SECOND COMING

Part III

By Wesley Overhults

Manhattan, Earth-32

“You got bit by a very nasty bug,” realized Scarlet Spider as he stared at the young assassin claiming to be his daughter.  “Trust me, I know all about that.”

He and Scorpion had broken into the science lab at ESU so he could get a good look at the virus coursing through her system.  Carmilla felt like she was going to die at any moment.  Her stomach was twisting itself into knots and she couldn’t go more than a few minutes without a coughing fit that sounded like she could hack up a lung at any moment.  She was with her father now though.  He was going to take care of her and keep her safe.  That was what fathers did, wasn’t it? She never had a father before so she didn’t know.  She didn’t know anything about having a normal life but there was still time.  She could still catch up and have all the things she missed out on thanks to her bitch of a mother.

“Please, I don’t want to die,” she whimpered to the former hero.  “Help me.”

“These morons don’t have the equipment for that,” said Scarlet Spider.  “This is a really nasty virus, kiddo.  Someone who knows their stuff made it and if it’s killing you then normal people don’t have a chance.”

“My mother made it,” explained Scorpion.  “The file said you were my father.”

“Listen, I’ve hooked up with some crazy women in my time but I didn’t impregnate any of them,” clarified Scarlet Spider.

“They took your DNA from somewhere and used it to make me,” said Scorpion.  “I looked at my mother’s notes and there was no mistake.  They used the radiation in your blood as the basis for my abilities.  I’m your daughter.”

“In a biological sense, yes,” admitted Scarlet Spider.  “There’s a certain genetic marker I carry thanks to my blood’s radioactivity and you seem to carry the exact same one.  I wish I had known this sooner.  I kinda always wanted to be a father.”

“So what now?” she questioned.

“Oh now we go to the smartest men in the room,” said Scarlet Spider, a cruel grin forming underneath his mask.  “I think it’s time I told MJ the happy news about my new daughter.”

Avengers Mansion

Mary Jane Watson was used to worrying about the man she loved.  It came with the territory when your husband was a superhero.  You spent hours staying up at night trying not to imagine all the horrible ways he could be dying at that very moment.  You burned through your entire collection of reading material twice over as you tried to get yourself to relax.  You learned all the times the late-night reruns of your favorite TV shows came on.  It was something MJ had adjusted herself to when she got married to the amazing Spider-Man.  As it turned out though, Peter wasn’t the amazing, larger-than-life hero everyone made him out to be.  Every man had a breaking point and Peter had surpassed his long ago.  It was strange to see him now, or rather see things about him on the news.  MJ often caught herself stealing scrutinizing glances at Ben, wondering if he was the same ticking time bomb Peter became.  She prayed that Ben truly was the better half of Peter because she couldn’t go through that again.  Once was enough to almost kill her.

“Would it kill you to come home for a few minutes?” she asked Ben over the video link in the mansion’s control room.

“The quicker we find Scorpion then the quicker I’ll be home, MJ,” promised Spider-Man.  “That poor girl is out there somewhere and she’s in pain.  She’s scared and lonely.  She needs our help, MJ.”

“I know that and I’m not saying you should completely blow this off for me,” explained MJ.  “It would just be nice to see you.  You know I don’t feel comfortable hanging around this place without you or one of the other Avengers here.”

“The mansion’s automated defenses will keep you safe,” he promised her.  “Tony found the Exiles and they’re having a conference.  I think they’re coming back to the mansion so you won’t be alone.”

“No, I’ll just be here with a bunch of strangers,” countered MJ.  “Just be careful out there, tiger.  Is that too much to ask?”

“I always am,” he assured her.  “I gotta go.  I’ll be home as soon as this is over.”

MJ sighed as she turned off the video link.  There wasn’t anything to worry about.  The mansion’s defense grid could stop even the Hulk on one of his bad days. Though the building felt like a home at some points, MJ couldn’t help but realize that the mansion was also a fortress when it needed to be.  If the Avengers didn’t want someone to get in then they weren’t getting in.  It was simple as that.  So why did she feel like something bad was going to happen soon?  Was that just some of Peter and Ben’s famous spider-sense rubbing off on her?

“Oh you two are just adorable.”

MJ heard the voice and felt her blood turn to ice.  It was the same voice she heard come out of Ben’s mouth every day and yet it wasn’t his voice at all.  It had a dark, harsh edge to it that she wouldn’t have believed its owner capable of until that fateful night when he told her he had murdered his best friend.  Ever since that night, MJ realized that she didn’t know anything anymore.

