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The Chief Designer
2006-08-29 13:58:09

The explosion blew a cloud of snow and steam for a kilometer and black clouds of birds emptied the surrounding forests. Several men in fur hats wiped moisture from their glasses and shook their heads towards the ground. Water trucks raced to the launchpad and began dousing the flames around the area. In the watchtower a burly man pulled off a pair of headphones and slung them at the nearby console. He tried to find a clear patch of sky through the tower window but it would be an hour before the haze would settle. The moisture provided perfect cover for the far more successful rocket now racing down to the remote sector of Siberia.

"Well that was lucky," said Venus. "I mean, not for them so much, but we could have been zipping around this country for hours without finding their launch facility."

Marvel Boy set the Silver Bullet guidance system for landing and turned to his attractive teammate. "I think our odds would have been pretty good to detect activity even without a failed liftoff. As I told the fellows at the Marshall Space Center when they were worried how far they were falling behind the Soviets' space program... my guess is they're putting more resources into their program and firing off many more rockets. And charting that on a bell curve would show a lot more disastrous attempts than they're probably letting on about."

"Well that would be none, because from what we hear, everything they try works like a charm," added Jimmy Woo. "Their main guy, the- what do they call him... Chief Designer? You'd think he's the Earth equivalent of you the way they go on about him and his knowledge of rocketry."

"Yeah, well we got Von Braun on the Disney show. We're gonna have cartoons in space before them." The gorilla grabbed onto the ring on the wall to steady himself as the rocket lurched backward and lowered behind a hill some distance from the Soviet scientists. Bob took off his cape and put on a coat, sweater, pants and boots over his usually sparse costume. Ken Hale whistled at the young hero. "Look at the ordinary Joe! Who'd know this kid grew up on a planet where they think capes and shorts is the style?"

Grayson pulled on a wool cap as well. "When in Siberia, to paraphrase your old saying. I could keep myself warm by powering my armbands up more, but then I'd be a spectacle- and I don't think Jimmy wants any extra attention on us."

"That's right," returned Jimmy, pulling on his own coat. "We're just here for some info, and this is a touchy situation. As an FBI team we're way out of line coming behind the Iron Curtain like this. Venus is going to take the lead on this one. I'll keep my trap shut and maybe they'll just think I'm Chinese."

"Hey, you set off a war between the U.S.S.R. and Red China, that would be something," said Hale.

"No one's getting hurt today, because we're doing things my way." Venus ran her hands through her long hair and its silver color took on a bluish hue. "Just to really play up the effect. Let's go."

The Soviet guards were discussing as always when they might be able to leave this temporary post, when one heard the crunching of feet upon snow. Their guns raised at the figures stepping out of the woods and walking towards them.

"M-11, incapacitate those gunmen, but leave them alive. And jam all transmissions from this area."

The robot marched forward and a hail of bullets rained upon his metal casing. Rather than ricochet off as the bullets in Seattle had, these stuck to the android, who now generated a magnetic field to protect the team members behind him from any stray fire. The guards emptied their clips and reloaded or grabbed extra guns from nearby vehicles. It was becoming difficult to distinguish the robot's form as the covering of rounds grew. One of M-11's arms was extended and wrapped around the fragments of rocket found in the Natty Bumpo. His free arm extended rapidly to it's full length, followed by the fingers on that hand. From the tips of the fingers burst arcs of electric current that filled the clearing and connected all the Soviet gunmen for an instant. Briefly their grips contracted to force even more machine gun fire, and at once the attack stopped as they each collapsed in place. Jimmy, Ken and Bob turned over a few who had fallen face down in the snow to keep them from smothering, and the team continued forward. A telepathic scan by Marvel Boy revealed the Soviet scientists to be holed up inside the watchtower. Ken Hale pushed the locked door until it popped off its hinges and the troupe proceeded up a metal staircase.

At the door to the launchroom Jimmy turned and whispered. "Any guns in there, Bob?"

"Just one. They're all hiding behind tables and equipment."

"Okay, let's go. No one talks but Venus. It's your show." The men put their fingers to their ears.

She nodded, and began to hum. As she let her voice get louder, the thud of the gun being dropped could be heard. Ken then pushed this door open as well to let her step inside. Jimmy held a hand up to M-11 indicating for him to stand in the hall for the moment.

