Thursday, July 2, 2015
Wednesday, July 1, 2015
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There's no explaining the appetites of some men. A Matter of Taste "A Sherlock Holmes Story" by John Pirillo. Sometimes we must just rise up in anger.
A Matter of Taste
"A Sherlock Holmes Story"
by John Pirillo
"Merely a matter of proper observation, Watson." Sherlock said, as he lowered his binoculars to look at his best friend and companion. They had left Baker Street before dawn, heavy overcoats, mufflers and caps. Watson wore a more stylish Slavic style, which was the rage of Her Majesty Good Queen May's court at the time. It started quite high at the back of the head and raked forward over the eyebrows, drooping like a kitten sleeping at rest over a counter. Sherlock hated it, but wouldn't comment directly for fear of hurting his friend's feelings. He had been quite testy lately since Mrs. Hudson had departed to the Whiteshores to visit some relative.
"Indubitably." Watson agreed, taking the binoculars and fixing his own eyes on the eyrie that's roost was high above the raging sea waters below.
"I suspect our man hasn't the least idea that we are on his trail."
Watson nodded. "I agree. Look."
He handed back the binoculars and Sherlock looked at the eyrie again, but this time focused on the right edge of it where an older man sat with his legs perched over the drop below. He seemed to be peeling something.
"An apple."
"What?"
Sherlock turned to Watson, lowering the binoculars. "He is peeling an apple."
"How can you tell at this at this distance?"
"For one thing, he needs only one hand to hold the fruit, or object if you will. Two, it is round, as he is easily able to rotate it in the one hand, and three it is small enough to fit in one hand."
"That describes a potato, a tomato and a round of cheese equally well."
Sherlock took it with a grain of salt. "A potato would be unlikely, as the man is from Dublin and is known to hate potatoes because of their symbol of slavery to the Britains. The tomato is out of season and unavailable and a round of cheese would be too soft and cling to his hand, therefore not rotating easily, nor peeling so effortlessly."
Sherlock looked to Watson to come up with a counter argument. But instead he said. "That's brilliant, Holmes!"
Sherlock didn't honor the compliment with a reply. In fact he was pretty sure it wasn't an apple at all, for he had seen the clump of scalp the man had discarded before he began carving the head of the baby dog.
It was a foul deed. Eating babies of anything. Sherlock grimaced. And this man had eaten the babies of far worse. This brought him and Watson to why they were observing the man.
"There appears to be a path." Watson noted, making a series of quick notes in his notebook, before carefully inserting it back into his black bag, which he was never without.
A sudden surge of brisk, freezing sea wind blew across their hiding place and Watson's teeth began to chatter.
Sherlock began sliding away from the sparse shrubbery and log they had been peering from behind. "Come. A warm fire awaits us."
"But we haven't caught the bugger yet." Protested Watson.
"Ah, but we have."
No sooner did the words exit his mouth than Inspector Bloodstone and his son, Constable Evans showed up along with about twenty Constables.
Sherlock stood up, brushing off his overcoat, and replacing his deerstalker cap on his head, adjusting it slightly so it wouldn't catch the surging wind. "Good to see you, Inspector."
"And you, Holmes. And our guest?"
"Comfortable." Sherlock answered with the hint of a smile.
The Inspector nodded and his men spread out.
Watson looked back at the cliff again and saw a horde of dark cloaked men descending the side of the cliff where the eyrie was, rappelling down knotted ropes. "Our men should have him in no time."
They heard a man's scream and turned to see the old man, arms akimbo, swinging like windmill blades as he tumbled from his hiding place towards the sea far below. They couldn't see him land.
Inspector Bloodstone crossed himself, and then turned to Sherlock. "It would appear our guest h as refused our offer of companionship."
"Indeed." Sherlock acknowledged. "But do not call your men off just yet."
He rushed for the edge of the drop they had been near and as he did so, he and the others saw a very strange thing occur. The old man was not lying on the rocks below, but instead was soaring away on a strange device that hung from his back and that he clung to and guided with his arms and hands.
"The DaVinci!" Inspector Bloodstone cursed.
"The bloody cannibal has escaped us again, father."
Inspector Bloodstone eyed his son thoughtfully a moment.
"I mean, Inspector." Constable Evans hurriedly corrected himself.
