2nd story:
The jungles of Cuba 1958:
Logan is watching the goings-on beneath him with a pair of binoculars. Goings-on meaning that the revolutionaries, including Fidel Castro and Che Guevara, are making their plans.
Has Hendricks turned up yet? his superiors ask him via radio. No word from him, comes the reply. From what he can tell, the revolutionaries don’t have him. They’re concerned with some fly-by. The bigwigs are there though, he states, referring to Castro and Guevara. He’s downwind so he can circle around if he has to.
He’s running out of time, Logan is told. Be out of there by zero-six-hundred. All right then, he announces; he’s going in. Logan, out.
Suddenly he sniffs something and draws his gun. Think they can get the drop on him? he shouts Forget it! He knows they’re here! Behind him are FBI Agent Jimmy Woo, Gorilla Man (both with drawn guns) and Human Robot M-11 (who really doesn’t need any).
Right answer, Gorilla Man mocks. What does Professor Van Doren win? he asks Jimmy. An airlift back to the States and FBI interrogation if he can’t explain what he is doing here, comes the reply. Pardon his cynicism, Logan rejoins, but they don’t look like any of Hoover’s men he’s ever seen.
In the meantime, M-11 has extended his arm and it comes up, sneaking on Logan from behind. Logan grabs a branch above him and dodges the arm, also elegantly kicking the guns out of Jimmy’s and Gorilla Man’s hands. Jimmy responds with a kick himself and Gorilla Man smashes him against the tree trunk.
Who was he talking to on that two-way? Jimmy demands. The Yellow Claw? Why is a Chinese guy asking him, if he is friendly with the Yellow Claw? Logan retorts. Don’t get smart, Gorilla Man warns him. Logan makes a strange sound. Jimmy doesn’t notice that a strange bug has landed on his back. He explains that they have got a tip that the Yellow Claw has an operation going down here and it looks like he’s trying to get involved with the struggle.
Logan slips out of his jacket and thus Gorilla Man’s grip and jumps at Jimmy, seemingly slashing his throat. Furious, Gorilla Man slaps Logan away and M-11 fires at him. Suddenly, Jimmy orders them to stop, showing them a strange, golden beetle. Logan didn’t hurt him. It looks like was going for this but… it was on his neck and he didn’t even feel it.
Gorilla Man looks at Logan’s inert form, smoke still rising from it. Regretfully, he states that M-11 gave the guy a seat in the electric chair. Poor lug, Jimmy sighs. They should at least make his last act count for something. Over the radio, he calls Marvel Boy, telling him they’ve got something for his lab.
Sitting in his spaceship, the Silver Bullet, with the team’s final member Venus, Bob Grayson aka Marvel Boy replies, telling them to put the insect up on M-11’s sample pod and he’ll run it through the silver bullet’s mini-lab.
Do they think it’s connected to the Yellow Claw’s plot they discovered? Venus asks. He hopes so, Jimmy replies, or a man died for nothing.
Logan begins to cough and begins: As Mark Twain said… He forgets what the hell Twain said. But he ain’t dead. No way! Gorilla Man marvels. Didn’t think some schmo could live through that much juice. He’ glad he did, Jimmy tells Logan and helps him steady himself. He apologizes but M-11 used to be a killer robot. Used to be? Logan asks. He doesn’t see any of those bugs on him, does he? No, he’s clear, Jimmy replies. So can he tell them what those things are?
Part of what he’s down here checking out, comes the reply. They’ve been running out on key figures in this whole revolution shindig. And the source is somewhere out here. He’s following up a previous agency team who ‘chuted in last week. Who’s in on this? CIA? The military? Fine, don’t answer, he sighs.
Sometime later, Marvel Boy ship flies over the jungle to spook the rebel forces. They move out. From the mountains they see an energy signal. It must be Hedrick, Logan tells them. He’s still alive. He led the first team. Jimmy’s team decides to join Logan. It looks like they are on the same trail.
M-11 clears a path for them. Gorilla Man muses he’s got a hypothesis. He’s thinking these bugs are like little assassin injection – slow-acting poison. It’s a little out there, he knows. But a gorilla spouting the theory is perfectly normal, Logan replies.
In front of them stands a man. Hendricks. Figures they’d send Logan, Hendricks remarks. Are these new… agents? They are FBI, comes the reply. Where’s his team?
Over here, Hendricks tells them, leading them there. They found something of interest. Where all those bugs are coming from? Logan asks. Oh yeah, it will all become clear to him, Hendricks promises. They are going to understand everything now.
He is surrounded by a horde of bugs of different sizes, including a large one behind him. As they suddenly attack, Hendricks remarks that, if they don’t resist, the bugs will let them live. Let the small ones attach. They will feed their cortex.
Snap out of it! Logan shouts, trying to keep off the large bugs. Jimmy shoots a smaller one off his shoulder, returning the favor from before. Look out! Logan warns as Hendricks is about to fire at Jimmy.
That moment, Marvel Boy calls in with an urgent message. That bug was structurally altered to deliver a protein sequence to a host’s brain. Meaning mind control. Don’t let one attach to them, the process is irreversible, even to his Uranian technology.
Enough for him, Jimmy decides and orders everyone to fall back but M-11. Death ray, he tells the robot and it obliterates all bugs. Better than DD.
Except he missed one thing, Logan announces and jumps towards Hendricks. He snaps his neck.
Jimmy draws his gun. Why did he do that? Logan reminds him his own man said Hendricks couldn’t be fixed. They could still have taken him back alive, Jimmy insists. Hendricks knew too many things that don’t need to get out, Logan decides. They’re on the same side, Gorilla Man remarks. Is he with the Russian?
Jimmy decides Logan is coming back for debriefing with them. Once his info checks out, he will be released. Figured he’d say something like that, Logan replies, but that’s not how his bosses like to play it. Better clear out.
He pulls a trigger and a bomb attached to M-11 explodes.
Several hours later, the Silver Bullet has not managed to find Agent Logan. Poor M-11, Venus sighs and asks Marvel Boy if he can fix him. He promises he can. He’s been meaning to overhaul him for months. He’s got some ideas for a good rebuild. His brain is intact.
Jimmy asks him to patch M-11 up good. He took out the creepiest things that the Yellow Claw has whipped up yet. He and Venus stare at the bug in he container. Permanent mind-control… just imagine what he could have done with that.
From below, Che Guevara and Fidel Castro stare up, both of them with a bug attached to their necks…
