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| Issue #12 January 2010 |
"I Think Therefore I Am" Written By David Golightly |
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PREVIOUSLY IN FANTASTIC FOUR:
With the Baxter Building freed of the Mad Thinker’s control, Machine Man has finally located the source of the teleportation beam that kidnapped the Fantastic Four. The location? None other than the home of the FF’s most vicious villain, Latveria!
“You’re kidding me.”
Jennifer Walters, the knock-out attorney that sometimes went by the name of She-Hulk, rolled her eyes. The heroine side of her life allowed her access to some of the more prestigious crowds in the world, including not only the Fantastic Four, but the Avengers as well. She had faced down hundreds of big villains, but none had been quite like Victor Von Doom.
“I wish I were,” Scott Lang, the incredible shrinking Ant-Man, replied. “All signs point to Latveria. I had X-51 run the test again to be sure. Twice.”
“You found our parents?” Valeria asked, taking a moment to look up from the sculpture she and her brother, Franklin, were constructing. It looked like a partially completed double helix.
“Maybe we should look over the results of Machine Man’s findings,” Franklin added, although he didn’t look up from the model. “We helped to find you, after all, Mr. Lang.”
The four of them sat in the children’s play room in the upper floors of the Baxter Building. Now that the computer systems were back to normal, purged of the cyberpathics that the Mad Thinker had implanted in the software, it was safe to be home again.
She-Hulk marveled at how well the kids were handling everything, although since their family was comprised of world class adventurers and explorers, she supposed that she shouldn’t be too surprised. These types of things were weekly events to them.
“HERBIE is going to stay with you while we go look for your family,” Scott replied. “Just leave it to us, Franklin. We’ll bring them back to you.”
At mention of his name, a hovering robotic drone that looked like a silver eyeball with bladed wings and a red iris approached them. “I assure you that my programming is sustainable again,” HERBIE said, “and that I will not be found defective while in charge of the children.”
“We know, HERBIE,” She-Hulk said as she stood. “Just let us know if anything gets weird. We hopefully won’t be long.”
“Would a level five alert count as weird?” HERBIE inquired.
Jennifer and Scott traded glances. “It depends,” Scott said. “What’s a level five alert?”
---- 4 ----
Reed Richards was commonly known for his aptitudes in the fields of hyperbiology, robotics, and transdimensional energies. His published works could account for an entire bookcase in the library. Scientists and scholars the world over looked to him for guidance when it came to the fundamentals of the universe.
However, Reed had also proven to be a more than competent mechanic. This was often overlooked for his more renowned traits.
The engine inside the Fantasticar, custom built and designed by Reed and Ben Grimm, was a miracle of mechanical brilliance. Its efficiency barely dropped when the comparison was made between energy input and energy output. Scott couldn’t help but wonder that if the American car manufacturers had come to Reed for help that they might have avoided all of their recent troubles.
The Fantasticar propelled itself through the air on specially designed anti-gravity pads, gracefully pushing through the clouds with ease as it transported its four occupants.
“The funny thing is,” She-Hulk said, “I never took Reed for the paranoid type.”
“The alarm sensor he installed in Ravencroft psychiatric hospital was only a minor security feature,” the android known as Machine Man said. “According to HERBIE, the level five situation is merely informative.”
“Makes you wonder what level ten is like,” the feminine Nova muttered. The flames that comprised her hair whipped back by the streams of air current caused by their swift flight, however they failed to extinguish. “Who was it that broke out again?”
“The Wizard,” Scott confirmed as he carefully piloted the Fantasticar. “Reed was watching him because he’s one of the Fantastic Four’s bitterest enemies. And since I couldn’t reach the Avengers*, we have to put off confronting Doom until we resolve this.”
* [Check out Altered Visions THE AVENGERS title to see why! – D]
“You’re sounding more and more like a leader all the time, Scotty,” She-Hulk said with a smirk.
Scott mimicked the smirk but didn’t bother to look over his shoulder at She-Hulk. He was too busy guiding the Fantasticar down through the air toward the Ravencroft Institute.
