You see a small private house, innocent looking on the outside. An ordinary house, an unimportant house! But within it houses a galaxy of the world's most famous fighters! The exterior is a small, wooden cottage in a colonial style behind a large tree with shrubs along one side of the house. There is a front door with a triangular frontispiece across the top of it. The door is wood like the rest of the house, but it's done in a lighter color. Looks like a mailbox is on the upper right of the door frame. To the right of the door is a window that sticks out like a breakfast nook or an alcove. On the side of the house the roof raises up into a triangle with carved wood accents along the edge of the roof. Another outward poking window like a breakfast nook sits just under the raised roof. This window is partially obscured by the shrubs.

Inside, the living room is like a lodge cluttered with knickknacks. A large stone fireplace is the focus of the room. A shelf with various knickknacks and a three candle-holder almost like a Menorah sits above the fireplace. There are overstuffed easy chairs with wooden accents. The walls look like some kind of geometric or parquet pattern in either tile or wood. There's at least one painting, a group portrait of the CCC.

Before the fireplace sits a swarthy giant of a man, his features betraying his half Comanche and half Irish origins. Jim Anthony leans forward, lighting his cigar in the fireplace. He turns to the other man pacing the room. Jim watches his friend for a moment. "And he didn't say what he wanted?"

Tom Gentry shakes his head, his pale, freckled features betraying the tension that both men must feel. "No, only that it was an emergency, and that we should summon what help we could. Unfortunately - " his explanation was interrupted by a knock at the door.

Jim reacts before his friend registers the knock. He bolts over his chair and opens the door, and a young man tumbles in. His hair is unfashionably long, and he is dressed in a long trenchcoat, under which he is barechested. The taller man catches him as before he falls to the ground. "Perkins?" he says, carrying him over to one of the easy chairs and noting his battered appearance. "Who did this to you?"

Neptune Perkins gasps, holding on to his last fragments of consciousness, "No-one."

The Crime Crusaders Club

Case 1: "No Fortunate Son"

By Mikel Midnight

With thanks to Philip Jose Farmer, Jean-Marc Lofficier and Rick Lai for their development of Nemo's family tree. Incidental descriptions and dialog from the adventure of the Crime Crusaders Club as first relayed by Otto Binder; the narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym as first relayed by Edgar Allan Poe and later by Jules Verne; the coming race of the Vril as first relayed by Edward Bulwer Lytton; and the secret doctrine of the Dzyan as first relayed by Helena Petrovna Blavatsky.

He awakes later, to find a group of people clustered around him, looking concerned. A wave laps at his body, and he realises he had been resting on sand. He shifts his weight, and effortlessly glides into the water as it recedes, absorbing the sodium salts his body needs to survive. Finally, he swims back to the beach, looking around at the unfamiliar landscape of Lake Michigan.

Two young men and a woman accompany Jim Anthony as they wait for Perkins to join them. One of the men, Guardian Angel, is about Perkins' age, dressed in a blue uniform; the other, Genius Jones, is much younger, and wears an odd uniform consisting of purple tights and a white crash helmet. The woman who disguises her features with a black eyemask has used many names, though she has gained a descriptive reputation as The Lady In Evening Clothes.

The woman's sharply intelligent eyes focus on Perkins' features. "Did that help? Hawkman told me that the natural salt water would be a good pick-me-up. He sends his regards."

Perkins bows his head, "Thank you, Eve. It's nice to know he's still looking out for me. Yes, it did help. I wish I had more time to socialise, but I have to business to take care of."

Jim Anthony raises an eyebrow. "Business? Perkins, you came to us for assistance. I know that whatever you're facing must be hard, but ... "

Guardian Angel takes his peer by the shoulder. "C'mon pal. We've been through a lot together already, ain't nothing in air or water that can trouble us."

Perkins looks away over the ocean, as if he wants nothing more than to disappear there. He sighs heavily. "It's not just whatever you're thinking about. It's a family affair."

Eve tilts her head sympathetically. "I know first hand how ... complicated family affairs can be. But sometimes all one needs is a helping hand from outside."

Guardian Angel adds, "Speaking as President of the All-American Aviation Company, I promise to put all possible resources at your disposal."

Jim clasps a hand on Perkins' shoulder. "So it's decided then. Where are we off to?"

Genius Jones perks up at the promise of travel and adventure. "Come on Neptune, sometimes you can't escape other people's happiness!"

