by Alex Irvine
“The final phase of your training will be a stealth incursion,” Pym said. He showed Scott a schematic drawing. “We must retrieve this prototype of a signal decoy. It’s a device that I invented from my S.H.I.E.L.D. days. We need it to counteract the transmission blockers that Cross installed in the Futures vault. It’s currently collecting dust in one of Howard Stark’s old storage facilities in upstate New York.” He showed Scott the map. “Should be a piece of cake.”
CHAPTER 14
The next morning, Scott was shivering in the Ant-Man suit, plastered into the back of a crevice in the fuselage of a jet plane on its way from San Francisco to Boston. “It’s freezing!” he shouted into the mic. “You couldn’t make a simple flannel lining?”
“You’re over the target area,” Pym said, ignoring Scott’s complaints. “Disengage now, Scott.”
Scott had his carpenter ants in three groups. “Squadron A, go,” he said. The first rank tumbled out into the slipstream. “B, go. C, go.” When they were all in the air, Scott guided Ant-thony toward the edge. “All right, Ant-thony, please don’t drop me this time.”
Then Ant-thony leaped out into the air, twenty thousand feet above the ground. “Aaaaahhh, it feels like a big leap from sugar cubes to this!” Scott yelled.
“Stay calm,” Pym said.
A minute later, when the ants came down through the lowest layer of clouds, Scott said, “Uh, guys, we might have a problem. Hank, didn’t you say this was some old warehouse? It’s not!”
The old Stark Technologies warehouse in Hank’s photographs was now a gleaming new complex with the unmistakable Avengers logo a hundred feet wide on the roof.
“Scott, get out of there,” Hope said.
Pym chimed in. “Abort! Abort now.”
“No, it’s okay,” Scott said. He was closer now, and didn’t see any lights on or any sign of human—especially Avenger—presence. “It doesn’t look like anyone’s home. Ant-thony, get me to the roof.”
“He’s going to lose the suit,” Pym said, worried.
Hope looked at him like she couldn’t believe that was his biggest problem. “He’s going to lose his life,” she said.
Ant-thony dropped Scott a foot or so from the gravel rooftop and he tumbled over, hopping to his feet. “All right, I’m on the roof of the target building.”
Back in Pym’s house, he and Hope saw a shadow flash across one of the monitors feeding them the ant’s-eye view. “Somebody’s home, Scott.”
Almost as soon as he’d spoken, certified Avenger Falcon swooped down and landed on the rooftop not twenty feet from where Scott stood in the gravel. He heard someone talking to Falcon over a microphone in his suit. “What’s going on down there, Sam?”
Man, Scott couldn’t believe it. He was right there with the Avengers! “It’s the Falcon!” he reported to Hope and Pym.
“I had a sensor trip, but I’m not seeing anything,” Falcon said, scanning the area to make sure. Looking right at Scott, he said, “Wait a second.”
“Abort, Scott,” Pym said. “Abort now.”
Scott held still, and anyway he was barely the size of the tiny pebbles he stood among. “It’s okay. He can’t see me.”
“I can see you,” the Falcon said.
“He can see me.” There was only one thing to do. Scott hit the thumb button and returned to normal size. He popped up the visor on the helmet and said, “Hi. I’m Scott.”
Hope turned to her father. “Did he just say, ‘Hi, I’m Scott?’” Pym couldn’t look her in the eye.
“What are you doing here?” the Falcon asked, all business.
“First off, I’m a big fan,” Scott said.
“Appreciate it. So who are you?”
“I’m Ant-Man.”
The Falcon tried not to laugh. “Ant-Man?”
“What, you haven’t heard of me?” Scott was trying to be cool, but then he reconsidered. “Nah, you wouldn’t have heard of me.”
“You want to tell me what you want?”
Might as well tell the truth, Scott thought. “I was hoping I could grab a piece of technology just for a few days and return it,” he said. “I need it to save the world. You know how that is.”
