Power Trip
By Moonraker One
CHAPTER ONE
Gunfire rang out as dozens of agents practiced their skills. Test droids flew back and forth as bullets hit targets and officers checked scores. An elderly woman walked past the range with her ears plugged. Clumsily she balanced her briefcase in hand while blocking her hearing. Once out of range she walked into one of her colleague's offices. The decades-younger scientist smiled as she handed him her hard drive.
"It's got the latest information on it," she said.
"So, Liz, how's the Sentry formula going?" he asked.
Her frown gave him a disappointed look. "You know, Jake, how it's going," she said. "I can't figure out the exact nature of the formula amplification. The energy won't hold. It denatures the viral delivery mechanism."
He looked at her data. She found it amusing to read his expressions. The diagram, showing how the Super Soldier Serum was supposed to be exposed to other-worldly energies, and be amplified, displayed right next to the results, which showed the serum destroyed moments after exposure. "So, how many exposures have you tried?"
She sighed. "Every possible one that Project K would've had access to way back in the nineteen-fifties and sixties," she admitted. "We've also fudged the data a bit, tried hundreds of other sources, desperately trying to figure out how to re-create The Sentry." She shook her head. "Nothing."
He scratched his head. "Ah, well, you'll figure it out. You figured out the Hulk, right?"
She smiled. "Yeah, you're right, I guess I did," she bragged. "Oh, by the way, how's the consciousness upload going?"
He winked. "I thought you'd never ask." He reached over his computer and produced a silver orb. "I figured out how to make our already unbeatable army even more unbeatable. A soldier keeps this on them at all times, and it's made out of indestructible adamantium nanites. When they die, it sends a signal back to our energy displacement, which basically downloads their consciousness through time."
"Hmm, so they start the battle over," she said. "Wow! It's like that movie that came out when I was just a girl."
"Right," he said. "And an army that can control time can't be beaten."
She took the orb in her hands. "This is great, Jake, I'm sure you'll be up for a promotion when you present this to the higher-ups. You might even make Hydra-A.I.M. Chief of Cybernetics!"
He slapped her on the arm. "Oh, you kid." He leaned back in his chair. "I was planning on giving you my second working model. Consider that a gift. Send yourself back some sports records, win some money."
She shot him a look. "I would, if gambling weren't illegal. See you around, Jake."
He waved as she left. "Bye, Liz."
She walked down the hall to the office reading 'Dr. Elizabeth Linde, Superpower Biology' and set down her bag. An officer was waiting for her. "Doctor Linde," he said, "is your progress report ready?"
She sat down in her leather chair and handed him a thick manila folder. "Aren't your paranoid higher-ups a bit too nervous?" she asked. "When was the last time anyone opposed Hydra-A.I.M.?"
He looked over the summary. "Doctor, you realize that the world is only under our grip because we stay on top of the superpowered totem."
She rested her hands behind her head. "Tell your boss that I'm three weeks from cracking The Sentry," she replied, "and then you'll have your invincible army upgraded to super-duper invincible."
"Ma'am, I don't believe you understand…"
She cut him off. "No, son, I don't believe you understand," she countered. "I am the single most important figure this organization has in the field of reverse-engineering superpowers and biological abilities. If it wasn't for me, your organization would never have an army of Hulks, the science of Doctors Reed Richards, Henry Pym, and Anthony Stark might have been lost forever. I'm the reason this organization is holding onto the world. You go tell your boss that if they don't like how slow this process is, or if they just feel like shooting their organization in the fucking head, they can come down to my office, revoke my security clearance, and put me in a fucking body bag."
"Doctor," he tried.
"No!" She stood up and poked him in the symbol on his bodysuit uniform. "You fucking listen! When I crack The Sentry, they'll fucking know! Now quit pestering me, get me access to the Cosmic Cube and the energy displacement chamber, or shoot me now and fucking solve this problem!"
He stepped back and nodded, his helmet almost falling off. "Y…Yes, Doctor Linde," he stammered, quickly taking the folder and leaving.
She let out a breath as she sat down. "Geez," she said out loud. She looked at her gut and sagging breasts. "Sixty-two," she whispered. "Can't take much more of this."
