Disclaimer: I don't own the Fantastic Four—Marvel Comics, Stan Lee, 20th Century Fox, and probably a bunch of other people do. However, if the aforementioned parties feel like loaning out the guys, put me at the top of the borrower's list. Also, I'm not making a penny off of this. I am banned from reading other F4 fan fictions until this is finished, so any similarities to other stories are entirely coincidental. Typos are mine. If you haven't done so, you really need to read 'Oxygen' before this story.
8
If the situation weren't so serious, Ben would have been having the time of his life. First, there was the fun of bedeviling the pathetic excuse for guards that Doom had hired. Watching them bounce off each other and the walls in their haste to get away from the stone man alone was worth the flight to Latveria. The old palace was also full of all kinds of treasures he figured Doom had acquired during his entrepreneur days or stolen afterwards. Ben was against vandalism, but in Doom's case he could make an exception, because the only thing better that whipping his guards' butts was using Doom's prized (and expensive) possessions to help do it. It didn't begin to repay what Ben owed Victor for what he'd done to his family this week, but it was immensely satisfying.
Ben just hoped Reed and Susie were able to get to the kid while he was busy running interference. He didn't know what was so urgent that Reed had needed him to get to Sater's lab a few minutes ago, but if they had worse problems than just trying to extricate Johnny from this place, Ben didn't want to know.
The lackeys were running for the lower levels of the castle. Ben didn't know why and didn't care. He pestered them with flying bricks, flying chairs, flying tapestries, flying broken surveillance equipment, flying broken office equipment, and flying furniture down the first two levels of the palace, he'd keep after them across the last one with just as much gusto. At the moment, the foolish guards were running down one of the original spiral staircases…which presented Ben with the chance to hoist up the carpet that ran the length of the stairs and quite literally pull the rug out from under the men. They toppled like extras in a Marx Brothers movie.
"Always wanted to do that," Ben smirked, discarding the rug. He tromped down the concrete stairway in unhurried pursuit…
…and found the Human Torch standing at the bottom of the stairway.
Ben would have been happy to see him, except that Johnny might attack again and the kid looked like shit. Nova blasts usually took it out of Johnny, but he looked like it was all he could do to stay on his feet. Johnny was pale as a ghost, with dark circles beneath his eyes…and his eyes were the creepiest thing of all. When he'd attacked them at Selva-Uitti, he'd stared at all of them like they were scum he'd scooped out of a swimming pool. Now, his blue eyes were dull and devoid of any expression. Robotic, yeah, that was how he looked, Ben decided.
"So, there ya are, Matchstick. Ya look like death on a Triscuit," Ben greeted his friend. "And don't think that just 'cause your wires got crossed by that box that I ain't gonna pay ya back for giving me frostbite back there." Ben was already planning to introduce every pair of boxers Johnny owed to Reed's stock of liquid nitrogen as soon as Johnny was lucid enough to get pissed off about it.
Johnny didn't respond, not that Ben had expected him too.
The Human Torch summoned his flames, though Ben noticed the kid strained a bit to do so and his eyes flashed with pain. He flew right at the Thing, and Ben braced himself to meet the younger man head-on. Johnny, however, banked right past Ben, grabbing the Thing as he passed by and savagely pulling him off balance so that Grimm fell off the stairways. He landed hard but on his feet, cracking the mortar. Johnny kept right on going, upwards and out through a window.
Ben reached for his communicator. "Reed! I found Hotfoot! He just flew out the damn window---"
That was as far as he got before a bolt of electricity erupted from the shadows and struck Ben squarely in the chest. Ben was blown across the room by the jolt. As he crashed to the floor, he caught a glimpse of Doctor Doom stepping from his hiding place in the corner.
