The Man Who Couldn't Die

Part One: Voice From the Past

The message came as they had always come, on a single, obscure channel. A channel that had once been monitored closely by stations all over the world, but nowadays was only one of several listened for in a quiet room by patient SHIELD agents.

It was a voice transmission, in English, the voice a deep bass, the intonation slow and deliberate.

"This is the Voice of the Mysterons. We know you can hear us, Earthmen. We have waited long enough. We thought you might have learned, but you persist in your folly. We will tolerate it no longer. We will be avenged! Your Golden Bridge will fall!"

Agent Spiner downloaded the recording onto a flash drive, signed herself out of the room and headed for the Directors Office. These were all standing instructions. As she went, she looked around her, feeling a chill as she remembered that this base had been constructed decades ago to meet the very threat they now faced. She reached the Directors' office and went up to the desk where a Native American woman met her with a steady stare.

"What do you need?" She asked.

"I'm Agent Spiner, I work in Dormant Monitoring. I have a Code Red from Channel 312."

Agent Moonstar turned to her console. Her fingers danced over the keys for a moment, then her eyes widened.

"Crap!" She said, then reached for the intercom. "Director, I have Agent Spiner from DM here, she's got a hot one!"

"Send her in, Dani!" The reply was firm. Moonstar nodded to her fellow agent, who went through the now-open door.

She'd never been in here before. In contrast with the white walls and stark lighting of most of the base, this room was lit with natural light coming through a large picture window. Outside the window was an expanse of blue sky, with a mass of white clouds below. The walls themselves were oak-panelled; two hung with photographs and citations, another lined with bookshelves and a trophy case. Against one wall was a large oak desk, while on the other side was a small conversation area with a couch and armchairs. Two more chairs stood in front of the desk, while behind it sat Colonel Steve Rogers, Director of SHIELD. He gestured Agent Spiner to a chair in front of the desk and held out his hand for the drive. "Coffee over there," he told her, "let me listen to this!"

A few moments later, he took off the headphones and looked across the desk at her. "It's Juliana, isn't it? We spoke at the Christmas Party?"

"Yes, Director!" They had barely exchanged a dozen words in a crowded lounge, but he remembered her. Of course he did – the process that had changed Steve Rogers into Captain America had not only enhanced his body, but his mind. But surely only this man would use that capacity to effortlessly recall the given name of a junior agent!

He grinned at her. "Right now, you're probably thinking that maybe Dormant Monitoring isn't the dead end job you thought it was, right? You were put there for a reason Juliana! Patience and attention to detail aren't virtues you find on the resume of the typical SHIELD agent for one thing. For another, the channels and streams you monitor were used by some of the worst menaces the world has ever faced. Just because we haven't heard from them in years, or decades even, doesn't mean they've gone away!

"These Mysterons had been causing trouble for years, but they went quiet when the Daleks came. We figured the Daleks did for them, but it seems not, and somethings' stirred them up again. So what I want you to do is stay on that channel for now. I want you to track it, see where the transmissions come from. Analyse everything, background noise, interference, anything that comes over. I'll let your Team Leader know. Anything, anything you notice, let me know by direct email. Don't worry about coming in here if you think something's important enough! I'm not Colonel Fury - I only eat one employee a month!"

"Yessir!" She left at a trot.

Steve opened the intercom again. "Dani, do we have a Special Ops unit free right now?"

"Yes, sir. Agent Malfoys' team."

"Get them up here will you, asap?" Steve asked. "Let me know as soon as Agent Malfoy arrives. We'll meet in the Briefing Room, ask Commander Straker and Brigadier Bambera to join us. Also, can you do a search and see if there are any former Spectrum Agents still active in SHIELD branches? Thanks. I have to make a call right now."

He turned to his computer, shortly a face appeared on the screen. A strong face with steady eyes, a square jaw and thick silver hair. "Hi, Steve!" He said "If you hadn't called me in the next five minutes, I was going to call you!"

