Austin Kingsley: Star Prodigy — Episode 1, “Saving Alexandria,” Part 2
The cheery yellow 1971 Honda Z600 puttered to a stop in front of the imposingly monolithic warehouse, surrounded on all sides by a manufacturing park that had long since fallen into disrepair.
The driver stepped gingerly through the shallow puddles that dotted the grimy pavement, not wanting to muddy either her broken-in but still mostly white Adidas sneakers or her hot pink leg warmers.
“According to this, this is the place,” Mitzi Klingfeld confirmed, brushing back her billowy blonde hair as her bright blue eyes skimmed through the folder of loosely organized documents that Ms. Van Doren had handed her. “Building 49-A in the Hammersmith Industrial Development ... God, who would want to set up shop in the middle of the Engine Block?” she wondered, tugging at the loose neckline of her oversized sweater to keep it from falling off her shoulders.
As her sweater settled back down to its normal level, Mitzi spotted a small, seemingly hand-carved wooden sign, next to the structure's only visible entrance, whose homey and ornately rustic charm felt incongruous with the featureless exterior of the inner-city facility.
“The Bookhouse,” Mitzi read aloud, tracing her fingertips along the rough grain of the letters, before she fished a key out of the sheaf of paperwork with which Ms. Van Doren had entrusted her.
“Hello?” Mitzi called out nervously, as she was struck by the stark contrast between the sun outside, nearing its midday height in the Southwestern sky, and the murky darkness inside, punctuated only by perplexing, intermittently flashing, tiny chirping computer lights. As her eyes adjusted, she could make out towering shelves stocked with an eclectic mix of antique museum pieces and futuristic-looking devices whose functions she couldn't even begin to guess at. “Jeez, it's like the warehouse at the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark in here.”
“Quest Tracker recording, Star Point Portal experiment 51,” a man's voice announced, from further in the depths of the labyrinthine shelves. As Mitzi followed the voice to its source, she suddenly found herself facing the backside of a naked young man, standing inside a large upright ring, spreading his legs to plant his bare feet firmly at its base, as he extended his arms horizontally for his hands to grip the ring. Even as Mitzi quickly averted her stunned stare, she couldn't help but be reminded, by the pose of his body, of a five-pointed star.
“This is Austin Imhotep Kingsley, conducting scientist and guinea pig,” his voice reported for posterity, with enough of a wry tone that Mitzi could practically see his smirk, even as he continued to face away from her, “attempting to activate the Ouroboros on its own, minus the key of the star segments, by redirecting my recently received energies into the artifact.” As the ring's glow grew, Mitzi traced the light trails of its wires and tubes to a much smaller ring, an engraved stone relic on which the metallic model appeared to have been based.
“And with that, I suppose all that's left to say is ... Desperta Ferres,” Austin Kingsley declared tremulously, as his naked skin lit up with neon yellow symbols and patterns, whose energy pulsed and flowed, first into the larger ring, then into what Mitzi guessed must be the Ouroboros, illuminating them both with a rising hum, until crackling sparks flew from where Austin's hands and feet made contact with the ring, and an explosive force blew him backward, out of the ring and into the nearest row of shelves, where Mitzi had hidden to spy on him.
“Oh my gosh, oh my gosh,” Mitzi repeated frantically, even as she immediately rushed out to grab the glaringly red extinguisher off its wall mounting and douse the flurry of flames that had replaced the shower of sparks coming from the ring, before she turned to Austin, who'd been knocked out by the blast. “Mister Kingsley?” she patted his face anxiously, hoping to revive him, while pulling a heavy wool blanket from the floor around him for warmth. “Please say you're okay.”
Austin coughed himself awake, to discover his head resting in Mitzi's miniskirted lap. He blinked his wide blue eyes at her, and she realized that his smooth, handsome young face made for a fitting match with his sleek, attractive body ... not that she'd been looking, of course.
“It didn't work, did it?” Austin checked, his tone so despondent that she couldn't resist brushing his silky, sandy brown bangs back from his knitted brow.
Mitzi shook her head with regret. “Whatever you were trying to do, I don't think it happened.” Curiosity overcame her. “What does 'Desperta Ferres' mean?”
“It's a Medieval Catalan battle cry,” Austin grunted as he rose to his feet, sloughing off the rough blanket like a snake shedding its skin, which compelled Mitzi to grudgingly turn her appraising gaze away yet again. “It means, 'Awake, iron,' which couldn't help but seem appropriate under the circumstances.” When he turned back to address her, he noticed her attention was fixed intently on the ceiling, her arms crossed tight over her broad chest. “Why are you ... oh, right. Western culture, nudity taboos. Sorry. I still forget sometimes.”
“Yeah, think you could take care of that? Thanks,” Mitzi requested curtly, and instantly felt a twinge of guilt over her mild abruptness, as Austin slipped on the same pair of black casual pants and matching utilitarian top he'd apparently been wearing before his experiment. The band collar with the gold trim opened into a low but narrow neckline, that allowed him to slip it over his head while barely mussing up his floppy mop of hair, and only exposed glimpses of the peach fuzz on his chest to those who were genuinely trying to catch sight of it.
Mitzi cleared her throat, as much to rouse herself from her reverie as to attract Austin's attention. "Look, I'm sure whatever you're doing here is super-important, and it's not like I'm in any position to judge how anyone else does their business, so if you could just fill out these forms, that Ms. Van Doren sent me over here to get completed, I promise I'll leave you alone, to strip down and electrocute yourself to your heart's content."
