Magnum Skywolf and the Jewel of El Camino! (Patreon)

Great news everyone! Last year was "interesting" as everyone knows, but the good news is that I hid in a bunker and survived. I hope you survived too. Fist in the air, we win!

This year I'm laying out more creative projects than '20 and there will be 4 books launching in November. Three novels and a comic book, maybe more (and maybe something gets bumped into '22 but whatever, these are all looking good.) You'll get to see them all develop as I work on them.

I fixed a lot of the issues that caused problems with some of the earlier books and will be releasing all (except Kitten) as hardcovers late this year. They'll all have a slight retro-feel with illustrations like the O.G. Tarzan books and whatnot, I love that shit. So grab a beer and enjoy watching me tear through three books and a comic. Fist in the air, we win!

November releases:
Classic Game Room: Farewell and Thanks for the Laser Bathysphere
Omega Ronin: (title forthcoming)
Magnum Skywolf and the Jewel of El Camino
Robot Kitten Factory #2

The Magnum Skywolf books had a ton of work done on them, but I can't spend time drawing anymore, and comics don't sell, so it's been turned into a book which may work out better anyway. So allow me to present the first draft of the first few pages of Magnum Skywolf and the Jewel of El Camino. Rough version, very little QA, the prologue isn't here yet, and there will be changes for sure, but enjoy: (yes, this maintains continuity with the first comic book - and eventual 2nd comic book.)

Chapter 1

Years ago, Hunter Skywolf learned the hard way that the cure for a hangover was not to continue drinking but to drag his cello down to the beach and play it with a pensive look on his face.

The crashing waves, the breeze from the ocean, and the sand in his toes, when combined with the concentration required to play the cello, was enough to take his mind off the morning’s immense discomfort. Even if he wasn’t very good at it, Hunter loved the cello because it didn’t belong in the 21st century any more than he did, and the violin was for pussies.

Hunter Skywolf, the best helicopter pilot in the world and the only person to be frozen in Antarctica for 40 years and live, sat on a cheap plastic chair by the Atlantic ocean and slowly banged out an off-key rendition of Amazing Grace. It was therapeutic and a great way to ignore the self-inflicted pain caused by downing a dozen Old Fashioneds the night before.

After playing, he eased back in the chair, brushed his shoulder-length greying-blonde hair out of his aviator sunglasses, and lit a cigarette that dangled under his shaggy mustache. A few passing teenagers walking along the shore in their dumb hats and oversized shorts laughed, pointed, and took pictures of him with their cellphones. He ignored them. He could have them all killed later that day. But he probably wouldn’t.

Hunter Skywolf. Man out of time. That was him. He lived to fly helicopters and blow shit up. And smoke. And drink. And drive an El Camino with an 8-track player. And play the cello poorly.

He took a deep drag from his smoke and caught a glimpse of something beautiful out of his eye. Jogging down the beach directly towards him was his copilot, Lieutenant Haylee Davenworth. Shit. Haylee was a great copilot and an excellent officer, but she was too good-looking to actually look at.

She bounded up the beach in her perfect little blue bikini with her perfect blonde ponytail bouncing behind her, spotted Hunter, and slowed down to talk to him. Hunter groaned. He loved beautiful women, but Haylee was something that his friend A.C. called a millennial, which apparently translated to “most annoying human being on the planet.”

They had a rocky start to their professional relationship months earlier, but she eventually warmed up to him and his degenerate, out-of-date antics once she realized that he was a brilliant pilot. Maybe she even liked him a little bit. He didn’t know. She helped him fly supersonic helicopters without crashing and burning and exploding, and that was all that mattered. He didn’t talk to her much, partly because she was just too damned attractive. He inhaled deeply.

“Captain, what are you doing here, and what is that?” She said with a bright smile on her face with body language full of pep. Hunter hated pep.

“It’s a cigarette. They’re good for you.”

She did that thing where she shifted her weight and rested her hand on her hip with a goofy, pouty smile. “No, I know what that is. What’s the instrument?”

“It’s a cello.”

“You play the cello?” She sounded surprised, which she probably was. This was totally out of character for him.

He turned his head and adjusted his sunglasses so that he didn’t find himself tempted to ogle her perfect figure, which he felt would be both creepy and unprofessional. Technically he was 80 years old though practically, he was a solid out-of-shape 40-something.

