Phase One: Thor Read online

  “You can reach us there,” he said simply. Then he turned and walked out of the emergency room, Jane and Darcy following.

  They had done what they could for “Thor.” There was nothing left to do. It was now in the hands of the hospital.

  Then why, Jane thought as they walked away, do I feel like I shouldn’t leave him?

  Sighing, she shrugged off the thought. She had tons of data to go through and soil samples to test. She had her hands full enough without the addition of a strange, albeit handsome, man. It was time to go back to her office and get to work.

  When Jane had arrived in Puente Antiguo, there had been little in the way of free office space for rent. So she had settled on what there had been—an abandoned car dealership that had been empty for years. The old sign that read SMITH MOTORS still rose from the roof, a reminder of better days when the town had been more prosperous. Early the next morning, Jane sat hunched over a workstation. The sun rose over the distant mountains through the large windows behind her, making them gleam and sparkle. Jane didn’t notice. She was busy soldering a piece of equipment while a printer churned out images she had taken of the previous night’s storm.

  “Darcy, take those soil samples to Professor Meyers in geology,” Jane said. She put the cover back on the monitor and turned it on. It lit up, displaying a graph of overlapping squiggly lines under the heading “Algorithm Analysis.” Jane studied it, waiting for an insight to jump out at her, while she waited for the images to finish printing.

  Selvig walked into the lab holding two cups of coffee. He placed one in front of Jane and then took a sip from his.

  “We might want to perform a spectral analysis,” he suggested softly.

  Jane looked up, surprised. “We?” she repeated. She wanted to squeal with excitement, but kept her composure.

  “I flew all the way out here,” Selvig said with a casual shrug. “Might as well make myself useful.”

  “You know what would really be useful?” Jane suggested. “If you still had your friend at the observatory… they might have picked up gravitational waves from this, um… event.”

  “You don’t think it was just a magnetic storm?” Selvig asked.

  “These anomalies might signify something bigger,” she said, indicating an image on the monitor. It showed the giant cloud they had seen the night before. As the image shifted, the cloud disappeared, and a blisterlike object appeared in its place. It bulged outward like a balloon, and it appeared to be covered in stars. Jane waited for Selvig to absorb what he was seeing and then she spoke again. “I think the lensing around the edges is characteristic of an Einstein-Rosen Bridge.”

  Darcy, who had been doodling in her notebook while she waited for each of the pictures to print, looked up, confused.

  “A wormhole,” Jane explained in layman’s terms. “A tunnel, pretty much, between different points in space. Only anything that goes through it gets from one point to another instantaneously.”

  What she didn’t say was that it appeared the wormhole, if it was one, had opened into a place unknown to any scientist or astrophysicist. The constellation of stars they saw was brand-new. It didn’t exist in any sky you could see from Earth.

  A moment later, Darcy’s voice broke into Jane’s thoughts. “Hey, check it out,” she said.

  Jane turned, about to chastise Darcy for interrupting her, but the words died on her lips. Darcy was holding up a picture of the funnel cloud of stars. And there, in the middle of it, as if being shot down from the heavens like a bolt of lightning, was the unmistakable image of a man. Thor.

  All three were silent as they tried to process what this meant.

  “I think I left something at the hospital,” Jane said finally.

  Racing toward the door, she hoped that Thor would still be there.

  When they arrived, room 102 was empty. The bed was overturned, and the IV stand lay on the ground. Clearly, Thor had decided to check himself out. Sighing, Jane went back to the parking lot.

  “Typical,” she said. “I just lost my best piece of evidence.”

  “So, now what?” Darcy said when she saw that Jane was alone.

  “We find him,” Jane answered.

  “Did you see what he did in there?” Selvig protested. “Finding him might not be the best idea.”

  Jane didn’t care. “Our data won’t tell us what it was like inside the event. He can.”

  This Thor person, whoever he was, was the most important piece of information Jane had. There was no way she was going to just let him disappear. Of course it had nothing whatsoever to do with the fact that he was incredibly handsome and had made her heart race wildly. No, it had nothing to do with that. It was all about the science.

