AVENGERS

# 447 – August, Year 4

Power Loss, Prologue: Midnight on Earth 1000

written by Mark Bousquet

original conception of PowerLoss by Scott Harris

SHOOTER, VERMONT, EARTH 1000 - MIDNIGHT

Edison Bell waited in the dark, his body flat against the cool earth, and tucked between rows of corn. He stilled his breathing as much as possible, listening for the Farmers to move past him.

Scanning upwards through the corn stalks, Edison could see a glass jar of fireflies not three rows away from where he lay. A wave of knowledge washed through him at the sight of the large bugs, trapped behind glass. There were four of the golf-ball-sized bugs in the jar, and their presence, besides casting a green pall over everything, told him that the rumors of the Farmers having access to technology were false.

At least as far as lighting the Crop Fields went.

"- the SSS. The U.N. knows all about them," a Farmer said from somewhere in the near distance. "Just because no one else on this planet can use scientifically-powered technology of any kind doesn’t mean the government isn’t using it to keep track of thugs like the SSS."

Edison felt his skin crawl at the mention of the Secret Scientific Society. Part urban legend, part mythical heroes, there was no shortage of opinions in the country about the SSS. Edison’s parents, for their part, hated the SSS, telling him over and over that the government had forbidden the use of energy for a good reason and if there was an SSS (which Edison’s mother doubted, but father believed), they were the bad guys, not the United Nations.

The twenty-year old young man looked to the sky to check the position of the moon. "Past midnight," he whispered to himself. Time to move.

Checking for silence first, Edison raised himself to his feet and removed a sharp machete from its holder on his belt. A quick shiver ran up his spine and he thought of the scar that was hidden behind his left sleeve. When he was a kid, he’d been attacked by a man wielding a knife who had nearly severed his arm. Edison needed a long surgery to save his arm and underneath that scar was a long metal plate that surrounded his bone. Saying a quick prayer, asking God to allow him to be as silent as possible, Edison began slicing corn from its stalks. ‘It’s not fair,’ he told himself, but quickly pushed the thought away. His mother might not disagree with the actions of the U.N., but he did. Their recent resolution to ban all non-government farming was killing families that depended on backyard farming to grow vegetables to help offset the high cost of meat production. The U.N. claimed it was a short-term solution to help boost the international economy - which was in year six of the longest recession in history – but Edison didn’t believe them.

And now … heck, if his mother knew he had snuck into the local U.N. controlled Crop Fields in order to steal a few ears of corn so that she could have her favorite vegetable on her birthday, she’d probably turn him in herself.

"When the going gets tough, Edison," she always told him, "we must rally behind our government in order to help the nation make it through. Civil unrest at a time of national unease only makes things worse. One does not stand up when white water river rafting, after all. One sits in place."

Edison shook off the thought, scolding himself for letting the thoughts into his mind. Penalty for getting caught stealing from the Crop Fields was a year of forced labor, and Edison couldn’t stand missing-

"Thief!"

A beam of green light washed over him – the reflected glow of the fireflies – and Edison dropped the corn and ran.

THWIP! THWIP! THWIP!

Thin arrows, laced with sedative, whizzed past him, imbedding themselves into the corn stalks around him. Edison ignored them, running through the stalks toward the eastern exit of the Fields. Behind him he could hear the general alarm blare to life. He thought of Tess, his ex-girlfriend, who worked security for the U.N. inside the Field Tower, and wondered if it were her rough hands turning the crank that sounded the alarm.

THWIP! THWIP! THWIP! TH-WUMP!

"Th-wump?" Edison thought, seeing a Farmer emerge into a path before him. The young man quickly jumped to the left to dive back into the stalks, but found his legs weren’t obeying him. He looked down and the world began to slow down around him as a deep fog began to swell up behind his eyes. Th-wump, he thought, suddenly seeing one of the thin arrows sticking out of his left arm and understanding.

He was hit.

He was going down.

He was caught.

Groggily, he fell to his knees as a Farmer – dressed in his U.N. blue work suit – walked towards him, a smile upon the older man’s face. "Stealing my corn?" the Farmer asked.

"I wu-wuznnnnnnt." Edison’s mouth failed him as his muscles relaxed from the toxin that now coursed through his system.

