Post by Admin on Aug 27, 2022 23:31:14 GMT
Jack Bradley is an independent troubleshooter with an international reputation. He actually still works for the FBI but poses as an independent operator. He is currently investigating suspected sabotage in the efforts at constructing the Monument at Mt. Rushmore.
As the story starts, Jack was using an air hammer to do some of the more 'delicate' carving of facial features on the head of Thomas Jefferson when he broke through the cliff wall and fell into cave, the entrance to which had apparently been sealed by an avalanche many years ago. The cave wasn't empty; inside were perhaps a dozen statues of weird part-human beings, carved from a shiny red stone, covered with dust. In the dim light he could see that one had two faces, another the head of a buffalo, yet another looked more like a beaver than a human, another had wings and the beak of a hawk. He scrambled to climb out.
"This almost looks like a Sioux temple of some kind. I have to stop any further blasting until we're sure this place will be preserved. I'll have to throw my weight around!" Jack announced decisively as he stuck his head up out the hole he'd fallen through.
The bosses in charge of the project hadn't liked it when the FBI had told them that as long as the investigation was ongoing, they had to help Jack in any way he requested - but the orders had come from J. Edgar himself, and when he said 'Jump' the only smart response was 'How high?'.
Today's blasting was scheduled to start in 20 minutes. That should give him plenty of time to scramble out of this hole and reach the foreman.
Somewhere, as close as a dream and yet farther than the farthest star, a group of spirits was sitting in a circle, intent on a game of dice, as the winners of the last round collected and the losers paid their bets. The next player, seemingly a man with the wings and face of a hawk, pulled a handful of small flat tokens from a pouch on his belt. They were carved from stone in a variety of animal silhouettes, and were mainly white on one side and mainly black on the other. "For the next round, we use Sioux dice." The last player, who resembled amazingly the bust of Teddy Roosevelt being carved on Mt. Rushmore, nodded and pocketed his own pair of D6 for use next time it was his turn to choose.
Their game was interrupted when, infinitely far away, Jack fell into the cave, and they all watched him as he looked around in awed astonishment and then rushed to scramble back out.
"This young man has spirit worthy of a warrior of the Lakota; he would save our sacred site if he could. It seems a shame that he is about to perish," the hawk-faced one said sadly.
"We could assist him," a being with the face of George Washington offered. "Though it is almost too late!" That far off cave shuddered and the scene began to fragment. Back in the Black Mountain cave, Jack was slammed violently back to the floor of the cave and he could hear the sounds of a massive explosion nearby, and the room around him started to collapse as a portion of a rocky wall disintegrated and the roof collapsed. One of the nearby statues shattered and he was covered in flint fragments and coated in flint dust.
"And we have," intoned a being who had the upper body of an American bison and the lower body of a man. He waved his hand - and a second explosion threw Jack back through the hole he'd blasted, and he fell down past the ciff he'd been working on and crashed onto a ledge not far beneath. Rubble rained down on him, most of it bouncing off the growing mound covering his body and joining the avalanche that was now roaring down the mountainside far beneath. "He shall survive - though our sacred site is no longer..." The beings in the group shook their heads sadly, then returned to their game, making wagers on the next fall of this new set of dice.*
*We might call these Sioux dice "D2" - two sided dice, or essentially coins. This part of this particular craps game involved throwing 6 of these D2 and betting on the pattern of 'heads' and 'tails' that resulted.
A pair of Jack's coworkers rushed to position ladders and climb to the ledge where Jack lay buried in a rocky cairn. They were astounded when, as easily as if he were throwing aside a quilt, Jack pushed through hundreds of pounds of shattered stone debris and casually sat up, as if awakening refreshed from a quick nap. He could see his arms, and he frozen in horrified amazement. "What has happened to my BODY!?" he yelled.
The explosion had shredded his shirt, he was bare from the waist up. His skin was dark red. He had no signs whatever of injuries. Amazed, he touched one hand to the other arm - and his skin was as hard as, well, as flint! The two men started at him in amazement; both had come from the quarry industry, one a laborer and the other one of the supervisors with over 40 years experience. Neither had ever seen a man buried in a collapse such as this one who had ever survived.
"Why, his body - it's flint - red flint! We used to mine it all the time in Wisconsin and Ohio. This is amazing!" This was the foreman who Jack had wanted to stop the blasting.
"It's IMPOSSIBLE!" the other quarryman replied, emphatically.
Jack was alive, he felt more healthy than he had ever felt, and he suspected someone had just tried to kill him. If he was right, he wanted to make that someone pay - regardless of his current condition. "Do you know what caused that explosion?"
"We've had our eyes on two of the newer workers for several days - think they might be the saboteurs you've been called here to find," the foreman noted.
The other looked surprised - none of the workers had so far suggested that certain recent incidents had been anything other than accidents. "I seen the two of them up here earlier," he snarled. "They shouldn't'a been here, but they was gone before I could ask 'em what they was doin'."
