AEGIS Tales

by Todd Downing

  “Right you are!” the Laughing Mask called, pulling them both up. “Donny, get your sister out of here.”

  “What about you?” Ada worried.

  He grinned at her. “Kid, this is what I do.”

  Donny scooped Ada up like she weighed nothing, and ran for the small door to their left. Ada looked over Donny’s shoulder and saw the Laughing Mask dodging what looked like a bolt of light from the Veiled Lady’s hand. Bullets pinged from the Laughing Mask’s gun.

  At that close range, he should’ve hit her. But she’s just standing there like it was nothing! Who is this woman?

  The machine trembled and exploded, metal flying everywhere. Ramses’ crown flew across the room right behind Donny.

  “Wait!” Ada cried. “Get the crown! She can’t be allowed to keep it!”

  Donny stopped, glancing from the door to the crown before releasing Ada and diving for the object, barely missing a bolt of lightning.

  “I told you to go!” the Laughing Mask said, firing the last of his bullets at the Veiled Lady.

  “You fools!” the Veiled Lady shrieked, her voice manic and high. “This is not the end! You have just made a powerful enemy!”

  The lightning around the Veiled Lady built until she was surrounded with its harsh light. Laughing Mask stood in place, transfixed. Ada coughed and fell to her knees. It was so hard to breathe that she wondered if she’d pass out.

  “I think we’re done here,” Laughing Mask said, plucking Ada from the ground and pulling Donny along.

  The three of them ran to the door, which burst apart in an explosion of light and fell at their feet. Ada and Donny stared at the open doorway in fear. Just as Donny was starting to turn away, a woman appeared. She wore a form-fitting white shirt and black pants, black boots, and a yellow sash. Her raven hair was swept back from her face, a pair of aviator goggles atop her head.

  “Someone call for a rescue?” she asked, grinning. Then she looked behind them, her eyes widening. “Holy—!”

  The Laughing Mask shoved Donny ahead and raced out the door, the woman following close on their heels. As soon as they were a few feet from the building, strange zing and pop sounds hurt Ada’s ears. Then the light from the warehouse was gone.

  “Who the hell was that?” the woman asked.

  “Tell ya later,” the Laughing Mask said. “I have a theory.”

  Ada looked over at Donny, who stood there, staring at the woman, mouth open.

  The Laughing Mask chuckled. “Donny, Madame Strange. Madame Strange, Donny and his sister, Ada. Now, let’s get out of here.”

  “Wait, what about the other boys?” Donny asked.

  “Already out, and hopefully half way home. Now let’s get!”

  “This way,” Madame Strange said, leading them to the middle of the street where a ladder hung down.

  Ada looked up and gasped, awestruck for the first time that night.

  Flying overhead, barely illuminated by the moonlight, was the strangest, most amazing aircraft she’d ever seen. Wide body with wings protruding out and a cockpit up front, twin propellers sat on top of either wing with blades whirring.

  “I don’t think I can climb with Ada,” Donny said.

  The Laughing Mask took her out of Donny’s arms. “Climb on my back kid.”

  She nodded, still looking up at the aircraft.

  “What is it?” she whispered.

  Madame Strange laughed, a sound like bells of pure pleasure.

  “That, my dear girl, is a Gyro-Jet.”

  “Not your usual conveyance,” the Laughing Mask said as they ascended the ladder.

  “I was testing new modifications on this baby when you called. Besides, you said you had passengers.”

  In no time they were inside the Gyro-Jet, buckling themselves into their seats.

  “I win the bet,” Madame Strange said. “You called in the boon in less than three months. Pay up.”

  The Laughing Mask sighed. “Yeah, yeah.”

  Madame Strange laughed again and disappeared into the cockpit. Within moments, they were flying through the air.

  Ada looked out her window, marveling at the sight of Los Angeles so far away, the lights twinkling below. From up above, it all looked so beautiful.

  Donny groaned beside her.

  “Don’t worry kid,” the Laughing Mask said. “It’ll be a short trip to...hey, where do you live anyway?”