"Yes." The Inspector finally replied, then folding his hands behind his back, headed back down the rise where the Constable wagons awaited. It had been a long dreary drive to the God-forsaken stretch of cliff and rock, and now it would be an even longer one home. He would order his men to search the area, but he knew well enough the range of the blasted DaVinci and considered the matter no longer in his hands to control.
Watson and Sherlock watched the sullen Inspector march off.
"I gather he's having a worse day than I." Watson remarked, gripping his muffler and tightening it about his throat more as an even stronger gust of wind blew in from the sea.
"Our man appears to know the routes of the air currents, as well as the sea." Sherlock observed, turning to eye Constable Evans, who looked a bit strained.
"Constable, I would suggest you return with your...uh...the Inspector dutifully. He will need as much support as possible."
Constable Evans nodded and started to follow his father, then stopped and looked back. "Sherlock."
"Yes, Constable."
"What if that wasn't the old man on the DaVinci?"
Sherlock's right eyebrow cocked upwards at a peculiar anger.
"By Jove, Holmes, he's got you!"
Sherlock didn't answer. He ran for the Constable Wagons.
He leaped in beside the Inspector, who was signaling his driver to leave. "The game's still afoot, Inspector."
Constable Evans and Watson barely leaped into the back, before the wagon leaped into action. It lit up its lights and sirens and blasted towards the only road that led to the cliff eyrie.
It took them a bit over an hour to reach the overhang where the Constable's men had rappelled down and the ropes still hung over the cliff's edge. Sherlock went to the edge, and immediately took hold of a rope and began scrambling down, hand over hand, but Watson backed off, shaking his head.
Constable Evans had a rope in his hand and eyed Watson questioningly. "Go ahead, Constable, I'll bring up the rear...from here." He said with a cough of embarrassment.
Inspector Bloodstone gave Watson a sly smile. "Still afraid of heights, Doctor?"
"I am not...afraid of heights, sir!" Watson argued, his face turning a bright red. "Merely respectful of them."'
Inspector Bloodstone laughed, and then hurled himself over the edge like a professional mountain climber, gripping the rope between his gloved hands and sliding down, intermittently slowing himself. Constable Evans looked to Watson. "I can stay here, sir, if you like."
Watson exploded. "Do I look like a blasted child to you who needs someone to hold their hands because they're afraid of the dark?"
"No sir!" Constable Evans exclaimed, shocked at the response.
Watson brushed him aside, then grabbed a rope and lowered himself over the edge. "Afraid of heights, really!"
He lowered himself down, but as soon as Constable Evans was safe from view, he said. "Mother Mary protect me."
Sherlock reached the overhang and dropped lightly to his feet. Inspector Bloodstone came next and dropped effortlessly beside him. He eyed Sherlock questioningly. "This spot is well known. No known exit exists from it. Except..." He indicated the drop to the sea.
Sherlock didn't reply. Instead he stepped into the cave's mouth. The Inspector followed. They went into the depths of the shadows, light vanishing behind them, until Sherlock struck a match and lit it. He held it up, lighting their way. He walked several paces until a dead-end wall appeared before them.
"I was right, was I not?" The Inspector noted, with a bit too much glee. "Now we can go home and get a decent rest."
"I'm afraid not, Inspector." Sherlock replied. He dropped the match which had just burnt to his gloves, then lit a new one. He stood there with the match held high. As he did so the flames began to draw to the left. He slowly turned and the flames drew straight forward. He continued in that direction about five yards then stopped.
"Here." He said. Stopping abruptly.
The Inspector gave Sherlock a look like he'd gone mad. "Here? Here! Have you gone mad, Holmes. This is nothing but a blank wall of rock!"
"See." He pounded on it. "Nothing but..." The rock began to move aside. As it did so an older man stood revealed. He held an odd pipe shaped device to his right ear, which he quickly tossed aside and reached for a weapon on a small shelf on the inside wall of the small compartment that had been revealed.
Behind him was a man's corpse strung up on the wall by his palms. He was naked and dripping blood. Chunks of his flesh were missing around the ribs.
He held the gun aimed at the Inspector and Holmes, who did not move, thinking that might trigger a hasty firing of the hand gun.
"Very clever, Holmes."
"Your reign of terror is at an end, Sir Guiles."
The nobleman gave Holmes the briefest of smiles. "Does the Queen know?"
"She has her suspicions."
Inspector Bloodstone suddenly moved. Sir Guiles fired.
Inspector Bloodstone fell to the right and collapsed, clutching at his stomach.
