Dominique’s Holding Facility, outside Boston, Massachusetts
October 14, 2008, 7:44 p.m.

“Is he okay?”

“I think he’s waking up. I can’t really tell, I mean he’s not even totally—”

“Quite, guys. He’s awake.”

Charles Chandler opened his eyes on six young men and women all huddled around him. He didn’t recognize any of them, but he knew none of them could even be eighteen.

A half-Asian boy with hair falling around his face seemed to take the lead. “You okay?”

Charles groaned, but he pulled himself in to a sitting position. “I think so.”

His eyes went wide. His voice wasn’t his own. It was deeper, more gravelly. He looked down at his hands. He wasn’t able to stifle the cry of dismay.

The back of his hands and arms were covered with white and brown fur. The same fur that seemed to cover his otherwise bare chest and legs as well. The gas, he realized. She hit me with the same chemical that gave those kids powers. Wait, does that mean that these kids are—

“What is this place?” he said.

Another boy, this one a dark-haired Caucasian, answered. “We don’t have a clue. We’ve been here ever since they hit us with the gas. It did something to us—” He paused for just a moment too long. “—but I guess you knew that.”

Charles shook his head. “Yeah, I guess I did. You were exposed to a gas containing what is commonly known as MMV.”

“The metavirus?” This came from a black girl with a cleanly shaven head. “You exposed us to the damn metavirus?”

Charles shook his head. “It wasn’t me. It was a—” He shook his head. “—a colleague of mine, I suppose you could call her. But I never approved of any experimentation. What she did to you kids was barbaric?”

“The metavirus… that means all the others are dead?” This came from the girl most glaringly affected by the virus. Though her hair was still blonde and her eyes still hazel, her skin was now a bright red.

“I don’t know for sure. But if I had to guess, my answer would be a yes.” He looked down at his furred hands. “I guess you could say we were the lucky ones.”

The six teenagers said nothing. Charles could understand their silence. None of them felt particularly lucky. Neither did he, but he knew the chances of surviving a metavirus outbreak were slim. The fact that so many survived was a testament to the continued development of Dominique’s projects. It did nothing to make their effects any less terrible.

“Whatever the case of the situation, we need to find a way out of here. Only bad things can come when we are still in that witch’s custody.”

“Who? Who is she?”

“Her name is Dominique. She likes to get her way. Which means that is something we do not want to have happen. And I don’t know about you kids, but I don’t plan on sitting around here and being a lab rat for the kind of scientists willing to perform genetic experiments on teenagers.”

The Asian kid looked at the others. “I think the bull-guy might be right, guys. We need to get out of here.”

The girl with long brown hair, up to this point the quiet one in back, brightened at the boy’s suggestion. “Wherever you go, I’m going with you, AJ.”

The final boy, slightly smaller than the rest, dressed like a California beach bum with the frizzy blond hair to prove it. He grinned broadly as he said, “Let’s do it! We need to get out of here and kill ‘em all. Let Satan sort ‘em out!”

The raven-haired boy nodded. “I think what our dear friend Mark is trying to tell us, is that we are with you AJ. You’ve became the leader of our little band whether I think it is ill-advised or not. We will follow you.”

The black girl scoffed. “No, Tim, I think Mark said it best. We need to go kick someone’s ass.”

Charles let the kids continue their banter. He took a moment to survey their whereabouts.

The room was a stark white with the only thing breaking up the padded walls and ceiling being a few air vents and the fluorescent lights above them. But he recognized this room. The matching furniture was gone now, but this was the cell they created for Magno back in sixty-four. When the aging hero suddenly lost control of his powers, they needed to contain him somewhere he couldn’t affect metal. This room beneath Boston had been his home for the next decade, before the—

No, there is no time to dwell on that now. We need to get out of here.

“All right, before we do anything else, we need a roll call here. I need to know names and what you can all do. I’m sure you’ve all started to figure out your powers by now. My name is Charles Chandler, and I’ll have time to explain my past to you all later. For now, just call me Buster. I’ve used the name enough in the past.” He pointed to the leader. “You first.”

“My name is Aidan Jin Fitgerald-Chang, but everyone calls me AJ. If I concentrate hard enough I can alter my shape, but the things I turn in to… well they are not very pleasant.”

Buster nodded. “We’ll call you Nightmare.”

“What?”

