FANTASTIC MYSTERY, PART ONE
MIDGARD STANDARD YEAR 2200 / OCTOBER
FANTASTIC COLONIES - SECURITY CENTER
"Commander, sir, Captain America is at the outer hangar doors. Should we let him in?"
John Francis Saint, head security operative at the Fantastic Colonies, nodded to Ahmad Elsania, a crew member under his command. "I can't see how we can keep him out."
"But, sir-"
"Hold the tongue, son," Saint said sharply, boring into the younger man's brain with his dark eyes. The crewman could hold the gaze for not more than a half-second before turning and punching the controls to open the hangar doors. "When you get to be my age and have seen half as much as I've done, then you can tell Mr. Cosmic Protector that we don’t want him coming through our front door today. Is that clear?"
"Yes, sir!" the crewman barked. Saint said nothing, knowing the young man couldn’t help but ask the question on his mind. He lasted a whole five seconds before he burst out. "But what are we going to tell him?"
"Nothing we don’t have to."
ASGARD - THE CLUBHOUSE
In a house that had laid empty since True Ragnarok, the Orphans of War always find themselves returning to this place when there are idle moments in the day. They have adopted it as their place to be together and adorned it with left over furnishings gathered from around Asgard. Rarely is there a time when they are all gathered here, but, rarer still, are the times when there are none within its walls. At this moment, Attumidunn, Ben-Vell, Eshir and K'Zan have gathered.
"I hate this place," Eshir scoffed, tossing aside Ben-Vell's shirt from a chair with the stumps at the end of his arms where hands should have been. "We are certainly old enough now that we do not need this place."
"And yet," Ben ribbed, "you still come here. Every day."
K'Zan chuckled a little too heartily at the joke which, when he noticed Toomi wasn't laughing, he tried to cover with a cough. "Er, so anyway, uh, shouldn't we be talking about Angelica?"
"We already told you what happened," Eshir said quickly. "What more do you need to know?"
"It's not about knowing," K'Zan argued weakly, his thin hands wringing themselves together over and over. Eshir looked at his fellow Orphan with parts disgust and curiosity. K'Zan was studying to be a magician, a difficult task in these times. Asgard had lost most of it's more magically attuned denizens during True Ragnarok, from Loki to Karnilla to Lorelei. Amora, the Enchantress, had survived but was now in a state of almost constant depression, taking up residence in Loki's vacated palace in Jottunheim.
And Hela was, well, Eshir shrugged, Hela wasn't giving lessons.
To make matters worse, K'Zan was a mutant, blessed or cursed with a fast metabolism. He wasn't a classic speedster, though the members of the Council had hoped that was what he would become when his power first manifested itself five years ago, Eshir knew. Instead, his body worked at a slightly higher speed than the rest of the world, causing him to be fidgety, run his words together, that sort of 'power'.
It was, Eshir knew, an almost completely useless ability. And it made being a magician, where precise speech and hand movements were a must, all the more difficult. But like the rest of the Orphans, K'Zan had a legacy to live up to. Ben-Vell carried the hardest burden, being a descendent of both the House of Mar-Vell and the House of Spider-Man. Angelica, they had just learned,* was a descendant of the original Green Goblin and carried the Goblin legacy in her veins. Eshir came from a line that knew both great evil and great heroism, with the blood of Magneto, Quicksilver, Luna and on down through the ages. Attumidunn, Eshir shuddered, turning to look at the aqua-skinned Atlantean/Inhuman Valkyrie … Toomi had her own demons.
* In FRAGMENTED BALANCE
K'Zan held a mild heritage with an origin that almost defied description. Eshir couldn't even repeat it with any certainty of getting it right. Suffice it to say, it involved time-displaced mutants from the late 20th century with more coincidental, seemingly pointless changes in history that it had soured Eshir on history for a good year. Bill had called it the Everything You Know is Wrong Syndrome, something that apparently happened with some frequency for a good while in the late 20th century.
At least until the Xalted Xposed nonsense, which Eshir flat-out refused to read more than once.* Somehow or other, he was a descendant of Illyana Rasputin, though how exactly a dead sorceress-to-be could give birth was beyond reason, as far as Eshir was concerned.
