ZENICA, YUGOSLAVIA, 1954 — Just northwest of city limits, within the dense blanket of mountain forests, Adam Ademovic preps his equipment once more in attempt to locate the mysterious source of an anomaly that had so puzzled scientific minds that he had been dispatch to a remote area to secure an answer.

It is an average June afternoon, and apart from the readings on Adam's TK-8 meter there is nothing that seemed so out of the ordinary to warrant his attention. However, Adam did not complain at the least. The environment is peaceful, therapeutic really, the air is clean and the scent of damp timber a welcome departure from the obnoxious aromas of chemicals in the laboratory.

Still, Adam is skeptical and thought the readings received were probably nothing more than static interference from an undetermined source. But throughout the course of human history, earth-shattering events have come and went without the slightest whisper in the conversations of everyday citizens. But which, nonetheless, truly have shifted the course of the world in ways few can fathom.

Despite his versed knowledge, despite his understanding of mathematics and the sciences, Adam Ademovic is about to stumble upon something that no amount of book learning could account for— the Zenica Event


Regardless, Adam is in good spirits. After all, Lena, his bride-to-be, would be waiting for him at the alter in the morning.

The current task at hand is only a trivial inconvenience. Just simply another chore handed down to him, as Adam, while exceptionally knowledgeable, is constantly sidelined with lesser responsibilities. His superiors treated him in general less as a scientist and more like a hired hand.

As Adam is about to call it in for the evening, he notices a peculiar spike in the readings. He then resolves himself to proceed further in hopes of determining a definite source. However, it is not long before Adam's resolve turns to unease, as a strange sort of orange fog swiftly begins to consume the area obscuring his vision. Suddenly, there is a surge of wind followed by a deafening crash and flickering of blinding light.

It is only seconds later that the fog lifts, and the earth settles. The only audible noises are the hum of insects, call of birds and trickling of a nearby stream.

The sound of Adam's steps are not among them.





ZENICA, BOSNIA AND HERZEGOVINA, MODERN DAY — A perimeter and dome had already been constructed around Site Zero. Artillery, cavalry and infantry had been meticulously plotted to secure the surrounding area.

After years of precise calculations, there can be no room for error. No one, or thing, is to be allowed in or out.

"Ten minutes" the intercom blares.

Dr. Altan and his team look on through the viewer with much eager anticipation while Lt. Col. Miles MacArthur Richmond puffs away on a cigar with a near equal degree of indifference.

"There's no smoking allowed here in control, sir," reinforces Altan.

In response, Richmond, without hesitation, props his feet atop the nearest desk.

"Prep the net," Altan continues over the intercom. Subsequently, a laser network forms a tightly netted grid around the enclosed area.

"Five minutes" the intercom sounds.

"Are you sure your cage is gonna hold 'em?" inquires Richmond.

"No, I'm not," Altan replies.

"One minute," declares the intercom.

For a moment all is silent. The onlookers gaze into the viewer with a curious sense of wonder accumulated from years of toil and study.

And then—



The sound is still nearly deafening even in the confines of the control room.

Meanwhile, outside ducts work to collect the rising orange fog obscuring the viewer. While rods catch lightning-like flashes from inside the dome.

Suddenly, a figure, distorted at first then more concrete, staggers from the center, swaying unsteadily from side-to-side. As the fog subsides, it shown to be distinctly human, a man approximately in his mid-thirties with a long beard and haggard appearance.

Afterwards, the intercom resounds: "Adam? Adam Ademovic? Zovem se Dr. Altan. Kako se danas osjećate? Gdje si bio?" *

* "Adam? Adam Ademovic? My name is Dr. Altan. How are you feeling today? Where have you been?"

"Whose there? Where is here?!"

"I see you've picked up English, Mr. Ademovic. Very curious. Again, I am Dr. Altan, I am a friend. I am here to assist in your transition."

"Transition? Tell me exactly, what hell did I end up in now!?"

"A familiar one, I suspect," Altan continues, "May I ask about where you just came from? What year is it?"

"Came from? Sattaw Territory, Kanawa Republic, 1869. The River Bürmoos. What is this here? What game you pullin'?"

"There is no game. We are simply attempting to ascertain to what world you had crossed, Mr. Ademovic."

"World?"

"Yes, world," Altan states profoundly, continues, "However, while you may have been gone for a few years, decades have since past here. Still, you are back in Zenica, you are home, Adam."

"Zenica! Lena! Where's Lena?!"

"We do not know. She—" Altan's voice is abruptly cut off at the sounding of a siren.

"Attention! Attention! All to arms, eastern gate!" rang the intercom.

"No, wait, hold a second, Altan—ALTAN!" shouts Adam.

But there is no further word from the intercom. Only the faint exchange of gunfire could be heard echoing in the distance.





Korina Katana is just south of the breach when the alarm sounds. She and her associate, Damarus Knight, were part of a routine patrol to safeguard the "hadroform."

