The object fell from the sky like an angel on fire. It was indeed a shooting star, but was quite obviously no ordinary meteor as it hurtled from Space above the City on that sultry summer evening, glowing with an hot pink and scarlet red effulgence. It finally came to rest in an alley alcove just off St. Paul Street in the city’s downtown area.
Now, if anyone had been there to witness this event, it would have been a surprising sight indeed, for what landed on the pavement was in sooth no piece of interplanetary rock. In stead, when the smoke cleared from the now-extinguished flame what could be seen was nothing other than the figure of a young girl lying on the ground there in that alleyway. Still more astoundingly, it was soon enough evident that she was alive.
The girl stirred and moved and began to struggle to her feet. She was a brunette, an insanely voluptuous teenager, tall and full-breasted. Her eyes were a luminous blue-green of colour, and her mouth sensuously wide. Stranger still, she was clad in a pink halter-top and a blue miniskirt.
A hint of pain and disorientation passed across the girl’s face, then quickly changing to a look of wonderment and surprise as she realised that she was indeed alive. She glanced around, and, quickly assessing her situation, walked out of the alley onto the street.
It was still early enough that evening for some of the shops to be open, and the girl attracted quite a bit of attention as she walked down the thoroughfare under the glowing streetlamps -- several men (ranging from conservatively-dressed businessmen going home late from their offices to flashy neighbourhood pimps always on the lookout for new “talent”) leering at her with looks of obvious lust and sexual desire beyond a level inspired by normal human attraction.
The teen girl then beheld a neon sign glowing above the next corner. “Starling’s Coffee”, it proclaimed. With a smile, she walked into the establishment it announced.
The barista at the counter was a young African-American man of obvious homosexual proclivities.
“Welcome to Starling’s,” he said. “What can I get for you?”
“I would like a caramel latte,” purred the girl, “with thick cream and extra sugar.”
“It will take just a couple minutes,” announced the barista, picking up a cup and a marking pen. “May I have your name please?”
“My name is Anastasia,” returned the girl after a moment of thought, with a tone as if this information -- which seemed to surprise even she -- should be of extreme importance. “Anastasia Wingus.” …
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 Aeternusians or “Watchers” of the Daemon-Star ALGOL. Originating ninety-three light years from Earth, we are 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 own 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 young Hollywood starlet Miss Millie Drake, and our catlike robot known as 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 cosmic crusader. I am the stellar swashbuckler.
I am -- THE DAEMON-STAR!!! …
We met General Alexander Gorton-Steward at the site of the experiment -- the exterior of the large complex, located as it was just outside of the city of Roanoke in the state of Virginia, having been covered with numerous signs proclaim “Keep Out”, “No Admittance”, and “Authorized Personnel Only”.
Millie Drake and I walked into the main machine room of the complex. I was clad in my usual finery, including a frilled poet shirt, purple velvet suit, panama hat, jungle boots, and one of my favourite opera capes.
Millie is an exceedingly beautiful young lady, petite and perfect with rich chestnut hair, sun kissed skin, enchanting violet eyes, and luscious cherry-red lips. The tight, short, powder-blue dress she wore only served to highlight the soft curves of her gorgeous adolescent figure.
Also with us was Kit-10, our mobile personal computer that resembles nothing more or less than a small robotic cat.
“Great to see you again, Doctor Rumanos,” announced the General, an handsome older gentleman in his sixties, grey-haired and resplendent in his officer’s uniform, “and you too, Miss Drake. Not to mention your tin cat there!”
“This unit is not a cat,” protested Kit-10 in her simulated yet pleasantly-feminine voice, at which General Gorton-Steward roared with laughter.
“Thanks for coming out on such short notice,” then continued the General.
“Always glad to help the ESF, General,” said I, mentioning the initials denoting the Executive Security Force, that top-level United States government organisation (dedicated to investigating reports of things outside the realm of what is usually believed to be possible, and answerable only to the President of the United States) of which the redoubtable General Gorton-Steward is the head. “So this research complex is built over a sort of mineshaft?”
“Yes, it is,” affirmed the General. “It is paid for by private funding and run by a scientist named Conrad. He claims to have found a type of gas that exists inside the earth that could be used as a power source that would serve all the world’s energy problems.”
