Post by Admin on Mar 14, 2021 16:54:46 GMT
The Origin of Master Mystic, Guardian of Earth
Scenic Adirondack Train Ride
This story takes place sometime in the summer of 1938...
The morning train from Atlanta to Raleigh NC took longer than you might expect – the railway passed through the Adirondack mountains and there was a lot of climbing involved. But the mountain scenery was majestic, so the extra time was well spent! But Alex Gael, his brother Lawrence, and Lawrence’s fiancé Gina Houston were more interested in discussing a gift Alex had received from his parents during their visit to Atlanta.
“Mom bought this from a bazaar in Anyar, India, just before they boarded the ship back home,” Alex was retelling the story of the foot-tall stone statue – a humanoid figure with an elongated egg shaped head, with eyes at least twice too big for the head and small convex bumps where the ears should have been, carved from some highy polished jet black stone, with both arms broken off at the shoulders. “The merchant claimed that the statue was recently uncovered during excavation for the new Theosophical Institute facility, found in some deeply buried ruins. And that local legends have it that there was a temple on that site, thousands of years ago. The rest of the stuff in his shop looked like junk, so she doesn’t believe the story.”
“It is eerie, no matter what its history, ” Lawrence added. “Dad couldn’t believe she’d waste money on an obvious fake like that and he was going to make her throw it away, which is why she gave it to you! I sure didn’t want it!”
Gina was turning the statue over in her hands, examining it closely. She pulled out a handkerchief and gently wiped off the broken end of one arm. “Look here, boys – what an unusual pattern! It looks like thousands of tiny wires are sticking out..."
At that instant they were almost deafened by the incredibly loud squeal of the train’s emergency air brakes, all jammed on at the same time, as the frozen steel wheels slid along the iron tracks. They slammed into the back of the seat in front of them as the train instantly began slowing down. Before they could recover, there was an even louder crash, and then chaos, as their car slammed into the car ahead of it, which was slamming into the car ahead of it, then was tossed into the air like a child’s toy, and then the three were battered into unconsciousness…
***
After some indeterminate time, some part of Alex became aware of trapped in the center of a vast morass of enshrouding darkness, and aware of all encompassing pain, and aware of an irritant - a voice, seemingly coming from nowhere and everywhere, speaking from somewhere nearby in the darkness... and then an image formed, somewhere in the darkness, an image of a being who looked a lot like the broken statue, except with long spindly arms that ended in strange hands - they had too many fingers and the fingers were too long. From the being's unmoving lips came a voice, an ageless, toneless voice that penetrated into Alex Gael's subconscious.
"I am an agent of The Star Rovers of Nyngenus. Listen, chosen one, and hear my tale."
"More than 3 million years ago, a star ship of the Star Rovers, beings from the planet Nyngenus, circling the star humans have only recently named Luyten's Star, landed on your Earth. At the time, the masters of the planet were giant, non-sentient reptiles, but the Rovers sensed the possibility that these non-sentient animals, through evolution, would become sentient, and left many data storage devices scattered across the surface of the planet with the expectation that the new sentient race would discover them and profit from the knowledge they contained."
"The Rovers did not expect the extinction event that destroyed these dinosaurs and delayed the evolution of sentience on Earth for so long, and during that delay, all but one of these data stores has been destroyed. The one that remains, that is telling you this story, has been severely damaged and most of the stored knowledge lost. But what remains will suffice to enlighten you and allow you to summon great power, power to combat evil, power that you shall direct by your will, as long as your faith in yourself is unwavering."
"To unlock the power of Nyngenus, you must visualize the Source, and then touch the Source." A white crystal sphere appeared in Alex's mental vision, glowing brightly from within. The voice was suddenly stern and commanding. "Visualize yourself reaching out and touching the Source! Calm yourself and bring your will to bear. Reach out and TOUCH THE SOURCE!"
In his vision, Alex saw a hand that he knew was his reach out and rest firmly, palm down, on the top of the glowing sphere. As he did, everything changed! The universe-filling pain instantly vanished and the darkness changed character, from the fearful, terrifying entrapping darkness of the unknown to the familiar darkness one sees when resting peacefully with closed eyes, and Alex realized he had been unconscious, and now his consciousness had been restored. But the voice wasn't through with him just yet.
