“We shall be avenged, Rumanos of Algol!” snarled Paul Prater. “Spectral Paranormal shall be avenged for the harassment you have caused us, and you shall be annihilated!”
With this, Prater suddenly sent forth a burst of darksome demonic energy that sent my companions and me careening cross the floor of the nightclub. The transonic turnscrew (an highly-advanced scientific instrument in physical form somewhat resembling a large writing pen) was knocked from my hand and landed several metres distant.
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.
Paul Prater, a middle-aged man, corpulent of figure and bald of head, with a swarthy complexion and a pointed iron-grey beard, was wearing a suit of glossy black, with a silver tiepin carven with three interlocking inverted triangles -- the very symbol of that horrid satanic criminal society indeed known to eternal infamy as Spectral Paranormal. Prater was a stage magician, appearing that night at the small fringe establishment known as Club Mystification, there in town of Glen Burnie. The club’s small audience had already fled in terror at the horrific forces obviously there evoked.
As I struggled to my feet, I glanced to the side to check on my companion, Millie Drake. She seemed all right, and was also attempting to regain her stance against our foe. Millie is an exceedingly beautiful young lady, petite and perfect with luxurious chestnut hair, lovely violet eyes, sun-kissed skin, and luscious cherry lips. The tight, short, sky-blue dress she wore only served to highlight the soft curves of her slender pubescent figure.
“It will not work, Prater,” said I whilst regaining my stand. “We detected your use of the Cacodemons of Andromeda and have come to put an end to your activities. You will not utilise those forces of darkness to accomplish your plans of world domination.”
“Oh, but you are wrong, Rumanos!” returned the villain. “I am Paul Prater the Bizarre Magician, and I shall conquer this planet in the name of Spectral Paranormal. The power of the Cacodemons is mine, and I shall now use it to destroy you!!”
“Daniel, look out!” cried Millie Drake as Prater again sent a wave of ebon black energy straight to-wards me.
This time, more prepared, I managed to dodge to the side, away from the flowing dark force. It blew a hole in the wall of the nightclub directly behind where I had been standing.
Then, before Paul Prater could again generate the demonic energy, a thin beam of sharply-focused light suddenly hit him in his midsection. It was fired from the nose-laser of Kit-10, our mobile personal computer that resembles nothing more or less than a small mechanical cat, and caused Prater to reel backwards in sudden pain.
“Good work, Kit-10!” I approved.
“Of course, s--,” replied the robot in her simulated yet pleasantly-feminine voice.
(It should be noted here that Kit-10, along with her other feline characteristics, is possessed of the complete inability to openly show respect to anyone. In fact, the closest she ever comes to it is by referring to me with a slight “s--” sound -- for “sir” -- and to Millie with “m--” -- for “ma’am”.)
Before Paul Prater could recover from the effects of Kit-10’s blaster, I hurried over and retrieved the transonic device, then aiming it directly at our foe and activating a certain setting.
Within a few seconds, the dark power of the Cacodemons had turned inwards upon Paul Prater, and he screamed in utter horror as they tore his very body to shreds. Then he was silent, a dead husk of what had once been an human being.
By now, Millie Drake and Kit-10 had resumed their positions beside me.
“So is the evil gone now, Daniel?” enquired the girl.
“Quite so, my dear,” I assured her. “Fortunately, Paul Prater was not enough of a ‘magician’ to have any real control over the Cacodemons, being as they are the disembodied essences of beings that once inhabited the Andromeda Galaxy. The psyche-active ‘exorcism’ programmed into my transonic was enough to make them turn on him, and they then drained him of all life energy in order to escape into the alternate dimension in which they now reside.”
“So can we go on to our other assignment now?”
“Indeed so, Millie. I will send a message to our contacts with the local authorities to clean up matters here. As for us, we need to get to the airport!” …
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 planet 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, along with his dangerously-seductive daughter Anastasia, and his occult terrorist organisation Spectral Paranormal; as well as from alien invasions, mad scientists, mutated monstrosities, power-crazed dictators, and indeed all manner of menace. Assisted by my friends -- the beautiful 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 professor of the impossible, the purveyor of Pure Mystery, the saviour of the Cosmos, and the sword of justice from the planet Daemonia. I am the cosmic crusader. I am the stellar swashbuckler.
These are my memoirs. This is my story.
I am -- THE DAEMON-STAR!!! …
The specially-modified Boeing 727 flew high over the ocean that sunny day. It was painted gold, with the words “The Lolita Express” embossed upon it, next to two hearts, one large and blue, with the other small and pink one nestled partially inside it -- as if under its loving protection.
