LINE IN THE SAND

Part I

By Clayton Tooley

Author’s Note: Be sure to check out Amazing Fantasy #14 for a prequel adventure of the Resistants!

“Repeating our lead story this hour: Captain America, or more specifically the current line-up of the Avengers, traitors to the United States of America! With an incredibly destructive show of force against our military and the potentially disastrous explosion they set off in the middle of Manhattan to cover their flight from justice, these ‘heroes’ have shown to the nation that has harbored them for years their true colors. What does this turn of events mean for the dozens of reserve Avengers scattered around America? We discuss that after these commercials!”

The crumpled can bounced off the front of the plasma screen with nearly enough force to crack the delicate screen as it skittered back across the floor to the foot of the man who threw it, who was finishing up an inspired string of curses. “Horseshit,” he finished, accidentally squeezing the remote control in his hand to the breaking point, sending a circular rain of debris flying across the couch and the lap of the man sitting next to John Walker, handing him another beer.

“Easy, Johnny,” Lemar Hoskins said, chucking at his friend’s red face. “They’ll work this shit out; always do in the end.”

“Not the point, Lemar,” Walker said, dropping the beer onto the coffee table as he stood up and stalked around his apartment, burning his nervous energy as his frustration boiled through him. “I don’t need this right now. I’m only back in this city because I was supposed to meet Steve tomorrow to discuss some offer or favor or something, he wasn’t too direct after he butted into my Watchdog business back home. If not for him, I’d still be out looking for those damned mutts and my sister and not sitting here finding out those inept Avengers pissed off the U.S. again.”

“I thought you liked the Avengers now,” Lemar asked, sipping from his drink. “You hung around them long enough there for a while, even after you got your senses back.”

“Most of ‘em are fine, if unfocused,” Jack said, popping his knuckles. “I managed to whip the West Coast bunch into shape for a while, before it fell apart in Force Works. This East Coast bunch ain’t been worth spit for years. Did you see the jackets they ran around in for a while? And letting that alien slackjaw take out the Ohmphalos satellite was some smooth work there.”

“Being a bit harsh for a guy ‘bout got planted by a doofy cyborg named ‘Spike’, don’cha think?” Lemar said smiling a wide smile at his best friend.

“Cute,” Jack said, rolling his eyes at his friend. “Reminds me, why’d you shave your head? Being a six-foot-five, two-hundred sixty pound piece of twisted steel not enough to fit the ‘big bad black man’ stereotype these days? Gotta shave the head for ‘cred’?”

“That’s mighty white of you, my brutha,” Lemar said, running a hand over his smooth dome.

“Please,” Jack said, picking up his beer and cracking it open. “I’m too big of a prick to be racist. I just don’t have the time to focus my hatred that way.”

“True dat,” Lemar said, shrugging. “Truth is I got tagged a few months back just above my mask on my exposed head and damned near took me out for good. Figured I’d switch to a cowl-type mask like yours, without the frilly wings, and my fade didn’t look good under wraps.”

“Yeah, I can see how that’d…” The rest of his words were cut off as the flat rectangular communicard lying on the coffee table began to beep urgently, drawing both of their attention. “That’s an Avengers emergency signal. From the news I didn’t figure I’d hear that anytime soon.”

Walker picked his card up and thumbed the security seal and his image on the card wavered for a moment before being replaced by the face of Peggy Carter, the former communications specialist for the Avengers, though she hadn’t been employed in that position for more than two years. “U.S.Agent here. If this is about the government thing, count me out.”

“Classy as always,” Peggy said, her stern yet motherly voice coming through the card loud and clear. “That’s the least of my problems. I need you at Cap’s apartment ASAP. We have a life or death emergency that can’t wait until tomorrow…or Steve.”

“Cap’s apartment?” Jack asked, confused. “What’re you doing at his place and issuing demands?”

“There’s more going on than you know, Agent,” Peggy said, her voice turning short. “Cap said you were to meet him tomorrow to discuss this situation, but there’s been an unexpected complication and we need you now if you’re coming. Shit or get off the pot, but quit wasting my time.” The line went dead abruptly.

