Unnatural Selection Part Four

Villesca de la Sangra, Spain - Now[1]

Seriously injured, Raymond Hidalgo seeks refuge in a church. Despite the fact that he baracades the door, he is can do nothing but pray when Death’s Head 3.0 comes crashing through the door.

Geneva, Switzerland - Six Hours Earlier

GEIST Agent Braccia has been trying to get ahold of Raymond for the past two hours and is growing increasingly concerned because he hasn’t been back to his hotel room. Jana Breski assures her that Raymond has probably been working around the clock since the treaty between AIM And the United Nations is two days away. When Jana asks why GEIST is interested in their work, Braccia tells her it’s nothing and that' she’ll be in touch. That’s when her superior arrives and hopes that she is still not focusing on the Death’s Head thing, reminding her that in 48 hours Secretary-General Okuda and AIM Supreme Scientist are going sign the most important treaty of the century and he doesn’t want any screw up. Although she is following orders, Agent Braccia can’t help but wonder where Raymond is.

At that moment, Raymond Hidalgo is still piecing the information kept in AIM’s Cybernetics division unaware that Varina Goddard is watching everything. She is concerned that he’s going to make a connection between the Uni-Alias, the Death’s Head unit, and her plans to assassinate the Secretary-General of the UN in a bid to seize control of AIM and bring it back to the way it was when her great-grandmother, Monica Rappaccini, used to run the organization. Deciding that he has to be eliminted, she decides to bide her Death’s Head unit some time to get there by closing off all means of communicating outside of the Euro-Hub. Then to distract Hidalgo, she tells him that she is going to reveal to him all of the information she has personally collected on the Death’s Head unit. As Raymond has trouble reaching the outside, suddenly Jana Breski enters the lab and tells him that his mother is in the hospital in critical condition. Rushing outside, Raymond knows this was a ruse to get him outside to contact Agent Braccia, since his mother has been dead for the past three years. He confirms that he’s safe so far, but Goddard is onto him and he needs immediate extraction. Braccia tells him to get back to the hotel and wait for the extraction team which can be there in a half hour. She also tells him to keep his phone on as she can track it. At that same moment, AIM Hub-Controller Avi Flint gets an e-mail from Raymond Hidalgo which contains all of his findings. Shocked by what he is reading, he orders his collagues, Jarndyce and Yardley, to meet him in sub-basement 10.

By this time, the limo taking Raymond back to the hotel is attacked by the Death’s Head unit, causing the vehicle to crash. The driver pulls a gun and begins shooting at the cyborg, telling Hidalgo to run for it. Shrugging off the bullet, the Uni-Alias struggles to retake control but cannot override the Death’s Head units programming. It quickly kills the driver and takes his gun and continues its pursuit of Raymond. Meanwhile, Avi Flint and his colleagues arrive in the cybernetics division to shut down Varina Goddard. However, she is ready for them and opens the life support system that has kept her alive to reveal that she has regenerated enough of her body to live independently of machines. She then kills Jarndyce and Yardley with her bare hands, leaving her and Avi Flint alone.At that moment, Hidalgo has ran to a gas station where he manages to steal an antique motorcycle. However, as he tries to drive away the Death’s Head unit aims to shoot. Although the Uni-Alias thinks it is powerless to stop Death’s Head from killing Hidalgo, the machine shoots out the back tire of the motrocycle instead of the killshot it indeded. Confused, the Death’s Head unit shrugs this off and continues its pursuit. Injured from the crash, Radmony continued to flee from the Death’s Head unit, arriving at the hospital where it ultimately confronted it.

Now

When Agent Braccia and her extraction team arrives outside the hospital they force their way in and after a quick search they discover what appears to be Raymond Hildago’s dead body.

Recurring Characters

Death’s Head 3.0, Raymond Hidalgo, AIM (Varina Goddard, Jarndyce, Yardley, Avi Flint), GEIST( Agent Braccia), Jana Breski, Lars Heinkel

Continuity Notes

1. By “now”, this story takes place in a possible future of Earth-616, designated Reality-6216. This future timeline takes place at least three-generations into the future of the Modern Age of Earth-616.

Danger Zone

Chernobyl, April 26, 1986[1]

A sudden spike in power level and temperature control causes an explosion at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant. This blew off the top of the 1000 tone sealing cap on one of the reactors. The melting fuel rods igniting the graphite covering on the reactor and the ensuing inferno spewed radiactive materials into the atmosphere.

In response, Jennifer Swensen flies toward the nuclear plant in her Spitfire armor. Her progress is monitored by her father, Karl who finds it in poor taste that she is listening to “Danger Zone” by Kenny Loggins while flying towards the worst nuclear disaster in history. He reminds her that she is only going out to observe the situation, as she is in the USSR illegally. Jenny protets this, saying that the Max Armor was built to help people and since he wanted her to test it out, she decided to use it to help the people trying to escape from Chernobyl. Karl continues to protest this, telling his daughter that he doesn’t know if the Mark 1 armor’s radiation shields can protect her from the Hot Zone near the nuclear reactor. However, Jenny refuses to leave now that she is there helping with the evacuation, telling her father to have faith in his genius.

Entering the abandoned reactor, Jenny is shocked to discover a strange glowing man walking around. This man is Russian named Dimitri Durovich, but can also speak English and tells her that he somehow started absorbing radiation and that he must somehow cool down before he reaches critical mass. Since he is too hot for the Spitfire armor to handle, Jenny decides to use the suit’s x-ray capabiltiies and discovers an underground river below the plant. She then uses the armor to drill down to this water source. Feeling himself building to critical mass, Dimitri leaps in after her and relieved when the cool water cools his body down and reverts him back to human form. The pair share their mutual hopes that this disaster will convince the powers of the world the potential devastation of nuclear war. While the reactor above will continue to burn, Dimitri insists that Jenny end his life by buying him in stone. Without a moment’s hestitation, she uses the armor’s onboard weapons to bury Durovich alive.

When she returns to her father’s lab, both Jenny and her father agree that she did the right thing, even though Karl’s financer Fritz Krotze wouldn’t approve. Jenny then asks her father to promise her that the Max armor will be used on for good purposes. He then promises her that Krotze will only use the Max armor for violence over his dead body and then tells her to help him run some diagnostics on the suit.[2]

Recurring Charactres

Spitfire

Continuity Notes

1. This story takes place in the “New Universe” (Reality-148611) and, per Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe: Alternate Realities 2005, the majority of the events of this reality take palce in the 1980s. Unlike Earth-616 this reality does not operate on a sliding timescale.

2. Karl saying that Krotze won’t use the Max armor for war over his dead body is foreshadowing the events of Spitfire and the Troubleshooters #1, where Krotze kills Karl. Jenny will steal her father’s invention and use the Max armor for what it was intended for.