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.
13
Doctor Doom must surely have detected the arrival of the Human Torch and the Thing, but only a skeletal crew and a dozen guards were in the shell of the power plant. Johnny let Ben drop down in the middle of a small cluster of guards. Having heard or witnessed what the Thing had done to their cohorts during the Fantastic Four's last visit to the palace, half of the guards ran away immediately. The other half drew their weapons but hesitated to fire or twitch or do anything else that might provoke the stone behemoth.
The Human Torch landed behind Doom's minions. He recognized a few of Mufale's former soldiers among Doom's new legion. The guerrillas had the glassy-eyed stares of men controlled by Sater's 'autopilot' hypnosis. The guards who were in their right minds weren't any more keen on starting a fight with Doom's former protégé/prisoner than with the Thing. Some were secretly hoping Johnny Storm wasn't blaming them for their employer's mistreatment.
Johnny winced, rubbing his aching arms and back. He frowned at Ben. "Ow, thanks for the hernia!"
"Aw, gee, sorry Tinkerbell, want me ta carry you next time?" Ben smirked.
The Human Torch mumbled an answer about what Ben could do with that offer before he turned to face Doom's perplexed lackeys. "Hey Misha, Haltov, Chuck! Who won Employee Karaoke Night?" he greeted them.
In answer, the guards exchanged baffled looks and then opened fire. Johnny was already moving. He flew out of the path of the shots, then drove the guards back with a barrage of weak fireballs---driving them right into Thing's waiting hands. Ben made pretzels out of the rifles.
"They don't speak English," Johnny explained to Ben.
"I wasn't feelin' chatty anyway." Ben knocked a few heads together, pitched a few screaming guards aside, and those who were left standing reconsidered the fight (and their career options) and took off running down the access tunnel. "Well, hell," Ben sulked.
Johnny doused his flames. "Don't be too hard on them. Not everyone can get psyched up about having his ass kicked by a giant stone guy for Latverian minimum wage…" The Human Torch broke off mid-sentence. He had suddenly felt the same weird feeling he'd had when Doom first showed him the meteorites. That weird feeling was much stronger this time. It was so strong that Johnny could follow it to its source and did so. "…wait, something's not right."
"Specifically?" Ben asked as he followed Johnny, who was moving down the corridors like a bloodhound who'd caught the scent of an escaped convict. He, too, could feel something odd in the air, something like the creepy feeling those space rocks gave him. Was that it? Had the kid picked up the trail of the thermal cells?
The Human Torch stopped at a door that read 'Generator Room'. He remembered this place. Standing in front of that door, remembering how gullible he'd been stealing those rocks, listening to Doom's twisted rants, giving his powers to that psycho, made Johnny feel like a prized chump.
The strange feeling was an energy signature with which Johnny was intimately familiar: His own biothermal energy. "This is the place," he said. The levels of biothermal heat Johnny was sensing behind that door alarmed him…as did Doom's conspicuous absence. If his toys were in that room, Doom should be here to protect them. "I'll go after the cells---or whatever is generating that heat. Keep Doom and the goon patrol off my back," Johnny told Ben.
Ben stepped between him and the door, shaking his head. "Not a good idea, Junior."
"Listen, there's only one way in and out of this room, and I really don't want to get trapped inside," Johnny hurriedly explained. Besides the danger of Doom cornering them, the Human Torch was going to be very claustrophobic about small metal rooms for a long time. "Besides, with the heat I'm feeling from this room…well, rock is sturdy, but it does eventually melt. Wait here," he insisted.
As if on cue, more of Doom's security guards---and Mufale's brainwashed soldiers---put in an appearance. They weren't halfway down the access tunnel before they opened fire on Johnny and Ben. Bullets ricocheted off the titanium walls, a few narrowly missing Johnny.
Ben turned to meet the oncoming goombahs, all but rubbing his hands in anticipation. He clotheslined the first two or three with his outstretched arms, and then eagerly dove into the fray against the reinforcements. "Now that's more like it," he grinned.
"As long as you're happy, Big Guy." Johnny left the thug bashing to the Thing while he keyed open the door. Doom hadn't changed the access code in light of Johnny's rescue. Guy's got a serious case of overconfidence here. He probably figured the Human Torch wouldn't be coming back for a long while, thanks to Doom's fragging Sater's program. He should have known not to underestimate Reed Richards.