  # # #

  Ada had expected her mother to demand a lengthy explanation. But the moment they stepped inside, Mom began to cry, hugging them both tight. It took a few days for her to question where her children had been, and by then Ada and Donny had come up with a pretty good story: a sweat shop kidnapped Donny, Ada went to look for him and found Donny had escaped on his own. Ada’s recent cough was a product of being out in the wet, spring night air.

  “The truth is too good to tell her,” Donny had insisted. “She’ll never believe it.”

  Perhaps it was because she was so happy to have her children back that their mother swallowed the lie—hook, line, and sinker.

  Life fell back into its usual routine. Ada missed the next week of school because of her cough, which the doctors gave her a series of shots to help cure. It was irritating to know what had caused it and not be able to tell them. Still, the shots did ease some of the discomfort in her lungs.

  Two weeks after the adventure, a certified letter came just before dinner time. Their mother looked at it and frowned.

  “What is it?” Donny asked.

  “It’s for Ada.”

  Ada and Donny glanced at each other.

  “Is there something you two aren’t telling me?” Mom asked.

  “Nope,” Donny said.

  “Nothing,” Ada confirmed.

  Mom studied them both for a moment and gave Ada the letter, not taking her eyes off her daughter.

  Ada opened it and read the contents, her mouth falling open.

  “Well?” her mother asked.

  “It’s... I...”

  Her mother took the letter, her own eyes bulging once she’d read it.

  Donny snatched it up and laughed.

  “You’re...” Mom said. “An invitation to the most prestigious private school in California. Fully paid.”

  “Not just any school,” Donny said, bouncing on the balls of his feet in excitement. “Half their graduates go on to work for places like AEGIS. Ada! This is the opportunity of a lifetime!”

  Ada felt tears sting her eyes and she shook her head. “But...my health. I can’t go.”

  “Yes you can, look,” Donny said, squatting down to meet his sister’s eyes. “They have doctors there. Good ones. The best, probably. Maybe they can figure out more than these others have been able to.”

  “He’s right,” Mom said, smiling, her eyes shining with tears. “This...sweetheart, this is your chance to learn so much more than you ever could here. You could be whatever you wanted after this.”

  “But,” Ada felt tears slide down her cheeks. “What about you?”

  Her mother’s arms encircled her, holding her tight. “Oh, my precious girl! I’ll miss you every day, but what kind of mother would I be if I denied you something like this?”

  Ada cried on her mother’s shoulder, knowing she was right.

  “Well,” her mother said, wiping her own eyes. “I think this calls for something special. Donny, run down to the bakery on the corner, see if they have anything for dessert.”

  Donny grinned at them and ran out.

  “I’ll get the meatloaf out of the oven,” her mother said, kissing Ada’s cheek before going to the kitchen.

  Ada stared out the window, watching the sunset light up the buildings and hills. She thought of the Gyro-Jet, of the Laughing Mask and Madame Strange. She thought of her mother and brother, and the threats she now knew existed in the world.

  I can help defend this world against people like the Veiled Lady, especially if I do this.

  Ada grinned.

  L
ook out world! Here comes Ada Mesmer, the Whiz Kid!

  Ukungu

  by Todd Downing

  Doctor Maria Caruso woke with a start, sitting bolt upright. The warm, tropical rain continued its sporadic assault, drumming a hollow cadence on the twisted aluminum gondola frame. The deflated silk envelope of the powered balloon lay draped across a small grove of large mahogany trees, one untethered corner snapping in the breeze. Shaking the cobwebs from her head, she slowly rose to a standing position, feeling twice her actual thirty-five years.

  Blood seeped from a deep cut on her right arm, staining her khaki shirt. She winced, looking over the rest of her body for any other injuries. Some bumps, bruises and minor abrasions―she’d be colorful for awhile, but no significant harm.

  The sun hung low in the African sky, barely a red glow through the thick cloud layer that lay over the valley. Caruso glanced at her watch: 6:27 PM. Even in springtime, valleys situated between high mountain ranges like this tended to lose light earlier than true sunset. It would be dark soon. She blinked hazel eyes in the evening mist, smoothing a lock of bobbed chestnut hair back behind her ear.

