Chapter 17
Soft music played inside a huge empty room. The room was completely cleared of furniture, except for a large screen that took an entire wall and a comfortable armchair.
On the armchair, the man was sitting, staring at the screen with deep interest. His fingers tap the chair’s arms along with the soft music.
For very long minutes, the man didn’t say anything or move from his position, as he watched the scattered light dots that moved on the map on the screen.
“Your interruption would have been very problematic for me, Castiel.” The man muttered, his brows furrowing in displeasure. “Stark wouldn’t have been able to deal with my robot on his own. Your involvement made things complicated. It is strange how it seems like you appear in the right possible moment, like what they said about you. like there was a magnet inside you, that attracted you towards the location of any disaster.”
He said that as he kept staring at the light dots, his eyes reflected the light from the screen, making them seem like they were glowing.
“Unfortunately for you, I expected that from the start. You didn’t catch me off guard, no matter how smart you think yourself are. I will not fall for the same mistakes that the others, who underestimated you, had made. I am not like them.” he clinched his fists, as his frown deepened, as he relaxed back in his chair. “I have an advantage over you. a very important one. I know everything about you, while you know nothing about me.”
He placed his elbows on his knees, then rested his chin on his interlocked fingers. He stayed in that position silently for a few more minutes, thinking about a certain decision.
“All right then, I was keeping you last, but that must be the biggest mistake that everyone made.” he nodded, making up his mind, leaning forward in his seat. “The mistake that I will not fall into.”
As he said that, he pressed a button on the control board in front of him. The moment he did that, a new red glowing dot appeared on the screen, which moved very fast towards its target.
Towards the hospital.
***
“We didn’t find any trace of that mysterious substance in their blood.”
Alex announced grimly and in frustration to Tony and Charlie, looking both nervous and guilty, like that was her fault.
“What do you mean?!” Charlie exclaimed frantically, eyes widening in panic. “But it was there! We already got a sample of it before!”
“But it is not there anymore.” Alex shook her head, shoulders dropping in defeat. “It dissolved with the blood plasma, or the body had got rid of it through sweat or urine, or maybe even through breathing. No substance remains in the body forever.”
“But it is not any substance,” Tony murmured bitterly, pinching the bridge of his nose, fighting off a headache. “It is the only hope to wake our family up again.”
“Maybe that’s exactly why all this had happened.” Alex pointed out, taking a seat next to them. they both looked at her in question, as she shrugged. “That creature attacked the labs, killing everyone in it, then set the building on fire, and erased all the results from the system, knowing very well that the substance would disappear from your teammate’s bloodstream, so we will no longer be able to re-examine it, or use it to try and wake them up.”
“Aren’t you starting to regret getting involved in all this?” Tony questioned tiredly, looking at her warily, expecting her to run away screaming any moment now. “Anyone in your place would decide to get away from all this danger. I can’t promise we will be able to protect. We can’t even protect ourselves right now, as you can see.”
“I am not easily scared.” Alex just shrugged again, not even deterred by his words, looking him straight in the eyes. “You told me to be responsible for your family members, so I will take responsibility. I won’t just give up and run. It doesn’t seem right.”
Tony and Charlie stared at her, and couldn’t help but smile faintly. Despite her small size, she was bold, they had to give her that. It is rare to find someone so bold and determined these days.
“Thank you. we could use the help.” Tony murmured, giving her a soft smile, making Alex blush at the gratitude obvious in his voice, muttering a few words under her breath shyly in response, making them chuckle a little.
They sat in comfortable silence for a while, before a thought came up to Charlie as she remembered something. “Wait, what about the results of the connection test?”
“You mean the ones that test the movement of the brain waves? Yeah, these were removed as well, I am afraid.” Alex pursed her lips in displeasure, remembering her hard work on those tests. All gone. “But this is not a real problem, I already started redoing those tests, and you can see the initial results in the system and its progress. I am just mad that I had to do it all over again. I didn’t take a look at them yet, though.”
Immediately, Tony pulled out his tablet to get those initial results, checking them with deep concentration. “I see you already did Erik, while Dean is still being monitored.”
“Anything about Erik?” Charlie asked curiously, moving closer to take a look as well.