"You wu-wuzzznnnt?" the Farmer taunted, reaching out to grab Edison’s short brown hair with his left hand. "Wu-wuzzznt this, thief!" The Farmer reared back his right hand, readying to punch Edison in the face.

"That’ll be enough, Farmer 735."

"Tssssslahhhhhh," Edison said, turning to see his ex-girlfriend aiming her crossbow at the man who held him aloft, her solid black uniform nearly blending into the night.

"Shut your mouth, Edison," she said harshly. "You’ve got a lot of guts to try and steal from my Crop Field." She turned to the Farmer. "Carry him to the Pens."

"Carry him yourself, ya stuck up bit-"

Th-wump!

"Aw, hell," Farmer 735 moaned, looking to see Tesla’s arrow sticking out of his chest. "I would’ve dnnnnnn it, Tsssslerrrrrrr."

Tess shook her head, hating Farmer 735 even more than she hated Edison – if that were possible. She took five purposed strides to where Farmer 735 had fallen to his knees, and reached out to grab the arrow that stuck out of his chest. "Look at the bright side, Farmer, you won’t have to finish the rest of your shift tonight."

Farmer 735’s eyes rolled up into the back of his head, then went wide at something above and behind Tesla’s head. "Lkkk owwwwwwwt!"

Tess ignored him, thinking it was the toxin in his system talking.

That was a mistake.

They were on her before she could react, pushing her to the ground. Struggling was useless and within moments she found herself bound and gagged, her face shoved into the dirty, worn path between the rows of corn. A boot was placed on the back of her neck. "Move and I’ll snap your neck," a woman’s voice called down to her. "Is that him?" Tess heard the voice ask to another of her attackers.

"Looks like it," came a male’s voice in response.

"Make sure," the woman ordered.

"Running a DNA check now."

DNA check? Tess thought as she breathed in the dust. Are these people using energy-based technology?

"Affirmative," the male’s voice replied. "It’s Edison Bell."

"Excellent," the woman said, a note of relief evident in her voice. Tess caught the change in tone – "Not as sure of yourself as you like to let on, are you?" she thought, wondering how she could use it to her advantage when she felt the woman’s weight drop down onto her back.

"You’re Tesla Shelley, yes?" the woman’s voice whispered into her ear. "Edison’s ex-girlfriend. Tell me something, when you were seeing him, were you spying for the U.N., or were you actually unaware of why he’s so important?"

"What are you talking about?" Tesla asked. "Who are you people? If you hurt Edison, I swear to God I’ll hunt-"

The woman laughed, leaning back. "We’re the SSS, and tonight, we save this world from the U.N. and the rest of your kind. When you awake, it’ll be the beginning of a bright new day."

Tesla started to struggle but was still when a sharp pain hit her right shoulder.

"One of your toxin-tipped arrows," the woman explained, rising off Tesla. "You can tell your fascist masters that whatever else the SSS may be, murderers are not one of them. Goodnight, luddite-whore."

MARVEL EARTH – AVENGERS MANSION – MID-MORNING

"Fifty?" the mercenary Deadpool asked.

"Fifty," Henry Pym replied, his face buried in a microscope.

"Fifty years? Earth years?"

"Fifty earth years," Henry sighed, pulling off of his experiment to turn around and face the latest – and certainly not last – person to be forced onto the Avengers roster by the government.

"Dude, you’re old," Deadpool replied, shaking his head.

"Thanks," Henry answered, "but the aching bones that face me the morning after every mission tells me that just fine, thank you."

"Were you, like, aged ten years in a split second?" the merc asked, suddenly brightening. "That happens sometimes. A bunch of heroes are standing around and bang! Someone vanishes for a split second, then bang! They come back, looking like they’ve been gone for twenty years."

"Nope, they’re all legitimate years," Henry answered, figuring – wrongly – that if he simply engaged Deadpool in conversation he’d get to the end all the faster.

"Wow," Deadpool said, scratching his head. "That sucks."

Henry sighed. "No, not really."

"Not really?" Deadpool asked. "Dude, you’re fifty years old. You should be crying in your Geritol. Wait – I get it," Deadpool started nodding, "the Avengers probably have a kick-butt pension plan, don’t they? What, does the Stark Foundation give you an honorary position on the board and pay you a ton of cash?"

