“You can do as you like once we achieve the object of our ambitions. I will have more important matters to concern me than the fate of three human lab animals.” “Do not underestimate all we might leam from such unique specimens. Take our final specimen, for instance— the one who calls herself the Scarlet Witch. Who knows what the full potential of her unlikely abilities might be, once harnessed effectively? Behold.”
Alone in the darkness, her tom ear still throbbing where the Peter puppet had yanked her earring free, Wanda heard an animal growling far too close for comfort. Or was it an animal? She couldn’t be sure, but she thought the bone-chilling snarl sounded like it might be coming from ... Rogue?
I knew she was a vampire at heart, Wanda thought, but I didn ’t expect her to actually growl like a wolf!
“Rogue? Wolverine?” For about the two hundredth time, she wished that she was sharing a ceil with a couple of her fellow Avengers instead. She had a long history with the X-Men, none of it very good, even if the two teams had managed to successfully join forces now and again, if only during the most dire of emergencies. And of all the X-Men to be trapped with... ! A homicidal maniac with a bad attitude and the drawling little succu-bus who literally stole poor Carol’s soul. It was all Rogue’s fault that the former Ms. Marvel had been driven to alcoholism and disgrace, of that Wanda was utterly convinced. With cellmates like these, who needed enemies?
At least they’d had the decency to describe their mutual prison to her, even though both X-Men seemed to have fallen silent for the time being. Had something happened to them? Rogue had mentioned medical experiments, before her ominous words gave way to incoherent growls. Not exactly the most comforting note on which to leave things. What kind of medical experiments?
If only she could see what was going on! The blindfold over her eyes added to her understandable anxiety at being captured so easily. So far she didn’t even know who had abducted them, let alone how and why. With nothing else to gaze upon, the leering faces of past enemies passed before Wanda’s mind’s eye as she tried to guess the villain responsible for her captivity. The Grim Reaper? Ul-tron? Kang the Conqueror? It could be any of them, or even a new alliance between previously independent menaces. She racked her brain in search of a foe she shared in common with Wolverine and Rogue, but the only one that came to mind was Magneto and this didn’t feel like her father’s work.
Magneto could never be so anonymous, she decided, knowing the tyrannical mutant mastermind’s ways too well. He would have to gloat out loud, justifying his crimes by invoking the sacred destiny of homo superior.
Besides, if her natural father was involved, where was her brother? Surely Magneto would have rounded up Pietro as well, and maybe even little Luna, her brother’s infant daughter. With Wolverine and Rogue sharing her prison instead, she felt sure this was no family affair. But then what was it?
This is getting me nowhere, she thought, squirming impatiently within the confines of her cold, metallic sarcophagus. Lack of motion had caused both her legs to fall asleep and she struggled to rouse them despite the bonds hindering her. Wanda had no doubt that Captain America and the other Avengers were already searching for her, but she didn’t intend to simply hang around waiting to be rescued. Yet how could she escape on her own? Her fingers, eager to perform the gestures that summoned her magic, felt like they were immersed in solid cement. I suppose I could try just projecting a hex at random, but there’d be no way to predict the results. I could end up making things worse, maybe by triggering a short-circuit or electrical fire that kills all three of us.
“Hello?” she tried again. Like it or not, her best chance to escape might be to work together with her fellow captives. “X-Men?” She knew they were still nearby; she could hear their ragged, unsteady breathing. Why wouldn’t they answer her? Unseen machines whirred and hummed in the background, along with the sizzle of something burning. “Wolverine? Rogue?”
An agonized gasp was the only response.
That was definitely Rogue, Wanda thought, which did not bode well for her next-door neighbor. Despite the younger woman’s unquestionably guilty past, Wanda could not help feeling a pang of sympathy for a person who was obviously in pain. No one deserved to be tortured, not even Carol Danver’s heartless victimizer.
“What is it, Rogue?” she asked, more gently than before. “Are you all right?”
An unexpected light appeared before her eyes. She blinked in surprise as a glowing disk, about a foot in diameter, materialized only a few inches away from her face—even though her blindfold remained securely in place.
