SCOTT PULLED the transport into a gully behind the tall security fence surrounding Fort Olvar and powered it down with the flick of a switch. The fort was composed of a series of domes grouped around an oasis in the desert. Spiky trees with lush green leaves and pockmarked bark were planted in a circle around the perimeter fence, which rippled and sparked every few seconds with the power of a force field.
His stomach thrummed with excitement and eagerness to jump into the action. Not being able to hold his Ant-Man form for long was getting to him. He loved his suit, loved the amazing—and sometimes hilarious—abilities it gave him, and it rankled him that he felt like he hadn’t been enough help on this mission.
Not about you, buddy, is what Carol would tell him, but still… He glanced over at Amadeus, wondering whether he felt the same way.
This place had made him grateful for Earth, grateful for Cassie’s childhood on it—and despite their differences, grateful to Peggy for being a strong example for their daughter.
“It’s still early—hopefully we won’t run into too many Damarians,” Scott said.
“You ready, Jella?” Amadeus asked.
She nodded from her spot next to Scott, unbuckling the seatbelt. They piled out of the transport, and Jella cast an uncertain look at Scott. “I’m not sure how long I can conceal both of you, even when you’re in your ant form, Scott. But I’ll hold it as long as possible.”
“And I’ll try to stay small as long as I can,” Scott promised. “Hopefully, that’ll make it easier.”
Amadeus hurried over to the fence and pulled out a small case he flipped open to reveal three magnets. He held one an inch from the fence and let it go, the chain link drawing the magnet to it with a snap, and the force field rippling at the addition. He set the other two magnets at the bottom; when the last one snapped into place, a beam of orange light seared through the force field. The metal smoked as Amadeus kicked open the hole he’d just carved out.
Scott hit the button on his wrist. He’d told Carol it was like walking through wet cement, and it was—everything felt wrong. Normally, he tunneled down with a whoosh, glorying in the rush of it—the sheer joy of looking up and seeing the world turned gigantic, the individual blades of grass towering over him like trees… there was nothing like it.
A finger—Amadeus’s—dipped down, and Scott hopped onto it, running up Amadeus’s arm and perching on his shoulder. As Jella began to manipulate the air around them, it wobbled like the horizon in a heat wave. They moved forward slowly, passing a platoon of guards heading to start their morning exercise, and not one head snapped toward them.
“Good so far,” Amadeus muttered, looking down at his handheld scanner. “The biggest energy signature is coming from the small gray dome over there.” He raised his hand to point, but Jella shook her head and he dropped it quickly, not wanting to breach the protective barrier she was manipulating around them.
Scott tugged on the collar of Amadeus’s shirt. “We need to hurry.” He could feel his hold slipping, his muscles tightening with the need to change back, to grow.
Jella sped up; just as they turned the corner, with the gray dome blocking them from view from the recruits lining up in the exercise yard, Scott lost hold. As he popped back to regular size, he dove forward off Amadeus’s shoulders and out of Jella’s range. When he turned back, he couldn’t see them at all, Jella’s power blending her and Amadeus perfectly into the gray of the dome. Now if they just stayed there, this might work.
Scott’s jaw ached from the sudden snap back to large, his bones creaking from the strain—not from old age, as Cassie liked to needle him. God, he missed his kid. He was going to hug her extra tight when he got back. The image of Fern with her father would haunt him for the rest of his life.
“Scott!” he heard Amadeus’s voice hiss, and he didn’t even look up, just hit the button on his suit and popped back to ant size at the warning. His eyes scrunched up in pain, and his head felt like someone was driving an ice pick in his ear. That damn weapon; he wanted to take a baseball bat to it—soon.
He looked up just in time to dive out of the way as the sole of a boot came crashing down, laces swinging. To his right, Jella and Amadeus were flattened against the dome, still obscured by her power, staying stock still. To his left were two Damarian soldiers, one of them writing something in a notebook while the other scrolled through his comm.
“These early morning shifts are killing me,” one said.
Scott hopped onto the man’s boot, leaping up and grabbing the end of the shoelace. With visceral memories of those rope-climbing tests in gym class in his mind, he scrambled up it— take that, Coach Stafford!—before untying the knot. The laces flapped free, and Scott swung down onto his right boot to untie those, too.
“Thought your promotion would be coming through soon,” said the notebook holder. “Damn pen.” He shook it, a drop of ink splashing on Scott’s head, the world going blue for a second before he wiped his visor free.
“That’s what they keep telling me,” the other soldier grimaced as Scott took the opposite laces from both the soldier’s boots and tied them together with a knot that’d make an Eagle Scout weep.
The pain in his head was making Scott grind his teeth so hard he could taste blood. He wouldn’t be able to hold on much longer. He dashed across the ground.
Here we go.
His body shifted, his muscles lengthened, and in an eye-bulging stretch, he popped back to normal size right behind the soldier.
“Hi,” he said, as the guy whirled around, his notebook dropping to the ground. He punched him—a jab to the solar plexus that had him reeling, gasping for breath, his eyes rolling back when Scott delivered a quick kick to the temple.
The second soldier lunged toward him. But he went flying, his laced-together boots hampering his steps. He face-planted in the dirt, his forehead bouncing off the ground with a loud smacking sound. Blood trickled down the man’s cheeks, and Scott winced out of pure reflex. He’d feel worse if these guys weren’t such monsters.
He bent down, stripping the specialized heat glove off one of the soldiers’ hands. Putting it on his own, he pressed his palm to the sensor on the dome they were crouching behind. Its door slid open, and Scott looked toward where he thought Amadeus and Jella were, pointing at the opening as he grabbed the unconscious soldiers and dragged them inside the dark dome.
