🚨 Hardy Boys Casefiles ™️ Poll Time 🚨
It's been a while, and this time the theme is TERROR. Vote for your favorite, and therefore, most terrifying.
Vote using the matching reaction. Polls close at 5pm Eastern.
🚋 #57 - Terror On Track
💼 #76 - Tagged For Terror
🏰 #94 - A Taste For Terror
Hell yeah. Train cover.
One of these involves an astronaut and someone named Thor Sonderstrom. Best of luck figuring out which one
Joe's face on Tagged For Terror is sublime
They can't be going more than, what, five miles an hour?
Taste for Terror, he's in actual danger from being a clumsy doofus
Yeah he had to have stood up on those crenellations. A childhood filled with PSAs have told me he has whatever happens coming, and maybe if he's lucky the GI Joe with a jetpack will save him.
Oh I gotta go with Thor!
These are all so good but I can't turn down a good old fashioned train shenanigan
I hope Thor is on the train!! Win win!!
I know Tagged for Terror is the start of the Assassins arc but I don't think multiple votes are allowed and if you make me choose between train and airport golf cart, train will win every time
Those crenellations look like an escher painting
The Book Cage - Episode 82: The Hardy Boys Casefiles ™️ #57: Terror On Track
Well, the bad news is that most of you missed the poisoning of Thor Sonderstrom. As punishment, you are being put on THE VIRUS TRAIN. Join Frank, Joe, and Andrew Driscoll (whoever that is). As they journey halfway across the country on a train carrying a deadly disease for...reasons. Get your tickets ready for this Friday, 5pm eastern.
Oh so it's a Covid novel
Covid famously started spreading from a clandestine train operated by teens
unless you listen to the man
maaaaaaaaaaaannnnn
Man, they got an awful lot riding on three dumbass teens to be putting them on a cross country train ride with the T-virus
Like, not even one armed guard? Did they at least give the train marshal a heads up?
Change three dumbass teens to one half dead cop, some guys sister and a little girl and you have a close approximation of the ending of RE2.
Oh shit, a virus headed to Chicago?! But that's where the computers are!
Its up to Frank and Joe to save DeepDish.EXE!
The next one is SPIKED! so they're going straight back to California
Awww shucks, no Thor.
A little over an hour until The Hardy Boys Casefiles ™️ #57: Terror on Track. Here is the preview
Like the waterfall confrontation scene in The Fugitive if Harrison Ford never noticed Tommy Lee Jones and had a spaz attack
It's at least nice to know that a book predicated on Frank and Joe Hardy eating shit on a train is going to come as advertised
Time to begin the process
The Boooooooooook Traiiiiiiiin
Fuck yeah, Throw Momma From the Train 2: Throw Hardy from the Train!
Choo choo!
Thomas was through taking the other engines' shit
Alrighty
Instantly fucking weird. Let's go
Running over a Hardy boy is how you get Sir Topham Hat to recognize you are Very Useful.
Disgusting, yet simple
Also Joe is taking that goon's kick straight in the nards on the cover
"Is it prehensile? Try picking up this mug."
"Joe, close the bathroom door"
Fuck, if Zidane from FF9 showed up this book would be so much better.
The Hardy boys are tampering in God's domain.
"No, Frank. You HAVE GOT to see this one. I swear its not a shit."
"Well not just a shit."
It's just a car, but this ghostwriter thinks he's written a noire
Because traffic is so light around San Francisco International
MiBs!
Toot toot chugga chugga Big Black Car!
We'll tail em near, we'll chase em fa-aa-ar!
IN this one Frank and Joe have had the faces of developers making a weird face pasted on over their polygonal meshes.
Don't ask about the mipmaps on the MiBs
Not really much of a tail then
And the tension is thwarted
It was a tail!
It was not.
Frank and Joe are justifiably paranoid.
Could have been their dad.
They weren't tailing you, you were just hogging the passing lane
Frank strongly believes there's no reason to ever exceed the posted speed limit.
"It had diplomatic plates. Hey remember when we caused that international incident?"
"Golly, that sure was mysterious!"
"THE SPEED LIMIT'S 75, ASSHOLE!"
Fenton will be played by James Earl Jones
Fenton is lying on the floor so people cant see him.
Per Mom's request
"Good thing one person in this car full of detectives thinks to gather evidence" thought the driver.
Fenton Hardy must be like 65 by now, why can't this man just retire
You know, the science magazines
Professionals say an effective tail requires at least three Fentons.
Good old Science Magazine
So he invented a new kind of LSD?
Or made a chemical weapon.
One of those.
He's discovered the Philosopher's Stone
"You mean Arthur Driscoll, the inventor of the dirty bomb?"
So LSD then?
Also, fucking Fritz Haber exists. If you're gonna namedrop namedrop somebody in a relevant field
Something terrible is happening to Joe's body
Kids love Fritz Haber
Driscoll discovered how baking soda and vinegar combine to make a boring science project
"Yes son, he invented a bomb to aerosolize LSD and disperse it over a wide area so communist infiltrators would lose their will to live."
They should! He's the reason so many of them are so fucking overweight!
