Agent Shield and Spaceman

Imagine a space of incredible volume. Now place within its center an enormous ball of hydrogen and helium, collapsing against its own fiery detonation. Imagine a fireball so big that the force of its own illumination prevents light from its center from escaping for millions of years. Now picture the left-over bits from the star’s ignition spinning around in orbit, slowly accreting together over a staggering length of time. This is the stage. This where all of the acts appear, lit from this ancient fiery torch. This where all of the tragedies and comedies that have ever happened and will ever happen, happen. Are you getting the hang of it? Can you see this place, this domain? For as long as there are people and intelligences able to record impressions and ideas, this will be the only home of anyone who reads these words. But don’t feel so bad. The solar system is a big place and perhaps bigger than most might know. For within this enormous system, the...

“Frankie, listen to me. You have to pull the trigger.” Frankie was silent. The rifle rested at his shoulder, just like he had practiced. He had D sighted, the slender cross-hairs pointing to spot just over her right eye. There was a slight Eastern wind which would pull the rifle to the left. He made his calibrations and rested his finger on the trigger. Perhaps a dozen men who could make this shot. He was one of them. “This is the way it has to be, Frankie,” Marcus said. Was that nerves in his voice, or genuine terror. “If she doesn’t die, then The Master will just go on. We get this one chance and that’s it.” In the scope, D was going through a strange contortion. Her body shuddered and she threw her head backwards as she rose first to her feet and then straight up into the air, suspended a full foot above the ground. When he had her reacquired, she was looking right at him. This was impossible, but it was plainly and obviously true. The girl knew where they were. “Why do we need to k...

The flammenstod represented a class of magic most sorcerers avoided. The version of reality permitting such pernicious weapons tended to leave marks. She could feel its influence burn through her arm, shooting tendrils of flame deep inside of her chest. She cast her hands forward, a whisper of energy leaping toward the assembled priests. Some of the priests had studied the arcane, and knew enough to attempt feeble counters, the rest died. The Master was clawing at the sides of the palanquin, desperate to call help to his side. Never had a choice, thought D. Spaceman raised no counters, or did so much as flinch. A service revolver appeared in his hand and he fired. D felt the impact as a kind of hammer stroke against the whole side of her body. She staggered, the pain a cold iron vise around her chest and shoulder. Spaceman approached. “You won’t stop this,” he told her. His voice was distant, almost lost within the cacophony of spreading flame and screaming priests. A hiss escaped fro...

The tiny submarine surfaced north of the Antarctic circle on June 22nd. The passengers were able to establish contact with a listening station in New Zealand and eventually got routed to a secure line with the Chief. Marcus was at first tempted to lock himself in the forward cabin with the radio but what would be the point? It was clear from the Chief’s incredulous tone he had long written off the entire team. “I simply not understand how you could abandon a member of your team on the field, Shield,” the Chief said. “He abandoned us, sir!” Marcus said, about to smash his crippled hand on the radio board before thinking better of it. “He turned double agent, Chief. Both Simplex and LeHaze confirmed it.” Simplex, lashed to one of the fold-down chairs in the cabin, shouted over to the radio. “It’s true!” Frankie shot him a look from the pilot chair of the sub. Simplex gave a half-hearted smile and then regained his silence. Melissa looked up from her control panel and ...

Part 3: The church, Inglesia del Amor Inmortal de la Virgen Madre por su Santisima Nino de Santo Sacremento, stood as it always had, at the back of the town at the end of the road in the middle of Atacama Desert. A long, long time ago the ground beneath the inglesia had been a temple, a simple stepped mound of the sort The Master commissioned everywhere he stayed more than a fortnight. At some point those original people disappeared and the sand swallowed all their labor. The church offended him. All these later religions were either acts of rebellion or the crude approximations of his dreams, nothing but the work of people. He had little respect for those. Back when he had dwelled in this part of the world he had been known as “The Staff God,” a fertility god for the most part. They credited him with the advent of potatoes, or quinoa, or maize. He tended to lose track after a while. He had not created every animal of use to mankind in the world but some of his more drastic i...

It was immediately apparent they were traveling downwards, not up. Marcus wondered aloud what sort of transportation they were going to find at the bottom of the station. “A submarine,” Simplex answered matter-of-factually. “A submarine encased in ice?” “No,” Hugo said. “Open water.” “This whole station floats?” “Of course! That is what it is designed to do. No section of ice, however deep, could be guaranteed to support a structure this massive. What would happen if a freak warming spell intruded into the deep Antarctic? The builders of this place designed it to melt a hole through the ice into the cavern and float there like a rubber duck in a bathtub. This underside is a convenient place to store submarines, no?” “Very convenient,” D said sunnily. “Ah, we are coming to the first challenge of our escape from the Delta Omega.” Ahead of them, the corridor was blocked off by a set of heavy steel doors. Each door had a small round window mounted about eye level. Steam and condensation bl...

