What's Gone Before: The Puppet, a criminal mastermind with a motif for mind-control, has a dangerous scheme afoot. Mr. Amazing is already under his sway, and Blacklight and two new allies, Kid Gloves & the Rajah, have headed off to the train station in search of clues to what it's all about...

Dennis Welbeck stretched out on the couch, his jacket neatly folded and laid under his head like a pillow. Sitting beside him, the Man-Fly pulled off his grotesque mask, revealing the craggy-but-handsome features of Artie Trent. He stuffed the flexible mask into the pocket of his dark trench coat and said, "Is there anything we should know? Any instructions?"

Dennis cracked open one eye and regarded him. "Artie, old man, I'm just entering the dream plane. I assure you, it is quite all right -- we all do it when we sleep. I just maintain greater cognitive ability, that's all. Still, if you're looking for something to do, if I start thrashing about like a wild man, you could wake me up. After all, this Puppet fellow is supposed to be an expert on the mind, so he might be a more formidable subject than I'm used to. And you know what they say about dreams...if you die in your dreams, you die for real." He closed his eyes, his lips turned in a slight grin. "But really, the best thing you can do for me is not play any loud music. After all, I'm trying to get some shut eye."

Artie Trent moved away from the man known as the Dreamstalker and glanced out the tall, dark windows, the glass shuddering as it was thrashed violently by the storm that was hours old and evincing no sign of abating. He frowned, then turned back to the two women. The Silhouette stood by the bar, fingering a glass of whiskey she had poured, but left untasted. Roberta, the robot, sat in a big chair, a rather forlorn expression on her eerily human face. Artie put his hands to the small of his back and stretched his spine. Then he squinted at their two 'guests' -- an insurance man named Mortimer, and the costumed adventurer Mr. Amazing. Both men were unconscious...and bound.

A cautionary pre-emptive move in case they awoke still in thrall to the villainous Puppet.

Artie took the stool beside the Silhouette. "How are you holding up?"

She shot him a glance. "Do you care?"

He looked at her, taken aback.

"Half the time you seem as though you think we're all idiots and you'd rather have nothing to do with us. What makes you like that? What makes a man so insular, so alone? So bitter?"

His face grew cold, his eyes dark like the storm raging outside. "In this line of work, it's better not to care too much. You'll learn that for yourself one day."

"Why? Because we might die? I'd rather live and risk hurt, than be dead inside...like you."

"Suit yourself." He rose and moved away, stiffly.

She opened her mouth, to call him back, then realized it wouldn't do any good. She put a hand to her brow, wincing. Not too long ago, on a Nazi airship, the Man-Fly had risked his life to save hers, and now here she was, acting like she could judge his innermost psyche. Face it, Dahlia, she thought, sometimes you can be a real bi-

"All right, Silhouette," he said, turning, his voice cold and flat, erecting a barrier of formality between them -- speaking in the voice of the Man-Fly, "let's go over events. Mortimer stole something from his office for the Puppet. What?"

"I don't know."

"Maybe. But you know more than you think you do."

"I can't even imagine what he would want at an insurance company. Maybe he had a policy he wanted revised or something," she muttered facetiously.

"The file was from Mortimer's office?"

"Yes."

"Are all the files kept there?"

"No, of course-" She stopped, eyes widening with dawning comprehension. "Only stuff he'd be working on -- a new policy. Um," she snapped her fingers, trying to think, "there was a new life insurance-"

"No."

"A big policy covering an apple orchard-"

"No."

She frowned at him. "Look, Mr. Know-it-all, how can you be so posi-" She stopped. "The Royal Ontario Museum was getting in a new exhibit-"

He pointed at her, and softly said, "Yes. That would explain the need for the actual file. The insurance company would have all the information on security, alarms, everything needed for a heist."

"Untie me."

He turned, they all did, to regard Mr. Amazing trussed up on the billards table and regarding them impatiently. The Silhouette half rose from her stool, a smile forming on her lips.

"Untie me, or face the wrath of my master, the Puppet!"

And she sank down again, frowning.

"Not today, Mr. Amazing," muttered Artie dispiritedly. He, too, had allowed himself to hope the man known as "the Spirit of Decency" would have broken their unseen enemy's power.

"Roberta," said Mr. Amazing, turning toward the robot. "You know me. Untie me, please."

"I will," she said softly. "When you are better."

"Better? Better? Why you bucket of bolts, I'll-!"

Just what Mr. Amazing might or might not have done will never be known, for at that moment, the glass window exploded inwards and a black and yellow shape erupted into the room in a hail of glass and rain, the thundering storm growling angrily at his back.

