by Mack Maloney
More bullets. More laughing. Tripping over freshly dug graves, he somehow reached the top of a ridge and found another small army of Soviet soldiers coming up the other side right at him. He turned left. More soldiers, bayonets extended, were rushing toward him. He turned right. At least a hundred more Red Army soldiers were advancing on him. He was absolutely surrounded and unarmed. At his feet, in the dust, a discarded American flag.
If only I had wings, he thought, / could get out of this—
More than a thousand Red Army soldiers were now converging on him. They'd stopped shooting at him and were advancing slowly, with bayonets out front.
If this was the end, then he wanted to do it right. He reached down and picked up the flag at his feet, intending to literally wrap himself in it, when suddenly it burst into flames. Bright orange fire, that covered his hands, covered his face, but did not hurt him.
And at that moment, it was as if a bolt of lightning hit him right between the eyes. Get a hold of yourself! You're in an amusement park! No one had been killed. No one had been shot down. This was all just a grand illusion. It was just so real, so personal, he'd gotten caught up in it to the point of not thinking clearly. Idiot…
The nearest Russian soldiers were just about ten feet away when Hunter simply held up his hand and started waving the twice-punched yellow ticket. This stopped the soldiers cold in their tracks. They all stared back at him for a moment, but then they all seemed to relax a little, too. The show was over.
He flipped the ticket and pointed to the picture of the Mad Russian.
"Anyone here know where this guy is?" he called out.
"That's Crazy Ivan, I think," one soldier said in broken English. "He's the guy who built this place."
Hunter got a bit excited. What better place for a Mad Russian to be than in a world where the Russians always win?
"So you've seen him around?" Hunter asked them. "Recently?"
But then they all began shaking their heads no.
One called out, "No, not in a long time."
"A very long time," said another.
"Last I heard, he was spotted over on Moon Three," said a third. "Or was it Moon Four?"
"OK, thanks," Hunter called back to them. "Sorry to bother you all—"
Most of the soldiers just nodded or waved and started to walk away. One officer was nearby. Hunter flagged him down and asked him if he knew where the next ticket booth was.
The officer just pointed to a nearby hill. Hunter had to squint to see it, but sure enough, there was a structure up there surrounded by banks of white carnival lights. He thanked the officer and then they shook hands.
"Das-vee-darn-ya," the officer said to him. "And come back real soon…"
Hunter started his way up the hill.
The answer here? Obviously this was a re-creation of what was known back in one of his lives as World War Three. But it was that conflict as seen not through the eyes of an American but of a Russian. Soviets invincible and courageous. The Americans threadbare and cowardly. And it had been done so realistically, and had been so close to an experience he'd had way, way back, Hunter had simply fallen for it hook, line, and sinker.
The Ancient Astronaut had said that the person who put this place together had a strange sense of humor and was also very jealous of the American way of life. In this place at least, he'd been right on both counts.
"Some joke," Hunter muttered now as he trudged to the top of the steep hill.
Two moons down, and many more to go.
5
This ticket booth looked lust like the last.
Same blinking lights, same cramped structure, same fake wood, same ancient computer.
The hand-painted sign above the door read, Zaidi v Strany Snov — Zdes vse tvoi Snovideniya stanyt yaviu. As translated by the quadtrol: Entering Dreamland. Where All Your Dreams Come True.
"Sounds better than the last time," Hunter muttered.
He went through the same routine, entering all his information, getting his admission ticket punched, getting past the security walls.
He typed in "Flying" once again, and then hit the Enter button—
* * *
The first thing Hunter noticed this time was a strange object sitting on his head.
He reached up and felt that it was dry and made a crunching sound when he squeezed it. He took it off and saw it was a hat, made of intricately wound straw, with a red band. A straw hat?
Who the hell would wear this? he thought.
He looked down at his feet and saw something even stranger. His flight boots were gone; he was wearing red button shoes with white coverings on them instead. Were those spats?
