2

JOHANN SCHMIDT had never been one for dreams.

Dreams were for the weak—pathetic fantasies designed to in-_ spire hopes and a sense of well-being in the minds of the very louts who conceived them. But hopes for what—a better life? A world existing in harmony? An end to pain, to struggle, to hatred?

Lofty aspirations, perhaps—for those who chose to pursue them— but as delicate as bits of spun sugar in a carnival confection . . . and as easily dissolved.

Dreams were for those who lacked direction, lacked steely determination. A man might desire a better life, but how hard will he work to achieve it? He might wish for an end to misery, but what would he be willing to sacrifice in exchange for it? He might long for a better world, but what steps would he take to create it? Those were the questions that made all the difference—the ones that separated the dreamer .. . from the visionary.

It was the visionary who devised ways to end suffering, fashioned the methods by which other citizens’ lives were enriched, blueprinted the architecture of a harmonious society. Direction, determination, sacrifice—these were the tools with which a man of true vision shaped a better world.

And Johann Schmidt—the man known to the world by the far more chilling name of the Red Skull—had always considered himself a visionary.

Of course, that was not entirely true, though Schmidt would never admit it. But before the “visionary,” before the world-beating supervillain whose name had struck fear in the hearts of men and women everywhere for the better part of six decades, there was “Schmitty,” the street urchin and petty thief, who had no place in his life for dreams or visions—unless they were dreams of power, and visions of his rivals and enemies lying dead at his feet. . .

As an orphan growing up on the streets of Hamburg, Germany, Schmidt had been an outcast among outcasts—a brooding, often violent youth who prowled the streets and back alleys of the port city in search of potential victims. Shopkeepers, artisans, sailors, even police officers— no one was safe from the crippling blows and savage kicks Schmidt administered when the lust for money—or blood—overcame him. But his most brutal attacks were reserved for the Jewish community of Hamburg. In Schmidt’s mind, the Jews, more than any other ethnic or religious group in the city, deserved his ire. They had the best jobs, didn’t they? They had all the money, didn’t they? The fact that the targets of his anger just happened to believe in working honestly for a living, rather than accosting people on darkened streets, then running from the police, never penetrated his mind. Besides, the day would come, he was certain, when he’d be in a position above them, and then he’d spend as much time as possible rubbing it in their faces—and enjoying every moment that he did so.

And yet, despite his beliefs, despite his over-inflated sense of selfworth, Schmidt never rose above the rank of a common criminal, arrested time and again for practically every crime from theft to vagrancy—a faceless nobody destined to die in prison ... or the gutter. The fact that he managed to survive long enough to reach adulthood should have been a sign to him that it might be possible to turn his life around—to make something of himself.

But that was too much effort for Schmidt, who firmly believed that opportunities should come to him, rather than seeking them out. It wasn’t until he was in his early twenties that he finally had to face reality: he was a failure. Of course, that was no fault of his; the entire world had been against him since the day he was born. His parents, the police, the Jews, his fellow criminals—each in their own ways, they had all worked together to keep him from bettering his life, all plotted to deny him the power he so richly deserved.

Power—that was all Schmidt had ever truly desired. Power to take whatever he desired without consequence. Power to crush his enemies, to grind their faces into the dirt with the heel of his boot, to hear the sweet music of their death rattles as they drew their last breaths. And somewhere in the world, he knew, there was just that kind of power for the taking—power to destroy anyone who had ever crossed him, to let him finally claim what should have always been his.

Unfortunately, he lacked the motivation to go out and find it.

The passing years found him moving from town to town as he wandered across Germany, performing one menial job after another: gravedigger, floorsweeper, farmhand, manure hauler. Lacking a formal education—beyond what life on the streets had taught him—and barely able to read or write, Schmidt spent his days laboring to eke out a living and his nights, more often than not, in a jail cell.

He committed his first murder in 1935, when he was thirty.

He had been working for a Jewish shopkeeper in Magdeburg, sweeping floors and stocking shelves, angry with himself for allowing hunger and a need for shelter to force him into taking yet another low-paying position, when he spied the shopkeeper’s daughter, Esther, watching him. She was a pretty girl, no more than nineteen or twenty, and it had surprised him that anyone, let alone this dark-haired angel who could have her choice of any suitor in town, would show such interest in him.

But he had mistaken her look of pity for one of desire, and, for the first time in his life, fell in love—or what he perceived to be love. Unable to properly express himself, he settled for forcing himself on her. Esther had been horrified by his savage advances and pushed him away.

Smashing her skull with a shovel had been a reflex action for Schmidt, the anger that had been building inside him for three decades at last finding its release point.

But that brutal act did more than momentarily quell his burning rage. As Schmidt stood over her body, the gore-drenched shovel held tightly in trembling hands, his face and clothes slick with her blood . . . he smiled. He had never known such ecstasy .. . such pleasure. It was intoxicating.

For the first time in is life, he suddenly realized, he knew what real power felt like—the power of life and death.

Still, his crime went unpunished—the victim was a Jew, so the local constabulary wasn’t about to trouble itself by launching a full investigation; they quickly closed the case as “death by misadventure”—allowing Schmidt to flee Magdeburg and continue his travels without fear of prosecution .. . travels during which more than one innocent passerby expired from similar “mishaps.”

Eventually, Schmidt found himself in Berlin, where he somehow managed to talk—or coerce—the manager of the most prosperous hotel in the city into offering him employment; the only position available, however, was that of bellhop. Down to his last marks, Schmidt had no choice but to accept, galling as it was to once more find himself performing menial tasks for another boorish cur—this time in an overstarched, gaudily-colored uniform that made him feel like an organ grinder’s monkey, tipping his cap and forcing himself to show gratitude for the handfuls of change tossed at him by the very sort of wealthy louts and tarted-up women he’d spent his entire life despising. Here, again, he became just another faceless drone—a pack mule suitable for nothing more than carrying bags from room to room, taking the abuse doled out by short-tempered guests and his overbearing employers like any other dumb animal being disciplined by a harsh owner. What few dreams he might have possessed—if he’d ever cared to dwell on them— had long been taken from him by the cruelty of the streets during childhood, the harshness of his adult life, the constantly roaring flames of his misplaced anger.

Until that fateful day, that is.

The day he met Adolf Hitler.

Schmidt had heard stories of the man’s meteoric rise to power as the leader of the Nationalsozialistiche Deutsche Arbeiterpartei—the National Socialist German Workers’ Party—and the title of “Der Fiih-rer”—Leader of All Germany—that had been bestowed upon him by his followers, but hadn’t paid them much attention; he’d never been one for politics, and talk of such matters bored him. Still, after Hitler attained his goal of becoming Germany’s true leader in March 1933, even Schmidt had to take notice of the changes taking place around him.

The turmoil and hyperinflation collapse of the German economy following the First World War had taken an awful toll on the Weimar Republic and its citizens, both financially and spiritually. It was Hitler and his Nazi Party members who rebuilt the nation, brought pride back to its people, and re-energized business.

For the first time in his life, Schmidt had been awestruck. Here was the sort of power he had longed for, the type of respect he had always desired. He couldn’t help but admire the man. To have come so far, achieved so much, in so little time, apparently! What did it matter if these changes were often brought about by brutal force? So what if others had to suffer, so long as the country was healed with their sweat and blood?

But why this man Hitler? he’d often wondered angrily. Why had Fate chosen a one-time beggar—someone no better than he—to lead Germany to a new Golden Age? Even God was against him, it seemed!

But if it was Fate that had chosen Adolf Hitler to become one of the most feared—and hated—men in history, then it was also Fate that had decided to bring together that same Fascist dictator and an embittered, nondescript bellhop in an encounter that would forever change the world ...

Soon after Hitler and his followers had checked into the hotel, Schmidt had been ordered to deliver refreshments to their suite. He found the leader of his nation screaming in frustration at one of the higher-ranked officers in the Geheime Staatspolizei, or Gestapo—the Secret State Police.

“Why have I no one to turn to?” Hitler cried to the heavens, clearly upset by some failure on the part of his subordinate. “None to depend on? Must I create my own race of perfect Aryans?” In disgust, he had turned away from his henchman—and come face-to-face with a uniformed baggage-handier whose eyes blazed with jealousy, who did not look away as his Fiihrer stared back at him.

“I could teach that bellboy to do a better job than you!” Hitler snapped, looking over his shoulder at his aide. A wicked smile slowly came to his lips as he turned back to Schmidt; clearly, an idea was forming. “Yes, I could . ..”

He could—and did. Hitler himself trained the former street urchin, taking this lump of clay and shaping it into something far more useful; giving it life, meaning, purpose. Teaching Schmidt to focus his anger, his burning hatred for all humanity, and use it as a weapon.

Giving him the power he’d always believed he deserved.

And when the demagogue had finished tutoring his protege on the tenets of National Socialism, on the blueprint of his master plan for world domination, on the particulars of his “final solution” for dealing with the “Jewish problem,” when he was at last satisfied with the results of his labors, this modern-day Frankenstein loosed his monster on Europe and, soon after, across the Atlantic to the United States. He even had a colorful name for this personification of evil he had created:

The Red Skull.

Wearing a bizarre mask that matched his new codename, the monster went forth to spread his master’s doctrines, secure in the knowledge that he—he, Johann Schmidt, petty thief and vandal, brutish thug and murderer—had been chosen by the one true leader of all Germany to bring further glory to the Third Reich.

Now, at last, he had the chance to punish the world for all it had done to him. Now, at last, he would show everyone that he wasn’t a failure, wasn’t a nonentity. And, through his exploits, he would never let them forget his name—his new name.

His true name.