The direct route to Dr. Sater's laboratory was too heavily guarded, and too many barriers had closed along the corridors once the alarms sounded. Reed had no difficulty finding an alternative route…namely the ventilation system. He squeezed through the thin grates with ease and caution and found the hole in Doom's security that he'd been hoping for. Every few feet, lasers scanned the air ducts for movement, but Reed could make himself quite flat when the occasion called for it. He slid beneath the lasers as smoothly as ducking beneath a limbo bar. His wrist communicator was thin so he could carry it along with him, but he had to leave the tracker behind. So, he navigated by memory in what he hoped was the direction of Dr. Sater's laboratory. The ducts were not what could be called a direct route, but they got him where he needed to go in a short time.
When he finally reached the vents over Sater's laboratory, he found that they had been sealed with small Plexiglas panels. It was a reasonable precaution for a lab where biotoxins might be found, and it was only a minor inconvenience to Reed. Like every other door in this place, it was computer controlled. Mr. Fantastic shaped his finger into a screwdriver and easily removed the cover plate of the computer controls and bypassed its lockout protocols. The Plexiglas popped open. Unnoticed, Reed poured himself through the vent's grating quiet as a church mouse.
Johnny and Doom were gone, but Reed had expected that thanks to Ben's warning. Nora was seated on one of the abandoned chairs, her head in her hands, lost in her own troubled thoughts. When Mr. Fantastic cleared his throat, it startled the woman badly. "Dr. Sater, I presume? Or do you prefer Dr. Reinhardt?"
She would have known who Reed Richards was even without his blue uniform and the signature '4' emblem on its shoulder. There were few academic courses one could travel in without hearing Richards' name and accomplishments. There was no television channel or newspaper, even in this corner of the world, where images of the Fantastic Four had not been featured. And she had studied his medical files, and Susan Storm's and Ben Grimm's, when she'd studied Johnny's files.
Before the woman could yell for help or trigger another alarm, Reed lashed her to the chair with his left arm. His arm coiled around her until his hand reached and covered her mouth, stifling her shout. "I would love to tell you about the kinds of trouble you've caused my family this week---and how much suffering---but I don't have the time, Dr. Sater," Reed informed her while he searched the room. She said something muffled by his hand. "I'm really not interested in hearing whatever you excuse you have for letting Victor Von Doom rope you into his demented games. All I want to know from you is how to de-program Johnny."
With his right arm, he began to rifle through her file cabinets, cupboards, drawers, c.d.s, dvds, zip discs, flash drives, and paper notebooks in search of anything that looked like the discs for the post-hypnotics program or the case containing that meteorite Reed had seen on the monitor. "I should warn you, Doctor, I'm prepared to tear apart this lab to find that program of yours---and I'll be happy to use that box you and Victor left for us in New York to practice on you until I figure out how your program works. That would be very unfortunate for you, since I have no clue how to decipher your coding or commands." Reed's search was turning up nothing. He began to open files on the computers.
They'd been erased…and it had been done sometime within the last five minutes. Damn.
Reed glared at Sater. "Nod if you agree not to call for help."
Nora nodded. What choice did she have? Summoning the guards would be fatal. Doom meant to kill her. She had seen it in his eyes. If she wanted to live, Reed Richards was her only chance. Fortunately for her, if Reed Richards wanted his future brother-in-law back, she was his only chance. "You watch too many American movies, Dr. Richards. To be intimidating, you must negotiate from a position of strength….and you are not in such a position. You are not capable of using that box on the only person who can translate its coding," she countered.
Reed withdrew his arm, setting her free, but just as quickly put his hands on her shoulder and brought his face down close so that they were eye-to-eye. "Try me, Dr. Sater. After the last five days, I'm sure we'd both be surprised by what I'm capable of doing right now," he purred.
That was no bluff. The circles beneath his eye, his haggard and disheveled appearance, the twitch of his jaw where he was clenching his teeth, and the antipathy with which he regarded the woman made that clear. So, Dr. Richards could be a little intimidating after all, Nora changed her mind.
