by Greg Cox
The unexpected force of the Hulk’s passage sent Iron Man tumbling out of control, away from the Gamma Sentinel he had meant to blow to pieces. The Doc Samson-Sentinel recovered from the eruption faster than Iron Man, vaulting over the beckoning pit with ease and racing across the floor beneath his spinning armored adversary. By the time Iron Man restabilized his flight controls, the Doc Samson-Sentinel was waiting for him. Sensor beams shone from the Gamma Sentinel’s eyes, spotlighting Iron Man and scanning his armor for weaknesses. “Analysis: Sophisticated exoskeleton housing ordinary human genotype. Tesselated armor shielding, consisting primarily of epitaxially deposited diamond and high temperature enamel over tiles of crystallized iron, with automated command and communication functions via gallium arsenide microcircuitry. Internal power generation and storage capabilities.” The Doc Samson-Sentinel sounded undeterred by the varied and abundant attributes of Iron Man’s state-of-the-art metal suit. “Adapting required offensive functions.”
Oops, Iron Man thought. Beneath the impeccably reproduced facade of Leonard Samson, super-strong shrink, lay concealed technological resources and capabilities he could only guess at. Judging from those unexpected sensor beams, there was more to the Gamma Sentinel than met the eye.
For now, though, this “Doc Samson” relied on his powerful legs to spring at the airborne Avenger. Brawny hands captured Iron Man and dragged him down to the floor. His boot-jets scorched the ice-cold tiles, but the Doc Samson-Sentinel held Iron Man down, keeping him from blasting off again. Iron Man struggled to break free, only to find that the anthropomorphic powerhouse’s brute strength was more than a match for his armor’s muscle-enhancing servomotors. What’s worse, he could no longer fire his pulse bolts at the Gamma Sentinel, not at this close range. The resulting explosion would obliterate him as much as the Doc Samson-Sentinel.
Then something alarming happened. The Doc Samson-Sentinel’s splayed fingers magnetically adhered to Iron Man’s shoulder assemblies— and began draining the power from his armor! Warning displays, projected directly onto his retinas, charted a catastrophic drain in his energy reserves. Auxiliary systems began to shut down, redirecting available electricity to primary functions, including life support and propulsion, but, at this rate, his entire suit would be out of power in less than a minute. Thinking quickly, Iron Man opened the air intake valves in his mouthpiece while he still could, before he found himself suffocating inside the sealed armor. This could be bad, he thought.
“Implementing conductive neutralization of obstacle designate: Iron Man,” the Sentinel announced. “Power transfer 78.101 percent complete.”
The deadpan recitation only confirmed what Iron Man’s own internal monitors reported. At this point, the Golden Avenger doubted he could light a candle, let alone fire a repulsor ray. His armor was rapidly becoming a customized prison as the motors that gave him mobility whirred to a stop. Luckily, there was a convenient alternative power source available—if he could just get her attention.
“Storm!” he shouted. With the mike in his vocalizer out of juice, he had to rely on Tony Stark’s natural lung power to be heard. Thankfully, the ear-splitting tremors had subsided with the Hulk’s dynamic exit from below. “I need a boost, pronto! You know what to do. You did it before, at Niagara Falls!”
High in the air, the elemental X-Man understood. Without question or hesitation, she released her lightning, not at the Doc Samson-Sentinel but at Iron Man. The rampant electricity recharged his armor in an instant, firing up his dormant systems and leaving him with power to spare.
That’s the ticket! Iron Man thought exuberantly. I’m back in the game.
He decided to give the Doc Samson-Sentinel a taste of his own medicine. Activating the electromagnetic energy conversion layer beneath the surface of his armor, and inverting the polarity of his protective force field, Iron Man reversed the conductivity between himself and the malignant facsimile of Doc Samson. Streaming electrons flowed out of the Gamma Sentinel and into the Avenger’s armor, increasing the hero’s strength and endurance. “Danger!” the Doc Samson-Sentinel’s voice blurted. “Experiencing critical power loss. Unable to arrest battery depletion. Available reserves at 29.866 percent and falling—”
The Gamma Sentinel’s deceptively human-looking hands attempted to disengage from Iron Man’s armor, but gleaming crimson gauntlets locked onto the Doc Samson-Sentinel’s wrists, stopping the robot from breaking the connection. With the combined energy of both Storm’s majestic lightning and the Doc Samson-Sentinel charging through his circuitry, Iron Man easily overcame the gamma-powered mechanoid’s efforts to escape. He leeched every volt of electricity from his enemy, until the once-powerful Gamma Sentinel was reduced to a statue of Doc Samson. Then, releasing the robot’s wrists, he blasted the inert Sentinel with his chest-beam once for good measure. The repulsor ray knocked the Samson-Sentinel onto his back and shredded his stylish red vest.
