by Stuart Moore
Cap reached out to the hologram with both hands and pinched it apart. The image zoomed in, cutting inside the buildings to reveal corridors, cells, exercise areas, and medical facilities, all carefully labeled.
All around the table, heroes leaned forward, studying the display.
Photon frowned. “It’s full of super villains, right?”
“Ostensibly it’s for high-risk super villains. But a lot of rebel super heroes are being held there too. A lot of our friends.”
“Stark, Reed Richards, and Henry Pym are planning to install puppet heroes in every state,” Falcon said. “Eventually there’ll be fifty portals leading directly into the prison. Right now…”
He stabbed a button, and the hologram winked out. A new image rose: the soaring spire of the Baxter Building.
“…there’s only one.”
“But we need to move fast.” Cap leaned across the table, his blood racing. “Our intel suggests they’re planning a huge assault on the rebel superhuman community, using both S.H.I.E.L.D. and the Thunderbolts. So tonight is our absolute last opportunity.”
He looked around the room. Some people looked uneasy, particularly the younger heroes—Patriot, Dagger, Speed.
“Look,” Cap continued. “I understand this is difficult. You’re all used to battle, to overwhelming odds, even to hiding from the authorities. What you’re not used to is having to go up against other heroes—people whose priorities, in other times and places, would be exactly the same as your own.” He looked down, briefly. “Friends, and former friends.
“But you have to be ready. You have to harden yourselves, to be prepared for what’s coming tonight. Because if Iron Man or Ms. Marvel comes charging through the air toward you, you need to act swiftly and decisively to put them down. Otherwise, you’ll be the next guest in their little alien lockup. And worse than that: You’ll be letting down everyone else in this room.”
Tigra entered the room. “Sounds like we could use some help.” She gestured theatrically…
…and in came Spider-Man. He wore his original costume, red and blue with an intricate webbing pattern. He raised a hand, waved shyly.
“Hi, guys.”
Johnny Storm grinned broadly and shot to his feet. He crossed to Spider-Man and clasped him in a big, broad man-hug. “Don’t scare me like that again, you wall-crawling freak.”
“You took a few lumps yourself, Matchstick.” Spider-Man winced. “Ease off the ribs, okay? I’m still a little creaky.”
“Awww! Mister Sensitive, always playing to the ladies.”
“All right, all right.” Cap frowned, and the two men separated. “Spider-Man, are you sure you’re up to this?”
“Absolutely, Cap.” Spidey swept a glance around the room. “Sounds like you’re gonna need every extra pair of hands.”
Spider-Man took a seat near the door, in a vacant chair next to the Punisher. Punisher peered at a disassembled rifle, squeezed some lubricant into its firing chamber.
“You, uh, you carry those everywhere?” Spider-Man asked.
“You’re welcome.” Punisher didn’t look up. “For your life, I mean.”
Cap pointed at the Baxter Building, zooming the display in to the upper floors. “The key spots are here and here. Reed’s main lab, and this server room.”
“It’s labeled ‘The Quincunx.’” Johnny Storm leaned forward, frowning. “I’ve never seen that room before.”
“We should be able to get inside. But it’s possible there will be defenses we don’t anticipate.”
Cage clapped one arm around Falcon and the other around Dagger, who winced. “We got some power here.”
“Still. Even with Spider-Man, I’m a little worried about the numbers.”
Diamondback, a reformed ex-villainess in sleek black and purple, rose to her feet. “I might be able to help there.” She gestured to the far doorway, opposite Cap’s chair. “Goldbug? Plunderer?”
The door opened, and two men walked in. Goldbug wore a full-body costume in red and gold, with a metallic headpiece that resembled an insect’s mandible. Plunderer’s garb was old-school: blue and white spandex with a high collar and half-face mask.
They were both super villains. Not reformed ones, like Diamondback and Asp. Wanted criminals.
Cap hissed in a breath.
Goldbug turned to address Cap directly. “You guys ain’t the only ones scared we’re heading for a police state, Captain. The super-criminal community’s more concerned about Stark’s plans than anybody.”