Sir Guiles smiled. "The worst shot. Gut shot is the choice of men at war who wish to punish their captives as much as possible without actually killing them. It can be healed effortlessly enough, and then repeated again to greater effect, thus also making it a great tool of torture as well."
"Which you certainly are a master of." Sherlock noted casually, not moving an inch, except to glance at the fallen Inspector, who groaned on the floor, clutching at his stomach.
"I suppose you shall now elude us with the second DaVinci I see in the corner of your secret room."
Sir Guiles smiled broadly this time. "Brilliant deduction. Except you're wrong!"
He aimed his pistol at Sherlock's chest. "The heart, many foolish people believe, is on the left side of the chest, but we know, don't we, Mister Holmes, that the heart is in the center of the chest, not to the right or the left."
"So you intend to kill me?"
"No. I intend to eat you!"
His finger tightened on the trigger and the sound of two pistols firing came at the same time.
Sir Guiles face registered shock a long time, before he fell. He had a bullet hole between his eyes and one directly in his chest. Before he collapsed, his weapon fell to the floor and lay there unmoving, and then his eyes looked past Sherlock to where Doctor Watson and Constable Evans both had smoking weapons in their hands, their eyes filled with dreadful purpose.
Sir Guiles in a huge surge of will, even though dead on his feet, laughed. He plunged past Sherlock, who stepped aside from his path, and towards Watson and Constable Evans, who also stepped from his path.
They watched as he reached the edge of the hangover and lifted his arms to the skies, then fell from view.
Constable Evans ran into the room and dropped to his father's side. "Father!"
The Inspector looked up at his son. "Remind me to stop saying you upset my stomach. This gunshot hurts like bloody hell warmed over! Bollocks!" He cursed.
Watson and Sherlock went to the edge of the drop and looked down. Below lay the figure of Sir Guiles.
"Well, I guess that solves this spot of soiled humanity."
"Yes. But what of the other?"
"What other?"
"The one who got away."
Then Watson remembered the vision of the dead man hanging by his palms from the inside cave compartment. He was missing chunks of both sides of his body. Watson felt the blood drain from his face. "Dear God, Holmes, that man on the wall...the teeth marks were different on both sides."
"Yes. I'm afraid so, dear Watson. I'm afraid so."
"Then the other man who escaped."
"His twin brother."
"I didn't know he had a twin brother."
"You wouldn't, Watson, he kept the secret close to his chest, just like his...um...unusual tastes. If not for the Queen, I would never have known myself."
But that means we haven't stopped the killings at all. "This is precisely why Sir Guiles laughed at his own death. He knew precisely that."
Sherlock looked off into the distance as Doctor Watson rushed back inside to tend to the Inspector. It meant more horrible deaths. And yet another monster loose on the innocent of London.
He shook his head, and then returned inside to assist his friends in carrying the Inspector out of the cave. He helped rig a carry for him, and then he and Constable Evans climbed to the top, where other Constables were just arriving. They hauled the Inspector up and then Watson, who, when he reached the top, fell to the ground and kissed it.
"Watson, whatever are you doing?" Sherlock asked him.
"I lost my spyglass." Watson hurriedly said, getting back to his feet.
"But..."
Watson turned on Sherlock. Sternly. "I...lost...my...spyglass!"
Like a spurned lover he walked stiffly to the nearest Constable wagon and climbed inside. Constable Evans passed Sherlock, his father stretched on a length of wood carried by two Constables. "He and my father have much in common."
"Indeed, they do, Constable Evans. Indeed they do." Sherlock answered with the slightest hint of a smile.
Mary Poppins got nothing un us, guvnor! Dazzling, scrumptilicious new fractal flame gallery!
If Mary Poppins had a computer, she would have made these for the kids, and then served them with a spoonful of sugared interactive educational games.
Enjoy!
John
The Mask works to destroy America! Will the Spy Smasher stop him in time? Chapter 4 of Spy Smasher. Non stop action!
What kind of hideous death does Spy Smasher face this chapter?
Enjoy.
John
Tuesday, June 30, 2015
Invaders, Rowlf's Journey "A Journey to the Center of the Earth Story" Sometimes it's hard to know the real monster, even when you're one.
