The Chateau, Boston, Massachusetts
January 20, 2009, 12: 18 a.m.

The warp portal closed behind Fire-Eater and the glowing blue sphere. He stood in Dominique’s private chambers. Fire-Eater bowed before his mistress. With his view of her from behind, Doctor Frost could only imagine her twisted expression.

He let the cold fog evaporate from the mirror in the bedroom. The frost over his eyes vanished as well. Frost looked at his heated prison once again.

Only the heat seemed weaker now. The glow of the lights seemed softer as well. He thought he felt it before, when Fire-Eater left to retrieve whatever it was he brought to Dominique. He chalked it up to wishful thinking, some hope for his own salvation. He knew otherwise.

The means of transport somehow drained the Chateau’s power. He closed his eyes and summoned every ounce of moisture he could. The bonds around his wrists and ankles flash froze. He flexed his limbs forward and easily shattered his restraints.

He dropped to the floor. The ambient heat rising from the surface felt like burning coals even though he knew it couldn’t be more than sixty or seventy degrees. He shrugged off the agony as he made his way the few steps to the door.

He felt his own weakness as he reached out and touched the door. He released every ounce of power he could still muster to freeze the locking mechanism inside the door. With a soft click, the lock shattered. He pushed the door open.

He stumbled out in to the darkness in search of his protective suit.

*****

Outside Madigan Army Medical Center, Tacoma, Washington
January 20, 2009, 12:32 a.m.

The green and black light faded. Green Lama and Ghost Woman’s combined power sphere dissipated. Along with Blackout, they stood in the middle of hellfire.

Spouts of fire still roared from beneath the streets. The buildings around them seemed to shutter as their stressed foundations slowly shifted. Even the concrete beneath their feet felt unnaturally warm.

“What did you do?”

Ghost Woman hurled her words at Black Owl and London. They stood alongside a man in Daredevil’s costume and a woman in a silver bodysuit. It seemed clear they were the perpetrators.

She threw a bolt of darkness straight at Black Owl’s chest. He dived out of the way, but she pressed her assault with bolts of energy towards the other three.

The woman came at her at superspeed. Ghost Woman supposed she was supposed to be some kind of new Silver Streak, though the costume was all wrong. Ghost Woman generated a darkness shield directly between them. The speedster plowed face first in to the solid wall.

A hand grabbed her from behind and yanked her away from the fallen speedster. London held her arm fast. His super-strong grip offered no give.

Blackout came out of nowhere and landed on London. His grip fell away from her arm as Blackout forced him to the ground. Ghost Woman turned her attention to the man in the Daredevil costume. She summoned another darkness blast to her hand.

“Stop this now!” Green light fell over the battle. The Lama sent tendrils of the light circling down around the combatants.

“We have no reason to fight. We aren’t savages. Put down your weapons, cease your attacks, and listen to one another!”

Ghost Woman let the energy fade from her hand. He was right. She acted out of anger and started an unnecessary confrontation. She let her rage dissipate with her darkness.

“I’m sorry,” she said.

London picked himself up off the ground. He swept the dust from his uniform as an uncomfortable Blackout stood nearby. “I guess we all overreacted. It seems Owl and I aren’t the only ones on edge lately.”

Green Lama floated down to the ground next to Black Owl. “Hello again, old friend. It’s been a long time.”

Ghost Woman left them to their reintroductions. Blackout returned to studying his modified iPhone. She pulled London aside. “What were you doing here?”

London explained their plan to free Atoman from a government facility and the subsequent destruction of the facility. She could sense the dejected tone of his words. His body seemed to slump at the thought of his own failure at saving one of their own. He took a deep breath to collect himself.

“Why are you here? I don’t understand what would bring you to this place if it wasn’t Atoman.”

She pointed to Blackout. He smacked the side of the iPhone repeatedly while repeatedly pressing commands in to its interface.

“I suppose our situation is similar to yours. I don’t know if you remember Marcus, but we thought he was a friend. He betrayed us to his true master. Or mistress, I should say. Her name is apparently Dominique. He kidnapped Doctor Frost after our return from the Abyss.” She indicated the iPhone again. “Basil modified that mobile device to trace some kind of signal he thinks Doctor Frost releases. I don’t know if it malfunctioned or what, but it brought us here.”

The man in the Daredevil costume walked up to them. “Did you say Dominique?”