What Johnny saw when the door slid open was worse than he'd imagined. "Holy…"
There had to be one hundred of the meteor fragments. They lay in the metal case that Johnny had stolen from Selva-Uitti, obviously having been tucked away beneath a false bottom that Johnny had not noticed. He had been too busy trying to kill his own family on Doom's orders to inspect the case very closely.
The 'generator' panels had folded open like a flower. An infused stone—the one Doom had told Johnny couldn't hold its charge during that first test of the space rocks---was suspended on titanium pins at the center of the generator. A claw extended from the machine one-by-one and delicately removed stones from the metal case. The claw set the stones into a second set of pins beside the infused stone. The generator closed its panels around the two stones. Johnny felt the biothermal energy flare inside the containment box.
When the panels opened again, both stones glowed with the Human Torch's stolen power. A hatch on the wall slid open and a second claw extended a smaller titanium-hybrid box. The newly charged stone was dropped into the box, and the claw and box were retracted into the wall…into the adjoining control room. The first claw reached into the metal box and pulled out a fresh stone, placing it on the pins to be infused.
One stone had enough power to infuse all these stones with Johnny's full supernova power? How was that possible? Then Johnny remembered: 'Self-regenerating', Doom had called them. The stone could let off a nova blast and then charge its own batteries…just like Johnny's DNA could continually regenerate his powers.
"I said that Richards and Grimm had no idea how powerful you really are, Johnny---see what your powers have wrought."
Johnny spun in the direction of the voice. Doom stood in the adjoining control room, clutching the infused stone in his metal hand. There was a half dozen individual boxes, a half dozen fully charged stones, sitting on the console in front of Doom. He beamed over his arsenal. "What do you think?" he asked Johnny, sounding gratingly like a bragging parent. Bragging about what? His thermal bomb space rock or his duplicity in coercing Johnny to create them?
"I think you are one twisted puppy, Vic," Johnny answered.
Outside the generator room, up to his elbows in Doom's patrol, Ben heard the door hiss. He saw that it was closing and its panel flashed the word 'Lock'. He finished off this group of guards by picking one up and using him to bowl over the others, and just managed to shove his arm between the door and its frame before it could close all the way.
"All that talk about 'making life better for the poor farmers' and 'bringing murderers to justice' and 'saving the environment with a clean energy source' and what you really wanted was for me and the doc to make you new weapons to play with. Is that why the doc had to die? Just to give you a couple extra days to power up the rest of these space rocks?" Johnny crossed his arms, marveling now at how well Sater's brainwashing had worked. It was as if Johnny had been in a brain fog the last time he'd been here, in this palace of Doom's, in this room. The shroud had made him oblivious to his own naivety, make Doom's ludicrous ranting sound like logic, made freak boy seem heroic. It was like Johnny, Doom's Protégé, had been in the dark then and now the lights had been turned back on to reveal the monster that would be mentor.
"I told you I never let anyone live who can destroy my plans," Doom dismissed the mention of the late Doctor Sater. "So, Richards managed to decipher Sater's post-hypnotic coding, did he?" There was no real need for Doom to ask. If it wasn't obvious from the anger blazing in the boy's eyes, anger directly fully at his former captor, Grimm's presence and Johnny's camaraderie with his team mates would have told him that the Human Torch was free of the brainwashing. Doom was surprised by his own disappointment. "I don't suppose you'll be wanting me to restore your place in my new empire?"
Johnny blinked. "What? Are you kidding? Was that a joke?"
Doom chuckled. "I suppose that wouldn't be a good idea. I do enjoy our chats, Johnny, and that stubborn idealism you've inherited from your family is entertaining…but it would inevitably become a hindrance to my plans."
Ben's struggle to pry open the door had not escaped Doom's attention. Tired of trying to talk with Thing's pounding and the grinding of metal, Doom touched a switch and the door slid open to admit Grimm. "Ben, if you're so intent upon joining out conversation don't break the door. It would be bad on a global scale if containment of these cells were compromised."
Johnny looked away from Doom for just an instant when Ben entered the generator room. In that brief moment, Doom pressed a switch and the claw once again extended from the wall---this time picking up the metal case with the un-infused meteorites and pulling it into the control room where it was safely out of reach of the Human Torch and the Thing.
Ben stomped towards the window separating them from Doom. "How about if I compromise this?" He slammed his fist into the pane. It didn't so much as vibrate under his assault. Ben tried a second time, with no better luck.