No, Johann Schmidt had never been one for dreams, but for visions. And the Red Skull had enough for them both—visions of spilt blood and tom flesh, of continents to win and worlds to conquer, of fire and smoke and the all-pervading stench of death ...

“A glorious morning, is it not, Dietrich?” the Red Skull asked.

Standing upon the western tower of Wewelsburg Castle, an imposing stronghold that towered above the village of the same name in Germany’s North Rhine Westphalia, he gazed at the peaceful countryside around him. Dawn had broken, and the Alme Valley was awash with color, the edge of the cloudless sky laced with warm pinks and lavenders, the first rays of sunlight tinting the forest with a flame-like glow that brought a faint, appreciative smile to even the Skull’s lipless gash of a mouth.

And the faint wails of the damned that drifted up from the death camp at the foot of the mountain were as sweet to his ears as the cheerful twittering of the songbirds in the trees.

“Indeed, Herr Skull,” his assistant replied. “A most glorious morning.”

According to historical documents, Wewelsburg Castle had originally been constructed during the early twelfth century, eventually falling into a state of disrepair once it had been abandoned by its occupants. It was restored five hundred years later under the direction of Prince Bishop Dietrich von Furstenburg, and became the secondary residence of von Furstenburg and the prince bishops of the nearby town of Pa-derbom from 1603-1609. But it wasn’t until 1934, when it caught the eye of Heinrich Himmler, Reichsfiihrer of the Schutzstaffel, or SS—the elite guards assigned to protecting Hitler and other high-ranking Nazis— that the castle truly made its notorious mark on history, as a place of religious zealotry . . . and death. The Skull could have chosen to live anywhere in the world—England, France, even the United States, as distasteful as the notion had been—yet he had decided to settle here, in his native Germany, in what had been the mystical center of Adolf Hitler’s proposed “Thousand-Year Reich.”

A sense of nostalgia, he imagined. Within these walls, the plans for creating an occult Vatican were bom, with Himmler and twelve “apostles” at the center of the neo-pagan religion that was to replace Christianity. It was here that the quest was initiated for mystical artifacts that the Reich could use against the Allied Forces: artifacts like the Ark of the Covenant, said to contain the stone tablets on which the Ten Commandants were carved by the hand of God, and the Holy Grail—the cup from which Jesus Christ had drunk at the Last Supper, and in which His blood had been caught during the Crucifixion. And it was here that Himmler formed his variation on King Arthur’s fabled Camelot, with the SS serving as a new order of Teutonic Knights—a tribute, of sorts, to the German warriors who had fought in Palestine during the twelfth century Crusades in an attempt to reclaim the Holy Land from the Moslems.

The Skull had always considered Himmler something of a madman, attaching religious significance to the most basic troop movements, sending out memoranda listing holidays to be celebrated under the new religion. But Hitler had tolerated his Reichsfiihrer’s eccentricities, even supported them, so the Skull remained silent and concentrated on more important matters.

Sixty years later, however, the Skull had to admit there might have been something to Himmler’s ramblings. He could feel the power of this place—it rippled through his muscles, tingled along his bones like a mild electrical current; what caused it, he could not say. Perhaps the self-imposed high priest of the Thule Society had recognized it, too, in those prosperous years before the Reich fell. Perhaps ...

Perhaps nothing. Himmler was dead and buried, as were his religion and his Ftihrer. Their dreams for a global empire, for an end to all religions but one? Dissolved like so much discarded cotton candy in a rainstorm.

Now there was only the Red Skull, and his own plans for the world.

He glanced at his aide. In his late thirties, head and face shaved clean to indicate his unquestioning loyalty to his death-masked master, Dietrich had, for a time, served as the Skull’s right-hand man, always at his side, always ready to defend him from his greatest enemies—and his closest allies. Standing smartly at attention, his dark gray uniform crackling with a heavy application of starch, its buttons and decorations gleaming brightly in the morning sunlight, Dietrich had always been everything the Skull expected in a Nazi: devoted, determined, willing to sacrifice everything to help the Reich rise again. Had it not been for his untimely demise at the hands of Nick Fury, the one-eyed, gravelly-voiced leader of the law enforcement agency S.H.I.E.L.D.—an acronym for Strategic Hazard Intervention, Espionage, and Logistics Directive— Dietrich would have continued to serve his master’s interests, and the Skull would not have had to look elsewhere for followers.

But Dietrich had died, and the Skull had sought followers. He found them among the sullen, self-absorbed youth that seemed to be everywhere these days—so-called “loners” who kept to themselves, relying on computer chatrooms and Internet web sites for companionship rather than the teenaged classmates who scoffed at them, shunned them, berated them because they were “different.” Youths obsessed with death, with hatred, and, in many cases, with the vision of a charismatic German leader long dead before they had even been conceived—a vision that gave them direction, and purpose, and a way to empower themselves, and encouragement to strike out at anyone they perceived as an enemy. At anyone who had ever laughed at them. At anyone who had ever treated them as a nonentity.

And deep within the mind of the Red Skull, just behind the flames that burned so hotly within the eyes of one of mankind’s greatest enemies, Johann Schmidt knew that he had found others of his kind.

Here was clay to be molded, clay to be fired in the kilns of a revived National Socialist movement, clay upon which a foundation could be built—the foundation of a new Reich. All it needed was an artisan to give form to it—a gifted sculptor who could transform these disaffected young men and women into warriors dedicated to his cause.

Was the Red Skull that skillful? True, he might be a patron of the arts—he had learned to appreciate them during his sessions with his beloved Fiihrer, who was a failed painter himself. And he was an aficionado of classical music—although somewhere along the way he had developed an unhealthy obsession with Chopin’s “Funeral March.” But an artisan who could shape young minds and inspire them to create the “perfect” world he and his former master had once envisioned?

Of course. There was none better for the task... at least in his opinion.

The goal he set for himself had not been an easily attainable one, but he knew from the outset that it would take time to achieve it. The first step had been the development of a web site that would appeal to today’s youthful outcasts; this was accomplished through the use of skilled twentysomething technicians who were part of the Skull’s worldwide network of neo-Nazi and other White Supremacist organizations— the source of his seemingly-limitless supply of muscle during his many attempts to take control of the planet, though that supply had begun to thin out over the past few years. There had been some setbacks along the way—most recently involving encounters with his arch-nemesis, Captain America, and the group of mutant super heroes called the X-Men—but the Skull never lost track of the progress of his plan, never allowed those he left in charge during his absences to deviate from it.

And when he finally revealed his part in this drama, when he at last stepped from the shadows to welcome these wayward children into the movement, he felt like a proud parent—or what he imagined a proud parent felt like, considering he had only brought one child into the world, and a daughter at that. Of course, there had been some dissension among his initiates when they realized who their leader was—it was to be expected, given the headstrong nature of children and their resistance to authority figures—but those who objected were never seen again. The world is full of missing teenaged runaways, after all. . .

As for those who remained—the ones dedicated to the vision of a world under his rule, who would sacrifice all, destroy all, to make it a reality—they and a handpicked group of the Skull’s most devoted followers retreated to a base their “Controller” maintained on the far side of the Moon. There the Red Skull sat and waited, biding his time until the proper moment presented itself for him to strike at his enemies; considering the growing racial tensions in America and Europe, the escalation of hostilities in the Middle East, and the schism among United Nations member countries over granting the Jewish mutant Magneto— the self-proclaimed “Master of Magnetism”—control of the mutant-ridden island of Genosha, he didn’t expect to wait too long for a sign.

He was still waiting, just beginning to lose his patience, when a powerful flare of the purest energy exploded from the vicinity of Latveria, the postage stamp-sized, Eastern European country ruled by Victor von Doom—an armored dictator better known to the people of the world by a far more ominous name: Doctor Doom. As the Skull watched, the image transmitted to his base from a number of satellites orbiting the Earth, the energy rapidly spread out from the epicenter to envelop the globe. And when it finally subsided, a new world had been bom—one in which von Doom had become its master.

The Skull knew instantly what had happened, for only one device could have been capable of transforming the Earth into von Doom’s private playground within seconds; a device that he, himself, had held on a number of occasions. It was a wish box of limitless energy, a scientific Philosopher’s Stone that gave its possessor the ability to transmute, not just base elements, but reality itself—to change the entire planet, as well as its population, into whatever—whomever—they desired.

An object called the Cosmic Cube.

The Skull knew all about the Cube, for he had been the first to tap into its power; the first to know what it meant to be a god, holding the power of Creation in his gauntleted hands . . .

It had been an accident of birth, this cosmic genie fashioned by the renegade scientists of A.I.M., the result of the organization’s attempts to pierce the fabric of space-time in an ongoing pursuit to devise a weapon that would finally allow them to rule the world. After much trial and error, they had succeeded in forming a meta-singularity—a “gray hole,” in layman’s terms—that produced an element never before known on Earth. Through the use of overlapping forcefields, the rogue scientists trapped the element in the perfect form of a cube and began to run a seemingly inexhaustible series of tests, hoping to uncover the nature of what they had discovered.

They never were able to reach a satisfying conclusion, for their tests were interrupted when the Cube was . .. acquired by the Skull, with whom A.I.M had made a decidedly unwise alliance. But the Skull’s dreams of a star-spanning Fourth Reich were quickly shattered by the intervention of Captain America, who tricked the death-masked war criminal into relinquishing possession of the Cube.

There were other Cubes, though, over the years, other opportunities for the Skull to mold the world to his liking. And he took advantage of each of them. But it always ended in frustration, his dreams perhaps too large for the Cube’s abilities, his enemies too quick in taking advantage of a lapse he might have made in concentration.

