The quinjet drops them off on just another Utah bluff. The rock formation is a ways in the air. Ellie looks over her shoulder. The red, textured landscape of outer Utah spreads out before her like a… honestly, like a painting Joel might have in his house. The sky is a bright blue with wispy clouds. The sun is hot, but there's a nice breeze up here.
The others step forward, but in front of them is just a higher cliff face. Ellie follows them in her preferred jeans and SHIELD jacket, which she wears with more pride as time goes on. She looks around, but there's no apparent entrance.
"So…" says Ellie. "Is there like a secret door, or something?"
Bruce turns, hands on his hips. He's got a pensive, open expression. He seems to be pretty reserved. She hasn't seen him express much notable emotion since she met him. He couldn't be much more different from Hulk. "Or something," he says.
Tony and Kamala are there as well. Kamala's still in her casual wear, Tony in his plain t-shirt and jeans. He glances Ellie's way, but says nothing. Kamala's got another one of her smiles like you're in for a treat.
Then there's a bright flash of purple light, and Ellie is taken back to Mission Ridge for a second. She drops into a half crouch.
Suddenly, a young guy with bright bluish-purple skin is standing in front of them. He bows in exaggerated deference. "Welcome, to Chez Ant." He notices Ellie as he rises. He makes note of her, but doesn't say anything. "Shall we?"
"We shall," says Tony.
With that, the guy makes a gesture and Ellie is surrounded by that purple light. She seizes up and waits for a drop, but it doesn't come. The light fades, and Ellie is in a different place.
She's at the entrance to a sizable cave. She looks behind her, but it's a dead end.
Steel infrastructure is built into the cave. Steel steps lead down from where they stand to a large open space down below. Shafts of natural light pass through cracks in the ceiling. There are a lot of people milling about, and there's chatter in the air. At a glance, Ellie can tell that they're mostly inhuman. Many look like average people, some have unnatural skin tones, horns, tails, and other distinguishing features. She sees one girl in deep concentration, hovering in midair. Another guy with teal skin gestures arcanely with his hands, focused on amorphous blobs of water floating in a circular pattern in the air in front of him, apparently under his influence.
Ellie gapes until she notices Kamala watching her. She takes Ellie around the elbow. "Come on!"
Bruce and Tony are already at the bottom of the stairs, apparently unimpressed. The guy that brought them in waits at the top of the stairs.
"Hey," he says, inclining his head, "first time? Sorry, I see a lot of faces come through here. Didn't mean to alarm you or anything."
"Alarm is a good word for it," says Ellie, still taken aback.
He scratches the back of his head in chagrin. "Yeah… sorry. The name's Theo." He offers his hand, and Ellie shakes it.
"Ellie."
He looks at her jacket. "You're with SHIELD? I don't recognize you."
"Eh…" says Ellie.
"She's with us, actually," says Kamala.
"Oh? You're inhuman?" Theo asks.
"Yeah, I guess so, since that's what you guys call it."
"Hey," he says, "I get it. There's still a healthy debate around the name. But I think it's catchy! It's not that we're less than human, which AIM would have you believe. To me, it means we're that, and more."
Ellie frowns, thinking about that.
"Theo!" says Kamala. "I've been waiting ages to show Ellie around here."
"Oh! Well, don't let me stop you. I'm just a glorified door man."
Ellie's shoulders are tense as Kamala leads her down into the populated area. Bruce and Tony are long gone somewhere. "Where are the guys?"
"Huh? Oh, I'm sure they just went to talk to Hank. He's the big science guy around here. Oh, and Maddie, she'd give me heck if I forgot her."
"Are you like super popular around her?"
"Me? Um," Kamala giggles. "I mean, a little."
"'Malaaa!" Someone shouts from across the open space.
Ellie's eyes snap to a short girl with caramel skin and wide hips.
"Sofia!" Kamala shouts back. Sofia runs over and they embrace. "How are you?"
"Oh, my gosh, so good! My powers are really developing, you know?"
"Yeah? Like how?"
"Sarah has me going to all these trials and stuff, right? And everyone's all freaked out because—" Sofia makes a vague gesture around her face. "But they can't kick me out, by the law, so I'm just doing my thing. And of course, none of them know. I don't even say anything in the courtroom, I just sit there. People are all scared of me!" She laughs.
"Wow, that's crazy! You've been busy, then, huh?"
