Doc Stalwart #251

Heartland’s Shield

Adapted from The Mighty Doc Stalwart #251 (February 1984)

By Dr. Mike Desing

Everything was a collection of stories. Mikah had learned that. Every object told the tale of what it was, where it came from, and who had been part of its life.

      Mikah looked around the messy office. The chair told him the stories of the carpenter who made it. The paperweight on the desk before him told the story of the beach from which the glass originated. The desk told of a thousand uncomfortable meetings, like this one, it had borne witness to.

      People, however, were a different matter. They were secretive. Elusive. They were also collections of stories, but they were often far more careful about revealing them. One of those people sat across from him now. Mikah was trying to remember the man’s name. Mister Golden? Golding? Something like that.           

      “We’ve been watching you,” the man said, his eyes still perusing the file folder he’d been flipping through for several minutes, “impressive.”

      “Thanks,” Mikah answered. Maybe Goldfinch? Maybe not.

      “Your work with the location of the Erbis Totem was quite the feat. How’d you do that?”

      Goldfarb? No… “Come again?”

      “How’d you find it? The Totem?” The man was still looking at the folder. Mikah wondered what story the folder was telling the man. He wondered if it was different from the story it would tell him.

      “Oh. We had a piece of Emperor Tessek’s memorial garb from like the fourth century BC. The Totem had touched the garb at some point. I touched the garb. Connection.” Mikah popped his lips as he took his fists and expanded into jazz hands. These became shaky jazz hands. Mr. Silvers seemed unamused. Silvers! That was it. Wrong metal altogether. Wow.

      “I see.” Mr. Silvers closed the folder, pushed his thick glasses up to the bridge of his nose, and studied Mikah from across the desk. His white dress shirt was spotted with several coffee stains. He had a comb over. No one was going to think that was his hair’s natural location, “We’re thinking of moving you to a high-profile project...” Mr. Silvers didn’t seem like he had decided yet. His eyes went back to the folder, “mutant, huh?”

      Mikah nodded.

      “Other than the object-directed-extra-sensory-tele-location- meta-awareness, any other gifts manifest?”

      “Not so far. I mean, it’s only been a year, and I know that new things can spring up into your twenties…”

      “Right. At thirteen, you’ve got time…”

      Mikah nodded. At the Citadel of Tomorrow, the gifts people exhibited were quite remarkable. Levitation. Telekinesis. Some (literally) mind-blowing stuff. He’d seen a four-year-old girl who could walk through walls. Object reading was comparatively tame.

      Still, he was here. At the North Pole. Sequestered from the world. Taking part in experiments every day. Feeling like the thing in the middle of a petri dish under a microscope. Twenty-four-seven-three-sixty-five.

      Mr. Silvers put the folder down. “How’d you like to try some field work?”

***

The elevator took them from Sub-basement C-7 to the Central Tower, whisking past the levels dedicated to supernatural lore, above the cybernetics tactical processing centers, and even upwards beyond the facilities for research into dimensional travel. Mikah’s palms were sweating more than usual.

      The door opened to reveal a wide hangar bay. Mr. Silvers walked forward, shuffling his feet and keeping his eyes pointed to the ground. This was his usual gait. His old leather satchel hung from his left shoulder.

      To his right, Mikah saw a huge window. The entire arctic spread out before them. They had to be at least a thousand feet up. The word ‘vista’ came to mind.

      The hangar was space enough for a fleet of jets, but only one craft was here.

      And it was weird. The first thought was that it looked like a 30’ long insect. It was a dull grey, sat on a series of narrow legs that served as landing gear, and had a pair of protruding mandibles at the front.

      “It’s… a beetle.”

      “That’s a great name! The Beetle. LOVE it.”

      A man stepped from behind a work shelf and into view. It wasn’t just any man. It was…

      “Doc Stalwart.” Mikah almost choked on the words.

      It was him. In the flesh. Right here. THE Doc Stalwart.

      “Pleasure to meet you, young man!” Doc extended a big hand from his big arm, as he flashed a big smile. Everything about him was big. He was a giant of a man.

