I
"Thor's back! Look!"
Jane looked up and the smile disappeared.
"No."
"No? But that's-"
"That's not him. That's not the Einstein-Rosenburg Bridge."
"Well . . . then . . . what is it?"
Jane inched closer to the monitor, then glanced at the window.
"I don't know. I think we should call Agent Co-"
Darcy gripped her iPod, her knuckles white.
"He's not gonna take my iPod again, are they?"
"Shut up about your iPod, Darcy."
"No, we're not going to take it, Ms. Lewis."
They turned around to face him.
"What are you doing here?"
"We both want the same thing, Ms. Foster," Coulson said. "We want to find what comes down this time." He turned slightly to call behind him. "Dr. Banner, could we get your professional opinion, please?"
Banner stepped into the room slowly, lugging two suitcases behind him. His eyes locked onto the pillar of lightning.
"Is that Thor?"
"No!"
The latecomers stared at Jane.
"No, it's . . . it's not him." She glanced at Banner. "I . . . We met Thor when he came the first time."
"Yeah, and she hit him with her car twice."
"Shut up, Darcy."
"How is this one different?"
Jane turned to her monitors.
"This one's . . . cold. It shouldn't be, but there's no heat registering, and it . . . it looks like it's actually sucking heat from the air around it." She pointed to a weather readout. "The air within a three mile radius has dropped in temperature since this began . . ."
"How long ago was that?" he asked, unpacking his equipment.
". . . Ninety seconds ago . . ."
Banner stopped.
"That's impossible."
"Obviously not; it just happened."
Darcy screamed and dropped her iPod. It didn't hit the floor.
Jane and Banner's computer screens flickered and shut off, the mice and lighter electronic objects levitating slightly.
Coulson's phone rose out of his pocket. He grabbed it without looking and flipped it open. It didn't even turn on.
Every light bulb flashed violet before the filament failed and darkness consumed the room.
Jane ran to the balcony, hit the railing and stared, her eyes unblinking.
"Every light in town's out!"
Lightning shot upwards out of the caves to the east, followed by a guttural scream that lingered, blown westward by scorching wind. The cry died out, but the lightning grew brighter, the diameter expanded and the air changed direction as the pillar of light began to suck in branches and boulders.
Coulson stepped forward.
"Dr. Banner, pack it up. We're going west."