Korina hated that term.

"Hadroforms," "hadormorphs," "hadroids," it didn't matter, they all sounded to her like they were calling her fat in Latin.

Damar had his own feelings, mostly mixed, but the debate would have to hold.

Korina and Damar waste little time attending to the situation.

Attending, in the pertinent sense, involves Korina busting her way through several layers of concrete headlong into a stampede— a stampede of robots.

Damar, following shortly thereafter, is the first to lend his thoughts on the peculiar situation, pondering simply:

"NOT for the love of money!"

But, with certain hesitation, reluctantly proceeds anyway.

Korina, on the other hand, picks apart a squad of mechanized combatants with few qualms in doing so.

After all, it isn't as if they had been reconstructed on an atomic level.

Still, Korina could not help but wonder as she did:

"Do you think they like being called 'robots,' I wonder?"

Damar could not read thoughts, but, if he could, he knew better than to get into that debate. Rather Damar, in one of his variable forms, concentrated his efforts in turning himself into a living oil slick.

Generally, the very sight of a monstrous pool of crude, gaseous demon, or flaming blue specter would prove wholly sufficient to drive away most. For it is such forms that had garnered Damar the reputation as the eponymous, "Monstwa-Man," a sort of backwater boogeyman who inspired nightmares in the minds of drug runners and two-bit metal thieves up and down the Mississippi.

However, Damar's present company, who preferred the term Altranoids, would appear wholly unimpressed and pay little heed even to their own annihilation. They instead proceed only with their advance and their incessant chant of:



The mechanical "things," robots if you will, stood erect and seemed both boxy and cumbersome. With their unsteady, wobbly sort of motion and their pincer like hands they reminded Damar of crawfish. The sight of them would almost be comical in suggestion if not for the imminent threat they posed.

Damar, as he ignites himself into a living flame of incandescent blue, personally thought they looked like something "a twelve-year-old would dream up."

Meanwhile, Korina, who on occasion took the mantle of "Vega-Woman," looks on as more automatons fell like so many ants under the fires of Damar's onslaught.

To be fair, the robots were not completely without their defenses. Their grappling devices could administer a severe electric shock. That is, in theory, should any ever get near enough to use them.

At any case, they were about as formidable against the pair as a barrage of raindrops.

It is all easy. Stupidly easy.

Not only that, "But a robot assault?" Korina ponders to herself.

"No, disrespect to whoever plotted this," she adds, "But doesn't it all seem a bit hackneyed, just a little rehashed?"

It was the latter point that had prompted Korina to stop and wonder if the whole attack were not more than some elaborate diversion.





As the alarm rang, Adam did not know what war he is in, who he is to be fighting nor how to tell friend from foe. But at that moment—

He did not think it pertinent to wait and find out.

But, suddenly, the laser grid begins to dampen, a door flies open. A singular solider clad in black points a gun in Adam's direction.

A really big one.

Before Adam has a chance to react, the soldier readies the hand cannon, he aims, he...

... is abruptly coldcocked by a flying fist descending rapidly out of the shadows.

"Hey, Robinson Crusoe," declares the form of Richmond addressing a perplexed and haggard Adam Ademovic, "You can walk and chew gum at the same time, can't ya?" tossing him the hand cannon.

Losing no time, Adam grabs the weapon, and he and Richmond proceed down a darkened corridor, as faulting emergency lighting seemingly flickers out each time they near.

"Decades?" Adam muses to himself, "Decades? Could it really be decades?"

But before Adam could finish his train of thought Richmond interrupts.

"Ya got real lucky back there, y'know? They usually don't send a human to do one of their jobs."

"Human? What else would they be?" asks Adam, "Don't they bleed?"

Suddenly, Richmond comes to a dead stop, as three figures begin to take shape no more than thirty yards ahead of them.

"No, they don't," adds Richmond.

Under a single red emergency light, the effigies emerge from the cover of darkness. Out march the automatons towards Adam and Richmond in a synchronized fashion with their customary greeting:.



"Well, what does that have to do with the price of tea in China?!" shouts Richmond, as Adam triggers the weapon.

The hand cannon fires a crackling blue bolt of energy, which jolts into the mechanized procession. Seemingly stunned but otherwise unharmed, Richmond and Adam wait should the beam not have any delayed effects. But, abruptly, the red robotic eyes flicker, as the machines reboot, immediately followed by a subsequent chorus of: "RUN COMMAND! COMMAND IS ..."

"Shoot! Probably should've guessed ya'll wouldn't make anything what could be used against ya. Well, doggunit! S'ppose y'all thought of everything."

Immediately, Richmond charges and bludgeons a robot with the buttstock of the hand cannon sending the trio crashing down like dominoes.

"Except for that."

Expeditiously, Richmond and Adam make good their escape into a darkened room.

