Post by DiscipleofBob on Dec 24, 2015 0:13:55 GMT -5
Fantastic Four #10:
Growing Pains
By Adrini and DiscipleofBob
Growing Pains
By Adrini and DiscipleofBob
[Baxter Building Lab #4]
The ants were marching one by one in insectoid formation across the lab. They climbed furniture and crossed whatever obstacles they could, following pheromone trails left by their peers until they found the objects of their desire, and brought them back to their nest. For larger pieces, anywhere between two and a dozen ants would work in perfect synch to accomplish their goals.
The ants did not know fear, only obedience. Even the survival instinct to fight or flee was overridden by the ants' need to serve the collective. They were all parts of a greater whole, purpose without individuality. All they needed was direction.
The three non-insectoid creatures didn't interest them at first. They could have been potential threats, but their current instinct was to follow orders and ignore all else. One ant sniffed at the strange warm contraption pointed at its head.
"Go ahead, just try it," Janet Van Dyne warned through gritted teeth. Yesterday, she would have seen the creatures as sympathetic, possibly even cute. Getting a far too up-close look at some of her specimens gave her a much more hostile perspective. She aimed the large energy blaster she scavenged from a destroyed robot. The ant sniffed curiously before calmly skittering off to join the rest of its colony.
Janet's finger stayed rigid on the trigger, no matter how much she tried to remove it. An elongated hand slowly grabbed the blaster and pushed it back down. Another, normal, hand rested on her shoulder.
"If you start blasting them, they'll definitely come after us. And you don't know how effective that will be or how long it'll last," Sue reasoned to Janet.
Janet shook her head. "They should be attacking everything that isn't an ant on sight."
"Well, let's just be glad they have abnormal behavioral instincts," Reed replied. "Come on, let's follow them. Once we're at the site of the original experiment we can figure out what to do from there."
The three scientists could walk openly along the floor of the lab, ants marching around them like city traffic only less disgusting. Many were carrying strange odds and ends; shrapnel and other pieces of machinery.
"What could they possibly want with all this?" Reed wondered out loud, but neither Janet nor Sue had any idea what it could mean.
The ants gathered their scavenged materials to one central area, where other, smaller ants were taking the pieces and arranging them in formation. "This doesn't look like a nest," Jan said uneasily. "What could they possibly be..."
The three watched as the ants kept working, either unaware or uncaring of the presence of their observers. Insectoid legs and mandibles manipulated pieces at the smallest level, turning screws, tightening bolts, even stripping wires. "What kind of super ants were you working on?" Sue asked.
"I wasn't," Jan replied, her face pale and equally confused.
"They're building something, but what?" Reed thought out loud. Without even thinking, his neck stretched out to give himself a better view, where at a bird's eye angle he could see the overall structure, like a circuit board laid out in front of him. His brilliant mind translated the layout of the various circuits and wires, and could only conclude one possible function. He shortened his neck back to its normal size.
"They seem to be rebuilding what pieces of the original machine are physically possible. There's only one plausible explanation I can think of. We need to find the source of the ants' instructions," Reed explained.
As Janet listened, her eyes widened at the implication of Reed’s observation. He didn’t need to finish his overwinded explanation. Janet fired up her new jetpack and took off in a stream of crackling yellow energy before either Reed or Sue could stop her.
The risk was no longer relevant. She needed the height and the speed to scour the swarm. She had to make several passes, and for a second her hope turned to despair. Suddenly her eye caught something moving, something distinctly un-antlike. She zoomed through the air, making a beeline toward her target.
Janet cut the power and landed running along the floor, barely avoiding a complete crash by throwing her arms around the nearest anchor. Which struggled to catch her, just as alarmed as she was. Janet landed on something soft and warm that was hugging her back.
"Janet? Is that really you?" asked a desperate Hank Pym, lying flat on his back with Janet collapsed on top of him.
Janet tried to say something. To scream about how he left her alone. To yell about how much she needed him. To beg him to never leave again. But all that came were tears as she sobbed into his chest.
"I'm so sorry, Janet. I wanted so much to save you, but I knew that there was no possibly way I could even help. I'd only have been a burden. Please believe that if I thought I could have helped in any way by being there..."
"Stop!" Janet managed to yell out. "Just... stop." She rested in his arms, completely ignoring the giant insects around them as the ants returned the favor and went about their business.
It didn't take long for Reed and Sue to catch up, sharing the safety of Sue's cloak just in case. When they finally found the other two, Sue stopped in her tracks, causing Reed to briefly crash into the inside of the bubble. "Why are we stopping? Hank and Janet are right over there."