"Oh, yeah, girl, there's like inhumans being sued from coast to coast. Dr. Pym just throws up his hands but Sarah's all over it. I helped like ten people get acquitted already. Kamala, you wouldn't believe the sleazy stuff AIM tries to do and say to get these people into their custody, it's gross. Not on my watch, though. Hey, who's your friend?"
"Oh! This is Ellie! She's—new," she finishes with slight hesitation.
Just as Ellie's about to say it's nice to meet her, Sofia's face changes completely. The color and texture of her skin disappears, replaced by a purple field not unlike glowing nebulae in space, her eyes beacons of purple white energy. The effect extends around her face, too, accompanied by orbiting balls of colored light of various sizes.
Ellie startles and half steps back. The effect abruptly vanishes from Sofia's face. She suppresses laughter.
"Oh my gosh, my bad. Sometimes I don't even think about it anymore. I just like to see someone when I meet them. You know, really see them."
"What the hell does that mean?" Ellie asks.
"I can see into people's soul," Sofia says matter-of-factly.
"What…? Are you serious?!"
Sofia laughs.
"Dude," says Kamala, trying not to laugh, "that's messed."
"I'm sorry," says Sofia, "I'm sorry. I'm just kidding. No one knows what my power is exactly, I just see people differently. Oh, and I can tell when someone's lying. 100%. That's why I've been going to court."
"Dude…" says Ellie. "No wonder people are scared of you in there."
"I know!" she replies. "At first it made me feel bad, now it's just funny. What about you?"
"Oh, um… sensitive awareness." Based on her time on the forums, it's the best phrase she'd come up with to summarize her abilities.
"Oh yeah? How sensitive?"
Ellie scrunches her cheek. "Like I can tell that lug nut behind me is checking me out."
"Oh yeah?" Sofia glances over her shoulder. She chuckles. "That's pretty good! You don't even need a spotter or nothing."
"Not too worried about it," says Ellie, glancing around the cave, "I'm not interested." Then something catches her eye and she almost pees her pants. "What the shit! Are those ants?"
There are, no shit, ants that are at least four feet long crawling through tunnels around the edges of the cave.
"Oh, crap," says Kamala, "I should have warned you probably."
But the other two are pretty much forgotten as Ellie approaches one of the tunnels with total fascination. The tunnel runs along the edge of the room and around the corner out of sight, and now that she looks, there are several within view around the room. There's chain-link between her and the ants. Their massive, insectoid feet make endless little padding sounds as they march in a soldierly line. They're carrying a variety of things; crates, pieces of tech, huge chunks of rock. Ellie leans up against the chain link.
She senses Kamala approach. "Dude," says Ellie, "how do you explain this?"
"Um, that's more of a science thing. Dr. Pym's specialty. Shrinking stuff. And making it bigger, clearly. He used to be Ant-Man. Always had a thing for the little guys. Don't worry, they're totally cool."
"So they're not gonna break out of there and try to eat us all?" Ellie asks, but in reality she's far more fascinated than worried.
"Oh, no," says a voice close to her, "they're cool."
Ellie looks to see a young guy, younger than her, reclining on a pile of boxes. There are birds on each of his shoulders and one perched on his hand. He's got an easy manner. "Damon," he says to her.
"Ellie. Is that…?"
He looks down at the birds on him. "My power? Yeah. I talk to animals, you could say. Really oversimplifies it, but yeah."
"Can you talk to these?" Ellie asks, pointing to the ants.
"Those guys?" He frowns, but rouses himself. "Insects, honestly there's not much to 'em. One track minds, you might say. All these guys ever think about is the task at hand. It's exhausting, honestly. Still, there's nobility to it."
"I heard Sarah say you could use some of that, Damon," says a girl not far away. Damon rolls his eyes. One of the ants coming down the line catches his eye. "Oh! But every once in a while, you get a curious ant. Like Rudy! I named him. Here, come over here, quick!"
Ellie follows. Kamala follows them, more hesitant.
There's an unintentional break in the chain link a ways down the line. Damon starts making clicking sounds with his tongue.
A few ranks back, one of the ants perks up. When it gets close, it breaks from the line and crawls around to the other side of the tunnel, sticking its huge head through the gap in the links. Kamala recoils.
"Hey, there buddy!" says Damon. "Haven't seen you in a while."
He holds up his hand. Rudy probes it with his antennae and mandibles, to Damon's enjoyment, even though it seems like those jaws could take it off at any given moment if they wanted.
