FANTASTIC FOUR

443 - July, Y3 – MV1

THE TROUBLE WITH KIDS

written by Mark Bousquet

"Mayday! Mayday!"

Sue Richards flew alone over the Atlantic ocean inside a FantastiJet, it’s engine dying rapidly. She’d been on her way to the North Atlantic to visit the Inhumans when she heard a mayday alert come over her radio. Now, it was her turn to ask for help.

The instrument panels were of no value. Everything was spinning rapidly out of control. Fire and smoke trailed behind her wildly and freely. She was going to crash. That was a certainty. What she wanted to do now was make sure she could walk away from it.

She flipped panels and hit buttons, constantly checking her gauges, doing everything that Ben had taught her to do when a situation like this arose. Her heart rate was fast, but not as fast as it would have been had Sue been a lesser person. She’d been in tough situations before and she was damn sure she’d live to be in more of them.

"Can’t believe this," she spoke aloud, knowing that if she didn’t, in fact, survive, there’d be some record for Reed to analyze. God, that’s so cold, she thought to herself, but there was no time now for anything except the job at hand. "Didn’t even see what hit me. Didn’t even feel it. Just happened. One minute, everything is go. Next, the engines are on fire. But no explosion. Repeat, no explosion. It’s almost as if the engines just melted away into fire."

Scanning the ocean below her for any possible place to land, Sue saw a small island, covered half in rock and the other half in ice and snow.

It wasn’t JFK, but she maneuvered towards it, hoping she could land the FantastiJet in one piece.

Alicia Masters lay in bed, her flu-like symptoms growing worse.

She had no powers, no extra senses, no otherworldly insight into the planes of reality, but she knew, deep down in her soul, that bad things were on the horizon. Marcia, her daughter that a month ago wasn’t even a thought in her head and was now, by Reed’s estimations, six years old, played down the hallway.

Her daughter had power. Great power. All thanks to the Veda Ree using Alicia as a breeding unit to create Marcia, a child with telepathic powers to power their ships.

Last night, Marcia had told her mother something that had caused Alicia great concern. She told her that the Veda Ree had enemies and that she thought they were coming to kill her.*

* Last Issue

Alicia’s stomach rolled over itself for the millionth time, it felt to her.

And she knew, somehow, some way, that Marcia was right.

"You awake, Alicia?" the voice came from the doorway, as unmistakable as anything Alicia had ever known. It was the voice of Ben Grimm, the Thing, and it brought her more comfort, more joy than she thought she, or anyone, deserved.

"Yeah," her voice choked out, raw.

"Stretch tells me that he thinks he’s got a solution to your problem," he said carefully, hanging back by the door.

"Yes," she answered, "he told me as much. Says it should be ready within a week."

"I’ve been thinking," Ben said carefully, taking a few steps into the room. "Maybe I should take Marcia away until then." His words were rough and he kept them coming fast. Alicia had the impression that if he stopped, he would lose control of his emotions. "Since you and her being close together hurts you so much, causes you to be so ill, maybe I should take Marcia far enough away that you get better."

"But she’ll age," Alicia answered, trying not to sound against the idea. "The further she gets from me, the older she becomes."

"Yeah, yeah, I know," Ben answered and Alicia could hear his feet rumble back a step. "But … seeing you like this … it’s not … not right, ‘licia, not fair, not … I dunno, I just thought, maybe, since it’s only for a few days, if I took her around the city during the day, maybe she won’t age so much and-"

He never finished his sentence.

"Ben!" Reed Richard’s voice cut in over the Pier 4 ComSystem.

"Stretch," Ben grumbled, "always the man with just the right timing. What?" he asked, loudly, annoyed.

"Are you watching Marcia?" his voice asked quickly.

"Yeah, Stretch, geez, I told ya I would watch her, didn’t I?"

"So she’s with you, right now? You can see her?"

"Well, no, she’s in MedLab 4. I just came down to see how-"

"So you can’t see her?"

"No," Ben said, his anger starting to rise. "What’s this about, Reed?"