After all, not even “God” is perfect.

But when he saw what von Doom had created in fashioning a Cube of his own, when he looked down upon the world from his safehouse on the dark side of the Moon and realized how limited his armored rival’s scope of vision had been—why rule just one planet when you could make the entire universe your own?—he knew this Cube, too, must be his.

However, before he could formulate a plan for obtaining it, the Cube changed hands, falling under the control of one of von Doom’s greatest enemies: Erik Magnus Lensherr—the mutant overlord known as Magneto. That, more than anything von Doom had done during his short reign as emperor, angered the Skull the most, sending him into such fits of rage that his followers feared for their very lives. To think that a ... a Jew should possess such power! And what did he do with it? Squander it on wasteful fantasies of a peaceful, beauty-enriched world!

It was an action that the Skull had to admit even puzzled him, given the records he had gathered detailing Magneto’s background. As a youth, Lensherr had been an inmate of Poland’s Auschwitz concentration camp during World War II; had watched as his parents were marched off to the gas chambers; had seen the worst humanity had to offer—or so he thought. And yet, in spite of the daily horrors he faced, he managed to survive long enough to reach that day in 1944 when Allied forces liberated the camp. After that, the accounts of Lensherr’s activities were spotty, until, decades later, the gaudily costumed villain Magneto made his first public appearance, espousing his philosophy that mutantkind should become the dominant species on the planet, and that humanity should be harshly punished for decades of alleged mistreatments—a philosophy that quickly rallied other mutates to his cause. With such a background, with such a passionate hatred expressed toward all Homo sapiens, the Skull had expected Lensherr to create a veritable hell on Earth for the non-powered population, using the Cube’s energies to form internment camps, slave auction houses, possibly even extermination centers.

Instead, he created a veritable paradise in which humans and others of Lensherr’s kind—the genus he had dubbed Homo sapiens superior— lived in harmony .. . under his benevolent rule.

It had turned the Skull’s stomach.

The taint of Magneto’s dream had even pervaded the Skull’s stronghold, as the Cube’s energies swept outward from the Earth, adapting his once-loyal staff to fit this new reality. It was only by releasing a deadly gas through the air-processing units of the base that the Skull was able to keep the men and women who had served under him from betraying his presence to their new master. Only one lackey survived the purge: a blond-haired youth named Leonard, who served as the Skull’s personal aide. He had been safe inside “The Controller’s” office, avoiding death behind foot-thick walls and sealed entrances, while his peers collapsed at their stations, lungs boiling, drowning in their own blood. Leonard’s continued existence had not been part of the Skull’s plan, but he wasn’t about to open the door to throw the youth out, only to subject himself to the poisoned air.

Besides, there was no point—no real pleasure—in gloating about one’s genius in having a plan in place for an emergency such as this if there was no one around to agree with him.

As for why the Cube had had no effect on him or his assistant, the Skull attributed that to his contact with, and mastery of, previous Cubes—in particular, his most recent encounter with one, in which he had absorbed the wish box’s energies and used them to change the world ... momentarily. Again, as always, it was Captain America who found a way to defeat him, in spite of the near-godlike status the Skull had attained. Nevertheless, though he had lost in the end, the grotesque villain managed to retain some of the Cube’s power—not enough to rule, or even to alter reality, but enough to prevent him and his aide from becoming wall-eyed followers of Magneto’s.

Soon after, he and Leonard teleported to Earth to seek out the Cube. They found it in Paris, in Lensherr’s private apartments. Claiming the prize hadn’t taken too much effort: merely stabbing Lensherr with an obsidian blade with a plastic handle—a weapon designed to prevent the mutant overlord from using his magnetically-derived powers to destroy it—and then beating to a pulp some bald-headed imbecile who tried to come to Lensherr’s aid. With one enemy unconscious and the other bleeding to death, there had been no one to stop the Skull from seizing the Cube-—and making some much-needed changes to the world . . .

Dietrich softly cleared his throat to get his master’s attention. The Skull started, then shook his head to clear his thoughts. Letting his mind wander was a bad habit, one he’d never been able to break despite his best efforts; had he still any enemies, they might have seen such woolgathering as a sign of weakness. Slowly, he turned around to face his aide. “I imagine you are here for a reason . . .”

“Your knights have gathered in the North Tower,” Dietrich replied, “and—”

“And you have come to tell me they are eager for my participation.” The Skull glanced at him from the comer of his eye. “I am a poor host, am I not, Dietrich—to make my guests wait until I am ready to make an appearance?”

The blood drained from Dietrich’s face as he fumbled for an answer that would not sound insulting to his master. Say the wrong thing, and he would bear the scars of the Skull’s volatile response for the rest of his days—were he allowed to live that long. Eyes wide with fear, lower lip trembling, he had the appearance of a doomed soul waiting to be cast into the pits, knowing he had been judged by an angry god—and found wanting.

The Skull knew that look well—practically the entire global population wore it on a daily basis; a look of horror shared by every inhabitant on every world his star-sweeping armies had conquered. Knowing that he had served as its inspiration brought him a feeling of . . . elation.

The comers of the Skull’s lipless mouth curled upward in a hideous fashion—the closest approximation of a smile he could manage, given the fact that, years ago, an accidental exposure to a chemical agent had turned his features into a ftesh-and-blood replica of the mask he had worn for decades. He reached out to place a hand on his assistant’s shoulder—and chuckled as the man drew back.

“Calm your fears, Dietrich,” he said. “It was a rhetorical question; I expected no answer.” His eyes narrowed. “Still, the next time a question is put to you, I expect an answer—immediately.”

“Y-yes, Herr Skull,” Dietrich stammered.

The Skull nodded, then brushed past his aide and started down a carpeted hallway. “Inform the knights and my advisors that we will convene in ten minutes’ time,” he called back. “The empire continues to grow with each day, and I must know that it runs efficiently. For without order, there can be only chaos—but only if the Red Skull commands it!”

“I shall notify them at once, Herr Skull!” Dietrich replied, but his master had already rounded a comer.

As he strode through the hallways, boot heels ringing sharply against the marble tiles, a satisfied grin contorted the Skull’s grotesque features. Here, at last, was the world he had always envisioned. One of order and fear, of unquestioned discipline and swift punishment, of immeasurable power and one man’s iron will.

A perfect world. But not a perfect universe.

Not yet.

But with the Cosmic Cube his to control, with his armies sweeping across the stars like armored locust, the Red Skull was certain it soon would be. If not, he reflected darkly, he could always wipe it from existence and start over.

3

F THERE ever came a time when someone invented a way to wipe ; all dirt from existence so she could maintain a sparkling clean

_household, Jean Sommers would be the first on line at the store to

purchase it.

Dirt, grime, dust bunnies—there were days when she felt she’d been waging guerilla warfare with the filth invading her home, battling it from room to room, winning the bathroom but losing the kitchen, seizing the kitchen only to lose possession of the master bedroom. It was maddening and frustrating and repetitive and ... well... so damnably boring. But it wasn’t a sentiment she could express to anyone—not her parents, not her friends, and especially not her husband. As a highly decorated commanding officer in the Reich’s space force, Scott Sommers was the poster boy for obedient National Socialists, ready, willing, and able to give his all in the name of their glorious leader, the Emperor Schmidt. His face was plastered on recruitment banners from Times Square to Moscow to Mars Station. His exploits were reported on news broadcasts. For the wife of one of the Party’s most respected and admired warriors to whine to friends or family about the dullness of her life—true though it might be—would have been considered scandalous—and an embarrassment.

Still, it wouldn’t kill Scott to pay for a maid. He certainly made enough money as a commissioned officer ...

Sighing, Jean brushed a loose strand of bright red hair away from her face, tucking it back under the green kerchief that covered the top of her head, and gazed around her latest war zone: the library. As beachheads went, it wasn’t the hardest to defend—that honor was reserved for the living room of their split-level apartment on Manhattan’s Upper

East Side, mainly because its colorful indigo-and-red Persian carpeting was so tempting to their two miniature dachshunds, Sturm and Drang, they of the bottomless stomachs and overactive bladders. Still, the library presented enough problems of its own, since the mahogany bookcases and leather-bound editions acted as magnets for every dust particle on the lower floor, and the shelving ran from floor to ceiling, as well as along the length of the room. As for the liquid plasma television set mounted on the northern wall, it had already accumulated a fine coating of motes on its thirty-six-inch screen after this morning’s wipedown. So many nooks and crannies for dirt to gain a foothold in her stronghold ... It also smelled of the cigars Scott and his fellow officers often indulged in after a hearty meal when they entertained, in spite of Jean’s numerous attempts to scrub the odor from the carpet and drapes, or the fact that Scott hadn’t been home in almost two months.

But Jean wasn’t the sort of person to give in so easily. Dressed in her traditional combat gear of one of Scott’s old T-shirts—this one emblazoned with the washed-out logo of Beer Hall Putsch, one of his favorite East German rock bands back in his college days—knotted just above her bared midriff, faded blue Capri pants, and low-topped sneakers, armed with an assortment of cleaning products and the most powerful vacuum cleaner in five boroughs, she stepped forward, prepared to launch a first strike against her archenemy-—

—and came to an abrupt halt.

Slowly, she gazed around the room—at the towering bookcases, piled high with volumes; at the antique desk, its surface covered with congratulatory telegrams from Scott’s admirers and paperwork from the Ministry of Space to be addressed upon his return; at the plaques and framed medals and autographed photos—shots of him standing beside some of the most respected members of the Party. There was nothing of her in this place, she realized with a start. No evidence that Reichs-major Scott Sommers had a wife; no sign of any sort that she even existed. This was a shrine to his world, his life—the accomplishments he had achieved, the victories he had won, the glories bestowed upon him.

