Billy Kaplan was exhausted. He'd been pummeled pretty badly by the Eternal and Argonaut. He was lucky to have gotten away from it. He'd discovered his body healed quickly though- the bruises virtually gone and the cuts and scratches from his fight were completely healed. Billy leaned against the wall of his bunk, closing his eyes.
What was happening to him? To all of them, for that matter. They were all changing so much in so little time. It was a total shock to Billy. He didn't know any of the others before, but he thought it would be as difficult for them as it was for him. To go from one life to another that was so different...
"Billy?" said a voice at his door. He turned to see Kate Bishop standing in his doorway. She had changed her costume, wearing a purple ensemble now, with a white scarf and matching sunglasses.
"Changed the look so soon?" he asked. She laughed.
"Yeah," she said. "I mean yellow leather?" She brushed the hair back from his face with her fingers. "Look, I can tell you've been thinking a lot about stuff lately. You've got that... look. My dad would always say I'd get it whenever I'd retreat into my head." She smiled warmly. "I'm just saying... if you want to talk..."
"Thanks," Billy said with a grin. "I appreciate it."
"No problem," Binary replied with a grin. "Anyways, Willoughby and that Agent Drew want to talk to us."
"Okay," he said. "Right behind you."
Director Buckner gritted his teeth in pain. The mole had shot him in the shoulder. He was bleeding out quickly. Buckner had been a better shot than she was though- she was being carried out of his office in a body bag, while Buckner was assisted out by a duo if agents.
The facility had adequate medical facilities to repair the damage, and he insisted he wasn't going to a hospital. The Project needed him badly right now.
And as if the day couldn't get any worse, he had to ferret out more than one mole now.
"Damn," Buckner muttered as he was laid down on the physician's table. It really was getting worse.
"So, we have a plan," Jessica Drew said to the assembled A-Next team. She was dressed in her old red and yellow costume from her hero days, her mask hanging over her shoulders. It was a strange feeling to Jessica to be back in spandex. "We're after the mole in the Project, so we're going to move the entire group into one area. Then, we're only going to allow the location of one of the kids be leaked to each member of the Project. Then we stakeout. The A-Next'er that our 'mysterious bad guy' goes after reveals our possible moles. From there, we question each one of them."
Scorpion leaned back in her chair, grinning beneath her mask. "Good plan," she said. "And your role?"
Spider-Woman smirked. "I'm your trainer. You screw up, I chew your ass."
"Sounds good," Hulkling said, chuckling.
Baron Strucker woke up in a strange room. It was completely bare, the walls, floor and ceiling all a uniform white. Strucker sneered as he looked around. Several cameras were hidden in the seams of the walls, and vents ran the length of the seam between the walls and the ceiling. He recognized the design. He was in an AIM designed gas chamber.
"Planning my execution?" Strucker asked out loud. "Going to show the whole world?"
"Actually yes." A hologram of his captor shimmered into existence. Strucker glared at the man, an old rival of days long gone.
"Gassing me to death?" he asked. "Do you want to release the Death Spore across the face of the planet?"
"Actually, you're not on Earth anymore Strucker," said the hologram, "and it won't be gas that kills you. You're on the moon. The vents are to release the oxygen from the chamber into the vacuum of space. After that, you'll have about thirty seconds before it sucks you inside out." The image smiled. "Ingenious, no?"
"Just do it then!" Strucker exclaimed. "Show the world that you still have a pair of testicles and kill me!"
"Oh, I will. When I'm ready."
"We have incoming!" Redwing exclaimed for the fourth time that evening. The team's flier was highest above the stretch of several blocks where the other A-Next subjects had been "relocated." Scorpion was getting sick of the African-American youth crying wolf.
"Will you lay off for ten minutes and relax?" she growled into the radio. "It's a pizza delivery guy headed to one of the houses that we're not monitoring!" Carmilla looked up at him from her perch in a large fir tree. "I appreciate the alertness, but the bad guys are not going to show up in a busted-ass Honda."
"Cut the chatter," Spider-Woman cut in. "We don't know if radio communication is being monitored."
"Nothing to worry about boss-lady," said Mockingbird's voice. "I added a degree of encryption to our comms that make that a moot point. If someone catches our signal- if- then all they'll hear is a couple of eleven-year olds goofing around with some military surplus radios." Scorpion was impressed. Despite the almost bragging tone Mockingbird took, it was impressive. Khanata- her former SHIELD handler- had briefed her on the skills of the different A-Next members before she joined them in Manchester the previous day. She didn't dream than Mockingbird was that good with electronics though.
"I've got something," Thunderstrike said. "Vehicle that matches the descriptions from other kidnappings. There's something off about this thing."
"Where are you?" Jessica asked.
"I'm looking at house number six," he said. "They're getting out, and they look armed. I'm going after them, back me up!" There was a burst of wind through the neighborhood as Billy was lifted into the sky. Lightning began to crackle around his body. The different members of the team began to rush to convene on Thunderstrike's location, but each paused as thunder echoed distantly in the background.
"And the thunder rolled," Billy declared. Just as the team of men in dark clothes reached the door, a lightning bolt ripped the sky in two and struck one of the men. He collapsed to the ground unconscious. The other four men covered their ears and grimaced in pain. Billy landed on the sidewalk, the wind blowing his cloak around him.
"Stand down!" he declared, his eyes filled with lightning and electricity virtually pouring off his body. He held his staff horizontally in one hand behind his body. "NOW!"
