Prologue
April 14th, 1943
Schlossberg Castle,
"Mmmmmmmmm."
"There there, fraulein, just relax."
"I feel so tingly inside- I didn't have that much champagne!”
The buxom blonde girl giggled and gave a slight hiccup. She reclined on a padded table, surrounded by gauges, dials, and other unidentifiable protuberances of the electric equipment lining the room. She had already shed her tan tweed skirt and light blue blouse, and now lay clad in her undergarments. The harsh light of the lab made her milky white bosom seem even paler, as it spilled from over the edges of her pointed underwire bra. Her legs, tinted tan by silk stockings held in place by suspenders and garter belt, made slow passes up and down one another as she savored the feeling of the diaphanous material.
"You promised I could pose for you *upp*." She hiccupped again. "This isn't much of studio, this is your lab, you naughty doctor..." She pointed her finger and poked his chest playfully. Her words were coming slower and more deliberately, but her voice rose higher, as she was becoming more aroused.
Her suave companion glanced briefly at an ornate pocket watch, and then returned it to his pressed white dinner jacket. He ran his finger along his thin mustache for moment, and looked thoughtfully at her. His skin was in marked contrast to the alabaster maiden before him, seemingly burned a light brown, like a sailor who has spent a lifetime on the equatorial oceans.
"Almost time to pose my dear" he chuckled to himself. The chemical additive to his special champagne had almost finished it work, and the young girl was becoming more glassy eyed by the second. It was thanks to the early effects of the hypnotic drug that he had convinced her to lose her inhibitions and enter the lab, and she was now almost totally without will against his commands. The rhythmic rubbing of her legs ceased, and she now lay stretched out on the table, clear blue eyes staring wide at the ceiling, Only her shallow breathing betrayed any evidence of animation in her beautiful form.
"Now my dear, you will pose for me. Your body is like stiff clay in my hands, and you will maintain whatever position I put you in, as if you were turned to stone. Do you understand?"
"Y...es." the reply came in an even monotone.
The man began by removing the rest of her clothing, savoring the feeling as he rolled the silky mesh down her legs, and the elastic spring of her bra as the tightly restrained cleavage burst from its confinement. Her round, almost pure white breasts sat up pertly even in her reclined position. The doctor/sculptor ran his hands lovingly along the soft curves of her lush body, drinking in its shape and form. He admired her fine Nordic features for a moment, and then tested his hypnotic suggestion by raising one of her slim arms off the table. The limb responded sluggishly to his external force, and remained in position when he let go.
"Truly a perfect specimen of Aryan beauty, and deserving of immortality." He said softly to himself.
He then slowly moved her limbs into the position he held in his mind, and all the while wondering about the risk he was taking. He was fairly certain she was just a low level clerk in the Reichministry's armaments division, and would not be missed, not any more than the others. He was a powerful man, both in the Party and as a valuable scientist to the Cause. Even so, he was risking the chance that she was related to someone in a position to sway the Fuhrer's opinion. Not likely, he finally decided. And with the plans he would soon bring forward to the High Command, nobody would be able to touch him, not even that little rat Himmler himself.
He finally settled on a pose with both knees up, legs slightly bent, and elbows resting on the raised knees. The young girls face was cupped in the palms of her hands, and she looked upward with a wistful expression on her lovely countenance. The position did somewhat cover her wonderful chest, but it also added a hint of hidden sexuality, as the soft orbs pressed out from behind her slim arms. Cheesecake, he believed the Amerikaners called it, but suddenly realized he couldn't really make the connection between an artistic style and a rich dairy dessert dish. He shrugged to himself, and pulled on a crisp white lab coat that lay draped across a nearby workbench. Walking to a nearby control panel, he pulled a pair of arc welding goggles off of a large control handle, and placed them over his eyes.
"Now liebchen, you will get your wish. But don't worry; it will be just like going into a long, peaceful sleep."
The handle was yanked down with flourish, and all around the room, electric devices crackled and buzzed to life, with arcs of blue light shooting to and fro between enormous electrodes and Jacob's Ladder filaments. The electric cacophony built into a crescendo of noise and light, until finally the whole lab was awash in a hazy blue glow. With a sharp pull of a second handle, the built up power cascaded into a single globular electrode suspended over the young woman, and discharged into her with a thousands fingers of miniature lightning. The scientist quickly returned the clunky handles to their original positions, and the electric crackling quickly subsided, leaving only the sharp scent of ozone lingering in the static-charged air.
