Mad Scientist Kidnaps US President!

[telerib]

The group was about to depart for San Francisco. Their baggage was being loaded onto a dirigible when they noticed another one coming into the airport. And another one. And another. And several gathered over the NYC skyline!

Ropes snaked down from the zepplins, and sky commandos began to shimmy down! Over megaphones, German-accented voices warned citizens to stay calm and go home, that the airport would be closed for the time being.

Our heroes leapt into action!

Phineas threw a knife at one descending commando; the man fell, screaming to the ground. The archaeologist grabbed the rope and began to climb. Halfway there, the megaphone-wielding man in that zepplin shot him; a knife prevented further violence. He made it to the zepplin, managed to incapacitate the crew and... then what? Phineas didn't know how to fly a zepplin! He managed to not lose control or run into anything until, after the battle, the zepplin could be secured.

Greta started right in on one of the commandos; he seemed unwilling to hit a woman and caught her up in a bearhug, insisting that the "fraulein" should go home, that the airport was closed. Reg, gun and fists having made short work of two commandos already, threw a third into the one holding Greta; all three went down in a pile. Kicks to the head kept the Germans down.

Dr. Olsson warned the zepplins to retreat or be destroyed, then got out her Bunsen burner and propane from her traveling lab kit. A commando didn't like whatever she was up to and kept trying to interfere, kicking the thing over, then knocking her feet out from under her.

Adam Archer ran for a phone first thing, asking to be connected to the police. The operator informed him that the police were a little busy, hon, what with the zepplins and the general uproar - President kidnapped, Pittsburgh under seige. Adam hung up and raced back to the tarmac. Seeing Dr. Olsson facing off with the black-clad German, he drew his pistol and put a round in the man's shoulder. He went down.

Dr. Olsson's fire scheme put one zepplin down: the fire finally burned up the rope and onto the gondola. The crew was suddenly entirely devoted to putting it out, rather than flying! The other crews were alerted, and began chopping off the burning ropes. Still, that meant their commandos were stranded on the ground below.

The heroes, with some doing, cleared the ground and the terminal of commandos. The zepplins still hovered sullenly overhead, but were left for the time being. They needed to get Phineas to a hospital!

En route, they listened to the radio. Zepplins were hovering over many major American cities. The President was kidnapped, Pittsburgh and Detroit were under a virtual skyful of zepplins, and "Dr. Herman Krause" was demanding that the resources of US Steel, GM, and Ford be used to create an army of "metal men."

They had five days to research while Phineas healed up. Reg tried to find out who "Dr. Krause" was, but all his leads came up dead. Greta contacted agitators she knew at the factories to get some details. The guys on the floor didn't know a whole lot, but a few things stood out. Gunter Schlosser was the foreman in Pittsburgh now. And the guts of the "metal men" - clockwork - was not being assembled by Detroit men, but rather by some Germans. The auto workers were busy building the robot bodies. Dr. Olsson put the spare time to good use in her lab, working on a magnetic tape recording device for Greta.

Halfway through the downtime, the newspapers published a letter from Dr. Krause, in which he explained his motives. A second World War was coming, he predicted, which would be worse than the Great War. He wanted to see robot soldiers fight it, not people. America's industry could make them. Kidnapping the President was regretful but necessary, and he offered assurances that the man was unharmed.

The group headed for Pittsburgh once Phineas was released from the hospital. Once there, Greta contacted her agitator friends again and got them all jobs at the factory for the next day.

Max Carnent, who'd shown little interest in the whole thing aside from how it affect NYC, showed up the next morning, having driven all night to get there. The late edition of yesterday's paper had run a picture of the President and Dr. Krause. He recognized the German - not as Dr. Krause, but as Dr. Joseph Rosenthal, a former EVIL boardmember - who supposedly died in the same plane crash as Bruno Paruzzi and Constantin Kordas! With concrete evidence that EVIL was involved, Max wanted in.

They reported for work, the ladies filling in as secretaries, Max on the docks, Reg and Phineas on the factory floor, and Adam going in as a lawyer.

The Schlosser brothers reported in after the "blue collar" parts of the party were already there. Gunter was sour-faced and complaining to his brother in German, which Dr. Olsson began transcribing into English on her typewriter. It seemed he was unhappy with his job here! If he recognized Dr. Olsson or Greta, he gave no sign of it, passing the secretaries and going into his office.

Adam showed up just after that and was announced to the boss. Gunter opened the door, saw Adam, and slammed the door. Near-hysterical shouting in German followed, and even on the factory floor they saw the office blinds go down and lights go off. "The others" had sent Vladimir to kill him, he was sure of it! This whole idea had been stupid and now he was going to die for it!

Adam kept mildly insisting he was there to talk. Hans, the big brother, didn't think he looked threatening and played courier between the two. Gunter was finally convinced that his death was not imminent, and allowed Adam into his office to talk.

A few things came out of that conversation. First, Gunter thought the entire "kidnapping the President" thing was, well, stupid and dangerous. He had no problems with passing along some suggestions to Dr. Krause that things be sped up, possibly by co-opting some more factories. Also, that the President be allowed to make a radio address or somesuch, to reassure the American public that he was all right. Second, that Gunter worked for Dr. Krause because, as Inspired an inventor as Gunter was, Dr. Krause was better. (It was obvious that this little fact also bothered the hell out of Gunter). Third, that Gunter was concerned about what "the Hegemony" thought of all this.

Adam left; later, the Schlosser brothers left the office to check on things out on the floor. Greta took the opportunity to rifle the office; among the detritus of typical plant operations, she found sketches of mechanical devices that she photographed and showed to Dr. Olsson. Also, an envelope in the trash, the writing on which matched the lab notes. Postmark: Detroit!