“If I’m going to help you find your way out and eventually find your way to some kind of closure to this, we need to do things my way. And in my days, the super powers all had names. You next.” He pointed to the dark-haired boy.

“Timothy Lucas. I’m not sure, but I seem to be able to move faster, react better, than I ever could before. And my sight, hearing, even my sense of taste, seem different than they were before. Maybe stronger.”

Buster scratched his chin. “Faster, more observant, and you already seem to be a bit of a deep thinker. We will call you Sphinx.”

The red-skinned girl stepped forward, rested a hand on her hip, and looked around the room. “My name’s Bridget Kinney. Whenever I’m around the others, I can tap in to what they’re feeling and I can tweak it. I think I can do the same with their powers too, but I haven’t really tried it yet.”

“You’re easy enough to name. You’re our Woman in Red.”

The surfer dude laughed. “This is awesome. I’m Mark Jacobs. I’m not quite sure what I’ve got going on, but I do know I can hit the walls and not feel anything.”

“We will have to make you our Steel Fist then,” Buster said.

“Cool!”

The mousy girl brushed a stray strand of hair out of her face as all eyes fell on her. “Um… My name’s Emma. Friedlander. Emma Friedlander. I don’t know what my powers are, but the others say I sometimes move faster than they do. But to me it just seems like they’re moving in molasses. I don’t know what it means.”

“I think it means you are our Hyper.”

All eyes turned to the bald girl. She leaned against a far wall. As she noticed the others looking at her, she glared back.

“What?”

“Who are you? What can you do now?”

“You got a cigarette?”

“What are you talking about? This is serious business, young lady.”

“You got a cigarette, I said?”

Buster shook his head. “I’ll get you one when we blasted get out of here.”

She stopped to think about it. Everyone stood in silence for nearly a minute as she mulled it over. “All right then. My name’s Deborah Stone. I seem to be pretty quick, just like Timmy over there, but I can also do this.”

Deborah rolled away from the wall at amazing speed. She turned in mid-roll to face away from the other six prisoners. As she steadied on one knee, a blast of green energy shot out and struck the wall of the prison. It left a singe on the white fabric.

“I think we’ll call you Black Cobra.”

Deborah moved quicker than Buster could react. He found her hand pushed up in to his elongated chin.

“You ain’t calling me black anything, you get me? I’m defined by what I do, not the color of my damn skin. You can just call me Rattlesnake.”

“But the names all come from heroes of the thirties and forties. I thought—”

“I don’t give a shit. You just remember you promised me some squares when we get out of this.”

Buster didn’t say anything more to Rattlesnake. He instead turned his attention to the Woman in Red. “You’re sure about your powers? Can you enhance Rattlesnake’s abilities?”

“I think so,” the Woman in Red said. “I’ll give it a try if only to get away from that bitch.”

Rattlesnake raised her hand as if poised to strike with a blast. “At least I don’t put out to every frat boy that wants a piece.” “Yeah, I’m sure you only put out—”

“Enough, ladies,” Buster said. “We need to work together to get out of this situation. Do you think you can handle that?”

Both girls nodded.

“Good. What I want is very simple: Red, I want you to channel your powers in to Rattlesnake. Rattlesnake, once you feel charged up I want you to fire a blast in to the wall right there.” He pointed out an otherwise blank piece of wall.

“Whatever,” Rattlesnake said. But she stood still as Red focused on her. The others watched in awe as Rattlesnake’s skin seemed to emit a green glow, the same green as her blasts.

“Do it!” Buster said.

Rattlesnake aimed and fired. The energy poured out of her with the fury of a storm. The room seemed to waiver around them as the wall she was aiming at exploded.

And exposed an open path in to the sewers.

“Nightmare, you think you can change in to something with night vision?”

“You’re the minotaur, Buster. Can’t you see in the labyrinth?”

Buster reached up and felt the short horns protruding from the side of his head. He hadn’t realized quite how much of a change his body went through.

“Minotaur, huh? Not the kind of mutation I would have thought, but I know degens far worse off than me. But to answer your question, it doesn’t seem to have helped my vision much.

Nightmare nodded. “All right. My sight isn’t quite normal as… a creature. But I’ll see what I can do.”

“And I can help,” Tim said. “My night vision is much better than it used to be.”

Buster nodded. “Let’s get moving. There’s no telling how well monitored this room is or how long security will take to get here. We need to move before they can play catch-up.”

