Chapter Fifteen, Road Trip.

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{ENCLAVE ARCHIVES}

[January 25th, 2010. Baxter Foundation. New York City. Five days after the disappearance of 5 young scientists.]

"We can't wait much longer, the machines have detected another energy surge on the other side. Is everything ready?"

"They are almost ready, but if you want the cops to ask why a 50 year old looks like a 20 year old, we're going to have to wait. Yours is the last one and it should be finished in the afternoon. Jerome is helping me with that since all of his stuff is done. Carlo is getting the data and shipping orders prepped. We're just waiting for it to come to age and you'll be able to kill the four of us. Are you sure you don't want Tilda to come with us? It will be lonely up there."

"She's a crazy b*tch. I should have let her see Jerome's cousin, she definitely needs a therapist."

"And the easiest way you found to break up was to fake your death. Are you sure you don't need to see Barton either? I've got to say, the dude is good. Now I'm not always focused on improving my own image as I was before our sessions."

"That's because you're working on creating a perfect body to inhabit. The shrink didn't help you with this you just shifted your perfectionism and narcissism from yourself to the future you that you have in mind. Now just go do your job and keep me posted. We can't f*ck this up."

"Yes, sir! Of course, sir! With pleasure, sir! Dude we're partners in this, you're not my boss, this is why we're out of here, no one above us to tell us what to do."

"Fine, I'm sorry. Please allow me to let you return to your job so that Our plan comes to fruition, partner."

"Sure, I'll leave you be. See, it wasn't that hard. I don't understand how you're the oldest one in our group but also the most impatient. Doesn't wisdom come with age?"

"The wisdom in me is telling me to kick your arse, are you sure you want me to listen to it?"

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{Camera footage, Baxter Foundation archives}

[January 25th, 2010. Baxter Foundation. New York City. Five days after the disappearance of 5 young scientists.]

"Sir! The generators are overloading! The portal is about to come online again!" a scientist barges in Franklin Storm's office while he was in a meeting with a board member.

"How?! It was supposed to be shut down!" Franklin exclaims, looking at his computer to see what was happening.

"There appears to be energy surges from the other side of the machine! It's affecting our instruments!" the scientist answers.

"Clear the floor! Ring the alarm and start evacuating everyone!" the board member orders, leaving the office and heading to the control room.

"No! The energy is coming from the other side, what if it's them?! What if they are trying to come back to us?!" Franklin exclaims, pointing to his computer.

"Franklin, they're dead! It's been days, you need to wake up! If we don't evacuate, more people are going to die! You, there! Why isn't the alarm ringing?" The board member asked the scientist that accompanied them out.

"The portal seem to be attracting electricity, the whole building is cut down and even the emergency power is going into the generators, sir! If we wait any longer it can blow up the who-" A large pulse cut out the lights for a couple of seconds, interrupting the scientist in his speech.

{-}

"What was that?!" Franklin asked, hurrying to the control room as well.

"An electromagnetic pulse! An EMP! The four people over there tried to power the generators down using it, but it didn't work! It's going to blow any minute now!" The scientist pointed to four people lying on the floor in white blouses near the generators.

"Franklin, we need to leave now. Tell everyone to evacuate! Have someone run upstairs to tell everyone to leave the building! Franklin, what are you doing?!" The board member shouted to Franklin, who was opening the door and heading to generators.

"They're down! Those people tried to help, so I'm going to see if they're hurt! Go without me, I'll be right behind you!" Franklin said, before running to see if the scientists were okay...

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{ENCLAVE ARCHIVES}

[June 22th, 2010. Beehive. Bermuda Triangle.]

"You know, it's still creepy to see them like that."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, what do you think is going on inside their heads?"

"The orders they received."

"I know that, but. Don't you think there is something more?"

"Jerome and Wladyslav made sure there wasn't. They're just husks, with the only goal in mind being obeying orders."

"Yeah, but they look so much like normal humans, you know. I mean, beside being extremely beautiful and hazy-eyed."

"That's because Wladyslav is obsessed with physical appearance and Jerome made sure they were just mindless and soulless clones. If you want to f*ck them go ahead, but don't get too attached. They're just experiments until He's ready."

"I know, I know. Anyway, what are you working on today?"

"A molecular knife. To cut your tongue to the subatomic level if you keep bothering me like this. Why did I agree to live with three busybodies like you disrupting my work every two minutes?"

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{ENCLAVE ARCHIVES}

[October 28th, 2010. Beehive. Bermuda Triangle.]

"What happened?!"

"Well, basically, it looked like He has awakened before we were ready."

"How did that happen? I thought He was supposed to wake after we got Him under control?"