He alighted on the floor, grinning cruelly, and said, "Go ahead -- resist. Amuse me."

A sleek blue automobile knifed through the black, rain drenched streets, water arcing up like peacock plumes around the oversized rear tires. It blasted around a corner in eerie silence and, had any pedestrians been about in this hellish weather, they would have been utterly shocked by the cacophonous boom lagging in the car's wake, as if the very sound it made struggled, and failed, to keep up with the curious car.

Inside, at the wheel, the man known as the Rajah glanced in the rearview mirror at his companion in the back seat. "I hope you know what you're doing, Chris," he said, his voice given a slight elegance by his East Indian accent.

The teen-ager glanced over the front seat at the readout display on the dashboard, checking power gauges on this prototype car of his design. Normally the Rajah would not even approximate such speeds in the city, but the late hour and the weather had seen to it that there were no pedestrians to be put at risk. Not even a stray cat seemed to be at large.

He made sure his golden gloves were on securely, then nodded.

"If you mean hooking up with the Fellowship of the Midnight Sons, I think so. Whatever the Puppet's up to is bigger than anything he's tried before, and after we were already captured in Montreal and escaped...I think we'll need all the help we can get. If you mean following the Man-Fly's suggestion, and back-tracking Mr. Amazing's movements to the train station instead of trying to figure out a way to remove the mind control devices themselves, I hope so. The best way to free Mr. Amazing and that Mortimer fellow is to find the Puppet himself. And the Man-Fly may've been on to something when he said Mr. Amazing might've been working on a case when he got captured."

The automobile skidded to a stop before the train station in the centre of downtown Toronto and Kid Gloves and the Rajah leaped out into the driving rain. Blacklight was already waiting for them by the main doors.

"What took you so long?" he asked drily.

Without answering, Kid Gloves led the way inside. At this hour, and in this weather, the station was only sparsely populated, their footsteps echoing wetly on the tiles. The site of three colourfully garbed figures striding purposefully from out of the night and across the lobby elicited a few startled gasps, but nothing more. The sight of such strange adventurers was not as unusual as it would have been but a few years before.

"Pardon me, sister," muttered the Rajah, sidestepping a nun. Though it was not his religion, he had been raised a gentleman. He squinted at the young woman, quite beautiful, despite her habit. He tipped his head.

"Monsieur," acknowledged the young woman, her eyes darting over his tall, broad-shouldered figure, and then to his two companions. Then she turned and hurried on toward the ladies' washroom.

Kid Gloves stopped before the teller's booth, a gaunt, middle-aged man standing quietly behind the counter, his handlebar mustache wiggling as his lips worked over his teeth. He regarded the masked youth without expression. "Destination?"

"Uh, we're not going anywhere. We want information. Was there a train that got in around six pm today?"

"Six?" he muttered under his hairy lip. He glanced down, as though checking a schedule. "That would be the Montreal Express."

"That fits," said the Kid. "Was there anyone special on it? A politician? A business man? A General?"

"Mary Pickford?" offered Blacklight.

"No, sirs," said the clerk. "There was no one of import on the train."

"Darn," said the Kid, turning to his two companions. "Well, I'm stumped. I mean, someone could've been travelling incognito or something -- maybe even someone vital to the war effort. But I'm not sure how we'd find out. Geez Louise, imagine if the Puppet got one of his neuro-hijackers on Mackenzie King or Andy MacNaughton?"

"Was there any cargo?" asked the Rajah.

The clerk stared at him. "Car-go?" he repeated, as though an alien word.

The Rajah frowned, squinting at the clerk.

"Carrr-gggo?" Something glinted at the nape of the clerk's neck, something metal. A disk.

"Look out!" shouted the Rajah as the clerk pulled a gun and started firing...

Dennis Welbeck, The Dreamstalker, walked across a vista of shifting sand, while overhead, weird animal caricatures wrestled and rolled in the blood-red sky, as though seeking dominance over one another. Occasionally, fissures would appear in the sandy ground, and blood would bubble up as if from an open wound.

This was not what he had expected.

"Sleeper?" he called, hoping to be reunited once more with the enigmatic entity that guided him through the dream plane. "Where are you?"

Something growled behind him, an echoing, hollow howl like that of a hungry beast. He shuddered. He had a sneaking suspicion that something knew he was here, that something was as conscious in the dream plane as he. And that it didn't like the company. Or was he just being paranoid?

The howl came again.

"Sleeper?!?"

Was this truly the Puppet's dream? he wondered. And if so, what did it mean, what did it portend? But in his heart, he knew the truth. This was not the dream of the villain called the Puppet. He was not at all sure if this was even the dream of someone who was entirely human.