Damon looks at Ellie. "Do you want to pet him? You might not get another chance."
Pet an ant? He's right, though, and without thinking too much about it, Ellie steps forward and raises her hand. Behind her, Kamala grimaces anxiously.
Rudy palpates her hand as well, but his touches are feather-light. Satisfied, he goes still.
"Go ahead," says Damon, "he loves it."
She's never seen an ant so up close. It's oblong head is mostly smooth, but there are tiny, hair-like projections. It's got a wide forehead between its eyes. She reaches up and gives it a little scratch. Rudy chitters lightly and shifts its legs around. He seems to be enjoying it.
Ellie can't keep the smile off her face. "Whoa…" She retracts her hand.
This is her turn to get one on Kamala. "Hey, your turn!"
Kamala's whole body looks stiff. "Um…" she shifts her feet. "I'm good… I prefer them at a distance…"
"It's a shame," says Damon. "Well, you better get going, pal. I don't want to get you in trouble."
Sensibly, Rudy retracts his head and bumps his way back into the line. Ellie imagines the muted annoyance of his fellows.
A thought occurs to Ellie. "Hey," she says to Damon, "what are horses like?"
"Horses?" he responds with interest. "Psh. I wish I knew. I've been down here for ages. Not many animals around here but birds and the occasional burrowing rodent. I bet they're awesome, though. You have horses?"
"I know a few."
"Man… I'm telling you, when we finally clean AIM's act up and we can go back to regular society, I'm gonna have a TV show. It's gonna be like Dr. Doolittle. I'm gonna have a big house with every animal under the sun."
"That sounds cool," Ellie replies honestly.
"It's gonna be lit." Damon nods as he gazes into the distance with a satisfied expression. Then his eyes light up. "Ooh! Iggy's back! Hey buddy, wait up!"
He runs across the cave, apparently chasing after a lizard Ellie sees skittering around a wall corner.
Kamala chuckles nervously. "We got all kinds here. Hey, come meet Sarah!"
Kamala jogs off around a corner. Ellie follows her through a loose crowd of inhumans, few of whom take any notice of her at all. She passes another open area with a variety of stalls that seem to be preparing food, which… looks suspect, but it smells pretty good. Past that, there's a corridor with what looks like high-tech offices installed along both sides.
Kamala is talking to a pale man—an unnatural hue of pale. His skin is something like ivory, or whitish stone. Kamala looks disappointed. She looks Ellie's way, and walks over.
"Sarah works here, but she's away somewhere. Hold on, I'm going to go find her. I want you to meet her while we're here. Don't go far." With that, she jogs off down the corridor.
Ellie runs her hands over her jeans. She'd kind of rather Kamala didn't leave her, but it's too late to tag along with her. She looks around.
There are people working in the offices around her. Many on the phone, some typing diligently away at computers. They seem busy. The corridor she's in seems to be the main walkway, carrying on a great distance. She can see over a hundred feet in either direction, and there are quite a few branches leading off from it. Is this cave natural, or did they build it?
She looks at a sign over one of the branches. Ward 23. She walks that way, curious.
It's narrower for a bit, then it opens back up into a wider space. There are more shafts of sunlight coming down through gaps in the ceiling, making it more homey. All along the sides of this chamber are simple, metal walls connected by sheet metal or just hanging cloth, partitioning out the cave into little rooms. There are placards on the partitions.
The Sampsons.
The Rivieras.
Jack and Benny.
The Euklevik Clan.
This is where they live, she realizes. There are so many of them, they have to live somewhere. It's not exactly the nicest, but they seem happy enough. There's a bunch of guys in the back standing around a big rectangular grill. They're talking jovially while they grill some kind of meat. There are quite a few kids. Several of them are chasing the others around, and there's laughter in the air. A couple women are hunched over a basin on another side, talking while they wash clothes.
"Holy crap, it's her."
Ellie glances over curiously, then freezes up when she realizes they're talking about her.
There's a group of teenagers huddled next to one of the partitions, staring at her conspicuously. They linger like that for a second, then one girl breaks away toward her and the others follow. Ellie takes a half step back.
"It's you, right?" says one girl. She's got tussled, shoulder-length blonde hair. "The one from the videos?"
"…what?" Ellie replies. Then she remembers the video Kamala showed her earlier that day. Oh no.
"You've been going around with the Avengers," says a boy with dark hair that hangs over his eyes.