* To be revealed to you in the future
"Look," K'Zan's words brought Eshir back, "it's not about knowing what happened, but about how it's effecting her. How it effects us. I mean, really, she's got the Goblin curse inside of her. How do we feel about that?"
"It matters not," Toomi waved her hand at the young magician. "She is only human - no special powers at all. She hasn't even taken a bite of the apples of Idunn that would grant her an Asgardian life. Ordinary is the only word to describe her. We have not a thing to worry about."
K'Zan looked at Ben and Eshir. Both, he thought, were trying hard to look like they didn't care.
Too hard, he thought, but he didn't speak on it.
FANTASTIC COLONIES - SECURITY CENTER
"But won't he want to get involved? I can't see how he wouldn't want to stay and-"
"Are you about finished?!" Saint berated, grabbing the crewman by his collar. "The King sent you here to learn discipline, boy, and gods-damnit, you will learn it! I don't give a flying rat's ass how pretty you think your shit smells, I only promised your father you'd be on the FC for a year, I didn't promise him you'd get to have this cake security gig. You want to shovel garbage down in the sewers, you keep talking!"
Ahmad set his face, determined not to say anything.
"We tell him nothing!" Saint admonished right in Ahmad's ear. "He's here to check out the Labs' progress on some Deviant corpse. He comes in, he sees what they've done and he's gone like the wind." Saint paused, checking the montiors. "Let's just hope he's gone before another dead body turns up."
THE FANTASTIC COLONIES - OUTSIDE
Legacy.
As the years pass, Steve Rogers has become more and more aware of the true meaning of the word. A legacy is not just memories shared by those who remember, legacy can be a living and breathing entity.
This is the Legacy of Reed Richards. The Fantastic Colonies.
Below him, as he flies in the void of space, is the free-floating mass of blue and white metal that started as a small spacecraft and evolved into a space station the size of a small moon. It is filled with the best scientists in the Everything, three-thousand strong, all working to save life, any life, be it King Balder, a shock-trooper of Thanos or a miniscule piece of bacteria struggling for life on an uninhabited planet.
They're as neutral as anyone in this Eternal War, only circumstance has given the impression that they're on the side of the Council by Thanos doing the greater part of the killing.
Captain America, the Cosmic Protector, descend upon the Colonies, aiming for their space-dock. Four large statues grace the outside of the dock doors: the Thing, the Human Torch, the Invisible Woman and the Silver Surfer. Steve shook his head, remembering that Reed was always adamant that no man who did as little as he did with all that he had to offer should be honored in any way. He could never see the good he did in the face of the good he didn't do. As time past and the battles against the Dr. Dooms, the Red Skulls and the Melters continued on and on and on with no end in sight, one glorified costume following another, Reed had turned his back on his adventure and devoted himself fully to his science.
A fact that still bothered Steve, though he didn't like to admit it.
'Each man must sit in judgment of the life they've lived,' Steve mused, halting in mid-space to let the Colonies' scanners work over him. 'I wonder if Judgment Day is anything more than God holding up a mirror and letting each man see their lives for what they were. Does God condemn Man to Hell, or does Man condemn himself out of shame and remorse?'
It was to Sue's credit, Steve knew, that she stuck with him until the end. Never faltering in her love for the man.
The large space-dock opened for Rogers and he flew into the spacious, main launching deck. Technicians mulled about, performing various duties on the spacecraft that were docked there: unloading cargo, making repairs, simply refueling the vessels before they headed off. He noticed that the Supreme Unintelligence was docked here, but he could ascertain no sign of her crew. He'd want to visit with them before he left - they hopped from place to place so often that they were always a great source of information.
Steve landed softly and immediately a sense of unease washed over him. He looked around the dock with a keener eye this time, letting his pondering fade into the back. The technicians were looking uneasily at everything, hesitating before opening a refueling port, jumping at shadows in corners. No one can look him in the eye.
Something's happened.
Involuntarily, he unslung his shield. With all the power of the Nega Bands of Mar-Vell that he wore, it was still times like this that he was thankful to have the old shield on his arm.
ASGARD - LOGAN'S BAR AND GRILL
Angelica Osborn washed potato-encrusted dishes.
