Marvel Novel Series 10 - The Avengers - The Man Who Stole Tomorrow

by David Michelinie

  As they left, the green piano finished a final arpeggio, and waited for applause.

  Some moments later, Thor and the Vision had apparently come to the end of their quest. The slope of their corridor had leveled off, and they now stood at the beginning of a long, straight hallway. At the other end of the hall was another gold-painted exit door, similar to the ones at ground level, except that this one was labeled “Entrance.”

  The two heroes approached the door cautiously, the Vision reducing his mass so that he might prove less vulnerable to anything that might come screaming, shooting, or slicing from the other side. Holding Mjolnir at the ready, Thor reached down to the golden crossbar and pushed. The door moved forward slightly, then met resistance. Releasing his hold on the bar, Thor raised his mystic hammer in both hands, ready to bring it down against the door in a smashing blow.

  It was then that the door pushed inward and Iron Man stepped through.

  The Avengers’ leader was as unsettled as Thor at what he saw, though for somewhat different reasons. “Uh, you want to put that ball-peen battering ram down real slow, big guy? Please?”

  Thor lowered his hammer, still staring incredulously. “But what . . . how . . . ?” He looked beyond Iron Man, and saw Quicksilver and the Scarlet Witch standing, equally surprised, in another green corridor identical to the one in which he was standing.

  “These infernal passageways!” he exclaimed. “They go nowhere!”

  Iron Man leaned back against a wall, crossing his arms, disgusted. “So it seems. We keep forgetting what a twisted mind Kang has. A normal megalomaniac would build his headquarters on the top floor of an ivory tower. Kang’s probably got his command center in the basement—with an ivory tower built over it just for show!”

  “By the damnation in Hela’s eyes!” rumbled Thor. “I tire of being toyed with! Of having my friends and comrades smitten and wearied by the whims of a madman! If Kang doth indeed be in this house of lunacy, he shall answer to the power of Thor! And he shall answer now!”

  So saying, the angered Thunder God swung Mjolnir up before him, letting it carry him up a short distance. Then he brought it back down again, head first, slamming it into the tiled floor and following it through the gaping hole that it made there. For some seconds afterward, the other Avengers could hear the resounding crash-crash-crash as Thor battered his way down through the succeeding levels of the obelisk.

  Then Iron Man stepped up to the hole in the floor and said, “Thor’s shown us the way, but he’s likely to need some help when he reaches the bottom. Vision, you take Wanda. Pietro, hop on my back. I don’t think we’d better wait for the elevator.”

  Wordlessly, Quicksilver climbed onto Iron Man’s shoulders, piggyback style. He was almost as mortified by this mode of transport as he was by the way his sister smiled as the Vision wrapped a synthetic arm around her waist.

  Then, Iron Man and the Vision stepped off into the hole in the floor, and with their clinging burdens began flying/floating down through the impossible obelisk.

  Thor smashed his way through seven different levels, wondering as he did why he hadn’t passed through any of them on his way up, before he came to the clock-filled hall on the ground floor. Without pausing, he followed Mjolnir down through that last barrier, exploding at last in a shower of carpet threads and granite dust into a massive subchamber below.

  The temperature of the subchamber was noticeably lower than that in the rest of the building, and the reasons for that coolness surrounded the Avengers. Lining every wall of the auditorium-sized room, from flagstone floor to high, flat ceiling, were banks and banks of gleaming, chattering, computerlike machines, machines that required very specific temperatures. In the center of the room was a curved, muitisectioned control console, and at that console sat a man, a large man, an awesome man—a madman.

  Kang stared at Thor, and his blue-masked face betrayed no emotion. But the eyes behind that azure fabric were wide, not with fear, nor with rage, but with the involuntary dilation of genuine surprise.

  “And just what the bloody hell,” Kang spoke with great sincerity, “are you doing here?”

  Thirteen

  “Foul miscreant! Thy nefarious machinations hath caused pain and sorrow beyond measure, yet thou showest puzzlement at the arrival of retribution? Thy gall doth sicken me!”