His wardrobe makeover didn't stop there. His pants were gray with blue pinstripes. His belt was made of cloth. He was wearing a vest, a red tie, a white shirt, and a very stiff white starched collar. Everything felt tight and ill-fitting. He didn't want to know what he was wearing underneath.
He tried to get his bearings. He was on a pier, on the edge of a bustling city. Sparkling clean water was lapping up against the pier's wooden posts. There was a huge crowd around him. All along the pier, along the adjacent sidewalks, even sitting on the roofs of the harbor buildings nearby, large numbers of people were gathered. Thank God, all of them were dressed as silly as he. Many were waving tiny flags of orange and blue, a sort of double cross design, while others were displaying flags of the more familiar red, white, and blue.
Multicolored bunting was in evidence everywhere, along with brightly painted signs that read, Welcome to New York City. Farther down the pier from Hunter, an oom-pah band was playing loudly. A man in a bright military uniform with sergeant's stripes was leading the en-semble. His name, written in stylized scroll across his sleeve, was Pepper.
Now the crowd began to roar. The noise quickly became deafening. Everybody's eyes went left. Flags were waved furiously. Hunter leaned forward a bit, enough to see around the corner of the building next to him. An enormous oceangoing ship was moving slowly toward the dock. It seemed to take up half the sky. Indeed as its shadow passed over the crowd, day turned to night. The ship was that big.
People lining the decks of the huge ocean liner were waving as enthusiastically as those on the dock. Streamers of bright blue and yellow cascaded down from the upper decks. A squadron of fire-fighting boats was escorting the monstrous ship into harbor; they were spraying great streams of water high into the air. The band tried hard to play over the sounds of the crowd and the blaring of the ship's horn, but it was a losing battle.
The air became electric. Hunter caught himself waving his own little flag and shouting, "Hurrah!" The ship finally passed by the pier, and he could see the name on its stern.
It read: HMS Titanic.
Suddenly someone was tugging on his arm. Hunter spun around to see a young woman had come up behind him. She was dressed in a frilly blue outfit that contained yards of material and covered her from her neck to her toes. She was wearing a high floppy hat with an enormous flower sticking out of the top. A veil covered her face.
"Come on, will you?" she was yelling at him. "We'll be late!"
With that, she took his hand and started pulling him
through the crowd. Hunter had no choice but to follow. Most people were still enamored by the arrival of the huge ocean liner, so they parted the way easily for them.
They left the pier and reached the street. It was filled with ancient motor cars, wagons, and people pushing carts filled with fruit, mostly apples. One man offered a perfectly golden one to Hunter, but the girl pulled him away before he could accept. Everyone Hunter saw on the street was wearing a broad smile.
The mysterious girl was laughing and obviously in great spirits as she led him through the crowded thoroughfares. Hunter wished he was dressed in more comfortable clothes. He would have been able to move quicker, especially in a better pair of shoes.
They passed a crowd on one street corner. Many of the people were drinking beer from foamy
mugs. A man standing on a soapbox was addressing them good-naturedly on the virtues of honesty. Hanging off his soapbox was a sign that identified him as Judge Crater. Two of his associates were handing out free mugs of beer. Hunter managed to grab one before the girl pulled him away once again. They continued their race down the street. They were dodging streetcars, smoky trucks, hundreds of creaking taxicabs. Every time Hunter would try to sip the beer, she would pull on his arm again, and laugh: "There's no time for that!"
She led him over another two blocks, and soon they were in a forest of extremely tall buildings. Skyscrapers was the word that popped into Hunter's head. It was an apt description, as the tops of these buildings really did seem to disappear up into the sky.
Out of breath, his feet sore from running, Hunter finally managed to get the girl to stop. He took out his handkerchief and dabbed the sweat from his brow. Then he took a long slug from the beer mug. Drat! It was only colored water.
"What are you trying to do?" he scolded her cheerfully. "Kill me?"