"Are you one of them?" This girl can't be older than thirteen, dwarfed by the rest of them. Her hair has been dyed pink, but dark hair is growing in from the roots.
"Uh… no…"
"I saw you mess up that synthoid," says the smaller girl, "when you were rescuing inhumans! Brandon says he was there! He said you saved him!"
"It was so badass," the blonde girl says.
"I like the one where you used your grapple on that riotbot," says the lanky haired boy, "it was just about to attack Ms. Marvel. Dude, that was so cool. It was just like Widow's. Did you get that from Widow?"
"I mean, yeah, actually…"
They collectively gasp in awe.
"Are you like her protégé?"
"What's she like? She's gotta be so badass."
"What's your name? Are you an Avenger now?"
Ellie raises her hands in a halting gesture. "Okay, okay, slow down. No, I'm not an Avenger. I'm just helping them out for now, I guess. And I know Nat, but I'm not her… protégé," she says, laughing.
"You got to have a name, though, right?"
They're talking about a hero name. Not something Ellie needs or deserves. She shakes her head. "Just Ellie."
They sigh. "Her name's Ellie…"
This is getting weird, and getting out of this kind of situation is not Ellie's strong suit. Invisibility. That would have been a great power right now.
"What's this? What's going on here?"
A middle aged Black man is approaching them. He's bald with a close-cropped beard. He looks over the teenagers with his hands on his hips. "Harassing the suits again?"
"She's not a suit, she's Ellie!"
"I bet she is," he says, tussling the boy's hair, "just like I bet she's got work to do. Now get out of here before I tell your parents you haven't done your homework yet."
"What if we did?" the blonde girl asks.
He gives her a meaningful look and she blushes. Silently, the group reluctantly takes their leave.
"You're my favorite!" shouts the smallest girl over her shoulder. There are giggles and the kids rush off.
The man has a rueful smile. "Kids, right? Shoot, you're almost their age."
"That girl was like thirteen!"
He chuckles. "Yeah, true. You carry yourself different, though." He looks around surreptitiously. Then he raises his foot and performs a mock stomping gesture, like she had done to that synthoid. "Bam!"
She can't help but smile.
"Better be careful," he says, "folks are liable to recognize you around here. Still though," he holds out his fist, "give them one for us, huh?"
She bumps his fist, and he salutes and walks back toward the grill.
He's right, she better get out of here while she's clear. She turns to go, then she senses another pair of eyes on her.
She looks to see a girl watching her from a rock by one of the partition walls. When they meet eyes, the girl goes back to sharpening her knife.
She's also a teenager, but she doesn't have the same carefree vibe those kids did. She's got black hair, shaved on the right side. It's a pleasant temperature in here, but she's also wearing a dark jacket and cargo pants, over a teal shirt with a coiled snake on it. Ellie walks over.
"Nice blade," she says.
The girl has a standing frown that deepens at Ellie's words. She doesn't respond.
"I have one like it," says Ellie. "It's not mine, I mean. They gave it to me. Tony says it's tungsten carbide, whatever that is."
"I bet it is," says the girl.
"What's yours for?" asks Ellie. "I'm guessing you don't need it around here."
"The fight."
"What fight, exactly?"
Finally, the girl looks up at her, head cocked. She searches Ellie's face. "Who the hell are you?"
It's a rude question. "Just Ellie," she responds.
"Just Ellie. What a lame handle."
"No, no… I mean my name is just Ellie."
The girl sighs. She blows the metallic dust off the knife she was sharpening, stands, and returns it to its sheath. "Well, Just Ellie, you're weirdly new."
"Huh?"
The lines in the girl's brow suggest a deep dissatisfaction with her. The girl sighs. "I don't blame you for not recognizing me. I'm not a starlet. But you have some gall asking me what fight."
Ellie's embarrassed, but she suppresses the desire to get defensive. "You mean the inhuman fight."
The girl chuckles bitterly. "What the fuck else?"
The last of the humor melts from Ellie's features. She's on this girl's side, it doesn't need to be like this. "That's my fight too now, I guess."
"You guess?" the girl asks her, stepping forward. Ellie takes a half step back. "What's with you? What, you just turned and now all of the sudden the inhuman fight is for you? What, were you a symp before? Let me guess, you turned, and your parents disowned you?"
A surge of heat flows into Ellie's limbs. She shakes her head sharply. "Don't talk about my parents."
Finally the girl is given pause. A hint of a smile touches her lips. "Mm, so you aren't an action figure. What's with the attitude, then?"
