"The Golden Fleece? Really?” wondered Millie Drake.
“So it appears, love,” I replied, again scanning the information that had been sent to us via computer, “or the actual extraterrestrial artefact that the ancient Greeks knew by that name, hmmm?”
We were seated in our secret headquarters, located as it is in the trapezoidal rooftop of a certain downtown skyscraper, the bottom floor of which is occupied by a takeaway food establishment known as “The Pizza Gate” -- named for the stylised entranceway that was designed by the famous early Twentieth-Century architect IM Apeddo.
I was clad in my usual finery, including a frilled poet shirt, purple velvet suit, and jungle boots. My panama hat and opera cape hung from a near by hallstand.
Millie Drake is an exquisitely beautiful young lady; petite and perfect with luxurious chestnut hair, sun kissed skin, and lovely violet eyes. The royal blue dress she wore only served to highlight the fine lines of her slender adolescent figure.
“So it was stolen from the Metropolitan Museum?” asked Millie.
“Indeed so,” I affirmed, “from one of the backroom non-display sections -- and by someone quite adept at both burglary and modern technology, in order to so deftly avoid the security of the museum.”
“That doesn’t sound like someone who would need whatever money the Fleece may be worth on the antiques market.”
“Indeed not, and that is the thing, my dear. You see, the so-called Golden Fleece is an alien artefact that once belonged to the inhabitants of the planet Olympiana, who are distantly related to our own Algolite race. They came to Earth in ancient times, and became the ‘gods’ spoken of in the mythology of ancient Greece.”
“So does the Golden Fleece have some kind of special powers?” queried my companion.
“Quite special powers indeed” I pondered, fetching my hat and cloak. “You see, the Fleece was actually a mantle worn on the uniform of the Olympianoid Mission Commander, asserting his authority and amplifying his commands. If whoever has stolen it can find a way to utilise these energies, they could hold the entire planet Earth in bondage. My dear Mills, we will be in extreme danger, but we must find the Golden Fleece right away -- and save this world from a possible tyranny like it has never before seen!” …
My name is Doctor Daniel Rumanos. I carry within my blood the vastly superior genes of the legendary Watchers of Algol, the most intellectually advanced race in all of the known galaxies, whose technology is so sophisticated it appears to be miraculous 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!!! …
At that same time, a man stood behind a table in a private room of a restaurant. On the table was what looked like a piece of leather, a little over a metre wide, which had been tanned to the colour of gold. The man surveyed it with a look of wicked expectation.
He was a man seemingly of middle years, clad in a black business suit, his face still showing signs of handsome distinction despite being marred with the effects of lifetimes of extreme unfettered wickedness. His hair was long and dark, and his visage decorated with a thin moustache and goatee. Most of all, his eyes shone with an absolute hypnotic glare.
With him was an insanely voluptuous teenage girl with raven hair, luminous blue-green eyes, a pale complexion, and a mouth painted like an inviting scarlet gash. She was wearing a red bikini top, a black leathern miniskirt, and spike heels that made her seem much taller than she actually was.
“It is mine now, Anastasia,” said the man. “The Golden Fleece is mine, and I -- Magister Don Wingus -- shall use it to conquer this world!”
“That is so hot, Father,” purred the girl, “but what will happen if someone tries to stop you; someone like Doctor Rumanos?”
“Now now, Stacy,” Don Wingus admonished his daughter. “I will have none of your ridiculous adolescent obsession with that meddling old Rumanos. If he attempts of interfere with my plans, he will achieve nothing but his own destruction. You forget that my assistant -- that PI we picked up -- is guarding the outside if this establishment. Besides, the power of the Golden Fleece is mine! Watch and behold its power!”
With this, Wingus raised his left hand and made the sign of the pentagram over the Golden Fleece, then beginning his intonation of the ancient incantation:
“Sou O Phalle ischuros eucharistos! By the power of these words of conjuration, I do call forth the powers of the Golden Fleece! Before me Yunges; behind me Teletarchai; on my right Kunochos; on my left Daimonos! By the power of IAO, I do now invoke!”
With this, there suddenly rose up from the Fleece a light; a light of scintillating golden hue that increased in brilliance until it filled the room. Then it began to coalesce into a form like unto a swirling circle of energy that surrounded the evil Don Wingus and his daughter on all sides.