Rowlf's Journey
"A Journey to the Center of the Earth Story"
By John Pirillo
Maybe it was the never ending trek into the bowels of the earth that caught Rowlf's fancy, or perhaps it was these strange creatures who demonstrated such extremes of emotion. Emotion was not new to Rowlf. All his people had it, but jut not so extreme! His people were not nomadic by nature. Once they found a cavern or large protected area with access to water and food, they seldom left that area to adventure about.
There were some, like Rowlf though, who while tolerated, and put a stress and strain on the society they were born to, because their minds were curious. Always looking to explore one more thing. Learn one more thing.
Such had Rowlf been as an egg and such was he now as a fully grown Therm...The description his people gave themselves. It meant hard shell, soft heart.
Of course not all Therms were as reasonable as Rowlf's had been. He still remembered when their quarters were invaded by a variation of Therm that used strange weapons that sent beams of light, blistering the shells of loved ones and friends. Rowlf had been but little over an egg in size at that time, so he had been hidden in the back, protected by the Warrior Mothers, those who gave up egg lying to protect the young. More often than not, they also laid eggs, but they never had the privilege of raising and nourishing them as a mother might. Their sights were upon the overall communal protection.
They had thrown off that invasion, not because of superior weapons, but because they cared for each other. None were afraid to die for the other. And many had perished. It take many long periods of egg laying to even begin to get back into the numbers of population they had before the battle with the evil Therms.
Evil is a loosely translated word for the emotion they felt from the invading Therms. No one of Rowlf's tribe would ever have said that word. They didn't believe that creatures were made of one thing or another, but a blend. They believed in shades of gray, not black.
Rowlf had awakened the night of the invasion with a frightening vision. He saw these short white skinned creatures invading their home with weapons that could pierce their armored skin and explode them from the inside out. It had terrified him.
His mother had tried to calm him down and it might have worked, had not the invasion begun shortly thereafter. Rowlf remembered little of those moments in retrospect, because his mind was still forming. Therm brains aren't fully developed in the second area of the head until they reach ten terms. Which are about twenty earth years as measured by surface dwellers.
Rowlf had scrambled on his legs and arms like an insect. Children did that. Not adults, though they might in a warlike situation, which this was, though few at the time could believe such was happening.
Rowlf had been taken the long path, not the short, for the invaders were camped at the edge of the short path and were using their strange weapons to pick off anyone that came within range. Which in the beginning had been pretty much dozens of Therms who couldn't believe that the strange lights would harm them, let alone the invaders. It was unheard of for Therm to harm Therm. That illusion was quickly broken by the fight that ensued.
Hundreds died in the first fatal hours, before the invading Therms ran out of light throwing weapons. Their beams of light might have killed Therms, but not always on the first blow or the next. Even dying, Therms took a long time to realize they were dead and kept on fighting until their brains were fried, or their multiple hearts broke.
Rowlf's heart broke at least twice during the battle, for his mother and father were among the first to fall as they strove to protect him and the other children from the invading Therms. It had been their goal to rob the colony of the babies. Later, after they had scattered the foe, and captured a few. The majority they swiftly killed once their light weapons failed.
They learned about the goals of the invaders from one especially tall one. He had been captured and kept from biting his own body in two by four of their own. He had been interrogated and found out to have led roughly a thousand of the Therm invaders. Only fifty of them survived. He had told them that there were more waiting to invade and with even more powerful weapons, but none believed him. The cells in his eyes lied. They glowed the wrong way.
The Therms of the colony knew bitterness and sorrow for the first time in a long time. They did not feel for vengeance, so they allowed the captured leader to choose his method of death. The leader had chosen the Molten Falls. A series of volcanic rivers that burned up anything that touched them within the blink of multiple eyes.
He had marched to the edge of the precipice he would jump from, then turned back and faced his captors. "You have won this war. But there will be another. And it will be led by the White Ones."
And then he had given them a brittle smile. The only kind their sort could make and fallen backwards from the edge of the precipice, laughing.
Rowlf remembered breaking free from the others and running to the edge of the precipice. He should have seen the leader burning in the molten lava, but he saw nothing for a long time, but then he saw this mottled shell of color moving sideways about halfway down the precipice. It stopped a moment, and then a face looked up at him. One he would never forget.
Rowlf woke up with a nerve grinding roar of anger, startling both Russ...a Midwestern man with a quirky sense of humor and his friend, Everett, a British genius with an even stranger sense of humor. Rowlf never thought much about what brought their humor to life. Had he done so, he might have realized it was their way of coping with all the death they'd seen and near deaths of them during their journey beneath the earth.