“Daaaaaaaaaaamn!” Lemar said, hiding a smirk behind his hand. “You just been owned!”

“Cute again,” Jack said, pocketing the card and heading for his bedroom. “Now get dressed, funnyman, you’re coming with me.”

The drive from Walker’s apartment to Cap’s was normally a twenty-minute drive if traffic was light, which is was not at this time of day. With Lemar driving in his customized Mustang, it took seven minutes flat. Stepping out on shaky legs, Jack hefted the backpack he’d put his equipment into and stepped quickly back form the red death machine. “Jesus, Lemar, what the hell?”

Rolling with laughter, Lemar removed a larger backpack from the trunk of his car and lightly hopped up on to the curb next to his friend, clapping him lightly on the shoulder. “I know, right? I took ‘er out to Vegas for some work; got over seven-fifty horsepower now!” Still smiling, he walked off whistling toward the recessed door atop the steps to the old brownstone building. Wiping sweat off of his forehead, Walker followed.

They entered the door and Lemar started for the stairs but stopped when Jack grabbed his shoulder and directed him toward a doorway farther along the hallway beneath the staircase. They entered and descended the stairs to another hallway lined with smaller rooms marked off with chain link fencing, providing storage for the tenants of the building. Moving to the last one, the only one with a card scanner, Jack scanned his communicard and the fence opened to admit them into the room. As soon as the door closed, a hatch opened in the middle of the room, allowing access to a ladder leading twenty feet down to another short hallway. Once at the bottom, they proceeded fifty feet to a blank steel door.

A green laser light erupted from the top of the door and scanned them as they stood staring straight ahead. The light blinked off after a moment and the door made several clicking noises and swung outward, allowing them admittance to a series of high-tech rooms that functioned as Captain America’s headquarters away from Avengers mansion courtesy of S.H.I.E.L.D. and Anthony Stark. It was from here that Cap could plan his individual activities, such as responses to his telephone hotline system, or it could serve as a backup location for emergency Avengers business, if needed.

“Damn, this is sweet,” Lemar said, nodding his head approvingly. “Gotta get me one’a these.”

“That’d be nice,” Jack said, readjusting his backpack and stepping toward the closed door to the conference room. “Wonder what this is all about…”

“Agent!” a sultry voice said as the door snapped open and before Jack knew what was happening a warm, furry and sweet smelling figure had wrapped itself around his upper body, fingers roaming over his back and through his hair as a very relaxing purring noise hummed softly into his ear. Greer Nelson, the ferocious Avenger known as Tigra, pulled back from him with mischief in her eyes, her powerful legs wrapped tightly around his waist and her black leather bikini barely clinging to her rippling body. “This party just got started!”

Jack heard Lemar’s sharp intake of breath at the sight of Tigra, remembering his own initial reactions to her during his West Coast days, and the enjoyment he’d allowed himself to experience after he’d removed the stick from his ass and had himself some R&R with a willing teammate. Smiling a little smugly, enjoying his own form of revenge on Lemar for his driving, Jack put his arms around Greer and turned to his friend. “Lemar Hoskins, Greer Nelson. Tigra, Battlestar.”

“Oooooh,” Tigra said, flipping her prehensile tail up around her neck and batting her large green eyes beneath her silky long hair as she took in the sight of Lemar. “I may actually never go back!”

“Children, please,” another voice said, drawing all of the sexual tension out of the room at the same time as it drew all of their attention to the man speaking, who was leaning against the table in the middle of the room in a red and white costume that matched his white skin and red hair, his own blue eyes roving over the three of them. “I believe we have other matters to discuss.”

“Geez, Eros,” Tigra said as she playfully batted Jack’s nose with her finger before impossibly flipping backwards from his hands using only her stomach and back muscles, landing lightly on the table in a crouch next to the cosmic Avenger known as Starfox, still smiling. “Since when were you a spoilsport?”

As Starfox ‘hrpmfed’ and crossed his arms, Lemar leaned in close to Jack and said, “Is it me, or is he a little…”

“A little what,” Jack asked, looking back at his friend, confused. He’d only met Starfox a few times, but hadn’t thought much of him, really.

