Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow

After arriving in New York City aboard the Hindenburg III, Dr. Jorge Vargas has mysteriously vanished.

With the city helpless and under attack by giant mechanical monsters, a distress call is sent out to Sky Captain and the Flying Legion.

Meanwhile, Polly Perkins has fallen into the path of the hulking machines and is about to be crushed underfoot…

6 To the Rescue. A Crater in Manhattan. A Worldwide Disaster

Only seconds from being crushed underfoot, Polly knocked her camera out of the way. It skittered aside, rattling on the pavement. Maybe at least the photos would be saved. Then, in dismay, she realized she hadn't managed to take any good shots yet. The robot's foot descended, and Polly knew exactly what a bug must feel like.

Suddenly, swooping down Fifth Avenue as if the tall skyscrapers created no obstacle at all, the P-40 Warhawk threw itself into the metal monster's path.

A volley of machine gun fire from all six of Sky Captain's wing cannons knocked the towering machine backward. Already off-balance with one leg upraised, the robot tottered, allowing Polly sufficient time to escape. She rolled away, breathless, pausing just long enough to snag her camera. As she ran, Polly raised her hand to throw Sky Captain a mock salute while he roared past. Then she scrambled for cover behind a pair of hastily erected sawhorses blocking a narrow alley.

The cheers of frightened policemen rang out from farther down Fifth Avenue, where another last-stand barricade had been erected. Sky Captain gained altitude above the tall buildings, banked his wings, and circled around for another pass against the robot giants.

At an intersection ahead, four of the clanking warriors had converged from different streets. Anchoring their feet, they turned glowing eye visors toward the ground, then unleashed dazzling white rays. The energy beams, all focused on the same section of pavement, shot out from the robot heads, gathering intensity as they overlapped.

Under the onslaught, the street began to bubble and crack. A fifth walking robot marched in beside the others and shot his own ray. Rubble exploded from the impact. The robots continued their eerie barrage, gouging a giant hole as if they were pirates with a treasure map and an "X" had been marked in the middle of Manhattan.

Coming in from behind the giant walking machines, Sky Captain unleashed another flurry of bullets. The hot lead hammered the helmeted heads like rivets flying from a manic construction worker, but the bullets did not slow the robots from continuing relentlessly forward.

The Warhawk sped between the ranks of machines, all of them sporting the winged-skull insignia. Sky Captain frowned, wondering what evil genius had created this army. Then he yanked the control stick, throwing his plane into a barrel roll to avoid an enormous slow-moving arm that swung across his path like the arm of a drunken giant who was swatting at a bee. The sharp banking maneuver knocked Sky Captain against the glass canopy of the cockpit, smacking his head hard. Sky Captain winced and pulled up, his engine howling. The robot's three hooked claws just missed his wing as he rocketed heavenward.

Undaunted, Sky Captain maneuvered his airplane through a narrow alleyway, easily threading the obstacle course as he cruised low. He banked left, then left again as he circled the block. Anxious for another crack at the tin-can monstrosities, he found an alley that would take him back where he needed to go. He dove down the narrow street — and then saw the black cables from a telephone pole looping from one building to another at the far end, crossing the alley opening like a spiderweb.

With no time to move, no room to dodge, Sky Captain took aim and fired a burst from his wing-mounted cannons. The spray of bullets riddled one of the telephone poles, splintering the thick wood like a wheat stalk severed by a scythe. As his Warhawk raced forward, the telephone poles tottered and fell forward, directly into the path of the lumbering robot giants.

The lead robot's legs became tangled in the sparking wire, its gears straining. As it stumbled, the other foot stepped on the rolling telephone pole, and the enormous mechanical monster lost its balance. With painful grace, the robot giant slowly began to topple.

The P-40 burst safely out of the alley and arced high. Sky Captain watched the huge walking monster fall.

On an earlier mission against the Rocket Robbers — villains who launched explosive missiles against armored bank buildings and then swooped into the rubble with jetpacks to steal gold bullion — one of the Flying Legion's heavy planes had been damaged. The brave pilot had barely been able to bring the large aircraft to the ground. Sky Captain had circled overhead, radioing advice and instructions, knowing the impact would be terrible. Leaking fuel, the heavy plane had crashed in Central Park like a blacksmith slamming a sledge into an anvil, the worst accident Sky Captain had ever witnessed. But when the robot monster smashed headlong into Fifth Avenue, the impact was far more spectacular.

The weight of the huge giant created a fissure that split open the pavement. The wide crack zigzagged up the street, directly between Polly's legs. She stood with her feet planted, her camera poised. As the action reached its crescendo, she clicked photo after photo, determined not to miss the shot this time. Then she stared directly in front of her, where the robot had collapsed only a few feet from her. Polly took a final picture, for good measure. One of them was sure to win a Pulitzer.

Suddenly, in the streets around her, everything stopped. The robot army paused. Sky Captain's plane raced away for another run, but the police ceased firing their machine guns. A breathless moment passed.

Strangest of all, the rows of giant robots stood frozen in the middle of the street. Beeping, chirping signals emanated from the antennae mounted to their blunt heads. The robots froze, as if listening to new instructions; then inexplicably, the mammoth walking army raised their metal arms in unison. With great blasts of rockets from their feet and the exhaust nozzles in their iron torsos, the huge machines lifted from the ground and flew skyward. From nearby streets, all the marching robots rose up like a flock of vultures taking wing.

As Sky Captain sped forward, prepared to launch another attack, the ascending robots cut upward into his path, and he had to dodge before his plane was smashed. The iron giants continued to rise in waves, until they were finally swallowed in the clouds as quickly as they had appeared…

Cowed New Yorkers began to peep out of their air-raid shelters, venturing into the streets to stare in awe at the damage the mechanical monsters had caused. Crowds stood out in front of buildings, watching as Polly approached the fallen robot sprawled along Fifth Avenue. Curious onlookers pressed closer to the iron giant like Lilliputians encircling a sleeping Gulliver.

Polly snapped another photograph. Maybe Editor Paley would give her a raise.

Finally, the droning air-raid sirens fell silent. The squadrons of walking robots had departed. Emergency vehicles rolled into place: fire trucks, ambulances, police cars. But the focus of the outcry seemed even greater two blocks away, where the army of robots had been headed. Anxious to discover what could be more intriguing than the fallen mechanical monster, Polly hurried after the curiosity seekers.

Now she saw — but didn't understand — what the robot force had been trying to do. The huge machines had torn open a gigantic crater in the ground, a gaping hole in Midtown Manhattan. Stripping away the street, the robot monsters had exposed New York City's massive underground electrical generators, the turbines and pumps that powered the entire metropolis. It reminded Polly of surgeons making an incision preparatory to the removal of a vital organ from a patient.

"What were they doing?" she muttered aloud, but none of the pedestrians around her answered. Maybe the machines weren't finished yet.

Lifting her camera, Polly snapped a photo of the crater just as Sky Captain reappeared. His P-40 soared overhead as he made sure everyone down on the ground was all right. Polly turned, a thoughtful expression on her face as she watched the aerial hero race away from her — as he so often did.

Finally, she got the headline story for the extra edition of the Chronicle. Ninety-point type, huge bold sans serif letters screamed out what everybody in New York already knew:

And there was one of her photographs, too. She had taken so many good pictures, Editor Paley devoted one entire interior page to a special photo insert. Though he had chastised her for risking her life so foolishly, as soon as she stepped out of his office and closed the door, she'd heard him yelling at the Chronicle's other reporters because they hadn't demonstrated the guts that she had. "You all missed the story of the century!"

This was one time Polly went down to the plant and stood watching the printing presses. She lifted the first copy as it came down the line, scanned her byline to make sure nothing was misspelled, and strutted proudly back to her office.

Radios tuned to different stations broadcast continuing updates of the recent disaster. The news reports overlapped, but the severity of the situation was already clear. Manhattan had not been the only target, but merely one step in an overall plan.

Assessing the scope of the robots' assaults, Polly brought a detailed world atlas to her desk, moving her glowing globe desk lamp so that she could spread open the large book. "Sky Captain" Joe Sullivan had tackled the enormous robots single-handedly over Manhattan, but the rest of the mercenary Flying Legion had responded to other emergencies across the world.

Hulking mechanical men stalked through the streets of Paris, damaging the Eiffel Tower, stripping the skeletal structure of its steel girders. In London, ranks of the destructive robots plodded past Big Ben, smashing two bridges across the Thames. Even in Moscow, faced by new Soviet Army tanks constructed on orders from People's Chairman Molotov, the mechanical men smashed the Communist defenders and began to tear apart new industries, raiding them for raw materials and heavy equipment.