"Before you can combat evil, you must first SAVE YOURSELF!"
At the crack of that command, Alex's eyes snapped open and he beheld a terrifying site. The seats of the train car were above him! He was lying on the former ceiling, which was crumpled inward and ripped and torn in multiple places. The windows were all broken. Draped over top of him was the still form of Gina Hudson, and his brother Lawrence was lying amid the wreckage next to him, his head twisted at an awkward angle to his body. Breathing was difficult, the wreck of the car was filled with smoke, and he could feel the heat and hear the roaring crackling of a fire not too far away.
Some final vestiges of the vision imparted by the status remained, unnoted until now. He needed to be free of Gina's body; somehow, at his need, her body floated gently into the air and he could move. He squirmed around until he was kneeling. He needed to be able to see; an impossible breeze came from behind him and blew the smoke away. "Visualize what you would command," the agent of the Source had told him.
It was already clear to him that whatever he saw happening was only a hallucination anyway; he was probably about to die and seeing a final vision. What harm in pretending he was in command?
He wished for a stretcher under the body of his brother, and there it was. He wished that he, Gina, and Lawrence would be carried gently from the wreckage through one of the broken windows, and more gently than he could have imagined possible, they were... he wished for Gina and Lawrence to be set down gently a safe distance from the wreckage, and again... they were.
The memory of the next few hours forever after seemed to Alex more like a dream, a nightmare, actually, than his mental encounter with the Star Rover. Alex spent that time exploring the wreckage, flying from car to car, using his new powers of mind over matter to put out fires, tear open the sides of wrecked cars to explore them, looking for victims, and then extracting them and moving them to safe locations. But it was useless... other than himself, Gina and Lawrence there were no survivors.
Alex finally had to rest. He landed near Lawrence and Gina, bent over them to examine them, and slipped into unconsciousness, mentally and physically exhausted and overwhelmed by the tragic trauma of the disaster.
Hours later, he realized he was aware again. He opened his eyes and realized he was in a hospital bed. Sitting in a chair nearby keeping vigil was his great friend and mentor, Johan Reiter, otherwise the room was empty. The memory of the train wreck, and the dream that followed it, sprang sharply into his mind.
"Johan! Where am I? How did I get here? What are YOU doing here?"
This story takes place sometime in the summer of 1938...
The morning train from Atlanta to Raleigh NC took longer than you might expect – the railway passed through the Adirondack mountains and there was a lot of climbing involved. But the mountain scenery was majestic, so the extra time was well spent! But Alex Gael, his brother Lawrence, and Lawrence’s fiancé Gina Houston were more interested in discussing a gift Alex had received from his parents during their visit to Atlanta.
“Mom bought this from a bazaar in Anyar, India, just before they boarded the ship back home,” Alex was retelling the story of the foot-tall stone statue – a humanoid figure with an elongated egg shaped head, with eyes at least twice too big for the head and small convex bumps where the ears should have been, carved from some highy polished jet black stone, with both arms broken off at the shoulders. “The merchant claimed that the statue was recently uncovered during excavation for the new Theosophical Institute facility, found in some deeply buried ruins. And that local legends have it that there was a temple on that site, thousands of years ago. The rest of the stuff in his shop looked like junk, so she doesn’t believe the story.”
“It is eerie, no matter what its history, ” Lawrence added. “Dad couldn’t believe she’d waste money on an obvious fake like that and he was going to make her throw it away, which is why she gave it to you! I sure didn’t want it!”
Gina was turning the statue over in her hands, examining it closely. She pulled out a handkerchief and gently wiped off the broken end of one arm. “Look here, boys – what an unusual pattern! It looks like thousands of tiny wires are sticking out..."
