Suddenly, Tony had a brainwave.

"Guards," he said.

The rest of the team clearly couldn't see the vast amount of thought that had gone into this statement, and he was forced to elucidate.

"The guards in the security complex, guarding all the freaks that we mostly get from Spider-Man. After Norman Osborn escaped, Fury had the place rebuilt, it's like a friggin' fortress. If there are guards in there, could they get out?"

Sharon Carter shook her head. "No, because after Osborn got out, we reworked the power system. There's now a new generator buried in the bedrock that powers the cells and the power-damping collars. If there are any guards still free, they're not coming out."

Suddenly, a window on the first floor exploded, and a man fell out.

Rick Jones, Deputy Chief of Security for the Triskelion, was not having a nice day. Firstly, he had drawn the short straw to guard the cells during lunch-hour, and then the com-system had gone out. He was worried. Next to him, the other guard, Kate Waynesboro, on detached duty from Psi-Divison, was also looking worried.

From across the corridor, there came a laugh. It was Nguyen Mordo, the blind guy who had killed some professors up at NYU. "You friends are in peril, Richard Milhouse Jones," he said. "Unless you act, they will surely perish."

"And how do you know that?" said Rick, sounding a lot more confident than he was.

Mordo tapped an eye tattoo on his palm. "I've seen it," he said, "with this."

Rick stopped and thought. Maybe he could disable the lock on the door, but they would still need someone with superpowers to get it open.

Mordo laughed. "Yeah, that's it Jones."

Rick started. Had Mordo read his thoughts? He decided to review the power-nullifying shackles once this was over.

Across the corridor from Mordo, a failed PI called Mac Gargan stood up. "Camahn, man. You let me out, and I swear, I'll get you outta here so fast – "

"Shut up, Gargan. And even if I would, I don't have your code," said Rick, going to the door. He picked up the clipboard with the previous day's entrants. He walked down the hall, and stopped in front of the cell of Cletus Cassidy. "What are your powers, Cassidy?"

Cassidy grinned, a predatory grin, that hadn't left his face since he'd come into the building. "Haven't got any, man. I'm just waiting for you guys to realise your mistake and let me out."

Kate Waynesboro started edging away from the cell. "Don't let him out, Rick. I can see into his mind."

Rick shrugged, and looked down at the list. The other new prisoner was…

"Simon Williams," said Rick. "Of Williams Innovations?"

"The same," said Williams. He was trying to do yoga out of a book.

"What are your powers?"

"Why should I tell you?"

Rick was losing patience. "Because we're trapped underground, in the most secure prison in the world, with three toilets to a hundred cons, and there's no food. Now will you help or not?"

Williams got up. "All right. See, the human body has a magnetic field, the Kirlian aura, which is a good indicator of health, right? So my company tried to find the formula for human DNA that can absorb magnetic energy and use it to gain enhanced strength. I was part of the testing process."

"So if we could supercharge you with electricity, you could get us out?"

"Yeah. So how do you know that I will?"

Kate Waynesboro spoke up. "Because you're a good man, Simon. You didn't give up when Stark International started outselling your company, you won't give up now."

Simon sighed. "Alright, but you still can't –"

Rick punched a code into the control console by the door. Simon's collar beeped, and fell off. Rick and Kate took their electro-stun prods from the 'umbrella stand', and came towards him.

They crowded around the man who had fallen out of the window. He hadn't woken up yet. They were hoping that he could tell them who had taken control of the Triskelion. Suddenly, he started awake.

"Zemo!" he yelled.

He suddenly noticed that he wasn't inside anymore, and began babbling. Reed Richards, who was not good at dealing with people, went into the lab-tent. Inside, Sue and Paste Pot Pete were hard at work dealing with samples of the gunk that covered the doors. They were clearly excited about something. Reed walked over. "What's up?"