The ground level of the complex was dominated by the machine room, which contained some computer equipment. It was notable that no one else was present upon our arrival, save the General and some members of his staff, all regular-army types who had been transferred to the ESF.
“‘Conrad’, did you say?” I queried. “Is he known to the scientific community?”
“That’s just it, Doctor,” said Gorton-Steward. “Nobody seems to know who the damn guy is. He just came out of nowhere and got full authorisation for the project. He keeps himself in a second chamber farther down the shaft, where he claims to be conducting experiments with what he calls ‘Conrad's Gas’.”
“That’s kind of creepy,” added Millie Drake.
“Creepy indeed,” I mused. “Are there any photographs or video footage of this person?”
“None that we’ve been able to access,” answered General Gorton-Steward. “He supposedly has a degree from some university, but nobody’s affirmed it. Everybody he speaks to seems to be damn well taken in by him.”
“Interesting,” I pondered. “Quite interesting indeed.”
“Anyway,” continued the General, "this Conrad made an announcement that today would be the day when he would make public what he had discovered about this gas of his. That’s why the President sent ESF here for security and we contacted you for scientific advice.”
“Sir,” suddenly interrupted one of the other ESF members, a bulky enlisted man with sergeant’s insignia on his sleeve, “the transmission is coming in now.”
We turned to-wards the room’s main view screen and waited as a picture resolved itself there. It was a man’s face, and the scenery behind him showed him to be in a chamber similar to the one in which we now were, also filled with computer equipment and strange machinery. Nevertheless, the most alarming thing about what we beheld was the man himself. From what we could see of him, he was clad in a black suit, and his face was that of a man of middle years, still showing signs of distinction in spite of being marked with the signs of seeming lifetimes of extreme profligate wickedness. His hair was long and dark, and his face was decorated with a thin moustache and goatee. Most of all, his pale eyes shone with an absolutely hypnotic effulgence.
“This is Conrad,” he said, his voice a tone of haughty mockery. “It is now that the people of planet Earth shall see the power that I will unleash.”
“Daniel,” exclaimed Mille Drake in horror, “that’s not just some scientist named Conrad! That’s…”
“Yes,” I said, recognising the face of my own arch-foe, that unspeakable intergalactic criminal and obscene genius of unnameable evils. “That is Don Wingus!”
“Oh my, it is Doctor Daniel Rumanos, the flaming heterosexual,” sneered Wingus, “and all your little playmates are with you. Glad you could all join us. You have been expected, you know.”
“I should have known it would be you,” I replied. “So you did escape from Demulus. Now you are pretending to be this ‘Conrad’ chap, hmmm?”
“Oh, I assure you that Conrad was a real person,” rejoined Wingus. “A kind of wealthy philanthropist recluse with an interest in science. He met with an accident.”
“You mean you murdered him,” I charged. “Then you assumed his identity for your own nefarious purposes.”
“Not exactly,” smirked the villain. “It seems that this gas he discovered is highly toxic. He was exposed to it and died quite painfully. Now I have control of the source, and will be releasing the gas soon. There is enough here to cover the entire Eastern Seaboard, including Washington, DC. I will then use the resulting chaos to take control of this nation!”
“You are completely and utterly mad, Wingus,” said I. “You will not get away with this. I shall stop you at all costs!”
“Not this time, Rumanos,” challenged my foe. “Not this time. I will release the gas in twenty minutes. You cannot possibly find me before then.”
With this, the transmission ended.
“I need to get down there,” I announced. “If there is any truth to what he is saying, it is the only hope. No military presence with me, though. If he sees that he could take drastic measures.”
“There is an entrance to the mine shaft behind the machinery here,” said General Gorton-Steward. “God help you!”
“Millie, stay here with the General,” I counselled. “Kit-10, you are going with me.”
“Of course, s--,” agreed the little robot.
(It should be noted here that Kit-10, amongst her other decidedly feline characteristics, is possessed of the complete and total inability to openly show respect to anyone. In fact, the closest she ever comes to it is by addressing me with a slight “s--” sound -- for “sir” -- and Millie Drake by “m--” -- for “ma’am”.)