“I dunno…pretty…?” Lemar said, embarrassment clear on his face. “I mean…”

“Don’t sweat it,” Jack said, waving him off even as his attention was drawn to someone much more gorgeous on the other side of the room and began walking that way. “He has that affect on people. Power of persuasion.”

“Ah, that’s…fucking disturbing,” Lemar said, directing his attention intentionally away from the bickering Tigra and Starfox and following his friend. His efforts were rewarded when he recognized a man standing with the other group of people in the corner. “Hey, it’s D-Man!”

Dennis Dunphy looked away from his conversation with a shorter man of considerable girth and toward the sound of his name, smiling beneath his bushy red goatee and freshly shaven bald dome. What was most shocking, however, was the clarity evident in his eyes and the friendly way he said, “Agent!” and reached out to shake Jack’s hand, interrupting Jack’s headlong progress toward another figure just now turning their way.

Stopping to greet his friend, Jack let some of his surprise enter his voice. “Dennis? Is that you?”

“Of course it is,” Lemar said, a smile on his face as he pushed Jack aside and took Dennis’s hand, matching their nearly equal strength in a crushing handshake. “I’d recognize the first guy outside of the army to wallop me good anywhere. You’re looking good, man. Remember me?”

“Thank you, Battlestar, of course I remember you. Other than Anaconda I must say I haven’t been hit as hard by anyone but you, too.”

“Call me Lemar,” Battlestar said, clapping him on the shoulder.

“I’m glad to see you’ve recovered fully, D-Man,” Jack said, also smiling.

In truth he was relieved. Back when he had been Captain America, Jack had let himself be captured by a lunatic named Flag Smasher, who had forced Battlestar to track down the ‘real’ Captain America or he’d kill Jack. Lemar had done as he had been ordered, having to go toe-to-toe with D-Man in order to do it, but they had arrived in time to save Jack’s life. In the course of that mission, however, D-Man had sacrificed himself to save the world from an U.L.T.I.M.A.T.U.M. doomsday weapon and was lost in the arctic ice. Months later he had turned up alive and Jack, along with the Falcon, had rescued him and brought him home, but his mind had been severely damaged by the trauma, and he’d suffered for years to recover. Seeing Dennis in control of himself again was a great moment for Jack, and he was sure it had meant a lot to Steve as well.

“I’ve had a good half year or so,” Dennis said, smiling. “Some of the Zero People have various talents in therapy and have been working with me. We’ve also got Zero Town civilized, so no one has to sit quite so far away from me this time.” He laughed, referring to the Avengers emergency meeting to combat Morgan Le Fey where his body odor issues had been a problem for most of his teammates.

“Yeah, sorry about that,” Jack said, blushing. “Nothing personal.”

“I seriously doubt that, if my experience means anything.” The voice belonged to the individual who had attracted Jack’s attention from across the room, and he turned to find her standing less than a foot away from him, looking him square in the eyes from atop her long, perfect legs. Julia Carpenter, his former teammate known as Spider-Woman, smiled at him. “I’m happy to see you, Jack, but not nearly as showy as Greer.”

“Wouldn’t hear me complain, Spi,” he said, grimacing as he heard both Lemar and Dennis snicker as his voice came out about an octave too high. He hadn’t seen Julia in several months, shortly after the Morgan Le Fey adventure, and he suddenly realized how much he’d missed her. They’d been teammates on the West Coast Avengers and Force Works for many years and had formed a bond by being two of the more out-there Avengers on a team of old-timers like Iron Man, Scarlet Witch and Wonder Man. Clearing his throat, he spoke in a more normal voice and asked, “How’s Rachel?”

Julia’s smile widened as she thought about her daughter, who had lived with her during her tenure as an Avenger. “That’s nice of you to ask. She’s around here somewhere, tinkering with Fabian’s equipment no doubt. Since living at The Works and being tutored by P.L.A.T.O., she’s turned into a bit of a science whiz, much to the sorrow of my toaster and DVR player.”