Sue looked up, clearly excited. "We took samples earlier today, to look for weaknesses. And did you see, just after the guy fell through the window, there was a small ripple went through the gunk. So we took another sample. And it's incredible – the gunk has actually mutated, so it's now denser than before, and partly fireproof. But, when it did this, it lost part of its coherency. By my reckoning, this thing should collapse in," she looked down at her clipboard, "a thousand generations."

Paste Pot Pete looked up. "I brought some solvents from home," he said, "and if I can have my box from the Baxter Building, I can bring that thing down by this time tomorrow."

Reed nodded, and went to find Dr. Storm and arrange for Pete's box to be brought over. He went back to the crowd around the fallen man, who had moved him into one of the tents after Iron Man had used his sensors to find whether his back was broken. He was given descriptions of the men inside. "The big one, they called him the Radioactive Man. He has a harness that makes him glow. He throws energy from his hands, like Magneto!"

Reed and Dr. Storm talked for a while, and Dr. Storm agreed to call the Baxter Building immediately. An ambulance came up, and the man was taken to a nearby hospital. "Who was he?" Reed asked Thor.

Thor picked a thin brown oblong off the table. "According to his wallet, he's James Woo, agent of SHIELD, with an address in Long Island. He must've escaped and broken free." Thor looked at Sharon Carter, who was looking for something on the laptop on her desk on the other side of the tent. "What are you looking for, Agent-In-Charge?"

Sharon looked up. "Radioactive Man," she said. "I know I've heard it somewhere before, and I've got – there!" She pressed 'print', and picked up the pages as they came out of the printer. "See, the tech-guys arranged this recently – a comprehensive database of all the feasibility studies that the Super-Soldier program did, over the years. The idea is that, with recent advances in computers and genetics, the projects that were impossible in the 40's, 50's and 60's could be reworked with modern technology. Here," she said, pointing at the final page as it came out of the printer, "is a study done in 1951. Cap was missing presumed dead, and with the Second World War over, and the advent of nuclear weapons, the Super Soldier program was basically on the rocks. So they tried to gain funding from the Pentagon with the idea of an atomic super-soldier – someone who could control radiation, divert it away from frontline troops. The Pentagon showed interest, but the project was impossible at the time." She leafed through pages, to nearer the end. "Then, after the Cold War, the scientists of what was left of the American Super Soldier program met their Russian counterparts. They decided to compare notes, and they had a Radioactive Man project around the same time we did. So they combined research, and shared the information. Now, someone seems to have stolen the info from us or the Russians."

Thor went over to the screen, and began looking at filenames. "Project War Machine…Project Abomination…Project USAgent…What are these?"

Sharon Carter leant over, and turned off the laptop. "They're need-to-know, thunder man. They're need-to-know."

Thor stood up, angry. "Thunder god," he said.

"Whatever," said Carter, and turned back to Reed, who had been joined by Iron Man. "Where've you been, Tony?"

"I was trying to convince Interpol and the FBI to do word-searches through their databases. Here's my results on Zemo." He set down another set of sheets. "Guys a hacker, and a legend among hackers. Last year on World Bicycle Day, he blew out every traffic light in Atlanta. Year before that, he opened up the CIA's main database to the general public for a day. Not to mention his apparent vendetta with Microsoft. Law-enforcement has been trying to get a line on this guy since he was implicated in the Oklahoma City Bombing, but it's weird – there's stuff in some of the older files, about a famous hippy named Zemo, and going back further to the files of the House Committee of Un-American Activities. It's weird."

Carter began pacing. "So what are we talking about, people?" she said as the rest of the Ultimates drifted into the tent after Iron Man. "Is this guy the real deal, or just an admirer?"

Jan looked thoughtful. "I remember Betty Ross telling me about some blogger called Zemo – claimed we were white supremacists, next week claimed that Cap was an impostor, but after the Chitauri thing he just vanished."

"Right." Sharon Carter walked out of the tent, and the others followed her. They went to the lab tent, and outlined her plan to Sue Storm. "Do we know enough yet?"

Sue Storm nodded.

"All right." Sharon Carter turned around. "Saddle up, boys and girls. The Ultimates are going in.