In the control room, several Russian and German engineers held onto whatever structures they were near as if on a ship that was rocking gently, yet steep. They were all delighted when the bearer of the unearthly voice entered. Venus kept singing and held out her arm as if to introduce those that followed- a short asian man, a tall nordic man, and an extremely large gorilla. While her voice worked through their heads the entourage seemed perfectly normal. Then the singing stopped and the group seemed the oddest ensemble the scientists had ever seen. Still, they were no longer terrified of what the guards must have been firing upon, and the calm stayed with them.

---NOTE FROM AGENT WELLINGTON, TRANSCRIPTIONIST--

The following exchange between Agent Venus and the Soviet scientists has been translated from Russian. These have been triple-checked by Linguistics, who have the reels made from M-11's playback.-A.W.-----

"Greetings, Earth Men. My crew and I are visitors to your world. It is our understanding that you seek to travel the reaches of outer space."

"You speak Russian?" asked a man with thick framed glasses. "Is our language like yours?"

"No," replied Venus, stifling a smile. "To speak our language you would need four more mouths and an extra octave range. We are appearing to you in bodies representative of your highest life forms for your own comfort. You are not ready to see beings such as us yet."

Two of the scientists looked at each other and spoke in their native German. "Gorillas are one of our highest life forms?"

"Yes, they are," Venus replied in their direction, which startled the men. She reminded herself for later to not share that part with Ken. "We are curious about certain parts of your space program. Last year you sent up your second capsule into orbit. I believe it had a passenger... a dog, you call it. Is this correct?"

A few of the men looked down in apparent shame. "Yes," said a thin man with a kind face. "Laika."

"Was the capsule designed to return to Earth with this passenger?"

The thin man wiped his eye. "No. Our instruments were to test if one could survive the gravity pull and weightlessness. She... would not have lived more than a few hours."

"Really." Venus turned towards the door. "Automaton, please bring in the debris we found."

The calm of the room evaporated as the massive form of M-11 walked in, his torso at 90 degrees to his advancing legs. Once he had cleared the doorway with the metal he carried, his body rotated back into alignment. The expanded arm retracted to place the two halves of the Sputnik II space capsule on the floor of the men who assumed they would never see the craft again.

"You brought it out of orbit!" The man turned to the others. "I knew it! I knew once we began going into the cosmos we would attract attention! We- we have only peaceful intentions with our program... we only seek to fly around our own planet! Please do not destroy us."

Venus raised an eyebrow at M-11. Naturally they were assumed to be peaceful emissaries until the menacing android appeared. "We are not angry with you, but something you're telling us doesn't make sense. We found this debris on Earth."

The burly man who had thrown his headphones in anger earlier stepped forward. "I am Korolyov-- the Chief Designer." The man paused a minute to compose himself. He had never planned to tell this news to his superiors at the Kremlin, and assumed no one outside his immediate staff of engineers would believe it either. Now he found himself facing beings who would likely not find his story unusual, so he began.

"Sputnik II was not designed for reentry. We are not at that phase yet. But a month before launch, I had a dream... several of us had the dream, in fact. In the dream we were shown plans to fit the capsule for life support. Others were shown how to produce a chemical to be injected into Laika, as well as device to be implanted under her skin. The dreams recurred and compelled us to follow this new plan. It was only at liftoff that we all realized we had been influenced. We thought perhaps... creatures such as yourselves may have done this." As he explained in more detail the additions they had made, an engineer in the corner named Kragoff jotted down notes furiously on his clipboard.

"Perhaps," returned Venus. "It was not us, however."

Kragoff stepped a bit closer and spoke. "What do aliens want with such information? How do we know you are not spies?"

Marvel Boy floated up three feet and hovered over across the room to look down on Kragoff. The balding scientist retreated back to the desk where he had been scribbling notes.

"We do not want your secrets, we were only curious as to your motivation," answered Venus.
"It is clear you were not under your own control during this mission."

The Chief Designer spoke again, feeling oddly free to share information as his audience was not a part of the politics that governed his life and work. "Please excuse him. We are forced to take great measures with our space program, such as moving our launch sites to different parts of the Union." He looked out the window at the bleak cold sky. "I would never have brought us here- I was sent here many years ago, to a gulag. I believe soon we will be able to build a permanent center outside of Moscow, where our program can proceed at full pace. We would welcome you to return then, to our Star City."