To think, she thought, that forty-five years ago, I was a seventeen-year old high schooler desperate to get a job in bioengineering. Who'd have thought aliens, monsters, and gods would be my day job. She typed away on the computer, trying to cross-reference three separate experiments conducted a week prior. She compared earlier results with current, for about fifteen minutes doing math, until her phone rang. "Hello?" She said, rolling her eyes.
"Doctor," The Chief of Science said, "I heard you are three weeks away from being able to replicate the formula that made The Sentry."
"Sir," she said. "I'm not sure you…"
"Elizabeth," he interrupted, "that's three weeks that we are more open to attack."
"Christ, sir, you guys beat the Avengers! You beat the X-Men! You fucking beat everyone!"
"That's not the point, Doctor," he countered. "Rebels will always be rebels. The council is listening. Give us something and we can make your job easier. Don't…and, well, we won't kill you, yet, but we can make your life more miserable."
She wiped her brow. "The viral delivery of the Serum is damaged beyond usefulness when we expose it to energy," she explained. "I've had my team and myself laboriously pour over every single type of energy they'd have had access to and a few they couldn't have, and not a single one spares the proteins from denaturing."
"English, please," she heard a high-ranking man say.
"Put him on," she said. The phone rustled a bit. "Sir, the Super Soldier Serum is a virus designed to deliver a series of protein instructions that eventually infect every cell in a target's body. Once the body is one hundred percent infected, the instructions are activated by energy of some kind. The typical result is a substantial enhancement of the target's physical functions," she explained. "This is how Captain America, and the Hulk, AND the Sentry, were all created. Variations of this one formula."
"Really?" he said.
"I didn't know that," a slightly younger voice remarked.
"Steve Rogers' case was Vita-Rays, Bruce Banner's case was gamma particles, and here's where we hit a brick wall," she continued. "Every single other type of energy destroys the serum in the host's body. I can't think of any other energy source that might work, and I know I won't be given access to it."
"You can't mean," the Chief Scientist said, "that you want access to the Cosmic Cube?"
A loud cacophony of voices resounded in the background. "God damn it!" she yelled, and the voices stopped. "I've tried everything else! The last thing I can think of is the Cube. If the fucking Cube doesn't work, we'll have to go all the way back to formula."
The phone went silent, and she came off of hold a moment later. "The council says we're willing to compromise," he explained. "We'll beam exactly one pulse of Cosmic Cube energy into the energy displacement chamber for your experiment."
She nodded. "Good, thank you, I appreciate it."
"Remember!" he reminded. "You're only authorized one pulse!"
She hung up. If my calculations about the Cube are right, she thought, one pulse is more than enough, you fuckers.
She put her gift of the orb, a flash drive, and a series of papers in her briefcase. In a secure metal modified lunchbox, she put two vials of Super Soldier Serum she had custom made, and a vial of battery liquid. She exited her office. As she went into the secure hallway, her retinas, fingerprints, blood, hair, and body temperature were all scanned. Two armed guards, both of which had Hulk serum, escorted her past a series of plasma turrets to the Energy Modification and Displacement Chamber. The reinforced door slid open as she presented her security clearance. She knew even she, with her high clearance, would not be alone in the chamber.
"Well boys," she said, slapping both guards on the arm. "You big strong lads keep me safe if the room explodes."
The guard to her left smiled and looked down two and a half feet at her. "I think we'll be safe," he said. "You're looking good for your age, ma'am."
"I'll have you know," she said, "when I was younger, a lot of girls picked on me for my figure. It's just a shame time happened."
He smiled. "I don't doubt it, ma'am."
The massive door slid open and the giant mass of equipment sat in the front of the huge room. From the right side, above a row of terminals, a pane of bulletproof glass saw a second room of terminals and people watching. She picked up the terminal phone. "I'm placing the fluid in the pulse chamber now," she said, "I'll give the command when to send the pulse." She placed a flash drive in the main terminal's USB port.
