by Jason Starr
He arrived at 5:47, ahead of the deadline. From his ant POV, he zoomed in on the house. It definitely didn’t seem like someplace where a wanted criminal would be living, but that was the whole point—if Dugan wanted to blend in, go unnoticed as a felon, he’d picked the perfect spot. Not only was it near a high-security prison—only a half mile away, according Scott’s GPS—but it was an ordinary, working-class Upstate New York country house, complete with an American flag hanging from a pole on the front porch.
While Scott had arrived in Wallkill unnoticed by humans, his presence had piqued the curiosity of the local ant community. There were many more ants up here, obviously, than in Manhattan. Thousands of them came out from their nests and hills to witness Scott’s arrival. Aided by what Scott thought of as his ant telepathy, he knew that the ants were excited and curious to see him. He sent a telepathic message back to them that he had great respect for them, and that he was here because his daughter was in danger.
An elder ant, a leader of a local colony, came forward. Scott sensed the support of the ants.
Scott responded with a message that conveyed the sentiment: Thank you. It gives me strength knowing you are here supporting me.
Sometimes Scott’s abilities as Ant-Man seemed like second nature to him; at other times, like right now, the whole thing seemed utterly absurd. While geeking out with the suit was always a blast, sometimes he didn’t know whether being Ant-Man was worth the price.
He had promised Hank Pym that he would use his powers for good rather than evil, and he’d saved many lives, but there were consequences. While helping others, he’d hurt his own family—the stress of his responsibilities and maintaining his secret identity had definitely been factors in his divorce—and now, worst of all, he’d put his daughter in danger. At times like this, it was hard not to hate what he’d become.
Then Scott heard the shots—one, then several more in quick succession, coming from inside the house. As he sped under the door, his worries about Willie Dugan’s hidden agenda vanished. His only concern was finding his daughter.
He was in what seemed to be the living room. When he looked into the adjacent dining room, he could see a man’s legs on the ground. As he got closer, he saw the puddle of blood; not wanting to get drenched in it, he leapt onto the dining table to get a better view of the room. Lying near the door was Ricky Gagliardi, the guy Scott had known. There were two other bodies at the other end of the room—two other men who’d been shot. One he didn’t recognize, but the other he would never have trouble ID’ing—even on his side, with a bullet hole in his head.
Willie Dugan.
“Cassie!” Scott called out. “Cassie!”
Even at tiny size, in his Ant-Man suit, he could project his voice to its normal human volume.
He leapt off the table, skirted around Dugan’s body, and sprinted up the hallway. He heard movement upstairs—footsteps, a creak in the old floorboards. Was Cassie up there, or the killer?
He was about to go up to check when he spotted a door at the far end of the hallway. He zoomed in and saw that it had a bolt on the outside. Why was it bolted, unless there was someone in there?
But Scott had a great backup plan. The local ants had followed Scott into the house, and he told them to spread the word to all ants in the area: Barricade the house. The ants rushed away to relay the message. Scott didn’t think there was time for the ants to assemble in a mass large enough to actually help him, but it was worth a shot.
Meanwhile, Scott went under the door into the locked room. Sure enough, there was Cassie. She was in the middle of the room, bound and blindfolded, tied to a chair. She was wriggling her hands, trying to get free.
“Cass, baby, are you okay?”
“Daddy, is…is that you?”
She sounded fine, but he hoped to God she hadn’t been hurt in any way. Willie Dugan was lucky he was dead, or Scott would have beaten the living crap out of him.
“Yeah, it’s me. Did they hurt you?”
“No, nobody hurt me. I can’t believe you’re really here, Daddy. I love you so much.”
“I love you too, Bear.”
Scott used to call Cassie “Bear” when she was a toddler, when she and Peggy had visited him in prison.
Scott jumped up onto Cassie’s lap, then crawled onto her chin. She shook her head, trying to shake him away as if he were, well, a bug.
“It’s me, Cassie, I’m on your chin now.”
“I love you, Daddy,” she said.