  Kang rose, his purple-and-green robes flowing, and touched a button on the miniature control board that took the place of a buckle on his wide belt. Instantly, a golden aura shimmered into being around him. Thor recognized that shimmering from his previous encounters with Kang: it was a personal force field. One that, like Aningan Kenojuak’s protective glow, could withstand attack from even Thor’s mighty Uru hammer.

  “You don’t belong here!” Kang shouted. “I didn’t invite you here! This is my palace! Mine! Now go away”

  Kang started forward, but stopped as Iron Man and the rest of the Avengers wafted down from the hole in the ceiling and settled on the floor.

  “What? More of you?” Kang kept a wary hand on the control board at his waist. “Damn, blast and ballulation! Must you always meddle in my affairs! Why can’t you just leave me alone?”

  “Leave you alone?!” Iron Man said, stepping forward. “Look, Kang, you’re the one who sicced that Eskimo medicine man on us, who almost had us killed! If it wasn’t for Captain America’s still being trapped inside that ice block, we never would have even—”

  “Wait!” Kang held up a hand to interrupt, cocking his head to one side as if thinking. “Did you say ‘Eskimo’? And ‘Captain—’ . . . oh, no. It couldn’t be that. It couldn’t have . . .” Kang laughed, a short, sharp, sinus-rooted bark. He looked over at the Avengers, a devilish twinkle in his eyes, and then threw his head back, laughing uproariously. The puzzled and increasingly irritated heroes started forward and Kang’s laughter stopped immediately, his head snapping back down to face them.

  “It was a joke,” he said soberly. The Avengers stopped. “I was passing through your era on a casual jaunt when I overheard some used-up old spook-monger mumbling something about a red-white-and-blue god. Because of my frequent, and regrettable, encounters with you glorified do-gooders, I naturally was reminded of Captain America. And when I stopped and listened to the old potion-pusher’s tale, I knew I was right, having personally witnessed the good Captain’s Arctic voyage with some amusement on a previous time skip.

  “That Sub-Mariner, by the way, has such a delightful temper. Perhaps someday I’ll kill him.”

  Kang paused for a moment to idly scratch his face through the skintight blue mask, examining his finger afterward as if searching for the remains of something delectable, and then resumed.

  “Then I thought to myself, ‘My, my, what a marvelously annoying thing it would be if this old witch-chaser had the power to pursue his preposterous vendetta.’ And so I gave him that power.” Kang snickered. “I had no idea he would succeed.” He snickered again.

  “Why, you . . . you self-serving madman!” Quicksilver was at Kang’s throat before anyone could think to hold him back, trying to strangle the time master through the unyielding force aura. “Do you mean that this entire episode, all the hurt and humiliation, was the result of some capricious jest? You sadistic maniac! I’ll rip the very life from you! I’ll—”

  Kang frowned. “You’ll do nothing, you babbling bore, but die, unless you release your hold before I count to three, onetwothree!”

  The force field crackled, reversing polarity for an instant as Kang touched a button at his belt buckle, and Quicksilver shot backward as if struck. The Silver Speedster skidded for ten feet as his sister ran after him, and Iron Man held out his arms to stay Thor and the Vision from pursuing the attack.

  “Wanda,” Iron Man called, never taking his eyes from Kang. “How is he?”

  The Scarlet Witch was kneeling beside Quicksilver, helping to raise him to his elbows. “He’s stunned, Iron Man,” she said. “But I don’t think there’s any real damage.”

/>   “All right, then,” Iron Man said evenly. “There’s no need for anyone else to get hurt. Kang, if all this was a whim, as you say, then you should have no objection to removing the ice block your devices constructed around Captain America.”

  “Why, no.” Kang was all smiles and cooperation, like a friendly cyanide salesman. “I’d be happy to. Where is the grand old flag-flapper, anyway?”

  “He’s with . . .” Iron Man turned around, angry at himself for not having noticed the Beast’s absence. “Thor! Where’s the Beast?”

  But before the blond god could answer, a voice drew all attention to a far corner of the room, where the smiling Beast could be seen loping out of a plain, inconspicuous doorway marked “Service Entrance,” the ever-present ice block over one shoulder. “One genuine, fur-upholstered Avenger, present and accounted for, sir,” he called.

