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Back Into The Field
2007-03-22 14:44:46

The Temple is intact. As you may know, our base is perilously close to a fault line and is thus subject to seismic activity. It corresponds appropriately that Timely was having a devilish time with their network servers during this. One of you has mentioned that there should have been two keywords last week, and this is true. Yet I am not about to leave our precious training sessions to the hazards of the inter-net. If we need to take more time to tell our story, then so be it. Those of you who are armchair agents may grow impatient this week, as we are focusing again on field work. We need operatives willing to brook gunfire, after all! I assure you we will return to the conundrums soon enough.

I believe you will be able to discern your objectives without any coercing from me.

* * * * *





Outside the building in Huntsville, a silvery craft lowered gradually to the testing launch pad. From the windows, men in short sleeve dress shirts were scribbly madly upon notebooks and clipboards, noting details like the lack of smoke from the Silver Bullet's flaming retrorockets. The vessel then lowered forward slowly by means they couldn't determine and came to rest on the asphalt as airplane might.



One female lab assistant gave the scientists an incredulous look and then scribbled on another piece of paper with a large marker. She then pressed the piece of paper against the glass so that Jimmy Woo's team might look up and see her brief but clear message of HELP. Jimmy was already looking at the source of her distress. For a second he had thought that the parking lot ended a ways from the Marshall Space Center then realized that what he assumed was foliage was moving. The dark green shapes filling the space between the scientists' cars and the front door was overrun by hundreds of alligators. Several engineers sat or stood atop their vehicles, unable to enter the workplace and now afraid to step down to open their driver's side doors. 



"I didn't know alligators lived this far north," said Venus.



"You're not more impressed that they're all working together?" asked Ken Hale. Jimmy shouted over to one of the men perched nervously atop a Buick Sedan. "What's going on with all these gators?"



"This has happened a couple of times already this week," returned the man, steadying himself. "I don't know if they're looking for food or what, but we're losing valuable work time and falling behind schedule. I haven't heard of it happening anywhere else in town. Or the whole state, for that matter."



Jimmy turned to Marvel Boy. "Bob, could any of the equipment they're working with in there be attracting the animals?" Bob Grayson looked at the complex and his headband glowed briefly. 



"No."



The dark green mass kept moving around the building's perimeter, forming what was essentially a reptilian moat. Jimmy looked around and noticed a pickup truck in the parking lot, its driver still inside. "Sir," called Jimmy. "May we use your truck for a minute? I think we can get you back  to work." The man nodded anxiously. Jimmy spoke quickly to M-11, who then proceeded to where the truck was parked. The robot extended his arms and picked the truck up, walking carefully to not step on any of the alligators. His course took him by each trapped scientist, who then jumped into the bed of the truck. The ape shook his head.



"You know, years ago I would have just broke out the guns and we'd be cornering the market on alligator-skin boots right now. I guess I'm getting soft in my old age."



"Or maybe your perspective has changed a bit," said Venus. Having collected all the space center technicians, M-11 walked the truck over to the front steps and held the rear of it a few feet from the door. A woman inside opened the door and the engineers quickly rushed in. Marvel Boy held one arm around Venus and flew her into the entrance as well. "Wait up!" shouted Ken Hale, who took a running leap that got him to the branch of an oak tree by the entrance. He swung to and fro for a few seconds to build up momentum, then released to land on the hood of the truck. He climbed over into the building, making a mock salute at his mechanical teammate as he did so. Jimmy walked back to the edge of where the alligator mass began, having thoroughly checked the area for any more stranded workers. 



"Looks like everyone's in the clear- hey! Some team you are, I'm still out here in gatorland!" Jimmy looked down as some of the reptiles began to advance in his direction. He knew one of the group would realize his absence in a minute, but decided not to wait. He ran forward and leapt into the swarm, using the backs of the alligators as stepping stones. It took him five jumps to reach the door, and he closed it from the inside as several very agitated beasts charged towards it.



* * * * * 



Jimmy and his team spent the next hour going over the work the Space Center had been doing lately. "We've been expecting spies," explained Chief Engineer John Siuntres. "But we weren't quite ready for nature itself to turn against us. Mankind's quest into space is hitting enough snags without all these extra obstacles in our path." 



The gorilla snorted as he drank coffee from a paper cup. "It's not just bad luck, Doc. The gators are someone's big idea of sabotage, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to see that." Ken Hale took another sip of coffee and then became aware of the leers aimed at him from around the operations center. "Oh yeah. I guess all you guys are rocket scientists."



"I agree with Ken, Doctor, " said Jimmy Woo.  "We've had a lot of unlikely stuff happen to us lately that has turned out to be related.  I believe someone doesn't want you making any progress, and they don't want Bob here helping you out."



