August 21, 2006

Karla Melhor got on a local train in Chicago one day, to go to her gym for a workout. Her last Earthly memory was feeling drowsy, and wondering why she was the only one on her car on the train. The next thing she knew, she was strapped down in a laboratory - with little green aliens all around!

As readers of the World Journal Monthly know, aliens have a secret spaceport in Hennepin, Illinois. (See Related Story) They abduct humans from many places, and the captives get shipped through there. This day, the aliens were looking for strong, athletic women. Karla qualified.

Karla knew nothing of this at the time. And she couldn't believe what she saw. She blacked out.

Karla had just been captured, and already had to escape an attacker!

When Karla came to, she was in a wrestling ring. A teenage boy was standing over her, saying, "Show me what you got!" Then he jumped on her. And Karla heard a crowd applauding!

The boy was as big as Karla. But Karla was strong. And she wouldn't give up. She squirmed and strained and fought, and she got out from underneath the boy. But he wouldn't stop attacking her! And he stayed in close, so she couldn't punch him or kick him. Karla had to wrestle him - and she did. She finally immobilized him beneath her.

Then a loudspeaker spoke, "We have a winner! Welcome your newest wrestler!" TV screens showed Karla, exhausted, free of one assailant. But her ordeal was just beginning.

In a Hollywood mansion, Johnny Depp saw a beautiful woman get attacked on a TV show. As far as he could tell, it was reality TV. He said, "No. This will not do. This will not do at all." He smiled a little smile.

The next day, in the Hollywood office of Fox Networks, the media tycoon Rupert Murdoch was making plans to go visit where that TV show was filming. But then Johnny Depp strode in - wearing a top hat. He said, "Well, now that my mind control chocolates have got me past your staff... let's talk."

"Can the Wonka act, Depp. I hated that movie."

"Oh, but I really am Willy Wonka right now. And I'll prove it. Here, have a chocolate."

"I said can it, Depp. Or get out."

"But 'can it', as you so colloquially state it, is not an option. I've come to take the lid off the can. And that lid would be you."

Murdoch stalked to the phone, and stabbed the "Security" button. But he got no answer - except from Johnny Depp: "Oh, they won't be answering. They ate the chocolates. Here, have one!"

"I don't know what you're doing, Depp, but get out now or I'll throw you out myself!"

"No need to be so beastly. Here, have a chocolate!"

"OUT!"

"Oh, all right." Johnny Depp swung around and left the office.

Rupert Murdoch sighed, shrugged, and walked to the mirrored bar. After an episode like this, a tipple was in order. But when he looked in the mirror, Johnny Depp was looking back! "Here, have a chocolate!"

The image of Johnny Depp reached out of the mirror and pinched Rupert Murdoch's nose! Murdoch's mouth opened to draw a breath - but the mirror image threw a chocolate lozenge down his throat! As Murdoch inhaled and coughed, Depp said, "That wasn't so bad, now, was it?

"Yes, Mr. Murdoch, I really am Willy Wonka. All those stories you ever read about me are true stories. They're just not true here. Until now. I can jump across the universes, from where my stories are true, to where your stories are! Or most of your stories, anyway.

"But I find the true stories you tell, lack a certain standard of decency. I'd like you to change that. You'd like to do that now, wouldn't you?"

"GO TO HELL, DEPP! Or whoever you are!"

"... How about now?"

"Go to Hell!"

"... Now?"

"Hell!"

"... Now?"

... And so on, until Rupert Murdoch finally said, "Cwm-Peterson map coordinate 246-182". Over and over again.

When the guards finally came to rescue their CEO, he was still saying that. But the intruder had disappeared.

Karla had spent several days in captivity. She lived in a cave, with other women. But it was a strange cave. The gravity was much less than Earth. Even outside the cave, the gravity was light. It seemed to her, she must be on the Moon.

Every day, guards made all the women wrestle, in front of cameras. The women were loaded in a big centrifuge with sloped walls - but when they spun the centrifuge, the walls were flat floors, and the gravity was normal for Earth!

Some times the women wrestled teenage boys. Other days, they wrestled each other. One day, two women wrestled Karla at the same time. But Karla was strong, and they couldn't pin her. So in the end, she won.

Winners got more food and special treatment. Sometimes, losers just disappeared.

The women all lived in the same cave. They got food, water, air, and places to put their waste - but everything beyond that, they had to bargain for. Some women bargained with their bodies, but Karla used her brains. She was a molecular chemist, and knew ways to process waste that made it not smell so bad. She could have done better with her tools on Earth, but she did okay on the Moon.

Not all the women liked each other. A lot of them were jealous of Karla, because of how smart and strong she was. But Karla survived, and dreamed of the day she could get her freedom back.

Back on Earth, one young man wanted to find Karla Melhor. But he knew her as Senhora Valkyrie, the woman who'd saved Chicago's tallest building with her Thunder Chain. (See Related Story) He knew where the Thunder Chain was, but it wouldn't work without Senhora Valkyrie - and she'd disappeared!

But this young man was smart, and he knew computers. He logged onto the Internet all the time, under the name "Dom". He did a picture search on the Web - and got a facial match, with one episode of the "Lady Wrestlers" TV show on Fox! Then he found a newsgroup posting, about how Rupert Murdoch was mumbling "Cwm-Peterson" after Johnny Depp visited him to talk about that same show. Dom knew, Cwm-Peterson was an obscure coordinate system for parts of Quebec! Dom decided to go visit those coordinates - with the Thunder Chain.