      Mikah shook his hand. Doc Stalwart squeezed firmly but could have easily reduced Mikah’s hand to pulp or wrenched his arm from the socket with a flick of the wrist. This was a man who knew his own strength. If he noticed how clammy Mikah’s hand was, Doc didn’t show it.

      Mikah realized his jaw was hanging open.

      Doc had turned, and was walking back towards the ship, “The Beetle. That’s the name we’ve been looking for. Right, Zirah?”

      Sitting under the ship, a slight girl with jet-black hair and dark eyes was sharpening a sword. Had she been there the whole time? She didn’t nod. Doc acted like she did.

      “Yes, indeed. The Beetle. That’s a fine name. Glad to have you aboard, son!”

      Mikah gulped.

      Doc had taken some wrench-like object from the workstation and was now underneath the side of the Beetle. He’d opened a compartment and was working on something that looked both mechanical and organic at the same time. “I reviewed your file. Nice work on the Tesek assignment. That mummy is one nasty foe. Glad to know that his Totem is safe and sound...” Here he gave a wink. Was he joking?

      “Thank you, sir.”

      Mr. Silvers was still standing there, three steps back from Mikah. He produced another file folder from the satchel he always carried. This was a man who loved file folders. He probably purchased them by the carton. “Doc Stalwart, I have the file you asked for…”

      Doc paused. He finished adjusting what he was working on, returned the wrench to the workbench, and used a white towel to wipe off his hands. He checked them to make sure they were clean. He walked over to Mr. Silvers and carefully took the folder in hand.

      “Thank you.”

      Silvers sort of nodded, “let me know if you need anything else.”

      Doc Stalwart was already perusing the folder. For the first time, his smile seemed to crack. Just a little.

      Mr. Silvers called to Mikah from the elevator, as the doors slid shut, “effective immediately, you report directly to Doc. He will give you assignments from here.”

      And then he was gone.

      Doc spent a minute examining the pages of the folder. From ten feet away, Mikah could see a few black and white photographs, a map, yellowing papers with red ‘classified’ and ‘ultra-classified’ stamps across them. Flipping the last page over, Doc whistled, and the smile returned. In a small clear plastic bag was a bright coin.

      Doc had turned and was walking back towards the Beetle. “Come on aboard. Let me show you around.”

***

Inside the cabin, something was growling. And hissing. And snarling. And speaking something that sounded like an intentional and angry form of gibberish. The sound was coming from the far side of the cabin. There, housed in a shining blue cage affixed to the wall, was a tiny demon, maybe a foot and a half tall. No lie. It was totally a demon. It was dark red and had bat wings and fangs and claws. Like, this was an actual demon, albeit a really small one.

      Doc was going through the routine of activating the ship’s systems, flipping switches and pushing buttons. Lights and sounds came to life all around them, “Don’t mind Jynx. He’s just an imp. No worries, though. He has sworn a 66-year blood oath to me, so no chance of him trying to eat your face. I mean, normally, yes, he’d try to eat your face. But now, it’s all good.”

      Jynx was staring at Mikah, probably thinking about how his face would taste.

      Doc moved next to where Mikah was standing and reached down. He opened a trap door in the floor, revealing a storage compartment. Doc pulled out a bag of charcoal briquettes, and he started rummaging through the bag. This seemed like an odd time to start a campfire.

      Doc’s hand brought forth a half-dozen briquettes, and he tossed them, one at a time, towards the cage. Jynx snatched them from the air as they flew in his direction. Once he had all six, he gathered them together, moved to the far side of the cage (which wasn’t really all that far), and sat down. He started to devour them. He seemed almost content. Almost. His forked tail swished back and forth, smacking the sides of the cage.

      Yeah, he was totally thinking about eating Mikah’s face.

      The entirety of the ship’s cabin formed a single cavernous area. There were what appeared to be engine mechanics at the back, a few benches around the sides, and a series of controls at the front. There, three chairs were mounted on swivel bases. Doc took a spot in the largest center chair, motioning for Mikah to have a seat on his left.

      “So, object reading, eh?”

      Mikah nodded. He sat down.

      The girl, (Zariah? He’d already forgotten for sure) had come into the ship, moving up the ramp. Jynx had finished his (its?) snack and started to snarl at her. She walked towards the cage, held up her left hand, and suddenly, there was absolute silence. Pin drop type stuff.