In the jet plane’s cockpit, I sat behind the controls in the pilot seat, with Millie Drake beside me in the place of a co-pilot, and Kit-10 between us.
“So, Daniel,” said Millie, “this airplane actually belonged to Master Epsteinos, the Algolite expatriate who lived on Earth under the name of Jeffrey Epstein?”
“Quite so,” I affirmed to her. “Epsteinos left it to me when he retired to the planet Hebepua. He had named it ‘The Lolita Express’ after one of his young lady friends, I believe. It was originally a common Earth airliner, but our old friend Epsteinos gave it some major upgrades, hmmm? It has been undergoing repairs of late, so I thought it would be a good test run for us to take the jet aeroplane out to investigate that strange energy field over the North Atlantic.”
“So you say it was detected over what is known as the Bermuda Triangle?”
“Quite right; the same area that was at one time the location of the now-lost continent of Atlantis. Indeed, the energy detected their seems to be the type that the Atlanteans were known to have used in their Time-travel experiments.”
“But didn’t Atlantis sink beneath the sea about twelve thousand years ago?” enquired the girl.
“It did indeed, give or take a few centuries,” I pondered. “The energy may be a remnant of one of their attempts to breach the Time-Space Current. Realise that doing so could have caused such an anomaly to appear anytime throughout the planet‘s history.”
“S--,” suddenly interrupted Kit-10, “my systems are detecting the Atlantean energy just ahead of us.”
“Good work, Kit-10,” I praised. “It is great to have you with us, hmmm? Fortunately this is not a commercial flight, or we would have had to put you in one of those cat carriers.”
“This unit is not a cat, s--,” complained the little robot.
“Daniel,” said Millie Drake, “is that it in the sky ahead of us?”
I looked through the cockpit window, adjusting my aviator sunspecs against the glare of the sunlight. A few miles before us, we beheld what appeared to be a swirling grey mist from which there occasionally emanated flashes of strangely hued light.
“By the Triple Star!” I swore. “That is a Time-eddy. It is indeed a side effect of the old Atlantean experimentation with temporal engineering, and…”
Then, our aeroplane suddenly lurched forwards and began to spin to-wards the swirling anomaly.
“Daniel, what’s happening?!” cried Millie.
“We are being pulled into the Time breach,” I explained. “I am attempting to control our flight, but the systems have been affected by the anomalous energies. Hold on!”
With this, The Lolita Express entered the Time-eddy and, with a weird grinding sound surrounding us, we found ourselves spiralling quickly through what appeared to be a tunnel of flashing eldritch mist. Along with this was a feeling of disorientation that may have lasted a few seconds or several minutes, so great was the detachment it seemed to cause from reality.
Then, at last, we emerged back out into the light, still over the waters.
“Millie, are you all right?” I queried concernedly.
“Yes, I’m fine,” she replied. “Just a little dizzy. Are you okay, Kit-10?”
“Systems undamaged, m--’” rejoined the mechanical feline.
“Daniel, something looks strange,” Millie said, looking through the window. “It’s the Sun… it seems bigger and brighter!”
“Yes, and that is not all that has changed,” I added. “I cannot find the Time-eddy now. It is as if everything has moved. Also, our systems are no longer picking up the regular signals and radio broadcasts.”
“Do you mean we’ve… moved through Time?
“So it appears. We have to find out exactly to when though. I will take us over land so we can get some idea, hmmm?”
I then guided the airliner to the shoreline, and what we perceived was a shock indeed. The entire area was like unto a lush tropical jungle, but one in which there were no trees, only myriad species of strange fernlike plants, many of them hundreds of feet high, and some flowered and bearing unusual fruits.
“Oh my gosh!” exclaimed Millie Drake. “Look at that! Isn’t it a… ?”
I looked to see what had so startled Millie. It was on the horizon; a sauropod dinosaur, huge and long-necked, placidly feeding on the plant life.
“Yes, indeed it is,“ I said in answer to the young girl’s startled enquiry. “It is a brontosaurus. The Time experiment of the Atlanteans sent the anomaly both after and before their own civilisation even existed, and we have indeed gone back in Time more than 150 millions of years -- to the Jurassic period!”
“Oh my goodness!” exclaimed Millie whilst I guided the aeroplane back out to sea. “Will we be able to find the Time anomaly and return?”
“Unfortunately, doing so will be rather difficult,” I explained. “The geography of planet Earth is quite different in this time. Most of the world’s land mass is in one gigantic continent.”