She did so as fast as she could, while paying strict attention to making sure they were as clean as she could get them. Logan would be around before long and he'd either regale her with stories of the previous night's activities as if she wasn't there, or, if finished, would perform an exacting search for dirt on the bowls and mugs washed and admonish her up and down about the importance of clean utensils no matter how clean they were.
She'd decided she was in the mood for the lecture this morning. Last night had been such a success that she didn't think she could take any more storytelling. The Cosmic Flame's story had pleased Logan to no end and she didn't think she could take any morning-after gloating.
Plus, she would admit to herself, she didn't really feel like being around the other Orphans this morning. Since her secret had come out, she hadn't wanted to be around her friends all that much. It wasn't their fault, she reminded herself. They'd stood up to Franklin Richards for her and had offered nothing but encouragement since they returned to Asgard.
It was her.
Things had changed and she was having a difficult time adjusting that they couldn’t go back to the way they were. She had told herself that it was because of the fact that the Goblin Legacy would keep Ben-Vell from ever falling in love with her given the centuries of conflict between the Parkers and the Osborns, but it wasn't that. It was almost a relief, in that regard, serving as an end to a crush she'd always had on Ben. The way he shrugged off the Osborn/Parker feud that had so consumed her made the whole world look different to her.
Last night was seemingly the first night in years she hadn't fallen asleep dreaming about him.
No, what really made her want to be away from the others was that she had always been content to sit in the background and be the un-thought-of Orphan, the one with no powers. She liked it when people said, "Oh, that's just Angelica." But now … now people were having opinions of her. They were thinking about her, talking about her, even arguing over her.
She found it all rather uncomfortable.
Logan, bless him, didn't mind her putting in extra hours at work. It was mindless, perfect to let her shut down for awhile and just let the world go on around her without paying it any attention. A stray strand of red hair fell down on her face and she wiped it away with the back of her hand. In doing so, she caught a glimpse of the Cosmic Flame in the reflection of a shiny metal serving tray.
She turned and headed toward the doorway to the tavern to see what he was doing here. It wasn't that she minded, Logan had probably given him free reign of the place after last night, but she just wanted to make sure he didn't touch anything he wasn't supposed to - like Eros' private stash of "herbs" that could knock out a horse. Last thing they needed was a Herald ripped on drugs flying around.
Approaching the doorway, she heard another voice, talking to him softly.
"This isn't a place for you, Flame," the voice purred. "You are a Herald of Galactus, but you have betrayed the Planet Destroyer. What place do you have here, amongst his allies?" Angelica felt her heartbeat quicken. She couldn't tell who it was that was speaking by the voice, and she couldn't risk getting a better look out into the dining area without the woman seeing her. If only the Flame had chosen to sit on the other side of the table, she could see the woman from behind.
"But these are the good guys," the Flame responded. "I'm a good guy. I should be here."
"Everyone here thought you were Johnny Storm, the original Cosmic Flame, but you're just some dumb kid from New Mexico as far as they're concerned," the voice countered softly. "What have they given you to do, hmm? Nothing, I'd wager. But if you were Johnny Storm they'd probably have given you an army of men to attack at Thanos!"
"It's not like-"
"I give you the chance," the voice ignored the Flame's protestations, "to live among friends. To effect real change in the Everything, not just play a small role in this never-ending war."
"But-"
"But what, Flame?" the voice asked sharply, for the first time showing anything but pleasantness. "You'd rather stay here and wait for Galactus to take his power back? To condemn you to the hell of your mortal existence? In all those years searching through the dead corners of space, did you ever feel the joy you thought you would feel when you volunteered to take the place of Johnny Storm?"
"Well, no, not exactly."
"And you know that Galactus will take the power away from you, don't you?"
"Yeah, I guess."
"Take my hand. Join us as we seek to forge a new day in the Everything."
"I don't … I mean, I'm not sure."
"Take my hand, Cosmic Flame, and become somebody important. Or stay and wait for your execution at the hands of Galactus."
There was a long pause and Angelica eased out to get a glimpse of the woman, 'My god,' her mind shrieked when she saw the bright pink skin, 'it's Astoria! What does she want with the Cosmic Flame?'