“Well, there is an obvious error in the delivery.” Tony’s eyes read the numbers fast. “It’s in the spinal cord, in the seventh vertebra to be exact. Because of the error, only 5% of the brain waves reach the vital systems and the nerve fibers in their limbs.”
“I checked their spinal cord for any injuries during the attack, but I came up with nothing. There is no damage to it at all. Not even a small one.” Alex shook her head, relaxing back in her seat tiredly.
“It’s that damned substance,” Tony muttered in frustration, glaring down at the tablet.
“But how can this substance block the deliverance of the brain waves and weaken its effect?” Charlie asked curiously, trailing her eyes between them, waiting for someone to give her an answer. “And why the seventh vertebra out of all of them? something is missing here.”
“That’s why we are all confused and-“ Tony was answering as he was trailing his eyes over the data on his tablet, before stopping abruptly, as he noticed something interesting. “Huh…”
“What is it?” Alex tilted her head to the side, watching in worry.
“It is Dean’s results.” Tony furrowed his brow as he made sure he was reading this right. “Unlike Erik, the brain waves that are delivered to his body is 15% instead of just 5%.”
“Maybe because he is bigger and stronger?” Charlie pointed out helpfully. If Erik was awake, he would have probably thrown something sharp at her for saying he was smaller than Dean.
“Maybe.” Tony didn’t seem convinced though. Sure, Erik’s body was leaner than Dean’s and less muscular, but he was in no way scrawny or weak. “This will be confirmed after we check Steve’s results, then we will-“
He stopped abruptly again as he raised his eyes to stare at something behind the two girls, his face going fifty shades of pale all of a sudden, as a pure look of panic and terror overtook his face.
“What now?” Alex muttered nervously, as she and Charlie turned to see what made Tony look like that out of nowhere.
Then, both Alex and Charlie's eyes widened, their eyebrows raised until they almost reached their hairlines, watching the green Fireball that was passing in front of the window at a crazy speed.
Panic overwhelmed Tony, as for a moment there he believed the Fireball was coming for him this time, and flinched as he gripped the two women, ready to push them out of the door to get them as far away from him as possible, but he was caught off guard when the Ball took a sharp turn and flew away from the window, and going down and away.
“No.” a sinking feeling overwhelmed Tony, as he jumped towards the window, watching the course of the Fireball. That was currently making its way towards a small building of two floors in the back garden of the hospital.
The building contains the mortuary and the morgue.
“No!!” Tony screamed at the top of his lungs, as he started to run towards the door like his life depended on it.
He knew who was the target this time.
He wished it was him instead.
***
For a few seconds, Castiel and Bruce just stood there, eyeing the pile of wires and screws that was apparent under the scales of that thing laying silently on the table, a thick silence fell upon them.
“But the scales and the tissues looked real.” Bruce stammered as he stared hard at the thing, unable to believe its existence. “They are real! I am sure of it!”
“Are you really sure?” Castiel questioned carefully, not wanting to upset the scientist.
Bruce reached over, removing a part of the soft skin under the scales, raising it towards his face to inspect it carefully, before announcing in frustration. “Yes, I am sure! It’s me we are talking about! Of course, I will notice if the tissue is artificial! I would bet my life on it here!”
He stormed towards a microscope in the corner of the room, pushing the tissue under it, and took a long, inspecting look at it, before announcing firmly in the tone of a man who knows exactly what he is talking about. “It is a living tissue, no doubt about that.”
“But no one managed to do that yet.” Castiel frowned in frustration, as he trailed his eyes between Bruce and the robot. “To combine artificial parts and living parts in one being. Did someone actually manage to achieve that?”
“Cyborgs are still a hazy dream,” Bruce murmured, thinking hard about Castiel’s words. “There was no real success in that field yet.”
“Right.” Castiel narrowed his eyes, a thought coming to his head. “But there will be success in the future.”
He said that as he leaned towards the robot, checking its metal parts carefully, reaching out to pull one of the screws off. “Everything can be achieved with time.”
“What are you thinking about, Castiel?” Bruce looked over at him in concern.
Castiel straightened up, looking to be thinking hard about something, eyeing the screw in his hand. “That thing isn’t just a combination between living and robotic parts. It can also do what we call, DNA Mortification, which he used to take the form of one of SHIELD’s scientists to get inside the research building.”