Jean looked down and stared at the yellow rubber gloves covering her hands, the fingers of one oversized mitt grasping the vacuum cleaner hose, the others clasped around a red plastic bucket brimming over with polishes and sprays and paper towels. A tremor ran through her body, and the bucket and hose slipped from her hands, to clatter mutely on the thick carpeting, as the reality of her situation finally struck home. Cooking. Cleaning. Trying to make babies. Following the commands of her husband without question. Doing everything expected of the good housewife, as outlined by the tenets of the Nazi League of German Women—principles created almost six decades ago, but still in effect today. Giving everything she had, without question, without hesitation, until there was nothing left of herself to keep for herself.

This was her world, then. Her life.

A wave of depression suddenly swept over her, and she allowed its undercurrent to pull her down, not even bothering to put up a token struggle against the black thoughts that now flooded her mind. When she eventually opened her eyes, she discovered that the tide had cast her upon the leather couch in the center of the room.

Jean stared at the darkened television screen across from her, and at the fiery-haired young woman with the dour expression who looked back at her from the glass. There was a sadness in that woman’s eyes, a haunted expression that marred her otherwise beautiful features; you could see it in the way her lips bowed, in the dull gleam of light on once-bright green pupils, in the sag of her shoulders. Here was someone without direction, without meaning being given to her listless days and solitary nights, without hope. A woman to be pitied.

Jean hated that woman.

It wasn’t her—never should have been her. The Jean Grey who existed long before she ever heard of Scott Sommers had been an energetic woman, eager to do her part for the Reich as a science teacher at the prestigious Frost Akademie, located just outside Boston, Massachusetts. It was one of a baker’s dozen of such Political Institutes of Education scattered across North America, though this facility differed from most in that it focused on shaping the minds of the Jungmaedel, or “young maidens,” of the Reich. Like the girls she instructed, Jean had spent her formative years in such a school, learning all she could from her teachers and military instructors, then spending a year working on a farm as part of the Labor Service, followed by a Household Year, in which she provided domestic service for one of the Empire’s more prosperous families. And all the time, it was made clear to her that it was her duty—both morally and as a patriot—to marry and bear children for the Empire. It was a lesson she carried into adulthood, as she so often reminded her students: serve the Reich to the best of your ability—whether you’re a housewife or a warrior, all are doing their part for the Empire, and their Emperor.

And when Scott Sommers entered her life, it seemed as if she’d at last have her chance to do hers. Unfortunately, she hadn’t taken into consideration the very real possibility that, in order for her to serve her Emperor well, she would have to abandon the life she had once so happily led.

Now, five years later, her hopes and dreams—her very life—had apparently reached a dead end. Oh, there was no doubt in her mind— or heart—that she truly loved Scott, and that he felt the same toward her. She enjoyed every moment of their time together, made even more precious because of his frequent trips to the front line, as the Empire continued to expand its boundaries. And she understood his commitments and responsibilities to the Reich and his Emperor; she just wished there was more time for themselves. The longer Scott spent away from Earth, the more distant they had started to become as a couple—first, the love letters he used to sent via hypermail had dwindled to nothing, then the daily conversations they used to have at the end of his watch— brief to begin with, so the transmissions couldn’t be used by enemy vessels to track the movements of his fleet—became weekly, became.

... She hadn’t heard from him in almost a month now, and, not for the first time, she’d started to wonder if she’d made the right choice in putting her life on hold indefinitely in order to show support for Scott while his military career took centerstage.

Maybe if they’d a child by now, she often thought, there wouldn’t be such a sense of division between them. They’d tried—Woden knew they’d tried often enough—but nothing seemed to work, no matter how passionate their lovemaking, no matter how many specialists they had seen. As far as the Reich was concerned, the problem lay not with Scott—he was a virile, able-bodied warrior, after all—but with Jean. Obviously, it was decided—from doctors on down to her own parents— that something must be wrong with her. No one had thought to consider Scott’s background, for that was one of the darker secrets of the Empire, one that only Jean seemed to be aware of: that Reichsmajor Scott Sommers, the poster boy of the space fleet, the living embodiment of the “true German,” was a mutant—a filthy, bottomfeeding aberration. A freak of nature, unfit to live among the genetically pure—or so press releases from the Ministry of Science often stated in newscasts, in the papers, on billboards and the Internet.

Perhaps it had something to do with the amounts of radiation his parents had absorbed while working in the Chicago munitions factories, preparing weapons for the Empire’s starships—the same radiation that gave him the ability to project force beams from his eyes; an uncontrollable ability, however, which was why he was forced to wear ruby quartz lenses in order to harness the destructive power. But it wasn’t something Jean could ever discuss with anyone—not unless she wanted to risk both of them facing an execution squad for what would certainly be considered an embarrassment for Emperor Schmidt. And so, for both their sakes, she had no choice but to quietly live with the stigma of having failed her husband and her Reich—a useless trophy wife suited for nothing better than dusting bookshelves and mopping floors . ..

Jean sighed, feeling the strength drain from her limbs, and flopped bonelessly against the couch cushions, letting her head roll back and forth across the metal support bar. She gazed up at the ceiling, noticing for the first time a spider’s web that had formed across one comer. Idly, she wondered if the step ladder in the kitchen would provide enough height for her to reach it with a broom . . .

Her eyes snapped shut, and she moaned softly. Couldn’t she even stare into space anymore without having thoughts of housekeeping fill her mind?

Opening her eyes, she immediately turned her head downward, before the dust particles collecting on the TV screen drew her attention, and spotted the glossy cover of a magazine laying on the teak end table beside the couch. It was last week’s Der Television Guide, its cover story an interview with Elisabeth Braddock, an Asian actress who starred in one of the Reich’s more popular programs: Kwannon, Bushido Mistress. Then again, any program that showed the Empire cannily destroying its enemies in a display of gaudy, cheaply-produced special effects could be considered popular. Jean wrinkled her nose; she’d never been one for fantasy shows, especially when there were far better reality-based ones to watch, like The West Brandenburg Gate and Crime and Punishment: Blitzkrieg Unit.

And yet, there was something about the photograph of Braddock on the cover that held her attention. The deep-blue latex costume, the so-obviously dyed lavender hair, the strange, blood-red-colored symbol that ran along the left side of her face, from just above her eyebrow down to her cheekbone—there was something . . . familiar about them. She couldn’t put her finger on just why that might be—she’d never given any mindfulness to the show, never seen more than a few seconds of any episode beyond what she caught while switching channels—but she was suddenly struck with the sense of having seen them, and Braddock, too, in a different setting. In person.

Jean frowned. She hated when something like this happened—now she’d probably spend the rest of the day driving herself crazy, trying to remember where she’d seen them before. It was almost as bad as getting a lyric from a particularly bad song stuck in her head, having it repeat over and over again; it’d taken her the better part of a week to get the words to Gilbert O’Sullivan’s “Alone Again . . . Naturally” out of her thoughts the last time this annoying little problem cropped up. Had she ever met Elisabeth Braddock? A possibility. Maybe at one of the functions Scott was always dragging her to, when the Reich was eager to congratulate its most photogenic officer on yet another victory. When exactly that might have occurred she couldn’t say—they’d been to three such extravaganzas in the past year, and so many people were in attendance it was difficult to keep track of them all. Or maybe it was at one of those youth rallies the Akademie often held while she was teaching— those usually drew a number of celebrities as guest speakers, their words meant to bolster the spirits of the students, preparing them for a bright future as productive members of the Empire. Or . . .

Jean exhaled sharply. No, it was no good. She just couldn’t recall where she’d seen Braddock before, and trying to force herself to remember wasn’t going to help. She’d have to let the question linger in the back of her mind; the answer would probably pop up when she least expected it—usually when she was distracted by something else.

Unconsciously, her eyes drifted back toward the ceiling—and the spider’s web hanging in the comer. It taunted her, nagged at her, whisper-thin strands swaying hypnotically in the slight breeze that billowed from the vents of the building’s central air conditioning unit.

With a groan, Jean rose from the couch and headed for the kitchen to retrieve the step ladder. Any potential memories of an encounter with Elisabeth Braddock were soon forgotten as another thought loomed large in her mind: whether anyone’s life could be as incredibly, frustratingly dull as her own. ...

Dust.

Dust and sand and grit as far as the eye could see, covering everything. It was a view Ororo Munroe had grown so tired of gazing upon she’d often wondered why, every morning, as she dragged herself from bed, she still managed to have hope that something—anything—of even minor interest might appear to divert her attention from the wearying monotony of her days, and the endless wastes that surrounded her.

Taking residence in Araouane, a village in the West African state of Mali, had not been her idea—Ororo had always been, for all intents and purposes, a city girl at heart, bom in a New York hospital, raised among the manmade cliffs and valleys of that hectic metropolis for the first six years of her life, then moving to Cairo, Egypt, with her parents—her father, a photojoumalist named David Munroe; her mother, N’Dare, an African princess. For a six-year-old child, the thought of living in a two-room, mud-brick shanty on the edge of the Sahara Desert, like the ones that comprised the village, might have sounded like a great adventure—for a time—but the initial excitement would have quickly faded, once it was made evident that there was really nothing to do there. However, for a twentysomething woman used to commanding weather patterns across the globe and soaring through the skies, borne aloft on winds she controlled—a woman who had been worshipped as a goddess for a few short years—the thought of such “adventure” wouldn’t have even been a consideration, not when there was an entire world to explore.

