Phase One: Marvel's The Avengers Page 4

  “Word is you can find the cube,” Steve said.

  “Is that the only word on me?” Bruce asked.

  Steve knew what his real question was. “Only word I care about,” he said. He didn’t judge Bruce for what the Hulk had done. All that mattered was whether the scientist could contribute to the mission.

  “It must be strange for you, all of this,” Bruce said as they walked along the aircraft carrier’s flight deck.

  “Well, this is actually kind of familiar,” Steve said. He was comfortable in a military setting, and he had been on aircraft carriers before. The Yorktown, the Enterprise… a long time ago.

  “Gentlemen,” Agent Romanoff said. “You might want to step inside in a minute. It’s going to get a little hard to breathe.”

  “Flight crew, secure the deck,” a voice said over the ship’s speakers.

  “Is this a submarine?” Steve asked. He couldn’t imagine an aircraft carrier that could operate underwater. How would you seal it? Where would all the planes go? Wouldn’t the drag from the water tear up the flight deck and the gun turrets?

  “Really?” Bruce said. “They want me in a submerged, pressurized metal container?”

  They walked to the edge of the deck and Steve saw he’d had it exactly wrong. The carrier wasn’t going down… it was going up.

  Huge turbines, each fifty yards across, appeared, churning the ocean into froth. Crews ran to lock the planes in place on the flight deck and secure other essential equipment.

  “No, this is much worse,” Bruce said.

  The carrier lifted into the air. Steve couldn’t believe what he was seeing. An aircraft carrier that could fly! “Welcome aboard the S.H.I.E.L.D. Helicarrier,” Agent Romanoff said. “Now if you’ll come with me?”

  Steve and Bruce followed her from the flight deck down to the Helicarrier’s bridge, which was underwater while it was in naval operation mode. Now it was a glass-walled hive of activity, full of officers and command staff. Steve had a moment to look around. The commanding officer appeared to be a woman with short dark hair reeling off orders from near the center of the bridge. “S.H.I.E.L.D. Emergency Protocol 193.6 in effect,” she was saying after a series of status orders and acknowledgments. Steve didn’t know what protocol that was. At the moment, all he knew was that he was on a flying aircraft carrier… and wasn’t that enough? Amazing.

  “We’re at level, sir,” she said, and that was when Steve saw Nick Fury, at his own station. He was overseeing everything, not interfering, trusting his people to do their jobs.

  “Good,” he said. “Let’s vanish, Agent Hill.”

  She nodded. “Engage retro-reflection panels.”

  The Helicarrier disappeared from view. From the inside, it didn’t look any different, but Steve saw monitors from satellite feeds, and on those, the Helicarrier had simply become invisible. He corrected himself: He wasn’t just on a flying aircraft carrier. He was on an invisible flying aircraft carrier.

  The future was pretty… cool, was the word everyone used now.

  “Gentlemen,” Fury said in greeting.

  Steve got out his wallet and handed Fury ten dollars. Fury had won the bet fair and square; Steve was in fact surprised by what he was seeing. Not just surprised—astounded. Fury nodded, with just the hint of a smile, and stowed the bill in his pocket.

  “Doctor, thank you for coming,” he said to Bruce. A crew member at a navigation terminal called out the Helicarrier’s altitude: twenty-four thousand feet and climbing toward an operational cruising altitude of thirty thousand.

  “Thanks for asking nicely,” Bruce said. “So how long am I staying?”

  “Once we get our hands on the Tesseract, you’re in the wind.”

  Bruce nodded. “Where are you with that?”

  Fury looked to Coulson, who said, “We’re sweeping every wirelessly accessible camera on the planet. Cell phones, laptops… if it’s connected to a satellite, it’s eyes and ears for us.”

  “That’s still not going to find them in time,” Agent Romanoff said.

  Bruce seemed to agree. “You have to narrow your field. How many spectrometers do you have access to?”

  “How many are there?” Fury asked, meaning that S.H.I.E.L.D. could get access to all of them if necessary.

  “Call every lab you know. Tell them to put the spectrometers on the roof and calibrate them for gamma rays. I’ll rough out a tracking algorithm basic cluster recognition. At least we can rule out a few places that way.” Bruce had taken off his jacket. Now he was rolling up his sleeves. “You have somewhere for me to work?”