At that instant they were almost deafened by the incredibly loud squeal of the train’s emergency air brakes, all jammed on at the same time, as the frozen steel wheels slid along the iron tracks. They slammed into the back of the seat in front of them as the train instantly began slowing down. Before they could recover, there was an even louder crash, and then chaos, as their car slammed into the car ahead of it, which was slamming into the car ahead of it, then was tossed into the air like a child’s toy, and then the three were battered into unconsciousness…
***
After some indeterminate time, some part of Alex became aware of trapped in the center of a vast morass of enshrouding darkness, and aware of all encompassing pain, and aware of an irritant - a voice, seemingly coming from nowhere and everywhere, speaking from somewhere nearby in the darkness... and then an image formed, somewhere in the darkness, an image of a being who looked a lot like the broken statue, except with long spindly arms that ended in strange hands - they had too many fingers and the fingers were too long. From the being's unmoving lips came a voice, an ageless, toneless voice that penetrated into Alex Gael's subconscious.
"I am an agent of The Star Rovers of Nyngenus. Listen, chosen one, and hear my tale."
"More than 3 million years ago, a star ship of the Star Rovers, beings from the planet Nyngenus, circling the star humans have only recently named Luyten's Star, landed on your Earth. At the time, the masters of the planet were giant, non-sentient reptiles, but the Rovers sensed the possibility that these non-sentient animals, through evolution, would become sentient, and left many data storage devices scattered across the surface of the planet with the expectation that the new sentient race would discover them and profit from the knowledge they contained."
"The Rovers did not expect the extinction event that destroyed these dinosaurs and delayed the evolution of sentience on Earth for so long, and during that delay, all but one of these data stores has been destroyed. The one that remains, that is telling you this story, has been severely damaged and most of the stored knowledge lost. But what remains will suffice to enlighten you and allow you to summon great power, power to combat evil, power that you shall direct by your will, as long as your faith in yourself is unwavering."
"To unlock the power of Nyngenus, you must visualize the Source, and then touch the Source." A white crystal sphere appeared in Alex's mental vision, glowing brightly from within. The voice was suddenly stern and commanding. "Visualize yourself reaching out and touching the Source! Calm yourself and bring your will to bear. Reach out and TOUCH THE SOURCE!"
In his vision, Alex saw a hand that he knew was his reach out and rest firmly, palm down, on the top of the glowing sphere. As he did, everything changed! The universe-filling pain instantly vanished and the darkness changed character, from the fearful, terrifying entrapping darkness of the unknown to the familiar darkness one sees when resting peacefully with closed eyes, and Alex realized he had been unconscious, and now his consciousness had been restored. But the voice wasn't through with him just yet.
"Before you can combat evil, you must first SAVE YOURSELF!"
At the crack of that command, Alex's eyes snapped open and he beheld a terrifying site. The seats of the train car were above him! He was lying on the former ceiling, which was crumpled inward and ripped and torn in multiple places. The windows were all broken. Draped over top of him was the still form of Gina Hudson, and his brother Lawrence was lying amid the wreckage next to him, his head twisted at an awkward angle to his body. Breathing was difficult, the wreck of the car was filled with smoke, and he could feel the heat and hear the roaring crackling of a fire not too far away.
Some final vestiges of the vision imparted by the status remained, unnoted until now. He needed to be free of Gina's body; somehow, at his need, her body floated gently into the air and he could move. He squirmed around until he was kneeling. He needed to be able to see; an impossible breeze came from behind him and blew the smoke away. "Visualize what you would command," the agent of the Source had told him.
It was already clear to him that whatever he saw happening was only a hallucination anyway; he was probably about to die and seeing a final vision. What harm in pretending he was in command?
He wished for a stretcher under the body of his brother, and there it was. He wished that he, Gina, and Lawrence would be carried gently from the wreckage through one of the broken windows, and more gently than he could have imagined possible, they were... he wished for Gina and Lawrence to be set down gently a safe distance from the wreckage, and again... they were.
The memory of the next few hours forever after seemed to Alex more like a dream, a nightmare, actually, than his mental encounter with the Star Rover. Alex spent that time exploring the wreckage, flying from car to car, using his new powers of mind over matter to put out fires, tear open the sides of wrecked cars to explore them, looking for victims, and then extracting them and moving them to safe locations. But it was useless... other than himself, Gina and Lawrence there were no survivors.
Alex finally had to rest. He landed near Lawrence and Gina, bent over them to examine them, and slipped into unconsciousness, mentally and physically exhausted and overwhelmed by the tragic trauma of the disaster.