Henry folded his arms across his chest. "We don’t have a pension plan, as far as I know."

"No pension plan?" Deadpool asked. "You’d better bring that up at the next meeting. You can’t keep pulling on those tights forever."

"Are you finished?" Pym asked. "I’m in the middle of a very important experiment here."

Deadpool titled his head to the side, looking past Pym to the microscope. Anti-aging cream?"

"I’m working with a sample of my Pym particles that I’ve used to shrink down a highly poisonous snake, in the hopes of determining an antibody to-"

"I bet you could steal some of Captain America’s blood and use that to make an anti-aging cream. I mean, heck, how old is he? And Nick Fury, that guy’s gotta be pushing 75 and he doesn’t look a day over 72. Ripped, though, looking all Clint Eastwood-with-an-eye-patch." Deadpool stopped. "Did you say, ‘poisonous snake’?"

Henry slapped his forehead, "Do you ever stop?"

Deadpool replied, "Only when it’s time to eat."

"You should go see Jarvis."

"He’s banned me from the kitchen. But why would you be working with a poisonous snake?"

"You’re already banned from the kitchen?" Hank asked. "You’ve only been here a week! Not even Clint’s ever been banned from the kitchen!"

"No kidding. I- hey, is your experiment supposed to be doing that?"

Henry furrowed his brow, "Is this the set up for another joke about my age?"

Deadpool shook his head.

Henry looked skeptical, but turned around. "What the-?"

Floating on both sides of his microscope, nearly ten feet apart, were two balls of electricity. On the left, a golden ball of light, and on the left a glowing blue ball of light. They grew to the size of softballs, sending tendrils of snapping electricity out from the growing center.

"Are those Pym Particles?" Deadpool asked.

"Silence!" Pym ordered, his eyes not leaving the glowing balls of electricity. He was drawn to the snapping tendrils, noting how they grew large as the balls grew larger. A tendril of blue light energy snapped onto the top of a nearby table, scorching the surface. A tendril of yellow light reached out, snapping into the wall’s intercom, exploding the small machine. Henry was equally fascinated and concerned, not knowing where this energy came from or what it did. The tendrils that were shooting out of the energy balls with greater frequency, scorching or overloading everything they touched. "I wonder what happens if a blue tendril and yellow tendril touch?"

"I’m thinking things probably go boom." Deadpool asked, backing towards the door, "Maybe we should get out of here?"

"Go tell Captain America to get down here," Henry said, turning around angrily. "Go. Now!"

"Okay," Deadpool said, throwing up his hands. Just before he turned to leave the room, he saw a blue tendril and a yellow tendril reach out and touch. Both energy balls flared in intense light, then shot across the room towards each other. Almost in slow motion, the joined ball expanded to five times its size, then collapsed in on itself, shrinking to the size of a golf ball, sparkling in a deep gold.

"Get out of here!" Pym ordered and Deadpool didn’t see any reason to argue, sprinting off down the hall, leaving Henry alone with the energy ball and his experiment.

Rounding a corner at top-speed, Deadpool didn’t see Vision, standing there, and ran into the synthezoid. "Ooof!" the merc said, shaking his head as the two of them smashed into the ground. "Sorry about that," Deadpool said, noting he was laying atop Vision in what looked like a romantic embrace. "Er, I won’t tell anyone if you won’t tell anyone," he said, embarrassed.

The Vision did not respond.

"Vision?" Deadpool asked, pushing himself off the lifeless body. "What the H-E-double-hockey-sticks is going on here?"

Back in Pym’s lab, the golden ball hovered just behind the miscroscope, a swirling body of golden electricity, dancing in over and around itself, somehow staying in the shape of a ball. Henry removed his white lab coat, revealing the costume of Yellowjacket beneath. The golden sphere expanded steadily out to the size of a basketball. As it grew, it enveloped the miscroscope and Henry jumped back as the shrunken snake snapped suddenly to its full size. Its head and tail extended outside of the glowing ball.

Deadpool’s concerns over the poisonous snake were unwarranted, Henry knew. The snake was under sedation. Nonetheless, this wasn’t the time to take risks. Leveling his glove, Pym fired a blast of energy at the snake’s head, killing the creature.