"We've barely even made use of Marvel Boy's knowledge, " said the flustered scientist. "All we really asked was that he go up and check out the Sputnik satellites to see if the Soviets were much ahead of us." An aide entered the room and whispered something to Dr. Siuntres. 



"It seems Assistant Director Wall from the FBI has sent a transmission for you," explained the doctor. "I'll go down to the radio room and bring back what the lab boys taped. Excuse me."



As the scientist left the room, Bob Grayson felt something tugging at the bottom of his cape. He turned to see a boy of about nine. "Mr. Marvel Boy! Will you sign my comic?" His father leaned over from a nearby console. "Sorry. I bring him to work a lot and I guess he heard us mention that you were coming to visit. Caleb, they're here on important business."



"The future leaders of this planet are pretty important business too," said Marvel Boy with a big smile. He kneeled down and shook hands with the boy. 



Ken Hale stared at the cover that had an image of his caped teammate fighting mutant cavemen. "Wha... you got a comic book? When did this happen?"



"It was a few years back," answered Grayson as he scribbled a message on the cover of the periodical. "The Uranian High Council suggested I try to appear in Earth media to build a good reputation in society. They thought it would make my work easier. While on a case in New York one time I ran into some nice gentlemen named Bill and Joe who said they'd love to create a book for me at the company they worked for. It was..." Marvel Boy searched his memory for a moment before rolling his eyes at how dense he was being. He looked down at the cover of the comic. "Timely. Anyway, the whole point was to let people know the Uranians were nothing to be scared of and that I'm available to help in really dangerous situations."



"I don't remember hearing about this," said Jimmy.



"That's because it didn't work. It had the opposite result. People who saw me assumed I was promoting the comic book, and that I was using special effects to fly. I thought once they saw it in print they would accept the facts, but it seems books work differently here."



"Welcome to Earth, headband. Can I see that, son?" Ken Hale reached for the comic and the boy handed it over, delighted that a gorilla had just spoken to him.  As the ape flipped through it, the youngster walked around behind him and looked on his back for a zipper.



Ken was engrossed in the boy's comic. "Heh. Look, the speech bubbles have ya saying 'gosh' all the time."



"That's called a word balloon, Ken," corrected Venus.



"Oh yeah, you worked as an editor for a while, guess you'd know."



"Well, that was for Beauty magazine. That reminds me, I should check up on Whitney. I mainly focused on interviews, we didn't run any comics except single panel gags. I just remember that term from when Timely printed my comic book."



The gorilla looked around as if he just found himself in a new place. "What... you had one too? Next I'm gonna find out you guys all had movie deals and didn't tell me." He looked behind him at the robot that stood unmoving, and rapped his knuckles on M-11's chest. "I guess we don't rate, huh?" The mechanical man gave his usual response of silence. Dr. Siuntres returned to the room.



"Okay, Mr. Woo, here's the audio we were sent."  The man with glasses opened what looked to be a briefcase and drew out a thick electrical cord which he plugged into the wall. A click of a toggle switch started two tape reels turning. Jimmy leaned in to listen. First there were hisses and pops, then several bursts of what sounded like a human voice underwater. It did indeed sound like gibberish or something that had been mangled in transmission. As the sounds faded out, the scientist shut off the tape player. "And that's it. I wouldn't have wasted your time with it, but we don't want the Bureau to think we're not trying to cooperate."



"Thanks," said Jimmy. "It wasn't a waste of time Dr. Siuntres. That's the way they often send us transmissions. Okay, M-11, play it back, please."



The robot's visor flashed a couple of times, and then an internal speaker played the message from the tape, now unscrambled.







---THIS PORTION OF THE EXCERPT IS ON FILE IN THE ARCHIVES--- 







Jimmy Woo turned to Ken Hale. "Well, that's pretty interesting, huh?" The ape nodded. "We better check it out."



Dr. Siuntres pushed his glasses back up his nose as the strange crew departed.



* * * * *




			 Clue#1 
	I clicked on a link in the passage and it led me to  

http://agentsofatlas.com 

On this page was a picture of two sketleton keys. Both facing opposite directions. 




	Posted by nhartz on 2006-08-10 18:54:21

	
 	 	 
		
			 "John Siuntres" 
	The "Chief Engineer," John Siuntres, is also the host of Word Balloon, the Comic Book Conversation Site. 

 

If you go to http://www.wordballoon.com, there is a picture-link of our favorite robot on the top of the page.  That leads to a page that links to an MP3 message.  Mine opened in Quicktime, so I guess it depends on your media capabilities. 

 

Someone's looking over my shoulder, so I can't transcribe the message yet, so maybe some other agent can. 

 

By the way, John's Wordballoon interviews are really interesting; I subscribe to them, and you can download them too. 

 




	Posted by msr.oresteus on 2006-08-10 19:23:02

	
 	 	 
		
				I got the bokbook it was AWESOME My. favorite part is Gorilla man with four guns but Venus naked is close too.