“Ah, kids, right?” Jack said, squinting his eyes as he heard himself saying the stupidest thing he’d ever heard of in his life. He heard both of his friends behind him actually guffaw out loud as they both turned their backs on him, and he marked that down mentally to pay them back for later. “Um, so, what have you been up to? Still living in Colorado with your parents?”

“Such a sweet talker,” she said, winking at him, “but yes, been living the dream with my folks for a few months while I figured out what I wanted to do, both in and out of the webs. I’ve received a few job offers here in New York I’ve been considering, which is what we’re doing in town now to respond to Peggy’s summons. Tigra and Starfox just returned from space, so I guess I didn’t come the furthest for the party. Speaking of, any idea what’s going on?”

“No,” Jack said, then briefly describing his recent adventures and Cap’s request.

“Oh, I’m so sorry about your sister,” Julia said, putting a comforting hand on his shoulder. He could tell in her eyes she was thinking about losing someone in her family, Rachel perhaps, or maybe remembering the death of her ex-husband at the hands of Death Web a few years ago. “Is there anything I can do to help?”

“Not right now, but thanks,” Jack said, shrugging. “We don’t have any leads, but I’ll find her.”

“Let me know if I can help,” Julia said just as the plump man that D-Man had been speaking to cleared his throat, drawing their attention to where he stood with Peggy Carter and another man, one Jack now realized was wearing a S.H.I.E.L.D. uniform. After taking a closer look, Jack realized the man was Fabian Stankowiz, a former tech-criminal turned around by Steve and now served as his technical genius.

“Thank you all for coming,” Fabian said, his voice nervous and worried. “My name is Fabian Stankowitz and you all know Peggy Carter, and we work for Captain America. Sorry about the lack of details in our summons but we weren’t expecting some recent events and Cap’s, uh, disagreement with the government.” Fabian cast a nervous glance at the S.H.I.E.L.D. Agent, who gave him a small smile.

“Let’s cut to the chase,” the man said, gesturing toward the table where they all took seats. He stood at the end of the table and worked a handheld device and pulling up his credentials on a holographic projector in the center of the table. “My name is Jason Bludd, Agent of SHIELD and before we continue let me say this: I have no interest in what is going on with the Avengers at this time. I have a mission and a mandate, and my men and myself hold no grudge against any Avenger.”

He let that sink in for a moment, then he nodded and continued. “For the last year we have been working with Captain America and his people to conduct an undercover investigation of a home-grown mutant terrorist group that many of you are familiar with, especially the three former government employees present,” he said, looking at Jack, Lemar and Julia. “The Resistants.”

The image on the screen changed to show a dozen or so men and women wearing yellow-and-black costumes with metallic helmets on their heads, with various forms of physical energy or weapons visible on their bodies. Jack felt his jaw tighten as all sense of levity and friendship left his body in an instant. “Goddamnit! First the Watchdogs, now the freakin’ Resistants?!”

Lemar’s face had also gone white but his eyes were locked on his friend, not the images before him. Lemar saw flashes before his eyes of the first day he met the Resistants, when a strike force attacked him and Johnny when they were Captain America and Bucky working for the Commission on Superhuman Activities and crashed their helicopter to rescue a mutant named Quill, killing their pilot in the process. Fast forward several months to just after Johnny’s parents had been slaughtered by the Watchdogs and he’d slaughtered them in return, when the Commission forced him back into his Captain America role and into the field in Washington D.C. the day of his parents funeral. Instead of paying his last respects, Walker had ended up going one-on-seven against the cream of the Resistants’ forces and beating them all nearly to death in his grief and rage. If he hadn’t stepped in when he had, Lemar was certain that John would have killed the Resistants leader, Meteorite, without even realizing it.

“Why wasn’t I notified they’d become active again?” Jack was asking, standing now and leaning toward Bludd, who hadn’t moved.