"Bloody Hell! Rowlf!" Everett hollered at him. "A man's trying to sleep here!"
Russ grimaced. "Where?"
Everett glared at him. "Ha-ha. Very funny."
Everett, finally coming back to his senses from the very deep sleep of exhaustion, arose and began stretching his limbs, just in case. Rowlf had proven more than once to be a valuable friend and very much like a good watchdog when it came to danger. He clasped his stone spear and surveyed the pocket of tunnel they had put themselves in so nothing could attack from behind. It was the same bland rock with a few clutches of glow moss on its sides and ceiling. Outside their pocket the cavern was lit by thousands of glow moss, which gave it an eerie look. One that was never comfortable to wake to, because while intensely beautiful, it could also be incredibly dangerous because of the monsters that hid in the depths.
"Nothing wrong I can see." Everett muttered finally, settling down beside Russ, who hadn't bothered to open his eyes even.
Russ yawned. "Rowlfie had a bad dream."
Rowlf, who had levered himself up from the floor into a position of defense nodded. "Dweam!"
Everett. "Oh."
Rowlf looked at the two men. "Was dweam?"
Russ finally opened his eyes when Everett refused to speak.
He gave Everett a glare, and then patted his friend Rowlf on his armored shoulder. "Pal, it has to do with seeing things that aren't there."
"Rowlf swaw!"
Everett tensed again. "Saw what?"
"Dwanger!"
That brought Russ fully awake. He grabbed his own stone spear and sat with his back to the next to Everett, but opposite Rowlf. "What kind of danger?"
Rowlf considered that a long time, then shrugged. "Wusual."
Everett and Russ both groaned.
They had no water or food and had stopped to rest and sleep because their bodies were groaning for both. But now they realized they had to get on with it again. They struggled to their feet and Rowlf followed them from the pocket cave.
The path before them split and ran in two directions. North and South.
Everett made a fist. Russ did also.
"Paper."
"Scissors."
"Rock."
"Hammer."
"The Big One." Everett said with a satisfied look on his face.
Russ groaned. "Cheater."
"You saying it don't beat the others?"
Russ just glared at him, and then went the right path.
"Aren't you forgetting something, old man?"
Russ stopped and turned around. "What?"
"This way." Everett smiled, stepping on the left path. "I won."
"Yeah. By cheating." Russ grumbled, following Everett anyway.
Rowlf watched them a moment with amusement.
"Whomens!" He said in a voice that sounded like garbled metal clashing together.
He followed his human friends, contemplating what they would find this day. He was as hungry, if not more so, as them. He didn't tell them, but usually he ate much more. But he hadn't the hearts to take all the food. That wouldn't be Therman of him.
Russ got lucky first. He found a patch pod of moss eggs. The humans didn't know why eggs were always nested in the patch pods, but they were. It was almost like an Easter egg hunt, finding the spoils that way. But they didn't complain, nor did they flinch when they broke the egg shells and sucked them dry.
Only Rowlf would not eat them. He knew where the eggs really came from. And while the eggs would not grow up to be Therms, they were sentient and he respected them anyway. He did not interfere because he also knew these eggs had been lost or abandoned. The owners, he could tell by is olfactory nerves located along his jaw and nostril areas, were long gone and would not care at this point. Eggs if not kept warm...died.
So sad for the loss of the life, but happy for his friends. He watched them fill their empty stomachs. Finally, after they offered him for the last time a share of the eggs, they greedily split those up and sucked them down as well.
"Hey!" Everett called out, stumbling to his feet. He belched, and then made his way to a new pocket cave. "Anyone for a nap?"
He started to enter, and then paused. "Russ. Look at this."
Russ was so groggy from sleep loss and a full stomach, he had almost missed it.
They both stood and stared at the strange marking on the entrance to the pocket cave. It looked like a series of stars with long arms.
"Here too."
Everett nodded. "It's almost like they're some kind of territorial marking. Except that they're incredibly detailed and well done."
Russ glanced around the cavern a long time, and then sighed. "Worry about whom later. I'm beat."
He and Everett found the best spots they could to be comfortable and instantly knocked out. But Rowlf did not sleep. Rowlf stood guard. He considered his friends for a long time. Such a strange group of creatures. And then he remembered his dream. The leader screaming about the coming of the White Ones. He shook his head, making a rattling, raspy sound which disturbed Russ and Everett's sleep for a moment, then they settled back to sleep.