Perkins sighs "Ok then ... Hop, I hope your airplane is fueled up, because we're going to the Antarctic circle."

Once arrangements were made, and the adventurers settled in for the long journey south, Neptune passes the hours by telling the story of his family.

How the great explorer of the last century, Arthur Gordon Pym, had disappeared in a final voyage into the Antarctic aboard the good ship Jane. There recorded history, as recounted by the Jane's only other survivor and the only man to return to America from the voyage, (correctly identified by Genius Jones as being Pym's companion Dirk Peters), leaves off.

In fact, Pym had discovered a gateway to an underground civilisation populated by the Dzyan, an albino race which had mastered an electric-magnetic-galvanic energy called the Vril. Constant exposure to the Vril accentuated Pym's paranoia, and eventually the darkness of his soul overpowered him. He was able to control the Vril and through it the Dzyan, using their technology to create an undersea craft called the Nautilus.

Taking the name Captain Nemo, Pym plundered the oceans worldwide before meeting his second apparent death at the turn of the century. Retiring to Lincoln Island under the name Arthur Perkins, he married a young woman named Emily Caber. Pym had two children by her: a daughter named Urania, and, many years later, a son named Ross. Emily died giving birth to her son.

Urania married John Clay, a professional criminal who years before had crossed swords with Sherlock Holmes as reported in "The Adventure of the Red-Headed League." They had two sons, each of which pursued criminal careers of their own. The elder took his grandmother's name and became known as Dr. Caber. Dr. Caber's brother, operating under the name Carl Peterson, frequently butted heads with a British law-enforcement official known as Bulldog Drummond.

The two brothers had never collaborated on any major crimes together, and in fact had operated in competition more often than not, until recently now that they have uncovered the realm of the Dzyan and seek to use the immense power of the Vril in order to conquer the surface world. They tried to enlist their cousin, Neptune Perkins, along with the scheme, and then tried to imprison him when he opposed them.

Genius Jones interrupts the narrative. "Hey pals, look out the window there ... that island's almost all black volcanic rock. We're at latitude 83 20' and longitude 43 5' ... that's where Arthur Pym found Tsalal Island, ain't it?"

Neptune Perkins nods, "It's inhabited by a village known as Klock-Klock, according to my grandfather's writings ... though when I was here last I didn't think it had been populated for decades. The people who lived in Klock-Klock were a ... degenerate tribe of primitives whom the Dzyan referred to as a Koom-Posh ... I think they had somehow emigrated up from the Dzyan's underground world. I don't know if the Dzyan finally exterminated them, or my grandfather had in exchange for the rough treatment they'd given him when he first passed through, or whether it was some natural disaster."

Eve furrows her brow. "Degenerate or not, that's a horrible crime. We're here to stop just that sort of extermination whether it's in Tsalal or in Europe."

Perkins nods. "You don't have to tell me that. There's a reason I tried to stop them on my own ... but it's my family, my cross to bear. Not yours."

"You're not the only one whose family isn't all angels ... no offense, G.A.," says Jim Anthony. "Based on what you've told me, it wouldn't surprise me if you and I turned out to be distant cousins."

Eve reaches out to squeeze his hand. "And some of us have our own acts to repent for. We all have crosses to bear."

Perkins walks over to the pilot's seat. "There, see that? There's a split on the iceberg wall to the south-east. That's where we're heading next."

As they pass the ice wall, the temperature of the air starts to rise noticeably, and the color of the water starts to change, from the accustomed clear blue to a milky white.

Jim Anthony peers out the window. "Perkins, what's wrong with the water? I'm my travels I've never seen anything like this."

"I don't know the chemical makeup," he observes, "it's an aftereffect of the Vril ... . There are others ... we'll see them as we get closer to the entrance."

Neptune Perkins' response is interrupted by a sharp crackle, as sparks fly from the plane's wings. The team shouts their alarm as the plane starts to jolt.

Guardian Angel shouts back, "Something about this snow is messing with our engines, guys ... are all you 'chuted up? There's land up ahead and I'm going to try to get there safely, otherwise ... "

An explosion from beneath the plane drowns out his final words. Jim Anthony leaps up to swing open the plane's doorway. "Eve, Perkins, Jones, now!"

One by one, grabbing on to Jim Anthony's hand as he grips the doorway tightly, they leap out of the plummeting plane to parachute down. Jim Anthony follows. "Come on G.A., you too!"