An illusion, Wanda realized instantly. Probably some sort of virtual reality projection. Iron Man, she knew, had a similar gadget inside his helmet to provide him with visual displays and data that only he could see; Tony would surely be able to explain exactly how this disk was projected. For herself, she didn’t much care about the mechanics involved, as long as it meant that something was happening at last. After lying here in the dark for who knew how long, blind and paralyzed, she felt genuinely relieved that her nameless captor was finally making his or her next move, even if Rogue’s pain-wracked moans hardly led one to hope for easy treatment at the hands of their foe.
Let’s get this over with, she resolved, bracing herself for whatever the enemy had in store. Chances are, it’s nothing I haven’t endured before.
“Greetings, Ms. Maximoff.” The voice, electronically distorted, was unfamiliar to her. It sounded like it was coming from miniature speakers implanted in her visor, which implied that the speaker was not actually near enough to hex.
Too bad, she thought, as the voice continued to whisper into her ears.
“My apologies for keeping you waiting, but I have a number of experiments to conduct on you and my other test subjects, so I am afraid you simply had to wait your turn.”
' ‘Who are you?’ ’ Wanda demanded, refusing to be patronized by the anonymous voice. “Don’t hide behind a microphone. Show your face.”
‘ ‘My identity, and that of my partner in this endeavor, is irrelevant, at least as far as you are concerned.”
Yes, definitely not Magneto, Wanda concluded from the speaker’s reticence and relative lack of egomania. Probably not Kang or Graviton, either.
“All that matters,” the disembodied voice continued, “is that you pay close attention to what I am about to explain to you. The rules of the game, as it were.” Before Wanda’s eyes, the virtual disk began to spin counter-clockwise. Luminescent lines, radiating from the center of the disk like the spokes of a wheel, divided the disk into wedge-shaped slices that alternated in color from red to black to red and so on.
Like a roulette wheel, she noted, a comparison that grew even more apt as a white virtual sphere, about the size of a Ping-Pong ball, was ejected from the center of the wheel, whose centrifugal force drew the sphere to the outer rim of the wheel. It bounced from wedge to wedge exactly like a ball upon a real, non-virtual roulette wheel. A clicking noise accompanied each bounce, presumably to enhance the illusion.
“Your genetic gift, as I understand it, involves the manipulation of probability upon on the physical plane. Taking a leaf from the professional gambling industry, I have prepared a simple game with which to test your celebrated abilities.”
That’s it? They snatch me in broad daylight, lay me out like a mummy in a tomb, just to make me play some glorijied video game? Wanda was unimpressed.
“Why should I play along?” she asked. “Frankly, I prefer games of skill, like chess or tennis. If I wanted to cheat at gambling, I could have made a fortune in Monte Carlo years ago.”
The faceless voice assumed a note of impatience. “Spare me your tiresome displays of defiance. You will take part in the experiment because the stakes are such that you have no choice. Let me demonstrate.”
The spinning wheel slowed to a stop and the bouncing sphere came to rest at the wide end of a glowing red wedge. Wanda held her breath, expecting the worst, but nothing happened,
leaving her relieved but somewhat puzzled. Then the wheel began spinning again, gaining speed so that the ball skipped along the circumference of the wheel, bounding clockwise from wedge to wedge so quickly that Wanda could barely keep track of it until the wheel decelerated again. This time the computergenerated sphere landed squarely within a black wedge.
Excruciating pain, sharper than the most unbearable toothache, convulsed her body, causing her to writhe within her constraints. The pain passed in an instant, leaving Wanda pale-faced and shaking.
Where did that come from? she thought, shocked by the depth of the agony she had experienced. I’ve been blasted by Kree death-rays that didn’t hurt that much/ “Perhaps I should have mentioned earlier,” the voice
said, affecting a thoroughly unconvincing simulation of remorse, ‘ ‘that electrodes affixed to your skull provide me with direct access to your brain’s pain centers. I do not intend to employ this option arbitrarily, however. The parameters are simple: when the sphere stops in red, you will be spared, but when the sphere stops in black, you will receive another jolt of the same magnitude. Ordinarily, the program will yield 50/50 odds, so that the sphere will be deposited within a black region roughly half the time—unless you bring your distinctive talents to bear.”
