The two young lovers lay on the edge of the canyon looking up at the stars each silently glad the other was nearby. The skies around Burton Canyon were clear and beautiful, a great spot for star gazing and both were glad they had reconciled. Everything was tranquil until a flash of light darted across the sky, plummeting towards the earth before landing with a thud about six meters from the couple. The crashing object looked like a massive silver sphere, its outer surface glowing slightly as it lay half buried in the mud.
"What the hell is that thing?" the young woman announced her aurburn hair streaked with pink as she pulled on a pair of jeans.
"No idea." her boyfriend stated as he pulled his own clothes on. "Looks kind of like the time travel device from the Terminator."
"Do you think it's safe?" the woman asked. The man shrugged and rubbed his hand across the surface. "It's cool almost like it's been frozen." Suddenly without warning a liquid metal tentacle darted out of the sphere and slashed open his jean pockets before wrapping itself around his I-Phone and retracting the appendage back into the core, the mobile causing ripples as it was submerged. "Fuck it stole my phone." the guy swore, "That fucking thing cost me two weeks wages and I'm not letting some alien…" He stopped as his girlfriend placed her hand on his shoulder and pointed at the sphere. Images from the internet were playing across the surface, mostly news reels and schematics before dissolving into a mirror image of the onlookers.
"What the hell?" the man swore silently reaching for the pistol in his belt holster. His girlfriend shrieked and suddenly more tentacles like the one that had stole his I-Phone emerged. Opening fire he emptied the entire magazine, the bullets impacting with the sphere's tentacles causing them to collapse before retracting back into the sphere until one remained clutching the stolen I-Phone. With a crack the sphere opened, its metal shell draining into the soil revealing its core and the naked woman straining to escape. The two onlookers rushed forward and begun to help her escape, finally pulling her from the sack of fluid, the rescued woman looked up at them, her features covered over with an organic plastic that pulsated as she breathed; her body was perfect almost as if it had been sculpted by a master craftsman.
"Are you okay honey?" the female rescuer asked.
"Last Firewall not breached." the woman from the sphere mumbled. "Must continue to download information."
"What?" the rescuer asked bending down to look at the woman from the sphere, the later raising her head and running her hand over the girl's face. "This flesh is adequate." she mumbled extending a syringe from her palm into the woman's skin, fire running over the surface and back into her attacker's body, her features appearing on her murderer's face.
"Diana." the man yelled as Diana's body incinerated, her killer standing to stare in his face, slate grey eyes boring into him with a fierce hatred. "Adaptive Camouflage complete." the woman announced slashing out with a fierce blow into the former Diana's boyfriend knocking him to the floor before sticking tendril like fingers into his eyes. "Continue Main Objective: Download essential information for transfer. Current Search: Human Biology."
The alarm clock buzzed nosily, with a hard metallic tone that sliced through the air like a knife. With a lazy slap Abe slammed his fist onto the snooze button and hauled himself up out of the bed leaving Melissa's sleeping form alone under the covers. Walking over to the window he peeked out of the covers and saw that the sun was already rising over the Eastern Horizon. Silently he left the room grabbing his uniform before creeping into the kitchen, filling the kettle and pressing the boil button. Even though he and Melissa had been in Burton Canyon for a month the early starts were still killing them even though their lives were a lot less stressed now that they had left the super-powered community. Getting dressed Abe checked his E-Mails and swapped the boiled water into the coffee pot before putting some bread in the toaster. From the bedroom the alarm clock sounded again for a few seconds before being silenced, a flash of pink energy suggesting Melissa had taken a more permanent solution to silencing the clock. A few minutes later she emerged, her hair in a mess clad in an old T-Shirt emblazoned with a cartoon Moonstone announcing that she liked moon-pie and a pair of old jeans. Abe smiled as he looked down at his own uniform, Melissa was not a morning person and it showed.
"Morning." she grunted as he handed her the pot of coffee and a cup.
"It is." he replied as the toast popped up. "Still no word from Fixer or the others." he added sadly.
"F.A.C.T must be rubbing their hands with glee." Melissa snorted. "Still they had it coming."