“I love you, too,” Scott said, “more than anything.”
He climbed along the rope holding Cassie to the chair and easily untied the knots, freeing her.
“How did you do that so fast?” she asked.
“Hold on,” he said.
He latched onto the edge of the blindfold. It was held down with masking tape.
“This might hurt like a Band-Aid,” he said. “Ready? One, two—” He leapt off her chin, clinging to the tape, and ripped it right off.
“Oww!” she screeched. Then said, “You never said three…Daddy? Where are you? Daddy?”
“Right here, Cass.”
“Where?”
He waved to her from the floor, where he was unsticking himself from the seemingly gigantic piece of tape.
She saw the tape moving and said, “Oh my god, that is so freaky.”
Scott discarded the tape, then said, “Okay, stand back.”
He worked the suit’s controls and his body reverted to its normal size.
“Holy…” Cassie was stunned, but also excited. “You are totally letting me do that again.”
“When you’re—”
“I know—twenty-one,” Cassie said.
“Come here,” Scott said.
He hugged her. He never wanted to let go.
“This was the scariest day of my life,” he said. “We’re never going through this again.”
“Deal,” Cassie said. Then she whispered, “I think someone else is in the house.”
“I know,” Scott said.
“I think I heard a gun click,” Cassie whispered. “Somebody was going to shoot me when you got here.”
Wow—had it really been that close? If he’d gotten here a little later, on time, would Cassie be dead now? Like Dugan and his friends?
“Keep your voice down,” Scott said. “Get in the closet. I’ll come right back for you.”
“No, take me with you,” Cassie whispered.
“Everything will be fine, I promise.”
Scott kissed her on top of her head to assure her, the way he used to when she came to visit him in prison and he’d tell her, ‘Everything’ll be fine, sweet Bear, I promise. Daddy will be home soon.’
Cassie whispered, “Be careful, Daddy,” and slipped into the closet.
Scott released the gas again and shrunk back to ant size. Then he left the room and stopped in the hallway, listening closely and surveying the scene. Everything looked the same, and he didn’t hear any sounds upstairs. He did sense the presence of ants—lots of ants—outside the house and in the surrounding area.
He checked the hallway. Empty. He was about to leap up the stairs when he heard movement behind him. Was it an animal or a person? In the next instant, he was flat on his back, like an insect that had been sprayed with bug repellent. But unlike an insect, Scott couldn’t even flail his legs. He couldn’t move at all.
He had no idea what was going on. His body felt fine—he was breathing normally, didn’t feel sick or hurt, and he could think normally—but he couldn’t move. Then he heard an odd buzzing coming from the helmet, and when he tried to activate the HUD, the system had been disabled. He tried an override, but nothing happened.
He knew all of this was intentional; someone had done this to him for a reason.
Then he heard a car start.
“Cassie! Cassie, are you okay? Cass! Cass, answer me!”
Only a few minutes ago he’d promised that he’d never put her through anything bad again.
Now he’d already reneged.
“Daddy?”
Thank god.
“Cass, I’m over here.”
“Where?”
“Near the stairs.”
“I don’t see anything.”
Her foot—the huge sneaker—came down right next to him with a loud, floor-shaking thud.
“Hey, careful,” Scott said.
He didn’t know whether this paralysis he was experiencing affected the suit’s extra-cranial structure, and his overall strength, but he didn’t want to take any chances. He wanted to expand back to human size, because he couldn’t move his fingers to activate the Pym gas. He had a backup system, a way to activate the Pym gas via the HUD system, but that wouldn’t work either, with his nonfunctioning helmet.
“There you are.” Cassie crouched, her huge face looking down at Scott. “Why are you on your back like a dead bug?”
“Oh, I just thought it would be fun to do a little yoga, some back stretches,” Scott said sarcastically. “Pick me up in your hand, quickly. And be careful—I don’t know if there’s anybody else in the house.”
“I heard a car leave.”
“I know, so did I,” Scott said. “Come on, lift me.”
