Some ideas were so powerful that they didn't need to be explained-or even spoken out loud. One person would get the idea, say something brief or generic, and the others would immediately catch on. That was what happened in the large room above the atomic generator. As soon as Daredevil had finished speaking, Angel knew what he was talking about, and he was pretty sure that Halo Knight did, too. In some ways, it was the same principle that the Space Race was based on. You could solve everything by going up.

Angel watched as Halo Knight dropped to his knees, put his hands on the floor, and started pumping anti-gravity rings into it. Nothing happened immediately, but he could hear a sort of straining noise. It sounded like a huge ship creaking.

For a second, there, Angel had been afraid that Daredevil had snapped. All that smiling. But he seemed to be fine, so Angel was focusing on the CIA man, instead. He still had a gun in his hand, and Angel didn't trust him. Angel's body was back to normal, now, so he took the cape off, wadding it up and stuffing it into the makeshift pouch on his back.

"I'm sorry," Halo Knight shouted, trying to make himself heard through his non-functioning helmet. "I'm sorry!"

Angel looked down through the clear material, staring at the wheel-looking generator. It had an outer ring, a central core, and "spokes" that ran between the two. The thing was as wide as some buildings. It seemed to be more wide than deep, though...

"Hey, maybe you should start over there," Angel said, pointing to the closest end of the room. "This thing's shaped like a flat circle. If it launches straight up, you'll get a lot of wind-resistance. But if you start at one of the edges, it'll tilt upright, and it'll be more streamlined. Like one of those new throwing discs. It'll go even faster, then."

"Good idea." Halo Knight hovered to the edge of the room, and once again knelt down.

After a minute or so of Halo Knight firing more rings, Angel expected the floor to break away, but it didn't happen. He heard a lot of rumbling and creaking, though. Daredevil also knelt down, putting one hand on the floor, and then he stood back up. "The generator is encased in this stuff. It isn't tempered glass, it's something even stronger. Probably some kind of radiation shielding."

The CIA man started to ask how Daredevil could possibly know that, but Angel interrupted him. "What if the shielding stuff breaks away from the generator and, uh, takes off without it?"

"It won't," Daredevil said. "The generator is physically touching the casing-they're practically the same object. His gravity powers are affecting the generator, too."

It was true. Halo Knight was pumping rings into the floor, and they seemed to break up and vanish as soon as they hit it...but, underneath, Angel could see tiny specks of dust lifting off of the generator. That made sense. After all, his rings had usually hit their clothing, not their skin, but their bodies were still affected. Their clothes were touching their bodies, and the gravity effect had flowed right through.

"Quit looking at me like that."

Angel kept checking on the CIA man, who was standing around awkwardly. He didn't seem to know what to do with himself.

"Calm down, kid. I know what's going on-I'm not gonna kill him. Whatever was going on in his head, your buddy snapped him out of it, and America still needs him. I'm serving my country, it was just an assignment. It was never personal." When the CIA man said the last part of that, it looked as if he didn't quite believe his own words. But he shook himself out of it, adding, "He was out of his mind, and he's too powerful to imprison, so it was the only option."

"You're too intelligent to believe that," Daredevil said. "He isn't the Hulk...he doesn't have invulnerable skin. You could've put him in a secure hospital and kept him sedated."

That idea apparently hadn't occurred to the CIA man, because his eyes flickered with surprise, and maybe even alarm. Mumbling to himself: "Wait, why wouldn't th-"

"Is there anybody in the building above us?" Halo Knight still had his hands on the floor, and was pouring everything he had into it. There was now an all-encompassing noise that sounded like the world's longest string of firecrackers. The floor had always been shaking, but it was starting to jerk.

"No, the cops said that they'd evacuate it," Daredevil said. "It's the middle of the night, so there were only a few security guards and janitors inside."

"That's good," Halo Knight said, panting, "because there's only one direction this thing can go, and the building's gonna get trashed."

Angel shuddered. The generator would crash through all the levels of the General's base, and then it'd do the same to the towering office building that they were underneath.

"Have you ever...you know...moved something this big?" Angel asked.

"This is what I was trained to do," Halo Knight said, his helmet suddenly reactivating. "Launching huge objects into space."

"That isn't an answer," the CIA man said.

"Have I ever launched something this big? Yeah, absolutely. This heavy? No, it's even worse than the space prototypes they had me-"

Suddenly, the walls started to crack, and Halo Knight's end of the floor rose up. The entire surface was now on a slanting angle.

"If this thing takes off like a rocket, the building above us will practically explode," Daredevil said.

"It'll be a lot slower than that," Halo Knight assured him. "It won't pick up any real speed until it's already in the air. When an object is this big and heavy, my powers take a while to affect it."

"I had an uncle that was in construction," the CIA man said, "and he knew a lot about demolition, too. This fortress is basically the foundation for the building, and we'll be punching a hole through the middle of both of 'em. I think the building will just collapse in on itself."

"Let's hope you're right," Daredevil said. "But we should still get out there and warn them. At the very least, they need to expand their perimeter and push everybody back." Daredevil looked at Angel. "Once it goes airborne, you'll be the only one that can help Halo Knight. You may even need to fly him, so he can use both hands on this thing, instead of just one."