"Do we have to talk about this now?" Abe asked, "Don't you have work in half an hour?" Melissa shot him a glare before laughing unable to stay angry with him.
"I suppose so if you call reading for the elderly a job." she stated between giggles, "You know the sight of you wearing a tie is still hilarious." Abe shot her a glare back before throwing a slice of toast at her. "Just because I have a responsible job, doesn't mean that you can laugh at me."
"I'm sorry." Melissa answered, "You want me to pick up a new clock after my shift at the hospital?"
"You broke it you buy a new one." Abe replied as his phone beeped, "Hmm looks like they want me to go straight out into the field, looks like we have a 187 just outside of town."
"Be careful." Melissa warned him, "You're not MACH-V anymore." Abe walked over to her and held her in his arms before kissing her forehead. "This is Burton Canyon what's the worst that could happen?"
"Graviton that's what." Melissa answered as he released her. Abe smiled and walked out the door to the black Pontiac Firebird on the drive. As he got into the car his cool façade melted away and he felt something cold run down his spine, he had a bad feeling about today's work.
Abe arrived at the standard sight of a coroner's vehicle, yellow tape and the media stalking around the perimeter. Several officers were already working the scene and repelling the public while guys in Hazmat suits stood around what looked like a body. Slipping under the tape Abe walked over to where the lead detective stood while a deputy angrily tapped a tablet cursing under his breath.
"Detective Sinclair." Abe said announcing his project. "What do we have here? It must be pretty bad if you called me out into the field, I know just how much you hate the publicity I bring to crime scenes."
"Jenkins finally you're here." Sinclair snapped, "The DB is Officer Julian Grant, one of our own, his girlfriend Diana Fox found him and called it in." Sinclair waved a hand at where a young woman sat with a pair of female officers. Abe figured she was still in shock since she was largely emotionless and distant, she may possibly even be the killer but he quickly shunted that though to the back of his head when Sinclair started talking again. "The whole site as well as Grant's body seems to be affected by electromagnetic radiation, it's buggering up our equipment. Hazmat also has found traces of an unknown metallic compound in the soil. It's all very weird and so naturally I thought of you." he turned to face Abe and gave a sinister sneer. "So bug boy what do you think?"
Abe turned to the deputy and looked at the tablet, the screen seemed to show static an un-typical sign of electromagnetic shutdown. It looked more like the device was compromised but we wouldn't be able to know more until he took it back to the lab. "So how did officer Grant die?" hew asked.
"Coroner says that he was messed around with inside, that his organs had been compromised." Sinclair told Abe, "As for me I think the little green men did it. You know the aliens."
"Can you be more specific?" Abe asked, "I mean was it the Skrulls, the Brood maybe the Kree. There are hundreds of aliens out there so just saying it was Aliens isn't helpful. I mean what evidence do we have that aliens are responsible anyway?"
"Well there is the meteor crater and the strange fluid we found over there." the Deputy piped up pointing to an area crawling with Hazmat officers." Abe rolled his eyes, it was clear that Sinclair and the others knew nothing. He walked around a bit, looked at the scene but nothing jumped out at him. He wanted to talk to Diana but she was shepherded away, probably heading for the hospital for a check-up. Part of Abe wanted to talk to her, Grant and Diana were friends of him and Melissa, they had been the friendliest people in the city to the two former Thunderbolts. Maybe he could call Melissa and get her to check on her. Dialling in the number he heard the phone ring before getting Mel's answer phone. He left a message and then looked at his phone, it was working whereas the deputy's tablet wasn't, EM fields were not selective about what they affected so what had the tablet come into contact with that his phone hadn't. Abe had an idea; the radiation coupled with the fluid discharge and the impact crater made him think of the U-Foes; a deadly team of cosmically altered super-villains. The initial evidence suggested that X-Ray, Vapour and Iron Clad had been in the area but it didn't explain why the body of Officer Grant had been unaffected. To find out what was really happening he would have to wait for a proper autopsy and judging from the stalled coroner's van that wasn't going to happen soon.
