For most of the morning, Sam, Jen and Buffy were weary, bleary-eyed and depressed. At about 11.30, Samantha pretty much collapsed into sleep on a chair at aunt Catherine's table. She did not even realize it when little Buffy lifted her up and carried her to the sofa, and laid her out in a comfortable posture, as if the almost six-foot airwoman were a small child
Jen was not around: all morning, she had kept some distance from Buffy. She could not keep from her mind those sounds that Buffy had made as she slept, like a soul in Hell. Jen knew a thing or two about suffering, but there was something about what she had heard – and about the terrible grip of those small hands when she had taken her for Sam - that went beyond what she understood, and scared her. As for Buffy, she felt that she had given herself away to an intolerable degree.
Nobody wanted to turn on the TV. But at twelve o'clock, the kitchen radio, left by mistake to start itself at the wrong time, started speaking. And when it started speaking, neither Uncle Peter, nor Aunt Catherine, nor any of the girls, were willing to turn it off, They just sat there, still tired and in pain, listening for the first time to a connected account of what had been done to southern Manhattan and to its people.
They heard the first rough figures for the dead and for the missing; the confused eyewitness accounts: the description of collapsing buildings and silent streets strewn with rubble; the estimates for the time and expense required to reconnect and rebuild; the financial losses involved in the sudden loss of every computer in Wall Street; and again tales of looting, of survival, of superhero encounters, in which the terrible figure of the Hulk featured largely. Tired, unhappy, and worried, the five people still sat and listened, as the sense of the enormity of what they had experienced grew within them.
Samantha's phone rang. It was Colonel Seirce. She was urgently needed at DST. Her break was over.
…
Leaving Asbury Park proved more complicated than anyone thought. Samantha could not go without first being sure that Jennifer and Buffy – who was, after all, only fifteen – were safe on their way home. And while there was no serious issue with sending Jenny to General Carter in DC, something strange got in Buffy's way. First one flight to Los Angeles, then another, then another, turned out to be cancelled. After more than half an hour of increasing frustration, a notice at the bottom of a screen informed them, and no doubt tens of thousands like them elsewhere in the East, that a no-flight zone was in force around Las Vegas and southern Nevada. It did not take a genius to understand that no flights to southern California would be getting through.
Then Uncle Peter came in, his kindly face distressed. "I don't know what we are supposed to do, Sammy," he said, almost in tears. "I think someone has started a war and nobody bothered to tell us. I think it's December 7, 1941."
He led Samantha into the dining room, where the news was on. Both Jennifer and Buffy were there, sitting on the edge of the sofa, absorbed in the broadcast; Jen looking horrified yet attentive, trying to take in everything she could see; while Buffy wore a strange, almost absent expression. It would be years before Sam learned to recognize that face: it came when the Slayer had taken over. Buffy, at that moment, was not bursting into action, because there was nothing for her to do where she was; but if she had been in Las Vegas, she would have been crashing into enemies like a buzzsaw.
It was from Las Vegas that the news was coming. Pictures obviously taken from someone's portable phone showed showed the familiar streets of the City of Lost Wages; but their bright lights were somehow turned into a dull, unnatural, sinister green. Huge, grotesque monsters shambled across the screen. Then another, short, but horrifying piece of video, briefly showed ordinary, terrified men and women, just before that same ghastly green light swept over them. And they changed… slowly, bit by monstrous bit. Samantha, Jennifer, Uncle Peter, Buffy, and Aunt Catherine, looked at each other, pale-faced and speechless. The creatures were human beings: abused, devastated, brain-ruined. Former human beings. And there seemed to be no way to avoid or stop what the green light was doing to them.
The picture changed to a rugged-faced man in an infantry colonel's uniform, with a patch over one eye, surrounded by journalists and cameramen. "Director Nick Fury of SHIELD, the superhero control agency, confirmed that the Las Vegas situation is connected with the South Manhattan disaster. 'Investigations are ongoing, but we know that, yesterday, someone orchestrated a massive super-being jailbreak. The Hulk seems to have been involved, but he turned against other escapees and helped us take down Graviton, who was the most dangerous of all. He also informed us of the Las Vegas situation, and because of that we have been able to initiate a reaction.'"