"What attitude?"
"Like it's all no big deal. 'I'm not an Avenger. I'm just helping them out for now.' The fuck? Like it's some kind of gig or something? How did you even get in with them?"
Cold and hot feelings are mixing in Ellie's chest in a way she doesn't like. "I can't tell you that."
"Oh," the girl spouts, "of course. Top secret. Well if you came from Widow's world, you're a shit spy."
"I don't know what's crawled into your ass," says Ellie, "but as far as I can tell, we're on the same side."
"Are we?" the girl replies. "Cause it doesn't really feel like it. Where I live, people care about this shit. You said it's your fight, too? Are you inhuman?"
Ellie nods slightly.
The girl shakes her head like it doesn't make sense. She considers her. "Do you know what they're doing to us?"
Ellie's lips part, but she doesn't speak. Honestly, she's not really sure, other than the little Kamala has told her. "Not really."
The girl scoffs. "I don't know what rock you climbed out from under, but you should know you have a lot of nerve coming into a place like this and acting like a hero when you don't even know what the fight is. What our fight is."
The girl turns to leave and Ellie grabs her arm firmly. She meets her eyes.
"I may not know as much as you think I should," says Ellie, "but if you're going to judge me, do it knowing that I know what it means to fight for my life."
Ellie lets the girl see a little deeper. The part of herself she brought from her world. The part she doesn't want Kamala to know about.
The girl's face wrinkles in anger, then it fades. "Okay, then. So let me ask you this. Have you ever fought for anyone else's?"
Ellie's eyes soften and her grip loosens. The girl yanks her arm away and walks down the line of partitions. "Avenger," she mutters bitterly.
With that, Ellie is just left with a cold, small feeling. She runs her hand down her SHIELD jacket. It doesn't feel very good.
That little conversation has drawn the attention of several people in the area, but she ignores them all and walks back to the entrance.
One kid, a young man, hustles after her. She shakes her head. She's no longer in the mood.
"Not right now," she says to him as he gets close.
"Wait, you said it was Ellie?"
His face jogs a memory, and she turns to look at it with her eyes. Then she recognizes the scared boy from that AIM container.
"Hey," he says nervously, "I'm sorry… I just really wanted to say thank you."
He's got messy, curly brown hair and honest eyes.
You have a lot of nerve coming into a place like this and acting like a hero.
Ellie winces and shakes the thought away. "It's no problem. It was my job."
The kid lets out a puff of air, half-smiling. "Steve says that a lot, when rescuing people. I mean, I've never been there, but I've seen it on video."
Ellie snorts. "Right. Are you Brandon?"
"Yeah, um. For what it's worth, I think you're great, too. I get it if you're not with the Avengers. I still think you're cool, though. When I was stuck in that box, watching you guys fight. I was like… if only I could fight like that, Nika and me wouldn't be in here."
Sadness edges against the anger on Ellie's face. "For every fighter like me, ten people died in the crossfire."
Brandon is taken aback, clearly unsure how to respond.
Ellie curses herself. He didn't need to hear that. She goes to speak but he speaks first.
"Nor. Nora, she lost someone, too," he says. He gestures back to the ward. "That girl. It happened a few weeks ago. Xavier. He was young, like us. I didn't know him, it happened before I got here.
"I guess they were pinned down, and the Avengers were supposed to come bail them out. And they did, but they took too long. Xavier… he went down before they came in to save the rest. Nora was a mess afterward, I guess. He and Nora knew each other for a long time. They were close.
"They both fought with the inhuman outriders. They do what the Avengers do. Try to protect the inhumans still at risk out there, against AIM. It's hard fighting. We're not as strong as the Avengers, one-for-one. We lose people. It's why she's like that. I'm lucky. I'm inhuman, but no good in a fight." He holds up his hand. Bubbles spontaneously form and begin drifting through the air.
Ellie stares in fascination. "That's your power?"
He chuckles. "Not as cool as throwing fire, right? The kids love it, though. So I'm not like Nora. I'm one of the sheep, here to be protected."
Ellie thinks of Nora's blade, and the arrowhead Abby gave her.
An edge for the knife.
Brandon's waiting for her to say something, so she says the only thing she can think of. "Tell me it's really that bad out there."
Brandon blinks.
She doesn't need it. She doesn't need any of this. She's not meant to be here. But she is here, and she's asking.
He hesitates. His honest brown eyes search hers. "So you really don't know?"