Austin rolled up his gold-hemmed sleeves as he scanned rapidly through the thick stack of expense inquiries. “Of course Nora sent you,” he muttered, as much to himself as to Mitzi. “Only seven keys in all of creation can open the doors of the Bookhouse, and they can't be duplicated.” He stopped short, in the midst of his nimble fingers flitting quickly through the overstuffed binder, to separate out a single sheet of paper from the pile. “This belongs to you, actually. It's your résumé from ... Trust-E Temps? And you might as well return the rest of Nora's tedious attempts at bookkeeping to the Athenæum on your way out. Please tell her I have no time to be nickel-and-dimed by the same company my parents started and her family stole.”
“Tell her yourself, Buster!” Mitzi slapped Austin's proffered paperwork against his chest, her temper finally flaring. “I'm tired of you two treating me like one of those little plastic players on a foosball table, and I couldn't care less about whatever sordid soap opera drama you've got going on between you!” She sighed wearily, her shoulders slumping so low that she briefly resembled a deflating balloon. “If you send me back there empty-handed, then Nora, or Ms. Van Doren, or whatever I'm supposed to call her? She'll call my agency, and I'll get a bad eval, and I'll be out of a job. And I've got a little girl to take care of, so that is just not going to happen, okay?” Mitzi mostly succeeded in keeping the tremor of impending tears out of her voice.
Austin so obviously had no idea how to handle such an outburst that Mitzi almost felt sorry for him, until he broke into a giddy grin that did little to reassure her. “Wait ... ah, why didn't I see it before? Stupid, Austin! Um ... Mitzi, is it? Or Ms. Klingfeld, if you prefer? If all you need is a new employer, then I could just hire you to help me out here! Oh, you'd be perfect!”
Mitzi winced reflexively. “It's not that I don't appreciate the vote of confidence, but ... well, I've been in enough bad relationships already that the absolute last thing I need in my life right now is to nursemaid yet another crazy person who's trying to kill themselves. No offense.”
“Two minutes,” Austin cajoled, holding up two fingers. “Give me just two minutes, maybe three, to give your perspective a paradigm shift ... and I'll fill out Nora's forms for you, regardless of your decision,” he exhaled heavily at the apparent weight of his concession. “Please.”
“Two minutes?” Mitzi checked skeptically.
“Maybe three,” Austin repeated, before venturing, “Possibly four?”
“Let's make this simple,” Mitzi held up her hand, before fetching her burgeoning purse from where she'd set it on the floor. “Lucky for you, I'm a sucker for hopeless headcases.” She fished through the depths of her handbag until she found her Walkman, the cord of its headphones still wound round it securely, to keep its cassette from popping out. “I've never been able to resist giving at least a single dance to just about any fella who can work up the nerve to ask. If he knocks my socks off, we keep on dancing. If he doesn't, I thank him kindly, and he still gets to say he got a free dance from a classy gal.”
This time, it was Austin's turn to pull a befuddled expression. “I ... never really learned how to dance.”
“That figures,” Mitzi snorted, before retrieving the tape marked “Heart: Alone/Barracuda” from the player, and holding it up to Austin's line of sight. “I'm guessing this'll be your first lesson on the Wilson sisters too, then.” She replaced the tape in the player, snapped its lid shut, hung its headphones around Austin's neck, and dialed their volume to maximum, before holstering the Walkman on the waist of her miniskirt. “I picked up this single during the summer. I've practically worn out the A-side since then. The song's about three and a half minutes, and you'll pardon the pun, but I know it by heart.”
“And I have the length of this song to make my case,” Austin grasped, as Mitzi noted that he seemed suddenly invigorated by being assigned such concrete parameters.
Mitzi beamed with approval in spite of herself. “Clever boy, Mister Kingsley.”
I keep building out "Saving Alexandria," the pilot episode of "Austin Kingsley: Star Prodigy," and as soon as I cast Ernie Hudson as Byron Brass, I realized he would be an invaluable voice of sanity among my ensemble, as well as a welcome sounding board for Mitzi Klingfeld, as she copes with the madness of adventuring with Austin.
__________
"We're not in high school anymore," Mitzi Klingfeld told the tall, dapper Black man casually blowing his cigarette smoke out the open doorway of the Bookhouse. "So you don't have to worry about getting caught smoking in the boys' room."
Byron Brass turned to meet the stacked blonde's teasing smirk with a relaxed smile of his own, as he dutifully flicked his ashes outdoors. "Just keeping a promise to Austin's parents. First time I visited, they pointed out how tobacco smoke damages the artifacts."
Mitzi winced. "Shoot. Maybe I'll join you outside, then."
"To bask in my secondhand smoke?" Byron grinned before taking another drag, then extending his pack to her as she stepped out to join him. "You act like you're jonesing for something to take the edge off."
Mitzi reflexively reached out before her shoulders slumped in frustration. "I shouldn't. I promised my daughter I'd quit for good this time." She sniffed derisively. "Besides, I'm not Black enough for menthols."
"Oh, ho!" Byron laughed in earnest. "Says the lady with the Motown cassettes next to the Walkman on her desk. I'll bet I'm not the first brother to share a smoke with you."
Mitzi affected a mock-scandalized gasp. "I'll have you know I was raised a churchgoing country gal in Coral Shores."
"Who came creeping around the clubs in Carmichael Heights every weekend, no doubt," Byron countered good-naturedly, as he meticulously extinguished and field-stripped his cigarette butt. "Your daughter's right, though. You should quit. You'll both be better off."
Mitzi nodded in resignation, before challenging him with a skeptical squint. "What about you?"
Byron flashed an effortlessly high-beam smile, whose cheer noticeably failed to reach his eyes. "Nobody will miss me."