"'What are you doing?'
"'Boys, girls, you don't seriously expect me to answer that? You'll find out when the enemy does.'"
The story went on, but as it did, Samantha's phone rang. The conversation quickly grew harsh, and Lieutenant Samantha Carter, who had never heard her commanding officer in such a mood before, came dangerously close to insubordination. His point was that she was needed in Bird City, double quick, yesterday in fact; and hers was that she could not leave her fifteen-year-old sister to travel alone across a country at war. She would not move until she was happy that Buffy was safe. Samantha was actually surprised at the intensity of her feelings; she had to remind herself how messed up her career already was, to suppress an instinct to raise her voice and ring off.
But as she was fighting herself down, she felt her sister's cool little hand on hers. "Sammy?" said Buffy quietly, "Why don't you send me to Father along with Jen? He can send me home to Mum when the crisis is over."
That was the answer - obviously. A second's bewilderment was followed by a smile, and Sam and Colonel Seirce made quick arrangements. Twenty minutes later, they were on their way.
Samantha only had time to collect herself as her vehicle was going, and it occurred to her that she had not realized how badly she was needed. To get her to Bird City, Colonel Seirce had not only agreed to have the girls driven to General Carter in DC, he had actually had a supersonic fighter placed at her disposal as if it were a taxi. The colonel wasn't joking when he said she wsa wanted in Bir City "yesterday". Something was seriously wrong. But why her?
...
One piece that flew into place in the rushed minutes during which Sam's, Buffy's and Jen's journeys were being arranged, was that two officers from SHIELD were travelling to the capital, to brief a number of high Pentagon officers, including General Carter, about the New York City disaster and what it involved. A series of rushed calls arranged that Maria Hill and her colleague, Major Sitwell, would pick up General Carter's daughter and ward, with their luggage, and accompany them down to his home in DC, where they were to meet him. There they would drop the girls and pick up the general, and drive to the Pentagon to their briefing. It was already late afternoon, and both girls had recovered from their weariness; they made a couple of attempts to engage the adults in chat, but they found themselves ignored and discouraged. They both realized that the captain and the major were under great pressure, and they ended up spending most of the journey talking quietly to each other, till Jen fell asleep. Buffy spent the rest of the flight awake, silent, looking ahead of herself as though she could see where the plane was taking them.
The tension the two girls had sensed was even deeper than they realized. Hill and Sitwell did not expect a friendly reception. There were the makings of a major power struggle on the way between Defence and SHIELD, in the middle of a crisis as big as a war. General Carter had had his useful contact with Nick Fury not so long before, and was not too hostile; but most other people scheduled to attend the briefing could not countenance the fact that the crisis was being managed by SHIELD, a minor agency, and headed by a mere colonel into the bargain. The two SHIELD officers suspected that the debriefing would soon turn into a pitched bureaucratic battle.
While the commonplace chartered aircraft that carried the SHIELD officers and the girls was making its way to the city on the Potomac, Samantha's F22A was hurtling to Bird City, faster than the speed of sound. Samantha was delighted to get a rare chance at really fast flght, though she suspected that would be the last time she would for a while; and that what awaited her at base was likely to be dreary and possibly even dangerous.
As she approached the runway, Colonel Seirce was there, waiting for her. She was rushed from the airfield to the working huts before she was allowed to say a word. There was no doubt, she was needed fast. Her commander was silent until they were in her own lab, with the computers and radio machinery already on and working; then he started speaking at great and nervous speed.
"You are needed because you know more about space satellites, meteorites and space junk than the rest of us put together," he said. "The mutagenic rays that are devastating southern Nevada come from space, certainly from somewhere in your area of expertise. Iron Man is in space, looking for it. You are to help him, using every resource available to us."