"Yes, that was the plan, but somehow, He woke up before the process started."

"Well, at least we can see what He looks like and try to talk to Him now."

"Not exactly, He went and turned Himself into a blinding light. All the clones we sent to try and approach Him went blind after a couple of seconds with him. No one can come close. The process can't be completed until we know what He looks like, but now that's compromised."

"What about cameras? Infrared? Night-vision?"

"We tried all that, He fried all the lenses…"

"What is it? I know you have something in mind."

"Well, I heard there was a talented sculptor who despite being blind, could sculpt anything she could touch."

"So?"

"She's on a trip to Bermuda right now… The teleporter is in range…"

"Yes, but it's not completed yet. Do you really want to risk the integrity of the whole project? It worked for the containers because there wasn't any useful living thing in them. We haven't tested it for human teleportation yet."

"Maris, we don't have much choice. The longer He stays without the process completed, the more chances He has of becoming sentient. We'll lose months of work if He does, more if He realizes what He's capable of..."

*Sigh* "Alright, go find her, I'm going to make sure the teleporter doesn't blow up in our faces or just gives us a puddle of goo."

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[October 28th, 2010. Baxter Foundation. New York City.]

"Maris Morlak, nuclear physicist, 50. Jerome Hamilton, medical biologist, 38. Carlo Zota, electronics technician, 25, and Wladyslav Shinski, geneticist, 38. They were declared dead when the generators near the dimensional pods exploded and brought Victor Von Doom back. Coincidentally, all of the projects they were working on before their death were set to be moved to another location in South America the day before the explosion, and more recently a few containers that was transporting the rest of their projects were reported missing during transportation. The bodies were identified through DNA and corresponded to the scientists. It is my current theory that the bodies were just clones, and never really 'alive'. The field of study of both Dr. Hamilton and Dr. Shinski adheres to this theory, as well as the fact that during the event, the cameras were cut for a brief moment just before the explosion, while no one was present in the room beside the four scientists. The report said that the EMP cut all the cameras, but those in the generator room were shut down a few seconds before said EMP was activated. The device was also made by Dr. Morlak and Dr. Zota. All these facts point to the scientists faking their deaths with premeditation, using the explosion as a cover for their escape. The reason is undetermined for now."

"Thank you, Alfred. As you can see on the map, it appears that these four scientists are not really dead and instead working on their own little projects on an island somewhere in the Atlantic, around 500 km northeast of the Bahamas, in the Bermuda Triangle."

"The Bermuda Triangle, really? Are you sure the ship hasn't just sank to the bottom of the ocean like all the other weird stuff going on in there?" Johnny asked.

"Well, apparently the ship made it to its destination, it's just that 7 containers disappeared from the ship 'in an instant' while passing through the triangle."

"Sir, I'm sorry to interrupt, but the authorities in Bermuda have just posted an alert, three people disappeared from an art exhibition in Somerset. Reports speak of a blue sphere appearing while the artist was presenting her artwork outside the building. It apparently swallowed the three people who were standing in it before closing on itself. A short range teleportation device was mentioned in the rejected projects of Dr. Morlak, with this sort of effect depicted in his report. It would also explain the disappearance of the containers."

"I'm still banking on aliens," sulked Johnny.

"Who are the missing people?"

"Reported missing are the art director of Somerset Village, a sculptor and a model." Alfred answered, showing known pictures of the three missing people.

"What are you guys waiting for? People are missing we need to save them!" suddenly exclaims Johnny, pumped up by the pictures of the model shown by Alfred.

"Alright. Alfred, how short-range was the teleportation device supposed to work? Try and triangulate the island using that and the two known events. Check the scientists' acquaintances for people working on archeology or cartography, to see if any of them mention this island. Johnny, you can boot up the car but wait for us, please. Ben, Sue, get ready as well. I'm going to take a few things in my lab and I'll be right with you. Guys, this is our first real mission as the Fantastic Four, let's save some people!"

"HELL YEAH!" shouted Johnny, running to the Fantasti-Car.

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[ - . Beehive. Bermuda Triangle.]

"What happened?" A feminine voice sounded out.

"Hi, don't worry, you're safe now. Are you experiencing anything unusual? Do you feel something missing or misplaced in your bodies?" Answered a calm voice.

"What?"

"My machine works. If it didn't they would have turned to goo, not have missing organs Jerome." Said an older male voice.

"Yes, but it was supposed to take one person, not three, so excuse me for checking," answered Jerome.

"What's happening? Who are you guys? Where are we?" Said Millie, who held my hand from the side.

"I'm sorry, miss, you are?" Jerome asked.

