in my usual finery, including a frilled poet shirt, purple velvet suit, military boots, panama hat, and one of my favourite opera capes. My companion, Miss Millie Drake -- petite and perfect, with sun-kissed skin, lovely violet eyes, and luxurious chestnut hair -- was wearing a short, tight, powder-blue dress that only served to highlight the soft curves of her slender young figure.
We were surrounded by seven supposed students from the school, but all was of course not as it appeared to be. Since Millie and I had come to town to investigate the continued activities of Spectral, we had found the “dojo” apparently deserted, and had gone in to have a look around. Suddenly, the students had entered the chamber from an hiding place in the backroom.
They were all middle-aged, men and women of the local blue-collar type, each of them identically clad in the standard martial arts “gi”. Oh, I should mention one more thing about them:
All of their eyes were glowing with an eldritch ebony-black effulgence.
It seemed the intelligence reports we had received were true. The Spectral Paranormal operatives in this area were indeed possessed by the Maskim, that terrifyingly-ancient race of non-corporeal creatures that had once inhabited the planet Mercury; those beings whose very existence had given rise to some of the most extreme and darksome legends of demonic horror amongst the ancient people of Babylonia.
Millie Drake took her position back-to-back with me, as I had instructed her should we ever find ourselves in such a situation.
“Daniel,” she said, “that look in their eyes!”
“Yes,” I replied, “it is indeed the Mercurian Maskim. These people have given up their human essences and have allowed themselves to become total disciples of evil. They must be destroyed.”
The closest of the “students” then reached out for me. I defended against his attack with a quick show of my own Daemonian kung fu skills. Due to the power of the demoniacal horrors within him, he managed to stay conscious and only retreated a few steps away.
Then I saw that two others of them were attempting to attack Millie. I quickly doffed my cloak and used it as a weapon against them. Temporarily blinded by my utilising it to slap across their faces, they also retreated.
“Millie!” I called. “When I say ‘now’, close your eyes and trust me, hmmm?”
“Of course, Daniel!” answered the girl. “Of course!”
I took a device resembling a large writing pen from my pocket and pointed it to-wards the ceiling, activating a certain setting.
“Now!” I exclaimed, and, having retrieved my cape, hurriedly wrapped it around Millie Drake and myself as I leapt to-wards the near by window.
With a shower of broken glass, the girl and I hurtled through and found ourselves outside in the glare of the West Virginia sunlight of that early morning.
From within the building, we then heard the sizzle of electrical sparks, accompanied by the screams of the six possessed individuals. In a few moments, there was silence.
“Are you all right, love?” I enquired.
“Yes, I’m okay,” Millie assured me. “What exactly did you do?”
“I switched the polarisation of the building’s electrical system and gave them quite a shock, hmmm? It will have served to exorcise the Maskim of Mercury, sadly the only thing animating those otherwise already-deceased human beings.”
“So the new transonic turnscrew is working well then?” enquired the lass.
“Indeed so,” I replied, examining the incredibly-advanced scientific device. “Although it is not exactly ‘new’. I used an old spare casing and downloaded the settings software into it.”
“Well, it’s good to have it back! I was afraid of what might happen after the old one got destroyed.”
“Worry not, Mills,” I assured her. “There will always be ways to find new gadgets and devices that we can put to use in our ongoing fight against intergalactic evildoers. Why, it has been so since the days of the old transonic rapiers, hmmm?” …
My name is RUMANOS -- DOCTOR DANIEL RUMANOS, Extraterrestrial Espionage Agent and Intergalactic Man of Mystery. Even though I have the physical appearance of an human being, I am in fact several thousands of years old and do carry within my blood the vastly superior genes of the legendary Watchers of the Daemon-Star ALGOL -- the most intellectually-advanced race in all of the known galaxies, whose technology is so sophisticated it often appears to be “magic” and “miraculous” to lesser beings.
Whilst most Algolites tend to keep to themselves, preferring to live in elitist seclusion from the rest of the Universe and thus merely observing the goings-on of the myriad races of the vast reaches around them, I am an Operative for a secret organisation known as the KOSMIKOS or Cosmic Intervention Department, tasked with maintaining peace and order throughout the farthest reaches of Space and Time. You know, “plausible deniability”, and all of that sort of thing. It is our ongoing mission to defend the weak, the unfortunate, and the innocent from those who would harm or exploit them.