AJ’s body suddenly turned liquid. But before he could form a puddle on the floor, he expanded down and outward. His features deformed in to something gray skinned and long-toothed. He grunted out of a not-quite-functioning mouth and beckoned them forward. Buster gave the others a moment to work up their courage before he encouraged them all forward.

We have a long journey ahead of us, he thought. And I’m just an old fool. But I’ll be damned if I let these kids down. They will have their revenge, and when they do, Dominique won’t know what hit her.

*****

New Salem, Kentucky
October 21, 2008, 2:37 a.m.

California, Oregon, Washington, Colorado, all of them were getting too hot now. Purge didn’t like it. Purge didn’t like being noticed. Purge knew that the more notice he received, the more likely the fools would find him.

The quest is far from done. The demons still live and I must destroy them. It is His Will. I cannot betray His commands.

He worked his way through the raised walkways alongside the looping overpasses that made up most of the city’s road structure. The Vertical City was an apt name for the towering city. Purge now knew that the old euphemism about the city was true: it was easy to get lost in the Vertical City.

It also made it the perfect hunting ground.

She stood at the end of the alley. She wore a red pleather ensemble that covered as much as an average bikini. She walked up and down the street in her stiletto heels, moving towards cars as they slowed.

Not just a demon, but a whore. This one begs to die.

He felt the light sputter from her even as he approached. She was weak, but he didn’t care. He needed the kill. He needed the rush that His Lord gave him when he felt their blood flow.

He crept up behind her, pulled the dagger from beneath the baggy sweatshirt he wore, and brought it up. She didn’t even realize he was present until the blade sliced across her jugular.

The cement beneath his feet suddenly turned to ice. He watched in shock as it cracked under the extreme cold. Purge scrambled backwards as the ice flowed out and over the whore’s body.

Her body shuttered as the ice covered her body. Her body fell forward… and shattered against the cement.

Purge disappeared in to the shadows. He had more kills to make tonight.

*****

Outside Pittock Mansion, Portland, Oregon
October 26, 2008, 7:14 a.m.

Doug Danville had little trouble blending in to the crowd outside Pittock Mansion, but he could tell Atoman hadn’t taken off his costume for years. Barry Dale looked uncomfortable surrounded by people. Doug wished he could relax and enjoy the cool fall day, but it had already been too long. He couldn’t wait any longer to save his wife.

He looked at Barry. “You’re sure you’re okay with this?”

“I have no desire to be put in to government hands, but I won’t see either your wife or Cindy harmed for my sake. I often question my humanity since I’ve become Atoman, but I’m not so much a monster I would let any person, man or woman, die for me.”

“I’m glad to hear it,” Doug said. “Terri and I have barely had any time to reconnect since my return. And I think we have a lot of years ahead of us.”

Barry turned away from Doug and looked across the crowd. “He’s here.”

Doug looked around the crowd, but saw no sign of his foe. “Where?”

“It’s been a long time, Doug. I’ve been waiting quite some time to meet the two of you again.” The voice came from behind him. It was slightly distorted by age, but Doug could not mistake the voice of Archibald Masters.

He slowly turned around to the smiling face of the man better known as the American Crusader. He wore only a plaid shirt, a pair of jeans, and a leather satchel. “Hello, Archie. I would have liked you to schedule a reunion under more pleasant circumstances. Kidnapping my wife doesn’t put me in a friendly mood.”

“Sometimes innocents have to suffer so that the greater good can be accomplished. But I promise you, no harm came to either woman.”

“It better not have. Because I may only be a mere human, but even with all your powers, I don’t think you’d like me when I’m angry.”

“You always were full of bluster and bravado, Doug.” He looked past Doug to Barry. “Are you ready to remit yourself to custody or are we going to have to fight this one out?”

“I am willing to go peacefully in exchange for the girls’ release.”

“That was the deal,” Archie said. He reached in to the satchel he carried slung under his arm. His hand came out with a pair of slightly over-sized handcuffs. He held them out to Barry.

“Dampener cuffs,” Archie said. “You need to put them on. They cut the energy levels of normal prisoners by seventy percent. I don’t expect that out of you, but I do expect some reduction.”

Barry looked at Doug. Doug couldn’t say anything in response. Barry clipped the cuffs around his wrists. Archie nodded his approval.

“Once myself and Mr. Dale are out of range, my associate will release Mrs. Danville and the Asian girl. If you make any move to follow, Doug, or if I suspect any kind of trap, the girls will remain in custody. Understood?”

