by Stuart Moore
He caught the device, pressed a button, and laughed in delight as a red light lit up. “A Kree detector! Where’d you get it?”
“I cut it out of the chest of a robot.”
“As one does.” Rocket held the detector up to the light. “Thanks, kid.”
“Happy birthday.”
She turned away, shivering at the memory of that consciousness – the savage, evil mind at the heart of the gamma reaction. A living need that had consumed everything within its reach, and now hungered for more.
Quill leaned over Rocket’s station as the raccoonoid activated the comms system. Outside, pieces of the planet wafted by, water frozen like winter lakes on thick chunks of crumbling soil.
“Gamma levels dropping,” Rocket said.
“You know,” Quill said, “I was just kidding about that Avengers business.”
“Suuuuure, fanboy.” Rocket smirked. “Sure you were.”
OMNI-WAVE MESSAGE
SECURE PROTOCOL
DELIVERY SPEED: INSTANTANEOUS (PRIORITY ONE)
FROM:CAROL DANVERS, OMNIWAVE ID “CAPTAIN MARVEL”
8TH SECTOR, DENOBIAN GALAXY
TO: ANTHONY STARK, OMNIWAVE ID “IRON MAN”
EARTH
HEY TONES – HOPE THINGS ARE COPACETIC. HEY TO YOU TOO, PEPPER, IF YOU’RE SCREENING THIS. HOPE THE BIG DOPE ISN’T DRIVING YOU TOO NUTS.
I’M UP TO MY SASH IN TROUBLE OUT HERE. EGO THE LIVING SOIL SAMPLE HAS PICKED A FIGHT WITH A BUNCH OF CELESTIALS, AND I’VE GOTTA STOP THEM FROM TRAMPLING A DOZEN CIVILIZED WORLDS IN THEIR COSMIC TESTOSTERONE SPAT. YOU KNOW, THE USUAL. ANYWAY, I JUST GOT A MESSAGE ABOUT SOMETHING AND I CAN’T HANDLE IT MYSELF, BUT I THOUGHT YOU MIGHT BE ABLE TO HELP. DETAILS ARE ATTACHED.
GOTTA GO – SOME GLOWING DUDE WITH THE INSECURE NAME “GODHEAD” JUST WHIPPED UP A VORTEX RIGHT ON EGO’S EQUATOR. OUCH! ANYWAY, TAKE A LOOK AT THIS AND SEE WHAT YOU THINK. IF YOU FEEL LIKE BEING A REAL HERO FOR A CHANGE, THAT IS. HA! JUST KIDDING. BUT NOT REALLY.
YRS FOR BETTER AVENGING,
CAROL
Six Months Later
Part Two
Lost in the Fire
Chapter 8
“This is how we’re supposed to spend our Friday afternoon?” Zoe leaned back against the bleachers, let out an exaggerated yawn, and rolled her eyes back in her head. “In the gym?”
Kamala Khan laughed. She studied the gym floor, watching as the kids filed in. A burst of laughter made her turn and look behind; a group of meathead jocks had already claimed the back row of the bleachers, talking loudly in their school jackets.
“I have to agree,” said Nakia. “I can think of many more useful things I could be doing right now.”
“I can think of many more fun things,” Zoe snorted.
Kamala turned toward her two friends, who couldn’t have been more different from each other. Zoe Zimmer was a snarky, popular girl who’d been born in France. Nakia Bahadir, who came from a strict Turkish family, practiced her Muslim faith as rigorously as she pursued her studies. When the two girls had first met in high school, they despised each other on sight.
But recently, they’d become almost inseparable. Which proved, Kamala thought, that no matter how well you thought you knew people, they could always surprise you.
“Hey,” Zoe said, nudging Kamala. “Check out the new kid.”
Kamala turned again to look. On the far side of the bleachers, near the back, a young man in a beige jumpsuit sat alone, his expression grim and distant. He took a bite from a packet in his hand, something that looked almost like combat rations. The meatheads sat behind the kid, pointing and laughing at his clothes.
“Poor kid,” Zoe continued. “Another fashion casualty. Remember Stewart, last year?”