Hours later, he realized he was aware again. He opened his eyes and realized he was in a hospital bed. Sitting in a chair nearby keeping vigil was his great friend and mentor, Johan Reiter, otherwise the room was empty. The memory of the train wreck, and the dream that followed it, sprang sharply into his mind.
"Johan! Where am I? How did I get here? What are YOU doing here?"
Sabotage!
"You were in a train wreck a day ago. You seem to be relatively uninjured, just battered and in shock. You're in the hospital in Asheville, NC. Larry and Gina are also in the hospital. Larry's in intensive care and the doctors think he may never walk again. Gina has a broken arm. You three were the only survivors on the train."
"So, it wasn't a nightmare," Alex mused.
"So you remember the wreck?" Johan asked excitedly. "Baltimore Atlanta Rail called me in to investigate." Johan was Emeritus Professor of Civil Engineering at Marquess University in Durham, NC, where Alex also lived, and a nationally renowned expert on railroad construction. "Something really mysterious happened after the wreck, and there are a lot of investigators with questions!"
Alex could hardly believe what he thought he remembered; he sure wasn't about to tell his whole story to investigators! "The train was rounding a long bend, just starting down after a long climb, when the brakes came on. A few seconds later, the front end of our car lifted and we got tumbled around inside. There were a lot of incredibly loud noises, it sounded like the end of the world and I was sure I was going to die. Then my head hit something and I got knocked out, and when I woke up, I was here. What's the mystery?"
"Several mysteries, really." Johan was struggling to put something horrific and seeming supernatural into rational words. "I'll start with something relatively normal - all too normal these days with the war going on across the rest of the world. It was definitely sabotage; I found clear evidence of explosives planted on the track. So who wrecked the train and why?"
"So, it wasn't a nightmare," Alex mused.
"So you remember the wreck?" Johan asked excitedly. "Baltimore Atlanta Rail called me in to investigate." Johan was Emeritus Professor of Civil Engineering at Marquess University in Durham, NC, where Alex also lived, and a nationally renowned expert on railroad construction. "Something really mysterious happened after the wreck, and there are a lot of investigators with questions!"
Alex could hardly believe what he thought he remembered; he sure wasn't about to tell his whole story to investigators! "The train was rounding a long bend, just starting down after a long climb, when the brakes came on. A few seconds later, the front end of our car lifted and we got tumbled around inside. There were a lot of incredibly loud noises, it sounded like the end of the world and I was sure I was going to die. Then my head hit something and I got knocked out, and when I woke up, I was here. What's the mystery?"
"Several mysteries, really." Johan was struggling to put something horrific and seeming supernatural into rational words. "I'll start with something relatively normal - all too normal these days with the war going on across the rest of the world. It was definitely sabotage; I found clear evidence of explosives planted on the track. So who wrecked the train and why?"
His voice changed. He'd seen the things he was about to mention, and he couldn't hide the awe he'd experienced. "But the big mystery, the one that is really bothering everyone, is: 'What happened after?' Something, someone, some incredible power or force, nobody knows what but there are dozens of wild stories already, searched through the wreckage and recovered all the bodies. The power involved was impossibe! Wrecked cars were righted, some had their sides or roofs ripped open to get inside, one boxcar was even set to the side of the tracks and used as a morgue - and filled with bodies from the wreck, each one carefully laid out flat."
"Sabotage..." Alex croaked, interrupting his friend. "Murder.... Larry crippled for life..." Anger and horror exploded inside him, filling him with rage until it was impossible to even continue talking.
Johan could see that Alex was having trouble talking, so he continued. "So anyway, all the authorities want to find out if you saw whatever it was that recovered all those bodies. They want to know if any of them were alive when they were pulled from the wreckage. Some of them think that whatever did that may have caused the wreck, and then been searching for something afterward."
That evil intentions were already being ascribed to his actions only added to Alex's horror and fueled his rage even higher. He struggled to sit up - no serious injuries as far as he could tell, but every inch of his body protested. "So the authorities are looking for a mysterious saboteur with the powers of a mythological god?! Well, whatever they ask, I can't help! I was unconscious at the time."