"If you do that nonstop for about eight days, you might crack the pane," Doom gloated. "Now, as for your question, Johnny, I had to use Dr. Sater's program to ensure your cooperation because you never would have willingly helped me create the thermal cells otherwise. I needed her method of persuasion. But, I am a man of my word. You know that. I have every intention of using these thermal cells as prototypes for a new energy source. Latveria will still reap the benefits of being the world's only exporter of the scaled-down thermal batteries…and, naturally, as the world's only supplier, I'll enjoy the financial windfall of my invention. You would have profited beyond your wildest dreams if you'd stayed on my employee roster, Johnny."
There had been a time---before the accident, before the Human Torch and the Fantastic Four---when such an offer, particularly from Victor Von Doom, would have been too good to for Johnny to pass up. There had been a time when he really did admire Von Doom, the businessman who dwarfed even Donald Trump with his success. He could even remember wanting to be more like Victor, admiring his fame, his money, his accomplishments, his list of celebrity friends (and girlfriends), and most of all his ability to do whatever he wanted whenever he felt like it with no one questioning him or second guessing him, without his fate being decided behind closed doors.
Funny how things worked out. Johnny had found fame, and the money coming in from merchandising and from Reed's invention wasn't too shabby at all, but his priorities had changed somewhere along the line in the last six months. Doom saw power as control, as a weapon, as strength, as something all-consuming. He could never have enough. Johnny had almost been sucked into that way of thinking, too, but he'd learned to see it differently. Power was a tool, a dangerous tool. It was a responsibility (and Johnny was the last person who would have expected himself to adopt that attitude). For all he could accomplish with it on his own, Johnny could do more with it, do more good with it, as part of something bigger. It was being a part of that something bigger, a part of a whole, a part of a family, that was his strength.
So, Doom was right---not for a billion dollars would Johnny have gone along with his thermal cell idea. Never would he have taken the chance of it being used the way Doom had used it, the way Doom intended to keep using it.
Johnny was glad that Doom's once-persuasive arguments now sounded to him like what they were: The ramblings of a nutcase. He had wondered if, when he faced Von Doom again, an overlooked booby trap from Dr. Sater's programming would suck him back into Doom's mind games. The fact that Johnny was seeing a wolf instead of a sheep was proof to himself that he could finally believe he was free of Doom's control. If Doom ever started to make sense again, Johnny would have to remind himself to do a reality check or get his head examined.
"Is that how you justify everything? And tell me, Vic, what's the windfall from selling the thermal cells as weapons?" Johnny wanted to know.
Beneath his mask, Doom smiled again with almost paternal pride at his ex-protégé's insight. "Lucrative. Don't be so stiff-necked, Johnny, the weapons' grade cells still won't attain nova temperatures. I want to improve the world, not incinerate it. Even I shudder at the idea of that kind of raw power in irresponsible hands."
"Irresponsible says Mr. Pot…"
"I don't indiscriminately blow up innocent people," Doom snapped. "If you're having some kind of superhero's remorse about the bomb that I used on Mufale's men, let me put it to rest: They were murderers. I didn't lie to you about that. If you knew half of the horrors they'd inflicted on Latveria, you wouldn't waste another minute lamenting them. I know I won't. I'm sure, despite your protests, that you understand, Johnny. We're too alike for you not to. I'm sure if you found the person responsible for tearing apart your family and framing your father, you wouldn't let them wander free and live happily ever after just to satisfy some archaic, idealistic notions of right and wrong. Would you?"
The truth was, Johnny didn't know what he'd do in that situation…but that didn't make Doom right about them being anything alike. "I'm not a killer, Doom," he repeated, a twitch of his hand the only indication of how the question had hit a nerve.
"You haven't been in this game long enough to get your hands bloody, but you can be sure that day will come," Doom predicted. "For you and for the rest of your family. With the right provocation, we're all capable of murder. Don't imagine because you call yourself a hero and follow some code distinguishing good from evil that you're the exception to human nature…and revenge is the strongest provocation of them all. I'll bet you thought about revenge when you found out what Dr. Sater and I did to you with her program. I'll bet you thought about killing me when you found out what I did to Dr. Sater…I'm sure Richards thought about it too. If you'd only listened to what I had to teach you, I could have helped you prepare for that eventuality."
Ben cut Doom off. The kid didn't need him screwing with his mind any more and there was enough hot air in that room without Doom adding his b.s. "Ya wanna 'improve the world', Tin Man? Start by pullin' that metal bottom lip of yours over yer face and swallowin'."