She doesn't say anything.
He takes a breath, and nods. "Yeah. Yeah, it's pretty bad, Ellie. It's pretty damn bad."
"Okay," she replies. "Take care of your people, Brandon."
"You too, Ellie," he says as she turns to go.
She's in a different mood as she walks back into the clerical area, losing the ward to the chatter of the corridor.
Did he just say that in response, or did he mean it?
She sees Kamala chatting excitedly with a woman with green skin and off-the-shoulder bright red hair.
"Oh, my gosh, so good," Kamala is saying. "We're still trying to stay one step ahead of AIM, but you know how Monica is. But you must have heard how we ran that operation on their supply lines a couple weeks ago."
"Oh, everyone's heard about that," says the woman, leaning back in an office chair in front of a desk. She looks at Ellie. "Hey. You with Miss Marvelous, here?"
Ellie nods.
When Kamala sees her, her big smile fades. "Hey, are you alright?"
Ellie shakes it off. "I'm fine. The name's Ellie," she says to the new woman.
She stands and shakes Ellie's hand. "Right, I recognize you, now. Sarah Garza. I'm operations lead around here. Which means I'm very busy. But I always have time for an Avenger."
"I'm not an Avenger," says Ellie.
"Right," says Sarah. "Well, I meant…" She gestures to Kamala. "Anyway, what can I do for you?"
"I mean, I don't want to take much of your time or anything…"
"It's no problem, you don't strike me as the type to waste it."
"Alright. How are things going, then?" Ellie asks.
Sarah cocks her head. "With me, or…?"
"With the resistance."
Sarah arches her eyebrows. "Well, since you're asking." She turns around and gestures to a map of the continental US. "AIM has hundreds of facilities of various sizes across the continent, and elsewhere. The lion's share of these are devoted either to inhuman detention, or experimentation, or both. We'd like to shut them all down."
Kamala's expression has changed. Ellie senses her watching her with concern, but she turns her attention to Sarah.
"AIM's resources are nearly limitless, as long as they continue to secure government and private funding. A war of attrition, we can't afford. Still, every inhuman life we liberate is a victory, and many of those turn around and fight on our side. Some of them went to AIM willingly, looking for 'the cure.' But sooner or later, most all see them for what they are. The enemy.
"Between running skirmishes and breakouts, and outreach to inhumans hiding in AIM-controlled municipalities, we have our hands full." Sarah looks at the map with her hands on her hips. Then she turns, putting on a convincing smile for the two of them. "But having our hands full is how I know we're doing everything we can. And that means more all the time."
She walks up and smacks Ellie's shoulder, to her surprise. "Thanks for joining up," says Sarah. "You picked the right side."
It feels humbling to Ellie for some reason. She just nods.
"Hey," says Sarah, "Bruce told me to send you up to the lab if you dallied too long. You better scoot."
"Okay," says Kamala. She jumps forward and gives Sarah a hug. After, Sarah gives Ellie a look and a gesture as if to say you want one, too?
Ellie smiles ruefully. "I'm not really a…"
"No? Well you better get moving before I—"
Sarah moves forward as if to grab her but Ellie evades her. "Frig off, dude!" she says, laughing.
Kamala leads them to the biggest cave yet, the roof probably twenty meters high. There's multiple steel platforms connected by stairs, housing all kinds of high-tech equipment, as well as science-types walking around and operating the consoles. Halfway down one wall, something catches her eye. There are two large boxes, covered by glass. In one, giant ants are appearing out of flashes of light and sound, immediately walking forward into one of the tunnels she saw earlier. In another one, giant ants arrive from a similar tunnel, to a similar flash of light, only to disappear.
Upon closer inspection, she realizes that the first one is actually blowing tiny ants up to the massive size, and the other is shrinking them back down. In between them is the biggest ant colony Ellie has ever seen, also behind a glass plate. The colony is full of normal size ants, though. She stares in fascination for a while.
"Hey, Ellie?"
It's Bruce. Broken out of her distraction, she climbs the steps up to where Tony, Bruce, and Kamala are waiting along with two other people.
"Thought you'd want to be looped in here," says Bruce. His voice is soft, and kind. She nods in thanks. Hard to square this guy with the Hulk.
"Fifteen, twenty, a hundred, how many iterations are enough, Doc?" asks Tony of a short haired blonde man in a lab coat interacting with a large screen over a console.
"Well, a thousand would be nice," the man says, "but if I took every precaution that came to mind, I'd be an old man before getting this far."