Melissa sat next to the hospital bed, the elderly lady listening to her every word, the room devoid of any other noise apart from the constant beep of Mrs. O'Brian's life support machine. As Melissa got to the end of the chapter her elderly charge smiled and shifted in the bed.
"Are you okay Mrs. O'Brian?" Melissa asked a worried look on her face.
"Fine dear, I'm just feeling a little tired today. I hope the doctors don't postpone my operation because of that." O'Brian replied. Melissa bowed her head, at eighty six years old Mrs. O'Brian had been diagnosed with lung cancer and wasn't expected to live to eighty seven. Still the older woman was determined to make it and with her birthday only a fortnight away she was full of optimism.
"I'm sure you'll be fine." Melissa said the worried look morphing into a timid smile. "So do you want me to read the next chapter?" she asked sticking a marker into the gardening book that O'Brian had chosen to have red to her.
"No I want to know how you and that handsome young man you live with are getting on. You now I need my daily dose of gossip." O'Brian announced.
"No luck on any fronts, we're just good friends nothing more." Melissa replied. Mrs O'Brian smiled and closed her eyes; the life-support machine's beeping fading into static. Melissa stood on horrified as the sounds of screaming and panic erupted around her. Opening the door Melissa saw that the lights had all exploded and that the sprinklers were firing as doctors, nurses and orderlies ran around terrified. Melissa could literally hear the life support monitors of the patients flat-lining before fading to static, something terrible had happened. Seconds later a blast of a shotgun joined the sounds of panic and two female officers of the local police force walked down the corridor blasting away indiscriminately. Melissa blinked before putting up a sonic barricade between the attackers and the civilians, she knew both officers, both were sane normal people, or they had been. With a single thrust Melissa sent the barricade rocketing forward slamming the pair of cops against the wall, the blow knocking them both out. Quickly she ran over and reached for their handcuffs and checked their pulses; while she found the former the later was missing, both the police officers were dead. Panicking Melissa reached for her phone and joined the throng hopping to put some distance between herself and what she had just done.
Abe prodded the corrupted tablet with a spanner before sitting back on his chair, Sinclair had been wrong, EM interference hadn't caused the system to crash, a computer virus was to blame instead. In addition the origin was completely terrestrial, it was similar to some pretty nasty strands he had seen before, most of which had been created by his old pal Fixer, but he reckoned he could crack it and reverse whatever damage it had done. Still there were more pressing matters then playing tech-support; whoever or whatever had infected the computer had left trace behind, in this case fingerprints that contained a radioactive anomaly. As he waited for the culprit to reveal Abe checked his phone, Melissa had sent him a text, one that was very worrying, Abe redialled and waited for three dials before his former teammate picked up.
"Melissa what's going on?" he asked.
"Abe I just killed two people." Melissa replied, she was crying and Abe felt a pang of fear light up his soul. If this was true then he would have to bring her in, it was his duty, but he also loved her and he desperately hoped it wasn't true.
"What happened?" he sighed.
"The hospital just went nuts, all the electronics went haywire. And then Officer Hope and Williams went crazy and attacked people as they panicked, I reacted and stopped them but then…then they went dead." Melissa announced.
"Back up the hospital went haywire?" Abe asked. "Was there static on the electronics?"
"Yes." Melissa answered. "Abe I killed two police officers."
"Did you check the bodies?" Abe asked.
"Yes they had no pulses."
"No did they have anything electronic on them?"
"I didn't check I just got out of there."
Behind Abe the computer chimed and he turned to see the fingerprints had been matched to their owner. They belonged to Diana Fox, the possible witness and almost certain killer. Abe checked her file quickly as Melissa cried on the over end of the phone, there was no history of anarchistic tendencies and while Fox was good on the computer there was no way she could have created the virus that was ravaging Burton Canyon Hospital. "Melissa I need you to go back and check on Diana Fox, I think she may be responsible for what's happening. Be careful she's dangerous; contact me when you find anything out."
"What are you going to do?" Melissa asked.
"I'm going to get the suit and see if I can stop the virus." Abe announced, "Route all communications through my armor and whatever you do don't let her get hold of your phone." Abe hung up the phone and smashed the tablet on the floor before heading for his car, hopefully Melissa would be able to hold it together long enough to stop Fox's cyber attack.