	Posted by tedscott on 2006-08-10 19:32:19

	
 	 	 
		
		
				All right, now, this is kinda weak, but there IS a book titled "Spellbound in Seattle" - here it is at Amazon: 

 

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0505525372/104-0310437-2312779?v=glance&n=283155 

 

But I, uh, don't know if that's relevant.


	Posted by Chris McFeely on 2006-08-10 19:55:30

	
 	 	 
		
			 Perils of Google 
	"All right, now, this is kinda weak, but there IS a book titled "Spellbound in Seattle" - here it is at Amazon: ..." 

 

Yeah, I saw that too, laughed nervously, then closed the window. 

 

I don't suspect our esteemed Mr. Lao is a sentimental, romance-reading despot, but everyone has a depth of complexity to them...


	Posted by msr.oresteus on 2006-08-10 20:06:10

	
 	 	 
		
			 Bah. 
	To the field already!


	Posted by mr. lao on 2006-08-10 20:09:06

	
 	 	 
		
				Oh, so, "Spellbound" is simply the key phrase to take into the field? Well, that wasn't too hard, then!


	Posted by Chris McFeely on 2006-08-10 20:10:10

	
 	 	 
		
			 Spellbound 
	Spellbound was a series of comics released by Timely/Atlas. Could it be a hint?


	Posted by nhartz on 2006-08-10 21:08:12

	
 	 	 
		
			 Question? 
	Do you think we need the two keys for the agentsofatlas.com page? It is pretty interesting that Mr. Lao told us there were two keywords and there is a picture of two keys. More than a coincedence.


	Posted by nhartz on 2006-08-10 21:17:32

	
 	 	 
		
				was there an excerpt that came before this one? how did they get from 'open sesame' to this place with gators?


	Posted by dp_lombardo on 2006-08-10 23:00:12

	
 	 	 
		
		
		
			 Am I reading too much into this? 
	In this week's text story, Venus says that "I should check up on Whitney".  Now, at first I thought of Whitney Hammond, but what if it just meant Whitney. 

 

I've done some checking and there was a story in Issue 3 of Spellbound published in May 1952 called "The Thing Behind The Wall", and it was pencilled and inked by an Ogden Whitney. 

 

Now the last part of the text story dated 2006-08-03 stated: 

 

"The three grew quiet and listened. No footfalls or breathing. Jimmy saw a faded image on the large wall. Walking closer he could see that it was an antiquated version of the globe, held by the kneeling god Atlas. He touched the wall, which was covered with dust. 

 

"I feel like I should know some magic word. Open sesame." The wall and its artwork remained still and silent." 

 

So Jimmy was obviously looking for something behind the wall. 

 

Coincidence?  Maybe?  If not, you are one tricky customer Mr. Lao!


	Posted by CommercialInn on 2006-08-11 08:06:42

	
 	 	 
		
			 Messages from Mr. Lao 
	I came across a couple of posting by Mr. Lao this morning. 

This first is on CBR. http://forums.comicbookresources.com/search.php?searchid=1777066 

Under the heading "Changes" he said "I would look again." 

The second is on Newsarama. 

http://forum.newsarama.com/showthread.php?t=79068&page=4 

Under the heading "Waiting" he said "Will they never go into the field?". 

I took his advice and went back to agentsofatlas.com and one of the keys was gone. Maybe this is to show us that we found the first one with SPELLBOUND. 

It sounds like he's getting impatient. We need to get out and find the second key word.


	Posted by jshelmig on 2006-08-11 13:06:50

	
 	 	 
		
		
			 They said they were going! 
	"Hey, where are you going?" asked Jimmy. "We've got to get to the rocket after breakfast and head out to the Space Center." 

 

see...


	Posted by calvin marsh on 2006-08-11 14:21:00

	
 	 	 
		
		
		
		
				As you say, venerable sir! When presented with "Spellbound," the word recieved back was SPLASHDOWN.


	Posted by Chris McFeely on 2006-08-11 19:12:17

	
 	 	 
		
		
			 Excellent. 
	Good work, McFeely and Hartz. I shall see you all at the weekend gathering.


	Posted by mr. lao on 2006-08-11 22:44:50

	
 	 	 
		
		
		
		
		
		
		
		
			 OK, It's Wednesday 
	Here's hoping a rookie agent has been paying attention and get the code.  Get to work!


	Posted by kuyu001 on 2006-08-16 15:10:42

	
 	 	 
		
		
		
		
		
		
		
		
		
		
		
		
		
		
		
		


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About this blog:
The Temple of Atlas is the training ground for all prospective Agents of ATLAS.

About the author:
Mr.Lao does not exist. Any myths or fables relating to him should be disregarded as same.


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