"Hi, Jeff." Steve replied. "So John picked the signal up as well?"

"Yeah, Thunderbird Five monitors all frequencies and that one has an urgent flag. Back in the day, I spent too much time picking the pieces up when Spectrum dropped the ball! John's keeping an eye open, especially on San Francisco!"

"You thought the Golden Gate as well?" Steve asked.

"It seems obvious, and those Mysterons didn't do subtle. Their main aim was to psych us out, I think, not destroy us." Jeff replied.

"OK." Steve said. "I'm letting the SHIELD office in San Francisco know, but I don't see them getting much help from the city people. But your boys will have all the help SHIELD can give them!"

"Thanks for that, Steve! You people are a lot better and smarter than Spectrum ever were!"

XXXXX

The idea of landing his teams' large transport plane on a skycarrier was, in Draco Malfoys' mind, sheer lunacy. He knew, of course, that a year or so after the Dalek invasion, SHIELD had acquired a place called 'Cloudbase', but had not been aware that it was literally in the clouds! His own briefings usually took place at SHIELD London, or occasionally at the Triskelion Centre in New York. SHIELDs' structure was deliberately non-centralised to prevent an enemy disabling the organisation in a single strike.

The summons had come straight from the top, the office of Director Rogers, no less, which meant it must be important and urgent. But still, to risk landing this large plane on a Helicarrier or even one of the larger Skycarriers seemed extreme. He sat just between and behind his pilot, James Rhodes, and co-pilot Bruce Wayne and grumbled.

"I fail to see why we could not have made this trip in the Jumper!" He said.

"I hear you." Rhodes said. "But the orders said the whole team, and we don't all fit into the Jumper."

"It's also a personal briefing from the Director." Wayne commented. "The message coded it Ultra-Violet, the highest level of top secret, and Cloudbase is the most secure installation SHIELD has!"

"Coming up on the coordinates now." Rhodes said. When we get through the clouds, we should be able to see it."

It was, in fact, impossible to miss! There was a moments' silence, then Draco said.

"I am not usually given to profanity, gentlemen, but in this case, and as there are no ladies present….Fucking Hell!"

It was huge, easily twenty times the size of Valiant II, UNITs' largest Skycarrier. The massive flight deck could have comfortably held a dozen planes the size of their transport. The deck itself rested on a hull at least four storeys high, while above it was a superstructure larger than the average shopping mall. Another, shorter flight deck ran parallel to the main one, on it were poised three Wakandan-built Sky Leopard Interceptors, ready for instant launch.

"Who the Hell built that thing?" Wayne wanted to know. "I never heard of or saw anything like it! What kind of tech does it use to stay aloft?"

"I am equally dumbfounded, Wayne." Draco remarked. "But I very much doubt that either of your questions will be answered. Unless, of course, it speaks to the nature of our assignment."

"Cloudbase, this is Sierra Oscar Tango zero-one-three on SHIELD Traffic Frequency Niner. Request landing instructions." Rhodes said into his mike.

"Sierra Oscar Tango zero-one-three this is Cloudbase Control." The reply was prompt. "Continue on current course but reduce airspeed by twenty. You will see your runway lit up. Land as normal then taxi to Elevator Six and deplane. You'll be met. Cloudbase Control out."

Elevator Six immediately whisked them down to the Hangar Deck. No sooner had the team alighted than a squad of techs made their way briskly onto the plane while others busied themselves around the engines and fuselage.

The team was met by a Native American woman in uniform, who immediately ran into Cyphers' arms. "Doug!" She squealed. "Where have you been keeping yourself? I haven't seen you since school!"

"Hi, Dani." He replied. "You don't change much, do you? Everyone, this is Danielle Moonstar, formerly Psyche of the New Mutants and Mirage of X-Force! We were at school together."

"Until you took off without even saying goodbye!" Dani glared at him, then turned to Draco. "Agent Malfoy, I'm Colonel Rogers' adjutant – which I think is old-fashioned military for PA – he's asked me to bring you all straight to the Briefing Room."