  “So we’re just going to spend the rest of the day looking for him?” Selvig asked. He sounded skeptical.

  “As long as it takes,” she said, and yanked open the car door.

  Getting in the driver’s seat, she put the car in reverse, stepped on the gas, and—BAM! She hit something—again. With a groan, she looked in the rearview mirror. Thor! Dressed in hospital scrubs, he lay on the ground in a position eerily similar to the one from the night before.

  Leaping out of the car, she raced around to the back and knelt down. “I’m so sorry!” she cried. “I swear I’m not doing that on purpose.”

  Thor didn’t say anything for a moment. He simply gazed up at the sun, which was now high in the sky, its rays warming the pavement. “Blue sky, one sun,” he said softly. Then he groaned. “Oh no. This is Earth, isn’t it?”

  A TOUCH OF BLUE

  Loki could not stop looking at his arm. It looked normal now, but during the fight against the Jotuns there had been a moment when their icy blue coloration had spread across his flesh. Not as an infection, but as if the touch of one of Laufey’s Jotun warriors had awakened something in Loki that only his body remembered. The blue color, and the chill that had come with it, were gone as soon as the Jotuns broke physical contact with Loki. He had told no one.

  “We should never have let him go,” Volstagg said. His normal boisterous spirits had given way to gloom.

  “There was no stopping him,” Sif said.

  Fandral agreed. “At least he’s only banished, not dead. Which is what we’d all be if that guard hadn’t told Odin where we’d gone.”

  “How did the guard even know?” Volstagg asked.

  There was a pause. Then Loki said, “I told him.”

  “What?” Fandral was shocked.

  “I told him to go to Odin after we’d left,” Loki said. “Though he should be flogged for taking so long.”

  Volstagg grew angry. “You told the guard?”

  “I saved our lives!” Loki said. “And Thor’s. I had no idea Father would banish him for what he did.”

  Sif, as always, was already looking for solutions. “Loki, you’re the only one who can help Thor now,” she said. “You must go to the All-Father and convince him to change his mind!”

  “And if I do, then what?” Loki asked. “I love Thor more dearly than any of you, but you know what he is. He’s arrogant. He’s reckless. He’s dangerous. You saw how he was today. Is that what Asgard needs from its king?”

  None of them wanted to admit it, but Loki had a point. He waited for them to say something. When they didn’t, he left the room. Sif and the Warriors Three watched him go.

  “He may speak about the good of Asgard, but he’s always been jealous of Thor,” Sif said.

  “True, but we should be grateful to him. He did save our lives,” Volstagg pointed out.

  Hogun, who spoke rarely, spoke then. “Laufey said there were traitors in the House of Odin.”

  “Why is it every time you choose to speak, it has to be something dark and ominous?” Fandral complained.

  “A master of magic could easily bring three Jotuns into Asgard,” Hogun said.

  The other three looked at him, understanding what he meant. Loki could have done it. Who else in Asgard had more reason
?

  But it was unthinkable. “No, surely not,” Volstagg said.

  “Loki’s always been one for mischief, but you’re talking about something else entirely,” Fandral added.

  Sif tended to agree with Hogun. “Who else could elude Heimdall’s gaze with tricks of light and shadow?”

  Volstagg thought of something else. “The ceremony was interrupted just before Thor was named king.” That was suspicious timing.

  “We should go to the All-Father,” Sif said.

  “And tell him what?” Fandral wanted to know. That his son betrayed the throne? Oh, and by the way, he should go back on his banishment of Thor just because we want him to?”

  “It’s our duty,” Sif insisted. “If any of our suspicions are right, then all of Asgard is in danger.”

  Down in the Vault, Loki thought he probably knew what Sif and the Warriors Three were talking about. They would suspect him by now. They had never trusted him. Few Asgardians believed Loki had the realm’s best interests at heart—but they did not know him. He had only ever wanted to please Odin and prove himself worthy.