“Obviously you have a history with them,” Bludd said, pressing another key on his remote and images that Lemar had just been thinking about flashed to life in full color. The devastation of the courthouse in D.C. the Resistants had destroyed paled in comparison to the blunt violence taking place on the hovering rock twenty-five feet above the street, where Captain America was fighting like a madman against several Resistants at once, knocking them about like tenpins. “Captain America wanted to save you from these memories and conduct an initial infiltration mission that we both felt was beyond your abilities.”

Jack stared at him for a long moment, his jaw clenched, and the others at the table stared back and forth between the two of them, except for Peggy and Fabian, who seemed to be distracted by something else…something worse than the pissing match going on right in front of them.

Finally, realizing the scene he was causing, Jack backed down, taking his seat. “All right, fine. What went wrong?”

“Everything,” Bludd said, sighing. “The man picked for this job was Zach Moonhunter.” He punched up an image of a youthful man with unruly black hair and dark sunglasses on over his brown leather bomber jacket.

“Cap’s pilot?” Dennis said, rousing himself. “I never met him, but I don’t remember hearing he had any powers.”

“He doesn’t, normal human,” Bludd said. “That’s where Mister Stankowitz and SHIELD stepped in. Fabian?”

Shaking himself, Fabian sat forward and punched on his own remote and a schematic appeared. “I cobbled together a set of speed-boots to mimic superhuman speed similar to Quicksilver’s mutant powers. Using personal shielding tech SHIELD has developed over the years, amplified by my own experiments working off of Tony Stark’s revolutionary armor-tight force fields used in his Iron Man armors, I designed a belt that would project a force field-slash-structural integrity field that would protect Zach from the devastating injuries the speed boots would do to his body by minimizing the vibratory effect of the boots themselves, the friction of basically tearing through the atmosphere, and making his body from the knees up strong enough to stay attached to his accelerated feet.”

“You sent in a fake mutant?” Starfox asked. “Aren’t there like one-hundred ninety-eight or so just lying about this world?”

“Perhaps a few more than that, Eros,” Tigra deadpanned, all sense of playfulness gone from her face. It was the Greer Nelson who had been a cop, and married to one, that was speaking now. “But if you sent in a known mutant, they’d never be accepted, and if you sent in an unknown, you couldn’t be certain they wouldn’t convert.”

“Exactly,” Bludd said, nodding. “We arranged a background story for Moonhunter to establish a history of petty crimes against the government and marked him as an avid speaker for mutant rights, though one not as inflammatory as say Magneto. After a couple of months of efforts, he finally made contact with the main arm of the Resistants and, presumably, was taken into their fold.”

“It was supposed to be a six-month mission to gather information on their size, strength, location and an idea of their current attitudes and any future plans. We wanted, in this new terrorism-heightened world we live in, to determine their intent as a way of establishing our response. When Captain America, as well as you, Walker, appeared to have removed the Red Skull’s influence on their activities they withdrew from the public scene. If this was a position they were moving towards, we might have left them alone.”

“It appears, however, that is not their position.”

“Motherfuckers,” Peggy Carter said suddenly, sending a shock of surprise around the table.

“Three months ago, we did not receive the extraction signals from Moonhunter we’d expected,” Bludd said, changing the view again to show a desert image, with a caption detailing it as Death Valley, CA. “We know from previous intelligence they are based out of the deserts of the west coast, and Death Valley was our operating assumption at the time, but somehow they are hiding their home base. We searched for two months for any sign of Moonhunter using any of the extraction signals we established, but we received nothing. We were beginning to lose hope.”

“Not all of us,” Fabian said, cradling his head in his hands. “Not Jack and Cathy.”

“What?” Walker said, his brow furrowing. “You don’t mean those kids…”

“Jack Flag and Free Spirit,” Bludd said, pulling up a pair of images on the projector. Both were in their mid-twenties wearing red, white and blue costumes, Flag having colored his hair the three colors as well. “Novice superheroes who have worked with Captain America for several years as his assistants, dealing with minor missions arising from his telephone hotline number while receiving combat training from Cap and SHIELD Agents, including the Black Widow. Both enhanced humans in terms of strength, speed, flexibility and stamina. Flag had considerably more brute strength and invulnerability, on par with what the three of you received from the Power Broker,” he said, indicating Jack, Lemar and Dennis. “Spirit was much faster and had greater stamina, and was actually twice as good a technical fighter.”