Darting attack planes from the Flying Legion had met with minimal success. The robots, seeming to come from nowhere, performed their tasks and swatted aside all attempts to stop them. Then the iron giants departed, leaving only scars and mysteries.

The mad genius who had invented these things — perhaps the mysterious Totenkopf Dr. Jennings had warned her about — must have a detailed scheme in several phases. She hadn't been able to find Jennings after he'd fled Radio City Music Hall, and now Polly understood that he had good reason to fear for his life.

And what had happened to Dr. Jorge Vargas, who had disappeared after the Hindenburg III had docked? It was all part of an overall scenario — she knew it. Resting her chin on one hand, she listened to the radio.

7 A Hidden Base. Inspired by Scientifiction. A Robotic Specimen

Even if they hadn't exactly been defeated, the menace of the giant walking machines was gone from New York. Sky Captain left the city far behind, rocketing across water, across land, through splashes of cottony clouds. Finally, he sped toward a steep, mountainous rise in the distance.

By now, the rest of the Flying Legion should be returning from their missions around the world. In all his years of adventuring, Joe Sullivan couldn't ever remember receiving so many widely separated distress calls coming in at once. A good day's work for the world's heroes. Whoever had built those terror machines was going to be a big problem.

With engines purring along, the P-40 began to climb, following the contour of the mountains until a camouflaged valley came into view. Nestled inside a pocket of densely wooded hills, reachable only through a confusing maze of winding dirt roads — or of course from the air — lay a massive operation: the secret base of the famous Flying Legion.

Awesome silvery zeppelins were anchored to mooring posts that rose high over the installation. A flat expanse of tarmac covered most of the valley floor. Runways extended in several directions toward the wooded mountains, offering options for takeoff and landing runs. Rows of war-rated aircraft were stationed on painted lines, ready for deployment in any emergency. A series of gargantuan hangars were spaced across the landscape, full of machinery, maintenance equipment, testing bays, and crew quarters.

Sky Captain felt a shiver of pride each time he came home. The location of the base wasn't common knowledge, for security reasons — but he felt that if the crazed megalomaniacs could just see what they were up against, half of them wouldn't even bother trying to take over the world. That would certainly make his job easier…

After a smooth landing, Sky Captain's Warhawk taxied down the airstrip, where he was met by his ground crew. Waving directions as they walked confidently backward, two crewmen guided his plane into one of the hangars. Inside the huge building, catwalks were strung like cobwebs from rafter to rafter. The maintenance team rushed forward to surround the Warhawk like a pit crew in a motorcar race.

Letting the engine idle loudly, Sky Captain slid open the plane's canopy. He had to yell over the noise. "She needs refueling — and freshen up the ammo on the wing cannons." He climbed out onto the wing spouting orders, as if his support people didn't know what they were doing.

"Right, Sky Captain."

"And check all the hoses for nicks. Plug up any bullet holes on the fuselage. The usual."

"Bullet holes? Did you get shot at, Cap? I thought you were up against giant robots — "

"I did the shooting, Jimmy. But with all that ammunition flying around, a few ricochets might've gotten me."

"We'll make her good as new, Cap."

"You always do." With an easy jump, he dropped to the sealed concrete floor of the hangar. He drew a deep breath, comforted by the smells of airplane fuel, hot exhaust, and engine grease.

"I want to get a look at the film from the forward cameras as soon as it's ready — those robot monsters were something else! And get me a duty log. I want all the Legion's squad leaders assembled in one hour. I'll brief them myself, and then I want to hear what they encountered out there." He wriggled out of his backpack. "Where's Dex?"

The nearest mechanic grinned. "Where else would he be, Cap?"

A colored comic panel torn from the Sunday edition of the New York Chronicle showed Buck Rogers in his futuristic outfit. While an alien villain held Wilma Deering hostage, Buck showed his stuff, intimidating the evil mastermind by pointing a ray gun at a steel wall. A text balloon read, "My sonic atomizer can slice through metal like a knife through butter."

The comic panel was taped to a drafting table with notes scribbled in the margin of the newsprint. Beside it, extensive blueprints showed detailed designs of a gadget that looked remarkably similar to Buck Rogers' sonic atomizer.

His brown eyes glittering with anticipation, Dex Dearborn — Sky Captain's right-hand man and technical genius — pointed his strange-looking pistol at the other side of the room. The ray gun had an aiming fin, colorful buttons, and a curved handle that looked like it was designed for an alien hand.

Dex wasn't sure if all the knobs and adjusting buttons were necessary, but he didn't want to second guess the revered comic artist. As soon as he proved that the sonic atomizer worked, he could probably add other functions to correspond with the ornamental controls.

With the pink tip of his tongue protruding from the corner of his mouth, he aimed the nozzle of the ray gun at a thick vertical slab of steel inside a cement bunker. The ray gun felt tingly in his hand, as if anxious to prove itself. Glancing over his shoulder, Dex called to his assistants, "All clear!"

Lab workers scurried from the thick-walled bunker to duck behind sheltered barricades. Dex pulled a pair of tinted safety goggles over his eyes, aimed the nozzle toward the center of the target plate, and squeezed the firing button.

Concentric rings of light struck the metal slab. An impressive warbling crackle thrummed out of the gun. Pulse after pulse of light shimmered against the surface of the steel plate. In less than a second, the metal began to glow white-hot, vibrating as it melted.

Releasing the firing button, Dex lowered the ray gun, impressed. "Excellent power output! And the gun mechanism isn't even hot." He set the ray gun on the table and hurried up to the metal slab as his assistants crept from behind the barricades, wiping sweat from their foreheads. Dex admired the results of the test: a huge melted hole in the center of three-inch steel.

"That Buck Rogers knows his stuff!"

Behind him, the giant doors of the research hangar rattled open to flood the interior with sunlight. Dex turned from the melted target plate, listening to the bass rumble of a powerful truck engine outside. Two of his assistants yelped in alarm and stepped away from the yawning doors as a massive semitrailer backed up.

On the trailer bed rested a giant robot carcass, five stories tall. It was battered and scratched but intact. Its once-blazing eye plate was now dim; the cables and gears were frozen; the power generator stilled. Dex couldn't believe what he was seeing. His jaw dropped. "Shazam!" He absently rested his hand on the hot metal of the target plate, then snatched it away and sucked on his fingers.

Silhouetted by the sunlight, Sky Captain strode into the hangar, his leather jacket halfway unzipped, his aviator goggles perched on his forehead. The semi driver shouted, sticking his head out the window and looking for directions as two Legion crewmen guided the flatbed backward. The prone robot was hauled slowly through the yawning doors. The iron monstrosity barely fit inside.

"Hello, Dex. See what I tripped up in Manhattan? I thought you might like to tinker a bit."

Dex put his hands on his hips jokingly. "I heard you describe it over the radio, Cap. I thought you said this thing was big?" But he couldn't maintain his nonchalance as he walked in a daze to the robot's giant welder-helmet head. He was dwarfed by the size of the mechanical behemoth. "Can I have it?"

"You figure out where it came from, and I'll get you one for Christmas. Promise." If anybody could dismantle and understand the enormous machine, Dex could. As always, Sky Captain had complete faith in him.

As a young and starry-eyed dreamer, Dex had worked in a malt shop often frequented by members of the Flying Legion. He'd done well in school, but spent most of his time reading comic strips and pulp magazines, watching movie serials, and listening to radio adventures. He loved to imagine the impossible while paying little attention to the practical. His parents had despaired of their Dexter ever making anything of himself.

But he'd loved to jabber to Sky Captain and the heroic members of the Flying Legion. The most important question of his life was: What if?

Captain Joe Sullivan had seen the genius behind the young man's enthusiasm. Dex truly believed in the possibilities and in himself — and so Sky Captain gave him a chance in the Flying Legion. He'd strutted into the malt shop one day, cocky and confident, and rested his elbows on the speckled counter. "If I give you all the resources and support you need, and you give me all your imagination and your best work, then I guess we'll be unstoppable. Right, Dex?"

Dex drew most of his inspiration from the "scientifiction" magazines he loved so much: Amazing Stories, Wonder Stories, Astounding Science Fiction, Marvel Science Stories, Famous Fantastic Mysteries, Planet Stories, and so many others he could barely keep up with them all. His favorite authors gave him all the ideas he could possibly need: Jack Williamson, Edmund Hamilton, E. E. "Doc" Smith, even Edgar Rice Burroughs and H. G. Wells.