      The imp had not stopped his rant. In fact, Jynx had doubled down, thrashing against the cage and spitting little sparks of flame. Mikah could see him, but he didn’t make the slightest noise. Not the imp, not the shaking cage, not the flapping wings. Dead silence.

      The girl turned, went towards the opposite side of the cabin, and pressed something on the wall. A bunk slipped out just above her head. She pulled herself up to it with considerable ease, and (from this vantage point) appeared to lay down.

      Doc was still studying Mikah. His hands were folded across his chest, elbows on the arm rests.

      “So. A name.”

      Mikah shrugged. “Huh?”

      “You need a name. A codename. Do you have one?”

      The others in his group called him ‘fish’, because his hands were cold and wet all the time. This was probably the worst code name in the world, but that’s what he went by. He was about to admit this.

      “There are at present 168,342 words in the English language, when you include 9,217 derivatives. And that doesn’t include the 47,156 obsolete words…” Doc said this off the top of his head, like he was just sharing a bit of common knowledge to provide context, “so there has to be a perfect word for what you can do.”

      Mikah shrugged, “I find stuff.”

      “Stuff finder boy!” Doc smiled again. He had a different smile for when he was joking.

      It was better than fish.

      “No. Just kidding. Finder. That works.”

      Great. Now he would be ‘Fish Finder’ when he went back to his unit. That was almost worse.

***

Doc had been studying the coin in its plastic bag for several minutes. “Want a cup of tea?” Doc pushed a button on his console, and a steaming cup of tea emerged from a pocket that slipped open. Mikah shook his head no.

      “Let me tell you about third grade.” Doc took a sip. He seemed satisfied with the flavor.

      “Okay.” Mikah had no idea what this had to do with the coin. He assumed that Doc would get there.

      “I loved science. So much. Still do. But third grade was where it really came together. So much happened that year. It was the Midvale World’s Fair. It was the year the Americas entered the Great War. It was the year I entered my version of the Freedom Formula in the August G. Hanover Elementary School Science Olympics. A big year all around…”

      Mikah nodded. It was the polite thing to do.

      “That summer, my parents had taken me to the World’s Fair. Flying cars. Jet packs. Ovens that cooked your food in seconds. Devices you could hold in your hand that would allow you to talk to anyone, anywhere in the world. Incredible stuff.”

      It sounded neat.

      “But I was always interested in the use of science for good. I never really cared about convenience. A flying car was nice, but if you can walk there or take your bike, then why not do it, right?”

      Mikah disagreed. A jet pack would be sweet.

      “But the Freedom Formula. That was what caught my eye.”

      Mikah had heard of it. But he knew next to nothing about it, other than a name.

      “That was where Heartland came from. He was a soldier. Decorated for valor. Winner of the Platinum Medal for Exceptional Heroism. He was there. I got this close to him.”

      He had pointed to an imaginary person a few feet away. He paused at the memory.

      “He was my hero. He’d just received the Freedom Formula. He was going to fight the New Reich on the other side of the world. He was talking about how science must be used for good.” The smile was even bigger now.

      “Science for good…” he sipped the tea.

      “After that day, Heartland went off to the war. I followed his adventures from a distance. I remember going to the movies three times a week to watch the update reel before the film, just to see footage from the front lines, to get an idea of what Heartland was doing. Sometimes, they actually had footage of him punching Reichers and diving out of airplanes.” This was a different smile, “they actually had footage of him fighting Simian Prime. Incredible. I remember him fighting that big ape… uppercut, uppercut, jab and haymaker.” Here Doc pantomimed the fight, smiling the whole time. He paused in memory.

      “When I wasn’t at the movies, I was working on my science project. I was going to recreate the Freedom Formula… in third grade… I was quite the precocious child.” Doc Stalwart was still smiling that different smile.

      “I tried my formula on some rats. They grew. And grew. I mean, they were huge. It was a success… the morning of the science fair, I had grown so confident that I decided to use the formula on myself instead of the rats. They ended up released in the sewers. I ended up as the only third grader who was too wide-shouldered to get on the bus that day.”