Too late, Henry noted that the beam of energy he used to kill the snake had veered slightly off target, drawn towards the golden ball. Without warning, the sphere shot across the room, slamming into Henry’s chest. "Aaaargh!" he screamed, feeling the golden sphere drain him of life. His gloves burned as the sphere siphoned the energy into itself. Not panicking, Henry took a step back, trying to escape, but the sphere stayed fast around his chest. Thinking of the enlarged snake, of the reaction to his gloves, Henry could easily postulate that the golden sphere was draining away power. But how? What kind of power? The active Pym Particles were drained away from the snake … the energy blasts of his gloves … the golden sphere was stealing energy into itself.

And yet …

"The sphere isn’t getting any bigger," he noted. "Maybe I can overload it."

Henry had once told Janet Van Dyne, his ex-wife, that he lived in fear of her leaving him for the more daring members of the team. He was a lab rat on a team filled with playboys and soldiers and gods who seemed to risk their life on a daily basis. All he did was …

"All you did," she had said, "was to experiment on yourself. You had the confidence and the daring to use yourself as a guinea pig. Yes, it was stupid. But there’s nothing any of the other Avengers can do that can match the risk you were willing to take."

Henry had never been 100% sure he believed her, but she was right about his willingness to use himself as an experiment when he had no other choice. The way he saw it, as he failed to extricate himself from the golden sphere, this was just such a time.

Hoping to overload it, Henry activated the Pym Particles and grew rapidly in height. Knowing the ceiling of the lab was only twelve feet high, but the room was thirty feet long, he fell onto his back to achieve as much height as he could. The sphere disappeared inside of him and Henry could feel it start to burst as it drained the sudden explosion of Pym Particles from him. Inside his head, Jan’s voice said to him, "What if the sphere explodes in your chest? Geez, Henry, you never thinks things through fully. Didn’t you learn anything from the Ultron fiasco? Sometimes you’re so smart you’re stupid."

"Good point," he groaned out loud, rolling over, hoping to extricate the ball as he also tried to short it out.

Neither outcome came to pass.

Henry could feel the golden sphere shifting inside him as it adjusted to the increase in Pym Particles. His body began to shake violently as it shrank back down to his normal size. Within a minute, every last Pym Particle had been drained from his body and he fell back, unconscious.

The golden sphere – still the same size – rose out of Henry’s chest and moved slowly and steadily towards a wall that hummed with electricity.

EARTH 1000 – SECRET SCIENTIFIC SOCIETY HEADQUARTERS – AFTER MIDNIGHT

Edison snapped awake, finding himself in a large underground cavern. Large flaming clubs of wood were attacked around the room, giving them a dancing, uneasy light. "What the heck?" he asked, shaking his head to clear his mind of the cobwebs.

"Relax," a female voice said from beside him. "You’re safe."

"Safe?" he asked, his mind busy trying to reassemble the past few hours. "Where’s Tess? Heck, for that matter, where’s the cornfield?" He turned to see a woman in a tight red latex suit looking at him with concern. The woman had short red hair and wore a pair of black skier’s goggles.

"You’re vitals are all falling back into line," she explained. "Another minute and you should be returned to normal."

"Normal, right," Edison said, raising his eyebrows. "Because it’s normal to be in a cavern with a hot-chick dressed in neck-to-foot latex."

"You disapprove?" the woman asked. "Our research indicates you’re quite fond of a certain series of adult picture books that feature women dressed – at least momentarily – in sheer latex-"

"Idon’tknowwhatyou’retalkingabout!" Edison blurted out, looking with panic around the empty room.

"Of course not," the woman said with fake sincerity. "It’s good to know that you don’t objectify women in such a manner."

"Um, right," Edison nodded quickly, and turning his head away. Across the room he saw a group of people walking towards them. All of them wore what looked like military costumes, except instead of camouflage, they were dark blue with a lightning design emblazoned across their bodies. In the center of each of their chests was a large number from which the lightning bolts seemed to generate. He noted the numbers 1 through 6 and 8 through 12. He looked back to the lady in red, "Are you number 7?"

She ignored him, speaking instead to the man with the number 1 on his chest. "His bodily functions have regained normalcy."