“You can’t be in here,” she told the seemingly empty room.  On instinct, she turned her eyes towards the ceiling and there he was, a nightmare made into reality.  “The defenses should’ve turned you to pulp in seconds.”

“Oh that would’ve been the case with anyone else,” admitted Scarlet Spider, hanging upside down from a strand of his webbing and glaring at his ex-wife.  “The tiny problem is that I have your main squeeze’s voice, his fingerprints, his DNA.  There’s nowhere in this house that I can’t go, MJ.  I could’ve popped over for a visit any time I felt like it, really.  I just didn’t have a good reason until now.”

MJ made a dash back to the video terminal.  A ball of impact webbing flew through the air and struck her in the back.  The ball began expanding on contact, coiling around her even as she tried to reach for the console to call Ben or the Avengers for help.  Scarlet Spider shot out a webline and snagged her ankles with it before dropping to the floor.  The line was wrapped over one of the beams in the ceiling and as the insane arachnid went down, MJ went up.  The result was that she was the one dangling upside down from the ceiling while he was standing there staring her in the face.

“Peter, please,” she begged him.

“Oh it’s too late for begging now,” he told her.  “Mansion security stand down.”

Scarlet Spider called up the video stream from the security cameras and then flashed the lights to indicate that everything was clear.  Scorpion came through the open front gate and hurried towards her father’s position.  Satisfied with his handiwork, Peter turned back to the woman he once thought was his one, true love. What a delusion he constantly lived his life under back then.  He had cured himself of that sickening sense of responsibility a long time ago.  Now he was reveling in all the darker impulses he never allowed himself to act on before.  It was liberating in every sense of the word.

“He’s going to stop you just like before,” said MJ.

“You see that girl there?” inquired Scarlet Spider, taking no heed to her warning.  “She has the same DNA as me.  She’s my daughter, MJ.  Do you remember all those times we talked about having a kid?  She could’ve been our daughter.”

“That’s Scorpion,” realized MJ even as Carmilla came into the control room.  “Peter, you have to listen to me.  That girl is really sick.  She has a virus and she’s a danger to everyone around her.”

“I know that,” snarled Scarlet Spider.  “You think I was going to leave her face-down in the gutter?  You think I was going to let her die alone without her father to care for her?”

“Dad, please,” rasped Scorpion.

“She’s going to have the very best of care,” assured Scarlet Spider.  “I’m sure this place has all kinds of facilities.  You know, I always secretly wanted to live here.  The labs in here must be incredible.  I can’t wait to work in them.”

“She’ll have the best of care once we get her away from you,” promised a voice.

The Exiles stood in the open doorway to the control room, all of them ready to battle Scarlet Spider and Scorpion.  They had been lying in wait, knowing that if Carmilla managed to find her father then Peter would take her here.  It was to the team’s advantage that they had Goblin with them.  Harry knew exactly what Peter would do in any situation, even one as insane as this one.  Goblin knew that Peter wouldn’t be able to resist coming after Mary Jane.  In his own twisted way, he still loved her even though that relationship was completely dead.  More than love though, Peter wanted revenge on everyone he believed had wronged him.  Harry knew MJ was at the top of that list.

“Oh you people always ruin my fun,” lamented Scarlet Spider.  “Carmilla.  Your name’s Carmilla, right?”

“Yeah,” answered Scorpion.

“Be a good daughter then and take care of these people while your new mom and I finish our talk,” ordered Scarlet Spider.  “Make sure to say goodbye to her though.  I think this will probably be the last time you get to see her while she’s still breathing.”

“Get him away from her and don’t hurt the kid,” ordered Sandman.  “Remember what we learned about that virus.  If she dies then we have all kinds of trouble on our hands.”

The Exiles sprang to attack even as Scorpion came at them.  She vaulted over Whiplash’s energy coils as they came hurtling towards her and caught him in the jaw with a flying kick.  She cartwheeled away from Wasp as Kate let out a barrage of stingers at her, weaving through the blasts of energy to get closer to her target.  Carmilla sent her stinger screaming towards Kate’s throat, intent on catching her with an open-hand jab that would also poison the Exile with her toxic touch.  Wasp realized what was going to happen and shrunk herself so that the strike went over her head and made no contact with her at all.  She zipped away to avoid an axe kick from Scorpion, the now-mammoth foot of the assassin screaming towards her from above.

“I’m still screwed up from that HYDRA gizmo so I won’t get fancy on you,” decided Songbird even as she used her sonic scream in conjunction with the technology in her costume’s carapace to create a hard-sound box around Scorpion.