“Yeah.” Plunderer swept a nervous look across the table full of heroes. “We just came by to let you know we’re here if you need us. Only fair if Iron Man’s got super villains on his side, am I ri—”
A deafening round of gunfire rang out. Cap shot to his feet just in time to hear Plunderer and Goldbug scream in agony. They toppled backward, jerking and spasming, their bodies riddled by a hail of bullets.
Everyone leapt up. The Human Torch flamed on; Spider-Man leapt onto a wall, looking around frantically. Dagger’s hands glowed with light-power.
The Punisher stood calmly, his chair kicked out and discarded behind him. Both semiautomatic rifles smoked in his hand.
Spider-Man whirled toward him.
The Punisher arched an eyebrow. “What?”
The dark thing inside Cap boiled over. He vaulted over the table and pasted a sharp fist across the Punisher’s face. The vigilante grunted, dropped his weapons, and fell back against the wall.
Cap glared down at him. The Punisher wiped blood from his face, and slowly looked up. Cap tensed, ready to block the next blow.
But the Punisher just sat still, crouched against the wall. He seemed puzzled, like a dog who couldn’t understand why he’d been punished.
“You murderous piece of trash,” Cap hissed.
“They were—bad guys, Cap.” Punisher struggled to his feet. “Thieves. Killers—”
“SHUT UP!”
Cap kicked out, his boot smashing into the Punisher’s jaw. Blood spattered against the wall. Before the Punisher could react, Cap reached out and pulled him close. Cap slammed his shield down onto the Punisher’s throat, barely pulling back in time to keep from breaking his neck.
Suddenly everyone was in motion. Some of the heroes ran to the dead villains’ bodies; others moved to circle Cap and the Punisher. Still others ran from the room, seeking medical help. The hologram hung over the table, forgotten in the chaos.
“Cap,” Falcon said.
But Captain America barely heard him. The world had narrowed down, become a tiny tunnel of battle. No more Registration Act, no more secret prison, no more Resistance and Thunderbolts and Fifty State Initiatives. Just Cap—the super-soldier—and his enemy. A mass murderer in a skull T-shirt, who leaned, bruised and bleeding, against the wall before him.
Just me, Cap thought, and my biggest mistake.
Still the Punisher made no move against him.
Cap pulled his fist back, prepared to strike again. “Fight, you coward.”
The Punisher shook his head, wincing. “Not—” He spat blood. “Not against you.”
Cap stared at him for a long moment. Then he lowered his fist.
“Get him out of here,” Cap said. “And throw his guns in the incinerator.”
Tigra gestured. Patriot moved to join her, and they each took Punisher by an arm. Still the Punisher made no move against them.
“Let’s, uh…” Cage gestured. “Let’s get the medics in here. Have ’em remove those stiffs.”
Patriot leaned over to Spider-Man. “Why wouldn’t he hit Cap?”
“They’re both soldiers. Cap’s probably the reason Punisher joined the service. Same guy, different war.”
Cap whirled on them, glaring at Spider-Man with eyes full of rage. “Wrong,” he said. “The Punisher is insane.”
Spider-Man nodded, a little too fast. “I know, Cap. I know he is.”
Cap turned away again, fists clenched. He squeezed his eyes tight, fillin
g his vision with red haze. Around him, he could hear gurneys being wheeled in, machinery being activated.
“This changes nothing. Pre-attack countdown begins now.” Cap whirled back to face the group. “Team Liberty, meet me in ten minutes for a strategy session. The rest of you: Get ready.”
He gazed across the assembled faces. They all looked alarmed now, more doubtful than before. Dagger’s eyes were wider than ever; Photon looked like she regretted joining up at all. Cage had lowered his shades, staring at Cap with his mouth set tight.
Falcon wasn’t looking at him at all.
They’re not an army, Cap realized. They’re individuals, accustomed to working alone or in small groups. And tonight they’ll go up against the full might of Stark Enterprises, S.H.I.E.L.D., and the United States government.
But they would have to do. Too much is riding on this. Our own freedom, and that of our friends. The future of our very way of life.
Tonight, one way or another, that future would be decided.
SPIDER-MAN’S muscles creaked; his neck ached. A dull fog still filled his head, left over from Jester’s grenades. His spider-sense flared almost constantly now, warning him of danger around every corner.