“He’s not like Stewart,” Kamala said.
More students tromped in, filling up the spaces in the bleachers. Kamala studied the new kid. He had a strange intensity about him, and she could see his taut muscles even through that unfortunate jumpsuit. But no, this guy wasn’t quite like Stewart. Or like Thierry, the bullies’ target the year before.
This kid had bright blue skin.
“Hey, Kam,” Zoe said, laughing. “You like that action? Take a picture.”
“Shut up,” Kamala replied, turning away.
“He’s cute! For a dude, I mean.” Clearly Zoe wasn’t going to let this go. “And he looks loooonely.”
“I’d be careful with that boy,” Nakia said. “He was blocking my locker earlier, and when I asked him to move, he gave me a very hostile look.”
“Hey guys!” Bruno Carrelli plopped down onto the bleacher site just behind them. “Fun times, huh? I miss anything?”
“No,” Nakia said.
Zoe smirked. “Kamala likes the blue dude.”
Bruno’s whole face seemed to slump, as if all the air had been drained out of him. He looked away.
“Zoe!” Kamala cried. She turned to explain. “Bruno…”
She trailed off. Bruno was her best friend, but just last week they’d shared a kiss – and now, suddenly, things were complicated. She wasn’t sure how he felt about him anymore, and he seemed pretty confused too.
The bleachers were almost full now, and a rumble of restless Friday-afternoon conversation filled the air. But nobody had sat down within six feet of the blue kid, who glared straight ahead, munching on his food packet. It was like he had some invisible force field around him.
“I suppose he’s…wiry,” Bruno said. “But hey, anybody would look cut in a jumpsuit like that.”
Kamala laughed, allowing Bruno the weak joke. Their eyes met and he gave her a grateful smile.
Zoe just snorted and spread her arms back along the bleachers. “Almost showtime,” she said. “Hey, it’s getting pretty full in here. Think we could sneak out?”
“No,” Nakia replied.
“Come on. We’re not gonna learn anything anyway.”
“We are not skipping out. Not after last week.”
Kamala smiled. Last Friday, her friends had covered for her while she slipped out of school. “Sorry, guys.”
“Hey, proud to help,” Bruno said. “What was that thing rampaging down Grove Street? A dragon?”
“Yeti,” Kamala said. “I think.”
When Kamala had read the emergency phone alert about the yeti – or whatever it was – she knew she had to stop it. So she’d enlisted the help of her friends, the only three people alive who knew her secret. They’d all been late to trig class, but only Kamala wound up with actual detention.
Still, Zoe, Nakia, and Bruno had risked severe disciplinary action in order to help her. She hated putting her friends through that. But ever since she’d become Ms Marvel, Kamala Khan had gotten used to making those choices.
“Here comes the principal,” Bruno said, pointing down at the gym floor.
“That’s not the principal,” Zoe said ominously.
A scowling Black woman steered her wheelchair up to the edge of the bleachers. Ms Norris, the physics teacher, looked up at the assembled students and shook her head.
“Hello everyone,” she said – with a lack of enthusiasm, Kamala thought, that was actually impressive in its intensity. “Settle down now and listen. I said settle down!”
The room went quiet.
“That’s better. Now, as you know, this is a career session for juniors and seniors. Anybody who isn’t a junior or senior, get your butt out of here. Now.”
A few small kids looked around sheepishly, then got up and scurried away. The meatheads watched them go, snickering and muttering “Losers.”
“OK,” Ms Norris continued. “Now, we were supposed to have a career counselor come in today, but she seems to have cancelled. And since Principal Stanton also seems to have better things to do on a Friday afternoon, it looks like you’re stuck wit
h me.”
“First time I have respected Principal Stanton,” Nakia whispered. Kamala stifled a laugh.
“So.” Ms Norris reached into a bag and pulled out a thick sheaf of paper. Adjusting her glasses, she began to read stiffly. “‘What is a career? You may think it’s just a job. But it’s much more than that. Anyone can get a job…’”
Kamala’s attention strayed back to the new kid. The jocks were smirking, inching closer to him. They were up to something.
“His family just moved to Jersey City,” Zoe whispered, pointing at the kid. “I hear their old home was lost in a fire or something.”