The young mercenary pounded on the pink walls that had surrounded her but it was to no avail.  For the moment, she had been completely caged thanks to the newest Exile’s quick thinking.  Unfortunately for Songbird, Scarlet Spider saw what was going on.  He vaulted over Goblin and let a glob of webbing fly from his web-shooters.  The sticky slime hit Songbird in the mouth, stopping her scream and causing the walls around Scorpion to vanish.  Scarlet Spider turned and dodged a stream of sand that came at him courtesy of Sandman.

“Hang on, MJ,” assured Goblin as he used a bolt of hellfire to cut her down from the ceiling.  “I can have you free in a few seconds.”

Oddly enough, Mary Jane didn’t even scream as she felt the floor rush to meet her.  She managed to twist herself so she fell into Goblin’s arms and he used a small bolt of hellfire to cut her loose from the webbing.  She looked at him with an equally odd sense of calmness.  It was unnerving to see him alive but it helped to know that somehow he had turned himself into the man she always knew he could’ve been.  Somewhere beneath all the fire and brimstone, MJ saw a small glimpse of the Harry she had fallen in love with many years ago.

“I would tell you to get away from my wife but you weren’t very big on common sense, Harry,” jeered Scarlet Spider as he planted both of his feet into Goblin’s spine.  “I’ll admit you gave me a pretty good beating last time we tangled but we both know who the better man between us is.”

Scarlet Spider encased his hands in gloves made out of hardened webbing and came at Goblin with a vicious right cross.  He pulled back his hand to deliver another punch but Whiplash wrapped one of his coils around that hand and slung Peter into a wall.  Scarlet Spider simply hit the wall feet-first and stood there, breaking his fall in a way only he could.  He ran up the wall and then across the ceiling before dropping down onto Whiplash and pummeling him.

“You know you can’t win this fight,” reminded Sandman as he used a spray of sand to knock Scarlet Spider off his teammate.  “You could never beat us even with five other people helping you.  What chance have you got with just her as your backup?”

“Oh I think my chances are pretty good,” decided Scarlet Spider, flipping over a giant battering ram of sand and coming to a landing next to Scorpion.  “You see I’m a very smart man.  I was smart enough to get in here, after all, and I’m smart enough to know that you always have to have an ace in the hole.  That’s the trouble with everyone else.  They always underestimate me.”

Without warning, Scarlet Spider locked Scorpion in a chokehold where it only took a flick of his wrist to snap her neck.  This brought the whole battle to a screeching halt just as he knew it would.  The Exiles knew exactly what happened if Scorpion died.  That was why Peter brought her here.  He wanted to kill Scorpion right in this place so she could infect the Avengers and, more importantly, MJ with the virus she was carrying.

“Let the kid go, Parker,” ordered Sandman, motioning for the others to back off for fear of him killing Scorpion.  “Nobody’s dying tonight.”

“Listen to you going soft on me,” jeered Scarlet Spider.  “You were so quick to beat my poor daughter into submission.  I thought I would just save you the trouble.”

“Dad, please,” said Scorpion.  “I’m your daughter.  I just want a family.”

“Oh don’t we all,” said Scarlet Spider.  “What about me, dear daughter?  You see I’ve never gotten anything I ever wanted in life so you shouldn’t have room to complain.  Yes, I will probably be the first to die from that virus after I kill you but I’ll have the consolation of knowing that these ‘heroes’ and that stupid bitch over there went down too.”

“Carmilla?”

The voice came from the youngest of the Exiles, the one who hadn’t even made a single move the whole battle.  Molly Hayes looked at Carmilla Black and for the first time since she lost her friends, she saw a kindred spirit.  Bruiser cautiously stepped towards Scarlet Spider and his hostage, trying not to frighten either one of them.  She could see that Scorpion was in bad shape.  The virus was taking a heavy toll on her, that much was evident.

“Stop talking to my daughter,” warned Scarlet Spider.  “I thought you were one of us, kid, but I guess I was wrong.  Obviously I’m a terrible judge of character.”

“Carmilla, my name is Molly,” said Bruiser.  “I know you’re scared right now, Carmilla.  I know what it’s like to not have friends, to not have anyone to turn to when you’re sick or in pain.  I know what it’s like to have parents that use you for their own gain.  He doesn’t love you, Carmilla.  He’s just an adult and he doesn’t know any better.  Adults lie, Carmilla.  I know you don’t want to believe that but you know it’s the truth.  I can tell.”

