Kevin Anderson - Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow

Polly suddenly lurched to a stop and spun around. "Wait, my film! It's in the backpack!" She started back toward the chamber. Her pack lay against one of the dynamite crates.

Sky Captain grabbed her by the arm and roughly pulled her back as if he were reeling in a fish. "Leave it! There's no time." He shoved her in front of him as all three of them sprinted toward the wide exit. They passed the drilling machines, the shadowy frozen prehistoric forms, the communication screens, and the uranium samples. Sky Captain had never run so fast in his entire life, and he was pleased to see Polly and Kaji keeping pace. Blue sky and cold air lay just in front of them.

Inside the chamber, the first of the fuses finally reached the crates of explosives. It sputtered, fell silent for a brief moment, then erupted, the explosion igniting all the boxes nearby. Within fractions of a second, the flame front consumed and detonated the barrels of gunpowder. The chain reaction magnified the blast. The mine shaft did not merely explode; the ice and stone walls actually vaporized. Rock structures and ceilings collapsed. The mammoth mountainside began to sag under its own unsupported weight.

A tremendous ball of fire rushed down the tunnels, incinerating everything in its path. Like a stampeding beast, the blast shot down the shaft, devouring walls, steel rails, and tilted ore cars.

Sky Captain, Polly, and Kaji found themselves flung through the air by the outbound shockwave. As if they had been shot from a cannon, they flew until they dropped side by side into a deep snowdrift. Half buried in snow, the three companions ducked as a great wall of flame passed overhead.

Roaring echoes from the explosion ricocheted around the Himalayan crags, triggering distant avalanches that tumbled into deep, uninhabited gorges far below. The long shadows of twilight began to blanket the barricaded mountain valley.

Sky Captain could barely see in the dimness… or maybe his eyes or his head had been damaged. He sat up in the cold snow, his ears ringing. Was he half blinded? The angry rumbles continued as smoke and fire gushed into the thin air, and the worst noise subsided.

With a gloved hand, he wiped a smear of blood and soot from his face, trying to orient himself again. Beside him, he saw a woman's shape sprawled on the drift, not moving. He feared the worst. "Polly!" His voice sounded strange and distant in his own ears.

Dizzy, feeling the pulse pound inside his skull, he squinted into the white haze. The daylight seemed to be fading fast. He kept blinking.

A faint glow of flickering torches came out of the murk, bobbing flames carried in a winding procession. As his vision grew even fuzzier, Sky Captain saw a line of strange-looking natives approaching from the windswept horizon. They were dressed in thick black garments embroidered with odd symbols. Sagging hoods concealed their faces. He thought it might be a hallucination brought about by hitting his head.

As he began to pass out, Sky Captain reached weakly toward where Polly lay. He croaked out her name, but his voice was barely audible. He struggled in the soft snow, trying to move closer, but he finally dropped into unconsciousness…

Holding up their torches, the natives gathered around the prone forms of Sky Captain, Polly, and Kaji. Without a word, they lifted the three figures, placed them on makeshift stretchers, then hoisted them up. Turning about in a smooth movement, the procession marched away into the frozen wilderness.

On a perch overlooking the devastated mine, the mysterious woman stood hidden from view. Turning her opaque goggles toward the fading smoke and flames, she observed the group of black-robed strangers take their captives and march away into the isolated mountain fastness.

They no longer concerned her.

She looked down to her black-gloved hand, where she held the pair of stolen test tubes. She clinched them in her fist, then turned back to the Flying Wing that rested precariously on a mountain ledge. It was time to go.

Without a downward glance, she stepped over the sprawled bodies of the two treacherous Sherpas, who lay facedown in a bloody patch of snow. Daggers had been driven through the men's backs with such force that they pierced their hearts and protruded from their chests. Soon, the frigid elements would destroy their bodies or scavengers would pick their bones clean.

The mysterious woman boarded the Flying Wing, activated the whistling engines, and glided away, leaving the Himalayas behind.

Night set in on the cold mountain passes. Hidden valleys lay surrounded by imposing rock walls and impenetrable cornices of snow, gendarmes of stone.

Though the black-robed natives carried torches, they did not need guidance. They picked their way down the winding slopes, carrying stretchers that bore Sky Captain, Polly, and Kaji.

The silent natives followed a secret, instinctive path. As they neared the crest of a saddle, crossing through a keyhole notch of sharply angled stone, the hooded leader paused to stare down into the newly revealed valley. Dense and frosty mists formed a veritable smoke screen, but the swirling shroud began to clear, revealing an image not unlike a desert mirage.

A surprisingly lush valley lay in the hazy distance. Sheltered on all sides by forbidding peaks, the secret valley was a feast of strange and heavenly beauty filled with flowing streams and orchards, stone monasteries and small huts adorned with colorful pennants. Beribboned prayer wheels on poles clacked in the breezes.

"Shangri-La," the hooded leader muttered, as he always did when he returned to his secret home. The black-robed natives moved forward. Incredibly, as they entered the valley, the wind and snow did not follow them.

Groaning on his stretcher, Sky Captain strained to open his eyes, trying to focus. He felt suddenly warm, calm, rested. He propped himself on one elbow and glanced behind him to the rear of the torch-carrying procession. Only a few feet away, a howling blizzard raged, but here the air was completely calm.

In front of him lay a tranquil valley, mysterious and inviting. He strained, mumbling. "Shangri-La…" But then he fell into a deeper, more restful sleep.

Golden sunlight bathed Polly's sleeping face in a warm glow. As she began to stir, languid and entirely at peace, she looked contented and beautiful. A smile inspired by gentle dreams curled her lips. She made a quiet, purring sound in her throat and snuggled deeper into the embroidered coverlet. With a sigh, she slowly fluttered her eyes open.

Disoriented but not troubled, she stared at a ceiling made of interlocking tiles, colored with hypnotic designs unlike anything she had ever seen before. After a moment, an odd expression came over her face like the shadow of a thundercloud. She shifted her body underneath the coverings again, and she lifted the embroidered blanket to peek beneath them. Suddenly, her eyes grew large and she yanked the blanket tight against her body.

"My clothes…"

Wide-awake now, Polly pulled the blanket up to her neck as she scanned the room. She had no idea where she was, and she recognized none of her surroundings, she turned her head in the opposite direction, to the other side of the bed, where she found herself face-to-face with Sky Captain.

From his bare shoulders — and especially from his mischievous grin — she guessed he was also naked. "Good morning, Polly."

She yelped. "What are you doing? Get out of here! Get out!"

He didn't move from the bed. Instead, he crossed his arms behind his head and lay back on the pillow. "Not unless you've got a pair of pants hidden under there. But I doubt it." His eyes twinkled. "Trust me, I already checked… thoroughly."