"Iron Man, sir?"
"Iron Man. Tony Stark." Thinking he saw a dubious look in her eyes, he went on: "I could wish we had a more stable partner, but he took part in the battle of New York and seems to be well-meaning. At any rate, we have nobody else to work in space as he can. In fact, we pretty much have nobody else except him and you."
"Yes, sir," said Samantha as she felt herself quiver.
"And another matter: the faster you find the source of the rays, the greater the chance that gamma ray mutations will not be permanent."
"But no pressure, sir," said the blonde airwoman, simulating a cool she simply did not feel.
"No pressure," replied Colonel Seirce with a grin that looked more like a grimace.
…
General Carter was waiting for them in full uniform. He patted Jen on the head, caressed Buffy, and was gone, joining Maria Hill and Jasper Sitwell in the limo that had taken them to his address. It was Juana, the General's maid, who took them in, gave them a late meal, and shooed them to bed. Even though Buffy, unlike Jen, was not sleepy at all.
….
It did not take long for the supposed briefing at the Pentagon to turn into a confrontation.
"Super-being affairs are SHIELD's business. That is what they are and have always been. We have the authority, and we have the expertise. Need I remind you what an expensive failure the Hulk-buster command was?"
"Whereas you were successful?"
"As a matter of fact, we were. When the jailbreak took place, the Hulk was our prisoner. Whether we could capture him again is a moot point, since he seems to have decided to be on our side."
"And you let him?"
"It's not a question of let. We could probably never have stopped Graviton without him. We certainly could never face the Leader without him. In case you hadn't heard the first time, the Leader is turning every human being in Nevada and surrounding areas into gamma monsters. Sending soldiers there would just result in their becoming more gamma monsters. As for weapons…. Even if you saturated the restricted area with atom bombs, It is not likely you would manage to destroy all the gamma monsters. The strongest would survive. What you would do would be to poison the whole area irreparably for any other form of life, and compromise the whole ecosphere."
There were a few gasps.
"So what do you propose to do?"
"We 'propose' nothing. We are already in action. Or rather, our allies are. Thor and the Hulk are attacking the Leader's headquarters. Their purpose is to damage or destroy him and his bodyguards, if they can, but above all to distract attention from while Iron Man and DST from Bird City identify and destroy the satellites that are broadcasting the mutagenic ray,"
,,,,,,,,,,,,
"Lieutenant, this is boring."
"Well, , at least you are out there in space looking at the earth and the stars. Me, I'm sitting in front of a warm computer screen, going through outdated space charts and old observation records."
"At least you'll have properly updated charts when this is over."
"There's a thought to keep me warm at night… Sir, I have a possible! Sending data now."
"Right ascension… I see it!"
A couple of minutes passed.
"Oh, damn. Just another dead old Soviet satellite."
"Maybe we should report it when this is done. Space junk seems to be becoming a real problem."
"Yeah. Meanwhile, this is boring."
"So it is, ."
….
Down in the desert detention facility that he had turned into his own fortress, the Leader was wondering whether control of events was not escaping him. He was not normally given to self-doubt. His gamma-mutated brain, giving him mental prowess far above not only human minds but even most computers, was a one-off, incapable of reproduction. He had bent that formidable instrument to the problem of having children, only to be forced to conclude that both his bodily apparatus and his genetic code had features that prevented reproduction. If he had been in the habit of introspection, this would probably have led him to feel a sense of anger or futility, or even to conclude that a search for historical or cosmic significance for his life was just silly. Instead, he slid into a belief that fate had meant him for a catalyst, the means to evolve mankind into a higher and mightier level. And that level, if you please, was the race of gamma monsters.
But now his whole plan seemed in trouble. Bad enough that the Hulk was resisting him. The Hulk himself was a gamma monster, one of the few with some power of reason left from the mutation; he could have been a ruler – under the Leader – in the world to come. Instead, he had hated him from the first, and his attitude to him could be summed in his two most recent words: "Smash you!" But another gamma ray monster, after all, was all that the Hulk was. The Leader understood him and his kind, and he controlled enough other monsters to manage him as and when he had to.