Before she could do anything more, the Flame spoke again, "Okay, I'll do it," and in a flash of light they were gone, leaving Angelica alone and very, very puzzled.
THE FANTASTIC COLONIES - HANGAR DECK
"So there's nothing going on here?" Captain America asked John Francis Saint, looking around the hangar again as the two men stood together in the middle of the bustling room.
"Nothing we ain't used to," Saint responded. He knew he'd have to play America, and to do that he'd have to act like he wasn't playing him at all. Too nice, too giving with information and he'd know in a second if something was up. "Course, couldn’t you tell if something was wrong with that Cosmic Awareness of yours?"
Steve didn't blink, didn't flinch, didn't let his heart skip an extra half-beat. He'd never been able to use the Cosmic Awareness granted to him as Protector of the Everything to work to its highest levels. He wasn't sure why, though Dani had suggested that he was too willing to help anyone in need so his mind always looked for the first sign of trouble, not the greatest threat to the Everything. And in a centrally located place like this, his Awareness was all but useless to him.
"Cosmic Awareness doesn't always work like that, Saint," he answered, his attention diverted by a dock worker dropping a large wooden crate. Saint didn't need to know exactly how his powers worked and he turned back to the large man, amazed again at how much he reminded him of Nick Fury. Both had the body of military lifers and Saint had the same attitude that Fury had - he told you only what he wanted you to know and he was always on top of things.
"Huh, well, go figure," Saint answered calmly. "Shall we?" he extended his hand towards an exit-way on the opposite side of the hangar and the two men started to walk across the hangar floor. "The lab boys have been waiting for you to arrive. Thanos wiped out Starlin-17 with a bacteria no one's ever seen before."
Cap raised his eye-brows at the information. "Survivors?"
"Handful of refugees pulled out by the Supreme Unintelligence," he motioned to the mid-sized space craft at the far end of the hangar. "But the rest was wiped out completely. That's the tenth human outpost he's wiped out in the last six months, all using bio-chemical weapons to do the dirty work for him."
"Hard to counter," Steve said somberly as they entered a well-lit tunnel leading away from the hangar and towards the elevator bank 100 yards ahead. The rest of this floor was devoted to mechanical concerns: repairs, spare parts, reusable junk, etc. "All it takes is one guy to get past security and let the bacteria loose."
"Perfect weapon," Saint remarked as they reached the elevators.
"If there is such a thing," Cap responded, walking into a just opened door. Behind him, Saint just sighed and wished for nothing to go wrong in the next couple hours.
THE FANTASTIC COLONIES - ELEVATOR 10
The Fantastic Colonies were home to nearly three-thousand of the best scientists in the Everything. Originally, the Fantastic Colonies was simply the Fantastic Rocket, a deep-space ship created by Reed Richards while the Fantastic Four were living on Titan.
After Franklin died, Steve remembered, Reed had taken the Fantastic Four, including Sue, Pietro, Crystal and Luna to live on Titan permanently. Franklin's suicide* had sent the FF spiraling into a deep depression and in the end, they couldn't bear to stay on Earth. They left for their home away from home in 2005, Titan, and lived there until 2009, when Reed completed building the Fantastic Rocket.
Not to mention that that's when Titan blew up.
* Detailed during FRAGMENTED BALANCE
The Fantastic Rocket was Reed's floating laboratory and, in time, it grew into the Fantastic Colonies. The original Fantastic Rocket was at the heart of the FC, Steve knew, sealed off permanently from the rest of the ship on Reed's orders. It was morbid, he thought, to have a tomb at the heart of a vibrant science colony, but as Saint and others had explained to him over and over, the technology of that rocket was so out of date that there wasn't anything in there they could use anymore anyway.
"-the War?"
"Hmm?" Cap asked, snapping out of his thoughts. "What was that, Saint?"
"I asked how the War was going," the grizzled security chief responded. "We don't get a lot of intel reports here," he said icily, "so it's tough for us to know what it's really like out there."
"You can have full access to the intel reports," Cap answered, "the second you decide to join our side of this war. So long as you stay neutral, you won't have access to them. We can't take the security risk."