One thing that Hunter Skywolf, who survived being frozen alive from 1972 to 2019, could not figure out about the future was how people either blew up to 9,000 pounds or looked liked perfectly sculpted athletic reproductions of Greek gods. There seemed to be no between, which he equated to the lack of chain-smoking that idiot future people did.

He puffed his cigarette and forced a smile. “Yeah, I play cello to clear my head.”

“Oh, you’re hungover?” She laughed mercilessly. “Of course you are! Just when I think you start to show some class, you prove me wrong again.” Haylee crossed her arms and grinned.

Shit, he was busted. “When you’re 80 years old, let’s see how well you deal with a future you don’t understand.” He replied sarcastically, knowing full well that she would handle it much better than he did.

“You should put out that cigarette and jog with me to the club. I’m hitting the restaurant for a kale avocado smoothie.”

He looked at her like she had three heads. “What’s kale?”

“It’s a vegetable!”

“Why?”

“Because it’s good for you!”

He thought about why any sane person would put vegetables into a “smoothie” while lighting another cigarette off the one dangling from his mouth. “No, I’m going to sit here for a while and watch the waves. You go on, Lieutenant. I’ll see you at mission briefing later today.”

“Aye aye, captain!” She stood erect, saluted, and then took off with a spring in her step. “Oh hey!” She spun around. “If you change your mind, shoot me a text. It’s that thing where you type messages with your phone!” She mockingly made typing hand motions, waved, and spun back into a perfect trot.

He stared at her blankly as she ran off into the misty morning air. Was kale a thing back in 1972? Did people who listen to Led Zeppelin eat kale? The future was supposed to be cool, like Flash Gordon cool. Flash Gordon didn’t eat fucking kale.

He was low on cigarettes which meant it was time to go.

Skywolf shuffled back up the beach to the parking lot with his cello in tow to a 1972 pale gold El Camino with a wood grain strip on the back, brown fabric seats, and a few empty beer cans that rolled around on the floor. He tossed the instrument into the back and fired up the rumbling V8 while lighting another smoke next to a group of clean-shaven, skinny idiots. They might be “millennials.” He smirked and blew smoke out of his nostrils.

The millennials sat in something called a “Range Rover” with a surfboard on the top. They gawked at him with looks of disbelief and disgust. He smiled, turned up the Led Zeppelin, and peeled out of the sandy parking lot, leaving the young, tanned naysayers in a cloud of exhaust. They didn’t deserve to witness a car so fine.

----

Captain Skywolf didn’t take many things in his second chance at life seriously except for flying, which he was really good at. Most people in the military regarded him as the best helicopter pilot of all time, which is the sole reason that the United States government spent more than one billion dollars bringing him back to life. Few people find themselves frozen in a glacier for 40 years, and even fewer get thawed out and live.

Hunter Skywolf may have been the most expensive human being alive. He was a priceless military weapon, like a walking, chain-smoking, foul-mouthed B2 bomber. Skywolf’s unmatched skill, his Vietnam experience, and the fact that he technically “didn’t exist” made him special. He was the only person on the entire planet capable of flying the Magnum 9000 nuclear-power supersonic helicopter.

The government scuttled the Magnum 9000 helicopter project during the cold war because of budget cuts and nuclear treaties. However, rather than dismantling it, they sold the entire project to a clandestine government shadow agency known as “The Agency.” Treaties dictated that no living pilot or computerized operating system was permitted to fly a helicopter with the reactor from a nuclear submarine installed in it. It was simply too powerful.

Captain Hunter Skywolf was listed as “KIA” in Vietnam. Technically, he was dead.

The sleek, 1980s-styled futuristic helicopter now rested deep within a secret military base tucked away inside an active volcano next to an elite vacation resort called ###. Wealthy couples, fabulous influencers, and posh celebrities sipped expensive champagne and ate caviar in the shadow of the best-kept military secret on earth and were none the wiser. Every now and then, a little black helicopter lifted out of the volcano and flew away, but they were too busy being entertained to notice.

-----

Skywolf roared into the ### Club parking lot and double-parked the most expensive car that he could find. Today, the owner of a Bugatti Veyron would find an El Camino blocking them in. The tragedy.

(After Skywolf parked, a valet would always move the ‘Camino, but it was the thought that counts.)

Magnum Skywolf Copyright 2021 Inecom, LLC. by Mark Bussler