When Reed saw that he'd made his point, he let go of Sater and backed away. She kept her seat, not trusting herself to stand least he see how successfully he'd shaken her up. "What did a psychopath like Doom offer you to make a slave out of Johnny? Tell me. I'm curious to know---what was the price for perverting your work into something as grotesque as brainwashing an innocent boy? Not that you weren't on shaky ethical ground before that," Reed continued. "You had no right---"
Nora raised her voice, "Sanctimonious speeches won't get you any farther than intimidation, Dr. Richards. And I wouldn't be so confident about your ability to decipher it yourself. There are certain, how would you say it, 'booby traps' imbedded in the programming."
Wasn't that just great? "What do you want then?" he asked impatiently. "And keep in mind that since people who work for madmen have the life expectancy of a house fly, I wouldn't be so sure I was negotiating from a 'position of strength' if I was you."
"Nothing you'd be prepared to give us," she answered, less sure of herself now.
Reed rolled his eyes. "Us? You and Doom?"
"Latveria. My people. My family. Why else do you think I would 'pervert my work'!" she snapped at him.
"Because Doom promised you something---probably that power plant---and all you had to do was help him get his hands on Johnny's powers, right? I'm sure he neglected to mention the part where he leaves your people with a useless shell where there was supposed to be a power plant, or the part where he uses Johnny's powers to create a nice new weapon to threaten the rest of the world? Two weapons if you count the post-hypnotic control program you gave him, too. But you don't have all the bugs worked out of that one yet, do you?" Reed guessed. "Don't look so surprised, Dr. Sater. For one thing, as far as I can tell nothing happens in this place without someone seeing it." He pointed to the surveillance camera bolted to the lab's wall. "For another, if Doom had delivered whatever he promised, you wouldn't be negotiating with me."
Nora was defiant. "And you've never had to choose between your notions of 'ethics' and the welfare of your family, Dr. Richards? Then what do you intend to do if I won't help you? Walk away empty handed? No, no---I believe you said something about practicing using the p.h.c. on me?"
Reed refused to let this woman push his buttons. "What do you want?" he asked again.
Nora rose from her chair. This time she was the one to meet him eye-to-eye. "I want the thermal cells."
Ben's warning about Johnny would have come in handy for the Invisible Woman---if only it had been able to reach her. However, Doom's network of computers still controlled any incoming or outgoing transmissions, even on the Fantastic Four's coded line. All Sue heard was garbled static. She dared not reach for the box to try to clear up the signal, needing to maintain her concentration to herself in the sky on the shield while she chased the jeep and the bomb.
Instinct told her something was wrong, and she glanced over her shoulder in time to see the human-shaped fireball only seconds before the Human Torch slammed into her before she had time to think—and barely time to raise a defensive shield to keep from being burned to death by the impact. The jolt broke Sue's concentration and she plunged towards the ground.
Cast in haste, the Invisible Woman's shield was not at its full strength, but it deflected Johnny and, in his weakened condition, disrupted his powers. His flames dwindled and would not keep him aloft. He fell, body wracked with the pain of trying to keep his fire burning, to rally his powers to their normal level. In his mindless state, pain was of no consequence. All that mattered was completing his mission. Slowly, agonizingly, the flames flared hotter and his descent slowed. With full strength, control of his flight returned. He pulled up, less than one hundred feet from impact, and sailed above the dirt road and Baraga's jeep. Johnny did not look back at the plummeting Sue.
Sue smoothly rematerialized the shield beneath her feet, though it was a bit of work regaining her balance mid-air and she ended up kneeling on the disc of energy as it glided in pursuit of both Johnny and the bomb now. She was too far back, and her brother was too fast, shooting across the sky like a meteor. How did Johnny have the reserves left to flame, much less fly? When Sue saw him on that monitor, he didn't look like he had the strength to light a campfire. As she watched, Johnny burned the roof off the jeep, then extinguished the flames on his arms and reached down into the jeep. He grabbed the guerrilla with one hand and the bomb with the other and lifted them into the air. The driverless jeep crashed into the trees.