"Hey, come off it," Saint shot Cap a look. "You know damn well one of Reed's final instructions was that we were never to take sides in any war. 'Scientists have to stay neutral,' he said, 'or ending life becomes more important than saving it.'"
"Noncommittance to any cause isn't a just course of action," Cap countered, as the elevator opened onto the third floor of Laboratory Section Theta.
"We're not non-committed," Saint argued, already tiring of Cap's holier-than-thou attitude. They exited into an open waiting area and headed down a huge, bright corridor to the left. "We're committed to preserving life at any and all costs. If we sided with you it wouldn't be long before someone - and I'm not saying you or even Balder - would want to start using these biological weapons against Thanos. That's no more right than Thanos using them against you."
"Does it hurt your back to toe the company line so hard?" Cap asked pointedly.
"Fuck you," Saint shot back, stopping in his tracks. "You know damn well that everyone in these Colonies wants to see Thanos defeated. But there are right ways and wrong ways to win wars-"
"Are you giving me a lecture on wars?"
"What I'm doing is telling you to back the fuck off your platform and appreciate what help you get from the scientists here. Stop trying to get us to join your side. People hate being told what to do. Reed Richards saved everyone's life here in one manner or other and we will all respect his wishes as long as we live."
"Are you two about finished?" Cap and Saint turned to see the brightest scientist in all of the Fantastic Colonies, a twenty foot wide grey brain sitting in a large jar of glass. The outlined image of a face hung in the air in front of the large glass jar with a smile on its face. "You two really should try and get along."
"My apologies, Scarecrow 36," Cap nodded. "I'm afraid the return of Franklin Richards has us all a little more tense than usual."
"Franklin Richards is alive!?!" Saint exploded. "Since when?"
"Is that possible for you, dear Captain?" the brain smiled, ignoring Saint. "And it's Scarecrow 39 now. Unfortunately, three more of our scientists have left this mortal plane."
"I'm sorry to hear that," Cap answered, walking towards the fifteen foot high jar. "Assimilation went well?"
"Oh, splendidly," Scarecrow 39 answered. "We've got the procedure down quite well now. It's almost a normal procedure. Well," the face's smile widened, "as normal as it can be to merge one brain into a collection of others. But enough of that, come into my Laboratory, there's plenty we need to discuss."
FANTASTIC COLONIES - SECURITY CENTER
Ahmad sighed to himself, watching the exchange on the monitors in front of him. 'You ask me,' he said to himself, 'Saint just misses being involved in any kind of action. If that police officer the Supreme Unintelligence brought in from Starlin 17 makes it out of his coma okay, I bet Saint tries to get him to take over here so he can go join up with some rough riders somewhere. No way he can be happy here.'
"Ahmad, want some joe?" came a voice on the other side of the Security Center. "I'm going to get some and I figured I'd- what the hell?"
"What is it?" Ahmad asked, jumping out of his chair to sprint across the twenty foot room.
"Another one," the crewman whispered. "That's twenty dead now. In just over a month."
Ahmad looked at the monitor and swallowed hard. He couldn't make out the face, but there was no mistaking that the dead human body on the floor wore the fabled uniform of the Fantastic Four. "Saint is going to explode," Ahmad shook his head.
FANTASTIC COLONIES - LABORATORY SECTION THETA
The laboratory was a large room of shiny steel. Glass windows showed views into adjacent laboratories. This was the heart of Section Theta, Scarecrow's center of operations.
"Were you able to discern anything unusual about the Deviant corpse we sent you from Titan 3?" Captain America asked.*
* Remember the first issue?
"A few interesting tidbits," Scarecrow answered, turning on the large screen at the far end of the main lab. On the left side of the screen was an image of the dead Deviants body. On the right was flashing data that the scientists had recorded. "As you know, there's no vegetation on the surface of Titan 3, or, as far as anyone knew, any inside the metal moon, either. This still appears to be the case." The flashing data stopped on a readout entitled STOMACH / DIGESTION. "As you can see, this Deviant was chronically undernourished for a typical Deviant of his size. What makes this Deviant interesting is that his stomach is three times smaller than it should be for a Deviant this size and, curiously, his blood stream is saturated with sugar."
"Sugar?" Cap asked the large floating brain.