There was a slight pause before Reed’s voice came across the system again. It lasted maybe a full second. Maybe a second-and-a-half. But it was enough for Ben and Alicia’s hearts to sink.

"Marcia’s disappeared." Pause. "And I think Franklin’s gone with her."

Sue climbed gingerly out of the FantastiJet, knowing before seeing that it wasn’t going to be able to be fixed. She was tired, having strained her powers to their fullest to get the Jet down as safely as she could. Her hand went to her forehead and came back bloodied. ‘Too much for the Jet, not enough for me,’ she thought to herself as she unclamped the emergency fire extinguishers and proceeded to extinguish the fire coming from the engines.

She could have used her powers to snuff the flame, but she didn’t want to tax herself anymore for the time being.

Looking around, she was surprised to find a lush tropical environ, not at all like what she would expect to find in the North Atlantic. It was an unsettling scene and not just because it was in a place she didn’t expect. No, there was something else at work here, but what?

Sound.

It was deathly quiet, the only sound coming from a light, cool breeze that rattled the tree branches back and forth. There was no sound of life, no animals. She should see birds flying by and hear them chirping, but there was none. No monkeys swinging. No snakes slithering. No insects buzzing.

The heat, too, was artificial, Sue felt. It had the feel of a spring thaw, but with the look of mid-summer.

She sighed and smiled at the same time. This was life in the Fantastic Four, she knew. Nothing ordinary and everything an adventure.

It felt good to be alone on an adventure, even if it was nothing more than an exploratory walk around the island while she waited for someone to come pick her up, a chance to explore on her own terms. She climbed back up into the cockpit, making sure the beacon was set. A momentary chill descended on her as she realized that the com systems weren’t functioning, but she was reasonably certain that they’d get the distress signal back at Pier 4 and be able to locate her. Reed had designed the beacon to work on multiple levels and planes, in order to circumvent as many modes of interruption as he could. She set the priority to low, no need for the entire FF to show up. Ben would want to stay with Alicia, should stay with Alicia and Marcia and her brother … she didn’t even know if Johnny was back yet from his date with A’kimba. She tried not to condemn him, but he had a responsibility to the group to let them know if he’d be gone for an extended period of time. Especially with Jen only being able to be around now and then.

Reaching behind the seat, she took an emergency back-pack full of provisions and decided to set out and explore this jungle that looked like a jungle more than it felt like one.

"Shall we attack now, brother?" a voice asked another voice nearby, close enough that Sue should have heard.

"No, not yet, sister. I want to play with her first," the other voice responded. "That’s what you-know-who wants us to do, remember?"

Johnny idly played with a portrait on a shelf, waiting for A’kimba to return from her bedroom. The picture was of A’kimba as a youngster, smiling, waving at the camera. Her father was the one who’d taken the picture, he guessed, as the photo belonged to the elder Moyo.

A sour, sad look played across the face of the youngest member of the Fantastic Four. What was he doing here? What was the point of any of this? Now that he knew that A’kimba was arranged to be married to Greykan,* was there any point in even hanging around? Shouldn’t he just pull up and leave her in the past?

The past. Curious, to him, how he thought of it as a place filled with people. Two people, mainly. Crystal and Lyja.

They were the past to him, yet he knew they still walked in the present. Crystal, married to Pietro Maximoff, mother of the beautiful child Luna. Lyja … he didn’t know what Lyja was doing now, he frowned.* Hanging out with the Squadron Supreme?** Was that what he’d heard?

It didn’t matter. They were no different than ghosts to him now.

Is that what was going to happen to A’kimba? Would she be a ghost? Or was she going to be less than that? Just another pretty face he’d kissed, another heart he’d broken? A face he’d see and wonder why it looked familiar? He saw the look on Silver Sable’s face.* A smirk, a holier-than-thou accusation that the time to pay the piper was here. Why? Because they’d shared one night?**

"You look sad, Johnny Storm."

Johnny’s concentration was broken and he picked his head up to look at a sight that never failed to take his breath away. A’kimba. She stood there in a simple, casual dress that she nonetheless made to look the height of elegance. Just by standing there.