      “Within a week, I had been taken away, and was working at the facilities that would become the genesis for the Citadel of Tomorrow…” he licked his lips, “and my hero would disappear forever. He was declared Missing in Action on a mission about five years after the war ended. It’s been twenty-five years since then. And I’ve always wondered...”

      Doc Stalwart was now playing with the coin, which was still in its plastic protective bag. “This was his. Heartland’s. He earned it during the war. I want you to tell me if you can get anything from it.”

      Mikah’s hands were sweating again.

      “I’d like you to try. Could you do that, son?”

      Mikah nodded. Doc Stalwart gently opened the bag, letting the coin slip into Mikah’s palm. Mikah closed his fingers into a fist and set his other open hand over it. He closed his eyes.

      The familiar sensation came over him. It was like diving into murky water. He was surrounded by things, but he couldn’t see anything clearly. “I need something to look for. Something specific…”

      “His shield,” Doc answered, “Heartland always had his shield…”

      In the murky water, something shimmered. Mikah could feel himself swimming towards it, diving towards the object. There it was, buried in the mud. The Shield of Heartland. His hand reached out for it…

      Mikah’s eyes opened. “Let me see the map.”

      Doc Stalwart opened the folder and pulled out the map. He unfolded it, and Mikah found what he was looking for immediately: a small island in the South Pacific, barely a mark on the map. “Here. There’s a ruined temple in the jungle. It’s there. The shield. Everything you are looking for.”

      “I’ll be…” Doc Stalwart shook his head. He patted Mikah on the shoulder. “I suppose we have our mission. Wheels up in fifteen minutes.”

***

The Beetle gliding over the surface of the ocean made a sound like a knife cutting through paper. This had gone on for the last several hours. The display kept pinging, showing their progress towards the island. They were within a hundred miles.

      And then Mikah felt a flash of something. “Can I see that coin again?”

      Doc, who had been quietly piloting for the better part of the day, studied him. He nodded. Mikah went to the small compartment on the console in which Doc had deposited the coin. He drew it out and again focused. Now, the images were crisp.

      “I see a tribe of albino men. There is one man… he has Heartland’s shield. He’s the leader of the tribe…”

      Doc whistled in appreciation.

      “And there’s a big giant ape.”

      “Hmmm,” Doc mused, “when you say ‘big giant’, how big do you mean?”

      “Um. How tall is a coconut tree?”

      “Well, the larger ones can grow to about 30 feet in this part of the world.”

      “Oh. He’s like 30 feet then.”

      Doc whistled. More appreciation, “That’s a big boy.”

***

Everything about the jungle was thick and soupy. The ground, the air, the foliage. All of it was heavy and wet. In places where they dipped into the lower crossings of the jungle, the edges of everything blended with the thick mist and warm, heavy damp. The ground was squishy.

      They had set the Beetle down on the eastern coastline and had been cutting their way across the island for the last two hours. Doc took the lead, striding through the foliage, with Jynx perched on his shoulder. Behind him, Zirah cut through the foliage that Doc didn’t trample, clearing a path for herself and Mikah, who was bringing up the rear. They had decided to approach the temple proper from the ground. A distance scan of the temple had revealed a great deal of technology; they didn’t relish the idea of having to ward off surface-to-air missiles or laser-guided rockets.

      For the first part of their trek, Mikah didn’t notice that Zirah made no sound. Not her footfalls. Not her sword. Not the foliage she cut. At first he didn’t notice, but then he couldn’t stop noticing how weird it was. Nothing she did made any sound at all. She left no trail of her passage, either. He couldn’t see even one bent leaf or mark a single footprint. It was almost like she wasn’t even--

      “There…” Doc had stopped, looking up. Between the canopy of trees, Mikah could make out the top of a huge, tiered pyramidal temple, “hope you are up for some climbing…”

      After an hour of circling and climbing the temple, it turned out that the only way to enter was through a trapdoor in its roof. Doc had forced this open easily enough, and he shimmied down a few hundred feet of rope with the group on his back. The entire pyramid was hollow.

      They touched down in a huge chamber. Light came in sharp lines at odd angles, winnowing through gaps in the stone in a dozen places. Although this was once some sort of technological nerve center, it had long been conquered by vines. They were everywhere, wrapping around machinery and covering up control panels. Thick leaves hung from the angled walls, reclaiming every inch of available space. The various consoles, and their accompanying legions of vines, stretched for hundreds of feet in every direction, disappearing into darkness. 