“The power is now truly mine!” exulted the villain amidst peals of his own mad laughter. “The power of the Golden Fleece is mine to command! It is mine, and no one shall be able to stand against me! It is mine, and I shall now begin the take my rightful place as supreme ruler of all!” …
“So this is where the alien signal was coming from?” enquired Millie Drake whilst we approached the location to which we had journeyed that fateful evening. We had left our canary-coloured Edwardian roadster (affectionately known as “Lizzie”) parked beside the curb, the car’s awareness sieve -- one of the many special modification I have added -- keeping her from even being noticed by the locals.
“Indeed so,” I replied, looking at the establishment’s signage from the sidewalk where we stood. “Zorba’s Greek Restaurant. It appears our thief has a sense of humour, hmmm? Although perhaps they think that the ambience of this location will enhance the powers of the Fleece.”
“Could that actually work?”
“Quite so. The presence of Greek native speakers and culture would be empowering for the object considering the many millennia that it has been associated with Grecian civilisation.”
I took the transonic turnscrew (an highly advanced scientific device in physical form somewhat resembling a writing pen) from the pocket of my jacket and used it to scan the area.
“Too bad Kit-10 couldn’t be here,” said Millie, “but she has to undergo that systems upgrade. What does the transonic say?”
“Hmmm,” I pondered whilst looking at the resultant readings before returning the device to my pocket. “There does indeed seem to be some trace of the powers of Olympianoid technology, but someone with immense mentalist powers is masking it. It is as if they have already succeeded in melding the powers of the Golden Fleece to their own being.”
“Daniel, that would take abilities like… Oh my gosh! You don’t think it could be… ?”
“Now now, my dearest Mills, let us not speculate before we have all the facts, hmmm?”
“Oh my goodness, Daniel!” suddenly cried Millie. “Look out!”
I quickly turned to the direction my friend indicated, and beheld an horror. It was a small but hard muscled creature like unto an ape and a man all at once. Its brown skin was covered with coarse black hair, and its simian face was twisted into a grotesquely animalistic snarl. It -- he! -- chattered a noise of challenged as he leaped to-wards me!
I had no time to prepare, but fortunately I had encountered such creatures in the past and therefore had some idea how to defend myself against him. Just before the ape-man could manage to reach me, I delivered a kick to his midsection. It would have been enough to cripple a normal man, but this thing -- despite his small size -- was incredibly strong. My kick merely altered his trajectory so that his head was hurtling directly at me. I accordingly delivered a blow to his face, which sent him to land hard on the concrete.
“It’s another one of those horrible things!” shuddered Millie.
“Yes,” I said, looking at the now lifeless ape-man. “A member of a tribe from deep within the jungle of the Philippines that has kept some of the qualities of the Homo erectus and other prehistoric proto-human forms.”
“And they are also known to be used as bodyguards by agents of Spectral Paranormal,” added my companion.
“Quite so,” I pondered. “Quite so. The thief who has acquired the Golden Fleece must in fact be a member of that infamous occult terrorist network. This is turning out to be a quite a dangerous assignment indeed.”
Millie Drake and I now cautiously approached the door of the restaurant. Just before we reached it, in fact whilst I was reaching out my hand to open it, a thing of absolute strangeness and uncanny weirdness occurred, in truth a thing beyond all sane and rational imaginings -- a thing denoting the presence of the otherworldly forces that had been marshalled against us.
“Daniel, look at that!” exclaimed my companion.
I moved to shield Millie from what had appeared. It was a strange golden light, a brilliance that glowed eerily in the darkness of the city night-time. Then, with grotesque and eldritch silence, the odd glow began to swirl around us!
As quickly as it had appeared, the light then vanished.
“Daniel… was that… ?” queried Millie Drake.
“Yes, it is the power of the Golden Fleece,” I affirmed. “Our enemy sent it here as a warning, but we must continue.”
With this, Millie and I entered the restaurant and found -- to our astonishment -- that everything appeared quite normal. There were just a few patrons enjoying their meals.
“So, Daniel,” whispered Millie Drake to me, “where is the Golden Fleece?”
I took out the transonic device and scanned the interior of the restaurant.
“According to the readings,” I said whilst returning the instrument to my pocket, “it is in one of the private rooms.”
We then proceeded to the chamber the transonic had indicated. Upon entering it, we beheld a man in a black suit standing behind a table on which was the Golden Fleece itself. Beside him was a voluptuous young girl, and around them played flashes of the alien energies.
Of course, I recognised the man immediately; I recognised him as my oldest and most dangerous enemy, the notorious Algolite renegade who has become the most wanted criminal in all of Time and Space.
“Don Wingus!” I said his name. “I should have known. So you did escape from the Ark of the Covenant, and it is you -- no doubt with the aid of your daughter Anastasia here -- who stole the Golden Fleece from the Metropolitan Museum.”