The force bubble was a nearly perfect one way reflector of energy; under ideal circumstances, the sphere should be able reflect a thermo-nuclear explosion. This was not an ideal circumstance; the closed hallways reflected the energy back on the bubble. This quickly raised the surface of the sphere past the melting point of steel. None of this heat reached the Starfire agents but it was enough to cause the floor to sag and buckle noticeably. All the while the eye was fixed on Shield, its pupil squeezed into a nearly imperceptible singularity of wrath directed at them. Shield knew that if he let the bubble down for a second all three of them would be incinerated in an instant, but the pain clawed more and more of his attention away. He could feel the tendons pulling from his muscles from the exertion. He felt something on his upper lip and wasn’t surprised to discover he had developed a nose bleed. Still he pressed on. He resisted. He endured. As the monster slowly pressed down on him wi...

Spaceman found it very easy to leave the station. His coterie of friends kept growing with each attempt at intervention until a kind of critical mass arrived. Whether or not he was a prisoner, or a Section Starfire agent, or a notorious addict became immaterial. Spaceman lead, and those looking to follow did so. Heading up from the bowels of the engineering deck, they passed by the cryptozoological section. It occurred to Spaceman that his escape would be that much easier if the personnel in the station had something distracting them. A command to Mr. Doubtful cut off the emergency power to the pens, cages, and corrals keeping the cryptids at bay. He figured the result would be a few sasquatch and sea serpents making a break for it. He hoped there were enough penguins in Antarctica to feed a new population of Big Feet. Big Foots? Spaceman chuckled to himself, bummed a cigarette from another engineer and directed his followers upwards. By the time they reached the main exit, the station...

The trio of agents quickly discerned that they were not be leaving the way they had come in. The Cryptozoologicals had turned the outer rim of the station into a slaughter house. Armed soldiers carrying rifles, machine guns, and the occasional heavy ordinance prowled the intersections. Whether AC or Red Brigade, no one seemed to be much in the mood for asking questions. Shooting was the order of the day. The agents snuck down the ring corridor for nearly an hour, but found no way outwards not blocked by paramilitaries or worse. D announced she would cast a ritual to find a way forward. Frankie and Shield lurked close by, hoping to get a warning shot off at least, if something discovered them. D withdrew from her bag a number of brass beads, a length of twined leather cord and copious amounts of red and ochre sand which she heaped in intricate kabbalistic patterns on the deck. She spoke in an indistinct voice, occasionally repeating the same word, mukthir. Pronouncing this word seemed t...

“So, let me get this straight,” said the technician, wiping a grubby, oil-stained sleeve across her brow. “You want us to let you into the control room. You want us to activate the over-pressure release command, while simultaneously shutting main valves B, C and E. Then, and this is the part that I really want to be clear about, you’re ordering us to stand back while the reactor overheats, melts down and carries the station down with it. Have I understood what you’re saying completely?” “Crazy orders, huh?” Col. Chapmann said, winningly. “There’s crazy and then there’s just plain insane. Who wants this done?” “The Command Director of the Anti-Cerebrists.” “He wouldn’t be able to get this past the executive committee. Who else?” “Sanislov Jarowski, Manuut Noruto, and Kethlen Von Delt.” “You’re just rattling off names.” “They’re the right names.” A voice came from further in the rattling clamor of the engine room. “Karla, does he have a work order?...

The three Section Starfire agents crossed another intersection and paused to get their bearings. Emerging from the tunnel they had been greeted by a thunderous alarm echoing through the corridors. There was another helpful map unhelpfully written in Cyrillic. Frankie knew a little Russian from his days in the CIA but couldn’t make much headway against imponderables such as “Section for the Dissemination of Critical Anti-revisionist Expulsion Media Center.” “That’s right up here,” D suggested, pointing at an obscure corner of the map. Shield, to Frankie: “Nothing that says ‘snake house,’ or ‘place where we keep dangerous reptiles’ or ‘Section Starfire Agents, please blow this lab up?’” “Well, there’s this group of labs right here that’s interesting. Not too far away.” “Yes?” “They have it labeled with jargon I’m not familiar with, ‘hidden-beast-study and relict-population-house. Russians usually save obscure words for things they want to keep extra mysterious.” ...

“Where are you taking me?” Spaceman asked his two escorts. One of the human robots, the one to his right, briefly glanced at him, the other blindly trudged forward. The Section Starfire agent wanted to believe the former, who he thought of as Mr. Doubtful, had retained some degree of his humanity. “Is this the way to my quarters?” Again Mr. Doubtful glanced over, a puzzled expression passing through his blue eyes like a passing cloud. “You are not permitted to talk,” the other one said, who Spaceman thought of as Mr. Glower. “Who said?” Mr. Glower stopped and went over to Mr. Doubtful. They touched heads briefly and then, without comment, resumed their trek down the endless corridors. Mr. Doubtful still looked perplexed, like he was trying to figure out whether he’d left his car lights on. They were passing through some underused section of the station, where fewer people appeared and those visible all wore venom rigs. If he was going to make his move...