Unfortunately, being black on a world for which racial equality usually meant having the same white skin, blond hair, and blue eyes of your neighbor, the notion of traveling freely anywhere was out of the question, especially once the Schutzstaffel Race and Resettlement Bureau had begun forcibly instituting its policy of “repatriating” most of the planet’s black population to Africa during the 1980s—“the better to keep an eye on them, having them all in one place,” as the Emperor Schmidt had commented at the time. Being a black woman had its own complications, especially since the female population was seen as nothing more than property to be bought and sold by the Empire’s wealthiest families—or to be used as mistresses for some of the Reich’s more lascivious powerbrokers. And, of course, as Ororo had learned over the years, having been bom a mutant was the greatest sin of all: a genetic defect no better than the “untouchables” of Hindu beliefs, whose very touch was considered a form of pollution—although, based on the “evolutionary chain” once devised by the Reichminister of Health, Amim Zola, and his assistant, Dr. Henry McCoy, in order to give students a clearer understanding of the tenets of “genetic purity,” even that lower caste ranked higher than Ororo and her kind.

No, settling in Araouane hadn’t been her idea; it was where the SS had forced her to go after they had stripped her of her powers, to keep her from “infecting” any large centers of population. Why they hadn’t just killed her was a question that still haunted her from time to time. Was she to be part of some Nazi plan to be implemented in the future? Was she considered too valuable to eliminate?

Or was it that she just hadn’t been worth the effort of killing?

The memories of her fall from godhood still tore at Ororo’s heart: the betrayal by worshippers she’d come to think of as friends; the blast of sonic power emitted by the villain Klaw that had knocked her from the sky, and into the hands of the SS; the pain of the surgery she’d had to endure—performed without anesthesia—that had forever stolen the skies from her. Unconsciously, she placed a hand at the small of her back, feeling the ever-present, gumball-sized lump of the neural inhibitor that had been welded to the base of her spine. Small it might be, but it was powerful enough to shut down her element-controlling abilities—and it couldn’t be removed without killing her.

Would that be so bad, though—to die at least in trying to free herself before this sand-washed purgatory could finally claim her soul? She couldn’t help but wonder. She had felt empty enough when she’d lost her powers of the storm, but when she’d been robbed of her gift of flight. . . For someone who had soared with the birds, played tag with the clouds, chased the moon through nights ablaze with the light of billions of stars, being confined to the ground was the worst sort of punishment imaginable. There were days when the sense of loss became almost too much to bear. Days when her heart ached as she watched the lowly vultures spinning in lazy circles through skies so blue it seemed as though the Bright Lady herself must have painted them. Days when the slightest of breezes gently ruffled her waist-length hair and she heard the winds softly call her name, the clouds urging her to come play with them ...

Ororo shook her head, angered by allowing herself to fall into yet another pitiable bout of useless reverie. Yes, she missed the freedom she’d once taken for granted, the powers she’d possessed, but pining for their return was a waste of time. This was her life now, and she had never been the sort who gave in to bouts of depression for long. She tightened the sash of her once-white robes and held her head high, determined not to lapse into any further periods of morbid daydreaming.

“A good day, is it not, my lady?” asked a pleasant female voice.

Ororo turned. Standing beside her was a tall, narrow-waisted African woman iij her thirties, wrapped in a blanket emblazoned with yellow, blue, and green patterns set on a red field. Her face alight with an infectious smile, she ran a hand through her short, dark hair, shaking loose the particles of sand that had settled in it, carried by the humid breeze; in her other hand she held an oversized bowl.

Ororo smiled. “And what makes you say that, Abena Metou?”

Her companion gestured at their surroundings. “A blue sky, a light wind, a desert at rest, allowing me to spend time with my family.” Her smile widened. “Is that not proof enough that the Bright Lady blesses us?”

Ororo slowly nodded. “Indeed ...”

Abena Metou had been a resident of Araouane long before Ororo had arrived and—so far as the former goddess could tell—had apparently never set foot outside its boundaries. For her, the world was a sand-covered oasis no more than a mile in circumference, in which life was lived through an endless progression of stiflingly hot days and chillingly frigid nights, where having pantries stocked with sufficient amounts of water and food for one’s family was considered far more important than amassing wealth, and where the only sort of war that mattered to its inhabitants was fought between the slowly advancing dunes of the Sahara and a handful of women armed with nothing more than large bowls to sweep them away—primitive weapons, to be sure, but more than effective in holding the line. And yet, Abena accepted this existence without protest, happy enough that, no matter how frustrating her daily skirmishes with the desert might become, she would still receive small payments of rice and sugar from the other villagers for her efforts—enough for her family to live on.

With a slight bow, Abena turned and headed back toward her home. Before she reached it, the door opened, and her four-year-old daughter, Jnanbarka, came racing out. The child galloped across the sand, barefooted, and began dancing in a wide circle around her mother, who made playful attempts to grab her, but the girl always remained just out of reach. Then, as Abena spun to one side, Jnanbarka ran in and grabbed the bowl from her hand, turning it upside-down and placing it at a jaunty angle on her head. Proud of her pottery-hat, Jnanbarka marched ahead of her mother, chin up, leading her back inside the house.

Ororo laughed softly. Abena was right: it was a good day—one to enjoy, not waste moping. Smiling brightly, she began walking back to her own home, eager to get on with her activities. Perhaps, she reflected, her life wasn’t as bad, wasn’t as boring, as some other’s might be. . . .

He stood on the bridge of the battlecruiser Valkyrie, narrowed eyes locked on those of his Kree counterpart, whose azure-hued features filled the main screen.

“For the last time, Captain,” the Kree warned, “drop your shields and surrender your ship, or prepare to make peace with whatever god you worship.”

The Captain merely smiled and slowly shook his head in exasperation. No matter where he and his crew traveled among the stars, it seemed that one Kree commanding officer was as ignorant as the last he’d encountered, and more than likely as the next he’d run into. Hadn’t any of these fools heard of his victory over the N’garai on Goering’s World? How he’d broken through the Goa’uld blockade of Andromeda, allowing a hundred-odd worlds the honor of joining the Empire? Of the destruction of the Shi’ar munitions factory on Arkonides?

Didn’t these blue-skinned idiots realize who they were messing with?

“What say you, Captain?” the Kree demanded. “I assure you, if you surrender peacefully, we will treat your crew with the utmost care.” A wolfish grin twisted his upper lip, revealing yellowed teeth. “Especially your women.”

The Captain snarled, and glanced around the bridge, noting how expectantly his crewmembers sat at their stations, looking to him for guidance, relying on him to find a way to beat the great odds against them, as he had done on countless other missions; His gaze drifted to his yeoman, standing close by as always, ready to support her captain in whatever decisions he might make, no matter how perilous the situation in which they might find themselves.

Of all the women he’d loved on dozens of worlds, Sharon Carter was still the most beautiful in the galaxy—the sort of plucky, desirable girl with whom any starfaring officer worth his spacedust wouldn’t hesitate to settle down and raise a family. Unfortunately, there was another love in the Captain’s life, one that received his full attention at all times, one not even the most ravishing female in twelve parsecs could compete with: his ship. Amazingly, though, Sharon understood, and was more than willing to settle for second-best in his heart. There were times when he thought he didn’t deserve to have someone that special in his life— and then immediately cast aside such a preposterous notion. Of course he deserved someone like that—he was the Captain, wasn’t he?

And yet, he couldn’t help but feel sorry for her, as she trembled under the lustful gaze of his enemy, nervous fingers pulling at the hem and plunging neckline of her micro-miniskirted uniform. It was clear she knew she was being mentally undressed by a barbaric member of a notoriously degenerate race. He’d have to put an end to that quickly—no mongrel-raced alien filth ogled his crew!

Sharon turned to him, eyes full of pleading. “Oh, Captain,” she whispered.

He reached out to brush away a tear that rolled down one perfect cheek, then gently ran his fingers through her golden, shoulder-length hair.

“Ev’rythin’ will be, all right. . . petite,” he said softly.

Doe-like blue eyes grew wider, and a warm smile lit her delicate features. He’d always enjoyed that smile.

“I know it will,” she sighed, pressing her cheek against the palm of his hand.

With a wry grin, the Captain turned to his weapons officer, Lieutenant Sean Cassidy. “Quantum phase-shifters at maximum,” the redhaired officer said quietly, so as not to be overheard by their opponent. His voice was tinged with a brogue bom of the Irish countryside. “Stan-din’ by.”

“Engage,” the Captain said.

One moment, the viewscreen had been filled with an image of the Kree warship’s bridge, its captain clearly running out of patience; the next, it showed the flank of the enemy vessel. In the blink of an eye, the quantum phase-shifters had teleported the Valkyrie away from its position under the Kree gun emplacements to a spot just over two kilometers behind them.

“Fire,” the Captain said.

Cassidy’s fingers flew across his console with the dexterity of a concert pianist, and death in all its various manmade forms—lasers, guided missiles, nuclear torpedoes—leapt from the Valkyrie’s weapons batteries to tear apart its target. In less than a minute, the battle was won.

The crew cheered its victory, and the Captain swept Yeoman Carter into his arms. The kiss they shared was long and passionate, and left her gasping for air when he finally released her.

“Oh, Captain ...” she purred, lips pursed and eyes half-closed in a seductive expression he knew all too well. She threw her arms around his neck. “Take me, Captain! There’s nothing I’d like more in the entire universe than for you to—

“WAKE UP, LEBEAU!”

The high-pitched shriek that rattled Remy Lebeau’s eardrums wasn’t half as painful as the slap across his face that accompanied it a moment later—the hefty ring worn around one finger struck his jaw with the force of a small club.