Currently assigned to Earth, I protect its people (both upon their planet and across the eternal void) from the hideous manipulations of the arch-villain known as Magister Don Wingus and his occult terrorist organisation, Spectral Paranormal; as well as from alien invasions, mad scientists, and indeed all manner of menace. Assisted by my friends -- the beautiful Miss Millie Drake and our catlike robot, Kit-10 -- I am the living icon of Algol on this world. I am a Knight of the Eternal Spires. I am the sword of justice from the planet Daemonia. I am the stellar swashbuckler.
I am -- THE DAEMON-STAR!!! …
Millie Drake and I returned to our City headquarters after our battle with the Maskim. We rode the secret lift to the concealed chamber within the golden trapezoidal-shaped top floor of a downtown skyscraper.
The main room of our HQ is filled with objects of all kinds, these being relics of our many adventures across the Universe. Included are alien technologies (not the least of which is my own Time/Space travel machine, the DiTraS or Dimensional Transport Sphere) and items invented by human scientists who explored things that many would say man is not meant to know. Also in the chamber is an huge bank of computers from which we keep watch upon the well-being of planet Earth.
Monitoring this system was another type of computer, a small robot shaped like nothing more or less than a mechanical cat.
“Hello, Kit-10,” said I. “How are things going?”
“All equipment functioning within expected parameters, s--,” replied the computerised kitten in her pleasantly-feminine voice. “However, there is evidence of a strange phenomenon which may be of importance.”
(It must be mentioned here that, amongst her other catlike characteristics, Kit-10 is possessed of a total inability to openly show respect to anyone. The closest she can come to it is by referring to me by a slight “s--” sound, for “sir”, and to Millie by “m--”, for “ma’am”.)
“What kind of phenomenon, Kit-10?” enquired Millie.
“It appears, m--,” replied the little robot, “that there was a fall of meteors late last afternoon that seemed to be focused primarily upon the east coast of the North American continent.”
“Not unusual in itself, hmmm?” said I. “It would have been noticed by all the Earth observatories. Has our more specialised equipment detected something special about this particular meteor shower?”
“Affirmative, s--. The meteors, if that is what they were, appeared to slow in speed as they approached the surface of the planet.”
“By the Triple Star!” I swore. “Ordinary Space-rocks could not have done that.”
“Yes, they would just burn up in the atmosphere,” added the girl. “or make a crater if they were big enough. They wouldn’t land.”
“Forsooth,” I continued, looking at the video replay of the meteor storm, “but these do appear to be coming in for a controlled landing!”
“Do you think they could be some kind of Spaceships?” asked Millie.
“Not of any usual kind, hmm? Kit-10, do we have any radiation readings from these supposed ‘meteors’?”
“Affirmative,” replied the mechanical pussycat, “but it only appears to be the normal type found on objects that have passed through large reaches of Outer Space. Nothing within dangerous considerations.”
“Scan the local area,” I advised, “and see if there are any readings of the same level and type of radiation.”
Kit-10 attached her forehead sensor to the main computer terminal and made a slight whirring sound whilst carrying out this operation.
“Results detected, s--,” she announced. “Traces of the same type of Space-born radiation are currently found in the location of the ‘Bullseye’ department store in the Canton Crossing Shopping Centre of the southeast City.”
“Department store?” wondered Millie Drake. “Daniel, what could this mean?”
“I am not certain, love,” I admitted, “but we should go over there and investigate right away, hmmm?” …
At that same time, in the manager’s office of that aforesaid location of the Bullseye department store chain, a man named McLaughlin was speaking to what appeared to be a large aquarium. McLaughlin, a man in his late thirties, slim of build and with sandy brown hair, had only recently become the store manager after the usual one (a morbidly-obese African-American woman named, of course, LaKeesha) had suddenly come down with an illness.
“All is going as planned,” announced McLaughlin to the thing in the aquarium, the thing that sputtered and bubbled and writhed with its horrid mass of green tentacled terror. “The Plasticons are prepared, and soon the commencement of the U15 invasion will be underway.”