Some of Dex's inventions had been rather spectacular failures, but more often than not an innovation of his had allowed the Flying Legion to save the world. The improvements he'd made to Sky Captain's P-40 Warhawk alone were tremendous. Overall, Dex was worth his weight in collectible pulp magazines.

"So, Dex, while the rest of the Legion's been off fighting mechanical monsters, what have you been doing here in your cozy research hangar? Any breakthroughs for me?" Sky Captain looked meaningfully at the new ray gun and the melted hole in the steel target plate.

Snapping out of his reverie, Dex gestured for him to follow. "That was a good test. The sonic atomizer shows a lot of potential. But there's something else you need to see."

He led the pilot around the workbench toward an oscilloscope, where he flipped a switch. He tapped the curved glass surface of the cathode ray tube, tracing a jagged radio signal that appeared on the screen. "I recorded this signal just before the first machines appeared in New York, Moscow, Paris, Madrid, London. I didn't think anything of it until I played it back, while you were chasing giant robots."

Dex twisted a dial on his console. A series of ominous, repeating tones came through a small speaker. It had a rhythm, almost a melody of electronic information. Sky Captain leaned closer to the oscilloscope as if it would help him concentrate on the tones. "Morse code?"

"That's what I thought at first, but the syntax is more complex. There's a subcarrier hidden in the lower frequency. I think it's being used to control them — all the machines, from a central place."

"If it shows up again can you track it?"

"I can try."

"Good boy, Dex." Pulling off his gloves, Sky Captain gestured to the enormous robot lying prone on the semitrailer. "In the meantime, see what you can do with that big lug. Find out what makes it tick." Sky Captain gave Dex a mischievous grin. "You don't mind, do you?"

Dex tried to suppress his glee. "I don't mind."

Sky Captain tossed his gloves onto the workbench as he moved toward an arching doorway. "I want to know where these robots came from, Dex. Who sent them here. I'll be in my office."

He didn't slow his stride as he walked into the Flying Legion's center of operations. Inside, the showpiece was a giant detailed map of the globe spanning four stories and taking up three walls of the research hangar. Uniformed technicians walked overhead on catwalks, using pointers and wooden sticks to mark regions on the map. A booming loudspeaker relayed new coordinates as other members of the Flying Legion reported in.

Sky Captain spared only a glance for the bustling activity, though. He nodded to the crewmen, but he was intent on a doorway on the opposite side of the map room. He headed for his private sanctuary, the place where he could think best. The name in stenciled letters on the door read, CAPTAIN H. JOSEPH SULLIVAN.

Barely containing his sigh of relief, Sky Captain entered the dark office and closed the door behind him. After a brief pause, he turned his back and leaned wearily against the door. His posture changed, and he reached for his aching ribs, feeling with fingertips to discover just how badly he had been hurt. The battle against the robot monsters had taken its toll, but Sky Captain knew never to let the world, or even the rest of his crew, see him like this.

He walked gingerly through the tiny office to a small wooden desk and sat down, exhausted. Still in shadow, he opened a side drawer, pulled out a shot glass, and set it on the desk after sweeping file folders and paperwork aside. Sky Captain reached back into the deep drawer and withdrew a bottle: milk of magnesia. He poured a full shot of the chalky white liquid, raised it in silent salute, and grimaced in preparation before touching the small glass to his lips.

A woman's voice startled him. "Tummy ache?"

Sky Captain spun around, drawing his pistol with a smooth speed that would have made a cobra jealous. He aimed at the dark corner of the room from which Polly Perkins stepped into the light, smiling at him.

Though surprised, he recognized her instantly. At first he reacted with pleasure, but then his expression darkened. Old wounds started to surface.

"How you been, Joe? Miss me?"

8 A Blueprint from Totenkopf. A Warehouse of Sinister Prototypes. More Clues About Unit Eleven

"Who let you in here?" Sky Captain was unable to keep the bitterness out of his voice. "Get out. Fat lot of good it does to have a hidden base if everybody, including annoying newspaper reporters, can just waltz in here."

"Nice to see you, too, Joe." She demurely sat on the corner of his desk. "Dex said you might be in a mood."

"Dex…" Gritting his teeth, he grabbed the black telephone receiver from his desk and dialed so roughly that he almost tore off the front of the phone. "Dex! Get in here!"

Polly shook her head, nonplused. Her wavy golden hair was perfect. "It's been three years, Joe. Don't tell me you're still mad at me. I can't even remember what we were fighting about."

Moving as if he was imagining a stranglehold, Sky Captain set the phone back in its cradle. He turned to Polly with a slow burn, speaking so distinctly he bit each word as it came out of his mouth. "You. Sabotaged. My. Plane!"

"Right…" Polly said, her tone clearly saying the opposite. "Still suffering from delusions, I see."

"I spent six months in a Manchurian slave camp because of you." He looked away as the harsh memories flooded back. "They were going to cut off my fingers — "

Polly rolled her eyes; she'd heard this a million times before. "Joe, for the last time, I didn't sabotage your damn airplane."

"And it was all so you could get a picture of Tojo Hideki in his bathrobe! Of all the ridiculous reasons — "

She swung one leg over the other, relaxed. "You know, I'm starting to think you made up this whole 'sabotage' nonsense to cover up the fact you were cheating on me with your little mystery girl the whole time we were in Nanjing."

"Never happened. All in your imagination."

"Who was she, Joe? What was her name?"

Still angry, he said, "All right, her name started with an F. Figment. Figment O'Your Imagination. Now who's having delusions?"

Polly moved seductively toward Sky Captain at his desk, but he pulled back, raising his pistol again. "That's far enough."

"What are you going to do? Shoot me?" Polly batted her eyelashes.

The door swung open, and Dex hurried into the office. When he saw Sky Captain holding the gun on Polly, he grinned. "Great! You two made up. I knew you would."

Sky Captain stood from his desk chair, leaving the shot glass of milk of magnesia untouched. "This was a pleasure, Polly. Let's do it again in ten years. Dex, escort Miss Perkins off the base. If she resists, shoot her. And don't forget to clean up your mess afterward."

Dex looked at her shyly. "Hi, Polly."

"Hi, Dex."

The younger man's face flushed with embarrassment. "I… uh, I gotta…"

"I know, hon. It's okay." Lifting her chin and showing no loss of dignity at all, Polly let Dex escort her out of the office. Sky Captain followed them to the exit and prepared to give the door a satisfying slam.

Polly sniffed, then spoke loudly to Dex. "Just as well. I guess you wouldn't have been interested in this anyway." She dangled the strange schematic that Dr. Jennings had left in the theater.

Even with just a glance, Sky Captain could see that the blueprint showed the detailed workings of the giant robots that had menaced Manhattan. He released his death grip on the door handle, seething. "Where did you get that?"

Polly turned with a smug smile on her face. He reached for the blueprint, but she withdrew it. "Oh, there's more where this came from. A lot more."

"I want that blueprint, Polly. Uh… Dex needs it."

The younger man brightened. "Yeah, it would be useful."

"You want the blueprint, and I want this story, Joe. And you're going to help me get it."

Sky Captain took a deep breath. He would rather have been fighting any number of evil geniuses bent on exterminating humanity. Dex stood next to Polly, still grinning. "Hey, maybe we should show her, Cap. Maybe she can help."

A quick look from Sky Captain shut him up, but Polly saw it.

"Show me what?" She calmly folded the blueprint and stuffed it back in her bag, refusing to move farther from the office. "Show me what?"

Out in the bright sunlight, Dex, Polly, and Sky Captain stood at the entrance of one of the Legion's warehouses. After fumbling in his pocket, Dex produced a ring heavy with jingling keys. Though he had dozens to choose from, the younger man selected the proper key without pause, opened a padlock securing the warehouse, and slid open the tall corrugated door.

"Here we are, Polly. Wait till you see this." Dex flipped a switch, and the room lights shone down upon row after row of incredible scientific artifacts. "I always told Cap we should open a museum or something."

The warehouse held a bizarre collection of mechanical oddities: giant burrowing machines with tractor treads and jagged conical prows, clunkier models similar to the robot giants that had just attacked New York City, coffin-sized glass cylinders holding electrical creatures that swirled about like lighting in a bottle, flying contraptions that defied description.

Polly's jaw dropped. "My God, what is this? Where did they all come from? Dex, did you — "

The younger man blushed. "Oh, no, Polly. Even I don't have enough imagination to create designs like these."

She'd been following the exploits of Sky Captain and the Flying Legion for years now, and she knew most of the enemies they had fought. She remembered their battles with the Fossil: a man who, after injecting himself with Tyrannosaurus blood extracted from amber, was converted into an atavistic creature determined to bring back dinosaur rule. The Flying Legion had been severely damaged by the Fossil's pteranodon-style flying war vehicles.