Melissa stood outside the hospital, the building was on fire, if anyone was left inside then they would need to be evacuated. Walking to the door Melissa was unsurprised to find the automatic doors jammed shut. Backing up she took to the air and flew round the building once before locating a smashed window a perfect entry point to the building's interior. Hovering up and squeezing inside it soon became clear that the hospital was no longer a place of medicine, the dead bodies littering the ward she found herself in made it look more like a slaughterhouse. Entering the corridor Melissa headed to where she had killed Hope and Williams, each step making her queasier until at last she reached the corridor where their deaths had occurred. While the area was full of bodies the two police officers were nowhere to be seen, the only clue to their disappearance was the melted remains of the handcuffs she had used to bind them. Melissa sighed, whatever she had done it was obvious that she hadn't killed them. Following the trail of bloody footsteps and empty shell casings back she quickly discovered the point of origin of the attack.
Gingerly Melissa opened the door and surveyed the room before picking up the medical chart at the end of the bed. Diana Fox was scrawled over the title but there was nothing else save a pool of blood had been placed on the form, there was little information but there was enough. Checking under the bed Melissa found the blood's owner, a young nurse, her facial features burnt off and her body stripped of clothing. Whatever Diana was had murdered the woman and now she had a different face to help her blend into the general populous. Behind her the door slammed and Melissa froze as heavy almost forced footfalls walked towards her. Springing from her crouched position Melissa slammed into Officer Hope's chest sending her falling backwards. Officer Williams pumped her shotgun and Melissa turned and lashed out with her powers, a sonic blade scything through the weapons barrel just before the trigger quickly cutting the weapon down to size. Williams screamed something before barrelling forward as Hope begun to reach for her pistol. Melissa countered both of them and quickly floored them before pining them down with sonic energy shaped into restraints. Both of them screamed in a language that Melissa didn't understand as she patted Williams down, eventually finding the officer's radio, warped and twisted as it grew tendrils into the woman's body. Melissa bowed her head, the two officers were no more then zombies controlled by a remote operator. Forming a sonic crowbar with her powers Melissa levered the radios off the officer's skin before crushing them under her boot. Abe would have to be warned, he was still expecting Diana to be the killer not some nurse from the hospital.
Abe flew along the main street following his armour sensors, now calibrated to locate the mystery radioactive source towards the town's high-school. The building was deserted, as most schools in the country are during mid August and he landed in the parking lot adjacent from the computer centre. Battering down the door he followed the trail past banks of computers powered down for the summer. It made sense that the cyber terrorist would hide here but none of the computers seemed to be affected. Heading to the second floor he froze, lying half way down the stairs was a body dressed in a nurse's uniform and covered in blood. Abe quickly scanned the body and breathed a sigh of relief, the woman was alive. Reaching down he saw something move in the corner of his vision and turned to follow it before realising that his sensors were picking up motion behind him. Turning Abe saw the nurse slam her fingers into his armor, the tips wiggling like tentacles into the wires and circuit boards as one by one his armour's firewalls broke down and his broke down and his systems were corrupted.
"Who are you?" he moaned as his visor shut down.
"The herald of the new rulers of this planet. Your species have been judged inferior and will be terminated." the woman hissed, her voice sounding like grinding gears. "Entry was easy this place is scarred with fissures that link all places. Hmm so nice of you to network all your suits of armor," she added, "You Abner Ronald Jenkins have supplied me with the footsoliders that will shepherd in this new age." Abe's visor cleared and he saw the woman retract her fingers, his armor sealing itself where she had gained entry. "Now go and raze this city to the ground, it will be the staging point for my Lord's assault on your planet." Trapped inside his armor Abe screamed, the sound echoing around the suit, it was inevitable he was a prisoner inside his own creation and this time there was no escape.
Thunderbolts #3
With Abe trapped in his suit now under the control of the mystery hacker (who the hell is she?) it's up to Melissa to defend the town from them and an army of battle armor. Is she up to the challenge? Find out in the next Issue.