The Ultimates: Against All Enemies (9 page)

Also, maybe Janet would start returning his calls.

He finished the pretest check and went back to the farm. "Okay, fellas," he said. "Showtime." Hank leaned a four-foot two-by-four against the edge of the farm's top, and then slid back part of the lid.

"Putting them through their paces?" Greg asked from his workstation.

"Yeah. If any of them look like they're coming after you, go ahead and step on them. There's plenty." Greg looked nervous. "Are you saying they might come after me?" Only if you're a shape-shifting alien, Hank thought. "No," he said. "They have a very specific assignment. I want them to find something in the trash. So stay clear of your trash can and you shouldn't have any problem." Greg didn't look any happier, so Hank decided to cut him a break. "Look, if you want to leave until this is over, go ahead."

"No, I guess I'm okay. It's just that what you said about their stings, man, that shook me a little."

"Don't blame you," Hank said with a smile. "But like I said, they're looking for something else. If I've got this tuned right, none of them will even give you a second thought." Insofar as ants could be said to think, he added to himself.

The way it was supposed to work, he rehearsed to himself as he slid a thin stick down into the farm, was simple. The signal went out saying that the ants should detect and go after Chitauri tissue; the ants sent out scouts; they found the tissue; they swarmed the tissue; he cut the signal and sent them home. Hank's previous experiments in this vein had him predicting that the whole thing would be over in three minutes or so. He had the cut-and-return-home commands polished perfectly, to the point where the last couple of times he'd run them he hadn't found a single straggler. The search command was a little tougher to nail down absolutely, since ants were sensitive enough to find minuscule traces of whatever they were assigned to look for, but in this case Plank had been careful enough with the Chitauri tissue sample that he didn't believe there was any contamination. So, unless there was some odd chemical in the air that to an ant would mimic the characteristics of Chitauri tissue, everything was good to go. The more adventurous members of the
P. clavata
colony were already exploring the stick when Hank got back to his terminal, put on the headset, and sent the search command. As soon as he did, the colony erupted like a bomb had gone off. Ants swarmed over the tree roots and boiled around the base of the stick that led out of the farm. "Everybody out of the pool," Hank said. "That's right." From behind him he heard Greg say, "Wow. What are they looking for again?"

"Lunch," Hank said. "It's the best way to get them to do anything."

"Me, too," Greg said. Hank was preoccupied with the computer, watching the microtransmitters he'd attached to some of the bullet ants to see if they would fan out in a mathematically expressible way. Some species were pretty random, but others—usually the more aggressive ones—operated almost as if they had the equations worked out ahead of time. The bullet ants, he decided after watching them move for less than a minute, were about as decisive a species as he'd ever seen. They came out of the farm, went down the two-by-four, and spent only a few seconds sniffing around before making a beeline... wait. Two beelines.

Hank turned around, tapping on the headset as if it were a balky old television. It was a dumb reflex, but he'd gotten into the habit back when he was still using wires. A thin stream of the ants were marching in the direction of the trash can, which was good; but a much heavier stream were headed toward the workstations, which was not good. Greg's eyes got wider as the ants got closer. "Hey, Hank?" he said.

"Sit tight," Hank said. "There must be some contamination from their target sample over there somewhere."

He turned back to the monitor and fired off a new command refining the search to prioritize the most intense source of Chitauri tissue particles. "Okay," he said, swiveling around in his chair again. Now
both
streams of ants were headed for Greg.

"No, Hank, not okay. Jeez, look at this. They're all over me... ow!" Greg leaped out of his chair and started slapping at the ants crawling up his legs. "Ow, ahh, Jesus!" Hank turned to stab a cutoff command into the keyboard—for this experiment, he hadn't got all of it programmed into the headset's subvocalizer—and then he froze under the weight of a horrifying realization.
Oh, no
, he thought, and spun around again.

The ants were all over Greg now, stinging him by the dozen. His yelps of pain had progressed to full-throated screaming, and then into a sound that no human being could make. As Flank locked eyes with him, he saw that Greg's face was starting to contort. The muscles jumped, sank, began to reform themselves as Greg's skin began to blister and peel. One of his eyes burst and from the socket glittered a reptilian vertical pupil.