He didn't tell them he had also seen the symbol before. And he just might know what it meant. It was for wiser ones than him to go there. And since there were no wiser ones with them...Rowlf sighed in a gravely tone, and then locked his joints so he didn't have to worry about falling. He preferred to sleep in that position. It gave any likely invaders second thoughts about attacking, but also gave him the advantage of striking first. Therms were extremely light sleepers, even if in the middle of what had they called his experience..."Dweams?"
New burst of colorful fractal flames in this new gallery!
I'm tired. So here's a new batch! Yeah right! He's tired. That little old flame factory machine.
Enjoy!
John
Monday, June 29, 2015
Fighting Nazi Monsters to return for find his lost love! "Storming the Future" A Rocketman Story by John Pirillo.
"A Rocketman Story"
by John Pirillo
Harry stood before the Rocketman suit, which was hanging by its arms in a clench of metal clamps that held it at a perpetual 12 inches above the pressed concrete flooring that covered the interior Swiss base of the Resistance. Behind it hung a second version, and behind that a third and so on through about ten versions. Each version was smaller than the last, but still far too big.
He then looked at the smaller jump suit, as he called it, that was slung casually over a work bench where Einstein and Tesla were clucking like mother hens over their new babies. It looked similar to the old movie serial he had seen in the States before he had been transferred to the Allied front in Britain It was, however, powered differently, and modular. Each part of it could be replaced by simply removing the entanglement field that kept it in place.
The entanglement field was something that Edison had come up with on a whim. He had been researching electromagnetics in hopes of finding a way to automate the building of his cars...and now the war effort's weaponized vehicles more rapidly, with them being easier to fix when things blew up. Which was often. It was based on some law that Harry didn't have the slightest comprehension of. Science was not his forte. Flying was. He frowned, but flying a ticking bomb had never been on his list of flying objects when he woke up in the future, or in the past and was drafted into the war on the Nazi regime.
"Don't worry, Harry, they'll work it out." Jet told him from the side.
Harry, startled from his reverie, and turned to eye his friend. "It's getting worse."
Jet put a comforting hand on his friend's shoulder. "I know, brother. Believe me I know. I'm the one that has to listen to you scream at night, remember?"
Harry sighed, then dug his hands into his uniform pockets, letting his frustration drain away. Jet was right. He always was. It just fretted at him that he had so little control over what was happening.
Al, perked up, probably feeling Harry's upset and nodded to Tesla, who gave Harry a wave, then returned to probing the jump suit with a tiny tool that had headlights on it. Al brushed his hands off, wiped them carefully on a dirty cloth, then on a cleaner one, and came over, all smiles and perky. "Harry, my boy. So good to see you. And so bright and early."
Jet gave Al a cockeyed grin. "As if anyone could sleep in this hole in the wall anyway."
Al clapped a hand on Jet's right arm. "Always shooting from the hip."
"Just be glad you're not the one in my sights."
Al laughed, patted Jet's arm, then gave Harry a more serious look. "You had them again?"
"Yes."
"How bad?"
=========================================================================
Harry adjusted his flight attitude and zoomed in a descending arc towards the newly reconstructed Eiffel Tower. It was late at night and only a few guards stood there, but they were Sturmgiganten. The giant, genetically enhanced soldiers cooked in Hitler's massive genetics labs buried somewhere in Asia and out of the reach of the Resistance.
For now. Harry thought grimly. One day. He let the thought subside as he dropped lightly onto the semi-lit platform at the top of the tower. It was similar to the one he remembered from his youth, when his father and mother had taken him to Paris for part of an European vacation. Those had been happier days. For Harry. But they had ended badly for his parents. His mother had contracted cancer and went through what seemed like an endless series of tests and remedies, which left her weaker and weaker over time.
A stomping of a boot.
Harry snapped out of the past to the present. This present. Not the one he had been born to. Which was in late twenties. Not this one which was a thousand years later and the hollow shell of the world it had once been. Its peoples decimated by a constantly warring faction of Nazi soldiers and Eastern Global warriors and weapons. The Second World War had ended with nuclear strikes at all the major western capitals of the world. The Eastern Block and Nazi Germany had divided the planet into two zones. They lived an uneasy peace between them, which was enforced locally by zombie soldiers...citizens whose minds were preempted by electronics...and Sturmgiganten...huge genetically modified soldiers that stood over eight feet tall, had muscles as thick as tree trunks and fists the size of hams. No, it wasn't a pretty future, or past as he remembered it.