Mitzi winced, even as she sought to keep her tone light. "That … can't be right. I'm sure your family—"
"The folks passed on a while back," Byron summarized briskly, as he straightened his posture from having leaned on the doorframe. "As for my sister, she'd stopped speaking to me even before our father died."
"But … why?" Mitzi almost whispered.
Byron stepped back into the Bookhouse, even as he held the door open for Mitzi to return indoors with him, in what struck her as being a single fluid but formal motion. "At the risk of being rude, that's a private matter I don't care to discuss."
Mitzi stumbled as she rushed to keep pace with his broad strides. "I'm sorry—"
Byron held up his hand. "You didn't know." He then cast a sidelong gaze at her. "But you make it your business to know, don't you? You pay attention. You learn."
Mitzi suddenly felt very seen, in a way that made her uncomfortable, and she crossed her arms over her chest defensively. "Let's face it, you don't exactly last long in this world otherwise, do you?"
Byron shook his head in concurrence, before sizing her up with a glance. "That being the case, how about you tell me what I've just walked into here, Mitzi Klingfield?"
Mitzi blinked and gaped. "That's what you were supposed to tell me! You were part of Austin's family for … what, half a dozen years?"
"The last contact I had with either Austin or his father was a solid decade ago," Byron ticked off his points on his fingers. "You know what we call that in the field? Cold intel. In the meantime, you've been on the ground here for at least 24 hours, working side by side with Austin."
Mitzi protested, "You watched him grow up—"
"That tells me who he was, not who he is," Byron sighed impatiently. "When I saw Austin last, he was a teenaged boy. He still missed his mother, and his father had lost his way. He was a young man on the cusp. Even his mother wasn't sure how he might turn out. Before she died, she made me promise to look after Austin and his father, in case anything happened to her, and to try and do what would be best for them."
"So why didn't you?" Mitzi challenged him, her temper rising as she fixed her jaw defiantly. "Why did I have to look you up in a computerized Rolodex to find you? Why did you break your promise? Where were you, that all of this had to become my problem?"
Byron exhaled, deflating in remorse. "To keep one promise, I had to break the other. If I'd stayed, it would have made things worse." He met her upset stare. "In some relationships, continuing to support someone you care about can turn into enabling their self-sabotage. I'm gonna guess you've had some experience with that yourself."
Mitzi broke away from their stare first. "Dammit," she breathed, shutting her eyes tight before she eventually returned his gaze. "So, what all do you want to know?"
"How is it possible for the smartest man I've ever met to be the stupidest at the same time?" Mitzi brushed her bangs back from her face in aggravated agitation. "He's, like, Monopoly money rich, right? But he barely even understands what money IS! He's traveled all around the world, but somehow, he's never even learned how to drive! He can speak a dozen different languages, but my 9-year-old is more capable of carrying on a mature adult conversation! Just a few hours ago, I watched him save the WORLD, but I'm pretty sure he couldn't even tie a set of shoelaces!"
"So why stay?" Byron strongly suspected he already knew the answer.
The question, by itself, seemed to stop Mitzi short. "Somebody had to, I suppose." It was all she could come up with.
"No." Byron said the word sternly but gently. He was no longer brooking any self-deception. "The moment Austin told you about me and Ken, you could have contacted either one of us, and none of this would have been your problem any longer. You stood by our boy," he preemptively interrupted her, "for reasons beyond your bleeding heart for orphaned strays and lost causes."
Mitzi inhaled sharply, and Byron thought he spotted her widening her eyes, to prevent their welling mist from spilling over onto her cheeks. "As much as he drives me batty, Austin is actually a really good person," she conceded, her tone uncharacteristically muted.
"He told you he believed in you." Byron managed not to laugh out loud.
"Who says that, to someone they've barely even met?" Mitzi objected, her voice finally faltering. "Coming from anyone else? I'd call it emotional blackmail. But Austin's not sensitive enough to anyone's feelings to even TRY to manipulate them. When he tells you he trusts you, he's not even trying to make you feel better. He's just telling the truth. It actually means more because he couldn't care less about your feelings." A broken-glass giggle escaped the back of her throat. "What a mind-job."
Byron leaned back, against what he'd accurately deduced was Mitzi's desk, and for the first time since his arrival, he took the time to take stock of the interior of the building he'd once regarded as a second home. "The more things change, the more they stay the same," he assessed with a serene amusement.
"What's that supposed to mean?" Mitzi wrinkled her nose warily.
Byron slapped the heavily scarred yet solidly built desktop with his broad, open palms. "Austin's mother deeply disliked this desk. She tried to get rid of it at every opportunity, but his father kept hauling it back out of the scrapyard. Sometimes, I think this place is where things wind up when they're too old to die."
Byron paused, briefly lost in thought, before he recovered his bearings. "That includes old memories, and recurring emotions. Whenever Austin's father first met someone, I could always spot the moment they fell in love with him. Not that he ever caught on, not even once. I used to wonder whether that oblivious Kingsley charm would pass onto the next generation." He turned his sizing-up stare back onto Mitzi. "At the risk of being reductive, seeing you get this worked up sure does seem to settle that question."
"Ohhh, nonononono," Mitzi wagged her finger. "Even when I was still married, to a lawyer who was always away from home, because he was 'putting in overtime,'" she emphasised her sarcasm with air-quotes, "giving his personal assistant 'dictation,' I was never one of those Eloi Estates housewives, who was desperate enough to hook up with shiny guys named Chad."
Byron nodded in sympathetic understanding. "And since I'm guessing you got wrung through the wringer, going up against a husband who was also a lawyer, in divorce and child custody proceedings …"
Mitzi gripped her own shoulders. "Let's just say I'd like to think I've learned at least enough not to catch feelings for some doe-eyed whiz kid, especially when he's halfway between me and my daughter's ages."