      “Hmmm,” Doc Stalwart mused, looking around the area, “this is familiar…”

      Instinctively, Mikah put a palm on one of the machines. Immediately, he had a flood of images. Men in grey military garb. Electrical lights and mechanical sounds. Screaming. Blood.

      “Monkeys,” he said aloud, “lots of monkeys. One of them is…”

      “Simian Prime.” Doc answered in the most serious tone Mikah had yet heard him use, “this was from the reel. That’s what I saw. It was archival footage of Heartland here, in this place… battling Simian Prime.”

      And now, Jynx emitted something like a cry or a chirp, bounding from the console he’d been exploring. He leapt at Mikah. At his face. Mikah was only somewhat surprised; he expected that at some point Jynx was going to try and eat his face. It was only a matter of time.

      But instead of sinking its teeth into his nose, Jynx flattened itself on Mikah’s chest and pushed his head to the side with one of its claws. Mikah saw something wooden shatter against the control panel he’d just been standing near.

      Looking around, he saw this happening throughout the chamber. Wood was shattering against control consoles and inert technological devices. Wood was flying out of the darkness.

      No. It wasn’t just wood. It was spears.

      A volley of spears hit Doc Stalwart, splintering against his chest, shoulders, and even his head. He glanced northward with interest, but not pain. Zirah looked like she was dancing. She had evaded two spears, using her sword to beat away three others in what looked like one motion.

      Doc reached down and grabbed a huge root, maybe two feet wide, and unearthed it in one mighty yank. He had maybe fifty feet of it in hand and was starting to spin it like a whip.

      Two dozen pale men clad in rags and brandishing spears had stepped into view, and they were preparing for a second volley. With one swipe of the root, Doc tripped most of these men, sending them careening like bowling pins. Zirah bounded across the chamber, moving towards the center of the remaining men. She took a great swing of her sword in an overhead arc.

      The man at the center, who was larger and more elaborately decorated than the others, blocked her attack with a shield. It was covered in filth and had been painted over, but it was unmistakable. This was the shield of Heartland.

      “Stop!” Doc Stalwart bellowed, cowing all within the chamber into instant submission by the authority he carried, “That shield…”

      The man, who was as pale as the others, with pink eyes and white hair, a prolific beard and bare feet, barked at him in some unknown tongue.

      To Mikah’s surprise, Doc barked back. Mikah had now sat up, watching from maybe twenty feet away. Jynx had left him, moving into the shadows to either prepare a sneak attack or hide from danger. Mikah wasn’t sure about that little imp yet.

      The banter between Doc and the leader went on for several minutes. The exchange sounded hostile, as the language itself was decidedly cutting. This was the type of tribe that had ten words for kill and only one for help. For all Mikah knew, this could have been a friendly greeting to these savage men.

      After a series of exchanges, Doc and this man did something that looked like shaking hands. Doc came over to his friends and pulled them together in a huddle.

      “They have lived in tunnels below ground for hundreds of generations. This island has been invaded by outside forces many times. Explorers. Pirates. Raiders. The New Reich during the Great War… each time, these men have driven them away, often at great cost.”

      “The last group had been Simian Prime and his minions. They were sent away, but they left behind their greatest warrior… a huge ape that these men call ‘Gorillo’. Gorillo rules the island, keeping the tribe hidden in darkness, confined to their tunnels. Gorillo is the one who killed Heartland, but they recovered his shield from the ape’s lair. I have made a bargain with them. I will defeat Gorillo, and they will give me the shield.”

      Mikah sighed, “you heard me when I said thirty feet, right?”

***

It was near nightfall, and they had been tramping southward for an hour. The area on this side of the temple was well trod; this was the hunting grounds of Gorillo. His passage left crushed trees and huge footprints in the soft mud. Soon, the pathway became more well-defined, with stones pressed into the path and the skulls of fallen tribal men lining the way. Gorillo was a thinking creature. And he collected trophies.

      Mikah felt himself swallow hard.