The added weight and Johnny's fatigue slowed him, made his flight noticeably unsteady, but not enough for Sue to catch up with him. He pulled away from her, rocketing towards the mountains. She willed herself to go faster, but it was no use. She'd never intercept Johnny, she would have to follow the fire trail he made across the sky and hope for an opportunity to stop the attack when they reached Doom's target.
It would take several electrical shocks like the one Doom had delivered before Ben would begin to feel the effects, but the bolt still kicked like a mule. Ben grunted as he landed, but rolled to his feet with remarkable grace for a man of his size. He smirked at the black-clad figure. "Vic---just the ass I've been wanting to kick all week," the Thing rubbed his hands in anticipation.
Ben heard a chuckle from beneath Doom's mask. "I'm surprised at you, Ben. I expected you and your Neanderthal notions of payback to pay me a visit days ago."
"My Neanderthal brain says I owe ya twice, Vic: One for what ya did to the kid in that box, and one for teachin' him that deep freeze trick. That had ta be you; he never fought dirty like that before," Ben said.
Doom stood his ground, unconcerned, as the Thing advanced on him. "What can I say? An adept pupil excels under the tutelage of a superior mentor---but you wouldn't understand that, you've never been either one, have you Ben?"
"Save it, Tin Man. I don't buy that garbage you were feedin' Matchstick in that box and I ain't hooked up to your little brain scrambler." Ben swung his fist and knocked a large gargoyle off the wall, sending it flying right at his nemesis. Doom shattered the stone figure with one bolt of electricity easy as smashing a bug.
"On the contrary, Ben, I was being completely honest with Johnny…someone had to point out the obvious to the boy," Doom replied. Now that the Thing was almost upon him, Doom circled away, keeping Ben at a distance to enjoy goading the man a bit longer.
"Next time ya got somethin' ta say about me, don't do it from behind a camera…and don't jerk the kid around ta spite me."
Doom halted. He shook his head at Ben and said in a scolding tone: "You have too high an opinion of your own importance, Ben. If you were a man of vision, you'd be running N.A.S.A. by now. Instead, you gambled your career and your future---and your humanity---on a losing horse, Ben…namely Reed Richards. Why should I stand back while someone with Johnny's talents stagnates under Richards' limited leadership? Why should I allow someone with his potential to stay loyal to Richards too long and become a relic like you?"
With that, Doom stretched out his hands and directly a blast of energy at the wall, where heavy chains anchored another massive metal chandelier to the ceiling. If he thought that oversized lamp was going to do the Thing any harm, he really was off his rocker. Ben caught the chandelier neatly.
Doom finished: "Why when I can teach Johnny how to push past the limits you and Reed and Susan impose on his powers? When his powers can change the world?"
"You don't give a flying monkey turd about tutorin' no one, Vic. You're usin' the kid ta do your dirty work. I'm not lettin' ya make Johnny into your own Mini Me," Ben warned.
Von Doom reached into his cloak and withdrew the portable p.h.c. control box. He brandished it for the Thing to see. "Fair enough. You want to fight for who controls Johnny? I have what I need. It doesn't matter if you reclaim him or not anymore. Everything you need to restore his bothersome sense of fair play and family devotion is inside this box…if you can take it from me."
Ben was glad to take Doom up on that challenge. He hefted the chandelier to pitch it at the metal man. Before Ben let go, Doom reached out, caught hold of its long chain, and let loose with his full power. The electricity, conducted by the metals in the chandelier, traveled the length of the chain and along the fixture and finally into Thing's body.
"Do you have any concept of what kind of power Doom has now? Forget nuclear warheads; if that 'thermal cell' as you call it releases Johnny's maximum power, it will burn off the atmosphere. You almost killed Johnny using your hypnotics to force him to charge those cells, you could still kill him making him use his powers again this soon, and you gave that weapon to a psychopath...and you think that I'm going to give you---" Reed's indignation made his tone louder with every word.