  “Agent Romanoff?” Fury called. She looked over. “Show Dr. Banner to his laboratory, please?”

  “You’re going to love it, Doc,” she said as she led him off the bridge. “You’ve got all the toys.”

  In Loki’s hideout, Erik Selvig was receiving a new shipment of supplies and parts. “Put it over there,” he ordered as a group of technicians wheeled in the crates. He was putting the final touches on the machine Loki had commissioned him to create. “Where did you find all these people?” he asked Barton, who was tapping at a tablet nearby.

  “S.H.I.E.L.D. has no shortage of enemies, Doctor,” Barton said. “Is this the stuff you need?”

  “Yeah, iridium. It’s found in meteorites,” Selvig explained. “It forms antiprotons. It’s very hard to get hold of.”

  “Especially if S.H.I.E.L.D. knows you need it,” Barton commented.

  “Well, I didn’t know.” Barton’s comment made Selvig a little defensive. It wasn’t like he had planned to need iridium when he’d gone to work in New Mexico three days ago. But he brightened as he saw Loki approach. “Hey, the Tesseract has shown me so much.” Selvig struggled to find words that would convey what he had experienced working with the cube. “It’s more than knowledge,” he said. “It’s… truth.”

  “I know,” Loki said. “What did it show you, Agent Barton?”

  Barton turned to look at Loki. “My next target,” he said.

  Loki nodded. “Tell me what you need.”

  Barton took one his bows out of a case and snapped it into shape with a flick of his arm. “I need a distraction,” he said. “And a biometric ID.”

  CHAPTER 10

  It took nearly twenty-four hours, but Coulson had finally gotten the courage up to ask Captain America to sign his trading card. “I mean, if it’s not too much trouble.”

  “No, it’s fine,” Captain America said. He was spending a lot of time on the Helicarrier’s bridge, watching how the flight crew operated. He liked to know things like that. You never knew when they would come in handy.

  “It’s a vintage set. Took me a couple of years to collect them all. Near mint. Slight foxing around the edges, but…”

  “We got a hit!” called Agent Jasper Sitwell, one of the S.H.I.E.L.D. officers who worked closely with Fury and Hill. He was in charge of the search for gamma radiation, keyed to the search procedures Bruce had designed. “Sixty-seven percent match. Wait… cross-match… seventy-nine percent.”

  That was pretty decisive. Either Loki was at that location, or someone else had some of the power of the Tesseract and was carrying it there.

  “Location?” Coulson asked.

  “Stuttgart, Germany,” Sitwell said. “28 Königstrasse. He’s not exactly hiding.”

  A map appeared on one of the monitors close to Coulson and Captain America. That address looked to be a museum of some kind, facing a large open plaza. There would be lots of civilians. A tricky place to operate… but they didn’t have a choice.

  “Captain,” Fury said, “you’re up.”

  The benefit at the museum in Stuttgart was quite a high-end affair. A string quartet played for the gathered donors and local celebrities, who milled around in their best clothes making small talk. Outside, Barton infiltrated security without breaking stride. He handed off his bow to a member of his support team and cracked the side door’s access panel.

  Inside, Loki had been mingl
ing with the crowd, taking on the appearance of an ordinary man with a walking stick. But as the president of the museum, one Doktor Heinrich Schäfer, began his welcoming speech, Loki decided it was time to make a dramatic entrance. He tapped the walking stick on the floor and it became his scepter. Immediately, to get the crowd’s attention, he aimed it at the nearest museum security guard and fired. Screams echoed through the vaulted museum lobby. Loki strode the rest of the way down the stairs and manhandled Schäfer over to a stone altar that was one of the museum’s prized ancient Norse relics. He slammed Schäfer onto his back, forcing a machine over his face. Schäfer cried out in pain and surprise as the machine shone blinding light into his face, holding his eyes open.

  Outside, Barton held a portable holographic projector over the access panel. A three-dimensional model of Doktor Schäfer’s eye appeared in the projector field. The door opened.