Housing some of the most dangerous and insane criminals that the world had to offer, Ravencroft was founded less than a decade ago but had already made large strides in understanding the criminal mind. Headed by Dr. Kafka, Ravencroft had shown limited success in rehabilitation of supervillains.
The helipad on the roof of the institute had been cleared in anticipation of the Fantastic Four’s arrival. Just before touching down, Scott noticed a large hole in the side of the building, no doubt where the Wizard had escaped from.
Dr. Kafka’s dark hair whirled from the jet stream caused by the Fantasticar’s descent. She stood waiting on the roof with her hands jammed down into her lab coat’s pockets. A look of surprise came over her as Scott, dressed in his red and black Ant-Man uniform and carrying his silver helmet in his arm, jumped out of the vehicle and walked over to her.
“From the look on your face I assume you were expecting someone else,” Scott said as he shook Dr. Kafka’s hand.
“Sort of,” she replied. The reflection in her glasses showed Machine Man, Nova, and She-Hulk approaching behind Scott. “Where is Dr. Richards?”
“We’re the substitute team,” Nova said. “What seems to be the problem?”
Dr. Kafka motioned for them to follow her down into the building through the roof access. “The Wizard escaped just a few hours ago. Someone gave him a hand, as you probably noticed from the side of our building.”
“Is that where the Wizard’s cell was?” She-Hulk asked as she stepped into the stairwell and followed the others.
“We don’t have cells here at Ravencroft,” Dr. Kafka replied, her voice tinged with an edge of resistance. “Not unless we need them. Our patients are deeply troubled and need help. We keep their environments clean of anything having to do with their former lives as criminals and that includes decorating their rooms like prison cells.”
“So where do you keep them?”
“Each patient is remanded to their own containment suite, where they’re watched carefully.”
“A suite,” Nova repeated under her breath. “Isn’t that just lovely.”
“Watched?” Scott asked. “So there’s video feed of the Wizard escaping?”
“Yes and no,” Dr. Kafka replied. “The Wizard was able to put the feed on a loop without us being aware. It’s still going, as a matter of fact. The outer security cameras on that side of the building were also disabled.”
“So we have no idea how he managed to escape,” Machine Man concluded. “But you maintain that he had help in fleeing.”
The group rounded a corner and came to a long corridor with sealed doors lining the walls. Dr. Kafka continued forward without pausing, the sound of her footsteps reverberating off of the green walls. “Unless he developed super strength without us noticing,” she said, “then yes. He had help.”
She stopped just in front of the fourth down on the left side of the corridor. The four heroes watched as she slid her access card across the scanner and the door slid open. She stepped back, leaving room for them to enter, and Scott slipped his helmet onto his head.
He entered the room and looked out across the street. It was easy to do since the entire back wall had been blown inward. She was right in that it looked like the Wizard had help. Bits of mortar and brick were scattered all across the floor, which meant that the wall had been pushed in, not pulled out.
Nova hopped into the air and floated over the debris so as not to disturb any potential evidence. She hovered toward the huge, gaping hole in the wall and peered out. “Long way down,” she said. “Whoever busted him provided transportation, too.”
X-51 knelt down and looked at the scattered debris. He picked up a small piece and carefully looked it over, analyzing it.
“Got something?” Ant-Man asked.
“Possibly,” the android replied. “I am registering fragments of organic matter all over this room.”
“Organic?” She-Hulk said. “Like the accomplice left a piece of himself behind?”
“Precisely. In this particular case, the organic matter happens to be two parts hydrogen and one part oxygen, coupled with DNA strands.”
“Water,” Scott said. “H2O. You’re saying that whoever did this had power over water.”
“Oh, boy,” She-Hulk said. She reached her arm around the back of her head and scratched her neck in unease. “We got problems.”
“Why?” Nova asked.
“Because I only know about one bad guy with powers like that that could be interested in freeing the Wizard. His old partner from the Frightful Four, Hydro-Man.”