And with this, the monster shook and writhed its tentacles in approval, knowing the true import of the words of its human servant, McLaughlin. The thing’s numerous jaundice-yellow eyes glared out through the thick alien fluid in which it was immersed, filled with the knowledge that this meant the beginning of the fulfilment of its plans -- that it, the U15 Consciousness, would soon be on its way to becoming master and ruler of Earth!! …
Millie Drake, Kit-10, and I entered the Bullseye shop location after leaving my canary-coloured Edwardian roadster (affectionately known as “Lizzie”) in the parking lot of the Canton Crossing strip mall. It was by now mid-afternoon, and the large department store was filled with the usual number of shoppers browsing about the various items for sale.
Now, it should be noted that one of the things in which the Bullseye chain of shops prides itself is its supposed “inclusiveness”. It is their intention to show that all ethnicities, genders, ages, and body types are welcome at their stores. In practice, what this has led to is the establishment displaying a selection of mannequins that look downright deformed.
There are hideously overweight mannequins of women with sickeningly-puffy fat legs, overhanging stomachs, and grotesquely-saggy breasts. Worst of all, there are ones with disgustingly-extended buttocks of the kind more often seen in simian and partly-simian species than in actual human beings, and with the wide hips only found in females who have passed the age of proper sexual attractiveness (which is, of course, approximately twelve to sixteen).
This trend extends to the photographs of models gracing (I utilise the term quite loosely) the clothing departments. These include men and women of strange multi-ethnic crossbreeds, morbidly obese individuals so hideous in appearance that it is well-nigh impossible to determine which gender they are supposed to represent, numerous physically-handicapped types complete with crutches or wheelchairs, and so on.
Fortunately, Bullseye has not had the audacity to fully extend this intense grotesquery to the children’s departments. There, they have made due with portraying young folks of various racial backgrounds, shown in friendly proximity to each other in ways not naturally seen in Earthlings. One of the most prominent of these nauseating photographic portrayals is of a dark-complexioned lad improperly hugging a much-smaller blonde girl, the latter smiling in order to show how much she supposedly likes it.
It is amongst this already-unearthly display of forced “inclusiveness” that the beautiful young Miss Millie Drake, Kit-10 the catlike robot, and I found ourselves on that fateful day, looking for signs of a possible extraterrestrial invasion.
“Are you detecting anything, Kit-10?” I queried.
“Affirmative, s--,” replied the metallic puss. “The previously-detected meteoric radiation is indeed present. There is also some evidence of a biological presence not of this planet.”
“Can you match it with the database I have had downloaded to you from the DiTraS records?”
“Attempting to do so now, s--. Results may take a few minutes.” …
In the office, McLaughlin continued to address the monstrosity that was in the aquarium tank.
“All is now ready,” he intoned. “At your leave the Plasticons will be activated.”
At this, the eldritch alien creature gurgled and sputtered its approval.
“Excellent,” said the man. “Your thoughts are in me, and I am now fully part of the mighty U15 Consciousness. Earth will be ours. The invasion now begins!” …
“Daniel,” said Millie, pointing to-wards one of the misshapen mannequins, “look at that!”
“Indeed, love,” I responded, “Hideous, are they not?”
“Yes, but that’s not what I mean,” continued the girl. “I thought I saw it move!”
“Really? Hmmm… That would only be possible if…”
Then Millie Drake screamed. She screamed because the plastic shop dummy was in sooth actually moving. In fact, as we watched it visibly walked forward, stepped off its display platform, and began to proceed down the aisle of the shop.
“Oh my gosh, Daniel!” cried the lass, now clinging to me in fear. “They’re all moving! It’s like the mannequins have come to life!!”
“Data match complete, s--,” suddenly interrupted Kit-10. “Confirmed psyche-organic presence from Galaxy U15.”
The store patrons were by now shouting in horror and running for the exits as the horridly deformed display dummies continued to walk around. A couple of people were unfortunate enough to come into contact with the horrible walking mannequins, and paid for it with their lives as the things demonstrated great strength in snapping the shoppers’ necks.
“What!” I exclaimed in horrible realisation of what was occurring. “U15! Of course! The U15 Consciousness and its Plasticon servitors! By Daemonia, we -- along with the entire human race -- are in far greater danger than I realised!!”
“Daniel, they’re all around us!” sobbed Millie. “What can we do?!”
Indeed, it was then that a circle of these horribly-disfigured mannequins began to approach us from all sides!!!
