Genosha.
Hammer Bay.
"And I thought Stephen was solely skilled in astral projection. Do wonders never cease, von Doom?"
"Fewer skilled at visible manifestation. Making myself visible to you and not just a voice in your head requires more concentration than Strange requires to dress himself. He fears such exertion."
Slouched in his throne on a dais three feet higher than the rest of the room, the Master of Magnetism frowns.
Under the faceplate half a world away, projected by use of magic and willpower, Doom scowls.
"Am I to assume it is in your nature to be this ostentatious?" Magneto's voice is calm as he steeples his fingers.
"No."
"Then what are you doing here, Victor?"
"I have come to ask your opinion."
Magneto leans forward in his throne. "How unexpected."
"I suspect," Doom says. His astral form clasps its hands behind its back and begins pacing. "That you and I share similar ideals on, shall we say, humanity's highest good. We are kings, Magnus."
"You can stop there," Magneto says. He rises from the throne and steps down the dais to an even level with Doom. "I have seen the video feeds."
Doom allows himself slight discomfort at the thought of not having discovered Magneto's spies. "How did you go unnoticed?"
"We have our secrets, Victor. Get to your point."
Doom speaks without trepidation. "If your methods of surveilling Castle Doom are so fine as to evade my notice, then you know of the offer I made Namor."
"I recall some vagaries about nationalism and Singapore. Truthfully my attention was elsewhere." Magneto stares Doom in the face, and thinks about it. "You're going to do a very characteristic thing, aren't you, Victor? Destroy the Baxter Building like you do every six months or so? Or something more grandiose…storming Bifröst Bridge with your robots, perhaps?"
"Mutant," Doom says flatly. "For the sake of our burgeoning friendship, do not try my patience. I seek to illustrate a simple point."
"Namor," Magneto says, remembering the spy video. His aged lips curl into a smile.
Doom nods once. "He has long been an impediment to my goals."
"Your goals," Magneto says. His voice is suddenly harsh. "Your goals have always been provincial, Victor. You want to destroy Richards and everything he stands for, so your glorious feudalism can overtake this world. So that you can run this pitiful mudball from on high, is that it?"
Doom's arms drop to his sides, pulling his cape close to his body.
"One could say the same for you."
"Indeed," Magneto says. "And now you're going to incite war to prove superior?"
"Yes," Doom says. "Majora."
Magneto's gaze locks on the Lord of Latveria.
"The colony?"
"Yes."
Magneto's expression hardens as he thinks through the scenario.
"What do you need from me, Victor?"
Doom folds his arms over his chest again, and allows himself an inner swelling of pride. "Your solemn league and covenant, your authority as sovereign of Genosha…in fealty to the glory that is Doom. I shall reward you handsomely for your tacit compliance in this latest gambit. On this," he concluded, "you have the word of Doom, who always keeps his promises."
New York City.
The Baxter Building.
You've been in the lab for days. Like you always are. You haven't seen our children in days. Like usual. You're up to your neck in your "work" and you can't even find time to sit down to dinner with your family. Like usual.
You can't even bother to speak to me.
"Reed."
"Mm?"
Say something, Sue. "What are you doing?"
"Well, Sue, I've been thinking."
"You need to come out of there." That damn think tank of yours.
"In a moment, darling. Hank and I are working on the newest batch of security-bots for the Majora compound."
Compound? It's not Jurassic Park, Reed.
"Honey, I'm begging you. It's been three days. If you won't come out for me—which you'd do well to—then at least come out for Ben. He's getting cranky. You know how he gets when nothing's happening."
The glass pod hisses and two halves slide open. Reed assumes his natural form in front of me. Keep smiling, honey.
"You're right." He kisses me on the forehead. "A study break never hurt."
"Thank you." He gets points for listening to me. "So what about these security robots?"
"Oh they're fascinating, Sue, absolutely fascinating. We incorporated the power cells from Tony's armor and even some propriety designs of Victor's I've come into over the years. We built them on Hank's Ultron platform but gave them a 2 operating vector, which means they'll follow orders without developing sentience."
"HAL 10,000. Is that it?" I follow him into the kitchen.
"More like HAL 8. Rampaging robots built off the original are the last thing we need, so we bumped the self-awareness latitude to just above zero. We've got to prove to Turtle Bay that Namor's ideas are worth looking at. A certain percentage of the Atlantis population is already moved into a completely sustained ecosphere, with more on the way to occupy the housing units. It really is quite revolutionary what we've done there."
Hmm. I pull a soda from the refrigerator, and pause.
"Sue?" he asks. "What is it?"
"Nothing. You just make it sound so mechanical."
"It helps me detach." I hand him the soda and kiss his forehead. "Thank you."
"I know, but there is such a thing as passion. I mean, that's what got us where we are. You and your rocket, I mean."
"I know, dear." His brow furrows. "That was a long time ago, and I don't want to get too attached to this project—or to Namor. And I think he wants the same. He asked me as a favor to build it for him, and I called Hank and Tony. At any rate the UN's only given him eight months."
"Eight months?"
"Eight months for Namor to prove to the Security Council Atlantis has a stake in world affairs. This colony of his is a stepping stone."
"What happens when eight months are up?"
Reed leans back in his seat and runs a gloved hand though graying temples.
"I guess that's up to Namor. And anyone else interested in the outcome."
The SHIELD Helicarrier.
One thousand feet over Toledo, Ohio.
The call comes through to Fury's secretary, astonishingly enough. She then patches it through to Fury's private-line communicator. He's seated at the far end of a circular table in the Helicarrier's foremost conference room. The one even the President of the United States needs a particular day-pass to enter.