"Thank you. But we have many other planets to visit and document. Perhaps we will return one day. Now we must say farewell."

Marvel Boy's headband glowed quickly, surprising the engineers. Venus nodded his way and then asked a new question. "Yes. Do you have anything of the animal... a blood sample, perhaps?"

The thin man walked over to Venus, his head still hanging as he reached into his coat pocket. From the jacket he produced a small leather collar. Marvel Boy's headband pulsed again.

"May I keep this?" Venus asked. She politely kept the quality of her voice to a level that wouldn't coerce the man. He nodded his head.

"Thank you. We are very grateful."

As the strange visitors exited, Venus turned once more for a final question. "One more question. Why do you have so many people with weapons around this noble venture?"

"Our leaders fear that others on this planet will learn our methods... and possibly reach the heavens before us." Korolyov felt flush at what he had said. "That must sound quite ridiculous to beings such as yourselves."

"I wish it did," said Venus.

Question
What are all the keywords we have received?
I have DEATH RAY, MASTER PLAN, APHRODITE, FLYING SAUCER, URANUS, MOJAVE, ATOMIC AGE, BORAX, SPUTNIK, TEMUJIN, AND SPLASHDOWN. Is this all of them or do I have some that are not.

Posted by nhartz on 2006-08-24 23:03:56

Take the name
Should we use Russia or USSR when we go to the field?

Posted by nhartz on 2006-08-24 23:19:05

If we're thinking Atomic Age...
It could be SOVIET UNION, maybe.

Shame there's no mission log this week :(

Posted by CommercialInn on 2006-08-25 02:57:54

There will be...
-when someone finds the correct name of that land and takes it into the field.

Posted by mr. lao on 2006-08-25 11:27:09

...I suspect this is where Mr. Lao will transfer us to if someone doesn't get this clue and come back with the correct codeword.

Posted by KRB NRG on 2006-08-25 13:25:03

Yes.
You are a sharp one!

Posted by mr. lao on 2006-08-25 13:42:44

wat
COUNTRY IS THAT

Posted by tarhaun on 2006-08-25 16:49:01

Country
Would it then be Siberia?

Posted by nhartz on 2006-08-25 17:28:31

YES.
Your key for the field is Siberia. The two words you are given will release the rest of this excerpt.

Posted by mr. lao on 2006-08-25 19:50:30

No Luck
I'm sorry Mr. Lao, once again I have failed you. I mentioned the keyword in my local comic shop and they thought me mad.

I await another agent to post the keywords so I can read the log.

Posted by CommercialInn on 2006-08-26 13:27:49

Just as Well.
The rest of the log will be murder to read until Timely does something about this gray background!

Posted by mr. lao on 2006-08-26 23:21:07

i know
lao i agree with this gray back grond it sucks

Posted by tarhaun on 2006-08-27 15:09:20

Gray background is pretty rough...
Could you post the text in a box and change the background in the box itself?

By the way, I have the code word you are looking four. And the implications of it fantastic! It makes re re-think the outcome of that poor little dog!

On a side note, when something space-related involves Siberia, I always think of Tunguska. However the Tunguska Event was almost exactly 50 years previous to the story we are currently reading.

I'm very excited to read the next part. If no other agent can find the keyword, I'm sure by now you know I have it.
---KRB NRG
Agent of Atlas,
Fort Worth, TX

Posted by KRB NRG on 2006-08-28 01:00:56

The Subject Line is no longer in /bold *BOLD*

And to correct some spelling errors above:
"By the way, I have the code word you are looking four. And the implications of it are fantastic! It makes me re-think the outcome of that poor little dog!"

Posted by KRB NRG on 2006-08-28 01:05:07

On an outer space adventure, they got hit by.
COSMIC RAYS is our key word for this week!

Posted by Chris McFeely on 2006-08-28 08:45:24

Very Good.
If Timely hasn't corrected this gray situation in a couple of hours, I may put the log up at the Agents of Atlas website for now. COSMIC RAYS is indeed the key, and the two of you have seemed to intuit developments. Are you sure you haven't already read these missions?