Tony holds his palms upright, looking around. "That almost sounds like agreement. That's what I've been saying the whole time, basically."
"Yes, Tony," says Bruce. "Hank, why don't you talk to us about stability."
"Well, now, that's more my speed." The man turns around, and notices Ellie. He holds up a tentative finger. "Ellie?"
Ellie nods. He steps forward and she meets him, shaking his hand.
"Hank," he says. "Hank Pym."
"You're the ant guy," she says.
He smiles. "I'm the ant guy. And the science guy, around here."
The girl clears her throat conspicuously. She's wearing a lab coat, but it's got gold trim, curiously.
"Oh," says Hank with some chagrin, "and this is Maddy. Dr. Cho, she may prefer."
"Some people just call me Madam Curie. But seriously, Maddy is fine." She shakes Ellie's hand. "I'm the 'science girl' around here."
"Have you been working on this project too, Maddy?" Tony asks.
"Well," she starts with false modesty, "Dr. Pym is the subatomic particle guy, I won't deny it, but he doesn't move into applications without at least consulting me."
"Well, we wouldn't want a disaster on our hands, or anything," says Bruce nonchalantly. At first Ellie thinks he's serious, knitting her brow, then she realizes it's just dry humor.
Hank looks skyward for a second. "Yes, and Maddy has given her blessing to our first, second, and third prototypes." He turns back to the screen and brings up some diagrams that mean almost nothing to Ellie.
"Mm," says Tony with interest, bringing a hand to his jaw and surveying the screens. "Fun. But where's the real deal?"
"A thousand miles away, unfortunately," says Hank.
"What, Substation Zero?" Bruce asks
"That's right," says Maddy. "Dr. Pym—Hank, sorry—actually insisted. For safety reasons. Maria was actually glad to hand over some of the dark reaches of the facility—do you guys know how big that place is? Substation my butt, it's like twelve square miles—anyway, we got set up with the power and equipment we need way down one of the back channels. We've been running the tests from there."
"In case of disaster," says Tony.
"That's right," says Hank without hesitation.
"Then who's running the show?" says Tony. "You can't do everything remotely. You need someone on site for something like this."
"That would be me, Mr. Stark."
Ellie starts. The deep, striated robotic voice came from a partially disassembled synthoid set up on one of the lab tables. She'd assumed it was another inert unit they were using for study. It's pretty banged up, missing both legs and an eye. It's remaining eye moves with the semblance of intelligence, however.
"Roy?" says Tony. "For real? I thought the goal was to prevent disaster."
"My management of the operation at Substation Zero has met or exceeded all of Dr. Pym's safety specifications."
"That's right," says Hank, only a touch defensively.
"Who's that?" Ellie asks plainly.
Hank appraises her. He gestures to the unit. "Go ahead, Roy."
"Hello, Ellie." His syllables are somewhat unnatural, stopping and starting when you don't expect them. "My name is Roy. I am an artificial intelligence created by Dr. Pym to help maintain this facility, and safeguard the resistance."
"You're an AI, too? Like JARVIS?"
"In a basic sense, yes. My processing power does not compare to his, however."
"Looks like you took a few good hits."
"This unit did. I was not present at the time. Dr. Pym salvages usable parts from defeated synthoids and gives them to me for use in my duties. Because I have no central body, aside from my servers, I can use these forms to enact my tasks in a variety of places simultaneously."
"Even a thousand miles away?"
"Even a thousand miles away."
"Cool…" Ellie glances sideways at Kamala next to her, who nods in confirmation.
Something occurs to Ellie, and her smile fades. The conversation she'd overheard Tony and Bruce have, back in the tech lab on that second day on the Chimera.
Let's get Hank back on the phone and talk about next steps.
She looks at the blonde scientist. "You're Hank…" She looks at Tony and Bruce. "These experiments you're talking about, this is about 2-Tachyon, huh?"
"That's right," says Bruce. "It's why I approved bringing you along. We could actually use your input."
"My input?" she asks, surprised.
"Hold on," says Tony, "first things first. Hank, results?"
Hank looks between Ellie and the others, then to the gold-trimmed girl. "Maddy?"
"We were very conservative," says Maddy. "Trials one through four didn't get anywhere. We needed to calibrate a bit more, and give it some more juice. Trials five through twelve got somewhere, but there was a lot of trial and error, and maybe even a breakthrough or two stabilizing the channel." She looks at Hank.