---- 4 ----
“Children, I would greatly appreciate if you would—”
Valeria Richards reached around behind the floating HERBIE eyeball and fingered the off switch. The aerial drone’s red eye went dark and it hovered silently in the air, its systems still engaged but now muffled.
“Val, I really don’t know about this,” Franklin said. “I think as the older child I should be in charge here, and we should stay right where Mr. Lang said.”
Valeria, the younger of the two Richards’ children, shoved her blonde hair out of her face and continued to put equipment from her father’s lab into her Dazzler backpack. She ignored the protests of her brother, determined to do more than just sit still.
“Our family is lost,” she said as she placed a spectral analyzer into the backpack. “And Mr. Lang has other problems. We have two choices.” She held up a finger. “One, we go and find them ourselves and not waste valuable time, or two, we sit here and waste valuable time.”
“Val…”
“What would Dad do? Or Uncle Ben?”
Franklin was finding it harder and harder to argue with his sister. Setting his young ego aside, he knew that she was the smarter of the two. She always had been and probably always would be. Her intelligence measured far above any other girl her age and she even posed questions to their father that baffled him at times. That was no easy feat.
It also made it difficult to reason with her when she had made up her mind about something.
“Okay, but how are we going to find them?” he said.
“The same way we found Mr. Lang. You’re going to use your powers to home in on them.”
“But we had Dad running the machines for that! I don’t have any idea on how to work the stuff in his lab.”
“I do. C’mon, Franklin! We can do this. We’re not babies, you know.”
“I don’t know, Val…”
A familiar whirring sound came from outside the room as a duplicate HERBIE drone entered, hovering in the air. Its sole red eye almost looked irritated as it approached and looked over the children.
“Valeria! Franklin!” the drone said. “If you recall, your father built me several vessels to utilize. I do not appreciate having one of them turned off, especially when I am in the middle of a sent—”
BING!
The red eye that made up almost the entirety of HERBIE’s body narrowed as its systems flew through incoming data. “Oh,” the robot said. “How unfortunate. A level seven alert.”
The siblings traded a glance. “What?” they said simultaneously.
“A level seven alert has just been broadcast from Namor, the Sub-Mariner. It would seem that he is requesting the Fantastic Four’s help.”
Franklin closed his mouth, which he hadn’t remembered opening in the first place. Two major alerts in so close a time. They had to be related. But Mr. Lang and the others were already out investigating. Since they were the only ones that had this information, it was up to them to do something.
“Val,” he said. “Maybe there’s a third choice.”
---- 4 ----
Machine Man finished his analysis of the room and stood up. His sensors had swept over the area twice, ensuring that there would be no confusion in his data collection. They needed as many clues as they could get, especially when it came to someone as resourceful as the Wizard.
The android tapped his wrist and opened a communication line back to the Baxter Building. “HERBIE,” he said, “I’m sending you some compressed data that I need you to expand with the analytical equator in Dr. Richards’ laboratory.”
“Affirmative,” HERBIE replied. “Shall I dispense the results now or after we return from Atlantis?”
It was uncommon for a robot like X-51 to become tongue-tied, however HERBIE seemed to have hit upon the necessary audio signals to do just that. “Excuse me?” he said.
“The children and I are investigating the level seven alert,” HERBIE said nonchalantly. “Per your instructions.”
“Something wrong?” Nova asked as she read the expression on Machine Man’s simulated face.
“HERBIE seems to think that we instructed him to take the children to Atlantis for some reason.”
“Did you not…” HERBIE said, trailing off. “Valeria! I believe you told me that—”
An explosion was heard in the background, cutting HERBIE short and replacing the robot’s voice with static over the line. Apparently the communiqué that Machine Man had opened to the Baxter Building had been redirected to wherever HERBIE was.
“Scott,” X-51 said. “We need to get back to the Fantasticar immediately.”
---- 4 ----
“Did you not…” HERBIE said, trailing off. “Valeria! I believe you told me that—”
BOOM!
Saltwater sprayed the sides of the Fantasticar Mark II as a massive explosion rocked the ship onto its side. The smaller, quicker craft had only a single cabin as opposed to the four of its counterpart. Luckily, Valeria had thought to seal off the cabin before dropping down to skim the water.