Guardian Angel fights with the wing mechanisms, trying to maintain altitude as long as possible. "I can take care of myself! You clear out of here, that's an order!"

Jim Anthony follows the others. He angles his body slightly, streamlining it so he can catch up with his teammates, where Eve and Genius Jones part hands from the triangle they'd made with Neptune Perkins, to make room for him. "How is everyone?

Neptune Perkins shouts out, "It's a lot easier just to swim in! What happened to G.A.?"

Genius Jones points with his head, "Look, there he is!" The team swivels to see the blue-clad figure, soaring down gracefully through the air.

Jim Anthony breaks off again and pulls the cord on the chute, teeth chattering as he is jolted by the air resistance. The others follow suit, and one by one crash down to the ground.

As they roll with the impact and slowly upright themselves, they notice another odd phenomenon: sparks, accompanied by a sharp noise, shoot out of their fingers' ends, their hair, and any metal parts of their clothing. They seem to be in the midst of an electric snowstorm, with contact from the loosely falling flakes producing a strange luminosity. The luminescence orients them to each other through a dense white fog which covers the area

Jim Anthony watches Eve as she struggles to detach herself from the tangles of the ropes, and paces over to help her. She grins up at him, "I can see you're good at getting girls out of things. Thanks. I'm glad I changed. It's not actually that cold here ... seems like a fair New York winter afternoon ... but evening gowns certainly weren't made for this kind of sport!"

Jim Anthony looks her up and down appraisingly. "I admit I like the black leather chauffeur's uniform on you. But what should we call you now? You're hardly a 'Lady in Evening Clothes'."

She smirks, watching his eyes. "What, this old thing?" She poses. "Last time I wore this outfit I was nicknamed 'Sandy,' but ... just calling me Eve will do, thanks."

Genius Jones approaches the pair, "I estimated we're about latitude: 75 17' south, longitude: 118 3' east. Perkins thinks we're not far from the entrance to the Dzyan. Say, what is this stuff?" He holds up his hand to cup a handful of the white flakes that were descending from the skies. "I thought it was snow, but it's not." He touches his tongue to it and wrinkles his nose. "It's not snow at all! It's ash ... ash from the sky ... and it's electrically charged, too."

Finally the Guardian Angel descends, with an effortless landing as if he'd been born flying the airways. "I bet it was those charges who killed the engine, too," he adds. He turns to Perkins, "What is it? Another aftereffect of the Vril, as you put it?"

The four of them pick up their packs and equipment, and trod through the brilliantly white wasteland, following the direction of the compass which points irrevocably to the magnetically charged passageway. The temperature increases as they follow the path, and soon the water is uncomfortably warm to the touch. The silence is broken only by the sound of gigantic white birds which fly in and out of the mists, screaming tekeli-li! tekeli-li!

Neptune Perkins points through the mists. "There, do you see it? The marker to the underground world of the Dzyan."

Jim Anthony pulls a pair of binoculars from his pack. "Amazing. I've never seen anything like it."

The structure looms roughly three hundred feet high, its shrouded head recognisably human, the body resembling a crouching lion with the paws stretched out, familiar from Grecian sculpture. The hue of the form is as perfectly white as the snow.

Guardian Angel holds the compass up to the object, "Yeah, this is where we've been heading all right."

Eve approaches the sphinx, hoisting the rifle she carries off her shoulder and holding it up to the object, where it clings to the side. She turns to Jones, "Better think again, kid."

Jim Anthony pulls the rifle off and hands it back to Eve. "All right Perkins, how do we get inside then?"

"The entrance is only open to those who were born amidst the Vril. It was designed to keep out members of a Koom-Posh." Neptune Perkins walks between the "paws" to the underside of the sphinx, where a door opens noiselessly. He turns and waits for the others to follow.

As they pass through into the darkness, Guardian Angel whispers to Genius Jones, "Does Perkins seem different to you? He didnt used to be so ... I dont know ... formal."

Genius Jones nods. "Maybe it's being around here. I thought I grew up in a strange place but this takes the cake!"

The team finds themselves brought up short by Neptune Perkins sudden halt. "Careful here," he advises them, "it's a bit of a drop." As their eyes adjust to the dim illumination of the cavern, they see that they're standing on a narrow ledge overlooking a chasm.

Neptune Perkins paces the ledge. "I ... I don't know. There was supposed to be a rope ladder."