The beautiful maiden sat seemingly unharmed on the table, yet closer examination would reveal a complete stillness, and perhaps a slightly paler cast to her already milky hue. There was also a light sheen to her skin, like that of a piece of wax fruit. The artist padded up to her expectantly, and clasped his hands in barely restrained glee, like a child first sighting the stash under the tree on Christmas morning.
"Oh, yes my dear, how wonderful! Perfectly preserved! You are now a beauty for the ages!"
He ran his hand over her body as before, only this time reveling in the cool, hard, stillness. It was such a contrast to the soft form she had been in moments before. Even her hair was stiff, as if captured between the ticks of a clock, a moment stopped in time forever. Her once supple breasts were now hardened, glassy globes that reflected the lights in a myriad of color. With soft rap, he knocked on the side of her thigh, and was rewarded with a hard clunk.
The vitrification had been complete and total, the electric current suspending her cellular tissue into a glass-like hardness, while simultaneously driving most of the moisture from her now inert cells. The practical upshot of this was that she weighed a fractional amount of what she had before. The sculptor demonstrated this with alacrity as he picked up the still form like a lightweight dummy, and removed her to a tank arrangement, with a shiny brown metallic floor. Moving some more dials and handles, he cocked his head slightly until he was satisfied with the pitch of the hum emanating from the machine. As he twisted the largest dial on the panel, the hum increased to a high pitch whine, until the floor of the tank began to shimmer and roil. As the surface liquefied, the now stiff girl began to slowly sink into the softening liquid metal. Even though the metal was becoming fully fluid, there was no evidence of heat whatsoever, the girl's downward slide increased until she was fully submerged, and nothing was seen except the smoothly shimmering surface of the dark amber liquid.
Another lever pulled, and the figure slowly began to re-emerge from the vat, propelled on a perforated steel platform that seemed impervious to the sticky ochre metal. The girl was not so impervious to the fluid, and now gleamed in a scintillating metallic mahogany. Now that she was completely clear of the tank, the scientist slowly turned the dial to its original position. The humming slowly died away, and as it did, the liquid in the tank hardened into a smooth glossy sheet once again.
"Wunderbar! Wunderbar!", He shouted, and again took the opportunity to run his hands over her now even harder figure, glittering in its dark metallic sheathe. The thin coating added an overall all evenness to the piece, as he now thought of her, and that final transition from still woman to work of art. Now somewhat heavier, he was still able to maneuver the statue onto a dolly, and wheel the inert weight through a large set of oak double doors. The next room was a veritable candyland of nude female statues, all rendered in the same dark-gold metallic coating. There were thin ones, zaftig ones, some captured in beautiful repose, others a stiff attention. Some had looks of dreamy charm, or flashy smiles, while others still had looks of shock, surprise, or even horror as they tried to shield themselves from some unseen danger. He whistled a little Party ditty to himself as he wheeled the statue-girl to an empty pedestal, and again shifted her figure until she lay on her final position, one that she would occupy for eternity, if he had anything to say about.
The sculptor was humming a Wagner overture to himself, and buffing the girl with a red silk scarf pulled from his dress jacket pocket, when a clearing of the throat suddenly alerted him to another presence.
"Ah, Hans", he said, turning to face his enormous, black uniformed man-servant. "I take it our guests have arrived"
The gigantic blond man stood stock still, not seeming to notice the bevy of immortalized feminine pulchritude that surrounded him. "Ja, mein Herr, Minister of Armaments Speer, to see you."
"Well, then, Hans, let us go along, shall we?" He stepped quickly forward, deftly folding his handkerchief and returning it to its place. He stopped and looked back at the newest edition to his gallery. "An excellent addition, don't you think?"
Hans only then let his eyes roam over the new figure, drinking in its still beauty. "Ja, as always, mein Herr!"
"Well, let us go then." He turned and lowered the lights in the display room as they both quickly stepped through the doorway. "After all, never let it be said that the Baron Werner von Bronze is a rude host!"
Chapter One, Blinded...With Science!
One Year Later, Hub City...
The office door pushed open, and a dark-haired, buzz cut head sporting an eye patch poked into the gap.
"Heya doll! Miss me?"
Joan Glendale sat perched on the edge of her oak desk, freshening her makeup in a hand-held compact. Her white pleated skirt had ridden up high on her thighs, just slightly revealing the darker tops of her nylons. All in all, Lt. William Fitch thought to himself, one of the prettiest sights he'd ever laid eye on. If he couldn't fly dive bombers anymore, at least this made up for being chained to a desk at the Office of Naval Research.