And then there was the Lensmaster, who had used meteorite glass in a viewing scope that let him see into another, sidewise universe. The Lensmaster could step around the fabric of space, past the tightest security, to assassinate world leaders. When Sky Captain had finally cornered him, the Lensmaster fled through his scope and stumbled into an impossible dimension where he remained lost to this day…

None of the contraptions, though, looked familiar to Polly.

"They started appearing three years ago — an invasion of innovative robotic designs, all of them obviously created by the same design team," Dex said. "We've managed to keep it secret until now."

Sky Captain didn't have much to say as Polly followed the two men down the center aisle of the warehouse. Every step revealed something new and incredible.

Dex continued. "These machines showed up without warning, took what they wanted, and disappeared without a trace. Just like the recent attacks." He sighed. "Three years, and we still can't explain what they want or who sent them here."

He led Polly past a row of damaged machines, then stopped at a fearsome-looking mechanical crab. "We found this one outside Buenos Aires on May fourth." He gestured to a machine that looked like a manta-ray hovercraft with dangling steel cables, each of which ended in hooklike pincers. "This one crashed fifteen miles from Vienna on June thirteenth."

"June thirteenth?" Polly's brow furrowed as thoughts began to click together.

"And this one came down in — "

"Hong Kong, right?" Polly was excited.

Sky Captain stopped short. "That's right. What aren't you telling us, Polly?"

"And it was July eighth," she said, "in the evening."

"How do you know this?" Sky Captain demanded.

Polly did her best to look down her nose at him. "If you'd read the Chronicle, Joe, you might have followed the stories I've written. Those are the same cities where the scientists disappeared, and on the same dates. It can't be a coincidence."

Dex shook his head. "Shazam! Not a chance, Cap. Can't be a coincidence."

Sky Captain leaned closer, tired of games. "What else do you know?"

In answer, Polly approached one of the stored machines. "If I'm right…" With her hand, she brushed off a layer of grime and dust to reveal an ominous, familiar crest in the form of an iron skull with metal wings. Her tone grew serious. "Dr. Vargas was the sixth scientist to vanish mysteriously. Then a man — another scientist — sent me a message and arranged to meet me at Radio City Music Hall today. He was terrified, said someone was coming for him. I asked him who he was so afraid of, and he repeated one name. Totenkopf! He nearly went white when he said it."

"Totenkopf? Who is he?" Dex peered closely at the malicious-looking skull.

Polly withdrew a German newspaper article from her bag. "Apparently, he's the invisible man. I went through every record in the library twice, looking for anything. Called every contact I have from Paris to Bangkok. This was all I could dig up."

She spread the article on a flat surface of the deactivated machine. A grainy old photograph showed a group of seven men in lab coats surrounded by complex but unrecognizable apparatus. "Herr Totenkopf ran some kind of secret sciences laboratory stationed in Berlin before the start of the Great War. Something called Einheit Elf or Unit Eleven."

Despite his annoyance with her, Sky Captain looked closely at the article, scanning the young faces of the Unit Eleven scientists. None of them looked familiar to him. He didn't want to admit that he couldn't read the German text of the newspaper clipping.

"Nobody really knows what Unit Eleven was doing," Polly explained, "but there were rumors that they were conducting inhuman surgical trials on prisoners, and the facility was ordered shut down. Totenkopf disappeared with his research. There's still an international warrant for his capture. It's been more than thirty years since anyone's spoken his name, until today."

"After all that time, what makes you think it's him?" Sky Captain asked.

She pointed to a small inset photograph in the newspaper. "Note the insignia he chose for the unit."

He could barely make out an iron skull with metal wings. "The scientist who came to see you… where is he now?"

Polly looked at Sky Captain, a coy smile on her face. She dangled her information in front of him like a carrot on a stick. "So we're in this together… right, Joe?"

He stared her down, first scowling, then frowning in resignation as he knew she'd beaten him. "Polly, none of this gets published until I say so. You don't write a sentence or take a picture without asking me first. Understood?"

She nodded with solemn agreement. "Understood."

When he wasn't looking, Polly shifted the small camera under her arm. She stealthily snapped a picture of one of the giant machines in the museum warehouse.

9 An Important Address. An Intruder in the Laboratory. A Dire Warning

That afternoon, Polly's black Packard sped down a rain-soaked New York street, but it wasn't clear that she knew where she was going. Sky Captain sat sullenly next to her, staring straight ahead as she drove. He would have felt safer in the cockpit of his Warhawk, where at least he could have his hands on the controls.

When he sensed Polly starting to smile at him, he grew annoyed. He refused to look anywhere but through the wet windshield at the street. Finally, exasperated with the waiting, he said, "What?"

"I missed you, Joe." When he turned to look at her in surprise, she said, "Thanks for saving my life during the robot attack, by the way. If it wasn't for you, I would have ended up as a smear on the bottom of a big mechanical boot."

"Oh? Were you down there?" Sky Captain turned to the side and concentrated on counting brownstone doorways, lampposts, traffic lights — anything to maintain his feigned uninterest. "I didn't notice."

Polly continued to smile, not buying it. "I see you missed me, too. How nice."

"Mind the road." He leaned closer to the rain-streaked windshield, trying to see where they were going.

She slowed to a stop in front of a dark tenement building. "This is it, where Jennings is hiding — if my guess is right."

Leaving the car parked at the curb, Polly and Sky Captain hurried down the sidewalk. The leather bomber jacket kept him dry, but the cold sleet quickly matted his short brown hair. Polly wore a tan trench coat and a black fedora pulled low. He remained close at her side, not wanting to appear to be following her lead, as they turned the corner into a darkened alley. They descended a set of leaf-strewn stairs, past a junk pile of debris at one corner of the landing, to the door of a basement shop. A small placard read: ALLIED CHEMICAL.

After comparing the address to a scrap of paper in her hand, Polly knocked briskly at the door, but no answer came. "Hello? Dr. Jennings, it's Polly Perkins." She waited again, then knocked harder on the door. "Dr. Jennings?"

She flashed Sky Captain a worried look, and he reached for the doorknob, rattling it. "It's locked." Looking around for another way in, he spied an open window above them on the second floor. "See that window — there…?"

He began to concoct an elaborate plan to gain entry. In the junk pile on the landing, he found a length of old rope coiled around two sagging boxes and a broken chair. He untangled the muddy strand so he could tie a loop in one end. He pulled hard to test the strength of the rope, hoping the fibers weren't too rotted. "We might be able to get in through that window if I can attach a line."

He heard a crash for his answer, and he looked to see Polly holding a rock in her hand. She smashed the door's window glass a second time, knocking the sharp splinters from the frame.

She dropped the rock, reached inside, and unlocked the door. "Never mind, Joe. It's open."

Sky Captain looked at Polly, his throat so full of conflicting words that he couldn't say any of them. Finally, he just brushed past her and pushed the door wide enough for them both to enter Dr. Jennings' lab. "I've seen my share of mad scientists and their laboratories. Usually they're better housekeepers than this."

The small lab had been thoroughly ransacked. File cabinets were yanked open, drawers emptied. Papers lay strewn all over the floor and on the overturned furniture. Broken test tubes and glass beakers littered the ground in puddles of colored, foul-smelling liquids. An off-kilter lamp lay sprawled against a wall; a writing desk had been smashed.

"We're too late," Polly said.

The two moved deeper inside, crunching through the debris. In the yellowish light of the dim lamp, Polly spotted a heavy metal cabinet in a far corner. Because iron brackets anchored the cabinet to the wall and floor, the vandals had been unable to tip it over. The latch to the cabinet had been broken.

Without telling Sky Captain what she intended to do, Polly strode directly to the cabinet and pulled open one of the loose doors. She blinked in disbelief, then raised her camera.

The cabinet held shelf upon shelf of glass jars. Tiny skeletons floated in embalming fluid, showing alien body shapes she had never seen before. "Looks like the remnants of aborted experiments."

Then she saw something move, barely more than a shadow at the bottom of the cabinet. On the lowest shelf, Polly found another glass container — that one holding a live specimen. She couldn't believe her eyes: a living, breathing elephant no larger than a bar of soap drank from a miniaturized trough. It lifted its trunk and let out a tinny bellow, like a child tooting a plastic whistle.

Beside her, Sky Captain knelt to stare at the tiny creature. He turned to her as if she was somehow to blame. "All right, Polly — no more games. Tell me what the hell is going on."

She shrugged. "I was hoping you could tell me. Dr. Jennings wasn't very talkative during our brief interview."