Jack hurriedly began descending one of the ladders, racing as fast as he can back toward the temporary base camp where the workers were housed. In his hurry, he made a misstep and fell, crashing down a steep mountainside for almost a thousand feet before he landed on the valley floor - his new form totally uninjured! Two of the other workers were running desperately away from the temporary barracks, headed out into the Black Hills, presumably to escape. They hadn't counted on anyone being able to reach them by simply falling down the mountain, rather than making a tedious descent!
Jack quickly discovered that in his new, flint form, that he was both faster and immensely stronger than a normal human. He almost instantly caught the fleeing workers... both of whom appeared to be Polynesian. He knocked down first one, then the other. "Better tell me what you guys are up to, or I'll stop going easy on you!" he stood over them and snarled, fists clenched.
As they looked up at him in fear, their expressions changed to hopeful wonder. "His magic leaves him!" one exclaimed in his native tongue. Without warning, Jack's body had almost instantly become human again. The saboteur dove at Jack's legs in a powerful, well-executed tackle, while the other picked up an axe that had carelessly been left lying around. "I'll kill him!" he yelled in the same language, and swung the axe powerfully at Jack's spine as his partner held the agent's legs.
The axe smacked into Jack's back and glanced off, throwing sparks as steel struck flint! The change to his new form, which would soon be famous as 'Fearless Flint', was even more instantaneous and unexpected than his revision to normal had been.
"Now I'll teach you two saboteurs what happens when you try to destroy American property!" he yelled in triumph as he quickly flattened first one, then the other, of the saboteurs.
A quick search found a telegram in the pocket of one of the saboteurs; one of the other workers remembered that a Western Union courier had visited this guy last night. The telegraph itself was long and rambling, but someone had circled words in the text - the fourth word in the first sentence, 4th word in the second sentence, etc, and the circled words said "New worker federal agent eliminate immediately"
It took a while to grill the saboteurs, who appeared to only speak broken English. They claimed that the orders came from someone they called the 'Lava Man', who was apparently a god who lived in the volcano Mt. Alo, in the center of their South Sea island of Tanna, and that this Lava Man had ordered them to go to States and sabotage the work on Mr. Rushmore.
By now, Jack's FBI superior had flown in from DC, and heard the whole story - including Jack's new and amazing powers. "There's the potential for plenty of trouble in those South Pacific islands. A troubleshooter like you, with your new powers, could be really useful in cleaning up a great deal of it! Would you be interested in a new assignment?"
Jack nodded, thoughtfully. "That's a great idea! I'll get ready and leave as soon as possible. I'll leave immediately, and find out what's behind this so-called 'Lava Man' and the sabotage ring!"
As the story starts, Jack was using an air hammer to do some of the more 'delicate' carving of facial features on the head of Thomas Jefferson when he broke through the cliff wall and fell into cave, the entrance to which had apparently been sealed by an avalanche many years ago. The cave wasn't empty; inside were perhaps a dozen statues of weird part-human beings, carved from a shiny red stone, covered with dust. In the dim light he could see that one had two faces, another the head of a buffalo, yet another looked more like a beaver than a human, another had wings and the beak of a hawk. He scrambled to climb out.
"This almost looks like a Sioux temple of some kind. I have to stop any further blasting until we're sure this place will be preserved. I'll have to throw my weight around!" Jack announced decisively as he stuck his head up out the hole he'd fallen through.
The bosses in charge of the project hadn't liked it when the FBI had told them that as long as the investigation was ongoing, they had to help Jack in any way he requested - but the orders had come from J. Edgar himself, and when he said 'Jump' the only smart response was 'How high?'.
Today's blasting was scheduled to start in 20 minutes. That should give him plenty of time to scramble out of this hole and reach the foreman.
Somewhere, as close as a dream and yet farther than the farthest star, a group of spirits was sitting in a circle, intent on a game of dice, as the winners of the last round collected and the losers paid their bets. The next player, seemingly a man with the wings and face of a hawk, pulled a handful of small flat tokens from a pouch on his belt. They were carved from stone in a variety of animal silhouettes, and were mainly white on one side and mainly black on the other. "For the next round, we use Sioux dice." The last player, who resembled amazingly the bust of Teddy Roosevelt being carved on Mt. Rushmore, nodded and pocketed his own pair of D6 for use next time it was his turn to choose.
Their game was interrupted when, infinitely far away, Jack fell into the cave, and they all watched him as he looked around in awed astonishment and then rushed to scramble back out.
"This young man has spirit worthy of a warrior of the Lakota; he would save our sacred site if he could. It seems a shame that he is about to perish," the hawk-faced one said sadly.
"We could assist him," a being with the face of George Washington offered. "Though it is almost too late!" That far off cave shuddered and the scene began to fragment. Back in the Black Mountain cave, Jack was slammed violently back to the floor of the cave and he could hear the sounds of a massive explosion nearby, and the room around him started to collapse as a portion of a rocky wall disintegrated and the roof collapsed. One of the nearby statues shattered and he was covered in flint fragments and coated in flint dust.