The howling was closer, more eager. More confident.

He began to run, stumbling awkwardly over the shifting, blistering sand. There was another player in this deadly game, he realized with fright, someone, or something, none of them had factored in. But who? he wondered. Or what?

He stopped, feeling the earth begin to tremble beneath him. Instantly he began racing backwards, realizing the threat was now in front of him. The sand heaved and he was thrown from his feet and he went tumbling head over heels down the side of the dune.

Dune? he thought dizzily as he sprawled at the bottom. There had not been a dune a moment before.

He looked up and his eyes grew wide. "Oh my God," he muttered.

In an instant, Artie Trent took in the black and yellow figure dressed in a bird motif from his beaked mask to the wings attached beneath his arms -- a predatorial bird, judging by the glinting talons bristling from the tips of his fingers.

The storm snarled like a demonic beast as rain flung itself in at them, wind buffeting their clothes. In an instant, the intruder had launched himself at the Silhouette, the latter frozen in momentary paralysis by his sudden appearance.

Knowing his dart gun would be too late, Artie flung himself to intercede before those razor claws scarred beautiful flesh. The intruder lashed out, and Artie screamed as he was flung aside, red rivers breaking out upon his left arm.

The beaked intruder turned back to his original target, only to find the Silhouette had shaken free of her momentary shock. He had just enough time to glimpse the young woman, before a flying kick sent him tumbling over the sofa.

The Silhouette raced to the man she knew as the Man-Fly, sprawled on the ground, face contorted with pain as the sleeve of his trench coat darkened ominously.

"Omigod," she said. "Are you-?"

"Keep...your mind...on business," he hissed, eyes flashing like lightning bolts.

He shoved his right arm between her thighs and she heard the distinctive phutt! of his dart gun firing. She turned to see that the beaked man had almost been upon her, but was now reeling away, a tranquilizer dart in his broad chest. He wrenched it free, stumbling a little. His constitution must be incredible, she realized with horror. A normal man would have been unconscious in seconds. He was clearly affected, but nowhere near being out of it.

The Silhouette went for him again. He swung a mighty arm at her -- an arm clearly capable of taking her head off, judging by how easily he brushed aside the Man-Fly -- but she ducked and delivered two quick knuckle jabs into his flank before leaping away.

Whoever he was, he was a powerhouse, she realized. Fortuitously, they had their own powerhouse.

Silver arms closed about the intruder's broad chest from behind, and Roberta hefted the beaked man from the ground.

"You must stop this," she said, half order, half guileless request.

"Not me, sister. I got orders. Bring back the merchandise...or not at all." A pistol shot out of a spring mechanism concealed under his wing. Before anyone had time to speak, he fired two shots into the helpless Bartholomew Mortimer.

"Bastard!" shrieked the Silhouette in horror.

Roberta's grip slackened in shock, and the winged man wheeled on her.

"Didn't expect so...so many of you. Boss only gave me one surprise." A disk the size of a silver dollar sprang to his fingers. "Either this works, or I'll have to trash both items." Before he finished speaking, he had reached around and affixed the disk to the back of Roberta's neck.

Artie Trent staggered to his feet, grimly thinking the intruder had at least out-smarted himself, failing to realize that Roberta was a machine, and therefore immune to the neuro-hijacker's influence. At least, so he assumed.

"Untie Mr. Amazing."

Without a word, Roberta went to obey the intruder's command.

"Damn you," screamed the Silhouette, launching herself at him again.

She did not stand a chance against his strength and claws, Artie knew, but teamwork might accomplish something. Even as she leaped at the beaked man, Artie grabbed up an overturned bar stool with his good arm and flung it at the man's legs. The beaked man made to slash at the Silhouette, shifted his attention to the on-coming stool, then tried to turn back to the Silhouette in his indecision -- to no avail. The stool tangled up his legs and the Silhouette drove both fists into his chest, sending him careening backward.

Artie staggered forward, trying to level his dart gun again for a second shot, when suddenly a figure interceded. He looked up and Mr. Amazing grinned.

"Sorry, chum. No can do." One punch sent the man known as the Man-Fly off his feet.

"Let's go," growled the intruder. "Grab my belt."

Artie looked up in time to see the winged man fling himself out the window and into the raging storm, Mr. Amazing clinging precariously to his belt. Clutching his ravaged arm, he looked about, cursing his own incompetence. Then his eyes grew wide. "Silhouette?"

The Silhouette was nowhere to be seen.

Next: The Silhouette's gone! Mr. Amazing is loose! Kid Gloves & the Rajah and Blacklight are in a mess of trouble! Can things get any worse? Find out in seven days.

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