Nora had put one of the tables between herself and the American scientist, not that it would do any good if he decided to attack. "You have a very Western perspective, Dr. Richards. You would sacrifice the many for the good of the one. Yes, I risked your friend's life for Doctor Von Doom's help. Latveria is not a wealthy nation like yours, we don't enjoy the comforts that you take for granted. The power plant meant clean water, sanitation, money for improving our farms, food, communication, a place in world politics, and yes, I am willing to sacrifice your friend for that. I'm willing to sacrifice my life and my work if I can give those things to my people…people who only survived this long with the assistance of your 'psychopath'." She leaned on the table. "Unless you can promise such things, I will not help you stop Doctor Von Doom and I will not help you counter the post-hypnotic program."
Was she really that foolish? Reed wondered. "Victor has no intention of delivering---" he tried again.
Nora interrupted: "You have nothing to barter for my help if you won't deliver the thermal cell either, Dr. Richards."
"Even if I did, Victor will steal it from you sooner or later."
She shrugged. "I suggest you make sure he doesn't."
"I can't do that!"
"Then we have nothing more to negotiate."
"The sad part of this mess, Dr. Sater, is that Johnny would have been the first one of us to offer to help you and your people---if you'd come to us for help openly and honestly instead of a criminal like Doom."
"It would have been pointless to ask you for help. You would never have agreed. You would say the same thing you are saying now."
He didn't argue. "You're right, we wouldn't have given Doom a new weapon, but we would have helped any other way we could have. Do you think I can't understand what you and your people go through every day? I've seen villages like these all around the world." Reed took a deep breath, counting to ten. He might finally be seeing a weakness in her armor. "I'll make a new deal with you, Dr. Sater: If you help me undo what you did to Johnny and get those thermal cells back from Victor, I'll---"
"The thermal cell will be given to my people."
"No. I can find a way to help you get a power plant if that's all you really want, but those meteorites are going to be destroyed one way or another."
"If you would destroy our future, then we are no worse off with Von Doom."
"Really? And do you imagine that when Victor sets off a bomb more powerful than a nuclear warhead in your country, your people aren't going to be hurt? That the U.N. won't choke off the assistance your people depend on? Assuming the planet survives the chain reaction if that bomb explodes at maximum power? I'm beginning to think you are a fool, Dr. Sater."
She lapsed into silence, weighing his offer and her options. A power plant—electrical, solar, wind, or otherwise---would not bring the great fortunes Doom had spoken of when he'd presented the idea of the thermal cells. She saw the revenues from that revolution in energy fading away and there seemed little she could do about it. If Doom intended to sell the thermal cells, then the salvation they might have given her people was already lost. If she stayed with Doom, she'd be dead before the sun set this day; that was a certainty. She knew Reed Richards' reputation, knew that he was a man who did try to keep his word. Any power plant would be better than none at all, which was what Chendryn had at the moment.
Minutes ticked by, and Reed waited, forcing himself to be patient as Sater spent time they could not afford to lose making up her mind. It felt like two eternities passed before the doctor responded. "You've given your word that my village will have its power plant. I hold you to it, Dr. Richards."
Reed nodded.
Her decision made, Nora crossed the room and sat down at her computer desk. She typed in a command, and the lines of a safe appeared at the center of the seamless wall behind Reed. I'm never going to get used to those hidden doors. From her computer, Nora keyed in the combination and the safe opened with a soft whoosh of air. Inside, Reed found a flash drive and a small box.
"That is a duplicate of the post-hypnotic program and the control device that Doom built. It should be compatible with the computer in the box Dr. Von Doom left in New York City," Nora said. "I'll help you with the deprogramming procedure."
Reed would be glad for the help. "You know what went wrong with Johnny's programming, don't you?"