"Did you think we would not find you?" the Chitauri said, and sprang. 13

Status Report

Prospects for the success of the human ordering project are immensely improved. The integration of operational goals with the mechanisms of the human form of government known as representative democracy presented a number of challenges due to that government's differences from the totalitarian institutions previously subverted and redeployed. The primary difference lies in the timetable, and the delay between initiation of programs and fruition as expressed in direct action. Lessons in this area have been learned at nontrivial cost in assets and time.

Current forecasts call for completion of asset placement in .084873 solar year. Enaction of final phase of human ordering project to commence immediately after completion of asset placement in , and to progress beyond according to existing post-assimilation plans. Pre- project components including chemical and hormonal treatments of water supplies are still envisioned as part of the current project; however, differences in asset structure call for variations from former versions of the project. In addition, human awareness of the ordering project necessitates increased sophistication in assimilation and subversion. Previous iterations of the project have yielded important knowledge regarding human political institutions and cultural trends. This knowledge is being exploited as events and assets allow.

The issue of human surveillance and detection technology has recently become more prominent. Efforts are under way to retard the progress of this technology, but outcomes are unclear. In this instance, the lack of a truly authoritative central government in the complicates efforts to control the dissemination of new technologies. Market imperatives are such that humans are often willing to ignore the dictates of their elected officials if their crude risk-benefit analysis indicates such action to be worthwhile in financial terms. Possibly this process is underway with the technology; intelligence efforts continue.

Alert

Resources in , indicate that secrecy has been inadvertently breached. Loss of assimilated assets is probable. All assets in the area undertake extreme precaution. Assume heavy

presence for immediate future. All high-risk operations postponed until further notice. Exception

Assets in place are instructed to increase initiative in scouting and planning potential operations involving individual members.

Appendix

Priority human assets assimilated in .

Priority human assets assimilated in .

14

Hank got his hands up, but the Chitauri's impact knocked him back into his workstation. He grappled with it as it got one hand around his throat. It was still changing, its head flattening and growing a snout and its hands morphing into claws whose talons dug into the flesh of his shoulder and throat. Its shoes split open and fell away from long, clawed feet. The two of them wrestled against the table until one of its legs gave way and they hit the floor in an avalanche of papers, takeout cartons, and ballpoint pens. The computer slid along the inclined tabletop and banged Hank's head on its way to crashing against the chair. Hank threw a punch that tore some of Greg's skin away from the Chitauri's face; in return, the Chitauri squeezed Hank's throat until he could feel his larynx pressing into his airway. Trying to fight it off, Hank found that it was much stronger than he was; he couldn't loosen its grip. Its tongue flicked out and stung the flesh of his cheek.

"Very interesting, what you have done with these ants," the Chitauri said. "Their stings are quite painful." Hank tried to answer, but even with both hands locked around its wrist, he couldn't get out of its chokehold. The Chitauri plucked a bullet ant from behind its ear and pressed it into the back of one of Hank's hands. The pain that exploded up his arm when it stung was like nothing he'd ever felt before, and he gargled a scream through his constricted windpipe. All of the strength went out of his arm.

'Yes. Quite painful. We are very interested to explore your knowledge and abilities, Dr. Pym," the Chitauri said, showing its fangs. Its voice had transformed from Greg's cheery baritone to a gravelly chirp. "Your assimilation will be experiment as much as repast." It flicked its tongue across Hank's face again and made a wordless sound of hunger, as its free hand searched for and found a bullet ant stinging its forehead.

All at once, before he could make a conscious decision, Hank grew. And he grew fast; the headset cracked into pieces that bounced off his shoulders as he expanded, feeling his limbs lengthen and hearing the crackle in his ears that came as his anvil bones grew to the size of well, anvils. The Chitauri's grip became a tearing pinch, and the alien fell free, taking with it a divot of skin from Hank's neck. Hank grabbed the Chitauri before it could hit the floor—then his head and shoulders crashed into the lab ceiling, starting a cascade of acoustic tiles and light covers, along with an explosion of dust. With a growl, Hank heaved against the ceiling and grew through it, feeling the steel roof beams bend and pop loose from their welds as the roof collapsed with a rumble. Standing thigh-deep in the sudden wreckage of his lab, his feet and legs on fire with the stings of
P. clavata
loosed from the headset's influence, Hank saw and heard people pointing and shouting in the parking lot his lab shared with a call center and two nondescript offices. As the debris from the lab's collapse settled, he could hear more normal tones of voice as well.