With a groan, Remy slowly opened his eyes—to find himself looking at the most beautiful woman in twelve parsecs. He grinned, still half asleep. “Sharon . . .” he sighed.

The delicate fingers that had been poised to gently stroke the Captain’s rugged face now closed around the lapels of Remy’s uniform jacket and roughly hauled him from the chair in which he’d been “resting his eyes.” A quick twist of the wrists, and he was flying over his desk, scattering folders, reports, packs of playing cards, and various and sundry office supplies around the broom closet-like space that served as his inner sanctum. He crashed against the far wall, between a battered file cabinet and a plant of some kind that had seen neither sunshine nor water in a dog’s age, and slid to the floor in a contorted heap amid the stacks of faded pulp magazines and weathered paperback novels that served as inspiration for his fanciful daydreams. From his sprawled position on the warped wooden floorboards, Remy pushed away leafs of multicolored papers that had settled over his face and glanced sheepishly at the hardened features of his superior officer.

As Obergruppenfiihrer of Ernst Kaltenbrunner Spaceport—a facility based in Queens, New York, named after the late head of the Reichs-sischerheitsamt, the Reich Security Office, during World War II—

Sharon Carter might well be one of the most desirable women in the empire, but she was hardly the sort who could be described as “plucky.” Her blond hair tied back in a ponytail so severe it made her eyes bulge from their sockets—a look made even more disturbing by the way her blood-red-colored lips were pulled back in what seemed to be a perpetual snarl—Carter looked every bit the “she-wolf ’ the staff at Kal-tenbrunner had dubbed her... behind her back, of course. She was dressed in a leather jumpsuit so tight it appeared as though it had been spray-painted on her, covering every inch of her body from neckline to toe. It was complemented by highly polished leather boots and a gunbelt worn low on her hips; the pistol grip of a Luger protruded from the holster strapped to her right thigh. Remy took note of the way her right hand hovered above the weapon—clearly, she was deciding on whether to reprimand him for napping without permission ... or shoot him.

“Err.. . Gutten tag, Herren Obergruppenfuhrer,” Remy muttered in an easy drawl bom of the Louisiana bayous. “I didn’t hear you come in.”

“Of course you didn’t, Lebeau,” she snapped. “You were too busy dreaming your pathetic little dreams again to notice when an officer entered the room.” She flashed a lipless smile that made Remy think of a shark opening its jaws, preparing to take a bite out of its prey. “Were you fantasizing about me this time, Lebeau?”

Remy felt his cheeks reddening and quickly cast his gaze to the floor. “No, Obergruppenfuhrer. ’Course not. Dat’d be ’gainst regulations.”

Carter snapped off a laugh—one that sounded like a short burst of gunfire. “Well, I’m pleased you know some of the laws governing this facility, Lebeau,” she said icily. “But perhaps it’s slipped your tiny Cajun mind that sleeping on the job is also against regulations.” Her eyes narrowed. “Need I remind you of the punishment for dereliction of one’s duties?”

“I’m real sorry ’bout dat, ma’am,” Remy said. “I won’ let it happen again. I promise.” He started to pick himself up off the floor, but a stiletto-heeled boot jabbed him in the chest, forcing him back.

“Did I give you permission to get up, pig?” Carter growled.

“Umm ... no, ma’am,” Remy said quietly. “You’ll... uh ... lemme know when I can, d’ough, right?” He flashed his winningest smile at her, hoping to defuse the situation with charm before he got into worse trouble. It always worked in his dreams ...

Carter’s upper lip curled, and she granted in disgust. “You’re a sad little man, Lebeau. When you first joined my staff as a clerk two years ago, I thought you had potential... but I see now that I misjudged you.

You’re lazy, you’re irresponsible, and you lack discipline.” She grabbed one of the dog-earred paperback books he’d landed on, sneered as she glanced at the gaudy cover, and flung it at him. Perry Rhodan: Death Waits in Semispace—one of the better books in the series, Remy noted. “You sit in this sty all day, reading garbage that brings a note of excitement to your otherwise meaningless existence, while avoiding your duties as much as possible. Asking you to perform the simplest task is like making demands of a wall—but at least the wall has an excuse for not following through on the assignment.” She pointed an accusatory finger at him. “I bet you haven’t even looked into who’s behind those recent thefts of office supplies.”

Remy cleared his throat and looked at the floor again, finding it hard to look her in the eye. “Well, findin’ de t’ief ain’t all dat simple a task, ma’—”

She ground her boot heel into his chest, grinning at Remy’s painfully sharp intake of breath. “You’re a piece of offal, Lebeau—a pile of excrement stinking up my spaceport. And if you’re not careful—” she dragged her foot sharply across his torso, and he yelped “—I’ll scrape you off on the curb. Do you understand?”

“Yes, Obergruppenfiihrer." Remy rubbed a hand across his sore flesh, trying to ease the pain. He was somewhat grateful she hadn’t drawn any blood—she might have punished him for wearing a dirty uniform.

Her nostrils flared angrily. “And didn’t I tell you to get a haircut?” Remy’s other hand unconsciously slid to the back of his neck. He’d been letting his dark brown hair grow far beyond the parameters of the regulation crewcut for the past three months, despite two previous warnings from Carter about the “shabby” appearance he was cultivating. The ends now reached just past his collar. “Yes, ma’am.”

“Then do so at once. I won’t tolerate anyone under my command looking like ... like some gypsy! You’re an officer of the Reich—start acting like one!” Without waiting for a response, Carter turned on her heel and stormed out of the office.

Remy waited until he heard the door to the outer hallway slam shut before he dragged himself to his feet. His chest still burned where Carter’s boot had scraped it, and he had a bump on the back of his head the size of a golf ball, courtesy of the wall he’d slammed against when she tossed him across the room. Not such a bad start for a Wednesday morning, considering he was still feeling the bite of her riding crop on his legs and back from the week before. He limped around the desk and collapsed into his chair.

A small smile came to his lips as he gazed at the door, and he

sighed. “Dat fille ... she crazy ’bout ol’ Remy—she just playin’ hard-t’get..The smile froze, then slowly melted into an embarrassed frown. “ ’Least dat what I wish it was ..

Leaning back in his chair, Remy closed his eyes and let his thoughts carry him away—back to the depths of space, where the kind of power and respect he so sorely lacked in reality could be found simply by wrapping his strong arms around the shapely waist of the most beautiful woman in twelve parsecs....

4

IF THIS is what it was like to rule infinity—sitting idly by, deep within a city-sized construct that floated at the center of Time and _ Space, waiting for something to do—then Victor von Doom was sorely disappointed.

Slouching on the ornate throne previously occupied by Roma, she who was now the former Supreme Guardian of the Omniverse, von Doom rested the chin of the metal helmet that encased his head on a gauntleted fist and gazed at the voluminous interior of Roma’s private quarters. Designed in the style of a gothic cathedral, the throne room was a marvel of sweeping arches, polished stone, delicate wooden fixtures, and a ceiling so high it was lost in shadow. On the far side of the transept, tucked away in a comer, was a small wading pool, its cool waters provided by a fall that flowed from somewhere above; von Doom hadn’t been interested enough in it to determine the source. Most of the lighting came from hundreds of candles set in tall, elaborately designed holders spaced about the area around the throne and crossing, which meant that most of the sanctum was bathed in darkness—and within the depths of that black curtain, something moved. What it might be, von Doom wasn’t certain; he could only see it from the comers of his eyes, since gazing at it straight-on proved ineffective. Presumably it was some kind of defensive system Roma might have unleashed on him, if he hadn’t struck her down before she could activate it. Without its mistress to command it, the creature—creatures?—remained in shadow, apparently content to leave von Doom alone with his thoughts.

In one way, with its brooding architecture and Olde Worlde charm and potential deathtraps, the throne room reminded the armored tyrant of his own castle, in his native Latveria—a stronghold from which he ruled his tiny nation with a just, but fair, hand. In another, it reminded him of a prison—for, though it had not taken a great deal of effort to secure this place, he had soon realized that he couldn’t leave its environs.

An annoyed frown twisted the scarred features hidden beneath the armor. Yes, it was a prison, von Doom reflected darkly, and he its sole inmate.

There was nothing that actually kept him there—no powerful force-field to restrain him, no fail-safe mechanism that might have been created by Roma to trap an invader on the chance that someone might succeed in taking control of the Starlight Citadel; if he wanted to leave, all he had to do was step through the main doors and into the adjoining hallway. But it wasn’t as simple as that, as von Doom well knew. For before he had barged in here and overpowered the Guardian with a makeshift technological weapon, the citadel had been placed on high alert after it had been discovered that he was running loose through its corridors. That alert was still in effect and, although von Doom feared no one, he knew his enemies’ strength lay in their numbers—a dozen foes he could deal with, perhaps more, but there were hundreds of sentient beings living in the citadel, as well as the legions of superpowered warriors that comprised the Captain Britain Corps. Not even von Doom was foolish enough to think he could beat those kinds of odds.

That wasn’t to say, however, that he was simply willing to sit comfortably in the shadows, trembling with concern that his presence here might be detected, when there was ultimate power for the taking.

Of course, it was his search for ultimate power that had led him to this maddeningly dull situation in the first place . . .

The scientists in his employ had never planned to create a Cosmic Cube; it had been a happy accident—if one could consider stumbling across the means to fashion a Jack-in-the-Box-sized device that would allow its possessor to rule the world a joyous occasion. Much like the specialists of Advanced Idea Mechanics, they had tapped into a “gray” hole during an experiment, though this one involved penetrating the Negative Zone: an anti-matter universe first discovered years before by von Doom’s rival—and arch-nemesis—Reed Richards, the leader of the cosmic ray-powered super hero group called the Fantastic Four.