Guardian Angel kneels to the ground, peering into the dim light. "I would rather not try gliding down without any sense of how deep this cavern is. Crashing to my death isn't my favorite way to end an adventure."

Jim Anthony sets down his pack. "Fortunately this is the sort of situation I've been in before." He rummages through it and pulls out a metallic canister, tarnished with much use. Pressing a button at its base, several talons spring out to reveal it as a collapsible grapple-hook.

Eve watches him as he fastens the grapple-hook to the base of a jagged rock set against the stone wall. "Not as good as a wirepoon, but it'll have to do."

"A what?" Jim Anthony says, glancing at her out of the corner of his eye, as he carefully knots one end of a long cord. He tosses the other end down, and then stands for a moment, staring down into the depths. Finally he takes the cord in hand and braces himself against the rim of the ledge. "I'll go ahead and whistle," he adds as he begins to rappel down.

The light only increases in intensity as he descends, so that when he reaches what appears to be solid ground, the cavern has the look of a late afternoon. He tilts his head up, and gives a long loud whistle, tugging on the end of the cord for emphasis.

Slowly the others follow down: The Lady in Evening Clothes, Guardian Angel, Neptune Perkins, and Genius Jones.

The rhythm of the descent is broken, as Genius Jones' scream rends the air when an enormous crocodile-like creature crawls forth from a cave and catches him in its maw with surprising speed. The creature's jaws bristled with fangs, its corrugated skin a dull venomous yellow, its sides scaled as in armor.

Jim Anthony empties several bullets into the creature's hide. Eve screams, "Oh my god, what is it?" As Jim Anthony reloads he shouts out to the others, "Try to get him loose!" Guardian Angel and Neptune Perkins grapple with the creature, the former lending support as Neptune Perkin's muscles, strengthened by the oceanic depths, seeks to pry open its mouth.

Eve attempts to ready her rifle, her hands shaking. Jim Anthony scrambles atop the creature's neck, firing point-blank and then tossing the emptied gun away as he searches for pressure points. "I've wrestled alligators and you're just as ugly!"

The mystery men's persistence bears out, as the creature's jaws are forced open enough for Genius Jones to flop to the ground. Eve fires, her rifle ejecting a mist straight down its throat. Jim Anthony rolls off its back as the smell of violets pervade the air. Wisps of greenish smoke drift from the creature's mouth and nostrils as its activity slows.

Genius Jones gasps, "Crocodylus giganticus," before lapsing into unconsciousness.

Neptune Perkins looks the boy over carefully. "It looks like the creature caught him by his helmet. Doesn't look like it had time to do him any real harm. He's pretty lucky, with all its thrashing about it could have snapped his neck."

Jim Anthony walks to where Eve still sits in place. "What was that thing? I've never seen anything like it. It was terrible." She looks at her still shaking hands. "I don't know if I'm cut out for this life."

He puts a hand on her shoulder. "You did good, girl. You probably saved us all."

He looks over at Guardian Angel, who gives him a thumb's up. "He's fine," he tells her. "We're going to whip up a sling and carry him with us." He walks back to assist the two young men. His eyes narrow as he approaches Neptune Perkins. "Why didn't you warn us we'd run into that thing?"

Neptune Perkins looks abashed. "It wasn't supposed to be here. The Dzyan children usually hunt down all these creatures they usually don't get this big. I don't know what could have happened."

Neptune Perkins nods. "Their children haven't yet lost their hunting instincts through years of studying the philosophies of the Vril-ya. They're armed with staffs which directly deliver Vril energy - more powerful than any of our weapons by far."

The argument is interrupted by Jim Anthony. "Come on folks." Neptune Perkins hoists Genius Jones onto his back by the makeshift sling. The others picks up their packs and they all trek across the rocky ground.

As the land starts to descend, a city comes into view. It is immense and sprawling, with colorful buildings which from a distance resemble Egyptian architecture. Neptune Perkins spreads his arms wide to encompass the statuary lining the city streets, and starts to chant in rhythmic, alien syllables. He turns to the others to translate. "Of rare earths and metals they built. Out of the fires vomited, out of the white stone of the mountains and of the black stone, they cut their own images, in their size and likeness, and worshipped them." He points the way. "Welcome to the city of the Dzyan."

Descending into the city, they meander through the its streets, eyes wide at the wonders around them. As Genius Jones awakes and joins in the exploration, he comments on the peculiarities of the flora, notably the trees which resemble gigantic ferns, cane-plants, and enormous fungi. After a while he asks, "Where are the people -- the Dzyan?"