"Lead on, Agent Moonstar." Draco replied.

She led them to a clear tube of considerable size which ran along one wall. Inside it was a cylindrical cabin with seats along both sides.

"Cloudbase is awful big." She told them. "So if we have to get between different sections, we take these transporters. Sit down, everyone, and please keep your hands and arms inside the vehicle at all times!"

The cabin moved off at a steady speed. "We've got a few minutes." Dani went on. "Just long enough for this delinquent to explain himself! We were all real upset, Doug Ramsey, when you just up and left like that! Why did you do it? I mean, we all knew the Professor knew, but he wouldn't tell us. 'Confidential' he said."

Cypher sighed. "Look, Dani, I was never much use in the New Mutants, was I? I mean, yeah, I got to learn how to use my abilities properly. But apart from that, all that happened was me ducking for cover and getting a hard friendzoning from Kitty Pryde. So then they start talking about moving us up to X-Force. What possible use could I be there? I'm not a fighter, Dani! So I spoke to the Professor, and he put me in touch with the NSA, who snapped me up."

"OK, I get that." Dani allowed. "But why not tell us, or talk to us about it?"

Doug shook his head. "You get it now, Dani, but back then? I don't think so! You'd all have been working on me to stay. We'd grown up together, we were more or less family, we'd all gotten kinda dependent on each other. But, once you get past that, did you really need me on the team? Charles didn't think so, so he got me a place where I could be useful. After 2008, I got picked up by SHIELD, and here I am, sitting safely in armoured vehicles, doing what I do best and not getting in anyones' way!"

Dani stared at him for a long time, then shrugged. "I guess you're right, but I still think it was mean of you!"

"You were kids." Rhodes reminded her. "Kids don't think straight, and they think they can get round anything. Cypher's right, he ain't a fighter. He's got the guts and the heart, but not the skills and instincts. You'd have lost him, or worse, lost people taking care of him!"

"We'd have ended up mourning him or hating him." Dani realised. "Only then, we didn't see that! I'm sorry, Doug!"

"Don't be." He said. "Maybe we can catch up later?"

"Bet on it!" She said. "I know where to find you now!"

As this was going on, the transport had taken them along, up, along and further up. Draco guessed they must be in the superstructure now. The carriage came to a halt and Dani led them along a wide, white corridor and into the conference room. This was a windowless but brightly lit room containing a long table, the walls were lined with large screens, four of which were active. At the head of the table sat Director Rogers.

"Think there might be some food around?" Agent Clark Kent murmured. Rogers looked up at him and grinned. "Coffee and sandwiches over there!" He said. "Help yourselves, then sit down. This may take some time!"

XXXXX

The blasts, six of them, happened simultaneously at or close to key points on the bridge. But the Golden Gate had withstood earthquakes and Daleks, so it didn't collapse. Still, the danger was very real, the roadway was damaged at various points and neither end was passable. If something were not done, and quickly, the strain would become too great and there would be a collapse.

First responders were scrambled, but the San Francisco SHIELD office already had people on the ground. Rescue workers began trying to open both ends, while a squadron of quinjets started to remove vehicles from the bridge, heaviest first, and put them down in nearby clear spaces. But there were many people now wandering about on the bridge, having escaped from wrecked vehicles or abandoned intact ones. Cracks in the roadway were opening and spreading, increasing the danger.

It was at that point that a large, pencil-slim silver and blue aircraft was seen approaching from the sea. It looked like a cross between a jet and a rocket and came to a vertical landing in the street close by the SHIELD control point. A man alighted, a tall, broad-shouldered figure wearing a blue coverall with a utility vest and belt supporting a variety of tools and devices, as well as a pistol at his belt. He wore a helmet, the visor of which covered his face. He moved over to the SHIELD officer in charge.

"I'm from International Rescue, where do you need us?"

"Agent Masters," the officer replied, "we were told to look out for you, Mr…?"