“Plasticons!” I said. “They really are Plasticons! Servants of the U15 Consciousness that rules the galaxy of that name! The Consciousness has a special affinity for plastic, and thus spreads out and reproduces by creating replicas of the population of the planet it intends to conquer!”
“But what can we do to stop them?” cried Millie Drake in abject fright.
“Kit-10!” I called. “Try your blaster!”
The robot cat then immediately fired her nose-laser at the closest of the approaching mannequins. The plastic automaton halted in its tracks, but was not destroyed.
“Keep trying, Kit-10!” I instructed. “Let us see how strong these things actually are!”
Kit-10 then sent a longer blast of her laser to-wards the mannequin. In a few moments, the horrid thing began to melt, and soon fell into a shapeless heap on the floor.
“Good work, Kit-10!” I approved. “Mills, come on!”
Jumping over the remains of the animated shop dummy. I hurried the frightened girl behind a near by display of video discs, where we were soon joined by Kit-10. Never was I more thankful that, in this era of “file sharing”, some consumers still prefer such physical media.
“So Kit-10’s laser can kill them?” asked Millie.
“So it appears,” I said, “but it uses up a considerable amount of power, hmmm?”
“Affirmative, s--,” informed the robot. “Estimate my energy reserves will be depleted before fifty percent of the attackers can be disabled.”
Several of the mannequins continued to stand menacingly near to our hiding-place, whilst the remainder of them had continued to spread out around the shop.
“Good afternoon,“ said a mocking voice from behind us, “I am Mr. McLaughlin, the store manager.”
We looked up and beheld a man in his late thirties, with sandy-brown hair, properly clad in the uniform of his stated position, Nevertheless, I could see right away that all was indeed not normal with him. His eyes seemed to bizarrely glow with the presence of an intellect more-than-human, and upon his face was a seemingly-permanent sneer of hatred at all that was good and true and beautiful about the planet we know as Earth.
“Millie,” I whispered to the girl, “you and Kit-10 stay behind the display, and have her use her laser if the mannequins attack.”
I then stood up to face McLaughlin.
“You are totally possessed by the U15 Consciousness, hmmm?” I said to him. “You have become their tool, their agent amongst humankind!”
“Indeed I have, Algolite,” he proudly affirmed. “What you see here is but a trial, a bare beginning. Soon, we will install Plasticon replicas as replacements of those in positions of power in the governments of this world. The people of Earth will fall before us, and the U15 Consciousness will replace the entire human race with replicas. Another planet shall be ours!”
Whilst speaking, McLaughlin was moving to-wards me. I stepped forwards somewhat to prevent his attack from including Millie, and I soon clashed against him.
The man was incredibly strong, a strength beyond human due to his possession by the alien U15 Consciousness. We grappled together, and it was only due to my mastery of Daemonian jujitsu that I was able to prevent him from casting me to the floor.
I finally managed to throw him, but he quickly recovered and delivered a fist to my face that sent me reeling. I spun round and gave a kick to his midsection that caused him to stagger back to-wards the entrance to the backrooms of the shop. I followed him and our battle continued through the stock room until we eventually came to the manager’s office.
When we burst through the office door I realised why he had been moving to-wards this point, for against the far wall was an aquarium tank that held the horrifying organic manifestation of the U15 Consciousness -- the thing that had been put together from the meteor-like travel devices that the alien gestalt mind had used in order to send this portion of itself through the vastness of Space to land upon Earth. …
Back on the Bullseye sales floor, Millie Drake continued to crouch behind the display rack beside Kit-10. Another of the walking mannequins attempted to reach them, but a quick blast from the robotic feline’s laser managed to drive it back.
“Thank you, Kit-10!” cheered the lass. “How much longer do you think you can hold them off?”
“Not for very much longer, m---,” replied the catlike computer. “My energy reserves are fast depleting.”
“But then… what can we do?!”
“Insufficient information, m--.” …
McLaughlin was even stronger in close proximity to his monstrous master, and I knew that I would have to defeat him quickly before he could succeed in wearing me down. I therefore delivered a lightning-fast kung fu blow to his throat and, before he could recover, removed the transonic turnscrew from my jacket pocket, activating a setting that I hoped wouldst succeed in scrambling the alien mind-power within him.
When the energy from the transonic hit him, McLaughlin shrieked in pain and, with one final convulsion of strength, gave a kick to my hand that sent the turnscrew out of my grasp to clatter across the floor.