Let’s hear it for good, old-fashioned, human teamwork, he thought. Between the two of them, he and Storm had thrown at least one Gamma Sentinel on the scrap heap.
A high-pitched squawk reminded him that the Harpy-Sentinel remained to be dealt with. Turning his gaze upward, he discovered that Storm’s galvanic intervention on his behalf had apparently left her vulnerable to a physical attack by the synthetic bird-woman. Emerald wings flapping furiously, the Harpy-Sentinel had come up on Storm from behind, clawing the X-Man’s bare midriff with her bird-like talons while one of Betty Banner’s shapely arms was crooked around Storm’s throat, leaving her other hand free to scratch at the mutant heroine’s face. Storm twisted her neck, trying to keep the Harpy-Sentinel’s dark green nails away from her eyes, and flailed her arms and legs, letting the Harpy-Sentinel’s wings alone bear both their weight. Wind and rain pelted mutant and Gamma Sentinel alike, but Storm’s meteorological assault failed to shake the Harpy-Sentinel free from her prey. “Iron Man!” she cried out, even as the Harpy-Sentinel’s prying fingers tugged at her lips. “Your assistance is required!”
One Avenger, at your service, he thought. The hovering robot, holding Storm in front of her like a living shield, presented a difficult target, but Iron Man had spent years fine-tuning his armor’s tracking technology. Letting his online automated targeting system take careful aim, double-checking the correct coordinates via both laser and sonar sighting mechanisms, he fired a high-intensity laser beam with pinpoint accuracy, nailing the Harpy-Sentinel between the eyes. The incandescent beam burned through the Gamma Sentinel’s camouflaged cranium with surgical precision, giving it a cybernetic lobotomy.
At once, the robot released Storm, who began to plummet precipitously. Less than a meter above the floor, however, a hastily-summoned wind came to her rescue, so that, moments later, she was able to spiral gracefully downward under her own power, landing softly upon the floor next to Iron Man. The Harpy-Sentinel, on the other hand, crashed into a half-melted snowdrift, where it jerked spasmodically for a few seconds before ceasing to move at all.
“A most satisfactory outcome,” Storm commented, looking from the grounded Harpy-Sentinel to the immobile replica of Doc Samson. Four parallel scratches streaked her mahogany cheek but did not appear to be serious. Ditto for a few shallow gashes in her side, joining the minor cuts and abrasions she received during their tussle at Niagara Falls.
Am I the only super hero, he thought, who actually thinks to wear armor to these rhubarbs? Still, thanks to the Harpy-Sentinel’s hellbolts, his burnt skin felt raw and sore beneath his armor, like he’d spent the whole day at Coney Island without a drop of sunscreen. Thank goodness I didn’t end up well done.
“We make a good team,” he said, hoping that Banner and Wolverine were working together as effectively.
“So it appears,” she agreed. She glanced at the broken window and twisted metal shutters. “Bobby and Moira?”
“Safely tucked away in the quinjet.” He instructed his armor to remind him about the sunken viruses before he left the island. It occurred to hi
m that the very individual who had summoned them to Scotland remained among the missing. “The question is…,” he began.
Storm finished the sentence for him. “… where is Nightcrawler?”
* * *
AT first, all Kurt heard was heavy footprints coming down the hall. Lying on his side upon the carpeted floor of the unoccupied containment cell, Nightcrawler allowed himself to hope that help was on the way. His right ankle still throbbed where that counterfeit Abomination had crushed his bones and the rest of him didn’t feel too well either.
It could be Colossus or the Beast, he thought optimistically. He had managed to send out an SOS, after all, before that mechanical Hulk caught up with him. The monster’s mighty fists had left him with a pounding headache and a ringing in his ears, but he figured he had gotten off lucky. Good thing these Sentinels wanted me alive.