“‘Hard work is the foundation of success,’” Ms Norris read aloud. “‘If you believe in yourself and keep your nose to the grindstone, you can accomplish miracles.’”
“Grindstone?” Bruno leaned down to whisper in Kamala’s ear. “This is making my brain hurt.”
Kamala turned to smile at him. “I don’t even think Ms Norris believes it.”
“Kamala?”
She whipped her head around. Down on the floor, the teacher had swiveled to face her directly.
“Uh, yes, Ms Norris?”
“I was asking where you saw yourself in five years.”
“In, uh, what now?”
Ms Norris glared, peering up over her glasses into the bleachers. “Since you have so much to say, I thought you might like to be the first to answer that question.”
Kamala froze, her mind suddenly blank. The whole room was staring at her. She thought of that day, down on the docks, when the Terrigen mist had swirled over her, imbuing her with strange, alien-based powers. Of the yeti, stomping and kicking its way down Grove Street. And of another time, just two weeks ago, when Tony Stark – Iron Man himself – had approached her after a battle in Manhattan, offering her a trial membership in the Avengers.
“I, uh, haven’t thought about it,” she said. “I’ve been a little busy lately.”
“Oh, Kam,” Bruno whispered.
“Wrong answer,” Nakia added.
“Busy?” Ms Norris’s voice rose in volume. “Well, I suggest you start making time. High school won’t last forever.”
“Feels like it will,” Zoe whispered. Nakia let out a snort of laughter, then went very quiet.
Ms Norris turned and rolled her wheelchair away, dismissing Kamala with a look. “Anyone here have a more substantial answer? Someone who cares about their future, maybe?”
A few hands went up. One of the jocks, a grinning pretty boy named Russell, reached out and pointed at the blue kid. “Ask him!”
“I know better than to ask you,” the teacher snapped back. Then she turned, considering Coles Academic High’s first extraterrestrial student. “Mister, uh…” Ms Norris paused and scrolled through something on her tablet. “…Holler, is it?”
The blue kid looked up at her, snorted, and tossed his empty food packet aside. “Halla-ar,” he said.
“Halla-ar,” Ms Norris said. “First of all, welcome to our school.”
Halla-ar said nothing.
“Would you like to take a crack at the question?” she continued. “Where do you see yourself – that is, what do you want to do with your life?”
The boy grimaced. “I do not know how to answer that,” he said, in an accent Kamala couldn’t identify. “My people are rarely given the opportunity to choose.”
“Your people?” Russell called out. “The Smurfs?”
Laughter rippled through the room. As Ms Norris’s sharp voice cut through the laughter, Russell reached down and punched Halla-ar on the arm. It was a playful jab, not hard enough to hurt. But the new kid’s eyes went feral and, without warning, he leaped across the empty space. Before anyone knew what had happened, he had Russell pinned down against the long bench, hand clamped down on the jock’s throat.
Everyone froze. Gasps filled the gym. Across the surrounding rows, kids sprang to their feet. The jocks clustered together, eyeing their friend with concern – but, Kamala noticed, none of them moved to help him.
“Stop!” Ms Norris said.
Halla-ar didn’t reply. He stayed perfectly still, crouched over Russell, holding the other boy by the throat.
Kamala rose to her feet. The new kid clearly had combat skills; was he dangerous? She felt a tingling in her limbs. Her hand started to expand in size, but she willed it back to normal. This wasn’t a crisis yet, and she wasn’t ready to reveal her secret identity to the whole school. Not if the situation could still be resolved peacefully.
“Hey,” she said. “Let him go, huh?”
Halla-ar didn’t look up. The jock let out a strangled noise.
“He’s just a meathead,” she continued. “Not worth a week’s detention.”
Halla-ar gritted his teeth, staring at the helpless jock. “You ask what I would do with my life?” he repeated.
“For God’s sake, stop!” Ms Norris called out.
Russell let out another noise. His eyes rolled up, his head went limp. Blast it, Kamala thought, this isn’t working. The school security guard was probably on his way, but that might take too long. She tensed herself for action.