"Take it easy, Alex! You're in the hospital for a reason, you know!" Johan tried to calm his friend. "Gina has already told them the same thing, that she was knocked out during the crash and didn't awaken until she was in the hospital. And your doctors have told investigators they can't talk to you until tomorrow. You should rest and see if you can remember anything else." He got up to leave. "I'll be back tomorrow."
"I really appreciate you being here when I woke up," Alex gave his friend heartfelt thanks. "I'll see you tomorrow." As Johan left, he was thinking to himself, 'I swear I am going to find that saboteur and make him pay!"
A few minutes later, Alex was frantic and frustrated. He remembered being able to use his power, to fly, to lift massive weights, to tear through steel like it was newsprint, to sense within a mangled body life - or not, the power to gently straighten those bodies and place them reverently alongside the others so recently dead. He struggled painfully to his feet and fiercely commanded himself to fly - but nothing happened. He demanded that glowing white hands appear and simply turn back the sheet on the bed, just to show the hands were his to control - nothing. He tried to sense life around him - but he could feel nothing. He was simply normal Alex Gael, and his former godlike abilities seemed beyond his reach. He was thinking the same thoughts he had thought back then, but it DIDN'T WORK!
'Johan says that somebody or something did all the things I remember doing! It MUST have been me, so I must be doing something wrong - but WHAT?'
He sat in the chair, and forced himself to review everything he remembered from the dream interview with the image of the long dead Star Rover. The last thing he'd done had been to mentally touch the Source. Could his power be temporary, and need to be renewed by touching the Source again?
'That MUST be it!' he hoped desperately. 'Whenever I want to use the power, I need to touch the Source!' Another part of his mind replied doubtfully, 'Or perhaps I was granted but a single use of the power, and now it's gone forever!'
This stunningly strong self-doubt recalled the words of the Rover. "... power that you shall direct by your will, as long as your faith in yourself is unwavering."
'I MUST believe in my self and my cause in order to control my will and through it the power of Mind Over Matter.' he realized. 'I can't be frantic, I must be calm.' He focused on remembering the words the Rover had used, and the meaning the being had intended to convey with those words. After a few minutes, he began to speak, each world distinctly enunciated, his voice calm and yet forceful:
Behind his closed eyes, he was rewarded when the image of the gloriously glowing crystal Sphere of the Source appeared, and his mental 'hand' reached out to lay firmly on top of that glowing ball, and he could once again access his own mind's power over matter!
His aches and pains vanished, he stood easily, and then Alex simply rose an inch from the floor. He drifted toward the window, which was pulled wide open by two glowing white hands, floated through the open window and vanished high into the sky.
It would be dark shortly, but hovering in the air high over Asheville, it wasn't difficult for Alex to trace the line of the train tracks through the center of the city.
'We hadn't reached the city yet, so I need follow them west toward Atlanta to find the wreck. But which way is west?'
As a former Boy Scout Alex knew a half dozen (or more) ways to determine which way was West; his Mind Over Matter power picked the easiest almost without any thought on his part. He was barely done asking himself the question when the air in front of him glowed and the glow coalesced into a compass - visually identical in all ways to the compass he had owned as a Boy Scout, only much larger - the dial was the size of his two hands cupped together. And a second later, he was speeding west high above the tracks.
He'd never flown before he'd gained his power; he had no experience to judge how fast he was going, but within 5 minutes, he could see the wreckage of the locomotive, lying on its side a dozen yards from the torn up track, and a string of wrecked cars extending almost a quarter mile back along the curved line. He didn't expect to see anyone - Johan had told him that Baltimore Atlanta had closed that right-of-way as soon as they knew of the wreck and they were routing trains around it via ways owned by other companies, and the Baltimore Atlanta construction machinery wasn't expected to arrive until later tomorrow.
So he was surprised to see several men moving through the wreckage. Two were just climbing into a boxcar that was standing, upright, a dozen yards from the track. A car he recognized immediately - because he had carefully put it there when he'd searched the wreckage yesterday!
***
"Cheeze, Johnsy, dis sure is spooky! How'd dis car get here witouts smashing all da trees? And how'd it end up onna wheels when all da others is upside down?" The speaker leaped up and grabbed the open door and started to pull himself up into the car, which, though battered, was upright, in a small clearing maybe 50 feet from the tracks. "What, it flew here?"