Once the scientists realized what they had discovered, the project leader, Dr. Nils Browder, wasted no time in informing their employer. The news had pleased the dictator: After all the times the Red Skull had made use of such a device to transform the world into numerous recreations of the Third Reich—the limitations of the man’s mind were almost beyond belief!—only to have his dreams shattered by Captain America or some other brightly-costumed do-gooder, it should only be right that Victor von Doom be the one to show Schmidt, and every other pathetic, superpowered, would-be emperor grasping for power, what a true visionary could do with the Cosmic Cube.

All other projects were put on hold, as von Doom’s subordinates threw themselves into attaining their goal—especially when the risk of failure on their part brought with it a death sentence. Forgotten were plans for the tyrant’s latest strike against the accursed Richards and his team—at least temporarily. Work was suspended on the mind-control gas meant to enshroud London; strategies were postponed for the invasion of Washington, D.C.; halted were batches of a deadly neurotoxin to be released above the undersea realm of Atlantis—an act of revenge against his former ally, Prince Namor, the Sub-Mariner, for opposing him once too often. For von Doom, crafting the Cube became his overriding ambition—nothing would deny him the opportunity to create a world of his own.

Unfortunately, all the ambition in the universe wasn’t enough to prevent what happened next.

It was during the creation of the cube-shaped container that the trouble began. Not a true, physical box, the container was, instead, formed through a combination of forcefields, the overlapping of their diverse energies calibrated in such a precise manner that there could be no room for error; the slightest miscalculation could result in the “gray” hole’s power spilling out of the cube, contaminating the laboratory with unknown levels of radiation. Such a warning meant nothing to von Doom—he was paying his staff handsomely; they should be honored to sacrifice themselves in his name. Browder, however, cautioned that the danger might be even greater than that—who could say that the radiation wasn’t powerful enough to spread out across the planet? The scientists at A.I.M. might have known, but the original research team had been murdered by their leadq-, shortly after the first Cube had been fashioned—and then the Red Skull had stolen it before anyone could properly monitor it. Perhaps, Browder suggested, they should slow their efforts, make certain that all precautions were taken; given enough time, maybe four to six months, they would be able to create a flawless container, one that would properly—

When the high-pitched whine of von Doom’s gauntlet-mounted laser projectors finally died down, there wasn’t enough of Browder left to sweep up from the laboratory floor.

The rest of the team finished the work ahead of schedule.

On the day von Doom took the Cube in hand, he knew his destiny had arrived: to be lord of the planet. To become Emperor.

To become a god.

And as he listened, the Cube sang to him—of worlds to be shaped, masses to be led, dreams to come true. A wondrous song, full of pomp and grandeur, that told the awe-inspiring story of a Gypsy youth, an orphan, who fought and clawed and struggled against insurmountable odds to become the ruler of a great nation, then moved on to make his mark on the world as a man to be respected, to be admired.

To be feared.

But there was more to the song than the mere recounting of a marvelous life lived. There were promises of infinite power, of empires to be built, of future generations of charismatic leaders who would proudly carry the name of von Doom across the stars.

And all it would take to make them reality was the simplest of wishes.

So von Doom wished—for power, for glory, for a family to share his triumphs. He wanted his ruined face restored to its former beauty; wanted a monarchy where his rule was unchallenged by any of his former allies or enemies; wanted a strong, beautiful woman at his side, one who would bear him children worthy of their father’s name. And in a burst of light, the Cube responded, bringing him everything he desired ...

Well. . . almost everything. When the light faded, Emperor von Doom ruled a world in which his enemies and allies were either dead or loyally serving him. He had two healthy children and a strong, beautiful wife: Ororo Munroe, the white-haired, weather-controlling, African-American member of the mutant hero group the X-Men—a woman he had always found attractive, both in mind and body. But when it came to the tyrant’s vanity-driven wish, something went terribly, horribly wrong.

He had awoken in a body ravaged by age, lungs straining to draw breath, heart beating weakly against the withered, almost translucent skin of his chest. His eyesight had grown dim, and his limbs had barely been able to support his own weight, let alone the three-hundred-pound armor he wore. And yet, his thought processes were as sharp as ever; at least he hadn’t lost control of his faculties. Still, his was the mind of a man in his forties, trapped in the flesh of an octogenarian.

The realization of his predicament had almost driven him mad.

Nevertheless, he persevered—he was von Doom, after all—and eventually he found ways to make peace with his situation: transferring part of his consciousness into the body of an android Doombot so that he could enjoy some measure of this world he had created; using Erik Magnus Lensherr—the villainous mutant Magneto—as a pawn in a global game of hide-and-seek with the Emperor’s armed forces, in order to pass the time; preparing himself for the day he would die, when he would make one last wish with the Cube: to destroy the world before it returned to normal, rather than allow anyone else to rule it.

It was while he was making those plans that he at last figured out what had gone wrong with the Cube: Somehow, one of his scientists had botched the calculations, and that mathematical error had caused a breakdown in the cube-construct’s integrity. The Cube had worked, true, but it was flawed—damaged enough to give him a world of his choosing, only to seal him inside a dying body with no means of escape.

Von Doom, of course, overlooked the fact that it was he who had provided the final round of computations before the Cube was activated, not trusting such an important task to a roomful of lackeys—even though all were world-renowned experts in their field. To anyone who knew his background, it would have appeared to be a case of history repeating itself, for the last time he had ignored someone’s advice about mathematical errors had been decades before, while he was attending an American college. Back then, he had been experimenting with matter transmutation and dimensional warps, in an attempt to contact his late mother’s spirit in the afterlife. Despite the warnings given by fellow student Reed Richards, von Doom proceeded with his work, only to cause an explosion that wrecked a sizeable portion of the dormitory— and permanently scarred his face. One would have thought, perhaps, that he might have learned from his costly mistake . . . but Victor von Doom never made mistakes ...

And so, although the errors were different, the results were fairly the same: von Doom received the brunt of the backlash.

Worse still, as the newly-appointed Emperor came to deduce, the reason why his body was failing could be traced directly to the Cube: It was drawing upon his life-force in order to stabilize the faux reality. At the rate at which he was deteriorating, he estimated that he had no more than a month to live, unless he could find someone to take his place—someone willing to sacrifice their own life in exchange for maintaining von Doom’s world. He thought he had found such a prospect in Elisabeth Braddock, who had been pining away for her lost love after his brutal death, but her fellow mutant miscreants had interceded before they could come to an agreement.

And then that imbecile Magneto and his mindless followers had barged in, quickly overpowering the X-Men so that there would be no one to stop the mutant overlord from claiming the Cube for himself.

A low, feral growl spilled from the armored dictator’s lips as the unpleasant memory filled his dark thoughts. To think that a genetic inferior would dare to touch the royal personage of Doom—to have the temerity to strike him down with the back of his hand, as though he were some disobedient child! But, at the time, von Doom could do nothing more than moan in pain and collapse bonelessly to the floor, too weak to prevent Magneto from wrapping his hands around the Emperor’s prize possession—and ordering it to recreate the world in his image.

Yet, despite his loss, von Doom was not defeated; not while he had other options available to him. True, having his teleportation beam intercepted by Roma and her minions had not been part of his plans, but he had always been able to make the best of any situation—especially when the alien technology of the Starlight Citadel at last freed him from his elderly prison. Much to his surprise, it turned out that the Cube had not really aged him; rather, it had apparently placed his consciousness, and his soul, in the body of another Doctor Doom: the true dictator of an already existing world that von Doom thought he had fashioned with his wish box. A replicant who told him all he knew of the citadel and its god-like mistress, encouraging his younger self to make use of the information before they were both imprisoned.

Von Doom rewarded the old man by making his death a swift— though not altogether painless—one.

And then, by making use of a self-aggrandizing physician named Stanton—a pathetic little man with an axe to grind against the Supreme Guardian—von Doom was able to escape the medical ward and secure an ally: the dictator Sat-yr-nin, who was being held in stasis until Roma had passed sentence on her for numerous crimes perpetrated against the citizens of an alternate Earth. By capturing Sat-yr-nin’s alternate—an annoyingly haughty young woman who acted as Roma’s second-in-command—and placing her in the stasis chamber, no one, not even the Guardian, was aware that the coolly efficient Satumyne had been replaced by an equally coldhearted madwoman.

It was that last bit of subterfuge that ultimately led to Roma’s downfall, and von Doom’s rise to power, for Sat-yr-nin had been able to get close enough to the Guardian to attack her. Apparently unused to physical combat, Roma had been distracted long enough by the unexpected assault to fall prey to the armored tyrant’s improvised weapon: a variation on the same multiphasic crystal accelerator that had been used to separate him from the wizened Doctor Doom. In this case, though, the device was used for a far more sinister purpose, stripping layer after layer from the Supreme Guardian, weakening her as a number of alternate versions of herself were peeled away by the scalding radiation. Apparently, Roma derived her considerable power from being a collective of sorts, her physical form housing every variation of herself that was possible, from an infinitude of parallel dimensions, all combined to create a single celestial being.

Roma was, truly, the sum of her parts, as von Doom had wryly commented, watching with some degree of amusement as she and her “sisters” writhed in intolerable pain at his feet. But now, with some of her parts amputated, if she wished to avoid further “surgery,” then she would have to prove her usefulness to the self-appointed Master of the Omniverse—or join his elder self in oblivion . ..

Von Doom rose to his feet and stepped down from the apse on which the throne stood. The time for introspection had passed—now was the moment to take action. Although he might be confined to the throne room until he was prepared to face his enemies, that didn’t mean there weren’t matters that needed his attention.