"Excellent work, Atom 7," he said, then turned to Edison.

"Edison Bell," the rail thin man said, "my name is Atom 1. Welcome to the headquarters of the Secret Scientific Society."

Edison looked at the group of faces before him. They were, he thought, underwhelming. The SSS had achieved mythic status across the world as a sort-of secret society of bogeymen that were working against the government. Some, like Edison’s mother, hated them, even as they disbelieved their existence. Others, like Edison’s father, believed in them fully, thinking of them as latter day Robin Hoods.

The people before him, though, were hardly reminiscent of Robin Hood and his merry men, and more akin to, there was no other way to say it, he told himself, nerds. Some were too thin, others were too soft in the middle. It was all kind of exciting and disappointing at the same time.

"The Secret Scientific Society?" Edison asked. "Yeah, okay. You folks are supposed to be, what is it the papers say, ‘Champions of Technology’?" Edison looked at the torches clamped to the wall. "This place doesn’t exactly scream ‘scientifically advanced’ now, does it?"

Atom 5 stepped forward, the bottom of the 5 stretched outwards around his gut. "You ungrateful whelp! We saved you from the U.N.! Maybe we should send you back to the Crop Fields so you can harvest corn for a year as punishment."

Edison frowned. "Good point. Look," he said, "I’m sorry. I am thankful for your help. But this is all …"

Atom 1 placed a hand on Edison’s shoulder. "Do you know the true history of this world? Why, my boy, did the governments of the world outlaw all energy based technology? Why did they ban automobiles and shut down the monorails? Why did they cease all scientific experiments? Why did they order the shut down of all computers across the world, except for the mammoth State Computer they alone have access to? Why are all mutants taken immediately from their parents and genetically altered, hindering their God-given abilities?" Atom 1 removed his hand, "Why are we forced to live as if we are in the Middle Ages when we were once a world that had advanced from the light bulb to wormhole technology in only 125 years?"

Edison sighed. "Depends who you listen to, I guess. The way we were taught in school the story goes like this: Fifty years ago or so, in the mid-1950’s, aliens came to Earth. They were responding to a then-defunct Nazi program that sought out allies from other worlds to help them defeat the Allies. The aliens had come to smash the Nazis, only to find that they had already been defeated. There was a great feast held across the world, as the crews of the alien warships mingled with humanity. Turns out their bodies couldn’t handle the Earth atmosphere, that the air filtration systems we used to keep the air clean poisoned them somehow. Within a week, every alien that had set foot on our world – about twenty million, if I’m remembering correctly – were dead and their homeworld issued to us a declaration that we were an evil, cursed people. They demanded all technology cease, that we were unfit as a people to take to the stars. As a sign of their own power, they destroyed London. Told us we were returning to a non-technological life. We could do it ourselves, or they would do it through bombings. The government signed a Treaty with the alien race that we’d give up technology and in exchange they would protect us from any other alien race who might want to come and enslave our world."

Atom 2, a sixty-ish year old woman, asked, "And do you believe that story?"

Edison shrugged. "No more unbelievable than the various rumors and legends and conspiracy theories that are out there. Heck, I hate the U.N. as much as the next guy but I don’t know if I’d go so far as to say that they did all this just to solidify their own power." A light dawned inside Edison’s head. "Do you guys know the truth?"

The members of the SSS looked around at each other. Atom 10 said, "We knew he’d want to know the truth. Tell him, Atom 1, and let the plan come to fulfillment."

Atom 1 locked his aged eyes onto Edison’s. "Not all humans were on-Earth when the aliens came. Most of the members of the SSS were off-planet, on a deep space expedition." Atom 1’s voice dropped low, and his eyes looked to the roof of the cavern, high above them. "The aliens that came to Earth are called the Shy-Ar. They are an expansionist empire, locked in a seemingly eternal struggle with another empire called Tekree." Atom 1 brought his eyes back to Edison, "The Shy-Ar conquered Earth through a show of force. Make no mistake, if Earth went to war with the Shy-Ar, Earth would lose, but the Shy-Ar would have to expend resources to do it. Tekree are near equals to the Shy-Ar; the Shy-Ar didn’t see the need to risk its warships conquering Earth if they didn’t have to, especially since what they wanted from Earth, the Earth government was willing to give them."