Thor, on the other hand, was an alien, whose real potential was unknown. All that was on record about him was that it was immense. And because the Leader did not know enough about Thor and his power, he had – he now realized – made a serious mistake. He knew that his henchman, the Absorbing Man, could duplicate the powers of any substance, and that his powers had something to do with Thor's "Asgardian" magic. The Absorbing Man was stupid and brutish, but those, from the Leader's point of view, were points in his favour. So he had unleashed the Absorbing Man upon Thor.
And the Absorbing an absorbed the power of Thor's hammer. And it turned out that Thor had mental control over his hammer.
If the Leader had known, he would simply have unleashed his whole horde of gamma monsters upon the blond alien. Some would no doubt have fallen, but the sheer wave of mindless brute force would eventualy have overwhelmed him. Instead, Thor had seized mental control of the Absorbing Man's body, as he would have his own hammer, and was flying him through the air like a guided missile. Except that the Absorbing Man was dozens of times as massive as Thor's hammer. The Leader's troops were being beaten like carpets and driven like chaff.
It was no good. He would have to take control of the situation himself.
…..
"Just another dead Soviet satellite, lieutenant."
"Damn," said a weary Sam Carter.
"Well, at least we are updating our charts at really amazing speed."
"Yes, sir, , we…"
And then there was a silence.
"Lieutenant? Are you all right?"
" ? Have you noticed how many dead Soviet satellites we found?"
Another, shorter, silence.
"Damn. Hiding in plain sight. Jarvis, do a deep scan on the satellite we just found."
A further silence was followed by a soft, British-accented, strangely monotone voice.
"Several coded broadcasts being sent, at a level barely above perceivable. There seems to be a complex broadcasting and relaying pattern involving probably hundreds of satellites."
"All right. Lieutenant, here is what we will do. I will start destroying every so-called dead Soviet satellite I can find. This will be a distraction, because in reality such an operation would take days that we can't afford; plus, no doubt the satellite network has failsafes and redundancies we can't identify, to deal with the loss of one or more satellites. What you will be doing…"
"…I get it. Identify the frequencies and patterns of their transmissions and design a broadcast to break them up."
"So nice to be dealing with competent people, lieutenant."
…
"The affected area," said Jasper Sitwell, "is widening inexorably. Shortly we will be faced with the need to warn Mexico. And if the advance is inexorable, what good will it do to warn them?"
"What indeed. What are your people doing, Captain Hill?"
"Well, gentlemen, the last I heard…."
….
"….is that now you have to deal with me, alien. And with my armour and weapons system. I shall break you; my Abomination is more than up to the task of dealing with the renegade Hulk."
"Aye? Thinkest thou that a mere armour can defeat thunder?"
…
" ? I have a number of frequencies and patterns you can try. I am about to send them."
…
To be fair, the fighting armour that the Leader donned to take on Thor was nearly up to the task. It could strike as hard as the blond alien himself, and in a variety of ways; and it could take a severe beating. What the Leader could not take, what broke his will even before it broke his armour, was to suffer three crushing blows in succession. First, most of the armour's systems were forced temporarily off-line by an earth-shaking double blow from Mjolnir and the possessed body of the Absorbing Man, that caught armour and Leader as between hammer and anvil. Almost at the same time, deceitfully suggesting a common cause, the sick green light suddenly faded, and he knew that his orbiting mutagenic apparatus had failed. And as the increased strength lent to the Abomination by his rays failed, the Hulk struck him with all his strength, breaking several of his ribs and smashing him into the Leader's computers, which were crushed into an unrecognizable mess.
...