“Oh of course, Rumanos, you old nuisance,” mocked the villain. “Of course. A shame what you did to my little Philippine Islander friend. He had such an awesomely oleaginous orifice. Nevertheless, no matter. The Golden Fleece is mine, and its powers are at my command.”
With this, Don Wingus raised his hand and made the sign of the pentagram, causing a burst of golden light to arise from the Fleece.
“It is all over now, Rumanos!” he continued. “Your meddling is at an end! By the powers I have invoked, will now die!”
The sparkling extraterrestrial light then began to whoosh directly to-wards Millie Drake and me, increasing with intensity as it approached.
“By the Golden Fleece, the powers of the Olympianoids are now mine to command!” stated Wingus. “They are mine, Rumanos, and I now use them to bring your doom!”
Is it at all even within the realm of possibility, my dear friends and most appreciated readers, that you can even commence to understand and comprehend the extreme and unspeakable horror, forsooth that supreme and dreadfully unhallowed terror of the situation in which we then found ourselves? There we were, my beloved Millie Drake and I, Doctor Daniel Rumanos -- standing before the evil intergalactic criminal known to eternal damnation as Magister Don Wingus, accompanied by his dangerously seductive daughter, the alien femme fatale Anastasia “Stacy” Wingus. There we were, the only thing standing between the notorious villain and his plans to rule the world utilising the powers of the legendary Golden Fleece. There we were, as the energies of the strange artefact hurled directly to-wards us at their full power!
“You will die now, Rumanos!” repeated the villainous Don Wingus. “You will die, and I will use the power of the Golden Fleece to rule this world!!”
The golden energies had by now reached Millie Drake and me, and they had begun to have their effect. Indeed, a feeling of pain both physical and psychological began to permeate our very being.
“Daniel…” gasped Millie. “That feeling… It is like… ”
“Yes it is…” I replied, fighting against the encroaching terror. “It is the defensive powers of the Olympianoids. Fight it, my dear! If we were humans, it would have killed us already, but we are Watchers of Algol. Fight it!”
“There is no escape this time, Rumanos!” interrupted Don Wingus. “The powers of the Olympianoids will rip your very being to shreds!”
“No, Father,” suddenly interrupted Anastasia Wingus. “Please, no. You can kill Miss Drake if you want, but please don’t kill Doctor Rumanos. I want him! I would like to keep him as my plaything when you become ruler of Earth. Oh please let me have him, Father. Will you? Please?!”
“Stacy you slow-witted slattern!” raged Don Wingus as he slapped his daughter hard across the face. “I told you I would not tolerate your obsession with that damnably meddling Daniel Rumanos!”
I noticed a slight lessening of the powers swirling around my friend and me and, as quickly as I could, I stepped forwards and delivered a blow of my fist to the face of Don Wingus. Unprepared for this, he staggered backwards and barely managed to not lose his footing.
“Daniel!” cried Millie Drake. “Look what is happening now!”
I indeed beheld the seemingly miraculous occurrence that then presented itself before us. The golden light had switched direction and, with astonishing quickness, had begun to flow directly to-wards the evil Don Wingus and his daughter!
“No! No!” bellowed the villain in rage as the powers surrounded them. “This cannot be happening to me! I am Magister Don Wingus of Algol! The powers of the Golden Fleece are mine and they cannot… ! They cannot… !!”
Don Wingus continued to shout with indignation, and Stacy screamed in terror as the golden glow covered them completely. Then, within a very few seconds, the light vanished -- and the criminal duo had disappeared with it!
“What happened, Daniel?” asked Millie Drake as she flew into my arms. “Are they gone? Is it over?”
“Indeed so, love,” I assured her. “The distraction caused Wingus to lose his concentration, and the powers of the Golden Fleece then turned against him -- taking him and his daughter out of this existence! The remains of that ape-man have no doubt vanished as well.”
I then went over to where the Golden Fleece itself still lay upon the table. I took out the transonic turnscrew and scanned it.
“Fascinating,” I said upon looking at the resultant readings. “The object is now completely harmless. All vestige of the alien powers it once possessed is now gone. It will be safe for us to return it to the museum in the morning. But, my dear Millie, as for now…”
“Let me guess,” she giggled. “You want to stay here and have Greek food?”
“No, my love,” I rejoined. “After this experience, I rather think I would prefer fish and chips!”
***** DANIEL RUMANOS AND MILLIE DRAKE SHALL RETURN