"Yes. Apparently, Thanos is building these Deviants as if he were building low income housing. This is not a natural creature, Captain. As Deviants are the chief storm troopers in Thanos' army, we have become quite familiar with their genetic make-up. Even a race as diverse and ever-changing as the Deviants have some intra-species similarities. Chief among them are the size of the internal organs. A Deviant this size should have a heart roughly the size of a football. That follows right across the board among all Deviants we've examined."
"You've assimilated another human brain," Cap noted. He was always unnerved by the tradition at the FC of taking a just deceased brain from one of their scientists and incorporating the matter into the larger whole that was Scarecrow. It was a recent advance, but one that Reed had first pioneered through his work in Artificial Intelligence. Cap knew, as few did, that the brain floating in the jar wasn't actually a brain so much as a database of brain patterns fused together. The physical brain that stood before them was just a shell containing a computer network underneath. One of the first scientists who offered his dying brain up for the experiment had secretly longed for a life in the theatre and thought creating this large brain in a jar would be a good show. Cap thought it all reminded him of the Supreme Intelligence too much and was horrified when Saint had told him that that's where they had gotten the idea.
"Yes, I have," Scarecrow answered happily. "I'm most curious about the sport called baseball. Tell me, do they still play baseball on Earth?"
"Couldn’t say," Cap answered, a little too quickly and too harshly.
"Still can't go back, huh?" Saint needled.
"You were saying, Scarecrow?" Cap ignored the security chief. 'Yep,' he thought, 'just like Fury.'
"Right, the similarity of structures. The Deviants, as you know, change dramatically from parent to parent. Their genetic make-up is quite extraordinary. Unlike most species, a Deviant child isn't predisposed to have anything in common with their parents. In fact, it is most unusual when they do."
"In some ways they're anti-genetic," Cap remarked. "Where most species pass traits on, the Deviants keep traits for themselves."
"Not quite." The large screen changed to show close-ups of Deviant chromosomes. "The key to understanding Deviants is the massive number of possibilities they have to be created from. For instance, let's look at eye color. Humans, as you know, have a limited number of possibilities. There are no red eyes, or purple eyes, or yellow eyes. Among Homo-Superior, yes, but not among Homo-Sapiens. There's a limited number of possibilities, combined with the normal genetic characteristic of dominant and recessive genes. The Deviants have neither limitation."
"Means they're choices for eye color look like a Crayon factory after a twister," Saint injected.
"Instead of say, ten or twenty possibilities, they have one-hundred and twenty-eight?" Cap asked, feeling the pangs of home thinking about a box of crayons.
"Closer to eight-thousand," Scarecrow answered. "And we're still counting."
"And since there's no genetic predisposition, no dominant or recessive traits, each child can have any of the options available to it?"
"Correct as far as we can tell. You are familiar with the Deviant known as Reject? From 'back in the day'?"
"Yes, he was a Deviant that looked like a normal Eternal."
"He is the key to understanding how the Deviants work on a genetic level. If we could get some of his DNA, I'd be much appreciative."
Cap looked at Scarecrow blankly. He could be anywhere in the Everything, after all. "I'll see what I can do."
"Excellent," Scarecrow enthused. "I'm interested to know if there are any patterns to how their genetics work. For instance, is a father with red eyes and a mother with turquoise eyes more likely to give birth to a child with, say, lavender eyes? Or gold? Or grey-orange? It will be centuries before we understand exactly how Deviants operate, but the information we have now does lead to some interesting conclusions."
"Intra-Deviant genetic similarities?"
"Yes, chiefly, the size of the internal organs. While the traits are random, and there have been Deviants reported as short as two feet and as tall as twelve-foot-ten, the size of your heart, stomach, digestinal tract, lungs and so on are predetermined by their height and build. As I was saying, the Deviant you brought in should have had a heart the size of a football, but he doesn't. He has a heart the size of a watermelon, nearly two times the size of what it should be."
"Which allows him to better pump blood through his system," Cap nodded.
"Exactly, meaning he can do more physically than a Deviant his size with a normal heart."
"And his stomach? And the sugar in his blood?" Saint asked, curious.