“Jules should’ve let you rot in whatever hell of a reality you called home,” said Scarlet Spider, backing up from Bruiser when she was starting to get too close.

“You just want a family,” continued Bruiser.  “It’s important to have a family, we both know that.  Sometimes you have to make your own family though, we both know that too.  You can’t make a family with him, Carmilla.  You know in your heart that you can’t.  You have a choice right now.  You can choose to accept that you have no family and that you stand alone or you can crawl back to him knowing that he’ll just hurt you again.  He’s going to kill you, Carmilla.  Maybe not now but if you keep trying to love him then eventually he’s going to kill you.  You’re a survivor, Carmilla.  That’s what you do so do it.  Survive without him.”

Scarlet Spider felt his spider-sense go off but Wasp was so small that it couldn’t register her until it was too late.  Kate hit him in the hands with enough stinger bolts to make him let go of Scorpion.  That was all the time Scorpion needed to flip him over her shoulder and send him to the ground.  She sent her stinger at his head but his reflexes were still fast enough to clasp both hands around her arm, stopping her attack without touching her stinger at all.  Peter shoved his daughter away but a blast of webbing hit him in the chest and stuck him to the floor.

“Did you forget that I don’t trigger your spider-sense?” asked Spider-Man as he dropped to the floor and landed in front of his twisted doppelganger.  “Nighty-night, brother.”

Spider-Man’s spider-sense went off and he dodged the jab from Scorpion as she tried to sting him in the back of the neck.  She managed to get her hands on the back of his mask and tore it away from his face even as he moved away from her.  She stared into his eyes and realized that he was just like her father.  In fact, Ben was her father.  It was in that moment that the virus took her over.  She was so tired of fighting.  She was tired of death and lies and murder.  Scorpion collapsed in Spider-Man’s arms, sobbing even as she teetered on the verge of unconsciousness.

“Get the smart people in here and let them figure it out,” ordered Bruiser sullenly.  “After that, just let her cry and get it all out of her system.”

“What you said is true for yourself too, little one?” asked Whiplash.

“I’m not a charity case so don’t treat me like one,” snapped Bruiser.  “Trust me, I wish I had it as lucky as she does.”

SHIELD Helicarrier, Two Days Later

“We managed to stabilize her condition so she won’t be dying any time soon,” explained Iron Man as he walked with the Exiles to a holding cell on the SHIELD Helicarrier.  “Reed and I are still working on an antitoxin that should flush the virus from her system.  Until then, I’m afraid she won’t be leaving this room.”

The Exiles looked at the cell, staring through the Plexiglas front and watching Scorpion sitting on the floor meditating.  It wasn’t the best of living arrangements but they knew it was the best place for her.  The Helicarrier was one of the safest places on Earth and as long as she stayed there then nothing could threaten her life and risk the spread of the virus still inside her.

“How is she?” asked Sandman.

“She keeps to herself, naturally,” answered Stark.  “There’s a switch in there that makes the glass go opaque when she wants her privacy and I’ve been told Fury lets her out for an hour every day so she can get some exercise and keep her strength up.  Reed and I are close to that antitoxin so this arrangement shouldn’t last very long.”

“We’re glad we could help,” said Songbird.  “We were told that we would be moving on some time tonight so we thought we would at least visit her once before we go.”

“Can she have a conversation through that thing?” asked Bruiser.

“Sure,” replied Stark.

“Give us a few minutes alone then,” decided Bruiser.

Iron Man nodded to her and then took his leave, the rest of the Exiles following suit.  Molly walked up to the front of the cell and pressed her hand against the glass.  The slight noise this action produced caused Scorpion to crack her eyes open and study the youngest Exile.  Bruiser tapped on the glass and Carmilla knew what she wanted.  She got up from the floor and moved towards the glass, pressing the button to activate the cell’s intercom system so she could talk with Molly.

“Thank you for what you said,” she greeted Bruiser.

“I did it to complete the mission,” lied Bruiser.  “Look, I know you had it tough.  I did too.  I meant what I said back there but there’s something you have to do for me now.”

“Which is what?” inquired Scorpion.

“You have a chance to make up for lost time with your dad,” reminded Bruiser.  “Take it.  I never had that chance with my parents and my friends and I’d give anything to get it.  Just be grateful you have that.”