"Just the opposite," she cooed back.
With that, she lifted her veil and finally revealed her face. Hunter nearly fell over.
It was Dr. Zoloff's daughter, Annie.
Hunter became so excited, he threw the beer mug clear across the street. It exploded on the side of a brownstone with a tremendous splat! Then he grabbed her and squeezed her in an enormous hug. He was suddenly glued to her just as she was glued to him during his first ride.
But she was not hugging back, not really. He let her go and looked into her eyes. She was even more beautiful than she was after their adventure in Ping's Palace. But there was a look of bewilderment in those big baby blues. It was obvious.
She didn't know who he was.
Maybe that's how it worked here.
But she never lost her smile. "Hey, big boy," she told him. "There'll be plenty of time for that later!"
Then she started dragging him through the streets again.
They moved deeper into the city, crossing avenues, ducking through alleys, running the short blocks.
The farther east they went, the sleeker and more colorful and quieter the motor vehicles became. Soon enough, the cars began to look like some of the small civilian spaceships Hunter had encountered across the Galaxy. The clothing styles worn by people on the street changed radically, too. Suddenly women were wearing very short skirts and plunging necklines; there was less material on their entire outfits than this version of Annie had in her hat.
They crossed five major avenues and finally reached a river. It was busy with tugboats, ferries, and ocean liners, smaller but no less luxurious looking than the Titanic. She led him across a great bridge; the view of the city behind them was spectacular. Throughout, Annie's energy seemed to know no bounds. But she wasn't talking to him beyond telling him to hurry up, that they were already late, that they couldn't miss what was going to happen next. Sweaty and still a bit confused, Hunter kept up as best he could.
They made it to the other side of the bridge and continued running through the streets. Every time Annie looked back at him, she seemed even prettier than before. How does she do that? Hunter wondered.
They eventually reached an airport. The sign above it read: New York Memorial Field. It was crowded with flying machines that were vaguely familiar to Hunter. Their bodies seemed to be made mostly of wood, with stubby engines on their noses and twin fabric-covered wings over the open-air pilot compartment. Biplanes…
There was another crowd here, it rivaled in size the one back on the pier. They were dressed in more modern clothes, but not quite as revealing as those back on Fifth, Sixth, and Seventh Avenues. Yet strangely, Annie seemed to fit right in.
She managed to pull him right to the front of the crowd. Again he saw people waving flags and holding banners. A sense of great anticipation was in the air.
Suddenly many in the crowd were pointing to the sky. High above, another ancient flying machine appeared. It was a bit more modern-looking than the twin-wings on the ground. It was silver in color and was dropping quickly in altitude. The closer it came, the more excited the crowd became. This party didn't need any music. The energy in the crowd was enough.
The plane spiraled down, leveling off about 500 feet out. Its engine began smoking crazily, but it was close enough to the ground not to cause much concern. It touched down with a thump, bounced once, and then came down for good. The crowd cheered wildly. Even Hunter was caught up in it, though he really didn't know what the hell was going on.
The plane came to a halt right in front of them. The top hatch opened, and after a few seconds, a rather mannish-looking woman popped her head out. The crowd cheered wildly again.
Finally Hunter could take the suspense no longer.
"Who is that?" he asked the man next to him.
The guy looked back at him as if he was from outer space, which, of course, he was.
"Who is that?" he replied. "Son, that's Amelia Earhart. She just flew around the world!"
Hunter almost replied, Big freakin' deal, even though the woman's name was also vaguely familiar to him. But before he could say anything, Annie was pulling him along again.
It was time for him to put his foot down; he didn't like being so uncertain about his circumstances. He finally stopped her in her tracks, spun her around, and held her by the shoulders.
"Who are you?" he asked her. "This time…"
She just laughed at him. She was pretty almost beyond words, her crazy outfit only adding to the appeal.
"What difference does it make?" she asked him back. "These days, everything is love and peace and inner light. Names don't mean anything. Not anymore. So, don't be so uptight, man."
