Timeline 1962 Issue 3

The Plot Thickens!

U.F.O. SAVES CITY!

The headline brought a smile to Will Walden’s face. Already his actions had people asking questions. Some people thought Talisman had returned, while others thought some kind of alien task force watched Earth (whether to protect it or conquer it remained a debate). Nobody would ever have thought an average kid from Midtown High could ever be the town’s mysterious new protector.

Will wished he could declare it to the world, but metahumans still weren’t a popular lot. The specter of the Super-Soldiers of America and their days before the House Un-American Activities Committed still loomed large across the thoughts of the city.

Inside the UFO though, he could remain anonymous. And he planned on spending as much time as possible inside the saucer.

After all, Champion City needed its heroes.

*****

Lynn Levin, Ph. D., dropped the paper down aghast at the top headline. He didn’t know what to make of this UFO nonsense. It sounded like a load of malarkey to him, but after the events of the last few days he couldn’t be sure.

Downing his last bite of toast and washing it down with one last gulp of orange juice, Dr. Levin sprang from his seat. His wife Annette leaned one cheek towards him and he dutifully kissed it before grabbing his briefcase and rushing out the door.

He had a lab to rebuild, after all. And considering the inexorbinant amount of damage the degen turned mutant beast had caused to Multivac, he would have to quite a lot of work to do.

The ride to work was short and even with the daily downtown traffic jams, he could usually make it in fifteen minutes. But today, four individual fender benders and one derailed monorail added up to a much longer ride.

It was during one of these forced stops he decided to run his test again. He concentrated on his left hand. Raising it to his face, he watched the narrow, bony fingers as they quickly swelled to five times their normal size. As they grew, his skin began to break in to rock-like plates. He pulled a small letter opener from the glove box and drove it down hard in to the engorged hand. The blade bent when it hit the skin, and he didn’t even feel it.

Far harder than rock, he thought. Somehow, the lab accident had mutated him as well as the degen. But instead of becoming a monstrosity, it seemed to allow him to grow in to something stronger, more vital.

He needed to get to the lab. He had many, many tests to run today. Before the day was out, he would determine just how tough he had become.

*****

In the middle of the junkyard, the strange saucer started to float of its own accord. Somewhere deep inside its immaculate shell, systems inactive for twenty years began to come alive. Within minutes, the saucer began to produce a faint hum, as the portion of the disc crushed by the degen monster’s claw slowly began to mend.

In a matter of minutes, the damage was gone, and the saucer quieted once more before floating back to the ground.

*****

Doctor Theodore Ledger straightened his reading glasses as he took in the headline of the Federation Morning News. He had seen much in his four decades, from plateaus filled with dinosaurs to the ruined cities of the dead Martian canals. But he had never seen such a high quality photograph of the flying saucers so many people talked about.

If it was, it could be the samples of extraterrestrial organisms that he needed to further his studies and prove several of his more outstanding theories. He had to learn more about this UFO.

Doctor Ledger, better known to the community as the infamous Doc Challenger, turned from his desk to return to the larger monitor on the other side of the room. The entire room was one great computer; a computer far more advanced than any other on the planet. The monitor filled nearly an entire wall itself. Ledger keyed in his command code, activating the three-way split screen. He knew that elsewhere in the city, micro-cameras were separating from three belts to hover before their owners. In a matter of seconds, all three pictures came alive.

One showed a young woman, her hair the same fiery red as his own, inside a clothing store, while the next showed a teenaged boy at football practice. The third, though, showed something unearthly. Even covered in a tightly drawn trench coat and a fedora, it was easy to discern the black, dust-covered skin.

The girl, Theodore’s daughter Harmony, better known as Soundwave, was the first to speak. “Hey, Dad. What’s shaking?”

“I don’t suppose any of you bothered to read the paper before you left this morning.” Doc Challenger looked across the monitor at the three faces as he spoke.

The boy, his nephew Matt a.k.a. Animale, shook his head. “Only the comics, Uncle Theo.”

Coal, formerly Corwin Taylor, only rolled his eyes, forcing a thin layer of soot to fall from his face. “You want us to investigate this UFO garbage, don’t yaw?”

Ledger nodded. “You’ve got it, Coal. It’s our government appointed duty to investigate cases of weird science, and I do believe this most definitely qualifies.”

With a thought, Theodore’s own cam belt winked out of existence on the table across the room, only to appear instantly in his hand. “This may be our most important case yet. We can’t be sure what this flying saucer’s presence means. It could be anything from a huge hoax to the first sign of an alien invasion. Whatever it may be, it’s our job and our duty as Americans to find out.”

“Okay, pop.”

“You got it, Unc.”

“Aye aye, captain.”

“I’ll meet you all at headquarters in thirty minutes then. Challenger out.”

*****

Lenny Arnold felt his hand shaking as he raised the pistol towards the bank teller’s face. He could feel the sweat from his forehead slowly seep in to his ski mask. He’d have to give Dan an earful after this job; ski masks in summer just weren’t a good idea.

“Put the money in the bag, lady,” he said. He yanked a burlap sack out of back pocket and threw it to her. She took it with a shaking hand.

Dean and Jack seemed to have the handful of bank customers well in hand, but Lenny still remained worried. He hated these jobs in broad daylight; it was just asking for the police to nab you.

“Hurry up,” he yelled at the teller. She cowered behind her desk but continued to load money in to the bag.

“Crap!”

Lenny turned at the sound of Jack’s voice. Following Jack’s line of sight out through the double doors, he saw the kid outside. He couldn’t be over sixteen, but Lenny knew they couldn’t just let him go. If he was fast enough, he could get the cops down here before they were gone.

“Get his ass!” Dean’s yell was directed towards Jack, who sprinted towards the door and the kid.

Lenny turned back to the teller. “Get it moving, lady!” He didn’t want to get caught. His mom would kill him if he got caught. “Hurry or you’ll dead!”

*****

Will ran as soon as he saw the second gunman turn towards him. How in the hell had he managed to walk in to the middle of a bank robbery?

“Get back here!”

Will glanced back to see one of the robbers waving his gun around. Will knew he couldn’t out run a bullet. He’d had it.

Unless-

He raised his hand. “No problem, guy. Just don’t shoot me.”

“Get in here, kid, before someone sees us, and we can get this over with quick.”

Will let himself be lead back to the bank. In his mind, he could feel the saucer floating in to the air and whisking towards him and the bank. He hadn’t been sure he could levitate it from so far away, but it wasn’t that much harder than it was from up close.

Will couldn’t help but smirk as they walked in to the bank.

Compared to the monster, this would be easy. And a whole heck of a lot of fun.