"Our technology?" Edison asked.

"Hardly," Atom 7 said from beside him. "They wanted the one source of power Earth possessed that blew the rest of the universe off the charts. It sure as hell wasn’t our technology; as quickly as Earth advanced, the planet was still centuries away from where the Shy-Ar and Tekree were."

Edison asked, "Then what? What did we have that the Shy-Ar wanted?"

Atom 7 answered, "Mutants."

"But aren’t mutants genetically altered to prevent them from using their power?" Edison asked. "We had a kid in my high school – Kitty Pryde – who freaked out one day and went running through walls like a ghost. The U.N. arrived within minutes and hauled her away. The following week she was back and not only couldn’t walk through walls, she had trouble stopping herself from drooling. Girl was flat-out lobotomized, it looked like."

"A show of force," Atom 8 said with disgust. Atom 8 was the most ordinary looking of all the SSS. Not too tall, but not too short. Not athletic, but not soft. It was his eyes, though, that really set him apart to Edison. The rest of the SSS had eyes that looked like they belonged to people who were living underground – slightly bugging out of their head. But Atom 8’s eyes were alive and piercing. Atom 8 continued, "They don’t catch all mutants at birth. The ones they do they farm out to the Shy-Ar, who turns them into an elite fighting squad called the Imperial Guard. The ones that manage to make it to puberty … they take them and butcher them, then send them back into society to reinforce the lie that this is what is done with them. They tell the public that the longer a mutant waits to undergo the procedure, the worse their life will be. This keeps most parents testing their kids over and over when they’re little. Makes people paranoid and afraid. Keeps them easily controllable."

Edison scratched his head. "That’s a hell of a story, folks, but, well, why tell me? Not that I don’t appreciate the save," he said, looking to Atom 7, "but is this one of those deals where the bad guys spill their plan because they plan on killing the good guy and don’t think it’ll cause any harm?"

A few of the SSS chuckled. "No, Edison," Atom 1 said kindly. "We did not save you in order to kill you. Nor are we afraid you have stumbled across our plans. We have brought you here for a reason."

Edison looked doubtful. "And what reason would that be?"

"Though you see only twelve of us before you," Atom 1 explained, "there are friends and allies of the SSS scattered throughout the world. Isn’t that right?" he asked, looking behind Edison.

"Atom 1 is correct, son."

Edison spun on his heels to see his mother and father enter the cavern through one of the many dark tunnels. His mother said, "We were shocked you were not at home this evening. The time had come to tell you the truth."

"The truth?" Edison asked. "What the hell’s going on here?"

Atom 8 moved behind Edison, unseen by the very-confused kid.

"Atom 7," Edison’s father said quietly, "it is time."

"Time for what?" Edison asked, growing angry, feeling like he was being jerked around a bit too much. He turned to his right to face Atom 7, who took his right hand in hers and ran it up her body. "Always had a thing for latex, didn’t you, Edison?" she smiled, kissing him deep but keeping her hands away from him.

Sliding around to his other side, Atom 8 grabbed Edison’s left arm and jerked it down hard, snapping it over his knee.

"Aaaaaaaarrrrgghhhh!" Edison screamed. "You broke my arm!" He crumpled to the ground, staring at his spasming arm.

"We apologize for the theatrics," Edison’s mother explained, moving in to kneel by her son, "but we needed to make certain your biological functions were at certain levels to serve as a trigger. Think, my son, about your ‘broken’ arm. That’s the arm with the metallic plate surrounding your bone. How could it break?"

Edison looked at his left arm, and the right angle his forearm was snapped to form. "Um … it looks broke? Feels broke? Oh wait, it freaking is broke!"

"Don’t be a baby, son," his father said, moving in to stand above him. "When you were young and had that surgery, a metal plate was not inserted around your bone at all. We had a section of bone removed, and a metal bone inserted in its place."

"Who are you people?" Edison screamed, feeling his entire world slipping away.

Edison’s dad smiled. "You are the world’s only hope, Edison. You are a mutant. Perhaps the most powerful mutant on record. The metal plate inserted into your body contains a series of advanced chemicals that have kept your mutation under sedation. The time, however, has come for your mutation to be let free."

