The Fantastic Four #15

[pyrceval]

The Multiverse Presents

FANTASTIC FOUR #15
Thinking Errors Part 2: The Day After
Written by Joel A Sawyer (Glippernip)
Edited By Luke Nester (Pyrceval)

Susan Storm lay in surgery at Mercy’s Veterans Hospital. She had been under the knife for two hours and forty minutes. Simply put, two of the three projectiles that had hit her had caused potentially fatal wounds, and she had almost bled out in the grass in front of the facility.

It all had started so...normally for the cosmic ray-created super-team. Johnny had schmoozed his way through a talk show interview, Ben had an almost normal date with Alicia Masters, and Reed and Sue spent some quality time alone. The next morning at a press conference introducing Reed’s new device, a machine that could siphon lethal radiation from a contaminated person, a robot called the Dreadnought simply walked up and challenged them, its maker stating through a remote comm system that he wanted to test his creation. The battle had been short but brutal, with Johnny coming out with only scratches. Ben had withstood an amazing amount of punishment, and even his teeth ached, but he had sustained no serious injury. Reed had been temporarily frozen but was all right after a melt by Johnny and two cups of coffee. Sue, however, now lay in critical condition in the very building where she had stood at the main entrance announcing Reed’s discovery.

And, because news crews had been there for the press conference, cameras had caught the entire battle. Now, New York City and the nation anxiously waited to learn of Sue’s fate.

[pyrceval]

Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. had arrived shortly after the fight and attempted to take possession of the Dreadnought, causing a moment of tension.

"You can have it when I am finished, Agent Woo," Reed had told the young Asian in a blue S.H.I.E.L.D. uniform.

"With all due respect, Dr. Richards, this is our jurisdiction. We will investigate the attack and give you a full report. It is standard protocol."

Reed sighed. "Not long ago," he said, "Giant robots created by the government attacked mutants for little or no cause, including some on foreign ground. Four different government departments are vying for ownership of America’s superhuman agenda. There is no standard protocol. I will keep the robot until I know who sent it. Then you may have it."

"Are you suggesting that you can analyze it faster than our scientists can?"

"Mr. Woo, I will have examined that thing twenty times before your people would even have decided where to send it. It’s just another weapon to reproduce for you. For me, it's my top priority."

Now Jimmy Woo sighed. This was not a pissing contest Woo wanted any part of. "At least provide us with a full report of your findings," he added.

[pyrceval]

After another hour, the chief surgeon approached those in waiting.

"She is stable," the doctor told them gravely, "If she makes it through the next six hours, she should pull through, barring any complications."

At that point, they left the hospital and prepared the Dreadnought for transport.

"Reed," Johnny asked, "How long do you think it will take for you to find this monster’s creator?"

"I don’t know," the scientist replied. "I can think of three or four ways, off hand, to search. If those don’t work, I’ll dig deeper."

"I hope you find him quickly. When you do, I get him first."
"Now, Johnny, you’re not the only one affected by this," Reed cautioned.

"Oh, I’m sure you are affected, but when it comes to loving Susan Storm, you’re a little late in the game, Reed. She’s been there since I was born. I want a shot at the one who did this to her!"

Reed could only nod.

"I just don’t get it," Ben Grimm growled. "We use our powers for th’ greater good, and it puts a big, fat target on our backs. Makes me wanta lose faith in the world, and I ain’t got much o’ that in the first place."

[pyrceval]

Two and a half hours later, Reed Richards toiled in his quest. He had been obsessive about projects before, but this transcended scientific curiosity. He hadn’t eaten or even taken a sip of water since breakfast. He didn’t even register time as it passed. All he knew was that he didn’t find any fingerprints and the robot’s programming did not reveal any clues. Yet.

But Reed was just getting started.

"Thanks for that, Alicia," Ben said before disconnecting the line. He wanted to pound something, to rip something up. He wanted it to be clobberin’ time. "I need to lift some weights," he decided.