"You think Austin would care about, or even notice, however old you might be?" Byron scoffed.
"No, but somebody should," Mitzi offered in a small, sad voice. "One of us needs to care about things that shouldn't matter, but that absolutely do matter anyway."
Byron raised his hands in silent surrender, declining to press the point further, for the time being.
"Where's your buddy, anyway?" Mitzi perked up suddenly, as the lull in the conversation allowed her to recall Ken Kawasaki, Byron's closest colleague from his time in the Kingsleys' Knighthood of Science. "You said you called each other 'kemo sabe,' like the Lone Ranger and Tonto? Wasn't he supposed to be here by now?"
"We each work diligently to defy our respective racial stereotypes," Byron snarked playfully, but with a hint of impatience reemerging from behind his smirk. "I'm Black, so I arrive 15 minutes early. He's Japanese, so he shows up late. What's somehow more tiresome than his tardiness is how he tries to pull it off, by saying—"
"A wizard arrives precisely when he means to," Ken completed Byron's quote, rapping on the Bookhouse's opened door with his key.
"Well, hi!" Mitzi chirped cheerfully, as she pushed back the sleeve of her baggy sweater, and the hoops of her bangle bracelets, to extend her hand. "Mitzi Klingfeld. We spoke on the phone?"
The leather jacket-clad motorcycle rider accepted her hand to lay a quick, ceremonial peck on her proffered fingers. "Nice nails," he observed offhandedly. "Ken Kawasaki. Console Cowboy Consulting. And I see you've already met Byron Brass, of Conscientious Countermeasures."
"We've already gotten acquainted, thanks to you generously giving us plenty of time to do so." Byron couldn't resist tossing in a sardonic aside.
"I'm Austin Kingsley's … personal assistant, I suppose," Mitzi twittered her fingers anxiously, more flustered than she anticipated by Ken's idle compliment and affectionate gesture. "Austin told me the proper title is, I'm his … amanuensis," she enunciated each syllable deliberately.
"Yeah, that sure sounds like our Buckyball, alright," Ken rolled his eyes in recognition. "Where's our boy, anyway? Napping in the stacks, like always?"
"Hmh, probably," Mitzi couldn't help snorting slightly. "Wanna help me hunt him down?"
In 1936, Ulysses Kingsley acquired Building 49-A in what would become the Hammersmith Industrial Development of Apex City, Calizona, and he named that building the Bookhouse.
The Bookhouse (and its contents) became the most prized asset of three generations of the Kingsley family, for which only seven keys were minted, and those could not be duplicated.
Custody of those keys came to define each generation of Kingsleys' inner circles, but it was Ulysses' son, Charlemagne Kingsley, who named their custodians the Knighthood of Science.
__________
Green Key
Golden Age owner: Ulysses Kingsley
Silver Age successor: Charlemagne Kingsley
Modern inheritor: Austin Kingsley
The first key to the Bookhouse was named for the center of the visible light spectrum.
This key was minted in 1936, and when Ulysses went missing in 1956, his son Charlemagne found that the key had been left behind for him.
Likewise, before Charlemagne disappeared in 1987, he made sure his son Austin knew where his key was safely stored.
__________
Blue Key
Golden Age owner: Phryne Falken
Silver Age successor: Hypatia Germain Kingsley
Modern inheritor: Mitzi Klingfeld
Ulysses gave the second key to the Bookhouse to his partner Phryne shortly before they got married in 1936.
Shortly before Phryne set out to try and find her former husband Joshua in 1954, she left her key with Ulysses.
Phryne never returned, and two years later, Ulysses passed her key, and his own, onto their son Charlemagne in 1956.
Charlemagne bequeathed his mother Phryne's key to his partner Hypatia shortly before their marriage in 1962.
When Hypatia died in 1976, her key returned to Charlemagne's custody, until he passed both of their keys onto their son Austin in 1987.
After Austin hired his partner Mitzi in 1987, Phryne and Hypatia's key became Mitzi's.
__________
Yellow Key
Golden Age owner: Léon Volkov
Silver Age successor: Hamilton Van Doren
Modern inheritor: Nora Van Doren
Ulysses gave the third key to the Bookhouse to his former college professor Léon in 1938, but that key didn't remain in Léon's custody long.
Shortly before Léon disappeared in 1940, he returned his key to Ulysses, who kept it in storage for his son Charlemagne, who received custody of Léon's key after Ulysses' disappearance in 1956.
When Charlemagne and his wife Hypatia co-founded the Knighthood of Science in 1964, Charlemagne's first recruit to the Knighthood was his former college classmate Hamilton, who became the team's attorney, and the bearer of the Bookhouse's third key.
When Hamilton died alongside Hypatia in 1976, he ensured his daughter Nora would receive custody of his key.
__________
Indigo Key
Golden Age owner: Hedy Fine
Silver Age successor: Edgar Prufrock
Modern inheritor: Beatrix Klingfeld
Ulysses gave the fourth key to the Bookhouse to his former college classmate Hedy for safe keeping in 1938, but she mostly just kept that key in storage.
After Hedy's disappearance in 1966, her estate passed her key onto Ulysses' son Charlemagne, per her written instructions.
Upon receiving Hedy's key in 1966, Charlemagne immediately passed that key onto his former college classmate Edgar, thereby finally officially inducting Edgar into the Knighthood of Science, as the team's archivist.
Edgar retained custody of his key until his arrest in 1987, when he passed that key onto Charlemagne's son Austin, who in turn immediately passed Edgar's key onto Beatrix, the daughter of Austin's partner Mitzi.