“Daniel,” worried Millie, “please be careful. We don’t know what traps he may have for you down there.”
“I know, love,” I replied to her. “I know.”
Within a few moments, Kit-10 and I were descending the mine shaft. Within a few hundred metres, we came to a side tunnel that looked like it had been quite recently dug out.
“This looks promising,” I pondered, entering the tunnel with the robotic cat following behind me. “Kit-10, it is likely that he will be…”
Before I could finish my warning, something like a stone wall suddenly descended from the ceiling behind me. I whirled around and realised that it had separated Kit-10 from me. I now was alone in the tunnel… or was I?
I then noticed a figure approaching from in front of me. A figure indeed. It was a tall teenage girl with dark hair and luminous blue-green eyes. She was completely nude and the dim phosphorescence of the tunnel seemed to exist only in order to highlight her full-breasted pubescent girlhood.
“Hello, Doctor Rumanos,” she purred. “Remember me? Anastasia Wingus. I know you thought I was dead. Well, I was. But I came back. I came back for you.”
“By the Daemonian spires!” I swore.
Then, with a lustful smile on her hot,full lips, the voluptuous teenager reached out her arms for me. …
“Oh my gosh,” worried Millie Drake from the room above us. “I hope Daniel is all right. We don‘t know what Don Wingus might be doing to him down there.”
“I wouldn’t be too concerned with his safety, Miss Drake,” assured General Gorton-Steward. “I’ve seen the Doctor do some damned amazing things over the years. I’ve seen him defeat insect things from Mars and those Plasticons and the U15 Intelligence that controlled them. He’s even fought and defeated this Don Wingus before. I’m sure he can handle whatever hell he’s going through down there.” …
Anastasia "Stacy" Wingus was kneeling before me.
“Oh please, Doctor Rumanos,” pleaded the girl. “I want you inside me. Oh yes, I want you. I’ve always wanted you so much!” …
“The time is almost up,” announced the General back in the machine room. “I just hope to God he’s done it!”
“Oh, I just wish we could hear from him,” sobbed Millie Drake. …
“Now, Stacy,” said I as I turned away from the girl, “inform me as to what is going on here, hmmm? Are you still working for your evil father, or will you cooperate with me in bringing his unholy schemes to an end?”
I heard no answer and then turned quickly to-wards where the girl had just been. She had vanished. I looked around the area and saw no possible exit.
“Some secret passageway, hmmm?” I mused. “I wonder…”
Suddenly, I heard a sound as of a landslide and noticed rocks beginning to fall from the roof of the tunnel. It was a cave-in!!
Can you in any way even begin, my dear friends and most loyal readers, to recognise and understand the supreme and utterly unnameable horror, forsooth the absolute and most unhallowed terror of this dreadful situation? There I was, trapped in the side tunnel of that mine shaft, deep under the ground, whilst it was hit by a sudden cave-in -- in truth, a cave-in engineered by my arch-enemy, the grotesquely evil intergalactic criminal mastermind known to eternal infamy as Magister Don Wingus, in an attempt to assassinate me!
I realised, of course, that Anastasia Wingus had been sent on her execrable father’s command to beguile me and to keep me entrapped until the cave-in could be implemented. Anastasia Wingus, the ultimate teenage femme fatale, the living embodiment of the fantasies of countless myths and stories told and retold throughout the vast ages of time. Anastasia Wingus --- the irresistible, the alluring, the sex trap!
It was she -- forsooth, it was she who had caused me to be here where my very life was in immanent danger of being extinguished by the huge cave-in there in the side tunnel of that mine shaft deep underneath the state of Virginia!
I crouched down and attempted to cover my head as the rocks fell down on all sides of me. …
In the ground-level machine room, the face of Don Wingus had once again appeared on the screen. This time, Anastasia was with him, by now having clothed herself and standing behind her evil father with a look of carnal satisfaction on her face.
“Now today will finally see an end to that old crusading white night and girl-lover,” mocked Wingus. “He is trapped in a tunnel that is at this very moment experiencing a cave-in.”