  The Casket of Ancient Winters stood on its pedestal before the steel gate hiding the Destroyer. Loki walked to the pedestal and grasped it with both hands.

  As he did, the blue color he had first seen in Jotunheim spread up his hands and arms. He felt it, a deep chill in his body, as though something inside him was being awakened by touching the Casket.

  The gate hiding the Destroyer began to fold away into itself. The Destroyer stepped forth, its Odinforce flames beginning to glow. Loki ignored it. He felt the chill spreading with the blue color, all over his body. It covered his face, and he felt something change, even in his eyes.

  “Stop!” came a commanding voice from the far end of the chamber.

  Loki turned to see his father. Behind him he heard the Destroyer stop and step back behind the gate. It reformed in front of the gate, hiding itself away again.

  There was pain in Odin’s eyes, and regret.

  “Am I cursed?” Loki asked. He needed answers. What was happening to him?

  “No,” Odin said. “Put the Casket down.”

  Loki did, replacing it on the pedestal. As he let it go, he felt warmth flood through his body again. He watched the blue color fade away from his skin.

  “What am I?” he asked.

  “You’re my son,” Odin answered.

  “What more than that?” Loki demanded. He thought he knew the truth, but he wanted to hear Odin say it.

  But Odin could not reply. Loki would have to do it for him. “The Casket wasn’t the only thing you took from Jotunheim the last day of the war… was it?”

  Odin looked Loki in the eye. “No,” he said. He sighed, knowing he would have to tell the whole story. Leaning on Gungnir for support, he began.

  “In the aftermath of the battle, I went into the temple, and I found a baby. Small for a giant’s offspring—abandoned, suffering, left to die. Laufey’s son.”

  Loki was stunned by this revelation. He was not just a Jotun, but the son of the Jotun king? The same king he had bargained with for his friends’ lives?

  “Laufey’s son…” he repeated, as if by saying it aloud he could begin to make sense of it. “Why? The temple was littered with Jotun bodies. You were at war. Why would you take me?”

  “You were an innocent child,” Odin said—but Loki, so skilled in the arts of persuasion and lying, knew there was more to it.

  “You took me for a purpose,” he said. “What was it?”

  Odin did not reply.

  “Tell me!” Loki cried out, begging to know the truth. Everything he thought he had known about himself—and about the All-Father—was crumbling away.

  “I thought we could unite our kingdoms one day, bring about an alliance, bring about a permanent peace… through you,” Odin said. “But those plans no longer matter.”

  “So I am no more than another stolen relic,” Loki said bitterly. “Locked up here until you might have use of me.”

  Odin shook his head. “Why do you twist my words?”

  “You could have told me what I was from the beginning. Why didn’t you?” Loki asked.

  “You are my son. My blood. I wanted only to protect you from the truth.”

  Overtaken by anger and hurt, Loki said, “Why? Because I am the monster parents tell their children about at night?”

  “Don’t,” Odin said.

  “It all makes sense now. Why you favored Thor all these years,” Loki said. He took a step toward Odin, growing more and more angry. “Because no matter how much you claim to love me, you could never have a Jotun sitting on the Throne of Asgard!”

  Odin began to shake. Loki knew Odin was weak, but right now he did not care. He had been deceived. He had been a pawn of Odin’s for his whole life. He wasn’t even a real Asgardian.

  Very well, Loki thought. Now I know the truth. Soon enough, so will the rest of Asgard. But first he had a few more plans to lay.

  He walked past his father, toward the door that would lead up and out of the Vault.

  “Listen to me!” Odin cried out behind him. “Loki!”

  Loki heard a thump. He turned and saw Odin slumping against the wall. He slid down the wall and sprawled on the stairs leading up to the door. Strange trails of light swirled behind every motion, a sure sign that the Odinsleep was beginning.

  Loki ran to him, all of his anger suddenly overcome by fear. He loved Odin. Even though Odin had lied to him, that love was still stronger than his hurt. He knelt next to Odin and gathered the sleeping All-Father in his arms.