Sue shook her head. "No, they just needs to blow off some steam. It's been a rough day, and we've been driving her crazy."
"There has been some miscommunication, and of course the base of frustration that..." Reed explored the situation in his mind, but Sue wasn't up for it.
"Reed, sit. It'll be a while. You're tired too. Breathe. Give them a minute," she said as she leaned against the side of a textbook that had fallen on the floor.
He didn't argue sat down as instructed. He was careful not to sit too close, but she didn't seem to notice. She wasn't the woman he'd met in college. Bright, driven, a shooting star among the already very bright student body, Sue was the target of most of the men there. Victor was always the front runner in that race. At the time, Victor was Reed's best friend and college roommate. Any feelings he might have had for Sue were suppressed by his desire to see both Sue and Victor happy, and at the time he thought that would come from them being together. Recent events had started to convince him otherwise.
"I'm fine," she said simply, knowing the look. Sue glanced at her watch and sighed. "And I'm officially late for picking up Johnny. Of course."
"Victor was an idiot," Reed said in uncharacteristically simple terms. "There was no excuse for what he did. You and Johnny are the best family a man can ask for and he couldn't leave it alone. That was his failing, not yours. He didn't know what he had. He needed to put you first, not his baggage and not his legacy. I'm sorry."
"I thought you were his biggest fan." Sue blinked a few times and looked at him before turning away to the ground. "He's your best friend. And you're probably his only real friend. Don't throw that away just because of what happened between me and him."
"He already threw that away, and I have to come to terms with that. He left us behind. He left me behind. And he wasn't there for you. A man's greatest responsibility is to his wife and family, and he wasn't. I can forgive a lot, but not that."
"When we lost Valeria and it became clear that it wasn't going to happen for us I looked into adoption. It wasn't what we wanted, but it would still be a family. It still passed on the name and built a legacy. He wouldn't even hear it." She was a little more open now. At the moment he could see some of the depression she still hid. "It was the first time in our marriage I understood I was as much broodmare as beloved to him. He didn't see the problem. That was it."
"Victor is the only man I know who could be offered you, Johnny, and a whole litter of kids and pass it all over genetics. He's an idiot," Reed said before offering a smile. "Imagine the chaos that house would hold. Science experiments everywhere, museum trips, academic conferences, the odd explosions at random intervals."
"Yeah, I know," Sue said smiling back. "I had all kinds of day dreams while we were together. Going down to the Hubble Telescope, charting the stars as a family. Even had some dinosaur wallpaper picked out for the nursery. But that's never going to happen now. I need to move on."
"I was invited to the Hubble to give a talk at a conference." His ties to his old friend were slipping away the more he learned about what happened between Sue and Victor. "I'm not him, but it could be fun to go sometime. I know it's not the same but it'd be a chance to get out and establish some normalcy again. You're brilliant, Sue. You deserve to be out there, and you've earned it." She didn't say anything, but offered her gratitude silently through a smile.
At some point Sue had released her hold on the forcefield and not realized it. Hank and Janet approached them, Janet's arm around Hank's waist. His arm was in a quickly cobbled together splint, and his other hand held the experimental microphone from Janet's desk. "Reed. Sue. I know it's what you would've done anyway, but thank you for looking after Janet. I wish I could've helped."
"Save your apologies, Hank. Look at all this! You've managed an extraordinary amount of progress in our absence."
Hank smiled sheepishly. "I just got lucky. Things could have been much worse considering the circumstances."
"But you got my experiment to work!" Janet exclaimed.
"It was already working. I just made a few minor adjustments from trial and error," Hank said as he shook his head. "We can discuss the finer reasons for all this later. Right now, we need to finish rebuilding the experiment and hopefully get back to normal size. The ants can only follow instructions. I need some hands with genius minds behind them."
"Well then, let's get to work. Lead the way, my queen," Janet said with a giggle. Reed and Sue suppressed a snicker as Hank was left confused and oblivious to the joke.
[Outside the Baxter Building]
When the 95 Chevy pulled up to the guard post, Willie Lumpkin had to check it twice, adjusting his sunglasses as his gray moustache rustled in confusion. Neither the car nor the license plates were familiar. He thought he'd memorized all the employees' vehicles by now. He didn't see anything matching the car on his list, so he peeked outside the booth and tapped on the window. A teenage girl rolled down the window. Over the radio, Smash Mouth just managed to finish singing "Might as well be walkin' on the sun." before she tuned it off.