  “But how . . . what . . . where . . . ?” the other Avengers all asked at once, so that the Beast had to wave them quiet as he joined them. He gave Kang a cautious, sideways glance and then explained.

  “Hey, everybody, just calm down. It’s no big deal. I just got caught in a big wind that blew me all the way back to the hall where we came in. When I got there, there was this old dude in coveralls with a toolbox shuffling around. He said he was the head of Kang’s maintenance lackeys and started grumbling about repairing the door we busted in. I sorta mentioned that I was looking for work and asked how to find the boss. I guess he could really use a helper ’cause he didn’t waste any time showing me the service entrance behind one of the grandfather clocks and voilà! Here I am.

  “Y’know, Kang, this is one crazy condo you run here.”

  Quickly, Iron Man outlined the situation for the Beast. And then together they placed the ice block in front of a grid-faced computer bank as directed by Kang. Hank McCoy watched with great interest—the scientist that he had once been still lurked behind his bestial exterior—as Kang adjusted dials and switches on the machine. Then, Kang touched a purple-gloved finger to one of the buttons at his waist, and Captain America joined the party.

  The ice block shimmered, winked, and was gone, leaving a red-white-and-blue Avenger to open bleary eyes and say “Wha . . . ?” before collapsing to his knees. Quicksilver rushed in to support Cap, and all were relieved when the Vision announced, “My scanners indicate that his circulation is a bit weak, but otherwise Captain America is as healthy and sound as ever.”

  “There,” Kang snorted. “You have what you came for. Now leave. You’re wasting my—” a smile flickered across his face; he giggled, “—time.” The frown returned.

  The Avengers were only too happy to comply. With Captain America supported between Iron Man and Thor, they followed the Beast to the door in the corner, then up an unadorned set of stairs.

  When they were gone, Kang returned to his control console, flipping a switch that activated a dozen televisionlike monitor screens. As he watched the Avengers leaving his obelisk on one of the screens, he scowled.

  “Damn their pure-heart eyes,” he said to himself. “If they don’t know now, they will soon. And they’ll be back. They’ll spoil my triumph like they always do. That is, unless . . .” A slow smile grew back on Kang’s face. “. . . unless I spoil them first!”

  They had been resting on the 40th-Century main street for several minutes now, perched on white-plastic benches around a pink-plastic fountain. Captain America was still a little groggy, but had taken the explanations that the other Avengers had offered rather well, considering.

  “It’s not all that difficult to readjust,” Cap said, stretching, “the second time around. And remember, I was ‘frozen’ for a lot shorter period this time. All I need is a little exercise.”

  “Don’t worry, Cap,” the Beast said, sitting on the edge of the fountain with his back to the others, dangling his toes in the water. “Once Thor whips us back to our own century, I’ll give you a good workout in the gym myself.”

  “I’m not sure that we’ll be going back just yet, Beast,” Iron Man said. “I know it sounds ludicrous, but there was something wrong with that whole scene at Kang’s citadel. He was just too cooperative, too willing to give us what we wanted. Kang’s never missed a chance to try and waste us before, so why does he seem so eager to get rid of us now?”

  “I agree, Iron Man,” the Scarlet Witch added. “The idea of Kang living in the open, apparently benign, just doesn’t wash with all the experience we’ve had with him in the past. I think we should go back and find out what really is going on.”

  Facing away from his friends, the Beast had stopped wiggling his toes in the fountain and was looking up with a worried expression. “Uh, I think I’ve found a hint, gang.”

  “What is it, Beast?” Wanda asked.

  The Beast was looking higher now as a shadow fell across the fountain. “Ah, I’m not entirely sure, but I think the herpetology profs call it . . . Tyrannosaurus rex!”

  Fourteen

  The Beast’s identification had been correct, much to the terror of the few tourists and pleasure-seekers who now ran screaming from the towering Thunder Lizard. The Avengers, directly in the lumbering monster’s path, weren’t too happy, either.

  “Where the blazes did that creature come from?” cried Quicksilver.