“Like the rest of my people,” Halla-ar yelled, “I would like to not work like a dog for Tony Stark!”
In one smooth motion he released Russell, whirled, and leaped off the bleachers. By the time Kamala registered what had happened, Halla-ar had sprinted across the gym floor and disappeared out the door.
The room erupted into chaos. People rose to their feet, talking in alarmed voices, pointing at the door and snapping pictures. The jocks converged on their coughing, gasping friend and forced a water bottle into his mouth. Russell waved them away angrily. Down on the floor, Ms Norris tried to restore order.
Kamala stood up, her mind racing. Tony Stark? she thought. That Tony Stark?
“Whoa,” Bruno said, laying a hand on her shoulder. “What a psycho!”
Maybe, she thought. And yet… Russell had touched the kid first…
“Guys,” she said, gathering Zoe and Nakia together with Bruno. “Cover me? I gotta make an exit.”
“Got it,” Zoe said. She nudged a girl out of the way and took up position between Kamala and Ms Norris. Not that the teacher was watching them. She had her hands full trying to quiet down the crowd.
Nakia stood up next to Zoe. Bruno hesitated, frowning at Kamala. “You’re going after him,” he said.
She gave him a pained smile. “I have to.”
Shaking his head, Bruno joined her other friends, forming a circle around her. “Be careful,” he said, in a voice that sounded like it meant, “You’ll be sorry.”
When she was sufficiently hidden from view, Kamala concentrated and began to shrink. Normally, Kamala used her powers to “embiggen” – expand the size of one or more limbs, or sometimes her whole body. This was the opposite, a process that allowed her to slip between the boards of the bleachers and drop to the floor below.
She scurried to the wall and headed for the door, unnoticed at only five inches tall. Sorry, Bruno, she thought; I’ll make this up to you. But there was something weird going on here, something that might just wind up being Avengers business. And Kamala had a strange feeling that only she could put all the pieces together.
Chapter 9
“Father?”
Gamora craned her neck, struggling to see. Her father sat on a rock, turned away, staring into the mist. She couldn’t make out his face.
“Father, say something. Please.”
She knew she was dreaming; she’d had this dream before. In times of crisis, her subconscious always dragged up the memory of her true father. As if his shadow, her lost anchor, held all her answers.
“Father, something’s happening.” She trembled. “Something has been set in motion, something very bad. Peter and the others – they’re worried about p
lanets blowing up. That’s horrible enough, but I’m afraid it’s even bigger than that.”
The father-shade muttered something, but she couldn’t make it out.
“What?” She peered at him urgently. “Tell me, Father. Tell me what to do!”
His figure wavered, shimmering in the haze. Panic rose inside her. Was his memory, the part of him that guided and helped her, fading away? Was he finally, absolutely, leaving her?
“No,” she said. “No, tell me! You have to tell me!”
He muttered something again. This time she could almost hear it.
“What?” Panic surged, turned to rage. “Tell me. Tell me!”
The figure began to turn. This was different too. She struggled, held in place by some unknown dream-force. Desperate to see him.
“You know,” he rumbled.
A bolt of shock ran through her. That was not her father’s voice. As she watched in horror, the figure grew thicker, taller. By the time it was facing her directly, the face had become a map of chiseled stone, blank white eyes glimmering over a cruel smile.
“You know,” Thanos repeated.
Thanos. The Mad Titan, scourge of the entire universe. His genocidal schemes had only been thwarted by an assemblage of heroes from seven galaxies. And Gamora had been a part of those schemes. From the day Thanos took her in, an orphan girl from a decimated race, he had trained her as a weapon in his insane master plan.
She’d rebelled, helped turn the tide against her adoptive father. But she still bore the scars of that upbringing, the brutal discipline he’d delivered with cold joy. The combat training, the endless sessions that she endured until her bones ached and her muscles screamed in agony. Always striving, but never good enough. Not for him.
Thanos began to glow, pure white light shining from those soulless eyes. The light spread out to cover him, bathing his figure in a familiar radiance. Soon she could barely see him; he shrank to a thick, squat shadow inside the blinding glow. A shadow that continued to shrink, growing smaller.