__________
Orange Key
Golden Age owner: Osamu "Ozzie" Otomo
Silver Age successor: Ambrose Absinthe
Modern inheritor: Ken Kawasaki
Phryne suggested to her husband Ulysses, and he immediately agreed, that he should give the fifth key to the Bookhouse to their shared junior sidekick Ozzie in 1938.
When Ozzie retired from costumed crime-fighting in 1941, he returned his key to Ulysses, who kept it in storage for his son Charlemagne, along with all the other keys, until Ulysses' disappearance in 1956.
When Charlemagne and his wife Hypatia co-founded the Knighthood of Science in 1964, Charlemagne recruited another former college classmate, Ambrose, to serve as one of the team's "science heroes," specializing in chemistry and physics.
When Charlemagne handed him the Bookhouse's fifth key, Ambrose took that trust seriously.
Even after Ambrose turned to supervillainy three years later, in 1967, he upheld his fidelity to Charlemagne's trust by returning his key, insisting that the key be passed onto the Knighthood's then-teenaged engineering and electronics prodigy Ken, the son of Ozzie.
__________
Violet Key
Golden Age owner: Joshua Lennon
Silver Age successor: Herbert Heinlein
Modern inheritor: Byron Brass
Phryne insisted that her husband Ulysses give the sixth key to the Bookhouse to her former husband Joshua in 1938.
Shortly before Joshua's disappearance in 1942, he returned his key to Ulysses, who kept it in storage for his son Charlemagne, along with all the other keys, until Ulysses' disappearance in 1956.
When Charlemagne and his wife Hypatia co-founded the Knighthood of Science in 1964, Charlemagne recruited yet another former college classmate, Herbert, to serve as one of the team's "science heroes," specializing in biology, ecology and other environmental sciences.
Shortly after Herbert's divorce in 1970, he formally resigned from the Knighthood and returned his key to Charlemagne, recommending that the key be passed onto the team's then-recently acquired ally Byron, a military veteran whom Herbert also recommended for full membership in the Knighthood, to serve as the team's combat (and conflict resolution) advisor.
__________
Red Key
Golden Age owner: Shoshana Shuster
Silver Age successor: Dale Arden Carlson
Bronze Age interloper: Lilith Killian
Modern inheritor: Xavier Killian
Ulysses started partnering with Shoshana on investigations and crime-fighting in 1935, a year before he made Apex City his home — and a year before he met and married his subsequent partner Phryne — in 1936.
Out of consideration for his wife's feelings, Ulysses waited for two more years to give the seventh key to the Bookhouse to Shoshana in 1938, after he'd already given keys to Phryne and two of her allies.
After Shoshana was murdered in 1941, custody of her key returned to Ulysses, who kept it in storage for his son Charlemagne, along with all the other keys, until Ulysses' disappearance in 1956.
After Charlemagne and his wife Hypatia co-founded the Knighthood of Science, and Charlemagne's former college classmate Herbert was recruited as one of the team's "science heroes," Herbert married Hypatia's former college classmate Dale in 1968.
Over Dale's initial protestations, she grudgingly accepted the Bookhouse's seventh key, as a wedding present, at the insistence of Charlemagne, Hypatia and Herbert.
Dale never accepted full membership in the Knighthood, but as an environmental scientist, like her husband Herbert, she freely lent her expertise to the team, as a botanist.
When Herbert and Dale divorced in 1970, Dale returned her key to Charlemagne.
In 1975, Charlemagne grew desperate enough, in his bid to save the world, that he inducted his former lover Lilith into the Knighthood, over Hypatia's sustained objections, but after Lilith died alongside Hypatia and their teammate Hamilton in 1976, Lilith's key could not be found.
What no one else knew was that Lilith had ensured her key would pass onto Xavier, her secret son with Charlemagne.
This is when Where the Hell Is Springfield? actually has an answer, and that answer is pretty nonsensical even by fiction's usual standards.
I've come to realize that a key component in my world-building has been friends and acquaintances introducing ideas that my own brain eventually bullies me into carrying out.
This time, it was the son of one of my friends and writing partners, who has been peppering me with questions about our shared universe, much like how I imagine Roy Thomas sought to interpret what Stan Lee had helped establish about the Marvel Comics universe.
Armand asked about Calizona, the fictional 40th state in my alternate universe in which the United States of America has at least 52 states, inquiring about the sorts of state symbols that many well-established states adopt, to which I initially honestly replied, "The answer to a lot of your questions right now is going to be 'TBD.'"
Because however fond I am of world-building, my approach tends to be to start small, then build outward from there, and the only reason I created the fictional state of Calizona, which Armand already knows that his parent (and my writing partner) does not care for nearly as much as I do, was because I needed someplace to put my equally fictional metropolis of Apex City.
Armand was asking solid, common-sense questions, but he had overestimated the degree to which I had already mapped out my own world.
In previous brainstorming threads with my writing partners, we've reached points where we've agreed that continuing to pursue whatever stories we were considering would require creating new fictional cities, or even entire fictional countries, and my first response has often been, "And it's not like I can just create all of that in a single sitting, ha ha ha!"
And then, a few hours to a few days later, I'm sitting sullenly in silence when I finally admit to myself, "Dammit, I'm going to have to create all this shit after all."
Establishing official state symbols for any state is daunting, because there are so many categories of stuff that real-world states have established, from official state flags, animals, plants and stones, to state mottos, songs, poems and even colors.
As befitting Calizona's status as "The In-Betweener State" — it literally exists between California and Arizona, which I don't need you to tell me is a geographical impossibility — I imagine its population being constitutionally indecisive.
This is why at least two of its officially designated state animals have unofficial holdout challengers, as well as why the state simply gave up and allowed two different choices each to receive official state designations in a number of its food and drink categories.
