Chapter Sixteen, Enclave.

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AN: Hi guys, sorry, I tried doing telepathy, so when HIM is speaking in Alicia's mind, what he's saying is between asterisks, like so:

*hello*

and she's answering in her mind, so it's a different kind:

« Like that »

Hope this clears it up, won't be used often anyway. If you have a better idea don't hesitate, I'm very open to suggestions.

Thanks for reading, enjoy!

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"Where do I go from here?" I asked when my guide stopped walking.

"Right, it's just in front of you. You just have to open the door, and bring the cart with you. The clone can't help you any closer or he'll go blind." Jerome says in my ear.

"Clone? What?"

"Just do it Alice. We don't have all day." The oldest voice answers, prompting me to enter.

"Alright." I say, knocking on the door. "I'm coming in." I listen for a bit but I receive no response. I open the door, fumble to find the cart and pulls it towards me. Coming into the room in reverse to pull the cart more easily, I feel a warmth in my back the more I come in the room. Something lightly tickles my ears, and I hear-no, I feel some wind. But instead of feeling it on my skin, it seems to flow in my mind. I stop the cart when I bump against a table. I move my hands around, trying to feel my way around the room. A hand helps me find a seat. I assume it's the friend they told me about.

*Not really a friend, Mrs. Matters.* I hear. Before I have time to ask what they mean, they talk again. *And no, I'm not truly speaking. I don't want them to hear me yet. I'm speaking directly to your mind, as well as hearing your thoughts. Sorry about the intrusion.*

"What?"

"What is it? You found Him?" Jerome asks, seemingly unaware of what their frien- what that person said.

"I did. I'm settling in." I say, before feeling the same wind in my mind before hearing the soothing voice again.

*Tell them I'm unresponsive and that you're starting your work, please.*

"He's not moving, so I'll do what you asked." I continue, compelled to speak out. Is it my thoughts to do as he asked, or have I truly been 'compelled?' He told me he was in my thoughts, right?

"Good, the faster you're done, the better." Maris says.

*I'm not controlling you, I know better. They created me to become the perfect body. They grew tired of the weaknesses of the human body, of sickness, of the need to consume to live, so they made me to replace their fragile bodies. They made me but wanted me to be nothing more than a cocoon to inhabit. They wanted to control me. I don't wish that for anyone, and as such, despite being apparently able to do so, I won't control others. Hm. I feel you want to talk, but you don't have to actually speak. Just think what you want to say, and I will answer in your mind.*

« Like that? »

*Like that will do.*

« How do you know all of this? »

*Just like I know about you and your intentions. I read their mind. The difference being that I did it for them unconsciously, when my self started to develop a thought process. I heard their thoughts, felt their emotions, watched their memories, and woke up in the pods they made for me. Before they could control me, I took refuge here. I couldn't understand why I couldn't feel all the people that came to meet me until I remembered their creation, clones, empty vessels, what I was supposed to become should they have succeeded to control me. I didn't realize until a couple of those clones started 'shutting down' that I had made them blind. My body, this body, has a lot of different things that I don't yet understand.*

« You have powers…» I thought, seemingly to myself, but he apparently heard it.

*Yes, powers. That is what it looks like. The people who came here to rescue you and your friends seem to have them as well, though I feel a sense of familiarity with them.*

"Someone's here?" I say out loud, too surprised to keep to myself.

"What do you mean someone's here?" Jerome asks, intrigued.

"I hear people outside, I think." I answer, trying to mask my surprise.

"It's just clones working on something. Keep working. How long do you think it will take?" Maris asks me rudely.

"I don't know, maybe a couple of hours?"

"You have one hour. After that we'll start hurting your friends." he says.

*Don't worry, the others will arrive before then. Tell me, how does it feel, being blind?* he asks.

« I don't understand. It doesn't 'feel' like anything? It's just different, I guess? I feel more with my other senses that's for sure, but I don't really think of my blindness anymore. I find things more rewarding when I can feel them with my fingers. »

*Would you like me to try and restore your sight?*

« You can do that? » I ask, incredulous.

*I feel that I could, yes. But I'll first have to turn off this light I'm emitting. But I don't know how, yet. I'll have to ask you to help with that.*

« I don't know If I would. »

*You don't want to help me?* he says, sounding a little hurt.

« No, that's not what I meant. Of course I'll help you. It's just, I'm not sure I would want to see again. I've become so used to the darkness that the idea of living in the light seem scary to me. You see, there is a sense of comfort to it. I often catch myself just sitting in a park, listening to the sounds of life around me, but without the distraction of the city to see, I find it much more fulfilling. It's a kind of meditation if I would have to put a name on it. Anyway, what can I do to help you? » I ask. He doesn't answer for a few seconds.