She nodded.

London made the introductions. “Ghost Woman, I don’t know if you remember him from back in the day, but this is Daredevil. Only he goes by the Coward now.”

“I knew Dominique from back in the post-war days. Her full name is apparently Dominique Zoom, but if you heard of her it would probably only be as the Sorceress of Zoom. No one quite knows how old she was. Up until the Nazis started to conquer Europe, she floated around on her magic cloud city called Zoom. She attempted to enslave the population of every realm she visited. She would turn the locals in to mindless slaves. It was only Hitler’s rise that turned her in to anything resembling a force for good.”

“You think it’s the same Dominique?”

“She was immortal and amoral,” Coward said. “And after the war she invited me in to a coalition of like-minded individuals. She wanted to form a sort of secret UN made up of metahumans. I turned her down flat. I wanted no part in another fascist empire. The last I heard of her, she started a business empire before vanishing in to anonymity.”

Green Lama and Black Owl joined the other heroes. Ghost Woman could see the concerns in their faces.

“I’ve scanned the entire area,” Green Lama said. “I can’t detect a trace of Atoman anywhere. If he was here, someone took him before they caused the explosion.”

“So someone took him,” Black Owl said.

Coward nodded. “Dominique. If she’s involved, it has to be.”

“She’s not alone either.”

The voice seemed to emerge from a strange fog rolling in. The fog quickly shrunk down in to two human forms. Amazing Man and Mary Lee emerged from the mist.

“I turned my back on this for too long,” Amazing Man said. “I let the Crusader convince me his cause was just. But I knew all along he would play me for a fool. I just never thought he would betray his country to the Cabal.”

Ghost Woman’s eyes narrowed at the mention of the Cabal. The word felt familiar. She knew it, just not how.

“What is this Cabal?” the Owl asked.

Amazing Man looked grim as he explained. “After the war, a group of metas got together to reshape the country. With the American Crusader among them, I thought he would bring reason to their plots. Now I see their insanity only corrupts. If they have Atoman, they could tap his power in ways I can’t even begin to imagine. We have to stop them before they hurt anyone else.”

London shook his head. “Even if we wanted to stop this Cabal, we have no idea where to find them. We’re at a dead end.”

Blackout bounded in to the middle of the discussion. He waved his iPhone tracker over his head. The collected mystery men all looked at the excited imp in confusion.

Ghost Woman smiled. “The tracker! We thought it would find Doctor Frost’s energy signature, but it came after Atoman’s instead! We can use his signature to find him again. If Dominique’s got him, this doodad will lead us straight to her!”

Black Owl pulled his own cell phone from a pocket in his cape. “I’ll get the company jet on standby. It’s time to end this mess. Dominique, the Crusader, and their friends are all going down today.”

They all quickly agreed. Ghost Woman nodded her own affirmative, but she did it with reservations. To her, the situation seemed too cut and dried. Too straight forward. If these people were the master manipulators Amazing Man claimed, they would have plans in place to meet unsuspected visitors.

A voice laughed in the back of her skull. A desiccated skull, still framed in brown hair, seemed to stare back out at her.

They’ve never seen anything like us, darling. And we’re going to make them pay dearly for their transgressions against us.

The laughter echoed through her skull as she rejoined the others.

*****

Airlab, floating over Lake Doom, north of New Salem, Kentucky
January 20, 2009, 12: 45 a.m.

It took several sets of bloody knuckles before he found someone that could lead him on Fear-Lass’s path. He didn’t quite realize how much he missed beating down the criminal element. The fights made him feel alive again. He took little time to enjoy the feeling. He needed to find his granddaughter. He needed to make sure she was safe.

His knuckle-busting tactics proved far more useful than he would ever have expected. It seemed very few people wanted to challenge a two hundred twenty pound man covered in muscle anymore. He could easily force his way past just about anybody with the threat of a good hard punch. It worked to get him easily aboard Airlab, even long after normal work hours.

He shoved open the cargo case he rode up on. The loosened nails easily popped under his strength. He climbed out in to a large storage area. Dim security lights along the far wall offered the only illumination. They would be enough. He could easily make out the door out of the hold only a few feet from him.

He made his way out of the hold. The hallway was much better lit, but equally lifeless. The Airlab operated with only a skeleton crew at night which made his path to the lab areas easy. Only once did he need to duck in to a doorway to avoid a meandering researcher.