"Scuse me, young miss. We're not open to visitors right now," Willie said in his most polite, almost fatherly tone.
"Hey, Willie! It's just me!" Johnny Storm called from the passenger seat, only now visible to the slightly nearsighted guard.
"Oh, Mister Storm! Well, why didn't you say so? And who may I ask is this lovely young lady?"
"This is Alicia. She's from school. She gave me a ride, and now we're going to go study."
"Hello," Alicia smiled and waved.
"Well, I won't keep you two then," Willie replied with a smirk. "What's the project?" he asked casually, seemingly forgetting his own comment about not keeping them.
"Organic chemistry," Johnny replied.
"I'll bet," Willie chuckled and winked, even though he was wearing sunglasses. "Lemme just give your sister a call and see if she's in the office." Willie leaned back into the booth and picked up the phone.
"He's... a character," Alicia commented.
"He's a good guy. Kind of out there at times, but he's almost like the company mascot. He rotates around different positions. When it's nice out, he works in the parking booth. When it gets colder, he's reassigned to work security or custodial work inside."
"That's awfully accommodating," Alicia said impressed with the company's treatment.
"I heard he used to work at the university Reed attended. After he retired, he still needed a small job, so he got a position here, and they just kind of worked his reassignments around any health issues he might have."
"Wow. Who would've thought a guy named Von Doom could be such a cool boss to work for?"
Johnny briefly lost his smile at the mere mention of the name. "Well, even a broken, evil, doomsday clock can be right twice a day."
"Huh?"
Before Johnny needed to explain, Willie peeked his head back out the booth window. "I'm not getting through to your sister. She might be busy in the lab. I'll go ahead and buzz you through. You know the way."
"Thanks, Willie!"
He handed Alicia a visitor's parking pass and opened the gate. Johnny gave directions to a safe parking spot, before they both grabbed their school bags and walked inside. Alicia looked at her surroundings in awe. "I've always wanted to come to the Baxter Building!" she said excitedly.
Johnny couldn't blame her. What was to him and his sister an everyday workplace was basically Disneyland to students and scientists around the country. But Doom had kept tight security on most of the projects, knowing full well the number of people and institutions in the world that would pay any price for it.
"I tend to go home to study, but Sue's office is big enough that I can go and come here and work if I really want to." Johnny mildly gloated.
"Do you ever just goof around in the labs?" Alicia asked with a big smile.
"What? No, my sister would never allow that," Johnny answered with blatant sarcasm. "So how would you like the grand tour?"
"Really? I'd love it!" she eagerly replied, grinning as she grabbed Johnny's arm. He couldn't tell if she meant anything by it or if he was just lucky, but he wasn't about to complain. "It's just you and your sister, right?"
"Yeah, Sue usually drops me off and picks me up from school. Makes me do a bunch of extra work on homework like citing multiple science journals on what's supposed to be a one-page paper, that sort of thing," said Johnny. "Is it the same with you and your brother?"
"Hm?"
"Well, the principal said your brother was your legal guardian, right? Is he another scientist?"
"Oh..." she hesitated before answering. "No, he's... military. I hardly see him these days, so usually it's just me."
"Oh..." It was Johnny's turn to hesitate. He was getting the image of some kind of black ops soldier for a protective older brother, and suddenly got a little nervous. "So I was thinking we could drop some books off at my sister's office, and then I can see if I can sneak you into anywhere cool."
"Sounds great!" Alicia nodded as she followed his lead.
[Baxter Building Lab #4]
"It was either try to pull myself up, get attacked by robots, and probably lose the transmitter, or fall and try to catch myself on the desk frame," Hank recounted as he and Reed worked on recreating the experiment on a smaller scale. With the right instructions, the ants could put pieces in their proper place, but some of the finer adjustments had to be done by hand.
"That was too risky, Hank. You could have died," Reed said as he tested a few small energy cells, making sure they were still capable of running.
"I doubt it. It was only a few feet. Even if we've shrunk in size, we've most likely decreased in mass as well. A fall from that height wouldn't tickle, but it wouldn't be as lethal as a relative fall at our normal size."
"You don't know how our mass has actually changed, Hank. There's a lot about this state of being we don't know about. This is completely uncharted territory."
"I know. Isn't it great? I did admittedly hurt my arm trying to break my fall by grabbing onto the desk frame though. It doesn't appear to be too serious, all things considered, but I didn't want to take any chances." Hank replied with a smile. The implications of their altered states were staggering. The applications were limited. Neither of the scientists dare let on how fascinated they were by the situation to their significant others.