"I -- I don't know," replies Neptune Perkins. "There are other Dzyan communities -- there's one underneath Newcastle, for instance - and they do start new colonies when their populations reach a certain limit, but there's nothing that would explain a mass exodus."

Neptune Perkins shakes his head emphatically. "No! I refuse to believe any member of my family could be responsible for a wholesale extermination. There must be some logical explanation."

Jim Anthony unsheathes and reloads his pistol. "We're still on enemy ground. I want everyone prepared. Eve, Guardian Angel, you two arm up ... I want Eve guarding our rear. Genius Jones, you're not at your fighting best ..." at this Jones mutters a complaint "so you stay in the center. I have a feeling we might need your brains later."

As they near the center of the Vril, Guardian Angel's eyes are caught by a flickering shadow from above. "Incoming!" he cries out, as destructive energy erupts from a slender staff of bright metal like polished steel, held by one of a duet of flying figures. Their features are regular, contoured like that of a sphinx, and as white as the ice sphinx. From their backs are set wings, white with reddish streaks, and large enough to reach to their knees.

Eve readies her rifle and a cloud of greenish gas drifts towards the flyers. From one of their staffs emits energy which dissipates the gas, and then as its user manipulates a set of keys or springs, a flash of lightning shoots through the air and disintegrates her rifle entirely.

As the other of the assailants swoops down for a point-blank attack, Guardian Angel tackles him. The Dzyan recoils at the touch as his staff clatters to the ground, and it directs its flight upwards with the speed of an eagle soaring, Guardian Angel wrapped tightly around its torso.

The first, its eyes on the team warily, lunges for the staff. Jim Anthony fires his grapple-cord around the winged creature, tangling it helplessly. He removes the staff it had been holding from its grasp before it has time to assess its predicament.

Neptune Perkins approaches the captured Dzyan and speaks to it, in the same foreign language he'd sung in before. The creature stared at him blankly.

Neptune Perkins glares at him. "She's not an 'it.' Her name is Zee. It was because of her that I was forced to leave the Vril-ya. I confess that my conversations with her father Aph-Lin, and the extreme coolness with which he stated his inability to control the dangerous caprice of his daughter, and treated the idea of the reduction into a cinder to which her amorous flame might expose my too seductive person, took away the pleasure I should otherwise have had in the contemplations of his country-seat, and the astonishing perfection of the machinery by which his farming operations were conducted."

Eve stares at Neptune Perkins, her mouth hanging open in surprise at his words. He says, "She isn't the girl I knew. She seems brainwashed barely conscious. What could have happened to her?" He looks up. "Taree, the great friend of my youth, has worn wings almost since birth. Guardian Angel stands little chance of defeating him."

Jim Anthony peers upwards at the aerial combatants. "Maybe, but the kid's a good scrapper, and I've yet to see something he cant fly."

The pair wrestle brutally, high above the surface. Guardian Angel notes that Taree is stronger than he, but seems relatively unused to hand-to-hand combat. Finally however superior strength tells, combined with the ability to control their flight path. Guardian Angel is finally thrown loose and plummets to the ground.

Taree loops around and soars after him, but Guardian Angel feints and uses Taree's inertia to slip his arms from the loops which make up the wing mechanism's central membrane.

As Taree falls to the ground unsupported, Guardian Angel struggles with the wings. He quickly finds that raising his arms causes a tubular lining within the mechanism's tunic to inflate, serving to buoy the user. He finds it easy to soar, but manipulating the pinions is confusing, and he blundered erratically mid-air. By a violent strain of his muscles he manages to curb his aerial gyrations and fall downwards, avoiding being dashed to pieces by fluttering spasmodically. Finally he manages a rough landing, and grins at the others. "They followed me home, I think I'll keep 'em!"

Neptune Perkins turns away. Eve puts her hand on his shoulder. He takes her wrist and removes it, letting it drop to the ground. "I don't want to discuss it. I've lost too much today. Let's carry on. My cousins have much to say for their sins."

As the team progresses farther into the center of the city, they note increased use of the Vril, including fountains of luminescent water, and many other wonders. Neptune Perkins points out the various Vril-powered air boats in every conceivable design which sit, grounded and unoccupied, throughout the city streets.

Finally they arrive at a tall, narrow, pyramid-like structure. "This acts is the center for the Vril-ya," notes Neptune Perkins. "Architecturally it unites the buildings surrounding it into a great theme, just as the Vril itself represents a unity in natural energetic agencies."