In gloom of early morning, the base appeared as a long sloping wall, embedded in the ice. Frankie had suggested abandoning the snow tank several rises back to make a more stealthy approach to the headquarters of the AC’s. There were three layers of security between them and the outside of the station but none of them looked overly formidable. The big problem was there didn’t seem any obvious gate for them to enter. At least none left unguarded by any less than a platoon of AC henchman. “I’m surprised they brought this much security out here,” Frankie whispered. “Got to keep out the penguins,” Shield replied. D gestured for the binoculars. Adjusting the focusing wheel, she got a good view of the buildings surrounding the structure. “That shack off to the left, did either of you find it peculiar?” “Seems far from the airstrip and not tall enough for a guard tower.” Frankie pointed out a few low dome-like structures just beyond the anomalous shack. “Those are muni...

Hugo Simplex caught up with Spaceman and his escorts out of the orientation room. Bastard wanted to watch it first-hand. Well, Spaceman wasn’t unhappy to see him. The cigarette, although foul, had focused Spaceman’s mind, made certain considerations possible. Helped ground him in the real world. Cast sincerity aside, he whispered to himself, trust in the lie. But lies needed truth the way the head of a coin needed its tail. Hugo was here to remind him of that. He might know exactly where he wanted to go, but he wouldn’t be able to go there without certain corrections made to the ACs. There was altogether too much professionalism at work in the Delta Omega Base. Too much careful attention to detail. It wasn’t becoming. He raised his hand in greeting to Hugo as they approached. A sneer crossed good old Hugo’s face, no doubt conjured there by visions of Spaceman’s impending operation. He made an elaborate bow, as though stopping low in the presence of great royalty. “W...

“Yep, I think they spotted us,” Frankie said, leaning over the steering wheel. The idling diesel engine rumbled beneath the seat, but at least the heaters of the soviet snow tank still functioned, filling the cabin with enough warmth to prevent further frost bite. While they waited for the sorceress to regain consciousness, Marcus decided they would wait inside the snow tank. They found a map inside the cabin, along with a fat book of instructions written in Cyrillic. Neither spent much time looking at it. The engine worked. The steering wheel worked. If they encountered any problems on ice sheet, they would probably die. No sense wasting time puzzling out instructions on the cup-holders. Frankie suspected that before too long they might have visitors. During their brief hike to the snow tank, he had seen the glow of a distant explosion and a trail of greasy smoke marking the crash site of the C-130. Even in the vast wasteland of Antarctica, that would have to attract attenti...

Four Months Ago The man awoke on a very narrow bed on a very thin mattress. His limbs were in awkward, improbable positions and he felt the ache of the sickness. The ceiling above him was more recognizable to him than the faces of old friends. Was he home? Looking around he decided he was. His mouth felt old, full of desert. It was a hot day and the sweat poured from his body. On the floor near the door of his room was a fat brown envelope. Some residual optimism suggested it was his pension, but he had made it very difficult for the Federal Government to find him. That someone had managed to find his address disturbed him greatly. He opened the flaps and peered inside. There were a few pages of vellum and what appeared to be a small plastic baggie. He reached for the baggie, sprinkled a white powder onto his palm. He really should not touch this stuff, he knew. It could be poison or weaponized anthrax. He dabbed a moistened finger into the powder and ran it beneath his...

D stood a few feet outside her body, watching the way her black hair flopped over her face. She was still lying at the bottom of a sizeable crater created by Marcus’ indestructible force bubble. She knew the cold would kill her soon but waited patiently for Frankie and Marcus to stir. Even if she could speak in a way they could hear, her encouragements or pleading would do little. Frankie bundled her up close to his chest and walked out of the crater. He saw the still flapping parachute from the biggest cargo crate and began walking towards it. Good. To their right was Marcus, cradling his arm, as he fought to remain upright. She knew an incantation that would knit bones and sponge away his pain but would need her fingers and mouth to produce it. The strands of hair from the ul-mara goddess had been an enormous drain, and she was too exhausted to remain in the driver’s seat of her own body. Marcus would have to endure until she had recovered. Going ahead, she made sure the lump in...

The way Frankie figured, he could have either joined the CIA or gone to prison. His background didn’t provide many other options. He kept his nose clean and while his family was not particularly wealthy, his Uncle certainly was. In high school he became fascinated with driving fast cars and getting what other people already had. College showed him the skills to do both of those things to perfection. But his life could have still gone in a very different direction. He was not what his father would have called “book smart,” nor was he especially good at covering his disdain for dull fraternity letter types. Left to his own devices, he would have dug up some kind of trouble even his uncle couldn’t have saved him from. The CIA had many ways of unearthing the talent it needed, countless favors it could call in. Maybe his uncle even reached out. They identified his potential and gently, firmly turned him to espionage. A born field operative, the Central Intelligence Agency found sm...