Portent Universe - Into the Belly of the Beast - A Daring Professor Paradigm Adventure!
The story that follows was written for a book called "The Fans are Buried Tales", an anthology edited by Peter David, with short stories by writers including David himself, Robert Greenberger, Michael Jan Friedman, Jo Duffy, and Keith R. A. DeCandido.
The book was inspired by both the 14th century book "The Canterbury Tales", and by a time in the early 2000s where attendants to the Star Trek convention Farpoint got trapped in a hotel for several days because of a snow storm. To pass the time, tales were shared, yoga classes were taught, and even acting seminars were conducted by Armin Shimerman.
In "The Fans are Buried Tales", cosplayers including ninjas, zombies, Amazons, and Trekkies gather at the hotel bar to tell each stories… all while staying in costume. When I saw the call for authors, I signed up to write a pulp hero tale, and decided to write a story starring my Portent Universe character Professor Paradigm.
This is a semi-canon Paradigm story… because the original Paradigm has Superman-like powers,; and the one in this tale is just a two-fisted scientist. Alternate Portent Universe?
Into the Belly of the Beast - A Daring Professor Paradigm Adventure!
The storm raged outside the hotel, and the bar was getting ever so crowded, but there was always space for one more person. His white shirt, made from light fabric, belied the weather outside, but his riding boots and jodhpur pants told you that he was dressed for action. He smoothed back his slick, black hair, and consulted the readout on the electronics-studded bracer on his left forearm.
"Good time for a drink, isn't it?" the man said, his white teeth flashing beneath his dark, pencil-thin mustache.
He joined a crowd already gathered at the bar, and ordered a glass of Spanish sherry, or jérez. A fellow dressed in a Japanese robot costume pointed at him "Hey, you're Professor Paradigm, the Spanish pulp hero!"
Paradigma took a sip of his sherry, and nodded, smiling again. "Feliciano Gámiz, at your service."
"Professor, tell us about one of your adventures!" exclaimed a woman wearing the uniform of a Cosmic Journey's Cosmicfleet lieutenant.
"Yes," chimed a teenage boy dressed as a ninja "like when you defeated Herr von Wahr's dark magic with nothing but your fists and science!"
A steampunk rocketgirl shook her head "Everybody's heard that one!"
Feliciano sighed, longingly, and nodded "I know which one I'll tell…"
"Spain, 1932, deep in the woods of Grazalema, in the Cádiz province of Andalucía. I had been tracking the beast for several days now. A cryptid known as a gailán had migrated from the nearby province of Granada, and the locals here were not used to dealing with his kind of beast."
"I just happened to be visiting a good friend of mine, who lent me his laboratory. Having studied the biology of the gailán, at least in books, I thought I knew how to get it to stop attacking people."
Setting his glass down on the bar, he cupped one fist in his other hand, forming a sphere. "I built a device filled with chemicals, designed to slowly release the substances into the creature. Why such a device, and not just, say, tranquilizer darts? First, because as I said, the chemicals needed to be slowly released into the beast's system. If they were to be released too quickly, the creature would go mad and cause even greater havoc."
"Second, a gailán's hide is so thick, that nothing we had would penetrate it. I had to improvise."
He waved with his hands in front of him, as if parting an imaginary thicket. "Bushes littered the floor, while firs and oaks grew so close together that our vision was impaired. I have traversed such places before, but I had to be on my toes to face the gailán, so the tracking had fallen to one of my companions, Paquirri, an experienced woodsman from the area."
Paradigm grabbed a salt shaker, and sprinkled some crystals on the bartop. "The trail was a bit cold, but Paquirri was quite deft, and he led us to a clearing where we finally spotted our quarry: a feral cat the size of a bull, with the face of a man and a lion's maw… the gailán!"
Hopping from his stool, Feliciano mimicked a prowling stance. "I was as silent as humanly possible, but as I was not carrying my usual equipment, I had forgotten to dim my scent. The gailán caught a whiff, and just as I was approaching it from behind, STRUCK ME WITH ITS WHIP-LIKE TAIL!"
The audience ooohd and aaahd, as Paradigm lifted his shirt a bit to show the scar left by the beast's strike to his ribcage. "I leapt back, half from the pain, half as calculated move, and grabbed the cloth bag with the device between my teeth." Again, he flashed his perfect smile.
"Zig! Zag! I avoided several tail strikes, and managed to get close to the gailán. Stepping on its tail, I encircled its thick neck with my arms, and used my hands to work open its jaws…"
With a crowd hanging onto his every word, Paradigm made motions to indicate how he wrestled with the cryptid, and added some struggling noises and pants to enhance the story.
"Alas, it was all for nothing… I could not pry open that steel trap of a mouth."
Knowing that pauses only increased his audience's engagement, he stopped and took another sip from his drink. "What to do, then? Time for--"
He locked eyes with a boy, no more than ten, sitting with his parents. The whole family was dressed in the costumes of the Intergalactic Emerald Beacons, the comic book peacekeeping agents. The boy said, grinning "Plan B! Professor Paradigm always has a plan B!"
"That's right, young Beacon!" Paradigm said, winking. "I let go of the beast, and quickly rolled on my shoulder one, two, three times to get some distance between us, then started to run. Where to? Well, to another clearing where we had set up camp earlier."
"Right there, in that clearing, was my other companion, my friend's daughter, Mari. She was waiting by the makeshift catapult we'd built from a small tree before pursuing the gailán. When I drew closer to her spot, she cut the rope holding down the tree, transforming potential energy into kinetic energy, launching our payload through the air!"
The Japanese robot frowned slightly "I thought you said you couldn't hurt it with the stuff you had! What did you throw at it?"
Paradigma smiled "Food. A small, roasted pig."
Robot and others in the crowd opened their mouths agape. "Yes, just like that." Feliciano said.
"The gailán could not resist the delicious treat, and opened its mide wide open. And that's when I made use of my considerable athletic skills, specifically the right arm that got me the gold medal for shot put in the 1928 Amsterdam Summer Olympics. I established a new world record of 16 meters that day."
"Of course, my chemical-releasing device was far lighter than what we used at the Olympics, so even a hastily-calculated throw hit its mark, right after the piglet. The gailán devoured both pork and device at once, and, its belly full, withdrew into the deep of the forest. It lurked around the area for some years, but never attacked a human ever again."
Paradigm finished the last of his sherry, and flicked a peanut into the air, catching it with his mouth. "And that, my friends, is how we were able to get my cat to take his medicine."