Harry slid in a sliding curve with his left foot and the other one jacked up and caught the Nazi giant in its right kneecap. It grunted in pain. They had no voice like normal, but spoke in a kind of apelike grunt. Harry knew the one on the opposite side would be coming fast. For some reason these creatures always knew what was going on with the other. Knowing that, he swiftly followed the kneecap kick with a double punch into the giant's privates. The giant grunted even louder, the pain of its crushed testicles...thank God it had something normal...being so excruciating that it doubled over. That brought its chin into Harry's reach. He slammed his right elbow into its throat, then shoved with all his strength and sent the giant tumbling against the railing, where its giant yellowed eyes glared at him angrily, promising hideous torture. It wasn't going to happen. Harry drop kicked the giant in its stomach and it flew head over heels from the top of the Eiffel Tower. Its grunts grew louder and louder with pain as it fell into the large metal struts holding up the massive tower.
Harry never got to listen to it strike the bottom, because even if he could have heard it, the second giant was on him. He spun around powered his suit and flew like an arrow of destruction into its chest, sending it falling back against the railing. Harry didn't wait to struggle with it. He clasped one of its arms, gave his suit a power surge and lifted it off the platform, dangled it over the ground below and let go. He didn't listen for any grunts. He had a mission to do. He lit on the platform again and went to the strange device that topped the tower. It was, according to the Resistance informants, a death ray, that once activated. That one and a score of them about the city. That once activated, would create a lethal dome of blazing energies which no living thing could survive.
His mission. It's not going to happen.
He set the charges he carried in his side flaps, planted the timers carefully on all of them, set them for sixty seconds and leaped from the tower.
He flipped on his jump suit and waited for the rockets to kick in.
And waited.
And...
=========================================================================
Harry's face was flushed and sweating by the time he had completed the retelling of his dream. Jet looked at him, his jaw hanging down. "God, Harry, I never knew. Man!"
Al took out his pipe, which he always did when he was considering something weighty, or something that bothered him deeply, proceeded to tamp tobacco in it, then light it. He took several puffs, then said. "We're going to find out what is causing these time loops, Harry. I promise it."
He said nothing more, but he gave Harry a quick side hug, then stepped back to rejoin Tesla, who looked up then, saw Harry's face, gave him a worried look, then returned to his work, with Al whispering words to him so Harry and Jet couldn't over listen.
Harry slumped against the work table behind him and wiped the sweat from his face. He felt like crap. Probably looked like it too.
He and Jet went to the small eating area that was allowed the base, took out two mugs and filled them steaming black java. They plugged the liquid with dabs of sugar and milk, then sat down, eyeing the activity going on, even at such an early hour.
A platoon of Resistance Forces were training in one corner, their Squad Leader, hollering at them to stay trim, stay in line, be quiet, get down and all the other nasty things those guys did to save the lives of those in their command.
"It's like I'm unhinged in time, Jet." Harry finally said, lifting his eyes from the activity in the base, to Jet's.
Jet nodded. He waited for Harry to go on.
"I never feel the death, but it always ends up that way. Why do I only remember the deaths?"
Jet laughed. "God's keeping you humble, man. God knows you need it, Flyboy."
Harry laughed despite the sadness and dismay he felt. He took a long sip of the hot java, the coffee streaming down his throat and igniting the nerve endings in his body, bringing some semblance of reality back to him again as he got further away from the dream.
Then he remembered. "Jet, it's been happening to me when I fly the suit."
"Yeah, man, we knew that."
"Yes, but it only happens after I've been in battle."
Harry jumped to his feet and dashed off.
Jet set his coffee down. "Now, I know why they call him Rocketman. He never keeps his feet on the ground long."
Jet sighed, threw the rest of his drink down his throat, then ran after Harry.
=========================================================================
Harry struggled into the Rocketman suit while the Techs helped him lockdown. It was like squeezing a soft tomato through the top of a wine bottle. It had to get inside without bursting. At least that's what it always felt like to Harry at first. He eyed the jump suit and wished it were stable. He needed the flexibility it provided. No use living in the past, he thought, then stuffed his arms into the arms of the Rocketman suit and waited as he was closed inside.
Jet tapped on his faceplate. "Reading me, Harry?"