  Inside, people screamed and fled the sudden violence. Loki strode through the museum’s great hall, his appearance transforming. He had walked in wearing a suit and tie like everyone else. Now he was garbed in the cloak and armor of his Asgardian heritage. The twin horns of his helmet gleamed in the streetlights as he followed the crowd outside. A police car, alerted by the commotion, raced toward him. He blasted it with his scepter, and it spun out of control and crashed.

  The crowd had clustered in the plaza in front of the museum. Loki willed himself to be in their midst, and he was, appearing magically to stop them from fleeing any farther. “Kneel before me,” he commanded.

  They scattered away from him. Loki multiplied himself, creating illusions that looked just like him all over the plaza. “I… said… KNEEL!” he roared, and the sound came from all of the copies of him as well, booming through the open space.

  The crowd froze. Slowly the crowd knelt, and Loki reveled in their submission. “There,” he said. “Is this not simpler? Is this not your natural state? It’s the unspoken truth of humanity, that you crave subjugation. The bright lure of freedom diminishes your life’s joy in a mad scramble for power, for identity. You were made to be ruled. In the end, you will always kneel.”

  An old man in the middle of the crowd stood. Loki paused in his speech to regard this individual. Around him, all the copies of himself also looked at this old man.

  “Not to men like you,” the old man said.

  “There are no men like me,” Loki said.

  “There are always men like you,” the old man said.

  “Look to your elder, people,” Loki said. “Let him be an example.” A wolfish grin spread over his face, and he leveled the scepter at the old man.

  As the blast discharged from it, someone dropped from the sky and blocked it with a shield! The bolt of energy reflected back and knocked Loki down.

  Loki looked up to see a muscular costumed hero, wearing blue with stripes of white and red. His shield was also decorated in those colors, with a five-pointed star at its center that matched the star on the hero’s chest. “You know,” he said, “the last time I was in Germany and saw a man standing above everybody else, we ended up disagreeing.”

  “The soldier,” Loki spat. He knew of this one. The so-called Captain America. He got to his feet. “The man out of time.”

  “I’m not the one who’s out of time,” Captain America said. There was an engine whine, and a Quinjet hovered into view over the plaza. From its belly hung a mounted gun.

  Agent Romanoff’s voice came over the Quinjet’s speakers: “Loki, drop the weapon and stand down.”

  Instead, Loki fired a blast from the scepter at the Quinjet, which rolled out of the way. Captain America flung his shield, striking Loki in the arm and knocking him briefly off balance. The shield returned to him, and he followed it up with a right cross to Loki’s jaw.

  But Loki was tougher than he looked. He struck back with the scepter, forcing Captain America to parry until Loki found an opening and slammed the butt of the scepter into Captain America’s midsection, knocking him down. Captain America threw the shield again, but this time Loki was ready. He knocked it aside. It fell ringing to the stones of the plaza, and Loki had the tip of the scepter against the back of Captain America’s neck before the soldier could get back to his feet.

  “Kneel,” he said.

  Captain America pivoted into a leaping spinning kick that knocked Loki flat. “Not today,” he said.

  The battle was rejoined as Agent Romanoff tried to maneuver the Quinjet into position for a clean shot at Loki. “Guy’s all over the place,” she complained. She couldn’t fire without possibly hitting either Captain America or one of the bystanders running all over the plaza.

  Her communications system squawked, and she heard a familiar song… and a familiar voice. “Agent Romanoff. You miss me?”

  It was Tony Stark.

  The music blared over the Quinjet’s speakers, echoing through the plaza, as Iron Man blazed down out of the sky. A twin blast from his repulsor gauntlets smashed Loki to the ground. Iron Man landed and made a show of deploying every weapon the Iron Man suit had: repulsors, minimissiles, unibeam, the whole works. “Make your move, Reindeer Games,” he said.

  Loki didn’t move. He returned to his civilian appearance and held up his hands.

  “Good move,” Iron Man said. He retracted all of his armaments.

  Captain America came up next to him. “Mr. Stark.”

  “Captain.”

  CHAPTER 11

  They stood guard over Loki on the Quinjet, getting him back to the Helicarrier as quickly as possible. Loki said nothing and offered no further resistance. Captain America leaned in close to Tony Stark and said, “I don’t like it.”