“You mean you can’t move?” Cassie asked.
“No,” Scott said. “Now just do what I’m telling you to do.”
Using her gigantic thumb and forefinger, Cassie lifted Scott off the ground.
“Now what?” she asked, and then accidentally let go of him. “Oh no!”
Scott fell to the floor; it seemed like he was jumping off a cliff. The impact shook him up a little, but didn’t really hurt.
“Oh my god! Are you okay, Dad?” Cassie asked.
“Yes, but do what I tell you to do, okay? Put me in the palm of your hand and take me into the kitchen.”
She did as she was told and said, “I guess the kitchen’s this way,” as she walked along the hallway.
“Don’t look in the dining room,” Scott instructed.
“Oh my God, I can see a guy’s legs.”
“I told you not to look.”
“Is he dead?”
“Never mind that.”
“I just want to get out of here and go home,” Cassie said.
“Join the club,” Scott said.
In the kitchen, Cassie asked, “What do you want me to do now?”
“Find a glass and fill it with water.”
“What for?”
“Just do it.”
Before she turned on the water, Scott screamed, “Wait!” He was afraid she might accidentally drop him down the drain. If he remained paralyzed, he’d have no chance to escape.
“What?” Cassie asked.
“Put me down on the floor, and then get the glass of water.”
Cassie did it, then asked, “Now what?”
“Put the glass next to me on the floor, and then drop me in the water. This is important—as soon as you drop me, run out of the kitchen into the hallway. Run like a bomb’s about to explode.”
She lifted him up with her finger and held him over the glass. “You really want me to drop you in?” she asked. “You’ll drown.”
Scott couldn’t rule out this possibility entirely, but he had to reassure his daughter.
He said, “Don’t worry, I’ll be fine—just remember to run for cover. Okay, on three. One, two—”
As Cassie let go, Scott was thinking, You didn’t let me get to three, and then he splashed into the water— or at least, it felt like a splash. A human in the room would barely have seen a ripple.
He was hoping the water would jumpstart the flow of the Pym expanding gas. At first, nothing happened. Well, nothing except that he steadily sank toward the bottom of the glass. He was already struggling to breathe. Worse, he’d instructed Cassie to leave the room, so she couldn’t save him. He tried to yell for her to help, but his voice was muffled by the water.
Then he saw tiny bubbles in the water, and an instant later kaboom—he returned to his human size in an explosion of glass.
Scott lay on his butt on the kitchen floor, stunned and dazed. He gasped a bit, thankful he could breathe at all. He could move, which was also good news.
“Cass?” he called out. “Cass, are you okay?”
Cassie came into the room, looked at Scott amid the glistening shards, and said, “What… what happened?”
Scott did a quick system eval—the Ant-Man helmet and HUD seemed totally back to normal now.
“I’ll explain later,” Scott said. “Come on, let’s go.”
He just wanted to get Cassie out of here, to safety. He’d unravel the mysteries later.
He opened the front door and looked in awe at the blackness.
“Wow,” Cassie said. “Are those all ants?”
They were.
Tens of thousands of ants had swarmed the house. The ants closest to the door moved to either side, parting like the Red Sea—make that the Black Sea—to create space for Scott and Cassie to pass. Scott and Cassie continued toward the driveway, the ants in front of them providing a path.
There were two cars in the driveway. Scott could’ve gone back into the house and searched for car keys in the pockets of Willie Dugan or one of the other dead guys, but he had a quicker method.
He told Cassie to stand back, and then he activated the Pym gas. He shrunk to ant size, leapt up to the driver’s side of the car and landed below the window, then crawled into the keyhole. He clicked open the lock; as he lunged backwards, the door swung open.
As Scott emerged from the car door, Cassie said, “You have to teach me how to do that someday.”
“I’m not done,” Scott said.
Inside the car, he crawled into the ignition and started the engine Then he emerged, exited the car, and returned to human size.
He’d accomplished all of this in less than twenty seconds.
“So awesome,” Cassie said.
