Chapter Three - Invisibles

Four Years Ago

Every day, or so it seems, Reed's doing tests on Sue, constantly monitoring her in an attempt to understand her powers, reverse them, just as he used to do all those years ago, just as unsuccessfully, with Ben. But despite all this monitoring Reed Richards isn't expecting what happens today. In fact, he never even sees it coming - that's the problem with invisibility.

It was supposed to be a holiday for Matt Murdock, but it's never a holiday for Daredevil. Alicia stays at home, playing with Jack, while Matt's fighting for his life on a Manhattan rooftop.

While Jack plays with some clay figures at the table, Daredevil crouches on the ground, tastes the blood in his mouth, and prepares himself for his opponent's next punch. With practiced ease, he dodges the blow and kicks out at the assassin, hitting him right in the center of the target he wears on his chest.

And then it happens.

Suddenly Jack starts screaming, and drops the clay figure he's holding. Alicia grabs hold of him, but that makes him worse.

Meanwhile, high above the city, Daredevil hears Bullseye's slow, steady heartbeat suddenly start to race, as the assassin, propelled by Daredevil's kick, rolls towards the roof's edge. Fortunately there's a fire escape on the edge of the roof that Bullseye will be able to grab hold of … but he doesn't.

Daredevil, who's already gotten up from his crouching position, races towards the edge of the roof and, with the line in his billy-club safely attached to the fire escape, he launches himself downwards towards the plummeting Bullseye.

Pulling level he reaches out to Bullseye.

"Grab my hand," he shouts, but the sound of his voice is drowned out by a cacophony of noise from down below, and Bullseye just ignores him.

And then the line that Daredevil's attached to reaches its limit and he's brought to a rapid halt, almost dislocating his shoulder. He hangs there helplessly as the sounds from down below buffet him, drowning out his radar sense. He hears people screaming, dogs barking, cars crashing, and somewhere, mixed in with all the sounds, is the sound of Bullseye landing on the sidewalk and the sound of Bullseye's heart stopping.

Daredevil wants to go down and investigate but it would be fruitless - with all that noise he wouldn't be able to see anything. Instead, he makes his way back up the rope, back to the quiet of the rooftops, and sets off back home.

As Spider-Man swings through the sky, the city disappears from around him. Suddenly he's in a wide-open landscape – he must have been teleported there somehow. Suddenly his spider-sense is tingling and he puts his arm out just in time to absorb some of the impact as he smashes against what must be some kind of force-field. But it's not smooth like a force field ... it feels more like a wall, and then he looks at his arm and sees it's not there. Suddenly he realizes what's happened.

New York's become invisible.

Far beneath New York, the Mole Man has been slowly wandering his subterranean tunnels. Suddenly he can see the sky and the bright light of the surface world. He closes his eyes to block out the light but his invisible eyelids make no difference. He raises his invisible arm – no difference again. And then the light has done its work – he's now completely blind. He shrugs and continues his way along the tunnels he knows so well.

Kurt Wagner tries desperately to shut down the Danger Room, via the control panel he cannot see, and tries, in vain, to ignore the screams coming over the speakers.

Kitty Pryde, on the other hand, can hear the screams first-hand. She uses the screams to wander between her team-mates, trying to reassure them, give them hope - her face tells a different story, but fortunately they can't see it. She wants to hold them, comfort them but she can't risk becoming solid again until the things around her become visible again … if they become visible again.

Foggy Nelson is walking along the sidewalk when invisibility strikes. He carries on walking a few steps, in a state of denial, and then comes to a stop, looking down at the sidewalk that has seemingly disappeared, revealing a vast drop beneath him. As he continues to look down at the seeming precipice below, he expects to plummet to his death at any second. Of course he doesn't, but that doesn't stop the vertigo setting in, and as he stands there on the sidewalk, sweating amidst the noise of chaos, being bustled by an unseen crowd, he keeps telling himself one thing:

Don't look down.

Sue Storm lies slumped against the wall. A sphere of invisibility radiates out from her, miles in every direction, and no matter how hard she tries it won't go away. Meanwhile, Reed, distracted from his long-distance chess match with Doom, is formulating another plan. His initial plan to place Sue in The Negative Zone proved unworkable due to the invisibility interfering with the fibre optics of the gateway controls. His gloved hands search for the telephone.

Meanwhile, in Latveria, Victor Von Doom has already formulated a plan to turn the invisibility to his advantage.

By the time Matt Murdock arrives home, Jack's gotten used to the invisibility. Having got bored of lying on the floor and pretending he's flying, he's returned to playing with the clay, stretching it between his fingers.

"What's going on?" Matt asks, as he hears a pigeon smashing against the window.

"It's Sue. She's making everything invisible. Reed's just been on the phone. He wants you to get over there."

"Don't worry, Sue. Daredevil's on his way over. He'll be able to fly you out of here in the Fantasti-Car … take you somewhere remote."

Sue doesn't answer. She knows that this is all her fault, and can only begin to guess at what the final death toll will be. And then, far away on the horizon, she spots a mass of green specks coming swiftly towards them. By the time she realizes they're doombots, they've entered her invisible sphere and can no longer be seen.

Suddenly the window smashes and she feels metallic arms scoop her up. Before she has time to react, she feels herself being flown high into the sky. As she looks down at the ground below her, which seems to re-fill as it becomes visible again, she feels something being placed over her face. An oxygen mask.

After a long journey, Sue finds herself trapped, albeit in luxury surroundings (well, they feel luxurious, the sphere of invisibility she still radiates prevents her seeing them).

With tears in her eyes, she listens to the news reports, on a radio that's been provided, as they describe in chilling detail the havoc in New York that her invisibility caused. They also provide details of the recovery process, aided immeasurably by the numerous doombots that have arrived.

Finally, the door opens, and Doom makes his entrance.

"Susan? Why are you crying?"

"Haven't you heard? Thousands of people are dead because of me. They're calling me a monster."

"And they're calling me a hero ... what do they know? The thing you must remember Susan is that none of this is your fault."

"So, whose fault is it?" asks Susan, knowing full what Doom's reply's going to be.

"I suppose you expect me to say Reed, don't you?"

"No," she lies. After all, it wasn't long ago that Sue herself was blaming Reed for what had happened to Ben and Johnny ... and Franklin. She suspects that Reed still blames himself even now.

"It's nobody fault, Sue. It was just an accident. You can't let an accident scar you for life."

Sue bites her tongue as Doom continues.

"Anyway, you're probably wondering why I brought you here so abruptly. Basically, I could see two flaws in Reed's plan."

"He was going to get Daredevil to take me somewhere remote ... give me a chance to learn to control my powers. What was wrong with that?" Sue asks, her tears giving way to confusion.

"Somewhere unpopulated? Miles from anywhere?"

"Of course," Sue replies, unsure of where Doom's going with his argument.

"You don't realize how dangerous you are Sue. What if your powers increase? Today New York, tomorrow the world? Wherever you went into hiding, you can bet the government would be doing gamma bomb testing there within the week. After all, they can always say they never saw you."

"So why won't they do that here?"

"And kill off the people of Latveria? They'd never risk the public outcry."

"I'm in Latveria?" gasps a startled Sue.

"Don't worry. I've made sure everybody here's happy with the arrangement. Now, if you'll excuse me, I've got important business to attend to."

Sue hears Doom turn and start towards the door.

"Wait, what was the second flaw?"

"I thought that was obvious, Susan. If your powers do increase to a world-threatening degree, Reed would never be willing to kill you. Goodnight, Susan. Sweet dreams."