      Doc carried a huge console on his shoulder but seemed unaffected. He had said it ‘only’ weighed a few tons, so he seemed unburdened by it. Mikah was still working on grasping the fundamentals of earth science, so Doc’s explanations about phase projectors, polarization, negative flux generators and molecular decompression had left Mikah with a rudimentary understanding of the plan: punch the monkey until it was knocked out, and then hit it with a shrink ray Doc had managed to cobble together from the various machinery in the temple.

      The plan seemed ridiculous, but then again Mikah was a mutant explorer on a jungle island fighting for albino tribesmen alongside a man who could lift a tank and had bulletproof skin, and they were about to go against a giant monkey… ridiculous was kind of his wheelhouse now.

***

      Shortly past nightfall they arrived to find Gorillo crouched at the center of a great clearing. He had uprooted trees and trampled foliage to create a wild hall for himself, cut into the middle of the jungle. He had fashioned something like a seat, built a fire, and was roasting something like a huge boar on a spit; Mikah was reminded of a cub scout roasting a marshmallow. This was one smart monkey.

      “Gorillo!” Doc shouted. He was not one for stealth. Jynx and Zirah, who both were, had already moved into the shadows on Doc’s left and right, and were flanking the ape, looking for an advantage. He was a thirty-foot tall gorilla. They weren’t likely to find many weak spots.

      Mikah stood on a narrow ridge overlooking the den, next to the car-sized device Doc had just set down. Doc strode down the slope into the clearing, beating at his chest. Gorillo rose and answered in kind, beating his own chest and emitting a yell that shook the whole island. They charged at each other.

      Doc took two big bounds and on the third leapt upwards, this jump taking him almost fifty feet into the air. He traveled more distance than Gorillo had expected, and the ape inadvertently lead with his chin right into a mighty right hook. This sent Gorillo tumbling backwards, falling into a copse of trees. Jynx barely skittered out of the way in time to avoid being crushed.

      For a moment it appeared that this had actually stunned him, but Gorillo quickly shook this off. Doc had clearly packed more of a wallop than anything that this creature had ever encountered, but it wasn’t enough to stop him. He rose and charged at Doc, landing a series of blows. An uppercut, uppercut, jab, and haymaker followed in quick succession.

      Mikah and Doc realized it at the same moment. Doc hesitated, and this was long enough for the huge ape to pummel him 4’ into the mud with a huge fist.

      Mikah whispered, “Heartland…”

      Zirah had emerged from the shadows, cutting a series of deep gashes into Gorillo’s calf. The huge ape howled in rage and pain. He shook his foot sideways, casting Zirah into the thick foliage. Her tumult made no sound, but she collapsed about fifty feet away in a pile of thick vines.

      Jynx joined the fray. His flight reminded Mikah of a hummingbird; he buzzed up to the gorilla’s nose and was swatting at its face. This was little more than an annoyance, and the huge ape swatted back. This was too much face for even Jynx to think about eating.

      Mikah considered how he could help. He had basic combat training, but he didn’t think the trips or arm bars he had learned in fundamentals of self-defense would be much use against a gorilla that was as big as a house. He thought about trying to activate the shrink ray machine but had nary the faintest idea how that might happen.

      The good news was that he didn’t need to. Doc had bounded here after pulling himself out of the muck. He was covered in filth, and his smile had shifted to a serious squaring of the jaw. He pulled the side of the mechanism away, revealing a vast internal jungle of wires and diodes and circuit boards. He dove into this with fervor, unplugging wires from one board and plugging them into another, splitting wires in two and twisting them with other wires. He whispered to himself, “have to reverse the polarity and reroute the power through the flux capacitor…”

      Then, Mikah had to assume, he did that. Whatever that was.

      Heartland as giant gorilla had finished dealing with the nuisance that was Jynx, swatting the imp with a firm backhand that shot him in an arc across the sky towards the far side of the island.

      Its gaze moved to the ridge where Mikah now stood next to the machine, a machine into which Doc Stalwart had buried his head, arms, and torso. Gorillo snarled. Then a dozen spears bounded off its chest and shoulders. A few more stuck in, but the greatest of the apes brushed them off and looked around. Many of the tribesmen had emerged from the jungle, and they were now pelting Gorillo with a barrage of spears. These he mostly ignored, scanning the group until he found his greatest desire: the shield, and the man wielding it.