“I know exactly how that is,” Falcon said. He started walking toward Scott and talking into his wrist comm. “Located the breach. Bringing him in.”
Oh, I don’t like this, Scott thought. “Sorry about this,” he said, and shrank. Then he launched himself up and punched the Falcon square on the point of his chin. The Falcon reeled backward and took off, the wash from his wings knocking Scott over the edge of the building. Scott hit the grass and took off running.
“What are you doing?” Pym was shouting in his ear.
“Breach is an adult male who has some sort of shrinking tech,” Falcon reported as he glided over the lawn where Scott was trying to evade him. He spotted Scott and landed, trying to stomp him. Scott jumped out of the way and buzzed around Falcon’s head, throwing punches that he hoped weren’t too hard. Or not hard enough. “Sorry about that,” he kept saying. Falcon tried to shoot him, but for one thing Scott was too small, and for another he hung on to the gun’s barrel sight until Falcon gave up. Then Scott tried to hit him again. This time Falcon saw him coming and threw a punch in time to knock Scott sprawling. Also, he accidentally returned to full-size.
“That’s enough!” Falcon said, hauling Scott to his feet—but Scott went after him, putting Hope’s moves to good use. He was standing toe-to-toe with one of the Avengers! All of a sudden having the suit was great.
Then Falcon’s wings smacked together on either side of Scott’s head, and Scott saw stars. He shrank again and shouted, “Ant-thony! A little help?”
Ant-thony appeared, Scott jumped on his back, and they buzzed away toward the warehouse. Falcon followed, but Scott got there first. That meant that when Falcon came in, Scott could again use his size to his advantage. He waited until Falcon stalked through the warehouse door, then he snuck inside Falcon’s suit and started tearing at the electronics.
Falcon launched himself backward through the door, spiraling crazily in the air as his wings shorted out. He hit the ground hard, plowing up a furrow for several yards, then leaped to his feet and looked around. But Scott was on hisback, and all he had to do was wait for Ant-thony to catch up.
As he rode Ant-thony away, he heard Falcon saying into his wrist comm, “It’s really important to me that Cap never finds out about this.”
CHAPTER 15
Scott had sort of thought Pym would admire his guts, but when he got back to San Francisco, he found out just the opposite. “That was completely irresponsible and dangerous!” Pym raged as soon as Scott had gotten back to his house and made it into the kitchen. “You jeopardized everything!”
Scott didn’t say a word. He just reached into his back pocket and got the signal device, putting it down on the butcher block table like he was laying down a winning poker hand.
“You got it,” Hope said.
Pym, looking amazed, said, “Well done.”
“Wait a minute,” Scott said. “Did you just compliment me?” He turned to Hope. “He did, didn’t he?”
“Kinda sounded like he did,” she agreed with a grin.
Pym was examining the signal device, admiring its design. “I was good, wasn’t I?” he asked. They all knew it was a rhetorical question.
“Hey, how about the fact that I fought an Avenger and didn’t die?” Scott said. He felt like that hadn’t been acknowledged quite enough.
“Now let’s not dwell on the past,” said Hank Pym, who had just been doing exactly that. “We have to finish our planning.” He headed for the lab.
“Don’t mind him,” Hope said. “You did good.”
Scott was starting to like her.
Hank Pym opened the door to the living room and stopped short when he saw Darren Cross standing there. “Darren!” he said, making sure Scott and Hope heard him. “How did you get in here?”
“You l
eft the front door open, Hank,” Cross said with a grin. “It’s official. You’re old.”
In the kitchen, Hope leaned close to Scott. “The plans!” she whispered. “He will kill him.”
The plans for the Pym Tech Futures Lab were lying open on the coffee table. If Cross had seen them… well, Hope was probably right.
But maybe he hadn’t seen them yet. Scott got the earpiece in and slipped up to the edge of the door frame.
“Well, to what do I owe this pleasure?”
“I have good news,” Cross said, approaching Pym.
“Really? What’s that?”