On that note, the wheel started revolving once more. The bouncing ball clicked in her ears.
“Wait!” Wanda called out. “Why are you doing this? What do you hope to gain?”
The mysterious architect of this sadistic exercise said nothing more; apparently, he had told her all that he felt she needed to know. Wanda watched intently as the bouncing ball followed its preordained path, then flinched involuntarily as the wheel’s dizzying speed began to slacken.
Not the black, she silently commanded the ball. Not the black.
Her ensnared fingers ached to point at the virtual roulette game, even though she knew it wasn’t really there. Could her hexes even affect a computer-generated simulation? Despite years of training and adventures in the field, the precise limits of her powers remained slippery and elusive, sometimes changing without notice. Half scientific, half sorcerous, her hex spheres stemmed from a unique confluence of mutant DNA and ancient mystical energies present at her birth, making them almost as mutable as the weather and just as hard to predict. Recently, there had been an attempt to explain her abilities in terms of “chaos theory,” but Wanda remained skeptical that anyone, her unknown jailer included, would ever fully account for the peculiar and mercurial gift that was her birthright.
Just so long as it’s there when I need it.. . like right about now!
Her gaze fixed upon the ball as it hopped, now with maddening slowness, around the edge of the wheel, her heart missing a beat everytime the sphere touched down within an ebony wedge. She focused all her concentration, all her willpower, upon the glowing ball—and was heartened to feel a familiar buzz at the back of her brain, like a circuit had suddenly switched on.
“Not the black,” she whispered vehemently, her lips echoing the constant refrain of her thoughts. “Not the black.”
The wheel froze in place and the sphere tottered on the brink between adjacent red and black wedges. Crossing her fingers figuratively, if not in reality, Wanda waited anxiously, already stiffening in expectation of another fierce burst of pain. Which would it be, suffering or salvation? Red or black?
Red.
She exhaled slowly, grateful for her deliverance. Granted, the odds had been only one out of two, but she felt certain that her powers had tipped the scales in her favor. Before she could savor her temporary triumph, the wheel resumed its relentless spinning. The game commenced again, and she grimly set about repeating her success of moments before, for the second in who knew how many trials.
Here we go again, she thought, as she petitioned the 145
laws of chance as only she could. Not the black, not the black, not the black. . ..
Red. Red. Red. Red.
So far, so good, but the strain was telling on her. The unseen experimenter allowed her no respite, starting each new round fast on the heels of the previous victory. Her head began to pound, mildly at first, but growing more painful and distracting by the minute. The queasy throbbing threatened to supplant the reassuring tingle that heralded the exercise of her power. The constant clicking nibbled away at her nerves, like a leaky faucet that, left untended, could drown all her hopes. The virtual roulette wheel swam before her eyes, and she had to blink repeatedly to keep the game in focus. Beads of perspiration ran down her forehead, dripping from her nose. She could taste the salt upon her lips, feel the fatigue creeping up on her. Beating the odds time after time was hard work, and still the ball kept rolling.
Red. Red. Red. Red. Red.
I can’t keep this up much longer, she thought, wondering if the faceless instigator of the game was pleased or disappointed by her consistent string of victories. What were the odds of coming up red a dozen times in a row? The Vision could tell her if he was here; his computerized mind was good at that sort of thing, even if he couldn’t figure out how to save their marriage. Is he worried at all about what’s happened to me? Can his memory banks call up some vestige of the love we once shared?
Red. Red. Red.
Black.
Her concentration slipped for a moment, and she was rewarded with a brutal shock that seemed to set her entire nervous system on fire. The searing jolt came from nowhere and everywhere at the same time, sparing no part of her convulsing body. The pain faded quickly, but the ceaseless game gave her no time to recover. Shaking off the lingering after-effects of the jolt, she collected her faculties and focused on the virtual game with renewed determination yet depleted strength. A blinding migraine pulsed without mercy within her skull, squeezing her aching head like one of Moon Dragon’s vicious telepathic attacks. Her breathing grew ragged. Sleep beckoned, and she had to struggle to keep her eyes open.