As the miniature elephant paced inside its doll-sized cage, Polly's eyes moved upward, hungry for explanations. She screamed and immediately regretted having done it in front of Sky Captain.

A man emerged from a hiding place among the ransacked furniture, staggering forward. He was much more haggard-looking than she had seen him in Radio City Music Hall. "It's Jennings!"

The scientist had a dazed look on his face as he stumbled toward them, his hands outstretched in a wordless plea. Sky Captain reacted quickly as Jennings collapsed into his arms. "Got you!"

He eased the scientist down to the cluttered floor, turning the other man's body to reveal a knife buried deep between his shoulder blades. Thick, fresh blood soaked the woolen fabric of his brown suit. His gold-rimmed glasses were askew on his pasty face.

Dr. Jennings looked up, struggling to speak. With one hand, he clutched the zipper of the pilot's leather jacket. His voice was weak, barely audible. "You must stop him…"

Sky Captain and Polly froze as they heard a stealthy noise in an upstairs room. Letting Polly support the dying scientist's head and shoulders, Sky Captain got back to his feet but remained in a wary crouch. "Stay here. Maybe we're not too late after all."

Someone was moving quickly in the other room. He heard the sound of a window opening, the scrape of a wooden frame moving in the sash. He ran up the staircase and through the door into a smaller office. He arrived just in time to see the blur of a black-garbed figure climbing out the open window.

"Stop!" Sky Captain lunged to grab the shadowy figure by the arm. With a vicious tug on the fabric sleeve, he spun the stranger around and found himself face-to-face with a stunning woman. Her face was perfect, her lips a dark ruby red. Her eyes were covered by large, round glasses with opaque lenses. It didn't seem possible that she could see through them.

She wasn't what Sky Captain had expected at all. He loosed his grip, surprised. "Listen, I don't want to hurt you — "

The dark woman moved with unbelievable speed, striking him with a backhand that had the force of a catapult. The blow knocked him against the wall, cracking plaster. Reeling, he slid to the floor, his legs turning into noodles. Sky Captain grabbed the back of his head and silently mouthed, "Owww."

Before he could scramble to his feet, the strange and murderous woman leaped to the window again. Ignoring the hammers inside his skull, Sky Captain dove after her, managing to catch her wrist just as she jumped. His hand accidentally hit the window latch, which caused the window to drop with a thud. The pane of glass shattered, and he was forced to let go, ducking to avoid the flying shards. "Damn!"

Anxious, he leaned through the empty frame. The black-swathed woman landed with uncanny grace in the alleyway below, bent her knees for the briefest pause, then sprinted with lightning speed around the corner. She was gone in a flash.

With a disappointed sigh, Sky Captain withdrew from the window. "What the hell is going on?" He wondered what excuse he could tell Polly. His head still throbbed, and he could feel a few cuts on his face from the glass splinters.

Before he left the office, he noticed a leather satchel lying on the floor, as if it had been tossed under a writing table. Curious, he picked it up. This could be something…

In the cluttered laboratory room, Polly knelt over Dr. Jennings, trying to comfort him, but she could see he was dying. He had lost too much blood already, and the knife wound was deep. With his failing strength, the scientist struggled to speak. "Miss Perkins…"

"I'm here, Doctor. I tracked you down."

"If Totenkopf finds them… nothing will be able to stop him. Nothing…"

Polly leaned closer to hear his faint words. "Finds what?"

Jennings squirmed to reach inside the pocket of his jacket with a bloodied hand, then removed two small test tubes. "Once he gets these… the countdown will start."

"The countdown for what?"

"This world… will end." Before he could say anything more, before Polly could grasp the magnitude of what he had said, the scientist wheezed out his last rattling breath and died.

"Dr. Jennings!" She tried to revive him, but it was no use. Polly gently pried the two test tubes from the scientist's hand and held them up. "The end of the world? In here?" Dumbfounded, she glanced up as Sky Captain reentered and knelt down beside her. "He's dead." With sluggish movements, Polly covered the body with a jacket.

"Well, the murderer got away… but I think I found something." Sky Captain held out the satchel.

Polly recognized it immediately. "Dr. Jennings had that case with him at the theater yesterday, just before the robots attacked." She took the satchel from him eagerly, even as she discreetly pocketed the test tubes. She decided to keep them hidden. Sky Captain didn't need to know everything — not yet.

As he watched, Polly unfastened the satchel's catch. Inside, she found a stack of papers. Her brows knitted as she leafed through them, understanding only snippets. "They're in German."

"We can translate them. At least five members of the Flying Legion — "

Suddenly the frightening wail of air-raid sirens filled the air for the second time in as many days. The bone-rattling tone echoed off houses and buildings. In the neighborhood, some residents frantically switched on lights, while others did exactly the opposite.

"Not again!" Polly said as she and Sky Captain raced to the laboratory window, looking up as searchlights crisscrossed the cloudy sky. They could both hear an ominous droning sound in the distance. Something powerful was approaching fast.

"I have to get back to the base," Sky Captain said.

Forced to leave the dead scientist behind, Polly grabbed the satchel and stuffed the papers inside. "I'm coming with you, Joe."

10 The Fearful Flying Wings. An Unwelcome Passenger. A Signal Located

Back at the Flying Legion's base in the distant hills, Polly's Packard roared onto the airstrip, covered with mud from skidding along the dirt roads. Before she screeched to a complete stop, Sky Captain had already jumped out of the car.

Receiving the alert signal even before New York's air-raid sirens activated, his flight crew had prepped the P-40 Warhawk. They sprinted along with him to the waiting airplane. "Didn't have time to touch up the paint job on the nose, Cap. Sorry. Looks like one of the painted fangs is chipped."

"At least tell me you fueled her up and reloaded the ammo."

The crewman impatiently rolled his eyes. "Of course we did that, Cap!"

On the airstrips, other planes thrummed, their props spinning, engines warming up. Several members of the Flying Legion had taken off and now patrolled the skies. The surveillance zeppelins lifted higher on their tethers.

Sky Captain shouted questions as he ran, leaving Polly behind. He did not want to be at the tail end of the other mercenary fighters. "So what is it? What's happening up there?"

"Reconnaissance picked up something on radar traveling at over five hundred knots — and coming straight for us."

"How soon before it gets here?"

Suddenly, in the sky above, a dozen shapes emerged from the sunset-tinged clouds. The crewman pointed upward. "Right about now, I'd say, Cap." Slanted daylight splashed across the sleek metal hulls of flying craft that looked like mechanical vultures.

Obscured by a rippling haze of air distortion, the shapes took on the form of giant silver bats. Perfectly streamlined, as if made of quicksilver, the graceful yet deadly flyers flapped long and narrow wings like mechanized pterodactyls. They made a shrill whistling sound like a pipe sliding through a metal sleeve. The enemy Flying Wings dove forward, blunt noses marred by clusters of 50mm cannons. The black gun barrels extended, then began to spit fire.

Sky Captain scrambled for his plane, stepping up onto the wing and sliding the cockpit canopy aside. "Time to get going! Remove the wheel blocks."

The enemy wings swooped down like hawks upon the Legion's airfield. Crewmen ran for shelter into the hangars. Two of the Legion's warplanes screamed down runways and took off. Swooping along with mechanical grace, the fearful enemy flyers spat out heavy machine gun fire. The ammunition struck home in a searing hailstorm that blew up a row of unoccupied aircraft parked on the field. As the Flying Wings rose upward again with an eerie whistle, they left a firestorm in their wake. Row after row of Legion airplanes detonated after the strafing barrage.

"Does everybody know where our secret base is?" Sky Captain muttered as he swung himself into the Warhawk's cockpit. He raced through the takeoff checklist, glancing at the dials and controls as he fastened his helmet and seated his goggles over his eyes.

"Wait a minute, Joe."

As the enemy Flying Wings raced past for another attack, engaging the Legion fighters already in the air, Sky Captain looked down in astonishment to see Polly climbing the narrow fuselage ladder up after him. "What are you doing?" He had to shout over the deafening roar of the P-40's engine.

"I'm coming with you!" Another volley of explosions ripped through one of the supply hangars, igniting barrels of aircraft fuel.

"Don't be stupid, Polly. Remember what happened the last time you flew with me?" The chaos and noise all around them made it impossible for him to manage a reasonable tone.

"We had a deal!" She didn't even slow, but kept climbing.

"This isn't a game, Polly. People are going to die! In fact, some of my best men probably already have."

Determined and beautiful, Polly refused to let go of the rungs, even though the airfield was exploding around her. Howling alarms and roaring engines increased the racket during the bombardment. "You're not leaving without me, Joe! Not this time! It's my story."