  The old map lay trapped under a metal first aid box near the wrecked gondola, the free half fluttering in the wet breeze. She bent down and retrieved it, grimacing at its condition: soaked with rain, stained in what she presumed to be her own blood, and torn down a fair portion of the center. She gingerly folded it into a manageable rectangle and noted the gondola’s open door―which had apparently opened on impact, sending her out into the muddy grass.

  She approached cautiously and entered, and immediately recoiled in shock. Lt. Brand lay slumped forward over the console, the back of his head caved in. The likely culprit―a large fire extinguisher―was embedded in the windscreen to the right of the panel the tree had obliterated.

  The German geologist, Dr. Muir, was up and attending to the American botanist, Leigh Taggart, who still lay unconscious in her safety belt. “Good to see you made it, Doktor,” he said, keeping his attention on the blond scientist. “Brand was not so lucky.”

  “I know,” Caruso answered, scanning the interior as best she could in the waning light. She found a flashlight on the floor and flicked it on. “How is Taggart?”

  The young botanist began to stir. Muir stepped back and smiled. “Good, I think.”

  “Wh-what happened?” Taggart asked. “Did we crash?”

  Caruso busied herself checking over the control panel. She hauled Brand’s body away from the console and noted the navigation compass was still spinning. “It would appear so,” she explained. “But I think we made it to our objective.” She began to search the nose of the gondola for any trace of the field radio.

  Of course her first expedition would end up like this.

  The map had turned up a month ago on a black market saturated with valuable artifacts in the wake of the Great War. It was purchased by one of her father’s academic contacts and authenticated as late 16th century Portuguese by her father, a respected university historian.

  Her father, who had shown up at her home in Livorno, on the Tuscany coast, gut-shot and bleeding out on her doorstep. Her father, who had managed to stammer out the words, “Astrum Argentum. Loro sanno. Prendete questo a AEGIS,” before collapsing dead in her arms.

  Silver Star. They know. Take this to AEGIS.

  Her father, who smuggled a three-hundred-year-old map from the black market and was murdered for his trouble. Already scrutinized as a potential dissident by Mussolini’s fascist government due to her status as an academic, Maria Caruso wasted no time in putting the family horse farm up for sale and fleeing via tramp steamer to France. There, she made contact with the Allied Enterprise Group for International Security.

  She met with a group of serious men in pinstriped suits in a back room at the Louvre. They were somewhat interested in her academic credentials and experience working with her father’s archaeological digs around the world. They were extremely interested in the 16th century map depicting part of the remote Congo valley, down to the quaint warnings of aqui tem dragões scrawled in Portuguese.

  The men in suits also had intelligence that the Silver Star knew about the place and were already trying to find a route overland. So they sent her to Africa, assigned her an international team, a local guide and a powered balloon, and put her in command of the expedition. Congratulations and welcome to the organization. Depending on the team’s findings, she could expect more help and personnel in a month or so.

  She knew Razi from before the war. Even as a youth of seven or eight, he’d been incredibly useful to her father’s archaeological expedition to several sites along the Congo River. She remembered he used to call her Maua―”flower”―due to a misreading of “Maria” in her handwriting. Now a grown man, he was slender but well-muscled, full of intense, barely-contained energy (and even more knowledgeable about the region than he’d been a decade ago).

  They’d spent days going over the map and the potential dangers in the place Razi called Bonde la Ukungu―literally “Valley of the Mist” in Swahili. He said the valley was taboo to the tribes living adjacent to it, due to the monsters and dark magic that protected the place. He said compasses didn’t work there, radios were almost as useless, and the thick cloud layer kept aerial surveillance to a minimum. But Razi didn’t see any of those as reasons against going.

  They took a German geologist from Tanganyika, an American botanist from Nairobi, and the Canadian pilot who came with the powered balloon via Cairo. They packed for a deep African expedition, including jungle camping equipment, weapons and extra rations.