“So what can we do?” questioned the girl.
“I am putting a distress signal through to the Gargouillios or Gargoyles of Mu,” I said, programming a sequence into the online computer. “They are the guardians of Earth in this Age, existing on an island continent on what we later know as the Pacific Ocean. I just hope that the broadcast from The Lolita Express is compatible with their systems -- otherwise they may never hear us!”
“But aren’t the Gargoyles incredibly advanced?” asked Millie Drake. “Won’t they detect our presence here anyway?”
“In usual circumstances they would, yes,” I returned. “None the less, at this particular period of Time, they are involved in the very midst of what amounts to a world war.”
“A world war? But… against whom?”
“Against the Lizard-Men of Lemuria, that horrid race of intelligent reptiles that rule another island continent, this one in the area of what will eventually become known as the Indian Ocean. It is the Reptilian Lemurians that, in the ages to come, will experiment on early primate life-forms and inadvertently cause the mutation that will in part lead to the evolution of the human race. Nevertheless, despite their amazingly advanced science and learning, the Reptilians have no ethics or sense of justice. They see all of the mammalian species -- including mankind -- as creatures only to be used as slaves or food.”
“So, the Gargouillios that fight against them;” said Millie, “aren’t they more powerful? I remember reading at Daemonia Academy that the Gargoyles of Mu were allies of the Watchers of Algol, and shared some of our technology.”
“Indeed so,” I affirmed. “The Gargouillios are themselves a strange amalgamation of reptile and mammal, not quite a product of natural evolution, hmmm? It is said by some that they were created by scientists of our own Algolitish race in order to guard the planet Earth against the numerous dangerously distorted civilisations that appeared here during the early stages of its development. These include the Lemurian Lizards, as well as the Elder Things of Leng, the Cult of Kuthalu, and others both remembered and forgotten. So you see, the Gargoyles have indeed quite a task defending the planet!”
“So we need to hope that they can detect and understand our signal?”
“Quite so, my love. Then they can hopefully get us back to the Time-eddy before it ceases to exist… and before we run out of fuel!”
Whilst we had been speaking, I had continued to pilot The Lolita Express at cruising speed over the blue waters of the massive single ocean that covered most of Earth’s surface in those prehistoric days. All had actually appeared rather peaceful, but this was something of which we would now indeed become violently disillusioned.
“S--,” said Kit-10, “systems detecting the presence of other technology fast approaching our position.”
“By the Triune Star!” I swore. “The onboard radar system is picking it up as well. Something is indeed approaching from behind us. Here, we should be able to get it on visual.”
I activated the view screen on the control board to its rear-view angle. There came into view a ship like a thick rocket, speeding quickly to-wards us.
“Daniel,” said Millie Drake, “Is that… ?!”
“Quite so,” I replied. “It is a military attack ship of the Lemurian Lizard-Men!”
Then, before we could react, a burst of blood-red light shot from the Lemurian rocket-ship and hit us. Our aeroplane then shook and shuddered as I heard Millie Drake scream in terror.
“Hold on tight, Mills!” I warned. “We have been hit by their energy weaponry and are out of control! We are spiralling down to-wards the sea!”
I frantically worked at the aeroplane’s controls, and just managed regain access to the systems the moment before we would have plunged into the oceanic depths. As it was, The Lolita Express skidded the surface of the waters before we could again elevate into the skies.
“Fortunately, our plane’s energy shield somewhat deflected the Lemurian weaponry,” I explained. “Otherwise, we would have been completely destroyed.”
“Is the shield something that Master Epsteinos installed on the airplane?” queried Millie.
“Indeed he did,” I affirmed to her. “It is based upon the same technology as the energy barrier that protects our own home planet of Daemonia, albeit in a far smaller and less powerful form. I have now diverted all unnecessary power from other systems to strengthen the shield as much as is possible. If the Lemurians hit us again, it should not effect us quite so severely.”
“So we are safe now?”
“Not quite, love. The shields will eventually weaken if the blast us enough or if… By Daemonia! They are sending us a transmission.”
The hideous face of a Lemurian Lizard-Man then appeared on our system’s view screen.
“You will surrender immediately, intruder,” hissed the reptile, “or we will destroy you. You cannot escape the forces of Lemuria. Superior Reptilian technology is above all. This is the only warning you will receive. Surrender now.”
With this, the horrid face vanished and the screen again showed a view of their rocket-ship approaching rapidly from behind us.
“Daniel, can we outrun them?” questioned Millie Drake.
