Michael and the scientist walked into an elevator which descended to the underground base without making a sound. Michael remained silent and when the doors opened, he trailed after the man. His thoughts reflecting back to Eric and how he wronged him.
‘Dr Masterson I want you to know that it wasn’t Eric’s fault we were late.’
‘Enough of that,’ he said. They walked down a hallway and passed multiple doors. ‘Here.’ Masterson swiped his ID card and gestured to Michael to open the door. There was a line of computers; each had a scientist behind it. In front of them was a rectangular shaped window. Michael peered through it to see a Beetle suit on a metal table on the lower floor. He followed Masterson through a door and downstairs to the testing ground. Michael closed the door behind him.
‘This is Beetle Red Mark Four,’ he gestured to it. Michael gazed as if mesmerized by it. He ran his hands delicately over the helmet. ‘An upgraded version, as you know, of the same Beetle armour of Latverian design. It has supersonic capability as opposed to its predecessor’s subsonic limitation. There are more surprises which I won’t spoil. But most importantly is the Dimensional Projector.’
‘I don’t even—.’
‘The projector is fitted into Beetle Four. When activated, it will release a vibrational wave shifting the armour into a higher dimensional plane.’
‘So I can hide it.’
‘Yes but you will still be wearing it at all times, which brings me to your mission.’
Masterson gestured to an envelope on the table. Michael opened it with a frown and pulled out a photo of a boy. He flickered through the objectives beneath the photo. His heart sank; he couldn’t bring himself to kill a boy. He wasn’t that much younger than Michael.
‘Who is this?’ he said. He wondered how he got involved with Hydra but knew all too well it was a kidnap. They never come willingly.
‘His name is Franklin Storm. Four months ago, Hydra was working on The Beyonder Project. The idea was to use the Uni-Sphere to create superhumans. And considering the spheres unpredictable nature, we thought the Beyonders could control it.’
‘But that didn’t work.’
‘No,’ he said. ‘As you know, the sphere was modelled after the cosmic cube and like it; it can convert matter into energy. Most of the subjects were killed, those that did survive proved to be more dangerous than expected. In an attempt to control beings such as Franklin our telepaths were forced to perform…mental manoeuvres. But Franklin escaped.’
‘So Langdon is trapped inside the sphere.’
‘Langdon, that traitor, is dead.’
Michael pretended to ignore him; he diverted his attention to the Beetle suit.
‘Voice recognition: Michael,’ he said in a monotone voice.
The armour responded with a series a beeps before unravelling, revealing the dark hollow inside. He climbed onto the table and lay on the suit perfectly fitting his body in the spaces. The suit beeped again and closed on Michael, sealing him inside. He slipped onto his feet and stared through the suits lenses, tuning through its spectrums of vision. He stared at Masterson with x-ray vision; he could tell something was wrong. As he focused, his suit immediately pointed out several tumours on his kidney.
‘Can you see well?’ he said.
‘Yes.’
‘Good, now power down.
Michael refused to let Masterson tell him how to use the projector. He searched through its functions but couldn’t find anything related to the words dimension or projector.
‘The suit will respond to your thoughts,’ he said. Michael concentrated and the suit began to glow and became transparent before disappearing entirely. He could feel a weight on his shoulders but the suit was nowhere to be found.
‘Now power up.’
He did the same and the armour folded over his body out of nowhere.
‘You should know your target can distort reality and bend it to his will,’ he said. Michael was able to interject but was cut off before he could. ‘But that doesn’t mean he knows how to control it. The effects of the telepathy proved to be very damaging on his psyche. Your new stealth capabilities should give you the element of surprise. You might only get one shot at this. Are you ready?’
‘Let’s do it.’
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