[pyrceval]

Five o’clock.
The twenty year old pulled his gun, and the two men jumped back in alarm. It was one of those things. The short guy had a few beers, made some racial references to a pair of Hispanic teenagers, and the situation escalated to a shouting match. Instead of using common sense, Mr. Loves-His-Liquor strolled to his vehicle, grabbed his pistol, and began to threaten the young adults. He didn’t care that young children were walking out of the convenience store this all was taking place at.
Then The Human Torch had the gunslinger, slamming him roughly against the wall of the building next door. The rough brick of the wall dug into the back of the man’s head, and the Torch’s heat dried his skin and burned his nose-hair when he inhaled.
"Didn’t you see those kids!" Johnny screamed into his face. "What were you going to do, shoot them? They weren’t following you! But you had to be the big man, had to show how tough you are!"

The Torch ripped the pistol from the terrified man’s hand, ejecting the magazine and the chambered bullet. He concentrated his heat into the hand that held the weapon, and the gun drooped and bent out of workable shape until Johnny dropped it to the tarmac.

"Next time, just walk away," Johnny commanded before taking off. Just pulling a little scare on him, he told himself.
It would be over an hour before the man could drive himself home.

[pyrceval]

Johnny and Ben received the signal just before sunset. They rushed to Reed’s main lab, which was still under heavy repairs from the Frightful Four’s attack.

"Whoever created this is quite clever," Reed stated. "No prints, no obviously traceable components, nothing leads me directly to the maker. However, the programming includes a GPS system, and I don’t think the builder realized that it recorded the place where the robot started from this morning, or he didn’t think I would find it and backtrack it so quickly. Either way..." Reed hit a few keys and motioned to the screen, which flashed a city grid.
Ben and Johnny stared at the grid.

"I know where that is," Grimm replied, snapping (scraping) his fingers. "That isn’t far from the hospital."

"I know where it is, too," Johnny growled. "Flame on!" He triggered the special skylight exit to the complex.

"Johnny, ya don’t know what yer gonna find," The Thing shouted in a deep, gruff voice. "Wait fer us!" As Johnny turned the corner heading for the access, Ben turned to Mr. Fantastic. "We gotta catch him, Reed, before he does somethin’ stupid!"

"I agree," Reed replied, "but the fantasticar will need ten minutes preparation time before it will fly, and it will take us longer to get there on foot."

Ben grimaced (which would give children nightmares). "We better start prayin’, then," he said.

[pyrceval]

The photographer saw The Human Torch coming straight at him flying about thirty feet above the street, and lifted his camera, clicking off several almost perfect pictures. He zoomed in on the Torch’s face, and didn’t like what he saw. In fact, that angry expression caused a tingle in the back of his head.

He looks furious, and with what went down this morning, I can’t blame him. Maybe I should take a look, especially since I already have some prize-winning photos, here. J.J. loves the FF far more than Spidey! Peter Parker headed for the nearest alley.

[pyrceval]

It appeared to be an old production factory that hadn’t been used for a long time. No lighting illuminated the cracked parking lot. Many of the doors were chained shut from the outside, but two semi-truck wells and a corresponding human door stood open on the western side of the place with a soft glow emanating from within. The Human Torch circled and moved toward those open doors.

"I’m impressed," a familiar voice called out over a PA system. "I thought I would have a least a few days to vacate my workshop."

"You’ll be lucky if you can walk out of your workshop on your own ability," Torch said.

"I didn’t say that I’m unprepared," the voice remarked. From what at first glance appeared as a trash can, two small rockets fired off, each about a foot long.

"You have to be kidding," Torch snapped, throwing fire before the rockets even cleared their launch ports. They exploded right above the truck dock, and once the explosion died down, Johnny blazed into the building through one of the truck doors, destroying the rocket launcher as he passed.

Beyond the truck door lay a fairly large room, the like of which Johnny was unfamiliar with in his experience. A gray stone floor polka-dotted with old grease stains and striped with yellow lines designating lord knows what spread before him. The walls were made of cinder blocks painted white but were now gray with dust. Various unrecognizable pieces of machinery lay about the walls, leaving the center open, presumably for traffic. Except for a small area across the shop, everything looked old and unused. At the far end stood a cluster of much newer equipment surrounded by lighting. A wooden staircase led up into a windowed room that overlooked the entire floor. The entire place smelled of oil, dust, and mildew.