"Call me Jeff." The man said. "How can we help?"

Agent Masters sighed. "We're doing our best, but the main thing is to start getting the civilians off the bridge. We don't have heavy equipment, and the FEMA gear is still a couple hours out. But we need to get the rubble at both ends cleared fast! We can't land quinjets to take people off because the vertical landing jets will damage the roadway more than it already is and we don't have enough medivac choppers to winch people off fast enough. We're also worried about what may be going on underwater!"

Jeff nodded. "OK, I've got my people coming in and we should be able to help with all of that. Hang in there!"

He went back to Thunderbird One and the control centre that took up most of the crafts' internal space. "Thunderbird One to Thunderbird Two, what's your ETA?"

"About three minutes, Dad." The voice was that of Virgil, one of the second set of twins Jeffs' wife Diana had presented him with.

"OK." Jeff responded. "Your first job is to drop Gordon off near the bridge. My sensors don't show any damage down there, but I'll be happier if we can get eyes on. Then get to one end of the bridge and help to clear the rubble. Meanwhile, have Scott launch the drones and start getting people off!"

"Understood, Dad!"

Shortly after that, the bulky green shape of Thunderbird Two came in low across the bay to hover near the bridge. A ramp was lowered from the big crafts' belly, allowing a yellow scout submarine – Thunderbird Four - to slide down into the water and submerge.

Thunderbird Two found a landing place close to one end of the bridge and began to rise on its telescoping landing gear. The aircraft itself was revealed to be a mere frame transporting a capacious pod. The large hatch at the front of the pod hinged down to form a ramp. Down this came Virgil, at the controls of the massive, powerful bulldozer they called 'Firefly'. At the same time a squadron of large drones, each one with four harnesses suspended from it, emerged and set off for the bridge.

Jeff noted that the drones started in the middle of the bridge, taking off those who would be unable to reach the ends on foot safely. They descended close to groups of people, issuing recorded instructions in how to secure the harnesses. Once four people were secured to a drone, it lifted up and carried them to the Aid Stations set up by SHIELD and the city paramedics. Jeff nodded with approval as he saw that Scott was guiding the drones to prioritise families with children.

Meanwhile, the mighty Firefly was making short work of the rubble at one end of the bridge, as well as squirting a fast-setting polymer into any cracks in range to stabilise them.

"Thunderbird Four to Thunderbird One." Gordons' voice. "Everything looks stable down here, Dad, no damage to the pylons or foundations. I'm going to do a sweep, make sure there's nobody in the water!"

"Good work, son." Jeff replied.

"Firefly to Thunderbird One, I've done everything I can at this end, Dad. Just going to the other!"

"Understood." Jeff had assumed that Virgil would take Firefly back to Thunderbird Two to make the crossing. But then he saw half a dozen of the quinjets grapple the heavy vehicle and airlift it across. Jeff approved. It saved time and meant that Scotts' work with the drones would not be interrupted.

He leaned back for a moment, taking it all in. After all, this might just be his last active mission. Scott and John were both more than ready to lead in the field, now. In another four years, seventeen-year-old Alan, currently fuming about being left at home, would be able to pilot Thunderbird Three, and the team would be complete without Jeff. At least Diana would stop lecturing him! About going out on jobs, anyway!

A soft buzzing drew his attention to one of the monitors. This was showing a live feed from one of the news channels. Jeff rewound a few seconds, then ran it with the volume up. A young Black woman was talking in urgent, but measured tones:

"I'm here at one of the Aid Stations near the Golden Gate, and I've just been talking to one of the people brought from the bridge by International Rescue. They didn't want to appear, but they did share this video from their smartphone. The content is shocking!"

The video was steady and clear, obviously a high-end device, being used from a car driving slowly across the bridge. A voice could be heard: "This is sure one Hell of a view! Worth the trip out here on its own! Hey, look, there's one of the maintenance guys! What's he doing?" The camera zoomed in on a man in a coverall and tool-belt, who was standing near the rails. His face, Jeff noted, was oddly blank. Then, quite suddenly, smoke began to rise out of his collar. Seconds later, he was engulfed in a violent explosion. The camera went wild, the voice said "Holy shit!" and the clip ended.