But somewhere on the trip over to the Baxter Building, he’d realized he felt good. Better than he had in a long time. Maybe it was the costume, the lightweight feel of the old blue and reds. The uniform he’d sewed himself, mere days after that radioactive spider had first taken a bite out of teenaged Peter Parker.
Or maybe, he thought, it’s because I’m finally on the right side.
“While we’re young, Parker? Some of us, anyway.”
He followed Johnny Storm through the concealed access panel, set low along the wall of the corridor. “Take it easy, Matchstick. This half of ‘Team Liberty’ is on the—”
He stopped dead, the quip dying on his lips.
The hidden room—the Quincunx—was almost perfectly spherical, 12 or 14 feet in diameter, and big enough to hold four or five people. Its walls, floor, and ceiling were composed entirely of white triangular plates, interlocked in perfect sequence. Like two geodesic domes fitted together, one on top of the other, to form a giant ball.
“An icosahedron,” Spidey said. “It’s an icosahedron.”
“Suuuuuure, Webs.”
Blue-white light filled the room, glowing softly from the triangular panels. A single wooden stool rose up from the central floor-plate.
“Like I said,” Johnny said. “Never even heard of this room.”
“Or you weren’t listening when Reed told you about it.”
Johnny grinned. “That’s possible, yeah.”
Spider-Man leapt up, reaching out to a couple of jointed plates along the “wall” of the room. His gloved hands made contact, sticking instantly to the plates with his natural spider-adhesive. He found the chamber disorienting; it was hard to know where, or how, to stand.
A winking caught his eye. The plate under his hand had lit up with a menu:
AWAITING COMMANDS
INPUT PASSWORD/HANDPRINT/RETINA
The same menu beckoned from three other plates, the ones his boots and his other hand adhered to. He pointed down at Johnny’s feet; the same thing had happened where he stood.
Johnny pulled off a glove and reached out his hand. When he touched a wall-plate, its display lit up briefly, then changed to:
ID CONFIRMED: JONATHAN STORM
ACCESS GRANTED
The plate swung open, revealing a row of switches and wires. Johnny shrugged, motioned for Spider-Man to look.
“According to the plans stolen by Mister Shooty Pants, this room controls all access to the labs and the Negative Zone portal.” Spider-Man reached out a hand to the switches. “Let’s see what this one does.”
Johnny put his fingers in his ears, comically. Spidey rolled his eyes and flipped the switch. A display lit up on the adjoining panel.
YOU HAVE JUST DEACTIVATED ROBOT BABYSITTER H.E.R.B.I.E.
DO YOU WISH TO CONTINUE? Y/N
Spider-Man and Johnny exchanged shrugs. Johnny touched YES.
Across the room from them, way up at ceiling level, another plate popped open. Spider-Man frowned, leapt across to land on the curved wall. Once again, another plate had lit up next to the open one.
ADDITIONAL BABYSITTER CONTROLS AVAILABLE.
DO YOU WISH TO CONTINUE? Y/N
Spider-Man looked down at Johnny. “I don’t get this. How is a normal person supposed to operate these controls? I’m gonna wind up bouncing all over the room.”
Johnny frowned for a moment, then snapped his finger. A small flame rose from it, as if from a cigarette lighter.
“It’s not made for a normal person. It’s made for Reed.” Johnny gestured at the small stool. “All his limbs are stretchable, remember? He can sit there, crane his long neck around to read the screens, and work one set of controls with his elongated left hand and another, clear across the room, with his right one. Maybe another set with his long stretchy toes. Or…”
“Let’s leave it at toes. But yeah, that makes sense.” Spider-Man closed the open plate, jumped back down. “Speaking of Reed…”
“He’s in D.C. for sure, giving an update to that Congressional committee.”
Johnny reached out, touched another plate.
LIVING QUARTERS LOCK CONTROLS
DO YOU WISH TO CONTINUE? Y/N
Johnny sighed. “This is gonna take a while to figure out.”
“Then we better get moving.” Spider-Man reached into the open plate, started moving wires around. “Every minute we waste, the whole Resistance gets closer to a big long stretch in Prison 42.”