Molly didn’t wait for a response.  She shoved her hands into the pockets of her jeans and then walked away from Carmilla Black, perhaps one of the few people in the world who truly understood her.  Bruiser never thought she could get that feeling again.  She thought it was lost to her the day she lost her friends but maybe the higher powers of the universe had given her a second chance at it with the Exiles.  She wasn’t quite sure how she felt about that.

“I thought you guys were already taking off,” said Ben Reilly as he met Bruiser while going in the opposite direction from her.

“Tonight,” clarified Molly.  “You better take care of her or I’ll come back here and tear your head off.  Understand?”

“Deal,” agreed Spider-Man.  “Give my best to Harry for me.”

Bruiser said nothing as she left the room and Ben turned back to his estranged daughter.  He didn’t feel right about any of this.  He wasn’t good father material but he knew he had a responsibility to her and he planned to do his best.  Though he was only a clone of Peter Parker, Ben still had some of Peter’s memories. He could remember the love his aunt and uncle had for him, a love that helped mold him into the hero he was today.  Without them to act as surrogate parents, Ben knew he would’ve turned out completely differently.

“Tony said he and Reed were close to curing you,” offered Ben.

“I’m glad,” responded Scorpion.  “Should I . . . call you ‘Dad’?”

“Let’s just stick with ‘Ben’ for now,” he decided.  “Carmilla?”

“Yes,” answered Scorpion.  “My mother gave me a different name when I was born but I prefer Carmilla.”

“I just wanted you to know that I’d like to be here for you,” explained Ben.  “I know I can be a better father than Peter even though I share his DNA.  I’d like to get the chance to do that.”

“I believe I would enjoy that,” said Scorpion, a slight smile gracing her lips.  “Will you tell me about your life?”

“Of course,” assured Ben as he sat down on the floor and proceeded to spend some quality time with his daughter.

The New York Hilton

“So we saved the day.”

Sandman turned his gaze away from the television set and watched Songbird take a seat next to him at the hotel bar.  He wordlessly nodded in agreement before taking a swig of his beer and returning his attention to the baseball game on TV.

“Bad day for the Mets,” noted Melissa Gold before ordering herself a beer as well.

“Some things don’t change,” joked Sandman.  “If they’d quit pitching like shit then maybe they’d win.  I’ll give ’em some credit though.  They’re better than the ones in my world.”

“Mine too,” she agreed.  “You okay?  You’ve been pretty quiet all this time.”

“Just trying to keep cool and see what gets thrown at us next,” said Sandman.  “I’ll give it to John though, he’s a hell of a lot better than our first Timebroker was.”

“Someday I’m going to understand what the hell you’re talking about,” replied Songbird.  She picked up her bottle and took a surprisingly long swig from it.

Sandman arched his eyebrow as he watched her drink.  Ever since he gained his powers, he didn’t really have much use for alcohol.  It wasn’t as if he could get drunk on the stuff since his body was made out of sand.  These days, he drank more out of habit than anything.  It was a way to relieve his tension and ever since he became an Exile, his days were full of tension.  He tried not to think about what happened back at the HYDRA base with the Scientist Supreme.  He had held back when they finally caught up to Scarlet Spider, not wanting to risk a repetition of what happened with Rappaccini.

“You drink like a pro,” he noted finally.

“My dad was a good teacher,” said Melissa bitterly.  “Honestly, I rarely ever touch this stuff.  Just felt like celebrating a little.”

“Yeah, I’ve learned to take our victories when we can get them,” admitted Sandman as he raised his bottle towards her.  “To a job well done then.”

“The only thing worth drinking to,” replied his teammate as she clinked her bottle against his and they both took another drink.

Melissa was about to leave after finishing her beer.  She didn’t know exactly how long they would be able to stay in this reality and she wanted to be ready for anything.  She was just getting up to leave the bar when she felt Sandman reach forward and put his hand on her arm.

“Stay and watch the game,” he offered.  “You’re into baseball, right?”

“Abe was a Yankees fan but I’ve always been a Mets girl,” she said with a smile, deciding to stay and talk to him.  “I guess I’ve always had a thing for underdogs.”

Sandman smiled and for the first time since he got saddled with the Exiles, it was actually a real smile.  Songbird sat with him and they both watched the game until it was over.  When the final inning was finished, they got up to leave but never made it to their hotel rooms.  The Tallus glowed with temporal energy and both of them along with their teammates vanished into dust and hurtled towards their next mission.