"Ah, just suddup and do yer job, Screwball," Johnsy replied. "Ain't our job to ast questions; Mr. Brown wants us ta find dis guy..." he waved a photograph that Screwball already knew by heart "...and bring back da statue."
Screwball was high enough to stick his head into the open door of the boxcar; he jerked back screaming. "Bodies! It's filled wit dead BODIES!" He fell to the ground, stood up, and ran into the surrounding woods, still screaming about dead bodies and ghosts.
Johnsy looked inside and even with the warning of his partner's screams, only barely kept himself under control; the entire floor of the boxcar was covered with corpses, the people who had died in the train wreck. Someone had taken great care to collect them all, and place them inside this car, laying each one carefully next to the others. He was about to get sick when a white ghost swooped down from the sky and into the car - and he screamed, jumped to the ground, and ran as well. He didn't get far before he tripped and crashed into the trunk of a tree, then fell heavily to the ground, gibbering in terror and pain. A foot nudged him to roll over, and he was looking up at the ghost, the guy in the picture Mr. Brown had told him to look for. His terrified screaming got even louder until a glowing white hand clamped over his mouth.
"How do I find this Mr. Brown?" the ghost asked quietly, in a weirdly distorted, sepulchral voice. It took him 15 minutes to get directions to Mr. Brown's isolated estate in the next valley to the north.
And then he was back in the air, headed north, leaving Johnsy still gibbering in terror, curled up tightly in a ball on the ground.
"Sabotage..." Alex croaked, interrupting his friend. "Murder.... Larry crippled for life..." Anger and horror exploded inside him, filling him with rage until it was impossible to even continue talking.
Johan could see that Alex was having trouble talking, so he continued. "So anyway, all the authorities want to find out if you saw whatever it was that recovered all those bodies. They want to know if any of them were alive when they were pulled from the wreckage. Some of them think that whatever did that may have caused the wreck, and then been searching for something afterward."
That evil intentions were already being ascribed to his actions only added to Alex's horror and fueled his rage even higher. He struggled to sit up - no serious injuries as far as he could tell, but every inch of his body protested. "So the authorities are looking for a mysterious saboteur with the powers of a mythological god?! Well, whatever they ask, I can't help! I was unconscious at the time."
"Take it easy, Alex! You're in the hospital for a reason, you know!" Johan tried to calm his friend. "Gina has already told them the same thing, that she was knocked out during the crash and didn't awaken until she was in the hospital. And your doctors have told investigators they can't talk to you until tomorrow. You should rest and see if you can remember anything else." He got up to leave. "I'll be back tomorrow."
"I really appreciate you being here when I woke up," Alex gave his friend heartfelt thanks. "I'll see you tomorrow." As Johan left, he was thinking to himself, 'I swear I am going to find that saboteur and make him pay!"
Mind Over Matter
A few minutes later, Alex was frantic and frustrated. He remembered being able to use his power, to fly, to lift massive weights, to tear through steel like it was newsprint, to sense within a mangled body life - or not, the power to gently straighten those bodies and place them reverently alongside the others so recently dead. He struggled painfully to his feet and fiercely commanded himself to fly - but nothing happened. He demanded that glowing white hands appear and simply turn back the sheet on the bed, just to show the hands were his to control - nothing. He tried to sense life around him - but he could feel nothing. He was simply normal Alex Gael, and his former godlike abilities seemed beyond his reach. He was thinking the same thoughts he had thought back then, but it DIDN'T WORK!
'Johan says that somebody or something did all the things I remember doing! It MUST have been me, so I must be doing something wrong - but WHAT?'
He sat in the chair, and forced himself to review everything he remembered from the dream interview with the image of the long dead Star Rover. The last thing he'd done had been to mentally touch the Source. Could his power be temporary, and need to be renewed by touching the Source again?
'That MUST be it!' he hoped desperately. 'Whenever I want to use the power, I need to touch the Source!' Another part of his mind replied doubtfully, 'Or perhaps I was granted but a single use of the power, and now it's gone forever!'