CAP was on edge. Every step of this operation hung by a thread. Sue Richards had managed to hide the group from view, long enough to sneak them past the S.H.I.E.L.D. guards outside the Baxter Building. And the Punisher’s stolen intel had gotten them inside and upstairs without being detected.
But there had been some dicey moments. Sue’s powers could keep a phalanx of heroes invisible—but she couldn’t keep them quiet. A sneeze from Dagger had almost given them away.
Now they stood massed in the corridor, nearly two dozen renegade super heroes trying to be unobtrusive. It was almost funny. Sue held her hands to her head, sweating with the strain of maintaining such a wide invisibility field.
Cap leaned in to her. “Just a little longer, Sue.”
She nodded.
A pair of S.H.I.E.L.D. agents stood guard at the door to Reed’s lab. Cap gestured to Cage and Dagger, and the two of them moved forward. Dagger fired off light-daggers at one of the agents, shattering his weapon and stunning him. Cage lumbered forward, launched a powerhouse fist at the second agent’s stomach. The agent doubled over in pain, fumbling for his weapon. Cage followed up with a decisive chop to the head.
Cap ran up, caught the agent as he fell. Stripped off the unconscious man’s glove and lifted his hand up to the doorplate. The door slid open.
Cage grinned. “We’re in, baby.”
Cap nodded, motioned the group forward.
Reed’s lab was as cavernous as ever—and even messier. Whiteboards, gadgets, and paper plans were strewn everywhere. Liquids bubbled from beakers, remnants of experiments set up and then forgotten in haste.
Sue staggered. “Cap…?”
“You can let the field down now, Sue.”
She slumped back against a table, exhausted. The Resistance faded into view.
Cap frowned. Something felt wrong here; this was all too easy. Two S.H.I.E.L.D. agents to guard the only Negative Zone portal on Earth?
Falcon crossed past Cap with T’Challa, the dark-clad Black Panther. As ruler of the African nation of Wakanda, the Panther had worked with the Fantastic Four several times and knew their systems. “Thanks for coming, T’Challa. I know it’s in Wakanda’s interests to stay neutral.”
“Forget it, my friend.” T’Challa lowered his face-mask, revealing noble features. “Had I answered your fir
st summons, our friend Bill Foster might still be alive. As my wife has reminded me.”
He smiled sadly across the room. Storm, weather-goddess of the X-Men and T’Challa’s recent bride, spread her arms, acknowledging her husband with a small burst of lightning.
Falcon motioned the Panther toward the Negative Zone portal, which stood dark and quiet. Cap moved to join them.
“What you make of it, T’Challa?”
The Panther frowned, tapped a keyboard beneath a dark screen. “It’s off,” he reported. “No systems active, no energy coursing through it at all.”
Falcon turned to Cap. “Something’s wrong. Punisher’s intel said they kept it running all the time.”
“We do. Unless we’re expecting saboteurs.”
Cap whipped around toward the voice. An entire wall hummed and began to slide apart, revealing a large chamber beyond. Light streamed in from a picture window, illuminating the normally dark lab.
In that chamber stood the She-Hulk. Ms. Marvel. Hawkeye. Stature, 8 feet tall and filled with determination. Mister Fantastic.
The Thunderbolts stood with them: four super villains, each one a living weapon. Bullseye, the master marksman. Lady Deathstrike, deadly cyborg assassin. Venom, a petty thug possessed by an alien parasite, his long snaking tongue dripping acid. The withered, skull-like Taskmaster, trainer of other super villains.
New allies, too. Wonder Man. Captain Marvel, the newly revived alien warrior. Spider-Woman. Doc Samson. The Sentry, hovering and glowing with unearthly power. Hermes, the swiftly vibrating Greek god. Even Henry Pym had suited up as Yellowjacket, his latest hero guise.
And still more: fresh recruits, straight from the Initiative camps. Blue and red and yellow costumes; a sea of fresh young faces, fliers and cyborgs, mutants and aliens and ordinary hand-to-hand fighters. Young and old, black and white and brown and other colors too, races never before seen on Earth.