"And we have," intoned a being who had the upper body of an American bison and the lower body of a man. He waved his hand - and a second explosion threw Jack back through the hole he'd blasted, and he fell down past the ciff he'd been working on and crashed onto a ledge not far beneath. Rubble rained down on him, most of it bouncing off the growing mound covering his body and joining the avalanche that was now roaring down the mountainside far beneath. "He shall survive - though our sacred site is no longer..." The beings in the group shook their heads sadly, then returned to their game, making wagers on the next fall of this new set of dice.*
*We might call these Sioux dice "D2" - two sided dice, or essentially coins. This part of this particular craps game involved throwing 6 of these D2 and betting on the pattern of 'heads' and 'tails' that resulted.
A pair of Jack's coworkers rushed to position ladders and climb to the ledge where Jack lay buried in a rocky cairn. They were astounded when, as easily as if he were throwing aside a quilt, Jack pushed through hundreds of pounds of shattered stone debris and casually sat up, as if awakening refreshed from a quick nap. He could see his arms, and he frozen in horrified amazement. "What has happened to my BODY!?" he yelled.
The explosion had shredded his shirt, he was bare from the waist up. His skin was dark red. He had no signs whatever of injuries. Amazed, he touched one hand to the other arm - and his skin was as hard as, well, as flint! The two men started at him in amazement; both had come from the quarry industry, one a laborer and the other one of the supervisors with over 40 years experience. Neither had ever seen a man buried in a collapse such as this one who had ever survived.
"Why, his body - it's flint - red flint! We used to mine it all the time in Wisconsin and Ohio. This is amazing!" This was the foreman who Jack had wanted to stop the blasting.
"It's IMPOSSIBLE!" the other quarryman replied, emphatically.
Jack was alive, he felt more healthy than he had ever felt, and he suspected someone had just tried to kill him. If he was right, he wanted to make that someone pay - regardless of his current condition. "Do you know what caused that explosion?"
"We've had our eyes on two of the newer workers for several days - think they might be the saboteurs you've been called here to find," the foreman noted.
The other looked surprised - none of the workers had so far suggested that certain recent incidents had been anything other than accidents. "I seen the two of them up here earlier," he snarled. "They shouldn't'a been here, but they was gone before I could ask 'em what they was doin'."
Jack hurriedly began descending one of the ladders, racing as fast as he can back toward the temporary base camp where the workers were housed. In his hurry, he made a misstep and fell, crashing down a steep mountainside for almost a thousand feet before he landed on the valley floor - his new form totally uninjured! Two of the other workers were running desperately away from the temporary barracks, headed out into the Black Hills, presumably to escape. They hadn't counted on anyone being able to reach them by simply falling down the mountain, rather than making a tedious descent!
Jack quickly discovered that in his new, flint form, that he was both faster and immensely stronger than a normal human. He almost instantly caught the fleeing workers... both of whom appeared to be Polynesian. He knocked down first one, then the other. "Better tell me what you guys are up to, or I'll stop going easy on you!" he stood over them and snarled, fists clenched.
As they looked up at him in fear, their expressions changed to hopeful wonder. "His magic leaves him!" one exclaimed in his native tongue. Without warning, Jack's body had almost instantly become human again. The saboteur dove at Jack's legs in a powerful, well-executed tackle, while the other picked up an axe that had carelessly been left lying around. "I'll kill him!" he yelled in the same language, and swung the axe powerfully at Jack's spine as his partner held the agent's legs.
The axe smacked into Jack's back and glanced off, throwing sparks as steel struck flint! The change to his new form, which would soon be famous as 'Fearless Flint', was even more instantaneous and unexpected than his revision to normal had been.
"Now I'll teach you two saboteurs what happens when you try to destroy American property!" he yelled in triumph as he quickly flattened first one, then the other, of the saboteurs.
A quick search found a telegram in the pocket of one of the saboteurs; one of the other workers remembered that a Western Union courier had visited this guy last night. The telegraph itself was long and rambling, but someone had circled words in the text - the fourth word in the first sentence, 4th word in the second sentence, etc, and the circled words said "New worker federal agent eliminate immediately"
It took a while to grill the saboteurs, who appeared to only speak broken English. They claimed that the orders came from someone they called the 'Lava Man', who was apparently a god who lived in the volcano Mt. Alo, in the center of their South Sea island of Tanna, and that this Lava Man had ordered them to go to States and sabotage the work on Mr. Rushmore.
By now, Jack's FBI superior had flown in from DC, and heard the whole story - including Jack's new and amazing powers. "There's the potential for plenty of trouble in those South Pacific islands. A troubleshooter like you, with your new powers, could be really useful in cleaning up a great deal of it! Would you be interested in a new assignment?"
Jack nodded, thoughtfully. "That's a great idea! I'll get ready and leave as soon as possible. I'll leave immediately, and find out what's behind this so-called 'Lava Man' and the sabotage ring!"
| What will FEARLESS FLINT find on Tanna Island? Can even HE previal against the terrible power of the LAVA MAN? Thrill to the daring exploits of this amazing human dynamo next month! |