Putting the original capsule back together would have been impossible, even at their normal size, but fortunately all they really needed was enough of the original machine's circuitry and parts to generate the right kind of radiation. Exactly what kind was up to Reed's memory and Hank's ability to extrapolate from whatever data he could provide.
"What about the ants?" Reed asked. "How did you get Janet's transmitter to work?"
"I told you. It was already working. Once I got it powered on. I just had to try a few different frequencies, that's all. She deserves all the credit, and I'm not just saying that because we're dating," Hank said, slightly blushing. "It could be when I removed the transmitter from the rest of the microphone, I inadvertently detached something that was causing interference, or maybe it's just easier to send the ants a message they can understand from this size. Perspective and all that. Either way, figuring out exactly what makes it work now takes a back seat to getting us to normal size."
"Agreed," Reed nodded as he looked over some calculations he'd scribbled on the floor. "Well, we definitely won't get the same kind of energy output as before from what we can cobble together, but that shouldn't matter as long as there's enough radiation to engulf our four tiny bodies."
The ants were more than capable of all the heavy lifting and scavenging, though it took Hank or now one of the others to sift through their findings for things that were actually useful. Reed's elasticity helped with some of the more difficult, delicate tasks. When it came to pushing or lifting Sue was even more helpful than the ants, and while Janet may have refurbished the robot wasp torch as a weapon, this sort of repair work was closer to its original purpose.
Together, they mounted an energy projector on the wall, connected to a dozen other devices scattered throughout the floor. Normally one of the test capsules would contain 50 of these devices well-regulated and encased in a hermetically sealed chamber, but this was what they could manage.
"Please tell me we're not going to just blast ourselves without knowing if this is going to work or not," Janet pointed out.
"We need something to test this out," said Reed. "A sock or a piece of fabric maybe?"
Sue came up behind Reed with a smile and stroked the back of his hair. Before Reed could decide how exactly he should react, there was a sharp pain on the back of his head as Sue yanked a few hairs away. "We need something organic. This is probably the closest we'll get to making sure there aren't any unintended side effects. Well, any other unintended side effects."
Reed rubbed the sore spot on his head. "I did apologize, right? I was sure I apologized. Several times in fact."
Reed's complaint ignored as they placed the hair in range of the device and vacated the area. "Test one commencing," Hank announced as if they were performing any other experiment. He manned the controls from a safe distance like the detonator for a bomb. The comparison was accurate in more than one way.
The energy transmitted fired up in a bright white glow, and all four scientists instinctively looked away, knowing full well that such chemical reactions could cause blindness if viewed without proper safety goggles.
When they looked back, the small clump of hair had been replaced by what appeared to be a bundle of large, flexible, flaky brown logs. Exactly what close-up strands of hair should look like. The four of them cautiously approached the giant, or rather regular-size hair strands and carefully examined them for anything out of the ordinary.
"It seems to be normal," Reed said cautiously. "The safest precaution would be to run several more trials and make absolutely sure there are no deviations."
While Janet's face sunk with dread at being stuck like this for much longer while the scientific process took hold, Sue grinned mischievously. "Good idea, Reed. Lean over and I'll grab some more samples."
"On the other hand, it's probably fine," Reed said fearfully as he covered as much of his hair with one hand as possible. "At this rate, you're all going to give me gray hairs."
Hank fired up the device again, this time enveloping the four of them. They all covered their eyes as the bright flash engulfed them.
Though they expected some sort of strange sensation, or maybe some intense pain of their mass and body shape changing, just like before the process was nearly instant. If anything, their bodies were briefly numb from the radiation. When they dared to open their eyes again, they had never been so relieved to see a nearly destroyed lab at their normal size. "Finally. I thought we'd be stuck like that forever," Hank sighed with relief.
"Actual shrinking technology," Reed couldn't help but smile giddily at the discovery. "This is going to revolutionize so much! Change the way we perceive the world! I can't wait to get started-"
Sue stepped in front of Reed and quickly cut him off. "No! No way! Not a chance! You're not doing any more experiments! You're going to take a break from science before you turn us all into shrimp people somehow!"
"But..."
"No! We almost died! Again! We're supposed to be academic professionals, not mad scientists!"
Hank placed a hand on Reed's dejected shoulder. "I'll look more into this technology. It's as you said earlier. We need something exciting to show the board later. Between this and Janet's ant transmitter, we'll be able to stay afloat for a little while longer at least. I know you're eager to get back into the science saddle, but there are safety protocols and peer confirmation requirements for a reason. Don't worry, Reed, I know how you're most comfortable in the middle of an experiment. I'll send you some data to look over later, as long as you don't try to physically recreate anything."