  They set out from Bunia at dawn, sailing over the mountains and vast, green expanse of the African interior for most of the day. Then the compasses began to spin and they suddenly found themselves on a trampoline of strange air currents and thermals that sent them on a vomit-inducing thrill ride for a solid hour.

  The rain started, and Caruso had ordered Lieutenant Brand, the pilot, to make a slow, controlled descent. And that’s when a tree branch from the canopy shot out of the misty sunset and shattered the windscreen. The force of impact wrenched the nose of the gondola down, ripping cables as the balloon twisted away. One of the electric engine fans snapped as the gondola pulled off the tree limb.

  Down they went, the gondola spinning nose-down beneath a rapidly deflating balloon. The remaining outboard fan continued to spin, forcing the balloon down in a corkscrew. The primeval African jungle loomed out of the darkness and fog below. They were crashing. Down, through the endless trees. Down, through the tropical rain and mist. Down, to the valley floor.

  Muir noticed her poking through a pile of debris in the smashed nose of the gondola. “The radio was destroyed. I believe it is beyond repair,” he noted.

  Taggart freed herself from the safety harness and stood with a groan. “And the one guy who could fix it is dead.”

  Suddenly Caruso looked up, worried. “Has anyone seen Razi?”

  Taggart shook her head. “He wasn’t strapped in.”

  “Could he have been thrown clear, like you?” Muir asked.

  A dim flash of lightning in the distance led to a quiet roll of thunder. Razi’s silhouette appeared in the hatchway. “This is the valley,” he said with authority. “We have made it to Ukungu.” His tone suddenly tuned dark. “And we cannot stay here.”

  Muir squinted through the dim light of the gondola. “Why?”

  Caruso knew Razi well enough not to question a situation of life and death. He was young, but incredibly wise beyond his years. And this was his area of expertise. He knew the jungles and back country of the Congo like no other local guide she’d encountered. “Grab what you can,” she ordered. “Food, first aid and weapons. We’re getting out of here.”

  Muir and Taggart sprang into action, gathering various canvas duffel bags and satchels of field rations and medical supplies. Caruso stashed the wet map into her satchel and holstered a Mauser M1921 pistol while Razi shouldered a Beretta car
bine and shoved a half dozen spare magazines into his bag. Thus, laden with basic supplies and two flashlights among the group, they stepped out into the rapidly darkening African night.

  That’s when Razi froze in his tracks, listening to the sky, feeling the vibrations in the ground. “Run,” he instructed quietly.

  Then the jungle trees burst aside and the monsters were behind them.

  “Joka!” huffed Razi as he dashed to the front of the group, blazing the trail for everyone.

  Maria Caruso caught the briefest glimpse of two reptilian heads plow through the tree line, and nearly tripped over herself as her feet seemed to depart on their own. Muir and Taggart followed suit without a single word.

  Caruso huffed to keep up with her guide, but the wet, grassy mud sucked at her boots, doubling the effort required. She flipped a quick glance over her shoulder and could make out a pair of bipedal saurian predators. Theropods. Large, forward-thrust heads were counterbalanced by long, muscular tails. Joka, she thought. That’s ‘serpent’―or ‘dragon’―in Swahili. Then her university instruction in paleontology took over and she realized she was looking at a pair of living dinosaurs―allosaurs, by what she could make out. Specifically, Allosaurus fragilis. Close to nine meters long from nose to tail, powerfully-muscled, with oversize heads full of dagger-sharp teeth. Faster than the larger Tyrannosaur, with larger and more effective forelimbs for grasping prey. Truly the apex predator of its day. Somehow alive in 1927.

  The group struggled at a fast jog along the tree line, hidden somewhat by the growing shadows and rainy mist. Caruso glanced back again and saw the pair of creatures nosing around the balloon wreckage. She estimated they were perhaps 200 meters away, with no clear destination.

  “Razi,” Caruso hailed, “slow down!”

  The Congolese man slowed and turned back to monitor the group. Muir and Taggart limped along at the rear. Caruso sloshed to a halt beside Razi. She looked back again to see that the crash site was now vacant and still―and absent one pair of allosaurs.

  “Where are we heading?” she asked finally.