“They also are hardheaded and impatient and…so young,” Peggy said, breaking into quiet tears. Julia leaned over in her seat and put an arm around her, concern etched deeply into her face as she looked back at Jack, both of them thinking about his sister’s recent kidnapping.

“A little more than a month ago, while Rogers was dealing with the situation on the Ohmphalos satellite with the Avengers, Jack Flag and Free Spirit struck out on their own without telling anyone in response to what we can only assume was a hunch on their part as to Moonhunter’s location. They had not been seen since…until two thrity-four am this morning when a video hit the Internet.” Bludd stopped as he was typing on his remote and looked at everyone at the table before settling on Peggy. “You don’t have to watch this again, ma’am,” he said, concern entering his voice for the first time. Whatever this video was, it was not a good thing.

“No,” Peggy said, slapping the table, her red eyes raging. “Play the damned thing!’

Bludd nodded and pressed the proper sequence and the image in the middle of the table changed to show the portal to a popular Internet video site with the captioned name ‘Resistance IS Futile’ next to the member name of ‘Broadband’. The video began with a black screen that didn’t change for a moment but then a wail of noise ripped out at them and after a second they realized it wasn’t just noise…it was screaming. Screams of pure agony. The screams continued for several seconds, broken occasionally by ragged gasps for breath that allowed additional sounds to be heard, such as the crackle of what they all recognized as electricity, and the hiss of streams of flame that only those who fought next to people who manipulated fire would recognize as such.

The screen changed, the darkness pulling back from the middle until the true horror was revealed. Hanging by their wrists and ankles, their fingers purple with lack of circulation by being stretched painfully above their heads, hung the naked bodies of Jack Flag and Free Spirit. They were writhing in anguish as unseen attackers pummeled them with jagged bolts of electricity and pencil-thin streams of bright flames, both of which danced across their bodies like living things, tracing sensitive areas and body parts cruelly and with obvious delight. Skin invulnerable to considerable damage sizzled and blackened and muscles unable to cope with the electrical current amplified by the metallic shackles contracted and expanded uncontrollably, tossing their bodies around to the extent of their bonds and slamming them brutally back against the stone wall.

The most horrible part was their masks were still in place, robbing them of the anonymity of pure nakedness. Cathy’s eyes were visible beneath her mask and they rolled wildly, the whites standing out sickeningly. Jack’s tougher skin and louder yells, some of which contained curses and promises to ‘kill them all’ seemed to draw most of the attention as the video progressed, and the attacks upon him became even more brutal and continuous. Scorch marks were left across his body by jagged lightning and the intensity of the flame increased to the point where a prolonged blast to his shoulder pierced his skin and bored clean through the muscle and bone, clear to the other side.

Finally, after long terrible minutes, those assaults stopped and the two young heroes collapsed like marionettes with their strings cut and they sagged horribly in their bonds. Cathy was sobbing audibly but Jack was deathly silent, which was made more ominous by the blood streaming down his chest from his shoulder. And just when it seemed that the worst was over…their bodies began moving.

It wasn’t any movement powered by muscle or sinew, or movement controlled by either of them. With quick, heartless jerks, the chests of the two heroes rocketed upwards to the maximum ability of their knees and elbows would allow given the bonds at their wrists and ankles. Screams of agony greater than the ones they’d made before erupted from the two heroes as loud popping noises could be heard from their joints. Then, with a suddenness that caused everyone watching to gasp, their torsos were slammed back against the wall, and only the superhuman flexibility of their limbs kept their hips and shoulders from dislocating, not to mention their elbows.

As it was, they were twisted like pretzels and as the horrified table looked on their bodies continued to compress into the wall. Skin pulled taunt over their bodies, ribs and pelvis bones standing out in every detail, and if they’d been able to open their jaws the screams would likely have been unbearable. Just when it seemed that their skins were going to tear down the middle and splash into the wall in a bloody mess, the pressure relented from the neck down and their bodies slumped, useless. Their necks and heads, however, remained pinned to the wall and both heroes, who were barely conscious as it was, began to choke, clawing with their now free jaws to get their breath.