He just stared back at her. It was hard to tell how old she was, but she was old enough, Hunter hoped.
"OK then," he said, knowing it was probably better if he just played along. "Can I call you Annie?"
"Sure!" she said, pulling him close to her. She smelled beautiful.
"And so, Annie," he went on. "By any chance do you know someone called the Mad Russian?"
"Like, who doesn't?" she shot back playfully.
Hunter became excited again. "Do you know where he is? How I can find him?"
She thought a moment, then said slowly, "No, but maybe we can find someone who does."
"Really? Are you sure?"
"Well, we can give it a try!" She laughed.
With that, she dragged him even farther away from the crowd to an isolated section of the airfield. Here sat a lone twin-wing airplane.
She spun around with a very devilish look in her eye, pointed to the aircraft, and asked him, "Can you fly this thing?"
They were taxiing toward the runway a few minutes later.
The airplane was an old Curtis Jenny, this according to the name on the side of its fuselage. Annie was sitting in the passenger seat, which was located in the front of the plane. Hunter was squeezed into the pilot's compartment right behind her.
He found the controls of the gangly aircraft to be very simple — maybe even too simple. He was presented with a stick, rudder pedals, and a lever that served as a throttle. No lights. No bells. No whistles. No puppet strings. Even the spacecraft back in Adventure Land was more elaborate than this.
Once he'd finally got the engine going — it was a wooden propeller, of course — it took some finesse to wrangle all the levers and pedals and get the plane to move. Hunter was a quick study, though. He'd grasped the concept in just a few seconds, and now he was ready to go.
Annie let her hat fly as Hunter pushed the air buggy on to the runway and up to its takeoff speed. He pulled back on the stick, and slowly, almost painfully, the aircraft left the ground. A zing of exhilaration ran through him. What a sweet sensation! It was familiar, yet new to him, too. Sometimes he really did feel like he was born to do nothing else but fly.
Annie was enjoying it as well, laughing deliriously as they rose above the field, above the crowd, above the buildings
of this strange, out-of-time Gotham City. She was directing him as best she could, using hand signals to turn him left or right. They headed out over the harbor, it being smoky with the exhausts from many boats churning its ways. Ahead she pointed out a large green statue — a woman in robes with a crown, a torch, and a book in her hands. Statue of Liberty… The words popped into Hunter's head very easily.
Yes, he'd seen her before. More than once, in fact.
Annie had him turn again. Now they were heading toward two enormous buildings located on a spit of land near where the Statue of Liberty was erected. These twin buildings could only be described as super-skyscrapers. They were identical in size and girth, perfectly square, and at least 100 stories high. Hunter suddenly felt a twinge in his chest. His eyes began to water. He began to choke up.
The World Trade Center Towers…
They were still here.
They flew on for what seemed like hours.
Hunter had turned west, following Annie's directions, knowing this was the best thing to do. He couldn't think of better company to have, here in Dreamland. He had to wonder though. Did she really know someone who might know where the Mad Russian was? Or was she just up here skylarking? Strangely, Hunter didn't care, not at the moment anyway. He was with her again. And that's all that mattered. By now, she was deep inside him.
They passed over high mountains, lush valleys, emerald forests, wide rivers. No surprise, the terrain reminded Hunter of Planet America, the world located out beyond the Galaxy's fringe that was liberated from the Fourth Empire, with Hunter's help.
A sharp turn north brought them to a particularly immense valley that was surrounded by miles of forest. Seemingly in the middle of nowhere, Hunter spotted a huge crowd of people below. It was hard to estimate just how many, but he guessed there had to be at least 100,000 down there, maybe more. They were lining the valley's hills and were especially crowded into a natural grass bowl that dominated the center. A huge stage was set up at the northern end of this indentation. It was surrounded by scaffolding and tall metal towers holding giant lamps and monstrous public-address speakers.