Buck The Atomic Ranger - Chapter One

Buck the Atomic Ranger

Chapter One

By: Roger Alderman

The cool autumn air pushes the brown leaves along the ground amidst a crowd of mourners leaving the Oak Park Cemetery. A century old grave yard erected to honor the fallen heroes of Century City. A cold drizzle from above forces those citizens rugged enough to resist the cool wind to flee with the addition of the rain fall.

 

A lone and somber figure stands before a tall gravestone shaped like a man in a heroic pose. Rain falls and mist rises, as the recently disturbed Earth cools. Buck Jones fedora protects his chiseled chin and five o’clock shadow from the rain, as his long coat gets tossed about by the strong winds. He sighs, opens his palm, and examines a weathered picture held clutched in his gloved fist.

Buck breaths deep and buries his emotions long enough to offer a pledge to his fallen hero and father The Atomic Ranger. Buck Crumples the picture and covers his face with his hand, “I’ll make you proud.” He looks upward to conceal his tears behind the rain that traces the details of his manly.

Buck notices a small concrete bench near the gravestone. He settles on the bench and stares blankly at his father’s grave. His wrist communicator lights up and gains Bucks attention. He taps a small button on the left-hand side of the watch face.

The crackling voice of Captain McIrish of the Planetary Police Patrol breaks through the static, “Ranger Are You There! This is Captain McIrish of the Planetary Police Patrol.” Buck raises the wrist radio to his face, “yeah, what do you want?”

Captain McIrish continues, “We have a situation here. Someone is spreading some kind of Purple

Pustule Poison all over Century City. People are falling ill. We need you Ranger.”

Buck shakes his head in disbelief of the interruption, “Captain this is Buck, the Junior Ranger. Atomic Ranger is dead and I’m not sure what I can even do for you.”

                                                  

Captain McIrish pauses briefly and then continues, “We need a hero not a sidekick, Buck.” Buck lowers his head and his radio, “I fully understand Captain,” the light of the communicator goes off. Buck sighs, turns, and walks alone into the rain towards his hover car.

Buck settles into his hover car and the car begins its startup process. “Take me back to base,” Buck blurts out, as he loosens his tie. “Setting course,” the car responded to Bucks command through the car audio system. In a burst of upward momentum Buck’s hover car takes off into the sky.

Twenty minutes later Buck see’s the majestic mountain range and forest that conceals the secret base. Buck’s hover car races towards a sheer cliff face. A cliff face that has hidden the entrance to the Atomic Ranger’s secret base for more than twenty years. The entrance portal opens wide allowing the hover car inside. The portal closes behind his entrance to the hanger.

Buck staggers drunkenly from the hover car and drops his jacket and hat on the floor. He pauses to look around at the base and takes a drink from the half empty whisky bottle. He sees framed magazine cover with “The Atomic Ranger” on it in a powerful heroic pose.

Buck sobs, as he looks at the magazine cover, “What am I supposed to do, dad? They need you, heck, I need you. Heroes aren’t supposed die.” Buck angrily shakes his head in disapproval.

Buck picks up the magazine cover, “What am I supposed to do? Come on you always had the answers!” Buck throws the case holding the magazine cover inside to the floor. The case explodes sending glass fragments everywhere.

Meanwhile, at the Planetary Police Patrol Headquarters, Captain McIrish stands before a wall of news reporter. Captain McIrish clears his throat and begins, “People of century City. I come to you under dire circumstances, as most of you know. Our city has been under attack for the past several days.”

The reporters jump to their feet in an attempt to get him to answer the looming question. Captain McIrish points to senior reporter Paul the Action News Man. Paul produces a smile beneath his well-groomed mustache and adjusts his tweed suit, “You are of course referring to the Purple Pustule Producing Poison?” Paul then raises his signature eye brown awaiting a response. 

Captain McIrish smirks in disbelief of Paul’s physical response, “it seems with the passing of Atomic Ranger our city may not be able to stop whatever evil has struck.” At that moment Mayor Linda Lee steps between the Captain and the crowd, “People please. While the Ranger has always been there in the past. You need to understand that our very own Planetary Police Patrol is on the case and will soon apprehend these fiendish villains.”

Buck sits in his father’s recliner with a look of shame on his face, as the TV broadcast of the Captain and Mayors words about the villainous actions. Buck sips from a small glass of whisky and sits up right. He turns off the television and take the last long drawn from the glass.

Buck yells out drunkenly, “I can’t just sit here. People are dying, Dad, what do I do?” At that moment from the skylight a single shaft of light illuminates a crate behind him. Buck turns to see the trunk with a puzzled look. He stands and staggers towards the trunk.

A very confused Buck examines the Trunk, “Where the heck did that come from?” SAL, the artificial intelligence that runs the base, announces, “it came today while you were out I had a drone bring it inside once I scanned it ensuring it posed no danger to anyone.”

Buck pops the lock off and opens the trunk. A brilliant light illuminates buck and the room. Buck looks into the trunk a suit is folded up inside with an envelope placed upon it. He takes out a letter from inside the envelop. Bucks eyes dart from left to right across the page.

He looks confused, “Dad?” and looked down at the letter.

“My Dear Son,

I do not call you by name, as I do not know which of you will read this. But know whoever does inherits my greatest gifts.”

Buck lifts his father’s chrome and gold Atomic Ranger Ray Gun from the trunk in its leather holster and places it on the coffee table.

“A Ray gun to fight injustice.”

Buck pulls out his father’s chrome and gold Atomic Ranger Helmet from the trunk by its heavily reinforced leather straps and places it on the coffee table. 

“A Helmet to deceive tyranny.”

Buck looks confused, as he takes his father’s badly damaged chrome and gold Rocket Pack from the trunk and places it upon the table.

“A Rocket pack which is in constant need of a good mechanic. Wear them with honor, for in time of need...

A tall proud shadow cuts a heroic pose across a wall.

“It is the destiny of the Jones men to become The Atomic Ranger.”

Buck fully dressed in the Atomic Ranger Uniform dramatically looks up from the floor. Buck notices the light on his wrist radio glows. He raises the radio to his face, “Atomic Ranger, Go Ahead, Captain McIrish.”

Captain McIrish excitedly replies, “Thank Goodness. We had been told that you were killed.”

Buck chuckles, “You cannot kill justice. Now, what can I do to help?” Buck picks up and examines to the smashed picture of his father. “Spaceships are spreading a foul formula of fiendish fatalism. People everywhere are being petrified by the purple pustule poison that is being excreted by the air ships,” Captain McIrish begs his hero.

A brilliant light flare sparks off the brow of his helmet, as Buck responds, “No need to worry the Atomic Ranger is on it. Send me the ships coordinates and I will deal with them.” “Good luck and GOD speed, Ranger,” Captain McIrish ingratiatingly blurts across the communicator.

Buck crouches down and presses the right-hand thumb button to activate the Rocket Pack. The turbines of the rocket pack roar to life. A thunderous boom emanates from the Rocket Pack, as Buck leaps into the air. A rocket pack propelled brown streak races through the Atomic Ranger Secret Base.

The cliff face secret entrance opens and the Atomic Ranger shoot out like a cruise missile of righteous fury on its way to end evil where ever he may find it. Buck knows he has to arrive quickly at the coordinates and engaged his afterburner which propels him into hypersonic speed ensuring his arrival in mere minuets.