After the researcher passed, he slipped back in to the hallway and headed to the first lab. Airlab had over fifty. He knew he needed to check all of them. If someone aboard the ship held Fear-Lass captive, he would make them pay.

After a quick search he found the first lab empty. Ditto the second and third. He knew he was already over twenty minutes in to his search. He had over two dozen labs to check in the next few hours. He contemplated speeding up his pace, but he knew he couldn’t risk missing his daughter’s whereabouts.

He entered the fourth lab. The lights flickered inside the room. Several did not light at all. But they clearly showed the carnage within.

A pool of blood oozed towards Ernesto’s feet. He could see the body from which the blood flowed, but he saw no sign of the corpse’s head. Over the staccato buzz of the flickering lights, he could hear labored breathing from across the room. He drew a pair of brass knuckles from his pants pocket. He walked towards the voice. In the shadow of the flickering lights, he could make out the outline of a figure.

“You’re strange,” the other person said. Ernesto couldn’t determine if the voice was male or female. It had a soft but ever deepening lilt. It almost seemed to be two voices, one over the other as the person spoke.

“You look like an evil one. But your smell and taste are all around. Perhaps you carry the fruit on your branches, but you have yet to ripen. What should I do with you, I wonder?”

The figure rose. The decapitated head of the dead researcher rolled towards Ernesto. The killer hissed like a serpent.

Ernesto knew he needed to press the attack while he still had a chance to survive. He charged at the killer. He threw a fist straight at his foe’s head.

The killer ducked under his blow. Though skinny, Ernesto thought the figure was a man. He ran past Ernesto and straight for the door. Ernesto tried to follow, but the smaller man was far too fast. He disappeared through the door.

Ernesto ran out in to the hallway after the killer. But he found no sign of the murderer.

Instead he stared down the barrel of a half dozen ACTION agents’ sidearms. He vaguely recognized the dark-skinned figure directly in front of him, but it was the agent’s partner he knew the best.

Johanna Chance lowered her weapon. “Captain Fearless, is that you?”

Ernesto nodded. “It’s been a long time, Johanna.”

“Not nearly damn long enough.”

*****

The Chateau, Boston, Massachusetts
January 20, 2009, 8:00 a.m.

“Honestly, Lash. It’s bad enough you have to drag me and the baby out in to the cold weather this early. I just think this blindfold may be going a little far for your surprise.”

Lash kept his hand on Isobel Blake’s shoulder. Isobel clutched Gabriel to her chest. The nearly month old baby rested comfortably against her mother, swaddled in multiple layers of warmth.

“Don’t you worry, dear. I won’t let anything happen to you and the baby. I’ll guide you right where we need to go. I’m sorry it is necessary, but the others absolutely insisted on it.”

“Others? Lash, what the devil are you talking about? I’m beginning to get the heebie jeebies about this whole thing. You need to tell me what’s going on, right now.”

He stopped her with a gentle tug on the shoulder. “It doesn’t matter. We’re here.”

Isobel felt Lash’s hands at the back of her head. He tugged the knot on the blindfold free. He pulled it away from her face and let it drop to the floor.

Isobel looked around the room. Four people looked back at her. She realized with shock that she knew them all.

She recognized the mousy demeanor and spectacles of Archibald Masters despite the gray on his temples. She recalled a brief fling with the American Crusader when she was still just a reporter. He looked good for his age, and more seasoned than before.

To Archie’s right stood the only woman in the group. She wore only a bikini bottom, fishnets, a shelf bra, and pasties, but despite the thoroughly inappropriate attire, she was clearly Dominique, the Sorceress of Zoom. Isobel remembered the woman’s haughty air from their previous encounter.

Manowar stood next to her. He wore his full costume, but otherwise seemed unchanged from the man she first met sixty-five years before. He stood with his arms crossed in front of him and a scowl on his face.

In the shadows to Manowar’s right, the final man stood. He wore a sharply tailored Armani suit, but his fine choice of clothes were not the most distinctive feature. His head was green and scaled with pointed ears, shocking red hair, and a set of fangs. Unlike the mask she remembered, the Face’s mask seemed almost real. Almost alive.

They all stared intently at her. No not me. They’re looking at Gabriel.

“What is this? Why are you all here?”