Sky Captain curled his gloved fist, anxious to go and considering just how much more time Polly could waste with her incessant arguing.

Wings flapping briskly, the alien-looking machines circled around and struck again and again until they succeeded in blowing up the main hangar from which the P-40 had just emerged. Ducking from the backwash of the explosion, he shielded his head from the debris and shrapnel pelting all around them. The tiny impacts on his plane's fuselage sounded like a hailstorm on a metal roof.

Like a swarm of alloy-plated bats, even more of the Flying Wings converged on the Legion's hidden base. Sky Captain gritted his teeth, fuming. No time to argue. "Get in!"

Polly scrambled up behind him and threw herself into the cockpit's backseat. Sky Captain didn't waste even a second checking on her as he slid the canopy shut. The Warhawk's engine seemed to be screaming a challenge as he accelerated forward, taxiing down the nearest runway.

In the sheltered map room, Dex sprinted toward a massive, blinking communications array. He pushed past several of the radio operators who were frantically trying to coordinate the defense of the base. Taking control, Dex began to flip a series of buttons, causing a jagged signal to appear on another oscilloscope display. He stared at the bouncing radio signal expectantly, adjusting dials to triangulate. An oddly melodic Morse code tone came through the small speaker, sounding similar to what he had heard earlier — only closer.

"There you are!" Dex made a victory fist. "This'll do it!" He grabbed a headset microphone from one of the pasty-faced radio operators and hurriedly spoke into it. "Cap, do you read me?"

The sounds of emergency sirens and explosions continued in the background. The lights dimmed briefly from the attack going on outside. It was only a matter of time before the Flying Wings leveled the control hangar — if Sky Captain didn't stop them first.

The Warhawk streaked through the sky in fast pursuit of three Flying Wings. Like superfast metal vultures, the enemy aircraft flapped furiously, pumping with pistons and powerful whistling engines. They wheeled and evaded, reminding Sky Captain of crows on the wing.

"Dodge all you want," he muttered, forgetting that Polly was sitting behind him, "but you can't outrun this." He lined up the nearest quicksilver machine in his crosshairs. His finger hovered over the trigger on his flight stick.

A voice burst over the radio set. "Cap, this is Dex! Come in!"

He lifted his microphone. "Hang on, Dex. I'm a little busy."

Sky Captain locked his sights on one of the machines. His gloved finger flipped open the safety latch on his trigger, and with complete coolness he squeezed. A stream of machine gun fire embroidered with intermittent tracers stitched across the sky, intersecting the Flying Wing. Gunfire penetrated the smooth quicksilver hull, making the enemy craft explode in a massive fireball.

With a satisfied sigh, Sky Captain lifted his microphone. "Go ahead, Dex."

"Whatever you do, Cap, don't shoot!"

Sky Captain frowned sheepishly at the expanding cloud of smoke and tumbling shrapnel that had been the Flying Wing. "Uh, okay."

Dex sounded disappointed. "You shot it, didn't you?"

"Yeah. I thought that was the point."

"Listen, Cap, you asked me to track down the command signal, and I did. The signal is coming from one of those machines. It must be the leader. You've got to keep them in one piece, or I'll never be able to get to the bottom of this."

Sky Captain groaned, but he had never found reason to disbelieve Dex. "You sure know how to make a job harder, Dex. Which machine is it?" Ahead of him and all around the smoldering Flying Legion base, dozens of the flapping aircraft swooped and dove, continuing their attack.

Dex did not sound reassuring over the radio set. "No way of telling. It could be any one of them. Wait… I'm losing the signal." The younger man groaned. "Now it's getting fainter."

Sky Captain saw that one of the Flying Wings had veered off from the others and headed back toward the New York skyline. The rest of the mechanical attackers concentrated their firepower on the hangars and runways below. "I think I found it, Dex. It's heading for the city."

"Don't let him get away, Cap!"

Sky Captain hated to leave the rest of the Legion to the greater battle, but he knew he needed to win the war against this sinister enemy. "You better be right, Dex."

"Keep after it! I need you to bounce that signal back to me. If we lose it now, we may never get it back."

With a heavy heart, Sky Captain raced after the primary Flying Wing. "Just let me know when you've got something, Dex. The very instant you have it."

"I'll let you know. Out!"

While Polly clutched her seat in the back of the cockpit, Sky Captain veered off in pursuit of the lone enemy craft racing back toward Manhattan.

11. A Dogfight over Manhattan. Thieves from the Sky Polly's Shortcut

Inside the map room, Dex unrolled a large chart across the main table. He didn't even flinch as a nearby detonation rocked the Legion's control center. Oily smoke began to fill the hangar, and the lights flickered again.

Undaunted, Dex unwrapped a wad of bubble gum and popped it into his mouth. Debris sifted from above like a fine rain. Overhead, the Flying Wings continued to bombard the base, while brave Legion fighters mounted their best defense.

Dex yelled to the communications operators beside him. "I want a full-spectrum sweep of every incoming signal."

Two men huddled under tables for shelter from falling chunks of the roof, while other grim operators went about their duties, hunched over dials and transmitters. A Legion warplane zoomed overhead, unleashing a crackle of machine gun fire.

"Amplify any variant frequency cycle and route it to me!" Dex bent over the screen, staring so hard his eyes hurt, willing the answer to come in time to save Sky Captain and drive off the attack on the base.

Explosions continued outside. Orange-and-black fireballs spewed upward from destroyed planes on the runways. The attacking Wings targeted the tethered observation zeppelins. Though soldiers fired their rifles from the ground and warplanes dove in to protect the lighter-than-air vessels, they could not drive the Flying Wings from the dirigibles.

Incendiary projectiles tore through the thick fabric hulls, igniting the volatile hydrogen inside. Like the tragic end of the first Hindenburg, the Legion's zeppelins were engulfed in an inferno. Their blackened skeletons collapsed with slow grace to the tarmac as ground personnel fled.

Legion planes continued to attack the Flying Wings. A volley of vengeful shots sheared off the razor-thin wing of an enemy aircraft, and the quicksilver batlike form scraped across the main hangar's roof, showering sparks. It tumbled into a heap of wreckage on the tarmac outside the tall doors.

Inside the control hangar, Dex allowed nothing to break his concentration.

Streaking above the terrain on their way to New York City, Sky Captain kept his P-40 close behind the primary Flying Wing. The enemy craft flapped its powerful metal wings like a hawk swooping in for the kill.

They sped along the spine of Long Island, covering distance at an insane speed. The flight path of the fleeing attacker took them over Queens and the site of the soon-to-open 1939 World's Fair, billed as the largest international exhibition in history. Sky Captain looked down at the distinctive Trylon, a seven-hundred-foot-tall obelisk pointing toward the sky, and the two-hundred-foot globe of the Perisphere. President Roosevelt himself would give the kickoff speech, "Building the World of Tomorrow."

First, though, Sky Captain had to save the world of today.

The speeding aircraft crossed the East River in a flash, diving toward Midtown Manhattan. "If that Flying Wing thinks he can lose me among the skyscrapers, we'll see just who's better in an obstacle course."

"It's sweet, but you don't have to show off for me, Joe," Polly said from the rear of the cockpit.

He banked hard, barely keeping his annoyance in check. "I have absolutely no intention of showing off for you."

Weaving an erratic course, the Flying Wing dipped among the tall buildings, diving to street level, where taxicabs and buses swerved to avoid a collision. Sky Captain clung like glue to the enemy's exhaust.

Pulling up in a steep climb, they shot above the rooftops. Polly peered out the cockpit canopy, surprised to see six more Flying Wings engaged in furious activity below them. "Joe, there's another half dozen of them!"

He looked from side to side, but the goggles blocked his peripheral view. "Are they after us?"

She saw, though, that the six new enemy craft had taken up positions over the yawning crater the robot monsters had blasted the day before. Like a giant open wound, the city's heavy power generators lay exposed to the air.

"Not after us, Joe. Look what they're doing!"

The six Flying Wings had lowered giant cables, slowly extending the lines into the crater. Automatic clamps attached to the shafts and supports that held the huge turbines in place. Sparks flew, metal groaned, and finally the machinery was uprooted. Up and down the streets of Manhattan, windows and lighted neon signs went dark.

"They're taking the city's generators." Polly was genuinely puzzled. "Totenkopf is building something, and whatever it is needs enough power to light up a city."

Suddenly, three more Flying Wings descended upon Sky Captain's P-40, like owls intent on grabbing field mice. Quad clusters of wing cannons extended from the quicksilver bodies and opened fire. Bullets whizzed by, peppering the Warhawk's fuselage.

