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Chapter 3: Blindsided
Stark Industries Global Headquarters, Queens, New York
Janet scrambled back to her feet, Stark next to her. She had to shield her eyes from the brightness emanating from whatever it was coming through the massive hole it had just made in the wall of Stark's laboratory. It looked like a man. But it glowed like an angel.
It traveled like an angel, too. It didn't walk in. It floated - hovering fifteen feet in the air.
"What the hell is that?" Stark whispered to Janet.
She shook her head. "I don't know." Then she noticed something in the intruder's hand. "But I have a feeling it's the 'enemy' Don was talking about. Look what it's holding."
In one hand, the being – whatever it was – held what looked like Blake's walking cane.
"Alright. I've got a couple of repulsors over there." Stark nodded to their right, across an expanse of open floor with no place to hide. "I'm going to see if I can bluff him."
Stark stepped out from behind the console, pasted on a fake smile, massaged his hands together and walked forward. "Hi! Welcome to Stark Industries! Can I help you?"
The intruder looked down at Stark, and a sneering grin crept over his face. Then he thrust his hand out in a single gesture, and Stark instantly went flying through the air and slammed against the near wall. He fell in a heap.
"You can do nothing for me, puny mortal!" The intruder's thin, nasally voice seethed with contempt. "Except stay out of my way!"
Janet ducked back down behind the console and looked over at Stark. He lay dazed, barely conscious, at the base of the wall. She darted toward him, and it was only after she was halfway across the floor that she realized: Blake and Pym were presumably buried under the debris from the intruder's explosive entrance. And Stark now lay half-conscious on the floor.
That means I'm alone with this monster.
She turned to face him. He was still gliding toward her, but slowly, almost majestically, like a conqueror surveying his vanquished foes. But his eyes were fixed greedily on her. And Janet could see in them that he was contemplating God-knows-what kind of diversions he might have with her later. She shuddered at the thought.
But as she stared at him in terror, she something else, over his shoulder. Something that amazed her – even though she'd seen it before. Something that suddenly gave her hope.
Out of the dust cloud behind the intruder – silently and with incredible speed – rose Pym. He shot up to an enormous height in what seemed like barely a second. In all the dust and commotion, she'd forgotten he was there. But he still had on the particle belt he and Stark were testing. And now he was rising from the dust like a leviathan from the deep, growing to enormous size – fifteen feet, twenty, twenty-five feet! But utterly silently. The intruder didn't even know he was there!
Janet realized in that instant that she must not look at him. If the intruder saw it, he'd turn, and Pym's advantage of surprise would be lost. She forced herself to stare fixedly at the intruder.
In fact, she decided, she could do more than that.
"What do you want?" she yelled, waving her arms angrily. She boldly started walking straight toward the intruder. "Why did you attack him?" She gestured back toward Stark. "He didn't do anything to you!"
The intruder squinted his eyes at her with a fiendish grin, focusing on her with all his attention - just what she wanted. "I'd destroy you like I did him," the intruder seethed. "If I didn't think I could have more fun doing other things to you!"
Janet saw Pym haul back for a roundhouse punch with all his might. So she kept up the charade. She folded her arms and glared at the intruder haughtily. "You want to hear my idea of fun?" The intruder looked intrigued.
"This!"
And Pym unleashed the blow. He hit the intruder like a gigantic wrecking ball, his fist as big as the man's entire body. The punch landed with such force it knocked him completely through the side wall of the building and into the next one. Janet heard the machinery crashing into wreckage from the other building.
Then she heard something else – a little thing. A clatter, coming from right at Pym's feet. She turned and looked. And there it was.
Blake's staff!
Pym had hit the intruder so hard he'd knocked Blake's cane right out of the guy's hand.
"Hank, the staff!" Janet pointed to the floor.
Pym silently nodded. He reached down and picked up Blake's limp form from the debris with one hand, then reached over and grabbed the staff with his other hand. Meanwhile Janet checked on Stark. He was just coming around.
"We gotta get out of here," was all he said. He started trying to get to his feet.
Janet helped him up. "I agree."
"This way!" Stark called to Pym, who lumbered toward them, his head high above theirs. Janet looked back, and even in the terror of the moment, she found it unnerving to see Pym towering over them, five times his normal size, but otherwise exactly the same. The eye couldn't make sense of the proportions.
Stark ran a few paces along the wall, pressed a button, and a heavy metal plate slid open. "In here!" He helped Janet in. Then they both looked back for Pym – and realized "back" wasn't where Pym was anymore. He was "up."
Stark craned his neck. "You're gonna have to shrink again!"
"But I can fight this guy!" Pym's voice boomed had he handed Blake and the staff down to Stark.
"Not alone, pal. And I'm not risking going for my repulsors. He'll be back any second. We're safer in here."
Pym looked back as if hesitant. But then he pressed a button on his belt buckle, and in a second he was back to normal size. He started into the passageway next to Stark, who was dragging Blake by the shoulders. As soon as they were inside, Stark set Blake down, turned and pushed a button on the inside of the doorway. The metal door slid closed behind them.
Stark slumped back against the passage wall. "This was an emergency disposal chute from when we used to conduct nuclear experiments in this building." He looked at the massive metal door. "Solid lead, six inches thick. That ought to keep him out of our hair for a minute."
They stood listening for a few seconds, but heard nothing. Stark fished a device that looked like a cell phone out of his pocket, punched a code into it, and they heard emergency sirens go off outside.
"Follow me." Stark started down the passageway. "This will get us out of here." Pym hauled Blake now, who was also just starting to come around.
"You know, I'm getting sick and tired of people blowing out the walls of my labs." Stark wiped his forehead with his sleeve. Then he punched another code into the device, and the voice of Pepper Potts, his executive assistant, came through.
"Tony, what's going on?"
"We've got an intruder. A . . . very powerful intruder. Security report."
There was a pause. Then Pepper's voice came back. "Nothing."
"Are you sure? He was just here. He would have come right through the wall of P Building."
Another pause. "I'm getting damage reports. And I'm looking at the hole in P Building. But security's already there. They report no intruders. And I'm not seeing anyone on camera. What kind of person am I looking for?"
Stark hesitated. "One that can fly."
Silence.
"Umm. Come again?"
"Listen, Pepper, I want security crawling all over this place, right? But no one gets inside my new lab."
"Alright." Pepper sounded confused. "Where are you?"
"Gotta go. I'll check back later."
Stark switched off the device. He kept moving down the passageway; Janet and Pym, buddy-carrying Blake, followed. After a few more seconds, Stark stopped. "Here." He was standing in front of another metal door, this one opening from the side of the passageway. He punched a code into the keypad, and the door opened. "This will connect us to the network of tunnels underneath this place. From there, we can get Don to a doctor, and get to my secure office suite."
He stepped into the low, dark tunnel, hit a button to turn on the lights, then turned and looked back at the rest of them. "But I don't know if even there we'll be safe from whatever that was."