Status Updates From Rocketeer: Jet-Pack Adventu...

Cliff tightened his grip on his own hand controls, racing after her. Millie veered from a straight ascent to heading west toward the Pacific Ocean, and as Cliff corrected his own trajectory to follow, he was dimly aware of hundreds of upturned faces and pointing hands below. The air-show crowd was certainly getting its money’s worth today. The two Rocketeers were putting on a hell of a fight for them.

Cliff’s jaw dropped as he stared in disbelief. “Rose?” Yes, it was the hostess he’d met at the party, but “Rose” had lost the red hair, which he now realized had been a wig, and when he saw her with her real, dark brown hair cut close around her face, he knew her. “Millie Marker! Of course. You’re the one who’s been flying the rocket suit!” Executing a curtsey, Millie answered, “Miss Rocketeer, at your service.”

When they reached Cliff’s place, Betty parked, leaned over and gave Cliff a kiss that left him flushed and shaking. “What was that for? Not that I object, mind you.” “That was for taking my side after all.” Cliff made a mental note to let Betty win all of their arguments in the future.

After he’d finished lunch, Cliff tucked the paper under his arm and went to check in with Peevy at his workshop. He needed to talk to someone smart, someone who could tell him if it was really possible that the Rivet Gang were women. Dainty, delicate, beautiful, fragile women.

Glancing at the cracked and frayed leatherette around him, Cliff just nodded and assured the cabbie that it wouldn’t happen. Besides, he had bigger things to worry about…like how bad Peevy was going to kill him when he found out that the rocket pack was now residing with the bones of prehistoric animals in the La Brea Tar Pits.

He took a deep breath and put her file back in the drawer without looking. He was sure Betty would never cheat on him, not even for her career’s sake. But thinking about her put a knot in his stomach again. He wished she were safe at home, or with Peevy, or at the Bulldog Café—anywhere but out in the open where the killer could find her if he wanted to.

“It’s just as well,” Burton said. “You know what they say about men in masks, don’t you? The masks don’t hide their true faces. The masks are their true faces. Makes you wonder about the Rocketeer, doesn’t it? What that says about him?” Burton put the photograph back on the table, tipped his hat and took his leave.

“Oh, Cliff, won’t the pictures be beautiful?” He sighed. Every instinct was warning him to talk Betty out of doing this, but those same instincts told him she would never listen. Not when her first leading role in a Hollywood picture beckoned. Cliff looked at Rogell. The producer’s lascivious leer was back on his face as he watched Betty model the costumes.

That was another thing. Rogell’s picture was hardly destined to be the Casablanca of 1943. No, this masterpiece was called The Mask of the Pharaoh and was about a woman who goes to Egypt, discovers she’s the reincarnation of an ancient Egyptian princess and gets chased by the mummy of the pharaoh Sekhemkhet as well as a gang of ruthless, mob-connected treasure hunters.

“The invasion?” Chiodo said nothing, but Cliff didn’t need a response. Across the tops of the buildings, over toward the main wharves and the Delaware River, the sky was hemorrhaging a thick cloud of green light. In that light hovered the specters of armored zeppelins and seemingly endless squadrons of rocket-men. They were shimmering and translucent as yet, but their potential filled Cliff with rock-solid terror.

“Sam’d never help Nazi spies.” “He thinks he’s getting rid of us. Why wouldn’t he help?” He paused. “Particularly with a gun to his head.” Cliff scowled. “You, too, have a gun to your head,” Major Secord continued. “Help me stop the Fliegen Tod—or stand back and watch your country die.”

“Betty!” he screamed. Smoke and fire. Broken wood and screams. Chaos engulfed him in that instant. As the swirling darkness overtook him, he tried to locate Betty. A burning body lay to his right, obscured by smoke and falling debris. He could make out a red dress, torn and burning. A dark stain spread around the body. Blood. Not her. No. Surely not her. Deep inside, he knew better.

At the same time, he realized it had all been a distraction. Rocketeers had appeared all around him, weapons in hand—maybe half a dozen of them, moving in a breakaway pattern that would get them close enough to put a few holes in his fuselage—or maybe in him. A bullet hit his plane’s prop, sparked and disappeared. Another cracked the windscreen. This was bad.

“So you do exist,” the newcomer said over the fading echoes of his entry. His voice sounded weirdly familiar. “A weak, pitiful masquerade.” “Who the deuce ya think you are?” The new arrival laughed. “I? I’m the warrior you’ll never be. The Cliff Secord you might have been if you weren’t such an inconsequential fool. I am your true self, Cliff Secord, and there can be only one.”