Scott always carried a set of spare clothes and a few hundred dollars in cash shrunken in a pouch attached to the suit. He put on the clothes—jeans, black T-shirt, black hoodie, and sneakers. The Ant-Man suit was awesome, but it felt great to be a normal human again after his near-death experience in the glass of water.
“Let’s rock ’n’ roll,” he said.
Cassie got into the passenger seat, and they drove out of Wallkill and headed back to New York. During the car ride, Scott tried to reassure Cassie that she was safe now, that the men who’d abducted her were dead. Scott kept obsessing over the same question: Who was this behind this? This time Dugan was dead, and Scott didn’t need a medical examiner to prove it. But who had killed Dugan and his crew, and was it the same person who’d zapped him?
“The guy who came into the room,” Scott said to Cassie, “when you were tied up.”
“What about him?” Cassie asked.
“Do you remember anything about him?”
“I was blindfolded.”
“I know,” Scott said. “But maybe there was something else. Did you hear something? Smell something?”
“No, but whoever it was, was bad,” Cassie said. “I mean, I got a bad vibe.” She sounded panicked. “Oh my god, what if he comes after me? What if I get kidnapped again?”
“Everything’s going to be okay now,” Scott said. “You’re safe.”
“You keep telling me that,” Cassie said. “You told me the protection order would keep me safe, too, but it didn’t. How do you know I’m safe now?”
“Hey, you’ve seen what Ant-Man can do,” Scott said, trying to assure her. “You’ve worn the suit, experienced it yourself.”
“Yeah, but it didn’t do any good for you today,” Cassie said.
“It got me upstate,” Scott said. “It got me into the house.”
“Yeah, and you also wound up on your back like a dying cockroach.”
Touché.
“I’m not sure how that happened,” Scott said, “but I’m going to find out.”
Scott tried
to distract Cassie, talking about the future—positive things. He reminded her that soon she’d be back in school, with her friends, and then she had the whole summer to look forward to. She was going to sleepaway camp in the Poconos with Elly, an old friend of hers from San Francisco.
The distraction strategy worked for a few minutes, then Cassie got upset again and said, “I could’ve died in the chair, Daddy. If you hadn’t shown up to save me, I’d be dead right now.”
“And if you hadn’t plopped me into that glass of water, you might’ve had a permanently paralyzed ant-sized dad,” Scott said.
On the highway, they stopped at a rest area. Scott called Peggy on the phone he’d bought to call Dugan.
“Hello,” she answered anxiously.
“Is a marshal with you?” Scott asked.
“Yes,” Peggy said. “Why? What’s going on? What happened?”
“Just wanted to let you know I have Cassie,” Scott said. “She’s safe.”
“Oh, thank god. Can I speak to her?”
“Cassie, say hi to Mom.”
Cassie leaned near the phone and said, “Hi, Mommy.”
“Hi, Sweetie, I love you. Are you okay? Did they hurt you?”
“I’m totally fine,” Cassie said. “Thanks to Daddy.”
Scott was feeling emotional, but maintained his composure.
He said to Peggy, “This is important. Just tell the marshal we’re on our way back to the city, and we’re fine. We’ll be back at our apartment soon.”
“What do you mean?” Peggy asked. “Where are you?”
Scott knew they could trace the call, but it didn’t matter. He and Cassie would be on the road again soon.
“We’re safe, that’s the important thing,” Scott said. “Talk to you soon from the city.”
Inside, they used the bathrooms and then grabbed something to eat at the food court. There were a couple of state cops in line at Pizza Hut, so Scott and Cassie veered over to the McDonald’s area instead and took the food to go.
Scott knew they would have a lot of explaining to do to the cops and the FBI when they got back to the city. Telling the truth was out of the question, unless he wanted to use this opportunity to reveal to the world that he was Ant-Man, so he needed a version of the events that sounded credible. He was confident that he’d left no evidence of his own presence in the house, but he knew that the crime scene investigators would have a difficult time figuring out how and why a glass of water had exploded in the kitchen.