Joe's pecs continued to spasm uncontrollably
Oopsie
"He discovered the chemistry between himself and his lab assistant. The trial is Tuesday."
Counting muscles with his tongue uhhhhh
Sorry, what?
Chemistry virus whaaaa
"Uh dad.......if hes a professor of chemistry how did he make a virus?"
"With chemicals. Duh."
He was making some chocolate milk and fucked it all up.
I hate it when I accidentally create ebola
or a bolo yeung
I was trying to make pop rocks better but I accidentally t-virus
Chemistry viruses usually just make you unfuckable and you learn how to make bombs and meth.
Maybe he was making a computer simulation and made his computer explode
"Chemist accidentally made virus" is a comic book origin story for a very unusual sort of Golden Age character.
This train is just full of things
The virus vaccine, which is full of the virus
"That's right, they hired a private eye and his children instead of a PMC"
The Six Million Dollar Chemistry Virus
The gun snout
"And before you ask, no. Nobody can make more of the vaccine, nobody wrote the recipe down."
Maybe he's the einstein of biochem
But did it have a droop snoot
The gun is driving the car!
Maybe his work is so nuanced he prints RNA by hand
Joe is the Einstein of recognizing firearms.
That's just how I describe it 'the snout of the gun'
Snack-aholic
Callie knows what Chet likes to munch
Im rooting so hard for Chet to steal Callie right out from under the Hardies
Frank wont even notice.
Callie keeps telling frank how much better Chet is at munching, but he just doesn't get it.
I don't even need Chet to have a Blofeld moment anymore, I just want him to be happy.
This will be Callie Lost Number. The one that didn't die, but also didn't stay around Frank
He deserves it after his idiot friends got his sister exploded.
One day without the Hardies around ought to just about do it
The trick is Chet is always happy. He's always living his best day. Like a golden retriever that doesn't age
Hey, by the way, it's good to be here with you all. I've been running full tilt at articles all week and am thiiiis close to turning in the next Hot Dog, but I daresay I've earned a couple hours off and I choose Hardy Party.
Later iterations will have an electrode planted in their brain so they cant leave.
Then, at the lab, Eldery Scientist throw attack
Treasure these digital gatherings, friends.
Same, Brendan! Great to have you here!
We love you Brendan!
He just loved it when his sister got car bombed
Glad you could escape from your brutal Hot Dog taskmasters
Man every fictional scientist has to be an Einstein xerox
Best. Day.
I want just one Feynman banging bongos and babes.
Love all y'all, too. Now, let's read about a virus on a train
This is how you steal a vaccine, you walk into a lab and just start punching an old man
Its like Train to Busan but slower.
how did you reply to yourself?
It is mildly confusing
That is how I get my prescriptions
"I didnt give it to them because I forgot to take notes! I'm good at chemistry, not writing."
Fucking insurance companies, man
Click the three dots on the far right of your post and you should get a Reply option
"I refused to comply with their demands. The Gates chips dont arrive til Tuesday! Their testicles would remain unengorged!"
The hawk man has so many animal characteristics
Face of the hawk, strength of the bear.
Something I didnt entirely catch.
BRAVESTARRRRRR!
Some great security at this top secret lab
whoa
Its Learning Day for Brendan.
That was close
does anyone have 'someone fails to run over a Hardy' on their bingo card?
Just glad I don't have to explain Bravestarr to this Discord.
That's the free space
I do but its too early to tell if I get a bingo.
Joe hates nerds
Frank suspects the black car might have followed them
He missed a flying tackle on a guy that was walking toward him but dodged the car.
I mean I don't know what it is just yet but I'll roll with it
Frank with the instant nerd apologetics
Joe just decks him
You will be edumacated later, @Badgerman
For once I agree with Joe? Nobody helps the teen boys in their apparent death struggle? Not a single Gordon Freeman in this place?!
'That one scientist might be an actual sheep' -Joe
You know government ids. Don't ask what kind
Joe's talking to a pen of sheep at a petting zoo
"That's what we test the virus on, Joe"
Yeah but did they have their Real IDs?
"Frank, I think this might not be a science place. That security guard looks awful goat like."
"Frank.........did we just break into a zoo and fight a red tailed hawk?"
"And he's eating too many tin cans to be normal security"
And Ma-Ti with the power of heart death
"Which is a bit hyperbolic since it just makes you shit out your stomach"
Ma-Ti's heel turn shocked and decimated the ranks of the Planeteers
"They tried setting the victims on fire, burying them, throwing them in the ocean, and finally just blowing on them."
"The weird part was when a dude with like blue skin showed up and just kind of......wandered around."
Driscoll introduces the Hardys to his boss, Wesker
Fatality so high, it actually isn't a problem
That's what we were going for.
You done goofed, Driscoll
The Hardies are definitely spin-off characters that get punted into the Reveliatons games
The Hardy Boys IN: "The Andromeda Strain"
Joe, hit yourself
Driscoll realizes he has to back up and explain rudimentary genetics.
And sighs deeply
Joe's favorite mutant superhero is X-Man.