*You've given me much to think about Mrs. Matters. I thank you for your thoughts.* he finally says, and I can 'feel' him bowing his head, somehow. *I'm going to need to speak to those who are coming, but I can't see them directly, and the same is true as well. I don't want to hurt them accidentally or blind them. I'm going to keep a connection between us open, just like the one we have right now, so that you can speak with them on my behalf. Once they're here, the people who kidnapped you and your friends won't be able to do anything anyway. But for now we need to keep this charade.*

« You call me Mrs. Matters, but I don't know what to call you? »

*The scientists started calling me Him as a way to suppress my humanity and personality, but I don't really feel human anyway, so you can call me Him as well, for now. I don't believe it is time for me to have a name yet, anyway. The others will be coming in a while, I'll relay to you what I hear and feel. The four scientists who took you are getting restless.*

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"I took care of the two cannons! Alfred, talk to me." Johnny said, coming back to the beach area, looking at the huge rectangular honeycomb like structure.

"The car is touching down now, the building in front of you is the first part of the scientists building, which they designed as a fortress. This is their defensive wall, and it appears there is movement on the high wall. 14 targets are assembling on top of the wall with what appears to be tasers and other non-lethal weapons."

"Thank you Alfred. Johnny, we're here. Ben will draw their fire while Sue takes care of their weapons. Once that's done we'll get ready to breach in. Alfred is scanning the door to find the weak points, which you'll get to melt in a couple of minutes."

"Okay, and what are you doing? Where did you get a gun?" He asks, seeing me fiddling with a modified gun.

"That's a small project of mine, to avoid having to deal with too many people. I bought an air-soft pistol and modified it. It shoots small pellets that will stun and incapacitate targets, courtesy of Sue's work on dendrotoxin. I have about 90 pellets or so made for now."

"So it's a tranquilizer?" Ben asks, checking out the high walls and getting a bit in front of all of us.

"Yes. We don't know how the 70 targets will react once the scientists are down, so that will be one less thing to worry about. Is that what you took in your lab before we left?" asks Sue.

"This and more, I didn't know what we might face here. Alright, let's get to it. Ben, if you would?" He sighs.

"COME ON!" he shouts, before running up the doors, right in front of us. As soon as he started running, the clones opened fire, with all shots just ricocheting or crashing against his rock-like skin. During that, Sue concentrated, and pulled their weapons out of their hands one by one. Without their weapons, it doesn't seem like they knew what to do as they just stood there without doing anything else. Preparing the gun, I saw Johnny sending me puppy eyes. Soon enough, all the targets were standing on top of the wall without moving, and Alfred was still scanning the structure from the sensors on the car.

"Fine, but you better not miss more than 5 shots." I sais, giving him the glorified tranquilizer. He took it with a smile, and launched himself to the wall. Taking his time with the first target to get used to the weight of the gun, he finally fired. Walking and dodging as if the enemies were firing back, it looked like he was having fun. He definitely missed 6 shots, but with the job done and the biggest smile on his face I saw in a while, I let it slip. Once Alfred was done, Johnny melted the structural weak points of the doors, before Ben took them down by punching a couple of times.

From the other side, another ten clones were waiting with lethal weapons at the ready. They didn't shoot yet, but a screen behind them turned on.

"What the hell do you brats want?" Said Maris appearing on screen. "We're working here, it's not your place to play around. Go back to your foundation and work on your disappearing pods. It's been how long? 3 months for you to get back from there?"

"Hi, Maris. It's been a while. We're here to stop you from keeping on doing it is you're here for. Cloning and kidnapping are two things you could get jail time for, probably." Said Johnny.

"Don't make it more complicated than it already is, stop whatever you're doing before it's too late. A reason we never allowed your experiments is the danger potential. You knew the risks and still tried human teleportation. It may have worked, but you could have killed them, you, and the entire f*cking northern hemisphere. Not to mention, cloning? Really?" I ask.

"F*ck you. Hey! Clones! F-" He shouted, before the screen crushed on itself. Looking by my side, Sue had her right arm up, pointing at the screen.

"What? At least we know they need vocal orders before doing anything." She says.

"Right. Let's try something. Drop your weapons." I say, waiting for them to do so. After a few seconds, nothing happened. "Alfred? Was there any vocal archives of any of the four scientists to have a few orders? Like 'stand down', or something?"

"Yes, sir. Pulling out files now." Another voice, Jerome's, I believe, sounded with the order to stand down. Soon enough, the ten clones in front of us sat on the floor on either side of the wall, with their weapons down.