“Hello?” he called out, although his throat was dry and parched. “Vas is das? Is anybody there?”
The footsteps, too heavy to be any X-Man but Colossus, came closer. Chances were, it was just another bulky Sentinel, but Nightcrawler was not the sort to abandon hope. Rocking back and forth, his arms, legs, and tail tightly wrapped by the ersatz Hulk’s snare, he managed to roll over onto his back. Alas, he discovered, he was still in no position to see who was at the door. It was always possible, he supposed, that the thunderous tread had drowned out the footsteps of less ponderous visitors. “Moira? Bobby? Is that you?”
An ominous silence stretched on for longer than he liked, and it occurred to Nightcrawler that the shadowy confines of the cell would render him completely invisible to anyone in the corridor outside. Is that a good thing or a bad thing? he wondered.
Just as he was about to speak again, the lights came on overhead, blinding him. Then he heard the armored door of the cell fly open. A mountainous shadow fell over him, turning him invisible once more, until a powerful hand seized him by the collar and yanked him roughly off the floor.
“Aiee!—Nein!” he shouted, the sudden movement jarring his fractured ankle. His bound legs, squeezed tightly together by his restraints, dangled above the floor while the massive arms, which almost certainly did not belong to his dear friend Colossus, turned him around so that he ended up face-to-face with an all-too-familiar jade countenance.
The Hulk. Again.
“Ach, so it’s you, Herr Sentinel.” Nightcrawler tried to keep the disappointment, to say nothing of the pain, from his voice. He was determined to maintain a brazen demeanor to the end, in the best swashbuckling tradition, yet couldn’t help wondering what had brought the mechanical monster back to the very cell the Sentinel had personally tossed Kurt into mere hours before. Was he now to be transported to an even more heinous captivity, or was a cursory execution on the agenda? Farewell, sweet world, he thought grandly, just in case. ’Tis a far, far better thing I do—
“You got that wrong, elf,” the great green troglodyte informed him brusquely. His hot breath hit Kurt like an open furnace. “I ain’t no cheap imitation. I’m the real McCoy.”
Luminous yellow eyes widened. The real Hulk? Here? Nightcrawler was dumbfounded; he couldn’t imagine what might have brought the original gamma-spawned goliath to Muir Island. If this was true, however, then it was, as the Americans were prone to say, a whole new ball game.
“What?” he asked, flabbergasted, the pulsing ache in his ankle forgotten in the excitement of the moment. “How?” He looked up at the ceiling, thinking at once of the friends he had left behind three stories above. “Moira and Bobby?”
But the Hulk wasn’t interested in answering Nightcrawler’s questions. “Let’s go,” he said. “I got things to do.” Tucking the tightly-wrapped X-Man under his arm like a load of groceries, he stepped out of the cell and marched down the corridor to the far end of the hall. Light from the floor above filtered down through a haze of drifting dust and plaster. “Mein gott,” Nightcrawler gasped at the destruction, catching a glimpse of the gaping breach in the ceiling. What have I missed?
Every lumbering step the Hulk took sent a fresh pang of agony through Nightcrawler’s ankle. The pain would even be worse, he thought, were his legs not tightly bound together, turning his unfractured leg into a splint of sorts. “Please, Herr Hulk,” he entreated. “A little more gently, if you please. My right ankle, I’m afraid it is broken.”
“Sorry, elf,” the Hulk replied gruffly. He gazed speculatively up through the gap in the ceiling. “Last I saw, your pal Wolverine was tacklin’ that cast-iron copy of me on the roof, so that’s where we’re goin’ next.” He squatted down on his powerful legs, preparing to jump.
“Wait!” Nightcrawler cried out in alarm. “My ankle!”
The Hulk ignored him, springing into the air. A short, excruciating leap brought them out of the basement onto the ground floor. Nightcrawler bit down on his lip, fighting back waves of nausea; the last thing he wanted to do was vomit over the ill-tempered man-brute’s feet. His vision blurred momentarily, then came back into focus. Kurt realized he was in shock, and very close to passing out.
Wolverine? he thought, as the Hulk’s remark sunk in at last. Wolverine is here, too? It seemed as though his long-distance SOS had been well and truly answered. What about the rest of the X-Men? Are they here also?