"Has the cat got your tongue?" she asked, forcing a joke that fell flat.

Johnny was acutely aware of the distance between them. The simple apartment felt as if it were as large as the entire Negative Zone.

An uneasy silence fell upon them.

"What are we going to do?" A’kimba whispered.

"I don’t know," Johnny answered, his voice raspy.

They stood there for a long time before Johnny mumbled something about something and left.

‘Curioser and curioser,’ Sue thought as she watched a tree blowing in the breeze. Her unease with the situation was confirmed several minutes past when she noticed, quite on accident, that despite the shining sun above, there were no shadows being cast. What’s more, the soft grass beneath her feet was betrayed by the harsh feeling she was getting with every step she took

She made a great show of watching the tree, but as her head was pointed up, her eyes were pointed at the ground. A shadow. Distinct shape of two human forms. She turned around, looking at the sun high in the sky, placing their position with the angle of the rays of the sun.

Feigning like she was looking around, she let her eyes fall over the line of sight where the forms that were causing the shadows should have been. Nothing. Just more jungle.

‘Enough of this,’ Sue thought and quickly extended a force field in that direction.

"Oof!" she heard them before she saw them. Two voices. Then bodies. One male, one female.

Teen-agers, she thought. No, pre-teens.

They tumbled out of the sky and Sue caught them with her powers, first by creating a slide for them to slow their fall and then placing them on the ground in front of her.

"Who are you?" she asked, angry, but also unnerved by their young appearance.

The two pre-teens straightened themselves out as they crawled to their feet. They looked like little cherubs: strawberry blonde hair, rosy cheeks, scowls across their face. The girl, Sue saw, looked a year or two older than the boy.

"I ask again," Sue said, taking on a tone with her voice that she used with Franklin that showed she meant business, "who are you?"

"Name’s Maggie. Maggie Magnify," the girl spoke carefully, straightening out her clothes, which looked to Sue like they’d been designed from a deck of cards, regal, pointed, alien. "This here’s Dan Dampen. He’s my brother." The girl had a pleasant voice, Sue thought, with a slight English accent, maybe?

"What are you doing here? Where are your parents?" Sue asked, a thousand questions coming to her mind.

"They’re dead," Dan Dampen said, rising to his full height, which didn’t come above Sue’s waist. "Me and Maggie here are on our own."

"Where are you from?" Sue asked. "What are you doing here? Did you grow up here?"

Dan and Maggie looked at each other, exchanging glances, figuring out what they were going to tell her, Sue mused.

"You ask a lotta questions," Maggie said, pointing a finger.

"Yeah, why should we tell you we ain’t from here?" Dan stomped his foot.

"Daa-aaan!" Maggie shot at him and her younger brother twisted his face into a scowl.

"Sorry," he forced out.

Sue had the feeling that she’d walked into a Dickens novel for some reason. Whatever she was expecting to find in this jungle, this wasn’t it. "Is there anyone who takes care of you?" she asked. "Perhaps you should come with me."

"Come wit’ you?" Dan asked, laughing roughly. "We’re not the ones that crashed our plane, are we? What good-"

"Actually, Dan," Maggie whispered, "we did crash our ship, remember?"

"Shush, Maggie," Dan whispered back, "she don’t know that!"

"Children, please," Sue tried to calm them, "there’s no need to fight." She looked around. "There’s just so much here I don’t understand. So many questions …"

Maggie and Dan both sighed loudly and looked at her like children look at a mother when they’ve been told one too many times to pick up their room.

"Listen here, lady," Dan strode forward to stand right at Sue’s feet. "We di’n’t ask you to come, ‘kay? So why don’t you just leave us alone?"

"Actually, Dan," Maggie cut in again from behind her younger brother, "we can’t. Remember? We’re supposed to do that thing for you-know-who."

Dan turned around quickly, his eyes angry, but then they softened as the memory came back to him, "Oh yeah, you’re right." He turned back to Sue. "Sorry, ma’am, but you can’t leave. Gotta stay."