"Great. That's good. What else can you make them do?" Johnny asked.

"We don't have time for this right now. Ask if they can open the door, we won't waste much time if they can."

"I'm afraid I'm not sure it will work. Unfortunately the archives don't have a lot of audio samples. I can try using two different voices, but the result is not 100% guaranteed."

"Try it anyway. We won't know if we don't try." Sue said. Alfred tried using both voices to tell them to open the door, but it unfortunately didn't happen. I took my backpack and looked for something to help us out. Sue and Johnny went to the clones to try and talk to them. Sue to see if we could help any of them, Johnny mainly because of their handsome and beautiful features. Ben checked the surroundings and broke the few small cameras he found, and I quickly whipped up a tool that wasn't completely finished to open the reinforced doors in front of us. After a few minutes, Sue called out for me.

"Reed, you need to come see this." I stopped what I was doing to check out what it is she had in her hand.

"What is it?" I asked, seeing the now very familiar Z-Radiation device in her hands.

"All of them were positive for Z Radiations. I don't think they have powers, but I can't for sure say they don't." She said, her eyebrows furrowed in a very pronounced frown.

"I don't think that was on purpose. They would have sent the clones with powers to stop us otherwise. Alfred, what was in those boxes? Cross-reference with all we know of Dimension Zero and our own experiments. Maris seemed to know a bit about it."

"Dr. Morlak and Dr. Zota both helped make the pods that you used to travel to Dimension Zero. The elements to create a couple of those were in one of the stolen containers."

"That's it. They must have used the pods to make their clones. They don't know about Dimension Zero because they left before we came back. As such, there was no way for them to realize that using the pods to help with cloning actually used energy or elements from another dimension. We'll need to keep a closer eye on the clones than I thought. At least for a while. I'm going back to this," I say, lifting the small tool up, "I'm almost done with it."

"Reed, that's not all. When I turn the device to the structure, it shows me an extreme level of radiation. Of Z-Radiation. Much more than all of us combined when not using our powers for months. The anomaly you detected? I think that's it." she said, concerned.

"We'll take care of it when it comes to that. We have a door to break through for now. If you can think of something by the time we make contact with the anomaly we'll be fine. I believe in you. You found something wrong with us when none of us knew there was something wrong. If anyone can figure it out, it's you." I said, before kissing her forehead and going back to the tool. After another couple of minutes, I was done. "Alright, let's go." I said, heading to the door.

"So, what did you make this time? A door-opening remote?" Johnny said, smirking.

"Something like that," I said, turning the metal rod to the side, making sure no one was in the way. Pressing a small button on the side, a bright light shone, almost blinding the both of us.

"You made a portable plasma cutter?" he said, finally recognizing the design.

"Yes, but with a small arc reactor and the molecular alloys, it's about thirty to thirty-five times more powerful than a regular plasma cutter. At this point, elongating the tip would effectively turn it into-"

"A REAL-LIFE LIGHT-SABER!!! I want one!!"

"You do know that if you practice long enough you could theoretically achieve a similar heat, right?"

"There's a difference between being capable of it, and having an actual light-saber." he said, looking at me starting to melt open the reinforced doors with relative ease. "Come on, it's so cool! You never let me have the cool toys."

"Dude, how old are you? Plus, the Fantasti-car is yours, and I let you play with the tranquilizer earlier. Guys, get ready I'm almost through the d-" interrupting me, we all felt a large vibration resonating through the walls, much like an explosion just without the sound usually accompanying such an event.

"What was that?" asked Sue.

"Felt like an explosion. Maybe they tried something and it went wrong?" Ben answered.

"Alfred, what did you get anything?"

"All I got from it are the vibrations, which concur with the idea of an explosion. I'm not reading any nuclear radiation, though." Alfred said.

"Alright, we're through, stay sharp everyone." I say, putting the light- plasma cutter back in the bag. Ben knocks the doors aside, and enters the building, with all of us following behind him. Walking for a small while, we finally enter a large room with what looks like the remnants of an experiment gone wrong. Charred floor and walls, electronics still burning, metal everywhere, with a central platform still intact. Walking up to it, we find a mangled body, or bodies, rather. It seems that they tried escaping by using the teleporter but failed in their attempt and ended up fusing to each other, destroying the structure at the same time. Seeing the state of the bodies, Johnny throws up on the side.

"Are they…. Really dead?" Ben asks, looking at the corpse on the floor.