      Instantly forgetting about Doc Stalwart and his small companion (for which Mikah was quite grateful), Gorillo charged, swinging a mighty fist in a huge arc down on the man. The fist hit the upraised shield and immediately rebounded, sending Gorillo falling backwards into the trees. Gorillo recovered and swiped at the man. The tribal leader deftly used the shield to deflect the swipe, which landed instead on a medium-sized tree, cracking it and sending dozens of coconuts in all directions. Gorillo was preparing for his trademark movement of a hail of blows when Mikah heard Doc’s familiar commanding voice, “Gorillo!”

      Doc had again lifted the machine, setting it across his shoulder and pointing the projector in Gorillo’s direction. The ape bounded once, twice, and then Doc pushed a button. A yellow ray burst from the machine, striking Gorillo in flight, and sending him falling into a thick section of foliage. The tribesmen moved carefully towards the broken brush, but Doc bounded ahead of them, dropping the machine on its side and taking three huge leaps to get to where the mighty monkey had fallen. A minute later, he emerged helping an old man who was almost as big as he was, and who had a beard that extended beyond his waist, back to the trail.

***

      Mikah spent the next several hours at the periphery of activity. There was a dinner, but he understood none of the banter. He sat at a far edge of the temple complex, watching as Zirah sharpened her sword in silence and Jynx tended his wounds by licking them. His tongue seemed to drop a kind of brown acid that both burned at comforted him at the same time.

      After several rounds of toasts, Doc lead the old man away from the gathering and towards Mikah and the two oddities with him. He supposed that made them three oddities altogether. The old man, who Mikah presumed was Heartland, spoke.

      “So… this is the young man who found me?” He smiled. Did the Freedom Formula make you smile like that, too? He shook Mikah’s hand with the same firmness and self-control that Doc had exhibited.

      “Welcome back, Mr. Heartland.” Mikah said. He realized how stupid that sounded as soon as he said it.

      “Oh, I’m not back…” Heartland corrected, “at least, not as you might think it. No. The world has gone on. My home is here now.”

      Mikah went to disagree but stopped himself.

      Heartland was an old man to be sure, but a deep strength still abided, “I have done great damage to these people. To this land. I will stay and make it right. I trust you can keep my secret…”

      “... yes sir…”

      Heartland patted Mikah on the shoulder. He almost said something else, but then he just held his smile again and turned to rejoin the tribe of which he was now the leader. The last thing Mikah saw was Heartland holding his shield again as the men came around him.

***

The flight back to the Citadel of Tomorrow was quiet for several hours. In his cage, Jynx chased something in sleep, hissing and clawing at an imaginary target. But Zirah had reduced this to a pantomime. When it got to the point where Mikah could bear it no more, he cut the silence, “I’m glad that you got to meet your hero.”

      Doc nodded. He was still trying to process it. Mikah realized that this was, in many ways, the third-grade version of the boy who would become Doc Stalwart he was speaking with now.

      Doc activated the autopilot and turned towards Mikah. He had the most serious expression Mikah had yet seen him display. He was mulling something over.

      “I’ve wondered my whole life if I would ever see Heartland again. Within a day, you led me to him.”

      Mikah shrugged. He supposed that was true. He hadn’t really thought of it that way.

      “I need to know something.” Doc had taken his right hand and set it over his left. He was playing with a ring. Mikah realized for the first time that Doc wore a wedding band.

      “My wife and I were a team. She was… lost… some time ago,” he squared his jaw at the memory, “and I need to know. If she is gone.”

      He pulled off the ring and held it out. Mikah felt a new wave of perspiration on his palms.

      Doc dropped it into his hands. Mikah felt its weight. Right away, he saw things clearly. There was no muddy water to dive through to search for remnants. It was simple, clear, and precise in the way that absolute truth always is.

      “She is gone,” Mikah said.

      Doc nodded, took the ring back, slipped it back to its place, and took the Beetle off autopilot.

      Mikah was sad that he knew this with such certainty. But he was also confused. Because he knew something else. Yes, Doc’s wife was dead. But he also knew two other things with equal conviction.

      Doc’s daughter was alive. And Mikah couldn’t tell him.