"No arguments here," he says to the floor.
"And on trials thirteen and fourteen, we established a stable connection. And on trial fifteen, we sent something through."
Ellie steps forward involuntarily. "And it worked?" she asks loudly.
Taken aback momentarily, Maddy raises her hands. "Well, it didn't come back."
"That's a far cry from what we're hoping to do," says Bruce cautiously.
"Of course," says Tony, patting Bruce's back, "it's called iteration, Bruce. My question is, how did you isolate the, ah… the target?"
"Ah. Hank was our rainman on that one," says Maddy.
Hank pushes himself up off the console he was leaning on. "That's a bit dated… and misleading, but long story short, patterns from chaos."
"What the hell does that mean?" asks Ellie. It's all starting to go over her head.
"Ah," says Bruce, "it's something we say in theoretical science. Everything is chaos until a pattern emerges."
"The subatomic particles were telling a story we never thought to listen to before," says Hank. "It does really seem like every atom has a kind of signature. You could almost call it a coordinate, for the place it originated from."
"A home dimension," says Tony.
"You could say that," Hank concedes. "The samples you provided the Avengers early on, we've been using those to 'triangulate,' so to speak."
Ellie blinks. Bruce had plied her for 'samples' from her pack that second day. She'd been loathe to give anything up, but eventually he made it clear that it didn't matter what it was, just that it came from her pack. She gave him a handful of Jacksonian notes and a pebble, and he'd been stoked. She said he owed her a burger, though.
"So you know how to get back to where I came from?" Ellie asks them.
"We know where it is, you could say," says Hank. "The getting there… we still have some thinking to do on that."
"How much, dude?" Ellie is losing her patience.
"Easy, Ellie," says Tony, approaching her. "Here's where you can help us. Because for all the mumbo jumbo we've been doing in the background, you're the only sentient being who has made this trip."
Ellie stares back. "Meaning what?"
"Can you tell us what it was like?"
Ellie becomes aware that all eyes are on her, now. Suddenly feeling sheepish, she looks down, and considers. "I mean, it happened pretty fast…"
"What happened, exactly?" Tony asks.
"Well… I told Nat. I was standing on a trail, with Abby. We could see the lights in the distance. We thought we were safe. All of a sudden, I could see them all around me, and I just… fell. I fell upward, though. The light went away until it was just a speck, and disappeared. It was black, I couldn't see anything. I was falling, but I couldn't hear anything, either, and I couldn't breathe."
"Vacuum?" Bruce asks under his breath.
Tony shakes his head, turning back to Ellie. "Was it cold? Did it hurt?"
Ellie shakes her head. "It was just scary. Then it was bright again and I landed on my face in the dirt."
"How hard?"
"Not that hard. Like I tripped, almost."
"Did you feel sick?" Hank asks. "Did you have any rashes? Did your eyes hurt?"
Ellie frowns, shaking her head. "No… I don't think so, I don't remember anything like that. But I kind of had some other stuff to deal with pretty much right away."
"The docs gave her a good look over when we got to the Chimera," says Tony. "Scans and everything. Clean bill of health."
"You didn't have any electronics on you when you went through, did you Ellie?" Bruce asks.
Ellie looks at him. She rarely brings that stuff outside of town. She shakes her head.
Bruce gives Tony a meaningful look. "Right," says Tony. "More tests."
"I don't understand," says Ellie.
"So, can I just tell her…?" Hank asks.
"Yeah," says Tony, as if the question were silly. "She's with us."
"Ellie," says Hank, "we're almost ready to send an expedition to where you came from, but we have to take every precaution first. You came through okay, but we're still concerned about radiation, other types of effects. We can't put anyone in needless danger."
Ellie's eyes fall.
"But that doesn't mean we can't do this thing," says Hank. "We don't want Monica getting too far ahead of us. Electronics are a concern. The idea is to send some people over with the tech to bring them back as well. But if that gets fried on the way over," he makes a gesture as if to say you get it.
"Right," says Ellie. Then they'd be in her shoes.
"Hey," says Hank, approaching her. He's around forty, maybe, and now she can see the wrinkles around his eyes as they soften. "I get that this is more personal for you than for us. We're being careful. But we're getting close. A few more experiments, and—"
Bruce's phone had been vibrating, and now he's putting his communicator in his ear. Tony holds his finger up to his as well.
"What is it?" Kamala asks.
Tony grimaces. "What else?"