Lash rested his hand on her shoulder. “Calm down and listen to what they have to say.”

She pulled away from him. “I’ll calm down when I know what’s going on! What is it we’re doing here?”

Dominique stepped forward. Isobel noticed now that the other woman held some kind of riding crop. As she moved, she slapped the crop against her free hand.

“I do believe what your darling Lash is trying to say is that he hasn’t been quite honest with you, dear. We’ve been watching you ever since your unceremonious return. We waited for the right chance to move in and I am proud to say you stepped right in to our little web.”

“What are you talking about?”

Dominique smirked as she looked back at the others. “Precious, isn’t she?”

Archie stepped forward and cleared his throat. “I think what Dominique means is that we all have been less than honest, but with the best of intentions.”

“Your precious Lash doesn’t love you,” Dominique said. “He screwed you for one reason and one reason only.” Dominique licked her lips as she pointed the crop at Isobel’s arms and baby Gabriel.

“No! You can’t have him! He’s mine!”

“We have no intention of taking Gabriel from you,” Archie said. “We understand the importance of a son to a mother. We wish no harm on the boy. He’s far too important for that.”

“What are you talking about?”

Manowar stomped forward. “Enough with this! We want your son. He’s the key to sixty years worth of work! We have worked together to produce a pure specimen. Only by sheer luck did you fall on to our doorstep and make it possible!”

Without moving from the shadows, The Face spoke next. “The metagene has always been… finicky. Under the right conditions it can produce beings of great, even world-shattering power. Under the wrong conditions, it leaves its victim’s horribly mutated, an evolutionary degenerate. In the early eighties, a weaponized metagenetic virus was synthesized and released in forty cities around the world. The virus killed hundreds, deformed tens of thousands, and left only a select few as metahumans. Even now, degens around the world will take any hope of a cure they can find.”

Lash rested a hand on baby Gabriel’s head. “Our child holds the key to it all.”

Isobel shook her head. “You’re all crazy. The pregnancy was a bit odd, but otherwise he’s just a normal, healthy baby.”

“The metagene has degenerated after the genebomb disaster,” Archie said. “As this group came together to make sure America could prevail through the coming decades, we sought out answers to unlock the metagene. We needed to find away to make it breed true. We needed two metahumans that could produce a metahuman child without risk of a degen complication. But the fallout of the genebomb affected every metahuman on the planet. It was a slow, steady process, but by the mid-fifties we all suffered a breakdown of our genetic structure. All of us except Lash.”

“I still don’t know what makes me different,” Lash said. “But you carry the trait too.”

“When you and your friends jumped in to the present, we saw an opportunity,” Dominique said. “Though you were all exposed to the genebomb after effects in forty-five, none of you had the opportunity to suffer the degeneration. My dear Fire-Eater came to me and… offered his help. But the synthesized metavirus proved only slightly less fatal than the original version. We needed a child, bred pure of the infliction.”

The Face hissed his words. “Which left us with one choice. You.”

“Our past made it easy,” Lash said. “It was easy for you to buy in to a relationship I haven’t cared about for sixty years. And the child proved even more perfect than we could have dreamed. Even the incubation period moved at superspeed. You delivered a perfect baby for our study.”

Isobel shook her head. “Please, Lash. Please tell me this is all a sick, cruel joke. Please tell me you don’t mean any of this.”

“You always were simple, Isobel. I used you for the child. Don’t make more of it than what it was.”

“We have two courses of action going forward,” Manowar said. “You can give us the baby and we let you leave here forever. Or you can stay here and take care of the child while we start the genetic sampling.”

“You won’t take him! I won’t let you.”

Lash joined the others in a loose circle around Isobel. “You can’t stop us, Isobel. You know that you don’t stand a chance. A fight would only put Gabriel in danger. None of us want that.”

Tears rolled to Isobel’s eyes. “Please. Just don’t hurt my baby.”

Archie stepped forward and pulled the baby from Isobel’s grip. She collapsed to the floor and sobbed.

“No harm will come to you or Gabriel,” Archie said. “We will find you a room near the nursery we’ve set up in the subbasement. You will both be well taken care of, I promise.”

Manowar came up behind Isobel and pushed her away from the others. She tried to struggle, tried to break his grip, but he was just too strong for her. She could only watch her baby through tear-stained eyes as he forced her from the room.