The reporter was back. "There's no doubt," she said, "that what we just saw was a suicide bombing! That man, and possibly five more, sacrificed their lives in the attempt to destroy one of Americas' most iconic landmarks and kill hundreds!

"First responders on the scene tell us there was no warning, and no-one has come forward to claim responsibility. But we have to wonder how and why both SHIELD and International Rescue got here so quickly. What are we not being told?

"This is Ashia Kelly, for SFAB San Francisco, at the Golden Gate."

Good luck, Steve! Jeff thought.

XXXXX

"OK." Steve Rogers said. "Let's get everyone introduced to start with. Special Operations Senior Agent Draco Malfoy and his team, Agents Gabrielle Delacour, Willow Rosenberg, James Rhodes, Clark Kent, Bruce Wayne, Douglas Ramsey and Dr Douglas Howser. Joining us remotely we have Brigadier Bambera, UNIT Central Command, Commander Ed Straker, OC Strategic Homeworld Alien Defence Operations and Major-General Landry of Stargate Command.

"At 09: 45 UTC today, our Dormant Monitoring team intercepted this message." He played the recording. The various people there exhibited varying degrees of surprise and curiosity. Except for Commander Straker, whose face was grim, and his eyes haunted. Steve carried on.

"These Mysterons are an alien civilisation, based on Mars, who conducted a war of nerves against Earth from 1980 to 2008. A conflict that was conducted in the shadows, with Mysteron attacks being blamed on terrorists.

"We had thought, or hoped, that when the Daleks 'stole' Earth in 2008, they had also exterminated the Mysterons. Unfortunately, it seems that they're still around, and they've decided to get back into business! As per their warning, there's been an attack on the Golden Gate Bridge. There's been a lot of damage, but the bridge is still standing, casualties are light and SHIELD and International Rescue are assisting local agencies. The screen over there is showing a live feed from the bridge, to keep us abreast of the situation there

"Any questions so far?"

"Yes, Colonel." Draco said, "As both a wizard and a relative newcomer to SHIELD, I have spent some time in studying the files and records. I have not encountered any reference to these Mysterons before today. Given the general completeness of the files and records, I find this somewhat confusing?"

Steve nodded. "We'll get to that now, Draco, but just to be clear, neither SHIELD nor UNIT ever had any dealings with the Mysterons, and no-one from either organisation was ever briefed on them until after 2008.

"Ed, you can explain better than me."

Straker nodded. A man in his fifties, blond hair streaked with silver, a gaunt, lined face, his eyes still holding a haunted expression. He spoke slowly, as if dredging up his worst memories.

"OK, to start with, Ed Straker isn't the name I was born with. My 'real' name is Adam Svenson. In 1982, just after I'd joined Delta Force, I got recruited into a brand-new, ultra-top-secret organisation called Spectrum. They codenamed me Captain Blue.

"I found out that Spectrum was originally intended to do what SHIELD does now – coordinate and oversee all those international agencies that were working independently – but that things had changed.

"You all know about Skylab, right?"

Gabrielle shook her head and Draco said: "No. I'm a Pureblood wizard. I never met a muggle until I was eleven, and never bothered to learn anything about your world until the 1990s."

"Yeah, sorry, I forgot that." Straker admitted. "OK, so Skylab was built in the 1970s as the first permanent manned space station. Supposedly, three missions were sent up and the astronauts stayed there a few days, doing experiments. But of course, Skylab was much bigger than the images we showed. It was actually designed to build a ship for a manned mission to Mars. The ship was called Fireball XL5 and it had a prototype ion drive as well as rocket engines. It left for Mars at the end of 1975 with a crew of four: the pilot, Captain Stephan Zodawski, an archaeologist called Dr Venus Lumiere, a physicist and engineer, Dr Matthew Matlock and a Latverian-built robot they called Robert. They reached Mars late in 1976, made a landing and began to explore. They found ruins from at least three different cultures, and caches of really weird tech, But then about half way through 1977, they went dark, Skylab figured there must be a problem, and ramped up work on Fireball XL6. But in 1979 the XL5 came back, with just the robot piloting it, A month later, the first Mysteron warning came through on a channel only the Fireball Project used, and two days after that, the threat they'd made was carried out!