When he turned around, Jella and Amadeus were standing there, visible again.
“That was so clever, Scott,” Jella said. “Your power would be very useful in the spy trade.”
“Well, once upon a time, I was a thief,” Scott said, trying not to brag. “You and I could trade tips later.”
“It’s gotta be around here somewhere,” Amadeus said, pulling a glow stick out of his pocket—he had clearly been a better Boy Scout than Scott—and snapping it, activating the light. The neon beam lit the room with an alien glow as they moved deeper into the dome, eyes peeled for any sign of the weapon. Lights suddenly turned on as the floor changed from cement to tile. In the brighter light, Scott could see they were on a railed observation platform that circled the entire dome. Looking down…
“There it is,” Amadeus said, peering over the railing. “You owe me ten bucks, Scott. I told you it’d be a sphere.”
Scott stared at a giant glowing orb perched on a sturdy steel stand in the lab below. “I think the technical word for something so fancy is orb,” he hedged.
Amadeus shook his head, laughing. “I’m still collecting.”
“Fine, fine,” Scott said as they headed down the stairs that led to the lab. “Jella, you ever dealt with this thing when they were forcing you to spy on people?”
She nodded. “It’s not anyone’s top priority because they’ve had it so long. But they do regular maintenance.”
Scott couldn’t exactly tuck the orb under his arm and hightail it out of there like it was a basketball—the thing was car-sized, so you’d need a few people to move it, but he’d imagined something bigger… and maybe with spikes.
“Do you know its origin?” Amadeus asked, waving his tablet a few inches around the orb to scan it.
“It’s said that the ancient Damarians mined the contents from inside the suns themselves. But I don’t think that’s actually possible, is it?”
“Well, whatever’s inside it certainly came from space—the radiation’s off the charts,” Amadeus mused. “No force field or anything protecting it. Maybe a field would block its effects? You know,” his head tilted as he regarded the orb, “it reminds me of their ember bombs.” He reached out, tapping it with the edge of his tablet; when it rang out like glass, his mouth twisted. He looked up, eyes scanning the dome’s ceiling.
“What are you looking for?” Scott asked.
“Sprinkler system—all labs have them, even a pyrotech lab. And… there it is.” He pointed to the pipes painted the same gray as the inside of the dome.
“You want to set off the sprinklers?” Scott asked, not getting it.
“Yep!” Amadeus said. “Come on. We need to get back up to the platform.”
But as they turned to do just that, something whizzed past Scott’s cheek.
“Get down!” he yelled, pushing Amadeus and Jella forward toward the stairs before diving behind an overturned lab table. He chanced a look around it as he heard the soldiers’ shouts and thumping boots approaching. Amadeus and Jella had made it halfway across the room in the first round of bullets. From where they were crouched behind the stairs, out of sight of the soldiers, Amadeus stared at Scott through the gaps between steps.
“STAY WHERE YOU ARE!” An authoritative voice rang out as soldiers filed along the platform, aiming their guns at Scott. With Amadeus and Jella tucked behind the stairs, Jella could make them disappear at any moment—this was all on Scott. So he slowly stood up from behind the lab table, lacing his fingers behind his head.
“Okay, okay,” he said, registering six guns pointed in his direction. No Keepers—if any of these goons had powers, they would’ve blasted him with fire by now. Behind his head, he stretched out a finger to his opposing wrist. “No need to shoot me. See? I’m surrendering.”
Click. He shrank, bouncing down onto the tile, then jumped up and raced across the floor as confused shouts filled the air. Hold your fire! Where did he go?
Popping back to normal size behind the stairwell, he leaned forward for a moment, panting, his hands on his knees. “We gotta do something, fast. Any ideas?”
“I need a gun,” Amadeus whispered.
Jella pulled one out from her long jacket. Amadeus’s eyebrows rose. She shrugged. “Hepzibah gave it to me.”
“Of course she did,” he smirked. “And we’re lucky to have it. Both of you, back up as far away from the orb as possible.”
Jella grabbed Scott’s hand, and the air wavered as their bodies and shadows melded into the wall. Amadeus aimed the gun and squeezed the trigger, emptying a slew of bullets into the orb; it shattered, a powerful pulse of energy sending him and everyone else in the room flying backward off their feet as the glowing orange stuff that had been contained in the orb—what the hell was it, magma or something?—oozed across the floor. Alarms blared, lights flashing, and the sprinklers above activated, drenching their heads and the floor. The orange goop sizzled and turned gray as soon as the water touched it, foaming sluggishly.
Instantly, Scott’s headache disappeared. “Seriously?” he shouted, getting to his feet, his hair dripping in his eyes as he looked for Amadeus. “You just shoot the damn thing and add water, and that’s it? I could’ve done that!”
But Amadeus didn’t answer. A rumble filled the air… a growl that raised every hair on Scott’s arms as the soldiers’ authoritative yells gave way to panicked screams.
Scott turned slowly, his gaze rising up. Brawn’s fists were clenched, and his thick, flat brows drawn together. The change never failed to punch the air out of Scott’s lungs even now, when he’d spent so much time getting to know Amadeus.
“Hi,” Scott said, as the soldiers scattered on the platform, regrouping in defensive positions now that a massive green guy who could tear them limb from limb had appeared. “You feeling better?”
Brawn sniffed, turning his head to focus on Scott. “I was stuck.” He smiled, a toothy, mischievous grin. “But not anymore.”
He whirled toward the soldiers with the speed of a much smaller creature, his fists raised. Scott thumbed his suit and shrank down, excited to notice no pain, no fuzziness, and they got to work.