Beyond that, I should just submit the list for reference purposes, and answer any questions it might generate in the threads that follow.
CALIZONA
Incorporated as territory: 1866.
Admitted as state: 1881.
Centennial: 1981.
Capital city: Gladstone.
Nickname: The In-Betweener State.
Motto: Non difficultates, nisi solutiones (No problems, only solutions).
Colors: Hot pink, fluorescent orange.
Song: "Don't Stop Believin'," by Journey.
Poem: "Coyote," by Alexander Posey.
Musical instrument: Native American flute.
Dance: Breakdance.
Sport: Jai alai.
Theater: Promethean Playhouse.
Bat: Mexican free-tailed bat (Tadarida brasiliensis).
Wild cat: Cougar (Puma concolor).
Dog breed: Golden Retriever.
Horse breed: American Paint Horse.
Bird: American kestrel, or sparrowhawk (Falco sparverius).
Animal (wild land mammal): Coyote (Canis latrans).
The history of white settlers' explorations of the environs surrounding what would become Apex is a history of whites poking their noses into places where the local Native Americans knew better than to be.
Head southwest on the current Apex City coastline that encompasses "Bitter" Bierce Bay, and you'll find yourself in the Whispering Woods, which lead out to Apex Point at the southwesternmost tip.
Apex Point is itself notable as the site for the second historic lighthouse serving Apex.
Monolith Island, which sits in the middle of Bierce Bay, became the site of the Monolith Island Light in 1855, followed by Fort Maximilian M. Maximus in 1861, before the Civil War military outpost was converted into the Fort Triple-Max maximum security prison in 1946.
Meanwhile, Apex Point became the site of the Lensman Lighthouse in 1875, which itself has hosted Apex's first radio station, KAPX 750 AM, since 1930.
Dr. Albert Atlas Fell, of the Quatermass University of Abstract and Applied Sciences in Apex City, broadcasts from the lighthouse radio station on weekends, logging meteorological conditions, issuing advisories to the ships at sea, and playing peaceful, contemplative music.
The Whispering Woods constitute a microclimate, closer to the cool, rainy Pacific Northwest than to the hot, arid standards of the rest of Calizona.
Within their depths lies a seemingly idyllic body of water comparable to Oregon's Crater Lake in its natural beauty, but closer in its origins to Arizona's Meteor Crater, since it was formed by a meteorite impact rather than a volcanic eruption.
The peoples of the Apex Pueblo warned whites against settling in Whispering Woods or around what would become known as Lake Kinkade, after Nathaniel "Natty" Kinkade discovered the latter in 1851.
But as was so often the case, the whites shrugged off what they saw as primitive superstitions, even as continued protests from local Native Americans, contrary to their typical calls, have kept either Whispering Woods or Lake Kinkade from being declared public landmarks.
Natty Kinkade was the first to observe that the densely forest-lined seclusion of deep, clear blue waters appeared to be "painted with light," which made it an appealingly photogenic site for a succession of summer camps.
Camp Placid Waters for Clean Living opened on the banks of Lake Kinkade in 1927, and has gained notoriety in the decades since as "Camp Deadpool," due to recurrences of reported and rumored harvests of young campers and camp counselors by mask-wearing mass-murderers.
Camp Smiling Coyote for Sacred Clowns was founded in 1954, by retired Marine Corps Cpl. Samuel Charles Smiling Coyote, who originally hailed from the Apex Pueblo, so one might wonder why he didn't know better than to venture out to Lake Kinkade, if they didn't know him.
In the service, not only did he claim that his first and middle initials of S.C. stood for "Sam Clemens," as he insisted was befitting his storytelling talent, but he also served as a "Code Talker" during World War II.
Since ignorant white folks insisted on sending their innocent kids into the cursed, merciless wilderness, the man who'd developed a damnable compulsion to stand up for the weak against the strong decided he'd create a haven for scrappy underdogs and socially awkward misfits.
Of course, nothing good can be done for the disadvantaged, especially if it's being done by a historically oppressed minority, without inspiring a backlash from the privileged class, which is what inspired the creation of Camp Atlas-Seaboard for Competition and Survival in 1958.
Which is how Lake Kinkade wound up with a summer camp plagued by serial killings, a camp providing shelter and encouragement for weirdos and outcasts, and one pandering to pampered rich brats, even before the area gained a haunted hotel in 1968.
The Bean-Shìdh family imported what was originally their ancestral keep of Samhain's Hearth Inn and Tavern from Callander, Scotland (also the birthplace of Angus Odysseus Battle-Craft), rebuilding it on the rocky shores of Apex Point, near the Lensman Lighthouse.
As ill-advised as Charlie Smiling Coyote considered other white folks' settlements in the area to be, he recognized that the mother-daughter duo of Bonnie and Bridey Bean-Shìdh brought their own unique spiritual energy to the place, even if they themselves didn't fully realize it right away.
Over on the other end of the outskirts of Apex City and Coral Shores, the Scar Range Desert that had become the site for a succession of obscure military installations would ultimately find itself a hotbed for countercultural activity.
Well northeast of Coral Shores, former Sixties flower child Dulcimer Discordia "Cordy" Condor started the temporary autonomous zone of Solstice City in 1986, to host what would become the annual Flaming Paintbrush Midsummer Free-for-All.
Perhaps the festival's most notable feature is the "Infernal Titan," a gigantic wooden effigy that's set ablaze during the culminating ceremonies of the summer's revelry, communal camp-out and exchanges of experimental artistry in the Scar Range Desert.
Ironically, while this occasion threatens to compromise the operational security of Dr. Bianca Yong and her Agents of ABOVE in their repurposed military base, Cordy Condor stages Flaming Paintbrush, at least in part, to provide cover for the clandestine activities of her older brother.