"Holy smokes, it's that giant guy," someone said from the smoker's refuge outside the call center, maybe a hundred yards from where Hank stood.

"What, the Hulk? I thought they got him."

"No, idiot. The Hulk is green. This guy look green to you?"

"Nope. Just big and naked."

They weren't even scared of him. He was fifty feet tall and had just destroyed a building with the back of his head, and they weren't even scared of him. Hank lost his temper. Raising the Chitauri up to eye level, he said, "Did you think I wouldn't have a way out of your kung-fu grip, asshole?"

"The ants, I'm afraid," the Chitauri said. Hank had it gripped around the torso and one arm. Its other arm, damaged in its ascent through the lab's roof, dangled over Hank's thumb. "Pain causes confusion, which compromises the ability to think."

"You're goddamn right about that," Hank said, and crushed the Chitauri in his hand. Gasps came from the parking lot. "He just killed that guy!" someone shouted, and then people were running. Hank looked after them, mouth open, his fury beginning to recede. No, he wanted to say. Not a guy. You don't understand.

But they'd seen the gout of blood that came from its mouth and trickled between Hank's fingers, and that was all they were going to understand. Screwed up again, Hank thought. Even when I do the right thing, it doesn't work. He could already hear Fury saying that he should have kept the Chitauri alive so they could interrogate it. Like the rest of them, Fury wouldn't understand.

Hank looked around at the sound of sirens. Think, he told himself Worry about Fury later. The thing to do right then was get out of there.

He took a deep breath and laid the mangled Chitauri down between his feet. Then, exhaling so his lungs wouldn't rupture, he slowly let himself back down to normal size, accompanied by a spattering on the floor as his unclenched hand shrank away from the blood that coated it. Two things to do, he thought. Hide the body, find the sample in the trash can. Then I'm out of here. Wait. Three. Better get dressed, too.

Two hours later, he called Tony's private number. It rang for nearly ninety seconds before Tony finally picked it up. "Hank," Tony said.

"You watching the news, Tony?" Hank asked.

He was in the basement of the house he'd grown up in. His old bedroom had been redone as a TV

hideaway for his father, and Tony was there now, watching helicopter footage of his destroyed lab with a reporter on voiceover speculating about terrorism.

"As a matter of fact," Tony said, "I was just having lunch with Nick. The topic of your lab accident had come up, but we're definitely curious about what you might add to our discussion."

"I'm going to tell you again, Tony. There were survivors."

"Of course there were. We know that."

"You... then why did you cut me off last time? Is Nick there?"

"Why don't we put this conversation on the speakerphone?" There was a pop, and then Tony's voice came over the line again. "How's that?"

"Fine," Hank said. "Nick? You there?"

"I'm here, Doctor Pym." Fury sounded farther away, but Hank didn't know how the room where they were was laid out. It frustrated him not to be able to get a mental picture of the arrangement.

"There were survivors, Nick."

"I believe Tony just told you that we knew that."

"Yeah;" Hank said. "He did, but he still hasn't explained to me why he cut me off when I told him that before."

Tony started to say something, but Fury got there first. "I'll take this one, Tony. Doctor Pym, Tony cut you off because you are no longer a member of this team. That was true when you talked to Tony a couple of days ago, and it's true now. I asked him to take your call today so we could get that clear." On
TV
, a reporter was interviewing one of the people Hank remembered from the parking lot. She was saying that the giant guy had killed someone. The interview cut to a police lieutenant saying that no bodies had been recovered from the site, and from there the report went to a fire department team tearing into the wreckage of the lab. The reporter noted that several members of the police and fire departments had been bitten by extremely venomous ants, which led to a short interview with a Northwestern University political science professor on whether poisonous insects might be used in a terrorist attack. Hank knew he didn't have much time. He needed SHIELD to swoop down and trump the local investigation with black-ops credentials. "Remember what they said to Janet about being the universe's immune system, Nick?"