“Not the black,” she whispered over and over like a mantra. She heard another desperate moan, but couldn’t tell if it was coming from Rogue, Wolverine, or herself.
Red. Red. Red.
Empathy warred with exhaustion, and she found herself wondering what sort of ordeals the two unlucky X-Men had been forced to endure.
If they were anything like this, she thought sadly, then heaven help both of them.
Red. Red. Red. Red. Red. Red ...
‘ ‘Excellent. I could not have asked for better results, from any of our subjects. I look forward to the next round of tests, which should bring us even closer to the culmination of our plans—and the destruction of all who oppose us.”
A gloomy hush hung over the Avengers’ elegantly appointed reception room as Captain America stared at the ornately framed portrait mounted over the marble fireplace. The color photo captured all the founding members of the Avengers, only days after the team’s historic inception—there was Iron Man, in his original golden armor, along with the mighty Thor, Ant-Man, the Wasp . . . and the Hulk.
The green-skinned, gamma-spawned behemoth glowered from the portrait, a surly expression on his Neanderthal-like features, angry emerald eyes glaring out from under heavy brows that always reminded Cap of Boris Karloff in the movie Frankenstein. His brawny arms were crossed defiantly atop his massive chest. Even in those halcyon days following the Avengers’ debut, the Hulk looked uncomfortable and irritated to be part of the team.
Too bad, Cap reflected. They could use the Hulk right now, or at least his human alter ego, Dr. Robert Bruce Banner.
“Shame the Hulk never worked out as an Avenger,” Iron Man said, echoing Cap’s own sentiments. His gleaming faceplate was elevated, exposing Tony Stark’s dashing features. His pale blue eyes followed Cap’s gaze to the portrait above the mantle. “I remember the day we took that photo. The Hulk was in such a bad temper that Jarvis could barely look at him without trembling, let alone hold the camera steady.” He raised a crystal champagne glass filled with sparkling ginger ale to his lips. “It wasn’t long
r /> after that he teamed up with the Sub-Mariner to try to destroy us, and things went downhill from there.”
True enough, Captain America thought. Over the years, the Hulk had fought against the Avengers more often than he had fought beside them. It was more than a little tragic, he mused; all that awesome strength, not to mention Bruce Banner’s unquestioned genius, wasted on a pointless, never-ending war with the rest of the world. Just think of all the good the Hulk could have done if only he had been capable of obeying his duty and conscience instead of his unquenchable rage.
“You don’t think he has anything to do with Wanda’s disappearance?” he asked.
Iron Man shook his head. He paced away from the fireplace, his heavy boots leaving deep impressions in the Persian carpet. As if to compensate, the Vision hovered weightlessly not far away, the soles of his feet barely grazing the floor.
“I doubt it,” Iron Man said. “There wasn’t enough damage at the museum. I mean, animated puppets? That’s hardly the Hulk’s M.O.” His futuristic armor looked out of place among the antique furnishings, and Cap noticed that the armored warrior took care not to brush against the Ming Dynasty vase resting atop the small lacquered end table beside him. “For another thing, he’s never had any particular grudge against Wanda. He’d quit the team long before she and her brother joined the Avengers, and before that she’d mostly fought the X-Men.”
“I can confirm,” the Vision stated, “that Wanda bore the Hulk no special animosity.” His immaterial body passed through a polished mahogany coffee table on his way to join Cap and Iron Man; the Vision was one person who never had to worry about breaking anything. “I cannot recall that we ever had a significant discussion on the subject of the Hulk during the years of our marriage.” He says that so coldly, Cap thought, struck by the syn-thezoid’s unemotional demeanor, so unlike the android Human Torch whom Cap had battled beside during World War II; that artificial man, constructed decades earlier, had possessed the same feelings as any other man or woman. By contrast, the Vision’s implacable calm hardly struck Cap as progress. Poor Wanda, he thought.