“Not for long, my dear,” I admitted. “The Lolita Express can accelerate to several times the speed of sound, but Lemurian rocket-ships of that type are equipped for both air and suborbital Space travel, with speeds up to near sub-light.”
Another burst of energy from the Reptilian ship then hit us. The aeroplane shook but stayed in control.
“The shield is holding for now,” I said. “If we can just stay ahead of them until…”
“Daniel, look!” cried Millie.
I looked at our view screen and saw what had so rightfully upset the young lady. Joining the Lemurian battle rocket and fast approaching from behind us were numerous others of the same type.
“By the Daemonian Spires!” I swore. “It is an entire Reptilian war squadron!”
The enemy ships were quickly gaining on us, and by now the firing of their energy guns was a constant thing.
“Daniel, how long will our shields hold?” asked Millie Drake.
“With this level of pummelling,” I replied. “A few more minutes at most. I will attempt some evasive manoeuvres."
I controlled the jet airliner into several changes of altitude in an attempt to confuse our foes. We managed to avoid most of their gunfire, but nevertheless several bursts of energy managed to reach us from the expertly-controlled formation of Lemurian rocket-ships that continued on our trail.
Then, The Lolita Express shuddered like never before, and I struggled to keep control.
“That was it, Mills,” I admitted. “The shielding is down to minimum. One more burst will pierce it and…”
Then the voice of the Reptilian came again over our system.
“You are now finished, intruder,” it hissed. “You have refused our offer of surrender, and will now be destroyed!”
Do you at all even begin to understand and to comprehend the horror, forsooth the extreme and utter unmitigated terror of this indeed most bizarre situation, my dear friends and most appreciated readers? There we were -- my beautiful Miss Millie Drake, the robotic Kit-10, and myself -- piloting a jet airliner over the ocean more than 150 millions of years in Earth’s past, in a world dominated by grotesque reptilian monstrosities, cold-blooded creatures without empathy or love or anything resembling morality; beings of extreme ungodly and horrific eldritch terror -- beings that included the ones that, at that very moment in their amazingly advanced military squadron of well-armed rocket-ships, were preparing to destroy us!
Then, coming from in front of us was something else. It was another group of ships; ships quite different in design from those of our foes. These craft were perfectly spherical in shape and flying in a strangely shaped formation.
“Daniel, what is that?” enquired Millie Drake.
“That, my dear, is our salvation,” I replied. “That is none other than a defence squadron of the Gargouillios of Mu!”
As we watched, the fantastic squadron of Gargoyle ships flew past us and hurried onwards to intercept the threatening Lemurian rockets. Quickly, the Gargouillios fired a volley of their own type of energy rays, sparkling in a strange kaleidoscope of colours -- in sooth every hue of the spectrum along with several colours unseen elsewhere in any period of the history of Earth.
This hit several of the rocket-ships of the Reptilians, and they immediately exploded out of existence. The remainder of them then immediately turned tail and fled away from us, very soon vanishing over the horizon.
“They’ve done it!” cheered Millie Drake. “Daniel, they’ve done it! The Gargoyles have beaten the Lizard-Men!”
“Indeed they have,“ I agreed, “and we are getting an audio transmission from the Gargouillio ships. I will put it on speaker.”
“Master Rumanos of Algol,” said the raspy yet kind and intelligent voice of the Gargoyle. “Greetings from the Gargouillios of Mu we do send you. The Time-eddy from future Atlantis left open for you will be, until return you have to your own temporal sequence.”
“Thank you so much for your assistance,” I replied, “and please do return my greetings to my old friend Keeper Garschmidt.”
We then beheld the Time anomaly hovering before us, and I intentionally flew the aeroplane into it. After a few moments of swirling disorientation, we emerged once again over the sea. I quickly checked the plane’s onboard controls.
“All of the proper systems and broadcasts are back online.” I said. “We have indeed returned to our own time.”
“So what will happen to the Time-eddy?” enquired Millie Drake.
“The Gargouillios will deactivate it from their end and all should be fine,” I replied. “It will be blocked from any further reaching outside of the time of Atlantis. As for us, fortunately we have just enough fuel left to make it to Miami International Airport, where Kit-10 can do a complete diagnostic on exactly what repairs are need for The Lolita Express whilst we have lunch, hmmm? I am glad to say they have a nice kosher-style delicatessen there!”
“Sounds great, Daniel,” giggled Millie, “and you know what? I’m sure that Master Epsteinos himself would approve!”
***** DANIEL RUMANOS AND MILLIE DRAKE SHALL RETURN