The Hulk gave him no time to recover from that first, jolting jump. Directly overhead, a greater chasm stretched all the way from the ground floor to the roof. “Hold on to your stomach,” the jade goliath said by way of warning, then cleared six stories in a single bound. He landed heavily onto the roof of the rectangular building, his bare feet smacking soundly against the granite floor of the observation deck. He grabbed Nightcrawler by the collar again and, with one swift motion, ripped the metallic netting off the dazed mutant’s body. “There,” he rumbled. “You’re on your own now.”
He casually dropped Nightcrawler to the rooftop. Kurt landed on both feet, but his injured leg would not support his weight and he fell to his knees, gasping for breath. The world blurred again, growing dark around the periphery of his vision, but he held onto consciousness through sheer willpower. He couldn’t give out now, not until he knew Moira and Bobby were safe. “Unglaublich!” he whispered. The pain and fatigue were almost overwhelming.
Clutching his aching ankle with both hands, he looked up to see the Hulk flying away from the building, brilliant orange gouts of flame shooting from the soles of his feet. No, wait, he realized groggily; that couldn’t be the Hulk, that had to be the Gamma Sentinel disguised as the Hulk, taking advantage of a hitherto-concealed mode of transportation.
The jet-propelled Gamma Sentinel rapidly disappeared into the horizon, where the starry sky met the moonlit surface of the Atlantic. Returning his gaze to the rooftop, he saw the real Hulk shouting at Wolverine, who was standing at the edge of the observation deck staring out at the sky into which the counterfeit Hulk had vanished. Judging from the greenish saliva spraying from the real Hulk’s enormous jaws, the towering monster was not at all happy about this latest turn of events. “I can’t believe it!” he bellowed at Logan. “You let him escape!”
Wolverine shrugged, unintimidated by the irate ogre. “Sorry, bub,” he said, walking away from the guardrail around the perimeter of the observation deck. A crumpled satellite dish lay nearby, folded over like a crepe. “He got away.” He retracted his claws with a decisive snikt. “It happens.”
Nightcrawler had to admit he was a little startled too. Logan let a bad guy get away? That wasn’t like him. Still, Kurt was in too much pain to obsess over Wolverine’s apparent lapse. “Excuse me, mein freunds,” he called out. Two heads, one masked, one chartreuse, turned in his direction. “If it’s not too much trouble, could someone kindly take a look at my ankle? And perhaps inform me vas in the world is going on?”
CHAPTER EIGHT
THE Columbia Icefields in Alberta, Canada, are one of the largest accumulations of ice and snow outside the Arctic, covering nearly four hundred square miles in area. The last endurin
g remnant of an ice age that had covered most of Canada some twenty thousand years ago, the huge frozen mass, over a thousand feet thick at points, had carved out three valleys via a trio of conjoined glaciers.
Hard to imagine that anyone could live here, Cyclops considered, let alone an entire underground city.
Yet the Hulk had sworn, in his incorrigibly ill-tempered fashion, that just such a city had been erected by the Leader only a few years ago, shortly before the malevolent mastermind’s apparent death. Cyclops glanced out the window of a chartered SnoCoach at a snowy plain riddled with deep blue crevasses. The customized bus rolled across the icefield on large, balloon-like wheels. Could it be, the somber X-Man wondered, that Rogue and the Scarlet Witch were somewhere beneath them at this very moment? Let’s hope so, he thought fervently; otherwise, they had come a long way on a wild-goose chase.
Flying west from New York had gained them a few more hours of daylight. The sun had not yet set behind the Canadian Rockies, casting a twilight glow over the snow. Nevertheless, Captain America, behind the wheel of the SnoCoach, switched on the vehicle’s headlights, the better to watch out for treacherous cracks and crevices in the ice. Unwilling to risk the Blackbird by landing upon ice of uncertain stability, Cyclops had parked the X-Men’s aircraft several miles away in Jasper National Park. He envied the ease with which Cap’s Avengers I.D. had allowed them to commandeer the tourist coach for the rest of their journey.
If the X-Men tried that, they’d probably sic a pack of Mounties on us, Cyclops mused. Working alongside the Avengers felt like traveling first-class instead of steerage, with all the special privileges and amenities that entailed.