"Only too loud and clear, pal."
"Good, next time you run out on me like that I'm charging for the time."
Harry laughed.
The Techs about them laughed too.
Harry and Jet were base favorites. Their humor and stamina were well known, as was their battle readiness.
Harry activated the controls in his suit with his chin, tongue and nose, then dropped lightly to the floor as the overhead clamps released him. He turned towards the rising hanger door. He twisted slightly to look at Jet. "Make sure Al and Tes are monitoring my flight this time. It's important."
"Not telling me why, pal!" Jet exclaimed in aggravation.
Harry smiled through the face plate. "No time. Just tell them. Please!"
"Gotcha!" Jet dashed off.
Harry turned the Rocketman suit towards the opening to the Swiss air, then ignited his suit's rockets. He kept them tuned low so the radiations didn't backwash into the crew scrambling to clear his path, then punched them into full gear when he reached the opening. They could never leave it open more than a few seconds for fear of the Nazi Fume Fighters catching wind of them. So far they'd been lucky.
Harry launched into the clear blue skies of the Swiss Alps, Lake Lucerne below him as he angled towards the clouds. He checked his radar and spotted a Fume Fighter. They had won that name from the ugly black smoke they emitted as they tore through the atmosphere, leaving a smoking trail of black fumes and stench.
"Closing." Harry said into his communicator.
"Gotcha, Harry." Jet said.
"Be careful, Harry." Al told him.
"My middle name." Harry chuckled. "Except when it's he who drops like a rock."
Jet whooped with laughter. "That was good, brother. Really good."
"Here goes!" Harry warned, then accelerated the suit, closing in rapidly on the Fume Fighter which was high above. Obviously, the pilot had his attention forward, instead of below, for Harry was able to launch a series of rockets into its exhausts before the pilot awoke to the Rocketman behind him.
Harry didn't give him a chance to warn anyone, not even himself. He launched a deadly one, two whammy salvo of rockets which sent the Nazi pilot back to Valhalla.
Harry circled the area he had struck the Fume Fighter in, waiting for his theory to be proved. Nothing happened.
"Well, Harry?" Al finally said, his voice sounding a bit worried.
"Nothing. Not a damned thing." Harry groaned.
Realizing he had just shot down his own theory, he headed back to base. He shot through the entrance, backed off on his rockets, then lit like a dandelion on his favorite spot. He waited impatiently for the Techs to unlatch him, then thanked them, and raced to the back where Al, Tesla and Jet were standing next to the jump suit, which was still in pieces.
Al gave Harry a searching look.
"I thought the weapons somehow triggered the response that threw me between timelines."
Al nodded and turned to Tesla, who had been jotting notes in a small tablet in his hands. "I think you're wrong, Harry. "
He held the tablet up. Harry squinted at the mathematical symbols on it.
"What's it mean?"
But the words that left his lips seemed hollow, empty, as if he were in some kind of deep echo chamber. He jerked his eyes towards Jet, who was reaching for him and then...
=========================================================================
Harry was falling and falling. The rockets had failed. He would die if he couldn't fire up the engines. Finally, he did the only thing he had left for him to do, if he hoped to survive. He jettisoned himself.
He watched the jump suit smash into a building and explode, sending scores of storm troopers from their quarters to see what was going on.
And there Harry was, dangling from a parachute high above their heads, but plainly visible if any of them looked up.
=========================================================================
"Harry!" Jet screamed.
Harry shook his head. Jet shook his body.
Harry snapped out of the vision he had been experiencing and realized he wasn't falling anymore.
Tesla wrote more notes in his tablet. "You were gone for..." He looked at his pocket watch. "Three seconds."
Harry let out a whoop of joy. He hugged Jet. "It worked. It worked!"
Al smiled comfortingly. "Yes. It did. Now..." He sighed, as he and Tesla exchanged glances. "We have to figure out why you are disobeying every law of physics known to man."
Jet patted Harry on his back. "That's because he's Rocketman."
Everyone laughed, except for Harry, who secretly wandered if someday he would be able to use the new knowledge and return. Return to the woman he had left behind. He had loved and was stricken from his life forever by a quirk in time.
If fractal flames were style conscious, they'd be considered flashy dressers because they are so incredibly colorful. New slideshow!
I think I've created several thousand of these things by now. How can someone get so obssesed with such things of beauty. There is no asking why, just fractal flame or die! :)
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