"Got it," Angel said, "but what happens when everything caves in on us?"

"We use...the generator...as a shield." Halo Knight's entire body was shaking, now. "We fly underneath it...and press ourselves right up against it."

Yeah, that'll be easy-at first, when it's still relatively flat. But once it's up on one end, we'll be hiding underneath its edge, which is probably a lot thinner.

The generator's metal was groaning (it wasn't used to being moved), and the walls were making god-awful tearing noises. Daredevil sprinted toward the nearest exit. "Throw that thing into space, and don't let it carry you off with it!"

"Don't be afraid to come back, when you're done," the CIA man added, running alongside him. "I'll go to bat for you! Compared to some of the other people working in the space program, you're a choirboy. You're saving millions of lives, and once I explain what happened, I know they'll understand! You can still help us beat the Russians to the moon!"

It was just Angel and Halo Knight, now.

"...feel...like such an idiot..." Halo Knight said. His arms were pressed against the floor, and his hands were constantly emitting flashes of silver light. "I had this...belief...and I kept finding problems with it...but I was sure I was right. I came up with all these explanations, all these ways to tell myself it was still true. So...stupid. But I had these ideas about who I was, what I was, and they just took over."

"I understand completely."

"You...ready to do this, man?"

"Might as well."

They flew underneath the generator-or at least, underneath the part that was lifting up. The other half of the "wheel" was still in the process of breaking free. Angel had expected it to be dark, but Daredevil was right; the transparent shielding wrapped all the way around it, so the generator's glow still provided light.

"Press me against it...so I can use both hands..."

Angel didn't like the idea of unfolding his wings in what was about to be an avalanche of debris, so he focused, and the cape responded. It leapt out of the pouch and once again wrapped around his neck. The cape would enable him to fly in a more "contained" manner, and it also gave him a chance to use his wings like limbs, having them push Halo Knight against the underside of the shielding. They were stronger than his arms, anyway.

"...feel like...I'm being smothered to death by giant pillows..."

"Yeah, keep whining, buddy. That helmet's got oxygen, doesn't it?"

Halo Knight nodded. When he spoke, he sounded stronger, somehow. "It pulls in fresh air when I want it to, and then it seals me off and uses whatever it's stored. The helmet's connected to oxygen lines underneath my padding, too, and it's already topped them off. That'll hold me for a while."

He resumed shooting rings into the generator, and Angel wondered when the underside would lose the "under" and simply become the "side." When that happened, they'd have to drop down quickly, so the debris didn't hit them.

"Hey-once this thing is upright, how will this work?"

"We'll get underneath it, again, and I'll shoot rings into it from there."

"Won't that make it flip end over end?"

"No, once it's in the position I want, I can shoot rings into it from anywhere, and it'll stay like it is. Trust me, I wasted years doing experiments like that."

The lifted half of the generator tore through the ceiling. It was deafening, and there was an avalanche of metal shards and wiring. Since they were underneath the generator, none of it touched them...but Angel could see it over his shoulder, and he could feel it as it plummeted by. It was like standing with your back to a waterfall. That forceful, hurtling noise, and the creepy combination of mass and motion. It was making Angel's hair blow around.

As the generator continued to rise and tilt, Halo Knight said that they could move a little closer to the middle, away from the falling debris. But not completely in the center; they stayed under the half that they were lifting up. The generator was maybe at a forty-five-degree angle. Now that Angel was staring right at it, with no other distractions, he saw how bolts were popping out of the metal, and how the orange energy in it was blinking erratically.

Angel wanted Halo Knight to hurry up-it was a miracle that the generator hadn't already overloaded and killed them-but, the more progress he made, the less cover they had. The wide, wheel-shaped generator was getting closer to being tipped end-on-end. In a few more minutes, or maybe five at the most, the debris would be falling right on them.

Halo Knight was apparently thinking the same thing. "We can go lower, now! Right smack in the middle!"

As Angel lowered them toward the "hub" of the wheel, he suddenly heard cords snapping, and he spun his head around. The generator was being torn free from the power lines that connected it to the rest of the base. They looked like big hoses with suction cups on the ends, which attached to the shielding. Apparently, the energy had gotten through there, somehow, but it didn't seem to be leaking out now. The General's men had been trying to overload it on purpose, so it made sense that they'd seal off the generator to keep all its power in.

"Is that something I need to worry about?" Halo Knight asked.

"No, it's just a bunch of cables coming loose."

Objects from the second floor were starting to pour down-the fake movie sets, for instance-and Angel felt a sudden wave of resistance.

"I think we just hit the next ceiling," Halo Knight said.

Angel kept an eye on the debris. Now that they'd passed the "halfway point" of their tilting, the generator seemed to be rising faster. It was more balancing than lifting. The first ceiling had put up quite a fight...but they must have punctured the second one in no time, because the resistance quickly vanished. When it broke through, the generator went flying ahead of them, and Angel had to rush to keep up. It encountered the third ceiling in seconds.

"Hey, once we've got the generator on its side, how tall do you think it'll be?"