"I'm Millie, Millie Collins. Who are you? What did you do to us?" She asked, scared from the situation.

"I'm Jerome, this is Maris. We used what is called a teleportation device to take you from Somerset to here, the Beehive."

"What? What the hell are you saying? Why did you abduct us?! Is it money?" Shouted Jonathan, who apparently came with us from the exhibition.

"You are?"

"You don't know?" Asked Jonathan, sounding a bit upset or hurt at the prospect of the people not knowing hwo he was.

"No, you weren't our target, so we don't know who you are. Or care, actually. 43, 44, take Millie and the gentleman here to the cells and lock them up. Now, if you would follow them without too much fuss, it will avoid a lot of complications." Jerome asked someone who was in the room. They took my friends away and forced me to sit down.

"What is going on?" I asked, lost.

"Ah, sorry Miss Masters. This must be confusing for you. Let me explain-"

"Jerome, you're wasting time." Maris interrupts the other. "Alice, I'm going to give you a choice. You do what we tell you and you don't get hurt, or you don't listen and we kill you. It's that easy. I'm going to ask you to sculpt for us, It's all we want you to do." Maris says, taking her hand and pulling her towards a desk. "Here," he takes her hand to a pile of clay. "Is all you need. Your model is right here. You!, come here and sit down. Don't move till I said so." Someone shifted in the room, sitting next to me and not moving. "That's your model. You sculpt him. If you do a good job we've got one more sculpture for you to do before you can go home. Now get to work." He says, before leaving the room.

"You've got to be gentler, old man." Jerome says, before turning to me. "But he's right, Alice. All we want you to do is sculpt for us. We don't want to hurt you. Once you're done you can go home."

"What about Millie and Jonathan?" I ask, not hearing my friends anymore.

"Was that his name?" He asks himself in a low voice. "Don't worry, they're just in a cell. When you're done with your work, we'll let them go as well."

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[ - . Fantasti-Car. ? . Bermuda Triangle.]

"How long do we have to wait? We've been hovering here for hours!" Johnny says.

"Alfred is looking for the island, it might take a while." Sue answers, but looks at me for confirmation. I shrug my shoulders, since I don't know more than that.

"I have the location, I had to ask Miss Romanov to break in to the house of an acquaintance of Dr. Zota specializing in archeology. That person didn't keep their work on computers so I couldn't access their files by myself. I sent the location to the car, ETA one hour.

"Finally!"

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[ - . Beehive. Bermuda Triangle.]

"It's remarkable. The likeness is uncanny. Despite your material being just clay, you managed to have an impressive degree of similarity between your model and your work!" Jerome exclaims, congratulating me for the sculpture I made of the beautiful man that was sitting next to me.

"Can I go home now?" I ask, a bit scared from the situation.

"I'm sorry but as we said, we have one more job for you. You see, we have 'a friend' who has a problem with Their body. He doesn't remember what He looks like, and we can't show Him because He emits too much light. If we present Him with a mirror, it would just blind Him. Cameras don't work either. Since you don't need your eyes, you can show him what he looks like without any problem using your sculpture. Once you've done that, it's all good." Jerome says, before introducing another person. "This is Carlo, he has something for you."

"I'm going to put a small device in your ear, to guide you and talk to Him." Carlo says, putting a small object in my hand for me to feel, before taking it back and putting it in my ear. "He's a bit disoriented and doesn't remember anything, so we might need you to calm Him down before getting to work, alright?" asks Carlo, after checking out the device worked. "And, done. Can you hear me?" I hear echoing from in front of me as well as in my right ear.

"Yes." I say.

"Good. Now, all you need is on this cart, you can take that to Him." He takes me to a rolling cart with the supplies I used on the clay, before bringing me to the arm of someone else. "22 here will guide you to 'our friend's' room. If you need help, just talk, we're listening." He says, before the other person guides me out of the room.

*BUZZ-BUZZ-BUZZ* an alarm rings, startling me.

"What's that?" I ask the person accompanying me, trying to get him or her to talk.

"You don't worry about that, it's just a false alarm." Carlo says in my earphone., with my guide still silent.

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"We have company, a small UFO is heading our way and will be here in less than ten minutes." Carlo turns to the three other scientists with him in the control room.

"What is it exactly?"

"Unidentified. It's in the name. We don't know yet. Could be nothing, could be someone checking our island." Carlo answers.

"In any case, let's make sure the defenses are armed and ready. If they get too close we shoot on sight. We don't need distractions right now. We'll see what we want later" says Maris, before turning his attention back to the dot moving on one of the screens, showing the location of Alice in relation to Him.

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[ - . Fantasti-Car. A few minutes away from the Beehive. Bermuda Triangle.]