"Fresh." the blonde responded, snapping closed her compact. "Anyhow, you were just here two days ago."
"Ah, and it seems like a lifetime to me!" Fitch twirled his white officer's cap in his hands with flourish, and tossed it lightly on to a nearby hat rack. "What do you, say peach? Me and you blow this joint, maybe run off to the mountains for the weekend?"
"Hmmphh. I'd rather run off with the circus. Actually, that would probably be about the same. Besides, you know the Professor wouldn't be able to find his own shoes if I wasn't here. And your bosses at the Navy Department wouldn't like that, what with a war on and all."
"Always you with the cold hard facts." he let out a heavy sigh. "You're right though," he perked up, "and I have some great news for Professor Zofti! Is he busy?"
"He's in the lab" she replied, hopping down from her perch. "I'll tell him you're here."
She turned away, and walked briskly over to a doorway. Fitch's gaze traveled slowly up from her trim white heels, past a slim ankle, and up the seam of her gauzy nylons. Her almost impossibly curvy rear end swayed beneath her skirt like a cobra under the influence of a Hindu Swami. Fitch wolf whistled softly to himself, as Joan carried on a conversation with someone on the other side of the door.
Joan turned and put her hands on her hips, with one jauntingly thrust to the side. "OK flyboy- pick your jaw off the floor and come on in, the Professor will see you now."
---
"Ah, Willy, so good to see you again! It has been a while!"
"It was the day before yesterday, Doc."
"Really? Oh dear, I must have lost track of the time again." Dr. Emilio Zofti fumbled with his glasses for a moment, wiping them on a dirty lab rag. The room was strewn with various electric and mechanical components, as if the professor was working on a dozen projects at once. The doctor himself was almost a stereotypical scientist, a small, bald, Italian gentleman, with thick coke-bottle glasses and a bald plate rimmed with shocks of wispy white hair. “I’m sorry to report that I haven’t made any progress on that object you brought me. I still can't understand the energy it is generating."
'That object' was a small blue cylinder that had been found in a sacred Indian cave outside Flagstaff, Arizona. After the item was found to be emitting small amounts of radioactivity by the archeological team that had made the discovery, it was turned over the Navy Department for study. Dr.Zofti was one of the only physicists available not working on the Manhattan Project, whatever that was, as Fitch was out of the loop on that one. What Zofti had discovered was that the cylinder emitted some sort of atomic field of its own, whenever it was exposed to radiation from an outside source. The remarkable thing was that the energy output in the resulting field was much greater than the input, but so far, he was unable to generate enough field for any useful study. He speculated that there was a specific frequency or source of radiation that would fully activate the cylinder, but so far, his attempts at discovering it were stymied.
"I may have the answer to your problems Doc!" Fitch held up a lead box. "Lookee what I found in the basement of the Smithsonian!" He opened the box, and inside a padded compartment, was a cylinder almost identical to the other one, but bright yellow in color.
"The Smithsonian has a basement?"
"Sure, everybody has some place where they stash their junk. I was talking to one of those archeologist Joes who found the first one- he told me that the Indian legends around that mound spoke of an object that fell from the sky, containing two "rods of power". Supposedly, the first guy that found them become the toughest lug in the joint, and went on a rampage against all the tribes in the area. Like supposedly this guy could pick up mountains, change the course of mighty rivers, you know, all that comic book jive. The power only lasted for a certain amount of time each shot, so the Injun Boys snuck one of their squaws in with this guy, who stole the rods and left this guy powerless. Then they were able to beat him up in a regular battle. Any who, the big Chiefs of all the tribes had a pow-wow, and decided that nobody should have that much power; it was too risky if it fell in the wrong hands. So they separated the rods, and gave one each to two trusted braves. These guys were told to ride in opposite directions for many days, hide the rods, and then whack themselves."
"Oh my!"
"Yeah, those were some real hard cases. Just legends and stuff anyway. This thing prolly did fall out of the sky, and it just scared their trousers off, so they buried them keep the thunder gods of their backs or whatever."
"So how did you find it?"
"Well, I figured there was an off chance that it was already found- the Smith has this huge collection of uncatalogable or just weird junk that's been dragged in from time to time."
"In the basement."
"Yeah, the basement. What's with you Doc? You seem a little bothered by this whole basement thing."
"Well, it's just that I've been friends with people over there for years, and they never showed me the basement." he sounded a little hurt.