"For now I can't say for sure. The bodies they left in the Baxter building were perfect copies of themselves, but contrary to the last time, we know they have the means to pull off actual clones. Sue and I will check. I'll also try to ask a certified medical examiner to make sure, maybe see if they have food in their stomachs. I also remember reading about how hair follicles can be analyzed to see a history of the food the person ate, so I'll try to find how that worked. If they haven't eaten anything, this might be clones again. In the meantime, we'll act as if they are still alive. We need to check the rest of the building. Sue and I will go find what the anomaly is exactly, I'll let you guys secure the rest of the building. Johnny, here's the gun and the rest of the ammo I have, if you find clones, just ask Alfred to tell them to stand down and then make them go to sleep. If you can, instead of making them sleep just where they are, try to make them follow you outside when you checked the rest of the structure, it will be easier that way."

"What will be easier?" he asks, taking the tranquilizer.

"Transport. We need to take them all with us. We can't let them stay here if the others are still alive nor can we let them die here otherwise. We'll try to rehabilitate them, or at least let them live actual lives in our building instead of this slave nest." I answer, accompanying Sue towards the anomaly. After a few minutes of walking around, following the radioactive energy, we arrive at the top of a stairway, with a woman waiting for us.

"Hi! Are you here for us?" she says, her eyes unfocused.

"Yes we are. Alicia Matters, I presume?" She nods. "I'm Reed Richards, this is Susan Storm."

"Hello." Sue says.

"We've come here to rescue you, but we've discovered something strange on this floor."

"Yes, Him. That's… How he calls himself." We look at each other. "He was waiting for you, but you can't see him yet."

"We can't?" Sue asks, perplexed.

"Not if you want to go blind. He has powers, and one of those is the ability to turn himself into a blinding light. That's why they took me. They needed me to approach Him, since all the clones they sent went blind. He can't control his power, so that's why you can't see him. Another of his power is the ability to speak in your mind. Apparently he can read thoughts, but not all. He couldn't read the clones', nor can he read yours. So he's talking with me to ask you for help."

"Why can't he read our minds?" Sue ask.

"And why our particular help?" I add. After a few seconds, she answers.

"He says you feel familiar to Him, like a distant relative. There seem to be a shroud around the four of you, which makes it impossible for him to read your thoughts. That shroud is what makes him feel a connection to you."

"It should be the radiation from Dimension Zero." I say quietly to Sue. "I'm assuming he is a clone?" I ask Alicia. She nods. Does he remember what the pod he came out of looked like? Was it silvery-white on the side with a blue glass on top, with white cushioning on the inside?" Alicia stays silent for a couple of seconds before nodding again. "This pod was designed to access another dimension, called Zero. It's still relatively unknown at this time, but when we explored it a few months ago, a radioactive storm affected us and gave us these powers. We have since discovered that the radiation was affecting our brain and feelings when not using our powers regularly. When scanning this structure, we discovered that Him — is that right? — that he was emitting those radiations, as were the clones around the structure. Him having powers may be linked with that. The clones don't seem to have any, but my current theory is that the pod, by producing those clones, was saturated by the radiation and while birthing him, all the radiation in the pod was transmitted to Him, giving him his powers."

"He's asking how you control them."

"I think focus and practice did it for all of us. More focus for me, and more practice for Johnny, but it seems to be the two main factors in helping us control our powers. Reed, could you try telling him what you said when we first woke up with them?"

"I told her that it was part of her, that the main thing was to keep calm and focus on herself, finding what had changed and how that changed affected her. He seems to be born with the powers, so that may not help Him. Control and practice might not be enough either. Here, I'll work on something that might help, Sue, could you give Alicia the radiation device to measure and record the type of radiation coming from Him? She'll scan Him and if possible bring the device back so that I can finish this." I said, pulling a bulky watch from the bag.

"He's asking what that is." Alicia reports, while Sue pulls the device out and prepares it for her.

"That was something I was working on to help us mitigate the radiation in our bodies in case we couldn't use our powers for a while. I'll modify a few things from it and configure it for his particular need." I said, while starting to fiddle with it.

"How many of these things do you have in that bag?" Sue says, looking at the device in my hands. Alicia leaves us, the device in her hand, ready to scan Him.

"That's the first prototype, there's only one of those. If you want more I'll need to build another one once we're home." I answer.

"No, I meant how many gadgets do you have in that bag? How many prototypes did you build and bring here?"

"Oh, just a couple more in the bag. I have more prototypes in my lab but they're bulkier so I couldn't bring them here today. I didn't think this would even be useful but it wasn't that cumbersome to carry so I took it as well," I say, pointing at the watch. "Don't worry, I'll show you everything I made and I'm working on when we get back," seeing her pout, I conclude: "I promise."