"They're just trying to distract me." Sky Captain hunched over the cockpit controls. He didn't take his eyes from the darting course of the primary Wing. "But it's not going to work."

"I think they're trying to destroy us, Joe, not distract us."

He didn't listen to her. The primary Wing plunged low, skimming car tops in its attempt to shake Sky Captain's plane. Pedestrians ducked or dove to the pavement.

Maintaining his reckless acceleration, Sky Captain roared after his prey. More bullets flew by from the Flying Wings behind them, shattering streetlamps and pocking building walls as the Warhawk soared down the narrow street.

Sky Captain called back to Polly, "You okay?"

"Great," she said, barely able to talk.

"There's a bottle of milk of magnesia under the seat if you need it. Sometimes amateurs get a bit airsick."

"I'm fine."

Sky Captain turned around, giving her a skeptical look through his goggles. "You don't look so good."

"Neither do you," Polly said, then her face froze. "Pull up!"

Sky Captain whipped his attention forward just in time to see a looming concrete-and-steel skyscraper directly in their path. Reacting instantly, he yanked on the flight stick so hard he feared he might rip it from the yoke.

Dex had made modifications to the P-40's engines, its flaps, its air rudder, and now the plane responded like a dream. In a tight curve, the nose tilted immediately upward, and Sky Captain shot in a straight vertical so close to the skyscraper's wall that if he'd had his landing gear down, he could have left skid marks on the windows. The plane leaped over the building top, and before Sky Captain could catch his breath, he spotted the primary Wing again and set off after it.

The fleeing enemy aircraft headed straight for a billboard in a suicidal plunge. As it approached, staccato machine gun fire blasted the billboard's left support post. The wide rectangular sign tipped and slumped, lopsided, in a slow-motion fall. The enemy flyer ducked under the sign, wings pumping, and Sky Captain plunged after it. The billboard fell forward into their path.

"Joe!" Polly shouted.

"I see it. Too big not to notice." He yanked the stick, and the plane took a sharp turn, narrowly avoiding the crashing billboard. In the back of the cockpit, Polly hung on for her life as the plane rolled sideways and streaked down a cross street.

"Sorry to bother you, Cap," Dex said over the radio, "but I lost the signal."

"I'll find him, Dex. Sit tight."

Pressing her face to the cockpit window, Polly recognized where they were. "Oh! Turn left!"

"Sit back, Polly. Let me do the flying."

"There's a shortcut down Montgomery Street. You can catch him on the Third Street thoroughfare."

Sky Captain pointedly ignored her, continuing along his own chosen path. Polly leaned forward, shouting in his ear. "Listen to me, Joe. I know these streets like the back of my hand."

He glanced at her, reluctantly considering. She met his eye, insistent. "Left."

Sky Captain gritted his teeth and banked the Warhawk hard left, swooping low to avoid cables strung from rooftops. He realized too late that he had turned down a one-way street. The plane hurtled directly toward an oncoming gravel truck. The driver blared his horn, and Sky Captain pulled up, gaining a few feet of altitude to avoid hitting the truck. A stream of cars headed their way, swerving frantically, honking in alarm, smashing bumpers.

While wrestling to maintain control, he shot Polly an annoyed glance, but she didn't seem to be bothered. "Okay, keep on straight… Wait! Go right."

"When?"

Her outstretched finger traced a line on the canopy glass, following the street they were already passing. "Back there."

He tensed his arms and shoulders, but pulled back on the flight stick, throwing the plane in a tight arc. He narrowly missed the side of a building. A thin clothesline snapped, and white garments fluttered to the ground. "I could use a little warning next time."

"Left!"

He yanked the flight stick again, and the Warhawk groaned in protest. Accelerating to make the course adjustment, Sky Captain nearly crashed into an oncoming building, squeaking past an extended flagpole.

"Damn it, Polly!" He looked behind them as the pursuing Flying Wings dove through the gap between tall buildings, closing in. Sky Captain opened the throttle, and the needle on the speedometer gauge climbed to two hundred miles per hour.

"Now left again." Polly's voice remained unflustered, as if she were simply giving directions to a garden party.

Grumbling, Sky Captain followed her instructions, cruising low to the busy street. Straight ahead, two oncoming cars split in a Y around his diving plane, just missing it. He wiped sweat from his forehead above his goggles.

Peering through the canopy, Polly said, "Left."

"No, we already crossed Third. We're going in circles."

"For once in your life, will you trust me? Left!"

Sky Captain swerved and suddenly found himself flying directly toward an elevated train. He dove at the last moment, avoiding the rattling train, but then he was heading straight into the path of two Flying Wings. Their quad-clustered machine guns opened fire.

He made a hard turn as the Warhawk arced all the way from the right lane across traffic to a perpendicular street. Strafing fire narrowly missed him, but now the enemy Wings settled close on their tail.

"Right!" said Polly.

He twisted the flight stick, veering them into another street.

"Left."

The plane scraped the edge of a building. "You're cutting it pretty close, Polly. Do you really know where we're going?"

They shuttled through a tight alley then emerged like a cannonball. Polly gasped, making a snap decision. "Right! It's here. Turn right!"

Another swift turn, and Sky Captain's eyes became huge as he realized they were not headed down an open avenue, but straight into the steel skeleton of a high-rise under construction. "It's a dead end. Some shortcut!"

More Flying Wings descended from above, blocking their path and forcing them toward the steel structure. The city was always growing, always expanding, always under construction. "That's… not supposed to be there," she said.

"I should strangle you, Polly, but I don't have the time right now."

Now that the Flying Wings converged closer, bullets hit the plane, some penetrating the special fuselage armor Dex had designed. A stray projectile found the fuel line, and high-octane aircraft fuel — began to spray out.

"Oh, lovely." Fighting to keep control of the P-40, Sky Captain steered toward a small opening in the patchwork of girders in front of them.

Hard-hatted steel workers standing on the girders looked up in disbelief as the Warhawk flew straight toward them. They leaped out of the way, jumping for scaffolds, dangling from platforms as Sky Captain's plane entered the building at full speed. His wing glanced the edge of a girder, producing a trail of sparks as he soared forward. "Plenty of room."

As the pursuers reached the face of the building framework, they scattered in all directions, unable to follow.

Inside the skeletal building, not daring to slow his speed in the hollow labyrinth, Sky Captain fought to keep the plane steady as his wings nicked support beams that threatened to throw him into a spin.

He yelped as a swinging girder was slowly lifted into place in front of him, blocking their path. With no time or room to dodge, Sky Captain unleashed a burst from his wing cannons, aiming at the chain support. Sparks flew as the steel links split. The girder fell, clearing a path at the last possible moment, and the plane shot out of the cavernous building and into the open air again.

But only for an instant. Sky Captain saw the facing building just across the street. He knew he was flying much too fast to make the turn. He had one desperate chance. He grabbed for a newly installed lever in the control panel. He knew full well about the note taped to the lever:

He yanked the lever anyway. A panel dropped open in the Warhawk's belly, and a sharp grappling hook shot out, dangling behind them on a reinforced cable.

With a clang, the hook wrapped around one of the exterior girders of the building framework. Suddenly anchored like a ball on a string, the plane swung about with its own momentum, making an impossible turn. The grappling hook disengaged at the end of the spin, dropping away.

Sky Captain didn't breathe. Nearly crushed by centrifugal force, he held on as his plane just cleared the building. It nicked a lighted theater marquee, popping a string of decorative bulbs. The sparking explosions ignited the gasoline dripping from the leaky fuel line. Fire began to lick up along the tube.

Polly stared out the window, too stunned to show any panic or excitement. She observed the burning plane matter-of-factly. "Joe…"

"I know, Polly. I know."

Tracking him down from a web of side streets and avenues, the full squadron of Flying Wings suddenly appeared. Gunfire flickered from their wing cannons.

Sky Captain swerved to avoid another skyscraper, then began to climb to rooftop level as his plane trailed smoke. Time for another crazy plan. Atop the towering buildings, he spotted what he had expected: a pair of mammoth water towers, cisterns stored for emergency consumption.

"Hang on." He shot at the nearest water tower, splintering its wood-slat side. Water streamed out, and Sky Captain flew straight for the gushing fountain, ducking into the spray. The sudden drenching doused the flames on his fuel line. He soared onward as water splashed away from his windshield and his wings.

Sharp silver wings pumping in pursuit, the enemy aircraft followed closely behind them. The plane streaked along the contour of the rooftop, past a giant motorized sign, then dipped nose-first back to the street below.

Polly suddenly saw something. "There!"