Posted by mr. lao on 2006-08-28 11:11:26

Hey, I was just singin' a cartoon theme song... :)

Posted by Chris McFeely on 2006-08-28 12:14:55

Losing the plot!?!
Thanks for posting the key words. Now I have to work out how to use them, I'm a really bad agent. Total bottom of the class material. :(

Posted by CommercialInn on 2006-08-29 07:17:39

Hey! The Grey's gone and the BOLD is back!
Now we can get on with this!

And CommercialInn, McFeely has already used the code word and gotten the proper resonse. So we have achieved mission objective. And with the board fixed, Mr. Lao will now be able to post the next portion of our mission.

For some reason, I keep thinking about the Red Ghost and his Cosmic Apes...
I wish Nosybrat were here. I'm sure he would have information about RG's current whereabouts or recent dealings.

Posted by KRB NRG on 2006-08-29 08:18:56

I told you I was a bad agent...
Sorry, I totally misunderstood. I thought we needed to type the keyword into a link on the page that I couldn't find. D'Oh!

I feel really stupid now.

Posted by CommercialInn on 2006-08-29 10:28:24

Ah. Much Better.
Now that my ancient eyes can read the page again, I shall put up the rest of the excerpt shortly. In the meantime, I would advise you all to pay attention to the dutiful collection of keywords by nhartz!

Posted by mr. lao on 2006-08-29 11:28:39

One More
Thanks to Chris we have one more COSMIC RAYS.

Posted by nhartz on 2006-08-29 13:27:44

Well, KRG was certainly on the right track with his idea - the balding scientist "Kragoff" it certain to be Ivan Kragoff, the Red Ghost. And I doubt it's a coincidence that this bit of the mission involves animals going into space, and the open suggestion that apes are one of Earth's highest lifeforms! Super Apes ahoy!

Now, to the hunting!

Posted by Chris McFeely on 2006-08-29 14:47:52

oh my god
siberiea??

Posted by tarhaun on 2006-08-29 16:38:34

Thanks Chris McFeely
I just read the Marvel Universe bio on the Red Ghost and it's pretty interesting. I wonder how this all ties together

Posted by kuyu001 on 2006-08-29 18:55:07

No Need to Hunt.
I dissolved an extraneous mission because the technical problems infuriated me. And since a minion has reminded me that issue 2 of AGENTS OF ATLAS arrives next week, I have decided to save the final mission excerpt for the occasion. I believe when casual readers see the redoubtable Kenneth Hale on the cover, they will want to know more about our organization, so we'll treat them to an eventful conclusion.
Worry not- our training may come to an end, but The Temple shall remain a busy area!

Posted by mr. lao on 2006-08-29 20:04:20

This is sad news indeed.
I can't wait to see the next issue but am sad to see this excerpt come to a close. It was a lot of fun and really great meeting you all. I am also glad to see Mr. Lao will keep the Temple a busy place!

Posted by nhartz on 2006-08-29 20:53:49

back in the field
hello fellow agents!

I have just returned from a deep cover assignment (posing as a vacation) and I';m glad to discover the Temple has grown so vast and new agents have cropped up. It seems next week's mission will be the last one, I'll miss these assignments!

Posted by doop1958 on 2006-08-30 09:01:36

Wait, what?
Our training ends next week?! No more missions?! Aw, SUCK! I was just getting the hang of it all!

Posted by Chris McFeely on 2006-08-30 16:32:42

what?!?!??!??!?!!??!?!?!??!!??!?!??!?!
no this can't happen why why so will u visit every once and a while will ya u will awalys be an awesome dude lao plus i wanna say sorry 4 all the hellcrap i have been putin' u in man

Posted by tarhaun on 2006-08-30 17:01:06

Gone?
Where did my post go?

Posted by nhartz on 2006-08-30 17:51:35

No More Missions
Gosh fellas, i dunno what to say?
it's been a helluva ride!

one more to go, though. and, lets not forget, 5 more issues of AoA as well!

But still, Mr. Lao, you may be a devious, devious little man...but you're like a cyber father to me.

Posted by dp_lombardo on 2006-09-05 11:15:15

while we wait: review of issue 2:
http://comicsnexus.insidepulse.com/articles/50655

special agent advance copies! ;)

Posted by doop1958 on 2006-09-06 18:24:53

Array

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