“General,” exclaimed the Sergeant from his monitor station, “the mine shaft is experiencing a seismic disturbance, and it is spreading.”
“Oh my goodness!” sobbed Millie Drake. “Daniel is trapped down there!”
“Like I just told you, Miss Drake,” said the villain with an evil smile, “this is his final day, but do try not to worry too much. You can certainly manage to find another delusional old pervert somewhere to take care of you.”
“Daniel is my mentor,” continued Miss Millie Drake. “He is noble and wise and good. He is a great hero known throughout all of Time and Space. He is the best and kindest man I have ever met, and nobody could ever replace him!”
“Oh really, Miss Drake?” sneered Don Wingus. “I could tell you things about your beloved Doctor Daniel Rumanos that would make your underage skin crawl. Why, just a short time ago, when you were up there being so concerned over him, that nympholeptic narcissist was…”
“You damned terrorist bastard!” interrupted General Gorton-Steward. “You won’t get away with this kind of thing here in America, I tell you! You are already on the ESF Most Wanted list and we will…”
“Oh my,” returned Wingus, “such textbook patriotic military bravado. Puts me in mind of old King Arthur back in the days when Rumanos used to act as his ‘advisor’. Why, I can remember the time they…”
“Father!” suddenly exclaimed Stacy Wingus. “Father, look! The ceiling!”
Indeed, behind Don Wingus could be seen a sudden cascade of rocks falling. The cave-in had now spread to the chamber in which they were ensconced.
With a look of sudden anger, Wingus then switched off his broadcast. …
The rocks had fallen all around me, and I had barely managed to avoid being buried by them. Then I noticed a light. It was appearing in a large square on the stone wall that had separated me from Kit-10. It was her built-in laser beam function, and she had used it to burn a doorway in the stone. In a few seconds, the section of stone fell inwards, and I quickly escaped from the tunnel -- just as its rock ceiling finally fell in entirely.
“Good work, Kit-10!” I approved.
“Of course, s--,” rejoined the mechanical cat. “Laser penetration took more time than anticipated due to the density of the rock.”
“That is quite all right, my friend,” I told her, “as long as penetration was achieved in time, hmmm? Let us rejoin Millie and the General.”
In a few minutes, we had returned to the main machine room, and Millie Drake ran into my arms.
“Oh, Daniel, I’m so glad you’re all right!” cheered the lovely girl.
“Thanks to Kit-10’s nose-laser,” I explained.
“Awwwww!” said Millie. “It’s good you were there, Kit-10!”
“Of course, m--,” replied the robot.
General Gorton-Steward had by now come over to confer with us.
“According to the instrument readings we have here,” he said, “that whole damned mine shaft is caving in. So what about that deadly Conrad’s Gas we were told about?”
“There was never any Conrad or mysterious gas,” I explained. “It all was a ruse on the part of Don Wingus -- an attempt to lure me into a lethal trap.”
“We will find him if he’s still down there,” announced the General. “My men will search every nook and cranny of that mine shaft. We will look under every rock and we will find that damned terrorist -- dead or alive!”
“I somehow doubt it, General,” I answered. “If Wingus found himself caught in the cave-in, he would most likely have just left immediately. It is indeed quite possible he had his DiTraS Space-Time travel hidden away down there. He could be light-years away by now, or even…”
“But, Daniel,” interrupted Millie Drake, “that girl we saw on the screen with on Wingus. Was that really… ?”
“His daughter, Anastasia,” I affirmed. “Yes, indeed it was.”
“But how could that be?” questioned Millie. “You said she died long ago, sacrificed by his evil cult in their attempt to gain the power of an alien god.”
“It can only be surmised,” I pondered, “that it was a side-effect of Don Wingus having once utilised that device known as the Time-Stalker in order to bring his daughter forward in the sequence of established events. He sent her back, but the damage was already done to the stream, bringing about a dense state of flux that caused Anastasia to return to life as a temporal anomaly.”
“So if she escaped with him now,” shuddered Millie Drake. “That would mean…”
“Indeed,” I agreed. “It appears that from now on things are going to be a lot more complicated.”
***** DANIEL RUMANOS AND MILLIE DRAKE SHALL RETURN