Adam takes a moment to catch his breath then says:

"I rightly should be thanking you, sir. If you hadn't shut down that laser grid back there, I guess I'd be as game as a passenger pigeon."

"Shoot boy! Ain't been no passenger pigeon for a good hundred odd years! You really ain't from 'round these parts?" Richmond continues, "But no sense thankin' me, son, ain't got nary a clue why none of the power up here ain't worth a hill of beans."

Just then a rattling is heard from beneath a table.

"Blast! Whoever you are you better come out! Or I'll shake seven kinds of daylight outta you!" hollers Richmond.

"No, no, it's me. It's me" resounds a voice.

Promptly, the figure of Dr. Altan slowly rises upward.

"Doc! What in blazes?! You better have a good answer just where from here to Timbuktu is our extraction?!" commands Richmond.

"Sorry, we scanned the cameras trying to locate you both. Half of them kept turning to static. Somehow we kept missing you entirely."

"HA! And here you done said this facility is fool-proof! Well, that does it, guess we're on our own," declares Richmond.

"Korina and Damar are on it," assures Altan.

"Oh, they'll pick 'em apart all right, sure. But just what about the meantime? Half surprised m'self those mechanized muffler-heads ain't got to us already," shouts Richmond.

As Adam observes Richmond and Altan, proceeding to bicker like a pair of diners fighting over the last shrimp at a buffet, his interest wanes in the conversation. His mind begins to flood with memories having not yet had an opportunity to fully process his predicament. His thoughts turn to his transition from one world to the next. He thought first of Lena and then of the life that he had just left.

As for the old Kanawa Republic, while far free from the fantastic or misadventure, he'd easily take its scores of barroom braggarts, highwaymen, fearsome beasts and flagrant disregard for worker safety over robots any day.

As Adam resumes his focus, unsurprisingly, neither Richmond nor Altan seem any closer to a resolution.

"But what I still don't understand," continues Altan, "Is why they are even here in the first place? I mean we've run this race before and not one robot. Why are they so interes—"

Suddenly, Richmond interjects.

"Well, slap your grandma, Doc!" yells Richmond, as he continues in a fit of laughter.

"I fail to see any humor in that scenario," retorts Dr. Altan.

Richmond says not a word but smiles and calmly exits the room.

Adam and Dr. Altan with a grave look of confusion proceed on after him.

"Richmond!" yells Altan, "Have you completely lost it! They're here, they're—"



"Is that a fact? Well, bless your hearts, ya troop of glorified toaster ovens!" exclaims Richmond.

The robots repeat their statement but do not make any advance.

"Awww, don't want to come out and play? Wittle wobots scared?" taunts Richmond, "Hey Adam, why don't you mosey on over to our guests just yonder and introduce yourself."

Reluctantly, Adam steps towards the barrage of robotic soldiers. The robots then respond by— falling back.

"What is happening?" exclaims Adam.

Adam continues to advance and the robots continue to retreat. Suddenly, as Adam moves forward, the lights surrounding Richmond and Altan flicker back on.

"I'll wager," says Richmond, "Ain't nothin' run on electricity back where you came from."

Dr. Altan eyes widen, says:

"Of course! The lights, the cameras, the laser grid! It all makes—"

"Thank you, doc. Thank you for joining us," interrupts Richmond.

Just then a sudden crash and immediate shattering of a nearby wall reveals the form of Korina plowing her way through robots effectively quashing another advance.

"We've got a bigger problem," states Korina, "It's the ether, looks like they made off with a handful of the orange stuff."

"I see," responds Altan, "It would seem those ridiculous robots might not be so ridiculous before long," he continues, "To even begin to imagine, machines rebuilt on an atomic level."

"Hadroformed robots, heaven save us!" adds Richmond.

Adam, who, at this point, had just about his share of being jerked around, declares, "Hold up, what is ether? What's going on? Where is Lena? I'm not going any—"

A sudden look of dread crosses Damar's face.

In large part due to the look of shear rage taking over Korina's.

Korina grabs a small bit of concrete from the rubble of the wall. In an instant, the small rock morphs into large, barbed, metallic spike in her hands, which she promptly uses to stab Adam's shirt collar into the wall missing his jugular by a few centimeters.

Everyone gets quiet, Korina stares intensively with blind rage back at Adam. Adam, thoroughly dumbstruck, takes a cue from the others keeping his mouth firmly locked.

"Hey, what's up Adam?," Korina states maintaining the same level of intensity and closing her distance, then whispers, "LISTEN— I will break you down. Here. Now. Atom by atom. Won't take me a whole minute neither," Korina continues, "I know you got questions, but understand, I don't have the time."

Adam motions his head in the affirmative.

Korina releases her hand from the spike, which immediately morphs back into a piece of rubble falling to the floor.

Korina proceeds to walk away shouting back:

"So c'mon, Atom-Adam. Brush, bathe, BM an' bounce, we got work to do."

— END —