"It would appear you have been detected despite the invisibility cloaking. The island has started preparing defensive measures and turning their weapons in your direction. You should be in range in about five minutes." Alfred speaks out.

"So much for stealth…" murmurs Ben, slowly transitioning to the Thing. "Can you het a reading on the number of people on that island?"

"The thermal imagery shows approximately 79 people, plus an anomaly." Reed says, looking at his computer. "The anomaly is unreadable, there's like a field surrounding it that masks its presence. The only way I noticed it was the fact that it was too powerful and sucking out the energy around it. And much of the people here show the exact same body temperature., to the tenth of degree."

"They've been busy! At least 72 clones in a few months, it makes sense they wanted to keep it secret, no one would have agreed on on letting them use human cloning." Sue says, looking at the readings. "What do we do to them? We can't really arrest people since we're not police, and I don't know if they are technically people in the eyes of the law either…"

"Cloning is still illegal anyway. We'll try to rehabilitate everyone of them. We're approaching so stay sharp."

"Sir, their weapon started firing, but it doesn't look lethal. It appears they are shooting to stun, not to kill." Alfred says.

"Great, our first super-villains and they're nice. I wanted a real fight, man!"

"First off, they are not super-villains, second, they are still shooting at an unidentified aircraft on sight without any prior notice. I'm not sure this doesn't count as a fight." Ben says, trying to rationalize Johnny.

"Anyway, it's the first real world application of your shield guys, so stay sharp."

"Impact in 3. 2. 1. Contact. Shield integrity hasn't been compromised. Twenty more salves incoming."

"It's still holding strong. Your Arc reactor prototype has lost about three, two percent of it's total charge?" Sue asks me.

"2.4%, and dropping at each shot by another 0.26%. These blasts are powerful enough to power down any normal aircraft. If used on people, it would stun them for a day at the minimum."

"Thank you Alfred. Well, we're coming into view so let's get ready. Johnny? No! Wait!" I say, seeing Johnny getting out of the car and starting to fly.

"I'm getting bored! I'll shut them down by hand! Wow!" he shouts, narrowly avoiding a blast. "Okay, that's IT! FLAME ON!" He shouts, fully powering on, launching fireballs to meet the electric blasts. "Take that!" an electric blast disperses under the fireball, only for two more to follow after the first.

"Johnny, do you hear me? Since you're already outside, at least try to be useful. You can attack the cannons instead of the blasts. The shield will hold up till we land."

"Watch your six, you've got incoming!" Shouts Ben.

"Got it! Thanks Ben!" He plunges from the air, dodging left and right and flies to the island faster than the car, to try and bring the canons down. "And BOOM!" He comes close to one and creates a wave of flames from his hands, melting the mechanical arm from under the canon, disconnecting the power source at the same time. "One down, how many to go? Yikes! That was too close for comfort." He says, a blast missing him by an inch. "Can I have some backup?"

"We're coming down, Alfred is scanning the structure and he'll tell you how many canons are left in a second. You've got two cannons on the wall to your right for now."

"I see them!"

"Sue, For now will you be able to put up a shield when we get out of the car or should Ben tank for us?"

"I think I'll manage, thank you very much."

"Alright. Landing in twenty seconds."

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[ - . Beehive. Bermuda Triangle.]

"You know, I don't think they are a lot of tourists that can light on fire and fly like this guy. And that have a customized flying car with such a powerful shield." Carlo pointed out.

"No you're definitely right, there aren't. I think I saw them before, though." Wladyslav followed, furrowing his brows.

"Right! The brats from the Baxter foundation! The four who went missing with the dimensional pods!" Carlo remembered from the event that happened while they were still working there.

"You don't look that much older. And don't you mean five?"

"I don't know I only see four of them. At least I think that's them, look at that Thing! Is that a rock monster?" exclaimed Carlo, pointing at The Thing.

"Just keep them busy. Send a few clones to restrain them. In the meantime where is Alicia?" Maris asked.

"She's almost there." Jerome answered, before turning on his communicator and speaking directly to her. "That's it. It's two doors on your left and then you'll be on your own. You're doing great."

"Alright, 20 to 34, take the high ground and taze all of them. Restrain them as much as possible. 35 to 49, take the guns and guard the entrance. Wait for our order before you shoot." Wladyslav ordered by pressing a button near the microphone.

"Are you sure that's enough? The rock guy doesn't seem to be affected much by the tazers." pondered Carlo, the youngest of the four.

"If he's the only one left standing, I think that will be good enough. We're just trying to stall them anyway." the middle-aged geneticist concluded, a smirk on his lips which soon spread to the other three.