"I ah.., they didn't actually show it too me, I kinda just let myself in."
"You burgled the Smithsonian Institute?!"
"Easy, easy! Keep it down will ya?" He said in a hushed voice. "It's for a good cause, besides I kinda have blanket permission for that sort of jazz. Listen- the important thing is, I went around with that Geiger counter you gave me, until I found something giving off some juice- and viola! Here it is!"
"Well, I suppose they weren't using it for anything anyway. Where was it found?"
"Here's the card that was attached- 'Found March 10, 1876, Union Pacific Railroad, Hill Valley, California’." His thumb conveniently covered the stamp reading TOP SECRET, ARMY INTEL 9906753.
"I suppose I can take a few readings, before you return it." The doctor eagerly grabbed the box containing the cylinder. He placed into metal tray and then into a heavy piece of equipment that looked like a small refrigerator. "This will shield out the background radiation, so I can get more accurate reading on just the cylinder." Fitch thought he was saying this for his benefit, but then realized the doctor was just talking to himself. "Oh yes, most remarkable, an almost exact match, just oscillating 180 degrees out. I didn't think of that, I was trying to match the sine wave the whole..."
"So, this what you were looking for?" Fitch interrupted, knowing that Zofti would expostulate to himself for an hour.
"Yes, I do believe it is. Bring me the other cylinder; I want to see how they react."
"Uh, doc, I don't really believe all that Indian hooie, but is it safe? I mean, I don't want to end up evaporating Hub City, or getting permanent sunburn."
"Why of course! I have a special setup for moving radioactive isotopes back and forth from one another. We bolt them down, and just turn this crank. If there is too much output, we just crank this way, and move them apart. Very simple."
"OK, if you say so, Doc." Fitch retrieved the box containing the blue cylinder from its safe. Returning to the isotope set up, he went to the far end and placed the cylinder inside a compartment, and then fit his hands into gloves holes in the devices side. "I'll hook up this en- look at this Dr. Z! This little bugger is already excited." Having opened the box lid, the little blue cylinder was letting off a persistent glow. The gold cylinder, 10 feet away, was responding in kind.
"Very good, I never got this much reaction! And look, the level of dangerous radiation is still minimal! They two sources must cancel each other out in some way, most exciting!"
"Yeah, whatever you say. Look, can we do anything with this besides soft decorative lighting?" Fitch finished bolting the cylinder to the mounting at his end and removed his hands from the Waldo gloves. "The Navy Department needs something that can take out Jap carriers- we have plenty of reading light." He unconsciously rubbed his eye patch at the thought of the Imperial Japanese Navy. A piece of anti-aircraft shrapnel had ripped through his cockpit and into his eye at Midway, but that hadn't prevented from punching his bomb right through flight deck of an enemy flattop. It had prevented him from ever regaining flight status, medals and promotions aside.
Zofti completed the operation at his end. "Now we are ready!" The doctor made some adjustments to the instrumentation at the control panel, and began turning the crank that brought the two atomic sources closer together. Almost immediately, the insistent glowing at both ends began to increase. As they slowly inched down the 10 foot track, the instrumentation began responding wildly, with needles and chart pens oscillating in an excited manner. "More than I had hoped for! The power output is increasing in a logarithmic fashion!" He continued to crank, a look of exultation on his face illuminated in the blue and yellow glow emanating from the leaded glass. Inside the booth, the air shimmered between the approaching rods, as if lines of force were attempting to make themselves visible. "I'm getting energy readings I've never seen before! They must utilize mesons somehow- they're the very glue holding matter together!" Lost in the instrument display before him, the professor failed to notice the arcing and rumbling going on in the lab around him.
"That's enough for today, Doc, let's put these doodads back in storage and let 'em cool off." Fitch gave an uneasy glance around the lab, as the wavering force lines became more and more chaotic, and the light from the booth reached an almost intolerable level.
Just then, Joan burst through the doorway. "What are you boys up too? The lights are flickering all down the block, and my typewriter just tried to electrocute- Oh!" The curvy secretary stared in amazement at the wild chaos in the room.
"Stay back, Joan!" Fitch yelled.
"The wheel won't move! I think the track is bent!" The frail professor struggled futilely with the hand operator. Fitch jumped to the wheel, heaved with all his might, and was rewarded with a loud CLANK! as it sheared off in his hands.
"Aww crud." He exclaimed, staring at the now useless operator.
Continued in Chapter 2, Atomic Boogaloo