When Air Force Capt. Mandolin Corelli Condor was flying combat missions in Vietnam, his kid sister Cordy was protesting the war, but her peace activism was always intended to protect her big brother, who was practically a surrogate father to her, due to their generational dividing line.
Not long after he started piloting the Skyshark experimental attack helicopter in 1984, the elder Condor finally reached out to contact his estranged sister, who was only too happy to see him again, and after some thought, she figured out her own way to run interference for the Skyshark.
The chaotically organized seasonal congregation in the desert obscures many traces of the Skyshark's concealment in the area, however irritated a Vietnam veteran like Condor might be to indirectly rely upon his sister's hippie freak friends to continue his covert missions in America.
Austin Kingsley and Mitzi Klingfeld aren't the only grownup gumshoes looking into mysteries and criminal misdeeds in Apex City.
Reid Warne knows how to navigate a forensic scene, managing to tread carefully even though the treads he's leaving are the tracks of his wheelchair, while one of his fellow licensed private investigators, wisecracking tough guy Bruno Hudson, constitutes one half of Nighthawks Investigations (whose name was inspired by the "Nightshade Investigates..." comic strip, distributed by Kingsley Features Syndicate), and which was bankrolled by former Glamourpuss Magazine cover girl Cybele Seagrams.
To preserve the statements they solicit from witnesses and other sources, Bruno and Cybele have a habit of recording their cases live via compact video, which can lead to snarky running commentary as they play to the camera.
Even more media-savvy, but vastly less given to snappy or sexually suggestive patter, is Richard Corinthian, who acquired the title of "The Auspex Inspector" from his six-season syndicated TV series, "The Wandering Auspex Inspects..." (likewise inspired by "Nightshade Investigates..."), which ran from the late 1970s through the early 1980s.
Richard claims to be psychic, to assist in law enforcement investigations, by playing up his supposed Romani "fortune-teller" heritage, and yet, while almost all of his ostensibly uncanny abilities can be chalked up to keen observational insights and skilled stagecraft, his Romani heritage is more genuine than he lets on (his birth name was "Roman Corinthian," which he correctly estimated would be a touch too "ethnic" to appeal to more mainstream audiences), while his insights include flashes of what would seem to be psychic visions.
Not that "The Auspex Inspector" is above commercial shilling, since the success of Time-Life Books' "The Enchanted World" and "Mysteries of the Unknown" series led Enigma Media to begin publishing "Myths & Mysteries of the Otherworldly" in 1987, for which Richard Corinthian serves as the line's suitably spooky, brooding spokesman ("From fairy-tale fables to paranormal phenomena... If it's out there, it's in here").
I prefer this left-to-right progression of the cast lineup.
Austin Kingsley and Mitzi Klingfeld are paired off in the center of the lineup, while Mitzi’s daughter Beatrix is by her side, wandering off to play with Q-T the Quest Tracker robot, and Austin’s boss, Nora Van Doren, stands at his side, but with her back to him.
This is how the characters would be posed for their cast photo in the TV Guide ad.
Austin Kingsley: Star Prodigy in “The Silicon Supertrain!”
“Okay,” Mitzi Klingfeld smiled indulgently, propping her chin up on her palms, for what she knew would be an extended lecture, “make me understand what the big deal is about the Supertrain.”
“The Silicon Supertrain,” Austin Kingsley corrected her, even as he strained to maintain a non-critical tone in his voice, “named after the original Silicon Valley, in the Santa Clara Valley of California.”
“So, San Jose,” Mitzi recognized, before positioning her straw to take a discreet sip of her vanilla-flavored Prof. Pym Pop soda. “And you said it was, what, 1979?”
“When the train line was started in earnest, yes,” Austin nodded, as he used his small plastic spork to slice off a bite-sized piece of his Dutch apple pocket pie, before holding it up to Mitzi’s mouth. Mitzi beamed briefly at the awkward yet gentlemanly gesture, before chomping at the proffered pie, even as Austin continued on, without even appearing to notice her blushes. “It eventually grew to include stops at 33 cities in 26 states, but it all started with San Jose, California, and Charlton, Delaware.”
“Charlton … isn’t that where Bianca has her super-science school, or whatever?” Mitzi checked, brushing strands of her voluminous hair out of her face, as they were caught by the gentle desert breeze, while she and Austin sat on the flat warehouse roof of the Bookhouse, to share their fast food dinners (courtesy of one of King Tut’s Food Pyramids) under the summer-warmed night sky.
“Arkwright College of the Sciences,” Austin confirmed, “where, even before Bianca Yong successfully defended her doctoral thesis, the collective brain trust on campus was burning brightly enough to draw the notice of like minds on the opposite coastline, and vice versa.”
“So, what, they wanted a more tangible connection than just …” here, Mitzi wiggled her fingers in the air, mimicking the action of typing, “clacking away at their keyboards?”
“Each side of the country was generating a world’s fair worth of technological innovations on a weekly basis,” Austin chuckled as he shook his head. “It was becoming a bit much to sum up in electronic mail correspondence, even with the frequency of their exchanges.”
“And all nerds love trains,” Mitzi teased with an affectionate smirk.
“That is a stereotypical characterization that is only … mostly true,” Austin faltered in the midst of his objection, before waving his hands to refocus his thoughts, “and that’s not the point. Instead of simply transmitting these people’s words, or crude visual depictions of their plans, over phone lines, the Silicon Supertrain would essentially supply them with a rolling expo on rails. Rather than tasking developers with trekking to a succession of annual conventions, far from home, the Silicon Supertrain would bring the next generation of computers and accompanying consumer technology TO them!”