"Most Deviants eat the same basic foods across the board, but as Thanos has dropped them onto different planets, with different atmospheres and foods, there have been variations that have cropped up. We now know of marine based Deviants, airborne Deviants, etc. What we don't know is if they are natural evolutions, or if Thanos is creating them a certain way, playing God with their DNA make-up."
"That's what we've long thought he was doing. Along with cloning, of course."
"It appears that's what he's doing, yes," Scarecrow said somberly. "He's creating creatures to fight in his army. He's taking the basic Deviant structure and grafting into that several specific traits. Enlarged heart to increase physical ability. Smaller brain capacities to limit intelligence."
"And the sugar?" Saint asked again.
"Means he has to feed them less," Cap answered for Scarecrow. "They're created to survive on water and sugar, correct?"
"Correct," Scarecrow answered.
"But a body that size can't live for long on just sugar-water, can it?" Saint asked.
"No," Scarecrow answered. "Thanos isn't building them for long lives, he's probably creating them as he needs them for as long as he needs them and nothing else. Solves one Thanos mystery it does."
"Which mystery is that?" Saint asked.
"Why would someone who worships death create life," Cap said quietly. "I guess it's okay if the life you create has only limited life to begin with."
The three stood there in silence for a few moments, none really in the mood to say anything. Cap looked around the lab again, still curious as to why most people were moving as if they'd just seen a ghost.
He was about to get his answer.
"Commander Saint," came the voice of Ahmad over the room's intercom system.
"Yes, Ahmad?" Saint asked, noting the edge in the young man's voice.
"You'd better report to the cafeteria over on Section 306."
"Right, I'm on my way."
"And sir?"
"Yes, Ahmad?" Saint asked perturbed. 'Don't do it, kid,' he thought to himself, glancing quickly at Captain America.
"I think you'd better bring the Captain."
Cap could see Saint's blood start to boil. "I'm sure the Cosmic Protector has better things to do than concern himself with a securi-"
"With all due respect, Commander," Ahmad's voice came with a twinge of fear, "I think it's time we let someone see this."
Saint said nothing as he turned to Cap and then exited the room.
"I hope it isn't another one," Scarecrow said softly.
"Another what?" Cap asked.
"You'd better see for yourself. Go, we'll finish this later and I'll give you an update on Starlin 17 at the same time." Scarecrow looked at Cap with a depressed look on his electric face, "Please help us."
Cap nodded, resolved that Scarecrow wouldn't tell him what the problem was, and started to leave the room before he stopped and turned back. "Almost forgot." He reached into a pouch on his belt and extracted a small toy and placed it on a metal table in front of Scarecrow. "Enjoy."
"Is that …?"
"Vintage 1989 rubber toy model of the Tin Man," Cap said. "Friend brought it back from Earth. Part of a fast-food restaurant promotion."
"Thank you, Captain," the large brain said reverently, rolling slowly toward the table.
"Thank you for the Deviant information," he said as he left the room and Scarecrow behind.
FANTASTIC COLONIES - CAFETERIA, SECTION 306
Captain America and Saint entered the cafeteria without saying a word. Security personnel pointed the way to where Ahmad waited for them.
"Ahmad," Saint said icily.
"Commander," Ahmad nodded, then turned to Captain America. "Captain. It is an honor."
"What'd you want to show us?" Saint tried to stay calm, but his rage was obvious to everyone.
"It's around this corner," Ahmad answered and then turned to lead them around and to the left. Cap and Saint's eyes took in the scene. A body with a blue and white uniform lay face down on the ground. His body was stretched upwards to a small vent shaft near the ceiling. The vent shaft was the size of a quarter, too small for a normal man to fit through.
"My god," Cap exclaimed, "that looks like …"
"It is," Saint nodded. "Reed Richards. Dead and in the flesh." He sighed, too loudly, Cap thought. This was a man under a lot of strain.
"Tell me why you don't look as shocked as I do," Cap commanded, regaining his composure after the initial shock.
Saint bent down to look at the body and Ahmad stepped in to provide the answer, "Because this is the twentieth time we've discovered the dead body of Reed Richards. Happens almost every day, in fact."
NEXT ISSUE:
FANTASTIC MYSTERY, PART TWO
-- MBQ … 21.February.2000
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