Sue had enough, "Now, listen here. I am not going to stay here, and I don’t think you should, either. What do you eat? Where do you live?" She thought, If they weren’t children, this would be so much easier …

Dan rolled his eyes at Maggie, "You-know-who was right. She does nag, nag, nag."

"Who’s ‘you-know-who’?" Sue demanded.

"Called hisself Namor, he did," Maggie announced, then clamped her hands over her face. "Stupid! I weren’t s’posed to say that, ma’am. Forget I said it, okay? Okay? Promise? He’s got a mean temper when mad, he does."

"No, I will not forget it!" Sue felt her anger rising. "What does Prince Namor have to do with this?"

Dan, who looked like he wanted to punch Maggie, spoke angrily, "No point in hiding it, now, is there? Since Maggie went and ruined it all, anyway. He wanted us to keep you here."

"Why?"

"Said he was going to kidnap someone named Franklin," Dan shrugged. "Whoever that is."

Sue’s blood ran cold, "What?" Her voice was disbelieving, not angry. Namor wouldn’t, couldn’t.

"Oh yeah," Maggie announced, coming up to stand next to Dan, "it’s true. Said he had something to show the boy about destiny or … or … what was that other word, Dannie?"

"Don’t call me Dannie!" Dan shouted. "You know I hate that! If mommy was here I’d tell her-"

"But she’s not here," Maggie’s eyes flashed devilishly, "so na-na-na-na-na-na." She stuck her tongue out. "Besides, I remember now what that other word was."

"What was it?" Dan asked, not really caring.

"Marcia. Said he wanted to show him something about Marcia."

"Was he going to kidnap Marcia, too?" Sue asked loudly.

"What?" Maggie asked, forgetting that Sue was there. "Oh no, he wasn’t going to kidnap Marcia."

"No siree," Dan joined in. "He was going to kill her."

Sue wanted to say so many things, but her head was starting to spin. The landscape around her was wavering wildly. "I … I can’t …" Her hands went to her temples.

"What you’re feeling right now," Maggie explained, "is a little somethin’ called vertigo. Those trees are getting closer, then farther away, ain’t they?"

Sue shut her eyes, her hands clamped over them. "Make it stop!"

"Okay," Dan laughed, "she’ll make it stop, won’t you, Maggie."

"Do I have to?"

"Yeah, this’ll be fun. Go ahead, ma’am, open your eyes."

Sue, distrusting, carefully opened them. "Take a look around," Dan suggested and Sue did, seeing all the trees that she knew weren’t real trees. "Watch this," Dan whispered to Maggie.

Sue’s world went suddenly dark. "Whuuh?"

"Your blind!" Dan laughed loudly, Maggie soon following. "Now, you can see!" Dan yelled as Sue’s sight came exploding back, sending a sharp pain through her head.

"Now you’re blind!"

Darkness.

"Now you can see!"

Light.

"Blind!"

"Light!"

"Blind!"

"Light!"

Sue heard the young boy’s voice from somewhere in the distance. She tried to close her eyes, but she couldn’t. She felt week, sick. As her stomach lurched, she dropped to her knees.

"Dark," Maggie announced clearly and Sue’s world faded to black, her last waking thought of Franklin.

Kristoff Vernard awoke from a dream and slowly opened his eyes.

"Hello, Kristoff," a voice came to him from inside his darkened room.

"Who’s there?" Kristoff asked, adrenaline shooting through his body. "And how did you get in- Franklin?"

"Yeah," Franklin Richards answered, stepping into a sliver of moonlight that poured into the room. "It’s me."

"What are you doing here?" the young man of Castle Doom asked, sitting up in bed.

"I want you to come with me."

"Where? Why?"

Franklin smiled, "To make a difference. Want in?"

Kristoff took a deep breath, "Sure, I guess. The castle can take care of itself. Where we going?"

"The coolest place not on Earth," Franklin smiled. "Let’s go." The son of Reed and Sue Richards pressed a button and the two boys vanished.

END FF 443

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-- Mark Bousquet

NORTHERN BEAR PRODUCTIONS

September 18, 2000