Mitzi couldn’t help but bite her lower lip with giddy glee. Moments like this reminded her why she loved Austin. She might not have otherwise shared his interest in what she initially considered a rather sterile subject, but his escalating enthusiasm as he spoke was infectious, and his passion made up her mind that she was going to ravish him later that night.
“You’re looking at me that way again,” Austin observed curiously, cocking his head to one side like a clockwork bird. His tone and facial expression were placid, not at all offended, and yet already skeptical of the denials he knew were forthcoming from her.
Mitzi blinked and cleared her throat. “What? No, it’s fine. Don’t worry about it,” she sought to dismiss his concerns, before seizing upon an aspect of his explanation that had stood out to her. “Okay, so, we both know I’m no engineer, but I gotta think that a tricked-out, high-tech, high-speed supertrain is gonna cost a lot more than what even an Ivy League college and a bunch of boy wonders soldering circuit boards in their garages can scrape together between them.”
“Especially after the tech centers in those other cities I mentioned heard about the Silicon Supertrain during its brainstorming stage, and decided they wanted stops of their own along the way,” Austin dipped one of his tater tots (branded by King Tut’s as “Tater Tuts”) in ketchup, then used it to smear sticky red streaks in a rough loop across the wrapper of the soy burger he’d already eaten. “Incorporating them all meant creating three connected train routes — Boston to Dallas, Dallas to Seattle, and Seattle to Boston — with 10 more cities as stops in between on each route. Just to accommodate the size of the train, the stop that was planned for Charlton had to be placed in Dover instead.”
“Even still, none of those cities would have rolled the dice on funding a boondoggle like a supertrain for uber-nerds, especially back in the late Seventies,” Mitzi scoffed, before she squinted at the messy ketchup loop, with its extra-heavy dabs of ketchup at three of its corners, and quickly realized it was meant to be a map of the Silicon Supertrain’s three connected routes within the continental United States, with Boston, Dallas and Seattle represented by those extra-heavy dabs.
“Okay, Mister Kingsley,” Mitzi grinned, getting into the spirit of Austin’s playful lesson, “so, if this is Dallas,” she dipped a tater tot of her own into the southernmost dab, “and this is Seattle,” another dip, this time in the northwest dab, “then that makes this curve the Pacific coastline,” she smeared her tater tot along the ketchup streak, “but in between what I’m guessing are San Diego and Phoenix, the line goes all jagged,” she frowned speculatively, before chipping at the edges of her cherry red nail polish with her teeth out of subconscious habit.
“And what does that tell you, Mitzi Klingfeld?” Austin gazed at her adoringly, not only genuinely impressed with what she’d discerned so far, but eagerly anticipating how she would tie it all together.
“Well, I spent enough time growing up in Las Vegas to spot where it sits on a map, so that’s why the line zigs so far to the north, coming from Phoenix,” she picked up the uneaten tater tot she’d used as her pointer, “but if it was just heading west, from there to San Diego, the line would flow a lot smoother, so for it to zag back down south, as sharp as it does? That means somebody was awfully invested in getting Apex City on that route,” she leaned back and finally popped the tater tot into her mouth triumphantly. “And nobody else but your dad would have been both loaded and nerdy enough.”
“Technically, it was an investment by the Athenæum, but yes,” Austin couldn’t help but nit-pick, even as he tossed a tater tot into his own broadly beaming mouth. “My family basically bankrolled the project, and Pournelle Propulsion Systems was brought on board as a partner, to help design and build the train itself.”
“And I take it that the Silicon Supertrain has been bringing together overgrown whiz-kids like a Love Boat for Trekkies ever since,” Mitzi lifted her tall plastic cup of soda in a mock toast.
Austin twitched slightly, in what Mitzi had learned was his equivalent of a wince. “For the most part. But there’s been a problem. Very recently, some high-profile passengers on the Silicon Supertrain have been found dead — on board, in transit, NOT of natural causes. It’s been kept out of the press so far, but given the names involved, I don’t expect that to last.”
“So, the clock is already ticking,” Mitzi nodded, her tone growing muted to match Austin’s subdued, utilitarian exposition, before her lips curled into a rueful smirk. “And this is why our last meal of the weekend was drive-thru.”
“Because we have to wake up early tomorrow, and I didn’t want either of us to have to do cleanup duty after a fancy dinner. Sorry,” Austin ducked his head sheepishly.
Austin felt Mitzi kiss his cheek before he saw that she’d scooted her chair around next to his. “Don’t be,” she patted his cheek. “How many other gals who work in admin can say they get to solve bona fide murder mysteries on the job? It’ll be like we’re riding the Orient Express … only, you know, for dorks,” she snorted, before she narrowed her eyes mischievously. “So, what time do we have to be at the Crossroads Transit Center?”
Austin shrugged. “The Silicon Supertrain pulls out of the station promptly at 8:20 a.m. Why?”
Mitzi suddenly slung her legs around Austin’s hips and sat on his lap, facing him. “Because that gives me at least a few hours to eat you alive, Mister Kingsley,” she breathed, affecting her best attempt at a husky Brenda Vaccaro voice, before she tore open the front of his shirt, causing his buttons to spill onto the rooftop beneath them with an audibly tinny clatter, and began licking his downy, peach fuzz-covered chest.
“D-do you want me to — ah!” Austin gasped, trembling reflexively as Mitzi moved hungrily to devour his exposed neck. “Do you w-want me to haul out the guest bed for you again?”
“Oh, honey,” Mitzi cooed, resting her forehead against his, as she stared into his eyes, “it’s so cute that you think we’ll be using a bed this time.”