"Screw you!" One of the men rushed him. Billy swung his staff out from behind him and swung it at his opponent. He hit the man in his left side, discharging a jolt of electricity into his body. He dropped, convulsing slightly. The remaining three began to scatter, but Billy was much quicker than the trio. He jumped into the air, kicked one in the face, and swung his staff, sweeping the second's legs from beneath him. The third was halfway across the yard, but it was no use. A bolt of lighting struck him as well, knocking him to his knees. He began gasping for air as Hulkling appeared in front of him.
"Hurts, don't it?" he asked. He then thumped his fist atop the man's head, knocking him unconscious.
Buckner closed his eyes, this time relaxing. The doctors had given him pain killers several minutes ago. The pain was gradually going away.
"Sir?" Bucker looked up to see one of his agents standing in the doorway.
"Yes?" he asked.
"Turn on the TV." He looked nervous. Like something big was happening.
"What channel?" he asked groggily, reaching over to the remote at his bedside.
"Any of them sir," he said. "It's on all of them." Buckner pressed the on/off button on the remote, then set it down and scratched the IV that was slowly dripping anti-biotic into his body.
The screen was filled by the familiar skeletal face of one of the world's best known terrorists.
The Red Skull. Behind him stood the kidnapped A-Next kids, his muscle man Crossbones and several other flunkies.
"...to show my intentions for the planet, I have kidnapped one of the world's most wanted terrorists, Baron Wolfgang von Strucker, leader of Hydra." The view changed from the Skull to one of Strucker in a small featureless room. From the look on his face, he was hearing Red Skull's announcement also.
"This is a containment room on the moon," the Skull's voice continued. "The good Baron's body is full of a nasty virus called the Death Spore that made this method of execution necessary. In about ten seconds, vents will open, releasing all of his precious air into the vacuum of space. From that point..." The image of Strucker shrunk, revealing the Skull again, smiling maniacally.
"He has thirty seconds of life to make peace with his god. Oh, there goes the atmosphere." The image of Strucker filled the screen again. It seemed like wind rushed past him, ruffling his clothes. Then he clenched his eyes shut tight, and obviously held his breath. It was no use. His skin began to bulge and large gashes split open across his face. Strucker turned, opened his eyes, looked at the camera, and then exploded, splattering blood all over the small room.
Without changing the image, Red Skull's voice began again. "Quite simply ladies and gentlemen- I'm taking over the world."
Jessica Drew sat on the bunk of the quarters she'd been assigned. The Skull's announcement was very bad. She suddenly wished that she didn't accept Nick Fury's offer to join SHIELD. That she had stayed in California, doing the private investigator thing.
"Spider-Woman?" came a voice from her doorway. She looked up to see Agent Willoughby standing there, a manila envelope in hand.
"No one's called me that in years," Jessica said. grinning slightly. "Guess I need to get used to it again."
"Guess so," Willoughby chuckled. He tossed her the envelope. "Intelligence is working on the Skull's location. Until then, this is your team's base." Jessica opened the envelope to see pictures of the small compound. "Until we've found him or he makes another move, we want you to work with the team, train them, hell, do superhero stuff." Jordan grinned. "Make them heroes. We're going to need them to save the world."
"Jordan, what about the mole?" she asked. Willoughby raised his hand to his face and rubbed his palm over the developing five o'clock shadow.
"We're going to get them," he assured. "We're going to get them hard."
John Buckner had been asleep for several hours now. The docs had given him enough painkillers to last him for some time. They'd also assured him that they'd contact his wife. She would most likely come visit in the morning, barring proper security clearance to even get into the building.
Buckner was so far gone that the normally shallow sleeper didn't hear his guest enter the room. Had he not been on the pain killers, he might have heard the man cross the room to his bedside. That was not the case.
"Look at how far you've come John," the man said. "It's been a long time since I've seen you and you've shaped right up. Don't need anyone to help you direct A-Next any more, do you?" The man left Buckner's side and took several steps over to the small drawer full of supplies. He opened several drawers, and then found the small package he was looking for. He picked up the syringe, unwrapped it as he walked back to Buckner's bedside, and set it down on a tray next to the bed.
He pulled a small vial of clear liquid from his jacket pocket, and picked the syringe back up. He removed the cap over the needle and poked it through the foil lid of the bottle. He drew the plunger of the syringe back, filling it with the liquid. He set the bottle on the tray, took Buckner's hand that the medics had started the IV in and poked the needle into the spare IV jack.
"Simple cyanide John," the man said. "That's all this is. But it's enough to kill you. This little exercise teaches me that when I want it done the way I'd do it-" He pushed the plunger in, injecting the cyanide into Buckner's bloodstream "-I need to make sure I do it myself." He pulled the needle from the IV, stepped over to the room's sharps container, dropped the needle in, and walked to the door of the room.
"Good night John."
The man opened the door, stepped into the hallway, looked back at the soon-to-be deceased director of A-Next and smiled. He shut the door and walked away.
No one discovered Director John Buckner's corpse until the next morning.
In Project A-Next #5: Whoa! It's not over yet people! In our next issue, A-Next gets a new director, Willoughby hunts down the mole and Director Buckner's murderer and the military asks the DoD to send A-Next after one of the deadliest young men in the nation- only he doesn't know it. He's the son of one of the Avengers' greatest foes, and you're not going to guess who until the last sentence! Be here next time for the beginning of "My Name is Michael."
Also next month- Project A-Next Annual 2006: She's thought that her origin is the same as her peers. She's assumed that the Department of Defense altered her and conditioned her just like the others. Bobbi Wheaton was wrong. Be here as A-Next's Mockingbird discovers her true origin, which ties her directly into a major Marvel character!