Sue sighed. "Janet, you have anything to add?"
Janet had barely listened, taking the small pieces she'd equipped while small and placed them on her desk. "Next time maybe," she muttered to herself, a little disappointed that it couldn't grow with her, before turning to the others. "I did have choice words to say to Reed after that whole debacle, but fortunately for you, you're not at the top of my 'list' anymore."
The three scientists glanced at each other, confused at what she could mean, as Janet removed one of her shoes and held it in her hand, focusing her attention around the room desperately searching for her prey. "Now where's that damn spider?"
Hank sighed, "Oh dear. Well, that research has probably been set back by at least a decade now. I'll go call a cleanup crew for this mess."
[Yancy Street Bar]
"No longer qualified?! Reassignment?!" Ben yelled before realizing his location and lowering his voice back down. "The hell you goin' on about, Fury? Lookin' out for Reed is my job!"
The SHIELD commander locked his one good eye with both of Ben's, not backing down for a second even in the face of the rock monster. "Part of your job is keeping a low profile, and unless you're going to a sci-fi convention, that isn't possible anymore."
"Yeah, well, this sorta crap goes belly up every once in a while. If it weren't me, it woulda been another one of your agents. Even with hindsight there wasn't any way to prevent this from happening. Now I gotta work with Reed if any of us are going to get back to normal anytime soon."
"You were supposed to stop it from getting this bad in the first place! Now I have mess on my hands that has to be cleaned up." Fury leaned forward. "You got too attached and dropped the ball."
Ben protested, "I did my job. I kept an eye on Reed and Doom and the rest of the company and let SHIELD know anytime they came up with something new or were about to start anything potentially dangerous."
"And yet here we are. Now I got three people with weird ass powers, one of which is a celebrity in the academic community, and an undercover agent that can now only go undercover as a rock!" Fury was blunt but Ben could only argue so much. "So now I've got to figure out what to do with you."
"If you think I'm leavin' Reed and Suzie..."
"That's exactly what I think. If we can watch you more closely, we can find out if whatever happened to you is safe to those around you. Unless you think SHIELD should take custody of all four of you. Put all of you in isolation for a while until we can figure out if these transformations can be reversed, while making sure none of them are a risk to anyone. We've got a stretchy guy who for all we know will literally just fall apart eventually, an invisible woman, cause THAT'S not something our enemies would want to exploit, and a teenager that lights himself on fire. You really think we're just going to leave that alone?"
Stunned, Ben didn't speak. That anyone would lock them up and treat them like experiments, even SHIELD, was unbearable to imagine.
"Fortunately, unlike you, they can at least appear normal, and while there have been some 'incidents', we still have a chance at covering this up as long as everyone cooperates. Do you get me, Grimm?"
"I go with you without a fuss. You'll leave Reed, Sue, and Johnny alone?" Ben clarified the terms of his surrender.
"We'll find a way to introduce another undercover SHIELD agent into their lives, contact them directly and ask them to keep their powers under wraps if necessary, and keep a close eye on them to help cover up any more incidents. But unless they become a danger to themselves or those around them, they'll be free to live their lives as they please."
"Fine. Lock me away, as long as the others are still free," Ben begrudgingly accepted Fury's terms. Johnny was just a kid with his whole life ahead of him. Reed and Sue would figure things out and adjust accordingly. It was either one or all of them.
"We still have a place for you in SHIELD, Agent Grimm. It won't be all that bad. You'll eventually adjust to the Night Shift."
Fury stood up and motioned for Ben to do the same. There would be no farewells to his friends. As Ben suspected, the reassignment was happening now, whether Ben wanted to or not. He warily stood up, his joints noisily grinding together. As he did, several undercover SHIELD agents around the bar stood up as well to escort him. Ben had spotted them as soon as he entered the bar, but initially figured they were just to make the paranoid Nick Fury more comfortable. Now he realized they were there in case he didn't like Fury's terms.
As he left the bar, Ben reached into the pocket of his trenchcoat and left his whole wallet on the bar. He wouldn't need it where he was going. "Keep the change, Mickey."
As Ben and the SHIELD agents left, the bartender took one look at the wallet and reached for the house phone, dialing up a long-distance number. "Hello? I'm lookin' for Dr. Reed Richards. Just tell him Ben needs help."
To Be Continued...