Doom barely spared Ben a glance in response. He continued to direct his tirade at the Human Torch. "What now, Johnny? Are you going to try to take the cells with you---and the only hope those villagers and farmers have of escaping their poverty? Steal the hope of people who idolize you, hero?"
"If my only choice is between that and leaving you a bomb made out of my powers…yes." There were other ways to help the folks, the friends, Johnny had made during his awful time under Doom's thumb. There were other ways to get them a power plant if that's what they wanted. Reed had promised Nora Sater he'd find a way. That had been what she'd asked in return for saving Johnny's soul, and Johnny would make sure it was delivered.
"You know I can't let you do that."
With the press of a button, Doom sealed Ben and Johnny inside the control room. The door panel flashed "Lock" as their escape route closed. The generator panels folded open to reveal two infused thermal batteries…the first cell was still transferring thermal power to the second. The claw from the control room deposited a third meteorite onto pins. The first battery began to infuse the third…and then the second thermal cell flared and added its energy to the third cell as well. The temperature of the room was already doubling every few seconds as the cells charged each other.
"Oh perfect," Johnny groaned. Ben saw what was happening as well: When all three cells could hold no more biothermal energy, they were going to nova…one after the other or all at once. The Human Torch had doubts about his own ability to survive three consecutive, amplified supernovas, much less simultaneous ones. Ben wouldn't have a chance. But that wasn't Johnny deepest concerns. He wasn't entirely certain this titanium-hybrid dome was going to contain that much energy. He didn't even know if Sue's power could help contain the blast if she were there.
Ben was thinking the same thing. "How much heat can those rocks generate?"
"Let's just say if this dome doesn't hold it, all of Latveria's gonna feel the blast---right before the atmosphere burns up and we all die," Johnny said grimly.
Thanks to the winter snow pack, the wreckage of the helicopter ignited very few fires, most of it confined to the heaps of twisted metal and bushes closest to the crash site. Sue was able to smother some of the flames with her shields while Reed stretched his hand into a shovel and heaped snow onto the rest. Mr. Fantastic directed the unhappy Ambassador to the smoldering wreckage. The distant sounds of approaching the approach Air Force planes was like the ticking of a clock for both Reed and Gorshen. It ticked away the little time they had to negotiate, Reed for his family and Gorshen for his life.
Richards knew full well that the man he'd just saved was probably guilty of every crime for which Doom blamed him. The knowledge made it harder for Reed to do what he knew he had to do. For his part, Gorshen was sweating bullets in the frigid winter air, and his fear appeared to be directed more at the approaching army than at his rescuers, Reed noticed. He kept one hand firmly on Gorshen's elbow until they found the crash site, lest in his quest for self-preservation the man decide to run blindly into the forest.
Gorshen's voice quavered when he tried to assert some authority over the situation. "You have the gratitude of the people of Latveria for saving my life."
Mr. Fantastic let go of the diplomat and nodded to Sue. She watched Gorshen like a hawk, ready to net him with her shields if he ran. Leaving Gorshen to her, Reed began searching the mangled remains of the helicopter. "I was under the impression that Latveria wanted to put me and my family in prison," Reed countered. "And, don't think that I've saved your life, Ambassador. All I've done is buy you a stay of execution. Doom won't let you go so easily. If you knew why he attacked those soldiers in Chendryn, why he set off that bomb, then you know why he wants you dead."
Reed paused in his search to glance sidelong at Gorshen. As he'd expected, the man was quite pale. "My advice would be to find a deep, dark hole in a country far away from here and hide in it. Maybe you'll live a month or two before Doom finds you."
Sue interjected: "We'd really love to tell the Latverian government who you really are, but we need you to play the loyal and honorable Ambassador for just a little longer."
Reed spied the object that he'd hoped to find among the wreckage. It was lodged beneath the crushed pilot's seat. He pried the box free of the tangled metal and gave it a closer inspection. It was definitely one of the control boxes with Sater's post-hypnotic command program. The titanium shell had survived the crash and fires like a black box from an airplane. He tossed the device to Sue. The Invisible Woman had tucked a small tube that resembled a flashlight up her sleeve. It was a variation of a portable electromagnetic device, with a few additional goodies that Reed had added. At its maximum setting, the 'electromagnet plus' would wipe out every computer system and take down every power plant and aircraft in a city the size of Denver. At its lowest, it would still easily penetrate the titanium shell of Doom's control box and wipe out the program stored on the computer chip inside.