Like learning all the secrets of the Starlight Citadel and its mistress.

Striding purposefully, he began walking across the transept, pausing only long enough to glance at a platform, and the pulpit-like stand upon it. Protruding from the latter were an infinite number of crystal shards; from what his elder counterpart had told him, during the brief time their minds had been linked while they shared the same body, each six-inch-wide shard contained the life-force of an entire dimension. How, exactly, the older von Doom had known this was something he would never understand—perhaps if he hadn’t acted so rashly by brutally ending his life before he could impart all his knowledge . . .

But, no. Victor von Doom needed no one’s help; in time, he was certain, he would come to learn everything the old man had—and take full advantage of the information. He had already come to understand the reasons for Roma’s concern about the effects of his Cosmic Cube on the omniverse simply by accessing the citadel’s computers... although that had been accomplished with Stanton’s aid, now that he remembered it. Still, he would have eventually located the terminal on his own, disguised though it was as a series of stained-glass tableaus along one wall, the half-dozen panels depicting some of the accomplishments of Roma’s father, Merlyn, over the centuries. And he would find a way to walk the corridors of this magnificent stronghold unmolested . . . even though he had to rely on Sat-yr-nin’s intelligence reports for the time being, since no one had yet realized her true identity; it gave her a degree of freedom to roam the citadel temporarily denied her ally.

Turning from the crystal-lined pulpit, von Doom walked around and behind the apse, to enter a small, semi-circular corridor hidden within the shadows behind the throne. At the center of the passageway was an elegantly-carved oaken door; he pushed it open and stepped into a large chamber—what would, he imagined, be considered Roma’s private quarters. Like the throne room, her chambers were of a gothic design, with sweeping stone arches and dark-toned wood paneling and the somber lighting of hundreds of candles. The air was tinged with the perfume of jasmine and incense, the tiled floor adorned with colorful Persian rugs and oversized cushions. A large, four-poster bed—its framework hung with silken draperies of such varying hues that the cloth appeared to continually change colors as he stared at it—stood at the far end, its blankets and top sheet turned down in anticipation of its mistress’ use, though von Doom doubted a celestial being would truly have need for rest. And, all about the room, ten-foot-high tapestries and elaborate woodcuts half that size hung from thick chains on the walls. Von Doom noted with some surprise that Roma’s likeness appeared in most of the artworks—he had not thought the woman vain enough to collect images of herself. But then, all women were driven by vanity, he considered; unlike Doom, they were unable to rise above pursuing such trivial obsessions as immortalizing their beauty.

Unconsciously, he touched a hand to his mask—and the scarred features hidden behind the cool metal.

He found two men waiting for him, both seated near the door in large, white, egg-shaped chairs that were completely at odds with the rest of the chamber’s furnishings; a personal touch of decorating by the Supreme Guardian, no doubt. One was a tall, broad-shouldered man with bright-red hair tied in a ponytail, dressed in ceremonial garb: golden armor, sky-blue tunic, and a white, ankle-length cape; a sword hung loosely from the wide, golden belt that held his tunic in place. The other man was only a few inches shorter than his companion, but seemed like a child in height by comparison. He was also much thinner, and possessed far less hair. His attire consisted of green surgical scrubs, a white laboratory coat, and a pair of wingtip shoes.

The former was Alecto, the top officer of Roma’s handpicked personal bodyguards, whose primary occupation was ensuring that no one bothered the Supreme Guardian unless she wished to see them—a job von Doom had now made obsolete. The latter was Dr. Henry P. Stanton, one of the many physicians stationed on the citadel, now von Doom’s highly-strung lackey. There was a nervous look in Stanton’s eyes, but the armored tyrant ignored it—there always seemed to be a nervous look in the man’s eyes. Alecto, on the other hand, merely stared blankly at his new master—the result of a small mind-control device implanted on the back of his neck, one von Doom had easily fashioned from his battlesuit’s spare parts. The other members of Roma’s elite guard wore similar mechanisms, and had been ordered back to their posts at the entrance to the throne room so that he could remain undisturbed by the citadel’s other residents.

“How fares your patient, physician?” von Doom asked.

Stanton rose quickly. “I was just waiting for you to arrive, Mr.—” He froze, recognizing the fire that suddenly blazed in the dictator’s eyes. “Lord. Lord Doom,” he quickly recovered. “I. . . apologize for the error.” The fire burned low behind the mask, but did not go out. “I—I thought you’d rather see for yourself.”

Von Doom nodded, pleased by his lackey’s groveling. He allowed Stanton to lead him a side door that, on first glance, appeared to be for a closet. The physician opened the portal and quickly stepped aside, so that his master could enter first. As the dictator crossed the threshold, he felt a mild tingling, even through his armor, that forced his lips to curl. Before he could question what was happening, or, better yet, wring the neck of the doctor for leading him into a trap, he was suddenly through the electrical field, coming to a halt in a void of the brightest white.

It took a moment or two for his senses to stabilize, for his eyes to regain their focus so that he could see that he was standing in another room, whose depths were impossible to discern as floor, walls, and ceiling all blended into a continuous field; the color of the room and the even lighting—which seemed to come from all around—made it difficult to tell where one ended and the other began. It had to be a room, hadn’t it? he thought. What else could it be?

“What is this place?” he asked slowly.

Stanton suddenly appeared beside him, his stem features twisted into a grimace; apparently, he disliked the electrical field as much as his master. “This is Merlyn’s personal chamber—although it hasn’t been used since his last departure for parts unknown,” he replied, and sniffed. “Not much of a taste for decorating, wouldn’t you agree? But then, he preferred spending his time wandering the omniverse—he never really stayed here for very long.” He motioned back the way they had come, though von Doom couldn’t find any indication of a door; the wall was as smooth as the others. “From what I understand—and I’m no physicist, mind you—this is a pocket dimension of some kind, where he could test out some of his more ... hazardous experiments without accidentally blowing up a few hundred realities.” His voice dropped to a whisper. “Perhaps you should try that next time.”

Von Doom ignored the comment and eyed him warily. “And how do you know of this place?”

Stanton sneered. “Before Roma sweet-talked her father into hiring that annoying little Scot as the citadel’s Chief Physician,” he said, in reference to the man who had been his superior in the Medical Wing, “Merlyn had offered the position to me. The two of us got along quite well, and he let me in on one or two of his secrets. Obviously, he understood my—”

A gauntleted hand suddenly snapped out, grasping Stanton by the throat. As he struggled to breathe, fingers slipping helplessly along the polished metal in a futile attempt to free himself, von Doom pulled him close, until the doctor’s face was pressed against his mask.

“Then you must also know how to exit this ‘pocket dimension,’ physician,” von Doom said heatedly. “Is that not so?”

Stanton bobbed his head frantically. “The .. . electrical field we . . . passed through . . . registered our bio-data. All you have to ... do is . . . walk in the direction ... of the field—the . . . stronger the . . . tingling gets ... the closer to . . . the doorway . . . you are. It will. . . open . . . automatically . . . when you’re . . . close enough . . .”

The armored despot tightened his grip, cutting short Stanton’s labored response. “What other ‘secrets’ have you been withholding from Doom, you miserable cur?” he growled.

“Not. . . many . . .” Stanton wheezed. “Nothing ... of importance . . .” His eyes were beginning to bulge from their sockets, his face turning a bright shade of crimson. “I... I did say . . . only one ... or . . . two . . . remember . . . ?” The veins in his forehead were pulsing strongly, pushing against the reddened skin as though trying to force their way out. “Do you . . . really think . . . Merlyn . . . would have . . . trusted me . . . with anything ... of value . . . ?”

With a grunt of disgust, von Doom tossed the gasping physician on the floor. He stood impassively as Stanton lay in a heap, massaging his injured throat while doubled over in a fit of coughing that lasted for some time. Finally, the spasm subsided, and Stanton shakily raised himself to his hands and knees.

“Remember this moment well, you pathetic wretch,” the armored tyrant warned, a metal-encased index finger pointed at Stanton. “Each moment you continue to draw breath, every second your heart continues to beat, passes only because Doom wills it. Conceal any further information from me, and that privilege will come to a swift—and brutal— end. Do you understand?”

“Y . . . yes, L-Lord Doom,” Stanton wheezed. He wiped his spittle-covered lips against the right cuff of his lab coat, then used the other to absorb the tears that filled his eyes. “I’ll... let you know ... if any more .. . come to mind . ..”

Von Doom nodded. “A wise decision. Now, take me to the woman.” Stanton pushed himself to his feet, staggered for a step or two, then regained his balance. Still rubbing his throat, he pointed in a direction away from where they stood, although it was difficult to have any sense of direction in this seemingly endless void. “The Guardian is . . . right this way. If you’ll. . . follow me .. .”

As they started on their journey, von Doom looked back, to the point from which he and Stanton had entered. This time, however, he wasn’t trying to locate the entrance; rather, he was pondering what might be happening beyond the boundaries of this pocket dimension— specifically, what actions Sat-yr-nin might take, should she learn of his absence from the throne room. Would she risk discovery, and use her masquerade as Roma’s second-in-command to rally the Captain Britain Corps behind her? Would she stage a coup, destined though it might be to failure? There were too many possibilities to consider, too many variables to take into account, and von Doom cared for none of them— yet was concerned by all of them.

For him, though, there were no other choices. He had to obtain Roma’s power, strip her of her control over the forces of Time and Space. And once that power was his to command, his alliance with Sat-yr-nin—as well as the madwoman herself—would be terminated soon enough.

Pleased with his decision, von Doom quickened his pace, heading deeper into the void.

Toward his destiny.