Opening her briefcase, she placed the three vials in the center chamber. Closing the safety shield over the liquid. A display to her left showed a microscopic view of the vials and the virus inside the vials. She sat on a console and held her breath a moment as her heart raced. After the longest moment ever, she lifted the phone to her ear. "Council, send the pulse now."
The lights of the entire building dimmed and then got blindingly bright a moment as the other-worldly energy pulsed through the reinforced wiring of the building and slammed at light speed into the vials in the chamber. Her initial fear passed as the vials did not explode, and the display showed the liquid glowing a bright yellow. She zoomed in on the display, and the energy levels climbed without bound for several seconds, and the very DNA of the Serum twisted and shifted under the immense power. As the amplification rating went up, first thousands, then tens of thousands of times, it eventually hit a ceiling and plateaued at a maximum.
"Yes!" she threw her hands up. "It fucking worked!" The DNA held intact.
"Doc!" The first guard yelled. "You did it!"
She looked down at the orb in her briefcase, just as the second guard noticed it. "Hey," he said, "what's that?"
She shook her head. "Sorry, boys, but this is as far as we go," she said. She hit the enter key.
All at once, a siren went off. The chamber they were in sealed itself off from the building on all sides. Vibranium walls blocked the doors. The guards went to attack, but found themselves paralyzed, as they fell to the ground. "What the fuck's happening?"
She picked up the orb. She held the orb to her temple. "Thank you, Jake, even if you did already invent this before and I wiped your memory," she said. As she held the orb up, it glowed, and her entire mind's contents, her thoughts, memories, and feelings, were all poured into the orb. She opened the safety chamber and pulled out the two vials of Serum. The third, the battery liquid, was starting to melt the metal vial it was in. She set it in a device on the side of the pulse device. "You need a lot of power to open a time portal," she said to the guards, "and I figured you could duplicate a Cube's power in common battery liquid. Turns out I was right."
"The fuck are you telling us for?" A guard asked.
"I'm not," she replied, "I'm telling the council who are listening. This chamber's in war mode, no communication comes in. No interference with what I'm doing. You hear me, fuckers? I've waited for this day for the last thirty fucking years! Fuck you!" She typed on the keyboard, and the energy passed from the battery liquid into the machine, which shot out of a laser sight and coalesced at a pinpoint three feet off the ground in front of her. The point opened into a portal, just two feet wide. She saw a familiar desk, cluttered with pens, school books, and various comics. She reached through the portal and set a single vial along with the orb on the desk. A few seconds later, the portal closed.
A voice came over the intercom, indicating someone outside was about to break into the chamber. "Elizabeth, why? Why only send one vial back?"
"We're all about to die, and that's the question you ask?" She watched as the vial of battery liquid partially melted from the heat of the Cosmic Cube energy. She took the second vial. "This isn't Serum, this is a reactive explosive. Should set off the Cube energy."
She set the vial in the hot battery liquid. The pounding on the door stopped.
"No! Elizabeth! Let's talk this over!"
She leaned back and closed her eyes. "Remember, me of the past," she thought out loud, "Remember to make a better world."
An instant later, a brilliant flash erupted.
A teenage girl sleeping sound awoke with a start. She looked around as she thrust the covers off. The lights were still off, everything seemed safe. She flicked the lamp switch and the room revealed itself as unaffected as ever. She breathed in and out. "Wow," she whispered. "Last time I watch horror movies before bed." The clock read three in the morning. She reached to turn out the light when she saw something not there before. "The fuck?" She approached the desk and picked up the silver orb in confusion.
A few moments later, she came to, on the floor. Seventeen year old Elizabeth Linde had become one with her sixty-two year old self. So that's how that works, she thought. She stood up and shook her head. She laughed. Oh god, I almost forgot about prom with Alan Hanner, Holy shit, has it been that long? Was he THAT unattractive? She looked at her desk. Man, being a senior citizen really fucked with my thought process. She coughed and adjusted to the fact that she had the wisdom of her older self. The vial reminded her of more pressing business to attend to. She remembered why older Liz picked this day; because she awoke from a nightmare, her parents were gone, and she had the car to herself and was planning on seeing a friend to buy some weed. She shoved the vial into her pocket as she put on her jeans, bra, and shirt. Oh yeah, she recalled, putting on her bra. Those are the boobs that caused Melanie and her friends to stop liking you. She put her jacket on and grabbed the keys from downstairs.