A voice was suddenly heard over their gasping, a voice of such cold cruelty that everyone at the table flinched a bit, even Starfox. But only John Walker recognized it, and that name choked its way out of his suddenly dry throat. “Meteorite.”

“Why are you here? Who are you working for? Who are you after?” A pause for more agonizing seconds as both Jack and Cathy shook their heads, neither willing to speak up, tears streaming down their faces. “ANSWER ME!” Meteorite said, increasing his pressure, causing the stone behind them to suddenly crack.

That was too much for Cathy, who suddenly slumped to the side, unconscious or worse. The slight noise she made was heard by Jack who called out to her in a ragged gasp.“Cathy!” He tried several more times before finally, with anguish clear in his voice, he finally said, “Moonhunter! We’re here to find Moonhunter!”

The video suddenly cut out and the image faded. No one spoke for a moment, gathering themselves, and finally Bludd said, “That name won’t mean anything to them, fortunately, he’s operating under the name Zach Stapleton. But it confirms their suspicions that they have a mole in their ranks, and recent recruits will be their first targets, and if they make one of them identify him visually, he’s a dead man. They all are.”

“Were you…I mean, do you have a location? Could you trace that…that video?” Julia asked, her arms cradling her stomach as she leaned back in her chair.

“Not the signal itself, it hit the Internet in more than a dozen places,” Fabian said, his eyes glued to his screen but red and wet. “But that name, Broadband, is an avid Internet user who hides his tracks very well, but not THAT well.” An image of the west coast of the United States appeared above the table and lines of various data streaked in everywhere, focusing mostly on the area of and surrounding Death Valley, CA. “These are his trails for the last eighteen months I was able to trace. I cannot pinpoint it any better than that.”

“It confirms our hypothesis, however, and in that instance we’re fortunate,” Bludd said, pulling up another screen and activating it. “Miss Juarez, have you been listening?”

The image on the screen changed to that of a beautiful woman in her late-twenties who appeared to be floating in a blue sky with a corona of orange flame encircling her body. Bonita Juarez, the reserve Avenger known as Firebird, looked back at them gravely. “I have,” she said, nodding. “My prayers to those poor children.”

“During the planning stage, Captain America and I discussed the difficulties of locating the Resistants if we could not pinpoint their location and he contacted Firebird about using her pyrokinetic powers and knowledge of those deserts to locate the Resistants camp, given the large amount of bodies in a small place using campfires to cook and light their camp.”

“Even with shielding and cloaking technology, heat and radiation exist and I can sense it,” Firebird confirmed, nodding. “I’ve been searching miles of desert for the past month looking for any telltale indications of the Resistants…and I think I’ve found it.”

“How can you be sure?” Starfox asked, intrigued at the extent of the Captain’s plan. The man was always full of surprises.

“I observed a high degree of activity during the evening hours last night, more so than I usually observe, and repeated passes over the next several hours revealed a consistent level of activity. I have to stay at a considerable distance or height to prevent my detection, but my efforts were rewarded when the sun came out this morning.”

The image on the screen changed and it became clear that Firebird was hovering more than a mile above the desert floor. After a second the image zoomed in, diving toward the ground with a crushing sense of vertigo before it stopped and focused on a very telling image.

“I found the Resistants’ transportation,” Firebird said. On the screen was a pile of extremely large, yet strangely circular boulders, all flat on top and uniformly arranged in a pyramid-like stack.

“Got you, you fucks,” Jack said, standing and pulling his mask down over his face, his action mirrored by every hero around the table. No other questions were asked and no further discussion necessary. They all filed past Fabian and Peggy, placing a hand on their shoulders briefly in a silent confirmation that they would bring their friends home, one way or another, and they followed Agent Bludd from the room toward a waiting S.H.I.E.L.D. transport and field ops team.

Within five minutes they were in the air.