Below them, the primary Wing flew along, thinking it had escaped. Seeing his target, Sky Captain rocketed toward the machine just as the three pursuit Wings descended behind him. Sparks from enemy bullets danced along the Warhawk's fuselage. The leaky fuel line burst into flames again.

Sky Captain glanced back at the burning wing of his aircraft. "Yeah, right. A shortcut."

"I got us here, didn't I?"

12 An X on the Map. The Mysterious Woman Returns. A Watery End

Ducking from the crashing battle that continued in the skies above the Flying Legion base, Dex strained to listen to the chatter from Sky Captain's radio. He could hear the shouts, the chase, the gunfire in the background.

With charts strewn all over the table, he marked point after point on the world map as the signals came in. His oscilloscope displayed converging patterns. Dex unwrapped another wad of bubble gum and nervously popped it into his mouth, just to calm himself.

"Tell me you got something, Dex!" Sky Captain's ragged voice came over the loudspeaker. "We're getting clobbered up here."

Meanwhile, the attacking batlike Wings bombarded the base's power station, and a surge of electricity shot out from the oscilloscope's control panel. Sparks flew, but Dex shunted circuits, trying to get the signal back. Muffled explosions and high-caliber gunfire rattled the main hangar. Gaps of smoke-stained sky shone through holes in the corrugated roof.

"It's no picnic down here either, Cap," he shouted into the microphone. "Hang in there. We've almost got it."

Sky Captain and Polly continued down the one-way street after the primary Wing, desperate not to lose its tracking signal. The three pursuing Wings closed in behind the P-40, only a few plane lengths to the rear.

Unexpectedly, the primary Wing backflapped its metal wings and plunged toward the street, intentionally stalled in the air. Sky Captain's Warhawk swept past, narrowly missing it. "Awww, a kid pilot's trick and I fell for it!"

Its feint successful, the primary Wing gathered itself and climbed back up, shooting furiously at the Warhawk's tail. Now four of the attacking craft hammered away at Sky Captain.

"At least we don't have to worry about losing the primary Wing now," Polly said. "He's right on our tail."

Sky Captain yelled into his microphone. "Dex!"

"Thirty seconds, Cap. That's all I need."

"Thirty seconds?" How could the young man sound so calm?

"Plus or minus…"

Polly leaned over Sky Captain's shoulder and grabbed the microphone out of his hand. Bullets pinged into the plane, sparking off the rudder and the fuselage. She clicked the transmit button. "Dex hon?"

"Yeah, Polly?" Dex answered, his voice bright.

"Hurry!"

Sky Captain snatched the microphone from her hand. "I'm going to lead them out over the water to try and buy us some time." He turned back to Polly, who looked breathless and overwhelmed in the back of the cockpit. "I tried to warn you. Still glad you came?"

Sky Captain pulled back on his flight stick as he rocketed through Times Square. The Warhawk shook and groaned as it shot high into the clouds, away from the streets of Manhattan.

Still firing, the Flying Wings closed in.

At the Legion's besieged base, searchlights scanned the heavens while shells exploded all around. The entire landing field and most of the hangars were ablaze as more batlike machines descended. The Flying Legion could barely hold its own as their planes circled and charged, guns blazing, in a desperate dogfight over their own turf.

With all the chaos, Dex had a hard time concentrating on his charts as technicians shouted out coordinates. "Thirty degrees, bearing zero zero five!"

Dex continued to mark lines on the map with a compass, pressing the point into the paper, sketching careful arcs. With each new coordinate, he drew the circle closer and closer to the vital position of the controlling signal.

Suddenly, a soot-stained Legion officer raced in, glancing from side to side until his gaze settled on Dex. "We can't hold them off any longer. We have to evacuate the base."

Dex stood his ground even as the building began to collapse around him. With a groan, a large chunk of the roof bent inward, dangling by a few ragged strips of metal. "Not yet. I'm almost there."

"There's no time, Dex! We have to go now!"

"Go ahead without me. I'm right behind you, but I don't intend to let Cap down."

Some of the technicians fled, while two remained at their stations, shouting out one more coordinate and then another, until Dex had isolated a tiny spot on the map. He drew an X through mountainous, barely charted terrain. "Got you!" Then he shouted into his microphone, "Joe, I found him! Joe!"

Dex's grin was short-lived as a massive explosion rocked the control room, a direct hit from one of the attacking Wings. He grabbed for the map, crinkling the paper in his fingers as he went flying. Everything spun, tumbled, crashed. He struck the cement floor hard, wincing as his ribs and shoulder absorbed the shock.

Shaking his head, Dex looked down to see that he still clutched a small piece of map he'd torn from the larger chart as he fell. At least it was the section with the X drawn on it.

As he listened to the roar of flames and collapsing debris all around him, Dex tried to move, but looked down to see that his leg was pinned under a pile of fallen concrete and steel. He pulled at his leg, but to no avail. Although the pain hadn't kicked in yet, he knew it would probably be a screamer. If only he'd finished building that antigravity generator…

With a deliberate scraping sound, something large and powerful tore a wider opening in the hangar wall. From outside, a smoky haze obscured details, but Dex could see the ominous shapes form as they strode closer. Unable to run, he propped himself up, staring.

The trim figure of a dark-robed woman wearing large opaque glasses stepped imperiously over the rubble. She looked around, her impenetrable lenses seeming to scan the hangar's smoky interior. Flanking her were two seven-foot-tall walking robots. Each had a bullet-shaped head, a wasp-thin waist, and a pair of steel tentacles for arms. The tentacle arms twitched and thrashed, throwing off sparks as they touched the fallen debris.

Though pinned under the collapsed wall, Dex searched the rubble for any way to defend himself. His eyes widened when he spied his new prototype ray gun lying only a few feet away. If the sonic atomizer could melt a hole through a thick plate of steel, he knew it would make short work of those mechanical men.

The mysterious woman saw him, then strode toward him.

Caught in the rubble, Dex strained to reach the ray gun, but his fingers only grazed it. Finally hooking a knuckle around one of the decorative fins, he drew the futuristic weapon closer. At last he scooped it into his hand, turned the emission nozzle toward the nearest of the two tentacled robots, and fired a volley of concentric shimmering energy rings.

The beam from the sonic atomizer slammed into the robot's midsection, and the metal armor of its torso glowed white-hot. Its tentacles flailed, throwing off wild sparks, and the walking robot slumped forward, dropping to the piles of rubble on the hangar floor, as dead as a machine could be.

"One down!" Dex turned to fire at the second walking robot, but it was too quick for him. Serpentine coils lashed out, wrapping around Dex's wrist, and a flash of pain made him drop the ray gun. Another steel-cable tentacle easily swept the heavy rubble aside, freeing Dex's leg. Then the robot wrapped a tentacle around his waist and lifted him into the air like a doll.

Dex struggled in vain, unable to wrest himself from the robot's grasp. The tentacles tightened. He looked at the torn map fragment in his hand, desperate. Wheels were turning in his head.

As he rocketed away from the city and out over the metal gray Atlantic, Sky Captain dodged another volley of machine gun fire. By now the flames from the damaged fuel line had gained strength, engulfing the plane's wing.

Swallowing hard, Polly looked out the back of the cockpit, then turned forward again. She scribbled furiously on her reporter's pad, mouthing the words out loud as she wrote them. "Six Flying Wings on… our… tail. Escape seemed… impossible. Outmanned. Outgunned. Hopeless…"

"Do you always have to write out loud?" Sky Captain yelled. "It's already hard enough to think around here!" The Warhawk took another hit and shuddered violently. Any other airplane would have been sky wreckage long before this; however, even with its specially installed systems, the P-40 could not endure such a pounding. "I can't outrun them much longer."

The Flying Wings continued to bombard their victim, and fire blanketed the entire left wing. Black smoke poured from the exhaust manifold, causing the plane to sputter, choke, and stall. Below, there was no way to escape, no place to land except the deep ocean.

"Hold on! They'll never expect this." Sky Captain unexpectedly shoved down on his flight stick, sending the Warhawk straight toward the choppy Atlantic. With one engine stalled, he had very little control left.

"Joe! What are you doing?" Polly peered through the windshield to see the ocean coming fast at them. "We're heading straight down. You'll kill us."

"I know what I'm doing. Try to relax, would you?"

"We're going too fast. We're not going to make it. You have to pull up." Polly grabbed the shoulder of his leather jacket, but he did not flinch. "Pull up, Joe! Pull up!"

Sky Captain struggled with the controls as the Flying Wings regrouped. The Warhawk continued to accelerate downward, assisted by gravity. They hurtled toward the ocean's murky surface… sure to die.