This stunningly strong self-doubt recalled the words of the Rover. "... power that you shall direct by your will, as long as your faith in yourself is unwavering."
'I MUST believe in my self and my cause in order to control my will and through it the power of Mind Over Matter.' he realized. 'I can't be frantic, I must be calm.' He focused on remembering the words the Rover had used, and the meaning the being had intended to convey with those words. After a few minutes, he began to speak, each world distinctly enunciated, his voice calm and yet forceful:
"My intent is just, my heart is pure,
My will is strong, my mind is sure,
I summon the power of mental might,
To aid me in the cause of right!"
My will is strong, my mind is sure,
I summon the power of mental might,
To aid me in the cause of right!"
Behind his closed eyes, he was rewarded when the image of the gloriously glowing crystal Sphere of the Source appeared, and his mental 'hand' reached out to lay firmly on top of that glowing ball, and he could once again access his own mind's power over matter!
His aches and pains vanished, he stood easily, and then Alex simply rose an inch from the floor. He drifted toward the window, which was pulled wide open by two glowing white hands, floated through the open window and vanished high into the sky.
It's a Ghost!
It would be dark shortly, but hovering in the air high over Asheville, it wasn't difficult for Alex to trace the line of the train tracks through the center of the city.
'We hadn't reached the city yet, so I need follow them west toward Atlanta to find the wreck. But which way is west?'
As a former Boy Scout Alex knew a half dozen (or more) ways to determine which way was West; his Mind Over Matter power picked the easiest almost without any thought on his part. He was barely done asking himself the question when the air in front of him glowed and the glow coalesced into a compass - visually identical in all ways to the compass he had owned as a Boy Scout, only much larger - the dial was the size of his two hands cupped together. And a second later, he was speeding west high above the tracks.
He'd never flown before he'd gained his power; he had no experience to judge how fast he was going, but within 5 minutes, he could see the wreckage of the locomotive, lying on its side a dozen yards from the torn up track, and a string of wrecked cars extending almost a quarter mile back along the curved line. He didn't expect to see anyone - Johan had told him that Baltimore Atlanta had closed that right-of-way as soon as they knew of the wreck and they were routing trains around it via ways owned by other companies, and the Baltimore Atlanta construction machinery wasn't expected to arrive until later tomorrow.
So he was surprised to see several men moving through the wreckage. Two were just climbing into a boxcar that was standing, upright, a dozen yards from the track. A car he recognized immediately - because he had carefully put it there when he'd searched the wreckage yesterday!
***
"Cheeze, Johnsy, dis sure is spooky! How'd dis car get here witouts smashing all da trees? And how'd it end up onna wheels when all da others is upside down?" The speaker leaped up and grabbed the open door and started to pull himself up into the car, which, though battered, was upright, in a small clearing maybe 50 feet from the tracks. "What, it flew here?"
"Ah, just suddup and do yer job, Screwball," Johnsy replied. "Ain't our job to ast questions; Mr. Brown wants us ta find dis guy..." he waved a photograph that Screwball already knew by heart "...and bring back da statue."
Screwball was high enough to stick his head into the open door of the boxcar; he jerked back screaming. "Bodies! It's filled wit dead BODIES!" He fell to the ground, stood up, and ran into the surrounding woods, still screaming about dead bodies and ghosts.
Johnsy looked inside and even with the warning of his partner's screams, only barely kept himself under control; the entire floor of the boxcar was covered with corpses, the people who had died in the train wreck. Someone had taken great care to collect them all, and place them inside this car, laying each one carefully next to the others. He was about to get sick when a white ghost swooped down from the sky and into the car - and he screamed, jumped to the ground, and ran as well. He didn't get far before he tripped and crashed into the trunk of a tree, then fell heavily to the ground, gibbering in terror and pain. A foot nudged him to roll over, and he was looking up at the ghost, the guy in the picture Mr. Brown had told him to look for. His terrified screaming got even louder until a glowing white hand clamped over his mouth.
"How do I find this Mr. Brown?" the ghost asked quietly, in a weirdly distorted, sepulchral voice. It took him 15 minutes to get directions to Mr. Brown's isolated estate in the next valley to the north.