"Also I didnt so much mutate it accidentally as "I am not qualified to work with a virus and lied to get this job.", my real name is Harold Quonset and I manage a McDonalds."
Driscoll makes a mental note to label everything so Joe won't eat a beaker
And then he realizes he's a chemist, and that isn't his area
"I don't want any strangers. I want this man I briefly met years ago and his sons"
MA-TI-19 is a hoax!
"I met your dad at a symposium about using chemical aids to stop crime."
Chicago: That hub of biowarfare
This is almost exactly how they hook you into a DLC questline in a campaign that didn't foreshadow it at all
"He asked me if I could "Juice up" teen boys, and make them super detectives or something."
Curt Loring
"No, seriously. What's his name?"
"I told him that would be unethical, so he started asking me about mind control drugs."
Curt Loring is a hobbit
Curt Loring more like Dirt Boring
Curt Loring is an animator for Warner Brothers.
He's no Rex Moran
Fleshy face
Or corsican.
Curt Loring is a very Bobson Dugnutt name.
Whats the difference? Napoleon had hairy feet.
God, he's going to show up someday when we most need him.
Update: Driscoll is a moron
"I'll show ya. Got twenty bucks?"
If anyone can protect a lethal virus as it journeys across the American Midwest, it's the A-Tea- wait, what?
"Look, being a science doer doesnt mean I word good. What the fuck is a shelf?"
Driscoll just got his ass kicked. Maybe give him a few minutes to recover?
Plum Island is RIGHT THERE
"Explain this word "Gaaaaaaaaa-me" as well."
"Haven't you ever seen Demolition Man?"
"Oh the one with the three seashells?"
"No, never."
"Remember when I said that I didn't want strangers?"
Oh so the virus isn't even on the train
What are we even doing here, ghostwriter
And since everything is handled with the utmost care by passenger flight baggage handlers, the world is safe
Hiring a big security firm, to securely transport the vials by secure truck.
Securely.
Why a private security firm, then? Why not give it to Chet and tell him to meet you in Chicago?
Then they head over to Andrew's house and surely nothing will happen
Knowing how this writer treats Chet he'd probably eat it
Thirsty as a crack, that old saying
"NOOOOOOO MY DEDUCTIBLE!"
"Ill never get my deposit back now!"
"DAmmit, Dad. I told you we should have rented this car with your name!"
Joe was for sure about to finish a saying with at least 2 slurs in it, so that was good timing.
Well, they avoided the bullets by going straight into a ditch
Thanks, Censor Rifle!
Classic maneuver
First thing they taught me at drivers Ed
The crash is so hard that a goddamned wheel flies off
They're fine though
ohhh, it did that thing that one road sign always warns about
They go through vans as fast as they go through Callies.
The one that warns about a truck doing a corkscrew spin
Frank is just tumbling around the vehicle still strapped to his seat.
Cars back then were designed to fall apart in a crash to protect the passen— no? No, they weren't? They should be beef stroganoff right now?
The inside of the van looks like a jar of raspberry preserves
The sniper is scared off by an old woman
Joe always insists that seatbelts cause more fatalities than they prevent
Frank should look like that dude in Adaptation when he backs out of his drive and gets t-boned.
Old ladies can track snipers by a single shot
Old ladies are the snipers natural predator.
Snipers fear the scent of Werthers Originals and bug spray.
Mrs Lubben worked with the French resistance during the war, she knows how to handle a sniper
She still has the scalps on her knitting room wall
Remember when Looney Tunes made Granny an OSS agent
It's like that
Later, at the train station. Babe alert
Talia Neiman
"Dont worry dears. Back when I was your age I slit six Nazi SS men from crotch to gullet and left the sniper with his fascist dick in his own mouth as a warning to his fellows."
Well, Talia, you certainly have a Chicago name
No woman named Talia can possibly be anything but a femme fatale.
"Is that a vaccine in your pocket or are you just happy to see me?"
I would be very interested in reading Joseph Q. Dixon's account of this scene.
She has six knives, a sword and a pair of nunchucks on her at all times.
Callie feels a disturbance in the air
3:15, that classic time to have lunch
"I hope you like overpriced beer and lukewarm potato chips"
Of course they do, they're all going to Chicago!
Talia has studied Frank. She knows the best way to expose a Hardy boy is to give them a free meal.
Callie is briefly disturbed, but is quickly distracted by Chet's munching again
It's so attentive and thorough
Joe using Callie's full name, certainly not weird
Chet is a generous lover. Except on pizza night. Then the food aggression kicks in
Has one of these Hardys ever even gotten to first base?
Then the guilt dissolved and Frank resumed cataloguing peoples fingers
I'm sure they have with some Callie or another but they always get exploded
Callies full name is how Joe triggers Franks Manchurian posthypnotic programming.
Wait, oh my god, is this actually a Callie clone? Is this some more Project Lazarus bullshit?
Really turning the screws on Frank there.
Nonsense. Where are they going to find an actress in San Francisco?
MUST CONSUME CANDY
I'm so invested in book cage that now I have a thick layer of dumb lore built up on my brain.
your date looks like your dead love, Jane Girlfriendname
This is my Warhammer.