Kevin Anderson - Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow

When Sky Captain awoke with a groan, he found Polly next to him, her body pressed intimately close. He smiled briefly, but then he noticed that his hands were tied above his head. So were hers. Sky Captain struggled to swivel his shoulders, turning his face so that it was only inches from Polly's.

Her eyes were already wide and blinking at him. "Why does this keep happening to us, Joe?"

"At least you managed to keep your pants on this time," Sky Captain said.

"Not funny."

"Neither is the end of the world." Around them, echoing through the walls and reverberating through the floor, came the sounds of heavy machinery and hissing steam. Dr. Totenkopf's diabolical plans continued without rest.

Sky Captain recalled the cages of animals they had seen from their high vantage: male and female, two by two. He was struck with a horrible thought, but didn't dare speak it aloud, knowing what Polly would say. What if the mad genius intended the two of them to be breeding specimens as well? Sky Captain squirmed, pulling at the chains that bound his hands.

His body ached, his head pounded, and he found it difficult to focus his eyes. He wondered what kind of stun ray the mysterious woman had used. If they ever managed to rescue Dex, he would probably want one of them for his lab.

Sky Captain yanked hard, hoping to tear the iron manacles loose or to slip his hands through the clamps, but he succeeded only in scraping his wrists raw. Exhausted, he sagged.

Polly looked around her in the small chamber that held them. The metal walls continued to vibrate. "Where are we?"

"You'd think with the grand scale of everything he does, Totenkopf could have given us a larger prison cell." He kicked at the wall. "This place is barely larger than a closet!"

"Or your cockpit."

Sky Captain strained his head to catch a glimpse through a narrow opening. The walls lurched as if in a powerful, localized earthquake, swinging Polly against him.

"We're moving." He could see the tall rocket framed in the distance. They were on the floor of the vast construction room, lurching along, being taken somewhere. "This isn't a cell, it's some kind of container."

Polly stood on her tiptoes, peering through the same gap. "Maybe they're loading us onto the ship."

Pulling the chains to their maximum extent, Sky Captain managed to look through another air vent on the other side of the container. Pressing his face close, he caught his breath. "It's not the ship, Polly. No, that would be the good news."

She shouldered herself up to the view, and her face turned ashen. They were bound inside a steel-walled container that moved along a conveyer belt across the main floor of the impossible complex. Rattling elevators and moving conveyor belts wound through a maze of scaffolding and overhangs. Glowing rivers of molten metal ran in troughs, dumping material into molds. Ingots rolled past giant swinging hammers and busy robot arms.

But the extraneous material and scrap components were all headed toward one final destination: a gargantuan crushing machine. The container that held Sky Captain and Polly was on the same track.

With a rattling bump, their cage arrived at a transfer station where several tracks and conveyor belts intersected. Giant sorting machines reached out with mechanical claws to pluck the scrap metal from auxiliary conveyor belts. Controlled by a monstrous central robot head, the hydraulics whirred and pistons pumped with a gust of steam exhaust. With a flurry like a drunken spider trying to walk, articulated arms seized components, swiveled them into place, and released the hooked clamps to drop large chunks onto the main conveyor belt that fed the giant compactor.

"We're next in line," Sky Captain said.

Their cage suddenly lurched and swung as a giant metal claw rattled down on a control cable and clamped around the metal walls. Sharp points screeched against the steel, compressing to get a good grip. As the sorting arm lifted them, the controller hesitated, letting them dangle in midair instead of placing them on the main conveyor belt. With a rattle of chains, the cage was lifted even higher. Through the tiny opening in the metal cage, Sky Captain and Polly stared at the cyclopean metal visage. In a feeble display of foolish courage, Polly stuck her tongue out at it.

A small hatch opened on top of the colossal machine head, dropped with a clang, and a young man climbed out, grinning at them.

Sky Captain and Polly cried out in unison, "Dex!" Caught up in their exhilaration, the two hugged each other.

At the sight of Sky Captain and Polly embracing, Dex let out a pleased sigh. "Great! You two made up."

Polly drew away, embarrassed and self-conscious. "Does he have to say that every time he sees us together?"

"He's just hoping." Sky Captain turned to the young man, raising his voice over the clamor of sorting machines, industrial stations, and the destructive percussion of the compactor apparatus. "We've been all across the world, Dex. Thank God we found you!"

"Yes," Polly piped up. "We're here to rescue you."

Standing atop the mammoth robot head, Dex stared down at the two of them trapped and bound inside the cage. "Rescue me, Cap? Hmm, from what I can see — "

Sky Captain cut him off. "Just get us out of here, Dex. Okay?"

"Hold on." Working levers and controls from inside the giant machine head, Dex caused the sorting arm to gently lower them to the ground; then he released the claw clamp. "Wait a second. I think this'll do it." He maneuvered another mechanical hand to grip the cage while a second set of claws tore off the top of the cage like a child removing the cap from a milk bottle.

Dex scrambled down the side of the giant sorting machine and quickly moved through the opening he'd just made in their container. He dropped beside them. "Well, here we are. Good to see you again Cap… and Polly."

Sky Captain rattled the chains binding him to the metal wall. "How much time is left on the countdown?"

Dex pulled out a hand instrument from the pocket of his overalls, pushed a button on the shaft, and a small spinning blade popped out the other end. "We've got about ten minutes before it hits the fan." He lifted the tool toward Sky Captain's metal cuffs. He touched the grinding blade to a chain link and was rewarded with a shower of sparks and a shrill screech.

"Dex hon, those vials Dr. Jennings gave me. Do you know what they are?" Polly swung aside, trying to give him room to work.

The young man paused in his cutting. "Adam and Eve. Totenkopf's masterpiece, cast in his own warped image. The result of his cruel experiments… and whatever's born from those vials will no longer be human."

The explanation still didn't make any sense to Sky Captain. "What is this whole place, Dex? What's going on?" From his experience, it was easier to foil a villain once he knew the overall plan.

Dex explained what he had learned during his captivity. "Dr. Totenkopf believed the Earth was doomed anyway, that we'd finally developed the technology to destroy ourselves. He didn't want to be around when that happened, so he proposed the unthinkable: to build a ship that would carry the building blocks of a new civilization into space."

"It is an ark," Polly said.

"But he intended to take only the best. He wanted a master race, a perfect order. He used his carefully programmed machines to collect specimens that represented all life on Earth. It would be the seeds of a technological utopia. Totenkopf called it his World of Tomorrow."

"Like the theme of the World's Fair," Polly said.

"Only a lot more sinister," Sky Captain said.

Even without Dex inside the robot controller head, the automated systems could pause only so long. The sorting arms began moving again, lifting clamps and grabbing scrap components.