Atom 1 spoke from behind Edison. "Tekree have driven hard into the northeastern edge of the Shy-Ar Empire. In response, the Shy-Ar have left Earth abandoned. Our world is open to attack."

Atom 7 placed her hand under Edison’s chin, forcing him to look up at her. "The Tekree know of our world. They know of the power of our mutants. They are coming to conquer this world."

"The United Nations," Atom 8 continued the explanation, "have been told by the Shy-Ar that this world is safe and so they will make no move to defend ourselves. We will not stand by and watch this world fall. The day we have been planning for is now forced into action by the re-deployment of the Shy-Ar. It is a fortuitous event, though earlier than we desired."

"What will you do?" Edison asked, wondering if the pain was going away or if he was just becoming numb to it.

"Simply put," Atom 1 said, "we are going to jump start our world. We are going to smash the State Computer and bring energy back to the world, re-igniting the sleeping giant. With the energy returned to the world, we will have at least a fighting chance of saving ourselves."

Edison looked to his parents, "Why didn’t you tell me any of this?"

His mother smiled, "You always did have a bit of a big mouth. We couldn’t trust you to keep it a secret."

Edison started to say something, then vomited onto the floor of the cavern.

"Stand back!" his father ordered and everyone in the room moved back as Edison’s body began to glow white-hot. Atom 7, who had been standing nearest to Edison at the moment his mutant powers activated, was sent hurtling across the cavern, slamming into the wall behind Edison’s father.

"Quickly," Atom 1 said to Edison, "we must get you to the Machine! You are the key to bringing energy back to this world!"

Numb, confused, aching, tortured, Edison’s body obeyed, following Atom 1 down a tunnel.

As Atom 7 lay unmoving against the wall, she heard Edison’s father say to Atom 8, "Wait until the moment is right. How is the initial phase working?"

Atom 8 replied, "It is underway."

"And Atom 1 has no idea?"

"None."

"The fool. There is not nearly enough power contained in the State Computer to give us a chance."

Atom 8 smiled, "Trust me, Bell. Soon this world will have all the power it needs to defeat both the Shy-Ar and Tekree empires."

Atom 7 made no movement, feigning unconsciousness until long after everyone else had left the cavern. She suddenly felt less assured about the plan the SSS had spent twenty years putting into motion, and wondered just what the Bells and Atom 8 had in mind.

MARVEL EARTH – AFTERNOON

"How is Henry doing?" Captain America asked into his Avengers Communicard from atop the Empire State Building.

"Swears he’s fine," Carol Danvers, aka Ms. Marvel, replied. "He checks out okay, but he’s none-too-thrilled you won’t allow him to access anymore Pym Particles."

"We can’t take the risk. At least not yet," Cap replied. "How’s Vision?"

"Still out."

"And the rest of the Mansion?"

"Power is flicking on and off. The time between outages is growing less and less, though in some parts of the Mansion it hasn’t yet even gone out and other parts haven’t yet come back on." She paused, collecting herself. "How’s it look out there?" Carol asked.

Captain America turned his Communicard around, letting Carol see the skyline of the city.

"Oh, hell," she swore.

"Hell is right," Steve Rogers replied. "Is Dum Dum-"

"Already on it," Carol answered. "He’s already made the call to the White House. Every commercial jet in North America is looking for a place to land, every Hospital is readying their generators, and the President is readying an address to the nation."

"It’s a start," Steve replied, knowing that it was going to take a lot more.

Looking out over the skyline of New York. Captain America noted with dread the large number of energy spheres that dotted the skyline, tendrils of electricity reaching out to connect them. It looked like a honeycomb, Steve thought.

He turned the Communicard around and saw Carol’s face waiting for instructions.

"Get me Reed Richards," he ordered. "I want to know what’s causing this power loss. And put out the call to Assemble. We’re going to need all the help we can get."

A sudden cloud enveloped Captain America and he turned up and back to see what it was.

"What is it, Cap?" Carol asked as the power went out, cutting off communication. "Cap?" she yelled into the monitor. "Cap? Steve?"

Captain America raised his shield, bracing for impact.

Falling out of the sky, heading directly towards him, was the lifeless body of the Super Adaptoid.

Power Loss to be continued …