"Things were -different – back then. There'd been at least one Mutant panic and endless UFO 'flaps' since the '50s. The powers that be figured that if people knew there were actual aliens actually attacking us, there'd be mass panic, governments would be destabilised, everything would go to Hell in a handcart! So that's when they called in Torchwood, who started a program to subtly educate people.

"In the meantime, they had the basic structure of the Spectrum organisation, so they re-purposed it specifically to counter the Mysterons. We tried, God, we tried! But we couldn't get a handle on their strategy. They seemed to choose random targets, military, civilian, scientific. There was no pattern, no attempt to severely disrupt supply and communication or soften us up for an invasion, Because of that, we had to be reactive, not proactive, try to get there quick and stop the attack before it happened. If we couldn't – and that happened way too often – we had to clear out and let other people clear up. We literally had to leave people to die!"

"Why?" Brigadier Bamberas' voice was tight with outrage.

"Secrecy!" Straker snarled the word. "Spectrum didn't exist, officially. We weren't allowed to share information with anyone, to reach out to anyone, outside the organisation, Not even to warn them. Captain Grey phoned an anonymous warning to the Surete in Paris one time. Colonel White went berserk, and when Grey admitted what he'd done, White had him shot! We were under standing orders to kill anyone who saw or overheard anything that might give us away. It crippled us. We had no back-up, no shared intel, nobody we could rely on to help out.

"We never found out what the Mysterons wanted. We knew they could replicate objects or people they destroyed or killed. The people they could control, make into spies or assassins or saboteurs, or walking bombs, Objects or machines could sabotage themselves or the systems they were part of, or just explode on command.

"Then all through 2008, nothing! White said the Mysterons must be preparing something really big. But then we woke up one morning to find that Earth was halfway across the Galaxy! The reports started coming in about the Daleks. The global alert went out. Most of us started mobilising the units we had, but then Colonel White stood us down. Took Cloudbase to Antarctica, told us all to evacuate, disperse, go to ground and not interfere with the Daleks or anything else. We were to hide out until he contacted us. We said this was a full-scale invasion and a global alert. He said our business was the Mysterons, not the Daleks, and we were not to compromise Spectrums' security for any reason. Then he grounded Cloudbase and sat it out.

"Well, a lot of us wouldn't just wait around, but White must have realised that, because he locked us out of all our assets. The vehicles, the planes, the armouries, anything that could be identified as Spectrum, was locked down. All most of us had were our sidearms and what we could scavenge from dead soldiers and wrecked military installations. But we did what we could and a lot of us died.

"Then afterwards it was all changed. SHIELD went international and was given the function Spectrum was supposed to have had. Steve here was made Director and got access to Spectrum records and he sent Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart and UNIT to Antarctica and the Brigadier came down on White like the wrath of God!"

"I'll bet he did!" Bambera noted with some feeling.

"Oh, he did!" Strakers' smile was grim. "He had White court-martialled on the spot for cowardice, dereliction of duty and disobeying direct orders. Sentenced him to life because he wouldn't waste the ammunition for a firing squad on him. White refused to say a damn word. In the end they got Charles Xavier to take a look. Xavier said Whites' mind was gone and they put him in a secure hospital. They say he's never spoken a word since!"

There was a short silence, then Cypher said. "One thing I don't understand. This robot, Robert? It flew the XL5 back to Earth, right? What did it have to say? What data did it have?"