Driving for an hour and a half away from the city, she came across the woods her friends often hiked in when they were twelve, and she laced her boots, set her wallet and phone in the car, and raced through the woods. She had to take the serum far away from civilization, because of the risk of energy release. After thirty minutes of hiking, she felt she was far enough away. Sitting by a tree, she took the vial out. Popping the cap off, the yellow liquid still glowed almost blindingly. GOD, I fucking hope this works, she thought, praying her decades of work weren't in vain. She downed the liquid in a single gulp.
Every atom in her body felt enflamed, parts of her she didn't imagine hurting seemed ripped by razors and torched. The feeling came and went like a bullet, passing through her in less than a second, as a flash of light erupted and when she came to, dozens of acres of forest around her had been flattened. She noticed her clothes had been torn, not by the eruption, but by her expanding body. She'd gained almost a half a foot in height, her legs and arms had thick muscle, and looking down, she saw another unfortunate surprise. Geez, even my boobs managed to get bigger, she thought. She saw her car off in the distance, and took off running. Literally an instant later, she arrived. With very little sense of movement, she had to avoid ramming into it. The use of her new powers was not going to be easy, she figured. She opened her car and sat down. Making sure her belongings were there, she went to start the car, and made a realization. The S.H.I.E.L.D. response time would not give her time to drive away. She would have to use her new powers to escape in time. Kneeling down, she put her hands on the undercarriage and lifted. Fortunately, the strength part came easy. She ran as fast as she could, carefully focusing. The immense speed didn't come easy, but by focusing, she could process the information at an equal pace. Less than a second later, she arrived home. She set the car in the driveway, gathered her things, and went inside.
She took off her ripped clothes and shook her head. That was the easy part, she knew. Now came the hard part; changing history. She found with focus, she could turn back into her non-powered normal form. She collapsed into slumber on her bed.
The next day, at school, she breezed through her first few periods, having known more than what was being taught, and when it came time for gym class, she recognized a very important figure. A bookworm by the name of Peter Parker stood near the door, eagerly waiting for class to end. She stood next to him and he noticed her presence with a start.
"Oh, uh, you surprised me!" he said, laughing off his error. "Uh, can I help you?"
She smiled. "Peter, you don't remember me," she explained. "We haven't been in any classes together."
He looked at her awkwardly. "No, uh, Elizabeth Linde, right? If I recall, we had this thing where Melanie Grant and Liz Allan dumped soda on you as a prank, and I helped you," he remembered.
She smiled. "I'm surprised you remember," she said. "But forget things teenage girls do to piss off one another. We have very important business to discuss. Meet me on the roof in ten minutes, Spiderman." She saw his mouth twitch, and he attempted to hide his flinch, but she caught him. "And make sure you're alone. You'd better be there."
She waited on the roof in the corner by the street so the noise would hide their conversation. She waited, and sure enough, Spiderman, in costume, arrived on the roof.
"Miss Linde," he said, "you ought not to pick on Peter Parker…"
She folded her arms. "Seriously, Peter," she admonished, "drop the act. Peter Benjamin Parker, born to CIA parents Richard and Mary Parker, you were raised by your Uncle Ben and Aunt May. On a field trip to OsCorp, you were bitten by a genetically-altered irradiated spider and you gained superpowers."
"Miss Linde," he said.
"You fought against the Green Goblin, resulting in the death of your girlfriend Gwen Stacy. That was when you were fifteen. Now here we are, both seventeen, and you're full-time as Spiderman. Correct me if I have anything mistaken." An awkward, minute long pause followed. "I'm right, aren't I?"
He sat down, sighed, and removed his mask. "Alright, Elizabeth, what do you want? I've never been blackmailed like this before, get it over with! What do you want?"
"Get me a date with S.H.I.E.L.D.," she said. "I have very important information."
He shook his head. "You want me to what? What makes you think I have that kind of connection?"