Currently, Colonel Fury is deeply immersed in paperwork—the price one pays for a life leading the espionage and logistics wing of the United Nations. A lesser man might be slumped over his work, complaining about the futility. Not Fury, though. He thinks, as he signs his name to countless forms, that he's seen worse.
Paperwork doesn't exactly beat Nazis trying to kill you…
The transmitter on his belt buzzes three times.
"Yes?" he says. It's voice-commanded; he doesn't have to lift a finger. Simply speaking opens the line.
"You have a priority one alert from Madripoor, sir."
"Alright," Fury replies. "Audio."
"Colonel Fury?" The voice on the other end speaks in a slight falsetto, with feverish quickness. Worried.
"Agent Hill, what is it?"
"I'll try to keep it brief, sir, but…there's been some kind of accident."
"Accident?"
"I was aboard a sub-carrier when it occurred, just over Singapore." Even through the distortion, Agent Hill's voice is hushed. Quivering. She's afraid, Fury thinks, but not of me.
"Maria, listen," Fury says evenly. "Just tell me what happened."
"There was a missile, probably launched from the mainland, maybe Hainan, we're still working on it. Intel caught it just before it went into the ocean, and by then it was too late. A second or two later, it was like Hiroshima. I'm sending the security log to you."
"Fine," Fury says, and presses a button on his belt. A line opens on all frequencies throughout the Helicarrier. "Colonel Fury to Agent 13. Report to the situation room for an emergency briefing."
A concave screen across the room lights up with the images, and captions across the bottom.
Fury looks up from his paperwork and tents his fingers. His brow furrows at the images.
The security log is first. A shaky image, not befitting SHIELD's technological capabilities, portrays a small black wisp in the distance. Far beyond the sub-carrier's bow, almost to the limit of the horizon.
"Pause. Magnify," Fury requests of the computer. "Five and twenty."
The image zooms rapidly on the dark spot, and when it clears, shows the undeniable outline of a missile. Fury scowls, and plays the video through. The missile arcs high in the sky, clipping the bottoms of low-lying clouds. It reaches apogee almost unnoticed and then steers toward the ocean, inserting itself among the waves with silent efficiency. The camera stays on the site. When the explosion comes, it sends up water and flotsam hundreds of feet in the air. So much so that the security camera rocks in its place and winks to static only moments after the eruption.
"Colonel Fury?"
"Yes?"
"We're ahead of you on divers, sir. The images should be coming through presently."
Fury looks to the screen. The static changes to an underwater view—a camera descending through the temperate waters. Fury watches for two minutes before the image—a delayed feed—comes into view.
Ruin.
Absolute ruin.
An underwater city reduced to a pile of rubble, a shattered and lifeless and, were it not for the water, would-be flaming shell of whatever it was before. But there's something strange. A symmetry to the destruction. An order. A certain…pathology.
He relegates the cigar to one corner of his mouth and inhales deeply, allowing himself to feel the smoke.
"Maria," he says delicately. "Please say what I'm thinking."
"Majora, Colonel Fury."
Fury exhales, taking care to do so, and massages his temples. Dammit. "Who else knows about this?"
"Intel says copies of the video you're seeing were sent to three locations in Embassy Row. Wakanda, Genosha, and Atlantis."
"Perfect," Fury says, and stubs the cigar out in a nearby ashtray. "Keep me posted." Fury slides away from the table and slouches
"Where the hell is Agent 13?" Fury mutters.
"Already here, Nick."
Agent 13—Sharon, Fury reminds himself, Sharon Carter—on top of business. Dependable. With so very few exceptions, as ever. Agent Carter, standing near the door with a slight crook in her posture, with a weighty accordion file held loose under one arm.
"Good," Fury says, and directs her to sit. "That file, I assume, has to do with this?"
Carter smiles and taps her nose once. She slides the file across the desk to Fury.
"You just saw the images, and I received a streaming feed on the way here. What you're looking at, Colonel, is hard evidence that's been telling us for years that we should've seen this coming. You're looking at the collected briefs, every field report, every debriefing dossier from every sleeper we've ever sent into Latveria."
Fury glances at Carter. "Convince me."
"Well," she says and stands. She pulls a remote from a belt pocket and presses a single button. The screen, focused on the central pile of rubble, pixelates as it zooms in. Then it clears. At the top of the rubble, waving as much as underwater currents allow, planted firmly in the collected rubble and fallen arch of a passageway, a flag. "There's this."
Fury leans back in his chair and breathes deeply again. He recognizes the standard.
The flag is a green field, with an off-centered black cross and red bordering, and a geometric shape in the center of a circular black field gives a rudimentary representation of the sovereign's trademark attire.
Fury hesitates for only a moment. "Are we sure?"
Carter's face hardens. "This wasn't the Mad Thinker, I can tell you that much."
Fury stands and slowly circumvents the table. "Only reason I ask is because that footage Agent Hill sent me looks like it was taken from Ballard's thing on the Titanic. When did we start phoning it in on surveillance?"
She chuckles.
"Don't laugh! This ain't the Discovery Channel!"
Fury slides past Agent Carter. The conference room doors open for him, and he stops in the threshold, half-turning to Carter.
Fury's lips part only a centimeter. "We're gonna need all the help we can get." He steps into the corridor, looking both ways as if searching for answers, before turning back to Carter.
"Call Stark," Fury says shortly. "And Reed. They'll want in on this."
Continued...