  “What—Rock of Ages giving up so easily?”

  Steve snorted. “I don’t remember it being that easy. This guy packs a wallop.”

  “Still, you’re pretty spry for an older fellow,” Tony said. “What’s your thing—Pilates? Oh, right. That’s kind of like calisthenics. You must have missed a lot while you were doing time as a Capsicle.”

  Steve didn’t take the bait. He knew Tony liked to get under people’s skin. All he said was, “Fury didn’t tell me he was calling you in.”

  “Yeah, there’re a lot of things Fury doesn’t tell you.”

  A sudden storm rose around the Quinjet. Natasha looked at the instrument panel. There’d been no warning of heavy weather. “Where’s this coming from?” she wondered out loud.

  At first, she thought that Loki was responsible. But that didn’t appear to be the case. He looked more nervous than anyone else on the jet.

  “What’s the matter?” Cap asked. “You scared of a little lightning?”

  “I’m not overly fond of what follows,” Loki replied.

  A loud crack of thunder punctuated Loki’s remark, and soon after, the Quinjet rocked as something huge landed on top of the jet. Captain America and Iron Man suited up, preparing to respond. From a jet cam, Natasha could see a man in full battle armor crouching on top of the jet, illuminated by the lightning that crashed around him. He had long blond hair and held a square-headed hammer.

  Iron Man punched the button that lowered the rear gangway of the Quinjet. Turbulence rocked the plane, and the wind inside swirled wildly. “What are you doing?” Steve shouted over the tempest.

  As the ramp got all the way open, the hammer-bearing attacker appeared on the gangway.

  Stunned, Iron Man held up his hands to fire a repulsor blast, but before he could act, the hammer hit him square in the gut, knocking him into Captain America and tangling both of them in a heap up front near the cockpit. With Iron Man and Captain America out of commission, the blond warrior grabbed Loki around the neck, and before anyone could do anything about it, he raised the hammer and jumped back out of the Quinjet, disappearing into the storm.

  “Another Asgardian?” Natasha called from the cockpit.

  “That guy’s a friendly?” Steve asked. It was hard to believe.

  “Doesn’t matter,” Iron Man said. “If he fre
es Loki—or kills him—the Tesseract’s lost.”

  “Stark, we need a plan of attack!” Steve said as Iron Man stomped toward the open gangway.

  “I have a plan,” Iron Man said over his shoulder. “Attack.”

  Then he rocketed out of the ship.

  Steve was amazed at the speed at which Tony moved. He grabbed a parachute and strapped it on.

  Natasha looked at him skeptically. They were thousands of feet above land, the Quinjet was moving at a supersonic clip, and—as far as she knew—Captain America couldn’t fly.

  “I’d sit this one out, Cap,” she said.

  “I don’t see how I can,” Steve said.

  “These guys come from legend. They’re basically gods.”

  Maybe Steve was old-fashioned, but he didn’t think so. “There’s only one God, ma’am. And I’m pretty sure he doesn’t dress like that.”

  Then he took three steps to the edge of the gangway, gauged the Quinjet’s slipstream, and jumped.

  Thor let Loki fall well before they got to the ground. Loki’s impact dug up a trench on the forested hillside, and he lay groaning while Thor landed near him. “Where is the Tesseract?”

  With a pained laugh, Loki said, “I missed you, too.”

  “Do I look to be in a gaming mood?”

  “You should thank me,” Loki said. He was starting to get up. “With the Bifrost gone, how much dark energy did the All-Father have to muster to conjure you here, to your precious Earth?”

  Thor dropped Mjolnir and caught his brother by the shirtfront, giving him a quick but powerful shake. “I thought you were dead,” he growled.

  “Did you mourn?”

  “We all did. Our father—”

  “Your father,” Loki replied. He swatted Thor’s hands away, and Thor let him. “He did tell you my true parentage, did he not?”

  “Loki, we were raised together. We played together; we fought together. Do you remember none of that?”

  “I remember a shadow,” Loki said bitterly. “Living in the shade of your greatness. I remember you tossing me into an abyss. I who was and should be king!”