A dark-haired individual watched Johnny from the windowed booth.

"So you’re the one who sent that killer after us," The Human Torch called as he hovered about ten feet off the floor, "Well, we crushed your doo-dad like a jock squeezing a pop can!"

"I didn’t expect Dreadnought to defeat all four of you," the voice echoed from speakers throughout the chamber, "You should not have come here alone, Johnny Storm."

To Johnny’s surprise, some of the chunks of junk came alive around him. Like the losers from the old Robot Wars TV show, a dozen technological less-than wonders moved toward him, some dragging pieces of refuse that had kept them hidden. One of them, a strange R2D2 wannabe, sprayed him with large amounts of flame-retardant foam.

Johnny cursed as he hit the floor, and he rolled away as another ‘robot’ slammed a sledgehammer to the floor where his chest had been. One robot was a buzz saw on wheels, another simply a mobile gun battery with two Uzi’s attached. He pushed himself to burn off the foam before one of these killers hit him.
With a ‘THWIPPP!’ and a sudden scraping of metal across stone, the Uzi-bot was gone. It flew in an arc about four feet off the floor, smashing into three other mechas before crashing into the nearest wall. "Hey, playboy," a cheerful voice called, "Can I cut in?"

"Spider-Man," the Torch groaned. His sudden irritation actually increased his heat output, allowing Johnny to boil the foam, which fell from his body in syrupy white blobs.

"What are you doing here," Torch barked, re-igniting and frying
another bot, "and what’s with your costume?" Johnny noticed that Spider-Man had changed his uniform to a black bodysuit with a large white spider across the torso, with glowing white eyes on the mask.

"What, you don’t like the new threads?" Spider-Man quipped, feigning disappointment. "Saw you fly by a few minutes ago, thought you were late for Spamalot or something."
Swinging on a web strand, Spidey swung and double-kicked a drill-bearing bot into an old production machine. "Is that the man who hurt Invisible Girl?"

Torch nodded.

"I’ve got your back," Spider Man stated tersely.

Johnny ignored the retort that flashed into his mind. No time for pointless arguing. He and his webbed companion destroyed the few robots remaining. "Is that all you’ve got?" Johnny shouted.

"Of course not," the voice answered. "Would I really build such a fantastic weapon as Dreadnought yet leave my personal defense to a few college nerd devices?" With that statement, two larger size lift trucks, their forks replaced with spiked claws, started their engines and advanced while several weapons emerged from the large factory machines to each side.

"Move!" Spider Man yelled, his spider-sense reverberating sharply in his head, "This place just got hot!" Even as the web-head leapt to the nearest wall, gun turrets popped out from the industrial machines and began to track their targets.

"I’m not playing a game," Johnny growled softly. As the hi-lo trucks charged and the guns began to fire, The Human Torch blazed straight up the center of the room. Ignoring all other stimuli and ignoring the painful impact as he rocketed through the window of the control booth, he confronted the unknown man with a crash of shattering glass and a whoosh of blazing fire. The man jumped back as Johnny engulfed the entire control panel with the hottest fire he could produce on short notice. As the panel erupted, the weapons on the production floor began to die.

The unknown man looked...extremely average, dressed in well-worn tan straight leg pants, a green T-shirt, and brown work boots. With his thick, shaggy brown hair unkempt and well-past time for a cut, he looked at Torch almost passively, as if disinterested in the fiery superhuman. He held no visible weapons.

"This is for my sister," the enraged Human Torch shouted, thrusting his hands before him, flames crackling.

That’s when Spider-Man hit him. As the weapons outside turned off with the destruction of their control system, Spidey saw Torch’s position, reading his intent. With a well-placed web swing, he flew just like Torch through the now broken window and drove his shoulder into Johnny’s midriff, driving him roughly into the far wall. He turned Johnny’s back to the wall so they stood face to face.

"Hands off, web-for-brains," Johnny hissed through clenched teeth, "You’re not my friend. Don’t think I won’t burn you too."