“Pym Tech, the company you created, is about to become one of the most profitable operations in the world. We’re anticipating fifteen billion in sales tomorrow alone.” While Cross spoke, a group of ants quietly rolled up the plans so all that showed was blank paper. They could have been any set of drawings. Nothing about them would draw attention… unless Cross had already noticed them.
Pym was so focused on the ants for a moment that what Cross had said didn’t register right away. Cross looked a little nonplussed when Pym didn’t say anything. He glanced over at the rolled-up plans as the ants accidentally bumped them into a candlestick, but then he turned his attention back to Pym.
“You’re welcome,” he said. “I know this is odd, but I’d like you to be there. This is my moment; I want you to see it.”
“Sure, Darren,” Hank said. “Yeah, sure. I’ll be there.”
Cross nodded, satisfied. Then something else occurred to him. “What did you see in me?” he asked.
“I don’t know what you mean,” Hank said.
“All those years ago, you picked me. What did you see?”
“I saw myself,” Hank said. It was true. Darren Cross had been brash, headstrong, arrogant, and brilliant… just like the young Hank Pym.
“Then why did you push me away?” Cross asked, his voice thick with emotion.
Holding his gaze, Hank Pym delivered the hard truth. “Because I saw too much of myself.”
Cross turned and left without another word.
Hope was convinced Cross had seen the plans and was plotting something. “He knows!” she said as soon as Hank came back into the kitchen. “He’s baiting you. We have to call it off.”
“We’re all taking risks,” Pym said.
“What if he saw me here?” she asked. Then he would know for sure that she was feeding Hank inside information about the Futures project.
“He didn’t,” Pym said. “There’s no way.” Cross hadn’t looked into the kitchen. He was sure of it.
“How do you know that?” Hope’s phone rang. It was Darren Cross. She gave them all a look as she answered. “Darren, hi.”
“Hope.” He was in his car, driving. “Where are you right now?”
“I’m at home. Why?”
“I just saw Hank. I still get nothing but contempt from him,” Cross said, furious.
“Don’t let him rile you up,” Hope said. “He’s just… he’s a senile old man.” Scott and Hank exchanged a look at this.
“We need to start everyone working around the clock, get the assembly line up and running. And I’m tripling security. Full sensors at all entrances, and exterior air vents fitted with steel micro-mesh.” Cross was edging toward the kind of mania he got when he was close to achieving a goal. Hope had seen it before. She knew her father had, too.
“Great,” she said. “Good idea.”
“Thank you, Hope. I’m so lucky to have you on my team.”
When Darren hung up, she turned back to Scott and her father. “He’s tripling security, he’s lost his mind, and he’s on to you.”
“But he’s not on to you,” Hank said.
She couldn’t believe he was being so stubborn when the operation was clearly blown. “He’s adding full-body scanners to all entrances and closing exterior vents. How are we going to get Scott inside?”
Buildings needed air, electricity… and water. Those were what connected them to the outside world. Electricity was no help, and if the air vents were blocked, that left… “The water main,” Scott said. “You can’t add security to a water main. The pressure is too strong, but if we can decrease it, that’s how I get in.”
Thinking hard, Hope said, “Somebody would have to reach the building’s control center to change the water pressure. I mean, Hank and I will be beside Cross. How are we supposed to do that?”
“So we expand our team. What do we need? A fake security guard on the inside to depressurize the water system, somebody else to hack into the power supply and kill the laser grid, and a getaway guy.” Three extra guys. Scott thought he knew where he might be able to find them.
Clearly, so did Hank Pym. “No, no, no,” he said. “Not those three wombats. No way.”
CHAPTER 16
But Hank Pym could see the reality of the situation as well as anyone else, so an hour later Luis, Dave, and Kurt were arranged around the blueprints in the living room as Hope set mugs of coffee in front of them. “Thank you for the coffee, ma’am,” Luis said. A thought occurred to him. “It’s not too often that you rob a place, and then get welcomed back. Because we just robbed you!” He had a big grin on his face.