As the team progresses inside, they are momentarily blinded by the light shining from the liquid pulsing within. As their eyes adjust, they see the interior is alive with running water, channeled through streams and rivulets, with a great fountain in the center, and the water shines brightly with the power of the Vril. Arched on the edge of the fountain is a vast mechanism, immediately recognisable as a weapon, though its curving ornamented design somehow is reminiscent of an enormous squid. It is being constructed by humanoid entities which Neptune Perkins informs the others are standard models of the Dzyan's android servants. In ridges and tubes along its interior are loaded canisters of the Vril-infused liquid. Neptune Perkins shouts, "Sacrilege!"

At his words, two men who had been directing the androids turned around to face the speaker. One has a stern, aquiline face with a short dark beard; his thick brown hair is brushed back from a broad forehead, beneath which are two deep-set, steel-grey eyes. The other is shorter, but thicker in his build, nearly bald and with sharp blue eyes which seem to host a vast and malefic intelligence. The taller of the pair smiles at the intruders. "So, cousin," he says, "you have brought friends to witness our triumph?"

Neptune Perkins says, "I have brought friends to stop you! You can not you can not use the Vril like this ... as a *weapon*! Did you kill and enslave the Dzyan when they tried to oppose you? Is that what happened to the community?"

The shorter man looks mournfully at him. "Do you think we are madmen like Adolph Hitler to do such things? No, it was our father that had done this, by his very presence. As the Vril corrupted him, magnifying his brilliance and his ambitions, transforming the feckless Arthur Gordon Pym into our true father, Captain Nemo so he corrupted the Vril. The poor pathetic Dzyan were unable to bear the internal conflict, and gave themselves into the patera ... the afterlife ... and the rest remained as shadows of themselves."

The taller man nods, "I had been unsuccessfully entreating brother James to work for me for some time ... leading to that unfortunate Henry Lakington affair. But when we learned of the fate of the Dzyan we both understood the possibilities. What is that prophetic song of the Dzyan we heard as children?" He taps his left knee with his left middle finger as he searches his memory. "'We are the kings; we are the gods.' You should join us cousin, and fulfill the dream ... we three who are the last to know the Dzyan."

Neptune Perkins shakes his head. "No ... all the Dzyan legends of themselves as the Coming Race ... they were never meant for villains like yourselves!" He leaps across the liquid Vril like a flying fish, despite Jim Anthony's attempt to stop him. He eyes shine with energetics as he arrives atop the Vril-cannon and attempts to dismantle it.

Caber and Peterson shout commands at the androids in a strange foreign language, who stop their work and head towards the intruders. One of them seizes Neptune Perkins and removes him from the cannon. Neptune Perkins speaks to the androids in the same language, and they pause briefly in their path, as if confused, but continue walking. He turns to his companions, "I think they've reprogrammed them ... I can't control them. We have to clear a path to the cannon."

Jim Anthony fires into the torso of the first advancing android. The bullet embeds itself into the hard, plastic-like material. The android recoils from the impact but continues on. "No sooner said than done," he grunts.

Genius Jones hangs back from the battle. Eve is quickly seized by one of the androids and struggles futilely in its grip as it lifts her into the air. Jim Anthony leaps at the forefront android, bouncing off him. The mechanical creature picks him up by the shoulders. Jim Anthony fires point-blank into the creatures eyes. Sparks fly and its head snaps back, but even apparently blinded it does not release its grip.

Guardian Angel takes to the air in his Dzyan-designed wings. He swoops over the androids when Genius Jones shouts at him. "Get me to the cannon! I can take it apart! I can see it from here!" The other swoops back to where the boy is hiding. "Just say the word, Genius." He swiftly evades the androids' grip and the two of them land on the weapon.

Genius Jones surveys the equipment, noting the lines of flow of the liquid Vril. "There and there," he points out. He grabs one of the pipes that roil along the surface and attempts to dislodge it. "Help me!"

The android in the rear turns around and moves ploddingly back to the pair of costumed youths. They rip the piping free and Genius Jones reaches into a panel below it, skin tingling with the unaccustomed contact with the Vril. He tears out a handful of wires just as the android grabs him and Guardian Angel by the ankles and drags them off.

Genius Jones feels the impact and sees the flickering lights, and does not know whether they are before his eyes or inside his skull as the android batters him to unconsciousness.