And then he was back in the air, headed north, leaving Johnsy still gibbering in terror, curled up tightly in a ball on the ground.
The Vow
By now it was dark; Alex could see a crowd of men in one of the lighted rooms of the house on the estate. 'I wonder...' he mused, then made up his mind. 'If Mandrake can do it with magic, Mind over Matter ought to work for me. Here goes!'
"It's a ghost!" one of the men in the room screamed as a white mist started to emerge from the wall, followed by a white human figure. "It's that guy in the picture!"
"Fools! It's no ghost! Shoot him! Shoot him!" shouted a heavy-set man, wearing an impeccable suit and carrying a cane. Several of the other men screamed and ran for the doors, while several others fired pistols, from much too close to miss, and the bullets only bounced off. Fortunately the ricochets missed everyone. The man giving the orders kept shouting. "Jump him! It's a trick!" The two men closest to the glowing figure advanced on him; he held up his hand, and all the men in the room were stopped and held motionless in their tracks.
Except one, who'd sneaked behind the glowing figure, and who dove at his knees in a tackle. Both men went down in a heap, and with his concentration broken, the others were able to move again. Two more raced for the door.
"Get him!" the leader commanded, as he turned and ran toward the door as well. The two remaining standing men, seeing their leader turn and run, decided he had the right idea. On the floor, Alex pulled free and launched a powerful right, which hit the bad guy on the chin and knocked him rolling away. And then the ghostly figure was floating through the air towards the door, which was now blocked by 4 men struggling to get out at the same time. A white hand picked up the leader by his left ankle, another punched a hole in the wall, and the 'ghost of the guy in the picture' and the bad guy floated through the hole, then rose high in the air, with the bad buy's leader dangling from his ankle at the end of a glowing white tentacle.
"So, you thought you could wreck my train and kill dozens of people and get away with it?" the 'ghost' asked in a powerfully amplified voice. "Why shouldn't I just let you go and you can join us in death!"
"NO! It wasn't me! I'll give you anything, don't let me fall! What do you want from me?"
"The only thing you have that a ghost could possibly want - I want to know why you wrecked the train and killed all those people."
"If I tell you, you won't kill me?" Brown begged.
The ghost laughed. It was like listening to the devil himself laugh. "I won't promise that. But I CAN promise I'll kill you if you don't tell me."
Brown couldn't help himself. "I want a better deal!" he screeched.
Suddenly the hand around Brown's ankle vanished, and he fell, screaming as he fell. He'd fallen maybe 10 yards when he was jerked painfully to a halt. The harsh voice of the ghost spoke directly into his ear.
"Listen good, spithead. This is the only deal you're gonna get, and this is the last offer. Tell me why you wrecked the train, and I might NOT kill you, or don't tell me, and I'll drop you. Hey, we're only maybe a thousand feet up - if there's something really really soft down there that I can't see from here, and you are really really lucky, you might even live. Probably be crippled for life, best case, though. So, last chance to talk..."
Brown talked. It took a while to get the whole story. He was hoarse from screaming, almost incoherent from panic, and physically sick from being dangled upside down. But eventually Alex got the basics - an unknown had offered Brown 2 million dollars to kill Alex and get him the statue. The details were a little muddled - it sounded as if Brown's radio had suddenly started talking to him, made him the offer, and then told him to open the package on his porch, which had contained a $100,000 'down payment', plus a photograph, in color, of Alex, and information about his train schedule. Brown had no idea who his mysterious patron was, or why he wanted Alex dead, or why he wanted the statue.
"OK, buddy, here's the rest of the deal. You get to keep your worthless life for a while. I'm going to drop you off at the Asheville police station, and you are going to march right in there and confess, and if you don't, you won't live until midnight."
Late that night, Alex lay in his hospital bed, unable to sleep. The evil he'd enountered in the past few hours was stunning; he was incredibly sad, and enraged - and suddenly, all his emotions crystalized, into determined resolution. 'I have been given the power to fight evil in the world - and I SHALL! I will create a costume to protect my identity and become a Guardian of good in the World!'
Yes, Boys and Girls, Alex Gael will join the ranks of costumed superheroes! Don't miss our next AMAZING ISSUE, on sale around the first of next month!