“DNA Mortification?” Bruce repeated with widening eyes. “I never heard of that before. It is scientifically impossible.”
“Or you can say, it is something that science didn’t figure out yet.” Castiel pointed out, looking firmly at him. “I saw it myself. We have proof it happened. It is all scientific. But we don’t know anything about it yet.” Then he frowned, a meaningful look on his face. “But we will at some point. One way or another.”
Bruce trailed his eyes between Castiel and the robot, before letting out a long exhale. “Do you know what this means, Cas?”
Castiel turned to him with a questioning look, as Bruce waved his hand in frustration. “It means it will take me a fucking long time to inspect that thing.”
“You owe Steve’s jar a dollar.” Castiel smiled faintly at him, pushing the screw in his hand inside his pocket. “I will get Tony to help you out. You two together will be able to “
Before he could finish his sentence, a spark appeared inside the robot. Making Bruce flinch back, as they both turned towards the robot.
Then a silent explosion happened inside the robot, and it was engulfed in flames in under two seconds before they could even react.
“Shit!” Castiel cursed as he ran towards the fire extinguisher. “It is a self-destruction program! To stop us from inspecting it if it stopped working!”
As he ran back, his thoughts were, why didn’t the fire alarm activate? Why isn’t the sprinklers in the ceiling working to extinguish the fire?
The moment he gripped the fire extinguisher, the window broke as the Fireball crashed into the morgue, searching for its target, its blue flames changing to green.
“What is that?! Oh, God, what is that?!” Bruce exclaimed in panic the moment he saw the fireball. Even though Tony told him about it, seeing it in real life was much much worse.
He was wrong. There was something worse. The fact that the Ball took a sharp turn.
Directly towards Castiel.
Castiel didn’t even stop or hesitate. He raised the extinguisher in a fast move and shot the white foam inside at the fireball, covering it completely from all directions.
The Ball’s speed decreased so that it almost stopped, but then it flinched violently, shaking all the foam off of itself.
For a second, the ball froze in midair, its fire extinguished, so it looked like a big clear glass ball, filled with a mysterious-looking pink liquid.
Before they could think about that, its fire rose again like nothing had happened, changing from blue to green to violet to red at a very terrifying speed.
Then it went back to haunting Castiel down viciously with all its speed.
Castiel jumped to the side, trying to shake it off, but he didn’t really have much space to move, as he bitterly wished he could spread out his wings and fly away from that demonic Fireball.
But he couldn’t fly. And he couldn’t escape the ball.
Even with all his attempts to escape, the ball exploded 5 feet away from him.
The entire room was engulfed with it bright, red, sharp glow, that made Bruce cover his face with his arm, as he screamed in pure panic. “Castiel! No! Castiel!!!”
In the middle of that sharp glow, he heard the sound of something hitting the wall hard, and the collapse of a body on the floor hard.
“Castiel!” Bruce was waving his arm frantically around him like he was trying to find Castiel and push the glow away. “Castiel, what happened to you?! answer me, please! Where are you, Castiel, where are you?! please!”
The glow was disappearing, just as Tony stormed through the doors, screaming with all his panic and fear, calling out Castiel’s name.
His body flinched violently as he had just taken a physical hit when his eyes landed on his friend.
His friend, who had fallen on the floor, his body covered with burns. His body is motionless completely.
“Cas! Cas, please! Please! Answer me, please!” Tony threw himself on Castiel, grabbing him frantically, and started to shake him hard. “There is no way they got you too! No way! You can’t fall, Cas! You can’t! Please, don’t leave me alone in this! Wake up! I need you here with me! please! Don’t leave me alone! Don’t leave me, Cas!”
The fire alarm sounded around them, as the sprinkles started to work, showering them with water, as Charlie, Alex, Bruce, and the security guards stood in the room around him.
The water soaked Tony to the core, as he stared with wide, lost eyes at Castiel’s motionless face. Castiel who joined their family in their deep coma. Leaving Tony behind.
Even with Bruce, Charlie, and Alex, along with all the security guards that rushed over here, a pure fear exploded inside Tony, as loneliness showered over him along with the sprinklers’ water.
His family fell around him like flies, and he couldn’t do a single thing to save any one of them. He was helpless.
He was alone. Completely alone as he faced a burning danger that he had no idea about.