"None." Steve told him. "You have to understand, Cypher, this was the 1970s. Latverian robotics were the most advanced in the world, just like they are now, but by modern standards, Robert was as basic as they come. It had Read-Only-Memory and no way to collect or store data. It had enough onboard software to act as an autopilot for the XL5, and to obey simple verbal commands. It's role was to keep the ship on course while the pilot rested, and do any heavy manual labour. Even so, it was as expensive as a battleship and it was only leased to NASA because Doom preferred dealing with the West rather than the Soviets. What we didn't know was that the Latverians had programmed a few extra functions in. If the robot was left alone, without the human crew, for a certain amount of time, it activated a retrieval programme that enabled Robert to fly the XL5 home by itself. Doom didn't care what became of the crew, but the robot was his and he wanted it back!"

"What happened to the ship?" Rhodes wanted to know.

"It was dismantled, on Spectrum orders." Straker told him. "Then Skylab was nudged out of orbit so it would break up in the atmosphere. They told everyone that the orbit had decayed naturally. They did grab a lot of alien tech and artefacts that were in the hold – seems the robot had kept collecting and loading it until the retrieval routine kicked in because those were the last orders it had been given. I don't know what became of all of it, but some of it was used to get Cloudbase into the air – it was originally designed to go on or under water. I do know that nothing that came back had anything to do with the Mysterons."

"Most of it went to Torchwood." Steve said, "But when Torchwood One was shut down, the tech got taken to Project Pegasus and the archaeological stuff went to the British Museum Special Collections Vault.

"General Landry, you asked to be included in this briefing. Did you have questions, or something to say?"

The Generals' square, avuncular face was set in an unaccustomed frown. "Yeah, I'm sorry to have to tell you this, Steve, but I think we at the SGC might have been the ones that stirred these guys up!

"We were looking for an advance base in the Solar System. Somewhere to drydock the big ships and maintain a few squadrons for defence. Well, the only options are Mars, a few of the bigger moons of the gas giants, or Pluto. There's no stargates on any of them, but we can reach Mars with the Asgard beaming tech."

"So you're building a base?" Steve said.

Landry nodded. "Planning a base. A big one. We haven't sent anything but a few probes. Somehow, we must have trodden on the Mysterons' toes. Been a help if somebody had told us about them!"

"Been a help if you'd told us what you were planning!" Steve replied with a grin. "USAF doesn't come under SHIELD, and they don't tell us everything. If we'd known, we'd have warned you! Why do you think Mars exploration hasn't been a priority all these years?"

Just then, Dani Moonstars' voice came from the intercom in front of Steve. "Director, Agent Spiner is here again. Says she has something, but doesn't know what it is!"

XXXXX

He knew he didn't have long. They were awake and seeking him again, after so many years of freedom. It had not been easy, after the Other One had gone away. He had become unused to being alone. But he had carried on. Everything was recorded, and the record was safe. He knew that if They took him again he would forget everything, including the hiding place.

He was cutting wood, building up a store for the winter even though he probably wouldn't be here by then. The activity calmed him. It was while he was selecting another log to split that he heard them. Movements too slow, too deliberate to be natural. The rattle of metal on metal. He put down the axe, picked up an armful of wood and went calmly back to the house. Once there, he opened the chest in the main room and took out an assault rifle, a pistol and a combat knife along with some belts of ammunition. Going to one of the sleeping alcoves, he lifted the bed and leaned it against the wall, then removed several floorboards to reveal an opening. He crawled along the narrow tunnel, emerging in a thick clump of bushes some fifteen metres behind the house.

There were four that he could see -he was behind them now – and there must be at least the same number again. They did not work for Them. They wore a symbol he and the Other had seen before. They never knew what it meant, but such groups had hunted them before. He must go, quickly and quietly. They would search the cabin, then spread out into the woods. Once there, they could be dealt with one by one, or evaded entirely, depending on the tactical situation. He had a fallback hiding place, well-concealed and with stores of food, water and ammunition. Survival was paramount, if he was killed, They would find him at once.