The Cathedral

He hadn’t felt cold in a long time and now it was all he could feel.  Darkness shrouded him for so long that he lost track of time.  He stopped keeping time long ago when he became something more than human.  Was this what it was like to die or had he already died long ago when he downloaded his consciousness into the cybernetic body of Victor Mancha?  He began to like the dark and the cold but just when he was getting used to it, he found himself thrust back into blinding light.

“I think he’s online,” said a voice.

Chase Stein, known to most as Machine Man, saw the ever-present lines of code scroll through his vision as his body ran its diagnostic program.  His systems seemed clean enough and once the program closed, he could see his surroundings more clearly.  The technicians hovered over him, looking down on him from above.  He assumed he was on an operating table and a quick flex of his mechanical muscles snapped open the clamps around his wrists and ankles.

“I don’t know why I should bother owing a pathetic sack of meat like you my continued existence,” he snarled as his hand clamped around one technician’s throat and a spike of nanotech threatened to shoot out of it to impale the poor man.  “Unless you can produce some useful information within the next ten seconds, I’m going to kill you and everyone in the room just for the lols.  Better make it count.”

“They brought you back because I told them to,” said the Reverend.  “Mr. Stein, I have a proposition for you.”

“As if some squishy-minded fleshling could offer me something,” retorted Machine Man as he got up off the gurney with his hostage still firmly in his grasp.  “Oh you are a curious one.  You should see all the activity in your brain right now.  Those chemicals are frothing and churning.  It’s really fascinating how much you’ve deluded yourself.”

“Shall I continue or do I need more of your attention?” inquired the Reverend.

“Your ten seconds are up,” decided Machine Man, impaling the technician through the throat with a metal spike that shot from his hand.  “Thanks for playing though.”

“You said I was delusional,” reminded the Reverend.  “If so then what exactly are you, Mr. Stein?”

“I’m on a drug called ‘analytical reasoning’,” shot back Machine Man as he stalked towards the Reverend.  “Better be careful though.  If people like you try it once, you’ll die.”

Machine Man moved with inhuman speed and pounced on the Reverend.  Everyone else in the room instantly produced their weapons, training them directly on the robotic psychopath.  All members of The Order had complete faith in the Reverend, of course, but none of them trusted Stein in the slightest.  The Reverend, however, held up his hand to stay Machine Man’s execution.  He had plans for the former Runaway, hence the purpose of bringing the android back from death. Stein was no longer human in any traditional sense but the Reverend knew there was at least some small shred of humanity in him.  That was the only flaw in the perfect machine that Chase Stein had become.

“The Exiles, the ones who destroyed you, have one of your friends in their custody,” he spoke up.  “I believe you’re very familiar with Miss Hayes.”

“And who says I need you to get her back?” asked Machine Man.

“I know that appealing to your emotions is a foolish gambit but I also know you’re a big fan of reason,” said the Reverend.  “Would a reasonable being such as yourself go on a suicide mission to rescue her from the Exiles?  No, I think not.  I think instead a reasonable being would realize that he needs allies.  We would be pleased to count you among our flock, Mr. Stein.”

“I am not some meatsack that you can sway with your charming words,” declared Machine Man.  “You’re correct though.  A reasonable being like myself would realize he needs a larger party before questing.  This is a temporary arrangement at best.  Should this place be full of too much fail, I’ll gladly kill every single member of your organization and devise my own plan to get Molly back.”

“Of course,” assured the Reverend.  “I’ve been watching you for some time now, Stein.  You were smart enough to hack into a Tallus and not many people can do such a thing.  That was what made me decide that we needed you.”

“Never call me a ‘person’,” ordered Machine Man.  “Are we clear on this?”

“We’re clear,” assured the Reverend even as Machine Man let him return to his feet and he waved off the rest of The Order members who were present and still had their weapons pointed at Stein.  “I am the Reverend, Mr. Stein, and I am leader of The Order.  Recently, we’ve lost our Minister of Science and I was hoping you could fill that position quite nicely.  As I said, anyone who can hack a Tallus can be of great help in providing my agents with adequate transportation.”

“You’re sure it’s her?” asked Machine Man in reference to Bruiser.  “You’re sure it’s my Molly?”

“It is undeniable truth,” stated the Reverend.  “Do I have your cooperation on this?”

“I’ll need a very good internet connection so I can start dl-ing the new season of Doctor Who in HD,” decided Machine Man.  “I doubt you people have TV here so I’ll have to get the feed from some other reality.  Once that’s all started, I’ll think about working on whatever you have for me.”

“Welcome to The Order then, Mr. Stein,” said the Reverend.  “I think you’re going to like it here.”

Next Issue: Night Terrors