"The whole thing will be floating by then, so it'll be hard to say. But I'd say at least three stories."

Once Halo Knight said it was okay, they dropped even lower. The generator was incredibly close to being upright. Their cover-the higher-floating end of the generator-was a thin, distant thing, now. The "overhang" was protecting them, but it seemed like a sliver.

They were almost at the bottom (originally the side) of the generator. The shower of debris kept getting closer, and Angel was preparing to dart underneath, with Halo Knight in tow. They must have already torn through the third level's ceiling, but Angel hadn't even felt it.

Even with his helmet magnifying his voice, Angel could barely hear Halo Knight over the thunderous debris. "Almost...almost...there!"

The generator's metallic groaning finally stopped, and Angel knew that it was upright and balanced. They'd been pressed against the wider part of the wheel, but now, Angel took them underneath its curving, much thinner rim. But the generator's edge wasn't as narrow as he'd feared; it was like hiding behind a small garage.

"What is that?"

Angel glanced over his shoulder, straining to see. (The flatly-circular generator was standing up like a coin that had landed on neither heads nor tails, so looking in front of him or behind him enabled him to see the generator's rim, while debris was falling on either side of them.) There was a transparent hatch in what was now the bottom of the shielding. It led to a tiny, box-shaped room, which had an identical hatch on its other wall. The little room reminded him of a shared closet.

"It must be some kind of access panel!" Angel shouted, but he didn't know if Halo Knight could hear him.

Falling pieces of metal were replaced by falling pieces of concrete. Now that the generator was completely loose and in the position that Halo Knight wanted, the whole thing was rising. The changing debris told Angel that the top edge of the generator had breached the above-ground office building. The rumbling above them was getting even louder, and the generator seemed to be picking up speed. Angel had to hurry to keep Halo Knight pressed against it. (Halo Knight had to be running on empty by now, but he'd been firing rings into it the whole time.)

A multi-colored dust filled the air. It was grey, white, and off-white: powder from shattered concrete, powder from shattered plaster, and flakes from shattered paint-covered walls. Angel found himself coughing. In moments, they were aboveground, crashing through the building. They left a huge, hollowed-out "silo" in their wake. Office furniture and equipment was plunging down into it. So were doors, water fountains, and toilets. The hole stretched all the way down to the bottom of the fortress, where the generator had once been. Angel chuckled. The General had been determined to remake the world in his own twisted image, but his nightmarish vision was about to be buried underneath an avalanche of everyday life.

Apparently, the building wasn't as sturdy as the underground fortress, because they cut through it in no time. Angel was slapped by cold air, and he suddenly realized that they were breaking free from the office building. The entire generator jerked when it finally liberated itself from its architectural straitjacket. As the CIA man had predicted, the building collapsed in on itself, creating a huge cloud of dust in the process. Angel saw sirens-flashing cop cars and fire trucks far below. He had good eyes, and he could tell that the crowd had been pushed back safely.

"...hang...on..."

Now that the generator was free, and overflowing with anti-gravity, it really did take off like a rocket. Angel didn't have anything to hold on to, but the cape enabled him to keep pace with it. The two of them stayed underneath it, Angel still holding Halo Knight with his wings, and Halo Knight still pumping it full of rings.

Oh my god...I've never flown this fast in my life. The first time I used the cape, we were indoors, and it must've kept its brakes on. We have to be going hundreds of miles an hour. Maybe even a thousand.

The generator picked up speed, and so did they. Ever since he'd grown his wings, Angel didn't really get cold, anymore-his body seemed to be built for high-altitude hijinks. But he was actually shivering, right now. The wind-resistance should have been tearing their clothes apart, and making it impossible for Angel to keep his eyes open, but they were behind the profile of the generator, and it was shielding them.

"WE GO AS HIGH AS WE CAN," Angel screamed, "AND THEN WE LET IT GO!"

Halo Knight didn't respond.

Time passed, but Angel had no idea how much. One minute? Five? The air was starting to thin out, though, and they were above all of the clouds. Angel was absolutely freezing. The generator had returned to making a deafening noise, and its energy had shifted from orange to white-hot. It was really gaining speed; even the cape was having trouble keeping up with it.

Suddenly, Halo Knight was waving, and Angel realized that he wanted to shift their position. Halo Knight waved in a certain direction, and Angel went that way. Then, Halo Knight nodded, and Angel stopped.

Wait, we're right by the-

Halo Knight suddenly broke free of his wings' grip, grabbed the hatch's handle, and yanked it open. He propelled himself inside and closed the hatch behind him.

It was a powerful idea, and Angel immediately understood it. "NO, NO, DON'T!"

When Angel first met Halo Knight, Halo Knight had launched him into the skies, with no way to get back down. Now, Angel was falling behind, and he had no way to keep up. The anti-gravity-infused generator was too fast. Once inside, Halo Knight resumed firing his rings, and the generator build up even more of a lead.

Angel started coughing, and, for some reason, his progress stopped. The cape slowed to a halt. Angel tried to make it keep going, but it wouldn't listen. Above him, the generator vanished into the distance, blinking away like a shooting star.