"I would hope you have more sense than that," the web-slinger shot back. "Think! You can’t do this."

"Don’t give me any b.s. about, ‘You’ll be as bad as he is, you’ll lower yourself to his level.’ He nearly killed Sue!"

"I’m not. It was one robot against four powerful superhumans. Here, it is one super against a human with no weapons. You’ve taken out his weaponry. He can’t defend himself. He’s beaten. That’s murder, Johnny."

"Oh, and now you’re a lawyer?"

Although he was somewhat protected against the heat, Spider-Man’s hands began to smoke and the heat became uncomfortable. "I don’t have to be a lawyer," Spidey shot back. "You flew across town, destroyed his defenses, and defeated him. He dies now, it will look premeditated. That is the very definition of murder. When Sue wakes up, do you want her to learn that you’re in jail?"

Johnny growled and threw Spider-Man across the booth, though the web-slinger landed on his feet on the far wall. Beneath the black uniform, his muscles contracted, preparing to spring.

"Flame off," Johnny spat, extinguishing his corona. The unknown man glanced at him, but didn’t say a word.

"You did the right thing," Spider-Man offered.

"Don’t talk to me," the Human Torch barked, looking away.
He’ll understand when she wakes up, Spidey thought to himself.

[pyrceval]

One Week After

"Thanks for the quickness in handing over Dreadnought," Jimmy Woo told Reed Richards, standing on the heli-pad on the roof of the Baxter Building. You almost couldn’t tell of the war that had taken place here a very short time ago, Woo had thought. "We’ve verified that the man at the factory built it, and the guy pled guilty to the attack. In fact, the only words he has spoken since his arrest were when he pled guilty. He won’t talk, otherwise. Weirdest thing, Dr. Richards, is that we can’t figure out who he is. His fingerprints are not on record, no dental records, no documentation, no driver’s license photo matches, nothing. It's like this guy made it to his mid-forties completely off grid, as far as the law is concerned."

"I feel the same way. I analyzed the robot’s CPU, and found the programming that allowed it to move, fire weapons, and that kind of thing, but I could find no remote control components, no radio receiver that its controller could speak through, though it did have a speaker. It’s advanced, but Earthly tech, and I spent all week on it, but I couldn’t figure out how it was actually controlled. It’s like it had everything it needed to move without a program to tell it to move." Reed sighed. "Please keep me apprised of your progress, Agent Woo. I’m curious about it, now. I really have to go. Sue’s out of the hospital in three hours, and I want the place secure and ready for her."
"I understand," Woo said, "and, consequently, you were right. We would have never found him so quickly." James Woo headed for his transport.

[pyrceval]

The creator of the Dreadnought lay on the cot in his cell, his eyes open, unblinking, as if in a trance. His consciousness had drifted far away... Once again, as ten days prior, George Tarleton became aware of a small, clumsy figure coming toward him.

"Rain clouds..." Tarleton began.

"Oh, get on with it," the squat robot on treads told him with a familiar voice, "Who else would send a robot to a meeting such as this?"

"How are you doing that?" George asked, extremely interested, "Are you not in jail, or did you utilize a scapegoat?"

"That is a secret I will keep to myself, for now. What did AIM think about my Dreadnought?"

"Personally, I’m not impressed," Tarleton smirked. "It was destroyed. We cannot purchase it."

"Your opinion does not concern me in the slightest. My robot dropped two members of The Fantastic Four, almost killing one, on national television. Besides the fact my android can face any known superhuman in single combat, it now has recognition value. Someone recognizes my Dreadnought coming for them, they will remember that footage and realize just what they face. The one I sent against the Four was a floor model, so to speak. I did not expect it to return."

Tarleton paused in his annoyance, listening to his manager’s instructions through an earpiece transceiver. "We would like ten of them at the agreed upon price," he stated.

"Of course," the builder replied through his proxy, "I’ll have the first ready in six weeks and another every two weeks after until the order is filled. I’ll also develop a few alternative weapons for it. It may benefit you if the Dreadnoughts have different attack systems."

In his cell, the man who would be known as The Mad Thinker smiled to himself.

The end