Across the south-west, as the green light vanished, and the wholesome, honest light of moon and stars took back the sky, millions of people felt themselves collapse back from their hideous gamma monster guise into their normal human shape, and their minds come back to their sane, unbloodied reality. The past few hours were present in the memories of some as a sort of delirious nightmare; of others, as a grim, unwelcome sense that something terrible had happened, that they could not remember – that, perhaps, they did not want to. And the awakenings themselves were anything but painless. Many of them, in their gamma ray forms, had been brawling and rampaging; the blows they had mindlessly dealt each other now had their results in bleeding wounds, broken bones and – surprisingly often – the shattered fingers of clumsily used fists. Practically everyone's clothes were ripped and torn, often in embarrassing ways. And while the physical devastation was not as extensive as in Manhattan, there was hardly one building that did not have shattered windows, broken walls, devastated interiors. Many streets had their tarmac ripped off in sheets; cars were crushed and sometimes piled in towers of wreckage; and most hydrants in Las Vegas were smashed. The water had flooded the streets; and while it had prevented fires, it had shorted most telephone and power networks. Most telephones in town did not work, and every phone tower had been knocked down. When word spread that the phone lines a few streets still worked, crowds assembled.
It was worse outside Las Vegas and other cities. In the country and in the desert, people woke up to find their ranches devastated, small towns sometimes razed to the last house, electric lines broken, and no place within miles to seek help. And unlike the Manhattan disaster, where outside emergency forces were aware of events from the beginning and ready to help as soon as it became possible, in the gamma ray disaster area, every policeman, every firefighter, every doctor and nurse, had themselves been turned into monsters; and even after they were turned back, they often found that their equipment had been devastated or destroyed by their own monster forms. Ordinary life only began again slowly, and with the help of huge amounts of military personnel and national guards brought in from all corners of America.
Worst of all, not every one of the victims had reverted. The original gamma monsters who had escaped SHIELD's detention had not all been recaptured by Thor and the Hulk. Worse still, a couple of dozen people from Lincoln and Nye counties, where the rays had first struck, had kept their monstrous and insane forms. They had taken to the desert as fishes do to the sea, but they remained mindless threats.
….
These things had only begun to become clear when Buffy was placed on one of the first flights to California. Inevitably, with all flights from the East Coast to California blocked for over forty hours, it was not easy to find a place for her. Eventually, to no-one's pleasure, General Carter was more or less forced to place his fifteen-year-old daughter on a military flight (on a chartered civilian jumbo jet) to Edwards Air Base, which was quite inconvenient for Joyce to pick her up from Los Angeles. But the general felt that for Buffy to stay longer at his home, with nothing to do, would not be good for her. As he told Joyce on the phone, "She's getting restless, Joyce, as you told me. Last night she sneaked out of the house and did not come back until three in the morning, as you warned me she might. That's why I don't think we should wait. This flight is available. If I don't send her, we shall have to wait for at least three more days."
Buffy heard it all. Her hearing, she found, kept getting sharper. As was often the case, she had not wanted to hear, and she had not been happy at what she had heard. Her father and her adopted mother knew about her night wanderings – and totally failed to understand. Soon she might be in serious trouble. And she had not even of her own free will; her senses had called her to save one female army sergeant under attack by a gaggle of vampires. It had been a bitter, bruising battle, and she had not been able to keep the sergeant from seeing everything. Buffy worried that she might hear again about her deeds of that night: and for that reason, she was quite willing to leave Washington DC, even in the uncomfortable company of 600 soldiers.
But she would not hear, not for a long time, and not directly, of the results of her hunt of that night. Dell Rusk, head of Hydra in the USA, had been exploring the possibility of recruiting vampires, or even taking some groups as allies. He had set one gang the task of killing and turning that particular sergeant, whom he wanted out of the Pentagon for reasons of his own. Seeing some girl come out of nowhere and destroy them had shown him that vampires were dangerously vulnerable. He already knew that they were impulsive, stupid and hard to control; this was the tipping point. He ruled that no deal could be made with them. This would lead, in time, to more than one hidden war between Hydra and the undead.
In his research, indeed, Rusk also came upon the legend of the Slayer. That explained what he had seen. He placed the fact in his memory, waiting for a time when it might be useful.