He awakens to find himself strapped onto a table. He turns his head from left to right, seeing his companions equally subdued. He notices with the movement that his helmet has been removed, and that a series of tubes and wires are attached to his skull. He tries to shake them off but with no success.

He hears Dr. Caber and Carl Peterson talking. "You should have known better than to trust those androids for security," Peterson complains. "They were never manufactured for that. It will take us a lot of time now, to rebuild after what those children did."

Caber sighs. "It will take me a lot of time. I do not appreciate your insinuation that we contribute equally to the work here. At any rate, we should not argue in front of our enemies, who appear to be waking."

Jim Anthony tugs against his bonds. "Do you really think this will hold me? I've escaped from worse than this."

Peterson chuckles. "Oh, these bonds aren't meant to hold you for long. That's rather the point, I'm afraid. Caber?"

Caber sighs again. "We're conducting an experiment, you might say. We want to examine the effects of the Vril when applied directly to the human brain. The mechanism we've created will drain your mental impulses out into the Vril, and re-channel them back. Will you receive the same sort of enlightenment which occurred to our father?"

Peterson looks sympathetically at him. "This will be painless, I promise you." His voice is soft. "We hope when it's over, you will want to join us. Caber, if you will do the honors?"

The subjects feel their minds being slowly drained out of their skulls. They fight to maintain the path of their thoughts, but soon an eerie dreamlike quality overtakes them.

Caber monitors their life signs, and hums to himself in satisfaction. He does not at first see the haunted apparition appearing above the waters of the Vril.

The apparition's face has the look of an eerie underwater creature. Caber blinks. "I ... I don't know. Is it ... "

"Our father?" Peterson interrupts. He approaches the vision. "Could the soul of Captain Nemo have been inhabiting the Vril itself all these years?"

The figure's hands reach up to remove the helmet. The face is haunted and ghostlike.

Anything else she might have said is drowned in a scream as crackling energy emits from her eyes, wrapping around the figure, which dissolves back into the Vril. The glowing waters start to erupt in brilliant white flame. Peterson and Caber, standing nearest the pool, are encased in fire.

Jim Anthony, his muscles taught as piano wire, manages to tear loose one of his bonds. He releases his other wrist and tears the equipment loose from his head. Still dazed, he manages to stumble to the other captives, unstrapping them from the surgery tables.

As the team stumbles out of the room, Genius Jones looks back. "Can we just leave them there? What happened to them?"

Neptune Perkins shakes his head. "No. These are my cousins. They've been thought dead before. They'll come back."

Jim Anthony, carrying the unconscious Eve, looks at him. "I know their type, and no doubt you're right. But right now, we have to get out of here before that flame takes out the rest of the city. Any ideas?"

Neptune Perkins is still for several seconds, as he thinks. "Yes. Maybe. Come this way."

He leads the team through the streets and alleys. Guardian Angel takes to the air and follows from above, warning them to avoid the spreading fires. "Here!" Neptune Perkins shouts, finally, a quarter mile away from the center of the Vril where they had been held.

They stope before a long, flat-roofed building, plainer than the rest of the others, with a single hatchway sealed with a circular wheel. Neptune Perkins rotates the wheel clockwise, and the hatch opens. They crawl through the entrance, and through a stony tunnel, following the dimly illuminated path. Finally it opens to reveal a rocky beachfront, leading on to a still pool of water.

The team stares at the immense, blood-red contraption resting in the water before them. It appears styled by the same hand that designed the cannon, in the form of an immense squid. Hatchways like eyes glare down at them. "I was hoping it'd be here. I think it's how my cousins came here from the outside world," Neptune Perkins says. "It's our grandfather's first undersea vehicle, before he completely mastered the science of the Vril. It was called the Nautilus. I suppose ... it's my inheritance."

The old man seated before the ancient, wooden table closes the pages of the book he was looking at. The yellowed pages crackle against each other. He remains silent until the other brings a small glass on a silver tray and lays it next to him. He sniffs the sickly sweet smell of the greenish liquid, and swallows it easily. "Yes, Alex?"

"Is everything all right, Father? I heard you in the basement, you were talking to our guest. And there were strange sounds ... "

The old man, who for the past decades had gone by the name Roderick Burgess, snorted. "I believe someone had attempted to free him. They had opened a portal through which he'd tried to escape. Fortunately, I had alarms set to detect the breach. The flames of the faltine set them to rights, believe me."