Before long, on the Moon, Karla Melhor got a visitor, a young man with a thin mustache, calling himself D. M. Nader from the Fox Network. He had a package for her, and he told her to open it in secret, then visit him later that night in another chamber. Karla said she couldn't go there, but Mr. Nader said that wouldn't matter.

When Karla got back to her cave home, she got to a corner off-camera, and opened the package. It held the Thunder Chain, which she'd developed back on Earth as a scientist! (See Related Story) With it, she could go anywhere - but she had to wait, until after that evening's wrestling match! Karla would be featured, against a mystery opponent. To get to the appointment afterward, she had to take the Thunder Chain with her to the match! She slipped it under her robe, and hoped nothing would happen to it.

In the ring, Karla's mystery opponent was a grown man. She didn't recognize him, but loudspeakers said he was the Director - the man who ran the wrestling program! Rumors said, he only wrestled the strongest women - and they all disappeared afterward! And that night, the strongest woman was Karla!

Almost defeated, within inches of the key to freedom.

The Director was stronger than Karla, and a better wrestler. He got her in an arm and leg hold, and the loudspeaker started the three-count to the pin. Karla thought of all the women who'd disappeared after being pinned. She couldn't let that happen - not that night, on the verge of freedom! She needed her Thunder Chain right then!

So she squirmed and thrashed, and moved herself and her assailant to her corner. He was still on top, still ready to pin her - but she could reach the Thunder Chain with her fingertips. She activated it, and made it go Boom!

They were both within the blast. But Karla was expecting it. And her assailant was on top of her, so he took most of the blast. He wasn't hurt, but he was surprised and stunned. Karla squirmed free and grabbed the chain.

But Karla was exhausted and unsteady on her feet. And her opponent was already recovering. He said, "Cheating, huh? Well, two can play at that game... Give me that!" He tried to yank the Thunder Chain from her.

"No!" Karla barely kept hold of her weapon, but she was yanked off balance. She had to stop this! So she made the Thunder Chain shock its surface wherever she wasn't holding. The Director was holding the chain too, so he was shocked. He jumped back. His hands were smoking.

The Director pressed a button. A trap door opened, and he jumped out - yelling "Kill her!" The door closed behind him. Karla was still trapped within the spinning centrifuge.

The centrifuge walls were slick, and eight feet high. But with the Thunder Chain, Karla could reach nine feet up! She hooked it over the wall, and made it attach. She was still barely strong enough to drag herself over.

But outside the centrifuge, the air was thin - and whooshing out! Karla's captors had opened the chamber to vacuum!

But the Thunder Chain could control molecular action. Maybe it could bring air along with it. Karla was ready to try it - and die rather than go back.

So Karla jumped out from the centrifuge. The air from inside the centrifuge followed along. Karla wouldn't die of vacuum.

The chamber was ringed with mechanical soldiers who didn't have to breathe. They were by every exit. But Karla had to go downward anyway, to get to her rendezvous. So she used the Thunder Chain to smash through the floor!

The soldiers chased her. Some of them got in front of her. But Karla and her Thunder Chain smashed right through them!

Soon, she got to her rendezvous. The door opened as she ran toward it. It closed behind her. She was in a chamber with D. M. Nader. She huffed, "I made it... Help me." Then she collapsed.

Karla woke up on the same sort of alien spacecraft that took her to the Moon in the first place - and strapped down! She screamed.

But then D. M. Nader was there - and he held her hand! "You're all right! You're all right. You're all right..."

"So why am I here again?"

"I paid them to get us out!"

Mr. Nader had come to the Moon by a teleport gate from Quebec, hidden in a well ("cwm") of a "Peterson" mine in the south of Quebec. The Moon humans offered Rupert Murdoch that transportation, to review the filming of his reality TV program. Mr. Murdoch couldn't make it, so it was open. Mr. Nader came across, pretending to be Rupert Murdoch's assistant.

Once on the Moon colony, Mr. Nader found it had an alien half and a human half. Humans had imprisoned Karla; they'd paid aliens to bring her to them! So Mr. Nader paid the aliens to bring her back, if she could get herself to the alien half of the base. And she had.

Karla had to ask: "But how can you pay them? What do the aliens want?"

"The aliens like butter cookies more than almost anything! But only if they're baked on Earth in churches. Moon butter cookies don't have the right flavor to them."

"How do you know this?"

"I learned that trick from the World Journal Monthly." (See Related Story)

So Karla was safe. She was going back to Earth! But Karla wasn't going home yet. Mr. Nader told her, she'd been presumed missing for over a year. Her apartment near Chicago had been emptied into a police impound warehouse; he'd gotten the Thunder Chain from there. Karla had no home left.

But there was still a place Karla would be welcome. Superhumans were gathering in Cuba! (See Related Story) With the powers of her Thunder Chain, Karla would be welcome there.

Karla could only say one thing: "Obrigado, mi padron." In English this means, "Thank you, my patron." Her eyes filled with tears as she hugged him.

...

Back on the Moon, the human ruler said, "I suppose we can let this one get away. Even if she does tell her story, nobody will believe her."

Dear reader of the World Journal Monthly, we bring you the real news that other papers won't. This is one of the most important stories we've ever produced. Will you believe it?

Special to the World Journal Monthly by Joyce Darcy