“I understand you, Archie. I couldn’t stop you if I wanted.”

Archie nodded. He grabbed Atoman by the cuffs and dragged him off as a few tourists looked on. Doug stood silently and watched them disappear in to a van at the end of the street.

Doug continued to wait as the van pulled off. His patience started to wear thin as minutes ticked by.

“Doug!” Doug Danville turned around to see his wife running his way. A few steps behind her, he could see Cindy. She limped slightly, but she tried her best to keep up with Terri. The familiar face of John Aman, only slightly aged from their last meeting seventy years earlier, followed them.

Terri kissed him and Doug let himself be lost in her embrace. He fell in to her as she fell in to him. He knew in his heart he would do anything to keep her safe, to protect her, to keep her from harm again. But he also knew—

He turned to John. “I can’t believe you would be part of this, John. Not after everything we went through all those years ago.”

“I didn’t like it, Doug. I didn’t like it at all. A lot has changed since you and yours did business, but even so, I don’t consider kidnapping heroic. But Archie is still right. Atoman needs to be contained.”

Doug was done listening to the same old lines. His fist shot out and caught John across the jaw. John’s head shot to the side at the blow, but otherwise he showed no sign of harm.

“I’m sorry about all of this, Doug. I really am. But it’s over now. Let it be over.”

Doug smirked. “Over. No, I think it’s only just begun.”

Doug tapped his heels down hard on the ground. The smoke bombs implanted in the base of his shoes exploded. Thick black smoke filled the air around him. He used the momentary distraction to yank the high-powered taser from his pocket. He launched the cables directly in to John’s chest. The alphium-tipped connectors cut in to Amazing Man’s chest a fraction of a second before the electrical charge slashed through the wires.

John collapsed on to the ground. His body twitched slightly.

Doug leaned over John. “I consider Atoman to be a prisoner of war. You can tell Archie, you can tell his masters at the Pentagon, I don’t care who you tell. But they all need to know that this war has just begun, and I don’t care how powerful they think they are. It’s far from over.”

*****

Office of Raboy Importers, Inc., New Salem, Kentucky
November 1, 2008

The alarms sounded from the building and rang out over the edge of Lake Doom, but Fear-Lass knew the police wouldn’t be here for several more minutes. They avoided the docks as best they could at night, and she couldn’t quite blame them. Few places could be as wretched as the New Salem docks at night.

But fighting crime was now her job, and she loved it. She didn’t waste more than a few seconds surveying the building from the roof of its neighbor across the street. After a moment, she moved back, took a running start, and leaped across the street below.

She crashed in to a fourth floor window of Raboy Importers. The window shattered as her shoulder struck it. She rolled as she landed and came up on her feet.

“Tell me now! Tell me or I will hurt you!” The man yelling was dressed in black jeans and a black sweatshirt. His face was left uncovered. She was unsurprised to see a young man not much out of his twenties. It seemed like too many criminals were still teens these days.

He held the man to whom he spoke aloft by the lapel of a torn shirt. The other man was Latino, and he gasped for air as he struggled to break free.

“Answer the question damn it!” “Put him down, kid. Before you get hurt!”

The white boy turned to face her. He smirked.

“What the heck are you supposed to be?”

“The name’s Fear-Lass,” she said. “I protect this city from scum like you.”

The white boy started to talk again, but she was done listening. She sprung across the room. She struck him in a tackle and took him down to the floor.

He pushed back. She was surprised to be thrown up and off him. He’s strong. Almost too strong.

They both were to their feet in seconds. She threw a punch his way, but he ducked under the wild blow. He delivered two body blows to her gut. She staggered back and fought to keep her breath.

He sailed up and over her. She turned to see him following the other man. She charged across the room and tackled the white boy just before he could make it through the door. They smashed in to a pile of crates, all marked with a large AL logo, stacked against the wall.

He struggled to break free from her grip but she held on fast. “I’m not going to let you hurt that man!”

“You blasted fool! He’s the bad guy! He’s connected to a damn kidnapping ring!” Fear-Lass’s grip loosened. “What do you mean?”

“I traced the freaking ring of kidnappers back here! I would have found out where they had their victim if it wasn’t for your interference!”

Fear-Lass let him go. “Who are you? Why are you running around dressed in black like some kind of thief?”

“My name is Ace Barlow. I’m here to help a young woman find her lost father. And you may have just killed him.”