Nora smiled and shook her head, as if the answer should have been obvious to him. "You went wrong, Dr. Richards. Victor should have never allowed you and your family to communicate during the process. It's not how the post-hypnotic program was meant to work. The stream of data from the program and the information Mr. Storm received from the three of you created contradictory sets of commands in his subconscious. I thought after four days I had successfully corrected the damage you caused. Victor let greed for revenge and for the thermal cells affect his judgment. He insisted on testing if he could force Mr. Storm to kill you. That was his third mistake if you include leaving the box for you to study. Naturally, the post-hypnotic commands were dominant until the three of you were present to challenge them. When that happened, it triggered a conflict in his mind. That's when Doom activated what we dubbed the 'auto-pilot': Blind obedience with complete suppression of all thought and emotions."
If possible, that was even more disgusting to Reed than the original idea of 'personality alteration'. He chose to keep that opinion to himself, however, simply because he needed to keep Dr. Sater's help now that he had it. He and the Latverian doctor would have a long talk about science and ethics when this crisis was past. "Where's that second thermal cell?"
"Dr. Von Doom took it with him. I don't know where," Sater answered.
Reed raised his communicator, happy to finally have some good news to share with his family, but he'd have been happier if it was all good news. "Sue, Ben, I have the post-hypnotic program and Dr. Sater, but Doom has the other thermal cell. And be careful—we were right about those rocks do have Johnny's supernova capacity."
Ben was not indestructible. One or two bolts of Doom's electrical powers didn't pose a serious threat, but he couldn't keep absorbing the barrage of electricity, conducted by the metals within the chandelier, that Doom was bombarding him with. Pain was beginning to make itself felt. He was lucky that he'd dropped the communicator when he caught the chandelier or it would have been as deep-fried as Ben was feeling at the moment. He could have tossed the iron weight of the fixture off easily if not for Doom's assault. Electricity filled his senses, snapped at his body, and Ben couldn't do more than thrash his arms…
…but that was all he needed to do. Ben put all his muscles into pounding the concrete floor he lay upon, again and again, as fast as he could manage. To Doom, it looked like the Thing was having some sort of seizure from the bolts of energy, but Ben knew what he was doing. He just hoped there was a basement or something underneath this level of the palace. A few solid hits and massive cracks formed beneath him. Doom realized what was happening two seconds past too late. The compromised floor no longer supported the Thing and caved beneath him. He plunged away from the chandelier, away from the snaps of energy, and heard Doom's shout of surprise as he fell.
I don't believe I fell for that lamp trick, Ben scolded himself.
Luck stayed with Ben. He landed in a small stream of water that ran beneath the castle. He was in some sublevel, in a network of catacombs and dungeons. Dark tunnels branched out in all directions. It smelled moldy and musty and was lit by good old-fashioned torchlight. Even the running water looked dank and nasty. Ben got out of the water as fast as he could, in case Vic tried firing his electricity into the liquid, and made a face as the slimy stuff clung to his skin.
"Sheesh. Plumbing needs some work," he grumbled. Doom and that control box of his were still on the floor above. Ben had to get back up there. No problem. One good jump oughta do the trick.
He looked up just as Doom retrieved a lance that adorned one wall and pitched it down at Ben. The Thing snapped the wooden spear into kindling with his huge arms. He jumped, catching Doom in a flying tackle on his way up. They both rolled, trading punches, as mortar and electricity flying every which way as they fought. Doom finally broke away from the Thing and ran to fetch another weapon from its wall display. He brandished a mace at Ben, charging this weapon with electricity as he lunged. Ben feinted left, dodging the strike, and landed a punch to Doom's thick metal skull.
The portable control box flew out of Doom's pocket and skipped across the floor. Ben forgot the skirmish and went after the small but important device. He just grazed it with his fingers when electricity flashed past him and struck the box, obliterating it and with it their best chance of saving Johnny.