None the less, it was too late for Mr. McLaughlin, Bullseye department store manager turned slave to an hideous alien invader. With his human essence having been destroyed by the presence of the now-exorcised extraterrestrial intelligence, his body crumpled to the floor in death.
I attempted to catch my breath before turning to face the monstrous manifestation of the U15 Consciousness itself, and only managed to glance at the terrifying creature before it attacked me.
The creature in the tank was immersed in a viscid substance like a cross between diseased saliva and seminal fluid. The thing was like an octopus and a squid and a lobster and a sea-spider and a monstrous water-insect all at once. It countless writhing tentacles were in constant motion, and its many yellow eyes stared at me with an intelligence both extreme and unspeakably evil.
Before I could fully recover from my fight with McLaughlin, indeed before I could even begin to retrieve the transonic turnscrew, the sickly-green extraterrestrial monster reached out its seemingly-countless tentacles and clutched them about my midsection, my arms, my legs, and my neck. It dragged me to-wards the tank and squeezed with a strength beyond any possibility of resistance.
I felt my mouth gape open as I struggled to breathe, but it was impossible. As the alien monstrosity’s tentacles continued to constrict around my throat, I felt the total blackness of unconsciousness and eventual death begin to encroach upon me!
Can you even begin to truly comprehend the unnameable horror, forsooth the unmentionable abject terror of this unprecedented situation, my dear friends? The horrid monster that was a physical manifestation of the alien U15 Consciousness was squeezing the very life out of me, after which nothing would be able to stand in the grotesque and ungodly thing’s way of continuing its plan to invade the planet Earth!! …
“Kit-10,” said Millie Drake as they continued to shelter from the grotesque mannequins, “do you think you can fire at the Plasticons long enough to distract them, so we can make it through that door to the back and see where Daniel has gone?”
“Affirmative, m--,” replied the robot.
Kit-10 then again activated her nose-blaster, this time giving a series of short spurts to-wards the animated display dummies, whilst Millie and she sped to-wards the doorway. Avoiding the laser-fire managed to keep the mannequins from advancing whilst the girl and the robot managed to escape into the backrooms of the department store. …
I was sinking to the floor with the compression of the alien tentacles around my throat when Millie Drake and Kit-10 suddenly burst through the door.
“Daniel!” the girl screamed in shock when she beheld my dilemma. “Oh my gosh! Kit-10, blast that thing!!”
The mechanical cat quickly sent a burst from her nose-laser at the monstrous form of the U15 Consciousness. It was just enough to cause the creature to relax its grip on me, just for a mere fraction of a moment.
Taking this opportunity, I lurched forwards and fell face-first to the floor just short of the thing’s grasp. Fortunately, I found the transonic turnscrew within reach and quickly grabbed the device. I rolled over on my back and aimed the transonic at the monster, activating the setting, at full power, to scramble its extraterrestrial consciousness.
Just then, I heard Millie scream again as two of the walking mannequins entered the office doorway behind her.
The U15 monstrosity reacted to my transonic by shuddering and shaking. I felt the device grow warm in my hand and I was hoping it would have enough energy to destroy the thing’s mind before overloading itself when it suddenly began to take affect. Then the horrible alien creature that was the U15 Consciousness began to break apart and, within a few seconds, shrivelled down into nothing and vanishing completely.
The two mannequins that had entered the room then fell down to the floor. Without the power of the alien mind, I knew that they, along with all the others of their type, were no longer Plasticons and now back to being nothing more than harmless shop dummies.
Millie Drake then flew into my arms, and I comforted the poor wee lass as we stood there, along with Kit-10, now alone in the office of that City location of the Bullseye department store.
“Oh gosh, Daniel,” sobbed the girl. “I’m so glad it’s over! Oh, it is over, isn’t it?”
“It is for now, love,” I answered her gently, stroking her rich chestnut-hued hair, “but the U15 Consciousness is unspeakably vast, and this was only a small portion of it. What we encountered here was but a spearhead of a planned invasion of far greater consequence. Now that it has set its terrible sights upon this planet, it will be back to try again, and with greater power. When that happens, it will be much more difficult to defeat.”
“So we will need to be ready,” said the lovely lass.
“Indeed we will, Mills. Indeed we will!”
***** DANIEL RUMANOS AND MILLIE DRAKE SHALL RETURN