  “I don’t know, Quicksy,” answered the Beast as he scrambled out of the fountain. “The air started to go fuzzy about a yard above the street, and then that Godzilla stand-in just popped out of nowhere!”

  “It’s Kang’s doing,” the Scarlet Witch said. “Who else would pull a living dinosaur out of history and plop it down on a fortieth-century sidewalk?”

  “In that case, maybe I’d better take the point,” Captain America called, fixing his flag-striped shield to his arm as he started to rise. “I’ve been out of this fight so far, and I owe Kang a little—uhf!”

  Thor caught the falling hero before he hit the plastic pavement. Cap smiled, a little embarrassed. “I, er, guess I haven’t quite got my land legs back yet. Sorry.”

  “No problem, Cap,” Iron Man said. “You’ll blitz ’em next time. Thor, Beast, get Cap out of danger. The rest of us should be able to handle this overgrown chameleon before it does too much damage.”

  The operative words of that statement proved to be “too much.” For even as the four remaining Avengers fanned out, the hulking dinosaur had already stepped on a floating fast-food cart that offered fourteen different varieties of Slo-Burgers. It was currently using its massive tail to obliterate the gilded façade of the “Richard M. Nixon Memorial Massage Parlor.”

  On orders from Iron Man, Quicksilver sprinted in a circle about the saurian’s feet. The results were that the tyrannosaur, not being one of the brightest creatures ever to walk the Earth, started watching the speeding mutant rather than where it was walking—it never occurred to the lumbering reptile to actually stop its forward gait. Thus, when the Vision rose up from the plastic walk, it was unaware where it was about to place one of its scaly feet. It didn’t even notice when it stepped on the Vision, who had instantly solidified to a rock-hard mass, and its foot remained a good six feet above the pavement, sending its body tilting off balance as it pushed down on the obstructed foot.

  But Iron Man noticed. Having taken to the air at the beginning of the maneuver, he now swooped down to slam into the Thunder Lizard’s side, knocking the beast even farther off balance. For a moment, the gargantuan reptile teetered on one leg, having yet to realize that it was no longer upright, then toppled over onto its side with a resounding THABOOM.

  “All right, Wanda,” Iron Man called out from where he hovered, his boot jets on minimum thrust. “I think you can wrap it up now.”

  The Scarlet Witch rose from where she had been crouching behind the fountain. Then, taking a firm stance, she brought her middle fingers down to touch her palms, raising her hands in hex signs so that one pointed at the water in the fountain and the other pointed at the downed but struggling Thunder Lizard. Drawing on her mutant abi
lity to alter probabilities, she exerted a vacuumlike force on the fountain, pulling its water up in a funnel and directing that liquid to flow through the air until it splashed down on the quivering dinosaur nearby. She didn’t want to hurt the tyrannosaur; it was only an unknowing victim in a war it could never comprehend. And so she angled her hex signs inward until they crossed and then altered the flow of mutant energy.

  Gradually, the dinosaur stopped moving, as the water that covered it froze solid, trapping it in a hypothermal prison that would leave the creature unharmed when it melted. If it’s good enough for Cap, Wanda reasoned, it’s good enough for Rex.

  Iron Man landed near the fountain, joining the Vision and the Frank siblings. “Well,” he said, “I guess that settles any questions about Kang being on the up-and-up. Now all we have to do is find out what’s behind all th—”

  “Hey!” The disgruntled cry came from the rubbled front of the Richard M. Nixon Memorial Massage Parlor. More specifically, it came from the disheveled woman who was clambering over the debris, making a last short jump to land square-footed on the street beyond. The woman’s smooth, white skin was smudged and dusty, and she wore a long, curly brown toop and a costume composed of two strategically placed plastic feathers. As Iron Man watched, his interest rising, he couldn’t help wondering if there had been three feathers before the tyrannosaur had struck.

  The woman walked straight up to the Avengers, gesturing at the destruction behind her, her frowning mouth working up and down on what must have been the fortieth-century equivalent of chewing gum. “Awright, just what the flig’s goin’ on here?”

  The Scarlet Witch smiled kindly. “Believe it or not, miss, a dinosaur just went on a rampage down this street.”