"You know, Mr. Gorshen, or whoever you are, over the past week, I've had to make deals with almost every devil between New York City and Chendryn---Doctor Doom, Nora Sater. I'm not happy about any of it, so one more deal won't make any difference." Reed jumped down from the pile of metal to the snow covered ground. He trudged back to where Sue and the Ambassador waited. Doom's taunts were still in Reed's ears: But then, a good father is willing to make sacrifices to save a son, don't you agree?
Doom was right for once.
"What is it that you want?" Gorshen asked. There was little time left to negotiate with the Americans with the military closing in fast. Gorshen might be able to buy himself a little more time, keep his past a secret a few more hours, by handing over these two Americans to the security forces and implicating them as Doom's co-conspirators, but it would take only a word from these 'superheroes' about his connection to the militia at the Arvizu manor and Gorshen would be sharing a prison cell with them. He knew that these two would not withhold the truth from the Latverian government forever; all that Gorshen could bargain for was the price for and duration of their silence.
Sue shoved the control box, harmless now that Sater's program was erased from its memory, into the Ambassador's hands. "This box is how Doom got to your pilot. It used to contain a program created by Dr. Sa---Doctor Doom." However Sue felt about the woman, there was nothing to gain by having her reputation destroyed with the news of what she'd created, what she'd done to Johnny. Doom could take the fall for that on his own. "It uses light and sound to induce a hypnotic state, putting it in simplified terms, and then it feeds a series of post-hypnotic commands into the subject's subconscious. Hopefully by the time we let your pilot out of that cell we put him in, Reed's counter-program will have freed him from Doom's control. He can be a witness for my brother…and so can you. Considering he just tried to kill you, I doubt your pilot's word alone is going to be enough to convince the people who want to put Johnny in jail for attacking that mansion."
Reed added: "Johnny was abducted by Doom and subjected to that p.h.c. program. He was forced to help Doom attack the remaining guerrillas of the late General Kubeka's militia. I think you already know they were the ones occupying that mansion when it was attacked, not the innocent farmers that your government believes lived there." He stared down Gorshen when the Ambassador opened his mouth to deny the accusation. "Sue was there to stop the attack. If she hadn't been, every man, woman, and child for miles would have been killed. I've told your friend Penscik all this, but I don't think he's going to be convinced unless he hears it from two eyewitnesses like you and your unfortunate pilot."
Just as he had while talking to Penscik, Reed omitted bits of information that Gorshen didn't need to know---like the thermal cells that had started all this trouble. If he mentioned it, the Ambassador might get the bright idea to make the surrender of the thermal cells part of the agreement for clearing Johnny and Sue's name.
Gorshen mulled the request quickly. "And what? I clear your names while my pilot condemns me?" he scoffed.
"Doom spoke to your pilot on a closed circuit, just like he did when he brainwashed Johnny. No one else heard what he said to either of you and your pilot didn't speak or repeat Doom's accusations over your radio. You're very lucky. Temporary memory loss is one of the effects of the mind control program. Your pilot won't remember anything he heard until the de-programming is complete. I can delay it a little bit, but I won't erase his memory. Maybe you can be safely vanished down your rabbit hole before he remembers what Doom said to him about your past," Reed answered.
It was as good as Gorshen could hope for, given the circumstances. He opened his mouth to agree, but Reed wasn't done yet: "Just a couple other things before you pull your disappearing act. In addition to clearing Johnny and Sue's names, you'll make an announcement about their innocence and their part in saving your life to the international press and the United States government. I'm sick of reporters camping on our doorsteps. Also, you'll arrange to have the body of Dr. Eleanora Sater flown from New York City and returned to whatever family she has in Latveria. She was murdered by Doom while helping us counter that program…you owe her your life, indirectly."
"Is that all?" Gorshen wanted to know. The Ambassador had never heard of the woman, but those arrangements would be easy to handle.
The military aircraft were almost upon them. Over their speakers, the pilots shouted in Latverian what sounded like warnings directed at Reed and Sue.
"I have some thoughts on a power plant desperately needed in Chendryn, but I'm sure your successor can deal with that after your 'retirement'," Reed smile icily. "Do we have a deal?"
"You will protect me from Doom," the Ambassador demanded.
"No. We will lead your armed forces to where Doom's been hiding and keep him off your back for a few days. You're on your own after that. I'm not going to spend the rest of my life baby-sitting you, Ambassador, I'm not that fond of you," Reed countered. "Agreed?"
What choice did he have? Gorshen frowned, a man watching his life unraveling. "Agreed."