“You know that he was arrested for stealing a smoothie machine, right?” Hope asked Scott.
“Two smoothie machines,” Luis corrected her.
This did not change her opinion. “Are you sure they can handle this?”
“Oh, we can handle it. We’re professionals,” Luis said.
“You’ll forgive us if we’re not instilled with confidence,” Pym said. He was standing a little apart from them, watching and appraising.
“Wait, everybody, just kick back and relax a little bit, man,” Dave said. “We know our business. We broke into this spooky house, didn’t we?”
“I let you,” Pym pointed out.
“Well, one could say that I let you let me,” Dave said, trying to save face.
“Look, it’s okay,” Scott said. He knew these guys. They were good. “They can handle this.”
“Yeah, we can handle it.”
“You got their credentials?” Scott asked Hope.
“He’s in the system,” she said, meaning she’d added him to Pym Tech’s employee database. Luis was going to be their security guard.
“I’m in the system?” Luis looked thrilled.
Dave pointed a you-da-man finger at him. “The system!”
“The system!” Luis said again.
“Yeah,” Hank Pym sighed. “We’re doomed.”
“All right,” Scott said, getting down to business. “There’s something you guys need to see.” He turned and walked out of the room.
Hank was briefing them about the layout when Scott came back wearing the Ant-Man suit. “When you get to this corner,” he was saying, “there’s gonna be three offices on your left side…”
“That’s so cool, bro!” Luis said when he saw Scott in the suit.
“Now, look,” Scott said. “This is gonna get weird, all right? It’s pretty freaky, but it’s safe. There’s no reason to be scared.”
“Aw, no, Daddy don’t get scared,” Luis said.
“Really?” This was going to be good, Scott thought. “Good.”
He flipped the mask down and shrank.
All three of the thieves shouted. Kurt, looking around the room, said, “This is the work of the gypsies.”
“That’s—that’s—that’s witchcraft,” Dave echoed.
“Oh, that’s amazing,” Luis said. “That’s like some David Copperfield stuff. That’s some kind of wizardry.”
“Sorcery!” Kurt cried out.
Luis was still looking around the room, like he was just about to figure out the trick. “How’d you do that, bro?”
“Don’t freak out,” Scott said. “Look at your shoulder.”
Luis did. When he saw miniature Scott, he started screaming and ran out of the room. “I thought Daddy didn’t get scared!” Sc
ott said, enjoying every second.
An hour later, the three thieves were snoring in chairs. “I gave them each half a Xanax and Hank explained the science of the suit to them,” she explained. Scott had been working on the suit. “Fell right asleep.”
She walked Scott to his bedroom—hopefully not still full of bullet ants—and he stopped by the door to get something off his chest. “Hey, look. I want to thank you for—”
“No,” she said. “Please don’t. We’re all doing this for reasons much bigger than any one of us. I’m just glad that you might have a slight chance of maybe pulling this off.”
“Hey. Thank you, you know, for that pep talk,” he said.
She smiled despite herself. “You know, the honest truth is I actually went from despising you to almost liking you.”
“You really should write poetry,” he marveled.
“Get some sleep, Scott,” she said, and walked away down the hall.
Scott couldn’t sleep thinking about the job to come and the dangers of it… and the real possibility that he would never see Cassie again. After lying in bed staring at the ceiling for a while, he made a decision.
Cassie was sleeping when he came into her room and returned to full-size. He wanted more than anything to let her know he was there, to let her know that he loved her more than anyone else in the world, that he was doing this so he could get clear of his old life and be with her again. But he couldn’t. All he could do was lean in and kiss her gently on the forehead, and then shrink again and disappear, hoping that wasn’t the last time he ever saw her.
He was back at Pym’s house in an hour, and after that he slept like a baby.
CHAPTER 17
In the morning, the final skull sessions before the operation started early. Gathered in Pym’s lab, Scott ran them through it one more time. “All right, just so we’re clear, everyone here knows their role, right? Dave?”
“Wheels on the ground.”