  “Guards!” he shouted.

  A FEAST OF DELIGHTS

  Back at her trailer behind the lab, Jane rummaged through her drawers, hoping to find something that might come close to fitting Thor. She grabbed an old pair of jeans and a T-shirt and brought them into the lab and handed them to Thor. Nodding over her shoulder, she told him he could change in the back. Then she went to join Darcy.

  A moment later, Thor walked back into the main part of the lab, bare-chested and holding the shirt in one hand. Jane’s mouth went dry.

  “You know, for a crazy homeless guy, he’s pretty cut,” Darcy observed, glancing between Thor and Jane in amusement. She had worked for Jane only for a little while, but she had never seen her boss act like this. It made her seem less like a superscientist and more like a human being.

  Walking over, Thor held up the shirt. A sticker on the front of it was peeling off. It read: HELLO, MY NAME IS DR. DONALD BLAKE.

  Jane blushed and quickly ripped the sticker off. “My ex,” she explained. “They’re the only clothes I had that’ll fit you.”

  Thor took the shirt back and put it on over his head. When he was fully dressed, he began to walk around the lab, glancing at the various schematics and drawings that covered the drawing boards and walls. He stopped in front of the collection of pictures from the storm Darcy had posted.

  “What were you doing in that?” Jane asked, walking over and pointing to the picture in the center. Thor’s outline could clearly be seen floating in the middle of the cloud.

  Thor looked closer and then shrugged. “What does anyone do in the Bifrost?” he said dismissively.

  Bifrost? Jane wrote the word in her notebook. Why did that sound familiar? And why did Thor act as though this was nothing special? Who was he? She felt a tug in her gut, as though the answer were staring her in the face. But she shrugged it off. She probably just needed some sleep.

  Thor, on the other hand, needed food. “This mortal form has grown weak,” he said.

  A short while later, the four sat in a booth at the only diner in town. Thor hadn’t been kidding. He really was hungry. There was enough food on the table in front of him to feed the whole group. There was a platter of steak and eggs, a tall stack of pancakes, and a dozen biscuits covered with gravy. Thor scooped up a mouthful of eggs and downed it with a large swig of coffee. “This drink,” he said, “I like it.” Then he threw the m
ug down to the floor, shattering it and causing the other patrons to jump in their seats. “Another!”

  Jane looked over at the diner’s owner and smiled apologetically. “Sorry, Izzy,” she said. Then, turning back to Thor, she hissed, “What was that?”

  “It was delicious,” Thor said. “I want another.”

  He sounded like a petulant little boy. “Then you should just say so,” she instructed, embarrassed by Thor’s thoughtless behavior.

  “I just did,” Thor replied, looking confused.

  “I meant just ask for it,” she said.

  As Thor took another bite of his pancakes, two locals entered the diner and took a seat at the counter. Jane had seen them around. Jake and Pete. They were known in Puente Antiguo for spending a bit too much time having fun. However, at the moment, they seemed calm. Smiling at Isabella, they ordered cups of coffee.

  “You missed all the excitement out at the crater,” Jake said loud enough for Jane to hear.

  Pete nodded excitedly. “They’re saying some kind of satellite crashed.”

  At the mention of “satellite,” Selvig perked up. “What did it look like?” he asked, getting up and walking over.

  “Don’t know nothing about the satellite,” Jake answered, “but it was heavy! Nobody could lift it.”

  At that, Thor leaped to his feet, rattling the dishes and causing Jane to almost choke on her coffee. His eyes were wild as he rushed over and put his face right in Jake’s. “Where?” he demanded.

  Jake gulped visibly and tried to back away from the strange man in front of him. “Uh—uh—about fifty miles west of here,” he said, his voice shaking.

  Thor grinned. Jake and Pete looked like his expression scared them even more. “But, um, I wouldn’t bother,” Pete said. “Looked like the whole Army was coming in when we left!”