“Thank you!” Ecstasy said, shaking out her ebony curls. “And thank you for saving me from those Schweine!” “Holy smokes!” Cliff gasped, his eyes widening in surprise as he saw the face of the woman he had just saved. “You’re—” “Hedwig Eva Maria Kiesler,” the woman called Ecstasy said. “Better known as Hedy Lamarr.”

He turned to the senior Silver Eagle. “You are certain I will not be disturbed?” “The place is deserted. You can do whatever you want to her, and no one will hear a thing.” Cliff had seen all he needed. If there was anything that made his blood boil worse that Nazis, it was jerks who threatened to hurt women. It was time for the Rocketeer to make his move.

“Oh, look!” Betty cried. She pointed to the sky. “It’s the Rocketeer!” “Wow, it is!” said a buxom, green-eyed beauty as she began to wave both arms over her head. “Hey, Mister Rocketeer! Swoop down here, honey! Show me your patriotism, and I’ll show you mine!” All the girls began laughing and jumping up and down, catcalling and whooping at the flying man in the sky.

“Mister…Johnny,” he said urgently. “Relax, Cliff. I know what it’s like to have a secret, and I sure won’t spill yours. Maybe someday, you can show me what it’s like to swim through the air.” Cliff wondered what Weissmuller’s secret was, but he figured most movie stars had at least one. “Sure, Johnny,” he promised, and then Tarzan shut the gate with a smile.

Cliff was so shocked he nearly fell out of the tree. Instead, he slid down the trunk just like Tarzan himself. Then he stomped past some awfully famous faces, ignoring them all…just as Weissmuller popped out of the pool in his swim trunks, him with his movie-star hair and muscles, then bent back down and offered his hand to Betty.

A living, evil creature, it called to the lonely, the desperate, the helpless. It lured them to the railings. It promised them an end to their torment. And after they jumped… …it feasted on their terror. The bridge was cursed, people said. Haunted by the angry spirits of the men who had died building it. They were right.

Suddenly, Fang Li whirled to confront a pirate who’d raised a throwing dagger to plant in her back. Her yo-yo whipped around his neck and circled it three times before it smashed into his face. The “string” was like piano wire and dug hideously into his flesh. Defiantly, she stepped over the traitor’s corpse to berate her terrified men in venomous Chinese.

Another option came to him a moment later. Before he could think twice about it, he crawled under his bunk and pulled a couple of empty jerrycans and blankets and junk in on top of him. I bet this never happened to the Spirit, he thought…

Bombs away, Cliff thought, and ignited.
The Rocketeer came out of the plane like a bullet from a gun. The masked pirate folded over his shoulder like wet laundry. Before Cliff could shrug him off, a souped-up Tiger Moth dove into his flight path, and a snarling demon crouched behind the wings shot Cliff’s kicking, screaming passenger full of holes with a fifty-caliber machine gun.

When he saw that the lights were shining on Betty, he almost cried out. Thank god she was alive, but what the hell? It was like a scene from a Weird Tales cover: the brunette beauty, bereft of clothes save for her bra and black lace panties, manacled to large iron rings set in the lab’s rock wall, two burning torches on either side of her. And she was yelling her head off while struggling to get free.

During the run back to his cabin on the beach, Cliff heard two short screams, more of the animal shrieks, followed by a noise that could only be the flapping of wings. Huge wings. Although he could see nothing, he had the impression that all around him the night was full of movement, just beyond the edge of his vision. Well, that was fine; he liked movement, action. And he’d show them some, whoever they were.

“Trust me, I’ve filmed all sorts of creatures in my time, on land and in the sea, and they were sharks,” said Jones, turning away and starting to fiddle with his camera again. But Cliff thought that Danny was right. They hadn’t looked like sharks at all. They had looked like men.

“Why? What do you mean?” “It is a tragic story about loss and sadness. Most legends are, I suppose. Many islanders believe these stories, despite all my attempts to educate them. And with everything that’s been happening lately, they panic and say that the Widows are returned— and will have their blood.”

“You are an idiot, sir. The Nazis would take everything you have—every science, every technology, every piece of art, every stored jar of preserved fruit—and leave all of you dead or enslaved.” “Of course they would. So would the Americans. Just more slowly, beginning with missionaries and Western medicine.”

What worried Cliff more was if the Germans had the ability to attack them in the air. The Thunderbird had been built for exploration and research, not military missions, so it had no weaponry. Stealth was their only real strategy, and there was nothing stealthy about a man wearing a jet pack.

Cliff was tapped on the shoulder. He turned and was greeted by Howard Hughes. “Hello, Secord, glad you made it,” Hughes said. “My table’s over here.” Looking back at Welles, he added, “I love those magic gags he does. You believe in magic, Cliff? Besides the magic of movies, I mean.” “Not really, but I do believe in miracles,” Cliff replied, thinking of Betty.