"You have connections to Director Nick Fury through a liaison named Phil Coulson," she pointed out. She noticed his sheepishness. "Correct me if I'm wrong." He shook his head in silence. "Tell them Elizabeth Linde needs to share vital information with them in regards to Hydra and A.I.M. and her parents need to be kept out of knowing this because they work for them and would possibly inform their higher-ups."
Peter stared at her wide-eyed. "Your parents work for Hydra? Like the guys Captain America beat up seventy years ago?"
"That's why I need secrecy," she said.
"Wait a minute, how do you know all this? How is this possible?"
"Forget that a moment," she replied. "I promise never to divulge your secret. Do you swear to help me?"
He put his mask back on. "Yes, Elizabeth, I swear. I'll get you a meeting with S.H.I.E.L.D. pronto."
She smiled and shook his hand. "Thank you."
The rest of her school day progressed rather nervously, as she recited in her head all the important information to say and how to say it. She got on the school bus and when she got home, she noticed her parents' cars were still gone, and she opened the door very slowly.
A man in a suit and sunglasses sat on her armchair with a gun in his hand. "Well, miss Linde, you certainly got our attention," he said. "I normally wouldn't be one to give an ear to any random person who asks to speak to us, but if you know everything about Spiderman, one of our important operatives, you must know something. Talk."
She set her bag down. "Well, Agent Coulson," she began, "why don't we move this conversation away from my house. I know you probably already dealt with any listening devices my parents put in, but I'd feel more comfortable in a setting away from this place."
Several operatives closed in. "As you wish," Phil Coulson said. A dart hit her in the back of the neck.
When she awoke, she was sitting in a chair, bound, and the room had not just Phil Coulson, but Nick Fury as well as Spiderman, Captain America, and Iron Man. "You don't kid around," she said.
"Miss Linde," Nick Fury began, "you have my attention because you mentioned something about your parents working for both Hydra and A.I.M.?"
"Mr. Fury," she said, "I may look like a teenage girl, but I'm no attention whore. The information I bring to you comes from the future, courtesy of myself."
He raised his eyebrows. "It thickens! You sent yourself information back from the future? Really? Enlighten me."
"You ought to sit down," she said. She waited. He sat down. "Alright, there's no easy way to say this. Eight years from now, A.I.M. and Hydra merge into one organization to better assist their goal of conquest. My parents, experts in the fields of biology, eventually develop for them a partially-completed Hulk serum. It doesn't have time to be finished before you guys assassinate my parents to prevent the bad guys from making an army of Hulks. The organization threatens to kill my entire family and all my friends if I don't finish my parents' work. I do, and then they kill my friends and family anyway. They say it's to make an example."
She looks around and sees Captain America and Iron Man looking nervously at each other. "Gets worse, I assure you. This serum is able to make a massive army of people who have all the benefits of a Hulk, while keeping their intelligence and full emotional control at all times. In a single massive battle, all the superheroes, all the militaries of the world, all the nations, everyone opposing Hydra-A.I.M. fall. I sent myself my downloaded mind from forty-five years in the future. The bad guys have ruled the world unopposed ever since."
Nick Fury exchanged a look with Phil Coulson. "Well, that's…different," he said. A few sharp, ragged breaths later, and he collected his thoughts. "Ok, let me say for a moment I believe you. Give me something tangible to look at. Give me proof."
She sighed. "Do you remember Robert Reynolds?"
Coulson looked at her oddly. "You mean The Sentry? He killed himself years ago to prevent The Void from returning."
"At the time I blew up half the United States to send myself my memories, Hydra-A.I.M. was working on a Sentry serum. Meaning, I was working on a Sentry serum."
She grit her teeth and focused. A moment later, her black hair glowed along with her eyes, and her body gained a significant amount of mass. As her muscles filled the loose-fitting jumpsuit they'd fitted her in, the bands on her chair broke.
"Director Fury, I'm the Sentry, and I'm reporting for S.H.I.E.L.D. training."
After a moment of awkward silence, Tony Stark spoke up. "Uh, how's that for something tangible to look at?"