Plot: 7/9. I would give a higher score if Ernst could build the fight more spectacularly. Yet it was a complete story with suspenses and thrills.
Owing to the Great War of 1941, the incredibly high demand of the copper drove Frank and his man to dig down up to forty thousand feet under the ground.
Belmont, the mining engineer, claimed to have find fossil footprint of little shod men at that depth and was about to dial the archaeologists. Frank, who had supervised the work there once without finding so-called prints, doubted his report, stopped him and decided to check the fact first.
Indeed Frank discovered footprint at a half inch or so in the rock floor of the level at the base of the concrete retaining wall.
More bizarrely, the concrete wall was transparent like frosted glass.
Frank observed that the direction of footprints was from and to the concrete wall.
More disturbingly, Belmont found four more prints than his last observation.
One worker claimed to witness a man in concrete two hours ago and others believed him with the circumstantial evidence of the footprints. To quench their doubt and a possible shutdown, Belmont and Frank decided to spend one night there.
They witnessed three 18-inch men came out of the concrete and Frank guessed they were human who evolved under terrific pressure and therefore their body was so dense that enabled them to go through the rock and bullets.
Mannikins used microscopic rods to kill Belmont and hurt Frank. Frank went berserk and kicked one of them, only to break his own bones. However, as this mannikin dashed his fist against Frank, he found perplexedly that it sank in Frank’s flesh and did him no physical harm.
They retreated rather hurriedly. So they abandoned Belmont’s corpse after they found it impossible to bring the corpse along with them underground.
Workers found Frank raving beside Belmont’s corpse after their radio phone went unanswered. Next day, Frank bombed there. He was found not guilty because of his insanity, thus his report of microscopic giants was ignored by officials.
Core: 4/9. What if there exist people at the core of the Earth?
Why could the mannikin drag the corpse if it could not pass through Frank’s body?
Character: 4/9. I would give a higher score if mannikin was presented in more concrete detail.
World and Others: 3/9. It would be unreasonable for officials and workers to ignore the mystery of the inexplicable remains like the explosive dens that could not be made by people, a lunatic, a corpse with impossible trails and strange bullets aimed at the concrete walls by the two.
And also in reality, Frank’s bomb would not stop people’s avidity for copper.