“We’re going under!” she said as she pushed forward the control yoke and dove the vehicle under the surface of the water. All communications would temporarily be offline as they tried to hide from their attackers.
They had been staffing directly for the source of Namor’s distress call, Atlantis. Against her wishes, Valeria had taken her brother’s advice and gone to help the Sub-Mariner. They were flustered over their parent’s disappearance that it didn’t dawn on them until the alert came in that their parents would rather they helped in a dire situation. And a dire situation like a level seven alert certainly qualified.
“Can’t you do something?” Valeria said to her brother as she shook the yoke left and right, narrowly avoiding other similar blasts from the surface.
“I’m concentrating!” Franklin replied. “My powers don’t work like that!”
“Just turn them into fish or something!”
“They’re already fish, Val!”
Franklin opened his eyes enough to look out the back viewport and see several Atlantean ships quickly catching up to them. Each small craft, roughly the same size as their own, held a single blue-skinned pilot that was trying their hardest to kill them. For as serious as that sounded, Franklin had absolutely no idea why.
Reaching out with his hand and his cosmic prowess, Franklin Richards concentrated on the closest of the ships. He felt his powers, uncontrollable and unpredictable, enclose the ship and begin to make changes to its very structure on a molecular level. The glass casing suddenly shattered, leaving the cabin exposed and the pilot vulnerable.
Given that he was able to breath underwater, he wouldn’t need to worry about drowning. However, the sudden and dramatic change in pressure would cause him to pass out and veer off course.
The craft disengaged its pursuit, leaving one less killer to worry about.
“I feel it is my obligation to tell you to return us to the Baxter Building at once,” HERBIE said. “I was unaware that you had lied to me.”
“Not now!” Franklin said as he shoved the android out of the way. “I’m trying to focus here, HERBBIE!”
A fresh volley of suppression fire from another craft nearly blasted the Fantasticar Mark II to pieces, but Valeria had moved away just in time. Instead the shockwave caused them to flip over upside down and reverse their direction. Now they were looking directly at their attackers coming in for the kill.
A flash of something white streaked by their window and smashed into the first enemy craft. It moved swiftly enough that it could barely be seen, ripping the ship into two separate pieces. Bubbles trailed behind the mystery object’s wake, leaving a curtain in between its actions and the children’s range of vision.
They heard metal screech and twist as their savior destroyed a second, and then a third craft. Whoever, whatever, this mystery thing was it was apparently attacking without mercy.
The bubbles began to clear. Their own ship lurched to one side and Franklin felt himself shiver. He began to concentrate, thinking of a way to force his powers to take them back home where it was safe and warm, and where the only water around was what came out of the faucet.
“I believe you have some explaining to do.”
Franklin and Valeria both opened their eyes and let out a sigh of relief. Floating just outside of their viewport was none other than Namor himself, the lauded Sub-Mariner. His pointed ears and elevated eye brows gave him away more than anything else.
“Mr. Namor!” HERBIE exclaimed. “We received your distress and came as soon as we were able.”
“Where is Richards?” Namor demanded. “I called for him. And where is Susan? Or Benjamin? I would even approve of Jonathon joining my cause.”
“The Fantastic Four are indisposed at the moment—”
“So they send their children instead?” Namor pressed his hands against he glass of the vehicle, his irritation threatening to spill over entirely. “I had Attuma cornered and his new allies freed him! I demand that Richards show himself immediately! These people are foreign to my realm and are typically his problem.”
“Who?” Valeria asked.
“The inscrutable Wizard and his cronies, Hydro-Man and Titannia. They arrived just in time to free Attuma when I had him by his throat! Your surface villains, for whatever reason, are working with my hated enemy!”
---- 4 ----
NEXT ISSUE: Why would the Wizard go to the trouble of rescuing Attuma, just after he was freed to Ravencroft? That’s the question our team is going to try and answer, but they need to convince Namor to let them help first!
